The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Zoom is changing its name from Zoom Video Communications Inc. to just Zoom Communications Inc. In a post on the company blog, Zoom Communications CEO Eric Yuan writes that Zoom is now an AI-first work platform for human connection" that delivers modern, hybrid work solutions." It's a muddy, if vague, change compared to its 2020 rise when the classic Zoom Meetings product became synonymous with video conferencing and thrived as companies were forced to transition employees to work from home.Now, it no longer wants to be known for video as workers have returned to offices, and bigger, better-resourced competition from Google, Microsoft, and Slack offers video as a feature of the office suites companies already pay for.

Photo by Prince Williams/Wireimage Musically speaking, I'd say Drake lost the tit-for-tat feud this year between himself and Kendrick Lamar, which culminated in Lamar's hit song Not Like Us." But Drake (real name: Aubrey Graham) doesn't seem to want to accept defeat that easily. In a petition filed in New York's state Supreme Court on Monday, Drake is accusing Universal Music Group - the label that's represented him for his entire career and also represents Lamar - and Spotify of shady business practices aimed at making Not Like Us" more of a hit than it already was:

Illustration: The Verge The Google App for iOS can automatically convert some website text into links to Google Search results, as announced in a community post that SERoundtable spotted.Google calls the feature Page Annotations" and says it extracts interesting entities from the webpage and highlights them in line," which can then take you out to Search results when you tap them - inserting links without explicitly asking the user or the site owner first. It seems like a curious move for a company embroiled in antitrust fights over both its search and advertising businesses. Image: Google A screenshot shows what the links, er, Page Annotations" look like. Google has a form for web publishers to opt out of the links. According to... Continue reading...

A gadget with no subscription fee and no terms of service. Nilay's main love language is trolling, and so he sent me this video of Sam Altman talking about note-taking, because he knew it would annoy me.

Home Sports remembers that bowling was the best part of Wii Sports. | Image: Meta A new game called Home Sports is coming to the Meta Quest 3 and 3S on December 11th, and from its aesthetic to its music, this $19.99 title is clearly trying to be the Wii Sports (or Nintendo Switch Sports if you like) for mixed reality. Images: Meta / Nintendo That logo looks very familiar. Like Nintendo's simplistic motion control-based sports series, Home Sports offers several games: hockey, badminton, pickleball, mini-golf, and bowling. It's playable solo and multiplayer, where your Meta avatar represents you in a match. Meta says the game can adapt to your play space, but it also uses the Quest boundaryless mode for those with access to wide-open spaces.A blatant knockoff of Nintendo's Sports series it... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Anthropic has released a new open-source tool to connect AI assistants directly to the information they need to inform their responses or carry out tasks. The new Model Context Protocol (MCP) provides a universal connection to all sorts of data sources, which Anthropic says will improve performance.Earlier this month, OpenAI started testing a new Work with Apps" feature that lets the Mac version of ChatGPT directly connect to certain coding apps. Anthropic's tool, on the other hand, aims to work across all AI systems and data sources.As noted by Alex Albert, Anthropic's head of Claude relations, developers currently have to create custom code for each dataset they want their AI model to draw from. With Anthropic's MCP, Albert says... Continue reading...

GM design rendering of the Cadillac Formula 1 Team concept. | Image: GM General Motors has a deal to join Formula 1 under the Cadillac brand and participate in the FIA Formula One World Championship for the 2026 season, the automaker announced on Monday. Formula 1 says it has accepted in principle and will move GM and Cadillac's application forward to become the 11th team on the grid - making it the first new team to join since 2016.Formula 1 says it's been in talks with GM and its partners at motorsport company TWG Global about the viability of an entry following the commercial assessment and decision" the organization made in January. The announcement mentions that GM will come on as an engine supplier later, and while The Race reports it will join initially as a Ferrari customer, that has not been... Continue reading...

Activists protest against fossil fuels and for climate finance on day 11 at the UNFCCC COP29 climate conference on November 22nd, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. | Photo by Sean Gallup / Getty Images Maybe it was the host of the UN climate summit in Azerbaijan this month calling oil and gas a gift of God." Or the US, the world's biggest oil and gas producer, reelecting a president who says we don't have a global warming problem" just before the conference. Then again, the biggest outcome - or disappointment, depending on how you look at it - was an incremental increase in the amount of climate aid wealthier nations committed to less affluent countries dealing with the consequences of other people's pollution.We have seen the very worst of political opportunism"Any way you look at it, the summit (called the Conference of the Parties, or COP) that fizzed out over the weekend was exasperating, particularly for delegates from parts... Continue reading...

It's no iPhone 13 Mini (pictured above), but maybe the 17 Slim" will capture a bit of the small phone magic anyway. | Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple engineers are wrestling with where to put the SIM card, battery, and thermal materials in the rumored iPhone 17 Slim," according to The Information. Although US iPhones haven't had SIM cards for a couple of years now, they're required to in China, making it a tricky, but necessary hurdle to get over.The 17 Slim's single, center-mounted camera will reportedly be surrounded by a rectangular bump that's made of aluminum instead of glass. It also says the iPhone Plus will leave the lineup, something that's been rumored off and on alongside whispers about this new phone.Other rumors around the 17 Slim (or Air, or whatever Apple names it) include that it will feature a 6.6-inch (or 6.55-inch) display and an aluminum frame. It could... Continue reading...

Photo by Matt Thomas/San Diego Padres/Getty Images Rumble, the video streaming platform that's become the home for right-wing personalities like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and Tim Pool as well as full-throated racists like Nick Fuentes, has a new member joining its ranks: Dr Disrespect. The streamer announced the news via social media and Rumble confirmed it in a press release, stating that the streamer will provide a mix of free and paid content for the platform as well as acting as an advisor and helping to build the Rumble Gaming community."The move to Rumble is the latest development in the Dr Disrespect streaming saga that began four years ago. In 2020, Dr Disrespect, whose real name is Herschel Guy" Beahm, was banned from Twitch with little explanation mere months after... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Threads will now let users decide what feed they want as their default when opening the app. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the news in a post, saying that you'll be able to choose between For You, Following, or any custom feed that you've set up. Zuckerberg's post notes that Threads is testing" this option and will also different feeds more visible" in the app.It took over a year to get here, but Threads is finally doing the obvious thing and allowing people to use the app however they prefer. Hopefully this test expands to all users before long.If you're in the test, here's how to set your default feed: open the Threads app and tap and hold on any feed at the top. From there, choose edit feeds," and that's where you'll... Continue reading...

Photo by Kevin Carter / Getty Images Cars are getting more efficient and less polluting, resulting in better air quality for everyone, according to a new report from the Environmental Protection Agency. But with a new administration coming in that has made climate change and air pollution less of a priority - and drilling for more fossil fuels more of one - it's unclear how sustainable this trend will be.In the US, new model cars are traveling further on less gas, the EPA reports. Real-world fuel economy improved by 1.1 miles per gallon of gasoline to a record high" of 27.1 mpg for model year 2023 vehicles. That's an improvement of 13.1mpg since 1975, when the EPA first began gathering fuel economy data.These gains in fuel economy do not take into account the EPA's... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images Nvidia says its new AI music editor can create sounds never heard before" - like a trumpet that meows. The tool, called Fugatto, is capable of generating music, sounds, and speech using text and audio inputs it's never been trained on.As shown in this video embedded below, this allows Fugatto to put together songs based on wild prompts, like Create a saxophone howling, barking then electronic music with dogs barking."Some other examples shared by the company include the ability to produce unique sound effects based on a description, like Deep, rumbling bass pulses paired with intermittent, high-pitched digital chirps, like the sound of a massive sentient machine waking up."It can even transform the sound of someone's voice,... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge The European Union says Twitter alternative Bluesky violates the EU Digital Services Act rules around information disclosure, reports Reuters. But since Bluesky isn't yet big enough to be considered a very large online platform" under the DSA, the regulator says it can't regulate Bluesky the way it does X or Threads.The Financial Times quotes European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier, who told reporters about the violation during a Monday press briefing:

Photo illustration by The Verge / Photo: GoDaddy Despite everything, websites are still a pretty neat idea - but what if AI builds them? Continue reading...

The Raspberry Pi Pico 2 now comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. | Image: Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi has announced an updated version of the Pico 2 microcontroller board with an onboard Wi-Fi chip. Called the Pico 2 W, it's powered by RP2350 microcontroller, which you can find in all manner of nerdy DIY gadgets and fun devices like the minuscule Thumby Color GBA clone. Best of all, it costs $7, up just two bucks from the $5 Pico 2.The Pico 2 W's Wi-Fi chip adds a 2.4GHz signal using the Wi-Fi 4 (aka 802.11n) standard and brings Bluetooth 5.2 along for the ride. Wi-Fi 4 is an older, low-bandwidth standard that's still used in a lot of smart home products today, from basic sensors to security cameras to smart speakers like the HomePod Mini.The Pico 2 W also features a single USB 1.1 port. Tom's Hardware notes in its... Continue reading...

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images California Governor Gavin Newsom vowed to bring back the state's rebate for new electric vehicle purchases if President-elect Donald Trump follow through on his threat to kill the federal tax credit.During the campaign, Trump vowed to eliminate President Joe Biden's EV mandate" on day one" of his presidency. And now with this transition underway, his advisors have already discussed including a measure to kill the $7,500 tax credit for new EV purchases as part of a broader tax reform package.If Trump succeeds, Newsom says he'll step up and revive the state's recently phased out Clean Vehicle Program, which offered rebates from $1,000 to $7,500 for the purchase or lease of new, eligible zero-emission vehicles, including electric,... Continue reading...

Silverstone's new FLP01 PC case looks like a relic from the late 90s. | Screenshot: X SilverStone's new FLP01 PC case looks it was created in a time when desktop computers had turbo buttons and bragging rights were earned by having a Pentium chip inside. In reality, the retro beige box is launching next year for all your modern PC-building needs, doubling as a stand for a monitor that's probably not a 30-pound CRT.The Japanese company SilverStone has been making PC components and cases since it launched in 2003, and last year, during its 20th anniversary, it shared the first details and images of the FLP01 on X timed to coincide with April Fools' Day.

The Verge Roku is making it easier to find and watch its programming on Google TV without jumping between apps. Users can soon search for content from The Roku Channel - Roku's free streaming app - directly on Google TV, providing quick access to Roku's library of over 80,000 movies and TV shows.New category tabs are coming to the Google TV home screen that will suggest recommended Roku content, alongside the ability to jump back into unfinished TV shows and movies from The Roku Channel. The integration will also bring more than 500 of Roku's FAST (free ad-supported streaming television) channels to the live" tab on Google TV. According to Roku, these channels will include free programming across news, sports, cooking, DIY, music, and more." ... Continue reading...

Kristen Radtke / The Verge Parenthood is abrupt and total.When I went to the hospital, I understood that I'd be sent home with a vulnerable being who would require constant care, but it was impossible to prepare for what that actually felt like.I'd loved being in the maternity ward, a leisurely four nights thanks to a C-section and a few complications, where I was surrounded by perky and competent nurses who took care of me and my baby, checking my bandages and bringing me ice and answering my questions.(I had a lot of questions.)If she doesn't want to eat, is that okay?"What does that raspy noise mean?"Her lower lip keeps quivering, is that okay?"Does she need to keep the hat on all the time?"How often should I change her diaper?"When we were... Continue reading...

The Colorsoft is essentially a Paperwhite with a color screen. It might be worth waiting for a color Kindle Scribe instead. Continue reading...

Gorilla Glass is used in many of the most popular smartphone offerings, such as the Samsung Galaxy S23 (pictured). | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Gorilla Glass producer Corning has proposed several commitments in an attempt to settle an antitrust investigation initiated by the European Union. The bloc launched a probe into Corning on November 6th over concerns the New York-based company used exclusivity contracts to push out rival glass makers from the phone industry, allowing it to dominate the worldwide market for break-resistant Alkali-AS Glass.According to the EU Commission's press release, the remedies proposed by Corning include waiving all exclusivity clauses in its current agreements with phone companies and glass finishers, promising not to use such clauses again in future, and not forcing its customers to buy specific quantities of stock from Corning. Corning also... Continue reading...

Tim Cook and then-President Donald Trump, speaking to the Press in Austin, Texas in 2019. | Photo: Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images Apple CEO Tim Cook managed to forge a personal relationship with Donald Trump during his first Presidential term that other tech firms struggled to replicate. Now, others are trying to follow his template, says a Wall Street Journal report today.Cook used direct appeals to influence Trump's 2017 tax policy and to get him to dial back his 2019 tariffs in ways that benefitted Apple. In exchange, Trump got to look good; as the Journal points out, Cook didn't correct Trump when claimed responsibility for Apple opening an Austin manufacturing plant that had already been around for years and wasn't even owned by Apple.Part of Cook's strategy was keeping things simple, according to the Journal:

Image: Apple Wolfs director Jon Watts told Collider on Friday that he didn't think a sequel to the George Clooney and Brad Pitt movie, which Apple had already greenlit, would be happening. Yesterday, he revealed to Deadline that he had backed out of the project because he no longer trusted [Apple] as a creative partner" after the company made a u-turn on its wide theatrical release.The New York Times reported in August that Apple pulled the theatrical run for Wolfs because it was concerned it was spending too much on films after suffering multiple high-profile box office disappointments. At the same time, its limited-run approach worked out for Doug Liman's The Instigators, which analysts cited by the Times said was the most-watched streaming movie... Continue reading...

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Nintendo recently announced a batch of Black Friday deals, all of which run through November 30th. This includes a steep discount on the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, which drops it to an all-time low of $49.99 ($20 off) at Best Buy, GameStop, and Target. This is one of the more notable Black Friday discounts from Nintendo this year - that is, aside from the current promo on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Nintendo's latest Switch OLED bundle - namely because the Pro Controller rarely goes on sale, even today.Although there are many great third-party gamepads available, the Switch Pro Controller remains the best all-around controller for Nintendo's aging console. It's much more comfortable to use a full-size controller... Continue reading...

There are so many things about the Palma 2 that could be better. But it's still great at what it does. Continue reading...

Image: David Pierce / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 61, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy Hallmark season, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)I missed you all last week - thanks to everyone who told me you missed Installer, too! Warms my heart, and also makes me feel terrible for not being there, but mostly warms my heart. Let's get back at it. This week, I've been reading about venom and deadly car races and hockey phenoms, setting up the new Mac Mini I finally caved and bought, watching The Day of the Jackal (which is spectacular) and Wolfs (which is fine), devouring the Dark Matter and Say Nothing books before I watch the shows, seeing if Google's... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has stopped offering updates to Windows 11 version 24H2 on PCs that have certain Ubisoft games installed, Bleeping Computer reports. The company made the move after complaints that Star Wars Outlaws and games in the Assassin's Creed series were crashing after installing the new Windows update.Microsoft confirmed the compatibility hold" in a status update yesterday evening, and says it's working with Ubisoft to find a fix. In the meantime, the company recommends against installing the Windows 11 24H2 update manually.Here is Microsoft's description of the issue and games affected:

Illustration by Lille Allen / The Verge Elon Musk is, in addition to many other things, now the co-lead of the currently nonexistent Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisory group. Now, before it even gets rolling, he has begun singling out individual government employees he says are emblematic of the government's bloat and posting about them to his hundreds of millions of followers on X.Earlier this week, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal, the X user datahazard" shared a screenshot on X highlighting the role of Ashley Thomas, the Director of Climate Diversification at the US International Development Finance Corporation, saying, I don't think the US Taxpayer should pay for the employment" of that role. Musk reposted it, adding the comment so many... Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos via Getty Images The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments on a case involving funding for a major broadband subsidy program, the Universal Service Fund (USF).SCOTUS granted cert in a pair of cases called Federal Communications Commission v. Consumers' Research, and Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition v. Consumers' Research, which were consolidated for oral arguments. They center around whether Congress inappropriately delegated lawmaking function to the FCC by letting it set contribution rates for telecommunications companies to pay into the nonprofit Universal Service Administration Company, which manages the USF. It also asks whether the FCC delegated too much authority to a private entity by letting USAC manage the subsidy program.The... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge DirecTV has dropped its plans to acquire Dish, the company announced Thursday. The deal would've created a TV service megamerger, but it fell through after Dish bondholders rejected the takeover.In September, DirecTV reached an agreement to acquire Dish, Sling TV, and EchoStar's TV business for just one dollar, while also taking on Dish's $9.75 billion in debt. However, Dish bondholders - or the investors who lend money to a company (and expect to be paid back) - weren't happy about the decision, as the transaction would've cut the value of their holdings by $1.5 billion.While we believed a combination of DIRECTV and DISH would have benefitted all stakeholders, we have terminated the transaction because the proposed Exchange Terms... Continue reading...

The Spectra smartwatch is now available for preorder through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. | Image: Pocuter The Spectra is a new smartwatch designed from the ground up to be hackable and easy to repair. It was created by Pocuter, a company that has spent the last few years honing an expertise in building small electronics like its tiny Pocuter One computer. What makes the Spectra unique is that it's repairable, yet with a design that mirrors the Apple Watch which is much harder to get into.The wearable is now available for preorder through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign with delivery expected as early as July 2025. Early backers can preorder one discounted to around $209, while full pricing is closer to around $272. The Spectra is the company's seventh Kickstarter campaign, but also appears to be one of its most ambitious. Three years... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Sling TV is increasing its monthly subscription prices by $5.99 for all of its plans starting in December. The streaming TV provider said rising costs" are to blame for the price hikes without specifying why - presumably, not all six of those bucks are intended to pay for its arcade" library of interactive games that just added Pac-Man and Trivia Crack.There are two packages: Sling Orange, which includes Disney and ESPN networks, and Sling Blue, which includes Fox and NBC programming that previously cost $40 per month, individually. Now, they will cost $45.99 per month. There's also the combo Sling Orange plus Blue, which offers a mix of both packages for $55 per month - but will go up to $61. Current subscribers will see the price... Continue reading...

Strava is the de facto fitness data middleman. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge A few days ago, Strava upset its users over some restrictive API changes. It might seem odd for one app's users to fume over an API, but at the heart of the matter is the inherent messiness of fitness data.Here's a typical scenario. Say you're all in on Garmin's platform. You use their watches for running and strength training. Then, you pick up a Peloton bike for indoor cycling. Well, Garmin devices aren't compatible with Peloton bikes because the two companies haven't struck a direct deal with one another for data sharing. So, to get your heart rate on the Peloton bike, you buy a chest strap. And then you decide to train for a race, so you sign up for one of those digital coaching platforms - the kind where a personal trainer reviews... Continue reading...

Gemini could spring into action soon. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google released the first Android 16 developer preview earlier this week and keen-eyed observers are already uncovering interesting tidbits, including one that hints about a much more useful future for Google's AI assistant. In Android Authority, Mishaal Rahman writes about a mysterious new API in Android 16 called app functions," which appears to give Gemini Assistant agentic-like abilities to take action in apps. It sounds awfully similar to the upgraded app intents" Apple supports in iOS 18, and it's exactly the kind of thing that could make AI assistants much more useful than they are in their current state.A page on Google's developer site describes an app function as a specific piece of functionality that an app offers to the... Continue reading...