Sonos soundbars and speakers are on sale just in time for March Madness

You can get your home theater ready for viewing parties before you start filling out your brackets. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

If you’re looking for a home theater upgrade to amplify the screaming crowds, court squeaks, and other signature sounds of NCAA basketball throughout March Madness, you should check out the sale going on at Sonos right now. Through March 25th, you can save 20 percent on select soundbars and speakers.

For example, the entry-level soundbar in its lineup, the Sonos Ray, is down to around $223 (about $57 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Sonos. If you need a little bit more power, you can go for the Sonos Beam (Gen 2), which is also on sale for around $399 ($50 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Sonos. Both are compatible with the Sonos Sub Mini, which is down to about $343 ($86 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Sonos. The Sonos Move 2 is also on sale...

Continue reading…

SpaceX sucessfully launches Starship in third flight test

The third Starship test flight has fared far better than SpaceX’s previous two attempts. | Image: SpaceX

SpaceX’s massive Starship took off from the company’s Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas, at 9:25AM ET on Thursday morning. Unlike its two predecessors, it has stayed in one piece and is continuing to fly on its way to a planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

So far, it has completed the hot-staging separation from its Super Heavy booster and opened a payload door intended to demonstrate how it could be used for missions like delivering Starlink satellites into orbit. The latest update from SpaceX says that the vehicle has entered a “coast phase” before it attempts a planned in-space relight of the Raptor engines at about 40 minutes into the flight.

Liftoff of Starship! pic.twitter.com/FaNcasuKaq

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 14,...

Continue reading…

Mini but mighty: Blink’s tiny, inexpensive camera can now go outdoors

The new Blink Mini 2 wired security camera is a worthwhile upgrade to the Blink Mini, adding weather resistance, a wider field of view, and person detection for around $40.

Continue reading…

SpaceX Starship launch: third time’s the charm?

Image: SpaceX

The first two Starship flight tests ended in an explosive fashion. Now, SpaceX has set a date and time for its third launch attempt.

Continue reading…

The Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra is more screen, less zen

New big Android phone just dropped.

The days of the small Zenfone are over — maybe? Asus has officially unveiled the Zenfone 11 Ultra, and it is anything but the small-ish device that its last few predecessors were. It comes with a 6.78-inch screen, a huge 5,500mAh battery, and a sizable $899 starting price.

You don’t have to look too hard to identify that the Zenfone 11 Ultra is basically a rebadged ROG Phone 8, minus the gamer lights. Like its gaming-focused sibling, the 11 Ultra uses a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and comes with 12GB of RAM / 256GB of ROM in its base configuration. A 16GB / 512GB model will be sold outside the US. Like previous Zenfones, the 11 Ultra won’t work on Verizon in the US — only AT&T and T-Mobile.

The 11 Ultra uses an LTPO display, so it can...

Continue reading…

Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra review: just another big phone

It’s bigger for sure, but is that really better?

Continue reading…

How Nintendo’s destruction of Yuzu is rocking the emulator world

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images, The Verge

The leading Nintendo Switch emulator is a smoking crater. Others are wary — but hopeful — for the future.

Continue reading…

Microlino electric bubble car review: urban delight

The Microlino Dolce is a throwback to mid-century bubble cars.

Fun, fun, fun till a trailer towed my baby away.

Continue reading…

Turtle Beach is buying gamepad maker PDP

Image: Turtle Beach

Gaming accessory company Turtle Beach has announced it’s getting into the controller collecting game and buying PDP for a cool $118 million. PDP getting bought could be a good thing, depending on how you feel about its slate of generally affordable and fun-colored controllers.

Turtle Beach has added a lot of accessory irons to the gaming fire in the last couple years, including forays into flight yokes and the recently-announced Velocity One racing wheel. It sells controllers too, but it only began doing so in 2021, and doesn’t sell any for PlayStation or Nintendo consoles.

Image: PDP

Correct layout, best fighter.

Gamepads are PDP’s bread and butter — and it’s got licenses to sell them for every major...

Continue reading…

SpaceX is cleared to attempt its third Starship test flight

SpaceX Starship on a Super Heavy rocket booster | Image: SpaceX

Now that the Federal Aviation Administration has granted SpaceX a license (pdf), the third test flight of its Starship Super Heavy vehicle could take place as soon as Thursday morning. SpaceX says that a 110-minute launch window will open at 7AM CT / 8AM ET / 5AM PT tomorrow, March 14th.

If you’re planning on watching to see what happens, we recommend getting up early before the launch just in case it’s either canceled or, as we’ve seen on previous attempts, occurs at the very beginning of the launch window.

In a post on X (which, like SpaceX, is owned by Elon Musk), the FAA said it has “determined SpaceX met all safety, environmental, policy and financial responsibility requirements.” While both of the first two Starship launches took...

Continue reading…

Amazon will let sellers paste a link so AI can make a product page

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Sellers on Amazon will soon be able to make product pages with just the copy-and-paste of a link.

Amazon is releasing a new generative AI feature that takes information from a seller’s external website and then generates an Amazon product page for the item, complete with a written description and images. The goal is to help sellers reduce the time it takes to bring the product from a different website onto Amazon, says Mary Beth Westmoreland, Amazon’s VP of worldwide selling partner experience, in a blog post.

Image: Amazon

Amazon’s AI will parse through a separate link to generate product pages.

Amazon warns sellers that if they choose to paste a URL to create the product page, they must be the owner, rights...

Continue reading…

Why the Kate Middleton scandal just won’t die

Yikes! | Photo by Paul Ellis / AFP via Getty Images

How a bad Photoshop job turned into an existential crisis for the British monarchy.

Continue reading…

Epic asks judge to enforce the Apple App Store injunction

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Epic Games isn’t done with Apple. A 2021 ruling forced Apple to allow developers of App Store apps to link to outside payments, and Epic has now filed a motion asking Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to enforce her original order.

Epic says Apple’s updated developer policy that still reserves 27 percent of outside payments (or 12 percent for small developers) for Apple itself is still unjustified. Epic argues these fees are “essentially the same” as those the company charges for using its payments system.

Christian Owens, who founded payments processor Paddle, and Benjamin Simon, the founder behind the Down Dog fitness apps for iOS, agreed in declarations also filed by Epic. Owens called the choice offered by Apple “illusory,” while Simon...

Continue reading…

Google finally brings all its Nest Cam features to Google Home for web

With a new update you can now view recorded footage from cameras like the Google Nest Cam (indoor, wired) on Google Home’s web interface. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Google has announced that in the next few days, Nest Cam users will finally be able to view and download recorded clips and scroll through their event timeline on its new home.google.com web portal. While you’ve been able to view livestreams from here, if you want to see what happened earlier, you need to go to the Google Home app.

The company also says it's bringing the ability to create custom clips from recorded footage both on the web and in the app, finally bringing the full functionality of its Nest cameras to its own platform. These features will require a Nest Aware subscription, starting at $8 a month.

Google first promised to bring a web view to its cameras in 2021, but it didn’t materialize until 2022. Then, it was limited...

Continue reading…

DJI Avata 2 drone leaks are out — and its goggles have cameras

Leaks of the DJI Avata 2 drone show it with a sleeker battery housing and updated triple-bladed propellers. | Image: @Quadro_News

DJI’s unannounced Avata 2 drone and Goggles 3 have leaked, showing some exciting updates over their predecessors — such as a bigger battery and sensor and cameras that might let you see through the first-person view (FPV) headset.

The image atop this story, via @Quadro_News, shows the new drone is ditching much of the original skeletal design and uses brand-new triple-bladed propellers and batteries, which now appear to be fully encased within the frame. More intriguing are the new alleged Goggles 3, though: they appear to feature two cameras on the front that could possibly be used for passthrough vision and what appears to be a hinged forehead rest for flipping the goggles up when not in use. The leak doesn’t explicitly say what...

Continue reading…

TikTok’s fate now lies with the Senate after House advances path to a ban

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images

The fate of TikTok in the US now lies with the Senate after House lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to pass a bill that would ban the app unless Chinese parent company ByteDance sells it.

President Joe Biden has already said he would sign the bill, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, if both chambers advance it.

But even though the bill sailed through the House only about a week after it was first introduced, the Senate will present a whole different set of challenges.

To start, there’s no companion bill yet, so the legislation is barely at the start line in that chamber. And even if one is introduced, Senate rules could make it tricky to maintain enough support (60 out of 100 members) to clear it....

Continue reading…

Elon Musk cancels Don Lemon’s show on X after a ‘tense’ interview

Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Elon Musk appears to have canceled Don Lemon’s show on X over some interview questions Musk didn’t like. Lemon says that Musk terminated their partnership just hours after a “tense” interview between him and the platform’s owner.

Lemon doesn’t say what exactly transpired during his interview, but he does say that Musk “is mad” at him. “Throughout our conversation, I kept reiterating to him that although it was tense at times, I thought it was good for people to see and hear our exchange, and that they would learn from our conversation,” Lemon says in a video posted to X.

Elon Musk canceled #TheDonLemonShow

Watch on YouTube and listen everywhere on Monday March 18. pic.twitter.com/AAhnvcY0ny

— Don Lemon (@donlemon) March 13, 2024

L...

Continue reading…

Microsoft Teams is finally moving to a single app for personal and work

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is finally creating a single version of Microsoft Teams that will allow you to switch between personal and work accounts easily. The new unified app is currently in testing and will let Microsoft Teams users switch between multiple tenants and personal or work account types.

This new version of Teams will be rolled out to commercial users in April and will include an account switcher that’s accessible from the profile section. “We received consistent feedback from personal and work users: you prefer a single Teams app that allows you to easily access and switch between personal and work accounts,” says Microsoft in a blog post. “This update lets you use one app for all kinds of Teams accounts.”

Image:...

Continue reading…

Microsoft’s AI Copilot for Security launches next month with pay-as-you-go pricing

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is launching its Copilot for Security next month, bringing its generative AI chatbot to the cybersecurity space. Copilot for Security is designed for cybersecurity professionals to help them protect against threats, but it won’t be a one-off monthly charge like Copilot for Microsoft 365. Instead, Microsoft will charge businesses $4 per hour of usage as part of a consumption model when Copilot for Security launches on April 1st.

Powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Microsoft’s own security-specific model, Copilot for Security is essentially a chatbot where cybersecurity workers can get the latest information on security incidents, summaries of threats, and more. Microsoft first started testing this chatbot nearly a year ago, and it...

Continue reading…

Speck’s sitewide sale takes 20 percent off cases and accessories

You can use our exclusive discount code on anything at Speck’s site. | Speck / Amazon

Whether you’re looking to protect a new phone or freshen up the look of an older one, Speck’s sitewide sale is a great place to start. Exclusively for readers of The Verge until March 18th, you can save 20 percent on anything you purchase from the case maker’s site. Just use code 20VERGE at checkout to receive the discount.

Speck makes cases for both Apple and Samsung devices, from iPhones and flagship Galaxy Android phones to tablets and even AirPods and MacBooks. You can choose from several fun colors with one of the opaque Presidio2 Grip iPhone 15 cases or show off your phone’s natural beauty with a Presidio Perfect-Clear case, for example. They have MagSafe magnets and antimicrobial protection and are down to $39.99 each ($10 off)...

Continue reading…

Block’s new crypto wallet can only be purchased with real cash

Image: Block

Block, the Jack Dorsey-led payment company, has released its long-in-the-works Bitcoin hardware wallet — but you can’t use cryptocurrency to buy it. You can only purchase the $150 Bitkey wallet with your credit or debit card, a sign that crypto might not be as prevalent as its designers had anticipated.

Block first introduced a prototype of the wallet in 2022 before opening preorders last December. The self-custody Bitcoin wallet, which Dorsey nicknamed “rockey,” lets users store cryptocurrency outside of an exchange to protect the funds from a potential collapse.

Bitkey is paired with a mobile app and recovery tools in case users lose the wallet or their phone. There’s a fingerprint sensor on top of the device, a USB-C charging port,...

Continue reading…

YouTube is revamping its TV app to make videos feel way more interactive

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube is constantly tinkering with its app design across different platforms and screen sizes, and today, the company shared the latest changes coming to its TV-optimized app. There’s a clear focus on making the viewing experience more interactive and giving greater prominence to chapters, comments, and video descriptions — without getting in the way of the video you’re trying to watch.

The new view shrinks the video down slightly to make space for the description, comments, and other elements around it. It’s not YouTube’s new default look, since many people will still prefer a full-screen layout. But you can easily click into the more interactive interface from the standard video player screen.

“What users will be able to see on...

Continue reading…

Meta is ready to drop news in Illinois if forced to pay local publishers

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

A new Illinois bill called the Journalism Preservation Act (SB 3591) that’s currently sitting in the state’s Senate would require online companies to pay local news publishers for work viewed by residents on their platforms.

This follows in the footsteps of national laws in Canada and Australia, as well as in California. Like in those cases, Meta says it will pull news from its platforms in the state if the bill becomes law.

Meta spokesperson Jamie Radice told The Verge via email that news isn’t the reason most people visit Facebook and Instagram, and if the law passes, “we will be forced to make the same business decision that we made in Canada to end the availability of news in Illinois_.”_ We asked Google for comment, but it did not...

Continue reading…

House passes bill that could ban TikTok

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images

Banning TikTok in the US is back on the table after the House voted Wednesday to pass a measure that would do just that unless the app separates from Chinese parent company ByteDance. The bill passed with 352 votes, needing a two-thirds majority to advance. Sixty-five members voted against it, with one voting present.

The bill still needs to clear the Senate, which is no small task. But President Joe Biden said on Friday he would sign it into law if it passes.

The House vote revives some US policymakers’ hopes for a forced divestment of TikTok, due to fears that Chinese law could compel its parent company to hand over information on US users, presenting a national security risk. The House Energy and Commerce Committee last week voted...

Continue reading…

Smart glasses are the future, but who will get there first?

The Meta Ray Ban smart glasses and the Apple Vision Pro represent two very different types of the computer you wear on your face.

While researching the history of smart glasses, I stumbled upon the August 1990 issue of Popular Mechanics. On page 48 was the Private Eye, which is credited as the world’s first wearable computer. What I’m sure the writer didn’t know at the time was that the very first line of the article would continue to describe smart glasses for nearly 30 years after it was written. It states, “Sometimes a company develops something so nifty that it takes a while before anyone figures out how to use it effectively.”

Smart glasses offer the rare opportunity for a computer to be at eye and ear level and be embedded into an accessory that a majority of folks already wear. But until recently, it has been nearly impossible to pack the technology...

Continue reading…

Google’s new AI will play video games with you — but not to win

Illustration: The Verge

Google DeepMind unveiled SIMA, an AI agent training to learn gaming skills so it plays more like a human instead of an overpowered AI that does its own thing. SIMA, which stands for Scalable, Instructable, Multiworld Agent, is currently only in research.

SIMA will eventually learn how to play any video game, even games with no linear path to end the game and open-world games. Though it’s not intended to replace existing game AI, think of it more as another player that meshes well with your party. It mixes natural language instruction with understanding 3D worlds and image recognition.

“SIMA isn’t trained to win a game; it’s trained to run it and do what it’s told,” said Google DeepMind researcher and SIMA co-lead Tim Harley during a...

Continue reading…

The first trailer for Netflix’s Atlas turns Jennifer Lopez into a mech pilot

Ana Carballosa/Netflix

It’s been a while since we had a really satisfying live-action feature focused on people piloting futuristic robots, but the first trailer for Netflix’s Atlas from director Brad Peyton makes it seem like it could be the mech genre’s next big splash.

Set in a wild future where humanity’s begun using massive AI-powered robots to wage war, Atlas tells the story of how data analyst Atlas Shepherd (Jennifer Lopez) is forced to work with a renegade machine to save the Earth. Despite the mechs’ widespread use throughout the world, Shepherd cannot shake her deep distrust for the thinking machines, which appear to be designed to operate autonomously or under the control of a human pilot.

But when Shepherd’s tapped to become part of a covert...

Continue reading…

OpenAI’s Sora text-to-video generator will be publicly available later this year

This is an example of the kind of content Sora can produce. | Image: OpenAI

You’ll soon get to try out OpenAI’s buzzy text-to-video generator for yourself. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati says Sora will be available “this year” and that it “could be a few months.”

OpenAI first showed off Sora, which is capable of generating hyperrealistic scenes based on a text prompt, in February. The company only made the tool available for visual artists, designers, and filmmakers to start, but that didn’t stop some Sora-generated videos from making their way onto platforms like X.

In addition to making the tool available to the public, Murati says OpenAI has plans to “eventually” incorporate audio, which has the potential to make the scenes even more realistic. The...

Continue reading…

Cadillac teases ‘Opulent Velocity’ electric V-Series concept

Image: Cadillac

Cadillac dropped a teaser for its latest concept, an all-electric V-Series luxury performance vehicle dubbed “Opulent Velocity.”

It’s just a concept, so no details yet about production, price, or any specs. We can see the front end with a downward sloping hood and an illuminated Cadillac badge that appears to wrap around the corner.

And the most notable thing about the short video released by Cadillac is the sound: it’s loud! Much louder than typically silent EVs, which suggests that Cadillac may be engaging in some auditory trickery for its electric V-Series. (They’re not alone! See Dodge’s “Fratzonic Exhaust.”)

“Opulent Velocity concept vehicle celebrates the past, present and future of the Cadillac V-Series brand,” Cadillac...

Continue reading…

The EU AI Act passed — here’s what comes next

Now EU MEPs just need to figure out how to implement and enforce it. | Cath Virginia / The Verge

European Union lawmakers have officially approved the bloc’s landmark AI regulation, paving the way for the EU to prohibit certain uses of the technology and demand transparency from providers. In a majority vote on Wednesday, 523 European Parliament members elected to formally adopt the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), and will now work towards its enforcement and implementation.

The AI Act has been hotly debated since it was first proposed in 2021, with some of its strictest regulations — such as a proposed total ban on biometric systems for mass public surveillance — being softened by last-minute compromises. While Wednesday’s announcement means the law has almost passed its final hurdle, it will still take years for some rules...

Continue reading…