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Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em. | Photo Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Michael M. Santiago, Bloomberg, Klmax, Whyframestudio, Yevgen Romanenko, Pixhook, Peter Dazeley, Jimkruger, Getty Images
Mistakes aren’t illegal, but fraud is — and Bankman-Fried’s lawyers never made his defense land.
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Scarlett Johansson is taking legal action against an AI app developer for using her name and likeness in an online ad, according to a report from Variety. The ad was for an AI image editor, called Lisa AI: 90s Yearbook & Avatar, and featured an AI-generated version of Johansson’s voice.
As reported by Variety, the 22-second ad showed Johansson behind the scenes while filming Black Widow, where she actually says “What’s up guys? It’s Scarlett and I want you to come with me.” But then, the ad transitions away from Johansson, while an AI-generated voice meant to sound like the actress states: “It’s not limited to avatars only. You can also create images with texts and even your AI videos. I think you shouldn’t miss it.”
At the very bottom...
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Disney is buying up Comcast’s stake in Hulu. The entertainment giant announced Wednesday that it “expects it will pay” $8.61 billion to acquire Comcast’s 33 percent stake, giving Disney full ownership of Hulu.
But Disney might end up paying more than that. Both Disney and Comcast agreed to an appraisal process that will evaluate Hulu’s equity fair value as of September 30th. If Comcast’s stake is determined “to be greater than the guaranteed floor value,” Disney will have to pay Comcast the difference.
Disney says the timing of the appraisal process is “uncertain,” but it expects it to be completed sometime next year. This all stems from the deal Disney made with Comcast to buy its one-third stake in Hulu in 2019. The deal was initially...
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Image: Bethesda Softworks
Bethesda is almost ready to officially add Nvidia’s graphics upscaling technology to Starfield, but it will look for help from the PC gaming community first with an opt-in beta test available via Steam.
The company says the game’s next update will support DLSS with frame generation (which would mean DLSS 3, if not 3.5) as well as display and HDR controls for supported systems.
The RPG’s lack of support for DLSS was an issue before it even launched, with “exclusive PC partner” AMD forced to come out and insist that Bethesda would have its full support if the developers wanted to add support for the Nvidia technology. Once the game was available, modders quickly added unofficial support for the tech, showing how it could improve...
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Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge
Apple no longer offers its $4.99 per month Apple Music Voice Plan, as reported by MacMagazine.
The Voice Plan, introduced in 2021, let you access the Apple Music library via Siri across your devices. But as of Wednesday, it’s no longer listed among the Apple Music plans that you can subscribe to on Apple’s website — the grid on the site currently includes the Student, Individual, and Family plans — so it appears to be discontinued. (The Voice Plan was listed on the website as of Tuesday, according to an archived version of the page on the Wayback Machine.)
Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
With the removal of the Voice Plan, Apple’s most affordable Apple Music offering is the $5.99 per month Student tier — which,...
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For all of the changes Spotify has gone through over the past year, there is still more to come. Those three-year podcast deals the company struck are coming up for renewal, and what Spotify decides to do with them could have reverberations across the industry. The Joe Rogan Experience — the first, the biggest, and the most consequential — will expire in 2024. Today, after speaking with podcasters, producers, analysts, agents, and executives (mostly on background, though a few brave souls went on the record), I take a look at how the Spotify / Rogan relationship could play out.
Let me be clear: this is purely a thought exercise. I...
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The 2023 Subaru Solterra. | Image: Subaru
Subaru is hopping on the Tesla charging port bandwagon. The automaker has announced that it will adopt the North American Charging Standard (NACS) for “certain” electric vehicles starting in 2025.
Subaru says it will also supply NACS charging adapters to customers who own or lease an EV with the Combined Charging System (CCS) standard in 2025. The company has been relatively slow to adopt EVs. It currently only offers the Solterra, and even that’s only as part of its partnership with Toyota; everything else is gas-powered. Subaru plans to add to its EV lineup, though, and it has three vehicles in the works that it’s supposed to reveal by 2026.
The adoption of the NACS charging port has ramped up significantly after Tesla opened up the...
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Illustration by Aaron Fernandez for The Verge
Let’s face it — Black Friday is no longer reserved for the day following Thanksgiving. What was often considered the single busiest shopping day of the year has evolved into something more expansive post-pandemic, with numerous retailers kicking off their holiday promos as early as October.
Despite the recency of Amazon’s fall Prime Day event, Best Buy and Target have already started doling out the early Black Friday deals, slashing prices on noise-canceling headphones, OLED TVs, laptops, smart displays, and a host of other tech. We expect the savings to ramp up as we get closer to November 24th, too, especially as retailers begin instituting their respective price-matching policies and we enter the holiday return window.
Thankfully, we...
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Image: Microsoft
Microsoft’s 365 Copilot AI assistant is now available for certain enterprise customers. Microsoft is quietly launching its Microsoft 365 Copilot system for a $30-per-month premium per user, but enterprise customers will need to commit to at least 300 users and pick up the phone to Microsoft to get on the list to access this new AI-powered assistant that Microsoft promises will change the way Office documents are created and edited.
Businesses willing to pay the premium will be able to use Microsoft 365 Copilot to summarize documents, generate emails, create plans from notes, and even improve Excel analysis. More than 600 enterprise customers have been testing Microsoft 365 Copilot during a paid early access program in recent months.
M...
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Illustration by Aaron Fernandez for The Verge
It’s official: Halloween is over, and the 2023 holiday season has arrived. And if you want to get a head start on your holiday shopping, retailers like Target and Best Buy have already launched their early Black Friday promos, dropping prices on tablets, wireless earbuds, laptops, and even OLED TVs. What’s more, Amazon and other retailers are matching prices in some cases, letting you save no matter where you shop.
We may see better deals arrive as we get closer to November 24th, but what’s discounted so far is still worth a look. For example, Apple’s updated AirPods Pro with USB-C have already returned to the all-time low they first set during Amazon’s recent Prime Day event. A range of other gadgets and gizmos are also on sale, from...
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Image: Apple
Apple’s new entry-level Apple Pencil with a USB-C port for charging is now available to order, the company announced on Wednesday.
At $79, the new Apple Pencil is the company’s most affordable, and it comes with features like tilt sensitivity and the ability to attach magnetically to the side of an iPad. To charge the new Apple Pencil, you can slide the cap on the end to reveal the USB-C port.
However, the lower price means this third-generation Apple Pencil doesn’t have some nice features available on the company’s other Apple Pencils, such as pressure sensitivity (found on both the first- and second-generation models) or the ability to pair and charge wirelessly when magnetically attached to an iPad (which you can do with the...
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
If you’ve ever used an Xbox media app and wondered why it was a little slow, clunky, or didn’t have the latest features you find on the equivalent web-based version, then hopefully that will be a thing of the past soon.
Microsoft is finally allowing Xbox app developers to use the Chromium-powered version of Edge to improve their apps. Support for Microsoft Edge’s WebView2 on Xbox is now available, allowing Xbox media app developers to embed the latest web technologies inside Xbox apps and improve performance.
Developers have been previewing this support for months, and it has been a highly requested feature, according to Microsoft. Streaming app STARZ is one of the first to utilize WebView2, but we’re hoping to see others work this into...
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Apple’s been signaling for years that it wants to dive more deeply into healthcare. A lengthy new Bloomberg report details just how far the company wants to go, while also explaining why it just hasn’t gotten there yet.
Its biggest ambitions, says the article, have been slowed in part by concerns from leaders like Apple CEO Tim Cook and COO Jeff Williams. The executives reportedly worry that slip-ups in the high-stakes field of healthcare “could tarnish the perception of the company.”
Bloomberg’s write-up has lots of previously unknown tidbits about Apple’s health aims, sourced from anonymous employees. Here are the highlights:
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The new indoor / outdoor security camera from TP-Link’s Tapo packs a lot into a small package. | Image: TP-Link
Tapo, one of TP-Link’s two smart home brands, is continuing to expand its footprint in the home security camera space with the launch of the $39.99 Tapo C120. This pint-size smart home camera fits in the palm of your hand and can be used indoors or out, thanks to IP66 weatherproofing rating.
Small smart security cameras aren’t new — Wyze and Bink both have offerings of a similar size for under $100 — but TP-Link’s new camera crams a lot of features into a small package for under $40. A wired camera, it has 2K video, local storage with an onboard microSD card, free AI-powered person detection, and an easy-to-use magnetic mount.
Image: TP-Link
The Tapo C120 costs $39.99 and includes 2K video, local storage, and...
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Image: The Verge
Apple must face a UK class action lawsuit that accuses the company of knowingly using defective batteries in certain iPhone models, as reported earlier by Reuters. In a ruling on Wednesday, London’s Competition Appeal Tribunal denied Apple’s request to block the lawsuit.
Last year, Justin Gutmann filed a lawsuit against Apple that alleges the company installed batteries in the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, SE, 7, and 7 Plus that couldn’t keep up with the device’s processor or operating system. The suit accuses Apple of hiding this issue while also continuing to push automatic software updates including a power management tool that slowed down, or “throttled,” their processors.
Apple attempted to block the lawsuit in May, calling the...
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Product Studio, Google’s AI-powered image editing tool for merchants, is rolling out in the US starting today. | Illustration: The Verge
Google is introducing new Shopping features that allow merchants to quickly update product imagery using generative AI and make it easier to display important shop information to attract new customers.
Starting today, Google merchants in the US can label themselves with a new “small business” attribute that makes it easier for shoppers to identify mom-and-pop-style stores. Stores that carry this new attribute will be clearly labeled as a small business in Google Maps, and products sold by these merchants will feature a “small business” tag in Google Search.
Image: Google
This should make it a little easier to support small, local businesses over large corporations.
These updates only apply to US-based...
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Image: Microsoft
Microsoft is adding new gestures to the OneNote Windows app to improve the text and inking experience. If you have a device with a stylus, like Microsoft’s Surface tablets, you can now use more gestures to manipulate your digital handwriting. Microsoft has added the ability to strike-through text, delete it by scribbling over it, and even quickly insert a new paragraph.
All of these new gestures are starting to roll out in the main OneNote desktop app, which is part of Microsoft’s work to unify its OneNote and OneNote for Windows 10 apps in a single app with a variety of features for mouse and keyboard users, stylus, and touch.
Image: Microsoft
The improved gestures in OneNote.
If you were a fan of the...
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Cocoon. | Image: Annapurna Interactive
October was an absolutely stacked month for gaming. There’s Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and Alan Wake 2, just to name a few. But amid all that hype, it’s easy for smaller but equally phenomenal games to get lost in all that sauce. So we gathered up a collection of recent games you might have missed but should definitely check out.
The best mobile games are ones you can understand immediately, and that’s definitely true for Subpar Pool. It’s a clever mashup of pool and golf and, despite the self-deprecating name, it’s excellent. The game comes via Martin Jonasson, also known as grapefrukt, the designer behind titles like Holedown and Twofold....
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Not all Google searches make Google money. Google often says that it only shows ads on about 20 percent of queries, the ones it calls “commercial queries.” You can probably guess what qualifies. “US president in 1836” is not something you type when you’re about to buy something; neither is “facebook” because all you’re looking for is Facebook. But if you type in “best new car 2023” or “cheap flights to London” there are a lot of advertisers that would like to be the first thing you see, and there’s a lot of money for Google to be made in the process.
This week, during the US v. Google antitrust trial, we got a rare glimpse at a closely guarded secret: which search terms make the most money. The list is only for the week of September...
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Image: Sega
If the recent price hike hasn’t soured you on Apple’s subscription gaming service, there’s some good stuff coming to Apple Arcade in the coming weeks. The company announced eight titles that will be launching through the end of the year, kicking off this week with Knotwords, an excellent Wordle-meets-crossword game that launches on November 3rd.
That will be followed by the latest version of Football Manager (November 6th), the extremely satisfying gothic arcade game Downwell (November 17th), and yet another cooking / time management game with Delicious - Miracle of Life (November 24th).
December, meanwhile, includes some notable titles, all of which launch on December 5th. There’s the cozy life sim Dreamlight Valley from Disney, which...
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With macOS Sonoma, Apple’s Safari browser is catching up with Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and other competitors by introducing profiles: separate spaces that you can set up in the app to better organize your browsing.
Each profile has its own browsing history, cookies, website data, extensions, Tab Groups, bookmarks, and favorites. The idea is that you can have one profile for your job and another for personal use, for example, or different profiles for different projects you’re involved in at work.
In general, it means a cleaner and less cluttered browsing experience. Take bookmarks, for instance: you probably bookmark all kinds of sites for all kinds of reasons, and if you separate them out into profiles for business and leisure, they’ll...
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Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
Netflix will soon start cutting down on commercials if you’re on a binge-watching kick. Starting at the beginning of next year, the streamer will toss in an ad-free episode after you’ve watched three episodes in a row.
That could make it a little less tempting to switch off what you’re watching. Netflix has mentioned the importance of keeping subscribers glued to their seats before, with the company saying last year that it thinks its “bingeable release model helps drive substantial engagement.”
In addition to the binge-watching update, Netflix also reported that its ad-supported plan has attracted 15 million monthly active users in the year following its launch. That’s a sign that the ads tier is still growing, as Netflix reported 5...
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After four days in the tropics and lots of AI talk, I’m still unclear about the future.
I left Qualcomm’s annual tech summit in Maui lightly sunburnt, cautiously optimistic, and confused as hell.
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Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s last wave of DLC will be available for download on November 9th, Nintendo has announced. Like its five previous waves, the release will add eight additional tracks to the 2017 game and also include new playable characters Diddy Kong, Funky Kong, Pauline, and Peachette. The release concludes an ambitious program of extra content for the game that’s seen its total track list double from 48 to 96 tracks in total.
The eight tracks are split between two cups, the Acorn Cup and the Spiny Cup. These include Mario Kart Wii’s Rainbow Road and Daisy Circuit, DK Mountain from Double Dash, Rosalina’s Ice World from the 3DS, Bowser Castle 3 from the SNES, and Madrid Drive, Rome Avanti, and Piranha Plant Cove from Mario Kart Tour....
The VergeIt’s 2023. If Ultimate Ears is going to charge this much, there needs to be more to its speaker than just Bluetooth.
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As the public begins to believe Google isn’t as useful anymore, what happens to the cottage industry of search engine optimization experts who struck content oil and smeared it all over the web? Well, they find a new way to get rich and keep the party going.
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The Duracell M150. | Image: Duracell
I don’t think I’ve used one of Duracell’s famous coppertop batteries since I was a kid — but recently, I’ve had a compelling reason to try one again. The new Duracell M150, on sale today for $199, is one of the most packed portable battery banks I’ve ever seen.
The 1.8-pound, 3.1-inch-wide canister not only sports two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, a MagSafe-compatible wireless charging lid, and a built-in ring light but it’s also got its own charging dock so you can keep it plugged in on a desk or nightstand before taking it on the go.
With 100W of power from its main USB-C port and a 91Wh capacity, it’s both small enough to legally...
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Meta has yet to confirm the cause of the tracking issues, or provide a possible workaround. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
Meta is investigating reports of tracking issues blighting its Quest 3 VR headset following user complaints that controller tracking performance is “much worse than the Quest 2” in some games. Over on the Meta community forums, user NotDream flagged issues with tracking performance on the Quest 3 controllers while playing Gorilla Tag (a VR game that requires users to run, jump, and climb by moving their arms around) claiming that they “lose tracking during medium-fast to fast hand movement” such as throwing or catching a ball.
“This is a big issue for games/activities involving fast-paced hand movement as it’s not nearly as reliable as the Quest 2 controller tracking performance,” said NotDream.
Other forum members in the same thread...
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Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge
EV sales are skyrocketing, more than 100 models are on sale, and charging infrastructure is getting better. So why does everything seem so precarious all of a sudden?
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The Phantom V Fold, from Transsion brand Tecno. | Image: Tecno / Transsion
Transsion, a Chinese smartphone manufacturer whose brands include Tecno, Itel, and Infinix, has quietly grown to become the world’s fifth largest smartphone manufacturer, according to recent market reports from Canalys (via Android Central), IDC, and Omdia.
Despite being one of the few smartphone brands to grow in the third quarter of this year, many in Europe and North America won’t have heard of Transsion given its focus on markets in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and Oceania. Transsion has a particularly strong base in Africa, according to IDC, where it sells more phones than Samsung and Xiaomi. Although this suggests Transsion is focused on affordable smartphones, its Tecno brand recently released its first foldable...