by Jess Weatherbed on (#6Q8JT)
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Let's put this sloppy, bad-faith argument to rest. Continue reading...
The Verge
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| Updated | 2025-11-06 02:47 |
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by Wes Davis on (#6Q8JV)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Samsung has announced new AI capabilities for its smart appliances, including new AI-generated wallpapers for certain refrigerators, as well as an AI upgrade for its Bixby voice assistant. The updated Bixby will hit five Samsung Bespoke appliances starting on August 27th.AI-generated wallpapers are coming to Samsung Family Hub refrigerators released in the US and Korea after 2022, the company says. To create them, users will pick a theme from seven categories and one of six art styles. Once the new wallpaper is created, it can go on the fridge's cover screen or whiteboard, or saved in an album for later. It will require a Wi-Fi connection, and users will be limited to creating up to five wallpapers per day.The improved Bixby will be... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6Q8JW)
Image: The Verge Indiegogo is taking a renewed swing at holding crowdfunding campaigns accountable for shipping products with a new program. The company's Shipping Guarantee" initiative promises that anytime you support an eligible campaign, you'll get your order on time or your money back.The guarantee will apply to campaigns that meet eligibility requirements, which include launching with a product that's in the final manufacturing stages" and having a proven track record of successful crowdfunding on the site." Covered campaigns will have a Shipping Guarantee badge above the Pick Your Perk button on the site. If you back one of these campaigns and don't receive shipping confirmation by the date a campaign promised, you can immediately request a... Continue reading...
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by Jay Peters on (#6Q8FV)
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Apple has announced the date of its next big event: September 9th, 2024, at 1PM ET / 10AM PT. The event, which has the tagline It's Glowtime," will take place at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park.During the show, the company is expected to launch the iPhone 16 lineup. The big change to the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus is expected to be a switch to a vertically aligned camera system on the back. (If the final phones look like what we've seen on iPhone 16 dummy units, I'm already a big fan of this change.) The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max phones might get bigger screens but are rumored to keep Apple's familiar three-camera layout. Those phones could also come in a new bronze color. Image: Apple It's (almost)... Continue reading...
by Sean Hollister on (#6Q8FW)
The HoverAir X1 Promax. | Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge The HoverAir X1 wasn't your traditional drone. People who have little interest in piloting, like my colleague Thomas Ricker, use the highly crash-resistant self-flying $350 camera to easily get aerial video just by pressing two buttons. But it's not particularly high-quality video, it's not particularly fast, and you can't fly it far away even if you wanted to.That's where the new HoverAir X1 Pro and X1 Promax come in.Zero Zero Robotics has just put both drones up for sale on Indiegogo. We briefly checked them out in person, and they sound like an improvement on the X1 in practically every way. Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge The new HoverAir X1 Pro and Promax, next to the original X1. While they are... Continue reading...
by Emma Roth on (#6Q8FX)
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images Frontier is bringing its new 7-gig fiber internet option to customers across the country. The 7-gig plan costs $309.99 / month and is the fastest widely available fiber plan so far.Frontier currently offers fiber internet in most of the 25 states it serves, including California, Texas, Florida, New York, Minnesota, and others. The company only offered 2-gig and 5-gig options previously, but now customers who live in Frontier's service area will get access to the 7-gig plan. The plan comes with symmetrical 7Gbps upload and download speeds, along with unlimited monthly data and an upgraded Wi-Fi 7 router.Oddly, while Frontier is the first to roll out 7Gbps nationwide (sort of), it's definitely not the cheapest super high-speed internet.... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6Q8FY)
Image: Apple Though Ted Lasso's season 3 finale felt like a solid place for the series to end, it might not be long before AFC Richmond's back on our screens.Deadline reports that Warner Bros. Television - which coproduces Ted Lasso with Universal Television for Apple - has tapped a number of the show's core cast members to return for a not-yet-greenlit fourth season. Actors Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein, and Jeremy Swift have all had their options picked up by the studio.Cocreator Jason Sudeikis is said to be attached to the revival" (which feels silly to say considering the season three finale only debuted last year). As Variety notes, it's also not yet clear which actors (Waddingham, Goldstein, and Swift are all UK Equity members) with... Continue reading...
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by Ash Parrish on (#6Q8FZ)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nintendo has added one final event to the summer game-a-palooza calendar with not one but two game showcases. Tomorrow at 7AM PT / 10AM ET, Nintendo will host an indie world showcase, and then a partner direct will immediately follow. Altogether, Nintendo says the two back-to-back events will be 40 minutes long.
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by Sean Hollister on (#6Q8CE)
The Lenovo Legion Go from its most distinctive angle. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge It's not clear if Lenovo's Legion Go handheld gaming PC was a success after its initial rough start last fall and its middling experience by the time I reviewed it this spring - but Lenovo is pushing forward. Not only is it planning a successor, possibly a smaller seven-inch one, but it's also just revealed an array of new accessories for the console. Images: Lenovo The Legion Go's new dock, joystick caps, carry case, and charging connector" gamepad wedge. The Legion Go will get its own official $65 USB-C dock this August - and in October, a full year after launch, you'll be able to buy a $50 wedge-shaped Charging Connector" that lets you turn its two detachable controllers into a single gamepad, keep them... Continue reading...
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6Q8CF)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber is facing a fine of 290 million euros ($347 million USD) after improperly transferring driver data from the EU to the US in one of the largest penalties levied under the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) since its inception.The fine was imposed by the Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA), which accused Uber of failing to properly safeguard" European drivers' personal data while transferring it to the United States. Uber has since ceased the practice, DPA added.Uber did not meet the requirements of the GDPR to ensure the level of protection to the data with regard to transfers to the US," the regulator said in a statement. That is very serious."That is very serious."The DPA started investigating... Continue reading...
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by Victoria Song on (#6Q875)
Dexcom first announced the Stelo earlier this year at CES 2024. The Dexcom Stelo aims to help people with Type 2 diabetes access CGMs more affordably. Continue reading...
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by Alex Heath on (#6Q82H)
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov. | Getty Images Telegram says its CEO and founder Pavel Durov has nothing to hide" after he was arrested by French authorities outside of Paris.It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform," the company says in an unnamed statement posted to its official channel in the Telegram app on Sunday. French officials have confirmed to multiple outlets that Durov was arrested as part of a police investigation into criminal activity taking place on the social network.While not encrypted by default, Telegram's largely hands-off approach to moderation means that the app is seen by many as a private, censorship-free alternative to other social networks. Almost a billion users globally use Telegram as means of... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6Q80G)
Formula 1 racer Lando Norris in Bahrain in 2022. | Photo: Hasan Bratic / Picture Alliance via Getty Images Formula 1 broadcast footage from the Dutch Grand Prix qualifiers at Circuit Zandvoort this weekend that was captured by a gyro camera system mounted above the helmet of the weekend's race winner, Lando Norris.The camera, which F1 has been testing since 2022, was conceived with an eye particularly toward accentuating exaggerated angles of banked turns at Zandvoort, but despite using it there last year, F1 wasn't able to broadcast it, according to AutoSport.
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by Wes Davis on (#6Q7Z0)
Photo: Drew Angerer / Getty Images Former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli must turn over his copies of The Wu-Tang Clan's Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album to comply with a preliminary injunction issued Friday morning by federal Judge Pamela Chen in an ongoing lawsuit, ArtNet reported.PleasrDAO, the NFT collective that currently owns Shaolin, claims in its lawsuit that Shkreli improperly retained copies of data and files" from the album and plans to release them. Among other complaints, the group alleges that this violated a court order to forfeit it to the US government. (The album was among the assets he was told to surrender in the aftermath of the 2017 securities fraud trial that saw Shkreli jailed until 2022.)Shkreli played fast and loose with Wu-Tang's... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6Q7VE)
Adam Driver in Megalopolis. | Screenshot: YouTube So, all those faked review quotes from the Megalopolis trailer that got pulled last week were apparently AI, after all. Not only that, but the person who was in charge of the materials for the trailer, Eddie Egan, has been removed from the movie's marketing team.That's all according to Deadline, which reported on Friday that the AI-ness of it all was confirmed in an investigation after the fact. Neither Egan nor Megalopolis studio Lionsgate meant to fake the quotes, which had purported to be critical notes from contemporaneous reviews of Megalopolis director Francis Ford Coppola's past films.According to some of the trailer's quotes, critics had called The Godfather a sloppy, self-indulgent movie," while Apocalypse Now was an epic... Continue reading...
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by David Pierce on (#6Q7QP)
You can learn a lot about somebody just by learning about how they get things done. Are they the sort of person who might have a perfectly color-coded email inbox, a flawlessly organized to-do list, and what's that, they just sent you a calendar invite for happy hour next week? Or are they more likely to have a giant pile of sticky notes they never look at, a computer desktop with so many files you can't even see the wallpaper, and today's main tasks written on their arm? Neither is wrong, but they're very different.On this episode of The Vergecast, the second in our three-part miniseries about work and productivity and how to get more done in a digital world, we decide to get to know our colleagues in a new way: by asking them to... Continue reading...
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by David Pierce on (#6Q7PN)
Image: David Pierce / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 49, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, hope you like podcasts, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been reading about upstart baseball teams and canceled comics and Francis Ford Coppola, watching Logan Lucky, binging Teo Crawford's camera videos, listening to The Mess Around and thus rewatching New Girl for the millionth time, trying to plan a trip to the Nintendo Museum this fall, and giving Capacities another whirl since Casey Newton recommended it this week.I also have for you a bunch of new podcasts that all launched this week for some reason, some amazing smartphone photos, a reason to hit... Continue reading...
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by Allison Johnson on (#6Q7FP)
We got game emulators in the app store, as a treat. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Whining about stuff is a treasured American pastime, so allow me to indulge: the iPhone is more fun in Europe now, and it's not fair.They're getting all kinds of stuff because they have cool regulators, not like, regular regulators. Third-party app stores, the ability for browsers to run their own engines, Fortnite, and now the ability to replace lots of default apps? I want it, too! Imagine if Chrome on iOS wasn't just a rinky dink little Safari emulator! Imagine downloading a new dialer app with a soundboard of fart sounds and setting it as your default! Unfortunately, Apple doesn't seem interested in sharing these possibilities with everyone.Sure, we got retro game emulators in the app store. And that rules. But that's only because... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6Q7FQ)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is reportedly in custody after being arrested near Paris Saturday evening as he was departing his private jet. The billionaire was apprehended on a warrant related to a preliminary investigation, writes Reuters.French authorities believe that the platform's lack of moderation has allowed criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging app." Durov will go before a judge tonight and could be indicted as early as Sunday, according to sources for TF1 TV (which we read using Google Translate), one of two French outlets cited by Reuters.Telegram has become a critical resource as people turn to it to find crucial information in places where heavy information censorship is common, such as Russia. But Durov's... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6Q7EN)
Image: Canoo EV startup Canoo has lost co-founder and chief technology officer Sohel Merchant and is moving its operations out of Los Angeles, according to two reports from TechCrunch this week, citing unnamed sources.Merchant took over the CTO position in 2021, when the company's CTO left, along with two other co-founders. One of those who remained, chief designer Richard Kim, departed last year. With Merchant now reportedly gone, chief engineer Christoph Kuttner is the last founder standing at Canoo, according to TechCrunch yesterday.Canoo wrote in a quarterly SEC filing on August 14th that it was permanently" dropping its headcount as part of a reorganization plan for its Torrance, California facility, and offering to move approximately 137"... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Liszewski on (#6Q7C9)
Image: NASA NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced today that US astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore will return next February with the SpaceX Crew-9 mission after spending more than 80 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS).According to NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich, As we got more and more data over the summer and understood the uncertainty of that data, it became very clear to us that the best course of action was to return Starliner uncrewed." He said NASA found there was just just too much uncertainty in the prediction of the thrusters."
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by Wes Davis on (#6Q7CA)
Image: Pokemon A new all-Pokemon FAST channel is bringing the first 22 seasons of the original Pokemon anime, courtesy of Canadian distributor WildBrain. The channel will kick off its availability in the US, with Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand to follow, according to WildBrain's announcement this week.Melissa Pearce, senior director of media licensing at The Pokemon Company International, called FAST TV is an ideal platform" to connect with audiences and offer accessible and curated content in a family-friendly environment."WildBrain distributes other ad-supported channels that include properties like Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, and Inspector Gadget, and its channels exist on platforms like Tubi and Pluto. The announcement... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6Q79B)
Illustration: The Verge Android users participating in a pilot program can now add their California driver's licenses to Google Wallet. The mobile driver's license" program is currently open to 1.5 million Californians, and previously only allowed digital IDs in the state's CA DMV Wallet" app for iOS and Android.It's never been easier to keep a digital driver's license and identification card in California," said Governor Gavin Newsom in a statement yesterday, The state continues to work to offer convenience for those opting into the mobile driver's license program, now with the option of using Google Wallet."California announced earlier this month that it will also allow Apple Wallet digital IDs soon. Those in the pilot will still have to carry their... Continue reading...
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by Antonio G. Di Benedetto on (#6Q77Z)
The Era 100 might resemble a roll of paper towels, but it remains our default smart speaker. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Sonos' Labor Day sale is bringing discounts to a variety of smart speakers and soundbars until September 2nd, many of which are on sale elsewhere for the same price. Both the Sonos Era 100 and portable Move 2 are 20 percent off, which means you can get the Era 100 from Amazon, Best Buy, and Sonos for $199 ($50 off) or the Move 2 for $359 ($90 off) via the same retailers (Amazon, Best Buy, and Sonos).The Era 100 is an easy recommendation for a Sonos-connected Wi-Fi speaker, regardless of where you'd like to put it in your house. It's compact enough to fit in most places but offers robust volume and quality sound, which gives your music some depth without getting too bassy. The Move 2, on the other hand, is kind of like an Era 100 that... Continue reading...
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by Victoria Song on (#6Q780)
The Shokz OpenFit Air are a lightweight pair of open-ear buds that use air conduction. The bass is pretty good for open-ear fitness buds, but alas, my glasses foiled the ear hook design. Continue reading...
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by Jay Peters on (#6Q6YX)
Valve has finally, officially announced Deadlock, in the most minimal way imaginable. The game now has a Steam page that lists Valve as its developer and publisher, and a simple notice:
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by Richard Lawler on (#6Q6X4)
Illustration: The Verge When will we meet the iPhone 16 and other new items from Apple, like MacBook Pro laptops with M4 chips inside?Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman says that based on his sources, a launch event on September 10th could reveal the new iPhone 16 lineup, as well as the Apple Watch Series 10 and two different sets of new AirPods in time for them to go on sale as soon as September 20th. Bloomberg reports that the new phones will be similar to last year but with larger screens on the Pro models (reportedly going from 6.1 inches to 6.3 on the Pro and from 6.7 to 6.9 inches on the iPhone 16 Pro Max) and the addition of a dedicated camera button.The other big updates may be new Apple Intelligence features that are in testing now and are due to start... Continue reading...
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by Justine Calma on (#6Q6TR)
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos via Getty Images The Supreme Court could stall action on climate change yet again as it weighs whether to pause new pollution regulations for coal-fired power plants.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized rules this year aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions from coal plants. But red states and industry groups are challenging the EPA in court and have asked SCOTUS to step in and stop the rules from being implemented while they duke it out.The request is now in the Supreme Court's so-called shadow docket" - meaning SCOTUS can essentially issue a stay on the rules at its whim. The court has already made it way tougher for federal agencies to regulate industry since Donald Trump packed it with conservative-leaning justices. This is... Continue reading...
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by Adi Robertson on (#6Q6RF)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge An appeals court revived a lawsuit against the anonymous messaging service Yolo, which allegedly broke a promise to unmask bullies on the app. In a ruling issued Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shouldn't block a claim that Yolo misrepresented its terms of service, overruling a lower court decision. But it determined the app can't be held liable for alleged design defects that allowed harassment, letting a different part of that earlier ruling stand.Yolo was a Snapchat-integrated app that let users send anonymous messages, but in 2021, it was hit with a lawsuit after a teenage user died by suicide. The boy, Carson Bride, had received harassing and sexually explicit messages... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6Q6RG)
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge The Justice Department is suing the company behind a widely used software that helps landlords set rental prices. It alleges that RealPage's rent recommendation algorithm drives up prices and deprives renters of the benefits of competition on apartment leasing terms."In the complaint, the DOJ, along with eight states, claim that RealPage obtains nonpublic rental price information from competing landlords who use the software. RealPage then allegedly feeds this information into its algorithmic pricing software, which landlords can use to get suggestions about their rent rates.
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by Joanna Nelius on (#6Q6RH)
Two of Microsoft's Copilot Plus PCs. (Left: the Surface Pro; right: the Surface Laptop.) | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Before the beginning of summer, it was a little easier to shop for a basic productivity laptop. You could choose from a single version of Windows (x86), an Apple macOS device, or a Chromebook. Sure, there were still a lot of options from multiple laptop manufacturers, but if you knew what brand or operating system you wanted, especially if you were limited by a budget, it probably wouldn't have taken too long to narrow down your choices, especially if you had specific preferences. (I know I do.)But then Copilot Plus PCs arrived. Now there was a new type of less expensive productivity machine occupying shelf space between lower-end old-school Windows laptops and Chromebooks. If you thought you had already narrowed down your choices,... Continue reading...
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by Victoria Song on (#6Q6NF)
RIP La Jolla. | Photo by David Pierce / The Verge Meta is calling it quits on making a high-end mixed reality headset to compete with the Apple Vision Pro, The Information reports. This is despite recent news that the headset, codenamed La Jolla, would arrive sometime in 2027.According to The Information, Meta had already started developing the La Jolla headset in November but told employees to stop working on the device this past week. The decision was due in part to the fact that the La Jolla headset would've used pricey MicroOLED displays.The move suggests that Meta as a whole may be souring on the idea of premium VR. Purportedly, the goal was to keep the cost of the headset under $1,000, which was looking increasingly difficult given how expensive MicroOLED can be to produce.... Continue reading...
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by Brandon Widder on (#6Q6NG)
Ring's latest wired security camera is a lot like the Ring Indoor Cam, only with a motorized base and a lengthy USB-C power cable. | Image: Ring Many of today's indoor security cameras are great, but unless you have multiple cameras positioned throughout your home at different angles, it can be tough to keep an eye on your pet, porch, and other happenings while you're away. Enter Ring's new Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam, which is now available in either black or white at Amazon, Best Buy, and Ring's online storefront for a new low of $59.99 ($20 off).In most respects, Ring's first integrated pan and tilt camera is an iterative update of Ring's second-gen Indoor Cam, which remains a cheap solution for monitoring the interior of your home. The wired camera offers 1080p HD video and color night vision, as well as two-way talk, a built-in siren, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connectivity, and a physical... Continue reading...
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by Ash Parrish on (#6Q6NH)
Image: Game Science A perfectly fine action game has become saddled with a lot of baggage. Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6Q6NJ)
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images A Kansas man was sentenced to 24 years in prison after pouring $47.1 million into a pig butchering scam - using money from the bank he was in charge of. Shan Hanes, the former CEO of the small Heartland Tri-State Bank, pleaded guilty to embezzlement after routing the funds to scammers' crypto accounts, causing the bank to collapse.As reported by NBC News, Hanes fell for a pig butchering scam that had him purchasing crypto to unlock the supposed returns on his investments," which he never received.In recent years, pig butchering scams have become increasingly common, with a recent study showing victims lost over $75 billion to the ruse globally. Google even sued two alleged scammers earlier this year over accusations they uploaded... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6Q6NK)
Image: Amazon MGM Studios Zoe Kravitz's directorial debut has Get Out aspirations, but it lands somewhere closer to Don't Worry Darling. Continue reading...
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by Kylie Robison on (#6Q6NM)
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by STR / NurPhoto, Getty Images Elon Musk sent an email to X staff overnight about their much-anticipated stock grants - but there's a catch.In an email to staff viewed by The Verge, the company is planning to award stock options based on the anticipated impact of employees. That means staff have to submit a one-page summary telling leadership their contributions to the company in order to get their stock.These long-awaited stock grants add to the tensions between X leadership and staff after the promotions process was recently delayed without explanation, we previously reported. Given how the company formerly called Twitter has continued to struggle under Elon Musk's ownership, employees have been bracing for more layoffs.What's more, a source at X told The Verge... Continue reading...
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by Tom Warren on (#6Q6NN)
Image: The Verge Microsoft is hosting an important summit on Windows security at its Redmond, Washington, headquarters next month. The Windows Endpoint Security Ecosystem Summit on September 10th will bring together Microsoft engineers and vendors like CrowdStrike to discuss improvements to Windows security and third-party best practices to try and prevent another CrowdStrike incident.Microsoft, CrowdStrike and key partners who deliver endpoint security technologies will come together for discussions about improving resiliency and protecting mutual customers' critical infrastructure," says Aidan Marcuss, corporate vice president of Microsoft Windows and devices. Our objective is to discuss concrete steps we will all take to improve security and... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Liszewski on (#6Q6JG)
There's now another reason to buy a Starlink kit from an authorized reseller. | Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge In an effort to stop resellers from buying dishes in one region - where the hardware is cheaper - and selling them in another, Starlink is imposing a new outside region fee" for its satellite internet kits activated outside of the region they were originally sold in."Starlink has designated these six specific regions as the US and Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania. The company only says it is possible" the fee will be applied to activations - not a guarantee - but it's steep enough to be a discouragement.For the Standard and Standard Actuated kits, the fee is $200, but for the Starlink Mini, it's $300. That's in US currency, but Starlink also warns the fee may be applied in USD or local currency," which could... Continue reading...
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by David Nield on (#6Q6G0)
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge If your Mac suddenly refuses to boot up properly, it can be frustrating - but you don't have to immediately head to an Apple Store. There are a number of simple tricks you can try to get everything up and running again. I'll take you through them here.First, I'll cover what to do if your computer starts but you only get a blank screen. Later, I'll talk about some possible actions to take if you see a symbol on the screen or if the Mac doesn't start at all.(Problems like this are a reminder to keep everything backed up on macOS at all times. You'll be thankful for it if you eventually need to replace your system drive or your entire computer.)Your computer starts but shows a blank screenTry a restartIf your Mac is showing signs of... Continue reading...
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by David Pierce on (#6Q6G1)
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Google got a lot of things right with the Pixel 9 lineup. The hardware is lovely, the chip is fast, even the huge camera bump kind of has a way about it, you know? It's a worthy Android flagship in every way. It also - and not to be dramatic here - feels a bit like a harbinger of doom.The Pixel 9's AI photography features, particularly the Reimagine" tool that allows you to change your photos with just a prompt, appears to be a big and worrisome step toward a world in which we won't be able to trust photos of practically any sort. These aren't the AI-generated photos with too many fingers and plenty of other tells; these just look like photos. They are photos! But they're not real. And we're not ready for what that means.On this... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6Q6DF)
Image: The Verge AI audio startup ElevenLabs has now made its text-to-speech Reader app available across the world, adding support for 32 different languages - including Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Mandarin, and Hindi.The app, which is available on both iOS and Android, was first released in June in the US, UK, and Canada. It allows users to listen to PDFs, articles, newsletters, ePub files or any other text content" according to the developer, but that support seemingly doesn't extend to files from Kindle or Apple Books.There's a good selection of AI-generated voices available for the text-to-speech tool, including deceased celebrities like Judy Garland, James Dean, and Burt Reynolds. The few I've listened to are impressive enough to avoid... Continue reading...
by Jay Peters on (#6Q629)
Image: Cruise Uber has signed up another robotaxi company to offer driverless rides inside its app. Starting sometime next year, for qualifying" rides, Uber will give you the option to take the trip in one of Cruise's autonomous vehicles. The two companies announced a multiyear strategic partnership" on Thursday.Uber already partnered with Waymo on autonomous rides and announced a long-term deal with driverless truck company Aurora earlier this year. It also offered driverless rides with Motional before Motional paused its robotaxi deployments in May. The original date for Elon Musk's event revealing Tesla's robotaxi developments passed a couple of weeks ago, but now it's supposed to take place October 10th.Cruise halted its robotaxi service in... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6Q60P)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge An appeals court has revived the District of Columbia's antitrust case against Amazon, which the District claims illegally drives up prices on rival platforms. In a decision on Thursday, the DC Court of Appeals ruled that the District's allegations plausibly suggest" that Amazon already has monopoly power over online marketplaces or is close to achieving it.Former DC Attorney General Karl Racine filed the antitrust lawsuit against Amazon in 2021, but it was tossed out in court in 2022. The lawsuit alleges Amazon engages in anticompetitive behavior by restricting third-party sellers from offering products on other online stores, including their own websites, for less than they charge on Amazon - effectively controlling the price of... Continue reading...
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by Umar Shakir on (#6Q60Q)
Image: Google Google is making a new desktop app called Essentials that packages a few Google services, like Messages and Photos, and includes links to download many others. The app will be included with many new Windows laptops, with the first ones coming from HP.The Essentials app lets you discover and install many of our best Google services," according to Google's announcement, and lets you browse Google Photos as well as send and receive Google Messages in the app. A full list of apps has not yet been announced, but Google's announcement art showcases icons including Google Sheets, Google Drive, Nearby Share, and Google One (a two-month free trial is offered through Essentials for new subscribers).HP will start including Google Essentials... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Webster on (#6Q60R)
Image: Warner Bros. Pictures Middle-earth is looking a little different in The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. Warner Bros. Pictures just released the first trailer for the animated prequel, which is directed by Kenji Kamiyama (Blood: The Last Vampire, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex) and set 183 years before the original film trilogy. Peter Jackson is involved as an executive producer.According to the official description, the new movie tells the fate of the House of Helm Hammerhand, the legendary King of Rohan." Here's the full setup:
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by Kylie Robison on (#6Q5YD)
In May 2024, around 200 employees at Google DeepMind (representing roughly 5 percent of the division) signed a letter urging the company to end its contracts with military organizations, expressing concerns that its AI technology was being used for warfare, Time magazine reported.The letter states that employee concerns aren't about the geopolitics of any particular conflict," but it does link out to Time's reporting on Google's defense contract with the Israeli military, known as Project Nimbus. The letter also points to reports that the Israeli military uses AI for mass surveillance and to select targets in its bombing campaign in Gaza, with Israeli weapon firms mandated by the government to purchase cloud services from Google and... Continue reading...
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by Gaby Del Valle on (#6Q5YE)
Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Former President Donald Trump is launching a cryptocurrency platform, he announced on Thursday in a post on Truth Social. Trump's post included few other details, but he and his sons have suggested it will target unbanked and underserved communities.For too long, the average American has been squeezed by the big banks and financial elites," the post reads. It's time we take a stand-together. #BeDefiant." The name of the platform, The DeFiant Ones, is a play on decentralized finance."Trump's Truth Social post links to a Telegram channel for the as-of-yet unreleased platform, which has posts dating back to August 15th calling it the only official Telegram channel for the Trump DeFi project." There are no details about what the... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Liszewski on (#6Q5VF)
Instead of carrying a bag full of lenses, the new Samyang Remaster Slim lets you only carry alternate optical elements. | Image: Samyang In an attempt to lighten camera bags, Samyang has created a prime lens that allows photographers to change the focal length by swapping out just the optical elements inside it, instead of having to change lenses completely.The simpler design of prime lenses in general - which offer no zoom capabilities - can deliver several advantages, including sharper images and a shallower depth of field. The tradeoff is that photographers have to move closer or further away when framing subjects or swap between several prime lenses with different focal lengths. That approach can get expensive and heavy - problems that Samyang's Remaster Slim autofocus lens, measuring just 0.8 inches thick, may solve.The optical elements in the Remaster Slim sit in... Continue reading...
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by Sarah Jeong on (#6Q5VG)
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Stuart Franklin Our basic assumptions about photos capturing reality are about to go up in smoke. Continue reading...