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Photo by Hector Vivas / Getty Images The love affair between Lionel Messi and Apple continues. Now that the star is playing in MLS for Miami, with games broadcast across Apple's streaming service, the company is doing its best to maximize Messi's appeal. The latest bit of brand synergy comes in the form of a docuseries that will air on Apple TV Plus and be specifically focused on Messi's move from Paris to Miami. Apple describes the six-part series as the first and only behind-the-scenes account of Messi's new chapter."If you're counting, this is actually the second Messi series slated for Apple TV Plus; the first will track his exploits in Qatar leading Argentina to a World Cup victory. Neither series has a title or release date.Since the deal was made official, Apple... Continue reading...

The Galaxy A54 takes some cues from the pricier S23 line, but it makes sacrifices for a much lower cost. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Samsung's midrange sleeper hit of a midrange Android phone is on sale and matching its lowest price to date. The Samsung Galaxy A54 5G is just $349.99 ($100 off) at Amazon in either its black or violet colors, matching its Prime Day Lightning Deal price from a month ago.The A54 is a midranger with some highlight specs and design elements trickled down from the flagship Galaxy S23 models. Its biggest strength is no doubt the excellent 6.4-inch 1080p OLED screen, which, in addition to being big and bright, also supports a supersmooth 120Hz refresh rate. Considering the screen is the thing you constantly interact with on your phone at just about all times, it's great to have such a good panel at this kind of price. The A54 also complements... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is using AI to make it easier to see if a product is any good. The company is now rolling out AI-generated review summaries, which boil down hundreds or thousands of Amazon reviews into a one-paragraph blurb explaining what most people like or dislike about a product.The summaries have been in testing for at least a couple of months, and they're now more widely available to a subset" of users in the US on Amazon's mobile app. Amazon says they're available across a broad selection of products." So far, we've seen them on TVs, headphones, tablets, and fitness trackers. But the feature's availability isn't completely consistent. The Galaxy Tab A7 has a review summary, but the newer Galaxy Tab A8 does not.Amazon's summaries are... Continue reading...

Photo by Michael Short / Getty Images Ford said it is hiring Peter Stern, the former Apple vice president of services who helped build up the company's streaming TV operation, to lead its effort to improve customers' software experience.Stern left Apple at the beginning of the year after a six-year tenure heading up the launch of a portfolio of services, including Apple TV Plus, Apple News Plus, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness Plus, MLS Season Pass, and Apple One.At Ford, he is being tasked with building a world-class team to create and market innovative customer experiences by integrating hardware, software and services across Ford Blue, Model e and Ford Pro," the company said. Stern will report directly to Ford CEO Jim Farley.This is transformational, because the... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is currently testing a new Office default theme that will roll out to all subscribers of Microsoft 365 next month. Microsoft says it's refreshing the default Office theme with the new Aptos font, a new color palette, styles, and updated default line weights.Aptos, the new default font for apps like Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Excel, will replace Calibri next month after more than 15 years. The font change will also be combined with changes to the default style and color palette used in documents. Image: Microsoft Office theme changes. The biggest change to the color palette is that yellow has been removed and replaced with a dark green, and one of the lighter blues has been replaced with a dark... Continue reading...

Refusing to comply with the restrictions could result in unspecified fines or penalties. | Photo by Kena Betancur/VIEWpress The New York Times has taken preemptive measures to stop its content from being used to train artificial intelligence models. As reported by Adweek, the NYT updated its Terms of Service on August 3rd to prohibit its content - inclusive of text, photographs, images, audio/video clips, look and feel," metadata, or compilations - from being used in the development of any software program, including, but not limited to, training a machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) system."The updated terms now also specify that automated tools like website crawlers designed to use, access, or collect such content cannot be used without written permission from the publication. The NYT says that refusing to comply with these new restrictions... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Threads post today that it's time to move on" from Elon Musk's cage fight antics. We can all agree Elon isn't serious," he wrote, adding that the refusal of the X (formerly Twitter) owner to confirm a date and his offer to do a practice round in my backyard instead" shows how unserious he is.This followed a pair of screenshots of text messages between the billionaires that were posted to X today by user DogeDesigner and, later, Musk himself. The thread showed Musk offering a practice bout" next week at Zuckerberg's house, to which Zuckerberg responded by telling Musk that if he wants a real MMA fight" he should train on his own and let Zuck know when he's ready to compete."

Illustration: The Verge Apple is preparing for its first major redesign in several generations of the mainline Apple Watch, but we won't be seeing it this year, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter this morning. Instead, Apple is working on a thinner Apple Watch X" with magnetic watch band attachment points, a blood pressure sensor, and a microLED screen either in late 2024 or even 2025, Gurman says.The old mechanical attachments of all Apple Watches so far have been great for allowing customers to reuse their old bands for years, but Gurman says they eat up space the company could use to shrink the wearable and beef up the battery and internal components. See the Apple Watch Ultra, which Apple gave a bigger battery at the expense... Continue reading...

Image: William Joel / The Verge Hi friends! Welcome to the first-ever edition of Installer. My hope here every week is to be your guide to all the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. My original pitch for this was just what if we just found all the cool apps/videos/creators/whatevers every week and put it all in one place," and that's what Installer is here to be.Normally, these won't start with a long preamble about How It All Works, but seeing as we've never done this before, I'll try and explain things as we go. First and most important: Installer absolutely positively does not work without you. I'm going to do my best to find great new stuff every week, but I'm also hoping you'll tag me in funny posts, DM me hilarious memes, and email me (i... Continue reading...

The Roomba j7 Plus offers everything you could want in a robovac, including an auto-empty dock. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge There's a reason people still often refer to robot vacuums as Roombas." The company behind the well-known robovac series, iRobot, has spent decades iterating in the space, resulting in some of the best robot vacuums you can buy. The Roomba j7 Plus is a great example, one that's on sale at Wellbots for Verge readers for $549 ($250 off) - its lowest price to date - with coupon code VERGE200.While still pricey, the j7 Plus brings together a host of terrific features for under $550. Its dual rubber roller brush system is great at picking up dirt off your floor, while its intuitive AI obstacle avoidance ensures it will steer clear of cables, stray pairs of shoes, and even pet waste. It's also known to receive new features - a recent update... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Today's kids are tech-savvy at a very young age, but you might not want your children sitting down in front of a PS5 without some guardrails in place. Sony has built parental controls right into the software for its console, and they can be used in combination with the user profiles feature to put limits on what your kids are able to do.These limits cover everything from the number of hours your kid can spend gaming to how much they can spend on in-game purchases, and it all ties into the accounts you've got configured on your console. The bulk of these parental controls can be managed on the web as well as on the PS5, though new child accounts must be created on the web.Family management on the webFirst of all, you need to tell Sony... Continue reading...

Image: BwE (X) Sony has been rumored to be working on a revision of the PlayStation 5, often referred to as the PS5 Slim, that includes a removable disc drive. Now images and a video have leaked of a PS5 model that looks slimmer and slightly shorter, and may well have a removable disc drive.The first image leaked of the rumored PS5 Slim in a Chinese forum earlier today, and now a leaked video provides a better look at this rumored device. The video, from Better Way Electronics, an Australian PlayStation repair specialist, shows off the plastic case of a potential future model of the PS5. It has a bulge for the disc drive, a curve in the middle with a smaller space for vents, two slits on each side of the case, and dual USB-C ports on the front instead... Continue reading...

The Verge Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Threads that he's ready to fight" X owner Elon Musk but not to believe that there's a scheduled date until he confirms it.Musk claimed Friday morning that the fight would be livestreamed on X and Meta," and that everything you'd see on camera will be ancient Rome." Italy's culture minister promptly indicated in a statement that the planning isn't as far along as Musk suggests, nor will any event actually be held in Rome. Now Zuckerberg is indicating that the rest of the details are a surprise to him, too.I love this sport and I've been ready to fight since the day Elon challenged me," Zuckerberg said. If he ever agrees on an actual date, you'll hear it from me. Until then, please assume anything he... Continue reading...

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has been on house arrest in California since December while awaiting trial on fraud and money laundering charges over the crypto exchange's collapse, but today he was sent to jail, as first reported by Inner City Press.Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered the former billionaire remanded after prosecutors pushed to have his bail revoked, citing violations that included Bankman-Fried's admitted usage of VPN software that he said was to watch an NFL game and the judge's view that he had attempted to tamper with witnesses at least twice."Docket entry from Friday's Bond Revocation Hearing:

Image: HP Were you hoping Canon might be held accountable for its all-in-one printers that mysteriously can't scan when they're low on ink, forcing you to buy more? Tough: the lawsuit we told you about last year quietly ended in a private settlement rather than becoming a big class-action.I just checked, and a judge already dismissed David Leacraft's lawsuit in November, without Canon ever being forced to show what happens when you try to scan without a full ink cartridge. (Numerous Canon customer support reps wrote that it simply doesn't work.)Here's the good news: HP, an even larger and more shameless manufacturer of printers, is still possibly facing down a class-action suit for the same practice.As Reuters reports, a judge has refused... Continue reading...

Hugo Herrera / The Verge Last night, when I was settling up at the dive bar, I began thinking once again about the tradeoffs of technology. I was thinking about it because I paid in cash.Post-pandemic, it seems that more people than ever are using credit cards for payments; they are now the vast majority of transactions, according to a report from Capital One. Not that my life is representative - I am a freak - but this bears out among my friends as well. I am frequently the only person carrying cash.Some of this is just that I like cash; it inherently makes it easier for me to budget because I can't spend money I don't have. I also enjoy that it doesn't sign me up for stores' email lists. And - I did tell you I was a freak, didn't I? - there is very little in... Continue reading...

Microsoft is bringing generative AI to frontline field workers by integrating its Copilot AI assistant into its field services platform, streamlining workflows but also enabling supervisors to know what technicians are doing on the job.Copilot, first introduced in March, is already on Microsoft 365 enterprise platforms and was first used by desk-bound employees who wanted AI to generate text for PowerPoint presentations. (It's distinct from the Github service of the same name.) Now, Copilot will be added to the Dynamics 365 service used by field workers like cable technicians and electric repair personnel, among a swathe of other jobs in facilities, manufacturing, and healthcare.With Copilot, service requests sent via Outlook will... Continue reading...

The-long standing iTunes Movie Trailer app with an ominous banner on top. | Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge Apple's classic iTunes Movie Trailers app for iOS is miraculously still around, but MacRumors reports that it won't be for much longer. The more-than-decade-old app that lets people watch film trailers and previews and get movie theater showtimes will soon wind down. But Apple won't be getting out of the trailer screening business. Instead, based on a new banner appearing on the top of the Trailers app, it appears the trailers will end up in the Apple TV app.Apple TV app is the new home of iTunes Movie Trailers," reads the banner on the top of the aging Movie Trailers app. The same banner message also exists on the top of the classic iTunes Movie Trailers website, which is still live and retains a blast-from-the-past circa-2009 Apple... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge We've already seen the design thanks to leaked renders and marketing images, so how about the next best thing to having them on your own head? The Verge has obtained numerous real-world photos of Bose's upcoming headphones, the QuietComfort Ultras. They look quite sleek and combine design elements from the company's recent models with a more premium overall style.The photos confirm that these headphones will be able to fold down (unlike the Noise Canceling Headphones 700) and they'll include a new capacitive volume slider in addition to the other physical buttons. That's the thin line protruding out from the side of one of the ear cups.On the Noise Canceling Headphones 700, you had to swipe your finger up or down the right ear cup for... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Zoom has updated its terms of service and reworded a blog post explaining recent terms of service changes referencing its generative AI tools. The company now explicitly states that communications-like" customer data isn't being used to train artificial intelligence models for Zoom or third parties. What is covered by communications-like? Basically, the content of your videoconferencing on Zoom.Here's the key passage from the newly-revised terms:

Image: Poncle Keeping up on the latest news, updates, and musings on this juggernaut of an indie game. Continue reading...

Image: Rockstar Games Rockstar Games is working with a popular mod developer team to bring in official support for roleplay servers to the company's games. Announced today, Rockstar says it's partnering with the Cfx.re team," the creator of the FiveM and RedM modding tools that lets players make and play through entirely custom experiences in games like Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2.The status of the arrangement isn't entirely clear, even though Rockstar stated in the release that Cfx.re is now officially a part of Rockstar Games," without going into detail about how that's happening.

An aerial image taken on August 10th, 2023, shows destroyed homes and buildings on the waterfront burned to the ground in Lahaina in the aftermath of wildfires in western Maui, Hawaii. | Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images Maui faces a long road to recovery from the devastating blazes this week - Hawaii's deadliest natural disaster since 1960. At least 55 people have died. Lahaina, the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom for a time before the US annexed the islands in 1898, is still smoldering.Fire experts in Hawaii knew the land was primed to burn. It hasn't always been that way; fire risk arrived on the islands relatively recently in Hawaii's history. That risk is growing, but there's a lot that communities can do to adapt.To understand how fire came to be a looming threat in Hawaii and what to do about it, The Verge spoke with Elizabeth Pickett, co-executive director of the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization. The nonprofit organization works with... Continue reading...

These are the best prices yet on the M2 Pro MacBook Pro. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you're in need of a speedy laptop that can handle some extensive creative workflows with long battery life, you'd be hard-pressed to find anything better than Apple's latest crop of MacBook Pros. And with the base-model 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Pro processor now selling for $1,749 ($250 off) at Amazon, you won't find a better deal than this right now. But if 512GB isn't enough storage, the 1TB configuration is also on sale for its own all-time low of $2,199 ($300 off) at both Amazon and B&H Photo.The 2023 14-inch MacBook Pro looks just like the redesigned model that came before it in 2021 - which is totally fine since that was an excellent return to form for Apple's Pro laptops. It's got the same MagSafe charger, three Thunderbolt... Continue reading...

Image: MySmartPrice Bose is nearing the announcement of its latest flagship headphones and earbuds, according to leaked images published by MySmartPrice. Both products will reportedly be branded under a new QuietComfort Ultra" name when they ship in the coming months. The QuietComfort Ultra headphones look like a mashup of the Noise Canceling Headphones 700 and QuietComfort 45; they lean more heavily on the latter's overall design, but you can see some premium upgrades to the headband and ear pads.The $400 Noise Canceling Headphones 700 were announced back in 2019. Technically, they're still the company's top-of-the-line product, so the timing is about right for a sequel. But the fact that Bose came back two years later and announced the QuietComfort 45... Continue reading...

There's no word yet on when the new feature will start rolling out. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is reportedly planning to introduce a new Android feature that will let users link their various Android devices together, similar to Continuity features across the Apple ecosystem. Android expert Mishaal Rahman posted about the potential feature, noting that it could allow Android devices that are signed into the same Google account to communicate with each other.This could enable features like Call Switching," which allows users to jump between connected devices during calls, and Internet Sharing," which Android Authority speculates could be an easier way to quickly set up a personal hotspot across the linked devices. Apple has a similar call-switching feature called iPhone Mobile Calls" that allows users to make and... Continue reading...

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Microsoft has shut down its Cortana app for Windows 11. A new update is rolling out for Cortana that simply disables the digital assistant three years after Microsoft also discontinued its Cortana apps for iOS and Android.If you attempt to launch Cortana on Windows 11 you'll now be met with a notice about how the app is deprecated and a link to a support article on the change. Microsoft is now planning to end support for Cortana in Teams mobile, Microsoft Teams Display, and Microsoft Teams Rooms in the fall of 2023." Surprisingly, Cortana inside Outlook mobile will continue to be available," according to Microsoft. Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge Cortana has been discontinued in Windows 11. Cortana... Continue reading...

EMBARGOED until February 1st 2023 at 1PM ET | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge After a brief delay, Samsung has announced the launch of its beta program for One UI 6, its version of Android that's based on this year's Android 14 release. Key features for this next revision are a simplified design and more customization options.On the design front, many elements have been tweaked to create a more modern look and feel," according to a press release from Samsung. That includes a new default font and new emoji you can use from the Samsung Keyboard. The company has also updated the look of the Quick Panel so that you can more easily get to commonly-used features. Image: Samsung Two screenshots showing what you can expect in Samsung's One UI 6. As for customization, One UI 6 will let you... Continue reading...

The Verge The Twitter Blue - pardon me - X Premium Ads Revenue Sharing payouts that were supposed to roll out last week have been delivered, as the @Support account posted the news Monday night. Asked about the delay, X employee Eric Farraro said the late Friday announcement of a delay came only once the company was sure payments would not go out.As for future rounds, he wrote, We've done payouts to a much smaller number of creators before, but scaling to thousands of creators adds new challenges in terms of engineering, operations, and support. Having completed the initial wave of payouts yesterday, repeating that process is an easier task."We've seen some of the emails sent to participants in the program, and while the payments showed up,... Continue reading...

Image: Instagram A new Instagram feature allows users to add music to their grid posts - and Olivia Rodrigo is the first person to do it.The feature was introduced today by Rodrigo, who used it to unveil her new song, bad idea right?" Instagram users can attach a song of their choice to soundtrack a carousel post with multiple photos, similar to how tracks can be added to Stories or Reels. The feature appears to be in the process of rolling out to users.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Waymo and Cruise were approved to operate their paid robotaxi services 24/7 in San Francisco after a contentious six-hour public hearing in which residents voiced their support and opposition to the vehicles. It's a big win for autonomous vehicle operators, who have spent tens of billions on the technology with very little return.The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted 3-to-1 in favor of allowing the two companies to operate their vehicles at any hour of the day throughout the city of San Francisco while charging for rides.Today is the first of many steps in bringing AV transportation services to Californians," CPUC Commissioner John Reynolds said at the end of the hearing. (Reynolds, a former general counsel at... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis, a new game in the FFVII universe, will be released on iOS and Android on September 7th. The game brings together moments from other FFVII titles, adds some new ones, and will let you experience the journey of a young hero Sephiroth." You can preorder it on the App Store and preregister for it on Google Play right now ahead of the official launch.Ever Crisis' art style takes inspiration from the original PlayStation release's blocky characters but updates it so that Cloud actually has hands. I think it looks quite charming, and it's one of the reasons I want to play the game for myself.

It's less violently green in person, but what I appreciated was how it changes up the feel of the watch without me having to do anything. | Image: Nomad It's no surprise that most fitness trackers have swappable straps these days. Watches - smart or otherwise - are a fashion statement, people have different needs from their wearables, and everybody's skin reacts differently to certain materials. But after trying out Nomad's new glow-in-the-dark Apple Watch strap and Samsung's hybrid eco-leather strap this week, I find myself yearning for straps that serve multiple purposes.Nomad's strap launched earlier this week, and it's as straightforward as you can get. It's the definition of business during the day, party at night. In normal lighting, all you see is a normal cream-colored strap. In the dark, it turns day-glo green. I'll admit it's not the most practical strap - it's a subtler glow... Continue reading...

Image: Daniela Vladimirova / Flickr Aug X released Augie, an AI-powered video creation platform incorporating a voice cloning feature to read ad copy without booking a recording studio.Partnering with ElevenLabs, Aug X lets users record their or someone else's voice and clone it to use for other short videos. The Augie platform, aimed primarily toward marketers and social media teams, lets people quickly add narration, photos, text, and music to videos without needing to learn audio and video editing.Jeremy Toeman, founder of Aug X, said the company wanted to add a voice cloning feature after realizing some people do not like speaking into a microphone or recording voice-overs.You'd be surprised at the number of people who've used our voice cloning feature that came... Continue reading...

Image: Wisk.aero Wisk and Archer, two leading air taxi startups, have settled their legal dispute over allegations of stolen trade secrets, avoiding a jury trial that would have cast a negative light on the emerging aviation technology sector.Wisk, a wholly owned subsidiary of Boeing, sued Archer in 2021 for allegedly stealing its trade secrets and infringing on its patents. A judge sent the lawsuit to trial in June, but now, the two sides have settled the dispute.Wisk said it will become the exclusive provider of autonomous flying technology to Archer, should Archer decide to pursue a self-flying aircraft. Boeing will invest in the private investment in public equity (PIPE) financing that Archer released today as part of its second quarter earnings... Continue reading...