The Verge

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 32, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy weekend, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been writing about AI search engines and the future of Disney Plus, reading about Anne Hathaway and Andrew Huberman and Jonathan Kanter, talking productivity apps with the WVFRM crew, continuing to watch every how they made Dune" video I can get my hands on, listening to the Black Box podcast, and learning what The Format is and how to apply it to every aspect of my life.I also have for you a bunch of new things to watch this weekend, a new AI voice notes app, a delightful new-old keyboard, an app for... Continue reading...

The original PlayStation 5. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony will use a new PS5 Pro Enhanced" label to tell players which games take advantage of the console's new abilities, according to documents seen by InsiderGaming yesterday. The outlet writes that to get the label, a game would have to offer a PS5 Pro graphics mode, which includes PSSR for 4K upscaling, constant 60fps framerate, and added or improved ray-tracing. It would reportedly also indicate higher resolution for both fixed and variable refresh rate games.The site says that the internally-named Trinity Enhanced" label would be akin to the PS4 Pro Enhanced" label from the last PlayStation generation (or the X|S" label that denotes games with improvements like better load times or higher framerates). It also told players when a... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge AT&T has acknowledged that a data leak making the rounds online contains information from more than 7.6 million current customers and 65 million former customers. The company has reset the security passcodes of active customers affected, and says that leaked information "may have included full name, email address, mailing address, phone number, social security number, date of birth, AT&T account number and passcode."AT&T is reaching out to affected customers via email or letter" to let them know what data was included and what it's doing for customers in response.The company's acknowledgment that the leaked data is real - the first reports of the leak emerged in 2021 - only came after TechCrunch notified AT&T of the vulnerability... Continue reading...

Amazon won't let you engrave your AirTags with an adorable unicorn picture, but it will sell them to you starting at $24.99. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Happy Saturday, folks! When Apple launched AirTags in 2021, it was a big moment for item trackers. Tile still dominated the landscape back then, however, thanks to Apple's ultra wideband (UWB) chip and their ability to tap into Apple's vast Find My network, they quickly became the go-to pick for iPhone owners. They've often gone on sale for around $80 in the time since, however, right now you can snag a four-pack at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy for $74.99 ($24), an all-time low.In addition to their ultra-precise tracking capabilities, which allow you to locate them even when you're not in their immediate vicinity, Apple's AirTags have a few other things going for them. The handy trackers pack an IP67 rating - meaning they're sealed... Continue reading...

Image: Atari Now that the miniature game console trend has already covered most of the biggest devices from Nintendo, Sega, and Sony, we're starting to enter more niche territory. The Atari 400 Mini isn't a rerelease of the company's most recognizable console (that'd be the 2600). And it isn't full of household names. But that's also part of what makes it so interesting - the little gadget is a cute, playful way to explore a very specific and formative niche of video game history.Like its contemporaries, the 400 Mini is a shrunken-down version of the original. That means a small box in a very 1970s shade of beige plastic, with a keyboard and cartridge slot that are purely ornamental. I appreciate just how retro this thing looks; even the included... Continue reading...

The company that usually specializes in premium OLED TVs has produced something refreshingly out of the ordinary. And I already hope it gets a sequel. Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge OpenAI is offering limited access to a text-to-voice generation platform it developed called Voice Engine, which can create a synthetic voice based on a 15-second clip of someone's voice. The AI-generated voice can read out text prompts on command in the same language as the speaker or in a number of other languages. These small scale deployments are helping to inform our approach, safeguards, and thinking about how Voice Engine could be used for good across various industries," OpenAI said in its blog post.Companies with access include the education technology company Age of Learning, visual storytelling platform HeyGen, frontline health software maker Dimagi, AI communication app creator Livox, and health system Lifespan.In these... Continue reading...

Photo by Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images For years now, civil engineers have understood that bridges have a problem: many of them are not designed to withstand a blow from the kinds of cargo ships that routinely pass through their waters. Those concerns came to a head on Tuesday with the devastating collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland. It's the kind of failure engineers have been trying to prevent for decades - and even now, they're not sure if the available solutions are enough.We don't design for the deadly force that is generated by such an impact - millions of pounds," Atorod Azizinamini, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Florida International University, tells The Verge. The collapse has really nothing to do with the type... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Robert Robb allegedly convinced several crypto investors to send him $1.5 million to build a too-good-to-be-true crypto trading bot, according to an FBI affidavit viewed by 404 Media and CourtWatch.Robb allegedly sent a message reading, Poof, YOU'RE A MILLIONAIRE" to one Telegram group, accompanied by this image of a purple fairy wearing a mushroom cap. The message promised recipients they could strike it rich if they used Robb's MEV bot and invested in the cryptocurrency $RAT and the ironically named token NoRugz. Image: FBI affidavit, Case No. 1:24-MJ-100 A screenshot of a Telegram message allegedly sent by Robert Robb to prospective investors. It says Robb asked crypto investors over Telegram and other... Continue reading...

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Samsung is raising the price of its Care Plus device protection plans - but, in exchange, it's throwing in unlimited battery repair. In an email spotted by Sammobile, Samsung tells customers that Care Plus and the more expensive Care Plus Theft and Loss plan will increase in price by $2.The new pricing goes into effect on May 1st, 2024, which is when Samsung plans on rolling out a new unlimited battery repair option for eligible devices." To qualify for a battery repair, Samsung says the phone must have a charging capacity below 79 percent and no additional damage." The Verge reached out to Samsung for more information on which devices are eligible for unlimited battery repairs, as well as whether it will be completely free, but... Continue reading...

Philips Hue's latest smart string lights offer plenty of preset scenes and a wide variety of vibrant colors. | Image: Philips Hue Philips Hue lights set the mood in a way other types of home decor can't, but sadly, they can be pricey. Thankfully, Amazon and Woot have both kicked off a Philips Hue sale, making many bulbs, dimmers, light strips, and other accessories a little more affordable for a limited time. Amazon is also currently taking 20 percent off when you buy two or more items featured on this page, while Woot is slashing prices on a handful of both new and refurbished items. That includes a three-bulb kit with a smart button and Hue Bridge for $67.99 ($32 off).However, the real star of the show here is the Philips Hue Festavia string lights deal at Amazon, which drops the 65-foot smart lights to $175.99 ($44 off) when you clip the on-page coupon for an... Continue reading...

It's pretty fast, too. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge The Shazam app for Wear OS just got a neat update: it can now work independently of your Android phone.The update, which was spotted by 9to5Google, basically removes the need for the wrist app to confer with the app on your phone. You don't even need the app downloaded on your Android for it to work. I downloaded it directly onto the OnePlus Watch 2 that I'm testing without doing so on the Pixel 8 Pro it's paired to. It still works! And quickly at that. It was able to correctly identify some bangers on my K-pop playlist within a second or two. (To be fair, there wasn't any background noise in my office. Your mileage may vary in a coffee shop.)Another neat update is that if your watch is offline, the app will save a clip of the song... Continue reading...

The Cross Bronx Expressway, a notorious stretch of highway in New York City that is often choked with traffic and contributes to pollution and poor air quality on November 16, 2021 in New York City. | Photo by Spencer Platt / Getty Images The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the toughest US standards yet for greenhouse gas emissions from heavy-duty vehicles like big rigs and buses. The rules apply to model year 2027 to 2032 heavy-duty vehicles and are meant to slash emissions from a major source of the pollution causing climate change.Heavy-duty vehicles are responsible for a quarter of the nation's transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA says its new standards will avoid a billion tons of those emissions by 2055, which would be like eliminating the pollution from 13 million tanker trucks' worth of gasoline.On behalf of everyone who breathes, thank you."Transportation makes up the biggest chunk of the country's carbon footprint and has... Continue reading...

I've never seen a performance quite like that." | Collage by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Victor J. Blue, Bloomberg, Getty Images It's his nature.' Continue reading...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Apple is suing a former employee for leaking confidential information, including unknown details about Apple's Journal app, the development of the VisionOS headset, and more, to journalists and employees of other companies. The lawsuit, filed ten days ago in California state court (24CV433319, pdf), says Andrew Aude also leaked regulatory compliance strategies, employee headcounts, and other product hardware characteristics.As reported previously by MacRumors, in at least one message, the company says Aude claimed he leaked information so he could kill" products and features with which he took issue."Apple referenced many of the communications in the lawsuit:

Getty Algorithms might help hotels illegally collude on prices, even if no humans from those businesses actually talk to each other about them, according to US antitrust enforcers.The Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission jointly submitted a statement of interest in Cornish-Adebiyi v. Caesars Entertainment, a case brought before the US District Court of New Jersey. The class action case was brought by New Jersey residents who rented rooms in Atlantic City hotels and alleged that several of those hotels engaged in an illegal price-fixing conspiracy through the use of a common pricing algorithm.The plaintiffs are trying to show that the hotels violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits conspiracy in restraint of... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Sarah Bird, Microsoft's chief product officer of responsible AI, tells The Verge in an interview that her team has designed several new safety features that will be easy to use for Azure customers who aren't hiring groups of red teamers to test the AI services they built. Microsoft says these LLM-powered tools can detect potential vulnerabilities, monitor for hallucinations that are plausible yet unsupported," and block malicious prompts in real time for Azure AI customers working with any model hosted on the platform.We know that customers don't all have deep expertise in prompt injection attacks or hateful content, so the evaluation system generates the prompts needed to simulate these types of attacks. Customers can then get a... Continue reading...

Photo by Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images Hulu's subscription TV service has added MLB Network to its core channel lineup in the nick of time for the league's Opening Day 2024. This will provide customers with access to over 100 MLB games nationally broadcast over the course of the season," along with the network's original programming and studio shows.YouTube TV, one of Hulu with Live TV's primary competitors, abruptly dropped MLB Network early last year after it was unable to reach a new carriage agreement with Major League Baseball. And with no announcement of a return ahead of today's opening games, it appears that YTTV subscribers will go without it for another year.Perhaps that shouldn't be surprising after the company shelled out $2 billion for the rights to NFL... Continue reading...

There are fewPS5-compatible gaming headsets that do everything as well as the Nova Pro Wireless. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales When I can't crank up the volume and bass on my Dolby Atmos system while gaming, I rely on the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless to inject immersive, crisp, and well-balanced audio directly into my eardrums. I own the Xbox version and would still happily buy it for $350 if I needed a replacement. Lucky for you, the version designed to work with the PS5 and PC is nearly matching its all-time low at Amazon and Best Buy, where you can grab it for about $281 ($70 off). The Xbox version is also on sale for $299.99 ($50 off) at Best Buy.I've found the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless to be well worth the money. In addition to a comfortable ski band design and satisfying 40mm drivers, the headset connects to a base station with line-in and two USB... Continue reading...

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge After Windows and Surface chief Panos Panay departed Microsoft last year, the software giant quickly split his two divisions into two different teams. It was a move designed to push Windows engineers to focus on more web and AI features under Mikhail Parakhin, who was previously responsible for Bing and ads. It didn't work out.Six months after that shake-up, Windows and Surface are back together under a new leader, following frustrations from the very top of Microsoft. The shuffling comes just as Microsoft gets ready for a big AI PC" push.Pavan Davuluri, who's currently in charge of Surface hardware, will now lead both Windows and Surface. Mustafa Suleyman, the DeepMind co-founder who Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella just hired, will now... Continue reading...

A wind turbine at the South Fork Wind Farm in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Long Island, New York, on December 7th, 2023. | Photo by Steve Pfost / Newsday RM via Getty Images Labor groups inked a first-of-its-kind deal to support local hiring and union jobs with the developer of New York's first offshore wind port. It's an agreement for the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, envisioned as a crucial onshore staging area for some of America's first commercial-scale offshore wind farms.The US gets very little electricity from offshore wind today, even though the resource has the potential to meet up to a quarter of the nation's power needs by 2050. The very first set of offshore wind farms are being built off the east coast, a key part of the Biden administration's efforts to transition the country to clean energy.Policymakers say good jobs are another pillar of that transition. And they hope this new agreement... Continue reading...

Image: Amazon Amazon now lets you sign up for its palm recognition service directly from your phone. It's launching a new Amazon One app on iOS and Android you can use to take a photo of your palm and set up your account, allowing you to start scanning your palm at locations that support the verification tech.Previously, Amazon required users to visit physical locations to enroll in Amazon One, which lets you make a purchase or verify your age based on the palm print linked to your Amazon account. The service is available at all Whole Foods stores across the US and some Panera Bread locations, as well as more than 150 stadiums, airports, fitness centers, and convenience stores.Amazon One uses generative AI to analyze your palm vein structure to... Continue reading...

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried once bragged that he had a 5 percent chance of becoming president of the United States | Collage by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Victor J. Blue, Bloomberg, Getty Images FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to a total of 300 months, or 25 years, in prison for seven counts of conspiracy and fraud charges stemming from the collapse of the crypto exchange he started. The judge applied a 240-month sentence for four of the charges, plus a 60-month sentence for two others, and ordered that Bankman-Fried forfeit more than $11 billion (including property) as recommended by prosecutors.Judge Lewis Kaplan's sentence was shorter than the 40 to 50 years requested by prosecutors, which he said was more than necessary, but longer than the six and a half years Bankman-Fried's lawyers asked for and far less than the maximum sentence of 110 years.Recapping the trial, he said that Bankman-Fried knew FTX was... Continue reading...

8BitDo's new keyboard draws inspiration from the Commodore 64's brown and beige color scheme. | Image: 8BitDo 8BitDo's latest mechanical keyboard riffs on the design of a 1980s computer with one of the most iconic-looking keyboards of all time: the Commodore 64. 8BitDo's Commodore 64 edition of its Retro Mechanical Keyboard series is available to preorder starting today for $109.99, with plans to ship it on May 26th.Underneath its beautifully chunky brown keycaps (ABS plastic with double-shot legends) and Commodore-style rainbow logo, this is basically the same peripheral as 8BitDo's previous NES keyboard. It comes with clicky Kailh Box White V2 switches as standard, but they're hot-swappable if you want to swap them out for something a little less loud down the line. It can connect to devices via a choice of USB, Bluetooth, or with a 2.4GHz... Continue reading...

Google Pixel 8 owners can have a little on-device AI, as a treat. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge We did it, y'all. We bullied Google into letting the Pixel 8 run on-device AI. Starting with the next Pixel feature drop, the Pixel 8 will use Gemini Nano for a couple of AI features.Google announced Gemini Nano as its mobile-optimized large language model in December and said it would be a core part of Android in the future - but in its own device lineup, only the Pixel 8 Pro was able to use it. Despite using the same Tensor G3 chipset, the Pixel 8 wasn't getting on-device AI because of hardware limitations." Pixel fans and watchful Android experts asked the same question: what the heck, Google?The Pixel 8 will get support for Gemini Nano in the next Pixel feature drop as a developer preview, powering on-device recorder summaries... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge One year after YouTube turned on revenue sharing for its shortform video feature, a growing chunk of creators are getting paid for it. More than 1 in 4 creators in YouTube's Partner Program are now earning money with YouTube Shorts, the company announced on Thursday. Given there are over 3 million creators in YouTube's ad sharing program, that amounts to roughly 750,000 Shorts creators in total.The company doesn't break out how much it has paid Shorts creators specifically. It has paid $70 billion to creators in total over the last three years, with the bulk of that going to longform content.By all measures, Shorts are getting more popular. The number of Shorts uploaded on YouTube has grown by 50 percent year over year, and the... Continue reading...

It's a beaut. For most people, the compact camera is long since dead; a camera is a phone and a phone is a camera. But despite all of the technological developments over the past few years, phones still leave something to be desired if you're the kind of person who likes to go take photos.Traditional cameras - especially of a certain size and shape - are still alive and kicking, partly because there's nothing that beats real buttons, dials, and a sturdy grip. They're things that phones generally don't have - except for the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. It's the camera-iest phone camera I've used in the last decade (RIP the Nokia Lumia 1020), and I dearly wish it was available in the US. We love to see an exposure comp dial. The Xiaomi 14... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images All US federal agencies will now be required to have a senior leader overseeing all AI systems they use, as the government wants to ensure that AI use in the public service remains safe.Vice President Kamala Harris announced the new Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance in a briefing with reporters and said that agencies must also establish AI governance boards to coordinate how AI is used within the agency. Agencies will also have to submit an annual report to the OMB listing all AI systems they use, any risks associated with these, and how they plan on mitigating these risks.We have directed all federal agencies to designate a chief AI officer with the experience, expertise, and authority to oversee all AI technologies... Continue reading...

Image: Getty New York City announced a new permitting system for companies interested in testing autonomous vehicles on its roads, including a requirement that a human safety driver sit behind the steering wheel at all times.As cities like San Francisco continue to grapple with the problems posed by fully driverless for-hire vehicles, New York City is trying to get ahead of the problem by outlining what it calls a rigorous permitting program" that it claims will ensure applicants are ready to test their technology in the country's most challenging urban environment safely and proficiently."This technology is coming whether we like it or not," Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement to The Verge, so we're going to make sure that we get it right."... Continue reading...

The Dbrand Ghost Case for the iPhone 15 Pro. | Image: Dbrand Dbrand is scrapping plans to fix its anti-yellowing Ghost Case, but not because it yellows - it's that it scratches very easily. The company had promised in November to ship free replacements with scratch-resistant coatings, but now it's telling customers via email they'll have to wait. Most of its production run of those ended up unshippable," the company says, so instead it's sending a redesigned Ghost 2.0" this summer. Essentially, it's a delay.The company says that its first test runs of the newly-coated cases looked good, but when it tried to manufacture them at scale, the coatings got all gloppy at the edges:

Image: Exputer Microsoft appears to be readying a white version of its Xbox Series X console without a disc drive. Exputer has published a series of leaked images of the white Xbox Series X, showing that it's a disc-less system with the same design on the exterior as the existing black Xbox Series X.The white coating appears to be identical to the Xbox Series S robot white" that Microsoft uses on its smaller $299 console. Exputer reports that this white Xbox Series X will have some internal components upgraded, including the heatsink used to cool the console. The Verge has seen additional documents detailing changes to this white Xbox Series X that suggest these leaked photos are genuine, but we've reached out to Microsoft to comment.Exputer claimed... Continue reading...

Oregon joins Minnesota, California, and New York in giving consumers and repair shops more control over device repairs. | Image: iFixit Oregon Governor Tina Kotek has now signed one of the strongest US right-to-repair bills into law after it passed the state legislature several weeks ago by an almost 3-to-1 margin. Oregon's SB 1596 will take effect next year, and, like similar laws introduced in Minnesota and California, it requires device manufacturers to allow consumers and independent electronics businesses to purchase the necessary parts and equipment required to make their own device repairs.Oregon's rules, however, are the first to ban parts pairing" - a practice manufacturers use to prevent replacement components from working unless the company's software approves them. These protections also prevent manufacturers from using parts pairing to reduce device... Continue reading...

The red Snapdragon X Elite reference design laptop Qualcomm used to show off the games. | Image: Qualcomm If you read my scoop last week, I bet you've been wondering - how well could a Snapdragon chip actually run Windows games? At the 2024 Game Developers Conference, the company claimed Arm could run those titles at close to x86/64 speed, but how fast is fast?With medium-weight games like Control and Baldur's Gate 3, it looks like the target might be: 30 frames per second at 1080p screen resolution, medium settings, possibly with AMD's FSR 1.0 spatial upscaling enabled.That's what Qualcomm has apparently been showing influencers, according to numerous videos from YouTubers, TikTokers, and Snapdragon Insiders," many of which were uploaded over the past week after they flew down to Qualcomm's San Diego headquarters for the company's ... Continue reading...