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Image: Twitter Twitter is transforming into X, as the site's former bird logo has now been replaced by an official new X logo. Elon Musk, who owns the transformed social media site, began signaling the change early Sunday morning with a series of tweets, starting with one that said, and soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds."Now X has replaced the Twitter logo on the web version, signaling a change to Musk's everything app" that he originally envisioned shortly after purchasing Twitter for $44 billion in November. The X logo will presumably replace the bird logo in mobile versions of the apps once they're updated. References to Twitter still remain on the main web login prompt, though. S... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Apple is using an internal chatbot to help its employees prototype future features, summarize text and answer questions based on data it has been trained with," says Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in Power On today.Apple hasn't been sure what it wants to do with its Apple GPT chatbot project on the customer-facing side yet, but Gurman's report shed some light on at least its internal chatbot uses. According to the newsletter, Apple is looking at ways to expand the use of generative AI within its organization, with one possibility being giving the tool to its AppleCare support staff to better help customers dealing with issues.That won't necessarily happen soon, as the chatbot tendency to get things wrong is well-known to Apple and its CEO,... Continue reading...

Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Netflix isn't planning to make a native version of its app for the Vision Pro, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in today's Power On newsletter. Instead, he says, the company will allow its existing iPad app to run, unmodified, on Apple's forthcoming mixed reality headset.As Gurman's piece points out, developers who don't want to build Vision Pro software from the ground up have two choices: let their iPad apps run as is on the device or tweak them for the Vision Pro. Netflix has chosen the former, though whether pointedly or not, we don't know.Of course, very few companies have actually pledged dedicated software for the Vision Pro at this point, but Netflix's reticence carries some baggage. The streaming giant was one of the most... Continue reading...

Capcom Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is 2023's perfect summer video game.Now, you might be wondering how I could call a Switch port of a Nintendo DS game from 2010 perfect" (the game's also available on PS4, Xbox One, and Steam) over any of the games actually released this year, like Diablo IV or Final Fantasy XVI. But while I enjoyed both of those games, I actually don't think either are ideal summer games for two reasons.

This Ecobee smart thermostat alerted me to a potentially catastrophic scenario in my home while I was on vacation. But there was little I could do about it from afar. When my HVAC unit failed while I was out of town, my smart thermostat warned me, and the rest of my connected home helped me figure out what was going on. Continue reading...

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Sometimes you've just gotta break the rules and go for it. I attended Nothing's New York City product drop last week and got my hands on the Nothing Ear 2s and the Nothing Phone 2. Now, I'm a longtime Verizon customer, which seemed like a major hurdle for actually testing out this phone and its flashing glyphs. At one point, Nothing had mentioned limited" support for Verizon on its website, but the company has since removed the carrier from its tech specs altogether - never a good sign.But as I've come to find out, as long as you've got an active SIM that was already in another Verizon-certified phone, you can toss that into the Nothing Phone 2 and get going without any immediate headaches. When I tried doing so, the phone's mobile... Continue reading...

This photo is technically a spoiler, but it was released months ago by the studio, so is it actually a spoiler? | Photo by Michael Gibson / Paramount Plus There might not be any actors or big casting announcements at San Diego Comic-Con this year, but Paramount Plus did find one way to surprise fans. It's dropping the next episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds five days early. The episode also happens to be the very anticipated crossover episode featuring the live-action version of some of the cast of Star Trek: Lower Decks. Having already seen this episode, I can confirm this is all exactly as delightful as it sounds.With the actors on strike, SDCC has been much more muted than in previous years. There aren't as many star-studded panels and zero major casting announcements. This has meant studios need to rely on something besides the labor of actors to promote their shows, and... Continue reading...

Image: Google Adding alt text to an image in a Google Workspace project is getting much easier after an update included the accessibility improvement. Until recently, adding alt text to images was hidden behind a right-click menu. Now, the option will show up in the Image options" sidebar - not only that, but the option now comes with an explanation for the feature, telling users what the purpose of alt text is.Alt text is used in media and beyond to describe to people who have difficulty seeing what an image is showing, giving them access to important contextual information sighted people may take for granted. But where alt text is available in software, it's sometimes not explained, and when people who can clearly see and read their screen are... Continue reading...

Leaked image of the PlayStation Q. | Leaked image via Imgur At least one of our questions about the Sony Project Q handheld game-streaming device has seemingly been answered by a new leaked video posted by Zuby_Tech on Twitter (via Reddit / Imgur). In it, a basic version of Android OS running on a plastic-wrapped device shows a simple menu system and a QR code. It's very doubtful this is what the final version of the handheld's menu will look like, but it gives us an idea what's running under the hood, at least.The person making the video quickly taps through the menu, then starts rolling the handheld over to show the top, back, and bottom of it. The low resolution makes it hard to tell much. You can make out what look like a set of four buttons behind the tablet portion of the device on the... Continue reading...

John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx in They Cloned Tyrone. | Image: Parrish Lewis / Netflix Director Juel Taylor's debut feature is a slick and stylish celebration of the Blaxploitation genre and the Black culture that gave birth to it. Continue reading...

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Reddit added more space to the r/Place collaborative canvas on Friday, giving users additional room to collaboratively draw pixelated art. Almost immediately after the space was added, users started to write in their protests against the site and CEO Steve Huffman.The expanded canvas now stretches further in both directions. When I first wrote this, there was a massive land grab taking place, including a spot memorializing the YouTuber Technoblade, the continuation of the German flag at the top of the canvas, a vertical French flag on the right side, and many iterations of the phrase fuck spez," a reference to Huffman's username.More than three hours later, those fuck spez" messages were covered up. Outside of a a message from a... Continue reading...

Image: Dotemu The team over at Capy Games has a real knack for inventive takes on seemingly simple puzzle games. I first realized this when playing the colorful Critter Crunch way back in 2009, and nowadays, I'm reminded of it whenever I squeeze in a few rounds of Grindstone on my phone. Tucked away in between those two releases was Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes - which originally debuted on the Nintendo DS - an often overlooked game that might just be the most engrossing puzzle RPG I've ever played. Now it has a new lease on life with a rerelease for modern platforms.Clash of Heroes is a match-three game, but in practice, it's quite different from something like Candy Crush or even Puzzle Quest. Basically, the things you are matching are soldiers... Continue reading...

The iRiver iHP-120 multi-codec jukebox. Nineteen years old and still going. The iRiver iHP-120 was a gadget nerd's MP3 player. It had a wired remote, a radio, a voice recorder, two optical ports, and loads of physical buttons. I've had it for half my life. Continue reading...

San Diego Comic-Con 2023 | Image: San Diego Comic Convention San Diego Comic-Con is one of the biggest comics conventions of the year, though it's quieter than usual as Hollywood strikes continue. Continue reading...

Do you ever wonder what the internet would be like if we let Big Tech burn? | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Get in, loser, we're going back to Web 1.0. We have the opportunity to get out from under the algorithms. So maybe it's time to think about what a web of people looks like now.I've been thinking about this for a while now - the decay of Google Search and, with it, the findability of archive material; the destruction of Twitter by the coward Elon Musk; the AI glurge polluting the open web; the needless login prompts. The era of Web 2.0 is ending.One of the key markers of Web 2.0, in retrospect, was not the adoption of mobile, though that is certainly part of it. It was, instead, the intermediation of most interactions by algorithm. Before social media, going viral was much harder; actual people had to pass your site or video along, via... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge As your console game collection grows, you're going to need more space to store it - and the internal storage inside your PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X / S isn't going to last forever. That may leave you in a situation where you're regularly uninstalling and reinstalling games, juggling them around to fit the available space.You have options. The PlayStation 5 has an internal slot for expanding the onboard storage that's pretty easy to access by popping off a couple of panels and turning a single screw. On the Xbox side, you can buy storage expansion cards that plug into a designated slot on the back of the console for a quick and easy (if often expensive) upgrade.Adding external storage drives can help ease the pressure, too, giving... Continue reading...

The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II have yet to be beat in the ANC department. | Image: Chris Welch / The Verge The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II, the noise-canceling champs of the wireless earbud world, are once again on sale for $249 ($50 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. Alternatively, you can pick up a refurbished pair from Bose for an additional $50 off, complete with a one-year warranty.If you really value peace and quiet while listening to music or podcasts, Bose's latest pair of wireless earbuds are for you. The QC Earbuds II do an impressive job of blocking out the outside world, whether you're walking on the street or nodding off on a plane. Because of this, they make for a terrific pair of travel earbuds - even if they do lack of wireless charging.Read our Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II review.Amazon's Fire TV Omni QLED TVs are on sale in... Continue reading...

The Climate Clock in New York City's Union Square in early July 2023. | Image: Climate Clock An ominous, 62-foot-long clock looms over New York City's iconic Union Square, and it's about to tick past a worrying milestone. It's called the Climate Clock, and it counts down how much time the world has left to stop climate change from becoming exponentially worse.As anyone who's experienced the weather lately knows, the situation is already bad. The world had its hottest week on record at the start of the month, according to preliminary data, with heatwaves still smashing local records across the Northern Hemisphere. And that's just one way climate change is bringing on dangerous new extremes.Today, the planet is about 1.1 degrees Celsius hotter than it was before the Industrial Revolution, thanks to carbon dioxide emissions from... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Since launching in November, OpenAI's ChatGPT tool has reached a number of users at a rate that's astounding for anything outside of Threads - now the company says it's ready to release an app for Android.The ChatGPT for Android app is launching a few months after the free iOS app brought the chatbot to iPhones and iPads.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The Analogue Pocket is a fantastic way to play Game Boy games, but preorders have taken a long time to ship out. If you're still waiting for your device, Analogue shared a promising update on Friday: any preorders made before July 20th, 2023, will begin shipping in August," according to an announcement from the company.Note that the quote says the handhelds will begin shipping in August; that language doesn't necessarily guarantee that you'll get your Pocket in August. Still, the announcement likely comes as good news for people who have been eagerly waiting for any sort of information on their order. (Based on a thread on Reddit, some people have been in limbo for more than a year.)The Analogue Pocket launched in December 2021, but... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Disney wants to transition ESPN from linear TV to streaming - and the NBA and NFL might be the partners that help the company do that. According to CNBC, Disney CEO Bob Iger and ESPN leader Jimmy Pitaro held talks with both leagues about bringing them on as minority investors in the sports network.Sources tell CNBC that ESPN spoke with the NFL and NBA about a variety of new partnerships and investment structures." That could involve either sports league owning a stake in ESPN, which could help bolster the package of exclusive content on Disney's vision of a streaming-only version of the sports network.In an interview with CNBC last week, Iger hinted at selling some of Disney's linear TV assets like ABC but noted sports content on ESPN... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile has started charging customers who pay phone bills in-store a new $5 Payment Support Charge," plus tax. According to The Mobile Report, the new fee went into effect on July 19th, though prepaid customers will be charged the fee later on.In a flier shared with The Mobile Report announcing the change to its employees, T-Mobile implies the reason behind the fee is to help enable a digital-enabled future." Yet, as Droid Life points out, employee time spent processing payments may mean less time for more profitable endeavors - like selling phones or add-ons to plans.Plus, it's a sneaky way to encourage more customers to sign up for AutoPay, which conveniently also offers a $5 per line discount if you pay your bill online - and... Continue reading...

Photo by Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images Seven of AI's top companies attended a White House summit Friday, reaching a deal with the Biden administration to roll out new guardrails to enhance the safety and security of their systems and users, like watermarking AI-generated content.These commitments are real, and they are concrete," President Joe Biden said in remarks at the White House Friday following the meeting. Artificial intelligence is going to change the lives of people around the world. The people here will be critical for shepherding that innovation with responsibility and safety by design."Earlier in the day, the seven companies - including Amazon, Anthropic, Meta, Google, Inflection, and OpenAI - made voluntary, sometimes vague, commitments to invest in research... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge OpenAI's head of trust and safety, Dave Willner, is stepping down from the company as the AI industry faces more scrutiny around privacy and security from policymakers.Willner has been working in trust and safety for nearly a decade. Before joining OpenAI, Willner was head of trust and safety at childcare startup Otter and led trust and community policy at Airbnb.The FTC launched an investigation into OpenAI last week to determine if its training data collection methods violated consumer rights. The Securities and Exchange Commission also expressed concern that large AI models could centralize data and decision-making in finance, leading to a sort of groupthink akin to the events preceding the 2008 financial crisis. OpenAI, Meta,... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Telegram's new Stories feature that lets users share time-limited videos and photos is now live after CEO Pavel Durov shared last month that the feature was in testing (via 9to5Mac). For now, the company is only allowing its paid Premium subscribers to post Telegram Stories.The Telegram Stories launch comes after rival messaging apps WhatsApp (with statuses) and even Signal have launched their own versions. Durov admitted there was some internal skepticism on whether Stories is a good idea - but shared that the team now can no longer imagine Telegram without it."Snapchat popularized the Stories format before Meta swiped the idea, building them into Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. The NBA, TikTok, and, for a while, T... Continue reading...

Image: The Pokemon Company It makes a lot of sense that Pokemon Sleep is a simple game - it's something that you play in part by sleeping, after all. There's only so much complexity you can embed in an experience where players aren't conscious much of the time. Even still, after spending most of the past week with the gamified sleep tracking app tucked under my pillow, I can't help but wish there were something more beyond looking at dozing Eevees and feeding berries to a Snorlax. It's neither encouraging me to sleep more nor giving me much to do. It's a bit of a snooze.The premise in Pokemon Sleep, as with pretty much every other game in the series, is centered on research. Early on, you'll meet a charmingly rumpled professor named Neroli who is researching... Continue reading...

The MTA is cracking down on subway fare evasions after revealing the issue cost the authority $285 million last year. | Photo by Gary Hershorn / Getty Images The persistence of fare evasion on the New York City subway system has prompted the Metropolitan Transit Authority to install AI-powered surveillance software at several subway stations to track riders who avoid paying for a ticket. As reported by NBC News, the MTA disclosed in a fare evasion report that the tracking software was being used at seven undisclosed subway stations and eight physical fare barriers in May 2023, with plans for approximately two dozen more stations" by year's end and more to follow."The MTA estimates it lost $285 million to subway fare evasion in 2022, according to the report, which didn't contain the name of the third-party tracking software being utilized by the authority. MTA spokesperson Joana Flores... Continue reading...

Photo by John Lamparski / Getty Images For the first time in over 60 years, the unions representing actors and Hollywood writers are staging a strike at the same time, protesting low pay and studios' proposals for using artificial intelligence tools in production. More than 175,000 union members are out of work until a deal is made.But the ripple effects of the strikes are also reaching another group: influencers and digital content creators who are far from a household name but work in an industry that is, at times, synonymous with fast-track fame. Most of them are non-union influencers, leading to confusion. How can creators keep making money while their peers in Hollywood strike? What rules are they required to follow? What's their role in all of this?This guide will... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Here's all the news from Samsung's second Unpacked event of the year. Continue reading...

watchOS 10 is all about the widgets - and you can try them out for yourself by downloading the public beta. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge If you were intrigued by the idea of widgets on your Apple Watch at this year's WWDC, good news! The watchOS 10 public beta is live.That said, before I tell you how to install it, there are a few things you should keep in mind. First off, watchOS 10 is a substantial update. Not only does it reintroduce widgets to the platform, but it also completely redesigns Apple's native watch apps and reimagines how you interact with the device. The controls you're used to have changed. Pressing the side button, for instance, now brings up Control Center while swiping up is how you access widgets.I mention this because once you install the watchOS 10 beta, you cannot downgrade to watchOS 9. So if you're not keen on relearning how to use the watch... Continue reading...

The original data breach may date as far back as December 2020. | The Verge Sensitive information identifying thousands of Roblox creators has been exposed following a data breach impacting attendees at a conference for Roblox developers, which allegedly remained undisclosed by the company for at least two years. As reported by PC Gamer, the leak contains personal information from people who attended the Roblox Developer Conference between 2017-2020, including names, usernames, date of birth, physical addresses, email addresses, IP addresses, phone numbers, and even T-shirt sizes.Roblox is aware of a third-party security issue where there were indications of unauthorized access to limited personal information of a subset of our creator community," said a Roblox spokesperson to PC Gamer. We engaged... Continue reading...

Samuel L. Jackson in Marvel's Secret Invasion. | Image: Marvel Studios Ahead of the release of the sixth and final episode of Secret Invasion on Disney Plus, Marvel is bringing the first three episodes of the series to Hulu. The episodes, which star Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury as he attempts to fend off an invasion of Earth by a faction of shapeshifting Skrulls, is now available to stream on Disney's other US streaming service until August 17th. Any viewers wanting to watch the final three episodes will have to watch them on Disney Plus, where the season's final episode will be released on July 26th.Deadline notes that this isn't the first time an original Disney Plus series has streamed on Hulu. American Born Chinese and Star Wars spinoff Andor both saw select episodes appear for a limited time. The... Continue reading...

The White House is bringing in AI's top seven companies Friday to make a series of voluntary promises to protect users.The companies - Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI - have all agreed to a series of asks from the White House to address many of the risks posed by artificial intelligence. The promises consist of investments in cybersecurity, discrimination research, and a new watermarking system informing users when content is AI-generated.The companies have entered into these agreements voluntarily, so there are currently no consequences if they fail to live up to their promises. Many of these commitments are not expected to roll out on Friday, but the companies are expected to work on... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit is now in charge of r/malefashionadvice, which for a time was the biggest subreddit still closed in protest of the platform's API pricing changes. The subreddit is now open, meaning Reddit users can browse content in the community once again, though in a restricted mode, meaning only certain users can make new posts.As we reported last week, the moderators of r/malefashionadvice, a subreddit with than 5 million subscribers, had taken the community private and were pushing its users toward Discord and Substack instead. At the time, the moderators expected to be removed after receiving a message from a Reddit admin (employee), ModCodeofConduct, telling them they would be replaced if they didn't reopen.Three former moderators of... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is suspending its administrative challenge (PDF) seeking to block Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard. The FTC had taken a two-pronged approach against the $68.7 billion deal, filing this case last December that was scheduled to go before its own administrative judge on August 2nd.The other part was its pursuit of a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that would have stopped Microsoft closing its deal while the FTC's administrative process continued. A US federal judge denied the injunction request earlier this month, and an appeals court also turned down its request to put an emergency hold on the deal. The FTC is still appealing the preliminary injunction denial, though.M... Continue reading...

The summer promos just keep coming. | Image: Epic Games If you were looking to stock up on some PC games, you might want to head on over to the Epic Games Store. That's because from now until August 3rd at 11AM ET, Epic Games is taking 75 percent off hundreds of titles as a part of its annual summer sale. What's more, you can earn 10 percent back - double the usual amount - from both game and app purchases, which you'll receive 14 days after making your purchase.The sale offers a fantastic opportunity to pick up some older games you may have been curious about but perhaps missed. This includes Alan Wake Remastered, the predecessor to the forthcoming Alan Wake 2, which is on sale for just $11.99 ($18 off). Other older titles worth considering include Far Cry 6 for $14.99 ($45 off) and Red... Continue reading...

We knew Peter Parker and Miles Morales would return to fight Kraven and Venom on October 20th, but we had very little hint as to the plot. Now, Sony and Insomniac have released the first full story trailer for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 - and it's an epic one.You can watch it above.Also, Sony has revealed a limited-edition PS5 bundle you can buy alongside the game, which comes with its own controller, both featuring the symbiote consuming Spider-Man's shiny red and turning it pure black:If you've already got a PS5, Sony will sell the same console covers and controller separately, too, though it hasn't shared prices yet. (Previous console covers have cost between $55 and $65 for a set.)They'll all go up for preorder next Friday, July... Continue reading...