Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge In a series of Threads posts this afternoon, Instagram head Adam Mosseri says users shouldn't trust images they see online because AI is clearly producing" content that's easily mistaken for reality. Because of that, he says users should consider the source, and social platforms should help with that.Our role as internet platforms is to label content generated as AI as best we can," Mosseri writes, but he admits some content" will be missed by those labels. Because of that, platforms must also provide context about who is sharing" so users can decide how much to trust their content.Just as it's good to remember that chatbots will confidently lie to you before you trust an AI-powered search engine, checking whether posted claims or images come from a reputable account can help you consider their veracity. At the moment, Meta's platforms don't offer much of the sort of context Mosseri posted about today, although the company recently hinted at big coming changes to its content rules.What Mosseri describes sounds closer to user-led moderation like Community Notes on X and YouTube or Bluesky's custom moderation filters. Whether Meta plans to introduce anything like those isn't known, but then again, it has been known to take pages from Bluesky's book.
The PS Placeable makes the PSP into a tiny PS2. | Image: Retro Mod Works What if you could turn a PSP with a broken screen into a miniature PS2, connect a Bluetooth controller to it, and play PSP games on your TV? That's the idea behind Retro Mod Works' PS Placeable, a mod that consolizes" the PSP and was featured yesterday in a video from the YouTube channel Macho Nacho Productions.Retro Mod Works charges $274.99 for a prebuilt PS Placeable. Those are waitlisted at the moment, though - a message on the site says the project is a one man show" and that the demand for the Placeable was higher than anticipated.Retro also offers to mod customer-provided PSPs for $100 less, and there's an option preorder DIY parts and do the conversion work yourself. The mod requires either a PSP-2000 or PSP-3000 revision, as the first PSP didn't have a video output. It's not clear when the DIY parts will ship - we've asked Retro Mod Works and will update if we get a reply. Image: Retro Mod Works A stack of PS Placeables. The primary person behind the project, named Dan, told Macho Nacho host Tito Perez that he hated the idea of buying digital games" for which he has physical copies, and wanted a way to add Bluetooth controller support while preserving the UMD drive. He's also mentioned in replies on Reddit that his goal is to help people revive broken PSPs with the mod, which doesn't need the console's screen.But buying one of these mod kits can be pricey or require skills most people don't have. If you just want to play PSP games on your TV and don't care about having a UMD drive, the PSP Go - which lacked Sony's oddball optical drive but supported Bluetooth controllers and also had a way to output video - is still pretty easy to come by.
Don't you just want to bend this right in half? | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple hopes to release a foldable 18.8-inch creaseless iPad by about 2028, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman writes in today's Power On newsletter. The company's industrial design group has reportedly managed to create prototypes of this device that have a nearly invisible crease" and would essentially be like two iPad Pros side-by-side."Rumors of a folding iPad have been floating in the ether for years, now. Recent ones include a smaller model that Apple would release in 2026 or 2027. Gurman's write-up today has strong echoes of the gargantuan 20-inch folding iPad / MacBook hybrid" he detailed in 2022. That doesn't seem to mean that it will run macOS, but Gurman claims that it will have elements of both" Macs and iPads and that iPadOS should be advanced enough to run macOS apps" by 2028.Considering that Macs run iPhone and iPad apps now, it's not outrageous to think the street could go both ways in time. It might help the value proposition, too; the 13-inch iPad Pro starts at $1,299, and whatever financial damage an iPad twice that size could incur would be a little easier to take coupled with the salve of being able to run macOS apps on it.Gurman says a foldable iPhone is still in the works, though he doesn't expect that before 2026 at the earliest," as other rumors have said. He also says information from his sources lines up with an alleged Apple internal display roadmap that made the rounds recently, tipping the 18.8-inch foldable iPad and Apple's plans to release OLED MacBook Pros in 2026, followed by a MacBook Air OLED update in 2027.
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Hello! I'm here from the future. And I have some news. 12 months from now, all the Big Tech CEOs are still in their jobs, everybody's using folding phones, Apple made a TV, and Nvidia is the most valuable company in the history of the universe. Wild year, huh? Or maybe not? It's hard to remember. Time travel messes with your memory a little.On this episode of The Vergecast, the second installment of our two-part 2025 preview, we debate some seriously iffy storylines from the end of 2025. David, our resident time traveler, brings us some big stories that either did or didn't happen in the year to come, and Nilay Patel and Wall Street Journal columnist Joanna Stern have to help figure out what's real and what isn't.Will someone really buy Snap? Is GTA VI going to be the biggest game ever? Will Bluesky continue to ascend and leave Threads in its wake? Nobody knows yet, not even the time traveler, but we have some thoughts and ideas.As was the case with last week's episode, we're keeping score. Here's how it works: each host has to decide, for each 2025 news story, whether it'll be real or not by the end of the year. Every correct guess earns you a point; every incorrect guess... Read the full story at The Verge.
The Magic Mouse with USB-C was the tiniest revision. | Photo by Nathan Edwards / The Verge Apple is working on a redesigned successor to the Magic Mouse, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in today's Power On newsletter. This new mouse would address complaints some users have had, including that pesky charging port.Gurman writes that Apple's design team has created prototypes of the mouse in recent months with an eye toward creating something that better fits the modern era." He doesn't get into any specifics - the group still hasn't settled on a design - except to say that the mouse will address the charging port location and other longstanding complaints." It's at least 12 to 18 months away from release, according to Gurman.How can Apple fix a mouse that's objectively perfect? I'm kidding; after 15 years of largely the same design, the Magic Mouse has plenty of room for improvement, even with its recent USB-C revision for the M4 iMac release. Everyone is different, but my wishlist includes adding some mechanical controls, addressing ergonomics (my hand always cramps after a while), and not having to spear the mouse's underbelly to charge it.But even if Apple moves the port, I'm still a little grumpy when I have to dig out a cable to plug in the MX Master 3 that serves as my daily driver. There are better ways, like the Logitech mouse that charges wirelessly via a mousepad that my colleague, Sean Hollister, hasn't had to intentionally charge for two years. I added MagSafe-style wireless charging by dropping my Magic Mouse into the wireless-charging equivalent of an ergonomic service industry sneaker - it ain't pretty, and I still can't use it while it's charging, but it gets the job done. I'd bet Apple can do something better.
Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon | Neon Joshua Oppenheimer's The End is a musical about wicked people. But it's very different from Wicked. Read the full story at The Verge.
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 64, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, get ready for some weird documentaries, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been reading about raw milk and $HAWK and WhatsApp, watching A Man on the Inside and the new Ken Burns da Vinci doc, finally getting caught up on The Great British Bake Off (about which I have SO MANY FEELINGS), storing all my loyalty numbers and Airbnb codes in Cheatsheet, and doing a genuinely upsetting amount of research on pizza stones.I also have for you a delightful new mobile game, an E Ink tablet worth a look, a gorgeous new to-dos app, and much more. It's a strangely Netflix-centric week, which is odd for mid-December? But so it goes. Let's dive in.(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you watching / reading / playing / baking / listening to / soldering this week? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)The Drop
Illustration: The Verge This week, Google announced it's rolling out ChromeOS M131 to non-beta users, bringing with it a handy Safety reset" feature that lets Chromebook users reset their laptops without totally wiping them. The update also introduced a new Flash notifications" accessibility option to help those who might not otherwise easily hear or see them.Like Powerwash in ChromeOS, Safety reset will wipe the slate clean if you're experiencing computer virus-like behavior such as unusual pop-ups. But where Powerwash is a full factory reset, Safety reset preserves local data and apps, as well as things like bookmarks and saved passwords, according to a help document about the feature.Google also writes that users can call up the Safety reset dialog box directly by pressing CTRL + Shift + Search + R. Otherwise, you can find it in the Safety and privacy" settings menu or by searching Settings or Launcher for keywords like Pop-up," Spam," or Virus." Image: Google The new flash notifications settings in ChromeOS accessibility settings. As for the new Flash notifications setting, it's available in accessibility settings under Audio and captions," giving an additional visual notification indicator to those who might otherwise miss them because they're hard of hearing or use screen magnification to read content. Users can pick the flash's color from several options, and a preview button lets them see what it looks like.
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft's Phone Link app is warning that Android smartphones using the latest version of Android 15 won't display certain sensitive" notifications, according to a post from Mishaal Rahman spotted by Windows Central.The warning is the result of an Android 15 privacy feature that automatically categorizes notifications like those containing 2FA codes as sensitive" and prevents third-party apps from seeing them. That extra bit of privacy could come in handy if you've unwittingly given a malicious app permission to access your notifications. But it could be inconvenient if you frequently rely on seeing 2FA codes appear on your computer via Phone Link. Screenshot: Windows Phone Link warning Mishaal Rahman posted a screenshot of the warning. According to Rahman, Windows should still show sensitive notifications for Android devices where Phone Link came preinstalled and has requested a Companion Device Role." That includes Samsung phones running One UI 6.1.1, but not other Android phones like Google Pixel or Nothing Phones, writes Windows Central.Rahman wrote in October that users could get around the notification-hiding feature by turning off Enhanced Notifications" in Android 15's notifications settings. However, doing so also turns off things like reply suggestions and could make it easier again for malicious apps to gather details from all of your notifications.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube announced a hefty subscription price increase this week that will shoot the monthly cost up by $10 to $82.99 on January 13th for existing members (or now, if you sign up today). Some subscribers are staving off the hike using the time-honored tradition of threatening to cancel, as one Verge reader indicated in a comment on our original story about the price hike.That's backed up by users in a Reddit thread that 9to5Google spotted, several of whom reported getting the offer to keep paying $72.99 for six more months when they tried to cancel their subscriptions, although some report that didn't work for them. Some who did get to keep the old price say it happened only when they logged in using a web browser on their computer and pushed through offers to pause their subscription instead.One Verge staffer, Jennifer Tuohy, did get the offer to extend her current price. She canceled by logging into YouTube TV in a browser on her computer and navigating to Settings > Membership > Manage. As of this morning, Reddit users continue to report receiving the extension offer.
Photo: Wes Davis / The Verge The group behind the HDMI standard, HDMI Forum, says that it will detail a new spec release in a press conference on January 6th that will enable a wide range of higher resolutions and refresh rates." The new capabilities will be supported with a new cable," according to the HDMI Forum's email to The Verge announcing the presser.The spec is likely to be HDMI 2.2, as VideoCardz notes. The Forum's email hints at it too, noting that the HDMI Licensing Administrator, which two of the planned speakers at the event represent, is appointed to license Version 2.2 of the HDMI specification."HDMI 2.1, which has only ever received lettered revisions since its 2017 introduction, supports 48Gbps bandwidth, up to 120Hz variable refresh rates, and resolutions up to 10240 x 4320. VideoCardz speculates that the updated spec could allow for higher resolutions and framerates without the need for Display Stream Compression.Whatever the spec brings, that mention of a new cable is a tidy reminder that like USB-C, not all HDMI cables are the same. It seems unlikely that HDMI Forum would change the port itself, so you'll probably be able to use your old ones with the updated spec, and some might even support its higher bandwidth. Still, there's always the chance you need fresh cables to get all of the new capabilities when the time comes.
There may be no setting that the new Paperwhite doesn't look crisp in. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you missed the first sale on the 2024 Kindle Paperwhite during Black Friday, now's your chance to write your own redemption arc. Right now, you can get Amazon's newest ad-supported ebook reader at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target for $134.99 ($25 off). That's still $5 shy of its all-time low, but it's a pretty good discount this early into its life. You can also get it without ads at Amazon for $154.99 ($25 off).There's not much incentive to upgrade if you already own an older Paperwhite, but if you're an avid reader, you'll likely appreciate the newly minted seven-inch display, which is the biggest of any Paperwhite to date. It's also 25 percent brighter than the previous model and features a higher contrast ratio, allowing for improved readability. The jump from 10 weeks of battery life to three months is a more substantial upgrade - as is a new processor, which supposedly makes a big difference when it comes to page-turning speeds - but we'll need to finish putting Amazon's latest e-reader through its paces before rendering our final verdict.However, despite the iterative nature of the aforementioned updates, there's a good chance the 12th-gen Paperwhite is going to remain the best option for most people. Amazon's new entry-level Kindle is a bit smaller (and slower), and while the jazzy Kindle Colorsoft offers the best color screen on an e-reader so far, it will run you an extra $120 over the Paperwhite. That's a lot for a non-essential upgrade.More deals to beat the holiday crunch
Illustration: Beatrice Sala Rhode Island took its RIBridges system for applying for public assistance programs like Medicaid offline Friday following a cyberattack that may have exposed the personal data of hundreds of thousands of people, reports CBS affiliate WPRI 12.With its RIBridges system offline, Rhode Islanders won't be able to log into RIBridges' web portal or app, used to apply for Medicaid, food stamps, and other state benefits, says a government site providing updates on the breach. Governor Dan McKee said during a press briefing that attackers may have gotten personal info like names, addresses, and social security numbers of those who've used the system between 2019 to now.State Chief Digital Officer and Chief Information Officer Brian Tardiff, who also spoke at the briefing, said the attack is not ransomware, but more of an extortion type activity by this cybercriminal group."The attack also affected HealthSource RI, Rhode Island's healthcare marketplace. The state hopes to get the system back online before the healthcare open enrollment period ends on January 31st, as WPRI writes. In the meantime, mail-in paper applications and instructions for using them are available at the state's Department of Human Services website.The breach update site says that tomorrow, the state will publish the number of a call center for help with the breach, available from 11AM to 8PM ET Sunday morning and from 9AM to 9PM ET Monday through Friday after that. The Rhode Island government also plans to mail instructions for free credit monitoring to those impacted.
Actor Brandon Wilson dons the first-person camera rig. | Amazon MGM Studios and Orion Pictures When RaMell Ross signed on to direct the adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Nickel Boys, he wanted nearly the entire film to be shot from the first-person perspective. Here's how he pulled off one of the year's best and most ambitious movies. Read the full story at The Verge.
Mark Zuckerberg. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images Meta is asking California Attorney General Rob Bonta to block OpenAI's planned transition from a non-profit to for-profit entity.In a letter sent to Bonta's office this week, Meta says that OpenAI should not be allowed to flout the law by taking and reappropriating assets it built as a charity and using them for potentially enormous private gains."The letter, which was first reported on by The Wall Street Journal and you can read in full below, goes so far as to say that Meta believes Elon Musk is qualified and well positioned to represent the interests of Californians in this matter." Meta supporting Musk's fight against OpenAI is notable given that Musk and Mark Zuckerberg were talking about literally fighting in a cage match just last year.OpenAI started as a non-profit but stumbled into commercial success with ChatGPT, which now makes billions of dollars a year in revenue. CEO Sam Altman has been clear that the company needs to shed its non-profit status to become more attractive to investors and continuing funding its ambitions. The stakes are so high that OpenAI will have to return the billions of dollars it raised this year (with interest) if it can't successfully... Read the full story at The Verge.
Ilya Sutskever. | Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images OpenAI's cofounder and former chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, made headlines earlier this year after he left to start his own AI lab called Safe Superintelligence Inc. He has avoided the limelight since his departure but made a rare public appearance in Vancouver on Friday at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS).Pre-training as we know it will unquestionably end," Sutskever said onstage. This refers to the first phase of AI model development, when a large language model learns patterns from vast amounts of unlabeled data - typically text from the internet, books, and other sources.We've achieved peak data and there'll be no more."During his NeurIPS talk, Sutskever said that, while he believes existing data can still take AI development farther, the industry is tapping out on new data to train on. This dynamic will, he said, eventually force a shift away from the way models are trained today. He compared the situation to fossil fuels: just as oil is a finite resource, the internet contains a finite amount of human-generated content.We've achieved peak data and there'll be no more," according to Sutskever. We have to deal with the data that... Read the full story at The Verge.
Apple CEO Tim Cook will meet with President-elect Donald Trump for dinner on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to The New York Times. It's reportedly Cook's first time meeting with Trump since the election.During Trump's first term, Cook established a direct relationship with the president that other tech CEOs have wanted to replicate. As Trump prepares for his second term, Cook may want to discuss potential tariffs, which could significantly affect Apple's business.Cook may also want to discuss the European Union's actions against Apple; during his presidential campaign, Trump claimed that Cook called him to complain about the fines Apple faces in the European Union, with accusations of anticompetitive behavior in App Store policies and how it manages platforms like the iPhone and Mac.Cook's visit follows reports of Trump's conversation with Google CEO Sundar Pichai yesterday and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos next week. Trump met with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in November.Tech companies and leaders, including Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, have also been appealing to the President-elect with $1 million donations to his inauguration fund.
Frank McCourt. | Getty Images / The Verge So far, ByteDance has shown zero willingness to spin off TikTok in the US. The Chinese parent company seems to be banking on the Supreme Court or President-elect Donald Trump rescuing the app before it's banned next month.The obvious names that would would buy TikTok if they could - Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. - are sitting on the sidelines and waiting to see what happens in the coming weeks. The clock is ticking. Congress just sent letters to Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook reminding them that they will be legally liable for continuing to host TikTok in their app stores after January 19th.Then there's Frank McCourt, the real estate billionaire and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. For months, McCourt has been very public about his desire to buy TikTok. He has ramped up his drumbeat since ByteDance recently lost its legal fight on appeal. This week, he pitched more investors on his Project Liberty plan to buy the app's US operations.When I spoke with McCourt over Zoom in between those investor meetings, he told me he currently has roughly $20 billion behind him for a bid. He has asked Kevin Mayer, who was briefly TikTok's CEO the last time it was almost... Read the full story at The Verge.
Image: The Verge OpenAI is rolling out a feature called Projects" to ChatGPT. It's basically a folder system that makes it easier to organize things you're working on while using the AI chatbot.As shown in a demo video, your list of Projects will show up in the sidebar. If you make a new project, you can do things like edit the title, set a color for the project's icon, and add files as well as instructions to tailor how ChatGPT responds to things in that individual project. You can also add previous chats to your project to keep track of them.The new feature seems like a pretty useful way to keep track of, for lack of a better word, your projects. During the demo video, an OpenAI employee showed examples of how they use Projects to plan for a Secret Santa gift exchange and for home maintenance. Depending on your needs, it could be a better way to work on a project than my usual method, which is dumping everything I can think of into an Apple Note.Projects is rolling out today to ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Teams users. It will come to free users as soon as possible" and to Enterprise and Edu users early in the new year," according to OpenAI CPO Kevin Weil.Projects was announced as Day 7 of OpenAI's 12 days of ship-mas." Previous announcements included the release of the Sora video generator, ChatGPT's Canvas view, and the $200-per-month ChatGPT Pro subscription.
Everyday Backpack V1 | Image: Peak Design When the first grainy images of the UnitedHealthcare shooting suspect emerged, some viewers noticed a seemingly small detail: he looked like he was wearing a Peak Design Everyday V1 backpack. Now, on platforms like Threads and TikTok, a recurring accusation has circulated: Peak Design traced" the bag owner using the backpack's serial number.However, the company says that's just not true, in a statement shared with The Verge Friday afternoon. Peak Design has not provided customer information to the police and would only do so under the order of a subpoena," the statement signed by CEO Peter Dering reads.We cannot associate a product serial number with a customer unless that customer has voluntarily registered their product on our site." The statement goes on to say that the serial numbers on the V1 of the Everyday backpack were not unique or identifying ... We did not implement unique serial numbers until V2 iterations of our Everyday Backpack."
Illustration by William Joel Texas is suing a New York doctor for prescribing mifepristone and misoprostol - the pills used for medication abortion - to a Texas resident via telemedicine, an alleged violation of the state's strict abortion law.Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit against Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter, founder of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedecine, in Collin County civil court on Thursday. Carpenter doesn't face criminal charges, but the state is seeking up to a $250,000 fine.This is the first time Texas has sued an out-of-state doctor for providing abortion services to a Texas patient via telemedicine. Notably, New York, where Carpenter is based, has a shield law" that's designed to protect doctors who prescribe and send abortion pills to patients in other states, including those that, like Texas, have outlawed abortion.Regardless of what the courts in Texas do, the real question is whether the courts in New York recognize it," Greer Donley, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, told the Texas Tribune.According to the complaint, a 20-year-old woman who became pregnant sometime in mid-May was prescribed mifepristone and misoprostol by Carpenter at an undisclosed time. The woman, who is not named in the lawsuit, experienced adverse side effects from the pills and asked her partner to take her to the hospital because of hemorrhage or severe bleeding on July 16th.At the hospital, the woman's partner was told that she had been' nine weeks pregnant before losing the child," the complaint says, which made him conclude that she had intentionally withheld information from him regarding her pregnancy, and he further suspected" that the woman had in fact done something to contribute to the miscarriage or abortion" of the pregnancy. According to the complaint, she had not previously told her partner she was pregnant. Upon returning to their home, the woman's partner found the two medications Carpenter allegedly prescribed to the woman.The complaint does not say when the woman obtained the medication.Texas has one of the strictest abortion laws in the country. The state has a near-total ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with narrow exceptions if the life of the mother is at risk but no exceptions for cases of rape and incest. According to the complaint, the unnamed 20-year-old woman did not have any life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from the pregnancy that placed her at risk of death or any serious risk of substantial impairment."
Google is slowly rolling out its Gemini-powered Google Assistant to some users of its smart speakers. | Photo: Dan Seifert / The Verge Google has slowly started rolling out a Gemini-powered Google Assistant to some Google Home users on select Nest smart speakers. The company first teased a smarter Google Assistant for the home in August and is starting with Gemini-powered answers to your general knowledge questions. The regular Google Assistant will still handle things like smart home and music requests, but you'll hear a chime before the Assistant responds with an AI-powered answer.As detailed by Google in a new support document, Gemini in Google Assistant on Nest speakers (that's a branding delight right there) can answer wider-ranging questions with more in-depth answers - similar to Gemini on Android and iOS. You can also ask it follow-up questions and interrupt the response to ask another question, although you'll still need to say Hey Google" each time.First spotted by 9to5Google, the Gemini-enhanced Assistant began appearing on speakers earlier this month. However, it's only available on Nest Audio and Nest Mini (2nd gen) smart speakers - Nest smart displays or earlier generations speakers aren't compatible. The AI-powered answers are also only open to users in Google Home's Public Preview, who are... Read the full story at The Verge.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge We've already seen our fair share of bad Apple Intelligence-summarized notifications, but now that the feature is live in the UK, the BBC isn't finding it so funny. The summarized notification mucked up a BBC headline about the UnitedHealthcare shooting suspect, falsely suggesting the network reported that Luigi Mangione shot himself.In a report about the notification, a spokesperson for the network says it contacted Apple to raise this concern and fix the problem." Screenshot: BBC Only the first part of the summarized BBC news notification is incorrect, as it accurately references two other stories about Bashar Al-Assad and a raid on the president of South Korea's office. As noted by 9to5Mac, the BBC report didn't specify the original text of the notification or which article it was in reference to.Other examples of the AI summaries missing the mark that we've seen have turned that hike almost killed me" into attempted suicide" or a Ring camera appearing to report that people are surrounding someone's home.If you're getting too many summaries on your iPhone that don't make sense, you can change the list of apps your iPhone summarizes with Apple Intelligence by going to Settings > Notifications > Summarize Notifications or even choose to turn off the feature entirely.
Image: Dbrand Nintendo is inching ever closer to its promised deadline to reveal the Switch's successor before April 2025. But new leaks from case manufacturers appear to reveal exactly what the Nintendo's next console could look like, and a few notable upgrades it might have over the original Switch.We were inspired to write this article in the first place because of Dbrand's just-announced Killswitch 2" case. The website for the product features an in-motion render of the case and, inside, a mockup of hardware that has some key differences from the Switch and Switch OLED: the new console appears to be larger, and it has a mysterious new second button on the right Joy-Con under the Home button. Accessory leaks over the past several days have shown a similar potential design for the hardware.It seems Dbrand is reasonably confident in its case, but we asked CEO Adam Ijaz to be sure. He says Dbrand has actual dimensions" - not an educated guess - based on a 3D scan of the real hardware." (When we asked how he knows that, Ijaz only said Nice try, Nintendo.") Video: Dbrand Here's a GIF we cut of the new case from Dbrand's video. Based on Dbrand's measurements, the next Switch (which we'll call the Switch 2) will both be larger and taller than Nintendo's Switch OLED, but roughly the same thickness. Nintendo's spec sheet shows its previous handheld is 242mm wide, 102mm tall and 13.9mm thick, where Ijaz says the Switch 2 should measure 270mm wide, 116mm tall, and 14mm thick, with the console portion taking up 200mm worth of that width.Ijaz also says the kickstand will still measure around half the console's height at around 55mm; a diagonal measurement of the cover glass supports previous rumors that it'll have an 8-inch screen.Ijaz says it's his understanding" that Joy-Cons are magnetically attached" with an an ejection button" that's on the back of the Joy-Cons near the top, and his new case takes advantage of the detachable controllers - he says the controller portions of Dbrand's case can detach with them inside.He doesn't know what the second square button is under the Home button, which he says has a C" printed on it. The left Joy-Con in Dbrand's mockup still has a button on the left Joy-Con, which is where you'll find the capture button on the original Switch, so it's unclear if this C" button now means capture or if both buttons work differently. (Nintendo originally introduced C-buttons on the Nintendo 64 controller in 1996 as a way to control a game's camera, before gamepads introduced a second stick to let you shift perspective.)Ijaz says the joysticks stand 6.27mm tall, and the D-pad and ABXY buttons protrude by 1.57mm, with a 180mm wide kickstand, and back triggers that extend 9.1mm.While Dbrand does seem to know a lot about the console, Ijaz is genuinely unsure" about its potential release date. He says that Dbrand is working toward a late March or early April release for its case, though. Ijaz also doesn't know about Nintendo's possible TV dock for the Switch 2, but says that Dbrand's assumption is that the form factor will be similar to the previous gen." He doesn't know if the screen will be LCD or OLED.While it's highly unusual for an accessory maker to publicly reveal this much about a product from a powerful, litigious company like Nintendo, it's not surprising that Dbrand's the one stepping up to the plate. Having beef with console makers is an intentional (and often fun!) part of its marketing strategy, and Nintendo is a frequent target - like that Zelda skin that was a middle finger to Nintendo's lawyers, or the (not) Animal Crossing" one.Much of what Dbrand is showing and what Ijaz is saying lines up with a video from SwitchUp showing what it calls a Switch 2 mockup sent to them by a case manufacturer. That mockup is clearly larger than today's existing Switch OLED, and the new Joy-Cons are clearly bigger than the old Joy-Cons. You can also see the second square button under the home button there, the larger button under the triggers that presumably ejects them from the console, and a wide kickstand similar to the one on the Switch OLED.One other nice addition? A second USB-C port on the top of the mockup, which theoretically means you'll be able to plug in a charging cable while you're using it in tabletop mode; with the current Switch, the charging port on the bottom is blocked when you're standing it up on a table.While we're still waiting for Nintendo to actually announce concrete details about the Switch 2, the company has shared that the console will be able to play current Switch games and it will have Nintendo Switch Online as well.Correction, December 13th: Ijaz says he measured the Switch 2 triggers wrong; they extend 9.1mm, not 14.1mm.
The Colorsoft is Amazon's first Kindle with a color screen, but some users noticed colors they didn't want. | Photo: Andrew Liszewski / The Verge Amazon is once again shipping its Kindle Colorsoft. This follows reports of the company's first color e-reader exhibiting a yellow discolored strip at the bottom of the e-reader's display - including The Verge's review unit. The Colorsoft's listing on Amazon's website says the company is making the appropriate adjustments to ensure that new devices will not experience this issue moving forward," but some customers are still seeing the issue on replacement units that recently arrived.Several Reddit users who experienced the yellow discoloration issue on their original Colorsoft units and have received replacements in the last two weeks say the issue is still present, but much less noticeable. One user says the screens on their original and replacement Colorsofts have different hues which may contribute to the yellow bar looking less prominent on the replacement," while another says the replacement's screen is darker than the original" but that the color really pops more in the replacement."Amazon is also sending The Verge a replacement Kindle Colorsoft unit. When asked what adjustments were being made to the Colorsoft to address the display issue, Amazon spokesperson Devon Corvasce said in a statement emailed to The Verge that it was a combination of software and display adjustments."
Image: Max After next season, Max will no longer be the place to watch new episodes of beloved children's show Sesame Street first, The Hollywood Reporter reports. Platform owner Warner Bros. Discovery has decided not to renew its HBO and Max deal with producer Sesame Workshop, which means new episodes of the series will need to find a new home.Sesame Street is one of several shows for children on Max, but I find that other streaming services such as Disney Plus, Netflix, and even YouTube Kids have more content for parents to play for kids. According to THR, ending its deal for new Sesame Street episodes is part of a change in strategy to focus on adult and broader family content, such as the upcoming Harry Potter series for 2026.The company is still going to keep current episodes streaming through 2027. Last year, Sesame Workshop executive Kay Wilson Stalling told The Hollywood Reporter that the upcoming 56th season (season 55 will be available on Max starting next month) would be a reimagining" of the show with longer narrative segments and more sophisticated stories.Sesame Street moved over to HBO in 2016, where new episodes aired before eventually making their way to PBS for free viewing months later. At the time, you could watch the show on demand via the long-gone HBO Go and HBO Now apps, and when Max launched, it picked up the timed-exclusive streaming deal. But a few years removed from investing heavily in kids' programming and dropping the HBO" from Max to become more welcoming as a service parents are comfortable with their kids using, now Warner Bros. Discovery is moving forward with a very different plan.
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images The lawsuit between Elon Musk and OpenAI is really heating up.OpenAI just dropped a new blog post defending itself against Musk that outlines some new text messages between cofounders Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and former board member Shivon Zilis.You can't sue your way to AGI," the OpenAI blog post reads, referring to artificial general intelligence, which Altman has promised soon. We have great respect for Elon's accomplishments and gratitude for his early contributions to OpenAl, but he should be competing in the marketplace rather than the courtroom. It is critical for the U.S. to remain the global leader in Al. Our mission is to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity, and we have been and will remain a mission-driven organization. We hope Elon shares that goal, and will uphold the values of innovation and free market competition that have driven his own success."Some of the new messages revealed show Brockman telling Zilis in July 2017 about a meeting he had with Musk, who allegedly said that a non-profit was definitely the right structure early on but may not be the right one now." Later that month, Brockman wrote to Musk that path for OpenAI should be: 1. AI research non-profit (through end of 2017) 2. AI research + hardware for-profit (starting 2018) 3. Government project (when: ??)."The blog also highlights Musk's attempts to maneuver into the CEO position and gain majority control of the company (though it adds that on one call Musk said he didn't care about equity" but just needed to accumulate $80B for a city on Mars"). Musk also proposed that OpenAI spin into Tesla, which has been previously revealed. When the negotiations fell apart because OpenAI's cofounders rejected his proposal (Brockman and Sutskever admitted they had fears of a power struggle), Musk resigned from the company.The blog said that after Musk resigned, he hosted a goodbye all-hands with the team where he encouraged them to pursue the path we saw to raising billions per year" and that he would pursue advanced Al research at Tesla, which was the only vehicle he believed could obtain this level of funding."Later, around the time Musk was working to acquire Twitter, he texted Altman that he was disturbed" to see the company's new $20 billion valuation. De facto. I provided almost all the seed, A and most of B round funding," he wrote, according to the disclosed texts. This is a bait and switch."A few months after that interaction, Musk started an OpenAI competitor, xAI.Some of the messages published by OpenAI were previously outlined in court filings that Musk made in his ongoing suit against OpenAI and its partner Microsoft. The lawsuit, filed by Musk in March, alleges that OpenAI had strayed from its original nonprofit mission to develop AI for the public good (he withdrew it in June 2024 without explanation, then refiled in August 2024).Today's update from OpenAI attempts to counter Musk's narrative by offering evidence that he, not Altman, attempted to seize control in the company's early days - a direct response to Musk's recent lawsuit claims about Altman's power consolidation.
A leaked image of the new Lenovo Legion Go. | Image via Evan Blass Earlier today, Evan Blass revealed an unannounced Lenovo Legion Go S handheld gaming PC with an extremely intriguing twist: a Steam button that suggests it could be the first third-party SteamOS handheld, and thus the first true competitor to the Steam Deck.But that handheld gaming PC apparently won't be alone: Blass just provided The Verge with these images of a new, larger Lenovo Legion Go as well.As you can see, this Legion Go plans to keep the detachable Joy-Con like gamepads and kickstand that were the single most distinctive features of the original - and they'll keep the FPS mode" where you can plop one of those controllers on a disc-shaped skate and use it like a vertical mouse. Image via Evan Blass But one model may also swap out the Legion Go's 8.8-inch IPS LCD screen for one with an OLED panel at the same size, according to the original filenames of these images. That should mean improved colors and deeper blacks, and potentially improved response times.We don't have any specs or marketing claims yet, though, like the all-important battery life size. Nor have we gotten a glimpse of the ports on this system. There is an AMD Z2 Extreme chip coming that could likely be the core of this handheld, but we don't yet know. Image via Evan Blass In my review of the original Legion Go, I was mixed on the detachable controllers with their sharp-ish edges and loads of extra mouse buttons that made them awkward to hold. These one seem to be far more smoothly sculpted, though, with revised mouse buttons on the right detachable pad, and a cover you can place over the mounting rail so the copper charging pins don't poke your palm.The images we've seen do not feature a Steam button, so it's quite likely Lenovo is still hedging its bets with Windows in addition to SteamOS.But we are much more confident in our prediction that the smaller Lenovo Legion Go S will be a SteamOS handheld. Blass showed me filenames that suggest the S will be powered by" Steam, mirroring Valve's new branding guidelines for Powered by SteamOS" devices.Valve defines Powered by SteamOS" as hardware running the SteamOS operating system, implemented in close collaboration with Valve."We've reached out to Valve and Lenovo to hopefully learn more.
Photo by Jeff Gritchen/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images Donald Trump's transition team is taking aim at a Biden-era rule requiring automakers and tech companies to report crashes that involve fully or partially autonomous vehicles, according to Reuters. Scrapping the crash reporting rule would greatly benefit Tesla, which to date, has reported the most number of crashes.In 2021, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a standing general order (SGO) requiring automakers and tech companies to report crashes involving autonomous vehicles as well as Level 2 driver-assist systems found in millions of vehicles on the road today. Companies are now required to document collisions when an automated driving system was in use within 30 seconds of impact and report those incidents to the government.The idea was to create more transparency around the deployment of a new technology that purports to improve safety but has also been tied to a number of deadly incidents. Regulators argued that more data was needed to determine whether these new systems were making roads safer or simply making driving more convenient.Tesla, in particular, came under scrutiny. The company's Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features, which are considered Level 2 systems that require drivers to pay attention, are both covered under the rule. Since it was implemented, Tesla has reported over 1,500 crashes to the federal government, Reuters says. An analysis of the crash data shows Tesla accounted for 40 out of 45 fatal crashes reported to NHTSA through October of this year.Tesla's numbers were much higher than other companies, most likely due to the fact that it sells more vehicles equipped with Level 2 systems than its rivals and collects more data. But it also resulted in a huge headache for the company. NHTSA has launched several investigations into Tesla's driver-assist technology, most of which centered on crashes reported under the SGO.Several sources close to Tesla told Reuters that the company despises" the standing general order and concluded that it would need a change in administration in order to get rid of it. Tesla CEO Elon Musk was one of Trump's most vocal defenders, spending at least $277 million of his own money to back his campaign. Musk has since been appointed to head the Department of Government Efficiency with the goal of cutting government spending.Trump is also considering getting rid of other policies opposed by Tesla, including generous subsidies for EV companies. Musk believes Tesla is better positioned to weather a subsidy-free environment than other automakers due to its scale and maturity. Musk is also lobbying Trump to ease restrictions on fully autonomous vehicles in advance of Tesla's plans to produce its own robotaxi in 2026.
Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images The US Department of Energy announced a $1.25 billion loan to electric vehicle charging company EVgo as the Biden administration races to finalize its spending on EVs before Donald Trump takes office. The money will fund EVgo's plans to install approximately 7,500 chargers at roughly 1,100 charging stations across the US over the next five years, with a particular focus on fast-charging 350kW stalls that can charge two vehicles simultaneously.But more importantly, it shows how President Joe Biden is intent on doling out as much money for EV projects as he can before leaving office. Trump has promised to reverse or cancel much of the spending by Biden on EVs once he assumes office. He has said he will kill the $7,500 tax credit for new EV purchases and wipe out the rest of the spending from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) on EV charging infrastructure.President Joe Biden is intent on doling out as much money for EV projects as he can before leaving officeWith a little more than a month left in office, Biden's Energy Department has been furiously approving EV-related loans. Stellantis and Samsung were given preliminary approval for $7.54 billion for a battery factory in Indiana, while Rivian will receive $6.6 billion for an EV plant in Georgia.The loans are also intended to be job creators, the administration says. For example, EVgo said its expansion project will support the creation of 180 external construction jobs and over 550 maintenance and support jobs.EVgo, which is based in Los Angeles, is working with General Motors on the installation of thousands of EV chargers across the country. The companies recently celebrated the activation of their 2,000th charging stall.The fragmented and frustrating nature of our current EV charging landscape has been widely - and correctly - cited as one of the most significant barriers to EV adoption. Owners frequently complain about unreliable charging or broken equipment as one of the most frustrating things about driving an EV.After his election, Biden vowed to build 500,000 chargers by 2030 as a way to spur more EV sales, including $7.5 billion for charging expansion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. While the first few years of funding were rather sluggish, recent updates have shown that things are finally picking up.In its release, the DOE said, there are currently more than 204,000 publicly available charging ports, with nearly 38,000 new public chargers already having been added this year and nearly 1,000 new public chargers being added every week thanks to a combination of direct federal funding, federal tax incentives, state and local funding, and private investment."That includes both Level 2 chargers and DC fast chargers. That's roughly double the number of ports in operation at the outset of 2021 when Biden first took office.
Anker's slim MagSafe power bank now supports Qi2 wireless charging speeds. | Image: Anker Anker has released its thinnest MagSafe-compatible power bank, measuring about a third of an inch thick. It's only got a 5,000mAh battery inside, so you probably won't get two full iPhone charges with it, but Anker has updated it with 15W Qi2 wireless charging speeds so your phone can charge faster.It's currently available exclusively through Apple's online and retail stores for $49.95 in either blue or white, making it $10 more expensive than the older MagGo 621 Magnetic Battery that Anker still sells through its website. For comparison, the older version of the 5K battery is 0.45-inches thick and only supports wireless charging speeds up to 7.5W.The bidirectional USB-C port on the bottom of the power bank can charge it or other devices at 20W. However, when both power outputs are in use, wireless charging speeds drop to 5W, while the USB-C port slows to 12W. The battery is compatible with iPhone models going back to the iPhone 12, but it will also work with Android devices that fully support the Qi2 specifications.
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is warning Americans about game-like online job scams" that get people to perform tasks with the promise of a continuous income stream - only to be duped into giving money to the scammer. The FTC says in the first six months of this year, these task scams" have raked in over $220 million from victims, often in the form of cryptocurrency. It's accounted for about 40 percent of all scam reports in 2024.There were 20,000 reports of task scams in the first half of 2024, a sharp increase from only 5,000 from 2020-2023.These scams often start with a WhatsApp or text message to a victim asking them to do tasks about app optimization" or product boosting." Sometimes, the scammers initially pay small amounts of money to seem trustworthy. Afterward, they convince victims to pay into some tasks with the promise of a larger payout, and then the scammers run away with the money. Image: FTC These are the three tips the FTC listed to avoid getting scammed:
Image: Evan Blass (X) Valve revealed earlier this year that it will support the ROG Ally handheld with its Steam Deck operating system, and now it looks like Lenovo will soon have its own SteamOS handheld, too. Evan Blass has posted images of an unannounced Lenovo Legion Go S on X today, revealing black and white variants of a handheld gaming PC. The interesting part? The black one has a Steam button.While the low resolution images don't immediately scream SteamOS, if you look closely you'll notice a Steam logo is visible on a button to the left of the display. Interestingly, the white model doesn't have the same Steam button - which could indicate Lenovo is preparing Windows- and SteamOS-powered models of its Legion Go S. Image: Evan Blass (X) You can clearly see a Steam logo on the button to the left of the display. PC makers like Lenovo, Asus, and MSI have all opted for Windows-based handhelds so far, but as consumer patience with Windows on tiny screens wears thin and Microsoft's progress in improving the experience is slow, it seems like OEMs are looking for a better alternative.Lenovo's potential entry into a SteamOS handheld comes just days after Valve quietly updated a document with new branding guidelines that include Powered by SteamOS" hardware. It's the surest sign yet that Valve is working with more third-party hardware manufacturers, beyond Asus, to certify devices with SteamOS. With CES 2025 just a few weeks away, we could be about to witness a lot more SteamOS-powered hardware.Valve has been here before, though. At CES in 2013, it tried to tempt PC manufacturers to sign up to its Steam Machines initiative, but it didn't get far enough with developers to convince them to port games to Linux to make these machines successful. There's reason to believe this time things will be very different, thanks to Proton. The Steam Deck uses the Proton software compatibility layer and has already proved that many Windows games can even run better on Linux as a result.As my colleague Sean Hollister wrote earlier this month: it's just as intriguing an idea as it was 12 years ago when Gabe Newell explained the initial vision to us, and this time, there's a far better chance it'll work."
Illustration: The Verge Google's NotebookLM and its podcast-like Audio Overviews have been a surprise hit this year, and today Google company is starting to roll out a big new feature: the ability to actually talk with the AI hosts" of the overviews.When the feature is available to you, you can try it out with new Audio Overviews. (It won't work with old ones.) Here's how, according to a blog post:
Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Waymo's driverless vehicles can detect emergency vehicles, know how to respond to hand signals for traffic cops, and can be disabled manually when something goes wrong, according to an independent review of the company's first responder protocols.As such, the Alphabet company's first responder protocols passed an independent review conducted by Tuv Sud, a German tech inspection company. The firm's assessment found that Waymo's First Responder Program meets industry standards" for responding to emergency situations, which is in line with the best practices set out in the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).Waymo - and indeed the entire autonomous vehicle industry - has been under intense scrutiny, especially around how its driverless cars behave around police, fire, and other emergency responders. But Waymo is staking out the position that it goes beyond what's required to prove that its vehicles are trustworthy.The firm's assessment found that Waymo's First Responder Program meets industry standards"Case in point: having its first responder protocols scrutinized by an independent group like Tuv Sud. The company has also publicly released its own guide for first responders who are responding to incidents involving autonomous vehicles. The 32-page document includes a toll free number for getting in touch with remote operators, a visual guide for disabling the vehicle's autonomous mode, and instructions for how to disconnect the high-voltage battery.Waymo also hosts training sessions for police and fire officials in the cities in which it operates. The company says it has trained 15,000 first responders from over 75 agencies.Waymo isn't the only company to seek Tuv Sud's stamp of approval. The German firm also audited Aurora's safety guidelines for its self-driving trucks, as well as protocols for autonomous freight company Gatik.Given some of the history, it's understandable why Waymo feels it needs to go to such lengths to assure first responders that it's a good actor. In San Francisco last year, city officials pleaded with regulators to reconsider a measure to allow robotaxis to operate 24/7, citing a spate of incidents in which autonomous vehicles have stopped traffic, blocked buses, or obstructed emergency vehicles. And despite Waymo's efforts to promote itself as a safe operator, these incidents keep happening.Last July, Phoenix police pulled over a driverless Waymo vehicle that was driving in the oncoming lane of traffic. (The company blamed inconsistent" construction signs.) And in October, a Waymo car ignored police in Austin trying to direct traffic outside a football game. Meanwhile, another Waymo partially blocked an intersection nearby and prevented an escorted bus from passing through, according to Axios. (The company said these were minor occurrences and that its vehicles provide thousands of rides each week in Austin without incident.)As Waymo continues to slowly march ahead, launching in new cities and taking on new partners, the company is mindful that one bad incident is all it takes for everything to collapse. It happened to Uber and, more recently, to Cruise. That's why it needs to take all precautions it can to prove that its vehicles are as safe, if not safer, than human drivers.
Image: The Verge / Photos: Getty Media critic Matt Pearce on Lessons on media policy at the slaughter-bench of history' Read the full story at The Verge.
A color image taken by Perseverance's Mastcam-Z instrument of NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter in April 2023. | Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS Ahead of a full technical report that's expected to be released in the next few weeks, engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and AeroVironment have revealed what's believed to be the cause of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter's crash on January 18th, 2024. The craft's vision navigation system, which was designed to track textured features on the surface of Mars, was confused by a featureless stretch of rippled sandy terrain, resulting in incorrect velocity estimates that led to a hard landing.Relying on remote data, including photographs taken after the flight, the investigators believe that navigation errors created high horizontal velocities at touchdown," which most likely resulted in Ingenuity experiencing a hard impact on the sand ripple's slope," causing it to pitch and roll. Illustration: NASA/JPL-Caltech A graphic shared by NASA depicts what's thought to be the most likely scenario for Ingenuity Mars Helicopter's final flight. NASA's engineers originally assumed that Ingenuity's spinning rotor blades were damaged after making contact with the surface of Mars during the crash. They now believe they snapped off because the rapid attitude change resulted in loads on the fast-rotating rotor blades beyond their design limits." A part of one of the rotor blades was located about 49 feet away from the craft's final resting place.Communications were lost during the crash as a result of excessive vibration in the damaged and unbalanced rotor system that resulted in an excessive power demand. However, despite being permanently grounded, communications were reestablished the next day, and Ingenuity still beams weather and avionics test data to the Perseverance rover about once a week," which NASA says is already proving useful to engineers working on future designs of aircraft and other vehicles for the Red Planet."Initially designed to perform only up to five experimental flights over the course of a month on Mars, Ingenuity operated for almost three years and accumulated over two hours of flight time across 72 flights.
Airbnb would prefer if you have your rowdy New Year's Eve bash elsewhere. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you were thinking of booking an Airbnb to host a rowdy New Year's Eve shindig, the company is already one step ahead of you. Airbnb says it's rolling out anti-party technology worldwide to help prevent unauthorized and disruptive" get togethers over the holiday.Airbnb describes its anti-party technology as machine learning tools to identify and block risky bookings. The tech will be rolled out globally, but Airbnb specifically called out the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Puerto Rico, Spain, and New Zealand. It assesses things like trip length, when the reservation is being made, and how far the booking is from your current location.If a booking is deemed a high risk, guests will either be blocked or redirected to different accommodations. For folks hoping to book an entire home for a short holiday getaway, reservations of one to three nights will also be blocked. Guests booking entire homes will also have to agree to a mandatory anti-party attestation."Airbnb says it blocked 74,000 such bookings last New Year's Eve, with roughly 33,000 of those coming from the US.The company's stance against disruptive parties isn't new. It started banning party houses" in 2019 and added tighter restrictions in 2020 during the covid-19 pandemic as a public health measure. Airbnb then decided to permanently ban rowdy parties worldwide in 2022. The decision came after several shootings occurred at parties hosted at Airbnbs, including an incident where two teenagers were killed and eight people wounded at a Pittsburgh rental.
The USB-C Backbone One (second-gen) offers the same experience as the Lightning version pictured. As good as the Backbone One is (read our review of the original version), it can be hard to justify earmarking $100 for a mobile gaming controller. Even at its common $70 sale price, you're entering pro controller territory. That said, a 50 percent discount for the second-gen Backbone One (USB-C) seems worth jumping over the fence for. Today only, you can get it for $49.99 at Best Buy, which is a record low price and just in time for the Resident Evil 2 remake that's soon launching on the iPhone.The Backbone One's USB-C connector means it works both with Android smartphones and iPhones 15 or newer. It's sleek with a bubbly grip sized just right to comfortably reach any of its face buttons, triggers, bumpers, or analog sticks. Ergonomically, it'll lose to bulkier controllers, but should feel pretty good in most hands and is infinitely better than pecking away at the screen. The controller also has USB-C passthrough charging and 3.5mm for headphones and headsets.The Best Buy-exclusive Warzone Mobile edition on sale here is mostly a spiritual tie-in: it's visually and functionally identical to the standard Backbone One, but comes with free in-game rewards. You can use it with any games or apps with controller support, including cloud streaming services like Xbox Cloud Gaming and GeForce Now. The purchase includes a free one-month trial of Backbone Plus ($40 a year afterward), which unlocks more app features like gameplay recording, live streaming, and Play on Any Screen (the latter enabling wired gaming on PC and tablets). You'll also get three months of Apple Arcade ($7 a month value).More deals and discounts
Illustration: The Verge Tumblr is introducing a new Community feature - in-app groups organized by topic or interest.Communities are similar to subreddits or Facebook groups and had previously been in beta. Topics include things like film photography, marine biology, LGBTQ, and video games, and each topic has its own landing page where posts shared with the community populate. Many of the features mirror Reddit, like a count of how many members are online, moderators, and community guidelines. Posts shared to communities also get a new comments section that's only visible within the group. Communities have the option to be public or private. Image: Tumblr Tumblr's video games community Tumblr pulling a page from Reddit's playbook shouldn't be surprising. As other communities and forums on the web have died off or been eaten by Google, Reddit has been on the up-and-up, growing its user base and turning a profit for the first time. But Subreddits managed by users are both Reddit's crown jewels and a thorn in the side of corporate interests, as demonstrated by the coordinated action taken last year in protest of changes to the platform's API pricing structure. As Google Search degrades in usefulness - or is replaced by AI summaries - platforms like Reddit have become a central part of finding helpful information online.Reddit is also adding search engine-like features, including an AI-powered summary tool called Answers announced earlier this week. Though Tumblr's communities feature - and Tumblr in general - isn't the search destination Reddit is, the new grouping feature does streamline how users can find and engage with topic-based content and peers with similar interests. Communities is available on the web, iOS, and Android.
The 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros are still the best laptops for creative professionals. This year they're a little faster, with better webcams, new anti-glare screen options, and that's mostly it. Read the full story at The Verge.
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge ChatGPT launched roughly two years and two weeks ago. Now, as we near the end of 2024, the AI race is... well, where is it, exactly? It's more competitive than ever, there's more money being poured into new models and products than ever, and it's not at all clear when or even whether we're going to get products that make it all worthwhile.On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk about a lot of different AI news, all along a single trend line: the tech industry trying desperately to build a killer app for AI. (Ideally, for them, also one that makes money.) The Verge's Richard Lawler joins us as we discuss Google Gemini 2.0, Project Astra and Project Mariner, and everything else Google is doing to put AI in the products you already use every day. We also talk through the new Android XR announcement, and Google's renewed commitment to making headsets and smart glasses that work. It's all an AI story, no matter how you look at it.After that... more AI! We talk about the launch and near-immediate disappearance of OpenAI's Sora, what's new in iOS 18.2, Reddit's clever-but-primitive new Answers feature, and more.Finally, in the lightning round, it's a smorgasbord of tech news. YouTube is big on TVs; Instagram is testing a way for you to test your posts; the TikTok ban is coming, but a sale sounds like the answer; Sonos once again made a great soundbar; and what the heck happened to Cruise? The year's almost over, but the news keeps coming.If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with Google:
Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images Microsoft has quietly ended the sale of new credits and phone number features for Skype this week. Skype Credit and Skype Number are both being discontinued in favor of Microsoft pushing subscriptions instead.Skype Credit was a pay-as-you-go plan for making calls both locally and internationally, and Skype Number allowed you to have a phone number that people could call and get through to your Skype account. Both have existed in Skype for years, making it a popular choice for calling landlines and mobile phones over the internet.New sales of Skype numbers and Skype credit have stopped, but customers can still use existing Skype numbers and credits," says Amit Fulay, vice president of Microsoft Teams and Skype, in a statement to The Verge. Users can also purchase new outbound PSTN calling services through monthly Skype subscriptions or use Skype's free VoIP services for voice or video calls."While existing Skype phone numbers will continue to work for now, it seems inevitable that Microsoft will eventually force existing users into a subscription, too. Existing Skype Credit can also be used, but you can't buy any additional top ups. Even with Microsoft's Skype subscriptions, there's still no direct replacement for having a phone number that people can ring to get to your Skype.Microsoft made the surprise decision to remove ads from Skype earlier this year, alongside new features like AI image creation. The communications app, acquired by Microsoft in 2011, has struggled to remain relevant in recent years up against WhatsApp, Zoom, FaceTime, and other video calling apps. Microsoft has also turned its attention more to Teams in recent years, especially after launching a personal version of Teams in 2020.
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After the surprise ousting of former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger last week, the chip maker is facing an uncertain future that could involve splitting the company up. The temporary co-CEOs of Intel both appeared at Barclays investment banking conference on Thursday, hinting at a potential manufacturing spinoff.Intel's manufacturing business finances and operations are already being separated into a standalone subsidiary, according to Reuters. Intel's chief financial officer, David Zinsner, admitted that's going to happen," but stopped short of confirming whether Intel would ever fully spin off its manufacturing business. Does it ever fully separate? That's an open question for another day," said Zinsner.Intel Products CEO, Michelle Johnston Holthaus, also discussed the possibility of a manufacturing spinoff, as the two co-CEOs wait for Intel's board to find a Gelsinger replacement. Pragmatically, do I think it makes sense that they're completely separated and there's no tie? I don't think so. But someone will decide that," said Holthaus.The decision on splitting up Intel will be a key one for the company, and any incoming CEO. Intel had to outsource the manufacturing of its Lunar Lake laptop chips to its rival TSMC earlier this year, in what turned out to be a financial mistake.It won't be easy for Intel to spin off its own foundries, though. Intel receives nearly $8 billion in CHIPS and Science Act funding from the US government, and the US Department of Commerce has oversight over any change of control. If Intel does end up spinning off its manufacturing business, then it will turn into a company that designs chips much like its direct rivals.Now, it's all eyes on Intel's 18A" process which is set to arrive next year and may struggle to beat TSMC and deliver a flagship PC chip to rival AMD. Intel has faced a series of setbacks this year, ranging from the Lunar Lake financial mistake to crashing 13th and 14th Gen chips and underwhelming next-gen desktop CPUs.
The Game Awards' final world premiere was Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. Developed by Naughty Dog, Intergalactic is a futuristic space opera with the kind of futurepunk vibes that remind me of Cowboy Bebop. That comparison is apt as Intergalactic game director and Naughty Dog studio head Neil Druckmann mentioned on the game's website that it stars a space bounty hunter. Indeed, the trailer even featured an anime playing in the background reminiscent of Dirty Pair.Here's Naughty Dog's description of the game, from the YouTube trailer:
Image: Capcom Capcom had quite the surprise in store at The Game Awards. The developer announced a sequel to Okami, a beautiful and beloved action-adventure game that originally launched back in 2006.The sequel - which doesn't currently have a name - was revealed in dramatic fashion with a musical performance. Original director Hideki Kamiya is returning for the game, which will be developed by his new studio Clovers. It's still very early though; during the reveal TGA host Geoff Keighley said that production is about to begin." Capcom, meanwhile, says only that a new adventure in the same vein as Okami has been set in motion."Not only has it been quite some time since Okami debuted, its announcement also comes at a time when Capcom seems intent on doubling down on its biggest franchises. Right now that means a lot of Monster Hunter and Resident Evil. Up next is Monster Hunter Wilds, which is launching next year, as well as the mobile spinoff Monster Hunter Outlanders.However, Okami isn't the only Capcom franchise being revived: the company also revealed a new entry in the action franchise Onimusha, which is launching in 2026. Here's the very bloody debut trailer for that.
