All the news about Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

The next generation of Nvidia GPUs is almost here.

Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs are just around the corner, with the first releases — the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 — dropping on January 30th. The RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 will follow that with their own releases in February, but some are already getting a sneak peek at the GPUs’ software benefits through DLSS 4.

Tom Warren’s Verge review of the $1,999 RTX 5090 indicates it’s expectedly a powerhouse, but not quite the generational leap that the RTX 4090 was over its own predecessor. That didn’t stop The Verge’s Sean Hollister from being impressed with the two-slot RTX 5090 Founders Edition GPU when he stuffed it into his aging small-form-factor PC.

Along with the 50-series GPUs comes DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, a software trick that may be just as big a story as the hardware itself. This latest version of DLSS uses AI to predictively generate frames, making it possible to run games at higher resolutions without taking the same framerate hit they would without DLSS 4 turned on. Gamers who are already trying DLSS 4 out in Cyberpunk 2077 using RTX 40-series GPUs report seeing huge improvements already.

We’ll be keeping up with all the news about Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs right here at The Verge.

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The best indie games we’re playing right now

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Watch this space to find some great indie games.

Read the full story at The Verge.

Marvel Snap is coming back to app stores soon, says developer

Image: Second Dinner

Mobile card game Marvel Snap is coming back to app stores, starting with Google Play. That’s according to Developer Second Dinner, which announced yesterday it was starting the process of restoring the game to Google’s Android app store at 6PM PT / 3PM ET that day. The developer said in another post it expects the game to return to both Google’s and Apple’s app stores “as early as next week.”

Marvel Snap was caught up in the TikTok outage last weekend because its original publisher, Nuverse, is owned by TikTok parent company ByteDance. The game came back online for players on Monday and Second Dinner said it planned to “bring more services in-house and partner with a new publisher.” As of now, Marvel Snap is still “provided, operated, and managed by Nuverse,” according to the privacy policy on the game’s website.

An admin of the Marvel Snap Discord server also announced a set of compensation packages for players affected by the outage. As seen in screenshots posted to Reddit, that includes in-game credits, tokens, and special variants for accounts that were created in the US or that showed US activity in the 30 days prior to the outage. Non-US players will also get a “Global Gratitude Package” with similar, though fewer, benefits.

Other apps that went down last weekend, such as CapCut and Lemon8, have since come back online but still aren’t listed in the iOS and Android app stores. Although President Donald Trump has directed the US Attorney General not to enforce the US TikTok ban, it’s unclear whether he can shield Apple or Google from legal liability if they host the apps in defiance of the law.

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Casio’s retro-looking step tracker is on sale for less than 40 bucks today

It’s all about the vibes. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

There are a lot — and I mean a LOT — of fitness trackers out there, many of which can provide a surprising amount of insight into your health and fitness. That being said, the bare-bones Casio WS-B1000, which is currently on sale at Amazon and Walmart for an all-time low of $39.10 (about $17 off), is not exactly one of them.

At its core, the WS-B1000 is a lightweight wristwatch with some basic smarts, retro styling, and a few different color options. There’s no optical heart rate monitor or fancy-schmancy OLED display, though it does boast an onboard accelerometer for tracking your steps, up to two years of battery life on a single CR2016 coin cell battery, and Bluetooth for pairing it with your phone. Doing so lets you view a basic activity log in the Casio app while ensuring you always have the correct time on hand (a wild concept, I know).

You get some basic wristwatch functionality as well — including a stopwatch, a timer, and an alarm — but the appeal of the WS-B1000 isn’t what it offers but what it lacks. For someone like me who’s burnt out on push notifications and rarely tracks anything beyond steps, a cheap tracker with some Y2K vibesis a welcome reprieve.

Read our Casio WS-B1000 review.

Other ways to save this weekend

• Samsung held its latest Unpacked event this week, providing us with a closer look at its forthcoming slate of Galaxy phones. The iterative S25 Ultra is the most capable of the bunch thanks to its improved ultrawide camera, and if you’re looking to reserve it ahead of its February 7th release date, it’s now up for preorder at Amazon and Best Buy with a $200 gift card starting at $1,299.99. Samsung, meanwhile, is offering the 6.9-inch phone for the same price with $150 in store credit. Read our hands-on impressions.
• Now through the end of tomorrow, January 26th, Anker’s 341 USB Power Strip is available from Amazon and Anker for an all-time low of $18.69 (about $7 off). The 11-in-1 power strip isn’t going to provide a ton of surge protection, sure, but it sports a pair of wall-mounting slots, several USB ports, and a whopping eight AC outlets. Plus, it features a nifty fastener, allowing you to easily coil the 5-foot cable if you plan to take it with you on the road.
• If my colleague Antonio G. Di Benedetto’s recent experience with the GameSir G8 Plus left you envious of his big screen upgrade, you can now pick up the clamp-on mobile controller at Amazon for $65.99 ($14 off), which nearly matches its all-time low. It’s similar to 8BitDo’s first smartphone controller in that it features drift-free Hall effect sensors in the joysticks and connects over Bluetooth as opposed to USB-C; however, unlike 8BitDo’s offering, the G8 Plus supports Android and iOS, along with the Nintendo Switch.

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The best ebook reader to buy right now

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

From reading in the bath to scribbling notes in the margins, from diving into the Amazon ecosystem to avoiding it outright, there’s an e-reader for everyone.

Read the full story at The Verge.

Lok Digital is a surreal puzzle game full of made-up words

Image: Letibus Design and Icedrop Games

At a glance, Lok Digital seems like another cute and clever word game, a perfect distraction to keep on your phone for idle moments. But look closer, and it’s clear something just isn’t right. Yes, it’s a game about creating words to fill out a puzzle board. Except those words aren’t actually real — and they all have special powers. Think of it like an alien take on Scrabble. It takes a while to wrap your head around, but Lok’s surreal setup makes for an excellent brain-scratching puzzler.

There is actually a story of sorts here. Lok takes place in a black-and-white fantasy realm, and your goal is to help little worm-like creatures progress through each level. The stages are grids of squares, and your goal is to turn each one black. (I have no idea how this helps the creatures move, but just stay with me here.) You turn them black by placing letters to spell out words. Completed words will black out squares, and certain words also have the ability to black out even more.

It sounds kind of weird at first, and that feeling is only exacerbated by the dictionary of words you’re working with. They are gibberish. The game eases you into this fictional language, though, slowly...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Razer Laptop Cooling Pad review: are you a fan?

The $150 RGB laptop stand can keep any laptop cool, and on a few Razer Blade 16 gaming laptops, it can even improve 1080p performance.

Read the full story at The Verge.

The AI spending frenzy is just getting started

Sam Altman stands next to President Donald Trump during the announcement for Project Stargate. | Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

“All I know is I’m good for my $80 billion.”

Rarely does a one-liner so perfectly capture the state of the moment. Here, you have Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella saying he’s “not in the details” about Stargate, the supposedly multi-hundred-billion AI infrastructure project driven by his marquee investment, OpenAI.

Nadella not being read in on the nebulous details of Stargate says a lot about how much Microsoft and OpenAI have drifted apart. Microsoft is mentioned in the Stargate press release since OpenAI’s models are still exclusive to Azure. But the most striking aspect of Stargate is not that the money isn’t there for it yet; it’s that OpenAI’s biggest backer has decided to not participate in what Sam Altman is calling “the most important project of this era.” As Nadella made clear on CNBC this week, he’s running his own, $80 billion AI infrastructure buildout and, going forward, OpenAI can get additional compute — with his blessing — elsewhere.

While it received fewer headlines this week, I found Nadella’s response to Elon Musk on X even more illuminating. In his response to Musk saying, “on the other hand, Satya definitely does have the money,” Nadella responded: “ And all...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple makes a change to its AI team and plans Siri upgrades

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Apple is making an executive change to try and improve its AI efforts and Siri. Kim Vorrath, who recently helped get the Vision Pro software out the door and has been at Apple for 36 years, has been brought over to Apple’s artificial intelligence and machine learning division and will serve as a “top deputy” to AI boss John Giannandrea, Bloomberg reports.

The company made a big splash about its AI / Apple Intelligence efforts at WWDC last year, but they haven’t had the same impact as things like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. Apple has also been slowly rolling out what it announced, and a big Siri upgrade that lets it understand what’s happening on your screen and take action may not arrive until iOS 18.4. And the company’s AI-powered news notification summaries will be put on pause with iOS 18.3 after criticism that the summaries were incorrect.

By bringing on Vorrath, whose resume at Apple includes work on the original iPhone software group, over to the AI team, it appears Apple wants to bring more rigor to Apple’s AI development. It also indicates that Apple may see AI as a bigger deal for its future than the Vision Pro.

Bloomberg also reports that “the artificial intelligence group is focused on revamping the underlying infrastructure of Siri and improving the company’s in-house AI models” this year, per a memo from Giannandrea.

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Audi’s lifted Q6 E-tron Off-Road concept is ready for winter driving

Looking like a true brute of an off-roader. | Image: Audi

Audi has revealed a new dual-motor electric off-road vehicle concept based on the Q6 E-tron that looks ready for a snowpocalypse. The automaker built a working prototype that lifts the vehicle by 6.3 inches and widens it by 9.8 inches, giving it a stance that wouldn’t be out of place if it appeared in Truck Country, USA.

Audi’s CEO Gernot Döllner calls the “Q6 E-Tron Off-road concept” a “reinterpretation of Quattro,” which is the company’s marketing term for its all-wheel-drive models.

The extra ride height is courtesy of four bespoke portal axles integrated into the wheel hub assemblies at the front and rear that Audi says increase torque at the wheel by 50 percent. Each axle is powered by an electric motor with a combined power output of 380kW and up to 9,883 lb ft of torque at its peak. That’s up 3,245 lb ft of torque from the normal Q6 E-tron, which is Audi’s first vehicle built on Volkswagen’s modular Premium Platform Electric (PPE) platform (also used in the new A6 E-tron and Porsche Macan EV).

The vehicle is designed to climb hills as steep as 45 degrees but the company did nerf the Q6’s top speed a bit down to 108 mph. Still, no one should drive that fast anyway in a vehicle lifted this high. This also makes the Off-road concept a much more realistic one compared to more sci-fi Audi concepts like the Activesphere coupe / pickup truck combo with a mixed reality cockpit or the truly apocalyptic all-terrain “AI:Trail” that has drones for headlights.

Audi’s Q6 E-tron Offroad concept will be featured at the FAT International Ice Race in Austria on February 1st. The company will also show it in action via its social media channels.

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Elon Musk email to X staff: ‘we’re barely breaking even’

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

Ever since Elon Musk closed his deal to buy Twitter he’s claimed the company, now called X, is in “a very dire situation from a revenue standpoint.” Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that banks are preparing a coordinated move to sell off some of the $13 billion in debt they loaned Musk to finance the deal. It mentions an email sent to employees this month, also confirmed by The Verge, where the Chief Twit said, “...we’ve witnessed the power of X in shaping national conversations and outcomes,” but also claimed, “Our user growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we’re barely breaking even.”

Part of the reason Bank of America, Barclays, and Morgan Stanley are holding so much of the debt is from trying to avoid selling at a loss after economic conditions changed, and Musk had an extended court battle attempting to get out of the deal. While equity investors have reportedly slashed the value of their stakes by as much as 78 percent, the Journal reports, “banks hope to sell senior debt at 90-95 cents on the dollar, while retaining more-junior holdings.”

As Musk referenced in his email, the report says the banks hope to use the narrative of Musk’s link to Donald Trump, as some unnamed investors may be interested in buying based on a belief that its financials are on the way up.

However, Musk also said that the company could become cash-flow positive “within months” nearly two years ago, and it still faces over $1 billion in annual interest payments on the loans. The platform is increasingly turning into a testing ground for his AI ambitions, as we reported earlier this month, and while X has added some features, like job listings and a new video tab, there’s little sign of the service he’d said would be able to “someone’s entire financial life” by the end of 2024.

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TikTok still isn’t in the App Store

Image: The Verge

Nearly a week after it was removed, the TikTok app is still missing from Apple and Google’s app stores.

The app was pulled from both stores after the US’ ban-or-divest law went into effect last weekend, which resulted in the service going dark within the United States. While TikTok came back online shortly after the ban, the app didn’t return to either mobile store. Apple and Google are at risk of paying billions in fines if they make TikTok available, and it’s unclear if President Donald Trump’s executive order refusing to enforce the ban actually removes that risk.

Apple and Google haven’t replied to multiple requests for comment from The Verge — including requests I made today — about if or when the app might be available again. Apple and Google do have statements about the removal of TikTok and other ByteDance-owned apps, but otherwise, no comment since. TikTok didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment, either.

Because these app stores are the primary way many people get software, TikTok’s absence basically means you can’t newly install the app — at least, for the time being — without jumping through a lot of hoops.

If you had TikTok on your phone before the ban kicked in, however, the app should work for you as normal. (As a result, people are trying to sell used phones with the TikTok app still on them.) You can also use TikTok in a browser — including on your phone.

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Windows 11 is getting colorful new battery icons that are easier to understand at a glance

The battery icon in Windows 11 is getting a colorful update. | Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is releasing a new Windows 11 Insider Preview Build today with some welcome improvements to the operating system’s battery icon – possibly sparing you the realization that you’ve chosen a dead outlet, or improperly plugged in your power adapter, or let your battery drain too much, before it’s far too late.

Windows’ battery icon, which has traditionally been black, is being updated with three colors “designed to communicate battery status of your PC with just a quick glance,” the company writes today on its Windows Blog. A green icon will indicate your computer is charging and “in a good state,” but will turn yellow when your battery has dropped below 20 percent charge and has entered energy saving mode. A red icon indicates you have a “critically low battery” and will need to plug in your computer as soon as possible before it dies.

The new colored battery icons will appear on the taskbar’s system tray, in the quick settings flyout, and in the general Windows Settings. Microsoft says they’ll also eventually be used on the Lock screen, but that functionality is coming in a future build.

Today’s preview release includes two additional improvements to the battery icon. Microsoft has simplified overlays, such as the lightning bolt charging icon, so that they won’t block the icon’s progress bar, and added the ability to show the battery’s charge percentage next to the icon in the system tray. It can be enabled by going to Settings > Power & battery and turning on the new “Battery Percentage” setting.

Microsoft says this is a “highly requested feature by Insiders and customers” and it should be a welcome upgrade over the battery icon Windows currently uses that provides minimal information and a vague representation of a battery’s remaining charge.The colors should make it immediately obvious that a laptop has started charging when plugged in, and it’s a lot harder to ignore (or forget about) a near-dead battery when it’s bright red with a single digit charge percentage right next to it.

The battery icon updates should already be available to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel who have opted to get the latest updates as soon as they’re available. It’ll take longer to reach general release and might even get tweaks before it reaches other early adopters:Microsoft says the “experience isn’t available to all Insiders just yet as we plan to monitor feedback before pushing it out to everyone.”

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The $900 Ayaneo 3 is the most exciting PC handheld the company’s yet made

Ayaneo builds the best-looking handheld PCs in the business, but they’ve always been boutique. The 2023 Ayaneo 2, for example, cost $1,300 for an arguably worse experience than the $400 Steam Deck. But that experience isn’t dampening my excitement for the new 7-inch Ayaneo 3.

Not only does this one start at $900, within striking distance of the highest-end handhelds you’ll find at retail, it’s the most feature-packed portable I’ve seen — with two USB4 ports and OcuLink and RGB-ringed Hall effect joysticks and your choice of two seemingly killer screens. Perhaps most exciting: a way to finally fix a handheld’s joystick and button layout to match your ergonomic preferences!

Just watch:

Animation by Ayaneo

Finally.

Ayaneo is calling the Ayaneo 3 “the world’s first modular handheld,” because there’ll be other modular options too. An extra $139 buys a set of six modules that let you swap out your joysticks for analog sticks, a six-button microswitch pad for fighting games, or even D-pads and face buttons with conductive silicone underneath for a different feel.

Image: Ayaneo

Six modules and extra joystick toppers come with the “Magic Module” kit.

But importantly, that basic module that lets you change joystick and button orientation and swap joystick caps comes with the handheld by default, and it’s not the only feature Ayaneo is impressively cramming into the $900 kit.

While you’ll “only” get a Ryzen 8840U, 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and 512GB of storage that that price — no Z2 option, and the HX 370 model starts at $1500 — you do get your choice of OLED or IPS right away.

That OLED screen is a 1080p 144Hz HDR OLED panel promising 800 nits of global brightness and 110 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut, specs which suggest it could even beat the Steam Deck OLED’s excellent screen.

Image: Ayaneo

An actual photo of the Ayaneo 3.

Like the Deck OLED, it unfortunately doesn’t have variable refresh rate for added smoothness — but if that’s important, the IPS panel option does! That one’s a 120Hz, 500-nit, native landscape 1080p display, according to the company, with 7ms response time and only 100 percent sRGB coverage (read: nowhere near as colorful as the OLED panel).

On top of all that, the Ayaneo 3 comes standard with both top and bottom USB4 ports, both of which are capable of 65W PD charging, plus the still-rare-on-handhelds Oculink port for eGPUs, and it takes full-length M.2 2280 SSDs for easy storage upgrades.

Plus, there’s a dedicated hardware mode switch on the bottom edge to switch the controller and virtual-mouse-and-keyboard modes. I doubt that will make up for the current state of Windows, but it could help! Also, new trigger locks for its Hall effect triggers, if you want to switch them into a hair trigger mode.

I do have a few hesitations, even without having touched the Ayaneo 3. First, the company says its modules electronically latch into the frame — you have to eject them by pressing a software button, which activates a motor to release the latch. Sounds potentially fiddly?

Second, I’m sorry to report that this 1.5-pound handheld only fits a 49 watt-hour battery, even though the Asus ROG Ally X manages to fit an 80 watt-hour pack into roughly the same weight. Fingers crossed, but I wouldn’t expect great battery life here with neither a giant battery pack nor a particularly handheld-optimized chip.

Lastly, it’s always important to point out that these products are crowdfunded, and while Ayaneo has a history of delivering its promised handhelds, they haven’t always been great — and this is the most ambitious one yet. If that sounds worthwhile, you can find the Ayaneo 3 on Indiegogo here.

The company says the handheld should ship at the end of April; here’s the whole price breakdown.

Image: Ayaneo

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Here are the best robot vacuum deals right now

You don’t have to pay a lot for do-it-all robot vacuums like the SwitchBot S10. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

We’re in an age where you can realistically delegate tasks to smart hunks of metal, whether it’s a self-driving car or a robot that can clean on your behalf. Most of us probably won’t be able to afford the helpful sentient humanoids being developed in our lifetimes, but robot vacuums are an affordable way to experience that promised utopia right now.

Today’s floor cleaners are also more advanced than ever. In addition to vacuuming, many of the best models can now mop, allowing you to tackle both carpet and hardwood flooring. Some can automatically dispense of their trash and dirty water, too, and clean their own components without intervention. Soon, we’ll even have models that can pick up dirty laundry and purify the air in your home, preventing you from having to lift a finger.

But if you need something relatively affordable for daily cleaning, you’d be surprised how little you have to pay for premium features. Below, we’ve listed the best deals currently available on a slate of Verge-approved robot vacuums, whether you prefer a budget entry-level model from Yeedi or top-of-the-line offerings from iRobot, Dreame, and more.

Best robot vacuum deals

iRobot’s Roomba Combo j7 Plus is available from Amazon, Best Buy, and iRobot for around $599 ($600 off), which is an all-time low. The j7 Plus was once our favorite Roomba robovac, and the Combo j7 Plus builds upon the base model with an auto-retractable mop. That means it can lift its mop pads and pick up dirt from your carpets without wetting them and then vacuum / mop hardwood flooring with no mid-cycle management needed.

The mopping performance isn’t the best we’ve seen, though, and you’ll need to frequently change its 210ml water tank and detach and clean the mop pads yourself. Thankfully, it can automatically dispose of dirt using the included auto-empty dock. The Combo j7 Plus isn’t easily tripped up thanks to AI-powered obstacle avoidance, which allows it to navigate toys and pet droppings. You can also direct it to clean specific areas using Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice commands.

Read our Roomba Combo j7 Plus review.

The Dreame X40 Ultra is another mopping robot, and while it’s on the more expensive side, you can currently pick it up for $1,099.99 ($630 off) from Dreame and Amazon (using an on-page coupon). You’re paying a premium for 12,000Pa of suction power and a pair of removable, self-retracting mop pads, which it can automatically clean and dry on its own using the included base. It can also empty its own bin and refill its own water tank.

The Dreame X40 Ultra features an extendable side brush and mop pads, too, offering better coverage for baseboards, corners, and the underside of your furniture. It uses a combination of AI-powered cameras and “3D-structured light” (presumably based on lidar technology) to map and navigate rooms, with customizable keep-out zones and more functions available in the app. There’s also a dirt detection system that can identify messier spills and adjust its cleaning routine accordingly.

You can get the SwitchBot S10 for an all-time low of $664.99 ($535 off) at Amazon with an on-page coupon or for $699.99 ($500 off) directly from SwitchBot with code BFCM500A. The S10 is one of the most affordable robot vacuum / mop hybrids you can buy that can refill its own tank at a battery-powered base station — with the caveat that it requires hooking into your home’s plumbing. It can also dry its own mop pads and empty its bin at a separate docking bay and offers enough capacity to go up to 90 days without intervention.

Its self-cleaning roller mop is more effective than the typical pads we see in most other units, but the downside is a smaller coverage area. It only has a single roller brush for vacuuming, but its respectable 6,500Pa suction can make up for it. And while it has lidar mapping and AI-powered obstacle avoidance, we found it still has a tendency to get stuck on laundry, bath mats, and other obstacles. The S10 is also one of the few robovacs with Matter support, which effectively enables native control through Apple Home, Google Home, and Alexa (though said platforms don’t yet fully support robot vacuums).

Read our SwitchBot S10 review.

The big-wheeled Roborock Q5 Pro is down to $159.99 ($270 off) at Roborock’s online storefront and Amazon — if you’re a Prime member — which is only $20 more than its all-time low. Not only is it one of the most affordable robovacs you can buy, but thanks to its dual rubber roller brushes and 5,500Pa of suction power, the entry-level Roborock model remains one of the best we’ve found at dealing with unwanted pet hair.

The lidar-mapping Q5 Pro features voice controls, digital keep-out zones, and mopping pads with an onboard reservoir, but no self-cleaning functions. This particular SKU doesn’t include a self-emptying base, but the 770ml dust bin is one of the largest you’ll find, so you can go a few weeks without touching it. That being said, Roborock sells a version with a self-emptying dock, which is also on sale right now for $329.99 ($270 off).

The Yeedi Cube is currently down to an all-time low of $299.99 ($260 off) at Amazon when you clip the on-page coupon for $190 off. It’s not easy to find a self-emptying / self-cleaning vacuum at this price, as those features are typically only available on robots that cost upward of $600 or more.

With 5,100Pa of suction power, the Cube can tackle most common vacuuming scenarios, though its single hybrid rubber / bristle brush can get easily tangled with pet hair. It mops better than most models in its range, however, namely because its vibrating microfiber pads can actually scrub your floors. The Cube uses lasers for object avoidance, too, though it’s not as effective for navigation as those with lidar and AI smarts. It can avoid large furniture and other objects, but it might need your help rerouting around cables, toys, and laundry. Still, we found it navigates better than most other robots under $300.

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Rivian will add hands-free driver assist to vehicles this year, ‘eyes-off’ next year

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Rivian is planning to launch a hands-free driving assistant system for its electric R1T and R1S vehicles later this year, followed by an “eyes-off” version in 2026, reveals Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe in a press roundtable interview according to a post on Rivian Forums and reported by Electrek. The first part of the system sounds like it will work similarly to Ford’s Blue Cruise or GM’s Super Cruise software, which are Level 2 assistants that only work on highways fully mapped by each manufacturer.

It’s unclear if current Gen 1 and Gen 2 Rivian vehicles will support the upcoming hand-free assistant software or if it will come to upgraded models or the upcoming R2 SUV.

Gen 2 vehicles already come with exclusive features like matrix headlights and an upgraded light bar that can change colors, which Scaringe says could be used as an indicator to let others know a Rivian is operating autonomously, according to a Rivian Forum user. Gen 2 vehicles also come with a newer Rivian Autonomy Platform, which might mean Gen 1 vehicles aren’t going to get some of the upcoming advanced ADAS features.

Currently, Rivian trucks have available “Driver Plus” advanced driver assistant systems (ADAS) that work similarly to Tesla’s standard Autopilot software in that they enable lane keeping and auto speed up / slow down on highways. However, like other Level 2 systems, you still need to pay attention to the road.

In an email to The Verge, Rivian’s product communications manager, Courtney Richardson, confirms Scaringe’s comments about the upcoming ADAS upgrades in the interview yesterday. Richardson says there are no further details to add at this time. Currently, only Mercedes-Benz ships a Level 3 autonomous system that works in some states in the US, which allows drivers to look away from the road.

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Mark Zuckerberg wants you to know he has a big AI data center, too

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expects to spend as much as $65 billion on AI in 2025 as part of a “massive effort” to further the company’s AI ambitions. Part of the plan includes a Louisiana data center that Zuckerberg says “is so large it would cover a significant part of Manhattan,” he wrote on Threads today.

The announcement reads like a response to the big AI data center news touted by competitors earlier this week.On Tuesday, President Donald Trump joined OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Softbank’s Masayoshi Son, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison as they announced Project Stargate, a $500 billion joint venture that will build sprawling AI data centers in Texas and other parts of the country. City documents seen by Bloomberg suggest the Texas data center will be as big as New York’s Central Park.

Meta started building its $10 billion AI data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana last December, and its construction is expected to continue through 2030. The data center is one of many Meta started working on last year to power its open-source large language model Llama. Aside from Meta, tech giants including OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia are spending billions to scale up their data-hungry AI efforts.

Zuckerberg said he expects to end the year with over 1.3 million GPUs, while “significantly” growing the company’s AI team. “This will be a defining year for AI,” Zuckerberg wrote. “In 2025, I expect Meta AI will be the leading assistant serving more than 1 billion people, Llama 4 will become the leading state of the art model, and we’ll build an AI engineer that will start contributing increasing amounts of code to our R&D [research and development] efforts.”

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Meta’s censoring of abortion information is nothing new

Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge

Earlier this week, several posts on the Instagram page of Aid Access, an abortion pill provider, were inaccessible to the public. Some images were blurred out, with no option to click through and view the post. Others appeared simply as a gray square with nondescript alt text, as if the image didn’t load.

Aid Access connects patients with doctors who provide abortion pills via telehealth appointments, and the posts that were blocked from being viewed included instructions for performing at-home abortions using pills. The issues on Instagram — first reported by Jessica Valenti — also reportedly made it difficult to find the Aid Access account using the app’s search function.

By Thursday evening, Meta had restored a handful of Aid Access posts, though some appear to still be missing. This latest incident is just another example of how Meta has restricted abortion information online for years. It also comes in the middle of Meta’s right-wing pivot, as the company has begun allowing more transphobic, racist, and otherwise hateful content on its platforms as it courts Donald Trump.

Image: Meta

The Aid Access Instagram account as of Wednesday evening.

Image: Meta

An example of how Aid Access posts appeared on Instagram.

Medication abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy can safely be done at home, according to the World Health Organization. Licensed providers like those working with Aid Access have prescribed abortion pills to hundreds of thousands of patients. Thanks to shield laws, which protect healthcare workers who provide the procedure, patients in states where abortion is banned or restricted can also order abortion medication.

Social media is an important place for patients to seek information about abortions, says Rebecca Davis of Hey Jane, which offers virtual reproductive care like abortions and birth control.

“[Patients] will often turn to social media to just make sure we’re legit,” says Davis, who leads marketing at the company. “We’ve spent a lot of time and energy to really build up our social presence, so we’re verified on Instagram, we’re verified on TikTok.”

Hey Jane encountered restrictions on Instagram in recent days as well. Davis says the group has gotten messages that its Instagram profile was not easily accessible through the app’s search features. The Verge was able to replicate the issue: typing in “heyjane” or “hey jane” did not display the account as suggested. Users would need to know the account’s full handle, @heyjanehealth, in order for it to appear as a suggestion.

“We know that by not showing up in these searches we’re directly impacting people who are actively seeking this very timely, essential healthcare from getting the information that they need to make decisions,” Davis told The Verge.

Meta spokesperson Erin Logan told The Verge in an email that abortion rights groups are experiencing “a variety of issues — some due to correct enforcement, as well as over enforcement.” Logan said the company prohibits the sale of pharmaceutical drugs on Meta platforms without a LegitScript certification. (Hey Jane is among the providers certified with LegitScript.) Logan said these incidents were not the result of recent Meta policy updates.

“We’ve been quite clear in recent weeks that we want to allow more speech and reduce enforcement mistakes — and we’re committed to doing that,” Logan added, though no specifics were mentioned. Regarding issues encountered by Hey Jane, Logan directed The Verge to Meta’s policies, which state that content promoting the use of pharmaceutical drugs is allowed on the platform but may not be eligible for recommendation.

In recent weeks, Meta has rolled back its policies for what users can and can’t say on its platforms, opening the floodgates for more hate speech and offensive content under the guise of “free expression.” But providers have long had information about abortion restricted or removed, according to groups like Amnesty International and Repro Uncensored. Davis from Hey Jane says this isn’t the first time the group’s Instagram profile has been invisible in search: something similar happened in 2023, when fake Hey Jane accounts were appearing in search instead.

Even though abortion access groups have encountered issues on Meta platforms, Davis says it’s not as simple as moving to another social media site. Many patients use Instagram and other platforms like TikTok to find urgent information.

“While this moment certainly points to the value in diversifying the platforms that we’re on, that doesn’t necessarily mean that people who are seeking abortion care are going to be off of these platforms,” Davis says.

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Threads is offically getting ads

Illustration: The Verge

Your Threads feed will soon have ads. On Friday, Meta announced that it’s rolling out a “limited, early test of ads in Threads,” and the test will happen with a “handful of brands in the US and Japan,” according to Instagram boss Adam Mosseri.

Image: Meta

Ads on Threads will appear as images between posts in your home feed. “As we learn from this test, we will monitor to see how it’s going before filling out more broadly,” Meta says.

To serve you relevant ads, Meta will use your activity on Threads and Instagram, the posts you interact with, your email address, and “your activity from off Meta technologies,” according to a support page. Threads will also offer ways to customize the ads you see from your account center, along with options to skip, hide, and report them from within your feed.

Last April, Mosseri confirmed that Threads would eventually get ads, and rumors emerged that they would appear in early 2025.

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The Ram 1500 Rev’s 500-mile battery option is reportedly canceled

Image: Ram

Stellantis is reportedly canceling the 500-mile range version of the upcoming Ram 1500 Rev, leaving the electric truck with only one option that maxes out at an estimated 350 miles on a single charge. The news comes from Mopar Insiders, which got hold of internal emails telling suppliers to stop working on truck components for the larger 229kWh battery version of the vehicle, as reported by Motor Trend.

The all-electric Ram 1500 Rev was already delayed from the first half of this year to 2026 so that the automaker could focus on the launch of the also-delayed hybrid Ramcharger. Now, the Rev’s largest battery is 168kWh, which is still larger than the 131 kWh pack in Ford’s mid-tier F-150 Lightning Flash, which has an estimated 320-mile range.

We asked Stellantis to comment on the status of the long-range Ram 1500 Rev but have not heard back. Mopar Insiders received a statement from the company: “This decision was related to the recent move that created an opportunity to lead with Ramcharger technology.”

Stellantis uses the STLA Frame body-on-frame platform for both the Ramcharger and the Rev since the platform can handle electric, gas, hybrid, and hydrogen powertrains. The gas range-extended Ramcharger can go up to 690 miles on a full charge and tank.

Stellantis’ changes also come as the new Trump administration begins dismantling the Biden administration’s electric vehicle and tailpipe emissions policies. Mopar Insiders reports that another recent internal Stellantis message indicated that work on the STLA Large platform-based Chrysler C6X EV (based on the 2022 Airflow concept) is also stalled.

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2025 looks like a great year for Xbox

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

There’s a long-running joke in the Xbox community that Microsoft will finally hit its stride with Game Pass and Xbox releases “next year.” The joke has been going around since 2018, when Microsoft made a series of big studio acquisitions to create more Xbox games and make Game Pass more appealing. Year after year, Xbox fans have been waiting for a solid 12 months of new games to play, and it now looks like 2025 is going to be that “next year” everyone has been waiting for.

The annual Xbox Developer Direct this week was nothing short of excellent, after a turbulent year for the platform in 2024. Microsoft kicked the event off with a promise that all games shown would be on Game Pass, and impressively, they’d all be Xbox Play Anywhere titles so you can buy once and play on Xbox consoles and PC. It then dropped two big surprises: Ninja Gaiden 4 and a shadow drop of the remastered Ninja Gaiden 2 Black.

Published by Xbox Game Studios, Ninja Gaiden 4 is the latest entry in a long-running franchise that’s seen a lot of success on Xbox in the past. So it’s no surprise that Team Ninja also picked Microsoft to debut the remaster of Ninja Gaiden II.

South of Midnight finally got a release...

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Live translations on Meta’s smart glasses work well — until they don’t

Live translations work decently well, but trip up on things like slang and faster speech. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

I was in middle school the last time I took a Spanish class. I remember enough for toddler talk — phrases like “Donde está el baño?” and “mi gato es muy gordo” — but having a meaningful conversation in Spanish without a translator is out of the question. So I was genuinely surprised the other day when, thanks to the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, I could have a mostly intelligible conversation with a Spanish speaker about K-pop.

Live translations were added as part of a feature drop last month, alongside live AI and Shazam. It’s exactly what it sounds like. When you turn the feature on, you can have a conversation with a Spanish, French, or Italian speaker, and the glasses will translate what’s being said directly into your ears in real-time. You can also view a transcript of the conversation on your phone. Whatever you say in English will also be translated into the other language.

Screenshot: Meta

Missing is the bit where we both start singing “APT APT APT!”

Full disclosure, my conversation was part of a Meta-facilitated demo. That’s not truly the same thing as plopping these glasses on, hopping down to Barcelona, and trying it in the wild. That said, I’m a translation tech skeptic and intended to find all the cracks where this tech could fail.

The glasses were adept at translating a basic conversation about K-pop bands. After my conversation partner was done speaking, the translation would kick in soon after. This worked well if we talked in measured, medium-speed speech, with only a few sentences at a time. But that’s not how people actually speak. In real life, we launch into long-winded tirades, lose our train of thought, and talk much faster when angry or excited.

To Meta’s credit, it considered the approach to some of these situations. I had my conversation partner speak at a faster speed and a longer duration. It handled the speed decently well, though there was understandably some lag in the real-time transcript. For longer speech, the glasses started translating mid-way through before my partner was done talking. That was a bit jarring and awkward, as you, the listener, have to recognize you’re a bit behind. The experience is similar to how live interpreters do it on international news or broadcasts.

I was most impressed that the glasses could handle a bit of Spanglish. Often, multilingual speakers rarely stick to just one language, especially when in mixed-language company. In my family, we call it Konglish (Korean-English), and people slip in and out of each language, mixing and matching grammar that’s chaotic and functional. For example, my aunt will often speak several sentences in Korean, throw in two sentences in English, do another that’s a mix of Korean and English, and then revert to Korean. I had my conversation partner try something similar in Spanish and... the results were mixed.

Screenshot: Meta

You can see the transcript start to struggle with slang while trying to rapidly switch between Spanish and English.

On the one hand, the glasses could handle short switches between languages. However, longer forays into English led to the AI repeating the English in my ear. Sometimes, it’d also repeat what I’d said, because it started getting confused. That got so distracting I couldn’t focus on what was being said.

The glasses struggled with slang. Every language has its dialects, and each dialect can have its unique spin on colloquialisms. You need look no further than how American teens have subjected us all to phrases like skibidi and rizz. In this case, the glasses couldn’t accurately translate “no manches.” That translates to “no stain,” but in Mexican Spanish, it also means “no way” or “you’re kidding me!” The glasses chose the literal translation. In that vein, translation is an art. In some instances, the glasses got the correct gist across but failed to capture some nuances of what was being said to me. This is the burden of all translators — AI and human alike.

You can’t use these to watch foreign-language movies or TV shows without subtitles. I watched a few clips of Emilia Pérez, and while it could accurately translate scenes where everyone was speaking loudly and clearly, it quit during a scene where characters were rapidly whispering to each other in hushed tones. Forget about the movie’s musical numbers entirely.

You wouldn’t necessarily have these issues if you stuck to what Meta intended with this feature. It’s clear these glasses were mostly designed to help people have basic interactions while visiting other countries — things like asking for directions, ordering food at a restaurant, going to a museum, or completing a transaction. In those instances, you’re more likely to encounter people who speak slower with the understanding that you are not a native speaker.

It’s a good start, but I still dream of the babel fish from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — a little creature that when plopped in your ear, can instantly and accurately translate any language into your own. For now, that’s still the realm of science fiction.

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The Supreme Court’s TikTok ruling is an ominous turn for online speech

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

When the Supreme Court upheld a law that banned TikTok from the US, it seemed well aware that its ruling could resonate far beyond one app. The justices delivered an unsigned opinion with a quote from Justice Felix Frankfurter from 1944: “in considering the application of established legal rules to the ‘totally new problems’ raised by the airplane and radio, we should take care not to ‘embarrass the future.’”

Last Friday, the court tried to accomplish this with a narrow ruling: a decision that upheld the government’s ability to ban one service on a tight timeline, while stressing a limited scope concerning “new technologies with transformative capabilities.” Yet, amid a confounding political circus over TikTok, some legal experts believe the Supreme Court’s ruling could have a broad ripple effect on speech and tech law — they’re just not agreed on what it would be.

“Even though it’s narrowly written, it also seems clear that they want to make a mark on these kinds of questions,” says Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University’s public policy school. University of Chicago law professor Genevieve Lakier put it more bluntly on Bluesky: “The Court...

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Hironobu Sakaguchi wants his next (and maybe last) game to be ‘a successor to Final Fantasy VI’

Photo by Jun Sato / WireImage

The release of Fantasian on Apple Arcade in 2021 was meant to be an end to the illustrious career of Hironobu Sakaguchi — but it seems like he can’t stay away.

Fantasian was a return to Sakaguchi’s roots, a throwback roleplaying game from the creator of the Final Fantasy series, which added some innovative gameplay ideas and an incredibly charming world made of handcrafted dioramas. And in December, his Mistwalker studio released a new version dubbed Neo Dimension, which brought the game to more platforms and added new features like voice acting. It was even published by Final Fantasy company Square Enix. While Sakaguchi says he “intended Fantasian to be my final project before I retired,” he now wants to make another game in the same mold, one he hopes can be seen as “a successor to Final Fantasy VI.” The sixth Final Fantasy game is particularly notable as the last to feature pixel art before the series shifted to 3D.

Following the launch of Neo Dimension, I had the chance to ask Sakaguchi a few questions about making Fantasian, the enduring popularity of turn-based RPGs, and what comes next.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

There have obviously been a...

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Chris Ware explains how to draw strangers on the bus without getting arrested

Image: Pordenone Cartoon Museum

The celebrated cartoonist talks anxiety, process, and the final installment of his Acme Novelty Datebook series.

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Sony Japan ends production of recordable Blu-rays with ‘no successor’ planned

Photo by Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/picture alliance via Getty Images

Sony is officially ending production of recordable Blu-rays. In an announcement from Japan spotted by Tom’s Hardware, Sony Storage Media Solutions said it will stop manufacturing the discs in February, alongside recordable MiniDiscs, MD-Data, and MiniDV cassettes, adding, “there will be no successor models.”

This discontinuation doesn’t impact the Blu-rays you can buy with films or TV shows on them; it just affects the blank ones consumers use to record stuff on themselves with PCs or DVRs. Sony hinted at the discontinuation last year, telling the Japanese outlet AVWatch that it would “gradually end development and production of ‘recordable optical disc media.’’

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Thanks to enthusiasts at minidisc.wiki, you can still add songs to a minidisc from a modern computer using a web app. Which means we live in a world where a Pixel 9 Pro can talk to a minidisc player from 2002. #sony #retrotech #minidisc #walkman #2000s

♬ original sound - The Verge

Sony has helped lead the production of Blu-ray since the very beginning. In 2000, the company showed off the first Blu-ray prototypes and later revealed its Blu-ray disc recorders in 2006. Like Sony, LG, Samsung, and Oppo have also started backing away from the format by ending the production of Blu-ray players.

In addition to Blu-ray, Sony’s announcement also affects the MiniDisc — the compact disc format Sony made in 1992 as an alternative to more fragile cassettes and unwieldy CDs. This might make it harder for MiniDisc diehards to get their hands on blank discs, which you can apparently still load music onto using your smartphone.

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Samsung’s thin, big, boring AI phones

Image: The Verge

Samsung’s new phones will almost certainly be the most popular Android phones of 2025. They’ll probably also be among the best Android phones of 2025. And yet the Unpacked event this week felt like one of the most boring phone launches... ever. Are we entering a new phase of the smartphone industry, in which companies basically just launch the same thing over and over? Wait a second: have we been in that phase for a while now?

On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk a lot about what this year’s Samsung phones mean. The Verge’s Allison Johnson joins David and Nilay to talk about the vibes at Unpacked, where the thinner S25 Edge inspired raucous enthusiasm, and where Samsung tried to make the case that AI will make your phone better even if there’s not much new hardware to speak of. We also talk about the glimpse we got at the Project Moohan headset, Gemini’s increasing dominance over the future of virtual assistants, and more.

After that, we take a deep breath and wade into the first week of the new Trump administration. The Verge’s Lauren Feiner explains what’s going on with Stargate, and why a $500 billion AI data-center plan is being announced in the White House. We talk...

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Microsoft is closing its British flagship store in London

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

Microsoft says it’s shutting down its UK “experience center” in London next month, nearly six years after it first opened as a 21,000-square-foot Microsoft store. “To better align with its focus on digital growth, Microsoft has decided to exit the lease at the Microsoft Experience Centre in London early,” says an unnamed Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to Windows Central.

The store originally opened in July 2019, just months before the pandemic lockdowns began. Microsoft then quickly transitioned it to an “experience center” alongside closing its stores in the US in 2020.

I visited the London flagship store for its opening day, at a time when the company had more than 80 retail stores worldwide. The big, bold, and British store included Surface devices on every floor, HoloLens headsets, a big Xbox gaming lounge, and even a real-life McLaren Senna sports car that you could sit in and play Forza.

It was quite the venue, set in the heart of Oxford Circus and inside a historic building with windows and ceilings from the 1920s. Microsoft spent two years renovating the space, with giant 4K video walls and an opening party that included British celebrities like Peter Crouch.

After transitioning the UK Microsoft store to an experience center, the software giant regularly used the space for business meetings and partner events — turning it into a showcase for Microsoft products and services in recent years. A similar experience center still exists in New York City, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time until that meets a similar fate to the one across the pond.

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Google agrees to crack down on fake reviews for UK businesses

Annoyed by fake reviews on business pages? So is the CMA. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Google will take firmer action against British businesses that use fake reviews to boost their star ratings on the search giant’s reviews platform. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced on Friday that Google has agreed to improve its processes for detecting and removing fake reviews, and will take action against the businesses and reviewers that post them.

This includes deactivating the ability to add new reviews for businesses found to be using fake reviews, and deleting all existing reviews for at least six months if they repeatedly engage in suspicious review activity. Google will also place prominent “warning alerts” on the Google profiles of businesses using fake reviews to help consumers be more aware of potentially misleading feedback. Individuals who repeatedly post fake or misleading reviews on UK business pages will be banned and have their review history deleted, even if they’re located in another country.

Google is required to report to the CMA over the next three years to ensure it’s complying with the agreement.

“The changes we’ve secured from Google ensure robust processes are in place, so people can have confidence in reviews and make the best possible choices,” CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell said in a statement. “This is a matter of fairness – for both business and consumers – and we encourage the entire sector to take note.”

Google made similar changes to reviews in Maps last year, saying that contributions “should reflect a genuine experience at a place or business.” However, those changes apply globally while Google’s commitment to improving reviews across all its properties appears to just apply to the UK for now.

The changes to reviews follow a CMA investigation launched against Google and Amazon in 2021 over concerns the companies had violated consumer protection laws by not doing enough to tackle fake reviews on their platforms. The CMA says its probe into Amazon is still ongoing and that an update will be announced “in due course.”

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Apple finally admits next-gen CarPlay isn’t coming in 2024

Better late than never. | Image: Apple

Now that we’ve almost hit the second month of 2025, Apple has finally updated its CarPlay webpage to say it won’t be arriving in 2024. As noted by MacRumors, the 2024 timeframe for the first vehicles to support CarPlay 2 has been removed from the website without adding a new launch date.

Apple first announced the “next generation of CarPlay” back in 2022, but updates about its arrival have been sporadic. Porsche and Aston Martin haven’t provided any launch dates despite saying their cars would be the first to get the new CarPlay. Some automakers like Ford and Mercedes were slow to confirm support, while others like General Motors and Rivian have snubbed CarPlay entirely in favor of having more control over their vehicles.

Despite not posting a revised date, there are indications that Apple will launch it eventually. There are references to next-generation ‌CarPlay‌ in the iOS 18.3 beta released last month, for example, and Apple has recently filed new images of it in an EU database. Apple also told 9to5Mac that it’s working closely with several automakers that will implement the new CarPlay experience.

“Each car brand will share more details as they near the announcements of their models that will support the next generation of CarPlay,” Apple told the outlet.

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