The Verge - All Posts

A deep image from theDark Energy Survey. | Image: DES Collaboration / NOIRLab / NSF / AU Dark energy, a force responsible for the expansion of the universe, is mostly unknown. But this month, researchers released a new survey meant to unpack its mysteries. Continue reading...

Macan you dig it? | Image: Porsche The Macan is expected to go into production in the latter half of 2024. Continue reading...

Image: Google A fresh" new color for the Pixel 8 series isn't the only thing Google is announcing today. The company is also detailing its latest feature drop, which brings the brand-new Circle to Search feature - first seen on Samsung's Galaxy S24 - to both the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro. Google says Circle to Search will go live on January 31st, which just so happens to be the release date for Samsung's S24 lineup. With a long press of the home button or navigation bar, you'll be able to circle anything on your phone screen, and Google will serve up more information about the highlighted content.This feature drop also makes the built-in thermometer on the Pixel 8 Pro at least a little more useful: you can now use it to take your own (or someone else's)... Continue reading...

Google wasn't exactly subtle with its teases earlier this week, and now the company has confirmed that it's launching both the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro in a new mint green color. The latest color option is a bit muted compared to the bay" blue 8 Pro. But if you're a fan of the smaller regular Pixel 8, this is your first chance at a color beyond the very safe black, hazel, and rose gold options that have been available since the phone shipped back in October.For both phones, mint is only available with the base 128GB of storage. If you need more than that, you've gotta stick with the original colors. Google sent a sample of the 8 Pro over to me, and a pamphlet included in the package describes mint as inspired by the vibrant hue you'd find... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The PlayStation 5's latest update blocks players from using the Cronus Zen - a device cheaters use to get an unfair advantage in first-person shooters and other games - as spotted by Call of Duty news site CharlieIntel. A notice on the Cronus website warns players that the 24.01-08.60.00 update for the PS5 no longer allows the Cronus Zen to connect to the console.Although Cronus bills the device as a controller emulator," cheaters have been using it to perform all sorts of digital tweaks to their controllers, like reducing recoil and setting macros. Some players using a keyboard and mouse also employ the Cronus Zen to trick their console into thinking they're using a controller for the benefit of their aim and movement abilities. ... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Samsung is making parts and repair guides available for a bunch more of its devices, including three sizes of this year's The Frame TV and both of its flagship foldable phones. The company says that for many of the TV and other display repairs, you'll only need simple tools like a screwdriver to make a fix happen.Samsung says DIYers will be able to replace parts related to picture, power, WiFi connection, [and] sound" for various display types. Users can also buy repair guides and parts for some of the company's 2023 soundbars. Samsung even says all it takes to do any of these repairs are common tools like a Phillips-head screwdriver." (From experience, I urge you to be careful popping the bezel off the TV. The TAB" connections from... Continue reading...

Dollars and sense? | Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge Great news for those of you already experiencing subscription fatigue: you can subscribe to buy now, pay later (BNPL) service Klarna for $7.99 a month.At first glance, this seemed pretty fucking weird to me. I mean, the entire point of Klarna is that you can essentially do layaway without paying any kind of interest; Klarna has partnered with a wide array of retailers - from Dolce & Gabbana to 1-800-Flowers.com to Macy's - to create this service. So what's the consumer value in the subscription?The subtext of the announcement is, Hey look, another revenue stream!"Well, let's say you shop at, I dunno, Target or Kroger or Safeway. These retailers aren't affiliated with Klarna, so if you try to use the service there, you have to pay a... Continue reading...

Who says webcams can't be fun? | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge At this point, I think it's pretty safe to say that remote work is here to stay in at least some capacity, even if Meta, Apple, Google, and a host of other companies have rolled out more stringent WFH policies over the past year. Thankfully for those of us who work from home and still find ourselves knee-deep in Zoom calls, Insta360's Link is on sale at Amazon, B&H Photo, and direct from Insta360 for $249.99 ($50 off), which marks a new low on the auto-swiveling webcam.Although auto-framing is nothing new - Apple introduced its Center Stage feature with the iPad Pro in 2021 - Insta360 has taken a more novel approach to keeping you centered in the frame with its latest webcam. Whereas most digitally pan and zoom, the 0.5-inch Sony... Continue reading...

The Apple we know today is far removed from the one that created the first Macintosh computer that Steve Jobs showed off in a very silly presentation on January 24th, 1984. It's been the most valuable company in the world for most of the last decade. It has a global, meticulously curated supply chain, retail stores around the world, and near-constant legal and regulatory trouble. And its primary hardware driver is a phone.But Apple still makes the Macintosh, and some would argue that we're living in a new golden age for the machines. They're faster than ever and as sleek as any made during Jony Ive's time going ham on the company's industrial design, but they're also practical in a way they haven't been since MacBooks... Continue reading...

Image: Sand Door Games I distinctly remember the first time I saw Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior. It was during Summer Game Fest last year, and the game's brief minute-long reveal trailer was enough to leave a lasting impression. I've been looking forward to playing it ever since. My patience has been rewarded with the news that Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior will launch on February 13th on PC.Lysfanga's trailer gives you a good idea of what you can expect - this is a game where you'll make use of time travel and your past lives to fight monsters - but it can't quite capture how interesting and deep those time travel powers are. In the lead-up to this announcement, I spoke with Lysfanga's developers at Sand Door Studio and had a chance to get a hands-on... Continue reading...

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Ring will no longer let local police publicly ask people for doorbell footage through its Neighbors app. The Amazon-owned company announced it's going to sunset its Request for Assistance tool this week, forcing police to obtain a warrant for most of its video requests.This change might seem like a step in the right direction, but it may actually make the clip-requesting process less transparent, as police can still request clips from Ring during what they consider emergencies." In a statement to The Verge, Amazon spokesperson Yassi Yarger confirmed that on rare occasions," Ring will provide information to law enforcement when there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, such as a kidnapping or an attempted... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft has reached a $3 trillion market cap, the first time in its 48-year history. It's the second company, after Apple, to reach the milestone valuation after stock in Microsoft climbed 1.5 percent in trading on the NASDAQ on Wednesday.Apple first hit the $3 trillion market cap two years ago, more than a year after it surpassed the $2 trillion mark in 2020. Microsoft and Apple have been trading places for the world's most valuable company in recent weeks, with Microsoft briefly overtaking Apple earlier this month.Microsoft's stock has been rallying in recent months, as the company continues to ride an AI hype train from investors. Microsoft announced the pricing for its Copilot for Microsoft 365 service last year, with investors... Continue reading...

A view of Meta's data center in Clonee Co Meath, Ireland. Picture date: Tuesday June 13, 2023. | Photo by Niall Carson/PA Images via Getty Images Data centers could gobble up twice as much electricity by 2026 thanks in large part to cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).We rely on data centers to store all our emails, photos, cat videos, and everything else floating around in the cloud. More and more, data centers are cropping up to mine Bitcoin and train AI.That's already triggered backlash over the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies and AI tools like ChatGPT, since all those data centers are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions tied to their electricity use. The world will need a lot more renewable energy to clean up pollution from power grids and satiate skyrocketing electricity demand... Continue reading...

Amie does tasks and calendar side by side, which is delightful. | Image: Amie There's another company vying to be the place you go to manage your time. It's called Amie, and it's one of the best-looking calendar apps I've used. It's available today for iOS, Mac, and the web after four years in development and many months in beta testing. I've been using it off and on for a long time, and I like it a lot.The first thing that drew me to Amie was that it's set up to be a combination of a task list and a calendar. You have lists of tasks in the left sidebar, and you then drag tasks into the calendar to give them a time slot. Each calendar event is like its own task, too, and you can check them off as you go through your day. A lot of smart productivity people will tell you that time blocking is the best strategy for... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is launching its immersive 3D meetings inside Microsoft Teams today. Microsoft Mesh, the company's mixed reality platform, is coming out of preview and being integrated into Teams to let people gather in virtual spaces with or without a VR headset.I got to try out Mesh inside Microsoft Teams late last year, and it feels a lot like a corporate version of AltspaceVR, the social VR platform Microsoft acquired in 2017 and shut down a year ago. The 3D Mesh meetings in Teams work best with a VR headset, with Microsoft only supporting Meta's Quest devices currently.You can participate in virtual 3D meetings, and the impressive spatial audio feature mimics the ability to have the type of private conversations you'd have in an office... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has started letting developers link to third-party payment processors, but only if it's on Apple's own terms. Continue reading...

Twenty years ago, on the Mac's 20th anniversary, I asked Steve Jobs if the Mac would still be relevant to Apple in the age of the iPod. He scoffed at the prospect of the Mac not being important: of course" it would be.Yet, 10 years later, Apple's revenue was increasingly dominated by the iPhone, and the recent success of the new iPad had provided another banner product for the company. When I interviewed Apple exec Phil Schiller for the Mac's 30th anniversary, I found myself asking him about the Mac's relevance, too. He also scoffed: Our view is, the Mac keeps going forever," he said.Today marks 40 years since Jobs unveiled the original Macintosh at an event in Cupertino, and it once again feels right to ask what's next... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nvidia is launching a new feature for all RTX GPU owners today: RTX Video HDR. Much like how Nvidia's RTX Video Super Resolution can upscale old, blurry web videos, RTX Video HDR uses AI to convert SDR color space video to HDR. You just need an HDR10-compatible monitor with HDR enabled in Windows.RTX Video HDR is part of today's 551.23 Game Ready driver release for the new RTX 4070 Ti Super launch. The Video HDR feature works in both Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome, and during my testing on an HDR600 monitor, I noticed it added subtle color detail to 4K YouTube videos that weren't uploaded in HDR. The effect might be more obvious on a better HDR monitor, but it was difficult to notice unless I toggled it on and off multiple times. I... Continue reading...

Image: Pocket Pair Palworld, a new multiplayer monster-collecting survival game, has sold more than 7 million copies in just five days, and now the developers behind it are sharing a roadmap of what's to come. Dubbed Pokemon with guns" by many, Palworld is set to get player-vs-player (PvP) fights, raid bosses, a PvP arena mode, and Steam / Xbox crossplay support.Developer Pocket Pair revealed the planned future updates in a post on X (formerly Twitter) today with no time frame for when they will arrive. Palworld is also getting various Xbox feature improvements," alongside server transfers and migrations, improvements to the game's building system, and new islands, pals, bosses, and technologies.

Concept Tesla design images shown off in a recent corporate video. | Image: Tesla Tesla is eying a June 2025 kickoff for production of a new mass-market compact crossover, Reuters reports. The company has apparently invited suppliers to bid to work on the car, and is forecasting producing 10,000 vehicles weekly. Tesla did not respond to The Verge's request for comment on Reuters' report.News that production of the next-generation vehicle could be just a year and a half away comes as Tesla is facing intense competition in the electric vehicle market from BYD, a Chinese automaker that Reuters reports overtook Tesla to become the world's top EV maker by sales in the fourth quarter of 2023. While BYD has grown rapidly off the back of its affordable cars, The Wall Street Journal notes that it's moving into selling more... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge We now know the date and time when Nintendo will disconnect online services for 3DS and Wii U software, which is scheduled for April 8th, 2024, at 4PM PT / 7PM ET. If you're in Japan, it will be the morning of April 9th, at 9AM.If you've been using one of those systems, you should note this support page warning users that if you have an unused eShop balance tied to a Nintendo Network ID, you have until March 11th at 10PM PT to link the wallet with a Nintendo Account so that those funds can be used to buy items for use with the Nintendo Switch.Even if you don't have a Switch, you can still create an account and merge the funds.Nintendo announced the spring shutdown a few months ago, explaining that while StreetPass, Pokemon Bank,... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge X is now supporting passkey log-ins on iPhones and iPads, granting members access to the security feature regardless of their Premium" status. Generating a passkey for X allows users to completely skip entering a password when they log in to their accounts and instead rely on the device's security (with Face ID, Touch ID, or your device's passcode).For now, passkeys are only available in the US, and X hasn't revealed when it's rolling out the login technology on Android, for desktop operating systems, or in other countries. Also, X's rollout of passkeys doesn't seem to be complete yet (some users reported still not having access as of Tuesday night on the East Coast), so don't fret if the feature hasn't popped up yet.

Image: Google Google ended its contract with Appen, an Australian data company involved in training its large language model AI tools used in Bard, Search, and other products, even as the competition to develop generative AI tools increases. Our decision to end the contract was made as part of our ongoing effort to evaluate and adjust many of our supplier partnerships across Alphabet to ensure our vendor operations are as efficient as possible," Google spokesperson Courtenay Mencini said in a statement sent to The Verge.Appen notified the Australian Securities Exchange in a filing, saying it had no prior knowledge of Google's decision to terminate the contract."Human workers at companies like Appen often handle many of the more distasteful parts... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge This last weekend I was sitting in a hotel room in Memphis, staring out at the parking lot turned ice skating rink, wanting to just have a couple of hours with my brain turned off. I opened Netflix hoping to find a movie that would give me an evening's respite. Scrolling down to the top 10, I was met with a who's who of the 2010s and 2020s. Cowboy & Aliens, the 2011 flop with a great cast, was on the list. Queenpins, the 2021 flop with a great cast, was also there. At the top of the list was The Legend of Tarzan, a 2016 flop with a great cast. Rounding out the top 10 was a Sylvester Stallone flick from 2019 and a handful of new releases I'd heard nothing about until I saw them in the top 10 list.In a highly competitive streaming market... Continue reading...

ADT has a new smart home security on the works that looks like it will launch next month. | Screenshot: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge All signs are pointing to an imminent launch of ADT's new Smart Home Security System, a DIY security system born of a collaboration between Google and ADT. This could be a better home security option for those of us who loved and lost the excellent but expensive Google Nest Secure system, which Google is sunsetting for good on April 8th, 2024.As The Verge reported in October 2023, hidden support pages on ADT's website indicated the company - which Google invested $450 million into in 2020 - was getting ready to launch a new DIY security system called ADT Smart Home Security.From the leaks, it appeared that the new product had better features and a nicer industrial design than the ADT Self Setup option Google was offering its Nest... Continue reading...

Image: OnLeaks via MySmartPrice The Pixel 8 has only been out for a few months, but that isn't stopping leakers from getting early images of the forthcoming Pixel 9. Reliable leaker OnLeaks shared a set of renders with MySmartPrice, showing what appears to be Google's Pixel 9 Pro flagship with completely flat edges framing the phone and giving off iPhone vibes.That's not the only major design change on this phone - it looks like Google may have also redesigned the rear camera bar. Instead of stretching the camera bar across the entire width of the phone, the renders show the three-camera setup inside of a bulging, oval-shaped island, similar to the Pixel Fold. It also appears to come with a slightly smaller 6.5-inch display (down from 6.7 inches on the Pixel 8 Pro),... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge France's National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) has fined Amazon 32 million, or about $35 million USD, for excessively intrusive" worker surveillance that the commission says puts continuous pressure" on employees in Amazon's warehouses. Amazon called its conclusions, which put the company in violation of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), factually incorrect."Following an investigation prompted by press reports, CNIL said that Amazon's systems measuring and restricting scanning speed (including a stow machine gun" indicator that activates when workers are scanning too fast), along with the company's data collection and retention practices, were excessive" and violated several GDPR articles. So did... Continue reading...

Image: Blizzard We are, as the kids say, so friggin' back.In November, the Overwatch League announced its end after six seasons. At the time, Overwatch League associate PR manager John Nomis said, We are transitioning from the Overwatch League and evolving competitive Overwatch in a new direction," confirming that while the League itself was dead, Overwatch esports would return. Today, we know what shape competitive Overwatch will take in 2024 with the announcement of the Overwatch Champions Series or the OWCS.The OWCS is our new premiere international competitive circuit open to players across North America (NA), Europe, Middle East, and North Africa (EMEA), and Asia," read the announcement post.The Overwatch Champions Series will have an open... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge This is Hot Pod, The Verge's newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.On Friday, Insiders got part one of a Q&A with NPR's new podcasting chief, Collin Campbell, who led new show development at Gimlet before the studio was dismantled by Spotify. We discussed how his strategy for NPR differs from his predecessor and how the network is moving forward after last year's layoffs and cancellations. Today, I have the second part of the interview, in which we got into how NPR is operating in the new, competitive podcasting landscape, and what (if anything) he learned from the tumult at Gimlet.But first, some more Hot Pod Summit news!Throughline and Israel Story are coming to Hot Pod SummitIt's shaping up... Continue reading...

LG's C3 OLED TVs offer bright, vivid displays along with several gamer-friendly features. | Image: LG Super Bowl season traditionally brings with it steep discounts on last year's TVs, and while it's still some time away, the deals are starting to trickle in. If you want to upgrade your TV ahead of the event, BuyDig is throwing in up to $200 in gift cards when you buy the last-gen LG C3 OLED TV in various configurations. You can, for instance, buy the 77-inch model at its all-time low price of $2,296.99 ($200 off) with a $200 gift card, while the 65-inch is $1,596.99 ($1,000 off) with a $100 gift card included. If you prefer a different retailer, Amazon and Best Buy are also discounting the TVs but without a gift card.The forthcoming LG C4 is brighter and has more processing power, but the last-gen TV is still an impressive... Continue reading...

Wyze has announced the second generation of its inexpensive floodlight camera, and it's even cheaper. | Image: Wyze Budget smart home company Wyze announced its second generation wired floodlight camera this week, and it brings some significant upgrades over the first gen. These include bumping up the video resolution to 2K HD from 1080p, increasing the camera's field of view to 160 degrees, and delivering up to 2800 lumens of light with the two floodlights, plus the option for using them as ambient lighting and not just security lighting.The Wyze Cam Floodlight V2 is available to buy now for $83.99 plus shipping ($10 less than the V1 is currently listed for but the same price it launched at). But a launch special of $53.99 plus shipping makes it one of the cheapest floodlight cameras you can buy. Blink has a wired floodlight camera for $100, but... Continue reading...

Chrome's AI features are simple for now - but bigger things are coming. | Image: Google Google's Chrome browser is leaning into AI in a big way. Rather than just shove a Bard sidebar into the browser, Google is rolling out a couple of features that tap into its models in order to hopefully make your browser a little more pleasant to use. They're launching today in an experimental mode (you can go to settings and turn on Experimental AI" to get them), and Google says they're just the beginning of the AI browser takeover.Chrome's new Tab Organizer feature is the most compelling: you can right-click on a Chrome tab and select organize similar tabs," and Chrome will attempt to create a tab group filled with similar stuff. If you're shopping for something, deep diving some esoteric subject, or just opening all your news... Continue reading...