The Verge

Live translations work decently well, but trip up on things like slang and faster speech. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge I was in middle school the last time I took a Spanish class. I remember enough for toddler talk - phrases like Donde esta el bano?" and mi gato es muy gordo" - but having a meaningful conversation in Spanish without a translator is out of the question. So I was genuinely surprised the other day when, thanks to the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, I could have a mostly intelligible conversation with a Spanish speaker about K-pop.Live translations were added as part of a feature drop last month, alongside live AI and Shazam. It's exactly what it sounds like. When you turn the feature on, you can have a conversation with a Spanish, French, or Italian speaker, and the glasses will translate what's being said directly into your ears in real-time. You can also view a transcript of the conversation on your phone. Whatever you say in English will also be translated into the other language. Screenshot: Meta Missing is the bit where we both start singing APT APT APT!" Full disclosure, my conversation was part of a Meta-facilitated demo. That's not truly the same thing as plopping these glasses on, hopping down to Barcelona, and trying it in the wild. That said, I'm a translation tech skeptic and intended to find all the cracks where this tech could fail.The glasses were adept at translating a basic conversation about K-pop bands. After my conversation partner was done speaking, the translation would kick in soon after. This worked well if we talked in measured, medium-speed speech, with only a few sentences at a time. But that's not how people actually speak. In real life, we launch into long-winded tirades, lose our train of thought, and talk much faster when angry or excited.To Meta's credit, it considered the approach to some of these situations. I had my conversation partner speak at a faster speed and a longer duration. It handled the speed decently well, though there was understandably some lag in the real-time transcript. For longer speech, the glasses started translating mid-way through before my partner was done talking. That was a bit jarring and awkward, as you, the listener, have to recognize you're a bit behind. The experience is similar to how live interpreters do it on international news or broadcasts.I was most impressed that the glasses could handle a bit of Spanglish. Often, multilingual speakers rarely stick to just one language, especially when in mixed-language company. In my family, we call it Konglish (Korean-English), and people slip in and out of each language, mixing and matching grammar that's chaotic and functional. For example, my aunt will often speak several sentences in Korean, throw in two sentences in English, do another that's a mix of Korean and English, and then revert to Korean. I had my conversation partner try something similar in Spanish and... the results were mixed. Screenshot: Meta You can see the transcript start to struggle with slang while trying to rapidly switch between Spanish and English. On the one hand, the glasses could handle short switches between languages. However, longer forays into English led to the AI repeating the English in my ear. Sometimes, it'd also repeat what I'd said, because it started getting confused. That got so distracting I couldn't focus on what was being said.The glasses struggled with slang. Every language has its dialects, and each dialect can have its unique spin on colloquialisms. You need look no further than how American teens have subjected us all to phrases like skibidi and rizz. In this case, the glasses couldn't accurately translate no manches." That translates to no stain," but in Mexican Spanish, it also means no way" or you're kidding me!" The glasses chose the literal translation. In that vein, translation is an art. In some instances, the glasses got the correct gist across but failed to capture some nuances of what was being said to me. This is the burden of all translators - AI and human alike.You can't use these to watch foreign-language movies or TV shows without subtitles. I watched a few clips of Emilia Perez, and while it could accurately translate scenes where everyone was speaking loudly and clearly, it quit during a scene where characters were rapidly whispering to each other in hushed tones. Forget about the movie's musical numbers entirely.You wouldn't necessarily have these issues if you stuck to what Meta intended with this feature. It's clear these glasses were mostly designed to help people have basic interactions while visiting other countries - things like asking for directions, ordering food at a restaurant, going to a museum, or completing a transaction. In those instances, you're more likely to encounter people who speak slower with the understanding that you are not a native speaker.It's a good start, but I still dream of the babel fish from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - a little creature that when plopped in your ear, can instantly and accurately translate any language into your own. For now, that's still the realm of science fiction.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images When the Supreme Court upheld a law that banned TikTok from the US, it seemed well aware that its ruling could resonate far beyond one app. The justices delivered an unsigned opinion with a quote from Justice Felix Frankfurter from 1944: in considering the application of established legal rules to the totally new problems' raised by the airplane and radio, we should take care not to embarrass the future.'"Last Friday, the court tried to accomplish this with a narrow ruling: a decision that upheld the government's ability to ban one service on a tight timeline, while stressing a limited scope concerning new technologies with transformative capabilities." Yet, amid a confounding political circus over TikTok, some legal experts believe the Supreme Court's ruling could have a broad ripple effect on speech and tech law - they're just not agreed on what it would be.Even though it's narrowly written, it also seems clear that they want to make a mark on these kinds of questions," says Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University's public policy school. University of Chicago law professor Genevieve Lakier put it more bluntly on Bluesky: The Court... Read the full story at The Verge.

Image: Pordenone Cartoon Museum The celebrated cartoonist talks anxiety, process, and the final installment of his Acme Novelty Datebook series. Read the full story at The Verge.

Better late than never. | Image: Apple Now that we've almost hit the second month of 2025, Apple has finally updated its CarPlay webpage to say it won't be arriving in 2024. As noted by MacRumors, the 2024 timeframe for the first vehicles to support CarPlay 2 has been removed from the website without adding a new launch date.Apple first announced the next generation of CarPlay" back in 2022, but updates about its arrival have been sporadic. Porsche and Aston Martin haven't provided any launch dates despite saying their cars would be the first to get the new CarPlay. Some automakers like Ford and Mercedes were slow to confirm support, while others like General Motors and Rivian have snubbed CarPlay entirely in favor of having more control over their vehicles.Despite not posting a revised date, there are indications that Apple will launch it eventually. There are references to next-generation CarPlay in the iOS 18.3 beta released last month, for example, and Apple has recently filed new images of it in an EU database. Apple also told 9to5Mac that it's working closely with several automakers that will implement the new CarPlay experience.Each car brand will share more details as they near the announcements of their models that will support the next generation of CarPlay," Apple told the outlet.

Google's Nest Learning thermostat. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Google is bringing smart home controls in Gemini to everyone. The Google Home extension in the Gemini app is adding a few new features, in addition to letting you adjust your smart lighting, thermostat, speakers, and other compatible devices as long as they're connected to your Google account.Google first previewed the extension last November. With it, you can use natural language to control your smart home when interacting with Gemini, such as saying The sun is too bright in the living room" to close your smart blinds. But now, Gemini can also carry out multiple requests, like Turn the armchair light on too, but dim the kitchen lamp." You'll be able to use the Google Home extension to ask Gemini about the status of your devices too, such as whether you've left your porch light on.Additionally, Google will let you control non-sensitive" smart home devices, like your lights, from your phone's lock screen. Other updates include the ability to adjust the volume, pause, and resume media on smart speakers, displays, and TVs within the Gemini app, as well as an updated thermostat control design that matches the one inside Google Home. Gemini will also automatically open the Google Home app for security-related actions for cameras and locks (it previously only linked you).The launch of the Google Home extension follows a big update to Gemini, which lets it perform more complex tasks across multiple apps. You can try out the integration for yourself by signing into Gemini with the same account you use for Home and turning on the Google Home extension. It launches today but is rolling out over the coming weeks."

A screenshot from a video of TerraPower's groundbreaking ceremony for its demonstration project in Wyoming. TerraPower, a nuclear energy startup founded by Bill Gates, struck a deal this week with one of the largest data center developers in the US to deploy advanced nuclear reactors. TerraPower and Sabey Data Centers (SDC) are working together on a plan to run existing and future facilities on nuclear energy from small reactors.Tech companies are scrambling to determine where to get all the electricity they'll need for energy-hungry AI data centers that are putting growing pressure on power grids. They're increasingly turning to nuclear energy, including next-generation reactors that startups like TerraPower are developing.The energy sector is transforming at an unprecedented pace."The energy sector is transforming at an unprecedented pace after decades of business as usual, and meaningful progress will require strategic collaboration across industries," TerraPower President and CEO Chris Levesque said in a press release.A memorandum of understanding signed by the two companies establishes a strategic collaboration" that'll initially look into the potential for new nuclear power plants in Texas and the Rocky Mountain region that would power SDC's data centers.There's still a long road ahead before that can become a reality. The technology TerraPower and similar nuclear energy startups are developing still have to make it through regulatory hurdles and prove that they can be commercially viable.Compared to older, larger nuclear power plants, the next generation of reactors are supposed to be smaller and easier to site. Nuclear energy is seen as an alternative to fossil fuels that are causing climate change. But it still faces opposition from some advocates concerned about the impact of uranium mining and storing radioactive waste near communities.I'm a big believer that nuclear energy can help us solve the climate problem, which is very, very important. There are designs that, in terms of their safety or fuel use or how they handle waste, I think, minimize those problems," Gates told The Verge last year.TerraPower's reactor design for this collaboration, Natrium, is the only advanced technology of its kind with a construction permit application for a commercial reactor pending with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to the company. The company just broke ground on a demonstration project in Wyoming last year, and expects it to come online in 2030.Electricity demand from data centers has tripled over the past decade, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). That demand is only expected to grow with the rise of AI, a trend that could prolong the lives of aging fossil fuel power plants and revive retired nuclear plants.Microsoft made a deal in September to help restart a retired reactor at Three Mile Island. Both Google and Amazon, meanwhile, announced plans last year to support the development of advanced reactors to power their data centers.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Meta and YouTube aren't the only platforms looking to benefit from TikTok potentially disappearing - Substack wants in on the action, too.The company announced Thursday it's launching a $20 million creator accelerator fund," promising content creators they won't lose revenue by jumping ship to Substack. Creators in the program also get strategic and business support" from Substack, and early access to new features.We established this fund because we've seen creators who specialize in video, audio, and text expand their audience, revenue, and influence on Substack, where the platform's network effects amplify the quality and impact of the work they're doing," the company said in a blog post.This pivot on Substack's part has been in the works for a while - for months, the company has been marketing itself not as a newsletter delivery service but as a creator platform similar to Patreon.On Substack, [creators] can build their own home on the internet: one where creators, not platform executives or advertisers, own their work and their audience," the blog post reads. The post also cites bans, backlash, and policies that change with the political winds" as a reason creators can't depend on traditional social media services.That's all fine (we at The Verge have been saying this for a while). But creators focusing on Substack are also subject to ebbs and flows depending on what the company is prioritizing: first, it was newsletters, then it was tweet-like micro blogs, followed by full-on websites and livestreaming. For some, Substack's initial stated mission of giving more freedom to independent writers is fading. And TikTok creators looking to move to Substack will need to rebuild their following all over again - you obviously can't export your TikTok followers.Substack's business is not immune from political winds," either. Just a year ago the company found itself in hot water over Nazi newsletters that were being monetized on the platform. Substack eventually banned some of the newsletters, but only after sustained and public pressure from high-profile writers. In 2022, when Substack's promise was to be a better version of a newsroom, the company abruptly fired an editor who had worked on a newsletter critical of Substack.The $20 million fund isn't the first time Substack has offered a pool of money meant to entice creators. Under a program called Substack Pro, the company poached top media talent from traditional newsrooms with higher pay, health insurance, and other perks. That program ended in 2022, with Substack cofounder Hamish McKenzie saying the deals weren't employment arrangements but seed funding deals to remove the financial risk for a writer in starting their own business." In other words, welcome to Substack. Now that you're here, you're on your own - which is more or less the deal other platforms offer.

Image: id Software After revealing its next Doom game last summer, id Software is almost ready to release it: the studio announced that Doom: The Dark Ages is launching on May 15th.The news came as part of Xbox's most recent Developer Direct livestream, which provided the best look yet at the prequel. As the name implies, The Dark Ages is set in a medieval fantasy realm and takes place long before the events of Doom Eternal and the franchise's 2016 reboot. The developers say that the new game features a much bigger world with a larger emphasis on story - including plenty of cutscenes - but the most important changes appear to be with how The Dark Ages will play.A big focus this time around is on melee combat. Since this is a Doom set in medieval times, that means players will get access to brutal new melee weapons like a spiked mace and iron flail. The scale of battles also seems to have ramped up. We already knew that players would get a mount in the form of a cybernetic dragon, but today's reveal also showed off a skyscraper-sized mech suit so that the Doomslayer can fight enemies the size of kaiju.Another big change is a greater emphasis on accessibility through a series of gameplay sliders. These let you adjust things like the game speed or parry timing, either ramping them up or down. Essentially, these options should give players the ability to really customize the experience, either making it more approachable or a whole lot harder. There are standard difficulty options as well.Doom: The Dark Ages is coming to the PS5, Xbox, and PC when it launches in May.

The Surface Laptop Go 3 could get a replacement very soon. | Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge It's been less than a year since Microsoft launched its first Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered Surface devices, and now a new rumor says followups could debut as soon as this spring. A report from Windows Central updates rumors that have circled since 2023, citing sources who say that new versions of the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro 2-in-1 are in the works, with 11- to 12-inch size screens, Windows on Arm, and lighter but still premium" designs.Microsoft has already scheduled a major" Surface for Business event next week. There, we're anticipating variants of the current Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 CoPilot Plus PCs that have Intel's Lunar Lake chips inside and are aimed at business customers.According to Windows Central, it's unclear where these smaller devices might launch, but they will have cheaper chipsets, like the Snapdragon X Plus or possibly the Snapdragon X that launched earlier this month at CES, to keep prices in the $800 - $900 range. When Microsoft last updated its Surface Laptop Go lineup with a third-generation in 2023, we thought it no longer made sense at the asking price, but the battery life and performance supported by Qualcomm's hardware might change things for a new replacement.The smaller Surface Pro is described as a competitor for Apple's 11-inch iPad Pro. However, Windows Central reports it's unclear if it is positioned to replace the old Surface Go series, which was last updated with the business-focused Surface Go 4.

Image: Google Google is changing the way visible URLs show up on mobile search results worldwide. Search results since 2009 have shown breadcrumbs" or the hierarchy of a webpage's URL using >" after the domain name, but starting today, it will only show the domain on your smartphone or tablet.Web developers have had some control over how results show up according to Google's structured data guidelines that also control how info shows up in its snippets and other areas, and the breadcrumbs will still show up in searches from your desktop. Image: Google Example of the new URL result structure on mobile (top) and desktop (bottom). Google says it's making this change because the breadcrumb element isn't as useful to people who are searching on mobile devices, as it gets cut off on smaller screens."It's certainly true on much smaller screens, like on the discontinued iPhone 13 Mini, which can only show part of the first section of the URL. Screenshot: The Verge On desktop: Structured websites show the URL hierarchy where the page exists after the domain name. Screenshot: The Verge On mobile: The trail after the URL will start getting suppressed, although some breadcrumbs are still showing up for now. (This is an iPhone 13 Mini screen). But the changes Google is making also affect much larger mobile device screens that would otherwise have no issue displaying the breadcrumbs, which are useful for seeing at a glance what section of a site you're browsing.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge The CSA, Thread Group, and Wi-Fi Alliance say they're working together to fix the problems that have plagued thesmart homestandard in its first two years. In this exclusive interview, I ask them how and when. Read the full story at The Verge.

The Pokemon Company The latest batch of new Pokemon TCG Pocket cards finally has a concrete release date, but it seems like you won't be able to trade them right off the bat.The Pokemon Company announced today that Space-Time Smackdown, Pokemon TCG Pocket's latest expansion, is set to debut at the end of the month right after the game's trading feature launches on January 29th. While cards from the last set could all be obtained from a single type of pack, Space-Time Smackdown - which includes a number of monsters from Pokemon Diamond / Pearl / Platinum - will come from packs featuring the legendary Pokemon Dialga and Palkia.Along with Space-Time Smackdown's announcement, TCPi also revealed a bit more about how the trading mechanic will involve two new types of in-game currencies - trade houseglasses and trade tokens. It seems as if there will be cooldown periods as well as a cost if you want to swap cards from Pocket's Genetic Apex and Mythical Island sets with other players. But there will definitely be some waiting involved for people hoping to trade Space-Time Smackdown, which will not be tradeable until a later date after it drops on January 30th.

The Nvidia RTX 5090 Founder's Edition in an Ncase M1. The Nvidia RTX 5090 FE barely fit my 12.7-liter small form factor case, but using it was a dream. In 2022, I wrote that GPUs were headed in the wrong direction - their price, size, and power consumption were off the charts. And while I still believe that's true, I can now confirm Nvidia has at least made one phenomenal exception in the size category: the two-slot Founder's Edition" of its RTX 5090 graphics card, on sale January 30th.The last time Nvidia made a two-slot flagship graphics card, it was the 2021 RTX 3080 Ti FE - the 3090, 4080 and 4090 were gigantic by comparison.So, while my colleague Tom Warren was busy writing his full review of the new 5090 using the best gaming CPU, I wedged one of the $2,000 cards into my own aging mini desktop. I wanted to see whether the surprisingly small flagship GPU was truly ready for small form factor (SFF) cases - or, whether my beloved 12.7-liter Ncase M1 chassis is well and truly obsolete.To my surprise, it worked: all I needed was a new power supply to turn my backpack-sized daily driver into one of the most powerful gaming PCs in the world. At 4K resolution, I'm typically seeing more than double the framerate I get with an RTX 3080 Founder's Edition, one of the last cards that could comfortably fit in the Ncase M1, to give you some idea.But I'm not going to suggest you do the same! For starters, we're talking about a two thousand dollar graphics card and a one thousand watt power supply - which I actually saw consuming up to one whole kilowatt (as measured by my trusty Kill A Watt at the wall) in my Cyberpunk 2077 tests. With an RTX 3080, my system consumed over 200 fewer watts. Not that I minded having a space heater on these cold January days!But I literally had to wedge the 5090 into my Ncase M1 to make it fit, and even remove and reattach the video card's bracket inside my case. And even then I couldn't fully seal my desktop because the GPU's new 12V-2x6 power connector occupies a chunk of space where my case's side panel is supposed to go. You'll want an SFF-ready case with more clearance than I have. It took a bit of elbow grease to get it in there. If not for that power cable... Still, leaving my desktop's guts exposed was a small price to pay to toy with this much power! It's enough to play games at 4K at their maximum settings, save for full ray tracing (aka path tracing). It's even got enough horsepower to turn on path tracing, too, if you combine it with dynamic upscaling and/or fake frame generating tech.I normally play Helldivers 2 on an old 3060 Ti graphics card I bought for just $400, where I'm forced to rely on those tricks just to get smooth 4K-ish gameplay. It was quite nice, if expected, to finally max out that game on the 5090 instead.What I didn't expect: my aging, space-constrained AMD 5800X desktop delivered the same performance as Tom's open-air testing rig in quite a few of our 4K gaming benchmarks. I knew it was possible, but it goes to show that Nvidia's fancy two-slot double flow through" cooler really is suitable for SFF PCs.It depends on whether your games are CPU limited, of course, as my older PC does have a slower CPU - and most of today's games tend to be at least somewhat CPU limited at 1440p resolution, where Tom's system often pulled far ahead by 20 to 60 percent.Facing down the alien swarms and flying particles in Returnal, for example, Tom pulled 201 frames per second at 1440p while my diminutive desktop managed just 169fps; in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, the most CPU-limited game we're testing, my bottlenecked system averaged just 123fps to Tom's 200fps.But that's still over 120fps on max settings, more than enough for butter-smooth sessions of these single-player games! And if I were to pair my tiny tower with a 4K TV in my living room instead of a 1440p monitor, as many SFF PC builders might like to do, I'd have a blast - my 4K results always averaged over 60fps, and were often within just a few FPS of Tom's open bench.And again, I'm typically seeing the RTX 5090 delivering more than twice the horsepower of an RTX 3080, making it quite the upgrade for SFF fans with deep pockets. That's not necessarily something to celebrate, though: the $2,000 RTX 5090 admittedly costs more than twice as much as a $700 RTX 3080 did at its 2020 launch, and will be out of reach for most gamers even if shortages and scalpers don't rear their ugly heads.When it comes down to it, I think the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 is a damn cool piece of kit. It makes me want to quote Ferris Bueller's Day Off because it is so choice. It's a noteworthy exception to the very annoying trend of GPUs expanding in every direction. But at $2,000, 575 watts of power by its lonesome, and with no other Nvidia board partner offering anything nearly as compact, it's the exception that proves the rule.Photography by Sean Hollister / The Verge

The next-gen GPU battle begins with Nvidia alone at the top. Read the full story at The Verge.

Image: Paramount Plus Paramount Plus' new Star Trek film is the sound of scene chewing in space, which is to say, it's pretty damn fun. Read the full story at The Verge.

Image: Royal Shakespeare Company Macbeth, William Shakespeare's iconic play, is being reimagined as an interactive video game with a neo-noir vibe - and it's being developed in part by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The game, titled Lili, is a screen life thriller video game" where you'll have access to a modern-day Lady Macbeth's personal devices, according to a press release.Players will be immersed in a stylized, neo-noir vision of modern Iran, where surveillance and authoritarianism are part of daily life," the release says. The gameplay will feature a blend of live-action cinema within an interactive game format, giving players the chance to immerse themselves in the world of Lady Macbeth and make choices that influence her destiny." It sounds kind of like a version of Macbeth inspired by Sam Barlow's interactive thrillers.The Royal Shakespeare Company is making the game in collaboration with iNK Stories, a New York-based indie studio and publisher that also made 1979 Revolution: Black Friday. It stars Zar Amir as Lady Macbeth (Lili)," per the press release.Lili is set to release later in 2025."

Image: Extremely OK Games Earthblade, the next game from the developers of Celeste, has been canceled. The fantasy-inspired game got its first trailer in late 2022, and the game would have let you explore a free-roaming, dynamically-loading map," Extremely OK Games' Maddy Thorson said at the time. But the team decided to cancel the game in December after a team conflict and because of the pressure of trying to follow up on Celeste, Thorson says in a post detailing what happened.The disagreement" was between Thorson and Noel Berry (Thorson refers to the two of them as us") and Pedro Medeiros over the IP rights of Celeste," Thorson says. We eventually reached a resolution, but both parties also agreed in the end that we should go our separate ways," and Medeiros is currently working on a game called Neverway. Losing Pedro wasn't the only factor in cancelling the game, but it did prompt us to take a serious look at whether fighting through to finish Earthblade was the right path forward," Thorson says.The huge success of Celeste also applied pressure on us to deliver something bigger and better with Earthblade, and that pressure is a large part of why working on it has become so exhausting," Thorson says. Pedro isn't to blame for this - in fact the split with him has given us the clarity to see that we have lost our way, and the opportunity to admit defeat."Thorson and Berry want to refocus on smaller-scale projects" and are prototyping again" to try and rediscover game development in a manner closer to how we approached it at Celeste's or TowerFall's inception."