FEMA will pay states to install solar panels and heat pumps

People sit in their home lit by a single donated solar lamp more than two weeks after Hurricane Maria hit the island on October 7th, 2017, in San Isidro, Puerto Rico. | Photo by Mario Tama / Getty Images

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced today that it’ll start reimbursing local governments for installing solar panels and more efficient appliances after a disaster strikes.

The move can help communities prepare for another calamity by equipping them with tools that just might keep the lights on when they would otherwise suffer a power outage. It’s also a way for the US to deploy technologies that cut greenhouse gas emissions and stave off worsening climate disasters like storms, heatwaves, and wildfires.

“We need to adapt the way we are helping communities rebuild post-disaster”

“As the increase of extreme weather hazards become more severe due to climate change, we need to adapt the way we are helping communities...

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Your home network might soon get a new — and simpler — name

Illustrator by Alex Castro / The Verge

ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is proposing a change that could streamline the way you access your home’s internal network. That means, instead of using the 192.168.x.x address to configure your router, you’d just need to type .internal.

As pointed out by The Register, ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) first identified a need to reserve a top-level domain for private networks in 2020 — but not necessarily to make it easier to connect to your router.

The SSAC wants the new .internal string to prevent private domain-naming schemes from clashing with other networks. Currently, the SSAC says the “informal use of top-level domains,” such as the .dlink domain used by the networking...

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The latest iPad Air has dropped to an all-time low

The fifth-gen iPad Air is available at Best Buy starting at just $449.99. | Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

In case you haven’t heard, Apple might be dropping the new iPad Air at the end of March. The rumored, next-gen iPad Air is said to come in two configurations, one of which will supposedly boast a larger 12.9-inch display like the iPad Pro. Even if it is released later this year, though, it’s not likely to receive any major discounts for a while, making the current10.9-inchiPad Air a good option if you want to save money. And right now, the Wi-Fi model is on sale at Best Buy with 64GB of storage for $449.99 ($150 off), an all-time low.

Given the 10th-gen iPad currently starts at around $383 ($65 off), today’s discounted price makes for a terrific deal. Unlike Apple’s latest entry-level iPad, the 2022 Air works with the second-gen Apple...

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Universal’s next big park will include werewolves, dragons, and Super Mario

Image: NBCUniversal

As in California, so must be in Florida. We knew Super Mario was coming to Florida, and now we know when, but we also got a lot more details on the park overall. Super Nintendo World will be a part of Universal Orlando Resort’s brand-new theme park, dubbed Universal Epic Universe.

Five different worlds will make up the park. There’s Super Mario World, a new Harry Potter world, a How to Train Your Dragon world, and a Dark Universe world that just might explain where all that Dark Universe movie footage ended up. All four worlds are tied together by the fifth world, called Celestial Park, which, according to Universal’s blog, acts like a Main Street, USA-style hub world.

The first Super Nintendo World opened in 2021 in Japan, followed by...

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Tesla’s next-generation vehicle: all the news about Elon Musk’s next big EV bet

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Will it be the Model 2? Model C? Whatever it’s called, Tesla’s long-promised $25,000 EV could be a game-changer.

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AT&T launches branded calls to help filter out spam

A person walks past an AT&T store in midtown Manhattan on January 23rd, 2024, in New York City. | Photo by Kena Betancur / VIEWpress / Getty Images

In a move that’s supposed to help people screen spammy phone calls, AT&T announced a new service today that allows businesses to make branded calls. If a business opts in to the program and calls an AT&T wireless customer, its brand name and logo will pop up on the receiving phone.

It’s the latest attempt at stopping the proliferation of robocalls in the US. Complaints about telemarketing calls to the Federal Trade Commission have skyrocketed over the past decade. Now, a major US wireless carrier is partnering up with a credit reporting agency to give businesses a way to differentiate themselves from the deluge of spam.

It’s the latest attempt at stopping the proliferation of robocalls in the US

“Our customers will be able to connect...

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Everything we know about Apple’s Vision Pro headset

Illustration: Kristen Radtke / The Verge

Apple’s long-rumored virtual and augmented reality headset Vision Pro headset launches in February. Here’s a timeline of all the details that have emerged about the device over the years and what we know so far.

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Apple Vision Pro review: magic, until it’s not

The Apple Vision Pro is the best consumer headset anyone’s ever made — and that’s the problem.

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My new favorite way to manage my family’s calendars is getting bigger

Skylight Calendar Max is a digital family calendar designed to blend into your home. | Image: Skylight

Smart photo frame company Skylight is launching a new version of its Skylight Calendar, a smart family calendar. The Skylight Cal Max works identically to the current model but has a sleeker, updated design plus a whopping 27-inch screen. It’s available for preorder today starting at $599 and will ship in June, according to the company.

The Cal Max almost doubles the size of the existing 15-inch Skylight Calendar, which is dedicated to showing multiple calendars in a familiar layout and syncing with online services to keep everything up to date. An enhanced 27-inch touchscreen display with a higher resolution (2560 x 1440 QHD compared to 1920 x 1080 HD), provides more space and better quality for easily seeing everyone’s schedules at a...

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Yelp will use AI to tell you if that burger’s any good

Yelp is joining the wealth of platforms expanding their use of AI, as it’s rolling out a new feature on iOS that rounds up and summarizes user reviews in a blurb that appears near the top of a company’s Yelp page.

The new feature uses large language models (LLMs) to parse through user feedback to highlight “what the business is best known for based on first-hand reviews,” Yelp says. That may include a mention of a location’s atmosphere, popular dishes, amenities, and more. One example (as shown in the image at the top of this article) describes a restaurant as a “retro diner well known for its classic cheeseburgers and affordable prices.”

GIF: Yelp

Yelp is bringing more visual content to its homepage on iOS.

It...

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TikTok test automatically identifies products in videos and offers purchase links

An example of how product links currently appear in TikTok after the launch of TikTok Shop. | Image: TikTok

TikTok Shop links could soon become a lot more common across the social media app. Bloomberg reports that the company is testing a new feature that automatically identifies products in the platform’s videos before offering a link to “Find similar items on TikTok Shop.” A spokesperson for the company was not immediately available to respond to The Verge’s request for comment, but it confirmed to Bloomberg that the feature is an early test.

Business Insider previously spotted a test of the same feature last November, and we found videos containing footage of the “find similar items on TikTok Shop” button from September and October last year. TikTok previously confirmed that it was testing the feature with a small number of users in the US...

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SmartLess is leaving Amazon for $100 million

SmartLess Media/YouTube

SiriusXM has inked a multiyear deal with SmartLess Media for exclusive rights around the flagship podcast hosted by Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes as well as a number of other SmartLess shows. The three-year deal cost the satellite radio giant a total of $100 million, anonymous sources told Bloomberg, and brings the popular hosts into SiriusXM’s celebrity-packed roster, which includes Howard Stern, Kevin Hart, and Conan O’Brien.

This also means that the flagship SmartLess podcast and SmartLess Media will no longer be under the wing of Amazon. In 2021, Amazon paid what Bloomberg reported was anywhere between $60 and $80 million for exclusive rights to SmartLess and any future shows developed by its podcast network. Under the...

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Meta’s free Code Llama AI programming tool closes the gap with GPT-4

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Meta’s latest update to its code generation AI model, Code Llama 70B, is “the largest and best-performing model” yet. Code Llama tools launched in August and are free for both research and commercial use. According to a post on Meta’s AI blog, Code Llama 70B can handle more queries than previous versions, which means developers can feed it more prompts while programming, and it can be more accurate.

Code Llama 70B scored 53 percent in accuracy on the HumanEval benchmark, performing better than GPT-3.5’s 48.1 percent and closer to the 67 percent mark an OpenAI paper (PDF) reported for GPT-4.

Built on Llama 2, Code Llama helps developers create strings of code from prompts and debug human-written work. Meta simultaneously launched two...

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TikTok goes full YouTube

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Vertical video platform TikTok wants users to turn their phones around and start shooting horizontal videos — long ones, too.

TikTok appears to be incentivizing creators to start posting horizontal videos that are more than a minute long, according to a prompt seen by creators @candicedchap and @kenlyealtumbiz. The platform says it will “boost” these videos within 72 hours of posting. Creators who’ve been on TikTok for more than three months will be eligible for the viewership boost, as long as the videos are not ads or from political parties.

The Verge reached out to TikTok for additional information but didn’t immediately hear back.

Pushing for horizontal videos would be a big change

Most people who watch TikToks do so on their...

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Microsoft says Apple’s new App Store rules are ‘a step in the wrong direction’

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Apple’s new plan to comply with the European Union’s tech regulations has already drawn criticism from Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney and Spotify. Now Microsoft is weighing in with its own concerns, calling the App Store changes in the EU “a step in the wrong direction.”

Apple has proposed a new Core Technology Fee for apps that want to operate on third-party app stores in the EU. It will require developers using third-party app stores to pay €0.50 for each annual app install after 1 million downloads. Apple will also still take a 17 percent commission from the developers who choose to use third-party payment processors.

“Apple’s new policy is a step in the wrong direction,” says Xbox president Sarah Bond in a post on X. “We hope they...

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Embracer lays off 97 Eidos employees and cancels new Deus Ex game

Embracer Group, the company attempting to forge one video game publisher to rule them all, has just presided over another round of layoffs. Eidos Montreal is letting go of 97 game developers and support staff, the company announced today on X, shortly after Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier scooped that the studio has canceled an unannounced Deus Ex video game.

Image: Eidos Montreal

“The global economic context, the challenges of our industry and the comprehensive restructuring announced by Embracer have finally impacted our studio.”

“The global economic context, the challenges of our industry and the comprehensive restructuring announced by Embracer have finally impacted our studio,” wrote Eidos Montreal. Eidos...

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The Kobo Elipsa 2E, our favorite ebook reader for taking notes, is $50 off

There’s a lot to like about the Kobo Elipsa 2 compared to something like the Kindle Scribe, especially with today’s discount. | Image: Kobo

As much as I like physical books, I’m planning a move and considering consolidating my collection to make that process more painless. You might be in the same boat, or perhaps you want a more convenient way to knock out your beefy reading list for the new year. If that sounds like you, you might want to consider the Kobo Elipsa 2E, which is currently on sale for $349.99 ($50 off) direct from Rakuten Kobo.

In addition to reading ebooks on its large E Ink display, you can use the ad-free Elipsa 2E to take notes using the included stylus. In fact, we consider it the best ebook reader you can buy for that purpose — one that’s even better than the Kindle Scribe given you can write directly on any page in any book. (The Scribe only supports...

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GM should just bring back the Chevy Volt

Amelia Krales

General Motors’ shift from an internal combustion engine-producing company to one that makes electric motors is sputtering. EV sales are up, but growing slower than expected. The company’s next-generation Ultium platform, in particular, isn’t meeting expectations. GM’s new electric trucks and SUVs seem perennially delayed — or full of buggy software.

I think I have an easy solution to a lot of these problems: bring back the Chevy Volt.

Remember the Volt, GM’s scrappy Toyota Prius fighter from the mid-2010s? The company was lauded when it first came out in 2010 as a prescient bet on vehicles with electric powertrains. And it was undeniably a very good hybrid. The first-generation model got 36 miles of electric range before the gas...

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The $10 trillion benefits of overhauling our food system

Bundles freshly harvested chard. | Photo by Waltraud Grubitzsch/picture alliance via Getty Images

One of the most ambitious assessments yet of our global food system calculates the health, environmental, and economic losses of business as usual. It also outlines what governments can do to reap trillions of dollars’ worth of benefits by producing food more sustainably.

All in all, the damages caused by the current system — how food is produced, marketed, and consumed — add up to $15 trillion in losses a year. That includes health costs associated with poor nutrition, biodiversity loss, climate change, and other environmental harms. “In short, our food systems are destroying more value than they create,” says the report published today by economists and scientists with the Food System Economics Commission (FSEC).

It’s time for a...

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The MSI Claw will not have a VRR screen after all

The MSI Claw gaming handheld. | Image: MSI

The MSI Claw will be one of the first handheld gaming PCs with an Intel Core Ultra processor inside — but despite what the company told us at CES 2024, it won’t have a variable refresh rate (VRR) screen. To my knowledge, the Asus ROG Ally is the only handheld with that dynamic gameplay smoothing display feature, and it’s one of its biggest advantages. I’m disappointed the MSI Claw won’t have it, too.

Instead, MSI marketing specialist Anne Lee tells me you’ll be able to manually set the seven-inch 1080p, 120Hz screen to 48Hz or 60Hz if you want.

MSI claims that still counts as “VRR” — but it doesn’t unless you’re taking the phrase in an exceptionally literal direction I’ve never heard a company argue before.

VRR is the generic form of...

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Anker’s MagSafe-friendly 622 Magnetic Battery is half off right now

You can buy the portable power bank on sale at Amazon in a variety of colors. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Anker’s new Qi2-compatible chargers may be capturing all the attention, but that doesn’t mean older devices like the Anker 622 Magnetic Battery (MagGo) aren’t worth a look. The portable, 5,000mAhcharger may not be as fast as Anker’s new Qi2 MagGo Power Bank, but it’s stillone of our favorite models — one you can currently pick up for $34.99 (half off) at Amazon and Walmart.

While the new 6,600mAh MagGo Power Bank recharges your phone twice as quickly, Anker’s magnetic Qi charger still delivers a respectable 7.5 watts of power to MagSafe-compatible phones. It also weighs a lot less, making it a better option if you want something you can easily slap onto your phone while on the go. Its foldable kickstand may not be as sturdy as the new...

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Microsoft stole my Chrome tabs, and it wants yours, too

Image: The Verge

Last week, I turned on my PC, installed a Windows update, and rebooted to find Microsoft Edge automatically open with the Chrome tabs I was working on before the update. I don’t use Microsoft Edge regularly, and I have Google Chrome set as my default browser. Bleary-eyed at 9AM, it took me a moment to realize that Microsoft Edge had simply taken over where I’d left off in Chrome. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I never imported my data into Microsoft Edge, nor did I confirm whether I wanted to import my tabs. But here was Edge automatically opening after a Windows update with all the Chrome tabs I’d been working on. I didn’t even realize I was using Edge at first, and I was confused why all my tabs were suddenly logged out.

After the shock...

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A scene-y newsletter launches a scene-y social network

Perfectly Imperfect founder Tyler Bainbridge

The dream of the early internet is alive in PI.FYI, a new app spun out from Perfectly Imperfect.

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Sony’s next PlayStation State of Play streams this week

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Not long after Xbox kicked off the year with a showcase featuring the first look at Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Sony has announced that it’s holding a State of Play livestream later this week. It’ll be 40 minutes long and takes place on January 31st at 5PM ET. Sony says that the event will include more than 15 games that cover “titles coming to PS5 and PS VR2 in 2024 and beyond.”

The last State of Play was in September, and featured a release date announcement for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and a lengthy trailer for Spider-Man 2 (which launched one month later). We’ll likely see more of Rebirth at the upcoming livestream, along with other PlayStation titles like Helldivers 2, Rise of the Rōnin, and the Silent Hill 2 remake.

Of...

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Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review: all that and AI

The Galaxy S24 Ultra is packed with top-tier hardware, but its highly touted AI features are hit-or-miss — and the price is higher than ever.

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Zoom meetings are about to get weirder thanks to the Vision Pro

Image: Zoom

Zoom’s Vision Pro app will launch alongside Apple’s new headset on February 2nd and let wearers use its “persona” (a digital avatar based on their face scans) during video calls. Whoever they’re calling will see their facial expressions and hand movements as if they’re not wearing a headset, much like Apple’s FaceTime app for the Vision Pro.

The upcoming Zoom app will also take advantage of the Vision Pro’s augmented reality capabilities, allowing it to blend in with users’ physical environments while surfacing as a floating window. These features will be available when the app launches with the headset on Friday, February 2nd.

However, Zoom says it plans on bringing more features to the app later this spring, including something called...

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Amazon abandons $1.4 billion deal to buy Roomba maker iRobot

One of iRobot’s Roombas in action. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Amazon’s deal to buy Roomba maker iRobot is off, the companies announced today, after iRobot said the deal has “no path to regulatory approval in the European Union.” iRobot is also announcing that it’s laying off around 350 employees, or around 31 percent of its workforce as part of a restructuring. It expects to notify the majority of affected employees by the end of March.

As part of the announcement, iRobot chair and CEO Colin Angle, who co-founded the company in 1990, is stepping down. iRobot’s current executive vice president and chief legal officer, Glen Weinstein, will serve as interim CEO, and Andrew Miller, formerly lead independent director of the board, will become chair. iRobot says it hopes to return to profitability by...

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Japan’s Moon probe regains power after landing upside-down nine days ago

SLIM landed close to its target, but engine troubles during the descent saw the lander flipped upside-down and unable to properly recharge its solar batteries. | Image: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) has been resurrected, over a week after the probe ran out of electricity following its troubled lunar touchdown on January 20th, leaving it upside-down and its solar panels pointing in the wrong direction. On Monday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that communication with the SLIM spacecraft had been re-established, and operations to hunt for clues about the Moon’s origins had resumed.

JAXA had predicted that a change in sunlight direction could allow the probe’s battery to be recharged from its awkwardly angled solar panels. It’s unclear how long this power will last — the agency previously said that SLIM was not designed to survive a lunar night, which will next...

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Nomad’s first Qi2 charger is shipping now for $10 less than its MagSafe model

The Nomad Stand offers 15W of wireless iPhone fast charging for $100. | Image: Nomad

Nomad’s Stand is the latest Qi2 charger to hit the market, offering up to 15W of wireless charging speed to Qi2-compatible phones like the iPhone 15. The accessory was announced in late December, but it’s now shipping in a choice of black or white for $100 from Nomad’s website.

It’s $100 price point makes the Stand $10 cheaper than Nomad’s equivalent MagSafe model, the Stand One, and offers the same “up to 15W” charging speeds and magnetic attachment compatibility as Apple’s MagSafe (Apple helped develop the Qi2 charging standard). The bad news is that Nomad’s $100 asking price doesn’t include the required 20W power adapter — you just get a USB-C to USB-C cable.

Image: Nomad

Nomad’s Stand in black.

Nomad’s...

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Arc Search combines browser, search engine, and AI into something new and different

Arc Search browses the web for you, and then builds you the webpage you wanted. That’s the idea, anyway. | Image: The Browser Company / David Pierce

A few minutes ago, I opened the new Arc Search app and typed, “What happened in the Chiefs game.” That game, the AFC Championship, had just wrapped up. Normally, I’d Google it, click on a few links, and read about the game that way. But in Arc Search, I typed the query and tapped the “Browse for me” button instead.

Arc Search, the new iOS app from The Browser Company, which has been working on a browser called Arc for the last few years, went to work. It scoured the web — reading six pages, it told me, from Twitter to The Guardian to USA Today — and returned a bunch of information a few seconds later. I got the headline: Chiefs win. I got the final score, the key play, a “notable event” that also just said the Chiefs won, a note about...

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