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by Andrew Webster on (#6KG3T)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge From Fortnite to UE5. Continue reading...
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The Verge - All Posts
| Link | https://www.theverge.com/ |
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| Updated | 2024-11-24 13:00 |
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6KG3V)
Photo by Kevin Carter / Getty Images The Biden administration announced new automobile standards aimed at slashing greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2032 while also allowing automakers to meet their targets at a slower pace than originally proposed.The new standards were not as strict as the proposal laid out by the Environmental Protection Agency last year, in which automakers would have been required to reduce emissions by over two-thirds by 2032. Car companies and the autoworkers union opposed the plan, citing recent slower sales growth of electric vehicles and the popularity of some hybrid vehicles as proof that customers were still not ready to make the full switch to fully electric vehicles.The new standards were not as strict as the proposal laid out by the... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6KG3W)
The Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa, PA (pictured) was targeted by a cyber attack last year. | Image: AP Photo / Gene J Puskar The Biden administration is asking states to bolster security for water and wastewater systems, warning that utilities across the country are being targeted by disabling cyberattacks."In a letter sent to all US governors on Tuesday, the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited ongoing threats from hackers linked with Iranian and Chinese governments, warning that similar attacks could disrupt access to clean drinking water and impose significant costs on affected communities."Environmental, Health, and Homeland Security secretaries have been invited to a meeting on March 21st to discuss safeguarding requirements to protect critical water infrastructure against cyber attacks. The EPA is additionally forming a... Continue reading...
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by Verge Staff on (#6KG3X)
Photo courtesy of: Becca Farsace We know how much you'll miss the icy streets, freezing temperatures, and misbehaving radiators that the winter season brings, but spring is right around the corner, which means that while you no longer have to worry about shoveling snow off your driveway, it is time to start thinking about plants - whether it's in your garden or on your windowsill. We asked the staff members of The Verge what they are planning to grow over the coming spring and summer months and how they are planning to care for those flowers, vegetables, and other flora. Here's what they told us about starting new plants and caring for the seedlings - although some are using rather unusual gardening tools.Rare heirloom seedsMia Sato, reporterThere are some fruits,... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6KG3Y)
Image: Beeper Beeper needed a fresh start. Late last year, the company bet big on a hacked-together iMessage app for Android, only to be shut down by Apple within days. Beeper tried to fight back, but it ultimately threw in the towel just weeks later in a widely covered defeat.December was a wild ride," Eric Migicovsky, the co-founder of Beeper, tells The Verge.With dreams of an iMessage app dead, Beeper went back to square one to figure out its next steps. And the answer was to stop fighting Apple and return to its original goal: bringing every chat app - iMessage excepted - into a single place. We've refocused on our primary mission," Migicovsky says, which is to build the best chat app on earth."The new Beeper app launched in beta last week,... Continue reading...
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by Victoria Song on (#6KFY0)
There are a lot of ideas and promise packed into this smart ring, but it's not all the way there yet. Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6KFV8)
Patch 1.6 gives Stardew Valley players masses of new content, including this new Meadowlands" farm biome. | Image: Stardew Valley / @pearblossoms_ Stardew Valley's massive 1.6 update has been out on PC for less than 24 hours, and it's already taken the game's popularity to staggering new heights. The cozy farming simulator hit 146,159 concurrent players on Steam according to SteamDB data, smashing the game's previous record as players flock to enjoy new content - including a new farm, festivals, and pets.Stardew Valley's previous peak of 94,875 concurrent Steam players was achieved back in January 2021, shortly after the 1.5 update was released. By contrast, its new record is higher than any of the concurrent player stats reported for Palworld this week - which is pretty impressive for a near-decade-old indie RPG. Developer Eric Concerned Ape" Barone had teased some of the new... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6KE7V)
Two pro players were forcibly given cheats while livestreaming their finals matches. | Image: Respawn Apex Legends has postponed the North America finals for its Global Series championship over concerns that hackers have compromised the competitive integrity" of the game. Two professional players from major teams were targeted while livestreaming on Sunday by an attack that forcibly applied advantage-granting cheats during competitive gameplay.The cause of these attacks hasn't been officially verified, leading to speculation that the hack may have been delivered via Apex Legends' anti-cheat protections. An exchange posted by a cheat monitoring account on X claims that the attacker found an RCE (or remote code execution) exploit to run their code directly on the players' computers.Two accounts that say they represent Epic Online... Continue reading...
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by Thomas Ricker on (#6KFJH)
The Cowboy Cross in mushroom" with the inverted front suspension fork clearly visible. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge Cowboy - the independent and financially healthy maker of sophisticated and highly advanced e-bikes - just took the wraps off its first all-roader that lets riders more easily escape cobblestoned city streets for greener pastures.To do that, Cowboy's new Cross e-bike features fatter 60mm tires and suspension systems built into the front fork and seat post to soak up bumps along the way. It's also fitted with grippier pedals to avoid foot slips when bouncing around, a large 540Wh removable battery for a 120km (75 miles) max range, and an integrated rear rack to carry more stuff.I spent some time test riding the Cross e-bike on a variety of surfaces, and it's truly a beast in all the best possible ways. To start, the seat suspension is... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6KFGK)
Illustration: The Verge Threads is coming to the fediverse - and we just got our first official look at how that might work from Meta itself. During the FediForum conference on Tuesday, Meta's Peter Cottle showed off a brief demo of how users will eventually be able to connect their accounts and posts to the fediverse. The integration will let users share their posts across different platforms through Threads, letting them reach multiple audiences at once. Meta is just one of the many platforms aiming to join the fediverse, a group of decentralized social networks aiming to become interoperable with one another.As you can see in the video below, which FediForum shared with The Verge, Cottle can navigate to his Threads account settings and toggle on an option... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6KFGM)
Image: OnLeaks / Smartprix Google's Pixel 8A may have a 120Hz display - up from 90Hz in the Pixel 7A - and a brighter screen, according to Kamila Wojciechowska, whose past leaks have included videos of the pre-release Pixel Fold.Google's I/O 2024 conference is set for May 14th, when the company will likely talk a lot about AI again. That's also probably where the company will announce the Pixel 8A.Writing for Android Authority, Wojciechowska says this next entry in the line of budget Pixel phones will feature 1,400 nits of peak brightness, up from the 7A's 1,000 nits, and limited support for DisplayPort output via USB-C. Those may both be improvements over its predecessor, but if this leak is accurate, it won't follow the 7A's lead with a better camera system... Continue reading...
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by Ariel Shapiro on (#6KFE8)
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images This is Hot Pod, The Verge's newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.The common wisdom goes that video is the key to podcast discovery: you take the juiciest clips from your show, hope one goes viral every now and then on TikTok, and then that wider (and younger) audience becomes your new listeners. Uncah jamz is the prime example of this, sending a bunch of new attention to Call Her Daddy. But even podcasters who have cracked the code on TikTok have found the relationship between on-app engagement and actual listening to be weak, at best.That issue may soon be moot. Last week, seemingly out of nowhere, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would force Chinese company ByteDance to sell... Continue reading...
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by Amrita Khalid on (#6KFE9)
Some of the heroes added to Overwatch | Image: Blizzard Overwatch 2 heroes will no longer need to be unlocked through Battle Pass or via purchase, taking some of the grind out of the now free-to-play team FPS. Starting in Season 10, players will be able to unlock all existing and future heroes for free. This will include Venture, the latest hero joining Overwatch's roster next season.New players to the game will still need to complete the first-time user experience. Only when novice players have unlocked the heroes from the first Overwatch roster will all Overwatch 2 heroes then be at their disposal, , as game director Aaron Keller explains in the latest Developer's Update video.Free heroes are a return to form for the game, as that heroes were automatically granted in Overwatch 1. But... Continue reading...
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by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy on (#6KFEA)
Segway's new Navimow i robot lawn mower is now available in the US on Amazon. | Image: Segway Following its launch in Europe earlier this month, Segway's Navimow i series robot lawn mower is now available in the US. As one of the first robotic mowers under $1,000 that can navigate autonomously without a boundary wire, its arrival could be the beginning of the robot lawn mower going mainstream.The Navimow i series has two models: the i105N costs $999 and covers 0.125 acres, and the $1,299 i110N can manage up to 0.25 acres. It uses Segway's Exact Fusion Locating System 2.0, a vision-enhanced real-time kinematic (RTK) GPS system with a camera for outdoor mapping. It can also avoid obstacles and navigate around trees, shrubs, garden borders, and even animals and people as it cuts your lawn.According to the company, the new lawn... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6KF8R)
Image: Getty Microsoft has hired Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman. In a post on X, Suleyman announced that he's joining Microsoft as the CEO of a new team that handles the company's consumer-facing AI products, including Copilot, Bing, and Edge.Suleyman will also serve as executive vice president of Microsoft AI and join the company's senior leadership team that reports directly to CEO Satya Nadella. Suleyman co-founded the AI lab DeepMind in 2010, which was later acquired by Google in 2014.DeepMind has remained a pioneering AI force within Google. However, Suleyman hasn't been part of the division in many years. He was placed on leave in 2019 over controversy surrounding some of the projects he led, according to a report from Bloomberg.... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6KF8S)
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images The US is heading into its first presidential election since generative AI tools have gone mainstream. And the companies offering these tools - like Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft - have each made announcements about how they plan to handle the months leading up to it.This election season, we've already seen AI-generated images in ads and attempts to mislead voters with voice cloning. The potential harms from AI chatbots aren't as visible in the public eye - yet, anyway. But chatbots are known to confidently provide made-up facts, including in responses to good-faith questions about basic voting information. In a high-stakes election, that could be disastrous.One plausible solution is to try to avoid election-related queries altogether.... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6KF8T)
Lego's Dungeons and Dragons set is ready to roll. Tap here to ENHANCE. | Image: Lego Grab your dice and get ready to (literally) assemble your adventuring party next month - Lego has finally unveiled the 3,745-piece Dungeons & Dragons set it co-developed with Wizards of the Coast as the tabletop roleplaying game celebrates its 50th anniversary.The $360 set, called Red Dragon's Tale," was inspired by Lucas Bolt's fan design, Dragon's Keep: Journey's End," and retains many of the same features. There's a tower, a bridge, a tavern with a removable roof, and yes - both a dungeon and a dragon. Image: Lego / Lucas Bolt This is Bolt's original fan design... Image: Lego ...and the official Lego set that's available to buy from April 1st. Image: Lego... Continue reading...
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by Chris Welch on (#6KF8V)
Image: Aleksandar Vaci For years, there's been a dedicated community of tech tinkerers who've built unofficial Macs" out of PC hardware or successfully gotten macOS running on a laptop that ran Windows in a past life. But now, some of those enthusiasts believe the Hackintosh dream is becoming more and more untenable.This blog post by Aleksandar Vaci, highlighted by 9to5Mac, runs through some of the difficulties that seem to be growing by the day. In a nutshell, macOS Sonoma removed support for many drivers that were found in Intel Macs a decade ago. Vaci says these drivers were the key ingredient to many fully functional Hackintosh builds." It's still possible to cobble together a Hackintosh with the Sonoma OS, but you'll have to be comfortable with some... Continue reading...
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by Sean Hollister on (#6KF8W)
Passion. You can feel it, can't you?" begins Bloom, an AI NPC from Ubisoft in collab with InWorld, and Nvidia. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge For the past three months, ever since I spoke to the AI NPCs in Nvidia's cyberpunk ramen shop, I've been wondering: Which game developer will take a flying leap on this controversial and intriguing tech? If you said Ubisoft," the company that's always raising its hand to play with VR, NFTs, interactive TV shows, secondary screens and more, you'd be half right.Last night, I played three prototype segments of an experimental Ubisoft demo featuring the company's just-announced Neo NPCs" - one of whom tried to convince me to join the resistance against powerful megacorps by playing on my emotions. Another walked me through an infiltration plan on a whiteboard, letting me convince" her that we should knock out the lights or hack the... Continue reading...
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6KF8X)
Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images The speed in which automakers will have to phase out their gas-powered vehicles in favor of ones that are all-electric will be determined Wednesday, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to release its new vehicle emissions rules.Environmental groups are hoping for a sped-up timeline that will put the country on the path to an all-electric fleet by the early part of next decade, while automakers are pushing for a slower adoption that allows the industry to meet consumers' needs.First announced in April 2023, the EPA's original proposal would have resulted in battery-electric vehicles accounting for 37 percent by 2027, 60 percent by 2030, and 67 percent by 2032 - a dramatic increase over the current EV sales... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6KF8Y)
All of Disney Plus' Star Wars spinoff series have been focused on Jedi and other heroes aligned with the light side of the Force. But the first trailer for The Acolyte from executive producer Leslye Headland is a reminder that, in order for there to be true balance, sometimes darkness has to win.Set in Star Wars' High Republic era long before the events of The Phantom Menace, The Acolyte will tell the story of how a revered Jedi Master's (Lee Jung-jae) investigation into a string of grisly murders brings him face-to-face with a lethal warrior (Amandla Stenberg) from his past. Stenberg's character definitely seems like they might be the murderer in question as they pull knives on yet another Jedi (Carrie-Anne Moss) in a canteen on what... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6KF50)
The Covert Protocol demo shows how AI is being used to create unique NPC interactions. | Image: Nvidia Nvidia is showing off how developers have started using its AI digital human" tools to voice, animate, and generate dialogue for video game characters. At the Game Developers Conference on Monday, the company released a clip of Covert Protocol, a playable tech demo that showcases how its AI tools can allow NPCs to respond in unique ways to player interactions, generating new responses that fit the live gameplay.In the demo, players take on the role of a private detective, completing objectives based on conversations with AI-powered NPCs. Nvidia claims that each playthrough is unique," with players' real-time interactions leading to different game outcomes. John Spitzer, Nvidia's vice president of developer and performance... Continue reading...
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by David Pierce on (#6KF51)
Illustration: The Verge There are few bigger jobs at Google than being the person who runs Search. As of today, there's a new person in that seat: Liz Reid, who has been at Google for more than 20 years and has most recently been leading the company's efforts with AI search, known as Search Generative Experience (SGE).Reid's promotion is part of a bigger change within Google's Search team. Pandu Nayak, a longtime executive overseeing ranking and quality, is now going to be chief scientist of Search. He'll be replaced by Cheenu Venkatachary, who has also been working on AI products in Search. Meanwhile, Cathy Edwards, who led a lot of the work on Google News and Google Discover, is taking a job on Google's long-term bets team.In some ways this is just a lot of... Continue reading...
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by Elizabeth Lopatto on (#6KF52)
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Assets from Turbosquid Pitchfork exploded as the music industry changed, then was cut down to size by another wave of technological change.Was that it? Continue reading...
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by David Pierce on (#6KF1K)
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Delivery apps seem like a good idea, and it's obvious why they're handy to have around. It's also often unclear whether delivery apps actually work for anyone involved. They make your stuff more expensive, often in hard-to-see ways. They take huge fees from restaurants that need it to survive. Drivers don't get the pay or benefits they should. And in many cases, even the apps themselves don't make any money! What are we doing here?Into that messy equation comes a man named Tony Delivers. Tony Illes has become something of a folk hero in the Seattle area by advertising a much simpler and more human strategy. With a bunch of simple signs and a $5 delivery fee, he's starting something of a delivery revolution from the seat of his bike.O... Continue reading...
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by Sheena Vasani on (#6KF1M)
All three chargers deliver up to 15 watts of power to compatible iPhones. | Image: Nathan Edwards / The Verge Few things test my patience more than waiting for my phone to charge when I'm in a rush, which is why Qi2 chargers are a godsend. They deliver fast, certified MagSafe charger speeds without the price tag, and right now, many of Anker's new, Qi2 certified versions are down to all-time lows. Amazon's selling the new version of our favorite MagSafe-compatible battery pack, the Anker MagGo Power Bank, for $47.99 ($22 off). That's just $8 more than its predecessor and a discount you can also find at Anker with code WSTDMXPG8FSD. Amazon is also selling the MagGo Wireless Charging Station (Foldable 3-in-1) for $82.49 ($28 off) and the 8-in-1 MagGo Orb for $69.99 ($30 off). Anker's matching prices as well, though you'll have to apply the code W... Continue reading...
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by Jon Porter on (#6KF1N)
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta says it's offered to reduce the price of its ad-free subscription for Instagram and Facebook in Europe to address regulatory concerns, Reuters reports. Speaking in a hearing with the European Commission, Meta lawyer Tim Lamb said the company has offered to drop the price from 9.99 to 5.99 for a single account and 4 for any additional accounts" in its discussion with privacy regulators in an attempt to get to a steady state."Lamb said 5.99 is by far the lowest end of the range that any reasonable person should be paying for services of this quality" and hoped that the regulatory uncertainty" will settle down quickly." It reportedly made the offer to cut its prices to data protection authorities earlier this year.The... Continue reading...
by Georgina Torbet on (#6KEZF)
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images The old fear has come back.' Continue reading...
by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy on (#6KEN7)
The Verified Product Security Mark is a new labeling program from the CSA designed to help users easily identify what cybersecurity protections an IoT device has in place. | Image: CSA As useful as connected devices like video doorbells and smart lights are, it's wise to exercise caution when using connected tech in your home, especially after years of reading about security camera hacks, fridge botnet attacks, and smart stoves turning themselves on. But until now, there hasn't been an easy way to assess a product's security chops. A new program from the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), the group behind the smart home standard Matter, wants to fix that.Announced this week, the CSA's IoT Device Security Specification is a baseline cybersecurity standard and certification program that aims to provide a single, globally recognized security certification for consumer IoT devices.Device makers who adhere to the s... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6KEN8)
Image: The Verge Today, Steam launched Steam Families, an overhaul of its family sharing system. The new system gets rid of limits on how many people can play games from one library, makes buying games for your kids easier, and adds new parental controls and sharing options.Before, you needed to use two different systems - Family Sharing and Family View - if you wanted to share your library but limit which games your kids could play. Also under the old approach, only one person at a time could play a game from another's library. Now - to use Steam's example - if you're playing your copy of Portal 2 and someone else wants to play Half-Life from your library, that's fine. They'll only be booted if you start up Portal 2 while they're playing it from your... Continue reading...
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by Sean Hollister on (#6KEKJ)
The Blackwell B200 GPU. | Image: Nvidia Nvidia's must-have H100 AI chip made it a multitrillion-dollar company, one that may be worth more than Alphabet and Amazon, and competitors have been fighting to catch up. But perhaps Nvidia is about to extend its lead - with the new Blackwell B200 GPU and GB200 superchip." Image: Nvidia Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang holds up his new GPU on the left, next to an H100 on the right, from the GTC livestream. Nvidia says the new B200 GPU offers up to 20 petaflops of FP4 horsepower from its 208 billion transistors. Also, it says, a GB200 that combines two of those GPUs with a single Grace CPU can offer 30 times the performance for LLM inference workloads while also potentially being substantially more efficient. It... Continue reading...
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by Nilay Patel on (#6KEGQ)
Photo by Rick Kern / Getty Images for Vox Media Cyberpunk design has been all the rage for several years now - this very website was once awash in neon colors and hard edges, you might recall - but Figma CEO Dylan Field says he sees glimmers of optimism taking over.
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The Supreme Court is skeptical of restricting the White House from talking to social media platforms
by Lauren Feiner on (#6KEGR)
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos via Getty Images During oral arguments on Monday, both liberal and conservative justices on the Supreme Court appeared wary of imposing broad limits on how the government can communicate with social media companies about problematic content it thinks should be removed.The case at issue is called Murthy v. Missouri, and it asks the court to determine whether the Biden administration's communications with platforms coerced the companies to take down content, like misinformation about covid vaccines, thereby violating the First Amendment. It also asks the court to consider whether the government's encouragement to take down such posts actually transformed the platforms themselves into state actors.But several justices seemed skeptical of the arguments... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6KEGS)
Photo by Chris Unger / Zuffa LLC via Getty Images YouTuber MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) has struck a deal with Prime Video to host a new reality competition series called Beast Games. The show will have 1,000 contestants competing for a $5 million reward, which the press release claims is the biggest single prize in the history of television and streaming." There aren't any details yet about what kinds of challenges Beast Games contestants will participate in.It's a remarkable turn of events, even for someone who's hosted many similar competitions on his YouTube channel, like recent ones where people from every country competed for $250,000 or a group of people from ages 1 to 100 went head-to-head for $500,000.In 2021, Donaldson made a Squid Game in real life video for his YouTube... Continue reading...
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by Ash Parrish on (#6KEE1)
A group of gamers has mobilized a harassment campaign against a story consultant company, marginalized developers, and journalists in protest of what they see as forced' diversity in gaming. Continue reading...
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by Quentyn Kennemer on (#6KEE2)
There aren't many smartphones that can do what the Pixel 8 does at this price. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you're in need of a solid smartphone upgrade without the bill creeping into mortgage territory, there aren't many better options than the Google Pixel 8. When you can get one for under $500? Even better. The 128GB unlocked model is down to $499 ($200 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store. That's $50 cheaper than the price we saw during Black Friday last year. The 256GB model is also $200 off at those retailers, bringing it down to $559.99. Both are down to the lowest prices we've seen so far.The Pixel 8 is really solid, especially if you're not interested in the gimmicky extras that can bloat the user experience on other devices. Google has optimized the software specifically for its custom Tensor G3 chipset, which offers... Continue reading...
by Tom Warren on (#6KEE3)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Microsoft is holding an AI event in the morning on Monday, May 20th - right before Build 2024 starts. In an invite emailed to media, Microsoft says CEO Satya Nadella will talk about the company's AI vision across hardware and software."The event won't be livestreamed and will only be open to journalists who attend the event in person. Microsoft's special event will focus on upcoming Surface hardware and changes to Windows that are all focused on AI. While the software giant is holding a business-focused Surface event later this week, sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell The Verge that the May 20th event will include the consumer versions of the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6.These consumer Surface devices will run on... Continue reading...
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by Gaby Del Valle on (#6KEAW)
Photo by John Moore/Getty Images The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is rolling out three $5 million AI pilot programs across three of its agencies, The New York Times reports. Through partnership with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta, DHS will test out AI models to help its agents with a wide array of tasks, including investigating child sex abuse materials, training immigration officials, and creating disaster relief plans.As part of the AI pilot, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will use generative AI to streamline the hazard mitigation planning process for local governments. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) - the agency within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that investigates child exploitation, human trafficking, and drug smuggling -... Continue reading...
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by Mia Sato on (#6KEAX)
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge TikTok is leaning in even more to its app being used like a search engine.Creators making money on the platform will now be paid based in part on how well their content meets what other users are searching for. TikTok calls this metric search value," and it's one of four core elements in determining creator payouts. TikTok announced the change as part of its new monetization program, called Creator Rewards.This metric is the TikTok version of search engine optimization (SEO). One tactic in SEO is keyword research, where publishers make content that aligns with what searchers (the vast majority of whom are using Google) are looking up. On TikTok, search value is whether a creator is posting content that is about topics users are... Continue reading...
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by Mia Sato on (#6KEAY)
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Today, YouTube announced a way for creators to self-label when their videos contain AI-generated or synthetic material.The checkbox appears in the uploading and posting process, and creators are required to disclose altered or synthetic" content that seems realistic. That includes things like making a real person say or do something they didn't; altering footage of real events and places; or showing a realistic-looking scene" that didn't actually happen. Some examples YouTube offers are showing a fake tornado moving toward a real town or using deepfake voices to have a real person narrate a video.On the other hand, disclosures won't be required for things like beauty filters, special effects like background blur, and clearly... Continue reading...
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6KEAZ)
Rivian owners will be able to charge their electric trucks and SUVs at Tesla Supercharger stations starting today at 9AM PT / 12 PM ET, the company tells The Verge. The news comes after several Rivian owners noticed a software update allowing Supercharger access over the weekend.Rivian was one of the first automakers to announce plans to adopt Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) for its future EVs. For current owners, Rivian will send out a Tesla-made adapter free of charge, much like Ford started doing last month.The adapter will allow Rivian owners to connect Tesla's charging plug into their vehicles' portThe adapter will allow Rivian owners to connect Tesla's charging plug into their vehicles' port. The company's... Continue reading...
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by David Nield on (#6KEB0)
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Some days away from the home or office can seem like a constant battle against battery life: your phone is dying, your laptop is dying, and your smartwatch is dying. Despite all of the advances we've seen in tech in recent years, battery life doesn't seem to be getting much beyond the standard 24 hours of use for a lot of devices.Limited by the physical restrictions of their hardware, manufacturers are putting battery-saving tweaks into software instead, like the Low Power Mode you'll find on the Apple Watch and the iPhone. These settings can actually make a difference, and they're available on Wear OS, too.In Victoria Song's Pixel Watch 2 review last year, she mentioned being impressed by the improved battery life compared to the... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6KE7S)
Things started getting tense about halfway into the interview. | Image: Don Lemon Show Don Lemon has published the tense" interview with Elon Musk that got his show canceled on X. During the interview, Lemon touches on various topics related to hate speech on X and Musk's own views on right-wing conspiracy theories, with the billionaire becoming noticeably irritated by the interview's end.Things start to take a turn about halfway into the interview. Lemon asks Musk about his comments on illegal immigration and the far-right great replacement theory" and then turns to the topic of content moderation. Lemon asks whether better content moderation on X would let Musk avoid some of the criticism of his posts about the great replacement theory.I don't have to answer questions from reporters," Musk responds. Don, the only... Continue reading...
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by Sean Hollister on (#6KE7T)
The former CEO of Cyanogen has a plan for a platform-agnostic gaming operating system. Continue reading...
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by Nilay Patel on (#6KE7W)
Photo by Rick Kern / Getty Images for Vox Media The leader of design toolmaker Figma on life after the failed Adobe deal and what comes next in a live interview from SXSW. Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6KE7X)
The new Text to Texture" feature is now available in the Adobe Substance 3D Sampler 4.4 beta. | Image: Adobe While many developers are working out how generative AI could be used to produce entire 3D objects from scratch, Adobe is already using its Firefly AI model to streamline existing 3D workflows. At the Game Developers Conference on Monday, Adobe debuted two new integrations for its Substance 3D design software suite that allow 3D artists to quickly produce creative assets for their projects using text descriptions.The first is a Text to Texture" feature for Substance 3D Sampler that Adobe says can generate photorealistic or stylized textures" from prompt descriptions, such as scaled skin or woven fabric. These textures can then be applied directly to 3D models, sparing designers from needing to find appropriate reference materials.T... Continue reading...
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by Jon Porter on (#6KE2Y)
Sony's PlayStation VR2. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge After producing in excess of two million units of its latest virtual reality headset, Bloomberg is reporting that Sony is hitting pause on production to try and shift its unsold inventory. The PlayStation VR2 launched last February for $549 as an accessory for the PlayStation 5, but IDC data suggests that shipments have declined each quarter since.Bloomberg suggests that the problem is a lack of content for the headset. The PSVR2 is compatible with a handful of AAA games including Horizon Call of the Mountain, Gran Turismo 7, and entries in the Resident Evil series, as well as a range of smaller titles. But, at $549, the headset costs more than the PS5 itself, so expectations are high. Bloomberg notes that Meta and Apple have faced... Continue reading...
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by Jon Porter on (#6KE1G)
Last year's iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is reportedly in active negotiations" with Google to bring its Gemini generative AI technology to the iPhone, Bloomberg reports, and has also considered using OpenAI's ChatGPT.CEO Tim Cook has already confirmed that Apple is spending a tremendous amount of time and effort" on artificial intelligence features, and plans to release them to its customers later this year." Bloomberg's report suggests that the AI features built into Apple's products could eventually be powered by a mix of first- and third-party AI models. Apple's models could power on-device generative AI with iOS 18, releasing later this year, while cloud-based AI features like text- and image-generation could come via partnerships with the likes of Google.If a... Continue reading...
by Allison Johnson on (#6KDZY)
Is it upper midrange? Is it lesser high-end? Hard to say. | Image: Qualcomm Qualcomm just launched a new chipset that's designed to sit just below its current flagship in terms of capabilities and price. The Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 aims to bring most of the 8 Gen 3's features - including support for on-device generative AI models - to more affordable phones. It represents a new tier for the top-of-the-line 8-series chips, and it's also a little bit confusing.Before we get into all that, let's start with the straightforward stuff: the 8S Gen 3 includes a GPU similar to the standard 8 Gen 3, though it has one less performance core and runs at a lower frequency - the prime core runs at up to 3.0GHz versus 3.4GHz on the 8 Gen 3. The new 8S Gen 3 also uses a previous-gen modem, the X70 5G, which includes Wi-Fi 7... Continue reading...
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by Emilia David on (#6KDW2)
Image: The Verge On March 11th, Elon Musk said xAI would open source its AI chatbot Grok, and now an open release is available on GitHub. This will allow researchers and developers to build on the model and impact how xAI updates Grok in the future as it competes with rival tech from OpenAI, Meta, Google, and others.A company blog post explains that this open release includes the base model weights and network architecture" of the 314 billion parameter Mixture-of-Experts model, Grok-1." It goes on to say the model is from a checkpoint last October and hasn't undergone fine-tuning for any specific application, such as dialogue."As VentureBeat notes, it's being released under the Apache 2.0 license that enables commercial use but doesn't include the... Continue reading...
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