The Verge

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos via Getty Images The Supreme Court could stall action on climate change yet again as it weighs whether to pause new pollution regulations for coal-fired power plants.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized rules this year aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions from coal plants. But red states and industry groups are challenging the EPA in court and have asked SCOTUS to step in and stop the rules from being implemented while they duke it out.The request is now in the Supreme Court's so-called shadow docket" - meaning SCOTUS can essentially issue a stay on the rules at its whim. The court has already made it way tougher for federal agencies to regulate industry since Donald Trump packed it with conservative-leaning justices. This is... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge An appeals court revived a lawsuit against the anonymous messaging service Yolo, which allegedly broke a promise to unmask bullies on the app. In a ruling issued Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shouldn't block a claim that Yolo misrepresented its terms of service, overruling a lower court decision. But it determined the app can't be held liable for alleged design defects that allowed harassment, letting a different part of that earlier ruling stand.Yolo was a Snapchat-integrated app that let users send anonymous messages, but in 2021, it was hit with a lawsuit after a teenage user died by suicide. The boy, Carson Bride, had received harassing and sexually explicit messages... Continue reading...

Two of Microsoft's Copilot Plus PCs. (Left: the Surface Pro; right: the Surface Laptop.) | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Before the beginning of summer, it was a little easier to shop for a basic productivity laptop. You could choose from a single version of Windows (x86), an Apple macOS device, or a Chromebook. Sure, there were still a lot of options from multiple laptop manufacturers, but if you knew what brand or operating system you wanted, especially if you were limited by a budget, it probably wouldn't have taken too long to narrow down your choices, especially if you had specific preferences. (I know I do.)But then Copilot Plus PCs arrived. Now there was a new type of less expensive productivity machine occupying shelf space between lower-end old-school Windows laptops and Chromebooks. If you thought you had already narrowed down your choices,... Continue reading...

RIP La Jolla. | Photo by David Pierce / The Verge Meta is calling it quits on making a high-end mixed reality headset to compete with the Apple Vision Pro, The Information reports. This is despite recent news that the headset, codenamed La Jolla, would arrive sometime in 2027.According to The Information, Meta had already started developing the La Jolla headset in November but told employees to stop working on the device this past week. The decision was due in part to the fact that the La Jolla headset would've used pricey MicroOLED displays.The move suggests that Meta as a whole may be souring on the idea of premium VR. Purportedly, the goal was to keep the cost of the headset under $1,000, which was looking increasingly difficult given how expensive MicroOLED can be to produce.... Continue reading...

Image: Game Science A perfectly fine action game has become saddled with a lot of baggage. Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images A Kansas man was sentenced to 24 years in prison after pouring $47.1 million into a pig butchering scam - using money from the bank he was in charge of. Shan Hanes, the former CEO of the small Heartland Tri-State Bank, pleaded guilty to embezzlement after routing the funds to scammers' crypto accounts, causing the bank to collapse.As reported by NBC News, Hanes fell for a pig butchering scam that had him purchasing crypto to unlock the supposed returns on his investments," which he never received.In recent years, pig butchering scams have become increasingly common, with a recent study showing victims lost over $75 billion to the ruse globally. Google even sued two alleged scammers earlier this year over accusations they uploaded... Continue reading...

Image: Amazon MGM Studios Zoe Kravitz's directorial debut has Get Out aspirations, but it lands somewhere closer to Don't Worry Darling. Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by STR / NurPhoto, Getty Images Elon Musk sent an email to X staff overnight about their much-anticipated stock grants - but there's a catch.In an email to staff viewed by The Verge, the company is planning to award stock options based on the anticipated impact of employees. That means staff have to submit a one-page summary telling leadership their contributions to the company in order to get their stock.These long-awaited stock grants add to the tensions between X leadership and staff after the promotions process was recently delayed without explanation, we previously reported. Given how the company formerly called Twitter has continued to struggle under Elon Musk's ownership, employees have been bracing for more layoffs.What's more, a source at X told The Verge... Continue reading...

There's now another reason to buy a Starlink kit from an authorized reseller. | Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge In an effort to stop resellers from buying dishes in one region - where the hardware is cheaper - and selling them in another, Starlink is imposing a new outside region fee" for its satellite internet kits activated outside of the region they were originally sold in."Starlink has designated these six specific regions as the US and Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania. The company only says it is possible" the fee will be applied to activations - not a guarantee - but it's steep enough to be a discouragement.For the Standard and Standard Actuated kits, the fee is $200, but for the Starlink Mini, it's $300. That's in US currency, but Starlink also warns the fee may be applied in USD or local currency," which could... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge If your Mac suddenly refuses to boot up properly, it can be frustrating - but you don't have to immediately head to an Apple Store. There are a number of simple tricks you can try to get everything up and running again. I'll take you through them here.First, I'll cover what to do if your computer starts but you only get a blank screen. Later, I'll talk about some possible actions to take if you see a symbol on the screen or if the Mac doesn't start at all.(Problems like this are a reminder to keep everything backed up on macOS at all times. You'll be thankful for it if you eventually need to replace your system drive or your entire computer.)Your computer starts but shows a blank screenTry a restartIf your Mac is showing signs of... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Google got a lot of things right with the Pixel 9 lineup. The hardware is lovely, the chip is fast, even the huge camera bump kind of has a way about it, you know? It's a worthy Android flagship in every way. It also - and not to be dramatic here - feels a bit like a harbinger of doom.The Pixel 9's AI photography features, particularly the Reimagine" tool that allows you to change your photos with just a prompt, appears to be a big and worrisome step toward a world in which we won't be able to trust photos of practically any sort. These aren't the AI-generated photos with too many fingers and plenty of other tells; these just look like photos. They are photos! But they're not real. And we're not ready for what that means.On this... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge An appeals court has revived the District of Columbia's antitrust case against Amazon, which the District claims illegally drives up prices on rival platforms. In a decision on Thursday, the DC Court of Appeals ruled that the District's allegations plausibly suggest" that Amazon already has monopoly power over online marketplaces or is close to achieving it.Former DC Attorney General Karl Racine filed the antitrust lawsuit against Amazon in 2021, but it was tossed out in court in 2022. The lawsuit alleges Amazon engages in anticompetitive behavior by restricting third-party sellers from offering products on other online stores, including their own websites, for less than they charge on Amazon - effectively controlling the price of... Continue reading...

Image: Google Google is making a new desktop app called Essentials that packages a few Google services, like Messages and Photos, and includes links to download many others. The app will be included with many new Windows laptops, with the first ones coming from HP.The Essentials app lets you discover and install many of our best Google services," according to Google's announcement, and lets you browse Google Photos as well as send and receive Google Messages in the app. A full list of apps has not yet been announced, but Google's announcement art showcases icons including Google Sheets, Google Drive, Nearby Share, and Google One (a two-month free trial is offered through Essentials for new subscribers).HP will start including Google Essentials... Continue reading...

In May 2024, around 200 employees at Google DeepMind (representing roughly 5 percent of the division) signed a letter urging the company to end its contracts with military organizations, expressing concerns that its AI technology was being used for warfare, Time magazine reported.The letter states that employee concerns aren't about the geopolitics of any particular conflict," but it does link out to Time's reporting on Google's defense contract with the Israeli military, known as Project Nimbus. The letter also points to reports that the Israeli military uses AI for mass surveillance and to select targets in its bombing campaign in Gaza, with Israeli weapon firms mandated by the government to purchase cloud services from Google and... Continue reading...

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Former President Donald Trump is launching a cryptocurrency platform, he announced on Thursday in a post on Truth Social. Trump's post included few other details, but he and his sons have suggested it will target unbanked and underserved communities.For too long, the average American has been squeezed by the big banks and financial elites," the post reads. It's time we take a stand-together. #BeDefiant." The name of the platform, The DeFiant Ones, is a play on decentralized finance."Trump's Truth Social post links to a Telegram channel for the as-of-yet unreleased platform, which has posts dating back to August 15th calling it the only official Telegram channel for the Trump DeFi project." There are no details about what the... Continue reading...

Instead of carrying a bag full of lenses, the new Samyang Remaster Slim lets you only carry alternate optical elements. | Image: Samyang In an attempt to lighten camera bags, Samyang has created a prime lens that allows photographers to change the focal length by swapping out just the optical elements inside it, instead of having to change lenses completely.The simpler design of prime lenses in general - which offer no zoom capabilities - can deliver several advantages, including sharper images and a shallower depth of field. The tradeoff is that photographers have to move closer or further away when framing subjects or swap between several prime lenses with different focal lengths. That approach can get expensive and heavy - problems that Samyang's Remaster Slim autofocus lens, measuring just 0.8 inches thick, may solve.The optical elements in the Remaster Slim sit in... Continue reading...

Photo: Antonio Cascio / Bloomberg via Getty Images The body of billionaire tech mogul Mike Lynch was recovered off the coast of Sicily, the Italian Coast Guard announced on Thursday. Lynch's 184-foot superyacht, the Bayesian, sunk on August 19th, reportedly after being hit by a tornado over the water, called a waterspout. The yacht sank quickly, according to reports, even though its manufacturer claimed it was unsinkable.Lynch was on the yacht with family and friends celebrating his acquittal on fraud charges in June. HP, which bought Lynch's company, Autonomy, for $11 billion in 2011, had alleged accounting improprieties" that misrepresented Autonomy's value. In an interview with the BBC - the only broadcast interview before the yacht sank - Lynch said his wealth helped him deal with... Continue reading...

Image: Cruise The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is closing an investigation from 2022 into the GM-owned robotaxi company. The agency was looking into Cruise vehicles that stopped unexpectedly, including three times where they were struck from behind.From the report (included in full below):

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The US government has charged a member of a Russian ransomware group known as Karakurt, as reported earlier by BleepingComputer. In a press release on Tuesday, the Department of Justice claims 33-year-old Deniss Zolotarjovs of Moscow, Russia, conspired to commit money laundering, wire fraud, and extortion.As outlined in the criminal complaint, the FBI alleges Karakurt stole and threatened to auction sensitive data from several companies throughout the US. The complaint pins Zolotarjovs as the hacking group's negotiator of cold case extortions," in which victims don't respond with a ransom following an attack, according to BleepingComputer.Karakurt, which has been linked to the prolific Russian ransomware group Conti, carried out a... Continue reading...

At least you get a discount on Peloton merch, too? | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Thinking of buying a secondhand Peloton machine? Well, US and Canadian customers who do will now have to pay a one-time $95 (or $125 CAD) used equipment activation fee."Peloton made the announcement in its Q4 2024 shareholder letter. The fee doesn't apply to refurbished models you buy directly from Peloton or its third-party distribution partners. The company clarified in an earnings call that this fee will be applied to folks who buy a Peloton machine directly from a previous owner.The official reason why is so that new members receive the same high-quality onboarding experience Peloton is known for." That may be true, but the fee is also a way for Peloton to get a cut of secondary hardware sales. In today's earnings call, the... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google's new deal with California lawmakers will pay newsrooms across the state up to $250 million over the next five years, while also helping the tech giant avoid an even bigger bill. The first-in-the-nation agreement, funded by taxpayers, Google, and potentially other private sources, allows the search giant to evade a proposed state bill that would force it to pay for linking Californians to news articles.The money will be split between two initiatives administered by the News Transformation Fund at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. According to Politico, $180 million is set for distribution to Californian news outlets (excluding broadcasters), while the remaining $70 million is earmarked for artificial intelligence... Continue reading...

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...