New Disney animatronics breathe convincing life into its 2D characters

This massive, chonky Louis animatronic has almost as much range of movement as I do. | Image: Disney

No matter your opinion on the current state of its animated movies, Disney is proving that it can still knock animatronics out of the park. This week, the entertainment giant gave us another early look at the new audio-animatronics being prepared for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure — a retheming of the iconic (and controversial) Splash Mountain ride — and the demonstrations so far have been breathtakingly impressive.

Recognizable characters from The Princess and the Frog (2009) have been brought to robotic life across various social media posts and Disney’s new “We Call It Imagineering” YouTube series, including Princess Tiana herself, Mama Odie, Charlotte La Bouff, Louis the Alligator, and a host of other swamp critters.

I compiled all the...

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Google is working on a ‘lookup’ button for unknown callers on Android

Illustration: The Verge

Google is working on a feature that is so simple and so useful that I’m shocked it hasn’t been part of our lives for a decade: a way to look up a phone number that just called you, right from your recent calls screen. X user AssembleDebug tipped off PiunikaWeb to a new “Lookup” button in the beta version of the Google Phone app that, when tapped, brings up a Google Search with the number already entered for you.

Although the Google Phone app is the default for Pixel phones, other Android owners can download it. The new Lookup button lives with other options, like “Block” and “History,” that you see when you tap on a recent call in the Phone app. In an age where so much spam comes from spoofed phone numbers made to look like local calls,...

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OpenAI transcribed over a million hours of YouTube videos to train GPT-4

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that AI companies were running into a wall when it comes to gathering high-quality training data. Today, The New York Times detailed some of the ways companies have dealt with this. Unsurprisingly, it involves doing things that fall into the hazy gray area of AI copyright law.

The story opens on OpenAI which, desperate for training data, reportedly developed its Whisper audio transcription model to get over the hump, transcribing over a million hours of YouTube videos to train GPT-4, its most advanced large language model. That’s according to The New York Times, which reports that the company knew this was legally questionable but believed it to be fair use. OpenAI president Greg...

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iPhone emulators are allowed now so here are some great iOS controllers

It’s time, friends. | Photo by Alix Diaconis / The Verge

Yesterday afternoon, I was playing Mario vs. Donkey Kong on my Vision Pro (using the visionOS testflight version of app developer Riley Testut’s GBA4iOS) with an official Nintendo NES controller for the Switch. All the while, I was thinking about what a shame it was that Apple doesn’t allow emulators on its App Store. I hadn’t yet seen the news of Apple’s surprise decision to allow emulators on its digital storefront worldwide.

While we still don’t know exactly how emulators will work on the iPhone, Apple’s play here would put its App Store in a better place to compete with alternative app stores in the EU. Assuming that means you can actually play games from the consoles they emulate, it could be a huge deal for retro gaming fans. As...

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Google’s Pixel Buds Pro are $60 off in all colors — including the newest shades

Google’s first pair of noise-canceling earbuds are currently down to $139.99 in blue, white, and four other attractive shades. | Image: Google

Happy Saturday, folks! Ever since they arrived on the scene in mid-2022, we’ve considered Google’s noise-canceling Pixel Buds Pro to be the wireless earbuds for Pixel phone owners — partly because of their great feature set and partly because they addressed the connectivity issues that plagued earlier models. The best part, however, is they’re often on sale for far less than the MSRP. Right now, for instance, you can pick them up at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy for around $139 ($60 off), which matches their second-best price to date.

In terms of features, Google’s latest Pixel Buds are designed to compete with the best from Apple, Sony, and others. Their noise cancellation can’t quite match the latest AirPods Pro or what Bose has...

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Rooms is a delightful escape

C’mon, how cute is this? | Image: Things Inc.

The similarities between Rooms — a simple, charming game for iOS and the web where you design rooms — and Minecraft are easy to spot. Both share a blocky visual style and a design-your-own-retreat objective. But describing Rooms as a scaled-down Minecraft for people over the age of 12 doesn’t give it enough credit. It’s good, old-fashioned building in the vein of Lego, The Sims, and Animal Crossing. Rooms builds on the time-honored tradition with a dose of coziness and creativity that’s limited only by your patience for arranging three-dimensional pixels.

Rooms is free, at least for now; creator Jason Toff says there are no “concrete monetization plans.” The premise is as simple as it sounds: you start with an empty room and fill it up...

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The PlayStation Vita still rules

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The entire time I was playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth — the second part of a planned trilogy of FF7 remakes — I couldn’t stop thinking about replaying the first game from 1997. When the credits rolled on Rebirth, I had a difficult decision to make: how to play the original? There is no shortage of options. The game has been ported to most modern platforms, and I still have the original PlayStation discs (all three of them). But ultimately I decided on a beloved but oft-forgotten piece of video game hardware, the PlayStation Vita. And you know what? This little thing still absolutely rules.

My rekindled love affair with the Vita started because of FF7, and I’ve been been making my through the game in fits and starts. But it has also...

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Best Buy Geek Squad employees report mass layoffs

Former employees of Best Buy’s in-house tech support and repair team Geek Squad say there were mass layoffs this week, 404 Media reports. A former Geek Squad agent tells the outlet that they received an email on Tuesday about a work from home event the following day regarding a “company change.”

“Our leadership gave individual calls stating we were being let go for the simple fact that the company couldn’t afford to pay us, more or less. It was extremely short notice and devastating,” an ex-Geek Squad worker told 404 Media.

Over at r/GeekSquad, recently laid-off Geek Squad agents have posted photos of their badges in solidarity and referred to themselves as belonging to a Geek Squad “sleeper cell”, writing that they’re “going sleeper”...

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Instagram makes more money from ads than YouTube does, and it has for years

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge

In a motion Meta filed on Friday to try and get the FTC’s monopoly claims dismissed, it includes details of how much advertising revenue Instagram brought in over the last few years.

At $32.4 billion for 2021 alone, that’s even more than YouTube, which pulled in $28.8 billion in the same year. Business Insider previously pointed out the lead it has over Google’s video unit, and mentions that YouTube gives up 55 percent of each advertising dollar it makes to content owners who upload videos while Instagram coughs up a lot less.

Image: Composite of filing from District Court, District of Columbia, and Alphabet 2021 Annual Report (PDF)

The gap is also there even if you look further back. In 2020 and 2019, Meta lists...

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Here’s Apple’s 916-page appeal over the Apple Watch ban

Apple’s not too happy that Masimo’s W1 watch didn’t exist when Masimo filed its complaint. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

There was no question that Apple would appeal when the International Trade Commission banned Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales last year. Well, if you’ve got some time, you can now read all 916 pages of Apple’s appeal to the Federal Circuit.

A quick recap: the Apple Watch ban centers around whether Apple infringed upon medical device-maker Masimo’s pulse oximetry patents. The ITC sided with Masimo, concluding that Apple had infringed their patents, and that the infringement was harming domestic industry.

The ITC is an agency similar to a court that often deals with imported “articles” that may or may not violate intellectual property law. The word “article” matters more than you’d think, since the statute that created the ITC...

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Anker’s folding Qi2 charger and other power banks are up to 30 percent off

It even doubles as a StandyBy-ready stand. | Image: Anker

The list of Qi2 smartphones expanded ever so slightly this week, with the iPhone 12 joining the ranks of Qi2-certified phones thanks to a recent update. That means we can safely say that all MagSafe-compatible iPhones — including the iPhone 13, 14, and 15 — are officially Qi2-ready. The timing couldn’t be better, either, as Anker is currently offering 20 percent off its 6,600mAh MagGo Power Bank, bringing your total down to $55.99 (about $14 off) at Amazon and Anker’s online storefront (the latter with code WSCPEW1AZM).

We’ve long been fans of Anker’s MagSafe-compatible power banks, but previous models could only charge newer iPhones at the slower 7.5W speed. Anker says the 15W charging coils in the Qi2 version can take an iPhone 15 Pro...

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Apple opens the App Store to retro game emulators

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple is loosening its App Store restrictions and opening the marketplace up to retro game emulators. In an update on Friday, Apple announced that game emulators can come to the App Store globally and offer downloadable games. Apple says those games must comply with “all applicable laws,” though — an indication it will ban apps that provide pirated titles.

The move should allow the retro console emulators already on Android — at least those that are left — to bring their apps to the iPhone. Game emulators have long been banned from iOS, leaving iPhone owners in search of workarounds via jailbreaking or other workarounds. They’re also one of the key reasons, so far, that iPhone owners in the European Union might check out third-party app...

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The rare NYC earthquake underscores concerns about infrastructure

Photo by Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Infrastructure in the US has always been a sore subject, but when a 4.8 magnitude earthquake struck the New York City region on Friday, many people were rightfully nervous about the structural integrity of the surrounding bridges, tunnels, and buildings.

The earthquake’s epicenter was near Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, but people in neighboring states, including New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania still felt the short-lasting shake. A 4.8 magnitude earthquake is on the lower end of the Richter scale, and its effects are described as potentially causing windows to break or small objects to fall.

But experts say the relatively minor quake is nothing to worry about. “When you look at that, in terms of this scale, it’s a pretty minor...

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Elon Musk says Tesla will reveal its robotaxi on August 8th

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla will reveal its long-promised robotaxi on August 8th, Elon Musk just posted on X. The forthcoming autonomous vehicle is said to be built on Tesla’s next-generation vehicle platform.

The announcement came on the same day that Reuters reported that the company had canceled its plans to build a more affordably priced electric vehicle, said to be in the range of $25,000. Musk reportedly told employees that instead of building a mass-market EV, he wanted to focus completely on an autonomous vehicle that would make other vehicles obsolete.

Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2024

Musk has long teased the possibility of a Tesla robotaxi, even showing off a completely covered vehicle during a 2023 event...

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Monkey Man is a studied execution of the brutal revenge thriller

Image: Universal

Dev Patel’s directorial debut surges with enough energy to make its action work, but it stumbles as it veers into social commentary.

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Disney sets theatrical dates for The Mandalorian & Grogu and Tron: Ares

Image: Lucasfilm

Disney has outlined premiere dates for some of its biggest upcoming films, according to The Hollywood Reporter. For sci-fi fans, that includes Tron: Ares, which will hit theaters on October 10th, 2025, and The Mandalorian & Grogu, a theatrical film that will expand on the streaming series, on May 22nd, 2026. Ares will mark the first Tron film in 15 years, while Mando will be the first Star Wars movie since The Rise of Skywalker in 2019 (and comes at a time when the franchise is struggling to return to theaters).

A pair of upcoming sequels / remakes were dated as well: Toy Story 5 releases on June 19th, 2026, while the live-action Moana remake has been pushed back a year to July 10th, 2026. (The animated sequel Moana 2 is still on track...

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Microsoft loses key Xbox executive amid continued gaming shake-up

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Xbox executive Kareem Choudhry is leaving Microsoft after more than 26 years at the company. Windows Central reports that Choudhry’s last day is today, and his departure has triggered a shake-up of some teams inside Xbox. Choudhry’s departure comes just six months after a big shake-up of Xbox leadership and amid continued changes to Microsoft’s gaming strategy.

Choudhry had been focusing on Microsoft’s AI plans for Xbox in recent months, which include a new Xbox AI chatbot that The Verge exclusively revealed earlier this week. Choudhry was also key to Xbox’s backward compatibility support and helped bring Xbox Cloud Gaming to life as xCloud in 2019.

Microsoft is now moving Choudhry’s former team, Xbox Emerging Tech, to the Xbox hardware...

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Roku’s idea of showing ads on your HDMI inputs seems like an inevitable hell

Illustration: The Verge

In this week’s edition of his Lowpass newsletter, Janko Roettgers covered a Roku patent that seems to telegraph that the company is planning some heavy advertising tactics for those who purchase Roku TV televisions. The patent centers around the idea of displaying ads on these TVs whenever they’re tuned to an HDMI input that’s paused or idle. Theoretically, this would allow Roku to present ads throughout your whole TV experience — and in places where it’s not viable to do so today. Your PS5, Xbox, Apple TV, or Blu-ray player could become yet another canvas for the company to continue growing its already-lucrative advertising business.

According to the patent, the company would use a number of different clues to determine when an HDMI...

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Meta asks court to dismiss FTC’s monopoly claims

Image: The Verge | Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images

Meta is asking a federal court to dispense with the Federal Trade Commission’s anti-monopoly lawsuit against it, arguing it’s failed to unearth evidence to support its claims.

In a motion for summary judgment filed Friday, Meta argues that the lawsuit should be thrown out because the company believes the FTC won’t be able to prove what it claims is the relevant market in the case or that its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp harmed consumers. The FTC will get a chance to respond, and there will be back-and-forth in court filings before the judge decides how to proceed. A ruling in Meta’s favor could mark the end of the lawsuit, but if the court determines there are still issues of fact that need to be resolved, the judge could set a...

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The best mechanical keyboards to buy right now

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge

Whether wired, wireless, or low profile, here are our picks for the best readily available boards.

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Data brokers are gearing up to fight privacy bills

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo: Getty Images

Congress has been trying to crack down on data brokers — and the data brokers are fighting back. In late March, the House unanimously passed a bill that would prevent Americans’ data from being sold to foreign adversaries. And an amendment on data collection is mixed up in the bill reauthorizing Section 702of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the controversial statute that authorizes the National Security Agency, which expires later this month.

Lawmakers’ negotiations over FISA’s reauthorization became so contentious that House Speaker Mike Johnson withdrew the bill from consideration in February. The biggest source of conflict was an amendment introduced by Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) that would prohibit data brokers...

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Google Books reportedly indexing bad AI-written works

Illustration: The Verge

Google Books, which indexes published material and has become essential for academics, has begun indexing low-quality books, which could impact how it informs its language tracking tool, Ngram.

404Media reports Google Books included several books that AI could have written. The publication searched Google Books with the term “as of my last knowledge update,” a common phrase chatbots like ChatGPT use. You can search Google Books for specific sentences or terms, and it will normally send back written works with those phrases.

It found that most of the books in the first few pages of the search were works about AI, but scattered among those results were ones that did not talk about the technology and seemed written by a bot.

404Media...

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Tesla reportedly abandons plans to make a less expensive $25,000 electric vehicle

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The Tesla Model 2 may be no more.

According to Reuters, Elon Musk has canceled the company’s plans to build a low-cost electric vehicle in favor of going all in on a robotaxi. The news outlet, citing three sources in the know, said the decision was communicated to employees during an all-hands meeting in late February.

For years, Musk has been promising an affordable electric vehicle, likely priced at $25,000, as a way to broaden the appeal of plug-in vehicles. He first mentioned it in a 2018 interview with YouTuber Marques Brownlee, saying, “A $25,000 car, that’s something we can do.” Then, in 2020, at the company’s first Battery Day event, he speculated that Tesla could eventually produce upward of 20 million of these vehicles in a...

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Meta will require labels on more AI-generated content

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Meta is updating its AI-generated content policy and will add a “Made with AI” label beginning in May, the company announced. The policy will apply to content on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads.

Acknowledging that its current policy is “too narrow,” Meta says it will start labeling more video, audio, and image content as being AI-generated. Labels will be applied either when users disclose the use of AI tools or when Meta detects “industry standard AI image indicators,” though the company didn’t provide more detail about its detection system.

The changes are informed by recommendations and feedback from Meta’s Oversight Board and update the manipulated media policy created in 2020. The old policy prohibits videos created or edited...

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Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 5 and Intel Pro 9 are down to their lowest price to date

Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 5 is a beautiful, well-built laptop that’s great for Windows users. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

With Apple’s latest MacBook Air hogging all the attention as of late, it’s easy to forget that there are other laptops that might be better suited for your needs. Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 5 and Surface Pro 9, for example, are perfect for Windows fans, and right now, both are down to an all-time low with a 12th Gen Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. The Surface Laptop 5 starts at $699.99 ($300 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, while the Surface Pro 9 is available at Best Buy for $749.99 ($350 off).

If you’re looking for a good Windows laptop for general use, the Surface Laptop 5 is still a worthwhile investment despite its age. The stunning laptop is both powerful and portable, with a thin chassis and a spacious 3:2...

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The best laptops you can buy

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

The best laptops for you, from ultraportables to gaming machines, MacBooks to Chromebooks.

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An earthquake just rocked NYC, New Jersey, and the surrounding areas

An image showing the intensity of the quake. | Image by United States Geological Survey

If you just felt the room shake a little, it’s not just you. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) just confirmed that an earthquake hit Lebanon, New Jersey, with people located in New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania feeling its effects.

“It lasted just long enough to be unsettling,” said one Verge staffer who experienced it in Jersey City. Others based in New York noted it felt like a particularly large truck driving by, with most agreeing it last about five to six seconds.

The United States Geological Survey says the quake was a 4.7 magnitude, while New York Governor Kathy Hocul posted on X that it was a 4.8 magnitude quake.

The below map from the USGS shows people feeling weak or light shaking along the coast of the...

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Nuclear Throne studio Vlambeer is back from the dead

Vlambeer’s upcoming shooter Ultrabugs_._ | Image: Vlambeer

Back in 2020, indie studio Vlambeer celebrated its 10th anniversary by... shutting down. But it turns out, that was a little premature. Co-founder Jan Willem Nijman has announced that he now owns the Vlambeer name outright and will continue developing games under the label — starting with the unreleased shooter Ultrabugs.

Vlambeer was founded by Nijman and Rami Ismail in 2010 and went on to release hits like Nuclear Throne and Ridiculous Fishing. In a statement in 2020, the duo said, “It feels like we’ve achieved what we set out to do - as a studio, as a voice, and as individuals, and we are extremely grateful for these past years.”

According to Ismail, though, the studio never actually fully shut down. It continued to do customer...

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Streaming services really want you to buy stuff while you watch TV

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

For streamers like Paramount, Disney, Netflix, and Peacock, it’s not enough that you watch TV on the platform — they want to own what you do on your phone, too.

Paramount announced today that it would launch a new “mobile shopping experience” during this weekend’s CMT Music Awards red carpet. Partnering with a company called Shopsense AI, Paramount says viewers will be able to browse and purchase items inspired by what’s happening on their TV.

So far, the custom online shop includes women’s fashion, home decor, and a section called “Western Gothic Country,” sponsored by Walmart. The CMT Music Awards are just the beginning — soon, CBS audiences watching sports and daytime talk shows will also likely start to see ads for similar online...

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Images of DJI’s newest drone keep getting leaked

Image: Roland Quandt

DJI’s next drone launch event is just around the corner on April 11th, but that hasn’t stopped the leaks from flowing. A new set of images from reliable leaker Roland Quandt gives us an even more detailed look at what appears to be the new Avata 2 drone, the RC Motion 3 controller, and the Goggles 3 headset.

Just like previous leaks (and DJI’s own teaser), the images shared by Quandt show the Avata 2 drone with a refreshed design featuring a less prominent camera housing, along with three-bladed props. Leaked specs from @Quadro_News suggest the Avata 2 will come with a 1/1.3-inch camera sensor, a 155-degree viewing angle, and the ability to shoot video in 4K at 60fps. It’s also rumored to have a 23-minute battery life with a 40-minute...

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