The Verge - All Posts

Donald Mustard at the 2018 Game Awards. | Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images Donald Mustard ran a successful studio that showed what the Xbox and iPhone were capable of. Then, he became the face of one of the biggest and boldest storytelling experiments in history, to borrow a phrase, with Fortnite's massive metaverse.Now, he's done: Mustard, chief creative officer at Epic Games, says he's retiring this month.

ChatGPT has limits, and pairing Captain America and the Winter Soldier is one of them... sometimes. | Image: Disney / Marvel AI-generated fiction has become a subject of perpetual fascination for me. It's the bane of some writers' existence, yet it's increasingly cropping up across both commercial storefronts like Amazon and noncommercial writing sites like Archive of Our Own (AO3). While some creators painstakingly train their own tools, many simply plug prompts into an off-the-shelf commercial chatbot, particularly OpenAI's ChatGPT. And ChatGPT is not a rarefied artist's tool. It's a platform, which means every word that goes into and comes out of it is moderated to avoid offense and controversy. That raises a fascinating question: what stories should you be allowed to make an AI system tell?Apparently, not ones about Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes being... Continue reading...

Image: Getty Intuit, the parent company of TurboTax, is still facing blowback over claims it tricked people into using its free" tax filing service that wasn't actually free. In a ruling on Friday, the Federal Trade Commission's chief administrative law judge (ALJ) ruled that Intuit deceived consumers" and engaged in deceptive advertising."The ruling includes several pages of commercials and online ads where Intuit advertised its Free Edition" software. While the name implies that the service is, well, free, people wound up having to pay to use it - sparking a lawsuit from the FTC and a $141 million payout to affected users. Meanwhile, Intuit's actually no-cost Free File version, which it launched in partnership with the IRS, remained... Continue reading...

Image: Mega / Target In the year of our lord 2023, you will be able to purchase a brand-new Xbox 360 - but there's a catch. You'll have to assemble it yourself. A full seven years after Microsoft stopped production on what was its bestselling console, block builder company Mega has revealed a 3:4 scale replica of an Xbox 360 that's available exclusively at Target starting October 8th.

The Dbrand Arachnoplates, for PS5. | Image: Dbrand Would you rather have a spider-tastic PS5 designed to promote a very specific game or one that looks like a work of art? Dbrand pitches its new Arachnoplates as a substitute for Sony's sold-out Spider-Man 2 console covers - but I actually think they look better!Here are the original Sony plates, as a refresher: Image: Sony Now, here's Dbrand's Arachnoplates again: Image: Dbrand Image: Dbrand Image: Dbrand It's a bit more graphic novel, a bit more obviously Spider-Man vs. Venom, and without any corporate logos in the way. No easter eggs this time, either, says CEO Adam Ijaz - the product is strictly focused on better execution than anyone else in the... Continue reading...

Image: Google Google just released a teaser video of the Pixel Watch 2, and while the smartwatch looks awfully similar to the original, there are some notable differences, such as a new crown, IP68 rating, and a totally different sensor array.In the run-up to its Made by Google launch event on October 4th in New York, Google's been leaking" glimpses of its upcoming Pixel lineup, including Thursday's closeup of the Pixel 8 Pro and the much smaller Pixel 8. However, our looks at the Pixel Watch 2 have been relatively fleeting. This new video, while short, is the first time we've been able to confirm some real differences in terms of design. (Yes, I replayed the video several times and held up my own Pixel Watch as a reference.)For starters, the... Continue reading...

SpaceX Starship prototype | Image: SpaceX The first orbital launch attempt for SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy booster in April ended explosively about four minutes into its test flight, and the FAA isn't ready to clear a follow-up attempt yet. Today, the agency closed its mishap investigation and said the report identified 63 actions that need to be implemented by SpaceX before launches can resume. They include redesigns to prevent leaks and fires, a redesigned launch pad, and other fixes.A new post from SpaceX discussing Upgrades ahead of Starships's second flight test" appeared shortly afterward that didn't directly reference the 63 actions, but its details on why the first test flight lost control reflect what the FAA says needs to be addressed.

Image: Procreate Digital illustration software company Procreate has announced Procreate Dreams, its new 2D animation app for iPad that aims to provide animation tools that anyone can use, regardless of their animating experience. Procreate Dreams will be globally available to download from the App Store on November 22nd for a one-time purchase of $19.99 - a rare sight in an industry that has widely transitioned to subscription pricing models.Designed for touch, Procreate Dreams features tools like Performing that enable users to automatically add keyframes to a project using gestures that record the animator's actions in real time. Procreate claims the tool will forever change the way creatives animate" by allowing them to instantly respond to their... Continue reading...

The all-in-one Xgimi MoGo 2 Pro delivers good picture quality despite its small size. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge Don't you wish you could bring your TV with you while traveling? Sure, you can keep up with your favorite shows using your phone or tablet, but watching content on a small screen just isn't as enjoyable. Luckily, the Xgimi MoGo 2 Pro is a portable projector that'll allow you to watch content more comfortably. Regularly $599, it's down to its all-time low of $479 ($120 off) when you buy it directly from Xgimi using promo code XGSUB-G3H0T.Despite the fact it's small enough to fit in a backpack, the MoGo 2 Pro offers good picture quality - more so in the dark - with support for HDR10 and built-in Chromecast. It can project images up to 200 inches, though you'll enjoy the best picture quality at 30 inches. As an extra perk, the Android TV... Continue reading...

Apple's adaptation of Victor LaValle's The Changeling transforms the novel into an even more chilling tale about the things that keep parents up at night. Continue reading...

The Chromecast with Google TV HD remote from 2022. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Google might have a new Chromecast with Google TV in the pipeline, and its remote seems to house some extra buttons compared to the previous version. Android deep diver Mishaal Rahman dug into the latest Android TV 14 beta release and found a system video showcasing the outline of what looks like a brand-new remote designed to control Google TV software.The new remote bears a resemblance to the current flat pill-shaped remote, first introduced in 2020, with an iPod-like dial (minus the touch sensitivity) toward the top on the front. But now, the six main control buttons seem to have scattered to make room for what could be a new volume or channel rocker matching the diameter of the face buttons. Image: Mishaal Rahman ... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge This is Platformer, a newsletter on the intersection of Silicon Valley and democracy from Casey Newton and Zoe Schiffer. Sign up here.Today, let's talk about the US government's first major antitrust trial against a tech giant in a generation. If the Justice Department succeeds in its case against Google, it could lead to radical change around the web. But almost three years after the case was filed, it's not clear that the government lawyers will be able to bend antitrust law far enough to secure a victory.I.On October 20th, 2020, the US government formally accused Google of illegally maintaining a monopoly on its search and search advertising businesses. By striking deals with Apple, telecoms, and device manufacturers to make its... Continue reading...

Some limitations for the in-development feature will cap how many emoji you can apply to a single email. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is developing emoji reactions for Gmail that would make the email platform feel a little more like a messaging app if released. The feature was first reported a few weeks ago by The Tape Drive after some code was discovered in the iOS Gmail app that would allow users to react to emails with an emoji, just like similar emoji reaction implementations found on rival platforms like Outlook.Additional evidence has since been found in the latest Gmail APK for Android that supports the claim. As reported by Google leaker AssembleDebug, the APK contains several lines of code that directly refer to emoji reactions. Details are a tad sparse, but one line from the APK code says the feature is coming soon" and that you're among the first... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla is reportedly preparing to build a $25,000 electric car built on the company's next-generation engineering platform. Axios reports that Elon Musk biographer Walter Isaacson has detailed the plan to build a $25,000 electric car alongside an autonomous robotaxi that could ferry passengers around.The $25,000 car reportedly has a futuristic design like the long-delayed Cybertruck - the angular pickup truck that Tesla first revealed in 2019. The Cybertruck will supposedly begin production this year, with production-at-scale beginning in 2024.This isn't the first time we're hearing about Tesla's plans for a $25,000 electric car. Musk promised one in 2018, saying it would be possible within three years. The goal for a more affordable EV... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple has issued a critical security update for iPhones to address a zero-day bug in iOS 16 that could allow attackers to remotely install spyware on a device without any interaction from the iPhone owner. Citizen Lab, a spyware research group, discovered the exploit last week and immediately notified Apple.The zero-click zero-day exploit had been used to install NGO Group's Pegasus spyware onto an iPhone owned by an employee of a Washington DC-based civil society organization. Pegasus is spyware developed by a private contractor for use by government agencies. The spyware infects a phone and sends back data, including photos, messages, and audio / video recordings.The exploit involves PassKit attachments sent via iMessageApple has... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge We know for a fact that Valve's hardware ambitions didn't end with the Steam Deck. Over the past two years, Valve has suggested it would like to see a standalone VR headset, a new Steam Controller, and a Steam Deck revision with better battery life and screen.Now, Valve may be actually getting ready to ship at least one of its hardware ideas. South Korea's National Radio Research Agency has certified a low power wireless device" from Valve with the designation RC-V1V-1030," as spotted by @dxpl at Arca.live (via Brad Lynch).

The Verge X really wants you to forget about Twitter - and that includes in its terms of service. Users are starting to see pop-ups about new terms that go into effect on September 29th, and one adjustment is two instances of retweet" (the only use of tweet" in the current terms) to repost," essentially putting the final stamp in the death of the word tweet.There are a bunch of other branding changes in the new terms, including a nearly wholesale removal of the word Twitter" in favor of X. I say nearly wholesale because, hilariously, many of the URLs included in the terms still seemingly have to include the word twitter," like in this link to a developer-focused website: https://developer.x.com/en/docs/twitter-for-websites. There have been... Continue reading...

Heirloom's technology filters CO2 out of the air. | Image: Heirloom Microsoft is helping to fund one of the US's first hubs for pulling planet-heating carbon dioxide out of the air. It struck a deal with California-based startup Heirloom, which says it will capture up to 315,000 metric tons of CO2 for Microsoft over the next decade or so.The partnership fits into Microsoft's climate goal of becoming carbon negative by 2030, meaning it plans to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it emits as pollution. The company has made other deals with startups breaking ground on new industrial facilities that filter CO2 out of the air, called direct air capture (DAC) plants. Now, it's also involved in the Biden administration's push to build big hubs for DAC plants across the US.The partnership... Continue reading...

One more exec has pleaded guilty. | Illustration: The Verge Ryan Salame, who ran FTX's Bahamas subsidiary, pleaded guilty to two criminal charges on Thursday. They are conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and defraud the Federal Election Commission and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transferring business.I made political contributions in my name that were funded by transfers from an Alameda subsidiary," Salame said in court, according to CoinDesk.The former FTX executive also agreed to turn over more than $1.5 billion in assets. Salame - like Caroline Ellison, Nishad Singh, and Gary Wang, the other three executives who've already pleaded guilty to fraud charges - was a member of Sam Bankman-Fried's inner circle. He also spent millions on Republican election campaigns.... Continue reading...

Photo Illustration by Sheldon Cooper / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images Microsoft is telling customers it will assume legal responsibility if they get sued for copyright infringement while using the company's AI Copilot services.In a blog post about an initiative called the Copilot Copyright Commitment, Microsoft chief legal officer Brad Smith said the company will take the heat for any potential legal risks as more copyright holders question how AI companies handle protected works. Microsoft said the policy is an extension of its overall AI customer commitments, announced earlier this year.Microsoft said it chose this path for three reasons: it wants to stand behind customers when using its services; it understands the concern of copyright holders; and it has built guardrails against the possibility of... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is testing a new background removal tool in Paint. The feature is rolling out now to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels (version 11.2306.30.0) and lets you remove an image's background with a single click.To use the tool, testers can open an image with Paint and then hit the background removal button on the left side of Paint's toolbar. From there, Paint will automatically detect the subject of an image and cut away the background. Microsoft notes that you can also manually select the portion of the background that you want to remove. Image: Microsoft Bringing background removal to Paint would make the app even more useful. While I often use Paint for quick image edits, such as cropping,... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge GM-backed Cruise is just days away" from regulatory approval to begin mass production of its fully autonomous vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals, the company's CEO, Kyle Vogt, said at an investor conference Thursday.Cruise first unveiled the Origin robotaxi in early 2020 as a bus-like vehicle built for the sole purpose of shuttling people around in a city autonomously. But since then, the company has been mired in a lengthy regulatory process before it can begin mass production.The vehicle's lack of traditional human controls means that Cruise needs an exemption from the federal government's motor vehicle safety standards, which require vehicles to have a steering wheel and pedals. The Origin has neither.The National... Continue reading...

Oak saplings grow in tree guards in Montmorency Forest in France on Thursday, September 17th, 2020. | Image: Cyril Marcilhacy / Bloomberg via Getty Images A lot of companies that have pledged to restore ecosystems aren't showing results, according to a new analysis of 100 of the world's biggest businesses. They might have promised to plant trees and help dwindling forests gain more ground, but many of those companies have made vague commitments and aren't sharing enough information to track their progress.There's so little transparency that it's virtually impossible to know whether companies' environmental commitments are having any positive impact. Put simply, the evidence base supporting large corporations' claims about ecosystem restoration is wholly insufficient," says the analysis published today in the journal Science.There's so little transparency that it's virtually impossible... Continue reading...

Want a scary story? | Image: Elizabeth Lopatto The creators are little more than boys" and clean and neat, like salespeople or bankers. They are looking for manuscripts for their Library. No fiction - none of that inauthentic literature. They want diaries, people's deepest, innermost thoughts: true, authentic documents reflecting the real spirit of the people." The promise is that the Library will connect lonely souls, bringing them together, letting them make friends. For a fee, a reader can be put in touch with the writer of the documents. How fast, almost explosive, its growth was!"It is after the Library opens that the grisly murders begin.A lure for the morbidly isolatedI read The Twenty Days of Turin more than a month ago, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about... Continue reading...

Image: Google After leaking the Pixel 8 Pro, Google has finally revealed an official look at the flagship device, along with the standard Pixel 8, ahead of its hardware launch event scheduled to take place on October 4th in New York City. A pair of video teasers and a new Google Store landing page give a glimpse at what the Pixel 8 lineup will look like, which includes the porcelain" 8 Pro seen previously and a pink color option on the smaller phone.The pictures and videos shared by Google show how much smaller the Pixel 8 is in comparison to the 8 Pro. While the Pixel 8 Pro is rumored to retain the same 6.7-inch display size as its predecessor, the standard Pixel 8 could have a smaller 6.17-inch display (instead of 6.3 inches on the Pixel 7),... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Instagram's Threads is rolling out the ability to search through posts more widely. In a post on the platform, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the feature is rolling out in most" English- and Spanish-speaking countries with more to come soon.In a statement to The Verge, Meta spokesperson Seine Kim confirmed that the feature is coming to both the US and the UK, and is also rolling out on the platform's web app. Threads first started testing the feature in Australia and New Zealand in August, which lets you search through the platform's posts based on a specific keyword. Previously, Threads only let you search through users. Screenshot by Emma Roth / The Verge Hitting the Search for" option will let you scroll... Continue reading...

You just know that thing is going to hurt your teeth. | Image: Tesla / McDonald's You can now add cutlery to the list of official Cybertruck-inspired products that have hit the market before Tesla has managed to launch the actual vehicle. On Wednesday, Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt spotted that the automaker's Chinese business arm has teamed up with McDonald's to produce 50,000 limited-edition Cyber Spoons."The spoons sport the EV's angular design and brushed silver finish and reportedly cost 30 yuan (around $4). It comes with its own storage tube that has powered by Tesla" stamped on the end. Oh, and the spoon itself says DON'T PANIC," a nod to the book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy written by Tesla CEO Elon Musk's favorite philosopher," Douglas Adams. McDonald's in China has also made... Continue reading...

One more nail in the tracking cookie coffin. | Illustration: The Verge Google's Chrome browser is now one important step closer to its goal of phasing out third-party cookies by the end of 2024. In a press release today, the search giant announced that its relevance and measurement APIs for Privacy Sandbox - its privacy-preserving alternative to cross-site tracking cookies - are now generally available. That means that the APIs are available by default in Chrome, without setting any browser flags and without participating in a trial.Google says that 3 percent of Chrome users will remain unaffected for now to allow the company to run A/B tests, expanding general availability of the APIs to 100 percent of users over the coming months."Chrome also released new ad privacy controls that allow users to manage... Continue reading...

If you can stretch your budget from a MacBook Air, the 14-inch MacBook Pro will more than reward you. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple's big iPhone event announcing a new iPhone may be just five days from now, but the best Apple thing you can buy today is its M2 Pro-powered MacBook Pro for a new all-time low. The base configuration of the latest 14-inch MacBook Pro is on a one-day deal at B&H Photo for $1,699 ($300 off). It's packing a 10-core M2 Pro processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of built-in SSD storage, and all the other modern accoutrements of the latest MacBook Pros - excellent battery life, MagSafe charging, an SD card slot, a notched 3024 x 1964 resolution Mini LED screen, and a slew of ports.If you're in the market for a workhorse laptop for everyday tasks and some extensive creative workflows, you can't go wrong with the 14-inch MacBook Pro. It's powerful... Continue reading...

Image: Patreon Beginning today, Patreon creators who want a dedicated space to interact with fans will have a built-in option: group chats.Content creators who share their work via Patreon will be able to set up and host chat rooms for their fans to interact with each other, the company announced today. Creators can have up to four chats going at once and can restrict access to chats based on subscriber tiers - for example, having a thread open only to paying members. Chats will be available on mobile to start, with a desktop version in the works.Community chats will be familiar to many Patreon creators and subscribers: the feature is essentially a simpler, in-app Discord server. Creators will be able to customize chat names and topics, and users can... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Anthropic, the AI company backed by Google, has launched a paid version of its Claude chatbot in the US and UK. Priced at $20 (or 18) per month, the new Claude Pro option offers priority access when the bot is busy, early access to new features, and the ability to send more messages.The main draw is that you'll get five times more usage with Claude Pro when compared to the free tier, which means you can send more messages in a shorter period of time. Anthropic says the typical user will get at least 100 messages every eight hours depending on Claude's capacity. The company says it will warn you when you have 10 messages remaining, with its limits resetting every eight hours.Anthropic's new Claude Pro offering puts it on track to... Continue reading...

The Surface Duo streaming Xbox games. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge With Steam Deck competitors on the rise, Microsoft has been focused on phones for Xbox Cloud Gaming so far. Continue reading...

Did you ever think you'd watch Patrick Mahomes play by opening the YouTube app? | Photo by Michael Owens / Getty Images For the first time in almost three decades, football fans are about to turn on NFL Sunday Ticket in a new place. Sunday Ticket, which broadcasts out-of-market games to fans willing to pay a couple hundred bucks a season to watch games they wouldn't otherwise get on TV, was a DirecTV product from its launch in 1994 until this year, when YouTube plunked down a reported $2 billion a year to get the rights. Now, you can subscribe to Sunday Ticket through YouTube or YouTube TV starting at $350 for the season, and it will start showing games tonight.When I ask Christian Oestlien, the VP of product management at YouTube, what to expect from YouTube's first season as the official home of Sunday Ticket, I expect him to say what everybody always... Continue reading...