Starbucks customers can drive up to the window with their reusable cups now

Starbucks will let customers drive-through with reusable cups at all US and Canada stores. | Image: Starbucks

Starbucks announced today that customers will now be able to bring in their reusable cups whether they’re walking into a store or driving up in the US and Canada. The company claims it’s the first national coffee retailer to give customers this option for drive-thru and mobile orders.

For years, customers have been able to walk into select Starbucks locations to fill reusable cups (although the practice was put on hold between 2020 and 2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic). What’s changing is that now clean, refillable cups are acceptable in the drive-thru window at all company-operated and participating licensed stores in the US and Canada, expanding a policy that had been in place already at certain locations. Customers earn a $0.10...

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The new Moonwalkers robot shoes are definitely lighter and supposedly safer

The new Moonwalkers X have six wheels, not 10, and they’re heavy but not as heavy. | Image: Shift Robotics

The Moonwalkers went somewhat viral in 2022 when the company behind them, Shift Robotics, promised it had created “the world’s fastest shoes.” They’re not exactly shoes, though: they strap on top of your existing shoes like you’re putting on a pair of Tevas, and they put 10 wheels underneath each foot to turn every step into a glide, like you’re perpetually walking on a moving sidewalk. They’re adult Heelys, basically, only bigger, higher-tech, and more expensive.

Now, Shift Robotics is back with a new pair, the Moonwalkers X, which the company says it plans to show off at the CES gadget extravaganza in Las Vegas next week. The new shoes are lighter — 3.2 pounds on each foot, which is still a lot but a full pound lighter than the...

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Twitch will ban people pretending to be naked

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Twitch is changing its sexual content policies again, this time to prohibit implied nudity on the platform. The platform already prohibits nudity, but Twitch’s new attire policy, which goes into effect today, also doesn’t allow streamers to “imply or suggest that they are fully or partially nude,” chief customer trust officer Angela Hession says in a blog post.

This policy change comes after Twitch’s recently loosened policies on sexual content. Twitch updated its sexual content policies in December to allow some previously prohibited content as long as it was labeled correctly. However, just two days later, it rescinded part of the newly updated policy that allowed for “artistic nudity” following “community concern.”

Creators continued...

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Roku is getting serious about making TVs that look great

Roku announced its first self-branded TVs at CES last year, and as expected, the main emphasis was on budget pricing and providing a solid, dependable product. Above all else, the Roku Select and Plus Series TVs were a vehicle for getting Roku’s software into even more homes. But the first-party Roku TVs fell a bit flat in terms of picture quality compared to sets from TCL, Hisense, and other TV makers that play in the same pricing territory. They were fine but unexceptional.

For 2024, Roku hopes to step up its video chops with a new Pro lineup of TVs due to ship later this year. The Roku Pro TVs will come in 55-inch, 65-inch, and 75-inch sizes for “retail prices under $1,500.” They’ll feature Mini LED local dimming for improved contrast...

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Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Resident Evil 2 hit Xbox Game Pass this month — but no Call of Duty yet

Image: Ubisoft

Xbox has revealed its first Game Pass lineup of 2024, which includes headliners like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Resident Evil 2. But there’s still no sign of the Call of Duty games Xbox boss Phil Spencer hinted at for 2024.

Game Pass is the subscription service offered by Microsoft that lets you play a changing collection of games on Xbox and PC without paying for each individual game. Last year, Spencer said the long regulatory process associated with Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard meant Xbox wasn’t able to release any of the publisher’s games on Game Pass right away. Instead, he indicated that they would hit the service in 2024 — unlike how Xbox added several Bethesda games to Game Pass just days after its...

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How crowded are the oceans? New maps show what flew under the radar until now

A new study uses deep learning and satellite imagery to create the first global map of vessel traffic and offshore infrastructure. | Image: Global Fishing Watch

Using satellite imagery and AI, researchers have mapped human activity at sea with more precision than ever before. The effort exposed a huge amount of industrial activity that previously flew under the radar, from suspicious fishing operations to an explosion of offshore energy development.

The maps were published today in the journal Nature. The research led by Google-backed nonprofit Global Fishing Watch revealed that a whopping three-quarters of the world’s industrial fishing vessels are not publicly tracked. Up to 30 percent of transport and energy vessels also escape public tracking.

Those blind spots could hamper global conservation efforts, the researchers say. To better protect the world’s oceans and fisheries, policymakers...

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Urbanista’s solar headphone lineup adds adaptive noise cancellation at lower prices

The Phoenix true wireless earbuds and Los Angeles headphones. | Image: Urbanista

Urbanista is overhauling its solar charging headphone lineup with the announcement of second-generation versions of both its Los Angeles over-ear headphones and Phoenix true wireless earbuds. Both products are still built around the same Powerfoyle solar charging material from Exeger but have been updated to include more power-efficient internal components, adaptive (rather than simply active) noise cancellation, and more streamlined designs.

Both are still in development and aren’t going on sale until roughly midway through the year, but when they’re released, they’ll be priced slightly cheaper than their first-generation counterparts. The second-gen Los Angeles are due to cost $179 (versus $199 for the originals), while the second-gen...

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Mickey Mouse has left the house: Steamboat Willie enters the public domain

Mickey Mouse (pictured) as seen in 1928’s Steamboat Willie_._ | Photo by LMPC via Getty Images

Specific versions of Mickey Mouse have been released from Disney’s copyright — here’s what the public is doing with them.

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LG’s 2024 OLED TVs put a bigger focus on AI processing than ever before

Image: LG

A year ago, LG released its brightest OLED TVs yet, and in doing so, the company overcame one of the long-held downsides of the panel technology: they were finally suitable for bright, sunny rooms. Rtings called 2023’s G3 OLED “an outstanding TV with no real weaknesses,” and many other reviews praised it as one of the best TVs ever released. LG also used CES 2023 to introduce its first “wireless” TV, the Signature OLED M, which receives content from a Zero Connect box that can be positioned discreetly in the same room.

So while last year brought pretty major technical upgrades, for 2024, LG is shifting its focus to AI and smaller, iterative changes. But the improvements are still meaningful. Across the OLED TV lineup, LG now supports...

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Sony’s XM5 headphones are over $100 off thanks to eBay’s New Year’s sale

Sony’s WH-1000XM5 may not fold like the last-gen model, but they’re still our favorite pair of noise-canceling headphones. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

The holiday shopping season is officially behind us, but that hasn’t stopped retailers from finding something else to celebrate with a sale. Right now, it’s all about New Year’s, and in honor of that fact, eBay is taking an extra 20 percent off select items through January 7th when you use offer code NEWYEARDEAL at checkout.

All kinds of gadgets are eligible for the discount,from the Xbox Series X (now $399) to iRobot’s Roomba j7 Plus, the latter of which is on sale in refurbished condition with a two-year warranty for $269.98 ($630 off). Our favorite deals, however, are on Sony’s WH-1000XM5 headphones and WF-1000XM5 earbuds, both of which are down to their second-best price to date. The XM5 headphones are going for just $278.40 ($122...

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Samsung’s OLED gaming monitors now come in more shapes, sizes, and up to 360Hz

The curved Odyssey OLED G9 above the flat OLED G6 and G8. | Image: Samsung

Samsung has announced a trio of new gaming monitors ahead of CES 2024. There’s the 49-inch curved ultra-wide Odyssey OLED G9 (G95SD), the 32-inch flat Odyssey OLED G8 (G80SD), and the 27-inch flat Odyssey OLED G6 (G60SD). The latter two are the first flat monitors Samsung has brought to its Odyssey lineup.

Because I’m a simple man with simple wants, the Odyssey OLED G6 is the most interesting of these models to me on paper. That’s because of its frankly excessive 360Hz refresh rate, which it pairs with a 1440p resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio. Samsung Display announced the start of mass manufacturing of these super-fast OLED panels last month, and the likes of Dell and MSI also appear to be making use of them in their upcoming monitors.

...

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This new fingerprint smart lock is the first to support Matter-over-Thread

The new Ultraloq Bolt Fingerprint Matter smart lock brings Matter-over-Thread support to the company’s line-up. | Image: U-Tec

Smart lock manufacturer U-tec has announced the first deadbolt smart lock with a fingerprint reader to support Matter-over-Thread. A fingerprint reader is the fastest and easiest way to unlock a smart lock, and Matter-over-Thread connectivity should solve two of the biggest issues of smart locks: poor battery life and poor connectivity.

With most connected locks on the market today, you get either a year of battery life but are stuck with the limited range and smart home compatibility of Bluetooth or just a few months of battery life but all the smart home connections you can eat over Wi-Fi. Thread, with its low-power mesh network, is specifically designed to help battery-operated devices last longer, and the new smart home standard...

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A New Year’s resolution for tech companies: knock it off with the CAPTCHAs

Horrible. 0/10.

The thing about CAPTCHAs is that they’re old enough to drink. The bots are better at them than I am. So why am I still being asked to fill them out?

I am not talking about the inoffensive ones with the puzzle pieces. I am not talking, even, about matching or rotating shapes. I am talking, specifically, about the grid of insane photos — the kind of thing you may be familiar with from Google’s reCAPTCHA system. If you are looking for a measured take on why they exist or the efforts to build replacements, go read this. I am not feeling measured, although I will resentfully note that CAPTCHA exists in order to stop bots and does an okay job at it.

You know how I am feeling? Furious.

I was trying to buy tickets to a double-feature of Blade...

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Jony Ive imagined the Vision Pro giving you Zoom eyes and sunglasses

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

A new patent granted to Apple details how the company is thinking of using the Vision Pro’s external display to show what the wearer is looking at inside the device.

The patent, which includes Jony Ive as an inventor, details ways an outside screen on a generic head-mounted display could be used to indicate what the wearer is seeing to people around them. While the patent isn’t specifically about the Vision Pro and its “EyeSight” display feature, it’s clear that some of the ideas here informed the features in the final headset.

For example, Apple has talked publicly about how the outer screen on the Vision Pro can let outsiders see the eyes of the person wearing the headset or display a colorful pattern that indicates the wearer is fully...

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Samsung is hosting Unpacked in the heart of Silicon Valley

That’s so metal. | Image: Samsung

Samsung has formally announced its winter Unpacked — coming right on the heels of CES and just down the street from some of its biggest competitors’ HQs. As previously ~~leaked~~ announced, the event is scheduled for Wednesday, January 17th. It’ll be hosted at the SAP Center, because nothing says “go big or go home” like an NHL arena.

The company says we’ll see the “newest additions to the Galaxy mobile device portfolio,” which is all but guaranteed to be the S24 series. AI will be a major focus — no surprise there. Rumors have also pointed to the S24 Ultra getting a new titanium build — that should ring a bell if you’ve seen literally any advertisement for the iPhone 15 Pro — and the 3D metallic graphic in the event invitation certainly...

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Pornhub blocks North Carolina and Montana as porn regulation spreads

Photo by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Pornhub has restricted access in two more states in protest of continued nationwide state-level efforts to regulate online access to porn. 404Media reported that residents in both North Carolina and Montana visiting Pornhub and other Aylo-owned sites like Redtube or Brazzers are now greeted by a video of performer Cherie DeVille, and a handful of paragraphs, telling them their states are now blocked. Aylo began blocking access in the states last week, according to reporting from multiple outlets including The Fayetteville Observer and KRTVin Great Falls, Montana.

The move is meant to protest laws that went into effect in both states on January 1st. Montana passed a standalone ID verification law in May, and North Carolina’s new law was...

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How to transfer ownership of a Google Drive folder or file

The Verge

I’m afraid that I’m one of those people who have accumulated a number of Google accounts. I have one for subscriptions, newsletters, and other general purposes; one for work; one for my fiction writing; one to use when I want to test an online app; and one — well, quite honestly, I don’t remember what that one’s for.

Normally, it’s not a problem — except for those occasions where I found I’ve put a file or folder in the wrong Drive account. I’ve tried to fix things by simply sharing the folder / file with the account I want to use it with, but that isn’t a satisfactory fix — for one thing, it means the file is taking up space in two accounts. And if, say, I am planning a party and decide to hand the responsibility off to a friend, it...

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Jack Black rumored to play Steve in the Minecraft movie

Photo by Presley Ann / Getty Images for The Skatepark Project

Jack Black might be set to play another iconic video game character in a movie: Steve from Minecraft. Black is apparently joining the cast of the upcoming adaptation of the mega-popular game, and Deadline reports that he’s going to play Steve, the original default character skin for Minecraft. Variety also reported that Black is part of the cast but didn’t say who he might be playing.

Black was amazing as Bowser in 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie (are you also humming “Peaches” right now?) and will portray the snarky robot Claptrap in the Borderlands movie, but Steve doesn’t really have a defined personality. He mostly exists as a silent vessel for the player. I’m curious if Black will bring a muted performance to Steve — but if I had...

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Samsung’s new robot vacuum can steam clean your floors

The Bespoke Jet Bot Combo is the first combined robot vacuum and mop from Samsung. It features steam cleaning and automatic mop removal to keep your carpets dry. | Image: Samsung

Samsung is finally bringing out a new version of its Jet Bot robot vacuum, which was last updated in 2021. The Bespoke Jet Bot Combo will be on show at CES 2024 and is the first combination of robot vacuum and mop from the Korean electronics giant. (The company has a standalone robot mop, the Jetbot Mop.)

Samsung hasn’t announced a price (the previous model, the Jet Bot AI Plus, costs $1,300) or a release date. And it sounds like the robot’s features aren’t finalized yet (Samsung’s press release says the robot is “currently in development,” and its features are subject to change). But here’s a look at what the new robot vacuum might be capable of, according to Samsung.

The Bespoke Jet Bot Combo is a robot vacuum and mop with a round form...

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X once again adds headlines to article links — but with tiny text

Illustration: The Verge

After removing headlines from URL cards on X (formerly Twitter), the platform is adding them back — but they don’t work quite the same as before. Some of us at The Verge are seeing on the web that headlines and website title pages are now appearing over the images that link to those pages, which makes it a lot easier to know what you’re clicking on.

This is a nice change, but there are still some quirks. For example, if a headline or title is too long, it gets cut off with an ellipses, and the text is pretty small. But it’s an improvement from how things used to work, where the images would just include the domain of the website it linked out to.

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

A headline on an X post.

X...

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We’re down to just a handful of EVs that qualify for the full $7,500 tax credit in the US

Photo by Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge

The list of electric vehicles that qualify for the full $7,500 federal tax credit in the US has shrunk — considerably.

Thanks to new requirements about battery minerals and sourcing that kicked in on January 1st, only five battery electric vehicles are eligible for the full credit as well as one plug-in hybrid vehicle. A few more qualify for the $3,750 half credit. And that’s about it.

As you can see in the table below, the pure EVs that still qualify are as follows: the Chevy Bolt EV and Bolt EUV (soon to be discontinued and replaced with updated versions); two versions of the Ford F-150 Lightning; one version each of the Tesla Model 3 and Model X; and three versions of the Tesla Model Y. And don’t forget the Chrysler Pacifica PHEV,...

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The latest Apple Watch SE is $50 off just in time for your New Year’s fitness goals

Even the base-model Apple Watch can help you track a wide variety of metrics across different workouts. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The Apple Watch SE is selling for its second-best price of $199 at Amazon and Best Buy, saving you $50 on Apple’s entry-level smartwatch. The SE may not have some of the fancier features of the newer Series 9 model (features that recently put the Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 in some patent infringement hot water), but the SE is a very competent wearable that nails the essentials most people look for to complement their iPhone — expansive fitness tracking and easily glanceable notifications on your wrist. If you want to push yourself into healthier habits for the new year, a smartwatch and some basic workout metrics you can easily track is a nice little motivator.

Read our review of the Apple Watch SE (2022).

Right now, you can get...

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Dish Network rejoins EchoStar as it tries to compete in 5G

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

EchoStar Corporation announced today that it finalized its purchase of Dish Network on the last day of December. Following the merger, which the companies announced in August, Dish is now a “wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar,” and why? 5G, dear reader.

Dish Network was known as EchoStar until 2008 when it renamed itself to Dish and spun its satellite internet business off under the EchoStar name. In recent years, Dish has been pivoting to 5G after buying Boost Mobile and starting Project Genesis, which, in concept, would offer a fourth large network to compete in the US with AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. As of late 2022, when we last tested it out, it wasn’t quite impressive yet.

EchoStar’s COO, John Swieringa, said in the release...

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Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

Apple’s second-gen AirPods Pro are $10 shy of their all-time low set during Black Friday.

If you know where to look, there are often some great discounts available on Apple’s ever-popular AirPods. Since Apple launched the third-gen AirPods toward the end of 2021, we’ve seen the starting price of the second-gen, entry-level model slowly dip to around $100. And now that the second-gen AirPods Pro has been on the market for over a year, we’re also seeing their price fall more often, too. We’re even seeing great deals land on the newer updated AirPods Pro with USB-C.

Here, we’ve curated the best deals currently available on each model, including the entry-level AirPods, the AirPods Pro, the third-gen AirPods, and the AirPods Max.

The best AirPods (second-gen) deals

In 2021, Apple lowered the list price of the...

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Microsoft now says the CMA was ‘tough and fair’ over Activision Blizzard deal

Image: Getty Images

Microsoft president Brad Smith wasn’t happy with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) last year, after the regulator blocked Microsoft’s giant Activision Blizzard deal. Now that Microsoft has restructured its deal and won approval in the UK, Smith has kinder words for the CMA, describing the regulator as “tough and fair” in an interview with the BBC’s Radio 4 Today program.

Smith originally criticized the CMA and said confidence in the UK had been “severely shaken” after the regulator moved to block Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal in April last year. He called it the “darkest day” for Microsoft in its four decades of working in Britain, and went a step further, saying “the European Union is a more attractive place to start a...

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Alamo Drafthouse blames ‘nationwide’ theater outage on Sony projector fail

A sign reportedly placed at Alamo Drafthouse’s Minnesota location informing patrons that no films will be shown that day. | Photo: 3NU (Reddit)

“Sorry everyone! Sony is having issues with their projectors that is preventing us from being able to project movies at some of our theaters today.”

That’s what theater chain Alamo Drafthouse posted to social media sites on New Year’s Eve, adding that it was closing five theaters entirely for the rest of the day as a result. As of New Year’s Day, however, most theaters and most showtimes now appear to be available, with a few exceptions.

Screenshot of @alamodrafthouse (X)

It’s not clear what happened. As New Year’s Day is a holiday, we somewhat understandably haven’t yet been able to reach Alamo or Sony spokespeople, and not every theater or every screening was affected.

That didn’t stop Alamo from blaming its Sony...

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Welcome to the public domain, Mickey Mouse

Just be careful not to let major elements from later designs slip in. | Disney

It’s finally happened: after nearly a century, Mickey Mouse has slipped off Disney’s copyright leash. The first versions of the iconic cartoon character, seen in Steamboat Willie and a silent version of Plane Crazy, enter the public domain in the US on January 1st, 2024. (An early version of Minnie Mouse is also fortunately included.) There’s still a complicated mess of protections around Mickey, but today is a moment public domain advocates have awaited for decades — and there are plenty of other exciting new entries as well.

Duke Law School’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, as usual, has a roundup of prominent works whose copyright protections lapse in the US today. The list includes sound recordings from 1923 and works in...

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LG’s newest 32-inch 4K monitor is a looker with a smart TV inside

The LG MyView Smart Monitor. | Image: LG

LG will show off a new series of 32-inch 4K computer monitor / TV hybrids called the ‘MyView’ at CES this year. The company announced they’ll come “in a variety of colors, including essence white, mild beige, cotton pink and cotton green.” They’ll be offered in three variants at two price levels — $599.99 and $499.99, and LG says it will announce availability in the US “at a later date.”

The specs and design language of LG’s new smart LED displays are very similar to the Samsung M8. They both come in multiple colors and have a whiff of modern iMac design, though with more adjustable stands (both support tweaks to height, tilt, and rotation). Each can be used as a smart TV with the included remote and all of the new MyView monitors will...

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8 great Apple Arcade games for your iPhone or iPad

The Verge / Image courtesy of Sunblink

Apple Arcade remains one of the best deals in gaming — even after getting a price bump. Since launch, the service has steadily grown with a mix of original mobile releases and App Store classics, none of which are burdened with the ads or in-app purchases that so often plague smartphone games. 2023 was a particularly strong year for new additions, with everything from daily word games for the Wordle-obsessed to cozy adventures to relax with. If you just picked up a new Apple device, or are using the subscription service for the very first time, here are some great places to start.

Knotwords

Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger have partnered on a number of great mobile puzzle games — including Good Sudoku and SpellTower, both of which are...

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The apps, movies, games, and everything else we loved in 2023

Illustration: William Joel / The Verge

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 19, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

It’s the last Installer of the year, so we’re going to do something a little different! We’re going to talk about all our favorite things of 2023. Some ground rules / disclaimers: this list is not exhaustive, not everything in here is new this year it’s just new to us, this is not an Official List of Every Single Good Thing That Exists, and most importantly, if there’s something missing that you find outrageous and unacceptable you know where to find me: installer@theverge.com and (203) 570-8663 on all the...

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