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Image: Krispy Kreme Krispy Kreme is currently dealing with a cybersecurity breach that has brought down parts of its online donut ordering service in the US. The company has been working to resolve the issue for over a week now after detecting unauthorized access to its systems on November 29th.In a filing issued to the SEC on Wednesday, Krispy Kreme says it was notified regarding unauthorized activity on a portion of its information technology systems" and pulled in leading cybersecurity experts" for remediation.The event took down Krispy Kreme's consumer online ordering operations but it has not affected its commercial distribution business. However, the company says there's a material impact" on its business operations and that there will be significant financial implications stemming from the incident due to cybersecurity experts' and advisers' fees. Otherwise, Krispy Kreme says it has cybersecurity insurance and it does not expect long-term material impact on its results of operations and financial condition."Krispy Kreme did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the cause of the cybersecurity incident. As speculated in a report by Bleeping Computer, the timeline may suggest the company is negotiating with possible threat actors so as not to leak internal data.

My favorite dynamic wallpaper floating in the desert. | Screenshot: Mac Virtual Display Since its release, I've mostly used Apple's Vision Pro like a movie theater. The VR headset is an amazing way to watch Dune - but beyond that, it hasn't really lived up to its potential as a general-purpose computing device.Today, that's finally starting to change. With the update to visionOS 2.2, Apple is seriously upgrading the headset's ability to work with a Mac. It's probably the closest thing the Vision Pro has to a killer app.The Vision Pro has been able to mirror the screen of a Mac since day one, but I found the original Mac Virtual Display feature limiting. Text was sharp at low resolutions, but the screen was cramped. I could get more space at higher resolutions, but the text was too small and blurry to read. Yes, I can blow it up to the size of a bus to make things readable, except then, I'm craning my head around way too much to see everything. My normal three-monitor setup lets me see the most important stuff with slight movements, but that just hasn't been possible before now. Screenshot: Mac Virtual Display options The Vision Pro now has three Mac Virtual Display options. In visionOS 2.2, the standard Mac display is now curved, and it seems sharper. It's not Retina-sharp at the highest resolutions, but I no longer have to make it gigantic to get legible text. The default virtual display becomes one of three options - Standard, Wide, and Ultrawide - once your Mac is updated to macOS 15.2, which lets it take over foveated rendering from the Vision Pro. Those two extra modes instantly made the virtual display viable for me, giving me the space I'm accustomed to in my three-monitor life.You can crank the resolution in Ultrawide all the way up to 10240 x 2880 if you'd like, but the sweet spot for me has been the Wide display's maximum 6720 x 2880 resolution, which lets me see everything I need to without constantly rotating my Vision Pro-laden head. It ends up feeling more like a real monitor and not some fantasy display that evokes Weird Al Yankovic's song Frank's 2000" TV." GIF: Mac Virtual Display in Ultrawide So much room for activities! This has made it much easier for me to relocate to another room in my house, or even outside if I wanted. I wouldn't take it to a coffee shop for a number of reasons (do I leave it behind when I go to the restroom or wear the Vision Pro in there like a maniac?), but I'd absolutely bring it on a work trip. Apple has also made it so that the audio is sent through the headset instead of your computer's speakers, as it did before.The widescreen options came in handy recently, when I strained my back in a way that made it painful to sit upright. I hate doing work on a laptop, but reclining in bed with the Vision Pro on was suddenly a real option for me.There are quirks, though. Switching between the display modes can be sluggish, and your Mac doesn't always remember what resolution you set, so if you switch from Wide to Ultrawide and back, you might find all your windows piled on top of each other. And the Keyboard Awareness feature, which shows your keyboard even if you have one of Apple's immersive environments fully turned on, works great with my Magic Keyboard but doesn't reliably show the mechanical one I prefer.Still, those are minor issues. The expanded virtual display is a critical upgrade, and if it's not in killer app territory, it's at least right next door to it. It still doesn't help the Vision Pro with its biggest issues, like that our bodies are all different and not everyone will find it comfortable to use for long stretches of time. And it doesn't make Apple's headset any less expensive.But it does help that my Vision Pro is now more than a personal movie theater. Now, it's a gigantic, high-res curved display with perfect viewing angles, too. That makes the price feel a little closer to right.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has started testing some improvements to its Phone Link app for iPhone users. Windows Insiders can now try out a new way to share a file from an iPhone to a PC and vice versa, making the experience a little more like file sharing with an Android device.Windows Insiders can download the latest Phone Link app update, version 1.24112.89.0 or higher, and it will include a new setup dialog to enable sharing files between iPhones and PCs. The sharing works by using the share sheet on iOS to send files to the Link to Windows" app, which then lets you select a Windows device to share the file with.On a Windows PC you can also share local files by right clicking on a file and selecting share and then my phone" to get a file from your PC to your iPhone. Image: Microsoft The new file sharing dialog for iPhone users. Microsoft has been gradually improving its Phone Link app for both iOS and Android in recent years, but the iOS version is still very limited thanks to Apple's OS restrictions. Last year Microsoft did manage to update Phone Link with the ability to send and receive messages via iMessage. Even this integration is limited though, only supporting sending and receiving messages to single contacts and not groups (via iMessage).You still can't use the Phone Link app to mirror phone apps onto your PC like you can with Android, and you have to have the app open for messages to be sent over iMessage as Microsoft is using a Bluetooth and system notifications workaround to read send messages.The latest file sharing update is live now for Windows Insiders and should start rolling out to all Phone Link users in the coming months.

Image: The Verge Microsoft is going to let Xbox Insiders who also subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate test the ability to stream some Xbox games they already own to their Xbox starting today. The feature could be useful if you want to jump into a game without having to install the whole thing; given how big game file sizes can be nowadays, streaming a game via the cloud might be a faster way to play or save you from hitting a data cap.Microsoft has published a list of games that support the feature on its website. There are some great games on the list, including Animal Well, Balatro, Baldur's Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and Price of Persia: The Lost Crown.You'll be able to stream games on Xbox Series X / S and Xbox One consoles, Microsoft says, and the feature is set to come out of testing next year. The company started letting Xbox players stream select games they own on TVs and browsers last month.

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge Nvidia must face an investor lawsuit claiming it misled shareholders about the impact of the cryptocurrency market on its sales after the Supreme Court dismissed the company's appeal.The court said it had improvidently granted" Nvidia's petition, meaning it decided it shouldn't have taken it up in the first place. That means the case will have to continue on in the lower courts. During oral arguments last month, some justices seemed skeptical about whether it was appropriate for them to weigh in on the case, wondering if it was more of a dispute over facts than a legal question, according to Reuters.The case stems from a pair of 2018 investor lawsuits claiming Nvidia recklessly misled investors about how closely tied its revenue growth was to cryptocurrency performance. Investors alleged that Nvidia and its top executives made materially false claims downplaying the impact of the volatile cryptocurrency market on its revenue growth, and exaggerating its ability to adapt its changes. An appeals court had allowed at least a portion of the consolidated case to move forward.In a separate case in 2022, Nvidia settled charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission for $5.5 million over claims it obscured how its success was linked to the volatile cryptocurrency market. The company did not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement.Nvidia is facing increased legal scrutiny alongside its business success. The company is reportedly facing antitrust investigations from both Chinese authorities and the US Department of Justice.We would have preferred a decision on the merits affirming the trial court's dismissal of the case, but we are fully prepared to continue our defense," Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo says in a statement. Consistent and predictable standards in securities litigation are essential to protecting shareholders and ensuring a strong economy, and we remain committed to supporting them."

Image: The Verge Microsoft is updating the Xbox app on Windows today with hundreds of PC games that weren't previously available and a new home experience. It's part of a broader effort to make the Xbox app the place to find PC games, regardless of whether they're part of PC Game Pass or not.Earlier this summer, we began working with partners to bring all PC games with Xbox features into the Xbox app," explains Chris Charla, general manager of content curation and programs at Xbox. We're super excited to see what Xbox games come to Windows PC from game creators in the future and to welcome nearly 400 titles that previously weren't discoverable or purchasable in the Xbox app." Image: Microsoft The new Xbox app homescreen. The 400 new games include titles from Japanese studios like Kemco and Kairosoft, alongside games like The Invincible by Double 11. More than 100 of these new titles are also Xbox Play Anywhere, so if you buy the Xbox console version then you can play the Xbox PC version too. Universal Xbox ownership, as well as universal cloud saves on Xbox, and cross-play between Xbox versions on console and PC (and other platforms, at the developer's discretion) are awesome features players love," says Charla.What's not immediately clear from Microsoft's blog post is exactly what bring all PC games with Xbox features into the Xbox app," means. Microsoft has been trying to tempt game developers over to its Windows-based store in recent years, even lowing its cut from 30 percent to just 12 percent to try and shake up PC gaming.Despite these efforts, there are plenty of PC games that have cross-play between the Xbox and PC version of the game but aren't part of the Microsoft Store currently or the Xbox app. Microsoft now appears to be working to bring even more of these games into the Xbox app, and it will be interesting to see whether the company makes the bold move of listing Steam, Epic Games Store, or itch.io games in the Xbox app soon, too. Microsoft says it will have more to share about its Xbox app plans at the game developers conference in March.Microsoft is also rolling out a new home UI for the Xbox app on Windows today. The home UI now includes featured content from PC Game Pass and the Microsoft Store, alongside collections of deals and discounts. Microsoft has also added a jump back in" section that lets you quickly get back into recent games just like you can on an Xbox console.

It should be simple to stream live TV at home.But depending on the sport, you might be signing up (and paying handsomely) for a lot of different services just to keep up.There are the rare leagues, like Major League Soccer, that can be watched on a single channel. (In the US, every match can be viewed live on Apple TV Plus.) But keeping up with most sports resembles, say, tennis, where the rights for its four major tournaments are scattered across several different platforms.And in general, as the large streaming platforms go toe-to-toe with the legacy broadcast companies transitioning to digital, the much-sought-after rights have positioned leagues to make a lot of money. The adverse effect for viewers is that many professional sports are now available exclusively" in many different places.Basically, watching sports has never been easier. And it's also never been harder.The high cost of NFL streaming optionsIn the US, you can stream the majority of live NFL games through Sunday Ticket, a full season of which costs $349, plus you'll need to be subscribed to YouTube TV at $72.99 a month. For six months of football ($437.94), from week one to Super Bowl Sunday, that brings... Read the full story at The Verge.

Photo by Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images The Onion's acquisition of InfoWars isn't happening - at least for now. In a ruling on Tuesday, a Texas bankruptcy judge rejected The Onion's purchase of the conspiracy-ridden website founded by Alex Jones, according to a report from The New York Times.Last month, The Onion announced that it had purchased InfoWars during a bankruptcy auction of Jones' assets. It had the support of the families of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims, who successfully sued Jones for more than $1 billion for spreading false claims. However, Judge Christopher Lopez halted the sale shortly after the auction.As reported by The Times, Lopez disagreed with the sealed bidding process used to sell Jones' assets, saying that the auction didn't maximize" the amount of money Jones' creditors could've gotten from the sale of InfoWars. It seemed doomed almost from the moment they decided to go to a sealed bid," Judge Lopez said when handing down his decision, according to The Times. Nobody knows what anybody else is bidding."

Project Astra is supposed to be more useful than ever - and it knows where you are. | Image: Google I stepped into a room lined with bookshelves, stacked with ordinary programming and architecture texts. One shelf stood slightly askew, and behind it was a hidden room that had three TVs displaying famous artworks: Edvard Munch's The Scream, Georges Seurat's Sunday Afternoon, and Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa. There's some interesting pieces of art here," said Bibo Xu, Google DeepMind's lead product manager for Project Astra. Is there one in particular that you would want to talk about?"Project Astra, Google's prototype AI universal agent," responded smoothly. The Sunday Afternoon artwork was discussed previously," it replied. Was there a particular detail about it you wish to discuss, or were you interested in discussing The Scream?"I was at Google's sprawling Mountain View campus, seeing the latest projects from its AI lab DeepMind. One was Project Astra, a virtual assistant first demoed at Google I/O earlier this year. Currently contained in an app, it can process text, images, video, and audio in real time and respond to questions about them. It's like a Siri or Alexa that's slightly more natural to talk to, can see the world around you, and can remember"... Read the full story at The Verge.

Illustration: The Verge Google's latest AI model has a lot of work to do. Like every other company in the AI race, Google is frantically building AI into practically every product it owns, trying to build products other developers want to use, and racing to set up all the infrastructure to make those things possible without being so expensive it runs the company out of business. Meanwhile, Amazon, Microsoft, Anthropic, and OpenAI are pouring their own billions into pretty much the exact same set of problems.That may explain why Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind and the head of all the company's AI efforts, is so excited about how all-encompassing the new Gemini 2.0 model is. Google is releasing Gemini 2.0 on Wednesday, about 10 months after the company first launched 1.5. It's still in what Google calls an experimental preview," and only one version of the model - the smaller, lower-end 2.0 Flash - is being released. But Hassabis says it's still a big day.Effectively," Hassabis says, it's as good as the current Pro model is. So you can think of it as one whole tier better, for the same cost efficiency and performance efficiency and speed. We're really happy with that." And not only is it better at doing the old things Gemini could do but it can also do new things. Gemini 2.0 can now natively generate audio and images, and it brings new multimodal capabilities that Hassabis says lay the groundwork for the next big thing in AI: agents.Agentic AI, as everyone calls it, refers to AI bots that can actually go off and accomplish things on your behalf. Google has been demoing one, Project Astra, since this spring - it's a visual system that can identify objects, help you navigate the world, and tell you where you left your glasses. Gemini 2.0 represents a huge improvement for Astra, Hassabis says.Google is also launching Project Mariner, an experimental new Chrome extension that can quite literally use your web browser for you. There's also Jules, an agent specifically for helping developers find and fix bad code, and a new Gemini 2.0-based agent that can look at your screen and help you better play video games. Hassabis calls the game agent an Easter egg" but also points to it as the sort of thing a truly multimodal, built-in model can do for you.We really see 2025 as the true start of the agent-based era," Hassabis says, and Gemini 2.0 is the foundation of that." He's careful to note that the performance isn't the only upgrade here; as talk of an industrywide slowdown in model improvements continues, he says Google is still seeing gains as it trains new models, but he's just as excited about the efficiency and speed improvements.Google's plan for Gemini 2.0 is to use it absolutely everywhereThis won't shock you, but Google's plan for Gemini 2.0 is to use it absolutely everywhere. It will power AI Overviews in Google Search, which Google says now reach 1 billion people and which the company says will now be more nuanced and complex thanks to Gemini 2.0. It'll be in the Gemini bot and app, of course, and will eventually power the AI features in Workspace and elsewhere at Google. Google has worked to bring as many features as possible into the model itself, rather than run a bunch of individual and siloed products, in order to be able to do more with Gemini in more places. The multimodality, the different kinds of outputs, the features - the goal is to get all of it into the foundational Gemini model. We're trying to build the most general model possible," Hassabis says.As the agentic era of AI begins, Hassabis says there are both new and old problems to solve. The old ones are eternal, about performance and efficiency and inference cost. The new ones are in many ways unknown. Just to name one: what safety risks will these agents pose out in the world operating of their own accord? Google is taking some precautions with Mariner and Astra, but Hassabis says there's more research to be done. We're going to need new safety solutions," he says, like testing in hardened sandboxes. I think that's going to be quite important for testing agents, rather than out in the wild... they'll be more useful, but there will also be more risks."Gemini 2.0 may be in an experimental stage for now, but you can already use it by choosing the new model in the Gemini web app. (No word yet on when you'll get to try the non-Flash models.) And early next year, Hassabis says, it's coming for other Gemini platforms, everything else Google makes, and the whole internet.

Illustration: The Verge Google has just revealed a new AI tool called Deep Research that lets you call upon its Gemini bot to scour the web for you and write a detailed report based on its findings.Deep Research is currently only available in English to Gemini Advanced subscribers. If you have access, you can ask Gemini to research a particular topic on your behalf, and the chatbot will create a multi-step research plan" that you can either edit or approve. Google says Gemini will start its research by finding interesting pieces of information" on the web and then performing related searches - a process it repeats several times. GIF: Google When it's finished, Gemini will spit out a report of its key findings" with links to the websites where it found its information. You can ask Gemini to expand on certain areas or tweak its report, as well as export the AI-generated research to Google Docs. This all sounds a bit similar to the Pages feature offered by the AI search engine Perplexity, which generates a custom webpage based on your prompt.Google took the wraps off Deep Research as part of a broader announcement for Gemini 2.0, its new model for an era of agentic" AI, or the AI systems that can perform tasks for you. Deep Research is just one example of Google's agentic push, and it's something other AI companies are seriously exploring as well.Along with Deep Research, Google announced that it's making Gemini Flash 2.0 - a speedier version of the next-gen chatbot - available to developers. Deep Research is currently only available for Gemini Advanced subscribers on the web. You can try it by heading to Gemini and then changing the model dropdown to Gemini 1.5 Pro with Deep Research."

Here's what Google's latest smart glasses prototype looks like. | Image: Google Google is working on a lot of AI stuff - like, a lot of AI stuff - but if you want to really understand the company's vision for virtual assistants, take a look at Project Astra. Google first showed a demo of its all-encompassing, multimodal virtual assistant at Google I/O this spring and clearly imagines Astra as an always-on helper in your life. In reality, the tech is somewhere between neat concept video" and early prototype," but it represents the most ambitious version of Google's AI work.And there's one thing that keeps popping up in Astra demos: glasses. Google has been working on smart facewear of one kind or another for years, from Glass to Cardboard to the Project Iris translator glasses it showed off two years ago. Earlier this year, all Google spokesperson Jane Park would tell us was that the glasses were a functional research prototype."Now, they appear to be something at least a little more than that. During a press briefing ahead of the launch of Gemini 2.0, Bibo Xu, a product manager on the Google DeepMind team, said that a small group will be testing Project Astra on prototype glasses, which we believe is one of the most powerful and intuitive form factors to experience this kind of AI." That group will be part of Google's Trusted Tester program, which often gets access to these early prototypes, many of which don't ever ship publicly. Some testers will use Astra on an Android phone; others through the glasses.Later in the briefing, in response to a question about the glasses, Xu said that for the glasses product itself, we'll have more news coming shortly." Is that definitive proof that Google Smart Glasses are coming to a store near you sometime soon? Of course not! But it certainly indicates that Google has some hardware plans for Project Astra.Smart glasses make perfect sense for what Google is trying to do with Astra. There's simply no better way to combine audio, video, and a display than on a device on your face - especially if you're hoping for something like an always-on experience. In a new video showing Astra's capabilities with Gemini 2.0, a tester uses Astra to remember security codes at an apartment building, check the weather, and much more. At one point, he sees a bus flying past and asks Astra if that bus will take me anywhere near Chinatown." It's all the sort of thing you can do with a phone, but nearly all of it feels far more natural through a wearable.Right now, smart glasses like these - and like Meta's Orion - are mostly vaporware. When they'll ship, whether they'll ship, and whether they'll be any good all remains up in the air. But Google is dead serious about making smart glasses work. And seems to be just as serious about making the smart glasses itself.

Illustration: The Verge Google has announced an experimental AI-powered code agent called Jules" that can automatically fix coding errors for developers. Jules was introduced today alongside Gemini 2.0, and uses the updated Google AI model to create multi-step plans to address issues, modify multiple files, and prepare pull requests for Python and Javascript coding tasks in GitHub workflows.Microsoft introduced a similar experience for GitHub Copilot last year that can recognize and explain code, alongside recommending changes and fixing bugs. Jules will compete against Microsoft's offering, and also against tools like Cursor and even Claude and ChatGPT's coding abilities. Google's launch of a coding-focused AI assistant is no surprise - CEO Sundar Pichai said in October that more than a quarter of all new code at the company is now generated by AI.Jules handles bug fixes and other time-consuming tasks while you focus on what you actually want to build," Google says in its blog post. This effort is part of our long-term goal of building AI agents that are helpful in all domains, including coding."Developers have full control to review and adjust the plans created by Jules, before choosing to merge the code it generates into their projects. The announcement doesn't say that Jules will spot bugs for you, so presumably it needs to be directed to a list of issues that have already been identified to fix. Google also says that Jules is in early development and may make mistakes," but internal testing has shown it's been beneficial for boosting developer productivity and providing real-time updates to help track and manage tasks.Jules is launching today for a select group of trusted testers" according to Google, and will be released to other developers in early 2025. Updates about availability and how development is progressing will be available via the Google Labs website.

Image: The Verge. Photos: Getty Hello, and welcome to Decoder! I'm David Pierce, editor-at-large of The Verge. As you may have noticed, we're dropping some extra episodes in the feed this week. You'll have Nilay back on Friday and for next week, as we run toward the end of the year.But I'm really excited to be here with you all today because I'm getting to talk about one of my favorite things: podcasts. There's something strange happening these days in the podcast world - well, actually, there are kind of a lot of things happening. It's been a wild year.One thing I've noticed recently is the way companies that deal in money have been using podcasts not just as an entertainment medium but also as a weird hybrid of marketing, thought leadership, and networking. It's something we've seen for a few years now with venture capital firms, for example: not only do most of the top-level VC companies have their own podcasts but also people who do podcasts about venture capital end up going into it after meeting and talking to all these folks.It's kind of a weird, complicated web that goes both ways, and it's not getting any less weird or less complicated once you add stuff like crypto and politics to the mix. So I... Read the full story at The Verge.

2024 had some stand-out moments in tech: from AI-generated images to TikTok's near ban, to beigecore, Windows BSOD, the best smart ring of them all, and the list goes on. If you want to see the technology that we just couldn't ignore, check out our video here.But now, we're looking toward 2025, and it's gearing up to be another eventful year. Will we have an actual fulfilling X replacement? Will more health and wellness features be cleared by the FDA on wearables? Will nothing really change but everything will just get more expensive? While we're not fortune tellers, we can probably take some educated guesses about what's to come.We asked Verge staff for their biggest predictions on trends we could see in 2025. Take a look, and spoiler alert, some are already coming true. Read the full story at The Verge.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube just released some new stats that show how the service is being consumed on televisions, and the numbers are enormous. Watch time on TV for sports content was up 30 percent year over year; viewers watched more than 400 million hours of podcasts on their TVs every month.This is YouTube we're talking about, though, so of course the numbers are huge. The living room has been YouTube's fastest-growing platform for years - Alphabet's chief business officer, Philipp Schindler, said on the company's most recent earnings call that watch time is growing across YouTube with particular strength in Shorts and in the living room." Even as YouTube continues to dominate basically all facets of the entertainment business, the arrow on your TV still points up.The trend hasn't changed in forever, but YouTube has spent the last couple of years finally doing something about it. It launched a way to sync your phone and your TV, so you can watch a video on the big screen and interact with it on the small one. Earlier this year, the company redesigned the TV interface to make it easier to find comments, links, and channel pages while you're watching a video. It redesigned those channel... Read the full story at The Verge.

iOS 18.2 is now available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. | Image: Apple Apple announced the release of iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2, adding many new Apple Intelligence features, including Image Playground, Genmoji, and integration with ChatGPT. According to Apple's press release, the updates are available now, but we're not seeing them on our (non-beta) devices yet. If you get the update, let us know in the comments.With Image Playground, users can generate an image from a prompt or make something based on one of Apple's suggestions. However, Image Playground seems to opt for cartoony or stylistic photos instead of photorealistic images, which could prevent potential misuse. Image Playground is available as a standalone app, alongside being integrated into Messages, Freeform, and Keynote.Genmoji allows users to generate their custom emoji images (Emojipedia calls them emoji-like stickers"), which I think could be a big hit in group chats. The Notes app is also getting an Image Wand" tool that transforms rough drawings into more detailed images, with preset styles available for animation, illustration, and sketch. Image: Apple ChatGPT in Apple Intelligence The ChatGPT integration, which has been one of the most notable Apple Intelligence features in the works, lets you access the OpenAI tool from Siri or when using Apple's Writing Tools. Features include a compose tool that generates text based on what the user is already writing about and ChatGPT's text-to-image generation to insert images directly into the document. You don't need to have a ChatGPT account to use it, but you are able to log in to your account if you want.Other new features in iOS 18.2 include Visual Intelligence, the ability to share AirTag locations with a link, daily sudoku puzzles in Apple News Plus, and more. Localized English language support has also been expanded to Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the UK, with support for additional languages like Chinese, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. The expanded language support will roll out throughout 2025, with the initial set launching in April at around the same time Apple Intelligence features are scheduled to start rolling out in the EU, according to Apple.Update, December 11th: Noted we're not seeing the updates available on our devices yet.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge WP Engine just won a preliminary injunction against WordPress.com parent company Automattic. On Tuesday, a California District Court judge ordered Automattic to stop blocking WP Engine's access to WordPress.org resources and interfering with its plugins.The preliminary injunction comes after WP Engine, a third-party WordPress hosting service, filed a lawsuit that accused Automattic and its CEO, Matt Mullenweg, of multiple forms of immediate irreparable harm." It later asked the court to stop Mullenweg from restricting WP Engine's access to WordPress.org.Mullenweg waged a public campaign against WP Engine in September, accusing the service of misusing the WordPress trademark and not contributing enough to the WordPress community. After blocking WP Engine from WordPress.org's servers, Automattic took control of WP Engine's ACF Plugin.Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin found merit in WP Engine's claims that Automattic's actions harmed business relationships, saying Mullenweg's conduct is designed to induce breach or disruption." As for Automattic's argument that blamed WP Engine for relying on WordPress.org to power its business, Judge Martinez-Olguin didn't find it very compelling.While Defendants characterize WPEngine's harm as self-imposed because it built its business around a website that it had no contractual right to use...' Defendants' role in helping that harm materialize through their recent targeted actions toward WPEngine, and no other competitor, cannot be ignored," the ruling states.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The Steam Deck OLED, the best version of Valve's gaming handheld with additional battery life, a slight increase to performance, and an eye-popping screen, can now be purchased refurbished for $110 less than it costs brand-new.Valve has just begun selling certified refurbished Steam Deck OLED models starting at $439 in the US, UK, Canada, and EU. That buys you the 512GB model with a glossy screen, while the 1TB anti-glare model can be had for $519 - less than the $549 you'd pay to get even the 512GB model brand-new. (The 1TB model normally costs $649.)Like my colleague Jay Peters just told me in Verge Slack, $439 is a steal for the OLED." Valve doesn't currently have stock of refurbished LCD models, though they can be as cheap as $279.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube says it has expanded its AI-powered auto-dubbing to hundreds of thousands of channels" in the YouTube Partner Program that are focused on knowledge and information." YouTube says it will bring the feature to other types of content soon."What the dubs consist of depends on the language used in the original video. If it was in English to start, it'll be translated into French, German, Hindi, Italian, Spanish, Indonesian, Japanese, and Portuguese. If the starting video was made in one of those languages, YouTube will only produce an English dub.For channels that have it, AI-dubbed videos are created automatically when the original video is uploaded, but creators can opt to preview them before they're published. YouTube also provides options to unpublish or delete dubs, according to a support document for the feature.The dubs aren't very natural-sounding now, but YouTube promises they'll get better at emulating tone, emotion, and even the ambiance of the surroundings" with later updates. Here's an English dub example of a French video about making potatoes au gratin:However, YouTube cautions that this technology is still pretty new, and it won't always be perfect." The company says it's working hard to make it as accurate as possible, but there might be times when the translation isn't quite right or the dubbed voice doesn't accurately represent the original speaker."YouTube initially announced its tests of auto-dubbing with hundreds" of creators in June 2023.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The YouTube Kids mobile app is getting a redesign that both makes it look and behave more like the standard YouTube app and lets kids browse through videos in portrait mode for the first time. It's rolling out over the next few weeks on iOS and Android, while the web and smart TV experiences stay the same.YouTube Kids launched nearly a decade ago, and its look hasn't changed much since its last major redesign in 2017. As the company said last year, this is a hefty visual and functional refresh that looks less toy-like, with elements from the recent design changes in the main YouTube app. Screenshot: Google The YouTube Kids update looks a bit more like the main YouTube app. At the top, you'll notice a newly designed carousel for familiar content filters. They're clearly labeled by topic, whether you're looking for gaming, shows, music, or the educationally inclined Explore" tab. Those buttons will occupy less horizontal space. Screenshot: The Verge Here's how the YouTube Kids app looks now, before the new update rolls out. Some of the other shortcuts that used to live at the top - such as Home, Search, and Profile - will be moved to a new navigation bar at the bottom. A new Your Stuff" page will also live in that bar and serve as a dedicated portal to find content that you've downloaded, shared, or previously watched. Parental controls and other settings will remain in dedicated views, with shortcuts for those always accessible in the upper right corner, next to the Cast button.

Illustration: The Verge In what it's calling a first-of-its-kind partnership," Google will collaborate with developers to build data centers powered by renewable energy generated on-site.It's partnering with energy company Intersect Power and investment firm TPG Rise Climate on a $20 billion initiative to develop an unspecified number of industrial parks" across the US this decade. The first one is supposed to be partially operational by 2026 and completed by 2027.If successful, it would be a big change to how data centers are typically built and operated. Google and its competitors are racing to find clean sources of electricity for energy-hungry AI data centers. But the US electricity mix is still dominated by fossil fuels; connecting new data centers to the power grid leads to more pollution as a result. With this new partnership, Google can bypass that problem by connecting directly to solar and wind farms and batteries for renewable energy.The scale of AI presents an opportunity to completely rethink data center development."To realize AI's potential, the growth in electricity demand must be met with new, clean power sources. The scale of AI presents an opportunity to completely rethink... Read the full story at The Verge.

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images General Motors said it would no longer fund its Cruise robotaxi service as it seeks to focus its spending on autonomous vehicle development specifically for personally owned vehicles. Now Cruise employees will be combined with GM's internal teams working on advanced driver assist systems, like Super Cruise, as well as its project to develop autonomous vehicles to sell to customers for personal use.Ultimately, the project became too expensive for GM to justify the huge amounts of money spent to prop it up. And the automaker found it increasingly difficult to convince its shareholders that the money-losing operation would eventually pay off. The robotaxi subsidiary lost a staggering $3.48 billion in 2023 and has been seen by some as an albatross for the automaker, sucking up cash and lacking a clear path to profits.Given the considerable time and expense required to scale a robotaxi business in an increasingly competitive market, combining forces would be more efficient and therefore consistent with our capital allocation priorities," GM CEO Mary Barra said in a call with investors Tuesday evening.It's likely that GM's move will result in layoffs at Cruise, though none are being announced right now. What is clear is that Cruise's testing in Arizona and Texas will pause as the company decides its next move. GM will need to repurchase its remaining shares of Cruise (the automaker owns 90 percent of the company), and then Cruise's board will determine the next steps, which include restructuring, layoffs, or simply shutting down.The shutdown of Cruise's robotaxi service comes amid a turbulent time for autonomous vehicles. Tesla has said it plans to launch its own robotaxi service in 2025, though questions remain about the company's approach to the technology. While Alphabet's Waymo continues to eye new markets, other ventures have faltered. The most notable was Argo AI, which shut down in 2022 after Ford and Volkswagen pulled funding.It's likely that GM's move will result in layoffs at CruiseGM's decision to scrap its robotaxi business comes after years of profligate spending in the hopes of creating a new mobility division that could bring in new revenues for the company. The automaker has invested approximately $10 billion in Cruise since first acquiring it in 2016, Barra said.You've got to really understand: the cost of running a robotaxi fleet, which is is fairly significant, [is] not our core business," she added.Cruise's commercial robotaxi service has been on hiatus since October 2023, when one of its driverless vehicles in San Francisco struck and then dragged a pedestrian over 20 feet, severely injuring her. The company has since resumed autonomous testing with safety drivers in Arizona and Texas and had planned to relaunch in California as well.But even as other automakers cut their losses, Barra doubled down. In 2022, she took the stage at the annual Consumer Electronics Show and boldly declared that GM would sell fully autonomous vehicles to regular people by the middle of the decade. (It seems unlikely the company will meet that deadline.) And while investors have encouraged GM to cut their losses with Cruise, she has stuck by the project. This past year, Barra has directed a reorganization at Cruise, ousting its founders and replacing them with auto and tech industry veterans.When it finishes acquiring the remaining shares, GM anticipates achieving cost savings of $1 billion annually, GM chief financial officer Paul Jacobson said.

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Even with the abundance of streaming services we're using now, Windows PC storage can still fill up quickly. Games, photos, movies, and apps can take up significant chunks of room, and before you know it, that SSD is starting to run low on free space. And a cluttered PC drive can impact performance as well as Windows updates.You don't have to accept the slow decline of available storage space on Windows, though - there's plenty you can do about it, whether that's using built-in tools provided by Microsoft or keeping your files and folders better organized.Managing files and folders Screenshot: Microsoft Windows can get you started with file organization - but there's much more you can do. If you've never given much thought to how your files and folders are organized, now might be the time to change that. Whether it's a physical filing cabinet, a fridge freezer, or a Windows PC, having a system in place makes it quicker to get to what you want. It also means you can more easily identify data you're done with and can safely delete.The organizational structure you use is completely up to you. Windows itself gets you started with default folders for... Read the full story at The Verge.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google Docs is rolling out 40 new templates to make your documents more visually appealing. The new pageless templates cover a wider range of scenarios, whether you're writing a blog post, creating a project roadmap, or making an interview guide.Google says its high-quality, visually modern" templates come with preset layouts and styles. They also make use of some of the newer features within Google Docs, such as tabs to better organize documents and placeholder chips that let others know the information they need to fill in. GIF: Google I'm not seeing the new templates just yet, but Google notes that the full rollout could take up to 15 days. Still, I'm glad to see Google adding more designs, as I've always felt Docs fell short in terms of template variety and quality when compared to Microsoft Word and even Canva.You can access templates in Docs by selecting the Templates" button at the top of a new document or by heading to File > New > From template gallery. The new templates will be available to everyone with a personal Google account, as well as Google Workspace customers and Workspace Individual subscribers.Google plans on rolling out even more high-quality Docs template options in the coming months."

The company closes out a difficult year with this terrific soundbar that proves Sonos still knows how to do hardware. Software, though... Read the full story at The Verge.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A new California bill could require social media platforms to display warning labels about the potential risk to kids and teens. The bill (AB 56), introduced by Assembly member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan and California Attorney General Rob Bonta, is meant to help address the growing mental health crisis" among young people.If passed, social networks would have to show a black box warning" to all users, regardless of age, during their first time using the platform. The warning, which platforms must display for 90 seconds or more, would then show up at least once a week following its initial appearance.After issuing a public advisory about social media platforms last year, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy proposed putting tobacco-like warning labels on social networks in response to studies that link social platforms to mental health issues in young people. Nearly 40 US states announced their support of the proposal in September.Social media companies have demonstrated an unwillingness to tackle the mental health crisis, instead digging in deeper into harnessing addictive features and harmful content for the sake of profits," Attorney General Bonta said in the press release. Warning labels alone are not a panacea, they are another tool in the toolbox to address the growing mental health crisis and protect future generations of children."In October, Bonta and several other state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against TikTok over claims it hurts the mental health of children by designing addicting features and promoting things like beauty filters. Meta is also facing a lawsuit from dozens of states, alleging the company misled users about the safety of its products.While some states have moved forward with their own laws regulating the use of social media, state attorneys general are urging Congress to pass the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).

Genki's Moonbase charger can delivery up to 140W of power through one of its USB-C ports. | Image: Genki Genki has announced its first power strip, capable of charging up to seven devices simultaneously using three AC outlets and four USB-C ports. The Moonbase can deliver up to 240W of power through its USB-C ports - maxing out at 140W to a single device - and will be available with custom USB-C cables featuring built-in lighting, making it easier to plug devices in when it's dark.The Moonbase is available for preorder now through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign with delivery expected in April 2025. Full retail pricing for the power strip alone is expected to be $120, but it's discounted to $88 for those who preorder early, or $129 if you also want a set of four of Genki's Moonlink USB-C cables.Genki might not be a household name, but since 2019 the company has successfully crowdfunded several products including portable Nintendo Switch docks and smaller USB-C chargers.Measuring about 7.7 inches in length, the Moonbase features three AC outlets on top that are generously spaced to accommodate chunkier AC adapters and multi-port chargers. The AC outlets feature a transparent design with LEDs that change color at the push of a button. Below the outlets, the power strip incorporates an energy efficient GaN (Gallium Nitride) charger delivering a total of 240W of power through its four side USB-C ports.The maximum power output of an individual USB-C port is limited to 140W, and that's when just two of them are in use. With devices plugged into all four of the Moonbase's USB-C ports, two can deliver a maximum of 100W, while the other two top out at just 20W. Image: Genki One of the four Moonlink cables includes a built-in display and the ability to handle 240W of power. Not every USB-C cable can handle over 100W of power, so Genki created an optional set of upgraded USB-C Moonlink cables to go along with the Moonbase. Three of the cables support 100W charging and come in small (1-foot), medium (3.3-feet), and large (6-foot) lengths, while the Moonlink+ can handle 240W and includes a built-in LED display showing the current power draw.With one end plugged in, all of the Moonlink cables glow on their other end to help illuminate the USB-C port on the device you want to power - the lighting turns off once both ends are plugged in. Although the Moonlink cables are available as part of a bundle with the Moonbase power strip, you only get one of each of the four versions - unfortunately, you can't pick and choose which of the cables will work best for your setup.

Image: Solos Solos' camera-equipped smart glasses have arrived to provide some much-needed competition against Meta's Ray-Bans. The AirGo Vision is available now starting at $299 - the same price as the Ray-Ban Meta eyewear tech - and features integration with OpenAI's GPT-4o AI model to identify and answer questions about the people, objects, and text seen by the camera.That allows the AirGo Vision to do things like translate text into different languages, provide directions to nearby locations or landmarks, and give the wearer more information about what they're looking at. Solos says the glasses can also be integrated with other AI models like Google Gemini and Anthropic's Claude, something the company previously teased when it announced the AirGo Vision in June.Like the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, the AirGo Vision camera can capture photos on demand. A swappable frame system means that you can wear the glasses with or without the camera - the battery and touch sensors used to control the device are housed in the frame's USB-C chargeable hinges, providing an audio-only option when paired with the standard, no-camera-included AirGo frames.One thing we promised to deliver on was allowing consumers to have control of their experience with AI and smart technology, particularly with privacy options in mind," Solos co-founder Kenneth Fan said in the announcement. That's why we developed frames that can easily be changed to decide when and where a camera may be appropriate without sacrificing any of the fun features." Image: Solos Here's a frontal view of the Krypton 1 frame style... Image: Solos ...compared to the slimmer Krypton 2 design. Solos says the Vision comes with the option to purchase the frame only for $149 or bundle a camera frame with a regular frame for enhanced privacy, priced at $349." It's available in seven colors and two frame styles: Krypton 1, which sports a large square design with prominent nose pads, and the slimmer Krypton 2.

Image: Epic Games Fortnite players have finally started receiving refunds as part of a settlement Epic Games reached with the Federal Trade Commission, which claimed the developer tricked players into making in-game purchases. So far, the FTC says it sent out more than 600,000 payments totaling $72 million, and many players, including some of us here at The Verge, have already reported receiving payments.In 2022, Epic Games agreed to pay $245 million to compensate players affected by Fortnite's alleged counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration" that the FTC said led to unwanted purchases. The FTC is currently sending payments to players who submitted valid claims before October 8th, 2024, but it's reviewing the claims it received after that date.There's still time to file a claim for a Fortnite refund if you haven't yet, as the FTC is giving players until January 10th, 2025 to submit a claim. You can find more information about the refunds on the FTC's website.

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Every once in a while, we turn The Vergecast inward. Not only are we constantly covering and discussing what's happening in the tech and media worlds, we're also living it ourselves. We're trying to navigate changes in platforms and economies, and figure out the best ways to do our work and share it with you. And it's complicated! So, once a year or so, we get into the weeds of how it all works for us here at The Verge.On this episode of The Vergecast, it's all inside baseball, all the time. Helen Havlak, our publisher (and everybody's boss), joins the show to talk about our new subscription: why we're doing it now, how we decided on a price, why we're not getting rid of all the ads, and what we're thinking about going forward.After that, Nilay Patel, our editor-in-chief and your Vergecast co-host and friend, joins to talk about everything else you've been wondering. We talk about host-read ads, what we do during ad breaks, how The Verge is like a Montessori, what he thinks about our redesign two years later, and more. We got so many good questions - thanks to everyone who called and emailed! - and we couldn't get to them all, but we tried to answer as many as we could.If you want to know more about what The Verge is up to, and where we think (gestures widely) all this is headed, here are a few links to get you started:

Image: Yelp Yelp is introducing some new AI features that aim to help users discover new establishments and narrow down customer reviews. The AI-powered Review Insights," announced today as part of Yelp's end-of-year product release, quickly summarize how customers feel about certain aspects of a business, such as food quality, service, ambiance, and wait times.Review insights are aggregated sentiment scores that provide a quick overview of topics using facial icons - positive, neutral, and critical - displayed above a business's reviews. Yelp users can click specific topics to read related reviews that focus on those aspects of the business, such as what customers are saying about the food or service.Yelp says the feature is available on iOS for restaurant, food, and nightlife businesses, and will be expanded to services categories next year." Review insights builds on the AI-powered review summaries feature that Yelp introduced in January.When searching for a local restaurant, you might have a specific aspect in mind that matters most to you - be it the vibe of the space, how long it takes to get a table, or the quality of the food," said Yelp's Chief Product Officer Craig Saldanha in the announcement blog. Even when a review doesn't explicitly mention one of the topics, the LLM understands the context in the review to identify and surface the relevant topic and sentiment." Image: Yelp Heads up - Yelp will autoplay and unmute the full-screen user videos on the iOS app homepage. The home feed search bar on iOS now features a trending drop-down that highlights the most popular terms other local users are looking for, which will be coming to Android early next year." The iOS app home page has also been expanded to include new reviews, photos, and full-screen video spotlights uploaded by other users that surface recent experiences. Yelp says it's rolling out an AI-powered update that better tailors the home feed to your preferences" in the coming weeks.

Image: Google Google's quantum computing lab just achieved a major milestone. On Monday, the company revealed that its new quantum computing chip, Willow, is capable of performing a computing challenge in less than five minutes - a process Google says would take one of the world's fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years, or longer than the age of the universe.That's a big jump from 2019 when Google announced its quantum processor could complete a mathematical equation in three minutes, as opposed to 10,000 years on a supercomputer. IBM disputed the claim at the time.Along with more powerful performance, researchers also found a way to reduce errors, something Google calls one of the greatest challenges in quantum computing." Instead of bits, which represent either 1 or 0, quantum computing uses qubits, a unit that can exist in multiple states at the same time, such as 1, 0, and anything in between.As noted by Google, qubits are prone to errors because they have a tendency to rapidly exchange information with their environment." However, Google's researchers discovered a way to reduce errors by introducing more qubits to a system and were able to correct them in real time. Their findings were published in Nature.This historic accomplishment is known in the field as below threshold' - being able to drive errors down while scaling up the number of qubits," Google Quantum AI founder Hartmut Neven writes on Google's blog. You must demonstrate being below threshold to show real progress on error correction, and this has been an outstanding challenge since quantum error correction was introduced by Peter Shor in 1995."

Photo by Ashley Carman / The Verge Spotify has officially shut down its Car Thing accessory that offered simple and slick control over music and playlists while driving, and it's giving owners just over a month (January 14th) to reach out to the company and get a refund. The device started to display its final words early today as enthusiasts mourn the loss of the device on its dedicated subreddit.The final message on the Car Thing reads: