You can now buy this nostalgic Game Boy Advance clone

The Anbernic RG34XX is now available in four colors, including transparent red and green options. | Image: Anbernic

Anbernic’s latest handheld, which upgrades the design of Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance with a larger screen, extra buttons, and the ability to play games through emulation, is now available. The RG34XX can be ordered through Anbernic’s website for $69.99, but is discounted to $63.99 until December 18th. It comes in four colors, including the GBA’s original purple and black, as well as transparent green and red options.

Although it looks nearly identical to the original GBA’s hardware, the RG34XX adds a pair of additional action buttons, two more shoulder buttons, microSD card slots, an HDMI port, and a larger 3.4-inch display with a 720x480 resolution and a 3:2 aspect ratio. The handheld also appears to carry over the GBA’s volume dial, but it’s actually a two-way toggle switch allowing the volume to be adjusted up and down in small increments.

The RG34XX only became available for sale starting today, but Anbernic sent units to reviewers last week so we already have our first impressions of the new handheld. Russ Crandall, who runs the YouTube channel Retro Game Corps, found the emulator to be a “nearly perfect” recreation of Nintendo’s hardware. That can be either a good or bad thing, depending on how you remember the GBA’s ergonomics.

The RG34XX is powered by the Allwinner H700 chipset that Anbernic has already used in eight other devices. It won’t be able to play all the games released for 3D consoles like the Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, and Sony PSP, but the handheld will handle 16-bit games with ease, and excels at emulating the Game Boy Advance given the matching screen ratio.

Image: Keep Retro

The secondary set of shoulder buttons on the RG34XX are smaller and positioned in a way that larger hands may struggle to comfortably reach.

Retro Handhelds, a site that focuses on portable devices for playing classic games, also found the RG34XX to be an accurate recreation of the GBA, but found it a little cramped for larger hands to play. The RG34XX’s primary shoulder buttons, located in the same position as the GBA’s felt good. However, the secondary set, which are smaller and positioned closer to where the GBA’s cartridge slot was located, were not very comfortable to use.

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T-Mobile is looking for Starlink satellite-to-cell beta testers

Image: The Verge

T-Mobile is letting customers sign up to be the first to test its upcoming Starlink satellite direct-cell service, which promises to fill in 500,000 square miles of terrestrial cell tower dead zones in the US. The company created a new registration page where people can sign up for free, and testing will begin “early next year.”

The T-Mobile Starlink beta program is open to all post-paid customers with “compatible” satellite phones, although the company hasn’t shared a complete list of which devices will work. To start, registered beta testers will only get to try out satellite texting, with voice calls and data coming later.

The FCC handed T-Mobile and satellite partner SpaceX approval last month to allow satellite-to-service for customers, although not with the higher radio emission power needed for real-time voice and video calls. In August, Verizon and AT&T raised concerns that a fully realized T-Mobile service could interfere with their competing satellite services.

T-Mobile tested direct-to-cell emergency alerts in September, and in October, SpaceX turned on satellite text messaging to T-Mobile customers in areas affected by Hurricane Helene and Milton.

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Amazon Teamsters in NYC have voted to authorize a strike

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Workers at a Staten Island, New York Amazon warehouse voted on Friday to authorize a strike if the company doesn’t agree to set dates for contract negotiations. The workers are asking Amazon to recognize the union and bargain for safer working conditions and better wages, threatening the possibility of a strike during one of Amazon’s busiest times of the year.

Teamsters general president Sean O’Brien says in a press release that Amazon must agree to bargaining dates by December 15th, which passed yesterday. If Amazon hasn’t agreed, it risks facing a strike by the more than 5,500 workers at its Staten Island (JFK8) fulfillment center. Delivery drivers at a Queens (DBK4) last-mile delivery station also voted to authorize a strike.

“This is my third holiday I’m giving to Amazon,” a worker named James said in a video published Friday by labor nonprofit More Perfect Union. “I haven’t been around for Thanksgiving or Christmas. It’s constant speed-up for the holidays. It’s like twice as dangerous, I would say.”

A newly published US Senate Committee report says that, based on an investigation of Amazon’s records, the company’s warehouse injury rates were “more than 1.8 times that of other companies in each of the past seven years,” according to The New York Times. Senator Bernie Sanders, who chairs the committee, said “Amazon’s executives repeatedly chose to put profits ahead of the health and safety of its workers by ignoring recommendations that would substantially reduce injuries.”

In a statement emailed to The Verge, Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards accused the Teamsters union of “intentionally” misleading claims that it represents thousands of Amazon employees and drivers.

They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative. The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union.

Hards didn’t immediately respond when we asked which charges she was referring to. Conversely, in 2022, the National Labor Relations Board alleged that Amazon itself “repeatedly broke the law by threatening, surveilling, and interrogating” Staten Island workers who were attempting to unionize.

Workers at the Staten Island warehouse voted to unionize in 2022 and joined Teamsters, one of the largest US labor unions, in June, followed by drivers working out of the Queens facility in September. Amazon hasn’t recognized those unions. As of this writing, the Teamsters hasn’t announced an active strike on its X account, its Facebook page, or its site.

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As robotaxi companies stumble in the US, China’s fleet is growing

Photo by Jia Tianyong / China News Service / VCG via Getty Images

The same day that General Motors announced that it would stop funding its beleaguered robotaxi company Cruise, one of China’s leading autonomous vehicle operators made a different sort of announcement.

Pony.ai said it would expand its robotaxi fleet from about 250 to at least 1,000 vehicles in 2025, thanks to a partnership with GAC Aion, a division of one of China’s biggest automakers. With a larger fleet, the company says it plans on growing its service areas in the so-called first-tier cities of Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Pony’s current fleet averages 15 rides per vehicle per day, which translates to over 26,000 trips every week.

China is winning the race

It was another example of how access to cheap, plentiful electric vehicles as well as a lax regulatory environment and other state-fueled incentives are fueling China’s aggressive approach to autonomous vehicles. Baidu, another major Chinese AV operator, recently detailed its own efforts to bring the cost per vehicle down to around $30,000. Baidu also has a joint venture with automaker Geely to make driverless cars.

In the US, the tie-ups between automakers and driverless vehicle operators have faltered. In addition to GM’s decision to back away from Cruise, Ford shut down its Argo AI robotaxi project that it had been funding with Volkswagen. Both Ford and GM say they plan to redirect their efforts toward advanced driver-assist technology for personally owned vehicles.

The US is on high alert about China’s growing dominance in the field of autonomous vehicles. Earlier this year, the Biden administration proposed new rules to block the “sale or import” of connected vehicle software originating from China, arguing that vehicles with hardware and software from the country pose an “acute” threat to US national security. This followed an earlier move by the administration to lock in new tariffs on Chinese imports, including a 100 percent duty on EVs and new hikes on batteries and key minerals. And President-elect Donald Trump, who has been stacking his cabinet with China hawks, has promised even harsher tariffs.

These protectionist trade policies could also slow the development of driverless cars in the US. Waymo, the leading robotaxi company, has said it would use a Chinese EV as its next-generation vehicle. The Zeekr-made vehicle was supposed to be a lower-cost option for the company, which has racked up billions of dollars in expenses over the years.

Robotaxis could flounder without access to cheaply made EVs. Indeed, the public markets haven’t necessarily openly embraced Pony.ai and other Chinese firms, despite their aggressive expansion plans. The company’s initial public offering on Nasdaq valued it at $5.25 billion, or about 40 percent less than the $8.5 billion it was worth two years ago, according to the Financial Times.

No AV operator in the world is currently profitable. The fleets are still too small, the companies are mostly cautious about growing too quickly, and the technology is still more expensive than the meager revenues being brought in.

Pony.ai and others are hoping that China’s government will soon allow their vehicles to expand into suburban areas. Meanwhile, Trump’s transition team is weighing whether to create a federal framework for self-driving cars, which could enable a wider deployment of vehicles without traditional controls, like steering wheels and pedals.

No AV operator in the world is currently profitable

But the threat of China outpacing the US in robotaxi development hasn’t spurred Congress to break the logjam that has stalled AV legislation in Congress for over six years. Disagreements range from increasing the number of AVs on the road to prohibiting states from setting their own performance standards for AVs to liability concerns.

Cities may also object to companies trying to push out more driverless vehicles. Officials in San Francisco, for example, have raised a host of complaints, including blocked buses and emergency vehicles, and local residents have logged protests over new rules allowing robotaxis to roam more freely.

Those concerns are likely to remain a sticking point. Meanwhile, China has already surpassed the US in robotaxi deployment. The question is how much further ahead they can get.

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Arm CEO Rene Haas on the AI chip race, Intel, and what Trump means for tech

Image: The Verge; Photo: Hollie Adams / Bloomberg via Getty Images

The head of the ubiquitous chip design firm on the ‘breathtaking’ pace of AI.

Read the full story at The Verge.

Eufy’s new $70 security cam captures color footage at night

Eufy’s new Indoor Cam E30 can sit on a table or be mounted to walls and ceilings, but you’ll need to run a power cable. | Image: Eufy

Eufy has announced a new security camera, the Indoor Cam E30. The camera updates an older model released in 2020 with 4K video recording capabilities and an added spotlight that adds color capture to its typical night vision options. It’s available now for $69.99.

The Indoor Cam E30 can rotate 360 degrees horizontally and pan 75 degrees vertically, allowing it to monitor an entire room. It uses on-device AI to detect the presence of humans and pets and can also recognize and alert you to audio cues such as an infant crying. The camera can automatically track subjects in motion to keep them in frame. Its position can also be manually controlled, but only available through the Eufy mobile app, not Apple Home.

The device is compatible with HomeKit — including Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video — allowing you to save recordings to iCloud. But that requires an iCloud Plus subscription and it limits the streaming resolution to 1080P. If you’d prefer to go subscription free, the Indoor Cam E30 includes a microSD card slot for storing local footage, which can be streamed to the Eufy mobile app at 4K. If you need additional storage, the camera can also be connected to Eufy’s $149.99 HomeBase S380, which can be expanded to up to 16TB. (Eufy has promised it’s fixed the privacy issues we caught in 2022.)

Two-way audio allows you to communicate through the camera remotely, which is ideal for telling the dog or cat to get off the couch while you’re at work. (Editor’s note: has a cat ever listened?) And while the added spotlight allows the Indoor Cam E30 to capture nighttime footage in color, it reduces how far the camera see in the dark to 16.4-feet. Using its infrared lights limits the camera to only seeing in black and white, but it boosts its visual range to a little over 32-feet.

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The best entertainment of 2024

Arcane. | Image: Netflix

Finding something to watch or play can sometimes feel like work — there’s just so much out there vying for your free time. That’s true whether you’re heading to a theater, browsing the many streaming platforms, or looking for a new video game. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with choice.

So, as we’ve done in years past, we’re collecting all of our favorite releases from 2024 in one place. The goal is to make your decision-making a little easier. That could mean highlighting anything from an anticipated movie that actually lives up to the hype to a surprise indie game that takes the world by storm.

And we’ll be updating this page all year long as we continue to check out the latest in film, television, and gaming — so stay tuned.

Read the full story at The Verge.

Silo will end with season 4 on Apple TV Plus

Image: Apple

The end of the end of the world is now in sight. Apple just announced that its post-apocalyptic series Silo, which is in the midst of its second season, has been renewed for two more seasons. That means that season 4 will be the show’s last.

Silo first debuted in 2023, and it tells the story of the remnants of humanity, who live in an underground silo where they’re largely safe from the ruined landscape outside. However, things get much more complex very quickly, and the show is laden with mysteries. The series is based on a trilogy of sci-fi novels from Hugh Howey, and Apple says that the final two seasons will tell “the complete story” of the books. (So far, the first book has been split across the first two seasons of the show.)

“With the final two chapters of Silo, we can’t wait to give fans of the show an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the many mysteries and unanswered questions contained within the walls of these silos,” showrunner Graham Yost said in a statement. Rebecca Ferguson, who stars in the show and serves as an executive producer, added that “I have always felt passionately about telling the entire story contained within Hugh Howey’s books, so I couldn’t be happier that audiences around the world have enthusiastically embraced the show.”

The second season of Silo wraps up on January 17th. That’s the same day that another sci-fi series returns to Apple TV Plus, with season 2 of the workplace thriller Severance.

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Snapchat is overhauling how influencers earn money on the platform

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Snapchat is tweaking how people earn money on the platform by introducing a new, unified monetization program. The new program will cover content posted to Stories as well as Spotlight, the platform’s TikTok-like discovery feed filled with recommended video content. Under the program, influencers earn revenue for ads placed within eligible Stories and Spotlight posts.

Previously, monetization of these formats was splintered off from one another: Stories earnings were in one bucket, and Spotlight earnings were handled through a different program.

The new program is currently in testing with a small group of users, and will roll out widely on February 1st, 2025. To participate, users need to hit a set of benchmarks to be invited: 50,000 followers and either 10 million Snap views, 1 million Spotlight views, or 12,000 hours of watch time in the last 28 days.

They also need to post consistently, with at least 25 times per month to saved Stories or Spotlight and posting to Spotlight or public Stories on at least 10 of the last 28 days. Some of those eligibility requirements are significantly higher than they were under the old structure. To be eligible to earn money through Spotlight, for example, creators previously needed things like a public profile, 1,000 followers, and 10,000 video views.

Other video platforms have also streamlined or changed the original creator funds. TikTok, for example, now has one creator program that requires videos longer than 1-minute. On YouTube, Shorts creators earn money via ad revenue — a move by the company to meaningfully compete with TikTok.

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Europe’s Starlink competitor is go

A Starlink terminal in the wild. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

The EU has signed a deal for its IRIS² constellation of 290 communication satellites that will operate in both medium and low-earth orbit. The Starlink rival will provide secure connectivity to governmental users as well as private companies and European citizens, and bring high-speed internet to dead-zones. The public-private deal valued at €10.6 billion (about $11 billion), according to The Financial Times, is expected to come online by 2030.

SpaceRISE — a consortium led by European satellite network operators SES, Eutelsat, and Hispasat, and supported by European satcom subcontractors like Airbus and Deutsche Telekom — has been given a 12-year concession contract to develop, deploy, and operate the IRIS² constellation. IRIS² is an acronym for Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite.

“This cutting-edge constellation will protect our critical infrastructures, connect our most remote areas and increase Europe’s strategic autonomy. By partnering with the SpaceRISE consortium, we are demonstrating the power of public-private collaboration to drive innovation and deliver tangible benefits to all Europeans,” said Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy.

In September, FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said she wanted to see more competition to Elon Musk’s Starlink, which has already launched some 7,000 satellites since 2018.

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Meta’s Instagram boss: who posted something matters more in the AI age

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

In a series of Threads posts this afternoon, Instagram head Adam Mosseri says users shouldn’t trust images they see online because AI is “clearly producing” content that’s easily mistaken for reality. Because of that, he says users should consider the source, and social platforms should help with that.

“Our role as internet platforms is to label content generated as AI as best we can,” Mosseri writes, but he admits “some content” will be missed by those labels. Because of that, platforms “must also provide context about who is sharing” so users can decide how much to trust their content.

Just as it’s good to remember that chatbots will confidently lie to you before you trust an AI-powered search engine, checking whether posted claims or images come from a reputable account can help you consider their veracity. At the moment, Meta’s platforms don’t offer much of the sort of context Mosseri posted about today, although the company recently hinted at big coming changes to its content rules.

What Mosseri describes sounds closer to user-led moderation like Community Notes on X and YouTube or Bluesky’s custom moderation filters. Whether Meta plans to introduce anything like those isn’t known, but then again, it has been known to take pages from Bluesky’s book.

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This mod turns the PSP into a tiny PS2 with Bluetooth controller support

The PS Placeable makes the PSP into a tiny PS2. | Image: Retro Mod Works

What if you could turn a PSP with a broken screen into a miniature PS2, connect a Bluetooth controller to it, and play PSP games on your TV? That’s the idea behind Retro Mod Works’ PS Placeable, a mod that “consolizes” the PSP and was featured yesterday in a video from the YouTube channel Macho Nacho Productions.

Retro Mod Works charges $274.99 for a prebuilt PS Placeable. Those are waitlisted at the moment, though — a message on the site says the project is a “one man show” and that the demand for the Placeable was higher than anticipated.

Retro also offers to mod customer-provided PSPs for $100 less, and there’s an option preorder DIY parts and do the conversion work yourself. The mod requires either a PSP-2000 or PSP-3000 revision, as the first PSP didn’t have a video output. It’s not clear when the DIY parts will ship — we’ve asked Retro Mod Works and will update if we get a reply.

Image: Retro Mod Works

A stack of PS Placeables.

The primary person behind the project, named Dan, told Macho Nacho host Tito Perez that he “hated the idea of buying digital games” for which he has physical copies, and wanted a way to add Bluetooth controller support while preserving the UMD drive. He’s also mentioned in replies on Reddit that his goal is to help people revive broken PSPs with the mod, which doesn’t need the console’s screen.

But buying one of these mod kits can be pricey or require skills most people don’t have. If you just want to play PSP games on your TV and don’t care about having a UMD drive, the PSP Go — which lacked Sony’s oddball optical drive but supported Bluetooth controllers and also had a way to output video — is still pretty easy to come by.

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Apple’s foldable iPad could be like ‘two iPad Pros side-by-side’

Don’t you just want to bend this right in half? | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple hopes to release a foldable 18.8-inch creaseless iPad by about 2028, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman writes in today’s Power On newsletter. The company’s industrial design group has reportedly managed to create prototypes of this device that “have a nearly invisible crease” and would essentially be like “two iPad Pros side-by-side.”

Rumors of a folding iPad have been floating in the ether for years, now. Recent ones include a smaller model that Apple would release in 2026 or 2027. Gurman’s write-up today has strong echoes of the gargantuan 20-inch folding “iPad / MacBook hybrid” he detailed in 2022. That doesn’t seem to mean that it will run macOS, but Gurman claims that it “will have elements of both” Macs and iPads and that iPadOS “should be advanced enough to run macOS apps” by 2028.

Considering that Macs run iPhone and iPad apps now, it’s not outrageous to think the street could go both ways in time. It might help the value proposition, too; the 13-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,299, and whatever financial damage an iPad twice that size could incur would be a little easier to take coupled with the salve of being able to run macOS apps on it.

Gurman says a foldable iPhone is still in the works, though he doesn’t expect that “before 2026 at the earliest,” as other rumors have said. He also says information from his sources lines up with an alleged Apple internal display roadmap that made the rounds recently, tipping the 18.8-inch foldable iPad and Apple’s plans to release OLED MacBook Pros in 2026, followed by a MacBook Air OLED update in 2027.

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2025 in tech: who’s in and who’s out

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge

Hello! I’m here from the future. And I have some news. 12 months from now, all the Big Tech CEOs are still in their jobs, everybody’s using folding phones, Apple made a TV, and Nvidia is the most valuable company in the history of the universe. Wild year, huh? Or maybe not? It’s hard to remember. Time travel messes with your memory a little.

On this episode of The Vergecast, the second installment of our two-part 2025 preview, we debate some seriously iffy storylines from the end of 2025. David, our resident time traveler, brings us some big stories that either did or didn’t happen in the year to come, and Nilay Patel and Wall Street Journal columnist Joanna Stern have to help figure out what’s real and what isn’t.

Will someone really buy Snap? Is GTA VI going to be the biggest game ever? Will Bluesky continue to ascend and leave Threads in its wake? Nobody knows yet, not even the time traveler, but we have some thoughts and ideas.

As was the case with last week’s episode, we’re keeping score. Here’s how it works: each host has to decide, for each 2025 news story, whether it’ll be real or not by the end of the year. Every correct guess earns you a point; every incorrect guess...

Read the full story at The Verge.

For its next trick, Apple is reportedly preparing a Magic Mouse redesign

The Magic Mouse with USB-C was the tiniest revision. | Photo by Nathan Edwards / The Verge

Apple is working on a redesigned successor to the Magic Mouse, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. This new mouse would address complaints some users have had, including that pesky charging port.

Gurman writes that Apple’s design team has created prototypes of the mouse in recent months with an eye toward creating “something that better fits the modern era.” He doesn’t get into any specifics — the group still hasn’t settled on a design — except to say that the mouse will address the charging port location and other “longstanding complaints.” It’s at least 12 to 18 months away from release, according to Gurman.

How can Apple fix a mouse that’s objectively perfect? I’m kidding; after 15 years of largely the same design, the Magic Mouse has plenty of room for improvement, even with its recent USB-C revision for the M4 iMac release. Everyone is different, but my wishlist includes adding some mechanical controls, addressing ergonomics (my hand always cramps after a while), and not having to spear the mouse’s underbelly to charge it.

But even if Apple moves the port, I’m still a little grumpy when I have to dig out a cable to plug in the MX Master 3 that serves as my daily driver. There are better ways, like the Logitech mouse that charges wirelessly via a mousepad that my colleague, Sean Hollister, hasn’t had to intentionally charge for two years. I added MagSafe-style wireless charging by dropping my Magic Mouse into the wireless-charging equivalent of an ergonomic service industry sneaker — it ain’t pretty, and I still can’t use it while it’s charging, but it gets the job done. I’d bet Apple can do something better.

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The musical at the end of the world

Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon | Neon

Joshua Oppenheimer’s The End is a musical about wicked people. But it’s very different from Wicked.

Read the full story at The Verge.

A worthy update to my favorite mobile game ever

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 64, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, get ready for some weird documentaries, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been reading about raw milk and $HAWK and WhatsApp, watching A Man on the Insideand the new Ken Burns da Vinci doc, finally getting caught up on The Great British Bake Off (about which I have SO MANY FEELINGS), storing all my loyalty numbers and Airbnb codes in Cheatsheet, and doing a genuinely upsetting amount of research on pizza stones.

I also have for you a delightful new mobile game, an E Ink tablet worth a look, a gorgeous new to-dos app, and much more. It’s a strangely Netflix-centric week, which is odd for mid-December? But so it goes. Let’s dive in.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you watching / reading / playing / baking / listening to / soldering this week? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)

The Drop

• Monument Valley 3_._I’ve thought about it, and Monument...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Now ChromeOS can reset itself without erasing your laptop

Illustration: The Verge

This week, Google announced it’s rolling out ChromeOS M131 to non-beta users, bringing with it a handy “Safety reset” feature that lets Chromebook users reset their laptops without totally wiping them. The update also introduced a new “Flash notifications” accessibility option to help those who might not otherwise easily hear or see them.

Like Powerwash in ChromeOS, Safety reset will wipe the slate clean if you’re experiencing computer virus-like behavior such as unusual pop-ups. But where Powerwash is a full factory reset, Safety reset preserves local data and apps, as well as things like bookmarks and saved passwords, according to a help document about the feature.

Google also writes that users can call up the Safety reset dialog box directly by pressing CTRL + Shift + Search + R. Otherwise, you can find it in the “Safety and privacy” settings menu or by searching Settings or Launcher for keywords like “Pop-up,” “Spam,” or “Virus.”

Image: Google

The new flash notifications settings in ChromeOS accessibility settings.

As for the new Flash notifications setting, it’s available in accessibility settings under “Audio and captions,” giving an additional visual notification indicator to those who might otherwise miss them because they’re hard of hearing or use screen magnification to read content. Users can pick the flash’s color from several options, and a preview button lets them see what it looks like.

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Windows warns Phone Link won’t show ‘sensitive’ Android 15 notifications

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft’s Phone Link app is warning that Android smartphones using the latest version of Android 15 won’t display certain “sensitive” notifications, according to a post from Mishaal Rahman spotted by Windows Central.

The warning is the result of an Android 15 privacy feature that automatically categorizes notifications like those containing 2FA codes as “sensitive” and prevents third-party apps from seeing them. That extra bit of privacy could come in handy if you’ve unwittingly given a malicious app permission to access your notifications. But it could be inconvenient if you frequently rely on seeing 2FA codes appear on your computer via Phone Link.

Screenshot: Windows Phone Link warning

Mishaal Rahman posted a screenshot of the warning.

According to Rahman, Windows should still show sensitive notifications for Android devices where Phone Link came preinstalled and has requested a “Companion Device Role.” That includes Samsung phones running One UI 6.1.1, but not other Android phones like Google Pixel or Nothing Phones, writes Windows Central.

Rahman wrote in October that users could get around the notification-hiding feature by turning off “Enhanced Notifications” in Android 15’s notifications settings. However, doing so also turns off things like reply suggestions and could make it easier again for malicious apps to gather details from all of your notifications.

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YouTube TV is letting some subscribers hold off that price hike

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube announced a hefty subscription price increase this week that will shoot the monthly cost up by $10 to $82.99 on January 13th for existing members (or now, if you sign up today). Some subscribers are staving off the hike using the time-honored tradition of threatening to cancel, reports 9to5Google.

In a Reddit thread that 9to5Google spotted, several users reported getting the offer to keep paying $72.99 for six more months when they tried to cancel their subscriptions, although some report that didn’t work for them. Some who did get to keep the old price say it happened only when they logged in using a web browser on their computer and pushed through offers to pause their subscription instead.

One Verge staffer, Jennifer Tuohy, did get the offer to extend her current price. She canceled by logging into YouTube TV in a browser on her computer and navigating to Settings > Membership > Manage. As of this morning, Reddit users continue to report receiving the extension offer.

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HDMI 2.2 will be announced next month — and it may require a new cable

Photo: Wes Davis / The Verge

The group behind the HDMI standard, HDMI Forum, says that it will detail a new spec release in a press conference on January 6th that will enable “a wide range of higher resolutions and refresh rates.” The new capabilities will be “supported with a new cable,” according to the HDMI Forum’s email to The Verge announcing the presser.

The spec is likely to be HDMI 2.2, as VideoCardz notes. The Forum’s email hints at it too, noting that the HDMI Licensing Administrator, which two of the planned speakers at the event represent, is appointed “to license Version 2.2 of the HDMI specification.”

HDMI 2.1, which has only ever received lettered revisions since its 2017 introduction, supports 48Gbps bandwidth, up to 120Hz variable refresh rates, and resolutions up to 10240 x 4320. VideoCardz speculates that the updated spec could allow for higher resolutions and framerates without the need for Display Stream Compression.

Whatever the spec brings, that mention of a new cable is a tidy reminder that like USB-C, not all HDMI cables are the same. It seems unlikely that HDMI Forum would change the port itself, so you’ll probably be able to use your old ones with the updated spec, and some might even support its higher bandwidth. Still, there’s always the chance you need fresh cables to get all of the new capabilities when the time comes.

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Amazon’s latest Kindle Paperwhite is nearly matching its Black Friday low

There may be no setting that the new Paperwhite doesn’t look crisp in. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

If you missed the first sale on the 2024 Kindle Paperwhiteduring Black Friday, now’s your chance to write your own redemption arc. Right now, you can get Amazon’s newest ad-supported ebook reader at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target for $134.99 ($25 off). That’s still $5 shy of its all-time low, but it’s a pretty good discount this early into its life. You can also get it without ads at Amazon for $154.99 ($25 off).

There’s not much incentive to upgrade if you already own an older Paperwhite, but if you’re an avid reader, you’ll likely appreciate the newly minted seven-inch display, which is the biggest of any Paperwhite to date. It’s also 25 percent brighter than the previous model and features a higher contrast ratio, allowing for improved readability. The jump from 10 weeks of battery life to three months is a more substantial upgrade — as is a new processor, which supposedly makes a big difference when it comes to page-turning speeds — but we’ll need to finish putting Amazon’s latest e-reader through its paces before rendering our final verdict.

However, despite the iterative nature of the aforementioned updates, there’s a good chance the 12th-gen Paperwhite is going to remain the best option for most people. Amazon’s new entry-level Kindle is a bit smaller (and slower), and while the jazzy Kindle Colorsoft offers the best color screen on an e-reader so far, it will run you an extra $120 over the Paperwhite. That’s a lot for a non-essential upgrade.

More deals to beat the holiday crunch

• Now through December 25th, Grid is taking $100 off its Grid 1 frame — which bears the iPhone 2G’s guts for all to see — when you use Verge-exclusive code TV100, which drops it to $299. You can also use code TV20 to take 20 percent off any other product in the studio’s online store, so long as it’s not part of an ongoing promo. Grid’s disassembled, explosive displays offer a museum-style look at the components that make up some of the most iconic gadgets to hit the scene over the years. They’re also a great gift for wannabe tinkerers who appreciate the beauty of circuitry, especially since they’ll arrive before Christmas if you act fast enough.
• If you don’t need a robot vacuum that can sweep your baseboards or empty its own bin, the Eufy 11S Max is on sale at Amazon and Walmart for $129.99 ($120 off), which is one of its better prices to date. The entry-level robovac isn’t the smartest option available, but it’s at least aware enough not to bump into walls or tumble over stairs. The 11S Max offers good carpet and hard surface cleaning with relative quietness, too, and its 600ml bin is roomy enough to go through several cleanings before it needs to be dumped.
• A small, fast charger like Anker’s Prime Charger can come in handy if you’re traveling for the holidays. Luckily, Amazon and Anker are selling the 100W GaN charger for a record-tying $45.99 ($39 off), the latter with promo code WS7DV2FXJI84. Anker’s charger is thin enough not to horde all the space on a wall socket yet fast enough to charge almost anything (laptops included). It has three ports (two USB-C and one USB-A) to cover your charging needs, along with a folding prong for convenient storage.

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Rhode Island’s online benefits system shuts down after cyberattack

Illustration: Beatrice Sala

Rhode Island took its RIBridges system for applying for public assistance programs like Medicaid offline Friday following a cyberattack that may have exposed the personal data of hundreds of thousands of people, reports CBS affiliate WPRI 12.

With its RIBridges system offline, Rhode Islanders won’t be able to log into RIBridges’ web portal or app, used to apply for Medicaid, food stamps, and other state benefits, says a government site providing updates on the breach. Governor Dan McKee said during a press briefing that attackers may have gotten personal info like names, addresses, and social security numbers of those who’ve used the system between 2019 to now.

State Chief Digital Officer and Chief Information Officer Brian Tardiff, who also spoke at the briefing, said the attack is not ransomware, but “more of an extortion type activity by this cybercriminal group.”

The attack also affected HealthSource RI, Rhode Island’s healthcare marketplace. The state hopes to get the system back online before the healthcare open enrollment period ends on January 31st, as WPRI writes. In the meantime, mail-in paper applications and instructions for using them are available at the state’s Department of Human Services website.

The breach update site says that tomorrow, the state will publish the number of a call center for help with the breach, available from 11AM to 8PM ET Sunday morning and from 9AM to 9PM ET Monday through Friday after that. The Rhode Island government also plans to mail instructions for free credit monitoring to those impacted.

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Infinity Nikki is a fashion-forward Zelda

Image: Infold Games

Breath of the Styled.

Read the full story at The Verge.

L’Oréal Colorsonic review: shades of gray

I wanted the Colorsonic to zap my grays. Instead, I got a lesson in tradeoffs.

Read the full story at The Verge.

One of the year’s best movies was filmed in first person

Actor Brandon Wilson dons the first-person camera rig. | Amazon MGM Studios and Orion Pictures

When RaMell Ross signed on to direct the adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Nickel Boys, he wanted nearly the entire film to be shot from the first-person perspective. Here’s how he pulled off one of the year’s best and most ambitious movies.

Read the full story at The Verge.

Meta asks the US government to block OpenAI’s switch to a for-profit

Mark Zuckerberg. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

Meta is asking California Attorney General Rob Bonta to block OpenAI’s planned transition from a non-profit to for-profit entity.

In a letter sent to Bonta’s office this week, Meta says that OpenAI “should not be allowed to flout the law by taking and reappropriating assets it built as a charity and using them for potentially enormous private gains.”

The letter, which was first reported on by The Wall Street Journaland you can read in full below, goes so far as to say that Meta believes Elon Musk is “qualified and well positioned to represent the interests of Californians in this matter.” Meta supporting Musk’s fight against OpenAI is notable given that Musk and Mark Zuckerberg were talking about literally fighting in a cage match just last year.

OpenAI started as a non-profit but stumbled into commercial success with ChatGPT, which now makes billions of dollars a year in revenue. CEO Sam Altman has been clear that the company needs to shed its non-profit status to become more attractive to investors and continuing funding its ambitions. The stakes are so high that OpenAI will have to return the billions of dollars it raised this year (with interest) if it can’t successfully...

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OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever says the way AI is built is about to change

Ilya Sutskever. | Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images

OpenAI’s cofounder and former chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, made headlines earlier this year after he left to start his own AI lab called Safe Superintelligence Inc. He has avoided the limelight since his departure but made a rare public appearance in Vancouver on Friday at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS).

“Pre-training as we know it will unquestionably end,” Sutskever said onstage. This refers to the first phase of AI model development, when a large language model learns patterns from vast amounts of unlabeled data — typically text from the internet, books, and other sources.

“We’ve achieved peak data and there’ll be no more.”

During his NeurIPS talk, Sutskever said that, while he believes existing data can still take AI development farther, the industry is tapping out on new data to train on. This dynamic will, he said, eventually force a shift away from the way models are trained today. He compared the situation to fossil fuels: just as oil is a finite resource, the internet contains a finite amount of human-generated content.

“We’ve achieved peak data and there’ll be no more,” according to Sutskever. “We have to deal with the data that...

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Tim Cook is the latest tech CEO to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago

Apple CEO Tim Cook will meet with President-elect Donald Trump for dinner on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to The New York Times. It’s reportedly Cook’s first time meeting with Trump since the election.

During Trump’s first term, Cook established a direct relationship with the president that other tech CEOs have wanted to replicate. As Trump prepares for his second term, Cook may want to discuss potential tariffs, which could significantly affect Apple’s business.

Cook may also want to discuss the European Union’s actions against Apple; during his presidential campaign, Trump claimed that Cook called him to complain about the fines Apple faces in the European Union, with accusations of anticompetitive behavior in App Store policies and how it manages platforms like the iPhone and Mac.

Cook’s visit follows reports of Trump’s conversation with Google CEO Sundar Pichai yesterday and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos next week. Trump met with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in November.

Tech companies and leaders, including Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, have also been appealing to the President-elect with $1 million donations to his inauguration fund.

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The Verge’s 2024 holiday gift guide

Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

A collection of fun, affordable, and unique gifts fit for everyone on your list.

Read the full story at The Verge.