The Verge
App Store video game emulators: all the news on retro console ports for iOS
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
iPhone users can finally enjoy retro gaming emulators without jailbreaking their phones.
The VergeThe VergeLamborghini’s popular Urus SUV grows a plug — and goes hybrid
Lamborghini’s mission to produce gas-electric hybrid versions of all of its models continues with today’s release of the plug-in hybrid Urus SE. The SUV is the top selling vehicle in Lamborghini’s lineup, and a hybrid version is sure to draw a lot of interest from the Italian automaker’s customer base of one-percenters.
The electrified luxury SUV’s hybrid powertrain can put out a total of 800 CV (a metric unit of horsepower that translates to 789 hp), or 588 kW, thanks to its 25 kWh battery. It can also travel as far as 60 km (37 miles) on battery power alone, which is certainly a healthy step up over the hybrid Revuelto’s 10 km of electric-only driving.
And, as befitting its Lambo-ness, the Urus SE will...
The VergeWhat happens after your country runs on 99 percent renewable electricity?
Kenneth Lobo Méndez, director of planning and sustainability in electricity management, and Marco Jiménez Chavez, an engineer, at the state-run electricity utility Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE). | Collage by Israel Vargas | Photos by Justine Calma
Costa Rica gets more than 99 percent of its electricity from renewables — it’s still not enough.
The VergeAdobe’s impressive AI upscaling project makes blurry videos look HD
Adobe claims its new VideoGigaGAN generative AI model can upscale video clips more consistently and in higher quality than other VSR methods. | Image: Adobe
Adobe researchers have developed a new generative AI model called VideoGigaGAN that can upscale blurry videos at up to eight times their original resolution. Introduced in a paper published on April 18th, Adobe claims VideoGigaGAN is superior to other Video Super Resolution (VSR) methods as it can provide more fine-grained details without introducing any “AI weirdness” to the footage.
In a nutshell, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are effective for upscaling still images to a higher resolution, but struggle to do the same for video without introducing flickering and other unwanted artifacts. Other upscaling methods can avoid this, but the results aren’t as sharp or detailed. VideoGigaGAN aims to provide the best of both worlds —...
The VergeWindows 11 Start menu ads are now rolling out to everyone
The app recommendations in the Windows 11 Start menu. | Image: Microsoft
Microsoft is starting to enable ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11 for all users. After testing these briefly with Windows Insiders earlier this month, Microsoft has started to distribute update KB5036980 to Windows 11 users this week, which includes “recommendations” for apps from the Microsoft Store in the Start menu.
“The Recommended section of the Start menu will show some Microsoft Store apps,” says Microsoft in the update notes of its latest public Windows 11 release. “These apps come from a small set of curated developers.” The ads are designed to help Windows 11 users discover more apps, but will largely benefit the developers that Microsoft is trying to tempt into building more Windows apps.
Microsoft only started testing...
The VergeThe Mercedes G-Wagen, the ultimate off-road status symbol, goes electric
Image: Mercedes-Benz AG
Mercedes’ box-shaped luxury off-roader finally gets an electrified makeover.
The VergeSenate passes TikTok ban bill, sending it to President Biden’s desk
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Brendan Hoffman, Getty Images
A bill that would force China-based company ByteDance to sell TikTok — or else face a US ban of the platform — is all but certain to become law after the Senate passed a foreign aid package including the measure.
It now heads to President Joe Biden, who already committed to signing the TikTok legislation should it make it through both chambers of Congress. The House passed the foreign aid package that includes the TikTok bill on Saturday.
Once signed by the president, ByteDance would have up to a year to complete a sale of TikTok or face an effective ban for the platform in the US. The bill gives ByteDance an initial nine months and gives the president discretion to extend it another three should there be progress toward a deal. Still,...
The VergeSteam will stop issuing refunds if you play two hours of a game before launch day
Eight years ago, Valve began offering no-questions-asked refunds for any game you buy on Steam — as long as you asked for that refund within 14 days of purchase and hadn’t played more than two hours of a game.
But when Valve started letting you play games ahead of their release dates with its “Early Access” and “Advanced Access” programs, it introduced a loophole: people could play for many, many hours ahead of launch and still request a refund after.
Today, Valve’s closing the loophole: Your Advanced Access and Early Access playtime now counts against the two-hour refund limit.
Here’s what Valve’s updated refund policy says about that as of today:
REFUNDS ON TITLES PURCHASED PRIOR TO RELEASE DATE
When you purchase a title on Steam...
The VergeThis Game Boy-looking phone stand is why MagSafe is good
That’s a nice looking charger. | Image by Elago
MagSafe isn’t a particularly controversial standard, but I’ve heard people grumble about it. They get upset because it doesn’t charge quite as efficiently as an old-fashioned cable and they get annoyed that any phone case needs to be MagSafe-compatible. But could charging by cable provide you with something as stupidly fun as this new phone stand from Elago?
The Elago MagSafe MS W5 Charging Stand is a mouthful of a name for what’s just a Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP shaped MagSafe stand. Do the buttons and switches work? No! Does it fold close? Absolutely not! It’s merely a piece of plastic you slot a MagSafe charger into. It’s so simple you could probably 3D print something similar at home.
Image by Elago
Don’t...
The VergeThe EU’s new right-to-repair rules make companies fix your device after a warranty expires
Cath Virginia / The Verge
The European Union has officially adopted a new set of right-to-repair rules designed to encourage people to repair broken devices, rather than replace them. One of the rules extends a product’s warranty by one year if it’s repaired while still covered.
The European Union already requires companies to offer a two-year minimum warranty on products, but these new rules take things a step further. Even after the warranty period ends, companies are “still required to repair common household products,” including smartphones, TVs, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and other items. If a product breaks while under warranty, consumers can choose between a replacement or a repair. If they choose to repair, the warranty will be extended for a...
The VergeA cheaper Tesla is back on the menu
The Model 3 might get an affordable younger sibling in 2025. | Image: Tesla
Tesla says it will build more affordable electric vehicles — perhaps as soon as 2025 — refuting recent reports that Tesla CEO Elon Musk had canceled plans for a cheaper “Model 2” vehicle in favor of getting a robotaxi out the door. But Musk didn’t clarify whether the lower-cost EV would be a brand new model for Tesla or simplified versions of its current vehicles.
“In terms of a new product roadmap, there’s been a lot of talk,” Musk said during the company’s first quarter earnings call, addressing the concerns investors have expressed over the past month about the delayed plans for a low-cost EV. “We’ve updated our future vehicle lineup to accelerate the launch of new models.” Musk said we might see the vehicles in early 2025, if not...
The VergeJabra’s noise-canceling Elite 5 are on sale for 40 percent off right now
Jabra’s latest midrange earbuds aren’t the best at any one thing, but they do offer a lot of bang for your buck. | Image: Jabra
At this point, it’s safe to say that Jabra makes some of the most reliable earbuds you can buy, especially for the price. The Jabra Elite 5, like the company’s prior midrange models, are good example of a pair that checks all the right boxes, offering up ANC, multipoint, and a host of other welcome features at a competitive price point. And now, thanks to a $60 discount from Amazon and Jabra, you can grab them for a mere $89.99, which nearly matches their second-best price to date.
We’ve long considered the Jabra Elite 3 one of the best pairs of sub-$100 earbuds you could buy, though, at the current price, I’d argue the Elite 5 are the better value. The comfy, teardrop-shaped buds don’t excel at any one thing but rather offer a laundry...
The VergeThe FTC has banned noncompete agreements
Illustration by The Verge | Photo via Getty Images
The Federal Trade Commission has voted to ban noncompete agreements nationwide, saying that they are an “unfair method of competition.”
Noncompete agreements — which attempt to prevent employees from working for or starting competing businesses — are especially prevalent in the world of tech, where we’ve seen companies like Amazon enforce and then retract a noncompete agreement for warehouse workers. Acer even sued its former CEO for allegedly breaching a noncompete policy by becoming a consultant for Lenovo.
The change will force companies to reverse existing noncompete agreements and notify employees about the change. Existing noncompete agreements for senior executives can stay in place, but companies can’t enter or enforce new...
The VergeFramework won’t be just a laptop company anymore
Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge
Today, Framework is the modular repairable laptop company. Tomorrow, it wants to be a consumer electronics company, period. That’s one of the biggest reasons it just raised another $18 million in funding — it wants to expand beyond the laptop into “additional product categories.”
Framework CEO Nirav Patel tells me that has always been the plan and that the company originally had other viable ideas beyond laptops, too. “We chose to take on the notebook space first,” he says, partly because Framework knew it could bootstrap its ambitions by catering to the PC builders and tinkerers and Linux enthusiasts left behind by big OEMs and partly because it wanted to go big or go home.
If Framework could succeed in laptops, he thought, it would be...
The VergeTesla teases robotaxi ridehailing function in its app
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Tesla provided a sneak peek of its upcoming ridehailing mobile app in the company’s latest earnings report. The company’s CEO, Elon Musk, has said that Tesla will unveil a long-gestating robotaxi in August.
The company revealed five screens from the forthcoming feature. The first screen shows a big button that says “Summon” with a lower message for the possible wait time. The next screen has a 3D map with a little virtual vehicle following a route to the waiting passenger. It looks a lot like the Uber app — but more Tesla-y.
Image: Tesla
Tesla’s ridehailing app looks like your average ridehailing app.
While they wait, the passenger can set the vehicle’s climate to a preferred temperature. Other details, like...
The VergeApple reportedly cuts Vision Pro production due to low demand
Demand for Vision Pro is falling. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Apple is reportedly cutting its Vision Pro headset shipment forecast for the rest of the year due to cooling demand.
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo writes that Apple cut orders for the Vision Pro even before it launched outside of the US. His sources claim thatApple now expects to sell only around 400,000 to 450,000 units in 2024, compared to what Kuo says was a “market consensus” of 700,000 to 800,000. Demand for the $3,500 Vision Pro dropped much lower than the company was expecting.
Facing the unanticipated drop in steam, Apple is now adjusting its headset roadmap, possibly pushing the future of a lower-cost entry mixed reality headset beyond 2025 (if at all). Apple’s Vision Pro has largely wowed early adopters due to its technical...
The VergeTesla’s profits sink as the company struggles with cooling demand
Photo by VCG / VCG via Getty Images
Tesla reported its first quarter earnings during an incredibly shaky moment for the company in which sales numbers and the stock price have both fallen. Against this backdrop, Tesla reported $1.1 billion in net income on $21 billion in revenue, down 9 percent from $23.3 billion the same time last year.
The company’s profits, once the envy of the auto industry, are at their lowest in six years thanks to rampant price cutting and slowing demand. Earlier this week, the company approved its latest price cuts for the US, China, and Germany — all major markets for the EV maker.
Tesla’s Q1 operating margins are 5.5 percent, down from 11.4 percent in Q1 2023. In a note to shareholders, the company blames an industrywide shift from...
The VergeWattpad has a community problem, so it’s killing DMs
Wattpad says DMs will be shut down on May 6th, alongside the deletion of all existing messages. | Image: Wattpad
Community publishing platform Wattpad is removing the ability for users to send each other direct messages, claiming that the feature has “only been relevant to a small percentage” of its global user base. Users will retain access to their DMs until May 6th, after which all existing messages will be deleted and the feature will no longer be available, according to Wattpad’s help center.
Wattpad is instead encouraging its users to communicate via the public commenting feature on stories or the conversation section of profile pages. There is currently no means for users to download their existing DMs, and Wattpad says that it’s unable to retrieve such data. The feature will still exist in a limited capacity solely for Wattpad to...
The VergeT-Mobile’s new 5G internet plan lets you take your Wi-Fi on the road
Home internet for when you’re not at home. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
T-Mobile has announced two new home internet plans: Home Internet Plus and Away. Well, technically that’s one home internet plan and one anywhere-but-home plan. These new flavors of T-Mobile’s 5G-powered internet service aim to address different customers, but both serve the same goal: leveraging that sweet 5G spectrum to do more than just keep our phones connected.
The new Away plan, importantly, does not allow for “extended use in the same location,” according to a footnote in T-Mobile’s press release. It’s basically a Starlink competitor designed for campers and RV owners, but instead of using satellite connectivity, it’s more like a supercharged cellular hotspot. It can connect up to 64 devices at a time, which seems like way more...
The VergeWhat to expect at Apple’s May ‘Let Loose’ event
Apple’s next event will be all about iPads. | Image: Apple
Apple has gone and announced a spring event for May 7th at 7AM PT / 10AM ET. While the company didn’t say what the event is about, the Apple Pencil in its graphic suggests we’re finally about to hear about new iPads — but which ones? Well, almost certainly OLED iPad Pros, which we’ve been hearing about for months, but the company might also announce a new iPad Air in two sizes for the first time.
Rumors have also circulated in the last few months about a new Apple Pencil and updated Magic Keyboard accessories that would give iPad Pro owners a more laptop-like feel. Because more accessories are all the iPad needs, right? It doesn’t seem likely that there will be an update of the 10th-generation vanilla iPad or the iPad Mini quite yet, so...
The VergeThe biggest AI companies agree to crack down on child abuse images
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images
Tech companies like Google, Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Amazon committed today to reviewing their AI training data for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and removing it from use in any future models.
The companies signed on to a new set of principles meant to limit the proliferation of CSAM. They promise to ensure training datasets do not contain CSAM, to avoid datasets with a high risk of including CSAM, and to remove CSAM imagery or links to CSAM from data sources. The companies also commit to “stress-testing” AI models to ensure they don’t generate any CSAM imagery and to only release models if these have been evaluated for child safety.
Other signatories include Anthropic, Civitai, Metaphysic, Mistral AI, and Stability AI.
G...
The VergeAtlus’ new fantasy-meets-Persona RPG launches in October
Image: Atlus
Metaphor: ReFantazio is the inscrutable name for Atlus’ next RPG project. The company launched a new trailer and a 30-minute video introducing players to the story, gameplay, and social elements of the game, and at first blush, it looks pretty damn intriguing. Check out the gameplay video below.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is an action RPG from Studio Zero, a new internal studio spun up in 2016 and headed by Katsura Hashino. Atlus really wants you to know the bona fides of the developers working on Metaphor. Hashino himself worked on Shin Megami Tensei III, Persona 3, 4, and 5. The game’s mechanical designer is Ikuto Yamashita, who helped design the mechs in Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Shoji Meguro, who did the music for the Persona series,...
The VergeYou don’t know your K-pop persona, do you?
Image: Spotify
Spotify has launched a colorful personality quiz designed to help K-pop fans determine their persona. For those unfamiliar with the K-pop term or its Jungian roots, a “persona” refers to the distinct, public-facing role of each member of a band. The feature leans into K-pop’s status as a major area of growth in the global music industry, which Spotify has been eager to tap into.
The five-question quiz, which fans can take inside the Spotify app, will identify whether you’re a Main Visual, a Main Vocal, a Main Rapper, a Main Dancer, or a Trainee. In a callout to K-pop fan culture, the quiz will also generate a photocard (similar to the band-specific trading cards) with your results that you can share on social media. The feature will be...
The VergeHow 14 tribes plan to use the Biden administration’s solar grants
Cody Two Bears attends the Stand With Standing Rock Benefit at ABC Home & Carpet on December 15th, 2016, in New York City. | Photo by Mark Sagliocco / WireImage
A coalition of 14 tribes received $135,580,000 for solar energy, part of a Biden administration program to help more households run on renewable energy. The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara (MHA) Nation, which is leading the coalition, says the funding will bring jobs to their communities and make electricity more affordable.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced $7 billion in “Solar for All” grants yesterday for 60 awardees, including the MHA Nation. The money, which comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, is supposed to bring residential solar systems to some 900,000 “low-income and disadvantaged” households. Six of the grants, totaling $500 million, are going to tribes.
Funding for the MHA Nation is expected to bring solar energy...
The VergeLuminar starts shipping lidar for Volvo EX90 — while readying its next-gen sensor
Luminar’s new Halo lidar sensor is expected to be less than one inch thick. | Image: Luminar
Luminar is shipping out orders of its lidar sensors to Volvo as the automaker is preparing to start production of its EX90 electric vehicles, the company said today. Volvo will use the laser sensor to enable safety and self-driving features in the EX90, making it the “first global consumer vehicle to standardize this technology,” Luminar notes in a press release.
The news comes during a “Luminar Day” webcast, where the company is also announcing a new next-generation “Halo” lidar sensor — one that’s designed for mainstream adoption, including in affordable vehicles, at half the cost of its current system.
The order of lidar sensors to Volvo, which Luminar notes is worth $4 billion, comes after Volvo announced last year that it had to p...
The VergeTesla reveals a new Model 3 Performance with more horsepower and faster acceleration
Tesla
On the cusp of what’s expected to be a very not-good earnings report, Tesla decided to shuffle its search results a bit with the reveal of the 2024 Model 3 Performance, with a specially tuned chassis and a 2.9 second 0–60 mph acceleration time.
Interestingly, Tesla did not give this updated Model 3 the “Plaid” performance badge, which, so far, it has reserved for its more premium vehicles, the Model S and Model X. For the Model 3, it’s sticking to Performance.
The performance trim of the company’s top-selling electric sedan will get 510 horsepower and 741 Nm of torque — a step above the 470 horsepower that was achievable in the 2019 performance trim — and can hit a top speed of 163 mph.
Interestingly, Tesla is not give this updated...
The VergeThis could finally be the year the iPad gets a built-in calculator app
Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge
It’s been over a decade since the release of the very first iPad — and it may finally get Apple’s Calculator app. MacRumors reports that Apple plans to introduce its native calculator in iPadOS 18, which Apple will likely introduce during its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 10th.
For years, iPad users have had to download third-party calculator apps or access a web browser just to do math. Many of these third-party apps aren’t all that pleasant to use, as some of them come filled with ads or just don’t mesh well with the iPad’s interface. Not to mention that the better calculator apps, like PCalc, cost money to download.
This isn’t the only calculator rumor we’ve heard recently, either. Earlier this month, a report from A...
The VergeThe VWFNDR Keirin is an expansive new concept for the future of cameras
The The VWFNDR Keirin camera concept.
This past weekend, a local startup held an exhibition not too far from where I live in Tokyo to show off its idea for an entirely new take on camera hardware. That’s not the sort of thing that happens every weekend, even in Tokyo, so I biked on over to take a look.
VWFNDR is a project started by UX designer Álvaro Arregui Falcón of Nuevo.Tokyo and independent industrial designer Mireia Gordi i Vila. The team later brought on London-based engineer Lucas Seidenfaden, who developed the first working prototype for their concept.
That concept is called Keirin.
Named after the Japanese cycling discipline that takes place on a similarly oval track, the Keirin is a camera focused on panorama photography. Its standout visual feature is a curved...
The VergeBringing Fallout’s gritty retrofuturism into the real world
Image: Amazon
For production designer Howard Cummings, Fallout wasn’t just the name of his most recent project — it also became a verb. As he was working on Amazon’s live-action adaptation of the game series, Cummings and his team used the word Fallout as a shorthand to describe the particular retrofuturistic, post-apocalyptic style the franchise is known for. “Everything had to be Fallout-ed,” he tells The Verge. “For locations, I’d say: ‘How do I Fallout this grocery store?’”
Initially, though, that wasn’t the plan. Going into the project, Cummings — who previously worked on shows like Westworld and Lovecraft Country — didn’t know all that much about the games and thought he might have to update the visual style to make it “slicker.” That changed...
The VergeSamsung’s new glare-free OLED TV is receiving its first discount
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Don’t kick yourself if you missed out on Samsung’s free TV preorder promo from earlier this month. The company is now offering a much better cash discount on one of its most notable new models: the glare-free Samsung OLED S95D TV. The smallest TV in the lineup, the 55-inch model starts at $2,299.99 ($300 off) at Best Buy and Samsung, while the 77-inch is also $300 off for $4,299.99 (Best Buy, Samsung). The 65-inch TV, meanwhile, is receiving an even steeper $400 discount for $2,999.99 (Best Buy, Samsung).
Back in January, we saw for ourselves how well the S95D OLED eliminated most noticeable reflections, even as the TV sat right next to a light source. At the same time, the TV’s display is brighter than ever, with the OLED screen...