Spotify is reportedly making major changes to its royalty model

Image: The Verge

Big changes are coming to Spotify’s royalty model, according to Music Business Worldwide (MBW). If and when they are implemented in early 2024, it will raise the bar for who gets paid from music streaming on the platform — and direct more money to major labels and artists.

Two of the three proposed changes should be relatively uncontroversial. According to the report, Spotify will fine music distributors (including labels) for fraudulent activity detected on their tracks. Streaming fraud is pretty widespread, and a crackdown is long overdue. The second change will raise the minimum length of play time for noise tracks (background noise like rain, static, etc.) before they start earning royalties. Currently, any track that gets played for...

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Now Meta’s Quest 3 lets you choose: better battery life or better VR graphics?

Stay immersed for a bit longer, but maybe not as immersed. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Meta is rolling out a software update that lets Quest 3 users eke out more battery life at the expense of graphics quality.

In addition to this new Battery Saver mode, the v59 update also gives VR streamers a way to keep track of YouTube Live Chat within the headset, includes more reactions and stickers in a chat, adds legs to your avatar in Horizon Home, and enhances the Activities tab to easily find friend recommendations and drop in to play. Another note says that the Remote Display app from the Quest Pro “will become available for Quest 3 and Quest 2 over time,” allowing wearers to project their own computer screen into a VR environment.

With the new update, users can switch to a lower graphics output setting on Meta Quest 3 that...

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Meta actually added a useful feature to Horizon Worlds — and some goofy ones

Image: Meta

Meta’s newest update to Horizon Worlds, its 3D social network, adds some useful changes, but while reading the v133 patch notes, I chuckled more than once because of things Meta probably didn’t intend to be funny.

Arguably the biggest addition is a new “time spent” feature. The dashboard shows you how much time you’ve put into Horizon Worlds over seven days and how that time is divided between playing in VR and on web / mobile.

Image: Meta

A screenshot of Horizon Worlds_’ “time spent” dashboard — but I don’t know anyone who plays for four hours per week._

We should be cognizant of how much time we’re spending staring at screens. But given Meta has been struggling to keep Horizon Worlds users, how many people...

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Telegram has blocked Hamas channels on Android because Google forced it to

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Social messaging platform Telegram has blocked channels used by Hamas, but only on Android phones due to violations of Google’s app store guidelines. According to CNBC, two channels — hamas_com and al-Qassam brigades — were cut off for Android users, though other channels the group uses, like Gaza Now, are still accessible.

Telegram blamed the blocks on Google’s app store guidelines, according to reporting in The Jerusalem Post. Users reportedly see an error saying the channels can’t be viewed on “Telegram apps downloaded from the Google Play Store,” implying that the ban doesn’t extend to the app when it’s downloaded from elsewhere or used on another operating system.

A Google spokesperson, who asked to be quoted anonymously due to the...

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Apple’s future AirPods roadmap just leaked, and big changes are coming

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Apple will try to better differentiate its AirPods lineup as new models launch over the next couple of years, according to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. That will include phasing out both the second-gen and third-gen AirPods when a successor is announced sometime next fall. Gurman claims that the third-gen “regular” AirPods haven’t sold particularly well and partially attributes this to consumers frequently opting for the older, cheaper second-gen pair, which Apple has continued to sell.

To avoid facing that problem again, Apple plans to simultaneously launch two sets of fourth-generation AirPods in 2024. Both sets will sit beneath the AirPods Pro, with pricing remaining similar to where it is today, but the two SKUs will...

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Here’s your first look at Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater gameplay

Image: Konami

Fresh off the launch of the Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1, Konami is showing off a new look at the next major entry in the series. The previously announced remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 — which now has the fancy name Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater — was revealed mostly via a CG trailer. But the latest trailer is an “in-engine” look at the game, providing an early glimpse at the gameplay. It’s short, but it has much of what you’d expect: sneaking around in swamps, climbing along ledges, and lots of takedowns from behind. The game is being built using Unreal Engine 5.

Delta — yes, that’s how it’s pronounced — still doesn’t have a release date, but it’s coming to the PS5, Xbox, and PC. Series creator Hideo Kojima isn’t...

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Gmail’s new emoji picker on the web is getting a long overdue upgrade

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Gmail’s emoji picker on the web is getting a long overdue upgrade that lets you pick skin tones and gender preferences for certain emoji, Google announced in a blog post on Wednesday.

Previously, when composing emails in Gmail on the web, if you used the emoji picker, there was no way to select a skin tone or gender preference for certain emoji like hand gestures or emoji featuring people. You could still add emoji with skin tones or certain genders to those emails in other ways, such as copying and pasting the emoji from Emojipedia, but that’s obviously not the most ideal solution.

Google is changing that starting Wednesday. With Gmail’s new emoji picker, you’ll be able to pick skin tones and gender preferences by clicking a little...

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iOS 17.1 has officially been released

This year’s iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Apple has officially released iOS 17.1, the latest version of its iPhone operating system. The update has been available in beta since late last month, during which time its biggest new feature has arguably been the ability to continue AirDrop transfers over a cellular connection if the two connected devices move out of Wi-Fi range after the sending process has started. Apple announced the feature back at its developer conference in June, but it didn’t arrive in time for the main iOS 17 release last month.

Based on features spotted in iOS 17.1’s beta releases, the update should include a handful of other minor tweaks and additions. There’s a new Favorites feature for Apple Music that lets you add songs, albums, playlists, and artists to...

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How to customize double tap on the Apple Watch

With the Series 9 and Ultra 2, you can double-tap to use the primary function of an app without touching the display. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Double tap has arrived with watchOS 10.1. The gesture allows you to control your supported Apple Watch (Series 9 and Ultra 2) with a pinching motion, all without ever having to touch the display. The idea is to give you a way to interact with the watch if you don’t have both hands free — like when you’re cooking, carrying groceries, or are on a walk and holding a cup of coffee.

While the feature may seem familiar to Assistive Touch, there are a few key differences. I go into it in-depth here, but the gist is Assistive Touch is a full navigational system designed for people with limb differences, whereas double tap is more like double clicking on your computer mouse. You use it to perform the “primary” action of an app at a given moment....

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The Apple Watch’s double tap gesture points at a new way to use wearables

Double tap officially arrives on the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 today as part of the watchOS 10.1 public release. | Photo Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge; Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Swipes and buttons are the norm, but Apple’s double tap gesture opens a future where your smartwatch could be even less dependent on your phone.

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Google will require Android apps to better moderate AI-generated content

Image: Google

With generative AI exploding everywhere, Google will start requiring that Android apps include a way to report offensive AI-generated content and follow new moderation rules around what kind of AI content is acceptable.

Apps using AI-generated content will be required to add a button to flag or report offensive material early next year to remain in Google’s Play Store.

Google wants the reporting process to be as easy as possible

Users should be able to report without needing to navigate away from the app, similar to already existing in-app reporting systems today.

The company said its AI-generated content policy covers AI chatbots, AI-generated image apps, and apps that create voice or video content of real people with the use of AI....

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Killers of the Flower Moon is a devastating snapshot of America’s truth laid bare

Lily Gladstone and Martin Scorsese. | Image: Apple

Scorsese’s latest demands — not asks — us to witness the horrors the US has wrought upon the Osage Nation and understand some of what it means for Indigenous people to survive in this country today.

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The new, ‘efficient’ Spotify has a very different approach to podcasting

Image: The Verge

This is Hot Pod_,_ The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.

In pursuit of profit, Spotify looks to AI rather than original content for its podcasting future

Spotify shareholders are thrilled with the company reporting an operating profit for the first time in a year, sending the stock up nearly 10 percent on the news. The revenue bump was in large part due to the streamer’s $1 price increase earlier this year, but executives also pointed to the downsizing of the podcast operation — which included hundreds of layoffs and the dissolution of Gimlet and Parcast — as a contributing factor. The adage that “content is king” no longer applies, with Spotify increasingly focusing on tools that will...

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Google Search can now help verify an image’s origins

The tool is accessible from the three-dot menu on image search results. | Image: Google

Google is starting to roll out its new “About this image” tool, which aims to provide essential background information and context about images in Google Search. The feature was first announced at Google’s I/O developer conference in May, and now it’s rolling out to English users globally. You can access the feature from the three-dot menu that appears in Search and Google Images results. The search giant is also announcing updates to its Fact Check Explorer initiative and AI-powered Search Generative Experience.

The “About this image” tool is designed to show you the origins of an image, including its metadata (when available), and provide vital context about how it’s been described by news and fact-checking sites over time. So you...

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The messy story of the Bleach voice acting controversy, explained

Image: Viz Media

As Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, a continuation of the popular Bleach anime — one of the “Big Three” of shonen anime series — continues its run, viewers were excited to see fan-favorite character Yoruichi make her first appearance in the show. But that excitement soured as fans and voice actors argued on social media over who has the “right” to voice a character of color, invoking the specter of racism versus nostalgia in voice casting.

On October 7th, Afro-Latina voice actress Anairis Quiñones announced on X (formerly Twitter) that she had been cast to voice Yoruichi in Thousand-Year Blood War.

I’m the English voice of Yoruichi in Bleach - Thousand Year Blood War!! ‍⬛ pic.twitter.com/rUQ5MaWAFh

— Anairis Quiñones Baldur’s...

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Lexus shows off LF-ZC electric vehicle concept that will launch in 2026

Lexus LF-ZC concept. | Image: Lexus

Lexus announced new concept electric vehicles for Japan’s Mobility Show, including the new LF-ZC, which is a four-door luxury car that the company plans to use as a basis for a real one that will launch in 2026. The luxury Toyota brand also presented a second concept called the LF-ZL which the company says is for a “guilt-free luxury lifestyle.”

The LF-ZC, which stands for “Lexus Future Zero-emission Catalyst,” has a low-hanging roofline that smoothly transitions from the hood to the rear. The windshield is long and goes over the heads of the front passengers for an expansive field of vision. The profile and rear shape look like it draws some inspiration from Toyota’s no-longer-ugly Prius. They’re about the same length, too: 187 inches...

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Sam Bankman-Fried will testify in his fraud trial

Image: The Verge / Getty Images

Sam Bankman-Fried will testify at his criminal fraud trial on Thursday as he faces charges of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering related to his failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

During a conference call on Wednesday, attorney Mark Cohen confirmed Bankman-Fried will take the stand. The move isn’t much of a surprise, considering the time Bankman-Fried spent speaking on his own behalf between the collapse of FTX last year and his eventual arrest last December.

“We’re going to put on three witnesses — then our client,” Cohen said during the call, according to the Inner City Press.

Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of FTX, is accused of stealing billions in customer funds and has pleaded not guilty to all charges. So far,...

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The new PS5’s detachable disc drive reportedly needs an internet connection for setup

Image: Sony

I’m very intrigued by Sony’s revamped PS5 and its removable disc drive. It streamlines the console’s manufacturing process, and the new model is a good amount smaller than the original, even if it doesn’t necessarily look so from every angle. But there might be one noteworthy quirk with the new $499 Disc version: it’s likely you’ll need an internet connection to get the optical drive working with the PS5 hardware it’s attached to.

As noted by Video Games Chronicle, this is according to images of the box for an upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III PS5 bundle that will ship next month. At the bottom of the back, there’s a line that says “internet connection required to pair Disc Drive and PS5 console upon setup.” The going theory,...

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Puzzmo is imagining a better newspaper games page

Image: Puzzmo / Angie Wang

Game designer Zach Gage is leading a team in building a modern space to enjoy your crossword puzzle.

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Your Amazon Alexa IFTTT automations are about to stop working

Alexa won’t work with IFTTT anymore soon. | Image: Wes Davis / The Verge

The team behind IFTTT (short for “if this, then that”) wrote in a blog post that Amazon is cutting the service off from Alexa beginning October 31st. Once the integration is severed, users won’t be able to ask Alexa to trigger IFTTT applets. Certain automations will stick around in the IFTTT app, but some will be archived on November 1st unless you take action.

If your IFTTT applets use a specific phrase or question as the trigger (“Alexa, trigger...” or “Alexa, what’s on my to-do list?”), that will convert to using an IFTTT button widget that you can either use in the app or add to your smartphone’s homescreen. But all other triggers set up through Alexa — say, an automation that runs when you add something to your to-do list — will be...

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Artists can use a data poisoning tool to confuse DALL-E and corrupt AI scraping

Image: OpenAI

Fighting against data used to train AI models has become more poisonous.

A new tool called Nightshade allows users to attach it to their creative work, and it will corrupt — or poison — training data using that art. Eventually, it can ruin future models of AI art platforms like DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney, removing its ability to create images.

Nightshade adds invisible changes to pixels in a piece of digital art. When the work is ingested by a model for training, the “poison” exploits a security vulnerability that confuses the model, so it will no longer read an image of a car as a car and come up with a cow instead.

The MIT Technology Review reported that Ben Zhao, a professor at the University of Chicago and one of the...

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Amazon now lets advertisers use generative AI to pretty up their product shots

Image: Amazon

Amazon is beta testing AI image generation tools for its advertisers, offering an easy way to create backgrounds or scenes around whatever product ad buyers are hoping to sell. The company says the new feature is “designed to remove creative barriers and enable brands to produce lifestyle imagery that helps improve their ads’ performance.”

This could prove to be a quick, convenient option for brands that would otherwise be stuck working with boring standalone images of a product against a white background. Amazon says putting products in a lifestyle scene can lead to 40 percent higher click-through rates.

“This solution is helpful for advertisers of all sizes — enabling those that do not have in-house capabilities or agency support to...

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The tragically millennial vocabulary of the Sam Bankman-Fried trial

These people were adults. This is how adults talk now. | Photo Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Michael M. Santiago, Bloomberg, Klmax, Whyframestudio, Yevgen Romanenko, Pixhook, Peter Dazeley, Jimkruger, Getty Images

It is one thing to type the world YOLO, jokingly, on Beyoncé’s internet. It is another thing entirely to hear it explained in a court of law. The trial of Sam Bankman-Fried has been, in its vocabulary, tragically millennial. (Disclosure: I am also a millennial.)

Christian Drappi, a former Alameda software engineer, was put in the position of explaining YOLO — “you only live once” — as well as the phrase “a YOLO thing” to anyone who might be unfamiliar. He was testifying about a recording of an Alameda all-hands meeting in which Caroline Ellison, then the CEO of Alameda, confessed to taking FTX customer funds. In the recording, Drappi said “I’m sure this wasn’t, like, a YOLO thing” in response to the confession.

Asked about the phrase,...

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Apple TV Plus is getting a price hike — and other Apple subscriptions are, too

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple is raising the prices of several of its services, including Apple TV Plus, Apple Arcade, Apple News Plus, and Apple One. Apple TV Plus is going from $6.99 per month to $9.99 per month, and Apple’s other services are seeing significant hikes, too. MacRumors first spotted the changes.

Instead of $4.99 per month, Apple Arcade will now cost $6.99 per month. Meanwhile, Apple News Plus is increasing from $9.99 per month to $12.99 per month. With all three services getting price increases, that means the Apple One bundle is going up as well.

Here’s a rundown of the new pricing across Apple One’s three tiers:

• Individual: $19.95 (previously $16.95)
• Family: $25.95 (previously $22.95)
• Premier: $37.95 (previously $32.95)

Apple One’s...

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Google’s updated AR beauty tools make it easier to buy cosmetics and hair dye

More ways for you to get a more accurate preview of beauty products, without physically testing them at the store. | Image: Google

Google is expanding its augmented reality (AR) shopping feature that allows people to virtually wear beauty products before purchasing — bringing the feature to mobile browsers and Google Shopping ads, alongside new tools for trying on foundation and hair dye colors.

The new hair color category will begin rolling out to Google AR Beauty this week, allowing users to see different shades of hair dye from L’Oréal on themselves or on one of the available models that best suits their look. Dye shades from other brands like Revlon and Splat will be “available to try on soon,” according to Google’s announcement. The foundation category is also being expanded — while you can still try out different shades on 148 diverse models, you’ll now be...

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Proton’s password manager now lets you securely share logins

Image: Proton

Proton’s password manager, Proton Pass, is rolling out a new feature that lets you share sign-ins using end-to-end encryption (E2EE). Instead of sharing a password over Gmail or a text, Proton will now let you safely give friends, family members, or co-workers access to things like streaming services, bank accounts, work logins, and more.

Proton launched Proton Pass earlier this year, allowing customers to store a vault of usernames, passwords, notes, bank cards, and email aliases using E2EE, which keeps sensitive information away from third parties, including Proton itself. But now, Proton is expanding its password manager to include secure sharing, giving you the ability to safely share this information with others.

You can share your...

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Blink is taking up to 60 percent off video doorbells and security cameras

The Blink Video Doorbell pairs best with the Sync Module 2, but the wireless hub isn’t absolutely necessary. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Whether you want to keep tabs on trick-or-treaters or protect your holiday gifts from would-be porch pirates, a good video doorbell or security camera can come in handy during the holidays. Lucky for you, Amazon-owned Blink is offering up to 60 percent off a host of models as part of its Halloween sale, which runs through November 5th.

The sale spans a range of smart security products, including a three-pack of Blink Mini cameras for $39.98 ($60 off). If you’re looking for something to protect your porch, however, you can pick a Blink Video Doorbellwith the latest Blink Outdoor security camera for just $89.99 (half off) at Amazon. The retailer is also selling the Blink Outdoor 4 for an all-time low of $71.99 ($48 off) if you don’t need...

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GM and Honda ditch plan to build cheaper electric vehicles

Image: GM

A little more than a year after announcing an ambitious plan to co-develop a lineup of affordable electric vehicles, General Motors and Honda are scrapping the deal — or at least just that one aspect of the deal.

Announced in April 2022, the plan was to build a series of affordable EVs on GM’s flexible EV platform with its Ultium-branded battery packs. At the time, GM and Honda said they expected to begin production of “millions” of these affordable EVs by 2027.

“After studying this for a year, we decided that this would be difficult as a business, so at the moment, we are ending development of an affordable EV,” Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said in the interview with Bloomberg, which was the first to report the news.

“We are ending...

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Wacom’s petite additions to the Cintiq Pro lineup come with a big price tag

These tablets are only “small” by Cintiq standards but they still carry the lineup's loft prices. | Image: Wacom

Wacom has unveiled the Cintiq Pro 17 and Cintiq Pro 22 — two new additions to its popular family of Cintiq display drawing tablets, providing more compact options for creative professionals who prefer to work with a smaller screen. As noted by PetaPixel, the Wacom Cintiq Pro 17 is available to purchase immediately for $2,499.95, while the slightly larger Wacom Cintiq Pro 22 will be available this December for $2,999.95.

Sharing the same (albeit smaller) grip-handle design as the Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 that was released last year, the new 17.3-inch and 21.5-inch models both feature a 3840 x 2160 (4K) 120Hz touchscreen capable of displaying up to 1.07 billion colors. That includes 99 percent DCI-P3 and 95 percent Adobe RGB color gamut...

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DJI’s baby steadicam Osmo Pocket 3 has so many upgrades, I don’t know where to begin

The DJI Osmo Pocket 3.

Five years ago, DJI paired its super-stable drone cameras with a postage-stamp-size screen to create the Osmo Pocket, a tiny vlogger cam. It was neat, and its successor had a handful of key improvements.

But the new Osmo Pocket 3, announced and shipping today, has more than a handful.

While the baby steadicam now starts at $519 — a huge hike over its $349 predecessors — it’s got a way larger sensor, way larger touchscreen, faster autofocus, far faster charging, more battery life, built-in wireless, built-in joystick, a third microphone, and a nifty rotating screen that satisfyinglyclicks into portrait or landscape while automatically switching your filming aspect ratio.

Portrait mode.

I haven’t gone out on a real...

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