The Verge

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge A new feature announced by Instagram today will allow users to add a song on their profile - much like Myspace in the early 2000s.The music added to a user's profile shows up in the bio area, according to screenshots shared by Instagram. A song will be featured on a profile until the user removes or replaces it. But unlike Myspace, songs won't autoplay - people viewing a profile with a song can play and pause the track. Image: Instagram Users can add a song by going to the edit profile" page, where they'll be able to search for and select a track from Instagram's library of licensed music that's also available for things like Reels or posts. From there, users will be able to select a 30-second-long portion of the... Continue reading...

Justine Ezarik, better known as iJustine, is a legendary YouTuber. I spent less than an hour hanging out with the legendary YouTuber Justine Ezarik before she had me in a chokehold. Literally. Jiujitsu has become an integral part of her weekly routine, and the Thursday I was hanging out with her happened to be a jiujitsu day. The move we were working on: how to use your Gi uniform as a tool to choke your opponent.Next thing I knew, Justine, a creator I had been watching for years, had me tapping out. I was star-struck, shocked, and couldn't breathe. I was in for a wild day.Justine, better known as iJustine, started creating content in 2006. She was vlogging before Casey Neistat, doing man on the street" interviews before TikTok, and livestreaming before Twitch. By the time I started my tech... Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge The dream of a successful Epic Games Store on iOS sounds like an oasis: a thriving alternative app store that exists outside Apple's walled gardens, where developers won't have to pay Apple's much steeper commission for in-app purchases, and where they can use whatever payment processor they want.Epic's store launched last week in the European Union - thanks to new regulations opening up iOS - and it's likely to be a boon for Epic and its perennial hit, Fortnite. But it's not clear whether Epic will be able to grow the store far beyond its own games. The company wants to welcome in a vibrant ecosystem of third-party developers, but moving to the Epic Games Store could be an impossible ask for any company that doesn't make Fortnite-sized... Continue reading...

Photo illustration by The Verge The new owners of the satire site rescued it from content farm hell. Now, they're relaunching its newspaper. Continue reading...

You don't have to go home, but you can't camp here. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Seven years after launching on iOS and Android, Nintendo has announced that online service for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp will be ending on November 28th at 11AM ET.In a statement today, Nintendo assured current players they would still be able to fully enjoy the game for three more months. We will continue to hold events and add items until the service-end date."

Senior reviews editor Nathan Edwards uses a simple spring clamp to store his headphones. | Photo: Nathan Edwards / The Verge Every year, I ask The Verge's staff what kind of audio gear they like to use. And they are the perfect set of people to ask: besides working on videos and podcasts, our Slack channels are filled with discussions of the podcasts and music we listen to while working, walking, exercising, or just hanging out.So here are the headphones, earbuds, and other devices that some of the folks here like to use, both on a professional and personal level.Headphones and earbudsRODE NTH-100 headphones Andrew Marino, senior audio producerThe RODE NTH-100 headphones are the comfiest headphones I've used. The memory foam cushions let me wear these all day at work without fatigue. The sound is great for the price, too, and the optional headset... Continue reading...

Image: AMD AMD says Microsoft's upcoming Windows 11 version 24H2 update will improve performance for its new Zen 5 CPUs. The Ryzen 9000 series launched earlier this month, and failed to live up to AMD's performance promises in most reviews. After rumors of a Windows bug, AMD has revealed that AMD-specific branch prediction code will be optimized in Windows 11 version 24H2, which is expected to ship next month.Zen 5 will see the biggest boost, but this Windows update will improve performance for Zen 4 and Zen 3 as well," admits AMD. While the chip maker hasn't revealed how much better its older CPUs will perform, it's predicting a 13 percent performance improvement for its 9950X CPU in Far Cry 6 running 24H2 instead of 23H2, and a seven percent... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube has announced a new AI assistant feature to help users recover accounts that have been targeted by hackers. Described as a troubleshooting tool" on Google's support page, the chatbot can be accessed via the YouTube Help Center, and should ask hacked creators a series of questions to guide them through the process of securing their impacted Google logins and reversing any changes that have been made to their YouTube channels.The support assistant is currently only available in English, and access to certain troubleshooting features" is limited to a select group of certain creators," but Google says it plans to eventually make the feature available to all YouTube creators.We've managed to access the tool and the results seem...... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge In a new letter, OpenAI chief strategy officer Jason Kwon insists that AI regulations should be left to the federal government. As reported previously by Bloomberg, Kwon says that a new AI safety bill under consideration in California could slow progress and cause companies to leave the state.

A screenshot from the Megalopolis trailer. | Image: Lionsgate Hours after it was released, Lionsgate pulled a trailer for Megalopolis that was clearly gunning for the haters" with a selection of negative quotes about director Francis Ford Coppola's previous works. That's because reports like this one from Vulture's Bilge Ebiri showed that critic quotes in the trailer lambasting films like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now were fabricated.Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for Megalopolis," a Lionsgate spokesperson said in a statement to Variety. We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry."That all led some people to immediately wonder whether... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple is splitting its App Store division in half, according to a report from Bloomberg. While one group of employees will run the App Store, the other will manage its approach to alternative marketplaces that have started opening up in the European Union.As part of the change, App Store vice president Matt Fischer will leave the company after more than a decade in the role. This has been on my mind for some time, and as we are also reorganizing the team to better manage new challenges and opportunities, now is the right moment to pass the baton to two outstanding leaders on my team," Fischer writes in an email to employees seen by Bloomberg. Fischer has also posted the email on LinkedIn.Now, Apple senior director Carson Oliver will... Continue reading...

Image: Chick-fil-A The streaming space has become so crowded that it's hard to imagine why any company would want to break in now, but that is apparently what Chick-fil-A (yes, the fast food chain) is planning to do.Deadline reports that Chick-fil-A is working with a number of production companies and traditional studios to create multiple original shows for a streaming platform debuting sometime later this year. Initially, the restaurant is said to be focused on family-friendly unscripted programming, including a game show produced by Glassman Media and Sugar23. But down the line, the currently unnamed service could also feature original scripted series, animation, and content that's either licensed or acquired from other entertainment outfits.C... Continue reading...

Lil Jon joins the Georgia delegation at the DNC roll call to raucous applause. | Photo by Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images Compare clips from the Democratic National Convention, which kicked off on Monday in Chicago, to the Republican National Convention in July. They feel like different universes.At the RNC, during the roll call of votes nominating Donald Trump, states were called out to scattered applause along with the number of votes. The room was mostly quiet, and it sounded more like a jury delivering bad news than it did a political party affirming its future.The DNC roll call, meanwhile, included a playlist of music related to each state, like Sweet Home Alabama" for Alabama and Not Like Us" by Kendrick Lamar for his home state of California. Delegates huddled around microphones, screaming and cheering as they announced their support for Vice... Continue reading...

Photo by Brandon Bell / Getty Images A telecom company that transmitted the deepfake robocall of President Joe Biden's voice has agreed to pay $1 million to resolve an enforcement action from the Federal Communications Commission, the agency announced.Lingo Telecom relayed a fake Biden message to New Hampshire voters in January, urging them not to turn out for the Democratic primary. The FCC identified political consultant Steve Kramer as the person behind the generative AI calls and previously proposed Kramer pay a separate $6 million fine.Under the new settlement with Lingo, the FCC said the company will need to strictly adhere to its caller ID authentication rules, including know your customer" principles. The FCC will also require Lingo to more thoroughly verify the... Continue reading...

A line worker tends to fallen power lines in the East End neighborhood of Houston, days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, on Thursday, July 11th, 2024. | Raquel Natalicchio / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images The US has dealt with 60 percent more weather-related outages during warmer months over the past decade than it did during the 2000s, according to data crunched by the nonprofit research organization Climate Central.It's a trend that raises health risks as the planet heats up. Climate change supercharges disasters like storms and wildfires that often cut off power. Soaring demand for air conditioning also stresses out the grid. All of this can leave people without life-saving cooling or electric medical devices at times when they're most vulnerable. Image: Climate Central Climate Central collected data from the Department of Energy on outages that took place between 2000 and 2023. It looked specifically at periods... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Back in 2017, Equifax announced that hackers stole half of the US population's Social Security numbers in what, we said, will likely end up being one of the worst data breaches to ever affect the country." Perhaps - until this year, when about 2.9 billion rows of data were collected through a breach at National Public Data (NPD), a company that resells collected personal data for background checks. This data included names, Social Security numbers, and other personal information.As usual, when this sort of thing hits the news, our immediate reaction is to wonder what we can do to prevent ourselves from falling prey to identity theft, unauthorized withdrawals, false credit applications, and other nasty consequences. And, also, as... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AI-enabled ammunition vending machines could facilitate mass shootings and let people circumvent federal bans prohibiting people with certain criminal convictions from buying ammunition, two senators warn.Massachusetts Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) asking it to closely examine" facial recognition-enabled ammunition vending machines that have recently been installed in supermarkets in certain states.Easy access to ammunition helps to fuel our country's gun violence epidemic, which now claims more than 44,000 lives annually."The machines, distributed by the Texas-based company American Rounds, began appearing in grocery stores in Alabama, Texas,... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google representatives gave ad buyers tips on how they could reach teens, even though the company bars targeted advertisements to users under the age of 18 based on their demographics, according to a report from Adweek.Three unnamed ad buyers told Adweek that Google sales reps suggested they might be able to reach teens by targeting a group of unknown" users, whose age, gender, parental status, or household income" Google doesn't know. Adweek said it also reviewed written documents backing up the sources' claims. A Google spokesperson told Adweek that the unknown category can include users who aren't signed in to their accounts or who've turned off personalized ad targeting.Google's stated policy is to block ad targeting based on... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft says it's planning to allow Windows testers to try out its controversial Recall AI feature in October. The software giant was originally planning to launch Recall with its Copilot Plus PCs in June but was forced to hold back the feature after security concerns were raised.At the time of the delay on June 13th, Microsoft promised the feature - that screenshots nearly everything on your PC - would be available for Windows Insiders in the coming weeks," but that's now more like the coming months. With a commitment to delivering a trustworthy and secure Recall (preview) experience on Copilot Plus PCs for customers, we're sharing an update that Recall will be available to Windows Insiders starting in October," says Windows and... Continue reading...

Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge Tesla is issuing a new recall for more than 9,000 of its Model X SUVs due to roof cosmetic trim pieces that could fly off while driving because they may have been adhered without primer. It's the second such recall from the company to address the issue on the Model X, the first one issued in 2020, and it is again specific to early 2016 vehicle models.Tesla often pushes software updates to address recalls, including a repeat Autopilot safety issue where it does not warn drivers effectively. But for the Model X roof issue, Tesla will need to actually take a gander at thousands of vehicles in person.To remedy the Model X voluntary recall, Tesla Service will test the roof trim adhesion and reattach the trim pieces as necessary" for free.T... Continue reading...

Magic Editor's new tool helped us add the bike and car with nothing more than a text prompt. | Photo: The Verge As it turns out, a rabbit wearing an AI-generated top hat was just the tip of the iceberg.Google is the latest phone company this year to announce AI photo editing tools, following Samsung's somewhat troubling, mostly delightful sketch-to-image feature and Apple's much more seemingly tame Image Playground coming this fall. The Pixel 9's answer is a new tool called Reimagine," and after using it for a week with a few of my colleagues, I'm more convinced than ever that none of us are ready for what's coming.Reimagine is a logical extension of last year's Magic Editor tools, which let you select and erase parts of a scene or change the sky to look like a sunset. It was nothing shocking. But Reimagine doesn't just take it a step further -... Continue reading...

The AI is inconsistent, but the hardware is oh so good. Continue reading...

A new firmware update brings audio sharing to the Beats Studio Pro. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Apple has released a firmware update for the Beats Studio Pro that finally brings audio sharing to the headphones, allowing an iPhone or iPad to stream audio to two pairs of wireless headphones simultaneously. The new feature, spotted by 9to5Mac, was noticeably missing when we reviewed the Beats Studio Pro last year, but now better positions the headphones as an alternative to Apple's more expensive AirPods Max.Audio sharing was added to the Beats line shortly after its debut in 2019. It's a feature found in all of Apple's headphones featuring the company's W1 or H1 chips, but the Beats Studio Pro debuted with a different chip that ensured all of the headphone's features were compatible with both Apple and Android devices.The firmware... Continue reading...

Gimme that excellent desk clock action while charging all the things. | Image: Nomad Nomad is course-correcting from a small design blunder last year on its three-in-one MagSafe charging stand. Like its predecessor, the new Stand One Max for 2024 is a wireless multi-charger for a compatible iPhone, Apple Watch, and set of AirPods. However, now you can charge all of those devices with your phone in landscape orientation, allowing you to use Apple's nifty StandBy mode for glanceable information like the time and weather. The new stand is also Qi2-compatible, and at $150, it's actually $30 cheaper than the original's launch price, which I love to see.Other than that, the new Stand One Max (which Nomad calls third-gen" to align with other models in its lineup, even though it's only the second version) has a lot in common... Continue reading...

The ROG Rapture GT-BE19000 is an '80s retro-future headcrab. | Image: Asus Asus announced three new Wi-Fi 7 products today, including a tri-band ROG Rapture GT gaming router, a dual-band router, and a new Wi-Fi 7 USB adapter.The ROG Rapture GT-BE19000 has a familiar '80s retro-future look shared by predecessors like the quad-band GT-BE98, along with most of the same specs, including two 10Gbps and five 2.5Gbps ethernet ports. It also supports 320MHz channel bandwidth on the 6GHz band, which unlocks much higher throughput (although you'll need a 2Gbps or higher connection to your ISP for that to shine). Image: Asus The ROG Rapture GT-BE19000 has seven ethernet ports. Since the GT-BE19000 uses Wi-Fi 7's multilink operation feature, you can connect a supported device to the 6GHz and... Continue reading...

Photo by Alex Cranz / The Verge Last year, Amazon launched the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition that could default to displaying owners' favorite pictures - as long as they paid an extra fee. Now it looks like that plan has been abandoned, with the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition and its accompanying $2 / month PhotosPlus subscription nearly erased from Amazon's website.One customer received a message saying the service has been canceled and that Amazon will no longer offer the subscription starting September 23rd.The PhotosPlus subscription is what owners need to make photos the primary content you see" on the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition with a slideshow that rotates every 30 seconds. It also offers the ability to show photos indefinitely," as other Echo Show displays will... Continue reading...

Six Super Mario: Mario Kart-themed Lego sets will debut on January 1st, 2025. | Image: Lego After teasing the next expansion of its Super Mario line back in March, today, Lego announced the first six Mario Kart sets that will release just after the holidays on January 1st, 2025.Lego's Mario Kart collection includes new buildable versions of characters like Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and Toad; baby versions of Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach; and several kart designs, from motorcycles to flying pirate ships.There are also green and red shells that can actually be fired from the karts. The new sets are compatible with existing interactive Lego Super Mario figures, with Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach playing sound effects like horns or the squeal of a drifting kart's tires from the Mario Kart games.The Mario Kart collection... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Ford is canceling its electric three-row SUV and delaying the launch of a new electric pickup truck until 2027. The Expedition-like SUV had already been delayed to 2027; with its cancellation, the company will now pivot to making new gas and hybrid-powered three-row SUVs.Ford now says it won't release any new electric vehicles until it can ensure profitability on the models within the first year of launch (beyond vehicles we've already heard about, like the European-only Capri and Explorer). Ford will also prioritize a new commercial EV van that will begin production in Ohio in 2026.Ford has struggled to bring its spending on EV production in line with the revenue brought in by its vehicle lineup, which includes the Mustang Mach-E,... Continue reading...

Photo by Steve Jennings / Getty Images for TechCrunch After launching remotely during the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Nothing has now mandated that its 450 employees will have to come into the company's London office five days a week. In an email to staffers last week, Nothing CEO Carl Pei suggested that those unable to transition from remote working should leave the company and find an environment where you thrive."Pei's goal, according to the email he published on LinkedIn, is to improve collaboration and innovation across design, engineering, and manufacturing, which he argues does not work well remotely." The new mandate will take effect in two months, and Pei will be accepting live questions about the decision from Nothing staffers during the company's next town hall meeting.Remote... Continue reading...

While billionaires have pushed Kamala Harris to depart from President Joe Biden's antitrust policy, the Democratic Party seems to be doubling down.The word competition" comes up 18 times in the party's 2024 platform, compared to nine in the 2020 version. Other key policy areas, like tackling junk fees and noncompetes, are mentioned several times in the 2024 platform as well, compared to just one passing reference to noncompetes in the 2020 document. Notably, those are areas where the Federal Trade Commission, led by Lina Khan - a target of ire from more business-minded Democrats like Reid Hoffman - has been instrumental.The platform is an indication of where Democrats stand on key issues, which will serve as an important signal to... Continue reading...

Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson demonstrating the Gravity SUV's front trunk seating. | Image: Tim Stevens Different brands do different things under the hoods of their EVs. Some fill that space with inverters and high-voltage cabling. Others carve out a cubby of extra storage, the frunk that many EV aficionados demand but few actually use.With the Gravity SUV, Lucid is taking the frunk option a step further, creating a space that can be used as a seat. I confess, I thought it was a gimmick, but sitting in that frunk is surprisingly comfortable. It's a bit cozy for two adults, as I found when Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson joined me, but we fit just fine.The Gravity is no longer a conceptRawlinson was representing Lucid at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, where the Gravity was situated on the so-called Concept Lawn," just a few feet... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo: Getty Images Microsoft's latest monthly security update is wreaking havoc on dual-boot Windows and Linux systems. The software giant issued a security patch last week to fix a two-year-old vulnerability in the GRUB open-source boot loader used by lots of Linux devices. Microsoft's patch wasn't supposed to hit dual-boot devices, but many have found it has and it's now stopping their Linux installs from booting properly.Ars Technica reports that multiple Linux dual-boot users are seeing security policy violation" messages, along with something has gone seriously wrong" errors. There are reports of issues across Reddit, Ubuntu forums, and elsewhere. Distributions including Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, Zorin OS, and Puppy Linux have all been affected... Continue reading...

The touchscreen on the JBL Tour Pro 3's charging case is now 30 percent larger. | Image: JBL JBL has announced an upgraded version of its first wireless earbuds with a touchscreen charging case. The new JBL Tour Pro 3's case features a larger screen and now works as a transmitter, broadcasting audio to the earbuds from a wired source such as a plane's in-flight entertainment system. However, that larger screen also comes with a steeper price tag. They'll sell for $299, which is nearly $50 more than the JBL Tour Pro 2.The 1.57-inch touchscreen on the JBL Tour Pro 3's charging case is 30 percent larger than the screen on the Tour Pro 2's, giving it enough room to fit additional info like the name of the song currently playing. That will potentially make it even more useful as an alternative to reaching for your smartphone if you... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google is upgrading its Gemini writing tools in Gmail to help you polish drafts that you've already written. Now, among other Gemini-powered Help me write" options like Formalize and Elaborate, you can tap Polish" to refine your emails, Google says in a blog post. The company has also added shortcuts that appear in the body of your emails on Android and iOS, making it more obvious that there are AI writing tools to use.The tools are available to people who pay for Google One AI Premium accounts or who have paid for Google's Gemini add-on for Workspace. If that's you, when you open an empty draft, you'll see a Help me write" shortcut appear that you can tap to have Gemini draft text for you. Once you have 12 or more words in a draft -... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Today, Google announced it's making assigning group work in Google Classroom easier and faster with a new feature called Student Groups. Teachers will now be able to add individual students to predefined groups before creating and assigning group work.Google is entering this school year with a bunch of new updates for the now 10-year-old Classroom platform, like a new Education Navigator, a Read Along feature, and Dark Mode to the mobile app. But teachers have been waiting for something like Student Groups for a long time.Previously, teachers would need to create an assignment first and then individually add students to that assignment if they wanted to assign group work. For occasional group projects, this worked okay, but it was a... Continue reading...

How many of those $5 skirts do these retailers have to sell to pay their lawyers? | Image: The Verge The Shein complaint about Temu kicks off with a bang, accusing Temu of being an unlawful enterprise built on counterfeiting, theft of trade secrets, infringement of intellectual property rights, and fraud" in just the first sentence. But I guess you have to go big when the lawsuit against you accuses you of using Mafia-style" intimidation tactics.It gets worse, Shein alleges. Temu isn't a marketplace at all. It controls every aspect of its seller's activity," the complaint says. It directs what products they can list and the prices for which they can sell; encourages them to infringe the intellectual property rights of others; and even prevents them from removing their products from Temu's website after they have admitted to... Continue reading...