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Updated 2024-11-22 02:00
Apple just announced a new, faster iPad Mini
by
David Pierce
on (#6RFSP)
Image: Apple Apple just announced, in a somewhat understated fashion via a press release, a new iPad Mini. It's the first upgrade for Apple's smallest tablet since 2021. The new Mini starts at $499. It's up for pre-order now and goes on sale next Wednesday.The new Mini is mostly a spec bump: it runs a new A17 Pro chip, which Apple says has a 30 percent faster CPU, 25 percent faster GPU, and a Neural Engine twice as fast as the previous model. The device also supports the new Apple Pencil Pro, which is a nice touch for the Mini-toting artists out there, and comes with 128GB of storage in the base model rather than 64GB. (Those AI models need all the space they can get.) The Wi-Fi 6E chip is faster, the USB-C port is faster, everything about the iPad... Continue reading...
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Roku’s rotating security camera feed puts a surveillance center in your TV
by
Emma Roth
on (#6RFSQ)
Image: Roku Roku is making your TV more like a surveillance center. It's rolling out a carousel of all your Roku security camera feeds that will automatically rotate when cameras detect activity or during timed intervals.In addition to this update, Roku is expanding TV notifications to include alerts from all your cameras - not just your video doorbell. This can give you a heads-up when your baby's waking up in another room or if your dog is getting into trouble outside. You don't have to turn on the notifications if you don't want to, as I'd imagine they'd get pretty distracting while you're immersed in a show or movie. Image: Roku These new features will roll out this winter, and they're compatible with all Roku cameras and... Continue reading...
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Google Shopping is getting a ‘for you’ feed of products
by
Emma Roth
on (#6RFSR)
Image: Google / The Verge Google Shopping is rolling out a personalized feed that shows you a stream of products you might like. The new feature, which is coming to mobile devices first, shows up when you head to shopping.google.com.At the top of the page, you'll see a carousel of products you've recently shopped for, allowing you to jump back into your search. But once you scroll down, Google will surface recommended products and in-line videos related to items you might be interested in. Google will use your recent searches and YouTube videos to personalize your feed. GIF: Google Google's personalized feed shows recommended products and related videos. If you come across something in your feed that you don't like, you can hit the... Continue reading...
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YouTube is getting more granular playback speed controls and a sleep timer
by
Jay Peters
on (#6RFSS)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is getting a bunch of small but handy new features, like the ability to more finely tune your playback speed, new tools to collaborate on playlists, a sleep timer, and more.For me, a person who has written multiple times about video playback speeds, YouTube's new speed controls are definitely the highlight. With the updated controls, you can select playback speeds in .05 increments instead of .25 increments, giving you a lot more options for exactly how fast or slow you want to watch a video. Playback speed is still capped at 2x - maybe someday it'll get bumped up higher than that.The upgrades to playlists sound useful, too. You'll be able to build collaborative playlists by sharing a link (or, in a feature coming soon" to... Continue reading...
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Welcome to 2004 Week
by
David Pierce
on (#6RFST)
The world we live in is, in so many ways, 20 years old. Let's go back and see how we got here. Continue reading...
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Arlo is launching its first wired floodlight camera
by
Jess Weatherbed
on (#6RFSV)
The Wired Floodlight Camera provides many of the same features as Arlo's wireless alternative for a lower price. | Image: Arlo Arlo is releasing a new floodlight security camera that connects directly to your home's Wi-Fi and power source. That allows the Arlo Wired Floodlight Camera to monitor and illuminate outdoor spaces 24/7 without interruption, unlike battery-powered security systems.This is Arlo's first hardwired floodlight camera, and it's available to buy on the company's website now for $149.99. Wired security systems are harder to install than battery-powered alternatives, but Arlo says its first floodlight system features a simple, hardwired DIY installation." It's also more affordable than Arlo's $250 wireless Pro 3 Floodlight Cam, which can be set up as either a wireless or hardwired system.In fact, the Wired Floodlight Camera shares many of the... Continue reading...
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SimpliSafe’s new camera lets live agents watch your property
by
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
on (#6RFSW)
This new camera from Simplisafe lets trained agents watch over your property. | Image: Simplisafe Home security company SimpliSafe has launched its new live monitoring feature - Active Guard Outdoor Protection. Announced earlier this year, the service is powered by a new outdoor camera that uses on-device and cloud-based AI to alert call center agents about potential threats on your property. The agent then gets access to a live view through the camera and can talk to any potential intruder and either deter the threat or call emergency services.Active Guard has been running in a public beta since April of this year and is now available to all SimpliSafe users. It costs $49.99 a month for overnight live guard monitoring (8PM to 6AM) or $79.99 for 24/7 live guard monitoring. Both prices include SimpliSafe's 24/7 professional alarm... Continue reading...
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Oura Ring 4 review: still on top — for now
by
Victoria Song
on (#6RFQE)
Oura furthers its lead among smart rings with hardware and software refinements, but its subscription is still its biggest downside. Continue reading...
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DJI’s Air 3S drone is a low light all-rounder
by
Thomas Ricker
on (#6RFQF)
The DJI Air 3S. | Image: DJI The Air 3S is DJI's new mid-range drone that builds upon the Air 3 in a few notable ways. These include better image quality, especially in low light, with nighttime obstacle avoidance to help ensure the drone returns home safely. That's promising since the versatile (if boring) Air 3 already had great low-light performance when we reviewed it last year.The DJI Air 3S takes our Air Series to new heights by offering professional features like dual primary cameras and omnidirectional obstacle sensing while retaining its light weight of just 724g for boundless freedom and flexibility," said DJI Product Experience Director Ferdinand Wolf in a press release. The Air 3S is the perfect all-rounder for travel photography - capturing all your... Continue reading...
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A first look at Microsoft’s discless Xbox Series X in white
by
Tom Warren
on (#6RFQG)
Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft has started selling a discless version of its Xbox Series X console today, in the same white paint job as the smaller Xbox Series S. The only change over the carbon black exterior of the original Xbox Series X is that this new white model doesn't include a disc drive.There's no option to add a disc drive to this white model either, so you'll have to be confident you're happy playing digital games or titles from Xbox Game Pass before purchasing this $449.99 variant.Microsoft hasn't changed the rear ports either, so there's two USB-A ports, a HDMI 2.1 port to connect to your TV or monitor, an Ethernet port, and the storage expansion slot at the rear of the console. At the front there's a single USB-A port, alongside the pair... Continue reading...
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Here’s to the Motorola Razr — the late, great fashionable dumbphone
by
Jess Weatherbed
on (#6RFN9)
Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Is it possible for a phone to have pretty privilege"? Mediocre features and functionality be damned, the original Motorola Razr V3 and its successors dominated the US cellphone market for four years following its 2004 release - up to and including the iPhone's introduction in 2007 - seemingly on vibes and aesthetics alone. Not to glamorize consumerism or anything, but I miss it terribly.I was 11 years old when the Razr launched and probably among the first generation of kiddies that begged their parents to buy them a cellphone. We weren't really the target demographic before that - cellphones had mostly been bulky, boring things primarily for working adults. SMS texting had just become something that everyone did day-to-day, and mobile... Continue reading...
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The internet’s homepage
by
David Pierce
on (#6RFNA)
For a couple of years, there was nothing on the internet so simultaneously thrilling and terrifying as having your website hit the front page of Digg. Thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands, would immediately come to your site - and there's a good chance they'd crash it in the process. Hundreds of commenters would debate the merits of whatever you'd created or published, pick fights with you and each other about it, and make you feel like the internet's main character. At least for a few minutes, until something bigger and newer and more controversial hit Digg.com and everyone moved on.In its early days, Digg was something like the homepage of the internet. Any user could submit a link, and then any other user could either promote... Continue reading...
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Where did our 2004 photos go?
by
Allison Johnson
on (#6RFNB)
Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge Flipping through your high school scrapbook is a humbling experience. There's a lot to reckon with - including braces and bootcut jeans, in my case - and you get a sense of what kinds of moments you thought were worth preserving. Apparently, a great deal of funny things happened to my friends and me as we loafed around a suburban coffee shop avoiding homework. Looking through those pages, I can find plenty of documentation of life as we waited for our teammates to finish their tennis matches and turned the communal couch at Caribou Coffee into our own private rec room. But only a few pages later, the photos abruptly stop.This was all in 2003, my senior year of high school. (Please don't do that math.) I carried around disposable cameras... Continue reading...
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The first robot car race was a historic moment — and a complete failure
by
Andrew J. Hawkins
on (#6RFNC)
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images The Mojave Desert is not typically a place for a car race, but these were not your typical cars, and this was not your typical race. The course was 150 miles of rocks, loose dirt, and narrow switchbacks - harrowing terrain even for the most rugged vehicles. The obvious goal: be the first to cross the finish line without crashing, flipping over, or catching fire. The prize was $1 million.The participants looked straight out of Mad Max: military-grade Humvees, dune buggies, motorcycles, and a particularly gnarly-looking Acura SUV. No drivers with mohawks and shoulder pads, unfortunately. No drivers at all. This was the DARPA Grand Challenge - the world's first robot car race.It was March 13th, 2004, a watershed moment in autonomous... Continue reading...
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2004? 2024? Or Both?
by
Kevin Nguyen
on (#6RFND)
Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge In fashion, it's said that trends return every 20 years. But it seems technology has started to repeat itself at the same cadence, too. Can you identify what things happened in 2004, 2024, or in some cases, both?Microsoft loses its antitrust case in EuropeYear: 2004Two decades ago, the EU handed down a fine of over $600 million for not offering versions of Windows that did not come with Windows Media Player preinstalled. Microsoft still has antitrust problems in Europe at the moment, and last year, the EU attempted to block the company's acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard. But Microsoft has paid no fines this year... so far.Motorola releases a new Razr phoneYear: BothThe very first Razr, called the Motorola Razr V3,... Continue reading...
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They’re called “Podcasts”
by
David Pierce
on (#6RFNE)
Before a podcast was a podcast," it was... well, it wasn't really much of anything. A few of the early believers called them audio blogs," and the journalist often credited with coining the term podcast" also offered GuerillaMedia" as an alternative in the very same article. (And actually, there's plenty of debate over exactly who coined the term and when. The history of the podcast is more contentious than you'd think.)It was in 2004, though, that many of the earliest names in on-demand audio began to smush iPod" and broadcast" into the word we've come to know as the way we all download and listen to shows now. In the 20 years since podcasts became a thing, they've changed dramatically - the earliest pods were mostly just dudes... Continue reading...
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Pokémon developer faces major data leak
by
Adi Robertson
on (#6RFAW)
Image: Nintendo Hackers released a collection of leaked data from Pokemon game developer Game Freak over the weekend, including personal information about employees. Game Freak - which develops the main lineup of Pokemon video games - confirmed the breach in a statement, saying (per a machine translation from Japanese) that it was the result of unauthorized access to our servers by a third party" and dated back to August of 2024.Game Freak said the leaked personal information - which it characterizes as names and company email addresses - included around 2,600 items. As Polygon notes, however, the breach appears to include much more than employee information. Redditors and others say they've unearthed source code from previous games as well as unused... Continue reading...
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Silo’s new season 2 trailer teases what’s next for Juliette
by
Jay Peters
on (#6RF8Z)
Image: Apple Apple has released the first trailer for the second season of Silo, and it looks like the season will tell us what happens to protagonist Juliette after the jaw-dropping cliffhanger at the end of season one.The show, based on a series of books by Hugh Howey, is about a community of 10,000 people living in an underground silo that's intended to protect them from dangerous conditions aboveground. If you've been meaning to see the first season and haven't yet, you probably shouldn't watch this new trailer; as you might have guessed, it has quite a few mysteries that are fun to experience for yourself.Silo's second season premieres on Apple TV Plus on November 15th. The season will have 10 episodes, with a new episode each week. The season... Continue reading...
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Destiny: Rising is a new mobile RPG shooter set in Bungie’s Destiny universe
by
Tom Warren
on (#6RF6J)
Image: NetEase The rumors are true, the Destiny franchise is heading to mobile devices soon. Destiny: Rising is a new free-to-play mobile sci-fi RPG shooter that includes a number of playable hero characters, a shared world, and PvE and PvP modes all set in Bungie's Destiny universe.China-based NetEase Games has developed Destiny: Rising, after announcing a partnership with Bungie and a $100 million investment into the studio in 2018. Destiny: Rising will be set in an alternative Destiny timeline, exploring the post-Dark Age era of the universe and lore before the Tower existed and before the emergence of Guardians. Image: NetEase Destiny: Rising will be set in the Destiny universe. NetEase is licensing the Destiny brand from... Continue reading...
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The stunning indie game Gris now has a beautiful follow-up about love and loss
by
Andrew Webster
on (#6RF41)
Image: Devolver Digital After the launch of Gris, a beautiful game exploring grief, the team at Nomada Studio in Barcelona needed a long break. They spent around half a year not even thinking about what was next, avoiding words like Unity" or sequel." Eventually, director Conrad Roset, who became a parent during that time, came up with the idea of a similar experience that would introduce a new companion, allowing players to connect with and care for another character.I told him, no problem, as long as it's not a four-legged animal, you can do whatever you want," says lead producer Roger Mendoza, noting that animating critters with lots of legs can be quite painful." But the director was able to make the case for a game called Neva about a young woman who... Continue reading...
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Three Call of Duty games are coming to Xbox Cloud Gaming on October 25th
by
Tom Warren
on (#6RF42)
Image: Microsoft Microsoft is bringing Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Call of Duty: Warzone to Xbox Cloud Gaming later this month. This means Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be playable on Xbox Cloud Gaming at launch on October 25th, with Warzone and Modern Warfare III cloud support also getting enabled on the same day.This is the first time a Call of Duty game has been available at launch on Xbox Cloud Gaming, following Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard last year. This is a first for the Call of Duty franchise, and a win for the community," says Ashley McKissick, corporate vice president of gaming experiences & platforms at Xbox.You'll need an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription to access the three Call... Continue reading...
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Rare boss Craig Duncan promoted to Xbox Game Studios chief
by
Tom Warren
on (#6RF43)
Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Microsoft is promoting Rare studio lead Craig Duncan to the head of Xbox Game Studios, following the retirement of Alan Hartman. The change of leadership comes less than a year after Hartman took on the head of Xbox Game Studios role after Matt Booty was promoted to an expanded president of game content and studios position.In an email to Xbox employees today, seen by The Verge, Booty shared that Hartman is retiring at the end of November after more than 30 years at Microsoft. Hartman originally started at Microsoft inside the CD-ROM group in 1988, before working on Age of Empires, Brute Force, and studio head of Digital Anvil. He also helped found Turn 10, the home of Forza Motorsport.Rare studio chief Craig Duncan will take over the... Continue reading...
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Adobe Max 2024: All the major announcements around design and AI
by
Adi Robertson
on (#6RF1A)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge From a AI video model to new features for Creative Cloud apps, here's everything announced at this year's Adobe Max conference. Continue reading...
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Fujifilm goes after aspiring vloggers with its new $800 X-M5 camera
by
Chris Welch
on (#6RF1C)
Image: Fujifilm Even as it keeps working to catch up with demand for the massively popular X100VI, Fujifilm has been on a steady cadence of releasing new cameras. The X-T50 was announced in May, and it was the first to feature a physical dial for switching between the company's signature film simulations. That dial is carrying forward to the new, budget-tier X-M5 that Fujifilm is announcing today.The X-M5 is priced at $799.95 and is an affordable gateway into the company's interchangeable lens mirrorless camera lineup.. Fujifilm is positioning it as a lightweight camera ideal for everyday shooting and emerging content creators" who want to vlog with it - despite a lack of in-body image stabilization (IBIS). At 13 ounces (355 grams), the X-M5 is the... Continue reading...
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Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn wants you addicted to learning
by
Nilay Patel
on (#6RF1B)
Photo illustration by The Verge / Photo: Duolingo The cofounder of the world's largest education app thinks AI and gamification can supercharge language learning. Continue reading...
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Frame.io’s massive productivity update is now available for everyone
by
Jess Weatherbed
on (#6RF1F)
Frame.io V4 aims to make collaborating on large projects much easier by removing the need to jump between different apps. | Image:Adobe The latest version of Frame.io, Adobe's review and collaboration platform for Video and photography, is rolling today, making it easier to manage sprawling creative projects in a single app. Available for all users on web, iPhone, and iPad, Frame.io V4 is the biggest update to the platform since it was launched in 2015, according to Adobe, and adds new tagging and collaboration features that make it feel more like a workflow management tool, such as Trello and Asana.It includes the metadata" tagging model that was introduced in beta earlier this year, which allows users to assign custom tags like media type, assignee, due date, social media platform, and more to their files, making them easier to manage and review. Projects can also be... Continue reading...
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Adobe’s AI video model is here, and it’s already inside Premiere Pro
by
Jess Weatherbed
on (#6RF1D)
Adobe's Firefly Video Model can generate a range of styles, including realism' (as pictured). | Image: Adobe Adobe is making the jump into generative AI video. The company's Firefly Video Model, which has been teased since earlier this year, is launching today across a handful of new tools, including some right inside Premiere Pro that will allow creatives to extend footage and generate video from still images and text prompts.The first tool - Generative Extend - is launching in beta for Premiere Pro. It can be used to extend the end or beginning of footage that's slightly too short, or make adjustments mid-shot, such as to correct shifting eye-lines or unexpected movement.Clips can only be extended by two seconds, so Generative Extend is only really suitable for small tweaks, but that could replace the need to retake footage to correct tiny... Continue reading...
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Photoshop is getting a bunch of new AI tools
by
Jess Weatherbed
on (#6RF1E)
The updated Remove Tool in Photoshop can now find and remove common distractions for you. | Image: Adobe Adobe is kicking off its annual Adobe Max conference today with the launch of new AI-powered features across its Creative Cloud apps. New AI features for Photoshop, like automatic background distraction removal and a more powerful Firefly generative AI model, are the biggest announcements, with Illustrator, InDesign, and Premiere Pro also getting new features that can help to speed up traditionally labor-intensive design tasks.For example, a new Distraction Removal" feature has been added to the Remove Tool. Remove already works a bit like Google's Magic Eraser feature on Pixel phones, allowing users to quickly remove unwanted objects from their images by brushing over them. The new Distraction Removal feature, which Adobe teased last... Continue reading...
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The Internet Archive is back as a read-only service after cyberattacks
by
Tom Warren
on (#6REVC)
Image: the Internet Archive The Internet Archive is back online in a read-only state after a cyberattack brought down the digital library and Wayback Machine last week. A data breach and DDoS attack kicked the site offline on October 9th, with a user authentication database containing 31 million unique records also stolen in recent weeks.The Internet Archive is now back online in a provisional, read-only manner," according to founder Brewster Kahle. Safe to resume but might need further maintenance, in which case it will be suspended again."While you can access the Wayback Machine to search 916 billion web pages that have been archived over time, you can't currently capture an existing web page into the archive. Kahle and team have gradually been restoring A... Continue reading...
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RedCap, the 5G for wearables and IoT, will get its first devices soon
by
Wes Davis
on (#6REJY)
Image: The Verge Both T-Mobile and AT&T have plans to release their first devices soon that run on RedCap, a 5G specification that is tooled for Internet of Things devices, according to Fierce Wireless.What is RedCap? Great question! Also called reduced capability" or NR-Light, RedCap is a low-bandwidth version of 5G that's expected to make certain devices, like wearables, sensors, or surveillance cameras simpler and more power efficient, according to an Oracle document. That could mean cheaper cellular-connected smartwatches, XR glasses, or other portable products that don't need high-powered antennas and fast throughput last longer on a charge.AT&T, which began testing the spec on its own network early this year, reportedly plans to release its... Continue reading...
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X blocked hacked JD Vance dossier links after the Trump campaign flagged it
by
Wes Davis
on (#6REHS)
Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge The Presidential campaign of Donald Trump asked X to stop links to a story containing VP nominee JD Vance's hacked dossier from circulating before X chose to block them, reports The New York Times. X had cited its rules on posting unredacted private personal information" as its justification for suspending the reporter who first published the dossier in his story.That's a markedly different set of actions than those Musk took two years ago after criticizing Twitter's decision to suppress a 2020 news story about Hunter Biden's laptop. He called the choice a violation of the Constitution's First Amendment" and seeded internal documents related to the decision to certain journalists to report on - which doxxed people in the process.T... Continue reading...
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The Optimus robots at Tesla’s Cybercab event were humans in disguise
by
Wes Davis
on (#6REGD)
An Optimus robot at the We, Robot event. | Screenshot: Tesla We, Robot livestream Tesla made sure its Optimus robots were a big part of its extravagant, in-person Cybercab reveal last week. The robots mingled with the crowd, served drinks to and played games with guests, and danced inside a gazebo. Seemingly most surprisingly, they could even talk. But it was mostly just a show.It's obvious when you watch the videos from the event, of course. If Optimus really was a fully autonomous machine that could immediately react to verbal and visual cues while talking, one-on-one, to human beings in a dimly lit crowd, that would be mind-blowing.
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SpaceX’s Starship test completes with a remarkable ‘chopstick’ booster catch
by
Wes Davis
on (#6REBJ)
Screenshot: SpaceX livestream SpaceX's Starship spacecraft splashed down in the Indian Ocean a little over an hour after its 8:25AM ET launch from South Texas. Almost seven minutes following liftoff, the Super Heavy booster returned to its launchpad, where the launch tower caught it using arms that SpaceX has nicknamed the chopsticks."The remarkable catch was a first for SpaceX and an important step toward making the Super Heavy booster a fully reusable launch system just like SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets. The booster completed a similar set of maneuvers to today's during its previous flight test in June, when it splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, instead. GIF: SpaceX Starship livestream. SpaceX's South Texas launch tower catches the Super... Continue reading...
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The Putt-Putt champions of the internet
by
David Pierce
on (#6REBH)
Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge In September of 2023, Danny and Steven Sanicki played a round of minigolf. The Sanickis are twins, are both competitive golfers, and were budding content creators at the time, so of course they filmed the whole round. Danny edited the footage on his phone, recorded a quick commentary track, slapped a scoreboard over top of the video, and posted the tournament as a six-part series on his TikTok channel. Neither brother really expected anything to happen.The videos went viral. And since then, the Sanicki twins have been posting tournaments every day, bringing new friends into the fold, and building out a Putt-Putt empire all around the web. They built a complex system of tournaments and points, started awarding money to winners, and began... Continue reading...
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Now we can all wake up like Mario
by
David Pierce
on (#6RE9X)
Image: David Pierce / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 56, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been reading about Bill Lawrence's TV shows and the massively powerful crypto lobby and the wild world of plankton, listening to Ed Helms narrate the excellent Snafu podcast, playing an alarming amount of both Balatro and Retro Goal, trying to get back in the habit of making overnight oats, and taking every single one of my phone calls with the excellent mic on the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.I also have for you the coolest alarm clock I can remember, a splashy new Bitcoin documentary, a new... Continue reading...
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Starship’s fifth test flight is approved: where to watch the launch
by
Wes Davis
on (#6RE3A)
Starship preps for its fifth flight test. | Photo: SpaceX SpaceX plans to launch Starship for the fifth time tomorrow, October 13th, during a 30-minute launch window that opens at 8AM ET. That's after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) declared today that the company has met all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements for the suborbital test flight," reports Reuters.The company will livestream the launch, starting about 35 minutes before liftoff. You can catch that on SpaceX's website or its X account, as well as in the X TV app.
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WordPress.org’s latest move involves taking control of a WP Engine plugin
by
Wes Davis
on (#6RE2H)
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge WordPress.org has taken over a popular WP Engine plugin in order to remove commercial upsells and fix a security problem," WordPress cofounder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg announced today. This minimal" update, which he labels a fork of the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin, is now called Secure Custom Fields."It's not clear what security problem Mullenweg is referring to in the post. He writes that he's invoking point 18 of the plugin directory guidelines," in which the WordPress team reserves several rights, including removing a plugin, or changing it without developer consent." Mullenweg explains that the move has to do with WP Engine's recently-filed lawsuit against him and Automattic.
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Hackers took over robovacs to chase pets and yell slurs
by
Wes Davis
on (#6RE0G)
The Deebot X2 Omni. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Someone gained access to Ecovacs Deebot X2 Omni robotic vacuums across several US cities earlier this year and used them to chase pets and yell racist slurs at their owners, reported ABC News in Australia this week.The outlet spoke with multiple Deebot X2 owners who say their Deebot X2s had been hacked in May, including Minnesota lawyer Daniel Swenson, who said he was watching TV with his family when a noise like a broken-up radio signal or something" started coming from the robot's speaker. He said after he reset his password and rebooted the robot, it began again, only this time the sound was clearly a voice - he guessed a teenager's - yelling slurs.ABC News lists other, similar accounts from owners in El Paso and Los Angeles, the... Continue reading...
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Meta suggests AI Northern Lights pics are as good as the real thing
by
Wes Davis
on (#6RDZ8)
Meta has a suggestion for folks like me who forgot to go outside and look at the Northern Lights on Thursday night: just use AI to fake it! But Threads users who replied to Meta's idea, posted along with three AI-generated images of the Aurora Borealis Meta last night, seem to disagree.Here's Meta's post:The images show the Northern Lights hovering over the Golden Gate Bridge, over a city skyline, and over a ferris wheel. It's clearly meant to latch onto a trending moment of people posting their own pictures of the Northern Lights from the amazing and rare display of the lights, which plunged deep into the United States on Thursday night.Once you get past the first few comments from people sharing their own AI-generated Northern... Continue reading...
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Metaphor: ReFantazio is the rare fantasy game that goes beyond racism 101
by
Ash Parrish
on (#6RDXN)
Image: Atlus Atlus' game tackles tough subjects with refreshing nuance, catapulting it beyond simply being Persona with swords.' Continue reading...
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Apple’s cheapest iPads are still steeply discounted following Prime Day
by
Brandon Widder
on (#6RDXP)
Stepping up to the 10th-gen iPad nets you a modern design, a faster processor, and - yes - support for USB-C. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge There have been plenty of rumors swirling regarding a new iPad Mini for more than a year now, but most indicators point toward a processor bump and little else. We haven't heard much about a new entry-level iPad, though, which makes it a great time to pick up either the ninth- or 10th-gen model - both of which are still on sale for their best price to date in the wake of Amazon's October Prime Day sale.Right now, you can grab Apple's last-gen iPad at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target with Wi-Fi and 64GB of storage starting at $199 ($130 off). The 10th-gen model, meanwhile, is available from the same three retailers - Amazon, Best Buy, and Target - in the same configuration starting at $299 ($50 off). You can also pick up either with 256GB of... Continue reading...
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Halloween 2024 storyscream: the best spooky things to watch and play
by
Charles Pulliam-Moore
on (#6RDXQ)
Image: A24 A curated selection of the best new horror games, movies, and TV shows to check out. Continue reading...
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Leak: AMD’s Ryzen 9000X3D chips aren’t looking like a leap forward
by
Sean Hollister
on (#6RDM0)
Image: AMD Somebody goofed - and now AMD's unannounced Ryzen 9000X3D desktop processors have been partially revealed. But like Intel's new Arrow Lake desktop CPUs, it doesn't look like they'll be a huge performance improvement on their predecessors. If so, that's a shame given how poorly received AMD's Ryzen 9000 was, to begin with.According to slides from an MSI presentation published by HardwareLuxx today (via VideoCardz), the new chips may have respectable multicore performance gen-over-gen, with an eight-core 9000X3D outperforming a Ryzen 7 7900X3D by up to 28 percent in Cinebench R23. But they can offer as little as 2 percent gains in Black Myth: Wukong and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, according to MSI's preliminary testing.And against the... Continue reading...
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Boeing is cutting 10 percent of its workforce
by
Jay Peters
on (#6RDM1)
Photo by Kevin Carter / Getty Images Boeing will be laying off roughly" 10 percent of its workforce, president and CEO Kelly Ortberg announced in an email to staff on Friday. That number equates to 17,000 jobs, Reuters reports.The layoffs will take place over the coming months" and will include executives, managers and employees," Ortberg says. Leadership teams plan to share more information about how the layoffs will affect specific organizations in the company next week.The announcement of layoffs follows what's been an extremely difficult year for the company. In January, Boeing 737 Max planes were grounded after a hole blew in one mid-flight. In July, the company accepted a guilty plea deal over 737 Max crashes that happened in 2018 and 2019 and killed more than... Continue reading...
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Google pulled its Wear OS update for old Pixel Watches to fix a big problem
by
Umar Shakir
on (#6RDM2)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google is working on a fix for a buggy Wear OS 5 update. The company says it paused the OTA update rollout on September 26th after people, including my colleague Richard Lawler, reported their Pixel Watch 1 and 2 devices were stuck on a blank screen due to the update.Google plans to resume the Wear OS 5 rollout for older Pixel Watches later this year," as previously reported by Droid Life.If the update bricked your watch, there are ways to get it working again. Google's support site has a bunch of general troubleshooting steps for getting out of a frozen watch, as well as instructions on how to factory reset from Fastboot if you can't get to the usual settings.If your Pixel Watch is healthy and working, Google also just rolled out a... Continue reading...
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Casio made a furry robot designed to cuddle and calm you down
by
Andrew Liszewski
on (#6RDJK)
Unlike Sony's robotic dog, Aibo, Casio's Moflin can't run away on its own. | Image: Casio Casio has opened preorders for its robotic pet called Moflin that looks like a cross between a hamster and Star Trek's Tribbles. Unlike Sony's robot dog Aibo that can follow you around, Moflin is designed to be held and cuddled, and over time, Casio says it will learn who you are and attempt to develop a simulated bond expressed through unique sounds and movements.Originally developed through a collaboration with a Japanese startup called Vanguard Industries, Moflin is now being manufactured and distributed by Casio. It can be preordered for 59,400 (around $398 USD) and is expected to be available starting on November 7th. Casio is also offering an optional subscription service called Club Moflin for 6,600 (about $44 USD) per year,... Continue reading...
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The Internet Archive is still down but will return in ‘days, not weeks’
by
Emma Roth
on (#6RDJM)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Internet Archive will come back within days" following a cyberattack that brought down the organization's vast digital library and the Wayback Machine, according to an update from founder Brewster Kahle. It's been struggling due to a data breach and DDoS attack earlier this week that revealed the email addresses, screen names, password change timestamps, and other information associated with more than 31 million unique email addresses.Currently, if you try to access the Internet Archive's website, you'll see a notice that says it's temporarily" offline. Links to the Wayback Machine also won't load.
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Steam now says the ‘game’ you’re buying is really just a license
by
Umar Shakir
on (#6RDJN)
Image: The Verge Valve is now explicitly disclosing that you don't own the games you buy from its Steam online store. The company has added a note on the payment checkout screen stating that a purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam," as reported earlier by Engadget.We confirmed the message appears in the Steam desktop app, but we haven't seen it in the mobile app yet. Some Steam users noticed the disclosure go live earlier this week and posted their findings on Reddit. Image: Steam My colleague Sean is not actually buying this yet; he says he has to play Persona 3 first. Why? Probably, a new law. California has a law going into effect next year that'll require digital storefronts like Valve's... Continue reading...
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Xbox Cloud Gaming will let you stream your own games in November
by
Tom Warren
on (#6RDGB)
Illustration: The Verge Microsoft is planning to support the streaming of Xbox game libraries next month. Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell The Verge that the company is getting ready to test the ability to stream games that you own that aren't part of the existing Xbox Game Pass library.As part of a long-running project known as Project Lapland inside of Microsoft, the software giant has been readying its Xbox Cloud Gaming servers to be able to support streaming thousands of games. I'm told Microsoft will first test its new Xbox Cloud Gaming streaming capabilities with Xbox Insiders in November, before expanding them to more Xbox users and more games.The Xbox Cloud Gaming expansion comes in the same month Microsoft plans to enable game purchases... Continue reading...
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You must watch this amazing presentation about a bespoke McDonald’s mural
by
Jay Peters
on (#6RDGC)
Panic's Cabel Sasser at XOXO 2024. | Image: XOXO Fest I know there's a lot to do on the internet, but you really should stop what you're doing and watch this 19-minute talk about a bespoke mural that once lived inside a McDonald's.The talk, given by Cabel Sasser of Panic at XOXO Fest 2024, was filled with silliness and deep dives down unexpected rabbit holes. (I'd expect nothing less from the founder of Panic, the company behind whimsical things like the Playdate handheld and Untitled Goose Game.) Much of the presentation is about the little-known artist behind the mural, the late Wes Cook, who also made some incredible designs that exist in real theme parks. It's fascinating to learn so much about Cook, and the ending of Sasser's speech is just fantastic.Every minute of the speech is... Continue reading...
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