Naughty Dog cancels its The Last of Us multiplayer game

Image: Sony

Naughty Dog announced Thursday that it’s canceled the multiplayer game it was building in The Last of Us universe.

The studio says it has been in pre-production on The Last of Us Online even while working on The Last of Us Part II. “We were enthusiastic about the direction in which we were headed,” according to a blog post about the news.

However, “to release and support The Last of Us Online we’d have to put all our studio resources behind supporting post launch content for years to come, severely impacting development on future single-player games,” Naughty Dog says. “So, we had two paths in front of us: become a solely live service games studio or continue to focus on single-player narrative games that have defined Naughty Dog’s...

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Mailchimp cancels podcast after refusing to work with union producers

The Verge

This is Hot Pod_,_ The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.

Mailchimp, one of the podcast industry’s best-known sponsors, recently reached out to Pineapple Street Studios about making a new show. Pineapple and Mailchimp first collaborated in 2019, producing narrative ads for Mailchimp and branded series. So given their longstanding relationship, Pineapple Street staff were shocked when management at their parent company, the radio giant Audacy, informed them at a meeting on October 3rd that the new Mailchimp contract required all work on the series to be performed by non-union workers.

Many of the producers who worked on Mailchimp projects in the past, or would take on a new branded series,...

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Grimes has a new line of AI plush toys, including one named Grok

Curio

The musician Grimes has developed an interactive AI plush toy for children which can converse with and “learn” the personalities of their owners. Grimes and toy company Curio created the line of toys in partnership with OpenAI, as first reported by The Washington Post. Grimes, who voices all three toys, is also an investor and advisor for the product.

The three plush figurines are named Gabbo, Grem, and Grok — not to be confused with the AI chatbot named Grok owned by Elon Musk, a former partner of Grimes. Curio told the Post that the AI plush toy Grok and chatbot Grok are unrelated. The toy Grok is a shortening of the word “Grocket,” which Grimes said she coined due to the fact that her children with Musk grew up in the vicinity of...

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The EU AI Act passed — now comes the waiting

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The European Union’s three branches provisionally agreed on its landmark AI regulation, paving the way for the economic bloc to prohibit certain uses of the technology and demand transparency from providers. But despite warnings from some world leaders, the changes it will require from AI companies remain unclear — and potentially far away.

First proposed in 2021, the AI Act still hasn’t been fully approved. Hotly debated last-minute compromises softened some of its strictest regulatory threats. And enforcement likely won’t start for years. “In the very short run, the compromise on the EU AI Act won’t have much direct effect on established AI designers based in the US, because, by its terms, it probably won’t take effect until 2025,”...

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Apple is making a Murderbot series starring Alexander Skarsgård

Alexander Skarsgard. | Photo by Marc Piasecki / WireImage

Another day, another sci-fi announcement from Apple TV Plus. The streamer is continuing to expand its presence in the genre with the news that it’s adapting The Murderbot Diaries novels from author Martha Wells.

There’s no word yet on when the show will premiere, but it’ll be a 10-episode-long series and feature Alexander Skarsgård as the lead. Chris and Paul Weitz will serve as showrunners, while David S. Goyer — who helms the Apple TV Plus adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation — will be one of the executive producers.

If you haven’t read the books — you can check out our review right here — Apple says the adaption is “about a self-hacking security android who is horrified by human emotion yet drawn to its vulnerable ‘clients.’” In...

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The Verge’s 2023 digital gift guide

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

We’ve assembled a collection of quick-hit gifts that can be issued within seconds, freeing you of shipping concerns and in-store shopping.

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Netflix’s Yu Yu Hakusho needed more time in the spirit world

Photo: Netflix

No thank you for waking me up.

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Google releases on-device diagnostics tool and repair manuals for Pixel phones

Image: Google

Google is releasing a tool to help users diagnose problems with their Pixel phones. Users can launch the app by entering #*#7287#*# on the dial pad, allowing them to check whether their phone is working correctly before or after a repair.

There are a bunch of diagnostic tools available within the app. While users can run a full diagnostic test to detect issues across the entire device, there are also options to run individual tests for physical defects and problems affecting the phone’s display, sensors, and connectivity. The new tool is available on all Pixel phones in English.

Image: Google

Aside from the diagnostics app, Google is introducing redesigned repair manuals the company says are “easier for technicians...

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Temu sues Shein, alleging ‘Mafia-style’ intimidation of manufacturers

Image: The Verge

Online shopping giant Temu is suing its competitor Shein, saying the fast fashion giant is using “Mafia-style” intimidation tactics on merchants.

In the suit filed on Wednesday, Temu says Shein has deployed increasingly aggressive strategies to “illegally interfere with Temu’s business,” including intimidating merchants who list their products on both platforms and issuing tens of thousands of illegitimate copyright takedowns.

Temu and Shein have previously sued each other

“Shein recently has gone so far as to falsely imprison merchants doing business with Temu, including detaining merchant representatives in Shein’s offices for many hours while Shein confiscates the merchants’ electronic devices, obtains access to proprietary Temu...

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Neko Atsume on Quest is cute, cuddly, and a great use of mixed reality

A screenshot of Neko Atsume Purrfect.

Sure, Meta’s Quest VR headsets have games like Beat Saber, a VR Assassin’s Creed game, and access to the entire Xbox Cloud Gaming library, but starting today, you can play Neko Atsume Purrfect Kitty Collector, a VR take on the classic cat-focused mobile game Neko Atsume.

The game is adorable. The cats have that same cartoony and slightly vacant look that makes them so endearing in the mobile game, and they get up to plenty of shenanigans. But because you’re playing in VR, you’ll also be able to do things like “pet” the cats and pick them up using your controllers.

I was given early access to the game ahead of today’s launch, and I’ve messed around with it for about 30 minutes. Like with the phone version of Neko Atsume, Purrfect is not a...

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Cruise lays off nearly a quarter of the company after GM slashes driverless spending

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Cruise, the self-driving unit of General Motors, will lay off nearly a quarter of its employees, or 900 workers, after the automaker said it was reining its spending on driverless operations.

The layoffs come two months after an incident in San Francisco in which a hit-and-run victim became pinned under a Cruise vehicle and then was dragged 20 feet to the side of the road. As a result, California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s permit to operate driverless cars in the state. The company has since grounded its entire fleet nationwide. (It had vehicles in Arizona, Texas, and Florida as well.)

In response, several top executives have left the company, including co-founder and CEO Kyle Vogt and chief product officer Dan...

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How to easily find the GTA trilogy (and other games) on Netflix

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. | Image: Rockstar Games

Netflix just released its biggest games yet. The Grand Theft Auto trilogy — which includes GTA III, Vice City, and San Andreas — is now available on both iOS and Android, and the games are all free to play if you’re already a Netflix subscriber. But while the streaming service has offered mobile games for a while now (and added some excellent titles to its library), actually finding games you want to play can be a bit fiddly. In the mobile Netflix app, every game is confined to a single row, which means lots of scrolling around icons that don’t seem to be in any particular order.

It’s definitely easy to miss things. So here’s a handy trick for finding all the games Netflix offers — and it works on both Google Play and the App Store.

It’s...

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Cable service cancellation fees might be on the way out

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Federal Communications Commission could soon stop cable companies from fining customers who cancel their subscriptions early. In a release on Wednesday, the FCC voted to move forward with a rule that eliminates “junk fees” from cable and satellite providers.

The rule, which FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel first proposed last month, tackles the fees cable and satellite providers sometimes charge when customers cancel their subscriptions before the end of a contract. In addition to doing away with early termination fees, the proposed rule would also require providers to give subscribers a prorated credit or rebate for the number of days left in their billing cycle upon cancellation. The proposed rule passed with a 3–2 vote.

“Consumers...

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Apple’s M2-powered MacBook Airs are up to $250 off

The 15-inch M2-powered MacBook Air delivers more screen real estate than its smaller counterpart, along with two more speakers. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The new M3-powered MacBook Pros are powerhouses: but if you just need a good all-around laptop for everyday computing needs, they might be overkill. It’s a better idea to save the money and opt for one of Apple’s entry-level models instead, especially as both are currently on sale. Right now, the 15-inch, M2-powered MacBook Air has returned to its best price of $1,049 ($250 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, while the 13-inch M2-equipped MacBook Air is $899 ($200 off) at Best Buy. Both are base models with 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM.

The 15-inch MacBook Air boasts a larger and sharper 15.3-inch screen as well as a far better speaker array than the smaller model. Otherwise, though, both laptops are similar, with the same fantastic battery life, a...

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YouTube will have fewer ad breaks on TV — but the ads are getting longer

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

The next time you sit down to watch YouTube on your TV, you might notice fewer ads breaking up the video you’re watching. That’s because YouTube is making ads on TVs appear less frequently, but in exchange, you’ll have to sit through longer commercials.

YouTube started testing longer but less frequent ad breaks in September, and now they’re launching across all TVs. The change means you’ll see an updated countdown timer in the bottom-right corner of your screen that will now show how long you have left until the entire ad break ends or when you can skip.

GIF: YouTube

YouTube previously displayed how many ads were included in the break in the top-left corner of your screen, along with a countdown timer for each...

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AT&T is Rivian’s latest EV customer following Amazon deal

A mockup of the upcoming Rivian electric van for AT&T. | Image: AT&T

Rivian finally has a second customer for its commercial electric vehicles. Today, AT&T announced it’s spinning up a pilot program to switch its commercial fleets to EVs, including Rivian’s commercial van and R1 platform trucks.

AT&T is Rivian’s first customer to purchase commercial EVs outside of the automaker’s long-exclusive deal with Amazon. In 2019, Amazon agreed to purchase 100,000 delivery vans from Rivian, but the retail giant reportedly only met bare minimum orders of 10,000 units per year, adding fuel for Rivian to try and end its exclusivity agreement.

AT&T’s first Rivian EVs are expected to join the fleet in early 2024. However, there are no details on how many vehicles are in the initial pilot or whether there are more orders...

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Intel’s Core Ultra CPUs are here — and they all come with silicon dedicated to AI

Image: Intel

Intel is taking the wraps off its next generation of CPUs. During its AI Everywhere event on Thursday, Intel revealed all the details on the Core Ultra — no longer Core “i” — mobile processors that will be part of its Meteor Lake lineup, promising better power efficiency and performance thanks to a new setup that splits tasks across different chiplets.

Intel says its Core Ultra 7 165H chip offers an 11 percent improvement in multi-threading performance when compared to competing laptop processors, like the AMD Ryzen 7 7840U, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3, and Apple’s in-house M3 chip. It also offers a 25 percent reduction in power consumption when compared to the previous Intel Core i7-1370P and has up to 79 percent lower power than...

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Elon Musk wants to open a university in Texas

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Image: Getty Images

Elon Musk is planning to open up a university in Austin, Texas, according to a report from Bloomberg. A tax filing for Musk’s charity, The Foundation, reveals that the billionaire wants to contribute $100 million to build STEM-focused primary and secondary schools before opening a university “dedicated to education at the highest levels.”

The Foundation filed the tax exemption application with the Internal Revenue Service in October 2022, and Bloomberg says it was approved in March of this year. As noted in the filing, the university will offer instruction by “experienced faculty” in subjects like math, science, engineering, and physics, in addition to “hands-on learning experience including simulations, case studies, fabrication/design...

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GM announces Cadillac Vistiq, a midsize electric SUV coming in 2025

Image: GM

Cadillac is releasing the name and a few images of its next electric vehicle, the midsize Vistiq SUV, which the automaker expects to slot in between the Lyriq and Escalade IQ in terms of size and price.

The three-row SUV is expected to hit dealerships sometime in 2025 as a model year 2026 vehicle. It will also join the entry-level Optiq in Cadillac’s growing lineup of zero-emission vehicles.

The three-row SUV is expected to hit dealerships sometime next year as a model year 2025 vehicle

“VISTIQ adds another compelling EV to the Cadillac lineup, reinforcing our commitment to an electric future,” said John Roth, vice president of Global Cadillac. “Our brand now has an EV entry in most luxury segments, offering customers a range of...

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Google will turn off third-party tracking for some Chrome users soon

Illustration: The Verge

Google is about to launch its grand plan to block third-party cookies in Chrome that many websites use to track your activity across the web for profit.

Starting on January 4th, Google will start testing its new Tracking Protection feature that will eventually restrict website access to third-party cookies by default. It will come to a very small subset of Chrome users at the start, specifically to one percent of users globally. Afterward, Google plans to phase out the use of third-party cookies for all users in the second half of 2024.

If you’re randomly selected to try Tracking Protection, Google will notify you when opening Chrome on desktop or Android. If there are issues detected by Chrome while you’re browsing, a prompt will appear...

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The latest Apple Watch integration makes custom workouts less of a headache

The new Training Peaks integration lets you directly import custom workouts from the Apple Watch. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

The holiday season is arguably not for training. The major races of the year are done! Yet Apple and TrainingPeaks are getting a head start on next year’s resolutions with a new integration that lets you directly import custom workouts to the watch.

If you’re unfamiliar with TrainingPeaks, it’s an app that helps endurance athletes find trainingplans for their next half marathon, triathlon — you name it. If you want, it also has a coaching service that matches you up with an accredited coach to customize your plan based on your individual schedules, performance, and needs. The idea is to take some of the guesswork out of what you should be doing to prepare for an event.

The integration itself is simple. It’s based on a new watchOS 10...

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Google’s Nest Renew joins Alphabet spinoff to form Renew Home

Google’s Nest Renew service for its thermostats will soon be under new management. | Image: Google

Google’s Nest Renew service is leaving Google and merging with the OhmConnect energy management platform to form a new company called Renew Home. Venture capitalist firm Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), which backs OhmConnect and is putting $100 million into the new company, announced the move, saying it will create “the country’s largest energy transition resource.”

“Renew Home ... will help accelerate the growth of the virtual power plant (VPP) industry,” SIP CEO Jonathan Winer

Nest Renew and OhmConnect both help smart home users leverage connected devices to take advantage of cheaper or cleaner power when it's available. Launched in 2021, Nest Renew is a service for Google Nest Thermostat users that lets them shift the energy...

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H&R Block launches AI tax filing assistant

Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Tax prep company H&R Block released a new conversational AI chatbot that answers taxpayer questions.

AI Tax Assist, accessed through paid versions of H&R Block’s DIY tax software, lets users ask questions on tax rules, possible exemptions, and other tax-related issues. It also points people to a human tax expert for more personalized advice, though the company said it is working on supporting AI-powered personalized advice as well.

In a demo, the company showed how users with complicated tax filing statuses — say a gig worker — can start their tax returns. They can then ask AI Tax Assist for information like, “What can I deduct as business expenses as an Uber driver?” The AI will provide a list of allowed deductions, and the user can...

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Threads launches for nearly half a billion more users in Europe

Image: The Verge

Meta’s Twitter competitor, Threads, is now available in the European Union, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced. “Today we’re opening Threads to more countries in Europe,” Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Threads. The launch follows the service’s debut in the US and over 100 other countries across the world, including the UK, in July 2023. But until now, Threads hasn’t been available to the 448 million people living in the EU, and the company has even blocked EU-based users from accessing the service via VPN.

To coincide with today’s launch, Meta is giving users in the region the ability to browse Threads without needing a profile. Actually posting or interacting with content will still require an Instagram account, however. The move was...

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Proton Mail finally gets a desktop app for encrypted email and calendar

Proton

Proton has released a desktop version of its Proton Mail app that will give users full access to both Proton Mail and Proton Calendar and (eventually) the ability to view your emails offline. The desktop app is available in beta is optimized for both Windows and macOS, and encrypts sent emails end-to-end just like with the browser version, according to the Swiss company, while offline access to emails will be available “soon.”

Technically, it’s been possible to access your Proton emails offline through a desktop email app, but you had to use the Proton Mail Bridge to configure your accounts to work with other IMAP / SMTP email clients like Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, and others. Proton’s desktop app, on the other hand, will let you...

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Opera’s gamer browser now has a ‘panic button’ for when you’re caught in the act

Image: Opera

Opera GX now includes a button you can hit when your embarrassing browsing session risks exposure to prying eyes. It’s designed to quickly mute playback from all tabs and switch to a new window of safe content during an, ahem, unexpected drop-in or when your boss catches you watching too much Twitch when you should be glued to Excel.

The new panic mode can be activated using the F12 button on a keyboard, so all you 60 percent keyboard lovers will need to bind the one function key nobody (apart from developers) uses right now. Opera lets you pick a website to designate as your safe tab, with pre-installed options for YouTube, Twitch, and Wikipedia. You can press F12 again once the coast is clear to bring back your tabs.

I...

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Beeper says some people aren’t getting iMessages again

Image: Beeper

Here we go again: Just two days after getting Beeper Mini working again after Apple’s block, Beeper says that it’s looking into reports that some users aren’t getting iMessages on Beeper Mini and Beeper Cloud.

The issues appear to have started as early as about 6PM ET; at that time, one Verge staffer reported that they were no longer receiving iMessages in Beeper Mini, and we’ve been keeping an eye on the situation ever since. Some users on Reddit have reported not getting iMessages, either. Uninstalling and reinstalling the app has apparently fixed things for some, however, and some are reporting that things are still working. Beeper’s status site isn’t reporting any issues.

We don’t know if this is just a blip or Apple putting the...

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The Tesla Cybertruck’s infamous wiper will reportedly cost $165 to replace

Parker Ortolani / The Verge

The Verge, your source for Tesla Cybertruck windshield wiper news, is unreasonably happy to potentially reveal: a Cybertruck windshield wiper replacement may cost as little as $165 for the entire arm and blade assembly, or $75 for just the wiper blade itself.

That’s the word from Tesla watcher Nic Cruz Patane, who, like all good windshield wiper enthusiasts, has seemingly been paging through the Tesla parts catalog for the Cybertruck but, unlike the rest of us,seemingly has access to prices for each part. We can see the same page, without prices, and it appears to be one single wiper blade after all.

Screenshot via Nic Cruz Patane (Twitter/X)

Twitter embeds weren’t working so I took a screenshot.

The...

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Twitch loosens its policy on sexual content

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Twitch is updating the way it responds to sexual content. As part of the change, the streaming platform will now allow some previously prohibited content — as long as it has a label to warn viewers.

Twitch has long struggled with moderating content containing sexual material and has faced backlash for its uneven handling in the past. While Twitch notably banned Indiefoxx over what the streamer claimed was a wardrobe malfunction, the company chose to warn — not ban — top streamer Pokimane for accidentally showing a Pornhub page. Twitch also recently banned a female creator who appeared to be streaming while topless.

The platform will now allow “deliberately highlighted breasts, buttocks or pelvic region” if the stream has a Content...

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Threads will let you push fact-checked posts further down your feed

Illustration: The Verge

Meta announced in a blog post update yesterday that it will apply an obscure Instagram setting to Threads that lets users control how much fact-checked content they see in their feed. Meta says its fact-checking is intended to address misinformation, so effectively, users will be able to decide how much they want to see controversial topics on the site.

The controls have three levels: “Don’t reduce,” “Reduce,” and “Reduce more.” While none of the choices can hide content entirely, they will affect the ranking of posts that are “found to contain false or partly false information, altered content, or missing context.”

To get to the setting from Threads, users will need to tap the two lines in the upper-right corner from the profile tab,...

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