The Verge

Minecraft is 15 years old, so it's only natural that Lego should honor the anniversary with a set just for the game's many adult fans. The company has started taking preorders for The Crafting Table, a 1,195-piece 18-and-up build, as Jay's Brick Blog writes. The set will cost $89.99 in the US when it's released on August 1st.Lego says the set will include familiar biomes, favorite mobs and hidden Easter eggs." As the name suggests, the kit looks like an in-game crafting table. But inside of it is a Minecraft diorama featuring 12 biomes including Plains (with a village), Taiga (with a dripstone cave), and Cherry Grove (with an abandoned mineshaft). Image: Lego It also has eight microfigures; among them are Steve,... Continue reading...

Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images Boeing, NASA, and the United Launch Alliance (ULA) scrubbed today's launch of Starliner less than 4 minutes before liftoff. The setback comes after a string of disappointments, but as with its early May delay, the issue wasn't with Boeing's crew vehicle.NASA says the ULA is currently investigating why a computer, called a ground launch sequencer, didn't enter the correct operational configuration," triggering an automatic hold. During a press conference afterward, ULA CEO Tory Bruno said the issue was that one of three redundant launch sequencers, which are used to control things like releasing connections to the rocket prior to launch, was slow to respond.

Scarlett Johansson at Cannes in 2023. | Photo: Laurent Koffel / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Researchers at Arizona State University found that Scarlett Johansson's voice does indeed sound like Sky," OpenAI's currently discontinued GPT-4o voice, according to NPR, which commissioned the comparison. After using AI models developed to analyze vocal similarities to compare Sky to roughly 600 other actresses, the lab reportedly found Johansson's voice was more similar to Sky than 98% of the other actresses."But the models also often" found that the voices of Anne Hathaway and Keri Russell resembled Sky's more than did Johansson's. Visar Berisha, the professor who led the analysis, told NPR that Johansson's voice is similar, but likely not identical" to that of Sky.One similarity was reportedly that if Sky had a vocal tract -... Continue reading...

Image: Toho International Godzilla Minus One is officially streaming worldwide on Netflix as of today, everywhere except Japan and France, according to film distributor Toho International in a release shared with The Verge. You can also buy ($14.99) or rent ($5.99) digital copies, either in color (Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play) or black and white (Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play).Written and directed by Takashi Yamakazi, Godzilla Minus One goes back to the giant radioactive kaiju's origins. It's set just at the end of World War II after the US nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The film follows a kamikaze pilot named Kichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki), who after deciding to land on Odo Island rather than sacrifice himself for the war becomes one of the... Continue reading...

The Beats Studio Buds Plus are on sale in all styles, including their slick translucent option. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Beats may be releasing a new pair of budget earbuds later this month, but their $80 price tag comes at the expense of active noise cancellation. Thankfully, if you're looking for a cool-looking pair of earbuds that will let you listen to music and tune out the world, the Beats Studio Buds Plus remain a great buy. And right now, they're joining the Beats Solo Pro 4 in dropping to one of their best prices to date at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, where you can pick them up for $129.99 ($40 off). That matches the best price we've seen so far this year and is only $10 shy of their all-time low.Here at The Verge, we're big fans of the translucent Beats Studio Buds Plus, which are more eye-catching than most wireless earbuds - including... Continue reading...

Photo Illustration: Alex Parkin / Photo by Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images Unsettled host Ilana Levinson spent two months trying to reach one of her contacts in Gaza for an interview. She had stayed in touch with Isam Hammad, a manager for a medical equipment company in Gaza City, since covering his work organizing the March of Return protest in 2018. But after he fled the city in November, the two hadn't shared much more than the occasional WhatsApp voice note with one another.When Levinson finally got ahold of Hammad in January, he was in Rafah, trying to get his family to Ireland on a family reunification visa. I have no internet," he said. I have had to wake up every night since I made my [visa] application and go to the rooftop, turn on Vodafone Egypt, get the internet, check the list, and go back to... Continue reading...

Stompers, where hitting your co-workers will not end in an HR violation. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge Violence is never the answer. That said, it was fun when I opened a walking app and whacked a Verge editor with a baseball bat and made another slip on a banana peel. After, I continued on my peaceful commute home. A bit later, one of my fellow writers walloped me not once but twice with their own baseball bat. I wasn't actually mad, but it did prompt me to go on a walk around the block so I could hit them back.That, in a nutshell, is the appeal of Stompers - an iOS app that encourages you to whack, trick, and out-walk your friends (or colleagues) in a Looney Tunes-like race.The app is the creation of designer Soren Iverson. You may know Iverson from his unhinged UI" design series, in which he posts conceptual app mock-ups for... Continue reading...

Sharing this solar generator's batteries with a 3-in-1 solar fridge, freezer, and ice-making combo is a good idea that might get better. Continue reading...

Mike Tyson, Nakisa Bidarian, and Jake Paul pose onstage during a press conference on May 16th, 2024 | Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images for Netflix Netflix is increasingly getting into live events, with comedy specials, NFL games, and even the WWE, but live action means unpredictability, and today, the streamer announced that a planned July 20th boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson is being rescheduled. While Tyson recovers from an ulcer flare-up that required medical attention during a recent flight, he has been advised to do minimal to light training" over the next few weeks.Due to the interrupted training schedule for the officially sanctioned fight - Tyson's first since 2005 -they're now planning on a date later this year, which Netflix said will be announced by the end of next week.My body is in better overall shape than it has been since the 1990s and I will be... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A data breach potentially affecting as many as 560 million Ticketmaster accounts and a confirmed one for Santander Bank may have stemmed from attacks on the cloud storage accounts with a company called Snowflake. As spotted by Bleeping Computer, an investigation from cybersecurity firm Hudson Rock reports that a bad actor gained access to Ticketmaster and Santander by using the stolen credentials of a single Snowflake employee.According to Hudson Rock, the hacker bypassed the authentication service Okta using these credentials and then generated session tokens to obtain a trove of information from Snowflake. In addition to Ticketmaster - which publicly acknowledged the breach later on Friday evening - and Santander Bank, Hudson Rock... Continue reading...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge If you've been on the Facebook app lately, you might've seen Meta's AI inject itself into the comment section with summaries of what people say. Given how wild Facebook comment sections often become, it's not hard to imagine how ridiculous some of these summaries turn out. (This isn't the first time Meta's AI has appeared in the comment section, by the way: 404 Media spotted it pretending to be a parent in a Facebook group.)After seeing screenshots of the feature shared on Threads and Reddit, I decided to check the comment sections on my Facebook app. I found the AI summaries popping up on many of the posts I checked - unhinged responses and all. One AI summary on a post about a store closure said, Some commenters attribute the closure... Continue reading...

Image: Stellantis Earlier this week, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares took the stage at the Bernstein investor conference and threw down the gauntlet.Tavares, who oversees companies like Fiat, Chrysler, Dodge, Ram, and, most importantly, Jeep, said the launch of the new all-electric Jeep Wagoneer S would signal the start of an EV offensive" that would take the US by storm, according to multiple reports. And part of that offensive would include a more affordable electric Jeep, priced somewhere in the range of $25,000.For Jeep CEO Antonio Filosa, the announcement from his boss came as a bit of a shock.It's a big challenge," Filosa said Thursday, hours after unveiling the Wagoneer S in New York City. And unexpected." Photo by Michael... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft unveiled its new Copilot Plus PCs last week, designed to usher in a new wave of AI features in Windows that are exclusive to new laptops. Now, less than two weeks later, Windows enthusiasts have managed to crack Microsoft's flagship AI-powered Recall feature to run on unsupported hardware.Recall leverages local AI models on new Copilot Plus PCs to run in the background and take snapshots of anything you've done or seen on your PC. You then get a timeline you can scrub through and the ability to search for photos, documents, conversations, or anything else on your PC. Microsoft positioned Recall as needing the very latest neural processing units (NPU) on new PCs, but you can actually get it running on older Arm-powered... Continue reading...

Photo: Getty Images A big part of Microsoft Build that stood out to me last week was the potential of Windows on Arm for PC gaming, especially for laptops and handhelds. Microsoft and Qualcomm aren't talking much about this yet, but both companies have been dropping hints about game compatibility.Qualcomm said previously that most Windows games should just work" on Snapdragon X Elite laptops, and Microsoft took the time to demo some more games onstage at Build last week. Borderlands 3 was shown running around 60 percent faster than native 1440p resolution thanks to Microsoft's Auto Super Resolution technology. This taps into the NPU to boost frame rates and resolution, much like how Nvidia's DLSS utilizes its own GPUs to upscale games.Microsoft also... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge One thing right off the bat: the Google Search algorithm has not leaked, and SEO experts don't suddenly have all the answers. But the information that did leak this week - a collection of thousands of internal Google documents - is still huge. It's an unprecedented look into Google's inner workings that are typically closely guarded.Perhaps the most notable revelation from the 2,500 documents is that they suggest Google representatives have misled the public in the past when discussing how the biggest gatekeeper of the internet assesses and ranks content for its search engine.How Google ranks content is a black box: websites depend on search traffic to survive, and many will go to great lengths - and great expense - to beat out the... Continue reading...

I mean, has anyone else seen that Temu egg slicer meme? | Image: The Verge Temu, the popular Chinese shopping platform, is about to face stricter EU regulations after the European Commission deemed it a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) under the Digital Services Act (DSA).According to the Commission, Temu has confirmed that it has more than 45 million monthly users in the EU, the threshold for being considered a VLOP. That means it'll have to comply with the strictest rules under the DSA, particularly around assessing systemic risks" associated with its services, such as counterfeit goods, illegal products, and items that infringe on intellectual property rights.Temu is the latest retailer to get hit with stricter regulations under the DSA. The Commission did the same for Shein, a popular fast fashion... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A cyberattack was behind an incident last year that disabled over 600,000 internet routers across several Midwest states between October 25th and 27th, according to new research published by Lumen Technologies' threat research arm, Black Lotus Labs. The incident wasn't disclosed at the time, despite hundreds of thousands of routers being rendered inoperable.The investigation also didn't specify which company was targeted, but Reuters says it has identified the target as Windstream, an Arkansas-based ISP, based on cross-referencing internet outages reported during the same period. Windstream, which has a service area covering many rural or underserved communities, declined The Verge's request for comment.Black Lotus Labs investigated... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge OpenAI is making ChatGPT more accessible to schools and nonprofit organizations. In a pair of blog posts, the company shared that it's launching a version of ChatGPT for universities, along with a program that lets nonprofits access ChatGPT at a discounted rate.OpenAI says ChatGPT Edu will allow universities to responsibly deploy AI to students, faculty, researchers, and campus operations." It's built on its faster GPT-4o model, which offers improved multimodal capabilities across text, vision, and audio.For example, OpenAI says universities can use the tool to review student resumes, write grant applications, and assist professors with grading. ChatGPT for Edu offers enterprise-level" security and doesn't use data to train OpenAI's... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge The algorithm that powers Google Search is one of the most important, most complicated, and least understood systems that rule the internet. As of this week, though, we understand it a little better. Thanks to a huge leak of API documentation, we got an unprecedented look at what Google cares about, how it ranks content, and how it thinks the internet should work. The leaked documentation is dense, and it doesn't tell us everything about how Google ranks, but it does offer a set of signals we've never seen before.On this episode of The Vergecast, we discuss everything in the leaked documents, the SEO community's reaction, the potential regulatory implications of it all, and what it means to build a website in 2024.After that, we talk... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge A report from Reuters says that work has been ongoing since last year to create a version of TikTok's recommendation algorithm that operates independently from Douyin, the Chinese version of the app operated by its parent company ByteDance. According to the unnamed sources, completing the project could take more than a year as part of a plan to show lawmakers that the US business is independent of its owner in Beijing.The report says executives have talked about the project in all-hands meetings and on the company's internal messaging system, Lark. The sources also said that splitting the source code would cut TikTok off from the massive engineering development power" of its parent company.TikTok responded by tweeting, The Reuters... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Last week, Google rolled out its AI search results for millions of users to tinker with. The goal was to deliver a better search experience. Instead, AI delivered all sorts of weird results, like saying people should put glue on their pizza to help the cheese stick and eat rocks.Google worked quickly to remove some inaccurate AI results, which it calls AI Overviews, but the damage - and meme-ification - was already done.Now, in a company blog post published Thursday by Google's head of search, Liz Reid, the tech giant blames data voids" for the inaccurate results, along with people making up odd questions, and doubled down by claiming that AI results are leading to higher satisfaction" with Search. Reid argues that AI Overviews... Continue reading...

In New York today, Jeep unveiled its first fully electric SUV for the North American market. And while all the focus was on the $71,995 Wagoneer S, the automaker had one more thing to show off: an off-road-capable Trailhawk concept of the same EV, sitting pretty on 31.5-inch tires.The forest green SUV sports several features that distinguish it from the standard Wagoneer S, including an intimidating laser-cut roof rack, 3D-printed tow hooks, lifted suspension, wheel caps, and a host of other goodies for gearheads and boulder lovers alike.Sitting pretty on 31.5-inch tiresTrailhawk is the trim name usually applied to Jeep's most rugged off-road vehicles, complete with more durable equipment and materials. In addition, Trailhawk... Continue reading...

Image: Jeep Spoiler alert. Continue reading...

Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment Sony's most adorable character (sorry, Sackboy) is getting another outing. At its State of Play showcase today, the company revealed the latest Astro Bot game, which was rumored earlier in the month.It appears to be a direct sequel to Astro's Playroom, so it should make excellent use of the PS5's controller and all of its various functions. The game features 50 worlds to explore - like its predecessor, it looks like those levels will explore PlayStation history to varying degrees - and launches on September 6th. It'll be a PS5 exclusive when it does come out.This will be the first title in the series since Astro's Playroom, a Wii Sports-style pack-in for the PlayStation 5, which was designed to show off the console's then-new DualSense... Continue reading...

Image: Capcom We finally have a few more details about the previously mysterious next Monster Hunter game. Capcom released a new gameplay trailer for Monster Hunter Wilds at Sony's State of Play event, and it features some free-flowing combat, a pretty dark-looking world, and what appears to be some new monsters - including one that looks a lot like a Final Fantasy chocobo. Naturally, it serves as a mount. Capcom describes the new game as taking place in a living world."Wilds is a follow-up to 2018's open-world title Monster Hunter World, which went on to become Capcom's bestselling game ever, topping the likes of Resident Evil, Street Fighter, and Devil May Cry. It was first announced at The Game Awards last year and is coming to the PS5, Xbox... Continue reading...

Image: Santa Monica Studio Ragnarok is nigh - that is, if you've got a PC capable of handling it. During its summer State of Play event, Sony announced that God of War Ragnarok is coming to PC on September 19th. The news was accompanied by a brand-new trailer including the info that the game is now available for preorder.It's been just over a year since God of War Ragnarok released, adding another emotional beat to the story of Kratos, the god of war, and his son, Atreus. When we last left the pair in 2018's God of War, the two had just returned from an epic journey to disperse Atreus' mother's ashes from the highest peak in the nine realms. In Ragnarok, Kratos and Atreus' lives have been upended by the omens heralding the destruction of the realms, an event that... Continue reading...

The Pixel Tablet can now be a video intercom for your Nest doorbell. | Image: Google The Google Pixel Tablet is getting an update that will make it slightly more useful as a smart home device. In a blog post published today, Google said the $400 Pixel Tablet can now pull up a livestream from a Nest video doorbell to show who's at the front door and give you the option to talk to them or send a quick response.The feature - which was first teased this summer - works with all Nest doorbells, including the first-gen and second-gen wired versions and the Nest Doorbell battery, and is part of the Google Home Public Preview. The tablet needs to be locked and docked on its charging speaker dock to show a full screen view.Considering Google Nest Hub smart displays have had the ability to announce visitors and pull up a live... Continue reading...

The stick layout almost reminds me a bit of the Steam Deck. | Image: Scuf Corsair-owned Scuf is best known for its vividly colored, outlandishly priced esports controllers. But its new $99.99 mobile phone controller looks built more for the normies.The Nomad is a clamp-style iPhone controller akin to a Backbone or Razer Kishi, though it features full-size, drift-free Hall effect sticks (with swappable stick toppers) that are symmetrical on the top half of the pad. Around back are two customizable rear paddles amidst the controller's contoured and rubberized grips. If you squint, it looks a bit like a thick-boy version of the Backbone One, though the Nomad is compatible with more phone cases since it relies on Bluetooth for connectivity instead of a protruding USB-C or Lightning plug.Scuf's first foray into... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As May draws to a close, Microsoft is squeezing another Windows 11 Canary build across the line that comes with a fresh new connected Android phone feature: Suggested Replies. Now when someone texts to ask how you're doing, you can just click one of several replies like Not bad, you?" or Fine, you?" so you don't have to reach for your phone or your computer keyboard as you click through the web.The feature is part of Phone Link, which lets you connect your mobile phone to Windows so you can send and receive texts, browse recent photos, and take phone calls on your PC. Suggested Replies works by using Microsoft's cloud-based intelligent suggestion model to figure out three replies relevant to the context of the conversation. Windows... Continue reading...

Photo by Justin Lane-Pool / Getty Images A Manhattan jury found former President Donald Trump guilty on all counts in a case accusing him of falsifying business records to conceal payments he made to suppress unflattering stories about him.It's the first time a former president has been convicted of felony charges.In remarks shortly after the verdict, Trump called it a disgrace" and said the trial was rigged."The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people," Trump said. We didn't do a thing wrong. I'm a very innocent man." He also blamed the Biden administration for the trial, even though the charges were not brought by the federal government, but rather the Manhattan district attorney's office - an independent local enforcer. The X account for Trump's... Continue reading...

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge I've been waiting years for this. The first thing I do when I configure a fresh Windows 11 PC is disable enhance pointer precision" inside the ancient Control Panel and reverse my scroll wheel using the registry editor. Soon, I'll just be able to head into the modern-looking Windows 11 Settings interface to control both of these settings.Windows watcher PhantomOfEarth has discovered that Microsoft is secretly working on adding these options to the Windows 11 Settings interface. The latest Canary build of Windows 11, released earlier today, includes these options in Settings, but they're currently hidden behind a flag. Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge Windows laptop users have been able to reverse the scrolling... Continue reading...

Image: Sony Santa Monica Studio Sony is kicking off this year's summer gaming events with a 30-minute showcase highlighting all the games coming to PlayStation this year and beyond. Continue reading...

Image: Apple One of the most beloved series on Apple TV Plus is returning very soon. The streamer just announced that season 2 of the historical epic Pachinko will start streaming on August 23rd. Weekly episodes will air every Friday through October 11th.Based on the novel of the same name by Min Jin Lee, Pachinko follows the multigenerational story of a Korean family immigrating to Japan. While the story unfolded chronologically in the book, the show took a different approach, with a nonlinear narrative that jumped back and forth between eras. The series premiered in 2022, and the show was renewed before the first season was finished.It's not clear exactly which parts of the story season 2 will cover, but Apple did provide a handful of first-look... Continue reading...

The new AI-powered search from Amazon for Fire TVs lets Alexa help you more easily find what you want to watch. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Navigating the sheer volume of streaming content available today can be a full-time job. Recommendations from friends, blog posts, and TikToks of movies I haven't thought about in years all help. But finding something myself, my husband, my 13-year-old daughter, and my 16-year-old son all want to watch together is still a herculean task.So, when Amazon announced its new AI-powered voice search function for Fire TVs at its fall event last year, I was intrigued. With its promise to make searching for content easier and smarter, I hoped it would be the solution to my problems. I've now had some hands-on time with the new feature, and while it shows promise, like a lot of AI-powered search right now, it's just not reliable enough to be all... Continue reading...