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Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge An important deadline just passed for the biggest tech platform companies in the world to notify the European Union (EU) that they are gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Seven companies have officially acknowledged they meet the criteria: Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, ByteDance (TikTok), Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp), Microsoft, and Samsung. Companies on the list have a market capitalization of over 75 billion ($82 billion) and own a social platform or app that has at least 45 million monthly users or 10,000 active business users.The statement published by EU commissioner Thierry Breton says it will now check their submissions and designate the gatekeepers for specific platform services by 6 September," and... Continue reading...

Cassian Bilton and Lee Pace in season 2 of Foundation. | Image: Apple It's already been a pretty eventful summer for science fiction fans. Last week saw the finale of Apple's post-apocalyptic series Silo, Strange New Worlds season 2 is keeping Star Trek going through August, and Disney Plus is still in the midst of Secret Invasion, its alien conspiracy offshoot of the MCU. Oh, and there's the return of Black Mirror. On top of all of that, there are also a number of series making their debut in the coming weeks and months - so many, in fact, that you might need a little help plotting out your precious free time. So here's a handy list to make life a little easier.Foundation season 2Apple TV Plus - July 14thApple's attempt at adapting Foundation got off to a slow start, but by the end of season 1 the... Continue reading...

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Euclid space telescope launches on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on July 1, 2023. | Photo by GREGG NEWTON/AFP via Getty Images This weekend saw the launch of the European Space Agency (ESA)'s Euclid mission: a space telescope which aims to uncover the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. The 2.2 ton spacecraft with its 1.2 meter telescope was carried into space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and is now on its way to its orbit around the sun.The mission had originally been slated to launch using a Russian Soyuz rocket from Europe's spaceport in French Guiana, but following Russia's invasion of Ukraine cooperation between ESA and Russia was halted. So instead, the telescope launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, lifting off at 12:11AM ET on Saturday July 1st.The telescope is headed for an orbit called L2, the second Lagrange point, which... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft thinks we're getting a PS5 Slim model later this year that might be priced at $399.99. The software giant is currently waiting a ruling in the FTC v. Microsoft hearing and as part of the case Microsoft has filed documents which reveal it thinks a PS5 Slim is on the way later this year." Here's exactly what Microsoft says:

Image: Epic Games It's summer in Fortnite, which can only mean it's time for ice cream. Epic has kicked off the battle royale's annual summer event, called Summer Escape, which means a handful of changes to the game, including a number of freebies players can unlock. It runs from now until July 18th.The only major gameplay tweak appears to be the addition of ice cream cones, which, as in the past, grant you various abilities when you eat them. The in-game flare guns have also been replaced with ones that shoot fireworks for a festive touch.As per usual, the real meat of the update comes in the form of quests that have some nice unlockables in addition to some useful experience points. New quests will be added every few days during the event, and players... Continue reading...

The Twitter competitor from Meta, Instagram Threads, is expected to launch on July 6th, according to the App Store listing for the app showing a version ready for Apple's iPhone. Sleuths have also spotted what appears to be an early listing on the Google Play Store, which originally showed up over the weekend.Meta has also added a launch date teaser to the Instagram app. Typing threads" into the search box (or a number of other keywords) causes a ticket icon to appear on the search bar. Tap it and a spinning ticket appears to show your Instagram username alongside a local launch time translated from 10AM ET on the 6th. The spinning ticket also includes a QR code that links to threads.net, seemingly the new social media platform's web... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google can't display tweets and pages from Twitter in search results as effectively as it usually does because of changes at Twitter, according to a statement given to The Verge. We're aware that our ability to crawl Twitter.com has been limited, affecting our ability to display tweets and pages from the site in search results," spokesperson Lara Levin said. Websites have control over whether crawlers can access their content."Over the past few days, Twitter has made some major changes to the visibility of tweets on the site. On Friday, it started blocking unregistered users from being able to browse tweets, and on Saturday, it introduced temporary" limits for the number of tweets people can read in a day. Given Levin's statement, it... Continue reading...

Image: Twitter Twitter is officially launching its new" version of TweetDeck to everyone, according to a tweet from Twitter's support account, which is a step that it had to take to help mitigate some of the issues TweetDeck has been experiencing lately. The switch comes with a potentially-heartbreaking catch: TweetDeck is going to become a Verified-only feature in 30 days, the account says, meaning you'll need to pay for a Twitter Blue subscription to be able to use it.This updated version of TweetDeck has been in preview for nearly two years. All users will be forced to switch over to the new version, according to two Twitter employees, and those staffers have also shared some slight clarifications about what's been going on with... Continue reading...

Image: Tidal Music streaming service Tidal is increasing the pricing of its HiFi tier by one dollar from $9.99 to $10.99 a month on August 1st, the company is announcing in emails to subscribers, Billboard reports. Similar price increases appear to be coming for international subscribers as well, according to reports on Reddit, with users in markets like the UK, Germany, Spain, Mexico, and Argentina all saying they've been contacted.Tidal is just the latest music streaming service to have increased its subscription pricing in the past year. Apple Music's monthly price went from $9.99 to $10.99 last October, while Amazon Music followed suit in January.If recent comments by CEO Daniel Ek are to be believed, Spotify might not be far behind. In an... Continue reading...

Photo Illustration by Adrien Fillon/NurPhoto via Getty Images Pornhub is now blocking people in Mississippi and Virginia from visiting its website over laws that would require the service to verify their age. The company says it's blocking users to protest unfair enforcement of these new laws, claiming that sites enforcing the new rules will lose traffic to irresponsible platforms" that don't follow the law, that don't take user safety seriously, and that often don't even moderate content."Traffic dropped by 80 percent for Pornhub after it began enforcing age verification in Louisiana earlier this year, the company writes. After that experience, it decided to start taking its sites offline instead of enforcing an age gate. In May, it blocked access to users in Utah over a similar law. Techdirt... Continue reading...

Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images An era of the internet is ending, and we're watching it happen practically in real time. Twitter has been on a steep and seemingly inexorable decline for, well, years, but especially since Elon Musk bought the company last fall and made a mess of the place. Reddit has spent the last couple of months self-immolating in similar ways, alienating its developers and users and hoping it can survive by sticking its head in the sand until the battle's over. (I thought for a while that Reddit would eventually be the last good place left, but... nope.) TikTok remains ascendent - and looks ever more likely to be banned in some meaningful way. Instagram has turned into an entertainment platform; nobody's on Facebook anymore.You could argue, I... Continue reading...

A still from Insecure season 5. | Image: HBO Some big HBO titles are heading to Netflix - just not the absolute biggest.Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery have reached a deal to start streaming select HBO series on Netflix's platform. All five seasons of Insecure, which ran on HBO between 2016 and 2021, are now available, and others are on the way.Deadline reports that Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Six Feet Under, and Ballers will come to Netflix, too, and True Blood will stream on Netflix outside the US. The shows will all remain available on Max, as well. The list includes some classic HBO series - but notably not the network's big recent titles, like Game of Thrones and Succession, or some of the biggest titles from its past, like The Sopranos or The Wire.The agreement comes... Continue reading...

Image: IFC Films It's always nice when the end of the world can have some levity. Biosphere, from director Mel Eslyn, manages to mash up a post-apocalyptic story with a buddy comedy for a movie about two best pals who just so happen to be the last remaining people on the planet. It's a high concept told at a small scale, with the entirety of the film taking place inside of an apartment-size biosphere home to lifelong friends Billy (Mark Duplass) and Ray (Sterling K. Brown). Their incredible chemistry propels the film forward, but it's a major twist mid-way through that makes this strange, funny, and at times uncomfortable movie worth checking out.We don't know much about what actually happened to end the world. We do know that the movie appears to... Continue reading...

Cowboy makes some subtle changes to create an e-bike that will likely have even broader mainstream appeal. | Image: Cowboy Boutique Belgian electric bicycle maker Cowboy just added a new more upright and comfortable commuter e-bike to its portfolio. The so-called Cruiser takes the grips, wide saddle, and more relaxed riding position of the company's C4ST (step-through) model and adds a top bar and a wider swept-back handlebar. It's the Dutch-style e-bike you buy if you already liked the C4 but disliked its aggressive forward riding position, skinny saddle, and narrow handlebars.I had a chance to test ride the new 19.3kg Cruiser against the original C4 (now renamed Classic) and step-through C4ST (now known as the Cruiser ST) in Amsterdam at one of Cowboy's new retail partners - an initiative that launched in May with independent bike shops across Europe. ... Continue reading...

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Apple may be planning a new display with a custom Apple silicon chip - similar to the A13-powered Studio Display - that would allow it to be gain behavior that's completely independent of the Mac, such as the ability to act as a smart display when not in use, said Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in the subscriber-only version of his Power On newsletter today.Rumors have swirled about Apple's display plans for a little while. For instance, the company may be working on a 27-inch mini-LED display and a follow-up to the pricey Apple Pro Display XDR, with the ability to summon Siri built into the displays themselves, possibly.The new smart display capability sounds a lot like the StandBy feature coming in iOS 17 later this year. StandBy lets... Continue reading...

The Vision Pro almost had a dedicated controller. | Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple's new Vision Pro headset, which is coming later this year, will use hand-tracking and eye-tracking for control, but at one time, Apple considered a finger-worn input device, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in today's Power On newsletter.Gurman said that early in the Vision Pro's development cycle, Apple tested third-party virtual reality controllers from companies like HTC. Later, it looked into the finger-worn device - indeed, in 2015 a smart ring patent from the company emerged, though at the time seemed more intended as a general wearable device, not something specific to a mixed reality headset.Apple Vision Pro first look.In the end, Gurman says, the company decided that using eye-tracking and hand motions to... Continue reading...

Image: Bluesky Bluesky, a decentralized Twitter-like social network, is pausing new signups temporarily" to try and resolve performance issues it's been experiencing after Twitter introduced limits on the amount of tweets you can see in a day. Even though you still need an invite code to be able to join Bluesky, it seems that the influx of new users has been a problem.We will temporarily be pausing Bluesky sign-ups while our team continues to resolve the existing performance issues," Bluesky wrote in a post. We'll keep you updated when invite codes will resume functionality. We're excited to welcome more users to our beta soon!" Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge An image of Bluesky's post. Bluesky's status page... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge On Thursday, various outlets reported on a June Reddit post from user potterharry97 saying that Steam would no longer be publishing games with AI-generated content. Later in the month, another game dev penned a similar post. Valve says that's not quite right.In a statement emailed to The Verge, Valve PR representative Kaci Boyle said the company's goal is not to discourage the use of [AI] on Steam; instead, we're working through how to integrate it into our already-existing review policies." She went on to say that the company's current review process takes into account current copyright law, and that while developers can use these AI technologies in their work... they can not infringe on existing copyrights."Boyle added that Steam... Continue reading...

Bill Gates has done many AMAs. | Photo by Saeed Adyani / Netflix The moderators of Reddit's IAmA community will no longer solicit and coordinate ask me anything (AMA) conversations with celebrities and high-profile individuals, they wrote in a post on Saturday.Reddit's AMAs featuring notable people have become an iconic aspect of the platform, giving regular users the chance to ask questions of people they may otherwise never have a chance to speak with. (Bill Gates has done 11 of them.) The AMAs are usually a fascinating mix of interesting perspective and personal anecdotes, even if the person being featured is usually doing some sort of self-promotion. And sometimes, the entertainment is reading how the AMAs go south.r/IAmA has more than 22 million subscribers, so the subreddit offers a... Continue reading...

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Alessandro Paluzzi, a developer who routinely digs into app code to expose unreleased features, tweeted early this morning that Meta's Twitter clone, Thread, had been released into the Google Play store. It appears as though that was a mistake, however, because the app is nowhere to be found now.Paluzzi included screenshots that showed off some of the UI elements, including the login screen, which lets users sign in with their Instagram accounts, and another screen with a list of their followed accounts from the image and video site, so they can choose who to follow on Threads. Check out the screenshots in this gallery:It's not surprising that Threads looks... a lot like Twitter. From the screenshots, a new post will show character... Continue reading...

The TSA will expand its facial recognition program to over 400 airports. | Image: Getty Images The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will expand its facial recognition program to around 430 US airports over the next several years following what it calls extremely promising" results in its pilot program, according to Fast Company. The agency reportedly said its program yielded 97% effective results across all demographics, including those with dark skin. The program is currently in use in 25 airports.As pointed out in Fast Company's story, a 97% effectiveness rate across more than two million airline passengers per day means that, for over 60,000 of those people, the biometrics won't work properly if it's used in every airport in the country.At the moment, the pilot program is officially voluntary. It uses 1:1... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix / Blizzard / The Verge Even if you've never heard of Ralph Ineson, you've heard Ralph Ineson. Continue reading...

Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. | Image: Lucasfilm / Disney The newest Indiana Jones movie isn't trying to reinvent the classic Lucasfilm formula, but it is trying to make you think about what it really means to obsess about the past. Continue reading...

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge After a month of outrage, protests, and unrest from the community, Reddit has finally flipped the switch to shut down some third-party apps.Apollo, an iOS app that became a rallying point for the recent protests against Reddit's imminent API pricing, no longer loads any content from the platform. When I open it up, all I see is a spinning wheel. Developer Christian Selig confirmed to me that Reddit is the one that turned things off, not him: would have been nice to have been given a time," he says in an email to The Verge.

Photo by Sean Hollister Ever heard the urban legend about how the original Nintendo Game Boy survived a bomb? I have reason to believe that's not true. But until recently, the flagship Nintendo Store at New York City's Rockefeller Center housed an original Game Boy that, it claimed, was damaged in a bombing during Operation Desert Storm.We just confirmed with Nintendo New York that, after many years on display, the Gulf War Game Boy is no longer there. VideoGameArt&Tidbits reported the news; they say a worker told them it was returned to Nintendo's US headquarters in Washington state.It may have been sent back months ago: YouTuber Elliot Coll filmed a trip to the store in February where an off-camera voice says we had to send it back to headquarters for... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Many popular third-party Reddit apps will be shutting down on Friday because of the platform's forthcoming paid API, and fans of the apps are sending them off with heartfelt posts and memes.The Apollo for Reddit subreddit, for example, is filled with posts celebrating the app. So long and thanks for everything," said one post for an Apollo-themed version of the was I a good boy" meme. This morning, someone posted a Dawn of the Final Day" image. Even Carrot Weather seems to be mourning Apollo. Seriously, just scroll through them all.

Illustration: The Verge The Apple Card may soon no longer be backed by Goldman Sachs. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Goldman Sachs is in talks to offload its partnership with Apple to American Express.Apple launched its credit card in partnership with Goldman Sachs in 2019 and, more recently, made its new Pay Later service available to users in March. While Apple's new financial division is handling the lending side of its buy now, pay later service, it's still working with Mastercard and Goldman Sachs to enable the program.But now, sources tell the Journal that Goldman Sachs wants to exit from both of these partnerships and have American Express take its place. According to the Journal, a deal with American Express isn't imminent or... Continue reading...

I repeat, the IARC is not a food safety agency. | Photo by Yui Mok / PA Images via Getty Images Yesterday, Reuters broke the news that the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) will declare aspartame as possibly carcinogenic" next month. However, that doesn't mean you have to raid your pantry and toss any sugar-free foods containing the artificial sweetener.Why? Because this is not the agency that consumers should listen to with regard to food safety. The IARC only assesses the hazard of a given substance, not the risk. For example, there is a hazard of a meteor destroying the Earth or the sun causing skin cancer. But that's not what matters to the average person. What matters is the actual risk of a hazard happening. There are thousands of meteors in space, but only the ones hurtling... Continue reading...

The new sign-in prompt now appears as soon as you try to access Twitter and removes the previously available background preview. | Image: Twitter / The Verge If you currently try to access Twitter without logging in to your user account, you'll be unable to see any of the content that was previously available to the wider public. Instead, you'll meet a Twitter window that asks you to either sign in to the platform or create a new account, effectively blocking you from viewing tweets and user profiles or browsing through threads unless you're a registered Twitter user.Twitter didn't immediately make a public announcement, making it unclear if this was an intentional update or another technical mishap. Later on Friday, however, Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted, claiming in a reply that the change is a Temporary emergency measure," blaming data pillaging" for degrading the service for all... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you're looking for a third-party Reddit app for Android after rif is fun for Reddit (RIF) goes away soon, you're going to have a few options. The developer of Relay for Reddit announced Friday that the app would continue to be available after July 1st, while the developer of Now and Nara for Reddit said those apps will continue on, too.Relay will be moving the app to a subscription model, developer DBrady announced in a Reddit post. Reddit will start charging for its paid API on July 1st, and the potential costs of that are forcing apps like RIF and Apollo for Reddit to shut down. But DBrady seems to have found a way to make the numbers work with subscriptions - something they said they were contemplating earlier this month.Relay... Continue reading...

Image: TCM via Twitter About a week after the Warner Bros. Discovery CEO gutted the leadership team of Turner Classic Movies, a group of famed directors - Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Thomas Anderson - has been brought on board to curate films for the network, as reported earlier by CNBC.TCM is the commercial-free cable channel that runs a library of curated classic films on a 24/7 loop. Since its launch in the '90s, TCM has been regarded as a staple in the film industry, specifically among those dedicated to film preservation and history.That's why Warner Bros. Discovery sparked outrage last week after slashing the TCM team from 90 to about 20, according to The Wrap, and laid off film veteran Pola Changnon, the executive vice president of... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge The world's most valuable company briefly crossed the $3 trillion mark on January 3rd, 2022, and today is the first time its market cap has reached that bar again, as individual AAPL shares showed a price above $192 soon after trading began on Friday.Its share price maintained that level and eventually closed the day at $193.97, making it the first company to end a day with a market cap of over $3 trillion. Four other US companies are worth more than $1 trillion, led by Microsoft at around $2.5 trillion, along with Alphabet (Google), Amazon, and Nvidia. Image: Apple Screenshot of Apple's stock price at the end of the day on June 30th, 2023. In May, CEO Tim Cook reported an all-time high for its installed base... Continue reading...

This is our best look at the Ai Pin yet. | Image: Humane Humane, the buzzy company started by former Apple employees that has been making big promises about an AI-first and post-smartphone future, announced today that its first gadget will be called the Humane Ai Pin. It'll be powered by an advanced Snapdragon platform" in partnership with Qualcomm, and it's coming later this year.That's really all we know so far. Humane continues to be mysterious about how the Ai Pin works, what exactly it will do, and even what it looks like. (Most mysterious of all: why in the world is AI" not capitalized? What is Ai?" Am I supposed to pronounce it like eye?" I am confident this will infuriate The Verge's copy desk and me in equal measure for years to come.)The last we saw of this gadget was at the... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you, too, are so very tired of not knowing which reviews to trust on the internet, we may eventually get some peace of mind. That's because the Federal Trade Commission now wants to penalize companies for engaging in shady review practices. Under the terms of a new rule proposed by the FTC, businesses could face fines for buying fake reviews - to the tune of up to $50,000 for each time a customer sees one.You know those one-line reviews on Amazon listings that don't quite seem legitimate? Like the ones that rate a product five stars and say something incredibly vague, like This is such a great item," without expanding on any specifics? Well, that's just one type of fake feedback that the FTC wants to crack down on.The FTC's... Continue reading...

The Game Boy Mini Camera" by Christopher Graves. Twenty-five years ago this month, the Game Boy Camera arrived in the United States and Europe. Now, a modder has made the chonky 118 x 112-pixel greyscale digital imager fully fit inside a standard Game Boy cartridge. And it's so damn clean. Photo by Christopher Graves Photo by Christopher Graves Christopher Graves is calling their creation the Game Boy Camera Mini, and here's some video of it in action:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge FTC v. Microsoft is over, but who won? Continue reading...

IRL's company logo. | Photo illustration by William Joel/The Verge I have a packed issue this week, starting with the implosion of a once-hot social media startup called IRL. It raised $200 million at over a $1 billion valuation, and now its board is dissolving the company after finding that most of its users were fake. The SEC is investigating. It's a whole mess. I have ex-CEO Abraham Shafi's first public comments on the situation since he was ousted by the board.Also in this issue: a convo with the earliest investor in MosaicML, the AI startup that just sold to Databricks for more than $1 billion; some notes on Google's AR strategy; a scoop about Meta getting into the app distribution game; drug use in Silicon Valley; a Musk-versus-Zuckerberg cage match update; and more...But first: Thanks to Roblox... Continue reading...

Heavy-metal band The Polymetallic Nodules" played to protest against deep-sea mining outside Dutch ministerial buildings in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 8th, 2023. | Photo by Charles M Vella / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images When the island nation of Nauru announced that it would sponsor a deep-sea mining effort for battery materials, the country sent scientists and world leaders into a panic. It meant that companies might soon start harvesting minerals like nickel, cobalt, and copper from the ocean's deepest depths for the first time. Scientists raised the alarm: what havoc would that do to ecosystems that humans are barely starting to understand?The move set a deadline for the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to decide on regulations for deep-sea mining by July 2023. That deadline to craft regulation is nearly here - and the ISA, an international organization established by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is expected to miss... Continue reading...

I got results when trying to improve my athletic performance, but it took time, dedication, and a lot of patience with macro logging. Continue reading...