The best deals on MacBooks right now

Apple’s pair of M2 MacBook Airs are some of our top choices among all laptops, and both are discounted. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple sells MacBooks equipped with its own M-series chips in a wide range of sizes and price points. The offerings start with the 13-inch MacBook Air from 2020 at $999 and go all the way up to the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro starting at $2,499. But finding a deal on a current Mac with an M1, M2, or even the new M3 chip — as well as the higher-end M3 Pro and M3 Max — is actually not that difficult.

While Macs may not experience perpetual discounts, it’s not uncommon to see various current models discounted by as much as $400. Alternatively, purchasing refurbished options directly from Apple is another way to save money without as much waiting for the changing winds of deals to blow your way. Apple’s refurbished store provides a...

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Humane’s AI Pin will start shipping in March

Image: Humane

Humane announced Friday that the AI Pin, its splashy AI-powered wearable, will start shipping in March 2024. People who placed priority orders will get their devices first, and Humane says it will ship orders based on the date of purchase, according to a post on X (formerly Twitter).

While Humane didn’t share a specific date for when orders would start shipping, the March timeframe is more specific than the early 2024 timeframe the company provided in November.

We are thrilled to announce that Ai Pin will start shipping in March 2024.

All of us here at Humane can’t wait for you to experience your Ai Pin, the world’s first wearable computer powered by Ai. We’re incredibly grateful for the enthusiasm and support, especially from our… p...

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Steam’s Winter Sale is taking up to 60 percent off some of our favorite games

Diablo IV, Diablo IV, Diablo IV. | Image: Blizzard Entertainment

If your holiday plans involve chillaxing and binging on a ton of video games, we have some great news for you. Now through January 4th at 1PM ET, thousands of great titles are on sale as part of Steam’s annual winter sale, including many of our favorites from the past year.

The ongoing promo offers a great chance to catch up on newer titles, including demon-slaying action RPG Diablo IV ($28 off), the terrific remake of Dead Space($36 off), and Mortal Kombat 1 ($35 off). Other titles that aren’t as discounted but still well worth a look include GOTY contender Baldur’s Gate 3 ($6 off), Cocoon ($5 off), and the delightfully charming deep sea exploration game, Dave the Diver($4 off).

There are plenty of older titles on sale, too, just in...

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Insomniac finally responds to hack that leaked ‘Wolverine’ game and more

Image: Insomniac Games

Insomniac Games has released a statement few days after a ransomware attack exposed millions of files including sensitive employee information, confidential business information, and assets for in-development games.

“We’re both saddened and angered about the recent criminal cyberattack on our studio and the emotional toll it’s taken on our team,” the statement posted on X read. “We have focused inwardly for several days to support each other.”

An update regarding Insomniac and Marvel's #WolverinePS5. pic.twitter.com/CMkCCoZwwj

— Insomniac Games (@insomniacgames) December 22, 2023

The hack was perpetrated by the Rhysida hacker group, who ransomed the data for $2 million in Bitcoin. When the ransom was not paid, hackers disseminated...

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Pornhub parent company fined $1.8 million over sex trafficking charge

Photo Illustration by Adrien Fillon/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, is facing a $1.8 million fine plus victim compensation after admitting it made money off of content showing victims of sex trafficking. The company was arraigned in a Brooklyn federal court on Thursday on a charge of “engaging in unlawful money transactions involving sex trafficking proceeds.”

Aylo, formerly known as MindGeek, will resolve the charge by entering a deferred prosecution agreement with the US government. Under the terms of the agreement, Aylo must pay $1.8 million to the US government and compensate victims who appeared on its porn sites. It will also have an independent monitor for three years, which will evaluate Aylo’s “content screening and monitoring processes” and ensure it properly...

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Google’s ChatGPT competitor Bard is nearly as good — just slower

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge

Earlier this month, Google announced the release of Gemini, what it considers its most powerful AI model yet. It integrated Gemini immediately into its flagship generative AI chatbot, Bard, in hopes of steering more users away from its biggest competitor, OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

ChatGPT and the new Gemini-powered Bard are similar products. Gemini Pro is most comparable to GPT-4, available in the subscription-based ChatGPT Plus. So we decided to test the two chatbots to see just how they stack up — in accuracy, speed, and overall helpfulness.

Gemini versus ChatGPT: the basics

ChatGPT Plus and Gemini Pro are both very advanced chatbots based on large language models. They’re the latest and greatest options from their respective companies,...

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A merging of Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount would be very bad

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

This week, Axios broke the news that Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount were looking into some sort of merger. It would make sense: Warner Bros. Discovery is trying to become a content behemoth, and Paramount would give the company even more content plus a grouping of popular (as they can be in this age) broadcast and cable channels. It would further secure Warner Bros. Discovery’s control over tentpole IP and allow it to serve as an even more potent rival to Disney and Netflix.

It would also be very bad for all of us who just want to watch some shows after work or school. In 2023, we finally saw the future envisioned by the companies behind the streaming services we all use. It was not a world where shows and movies are readily...

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2024 in laptops: it’s shaping up to be a big year for Windows

The Verge / Photos courtesy of Microsoft and Getty Images

2023 has been a fairly uneventful year for laptops. Apple continues to dominate in both performance and battery life, while Microsoft only had incremental upgrades for its Surface line, and Intel has waited until the very end of the year to try to respond to Apple’s dominance. But 2024 looks set to be one of the most interesting years for laptops since the Windows 8 days, thanks to a new version of Windows, a big AI push, and another attempt at making Windows on Arm a reality.

Apple’s iPad pushed Microsoft into creating Windows on Arm more than 10 years ago, and laptop manufacturers followed with some weird and wonderful designs to match Windows 8. While I’m not expecting a big design overhaul for Windows 12 (or whatever Microsoft calls...

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Podcasts are in the middle of a numbers and people crisis

The Verge / Photo from Getty Images

In the podcasting world, the year 2019 may seem like it happened in a parallel universe. Vulture’s Nicholas Quah deemed it the beginning of the “big podcasting era,” pointing to the millions of dollars that Spotify invested in building out its podcast operation — and the expected domino effect as other companies follow suit. “There was podcasting before 2019, and there will be podcasting after 2019. What podcasting will look like in 2024 remains very much up for grabs,” wrote Quah.

And although 2024’s outlook still isn’t entirely certain, it’s pretty obvious that the golden years are over. There were a staggering number of layoffs in podcasting and the audio world at large this year, hitting every entity from public radio to...

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Chrome’s password safety tool will now automatically run in the background

Image: The Verge

Google’s Safety Check feature for Chrome, which, among other things, checks the internet to see if any of your saved passwords have been compromised, will now “run automatically in the background” on desktop, the company said in a blog post on Thursday. The constant checks could mean that you’re alerted about a password that you should change sooner than you would have before.

Safety Check also watches for bad extensions or site permissions you need to look at, and you can act on Safety Check alerts from Chrome’s three-dot menu. In addition, Google says that Safety Check can revoke a site’s permissions if you haven’t visited it in a while.

Google also announced an upcoming feature for Chrome’s tab groups, also on desktop: Chrome will let...

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Behold! Someone is investing in a podcast company

The Verge

Behold! Someone is investing in a podcast company

Could it be a sign that the tide is turning? Danish podcast and audiobook subscription service Podimo announced a new funding round worth €44 million ($48.4 million). Participants in the round include previous investors Augustinus Fabrikker and HighlandX, as well as the Danish Export and Investment Fund.

“This investment allows Podimo to continue our strong growth trajectory while orienting the company towards profitability,” Morten Strunge, CEO of Podimo, said in a statement. “This funding isn’t solely about financial support. While profitability remains a key objective, our investment focus extends beyond financial milestones. We are resolutely committed to enhancing our product and...

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The Apple Watch ban is preventing repairs of many models

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Not only has Apple halted online sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra Series 2 (with in-store sales to follow), but the company’s ongoing patent rift with medical device maker Masimo has another ripple effect: out-of-warranty hardware repairs for several Apple Watch models are now unavailable to customers. That’s according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who reports that Apple has informed customer service employees that out-of-warranty hardware repairs and whole unit replacements for the Apple Watch Series 6 onward (with the exception of the SE) will be unavailable for the duration of the ban imposed by the US International Trade Commission.

If you own one of the models included in the ban and your device is out of...

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Discovery shows you’ve bought on PlayStation actually won’t be taken away

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Discovery shows were set to be pulled from PlayStation libraries on December 31st, but that’s not happening now, thanks to “updated licensing arrangements,” as reported by GamesIndustry.biz.

The original plan was one of two recent reminders from PlayStation that digital ownership sucks — especially because there were a lot of shows that were set to be removed from video libraries. You can see the full list on Sony’s website, which now contains the note about the changed policy. “Due to updated licensing arrangements, the Discovery content removal planned for December 31, 2023 is no longer occurring,” Sony says. “We appreciate your ongoing support and feedback.”

However, while this is good news for people who have invested in Discovery...

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The hyperloop is dead for real this time

Image: Hyperloop One

Hyperloop One, the futuristic transportation startup that promised to whisk us through nearly airless tubes at airline speeds, is shutting down, according to Bloomberg.

The company is selling off its assets, closing down its offices, and laying off employees. It will formally close at the end of the year, at which point all of its intellectual property will shift to its majority stakeholder, major Dubai port operator DP World. Whoever buys the test track in the Nevada desert will have one hell of a Slip ‘N Slide if they want it.

Since its founding in 2014, the company raised around $450 million in venture capital funds and other investments. While there is still a small smattering of startups trying to build hyperloops, the demise of...

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Android phones may finally be getting a battery health indicator

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google might finally start telling you when your Android phone has a degraded battery, Android expert Mishaal Rahman wrote in an article for Android Authority. Unlike iPhone users, who have been able to see their phone’s battery health stats from their settings for a long time, Android owners currently need a third-party app or must enter special command codes in order to check out their battery health.

This month’s Pixel Feature Drop already added new battery information; currently, it shows the manufacture date of your battery and its cycle count. But the Android 14 QPR2 Beta 2 adds a hidden “battery health” page, Rahman says, and although it doesn’t yet include an actual battery health meter, code suggests that it could show...

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Apple officially stops selling its latest Apple Watches online

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

It’s no longer possible to buy Apple’s latest flagship smartwatches, the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, from the company’s online store. Apple has removed the devices from sale due to a forthcoming import ban imposed by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) that’s due to take full effect on December 26th. Both watches will disappear from Apple’s brick-and-mortar stores after December 24th.

The ban is the result of a patent dispute with medical device maker Masimo. The ITC has ruled that the SpO2 sensor in Apple’s smartwatches infringes upon Masimo’s patents. On Wednesday, the ITC denied Apple’s motion to stay the ban while awaiting an appeal.

Because the patent dispute relates to the SpO2 sensor specifically, Apple...

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Substack says it will not remove or demonetize Nazi content

Illustration by The Verge

More than 200 Substack authors asked the platform to explain why it’s “platforming and monetizing Nazis,” and now they have an answer straight from co-founder Hamish McKenzie:

I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either—we wish no-one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away—in fact, it makes it worse.

While McKenzie offers no evidence to back these ideas, this tracks with the company’s previous stance on taking a hands-off approach to moderation. In April, Substack CEO Chris Best appeared on the Decoder podcast and refused to answer moderation questions. “We’re not going to...

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Here are the best Kindle deals right now

Amazon’s note-taking Kindle Scribe is one of the few standalone models on sale ahead of the holiday. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

When it comes to finding a device to use to read your ebooks, you have a few options to choose from. You can always buy a tablet or use your phone, but those devices are multipurpose and can be used for a ton of things, like surfing the web or doom-scrolling on Twitter. If you are looking for something to strictly read books, e-readers, while niche, are designed to store all of your books in a virtual library with limited functionality.

Amazon, one of the pioneers of the e-reader, has dominated the space for years with its ever-expanding Kindle lineup, which consists of several unique models with their own pros and cons. The bulk of the devices function as simple ebook readers; however, with the Kindle Scribe, Amazon looks to be moving...

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Teen GTA VI hacker sentenced to life in a secure hospital

Image: Rockstar Games

The 18-year-old Lapsus$ hacker who played a critical role in leaking Grand Theft Auto VI footage has been sentenced to life inside a hospital prison, according to a report from the BBC. A British judge ruled on Thursday that Arion Kurtaj is a high risk to the public because he still wants to commit cybercrimes.

In August, a London jury found that Kurtaj carried out cyberattacks against GTA VI developer Rockstar Games and other companies, including Uber and Nvidia. However, since Kurtaj has autism and was deemed unfit to stand trial, the jury was asked to determine whether he committed the acts in question, not whether he did so with criminal intent.

During Thursday’s hearing, the court heard Kurtaj “had been violent while in custody...

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American automakers are losing the race to make more fuel-efficient vehicles

Cars, trucks, SUVs, and other vehicles drive in traffic on the 405 freeway through the Sepulveda Pass in Los Angeles, California, on August 25th, 2022. | Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images

The US saw record gains in fuel efficiency last year, but it still falls short of what’s needed to meet fast-approaching deadlines. Thanks to their love of large vehicles, American automakers have fallen behind their competitors when it comes to getting more miles per gallon of gas.

Real-world fuel economy in model year 2022 rose slightly to 26 miles per gallon, according to the EPA’s latest Automotive Trends Report. That’s a 0.6mpg increase from the year before, which is apparently “more than double the annual rate of improvement in fuel economy” over the past nine years, according to the EPA.

But while the agency celebrates the incremental improvement, there’s still a long way to go to reach the fuel efficiency standards the US has set...

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Bird may be bankrupt, but shared micromobility is doing just fine

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images

On the surface, electric scooter pioneer Bird filing for bankruptcy would seem to be a nail in the coffin for shared micromobility — that nebulous term often used to describe rentable electric bikes and scooters in cities. After a number of mergers and some bad financial management, the OG scooter company is going belly up. That can’t bode well for the future of scooters in general, right?

But actually, shared electric mobility is doing just fine. Sure, the margins are tight and profitability is still rare, but shared scooter and bike companies are becoming more integral to city life in ways we never thought possible.

The only thing that’s dead is the zero-interest rate-influenced era of unhinged investments and wildly skewed valuations...

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I upgraded my Hue Bridge to Matter, so you don’t have to

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

I’ve used Philips Hue smart lights for close to a decade. The company’s colorful bulbs, dimmer switches, and motion sensors have been among the most reliable, responsive smart devices in my home. Hue’s stuff is expensive, but due to its bridge and Zigbee mesh network, the lights, remotes, and sensors don’t have to rely on congested Wi-Fi channels to communicate. Hue also works with every platform. I’ve had Hue lights working with Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, IFTTT, and more, often simultaneously, and it’s been rock solid.

Then I migrated my Hue Bridge to Matter.

Now, my lights are slow to respond to voice commands. They frequently disconnect from my smart home platforms. I can’t add any new bulbs to Apple...

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How to set up your Philips Hue lights with Matter

Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge

The Philips Hue smart lighting system offers a wide range of excellent smart bulbs, from color-changing and tunable white bulbs in every shape and size to LED light strips, outdoor lanterns, and holiday lights. Hue is well known for its interoperability with a wide array of smart home ecosystems and devices and now works with Matter, the new smart home standard designed to make it easier for all your smart home devices to communicate with each other locally in your home.

Because Hue already works locally through its Zigbee bridge and is compatible with most platforms and smart devices, the benefits of moving your Hue system to Matter aren’t that obvious. However, Hue says that any automations you have that previously relied on cloud...

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This unexpectedly charming gadget saved my Christmas lights — and my sanity

The gadget that saved Christmas. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

I thought I could hold out until Friday, but as I stared at my Christmas tree’s unlit midriff, I realized that was too long to wait.

I’d ordered a set of spare incandescent bulbs for my Christmas tree on Amazon, but the delivery was days away and the problem was staring me in the face. The more I thought about it, the trouble didn’t seem to be a single bulb, anyway. Half the strand on the middle section of the pre-lit tree was dark, and the internet seemed to agree that one burnt-out bulb shouldn’t bring down the whole string.

I opened Amazon and typed “Christmas tree light voltage checker” into the search bar. Predictably, my search returned a sea of same-looking products made by companies with alphabet-soup names. I clicked on...

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How Donald Trump and Elon Musk killed Twitter, with Marty Baron and Zoe Schiffer

Image: The Verge

Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. And today, we’re bringing you a special episode where we’re just going to talk about one very big problem: Twitter.

2023 will go down as the year that Elon Musk killed Twitter. First, he did it in a big way by buying the company, firing most of the employees, and destabilizing the platform; then, he did it in a small but important and symbolic way by renaming the company X and trying to make a full break with what came before.

So now that the story of the company named Twitter is officially over, it felt important to stop and ask: what was Twitter anyway, and why were so many powerful people obsessed with it for so long?

Here at The Verge, we don’t often look back; we’re a site...

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Beeper is giving up on its iMessage dream

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Beeper is throwing in the towel in its fight to bring iMessage to Android — mostly. Although it just announced yet another fix to let Android users send iMessages from its messaging apps, Beeper announced that it’s going to stop finding workarounds and instead focus on its “long-term goal of building the best chat app on earth.”

“Each time that Beeper Mini goes ‘down’ or is made to be unreliable due to interference by Apple, Beeper’s credibility takes a hit. It’s unsustainable,” Beeper writes. “As much as we want to fight for what we believe is a fantastic product that really should exist, the truth is that we can’t win a cat-and-mouse game with the largest company on earth.”

What started as a simple app download in Beeper Mini has b...

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New York’s attorney general says SiriusXM’s annoying cancellation process is actually illegal

Image: SiriusXM

SiriusXM is getting sued by the state of New York for making it too difficult for subscribers to cancel their plans. The suit claims that customers who want to cancel are required to chat over the phone or online with an agent who bombards them with questions and offers. “Sirius deliberately wastes its subscribers’ time even though it has the ability to process cancellations with the click of a button,” the suit reads.

Attorney General Letitia James’ office claims that SiriusXM’s own data reveals that it takes subscribers an average of 11.5 minutes to cancel by phone, and 30 minutes to cancel online. The suit is seeking damages for affected customers, as well as a $5,000 penalty to the state of New York for each violation.

“Having to...

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Apple’s 15-inch MacBook Air is $300 off and arrives in time for Christmas

It’s hard to beat the MacBook Air for value and performance when it comes to larger laptops for productivity. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The Apple MacBook Air 15 has been frequently discounted since it first came out last summer, but the large yet thin laptop has once again reached a new low price. You can get the base configuration of the 15-inch MacBook Air with an M2 chip (eight-core CPU / 10-core GPU), 256GB SSD, and 8GB of RAM for just $999 ($300 off) at Best Buy or Amazon. Best Buy has all four colors, and any of them should arrive before December 25th, while Amazon only has the deal on the starlight color, arriving after the holiday.

While the MacBook Pros have already moved on to Apple’s M3-generation chips, the M2 MacBook Air is no slouch. It’s more than capable for everyday productivity for schoolwork needs or work-work demands. Much like the smaller 13-inch...

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Microsoft is discontinuing Windows Mixed Reality

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

It’s over for Windows Mixed Reality. In an update to a list of deprecated Windows features, Microsoft added Windows Mixed Reality, along with the accompanying Mixed Reality Portal app and Windows Mixed Reality for Steam VR.

The company says Windows Mixed Reality is “deprecated and will be removed in a future release of Windows.” Microsoft first introduced Windows Mixed Reality in 2017 as part of its bid to compete with virtual reality rivals like HTC and Oculus (now owned by Meta).

Windows Mixed Reality served as a portal to games, apps, and other experiences within the VR space. In addition to the Microsoft HoloLens, other companies, including Acer, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, HP, and Samsung, made mixed reality headsets compatible with...

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The year in arthouse movies

The Verge / Images Courtesy of Sideshow, KimStim, and Janus Films

2023 was good for big movies, but maybe even better for the small ones

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