The Verge

Image: The Verge The CIA allegedly launched a secret operation to troll Chinese officials and turn public opinion against them through leaked intelligence and negative news on social media.Reuters reports the operation began in 2019 and was also aimed at causing paranoia within Xi Jinping's government. CIA agents reportedly made fake social media accounts to spread rumors, such as allegations that Communist Party members hid ill-gotten wealth outside the country, and criticize Chinese government initiatives, like saying a program financing infrastructure projects in other countries was corrupt.The CIA declined to comment to Reuters, which could not confirm whether the program is still in place. Reuters said the operation, authorized by then-President... Continue reading...

Photo Illustration by Adrien Fillon/NurPhoto via Getty Images Pornhub has disabled its site in Texas in response to the state's online age verification law. The site now displays a message to users in the state that says having to provide an ID when accessing an adult website is not an effective solution for protecting users online."Last year, Texas enacted a previously blocked age verification law (HB 1181) that requires users to upload photos of their government IDs (or use another third-party verification service) before accessing a pornographic website. The law also requires porn sites to display health warnings that claim porn impairs human brain development," among other unproven issues. Texas sued Pornhub's parent company Aylo in February, alleging that Pornhub failed to comply with the... Continue reading...

The third Starship test flight has fared far better than SpaceX's previous two attempts. | Image: SpaceX SpaceX's massive Starship took off from the company's Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas, at 9:25AM ET on Thursday morning.This test flight was far more successful than its two predecessors, as the vehicle became the first Starship to complete its full-duration ascent burn" after the six Raptor engines powered it to its expected orbit. It completed the hot-staging separation from its Super Heavy booster and opened a payload door to demonstrate how it could be used for missions like delivering Starlink satellites into orbit.The vehicle remained in one piece until contact with the Starship spacecraft was lost shortly before its anticipated splashdown in the Indian Ocean. According to SpaceX, The flight test's conclusion... Continue reading...

With Max, you can stream sports as well as shows and movies like Wonka and The Last of Us. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Whether you're looking for cheap cable-free ways to watch the NCAA championship games or are simply worried about Max's forthcoming password-sharing crackdown, today's Max deal arrives at the perfect time. Right now, Max is taking an additional 30 percent off of its annual subscription for one year, for a total 40 percent discount compared to the cost of a monthly subscription. The annual plans start at $69.99 ($30), which is like paying $5.83 per month, but you can go ad-free for $104.99 ($50 off) while the Max Ultimate Ad-Free tier is down to $139.99 ($60 off). Even better, new, returning, and existing subscribers are eligible for this deal, so everybody can save.The main difference between the plans is that the ad-free tiers let you... Continue reading...

Image: Netflix A seventh season of Black Mirror is on the way. Netflix has confirmed that Charlie Brooker's sci-fi anthology will return in 2025 and that the new season will be six episodes long.There aren't many details yet, of course. But the company does say that, while it'll otherwise consist of new stories, one of the episodes will be a sequel to USS Callister" from season 4, which starred Jesse Plemons. Robert Daly is dead, but for the crew of the USS Callister, their problems are just beginning," the description reads.The show's return will mark a relatively brief hiatus, at least by Black Mirror standards. Season 6 premiered last year and included some strong episodes, covering everything from space-themed horror to a paparazzi thriller to... Continue reading...

The SpyraGo electric water blaster | Image: Spyra Would you pay $180 for a USB-C water blaster that blasts an entire shot glass full of liquid every time you pull the trigger? That's been Spyra's pitch for the past six years, but today it's revealing a new toy that costs (and weighs) less than a third of its previous products.The new SpyraGo will cost just $54 when it arrives on March 26th, a price finally low enough to tempt me! It's five inches shorter, between one and two inches slimmer, and importantly weighs just three pounds fully loaded. (The SpyraThree weighs nearly nine pounds at full capacity.) Image: Spyra The catch, unfortunately, is it's also far less powerful: instead of firing shot-glass-sized 30 milliliter water bullets," the new SpyraGo will... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is expanding its $20 monthly Copilot Pro subscription to more markets today, after launching the AI-powered assistant for consumers in January. The expansion sees Copilot Pro available in 222 countries in total, and Microsoft is launching a free one-month trial to entice consumers to subscribe to its AI vision of the future.Copilot Pro includes priority access to the latest OpenAI models, the ability to build your own Copilot GPT, and access to Copilot inside Office apps if you're already a Microsoft 365 Personal or Home subscriber. Now, Microsoft is also unlocking Copilot Pro inside the Office web apps, so you don't need a separate Microsoft 365 subscription to use the chatbot inside Word, Outlook, and other free web apps.T... Continue reading...

In his State of the Union address last week, President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass a bipartisan immigration bill with the toughest set of border security reforms we've ever seen." The bill would have, among other things, funded 100 more high-tech drug detection machines to significantly increase the ability to screen and stop vehicles from smuggling fentanyl into America."The high-tech drug detection machines are actually just X-rays - really high-res ones, but X-rays all the same. The idea isn't just to get better machines but to scan more vehicles at ports of entry, with an end goal of 100 percent. And to achieve that, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will eventually deploy artificial intelligence so officers can scan and... Continue reading...

Image: Wooting Wooting's 60HE is widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best, gaming keyboard on the market. That's all thanks to Rapid Trigger, a feature that speeds up how quickly you can activate a key to respond in games like Valorant or Counter-Strike 2. Now, Wooting is launching the 80HE, a larger keyboard with an 80 percent layout. It comes with a new Rappy Snappy" feature that combines with Rapid Trigger to make it even faster to pull off moves like strafing and bunny hopping in games.Rappy Snappy is our new spin on Rapid Trigger, so it compares two keys together and the one that gets pressed the furthest is prioritized," explains Wooting CEO Calder Limmen. You could, for example, use it on your A and D keys to make counter strafing... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google has added real-time browsing protection to Chrome that it claims should protect your privacy. The feature, which Google says hides your visited URLs, is now available on the default Standard mode of Safe Browsing on Chrome.For years, Chrome's Safe Browsing feature has automatically added potentially unsafe URLs to a list Google stores on your device. Every time a user visits a site, Google checks the URL against that list and issues a warning. The problem is that Google only updates this locally stored database every 30 to 60 minutes. Given most dangerous sites exist for less than 10 minutes nowadays, a lot of unsafe sites slip through the cracks.Safe Browsing's opt-in Enhanced protection mode deals with this by using Google's... Continue reading...

You can buy Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown for just $30. | Image: Ubisoft What's with all the good PlayStation deals lately? First, the disc-based and discless versions of the PS5 slim" dropped to an all-time low (with a digital copy of Marvel's Spider-Man 2, no less). Now, Sony is taking up to 80 percent off a ton of PlayStation games through March 27th as part of its Essential Picks sale, which drops digital copies of newer hits like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown to $29.99 ($20 off) and both Final Fantasy XVI and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora to $41.99 ($28 off).Hundreds of other older games are on sale, too, so you'll likely find something that'll strike your fancy if none of the newer games do. Right now, for example, you can challenge yourself for hours on end with either Returnal or Demon's Souls,... Continue reading...

Image: Intel Intel is launching its flagship Core i9-14900KS processor today, with clock speeds that boost all the way up to 6.2GHz. That's 200MHz more than the previous Core i9-13900KS that launched last year and was the first desktop processor to break the 6GHz barrier at stock speeds.This new Core i9-14900KS will be priced at $689, $10 less than the previous 13900KS, and will be available in stores today. The 6.2GHz max turbo frequency is an out-of-the-box boost, so there could be room for overclocking to push these speeds even further. The 14900KS has the same 24 cores found on the 14900K, with eight performance cores and 16 efficiency ones. It does run at a 150-watt base power, though, instead of the 125 watts found on the 14900K.Other than... Continue reading...

Image: SpaceX The first two Starship flight tests ended in an explosive fashion. On its third attempt, the spacecraft lasted much longer. Continue reading...

You can get your home theater ready for viewing parties before you start filling out your brackets. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you're looking for a home theater upgrade to amplify the screaming crowds, court squeaks, and other signature sounds of NCAA basketball throughout March Madness, you should check out the sale going on at Sonos right now. Through March 25th, you can save 20 percent on select soundbars and speakers.For example, the entry-level soundbar in its lineup, the Sonos Ray, is down to around $223 (about $57 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Sonos. If you need a little bit more power, you can go for the Sonos Beam (Gen 2), which is also on sale for around $399 ($50 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Sonos. Both are compatible with the Sonos Sub Mini, which is down to about $343 ($86 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Sonos. The Sonos Move 2 is also on sale... Continue reading...

The new Blink Mini 2 wired security camera is a worthwhile upgrade to the Blink Mini, adding weather resistance, a wider field of view, and person detection for around $40. Continue reading...

SpaceX Starship on a Super Heavy rocket booster | Image: SpaceX Now that the Federal Aviation Administration has granted SpaceX a license (pdf), the third test flight of its Starship Super Heavy vehicle could take place as soon as Thursday morning. SpaceX's 110-minute launch window opened at 7AM CT / 8AM ET / 5AM PT on March 14th.The launch attempt took place after it was rescheduled for 9:25AM ET, and the Starship successfully reached orbit velocity.

It's bigger for sure, but is that really better? Continue reading...

New big Android phone just dropped. The days of the small Zenfone are over - maybe? Asus has officially unveiled the Zenfone 11 Ultra, and it is anything but the small-ish device that its last few predecessors were. It comes with a 6.78-inch screen, a huge 5,500mAh battery, and a sizable $899 starting price.You don't have to look too hard to identify that the Zenfone 11 Ultra is basically a rebadged ROG Phone 8, minus the gamer lights. Like its gaming-focused sibling, the 11 Ultra uses a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and comes with 12GB of RAM / 256GB of ROM in its base configuration. A 16GB / 512GB model will be sold outside the US. Like previous Zenfones, the 11 Ultra won't work on Verizon in the US - only AT&T and T-Mobile.The 11 Ultra uses an LTPO display, so it can... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images, The Verge The leading Nintendo Switch emulator is a smoking crater. Others are wary - but hopeful - for the future. Continue reading...

The Microlino Dolce is a throwback to mid-century bubble cars. Fun, fun, fun till a trailer towed my baby away. Continue reading...

Image: Turtle Beach Gaming accessory company Turtle Beach has announced it's getting into the controller collecting game and buying PDP for a cool $118 million. PDP getting bought could be a good thing, depending on how you feel about its slate of generally affordable and fun-colored controllers.Turtle Beach has added a lot of accessory irons to the gaming fire in the last couple years, including forays into flight yokes and the recently-announced Velocity One racing wheel. It sells controllers too, but it only began doing so in 2021, and doesn't sell any for PlayStation or Nintendo consoles. Image: PDP Correct layout, best fighter. Gamepads are PDP's bread and butter - and it's got licenses to sell them for every major... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Sellers on Amazon will soon be able to make product pages with just the copy-and-paste of a link.Amazon is releasing a new generative AI feature that takes information from a seller's external website and then generates an Amazon product page for the item, complete with a written description and images. The goal is to help sellers reduce the time it takes to bring the product from a different website onto Amazon, says Mary Beth Westmoreland, Amazon's VP of worldwide selling partner experience, in a blog post. Image: Amazon Amazon's AI will parse through a separate link to generate product pages. Amazon warns sellers that if they choose to paste a URL to create the product page, they must be the owner, rights... Continue reading...

Yikes! | Photo by Paul Ellis / AFP via Getty Images How a bad Photoshop job turned into an existential crisis for the British monarchy. Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Epic Games isn't done with Apple. A 2021 ruling forced Apple to allow developers of App Store apps to link to outside payments, and Epic has now filed a motion asking Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to enforce her original order.Epic says Apple's updated developer policy that still reserves 27 percent of outside payments (or 12 percent for small developers) for Apple itself is still unjustified. Epic argues these fees are essentially the same" as those the company charges for using its payments system.Christian Owens, who founded payments processor Paddle, and Benjamin Simon, the founder behind the Down Dog fitness apps for iOS, agreed in declarations also filed by Epic. Owens called the choice offered by Apple illusory," while Simon... Continue reading...

With a new update you can now view recorded footage from cameras like the Google Nest Cam (indoor, wired) on Google Home's web interface. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Google has announced that in the next few days, Nest Cam users will finally be able to view and download recorded clips and scroll through their event timeline on its new home.google.com web portal. While you've been able to view livestreams from here, if you want to see what happened earlier, you need to go to the Google Home app.The company also says it's bringing the ability to create custom clips from recorded footage both on the web and in the app, finally bringing the full functionality of its Nest cameras to its own platform. These features will require a Nest Aware subscription, starting at $8 a month.Google first promised to bring a web view to its cameras in 2021, but it didn't materialize until 2022. Then, it was limited... Continue reading...

Leaks of the DJI Avata 2 drone show it with a sleeker battery housing and updated triple-bladed propellers. | Image: @Quadro_News DJI's unannounced Avata 2 drone and Goggles 3 have leaked, showing some exciting updates over their predecessors - such as a bigger battery and sensor and cameras that might let you see through the first-person view (FPV) headset.The image atop this story, via @Quadro_News, shows the new drone is ditching much of the original skeletal design and uses brand-new triple-bladed propellers and batteries, which now appear to be fully encased within the frame. More intriguing are the new alleged Goggles 3, though: they appear to feature two cameras on the front that could possibly be used for passthrough vision and what appears to be a hinged forehead rest for flipping the goggles up when not in use. The leak doesn't explicitly say what... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images The fate of TikTok in the US now lies with the Senate after House lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to pass a bill that would ban the app unless Chinese parent company ByteDance sells it.President Joe Biden has already said he would sign the bill, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, if both chambers advance it.But even though the bill sailed through the House only about a week after it was first introduced, the Senate will present a whole different set of challenges.To start, there's no companion bill yet, so the legislation is barely at the start line in that chamber. And even if one is introduced, Senate rules could make it tricky to maintain enough support (60 out of 100 members) to clear it.... Continue reading...

Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Elon Musk canceled Don Lemon's show on X over some interview questions Musk didn't like. Lemon says that Musk terminated their partnership just hours after a tense" interview between him and the platform's owner.Lemon doesn't say what exactly transpired during his interview, but he does say that Musk is mad" at him. Throughout our conversation, I kept reiterating to him that although it was tense at times, I thought it was good for people to see and hear our exchange, and that they would learn from our conversation," Lemon says in a video posted to X.

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is finally creating a single version of Microsoft Teams that will allow you to switch between personal and work accounts easily. The new unified app is currently in testing and will let Microsoft Teams users switch between multiple tenants and personal or work account types.This new version of Teams will be rolled out to commercial users in April and will include an account switcher that's accessible from the profile section. We received consistent feedback from personal and work users: you prefer a single Teams app that allows you to easily access and switch between personal and work accounts," says Microsoft in a blog post. This update lets you use one app for all kinds of Teams accounts." Image:... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is launching its Copilot for Security next month, bringing its generative AI chatbot to the cybersecurity space. Copilot for Security is designed for cybersecurity professionals to help them protect against threats, but it won't be a one-off monthly charge like Copilot for Microsoft 365. Instead, Microsoft will charge businesses $4 per hour of usage as part of a consumption model when Copilot for Security launches on April 1st.Powered by OpenAI's GPT-4 and Microsoft's own security-specific model, Copilot for Security is essentially a chatbot where cybersecurity workers can get the latest information on security incidents, summaries of threats, and more. Microsoft first started testing this chatbot nearly a year ago, and it... Continue reading...

You can use our exclusive discount code on anything at Speck's site. | Speck / Amazon Whether you're looking to protect a new phone or freshen up the look of an older one, Speck's sitewide sale is a great place to start. Exclusively for readers of The Verge until March 18th, you can save 20 percent on anything you purchase from the case maker's site. Just use code 20VERGE at checkout to receive the discount.Speck makes cases for both Apple and Samsung devices, from iPhones and flagship Galaxy Android phones to tablets and even AirPods and MacBooks. You can choose from several fun colors with one of the opaque Presidio2 Grip iPhone 15 cases or show off your phone's natural beauty with a Presidio Perfect-Clear case, for example. They have MagSafe magnets and antimicrobial protection and are down to $39.99 each ($10 off)... Continue reading...

Image: Block Block, the Jack Dorsey-led payment company, has released its long-in-the-works Bitcoin hardware wallet - but you can't use cryptocurrency to buy it. You can only purchase the $150 Bitkey wallet with your credit or debit card, a sign that crypto might not be as prevalent as its designers had anticipated.Block first introduced a prototype of the wallet in 2022 before opening preorders last December. The self-custody Bitcoin wallet, which Dorsey nicknamed rockey," lets users store cryptocurrency outside of an exchange to protect the funds from a potential collapse.Bitkey is paired with a mobile app and recovery tools in case users lose the wallet or their phone. There's a fingerprint sensor on top of the device, a USB-C charging port,... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is constantly tinkering with its app design across different platforms and screen sizes, and today, the company shared the latest changes coming to its TV-optimized app. There's a clear focus on making the viewing experience more interactive and giving greater prominence to chapters, comments, and video descriptions - without getting in the way of the video you're trying to watch.The new view shrinks the video down slightly to make space for the description, comments, and other elements around it. It's not YouTube's new default look, since many people will still prefer a full-screen layout. But you can easily click into the more interactive interface from the standard video player screen.What users will be able to see on... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images Banning TikTok in the US is back on the table after the House voted Wednesday to pass a measure that would do just that unless the app separates from Chinese parent company ByteDance. The bill passed with 352 votes, needing a two-thirds majority to advance. Sixty-five members voted against it, with one voting present.The bill still needs to clear the Senate, which is no small task. But President Joe Biden said on Friday he would sign it into law if it passes.The House vote revives some US policymakers' hopes for a forced divestment of TikTok, due to fears that Chinese law could compel its parent company to hand over information on US users, presenting a national security risk. The House Energy and Commerce Committee last week voted... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google DeepMind unveiled SIMA, an AI agent training to learn gaming skills so it plays more like a human instead of an overpowered AI that does its own thing. SIMA, which stands for Scalable, Instructable, Multiworld Agent, is currently only in research.SIMA will eventually learn how to play any video game, even games with no linear path to end the game and open-world games. Though it's not intended to replace existing game AI, think of it more as another player that meshes well with your party. It mixes natural language instruction with understanding 3D worlds and image recognition.SIMA isn't trained to win a game; it's trained to run it and do what it's told," said Google DeepMind researcher and SIMA co-lead Tim Harley during a... Continue reading...

Ana Carballosa/Netflix It's been a while since we had a really satisfying live-action feature focused on people piloting futuristic robots, but the first trailer for Netflix's Atlas from director Brad Peyton makes it seem like it could be the mech genre's next big splash.Set in a wild future where humanity's begun using massive AI-powered robots to wage war, Atlas tells the story of how data analyst Atlas Shepherd (Jennifer Lopez) is forced to work with a renegade machine to save the Earth. Despite the mechs' widespread use throughout the world, Shepherd cannot shake her deep distrust for the thinking machines, which appear to be designed to operate autonomously or under the control of a human pilot.But when Shepherd's tapped to become part of a covert... Continue reading...

This is an example of the kind of content Sora can produce. | Image: OpenAI You'll soon get to try out OpenAI's buzzy text-to-video generator for yourself. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati says Sora will be available this year" and that it could be a few months."OpenAI first showed off Sora, which is capable of generating hyperrealistic scenes based on a text prompt, in February. The company only made the tool available for visual artists, designers, and filmmakers to start, but that didn't stop some Sora-generated videos from making their way onto platforms like X.In addition to making the tool available to the public, Murati says OpenAI has plans to eventually" incorporate audio, which has the potential to make the scenes even more realistic. The... Continue reading...

Now EU MEPs just need to figure out how to implement and enforce it. | Cath Virginia / The Verge European Union lawmakers have officially approved the bloc's landmark AI regulation, paving the way for the EU to prohibit certain uses of the technology and demand transparency from providers. In a majority vote on Wednesday, 523 European Parliament members elected to formally adopt the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), and will now work towards its enforcement and implementation.The AI Act has been hotly debated since it was first proposed in 2021, with some of its strictest regulations - such as a proposed total ban on biometric systems for mass public surveillance - being softened by last-minute compromises. While Wednesday's announcement means the law has almost passed its final hurdle, it will still take years for some rules... Continue reading...