Disney says subscribers are happy to sit through some ads

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

The ad-supported plan on Disney Plus is a little less than one year old, but it has already become just as popular as the ad-free version. From March to September 2023, Disney says that 50 percent of new subscribers chose the $7.99 per month plan over the pricier commercial-free one.

That’s a sign that Disney’s ad-supported plan is on the rise, as Rita Ferro, Disney’s president of global advertising, tells The Hollywood Reporter that 40 percent of subscribers chose the ad-supported tier earlier this year. Disney first launched its ad-supported tier last December, and it’s starting to push more subscribers toward this cheaper option.

While Disney Plus joined several other streaming services in raising the price of its ad-free subscription...

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Google paid a whopping $26.3 billion in 2021 to be the default search engine everywhere

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge

The US v. Google antitrust trial is about many things, but more than anything, it’s about the power of defaults. Even if it’s easy to switch browsers or platforms or search engines, the one that appears when you turn it on matters a lot. Google obviously agrees and has paid a staggering amount to make sure it is the default: testimony in the trial revealed that Google spent a total of $26.3 billion in 2021 to be the default search engine in multiple browsers, phones, and platforms.

That number, the sum total of all of Google’s search distribution deals, came out during the Justice Department’s cross-examination of Google’s search head, Prabhakar Raghavan. It was made public after a debate earlier in the week between the two sides and...

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1Password is offering Verge readers $20 off an annual membership

Let’s face it: “12345” just doesn’t cut it anymore. | Image: 1Password

1Password is currently offering new customers a $20 discount on a one-year subscription to its individual password manager plan, bringing the annual price down to $15.88 (about $1.32 a month). This deal is exclusive for Verge readers through the end of the year, with no need for any promo codes — just click the provided link and you’ll see the discount applied when you set up your account.

Passwords as we know them may soon be a thing of the past, as passkeys are slowly becoming the norm for companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and others. 1Password started rolling out passkeys earlier this year, and even the discounted basic plan allows you to access them. With a 1Password membership, you can save logins and passwords from all...

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Sonos is taking up to $385 off Arc, Beam, and Ray home theater sets

You can save $186 when you buy the second-gen Sonos Beam paired with a subwoofer and two Sonos Era 100 smart speakers. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

It’s not often we see good deals land on new Sonos products, so the company’s early Black Friday sale is one to take a look at. Now through Sunday, October 29th, Sonos is taking up to 20 percent off various home theater sets, offering you a chance to save up to $385 on some of the best soundbars in the market.

First up, Sonos is offering some great bundle deals that include Sonos’ flagship soundbar, the Sonos Arc. You can buy it bundled with the third-gen Sonos Sub, a subwoofer that handles the low end, for $1,358 ($340 off). You can also throw in two Sonos Era 300 smart speakers or Sonos Era 100 smart speakers for use as rear surrounds for $2,211 ($385 off) and $1,856 ($340 off), respectively.

In case you need a refresher, the Sonos...

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After two seasons, Apple’s sci-fi drama Invasion is finally coming together

Shioli Kutsuna as Mitsuki. | Image: Apple

For much of the first two seasons of Invasion, the show’s characters have seemingly been moving independently of each other. It’s clear that they were heading in similar directions, with paths that would converge in some way, but it wasn’t until the season 2 finale that Invasion finally started coming together. And it’s setting the show up for a big showdown in the future.

Invasion has played out a lot like a character-driven drama that just so happens to be set at the ground level of an alien invasion. It started out slowly — we didn’t even get to see the spiky, blob-like invaders until a few episodes in — and largely stayed that way, even though season 2 ratcheted up the intensity somewhat to start.

This story contains spoilers for...

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How to sign up for Amazon Prime

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Time really does fly, doesn’t it? It only seems like yesterday that we were looking at Amazon’s fall Prime Day roundup of deals. But all too soon, the 2023 holiday season is approaching — and with it, the much-touted sales of Black Friday (November 24th) and Cyber Monday (November 27th).

If you’re interested in the goodies being offered but haven’t signed up for Amazon Prime, don’t worry — Amazon makes it very easy. (Not surprisingly. After all, it would be the sorry vendor who would make it difficult for people to become new customers.)

If you’re attracted by the goodies being offered but haven’t signed up for Prime, Amazon makes it very easy

Besides giving access to Prime Day bargains, Amazon has come up with a bunch of features to...

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Hertz is scaling back its EV ambitions because its Teslas keep getting damaged

Photo by Rodin Eckenroth / Getty Images for Hertz

Rental car company Hertz once envisioned itself as the ultimate EV broker, doling out battery-powered vehicles to business travelers, ridehail drivers, and tech newbies in an ambitious plan to grease the wheels for the EV revolution. The company inked agreements with Tesla and Polestar to buy nearly 200,000 EVs. Tesla’s valuation topped $1 trillion on the news.

But like many other aspects of the EV switch, that plan is running into some headwinds. This week, Hertz said it was tapping the brakes on its EV rollout, citing the plummeting resale value of its EVs and the high cost of repair.

Tesla has been slashing prices to spark sales as it finds itself wrestling with softening demand and more competition. And repair costs are about double...

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Elon Musk’s Twitter, one year later

Photo illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Getty Images

It’s been a year of personal grudges, harebrained rebrands, and jolting policy shifts. And those aren’t even the worst parts.

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In Alan Wake 2, you will never feel safe

Image: Remedy Entertainment

Remedy Entertainment returns to the franchise after more than a decade, with a survival horror experience that’s equal parts strange and terrifying.

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What to expect from Apple’s ‘Scary Fast’ Mac event

Creepy Finder has something in store for us. | Image: Apple

It looks like some new Macs are on the way. Apple is holding an online-only launch event on October 30th, where it’s expected to introduce its next big chip updates and some Macs to go along with them. Apple is calling the pre-Halloween announcement the “Scary Fast” event, and its YouTube channel playfully invites viewers to “Treat yourself.”

Almost every Apple event invitation includes a themed Apple logo that hints at what to expect. This time, the company’s event website has an animated Apple logo that morphs into the Finder icon, all but confirming some new Macs are in the cards. Meanwhile, “scary fast” seems to hint at the possibility Apple will announce brand-new M3 processors, which could debut in some updated Macs — including a...

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Japan’s automakers are keeping sports cars alive in the EV era

Image: Getty

In auto enthusiast circles, there have been two widely shared sentiments in recent years: auto shows are dying off, and the onset of electrification will bring about the death of sports cars and driving fun.

While the latter statement is heavily debatable, the former isn’t. Even before the covid-19 pandemic, fewer and fewer automakers were investing in auto shows, with many pulling out entirely, leaving once-packed convention centers in the US and Europe feeling barren and boring. Instead of fighting with competitors for media coverage and show floor space, most car companies now host their own dedicated reveal events, and we can’t really blame them.

In Japan this week, though, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was still 2005. What used...

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Cruise halts robotaxi services nationwide in bid to ‘earn public trust’

Only supervised operations will go ahead while Cruise halts it’s autonomous robotaxi services across the US. | Image: Cruise

Cruise, the autonomous vehicle operator backed by General Motors, says it decided to “proactively pause” its fleet of driverless cars across the United States. The operations halt comes just two days after Californian regulators suspended Cruise’s robotaxi permit in the state, claiming that its vehicles “are not safe for public operation.”

Earlier this month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that it was investigating Cruise after receiving reports of pedestrian injuries involving the company’s driverless vehicles. One notable incident that occurred on October 2nd in San Francisco resulted in a woman becoming pinned under a Cruise robotaxi after being struck by another driver and thrown into the path of the...

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Windows 11 now lets you write anywhere you can type

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is starting to roll out new changes to Windows Ink that let you write anywhere you can type in Windows 11. After months of previewing the changes, the handwriting-to-text conversion now works inside search boxes and other elements of Windows 11 where you’d normally type your input.

Microsoft has started rolling out the KB5031455 non-security update as a preview to Windows 11 users yesterday. You simply have to head to Windows Update and toggle the “Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available” setting to get this update before it’s available fully in the coming weeks.

The Windows Ink update also includes gestures for edit fields

If you have a Surface device with a stylus or any other Windows tablet that supports Windows...

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Samsung shows off Zoom Anyplace camera likely coming to Galaxy S24 Ultra

Samsung has released a demonstration of its ISOCELL Zoom Anyplace tech which uses the company’s high resolution 200-megapixel sensors to pull off some nifty tricks with video zoom. The feature can “simultaneously capture the full field of view and zoomed-in areas on video” and automatically track and film a moving subject within the frame. Samsung first teased Zoom Anyplace at a press conference earlier this month.

Although the company doesn’t say exactly which devices will get the new Zoom Anyplace feature, all signs point to the company’s next-generation Galaxy S24 Ultra flagship which is likely to be announced early next year.

4K at a 4x zoom

For starters, the S24 Ultra is rumored to be equipped with the requisite 200-megapixel...

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Your Asus ROG Ally could be transparent with Jsaux’s RGB backplate

Jsaux’s transparent RGB backplate for the ROG Ally. | Image: Jsaux

The latest entry in the renewed transparent gadget craze: your Asus ROG Ally handheld gaming PC. Today, lauded Steam Deck accessory maker Jsaux is taking the wraps off a $40 frosted RGB rear shell for the Asus handheld that lets you see some of its delightful innards.

It might give you a perfect look through the back, now that I see how much of that frosting blocks the red circuit boards. It probably won’t enhance your cooling like the company’s Steam Deck backplate, but that frosted surface should bathe nicely in RGB light, not to mention the five light-catching stickers you can place inside.

Image: Jsaux

That pixel alien is a sticker — not a tiny screen.

In addition to the RGB backplate, Jsaux is launching a...

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Elon Musk gives X employees one year to replace your bank

Illustration: The Verge

Elon Musk wants X to be the center of your financial world, handling anything in your life that deals with money. He expects those features to launch by the end of 2024, he told X employees during an all hands call on Thursday, saying that people will be surprised with “just how powerful it is.”

“When I say payments, I actually mean someone’s entire financial life,” Musk said, according to audio of the meeting obtained by The Verge. “If it involves money. It’ll be on our platform. Money or securities or whatever. So, it’s not just like send $20 to my friend. I’m talking about, like, you won’t need a bank account.”

X CEO Linda Yaccarino said the company sees this becoming a “full opportunity” in 2024. “It would blow my mind if we don’t...

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Sam Bankman-Fried is going to talk himself right into jail

All I am going to say is that the Fifth Amendment exists for a reason. | Photo illustration by Cath Virgina / The Verge | Photo by Bloomberg, Getty Images

Somehow, the least suspicious parts of his defense are the 288 auto-deleting Signal conversations.

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Infiniti’s sleek Vision Qe concept is a reminder of the EVs it hasn’t launched

Don’t expect Infiniti to make an EV like this any time soon. | Image: Infiniti

Infiniti is looking to launch its first electric vehicle ever: a super sporty fastback sedan based on a newly revealed concept it calls the Vision Qe. The luxury brand of Nissan debuted the new concept at Japan's Mobility Show 2023 this week and promised a production version will follow, well, someday.

Over the years, Infiniti has promised to launch a new EV several times but has not yet released anything. In 2012, parent company Nissan even had a plan to transform its pioneering Leaf platform into a luxury version with a less bulbous look for Infiniti, but it never appeared.

Infiniti built a couple more prototypes and concepts afterward and said in 2019 that it'd make a real EV out of another concept called the QX Inspiration.

None of...

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Ford hits the brakes on $12 billion in EV spending because EVs are too expensive

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

Ford is postponing $12 billion in EV factory building, including a planned battery factory in Kentucky. The reasons given were an unwillingness by customers to pay extra for its electric vehicles. You see, they’re too expensive, and now Ford’s massive transformation into an EV company is now going to take a lot longer than before.

Ford’s EV business continues to lose money, around $1.3 billion this past quarter in adjusted earnings. So far this year, Ford has lost $3.1 billion on its EV spending and has said it’s going to lose a total of $4 billion for the year.

The Kentucky plant, a “mega campus” that builds lithium ion batteries for electric cars, would be put on hold

The Kentucky plant, a “mega campus” that builds lithium ion...

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Here is Intel’s new Bong-filled hip-hop hold music

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

I know, I know, my headline is a lot — but it’s true!

Intel, the chipmaker, has turned its iconic five-note Intel Bong sound mark into a piece of music that now greets investors, analysts, and journalists who tune in to the company’s earnings calls. It’s got a drum kit, record scratch, and everything:

“Wait, is that Intel?” asked my wife the moment the conference call hold music began playing over my speakers. Mission accomplished, I presume! Also... it’s kind of catchy?

Intel corp comms director William Moss confirms this is the first time the company’s used the tune.

In case you’re more interested in Intel’s future than its muzak, its Q3 2023 earnings call suggested it’s doing well! While sales aren’t exactly growing and the PC...

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The Xiaomi 14 and 14 Pro are the first to house Qualcomm’s brand-new chipset

Xiaomi’s 14 phones run a new Android skin called HyperOS designed to run across different kinds of devices. | Image: Xiaomi

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is just a couple of days of old, and per usual, Xiaomi has already announced new flagship phones that put it to use. The Xiaomi 14 and 14 Pro will be exclusive to China before a likely global (minus the US) launch, but for now, the AI-heavy feature set and a new Android skin called HyperOS give us a pretty good idea of what’s to come in 2024.

The Xiaomi 14 comes with a 6.3-inch screen, and the 14 Pro offers a 6.7-inch screen. They each claim a peak brightness of 3,000 nits, and they’re both LTPO displays with 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rates. The 14 comes with a flat display and narrow bezels measuring 1.61mm on three sides — there’s an itty-bitty chin with a 1.71mm bezel along the bottom.

The 14 Pro’s...

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Xbox is making it easier to play keyboard-focused games on a controller

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

Xbox’s latest update adds a way to map controller buttons to keyboard keys. If you have the Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 and the Xbox Adaptive Controller, you can now assign specific keyboard keys to buttons on your controller. This should make it easier to play games that have limited controller support or just have a lot of different controls.

Microsoft first released this feature to Xbox Insiders in August, and now it’s rolling out to the Xbox Accessories app on both PC and console this week. With this feature, you can now map any button on your controller, such as your left bumper, to the keyboard key of your choice.

Image: Xbox

While you can also map as many modifier keys, like Ctrl, Shift, Alt, and...

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How to find the best deals during Black Friday and Cyber Monday

With the right price tracker, you’ll know exactly when the latest flip phones from Samsung and Motorola go on sale. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Even though Amazon just recently wrapped its fall Prime Day event, Black Friday and Cyber Monday remain the biggest shopping days of the year. Thankfully, like in previous years, we’ll be working to highlight the best prices on tablets, phones, TVs, gaming gear, and other tech throughout the deals-packed week, whether you plan to shop in person or online.

You can always count on us to publish the best deals that you need to know about; however, if you want to be among the first people to discover price drops on the products you’re interested in, you’ll want to get set up with a price-tracking tool. We’ve included a few of our favorite examples below, pointing out how each can help you track deals in slightly different ways, each with...

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Shazam can tell you what concerts to go to now

Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge

Apple has rolled out a new “Concerts” section in the iOS version of the Shazam app. This new feature in Shazam version 17.0 recommends concerts under filters labeled “For You” and “Popular.” Users can narrow down the list by location and save concerts they’re interested in.

This new section also includes information about the venue and a link to purchase tickets for each concert. Tapping on a specific concert gives you the option to save it in the Shazam app and even add it as an event to your calendar. Under that, the app offers up music from the band or musician playing the show. You can either play the music inside Shazam or pop over to listen on Apple Music or Spotify, depending on which service you’ve connected to Shazam.

...

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Apple’s iOS 17.2 beta includes the new Journal app

Image: The Verge

Apple has released the developer beta of iOS 17.2, and it includes the Journal app, a digital daily diary for users to log their activities.

The Journal app was first announced at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, and the company frames it as a way for users to self-reflect and practice gratitude.

A feature of the Journal app that’s raised questions is how it uses machine learning to prompt user entries, using data like photos, workouts, location data, and more — perhaps good for people who need a little bit of inspiration. But as my colleague Victoria Song wrote at the time, not all our memories are happy, and it’s not hard to see how an AI-powered prompt machine could go awry.

9to5Mac has more details about features...

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OpenAI forms new team to assess ‘catastrophic risks’ of AI

Illustration: The Verge

OpenAI is forming a new team to mitigate the “catastrophic risks” associated with AI. In an update on Thursday, OpenAI says the preparedness team will “track, evaluate, forecast, and protect” against potentially major issues caused by AI, including nuclear threats.

The team will also work to mitigate “chemical, biological, and radiological threats,” as well as “autonomous replication,” or the act of an AI replicating itself. Some other risks that the preparedness team will address include AI’s ability to trick humans, as well as cybersecurity threats.

“We believe that frontier AI models, which will exceed the capabilities currently present in the most advanced existing models, have the potential to benefit all of humanity,” OpenAI...

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Forbes now has its own AI search engine

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Forbes launched a beta version of a generative AI search platform built with Google Cloud to provide personalized searches for readers.

The platform is called Adelaide — named after the wife of Forbes’ founder, B.C. Forbes. Readers can ask specific questions or input general topic areas and get recommended articles about their query, along with a summarized answer to whatever they asked... as long as it’s within Forbes’ coverage scope. Adelaide trained on Forbes stories but only covered the past 12 months of its news and list coverage.

Vadim Supitskiy, chief digital and information officer at Forbes, said the publication wanted to increase engagement with both search and its stories.

“Engagement with search has been pretty standard...

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The best deals on MacBooks right now

The M2 generation of MacBook Air now comes in two sizes, and both are discounted. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple sells MacBooks equipped with its own M-series chips in a wide range of sizes and price points. The offerings start with the 13-inch MacBook Air from 2020 at $999 and go all the way up to last year’s 16-inch MacBook Pro at $2,499 (and more Macs are expected to be announced at its upcoming “Scary Fast” evening product event on October 30th). But finding a deal on a current Mac with an M1 or M2 chip — or a higher-end Pro or Max version — is usually not too difficult.

At this point, we don’t recommend buying any older Intel-based Macs. They’re just completely outclassed by all the newer models unless you have some super-niche Windows Boot Camp needs.

Alternatively, purchasing refurbished is another way to save money on an Apple...

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iFixit now sells Microsoft Surface parts for repair

Image: iFixit

iFixit has started selling genuine replacement parts for Microsoft Surface devices. The company now offers SSDs, batteries, screens, kickstands, and a whole bunch of other parts for 15 Surface products.

Some of the devices on that list include the Surface Pro 9, Surface Laptop 5, Surface Go 4, Surface Studio 2 Plus, and others. You can check out the entire list of supported products and parts in this post on Microsoft’s website. In addition to supplying replacement parts, iFixit also offers disassembly videos and guides for each product, as well as toolkits that include things like an opening tool, tweezers, drivers, and more.

Screenshot by Emma Roth / The Verge

Here are some of the parts available for the...

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Threads is adding polls and GIFs

Illustration: The Verge

Meta is going to let you make polls and insert GIFs right from the Threads post composer, the company announced on Thursday. The features are now rolling out, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated by posting one.

Zuckerberg also made a post with a poll (which shows up in the Threads mobile apps but not on the web so far). It has three options (you can include up to four) and a timer that counts down how long users have to vote in the poll in real time, which is a nice touch. To be able to see the results of the poll, you’ll have to vote in it. If you do vote, Threads will send you a notification when the poll concludes.

To more easily share GIFs, you’ll be able to select a new GIF icon to search for GIFs from Giphy. The picker will show...

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