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Illustration: The Verge If you're not familiar with Google Flights, you may not realize that you're not always seeing the cheapest flights in your search results. The default algorithm considers numerous other factors, such as trip length, stops, and travel times. It was, admittedly, easy enough to expand the results and view the full flight list before now, but Google is introducing a change that brings a new Cheapest" tab that will sort all your flight options based purely on price.Google Flights will build itineraries that include long layovers or mixed and matched flights from different travel agencies, airlines, and nearby cities in order to show you the absolute cheapest options. If you like what you see, it'll direct you to the appropriate websites... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix A look at the first two chapters in the return of Max Caulfield. Continue reading...

You can save $120 on the OnePlus Pad and get a free keyboard case valued at $149.99. | Image: Dan Seifert / The Verge Apple's new iPad Mini might be hogging the spotlight, but it's not the only great tablet on the market. If you're looking for a slate outside of Apple's ecosystem, the original OnePlus Pad is a terrific Android tablet that OnePlus is selling for $359.99 ($120 off) - a new all-time low - until October 20th at 11:59PM ET. To make the deal even sweeter, OnePlus is also throwing in a free OnePlus Magnetic Keyboard worth $149.99. Note that to get the discount you'll have to apply the on-page coupon, which you can find when you click on the Claim Now" button under "Check out all offers."The last-gen tablet still offers excellent value for your money. Its MediaTek Dimensity 9000 processor is snappy enough, while the Pad's sharp 11.6-inch LCD... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Users on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac are having trouble downloading apps from Apple's App Store right now. When users tap Get" to download an app, the icon swirls briefly to indicate that it's loading, but then it reverts to Get," leaving them unable to install the app they want.Reports of App Store issues are starting to mount on social media. Meanwhile, several of us here at The Verge, including in the US and Europe, aren't able to download apps, either. Judging by DownDetector's App Store outage chart, it looks like issues started to emerge around 11AM ET.Even though users are experiencing issues downloading apps, the App Store can still update apps that are already installed.Apple's status page still indicates that its App Store... Continue reading...

Anker's new car charger will supposedly deliver up to 75W of power. | Image: Reddit A reliable leaker has shared details and an image of an unannounced car charger from Anker that would be the first from the company to feature a retractable USB-C cable. As the proud owner of an eight-year-old minivan lacking modern amenities like built-in USB ports, this would be a welcome alternative to a glove box stuffed full of unraveled charging cables.The new Anker Nano car charger, which plugs into a vehicle's auxiliary power outlet, will reportedly deliver up to 75W of power shared between a 30W USB-C port, and a 45W retractable cable with a USB-C connector on the end that's almost 30 inches long, according to Reddit user joshuadwx.Pricing is expected to be somewhere between $30 an $40, while availability could be either later... Continue reading...

Photo by Grant Baldwin / Getty Images I'm honestly not sure which part of North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson's freshly filed defamation lawsuit to focus on here.The obvious lede is that Robinson - currently the Republican nominee for North Carolina governor - sued CNN for defamation yesterday. The suit targets the network for publishing meticulously documented allegations that Robinson made a series of bizarre and frequently bigoted comments on a porn forum called Nude Africa between 2008 and 2012, including referring to himself as a black NAZI" (capitalization in original).Robinson's lawsuit claims someone likely impersonated him using information from data breaches, which is certainly possible - but based on the evidence would require a remarkably complex... Continue reading...

Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment PlayStation has taken a novel approach to its rollout of Astro Bot's downloadable content. Instead of giving players a formal release date, choosing on several occasions to just say SoonTM, the developers at Team Asobi have simply decided to stealth launch the levels starting... tomorrow, October 17th. The DLC will feature five new challenge levels with 10 new bots to rescue. Though we've already seen the Stellar Blade bot and the Helldivers bot, Team Asobi is keeping the rest under wraps in order to preserve the little bolt of joy you get when you recognize one.Interestingly, instead of releasing all the levels at the same time, Team Asobi's going for yet another novel approach, launching individual levels on a weekly basis until all... Continue reading...

On a scorching 100-degree day, I find Henry Dorado's booth at the Brooklyn Flea Market. Above, trains rattle loudly on the Manhattan Bridge. The outdoor market is a small but trendy event that fills this corner every weekend, rain or oppressive shine. Among the typical antique market wares - racks of thrifted clothes, watches behind glass, bins of art - Dorado's booth stands out. People slow down, sometimes chuckle, take photos, and summon friends over to look at all this. A crowd surrounds the modest shop, just a few fold-out tables covered in pink tablecloths.Dozens of point-and-shoot cameras line the tables in rows, face up and laid flat; the circular lenses on each make it feel like you're browsing whole fish at a seafood market.... Continue reading...

What's a color screen for? Color book previews! | Image: David Pierce / The Verge For years, Kindle users have asked Amazon to make a color version of its e-reader. Now, the company is finally delivering: it's launching the new Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition, a device that has a lot in common with the new Paperwhite, except instead of black and white it's color all over. The Colorsoft costs $279.99 and is available for preorder today, with shipments starting October 30th.Making the Colorsoft happen, Amazon executives said at a launch event on Tuesday in New York City, required a lot more than just swapping in a new display. Frankly, the technology just wasn't ready" before now, says Kevin Keith, who runs Kindle products for Amazon. And we now think the tech is ready." (Kobo, Remarkable, and others might... Continue reading...

The Scribe is as much a writing device as a reading one. | Image: Amazon Ever since Amazon launched the Kindle Scribe in 2022, the company has been noticing some unusual ways people are using the device. Scribe users read more nonfiction than normal Kindle owners; a full 60 percent of Scribe buyers use the device at work. That's maybe not shocking, given that the Scribe is the largest Kindle and the one with an included stylus for taking notes.But still: this is maybe the first Kindle ever to not be mostly a reading device, but rather equal parts book and notebook. With the new Scribe, which the company announced on Wednesday (and leaked on Tuesday night), Amazon is leaning into the notebook side of things in a big way.The new Scribe, which will cost $399.99 for a 16GB version (a 32GB is $419.99, while the... Continue reading...

A lot has been said about TV in 2004. That it was the best year of television of all time, the peak of the Golden Age of television. Or maybe that it was the year reality television became too much, suddenly showing up on every channel as we flipped the switch. But as famed Hollywood producer and UFO enthusiast Bryce Zabel wrote for the Los Angeles Times in 2004, it was the end of television as we knew it. He chalked it up to the prevalence of TiVo and DVR in American households and predicted an upheaval so severe the whole advertising business would crumble - and he didn't even know about streaming yet.The shift was one that a lot of people felt in real time. For many, it was through the show Lost, which debuted in 2004 and created a... Continue reading...

Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Decades before we got married and started a family, my partner and I connected over a little Boxer pup named Charlie. We tossed a ball around, scrubbed him down when he got dirty, and took him for daily walks. It was a bonding experience - mediated entirely through the original Nintendo DS's touchscreen. The tactile experience turned an otherwise simple game like Nintendogs, where the goal is to take care of virtual pets, into something that created a deep emotional connection. And years before smartphones were in everyone's pockets, it helped show a generation of gamers just what's possible with a touchscreen.Now, we mostly take them for granted, but prior to the arrival of the first DS in 2004, the idea of a touchscreen was, for many... Continue reading...

Project Know How builds on Adobe's work with Content Credentials. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge One of Adobe's most notable experiments this year could help combat misinformation and ensure artists are credited for their work, no matter where it appears online or offline. Announced during the Sneaks segment at Adobe Max, Project Know How' is an in-development tool that can link ownership of an image or video across any online platform, and a multitude of real-world surfaces like posters, tumblers, and textiles.Project Know How builds on Adobe's Content Credentials tech, which applies a digital tag to track where a piece of content has been posted, who owns it, and if/how it's been manipulated. Providing an image or video has Content Credentials applied, the tool can help creators establish ownership over their content even if... Continue reading...

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge In February 2004, a 19-year-old, flip-flop-wearing Mark Zuckerberg released an online directory of Harvard students. In those days, the internet still felt small. It was mostly about finding webpages, not people.It turned out that the internet was very good for connecting people. More than 1,000 Harvard students signed up for TheFacebook.com in the first 24 hours. The site started spreading quickly by word of mouth around campus. By the end of 2004, dozens of other colleges were on Facebook. The site had 1 million monthly users. Myspace's user base was about five times larger, though not for long.Social media predated Facebook, but nothing had captured the magic of what Zuckerberg and his classmates hacked together. The 2004 version of... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has pulled its $1 Xbox Game Pass trial, just days before Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 releases on October 25th. The 14-day Game Pass trial was removed on October 8th, preventing people from signing up for a trial and playing through the Black Ops 6 campaign without paying for a full month of Game Pass.Microsoft first stopped its $1 trial for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass in March last year, before bringing it back and nerfing it down to just 14 days instead of a full month. The Xbox maker then briefly removed the $1 trial just days before Starfield's debut in September.It's not surprising to see the $1 Xbox Game Pass trial quietly removed once again, especially as Microsoft looks to Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 to boost... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Microsoft launched its Surface Laptop 7 earlier this year without Intel chips, in a bid to promote Windows on Arm and Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite chips. Now, it looks like a Surface Laptop might arrive next year with Intel's latest Lunar Lake chips.A Surface Laptop prototype has appeared in a since-deleted listing on Chinese second-hand marketplace Goofish, complete with what looks like Intel's Core Ultra 7 268V processor inside. Windows Central spotted the listing, but it's not clear if this will simply be a Surface Laptop 7 variant or a Surface Laptop 8.Either way, the prototype laptop is clearly marked as such with a giant prototype - not for sale" etching at the bottom of the device. While it's easy to fake the CPU listing... Continue reading...

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images Former president Donald Trump threatened in an interview today that, if elected president, he would do something" about Google but stopped short of specifically saying he would break up the company.In the interview, Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait mentioned the US Justice Department's proposal to possibly break up Google and asked Trump if Google should be broken up. Trump initially didn't address Google at all, instead seemingly zeroing in on the Justice Department part of that question to rant about a recent DOJ lawsuit against Virginia election officials.But after Micklethwait got Trump back on course (the question is about Google, President Trump"), Trump expressed his unhappiness with how bad stories" seem to... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is rolling out new labels that tell if uploaded videos come from a real camera with unaltered footage and sound. The new captured with a camera" label can be seen in action courtesy of digital content authentication service Trupic, which uploaded a video to its channel, triggering the disclosure in the video description panel. Trupic says it has the first authentic video with C2PA Content Credentials on YouTube."YouTube is leaning on the C2PA standard to detect the authenticity of uploaded videos, meaning the feature will work only with recording devices and tools that support the metadata. The site's help page for the new feature says the label signifies that the creator used specific technology to verify their video's... Continue reading...

UK retailer John Lewis is already selling the new Amazon Kindles. | Image: John Lewis Amazon hasn't officially announced the next generation of its Kindle e-readers yet, but following leaks of several models, the UK retailer John Lewis was already selling the 12th-gen entry-level Kindle and the new Kindle Kids Edition through its website earlier today, as spotted by Good e-Reader. Both listings have since been taken down.The 12th-gen Kindle Paperwhite recently popped up in an eBay listing that has also been taken down, and which included images of the new e-reader's packaging revealing minor upgrades such as a slightly larger seven-inch E Ink screen. Screenshot: John Lewis John Lewis' listing for the 12th-gen entry-level Kindle model appeared to confirm leaked details from September. According to those... Continue reading...

Image: AeroGarden AeroGarden, which produces smart indoor planters with built-in grow lamps that work with a connected app, recently announced that it will shutter its business starting on January 1st next year, Ars Technica reported.The company, which was acquired by Scott's Miracle-Gro in 2020, says it will update users later on the longer-term status" of its app, which lets users monitor water levels and set lighting schedules. For now, AeroGarden only says the app will work for an extended period of time." Owners can still control its smart garden gadgets without the app as described in the user manual" for their specific product. (For instance, the Bounty Wi-Fi offers a touchscreen control panel.)Even so, Wi-Fi-enabled software features are a... Continue reading...

An enthusiastic Gelsinger introduced the partnership at today's conference, hosted by Lenovo. | Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge Nothing brings rivals together like a common enemy, and in this case it's the rise of ARM pulling Intel and AMD closer together than ever. The two chip makers - not exactly the friendliest frenemies - are the headlining members of a new x86 Advisory Group to try and defend the platform's interests against ARM, which finally appears poised to challenge x86's dominance.The alliance includes a long list of other founding members including Microsoft, Google, and Meta, as well as Lenovo, the company that hosted the announcement at its Tech World 2024 conference in Bellevue, Washington. This morning's keynote featured appearances by AMD CEO Lisa Su as well as Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who unsurprisingly said that the x86 architecture is... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Google Chrome has begun to phase out uBlock Origin. The developer of the free ad blocker, Raymond Hill, recently reposted a screenshot that shows Chrome automatically turning off uBlock Origin because it is no longer supported."The change comes as Google Chrome migrates to Manifest V3, a new extension specification that could impact the effectiveness of some ad blockers. uBlock Origin has launched uBlock Origin Lite, which uses Manifest V3, in response to the transition. However, you have to manually install the extension because it's too different from uBO to be an automatic replacement," according to a FAQ Hill that posted to GitHub.Hill says you may notice a difference when using uBlock Origin Lite compared to uBlock Origin... Continue reading...

JLab's Go Pop ANC wireless earbuds include active noise cancellation and a pair of microphones on each bud. | Image: JLab JLab already sells a budget-friendly pair of noise canceling wireless earbuds with its $59.99 ANC 3, but at $29.99, the company's new Go Pop ANC are half the price while still offering features like an ambient sound boosting mode and up to 21 hours of battery life with ANC active.Although we haven't tested them, at $29.99, we're not necessarily expecting the JLab Go Pop ANC's active noise-canceling performance will rival the capabilities of industry-leading offerings from companies like Sony. The Go Pop ANC rely on just two microphones in a feed-forward system that detects and cancels external sounds. More advanced and more expensive ANC systems use a hybrid approach with additional mics inside the ear that can detect and remove a wider... Continue reading...

The Pixel Tablet displaying the new Home Controls screensaver. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge A new Home Controls screensaver in Android 15 turns your tablet or phone into a smart home dashboard, where you can control devices with a single tap. The interactive screensaver does away with the need to unlock your device or tap a shortcut button, making controlling your connected lights or cameras much quicker.The feature is live now on the Google Pixel Tablet and Pixel phones running Android 15 and should be available on more devices soon.The screensaver appears when your device is docked or connected to a charger. It works with the Google Home app and displays your Favorites tab, which can be customized to show your most used devices, such as individual smart lights, thermostats, and security camera feeds. The tab also has... Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images The FIDO Alliance, the organization that's helping shepherd passkey adoption, announced a draft of new specifications that would let users securely move their passkeys across different password managers.Passkeys are great - it's nice to be able to log in to apps and websites without entering a password. But there hasn't been a standard protocol for transferring your passkeys across password managers. The new specifications, the Credential Exchange Protocol (CXP) and Credential Exchange Format (CXF), are designed to fill that gap.The FIDO Alliance's Credential Provider Special Interest Group," which includes representatives from 1Password, Apple, Bitwarden, Google, Microsoft, Okta, and more, collaborated on the specifications. The new... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Meta is adding an activity status" to Threads so that you can see who's actively online as you're scrolling your feed. In a post, Threads boss Adam Mosseri pitches it as a way to help you find others to engage with in real-time." The activity status will show up next to your profile picture in the feed and on your profile, based on screenshots Mosseri shared. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge A screenshot of Adam Mosseri's post about the feature on Threads - look for the green dots. Fortunately, if you don't want people to know when you're online, you don't have to share that. Only people who have activity status turned on will be able to see when you're online, and you can turn this off within your... Continue reading...

Photo: Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images The New York Times has demanded that AI search engine startup Perplexity stop using content from its site in a cease and desist letter sent to the company, reports The Wall Street Journal. The Times, which is currently suing OpenAI and Microsoft over allegedly illegally training models on its content, says the startup has been using its content without permission, a claim made earlier this year by Forbes and Conde Nast.The Journal included this passage from the letter:

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge The video game voice actor strike could be over soon. SAG-AFTRA, which negotiates the interactive media agreement that governs video game performances, has announced that negotiations on the agreement will resume on Wednesday, October 23rd.SAG-AFTRA and members of the interactive media bargaining group - which includes video game companies like Activision, Insomniac Games, Take Two, Electronic Arts, and more - had been negotiating a new interactive media agreement for almost two years. In September of last year, SAG-AFTRA members voted for strike authorization, warning that a strike would be forthcoming if the two parties could not reach a deal. This summer, a strike was formally authorized and SAG-AFTRA members began picketing on July... Continue reading...

The Nuio Flow keyboard features a split design form factor for optimal hand positioning." | Image: Nuio A new company called Nuio, founded by two brothers with backgrounds in design and manufacturing, is rethinking desk accessories with the goal of making our computers more comfortable to use. It's debuting today with a collection of magnetic peripherals called Flow that's centered around a wireless split keyboard, all designed to make it easier to find your perfect ergonomic layout, even if that's constantly changing throughout the day.Tom Wilson, the CEO of Nuio (a combination of new and I/O), previously worked at companies including Apple, Google, and Frog Design, while Greg Wilson, the company's CMO, spent years at Frog Design and the creative agency Digitas. The brothers cofounded Nuio with the goal of improving how we physically... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Android 15 is now rolling out to Pixel devices, bringing them new privacy features, security tools, and improvements for foldables and tablets. The operating system first launched last month through the Android Open Source Project, but at the time, it wasn't yet available on Pixel phones and tablets - or other major Android devices. Google announced today that it's finally coming to Pixels alongside a series of Pixel feature drops.One major new feature in Android 15 is the ability to make a private space" for apps you might want to keep hidden from other people who get ahold of your phone. (Google gives the examples of social, dating, or banking apps.) Apps you put in the private space won't show up in your recent apps, notifications,... Continue reading...

The Anbernic RG P01 is the company's first wireless controller includes a six-axis gyroscope for playing Switch games that support motion controls. | Screenshot: YouTube Anbernic is expanding its extensive lineup of handheld consoles to include wireless controllers with the reveal of its new RG P01, which features Hall effect triggers and joysticks with minimal drift," according to the company.The Anbernic RG P01 features an Xbox-style Y, B, A, and X button layout that can be switched to a Nintendo-style layout through software, but it's not yet known if reconfiguring the controller is done through a desktop or mobile app.The controller is compatible with PCs, the Nintendo Switch, Steam devices, iOS, and Android; wireless connectivity includes support for Bluetooth 5.3 as well as a 2.4GHz connection for reduced lag. Anbernic hasn't confirmed if a 2.4GHz USB dongle is included for gaming devices that... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Spotify is rolling out the beta test of music videos to 85 additional markets globally, allowing Premium subscribers to watch a limited catalog" of videos from artists like Charlie XCX, Doja Cat, Ed Sheeran, Fontaines D.C., LISA, and more.However, that list of available areas doesn't include the US yet, and it's unclear when it will reach us here. As with all of our features, availability can vary across markets and tiers," Spotify spokesperson Brittany Le Roy said in a statement to The Verge. Music videos on Spotify are still in beta and we look forward to bringing it to even more users across more markets, including the US, in the future."With the wider rollout, Spotify is also adding the ability to instantly switch between audio... Continue reading...

Image: Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft's discless Xbox Series X goes on sale today, and while it looks slightly different on the outside thanks to a white paint job and the lack of a disc drive, inside, it has been redesigned. Microsoft has redesigned the motherboard on the white Xbox Series X and new 2TB models, shrunk the system-on-a-chip (SoC) down to 6nm, and switched to a new cooling solution.YouTuber Austin Evans spotted the changes in a teardown of the new models and reported that the shrunken chip allows the new Xbox Series X models to run around 10 watts less than the original model at idle. Image: Austin Evans (YouTube) The new Xbox Series X motherboard has been heavily redesigned. Image: Austin Evans (YouTube) ... Continue reading...

Electrify America is one of several charging networks included in Nissan's offering. | Image: Nissan Nissan is starting up an electric vehicle charging network that lets Ariya SUV owners connect and pay at participating third-party charging stations using the MyNissan app. The new Nissan Energy Charge Network" consists of 90,000 fast chargers" in the US from partner companies Electrify America, Shell Recharge, ChargePoint, and EVgo. Starting in November, Ariya owners can use a stored payment method in their MyNissan app to start and pay for a charging session with one tap at a station.Nissan also says it will make available" Tesla Supercharger-compatible NACS adapters for Ariya owners later this year. Some companies like Kia, Ford, and Rivian will or have been providing the adapter for free, while others like GM will sell one for a... Continue reading...

An eBay listing that's no longer active included packaging photos of the 12th-gen Kindle Paperwhite e-reader. | Image: Reddit A handful of specs for the 12th-gen Amazon Kindle Paperwhite have leaked via an eBay listing, which shared images of the new e-reader's packaging before it was pulled, reports Good e-Reader. Those images, still available on Reddit, reveal a slightly larger seven-inch E Ink screen, up from 6.8 inches on the previous model.Other features of the 12th-gen Kindle Paperwhite include screen lighting that can be adjusted between warm and cool color temperatures, an IPX8 waterproof rating allowing the e-reader to survive a dunking to depths of two meters for a full hour, screensaver ads that can be removed for a fee, and weeks of battery life."Details on what processor the e-reader is using, how much memory is included, and its wireless... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google plans to buy electricity from next-generation nuclear reactors. It announced the deal yesterday, which it says is the world's first corporate agreement to purchase electricity from advanced small modular reactors (SMRs) that are still under development.Google inked the deal with engineering company Kairos Power, which plans to get its first SMR up and running by 2030. Google agreed to purchase electricity from multiple" reactors that would be built through 2035.Google needs a lot more clean energy to meet its climate goals while pursuing its AI ambitions. New nuclear technologies are still unproven at scale, but the hope is that they can provide carbon pollution-free electricity while solving some of the problems that come... Continue reading...

Sonos apparently believes its mobile app has reached a good enough place to resume product launches: today the company has announced the Arc Ultra and Sub 4. The $999 Arc Ultra is a more powerful take on the original Arc, and it's the first Sonos product to feature unique transducer technology from Mayht, a startup that Sonos acquired in 2022. Sonos refers to this as Sound Motion" and says it allows the Arc Ultra to produce richer, even more immersive sound than the original.The company is touting Sound Motion as one of the most significant breakthroughs in audio engineering in nearly 100 years" and says it unlocks greater clarity, depth, and balance than ever before possible from a soundbar this sleek."The Arc Ultra has fourteen... Continue reading...