Artifact will let you generate images with AI for your posts

Image: Artifact

Just one week after adding the ability to post, Artifact announced on Wednesday that users can now use AI to generate cover art for their content. The company says the feature will add “eye-catching images” that’ll help users better tell their stories.

Up until recently, Artifact was an AI-powered news app from Instagram’s co-founders that aggregated news and links around the internet. By adding the ability to directly share and personalize content, it’s becoming even more of a rival to Instagram and X (formerly Twitter).

Image: Artifact

If you want an image related to EVs, Artifact can generate images of futuristic concept cars.

The new Artifact feature is available on the latest versions of the app on iOS...

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Diablo IV is coming to Steam

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

Diablo IV, one of the biggest games of the year, is coming to Steam on October 17th. The news comes via video game news and deals account Wario64, who spied a listing for the hellish RPG on Steam.

Diablo 4 is coming to Steam on October 17th https://t.co/o4RDvRSDUi pic.twitter.com/txGyvBqBqt

— Wario64 (@Wario64) October 4, 2023

Though available on consoles (minus the Switch), the PC version of the game was previously locked to Blizzard’s propriety Battle.net service. Expanding Diablo IV to Steam is in line with previous efforts from Blizzard to capture more PC gamers as it made Overwatch 2 available on Steam earlier this year. Blizzard has stated that it intends to bring more of its games to Steam but has not shared which games it...

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There’s already a Pixel 8 teardown video

Screenshot: PBKreviews via YouTube

Google only officially took the wraps off the Pixel 8 just hours ago, and people are already tearing it down. In a video posted to YouTube, PBKreviews offers an early look at all the hardware packed behind the phone’s 6.2-inch OLED screen.

The video starts off with PBKreviews carefully removing the display, which features a fingerprint sensor that’s attached to the inside. After attempting to take out the 4,575mAh battery with the included pull tab, PBKreviews loosens up the adhesive beneath the battery with isopropyl alcohol and removes it using a pry tool instead.

Screenshot: PBKreviews via YouTube

Here’s a look at the Pixel 8’s main 50MP sensor and 12MP ultrawide camera.

Next, PBKreviews removes the 10.5MP...

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Counterfeit iPhone traffickers behind $6.1 million con at Apple Stores are going to prison

Apple Store grand opening in Columbia, Maryland. | Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge

It’s normally pretty easy to get your broken iPhone replaced at Apple’s Genius Bar under your AppleCare plan, but a (criminally) enterprising sibling duo found a way to trick the system by swapping counterfeit devices with real ones. Unfortunately for them, they got caught in 2019 attempting to exchange 10,000 fake Apple products over the course of eight years, and this week, they’ve been sentenced to federal prison, the Times of San Diego reports.

San Diego residents Zhimin and Zhiting Liao (also known as Jimmy and Allen Liao) netted themselves around $6.1 million of genuine Apple products, including iPhones and iPads, that they ended up exporting to buyers in foreign countries. The brothers received 41-month federal prison sentences....

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Here’s how Google’s new Pixel 8 phones stack up to the Pixel 7 lineup

The Google Pixel 8 Pro comes with a 6.7-inch display and starts at $999. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

In addition to officially rolling out Android 14, Google introduced the Pixel Watch 2 and a new lineup of phones during its Made by Google Event on Wednesday. The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro start at $699 and $999, respectively, and will be available on October 12th.

On the spec front, both phones sport Google’s new Tensor G3 chip, which is an upgrade over the G2 chip that marked Google’s Pixel 7 lineup. Each also comes with a 120Hz max refresh rate and seven years of software support and security updates. The Pro 8 touts a maximum of 1TB of storage as well, along with a new sensor for measuring the temperature of beverages, surfaces, and — perhaps one day — maybe even people.

Of course, we’ve yet to fully test the Pixel 8 models, so we...

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Former BioWare employees sue for better severance packages

Image: BioWare

Several BioWare employees are suing their former employer after they alleged the company refused to grant them fair severance packages.

A press release from Worobec Law Offices, the firm representing seven ex-BioWare employees, stated that the employees were entitled to one month of severance pay for each year of employment including benefits. The employees averaged 14 years of service to the Dragon Age and Mass Effect developer and were let go after a round of layoffs hit the company back in August.

The press release alleged that BioWare offered less than the entitled amount and, when employees attempted to negotiate for more, the company refused to increase its offer. The employees are now suing BioWare for what they say are fairer...

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Apple addresses iPhone 15 overheating with a new iOS 17 update

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Over the weekend, Apple blamed several factors for reports of iPhone 15s running hot, pointing to problems with specific apps like Instagram and Uber, post-transfer background processing, and unspecified bugs in iOS 17. Today, the company released a new software update with patch notes saying that iOS 17.0.3 “addresses an issue that may cause iPhone to run warmer than expected.”

Image: Wes Davis

iOS 17.0.3 patch notes

Checking for the newest update from your device should snag the update, which is shown as a 423.2MB download from Apple.

There had been some speculation that hardware issues, perhaps from the iPhone 15’s more powerful processor or titanium components, contributed to the sweaty iPhone experience,...

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Here’s how Google’s new Pixel 8 phones compare to their top competitors

Google’s new Pixel 8 certainly looks a whole lot like last year’s Pixel 7, which looked a lot like the Pixel 6. | Image: Google

Last year’s Pixel 7 phones were an iterative spec bump and nice refinement in the design department (as polarizing as their looks remained), but part of what made those phones special was how much they offered for fairly competitive prices.

Now, Google has announced the $699 Pixel 8 and $999 Pixel 8 Pro (which are $100 price increases over last year’s phones), each due to arrive on October 12th, and once again, they look a lot like a slow burn of subtle hardware improvements — albeit in a slick new light-blue color option on the Pro. But the showstopper feature of the new Pixels may be Google’s software support, as it’s claiming the new phones will see seven whole years of OS and security updates — rivaling Apple’s reign as the...

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Every phone, TV, and radio in the US will get an emergency alert today — here’s how

An example of the emergency alert message going out today. | Image: FEMA

As a reminder, at about 2:20PM ET on Wednesday, October 4th, your phone will probably make a loud noise and show a message that reads, “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.” A similar message will be broadcast over the air to TVs and radios that are turned on during the test. That’s because the government is testing its nationwide alert systems, which it’s required to do at least every three years.

The test is a big lift, requiring the coordinated effort of the government, wireless carriers, cable and satellite providers, and local broadcasters. All of the major wireless carriers in the country will, during a 30-minute window, transmit the test to all of their subscribers’ phones that are...

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Ahsoka’s finale gets by on magic and mythology

Image: Lucasfilm

Over the course of eight episodes... not a lot really happens in the first season of the Star Wars spinoff Ahsoka. There’s plenty of searching for a map and then getting to the destination on that map, but in a lot of ways, the show felt like moving pieces around on a board, setting them up for future adventures. And yet, I found myself really enjoying it — less for narrative reasons and more because the show leans into the mysticism and mythology of Star Wars in a way that’s often ignored by the plentiful shows and movies. This is a Star Wars story full of witchcraft and folklore — and nowhere is that more apparent than in its finale.

First, a little setup. The first season of Ahsoka has been almost entirely about one thing: a race to...

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Former Ubisoft executives arrested after sexual harassment investigation

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

French newspaper Libération has reported that five ex-Ubisoft employees have been arrested in connection with a sexual harassment investigation by French police.

According to the paper, in 2021, French police received complaints from the Solidaires Informatique union — a French union that serves digital, consulting, and video game workers — and two individuals. After more than a year of investigation involving extensive interviews with around 50 current and former Ubisoft employees, the arrests were carried out over October 3rd and 4th.

Of the five individuals arrested, only two are named — former chief creative officer Serge Hacosët and editorial vice president Tommy François, both of whom left the company in 2020.

François and...

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Detective Pikachu Returns is a super effective story let down by dated visuals

An exasperated-looking Pikachu wearing a detective’s hat and standing with his paws on his hips. The pikachu is standing in a park, and behind him you can see overturned apple crates and a number of loose apples rolling on the ground. | Nintendo

Though Detective Pikachu Returns has an abundance of personality, its lackluster visuals keep it from feeling like a solid sequel to the original 3DS game.

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Google claims its latest smartphone makes the ‘enhance!’ meme a reality

Osterloh onstage announcing “Zoom Enhance.” | Image: Google

During an onstage presentation at today’s Pixel 8 Pro launch, Google hardware chief Rick Osterloh showed off how the smartphone is able to retroactively add detail to a photograph when you pinch to zoom in. “So the kind of zoom enhancement you used to see in science fiction? It’s right in the phone in your hand,” Osterloh said after introducing the feature, which Google is calling “Zoom Enhance.”

Osterloh is referring, of course, to the countless sci-fi movies and police procedural shows that have shown characters zooming impossibly far into photos to reveal clues and details that simply could not have been present in the original image. Often, these scenes hinge on “enhancing” unbelievably small reflections, inevitably revealing the...

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Google is launching a generative AI-enhanced version of Assistant

Image: Google

During the Made by Google event, where it debuted new Pixel 8 and Pixel Watch 2 hardware, Google also announced it’s launching Assistant with Bard, which leverages generative AI to provide personalized assistance to users. The company says the new AI-enhanced assistant can do things like help plan your next trip, find details in your email inbox, and even create a grocery list.

Just like Bard on the web, Assistant with Bard will integrate with some of the company’s existing apps, such as Gmail and Docs, to help you find and summarize information. Additionally, you can interact with the tool through text, voice, or images, and it will still retain some of Assistant’s key features that allow you to do things like send a text message.

...

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Google Pixel 8 launch event: the 7 biggest announcements

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Google’s latest Pixel launch event has come to an end. Even though some of the products Google revealed were leaked well in advance, the company still managed to throw in a couple of surprises.

Here are all the biggest announcements from the Made by Google event.

The Pixel 8 Pro gets a price bump and a temperature sensor

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Google has officially announced the Pixel 8 Pro, and it comes with quite a few upgrades. That includes a Tensor G3 chipset, along with an updated rear camera array with a 50MP main sensor, a 48MP telephoto lens with 5x zoom, and a 48MP ultrawide camera. It will even have a new Zoom Enhance feature that can retroactively add detail to an image when you pinch to zoom...

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Apple TV Plus is bringing its own flavor of Bridgerton to streaming with The Buccaneers

Image by Apple TV Plus

Bridgerton is big business for Netflix. It’s one of the most watched dramas in the service’s history (according to Netflix). It launched a boom in Regency romance novels, a spinoff prequel, and there’s even a Bridgerton experience. Naturally other streamers are out to replicate the show’s success, and Apple TV Plus has entered the fray with one of the most visually similar shows, The Buccaneers.

The bright pops of color Bridgerton has made its hallmark are on display in the first trailer for The Buccaneers. But this show isn’t based on a steamy series of romance novels, it's based on the unfinished final novel of Edith Wharton, one of the giants of American literature. And where the books Bridgerton is based on were very clearly romance...

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The Verge and dbrand have partnered on new skins for the Pixel 8, iPhone 15, and more

An iPhone with The Verge_’s Blocks skin and a dbrand Grip case._ | Image: dbrand

Blocks and Monogram are new custom designs from The Verge and are available in either skin or case form from dbrand for all of your favorite devices.

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Where to preorder the Google Pixel 8 and 8 Pro

You can get a free Pixel Watch 2 if you preorder the Pixel 8 Pro. | Image: Google

Google announced the new Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro on Wednesday during its Made by Google Event, introducing it alongside the new Pixel Watch 2. Both phones will be available on October 12th starting at $699 and $999, respectively, with preorders beginning today, October 4th.

Powered by the new Google Tensor G3, both phones should offer improved performance, audio, and voice quality. The chip also allows for new AI capabilities, like Audio Magic Eraser, which removes distracting sounds from videos. In addition, both phones now feature a max refresh rate of 120Hz and the promise of seven years of software support and Android updates. The Pro model, meanwhile, offers improved cameras and additional bells and whistles, like the ability to...

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Patreon has a new look for its next era

Image: Patreon

A decade since launching with the mission of helping creatives make money directly through fan support, Patreon is undergoing a major rebrand — and reimagining what the next decade might look like for the so-called creator economy.

Beginning this week, a slew of new features and products that have been in the works will roll out widely to creators and fans. Taken one by one, the features are incremental additions to the company’s suite of creator and fan tools. But in the biggest picture, it’s clear Patreon has been going beyond the membership-based model it launched with. Patreon is no longer just a paywall for creatives — it’s also increasingly a social outlet for fans and a wide-ranging content creation tool.

At the same time, the...

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These are the macOS Sonoma features you should actually pay attention to

This is Sonoma on the outside.

Around this time last year, I called macOS Ventura “a bunch of good updates you can mostly ignore.” The year before, I said that macOS Monterey had “not impacted my life much.” I’m starting to suspect that this is going to just be my life now as the person assigned to review new macOS releases.

You get, every so often, a Big Sur — something that drastically changes what it’s like to look at and use a Mac computer. But most of the time, you’re getting a giant grab bag of new features with little relevance to each other and no unifying theme.

This, the year of macOS Sonoma (or macOS 14, if you prefer numbers to names), is certainly one of those years. Like previous releases, Sonoma moves macOS closer to iOS in appearance and general...

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Where to preorder the Google Pixel Watch 2

The Pixel Watch 2 comes in polished silver, matte black, and champagne gold. | Image: Google

Google’s Pixel Watch has been with us for a full year now, and the surprise hit smartwatch now gets the honor of having its own iterative update. While the original Pixel Watch was a good first crack at a wearable from Google, the Pixel Watch 2 is poised to improve on it with more Fitbit-inspired health and wellness features and a claim of improved battery life.

Google announced the Pixel Watch 2 alongside the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro at its fall Made by Google event in New York, and the new $349.99 wearable is slated to arrive soon on October 12th. Just like its predecessor, it’s being offered as a base model with Wi-Fi or with the option of a cellular LTE connection for an additional $50 (plus the usual subscription fee from your carrier of...

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Android 14’s AI-generated wallpapers might be its coolest new feature

Generative AI wallpapers are one of many new customizable options in Android 14. | Image: Google

Google’s launching the new Pixel 8 and 8 Pro today, and alongside the new smartphones comes the public release of Android 14, which has lots of new features — including a rad new AI wallpaper generator. Originally revealed at Google’s I/O developer event in May, which showcases the latest Android OS and features, the new AI wallpapers feature lets you easily generate a new background on your Pixel device using Google’s text-to-image diffusion model.

You start by selecting a category, like classic art, and then manipulate the text fields to render different results. In one Google example, you could select the Dreamscape category, then describe a structure, a material, and a color, and end up with something like “A house made of plants in...

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Google announces new colors and features for its Pixel Buds Pro earbuds

Image: Google

To complement the new Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, Google is releasing additional colors of its Pixel Buds Pro noise-canceling earbuds. They now come in blue and porcelain hues that fit nicely alongside the company’s latest mobile devices. I’ve asked whether this means any of the previous color options are being phased out.

More importantly, Google has announced a handful of new software features that will roll out to its flagship earbuds over the next few weeks. At the top of the list is conversation detection. Yes, as with earbuds from Sony, Apple, and other brands, the Pixel Buds Pro can now sense when you begin speaking, at which point they’ll automatically engage transparency mode and pause whatever audio you’re listening to. Once you’ve...

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Reddit is making it easier to search for your favorite memes

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Reddit is announcing some updates to search, including a dedicated media tab for search results in the company’s native mobile apps. The improvements should make Reddit search a bit more useful, though, from what I’ve seen, they don’t dramatically overhaul the ways you can already search on the platform.

The new media tab is already available for me in Reddit’s iOS app. When I enter a search query, I see the media tab on the far right of the other search tabs that show up, and as you might expect, the new tab shows a grid of photos and videos related to the search query. There’s also a new media tab in the mobile apps when you search for things while browsing a specific community, which could be a useful tool to find your favorite memes...

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The Pixel 8 Pro has better cameras, a brighter screen, and a lot of new AI tricks

The Pixel 8 Pro features a redesigned camera bar and a bonus temperature sensor.

Google doesn’t leave much to the imagination when it comes to unreleased phones, and that’s mostly the case with the Pixel 8 Pro. Thanks to a flood of leaks, you’ve probably seen its updated camera bar, read all about the new AI photo features, and braced yourself for a $100 price hike that takes the starting price to $999. Even the 8 Pro’s built-in temperature sensor doesn’t come as a total surprise, despite being the biggest curveball addition to the line in years.

But as Google officially announces the phone this morning, there is one major new feature that still rings as a surprise: it’s getting seven years of OS upgrades. That’s a huge improvement from the three years of OS upgrades and five years of security support Google promised...

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Google Photos’ new AI tools are as complicated and messy as a memory

A significant part of the Pixel 8 Pro’s AI magic happens in Google Photos. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

In its eight years of existence, Google Photos has shifted its official mission just once: from “home for all your photos and videos” to “home for all your memories,” says Google Photos VP Shimrit Ben-Yair.

That tagline switch starts to make a lot more sense when you look at the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro. Inside the new phones, Google Photos will see some of its biggest changes to date, all designed to refine your memories. There’s a lot to be proven about how well the new features work, and there are the usual messy questions to ask about the role of generative AI in photography. But you can start to see very clearly how Google is shifting from saving “your photos” to cataloging your messy, complicated memories.

The Pixel 8 and 8 Pro introduce...

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Android 14 is now available for Pixel phones

Android 14 is available. | Image: Google

Google has released Android 14, the latest version of the Android operating system. It’s available today on Pixel phones (4A 5G and up), with phones from manufacturers including Samsung, Nothing, OnePlus, and more supporting it “later this year.”

The update brings with it some new security features like deeper passkey support, privacy protections to deal with shady data brokers, and a plethora of UI, customization, and health updates.

The big feature for the new version of the OS — or at least the most immediately cool one — is that Android 14 gives you new lock screen customizations. You can swap between different clock styles and formats, making the phone’s style a bit more personal. Google is also adding an AI-powered wallpaper...

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The Pixel Watch 2 adds new sensors, longer battery life, and better accuracy

The Pixel Watch 2 looks the same, but most of the upgrades are under the hood. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The $349.99 Pixel Watch 2 may not look too different from the outside, but under the hood, it’s another story. The second-gen smartwatch features a bevy of upgrades, including a new processor, an overhauled sensor array, added safety features, heart rate zone training, and Wear OS 4. Oh, and 24 hours of battery life — this time with the always-on display.

Thanks to a never-ending barrage of leaks, we knew what the Pixel Watch would look like going into today’s announcement at Made by Google. At a glance, the main difference is that the screen sits flush with the digital crown, where the original had a slight cutout. Another change imperceptible to the naked eye: the body is now made of 100 percent recycled aluminum instead of stainless...

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Google says it’ll support Pixel 8 series with seven years of Android updates

The Pixel 8 Pro in blue. | Image: Google

The Google Pixel 8 and 8 Pro will be supported with seven years of “OS, security, and Feature Drop updates,” meaning buyers should be able to use them until 2030 before their software starts to become outdated. “You’ll receive the latest OS and security updates for 7 years, and new, helpful features with Feature Drops every few months,” Google’s blog post announcing the phones reads.

Seven years of software support is a big step up compared to what Google has offered previously, which has been limited to five years of security updates and only three years of Android OS upgrades. It’s also a longer support period than what basically all of Google’s mainstream Android competitors are currently offering. Samsung, OnePlus, and Xiaomi are all...

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Google’s new Pixel 8 is a little bit smaller and a little bit smarter

The new color this year is a rose pink; you can also opt for a black or hazel model. | Image: Google

The new Google Pixel 8 is officially official, despite having been leaked and preannounced by the company already. As with the Pixel 7, the Pixel 8 is smaller and less expensive than its larger Pixel 8 Pro sibling, also officially announced today. But the price has gone up this year, with the Pixel 8 starting at $699.99 for a model with 128GB of storage. (And if you’re a Verizon customer, that starting price is $799.99 for the same storage. You can call that the mmWave tax.) You’ll be able to preorder it starting today, October 4th, in either rose, black, or hazel colors. Shipping is expected to start on October 12th.

Google has slightly tweaked the design of the Pixel 8 to differentiate it from the Pixel 6 and 7, and that’s most...

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