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by Lauren Feiner on (#6KTB6)
Photo by Matt McClain / The Washington Post via Getty Images The Federal Communications Commission will vote on April 25th on a proposal to restore net neutrality rules, the agency announced on Wednesday.If the five-member panel votes to restore the rules, internet service providers (ISP) will be reclassified from information services to common carriers, bringing stricter regulations with the change.The idea of net neutrality is to keep ISPs from treating internet traffic differently by throttling or blocking, for example. The FCC installed net neutrality rules back in 2015, but they were repealed in 2017 under a Trump-nominated chair. Republicans on the commission believed that removing what they saw to be onerous rules would lead to greater innovation. Democrats believed that repealing the... Continue reading...
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The Verge
| Link | https://www.theverge.com/ |
| Feed | http://www.theverge.com/rss/index.xml |
| Updated | 2025-07-09 21:45 |
by Chris Welch on (#6KTB7)
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge For many years, Spotify held strong at its monthly subscription of $9.99, but that changed last July when Premium jumped up to $10.99. Now it appears that the leading subscription music service is planning another price hike - and not waiting nearly as long this time. Bloomberg reports that the cost will go up by between $1 and $2 in the UK, Australia, Pakistan, and two other markets by the end of April, with an increase planned for US customers later this year."But there's one important asterisk here: this all assumes that you're interested in listening to audiobooks on Spotify. Part of the reason for these subscription increases is to cover their cost, after all. Spotify has already grown to become the second-largest player in... Continue reading...
by Wes Davis on (#6KTB8)
Now you can customize these bad boys. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google is rolling out a new ChromeOS update (M123) to its stable channel yesterday that brought features like the ability to customize keyboard shortcuts and mouse buttons and enabled hotspot connections on cellular Chromebooks. The company's April updates also brought updates and bug fixes to Pixel Watches and Pixel phones from the 5A and up.The keyboard shortcut feature will work like it does in other operating systems, in which you can assign specific actions to specific key combinations. Google uses the examples of tweaking shortcuts to be easier to carry out one-handed or making them resemble those you're used to in, say, macOS. The same goes for mouse button customizing - if your mouse has extra buttons besides just left and... Continue reading...
by Becca Farsace on (#6KTB9)
Fujifilm x100VI vs. Ricoh GR IIIx: battle of the best point-and-shoot The $1,599.00 Fujifilm X100VI and the $1,046.95 Ricoh GR IIIx are two of the most popular digital point-and-shoot cameras for folks who aren't looking to break the bank. They both come in a small package and have an APS-C sensor and a fixed focal length lens that can produce crisp images. In fact, these systems are so similar that, as a viewer, it can be hard to tell images from them apart (check out 1:29 in the video below). But as a photographer, the experience they provide could not be more different.I don't know two camera systems with fan bases as loyal as these two. So check out my video above, where these systems go head to head in order the answer the question of which one is best for you. And let me know where your alliance... Continue reading...
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by Victoria Song on (#6KT84)
Oura's new Symptom Radar feature detects early signs of change to your overall wellness. | Image: Victoria Song / The Verge The Oura Ring is getting a bit more experimental. Starting today, Oura users will get access to a new Oura Labs feature, which allows them to opt in to experimental features. The first will be something called Symptom Radar, which detects early signs of physiological strain.Symptom Radar isn't quite illness detection - a feature that Oura and many other wearables companies put a lot of research into during the early days of the covid-19 pandemic. Instead, it notifies users of significant changes in biometric trends like temperature, respiratory rate, resting heart rate, and heart rate variability. When alerted, users can choose whether to enable Rest Mode or lower their daily activity goal to prioritize rest. While illness could... Continue reading...
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by Mia Sato on (#6KT83)
Image: Patreon Patreon is taking a page out of Reddit's book. Now, podcasters, artists, writers, and other creators on the subscription-focused creator platform will be able to assign community members as moderators as the platform expands its product offering.All Patreon content is subject to the company's own guidelines, but different creators may have specific community rules, like a ban on posting spoilers - and having multiple moderators could help develop and enforce expectations. Previously, creators were able to assign teammates with certain permissions; this update allows creators to distribute some of the work of moderating their community to their liking. Like subreddits with their own rules and teams, moderators on Patreon will be tasked... Continue reading...
by Emilia David on (#6KT86)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Stable Audio 2.0, an audio generation model for Stability AI, now lets users upload their own audio samples that they can then transform using prompts and create AI-generated songs. But the songs will not win any Grammys just yet.The first version of Stable Audio was released in September 2023 and only offered up to 90 seconds for some paying users, which meant they could only make short sound clips to experiment with. Stable Audio 2.0 offers a full three-minute sound clip - the length of most radio-friendly songs. All uploaded audio must be copyright-free.Unlike OpenAI's audio generation model, Voice Engine, which is only available to a select group of users, Stability AI made Stable Audio free and publicly available through its... Continue reading...
by David Pierce on (#6KT85)
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Humane, Rabbit, Brilliant, Meta, and countless other companies are just about to launch AI-first gadgets. AI hardware may not be as big as the smartphone, but it's going to be big. Continue reading...
by Joanna Nelius on (#6KT6A)
The 13-inch and 15-inch Air are better than ever, but Apple needs to do something about the upgrade funnel. Continue reading...
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by Tom Warren on (#6KT6B)
Photo by NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images A new report from the US Cyber Safety Review Board has found that Microsoft could have prevented Chinese hackers from breaching US government emails through its Microsoft Exchange Online software last year. The incident, described as a cascade of security failures" at Microsoft, allowed Chinese state-sponsored hackers to access online email inboxes of 22 organizations, affecting more than 500 people including US government employees working on national security.The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a scathing report that found that the hack was preventable" and that a number of decisions inside Microsoft contributed to a corporate culture that deprioritized enterprise security investments and rigorous risk... Continue reading...
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by Tom Warren on (#6KT45)
The Verge Microsoft is rolling out priority access to GPT-4 Turbo for business subscribers of its AI-powered Copilot assistant. This unlocks access to OpenAI's latest model inside the Copilot mobile app, on the web, in Windows, and Edge as part of the $30 per user, per month pricing of Copilot for Microsoft 365.While consumers subscribed to Copilot Pro already had access to GPT-4 Turbo, businesses using Copilot for Microsoft 365 now have access and no limits on the number of chats per day and turns per conversation.GPT-4 Turbo will be available in Copilot for Microsoft 365 for both web queries against the latest public information, and to use across work data like querying emails, documents, meetings, and more. OpenAI's latest model also... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6KT46)
The Dudesy podcast agreed to take the allegedly ai-generated comedy special offline as part of the settlement. | Photo by Mark Junge/Getty Images George Carlin's estate has reached a settlement with the media company that purportedly used generative artificial intelligence to imitate the late comedian. The decision arrives as a group representing artists like Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, and Stevie Wonder calls for performers to be better protected against being mimicked by AI technology.According to the New York Times, Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen - the Dudesy podcast creators who imitated Carlin in a faked comedy special titled George Carlin: I'm Glad I'm Dead" - agreed as part of the settlement reached on Tuesday to take the offending content offline and never upload it on any platform. Sassoo and Kultgen also agreed to not use Carlin's voice or likeness in content they produce... Continue reading...
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by Callum Booth on (#6KT1D)
Cath Virginia / The Verge DMA is about to unleash a brave new world of game emulators, clipboard managers, and uncertainty. Continue reading...
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by Joanna Nelius on (#6KSXT)
Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Intel's chip-making division accumulated $7 billion in operating losses in 2023, Reuters reported on Tuesday. That's a big increase from $5.2 billion it lost in 2022, and while it made $18.9 billion in revenue in 2023, that number is down 31 percent from the $27.49 billion it made the year prior.However, based on CEO Pat Gelsinger's comments to investors, the total loss isn't a total surprise. Gelsinger says these latest numbers are partially the result of Intel's past mistakes catching up with its foundry business, which caused the chipmaker to outsource about 30 percent of all its wafer production to other foundries, like TSMC, one of Intel's biggest competitors currently.But now Intel has invested in using extreme ultraviolet (EUV)... Continue reading...
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by Amrita Khalid on (#6KSVV)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Linux, the most widely used open source operating system in the world, narrowly escaped a massive cyber attack over Easter weekend, all thanks to one volunteer.The backdoor had been inserted into a recent release of a Linux compression format called XZ Utils, a tool that is little-known outside the Linux world but is used in nearly every Linux distribution to compresses large files, making them easier to transfer. If it had spread more widely, an untold number of systems could have been left compromised for years.And as Ars Technica noted in its exhaustive recap, the culprit had been working on the project out in the open.The vulnerability, inserted into Linux's remote log-in, only exposed itself to a single key, so that it could hide... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6KSVW)
Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge There's a little-known hack in rural America: you can get the best fried food at the gas station (or in the case of a place I went to on my last road trip, shockingly good tikka masala). Now, one convenience store chain wants to change that with a robotic fry cook that it's bringing to a place once inhabited by a person who may or may not smell like a recent smoke break and cooks up a mean fried chicken liver.The convenience store chain Re-Up announced that it's installing The Wingman," a robot from Nala Robotics that drops fry baskets into hot oil and rolls chicken wings around in sauce before dumping those things into buckets for your consumption (at least, based on the video below). The company says that the machine will use... Continue reading...
by Wes Davis on (#6KSSV)
The president's account can now be found on platforms like Mastodon. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge The official US president Threads account, currently helmed by President Joe Biden, has begun using Meta's ActivityPub integration, making Biden the first sitting US president to post on the decentralized networking protocol. If you want to follow the President's posts, but don't want to leave Mastodon, you can follow @potus@threads.net.The account turning on fediverse posting comes only a couple of weeks after Threads rolled out its beta ActivityPub integration for users in the US, Canada, and Japan.Here's the account as viewed from the official Mastodon client: Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge The Presidential Threads account, as viewed on Mastodon. Biden may not be able to see replies and follows as they... Continue reading...
by Quentyn Kennemer on (#6KSSW)
Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge Apple never mentioned it, but the iPhone 12 received Qi2 wireless charging support when it got updated to iOS 17.4 last month. That means you can make full use of the Qi2-certified chargers that have entered the market, which have adopted the magnetic attachment and 15W speeds of Apple's MagSafe tech.Macworld originally reported the update late last week. It published findings from its own tests alongside confirmation from Belkin that its Qi2 chargers supported 15W charging on updated iPhone 12 devices. Anker has since confirmed to The Verge similar compatibility for its products, while Apple has yet to respond to a request for comment.The iPhone 12 was Apple's first phone with MagSafe and has supported 15W magnetic MagSafe charging... Continue reading...
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by Emilia David on (#6KSSX)
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images The United States and United Kingdom agreed to work together to monitor advanced AI models for safety risks. The two countries will collaborate on research and do at least one joint safety test.Both countries say safety is a top concern when it comes to using AI models. US President Joe Biden's executive order on AI required companies developing AI systems to report safety test results. Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the creation of the UK AI Safety Institute, saying that companies like Google, Meta, and OpenAI must allow the vetting of their tools.The agreement between both countries' AI Safety Institutes takes effect immediatelyUS Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the government is committed to developing... Continue reading...
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by Gaby Del Valle on (#6KSSY)
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images When New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the city would be testing out AI gun detectors on at subway stations last week, he touted the technology as clearly impressive." But critics, including the Legal Aid Society, were immediately skeptical of the pilot - and as it turns out, they were right to be.When the city installed Evolv scanners at a hospital in the Bronx in 2022, the machines frequently reported false positives, according to a public records request obtained by Hell Gate. In the seven months that the Evolv scanners were active, 50,000 of the 194,000 scans resulted in a positive alarm - 85 percent of which were false positives. Most of the actual positives were triggered by police officers; just 295 were triggered by... Continue reading...
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by Ash Parrish on (#6KSSZ)
Image: Square Enix I'm in awe of how smart the developers of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth are. After seeing a post comparing Cloud during the Nibelheim flashback and his arrival at the city much later in the game, my mind is reeling from the subtle brilliance in how Square used the tiniest of animation details to convey one of the biggest, most shocking plot twists in Final Fantasy narrative history.Spoilers for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to follow.In a clip shared on X by pwtizza, Cloud, with one of his big-ass swords strapped to his back, is seen sitting at the top of Nibelheim's famous water tower. In the right half of the clip, Cloud removes his sword before sitting at the top of the water tower. In the left half of the clip, he doesn't; Cloud simply... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6KSQE)
An Amazon Dash Cart in Whole Foods. | Photo by Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu via Getty Images Amazon has decided to give up on its Just Walk Out program that lets customers leave its brick-and-mortar grocery stores without a formal checkout process. Instead, it's switching fully to Dash Carts," where customers scan products as they toss them in their cart.That's according to The Information, which reports that the company is pulling Just Walk Out from all larger stores where the system is in place and sprucing up the stores across the board" as it prepares to expand Amazon Fresh locations later this year. Amazon will keep using it in smaller corner stores, though.Amazon hasn't managed to get a handle on in-person retail despite buying the upscale, popular Whole Foods chain back in 2017. Over the years, the online shopping... Continue reading...
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by Joanna Nelius on (#6KSQF)
Illustration: The Verge Google just sent out its final reminder that Dropcam and Dropcam Pro cameras and Nest Secure home security systems will stop working next Monday, April 8th. Google first made the announcement a year ago, a month before it rolled out its redesigned Home app.The Dropcam and Dropcam Pro, which came out in 2012 and 2013, respectively, will stop being able to connect to the Nest app and stop recording video. Video history will remain available after April 8th, but the length of time depends on your individual Nest Aware subscription version and tier, which range from five to 60 days.Current users should also check their emails for an offer toward an indoor wired Nest Cam, which expires on May 7th, 2024. But perhaps most importantly, users... Continue reading...
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by Allison Johnson on (#6KSQG)
Phones need to go to notification jail. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Feel that? Your phone buzzing in the pocket of your yoga pants? Better check it. Maybe it's a request to approve a substitution in your grocery order. Maybe it's a fraudulent charge on your credit card. Maybe it's your mom or your spouse or your sister. Maybe it's a notification from your kid's daycare. It might be any of those things! But it's probably not. It's probably something like:Hi! You're running out of time to do your Spanish lesson! Still thinking about ordering dinner? Enjoy $8 off your purchase. Terms apply. You hit your sleep goal seven times in the last two weeks. Nice one, Allison. Shop these fresh beauty picks. Take a second to reflect on how you're feeling. Beck performing on Wed, Jul 3. Tap to learn more!N... Continue reading...
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by Chris Welch on (#6KSMJ)
Screenshot: Chris Welch / The Verge I've become almost numb to the deluge of notifications that hit my phone every day. But when an app sends a simple, very human Hi!" message, apparently that's enough to stop me in my tracks. And Starbucks just sent exactly that push notification to god knows how many devices a few minutes ago. For what purpose? Who knows?Just hi. No other context. A random hello on what's (here in New York) a dreary, rainy Tuesday. So I tapped. Doing so just brought me into the Starbucks app without any special destination or obvious promotion attached to the prompt.Starbucks has sent out accidental notifications before. So it's fair to question:
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by Sheena Vasani on (#6KSMK)
Apple's second-gen AirPods still deliver a lot of value for Apple fans given how well they integrate with other iOS devices. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge We don't often recommend five-year-old earbuds, but Apple's second-generation AirPods are one of those rare gadgets that have stood the test of time. They're still a good option if you just need a simple pair of earbuds that integrate well with other Apple devices, and right now, they're just $89 ($40 off) at Amazon and Walmart. That's $20 shy of the all-time low price set during Black Friday and the best price we've seen them sell for so far this year.Apple's last-gen entry-level earbuds still deliver excellent sound and voice call quality, even if they lack the IPX4 water resistance and MagSafe charging compatibilities of the third-gen AirPods. They nail the basics with long battery life and reliable performance, while letting Apple... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6KSHR)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Tesla delivered 386,810 vehicles this quarter, falling short of its fourth quarter 2023 deliveries by nearly 100,000 and marking a year-over-year sales drop from Q1 2023's 422,875 vehicles. As Bloomberg notes, the company hasn't delivered fewer vehicles than the same prior-year period since 2020 and hasn't delivered under 400,000 vehicles in a quarter since Q3 2022.Tesla blamed the decline partially on the early phase of the production ramp of the updated Model 3 at our Fremont factory," as well as shipping delays resulting from Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea and the arson at its Berlin factory. The company had earlier predicted slowed 2024 growth as it prepared to begin new vehicle production in 2025.Tesla's explanation may not... Continue reading...
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by David Pierce on (#6KSHS)
Google Podcasts was a simple but good podcasts app - and now it's gone. | Image: Google Google Podcasts is dead. It has been dying for months, since Google announced last fall that it was killing its dedicated podcast app in order to focus all its podcasting efforts on YouTube Music. This is a bad idea and a big downgrade, and I'd be more mad if only I were more surprised.The Podcasts app is just the latest product to go through a process I've come to call The Google Cycle. It always goes the same way: the company launches a new service with grandiose language about how this fits its mission of organizing and making accessible the world's information, quickly updates it with a couple of neat features, immediately seems to forget it exists, eventually launches a competitor out of some other part of the company, obviously... Continue reading...
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by Victoria Song on (#6KSHT)
You're not limited to hovering in FaceTime. | Video: Apple Starting today, Vision Pro personas will be able to do more than hover like a ghost in FaceTime calls. Now, you can use them in SharePlay-enabled apps to collaborate, play games, or watch media with other people.Apple is calling this a spatial Persona." The idea is to make it feel like you're in the same physical space as another user. It was part of what Apple showed in developer previews last year but hasn't been available in the actual Persona beta until now. It's a bit hard to imagine, but you can see what it looks like in the video below.Each user will purportedly be able to control what they see and reposition where an object is without impacting what another user sees. Spatial audio will also supposedly help you sense where... Continue reading...
by Wes Davis on (#6KSF1)
Jon Stewart interviews Lina Khan. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge In the months since the cancellation of The Problem With Jon Stewart on Apple TV Plus, the former host of the show, Jon Stewart, has revealed details here and there about the acrimonious relationship with Apple. While interviewing FTC Chair Lina Khan yesterday on The Daily Show about tech companies and antitrust behavior, he revealed more, telling Khan, I wanted to have you on a podcast," but Apple literally said, Please don't talk to her.'"The whole episode is worth a watch when you get a chance. The episode's first segment included Stewart lampooning the hyperbolic promises tech companies frequently make about AI, interspersed with clips of tech execs discussing AI's potential for replacing human labor or explaining AI-enabled... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6KSF2)
As per this still from an Anchorage Daily News video, Aurora is already hard at work spooking the local animals. | Image: Anchorage Daily News The Alaskan government has a new four-legged friend keeping migratory birds and other animals away from the runways at Fairbanks International Airport: a dog-like Boston Dynamics robot dubbed Aurora." The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities posted its new hire" on Instagram last month, saying that the robot will be trialed to enhance and augment airport safety" by trying to prevent hazardous encounters between planes and wildlife.While addressing the Alaska House and Senate transportation committees on March 19th, robot handler Ryan Marlow said the agency opted to trial Aurora after plans to spray repellents like grape juice from flying drones were judged too risky. According to Marlow, Aurora will be put to... Continue reading...
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by David Pierce on (#6KSF3)
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge There are fewer things more ubiquitous in technology than QWERTY keyboards. If you type anywhere, you almost certainly type the QWERTY way. But why? It turns out that by almost any objective measure, the keyboards we use are decidedly unoptimized. Commonly used keys are too hard to reach; your fingers have to move side to side too much; it requires way too much movement overall. There are a million theories about why QWERTY was invented - the most common one holds that its creator wanted to make sure old typewriter mechanisms didn't crash into each other as you whacked the keys - but almost everyone agrees, it's not the best way. And yet, after decades of using it, hardly anybody wants to switch.On this episode of The Vergecast, we have... Continue reading...
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by David Pierce on (#6KSC4)
The Artifact app will be gone soon - but the Yahoo News app might start to be more like it. | Image: Artifact Instagram's co-founders built a powerful and useful tool for recommending news to readers - but could never quite get it to scale. Yahoo has hundreds of millions of readers - but could use a dose of tech-forward cool to separate it from all the internet's other news aggregators. And so, the two sides are joining forces: Yahoo is acquiring Artifact, the companies announced on Tuesday.The two sides declined to share the cost of the acquisition, but both made clear Yahoo is acquiring Artifact's tech rather than its team. Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom, Artifact's co-founders, will be special advisors" for Yahoo but won't be joining the company. Artifact's remaining five employees have either gotten other jobs or are planning to take some... Continue reading...
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by Nilay Patel on (#6KSC3)
Photo: Brother It's been over a year since I last told you to just buy a Brother laser printer, and that article has fallen down the list of Google search results because I haven't spent my time loading it up with fake updates every so often to gain the attention of the Google search robot.It's weird because the correct answer to the query what is the best printer" has not changed, but an entire ecosystem of content farms seems motivated to constantly update articles about printers in response to the incentive structure created by that robot's obvious preferences. Pointing out that incentive structure and the culture that's developed around it seems to make a lot of people mad, which is also interesting!Anyway, here's the best printer for 2024: a... Continue reading...
by Tom Warren on (#6KSC5)
A mockup of what Microsoft's Xbox chatbot looks like. | Cath Virginia / The Verge Microsoft is currently testing a new AI-powered Xbox chatbot that can be used to automate support tasks. Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell The Verge that the software giant has been testing an embodied AI character" that animates when responding to Xbox support queries. I understand this Xbox AI chatbot is part of a larger effort inside Microsoft to apply AI to its Xbox platform and services.The Xbox AI chatbot is connected to Microsoft's support documents for the Xbox network and ecosystem, and can respond to questions and even process game refunds from Microsoft's support website. This agent can help you with your Xbox support questions," reads a description of the Xbox chatbot internally at Microsoft.Microsoft expanded... Continue reading...
by Gaby Del Valle on (#6KS9Y)
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Of all the allegations that the Department of Justice has laid at Apple's door, the most contentious is perhaps its salvo over security and privacy. Apple has warned that if the DOJ gets its way, Apple products - especially the iPhone - will be less secure for users. Meanwhile, the DOJ claims that Apple's much-touted privacy features are pretextual.The complaint in the DOJ's antitrust lawsuit against Apple says that the company wraps itself in a cloak of privacy, security, and consumer preferences to justify its anti-competitive behavior." In the press conference announcing the lawsuit, Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter said Apple's choices have actually made its system less private and less secure."Apple selectively... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6KS9Z)
The record was broken during a 15-hour stream on April 1st. | Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Game developer Jason Thor Hall, better known by the moniker Pirate Software, has set a new Twitch Hype Train world record, with his channel reaching level 106 on April 1st. Once the Hype Train was initiated, it took Hall roughly three hours to beat his previous level 55 world record from December, with viewers contributing 54,380 gifted subs (alongside regular subscriptions) and 8,225,386 Bits - likely earning Hall a healthy six-figure sum in the process.Hype Trains, a feature that Twitched launched in 2020, are a limited-time event triggered when a channel receives an uptick in Bits or subscriptions, pushing past a streamer-designated threshold. While we won't know the official figure paid by Hall's community, it's sure to be... Continue reading...
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by Lauren Feiner on (#6KSA0)
Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge The ability to know somebody's age and try to protect privacy at the same time can be challenging," says Meta's Global Head of Safety Antigone Davis. Meta has been advocating for app store operators like Apple and Google to be in charge of verifying users' ages and soliciting parental consent for app downloads. Now, it's using its own virtual reality Quest store as a model for how it thinks that should work.Meta is prompting Quest 2 and 3 users to reenter their birthdays so that it can place accounts in the appropriate age experience as it tries to centralize age verification through its Quest store. Teens aged 13 to 17 will have more privacy settings turned on by default and can be monitored through parental supervision tools.... Continue reading...
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by Allison Johnson on (#6KS17)
Are you there, Bixby? | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Bixby's not dead yet, apparently. A Samsung executive tells CNBC that the company is working so hard" to equip its voice assistant with AI features, suggesting that the company sees the likes of Gemini as competition - not a replacement.That's good to know, because some of us were starting to wonder. Earlier this year as Samsung announced a boatload of new generative AI features for its flagship phones, its voice assistant was scarcely mentioned. Samsung and Google also made a big deal about the Galaxy S24 phones using Gemini Nano - Google's on-device AI model. It wouldn't have been a stretch to see Samsung replace Bixby with Google's Gemini-powered assistant, but apparently, that's not the plan.Samsung's Won-joon Choi, executive... Continue reading...
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by Richard Lawler on (#6KRRM)
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Getty Images The holiday we didn't ask for is back. Continue reading...
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by Barbara Krasnoff on (#6KRZN)
Illustration: The Verge You can't really blame Meta's executives for wanting to limit the amount of political yelling on Instagram and Threads. That stuff can get pretty toxic. As a result, both of Meta's social networks now limit what Meta terms political content" from people you are not following.However, if you are a Threads or Instagram user and you want to be exposed to posts likely to mention governments, elections, or social topics that affect a group of people and/or society at large" (which is how Meta describes it), you can still do it by opting in to political content. The only thing that may be a little confusing is that you have to opt in within the Instagram app - even if you are mainly using Threads.Here's how:
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by Wes Davis on (#6KRXQ)
Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a new way to combat the impersonation scams that it says cost people $1.1 billion last year alone. Effective today, the agency's rule (PDF) prohibits the impersonation of government, businesses, and their officials or agents in interstate commerce." The rule also lets the FTC directly file federal court complaints to force scammers to return money stolen by business or government impersonation.Impersonation scams are wide-ranging - creators are on the lookout for fake podcast invites that turn into letting scammers take over their Facebook pages via a hidden datasets" URL, while Verge reporters have been impersonated by criminals trying to steal cryptocurrency via fake Calendly meeting links.L... Continue reading...
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by Ash Parrish on (#6KRXR)
Photo: Waffle House (Flickr) Get ready for the next battle... at the Waffle House. For a while now, Tekken fans on social media have been pestering Katsuhiro Harada, longtime Tekken producer, to add a Waffle House battle stage. All the posts seemingly got to Harada, who finally asked, Why?" The resulting thread on X was a neat bit of American / Japanese cultural exchange in which fans explained the deep lore of the Waffle House franchise and why it'd make for a fitting addition to the King of the Iron Fist Tournament.Waffle House is a breakfast diner known for being always full and always open; it's the place you go at 2AM when you're drunk and hungry. And because it remains open rain or shine or worse, feeding families and the inebriated alike, it's developed a bit... Continue reading...
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by Lauren Feiner on (#6KRV8)
Illustration: The Verge Google agreed to destroy or de-identify billions of records of web browsing data collected when users were in its private browsing Incognito mode," according to a proposed class action settlement filed Monday.The proposed settlement in Brown v. Google will also mandate greater disclosure from the company about how it collects information in Incognito mode and put limits on future data collection. If approved by a California federal judge, the settlement could apply to 136 million Google users. The 2020 lawsuit was brought by Google account holders who accused the company of illegally tracking their behavior through the private browsing feature.The proposal is valued at $5 billion, according to Monday's court filing, calculated by... Continue reading...
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by Emilia David on (#6KRRN)
Illustration: The Verge OpenAI will no longer require an account to use ChatGPT, the company's free AI platform. However, this only applies to ChatGPT, as other OpenAI products, like DALL-E 3, cost money to access and will still require an account for access. We're rolling this out gradually, with the aim to make AI accessible to anyone curious about its capabilities," OpenAI said in a blog post.Ever since ChatGPT first rolled out at the end of 2022, interested users have had to sign up for an OpenAI account. The chatbot proved popular and made ChatGPT one of the fastest-growing services ever. The company then added paid subscriptions to access products like DALL-E 3 and more advanced models. Users will need an account to save and review chat history, share... Continue reading...
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by Elizabeth Lopatto on (#6KRRP)
Illustrated by Hunter French for The Verge Vice was once promised to become the brash young voice of news. But wild expenses, shady deals, and greed turned it into a fucking clown show.' Continue reading...
by Quentyn Kennemer on (#6KRRQ)
Today's deal marks a great opportunity to upgrade if you're on an older model. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Update April 1st, 1:58PM ET: The $299 Apple Watch deal has sold out, but you can still find models in other colors at Amazon and Walmart starting at $329 ($70 off); you'll also find other deals below, including those for earbuds, TVs, instant cameras, and more.I'm looking down at my aging Apple Watch 6 and noticing that it's April 1st, so I had to double-check Amazon's listing for the Apple Watch Series 9 just to make sure the price wasn't a joke. The 41mm / GPS model with the midnight case and Sport Loop band is on sale at Amazon for $299.99 ($100 off) - only $30 more than its lowest price to date. Unfortunately, no other colors are currently matching that price as of writing.The Apple Watch Series 9 is our top choice for iPhone... Continue reading...
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by Nilay Patel on (#6KRP3)
Photo illustration: The Verge / Photo by Intuit Mailchimp Intuit purchased Mailchimp in 2021, and less than a year later, co-founder Ben Chestnut was out. Here's how new CEO Rania Succar is moving forward. Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6KRKH)
Image: The Verge Microsoft, possibly hoping to deflect the blow of an ongoing antitrust investigation in the EU, is spinning Teams off from Office 365 to sell as its own separate app globally, Reuters reported today. A company spokesperson told Reuters it was making the change to its business chat and conferencing app to ensure clarity for our customers" after already doing so in the EU last year.Microsoft's existing customers should be able to keep their current deal, which bundles Teams with Office and other products, renew, update, or pick a new offer. For anyone signing up fresh, Teams on its own will cost $5.25, while Office packages without Teams will run from $7.75 to $54.75.Microsoft first spun off Teams in the EU in August last year, a... Continue reading...
by Victoria Song on (#6KQ4E)
Illustration by Nick Little for The Verge Gmail revolutionized email with fast search and a whole gigabyte of storage. But where's it headed next? Continue reading...