The Verge

With iOS 18, Apple Home users will finally be able to insist the smart home platform use their hardwired Apple TVs as the primary Home hub. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge While Apple barely mentioned its smart home platform during its WWDC 2024 keynote this week, Apple Home users can still rejoice over an update discovered in the first iOS 18 beta: they're getting the option to choose a Preferred Home Hub." This fixes the problem of your smart home deciding" to run over Wi-Fi through a HomePod when there's a perfectly good Apple TV using ethernet sitting right there.Eagle-eyed Redditors on the HomeKit subreddit spotted that, in the iOS 18 beta, there's a new option to select your preferred Home hub instead of relying on Apple's automatic selection, the current choice.HomeKit users took to the thread to express their joy at this move, saying, among other things, that This is the most important... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images I generally find Elon Musk useful, in that he makes it clear which things in America are actually hard boundaries (contract law, maybe copyright law) and which are merely conventions (most everything else). You can take ketamine, smoke weed, ask your subordinates to have your babies, and run your companies like your own personal fiefdom; if you are wealthy and powerful enough, no one can stop you.Musk is entwined with his companies in a particularly unusual way. In the case of Tesla, he is probably responsible for its survival in a dicey period following the 2008 financial crisis. His involvement and fame have allowed Tesla to save significant money on advertising. For this service, Tesla shareholders voted him a massive pay package in... Continue reading...

Image: Ice Universe We already have a sense of potential specs for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, but now we might have a closer look at the foldable's design, too. Images shared by reliable leaker Ice Universe show a prototype of the Z Fold 6 with sharper edges and a slight change to its camera design, as reported earlier by 9to5Google.The look of the dummy model tracks with the leaked marketing materials and renders we've seen so far, which show off a similarly boxy design and black rings around each rear camera sensor instead of silver. You can see how the Galaxy Z Fold 6 may compare to the Galaxy Z Fold 5 in the below image from Ice Universe. Image: Ice Universe The Galaxy Z Fold 5 (left) next to a potential prototype of the... Continue reading...

Air conditioners in windows during a heat wave in New York, US, on Thursday, July 27, 2023. | Photo: Getty Images Household electricity bills could climb with rising temperatures this summer in the US, according to an analysis by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).Americans' monthly electricity bills will likely average $173 between June through August, compared to $168 last summer, the EIA predicts. The slight bump in costs comes from consumers cranking up their air conditioning more to cope with a warmer season than last year. Bills would have jumped higher, if not for lower residential electricity prices helping to balance out some of the increased energy use from air conditioning.Some regions are likely to be harder hit by the weather than others. Because of heat and humidity along the Gulf Coast, residents in Southern states... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge It's been a rocky couple of months for Sonos - so much so that CEO Patrick Spence now has a canned autoreply for customers emailing him to vent about the redesigned app. But as the company works to right the ship, restore trust, and get the new Sonos Ace headphones off to a strong start, it finds itself in the middle of yet another controversy.As highlighted by repair technician and consumer privacy advocate Louis Rossmann, Sonos has made a significant change to its privacy policy, at least in the United States, with the removal of one key line. The updated policy no longer contains a sentence that previously said, Sonos does not and will not sell personal information about our customers." That pledge is still present in other... Continue reading...

Photo by David Madison / Getty Images The Stanford Internet Observatory, a small but prominent research group studying abuse on social media platforms, looks to be in crisis, according to a report by Platformer.Some key staff have departed recently, including founding director Alex Stamos and research director Renee DiResta, Platformer reports. A handful of staff have left recently after not having their contracts renewed, and other members have been told to look for other jobs. Platformer describes the turmoil as a dismantling" of the research group.Stanford Internet Observatory research centers on some of the most pressing types of abuse online, including threats to democracy and elections, artificial intelligence, and child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The group's... Continue reading...

Disney's new Beat the Clock" ad format will let you play golf with your remote. | Image: Disney Disney is sprinkling a new kind of playable ad across Hulu and ESPN. The new ad format, called advergames," will let you interact with the ads using your remote, as reported earlier by Adweek.You might see two different advergames to start: Quiz Show and Beat the Clock. While Quiz Show presents a series of trivia questions, Beat the Clock challenges viewers to land golf balls into specific targets using their remote. Of course, they're branded experiences, as the Beat the Clock ad features branding for Topgolf, and the Quiz Show game will prominently display an ad for a company while you play. Image: BrightLine Quiz Show replaces your traditional ad break with a sponsored trivia game. The pitch for this... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge So, Apple reportedly isn't paying OpenAI to handle its users' ChatGPT queries, and OpenAI isn't paying Apple for its massive distribution. (A billion pockets, y'all!) If that's the case, what do these two companies get out of their blockbuster partnership for all things iOS and AI? And can OpenAI and Apple actually afford to do this, economically and reputationally? It's a strange pairing, but it's coming to a device near you this fall.On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk about Bloomberg's reporting on the business deal behind Apple Intelligence before rolling through some of Apple's new features that didn't get much (or any) stage time at WWDC. It's pretty clear Apple is hoping AI will convince you to buy a new iPhone, but it's... Continue reading...

Apple's Siri voice assistant has a new look and a new brain. | Image: Apple Voice assistants hold so much promise, but in the decade-plus since Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa first wormed their ways into our lives, their most compelling use is still setting timers. Competition from Google's Assistant (and if we're being charitable, Samsung's Bixby) failed to light the spark of innovation in this space, and in many ways, voice control has regressed. These assistants regularly misunderstand, mishear, and sometimes just don't listen at all. They're a far cry from the proactive, actually smart digital assistants they were originally pitched as.Enter generative AI: the technology voice assistants need to transform them from novel to necessary. This week at its Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced plans... Continue reading...

Picsart's AI image generator will be available some time later this year. | Image: Picsart Image and video-editing platform Picsart has teamed up with Getty Images to launch a responsible, commercially-safe" AI image generator that's trained exclusively on the stock image platform's licensed content.Picsart says its AI lab is building a custom model from scratch that will power the tool, allowing the platform's paid subscribers to generate images with full commercial rights - which aims to address long-standing concerns regarding AI-generated potentially content violating copyright laws. The Picsart / Getty Images generator tool is expected to launch later this year," and will be accessible through Picsart's API services.This collaborative project shares similarities with Adobe's Firefly AI model, which initially launched... Continue reading...

Why read the article when you can just AI-generate takeaways? | Image: Yahoo Artifact is dead, long live Yahoo's version of Artifact. The architecture behind Artifact, the news aggregation app built by Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, will live on inside the body of a brand-new Yahoo News app.Available to download today on iOS and Android, the new Yahoo News app brings an AI-powered personalized news feed for users based on their interests, while a feature called Key Takeaways can give a bullet summary of a news article when a reader is feeling TL;DR.Other features of the Yahoo News app include Top Stories, which picks up on trending stories for users to read and will soon include key takeaway summaries. You can block stories with undesired keywords as well as filter out certain publishers... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is planning to launch its new Copilot Plus PCs next week without its controversial Recall feature that screenshots everything you do on these new laptops. The software maker is holding back Recall so it can test it with the Windows Insider program, after originally promising to ship Recall as an opt-in feature with additional security improvements.We are adjusting the release model for Recall to leverage the expertise of the Windows Insider community to ensure the experience meets our high standards for quality and security," says Microsoft in an updated blog post. When Recall (preview) becomes available in the Windows Insider Program, we will publish a blog post with details on how to get the preview."This means that... Continue reading...

Photo: NSA OpenAI has appointed Paul M. Nakasone, a retired general of the US Army and a former head of the National Security Agency (NSA), to its board of directors, the company announced on Thursday.Nakasone, who was nominated to lead the NSA by former President Donald Trump, directed the agency from 2018 until February of this year. Before Nakasone left the NSA, he wrote an op-ed supporting the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the surveillance program that was ultimately reauthorized by Congress in April.OpenAI says Nakasone will join its Safety and Security Committee, which was announced in May and is led by CEO Sam Altman, as a first priority." Nakasone will also contribute to OpenAI's efforts to better... Continue reading...

Apple Early photos from Apple TV Plus' upcoming series Sunny left little question about it being a comedy, but the show's new trailer makes it seem like it's also going to be a solid (if goofy) whodunit that leaves you guessing.Set in a semifuturistic modern-day Japan, Sunny follows as Suzie Sakamoto (Rashida Jones) sets out to uncover the truth behind her husband Masa's (Hidetoshi Nishijima) presumed death. Between Masa's plane crashing under mysterious circumstances and the disappearance of his body, life already feels weird for Sunny as she settles into her new identity as a widow. But when a colleague of Masa's shows up at Suzie's door with a bobble-headed domestic robot named Sunny (Joanna Sotomura) as a bereavement gift, things start to... Continue reading...

Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images LinkedIn is rolling out new AI-powered features to help users find jobs, tailor their resumes, and even get advice from AI chatbots. But these new features come at a cost, as they'll be available to Premium subscribers beginning in English worldwide.One tool lets you search for jobs on LinkedIn by typing a prompt in natural language. In a blog post, LinkedIn chief product officer Tomer Cohen gives the example of find me a remote marketing job in Detroit that pays at least $110,000." If the results are good, I could see this being a useful way to seek out potential jobs. GIF: LinkedIn LinkedIn can also review your resume and provide personalized suggestions for improving it for a specific job post. You'll be able to... Continue reading...

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Google has announced on its Pixel Help Community portal that it's extending the Pixel 8's repair program for phones displaying vertical lines and exhibiting flickering. This policy update allows Pixel 8 owners to get this problem fixed under warranty, for up to three years after purchase, if their phone Exhibits a vertical line running from the bottom of the display to the the top or a display flicker."Google isn't promising that every phone with the issue will qualify, though - Google or an authorized repair partner will need to determine that it qualifies for the extension based on the serial number of your phone.The Pixel 8 Pro is not included in this repair extension, though there are user claims out there that it can exhibit... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Tesla shareholders voted today to reapprove Elon Musk's gigantic pay package, after a Delaware court judge voided it earlier this year. Investors also approved a proposal to move the company's legal home from Delaware to Texas and to reappoint two board members: James Murdoch and Kimbal Musk, Elon's brother.The vote was widely seen as a referendum on Musk's leadership during a time of great upheaval for Tesla, which has seen its stock price slide on news of shrinking sales, softening demand, and declining revenue. The company has laid off at least 10 percent of its workforce, its vehicle lineup is aging and in need of a shake-up, and the success of Musk's bet on AI and robotics is far from certain.In spite of all this, Tesla... Continue reading...

Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge New technologies and changes in consumer habits could limit the use of controversial carbon capture to fight climate change, new research shows.Efforts to capture carbon from polluting sources or to filter CO2 out of the air have picked up steam as a way for companies to meet their climate goals. But those strategies are still unproven at a large scale and could come with other unintended consequences. Some environmental advocates also worry that focusing on cleaning up pollution after the fact could lure companies away from transitioning to renewable energy to prevent emissions in the first place.To stop climate change and meet the goals of the Paris agreement, planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions need to reach net zero around... Continue reading...

I suspect GuliKit's gamepad sticks will require soldering, though... this DualSense, for example, has sticks soldered to the board. | Image: iFixit The Nintendo Switch's infamous Joy-Con drift" showed us that we deserve more from joysticks and that one company is only too happy to help. Now, GuliKit is officially bringing its drift-resistant magnetic Hall effect joysticks to a PS5, PS4, Xbox, or Nintendo Switch Pro gamepad near you in the form of upcoming upgrade kits.They'll be available for the Sony DualSense, DualShock 4, Xbox Series gamepad, and Nintendo's own official Switch Pro controller. But surprisingly, GuliKit is no longer bringing it to Sony's modular DualSense Edge like it originally promised and won't offer it for Xbox Elite controllers, either. GuliKit business director Jack He tells me that's because neither Sony nor Microsoft offer working calibration tools for... Continue reading...

You won't have to force a smile with the Qudi Mask 2 strapped to your face. | Screenshot: YouTube The Qudi Mask 2 could let privacy seekers who still want to be social have their cake and eat it, too. It's a wearable digital avatar that hides a user's real face behind an LED display and can automatically trigger a handful of emotive - but somehow also emotionally empty - expressions using head tracking and a mic.LED face masks aren't a new idea - you've probably seen teenagers running around with them on Halloween - but the Qudi Mask 2 does more than just cycle through a preloaded collection of pixelated faces and colorful animations. Its faces can automatically change their expressions by reacting to what the wearer is doing. The sound of their voice will cause the animated mouth to move in real time so it appears like it's... Continue reading...

Breaking streaks no longer has to be something you worry about. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge When I had covid, I was miserable, hacking up my lungs and confined to bed for several days with horrible brain fog. I don't remember much from that time. I do, however, remember waking up bleary-eyed and feverish to an Apple Watch notification. It said I hadn't made much progress on my rings. I should take a brisk 27-minute walk. You can still do it," it said. No, I could not.It wasn't my fault I'd gotten sick, but my 85-day streak was broken anyway. Since then, I've had nasty shin splints, migraines, and multiple cross-country flights that make it hard to hit exercise goals - all excellent reasons to prioritize rest or build some extra flexibility into my schedule. Despite knowing better, I still felt disappointed whenever I listened... Continue reading...

Now any dealership can sell Ford EVs. | Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge Ford's Model E dealership certification program is getting stripped down to allow all locations access to EV inventory. As reported by CNBC, Ford is revising its strategy of requiring dealerships to invest up to $1.2 million for certification that includes mandatory on-site EV chargers, upgrades, and advanced staff training.In an email to The Verge, Ford Model E COO Marin Gjaja wrote that starting July 1st, the company is expanding EV sales and service to all 2,800 of its US dealers," which replaces the Model E dealership program first introduced in 2022. Gjaja wrote that approximately 1,400 dealerships had enrolled in the old program.The move to dismantle EV certification requirements was rumored to be underway last month in... Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos via Getty Images The Supreme Court maintained access to the abortion pill mifepristone, unanimously refusing to hear a case brought by a number of anti-abortion organizations and doctors over the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval of the pill.The plaintiffs have sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to elective abortion and to FDA's relaxed regulation of mifepristone," Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion issued Thursday. But under Article III of the Constitution, those kinds of objections alone do not establish a justiciable case or controversy in federal court."In 2022 - after the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade - a newly... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Meta is making some improvements to WhatsApp video calls that should make them more useful for conversations with large groups of people.One feature is a speaker spotlight, which automatically highlights the speaker and makes them appear first on-screen, according to a Meta blog post. The company is also improving screen sharing to make it easier to watch videos as a group: if you're screen sharing and showing a video with audio, the audio is now shared as well. Image: WhatsApp Meta's promotional image about its updates to WhatsApp calls. In addition, video calls will also let you have 32 people, no matter what device you're on. That cap had already been in place for video calls on mobile devices, but not when... Continue reading...

Image: HBO Ahead of the premiere of House of the Dragon's second season, HBO has confirmed that the Game of Thrones spinoff will be getting a third season. Naturally, there are no real details on what the new season will entail or when it will start airing on HBO or Max. We'll need to get through season 2 for that kind of info.House of the Dragon premiered in 2022 and is set 200 years before the original Game of Thrones series. It's focused primarily on House Targaryen and stars the likes of Matt Smith and Emma D'Arcy. The second season kicks off on June 16th on both HBO and Max. It's also not the only extension of Game of Thrones in the works: HBO has another spinoff called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: the Hedge Knight in development, though... Continue reading...

Dave Burke presenting at Google I/O 2024. | Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Android's leadership team at Google is losing another key leader. Dave Burke, the VP of engineering for Android, is stepping away" from heading up Android engineering and is shifting into an advisory position while exploring AI / bio projects," he said in an email he posted to LinkedIn.AI has the potential to play a pivotal role in accelerating drug discovery, with wide applicability, including in hard-to-treat pediatric cancers, a topic close to my heart," Burke said. I'm working with Sundar to explore relevant roles at Alphabet." Burke has been on the Android team for 14 years.Burke's departure follows Google's recent move to combine its Android and hardware teams into a new Platforms and Devices" team run by Rick Osterloh. As... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Microsoft delivered the best Xbox showcase I've seen in years over the weekend. Layoffs, studio closures, and Xbox exclusives coming to PS5 had fans worried about the future of the platform, but Sunday's showcase put many of those fears to rest.Xbox chief Phil Spencer kicked off the show with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 - cementing that Xbox is now the home of Call of Duty - before moving on to new reveals and gameplay. Three titles stood out for me personally: Perfect Dark; Fable; and Gears of War: E-Day.Last week, I revealed most of the first-party games that would be part of this showcase, but one I didn't name was Perfect Dark. Reports had suggested it was in rough shape." I hadn't heard about a potential release window, so I wasn't... Continue reading...

We're hoping for a big overhaul on this iconic pair, but they're still the best Beats headphones you can buy. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you're not an audiophile and can't otherwise afford to splurge on a substantial pair of headphones like the AirPods Max or the new Sonos Ace headphones, a pair of Beats can do the job just fine. The brand's headphones consistently sound pretty good and have kept up well with the times under Apple's stewardship. You can consider the Beats Studio Pro the pinnacle of the line right now, and the flagship over-ear pair are nearly matching their all-time low price at around $179.95 ($170 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. That's only $10 more than the all-time low price we saw during Black Friday.At launch, we felt the Beats Studio Pro couldn't quite measure up to the competition in the price arena they played in. In terms of audio... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge TikTok is introducing a new way for musicians on the platform to promote their music - this time through a video series.The series, called Off the Record," is produced by TikTok and features musical artists like Shakira, Charli XCX, and Meghan Trainor. The short clips are similar to series like Song Exploder or The New York Times' Diary of a Song," where artists talk about their inspiration behind songs, the writing and recording process, and more. The videos - some of which have already gone live - are shared by artists over the course of June.TikTok also announced a hub on the app where Off the Record videos live. Users can find the page by searching for #OfftheRecord.Off the Record is part of TikTok's continued efforts to... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge You may see Microsoft's upcoming Recall feature, which screenshots everything you do (and has now become an opt-in feature) as a convenient way to keep an eye on your history or a problematic privacy violation. However, it's not the first time your activity on a Windows computer will have been recorded.As XDA Developers has pointed out, Windows 10 and 11 computers already contain an activity tracker, which was introduced in Windows 10 as part of its Timeline feature. And although Timeline was removed in Windows 11, the tracker apparently was not. Screenshot: Microsoft Activity history may still be enabled in Windows 11, even though Timeline has disappeared. It's a simple matter to see if the tracker is still... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge, Getty Images At WWDC on Monday, Apple revealed Apple Intelligence, a suite of features bringing generative AI tools like rewriting an email draft, summarizing notifications, and creating custom emoji to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Apple spent a significant portion of its keynote explaining how useful the tools will be - and an almost equal portion of time assuring customers how private the new AI system keeps your data.That privacy is possible thanks to a twofold approach to generative AI that Apple started to explain in its keynote and offered more detail on in papers and presentations afterward. They show that Apple Intelligence is built with an on-device philosophy that can do the common AI tasks users want fast, like transcribing calls and... Continue reading...

Apple and Google have already been named designated providers" and will be impacted by the law. | Photo by Beata Zawrzel / NurPhoto via Getty Images Following in the footsteps of the European Union, Japan has now passed a law that will restrict Apple and Google from blocking third-party app stores for Japanese users on their platforms. The legislation is expected to come into force by the end of 2025 and aims to reduce app prices and create a more equitable market by forcing the tech giants to compete with smaller challengers.Dubbed the Act on Promotion of Competition for Specified Smartphone Software, Japan's law shares some similarities with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), enforcing strict rules against designated providers." That includes requiring their platforms to allow third-party app stores, allowing app developers to offer third-party billing services, and making it... Continue reading...

Image: Lego Two years after Lego revealed a buildable model of the Transformers' Optimus Prime that actually transformed, the heroic Autobot leader is finally getting backup with his second-in-command, Bumblebee, debuting as a 950-piece set that transforms into a Volkswagen Beetle - or at least a close facsimile thereof.In recent years, thanks to the run of big-budget Transformers movies, Bumblebee is best known for transforming into a bright yellow Chevrolet Camaro. But in the original '80s toy line and animated series, Bumblebee's alternate vehicle mode was the iconic Volkswagen Beetle. Image: Lego Lego Bumblebee's vehicle mode appears to be a mashup of several different vehicles. As with its Optimus Prime set, Lego is... Continue reading...

Arlo's new security tag can disarm its security system via its video doorbell. | Image: Arlo Last year, smart security company Arlo launched a home security system with several features that rivaled the excellent Google Nest Secure (RIP) - including multifunction sensors and an all-in-one hub / keypad. It then promised an NFC security tag that would let you disarm the system with a tap. This week, it delivered on that promise with the launch of the Arlo Security Tag.The new key fob lets you arm and disarm the system with a tap on the keypad hub inside your home, similar to what was possible with the Nest Secure. But Arlo has also added a handy option to disarm the system by tapping the tag on an Arlo video doorbell before you even enter your house.The NFC-enabled tag is available now for $19.99 for a two-pack and works with... Continue reading...

The Galaxy Watch FE will retail for $199.99 with Bluetooth and $249.99 with LTE. | Image: Samsung The leaks were right. Samsung just announced it's launching a third smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch FE. It's meant to be the company's new entry-level smartwatch, offering a more affordable option compared to its flagship Galaxy Watch models.It makes sense that Samsung's doing this now. The Galaxy Watch series used to be relatively affordable compared to the competition, but in the past two years, Samsung's raised the starting price of its watches by $50 to keep up with inflation. The FE will retail at $199 for the Bluetooth-only version and at $249.99 for the LTE version - which is more in line with what its watches used to cost. This also makes Samsung's smartwatch lineup look a bit more like Apple's, with a budget model, flagship model,... Continue reading...