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Illustration: The Verge The owner of Tumblr and WordPress.com is in talks with AI companies Midjourney and OpenAI to provide training data scraped from users' posts, a report from 404 Media alleges. The report, based on an anonymous source inside the company, says that deals between Automattic and the two AI companies are imminent." It follows nebulous rumors that have spread on Tumblr over the past week, suggesting a deal with Midjourney could provide a new revenue stream for the site.According to 404's report, Automattic plans to launch a new setting Wednesday that will allow users to opt-out of data sharing with third parties, including AI companies." But it cites internal posts that suggest the company scraped an initial data dump" containing all... Continue reading...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Apple has halted its long-rumored Project Titan" work on developing an electric car, according to Bloomberg. The company reportedly announced the news internally on Tuesday and said many people in the 2,000-person team behind the car will shift to generative AI efforts instead.Apple's chief operating officer Jeff Williams and Kevin Lynch, a vice president in charge of the project, informed employees of the project's discontinuation, Bloomberg reports. The outlet adds that there will also be layoffs, but it's not clear how many workers it will affect.Apple's efforts to build its own electric car have been rumored for years, and recent reports suggested Apple was still working on the project. Earlier this month, Wired reported that A... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge This is Hot Pod, The Verge's newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.Hello! I am very excited to see so many of you at Hot Pod Summit and On Air Fest this week. I'll be back on Tuesday with a recap of the events. But first, I've got a look at the layoffs at WAMU, the IAB's new podcast guidelines, and the ticking clock on union contract negotiations at Spotify.WAMU shuts down DCist and lays off 15 staffersAnother NPR member station has conducted layoffs, this time at WAMU in Washington, DC. While some public radio organizations have addressed budget shortfalls by cutting podcasts (NPR, WNYC), WAMU is leaving its audio operation intact as it lays off 15 staffers and shuts down DCist, the local news... Continue reading...

The company's most recent new product was the Move 2 portable speaker. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Sonos plans to release its first pair of wireless headphones in June after dealing with some late-stage software setbacks, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The headphones will tie into the company's ecosystem of speakers and home theater soundbars and are expected to be priced at $449, putting them firmly in the premium market of mainstream consumer headphones.There's a lot riding on these upcoming headphones for Sonos. CEO Patrick Spence has made it clear that the company has high hopes for its latest hardware category. This is the beginning of a multi-year product cycle where we expect to reap the rewards of our R&D investments," Spence said on an earnings call in November. This cycle begins with our entry into a new... Continue reading...

Life beyond a phone screen? Or just a neat gadget? Look, I'm a Humane AI Pin doubter as much as the next person. And I still think the wearable, AI-powered assistant suffers from a case of this-thing-could-have-been-an-app. But I finally got to spend a little face-to-face time with the pin this morning, and you know what? It's a darn cool gadget. It's just buried under a layer of marketing so thick that it's hard to appreciate what it actually could be if Humane wasn't so self-serious.If you spend time on Tech Threads or the like, you probably already know what the pin does: you clip it to your shirt, talk to it, and it uses generative AI to answer. It's a standalone device with its own SIM card, and there's no screen - just vibes. That, and a little laser that projects menus and text... Continue reading...

The PlayStation 5 version of Persona 5 Tactica is down to just $29.99. | Image: Atlus Spring may be just around the corner, but it's still cold and rainy in many parts of the US. If you're looking for ways to keep yourself entertained while indoors, GameStop is currently taking up to 50 percent off select titles as a part of its "OMG" sale. The ongoing promotion includes steep 50 percent discounts on newer hits like Persona 5 Tactica for the PlayStation 5 ($29.99) and Sonic Superstars ($29.99) for the PS4. The deluxe edition of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which comes with a handful of in-game items, is also on sale for the PS5 for $44.99 (half off).While the best deals are on new PlayStation games, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch players can also get in on the savings. Modern classics like Octopath Traveler II ($29.99... Continue reading...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the company behind Pornhub for not complying with state-level age verification rules. The suit, filed in Travis County District Court against Pornhub parent Aylo, accuses Aylo of failing to implement reasonable age verification methods" on Pornhub and other adult sites that it owns. It seeks millions of dollars in damages under a law that was initially blocked as unconstitutional, then allowed to take effect last year.Texas is one of numerous states that have pushed for stricter age verification on either pornographic sites specifically or large parts of the internet as a whole. Its version of the law, HB 1181, requires that pornographic sites use either their own methods or a third-party... Continue reading...

Image: Lego The transformation of Fortnite into a gaming platform continues with the addition of some new games from Lego. Following the release of the Minecraft-like survival game Lego Fortnite in December, Lego has launched two more titles inside of Fortnite. One is a multiplayer title called Lego Raft Survival; the other is an obstacle course called Lego Obby Fun. Both games were built with the Unreal Editor for Fortnite tool.The launches come as Epic is attempting to expand Fortnite beyond its battle royale roots, with a series of different experiences inside of the game. Lego Fortnite's launch was quickly followed by the arcade racer Rocket Racing and the music game Fortnite Festival.Epic and Lego first announced their partnership in 2022,... Continue reading...

Image: Wendy's Imagine waiting in line at your local Wendy's drive-thru during the lunch rush, only to pull up to the menu board and realize that the spicy chicken nuggets you've been craving all day will cost you a dollar extra. That nightmare may soon become a reality, because Wendy's plans on testing surge pricing that will increase the price of its spicy nuggets, burgers, Frostys, and other favorites during its busiest times.During an earnings call earlier this month, Wendy's CEO Kirk Tanner said the fast food chain plans on investing $20 million to roll out digital menu boards to US-based restaurants by the end of 2025. As part of the change, Wendy's will also introduce something called dynamic prices" that will change the prices on the digital... Continue reading...

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge Crypto miners have successfully blocked the Department of Energy's (DOE) survey of Bitcoin's energy consumption in the US. A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order that prevents the DOE from moving forward with data collection.More Bitcoin is mined in the US than anywhere else in the world, a trend that has sparked legal battles over the impact energy-hungry crypto mines have on the power grid, nearby communities, and the environment. The DOE announced last month that it would start to collect data on the electricity consumption of crypto mines, mandating that companies comply with the emergency collection of data request."Industry groups were quick to challenge the move in court. The Texas Blockchain Council and... Continue reading...

Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images Ford, Mercedes-Benz, and Tesla occupy the top three spots in a new ranking of 18 global automakers based on their efforts to eliminate carbon emissions, environmental harms, and human rights violations from their supply chains. US automakers in particular made the most progress in cleaning up their supply chains, with Tesla showing the biggest increase of all the automakers.The rankings were compiled by Lead the Charge, a global coalition of leading climate, environment, and human rights organizations that includes the Sierra Club, The Sunrise Project, and Public Citizen, among others. The group started evaluating automaker supply chains last year, with the goal to release an updated ranking each year.Overall, automakers made a lot... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos via Getty Images During Monday's Supreme Court arguments in a pair of consequential social media cases, the justices prodded for ways they could rule without giving either side everything they asked for.The justices seemed largely skeptical of the most sweeping provisions in Florida's and Texas' social media laws, which would force certain tech platforms to carry speech even when they don't want to. But they also looked for the boundaries of tech companies' First Amendment rights - seeking to understand when they become conduits for the transfer of information, rather than expressive platforms themselves.The laws at the center of the fight, Florida's SB 7072 and Texas' HB 20, were created in the name of countering what conservative legislators have... Continue reading...

FreePower for Countertop is a Qi wireless charger built into your countertops. This is a demo unit I tried out to get a feel for the experience. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge I recently remodeled my kitchen, and my first thought during the design process was, Can I embed wireless charging in my new quartzite countertop?" But I couldn't find a solution that didn't involve sticking bulky black boxes under the counter and requiring precise placement of my phone on a vast counter landscape. I wish I'd waited a year or two.This week at KBIS, the annual Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Las Vegas, FreePower launched its latest technology: wireless Qi charging built into countertops.FreePower for Countertop puts all the technology into a slimline device that fits inside stone or wood countertops. Once installed and powered (hardwired or plugged in), it can charge up to three devices simultaneously at Qi2 speeds... Continue reading...

Image: Honda Honda announced a new hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle for the US market in a sign that the automaker has not given up on the most abundant element in the universe for its vehicle lineup.The 2025 Honda CR-V e:FCEV may not roll off the tongue easily, but Honda insists it can find a fan base, especially as hybrid powertrains are proving to be more popular with US car buyers than pure battery-electric vehicles. The fuel cell electric vehicle will have an EPA-rated range of 270 miles, which includes 29 miles of all-electric driving range.The CR-V e:FCEV is a compact crossover SUV that is co-developed with General Motors using fuel cell modules produced by the companies' Fuel Cell System Manufacturing (FCSM) joint venture in Michigan.... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Everywhere you go on the internet, it feels like someone's trying to sell you something. TikTok is being overrun by sales pitches for stuff on the TikTok Shop; Instagram is making it easier to buy everything you see in a post; platforms from Pinterest to Prime Video are adding ever more ads, ever more hungrily trying to get you to buy something.The new app Flip, in a sense, is just saying the quiet part out loud: it's a social media platform that is absolutely, unequivocally, unabashedly about shopping all the way down. The Verge's Mia Sato recently threw herself into the Flip ecosystem to figure out what life is like as a shopping influencer and what it says about the future of the internet that Flip even exists in the first place.O... Continue reading...

Image: Nintendo You won't want to Pokemon Sleep through it. Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Sony says it's laying off around 900 employees of its PlayStation division, a reduction of its global headcount of around 8 percent. Sony's layoffs will impact a variety of its PlayStation studios, including Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, and Firesprite. Sony's layoffs are the latest in a wave that has been impacting the gaming and tech industries throughout 2024.We have made the extremely hard decision to announce our plan to commence a reduction of our overall headcount globally by about 8 percent or about 900 people, subject to local law and consultation processes," says PlayStation chief Jim Ryan. Employees across the globe, including our studios, are impacted."Several PlayStation studios are affected, with Sony... Continue reading...

The 1.6 update will be available for macOS, Windows, and Linux on March 19th. | Image: ConcernedApe Stardew Valley developer Eric Barone - better known as ConcernedApe - has revealed when players can expect the next major update to drop, adding fresh content and expanded multiplayer options to the game. Announced on Monday in line with Stardew Valley's eighth anniversary, update 1.6 will be available for PC (Windows/macOS/Linux) players on March 19th, with console and mobile to follow as soon as possible."We have some idea of what content is coming thanks to a sneak peak" that ConcernedApe shared back in September. This includes three unnamed festivals - one major" and two mini" - alongside new items, crafting recipes, rewards for billboard quests, and late-game content that expands each of the five skills: farming, fishing,... Continue reading...

Nvidia's GeForce Now is a cloud gaming platform that spans many devices. | Image: Nvidia Nvidia's completely free, no-strings attached trial of its cloud gaming service GeForce Now is about to be very slightly less of a deal - on Wednesday February 28th, Nvidia tells The Verge, users will start seeing ads.They're only for the free tier - not Priority or Ultimate - and even then, it sounds like they won't interrupt your gameplay. Free users will start to see up to two minutes of ads while waiting in queue to start a gaming session," writes Nvidia spokesperson Stephanie Ngo.Currently, the free tier does often involve waiting in line for a remote computer to free up before every hour of free gameplay - now, I guess there'll be a few ads too. Nvidia says the ads should help pay for the free tier of service, and that it... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix confirms to The Verge that it has begun booting longtime subscribers off their Apple iTunes billing plans, and will require them to pay Netflix directly using a credit card or debit card instead. Earlier today, The Streamable reported that Netflix had begun telling customers in some territories," but Netflix representative Momo Zhao confirms to us that all members on the basic plan who were using an iTunes method of payment" will need to sign up directly.It's been a good run for anyone who signed up before Netflix stopped accepting subscriptions through Apple's payments system. One person indicated today on X that they'd kept the streaming service's old $9.99 price for years.

Bose's foldable QuietComfort Ultra Headphonesare an excellent pair of noise-canceling headphones, if you don't mind the color white. | Image: The Verge Traveling can be stressful, which is why, if you're planning on enjoying a relaxing spring break next month, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones can make for a great travel companion, especially if you're flying. The noise-canceling headphones can help ensure you get some peace and quiet even before you land at your destination, and right now, they're down to a new low of $349.99 ($80 off) at Staples.Unlike the last-gen Noise Cancelling Headphones 700, the QC Ultra fold down for easy storage, which is one of the reasons they remain our favorite pair of noise-canceling headphones for traveling. The long-lasting headphones are also more comfortable to wear than our top pick, the Sony WH-1000XM5, so you won't need to worry about ear... Continue reading...

Image: Playstack In Casino Royale, James Bond gets a bit of poker advice: You never play your hand. You play the man sitting across from you.Okay, but what if you just played your hand? What if no one was sitting at the other end of the table? Balatro, a new turn-based card game available on most platforms, takes the mechanics of poker and turns them into the basis of a compelling roguelike, the subgenre of games where each playthrough is a single perilous attempt.Balatro is a poker game inasmuch as Scrabble is a word game. Knowing the language and probabilities of poker will help you, but ultimately, this is a logic game. There are no bluffs, no pots, just the pure composition of poker hands satisfyingly paired with a thrilling game loop.This makes B... Continue reading...

Image: Fiat Stellantis-owned Fiat revealed five new concepts that it says will serve as inspiration for a future family of vehicles that will come in a variety of powertrains while sharing the same platform.The new lineup, inspired by the Italian automaker's Panda city cars, will kick off in July 2024 with a new city car, followed by a new vehicle each year for the following three years. In addition, the concepts preview a pickup truck, a fastback sedan, an SUV, and a camper.Fiat is hedging its bets, committing to producing not only electric versions of each vehicle but also hybrid and internal combustion engine versions. The automaker says this is to ensure maximum relevance to customers wherever they live in the world."The new lineup,... Continue reading...

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Apple could soon face an investigation over its decision to discontinue iPhone web apps in the European Union, according to a report from the Financial Times. The European Commission has reportedly sent Apple and app developers requests for more information to assist in its evaluation.We are indeed looking at the compliance packages of all gatekeepers, including Apple," the European Commission says in a statement to The Verge provided by spokesperson Lea Zuber. In that context, we're in particular looking into the issue of progressive web apps, and can confirm sending the requests for information to Apple and to app developers, who can provide useful information for our assessment."When reached for comment, Apple pointed The Verge... Continue reading...

The first computery thing I do in the year 2024 is nudge a 3.5-inch floppy disk into a USB floppy drive that I bought from an online merchant working out of Singapore's onetime hotbed of '90s computer piracy. I'm briefly startled by the drive's low mechanical whirring - a warm, ambient background score that instantly transports me back to my childhood. Some of my first painfully preteen journals were hidden poorly on nondescript floppies just like this one. I click on the disk's sole file, an MP3 titled Inability to Perform Social Activities Is Considered Inferior," and Yasuyuki Uesugi's growling wall of experimental noise rolls through my apartment like a rogue wave at the beach. The track is one minute, 27 seconds long,... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft has announced a new multiyear partnership with Mistral, a French AI startup that's valued at 2 billion (about $2.1 billion). The Financial Times reports that the partnership will include Microsoft taking a minor stake in the 10-month-old AI company, just a little over a year after Microsoft invested more than $10 billion into its OpenAI partnership.The deal will see Mistral's open and commercial language models available on Microsoft's Azure AI platform, the second company to offer a commercial language model on Azure after OpenAI. Much like the OpenAI partnership, Microsoft's partnership with Mistral will also be focused on the development and deployment of next-generation large language models.Mistral is announcing a new... Continue reading...

The Verge The president of Crunchyroll, Rahul Purini, announced that the company is working to compensate customers who will lose their digital libraries in the upcoming Funimation / Crunchyroll merger on April 2nd.[We] are working really hard directly with each [customer] to ensure that they have an appropriate value for what they got in the digital copy initially," Purini tells Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel during this week's Decoder podcast. As people reach out to us through customer service, we are responding and handling each of those requests as they prefer."When asked what appropriate value" meant, Purini said, So it could be that they get access to a digital copy on any of the existing other services where they might be able to... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos via Getty Images The court hears arguments in Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton on Monday. Continue reading...

The OnePlus Watch 2 looks good on paper, but I've been burned before. | Image: OnePlus OnePlus is keenly aware that its first smartwatch was a disaster. Nearly three years later, I'm still haunted by that launch and the abysmal experience I had reviewing it. News that OnePlus is back with a second-gen smartwatch fills me with trepidation, but on paper, the updates seem promising. Not only will the $299.99 OnePlus Watch 2 run on Google's Wear OS 4 but it'll also use a novel dual-engine architecture that will purportedly enable up to 100 hours of battery life. Oh, and it'll have Google Assistant.The most interesting thing about the OnePlus Watch 2's hardware is it features two separate chipsets: the Qualcomm Snapdragon W5 and the BES 2700 MCU. The result is a dual-OS structure that sounds a smidge like Mobvoi's TicWatch Pro... Continue reading...

Photo illustration: The Verge / Photo by Crunchyroll The head of the fast-growing streaming service discusses the Funimation merger and shutdown and where he sees growth in anime. Continue reading...

AMD's latest GPU targets Nvidia's RTX 4070. Continue reading...

Microlino Lite in Geneva. | Image: Micro Swiss company Micro - maker of the happy little Microlino electric bubble car - just unveiled a production version of its Microlino Lite at the Geneva Motor Show. With a 45km/h (28mph) top speed, it goes half as fast as the standard Microlino but can be driven by anyone with a moped license from the age of 14 in some European countries. An entry-model will cost CHF149 per month (about 156 or $169) to lease starting this summer.Although the Microlino Lite is targeting Europe on day one, Micro spokesperson Merlin Ouboter says the Microlino Lite is eligible for registration in the US as a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV) and hopes to have the first Microlinos there by the end of 2024.Microcars like the Microlino Lite target urbanites... Continue reading...

Nintendo is also reportedly working on ways to prevent scalpers from snaffling up console stock at launch. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you were hoping to get your hands on Nintendo's highly anticipated Switch 2 console this year then prepare to be disappointed by another rumor pointing to a 2025 release date. According to a new report from Nikkei, Nintendo is anticipated to release its successor to the Nintendo Switch console as early as March," in line with the rumored Q1 2025 release date reported by both VGC and Eurogamer earlier this month.Previous reporting had set an anticipated 2024 release date for Nintendo's next-gen console, already with the aim of having sufficient stock available to avoid the shortages that the PS5 and Xbox Series S / X experienced at launch. But those same stock concerns as well as giving developers enough time to create new game... Continue reading...

More chatbots in more places. | The Verge Google's got a round of Android and app updates in time for MWC, starting with a new way to chat with its own chatbot Gemini: right inside Google Messages. There's also a handful of other small updates touching Android Auto, Google Docs, and a couple of new intelligent accessibility features for visually impaired people.If you're just dying to DM your new bestie Gemini, you won't have to wait long - it's arriving as an update to the Messages app this week, though you'll need to be enrolled in Google's beta testing program to access it for now. The same access rules apply so there's no Google One subscription required, at least for this version. When I tested Gemini alongside ChatGPT a few weeks ago, Gemini left a lot to be desired as a... Continue reading...

Lenovo's ThinkBook Transparent Display Laptop. The ThinkBook Transparent Display Laptop concept even comes with a built-in drawing tablet. Lenovo just needs to find something worth seeing on the other side. Continue reading...

Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Ford has halted shipments of the new 2024 F-150 Lightning electric truck as of February 9th while it carries out quality inspections. Several outlets reported the pause on Friday, but none could say what prompted the check. In the meantime, Ford is still manufacturing the Lightning at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, according to Automotive News.The carmaker reportedly declined to say when the shipments will be resumed. Ford spokesperson Emma Bergg told CNN that the hold isn't unusual for the company when production moves to a new year. It's unclear exactly what is causing this freeze, but Automotive News reports a supplier parts concern" halted production of both the gas and electric versions of the F-150 for a... Continue reading...

Avenir Telecom's Energizer Hard Case P28K is an 27.8mm thick smartphone with a 28,000mAh battery in it. | Photo by Jon Porter / The Verge Four years ago, my then-colleague Vlad brought you news of an 18,000mAh battery with a phone in it. Well, I am delighted to inform you that Avenir Telecom is at it again, only now it's packed a smartphone into a 28,000mAh battery. That, in this industry, is what we call progress.The device itself is called the Hard Case P28K, and like its predecessor it'll be sold under the Energizer brand (which Avenir licenses from the battery manufacturer). The company claims the P28K's battery is substantial enough to last for a whole week regular of usage. The device also has a pretty rugged IP69 rating to survive the kinds of off-the-grid adventures you might want to have while away from a charging point. Talk time is rated at 122 hours (or a... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Apple's future roadmap for wearables may include AI-powered smart glasses, as well as AirPods with cameras, according to Mark Gurman in today's Power On newsletter for Bloomberg. Both concepts are in the exploratory phase inside Apple, representing more of a look at the company's future plans than discreet products.The smart glasses would be angled as AirPods stand-ins, he says, just with more sensors, AI features, and longer-lasting batteries. But even though they'd serve as a cheaper head-worn gadget than the Vision Pro, they wouldn't be the AR face computer with high-quality transparent displays that Apple is trying to get to. Gurman writes that these glasses would instead be a step in that direction that's more comparable to Meta... Continue reading...

Xiaomi's basic flagship gets a subtle design tweak this time around. Xiaomi is using MWC to launch two of its flagships for a global audience - though not including the US, as usual. The Xiaomi 14 and 14 Ultra have already been announced in China, and today they're on center stage with tweaked designs and camera-forward feature sets. They're available to order starting today; the 14 Ultra will cost 1,499 (about $1624) and the 14 starts at 999 (about $1082).The Xiaomi 14 covers the flagship basics, with a smaller 6.36-inch screen - now an LTPO 120Hz panel for smooth scrolling and power efficiency - and comes with more modest camera specs, at least by comparison to the 14 Ultra's a 6.73-inch, 120Hz 1440p panel and 1-inch-type main camera. Go big or go all out, I guess.The 14 Ultra was officially u... Continue reading...