The Verge

Image: Google Google I/O just ended - and it was packed with AI announcements. As expected, the event focused heavily on Google's Gemini AI models, along with the ways they're being integrated into apps like Workspace and Chrome.If you didn't get to tune in to the event live, you can catch up with all the latest from Google in the roundup below.Google Lens now lets you search by recording a video

The new Blink Mini 2 adds weather resistance so you can use it indoors and outdoors. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge If you've got vacation plans for Memorial Day weekend, a security camera can help you keep an eye on valuables back home so you can really relax during your time off. And right now, one of the least expensive options on the market is even more affordable, with the new Blink Mini 2 selling for just $29.99 ($10 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and The Home Depot. If you want to keep an eye on packages outdoors, you can also buy the wired camera from Amazon with a weather-resistant adapter for just $39.98 ($10 off).The Blink Mini 2 is an excellent upgrade over its predecessor. It's still a very basic 1080p camera, but it now offers better low-light performance, a wider field of view, and USB-C support. Most notably, the camera now features IP65... Continue reading...

Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge Among Google's swath of new AI models and tools announced today, the company is also expanding its AI content watermarking and detection technology to work across two new mediums.Google's DeepMind CEO, Demis Hassabis, took the stage for the first time at the Google I/O developer conference on Tuesday to talk not only about the team's new AI tools, like the Veo video generator, but also about the new upgraded SynthID watermark imprinting system. It can now mark video that was digitally generated as well as AI-generated text.Watermarking AI-generated content will matter increasingly as the technology gains prevalence, especially when AI gets used for malicious purposes. It's already been used to spread political misinformation, claim s... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Google is adding a bunch of new features to its Gemini AI, and one of the most powerful is a personalization option called Gems" that allows users to create custom versions of the Gemini assistant with varying personalities.Gems lets you create iterations of chatbots that can help you with certain tasks and retain specific characteristics, kind of like making your own bot in Character.AI, the service that lets you talk to virtualized versions of popular characters and celebrities or even a fake psychiatrist. Google says you can make Gemini your gym buddy, sous-chef, coding partner, creative writing guide, or anything you can dream up. Gems feels similar to OpenAI's GPT Store that lets you make customized ChatGPT chatbots.You can set... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Google is building its Gemini AI into Chrome on desktop. During its I/O event on Tuesday, Google announced that Chrome 126 will use Gemini Nano to power on-device AI features, such as text generation.Gemini Nano is the lightweight large language model Google introduced to the Pixel 8 Pro last year - and, later, the Pixel 8. To get Gemini Nano on Chrome, Google says it tweaked the model and optimized the browser to load the model quickly."The integration will let you do things like generate product reviews, social media posts, and other blurbs directly within Chrome. Microsoft similarly added its AI assistant Copilot to Edge last year, letting you ask questions and summarize the information on your screen. Unlike Gemini Nano in Chrome,... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Gemini, Google's ChatGPT competitor, is getting new trip planning capabilities, the company announced today at its I/O developer conference.Based on the user's prompt, the AI model will now research publicly available information as well as tap into specific details like flight times and hotel bookings to work up a custom, multiday vacation itinerary in a matter of seconds."In a briefing with reporters, Google VP and general manager of Gemini, Sissie Hsiao, said that manually planning a trip could take me hours, days, maybe even weeks." But with the help of Gemini, the process could be nearly instantaneous. And it will be dynamic," meaning it can be tweaked and adjusted through prompts and other requests thanks to Gemini's new trip... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is working on new protections to help prevent Android users from falling victim to phone scams. During its I/O developer conference on Tuesday, Google announced that it's testing a new call monitoring feature that will warn users if the person they're talking to is likely attempting to scam them and encourage them to end such calls.Google says the feature utilizes Gemini Nano - a reduced version of the company's Gemini large language model for Android devices that can run locally and offline - to look for fraudulent language and other conversation patterns typically associated with scams. Users will then receive real-time alerts during calls where these red flags are present.Some examples of what could trigger these alerts... Continue reading...

Image: Google The future of Gemini, Search, Android, and more. Continue reading...

Image: Sony Pictures The classic competitive game show Jeopardy! is getting a spinoff series on Prime Video. Sony Pictures Television is producing Pop Culture Jeopardy!, which turns the classic academic quiz show with three challengers into a team-based trivia game that touches on music, movies, culture, sports, celebrities, entertainment, and more.The new series marks the first time the company's game show division is expanding the Jeopardy! brand to a streaming platform with a new show. Years ago, the company let watchers binge the main show on Hulu.While the series sounds like a casual side mission for the franchise, Sony Pictures Television's president of game shows, Suzanne Prete, states it will be a nail biter" for fans and that teams will compete... Continue reading...

The annual rings on the trunk of a conifer tree. | Photo: Getty Images A summer marked by deadly heatwaves across Asia, Europe, and North America last year turns out to have been the hottest in the Northern Hemisphere in at least 2,000 years, according to a new study published in the journal Nature.Officially, 2023 went down in history books as the hottest on record for the planet - but those records only started in 1850. To see how drastically the climate has changed over millennia, the authors of the new paper studied ancient tree rings to gauge fluctuations in temperatures over the years.The results show us how extreme the weather is becoming. And while temperatures have reached unprecedented peaks, they're also a warning of what's to come unless policymakers do more to turn down the heat.The cross... Continue reading...

Workers are producing structural components of EV batteries at a production workshop in Qingkou Automobile Industrial Park in Fuzhou, Fujian province, China, on February 23rd, 2024. | Photo by Costfoto / NurPhoto via Getty Images The Biden administration announced much higher tariffs today on key goods from China that the US will need to meet its climate goals. The move targets transportation, clean energy technologies, raw materials, and more.To encourage China to eliminate its unfair trade practices regarding technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation, the President is directing increases in tariffs across strategic sectors such as steel and aluminum, semiconductors, electric vehicles, batteries, critical minerals, solar cells, ship-to-shore cranes, and medical products," a White House fact sheet says.It's the latest move the US has taken amid efforts to ramp up domestic manufacturing while escalating trade tensions with China. All in all,... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AWS CEO Adam Selipsky is stepping down, effective June 3rd, according to a leaked email from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy viewed by The Verge. Matt Garman, the SVP of AWS sales, marketing, and global services at Amazon, will replace Selipsky as CEO. Amazon confirmed The Verge's reporting in a blog post published this morning.Garman is a nearly 18-year veteran of Amazon, spending the entire time working on AWS.Amazon reported that revenue from its cloud unit grew 17 percent year over year in the first quarter of 2024, beating Wall Street expectations, with revenue at $25.04 billion. AWS is also very profitable, accounting for 17 percent of Amazon's revenue in the most recent quarter and 62 percent of its operating income. That invisible server... Continue reading...

Photo by Rodin Eckenroth / Getty Images Nicolas Cage is ready to don the Spider-Man Noir suit again - only this time, in live-action. Amazon has confirmed that Cage will be reprising the role that he previously voiced in the animated film Into the Spider-Verse.The new series, which was first reported last year, is simply called Noir and, according to Amazon, tells the story of an aging and down on his luck private investigator (Cage) in 1930s New York, who is forced to grapple with his past life as the city's one and only superhero." Oren Uziel (22 Jump Street) and Steve Lightfoot (The Punisher on Netflix) will serve as co-showrunners, while Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Amy Pascal, who worked on the Spider-Verse films, will be executive producers.Noir doesn't... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge The new iPads are out, and they're terrific. They're also expensive, and they're a lot of iPad. Do you really need an OLED screen, an M4 processor, all that engineering to make it so thin and light, and the increasingly great but also increasingly expensive new controllers?On this episode of The Vergecast, we explore that very question with The Verge's Chris Welch, who uses the iPad in as varied and powerful a way as you'll find. We talk about the upsides of OLED, the pros and cons of huge screens, and what really makes an iPad an iPad.After that, we chat with Chris about what's going on at Sonos. It appears we're only a few weeks away from the launch of the company's first headphones, which will be called Ace and look very nice.... Continue reading...

The Sims 4. | Image: Electronic Arts Midsummer Studios is a new game studio founded by two former Firaxis developers, Jake Solomon and Will Miller. Before founding Midsummer, the two worked on XCOM, Civilization: Beyond Earth, and Marvel's Midnight Suns. Today, the new studio has announced its first game: a next-gen life sim game with former The Sims director Grant Rodiek leading the project as executive producer.According to the studio's press release, this debut project emphasizes player-driven narratives, allowing communities to share memorable moments that grow out of the creativity of players themselves." The project doesn't currently have a title or release date.This new game will face stiff competition in the life-sim genre, which has been dominated by big-budget... Continue reading...

Setapp Mobile makes every app available for one subscription. A subscription-based alternative to the Apple App Store with nag-free software. Continue reading...

Image: Lego 5,471 pieces and nearly three feet tall. Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Sony is appointing co-CEOs Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino to lead its PlayStation business from June 1st. Hermen Hulst, who currently serves as PlayStation studios chief, will be appointed as CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment's (SIE) studio business group. Hideaki Nishino will be appointed CEO of SIE's platform business group, and both will report up to Sony CFO and SIE chairman Hiroki Totoki.The unusual appointment of co-CEOs comes just months after former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan retired. Totoki had been serving as interim CEO of SIE and was working to find the successor for the SIE CEO role, but Sony has now decided it wants to split up responsibilities for leading its PlayStation business across platform and games. Both... Continue reading...

Image: Rozetked It's a day that ends in Y, so naturally, we're dealing with yet another Google Pixel hardware leak. This time, the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, and 9 Pro XL can be seen side by side in new images from Rozetked - a full five months before Google's typical October release timeframe.I have many questions about how and why these units are out in the world so early, but here we are. And I know a lot of you are no doubt eyeing that regular 9 Pro, which will finally put Google's very best camera chops into a normal-sized phone. Meanwhile, the 9 Pro XL looks a fair bit taller than Apple's iPhone 15 Pro Max. Image: Rozetked Yep, that's an XL-sized phone. l'm a bit curious as to whether Google will still call this a camera bar"... Continue reading...

Photo by Stacy Revere / Getty Images Roku will exclusively stream Major League Baseball Sunday Leadoff games starting with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Boston Red Sox on May 19th. The games will air live on The Roku Channel - no subscription or sign-up required.To watch the games, you'll have to download The Roku Channel on your Roku device or TV. The app is also available on Amazon Fire devices, Samsung TVs, and Google TVs, as well as via The Roku Channel website. You'll be able to watch replays of the games up to six hours after they end.With free games available to anyone, MLB games on Roku will be widely accessible to fans," Noah Garden, the MLB's deputy commissioner of business and media, said in a statement. Roku will stream Sunday Leadoff games every week until... Continue reading...

The iPad Air is an excellent iPad - and that's all. | Photo: David Pierce / The Verge The iPad Pro is a beast. The two-year-old iPad is more compelling than ever. So what is the Air even for anymore? Continue reading...

Photo by Lev Radin / Pacific Press / LightRocket via Getty Images Independent presidential candidate and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suing Meta for allegedly violating the First Amendment and engaging in election interference" because it removed a video about him.The lawsuit is not likely to advance far, considering that the First Amendment bars the government - not companies - from censoring speech. Plus, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act effectively insulates online platforms from being sued for how they choose to remove or limit content on their sites.Keep in mind this is the same candidate who has claimed that part of his brain had been eaten years ago by a parasitic worm (he told The New York Times he's recovered from symptoms including memory loss related to the... Continue reading...

Photo by Noam Galai / Getty Images for Clinton Global Initiative Melinda French Gates has stepped down from her position as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.French Gates, who will officially leave on June 7th, will continue her philanthropy elsewhere, to the tune of $12.5 billion. The money stems from an agreement with her ex-husband, Bill Gates, and does not come from the foundation's endowment. In her X post, she says she will focus on programs on behalf of women and families."This is not a decision I came to lightly," French Gates says. I am immensely proud of the foundation that Bill and I built together, and of the extraordinary work it is doing to address inequalities around the world."French Gates and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates divorced in 2021. At the time, the two... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix Everybody's getting bitten by the multiplatform bug; now, it's Square Enix. In its earnings report released earlier today, the publisher shared plans to increase profits, stating that it will aggressively pursue a multiplatform strategy that includes Nintendo platforms, PlayStation, Xbox, and PCs."Right now, Square Enix's biggest games, like Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, have been restricted to the PlayStation, with PC releases for select titles including Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade following some time after console launch. However, smaller new releases, like the forthcoming Visions of Mana, are seeing simultaneous release on Xbox.The company wrote that it hopes bringing its major franchises, including its... Continue reading...

Photo: Warner Bros. OpenAI is releasing a Her-inspired voice assistant feature that can read your facial expressions and translate spoken language in real time - and hopefully do it all without abandoning you like in the movie.During a livestream demonstration on Monday, OpenAI engineers and CTO Mira Murati gathered around a phone to show the new capabilities. They encouraged the assistant to be more expressive while making up a bedtime story, then abruptly requested it to switch to a robotic voice, before finally asking it to conclude the story with a singing voice. Later, they asked the assistant to look at what the phone's camera is seeing and have it respond to what's visible on-screen. The assistant was also able to be interrupted while speaking and... Continue reading...

I thought opening the impossible door in Mario 64 was the coolest thing that'd happened to the Nintendo 64 in years, but Mr. Wiseguy's just-released N64 Recompiled blows me away. It's a tool that theoretically lets you turn any N64 game into a native PC port, the better to play and preserve N64 games - and to showcase its abilities, you can already download Windows and Linux-native apps for The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask that seem to run incredibly well.It almost seems too good to be true: I just double-clicked an EXE file on my Windows laptop, told the app where to find a Majora's Mask ROM file, and was immediately playing a copy of the game that felt incredibly responsive to my every press on a 165Hz variable refresh rate screen,... Continue reading...

Image: Apple Even if subscribers are outside cellular or Wi-Fi range (or if there's a massive outage), Apple News Plus on iOS 17.5 can still supply them content now that it's added Offline Mode - this must've been farther down the list from Apple Maps, which added offline navigation last year in the iOS 17 update. Top Stories, Apple News Today audio briefings, magazines, narrated articles, and puzzles can automatically download to your iPhone or iPad, all optimized to maximize space on the devices.As promised, the latest updates across macOS, iPadOS, and other platforms also add another word game for News Plus subscribers called Quartiles, competing with The New York Times' growing library of games and even LinkedIn. The New Plus Puzzles section... Continue reading...

Photo: Getty Images Cruise's autonomous vehicles are officially back on the road and driving autonomously for the first time since one of its driverless vehicles dragged a pedestrian over 20 feet in San Francisco.Cruise said last month that it would resume testing with manually driven vehicles focused on mapping and gathering road information - minor tasks for a company with as many autonomous miles as Cruise. But Cruise needs to show local officials that it is suitably apologetic for the pedestrian-dragging incident by going slow and talking a lot about safety and trust. The company is deploying its vehicles in Phoenix, Arizona, which has long been a hotbed for autonomous vehicle testing.Cruise needs to show local officials that it is suitably... Continue reading...

Denon Home smart speakers now support Apple's Siri voice assistant. | Image: Denon Way back in 2021, Ecobee's thermostats became the first non-Apple device to integrate Siri voice control into its hardware, following Apple's making the voice assistant available to third-party devices at WWDC that year. Fast-forward a few years, and there's finally another device with Siri on board: Denon smart speakers.While primarily known for its receivers, Denon's line of wireless whole-home audio and music-streaming smart speakers position it as a competitor to Sonos and Bose. Denon also happens to be owned by Masimo Consumer Audio, a division of Masimo, the company whose patent infringement case around its pulse oximetry tech is currently blocking some of the Apple Watch's health features.The hardware support for Siri on Denon... Continue reading...

Life360 owns Tile, which makes popular location trackers like the Tile Pro. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge Tile is promising satellite connectivity for its Bluetooth trackers in a move that could boost the company as an independent alternative to its Big Tech rivals: Apple's Find My network and Google's newly revamped Find My Device network.Life360, the family locator and safety service company that bought Tile in 2021 announced a partnership with the satellite company Hubble Network as it introduces Find with Life360," a global location tracking network rival with an API that's open for use by other developers. They say that using Hubble's satellites, Tile trackers will eventually be able to find items on both Android and iPhone devices even outside the range of cellular connectivity.Hubble says it has two satellites operating already,... Continue reading...

The screen on the 2024 iPad Pro is a hair bigger, yet the tablet is somehow thinner and lighter than the prior model. | Photo: David Pierce / The Verge The newest iPad Pro and iPad Air models don't hit store shelves until Wednesday, May 15th, but we're already seeing preorder discounts on select colors ahead of the launch. The 11-inch iPad Air is down to $569.99 ($30 off) with Wi-Fi and 128GB of storage at Amazon, while the base 13-inch iPad Air is going for 769.99 ($30 off) at Amazon. Meanwhile, the 256GB 11-inch iPad Pro with the M4 chip / Wi-Fi is down to $949.99 ($50 off) at Amazon; you can also save $50 on all 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro models at Best Buy if you're a My Best Buy Total or Plus member (which itself starts at $49.99 a year).We can't speak to their worth just yet, but the 2024 iPad Air and iPad Pro are likely to be safe bets. On paper, neither rock the boat so much... Continue reading...

Image: OpenAI ChatGPT now has a desktop app - but it's only available on macOS for now. OpenAI CTO Mira Murati announced the news during an event on Tuesday, where she also said that ChatGPT is getting a refreshed UI.In the demo shown by OpenAI, users could open the ChatGPT desktop app in a small window, alongside another program. They asked ChatGPT questions about what's on their screen - whether by typing or saying it. ChatGPT could then respond based on what it sees." Image: OpenAI OpenAI says users can ask ChatGPT a question by using the Option + Space keyboard shortcut, as well as take and discuss screenshots within the app. Both free and paid users will be able to access the new app, but it will only be available to... Continue reading...

Photo: Meta Meta Quest headsets are ready to go on flights with you as Meta has announced a new Travel Mode. The company is rolling out the experimental feature to Quest 2 and 3 headsets running Quest software version 65 or later, allowing owners to use the headset in passthrough on a flight without windows drifting away from them.To try it, opt in under Settings > Experimental features. Then the new mode will live in the Quick settings panel, where you can toggle it from the Quest's universal menu. Travel Mode isn't without limitations - it's not designed to account for the motion of a car or train, for instance; Meta says support for other transportation methods is coming. Also, if a game or app requires an internet connection, your plane will... Continue reading...

Image: Google Google's futuristic videoconferencing technology will soon become a reality. In an update on Monday, Google shared that it's working on integrating Project Starline with common videoconferencing setups like Google Meet and Zoom.Google first took the wraps off Project Starline during Google I/O in 2021. Its first iteration involved a 3D video chat booth where you see a projection of the person you're chatting with and they see a projection of you - almost like you're talking to each other in the same room.But Google later fit the technology into what looks like a large TV with a camera system mounted on the top, rather than an entire booth, making it more practical for offices and conference rooms. Image: Google N... Continue reading...