The Verge

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft is finally rolling out spellcheck and autocorrect for its Notepad app in Windows 11, more than 40 years after the simple text editor was first introduced in Windows in 1983. The software giant started testing both features in March, and has now quietly started enabling them for all Windows 11 users in recent days.The spellcheck feature in Notepad is almost identical to how Word or Edge highlight misspelled words, with a red underline to clearly show mistakes. I say almost identical because when you right-click on a misspelled word in Notepad the spelling submenu isn't automatically expanded like Microsoft does in Word, so you have to click again to see a list of correct spellings.It's strange that Microsoft hasn't fully... Continue reading...

Skydance founder David Ellison is set to become Paramount's new chairman and chief executive. | Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Paramount Global has agreed to merge with Skydance Media in a deal that will see the joint enterprise, temporarily dubbed New Paramount," valued at approximately $28 billion.As part of the two-step agreement announced on Sunday, Paramount Chair Shari Redstone (the daughter of Sumner Redstone) will sell National Amusements - which holds her family's controlling stake in Paramount - for $2.4 billion. Skydance will then merge with Paramount, investing $8 billion to purchase Paramount's shares and pay off some of the company's balance sheet. Bloomberg reports that Paramount has $14.6 billion of debt as of March, partially attributed to streaming losses and a decline in the company's broadcast and cable TV business.Given the changes in... Continue reading...

You can now control the ROG lighting in Windows. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Asus is planning to support Microsoft's new Dynamic Lighting feature that allows Windows 11 users to control a motherboard's RGB lighting without needing a separate app. Asus has started testing new beta BIOS updates for both of its AMD 600 and Intel 700 series motherboards that include the Dynamic Lighting support.Microsoft added Dynamic Lighting to Windows 11 in September, providing native RGB lighting controls inside Windows for the very first time. The feature lets users control RGB lights using the open HID LampArray standard, and manufacturers like Acer, Asus, HP, HyperX, Logitech, Razer, and Twinkly have all partnered with Microsoft to support this.The Dynamic Lighting support on Asus' latest motherboards requires a BIOS update... Continue reading...

Boeing's plea deal must receive the approval of a federal judge to take effect. | Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge related to a pair of crashes of its 737 Max planes, as part of a plea deal with the US Department of Justice. Lawyers for the victims' families plan to object to the deal, which was forged on Sunday just before a midnight deadline and must still be approved by a federal judge.The two crashes, which happened in 2018 and 2019, killed more than 300 people. The planes malfunctioned because of software that was intended to correct for a design flaw - and that software, called MCAS, relied on just a single external sensor for its data. However, when Boeing launched the 737 Max, it didn't tell the Federal Aviation Administration, airlines, or pilots about MCAS in order to skirt... Continue reading...

Honestly, this is Nothing's best idea yet. I've never had so much fun taking a phone apart.That's a misleading statement; I haven't really taken any phones apart lately, but when CMF's Phone 1 arrived, that's the first thing I did. Because this one, my friends, is built different. It won't be widely available in the US, but if you're game, you can get one through Nothing's beta program - and for $199, that's seriously tempting.CMF, Nothing's budget-conscious but still extremely style-driven subbrand, is shipping its first phone, the aptly named Phone 1. While it shares a name and an operating system with Nothing's first own-brand phone, it comes to the table with a new modular approach to phone customizations. Why put a different case on your phone when you can put a whole new... Continue reading...

Is now the right time to say ka-chow," or should I wait? | Image: NASCAR NASCAR showed off a new EV prototype stock car at the Chicago Street Race today as part of a presentation on its sustainability initiatives, which it has a new partner for in Swedish electrification firm ABB. The car, which looks more like a performance crossover like the Ford Mustang Mach-E, is in many ways a total departure from the traditional stock car. Don't expect the ABB NASCAR EV Prototype to replace the fuel-burning V8 anytime soon, though.NASCAR says the car has three electric motors - one in the front and two in the back - powered by a 78-kWh liquid-cooled battery that can generate 1,000kW at peak power," according to today's announcement. Image: NASCAR NASCAR writes that the EV sits on a modified... Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge The Epic Games Store app for EU iPhones has passed Apple's notarization process, putting the alternative app store a step closer to selling apps directly to iOS users outside of the App Store. AppleInsider reports that while Apple confirmed the app had passed, it has asked Epic to fix the buttons" in a future submission to the company's app review process.But the approval is just temporary," posted Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, who puts Apple's request differently. He says the company is demanding we change the buttons in the next version," vowing that the company will fight this." The apparently conditional approval is just the latest part of the back-and-forth saga between Apple and Epic. Previously, Apple reinstated Epic Games Sweden's... Continue reading...

Photo: Andrej Sokolow / Picture Alliance via Getty Images On June 19th, a Phoenix police officer pulled over an autonomous Waymo vehicle that had been driving in an oncoming traffic lane. The car was apparently confused by some construction signs and reportedly ran a red light before pulling over in a parking lot to let the officer talk to one of Waymo's support representatives.In about two-and-a-half minutes of bodycam footage published by AZCentral, the officer told Waymo the car was driving in a construction zone when it went into opposing lanes of traffic, which is real bad." He then told a curious bystander what had happened, adding, so I light it up and it takes off in the intersection." A dispatch record reportedly said the car drove through a red light and FREAKED OUT' before it... Continue reading...

GE Profile's newest nugget ice maker is an expensive upgrade to your summer drinks, but, for some, it may be worth it. Some smart home gadgets could be considered essential. A smart thermostat can save you money, and a smart door lock can prevent you from getting locked out. But, unlike those gadgets, it's hard to argue you need the smart GE Profile Opal Ultra 2.0 Nugget Ice Maker ($579, or $629 with the side tank). However, you may want this gadget - because it makes The Good Ice.Nugget ice is a hill many will die on - my family includedYes, $630 is a lot of money for any countertop gadget, let alone one that just freezes water. Spending this much on a connected gadget whose smarts are largely limited to scheduling and asking Alexa to make more ice feels like an even bigger stretch. But nugget ice is a hill many will die on - my family included. It... Continue reading...

E-bikes open up cycling sports to more people, and not just the cheaters. Continue reading...

I can hear the eerie, garbled radio chatter of the Combine soldiers just by looking at this. | Image: Valve The Steam Summer Sale is raging on, offering significant discounts on the Steam Deck and hundreds of PC games. While we rounded up a bunch of our top Summer Sale picks last week, one title that should definitely not fly under your radar is Valve's own Half-Life: Alyx - which is selling for its all-time low price of $20.39 (nearly $40 off) until the sale ends on July 11th at 10AM PT / 1PM ET.Now, Alyx is quite a unique game and experience. For starters, when it came out in 2020, it was the first time Valve returned to the world of Half-Life (the 26-year-old series that put it on the map) since 2007. It's a prequel to Half-Life 2, starring supporting-character-turned-protagonist Alyx Vance. And, notably, you take control of her through... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge YouTube has launched an improved eraser tool that lets creators remove copyrighted music from their videos while keeping other audio intact. The revamped tool, which was released this week, was first reported by TechCrunch.The Erase Song feature lets creators silence copyrighted music in their content, the company announced in a video. The tool had previously been in place as a beta feature, but it wasn't always accurate.The updated Erase Song feature uses an AI-powered algorithm" to help it more precisely identify and remove copyrighted songs without affecting other audio in a particular clip. That's the goal, at least.But even the new and improved version might not always produce perfect results. So in cases where the tool fails... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge From the Boox Palma to the Light Phone 2, it seems that everyone is looking for distraction-free reading, if only they had the right device. I don't blame them: every time I pull out my phone to mindlessly scroll, I know my time could be put to better use. But as the owner of many fine gadgets, I also don't really want another device in my life, so I was pretty excited to stumble upon a partial solution with a gadget I already have: the Playdate.Yes, I'm talking about that little yellow Game Boy from Panic and Teenage Engineering, the one with a crank jutting out of its side. Since the launch of its on-device store, Catalog, the handheld has become home to quite a range of experiences. I've been playing tiny city builders and dungeon... Continue reading...

If all the benchmarks we did had a physical form, it'd look something like this. We tested every Snapdragon X chip against the Intel Core Ultra, AMD Ryzen 8000, and Apple M3. Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Threads, Meta's X competitor, is officially one year old. While the site was rushed into existence with a bare-bones set of features, Meta has steadily improved upon the app to make it a decent place for people looking to post on a platform that isn't X.The site arrived at the right moment. By last summer, Elon Musk's takeover of X - which back then was still called Twitter - hadn't only seen him wantonly firing vast swaths of the company and shutting off servers but also making changes with real consequences for the site's user experience. That site had been very unstable and major advertisers fled, leaving in their wake cheap, garbage product and crypto ads. Chaotic changes to verification led first to high-profile impersonations and... Continue reading...

Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge An outage was preventing Amazon Kindle users from downloading both new and previously purchased books to their e-readers, as noted on Amazon's support forums and Reddit, but the company says things should be resolved. Yesterday, some Kindle customers experienced an issue that impacted their ability to download e-books. The issue was quickly resolved," writes Amazon devices spokesperson Jackie Burke in an email sent to The Verge.Good e-Reader reported the problem on Wednesday, noting a response from Amazon support at the time that said it was the result of server issues" and that it would be at least 48 hours before ebooks started downloading again, but it could be longer."In a post today on Amazon's support forums, a staff member... Continue reading...

Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge In March, Microsoft notified the US Department of Veterans Affairs that it was impacted by the security breach that enabled the Russian hacking group known as Midnight Blizzard" to steal some of the company's source code, reports Bloomberg. Already assigned blame for the earlier SolarWinds attack, the group has been accused of spying on email accounts of Microsoft's senior leadership team and attempting to use the secrets obtained there to create additional security breaches.The VA department found that Midnight Blizzard used a single set of stolen credentials to access a Microsoft Cloud test environment around January. VA officials told Bloomberg that the account was accessed for just one second, presumably to see if the credentials... Continue reading...

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge Roku has made my TV unusable.On June 6th, my TCL TV's Roku OS was updated to version 13.0.0. Ever since, on everything I watch, there is motion smoothing - a TV and film purists' deepest nightmare. There is no way to turn it off.In the updated OS, Roku added a feature called Roku Smart Picture, which, according to its release notes, automatically improves picture quality dynamically as users stream." While Roku doesn't explicitly mention motion smoothing, or what Roku calls action smoothing," the update has made it so that I and many others with Roku TVs see motion smoothing, regardless of whether the picture setting is Roku Smart Picture or not. My TV didn't even support motion smoothing before this. Now, I can't make it go away.If... Continue reading...

Sunny. | Image: Apple Just like last year, the hot summer months of 2024 are turning out to be an excellent time for science fiction fans. There are a number of sci-fi series that either just wrapped up, are in the middle of a season, or are set to premiere soon. Perfect for ignoring the heat of the outdoors for the substantially cooler worlds of space and the future. And this is a lineup that could potentially grow even more, as Apple has been teasing the return of both Severance and Silo sometime soon. In the meantime, plan your next few months of streaming time accordingly with this list.Scavengers ReignStreaming on Max and NetflixThis animated series actually premiered on Max last year but made its way to Netflix on May 31st. It's unlike anything else... Continue reading...

The upcoming feature will allow WhatsApp users to imagine' themselves in different settings. | Illustration: The Verge Whatsapp appears to be working on a new generative AI feature that should allow users to make personalized avatars of themselves for use in any imagined setting. The in-development feature, spotted in the new WhatsApp Beta for Android 2.24.14.7 by WABetaInfo, will seemingly use a combination of user-supplied images, text prompts, and Meta's AI Llama model to generate the images.A screenshot shared by WABetaInfo says that users can imagine themselves in any setting from the forest to outer space." The examples look fairly typical for those produced by AI generators, particularly if you've used apps like Lensa AI or Snapchat's Dreams" selfie feature. Image: Meta / WABetaInfo Screenshot shared by WABetaInfo. T... Continue reading...

You won't have to worry about how your hair looks when using the Game Boy Camera as a webcam. It will always look bad. | Screenshot: Epilogue The 26-year-old Game Boy Camera is still embraced by some photographers seeking a lo-fi aesthetic, and soon, it could serve double duty as a webcam for anyone who wants to show up to a video call looking like a low-res pixelated mess.This is made possible using the GB Operator: a USB dock that allows Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance cartridges to be played on a computer (or the Steam Deck) through an app called Playback and the open-source mGBA emulator. The dock can also back up save game data or easily extract photos captured by the Game Boy Camera.Epilogue, the company behind it, shared a short video of the new feature on X and told Time Extension, We now have a live feed from the Game Boy Camera, but still need to... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Twilio says someone has obtained phone numbers associated with its two-factor authentication service (2FA), Authy, as reported earlier by TechCrunch. In a security alert on Monday, Twilio warns that the threat actors" may try to use the stolen phone numbers to carry out phishing attacks and other scams.The incident follows a 2022 data breach that occurred after a phishing campaign tricked employees into disclosing their login credentials. The attackers accessed data from 163 Twilio accounts and managed to access and register additional devices on 93 Authy accounts.Twilio traced this leak back to an unauthenticated endpoint" that it has since secured. Last week, the threat actor ShinyHunters published a list of 33 million phone... Continue reading...

The update brings mixed reality spatial computing to the mainstream on the Meta Quest 3. | Image: Meta Mark Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday that version 67 of Horizon OS is rolling out with an experimental feature allowing Quest owners to multitask with up to six virtual windows. Once enabled (by going to Settings, then Experimental, and toggling it on), you'll be able to dock three windows in what Meta is calling a hinged" layout while freely placing and resizing up to three more wherever you want.The feature is available on the Quest Pro, Quest 2, and Quest 3, but it's especially nice on the Quest 3 when you're using it in mixed reality mode. The augmented reality support is similar to the Apple Vision Pro's experience. With the additional windows, Quest owners now have more options and, according to reports, the ability to move... Continue reading...

A warranty void if seal broken" sticker covering a screw hole. | Image: Eirik Solheim (CC BY-SA 2.0) Ever seen one of those warranty void if removed" stickers covering the screw holes on a gadget? Today, the FTC is reminding ASRock, Gigabyte, and Zotac that they're illegal.In fact, the FTC sent letters to ASRock, Gigabyte, and Zotac that suggest the FTC's concerns aren't just skin sticker-deep. Each letter tells the manufacturer to change its warranty and review its customer support practices to make sure they aren't illegally threatening your warranty.Staff would be concerned if GIGABYTE, in practice, denied warranty coverage based on the warranty provisions quoted above or any similar provision," reads part of one of the letters.As of today, each of these companies' warranties does include such a threat. The very first line in A... Continue reading...

Users will be able to swap the CMF Phone 1's rear case and attach accessories like a folding kickstand. | Image: Nothing Nothing plans to reveal the first smartphone from its affordable CMF subbrand on July 8th, but as part of a continuing series of teasers, it's revealed the CMF Phone 1's unique customizability, including a dial that can be used to attach accessories and a rear panel that can be easily swapped.The light-up glyphs on the Nothing Phone 1 and Phone 2 won't make it to this model, but a short video of a rotating dial on the back looks similar to the aluminum alloy dial on the CMF Buds that allows a lanyard to be attached to the earbuds' charging case.

Image: The Verge Until Friday, OpenAI's recently launched ChatGPT macOS app had a potentially worrying security issue: it wasn't hard to find your chats stored on your computer and read them in plain text. That meant that if a bad actor or malicious app had access to your machine, they could easily read your conversations with ChatGPT and the data contained within them.As demonstrated by Pedro Jose Pereira Vieito on Threads, the ease of access meant it was possible to have another app access those files and show you the text of your conversations right after they happened. Pereira Vieito shared the app he made with me, and I used it to make a video showing how the app can read my ChatGPT conversations with the click of a button. I was also able to find... Continue reading...

The Astro for Business robot is no more. | Image: Amazon For a moment there, it seemed like Amazon might pivot its Astro home robot to enterprise after giving it a better job as a camera-equipped patrol dog. But today, it's discontinuing the Astro for Business robot for good. On September 25th, every one of the 20-pound wheeled robots will stop working, and Amazon will automatically issue full refunds for the $2,349.99 bot, plus a $300 credit.Amazon isn't commenting on how many business bots it actually sold since the November 2023 launch, but the company's VP of hardware engineering, Lindo St. Angel, says he's increasingly convinced the progress we're making in home robotics is where we should focus our resources." We're sharing his full internal memo below.Amazon also provided this... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google is making it easier for advertisers to disclose whether political ads contain AI-generated content. In an update spotted by Search Engine Land, Google says it will automatically generate disclosures whenever advertisers label election ads as containing synthetic or digitally altered content."Last year, Google started requiring political advertisers to insert their own clear and conspicuous" disclosures on ads containing AI content. But now, Google is simplifying the process, as it will automatically include an in-ad disclosure whenever advertisers select an altered or synthetic content" checkbox in their campaign settings.The disclosure will appear in feeds and YouTube Shorts on mobile devices as well as in-stream ads shown... Continue reading...

The latest Beam isn't tiny, but it's far from the biggest soundbar around. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge While the world of deals is about to heat up with Fourth of July sales and Amazon's upcoming Prime Day event, there are some great discounts you can take advantage of right now. For starters, Sonos is selling refurbished models of its second-gen Beam in black or white for $299, which is $100 off its usual refurb price and $200 cheaper than buying the soundbar in new condition.That's as cheap as you're going to find the latest version of Sonos' midrange soundbar, which is a lot like its first-gen version but with small improvements like Dolby Atmos and low-latency eARC support. The Beam is a good all-around performer if you want a simple soundbar that sounds great for its size, doesn't clutter up your space with extra speakers or... Continue reading...

Image: Marvel Studios The premise of Disney Plus' What If...? made it seem like the animated Marvel series might run indefinitely as the studio keeps putting out live-action projects, but it looks like this chapter of the big multiverse story is just about over.Though What If...? season 3 doesn't have a premiere date, Entertainment Weekly reports that it will be the final installment in the series that gave us Jeffrey Wright's Uatu the Watcher and Hayley Atwell as Captain Peggy Carter. Speaking on this week's episode of Marvel's new official podcast, What If...? executive producer Brad Winderbaum described the upcoming season as the completion of a trilogy" and teased that it will go beyond the first two seasons in its exploration of the multiverse."Notably,... Continue reading...

You can find the Xiaomi Moaan InkPalm Plus for around $125 online. | Image: Xiaomi It seems like everyone is enamored with the Boox Palma, including our own David Pierce, but at $280, it's expensive for an e-reader. For another option that mirrors larger e-readers but in a tiny and cheaper package, John Moltz has taken a look at the $125 Xiaomi Moaan InkPalm Plus over on Six Colors.There are some notable compromises, like a reflective screen that will potentially have users struggling to dodge glare, ordering off of AliExpress, and a dated Android 11 OS that isn't fully translated from Chinese to English.The display is also a few years behind the 300ppi e-paper panels you now get on Kindles, Kobos, and even the Boox Palma, featuring a 5.84-inch E Ink screen with just 276ppi of resolution. The InkPalm Plus also has... Continue reading...

Mineral's autonomous plant buggies" could find a new home via licenses with former industry partnerships. | Image: Alphabet Alphabet is reportedly walking away from its Mineral robotic agriculture startup due to fierce industry competition and slim profit margins. According to Bloomberg, the Google parent company will license some of its farming technology to Driscoll's, a berry producer that's spent the last few years working with autonomous plant buggies" Mineral created to study crops, soil, and other environmental factors.Bloomberg says it's obtained a memo in which Mineral announced plans to transfer its technology out to the agriculture ecosystem to maximize the impact of bringing our AI to agriculture" and confirms that Mineral will no longer be an Alphabet company." Licensing discussions are reportedly taking place with companies that previously... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge A year and a half ago, Threads was but a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg's eye.Now, the rival to Elon Musk's X has reached more than 175 million monthly active users, the Meta CEO announced on Wednesday.His announcement comes as Threads is about to hit its one-year anniversary. Back when it arrived in the App Store on July 5th, 2023, Musk was taking a wrecking ball to the service formerly called Twitter and goading Zuckerberg into a literal cage match that never happened. A year later, Threads is still growing at a steady clip - albeit not as quickly as its huge launch - while Musk hasn't shared comparable metrics for X since he took over.As with any social network, and especially for Threads, monthly users only tell part of the growth... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Perplexity has launched a major upgrade to its Pro Search AI tool, which it says understands when a question requires planning, works through goals step-by-step, and synthesizes in-depth answers with greater efficiency."Examples on Perplexity's website of what Pro Search can do include a query asking the best time to see the northern lights in Iceland or Finland. It breaks down its research process into three searches: the best times to see the northern lights in Iceland and Finland; the top viewing locations in Iceland; and the top viewing locations in Finland. It then provides a detailed answer addressing all aspects of the question, including when to view the northern lights in either country and where. GIF:... Continue reading...

Screenshot: Steam Play is important - in fact, it can be as important to a grown-up as it is to a child. If you've spent the day concentrating on work, doing your taxes, cleaning your home, or caring for others, it's not a bad idea to also take a little time for yourself to escape from your adult responsibilities.These days, play can take a lot of different forms - whether it's assembling the latest monster Lego project, getting together for a marathon board game, or staying up later than you should with your favorite virtual city builder. On a screen or on a tabletop, virtual or touchable, played alone or with friends - games are a way we can keep ourselves centered.We asked the staff of The Verge what games they play in order to give their busy... Continue reading...