The Looking Glass Go is a folding holographic display that fits in your pocket

We’ve been following Looking Glass for years — it’s one of the few startups dedicated to building 3D displays where digital objects appear to live inside or leap off the screen. In 2020, it introduced a cheaper 7.9-inch desktop model at $349, and today, it’s introducing its most affordable and portable screen yet: the $300 Looking Glass Go.

GIF: Looking Glass

The Looking Glass Go.

With a six-inch screen that the company claims is 10 times thinner than previous Looking Glass displays, it’s the first one small enough to fit in your pocket — though you’ll need to plug in USB-C power or an optional external USB-C battery dongle, as it doesn’t have a built-in battery of its own. It’s also the first with built-in...

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iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 will get Qi2 support with iOS 17.2

The iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 14 Pro. | Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple just pushed the release candidate of iOS 17.2, and the upcoming update brings support for the Qi2 wireless charging standard to iPhone 13- and iPhone 14-series smartphones, according to the patch notes. Apple says the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro already support Qi2, though there aren’t actually any Qi2 chargers to buy yet (which might change soon).

Qi2 adds a MagSafe-like ring of magnets to the Qi wireless charging standard and brings the charge rate up to 15W. For Android phones, that means faster, more convenient wireless charging and access to the huge ecosystem of magnetic wireless chargers that have sprung up to support MagSafe iPhones. For iPhones, it means MagSafe-speed charging without paying MagSafe prices. Right now, if you...

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Elon Musk’s xAI company is seeking up to $1 billion in investments

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

xAI — the AI company founded by Elon Musk — seeks to raise up to $1 billion in equity investments, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (as spotted by CoinDesk). The company has raised $134.7 million so far.

Founded in April, xAI is Musk’s attempt at jumping on the AI hype train. The company’s purpose is to “understand the true nature of the universe,” according to its website, something the launch of its Grok AI chatbot is apparently supposed to further.

Grok pulls real-time information from X (formerly Twitter) to power some of its responses, but it’s currently only available in early access to X’s Premium Plus subscribers. Despite the close ties between Grok and X, xAI is separate from X Corp., X’s parent...

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Bing tests AI Deep Search that turns your simple question into a detailed prompt

Illustration: The Verge

Microsoft is readying a new Bing feature that should take the hassle out of coming up with your own AI prompt. The GPT-4-powered capability, called Deep Search, takes your Bing query and expands on it, allowing the search engine to find answers about several topics related to your question on the web.

As an example, Microsoft shows how Bing turns a vague search for “how do points systems work in Japan” into a detailed prompt that asks Bing to:

Provide an explanation of how various loyalty card programs work in Japan, including the benefits, requirements, and limitations of each. Include examples of popular loyalty cards from different categories, such as convenience stores, supermarkets, and restaurants. Show a comparison of the...

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The Verge’s 2023 holiday gift guide for dads

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

We’ve pulled together a king’s ransom of fun and unique gift ideas for all the dads in your life so you can spoil them no matter your budget.

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PlayStation keeps reminding us why digital ownership sucks

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

In less than a week, Sony has given us two timely reminders of the tenuousness of digital “ownership” — and both reminders involve things on PlayStation.

Last week, Sony said that, because of content licensing “arrangements,” users wouldn’t be able to watch Discovery content they’ve purchased and that the content would be removed from their libraries as of December 31st, 2023. The resulting list of shows that will suddenly disappear because of corporate agreements is very long. Shows disappearing from streaming services is commonplace, but in this case, people are losing access to shows they bought to watch on demand whenever they wanted.

Then, on Monday, many users were unexpectedly banned from their PlayStation Network accounts,...

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A fortnight in Fortnite court

Photo illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Philip Pacheco, Bloomberg, Getty Images

20 things we learned from the Epic v. Google trial.

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Pixar’s Turning Red, Soul, and Luca are getting theatrical releases in 2024

Pixar

Earlier this year, Disney CEO Bob Iger expressed his displeasure with how the studio was ultimately monetizing its Disney Plus projects which, while popular, have not been attracting as many subscribers as investors would like. Since then, Disney’s taken steps like airing Ms. Marvel on ABC to make some new advertisement revenue from its streaming catalog, but its next move is probably going to have a much bigger impact, financially speaking.

Today, Disney and Pixar announced that Pete Docter’s Soul, Domee Shi’s Turning Red, and Enrico Casarosa’s Luca— all of which ended up premiering on Disney Plus due to the covid-19 pandemic — are all coming to theaters in 2024. Beginning January 12th, Soul will screen along with director Madeline...

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Toyota reveals two new EV concepts as it plods along on its path to electrification

Image: Toyota

Toyota, the world’s largest automaker and a laggard in vehicle electrification, announced two new EVs today that offer a glimpse of what the company’s future battery-powered lineup will look like when it actually gets around to building it.

Yep, that’s right: more concepts from the company that environmentalists accuse of stymying the transition to an all-electric future through its government lobbying.

The two concepts announced were the Urban SUV and Sport Crossover, which Toyota insists will be formally introduced as real cars within the next two years. The EVs are slated for Europe, though, with no word on whether they will eventually be made available in North America.

The compact Urban SUV is “a close-to-production...

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Microsoft to offer consumers paid Windows 10 security updates for the first time

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Microsoft will allow consumers to pay for Extended Security Updates (ESU) for Windows 10 when support ends for the operating system in 2025. The software giant usually only offers paid security updates for organizations that need to keep running older versions but now plans to offer them to individuals for the first time through an annual subscription service instead of extending the end of support date for Windows 10.

“While we strongly recommend moving to Windows 11, we understand there are circumstances that could prevent you from replacing Windows 10 devices before the end of support date. Therefore, Microsoft will offer Extended Security Updates,” explains Microsoft in a blog post. “The ESU program for Windows 10 will include...

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Audio has vanished from Instagram’s oldest videos

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Many of the earliest Instagram videos have lost their sound. More than a year of videos posted to the platform are now silent, displaying an error that says “video has no sound” when you try to play their audio. The issue appears to affect videos posted before late 2014.

It’s hard to pin down exactly what’s going on, but here’s what we’ve noticed: it seems that videos posted from June 2013, when Instagram first added video, to October 2014 are now missing their audio. The audio isn’t working regardless of platform, whether the clip is played on desktop, iOS, or Android. And because this seems to affect most — if not all — videos in that timeframe, this appears to be an issue on Instagram’s end rather than some sort of takedown issue...

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Motorola Razr 2023 review: not enough of a good thing

The Razr 2023 folds, and it costs well under $1,000 — neat! But its small screen is too limiting to make it worth your time.

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Discord rolls out mobile update in quest to become better messaging app

Image: Discord

Discord rolled out a long-awaited mobile redesign on Tuesday that is a noticeable departure from its desktop version, with the focus being on communicating and sharing with friends — including in group and individual direct messages. With the revamp, the Discord app will display navigation tabs as soon as you open the app, including a separate tab for servers, messages, and notifications and a “You” tab that lets users edit their profile and settings.

There’s also a new global DM search function that searches through all your messages, pins, attachments, and other files — in other words, you don’t have to open up a friend’s individual direct message to find the specific thing you were looking for. And that long-rumored dark mode for...

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Keychron’s latest keyboard comes with magnetic, analog Hall effect switches

Mechanical keyboard specialist Keychron has launched a Kickstarter for its first keyboard with Hall effect switches, the Keychron Q1 HE. A fully assembled model costs $214 if bought as part of the Kickstarter, and there’s also a bare-bones model available without switches or keycaps for $194.

Compared to traditional mechanical switches, Hall effect switches are notable for being analog and thus able to tell the difference between a slight and full press of each key. So with the Q1 HE, you can take advantage of this by customizing how far you want to press each key before it actuates, and there’s also a “rapid trigger” feature that’s able to register a keypress the second you re-press a key — rather than having to lift up past the reset...

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More layoffs at another Embracer Group studio

Image: New World Interactive

New World Interactive, developer of Day of Infamy and the Insurgency series, is the next studio affected by Embracer Group layoffs. Earlier today, there were unconfirmed rumors that Embracer Group had completely shuttered the studio, but in an email to The Verge, New World’s parent company, Saber Interactive, clarified the studio would remain active.

“There have been restructuring changes involving the New World Interactive subsidiary,” wrote Arman Teimouri, head of public affairs, in an email to The Verge. “Unfortunately, this reorganization has resulted in layoffs at the studio.” Saber did not share how many or what percentage of employees were let go.

The statement also said that the company was working to place affected employees...

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How to use an external storage device with your iPhone

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

While many of us rely on cloud storage these days for backing up photos, videos, and other files, every iPhone that can run iOS 17 also supports external storage devices: that’s every iPhone back to 2018, so it includes the iPhone XR, the iPhone XS, and the iPhone XS Max.

Maybe you would rather manage file backups manually than via iCloud. (It’s always worth remembering that cloud storage isn’t completely infallible.) Maybe you need to access photos taken with a DSLR on your iPhone. Or maybe someone has given you a drive with files that you’d like to move to your phone. There are a few reasons you’d want to save files via an external storage device, and it’s not difficult to do.

With the arrival of the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro...

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Philips Hue’s Festavia and Nanoleaf’s Essentials Matter smart string lights are up to 25 percent off

Philips Hue’s Festavia lights can add festive cheer during the holidays or really any time of the year. | Image: Phillips Hue

Whether you want to outshine your neighbors with the best light display or simply bring some holiday cheer into your home, Philips Hue’s Festavia string lights can help you do both. And right now, Amazon Prime members can buy the 65-foot string lights, which feature 250 color-changing LEDs, on sale for $186.99 ($33 off) when they clip the on-page coupon. The 130-foot string features double the number of smart LEDs and is also on sale when you buy it with the Hue Bridge directly from Philips Hue for $314.99 ($104.99 off) — a discount you’ll see at checkout after separately adding both to your cart. You can also buy it without the Hue Bridge from Amazon for $305.99 ($54 off) when you clip the on-page coupon.

With their gorgeous colors and...

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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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Calm’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Sleep Story’ will star Jimmy Stewart’s AI-generated voice

Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life. | Republic Pictures

It’s a Wonderful Life culminates the disembodied spirit of Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey realizing the value of his life after seeing how his friends and family would suffer if he wasn’t around. It’s a Wonderful Life’s celebration of the human spirit is a big part of why it’s become a holiday classic, but everything about sleep app Calm’s latest project inspired by It’s a Wonderful Life feels kind of antithetical to the movie’s story.

Through a Variety report, Calm today announced the launch of “It’s a Wonderful Sleep Story.” It’s “a heartwarming new holiday tale” based on director Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life and will star the AI-generated voice of Jimmy Stewart, who has been dead for 26 years. Stewart’s modern-day voice acting...

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Apple’s sci-fi epic Foundation is coming back for season 3

Image: Apple

The universe of Foundation is set to expand. Apple announced that the sci-fi streaming series, based on the classic stories by Isaac Asimov, will be coming back for a third season. There aren’t many details yet on what to expect — or when to expect it — but in a statement, showrunner David S. Goyer had this to say:

I’m thrilled Apple has given us the opportunity to continue chronicling Asimov’s pioneering galactic saga. This time, the stakes for Foundation and Empire are even higher as the Mule takes center stage, along with fan-favorites Bayta, Toran, Ebling, and Magnifico Giganticus.

Foundation first debuted in 2021 as perhaps the most ambitious series on Apple TV Plus; a lush, expansive epic with a cast including Lee Pace, Jared...

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Google Files is testing the ability to search inside photos and PDFs

Illustration: The Verge

Google’s Files app is testing a handy new upgrade that could make finding documents on your phone a lot easier. As first spotted by Android Police, the app’s listing on the Google Play Store says it’s testing a new Smart Search capability you can use to search for images and PDFs based on what’s in them.

With the Smart Search feature turned on, Google says you can search for the text and images inside PDFs. That means if you’re searching for a restaurant menu you know you’ve saved on your phone, you should be able to find it by typing in the restaurant’s name if it’s included in the document. Files is also testing the ability to search for photos based on the objects pictured within them as well as the locations where they were taken....

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Microsoft’s Copilot is getting OpenAI’s latest models and a new code interpreter

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is detailing a number of new features coming to its Copilot service soon, including OpenAI’s latest models. Copilot will get support for GPT-4 Turbo soon, alongside an updated DALL-E 3 model, a new code interpreter feature, and deep search functionality inside Bing.

Copilot will soon be able to respond using OpenAI’s latest GPT-4 Turbo model, which essentially means it will “see” more data thanks to a 128K context window. This larger context window will allow Copilot to better understand queries and offer better responses. “This model is currently being tested with select users and will be widely integrated into Copilot in the coming weeks,” explains Yusuf Medhi, EVP and consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft.

...

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IBM’s Jerry Chow on the future of quantum computing

Illustration by The Verge | Photo by IBM

What’s a qubit? Are quantum computers useful yet? And how wrong was Ant-Man, anyway?

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There’s a new iMessage for Android app — and it actually works

Screenshots of Beeper Mini’s contact list, chat interface, and reactions. | Image: Beeper

Earlier this year, a developer slid into Eric Migicovsky’s DMs with a spectacular claim: that he had reverse engineered Apple’s iMessage, allowing any device — Android, Windows, whatever — to send messages as a blue bubble. Migicovsky didn’t believe what he was reading.

“I said, ‘Bullshit, no one has done that. No one on earth has done that,’” said Migicovsky, CEO of the messaging startup Beeper. He’d tried to do it himself, and he’d messaged everyone he could find who’d ever gotten close. “No one had put all the pieces together.”

But now there was this developer in his DMs — a 16-year-old high school student, of all people — linking him to a prototype. And it worked.

That prototype became the basis for a new Android app, called Beeper...

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This new 2-in-1 charger is the MagSafe Duo replacement I didn’t know I wanted

The Butterfly has a pretty minimal footprint on a bedside table. | Image: Twelve South

Twelve South is making a new 2-in-1 wireless charger for Apple Watches and MagSafe iPhones, and it might just be one of the best designs I’ve seen in a magnetic charger.

The $129.95 Twelve South Butterfly consists of two aluminum-clad discs — one with a MagSafe charger, the other with an Apple Watch charger — tethered by a vegan leather strap. It uses magnets on all sides to allow the pucks to close up for travel or open back to back and form a kickstand or mini pedestal. If you stare at it long enough, you realize that it kind of looks like Apple’s discontinued MagSafe Duo charger if you cut away all the ugly floppy bits.

Image: Twelve South

The Butterfly’s Apple Watch charger can lay flat or stick up.

...

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Here’s what intentionally crashing a plane for YouTube clicks gets you

Yea, you don’t typically eject from a malfunctioning plane without at least trying to save it. | Image: TrevorJacob

A YouTuber pilot was sentenced to six months in federal prison by the Central District of California on Monday for intentionally crashing an airplane for online views. In May earlier this year, 30-year-old Trevor Daniel Jacob pleaded guilty to obstructing a federal investigation into the incident after submitting a false report regarding the location of the wreckage and claiming that engine failure had caused the crash.

According to the US attorney’s office, Jacob had planned to intentionally eject from his aircraft and film himself parachuting to the ground during a solo flight on November 24th, 2021, that was allegedly destined for Mammoth Lakes, California. Several video cameras were mounted to his plane before takeoff, which,...

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The battle to stop broadband discrimination has only just begun

Illustration by Sisi Kim for The Verge

The FCC’s new rules could be a step toward more equitable internet access — but will the agency stand up to telecoms?

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Uber launches ‘Store Pickup’ feature for those last-minute holiday shoppers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Uber launched a new “Store Pickup” feature for holiday procrastinators who may be in need of a little extra help with their gift distribution.

For a fee, customers can request an Uber courier pick up a purchased item from a store to be delivered to a recipient of their choosing. Customers must upload the item’s receipt in order to authorize the courier’s pickup.

The item has to be less than $200 and weigh less than 30 lbs

The item has to be less than $200 and weigh less than 30 lbs — so there are some limitations to what Uber will allow. Prohibited items are, well, prohibited. And customers can track the item live in the Uber app.

Store Pickup can be accessed through the Uber Connect feature in the app, which also offers same-day...

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Ford and Xcel Energy will build 30,000 EV charging ports for fleet businesses

Image: Ford

Ford may be dialing back some of its larger EV investments, but it’s still operating under the assumption that a lot of businesses will be interested in electrifying their fleets eventually. The company is partnering with Xcel Energy to install 30,000 EV charging ports for fleet customers by 2030, at little to no cost to the businesses to the businesses themselves.

The project will be run out of Ford Pro, which is the automaker’s commercial vehicle and software division. The first EV charger installations will begin in the first quarter of 2024 in two states, Wisconsin and Colorado, and later will grow to include more states, said Amanda Rome, executive vice president and chief customer officer at Xcel Energy.

“We need an all hands on...

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GM, EVgo, and Pilot are making progress on their big coast-to-coast EV charging network

EVgo

General Motors, along with its partners EVgo and Pilot Travel Centers, announced that the first new stations of its “coast-to-coast” EV charging network will open before the end of the year.

The companies announced the opening of 17 stations today. Before the end of the year, at least 25 stations will be open, with around 100 charging stalls in total. Some of the stalls will have DC fast-charging capacities of 350kW, which can deliver more than 200 miles of range in just 10 minutes.

That seems like a modest number of chargers, but keep in mind that GM, EVgo, and Pilot Flying J anticipate installing at least 2,000 charging stations over the next few years. The companies said they expect to install 200 more EV charging stations by the...

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