The Verge

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Health insurance provider UnitedHealth has identified Blackcat as the group behind a debilitating cyber attack that has disrupted healthcare providers nationwide, Reuters is reporting. The attack has led to more than a week-long outage of the the United-owned Change Healthcare system, disrupting payments at hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies across the nation.Since Change Healthcare acts as a middleman between healthcare providers and insurance companies, the breach has hindered everyday transactions like electronic pharmacy refills and new insurance claims. The company first identified suspicious activity on its IT systems on February 21st, according to an SEC filing.The breach could last for weeks, UnitedHealth Group Chief... Continue reading...

The company has always delivered on audio quality, but after stumbling with some bugs and hardware issues on the Momentum True Wireless 3 earbuds, Sennheiser is focusing on the little things - and it shows. Continue reading...

Image: MacPaw One of the first third-party app stores on iOS is getting ready to open up in the European Union. The software company MacPaw has announced that it's releasing its Setapp store in beta on Thursday, with an official launch planned for April.Setapp is currently only available on macOS and offers users access to over 240 third-party apps for a $9.99 per month subscription. Some examples of the curated apps available through Setapp include music software n-Track Studio, project planner MindNode, and the productivity app Session.The new app store on iOS will feature a carefully selected assortment of apps, including fan favorites from the Setapp catalog." In addition to productivity and business tools, Setapp on iOS will also offer design... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix In Rebirth, our heroes get to explore beyond the confines of Midgar. Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is starting to roll out a new update to Windows 11 that includes a whole host of improvements and new built-in features. Copilot in Windows 11 is getting more options to control your PC as part of this update, alongside a new Generative Erase option in Photos, Voice Shortcuts for accessibility, improved Snap layouts, changes to the Widgets system, and more.While the Windows 11 update is available starting today, Microsoft says not all features will be enabled straight away. Copilot's new options will start rolling out in late March, enabling new skills like being able to ask the AI chatbot to enable the battery saver mode or to launch accessibility features like Narrator or Magnifier. Copilot will also be able to show... Continue reading...

A man squats on cracked, dry ground. Dead, dry fish lay on the ground where a pond used to be. | Photo by Kevin Herbian/NurPhoto via Getty Images There's a 90 percent chance that global average surface temperatures will reach a record high for the year leading up to June 2024, according to new research published today in the journal Scientific Reports. Some places will be more sweltering than others, particularly in parts of Asia. The heat has cascading effects, like raising the risk of drought and wildfire.A weather pattern known as El Nino is to blame. El Nino is part of a natural, cyclical phenomenon, but climate change heightens the stakes by raising baseline temperatures before El Nino swoops in to push the mercury up even higher.We have seen that this type of warming can cause a lot of troubles in the world, so we want to give people a heads up," says Deliang Chen, one... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Our new Thursday episodes of Decoder are all about deep dives into big topics in the news, and this week, we're continuing our miniseries on one of the biggest topics of all: generative AI.Last week, we took a look at the wave of copyright lawsuits that might eventually grind this whole industry to a halt. Those are basically a coin flip - and the outcomes are off in the distance, as those cases wind their way through the legal system. A bigger problem right now is that AI systems are really good at making just believable enough fake images and audio - and with tools like OpenAI's new Sora, maybe video soon, too.And of course, it's once again a presidential election year here in the US. So today, Verge policy editor Adi Robertson... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The cryptocurrency exchange Gemini has promised to return $1.1 billion to customers as part of a settlement it reached with New York's Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). Gemini will also have to pay $37 million to the NYDFS for significant failures that threatened the safety and soundness of the company."The NYDFS claims Gemini, which is owned by twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, had compliance, management, and internal audit issues" when it came to managing its Earn program. Introduced in 2021, Gemini's Earn program let customers loan their cryptocurrency to the crypto brokerage Genesis Global Capital while receiving interest.

Policymakers are concerned that Chinese vehicle companies like BYD could collect sensitive data from drivers in the US. | Photo by John Keeble / Getty Images The US government is opening an investigation into the potential risks to national security posed by smart car technology produced in China and other countries of concern."The US Commerce Department's probe will focus on connected vehicles" - a broad term that can be applied to any car with internet access - amid concerns that technology like cameras, sensors, and on-board computers could be exploited to collect sensitive data about US citizens and infrastructure.During a call with reporters on Wednesday, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said that the investigation was being launched before Chinese-manufactured vehicles become widespread" across the US.Imagine if there were thousands of Chinese vehicles on American roads that... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has outlined a new Windows API designed to offer a seamless way for game developers to integrate super resolution AI-upscaling features from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel. In a new blog post, program manager Joshua Tucker describes Microsoft's new DirectSR API as the missing link" between games and super resolution technologies, and says it should provide a smoother, more efficient experience that scales across hardware."This API enables multi-vendor SR [super resolution] through a common set of inputs and outputs, allowing a single code path to activate a variety of solutions including Nvidia DLSS Super Resolution, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution, and Intel XeSS," the post reads. The pitch seems to be that developers will be able... Continue reading...

An Aiwit" doorbell camera. There are many like it. | Image via Amazon Does your video doorbell look anything like the one in the picture? Perhaps you bought it for cheap at Amazon, Temu, Shein, Sears, or Walmart? Does it use the Aiwit app?Consumer Reports is reporting the security on these cameras is so incredibly lax, anybody could walk up to your house, take over your doorbell, and permanently get access to the still images it captures - even if you take control back.The cameras are sold by a Chinese company called Eken under at least ten different brands, including Aiwit, Andoe, Eken, Fishbot, Gemee, Luckwolf, Rakeblue and Tuck. Consumer Reports says online marketplaces like Amazon sell thousands of them each month. Some of them have even carried the Amazon's Choice badge, its dubious seal of... Continue reading...

Unofficial renders of what the Z Flip 6 could look like. | Image: OnLeaks / SmartPrix Yesterday was the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, now it's the Z Flip 6's turn to have its alleged design leak in a series of unofficial renders from OnLeaks and SmartPrix ahead of its rumored July unveiling.While the overall form-factor of the device is similar to last year's Z Flip 5, including a 6.7-inch inner folding display and 3.4-inch cover screen, SmartPrix reports that its thickness could increase from 6.9mm to 7.4mm, prompting speculation about what the extra internal space could be used for. The front-running theory comes from a GalaxyClub report from last year, which said the Z Flip 6's battery capacity could increase from 3,700mAh to 4,000mAh. It's a move that could (hopefully) address the so-so battery life we experienced on the... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Spaces, the live audio feature for X, is now letting hosts turn on their video during chat sessions. The platform formerly known as Twitter announced the news on Wednesday as owner / CTO Elon Musk reposted a walkthrough from a user named "Dogedesigner."Spaces users will notice a new option to enable video" when they first create a new Spaces session. Hosts can opt for either their phone's front or back-facing cameras as well as either a landscape or vertical view of their video feed.The Video Spaces are available on the iOS version of the X app, but we haven't seen them available on Android or the web yet. Multiple users reported significant lag while trying out the feature so far.

William Gibson. | Photo by Elisabetta A. Villa/WireImage Another sci-fi adaptation is making its way to Apple TV Plus. The streamer announced that it's adapting William Gibson's seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer into a 10-episode series. Graham Roland (Lost, Jack Ryan) will serve as showrunner, while JD Dillard (Utopia) will direct the first episode. (Both will also be executive producers on the series.)That's about all we know right now. There are no details on when the series might start streaming or who will star. In a press release, Apple said that the show will follow a damaged, top-rung super-hacker named Case who is thrust into a web of digital espionage and high stakes crime with his partner Molly, a razor-girl assassin with mirrored eyes aiming to pull a heist on a corporate... Continue reading...

Tubi's new logo and signature shade of turple." | Image: Tubi Tubi knows that people fire up its app just to see what happens to be streaming rather than to search for one specific thing, and the platform is trying to embrace that reality about itself in the form of a playful new brand identity.Today, Tubi began rolling out a new look and feel for its login-free service that's meant to emphasize how the streamer wants viewers falling down rabbit holes as they search through the thousands of films and series it has to offer. That was also the concept behind Tubi's 2023 Super Bowl ad in which people were thrown down literal holes by anthropomorphic rabbits, and while the new branding is nowhere near as unsettling, chief marketing officer Nicole Parlapiano said in a press release that it's meant to... Continue reading...

Illustration by The Verge Substack writers and readers can now send private one-on-one direct messages to others on the platform, the company announced today. The highly requested feature works similarly to DMs found on social networking apps like X and Instagram, though it is optional and can be disabled.Just as you can from X or Facebook, users can initiate direct messages from a writer's or reader's profile page. You can also start a message via the website's or app's Chat tab. In addition, writers have the option to add a Send a message" button on a post or note. Substack will then notify recipients via the app or email.Only readers and writers you're connected to can send messages directly to your inbox. Other messages will just land in a Requests"... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Three more news organizations have sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement, including the removal of author, title, and other copyright information while training AI models.The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet filed separate lawsuits in the Southern District of New York. All three cases are being litigated by the same law firm.The publications said ChatGPT at least some of the time" reproduces verbatim or nearly verbatim copyright-protected works of journalism without providing author, title, copyright or terms of use information contained in those works." According to the plaintiffs, if ChatGPT trained on material that included copyright information, the chatbot would have learned to communicate that... Continue reading...

Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel shared a new proposal Wednesday that would make it harder for domestic abuse survivors to be stalked through their cars' location tracking systems.The notice of proposed rulemaking would kick off a process for the FCC to consider how it can use existing authority to create new protections for domestic abuse survivors. It seeks more information on available connected car services and whether changes to the way the agency implements the Safe Connections Act are necessary to address how those tools could be used for abuse. The agency is expected to take up the issue in the next month.The Safe Connections Act, which was signed into law in late 2022, requires mobile service... Continue reading...

Google For anyone who has ever wished for the ability to hand annotate directly on a Google Doc, Google announced on Tuesday it's rolling out a new markup feature for Google Workspace customers, Google Workspace Individual subscribers, and personal Google accounts that will allow users to write directly on a Google Doc with a stylus or their finger. The new feature includes a few standard pen and highlighter colors (black, blue, red, green, yellow), and an eraser. If you don't like any of those colors, you can add your own.There are so many use cases for a feature like this, across age groups, industries, and professional and personal work. Google calls out some good ones in its announcement, especially for educators giving students feedback... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Samsung says its new, faster microSD cards will help enable on-device AI, allowing people to use more data-heavy AI-related apps.In a press release, the company explains it began sampling its 256GB SD Express microSD card and started mass production of the 1TB microSD card. The 256GB SD Express version will be available later this year, while the 1TB UHS-1 microSD will launch in the third quarter of 2024.Samsung says the 256GB SD Express microSD card can read data up to 800MB/s, 1.4 times faster than SATA SSDs (up to 560 MB/s) and more than four times faster compared to traditional UHS-1 memory cards." But because faster speeds from SD Express cards can hit temperatures of up to 96 degrees Celsius, Samsung introduced dynamic thermal... Continue reading...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge In 2017, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed what the global auto industry had long feared: the tech giant was working on a driverless car.We're focusing on autonomous systems. And clearly, one purpose of autonomous systems are self-driving cars," Cook said in an interview with Bloomberg. And we sort of see it as the mother of all AI projects. It's probably one of the most difficult AI projects actually to work on and so autonomy is something that's incredibly exciting for us, but we'll see where it takes us."Where it took Apple was essentially nowhere. On Tuesday, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman confirmed that Apple was scuttling its secretive car project, with most of the team's workers moving over to generative AI initiatives. Others would... Continue reading...

Photo by Bruce Bennett / Getty Images In response to reports that Wendy's plan for new digital menu boards that can update throughout the day might increase prices of spicy chicken nuggets and other menu items at busy times, the fast food chain now claims this isn't the case. Instead, Wendy's says its dynamic" pricing model will only result in discounts and value" during the slowest times of the day - leaving other times of the day with higher standard prices unaddressed.Earlier this month, Wendy's CEO Kirk Tanner said the company wants to start testing dynamic pricing in 2025 - a system that would use Wendy's digital menu boards to adjust pricing throughout the day. In terms of comparisons to Uber surge pricing, Wendy's claims this isn't the case and that media reports... Continue reading...

Project Music GenAI Control is an early-stage" prototype tool, so it may be some time before Adobe officially launches it. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Adobe's latest generative AI experiment aims to help people create and customize music without any professional audio experience. Announced during the Hot Pod Summit in Brooklyn on Wednesday, Project Music GenAI Control is a new prototype tool that allows users to generate music using text prompts and then edit that audio without jumping over to dedicated editing software.Users start by inputting a text description that will generate music in a specified style, such as happy dance" or sad jazz." Adobe says its integrated editing controls then allow users to customize those results, adjusting any repeating patterns, tempo, intensity, and structure. Sections of music can be remixed, and audio can be generated as a repeating loop for... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge President Joe Biden has issued an executive order authorizing the US attorney general to prevent the large-scale transfer of Americans' personal data to countries of concern." According to the US Department of Justice today, those countries could include China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.The White House says it's targeting data brokers, which it says collect more personal data than ever before - data that includes things like personal health and financial data. The scale can be staggering: in a recent extreme example from a Consumer Reports study, 48,000 companies had sent Facebook data on a single user.Several departments will be required to roll out new protections under the order. The White House writes that the Department of... Continue reading...

People have been trying to talk to computers for almost as long as they've been building computers. For decades, many in tech have been convinced that this was the trick: if we could figure out a way to talk to our computers the way we talk to other people, and for computers to talk back the same way, it would make those computers easier to understand and operate, more accessible to everyone, and just more fun to use.ChatGPT and the current revolution in AI chatbots is really only the latest version of this trend, which extends all the way back to the 1960s. That's when Joseph Weizenbaum, a professor at MIT, built a chatbot named Eliza. Weizenbaum wrote in an academic journal in 1966 that Eliza makes certain kinds of natural language... Continue reading...

Image: Ken Pillonel via YouTube For AirPod Max owners, engineer Ken Pillonel has beaten Apple to the punch by swapping the four-year-old headphones from a Lightning port to USB-C. In a new video posted to YouTube, Pillonel shows how to install his custom printed circuit board (PCB) with USB-C support without drilling any new holes, as well as how he designed it to fit comfortably inside the headset.He's made the board available for purchase on his website for around $45, along with detailed installation instructions - if you feel brave enough to mod the $549 headset, of course. Pillonel also considered adding support for USB-C audio but dropped that idea after finding that you'd need an extra chip to make it happen, which would make the mod more expensive.Pillonel... Continue reading...

Image: Getty Images When this article was originally written in February 2022, the big Spotify controversy was that artists were abandoning the audio service in protest of the company's contract with podcaster Joe Rogan, and some subscribers were deciding to follow the musicians' example. More recently, the issue that has users irritated is the continued lack of HiFi and the layoffs that have made music discovery even harder.Although Spotify is probably the best-known music service, there are quite a few alternatives available for good music listening. If you're someone who has decided to explore what music services are out there, here's a quick rundown of some of the possibilities. But in the interest of being complete, we will start with Spotify itself.... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge It can happen all too easily, especially if you've got an Android phone with less than 128GB of storage: one day, you try to install a cool new game or an intriguing new app, and you can't. You've run out of space.Don't panic. If you're not ready to buy a new phone, and your phone doesn't have a handy microSD slot for some extra storage, you can probably still pick up a decent amount of free space with some simple house cleaning. Here are suggestions on how to get back some of that storage.Note: These were tested using a Pixel 6 phone and a Samsung Galaxy S23, both running Android 14. Depending on your phone's make and operating system, your directions may vary slightly.Free up space with a cleaning toolBoth Pixels and Galaxy phones... Continue reading...

If Justin Bieber can figure out how to leave his phone behind, so can I. | Photo by Bellocqimages / Bauer-Griffin / GC Images It was, of all people, Justin Bieber who first opened my eyes to a new way of thinking about my phone. See, Bieber isn't into phones. He ditched his a while back and became an iPad guy. According to a 2021 Billboard article, he wakes up in the morning, grabs his tablet, and checks in with his management to see what's going on for the day. The idea was to limit who can reach him." This is something you hear a lot from phone-free celebs: they're not trying to disconnect from everyone, but they are trying to get away from that feeling of being tapped constantly on the shoulder by all the calls, texts, and emails.I've been obsessed with celebrity technology usage, or lack thereof, for years. In so many cases, it seems that once you become... Continue reading...