The Verge

Newport News Shipbuilding, a defense contractor whose shipyard is alleged to have been photographed by drone. | Getty Images A foreign graduate student has pleaded guilty to crimes under the Espionage Act for photographing classified US Navy ships with a drone. The case appears to be a first-of-its kind prosecution by the Department of Justice.Fengyun Shi, a Chinese citizen and graduate student at the University of Minnesota, was arrested in January after a drone he was flying got stuck in a tree in Newport News, Virginia. A suspicious resident called the police and Shi was questioned before abandoning the drone and fleeing. After the FBI seized the drone and pulled the images off it, investigators discovered that Shi had photographed Navy vessels at multiple shipyards in Virginia. One of those shipyards, in Newport News, was actively manufacturing... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images A few days ago, I misplaced my wallet. I remember having it on Sunday, the night of my friend's birthday dinner, because I was the one to put my card down. Maybe I had it on Monday. I didn't spend any money then aside from a Lyft ride home, which famously doesn't require you to swipe a card, so there's no way to know for sure. And even when I did spend money - a case of La Croix at the bodega, an iced latte as a reward for going to the laundromat - my wallet never factored into the equation. I use Apple Pay for almost every purchase, both because it's easy and convenient and because, unlike my wallet, my phone is something I actually can't live without.It wasn't until Wednesday that my lack of a wallet became an issue. I didn't need it... Continue reading...

The TCL Q6 is solid TV for watching the 2024 Olympics, House of the Dragon, and a wild season of election coverage. | Image: TCL TCL's Q6 QLED TV was one of the standout deals from Walmart's recent Walmart Deals" event, and the post-event discounts have only gotten steeper. The 65-inch model, for example, has dropped even further at Walmart, where you can currently pick it up for an all-time low of $388 ($312 off). You can also grab it at Best Buy right now for $399.99 ($300 off) if you prefer shopping at a different retailer.The Q6 was already a decent value before the discounts kicked in, one that makes for a compelling entry-level option for gamers. It's a cost-effective set that allows you to make the most out of newer consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / S. It uses a 60Hz panel, but it can simulate a 120Hz variable refresh rate with... Continue reading...

Image: Amazon Amazon's AI shopping assistant, Rufus, is rolling out to all users in the US on Amazon's mobile app. You can pull up the shopping assistant by tapping the orange and blue icon in the right corner of the app's navigation bar, where Rufus can answer questions, draw comparisons between items, and give you updates on your order.Amazon first introduced Rufus in February but only made it available to a small group of users. Rufus uses Amazon's product listing details, reviews, and community Q&As, along with some information from the web, to inform its answers. Image: Amazon You can ask the tool things directly related to a product, like Is this coffee maker easy to clean and maintain?" as well as recommendations about... Continue reading...

Despite a $100 price tag, these 8BitDo gamepads don't include any wireless functionality. | Image: 8BitDo 8BitDo's shiny silver- and gold-finished 11th anniversary SN30 Pro gamepads feature housings and controls made of so much metal that they weigh in at 381 grams - almost an entire pound.As spotted by Polygon, the company went nearly all in on the metal facelift for its SN30 Pro gamepad, with the D-pad, action buttons, shoulder triggers, and even joysticks all made of a metal zinc-alloy material." Image: 8BitDo The D-pad, ABXY buttons, joysticks, and triggers are all metal on 8BitDo's shiny new controllers. This controller won't just feel satisfyingly hefty in hand for its size (the beefy Xbox Duke controller weighed 425 grams while the original SNES gamepad was just 79 grams) but it also may be durable enough... Continue reading...

Image: Archer Today, Southwest Airlines became the latest major carrier to join forces with a so-called urban air mobility startup. The Dallas-based airline signed a memorandum of understanding with Archer Aviation to draw up plans for an air taxi service.The service will operate using Archer's battery-powered, four-passenger, tilt-rotor Midnight aircraft, which are designed to take off and land vertically from a landing strip like a helicopter. As part of the deal, the aircraft will get access to 14 California airports where Southwest operates.This is the latest deal between a major airline and an eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) startup, signaling a growing confidence in the ability of these small companies to make their dreams of... Continue reading...

There wasn't a Factory Reset option, previously. | Photo: David Pierce / The Verge Since the launch of the Rabbit R1, the AI assistant device has been storing users' chat logs on-device with no way to erase them, according to a company security bulletin. Rabbit is now addressing the issue with a software update that includes a new Factory Reset option in settings to wipe the device. Previously, you could only unlink your account from an R1, which did not erase all user data.Along with the new ability to fully delete local user data, the software update also addresses another eyebrow-raising behavior of the R1. Prior to the update, stored pairing data that lets the R1 hardware add things to the Rabbithole journal also had permission to read the journal as well. That means a stolen and hacked R1 could potentially have... Continue reading...

Image: Tesla Tesla is bringing back its longest-range Model 3, which will also be the second cheapest version of the popular electric sedan available. The new trim will be available for $42,490, according to the website.The rear-wheel-drive (RWD) version of the Long Range Model 3 will get an EPA-estimated range of 363 miles. That could be a significant addition to Tesla's lineup at a time when production and sales are both drooping.Tesla originally introduced the Long Range RWD Model 3 in 2017 but discontinued it two years later. Now, it's back with a new sticker price and a new look, thanks to a refreshed design that launched in the US at the beginning of the year. Screenshot: Tesla The new trim is almost $5,000 cheaper... Continue reading...

A pedestrian stands in the shade of a small tree during a heatwave in New York on Wednesday, June 30th, 2021. | Photo: Getty Images Nearly 34 million people across 65 US cities - roughly one in 10 Americans - live in a place where the built environment makes temperatures feel at least 8 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than it would without that urban sprawl. That's according to a new study by the nonprofit Climate Central, which mapped the impact of a phenomenon called the urban heat island effect in major cities in the US.Dark, paved surfaces with little greenery tend to absorb heat. Hot exhaust from heavy traffic and industrial facilities can also make certain neighborhoods warmer than others. That's how the urban heat island effect can make a heatwave feel even worse for some communities. In the US, a history of segregation and redlining that resulted in chronic... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge AT&T revealed Friday morning that a cybersecurity attack had exposed call records and texts from nearly all" of the carrier's cellular customers (including people on mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs, that use AT&T's network, like Cricket, Boost Mobile, and Consumer Cellular). The breach took place during the period between May 1st, 2022, and October 31st, 2022, in addition to an incident that impacted a very small number" of customers on January 2nd, 2023.AT&T spokesperson Alex Byers confirmed to The Verge the threat actor accessed the information through the company's account on a third-party cloud platform, Snowflake, similar to data breaches that have affected Ticketmaster and Santander Bank. AT&T first learned of the... Continue reading...

Illustration by The Verge; Photo by Emmanuel Dunand / AFP via Getty Images As the rest of the tech industry seems to mostly shift to overproduced infomercials for their product launches, Samsung is holding fast to its love for giant live events in huge arenas. This year, at Unpacked in Paris, the company announced a whole lineup of new gadgets. The new Fold and Flip look nice but also a bit uninspired; the Watch Ultra and Buds 3 look almost too familiar; and the Galaxy Ring might be the beginning of something really cool.On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk through all of Samsung's announcements and try to figure out whether Apple products but for Android" is actually a winning strategy. It might be! Plus, we debate what to make of Samsung's somewhat lackluster upgrades for the Flip and Fold phones -... Continue reading...

The Verge Microsoft is preparing to enable Copilot in OneNote to read and analyze handwritten notes. The feature entered beta testing late last month, and will allow OneNote users to write handwritten notes using a stylus and then summarize them, ask questions, or even generate to-do lists based on the notes.The AI-powered Copilot feature in OneNote will even be able to convert your handwritten notes into text for easy editing and sharing. Microsoft first launched Copilot inside OneNote in November, and this upgrade will be available to existing Copilot for Microsoft 365 subscribers and Copilot Pro users once it rolls out more broadly. Image: The Verge Copilot can quickly convert your handwritten notes into easier to read... Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images A bipartisan group of senators introduced a new bill to make it easier to authenticate and detect artificial intelligence-generated content and protect journalists and artists from having their work gobbled up by AI models without their permission.The Content Origin Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media Act (COPIED Act) would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to create standards and guidelines that help prove the origin of content and detect synthetic content, like through watermarking. It also directs the agency to create security measures to prevent tampering and requires AI tools for creative or journalistic content to let users attach information about their origin and prohibit that... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge OpenAI has created an internal scale to track the progress its large language models are making toward artificial general intelligence, or AI with human-like intelligence, a spokesperson told Bloomberg.Today's chatbots, like ChatGPT, are at Level 1. OpenAI claims it is nearing Level 2, defined as a system that can solve basic problems at the level of a person with a PhD. Level 3 refers to AI agents capable of taking actions on a user's behalf. Level 4 involves AI that can create new innovations. Level 5, the final step to achieving AGI, is AI that can perform the work of entire organizations of people. OpenAI has previously defined AGI as a highly autonomous system surpassing humans in most economically valuable tasks."OpenAI's... Continue reading...

Image: Frontier Developments Planet Coaster's sequel isn't just about building the best theme park anymore: it's about water parks, too. The sequel, coming this fall, will finally let you construct everything from wave pools and lazy rivers to custom-built waterslides.You'll also get to outfit your aquatic experience with changing rooms, sunbeds, lifeguards, and more. Planet Coaster 2 builds upon its predecessor with the addition of new building and pathing tools, as well as an advanced event sequencer system that can give your guests new experiences. There are also new rides, scenery pieces, and themes.Another neat feature coming to Planet Coaster 2 is the ability to create shared theme parks with friends - but you can't all build in the park at the same time. T... Continue reading...

The leaked Pixel 9, 9 Pro, and 9 Pro XL. | Image: Rozetked Pixels are leaking again, and this time, it looks like a larger Pixel 9 Pro XL' is coming and coming fast in August. Continue reading...

It's a big price for big sound, but the AirPods Max are a little more reasonable at $398. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The high-end pricing on Apple's first-gen products never ceases to amaze me - just look at the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro or its $5,000 display. The AirPods Max were also probably a bit more expensive than they should have been at their $549 launch price, but that's relatively tame compared to the competition Apple is targeting with its luxe noise-canceling headphones. Thankfully, they're now down to $398 ($151 off) in select colors at Amazon and Walmart, which is a record low.Some may feel the AirPods Max are getting a bit long in the tooth since we first reviewed them in 2020, but Apple's wireless headphones are still our top recommendation for Apple users and some of the best headphones overall. They sound nearly as good as the Sony... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A group of self-proclaimed gay furry hackers" says it breached the Heritage Foundation earlier this month, releasing two gigabytes of the right-wing think tank's internal data on Tuesday. On its Telegram channel, the hacktivist collective SiegedSec - which has previously claimed responsibility for hacking NATO's computer systems - said the Heritage hack was part of its #OpTransRights campaign, which also targeted the far-right media outlet Real America's Voice and the Hillsong megachurch. The group also cited their objections to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's policy proposal for a second term for former President Donald Trump, as a motivating factor.In an email to The Verge, Heritage Foundation spokesperson Noah Weinrich... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Arm is launching its own upscaler for mobile gaming. The chip designer says its Arm Accuracy Super Resolution (ASR) can make games look better, while lowering power consumption on your phone. It's also making the upscaling technology available to developers under an MIT open-source license.Arm based its technology on AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2), which uses temporal upscaling to make PC games look better and boost frame rates. Unlike spatial upscaling, which upscales an image based on a single frame, temporal upscaling involves using multiple frames to generate a higher-quality image.Upscaling is especially useful for lower-powered graphics cards that couldn't otherwise run a game at playable frame rates. AMD FSR, Nvidia... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Warner Bros. Discovery has been debuting its newer IP-based series on Max for the past few years in an effort to make it the one to watch," but the company is now switching things up with a big plan to rebrand multiple projects as - wait for it - HBO shows.Though The Penguin and Dune: Prophecy were both initially billed as Max Originals, Deadline reports that Warner Bros. Discovery will now market them as HBO Originals as part of a larger effort to differentiate what kind of content is released under the two brand umbrellas.Now, the shows will premiere simultaneously on both Max and HBO the way other big tentpoles like House of the Dragon and Succession have in the past. This always kind of seemed like a given because of the success... Continue reading...

Seven different Arduino-based devices can be built with the Plug and Make Kit kit. | Image: Arduino Arduino's new starter kit features electronic components that can be connected without having to know anything about soldering or wiring. It's similar to LittleBits' electronic building blocks that make it easy for kids to learn about electronics but targets an older audience of beginners who eventually aspire to do more with an Arduino.The $87.36 Arduino Plug and Make Kit comes with an Arduino UNO R4 WiFi microcomputer featuring Bluetooth and its own built-in 12 x 8 LED matrix display, plus seven different Modulino components that can all be connected using cables that snap into one-way connector ports, ensuring nothing can be wired incorrectly. Image: Arduino The kit includes an Arduino microcomputer and seven... Continue reading...

Photo illustration: The Verge / Photo by The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson discusses the deal: AI is coming. It is coming quickly. We want to be part of whatever transition happens.' Continue reading...

Unlike the standard model, the iRobot Roomba j7 Plus comes with an auto-empty dock. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge As an extremely lazy person, I am a big fan of robot vacuums like the Roomba j7 Plus. Nothing beats rotting in bed as iRobot's last-gen flagship navigates my cluttered home and does the cleaning on my behalf. What I don't like, though, is its high price tag. Thankfully, Prime members can currently pick up the j7 Plus with an auto-empty dock for just $399.99 ($400 off) at Amazon. That's the best price we've seen on the discontinued robot vacuum, which has been increasingly difficult to find in recent months.Despite being discontinued, the j7 Plus is one of my colleague Jennifer Pattison Tuohy's favorite models. And after spending time with a review unit she sent me, I understand why. It's loud, but given how useful and effective its... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube has announced a set of new features for YouTube Shorts, some of which are available now, like a new text-to-speech video narration that lets you add an artificial voiceover. On TikTok, those are the sometimes startlingly robotic voices that you hear a lot on videos with something to promote.The process for adding them is a lot like TikTok's, in fact: after you create some text, you'll tap a new add voice" icon that, in Shorts, sits in the upper-left corner of the screen and pick the voice you want. YouTube only offers four voices to choose from at the moment, whereas TikTok has... quite a few more. Image: YouTube A look at YouTube Shorts' new caption tool. YouTube says it's also rolling out... Continue reading...

DeepMind found preliminary evidence" that Gemini enables its robots to plan how to undertake complex tasks from simple instructions. | Image: Google DeepMind Google is training its robots with Gemini AI so they can get better at navigation and completing tasks. The DeepMind robotics team explained in a new research paper how using Gemini 1.5 Pro's long context window - which dictates how much information an AI model can process - allows users to more easily interact with its RT-2 robots using natural language instructions.This works by filming a video tour of a designated area, such as a home or office space, with researchers using Gemini 1.5 Pro to make the robot watch" the video to learn about the environment. The robot can then undertake commands based on what it has observed using verbal and / or image outputs - such as guiding users to a power outlet after being shown a phone and asked... Continue reading...

280 Earth's pilot carbon removal facility in The Dalles, Oregon. | Image: 280 Earth Data centers are a growing climate problem, especially as all the energy needed to train AI models inflates tech companies' carbon footprints. A startup that spun out of Google's moonshot factory" X says its technology can provide a potential solution. It can pull carbon dioxide out of the air, run partially on servers' waste heat, and even generate water to help cool a data center more efficiently.The company, 280 Earth, just signed a $40 million agreement to capture carbon dioxide emissions for some big names through an initiative called Frontier that Stripe, Alphabet, Meta, Shopify, and McKinsey launched in 2022 to support emerging carbon removal tech. The buyers include Frontier's founding members as well as Autodesk, H&M Group,... Continue reading...

It took Aryan Kapoor three years to land a model rocket vertically. | Screenshot: YouTube Joe Barnard (or BPS.Space) and Aryan Kapoor are two model rocket enthusiasts who've spent years working to advance the hobby with innovative ways to precisely steer model rockets and land them vertically instead of just watching them parachute back to Earth after a launch. Despite many failures and setbacks, they've each succeeded in recreating SpaceX's Falcon 9 landing capabilities at a much, much smaller scale and without billions of dollars of funding.Barnard, who studied music production in college - not aerospace engineering - spent seven years designing, building, and perfecting various custom components, including a custom thrust vectoring mechanism for model rocket engines.Relying on a pair of servo motors that are geared down... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge As Sonos continues chipping away at fixing bugs and improving the performance of its poorly received mobile app redesign, the company also remains focused on several new hardware products. Among them is an ultrapremium soundbar that will serve as a successor to the current Sonos Arc - and likely at a higher price. Codenamed Lasso, the device is currently in limited beta testing, and today, I can share the first images of it.The exterior of the Lasso soundbar bears a strong resemblance to the Arc, which Sonos introduced over four years ago. But inside, the components and speaker drivers have been completely overhauled and redesigned, and that's expected to result in a cost upwards of $1,200. Sonos aims to ship Lasso later this year,... Continue reading...

The Killers marked England's victory against The Netherlands in the Euro 2024 semi-finals with a bright(side) bang. | Image: The Killers The Killers assisted UK fans in celebrating England's Euro 2024 semifinal victory yesterday by pausing their gig at London's O2 Arena to project the final moments of the game behind the band. Viral videos across X and Instagram captured the elation that followed as confetti showered the crowd during a rousing rendition of Mr. Brightside" - and now they're being taken offline by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).According to an Instagram takedown notice seen by The Verge, UEFA says the removed videos include content that infringes their copyright." Many of the impacted videos being pulled, such as a clip posted by photographer Bella Falk, contained mere seconds of the live match and are transformative" enough to fall... Continue reading...

Stellantis' idled Belvidere Assembly Plantis one of the factories that will have new life as an EV facility thanks to $334 million in grant money. | Image: Getty The Biden administration announced $1.7 billion to convert endangered or shuttered plants into electric vehicle manufacturing facilities.Eleven auto factories across eight states that are currently closed or at risk of closing will receive the funding in order to retrofit their operations for EV manufacturing, administration officials said in a call with reporters. The types of goods these factories will produce run the gamut from parts for electric motorcycles and school buses, hybrid powertrains, heavy-duty commercial truck batteries, and electric SUVs," the White House says.Building a clean energy economy can and should be a win-win for union autoworkers and automakers," President Joe Biden said in a statement. This investment... Continue reading...

The Starlink Mini can be powered by a portable USB battery. | Image: SpaceX SpaceX's Starlink Mini dish - which Elon Musk says will change the world" - is now available to anyone in the US. The diminutive internet-from-space kit neatly integrates the dish and Wi-Fi router into a weatherproof package that's significantly smaller and uses less power than previous Starlink kits. The laptop-sized all-in-one dish can even be powered directly by a USB-PD power bank capable of 100W (20V/5A) - though it's high constant power draw means most batteries won't last more than an hour or two.Initially, Starlink Mini was only available as an add-on for current Residential subscribers in the US. Now, just a few weeks since launch, it's available to a wide spectrum of vanlifers and digital nomads who want to stay connected no... Continue reading...

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images A judge overseeing Redbox owner Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment's bankruptcy case granted a request Wednesday to convert it from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7 bankruptcy, according to Lowpass' Janko Roettgers and The Wall Street Journal. The company's lawyers said Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment will lay off its remaining 1,000 employees and liquidate the businesses, including streaming operations and the 24,000 or so disc kiosks that have rented out DVDs, Blu-rays, and videogames for years.According to Roettgers, Judge Thomas Horan said, There is no means to continue to pay employees, pay any bills, otherwise finance this case. It is hopelessly insolvent... Given the fact that there may also be at least the possibility of... Continue reading...

The Delta emulator app now provides native iPadOS support. | Image: Riley Testut The Delta iOS app has released a new update that introduces the retro gaming emulator's redesigned logo, alongside native iPad support that allows users to play multiple games simultaneously. Users in the EU can download the update immediately via AltStore PAL, but everyone else will have to wait for App Store approval of Delta 1.6 - Apple rejected the current version according to a screenshot shared by Delta developer Riley Testut.The app was technically available on iPad before today, but the lack of full support forced it to run as a letterboxed iPhone app, which impacted the emulator's touch controls and prevented games from using the full iPad screen.The new Delta 1.6 update rectifies those issues and enables the app to make full... Continue reading...