Arc’s mobile browser is now available to everyone on Android

Illustration: Cath Virginia / The Verge

After an open beta that rolled out last month, Arc Search is now available to all Android users. The Browser Company’s search engine — which describes itself as “the fastest way to search” — has been positioning itself as a better alternative to Chrome.

Arc Search not only blocks ads but also has an AI feature called “browse for me” that summarizes search results. In a September Decoder interview, Browser Company CEO Josh Miller described Arc as a laptop-first search engine, but the company is clearly leaning in to mobile.

Over 100,000 Android users participated in the Arc beta, according to a press release. Arc says it’s fixed some of the issues that bothered users most during the beta test — as a result, the browser now has full...

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Pro-Harris TikTok felt safe in an algorithmic bubble — until election day

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

In the weeks leading up to the US presidential election, Kacey Smith was feeling hopeful. Smith, who supported Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, says she knew it would be a close race between the Democratic nominee and Republican Donald Trump. But as she scrolled TikTok, she believed Harris would be victorious.

But Election Day approached, and she started to sense red flags in that positivity. She recalls TikTok serving her enthusiasm for reproductive choice with videos encouraging “women’s rights over gas prices” — implying, falsely, she thought, the choice was “either/or.” The rhetoric fit well inside her feed filled with strangers, but as a campaign strategy, it felt limiting and risky. “When I started seeing that messaging play...

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Xbox continues its push beyond consoles with new ad campaign

Image: The Verge

Microsoft has been trying to expand Xbox to multiple devices for more than five years now, and now it’s launching a marketing campaign to make it very clear that it thinks every screen is an Xbox now. A new “This is an Xbox” campaign is launching today to position the Xbox brand as a way to play games across multiple devices, instead of just an Xbox console.

“This Is an Xbox invites people to play with Xbox across multiple devices and screens,” explains Craig McNary, senior director of Xbox marketing. “It showcases the evolution of Xbox as a platform that extends across devices, with bold, iconic, fun visuals and a light-hearted tone.”

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft’s new Xbox marketing campaign.

Microsoft has...

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Not even Spotify is safe from AI slop

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

How fake music targets real artists.

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Meta hit with $840 million fine for linking Facebook and Marketplace

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Almost two years after EU regulators first accused Meta of “abusive practices” that gave the tech giant unfair market advantages, the European Commission has fined Meta €797.7 million (around $840 million). The combination of forcing Facebook users to be exposed to Marketplace and imposing restrictions against third-party classified ads providers on the platform are the two main reasons cited for the fine.

In a statement, the EU’s competition head Margrethe Vestager accused Meta of abusing its dominant position in the social media market “to benefit its own service Facebook Marketplace, thereby giving it advantages that other online classified ads service providers could not match. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules.”

The European...

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The Onion just bought Infowars

Alex Jones in 2022. | Photo by Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images

The satirical news outlet The Onion has acquired Infowars, the conspiracy theory-riddled site run by Alex Jones, in a bankruptcy auction. In a press release posted to X Thursday, The Onion announced that it plans to “end Infowars’ relentless barrage of disinformation for the sake of selling supplements and replace it with The Onion’s relentless barrage of humor for good” when it relaunches in January 2025.

The Onion purchased Infowars’ assets with the support of the families in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, who sued Jones for spreading lies about the victims of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Jones was ordered to pay more than $1 billion in 2022 and filed for bankruptcy later that year. In September, a judge approved...

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Why are cassette and CD players so bulky now?

Alex Parkin / The Verge

Cassette tape sales are at a 20-year high, the vinyl market is on a 17-year growth streak, and CDs have caught the attention of Gen Z. After a resurgence of retro physical media, tech companies have now jumped in to provide new hardware to play these formats.

Companies like We Are Rewind, Fiio, and others offer updated designs for new cassette and CD players, with some additional functionality like USB-C charging and Bluetooth.

But after a quick glance at these updated music gadgets in person, we found that they are seemingly not as advanced as some of their vintage counterparts. The dimensions of We Are Rewind’s Bluetooth cassette player are roughly the same as Sony’s first-ever Walkman from 1979 — but by the time the cassette Walkman...

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How Trump’s second term could be bad for EVs — but great for Tesla

Image: The Verge / Getty Images

What Elon Musk really wants from a Trump presidency.

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The Verge’s 2024 holiday gift guide for tinkerers

Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Whether you’re assembling a PC, planning an epic Etsy crafts store, or just fixing a squeaky old chair, we found some handy tools that anyone can appreciate.

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YouTube is getting in on the digital gifting game

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube is taking a page out of the TikTok playbook by adding “jewels” you buy to exchange for gifts for your favorite creators during livestreams. The feature, announced in September’s Made on YouTube event, is rolling out in the US over the next few weeks for eligible creators in the YouTube Partner Program.

The feature is reminiscent of TikTok’s livestream gifting, which essentially works the same way, except you buy “coins.” On YouTube, gifts you send to live streamers appear onscreen and add to their earnings called “rubies,” valued at one cent each. YouTube says there’s no fixed revenue share since the cost of jewels can change based on promotions, so the amount of rubies earned can vary. For the next three months, YouTube will...

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Disney’s streaming business is finally finding its footing

Image: Nick Barclay / The Verge

Disney made money off its streaming business for the second time in a row. During Q4 2024, profit from Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus soared to $321 million, up from $47 million last quarter.

During an earnings call on Thursday, Disney CEO Bob Iger said around 60 percent of all new subscribers are choosing Disney Plus’s ad-supported plan. Meanwhile, 37 percent of total subscribers in the US are currently subscribed to the option, which has become a major revenue driver for streaming services.

“It’s not just about raising pricing,” Iger said. “It’s about moving consumers to the advertiser-supported side of the streaming platform... the pricing that we recently put into place, which is increased pricing, was actually designed to move...

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Amazon announces its first Mini LED Fire TV — and this one’s also built for gaming

Image: Amazon

Amazon is today introducing its latest Fire TV Omni TV series, and it’s the first to feature Mini LED backlighting for improved contrast, less blooming, and greater brightness than past models. The “Fire TV Omni Mini-LED Series” features up to 1,344 dimming zones (depending on screen size) and delivers up to 1,400 nits of peak brightness. That’s respectable, but falls short of top Mini LED contenders like TCL’s QM8 and Hisense’s U8N, which can push all the way to 3,000 nits.

Still, Amazon’s TV is priced quite a bit lower than those models and includes Dolby Vision IQ, HDR10 Plus Adaptive, and Dolby Atmos audio. This also sounds like the first Fire TV Omni that’s truly cut out for gaming. It’s got AMD FreeSync Premium Pro certification,...

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Words With Friends takes on Wordle with new single-player daily puzzles

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Wordle’s success has caused an explosion in newspaper-style puzzle games, and now Words With Friends is getting in on the action. The long-running word game is adding four solo modes that can be played daily, and they’ll sound familiar to those who use The New York Times’ gaming app.

The new games include a mini crossword puzzle; a word search; Word Wheel, which is about connecting letters to create words; and a word guessing game called Guess Word. You can see what they all look like in the gallery below:

Zynga, which owns Words With Friends, says that each of the games will have new puzzles daily and can be played either solo or in multiplayer. “Our players asked if they could do even more, so we’ve added a whole new layer of...

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Apple faces a new $3.75 billion antitrust lawsuit over iCloud storage

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Apple is facing a £3 billion (about $3.75 billion) lawsuit from a consumer group that alleges the iPhone maker violated UK competition law by “forcing” customers to use its iCloud service.

In its press release, UK consumer watchdog Which? says that Apple gave its iCloud storage service preferential treatment and encouraged users to use the service to store photos, videos, and other data while making it difficult to use alternative providers.

“We believe Apple customers are owed nearly £3 billion as a result of the tech giant forcing its iCloud services on customers and cutting off competition from rival services,” Which? said in its announcement. The group alleges that Apple’s monopoly allowed the company to overcharge users for iCloud...

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Snapchat will let parents request their teen’s real-time location

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Once known only for its self-destructing pics, in recent years Snapchat has sneakily evolved into a location-oriented social media app. It’s now leaning further than ever into that identity with a new real-time location sharing feature that allows family members to share their live locations with each other. The feature will roll out alongside other new location and privacy tools in the coming weeks.

Once you have the update, you’ll see an option in the Family Center that lets parents request their teen’s locations, and vice versa. The hub will also allow parents to view their child’s location-sharing settings alongside existing privacy settings to ensure they’re using the app safely and responsibly. If that’s not enough, Snap is...

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Google’s Gemini AI now has its own iPhone app

In the AI chatbot world, ubiquity is everything. Companies have raced to build desktop and mobile apps for their bots, in order to both give them new capabilities but also to make sure they’re right in front of your face as often as possible.

There’s no better example of that than Google’s new Gemini app for iPhone, which quietly hit the App Store around the world this week. The free app is simple and straightforward: it’s just a chat window and a list of your previous chats. You can query the bot with text, voice, or your camera, and it’ll give you answers. It’s effectively identical to the Gemini section of the Google app, or what you’d get by opening a browser and going to the Gemini website.

The Gemini app does have one newish...

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Google will let you search for products on Maps to help with holiday shopping

The Verge

Google has added some new travel and shopping features to Maps that aim to make it easier to find local products and stay on time during busy periods. Starting today, Maps now allows users to search for items like home goods, clothing, and electronics, and find stores nearby that sell them — a useful feature to have for any last-minute holiday shopping.

The search results in Maps will display individual product listings alongside locations where generic examples of desired items can be found (showing nearby stores that sell “holiday sweaters,” for example). The product listings are presented similarly to products in Google Shopping, only with useful information like store distance and if the item is currently in stock.

G...

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PayPal will let you pool money for group gifts and shared expenses

PayPal is making it easier to collectively pool together funds on the platform. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

PayPal is introducing a new money-pooling feature that aims to make it easier to collect and pay for things as a group. The feature is free and allows PayPal users to create a pool online or via the platform’s app, invite friends and family to contribute, track contributed funds, and transfer that cash to their own PayPal balance.

Provided you trust the pool organizer who will hold the power to spend or withdraw those funds, the pooling feature should provide a simple way to gather cash for things like gifts and group traveling collectively. Pool organizers can share pool joining links via “text, email, WhatsApp, and more” to people regardless of whether they have a PayPal account or not. Contributions can be made using a PayPal balance...

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Apple launches Final Cut Pro 11 with even more AI features

It’s been 25 years since the first Final Cut Pro was announced.

More than a decade after the launch of Final Cut Pro X, Apple’s video editing software is taking a step forward. The app is now being updated to Final Cut Pro 11, after dropping the number in its name for the past few years. The update includes new AI masking tools, the ability to generate captions directly in your timeline, spatial video editing features, and a set of workflow improvements. The new version is free for existing users and a $299 one-time purchase for new users. Final Cut Pro for iPad and Final Cut Camera are also getting some updates today, too.

I’ve spent the last week testing out these new features, and many of them are great improvements. I’ve been particularly impressed by the speed and accuracy of one new feature...

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Apple updates Logic Pro with new sounds and search features

Apple Logic Pro for Mac 11.1 with Quantec Room Simulator | Image: Apple

Apple today announced some minor updates to Logic Pro for both the Mac and the iPad, including the ability to search for plug-ins and sources and the addition of more analog-simulating sounds.

In Logic Pro for Mac 11.1 and Logic Pro for iPad 2.1, you can now reorder channel strips and plug-ins in the mixer and plug-in windows to make it easier to organize the layout of an audio mix.

As for the new sounds, Apple added a library of analog synthesizer samples called Modular Melodies, akin to the Modular Rhythms pack already found in Logic.

A more exciting sonic addition is the new Quantec Room Simulator (QRS) plug-in, which emulates the vintage digital reverb hardware of the same name, found in professional recording studios all over...

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OpenAI reportedly plans to launch an AI agent early next year

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

OpenAI is preparing to release an autonomous AI agent that can control computers and perform tasks independently, code-named “Operator.” The company plans to debut it as a research preview and developer tool in January, according to Bloomberg.

This move intensifies the competition among tech giants developing AI agents: Anthropic recently introduced its “computer use” capability, while Google is reportedly preparing its own version for a December release. The timing of Operator’s eventual consumer release remains under wraps, but its development signals a pivotal shift toward AI systems that can actively engage with computer interfaces rather than just process text and images.

All the leading AI companies have promised autonomous AI...

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Sonos revenue falls in the aftermath of company’s messy app debacle

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Sonos is still trying to climb out from the hole it dug itself earlier this year by recklessly shipping an overhauled mobile app well before the software was actually ready. Today, just a couple weeks after the release of its latest hardware products — the Arc Ultra and Sub 4 — Sonos reported its fiscal Q4 2024 earnings. And the damage done by the app debacle is clear.

Revenue was down 8 percent year over year, which Sonos attributed to “softer demand due to challenging market conditions and challenges resulting from our recent app rollout.” During the quarter, the company sank $4 million into unspecified “app recovery investments.” (Sonos previously estimated it could spend up to $30 million to resolve all of the trouble that has...

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Pixel phones will be able to detect and report malicious apps in real time

Google versus the bad guys. | Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Google is beefing up its malware detection with new protections designed to suss out ever-sneakier bad actors.

Android’s Google Play Protect service is getting an update called live threat detection which seeks out potentially harmful apps on your phone by analyzing app behavior and alerts you in realtime if something looks fishy. The update was first announced at Google I/O earlier this year and is available now to Pixel 6 and newer phones. It should come to additional non-Pixel Android phones from Lenovo, OnePlus, Nothing, and Oppo, among others “in the coming months.”

Live threat detection targets particularly hard-to-spot malware apps that hide their intentions well. Rather than just scanning apps for malicious code when you...

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The Wall Street Journal is testing AI article summaries

Image: The Verge

The Wall Street Journal is experimenting with AI-generated article summaries that appear at the top of its news stories. The summaries appear as a “Key Points” box with bullets summarizing the piece. The Verge spotted the test on a story about Trump’s plans for the Department of Education, and the Journal confirmed it’s trialing the feature to see how readers respond.

The “Key Points” box has a message explaining that an “artificial intelligence tool created this summary” and that the summary was checked by an editor. The box also points to a page about how the WSJ and Dow Jones Newswires use AI tools.

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

The AI-generated “Key Points” from this WSJ article.

“We are always...

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Mark Zuckerberg just dropped a single with T-Pain

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

If you want to preserve the existing version of Lil Jon’s “Get Low” in your brain, maybe don’t listen to this cover T-Pain made with Mark Zuckerberg — excuse me, Z-Pain. Their version transforms the “Get Low” I got down to at all my school dances into a song with a much slower tempo complete with an acoustic guitar.

Trust me, I may be scarred for life after hearing Zuckerberg’s autotuned voice serenade me with “‘Til the sweat drop down my balls.” If you get halfway through the song, you’ll also hear a cameo from T-Pain.

Apparently, Zuckerberg made the song for his wife, Priscilla. “‘Get Low’ was playing when I first met Priscilla at a college party, so every year we listen to it on our dating anniversary,” Zuckerberg wrote on Instagram....

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GOG’s new preservation program intends to keep classic games playable ‘forever’

PC game platform GOG has launched a new preservation program dedicated to keeping beloved older games playable, “now and in the future.”

“If a game is part of the Preservation Program, it means that we commit our own resources to maintaining its compatibility with modern and future systems,” the announcement blog reads.

The program is launching with 100 games including Diablo, System Shock 2, and Resident Evil 1-3, with GOG planning to add emore titles in the coming months. Games featured in the program will come with a number of perks. GOG says that when you buy a game from the program, you can:

• “expect it to work on current and future popular PC configurations”
• “be sure that this version is the best and most complete available...

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GM offers free nighttime charging to Chevy EV owners in Texas

Image: Reliant

General Motors is teaming up with Reliant Energy to offer free nighttime charging to some Chevy electric vehicle owners in Texas.

Chevy owners who enroll in Reliant’s EV charging plan will receive free nighttime charging through monthly bill credits that offset charges incurred between 11PM. and 6AM, the companies said. Customers must also designate an EV to receive the charging credit through GM Energy’s Smart Charging Portal. (GM Energy is the automaker’s home energy subsidiary, and Reliant is a subsidiary of NRG Energy.)

The new plan is the latest promotion to discount charging costs for EV owners, as automakers pile on perks in the hopes of winning over skeptical consumers. Ford recently announced a similar deal in Texas, partnering...

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Spotify will start paying creators for popular videos

Cath Virginia / The Verge

Spotify is going all in on video.

The company will soon begin paying creators based on how much engagement their videos receive from paid subscribers. Automated ad breaks in videos will also be turned off for paid Spotify subscribers to encourage more consumption. Both of these changes go into effect starting January 2nd, 2025 in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada.

Paying video creators directly based on engagement puts Spotify on more of a collision course with YouTube, which is also leaning into podcasts and already pays its creators billions a year in shared ad revenue. “We can provide an experience for your audience that is superior to any other platform,” CEO Daniel Ek said onstage Wednesday at a Spotify creator event in Los Angles.

...

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Warcraft I and II get a new remaster that’s available now

Blizzard just released Warcraft Remastered Battle Chest, which collects remasters of realtime strategy classics Warcraft I and II, as well as a 2.0 update for Warcraft III: Reforged. The company announced the collection, which is $39.99 on Battle.net, during today’s Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct livestream.

The first two games have been updated much the same way that Starcraft was in 2017, replacing the original game sprites and maps with more detailed, high-res artwork. Both games also have “updated quality of life features for modern day gaming,” according to the Battle.net store page for the collection. While the third game is supported on Macs, the first two are PC-only.

Warcraft III: Reforged 2.0looks like the company’s attempt...

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Threads might get ads early next year

Image: The Verge

Meta could bring ads to Threads as soon as next year, according to a report from The Information. As part of its plan, Threads will reportedly allow a small number of advertisers to make and publish ads in January.

That tracks with what my colleague Alex Heath reported about the rollout of ads in July. Instagram head Adam Mosseri has also confirmed that Meta is “definitely” planning to bring ads to Threads. “I get why people have concerns, but at the end of the day we’re a business and Threads needs to make enough money to pay for the people and servers that it takes to run the service and provide it to people for free,” Mosseri said at the time.

In its most recent earnings report, Meta said it earned $39.8 billion in advertising revenue...

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