The Verge - All Posts

That's a nice looking charger. | Image by Elago MagSafe isn't a particularly controversial standard, but I've heard people grumble about it. They get upset because it doesn't charge quite as efficiently as an old-fashioned cable and they get annoyed that any phone case needs to be MagSafe-compatible. But could charging by cable provide you with something as stupidly fun as this new phone stand from Elago?The Elago MagSafe MS W5 Charging Stand is a mouthful of a name for what's just a Nintendo Game Boy Advance SP shaped MagSafe stand. Do the buttons and switches work? No! Does it fold close? Absolutely not! It's merely a piece of plastic you slot a MagSafe charger into. It's so simple you could probably 3D print something similar at home. Image by Elago Don't... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge The European Union has officially adopted a new set of right-to-repair rules designed to encourage people to repair broken devices, rather than replace them. One of the rules extends a product's warranty by one year if it's repaired while still covered.The European Union already requires companies to offer a two-year minimum warranty on products, but these new rules take things a step further. Even after the warranty period ends, companies are still required to repair common household products," including smartphones, TVs, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and other items. If a product breaks while under warranty, consumers can choose between a replacement or a repair. If they choose to repair, the warranty will be extended for a... Continue reading...

The Model 3 might get an affordable younger sibling in 2025. | Image: Tesla Tesla says it will build more affordable electric vehicles - perhaps as soon as 2025 - refuting recent reports that Tesla CEO Elon Musk had canceled plans for a cheaper Model 2" vehicle in favor of getting a robotaxi out the door. But Musk didn't clarify whether the lower-cost EV would be a brand new model for Tesla or simplified versions of its current vehicles.In terms of a new product roadmap, there's been a lot of talk," Musk said during the company's first quarter earnings call, addressing the concerns investors have expressed over the past month about the delayed plans for a low-cost EV. We've updated our future vehicle lineup to accelerate the launch of new models." Musk said we might see the vehicles in early 2025, if not... Continue reading...

Photo by VCG / VCG via Getty Images Tesla reported its first quarter earnings during an incredibly shaky moment for the company in which sales numbers and the stock price have both fallen. Against this backdrop, Tesla reported $1.1 billion in net income on $21 billion in revenue, down 9 percent from $23.3 billion the same time last year.The company's profits, once the envy of the auto industry, are at their lowest in six years thanks to rampant price cutting and slowing demand. Earlier this week, the company approved its latest price cuts for the US, China, and Germany - all major markets for the EV maker.Tesla's Q1 operating margins are 5.5 percent, down from 11.4 percent in Q1 2023. In a call with investors, the company's CEO, Elon Musk, blamed an industrywide shift... Continue reading...

Wattpad says DMs will be shut down on May 6th, alongside the deletion of all existing messages. | Image: Wattpad Community publishing platform Wattpad is removing the ability for users to send each other direct messages, claiming that the feature has only been relevant to a small percentage" of its global user base. Users will retain access to their DMs until May 6th, after which all existing messages will be deleted and the feature will no longer be available, according to Wattpad's help center.Wattpad is instead encouraging its users to communicate via the public commenting feature on stories or the conversation section of profile pages. There is currently no means for users to download their existing DMs, and Wattpad says that it's unable to retrieve such data. The feature will still exist in a limited capacity solely for Wattpad to... Continue reading...

Home internet for when you're not at home. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile has announced two new home internet plans: Home Internet Plus and Away. Well, technically that's one home internet plan and one anywhere-but-home plan. These new flavors of T-Mobile's 5G-powered internet service aim to address different customers, but both serve the same goal: leveraging that sweet 5G spectrum to do more than just keep our phones connected.The new Away plan, importantly, does not allow for extended use in the same location," according to a footnote in T-Mobile's press release. It's basically a Starlink competitor designed for campers and RV owners, but instead of using satellite connectivity, it's more like a supercharged cellular hotspot. It can connect up to 64 devices at a time, which seems like way more... Continue reading...

Apple's next event will be all about iPads. | Image: Apple Apple has gone and announced a spring event for May 7th at 7AM PT / 10AM ET. While the company didn't say what the event is about, the Apple Pencil in its graphic suggests we're finally about to hear about new iPads - but which ones? Well, almost certainly OLED iPad Pros, which we've been hearing about for months, but the company might also announce a new iPad Air in two sizes for the first time.Rumors have also circulated in the last few months about a new Apple Pencil and updated Magic Keyboard accessories that would give iPad Pro owners a more laptop-like feel. Because more accessories are all the iPad needs, right? It doesn't seem likely that there will be an update of the 10th-generation vanilla iPad or the iPad Mini quite yet, so... Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images Tech companies like Google, Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Amazon committed today to reviewing their AI training data for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and removing it from use in any future models.The companies signed on to a new set of principles meant to limit the proliferation of CSAM. They promise to ensure training datasets do not contain CSAM, to avoid datasets with a high risk of including CSAM, and to remove CSAM imagery or links to CSAM from data sources. The companies also commit to stress-testing" AI models to ensure they don't generate any CSAM imagery and to only release models if these have been evaluated for child safety.Other signatories include Anthropic, Civitai, Metaphysic, Mistral AI, and Stability AI.G... Continue reading...

Image: Atlus Metaphor: ReFantazio is the inscrutable name for Atlus' next RPG project. The company launched a new trailer and a 30-minute video introducing players to the story, gameplay, and social elements of the game, and at first blush, it looks pretty damn intriguing. Check out the gameplay video below.Metaphor: ReFantazio is an action RPG from Studio Zero, a new internal studio spun up in 2016 and headed by Katsura Hashino. Atlus really wants you to know the bona fides of the developers working on Metaphor. Hashino himself worked on Shin Megami Tensei III, Persona 3, 4, and 5. The game's mechanical designer is Ikuto Yamashita, who helped design the mechs in Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Shoji Meguro, who did the music for the Persona series,... Continue reading...

Cody Two Bears attends the Stand With Standing Rock Benefit at ABC Home & Carpet on December 15th, 2016, in New York City. | Photo by Mark Sagliocco / WireImage A coalition of 14 tribes received $135,580,000 for solar energy, part of a Biden administration program to help more households run on renewable energy. The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara (MHA) Nation, which is leading the coalition, says the funding will bring jobs to their communities and make electricity more affordable.The Environmental Protection Agency announced $7 billion in Solar for All" grants yesterday for 60 awardees, including the MHA Nation. The money, which comes from the Inflation Reduction Act, is supposed to bring residential solar systems to some 900,000 low-income and disadvantaged" households. Six of the grants, totaling $500 million, are going to tribes.Funding for the MHA Nation is expected to bring solar energy... Continue reading...

Luminar's new Halo lidar sensor is expected to be less than one inch thick. | Image: Luminar Luminar is shipping out orders of its lidar sensors to Volvo as the automaker is preparing to start production of its EX90 electric vehicles, the company said today. Volvo will use the laser sensor to enable safety and self-driving features in the EX90, making it the first global consumer vehicle to standardize this technology," Luminar notes in a press release.The news comes during a Luminar Day" webcast, where the company is also announcing a new next-generation Halo" lidar sensor - one that's designed for mainstream adoption, including in affordable vehicles, at half the cost of its current system.The order of lidar sensors to Volvo, which Luminar notes is worth $4 billion, comes after Volvo announced last year that it had to p... Continue reading...

The The VWFNDR Keirin camera concept. This past weekend, a local startup held an exhibition not too far from where I live in Tokyo to show off its idea for an entirely new take on camera hardware. That's not the sort of thing that happens every weekend, even in Tokyo, so I biked on over to take a look.VWFNDR is a project started by UX designer Alvaro Arregui Falcon of Nuevo.Tokyo and independent industrial designer Mireia Gordi i Vila. The team later brought on London-based engineer Lucas Seidenfaden, who developed the first working prototype for their concept.That concept is called Keirin.Named after the Japanese cycling discipline that takes place on a similarly oval track, the Keirin is a camera focused on panorama photography. Its standout visual feature is a curved... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Don't kick yourself if you missed out on Samsung's free TV preorder promo from earlier this month. The company is now offering a much better cash discount on one of its most notable new models: the glare-free Samsung OLED S95D TV. The smallest TV in the lineup, the 55-inch model starts at $2,299.99 ($300 off) at Best Buy and Samsung, while the 77-inch is also $300 off for $4,299.99 (Best Buy, Samsung). The 65-inch TV, meanwhile, is receiving an even steeper $400 discount for $2,999.99 (Best Buy, Samsung).Back in January, we saw for ourselves how well the S95D OLED eliminated most noticeable reflections, even as the TV sat right next to a light source. At the same time, the TV's display is brighter than ever, with the OLED screen... Continue reading...

There's a new cat-eye frame called the Skyler. | Image: Meta Meta just announced a slew of new updates for its Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. CEO Mark Zuckerberg just dropped an Instagram reel showing off a new cat-eye frame style for the glasses and a video calling feature. You can also now connect the glasses with Apple Music, and last but not least, the multimodal AI assistant is live for everyone in the US and Canada.You can peep a pretty clear demo of the video calling feature from Zuckerberg's reel. In it, he talks to Eva Chen, who runs fashion at Instagram, about the new Skyler frames and... chain lengths, of all things. The existing Wayfarer and Headliner models are also getting some new colors. The Headliner, which has rounder lenses, is also getting a low-bridge fit for folks who have... Continue reading...

The white Razer Viper V3 Pro next to its large bundled HyperPolling Wireless Dongle. | Image: Razer Does your gaming mouse track its own position 8,000 times per second? If you're the kind of person who cares, I suspect you might also want that mouse to track that fast out of the box - instead of having to buy an extra dongle for that feature.That's the most obvious difference Razer is announcing today with its flagship Viper V3 Pro mouse for esports pros and those who aspire to be one. For $160, the new Viper V3 Pro includes the $30 Razer HyperPolling Wireless Dongle, where the $150 Viper V2 Pro did not.Mind you, the 58-gram Viper V2 Pro was already an impressive piece of kit, taking the crown for the lightest wireless gaming mouse at its debut, and the V3 Pro now sheds an extra four grams to hit 54 grams and firmly cement itself... Continue reading...

Residents clean debris of their destroyed houses at the Khaung Dote Khar Rohingya refugee camp in Myanmar's Rakhine state on May 15th, 2023, after Cyclone Mocha made landfall. | Photo by Sai Aung Main / AFP via Getty Images No other region on Earth experiences more climate, weather, and water-related disasters than Asia, according to a new report. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released its 2023 State of the Climate in Asia today, which found that risks are only rising.From heatwaves to flooding and storms, climate change makes all kinds of disasters more intense all over the world. But the problem is particularly acute in Asia, which is heating up faster than the global average thanks to greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.The report's conclusions are sobering."Climate change exacerbated the frequency and severity of such events, profoundly impacting societies, economies, and, most importantly, human lives and the environment... Continue reading...

Image: Amazon Amazon is bringing back free(ish) grocery deliveries for orders over $35 in the form of a new monthly subscription program the company announced today. It's $9.99 per month for Prime members and includes unlimited one-hour grocery delivery where it's available, as well as unlimited 30-minute grocery pickups, with a half-cost option for low-income non-Prime members who qualify.Amazon launched a trial of the subscription in three cities last year but now says it's available in 3,500 cities across the US. Deliveries include groceries from Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh but also local grocers and specialty retailers that it's partnered with. Subscribers get priority access" for recurring weekly groceries, too.This new subscription could be... Continue reading...

At first glance, Netflix's upcoming action thriller Atlas, starring Jennifer Lopez, seemed like it was going to be a rather serious movie about a mech pilot fighting to survive on an inhospitable planet. That could still be the case, but the movie's latest trailer makes it out to be a bit more of a sci-fi buddy cop affair with an emphasis on human / robot alliances.Though a maniacal machine (Simu Liu) dead-set on eradicating humanity presents the biggest threat in Atlas, the movie's new trailer puts a spotlight on how an AI-powered battle armor will join Atlas Shepherd (Lopez) in her fight to save the world. With so many killer robots on the loose and doing a bang-up job of destroying cities, it makes sense that Atlas would be... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge After kicking off 2024 with the launch of the Vision Pro, the next act in Apple's 2024 script is a May product launch event. Apple has started inviting members of the media to a special Apple Event" on May 7th at 7AM PT / 10AM ET. The invite's image includes the Apple Pencil, making it abundantly clear that iPads will be the focus of this virtual event.Rumors suggest the iPad Pro will get some of its most significant improvements since the 2021 M1 overhaul, including an OLED display (with a slight size bump to 13 inches for the bigger model), an updated M3 chipset, and the long overdue horizontal repositioning of its front-facing camera. There might also be a new Apple Pencil and a redesigned Magic Keyboard with an aluminum build and a... Continue reading...

If you can afford this home, you can probably afford Anker's whole-home battery backup solution. | Image: Anker Nearly a year since it was first announced, Anker is finally selling its Solix whole-home battery backup solution in North America. The Solix X1 is just 5.9 inches thick and attaches to a wall like a Tesla Powerwall. It's a more permanent and minimalist alternative to Anker's modular F3800 kits, which can be quickly detached to power a weekend away.The Solix X1 can be configured to deliver between 3kW and 36kW of power with a stackable design that supports between 5kWh and 180kWh of LFP battery capacity. It's covered by a warranty of 10 years or 16.5MWh throughput, whichever comes first. Cutover from the grid to the battery happens in less than 20ms, so you might not even notice the next power outage.Calculating how much power and... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge The TikTok ban appears to be for real this time. (Technically, the TikTok ban or divesture but hopefully divesture" is probably more accurate, but everybody's just calling it a ban.) Only a few weeks ago, all momentum for the ban seemed gone. Now, it's back with a vengeance, with a couple of small tweaks and a new political strategy. And it could get a vote in the Senate in the next few days.There's also a new bill, known as the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA), starting to gain some traction among important people looking to pass comprehensive privacy regulation in the US. Of course, we've heard that before. Many times. So will the APRA succeed where other bills have failed?On this episode of The Vergecast, we chat with The Verge'... Continue reading...

Image: Sonos Today, Sonos is officially introducing the redesigned mobile app that I showed you earlier this month. It'll roll out for both Android and iOS on May 7th, but the company's desktop apps aren't coming along for the ride: Sonos will discontinue its controller apps for Windows and macOS in the near future. Taking their place is a new web app that will allow you to control and access your Sonos speakers from anywhere - not just when you're home on Wi-Fi.But for now, let's get back to the smartphone app. It's been rebuilt from the ground up to be more reliable. Sonos' fundamental goal was making everything feel faster and getting you where you want to be without relying on a tabbed navigation bar. Now, everything is on the homescreen, and... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Grzegorz Wajda, Getty Images When Tesla releases its first quarter earnings this afternoon, the company's CEO Elon Musk will field the usual questions about new products, new factories, and progress toward its futuristic vision of self-driving cars and robot workers. But Musk will also face increasingly urgent questions about its current state of affairs - and why everything seems to be going to shit.Earlier this month, the company reported its first year-over-year sales drop in four years, a sign of rougher waters ahead. Tesla's stock has fallen more than 40 percent since the start of the year, including a 13 percent drop in the last week. The company laid off over 14,000 employees last week, 10 percent of its global workforce - which could end up being closer to... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft launched the next version of its lightweight AI model Phi-3 Mini, the first of three small models the company plans to release.Phi-3 Mini measures 3.8 billion parameters and is trained on a data set that is smaller relative to large language models like GPT-4. It is now available on Azure, Hugging Face, and Ollama. Microsoft plans to release Phi-3 Small (7B parameters) and Phi-3 Medium (14B parameters). Parameters refer to how many complex instructions a model can understand.The company released Phi-2 in December, which performed just as well as bigger models like Llama 2. Microsoft says Phi-3 performs better than the previous version and can provide responses close to how a model 10 times bigger than it can.Eric Boyd,... Continue reading...

This drone might migrate south to a new location in Arizona. | Image: Amazon Amazon is winding down its Prime Air drone delivery program in Lockeford, California - an early testing zone for a service that allowed local residents to order products weighing up to five pounds and get them delivered to their location via drone in 30 minutes.In the same press release, Amazon also announced that the company is launching a new Prime Air location in Tolleson, Arizona. The new location is expected to provide same-day" deliveries to residents in the West Valley Phoenix metro area. Amazon expects to begin operations in Arizona starting later this year.The press release doesn't provide a clear reason as to why the Lockeford location, which opened for business in 2022, is closing, though it does say employees at the... Continue reading...

Anker's versatile charging orb functions as both a power strip and a StandBy-ready phone stand. | Image: Nathan Edwards / The Verge A cluttered desk can easily hijack your focus, which is why Anker's Qi2-certified MagGo Magnetic Charging Station (8-in-1) can prove helpful. It's small, but it can quickly clear up space by replacing a good chunk of your chargers while doubling as a sturdy phone stand. It normally runs $99.99, but now until 4:45PM PT / 7:45PM ET on April 28th, you can pick up the charger at its all-time low of $69.99 ($30 off) at Amazon and Anker (with promo code WS7DV2GPRWSL).The speedy orb-shaped charger can supply up to 15W of power to MagSafe-equipped iPhones - specifically iPhone 12, 13, 14, and 15 models - while functioning as a versatile power strip that can charge up to seven other devices. It supports up to 67W total power output and comes... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Former Meta executive Jason Taylor is joining Microsoft's AI supercomputing team. In a LinkedIn post on Monday, Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott says Taylor will take on the role of corporate vice president and deputy CTO to help build the next set of systems that will push the frontier of AI forward."Taylor worked at Meta from 2009 to 2022, where he most recently served as the company's vice president of infrastructure. He handled AI, data, and privacy infrastructure, as well as managing the company's server budgets, according to his LinkedIn profile. Taylor was also the chair of the Open Compute Project Foundation from 2015 to 2017, an organization that promotes open-source designs in data centers.Microsoft and OpenAI need more robust... Continue reading...

Mark Zuckerberg onstage at Meta Connect 2023. | Getty Images Meta has started licensing the operating system for its Quest headset to other hardware makers, starting with Lenovo and Asus. It's also making a limited-run, gaming-focused Quest with Xbox.On the theme of opening up, Meta is also pushing for more ways to discover alternative app stores. It's making its experimental App Lab store more prominent and even inviting Google to bring the Play Store to its operating system, which is now called Horizon OS. In a blog post, Meta additionally said that it's working on a spatial framework for developers to more easily port their mobile apps to Horizon OS.Crucially for Meta, Horizon OS includes the Horizon social layer, a 3D, Roblox-meets-The Sims open-world platform. After a buggy and sluggish... Continue reading...

Image: Epic Games Finally, you can bury a friend as Billie Eilish. Fortnite has revealed its next major musical collaboration, and it will see Eilish become a playable character starting on April 23rd. You should see her in a Victory Crown.There aren't many details just yet, but the singer will be the featured artist for the next season of Fortnite Festival, the Rock Band-like in-game experience that launched last year. That means you can expect her songs to be playable in that mode and her neon green character skin to appear in the in-game shop (presumably with a Lego variant).Of course, this is far from the first big-name star to be featured in the game. Eilish follows the likes of Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, and Eminem; more recently, Fortnite held its... Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images A new report from Stanford's Internet Observatory said the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline needs to improve its technology if it wants to meet the influx of AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM).The report said CyberTipline, the first defense against CSAM on the internet, already struggles to handle the high volume of calls it receives. According to the center, the tip line received 36.2 million CSAM reports in 2023, a 12 percent increase from 2022.The rise of AI-generated CSAM would only make things worse. The tip line receives reports from online platforms like Facebook and Google through a manual reporting API, but this API doesn't ensure all important fields are filled out. Stanford also... Continue reading...

Photo by Ulrik Pedersen / DeFodi Images via Getty Images It looks like Apple's foray into streaming soccer could be getting even more ambitious. According to a report from The New York Times, Apple is close to a deal with FIFA - the sport's global governing body - for worldwide rights for an expanded version of the Club World Cup that will take place in the US in 2025. The Times says that the deal could be worth upward of $1 billion and that an official announcement could happen sometime this month.If the deal goes through, it would mark Apple's second major broadcast partnership in the sport. In 2022, the company signed a 10-year deal for streaming rights to Major League Soccer, which got a big boost a year later with Lionel Messi's arrival in Miami. The deal with FIFA would be more notable,... Continue reading...