The Verge

Photo by Paul Ellis / AFP via Getty Images Kate Middleton's botched photo editing job seen around the world is more than just catnip for tabloids and TikTok conspiracy theorists. It's also the most instructive illustration of the AI-flecked new reality we live in, a maelstrom formed when distrust and established processes converge and create chaos.It's hard to know what Middleton, aka the Princess of Wales and future Queen of England, was thinking when she allegedly edited her own photo so sloppily that it's become front-page news in a bunch of countries. Shortly after the image was shared publicly, the world's biggest wire agencies, like The Associated Press, Getty, and Reuters, issued retraction alerts - called kill notices" - instructing media outlets to not use the image... Continue reading...

The framed edition of the atomic purple Game Boy Color is nearly $30 off for a limited time. | Image: Grid Of all the tech-centric artwork I've seen over the years, few pieces have grabbed me as much as Grid Studio's framed gadgets and gizmos. The company has been slinging the collage-like pieces for several years now, taking oft-forgotten devices once destined for the landfill and putting them on full display in classy shadowbox-style frames with exploded views. And now, thanks to its annual spring sales event, Grid is offering up to 40 percent off select items through the end of March.There are plenty of retro and contemporary items to choose from, from controllers to smartphones to gaming consoles that once dominated the handheld market in the US. The iPhone 4S and original NES controller - both of which are on sale for $99 ($70 off),... Continue reading...

Low Power Mode was introduced in watchOS 9 with the Apple Watch Ultra in mind. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge The Apple Watch has never been known for having long battery life. Case in point: Apple never budged from the 18-hour battery life estimate until it launched the Apple Watch Ultra. In 2022, the company introduced a new Low Power Mode when it launched the Ultra, and now, it has extended the time between charges for Apple Watches using watchOS 9 and later.Previously, the Apple Watch had a Power Reserve mode, which shut off any functions aside from your ability to tell time and turned your smartwatch into a normal watch until you could get it to a charger. This mode is different - it's more like the iPhone's Low Power Mode. When enabled, you'll still be able to use your Apple Watch, but certain power-hungry features will be turned off or... Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Discord will soon allow developers to build new games and apps that can be used directly in its chat app. A selection of minigames and apps have been available to Discord users for months now, but starting March 18th, all Discord developers will get access to a new Embedded App SDK that lets them build these special embedded apps.Discord has used its Activities feature to enable apps like YouTube, promote minigames like poker, and even encourage users to play with a shared whiteboard experience. These apps all appear as an embedded iframe inside Discord, but they've been limited to select developers so far. Image: Discord We're going to see a lot more minigames and apps inside Discord. Plenty of Discord... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Fortnite developer Epic Games will charge non-game developers an annual subscription of $1,850 per seat" to use its Unreal Engine as opposed to the royalty-based model it uses for game developers. The company announced the changes to its payment scheme last year, and now, it's providing details on the plan, which will come into effect with the release of Unreal Engine version 5.4 in late April.The changes don't apply to game developers, who will continue to pay for access to Epic's tools via a 5 percent royalty on products that earn over $1 million in lifetime gross revenue. Instead, the new per-seat (effectively per-user) subscription fee will apply to non-game developers such as those who use the Unreal Engine to make linear content... Continue reading...

Moto G Power: Now with NFC and wireless charging. | Image: Motorola Motorola's recent budget phones have been held back by lackluster designs, pointless extra cameras, and underwhelming feature sets. But there appears to be hope on the horizon: the 2024 Moto G Power 5G and Moto G 5G look pretty good - at least on paper.Both phones finally offer NFC (why that was ever missing in the first place is a mystery), and they come with fetching vegan leather back panels. They even include a microSD card slot and a built-in headphone jack, handy features most phone manufacturers abandoned years ago. The G Power 5G also includes wireless charging for the first time - a rare feature in any budget phone. They'll start at $199 for the Moto G 5G and $299 for the Moto G Power 5G.The pricier Moto G Power comes with a... Continue reading...

Keeping up with the streaming wars is hard work. The movies and shows keep moving around, everyone is always bundling and then unbundling, and services like Paramount Plus and Hulu seem to be both growing fast and only barely holding onto existence.That's why, once a year on The Vergecast, we take a moment and take stock of the streaming landscape. By drafting our favorite services! The goal is to figure out what's working, what isn't, and which services are likely to be on top 12 months from now.We recorded this episode live onstage at SXSW - thanks to everyone who came out and saw us! - and started by recapping last year's results. Here they are:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple is planning to make further changes in EU countries to allow some developers to distribute their iOS apps directly from a website. The new web distribution feature will be available with a software update later this spring," according to Apple, providing developers with a key new way to distribute iOS apps in EU markets without the need for a separate app store - as long as they're willing to adhere to Apple's strict rules.While Apple is opening up iOS to more third-party apps here, these are still some key security protections around how apps are distributed via websites - namely, you'll still have to work within the strict Apple app development ecosystem. Apps offered through Web Distribution must meet Notarization... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla will soon return to court over a crash that led to the death of Wei Walter" Huang nearly six years ago. The trial will take place in California the week of March 18th and will determine whether Tesla and its driver-assist software are at fault for the fatal accident, according to a report from Reuters.In March 2018, Huang died after his Autopilot-enabled Model X crashed into a safety barrier along US Highway 101 in Mountain View, California. An investigation from the National Transportation Safety Board later found that both Autopilot and distracted driving contributed to the crash, as phone data indicated Huang was playing a mobile game.However, Huang's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Tesla in 2019, alleging the... Continue reading...

The retro-style smart speaker delivers powerful sound and offers simultaneous support for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge There aren't a lot of smart speakers on the market that support Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant simultaneously, which is one of the reasons the JBL Authentics 300 stands out. Unfortunately, it's expensive at its full retail price of $449.99, but Amazon is selling the portable smart speaker right now at a new all-time low of $278 ($172 off).The midrange 300 can listen for wake words for both virtual assistants and deliver powerful sound free of distortion at louder volumes, allowing it to outperform even the new Sonos Move 2. It also lets you play music over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or via an aux jack or USB-C, and it sports handy dials for easily adjusting the EQ. The speaker also looks cool thanks to a 70s-style vibe, which uses faux... Continue reading...

Image: Embark Studios The Finals, a first-person arena shooter, is moving into its second season later this week that introduces a new 5v5 game mode, more weapons, new abilities, and even private matches. It's a big update to a popular game that's centered on a destructible environment.Power Shift, the new 5v5 game mode, is perhaps the biggest change, which sees two teams of players fighting it out to control a platform (very King of the Hill) to score points. The platform itself will tear through the environment and can be rocked by objects and abilities. In this mode, players can even switch between light, medium, and heavy builds to better compete against the enemy team. Image: Embark Studios The new 5v5 game mode in The Finals.... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber is bringing its all-electric luxury rideshare service to its biggest market yet: New York City. The launch will coincide with the rollout of new product features aimed at steering its customers toward greener choices when using Uber.Uber first launched its Comfort Electric service, in which customers can hail trips in premium priced EVs like Tesla, Polestar, and Ford Mustang Mach-E, in May 2022. And since then, the service has rolled out in 41 cities, the latest now being New York.The reason Uber hadn't launched its upscale EV service in the Big Apple before today was that the city imposed a cap on the number of EV ridehail licenses handed out by the Taxi and Limousine Commission. But that cap has now been lifted, essentially... Continue reading...

Photo illustration: The Verge Today, I'm talking to Kyle Chayka, a staff writer for The New Yorker, a regular contributor to The Verge, and author of the new book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture. Kyle has been writing for years now about how the culture of big social media platforms bleeds into real life, first affecting how things look, and now shaping how and what culture is created and the mechanisms by which that culture spreads all around the world.Kyle wrote a fantastic feature for The Verge back in 2016 called Welcome to AirSpace," which was an early exploration of this idea. At the time, he noted that the aesthetics of physical spaces, like coffee shops and co-working offices, were being heavily influenced by Airbnb and Instagram, flattening... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge The self-styled front page of the internet' has unplugged third-party apps, spurned defiant mods, and struck AI partnerships in a bid to go public. Continue reading...

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images Like many of the movies up for Oscars, this year's Academy Awards ran longer than most viewers probably considered reasonable. But lengthy as the ceremony was, it was marked by enough surprises to make it one one hell of a watch.Though host Jimmy Kimmel made sure to get a few good jabs in at most of the filmmakers up for Oscars, few of the stars seemed all that phased as they took to the stage to deliver acceptance speeches that spoke to how stiff this year's competition was. Da'Vine Joy Randolph kicked off the night winning Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in The Holdovers - which was up for five awards total. And while Hayao Miyazaki wasn't there to accept his award, The Boy and the Heron took home an Oscar for... Continue reading...

Image: Universal Pictures The Super Mario Bros. Movie was a huge hit for Nintendo, raking in over $1 billion at the box office, so producing a follow-up movie was an easy decision to make. In a new video, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto and Illumination Entertainment's Chris Meledandri shared that the next movie is in development, with a release date set for April 3rd, 2026.Meledandri says Illumination Studios Paris, which worked on the first film, is storyboarding the movie under the direction, once again, of Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic. He added that animation is starting soon. And after the movie's April 3rd release in the US and many other markets globally," it will come to select territories" throughout the rest of the month.Miyamoto says that the... Continue reading...

Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images Some of Hollywood's biggest stars will gather in the Dolby Theatre tonight for the 96th annual Academy Awards. It's a sign things are starting to get back to normal following last year's monthslong writers and actors strikes.In between the award announcements, we'll also get to see performances from several artists - including Ryan Gosling. If you want to see what this year's ceremony has to offer, and also find out which film takes away the most Oscars, here's what you need to know about tuning in.When do the Oscars start?The Oscars kick off on Sunday, March 10th, 2024, and will air from 7PM ET / 4PM PT to 10PM ET / 7PM PT.Where can I watch the Oscars?If you have cable or satellite, you can watch the Academy Awards on your local... Continue reading...

Image: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 29, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, I promise I don't always complain about music streaming, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been plowing through Shgun and watching Ricky Stanicky, catching up on all the Oscar-nominated documentaries, reading about the rivalry between Steve Jobs and Adam Osborne and the scary potential of solar storms, watching the story of the US's nuclear bunkers, staring at the thoroughly fun and weird MacPad that Federico Viticci made, and playing a whole bunch of the new New York Times word game, Strands.I also have for you a cheap new smartphone, a cheap(er)... Continue reading...

The Verge Around 600 workers in Activision Publishing's quality assurance department have formed a union. Assisted by the Communications Workers of America, the employees completed their vote with the results certified on Friday, March 8th. With that, Activision Quality Assurance United - CWA becomes the latest union to arise out of Microsoft's gaming division and the largest video game union in the United States.In 2022, Microsoft affirmed a labor neutrality agreement with the CWA which eases the organization process at the company and its subsidiaries including Activision Blizzard.In an interview with The Verge, Tom Shelley, a technical requirements specialist and one of Activision Quality Assurance United's organizers, said the labor... Continue reading...

Sam Altman. An independent investigation commissioned by OpenAI's nonprofit board has found that CEO Sam Altman's conduct did not mandate removal." After surviving an attempted boardroom coup in November, he will now rejoin the board.In a press release, board chair Bret Taylor said the law firm WilmerHale interviewed board members, employees, and reviewed more than 30,000 documents" to reach the conclusion that Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman are the right leaders for OpenAI."In addition to Altman, Taylor also announced three more OpenAI board members: Sue Desmond-Hellmann, the former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Nicole Seligman, a former legal executive at Sony; and Fidji Simo, the CEO of Instacart. They will join Taylor,... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google has fired an employee who publicly protested the company's work for the Israeli military. During a presentation by an executive with Google's Israel branch on Monday, the now-former Google Cloud engineer stood up and shouted, I refuse to build technology that powers genocide or surveillance."Google confirmed the firing, which was first reported by CNBC, in an email to The Verge. Earlier this week, an employee disrupted a coworker who was giving a presentation - interfering with an official company-sponsored event," Google spokesperson Bailey Tomson says in an emailed statement. This behavior is not okay, regardless of the issue, and the employee was terminated for violating our policies."

Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge Two Florida middle schoolers were arrested in December and charged with third-degree felonies for allegedly creating deepfake nudes of their classmates. A report by Wired cites police reports saying two boys, aged 13 and 14, are accused of using an unnamed artificial intelligence application" to generate the explicit images of other students between the ages of 12 and 13." The incident may be the first US instance of criminal charges related to AI-generated nude images.They were charged with third-degree felonies under a 2022 Florida law that criminalizes the dissemination of deepfake sexually explicit images without the victim's consent. Both the arrests and the charges appear to be the first of their kind in the nation related to... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge One of the more frustrating aspects of TikTok used to be the difficulty in finding a video that you really liked and wanted to see again but had accidentally swiped past or watched a day or two ago. Previously, there was a long, complex series of steps you had to follow to find out your watch history on TikTok - making it hardly worth the effort. Now, however, you can easily find your watch history - and, if you want, erase it. All you have to do is:

The HomePod Mini isn't for everyone, but it's still a solid choice for Apple users. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge With most of the Apple news this week revolving around the new M3 MacBook Air and Apple's ongoing app store kerfuffles in the EU, it's not surprising that Best Buy's current promos on the HomePod Mini and second-gen HomePod have slipped under the radar. That's a shame, however, given the smart speakers are on sale for $79.99 ($20 off) and $269.99 ($30 off), respectively, which doesn't happen often.If you're deciding between Apple's latest Siri-based smart speakers, there are a few things to consider. The latest HomePod is essentially a rehash of the original model from 2018, only this time, it comes with support for spatial audio, the new Matter standard, and temperature and humidity sensing. The pint-size HomePod Mini, meanwhile,... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Amazon's Drop In feature has become a useful tool for contacting people in your household, finding out what your kids are up to (especially when they're being too quiet), and checking in on elderly relatives. It allows you to literally drop in" using an Alexa-capable device, either just via audio or with audio and video. But since you don't want anyone dropping in on you unwanted, it's a good idea to understand how to set it up and how to use it.Set up your device for Drop InIn order to allow somebody to drop in on an Echo or Fire device (or any Alexa-capable device that allows you to make calls), first you have to enable the Drop In feature on that specific unit.

Image: Abigail Bassett / The Verge The R2 won't go on sale until 2026, but this smaller electric SUV is a crucial product for the young company. Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Epic Games will be able to open its iOS app store in the European Union after all. The game publisher had its developer license revoked by Apple earlier this week, but Epic Games now says that Apple has reversed its decision following an inquiry from the European Commission.In an update on its website, Epic Games says Apple has committed to the European Commission that they will reinstate our developer account." The company is now moving forward as planned to launch the Epic Games Store and bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe."Apple confirmed the decision in an email to The Verge. Following conversations with Epic, they have committed to follow the rules, including our [Digital Markets Act] policies," said Apple spokesperson Fred... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix It took three years, two terabytes, and over 100 hours of cutscenes to preserve Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia. Continue reading...

Image: MSI The MSI Claw has officially arrived, as the base model of MSI's Core Ultra-powered handheld gaming machine is now available from MSI's website for $699.There are two other higher-specced models, too, but they're listed as coming on March 12th. Here's how the three models stack up:

Getty Images for Rivian In a packed theater in Laguna Beach on Thursday morning, Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe opened his presentation to resounding whoops from the audience, well before the company unveiled its three buzzy new vehicles, the Rivian R2, R3, and R3X.While it's not uncommon to pack a room with fans for a vehicle launch, it is unusual for the CEO of a car company outside of Elon Musk to get the kind of response that Scaringe did. For a vehicle unveiling to feel upbeat and exciting without feeling cringe is even rarer. Getty Images for Rivian Every decision we've made, the products, the strategy, what we're building, how we go about building our business, the way we structure our teams, the way we think about our... Continue reading...