We only get one planet

Illustrations by Nico H. Brausch for The Verge

Sustainability is one of those words that has lost most of its meaning thanks to a steady drumbeat of corporate marketing and greenwashing. “Going green” often means buying some useless carbon credits or slapping a few choice buzzwords on a label. Rarely does it seem to hold any value anymore.

But as the planet careens toward a future made uncertain by climate change, true environmental stewardship requires we take a closer look at the meaning of sustainability — and how we can achieve better results in a world ruled by digital devices.

In this series, The Verge looks at how key aspects of our lives — from the devices we use, to the food we eat, to the cars we drive, to the houses we live in — are changing in ways previously thought...

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Remedy Entertainment’s newest game pivots away from free-to-play

Image: Remedy Entertainment

Remedy Entertainment, the studio behind that one game that’s having a moment right now, has announced that its upcoming game, codenamed Vanguard, is pivoting from a free-to-play model to a premium one.

Vanguard had been announced in December 2021 along with the news that Chinese publisher Tencent would be brought on to localize and distribute the game in China. It had originally been billed as “a free-to-play, co-operative PvE shooter that combines Remedy’s narrative expertise and action gameplay into an immersive multiplayer experience.”

However, this latest announcement said that such an idea wasn’t working out anymore. “Due to uncertainties in creating a successful game to the rapidly changing free-to-play market and associated risks,...

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The Garfield Movie’s new trailer will put you in a real Monday kind of mood

Columbia

Chris Pratt’s turn as Mario worked because Illumination and Nintendo took care to make sure The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s red-hatted plumber sounded distinct yet enough like Charles Martinet’s take on the character to pass the smell test. For fans of Jim Davis’ Garfield comics, there was hope that Columbia might take a similar approach with The Garfield Movie, its new animated feature from director Mark Dindal starring Pratt as the eponymous orange cat. But from the sounds of The Garfield Movie’s new trailer, Pratt might be playing the lasagna-obsessed cat very straight.

Along with detailing how he first met his human, The Garfield Movie will tell the story of how Garfield’s life is turned upside down when he learns that his father Vic...

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WhatsApp is adding a new way to voice chat with large groups

Voice chats don’t automatically ring everyone in a group. | Image: WhatsApp

WhatsApp is rolling out a new voice chat feature in the coming weeks that’s designed to be a less disruptive way to conduct voice calls in large groups. The feature was previously spotted releasing in beta, but WhatsApp has now made the news official.

Although it’s long been possible to voice call on WhatsApp with up to 32 participants, the new voice chat feature works a little differently. Group participants won’t be rung automatically when a voice chat starts; instead, they’ll receive a push notification, and there’ll be an in-chat bubble they can tap to join.

Once a voice chat is underway, call controls will be accessible from the top of a chat without obscuring a participant’s ability to send text messages at the same time. Like...

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Zelle banks have been paying back scam victims after government pressure

Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The banks that participate in the Zelle payments app owned by JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and others have relented in their refusal to pay back victims of imposter scams. Reuters reported today that the repayments started on June 30th and were a response to lawmaker pressure on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to compel lenders to reimburse victims.

Banks leaned on the fact that federal law only required them to pay back fraud victims if they didn’t authorize criminal transactions, leaving people who were tricked into approving payments in a lurch. Reuters wrote that the institutions were worried that if they started paying people back, it would only encourage more imposter fraud. But the Federal Trade Commission said...

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Nvidia is launching a new must-have AI chip — as customers still scramble for its last one

Nvidia’s HGX H200. | Image: Nvidia

Nvidia is introducing a new top-of-the-line chip for AI work, the HGX H200. The new GPU upgrades the wildly in demand H100 with 1.4x more memory bandwidth and 1.8x more memory capacity, improving its ability to handle intensive generative AI work.

The big question is whether companies will be able to get their hands on the new chips or whether they’ll be as supply constrained as the H100 — and Nvidia doesn’t quite have an answer for that. The first H200 chips will be released in the second quarter of 2024, and Nvidia says it’s working with “global system manufacturers and cloud service providers” to make them available.

The H200 appears to be substantially the same as the H100 outside of its memory. But the changes to its memory make for...

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The Verge’s favorite holiday gifts under $50

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

Gift-giving doesn’t have to eat up all of your time and money — and we’ve rounded up an assortment of inexpensive gifts to prove it.

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Sony’s Pulse Explore earbuds deliver immersive audio and one very useful trick

The first wireless earbuds from Sony’s PlayStation unit have unique planar magnetic drivers and an equally unique style.

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Keeping the classics alive: how archivists are preserving video game history

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

As large swaths of gaming history have become endangered, researchers and fans all over the world are fighting to turn back the clock.

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The fight to save old video games

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

When I ask Frank Cifaldi, the founder and director of the Video Game History Foundation, to explain the importance of preserving and maintaining old video games, he answers with a movie analogy. Imagine, he said, “if movies were only released on, like, VHS, ever. You want to watch Back to the Future? All right, you have to go on eBay, and you have to find an antique VHS copy that’s degraded a bit from use. You have to find a VCR that works, a TV that it plugs into — or the external scalers that make it look correct on your modern TV — and you might need a time-base corrector because the magnetic flux signal is out of sync.”

For too many games, this is the state of the industry. For the most part, decades’ worth of games now exist only...

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Sony’s PlayStation Portal gives a confusing first impression

The Portal boots up and prompts you to connect to your PlayStation 5. Beyond that, there’s not much going on.

Sony’s new PlayStation Portal that launches November 15th is a $199.99 device that does just one thing: it streams games via Wi-Fi off of your home PlayStation 5, requiring that you already own Sony’s pricey console.

It doesn’t do any kind of cloud streaming like Nvidia’s Geforce Now or Sony’s own PlayStation Plus Premium subscription, and it can’t run anything locally (not even YouTube or Netflix). The Portal is purpose-built to use a singular feature Sony first debuted with the PS3 and PSP back in 2006 that’s also widely available on other devices you may already own, making me wonder: why does this exist? After spending a couple of days with it, I’m still not sure.

The Portal hardware is essentially what you’d get after sticking an...

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The right-to-repair movement is just getting started

Illustration by Nico H. Brausch for The Verge

Apple stunned the world when it came out in support of California’s right-to-repair law. But software locks and other obstacles seem to signal that the fight is far from over.

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Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm on cleaning up ‘clean’ energy

Photo Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Dee Dwyer for The Verge

The US is the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas. Can Granholm chart a path to a more sustainable future?

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Google fights scammers using Bard hype to spread malware

Illustration: The Verge

Google is suing scammers who are trying to use the hype around generative AI to trick people into downloading malware, the company has announced. In a lawsuit filed today in California, the company says individuals believed to be based in Vietnam are setting up social media pages and running ads encouraging users to “download” its generative AI service Bard. The download actually delivers malware to the victims, which steals social media credentials for the scammers to use.

“Defendants are three individuals whose identities are unknown who claim to provide, among other things, “the latest version” of Google Bard for download,” the lawsuit reads. “Defendants are not affiliated with Google in any way, though they pretend to be. They have...

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An OLED iPad Pro is the upgrade I’ve been waiting for

Image: Dan Seifert / The Verge

Apple started using OLED screens in the iPhone X back in 2017, and before that, in the first Apple Watch. And the Touch Bar, of course (RIP). But it’s been slow to move away from LCD elsewhere, like its iMacs, MacBooks, standalone displays, and iPads. I want OLED on all those things, but if the iPad Pro gets it first, as rumor has it, then that’s fine by me.

There’s no product where the use of an LCD panel bothers me more than my 11-inch iPad Pro. It’s got a nice-looking screen so long as I’m looking directly at it. Go a little off-axis, though, and the screen gets way dimmer. That’s true of my laptop, too, but I’m always sitting directly in front of that screen, and almost always looking at a browser window with text in it.

Contrast...

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Threads users can keep their posts off Instagram and Facebook now

Illustration: The Verge

Many Threads users are now saying they have the ability to opt out of having their posts shown on Instagram and Facebook. To keep Threads posts from showing up Meta’s other platforms, tap the two lines in the top right of the Threads app > Privacy > Suggesting posts on other apps — two switches let users turn off suggestions on Instagram or Facebook. Meta tends to roll out Threads features slowly, so if you don’t see the new toggles yet, give it time.

Instagram and Facebook each got a “For you on Threads” carousel in the last few months. Responding to user grumpiness, Threads said in October it was “listening to feedback” shortly before testing the opt-out switch that’s rolling out now.

The feature was clearly intended to drive...

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The best apps and tools for managing your money online

Image: William Joel / The Verge

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 14, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, you’re my favorite, so happy you’re here, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been traveling a bunch, so I’ve watched Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and most of Rick and Morty. I’ve also been reading about life as an OnlyFans star and the insane growth of WhatsApp, doing some holiday meal planning in Mela, nodding vigorously at how bonkers tipping culture has become, and trying to make a dent in Barack Obama’s very good AI reading list.

I also have for you a rundown of the best tools for managing money, new gadgets...

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Hades is coming to Netflix

Image: Supergiant Games

Oh damn: Netflix is bringing Hades to its gaming service.

We’ve known Netflix is serious about its gaming library. Ever since it added the Oxenfree series and, arguably, going all the way back to Hextech Mayhem, Netflix has shown its gaming offerings weren’t going to be just silly, time-wasting waiting room games but solid mobile versions of indie games with name recognition, including the announcement of Braid earlier this week. Never has that idea been more expressed than in this latest announcement that Supergiant Games’ Hades will debut exclusively on mobile via Netflix.

Hades is an isometric dungeon crawler roguelike in which you play the seriously hot Zagreus, prince of Tartarus and son of Hades, as he tries to escape his dad’s...

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Netflix’s Terminator anime gets the briefest of teasers

Image: Netflix

It’s been a while since we learned that Netflix was teaming up with Production I.G for a Terminator anime, but today we finally have some more details on the show. The debut teaser for the anime was featured at Netflix’s Geeked Week event, and it shows, well, the title and not much else.

For the unaware, animation studio Production I.G has worked on some of the most iconic anime ever, from the original Ghost in the Shell film all the way up to recent releases like the Star Wars Visions anthology. For Terminator — which doesn’t have an official name yet, by the way, and is somehow the first animated take on the franchise — the eight-episode series will be directed by Masashi Kudo, best-known for working on the Bleach franchise, with...

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Netflix’s next Neil Gaiman adaptation is Dead Boy Detectives

Image: Netflix

Following last year’s The Sandman, Netflix is bringing even more beloved Neil Gaiman characters to the small screen. This time it’s Dead Boy Detectives — which was originally slated to stream on Max — based on a crime-solving duo who made their debut in a Sandman comic in the ’90s. The news was paired with the first trailer for the series, which shows off a pretty fun-looking supernatural whodunit.

For those unfamiliar, here’s the basic setup, courtesy of Netflix:

Do you have a pesky ghost haunting you? Has a demon stolen your core memories? You may want to ring the Dead Boy Detectives. Meet Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri), “the brains” and “the brawn” behind the Dead Boy Detectives agency. Teenagers born...

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The Screen Actors Guild’s strike-ending deal has entered its final step

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) reached a tentative deal with Hollywood studio executives, effectively ending the 118-day actors strike. Yesterday, SAG-AFTRA announced that its national board has approved the agreement, 86 percent to 14 percent, and recommended union members vote to ratify it.

The deal is still technically pending until union members’ vote is tallied on December 5th, though the guild says some of its features will go into effect during the ratification process, such as certain pay raises. SAG-AFTRA offered a summary of the deal in its announcement:

• Streaming revenue: Revenue from streaming shows was a huge part of the guild’s fight. The guild says it “achieved...

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Pushy checkout screens are helping ‘tipflation’

Panera’s tip prompts are slightly better because you can choose a dollar amount, and there’s a disclosure that your tip “may” be distributed to eligible employees. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

Tipping is an age-old American debate. How much do you pay and when? Is it a choice or an obligation? Generally, tech has at least made it easier over the years. Smartphones made it a breeze for friends to whip out a calculator to figure out tip and split the bill. And now, checkout screens everywhere, from in-person stores to delivery apps, have added buttons designed to make it easier for you to tip.

That’s convenient, until it’s not. According to a new Pew Research Center report, tipping culture in America has seen a shift in recent years. Seventy-two percent of Americans say tipping is expected in more places than five years ago. Not all of that is tech-related, but it’s hard to deny the role checkout screens have in tipflation. Even...

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Loki’s season 2 finale dug deep to find a meaning in all of Marvel’s madness

Marvel

Loki’s second season goes out with a big, existential bang that gives the god of mischief a glorious, but confusing new purpose at the center of Marvel’s multiverse.

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Apple’s midrange ‘Pro’ M3 chip isn’t looking like a huge upgrade

The M3 Pro is not as midrange as you’d expect. | Image: Apple

Apple’s new M3 Pro chip is looking like an odd duck in an otherwise solidly improved MacBook Pro laptop. For most people who need a computer with a bit of oomph over dreary office tasks and need multiple external monitors, the M3 Pro will serve their needs and have great battery to boot. But year-over-year computer upgraders who might already have a Mac with an M2 Pro chip or even an M1 Pro might not see many (if any) performance improvements unless they shell out more dough for an M3 Max.

When you put the 12-core M2 Pro and M3 Pro head-to-head, you’d expect the latter to perform much better. In reality, the M3 Pro isn’t running away from the older chips. That’s because of an interesting design choice: Apple gave it an equal split of six...

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Sony’s comfy LinkBuds S earbuds are at their lowest price for a limited time

The black version of the light and airy LinkBuds S can be had for just $108.80. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

You might think that two weeks before Black Friday is a bad time to get the best prices on tech, but with so many deals dropping early it doesn’t hurt to be shopping ahead of schedule. For example, the Sony LinkBuds S wireless earbuds have once again dropped down to their lowest prices. You can get Sony’s ultra-lightweight and comfy buds in black for just $108.80 ($90 off) at Newegg. Or, if you prefer brighter color options, Amazon, Target, and Sony also have them in white and blue for around $128 ($72 off).

The LinkBuds S are all about comfort, with each earbud weighing in at under five grams. These noise-canceling buds are great for wearing for long stretches, like a lengthy commute — especially since they can automatically switch...

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Of course Dbrand’s first novelty keycaps include a ‘fuck off’ key

Both keycaps are made of metal and are available in a choice of three colors. | Image: Dbrand

Love or hate its irreverent branding, you have to give props to Dbrand for its consistency. The company best known for its range of skins and cases for consumer tech gadgets is releasing its mechanical keyboard keycaps today, and they’re remarkably on-brand.

The Pyramid keycap is a pointy escape key that the company says stabs whoever presses it (“lawyers advised that we soften the tip a little bit, but rest assured you’re never more than one firm key press away from drawing blood”) and a replacement enter key called The Enter that simply reads “fuck off.”

Rather than full keycap sets that are designed to replace all the keys on a keyboard, these novelty keycaps are designed to just replace a couple of keys. The company says they’re...

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Apple reportedly cut a deal to get cleaner Amazon pages

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Apple struck a deal with Amazon to strip competitors’ ads off of pages for iPhones, iPads MacBooks, and its other products, according to a report from Insider. The agreement makes search results and product pages for Apple devices cleaner than those of competitors.

While Amazon still lists competing products on search result pages for Apple products, it limits the ads it sticks above, below, and between results. For example, when you search for an iPhone 15 on Amazon, you’ll only see an Apple product in a banner at the top of the page along with another ad banner at the very bottom. Meanwhile, searches for competing devices, like the Samsung Galaxy S23, surface ads for other products and services throughout the results page.

...

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Ad-free Instagram and Facebook is here — and it’s expensive

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Meta is starting to prompt users to sign up for the paid “No Ads” version of Facebook and Instagram that’s launching in Europe. It’s rolling out as Meta responds to new EU privacy regulations by positioning the use of its services with targeted ads as a choice by users. Of course, that choice is also the only alternative available to paying around $20 per month to disengage from ads on Facebook and Instagram.

The new prompt clarifies that people using both Facebook and Instagram will eventually need to pay an additional fee to cover both profiles. The pop-up appeared on one of our editor’s Instagram accounts (and Matt Navarra mentions people are seeing them on Facebook as well), so you can see what it looks like right here.

...

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New teaser for Netflix’s 3 Body Problem series will make you want to play the game

It remains to be seen just how much of the fascinating, winding complexity of Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem ends up making it into Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of the novel from co-creators Alexander Woo, D.B. Weiss, and David Benioff. But in a new clip from the show that’s just dropped as part of Netflix’s Geeked Week showcase, it looks like 3 Body Problem (that’s how Netflix is spelling it) is going to get one of its most important worldbuilding elements very right in a way that makes the story’s deeper mystery interesting to watch unfold.

While the new teaser clip debuted during Geeked Week doesn’t really broach the way 3 Body Problem’s story delves into China’s past and what becomes of humanity at one of the most pivotal...

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The first trailer of Netflix’s live action Yu Yu Hakusho is missing one crucial thing

Image: Netflix

Netflix dropped a bit of a “Smile Bomb” (if you know, you know) during Geeked Week 2023. Not only did it share the first trailer for the live-action adaptation of Yu Yu Hakusho but we also got a release date. And it’s soon.

If you’re an anime fan of a certain age, I’m guessing simply reading the words “Yu Yu Hakusho”conjures a very specific sound in your head.

And I bet it sounds like this.

Unfortunately, the teaser did not feature this iconic song, but there is still hope that a remix will make an appearance. And while the ticky-tacky wigs (straight from the Tyler Perry School of Cosmetology) and visual effects aren’t quite putting the spirit in my bomb, I fully stood up seeing the Toguro brothers.

Yu Yu Hakusho is one of those...

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