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Image: The Verge Now that X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, has managed to repeatedly send out its ad revenue sharing payments on time without any last-minute delays, engineer Eric Farraro is answering questions from users who still aren't getting the payments they expect. Reasons include: 1) X users only earn ad revenue from other paying X users, 2) advertisers aren't paying much to reach the demographic that the creator attracts, 3) the posts didn't get a lot of replies, or 4) their content is not suitable for ads.That first reason is one that X hasn't exactly hidden. Here's how Farraro puts it in his new explanation:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge European Commissioner Thierry Breton sent a letter to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai reminding him of the company's obligations under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) as a large online platform to keep illegal content and disinformation from being shared on YouTube surrounding Israel's war with Hamas.Following the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel, we are seeing a surge of illegal content and disinformation being disseminated in the EU via certain platforms," Breton wrote. He added that YouTube has an obligation to protect children and teens in the EU from violent content on the platform, must promptly take action in response to notices from the EU, and have proportionate and effective mitigation measures in place"... Continue reading...

Photo by Smith Collection / Gado / Getty Images Comcast is about to roll out gigabit-plus internet speeds for both upload and download without needing fiber upgrades that run all the way to the house. The company will offer a new X-Class" service upgrade that supports up to 2 Gbps downloads and uploads starting in Colorado Springs, Colorado, next week. The city was one of the first places that Comcast launched its 2 Gbps internet service last year, although at that time, it still only supported 200Mbps uploads.Comcast started testing symmetrical multi-gigabit DOCSIS 4.0 technology in 2022 using multiple cable modems and a 10-gig node (which is used for the Xfinity 10G brand name to highlight what's theoretically possible, even if it's not happening any time soon).Comcast says... Continue reading...

Image: Nvidia Enjoying Starfield on GeForce Now, where the cloud gaming service is one of the best ways to play? Starting November 1st, it'll cost you $6 more in Canada, 2 more in the UK, or an additional 2 in Europe per month for the must-have Ultimate plan. Six-month plans are going up by $20 CAD, 10, and 10, respectively.Nvidia spokesperson Jordan Dodge tells me the United States is currently exempt from the price changes. No price change happening in the US," he says.The company says the hikes account for increased operational costs" in the specific countries where they're rolling out, according to a customer help page, and that GeForce Now founders can still pay grandfathered pricing as originally promised. GeForce Now... Continue reading...

Image: Nintendo We take a break from the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard news cycle to bring you this important announcement: 11 years after its arrival, six years after Nintendo ceased its production, and just a few months after it also shut down its online store, someone just bought a brand-new Wii U.The news comes to us via Mat Piscatella, video game industry analyst at Circana (formerly NPD), a company that regularly publishes video game retail data.

Photo by Rolf Vennenbernd / picture alliance via Getty Images Microsoft's giant Activision Blizzard deal is complete, and it means Ubisoft has now obtained cloud streaming rights for Call of Duty, all other current Activision Blizzard games, and any coming over the next 15 years. It was a key concession from Microsoft that helped get the deal over the line with UK regulators. But what does it all mean?Ubisoft will now control where Call of Duty and other Activision Blizzard games show up on cloud gaming services, with the exception of EU countries and the various cloud gaming deals Microsoft signed previously. If you live in a country that's part of the European Economic Area (EEA) - which includes EU countries and also Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway - then you'll get a free license to stream... Continue reading...

Shoutout to Best Buy store No. 265, the movies were always well organized. (I would know.) | Photo by Umar Shakir It's hard to imagine walking into a Best Buy with no library of movies and music that once dominated the center of most stores. If you walked into Best Buy in the late '90s to early 2010s, you were always greeted by a curated selection of the latest releases of movies and CD albums right at the entrance. The sections shrunk down over the years into just a few aisles, and now The Digital Bits reports the company is about to remove physical media altogether, and Best Buy later confirmed the report to Variety.No more physical media means Best Buy will stop carrying DVDs and Blu-rays, bringing an end to maybe the last enjoyable place you could go to browse around, and a place I would always have nostalgia for after working there in my... Continue reading...

The Victrola Stream Onyx turntable wirelessly transmits audio to Sonos speakers. | Image by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Yes, it's sad that Amazon's fall Prime Day event is over, but the future - and even the present - still looks bright for deal hunters. Black Friday is just over a month away, after all, and some of the best Prime Day deals are still hanging around. Right now, for example, you can pick up the Victrola Stream Onyx turntable from Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from Victrola for a record low of $399.99 ($200 off).Save for a few differences when it comes to materials and color, the Stream Onyx is similar to the $800 Stream Carbon we tested last year. Like the Carbon, the belt-driven turntable can wirelessly transmit audio to Sonos speakers, which gives users the unique ability to stream vinyl straight to their entire Sonos system without the... Continue reading...

Even toddlers are no match for Google's new camera features. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Until August 2021, my Google Photos library was basically a wall of cat photos. Then, a small human entered the picture, and you can see a distinct dividing line in my photographic priorities: one day it was Cat, the next day, Baby.Many of the other parents I know have experienced the same phenomenon. And while cats aren't the most willing photo subjects on earth, well, have you met a toddler? They are agents of chaos. This makes for a special kind of dilemma: you must photograph Baby because they are the cutest being to ever grace the planet, but they also refuse to sit still or stop moving for even one goddamn second while you take a picture.Have you met a toddler? They are agents of chaosThis spurs you to take even more photos in... Continue reading...

The last annular eclipse in 2021 as viewed in Toronto. | Photo by Mark Blinch / Getty Images Many eyes will turn to the sky on Saturday to catch a glimpse of an extremely rare ring of fire" solar eclipse. But experts are cautioning against looking directly at the eclipse to avoid serious eye damage.An annular eclipse occurs while the Moon is near or at the farthest point in its orbit around the Earth. The Moon, which appears smaller in the sky because of this distance, passes directly in front of the Sun, creating this ring of fire" effect.People across the contiguous United States and part of Alaska should be able to see the eclipse. Most regions will only see a partial eclipse, in which only a part of the Sun is covered up by the Moon.A fuller eclipse will be viewable in parts of Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah,... Continue reading...

The discontinued Nest Secure hub (left) and the new ADT security system hub (right) show some indications of Google's influence on the design. | Images: Google / ADT It appears security company ADT is about to launch a more fitting successor to Nest Secure than the half-baked ADT Self Setup system it rolled out last year. The new system, called ADT Smart Home Security, features more polished sensor hardware, a sleeker base station with a backlit keypad (like the Nest Guard), and door window sensors that can be disarmed using an on-device button (like the Nest Detects). This was a handy feature of Nest's system for easily disarming it when your dog needed to pee at 2AM.The company hasn't announced this system, so there are no pricing details or a release date, but The Verge received a tip linking to hidden support pages on its website containing all the hardware details. Based on these, we can glean... Continue reading...

A screenshot from Call of Duty: Warzone, Activision Blizzard's free-to-play FPS game. | Image: Activision Everything you need to know about gaming's biggest acquisition yet. Continue reading...

Image: Waymo For years, developers have been working on ways for driverless cars to communicate intent to other road users, either through audio recordings or visual cues. Today, Waymo says it wants to be one of the first companies to put some of these methods into practice.The Alphabet-owned company's driverless Jaguar I-Pace vehicles will use their roof domes, which are wrapped in LED displays, to communicate messages to other road users. For now, the company is going with just two messages: for pedestrians in front of the vehicle, shifting grey and white rectangles meant to communicate that the vehicle is yielding to them, and for drivers behind the vehicle, a yellow pedestrian symbol to let them know there's a pedestrian crossing.The symbols... Continue reading...

Now that the Microsoft acquisition is complete, Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard, is set to leave the company after the end of this year.In an email sent to employees and published on Activision Blizzard King's website, Kotick wrote that he's excited about the future of the company under the bright green Xbox umbrella. He also wrote that in order to facilitate a smooth transition, he intends to stay on temporarily as CEO of ABK, reporting to the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer.Phil has asked me to stay on as CEO of Activision Blizzard King, reporting to him, and we have agreed that I will do that through the end of 2023," Kotick wrote. Kotick, who became CEO of Activision in 1991, stands to receive upward of $375... Continue reading...

Joe Biden visits the Cummins Power Generation Facility in Fridley, Minnesota, on Monday, April 3rd, 2023. Last year, Cummins announced Fridley would be the site of its first electrolyzer manufacturing facility in the US. | Photo by Elizabeth Flores / Star Tribune via Getty Images The Biden administration will funnel $7 billion into seven different hubs" for hydrogen production across the US. It's part of President Joe Biden's plan to transition the nation to clean energy, even though the environmental benefits of hydrogen still hinge on overhauling the way the fuel is traditionally made.Hydrogen combustion creates water vapor, unlike fossil fuels that release greenhouse gas emissions when burned. That's seen as especially valuable for cleaning up aviation, maritime shipping, and heavy industries like steel that are more difficult to run on renewable energy and batteries. The tricky part with hydrogen is cleaning up pollution from the process of making it. Most hydrogen today is made using fossil fuels, and a... Continue reading...

US President Joe Biden arrives for a ceremony at the groundbreaking of the new Intel semiconductor manufacturing facility near New Albany, Ohio, on Friday, September 9th, 2022. | Image: Gaelen Morse / Bloomberg via Getty Images Lawmakers' push to revive US chip manufacturing has triggered new concerns about pollution regulation, inadvertently subjecting semiconductor factories to federal environmental review for the first time. But while a bipartisan bill would exempt the factories to support a still-struggling American industry, some environmental advocates worry it could weaken the nation's bedrock environmental law.Since the 1990s, semiconductor manufacturing has shifted from the US to Asia. Around that time, it was becoming cheaper to build fabs and hire workers in Asia. Studies into hazardous chemicals at fabs and lawsuits over worker exposure to them in the US were also emerging.Now, a global chip shortage - and a desire to counter China's manufacturing... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google is experimenting with the inclusion of a Discover Feed on its desktop homepage that shows recommended content alongside the company's traditional search box. A screenshot from MSPowerUser, which spotted the change, shows a feed that includes news headlines, a weather forecast, sports scores, and stock information for a trio of companies. The search giant previously added the Discover Feed to its US homepage on mobile devices in 2018,Google spokesperson Lara Levin confirmed the change in a statement given to The Verge, noting that it's an experiment that's currently being run in India. Any change to google.com is significant as it continues to be the world's most visited website. Image: MSPowerUser A... Continue reading...

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Microsoft's $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard has been approved by UK regulators. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has concluded that the deal can proceed after Microsoft recently restructured the deal to transfer cloud gaming rights for current and new Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft. The decision clears the way for the deal to close now that the UK regulator has given the green light.The CMA has decided to give Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft) consent to acquire Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Activision) (the Parties) excluding Activision's cloud streaming rights outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) (the Merger) subject to the condition that the sale of Activision's cloud streaming rights... Continue reading...

Shadow, which offers services that let you stream a Windows PC, has disclosed a security breach that led an attacker taking some private customer data. The company is sending emails to customers notifying them that a bad actor was able to extract their first and last name, email address, date of birth, billing address, and credit card expiration date.Shadow's CEO confirmed the breach in a statement to The Verge. We were recently the victim of a highly sophisticated social engineering attack which led to the exfiltration of the database of one of our service providers, resulting in the unauthorized exposure of certain customer data," Eric Sele says. We have since then taken immediate steps to secure our systems, including reinforcing... Continue reading...

Image: James Bareham / The Verge Popular online adult film sites in Texas have published Texas Health and Human Services" disclaimers warning visitors about the unproven health risks of watching porn, reports 404 Media. The move comes after a US appeals court temporarily overturned an order blocking a Texas law that required porn sites to verify users' ages and display government health warnings.Though they don't require age verification, every Vixen Media Group site - which includes Deeper, Blacked, and Vixen - now displays factually debatable disclaimers warning that porn is potentially biologically addictive" and proven to harm human brain development." The warnings appear to users within the state of Texas.These pop-ups also claim porn increases the demand for... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge After receiving backlash from customers, Microsoft announced it has canceled plans to impose storage limits for photos in a user's OneDrive account starting on October 16th, Gizmodo reports.Starting in October, under the now-rescinded policy, photos in a user's saved photo albums and OneDrive Gallery would count against its cloud-based quota of five gigabytes. Once the new policy went into effect, users with photos surpassing the limit would no longer be able to save new OneDrive files or even receive emails in Microsoft's free Outlook email service.When it announced the changes in August, Microsoft said it would grant users a free one-year storage bonus to compensate for the inconvenience, but that didn't satisfy users.It's possible... Continue reading...

Squid Game. | Image: Netflix Just as Netflix is getting out of one business with the closure of its DVD rentals, it looks like it's getting into the physical realm in a different way. Bloomberg reports that the streamer is planning to launch new retail destinations - dubbed Netflix House - that will offer not only things to buy but also food and other experiences themed after whatever is hot on Netflix at the moment. There aren't a lot of specifics right now, such as where these permanent spaces might eventually open, but the first locations are expected to launch in the US in 2025.We've seen how much fans love to immerse themselves in the world of our movies and TV shows, and we've been thinking a lot about how we take that to the next level," Josh Simon,... Continue reading...

The $999 Google Pixel 8 Pro takes good photos with its 50-megapixel f/1.68 main sensor. | Photo by Eddie Costas / The Verge The $999 Google Pixel 8 Pro takes good photos with its 50-megapixel f/1.68 main sensor. For the most part, subjects are sharp, colors aren't too saturated, and the focus fall-off can fool you into thinking images came from a larger camera. But it's important to remember that Google is a software company that sometimes makes hardware. And for every one photo it takes, there are two AI editing tools ready to either make its hardware look better than it really is or create a scene that isn't necessarily true.In the latest episode of my YouTube series Full Frame, I set out to take 1,000 photos with the Pixel 8 Pro. From 4K, 24FPS video of fall in upstate New York to ultrawide macro shots of my eyeballs, I put this system to the test.It... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Meta is starting to roll out an edit feature and Voice Threads" for its Threads platform, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday. They're two major new features for Meta's burgeoning X-like social network - and unlike on X (formerly Twitter), you won't need to pay a subscription fee to be able to edit your posts for five minutes after they're published.Posts that are edited will have a little icon next to the timestamp showing that they've been revised. You aren't be able to see an edit history - that's one advantage X still has over Threads - and Meta spokesperson currently doesn't have plans to add one, Christine Pai tells The Verge. Post by Richard Lawler / The Verge, screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge S... Continue reading...