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Image: Microsoft Microsoft is expanding the testing of its new Recall AI feature to Intel- and AMD-powered Copilot Plus PCs. The software giant first released a preview of Recall on Qualcomm-powered laptops last month, allowing Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel to test the new AI-powered feature. Now Intel and AMD Copilot Plus PCs are getting access in a new build today.Recall takes screenshots of almost everything you do on a Copilot Plus PC to make it searchable and easy to recall a memory or retrace your steps. Microsoft has made the AI experience entirely optional, so you can enable snapshots to find what you were working on previously through natural language search or a scrollable timeline. Image: Microsoft The Recall timeline feature. Much like the experience on Qualcomm Copilot Plus PCs, Windows 11 will download the models for Recall and Click to Do in the background once you install the Dev Channel build. You'll then need to enable snapshots yourself. You can control what snapshots are saved and delete them based on apps or much like you'd delete browsing history by date. Microsoft also provides a way to exclude apps and websites from Recall, and the feature also automatically detects sensitive information like credit card details, passwords, and personal ID numbers to ensure snapshots are not saved.Microsoft has made a variety of security upgrades to Recall after researchers raised the alarm over the controversial feature. You now need to use Windows Hello to confirm your presence and access snapshots, and it also requires BitLocker and Secure Boot - both of which should be enabled already on a Copilot Plus PC.Click to Do is also part of this Recall testing. Click to Do can recognize text and images in Recall snapshots so you can use AI-powered actions on them like copying text or saving images out of old snapshots. Microsoft is also expanding Click to Do outside of Recall so you can use it to take actions on images and text by summoning it through Windows key + mouse click.Lastly, Microsoft is also introducing its Image Creator and Restyle Image features to the Photos app for Intel- and AMD-powered Copilot Plus PCs. These devices will also get access to Cocreator in Paint today to let you create AI-powered images directly in Paint.

The Verge Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok is now available to free users on X. Several users noticed the change on Friday, which gives non-Premium subscribers the ability to send up to 10 messages to Grok every two hours.xAI launched Grok last year as a humorous AI assistant," but it was only available to Premium subscribers. In August, xAI added a text-to-image generation feature to Grok, which turned out to be capable of producing some questionable images.TechCrunch reported last month that Musk's xAI started testing a free version of Grok in certain regions. Making Grok more widely available might help it compete with the already-free chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Anthropic's Claude.xAI, which raised $6 billion in its latest funding round, is also considering launching a standalone app for Grok - something ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude already have, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

You should definitely skip the base AirPods 4, which are only $9 cheaper right now. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The AirPods Pro stole the spotlight recently with an incredible discount that made them even cheaper than the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation. But now the script is flipped and the AirPods 4 are currently discounted to $139 ($40 off) at Amazon. That's a new record low for Apple's newest pair of wireless earbuds and just $9 more than the version without ANC.The AirPods 4 are a substantial upgrade over the previous generation, with better overall sound quality and a stronger bass profile. They also borrow a couple more features from the AirPods Pro, like the Voice Isolation feature that analyzes your voice to separate it and cancel out the environment, resulting in clearer voice calls. Other features include a wireless charging case with a speaker that lets you trigger a sound from Apple's Find My app, spatial audio with head-tracking, and adaptive audio.Active noise cancellation is solid in the upgraded pair, but since there are no canal-sealing ear tips, they won't offer the same dampening. That's where you'd opt instead for the AirPods Pro, which ultimately sound better and offer a few extra capabilities, like more intuitive volume controls and the ability to use them as hearing aids. But if you don't mind making some tradeoffs, the entry-level AirPods 4 offer a lot for the money.Read our Apple AirPods 4 review.A few more deals to kick the weekend off

Beginning in February, health insurer Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield was planning to set a time limit for anesthesia coverage during surgeries and procedures. Now, following days of widespread outrage at the health insurance industry generally, Anthem is walking that policy back, the insurer announced on Thursday.In mid-November, the American Society of Anesthesiologists issued a press release about the policy, which was set to take effect in February in states like Connecticut, New York, and Missouri.If an anesthesiologist submits a bill where the actual time of care is longer than Anthem's limit, Anthem will deny payment for the anesthesiologist's care," they group writes. With this new policy, Anthem will not pay anesthesiologists for delivering safe and effective anesthesia care to patients who may need extra attention because their surgery is difficult, unusual or because a complication arises."The letter appears to have garnered little public attention until this week when several posts on social media about the policy change began circulating. The posts gained traction after the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, was shot and killed in New York on Wednesday in what police say was a targeted attack.

EPFL's RAVEN drone trades traditional landing gear for a pair of legs that function similar to a bird's. | Image: Alain Herzog Researchers from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and UC Irvine have developed a drone capable of landing and taking off in areas that would otherwise leave a fixed-wing aircraft stranded. Their Robotic Avian-inspired Vehicle for multiple ENvironments (RAVEN) trades traditional landing gear for a pair of bird-inspired articulated legs that allow the drone to walk around, hop over obstacles, and even leap into the air to take flight without the need for a runway.Quadcopter drones may offer more flexibility when it comes to where they can take off and land, but most rely on four motors which are less energy-efficient than fixed-wing drones that use a single motor paired with gliding for flight. To expand the capabilities of fixed-wing drones, the researchers took inspiration from birds like crows and ravens which can easily maneuver on the ground using a scrawny pair of legs, as detailed in a paper published in Nature this week. Image: Alain Herzog RAVEN's legs and feet use a simplified design but still offer enough articulation for the drone to maneuver on the ground. Recreating the strength and capabilities of a bird's legs mechanically without adding significant weight to a drone and reducing its operating range required a mix of mathematical models, computer simulations, and experimental iterations."The final design for the legs uses a combination of springs and motors to mimic powerful avian tendons and muscles" while its simplified feet use two articulated structures" plus toes with a passive elastic joint. The toes not only prevent RAVEN from constantly face planting, they're also critical for walking and positioning the drone at the right angle of attack for an effective takeoff.Fixed-wing drones that take advantage of legs for short takeoffs and landings aren't an entirely new idea. In 2019, a South African startup called Passerine demonstrated a drone called Sparrow that used a pair of spring-loaded legs to leap into the air and take flight from a standstill. What sets RAVEN apart is the complexity of its legs that allow the drone to walk across rough terrain, jump over gaps, and hop onto obstacles as high as 10 inches - in addition to being able to leap into flight.RAVEN's operations aren't limited to airports or areas with smooth surfaces, which traditional wheeled landing gear requires. It also doesn't require human intervention to get airborne again. It's capable of landing and exploring areas that may be dangerous or restricted to humans, and then repositioning itself to an area that's safe for takeoff. And it does it all using less power than a quadcopter drone would, giving it a larger operational range.

Image: Amazon Amazon completed its first drone flight test in Italy on Wednesday. The test used its MK30 drone, which can carry up to five pounds (or 2.27 kilograms) of packages through light rain and, in the US, is licensed to operate Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS).Italian regulators ENAC and ENAV, which are like the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), authorized Amazon to carry out the test in San Salvo.Last year, the company announced its intention to expand to Italy and the UK in 2024. Amazon says it plans to launch its Prime Air delivery service commercially in Italy in 2025, pending regulatory approval. According to Reuters, Britain has selected six drone testing projects, including Amazon, however, there's no word on when testing will take place.In the US, Amazon's drone deliveries are up and running in College Station, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona, with plans to operate in more areas next year.

Image: Netflix Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld's first season feels like a classic monster slaying story remixed for a new generation. Though it has been decades since Buffy the Vampire Slayer's final episode aired, the show's lasting cultural impact can still be felt through the stories being told by people who were impacted by it. Netflix's Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld feels like the kind of show that might not exist if it weren't for the way an entire generation of kids grew up watching a teenage girl fight monsters from week to week. The new Titmouse-produced animated show's world of magic, and its focus on a young warrior who just wants to be a regular high schooler, makes it impossible not to see it as a tribute to Sunnydale's finest.But as often as it riffs some of Buffy's signature beats - teen angst, supernatural love triangles, a town full of normies who kinda know something weird is going on around them - Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld uses them to tell a much more dynamic tale about who gets to be an all-American girl."Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld tells the story of how its titular Chinese American teen is yanked out of her boarding school in South Korea and dragged to a small Texas town to fulfill a destiny she doesn't want any part of. Things are good for Jentry in Seoul, where her friends have basically become her family and people that she can trust with some of her dark secrets. They know about Jentry's uncontrollable ability to start fires and that it is part of why her feisty elderly aunt Gugu (Lori Tan Chinn) sent her to study abroad. But as dangerous as Jentry might be, her friends don't care because they, like Gugu, love her. And with Jentry's powers having seemingly gone dormant since she left the US, she assumes her days of literal bridge-burning are all in the past.All Jentry wants for her 16th birthday is for things to stay as they are and to keep building a new life that feels like it's really hers. But when she's attacked by Ed (Bowen Yang), a Twilight-obsessed shapeshifting vampire tasked with delivering her to his master Mogui (Kenton Chen), Jentry knows that her wish for a blissfully mundane childhood isn't coming true anytime soon.While younger viewers might not initially pick up on just how much Jentry Chau borrows from Buffy, the '90s monster-of-the-week show's influence on showrunner Echo Wu shines through in Jentry's journey back to Texas to enroll in a school run by a paranoid administrator. Jentry's being new-ish in town is all it takes for vice principal Wheeler (Sean Allan Krill) to be suspicious of her sudden arrival, and she tries to keep quiet about her extracurricular monster hunting. But because Jentry's reignited powers lure so many mythological ghouls out of the woodwork, there's enough day-to-day chaos that it's kind of easy for her to pretend she's just another student who can't believe how her high school seems to be situated on top of a hellmouth.The show's monsters - a cavalcade of demons and spirits plucked from Chinese mythology - are a huge part of what makes Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld feel like such an inspired spin on the monster-of-the-week genre. Almost every supernatural creature Jentry faces speaks to the series' focus on exploring her cultural heritage, rather than using its aesthetics as superficial set dressing. Jentry's powers make her formidable, but it's because of Gugu's years of teaching her about Chinese folklore that she's able to outsmart the ghosts she encounters when she journeys into the underworld. Image: Netflix One of the series' funnier episodes follows Jentry and her classmates on a field trip to the Alamo, where a tour guide summons a bunch of dead American soldiers to scold the kids about how rude" it is for them to want to know more about the monument's actual history. It's one of the instances where Jentry Chau more explicitly reminds you that, in addition to centering Jentry's Chinese heritage, it's telling a story about an American girl who has been encouraged to think about her country's past and how that shapes some people's perceptions of her.Jentry has far more interesting things to deal with than racism, like her complicated love triangle situation with her childhood friend Michael (A.J. Beckles) and Kit (Woosung Kim), another mysterious transfer student. But it's clear the show wants you to appreciate that there's more to telling relatable yet culturally specific stories than simply putting a few characters of color onscreen.Even though the Buffy vibes only grow stronger with each episode - Jentry ends up with a Scooby Gang of her own who all have their own supernatural stuff going on - the show remixes them just enough to make this first season feel like a refreshing addition to the Chosen GirlTM canon. You can see that Wu and the rest of Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld's creative team have poured their hearts into this first chapter, and it would be great to see what else they might want to conjure up.Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld's first season is now streaming on Netflix.

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images A bill that could ban TikTok from the US unless its Chinese parent company divests it is constitutional, a panel of judges for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled.The decision comes soon before ByteDance's January 19th deadline to sell the popular video app, or face its expulsion from the US. That deadline now falls one day before President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated for the second time - thanks in part to donations from ByteDance investor Jeff Yass. Though Trump sought to ban TikTok during his first term, he changed his tune on the campaign trail this year, saying a ban would just help a different target of his ire: Meta.While Trump allies reportedly expected him to try to halt the ban, the options for recourse are somewhat limited. The law allows for a 90 day extension at the president's discretion, but only if progress is being made toward a spin-out. Trump could direct the Department of Justice not to enforce the bill, but that still leaves app store companies like Google and Apple - tasked with being the gatekeepers to the app - in a precarious spot, should Trump change his mind or a future administration decide to enforce the law.The court decided that the law could survive even strict scrutiny under the First Amendment, and did not find TikTok's arguments that it violates equal protections under the Fifth Amendment compelling. We emphasize from the outset that our conclusion here is fact-bound," Judge Douglas Ginsburg writes in the opinion for the court. The multi-year efforts of both political branches to investigate the national security risks posed by the TikTok platform, and to consider potential remedies proposed by TikTok, weigh heavily in favor of the Act. The Government has offered persuasive evidence demonstrating that the Act is narrowly tailored to protect national security." These risks included both fears that China could use TikTok for data collection and that it could covertly manipulate the recommendation algorithms.The court relies only on evidence in the public record to reach its decision, even though many of the justifications for the bill that led lawmakers to vote for it were presented in classified briefings. The judges add that TikTok's argument that divestiture from ByteDance would be impractical is really the result of the Chinese government's potential resistance - not a function of the law itself. TikTok would have us turn the Takings Clause into a means by which a foreign adversary nation may render unconstitutional legislation designed to counter the national security threats presented by that very nation," they conclude.The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans' right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue," TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes writes in a statement. Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people. The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025."Despite Trump's opposition, many Republicans in Congress voted to pass the bill earlier this year. It received overwhelming bipartisan support in both chambers, before President Joe Biden signed it into law. Proponents of the law say that it's necessary protect the privacy of Americans and protect them from foreign influence campaigns. That's because Chinese law lets the government compel companies headquartered there to hand over internal information for national security reasons. And while TikTok has repeatedly asserted its independent operations from ByteDance and says US data is not stored in China, many lawmakers still feared Chinese officials could have a say in what information Americans do and don't see.During oral arguments in September, TikTok and a group of creators also suing to block the law argued that it would stifle Americans' speech, and unfairly limit the information they're able to access. The DOJ defended the law as appropriately tailored to address a national security risk. The three-judge panel that heard the case appeared skeptical of the company's arguments, prodding at the practicality of a more restrained approach.The ruling could still appealed en banc to the full panel of judges on the DC Circuit, and ultimately to the Supreme Court.

Image: Asus via TFTCentral It looks like Asus may be gearing up to release one of the first 4K OLED gaming monitors with a 27-inch display, as reported earlier by VideoCardz. In a now-removed teaser posted to Instagram, Asus mentioned a ROG Swift OLED PG27UCDM" monitor, suggesting this display could be a smaller version of its existing Rog Swift 32-inch OLED 4K monitor, which shares nearly the same product name (PG32UCDM).As shown in a reposted version of the ad shared by TFTCentral, Asus doesn't reveal much about the new display other than its name. Currently, most 27-inch OLED gaming monitors sport a 1440p resolution - not 4K.Previous rumors suggest that display manufacturer Samsung Display has already begun work on a 27-inch 4K OLED monitor. Even with a smaller size, a 27-inch 4K OLED monitor from Asus likely won't come cheap, as its 32-inch ROG Swift OLED costs $1,299.99.Aside from this monitor, TFTCentral also mentioned some broader display trends we might see next year, including 45-inch ultrawide OLED displays with better resolution, 500GHz QD-OLED panels, and monitors that use DisplayPort 2.1 connectivity.If Asus is planning on releasing a new monitor, it will probably reveal it during CES 2025, which kicks off on January 7th.

Photo by Julio Donoso / Sygma via Getty Images For years, a fan-run account called Muppet History has been central to the Muppets fandom. It shared little-known facts, memes, and wholesome messages, amassing half a million followers on Instagram and more than 280,000 on X. Publicly, it was a wholesome and sweet platform, a passion project that took off. It became an unofficial ambassador of Jim Henson's iconic cast of characters - inside and outside the world of diehard fans.But on Monday night, a post on the account's Instagram page had an ominous tone. Good Evening," the message started. We wanted to take a moment to address some concerns that have arisen as of late." The vague post - on which comments had been disabled - mentioned overstepped" boundaries, the harm" caused, and that people were made uncomfortable." It did not specify exactly what had happened.Since that post, however, a rough sketch has come into focus. Fans claim that Muppet History's co-runner Joshua Gillespie, who operates the account with his wife, Holly, was sending unwanted sexual messages to other people. Now, it's gone from a bright spot on the internet to another soured piece of online culture, leaving a small community navigating the... Read the full story at The Verge.

Every company is trying to copy Spotify these days. | Image: Google The Google Photos app is rolling out a throwback experience that highlights some of your most memorable moments from this year. The 2024 Recap" presentation feature announced today combines a collection of photos and insights with graphics and cinematic effects that summarize what users have been doing over the last 12 months - a similar concept to Spotify Wrapped.The 2024 Recap insights include information like how many photos you snapped, the longest photo streak length, most photographed colors, who you took the most photos of, and the people you smiled the most with. Google says that select users in the US" who have Gemini enabled in the Photos app can also opt-in to receive a version of Recap that adds personalized captions highlighting the two biggest moments from your year." Gif: Google Here's an example of the Wrapped-like insights that appear in Recap. The Recap will appear in the Google Photos Memories carousel throughout December before relocating to the photo grid in January, and can be shared to messaging and social media apps. There are some caveats though - Recap is only available to Photos users who have the Face Groups setting enabled, which uses facial recognition to identify and group similar faces together. This feature has some regional restrictions, so the end-of-year highlights won't be available globally.

Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The New York Times OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been saying for years - years! - that artificial general intelligence, or AGI, would be something like a singularity. When we achieve AGI, Altman and others have said, it will fundamentally reshape society.At the New York Times DealBook Summit this week in New York City, Altman said never mind. AGI is coming really soon, he said, but it's not going to be a huge deal. Also this week: OpenAI began its 12 days of shipmas" campaign with a new $200 monthly subscription for its latest model. The stakes are lower, the prices are higher. Strange times in the AI race.On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge's Kylie Robison joins the show to talk about Altman's about-face, shipmas, and everything else happening in the AI world this week. Google CEO Sundar Pichai had a spicy take on Gemini, Amazon launched some models of its own, and the models just keep making mistakes.But before we get to AI, Nilay and David spend some time talking about the world of subscriptions. Starting with ours! We launched a subscription for The Verge this week, and we're grateful to everyone who has signed up to support us and be part of our community. Thanks also to everyone who has offered feedback, found bugs, and asked for ad-free podcasts. We're still new at this whole subscription thing, but we're learning fast. (And if you have questions, you have a little more time to get them in for next week's episode! Email vergecast@theverge.com or call 866-VERGE11 to get them in.)That takes us into a conversation about the ongoing cable-ification of the streaming world, which this week included Disney bundling ESPN into Disney Plus and Max launching always-on channels for HBO content. You know, like cable.After all that it's AI time. And finally, in the lightning round, we talk about bitcoin, AI browsers, the fediverse, Intel, Spotify Wrapped, and much more. It may be December, but there's still an awful lot going on.If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with streaming and cable:

Image: Uber Uber launched a robotaxi service with its partner WeRide in Abu Dhabi, its first international effort to make a wide number of autonomous vehicles from different operators available on its platform.Customers who use Uber to book a ride will be presented with the option to hail an autonomous vehicle from WeRide. Fares will be upfront and equal to UberX and Uber Comfort prices. The vehicles will include safety drivers, so it won't be a fully autonomous service at launch. But Uber and WeRide said they aim to offer driverless vehicles to passengers in 2025.The vehicles will include safety driversUber first announced its partnership with WeRide, a startup based in Guangzhou, China, last September. WeRide holds driverless operation permits in the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, China, and the US - though Uber has said it isn't currently considering extending the partnership beyond the UAE.WeRide's autonomous vehicles in Abu Dhabi have been available to customers through the TXAI app. The company was first granted a permit to test and operate AVs on public roads in the country in July 2023.WeRide was planning on listing its shares in the US at a valuation of $5 billion, but its initial public offering has been delayed, with the company citing a need to complete all the documentation.The company also develops self-driving technology that powers shuttle buses and freight equipment. It first launched in Silicon Valley in 2017 and subsequently was incorporated in the Cayman Islands.Since ending its own efforts to develop self-driving cars in 2020, Uber has sought to become a clearinghouse for any company operating autonomous vehicles in the world. In addition to WeRide, Uber has deals with Cruise, Waymo, Motional, and Avride for self-driving cars and Serve, Cartken, and Nuro for delivery robots.

David Sacks speaking at the 2024 Republican National Convention. | Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images President-elect Donald Trump says that VC and All-In podcast co-host David Sacks will be the White House A.I. & Crypto Czar."The appointment of Sacks, who hosted a $300,000-a-person dinner at his San Francisco mansion to fundraise for Trump's campaign, follows the appointment of fellow PayPal mafia member Elon Musk to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency." According to Bloomberg, like Musk, Sacks will be a special government employee" who can serve up to 130 days a year without divesting or publicly disclosing his assets.Here's what Sacks will be tasked with in his role, according to Trump:

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge iFixit now sells genuine Xbox parts you can use to repair your Xbox Series X or S and offers official guides to help with fixes. You can browse what's available from iFixit's Microsoft Repair Hub.We're excited to be working with Microsoft to keep Xboxes running longer and out of the waste heap," Elizabeth Chamberlain, iFixit's director of sustainability, says in a statement to The Verge. We now offer official Microsoft parts and step-by-step repair guides for Xbox Series S and Series X, including both the all-digital and disk drive editions."iFixit's Microsoft Repair Hub also features iFixit's parts for repairing Microsoft Surface devices, which it started selling in 2023. Since we launched our Surface parts collaboration with Microsoft last year, we've been helping our customers repair their own Microsoft laptops and tablets - and it's awesome to be able to offer Xbox owners the same opportunity," Chamberlain says.Microsoft isn't the only gaming company that iFixit has partnered with; iFixit sells nearly every part of the Steam Deck and offers a bunch of repair guides for Valve's handheld PC, too. Microsoft itself offers first-party parts for the standard and Elite Series 2 Xbox controllers.iFixit also offers genuine repair parts for Google's Pixel phones and the Pixel Tablet. The company had sold genuine parts from Samsung, but that partnership ended earlier this year.

Image: Riot Games The League of Legends universe is expanding once again - this time with a physical card game. Riot Games announced today that it's developing a physical trading card game set in the League universe. The game is currently known as Project K," and Riot says it's working with an unnamed partner in China to release the game there in early 2025. As for a global release, Riot says, We are taking our time to find the right publishing partners."There aren't a lot of details available about Project K. According to Riot, the game has unique gameplay and is best when played with friends and in person," and development is being led by director Dave Guskin and producer Chengran Chai. You can get a sense of the game in the images below:Of course, this is far from the first spinoff from League. So far, that has included mobile games like Teamfight Tactics and Wild Rift, the Netflix series Arcane, and the competitive fighting game 2XKO, which is expected to launch next year. Not all of these bets have paid off. In January, Riot announced that it was cutting more than 500 jobs, which included shutting down Riot Forge Games, a publishing label for indie games set inside of League. Also impacted was Legends of Runeterra, a mobile card game that launched in 2020, which Riot said hasn't performed as well as we need it to."The Project K news comes as card games are having another moment, led largely by the new smartphone version of the Pokemon Trading Card Game.

Image: Bethesda The game's most interesting bits are trapped in cutscenes while its boring bits are the stuff you actually have to play out. Read the full story at The Verge.

Two more OS upgrades are on the way for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Owners of Pixel 6-series, 7-series and Pixel Fold phones can look forward to a couple extra years of OS upgrades than initially expected, as discovered by Android expert Mishaal Rahman and confirmed by Google on X. When they were introduced, Google originally promised three years of OS upgrades and five years of security patches for each device, starting from the time they went on sale. But a quiet update to a support page confirms that these phones will get two additional OS upgrades, giving them a full five years of OS and security support that may also include new and upgraded features with Pixel Drops." That, my friends, rules.Google's three-and-five policy wasn't bad, but it wasn't the best either - after the Pixel 6 arrived in 2021, Samsung did one better by offering four years of OS updates for the Galaxy S22. Google got its act together with the Pixel 8, announcing a class-leading seven years of OS and security update support. Which is great! But you wouldn't blame a Pixel 6 or 7 owner for feeling like they were unfairly left behind. Google seems to be making up some of the shortfall by offering these additional OS upgrades, and it's a welcome change.

Illustration: The Verge Google is making it easier to switch off personalized search results thanks to an option that sometimes appears at the bottom of the results page, as reported by Search Engine Roundtable. After searching for something, scroll all the way down and look for a link to Try without personalization." Click or tap that and Google will load a new page without personalized results.The link might not be present for you in all searches. Some results for me include a message at the end of the results page that already says Results are not personalized." This might be user error - maybe I have other settings that prevent it from appearing or am not using the right queries. But I did get the option to turn off personalized results much more often for searches on my iPhone than on my Mac, for some reason.This change makes it easier for people to get an accurate understanding of whether their results have been personalized, while also providing them with the opportunity to explore non-personalized results," spokesperson Ned Adriance says in a statement. We also make it easy for people to adjust their personalization settings at any time." Adriance adds that while we previously showed this information in About this result on individual results, this display is more accessible and clear."Adriance also says that the link gives people the option to temporarily view results that aren't personalized" - so note that if you tap the link to try results without personalization, you're not permanently changing your personalization settings.You have already been able to get unpersonalized search results for a very long time; as Search Engine Roundtable reported in 2007, you can see unpersonalized results by appending a parameter, &pws=0," to the end of a Google search URL. You can also turn off personalized search from your Google account settings.Updates, December 5th: Added context from Google.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Following news that foreign hackers may still be in US telecom networks, the Federal Communications Commission proposed a new rule that would require telecom companies to secure their networks from unlawful access or interception of communications." It would also force providers to submit an annual certification to the FCC stating they have implemented a plan to counter cybersecurity threats.On Wednesday, US officials recommended Americans use encrypted apps to make phone calls and texts in response to the ongoing infiltration of telecom networks linked to the Chinese hacking group Salt Typhoon. Deputy national security advisor Anne Neuberger confirmed that at least eight telecom providers have been impacted by the hack, as reported by Bleeping Computer.We cannot say with certainty that the adversary has been evicted because we still don't know the scope of what they're doing," Neuberger said during a press briefing, Bleeping Computer reports. Neuberger added that the attack has been going on for likely one to two years" but doesn't believe any classified communications has been compromised."The Wall Street Journal reported in October that Chinese hackers had broken into AT&T, Verizon, and Lumen's networks and even targeted members of President-Elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential campaigns. In a letter on Wednesday, Senators Eric Schmitt (R-MO) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) urged Department of Defense Inspector General Robert Storch to investigate the DOD's failure to secure its unclassified telephone communications from foreign espionage."If the FCC's proposed rule is adopted, it will go into effect immediately.While the Commission's counterparts in the intelligence community are determining the scope and impact of the Salt Typhoon attack, we need to put in place a modern framework to help companies secure their networks and better prevent and respond to cyberattacks in the future," FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said in the press release.

MainFrames. | Image: The Arcade Crew Before we all settle in for The Game Awards next week, this year's PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted had its own assortment of interesting reveals and excellent trailers. It was an indie-focused showcase, which means that there was quite a bit of inventiveness on display; everything from a unique take on TMNT to a platformer where you jump around computer windows. If you missed the show live - which also included some news updates, like PlayerUnknown's ambitious plans for the future - here's a curated list of some of the best stuff that was on display.Moonlighter 2: The Endless VaultThe original Moonlighter mixed action RPG gameplay with the mundanity of running a shop, and the sequel looks like much of the same: only this time, players are transported to another dimension they need to escape. The Endless Vault launches in 2025 on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical TakedownOne of the biggest surprises was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, from indie studio Strange Scaffold. It's billed as a turn-based take on the turtles, which is billed as an experience designed in part for quick-play sessions that feel meaningful." It takes place in a timeline without icons Shredder and Splinter. Given the studio's history - see Clickolding and An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs - it will hopefully also be weird in a good way. Tactical Takedown launches on PC in 2025.CairnThis rock-climbing adventure / survival game has been looking good for a while now, and you can finally check it out for yourself: Cairn just got a free demo on Steam.Sol MatesThere can never be enough co-op games. This release from Daruma Games supports local and online co-op for up to four players, who are tasked with surviving in the great expanse of space by doing odd jobs through the galaxy." It's also pretty darn cute. Sol Mates launches in early access next year.The Legend of BabooBilled as a heartfelt nod to Middle Eastern fables," this game looks like a potentially great mix of adventure, action, and puzzle solving, with a great big fluffy dog to ride on. In fact, you play as both the boy and the dog, who form a bond over the course of the game. Let's hope it has a happier ending than The Last Guardian. The Legend of Baboo is launching in 2025 on both PC and Xbox.AbyssusThanks to this game, I've learned of a fictional genre called brinepunk," where tech is powered by sea brine. It sounds weird, but this co-op shooter does take place in the fascinating underwater ruins of a long-gone civilization. Developer DoubleMoose says Abyssus will go into alpha on December 6th, with a full release next year.MainFramesAll you really need to know is that this is a platformer where you're jumping across a desktop PC interface, rearranging icons to solve puzzles, and fighting bosses controlled by the OS. It launches on both PC and the Nintendo Switch on March 6th.Deepest FearDeveloped by Variable State, the indie studio behind games Virginia and Last Stop, Deepest Fear is an immersive sci-fi horror title with distinct shades of Alien and The Thing. The developers say that it combines Metroidvania level design in the context of a classic FPS immersive sim, where the game's setting is a puzzle to unravel and where creativity and improvisation are your greatest assets." There's no release date yet, but Deepest Fear will (obviously) be launching on PC whenever it's ready.Blue PrinceIt looks a bit like a more colorful take on Myst, and Blue Prince is described as a game that combines compelling mystery, strategy, and puzzle elements to create an unpredictable journey through Mt. Holly, a peculiar manor with ever-changing rooms." It doesn't have a release date yet, but according to the new trailer, it's due out next spring.

Prologue: Go Wayback. | Image: Krafton It's been a while since we heard from Brendan PlayerUnknown" Greene, best known as the creator of the global battle royale hit PUBG. But now, Greene's studio, PlayerUnknown Productions, is detailing what it's working on - and there are multiple games in the works, all pointing toward a big final project.First up is a game called Prologue: Go Wayback!, described as a single-player open-world emergent game within the survival genre," which was previously teased in 2021. The big hook, it seems, is technical, as the game is being built with machine-learning-driven terrain generation technology, allowing the instant creation of millions of maps." Prologue is expected to launch in early access on Steam in 2025, following a series of playtests. To showcase what players can expect, the studio is launching a free tech demo on Steam today called Preface: Undiscovered World. You can check it out right here.According to the studio, these games are building blocks on the way to a more ambitious game currently codenamed Artemis," which will be a massive multiplayer sandbox experience." Greene previously talked about Artemis back in 2022; it was originally billed as a game with NFT support, though today's announcement has no mention of NFTs. Here's Greene on what players can eventually expect as the studio builds toward its big game:

Anker's Soundcore Bluetooth Speaker was recalled due to a fire hazard. Anker is recalling its Soundcore and PowerConf Bluetooth Speakers after receiving 33 reports of the speakers' lithium-ion batteries overheating and, in some instances, emitting smoke or causing small fires.The affected models - A3102016, A3302011 and A3302031 - were sold exclusively on Amazon in 2023 and cost between $28 and $130, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Approximately 69,000 speakers were sold in the US, and an additional 9,764 were sold i Canada.Anker and Amazon have contacted all known purchasers, according to the CPSC. The affected speakers can be identified by an SN code that is printed on the underside of the speakers. To check whether your devices were affected, type the SN code on Anker's website. Anker said it will offer free replacement speakers to those affected.Consumers who own the recalled speakers are advised to stop using them immediately, power them off, and disconnect them from chargers or other external power sources.

Photo by GREGG NEWTON/AFP via Getty Images NASA has, once again, postponed the Artemis missions that will return humans to the Moon. The Artemis II mission, which will have astronauts orbiting the Moon, had already been pushed from 2024 to September 2025 but is now planned for April 2026. Artemis III, which will return astronauts to the surface of the Moon near its south pole, is now planned to launch the following year in mid-2027.The 10-day Artemis II mission will send four astronauts to the Moon, including Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Canadian Jeremy Hansen. The mission won't include a landing, but it will be the first time astronauts launch aboard NASA's Space Launch System rocket inside the Orion crew capsule that will orbit the Moon before returning to Earth with a planned splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.It will follow the uncrewed Artemis I mission that finally launched in November 2022 after years of delays due to technical difficulties and even a few hurricanes. Although Artemis I was a success, investigations into unexpected charring on the Orion capsule's heat shield, critical to protecting astronauts when re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, have contributed to the additional delays.Following extensive analysis, NASA says it has determined that the Orion capsule's heat shield did not allow for enough of the gases generated inside a material called Avcoat to escape," causing some of it to unexpectedly crack and break off during the Artemis I mission, instead of wearing away gradually as it heats up. Despite the charring, temperature sensors indicated the interior of the Orion capsule remained comfortable and safe for astronauts.For Artemis II, NASA engineers have decided the capsule can keep the crew safe during the planned mission with changes to Orion's trajectory as it enters Earth's atmosphere" and are preparing the capsule using the heat shield already attached. The updates to our mission plans are a positive step toward ensuring we can safely accomplish our objectives at the Moon and develop the technologies and capabilities needed for crewed Mars missions," said Catherine Koerner, associate administrator Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate.However, for the more ambitious Artemis III mission, the agency says it is implementing enhancements to how heat shields for crewed returns from lunar landing missions are manufactured" based on what it learned from Artemis I.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images OpenAI is planning to launch new features, products, and demos for 12 days straight - starting with the full release of its o1 reasoning model. OpenAI's 12 days of ship-mas" have officially begun, with the company set to reveal some new features, products, and demos during all 12 days starting December 5th, just a few days shy of the second anniversary of ChatGPT's explosive launch in 2022. According to the company, ChatGPT now has over 300 million weekly users.The event started with the release of its improved OpenAI o1 reasoning model out of preview, along with a new $200 ChatGPT Pro subscription that offers unlimited access to GPT-4o, Advanced Voice Mode, and an exclusive version of o1 that Sam Altman says can think even harder for the hardest problems."Sources tell The Verge that OpenAI will also launch Sora, its text-to-video AI generator. There's likely a lot more to come, and we're keeping track of all the announcements from OpenAI.You can follow along below as we continue to report on all the latest updates.

Image: OpenAI OpenAI is creating a new, more expensive tier for its flagship chatbot ChatGPT, and is bringing its reasoning" model series out of preview with an update.The company is releasing the full version of its o1 model (replacing o1-preview), which was initially released as a limited preview in September (code-named Strawberry'). The new model will be available for ChatGPT Plus and Team users today, while Enterprise and Edu users will have access to it starting next week.The company is also introducing ChatGPT Pro, a new $200 monthly subscription tier that includes unlimited access to OpenAI o1, GPT-4o, and Advanced Voice mode. It also includes a version of o1, exclusive to Pro users, that uses more compute to provide the best possible answer to the hardest problems (called o1 pro mode). The company will continue to offer a Plus tier for $20 a month that includes early access to new features, access to all the company's models (except the more powerful o1 version), and more. OpenAI OpenAI compares the performance of o1 preview, o1, and o1 pro mode. The Verge previously reported on the startup's plans to kick off a shipmas" period of new features, products, and demos for 12 days, with announcements that'll include OpenAI's long-awaited text-to-video AI tool Sora and a new model.The company said that compared to o1-preview, users can expect a faster, more powerful, and more accurate model that is better at coding and math. It can also provide reasoning" responses to images. And OpenAI promises it's been trained to be more concise, which should result in faster response times than o1-preview.OpenAI plans to add support for web browsing, file uploads, and more in ChatGPT - though there's no timeline for these changes.It also announced a ChatGPT Pro Grant Program that awards 10 grants of ChatGPT Pro to medical researchers at leading institutions, with plans for additional grants across various disciplines.

More features are coming to Android and Pixel phones starting today. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge New features are on the way for Android phones and Pixel devices. The update includes more descriptive video captions, a Gemini-powered update to the Lookout app, and a Spotify extension for Gemini. Pixel owners are getting a few additional updates, including deeper integration of the Pixel Screenshots app for Pixel 9 phones.The enhanced captions - or Expressive Captions as Google calls them - add descriptive phrases to try and capture non-spoken moments in dialogue; think [gasp] or [applause]. They'll appear throughout the system wherever you can access video captions, including social media apps and video messages. Image: Google Descriptive Captions will capture more of what's going on in the audio track. Another accessibility-minded update targets Lookout, an app that provides audio descriptions of photos and objects for people with low vision or blindness. Google is bringing its Gemini 1.5 model to the Image Q&A portion of the app to offer better descriptions of photos taken or opened with the app. It's a continuation of an effort Google highlighted at I/O to bring more AI features to Lookout.On the AI front, Google is adding more extensions to Gemini Assistant. The Spotify extension allows you to play music from Spotify through Gemini. When Gemini Assistant debuted, it was missing basic features like this one - capabilities that the non-AI Assistant has been offering for the better part of a decade. This is one more step toward feature parity between Gemini and the standard Google Assistant. Gemini will also get access to the Utilities extension that's been rolling out, allowing it to take more actions on your behalf, like making phone calls, sending emails, and changing phone settings.Other highlights of this update include the ability to create stickers with Emoji Kitchen inside Gboard, share photos with a QR code in Quick Share, and an improved scanning mode for receipts and the like in Google Drive. Compatibility varies for all of the above features, so you can check Google's support website to see what's available on your device and the version of Android it's running.Pixel phones get a little more with the December feature drop, with several new features specifically for the Pixel 9 series. The call screening feature gets a potentially useful update with contextual reply suggestions. As the caller speaks to the assistant, you can tap on a response to answer questions without picking up the call. Image: Google Gboard will offer some suggested phrases based on things you add to Screenshots. The Pixel 9's Screenshots app also gets a few updates. Now, when you use Circle to Search you'll have an option to save that search in the Screenshots app, which feels like a logical place to keep tabs on your previous queries. You can also turn on a new feature to show suggested search phrases in Gboard based on things you save to Screenshots. And if you've added tickets or credit cards to Google Wallet with a screenshot, you'll be able to save those in the Screenshots app, too.There are a handful of other features in the feature drop for previous-gen Pixel phones, including Identity Check, which will require additional authentication if the phone detects it's in a new location and sensitive settings are being accessed. Pixel 6 and newer phones will receive the update starting today; other feature updates are rolling out through the Google Play Services framework.Correction, December 5th: A previous version of this article said that Android 15 was required for these updates; they are not linked to Android 15 and are supported by a range of previous Android versions, depending on the feature.

Image: The Verge Microsoft is starting to test its new Copilot Vision feature today. Originally unveiled in October, Copilot Vision allows Microsoft's AI companion to see what you see on an Edge webpage you're browsing. You can then ask it questions about the text, images, and content you're viewing or use it to assist you.When you choose to enable Copilot Vision, it sees the page you're on, it reads along with you, and you can talk through the problem you're facing together," says the Copilot team in a blog post. Browsing no longer needs to be a lonely experience with just you and all your tabs."It's an entirely optional experience, and you have to explicitly grant permission for Copilot Vision to be able to read webpages in Microsoft's Edge browser. Microsoft originally demonstrated the feature in October by showing how its AI assistant could read images from a collection on OneDrive on the web and even decipher hand-written recipes and offer up cooking tips. You could also use this feature while you're shopping on the web to find product recommendations.Copilot Vision is in limited testing right now, available only to Copilot Pro subscribers through Microsoft's Copilot Labs program. It's clear Microsoft is taking its time on this particular feature as it allows AI models to start reading things you're seeing onscreen in a web browser, which will naturally generate privacy concerns. I'm sure the security concerns around the new Recall feature, which finally entered testing last month, played a big part in Microsoft treading carefully here.As we roll this out, Vision will only interact with a select set of websites to start," says the Copilot team. Over time, we will cautiously expand this list. It's important to stress that Vision does not capture, store or use any data from publishers to train our models. In short, we're prioritizing copyright, creators, and our user's privacy and safety - and are putting them all first."A limited number of Copilot Pro subscribers will be able to get access to Copilot Vision today in the US as Microsoft works to listen to feedback and iterate on Copilot Vision. It plans to expand access to more Pro subscribers and websites over time."

Screenshot: NZXT.com After a long video published over the weekend by Gamers Nexus called NZXT's Flex PC rental program a scam," the company responded Tuesday with a statement titled Addressing Your Concerns About the Flex Subscription Program." I want to acknowledge that we messed up," said NZXT CEO Johnny Hou in a video, promising changes like making the names of PCs available for rent or purchase easier to tell apart.However, what it said has not satisfied Gamers Nexus, which posted its own response, saying NZXT's statement not only misrepresents facts, but distorts the reality of their predatory rental computer program. The statement ignores major points and introduces several new concerns." The post says GN is working on a new investigation into the program that will take weeks or months to finalize."The two main actions NZXT says it's taking are on the PC names, like switching the name of its Player: One" rental PC to Flex: One Subscription PC," and influencer campaigns where the statements did not accurately reflect the details of our NZXT Flex program." NZXT says it has pulled all of its influencer-led" advertising while it updates the language and process.NZXT says it is adjusting the language in its subscriber agreement as well and will make it clear that the company doesn't sell user data on customers' returned PCs. Every Flex PC that comes back is fully wiped," Hou said.Hou also addressed the rental PC specs that Gamers Nexus said fluctuated day-to-day," noting that the Flex program doesn't give you fixed specs" due to the changing availability of components. Sometimes we don't have more supply coming in, so in the midst of that we actually have to change the specs of our PCs."However, this still doesn't explain why NZXT displayed the same estimated frames per second across builds with different components. The Verge has contacted NZXT about the program, but the company has not responded.

Master & Dynamic is bringing back a pair of wired earbuds it first introduced in 2015. | Image: Master & Dynamic Master & Dynamic has announced an updated version of its ME05 wired earphones. First introduced in 2015, the ME05 were eventually discontinued in early 2022 but the company is reintroducing them with familiar design elements including precision-machined brass acoustic enclosures" while updating other components to improve their performance. Like the originals, the new ME05 are $199 and are available now through Master & Dynamic's website, and coming to Amazon this winter."Upgrades made to the new version of the ME05 include custom high-excursion 8mm bio-cellulose drivers" and a better microphone with with proprietary wind reduction" to improve the quality of your voice during calls, even while outside. Image: Master & Dynamic An included USB-C to 3.5mm adapter serves as a digital to audio converter. The new ME05 also offer improved compatibility, says Master & Dynamic, with the inclusion of a 3.5mm to USB-C adapter featuring a built-in digital to analog converter that supports hi-res audio up to 32-bit/384kHz resolutions. For comparison, Tidal's hi-res streaming audio maxes out at 24-bit / 192 kHz. Image: Master & Dynamic The new version of the ME05 come in four different color options. The earphones come with foam ear tips in two sizes and silicone tips in five different sizes, and are available in four color options including gold and black, gunmetal and black, palladium and black, and palladium and white.Although Master & Dynamic has focused on premium wireless headphone offerings in recent years (amongst other headphone makers), wired headphones, including Apple's iconic tethered EarPods, still remain popular. But while Apple still sells wired earphones for $19, Master & Dynamic's revived ME05 are priced more in line with wired offerings from companies like Shure and Sennheiser that are targeted at audiophiles or musicians.

Pac-Man. | Image: Amazon Ever since it was announced, there has been some confusion over just what Secret Level actually is. The video game-themed anthology streaming on Prime Video - helmed by Love, Death & Robots creator Tim Miller - is a collection of animated shorts, each based on a different gaming property. So there's a Mega Man episode that explores the character's origin and a Spelunky episode that attempts to create a metanarrative around the concept of a roguelike.It's an interesting idea let down by a lack of interesting ideas. The 15 shorts are almost universally dull and manage to neither make their source material seem compelling nor provide new insights for existing fans. The real confusion is who this is actually for.The main problem is how homogenous Secret Level is. Working directly with game publishers, the show pulls from an oddball but also impressively global list, with titles like Chinese megahit Honor of Kings and Korean shooter Crossfire. But despite featuring a large variety of video games, its episodes all feel very samey. It's kind of the opposite of Love, Death & Robots, which featured a number of different styles and tones as it explored horror and sci-fi. That's how we... Read the full story at The Verge.

Image: The Verge AI investment is massive even though AI profits are not. How are investors justifying this pricey gamble on the future? Read the full story at The Verge.

The Meross Matter Smart Thermostat is the company's first thermostat compatible with North American heating and cooling systems. | Image: Meross Smart home company Meross announced its first Matter-certified smart thermostat and its first to work with North American whole-home heating and cooling systems. The Meross Matter Smart Thermostat costs $99.99, works over Wi-Fi, and features a white glass panel with a touch screen, smart scheduling, and can track system usage through the Meross app.The thermostat requires a C-Wire, and Meross says it's compatible with 95 percent of heating and cooling systems. It also appears it will work with Meross' smart temperature and humidity sensors, which are Matter-compatible. They cost $30 each, although you'll need a Meross hub to use them.Matter compatibility means the thermostat can integrate with platforms such as Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings locally over your Wi-Fi network without requiring a cloud connection. You should also be able to set up and use the thermostat directly on those platforms without requiring the Meross app. Image: Meross The new smart thermostat from Meross can track the heating and cooling usage of your HVAC system. Surprisingly, despite the popularity of smart thermostats - which take a lot of the pain out of programming your heating and cooling system and can use their smarts to help save you energy - there are only two Matter-compatible smart thermostats for US HVAC systems. Those are the Nest Thermostat ($129.99) and the new Nest Learning Thermostat (4th Gen) ($279.99) - both from Google. Other popular brands in the space, such as Ecobee, Amazon, and Honeywell Home, have not added Matter support to their thermostats.This means that if you're interested in using a Matter device to control your HVAC, Meross' new thermostat is now your least expensive option. While it doesn't come with the Nest Thermostat's smarts that will automatically adjust your schedule, it is the only thermostat with Matter-compatible room sensors. The Nest Learning Thermostat has room sensors, but they're not compatible with Matter.One reason for the lack of support for more thermostats in Matter could be the limited controls Matter allows for. Currently, you can only adjust the temperature and change the mode on compatible platforms. However, the most recent spec release for Matter (1.4) added support for scheduling and preset modes such as home / away and vacation settings. This addition means that once a platform supports 1.4, it will be easier to set up and use a Matter smart thermostat directly in your smart home platform of choice and not need to use the manufacturer's app.The Meross Matter Smart Thermostat costs $99.99 and is available now, with a launch price of $69.99 from the Meross store.

Ikea has updated its smart home app to bring dynamic lighting to its smart lights. | Image: Ikea Ikea updated its Home smart mobile app this week with a new dynamic lighting feature that will automatically adjust the color temperature and brightness of its smart lights throughout the day. It's similar to the natural light scene that Philips Hue introduced in late 2022, and is designed to provide warmer illumination in the mornings and evenings, with cooler hues in the day time.The new feature is mentioned in the version history notes of a recent update to the iOS version of the Ikea Home smart app, and is described as a way to keep your home in balance" that's great for mind, body, and soul." The Android version of Ikea's app was updated on the same day, according to Notebookcheck, but there's no mention of the new adaptive lighting feature there, only bug fixes and minor improvements.Given the feature is specifically tied to Ikea's Home smart app, it's only compatible with lighting products that connect to Ikea's Matter-ready Dirigera smart home hub that launched in the latter half of 2022. That includes products like its Sonos-compatible Symfonisk speaker lamp. However, it's not known if the feature will work with third-party smart lights through Matter, and The Verge has reached out to Ikea to confirm if it's compatible with the Adaptive Lighting feature in Apple's Home app.

A perfect example of the good and bad of Twos AI: paper towel prices are helpful, eBay listings, less helpful. | Image: Twos A lot of AI tools promise something like magic. Just write down all the stuff you need to do, or better yet, just let the tool record every second of your life, and presto manifesto, it'll do... something. Buy plane tickets, maybe, or magically reorder your calendar to maximize your flow state. The idea is huge and enticing, that you could just live your life and your AI assistant will make everything happen on your behalf. But hardly any of it works.The developers of the app Twos are taking a much more cautious and, as a result, much more actually useful approach. Twos is an app for taking notes, managing to-dos, and generally making lists of any and every kind - Parker Klein, the app's creator, just calls it a place to write things down." Klein has been working on the app for nearly a decade, first as a tool just for himself and most recently as a true startup. I've been using Twos off and on for a couple of years, and there's a lot to like about the app.The Twos AI approach, which Klein and cofounder Joe Steilberg call smart suggestions," is to use AI to help you simply take the first step in getting something done. If you write down the name of a movie, Twos might offer you a link to a JustWatch search or the IMDb page for that movie. If you write a person's name and phone number, it can add them to your contacts with one tap. If you're making a grocery list, it'll send you to Amazon or Walmart or Instacart to buy it.The logic behind all these suggestions is really simple: Twos looks for certain words and phrases to determine what you're trying to do and which integration makes the most sense. (You can pick and choose, too - I never use Uber Eats, for instance, so I turned that off entirely.) All the smart suggestions really do is take the first step. They're definitely not perfect - when I type bake blueberry muffins," it offers me an Allrecipes link, which is helpful and relevant, and a Google Maps search for blueberry muffins around me," which is not. But even in the feature's early days, I've found it way more useful than almost every other, vastly more ambitious productivity tool. Image: Twos Like any to-do list app worth its valuation, Twos now has an AI chatbot. Twos also has a built-in chatbot, which you can use to ask questions about your notes. If you use your note-taking app like a journal, this can be really cool - what was the name of that Thai food place we went to a few weeks ago?" is a surprisingly common question in my life. Lots of apps have something like this, and they all suffer from the same problem: if you don't put everything in the app, the search isn't that useful. But whether it's Notion or Dropbox or Twos, the AI integrations reward the heaviest users.AI turns Twos into not just my to-do list but the jumping-off point for all my tasks. Since the app works across platforms - it's fundamentally a web app, but there are versions for Android and iOS, Windows and Mac, and more - it's easy to just dump information into. Then, when it's time to leave for the restaurant I wrote down and promptly forgot the name of, I open Twos, tap the sparkles that appear next to any item with a smart suggestion, and it opens Google Maps and directs me there. You can store and organize things inside of Twos, but I find myself using it transiently, just for the small things in day-to-day life. I need to make bread: click the sparkles, bread recipes appear. Remember to buy those Sesame Street bath toys for the kid: click the sparkles, Amazon search done. Ollie's birthday is December 7th: click the sparkles, in my contacts.For now, the Twos smart suggestions are only available in beta testing, and there's a waitlist for new users. (Though Klein did tell me that if you sign up and use the code Verge," you'll be able to skip the line.) Klein and Steilberg are working on more integrations and more ways to do even more with just a few words of your writing. They're obviously enticed by how far this might go. Why not automatically buy the toys or start the grocery delivery and take a cut for themselves? It's an age-old idea, that one. Any.do tried it years ago; there was even a frenzy of apps like Magic that would do it all via text message. Even the Alexa business model used to depend on you being willing to just shout buy toilet paper" at your speaker and trust it to do the rest.There's just one problem with the idea: it doesn't work. There are too many logistical questions, too many ways to screw it up, and too many consequences for getting it wrong that it's not going to work anytime soon. If ever.In the meantime, the best AI tools work the way Twos does: by just helping you get started. Some apps help you search for information even when you don't know exactly how to ask for it; others write the first draft of code or an email to get you started. AI as a complete solution to just about anything still feels like fiction. AI as a first step? Pretty useful.

Image: Rivian Rivian's latest EV charging station is the first to be open to other companies' vehicles.The new station located in California's Joshua Tree National Park will be the companies' first that's available to non-Rivian electric vehicles. The station features a new design, including larger displays with a tap-to-pay option, that can accommodate any car brands' EVs.Currently, the Rivian Adventure Network, which comprises 560 chargers at 92 sites across the country, are exclusive to owners of the company's R1T and R1S vehicles. This was a similar approach to Tesla, which initially built its own Supercharger network so it could offer exclusive charging to its own customers.But with billions of dollars in federal funding at stake, automakers are now reassessing this exclusivity. One of the requirements for receiving federal funding for EV charging installation is that chargers need to be available to all EVs, not just a single brand.Rivian Adventure Network comprises 560 chargers at 92 sites across the countryTesla began opening its network to non-Tesla EVs in 2023. Soon after, it open-sourced its charging plug, renaming it the North American Charging Standard (NACS), and began making a series of deals with the rest of the auto industry (including Rivian) to use it for their EVs.Rivian's EV chargers use the standard CCS connector for DC fast charging. But the stations are still exclusive to Rivian vehicles thanks to proprietary software. With today's announcement, the company is beginning the process of unwinding that exclusivity.Rivian has also said that it would adopt Tesla's NACS charging standard. Current Rivian customers can buy an adapter if they want to use the Supercharger network. In 2026, Rivian said it will begin producing vehicles with a native NACS port.Rivian spokesperson Evan Barbour said that the company's future EV charging sites will also be open to non-Rivian EVs. Rivian plans to open additional charging sites in Texas, Colorado, Illinois, Montana, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New York before the end of 2024.Meanwhile, current stations will be retrofitted with software updates to accommodate other brands, as well as hardware updates to add NACS charging plugs. In the meantime, the Joshua Tree location and others will be available to Tesla owners with NACS-to-CCS adapters.EV ownership is currently a tangle of competing standards, subpar software experiences, and dueling payment apps. And while some customers admit that the EV charging experience is slowly improving, this next phase of adapters and formerly proprietary chargers going universal has really only just begun.

Uber is getting into the holiday spirit with a new update that will enable customers to order on-demand Christmas trees, and even a troupe of carolers, to their front door. The company is also rebranding its same-day delivery service as Uber Courier and expanding its feature that allows parents of small children to book a vehicle with a car seat.Uber has offered limited Christmas tree delivery, off and on, since 2015 - usually through partnerships with local vendors. This year, the company is expanding the service nationwide. Customers can order a fresh-cut Christmas tree - or a selection of other holiday-themed decorations, including wreaths - through the Uber Eats app.Not available nationwide is the company's offer to send a group of singers to your home to serenade you with Christmas carols. That service will only be available to Uber customers in New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, and Washington, DC, starting on December 7th. The carolers will also bring you a boozy treat, courtesy of a partnership with alcohol provider Diageo. Holiday gimmicks aside, Uber is rebranding its same-day delivery service, Uber Connect, as Uber Courier. Deliveries can be scheduled ahead of time, and Uber offers live trip tracking as well as a PIN verification system to confirm receipt of the package.And lastly, Uber is expanding its car seat offering to more cities, including Orlando, DC, Atlanta, Miami, and San Francisco. The service, which provides Nuna car seats to drivers, has been live in New York City and Los Angeles since 2023.

Image: Getty Vodafone and Three have been cleared to create the UK's biggest mobile operator after committing to address concerns around network upgrades and price hikes. The proposed 16.5 billion merger (about $20.9 billion) was approved by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on Thursday following months of regulatory scrutiny, and is expected to be completed in the first half of 2025.Having carefully considered the evidence, as well as the extensive feedback we have received, we believe the merger is likely to boost competition in the UK mobile sector and should be allowed to proceed - but only if Vodafone and Three agree to implement our proposed measures," Stuart McIntosh, chair of the inquiry group leading the antitrust investigation, said in a statement.The approval was subject to both companies signing binding commitments to invest billions into expanding their combined 5G network over the next eight years. The agreement also requires the new entity to cap some mobile tariffs and offer preset contractual terms to mobile virtual network operators for three years, addressing previous CMA concerns that the merger could harm competition and lead to higher prices for customers.Today's approval releases the handbrake on the UK's telecoms industry, and the increased investment will power the UK to the forefront of European telecommunications," Vodafone CEO Margherita Della Valle said in a statement.The plan to combine two of the country's top four mobile operators was first announced in 2023, and will create a network with 27 million customers once complete. Vodafone will own 51 percent of the merged entity, and is expected to buy out the remaining 49 percent after three years. The deal follows similar large-scale mergers between companies like Orange and T-Mobile in 2010, and Virgin Mobile and O2 in 2021.

CNN is reporting that according to an unnamed source in law enforcement, the person who shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside the Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan fled on an e-bike, but not a Citi Bike, as NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenney previously said during a press conference.Thompson had been scheduled to appear at the company's investor meeting, which was canceled a few hours later. Kenney said it looked like the killer specifically targeted" Thompson and that at this point, we do not know why." The CEO's wife, Paulette Thompson, told NBC News that there had been some threats."In an email to The Verge, Lyft spokesperson Eric Smith had said previously that the company was ready to assist law enforcement." Had the shooter used one of the bikes owned by Lyft, it might have left a digital trail and GPS data while the shooter was renting or using the vehicle.