Everything you need to know about the upcoming solar eclipse

This composite image shows the progression of a total solar eclipse over Madras, Oregon, on Monday, August 21st, 2017. | Image: NASA / Aubrey Gemignani

Things are going to get a little wacky on April 8th, when a total solar eclipse will darken skies over North America. The Moon will line up perfectly to block the face of the Sun. Temperatures will drop around 10 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius). Birdsong will change from daytime to nighttime tunes. And millions of people are expected to hit the road to catch a glimpse of the spectacle.

The Verge has your guide for how to partake in the fun.

What exactly is happening? And what will I see?

“The disk of the Moon is in just the right location, just the right distance to completely cover the disk of the Sun. And when that happens, magic happens,” NASA heliophysics research and analysis lead Patrick Koehn told The Verge in an interview...

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Google agrees to destroy browsing data collected in Incognito mode

Illustration: The Verge

Google agreed to destroy or de-identify billions of records of web browsing data collected when users were in its private browsing “Incognito mode,” according to a proposed class action settlement filed Monday.

The proposed settlement in Brown v. Google will also mandate greater disclosure from the company about how it collects information in Incognito mode and put limits on future data collection. If approved by a California federal judge, the settlement could apply to 136 million Google users. The 2020 lawsuit was brought by Google account holders who accused the company of illegally tracking their behavior through the private browsing feature.

The proposal is valued at $5 billion, according to Monday’s court filing, calculated by...

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April Fools’ Day 2024: the best and cringiest pranks

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Getty Images

The holiday we didn’t ask for is back.

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Now you can use ChatGPT without an account

Illustration: The Verge

OpenAI will no longer require an account to use ChatGPT, the company’s free AI platform. However, this only applies to ChatGPT, as other OpenAI products, like DALL-E 3, cost money to access and will still require an account for access. “We’re rolling this out gradually, with the aim to make AI accessible to anyone curious about its capabilities,” OpenAI said in a blog post.

Ever since ChatGPT first rolled out at the end of 2022, interested users have had to sign up for an OpenAI account. The chatbot proved popular and made ChatGPT one of the fastest-growing services ever. The company then added paid subscriptions to access products like DALL-E 3 and more advanced models. Users will need an account to save and review chat history, share...

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Here are the best Kindle deals right now

Even when it’s not steeply discounted, Amazon’s latest Paperwhite remains our favorite Kindle to date. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge

When it comes to finding a device to use to read your ebooks, you have a few options to choose from. You can always buy a tablet or use your phone, but those devices are multipurpose and can be used for a ton of things, like surfing the web or doom-scrolling on Twitter. If you are looking for something to strictly read books, e-readers, while niche, are designed to store all of your books in a virtual library with limited functionality.

Amazon, one of the pioneers of the e-reader, has dominated the space for years with its ever-expanding Kindle lineup, which consists of several unique models with their own pros and cons. The bulk of the devices function as simple ebook readers; however, with the Kindle Scribe, Amazon looks to be moving...

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How Vice became ‘a fucking clown show’

Illustrated by Hunter French for The Verge

Vice was once promised to become the brash young voice of news. But wild expenses, shady deals, and greed turned it into ‘a fucking clown show.’

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The 41mm Apple Watch Series 9 is on sale starting at a rare $299

Today’s deal marks a great opportunity to upgrade if you’re on an older model. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

I’m looking down at my aging Apple Watch 6 and noticing that it’s April 1st, so I had to double-check Amazon’s listing for the Apple Watch Series 9 just to make sure the price wasn’t a joke.The 41mm / GPS model with the midnight case and Sport Loop band is on sale at Amazon for $299.99 ($100 off) — only $30 more than its lowest price to date. Unfortunately, no other colors are currently matching that price as of writing.

The Apple Watch Series 9 is our top choice for iPhone users who need a fitness tracker. It has all the sensors needed to track essential fitness metrics and other measures of well-being, including sleep. (Presumably, this model lacks the SpO2 oxygen sensor that Apple was forced to remove due to patent disputes.)

While...

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Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

The second-gen AirPods Pro with USB-C start at $199 at Amazon. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

If you know where to look, you can often score discounts on Apple’s ever-popular AirPods. Since Apple launched the third-gen AirPods at the end of 2021, we’ve seen the starting price of the second-gen, entry-level model slowly dip to under $100. And now that the latest 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 second-gen AirPods — now the...

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How to cross-post your Threads posts to the fediverse

The Verge

It looks like the fediverse is opening up. In late March, Meta’s Threads introduced a beta feature that allows users from the US, Canada, or Japan to cross-post and view likes from Mastodon and, presumably, other federated social networks.

If you’re a Threads user from one of these three countries and want to give this beta a try, it’s not difficult. You can do it from the mobile app or the web version:

• On Threads’ mobile app, tap your profile icon in the lower right corner, tap the two lines in the upper right corner, and select Account > Fediverse sharing.
• On the web version, tap the two lines in the upper right, then select Settings > the Account tab > Fediverse sharing.

Look for the Fediverse sharing option in...

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Mailchimp CEO Rania Succar explains why an email company makes sense for Intuit

Photo illustration: The Verge / Photo by Intuit Mailchimp

Intuit purchased Mailchimp in 2021, and less than a year later, co-founder Ben Chestnut was out. Here’s how new CEO Rania Succar is moving forward.

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The best Garmin watches for training and everyday life

Garmins aren’t just multisport behemoths anymore. | Illustration by Will Joel / The Verge

Garmin may be best known for its hardcore fitness watches, but it’s got an extensive line of lifestyle offerings, too.

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Microsoft splits Teams from Office as antitrust pressure ramps up

Image: The Verge

Microsoft, possibly hoping to deflect the blow of an ongoing antitrust investigation in the EU, is spinning Teams off from Office 365 to sell as its own separate app globally, Reuters reported today. A company spokesperson told Reuters it was making the change to its business chat and conferencing app “to ensure clarity for our customers” after already doing so in the EU last year.

Microsoft’s existing customers should be able to keep their current deal, which bundles Teams with Office and other products, renew, update, or pick a new offer. For anyone signing up fresh, Teams on its own will cost $5.25, while Office packages without Teams will run from $7.75 to $54.75.

Microsoft first spun off Teams in the EU in August last year, a...

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How the team behind Zelda made physics feel like magic

Image: Nintendo

During a GDC 2024 talk, the developers on Tears of the Kingdom explained how they were able to blow players’ minds with the design philosophy of ‘multiplicative gameplay.’

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The Forerunner 165 series is the budget training watch Garmin needed

Garmin really needed a training watch in the $250 to $300 range. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The tradeoffs are well worth the savings over the slightly more advanced Forerunner 265.

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An AI voice notes app that really works

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 32, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, happy weekend, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been writing about AI search engines and the future of Disney Plus, reading about Anne Hathaway and Andrew Huberman and Jonathan Kanter, talking productivity apps with the WVFRM crew, continuing to watch every “how they made Dune” video I can get my hands on, listening to the Black Box podcast, and learning what The Format is and how to apply it to every aspect of my life.

I also have for you a bunch of new things to watch this weekend, a new AI voice notes app, a delightful new-old keyboard, an app for...

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The T-Mobile Sidekick’s Jump button made mobile multitasking easy

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Before the iPhone, before Android, before webOS, a revolutionary soap bar of a phone made it incredibly easy to get shit done. The Danger Hiptop, better known as the T-Mobile Sidekick, made the internet portable and affordable like no phone before.

It introduced cloud sync long before iCloud, popularized unlimited data and real web browsing on mobile, and made instant messaging and email a breeze thanks to its landscape hardware keyboard.

But the Sidekick doesn’t get enough credit for one physical button that tied the whole phone together: the Jump key.

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Most remember the swiveling screen, but there was much more to a Sidekick.

On modern phones, opening an app usually means...

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The ‘PS5 Pro Enhanced’ label could mean constant 60fps and ray-tracing

The original PlayStation 5. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Sony will use a new “PS5 Pro Enhanced” label to tell players which games take advantage of the console’s new abilities, according to documents seen by InsiderGamingyesterday. The outlet writes that to get the label, a game would have to offer a PS5 Pro graphics mode, which includes PSSR for 4K upscaling, constant 60fps framerate, and added or improved ray-tracing_._ It would reportedly also indicate higher resolution for both fixed and variable refresh rate games.

The site says that the internally-named “Trinity Enhanced” label would be akin to the “PS4 Pro Enhanced” label from the last PlayStation generation (or the “X|S” label that denotes games with improvements like better load times or higher framerates). It also told players when a...

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AT&T confirms data breach and resets millions of customer passcodes

Image: The Verge

AT&T has acknowledged that a data leak making the rounds online contains information from more than 7.6 million current customers and 65 million former customers. The company has reset the security passcodes of active customers affected, and says that leaked information "may have included full name, email address, mailing address, phone number, social security number, date of birth, AT&T account number and passcode."

AT&T is reaching out to affected customers via “email or letter” to let them know what data was included and what it’s doing for customers in response.

The company's acknowledgment that the leaked data is real — the first reports of the leak emerged in 2021 — only came after TechCrunch notified AT&T of the vulnerability...

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Apple’s AirTags have briefly returned to their best price to date

Amazon won’t let you engrave your AirTags with an adorable unicorn picture, but it will sell them to you starting at $24.99. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Happy Saturday, folks! When Apple launched AirTags in 2021, it was a big moment for item trackers. Tile still dominated the landscape back then, however, thanks to Apple’s ultra wideband (UWB) chip and their ability to tap into Apple’s vast Find My network, they quickly became the go-to pick for iPhone owners. They’ve often gone on sale for around $80 in the time since, however, right now you can snag a four-pack at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy for $74.99 ($24), an all-time low.

In addition to their ultra-precise tracking capabilities, which allow you to locate them even when you’re not in their immediate vicinity, Apple’s AirTags have a few other things going for them. The handy trackers pack an IP67 rating — meaning they’re sealed...

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The Atari 400 Mini is a cute little slice of video game history

Image: Atari

Now that the miniature game console trend has already covered most of the biggest devices from Nintendo, Sega, and Sony, we’re starting to enter more niche territory. The Atari 400 Mini isn’t a rerelease of the company’s most recognizable console (that’d be the 2600). And it isn’t full of household names. But that’s also part of what makes it so interesting — the little gadget is a cute, playful way to explore a very specific and formative niche of video game history.

Like its contemporaries, the 400 Mini is a shrunken-down version of the original. That means a small box in a very 1970s shade of beige plastic, with a keyboard and cartridge slot that are purely ornamental. I appreciate just how retro this thing looks; even the included...

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The world needs more gadgets like LG’s briefcase TV

The company that usually specializes in premium OLED TVs has produced something refreshingly out of the ordinary. And I already hope it gets a sequel.

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The DNC made a weird AI-generated parody of a Lara Trump song

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Stephen Morton, Getty Images

After Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump’s indie music detour to launch a heavily autotuned track called “Anything is Possible,” the Democrats have responded with “Party’s Fallin’ Down.” Published three days too early to be passed off as an awkward April Fools’ Day joke, it’s described as “a new AI-generated song about Lara Trump’s rocky start as RNC co-chair.”

The track no one asked for was posted to an otherwise anonymous SoundCloud page, promoted on TMZ, and tweeted from X accounts for DNC Chair Jaime Harrison and the Democrats’ “rapid response team.”

You can listen to it here. My recommendation, however, is that you don’t in favor of doing anything else with your time, regardless of your political affiliation, musical...

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OpenAI’s voice cloning AI model only needs a 15-second sample to work

Illustration: The Verge

OpenAI is offering limited access to a text-to-voice generation platform it developed called Voice Engine, which can create a synthetic voice based on a 15-second clip of someone’s voice. The AI-generated voice can read out text prompts on command in the same language as the speaker or in a number of other languages. “These small scale deployments are helping to inform our approach, safeguards, and thinking about how Voice Engine could be used for good across various industries,” OpenAI said in its blog post.

Companies with access include the education technology company Age of Learning, visual storytelling platform HeyGen, frontline health software maker Dimagi, AI communication app creator Livox, and health system Lifespan.

In these...

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Sony’s elusive PlayStation Portal is back in stock at Best Buy

Sony’s all-in-one device is available for its usual asking price of $199.99 at Best Buy. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Sony’s PlayStation Portal may not be the most impressive handheld we’ve ever tested, but it’s good enough that it’s proven difficult to get ahold of. The single-purpose device has consistently sold out whenever it becomes available, though, today, you have another shot at landing the elusive remote player. Right now, it’s available at Best Buy for its full retail price of $199.99.

In case you need a refresher, Sony’s new handheld device features an eight-inch touchscreen LCD, which you can use to stream PlayStation 5 games via Remote Play over Wi-Fi. It’s a fun, portable device that delivers a nice all-in-one experience, as opposed to a phone, an iPad, or a mobile controller like the Backbone One or Razer Kishi. Unlike the latter...

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Bridges aren’t ready for today’s huge ships

Photo by Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images

For years now, civil engineers have understood that bridges have a problem: many of them are not designed to withstand a blow from the kinds of cargo ships that routinely pass through their waters. Those concerns came to a head on Tuesday with the devastating collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland. It’s the kind of failure engineers have been trying to prevent for decades — and even now, they’re not sure if the available solutions are enough.

“We don’t design for the deadly force that is generated by such an impact — millions of pounds,” Atorod Azizinamini, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Florida International University, tells The Verge. “The collapse has really nothing to do with the type...

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Fake crypto bot scammer allegedly told investors, ‘Poof, you’re a millionaire’

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Robert Robb allegedly convinced several crypto investors to send him $1.5 million to build a too-good-to-be-true crypto trading bot, according to an FBI affidavit viewed by 404 Media and CourtWatch.

Robb allegedly sent a message reading, “Poof, YOU’RE A MILLIONAIRE” to one Telegram group, accompanied by this image of a purple fairy wearing a mushroom cap. The message promised recipients they could strike it rich if they used Robb’s MEV bot and invested in the cryptocurrency $RAT and the ironically named token NoRugz.

Image: FBI affidavit, Case No. 1:24-MJ-100

A screenshot of a Telegram message allegedly sent by Robert Robb to prospective investors.

It says Robb asked crypto investors over Telegram and other...

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Samsung Care Plus adds unlimited battery repair — for a price

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Samsung is raising the price of its Care Plus device protection plans — but, in exchange, it’s throwing in unlimited battery repair. In an email spotted by Sammobile, Samsung tells customers that Care Plus and the more expensive Care Plus Theft and Loss plan will increase in price by $2.

The new pricing goes into effect on May 1st, 2024, which is when Samsung plans on rolling out a new unlimited battery repair option for “eligible devices.” To qualify for a battery repair, Samsung says the phone must have a charging capacity below 79 percent and no “additional damage.” The Verge reached out to Samsung for more information on which devices are eligible for unlimited battery repairs, as well as whether it will be completely free, but...

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Amazon is offering a rare deal on Philips Hue’s Festavia string lights

Philips Hue’s latest smart string lights offer plenty of preset scenes and a wide variety of vibrant colors. | Image: Philips Hue

Philips Hue lights set the mood in a way other types of home decor can’t, but sadly, they can be pricey. Thankfully, Amazon and Woot have both kicked off a Philips Hue sale, making many bulbs, dimmers, light strips, and other accessories a little more affordable for a limited time. Amazon is also currently taking 20 percent off when you buy two or more items featured on this page, while Woot is slashing prices on a handful of both new and refurbished items. That includes a three-bulb kit with a smart button and Hue Bridge for $67.99 ($32 off).

However, the real star of the show here is the Philips Hue Festavia string lights deal at Amazon, which drops the 65-foot smart lights to $175.99 ($44 off) when you clip the on-page coupon for an...

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20 years of Gmail

Illustration by Nick Little for The Verge

Gmail revolutionized email with fast search and a whole gigabyte of storage. But where’s it headed next?

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Does Mario feel pain? It’s complicated

Image: Nintendo

The world of Super Mario is a dangerous place. In the games, the plumber falls off cliffs, gets jabbed with spikes, and has everything from wrenches to fireballs hurled at him. But he always gets back up and goes again, which raises an important question: does Nintendo’s hero actually feel pain? According to Takashi Tezuka, who has worked on the series since the original Super Mario Bros. (including serving as producer on last year’s Wonder), there isn’t really a clear answer. “It may be that Mario does feel pain,” he tells me.

But that ambiguity may be because I was asking the wrong question. The important part, he explains, is the emotions players experience when Mario plummets to his death or is fried by Bowser’s breath. “If the...

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