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Image: Joby The Federal Aviation Administration published highly anticipated final regulations for electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles that it says will chart the path for the air travel of the future."The FAA says these powered-lift" vehicles will be the first completely new category of aircraft since helicopters were introduced in 1940. These aircraft will be used for a variety of services, including air taxis, cargo delivery, and rescue and retrieval operations. The final rules published today contain guidelines for pilot training as well as operational requirements regarding minimum safe altitudes and visibility.Powered lift aircraft are the first new category of aircraft in nearly 80 years," FAA administrator Mike Whitaker... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Anthropic's latest Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI model has a new feature in public beta that can control a computer by looking at a screen, moving a cursor, clicking buttons, and typing text. The new feature, called computer use," is available today on the API, allowing developers to direct Claude to work on a computer like a human does, as shown on a Mac in the video below.Microsoft's Copilot Vision feature and OpenAI's desktop app for ChatGPT have shown what their AI tools can do based on seeing your computer's screen, and Google has similar capabilities in its Gemini app on Android phones. But they haven't gone to the next step of widely releasing tools ready to click around and perform tasks for you like this. Rabbit promised similar... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Microsoft and OpenAI announced they're offering a select group of media outlets up to $10 million ($2.5 million in cash plus $2.5 million worth of software and enterprise credits" from each) to try out AI tools in the newsroom.This news comes while the two companies are still facing a slew of copyright lawsuits, including from The New York Times, The Intercept, Raw Story, AlterNet, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and Alden Global Capital, the hedge fund behind the New York Daily News and Chicago Tribune. Those have continued despite licensing deals reached with many media outlets, including The Verge's parent company, Vox Media.The first round of funding will go to Newsday, The Minnesota Star Tribune, The Philadelphia... Continue reading...

Plugable's PS-10CC can deliver 100W to all 10 of its USB-C ports, but not simultaneously. | Image: Plugable Plugable has announced a new multi-port USB-C hub that can power or charge up to 10 connected devices using intelligent power distribution and an easy-to-understand priority-based charging system.The company is bringing its new PS-10CC hub to consumers through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. The earliest backers can get one for $59, while the hub's full MSRP will be closer to $99, with delivery expected as early as January 2025. There's always a level of risk when backing a crowdfunded product, but Plugable has successfully delivered three devices through previous Kickstarters and says it already has functional prototypes of its new PS-10CC. Image: Plugable You'll need to supply your own power adapter for the... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge WhatsApp is getting a built-in contact manager that lets you save contacts within the app so you don't lose them if you switch phones.WhatsApp typically relies on the smartphone address book it runs on to hold and manage contacts. But that can be a problem for users who lose their device and fail to back up their phone's contacts, people who share phones, or those who manage multiple accounts with separate contacts on one device.To start, you'll be able to save contacts on WhatsApp Web and Windows and Meta says that you'll eventually" be able to do so on other linked devices. Contacts saved in WhatsApp use a new privacy-preserving" storage technology called Identity Proof Linked Storage (IPLS) that Meta explains keeps names and... Continue reading...

Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images Even with most of its autonomous vehicle fleet on ice, Cruise is still bleeding cash. The robotaxi company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors lost $435 million in the third quarter of 2024, GM reported this morning. That's an improvement from the $791 million lost in the third quarter of 2023.It's an instructive moment to check in with Cruise, because the company has been on hiatus since October 27, 2023, weeks after one of its driverless vehicles in San Francisco struck and then dragged a pedestrian over 20 feet, severely injuring her.Cruise has made small steps toward restarting its robotaxi service since then, with test vehicles on the roads in Arizona and Texas. It recently announced plans to deploy manually... Continue reading...

Here are some of the AI tools that Canva is increasing prices for. | Image: Canva Canva has added a bunch of new AI features to its web-based design platform, including updates for generating text and video effects and a more powerful text-to-image app. The latter is called Dream Lab" - a new image generator tool born from Canva's acquisition of generative AI startup Leonardo.ai earlier this year.Dream Lab is powered by Leonardo's Phoenix model (not be be confused with Adobe's Firefly AI) and allows users to generate images from descriptions in a variety of styles like 3D render" and Illustration."Canva already has its own Stable Diffusion-based AI image generator and hosts several other third-party apps, but the new Dream Lab offering introduces some improvements to the platform. It's seemingly better at... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge For years, we've heard that over-the-counter hearing aids were about to be amazing. They'd look like headphones and seem totally socially inconspicuous; they'd be able to help you tune the sound around you to exactly your needs in every situation. It's a nice idea, but we haven't seen much product to back it up. With a new software update coming to Apple's AirPods Pro 2 earbuds next week, it all might be starting to come true.On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge's Chris Welch takes us through his experience with Apple's new hearing health features, including the surprisingly intense and emotional hearing test you can take right on your phone. We talk about the changing social norms of headphones, what it means that Apple is now... Continue reading...

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images A group of Democratic lawmakers are urging the Justice Department to prosecute tax prep companies accused of improperly sharing user information with Meta and Google through their advertising pixels.Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), are calling on the DOJ to take action against tax prep companies that they say failed to protect taxpayer privacy. In a new letter shared exclusively with The Verge, the lawmakers advance their previous calls for law enforcers to investigate these companies.All this is the latest in a series of events that kicked off after The Markup published a report in 2022 revealing how tax prep companies shared financial information with Meta and... Continue reading...

Three advocacy groups are trying to amp up the pressure on Google for allegedly destroying company records. The American Economic Liberties Project, Check My Ads, and the Tech Oversight Project are urging the State Bar of California to investigate Kent Walker, Google's President of Global Affairs and a member of the Bar. They claim Walker coached" the company to engage in widespread and illegal destruction of records relevant to multiple ongoing federal trials."In a letter shared exclusively with The Verge, the groups point to a 2008 memo Walker sent to employees while he served as general counsel. The so-called Walker Memo was highlighted in the Department of Justice's recent antitrust trial, one of multiple cases where Google has... Continue reading...

Spotify's new cover art maker is fun, and surprisingly not AI. | Image: Spotify Spotify now has a new Create cover art" option for playlists that lets you make custom collages to represent your playlists. The beta feature, which is available for both free and Spotify Premium members, is launching for English users in 65 markets. The company says it partnered with artists like Ugly Primo, who designed Bad Bunny's Un Verano Sin Ti album cover, and Cey Adams, who has worked on albums and logos for The Notorious B.I.G and Beastie Boys.I gave it a shot and produced the masterpiece below, using a picture I took of a possum that was lurking outside my kid's bedroom one night. It's a pleasantly robust image maker, with layering, various effects, and the ability to rotate or change the size of images. It's still in beta,... Continue reading...

The Insta360 Ace Pro 2 can now capture 8K footage at 30fps. | Image: Insta360 Insta360 has announced its new Ace Pro 2 action camera, an upgraded version of its GoPro Hero-series competitor. The compact camera now has a larger screen on the back that flips up 180 degrees for framing selfie videos, and it debuts at $399.99 - $50 cheaper than Insta360's original Ace Pro.The design of the Ace Pro 2 still closely resembles the GoPro Hero series and DJI's Osmo Action line, with an offset lens making room for an additional screen on the front. But while the front screen on the cameras of Insta360's competitors can display full-color video, the Ace Pro 2's monochromatic front screen only displays information. Image: Insta360 The front screen on the Ace Pro 2 is still limited to showing information,... Continue reading...

If they look like the Bose Sleepbuds, well, that's by design. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge The Bose Sleepbuds are back. Kind of. After Bose decided to discontinue the product in 2023, three ex-Bose engineers decided to acquire the technology and relaunch the device under the name Ozlo. The buds have been around for a while via a crowdfunding campaign, but starting today, they're officially available for $299.Fans of the Bose Sleepbuds will be happy to know the Ozlo buds keep what was great about the originals while making one key improvement: you can now play your own audio, not just a small library of white noise sounds. And if you want the best of both worlds, the buds can switch over from your content to white noise once they've detected you've fallen asleep. It's been hit or miss in the few nights I've tried it. Some... Continue reading...

Apple's smallest tablet got an upgrade -but it won't feel like much of one unless Apple Intelligence is better than it seems. Continue reading...

Facebook is getting ready to scan your face again. | Image: Meta Facebook and Instagram are testing new facial recognition tools that could help users quickly restore compromised accounts and combat fake celebrity-endorsed scams. Meta announced its plan to roll out experimental features that can scan a user's face to verify their identity by comparing it against profile pictures on Facebook and Instagram.The first usage of these tools aim to protect both celebrities and everyday people from so-called celeb-bait" ads that impersonate notable figures to trick users into visiting scam websites. Meta currently uses automated technology like machine learning to detect content that violates its policies but says celeb-bait can be difficult to distinguish from legitimate ads.If our systems suspect that... Continue reading...

Epic Games' Fab marketplace, which is designed to serve as a unified place to get digital assets like environments and animations, is now live, the company announced today. The launch of the marketplace is an important step in Epic's plans to make it easier for developers to acquire assets for developing games - and, maybe someday, to let them make content for an interoperable metaverse.The company first revealed its plans for Fab - which will combine offerings from the Unreal Engine Marketplace, Sketchfab Store, Quixel, and ArtStation Marketplace into one place - in March 2023. While Epic initially planned to launch Fab in 2023, the company later delayed the launch to 2024.Epic is offering an 88 percent revenue share for goods sold on... Continue reading...

Jack Sweeney says that 38 of his jet tracking accounts have been suspended. | Illustration: The Verge Meta has suspended several Threads and Instagram accounts that track the private jets of celebrities such as Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kim Kardashian, and former US president Donald Trump.Jack Sweeney, who gained notoriety for his @ElonJet account on X and maintained many of the suspended accounts, said on Threads that the development is reminiscent of all my accounts getting suspended on Twitter." The shuttered accounts, which used publicly available data to show the flight paths of private jets, initially displayed a message on Monday that read, The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed."Meta provided no direct warning or explanation for the suspensions, according to Sweeney, who says the... Continue reading...

Image: Google For years, Google has included an extra search box within some search results, encouraging you to dig further and look only within a specific website. But now that sitelinks search box is going away because usage has dropped."Google:

The Roomba Combo 2 Essential can clean and mop floors for up to two hours on a single charge. | Image: iRobot The new Roomba Combo 2 Essential and Roomba Vac 2 Essential include a dock for self-emptying their dirt bins - a feature missing from the budget-friendly Essential robovacs that iRobot introduced six months ago. The 2-in-1 Combo 2 features both vacuuming and mopping capabilities for $424.99 and is slightly more expensive than the Vac 2, which only sucks up dust and dirt for $399.99.The Combo 2 is now the most expensive option in iRobot's Essential line and slightly pricier than the $400 DreameBot D10 Plus, our current choice for the best budget robot vacuum and mop. The Vac 2 is available via select retailers" in North America (including Target and Best Buy, so far) and has the same features as the Combo except for the mopping... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon says that it has gotten rid of plastic air pillows at its warehouses.As of October 2024, we've removed all plastic air pillows from our delivery packaging used at our global fulfillment centers," the e-commerce giant said in an October 9th blog post.It's a welcome change following years of pressure from environmental groups to stop plastic pollution flooding into oceans. The company is still working to reduce the use of single-use plastics more broadly in its packaging.Fantastic news for the world's oceans"The fact that the world's largest e-commerce company has made plastic air pillows history globally is fantastic news for the world's oceans," Matt Littlejohn, senior vice president of strategic initiatives at the... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge News Corp, the parent company of media outlets like The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, is suing the AI search engine Perplexity for infringing copyrighted content. In a lawsuit filed on Monday, News Corp alleges Perplexity copies news articles, analyses, and opinions on a massive scale."Perplexity is an AI startup that trains its AI search models using content from around the web, allowing it to respond to user queries with a summary of its sources. As outlined in the lawsuit, Perplexity bills itself as a platform that lets users skip the links" to online articles, which News Corp alleges drives customers and critical revenues away from those copyright holders."In addition to accusing Perplexity of reproducing some... Continue reading...

Image: TGL Tiger Woods is gearing up to debut TGL, a new tech-infused, team golf league" he co-founded with fellow pro golfer Rory McIlroy next year. The first matchup at the SoFi Center in Florida will premiere on ESPN and ESPN Plus on January 7th, the league announced today.TGL is essentially a big-budget version of Top Golf that happens in a stadium setting. In matches, two teams of golfers will drive balls into a 3,400-square-foot screen until they get within 50 yards of the hole." Then they'll switch to a football field-sized artificial green that morphs between holes using nearly 600 motorized actuators" and a 41-yard-wide rotating section.Each match is expected to take about two hours and will see three of each team's four players... Continue reading...

The Solix C300 DC, one of Anker's latest power stations, provides a healthy balance of power and portability. | Anker Having an alternative power source ready for sudden outages or extended off-grid adventures is never a bad idea. Thankfully, the Anker Solix C300X DC Portable Power Station is a neat, affordable option that loads you up with enough power and USB ports to charge several devices concurrently. And right now, Wellbots is offering it to Verge readers for $148 (about $52 off) with promo code VERGEANKER26.To be clear, this particular version excludes the three AC ports offered on the more expensive Solix C300. That said, it's a viable alternative if you don't anticipate plugging in hardware with AC plugs. It offers the same 90,000mAh (288Wh) capacity and spreads up to 300W of power across four total USB-C ports (two deliver up to 140W, one up... Continue reading...

Killscreen has taken inspiration from the Nintendo GameCube for its latest customized DualSense. | Image: Killscreen Following the 30th anniversary versions of the PlayStation 5 featuring an old-school gray colorway, Killscreen has announced a customized version of the PlayStation 5's DualSense controller called the CubeSense, which comes with a purple shell and custom joysticks inspired by the Nintendo GameCube.Killscreen's customized controllers are all based on a standard DualSense Wireless Controller, so while the CubeSense pairs a matte purple shell on the front with a transparent one on the back, its red, green, and light gray face buttons don't match the unusual button layout Nintendo used for the GameCube's gamepads.But for a starting price of $149, Killscreen has swapped out the standard DualSense's joysticks for versions that closely... Continue reading...

Image: Poncle The world of Dracula and the Belmont family is coming to Vampire Survivors. The newly announced downloadable content for the auto-shooter survival game, Ode to Castlevania, promises a bunch of new stuff: 20 characters, 40 weapons, an extra-large stage, and over 30 music tracks. Developer Poncle said in its announcement post on X that the $3.99 expansion should contain more than 10 hours worth of gameplay - though it's not clear if there will actually be any vampires in the game (I'm still betting there won't be).The new Vampire Survivors DLC is set to launch on October 31st on the PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, Android, and iOS. You can also track its release with a cheesy, 90s-era countdown timer site set up by the developer.... Continue reading...

Image: AMD AMD is officially announcing its first next-generation X3D desktop processors today, based on its latest Zen 5 architecture. I'd love to tell you which Ryzen 9000-series X3D chips are arriving next month, but AMD is strangely only teasing a release date of November 7th and providing no pricing or further details.AMD has only provided a single slide about this X3D announcement, ahead of Intel's Core Ultra 200-series launch on October 24th. Rumors had suggested AMD would announce its highly anticipated Zen 5 X3D chips a day after Intel's performance embargo for the Ultra 9 285K, but AMD has decided to tease the existence of next-gen X3D processors a little earlier than expected.Thanks to other leaks, we're expecting to hear more about... Continue reading...

A motorcycle lights a street under pouring rain during a nationwide blackout caused by a grid failure in Havana, on October 19, 2024. | Photo: Getty Images Tropical Storm Oscar is making it harder to restore power in Cuba after a massive, prolonged power outage that preceded the storm.The nation's power grid failed on Friday after Cuba's largest power plant went offline, leaving more than 10 million people without electricity. The grid reportedly collapsed four more times before Oscar made landfall as a Category 1 storm on Sunday evening.Oscar is hitting a key region for power generation where at least two important power plants in the city of Holguin Santiago de Cuba are located. The storm creates an additional inconvenience," the Associated Press reports Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy saying in a news conference. The storm is still barreling through Cuba today, posing new dangers... Continue reading...

Photo by Rodin Eckenroth / FilmMagic We declined. Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Disney will announce a replacement for CEO Bob Iger in early 2026," according to an update from the company on Monday.The entertainment giant has been on the hunt for a new leader since Iger's return to Disney in 2022. Last year Iger extended his contract with Disney until December 31st, 2026, and, as The New York Times notes, delayed retirement four times during his previous run as the company's CEO before eventually handing control over to Bob Chapek in 2020.Even though we're still years away from hearing who will replace Iger, CNBC reports that Disney has interviewed several potential candidates in recent weeks," including ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro, Disney experiences chairman Josh D'Amaro, and Disney entertainment co-chairmen... Continue reading...

The Halo Select smart lock is Kwikset's first to support Matter. It works over Thread and can also be used as a Wi-Fi lock. | Image: Kwikset The Halo Select is Kwikset's first new smart lock in five years, and its new features, updated design, and creative approach to connectivity could make the long wait worthwhile.The Halo Select is a ground-up redesign of the company's Halo line and its first lock to support Matter. It works with the new standard over the low-power, mesh networking protocol Thread and, interestingly, has the option of skipping Matter and using Wi-Fi.You have Wi-Fi, which is what most customers want today, but it's also future-proofed with Matter and Thread."It's a clever move by Kwikset. Smart locks have limited features in Matter today, but the standard offers greater interoperability and Thread promises better battery life (a key feature in a... Continue reading...

The AirPods Pro 2 will soon offer more robust hearing protection and a new hearing aid feature. But it's the hearing test that really hooked me. Continue reading...

Simply telling playtesters not to share any details hasn't exactly worked out. | Image: The Verge Nintendo has updated the official website for its mysterious Switch Online: Playtest Program" today, privately revealing more information to participants about what it entails. The playtest is running from October 23rd, 9PM ET until November 5th, 8PM ET, and is only available to the roughly 10,000 people who have already registered for the program.The test software is now available to download ahead of the start of gameplay, and requires 2.2GB of free space. Participants didn't sign an NDA, but Nintendo requested in the playtest terms and conditions that users refrain from sharing any details about it - which has gone about as well as can be expected. While Nintendo has already started issuing copyright strikes to take leaked media... Continue reading...

The Special Edition model of the Galaxy Z Fold. | Image: Samsung Samsung just announced the Special Edition model of the Galaxy Z Fold. It's thinner and a little lighter than the Galaxy Z Fold 6 that only recently went on sale, and includes slightly larger displays on the inside and out and a new banded pattern on the back. It also has more memory available for Galaxy AI and an upgraded 200 megapixel wide-angle camera.Great! Unfortunately, it's only been announced for South Korea, priced at 2,789,600 KRW or just over $2,000 when it goes on sale Friday, October 25th. And it seems the only other release market will be China.At 10.6mm and 236 grams, the Galaxy Z Fold SE is 1.5mm thinner and 3 grams lighter than the Galaxy Z Fold 6. Memory is now 16GB standard, and the wide-angle sensor has been bumped... Continue reading...