Marvel has found its Fantastic Four

Image: Marvel Studios

How Marvel plans to introduce the Fantastic Four to the MCU is still unclear, but when Reed Richards shows up, he’s going to look a lot like Pedro Pascal.

Along with an announcement about its Thunderbolts movie being bumped to May 2nd, 2025, Marvel revealed today that it has finally found the stars who will portray the Fantastic Four. Though John Krasinski has already portrayed one incarnation of Reed Richards in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Pascal is set to portray the character in the Fantastic Four, where he’ll be joined by Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm / the Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm / the Human Torch, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm / the Thing.

News of the casting comes just days after Pascal’s...

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Samsung’s first Galaxy S24 update can make everything a bit brighter

Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge

Users of Galaxy S24 phones will get more customization options in how they can see their screens, take photos, and possibly translate phone calls in real time.

Samsung added the ability to toggle the “vividness” of Galaxy S24 models so users can choose to have sharper display colors. The company said the update creates “a more natural and customizable viewing experience.”

The S24’s camera has also been upgraded with enhancements to zoom functions, portrait mode, night photography, and video shooting using the rear camera.

“Based on your feedback, through an upcoming update, we aim to provide enhanced options and experiences across the device display and camera, enabled by advanced hardware and software integration efforts,” the...

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Meta’s big vision for face computers might be better than Apple’s

My skeptic spouse is now obsessed with these smart glasses. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Face computers are the future, but the world as we know it isn’t quite ready. That’s the conclusion both Apple and Meta have arrived at. You can see it in the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses and the Apple Vision Pro. Both fall short of what we imagine true augmented reality ought to be, but that’s not their ultimate purpose. They’re designed to prime the public for the future by giving them a taste of it now.

And Meta’s smart glasses do a better job of that so far.

I’m not saying the Vision Pro is a bad product. I haven’t spent enough time with it, but what time I did spend cemented that it is the most technologically impressive mixed reality headset I’ve ever tried. If we’re talking pure hardware innovation, the Vision Pro blasts Meta’s...

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Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

The third-gen AirPods are $149.99 ($30 off) at Costco for members. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

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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Gemini Advanced is most impressive when it’s working with Google

Image: Google

Chatbots occupy a tricky space for users — they have to be a search engine, a creation tool, and an assistant all at once. That’s especially true for a chatbot coming from Google, which is increasingly counting on AI to supplement its search engine, its voice assistant, and just about every productivity tool in its arsenal.

Right now, the ultimate version of Google’s AI is Gemini Advanced, which launched last week for users willing to pay $20 per month for the privilege — the same price OpenAI charges for its upgraded ChatGPT Plus. So I plunked down $20 and decided to see how Gemini Advanced stood up to the rival service.

The older Gemini was already pretty good. It could summarize Shakespeare, give tea recommendations, and create a...

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Apple appears to be breaking iPhone web apps in the EU

Illustration: The Verge

Apple appears to be turning off the ability to use web apps right from the iPhone’s homescreen in the European Union. Support for progressive web apps appeared to be broken inside in the EU during the first two betas of iOS 17.4, but today developer Maximiliano Firtman said in a post on X that web apps are still turned off in the third beta, which arrived yesterday. “At this point, it’s a feature disabled on purpose,” Firtman wrote.

Now, instead of opening in a full-screen window, web apps open in your web browser, making them act more like shortcuts. Developers Mysk found that when you select a web app for the first time, it will trigger a pop-up that asks to open the app in your default web browser. Once the app opens, the browser’s...

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Downpour is a new app that turns your photos into games

Image: Downpour

In the past, when Lunar New Year rolled around, I would occasionally make a rude bingo card to ease the generational friction created by many disparate relatives suddenly spending too much time together. I didn’t share the bingo cards with everyone, but they were a small, silly way to let off steam and commiserate with like-minded victims enduring hours-long reunion dinners and polite family visits with very difficult people. This year, I was armed with something far superior: I made a (fictional) choose-your-own-adventure game in Downpour called Dragon Me To Hell that involved communing with my grandmother’s late dog, possibly committing a small crime, and escaping to our freedom.

Downpour is a new app that lets you stitch together...

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Automating ableism

Illustration by Erik Carter

In December, the US Census proposed changes to how it categorizes disability. If implemented, the changes would have slashed the number of Americans who are counted as disabled, when experts say that disabled people are already undercounted.

The Census opened its proposal to public comment; anyone can submit a comment on a federal agency rulemaking on their own. But in this specific case, the people who were most affected by the proposal had more obstacles in the way of giving their input.

“It was really important to me to try to figure out how to enable those folks as best I could to be able to write and submit a comment,” said Matthew Cortland, a senior fellow at Data for Progress. With that in mind, they created a GPT-4 bot...

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Slack AI is here, letting you catch up on lengthy threads and unread messages

Image: Slack

Slack is launching a suite of built-in AI features that serve up summaries of threads and channel recaps, while also allowing you to ask questions about what’s been going on at work. The workplace management platform first started testing Slack AI last year, but now it’s rolling out as a paid add-on for Slack Enterprise users.

In case you’ve fallen behind on a particular thread someone has tagged you in, you can use Slack AI to get a full summary of the conversation, as well as who has said what. There’s also a way to get a recap of the chatter that has been going on in channels.

Image: Slack

You can receive summaries of unread messages or messages from within a particular timeframe.

You can select the star...

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The text file that runs the internet

Illustration by Erik Carter

For decades, robots.txt governed the behavior of web crawlers. But as unscrupulous AI companies seek out more and more data, the basic social contract of the web is falling apart.

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DuckDuckGo’s privacy browser adds built-in password syncing

Image: DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo has added a new “Sync & Backup” feature to its privacy-first browser that will keep passwords, bookmarks, and favorites constant across all of your devices — without setting up an account. Falling right in line with its usual claims that it won’t track you or collect your data, the company says that the data is end-to-end encrypted and that it “cannot access your data at any time.”

DuckDuckGo writes that data should sync “across most Windows, Mac, Android, and iPhone devices,” including what you’ve imported from browsers like Chrome. Setting up the sync involves scanning a QR code if you’re using a mobile device or entering an alphanumeric code if you’re using a computer.

Image: DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo...

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Google joins a mission to map global methane emissions from space

A rendering of MethaneSat | Image courtesy of Google

Google announced a partnership with the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) today to map methane pollution and oil and gas infrastructure from space.

Google and EDF hope to be able to pinpoint where much of those methane emissions are leaking from — which could perhaps help put a plug in those leaks. Next month, EDF plans to launch its MethaneSAT, a satellite that will track emissions of methane, an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, Google is using AI to map oil and gas infrastructure to create a global map of pollution sources.

Preventing methane pollution can have a large and immediate impact on climate change

“Infrastructure changes rapidly, and keeping a map like this up to date requires constant...

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Microsoft and OpenAI say hackers are using ChatGPT to improve cyberattacks

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Microsoft and OpenAI are revealing today that hackers are already using large language models like ChatGPT to refine and improve their existing cyberattacks. In newly published research, Microsoft and OpenAI have detected attempts by Russian, North Korean, Iranian, and Chinese-backed groups using tools like ChatGPT for research into targets, to improve scripts, and to help build social engineering techniques.

“Cybercrime groups, nation-state threat actors, and other adversaries are exploring and testing different AI technologies as they emerge, in an attempt to understand potential value to their operations and the security controls they may need to circumvent,” says Microsoft in a blog post today.

The Strontium group, linked to Russian...

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Sony misses PS5 sales target as console enters ‘latter stage of its life cycle’

The original PS5 next to last year’s slimmer redesign. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Sony now expects to sell 4 million fewer PS5 consoles in its 2023 fiscal year ending March 31st compared to previous projections, Bloomberg reports. The revision came as part of today’s third-quarter earnings release which saw Sony lower the PS5 sales forecast from the 25 million consoles it expected to sell down to 21 million.

While PS5 sales were up in Sony’s third quarter, increasing to 8.2 million units from 6.3 million in the same quarter the previous year, Bloomberg notes that this was roughly a million units lower than it had previously projected. That’s despite the release of the big first-party title Spider-Man 2, strong sales of third-party titles, and the launch of a new slimmer PS5 in November.

“We expect the annual sales...

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After trying the Vision Pro, Mark Zuckerberg says Quest 3 ‘is the better product, period’

Mark Zuckerberg wearing the Quest 3 headset. | Image: Meta

Now that it can be strapped to our faces and worn in strange places, opinions about Apple’s Vision Pro are flying left and right.

Entering the chat is Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has more at stake than perhaps anyone on earth if Apple does to headsets what the iPhone did to smartphones. In a video posted to his Instagram account on Tuesday, Zuckerberg gives his official verdict on the Vision Pro versus his company’s latest Quest 3 headset: “I don’t just think that Quest is the better value, I think Quest is the better product, period.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck)

While being filmed by the Quest 3’s video passthrough system in his living room, Zuckerberg...

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US patent office confirms AI can’t hold patents

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) maintains that artificial intelligence systems cannot be named inventors, but humans can use AI tools in the process of creating patented inventions and must disclose if they do.

The agency published its latest guidance following a series of “listening” tours to gather public feedback. It states that while AI systems and other “non-natural persons” can’t be listed as inventors in patent applications, “the use of an AI system by a natural person does not preclude a natural person from qualifying as an inventor.” People seeking patents must disclose if they used AI in the invention process, just as the USPTO asks all applicants to list all material information necessary to make a decision.

H...

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Taylor Swift is now a podcasting influencer

Photo by Patrick Smith / Getty Images

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

I hope all you East Coasters had a cozy nor’easter. By the time the snow stopped this morning and I tried to take my baby outside for some winter frolicking, it had already turned to slush. He doesn’t know the difference, but I am bummed!

Today, we’re looking at layoffs at SiriusXM, a new podcast deal for Meghan Markle, and how the “Swift Effect” made Travis Kelce’s podcast a top 10 hit. But first, one more programming announcement for Hot Pod Summit!

SiriusXM and The Trade Desk are coming to Hot Pod Summit

One thing we keep hearing from readers and Hot Pod Summit attendees is a desire to understand what on earth is going on with...

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Walmart might buy Vizio to win the fight over cheap TVs

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

Walmart is eyeing a $2 billion deal to buy the TV maker Vizio, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The deal would put the retail chain in a better position to compete with the affordable smart TVs from Roku and Amazon than its existing Onn house brand. It would also give Walmart access to the breadth of customer data collected by Vizio’s smart TV platform and the revenue stream created by serving up personalized ads and taking a cut of subscription fees.

After years of putting its Roku operating system on other TVs, Roku finally launched its own line of smart TVs last year and is ramping up its efforts with plans to release more expensive Mini LED TVs this spring. Meanwhile, Amazon is steadily building out its lineup of...

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Sarah Silverman’s lawsuit against OpenAI partially dismissed

Illustration: The Verge

A California court has partially dismissed a copyright case against OpenAI brought by several authors, including comedian Sarah Silverman, who allege OpenAI’s ChatGPT is pirating their work.

The case against OpenAI combines complaints filed by Silverman, Christopher Golden, Richard Kadrey, Paul Tremblay, and Mona Awad. (Awad left the suit in August.) It made six claims: direct copyright infringement; vicarious infringement; violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by removing copyright management information; unfair competition; negligence; and unjust enrichment. OpenAI asked to dismiss all counts but the first and main complaint: direct copyright infringement.

The court ruled yesterday on OpenAI’s request to dismiss all...

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The threat of extinction is getting worse for migratory animals

The endangered Steppe Eagle is one of the migratory species that has become even more threatened in the past 30 years, according to a new UN report. | Photo by: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

More than one in five migratory species officially deemed in need of international protection are now in danger of extinction. That’s according to the most comprehensive report of their populations yet, released as a United Nations wildlife conservation conference kicks off this week in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

Human activity is pushing these species to the brink. But that also means there are concrete steps people can take to safeguard their futures. The first-of-its-kind stocktake of the world’s migratory species isn’t all doom and gloom — there are some success stories sprinkled in there. It just goes to show that it’s not too late to act; it just has to be fast because the clock is ticking for many of the billions of animals that...

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ChatGPT is getting ‘memory’ to remember who you are and what you like

Illustration: The Verge

Talking to an AI chatbot can feel a bit like Groundhog Day after a while, as you tell it for the umpteenth time how you like your emails formatted and which of those “fun things to do this weekend” you’ve already done six times. OpenAI is trying to fix that and personalize its own bot in a big way. It’s rolling out “memory” for ChatGPT, which will allow the bot to remember information about you and your conversations over time.

Memory works in one of two ways. You can tell ChatGPT to remember something specific about you: you always write code in Javascript, your boss’s name is Anna, your kid is allergic to sweet potatoes. Or ChatGPT can simply try to pick up those details over time, storing information about you as you ask questions and...

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Spotify’s layoffs doomed its best (unofficial) music discovery resource

With Every Noise at Once no longer updating, finding new music directly on Spotify has become a farce. | Image: Nick Barclay / The Verge

Spotify sucks at new music discovery. That’s not exactly a hot take considering how long users have been complaining about it over the years, but it used to be much easier to forgive when alternative services like Pandora and SoundCloud could help to make up for Spotify’s shortcomings. With the company’s domination over the music streaming industry now becoming difficult to ignore, it’s getting harder to organically find new songs and artists — especially on the Spotify platform itself.

As a near-decade-long Spotify Premium subscriber, one of my favorite workarounds was Every Noise at Once — a website created by Spotify data alchemist Glenn McDonald that essentially served as a directory that mapped out and tracked each music genre...

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The best Fitbits for your fitness and health

Fitbit makes an array of fitness trackers, from basic fitness bands to full-fledged smartwatches, though the best Fitbit smartwatch isn’t technically a Fitbit. | Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge

Whether you want a basic fitness tracker or a smartwatch, there’s a Fitbit for everyone — though the best Fitbit smartwatch isn’t technically a Fitbit.

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You can finally buy a Playdate without waiting for months

Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Nearly two years after it first debuted, Panic has caught up on preorders for its adorable Playdate handheld. The company says that it has shipped more than 70,000 of the tiny yellow gadgets — up from 50,000 last April — and that there is now a “limited number” in stock to purchase right now on Panic’s site. (The news comes just a day after Analogue announced a similar milestone for its Pocket handheld.)

“Going forward, Panic will notify the public when Playdates are in-stock and ready to ship,” the company explains. “Customers will still be able to place an order for a Playdate when it is out of stock, but will be notified that their order won’t ship until Panic has a new batch of Playdates ready to ship.” Speaking to The Verge, Greg...

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Apple’s sci-fi drama Invasion is getting a third season

Image: Apple

Apple TV Plus has some more aliens on the way. The streaming service has confirmed that its sci-fi drama Invasion will be getting a third season, after wrapping up season 2 in October. There aren’t many details about the new season — including when it might start streaming — but production is set to begin sometime in February.

In a statement, series creator Simon Kinberg said, “This new season will continue to build on the scale, stakes and propulsion of the Invasion, while keeping our characters front and center, bringing them together in ways that will hopefully surprise and most importantly move our audience, who have been so incredibly supportive and inspiring since day one.”

Invasion originally premiered in 2021; after a slow start,...

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Passkeys might really kill passwords

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge

Passkeys: how do they work? No, like, seriously. It’s clear that the industry is increasingly betting on passkeys as a replacement for passwords, a way to use the internet that is both more secure and more user-friendly. But for all that upside, it’s not always clear how we, the normal human users, are supposed to use passkeys. You’re telling me it’s just a thing... that lives on my phone? What if I lose my phone? What if you steal my phone?

On this episode of The Vergecast, we bring in an expert: Anna Pobletts, the head of passwordless (best title ever?) at 1Password. She has been working on all things post-password for a long time and has seen every use case you can think of. She’s convinced that passkeys are the future but also has...

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Roborock’s Q5 Pro, the best robovac for picking up pet hair, is 25 percent off

Roborock’s entry-level robot vacuum comes with dual rubber brushes, which are far better at removing pet hair from rugs than single brushes.

Our furry friends are adorable, perfect little angels in every way except for one: they can leave one hell of a mess. Thankfully, the Roborock Q5 Pro is available from Amazon and Roborock starting at $319.97 ($110 off), which is an all-time on the excellent midrange robot vacuum.

Thanks to a pair of dual rubber roller brushes and 5,200 Pa of suction power, the Q5 Pro sucks up pet hair and dirt from carpets impressively well — so well, in fact, we named it our top robovac pick for families with pets. Although it can’t empty itself or scrub your floors, its removable mopping pad does come in handy when the dog walks in with wet, muddy paws. The robot vacuum also features a massive 770ml bin with big wheels that enable it to easily climb...

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A remote school outage might give NYC kids their snow day after all

Photo by YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images

Even though New York City schools shut down ahead of the heavy snowfall expected to blanket the area for most of Tuesday, the city is still requiring kids to attend remotely. The only problem is: schools couldn’t actually get the remote learning system working.

At 8:22AM ET, the NYC Public Schools account on X said that it’s “currently experiencing issues with services that require IBM authentication to login.” The issue is preventing students from logging into Google Classroom so they can attend class remotely, according to local news station PIX11.

UPDATE: IBM has added capacity and improvements are rolling out across the system.⁰⁰For context: IBM provides support to validate NYCPS users logging in to NYCPS systems (Single Sign On)...

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A sneaky piracy app is trending in Apple’s App Store

The Kimi app as viewed in the macOS App Store. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge

There’s a vision testing app called Kimi sitting at number eight in the Apple iOS App Store’s trending list of free entertainment apps right now (and number 46 overall for free apps!). But it’s not an app for testing your eyesight, at least not unless you consider watching pirated movies on your smartphone a form of vision testing, which, I suppose you could?

I called Kimi sneaky in the headline, and it is insofar as if you glanced at it, you’d probably dismiss it immediately because it looks so very scammy and it’s actually not the vision testing app it claims to be. But it’s also simultaneously astoundingly blatant. There’s a half-assed description (beneath the quarter-assed screenshots) that says it’s “an interesting APP that tests...

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Otter is making AI bots part of the group chat

Otter’s AI Chat in Channels. | Image: Otter AI

Otter, the automated transcription service, is rolling out a new AI feature that lets groups ask a chatbot questions about what happened in their past meetings. It takes information from all the meetings that group members were in and answers prompts like, “What did we decide on yesterday?”

The feature is called “AI Chat in Channels,” and it basically opens up Otter’s AI chats to a group instead of the single-user experience they are now. Channels, which can be found within the Otter platform, function a lot like Slack chats. They let people talk with frequent collaborators and share transcripts with each other.

Most generative AI chat features — the kinds that trawl through a user’s agenda or emails — are normally only available in...

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