AWS’ transcription platform is now powered by generative AI

Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

AWS added new languages to its Amazon Transcribe product, offering generative AI-based transcription for 100 languages and a slew of new AI capabilities for customers.

Announced during the AWS re: Invent event, Amazon Transcribe can now recognize more spoken languages and spin up a call transcription. AWS customers use Transcribe to add speech-to-text capabilities to their apps on the AWS Cloud.

The company said in a blog post that Transcribe trained on “millions of hours of unlabeled audio data from over 100 languages” and uses self-supervised algorithms to learn patterns of human speech in different languages and accents. AWS said it ensured that some languages were not over-represented in the training data to ensure that lesser-used...

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Tumblr sheds Post Plus subscriptions as the platform downsizes

Illustration: The Verge

Tumblr is doing away with Post Plus, the feature that lets creators charge users a subscription to access their content. Starting on December 1st, creators will no longer be able to enable Post Plus on their blogs.

The discontinuation of Post Plus comes just weeks after a leaked memo revealed the platform’s plans to downsize after struggling to meet usage and revenue targets. At the time, Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of Tumblr's parent company Automattic, said the company had plans to focus on the “core functionality” of Tumblr going forward.

It appears Post Plus, which launched in 2021, is the first feature on Automattic’s chopping block. In a post on Tumblr, the platform’s staff members say they “originally introduced Post+ to uplift and...

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Some Google Drive for Desktop users are missing months of files

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google says it’s investigating Google Drive users’ reports claiming that their personal files have unexpectedly vanished from the cloud service. The company acknowledged the issue today in a new Google community support thread and believes it involves a “limited subset” of Google Drive for desktop app users. Google notes it’s a sync issue for Google Drive desktop versions 84.0.0.0 through 84.0.4.0.

One of the users, who lost all of their Google Drive data going back to May, discovered the unwelcome surprise last week and took their grievances to Google’s community support site, as reported by The Register. Google’s support team, as the user explains, walked them through a data recovery process, including attempting to backup and restore...

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YouTube is getting into games, too

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube is branching out into games — at least for its paid subscribers. The platform is giving Premium users access to a set of online games that can be directly played on either the mobile app or desktop app. Known as “Playables,” the company first debuted the experimental feature to select users in September. As noted by Droid-Life, YouTube sent a notification last week to Premium subscribers informing them of Playables and allowing them to try it out. Those who opt in will be able to play a total of 37 mini-games that effectively live inside YouTube — there’s no need to download or install them.

The selection of games isn’t too challenging or “out there” — they include crowd-pleasers like Angry Birds Showdown, Brain Out, Daily...

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Sports Illustrated reportedly published articles from fake AI authors

Image: The Verge

Sports Illustrated published articles that were attributed to fake AI-generated authors, according to reporting by Futurism. The authors include “Drew Ortiz,” who’s “spent much of his life outdoors,” and “Sora Tanaka,” who is “a fitness guru, and loves to try different foods and drinks.”

Futurism found the associated author headshots for sale on an AI-generated image website, and someone involved in the creation of the content told the outlet that there are “a lot” of similar fake writers. Sports Illustrated hasn’t confirmed whether the content is AI-generated — but the writing is clunky and strange, like someone is mimicking what a product reviewer might write.

“Drew Ortiz” grew up in a farmhouse. His face is also for...

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Amazon’s $1.7 billion deal to buy iRobot is running into some objections

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

European Union regulators have sent a statement of objections to Amazon about the company’s proposed $1.7 billion acquisition of Roomba maker iRobot. In a press release, the European Commission says that it “has informed Amazon of its preliminary view that its proposed acquisition of iRobot may restrict competition in the market for robot vacuum cleaners.”

Amazon announced in August 2022 that it planned to acquire iRobot. The proposed acquisition has since come under regulatory scrutiny, with the European Commission revealing an investigation in July 2023. British regulators looked at the deal but cleared it in June. The Federal Trade Commission requested information about the deal from Amazon and iRobot in September 2022.

The European...

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After 151 years, Popular Science will no longer offer a magazine

A November 1920 issue of Popular Science. | Image: Popular Science via Wikimedia Commons

After 151 years, Popular Science will no longer be available to purchase as a magazine. In a statement to The Verge, Cathy Hebert, the communications director for PopSci owner Recurrent Ventures, says the outlet needs to “evolve” beyond its magazine product, which published its first all-digital issue in 2021.

PopSci, which covers a whole range of stories related to the fields of science, technology, and nature, published its first issue in 1872. Things have changed a lot over the years, with the magazine switching to a quarterly publication schedule in 2018 and doing away with the physical copies altogether after 2020.

In a post on LinkedIn, former PopSci editor Purbita Saha commented on the magazine’s discontinuation, stating she’s...

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Tesla sues Sweden’s postal agency as union fight escalates

Photo by JOHAN NILSSON/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images

Tesla sued Sweden’s postal agency after mail workers in the country refused to deliver license plates in solidarity with striking service autoworkers.

As CNBC reports, the company calls postal workers’ refusal to deliver license plates a “discriminatory attack” and says that the Swedish government has a “constitutional obligation” to get plates to vehicle owners.

About 130 workers at seven Tesla repair shops in Sweden have walked out in the past month as ordered by their labor union, IF Metall, the largest union for manufacturer workers in the country. Tesla has refused to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with the striking workers. Other unions have thrown in their support, including dock workers who won’t take Tesla vehicles...

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Bungie confirms Destiny 2’s The Final Shape expansion is delayed until June 2024

Image: Bungie

Bungie officially confirmed on Monday that Destiny 2: The Final Shape is delayed until June 4th, 2024. Reports of a delay to the expansion emerged last month after Bungie started making layoffs at the studio amid a drop in Destiny 2 players after the poorly received Lightfall release.

Bungie reportedly laid off around 8 percent of Bungie employees, affecting roles in community management, engineering, social media, QA, and more. Now, the Halo creator is taking its time to get things right with The Final Shape after negative reviews and player sentiment from the Lightfall expansion.

The Final Shape is an ambitious expansion that’s meant to conclude Destiny’s light and darkness saga. Bungie has shown very little about the expansion so...

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Digital car keys are here. Are we ready?

Image: BMW

First we had hand cranks. Then real keys, followed by key fobs. And now we have “digital keys,” which enables you to lock, unlock, and start your car from your phone.

Digital keys are still rare, only offered in a handful of models. Before digital key technology can reach ubiquity, there are still a lot of issues that need to be worked out. What kinds of technology should be used: Near-field communication (NFC)? Ultra wideband (UWB)? Bluetooth? How do we ensure it’s safe from hackers? And what happens when your phone runs out of batteries? (Spoiler: it will still work.)

Many automakers already offer digital keys, but it hasn’t always worked flawlessly. Tesla said it was only going to do digital keys for the Model 3, but later opted for...

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Amazon’s Smart Thermostat is on sale and comes with a free Echo Pop

This Amazon Smart Thermostat deal will also help your loved ones save money on their energy bills this season. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Do you know what’s even better than scoring a good deal on a cool holiday gift? Getting a second gift for free. Right now, you can buy an Amazon Smart Thermostat bundled with Amazon’s Echo Pop smart speaker from Amazon for $69.98 ($50 off). By itself, the Echo Pop costs $39.99 and the Amazon Smart Thermostat is $79.99, so you’re essentially getting a free Echo Pop you can gift to another person on your list — we won’t tell!

We featured both gadgets in our gift guides because they’re budget-friendly presents that’ll make your giftee’s life easier. Amazon’s Smart Thermostat makes it easy for your loved ones to keep warm during the winter, and even adapts to their habits and preferences. It can also help them save money on their energy...

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Mass layoffs reportedly hit Marvel Snap publisher Nuverse

ByteDance has not confirmed how many employees will be affected by the restructuring. | Photo by Roslan Rahman / AFP via Getty Images

TikTok parent company ByteDance is planning to wind down its Nuverse gaming brand and walk away from the mainstream video game industry, according to a new report by Reuters. Four unnamed sources told the publication on Monday that the decision will likely impact hundreds of employees, some of whom were only informed about the company’s restructuring efforts over the weekend.

“We regularly review our businesses and make adjustments to centre on long-term strategic growth areas. Following a recent review, we’ve made the difficult decision to restructure our gaming business,” a ByteDance spokesperson told Reuters. Nuverse, a subsidiary set up by ByteDance in 2019, was focused on standalone mobile and web games, including publishing the...

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This company just put the air in Apple’s MacBook Air

A pair of 15-inch M2 MacBook Air laptops at Frore Systems’ HQ in San Jose, California. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Two Fridays ago, I drove down to a squat single-story Silicon Valley office building to see a MacBook Air. There was no security guard, no need to badge in, not even a PR person in my demo room. That’s because I wasn’t visiting Apple headquarters for an unannounced laptop. Instead, I went to San Jose to see an existing MacBook — one surgically modified to prove how far an exotic cooling tech has come.

Frore Systems is a startup with $116 million in funding, and I’ve shown you its first product before: the AirJet Mini is a piezoelectric cooling chip that weighs just nine grams and is thinner than two US quarters stacked together. Each nominally consumes one watt and can remove 4.25 additional watts of heat. Here’s the question: what...

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The best Cyber Monday deals

Illustration by Aaron Fernandez for The Verge

The Monday after a long holiday weekend is no fun, unless you like to save money. If you missed out on all the great Black Friday deals, Cyber Monday offers one more chance to save some serious cash before the holidays.

You can still, for example, score significant discounts on a number of popular gifts, ranging from Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra Headphones and Amazon’s Echo Pop to the Sonos Roam and Kindle Paperwhite. There are also a number of deals on other kinds of gadgets, including phones, smartwatches, headphones, chargers, toys, and all sorts of accessories. And not all the deals are Black Friday leftovers, either; other gadgets are even cheaper now, like the second-gen Apple Pencil, Yeedi Vac 2 Pro, and Nanoleaf Shapes...

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New OnePlus 12 teaser reveals color options and a relocated alert slider

Image: OnePlus

OnePlus has unveiled official images of its upcoming OnePlus 12 flagship smartphone on Weibo ahead of its December 5th launch event in China, revealing the handset will be available in three colors: white, black, and green. The design of the device appears visually similar to its predecessor, the OnePlus 11, though the Alert Slider — a fan-favorite feature that allows users to easily switch between mute, vibrate, and ringer sound profiles — is now located on the left-hand side of the phone instead of the right.

According to OnePlus, the relocation was made to accommodate a new integrated antenna that’s designed to boost signal performance and reduce latency for game streaming. “Based on internal testing, it has been determined that the...

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The second-generation Apple Pencil has dropped to a new all-time low

The second-generation Apple Pencil is an excellent stylus compatible with the latest iPad Air, iPad Mini, and iPad Pro models. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Let’s face it: most early Cyber Monday deals tend to just be rebranded Black Friday deals, but every now and then the shopping event surprises us with a new one entirely. Today’s deal on the second-generation Apple Pencil is one of those deals. Right now, the second-gen Apple Pencil has dropped to a new all-time low of $79.99 ($49 off) at Amazon and at Walmart, though after you sign into your Walmart account.

If you own one of Apple’s latest iPad Pro, iPad Air, and iPad Mini models, this is an excellent stylus for drawing and taking notes. The pressure-sensitive Pencil recharges by magnetically attaching to the side of tablets, which is a convenient feature its predecessor lacked. It also supports tap gestures and the hover feature on M...

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Roomba’s newest robot vacuums are up to $400 off for Cyber Monday

iRobot’s flagship robot vacuum and mop the j9 Combo Plus is $400 off for Cyber Monday. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

With a new owner looming, iRobot is already getting into the Amazon discounting game by dropping the prices on its brand-new vacuums this Cyber Monday. On Friday, it started with its new budget and midrange lines, the Roomba Combo i5 Plus and Combo j5 Plus, and on Sunday, iRobot slashed $400 off its new top-of-the-line models, the j9 Plus and Combo j9 Plus.

Image: iRobot

The Roomba j9 Plus and mopping version the Combo j9 Plus are $400 off for Cyber Monday.

The Roomba j9 Plus is the company’s flagship robot vacuum and is on sale for $599,down from $899 at Amazon. It comes with a self-empty dock and all the smarts of the Roomba j7, including AI-powered obstacle avoidance to steer clear of household clutter...

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The Verge’s guide to Cyber Monday 2023

Illustration by Aaron Fernandez for The Verge

Let’s face it — Black Friday and Cyber Monday are no longer reserved for the weekend 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, Amazon, Walmart, and other retailers started doling out their Black Friday deals in mid-October, slashing prices on smart displays, noise-canceling headphones, robot vacuums, and a host of other tech ahead of the holiday. The savings continued to ramp up as we got closer to November 24th, and now that Cyber Monday is near, we’re seeing all-time lows on everything from AirPods...

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The best early Cyber Monday deals

Illustration by Aaron Fernandez for The Verge

Black Friday used to be one day! Feels like it started mid-November this time around, and here we are on Sunday. How is this day different from Cyber Monday? How will Monday be any different than Tuesday? It’s all a barely differentiated smear at this point. But the good news is that the deals are still here. They’ll be here tomorrow, too, but if your Sunday plans include scanning for deals, at least you’ll find plenty of them.

Most of the good deals we’ve seen on phones, smartwatches, headphones, and accessories are holding steady through the weekend — we’ve checked them all to be sure. This post is where we collect the highlight deals, but our Black Friday / Cyber Monday / Undifferentiated Commerce Smear coverage goes well beyond a...

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The best Black Friday deals you can still get

Illustration by Aaron Fernandez for The Verge

Black Friday 2023 has come and gone, and we’re cruising toward Cyber Monday — but that doesn’t mean all of yesterday’s deals are history. Quite the opposite. You can still take advantage of big savings at many retailers. Whether you’re shopping for a new smartphone, the latest noise-canceling headphones, or a stylish smartwatch, a ton of popular products are still heavily discounted.

Whether you’re checking off everyone on your list for the upcoming holidays or you’re just shopping for the best prices for yourself, we’re scouring all the quality deals Black Friday has to offer and logging them right here. But keep in mind that our Black Friday and upcoming Cyber Monday coverage goes well beyond a single post. You can find it all here,...

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The best Black Friday deals on headphones and earbuds

Both Google’s Pixel Buds Pro and Apple’s AirPods Pro are on sale this weekend. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

The hard-to-resist holiday sales have officially arrived, with many headphones and earbuds from the biggest tech brands discounted to their lowest prices ever for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And as you can see, a ton of deals are already available well ahead of both of those frenzied shopping days. If you’ve been holding off for the best possible savings on something from Apple, Sony, Samsung, Google, and other brands, you’re likely not going to do better than these Black Friday 2023 offers.

I’m not expecting any major new products from the biggest headphone makers anytime soon, so you don’t need to worry about buyer’s remorse should you decide to jump on any of the deals below. Heading into the colder months, it’s always worth...

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The best Black Friday deals on Amazon devices

Amazon’s got a ton of discounts on its own products. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

For what feels like the billionth time this year, Amazon is once again throwing a massive sale on an assortment of its own devices. This time, however, it’s in honor of Black Friday, which kicks off today.

Not that we’re complaining. A lot of the standout deals we last saw during Amazon’s recent Prime Day event are back, after all, giving you yet another opportunity to save on the new Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max, the Echo Pop, and the Kindle Scribe, among other tech. In some cases, Amazon is even offering steeper discounts than we saw in October, which is also the case at Best Buy, Target, and other retailers.

Here, we’ve rounded up the best Black Friday deals you can already get on Amazon devices. We’ll also continue to update this...

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Some of our favorite devices are on sale for Black Friday.

The Black Friday sales are underway! For more deals we recommend across all categories, be sure to check out the rest of the Black Friday deals worth buying here.

Every month or so, we like to ask our staff about their favorite stuff — whether it’s pet toys, travel aids, kitchen gadgets, or straightforward tech. And the results are usually very different, very interesting, and a lot of fun.

In celebration of the annual post-Thanksgiving sales, we looked through some of our recent “favorites” articles and found deals on a lot of the tech, kitchen tools, travel aids, and pet toys we like. So we thought we’d list a few in case you have read about them in the past and thought, well, that sort of sounds good, but it’s a bit pricey. (Or —...

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Some X ‘misinformation super-spreaders’ may be eligible for ads payouts

The Verge

Some blue check “Premium” subscribers on X, formerly Twitter, who are spreading misinformation may be eligible for X’s ads revenue sharing program. That’s the conclusion reached by NewsGuard, a for-profit misinformation watchdog organization, in its report that followed ads appearing on 30 posts from November 13th to the 22nd. The posts made conspiratorial claims about the Israel-Hamas war that reached a collective 92 million views.

Each of the 10 accounts NewsGuard referenced had over 100,000 followers — one of the metrics it uses to classify them as “misinformation super-spreader” posters.

NewsGuard’s VP of communications, Veena McCoole, told The Verge in an email that the 30 posts from the report “advanced some of the most egregious...

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A strange, short journey through Shein’s world

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The Shein pop-up store in New York this month resembled the e-commerce giant’s website, except picture-perfect. Neutral-toned clothing hung on neat racks, next to party dresses that cost less than the cocktail you might drink while wearing them. Bargain-priced wall art and other home decor created a fantasy of living somewhere chic and stylish, without spending thousands. Like the Shein haul videos that go viral online, the pop-up store sold not just physical items, but also a vision: shoppers could have everything they wanted, and Shein could deliver it for cheap.

Shein, a retail behemoth that has reportedly been eyeing a $90 billion valuation in a US IPO, has big plans beyond living on our phone screens — the company wants shoppers to...

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Best Black Friday robot vacuum deals

The Roborock Q5 Pro is great for pet hair and on sale for $319. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

The robots are coming ... for your floors. If all you want for Christmas are clean carpets, check out some of the bargains you can grab this Black Friday on the best robot vacuums and mops you can buy.

From simple suckers like the Roborock’s Q5 Pro that will best pet hair, to the all-singing, all-mopping DreameBot L20 Ultra, the prices are falling as hard as these robots can suck up dirt.

Here’s my pick of the best deals out there this holiday shopping week.

Best robot vacuum deals under $450

• Amazon is discounting iRobot’s new budget line, the i5 and j5, by up to 42 percent this week. I’ve not tested these new bots yet, but as an upgrade to my top budget pick, the Roomba i3 Evo (which is hard to find right now), adding mopping and a...

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Best Black Friday deals on smart home gear

The brand new Echo Show 8 (third-gen) smart display is $45 off this week. | Photo by Alex Cranz / The Verge

Black Friday is here, which means it's the best time of year to stock up on that smart home gear you’ve had your eye on. As usual, there are some deep discounts to be found on smart speakers and smart displays, as well as robot vacuums that you can control with a command to that smart speaker and video doorbells whose live feed you can see through one of those smart displays.

There are also some excellent bargains on smart door locks, smart lights, and smart plugs, including some of the first discounts we’re seeing on Matter-compatible devices. So read on for my pick of the bargains on the best smart home gear out there.

Best deals on smart speakers and smart displays

The brand new, very good Echo Show 8 (third-gen) smart display is...

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Best Black Friday 2023 phone deals

Good deals on shiny new devices. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

If you’ve been putting off a new phone purchase all year, then I have great news: your procrastination is about to pay off. Black Friday has officially arrived with some excellent deals in tow — think Pixels, iPhones, and Galaxy devices for hundreds of dollars below MSRP. And even if you picked up a new phone recently, it’s a great time to stock up on some new cases, chargers, and accessories. And when you’re done looking at phones, you can check out our entire Black Friday roundup.

The best deals on phone chargers, cases, and accessories

• Maybe you heard, but Apple’s new FineWoven case isn’t our favorite. Consider a Moment case instead for your new iPhone 15 — they’re $34.99 right now, which is $15 off the full MSRP.
• Another option:...

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The best Black Friday deals you can grab for less than $50

At this point, we’ve been highlighting Black Friday deals for what feels like the better part of a month. Now that the annual shopping holiday is officially here, however, we can tell you with the utmost certainty what the best deals are — including the budget-friendly tech you probably didn’t know you needed, much of which can be had for under $50.

We’ve sifted through the deluge of deals at Amazon, Best Buy, and other retailers to bring you an assortment of cheaper deals below, several of which can be had for as little as $10. And while you’ve likely heard of many of these items before — AirTags, anyone? — we’ve also made an effort to include lesser-known favorites of ours like Sharge’s adorable Retro 67 charger, Anker’s gym-friendly S...

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The best Black Friday 2023 tech deals you can get

Illustration by Aaron Fernandez for The Verge

Black Friday is here once again, even though the deluge of early deals has made it feel like the holiday shopping season is perpetually hitting its peak for all of November. Regardless, though, today is the day where you should be able to score the very best deals of the year on all things tech.

Whether you’re checking off everyone on your list for the upcoming holidays or you’re just shopping for the very best prices for yourself (we don’t judge), we’re scouring all the quality deals Black Friday has to offer and logging them right here. But keep in mind that our Black Friday and upcoming Cyber Monday coverage goes well beyond this one post. You can find it all right here, and you definitely don’t want to miss some of our...

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