The Verge - All Posts

Image: Netflix We're about a month away from the live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix, which can only mean one thing: it's time for a trailer.This clip is focused almost entirely on setting up Aang (played by Gordon Cormier) - the titular Avatar - as a young hero preparing to, well, save the world. It's full of dramatic lines, some cool special effects, and at least one very cute critter. If nothing else, the trailer makes it seem like the live-action series will be a good entry point for newcomers who haven't seen the animated series.It's been a long road to this new take on the franchise. The adaptation was first announced in 2018, and in 2020, the show's original creators stepped away from the project citing creative... Continue reading...

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists decided to keep its Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight. | Image: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Despite a horrific war in Gaza and growing conflict in the region, the hottest year on record, and the hype surrounding artificial intelligence - the Doomsday Clock will stay put this year at 90 seconds to midnight.Last year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which sets the time each year, moved the clock forward to 90 seconds from midnight - AKA doom. That was the closest the clock has ever been set to annihilation, and it will stay there this year.Ninety seconds to midnight is profoundly unstable and must not engender complacency."There are two key messages in our statement and they are one: that 90 seconds to midnight is profoundly unstable and must not engender complacency and two: the advancement of technology is... Continue reading...

The OnePlus 12 in green. | Image: OnePlus A little over a month and a half after its Chinese launch, OnePlus has officially announced pricing and a release date for its latest flagship in global markets. The OnePlus 12 will ship in the US on February 6th, starting at $799.99 (949 / 849) for its most affordable model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It's one of a trio of devices OnePlus is launching today, with the other two being the lower-end OnePlus 12R and the OnePlus Buds 3 true wireless earbuds.You can check out my colleague Allison Johnson's full review of the OnePlus 12 right here, but the TL;DR is that this is a phone with flagship specs that does a good job of nailing the basics. It offers great battery life, a big screen with an impressively high claimed peak... Continue reading...

How much will you forgive for a one-of-a-kind notebook? Continue reading...

While Samsung and Google were busy shipping AI features as fast as possible, OnePlus doubled down on the essentials. Continue reading...

A portrait of Rep. Ro Khanna. | Photo illustration: The Verge | Photo Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images The Democratic representative from California, whose district includes Apple and Nvidia, discusses the future of tech regulation and the 2024 election. Continue reading...

The TurboTax website on a laptop in an arranged photograph in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, on Friday, September 3rd, 2021. | Image: Tiffany Hagler-Geard / Bloomberg via Getty Images The Federal Trade Commission cracked down on TurboTax, issuing a final order that prohibits the company from calling its services free" when most customers end up having to upgrade to paid services.Parent company Intuit had advertised TurboTax as Free, free free free," even though a majority of customers were in fact ineligible for free services. The Federal Trade Commission sued TurboTax in 2022 over misleading advertising, and the FTC's chief administrative law judge announced an initial decision in September saying Intuit engaged in deceptive advertising in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act."The character of the past violations is egregious."The character of the past violations is egregious. For at least six years, Intuit... Continue reading...

Nvidia's second RTX 40-series Super card isn't as impressive as its first. Continue reading...

Photo by Michelle Farsi/Zuffa LLC Netflix has dabbled in live broadcasts over the last year or so, and now the company has announced a long-term deal with the WWE to broadcast its headline weekly show, Monday Night Raw, starting next year. This is the first time Monday Night Raw, which broadcasts live every week, is leaving traditional linear television, as it has been the No. 1 rated program on NBCUniversal's USA Network, and it has tie-ins to NBCU's streaming platform, Peacock.The deal is even more comprehensive outside of the US, where Netflix is also obtaining the rights to WWE shows like SmackDown and NXT, plus monthly premium live events like WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and the Royal Rumble. NBCUniversal's Peacock service still has the rights locked up for those... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge After last year saw over 9,000 layoffs in the video game industry, 2024 is continuing the trend, and League of Legends maker Riot Games is the latest example. On Monday night, the company announced that we are refocusing on fewer, high-impact projects to move us toward a more sustainable future," which means eliminating roles for 530 people globally, or about 11 percent of its total workforce.This news arrives just days after the results of a Game Developers Conference (GDC) survey showed 56 percent of respondents felt layoffs were in store for their studios due in large part to a post-pandemic course correction."Legends of Runeterra and Riot Forge cuts are part of the adjustments'Some of the significant investments we've made... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Artists on Apple Music will earn a bonus payout of up to 10 percent in royalties for all songs that are also available in spatial audio. That's according to an update sent to record label partners and seen by 9to5Mac. Quoted by Music Business Worldwide, it says that starting with January's month-end payout, pro-rata shares for Spatial Available plays will be calculated using a factor of 1.1 while Non-Spatial Available plays will continue to use a factor of 1." Pro rata refers to the one big pot" of pooled subscription money that's divided based on the number of streams.Bloomberg reported in December that Apple planned to offer financial incentives for musicians and record labels to release songs in the Dolby Atmos-supported format.... Continue reading...

LG's MyView smart monitor | LG Electronics You can now purchase the entire slate of LG's webOS-powered MyView monitors, which debuted at CES earlier this month, including one with a 31.5-inch 4K IPS panel (model 32SR85U) that starts at $599.99. Sure, gamers can find better value for their money than a monitor that maxes out with 5ms response times and a 60Hz refresh rate, but visual creatives might appreciate a 95 percent DCI-P3 color gamut. And when your office work is done, you can fire up a full suite of entertainment apps or stream directly from another device with AirPlay 2 and Miracast support.It could be an ideal monitor for movie watching at your desk without loud fans (or Slack notifications) ruining the immersion, and it's easier to fit into your home office than... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Securities and Exchange Commission has linked a SIM swapping attack to its account breach on X earlier this month, which led to the creation of a fake post announcing approval of Bitcoin ETFs that caused the cryptocurrency's price to spike. In an update on Monday, the SEC says an unauthorized party obtained control of the SEC cell phone number associated with the account in an apparent SIM swap' attack."A SIM-swapping attack occurs when a bad actor obtains a victim's phone number through techniques like social engineering. That allows the attacker to intercept calls and texts intended for the victim, including two-factor authentication codes, which they can then use to sign in to their victim's accounts.In the SEC's case, a bad... Continue reading...

Image: MrBeast Exactly how much money can you make by uploading a video to X? The going assumption has been that X - like Twitter before it - is a poor platform for video creators that can't compete with YouTube and TikTok in terms of monetization and reach. So there's been a lot riding on the results of a recent test by MrBeast, who aimed to see whether he could actually make money on Elon Musk's platform.Last week, MrBeast, real name Jimmy Donaldson, posted a video to Musk's platform with the explicit goal of seeing how much ad revenue a video on X would make." Musk had previously encouraged MrBeast to post to X, and he sent out an excited message shortly after the test went up. First MrBeast video posted directly on !" Musk wrote. Now, a week... Continue reading...

An electric delivery vehicle plugged into a new charging station at a USPS sorting and delivery center. | Image: Christian Lilakos The US Postal Service debuted its first EV charging stations in Atlanta, Georgia, today, the first of many expected to be deployed at hundreds" of new sorting and delivery centers this year. It's a key step in the Postal Service's plan to put together one of the nation's biggest EV fleets, made up of more than 66,000 delivery vehicles.The work USPS is doing to electrify those vehicles is making EVs commonplace on every road and street in our country," John Podesta, senior advisor to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation, said in a press release.The work USPS is doing to electrify those vehicles is making EVs commonplace on every road and street in our country."USPS is working on converting around 400 sites... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge General Motors is getting rid of the Ultra Cruise" brand and merging the team that was working on it with the team responsible for Super Cruise, as the automaker reconsiders its goals for advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS).Last week, CNBC reported that GM was ending the Ultra Cruise program," focusing instead on the current Super Cruise system that is available across the company's vehicle lineup. GM spokesperson Aimee Ridella clarified that the ultimate intention is to improve Super Cruise but that no one is being laid off as a result of this decision.GM is not scaling back its advanced driver assistance programs," Ridella said in an email. We have reallocated our ADAS-focused resources to bring even more capability to Super... Continue reading...

Motorola's classic clamshell modernized with a flexible OLED display finally feels worth the money after a $450 discount. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Between foldable smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Flip 5, the Pixel Fold, and the OnePlus Open, it's easy to forget the Motorola Razr Plus exists. The flip phone is a throwback to Motorola's roots, only the sharp-edged number pad departs to make room for the 6.9-inch OLED display that greets you when opening it. (You can still ride the nostalgic wave with a software-based dialer resembling the classic design.) Thanks to a steep 45 percent discount at Woot that's only around for the next couple of days (or while supplies last), you can buy the newest Razr Plus in black for just $549.99 ($450 off). That price is even cheaper than the $699.99 base model and about $150 cheaper than we've seen at other retailers during last... Continue reading...

Image: Nvidia Nvidia's RTX Remix tool is now available for modders to try. The game remastering tool, currently out in open beta, allows modders to give older games a makeover with AI-powered texture tools, ray tracing, and Nvidia DLSS 3.This is the same tool that was used to give Portal a visual boost with upgraded textures, models, and improved lighting. It's also what a community of modders are using to remaster Half-Life 2 with some realistic-looking headcrabs and way better textures. But now that it's available for all modders to try, it should make for an even wider range of upgraded games.Not every classic game is compatible with RTX Remix, though. Nvidia says that the tool works best with DirectX 8 and 9 games with fixed function... Continue reading...

Whether it's from reading Patricia Highsmith's original 1955 novel, or seeing any of the films inspired by it, we're all familiar with at least some of the beats from The Talented Mr. Ripley. But even if you've been a fan of all the past Ripley adaptations, Netflix's new series from writer / director Steven Zaillian looks like it's going to be something inspired.Set in 1960s New York City, and cities across Italy, Ripley tells the tale of Tom (Andrew Scott), a talented and cunning man whose relatively ordinary life starts to take a turn when he meets the father of Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn), a wealthy playboy who has run off to Europe with his good friend Marge (Dakota Fanning). Though The Talented Mr. Ripley focuses on how Tom... Continue reading...

The Verge When you want to check out your favorite news sites or other online information sources, you can take the time to go directly to each site, clog your email with newsletters and announcements, check the updates on your favorite social media app(s) - or you can use an RSS feed reader.RSS readers allow you to collect the articles of specific sources in one app, making it a lot easier to find the content you're interested in without crawling through a lot of noise. RSS (which may stand for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, or one of several other possibilities - nobody seems sure) has been around a while, having been first developed in 1999, although it wasn't more widely adopted until a few years later.Since then, the idea... Continue reading...

Controlling your smart home on your TV - something Samsung's new SmartThing's Map View lets you do more intuitively - could make it simpler for everyone in the home to use smart devices. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge From map views and smart TVs to smart buttons and generative AI, controlling your smart home is getting simpler and smarter - and less dependent on your smartphone. Continue reading...

Image: Apple Apple is kicking off the week with the first trailer for its sci-fi series Constellation.The show stars Noomi Rapace as an astronaut who returns to Earth after a disaster in space - only to discover that key pieces of her life seem to be missing." In the trailer, this appears to manifest itself as a series of mysteries - a strange piano, an unknown voice on a tape recorder - along with plenty of unsettling hallucinations. The rest of the cast includes Jonathan Banks, James D'Arcy, Julian Looman, William Catlett, and Barbara Sukowa, and the series is being helmed by creator and writer Peter Harness (Doctor Who).Constellation premieres with three episodes on February 21st, and new episodes stream on Wednesdays after that. (Between this... Continue reading...

The Magic Mouse's new shoe. | Image: Wes Davis / The Verge This past Christmas, there was a box in my stocking that held something I had half-jokingly added to my wishlist: an ergonomic" grip that raises, widens, and adds wireless charging to Apple's Magic Mouse 2. It's like a little boot with a Lightning adapter tongue that plugs right into your Magic Mouse's underbelly. Best of all, it's magnetic, making it perfect for use with a MagSafe puck.Does this thing totally ruin the sleek Apple aesthetic? Absolutely! And I'm not even remotely convinced by its cheap-feeling plastic that it will last longer than a few months before it just stops working. Yet, somehow, it's exactly what the Magic Mouse needs.What it's called doesn't really matter, because this isn't a product any company you've ever... Continue reading...

Illustration: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 22, 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 reading about the unbearable sameness of coffee shops and what happened to Twitch, testing out the Funnel iOS app for quick-capturing everything, marveling over Federico Viticci's truly wild iPad setup, setting up my Flipboard all over again now that Artifact is dead, filling my cabinets thanks to this list of great new snacks, adding all the Emmy winners to my Sofa queue, and watching every behind-the-scenes Jon Bellion video that exists on the internet.I also have for you a huge new Samsung... Continue reading...

Safari can make the Vision Pro sing... if Apple lets it. | Image: Apple In the days ahead of the Vision Pro's launch, Apple has heavily promoted some of the apps destined for its spatial computing headset. Download Disney Plus and watch movies from Tatooine! Slack and Fantastical and Microsoft Office on your face! FaceTime with your friends as a floating hologram! But it's increasingly clear that the early success of the Vision Pro, and much of the answer to the question of what this headset is actually for, will come from a single app: Safari.That's right, friends. Web browsers are back. And Apple needs them more than ever if it wants this $3,500 face computer to be a hit. Embracing the web will mean threatening the very things that have made Apple so powerful and so rich in the mobile era, but at least... Continue reading...

Image: Netflix Co-directors Daniel Kaluuya and Kibwe Tavares' new action drama is a masterclass in using near-futuristic, sci-fi storytelling to illustrate harsh realities about our present. Continue reading...

A view of the US Supreme Court on Thursday, January 4th, 2024, in Washington, DC. | Photo by Drew Angerer / Getty Images The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week on a couple of cases that could completely upend the way federal agencies regulate just about anything in the US. At question is a legal doctrine called Chevron deference that allows federal agencies to interpret laws meant to protect consumers, public health, and the environment. Now, a conservative supermajority in the Supreme Court appears on the precipice of either overturning or limiting the scope of Chevron deference.The Verge spoke with legal experts about what's going on and what the Supreme Court's decisions on Chevron deference could ultimately mean for Americans. The real question is how far they will go?" says Jody Freeman, director of the Environmental and Energy Law... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft is revealing today that it has discovered a nation-state attack on its corporate systems from the same Russian state-sponsored group of hackers that were responsible for the sophisticated SolarWinds attack. Microsoft says the hackers, known as Nobelium, were able to access email accounts of some members of its senior leadership team late last year.Beginning in late November 2023, the threat actor used a password spray attack to compromise a legacy non-production test tenant account and gain a foothold, and then used the account's permissions to access a very small percentage of Microsoft corporate email accounts, including members of our senior leadership team and employees in our cybersecurity, legal, and other functions,... Continue reading...

It's a big thing for a tech heavyweight like Samsung to invest in a more niche wearable device. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Smartwatches have long reigned supreme in the wearable world. Smart rings have hovered around the periphery, but earlier this week, Samsung ended its Unpacked event with a tease of the Galaxy Ring. To me, that reads like the company is itching to shake up the wearable world order.That might sound hyperbolic given that all Samsung did was play a flashy reel of a sparkly ring with a few visible sensors on the inside of the band. Few details were given onstage. But in an email, Samsung spokesperson Amber Reaver told me that the ring is meant to empower more people to manage their health with a comprehensive yet simplified approach to everyday wellness at home." Part of that is having consistent and accurate tracking data over a lengthy... Continue reading...

Galaxy AI: free, for now. Galaxy AI has arrived, as Samsung has declared in the loudest way possible, but the company left one small detail out of its presentation earlier this week: it might come at a cost. The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, S24 Plus, and S24 all include a smorgasbord of new AI features - everything from translating phone conversations to removing objects from photos. They'll even be coming to many older phones, too. But as spotted by Android Central, the fine print on Samsung's website reveals that they might not be free forever. And that might be a tough sell.The footnote at the bottom of the Galaxy S24 Ultra product page is vague, but clearly leaves a door open for Samsung to charge later: Galaxy AI features will be provided for free until the... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix Making sure an event as large as Games Done Quick (GDQ) runs smoothly is a monumental task. There are lots of technical moving parts, from video equipment, to lighting, sound, and stream overlays, to donation trackers that have to be kept running 24 hours a day for a week straight. The tech team also has to consider the individual needs of over 100 runners playing on consoles that range in age and complexity from the NES to the PlayStation 5.With all of that going on, I wondered which game out of the thousands that have been run at GDQ throughout its 10-plus-year history the tech team hates the most, and the answer surprised me.It's the PSX SquareSoft (remember them??) RPG Chrono Cross.After speaking with GDQ's director of technology,... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you get a message from someone at The Verge asking to schedule an interview about cryptocurrency, don't do it. There's a phishing scam going around that attempts to trick users into clicking on a fake Calendly link to schedule" phony interviews in order to steal Discord credentials for a wallet-draining scam.We recently discovered that a bad actor has been impersonating Verge science reporter Justine Calma to carry out this scam. Justine recently changed her handle on X (formerly Twitter) from @justcalma to @justinecalmajourno. The scammer hijacked her old handle @justcalma - which was still present on her Verge profile at the time - and leveraged her identity when messaging users about a fake interview. Screenshot... Continue reading...

Photo: Wes Fish" Chan / Games Done Quick Awesome Games Done Quick 2024 has already raised over $1 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. Continue reading...