The Verge

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta says it's offered to reduce the price of its ad-free subscription for Instagram and Facebook in Europe to address regulatory concerns, Reuters reports. Speaking in a hearing with the European Commission, Meta lawyer Tim Lamb said the company has offered to drop the price from 9.99 to 5.99 for a single account and 4 for any additional accounts" in its discussion with privacy regulators in an attempt to get to a steady state."Lamb said 5.99 is by far the lowest end of the range that any reasonable person should be paying for services of this quality" and hoped that the regulatory uncertainty" will settle down quickly." It reportedly made the offer to cut its prices to data protection authorities earlier this year.The... Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images The old fear has come back.' Continue reading...

The Verified Product Security Mark is a new labeling program from the CSA designed to help users easily identify what cybersecurity protections an IoT device has in place. | Image: CSA As useful as connected devices like video doorbells and smart lights are, it's wise to exercise caution when using connected tech in your home, especially after years of reading about security camera hacks, fridge botnet attacks, and smart stoves turning themselves on. But until now, there hasn't been an easy way to assess a product's security chops. A new program from the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), the group behind the smart home standard Matter, wants to fix that.Announced this week, the CSA's IoT Device Security Specification is a baseline cybersecurity standard and certification program that aims to provide a single, globally recognized security certification for consumer IoT devices.Device makers who adhere to the s... Continue reading...

The Blackwell B200 GPU. | Image: Nvidia Nvidia's must-have H100 AI chip made it a multitrillion-dollar company, one that may be worth more than Alphabet and Amazon, and competitors have been fighting to catch up. But perhaps Nvidia is about to extend its lead - with the new Blackwell B200 GPU and GB200 superchip." Image: Nvidia Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang holds up his new GPU on the left, next to an H100 on the right, from the GTC livestream. Nvidia says the new B200 GPU offers up to 20 petaflops of FP4 horsepower from its 208 billion transistors. Also, it says, a GB200 that combines two of those GPUs with a single Grace CPU can offer 30 times the performance for LLM inference workloads while also potentially being substantially more efficient. It... Continue reading...

There aren't many smartphones that can do what the Pixel 8 does at this price. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you're in need of a solid smartphone upgrade without the bill creeping into mortgage territory, there aren't many better options than the Google Pixel 8. When you can get one for under $500? Even better. The 128GB unlocked model is down to $499 ($200 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store. That's $50 cheaper than the price we saw during Black Friday last year. The 256GB model is also $200 off at those retailers, bringing it down to $559.99. Both are down to the lowest prices we've seen so far.The Pixel 8 is really solid, especially if you're not interested in the gimmicky extras that can bloat the user experience on other devices. Google has optimized the software specifically for its custom Tensor G3 chipset, which offers... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Microsoft is holding an AI event in the morning on Monday, May 20th - right before Build 2024 starts. In an invite emailed to media, Microsoft says CEO Satya Nadella will talk about the company's AI vision across hardware and software."The event won't be livestreamed and will only be open to journalists who attend the event in person. Microsoft's special event will focus on upcoming Surface hardware and changes to Windows that are all focused on AI. While the software giant is holding a business-focused Surface event later this week, sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell The Verge that the May 20th event will include the consumer versions of the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6.These consumer Surface devices will run on... Continue reading...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge TikTok is leaning in even more to its app being used like a search engine.Creators making money on the platform will now be paid based in part on how well their content meets what other users are searching for. TikTok calls this metric search value," and it's one of four core elements in determining creator payouts. TikTok announced the change as part of its new monetization program, called Creator Rewards.This metric is the TikTok version of search engine optimization (SEO). One tactic in SEO is keyword research, where publishers make content that aligns with what searchers (the vast majority of whom are using Google) are looking up. On TikTok, search value is whether a creator is posting content that is about topics users are... Continue reading...

Rivian owners will be able to charge their electric trucks and SUVs at Tesla Supercharger stations starting today at 9AM PT / 12 PM ET, the company tells The Verge. The news comes after several Rivian owners noticed a software update allowing Supercharger access over the weekend.Rivian was one of the first automakers to announce plans to adopt Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) for its future EVs. For current owners, Rivian will send out a Tesla-made adapter free of charge, much like Ford started doing last month.The adapter will allow Rivian owners to connect Tesla's charging plug into their vehicles' portThe adapter will allow Rivian owners to connect Tesla's charging plug into their vehicles' port. The company's... Continue reading...

Things started getting tense about halfway into the interview. | Image: Don Lemon Show Don Lemon has published the tense" interview with Elon Musk that got his show canceled on X. During the interview, Lemon touches on various topics related to hate speech on X and Musk's own views on right-wing conspiracy theories, with the billionaire becoming noticeably irritated by the interview's end.Things start to take a turn about halfway into the interview. Lemon asks Musk about his comments on illegal immigration and the far-right great replacement theory" and then turns to the topic of content moderation. Lemon asks whether better content moderation on X would let Musk avoid some of the criticism of his posts about the great replacement theory.I don't have to answer questions from reporters," Musk responds. Don, the only... Continue reading...

Last year's iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is reportedly in active negotiations" with Google to bring its Gemini generative AI technology to the iPhone, Bloomberg reports, and has also considered using OpenAI's ChatGPT.CEO Tim Cook has already confirmed that Apple is spending a tremendous amount of time and effort" on artificial intelligence features, and plans to release them to its customers later this year." Bloomberg's report suggests that the AI features built into Apple's products could eventually be powered by a mix of first- and third-party AI models. Apple's models could power on-device generative AI with iOS 18, releasing later this year, while cloud-based AI features like text- and image-generation could come via partnerships with the likes of Google.If a... Continue reading...

Is it upper midrange? Is it lesser high-end? Hard to say. | Image: Qualcomm Qualcomm just launched a new chipset that's designed to sit just below its current flagship in terms of capabilities and price. The Snapdragon 8S Gen 3 aims to bring most of the 8 Gen 3's features - including support for on-device generative AI models - to more affordable phones. It represents a new tier for the top-of-the-line 8-series chips, and it's also a little bit confusing.Before we get into all that, let's start with the straightforward stuff: the 8S Gen 3 includes a GPU similar to the standard 8 Gen 3, though it has one less performance core and runs at a lower frequency - the prime core runs at up to 3.0GHz versus 3.4GHz on the 8 Gen 3. The new 8S Gen 3 also uses a previous-gen modem, the X70 5G, which includes Wi-Fi 7... Continue reading...

Image: A24 The magic of writer / director Julio Torres' Problemista lies in its imaginative production design and its thoughtful deconstruction of the American immigration dream. Continue reading...

Image SpaceX's Starshield unit has had a classified contract with the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) since 2021 to build a network of hundreds" of spy satellites for the agency, Reuters reports today, citing unnamed sources familiar with the program."A Wall Street Journal report in February listed a classified $1.8 billion SpaceX contract with a then-unnamed government agency. Now Reuters has attached a name, and that it's to build a network of hundreds of satellites bearing Earth-imaging capabilities that can operate as a swarm in low orbits."The report didn't say when the network will be operational or what other companies are involved. It does mention that a US database of space objects lists satellites deployed by SpaceX... Continue reading...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Federal prosecutors asking questions about Meta are "looking into whether the company's social-media platforms are facilitating and profiting from the illegal sale of drugs," according to unnamed sources in a report today by the Wall Street Journal. Prosecutors reportedly sent Meta subpoenas last year seeking records on violative drug content on Meta's platforms and/or the illicit sale of drugs via Meta's platforms."A Meta spokesperson told the Journal that, The sale of illicit drugs is against our policies and we work to find and remove this content from our services. Meta proactively cooperates with law enforcement authorities to help combat the sale and distribution of illicit drugs."The WSJ said TikTok did not respond when... Continue reading...

Kab Inc. The legendary Japanese composer wanted to record his final concert. So he asked his son, Neo Sora, to direct it. Continue reading...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge This week, Spotify announced a new feature to let audiobook authors and publishers tease their new releases. Countdown Pages, which debuted for music artists last year and has been used by the likes of Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, let fans pre-save an upcoming title and have it pop into their library when it's released. The page is adorned with a large countdown clock - with a timer going down to the second - to get listeners excited. The feature's not revolutionary, but it is in line with how Spotify differentiates itself as an audiobook provider.Getting ahead of a new audiobook is pretty standard. On traditional platforms like Audible, you can preorder the title, and it will show up in your library on release day. But most people... Continue reading...

Ncuti Gatwa as The Doctor, and Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday. | BBC / Disney Plus Doctor Who's most recent Christmas Special gave us a interesting taste of what showrunner Russell T Davies has been dreaming up for Ncuti Gatwa's run as the time traveling alien, and it won't be long until we get to see what's coming next.Disney Plus announced today that Doctor Who season 14 starring Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor and Millie Gibson as his companion Ruby Sunday will premiere with two new episodes on May 10th in the US and internationally, except for the United Kingdom. UK viewers will be able to stream the new episodes via BBC iPlayer beginning at 12AM on May 11th (GMT) before it is available on BBC One later in the day. In a press release about the new season, Davies teased that the Doctor and Ruby's adventures... Continue reading...

Its beautiful 16-inch OLED display morphs into a 12-inch laptop, but do splurge for the optional' keyboard and folio. Continue reading...