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by Tom Warren on (#6CWGH)
Illustration by William Joel / The Verge A California judge is allowing Microsoft to close its acquisition of Activision Blizzard after five days of grueling testimony. Microsoft still faces an ongoing antitrust case by the Federal Trade Commission, but Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley has listened to arguments from both the FTC and Microsoft and decided to deny the regulator's request for a preliminary injunction.In a ruling submitted today, Judge Corley said the following:
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The Verge - All Posts
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| Updated | 2024-11-26 10:30 |
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by Justine Calma on (#6CWCE)
Rows of Bitcoin mining machines at a facility in Rockdale, Texas, on October 9th, 2021. | Photo by Mark Felix / AFP via Getty Images It's time for banks and asset managers to start pushing Bitcoin to clean up its pollution, Greenpeace argues in a new report. The environmental organization wants to see Bitcoin change its code to slash energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. That's a big ask, but Greenpeace argues that financial institutions could have an outsize influence on the Bitcoin network through its business dealings.The report focused on nine major financial institutions that are providing the glue that keeps the Bitcoin ecosystem together," says Joshua Archer, who leads Greenpeace USA's Bitcoin campaign. Financial institutions have an important responsibility, but they're currently ignoring the severity of the problem."The report focused on nine... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CWCF)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Claude, the AI chatbot that Anthropic bills as easier to talk to, is finally available for more people to try. The company has announced that everyone in the US and UK can test out the new version of its conversational bot, Claude 2, from its website.Its public availability allows Claude to join the ranks of ChatGPT, Bing, and Bard, all of which are available to users across numerous countries. That means we all have one more AI chatbot to play around with, but Anthropic says to think of Claude as a friendly, enthusiastic colleague or personal assistant who can be instructed in natural language to help you with many tasks."Claude, which Anthropic also describes as helpful, harmless, and honest," can do things like create summaries,... Continue reading...
by Barbara Krasnoff on (#6CD3Z)
Illustration by Hugo Herrera for The Verge Every ounce of coverage for Amazon's big, made-up shopping holiday currently taking place on July 11th and 12th. Continue reading...
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by David Pierce on (#6CWCJ)
Bear 2 doesn't look that different -but it's a completely new app. | Image: Shiny Frog Bear 2, the new note-taking app from developer Shiny Frog, is launching today on iOS, iPadOS, and Mac. It comes with lots of new features. You can now create tables in Bear notes. You can play GIFs, preview links and PDFs, scan documents, add footnotes and a table of contents, bring your own fonts, and more. You can also style your documents more easily: until now, using Bear required at least a passing knowledge of the Markdown language, but now it looks and works more like any other text editor. I've been using the beta for many months, and it's one of my favorite note-taking apps for Apple devices.The new version is a long time coming. It's a complete rewrite of the app, Shiny Frog CEO Danilo Bonardi says, and has been a lot more... Continue reading...
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by Parker Ortolani on (#6CWCH)
So yeah, it's Prime Day, and we've put together the best deals across the internet. But we've got another place for you to shop: The Verge merch store. Over the past year, we've been dropping new apparel and accessories designed for you, readers of The Verge. For the next 48 hours, you can take 20 percent off all products. We've got tees, hoodies, rain jackets, pillows, bottles, bags, and so much more. The discount code PRIMEDAY23 will automatically be applied at checkout because we want to make it easy for you to save those bucks. Grab some stickers for your laptop, some joggers to get comfy while streaming, or even a fanny pack for your tinier gadgets. There are even premium wallpaper packs designed by our award-winning... Continue reading...
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by Jon Porter on (#6CW6D)
Twitter users trying to find links to Meta's microblogging rival Threads are finding that the Elon Musk-owned social media network appears to be limiting results. That's despite Twitter currently being filled with links to Threads content, which you'd expect to be able to find via search. We spotted the behavior via a Threads post from Andy Baio, but the behavior is also being widely reported by Twitter users.The issue was first noticed when using the url:" search operator, which is normally used to search for links to a specific URL. For example, searching url:theverge.com" on Twitter brings up every single tweet that links to any page on The Verge, regardless of whether the URL has been shortened. But searching for url:threads.net"... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CVVM)
Illustration: The Verge Mark Lucovsky, the former head of operating systems on Google's augmented reality team, has left the company. In a tweet on Monday, Lucovsky says changes in AR leadership and Google's unstable commitment and vision" contributed to his decision.Lucovsky's departure adds to the numerous challenges Google's AR team has faced in recent months, including a round of layoffs and the resignation of Google's former head of VR, Clay Bavor. In June, a report from Insider indicated that Google has given up on its plans to build AR glasses, codenamed Project Iris. It's also discontinued the enterprise edition of Google Glass.Lucovsky worked at Facebook for four years, where he served as the general manager of Oculus VR. He joined Google in 2021 to... Continue reading...
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by Umar Shakir on (#6CVVN)
The My Porsche app allows CarPlay to set up Siri controls, adjust climate settings, and more. | Image: Porsche Porsche is releasing an iPhone app update that gives drivers a taste of what future CarPlay can look like - including new buttons for climate, interior lighting, and other controls.The automaker's My Porsche iOS app connects with the car after scanning a QR code inside the vehicle's infotainment system, which is known as Porsche Communication Management or PCM. Upon connecting, third-party software (like Apple Music) in Porsche's infotainment system can link accounts with the iPhone.And for the company's electric vehicles, the CarPlay interface will also be able to display the battery state of charge - which would go great with a recent Taycan software update that supports Apple Maps' EV routing feature. Image:... Continue reading...
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by Umar Shakir on (#6CVS7)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge iPhone assembler Foxconn is dropping out of a $19.5 billion deal with a major Indian company to build a semiconductor factory in the country, according to Reuters. The canceled Foxconn deal was part of a joint venture with the large oil and metal corporation Vedanta.Foxconn provided a vague explanation as to why it ended its plans to build a semiconductor facility in the country. Foxconn has determined it will not move forward on the joint venture with Vedanta," reads a company statement to Reuters. Foxconn says the deal was ended mutually. Vedanta has lined up other partners" to set up the foundry, the company said in a statement.The Foxconn-Vedanta fallout is a blow to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's economic growth efforts... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CVS8)
Illustration: The Verge Just a couple of months ago, a leaked memo said to be from a Google researcher cast doubt on the company's future in AI, stating that it has no moat" in the industry - and now, we seemingly have confirmation that it was real. In an interview with Decoder, Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google's DeepMind, told The Verge that although he believes the memo was legitimate, he disagrees with its conclusions.I think that memo was real. I think engineers at Google often write various documents, and sometimes they get leaked and go viral," Hassabis said. I think it's interesting to listen to them, and then you've got to chart your own course. And I haven't read that specific memo in detail, but I disagree with the conclusions from that."The... Continue reading...
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6CVS9)
Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images On a recent Friday evening, a driverless car pulled up alongside an outdoor dining shed in the Mission district of San Francisco, put on its hazard lights, and waited. As traffic began to pile up behind the vehicle, a man smoking a cigarette outside a nearby bar rolled his eyes.I don't drive a car," he grumbled, so I don't really care about these things."Other residents of this hilly city by the bay are not so ambivalent about the coming onslaught of autonomous cars. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is poised to vote this Thursday on whether to allow Cruise and Waymo, the two main companies with autonomous vehicles in San Francisco, to expand their paid ridehailing services to operate 24/7.Other residents of this... Continue reading...
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by Adi Robertson on (#6CVSA)
Illustration: The Verge Tumblr's staff blog has posted a long update on the future of the platform, alluding to coming changes that include redesigning its reply and reblog features. The goal, according to Tumblr staff, is to make Tumblr less intimidating - implicitly at a time when it could attract users disillusioned with platforms like Reddit and Twitter.In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience," says the post (emphasis in... Continue reading...
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by Nilay Patel on (#6CVSB)
Photo illustration by Alex Parkin / The Verge Google invented a lot of core AI technology, and now the company's turning to Demis to get back in front of the AI race for AI breakthroughs. Continue reading...
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by Ash Parrish on (#6CVSC)
Image: Allied Employees Guild Improving Sega Workers at Sega of America, representing multiple departments, have voted to form a union. With 91 employees voting yes out of a total number of 212 eligible employees, the Allied Employees Guild Improving SEGA (also known as AEGIS-CWA) becomes the fifth video game union in the United States and its largest multi-department video game union.We are overjoyed to celebrate our union election win as members of AEGIS-CWA," Angel Gomez, a translator for Sega, said in a press release announcing the news. Now, through our union, we'll be able to protect the parts of our jobs we love, and strengthen the benefits, pay, and job stability available to all workers."The AEGIS union drive was announced in April but was a year in the works for the... Continue reading...
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by Barbara Krasnoff on (#65Y9V)
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge When it launched in 2008, Evernote became the go-to application for many for taking notes, tracking documents, organizing projects, and generally being the place to put anything you might want to find later. However, in the last few years, Evernote's reputation has suffered due to an overloaded interface, privacy missteps, increased fees, and performance issues.And as if that wasn't enough, last year, the application was acquired by app developer Bending Spoons, and that company has recently announced that it was laying off most of its US employees and moving Evernote's operations to Europe.When an app is depended on by a large number of people - especially one that's been around long enough so that a number of its users may have a... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CVNS)
Illustration by William Joel / The Verge The European Union and the US have settled on a new transatlantic data-sharing pact. In an announcement on Monday, the European Commission says the new framework should allow information to flow freely between both locations, easing risks for social media companies that operate across them.The decision comes three years after the EU's top court struck down the Privacy Shield, a protocol that let companies based in the US collect and process data from EU citizens. At the time, the court said the Privacy Shield didn't do enough to keep users' data out of the hands of US intelligence agencies. This was a blow to companies like Meta and Amazon, as data collection is an essential part of their businesses.When this policy was annulled, it... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6CVJH)
Police responded to a fake hostage situation at Ubisoft Montreal's offices on November 13th, 2020. | Photo by Eric Thomas / AFP via Getty Images Twenty-two-year-old Yanni Ouahioune was recently sentenced in France to three years of community service for calling in a fake hostage situation in 2020, also known as swatting, at the Ubisoft Montreal offices, as well as initiating DDoS attacks against a French government office and making threats toward Minecraft maker Mojang, according to Montreal Gazette.Ouahioune was allegedly upset about having been banned from Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege more than 80 times for cheating. He was named as a suspect in the case in April of 2021, Montreal outlet La Presse reported at the time.Ouahioune routed his calls through Russian servers to avoid detection, Montreal Gazette reports. After his calls, Ubisoft Montreal's offices were swarmed by... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Webster on (#6CVJJ)
Image: Peacock The bullets fly in the latest trailer for Twisted Metal - and so do the jokes. Our previous look at Peacock's adaptation of the PlayStation vehicular mayhem series didn't show much other than how Will Arnett and Samoa Joe were joining forces to play the murderous clown Sweet Tooth. But the latest clip gives a much better idea of what viewers can expect when the series starts streaming later this month.Unlike the video games, which follow a tournament that's sort of like a cross between a destruction derby and a fight to the death, the show takes place in a postapocalyptic version of the US where cities are walled off from the lawlessness outside. That means courier drivers - like the lead character, played by Anthony Mackie - are both... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6CVJK)
Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine on the set of Deadpool 3. | Marvel Studios After years of Fox's live-action X-Men movie franchise (RIP) being violently allergic to the idea of letting Marvel's mutants be seen wearing anything but boring black getups vaguely inspired by Frank Quitely's New X-Men designs, Deadpool 3 seems ready to switch things up.Following last week's surprising announcement that Jennifer Garner has signed on to Deadpool 3 to reprise her role as Greek assassin Elektra Natchios, Ryan Reynolds - who's currently filming on set - took to his Instagram account today to post a photo of himself and co-star Hugh Jackman in-costume as Deadpool and a very animated-looking Wolverine. Reynolds and Jackman have been teasing how Deadpool 3 - in addition to folding their characters into the MCU - will... Continue reading...
by Makena Kelly on (#6CVJM)
Image: Nick Barclay / The Verge Last week, Meta debuted its Twitter competitor, Threads. The app gained more than 100 million users in the US, UK, and hundreds of other countries in less than a week - but you won't be able to download it in the European Union anytime soon. The app has been held up by what Meta spokesperson Christine Pai described to The Verge as upcoming regulatory uncertainty," widely assumed to refer to the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA).Tech companies and regulatory skeptics have long claimed that laws like the DMA hold back innovation by requiring onerous user protections, but the looming competition law doesn't stop Meta from introducing new products - and Meta hasn't indicated it will forgo a European launch. If anything, the DMA adds friction... Continue reading...
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by Antonio G. Di Benedetto on (#6CVFJ)
Google's Pixel 7A has a very good camera and solid specs all around in an affordable package. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Amazon's Prime Day sales event kicks off tomorrow in earnest, though deals have been piling on early for well over a week. A new discount that's coming in pretty hot is a $50 discount on Google's latest phone, the Pixel 7A, which is now available at Amazon and Best Buy for $449. The excellent midrange phone offers a nice sampling of what Google's fancier Pixel 7 flagships feature but at a much more modest price. It's our top pick of phones around $500, in part due to its fast 90Hz refresh screen, matched Tensor G2 processor from its higher-end brethren, and the inclusion of wireless Qi charging (finally). Wrap all that up with an approachable 6.1-inch screen size and a great dual-camera setup, and you've got yourself plenty of phone for... Continue reading...
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by Jay Peters on (#6CV6J)
Illustration: The Verge Instagram's new Threads app has already surpassed 100 million users, meaning it reached the milestone dramatically faster than even ChatGPT. OpenAI's chatbot passed the mark after two months, but Threads, which only launched on Wednesday, got there in a matter of days. The number of users can be found in the Instagram app, which tracks the size of the Threads userbase.Threads proved to be an early hit almost immediately. In the first two hours, it hit 2 million users and steadily climbed from there to 5 million, 10 million, 30 million, and then 70 million. The launch has been way beyond our expectations," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Friday.On Monday, Zuckerberg said in a Threads post confirming the milestone that the growth was... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Webster on (#6CVC4)
No screenshots yet, so you'll have to put up with this logo for now. | Image: EA Another big Marvel property is being turned into a video game. This time, EA is developing what it calls an original, third-person, single-player Black Panther game." We don't have many other details just yet - not even a screenshot - but development is being handled by a new EA studio called Cliffhanger Games in partnership with Marvel Games. Cliffhanger is led by Kevin Stephens, who was previously studio head at Shadow of Mordor developer Monolith Productions.We're dedicated to delivering fans a definitive and authentic Black Panther experience, giving them more agency and control over their narrative than they have ever experienced in a story-driven video game," Stephens said in a statement. Wakanda is a rich superhero sandbox,... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6CVC5)
There's also an account set up to track Mark Zuckerberg's private jet, though this hasn't posted any information yet. | Illustration: The Verge Jack Sweeney, the college student and creator of the banned @ElonJet Twitter account that tracked the movements of Elon Musk's personal jet, has now launched the tracking project on Meta's rival platform, Threads. ElonJet has arrived to Threads!" Sweeney posted to the new @elonmusksjet account on Thursday. As of Monday, July 10th, the Threads account currently has 80,000 followers.Sweeney addressed his second posting on the @elonmusksjet Threads account directly to Mark Zuckerberg, asking the Meta founder if he can remain on the platform. Sweeney includes a shoutout in the Threads bio of @elonmusksjet to the @zuckerbergjet account dedicated to tracking the location of Zuckerberg's private jet. That account hasn't posted any live... Continue reading...
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by Jon Porter on (#6CVA0)
Ugreen's new 300W GaN charger. | Image: Ugreen Ugreen is teasing a new 300W GaN charger with enough ports to charge a suitcase-worth of gadgetry. The $269 device has four USB-C ports and one USB-A port, and spokesperson Roger Wan says it will go on sale in mid-August. The most powerful port is able to deliver as much as 140W via the PowerDelivery 3.1 spec, enough to fast charge a modern 16-inch MacBook Pro when used with Apple's MagSafe 3 to USB-C cable, even with four other devices being charged concurrently.With every USB connection in use, the charger can provide 140W via its first USB-C port, 65W from its second, 45W from its third, 20W from its fourth, and 22.5W from its USB-A port, according to Ugreen's table below. But if you've got fewer devices plugged in then some of these... Continue reading...
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6CV6H)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge After several rounds of layoffs and a number of high-profile lawsuits, Rad Power Bikes' new CEO is determined to get costs and safety under control Continue reading...
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by Antonio G. Di Benedetto on (#6CDRP)
The Echo Pop (left) and Echo Dot (right) are just two of the many early Prime Day deals you can currently get. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Amazon Prime Day may not start until Tuesday, July 11th, but early deals are already trickling out. We're expecting to see some worthwhile discounts on wireless earbuds, noise-canceling headphones, tablets, TVs, smart home tech, games, and other gadgets on the actual days of, with the early deals functioning as a kind of small temperature check.As the ghosts of Prime Days past can tell us, the ahead-of-schedule deals are almost always on Amazon-owned devices and brands. There are sure to be more deals coming online in the days ahead - especially since Amazon has promised discounts from brands like Sony and Bose - but early bird shoppers already have some decent discounts to take advantage of.Usually, these early deals will hold... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6CV0M)
Image: Evernote / Bending Spoons Note-taking company Evernote has laid off most of its US- and- Chile-based employees, the company announced yesterday. Now Italian parent company Bending Spoons is taking most of Evernote's operations to Europe.The company says the step is intended to boost operational efficiency and to make the most of the Bending Spoons employer brand, which is extremely strong in Europe."Bending Spoons acquired Evernote in November last year, and at the time, Evernote CEO was quoted as saying the deal would help the company work on building new features, using Bending Spoons' proven app expertise and wide range of proprietary technologies." The company previously laid off 129 workers in February, with a Bending Spoons representative telling Tech... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6CTWB)
Comedian and author Sarah Silverman, seen here participating in a Tax Day protest in 2017. | Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images Comedian and author Sarah Silverman, as well as authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey - are suing OpenAI and Meta each in a US District Court over dual claims of copyright infringement.The suits alleges, among other things, that OpenAI's ChatGPT and Meta's LLaMA were trained on illegally-acquired datasets containing their works, which they say were acquired from shadow library" websites like Bibliotik, Library Genesis, Z-Library, and others, noting the books are available in bulk via torrent systems."Golden and Kadrey each declined to comment on the lawsuit, while Silverman's team did not respond by press time.In the OpenAI suit, the trio offers exhibits showing that when prompted, ChatGPT will summarize their books,... Continue reading...
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by Sean Hollister on (#6CTPJ)
The new Furby. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge I thought I was off the hook.When I told my kids the new Furby was done staying at our house, they seemed to understand. We'll miss you a lot, Furby!!" my six-year-old exclaimed - but there were no cries, no tantrums. They asked if Furby could play one more song. They gave it a goodbye hug. Then, I happily stuck the talking puffball deep in the garage.But a day later, my three-year-old made an uncharacteristic offhand remark: I wish we had enough money to buy a Furby..." she said, her full-force puppy dog eyes burning into my soul.Here's the good news: I can confirm 2023's Furby is no currently longer plotting to take over the world.But that's only because Furby wants the Moon first.
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by Wes Davis on (#6CTPK)
Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Apple is experimenting with larger iMacs, including a 32-inch version, for the future of its famous desktop line, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who wrote in the subscriber-only version of his Power On newsletter today that development is still early, so much could change. He doesn't believe we'll see one before the end of 2024.Gurman also tweaked his predicted timeline for the M3-powered iMac he said in March would be coming as soon as the second half of this year at the earliest. This time, he said he expects them by early next year.It makes sense that Apple would be working on a bigger iMac. People like bigger screens! And while the 24-inch model Apple sells now is a solid compromise between the former 21.5-inch and the... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6CTE8)
Illustration: The Verge Google's Med-PaLM 2, an AI tool designed to answer questions about medical information, has been in testing at the Mayo Clinic research hospital, among others, since April, The Wall Street Journal reported this morning. Med-PaLM 2 is a variant of PaLM 2, which was announced at Google I/O in May this year. PaLM 2 is the language model underpinning Google's Bard.WSJ reports that an internal email it saw said Google believes its updated model can be particularly helpful in countries with more limited access to doctors." Med-PaLM 2 was trained on a curated set of medical expert demonstrations, which Google believes will make it better at healthcare conversations than generalized chatbots like Bard, Bing, and ChatGPT.The paper also... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6CTCA)
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge G/O Media, who owns popular tech site Gizmodo along with a slew of other outlets, began publishing AI-generated articles last week, despite strong objections from many of the members of its staff, according to The Washington Post. The articles are all credited to various bots - Gizmodo Bot, for example - with no other indication that the article was created using an AI chatbot. Unsurprisingly, the stories needed a lot of work.The internal reaction to Gizmodo's first chatbot-created story - a chronological list of Star Wars movies that wasn't chronological - wasn't exactly enthusiastic, with journalists reportedly writing in Slack that it was actively hurting our reputations and credibility."Brown told staff in an email in late June... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6CT7V)
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Overnight, users across Twitter began reporting that the older, and much better, version of TweetDeck has returned along with the free API access that made third party Twitter clients possible. TweetDeck was disabled last week when Twitter abruptly threw up a rate-limiting paywall and killed the legacy APIs that allowed the old version of the feature to function, while third-party apps were banned in January.An update this morning from Harpy developer Roberto Doering says they switched to the old v1 API" to get it working again, but they also noted this doesn't mean that harpy will be maintained again, seeing as Twitter will most likely shut down access to their legacy api (again) soon and third party apps are still against their... Continue reading...
by Sheena Vasani on (#6CT7W)
Both the M2 Max and M2 Ultra-powered versions of the Mac Studio are discounted this weekend. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge It's a good week for Apple aficionados looking to score some good deals on Apple's newest computers. Not only is the 15-inch MacBook Air on sale for $100 off at Amazon and B&H Photo, but we're also seeing the first notable discount on Apple's latest Mac Studio. Right now, Expercom - an Apple-authorized retailer - is selling the new M2 Max-powered desktop machine starting at $1,899.05 ($100 off) with 32GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, a 12-core CPU, and a 30-core GPU. If you're looking for even more power, you can buy the M2 Ultra version starting at $3,799.05 ($200 off) with 64GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, a 24-core CPU, and a 60-core GPU.The new Mac Studio is a powerhouse of a desktop, one that's ideal for professionals who need a blazingly... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6CT7X)
Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. | Image: Paramount Pictures and Skydance Paramount's seventh Mission: Impossible is the franchise's biggest, silliest, and most stunt-filled Tom Cruise delivery system yet. But its self-awareness is more of a bug than a welcome feature. Continue reading...
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by David Nield on (#6CT63)
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Chromebooks were originally synonymous with lightweight, online-only, relatively inexpensive computing. Over time, however, they've become more and more capable, not only as useful day-to-day systems but as gaming machines, too.In fact, there are actually more gaming options on ChromeOS than many people may realize. So we're going to take you through the options.To begin with, as well as giving you access to web games that run in a browser, ChromeOS supports Android games as well. Add in the Steam client for Chromebooks, plus the possibilities offered by cloud gaming services, and you're really spoilt for choice.You can pick some or all of these options, depending on your gaming needs and your budget.Android and web gamesChromeOS... Continue reading...
by Jay Peters on (#6CT0S)
James Bareham / The Verge A former Niantic employee filed a lawsuit against the AR gaming company on Friday, alleging that it devalued the work of female employees and women of color, denied equal pay to women employees and women of color. The lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status, accuses Niantic of creating a boys club." The employee was laid off as part of last week's job cuts at the company, which affected about 230 staffers.The employee, who is an anonymous Jane Doe but is described in the complaint as an Asian female, started work at Niantic in February 2020 with a salary of $70,000, the complaint says. Later that year, she was promoted and received a raise to about $84,000, but in approximately" 2021, she learned that Niantic was paying a male... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CSSX)
Image: Square Enix via YouTube Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka has been given a suspended prison sentence and fines of around $1.2 million (or 173 million yen) after he was found guilty of insider trading, according to a report from Japanese news outlet Jiji (via Polygon). While the court handed out a 2.5-year prison sentence, Jiji reports that it was suspended by four years.That means Naka shouldn't wind up behind bars anytime soon, as judges typically waive the prison sentence if the defendant doesn't commit any additional crimes during that period of time. Naka was arrested twice last year for his involvement in two separate insider trading incidents, both of which took place in 2020 when Naka was working at Square Enix.Naka joined Square Enix to work on... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6CSSY)
Pass issuers will need to enable the feature, though, so not every pass will be supported. | Illustration: The Verge Google Wallet is set to get a new pass sharing feature that some users have been asking for since the days of its predecessor, Google Pay.9to5Google spotted that the search giant mentioned adding a way to share your valuables in Google Wallet" in the Google Play system update list of features for Android devices for July. That rather vague entry has since vanished from the update list, but the Google Wallet support page can provide some additional information.A new entry at the bottom of the support page now says that users can share some passes" from their own Wallet with other Google Wallet users. We are working on a feature that will allow Wallet users to share select passes," Google spokesperson Leismer Schulten also confirmed... Continue reading...
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by Jay Peters on (#6CSSZ)
Illustration: The Verge Instagram's new Threads app is not going to do anything to encourage" politics and hard news," Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said in a Threads conversation with The Verge's Alex Heath.The additional scrutiny, negativity, and integrity risks that come with politics and hard news aren't worth the incremental engagement or revenue," Mosseri wrote. There are more than enough amazing communities - sports, music, fashion, beauty, entertainment, etc. - to make a vibrant platform without needing to get into politics or hard news." (Mosseri's strong point of view here is likely informed by his time running Facebook's News Feed.)In recent years, Meta has distanced itself from news and politics, including reducing the amount of political... Continue reading...
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6CSQ0)
Image: Mercedes-Benz AG Mercedes-Benz is the latest automaker to commit to adopting Tesla's electric vehicle charging connectors for its vehicles, bringing Elon Musk's company one step closer to total EV charging dominance.Starting in 2024, the German automaker will offer adapters to its customers so they can access Tesla Supercharger stations, which use the company's North American Charging Standard (NACS) plug and outlet. And in 2025, Mercedes will begin to manufacture EVs with Tesla's charging port, obviating the need for an adapter.The company joins Ford, GM, Volvo, Polestar, and Rivian in adopting Tesla's connector, which is rapidly becoming the de facto charging standard in North America and Europe. Mercedes is also the first German automaker to jump... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6CSQ1)
Jimmy Olsen, Superman, and Lois Lane. | Image: Adult Swim Adult Swim's My Adventures with Superman reimagines the Man of Steel as the charming, bumbling heart of a classic but modern shonen trio. Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CQWE)
Image: Meta The latest app taking on Twitter is getting a boost from Instagram's billions of users. Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CSKQ)
Illustration: The Verge While Google Calendar already lets you set your working location for certain days of the week, you can now specify which times you'll be working from home or in the office. The new update should make it easier for your colleagues to figure out where you'll be if you swap between locations during the day.Once you have access to the feature, you can set your working location by selecting Create from the main Calendar page and clicking Working Locations. From there, you can select a date and specify your whereabouts during different timeframes. Image: Google As an example, you could set your working location to Home" from 9AM to 12PM and to Office" from 1PM to 5PM. That way, your colleagues can work around your... Continue reading...
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by Jay Peters on (#6CS42)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Many communities on Reddit have used the NSFW (Not Safe For Work) designation in some form to protest Reddit's new API pricing, which forced apps like Apollo and rif is fun for Reddit to shut down, as well as a recent pattern of behavior toward its unpaid volunteer moderators that they find threatening." Subreddits, including r/PICS and r/military, had made the NSFW switch, pointing to language from Reddit websites to justify the change.The moderators of the r/military community said they switched their label to NSFW because military content has a chance to be violent content" and argued that this subreddit should have been NSFW already, but we'd never thought to change it until recently," according to a public post on Thursday.M... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CSKR)
Screenshot by Emma Roth / The Verge Some of the ads on Twitter aren't looking quite right. Several users on the platform's mobile app say they're seeing an image of Twitter's logo in place of the advertisement paid for by Amazon, Sky, and the sportswear company On Running.The ads affected by this issue show the advertiser's name, along with what looks like the intended caption. However, instead of linking to the advertiser's website, the busted ads link to Twitter.com and have DPA_Placeholder" as the heading for the link. In advertising, DPA stands for dynamic product ads," which suggests there might be an issue affecting Twitter's ability to display the right ads.
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by Masha Borak on (#6CSGS)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The messaging app has become a key channel for news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But the government's relationship with it is complicated. Continue reading...
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by Elizabeth Lopatto on (#6CSGT)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge I've read a lot of recommendations over the years from so-called travel pros who tell you to take a carry-on. There are reasons to recommend carry-ons! For instance, most airlines don't charge for them. But also, a carry-on bag is for the poor shlubs who are coming up with a packing plan" and using packing cubes." The people who suggest you get an Airbnb so you can do laundry. They're repackaging their shampoo and conditioner and lecturing you about editing" your wardrobe. They're explaining that you should roll your clothes, not fold them, to save space. How virtuous! How boring.Check a bag, you glamorous beast.Ideologically, I am strongly against doing laundry in my hotel sinkOn my last trip, which was a two-week jaunt to five... Continue reading...
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