Adobe’s new GenStudio platform is an AI factory for advertisers

Adobe is courting enterprise customers with its new GenStudio platform. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Adobe has announced a new AI-powered ad creation platform that aims to make it easier to use the company’s generative AI tools for building marketing campaigns. The new GenStudio application was introduced on Tuesday during Adobe’s Summit event, alongside an AI assistant for Adobe Experience and updates around Adobe’s Firefly generative AI model.

GenStudio effectively serves as a centralized hub for promotional campaigns, providing things like brand kits, copy guidance, and preapproved assets alongside a bunch of generative AI-powered tools that can generate backgrounds and ensure the overall tone remains on-brand. These tools also allow users to quickly create ads for emails and social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and...

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Wyze’s cheap and questionable security cam levels up with Wi-Fi 6, edge AI, and 2.5K video

The Wyze Cam v4. | Image: Wyze

You might think twice before buying a Wyze camera. The company’s security practices are questionable enough that I personally boycotted them in 2022, and since then, they’ve twice briefly let strangers peek into another Wyze owner’s home. In fact, The New York Times and CNET don’t recommend Wyze cameras anymore, and we haven’t done so for a while.

But some Verge readers have told us that if you’re pointing them outside of your home and recording to a local SD card, there’s no better bang for your buck. So, we figure some will appreciate Wyze’s announcement today of the Wyze Cam v4, on sale now.

The $36 camera is getting a big spec bump over the v3: it now captures 2.5K (2560 x 1440) video with what Wyze is sometimes calling HDR and...

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A native version of Chrome arrives for Arm-based Windows PCs

Image: The Verge

Google is releasing an optimized version of its Chrome browser for Windows on Arm this week, the search giant has announced alongside chipmaker Qualcomm. The official release comes two months after an early version of the browser was spotted in Chrome’s Canary channel. Qualcomm says the release “will roll out starting today.”

The release will be a big deal for any Chrome users with Windows machines powered by Arm-based processors, who’ll now have access to a much faster native browser. That’s in contrast to the x64 version of Chrome they’ve previously had to run in an emulated state with slow performance. Arm-based users have previously been able to turn to Microsoft’s Edge, which is already available for Windows on Arm devices.

Today’s...

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Princess Peach: Showtime! is clever and playful, but Peach deserves more

Image: Nintendo

Delightful design and the beloved royal badass isn’t enough to save Peach’s first game in 19 years from being a touch boring.

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Vinyl records outsell CDs for the second year running

Vinyl reigns when it comes to physical media. | Image: RIAA

People bought 43 million vinyl records last year, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). That’s 6 million more than the number of CDs sold in 2023, marking the second time since 1987 that’s happened and reflecting the steady 17-year-running growth of vinyl sales.

Vinyl, which tends to be pricier than the newer format, also far outstripped CDs in actual money made, raking in $1.4 billion compared to $537 million from CDs. The RIAA’s report shows that CD revenue was up, too, but in terms of physical products sold, people actually bought about 700,000 fewer CDs in 2023 than the year before. (If you’re curious, nearly half a million cassettes sold last year, too, according to Billboard.)

Image:...

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Heat and drought are sucking US hydropower dry

Lake Mead, formed by Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States, at 47 percent capacity as viewed on August 14, 2023 near Boulder City, Nevada. | Photo by George Rose/Getty Images

The amount of hydropower generated in the Western US last year was the lowest it’s been in more than two decades. Hydropower generation in the region fell by 11 percent during the 2022–2023 water year compared to the year prior, according to preliminary data from the Energy Information Administration’s Electricity Data Browser — its lowest point since 2001.

That includes states west of the Dakotas and Texas, where 60 percent of the nation’s hydropower was generated. These also happen to be the states — including California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico — that climate change is increasingly sucking dry. And in a reversal of fortunes, typically wetter states in the Northeast — normally powerhouses for hydropower generation — were the...

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Microsoft Teams is getting smarter Copilot AI features

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is improving the way its AI-powered Copilot works in Microsoft Teams with new ways to invoke the assistant during meeting chats, summaries, and more.

Copilot is already able to summarize Teams meetings, but in the coming months, it will combine spoken transcripts and written chats into a single view to make it easier to catch up on meetings you might have missed.

Copilot in Teams is also getting improvements to composing messages in chat, allowing Teams users to rewrite a message in new ways. “Copilot can adjust your message to add a call to action, or like how a pirate would speak,” says Microsoft in a blog post. “Soon, you will also be able to generate a new message based on the context in the Teams chat.”

Intelligent call...

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Dragon’s Dogma 2’s lovable pawns make it an adventure worth fighting for

Image: Capcom

The sequel to Capcom’s action RPG is big and chaotic, but the companion characters are what make it all work.

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AI headphones and clicky phone keys

Image: The Verge / Photo courtesy of University of Washington

The world is a noisy place. High-end headphones are getting better at shutting it out; solid noise-canceling headphones from Sony, Bose, and others are increasingly a must-have for anyone who spends a lot of time on planes and trains, or in coffee shops full of people pitching AI startups. It’s a sanity thing, really.

But there are already people working on a giant leap in active noise cancellation. Instead of just blocking all the sound around you, the next generation of headphones might block all the sound you don’t want — but let in all the things you do want to hear. And someday, it might even be able to do that automatically. Your headphones could block out your annoying friend but not your cool friend; could hush the vacuum but not...

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Disney Plus has a new Hulu-ified logo

The old Disney Plus icon logo (left) compared with the updated teal one (right). | Image: Disney

Disney has made some slight but notable updates to the logo and splash screen for its Disney Plus streaming service that likely nod to its looming merger with Hulu. The biggest change is the new teal / seafoam background color, which appears to be a rough mix between its original blue background and the green that Hulu uses.

At face value alone, the updated design — which can already be seen on the Disney Plus website and various app stores — makes sense for the corporate giant. Aside from the obvious unity with Hulu, the new color also makes it stand out more against the sea of blue and black logos used by other streaming services like Prime Video, Max, and Paramount Plus. But I am actually sad to see the old logo go.

I...

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The PS5 is getting an automatic game clip feature that helps other players

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Sony is introducing a new Community Game Help feature on the PS5 later this year that is designed to automatically create clips that can help other players. PS5 players will be able to automatically upload gameplay to help contribute to hint videos provided by game developers.

The opt-in experience will let your PS5 automatically capture a game clip when you complete an activity in supported titles. “Then, it will be reviewed by a moderator, and if approved, your video will be published as a Game Help hint for PlayStation players to watch, learn from, and rate,” explains Sabrina Meditz, senior director of product management for the PS5 platform experience.

Image: Sony

PS5 players will get a notification if their...

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Here’s why AI search engines really can’t kill Google

Illustration by Vincent Kilbride

The AI search tools are getting better — but they don’t yet understand what a search engine really is and how we really use them.

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Canva acquires Affinity to fill the Adobe-sized holes in its design suite

Affinity’s professional design software could give Canva the edge it needs to seriously compete against Adobe. | Image: Canva

Web-based design platform Canva has acquired the Affinity creative software suite, positioning itself as a challenger to Adobe’s grip over the digital design industry. Canva announced the deal on Tuesday, which gives the company ownership over Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher — three popular creative applications for Windows, Mac, and iPad that provide similar features to Adobe’s Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign software, respectively.

Official figures for the deal have not been revealed, but Bloomberg reports that it’s valued at “several hundred million [British] pounds.” Nevertheless, the acquisition makes sense as the Australian-based company tries to attract more creative professionals. As of January this year, Canva’s...

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Here are the best Apple Watch deals right now

The entry-level Apple Watch SE is a gateway smartwatch if there ever was one. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

In September, Apple launched its latest batch of smartwatches, introducing the Apple Watch Ultra 2 ($799) alongside the new Apple Watch Series 9 ($399). Each wearable has its own pros and cons, as does the second-gen Apple Watch SE ($249), but the introduction of the new wearables also means there are now more Apple Watch models on the market than ever before — and a lot more deals to be had.

But with all of those options, which one should you pick? Generally speaking, you want to buy the newest watch you can afford so that it continues to receive software updates from Apple. The latest update, watchOS 10, launched in September on the Apple Watch Series 4 and newer, though no one can say with certainty whether the Series 4 will get the...

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Nissan announces plans to make 16 new electrified vehicles by 2026

Image: Nissan

Nissan has laid out a new plan to electrify 16 of the 30 vehicles it produces by 2026, with the rest using internal combustion instead. For those of us in North America, the company says it plans to release seven new vehicles in the US and Canada, although it’s not clear how many of those will be some type of EV.

Nissan says the US is getting “e-POWER and plug-in hybrid models” — each of those uses a mix of electricity and fuel for power. At the moment, the only all-electric EVs Nissan is producing are the Ariya SUV and the perhaps endangered (or maybe not) Leaf.

In 2021, Nissan said it would make 23 electrified vehicles by 2030, and that 15 of those would be fully electric, rather than some form of hybrid vehicle. It’s hard to say if...

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Microsoft has a new Windows and Surface chief

Illustration: The Verge

Microsoft is naming Pavan Davuluri as its new Windows and Surface chief today. After Panos Panay’s surprise departure to Amazon last year, Microsoft split up the Windows and Surface groups under two different leaders. Davuluri took over the Surface silicon and devices work, with Mikhail Parakhin leading a new team focused on Windows and web experiences. Now both Windows and Surface will be Davuluri’s responsibility, as Parakhin has “decided to explore new roles.”

The Verge has obtained an internal memo from Rajesh Jha, Microsoft’s head of experiences and devices, outlining the new Windows organization. Microsoft is now bringing together its Windows and devices teams once more. “This will enable us to take a holistic approach to building...

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Telegram’s Peer-to-Peer Login system is a risky way to save $5 a month

Please don’t sign up for this program. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Telegram is offering a new way to earn a premium subscription free of charge: all you have to do is volunteer your phone number to relay one-time passwords (OTP) to other users. This, in fact, sounds like an awful idea — particularly for a messaging service based around privacy.

X user @AssembleDebug spotted details about the new program on the English-language version of a popular Russian-language Telegram information channel. Sure enough, there’s a section in Telegram’s terms of service outlining the new “Peer-to-Peer Login” or P2PL program, which is currently only offered on Android and in certain (unspecified) locations. By opting in to the program, you agree to let Telegram use your phone number to send up to 150 texts with OTPs to...

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The creators of 3 Body Problem want to have ‘a back and forth’ with the book

3 Body Problem executive producers Alexander Woo, David Benioff, and D.B. Weiss. | Image: Ed Miller / Netflix

Between its expanded, more ethnically diverse cast and its more advanced take on virtual reality gaming, Netflix’s new 3 Body Problemseries unfolds in a very different way than the book it’s adapting. Cixin Liu’s novel is so dense and internal dialogue-driven that it was widely thought to be unadaptable for the screen. Changes are almost always necessary when translating stories as complex as 3 Body Problem’s across mediums (and in this case, languages as well). But when I recently spoke with executive producers David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo ahead of 3 Body Problem’s premiere, they said that, while they always knew their story needed to be different, as they began reimagining narrative beats, they realized that “there was...

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Elon Musk has fully bought into the ‘great replacement’

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

For months, Elon Musk has been dropping decidedly unsubtle hints that he believes in the great replacement, a conspiracy theory that liberal elites are “importing” immigrants into the United States, Europe, and Australia to wage political and biological warfare against white people. In a contentious interview that aired last week with Don Lemon, Musk said he doesn’t “subscribe to that” before detailing what he does believe — which is effectively still great replacement theory.

“I’m simply saying there’s an incentive here,” Musk said. “If illegal immigrants — which I think have a very strong bias to vote Democrat — the more they come into the country, the more they’re likely to vote in that direction.” But as Lemon points out,...

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Meta’s new opt-out setting limits visibility of politics on Instagram and Threads

Illustration: The Verge

Meta’s executives have been saying for a while that they don’t want to boost posts about politics in their apps. Now, an opt-out setting that limits recommendations of “political content” has been added to Instagram and Threads.

You can find it under your “Content preferences” account settings in Instagram. From there, “Limit political content from people you don’t follow” is enabled by default. The setting applies to Threads as well since that app shares its account system with Instagram.

Meta has framed this new setting as being good for user choice, and the company says it isn’t limiting the reach of political content from accounts people choose to follow. While the change was first announced in early February, Meta spokesperson Andy...

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Razer’s lightning-quick Huntsman V2 keyboard is down to its lowest price to date

The mechanical keyboard might sell out faster than its light-based optical switches can read your keystrokes. | Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge

Amazon’s Big Spring Sale ends today, March 25th, but you can find even more savings elsewhere. For example, Woot is discounting one of Razer’s most popular mechanical keyboards, the Razer Huntsman V2, until April 3rd (or while supplies last). The version with analog optical switches is down to $99.99 ($50 off), which is $10 lower than we’ve seen it at retailers like Amazon and Best Buy. It comes with a 90-day limited warranty through Woot, and it also ships with a magnetic wrist rest that’s meant to add comfort while typing or gaming.

The Razer Huntsman V2 comes in both full and tenkeyless varieties. You’ll get the former with this deal, so you’ll have a full number pad and dedicated controls for media playback and volume. The big...

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Judge tosses Elon Musk’s X lawsuit against anti-hate group

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

In a decision filed Monday, federal Judge Charles Breyer dismissed a lawsuit from Elon Musk’s X against the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), saying the company’s case is “about punishing the Defendants [CCDH] for their speech.”

Judge Breyer writes that X’s “motivation in bringing this case is evident,” stating that the company’s goal is to “punish CCDH for CCDH publications that criticized X Corp. — and perhaps in order to dissuade others” from criticizing X in the future. “If CCDH’s publications were defamatory, that would be one thing, but X Corp. has carefully avoided saying that they are,” the filing reads.

The CCDH is an organization aimed at identifying and pushing back against hate speech online. Last year, the CCDH...

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Nvidia’s AI chip dominance is being targeted by Google, Intel, and Arm

A coalition of tech companies, including Intel, Google, Arm, and Qualcomm, hopes to loosen Nvidia’s grip on the AI market. | Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge

Major tech companies are attempting to eliminate software advantages that have helped Nvidia dominate the artificial intelligence market. According to Reuters, a group formed by Intel, Google, Arm, Qualcomm, Samsung, and other tech companies is developing an open-source software suite that prevents AI developers from being locked into Nvidia’s proprietary tech, allowing their code to run on any machine and with any chip.

The group, called The Unified Acceleration Foundation (UXL), told Reuters that technical details for the project should reach a “mature” state by the second half of this year, though a final release target wasn’t given. The project currently includes the OneAPI open standard Intel developed to eliminate requirements like...

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Ron DeSantis signs bill requiring parental consent for kids under 16 to hold social media accounts

Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) just signed into law HB 3, a bill that will give parents of teens under 16 more control over their kids’ access to social media and require age verification for many websites.

The bill requires social media platforms to prevent kids under 14 from creating accounts, and delete existing ones. It also requires parent or guardian consent for 14- and 15-year-olds to create or maintain social media accounts and mandates that platforms delete social media accounts and personal information for this age group at the teen’s or parent’s request. Companies that fail to promptly delete accounts belonging to 14- and 15-year-olds can be sued on behalf of those kids and may owe them up to $10,000 in damages each. A...

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Microsoft forgot to update this Windows feature for 30 years

The Format drive dialog in Windows 11. | Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge

On a Thursday morning nearly 30 years ago at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, a software developer checked-in some code for a dialog box he was working on. The box was only supposed to be temporary, so he didn’t worry that it was very basic. Except, nobody ever got around to changing it — and it’s still the same to this day in Windows 11.

Dave Plummer, a former developer at Microsoft, recounted the interesting tale of how the Format drive dialog box was created all those years ago in a post on X over the weekend.

“We were porting the bajillion lines of code from the Windows 95 user interface over to NT, and Format was just one of those areas where Windows NT was different enough from Windows 95 that we had to come up with some...

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Federation is the future of social media, says Bluesky CEO Jay Graber

Photo illustration: The Verge / Photo by Bluesky

The head of Threads and Mastodon competitor Bluesky on why she thinks decentralization is the way forward in a post-Twitter internet.

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What our shopping haul taught us about the promise of AI

We’re in a Gilded Age of fast, cheap, and trendy clothing. Anyone can purchase copies of expensive garments online that arrive at record speeds to their home, and for a fraction of the original price. This practice has made items affordable — often at the expense of the workers making the products — and created shopping habits that can be wasteful and impulsive. One e-comm giant, Shopify, estimates that 20 to 30 percent of online purchases are returned, while the National Retail Federation says around 18 percent of online orders are returned.

The online fashion house, Finesse, is promising to change that. Their motives are to reduce overproduction by using AI to market and design their clothing exactly for their audience.

Retailers have...

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Microsoft is making Chrome’s text rendering better on Windows

Illustration: The Verge

Microsoft has committed changes to Chromium that will improve text rendering on Windows machines. Following years of complaints, Chrome version 124 will finally support contrast and gamma values from the Windows ClearType Text Tuner for text rendering in Google’s browser.

This change should mean Chrome will finally match the improvements Microsoft made to Edge for font and text rendering, so you can apply text contrast enhancements and gamma correction to improve the readability of text on webpages. Chrome uses Skia for text rendering with hard-coded values for contrast and gamma, so it wasn’t picking up the improvements that ClearType has to offer.

Microsoft’s ClearType font technology has long been used in Windows to improve text...

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Apple, Meta, and Google targeted by EU in DMA non-compliance investigations

Cath Virginia / The Verge

The European Commission is opening five non-compliance investigations into how Apple, Google, and Meta are complying with its new Digital Markets Act antitrust rules, the regulator announced today. “We suspect that the suggested solutions put forward by the three companies do not fully comply with the DMA,” the EU’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement. “We will now investigate the companies’ compliance with the DMA, to ensure open and contestable digital markets in Europe.”

In particular, the Commission plans to investigate Google and Apple’s anti-steering rules in their app stores and whether Google is guilty of self-preferencing its own services within its search engine. Apple’s browser choice screen for iOS is also...

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Spotify adds video learning courses in latest experiment

Courses cover a range of subject matter like learning music or building a business. | Image: Spotify

Spotify’s UK users are getting access to a fourth category of content to sit alongside its existing library of songs, podcasts and audiobooks: online courses. The company is today launching a new experiment that’ll see video-based lessons from BBC Maestro, Skillshare, Thinkific, and PlayVirtuoso made available via Spotify’s apps on mobile and desktop. The experiment is running in just the UK, and there are currently no guarantees that it’ll get a wider more permanent launch.

Online courses, particularly video-based ones, might feel like an odd fit for a service best known as a source of music and other audio content like podcasts and audiobooks. But product director Mohit Jitani tells me that people are already coming to Spotify for...

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