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Image: Embark Studios The Finals, a first-person arena shooter, is moving into its second season later this week that introduces a new 5v5 game mode, more weapons, new abilities, and even private matches. It's a big update to a popular game that's centered on a destructible environment.Power Shift, the new 5v5 game mode, is perhaps the biggest change, which sees two teams of players fighting it out to control a platform (very King of the Hill) to score points. The platform itself will tear through the environment and can be rocked by objects and abilities. In this mode, players can even switch between light, medium, and heavy builds to better compete against the enemy team. Image: Embark Studios The new 5v5 game mode in The Finals.... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber is bringing its all-electric luxury rideshare service to its biggest market yet: New York City. The launch will coincide with the rollout of new product features aimed at steering its customers toward greener choices when using Uber.Uber first launched its Comfort Electric service, in which customers can hail trips in premium priced EVs like Tesla, Polestar, and Ford Mustang Mach-E, in May 2022. And since then, the service has rolled out in 41 cities, the latest now being New York.The reason Uber hadn't launched its upscale EV service in the Big Apple before today was that the city imposed a cap on the number of EV ridehail licenses handed out by the Taxi and Limousine Commission. But that cap has now been lifted, essentially... Continue reading...

Photo illustration: The Verge Today, I'm talking to Kyle Chayka, a staff writer for The New Yorker, a regular contributor to The Verge, and author of the new book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture. Kyle has been writing for years now about how the culture of big social media platforms bleeds into real life, first affecting how things look, and now shaping how and what culture is created and the mechanisms by which that culture spreads all around the world.Kyle wrote a fantastic feature for The Verge back in 2016 called Welcome to AirSpace," which was an early exploration of this idea. At the time, he noted that the aesthetics of physical spaces, like coffee shops and co-working offices, were being heavily influenced by Airbnb and Instagram, flattening... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge The self-styled front page of the internet' has unplugged third-party apps, spurned defiant mods, and struck AI partnerships in a bid to go public. Continue reading...

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images Like many of the movies up for Oscars, this year's Academy Awards ran longer than most viewers probably considered reasonable. But lengthy as the ceremony was, it was marked by enough surprises to make it one one hell of a watch.Though host Jimmy Kimmel made sure to get a few good jabs in at most of the filmmakers up for Oscars, few of the stars seemed all that phased as they took to the stage to deliver acceptance speeches that spoke to how stiff this year's competition was. Da'Vine Joy Randolph kicked off the night winning Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in The Holdovers - which was up for five awards total. And while Hayao Miyazaki wasn't there to accept his award, The Boy and the Heron took home an Oscar for... Continue reading...

Image: Universal Pictures The Super Mario Bros. Movie was a huge hit for Nintendo, raking in over $1 billion at the box office, so producing a follow-up movie was an easy decision to make. In a new video, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto and Illumination Entertainment's Chris Meledandri shared that the next movie is in development, with a release date set for April 3rd, 2026.Meledandri says Illumination Studios Paris, which worked on the first film, is storyboarding the movie under the direction, once again, of Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic. He added that animation is starting soon. And after the movie's April 3rd release in the US and many other markets globally," it will come to select territories" throughout the rest of the month.Miyamoto says that the... Continue reading...

Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images Some of Hollywood's biggest stars will gather in the Dolby Theatre tonight for the 96th annual Academy Awards. It's a sign things are starting to get back to normal following last year's monthslong writers and actors strikes.In between the award announcements, we'll also get to see performances from several artists - including Ryan Gosling. If you want to see what this year's ceremony has to offer, and also find out which film takes away the most Oscars, here's what you need to know about tuning in.When do the Oscars start?The Oscars kick off on Sunday, March 10th, 2024, and will air from 7PM ET / 4PM PT to 10PM ET / 7PM PT.Where can I watch the Oscars?If you have cable or satellite, you can watch the Academy Awards on your local... Continue reading...

Image: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 29, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, I promise I don't always complain about music streaming, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been plowing through Shgun and watching Ricky Stanicky, catching up on all the Oscar-nominated documentaries, reading about the rivalry between Steve Jobs and Adam Osborne and the scary potential of solar storms, watching the story of the US's nuclear bunkers, staring at the thoroughly fun and weird MacPad that Federico Viticci made, and playing a whole bunch of the new New York Times word game, Strands.I also have for you a cheap new smartphone, a cheap(er)... Continue reading...

The Verge Around 600 workers in Activision Publishing's quality assurance department have formed a union. Assisted by the Communications Workers of America, the employees completed their vote with the results certified on Friday, March 8th. With that, Activision Quality Assurance United - CWA becomes the latest union to arise out of Microsoft's gaming division and the largest video game union in the United States.In 2022, Microsoft affirmed a labor neutrality agreement with the CWA which eases the organization process at the company and its subsidiaries including Activision Blizzard.In an interview with The Verge, Tom Shelley, a technical requirements specialist and one of Activision Quality Assurance United's organizers, said the labor... Continue reading...

Sam Altman. An independent investigation commissioned by OpenAI's nonprofit board has found that CEO Sam Altman's conduct did not mandate removal." After surviving an attempted boardroom coup in November, he will now rejoin the board.In a press release, board chair Bret Taylor said the law firm WilmerHale interviewed board members, employees, and reviewed more than 30,000 documents" to reach the conclusion that Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman are the right leaders for OpenAI."In addition to Altman, Taylor also announced three more OpenAI board members: Sue Desmond-Hellmann, the former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Nicole Seligman, a former legal executive at Sony; and Fidji Simo, the CEO of Instacart. They will join Taylor,... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google has fired an employee who publicly protested the company's work for the Israeli military. During a presentation by an executive with Google's Israel branch on Monday, the now-former Google Cloud engineer stood up and shouted, I refuse to build technology that powers genocide or surveillance."Google confirmed the firing, which was first reported by CNBC, in an email to The Verge. Earlier this week, an employee disrupted a coworker who was giving a presentation - interfering with an official company-sponsored event," Google spokesperson Bailey Tomson says in an emailed statement. This behavior is not okay, regardless of the issue, and the employee was terminated for violating our policies."

Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge Two Florida middle schoolers were arrested in December and charged with third-degree felonies for allegedly creating deepfake nudes of their classmates. A report by Wired cites police reports saying two boys, aged 13 and 14, are accused of using an unnamed artificial intelligence application" to generate the explicit images of other students between the ages of 12 and 13." The incident may be the first US instance of criminal charges related to AI-generated nude images.They were charged with third-degree felonies under a 2022 Florida law that criminalizes the dissemination of deepfake sexually explicit images without the victim's consent. Both the arrests and the charges appear to be the first of their kind in the nation related to... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge One of the more frustrating aspects of TikTok used to be the difficulty in finding a video that you really liked and wanted to see again but had accidentally swiped past or watched a day or two ago. Previously, there was a long, complex series of steps you had to follow to find out your watch history on TikTok - making it hardly worth the effort. Now, however, you can easily find your watch history - and, if you want, erase it. All you have to do is:

The HomePod Mini isn't for everyone, but it's still a solid choice for Apple users. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge With most of the Apple news this week revolving around the new M3 MacBook Air and Apple's ongoing app store kerfuffles in the EU, it's not surprising that Best Buy's current promos on the HomePod Mini and second-gen HomePod have slipped under the radar. That's a shame, however, given the smart speakers are on sale for $79.99 ($20 off) and $269.99 ($30 off), respectively, which doesn't happen often.If you're deciding between Apple's latest Siri-based smart speakers, there are a few things to consider. The latest HomePod is essentially a rehash of the original model from 2018, only this time, it comes with support for spatial audio, the new Matter standard, and temperature and humidity sensing. The pint-size HomePod Mini, meanwhile,... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Amazon's Drop In feature has become a useful tool for contacting people in your household, finding out what your kids are up to (especially when they're being too quiet), and checking in on elderly relatives. It allows you to literally drop in" using an Alexa-capable device, either just via audio or with audio and video. But since you don't want anyone dropping in on you unwanted, it's a good idea to understand how to set it up and how to use it.Set up your device for Drop InIn order to allow somebody to drop in on an Echo or Fire device (or any Alexa-capable device that allows you to make calls), first you have to enable the Drop In feature on that specific unit.

Image: Abigail Bassett / The Verge The R2 won't go on sale until 2026, but this smaller electric SUV is a crucial product for the young company. Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Epic Games will be able to open its iOS app store in the European Union after all. The game publisher had its developer license revoked by Apple earlier this week, but Epic Games now says that Apple has reversed its decision following an inquiry from the European Commission.In an update on its website, Epic Games says Apple has committed to the European Commission that they will reinstate our developer account." The company is now moving forward as planned to launch the Epic Games Store and bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe."Apple confirmed the decision in an email to The Verge. Following conversations with Epic, they have committed to follow the rules, including our [Digital Markets Act] policies," said Apple spokesperson Fred... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix It took three years, two terabytes, and over 100 hours of cutscenes to preserve Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia. Continue reading...

Image: MSI The MSI Claw has officially arrived, as the base model of MSI's Core Ultra-powered handheld gaming machine is now available from MSI's website for $699.There are two other higher-specced models, too, but they're listed as coming on March 12th. Here's how the three models stack up:

Getty Images for Rivian In a packed theater in Laguna Beach on Thursday morning, Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe opened his presentation to resounding whoops from the audience, well before the company unveiled its three buzzy new vehicles, the Rivian R2, R3, and R3X.While it's not uncommon to pack a room with fans for a vehicle launch, it is unusual for the CEO of a car company outside of Elon Musk to get the kind of response that Scaringe did. For a vehicle unveiling to feel upbeat and exciting without feeling cringe is even rarer. Getty Images for Rivian Every decision we've made, the products, the strategy, what we're building, how we go about building our business, the way we structure our teams, the way we think about our... Continue reading...

Image: Rivian Less than 24 hours since its launch, the Rivian R2 is already proving to be quite popular. The company's CEO, RJ Scaringe, said it's already taken in more than 68,000 reservations" for the $45,000 midsize electric SUV.We are thrilled to see this vehicle resonate so strongly with our community!" Scaringe said in a post on X.Rivian unveiled the R2, as well as the more compact R3 and R3X, at an event in Laguna Beach, California, on Thursday. The new EVs are meant to be more affordable than the company's current lineup, currently made up of the R1T truck and R1S, each of which sells for over $70,000.To be sure, the bar for reserving an R2 is quite lowTo be sure, the bar for reserving an R2 is quite low. The deposit is only $100 and... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft revealed earlier this year that Russian state-sponsored hackers had been spying on the email accounts of some members of its senior leadership team. Now, Microsoft is disclosing that the attack, from the same group behind the SolarWinds attack, has also led to some source code being stolen in what Microsoft describes as an ongoing attack.In recent weeks, we have seen evidence that Midnight Blizzard [Nobelium] is using information initially exfiltrated from our corporate email systems to gain, or attempt to gain, unauthorized access," explains Microsoft in a blog post. This has included access to some of the company's source code repositories and internal systems. To date we have found no evidence that Microsoft-hosted... Continue reading...

Some developers have already taken down their Wordle clones to avoid a legal battle with The New York Times. | Photo by Mike Kemp / In Pictures via Getty Images Hundreds of games inspired by Wordle, the popular web-based word puzzle, are at risk of being deleted due to copyright takedowns issued by The New York Times. As reported by 404 Media, The New York Times - which purchased Wordle back in 2022 - has filed several DMCA notices over Wordle clones created by GitHub coders, citing its ownership over the Wordle name and copyrighted gameplay including 5x6 tile layout and gray, yellow, and green color scheme.Two takedown requests were issued in January against unofficial Korean and Bosnian-language versions of the game. Additional requests were filed this week against Wirdle - a variant created by dialect group I Hear Dee in 2022 to promote the Shaetlan language - and Reactle, an open-source W... Continue reading...

Image: Epic Games Fortnite is going even more old school for its next season. Epic just launched Chapter 5: Season 2 of the battle royale game, dubbed Myths & Mortals," and it's all about Greek mythology. That means playing as Greek gods, fighting across Mount Olympus, and wielding Zeus' thunderbolt. The launch was preceded by a clever in-game event involving Pandora's box.First up, the new locations. A number of mythological locales have been added to the map, including Mount Olympus and the underworld, which, naturally, is guarded by Cerberus. To go along with this are a number of power-ups and items to collect, including the Wings of Icarus so you can fly, Zeus' bolts which let you rise into the air and hurl lightning bolts at your target," and a... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images, Nathan Howard / Stringer President Joe Biden is set to deliver his third State of the Union address on Thursday as he hurdles toward a likely rematch with former President Donald Trump in November.Biden will deliver the speech at the US Capitol at 9PM ET.This year's address comes just a couple of days after Super Tuesday, where Biden and Trump each dominated primary ballots across multiple states. That brings them one step closer to entering the official general election campaigning stage.We'll be watching for what Biden has to say that could shape the tech policy issues at the forefront of both the presidential campaign and the next few legislative months. The White House has made the safe deployment of artificial intelligence a priority in the past year... Continue reading...

Stephen Dubner speaking at On Air Fest | Alexa Hoyer This is an excerpt of an interview that took place at On Air Fest on March 1st between Freakonomics Radio host Stephen Dubner and Hot Pod reporter Ariel Shapiro. The conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.Alright so, you know podcasting. You know economics. What do you make of this moment in the podcasting industry?It really depends on what angle you're coming at it from. The short version is that there was probably a little bit too much panic, because of the combination of the recession that never quite happened, and then the big iOS adjustment and how it's playing out in reality and in perception. Additionally, from the platform side, there was just massive, massive acquisition, acquisition, acquisition,... Continue reading...

Rivian took a page from Steve Jobs and had one more thing" to show off during its R2 reveal event in California today. And it was a stunner.The Rivian R3 is a slightly shorter, sportier-looking electric SUV than the R2, and it will come in a performance variant badged as R3X. Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said the R3 takes the package of R2 platform [and] shrinks it."The R3 is designed with even tighter dimensions-and at a lower price point-than R2," the company said - though it didn't immediately release the price of the R3. Reservations for the R3 will start at a later date.The R3 and R3X have sloping rear ends compared to the boxier R2. And like the R2, it will come in two battery sizes, both with over 300 miles of range... Continue reading...

Image: Blizzard Overwatch 2 has had a few collaborations since its launch. First there was the One Punch Man collaboration with the big-fisted hero Doomfist getting the highly appropriate Saitama skin. The next crossover was for the K-pop fans, with Overwatch's prominent female heroes getting skins from the girl group Le Sserafim. But this latest collaboration, in my not so humble opinion, is the one best yet. 3... 2... 1... Let's Jam.On March 12th, Overwatch 2 is bringing Cowboy Bebop to the game, and you'll be able to unlock skins for the Bebop crew: Spike Spiegel as Cassidy, Faye Valentine as Ashe, Jet Black as Mauga, Ed as Sombra, while the adorable corgi Ein gets a Wreckingball skin. The detail that went into these legendary skins is blowing my... Continue reading...