Elon Musk’s legal case against OpenAI is hilariously bad

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

Elon Musk sued OpenAI today, alleging a wide range of incendiary things, including that GPT4 is actually an artificial general intelligence. It’s a fun complaint to read; it fundamentally accuses OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman of pretending to run a non-profit designed to benefit humanity while actually running a regular ol’ tech company and trying to make a lot of money. That’s a pretty good criticism of the entire OpenAI situation, actually! Someone with some intellectual honesty and a competent lawyer should run at that some time.

Sadly Elon Musk is not that person and his lawyers have figured out that letting the world’s richest man rack up billable hours filing nonsensical lawsuits is more lucrative than fitting the “facts” to the...

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Netflix’s Spaceman is slow, sad sci-fi — with a lovable space spider

Image: Netflix

Truly alien creatures are hard to relate to because they’re so, well, alien. The best-realized ones have different cultures and biologies and belief systems that make them distinct from humanity and, thus, hard to understand. The alien in the Netflix film Spaceman is one recent example: a giant spider with squirming tentacles, a disturbingly human mouth, the calming voice of Paul Dano, and the ability to experience time nonlinearly. And yet, the weird critter is also very relatable. He’s nosy and perceptive and prone to creature comforts to ease stress; he’s creepy, sure, but I kind of love him. And paired with a remarkably restrained Adam Sandler as a burned-out astronaut, his presence makes for some sad and soothing science fiction.

D...

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You can pick up Apple’s iPad Magic Keyboard for under $200 right now

It’s still an absurd price for a tablet keyboard, but it’s well worth it for iPad power users. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Years ago, I was firmly in the camp that swore “an iPad can’t be your primary computer,” mainly because iPadOS wasn’t nearly as conducive to a professional workflow as it is now. I can’t say the same with the latest iPads, though, especially when paired with a Magic Keyboard. Many rightfully balked at their $299.99 and $349.99 starting prices, but now through March 9th, Woot is offering new open-box Magic Keyboards for the 11-inch iPad Pro and newer iPad Airs with a 90-day warranty in white for $189.99 ($110 off). You can also grab one that’s compatible with third-gen or later 12.9-inch iPad Pro models in white or black for $199.99 ($150 off).

Apple’s Magic Keyboard uses strong magnets to keep your iPad propped up. It almost appears as...

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Dune: Part Two is a pointed examination of the books’ most subversive ideas

Warner Bros.

Denis Villeneuve’s second Dune film brilliantly lays bare the dark truths central to Frank Herbert’s operatic opus.

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A brief history of Elon Musk sabotaging Matt Levine’s time off

“My life has not been ruined by having to write about Elon Musk on Saturdays.” | Image: Laura Normand / The Verge

This story, originally published October 28th, 2022, and updated July 11th, 2023, has been updated again because, well, you are never going to guess what happened.

Matt Levine would like you to know that Elon Musk does not actually ruin all of his vacations. Sure, he was at Sesame Place, the theme park just outside Philadelphia, with his kids when Musk announced his Twitter bid, and then stayed up until midnight that night to get his newsletter, Money Stuff, out. But that was kind of fun! “My life has not been ruined by having to write about Elon Musk on Saturdays,” the former mergers and acquisitions lawyer told me. And in M&A, everything happens on the weekend.

The main problem, actually, was that he was working on a 40,000-word B...

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Clean energy is growing, but so is planet-heating pollution

Lake Mead, formed by the dam on the Colorado River in the southwestern United States, at 47 percent capacity as viewed on August 14th, 2023. | Photo by George Rose / Getty Images

2023 can now boast a terrifying record: planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions from global energy use hit a record.

It’s been almost a decade since the adoption of the 2015 Paris climate agreement to stop global warming. To fulfill the most ambitious goals in the agreement, countries are supposed to slash global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, reaching net zero by the middle of the century.

But we’re moving in the opposite direction. Energy-related emissions rose by 410 million metric tons in 2023, according to a new analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA). That’s roughly equivalent to the annual pollution from adding more than 1,000 new gas-fired power plants.

Last year also happened to be the hottest year on record

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Now Apple says it won’t disable iPhone web apps in the EU

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Apple is reversing course on a plan to discontinue supporting the installation of progressive web apps in the European Union. In an update to a developer support page spotted by 9to5Mac, Apple says it will “continue to offer the existing Home Screen web apps capability in the EU” in iOS 17.4.

However, Apple notes that homescreen apps will still “be built directly on WebKit,” the engine used by Safari. This means web apps downloaded from third-party browsers like Google Chrome or Firefox may not be powered by their own engines — despite Apple adding support for third-party browser engines in the EU in the same update.

“Developers and users who may have been impacted by the removal of Home Screen web apps in the beta release of iOS in the...

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Google cuts team of contractors who went on strike

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

A union representing contractors for YouTube Music claims that Google cut the workers’ contract after they went on a prolonged strike.

The Alphabet Workers Union-CWA, which represents the contractors, said the team consisted of moderators employed by Google contractor Cognizant in Austin, Texas, that was responsible for approving music content for YouTube Music.

In a statement emailed to The Verge, Google spokesperson Courtenay Mencini maintained the decision to cut the team did not lie with them but, rather, with Cognizant and said, “Contracts with our suppliers across the country routinely end on their natural expiry date.”

The team of more than 40 went on strike in February last year, demanding changes to Google’s return-to-work...

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Go ahead and alter the atmosphere, no one’s going to stop you — probably

A skyline at sunset in Mexico City, Mexico, Lomas de Chapultepec. | Photo by Jeffrey Greenberg / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

A de facto moratorium on solar geoengineering will stay in place after heated talks at the United Nations Environment Assembly ended in a stalemate. The debate is over whether to let people launch particles into the sky that would reflect sunlight back into space, ostensibly cooling down the planet.

It’s a hotly contested tactic for tackling climate change. Geoengineering does nothing to stop what’s actually causing the problem: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. And tinkering with the makeup of our planet and its atmosphere in order to reflect solar radiation could lead to unforeseen consequences that scientists are still trying to understand. After all, the climate change we’re already experiencing — in the form of rising...

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Nikon and NASA are putting a mirrorless camera on the Moon

Astronauts like the ESA’s Thomas Pesquet (pictured) have been field testing the HULC during various training programs. | Image: ESA

Nikon is working with NASA to make a mirrorless camera that astronauts will use during the agency’s incoming Artemis III mission to document their return to the Moon. On Thursday, NASA announced that it had entered a Space Act agreement with Nikon to develop the Handheld Universal Lunar Camera (HULC), a camera system designed to capture imagery in low light and survive the harsh lunar environment.

The crewed Artemis III mission — which will launch “no earlier than September 2026” — aims to explore the lunar south pole, a region of the Moon that contains water ice within permanently shadowed craters. That makes it an area of scientific interest, but the extreme lighting and temperature conditions pose particular technical challenges for...

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Spotify’s new audiobook tier will only save you a dollar over Premium

Image: Nick Barclay / The Verge

Spotify announced a new subscription tier that “gives booklovers more listening options.” But subscribers would only save $1 a month compared to the classic Premium tier.

The monthly subscription costs $9.99 and includes 15 free listening hours of audiobooks, the same as the classic Premium plan. But $10.99 Premium subscribers get 15 hours of audiobooks, plus ad-free music and podcasts — whereas the audiobook plan still has ads for music and podcast services. Essentially, audiobook listeners are paying nearly the same amount while getting half the benefits.

The audiobook plan also doesn’t add any additional perks for readers. If I were a big audiobook person, I’d probably want more than 15 hours a month, for example. But Spotify is...

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New York City is testing public e-bike charging stations for delivery workers

Photo by Spencer Platt / Getty Images

New York City opened its first public e-bike charging station on Thursday, part of a six-month pilot program to “support safe e-bike use and prevent deadly lithium-ion battery fires.” E-bike-related fires in the city killed 18 people and injured 150 in 2023 alone, according to The New York Times.

The new charging station in Cooper Square in the East Village will be available to 100 delivery workers free of charge during the pilot program. The city plans to open four other stations across Brooklyn and Manhattan “in the coming weeks.”

“We count on delivery workers for so much, and they should be able to count on us, too — whether that means fighting for fair pay or making their jobs and livelihoods safer,” said New York City Mayor Eric...

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Spotify and Epic criticize Apple’s iOS changes as ‘a mockery of the DMA’

Image: The Verge

Over two dozen companies and alliances, including Spotify, Epic Games, 37signals, and Proton, have signed a letter to the European Commission to express concerns about Apple’s incoming App Store rules. As a company deemed a “digital gatekeeper,” it will have to comply with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) starting on March 6th, and they argue that its plans not only disregard both the spirit and letter of the law” but “make a mockery” of it, too.

Apple will allow alternative app stores, sideloading, and third-party payment options in the EU soon — but only as long as developers agree to a new set of business terms that impose a “Core Technology Fee,” which requires developers to fork over 50 euro cents for each annual app...

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Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

The third-gen AirPods start at $149.99 ($20 off). | 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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Mobile World Congress asked us to imagine a world where phones bend to our needs

What if our phones weren’t rigid pieces of glass and aluminum? | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Mobile World Congress, like any good trade show, tries to present us with the best of what’s possible now and a vision for what’s coming next. Which translates to a lot of questions, particularly about the future of phones, like:

“What if phones, but controlled with your eyes?”

“What if phones, but make them fashion?”

“What if phones, but on your face? Or in your car?”

“What if phones, but color-changing for no reason?”

Honestly, this is the stuff trade shows are made of, and I absolutely love it. Where else are you going to see a transparent laptop? Definitely not at Best Buy.

But this year’s show seemed centered on one particular question: what does it look like for our mobile technology to bend itself to fit our lives a little...

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Fisker warns it’s running out of cash and may not make it through 2024

Image: Fisker

EV sales are up, but the companies that are hinging their entire existence on plug-in power are not doing so well. Production struggles, waning demand, and high interest rates are threatening to wipe some of them off the map. The latest is Fisker, the California-based company with big ambitions but dwindling cash.

Fisker said that there is “substantial doubt” that it will have enough money to make it through the year, the company said in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday. As such, it’s embarked on a cost-cutting spree, laying off 15 percent of employees, while casting around for more investment. Fisker said it’s “in discussions with an existing noteholder about potentially making an additional investment in...

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The Apple Car crash

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge

It appears we’re never going to get a ride in the Apple Car. After a decade of work, seemingly countless strategies, and a reported $10 billion invested, Apple appears to be out of the automotive business. Back in 2014, at the top of the self-driving hype cycle and when electric cars seemed poised to take over in no time, it seemed so simple. But it rarely works out the way you’d think.

On this episode of The Vergecast, we chat about the Apple Car era. What we knew, what we didn’t, why Apple wanted to build a car in the first place, why Jony Ive and Tim Cook took a fake car ride with a fake Siri guiding the way, and whether there might have been another harebrained project more worth Apple’s time and resources. (Here’s a hint: it’s a...

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Elon Musk sues OpenAI for abandoning its mission to benefit humanity

Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge

Elon Musk is suing OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, over claims that the pursuit of profit has led the company to abandon its founding mission to develop artificial intelligence technology that will benefit humanity. In a lawsuit filed with a San Francisco court on Thursday, Musk alleges that OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft has transformed the organization “into a closed-source de facto subsidiary” of Microsoft that’s focused on maximizing profits.

According to the lawsuit, such actions constitute a breach of the founding agreement between Musk — who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but no longer retains a stake in the company — Altman, and OpenAI president Greg Brockman, who committed to making the project a nonprofit and its technology...

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Volkswagen ID.7 review: a superior EV that happens to be a sedan

Volkswagen’s first non-SUV EV to hit American shores is shaping up to be a winner.

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Google is blocking RCS on rooted Android devices

Google says that it’s taking measures to prevent spam and abuse on its messaging service. | Image: Google

Google is cracking down on rooted Android devices, blocking multiple people from using the RCS message feature in Google Messages. Users with rooted phones — a process that unlocks privileged access to the Android operating system, like jailbreaking iPhones — have made several reports on the Google Messages support page, Reddit, andXDA’s web forum over the last few months, finding they’re suddenly unable to send or receive RCS messages.

One example from Reddit user u/joefuf shows that RCS messages would simply vanish after hitting the send button. Several reports also mention that Google Messages gave no indication that RCS chat was no longer working, and was still showing as connected and working in Google Messages.

Heads up: Users...

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Facebook will remove its News tab, and stop paying publishers for news

Facebook News US launch promo | Image: Facebook

Facebook’s News tab launched in 2019 with millions of dollars in content deals for publishers (a reported $10 million for the Wall Street Journal, $20 million for the New York Times, and $3 million for CNN), but in April it’s going away for good. Meta says it will “deprecate” Facebook News in the US and Australia in April 2024, it won’t enter new commercial deals for news, and it “will not offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future.”

A support page for Facebook News drops the “deprecate” wording and is much more direct about its earlier European shutdown and what’s next for the US and Australia:

Facebook News, located in the News tab, is no longer available in The United Kingdom, France and Germany....

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UnitedHealth says Blackcat is the reason healthcare providers are going unpaid

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Health insurance provider UnitedHealth has identified Blackcat as the group behind a debilitating cyber attack that has disrupted healthcare providers nationwide, Reuters is reporting. The attack has led to more than a week-long outage of the the United-owned Change Healthcare system, disrupting payments at hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies across the nation.

Since Change Healthcare acts as a middleman between healthcare providers and insurance companies, the breach has hindered everyday transactions like electronic pharmacy refills and new insurance claims. The company first identified suspicious activity on its IT systems on February 21st, according to an SEC filing.

The breach could last for weeks, UnitedHealth Group Chief...

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Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 review: redemption never sounded so good

The company has always delivered on audio quality, but after stumbling with some bugs and hardware issues on the Momentum True Wireless 3 earbuds, Sennheiser is focusing on the little things — and it shows.

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Here’s your first look at Tron: Ares, premiering in 2025

Image: Disney

The third Tron movie is nearing release. Disney announced that production on Tron: Ares — a follow-up to Tron: Legacy, which itself was a sequel to the 1982 original — began in January and that the plan is for the film to premiere in 2025. As part of the announcement, the first image for the film was also released. It definitely has Tron vibes but also wouldn’t be out of place as a skin in a shooter like Destiny or Fortnite.

Here’s the full thing:

Image: Disney

According to Disney, the new film is about “a highly sophisticated Program, Ares, who is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind’s first encounter with AI beings.” It’s being directed by Joachim Rønning, who...

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Google packs more searches into the Search Bar

Google

If you’ve ever opened a new browser tab with no clue what to search for, today’s Chrome updates may help.

First off, the Google Search box on Chrome will now display suggested queries based on your previous searches before you’ve started typing. In Google’s example, a user who had previously searched for the Korean noodle dish japchae would see images of similar Korean dishes beside the search box under the heading “People also search for.” Some of the search suggestions will also include images.

It’s not an entirely new feature. As Search Engine Roundtable points out, Google started testing a “People also search for” suggestion bar in 2020.

The Verge tested the updated Chrome search suggestions feature. Typing in “pesto sandwich...

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Setapp is opening its subscription-only iOS app store

Image: MacPaw

One of the first third-party app stores on iOS is getting ready to open up in the European Union. The software company MacPaw has announced that it’s releasing its Setapp store in beta on Thursday, with an official launch planned for April.

Setapp is currently only available on macOS and offers users access to over 240 third-party apps for a $9.99 per month subscription. Some examples of the curated apps available through Setapp include music software n-Track Studio, project planner MindNode, and the productivity app Session.

The new app store on iOS will feature a “carefully selected assortment of apps, including fan favorites from the Setapp catalog.” In addition to productivity and business tools, Setapp on iOS will also offer design...

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Definitely don’t start your Final Fantasy VII experience with Rebirth

Image: Square Enix

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is an excellent game and an important evolution for the franchise. It mashes together a traditional RPG with a large open world, managing to feel both modern and like it’s sticking to its 32-bit roots. What it is not, however, is a good place to get started with the multipart story that is Final Fantasy VII — despite what its creators might say.

Prior to Rebirth’s launch, creative director and zipper aficionado Tetsuya Nomura talked about how the game was designed in part to be welcoming to newcomers (always a commendable goal). “In fact,” he said in 2022, “new players might even enjoy starting their Final Fantasy VII journey with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.” Meanwhile, on launch day, producer Yoshinori Kitase...

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Sony’s new ‘slim’ PlayStation 5 is already on sale with Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Sony’s latest console is still a big boi, even if it is more than 30 percent smaller. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

PlayStation 5 sales have already surpassed 50 million units — a solid figure for a console that has rarely received a substantial price drop since it arrived on the scene more than three years ago. If you have yet to pick up Sony’s latest console, however, Best Buy is now offering the new PS5 “slim” with a digital copy of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2for $449.99 ($50 off), which marks the first discount we’ve seen on the bundle.

The revised PS5 isn’t all that different from Sony’s standard disc-based offering. The midcycle refresh is slightly smaller and more refined, and it tackles all the same games as the original models at the same 4K graphical fidelity. The biggest change is the detachable disc drive — which you can easily remove and...

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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: all the news and updates

Image: Square Enix

In Rebirth, our heroes get to explore beyond the confines of Midgar.

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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s creators want you to embrace the stress

Image: Square Enix

Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of ‘wonder and excitement’ to embrace as well.

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