The Verge - All Posts

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge In less than a week, Sony has given us two timely reminders of the tenuousness of digital ownership" - and both reminders involve things on PlayStation.Last week, Sony said that, because of content licensing arrangements," users wouldn't be able to watch Discovery content they've purchased and that the content would be removed from their libraries as of December 31st, 2023. The resulting list of shows that will suddenly disappear because of corporate agreements is very long. Shows disappearing from streaming services is commonplace, but in this case, people are losing access to shows they bought to watch on demand whenever they wanted.Then, on Monday, many users were unexpectedly banned from their PlayStation Network accounts,... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Microsoft will allow consumers to pay for Extended Security Updates (ESU) for Windows 10 when support ends for the operating system in 2025. The software giant usually only offers paid security updates for organizations that need to keep running older versions but now plans to offer them to individuals for the first time through an annual subscription service instead of extending the end of support date for Windows 10.While we strongly recommend moving to Windows 11, we understand there are circumstances that could prevent you from replacing Windows 10 devices before the end of support date. Therefore, Microsoft will offer Extended Security Updates," explains Microsoft in a blog post. The ESU program for Windows 10 will include... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Many of the earliest Instagram videos have lost their sound. More than a year of videos posted to the platform are now silent, displaying an error that says video has no sound" when you try to play their audio. The issue appears to affect videos posted before late 2014.It's hard to pin down exactly what's going on, but here's what we've noticed: it seems that videos posted from June 2013, when Instagram first added video, to October 2014 are now missing their audio. The audio isn't working regardless of platform, whether the clip is played on desktop, iOS, or Android. And because this seems to affect most - if not all - videos in that timeframe, this appears to be an issue on Instagram's end rather than some sort of takedown issue... Continue reading...

The Razr 2023 folds, and it costs well under $1,000 - neat! But its small screen is too limiting to make it worth your time. Continue reading...

Mechanical keyboard specialist Keychron has launched a Kickstarter for its first keyboard with Hall effect switches, the Keychron Q1 HE. A fully assembled model costs $214 if bought as part of the Kickstarter, and there's also a bare-bones model available without switches or keycaps for $194.Compared to traditional mechanical switches, Hall effect switches are notable for being analog and thus able to tell the difference between a slight and full press of each key. So with the Q1 HE, you can take advantage of this by customizing how far you want to press each key before it actuates, and there's also a rapid trigger" feature that's able to register a keypress the second you re-press a key - rather than having to lift up past the reset... Continue reading...

Philips Hue's Festavia lights can add festive cheer during the holidays or really any time of the year. | Image: Phillips Hue Whether you want to outshine your neighbors with the best light display or simply bring some holiday cheer into your home, Philips Hue's Festavia string lights can help you do both. And right now, Amazon Prime members can buy the 65-foot string lights, which feature 250 color-changing LEDs, on sale for $186.99 ($33 off) when they clip the on-page coupon. The 130-foot string features double the number of smart LEDs and is also on sale when you buy it with the Hue Bridge directly from Philips Hue for $314.99 ($104.99 off) - a discount you'll see at checkout after separately adding both to your cart. You can also buy it without the Hue Bridge from Amazon for $305.99 ($54 off) when you clip the on-page coupon.With their gorgeous colors and... Continue reading...

Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life. | Republic Pictures It's a Wonderful Life culminates the disembodied spirit of Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey realizing the value of his life after seeing how his friends and family would suffer if he wasn't around. It's a Wonderful Life's celebration of the human spirit is a big part of why it's become a holiday classic, but everything about sleep app Calm's latest project inspired by It's a Wonderful Life feels kind of antithetical to the movie's story.Through a Variety report, Calm today announced the launch of It's a Wonderful Sleep Story." It's a heartwarming new holiday tale" based on director Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life and will star the AI-generated voice of Jimmy Stewart, who has been dead for 26 years. Stewart's modern-day voice acting... Continue reading...

Image: Apple The universe of Foundation is set to expand. Apple announced that the sci-fi streaming series, based on the classic stories by Isaac Asimov, will be coming back for a third season. There aren't many details yet on what to expect - or when to expect it - but in a statement, showrunner David S. Goyer had this to say:

Illustration: The Verge Google's Files app is testing a handy new upgrade that could make finding documents on your phone a lot easier. As first spotted by Android Police, the app's listing on the Google Play Store says it's testing a new Smart Search capability you can use to search for images and PDFs based on what's in them.With the Smart Search feature turned on, Google says you can search for the text and images inside PDFs. That means if you're searching for a restaurant menu you know you've saved on your phone, you should be able to find it by typing in the restaurant's name if it's included in the document. Files is also testing the ability to search for photos based on the objects pictured within them as well as the locations where they were taken.... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is detailing a number of new features coming to its Copilot service soon, including OpenAI's latest models. Copilot will get support for GPT-4 Turbo soon, alongside an updated DALL-E 3 model, a new code interpreter feature, and deep search functionality inside Bing.Copilot will soon be able to respond using OpenAI's latest GPT-4 Turbo model, which essentially means it will see" more data thanks to a 128K context window. This larger context window will allow Copilot to better understand queries and offer better responses. This model is currently being tested with select users and will be widely integrated into Copilot in the coming weeks," explains Yusuf Medhi, EVP and consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft. ... Continue reading...

Illustration by The Verge | Photo by IBM What's a qubit? Are quantum computers useful yet? And how wrong was Ant-Man, anyway? Continue reading...

Screenshots of Beeper Mini's contact list, chat interface, and reactions. | Image: Beeper Earlier this year, a developer slid into Eric Migicovsky's DMs with a spectacular claim: that he had reverse engineered Apple's iMessage, allowing any device - Android, Windows, whatever - to send messages as a blue bubble. Migicovsky didn't believe what he was reading.I said, Bullshit, no one has done that. No one on earth has done that,'" said Migicovsky, CEO of the messaging startup Beeper. He'd tried to do it himself, and he'd messaged everyone he could find who'd ever gotten close. No one had put all the pieces together."But now there was this developer in his DMs - a 16-year-old high school student, of all people - linking him to a prototype. And it worked.That prototype became the basis for a new Android app, called Beeper... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber launched a new Store Pickup" feature for holiday procrastinators who may be in need of a little extra help with their gift distribution.For a fee, customers can request an Uber courier pick up a purchased item from a store to be delivered to a recipient of their choosing. Customers must upload the item's receipt in order to authorize the courier's pickup.The item has to be less than $200 and weigh less than 30 lbsThe item has to be less than $200 and weigh less than 30 lbs - so there are some limitations to what Uber will allow. Prohibited items are, well, prohibited. And customers can track the item live in the Uber app.Store Pickup can be accessed through the Uber Connect feature in the app, which also offers same-day... Continue reading...

Image: Ford Ford may be dialing back some of its larger EV investments, but it's still operating under the assumption that a lot of businesses will be interested in electrifying their fleets eventually. The company is partnering with Xcel Energy to install 30,000 EV charging ports for fleet customers by 2030, at little to no cost to the businesses to the businesses themselves.The project will be run out of Ford Pro, which is the automaker's commercial vehicle and software division. The first EV charger installations will begin in the first quarter of 2024 in two states, Wisconsin and Colorado, and later will grow to include more states, said Amanda Rome, executive vice president and chief customer officer at Xcel Energy.We need an all hands on... Continue reading...

EVgo General Motors, along with its partners EVgo and Pilot Travel Centers, announced that the first new stations of its coast-to-coast" EV charging network will open before the end of the year.The companies announced the opening of 17 stations today. Before the end of the year, at least 25 stations will be open, with around 100 charging stalls in total. Some of the stalls will have DC fast-charging capacities of 350kW, which can deliver more than 200 miles of range in just 10 minutes.That seems like a modest number of chargers, but keep in mind that GM, EVgo, and Pilot Flying J anticipate installing at least 2,000 charging stations over the next few years. The companies said they expect to install 200 more EV charging stations by the... Continue reading...

The OnePlus 12 in its three colors. | Image: OnePlus OnePlus has officially launched the OnePlus 12 in China, and its highest-specced model comes with more RAM than I had in my desktop gaming PC until very recently. Although the flagship smartphone's base model comes with 12GB of RAM alongside 256GB of storage, opting for the highest-end version gets Chinese buyers 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. OnePlus is yet to confirm configurations when it launches internationally in early 2024."The phone's RAM isn't the only eye-catching spec. Charging speeds are also speedy, with support for 100W wired fast charging and 50W wireless charging (a feature that was missing entirely from the OnePlus 11). Based on our experience with the previous OnePlus 11, that 100W fast charging is likely to... Continue reading...

Image: Kino Halide cofounder Ben Sandofsky has a message for everyone who's asked if video capture will be added to the popular iPhone photography app: Never." Lux, the development team behind Halide, is instead working on Kino - a new, dedicated video capture app for iPhones that aims to provide professional recording features now that Apple supports log video encoding. Its release is scheduled for February... if all goes as planned.Just as the Halide photography app was released in 2017 to coincide with Apple adding RAW support for iPhone, Kino's development was prompted by Apple announcing support for log video encoding in September, a format that allows more detail to be preserved for post-production color grading. In Sandofsky's own words,... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge From mid-December, Instagram and Facebook's messaging services will no longer be cross-compatible, according to a pair of Meta support pages quietly updated. Once the feature is discontinued, you won't be able to start new cross-platform chats, and existing conversations between services will go into read-only mode. It's unclear exactly when the pages were updated, but the Instagram version carried the notice as of at least November 21st.A Meta spokesperson confirmed the change in a statement given to The Verge. A few years ago, we introduced a new Messenger experience in Instagram DMs which enabled people to message and call a FB account (Messenger) from an Instagram account and vice versa," spokesperson Alex Dziedzan said. Starting... Continue reading...

The futuristic looking headset and its included docking station come in either white or black. | Image: Logitech Logitech's Astro gaming brand has a new flagship gaming headset that costs more than some whole-ass consoles, and it's designed to simultaneously play nice across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X / S, and PC with a single button press.But the $379.99 Astro A50 X doesn't do all of this with simply plebeian technology like Bluetooth. It uses HDMI passthrough for its expansive connectivity - meaning the beefy charging dock of this headset is designed to be wired up as a central hub for much of your home audio / video setup. I hope you're prepared to take some expert-level classes on cable management (i.e. lots of YouTube searching) if you're looking to buy one when it ships on December 20th and not make a serpentine mess of cables out of your... Continue reading...

(C) 2023 Stellantis Stellantis announced the all-new 2024 Fiat 500e, a tiny, affordable electric car that could be the perfect antidote to all those oversized, bloated electric SUVs and trucks that are coming out soon. The tiny EV will be available in North America in early 2024.The Fiat 500e is a great example of the kind of vehicle that makes a lot of sense for cities and maybe even some suburbs. It's electric, so it won't spew pollution into the air. It's small, so it takes up less space and is, on balance, less dangerous to pedestrians, cyclists, and other people who share the road.The Fiat 500e is a great example of the kind of vehicle that makes a lot of sense for cities and maybe even some suburbsStarting at $34,095, the Fiat 500e will squeeze... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Many PlayStation Network users reported Monday that their accounts were unexpectedly permanently suspended.This account is permanently suspended from PlayStation Network due to violations of the PlayStation Network Terms of Service and User Agreement," Sony said in a message to one user. A user on Reddit reported getting a similar message, and a look at PlayStation accounts on Facebook and Instagram shows dozens of people who've received similar notices in the last few hours. I've also seen reports from the gaming forum ResetEra and from Verge readers who wrote into our tips inbox.Some who have received these suspensions are understandably distraught, as they may have spent a lot of money on digital PlayStation games that they no... Continue reading...

A DoorDash cyclist delivers during a snow storm in New York City in 2021. | Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images For most markets where DoorDash operates, customers are prompted to tip on the checkout screen, with a middle option already selected by default. If they want to, they can adjust the tip later from the status screen while awaiting their food, or even after it's delivered. That's changing today; while blaming New York City's minimum wage increase for delivery workers, DoorDash announced that for select markets, including New York City," tipping is now exclusively a post-checkout option.The company said the change is intended to better balance the impact of" new costs resulting from the city's change. It wrote that the new regulations will force" it to raise fees, so the move is meant to ensure our platform remains affordable for all... Continue reading...

Image: Rockstar Games Less than a day before Rockstar was set to debut GTA VI's first trailer, a now-suspended account posted the trailer on X (formerly Twitter). Though the GTA VI trailer was scheduled to premiere Tuesday, December 5th at 9AM ET, Rockstar quickly responded by publishing the trailer in full on its official YouTube channel.The trailer confirms many little details that have slowly come out about GTA VI over the last two years, including the Vice City setting and that the game would star the series's first female protagonist with Bonnie and Clyde-inspired story elements. The trailer says GTA VI is set for release in 2025, and in a press release published later on Monday, Rockstar specified that the game is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X / S... Continue reading...

Image: Getty 23andMe confirmed that a recent breach leaked data belonging to 6.9 million users. In an emailed statement to The Verge, company spokesperson Andy Kill says the breach affected around 5.5 million users who had DNA Relatives enabled, a feature that matches users with similar genetic makeups, while an additional 1.4 million people had their family tree profiles accessed.In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and update to its blog post late on December 1st, 23andMe said a threat actor using a credential stuffing attack - logging in with account info obtained in other security breaches, usually due to password reuse - directly accessed 0.1 percent of user accounts, making up around 14,000 users. With access to those... Continue reading...

Image: Toho Director Takashi Yamazaki opens up about taking the king of monsters back to its roots for a modern audience. Continue reading...

Elon Musk at the Tesla Model 3 launch in 2017. | Photo by Lauren Goode / The Verge A federal tax credit funded through the Inflation Reduction Act can currently shave up to $7,500 off the price of Tesla's Model 3, but that's about to drop in half. The tax credit will fall to $3,750 by January 1st, 2024 for the Model 3 Rear-Wheel Drive and Model 3 Long Range, the company warned.Elon Musk's company made the announcement via a banner on Tesla's website, TechCrunch reports. Starting at around $36,000, the Model 3 comes with the lowest cost of any Tesla vehicle. Now, Tesla says the full tax credit will only be available to deliveries made through December.Why? It looks like Tesla will be unable to meet sourcing requirements under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). That might also affect tax credits for the Model Y and... Continue reading...

ExpressVPN comes to the Apple TV. | Image: ExpressVPN One of the big uses of VPNs is to watch region-locked content, but until recently, you weren't able to use them on Apple TVs. That's now changing with the help of one of the bigger names in VPNs, ExpressVPN, which has released its app for tvOS. ExpressVPN will let Apple TV users connect to servers in any of 105 countries around the world" so they can watch shows and movies and know that the IP address being reported to outside servers isn't their own.To download it, you'll need to make sure you're on tvOS 17 - earlier versions don't support native VPN apps at all. Once set up, the app will route your traffic through faraway servers before forwarding them to whatever streaming service or other internet server the Apple TV contacts.... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge OpenAI may be chasing after enterprise users, but some of its executives warn people not to expect the technology to change their businesses quickly.OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said in an interview with CNBC that one of the more overhyped parts of artificial intelligence is that in one fell swoop, [it] can deliver substantive business change."Lightcap said companies have approached OpenAI expecting generative AI to solve many problems, dramatically cut costs, and bring back growth if they're struggling. He said that while AI could improve more, there's never one thing you can do with AI that solves that problem in full" and that the technology is still in its infancy. He added that AI is still in the experimental... Continue reading...

It's not everyday you see such a significant discount on Sony's WH-1000XM5, the best pair of noise-canceling headphones on the market. Looks like Christmas came early if you were on the hunt for a seriously good deal on noise-canceling headphones. Right now, Target is selling the terrific Sony WH-1000XM5 for a new all-time low price of $249.99 ($150 off). That's even cheaper than the $72 discount we found on the over ears during Black Friday, and the deal even applies to both colors.When it comes to noise-canceling headphones, Sony's WH-1000XM5 are the cream of the crop, delivering best-in-class noise cancellation and clear, detail-rich sound. At the same time, they offer several other helpful features, like multipoint Bluetooth support so you can connect them to, say, your phone and laptop simultaneously. Meanwhile, their built-in mics offer top-notch voice call... Continue reading...

Image: Biomemory DNA data storage might sound like a far-off solution. But a startup called Biomemory is bringing it a little closer to reality with the release of new DNA cards that anyone can purchase - if you have $1,000 to blow.DNA has emerged as a theoretical alternative to hard drives, SSDs, and other forms of digital data storage, namely because of its impressive lifespan. Science estimates the technology could potentially last hundreds of thousands of years if stored in a cool, dry environment. That's a heck of a lot longer than the lifespan of your average hard drive, which typically tops out at around five years.Biomemory's DNA cards promise a minimum" lifespan of 150 years. The $1,000 price tag includes two identical cards, each of which... Continue reading...

Image: Puzzmo / Angie Wang The battle over newspaper-style puzzle games is intensifying. Hearst - which publishes the likes of Cosmopolitan, Esquire, and the San Francisco Chronicle - has announced that it has acquired Puzzmo, a puzzle gaming platform led by indie developers Zach Gage and Orta Therox. The move puts Hearst directly up against the gaming efforts of The New York Times. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. As a comparison, in 2022 The New York Times acquired Wordle for an undisclosed price in the low seven figures."Puzzmo launched in a limited beta form in October and is billed as a reimagining of the classic newspaper games page. It features a number of notable Gage-designed titles like SpellTower, Really Bad Chess, and Typeshift, along with a... Continue reading...

Logo: Filmic / Image: The Verge Bending Spoons has laid off all of the staff behind mobile filmmaking app Filmic Pro, including Filmic CEO Neill Barham. Christy Keenan, a spokesperson for Bending Spoons, confirmed the layoffs in an email to The Verge, saying that all 22 members of the original Filmic team" were laid off in November and Filmic has now been fully integrated into the Bending Spoons platform." PetaPixel first reported the layoffs on Friday.Keenan added that because the dedicated team" at the company worked with Filmic's original crew, it possesses the necessary knowledge to ensure a seamless user experience." The company was already involved in mobile video with its Splice video editing app, which it took over from GoPro in 2018.Bending Spoons b... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Verizon will soon offer customers a cheaper way to subscribe to Netflix and Max. Starting December 7th, myPlan customers can get a bundled subscription to both services for just $10 per month.The bundle includes the ad-supported plans for Netflix and Max, each of which are priced at $6.99 and $9.99 per month, respectively. That means Verizon's bundle costs about $7 less than what you would pay for the two separate subscriptions - in line with the rumors we heard about the deal last month. It's a decent offer if you're already a Verizon customer, as there's currently no other bundle for Netflix and Max out there.You can only take advantage of the deal if you're a Verizon myPlan customer. The service includes three unlimited plans that... Continue reading...

Videos from artists like Niall Horan (pictured) that already used the feature have attracted over 2.5 billion views since August 2022. | Photo by Emma McIntyre / Getty Images for iHeartRadio After an initial US launch in August last year, TikTok and Ticketmaster are expanding a partnership that lets TikTok users purchase event tickets without leaving the platform to 20 additional countries. On Monday, TikTok announced that the feature will now work in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Germany, France, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, and several other major markets. That means performers can promote upcoming shows by embedding links in their videos to purchase tickets directly within the app.TikTok says anyone who's been verified as a certified artist on the platform can use the feature, provided they're in one of the regions participating in the partnership. You can check out the full list of countries in the press release linked... Continue reading...