WhatsApp’s sticker AI is adding guns to prompts for Palestinian children

Illustration: The Verge

In Meta’s WhatsApp, users can generate stickers using AI prompts. The Guardian reported Friday that the AI model used to create those stickers sometimes generates images of children holding guns when prompted with “Palestine” and similar words. Meanwhile, according to the outlet, “Israel” prompts resulted in no such imagery.

A month ago, Meta’s AI sticker generator started rolling out with the tendency to create inappropriately violent or crass imagery, including, yes, child soldiers. According to the article, an unnamed source said some of the company’s workers had flagged and escalated the issue with prompts related to the war in Israel.

Meta spokesperson Kevin McAlister told The Verge via email that the company is addressing it,...

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ChatGPT subscribers may get a ‘GPT builder’ option soon

Illustration: The Verge

Just as OpenAI is preparing for its first-ever developer conference, a significant ChatGPT update has leaked. According to The Decoder, leaked screenshots and videos show a custom chatbot creator with many of the same features already available in ChatGPT using GPT-4, like web browsing and data analysis. OpenAI will apparently also have a new marketplace where users can share their chatbot or browse those made by others.

A user called Choi posted a summary of the rumored updates a few days ago. This morning, SEO tools developer Tibor Blaho shared a video of the UI for the feature in action, showing a GPT Builder option that lets users enter a prompt — an example reads “make a creative who helps generate visuals for new products.” — to...

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Fake news and ridiculing the dead — what’s wrong with Microsoft’s AI news

Image: The Verge

A new CNN report about the MSN AI model’s news aggregation kicks off with examples of questionable editorial calls, like highlighting a story claiming President Joe Biden dozed off during a moment of silence for Maui wildfire victims (he didn’t), or an obituary that inexplicably referred to an NBA player as “useless.” An editorial staff of humans probably would've spotted the problems. But Microsoft’s system, which continues to feel more like a social experiment than a helpful tool after ditching human efforts in favor of algorithms a few years ago, did not.

That these stories were picked by MSN’s AI is no better than a travel guide Microsoft said was created by its algorithm and reviewed by a human that suggested Ottawa tourists grab a...

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How Insomniac Games tried to make a Spider-Man suit for every kind of player

Miles Morales in the Across the Spider-Verse suit. | Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment

For the art team at Insomniac Games, there’s one job that everyone seems to want: working on Spidey’s suits. Since the first Spider-Man game on the PS4, modeling the in-game suits has been “a hotly contested assignment” among the studio’s character team, according to senior art director Jacinda Chew. Over the course of three games, including the recently launched Spider-Man 2, the team has managed to add a huge number of unlockable suits, covering everything from the Across the Spider-Verse animated film to the internet’s favorite bodega cat. “That’s the treat,” says Chew, “to be able to work on a suit.”

However, that wasn’t something that was obvious to her from the start. Chew says that it wasn’t until the first Spider-Man launched and...

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How AI brought the Beatles back together one more time

Illustration: William Joel / The Verge

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 13, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been watching Barbarian and No Hard Feelings, reading about the challenges of building “the next Twitter” and Marvel’s complicated future, using Pager to make sense of all my screenshots, and sending everyone this article about aphantasia to explain that no, I really don’t see pictures in my head, yes it’s wild, no I didn’t even realize other people could do that.

I also have for you a couple of nifty AI tools, a robot vacuum, a bunch of new stuff about the new Beatles song, a Simpsons GIF...

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Epic v. Google, explained

Photo illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge

Everything you need to know about the big app store trial kicking off November 6th.

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Discord file links will expire after a day to fight malware

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Anyone using Discord to host files will want to change that, as links to those files will begin to refresh every 24 hours by the end of this year. The company told Bleeping Computerthat doing so will help the company fight malware spreading on its platform since that gives it more ability to “restrict access to flagged content.”

According to the article, Discord says the change won’t affect anyone sharing content on the platform, as links within the client will be refreshed automatically. However, links shared outside of Discord won’t work a day after they’re regenerated. The company said that it will share more “in coming weeks” with developers, who “may see minimal impact.”

As Bleeping Computer notes, cybersecurity company Trellix...

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AI companies have all kinds of arguments against paying for copyrighted content

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The US Copyright Office is taking public comment on potential new rules around generative AI’s use of copyrighted materials, and the biggest AI companies in the world had plenty to say. We’ve collected the arguments from Meta, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, Hugging Face, StabilityAI, and Anthropic below, as well as a response from Apple that focused on copyrighting AI-written code.

There are some differences in their approaches, but the overall message for most is the same: They don’t think they should have to pay to train AI models on copyrighted work.

The Copyright Office opened the comment period on August 30th, with an October 18th due date for written comments regarding changes it was considering around the use of copyrighted data for...

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The copyright fight over Fortnite dance moves is back on

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

This week, a panel of US appeals court judges has renewed the legal battle over Fortnite dance moves by reversing the dismissal of a lawsuit filed last year by professional choreographer Kyle Hanagami against Epic Games. Billboardpointed out the opinion filed on November 1st (PDF), where US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Paez wrote that even if individual elements of a dance can’t be copyrighted, the arrangement can.

The lower court said choreographic works are made up of poses that aren’t protectable alone.

It found that the steps and poses of dance choreography used by characters in Fortnite were not “substantially similar, other than the four identical counts of poses” because they don’t “share any creative elements”...

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Sony’s noise-canceling XM5s are matching their lowest price to date

The WH-1000XM5s are still the best pair of headphones you can get, even if Sony’s naming convention is still terrible. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Peace and quiet can be hard to come by, whether you’re a parent, a frequent traveler, or someone who has been forced to listen to ongoing construction for what feels like an eternity — trust me, I would know. Thankfully, Sony’s WH-1000XM5s are currently on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target for as low as $328 ($73 off), matching their best price to date.

Sony’s flagship headphones have offered some of the best sound you can get in a pair of over-ears since the 1000X series arrived more than six years ago. The competition has become increasingly stiff in the time since — take the recently released Bose QuietComfort Ultra, as an example — but the latest iteration continues to offer best-in-class ANC and clear, natural-sounding audio....

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How to set up an Echo Show to show you the least amount of crap

Amazon’s Echo Show is a much better smart display without all the Amazon stuff. | The Verge

Amazon’s Echo Show smart displays are genuinely great devices. For between $90 and $250 (often much cheaper with Amazon’s perma-sales), you get a smart speaker with a touchscreen that can play music, show you photos, fire up a video call with friends and family, act as a security camera, double as a Bluetooth speaker, and control your smart locks, lights and security cameras.

However, there is a big caveat: Amazon’s hardware is heavily subsidized by its services, and when you buy an Echo Show, you are essentially bringing a little billboard for Amazon’s services into your home. If you use it as is out of the box, you’ll be bombarded with so much bloatware encouraging you to use Amazon’s services that you may well be tempted to unplug it...

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The Echo Show 8 is still the smart display to beat

Souped-up sound, widgets, and a Thread radio make for a good (but not showy) upgrade to Amazon’s best smart speaker with a screen.

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Sam Bankman-Fried’s shadow still looms over the crypto industry

Photo Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Bloomberg, Getty Images

Cryptocurrency advocates might believe that FTX’s collapse was an anomaly — but they could have trouble convincing the public of the same.

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Microsoft is now giving many Surface PCs at least six years of firmware updates

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Microsoft Surface PCs that have shipped on or after January 1st, 2021 will get at least six years of driver and firmware updates, according to a Microsoft support document reported on by Windows Central. Previously, Microsoft had only said it would support devices with at least four years of those updates from when they first came out, as you can see in an archived version of the document.

The change means that, as of right now, the Surface Pro 7 Plus, Surface Laptop 4, Surface Pro 8, Surface Laptop Studio, Surface Go 3, Surface Pro X Wi-Fi, Surface Laptop SE, Surface Laptop Go 2, Surface Laptop 5, Surface Pro 9, Surface Studio 2 Plus, Surface Go 4, Surface Laptop Go 3, and Surface Laptop Studio 2 will all get at least six years of...

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Microsoft employees will keep free access to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate after complaints

Image: Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Microsoft was planning to remove a free Xbox Game Pass Ultimate benefit for most of its 238,000 employees in January, but the company is now reversing that decision following employee complaints. The Verge reported yesterday that Microsoft employees had expressed objections about the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate benefit being removed in 2024, with Xbox chief Phil Spencer personally looking into the situation.

Spencer has now confirmed that the decision will be reversed and that Microsoft employees will keep the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate benefit. Here’s Spencer’s full message to Microsoft employees on the company’s internal Viva platform:

After looking into this more with the team, I just want to confirm that no change will be made to Game Pass...

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In a first, Marvel’s Echo is coming to both Disney Plus and Hulu at the same time

Image: Marvel Studios / Chuck Zlotnick

Alaqua Cox’s Maya Lopez immediately stood out when she appeared in Disney Plus’ Hawkeye back in 2021. Among a cast of charismatic goofballs and assassins with hearts of gold, Maya was a terrifyingly deadly foil, constantly reminding the audience and characters of the stakes. Disney was so enamored with Cox’s portrayal of the deaf Native American heroine, it greenlit a spinoff, and on Friday we got our first look at it. We also got the surprising announcement that the show, Echo, would be coming to Disney Plus and Hulu simultaneously.

This news comes just a few days after Disney committed to buying Comcast’s stake in Hulu and right as we all begin to wonder what that means for the future of the smaller streaming service. Hulu doesn’t have...

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Google scraps $15 billion deal with lead developer of Silicon Valley campus projects

A render of the proposed San Jose development. | Image: Google

Google has ended its agreement with Lendlease, the lead developer it had been working with on four major campus projects in Silicon Valley. In an announcement published earlier on Friday, Lendlease said both companies had agreed to end the deal after determining that “the existing agreements are no longer mutually beneficial given current market conditions.”

The deal covered Downtown West in San Jose, Moffett Park in Sunnyvale, and Middlefield Park and North Bayshore in Mountain View. The Wall Street Journal notes that developments could have totaled over 15 million square feet of “office, residential, retail and other space.”

“The existing agreements are no longer mutually beneficial given current market conditions”

Google and...

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Microsoft’s fullscreen Xbox pop-up ads don’t have to be annoying

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge

When I turned my Xbox on yesterday, I was greeted with a fullscreen pop-up ad for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III. I posted on X (Twitter) about it and thought nothing more of it because annoying as it was, this isn’t the first time Microsoft has used a fullscreen takeover to promote one of its new games — and Microsoft now owns Call of Duty.

But the internet wasn’t happy about this particular one. “Is this what we should expect now that Xbox owns Call of Duty?” asked VG247. “I do not want these massive, 90s-era Xbox Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III take-over pop-up ads to become the norm,” proclaimed Windows Central. On X, the feeling was similar: these ads are annoying.

But they didn’t have to be this way; they could actually be...

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BlizzCon 2023: all the latest news and trailers

Photo by Joe Scarnici / Getty Images

Stay up to date on the biggest announcements from the developer behind Overwatch, Diablo, and World of Warcraft.

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The Verge’s 2023 PC gift guide

Photo Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales and Cath Virginia / The Verge

The best tech gifts for those who spend way too much time sitting at a laptop or desktop PC — whether for work or leisure.

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This little tool can crash an iPhone running iOS 17

Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge

Security researchers have discovered that iPhones updated to iOS 17 are susceptible to a Bluetooth attack using a Flipper Zero device that can crash the phone. Ars Technica reports that security researcher Jeroen van der Ham fell victim to the exploit on a train journey last month, with his phone displaying multiple pop-up windows before rebooting.

Van der Ham discovered that the attacker, another passenger on the train, was using a Flipper Zero device with custom firmware to send a combination of Bluetooth low energy (BLE) alerts to nearby iPhone handsets running iOS 17.

The Flipper Zero is a very powerful device that we described as the Swiss Army knife of antennas last year. It’s a small orange and white plastic gadget with a 1.4-inch...

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Soon you’ll be able to safely microwave Cup Noodles (you weren’t doing that, right?)

Nissin’s microwavable Cup Noodles will hit shelves in 2024. | Image: Nissin Foods

Last week, Nissin announced that it was updating the design of its iconic Cup Noodles in early 2024. Instead of polystyrene, it’ll be made out of paper. Nissin also notes that thanks to the new packaging, its Cup Noodles will now be microwaveable. As in, you were never supposed to be microwaving Cup Noodles.

Cue chaos.

As it turns out, many people have not been reading labels when heating up Cup Noodles — a staple of college dorms, kitchen pantries, and many childhood memories. On social media, several people have been shocked to discover the original Cup Noodles were never meant for the microwave. Others are equally baffled that people have been microwaving Cup Noodles despite the the label clearly saying “Do not microwave.”

JUST...

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The new Echo Show 5 and Apple’s leather AirTag Loops are over half off

You can get a free smart bulb when you buy the third-gen Echo Show 5 at its all-time low price. | Image: Amazon

Believe it or not, Amazon’s Alexa is turning eight years old on November 6th, and to celebrate, Amazon is discounting a number of Alexa-enabled devices. There are a lot of good deals on everything from streaming sticks and soundbars to Fire tablets, though some of our favorite deals are available on smart displays and smart speakers.

Right now, for example, the company is throwing in Sengled’s 800-lumen color smart bulb for free when you buy thelatest Echo Show 5at its all-time low of $39.99 ($69.99 off). You can also buy the smart display by itself for $39.99 ($50 off) from Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. The 5.5-inch display is just as small as its predecessor, but this time, it arrives with a new speaker system that produces clearer...

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Fortnite’s new season is a trip through the game’s history

Image: Epic Games

The Fortnite island is changing once again — but this time, it’ll look very familiar to longtime fans. The game just launched its latest season, which has been dubbed “Fortnite OG.” According to developer Epic Games, the game will be regularly updated throughout the season, and “each major update will bring a different phase of battle royale’s past.”

To start, Fortnite OG will be focused on Chapter 1: Season 5. That means the return of Tilted Towers (which was infamously destroyed back in 2019), bringing back classic weapons like the assault rifle, pump shotgun, and hunting rifle and returning vehicles like the shopping cart and the all-terrain kart.

The rest of OG will dig into subsequent chapters. On November 9th, there will be a...

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Call of Duty can now take up over 200GB of space, but it’s complicated

You might need to make space on your hard drive or SSD for to keep all your Call of Duty titles installed. | Image: Activision

Ahead of the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III on November 10th, Activision has preemptively provided more details about the enormous file size of the game to explain why it’s “larger than last year.”

As reported by IGN, players with early access to the game’s single-player campaign found that the total file size for Call of Duty at installation — which also includes the Modern Warfare II campaign_, Warzone,_ and Call of Duty HQ — now comes in at 234.9GB on PlayStation 5. For PC gamers, the file size is a slightly more palatable 172GB with the Modern Warfare II campaign and Warzone installed.

According to Activision’s post on X (formerly Twitter), the huge file size is “due to the increased amount of content available Day 1,”...

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Dell put fast 120Hz panels in its latest UltraSharp monitors

Dell’s 27-inch UltraSharp U2724DE. | Image: Dell

Dell has announced four new UltraSharp monitors that have the potential to be good gaming displays in addition to playing to the brand’s traditional strength of offering color-accurate screens for work. The two 27 inchers have 1440p resolutions, while the other two 24-inch monitors are 1080p. All of them have IPS LCD displays with 120Hz refresh rates, double the 60Hz that Dell has typically offered with its UltraSharp models.

While 120Hz monitors have traditionally been of most interest to gamers, who arguably have the most to gain from a screen that updates twice as quickly as a standard model, Dell is pitching the faster refresh rates in these UltraSharp models as part of a suite of features to enhance visual comfort and reduce eye...

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Sam Bankman-Fried gambled on a trial and his parents lost

Over five weeks, the FTX founder’s parents watched from the galleys — deluded, humiliated, and finally defeated.

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FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is guilty of fraud and conspiracy

Photo illustration by Cath Virgina / The Verge

The trial could have huge implications for the crypto industry. Stay up to date as The Verge covers the trial from the Manhattan court.

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Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty of fraud

Photo Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge

Former cryptocurrency kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried has been found guilty of fraud. A New York jury delivered the verdict on November 2nd, concluding a trial that has seen Bankman-Fried defend himself against claims that he criminally mismanaged his crypto exchange FTX and trading firm Alameda Research.

After more than a month in trial, the jury took less than four hours to decide Bankman-Fried’s fate, declaring him guilty on all seven charges, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He will be sentenced by Judge Lewis Kaplan in a future hearing and faces decades in prison.

Bankman-Fried started FTX in 2019, and its valuation rose stratospherically during a post-pandemic crypto boom....

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Microsoft employees aren’t happy that they’re losing free Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft is removing the free Xbox Game Pass Ultimate benefit for most of its 238,000 employees and some aren’t happy about it. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the company started informing employees this week that in January 2024 the free Xbox Game Pass Ultimate benefit for permanent Microsoft employees will no longer be available.

I understand that Xbox employees will continue to keep the benefit, but the vast majority of Microsoft employees who aren’t part of Xbox / Microsoft Gaming will see the benefit disappear next year. Microsoft employees will be able to purchase a discounted 12-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Subscription at the company’s internal store.

Some Microsoft employees have taken to the...

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