Google tests adding a Discover Feed to its valuable desktop homepage

Illustration: The Verge

Google is experimenting with the inclusion of a Discover Feed on its desktop homepage that shows recommended content alongside the company’s traditional search box. A screenshot from MSPowerUser, which spotted the change, shows a feed that includes news headlines, a weather forecast, sports scores, and stock information for a trio of companies. The search giant previously added the Discover Feed to its US homepage on mobile devices in 2018,

A Google spokesperson confirmed the change in a statement given to The Verge, noting that it’s an experiment that’s currently being run in India. Any change to google.com is significant as it continues to be the world’s most visited website.

Image: MSPowerUser

A screenshot of...

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Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal approved by UK regulators

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard has been approved by UK regulators. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has concluded that the deal can proceed after Microsoft recently restructured the deal to transfer cloud gaming rights for current and new Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft. The decision clears the way for the deal to close now that the UK regulator has given the green light.

“The CMA has decided to give Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) consent to acquire Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Activision) (the Parties) excluding Activision’s cloud streaming rights outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) (the Merger) subject to the condition that the sale of Activision’s cloud streaming rights...

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PC streaming service Shadow discloses security breach

Shadow, which offers services that let you stream a Windows PC, has disclosed a security breach that led an attacker taking some private customer data. The company is sending emails to customers notifying them that a bad actor was able to extract their first and last name, email address, date of birth, billing address, and credit card expiration date.

Shadow’s CEO confirmed the breach in a statement to The Verge. “We were recently the victim of a highly sophisticated social engineering attack which led to the exfiltration of the database of one of our service providers, resulting in the unauthorized exposure of certain customer data,” Eric Sele says. “We have since then taken immediate steps to secure our systems, including reinforcing...

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EU is formally investigating X over content about the Israel-Hamas war

Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge

The European Union (EU) has formally opened an investigation into X, the platform previously known as Twitter, to ensure it’s complying with the Digital Services Act (DSA) following Hamas’ attack on Israel in early October and subsequent Israeli air assault on Gaza. According to the request, this comes after “indications received by the Commission services of the alleged spreading of illegal content and disinformation, in particular the spreading of terrorist and violent content and hate speech.”

Earlier this week, EU Commissioner Thierry Breton sent a letter to X owner Elon Musk alleging that the platform is “being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU.”

The EU is requesting that X provide information related...

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The Rick and Morty season 7 premiere gets right to moving on to bigger, better things

Morty and Rick on a mission. | Image: Adult Swim

The Rick and Morty season 7 premiere makes quick work of dealing with the elephant in the room and getting back to business.

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How is it still getting worse for Sam Bankman-Fried?

Caroline Ellison didn’t crack under pressure. Granted, she wasn’t under that much pressure. | Photo Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Bloomberg, Agustina Torres, Getty Images

The defense botched the cross examination of Caroline Ellison.

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Why were these weird accounts following a bunch of people on Spotify?

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Somebody sent a strange tip about Spotify to The Verge on Wednesday.

The email, with the subject line “Spotify Hackers,” claimed that “Every English account in America has two new followers, ! lucasrpx and ! vitornovaes.” The tipster followed up two minutes later to share a screenshot showing the profile pictures from the accounts, which featured characters from the Studio Ghibli movie Ponyo. Weird stuff.

This seemed pretty innocuous — we doubted they were hackers — but we had to investigate. It was easy to disprove that the accounts followed “every English account in America”; the accounts were not following me. (Though full disclosure that I’ve been an Apple Music user for years.) But the accounts did follow two other Verge staffers,...

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Popular porn sites now display unproven health warnings thanks to Texas law

Image: James Bareham / The Verge

Popular online adult film sites in Texas have published “Texas Health and Human Services” disclaimers warning visitors about the unproven health risks of watching porn, reports 404 Media. The move comes after a US appeals court temporarily overturned an order blocking a Texas law that required porn sites to verify users’ ages and display government health warnings.

Though they don’t require age verification, every Vixen Media Group site — which includes Deeper, Blacked, and Vixen — now displays factually debatable disclaimers warning that porn is “potentially biologically addictive” and “proven to harm human brain development.” The warnings appear to users within the state of Texas.

These pop-ups also claim porn “increases the demand for...

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Google promises to take the legal heat in users’ AI copyright lawsuits

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge

Google will protect customers who use some of its generative AI products if they get sued for copyright infringement, the company says.

In a blog post, Google said customers using products that are now embedded with generative AI features will be protected, attempting to assuage growing fears that generative AI could run afoul of copyright rules. It specifically mentioned seven products it would legally cover: Duet AI in Workspace (including text generated in Google Docs and Gmail and images in Google Slides and Google Meet), Duet AI in Google Cloud, Vertex AI Search, Vertex AI Conversation, Vertex AI Text Embedding API, Visual Captioning on Vertex AI, and Codey APIs. Google’s Bard search tool was not mentioned.

“If you are challenged on...

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Akira Toriyama’s coming back for a new Dragon Ball series

Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama has shifted to providing general narrative guidance and character designs for many of the franchise’s projects in recent years. But for Dragon Ball Daima — a new animated series from Toei — the legendary mangaka will be hands-on in a big way.

Today at this year’s New York Comic Con, Toei Animation announced that it is well into production on Dragon Ball Daima, a new series that will see a number of classic Dragon Ball Z characters like Goku, Vegeta, and Bulma transformed into children similar to the way Goku became a child in Dragon Ball GT.

During a panel about the new show, executive producer Akio Iyoku described Toriyama as being “deeply involved beyond his usual capacity” in its production process...

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No Fakes Act wants to protect actors and singers from unauthorized AI replicas

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A bipartisan bill seeks to create a federal law to protect actors, musicians, and other performers from unauthorized digital replicas of their faces or voices.

The Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act of 2023 — or the No Fakes Act — standardizes rules around using a person’s faces, names, and voices. Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) sponsored the bill.

It prevents the “production of a digital replica without consent of the applicable individual or rights holder” unless part of a news, public affairs, sports broadcast, documentary, or biographical work. The rights would apply throughout a person’s lifetime and, for their estate, 70 years after their...

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Microsoft actually won’t roll out an unpopular OneDrive change to photo storage

Illustration: The Verge

After receiving backlash from customers, Microsoft announced it has canceled plans to impose storage limits for photos in a user’s OneDrive account starting on October 16th, Gizmodo reports.

Starting in October, under the now-rescinded policy, photos in a user’s saved photo albums and OneDrive Gallery would count against its cloud-based quota of five gigabytes. Once the new policy went into effect, users with photos surpassing the limit would no longer be able to save new OneDrive files or even receive emails in Microsoft’s free Outlook email service.

When it announced the changes in August, Microsoft said it would grant users a free one-year storage bonus to compensate for the inconvenience, but that didn't satisfy users.

It’s possible...

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Netflix is planning to launch retail destinations in 2025

Squid Game. | Image: Netflix

Just as Netflix is getting out of one business with the closure of its DVD rentals, it looks like it’s getting into the physical realm in a different way. Bloomberg reports that the streamer is planning to launch new retail destinations — dubbed Netflix House — that will offer not only things to buy but also food and other experiences themed after whatever is hot on Netflix at the moment. There aren’t a lot of specifics right now, such as where these permanent spaces might eventually open, but the first locations are expected to launch in the US in 2025.

“We’ve seen how much fans love to immerse themselves in the world of our movies and TV shows, and we’ve been thinking a lot about how we take that to the next level,” Josh Simon,...

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1,000 photos with the Pixel 8 Pro: AI, UI, and Pro stuff

The $999 Google Pixel 8 Pro takes good photos with its 50-megapixel f/1.68 main sensor. | Photo by Eddie Costas / The Verge

The $999 Google Pixel 8 Pro takes good photos with its 50-megapixel f/1.68 main sensor. For the most part, subjects are sharp, colors aren’t too saturated, and the focus fall-off can fool you into thinking images came from a larger camera. But it’s important to remember that Google is a software company that sometimes makes hardware. And for every one photo it takes, there are two AI editing tools ready to either make its hardware look better than it really is or create a scene that isn’t necessarily true.

In the latest episode of my YouTube series Full Frame, I set out to take 1,000 photos with the Pixel 8 Pro. From 4K, 24FPS video of fall in upstate New York to ultrawide macro shots of my eyeballs, I put this system to the test.

It...

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Judge questions Montana’s ban on TikTok

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

A federal district judge voiced skepticism over Montana’s first-in-the-nation ban of TikTok during a hearing in Missoula on Thursday.

TikTok and several platform creators sued Montana earlier this year, calling the state’s ban unconstitutional and infringing on the free speech rights of both the company and users. Throughout Thursday’s hearing, attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that Montana’s ban was “overbroad,” while the state’s defense claimed it was necessary to protect the online privacy of Montana residents.

US District Judge Donald W. Molloy questioned the state’s evidence supporting its national security concerns and if it should make the decision on whether users share their data with the app.

Your argument just confuses...

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All the news on Google’s Pixel 8 lineup

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Google’s Tensor 3 and AI-touting new Pixel 8 phones are now available.

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Threads is getting an edit button — and you don’t have to pay for it

Illustration: The Verge

Meta is starting to roll out an edit feature and “Voice Threads” for its Threads platform, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday. They’re two major new features for Meta’s burgeoning X-like social network — and unlike on X (formerly Twitter), you won’t need to pay a subscription fee to be able to edit your posts for five minutes after they’re published.

Posts that are edited will have a little icon next to the timestamp showing that they’ve been revised. You won’t be able to see an edit history — that’s one advantage X still has over Threads. (I’ve asked Meta if it plans to add an edit history at some point.)

Post by Richard Lawler / The Verge, screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

See that icon next to the...

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The Stream Deck’s new paid app store is here

Elgato Marketplace. | Image: Elgato

As promised, Elgato has opened a new Marketplace, which serves as an app store platform for devices like the button-laden Stream Deck and Wave Link. Now, people can sell the plug-ins (like our Bubble Deck app), graphics, digital overlays, emotes, and digital audio effects they create directly to people who own the devices.

Elgato, which was acquired by Corsair in 2018, is inviting people interested in making the items to use this to reach millions of new customers with the ability to set their own prices and says that “at least” 70 percent of each purchase will go to whoever made the item. Or, at least they will when it’s working — the Marketplace website is currently displaying a 403 error that may be due to getting too much traffic.

W...

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Microsoft’s new Xbox Series S bundle is ideal for Xbox Game Pass

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is launching a new Xbox Series S bundle later this month that includes three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. The Xbox Series S “Starter Bundle” will be available worldwide on October 31st for $299.99.

It’s unusual to see Microsoft bundle three months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with its consoles, as the company usually offers one month’s access as part of promotions, bundled with accessories, and elsewhere. It’s an ideal offer for anyone curious about Xbox Game Pass and the hundreds of games available on the service.

As Microsoft is bundling the Ultimate version of Xbox Game Pass, you’ll also be able to stream Xbox games to a mobile device for three months with this bundle. The Xbox Series S itself is the regular white 512GB...

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Bayonetta director Hideki Kamiya isn’t retiring

Photo by Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

A few weeks after announcing he intended to leave PlatinumGames, Hideki Kamiya posted a video on YouTube celebrating his first official day of unemployment. In the video, Kamiya explained what he’s been up to, what his future plans are, and clarified that though he’s left PlatinumGames, he’s not planning on retiring anytime soon.

“I’m over it. I’m so over it,” Kamiya said as he exited PlatinumGames’ office carrying a box full of toys including an Ultraman figurine and a Bayonetta plushie.

Kamiya quickly recapped his nearly 30-year history developing games starting at Capcom, working on Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, and Viewtiful Joe. He moved on to Clover Studio to work on Okami, before finally joining PlatinumGames directing the B...

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Adobe is working on generative AI video manipulation

GIF: Adobe

Adobe is showing off a new generative fill feature, Project Fast Fill, that can easily add or remove objects in videos with the power of AI. It’s one of several new, wild, experimental AI features announced today at the company’s MAX conference. Project Fast Fill has the ability to swap in clothing accessories on people in motion or remove tourists from the background of a landscape pan.

Fast Fill works similarly to Google’s Magic Editor, where you can move around people or objects — but with video instead of just still photos. Fast Fill promises to do things the company’s Project Stardust does for still photos, like change colors by just entering a text prompt. Adobe says these generative AI features are made possible by the company’s...

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Google’s AI-powered search experience can now generate images

Illustration: The Verge

Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) will let you create images right from a text prompt starting Thursday, the company announced. Microsoft has offered the ability to make images from Bing Chat using OpenAI’s DALL-E model since March, so it’s not too surprising to see Google follow suit.

Here’s how it works. If you’re opted in to SGE through Google’s Search Labs program, you can just type your query into the Google search bar. After you do, SGE can create a few images based on your prompt that you can pick from. The tool is powered by the Imagen family of AI models, Google spokesperson Craig Ewer tells The Verge.

In a GIF, Google showed how the tool can be used to create images based on the prompt “draw an image of a capybara...

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Max’s Scavengers Reign captures the beauty and terror of a truly alien world

Image: Max

You don’t have to look far to see the influence of French comic legend Jean “Moebius” Giraud. His surreal visual style can be found everywhere from video games to animation. Sometimes it’s just used as an aesthetic, but in the case of Scavengers Reign — a new animated series on Max — it’s the starting-off point for one of the most imaginative and thoroughly convincing alien worlds I’ve ever seen. It’s equal parts beautiful and brutal, and it might be the most original piece of science fiction of the year.

Scavengers Reign takes place in the aftermath of a crash, when the few survivors of a ruined interstellar cargo ship find themselves scattered across an uncharted, hostile planet. The story primarily follows three groups as they attempt...

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How to change the alert sounds on your iPhone

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

In the past, Apple’s ecosystem has been a little “one size fits all” without a lot of room for personalization — however, now we’re getting a lot more ringtones in iOS 17. Customizing your iPhone’s alert sounds can make your device feel a little more personal and fun. And maybe — I’m just spitballing here — you can even make a funny reference to a ’90s comedy starring Bill Murray in the process. Just an idea.

In any case, here’s how to change the sounds for your ringtone, mail, texts, and calendar alerts. For reference, this was tested out on an iPhone 11 running iOS 17.

• Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics.
• Tap the task with the alert tone you want to change.
• Scroll down to choose from a list of sound clips. The clips will be...

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AMC CEO was target of blackmail and extortion plot

Illustration: The Verge

Adam Aron, meme stock CEO of AMC, sent sexually explicit images in text conversations with a woman who attempted to blackmail and extort him out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, as first reported by Semafor Thursday.

The plot took place over several weeks of text messages between Aron and the woman, Sakoya Blackwood. Blackwood assumed several false identities, including that of a former romantic partner to Aron, to solicit explicit photos from the CEO before threatening to publicly release them unless she received $300,000.

The case was first reported last July but masked Aron’s identity, referring to him only as a CEO of a publicly traded company. Aron confirmed that he was the victim of the plot in a post to X, formerly Twitter,...

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Honor announces its third foldable of the year

The Magic VS2 shown folded and unfolded. | Image: Honor

Honor’s Magic VS2 is the former Huawei sub-brand’s third new foldable launch in four months, following the launch of the Magic V2 in July and the Magic V Purse last month. And that’s without counting the international launch of the Magic VS earlier this year following its China release in 2022.

Unsurprisingly, given the space between launches, the Magic VS2 is not a total overhaul versus Honor’s previous devices. It’s ever so slightly lighter at 229 grams, versus 231 grams for the lightest variant of the Magic V2, but it’s also slightly thicker when folded at 10.7mm. (The Magic V2 was between 9.9 and 10.1mm thick.) Interestingly, it’s also running a previous-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor, while the V2 was powered...

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SAG-AFTRA’s strike continues after last round of contract talks breaks down

Image: SAG-AFTRA

In the wake of the Writers Guild of America finally winning and ratifying a new labor contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) after 146 days of striking, there was some hope that the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — which has also been on strike — might be able to do the same. But despite SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP meeting earlier this week to resume contract negotiations, the talks have already hit a big stumbling point.

(Disclosure: The Verge’s editorial staff is also unionized with the Writers Guild of America, East.)

On Wednesday evening, the AMPTP released a statement announcing that, after meeting with SAG-AFTRA for five days, it was walking away from the...

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How to change the ringtone on your Android phone

Art: The Verge

A recent discussion among friends wondered if anyone really used ringtones anymore. The idea was that most people (those who still use their phones to hold verbal conversations) either go with whatever ringtone their phone came with or just use vibrations.

Once upon a time, ringtones were a thing. You could use them for amusement. (My favorite was a bored voice that said, “Ring. Ring. Ring.”) You could use them to know who was calling without having to look at the phone (so you knew when to pick up and when to let it go to voicemail). Now, maybe, not so much.

Still, Google recently added a bunch of new ringtones to its Pixel phones, so presumably, some of us are still playing around with these sounds. In case you count yourself in that...

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CEO David Baszucki’s mission to make Roblox a billion-player platform

Photo illustration by Alex Parkin / The Verge

AI is relatively easy, Baszucki said at Code. Working in China? That’s harder.

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Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 3 review: why does this exist?

The Go 3 is a nice-looking and well-built device, but the $999 price makes no sense.

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