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Civil War's latest trailer shows off a whole lot of guns, tanks, and bombs. | Image: A24 A24 has dropped its second trailer for Civil War, a dystopian action movie from director Alex Garland that imagines a fractured near-future United States tearing itself apart. With a budget of $50 million, Civil War is A24's most expensive film to date.Civil War is now due to hit theaters on April 12th, two weeks ahead of its previous April 26th release date. Starring Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Nick Offerman, the movie follows a group of journalists navigating their way across the US as it descends into the second American Civil War.Just like the first trailer that was released in December 2023, the latest doesn't give us much else to go on. Portraying the US president, Offerman... Continue reading...

AI Assistant in Acrobat can recommend questions that you may have about the contents of a document and then answer those inquiries so you don't have to rummage through the file. | Image: Adobe Adobe is adding a new generative AI experience to its Acrobat PDF management software, which aims to completely transform the digital document experience" by making information in long documents easier to find and understand. Announced in Adobe's press release as AI Assistant in Acrobat," the new tool is described as a conversational engine" that can summarize files, answer questions, and recommend more based on the content, allowing users to easily chat with documents" to get the information they need. It's available in beta starting today for paying Acrobat users.The idea is that the chatbot will reduce the time-consuming tasks related to working with massive text documents - such as helping students quickly find information for... Continue reading...

The Verge Walmart is planning to acquire TV maker Vizio in a deal valued at approximately $2.3 billion. Rumors of the deal emerged last week, and now the retail giant says the acquisition is official and part of a move to boost its ad business.The acquisition of Vizio and its SmartCast Operating System (OS) would enable Walmart to connect with and serve its customers in new ways including innovative television and in-home entertainment and media experiences," says Walmart in a press release. It would also create new opportunities to help advertisers connect with customers, empowering brands with differentiated and compelling opportunities to engage at scale and to realize greater impact from their advertising spend with Walmart."Vizio has more... Continue reading...

The Forerunner 165 series knocks off $200 | Image: Garmin Garmin watches ain't cheap. While the running community loves them, they're often an investment, costing more than $500 for a midrange watch and going up from there. Which is why it's neat that the new $249.99 Forerunner 165 and $299.99 165 Music are pretty affordable by Garmin's standards.In terms of features, the 165 sits between the $200 Forerunner 55 and the $450 Forerunner 265. But for the extra $50 over the 55, the 165 series comes with a 1.2-inch OLED display instead of a transflective display, 11 days of estimated battery life, more running features, and contactless payments. The Music version also allows you to sync playlists with Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon Music.The design of the 165 is awfully similar to the 265, with... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Samsung has detailed its expanded support for a range of audio technologies including Auracast, 360 Audio, and Auto Switch in a new blog post. None are appearing on Samsung's devices for the first time, but we now know how broadly they'll be supported across the lineup. Samsung says updates will be progressively available from the end of this month for Samsung's Galaxy Buds 2 and Buds FE, in addition to the Buds 2 Pro.Take Auracast, for example - a relatively new Bluetooth technology that allows one device to broadcast an audio stream to a theoretically unlimited number of endpoints like speakers and headphones. Last year Samsung announced support for the technology for its Galaxy Buds 2 Pro earbuds and latest high-end TVs, and it came... Continue reading...

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Fujifilm's X100V became so wildly popular that it felt like the camera was endlessly backordered at every camera retailer around. On the secondary market, prices for the rangefinder-style mirrorless camera shot up into truly silly territory after it had a big viral moment on TikTok. The X100V was so in demand that Fujifilm could've taken the easy route for a successor and still been guaranteed to have a hit on its hands.The new model, being announced today, looks practically the same on the outside, but the X100VI includes meaningful improvements that will make it a more capable camera - in far more shooting environments - than any previous entrant in the X100 series. The flip side to those upgrades is that the price has climbed by... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge This year's first Direct will take place Wednesday morning at 9AM ET, and, according to Nintendo, the 25-minute presentation will feature Switch games coming in the first half of 2024 from our publishing and development partners."We didn't need to consult the video game oracles to know a Nintendo Direct was on the way. Not only have Microsoft and PlayStation shared their upcoming release schedules, but taking a look at the dates of the last handful of Directs revealed that Nintendo is fond of the first week of February.

Getting water on phones happens to the best of us. Lucky for us, there's one household staple the internet consistently suggests will draw that liquid out and save phones: uncooked rice. But contrary to popular advice, Apple, like most people in tech support, explicitly advises against putting your wet phone in a bag of rice.Don't put your iPhone in a bag of rice. Doing so could allow small particles of rice to damage your iPhone," Apple support documents said.The support documents first spotted by Macworld are technically addressing what to do when you get the liquid detection alert on your iPhone. They're not just out to put a long lingering internet myth to bed.To that end they also suggested avoiding using an external heat... Continue reading...

Image: Wyze Wyze's problems with letting its security camera customers briefly see into other customer homes is a lot worse than we thought.Last week, co-founder David Crosby said that so far" the company had identified 14 people who were able to briefly see into a stranger's property because they were shown an image from someone else's Wyze camera. Now we're being told that number of affected customers has ballooned to 13,000.The revelation came from an email sent to customers entitled An Important Security Message from Wyze," in which the company copped to the breach and apologized, while also attempting to lay some of the blame on its web hosting provider AWS.

Image: Apple Slowly but surely, Apple TV Plus has morphed itself into arguably the premier destination for streaming science fiction. (Or at least streaming sci-fi not named Star Wars or Star Trek.) There are adaptations like Silo and Foundation; original stories like Invasion, For All Mankind, and Severance; and even a franchise spinoff with Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. There's a nice range to the service's offerings - and now it's adding another flavor with the premiere of Constellation. In its first few episodes the show is dark, creepy, and will mess with your mind in a way that makes it just the thing for those already missing True Detective: Night Country.The first three episodes of Constellation premiere on February 21st, and they follow an... Continue reading...

A charging station outside of a Toyota Store in Blauvelt, New York, on February 5th, 2024. | Image: Kena Betancur / VIEWpress / Getty President Biden's administration plans to pull back on strict new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules that would have forced US automakers to turn EVs into their main business by 2032. That's according to The New York Times, which wrote yesterday that industry players had moved the administration to give them more time to bring down EV costs, and for a nationwide charging infrastructure to be more fully built out.The Times writes that labor leaders pressured Biden to give them more time to extend union membership to those working in new US EV plants. As the article notes, labor union support is crucial as Biden faces re-election where he's straddling a dire climate situation and attacks from candidate and former President Donald... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge A Sunday morning report from the Financial Times says the 500 million (about $539 million USD) fine comes after regulators investigated a Spotify complaint that Apple policies prevent iPhone apps from telling users about cheaper alternatives to Apple's music service.The issue comes down to Apple's efforts to keep apps and users corraled inside its App Store payments system. Spotify complained in 2019 that Apple's policies muted competition against Apple Music, kicking off an EU investigation the next year. The EU whittled its objections down to oppose Apple's refusal to let developers even link out to their own subscription sign-ups within their apps - a policy that Apple changed in 2022 following regulatory pressure in Japan.$... Continue reading...

Illustration: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 26, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome. So psyched you found us, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been playing with the redesigned You.com for AI research, trying out the Phanpy Mastodon client, getting back into Zombies, Run after reading Vee Song's great story about Fantasy Hike, and reading the new lost chapter" of The Martian before probably just rereading The Martian again.I also have for you some non-earbud earbuds, a nerdy video about nerdy stuff, a new to-do list app, a new thing in ChatGPT, and much more. Let's do it.(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What... Continue reading...

Not today. Update, February 18th, 12:40AM ET: The issue with Apple Pay and Chase credit cards has been resolved, according to Apple spokesperson Heather Norton, who further tells us that this was not an Apple Pay issue, and we saw no problems with our systems." (The not-so-subtle subtext there being that this was a Chase problem, of course.) That maintenance note on the status page was unrelated to this outage, she adds. Original story follows below.It appears that Apple Pay is down, particularly for Chase customers - Verge staffers have had their cards declined while trying to pay with Chase cards using Apple Pay, while using the same physical card works just fine. Several people on Threads confirmed the same issue when I asked - although... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Reddit will let an unnamed large AI company" have access to its user-generated content platform in a new licensing deal, according to Bloomberg yesterday. The deal, worth about $60 million on an annualized basis," the outlet writes, could still change as the company's plans to go public are still in the works.Until recently, most AI companies trained their data on the open web without seeking permission. But that's proven to be legally questionable, leading companies to try to get data on firmer footing. It's not known what company Reddit made the deal with, but it's quite a bit more than the $5 million annual deal OpenAI has reportedly been offering news publishers for their data. Apple has also been seeking multi-year deals with... Continue reading...

A chocolate rose vase printed on the Cocoa Press. | 3D model by lytta / print and photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge I hate to be the bearer of bad-for-the-waistline news, but yes - you can now buy a 3D printer that prints chocolate. The Cocoa Press has been in development for an entire decade. Now, it's finally here, and I'm pretty sure it's singlehandedly responsible for one of the pounds I put on over Christmas.At least it's not cheap or easy enough to tempt most people yet.

Image: Wyze Five months ago, we wrote about how your Wyze webcam might have let strangers peek into your house. Today, it happened again. Wyze cofounder David Crosby confirms that at least a dozen users were able to briefly see into a stranger's property because they were shown an image from someone else's camera.We have now identified a security issue where some users were able to see thumbnails of cameras that were not their own in the Events tab," he told The Verge.After an extended outage that Wyze says stemmed from problems with AWS, we found ten different Redditors reporting that their Wyze app showed them images they shouldn't have seen - including glimpses of a stranger's porch or in some cases, a living room. Some of the videos were from... Continue reading...

Family reunion! Usually my younger siblings wait until I'm done with work - they're in earlier time zones than I am, so they're being polite - then the group chat lights up: Splat." Splat." Splat."This is our shorthand for It's time to play Splatoon 3."I am not what you would call a gamer, but I did buy a Nintendo Switch in 2020. That's kind of when this all started. I am the oldest of five, and most of my younger siblings love video games. In the interest of bonding, I started hanging out with them on FaceTime while we played Animal Crossing together. In 2022, one of my brothers got Splatoon 3. Eventually, most of the rest of us did, too. Now four of us (and one of my brothers' significant others) play Splatoon together.I am writing this, in... Continue reading...

Image: OpenAI The US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has denied OpenAI's application to register the word GPT, which means generative pre-trained transformer, saying GPT is too general a term to register and can prevent competitors from correctly describing their products as a GPT.OpenAI argued in its application that GPT is not a descriptive word - that GPT isn't such a general term that consumers would immediately understand" what it means.The PTO wrote in its February 6th decision that it doesn't matter if consumers don't know what GPT means - because those who do use the technology understand GPT refers to a general type of software, not just OpenAI products.Since the rise of generative AI, many other AI services have added GPT to product... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Switch 2 rumor mill continues to grind. The original reporting on the Switch 2's release date pegged it for a fall 2024 release in time for the holiday rush. Now, according to sources speaking to VGC, Nintendo is telling publishers the console's release date is slated for Q1 2025.And VGC isn't the only one: a video from a Brazilian journalist and similar whispers" reported by sources speaking to Eurogamer suggest the window has been pushed to Q1 2025 as well.A release in early 2025 could see the Switch 2 (which is not the confirmed name of the console) launching at the same time of year as its predecessor, which arrived in March 2017. Two of VGC's sources confirmed that they were developing Switch 2 games planned for early 2025.T... Continue reading...

Image: Fandango Fandango has decided to completely rebrand Vudu, a streaming video service that's been around for over a decade, to Fandango at Home. We will still have the same great films, shows, deals, and bundles, plus your library will stay right where it's always been," the company said in a post on X (via 9to5Google).After many years of operation under Walmart, Vudu was purchased by Fandango in 2020. There haven't been many obvious changes to the service since then; this rebranding is easily the biggest. Fandango shut down its previous FandangoNOW service when it scooped up Vudu, so perhaps it's not a surprise that the company ultimately wanted its own name back in there. (It had already stuck Fandango" beneath Vudu in the app's logo.)Vudu... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon claims the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is unconstitutional" in a new legal document filed on Thursday, according to a report from The New York Times. The e-commerce giant joins the Elon Musk-owned SpaceX in making similar accusations after facing numerous labor complaints from employees.Amazon made the filing in connection with a 2023 NLRB case, which accuses Amazon of breaking labor rules by threatening and discriminating against unionizing workers at a Staten Island, NY warehouse, the NYT reports.In the filing, lawyers for Amazon argue the company hasn't violated any rules. But, as noted by the NYT, it also adds that the structure of the N.L.R.B. violates the separation of powers." In other words, Amazon is... Continue reading...

The Verge / Android Our first official glimpse of Android 15 is here. It includes a lot of under-the-hood tweaks to strengthen communication between hardware and software - and it comes at a time when Google has been tightening its working relationship with frenemy Samsung. Focusing on the platform's holistic health and working more closely with hardware partners makes a lot of sense. That's especially true if the goal is to compete with the company traditionally known for sleek hardware and software integration: Apple.The first developer preview is available starting today, with public betas arriving early this spring as Google works toward platform stability in June. A handful of the updates relate to Android's Dynamic Performance Framework that helps... Continue reading...

Image: Francois Guillot / AFP via Getty Images Remember Tommy Tallarico? The famous video game composer who claimed he created Roblox's infamous oof" sound effect, then got into a legal dispute with the game's developers asking for an unspecified amount of money for continued use of the sound effect? Eventually, the matter was settled, and ultimately, Roblox removed the sound from the game entirely.Y'know, Tommy Tallarico! The guy who claimed he was the first American to work on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise despite the fact his first Sonic credit was for Sonic and the Black Knight in 2009, a full 17 years after Sonic The Hedgehog 2 was developed and released in America.He's also guy who boasted several Guinness World Records, including one for being the person who has worked... Continue reading...

Image: Wyze Wyze owners reported this morning that they couldn't access their smart home devices and that its apps returned error messages. Users in the Wyze Discord report the problems began as early as 4AM ET, and reports of the issue popped up widely by 6AM ET, according to Down Detector.Just before 1PM ET, a number of Wyze owners reported their devices were back online.The most recent Wyze status update confirms the restoration, saying at 1:07PM ET that, Our metrics show that devices are starting to recover. We are still investigating an issue with the Events Tab and will have another update shortly with further info."A note posted at 10:24AM ET also said, We are aware of an issue with our AWS partner which has impacted device connection and... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge The European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA), a tough new piece of regulation that imposes new rules around content moderation and online advertising, is about to expand to cover huge swathes of the internet. Starting tomorrow, February 17th, the rules will apply to every online platform with users in the EU, in addition to the 19 Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs) that have had to comply with the rules since last August.The expansion means the DSA's obligations will expand to cover thousands of online platforms. The Associated Press notes that this will include household names like eBay and OnlyFans, which didn't hit the 45 million monthly active user threshold in the EU for VLOP... Continue reading...

Image: Disney / Lucasfilm According to a new report from Insider Gaming, Respawn - the EA studio behind Apex Legends and Star Wars games like Jedi: Survivor - is working on a first-person game that will put players in the role of an unspecified Mandalorian bounty hunter. There aren't a lot of details on the game, which is reportedly still early in development, but the report claims that it will be fast-paced with a big focus on action and that it will not be an open-world experience.The news fits with previous announcements from the studio; in 2022, Respawn said that it was working on a first-person shooter set in the Star Wars universe but didn't give any details on what it would be about. The studio's Jedi series helped kick off an exciting new era for Star... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge The return window is up for the folks who bought an Apple Vision Pro on day one, and a lot of folks have said they're returning their $3,500 headset. The reasons why, and what Apple might need to do to fix them, say a lot about the state of headsets. Also saying a lot about the state of headsets? Mark Zuckerberg, who is apparently a gadget reviewer now!On this episode of The Vergecast, we discuss the reaction to the Vision Pro, Zuckerberg's review, and the differing strategies for making face computers a reality. Then, we talk about some breaking news on the future of Xbox and a lot of new AI launches from Google and OpenAI. Finally, we do a lightning round of other stories in the news before getting totally derailed complaining about... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Epic is one step closer to opening its iOS games store in the European Union. As part of its 2023 year in review, Epic Games announced Apple has reinstated its developer account, which means it will finally be able to let users download Fortnite on iPhones again.Epic first announced plans to bring its game store and Fortnite to iOS in January, but it wasn't clear whether Apple would grant it a developer account.In 2020, Apple pulled Epic's developer account after the company began using its own in-app payment option in the iOS version of Fortnite, sparking a lengthy legal battle over whether Apple's behavior was anticompetitive. But even after the trial ended, and neither company emerged a clear winner, Apple still refused to... Continue reading...

Sony's WF-1000XM5 offer better noise cancellation and sound than the prior model. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Presidents Day is on Monday, February 19th, and many retailers are already showing their patriotism the best way they can: by discounting big-name appliances and gadgets. Jokes aside, there are actually a ton of good deals available, which we've highlighted in our larger roundup of the best Presidents Day deals. eBay's sale, in particular, is one of the more noteworthy promos. That's because now through February 19th, eBay is taking an extra 20 percent off select products - including already discounted goods like LG's brilliant C3 OLED.However, if you're not in the market for a new 4K TV, Sony's WF-1000XM5 and WH-1000XM5 are also available for some of their best prices to date at eBay (via BuyDig). The XM5 earbuds are down to their... Continue reading...

Paramount Both Paramount Plus and Peacock have been working hard to court subscribers in order to further solidify their respective statuses as lasting players in the streaming space, but according to a new report, the platforms' parent companies could be considering a unique partnership.The Wall Street Journal reports that Comcast and Paramount have been in recent talks about a potential streaming partnership that could see Paramount Plus and Peacock being offered to subscribers together as a package deal. Along with making access to the two platforms comparatively cheaper than buying separate subscriptions, the partnership would help Comcast and Paramount produce significant cost savings - from spending on programming to marketing."Word of... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge From console exclusives to rumored new hardware. Continue reading...

Time for Samsung and Google to make some room in the midrange. Continue reading...

The Verge Microsoft announced yesterday that four Xbox-exclusive games are coming to PS5 and Nintendo Switch soon, opening up a new strategy for Xbox to be on more screens. Just two hours before Microsoft's big announcement, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer explained the company's new Xbox vision in an internal memo to employees.The Verge has obtained a copy of the memo. It's the first time Spencer has fully outlined a new strategy where every screen is an Xbox" to employees, after an internal town hall meeting earlier this month didn't address multi-platform games directly.Microsoft didn't directly mention Xbox everywhere" or every screen is an Xbox" during its official Xbox podcast yesterday, but it's not too dissimilar to what the company... Continue reading...

Google's description of the feature in Search Labs. | Image: Sterling Google is testing a new Talk to a Live Representative" feature that allows the company's software to call a business on your behalf, navigate through its phone tree, wait on hold, and then notify you when there's a real human being available for you to speak to. The test, which is available now as a Search Labs experimental feature, was spotted by X user Sterling.As 9to5Google notes, the feature sounds a lot like the Pixel's Hold for Me," but with a couple of key advantages. First, it's available across all phones rather than just the Pixel 3 and newer. And second, Talk to a Live Representative" offers to actually proactively call a business on your behalf, rather than being something you enable once you've already placed a call and... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Microsoft has fixed an issue where its Edge browser was again misbehaving, this time by automatically importing browsing data and tabs from Chrome without consent. I personally experienced the bug last month, after I rebooted my PC for a regular Windows update and Microsoft Edge automatically opened with the Chrome tabs I was working on before the update.I asked Microsoft repeatedly to explain why this behavior had occurred for myself and many other Windows users, but the company refused to comment. Microsoft has now quietly issued a fix in the latest Microsoft Edge update. Here's how Microsoft describes the fix:

Illustration: The Verge A report from Bloomberg says Apple has expanded internal testing of new generative AI features for its Xcode programming software and plans to release them to third-party developers this year. Apple also reportedly looked at potential uses for generative AI in consumer-facing products, like automatic playlist creation in Apple Music, slideshows in Keynote, or AI chatbot-like search features for Spotlight search.The search upgrade could let iOS and macOS users make natural language requests, like with ChatGPT, to get weather reports or operate features deep within apps.While other tech giants have been more prominent in releasing AI research and products, in the past few months, Apple released an open-source machine learning framework... Continue reading...

The Verge Taken on their own, today's gaming announcements from Microsoft might not seem all that earth-shattering. A handful of unspecified Xbox games are coming to rival platforms, the subscriber numbers for Game Pass have grown, Diablo IV will lead the rush of Activision Blizzard titles on Game Pass, and more hardware is on the way, including a powerful next-gen console and possibly a handheld. But they all point to a future that Microsoft hasn't exactly been shy about: making Xbox into more than just a console.In an internal memo to employees, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer explained the strategy like this:

Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Accountable Tech The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) has surpassed 60 Senate co-sponsors, enough supporters for it to pass through the chamber, the bill's authors announced on Thursday.The support marks a major milestone for the legislation, which seeks to create a duty of care for tech platforms to mitigate certain dangers to young users and allow them to opt out of algorithm-based recommendations. If it becomes law, it would be among the most significant kids' online safety statutes since the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, which went into effect in 2000.The bill's lead champions, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), also announced new changes to the text of the legislation, which seem aimed at addressing concerns that... Continue reading...

The new Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Lego set. | Image: The Lego Group Lego has officially revealed its $220 take on Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, coming March 4th, and it looks incredible.It also looks a lot like a fan design!This fan design, which twice gathered the required 10,000 votes to become a Lego Ideas set and was rejected by Lego each time: Image by Hanwasyellowfirst A 2021 Lego Ideas submission. I definitely prefer the more thatched, lively look of Lego's official playset, though - and it's worth noting Lego has repeatedly recognized that particular fan designer in a different way.Hanwasyellowfirst" also created The Mountain Windmill, which went on to earn its creator well over $100,000 in estimated royalties after Lego greenlit it to become a... Continue reading...