Samsung’s art-inspired Frame TVs are up to $1,000 off right now

Like most people, I’d prefer to stare at a bunch of cacti in my living room rather than an uninspired black rectangle. | Image: Samsung

Everyone may like watching movies on a big screen, but a hulking panel is nothing but an eyesore when turned off. That’s why Samsung’s Frame TV has become so popular over the last several years and why several TV manufacturers, including Amazon, have begun to crib ideas from the company’s artsy panels. And while the Frame certainly isn’t cheap, you can currently pick up the 2022 model at Amazon in the 55- and 65-inch sizing for $997.99 ($500 off) and 1,597.99 ($400), respectively. It’s also on sale in the behemoth 75-inch configuration for $1,895 ($1,103 off), an all-time low, with Best Buy and Walmart matching Amazon’s pricing in most instances.

Despite its lofty price tag, the Frame isn’t for people who want pristine image quality or...

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The free Delta game emulator for iPhones is live on Apple’s App Store

Image: Riley Testut

The Delta emulator is officially available on the Apple App Store — for free — outside of the European Union, where it’s available via the third-party AltStore PAL app marketplace that just went live.

The app marks the first significant and officially sanctioned game emulator for the iPhone since Apple began allowing them, with wide-ranging console emulation from the original Nintendo Entertainment System to the Nintendo 64 (and even the Sega Genesis, for when you want to play those games that Ninten_don’t_).

Delta developer Riley Testut told The Verge via email that the app is identical to the version debuting with AltStore PAL. The app features on-screen buttons that change their layout and appearance to match whatever system you’re...

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Amazon insists Just Walk Out isn’t secretly run by workers watching you shop

Image: Amazon

Amazon is pushing back on claims that its cashierless Just Walk Out technology is run by humans in India — not AI. In a blog post on Wednesday, the e-commerce giant calls these reports “untrue” and says that a machine learning model powers its system.

Last week, reports started going around that claimed Amazon employs around 1,000 workers in India to watch people shop and review purchases at stores using its Just Walk Out tech. The report claimed that Amazon’s workers had to review around 700 of every 1,000 transactions in 2022, something that isn’t uncommon in the world of AI.

While Amazon insists these reports are “erroneous,” it doesn’t deny that humans aren’t involved with the process at all. Instead, Amazon says its workers are...

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Third-party iPhone app store AltStore PAL is now live in Europe

That €1.50 per year subscription does not include tax but does offset Apple’s Core Technology Fee. | Image: AltStore PAL

After we recently tested it in beta, the third-party iOS app store AltStore PAL is now live in the European Union thanks to Apple’s compliance with the region’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). The store requires a €1.50 (plus tax) annual subscription to cover Apple’s Core Technology Fee (CTF) for installing the app marketplace itself.

Installing AltStore PAL requires clicking through a lot of Apple’s clumsily implemented scare sheets that double and triple check your desire to install apps from outside Apple’s App Store. But with persistence and enough clicks it eventually installs.

The new app marketplace is arriving with two apps developed by Riley Testut: Delta, an emulator capable of playing NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Game Boy, Game Boy...

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Nine Google employees arrested after eight-hour sit-in protest

Dante D’Orazio / The Verge

Nine Google employees who occupied the company’s offices in New York and California were arrested Tuesday night after an eight-hour sit-in.

The workers were protesting Google’s involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion Israeli government contract for Google and Amazon’s cloud computing services. Employees at the Sunnyvale, California, campus occupied Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office on Tuesday afternoon, while workers in New York held a sit-in in the common area of the Chelsea office’s 10th floor.

Workers in the New York office captured the arrests on video. Around 9:45PM on Tuesday, nearly eight hours into the protest, a group of police officers and a man who appears to work at Google approached the four workers remaining in...

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Visible’s new annual plans cut the price on a full year of service

Image: Visible

Visible has just launched its first annual plans, letting customers lock in a year of mobile service all at once for either of the company’s two tiers. The Verizon-owned prepaid carrier is charging $395 per year for its Visible Plus plan, which it says leads to annual savings of $145. The standard Visible plan runs $275 per year, and in that case, you’re only saving $25 compared to the monthly rate.

For now, annual plans are only available to new Visible customers and not existing users. Even once they do roll out more widely, it’s worth thinking twice if you’ve got a discount code applied to your Visible Plus plan. Many people are only paying $35 / month for the normally $45 service. And if you do the math, you’re only saving $25 for...

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Netflix’s Sweet Tooth returns for season 3 in June

Image: Netflix

Gus and his friends are coming back to Netflix very soon. The streamer just announced that the post-apocalyptic series Sweet Tooth is returning on June 6th, and as part of the news, there’s a first-look trailer at what this season has in store.

Based on the comic books by Jeff Lemire, Sweet Tooth is a different take on an end-of-the-world story. It takes place after a mysterious virus killed off much of humanity, while at the same time, new hybrid children — humans with animal features like antlers or pig noses — started appearing (also a mystery). While it’s set during a dark time for humanity, the series presents a slightly cozier version of the end of the world compared to, say, Fallout. Netflix says that the new season’s events are...

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Comcast rolls out ‘Now’ prepaid phone and internet plans

Image: Comcast

Comcast announced today that it’s expanding its “Now” branding to include two prepaid services: Now Internet and Now Mobile. Of the two, the mobile plan appears to be genuinely new, as it’s a prepaid cellular option that offers unlimited 5G data, talk, and text for $25 a month per line. The mobile plan also has free access to the company’s Xfinity hotspots_._

That seems like a better deal than Xfinity’s current prepaid mobile plans, which charge $20 per month “by-the-gig” and cost another $20 if you go over one gigabyte in a period — easy to do if you’re not on Wi-Fi all the time.

Comcast representative Joel Shadle told The Verge via email that the mobile plan will be throttled “during times of congestion after 20GB.” Now, plans aren’t...

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Sony might have perfected Mini LED TVs with its new 2024 lineup

Image: Sony

At the premium end of home theater, Sony TVs are about as good as it gets — and have been for several years now. The company is lauded for its image processing and penchant for delivering fantastic picture quality in both its flagship sets and lower-cost options like the X90L. So there’s pressure that comes with every refresh of the lineup. But Sony’s not letting that stop it from taking some bold steps in 2024.

This year, the company’s primary focus is on Mini LED. And more specifically, all eyes are on the top-of-the-line Bravia 9. There’s still an OLED in the new roster — that’s the Bravia 8 — and last year’s A95K QD-OLED is also sticking around. But Sony has spent years refining its own approach to packing thousands of LEDs into a...

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Stability AI is giving more developers access to its next-gen text-to-image generator

Illustration: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos: Getty Images

The next generation of the text-to-image AI model Stable Diffusion is still in preview, but Stability AI is making it available to some developers via API and a new content creation platform. Stability AI says developers can now access Stable Diffusion 3 from its Developer Platform.

Stability AI says it’s working with API platform Fireworks AI for companies that want to use both models. It also plans on hosting its model weights on its own servers through a Stability AI membership “in the near future.”

The company released Stable Diffusion 3 in February to a small number of developers on preview. Stability AI says Stable Diffusion 3 is “equal to or outperforms” other text-to-image generators, like OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 and Midjourney v6, in...

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The best deals on MacBooks right now

Some of the latest M3 MacBooks are on sale, and you can find great discounts on older models, too. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple currently sells MacBooks equipped with its own M-series chips in a wide range of sizes and price points. It recently discontinued the M1 MacBook Air to make room for the M3 Air, but some retailers are still selling new models cheaper than ever. Your options go all the way up to the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro with M3 starting at $2,499. Purchasing a new MacBook can be a pricey endeavor, but finding a deal on a current Mac with the new M3 chip — as well as the higher-end M3 Pro and M3 Max — is actually not that difficult.

While Macs may not experience perpetual discounts, it’s not uncommon to see various models discounted by as much as $400. Alternatively, purchasing refurbished options directly from Apple is another way to save...

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NASA has greenlit plans to send a giant drone to Saturn’s largest moon

This artist mockup of Dragonfly soaring over Titan’s dunes has... well, Dune vibes. | Image: NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Steve Gribben

NASA has been given the go-ahead to send a flying drone-like lander to explore Titan, the largest of Saturn’s 146 moons.

Targeting a July 2028 launch, the agency announced on Tuesday that it can now complete the final design for Dragonfly — a Mars rover-sized rotorcraft that will be used to detect “prebiotic chemical processes common on both Titan and the early Earth before life developed.”

If all goes according to plan, the eight-rotor drone is scheduled to arrive at Titan in 2034, where it will fly to dozens of “promising locations” to characterize the habitability of Titan’s environment and hunt for any signs that life once existed on the organic-rich moon. Titan’s denser atmosphere (around four times that of Earth’s) will aid the...

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All the announcements from Nintendo’s spring Indie World event

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

New year, new Nintendo indie showcase.

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Sony’s new PlayStation PC overlay and shared Trophies arrive with Ghost of Tsushima

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Sony is introducing a new PlayStation PC overlay and shared Trophies with its upcoming release of Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut on May 16th. It’s the first PlayStation game for PC that uses Sony’s new PlayStation overlay, which, much like the Steam overlay, will provide access to a friend list, Trophies, Settings, and your PlayStation account.

“This feature is available on Windows PCs and will be accessible from the in-game menu or, for keyboard players, by pressing the “SHIFT +F1” shortcut on your keyboard,” explains Julian Huijbregts, online community specialist at Nixxes software in a blog post. Sony acquired Nixxes in 2021 and has been using the in-house port developer to bring games like Horizon Forbidden West, Marvel’s...

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Tesla is putting Elon Musk’s pay package up for another vote after a judge voided the first one

Illustration: Lille Allen / The Verge

Tesla is asking shareholders to vote for a second time on Elon Musk’s massive compensation package, after a Delaware judge voided the first one earlier this year on the grounds that the approval process was “deeply flawed.”

Tesla shareholders approved the package in 2018, which gave Musk incentive to hit specific milestones, including a market valuation of $650 billion, which was more than 10 times Tesla’s value at the time.

In a proxy statement filed today, Tesla’s board recommends that shareholders simply re-ratify the 2018 pay package in order to address concerns raised by the court ruling — rather than negotiate a new proposal with Musk that could end up costing Tesla even more money.

“The Delaware Court second-guessed your...

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Google Maps will use AI to help you find out-of-the-way EV chargers

Photo by Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge

Google Maps is rolling out some new updates designed to make locating an electric vehicle charging station less stressful. And to accomplish this, it will (of course) lean heavily on artificial intelligence.

Google says it will use AI to summarize customer reviews of EV chargers to display more specific directions to certain chargers, such as those located in parking garages or more hard-to-find places. And there will be more prompts in the app to encourage users to submit their feedback after using an EV charger — which will then be fed into the algorithm for future AI-powered summaries.

Google

Google Maps users will be asked to submit details like whether the charging session was successful or the type of plug...

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Formlabs’ new pro 3D printers claim 2–5x speed by ditching lasers for an LCD screen

Formlabs was one of the early Kickstarter success stories, and its laser-blasting 3D printers are now used by model makers, prototypers, dentists, and maybe even action figure companies around the globe. But its newest printers are ditching those resin-blasting lasers because they’re comparatively slow.

With the new Form 4, Formlabs says you can print two to five times faster than its predecessor, the Form 3 Plus — by switching to an LCD screen and a bright backlight that can cure an entire layer of resin at a time.

That’s a common technique in prosumer resin printers already, one called masked stereolithography (mSLA), but Formlabs claims it’s managed to build a printer to do it at a higher quality than ever before. Even so, it may...

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Owner of Grand Theft Auto to layoff hundreds and cut projects

The company expects to complete its downsizing efforts by the end of this year. | Image: Take-Two Interactive

Take-Two Interactive, the gaming company behind franchises like Grand Theft Auto, NBA 2K, and Bioshock, has announced cost-cutting measures that will lay off “approximately five percent” of its global workforce and scrap several projects already in development.

The company said in an SEC filing published on Tuesday that it is “streamlining its organizational structure, which will eliminate headcount and reduce future hiring needs.” Take-Two says it will incur charges of up to $200 million to enact its “cost reduction program,” which aims to save the company over $165 million per year. The downsizing efforts are expected to be “largely complete” by December 31st, 2024.

A five percent workforce reduction works out to around 579 of the...

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Logitech wants you to press its new AI button

Logitech’s new Signature AI Edition M750 with a dedicated AI button to launch its Prompt Builder | Logitech

Tomorrow’s AI PCs may not only have a Copilot key on their keyboards — Logitech is introducing its own way to summon ChatGPT, too. It’s called the Logi AI Prompt Builder, and it’ll use a dedicated button on your mouse or keyboard.

The Logi AI Prompt Builder doesn’t just present you with a chatbot, it gives you preset “recipes” to help you prompt it too. After I assigned an AI button to a Logitech mouse, I could ask it to “Rephrase” paragraphs of text, turn them into bullet points, make them shorter and more concise, or fit a specific word count. Another recipe helped me summarize press releases. And since I pay for ChatGPT Plus, I customized another recipe to generate an image.

Screenshot: Emilia David/The Verge

L...

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The Boring Phone is a nostalgic branding exercise by HMD and Heineken

The phone is boring so you can focus on good times with your friends, get it? | Image: HMD

HMD really wants us to have more fun. Earlier this year, it announced a collaboration with Mattel on an upcoming Barbie flip phone. Now, it’s teaming up with Heineken and creative firm Bodega on another effort designed to tap into nostalgia: the Boring Phone. There are more details on Heineken’s site — which you’ll need to be at least 21 to view — but basically It’s a translucent flip phone with no apps, just good retro vibes to help you connect with your friends over a cold one.

The Boring Phone is apparently real — I know, I was skeptical, too — but it will only be available through giveaways and isn’t going on sale. It’s a limited edition run and Heineken’s website indicates 5,000 will be made. There’s a 2.8-inch QVGA display on the...

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Drake muddies the ‘Push Ups’ AI debate with a deepfake

Drake performing in Atlanta, Georgia in 2022. | Photo by Prince Williams/Wireimage

Last year, a few AI voice clone tracks went viral using Drake’s voice. His label, Universal Media Group, responded to one track with a strongly worded statement against AI and takedown requests that saw it removed from streaming services. And Drake, seemingly not happy about another one of the songs, posted, “This is the final straw AI,” on Instagram.

BREAKING DRAKE DISS TRACK LEAKED. He was talking crazy‼️ #Drake pic.twitter.com/CkYpzsZGKz

— Nothing But Sports (@NBSCENTRAL) April 13, 2024

Over the weekend, a new track “leaked,” and fans have been debating whether it’s really from Drake or if it’s the return of AI Drake. The song is a diss track called “Push Ups” that targets Kendrick Lamar and Metro Boomin, among others. At one...

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Boston Dynamics Atlas robot, 2013-2024

Image: Boston Dynamics

The robotics company has retired the dancing bot after more than a decade.

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A new NES emulator was briefly available on the Apple App Store

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Just two days after Apple removed the iGBA emulator from the iOS App Store, an NES emulator called Bimmy briefly appeared before being taken down. MacRumors reported that the app was described as being for homebrew games but also supported ROMs provided by players. Unfortunately, when we attempted to download Bimmy, we received an error message saying it’s no longer available.

Now, clicking on a link to Bimmy shows “This app is currently not available in your country or region.” This time, it wasn’t Apple that removed it but the developer. Over on MacRumors’ forums, the developer said it pulled the app “out of fear.”

“No one pressured me to, but I got more nervous about it as the day went on,” it wrote.

Screenshot:...

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Report: TikTok’s efforts to silo US data are ‘largely cosmetic’

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Since 2022, TikTok has undertaken a massive, expensive effort to silo off its US operations — and American users’ data — from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. TikTok has described the corporate restructuring, which it dubbed Project Texas, as “an unprecedented initiative dedicated to making every American on TikTok feel safe, with confidence that their data is secure and the platform is free from outside influence.” Several former employees, however, told Fortunethat Project Texas is instead “largely cosmetic” and that they and their colleagues continued to work closely with Beijing-based ByteDance executives after the plan’s implementation.

One major aspect of Project Texas — so named because Oracle, TikTok’s “technology...

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Motorola’s new $130 earbuds are a Bose collab

Image: Motorola

A new wooden Edge phone isn’t all that Motorola announced today. The company also introduced two pairs of earbuds: the higher-end set is called the Moto Buds Plus and costs $129.99, while the more basic Moto Buds will only be available in select markets. But the Plus standout as the more interesting product, and that’s because Motorola teamed up with Bose for the EQ tuning and active noise cancellation on these buds. There’s a “Sound by Bose” emblem right on the carrying case.

There isn’t a ton of detail on exactly how deep this collaboration was, but Motorola’s store page says the Moto Buds Plus “were certified by Bose to deliver an unprecedented audio experience.” Bose spokesperson Joanne Berthiaume told me “we worked closely with the...

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People are afraid of self-driving cars — can the industry change that?

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Self-driving cars have an image problem. They stumble into construction zones, block ambulances, run red lights, and even injure the occasional bicyclist or pedestrian.

Forget the fact that most autonomous vehicles operate each day safely, anonymously, and without fanfare. There are hundreds in operation today in California, Arizona, Texas, and elsewhere, and the numbers are only going to increase. But when they do make mistakes, people tend to notice. Numerous public opinion polls have shown declining support for autonomous vehicles (AV) over the years and a rise in outright hostility toward the technology.

The autonomous vehicle industry’s main lobbying group — yes, of course it has one — is intent on reversing this trend before it...

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Take it slow in this stop-motion sci-fi adventure

Image: Slow Bros.

Harold Halibut moves at its own pace. A point-and-click adventure built with real-world materials and then animated with stop-motion, Harold Halibut tells a story that’s at times slow and ponderous and, at others, cozy and heartwarming. It’s sort of like what would happen if Wes Anderson teamed up with Aardman Animations to make a sci-fi game. Which is to say that it’s charming and built with an incredible amount of care and detail. As a game, it’s standard stuff — but as a place to experience, there’s nothing quite like it.

The developers at German studio Slow Bros. say that every element in Harold Halibut was “meticulously hand-crafted using traditional sculpting and model-making techniques.” And much of the joy of the game comes from...

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Humane AI Pin launch: the reviews are in, and they’re not good

Photo by Amelia Holoway Krales / The Verge

At the least the only way to go from here is up... right?

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Kickstarter is adding the ability to collect money indefinitely

Photo Illustration by Mateusz Slodkowski / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images

Creators fundraising for projects on Kickstarter will soon be able to collect money even after their campaign ends.

Currently, Kickstarter projects can last anywhere from one to 60 days, and creators hoping to continue fundraising after meeting their goal have had to go off-platform to keep raising money.

The new late pledge feature will allow crowdfunding campaigns to collect money indefinitely if the creator chooses. Late pledges could also be helpful for fans who learn about projects after the fundraising window has closed but want to support the creator. Creators who are offering something in exchange for a certain level of monetary support — a digital download of an album or physical items, for example — will need to end late...

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Amazon Music’s Maestro lets listeners make AI playlists

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon Music may soon let you create playlists with a text prompt using Maestro, its new AI playlist maker.

Maestro, which is currently available in beta to a small number of Amazon Music subscribers in the US, will let users put together playlists using any prompt, including emojis, Amazon said in a blog post. According to the company, listeners will be able to save the AI-created playlists and share them with other Amazon Music users. In the post, Amazon Music’s suggested prompts included “ and eating ,” “Music my grandparents made out to,” and “I tracked my friends and they’re all hanging out without me.”

The feature is similar to Spotify’s AI Playlist, which was rolled out to Premium users in the United Kingdom and Australia this...

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