The Verge

Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge AT&T paid a hacker about $370,000 to delete customer data that was stolen from it as part of a hacking spree earlier this year. The hacker then provided a video to prove they had deleted the data, according to a Wired report today.AT&T reportedly negotiated through an intermediary, called Reddington, acting on behalf of a member of the ShinyHunters hacking group. The hacker originally asked for $1 million before AT&T talked them down to the amount, which it paid on May 17th in bitcoin, Wired writes.The outlet reports that Reddington, whom AT&T paid for his part in negotiations, said he believes the only complete copy of the data had been deleted after AT&T paid the ransom, but that it's possible excerpts are still in the wild.... Continue reading...

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Alderon Games, the maker of dinosaur MMO Path of Titans, says it's swapping out its Intel 13th and 14th Gen-based servers for AMD and urges others hosting the game's servers to do the same. The developer has had significant" instability issues that none of the fixes so far have reversed, wrote Alderon founder Matthew Cassells in a blog post last week.Cassells wrote that Alderon has recorded thousands of crashes" on gamers' CPUs using its crash reporting tools and says the processors can also corrupt SSDs and memory. He added that in his team's experience, 100 percent of the affected CPUs deteriorate over time, eventually failing." On the contrary, Unreal Engine decompression tool maker RAD Game Tools, which Cassells cites in the... Continue reading...

Image: David Pierce / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 45, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, sorry I love productivity apps so much, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)I'm back from a few days off, feeling rested and sunburned and ready to rumble. Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes! This week, I've been reading Made for Love and stories about AI gamers and AI musicians and Ferrari EVs, watching Turning Point, replacing my weather app with Lazy Weather, raging at Ira Glass for listening to podcasts at 2x speed, and spilling all my feelings to the Dot AI bot.I also have for you a new phone, a new smart ring, a new / old podcast reunion, a sci-fi show... Continue reading...

Images of UTM SE from its App Store listing. | Screenshots: UTM SE Apple has approved UTM SE, an app for emulating a computer to run classic software and games, weeks after the company rejected it and barred it from being notarized for third-party app stores in the European Union. The app is now available for free for iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS.After Apple rejected the app in June, the developer said it wasn't going to keep trying because the app was a subpar experience." Today, UTM thanked the AltStore team for helping it and credited another developer whose QEMU TCTI implementation was pivotal for this JIT-less build." Screenshot: UTM SE UTM SE doesn't include any virtual machines, but does help you find them. As with other emulators on the App Store, you can't do much... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Conspiracy theories about the shooting at a rally for Donald Trump began surfacing on X shortly after the news broke this afternoon, with the platform promoting topics including #falseflag" and staged" to users. X owner Elon Musk has staunchly advocated for free speech" on social media platforms - which can include misinformation like the above.After the shooting, Musk posted that he would fully endorse" the former president. Bloomberg reported yesterday that Musk donated to a super PAC supporting Trump, giving a sizable amount" to reelection efforts. Musk has taken on increasingly conservative views in recent years, promoting the great replacement" conspiracy theory and endorsing support for white pride. His support adds to a... Continue reading...

The Kobo Elipsa 2E lets you actually take notes directly on pages, which is one of the reasons I recommend it over the Kindle Scribe. | Image: Kobo We're already seeing great deals land on Amazon devices like the Kindle Scribe ahead of Prime Day next week, which makes sense as it's an Amazon event. It's possible we'll see even more Kindle deals arrive soon, but it's less certain what kind of discounts - if any - we'll see on e-readers from rivals like Kobo. Thankfully, if you don't want an Amazon e-reader, Rakuten Kobo has launched a new sale, dropping its top-notch Kobo Elipsa 2E down to an all-time low of $349.99 ($50 off) when you purchase it direct from Rakuten Kobo. You can also pick it up for the same price at Amazon or Target via a third-party seller.I spent a lot of time testing both the Kindle Scribe and the Kobo Elipsa 2E, and ultimately Kobo's is my favorite... Continue reading...

Image: HBO In Julio Torres' series Fantasmas, survival in the future is an intricate, corporate-owned game of feeding your identity to the machine. Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Valve is a famously secretive company with an enormous influence on the gaming industry, particularly because it runs the massive PC gaming storefront Steam. But despite that influence, Valve isn't a large organization on par with EA or Riot Games' thousands of employees: according to leaked data we've seen, as of 2021, Valve employed just 336 staffers.The data was included as part of an otherwise heavily redacted document from Wolfire's antitrust lawsuit against Valve. As spotted by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik, some data in the document was viewable despite the black redaction boxes, including Valve's headcount and gross pay across various parts of the company over 18 years, and even some data about its gross margins that we weren't... Continue reading...

Image: First Film Corp. Director Gary Hustwit tells us about his living documentary and the technology that changes it for every screening. Continue reading...

Fully equipped direct-to-consumer e-bikes still require compromises at this price range. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump. | Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Former President Donald Trump will no longer be subject to extra severe penalties for content rule violations on his Facebook and Instagram accounts, Meta said on Friday.Previously, Trump's account could be fully suspended for even a relatively small infraction that wouldn't lead to the same penalty for any other account. Now, with the Republican National Convention taking place next week, he'll be treated more like everyone else.In assessing our responsibility to allow political expression, we believe that the American people should be able to hear from the nominees for President on the same basis," Meta's president of of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said in a company blog post. He added that the previous restrictions to Trump's... Continue reading...

And on the other side of the iPhone, there's a Notes app. | Image: Moft Moft is launching a new MagSafe accessory that adds a literal notepad and pen to the back of your iPhone. The company's new Snap Flow" looks like a slim magnetic origami kickstand (like the one Moft is known for) but opens up like a book to reveal a paper pad and a really nifty ballpoint pen that magically folds into a prism shape.It's hard to believe there's a product in 2024 that lets you take handwritten notes while using a revolutionary pocket computing device as a clipboard. Sometimes, the phone and other apps are the hurdles to writing down a story idea in my Notes app before it's gone forever, so it could be nice to jot down thoughts the old-fashioned way.The Snap Flow has refillable notepad paper, a clip so you can use a... Continue reading...

Image: SpaceX SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket experienced an engine failure after it launched late Thursday night from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The mission, Starlink Group 9-3, was carrying Starlink satellites and failed to reignite its upper second stage after developing a leak. Upper stage restart to raise perigee resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown," Elon Musk said overnight, confirming that the engine experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly."SpaceX:

Newport News Shipbuilding, a defense contractor whose shipyard is alleged to have been photographed by drone. | Getty Images A foreign graduate student has pleaded guilty to crimes under the Espionage Act for photographing classified US Navy ships with a drone. The case appears to be a first-of-its kind prosecution by the Department of Justice.Fengyun Shi, a Chinese citizen and graduate student at the University of Minnesota, was arrested in January after a drone he was flying got stuck in a tree in Newport News, Virginia. A suspicious resident called the police and Shi was questioned before abandoning the drone and fleeing. After the FBI seized the drone and pulled the images off it, investigators discovered that Shi had photographed Navy vessels at multiple shipyards in Virginia. One of those shipyards, in Newport News, was actively manufacturing... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images A few days ago, I misplaced my wallet. I remember having it on Sunday, the night of my friend's birthday dinner, because I was the one to put my card down. Maybe I had it on Monday. I didn't spend any money then aside from a Lyft ride home, which famously doesn't require you to swipe a card, so there's no way to know for sure. And even when I did spend money - a case of La Croix at the bodega, an iced latte as a reward for going to the laundromat - my wallet never factored into the equation. I use Apple Pay for almost every purchase, both because it's easy and convenient and because, unlike my wallet, my phone is something I actually can't live without.It wasn't until Wednesday that my lack of a wallet became an issue. I didn't need it... Continue reading...

The TCL Q6 is solid TV for watching the 2024 Olympics, House of the Dragon, and a wild season of election coverage. | Image: TCL TCL's Q6 QLED TV was one of the standout deals from Walmart's recent Walmart Deals" event, and the post-event discounts have only gotten steeper. The 65-inch model, for example, has dropped even further at Walmart, where you can currently pick it up for an all-time low of $388 ($312 off). You can also grab it at Best Buy right now for $399.99 ($300 off) if you prefer shopping at a different retailer.The Q6 was already a decent value before the discounts kicked in, one that makes for a compelling entry-level option for gamers. It's a cost-effective set that allows you to make the most out of newer consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / S. It uses a 60Hz panel, but it can simulate a 120Hz variable refresh rate with... Continue reading...

Image: Amazon Amazon's AI shopping assistant, Rufus, is rolling out to all users in the US on Amazon's mobile app. You can pull up the shopping assistant by tapping the orange and blue icon in the right corner of the app's navigation bar, where Rufus can answer questions, draw comparisons between items, and give you updates on your order.Amazon first introduced Rufus in February but only made it available to a small group of users. Rufus uses Amazon's product listing details, reviews, and community Q&As, along with some information from the web, to inform its answers. Image: Amazon You can ask the tool things directly related to a product, like Is this coffee maker easy to clean and maintain?" as well as recommendations about... Continue reading...

Despite a $100 price tag, these 8BitDo gamepads don't include any wireless functionality. | Image: 8BitDo 8BitDo's shiny silver- and gold-finished 11th anniversary SN30 Pro gamepads feature housings and controls made of so much metal that they weigh in at 381 grams - almost an entire pound.As spotted by Polygon, the company went nearly all in on the metal facelift for its SN30 Pro gamepad, with the D-pad, action buttons, shoulder triggers, and even joysticks all made of a metal zinc-alloy material." Image: 8BitDo The D-pad, ABXY buttons, joysticks, and triggers are all metal on 8BitDo's shiny new controllers. This controller won't just feel satisfyingly hefty in hand for its size (the beefy Xbox Duke controller weighed 425 grams while the original SNES gamepad was just 79 grams) but it also may be durable enough... Continue reading...

Image: Archer Today, Southwest Airlines became the latest major carrier to join forces with a so-called urban air mobility startup. The Dallas-based airline signed a memorandum of understanding with Archer Aviation to draw up plans for an air taxi service.The service will operate using Archer's battery-powered, four-passenger, tilt-rotor Midnight aircraft, which are designed to take off and land vertically from a landing strip like a helicopter. As part of the deal, the aircraft will get access to 14 California airports where Southwest operates.This is the latest deal between a major airline and an eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) startup, signaling a growing confidence in the ability of these small companies to make their dreams of... Continue reading...

There wasn't a Factory Reset option, previously. | Photo: David Pierce / The Verge Since the launch of the Rabbit R1, the AI assistant device has been storing users' chat logs on-device with no way to erase them, according to a company security bulletin. Rabbit is now addressing the issue with a software update that includes a new Factory Reset option in settings to wipe the device. Previously, you could only unlink your account from an R1, which did not erase all user data.Along with the new ability to fully delete local user data, the software update also addresses another eyebrow-raising behavior of the R1. Prior to the update, stored pairing data that lets the R1 hardware add things to the Rabbithole journal also had permission to read the journal as well. That means a stolen and hacked R1 could potentially have... Continue reading...

Image: Tesla Tesla is bringing back its longest-range Model 3, which will also be the second cheapest version of the popular electric sedan available. The new trim will be available for $42,490, according to the website.The rear-wheel-drive (RWD) version of the Long Range Model 3 will get an EPA-estimated range of 363 miles. That could be a significant addition to Tesla's lineup at a time when production and sales are both drooping.Tesla originally introduced the Long Range RWD Model 3 in 2017 but discontinued it two years later. Now, it's back with a new sticker price and a new look, thanks to a refreshed design that launched in the US at the beginning of the year. Screenshot: Tesla The new trim is almost $5,000 cheaper... Continue reading...

A pedestrian stands in the shade of a small tree during a heatwave in New York on Wednesday, June 30th, 2021. | Photo: Getty Images Nearly 34 million people across 65 US cities - roughly one in 10 Americans - live in a place where the built environment makes temperatures feel at least 8 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than it would without that urban sprawl. That's according to a new study by the nonprofit Climate Central, which mapped the impact of a phenomenon called the urban heat island effect in major cities in the US.Dark, paved surfaces with little greenery tend to absorb heat. Hot exhaust from heavy traffic and industrial facilities can also make certain neighborhoods warmer than others. That's how the urban heat island effect can make a heatwave feel even worse for some communities. In the US, a history of segregation and redlining that resulted in chronic... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge AT&T revealed Friday morning that a cybersecurity attack had exposed call records and texts from nearly all" of the carrier's cellular customers (including people on mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs, that use AT&T's network, like Cricket, Boost Mobile, and Consumer Cellular). The breach took place during the period between May 1st, 2022, and October 31st, 2022, in addition to an incident that impacted a very small number" of customers on January 2nd, 2023.AT&T spokesperson Alex Byers confirmed to The Verge the threat actor accessed the information through the company's account on a third-party cloud platform, Snowflake, similar to data breaches that have affected Ticketmaster and Santander Bank. AT&T first learned of the... Continue reading...

Illustration by The Verge; Photo by Emmanuel Dunand / AFP via Getty Images As the rest of the tech industry seems to mostly shift to overproduced infomercials for their product launches, Samsung is holding fast to its love for giant live events in huge arenas. This year, at Unpacked in Paris, the company announced a whole lineup of new gadgets. The new Fold and Flip look nice but also a bit uninspired; the Watch Ultra and Buds 3 look almost too familiar; and the Galaxy Ring might be the beginning of something really cool.On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk through all of Samsung's announcements and try to figure out whether Apple products but for Android" is actually a winning strategy. It might be! Plus, we debate what to make of Samsung's somewhat lackluster upgrades for the Flip and Fold phones -... Continue reading...

The Verge Microsoft is preparing to enable Copilot in OneNote to read and analyze handwritten notes. The feature entered beta testing late last month, and will allow OneNote users to write handwritten notes using a stylus and then summarize them, ask questions, or even generate to-do lists based on the notes.The AI-powered Copilot feature in OneNote will even be able to convert your handwritten notes into text for easy editing and sharing. Microsoft first launched Copilot inside OneNote in November, and this upgrade will be available to existing Copilot for Microsoft 365 subscribers and Copilot Pro users once it rolls out more broadly. Image: The Verge Copilot can quickly convert your handwritten notes into easier to read... Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images A bipartisan group of senators introduced a new bill to make it easier to authenticate and detect artificial intelligence-generated content and protect journalists and artists from having their work gobbled up by AI models without their permission.The Content Origin Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media Act (COPIED Act) would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to create standards and guidelines that help prove the origin of content and detect synthetic content, like through watermarking. It also directs the agency to create security measures to prevent tampering and requires AI tools for creative or journalistic content to let users attach information about their origin and prohibit that... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge OpenAI has created an internal scale to track the progress its large language models are making toward artificial general intelligence, or AI with human-like intelligence, a spokesperson told Bloomberg.Today's chatbots, like ChatGPT, are at Level 1. OpenAI claims it is nearing Level 2, defined as a system that can solve basic problems at the level of a person with a PhD. Level 3 refers to AI agents capable of taking actions on a user's behalf. Level 4 involves AI that can create new innovations. Level 5, the final step to achieving AGI, is AI that can perform the work of entire organizations of people. OpenAI has previously defined AGI as a highly autonomous system surpassing humans in most economically valuable tasks."OpenAI's... Continue reading...

Image: Frontier Developments Planet Coaster's sequel isn't just about building the best theme park anymore: it's about water parks, too. The sequel, coming this fall, will finally let you construct everything from wave pools and lazy rivers to custom-built waterslides.You'll also get to outfit your aquatic experience with changing rooms, sunbeds, lifeguards, and more. Planet Coaster 2 builds upon its predecessor with the addition of new building and pathing tools, as well as an advanced event sequencer system that can give your guests new experiences. There are also new rides, scenery pieces, and themes.Another neat feature coming to Planet Coaster 2 is the ability to create shared theme parks with friends - but you can't all build in the park at the same time. T... Continue reading...

The leaked Pixel 9, 9 Pro, and 9 Pro XL. | Image: Rozetked Pixels are leaking again, and this time, it looks like a larger Pixel 9 Pro XL' is coming and coming fast in August. Continue reading...

It's a big price for big sound, but the AirPods Max are a little more reasonable at $398. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The high-end pricing on Apple's first-gen products never ceases to amaze me - just look at the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro or its $5,000 display. The AirPods Max were also probably a bit more expensive than they should have been at their $549 launch price, but that's relatively tame compared to the competition Apple is targeting with its luxe noise-canceling headphones. Thankfully, they're now down to $398 ($151 off) in select colors at Amazon and Walmart, which is a record low.Some may feel the AirPods Max are getting a bit long in the tooth since we first reviewed them in 2020, but Apple's wireless headphones are still our top recommendation for Apple users and some of the best headphones overall. They sound nearly as good as the Sony... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A group of self-proclaimed gay furry hackers" says it breached the Heritage Foundation earlier this month, releasing two gigabytes of the right-wing think tank's internal data on Tuesday. On its Telegram channel, the hacktivist collective SiegedSec - which has previously claimed responsibility for hacking NATO's computer systems - said the Heritage hack was part of its #OpTransRights campaign, which also targeted the far-right media outlet Real America's Voice and the Hillsong megachurch. The group also cited their objections to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's policy proposal for a second term for former President Donald Trump, as a motivating factor.In an email to The Verge, Heritage Foundation spokesperson Noah Weinrich... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Arm is launching its own upscaler for mobile gaming. The chip designer says its Arm Accuracy Super Resolution (ASR) can make games look better, while lowering power consumption on your phone. It's also making the upscaling technology available to developers under an MIT open-source license.Arm based its technology on AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2), which uses temporal upscaling to make PC games look better and boost frame rates. Unlike spatial upscaling, which upscales an image based on a single frame, temporal upscaling involves using multiple frames to generate a higher-quality image.Upscaling is especially useful for lower-powered graphics cards that couldn't otherwise run a game at playable frame rates. AMD FSR, Nvidia... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Warner Bros. Discovery has been debuting its newer IP-based series on Max for the past few years in an effort to make it the one to watch," but the company is now switching things up with a big plan to rebrand multiple projects as - wait for it - HBO shows.Though The Penguin and Dune: Prophecy were both initially billed as Max Originals, Deadline reports that Warner Bros. Discovery will now market them as HBO Originals as part of a larger effort to differentiate what kind of content is released under the two brand umbrellas.Now, the shows will premiere simultaneously on both Max and HBO the way other big tentpoles like House of the Dragon and Succession have in the past. This always kind of seemed like a given because of the success... Continue reading...

Seven different Arduino-based devices can be built with the Plug and Make Kit kit. | Image: Arduino Arduino's new starter kit features electronic components that can be connected without having to know anything about soldering or wiring. It's similar to LittleBits' electronic building blocks that make it easy for kids to learn about electronics but targets an older audience of beginners who eventually aspire to do more with an Arduino.The $87.36 Arduino Plug and Make Kit comes with an Arduino UNO R4 WiFi microcomputer featuring Bluetooth and its own built-in 12 x 8 LED matrix display, plus seven different Modulino components that can all be connected using cables that snap into one-way connector ports, ensuring nothing can be wired incorrectly. Image: Arduino The kit includes an Arduino microcomputer and seven... Continue reading...

Photo illustration: The Verge / Photo by The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson discusses the deal: AI is coming. It is coming quickly. We want to be part of whatever transition happens.' Continue reading...

Unlike the standard model, the iRobot Roomba j7 Plus comes with an auto-empty dock. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge As an extremely lazy person, I am a big fan of robot vacuums like the Roomba j7 Plus. Nothing beats rotting in bed as iRobot's last-gen flagship navigates my cluttered home and does the cleaning on my behalf. What I don't like, though, is its high price tag. Thankfully, Prime members can currently pick up the j7 Plus with an auto-empty dock for just $399.99 ($400 off) at Amazon. That's the best price we've seen on the discontinued robot vacuum, which has been increasingly difficult to find in recent months.Despite being discontinued, the j7 Plus is one of my colleague Jennifer Pattison Tuohy's favorite models. And after spending time with a review unit she sent me, I understand why. It's loud, but given how useful and effective its... Continue reading...