The Verge

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wants to propose new regulations that would require data brokers to comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act. In a speech at the White House earlier this month, CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said the agency is looking into policies to ensure greater accountability" for companies that buy and sell consumer data, in keeping with an executive order President Joe Biden issued in late February.Chopra said the agency is considering proposals that would define data brokers that sell certain types of data as consumer reporting agencies," thereby requiring those companies to comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). The statute bans sharing certain kinds of data (e.g., your credit report) with... Continue reading...

Image: Parker Ortolani / The Verge Over the last few days, Tesla has delayed some Cybertruck deliveries. The company hasn't specified why or even publicly commented on the delays, but commenters in the Cybertruck Owners Club forum have reported receiving texts or calls telling them their deliveries were being rescheduled.One user said they'd been told by their dealer that the truck was recalled over its accelerator pedal. Another claimed Tesla sent them a text saying it's not scheduling deliveries at the moment for the same reason. Several others reported receiving texts about issues with the preparation of your vehicle."An Elon Musk fan account called @WholeMarsBlog posted on X that deliveries have been halted for seven days, but that hasn't been confirmed, and Tesla... Continue reading...

Keanu Reeves as John Wick. | Image: Lionsgate The third Sonic movie already seemed like it was going to kick all kinds of ass by bringing Shadow the Hedgehog into the picture, but Paramount's just upped the ante by adding one Keanu Reeves to its cast.According to both The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, Keanu Reeves has been tapped to voice Shadow, the anthropomorphic hedgehog best known for his jet-powered sneakers and fondness for guns. While the studio's yet to make an official announcement, news of Reeves' casting comes after director Jeff Fowler teased that the next Sonic movie will be inspired by Sonic Adventure 2, the Dreamcast game that first introduced Shadow in 2001.Shadow's cinematic arrival was also teased at the end of the last Sonic movie, where he appeared to be... Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is bringing its ad blocker fight to mobile. In an update on Monday, YouTube writes that users accessing videos through a third-party ad blocking app may encounter buffering issues or see an error message that reads, The following content is not available on this app."Last year, YouTube launched a global effort" to encourage users to allow ads while watching videos or upgrade to YouTube Premium. It also began disabling videos for users with an ad blocking extension enabled.But now, YouTube says its policies don't allow third-party apps to turn off ads because that prevents the creator from being rewarded for viewership." This appears to target mobile ad blockers like AdGuard, which lets you open YouTube within the ad... Continue reading...

Pigeon River Country State Forest in Vanderbilt, Michigan, U.S., on Wednesday, April 20th, 2022. State and local governments in the US are enrolling public-owned forests in carbon projects that could earn them tens of millions of dollars but provide little new help in the fight against climate change. The charity that serves as a major watchdog on corporate climate commitments faces allegations that it's caving to industry pressure to relax standards.The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) assesses companies' sustainability pledges and develops standards for how companies can set goals to fight climate change that are backed by science. SBTi's policies are supposed to prevent greenwashing, which is when companies make misleading statements about their environmental impact.One way SBTi has tried to crack down on greenwashing is by limiting the use of carbon offsets. Offsets are supposed to cancel out some of a company's carbon footprint, even though that's often only reflected on paper and not in the real world. SBTi's tough... Continue reading...

The new Blink Mini offers both better image quality and audio quality than before. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Whether you're away at work or on vacation, a security camera can offer some extra peace of mind by allowing you to keep an eye on your pet, packages, and other valuables at home. And right now, one of the least expensive security cameras you can buy is even more affordable. Normally $39.99, the new Blink Mini 2 is down to just $29.99 ($10 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, which is the first deal we've seen on the wired camera since it launched last month. You can also buy it at Amazon with a weather-resistant adapter for just $39.98 ($10 off).While the Blink Mini 2 remains a basic 1080ps camera like its predecessor, it's now a lot more useful if you're already locked into the Amazon ecosystem. You can use it outside thanks to its... Continue reading...

The layoffs follow the company's first drop in year-over-year vehicle deliveries since 2020. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A few weeks after reporting its first year-over-year decline in vehicle deliveries since 2020, Tesla is now planning to lay off over ten percent of its global workforce, according to an internal company-wide email seen by Electrek. That works out to at least 14,000 of the 140,473 employees that Tesla reported in its latest annual earnings. It's not clear which teams at Tesla will be impacted.There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done," said CEO Elon Musk in the email published by Electrek. In a later post on X, Musk said that about every 5 years, we need to reorganize and streamline the company for the next phase of growth."

Sony's flagship earbuds are smaller, lighter, and better-sounding than the last-gen model. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Whether you need some peace while working from home or plan on taking some summer travels, a good pair of wireless earbuds is crucial for preserving and protecting your sanity. My favorites have been from Sony's flagship line. I started with Sony's WF-1000XM4 before the dastard battery drain bug rendered them unusable. They were great otherwise, and I liked them so much that I took a chance on the WF-1000XM5, which so far haven't thrust the same thorns in my side. They retail for $299.95, but Amazon is selling them starting at $229.95 right now, which is only a few dollars shy of their all-time low.The XM5 are Sony's latest flagship pair of noise-canceling earbuds. They're comfortable and offer excellent sound quality, not to mention... Continue reading...

The Limitless Pendant comes in a bunch of colors and doesn't really look like an AI gadget. | Image: Limitless The Limitless Pendant doesn't exactly scream AI." As Dan Siroker, the CEO of the company behind the new device, lifts it up to show me over Zoom, the round, rubbery-looking gizmo reminds me more of an old-school clippable Fitbit. But what Siroker is actually showing me is a device that can be clipped onto your shirt or worn on a string around your neck that is meant to record everything you hear - and then use AI to help you remember and make sense of it.The Limitless Pendant is part of the whole Limitless system, which the company is launching today. (Oh, and in case you're wondering: yes, it's very much a reference to the movie.) Siroker's last AI product, Rewind, was an app that ran on your computer and would record your screen and... Continue reading...

Photo illustration by The Verge / Photo: Dropbox Leaders can't keep mashing the go back to 2019 button.' Continue reading...

Generative AI-powered tools for quickly removing objects in video clips will be arriving in Premiere Pro later this year. | Image: Adobe Adobe is working on a generative AI video model for its Firefly family that will bring new tools to its Premiere Pro video editing platform. These new Firefly tools - alongside some proposed third-party integrations with Runway, Pika Labs, and OpenAI's Sora models - will allow Premiere Pro users to generate video and add or remove objects using text prompts (just like Photoshop's Generative Fill feature) and extend the length of video clips.Unlike many of Adobe's previous Firefly-related announcements, no release date - beta or otherwise - has been established for the company's new video generation tools, only that they'll roll out this year." And while the creative software giant showcased what its own video model is currently capable... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony is getting ready to release a more powerful PS5 console, possibly by the end of this year. After reports of leaked PS5 Pro specifications surfaced recently, The Verge has obtained a full list of specs for the upcoming console. Sources familiar with Sony's plans tell me that developers are already being asked to ensure their games are compatible with this upcoming console, with a focus on improving ray tracing.Codenamed Trinity, the PlayStation 5 Pro model will include a more powerful GPU and a slightly faster CPU mode. All of Sony's changes point to a PS5 Pro that will be far more capable of rendering games with ray tracing enabled or hitting higher resolutions and frame rates in certain titles. Sony appears to be encouraging... Continue reading...

Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has written a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, saying that TurboTax continues to relentlessly upsell" customers while also directing them away from services that would otherwise be free.As noted in the letter, Warren's staff analyzed TurboTax's services using a sample taxpayer and found that the company attempted to upsell the customer eight times during the tax filing process. Warren writes that in several cases," these solicitations appear to be efforts to mislead customers into thinking that they must pay the extra fees in order to file their taxes when that is not the case." Some show up as full-screen prompts, forcing users to scroll to the bottom to deny the upgrade.In one instance,... Continue reading...

Ikea's Brannboll range is just the right mix of neutrals and bright colors to match most modern homes. | Image: Ikea Ikea is introducing a new range of gaming furniture that subverts the usual dark, edgy gamer" aesthetic for designs that are more likely to blend in with your existing home decor.The company's Brannboll collection is a lineup of 20 items, including a desk, chairs, accessories, and various storage solutions. Following the mostly-black ROG collaboration Ikea released back in 2021, which was similarly free from overly aggressive gamer" flourishes, the new Brannboll collection instead focuses on the kind of designs that Ikea does best - simple and recognizably Scandinavian.Seating is the main focus. There's an armchair that folds out into a lounging position, a rocking-style chair designed to swing with your body's movement, and an... Continue reading...

A screenshot from iGBA. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge I played Game Boy Advance games on my iPhone this weekend thanks to a new emulator called iGBA, which appears to be the first Game Boy Advance emulator on the App Store since Apple started allowing emulators worldwide. The only trouble is, it doesn't look like iGBA is developer Mattia La Spina's own work. Something seemingly confirmed by Apple after it pulled the app for violating its copyright and spam rules, according to MacRumors.In an email to The Verge, developer Riley Testut said the app is an unauthorized clone of GBA4iOS, the open-source emulator he created for iOS over a decade ago (and recently resurrected for the Vision Pro). He said his app uses the GNU GPLv2 license. A Mastodon user found that iGBA does not reference the... Continue reading...

Image: OnLeaks / 91Mobiles Google could be adding a feature very similar to Apple's Emergency SOS feature to the Pixel 9 and the next Pixel Fold. That's according to leaker Kamila Wojciechowska, who writes for Android Authority that the company would partner with T-Mobile to offer the feature but may add other providers later.Just like Apple's system, Google's SOS feature would reportedly present future Pixel owners with a series of questions to ascertain what's happening, rather than let users thumb one out. A video in the Android Authority article features the animation Google will display to users to help them get the phone aligned with a satellite.According to Wojciechowska, these are some of the questions the feature will ask:

The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 34, 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 writing about the Humane AI Pin and the Aboard app, reading about the Com World War and why studios cancel already-made movies, watching Ripley and a deep dive into the Game Boy's incredible sturdiness and power, listening to The Rest is History take on Martin Luther, and seeing if Amazon's Echo Frames can replace my headphones.I also have for you an excellent new video game show, a new ebook reader worth a look, yet another doc about how bad tech is, a sweet new drone, and much more.I also... Continue reading...

Image: Bluesky Bluesky is apparently ready for a bigger challenge. It says it's allowing heads of state to sign up now, a little over two months after it opened for general signups. In May last year, the site asked its users not to give invitation codes to recent/prominent heads of state," stating that it was its policy not to accommodate them.When Bluesky instituted its heads-of-state policy, the site was still in its showing-everyone's-ass phase, and its moderation approach wasn't in place, yet. So instead of the varying degrees of controlled chaos that social networks are, Bluesky was filled with, well, lots of unsettlingly sexy pictures of the cat-eating alien puppet star of the 1980s sitcom Alf, which The Verge's Elizabeth Lopatto pointed out... Continue reading...

The Xgimi MoGo 2 Pro is an excellent Android TV projector with Chromecast built-in. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge Let's face it, a big TV isn't always an option, especially if you live in a tiny apartment or prefer a more nomadic lifestyle. In those instances, it might be wiser to buy the Xgimi MoGo 2 Pro, a portable Android TV projector that's small enough to toss in your backpack before heading out the door. Thankfully, Xgimi's 1080p smart projector is currently on sale at Amazon for $399.99 ($200 off) when you clip the on-page coupon, which drops it to one of its lowest prices to date.Despite its small stature and modest 400 ANSI lumens, the MoGo 2 Pro can project large, 200-inch images while delivering surprisingly good picture quality at smaller sizes (think 30 inches). It looks best when viewed in the dark, like most projectors, which... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Samsung is planning to bring select Galaxy AI features to several older flagship phones and tablets next month via the One UI 6.1 update, according to 9to5Google and Android Central, both of which referred to a post from a Samsung representative who posted on the company's community forum in Korea. The Verge has reached out to Samsung for further comment.A slightly trimmed-down version of Galaxy AI (sans Instant Slow-Mo) will be coming to Samsung's flagship lineup from 2022, specifically the S22, S22 Plus, S22 Ultra, Z Fold 4, Z Flip 4, Tab S8, and Tab S8 Ultra. Each device will receive the same version of Galaxy AI as Samsung's lower-priced Galaxy S23 FE. Instant Slow-Mo, which automatically plays a video in slow motion once you tap... Continue reading...

Photo by Edie Leong for The Washington Post via Getty Images Tesla is reducing the subscription fee for its Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver-assist software in a reflection of the company's continuing financial hardships. The company slashed the price to $99 / month, down from $199 where it has been since at least 2021.Tesla announced the price adjustment in a post on X, in which it described the Level 2 driver-assist system as FSD (Supervised)" - a name tweak that's meant to convey the fact that drivers are required to pay attention to the road and stand ready to take control of the vehicle. (The company has been criticized for failing to include proper driver monitoring and other protections against overreliance on the system.)

I failed converting Wes to K-pop, but we agreed that Cowboy Carter slaps. | Screenshot: Victoria Song / The Verge The inside of an Apple Vision Pro is a lonely place to be. My spouse and I can't watch movies together. It's hard to describe what the world looks like in there to curious friends. Even if I'm standing next to you, even if there's a ghostly projection of my eyes on the front display - there's a barrier between me and you.Unless you also have a Vision Pro headset and have enabled Spatial Personas.Apple debuted Spatial Personas last week. It unleashes your uncanny digital avatar from the FaceTime window and into any SharePlay-enabled app as well as your virtual space. Call me intrigued. Loneliness was a con of the Vision Pro that reviewer after reviewer pointed out. Would this help that? I called up our weekend editor, Wes Davis, who... Continue reading...

It wasn't our favorite fitness tracker at $150, but the Fitbit Charge 5 is a looker at $75. | Image: Fitbit With nearly a third of 2024 behind us now, you might think it's out of season to talk about resolutions and fitness goals. But for me, the renewal of the Earth's vegetation and the prospect of pool parties encourages me to get out and move after a cold, muggy winter. If the same is true for you, a fitness tracker can be a great motivator that can help you chart your progress. Thankfully, Walmart is currently selling the Fitbit Charge 5 starting at just $75, which is 50 percent off and easily one of the best prices we've ever seen.We weren't big fans of some of Fitbit's design choices for the last-gen Charge 5. The biggest offender was its lack of a physical navigation button, which made using the finicky touch-based user interface more... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft says it's starting to test ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11. The software maker will use the Recommended section of the Start menu, which usually shows file recommendations, to suggest apps from the Microsoft Store.This will appear only for Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel in the US and will not apply to commercial devices (devices managed by organizations)," says Microsoft in a blog post.The app promotions can be disabled in the Settings section of Windows 11, but it appears that Microsoft will enable these by default. Microsoft is seeking feedback on the changes, so it's possible the company could decide to ditch these ads in development builds of Windows 11 if there's enough feedback that suggests they're... Continue reading...

Well, hello there, Ghoul. | Image: Bethesda Softworks The new Amazon adaptation of Fallout is excellent, nailing the goofy yet grim vibe of the series, all while telling a new story. It's so good, in fact, that after the eight episodes were over, I was left with a strong urge to head back into the wasteland. But where to start? An open-world RPG like Fallout 4 felt like too much of a commitment (even with a next-gen update on the way), so I turned to something simpler: the mobile strategy game Fallout Shelter. And now I can't seem to stop.Now, to be clear, Fallout Shelter isn't a new game. It launched in 2015, and while it started as a mobile release, it's been subsequently ported to PC and consoles. It's a bit like a city-builder, just one that takes place mostly underground. You're the... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Roku says it found another cyberattack on Friday that affected 576,000 users. This is the second breach to affect the company since March.Roku says the attackers used the login information of account holders, a technique called credential stuffing, to gain access to the streaming service and the payment methods of some users. The hackers were then able to use partial credit card numbers from about 400 cases" to make unauthorized purchases for subscriptions to streaming services and Roku devices. But the company said the hackers did not get sensitive information like full credit card numbers and addresses.The hackers used a method called credential stuffing, in which malicious actors take stolen usernames and passwords and try these... Continue reading...

Image: Android Headlines We're a month out from Google I/O, where the company will likely announce its new Pixel 8A phone. At this point, there have already been plenty of renders and even some real-world shots. And now, courtesy of Android Headlines, it appears official marketing images of the device have leaked.If accurate, they show that Google plans to offer the Pixel 8A in four colors: black, porcelain, blue, and a very vibrant green. It's certainly more saturated than the subdued mint" that Google added to the Pixel 8 color choices earlier this year.Like its predecessor, the phone is rumored to have a 6.1-inch display, though it's not yet clear whether it'll top out at 90Hz or 120Hz. The 8A still has thicker bezels than the flagship Pixel 8 and 8 Pro -... Continue reading...

A 20-foot chunk of Newport, Rhode Island's beloved Cliff Walk broke off and dove into the depths of the ocean in a significant landslide and partial collapse, pictured on March 4th, 2022. | Photo by Jonathan Wiggs / The Boston Globe via Getty Images The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) is doling out nearly $830 million in grants to 80 different projects aimed at strengthening US infrastructure against climate change.The funding will fan out over 39 states and territories to projects ranging from refurbishing aging bridges to expanding emergency evacuation routes. The grants are the first of their kind," according to USDOT, which is partnering with state, local, and tribal governments thanks to funding made available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.Climate change is intensifying risks to the nation's transportation infrastructure. The number of billion-dollar weather disasters reached a record high last year. And even slow-moving calamities like rising seas are... Continue reading...

Google is piloting removing links to California news websites for a small percentage of users. | Illustration: The Verge Google says it will start removing links to California news websites in a short term test for a small percentage of California users." The move is in response to the pending California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), which would require Google to pay a fee for linking Californians to news articles.If passed, CJPA may result in significant changes to the services we can offer Californians and the traffic we can provide to California publishers," Jaffer Zaidi, Google VP of global news partnerships, wrote in a blog post announcing the decision. The testing process involves removing links to California news websites, potentially covered by CJPA, to measure the impact of the legislation on our product experience."Zaidi adds that... Continue reading...

Photo by Sean O'Kane / The Verge The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating an incident involving Ford's hands-free driver-assist system after a Mustang Mach-E driver crashed into another vehicle in Texas, killing the occupant. A second fatal crash involving a Mach-E took place in Philadelphia, although it's not known whether the driver-assist system played a role. Both crashes involved Mach-Es crashing into stationary vehicles.The first incident took place at 9:50PM on February 24th outside of San Antonio, Texas. According to a preliminary report from NTSB, the 44-year-old driver of the Mustang Mach-E was traveling eastbound on Interstate 10 when he rear-ended a stationary Honda CRV. The 56-year-old Honda driver was killed in the crash.Based on data... Continue reading...

Image: Western Digital It wasn't that long ago when we were impressed by a 400GB microSD card, but now, Western Digital is showing off a full-size SD card with 10 times the storage capacity. The new SanDisk Extreme Pro 4TB SD card is designed for cameras and laptops, and it's the first time we've seen this storage size on an SD card.While Western Digital is previewing its four-terabyte SD card at the NAB Show this week, it won't actually be available until 2025. AnandTech notes that the card uses the Ultra High Speed-I (UHS-I) interface, which supports up to 104MB/s data transfers in the UHS104 (SDR104) mode. It also has minimal sequential write speeds of 30MB/s, enough for 8K video recording.The SD Association first announced its Secure Digital Ultra... Continue reading...

Image: Nintendo In 2015, Nintendo released Super Mario Maker for the Wii U, a game that allowed players to make and share their own 2D Mario levels. In 2021, the company ended the ability to upload courses, the game having been eclipsed by its sequel on the Switch. But in January 2024, Nintendo announced an end to all online services for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS games on April 8th. For Super Mario Maker, that meant the millions of player-made levels would be unceremoniously shuttered.Or at least, it would have been unceremonious, if it weren't for a group called Team 0%. The group had been trying to beat every uncleared level in the game for years, which was made easier once they had a fixed target in 2021. When the announcement came that the Wii U's... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Unpkg, a content delivery network (CDN) that powers more than 4 billion requests per day, went down for several hours on Friday morning. The outage broke the thousands of websites that use the open-source CDN, leaving developers scrambling for a fix.The outage appeared to have started around 4AM ET, with sites returning a 520 error from Cloudflare, which powers Unpkg. Many developers affected by the outage switched to jsDelivr, another open-source CDN for GitHub and the package manager npm, in order to keep their sites online. Unpkg started coming back online at around 9AM ET. That's when Fly.io - the service that Unpkg's origin server uses to provide auto-scaling infrastructure - announced that it deployed a fix" to recover affected... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Seven. Hundred. Dollars. After a year of asking questions about this much-hyped AI wearable, the Humane AI Pin is here, and, well, we still have lots of questions. We're also still trying to figure out how it all works - and where it goes from here.On this episode of The Vergecast, we dive deep into our review of the AI Pin and try to figure out what went wrong with this device and whether there's a real future for it or any other AI-powered gadget. The trouble, we discover, is that these devices are stacking new technology on top of new technology, and until it all works perfectly, none of it will work very well. Also, did we mention the AI Pin is seven hundred dollars?After that, we talk about the growing rift between OpenAI and... Continue reading...

The tools could open new revenue streams for artists who otherwise wouldn't see money from unauthorized remixes. | Cath Virginia / The Verge Spotify is working on some seemingly TikTok-inspired remixing features in its latest attempt to capitalize on the social media platform's explosive popularity. According to the Wall Street Journal, Spotify is developing tools that would allow paid subscribers to speed up, mash-up, and otherwise edit" tracks from their favorite artists, which could then be saved for repeat listening.One use case for the tools is to allow Spotify users to adjust the speed of the songs they listen to. These music modifications are already popular with teens and young adults on TikTok, with content analysis firm Pex finding that 38 percent of songs on the platform had their speeds or pitches modified in 2023, compared to 25 percent the year prior.A... Continue reading...