Image: The Verge
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 35, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, get ready to open some tabs, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
This week, I’ve been rewatching Killing Eve now that it’s on Netflix, reading about Maggie Rogers and flying cars and the Today in Tabs newsletter, nodding along as MKBHD talks about gadget reviews, testing the Godspeed to-do list app, talking to everyone I know about the Papyrus 2 sketch, listening on repeat to The Tortured Poets Department, and playing with the Plaud AI voice recorder.
I also have for you a surprisingly gadget-y week! We have a new set of earbuds to try, a new handheld camera, an AI memory...
Tesla’s drilling holes in Cybertruck accelerator pedals. | Image: Tesla (PDF)
Tesla temporarily halted deliveries and recalled every single Cybertruck after a viral video showed how the pad on its accelerator pedal could slip off and get stuck in the interior trim, leaving the pedal depressed “down 100 percent, full throttle.” Now, video from a Tesla event in California taken today and Tesla’s own documentation confirm the riveting installation that secures the pad with a rivet, and they show us exactly how it’s done.
While Aaron Cash’s video posted to X says it’s a “35 second recall fix,” demonstrated at the “Cyber Takeover” event in Long Beach, the video starts with the required drilling jig already in place.
Here is the @cybertruck 35 second recall fix at the Cyber takeover event pic.twitter.com/XGsINAEFHQ
—...
With a new ownership structure, Home Assistant is making big plans for the future. | The Verge
How Home Assistant plans to transition from an enthusiast platform to a mainstream consumer product.
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images
The House once again passed a bill that could ban TikTok from the US unless its Chinese parent company ByteDance divests it — but this time, it’s in a way that will be harder for the Senate to stall.
The bill passed 360-58 as part of a larger bill related to sanctions on foreign adversaries like Russia. It’s part of a package of foreign aid bills that seek to provide military aid to Ukraine and Israel and humanitarian aid to Gaza. Due to the urgency of the funds, packaging the TikTok bill with these measures means that the Senate will need to consider the proposal more swiftly than it would as a standalone bill. The earlier TikTok bill, which passed the House 352-65 just last month, has so far lingered in the Senate, with lawmakers...
Image: Netflix
Netflix’s Rebel Moon films both feel like Zack Snyder trying to celebrate sci-fi classics by gently riffing on them in some of the least inspired ways possible.
Courtesy of IFC Films and Shudder
Horror films live and die by their conceits. And sometimes, the best way to make a movie scary is to place it in an environment that’s not scary at all.
Is there anything further from spooky than a brightly lit TV studio? The surprise box office darling Late Night with the Devil, which hit horror streamer Shudder this weekend (and might be more suited to home viewing), tries to make one of the most innocuous American broadcast traditions into a terror. David Dastmalchian, a character actor who you’ll recognize from the margins of half a dozen Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve movies, gets a rare star turn as Jack Delroy, the host of late-night talk show Night Owls. But in an era where Johnny Carson rules after-hours broadcast,...
It may not offer obstacle avoidance and the same specs as the Pro model, but the Mini 3 still easily folds down when it’s time to hit the road. | Image: DJI
Happy Saturday, dear readers! The big news on the drone beat this month was the official launch of DJI’s Avata 2, a new FPV drone that’s slicker, more stable, and longer-lasting than the original model released in 2022. That said, I wouldn’t consider it a beginner drone at $999, even if it is noticeably cheaper than its last-gen counterpart. If you are after a true beginner drone, however, the DJI Mini 3 is currently on sale at Amazon and Best Buy with DJI’s screen-equipped RC controller for around $549 ($60 off) — an all-time low.
While not as capable as the DJI Mini 4 Pro or even the DJI Mini 3 Pro, the consumer-focused Mini 3 remains an excellent entry-level drone for budding aerial photographers or anyone who is simply...
Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge
Skip Crossrope unless you really love skipping rope.
The Verge
There are more digital subscriptions around than ever, and among them, you may well have a music streaming service (or two or three). What with “free” trials and trying to find a service you really like, it’s easy to suddenly realize you’re oversubscribed. Luckily, canceling a music subscription — or switching to a free tier — isn’t too difficult. And remember that you can always sign up again. It doesn’t have to be goodbye forever.
Here’s how it’s done on the four best-known platforms. The options will be similar on other services.
Spotify has a variety of plans for individuals, families, and even two people.
Spotify has a free tier with ads, without downloads, and with limits on playlists, while the...
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images
The Senate has passed a bill reauthorizing Section 720 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a controversial program that allows warrantless spying on foreign “targets,”but a long, knock-down, drag-out fight over amendments kept the Senate in session past midnight on Friday, when the surveillance program officially expired.
To be clear, the spying wasn’t actually going to stop. As Sen. Mike Lee (R-OH) pointed out on the Senate floor on Friday afternoon, the FISA court recently granted a government request to allow the program to continue until April 2025.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) claimed that the FISA court’s extension of Section 702 certification “doesn’t mean the program can continue uninterrupted for another year.”
“...
Valve says each unit has received over 100 tests and meets the same performance standards as new Steam Decks. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
It’s not often we see an excellent portable gaming PC like the Steam Deck on sale for nearly half off, but today’s your lucky day. So long as you don’t mind buying it in certified refurbished condition, you can save hundreds when you purchase it directly (with a one-year warranty included) from Valve right now.
The refurbished Steam Deck starts at $279 for the base model with 64GB of storage, which is about $120 cheaper than buying it in new condition. And if you need more storage, the 256GB and 512GB models are both on sale, too, for $319 and $359, respectively. Given they both start at $529 and $649 in new condition, that’s almost like getting them for up to half off. What’s great, too, is that Value says it’s thoroughly tested each...
Image: Nintendo
If you’re the kind of Mario Kart 8 player who cares about winning and not just playing their favorite characters (Daisy and Peach supremacy), choosing the best combination of driver, vehicle, and wheels gets tricky.
Luckily, thanks to data science and 19th-century Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, there’s a way to figure that out. Data scientist Antoine Mayerowitz applies one of Pareto’s principles, the Pareto front, to plot the best combination among the 703,560 possible decisions players must make in Mario Kart. Eurogamer helpfully explains that a Pareto front finds the best possible solution to a problem with different objectives.
In a cool piece of data visualization you should definitely check out, Mayerowitz narrows down the...
Kia’s lineup of electric vehicles are growing. | Image: Kia
The Kia EV2, the automaker’s small, affordable electric crossover, has been spotted on the street in camouflage. It’s the first time the model has been seen in the wild, although the EV2 is not currently confirmed for the US.
The timing of the sighting is particularly significant given recent news that Tesla may have canned its plans for a $25,000 mass-market “Model 2” vehicle. Elon Musk reportedly mothballed the affordable EV in favor of going all in on the company’s plans for a fully autonomous robotaxi.
No official price has been set for the Kia EV2, but Electrek says it could be 20 million won, or about $15,000. Other reports have it under $30,000 — which would be considerably more affordable than the current average retail price...
Image: Target
Target is scaling back the presence of physical media in its stores. A spokesperson for Target tells IGN that the company is “transitioning the limited assortment of DVDs” it sells in stores to its website.
“Moving forward, we’ll offer select DVDs in stores when they are newly released or during key times throughout the year when they are more popular, like for gift giving during the holidays,” Target says. That will make Target’s physical DVD section even smaller and only available during specific times. You’ll still be able to buy “thousands” of DVDs on Target’s website, but I have to wonder how broad its selection will be.
Reports about Target backing away from DVDs first emerged on Wednesday, when the X account @PhysicalMedia posted...
Image: Alive Coverage
Four nights of unique set lists and long jams presented a much different production challenge than U2’s 40-show residency.
Image: Supergiant Games
Imagine the most perfect barbecue — a prolific spread of smoked meats, all the right sides, every pie, type of cookie or cake, and even your grandmother’s famous dinner rolls. But there’s a catch: most of the food is kept behind glass to be unlocked at a later date, and you are starving. That’s what it’s like playing the Hades 2 technical test.
Spoilers for the Hades 2 technical test.
Hades 2, like its predecessor, is a roguelike. You play as Melinoë, the long-lost daughter of Hades and sister of Zagreus, the first game’s protagonist. Unlike her brother, Melinoë isn’t trying to break out of hell. Instead, she’s trying to break into it as Chronos, Titan of Time, has taken over, kidnapping Melinoë’s mother, brother, and father. Reaching...
Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge
Apple could soon let developers in the European Union use its tap-to-pay technology. A report from Reuters reveals that EU regulators could sign off on Apple’s proposal to open the payment system next month, putting a two-year-long legal battle to rest.
In 2022, the European Commission accused Apple of abusing “its dominant position in markets for mobile wallets.” It claimed Apple prevented third-party payment apps from using the iPhone’s NFC (near-field communication) hardware “to the benefit of its own solution,” Apple Pay.
The European Commission announced earlier this year that Apple committed to allowing third-party payment providers to freely use the iPhone’s NFC capabilities. Apple’s proposal would also give developers access to...
Google’s latest streaming dongle offers a cheap way to add smart features and apps to any TV. | Image: Google
Almost any TV you can buy these days supports streaming in some form or fashion, but what if you don’t like its user interface or it doesn’t have all of the apps you need? That’s where a streaming device like the Chromecast with Google TV (HD) comes in. We usually recommend jumping for the 4K version if you have the budget for it, but the HD model is only $19.99 ($10 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store. It’s a great opportunity to see whether a Chromecast is a better fit for you than Amazon or Roku’s offerings or to access your favorite streaming apps on a secondary TV in your home.
Like its pricier sibling, the Google TV platform it uses offers recommendations across a variety of streaming services and provides an array of...
Image: Post News
Post News, a Twitter alternative that emerged in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover, is shutting down. Noam Bardin, the platform’s founder and former CEO of Waze, writes that Post News “is not growing fast enough to become a real business or a significant platform.”
The Andreessen Horowitz-backed platform launched in a closed beta in November 2022, but now it’s set to shutter “within the next few weeks.” It serves as a social platform that also offers users ad-free access to paywalled content from publishers such as Fortune, Business Insider, Wired, The Boston Globe, and others. All users have to do is pay a “few cents” per article instead of signing up for a subscription to each publication.
Screenshot by Emma Roth / The...
Friend or foe? The Jetsons’ Rosey the Robot has long been an inspiration for developing home robots. But should it be? | Image: Warner Bros. Television, Hanna-Barbera
As a child of the 1980s, my perception of the smart home has been dominated by the idea that one day, we will all have Rosey the Robot-style robots roaming our homes — dusting the mantelpiece, preparing dinner, and unloading the dishwasher. (That last one is a must; we were smart enough to come up with a robot to wash our dishes; can’t we please come up with one that can also unload them?)
However, after seeing Boston Dynamics’ latest droid, Atlas, unveiled this week, my childhood dreams are fast turning into a smart home nightmare. While The Jetsons’ robot housekeeper had a steely charm, accentuated by its frilly apron, the closer we come to having humanoid robots in our home, the more terrifying it appears they will be. Not so much...
Image: Riley Testut
The launch of the Delta emulator on iPhones is a big deal in a lot of ways. But for users, it’s also just really cool. Here’s an excellent piece of software that can emulate the NES, SNES, N64, Game Boy, GBA, and Nintendo DS so that you can play classic games on a device that’s always in your pocket. Even better: even though there’s no Delta app for the Apple TV (yet), it’s still really easy to use it to play games on your television.
This is because Delta supports AirPlay so that you can stream video and sound from your phone to another Apple device, like an Apple TV or computer. For Delta, this means that the game itself plays on the bigger screen while your phone becomes a touchscreen controller. Or, if you connect a Bluetooth...
Photo by Ashok Kumar / TAS24 / Getty Images for TAS Rights Management
TikTok has launched a new hub to promote Taylor Swift’s new album where you can earn in-app rewards for completing certain tasks, like following Swift’s account on the platform. The update comes just days after Swift’s music returned to TikTok as the app continues to feud with the singer’s record label, Universal Music Group (UMG).
Image: TikTok
You can access the hub by searching for The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD) and then clicking on the banner that appears at the top of the results. There, TikTok displays a list of “challenges” to complete, which will let you unlock a TTPD profile frame, among other rewards. TikTok will also give users the chance to show up in its “fan spotlight” on the hub by posting a...
A recovery vehicle drives past burned structures and cars two months after a devastating wildfire on October 9th, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. | Photo by Mario Tama / Getty Images
New details surfaced this week about cascading failures that led to wildfires ripping through Maui last August. While investigations confirming the cause of the blaze are ongoing, officials are recognizing how unprepared agencies were for the inferno.
The wildfires killed at least 101 people and scorched some 2,200 structures — most of them residential. Downed power lines, blocked evacuation routes, and poor communications all added to extreme conditions that allowed blazes to grow into a monstrous conflagration.
“Questions linger about the adequacy of warning systems, evacuation planning, and the preparedness of communities for such extreme events”
“In the aftermath of this catastrophe, questions linger about the adequacy of warning...
The Waymo vehicle was set on fire with fireworks. | Image: Frisco Live 415
The San Francisco Police Department has identified and served a search warrant on a teenager who is suspected of starting a fire in a Waymo self-driving taxi vehicle earlier this year.
On March 27th, investigators entered the suspect’s residence and seized evidence that connects the 14-year-old male with the February incident in which a crowd destroyed the driverless car.
The investigation was conducted by the SFPD Arson Task Force, which identified the suspect and developed probable cause for the search warrant. The district attorney’s office has filed charges against the minor while the juvenile probation department is deciding whether to put the suspect in custody before a court hearing.
The February 10th fire was reportedly caused...
Illustration by Manon Louart for The Verge
We found a collection of unique gift ideas that go beyond the flowers and chocolates that typically rule the day.
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge
Delta, an app for emulating and playing retro games on your iPhone, has been at the top of the App Store rankings for days. Apple spent years keeping apps like this off its platforms before reversing course earlier this month in the face of European regulation and the threat of a whole bunch of new third-party app stores.
Obviously, there was huge pent-up demand for Delta. But is this a singular phenomenon or the start of a new more open future for the iPhone? What else might Apple allow in the App Store if it means keeping you in the App Store?
On this episode of The Vergecast, we discuss how Delta got into the App Store and what it might mean for the future of the iPhone. We don’t really talk about all the thorny legal issues around...
Tesla isn’t aware of any collisions, injuries, or fatalities attributed to the defective pedals. | Image: Parker Ortolani / The Verge
Tesla has issued a recall for effectively every Cybertruck it’s delivered to customers due to a fault that’s causing the vehicle’s accelerator pedal to get stuck.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Wednesday, the defect can result in the pedal pad dislodging and becoming trapped in the vehicle’s interior trim when “high force is applied.”
The fault was caused by an “unapproved change” that introduced “lubricant (soap)” during the assembly of the accelerator pedals, which reduced the retention of the pad, the recall notice states. The truck’s brakes will still function if the accelerator pedal becomes trapped, though this obviously isn’t an ideal workaround.
The recall impacts “all Model Year...
DJI’s Power 1000 (left) and Power 500 (right) ready to be worshipped. | Image: DJI
DJI just launched its first power stations that feature a new proprietary SDC — aka Smart DC — port that can fast charge (some) DJI drone batteries and supports lots of input and output accessories. The $699 Power 1000 and smaller $379 Power 500 both offer a bevy of AC and DC inputs and outputs with more available if you’re willing to fully commit to living DJI’s SDC dongle life.
The Power 500 has one SDC Lite port, while the larger Power 1000 has both regular SDC and SDC Lite. Both power stations are fitted with batteries that use LFP chemistry, which is safer and lasts longer (80 percent capacity after 3000 cycles) than traditional NMC, and both offer a 0.02-second cutover making them suitable for use as a UPS on unstable grids. They...
Razer
Razer’s latest mobile gaming controller just released today, the Kishi Ultra, is an all-rounder that can switch between multiple devices. The controller has a built-in USB-C port that can work with the iPhone 15 series as well as most Android smartphones (Razer says it’s compatible with the Galaxy 23 series, Pixel 6 and up, the Razer Edge, and “many other Android devices.”) It also seems to work perfectly fine with Galaxy Z Fold 5 and other foldables. The controller can expand to fit your iPad Mini and any 8-inch Android tablets, and you can also tether it to your PC.
Razer
Razer’s Kishi Ultra can also work on tablets.
One interesting feature in the Kishi Ultra is the inclusion of Razer’s Sensa HD immersive...
Image: Amazon
Just a week after the show first premiered, Amazon has confirmed that there’s more of its live-action Fallout series on the way. As of now there are no details available other than the fact that the show has been renewed for season 2.
While there are no specific numbers about how well the show has done on Prime Video, Amazon says that “in its first four days, the high-octane fueled series has become a hit with its global audience, ranking among the service’s top three most-watched titles ever and the most-watched season globally since Rings of Power.” The aforementioned Lord of the Rings show premiered back in 2022.
Set in LA, Amazon’s take on Fallout is told through three different perspectives: vault dweller Lucy (Ella Purnell),...
The Meta Quest 2 and its bundled controllers. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The Meta Quest 2 has been on sale for nearly a month, and today, Meta’s making that price permanent — $199 is the new sticker price for the virtual reality headset, the company announced today. That’s half what it originally cost in 2020, and Meta is permanently cutting the price of Quest 2 accessories like the Elite Strap with Battery (which I highly recommend) in half as well.
The Quest 2 is currently being supplanted by the $500 Quest 3, of course, but it’s still an incredible entry point to VR, one that plays every Quest game except for a single Quest 3-exclusive title announced last month. It doesn’t have color passthrough vision or good mixed reality gaming, and I definitely prefer the Quest 3 for comfort and immersion, but I...
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
Netflix is moving beyond subscriber numbers. In its first quarter earnings results released on Thursday, Netflix announced that it will stop reporting quarterly membership numbers in 2025 because subscribers are “just one component” of its growth. The change comes after a quarter where it added 9.3 million subscribers, growing to more than 270 million members globally.
Subscriber count meant everything in the early days of streaming. It allows investors, studios, and everyone else to gauge just how well a streaming service is doing compared to the competition, and Netflix has leaned on its lead in that area.
But now, Netflix says it is flipping this idea on its head because it has multiple sources of revenue that don’t hinge solely on...
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images
The Senate is moving forward on a vote to reauthorize a controversial program that allows warrantless surveillance of foreign “targets.” Before voting on the reauthorization bill, senators had to vote on a cloture motion to begin voting. The cloture motion passed 67–32, just one day ahead of the program’s expiration.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is set to expire at midnight on April 19th, a deadline some senators emphasized as they urged their colleagues to vote in favor of reauthorization. “It’s hard to overstate either the importance — the gravity — of allowing it to sunset, yet we are 36 hours away from that happening,” Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said on the Senate floor. “I understand that some of my...
Ursa is a new keycap profile for Topre keyboards. I want it. | Render: FKCaps
Listen, I don’t want to be the guy who always posts about weird keyboard stuff. I have other interests. But I need to tell the dozens of Verge readers with Topre keyboards about these keycaps. Ursa is a new spherical doubleshot keycap profile for Topre that is available for group buy until May 15th.
Reactions to the previous sentence will likely fall into three camps:
I am usually a group three, but today, I am in group two. If you’re in group one, here is what some of those words mean. Topre keyboards, like the Happy Hacking Keyboard Professional, use different switches than...
Anker is amongst the first accessory makers to rerelease MagSafe-compatible accessories that now support the Qi2 standard. | Image: Nathan Edwards / The Verge
Qi2 brings MagSafe-like fast magnetic wireless charging for any device.
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
The next generation of Meta’s large language model Llama, which releases today to cloud providers like AWS and to model libraries like Hugging Face soon, performs better than most current AI models, the company said in a blog post.
Llama 3 currently features two model weights, with 8B and 70B parameters. (The B is for billions and represents how complex a model is and how much of its training it understands.) It only offers text-based responses so far, but Meta says these are “a major leap” over the previous version. Llama 3 showed more diversity in answering prompts, had fewer false refusals where it declined to respond to questions, and could reason better. Meta also says Llama 3 understands more instructions and writes better code...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
This is Hot Pod_,_ The Verge_’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry._
Today is my last day at The Verge, and this will be my final issue of Hot Pod. I’ll have one more story coming out in the next week or two. But until then, I wanted to offer some parting thoughts on the industry I have covered so closely for the past two years.
I have this thing in my career where I always get to the party too late. I joined my college newspaper just as it was becoming clear that printing a daily no longer mathed out. I had a good year at the Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC shortly before the beloved executive producer left and the program imploded. I missed the heady old days at Forbes when magazine writers would drink champagne on a...
As funny as it was when the AI Pin utterly failed at translating Korean and Japanese, it also broke my heart. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Of all the things the Humane AI Pin promised, I was most intrigued by translation. In a demo, a man speaks to Humane co-founder Imran Chaudhri in Spanish. The AI Pin automatically translates it to English. Chaudhri replies in English. Again, the AI Pin translates his words back into Spanish. There are notable pauses when the AI is processing, but it’s a powerful concept. Unlike with Google Translate, there was solid eye contact between both people. The AI voice sounded more natural and less robotic. And crucially, there were no screens. The language barrier was still there, but it was much more permeable.
That’s not what happened when I tried it myself.
I spoke some simple phrases in Japanese and Korean. Instead of translating, the AI...
When was the last time your friends made you a playlist? | Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images
Writing about the decline of Pitchfork made me sad about the music industry — and also about the state of music discovery. Besides the fact that TikTok doesn’t prioritize music as anything other than background noise, it means that artists have to win the viral lottery in order to make a hit. And that’s entirely out of their control.
But about two weeks ago, a friend of mine introduced me to Music League, a game where everyone in the league submits a song to a playlist, and a group of us started playing. About a day after the first one formed, I made two more: one for another friend group and one for family.
Music League makes music social in a way that social media algorithms, ironically, do not
I’ve enjoyed hearing new songs. The...
Illustration: The Verge
Meta is rolling out real-time AI image generation in beta for WhatsApp users in the US. As soon as you start typing a text-to-image prompt in a chat with Meta AI, you’ll see how the image changes as you add more detail about what you want to create.
In the example shared by Meta, a user types in the prompt, “Imagine a soccer game on mars.” The generated image quickly changes from a typical soccer player to showing an entire soccer field on a Martian landscape. If you have access to the beta, you can try out the feature for yourself by opening a chat with Meta AI and then start a prompt with the word “Imagine.”
GIF: Meta
Additionally, Meta says its Meta Llama 3 model can now produce “sharper and higher quality” images...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
When I reviewed the Xbox Series X nearly four years ago, I called the console a “next-gen PC.” Not only did the Xbox look like a PC with its boxy, rectangular, tower-like case but it also felt like one thanks to hardware upgrades that allowed it to run games with a variety of PC-like graphical modes. Now, as we approach the next generation of Xbox, it looks like Microsoft is about to close the gap between Xbox and PC even further.
Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has teased some potentially massive Xbox platform changes in recent weeks. At the same time, leaked internal memos have revealed an increased focus inside Microsoft on Xbox game preservation and forward compatibility. When you put all the breadcrumbs together, it feels like...
Henry Cavill as Geralt. | Image: Netflix
We still don’t know what Liam Hemsworth will look (or sound) like when he takes up the role of Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher. But we do know how long he’ll be wearing the white wig: Netflix has confirmed that the show’s fifth season will be its last.
The news comes as Netflix has confirmed that it has started production on season 4 of The Witcher — the first that won’t feature Henry Cavill in the lead role — and that it and season 5 will be filmed back to back. The two upcoming seasons will “complete the adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s books,” according to Netflix. That means they will cover a trio of Witcher books: Baptism of Fire, The Tower of the Swallow, and Lady of the Lake.
Netflix first announced that Hemsworth would be taking...
Image: The Verge
Disney has big decisions to make about streaming, sports, Marvel, and more.
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Brendan Hoffman, Getty Images
A bill that could oust TikTok from the US looked like it could linger for months in the Senate, even after the House overwhelmingly voted to approve it. But a move by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) could change that.
An updated version of the bill, which would enforce a ban of TikTok unless it divests from its China-based parent company, ByteDance, appears in a bill about sanctions on Russia and Iran. A separate bill that would prohibit data brokers from transferring US users’ information to foreign adversaries is also included. It’s part of a package on foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza. By combining the legislation, it could make the TikTok bill harder for the Senate to ignore.
The foreign aid bill still needs to be approved...
Its robotic arm heats vegan burgers and crispy potatoes while relegating humans to assembly line jobs.
Mark Zuckerberg announcing Meta’s AI assistant at Connect 2023. | Image: Meta
Meta’s AI assistant is being put everywhere across Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook. Meanwhile, the company’s next major AI model, Llama 3, has arrived.
Quiet, please. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge
Notifications are the soundtrack to modern digital life. When they’re out of control, they make it hard to hear anything else going on. But if you manage them well, you can turn them into a subtle background noise. App developers want you to opt in to every notification possible, but thankfully, Android provides a lot of tools to help you tune in to the helpful stuff and tune out the distractions. It takes a little work upfront, but the payoff is worth it.
I used a Google Pixel 8 Pro running Android 14 and a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 running One UI 6.1 to write the following guide — steps may be slightly different on other Android phones.
On either a Pixel or Galaxy phone, a good place to start is by...
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images
Stability AI laid off 20 employees just a day after announcing the expansion of access to its new flagship model. This comes after weeks of upheaval that saw its founding CEO leave the company.
CNBC reports that the layoffs at the UK-based AI company, which runs the Stable Diffusion text-to-image model, represent roughly 10 percent of its workforce. In a memo to staff, interim CEOs Shan Shan Wong and Christian LaForte say the decision to let go of employees is part of a “strategic plan to reduce our cost-base, strengthen support with our investors and partners, and enable teams to continue developing and releasing innovative products.”
The company did not say which departments were affected by layoffs, according to reports.
Stability...
Illustration: The Verge
AI is taking over at Google, and the company is changing in big ways to try to make it happen even faster. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced substantial internal reorganizations on Thursday, including the creation of a new team called “Platforms and Devices” that will oversee all of Google’s Pixel products, all of Android, Chrome, ChromeOS, Photos, and more. The team will be run by Rick Osterloh, who was previously the SVP of devices and services, overseeing all of Google’s hardware efforts. Hiroshi Lockheimer, the longtime head of Android, Chrome, and ChromeOS, will be taking on other projects inside of Google and Alphabet.
This is a huge change for Google, and it likely won’t be the last one. There’s only one reason for all of it,...
It’s not an official Nintendo accessory, but everything about 8BitDo’s Retro Mechanical Keyboard screams NES regardless. | Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge
If you’re craving all things Nintendo after yesterday’s Indie World showcase event, right now, 8BitDo’s Retro Mechanical Keyboard has plunged to a new all-time low price. Normally $99.99, right now, you can buy the keyboard for $83.69 from Amazon. The Famicom-inspired Fami Edition, meanwhile, is available for about $2 more.
From “Super Buttons” labeled “A” and “B” right down to the color scheme, everything about the keyboard is designed to mimic the original NES controller’s style. Yet, while it looks like it’s straight from the ’80s, it’s got modern conveniences like programmable Super Buttons and clicky, hot-swappable switches you can easily replace. It also sports multiple connectivity modes, including Bluetooth, 2.4GHz wireless via...
Photo by Christian Charisius / picture alliance via Getty Images
Apple’s latest sustainability report shows that its greenhouse gas emissions are falling as it pushes suppliers to clean up their operations.
Dig into the data in the report, and you’ll find that Apple’s gross carbon dioxide emissions dropped from 20.6 million metric tons in 2022 to 16.1 million metric tons in 2023. That’s a 22 percent reduction over the year.
The progress is mostly thanks to its suppliers using cleaner sources of electricity, the company says in a press release today. Looking back further, Apple says it has reduced its gross emissions by more than 55 percent since 2015. If it keeps up, Apple could be well on its way toward meeting its commitment to slash emissions by 75 percent by 2030.
A dirty supply chain is probably...
Paramount’s live-action Transformers movies have always made its alien robots seem like they were born ready for battle and knowing how to navigate the world, but the first trailer for director Josh Cooley’s Transformers One animated prequel reveals that to be anything but the case.
Set in the distant past on the Cybertronian homeworld, Transformers One tells the story of how Orion Pax / Optimus Prime (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 / Megatron (Brian Tyree Henry) went from being best friends to mortal enemies soon after discovering their powers to turn into various kinds of vehicles.
Cybertron’s surface seems to be a mysterious, dangerous place where young transformers are forbidden to go in the new trailer, but Orion and D-16 have much more...
A less creepy iteration. | Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos courtesy of Boston Dynamics and Getty Images
On Wednesday, Boston Dynamics announced the new version of its Atlas robot with a characteristically unsettling video. In it, a humanoid android lifts itself up from the floor by bending its legs backward and then swivels its fathomless void of a head a full 180 degrees like it’s Linda Blair in The Exorcist. The footage is obviously creepy.
In a press release, the company said that it decided to make the new, fully electric Atlas robot move like an undead Cirque du Soleil performer (paraphrasing) because it can more efficiently complete tasks when it is not “constrained by a human range of motion.” I am OKAY with this! Boston Dynamics is doing exciting things with technology!
I do, however, have a novel suggestion for Boston Dynamics:...
Image: IHG
After some delay, Apple is finally bringing AirPlay to hotel room TVs — but you can only use it if you’re staying in one of the “more than” 60 IHG hotels it’s available in starting today.
Apple first announced the ability to use AirPlay in hotels with LG TVs during its Worldwide Developer Conference in 2023. The feature lets you stream shows, movies, and music from your phone to your hotel TV, as well as view photos or play games from a bigger screen.
Although Apple previously said AirPlay in hotels would arrive by the end of 2023, it ended up pushing back its launch until this year. The feature finally popped up with the release of iOS 17.3 earlier this year.
For now, AirPlay is currently only supported in select IHG hotels — such as...
Rashida Jones as Suzie. | Image: Apple
Apple TV Plus has been killing it on the sci-fi front lately, but this summer, the streamer’s taking another stab at the murder mystery genre with Sunny, a new A24-produced series from showrunner Katie Robbins, director Lucy Tcherniak, and executive producer Rashida Jones.
Based on Colin O’Sullivan’s novel The Dark Manual, Sunny revolves around Suzie Sakamoto (Jones), an American woman living in Kyoto whose life is thrown into turmoil following the disappearances of her roboticist husband Masa (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and their son in a catastrophic plane crash.
Though all Suzie wants is her family back, what she receives (as a gift from the company Masa works for) is Sunny (Joanna Sotomura), an experimental robot designed to assist...
Image: DARPA
The US Air Force is putting AI in the pilot’s seat. In an update on Thursday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) revealed that an AI-controlled jet successfully faced a human pilot during an in-air dogfight test carried out last year.
DARPA began experimenting with AI applications in December 2022 as part of its Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program. It worked to develop an AI system capable of autonomously flying a fighter jet, while also adhering to the Air Force’s safety protocols.
After carrying out dogfighting simulations using the AI pilot, DARPA put its work to the test by installing the AI system inside its experimental X-62A aircraft. That allowed it to get the AI-controlled craft into the air at the Edwards...
A woman standing behind a man close enough to lean her head over his shouler as he stretches his arm outward. | Image: Netflix
The idea of pretending to be a contract killer while working undercover for the police sounds stressful as hell, but the first trailer for Richard Linklater’s Hit Manmakes the gig seem like a fun way to work out those improv muscles.
Loosely based on journalist Skip Hollandsworth’s 2001 Texas Monthly article by the same name, Hit Man tells the tale of Gary Johnson (Glen Powell), an unassuming college professor who spends his free time pretending to be a mercenary to help police flush out folks who intend to put hits on people. Though Gary’s disguises make him look like a cheesy character out of a film or show about shady criminals, that seems to be what convinces people that he’s legit before the officers he works for (Retta, Sanjay...
Image: GM
General Motors’ initial new home energy products are now available to purchase, including the equipment necessary to turn your GM-made electric vehicle into a mobile power generator for your home.
GM has been teasing its new home energy products for months, including a home EV charger and vehicle-to-home (V2H) kit that enables a home to pull energy from an EV battery in the event of a blackout. That equipment is now available to customers but only those who live in California, Florida, Texas, Michigan, and New York. The company says it plans to expand to more states in the months to come.
GM has been teasing its new home energy products for months
The new bundle, which includes the GM Energy Powershift Charger ($1,699) and GM Energy...
The Neo family of devices. | Image: Elgato
If you watch a Twitch streamer, it’s almost guaranteed that they will be using at least one Elgato product. After dominating this part of the market for years, Elgato is now shifting its primary focus away from gaming with its new Neo line while also preparing a bevy of AI features to improve new and existing gear.
Neo is a collection of Elgato’s most popular products made simpler, more affordable, and more compact so they can be used easily with a laptop or iPad. “They look more accessible, they look more friendly,” says Julian Fest, general manager of Elgato, in an interview with The Verge. “The entire industrial design is focused on being more appealing to a less technical audience.”
The $99.99 Stream Deck Neo is the star of the show,...
The Korean tech giant is now expanding the previously voluntary policy to executives across its entire workforce. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Samsung is introducing a companywide six-day workweek policy for executives as the Korean tech giant takes emergency measures to tackle ongoing business uncertainty. This new policy comes off the back of Samsung’s disappointing financial results last year, alongside wider economic concerns like rising borrowing costs and oil prices and a rapid depreciation of Korean currency.
As reported by The Korea Economic Daily, a Samsung Group executive said, “Considering that performance of our major units, including Samsung Electronics Co, fell short of expectations in 2023, we are introducing the six-day work week for executives to inject a sense of crisis and make all-out efforts to overcome this crisis.”
Samsung is also facing increased...
Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Last March, Panic launched a curated game shop called Catalog for its Playdate handheld. And one year later, the company says it has sold more than 150,000 games through the store. “We want to let everyone who enjoys games know that there is a vibrant game dev community making hundreds of inventive and thoughtful games for Playdate,” Arisa Sudangnoi, head of Playdate developer relations, said in a statement. The news comes exactly two years after the handheld first launched.
At the beginning of 2024, Panic revealed that it had sold 70,000 Playdate units, and it now says that more than half of those users — 38,000 — have purchased a game through Catalog. For context, the Playdate launched with a “season” of 24 games from notable...
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge
I’ve always hated the fact Gmail only gives us five predefined categories — “Inbox,” “Social,” “Promotions,” “Updates,” and “Forum” — that we can’t customize. When the feature first launched in 2013, it felt like such an obvious omission I assumed Google would address it with a future update. But it’s been over 10 years, and the tabs are still as limiting as they were back then.
That’s why I felt like I hit the jackpot last week when I stumbled upon CloudHQ’s Gmail Tabs, a free extension that adds flexibility Gmail should have had from the beginning.
Basically, the desktop app extension lets you turn labels you’ve created or search queries into tabs you can pin at the top of your inbox right above Gmail’s useless “Social,”...
MrBeast’s 252 million YouTube subscribers are nipping at the heels of T-Series. | Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Despite his immense popularity and online presence, Jimmy Donaldson (aka MrBeast) has never been the most subscribed channel on YouTube — though that may not be the case for long. T-Series, India’s largest music label and movie studio, currently holds the top spot with 263 million YouTube subscribers, but MrBeast is rapidly closing in on that figure with 252 million subs.
With its leading position now threatened, T-Series published a new video on Monday encouraging viewers to subscribe to the channel. It opens with the quote “I want to put India and my people at the top of the international platform,” attributed to T-Series founder Gulshan Kumar (who passed away in 1997), before calling for prospective subscribers to “make history...
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Nothing has announced that it plans to more deeply integrate ChatGPT with its smartphones and earbuds. The move will give the company’s customers quicker access to the service. “Through the new integration, users with the latest Nothing OS and ChatGPT installed on their Nothing phones will be able to pinch-to-speak to the most popular consumer AI tool in the world directly from Nothing earbuds,” the company wrote in a blog post. And yes, the new Nothing Ear and Ear (a) are both supported.
Spokesperson Jane Nho told me by email that “gradual rollout of the integration will commence on April 18th with Phone 2 followed by Phone 1 and Phone 2A in the coming weeks.” Once the update lands, you’ll be able to query ChatGPT using the company’s...
Nothing is churning out new earbuds at a faster clip than smartphones. The company just introduced the Nothing Ear and Nothing Ear (a), priced at $149 and $99, respectively. Together, they mark Nothing’s fourth and fifth products in the headphone category. First came the original Ear 1, which stood out for its partly transparent design but suffered from bugs and inconsistent audio performance. Then, Nothing went after a different audience with the open-style (and oddly named) Ear Stick. And a year ago, the company shored up reliability and sound quality concerns with the Ear 2. Now it’s back for another go-round.
And guess what? Yep, they still look pretty much exactly the same.
The Nothing Ear and Ear (a) both preserve the design that...
Image: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Two prominent Senate Democrats are calling for increased scrutiny of autonomous vehicles and advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS) like Tesla’s Autopilot, arguing that the unimpeded flow of highly automated vehicles on public roads in recent years risks exacerbating the traffic safety crisis in the US.
Automakers and tech companies say the technology can lead to safer streets. But there have been a number of high-profile incidents in recent years involving fully autonomous vehicles, as well as hundreds of crashes and dozens of fatalities in vehicles equipped with advanced driver-assist systems. The two senators, Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Ed Markey (D-MA), argue that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s regulatory...
Illustration: The Verge
Google fired 28 employees in connection with sit-in protests by employees at two of its offices this week, according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge. The firings come after 9 employees were suspended and then arrested in New York and California on Tuesday.
The fired employees were involved in protesting a Google contract for Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion Israeli government cloud contract that Amazon is also involved in. Some of them occupied the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian until they were forcibly removed by law enforcement. Last month, Google fired another employee for protesting the contract during a company presentation in Israel.
In a memo sent to all employees on Wednesday, Chris Rackow, Google’s head of...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
In 2020, we wrote how coding bootcamp Lambda School seemed like a bit of a bait-and-switch. Four years later and one rebranding to “BloomTech” later, the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is finally slapping it on the wrist — it’s permanently banning it from issuing any more student loans, fining the company and its CEO $164,000, and releasing some students from some of their debt.
Why? Among other deceptive practices, the “Bloom Institute of Technology” didn’t call them loans. It advertised a way for students to get high-paying tech jobs “risk free” with “no loans” by paying 17 percent of their future income for five years — rather than the $20,000 sticker price of tuition.
But those Income Sharing Agreements (ISAs)...
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
After nearly a year of testing, Twitch’s new TikTok-style discovery feed will finally roll out to all users later this month. During a Patch Notes livestream on Wednesday, Twitch announced the new feed that will let you scroll through separate feeds dedicated to clips and current livestreams.
The new discovery feed will launch as a tab within the mobile app, and next month, some users might see this feed as the homepage of their mobile app. Twitch says all livestreams and clips are eligible to appear in its discovery feed as long as they meet its content guidelines.
When scrolling through the live feed, you’ll find live content from creators you follow, as well as streams recommended by Twitch. If you find something you like, you can...
Bleeeeeaaaagggghhhhh. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge
Comedy Central has ordered 10 episodes of Golden Axe, an animated show based on the fantasy beat ’em up sidescroller games. Deadline writes that it will be both “hilarious and loving” in its adaptation of the game. If I remember my Sega Genesis days well, I think that means there’ll be fighting over who gets to ride the purple bird dinosaur and that, at some point, a gigantic hairy skull will float down and hotbox everyone.
Who’s big idea was this, you ask? You can blame producers Mike McMahan (Star Trek: Lower Decks) and Joe Chandler (American Dad!), who will also write the first episode together, with Chandler serving as the showrunner afterward. A timeline for the show’s release hasn’t been announced yet.
According to Deadline, Gilius...
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
TikTok will make entire accounts temporarily ineligible for its For You feed if users have a pattern of posting about extreme fitness, conspiracy theories, sexually suggestive material, and a wide range of other topics that the platform won’t promote on the feed. The change was included in an update to TikTok’s Community Guidelines issued on Wednesday. While videos about such topics are still technically allowed on TikTok, the content itself and the accounts of those who post them could be temporarily restricted.
“We’re introducing a policy to make an entire account temporarily ineligible for recommendation in the For You feed if a creator repeatedly posts content that goes against our For You feed standards. Their account and content...
Image: Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
We might really do it this time.
That was the takeaway that House lawmakers were eager to impart at a hearing in the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on innovation, data, and commerce (IDC). Comprehensive data privacy legislation is on the table yet again — but this time, it’s different.
Lawmakers also touched on children’s online safety proposals like the Kids Online Safety Act, which recently got a House companion to the popular Senate bill, and COPPA 2.0, which would update and raise the age for protections for a long-standing online privacy bill for children.
But privacy reform was the focus of much of the hearing, as a discussion draft for the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) revived the issue after years of inaction. This...
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
TikTok has started rolling out its Instagram rival, TikTok Notes, to select Android and iOS users “for download and limited testing in Australia and Canada.” A tweet announcing the launch, as well as the App Store and Google Play listings, showed off some official images of the app that offer insights about how it works for those of us who don’t have access yet.
In them, we see that you can write up headlines for images above your captions, which is a feature Instagram doesn’t natively offer.
Image: TikTok
The homepage also seems to be divided into two sections, with a separate page where you can view posts from people you follow and another “For You” page. It’s organized a bit like Pinterest’s homepage but with a...
Image: Bay 12 Games
Though you could always go on adventures in Dwarf Fortress, with the game’s Adventure Mode expansion entering public beta today, you can now sally forth with a full complement of updated graphics.
In Adventure Mode, there are all sorts of shenanigans to get up to in the ridiculously large and detailed procedurally generated world. It’s an RPG campaign complete with character creation, quests to complete, and bandits to fight.
With the public beta, your adventures on the surface world will look a lot more detailed than smiley faces and ASCII art. There’s still the same level of granular detail in combat, allowing you to stab, punch, kick, throw, and bite just about anything on your enemies right down to their eyeballs. Check out a demo...
Photo by Brian Sevald / NBAE via Getty Images
The NBA has permanently banned Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter from the league for violating its gambling rules, the league said in a statement on Wednesday. According to an internal investigation conducted by the NBA, Porter bet on NBA games, disclosed confidential information to other gamblers, and adjusted his participation in certain games to influence the outcome of certain bets.
The league started looking into Porter after a March 20th game against the Sacramento Kings in which Porter played for just three minutes. Porter left the game after saying he felt ill. Ahead of that game, Porter told “an individual he knew to be an NBA bettor” about his health status, according to the NBA’s statement. Another person then put an...
The Pixel 7A is a standout midrange smartphone that nearly performs like a flagship, now for an entry-level price. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge
Google is expected to introduce the new Pixel 8A at its I/O developer conference next month. That’s probably a contributing factor for the new all-time low price we’re seeing on the midrange Pixel 7A we were introduced to during last year’s event. Amazon, Best Buy, and Google all have it down to $349, which is $150 off the original price.
Buying it directly from Google is the better deal, as you’ll also get three months of YouTube Premium and Google One, the latter supplementing the device’s 128GB of storage with 100GB of extra cloud storage.
The Pixel 8A’s impending arrival could cause a deeper price drop, or perhaps Google will cement today’s discount as a permanent change. But if you need a new phone right now, you shouldn’t...
Image: Boston Dynamics.
It’s alive! A day after announcing it was retiring Atlas, its hydraulic robot, Boston Dynamics has introduced a new, all-electric version of its humanoid machine. The next-generation Atlas robot is designed to offer a far greater range of movement than its predecessor.
Boston Dynamics wanted the new version to show that Atlas can keep a humanoid form without limiting “how a bipedal robot can move.” The new version has been redesigned with swiveling joints that the company claims make it “uniquely capable of tackling dull, dirty, and dangerous tasks.”
“We designed the electric version of Atlas to be stronger, more dexterous, and more agile,” the company said in its press release. “Atlas may resemble a human form factor, but we are...
Tyner Rushing as Samantha Massey in For All Mankind_._ | Image: Apple
Folks hoping to see more of Apple TV Plus’ For All Mankindseries are in for a treat, but the streamer is working on more than just a new season.
Today, Apple announced that For All Mankind has been renewed for a fifth season that will continue to chronicle the alternate history of a world in which the Soviet Union is the first nation to put a man on the Moon and the United States set out to catch up with its rival. Following the show’s season 4 finale, news of the renewal doesn’t exactly come as a surprise, but Apple also revealed that executive producers Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi are working on a new series titled Star City, which will dig deeper into the live of the Soviets who changed the arc of human history.
In a statement about...
OnePlus could be a strong alternative to Google or Samsung for Wear OS smartwatches.
Like most people, I’d prefer to stare at a bunch of cacti in my living room rather than an uninspired black rectangle. | Image: Samsung
Everyone may like watching movies on a big screen, but a hulking panel is nothing but an eyesore when turned off. That’s why Samsung’s Frame TV has become so popular over the last several years and why several TV manufacturers, including Amazon, have begun to crib ideas from the company’s artsy panels. And while the Frame certainly isn’t cheap, you can currently pick up the 2022 model at Amazon in the 55- and 65-inch sizing for $997.99 ($500 off) and 1,597.99 ($400), respectively. It’s also on sale in the behemoth 75-inch configuration for $1,895 ($1,103 off), an all-time low, with Best Buy and Walmart matching Amazon’s pricing in most instances.
Despite its lofty price tag, the Frame isn’t for people who want pristine image quality or...
Image: Riley Testut
The Delta emulator is officially available on the Apple App Store — for free — outside of the European Union, where it’s available via the third-party AltStore PAL app marketplace that just went live.
The app marks the first significant and officially sanctioned game emulator for the iPhone since Apple began allowing them, with wide-ranging console emulation from the original Nintendo Entertainment System to the Nintendo 64 (and even the Sega Genesis, for when you want to play those games that Ninten_don’t_).
Delta developer Riley Testut told The Verge via email that the app is identical to the version debuting with AltStore PAL. The app features on-screen buttons that change their layout and appearance to match whatever system you’re...
Image: Amazon
Amazon is pushing back on claims that its cashierless Just Walk Out technology is run by humans in India — not AI. In a blog post on Wednesday, the e-commerce giant calls these reports “untrue” and says that a machine learning model powers its system.
Last week, reports started going around that claimed Amazon employs around 1,000 workers in India to watch people shop and review purchases at stores using its Just Walk Out tech. The report claimed that Amazon’s workers had to review around 700 of every 1,000 transactions in 2022, something that isn’t uncommon in the world of AI.
While Amazon insists these reports are “erroneous,” it doesn’t deny that humans aren’t involved with the process at all. Instead, Amazon says its workers are...
That €1.50 per year subscription does not include tax but does offset Apple’s Core Technology Fee. | Image: AltStore PAL
After we recently tested it in beta, the third-party iOS app store AltStore PAL is now live in the European Union thanks to Apple’s compliance with the region’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). The store requires a €1.50 (plus tax) annual subscription to cover Apple’s Core Technology Fee (CTF) for installing the app marketplace itself.
Installing AltStore PAL requires clicking through a lot of Apple’s clumsily implemented scare sheets that double and triple check your desire to install apps from outside Apple’s App Store. But with persistence and enough clicks it eventually installs.
The new app marketplace is arriving with two apps developed by Riley Testut: Delta, an emulator capable of playing NES, SNES, Nintendo 64, Game Boy, Game Boy...
Dante D’Orazio / The Verge
Nine Google employees who occupied the company’s offices in New York and California were arrested Tuesday night after an eight-hour sit-in.
The workers were protesting Google’s involvement in Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion Israeli government contract for Google and Amazon’s cloud computing services. Employees at the Sunnyvale, California, campus occupied Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office on Tuesday afternoon, while workers in New York held a sit-in in the common area of the Chelsea office’s 10th floor.
Workers in the New York office captured the arrests on video. Around 9:45PM on Tuesday, nearly eight hours into the protest, a group of police officers and a man who appears to work at Google approached the four workers remaining in...
Image: Visible
Visible has just launched its first annual plans, letting customers lock in a year of mobile service all at once for either of the company’s two tiers. The Verizon-owned prepaid carrier is charging $395 per year for its Visible Plus plan, which it says leads to annual savings of $145. The standard Visible plan runs $275 per year, and in that case, you’re only saving $25 compared to the monthly rate.
For now, annual plans are only available to new Visible customers and not existing users. Even once they do roll out more widely, it’s worth thinking twice if you’ve got a discount code applied to your Visible Plus plan. Many people are only paying $35 / month for the normally $45 service. And if you do the math, you’re only saving $25 for...
Image: Netflix
Gus and his friends are coming back to Netflix very soon. The streamer just announced that the post-apocalyptic series Sweet Tooth is returning on June 6th, and as part of the news, there’s a first-look trailer at what this season has in store.
Based on the comic books by Jeff Lemire, Sweet Tooth is a different take on an end-of-the-world story. It takes place after a mysterious virus killed off much of humanity, while at the same time, new hybrid children — humans with animal features like antlers or pig noses — started appearing (also a mystery). While it’s set during a dark time for humanity, the series presents a slightly cozier version of the end of the world compared to, say, Fallout. Netflix says that the new season’s events are...
Image: Comcast
Comcast announced today that it’s expanding its “Now” branding to include two prepaid services: Now Internet and Now Mobile. Of the two, the mobile plan appears to be genuinely new, as it’s a prepaid cellular option that offers unlimited 5G data, talk, and text for $25 a month per line. The mobile plan also has free access to the company’s Xfinity hotspots_._
That seems like a better deal than Xfinity’s current prepaid mobile plans, which charge $20 per month “by-the-gig” and cost another $20 if you go over one gigabyte in a period — easy to do if you’re not on Wi-Fi all the time.
Comcast representative Joel Shadle told The Verge via email that the mobile plan will be throttled “during times of congestion after 20GB.” Now, plans aren’t...
Image: Sony
At the premium end of home theater, Sony TVs are about as good as it gets — and have been for several years now. The company is lauded for its image processing and penchant for delivering fantastic picture quality in both its flagship sets and lower-cost options like the X90L. So there’s pressure that comes with every refresh of the lineup. But Sony’s not letting that stop it from taking some bold steps in 2024.
This year, the company’s primary focus is on Mini LED. And more specifically, all eyes are on the top-of-the-line Bravia 9. There’s still an OLED in the new roster — that’s the Bravia 8 — and last year’s A95K QD-OLED is also sticking around. But Sony has spent years refining its own approach to packing thousands of LEDs into a...
Illustration: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos: Getty Images
The next generation of the text-to-image AI model Stable Diffusion is still in preview, but Stability AI is making it available to some developers via API and a new content creation platform. Stability AI says developers can now access Stable Diffusion 3 from its Developer Platform.
Stability AI says it’s working with API platform Fireworks AI for companies that want to use both models. It also plans on hosting its model weights on its own servers through a Stability AI membership “in the near future.”
The company released Stable Diffusion 3 in February to a small number of developers on preview. Stability AI says Stable Diffusion 3 is “equal to or outperforms” other text-to-image generators, like OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 and Midjourney v6, in...
Some of the latest M3 MacBooks are on sale, and you can find great discounts on older models, too. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Apple currently sells MacBooks equipped with its own M-series chips in a wide range of sizes and price points. It recently discontinued the M1 MacBook Air to make room for the M3 Air, but some retailers are still selling new models cheaper than ever. Your options go all the way up to the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro with M3 starting at $2,499. Purchasing a new MacBook can be a pricey endeavor, but finding a deal on a current Mac with the new M3 chip — as well as the higher-end M3 Pro and M3 Max — is actually not that difficult.
While Macs may not experience perpetual discounts, it’s not uncommon to see various models discounted by as much as $400. Alternatively, purchasing refurbished options directly from Apple is another way to save...
This artist mockup of Dragonfly soaring over Titan’s dunes has... well, Dune vibes. | Image: NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Steve Gribben
NASA has been given the go-ahead to send a flying drone-like lander to explore Titan, the largest of Saturn’s 146 moons.
Targeting a July 2028 launch, the agency announced on Tuesday that it can now complete the final design for Dragonfly — a Mars rover-sized rotorcraft that will be used to detect “prebiotic chemical processes common on both Titan and the early Earth before life developed.”
If all goes according to plan, the eight-rotor drone is scheduled to arrive at Titan in 2034, where it will fly to dozens of “promising locations” to characterize the habitability of Titan’s environment and hunt for any signs that life once existed on the organic-rich moon. Titan’s denser atmosphere (around four times that of Earth’s) will aid the...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
New year, new Nintendo indie showcase.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Sony is introducing a new PlayStation PC overlay and shared Trophies with its upcoming release of Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut on May 16th. It’s the first PlayStation game for PC that uses Sony’s new PlayStation overlay, which, much like the Steam overlay, will provide access to a friend list, Trophies, Settings, and your PlayStation account.
“This feature is available on Windows PCs and will be accessible from the in-game menu or, for keyboard players, by pressing the “SHIFT +F1” shortcut on your keyboard,” explains Julian Huijbregts, online community specialist at Nixxes software in a blog post. Sony acquired Nixxes in 2021 and has been using the in-house port developer to bring games like Horizon Forbidden West, Marvel’s...
Illustration: Lille Allen / The Verge
Tesla is asking shareholders to vote for a second time on Elon Musk’s massive compensation package, after a Delaware judge voided the first one earlier this year on the grounds that the approval process was “deeply flawed.”
Tesla shareholders approved the package in 2018, which gave Musk incentive to hit specific milestones, including a market valuation of $650 billion, which was more than 10 times Tesla’s value at the time.
In a proxy statement filed today, Tesla’s board recommends that shareholders simply re-ratify the 2018 pay package in order to address concerns raised by the court ruling — rather than negotiate a new proposal with Musk that could end up costing Tesla even more money.
“The Delaware Court second-guessed your...
Photo by Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge
Google Maps is rolling out some new updates designed to make locating an electric vehicle charging station less stressful. And to accomplish this, it will (of course) lean heavily on artificial intelligence.
Google says it will use AI to summarize customer reviews of EV chargers to display more specific directions to certain chargers, such as those located in parking garages or more hard-to-find places. And there will be more prompts in the app to encourage users to submit their feedback after using an EV charger — which will then be fed into the algorithm for future AI-powered summaries.
Google Maps users will be asked to submit details like whether the charging session was successful or the type of plug...
Formlabs was one of the early Kickstarter success stories, and its laser-blasting 3D printers are now used by model makers, prototypers, dentists, and maybe even action figure companies around the globe. But its newest printers are ditching those resin-blasting lasers because they’re comparatively slow.
With the new Form 4, Formlabs says you can print two to five times faster than its predecessor, the Form 3 Plus — by switching to an LCD screen and a bright backlight that can cure an entire layer of resin at a time.
That’s a common technique in prosumer resin printers already, one called masked stereolithography (mSLA), but Formlabs claims it’s managed to build a printer to do it at a higher quality than ever before. Even so, it may...
The company expects to complete its downsizing efforts by the end of this year. | Image: Take-Two Interactive
Take-Two Interactive, the gaming company behind franchises like Grand Theft Auto, NBA 2K, and Bioshock, has announced cost-cutting measures that will lay off “approximately five percent” of its global workforce and scrap several projects already in development.
The company said in an SEC filing published on Tuesday that it is “streamlining its organizational structure, which will eliminate headcount and reduce future hiring needs.” Take-Two says it will incur charges of up to $200 million to enact its “cost reduction program,” which aims to save the company over $165 million per year. The downsizing efforts are expected to be “largely complete” by December 31st, 2024.
A five percent workforce reduction works out to around 579 of the...
Logitech’s new Signature AI Edition M750 with a dedicated AI button to launch its Prompt Builder | Logitech
Tomorrow’s AI PCs may not only have a Copilot key on their keyboards — Logitech is introducing its own way to summon ChatGPT, too. It’s called the Logi AI Prompt Builder, and it’ll use a dedicated button on your mouse or keyboard.
The Logi AI Prompt Builder doesn’t just present you with a chatbot, it gives you preset “recipes” to help you prompt it too. After I assigned an AI button to a Logitech mouse, I could ask it to “Rephrase” paragraphs of text, turn them into bullet points, make them shorter and more concise, or fit a specific word count. Another recipe helped me summarize press releases. And since I pay for ChatGPT Plus, I customized another recipe to generate an image.
Screenshot: Emilia David/The Verge
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The phone is boring so you can focus on good times with your friends, get it? | Image: HMD
HMD really wants us to have more fun. Earlier this year, it announced a collaboration with Mattel on an upcoming Barbie flip phone. Now, it’s teaming up with Heineken and creative firm Bodega on another effort designed to tap into nostalgia: the Boring Phone. There are more details on Heineken’s site — which you’ll need to be at least 21 to view — but basically It’s a translucent flip phone with no apps, just good retro vibes to help you connect with your friends over a cold one.
The Boring Phone is apparently real — I know, I was skeptical, too — but it will only be available through giveaways and isn’t going on sale. It’s a limited edition run and Heineken’s website indicates 5,000 will be made. There’s a 2.8-inch QVGA display on the...
Drake performing in Atlanta, Georgia in 2022. | Photo by Prince Williams/Wireimage
Last year, a few AI voice clone tracks went viral using Drake’s voice. His label, Universal Media Group, responded to one track with a strongly worded statement against AI and takedown requests that saw it removed from streaming services. And Drake, seemingly not happy about another one of the songs, posted, “This is the final straw AI,” on Instagram.
BREAKING DRAKE DISS TRACK LEAKED. He was talking crazy‼️ #Drake pic.twitter.com/CkYpzsZGKz
— Nothing But Sports (@NBSCENTRAL) April 13, 2024
Over the weekend, a new track “leaked,” and fans have been debating whether it’s really from Drake or if it’s the return of AI Drake. The song is a diss track called “Push Ups” that targets Kendrick Lamar and Metro Boomin, among others. At one...