The Verge
The Next World forum in Riyadh was hosted by the Saudi Esports Federation. | Photo by FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images
With avowed ‘massive gamer’ Mohammed bin Salman at the helm, the kingdom’s insatiable appetite and bottomless riches are already remaking the global video game industry.
The Verge
Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge
In a blog post published today, Meta says it’s expanding and updating its child safety features aimed at protecting kids — even as reports pile up about how its platforms recommend content sexualizing children.
Over the course of several months, The Wall Street Journal has detailed how Instagram and Facebook serve up inappropriate and sexual child-related content to users. In June, a report detailed how Instagram connects a network of accounts buying and selling child sexual abuse material (CSAM), guiding them to each other via its recommendations algorithm. A follow-up investigation published today shows how the problem extends to Facebook Groups, where there’s an ecosystem of pedophile accounts and groups, some with as many as 800,000...
The Verge
A new all-time low for Microsoft’s obelisk of a console. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
It’s the best time to buy an Xbox right now, as the Xbox Series X is now selling for just $349 with or without a free game. You can get Microsoft’s flagship console in a bundle with a digital copy of Diablo IV at Walmart (saving you $210). Or, if fantasy ARPGs really aren’t your thing, you can get the console only for the same price at either Amazon or Walmart (saving you $150 total).
Xbox may not have all the heavy-hitter console exclusives these days like Sony’s PlayStation and its cadre of AAA single-player experiences, but it’s a great 4K-capable gaming machine with handy features like Quick Resume to get you back into your game in a near instant. Plus, if you subscribe to Xbox Game Pass, there are all kinds of great and unique games...
The Verge
Now free users can transcribe up to two messages per week. | Image: Telegram
Telegram has introduced a bunch of new features to its Android and iOS messaging apps this week, including easier ways to find channels to join and giving non-paying Telegram users access to voice transcriptions. In its latest update released on Thursday, Telegram said it was opening up the voice-to-text transcription feature instead of keeping it locked behind a $4.99 subscription to Telegram Premium, allowing anyone to transcribe voice and video messages, or translate audio into another language.
There is one important caveat: only Premium Telegram subscribers have unlimited access to transcriptions — free users will be limited to converting just two messages per week. Still, that’s better than nothing, and could prove useful in rare...
The Verge
In iA Writer’s traditional minimalist interface, AI text shows up in grey, while your own words an in black. | Image: iA Writer
iA Writer 7, the latest version of the minimalist multi-platform writing software, has a new feature that’s designed to clearly mark text contributed by generative AI systems like ChatGPT. While your own words appear in black, you can choose for AI-generated text copied into your iA document to be greyed out. Then, as you tweak and edit the AI additions you can easily keep track of how much text is your original work and how much is artificially generated.
In its blog post about the feature, the company outlines its philosophy about using AI-generated text in writing. Rather than letting AI become a “ghostwriter” that “takes over” and makes you “lose your voice,” iA Writer’s feature is designed to encourage you to use AI “as a dialog...
The Verge
Image: Warner Bros.
Mad Max: Fury Road had a lot of fantastic things going for it, but few shined quite as brilliantly as Charlize Theron’s tough-as-nails take on Imperator Furiosa. The character was a testament to how many more fascinating stories George Miller could dream up for his beloved apocalyptic franchise. And while Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’s eponymous antihero might look a bit different in the Fury Road spin-off’s first trailer, it seems like the movie is going to over-deliver on everything Miller’s fans have been waiting for.
Set in a hellish future where traditional societies have collapsed, and precious natural resources like water are scare, Furiosa tells the story of how a much younger version of Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) is forced to fight...
The Verge
Image: Capcom
TheResident Evil 4 remake will soon get a change in perspective. On December 8th, the PS5 version of RE4 will get a free update adding VR mode to the game.
“Resident Evil 4 VR Mode supports the full main story campaign and delivers an added level of immersion to Leon S. Kennedy’s harrowing rescue mission,” read the press release. “The experience lets players see the terrifying world directly through Leon’s eyes and soak in his surroundings with the 4K HDR display of PlayStation VR2.”
If the prospect of gunning down zombies in VR feels a bit too challenging to you as it does to me, RE4VR will feature a shooting range game mode that lets you acclimate to the controls and test the kinds of weapons Leon will use. And if that still proves...
The Verge
COP28 logo on the opening day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on November 30, 2023. | Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Will there be a future for fossil fuels? How much money do the most polluting countries owe the rest of the world? That’s all on the table at the United Nations Climate Change Conference underway in Dubai.
The Verge
A newer showcase model of the Cybertruck in New York City. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The Cybertruck is here — for real this time — and for those who haven’t reserved one already, Tesla has a new ordering process. Today, you can preorder the visually perplexing, low-poly pickup truck on Tesla’s website with a refundable deposit of $250.
A small batch of early preorder holders took delivery of the first production Cybertruck models at an event in Texas. Since reservations went up on Tesla’s website in 2019, the automaker happily accepted $100 deposits to get in line to buy a non-configured Cybertruck model. During the last earnings call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed there were over 1 million preorders.
For a short while earlier this week, the price to hold a place in line for the Cybertruck went up to $250. Afterward,...
The Verge
Image: Tesla
Tesla announced a new “Powershare” vehicle-to-load charging capability, only available on the new Cybertruck.
The feature will allow Cybertruck owners to power their camping equipment, power tools, or even their entire home during a blackout, just by using their electric truck as a mobile generator. The truck also features a 240-volt outlet in the rear bed that can be used to charge other EVs. An image on Tesla’s website shows the Cybertruck charging a Model Y.
The Cybertruck can put out as much as 11.5kW, which is more than the Ford F-150 Lightning’s 9.6kW of onboard power or the GMC Sierra Denali EV’s 10.2kW.
Tesla has been talking about manufacturing vehicles with bidirectional charging capabilities...
The Verge
Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge
With stick drift plaguing so many controllers these days, it’s nice to see Sony making faulty thumbsticks a bit easier to repair on the PlayStation Portal. In a teardown video posted by iFixit, the team finds that only a little tinkering is required to access and remove the joysticks.
The iFixit team first removes the device’s plastic frame and pries off its backing. It then takes off the panel containing the Portal’s D-pad and button controls, allowing iFixit to disassemble the thumbsticks in about three steps using just a screwdriver. The only downside is that if you need to replace the Portal’s rumble packs, you’ll need to take out your soldering iron because they’re attached to the motherboard.
But still, that’s already more...
The Verge
Four years after its debut, the Tesla Cybertruck has finally reached its first batch of customers. The truck was delivered to about a dozen people during a lavish event at the company’s headquarters in Austin, Texas, at which Elon Musk predicted the truck would usher in a new, more exciting future.
The company also provided updated details about the pricing, range, and features for the truck, much of which has changed significantly from the originally announced numbers. The rear-wheel drive version of the electric truck will start at $60,990 — up from the original price of $39,900 in 2019 — and will get 250 miles of range on a full charge. That version won’t be available until 2025.
Coming sooner — 2024, Tesla’s order page states...
The Verge
Image: Larian Studios
Christmas miracles are rare, they are beautiful, and with Patch 5 of Baldur’s Gate 3 out now, they have come early. Patch 5 is a massive update that adds new difficulty modes, patches a notorious slowdown bug, lets you wear armor that gives the Wavemother’s Robe a run for its money, and gives the adventurers of Faerûn what they’ve been clamoring for: a big-ass party with all their friends.
I could jump right into the biggest changes coming with Patch 5, but with one specific quality-of-life update, the addition of new game modes or new epilogue scenes feels inconsequential in comparison.
“Patch 5 introduces a huge quality of life update in the form of improved inventory access,” read the community update for Baldur’s Gate 3. “Now while...
The Verge
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Gmail is experiencing some issues right now that might delay emails when you try to send them. Google first posted about the issues on its Workspace Status Dashboard at 12:31PM ET, and while the company is working to mitigate things, as of 2:13PM ET, Google doesn’t have an estimate for when the problems will be fixed.
The issues are affecting at least two of us here at The Verge. Test emails sent from our personal emails to our work accounts took a while to show up. Weirdly, emails from our work emails to our personal Gmails send just fine. 9to5Google reported the opposite, finding that personal emails worked as expected while Workspace account emails weren’t arriving as expected.
Downdetector shows that more than 700 people have...
The Verge
The Verge / Photo by Bloomberg, Getty Images
We’re covering the long-delayed delivery event live, where Tesla CEO Elon Musk is expected to reveal new details about the truck.
The Verge
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - NOVEMBER 30: COP28 President Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber during the opening day of the United Nations Climate Conference. | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Tens of thousands of negotiators, activists, and corporate execs have descended upon Dubai to wrangle over the future of fossil fuels. Namely, should they even have a future? Can governments broker a deal to phase out the oil, coal, and gas causing climate change? Countries have already suffered deep losses as a result of the fires, floods, and other disasters intensifying with climate change. They want the biggest, heaviest-polluting nations to do something about it. And they’ll be making their case at a conference presided over by an oil baron.
Those are some of the hot topics on the table at the United Nations climate conference that kicks off in Dubai on November 30th. It’s called COP28, because it’s the 28th annual “Conference of...
The Verge
Photo: David Pierce / The Verge
Valve’s Steam Link app, which lets you stream games from your Steam library to another device, is out now for the Meta Quest 2, 3, and Pro headsets, according to a news post from Valve. Having Steam Link available on Quest devices means that you can more easily play your VR games wirelessly, so it might finally be time to play Half-Life: Alyx on your Quest if you’ve been putting it off. (It’s possible to do that now, but it takes a little work.)
To stream your games to your headset from Steam Link, Valve says you’ll need “a router with a wired connection to your PC” and “a 5GHz WiFi network for your headset.” Steam and SteamVR will need to be installed and running on your PC (which needs to be a PC on Windows 10 or newer). The company...
The Verge
Godzilla Minus One. | Image: Toho
Right now, we are absolutely spoiled for choice when it comes to entertainment. TV shows, movies, and games all come out at such a fast and furious pace that it’s hard to keep up. Not all of them are worth your time, of course — which is where we come in.
Our team spends a lot of time immersed in the various realms of pop culture so that we can handpick our favorites for you. That could mean a hot new indie game you might’ve otherwise missed or the streaming series that will become your new obsession. Either way, if you’re finding it hard to sort through the flood, this is the place to find a curated selection of the best stuff.
And like last year, this page will be updated regularly throughout the year — so make sure to check back in...
The Verge
Image: Toho
Toho’s latest Godzilla film from writer / director Takashi Yamazaki takes the kaiju king back to its roots to tell a sobering story about reckoning with the present.
The Verge
A handful of playful new RCS messaging features are debuting in open beta today. | Image: Google
November has been a big month for RCS — the mobile messaging protocol championed by Google — and now, the company is capping it off with the announcement of a milestone and some festive new features. First, the number: according to Google, over 1 billion monthly active users are using RCS in Google Messages. That’s huge considering support was scarce just a handful of years ago, though not entirely surprising since it’s been the default messaging service on Android phones for a few years now.
As for the new messaging features, a couple of them might sound familiar to iOS users. There’s a new feature that ties into your Google account to create a Contact Poster-like profile with your name and photo. Google is adding something called...
The Verge
Spotify Wrapped 2023 summaries | Image: Spotify
You were listening, and they were watching. Now Spotify and other apps are repackaging that data to show which songs were the most popular ones in 2023.
The Verge
Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless 3 earbuds offer some of the best sound quality on the market. | Image: Sennheiser
Many of the best deals are gone now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are done and dusted, but if you look hard enough you’ll still find some gems. Right now, for example, the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 3are down to $119.99 ($160 off) in white at Woot, which is a new all-time low price. They’re also on sale in other shades directly from Sennheiser, albeit for $50 more.
Sennheiser’s wireless earbuds offer lush, detailed sound that bests almost all others on the market, which is why they’re among our favorites. They come with other useful features, like optional wing tips in various sizes for a more secure fit along with support for wireless charging. The earbuds also offer good noise cancellation, even if it doesn’t quite drown...
The Verge
The Boy and the Heron. | Image: GKIDS
Everything you need to know about Studio Ghibli’s latest feature.
The Verge
Illustration: The Verge
WhatsApp is introducing a new way to keep your locked chats away from prying eyes. Instead of having your locked chats folder visible with all your other conversations, you can now hide the chats behind a secret code of your choosing.
As shown in the below example provided by Meta, you can use letters, numbers, special characters, and even emoji in your secret code. All you have to do is type that password into the WhatsApp search bar to find your locked chats. This should hopefully keep people from knowing you have a locked chat folder in the first place in case they sneak a peek at your phone.
Image: WhatsApp
WhatsApp also notes you can choose to have your locked chats appear in your chat list instead at any time. T...
The Verge
Photo by James Bareham / The Verge
These days, we are all dealing with huge amounts of information, from meeting notes to social media, to photos and videos, to whatever else we’ve collected — and we are all trying to find some way to store it, organize it, and find it when we need it.
If you want to get really basic, you can use a spreadsheet or create a simple set of word-processing documents. Otherwise, you can try what is somewhat inaccurately described as a note-taking app. These apps, at their simplest, store your notes and other thoughts and, at their more complex, are capable of manipulating any and all content you want to drop into them.
One of the most well-known has been Evernote, which has gone through quite a few changes over the years, both financially and...
The Verge
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
TikTok on Thursday launched artist accounts. These accounts can be activated by any musician and come with tools to help artists reach new fans and increase engagement with existing ones.
One of the new features, the Music tab, curates catalogs for artists and automatically adds new music so fans can more easily discover their work. Meanwhile, features like “Behind the Song” offer fans a glimpse into the artist’s creative process, revealing what inspired the song and the story behind it.
The accounts also offer new ways for artists to call attention to their work. Musicians can now pin a preferred post to the top of the discovery page, while the new “Artist” tag lets users verify their status as musicians.
Another tag, “New Release,”...
The Verge
The Cybertruck prototype was first revealed onstage in 2019. | Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge
Tesla is about to deliver the first Cybertrucks to buyers at an event on Thursday, November 30th, starting around 3PM ET / 2PM CT / 12PM PT in Austin, Texas.
The electric pickup truck, with a jarringly polygonal design, was first revealed in November 2019 by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The Cybertruck’s unique design helped it make its mark, and many people immediately plunked down $100 to hold a place in line to get one. Even the botched “armor glass” demonstration, in which Tesla’s lead designer smashed the driver side window with a metal ball, did little to deter interest.
Little did the reservation holders know that key Cybertruck targets would keep shifting, well after Musk’s original delivery goal of late 2021. The Cybertruck is difficult...
The Verge
What, you think a controller is going to cost $200 and not have gamer lights? Don’t be foolish. | Image: Turtle Beach
Turtle Beach is throwing its hat in the premium controller ring with a new $200 gamepad for Xbox and PC called the Stealth Ultra Wireless Controller, launching on December 15th. But instead of simply adding some rear buttons and hair triggers — the hallmarks of most competitive-focused gamepads — it’s also packing drift-proof Hall effect sticks and a 1.5-inch screen capable of both fine-tuning settings and getting notifications from your phone.
In addition to being Turtle Beach’s first foray into the ultra-pricey gamepad world, competing with the likes of the Xbox Elite Series 2 and Scuf controllers, it’s also the company’s first fully wireless Xbox Series X / S controller (following a trend of Microsoft slowly opening up its wireless...
The Verge
Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge
OpenAI didn’t mean to kickstart a generational shift in the technology industry. But it did. Now all we have to decide is where to go from here.
The Verge
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
I could not grab the windshield wiper because it was roped off and I’m a coward.