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Photo by Bryan R. Smith / AFP via Getty Images The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is fighting misinformation on top of a major storm cleanup in Florida as Hurricane Milton rapidly intensifies just after Hurricane Helene rocked the state.FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters on a call Tuesday that misinformation around the storms is absolutely the worst I have ever seen," according to Politico. FEMA posted a rumor response page about the hurricane, and though it's not the first time it's taken that kind of approach, Criswell said, I anticipated some of this, but not to the extent that we're seeing."FEMA's rumor response page includes fact-checks to claims made by former President Donald Trump, like that the agency will only provide $750 to disaster... Continue reading...

Photo by Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge General Motors teased some new details about the next-generation Chevy Bolt, which is expected to make its official debut later this year as a model year 2026 vehicle.At an investor event today, GM president Mark Reuss teased the new Bolt during a portion of the event in which the livestream was cut for confidential" reasons so that the company could show images of the still-unannounced vehicle. But Reuss' presentation could still be heard.Last year, GM said it was discontinuing Bolt production but later confirmed that it would resurrect the EV as an Ultium vehicle for 2025. (GM's EV powertrain branding is also not long for this world.) The company is now on the cusp of revealing the next-gen Bolt, and Reuss had some new details to... Continue reading...

Last-gen models are an easy way to snag discounts. | Image: Victoria Song / The Verge There's a new Oura Ring 4 on the block, but if you'd rather snag a deal, the last-gen model is 20 percent off for Prime Day.So long as you don't have new product FOMO, this is an excellent opportunity for bargain hunters. Retailers and companies love discounts on older models right after launching a new one! This is the Horizon model as well, which is normally more expensive than the base Gen 3 due to its fully round shape. Given that Oura comes with a $6 monthly subscription to unlock all the features, getting a discount on hardware can help take some of the sting out. That said, Gen 3 inventory won't last forever.Even if you have FOMO, you won't be missing out on much. I've used the Gen 3 for the past three years and tested a bunch... Continue reading...

Grab this aloe version while it's still in stock. | Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge Google's Pixel 8A is the kind of phone you tell your parents or your hair stylist to buy (hi, Shannon!). The interface is straightforward and clean, it offers a high level of dust and water resistance, and it'll receive regular software updates for the next seven years. That'll give you a lot of peace of mind recommending it to friends and family.The cameras aren't quite as good as what you'd get on the regular Pixel 8 or a newer Pixel 9, but they're reliable and can even tackle some tricky scenarios, like when the northern lights sneak up on you in your own backyard. The 8A also has Qi wireless charging and a smooth-scrolling 120Hz screen - two features that you'll be hard-pressed to find in another phone under $400.Its full price... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service is getting an improved search experience, a new mobile app, colored folders in File Explorer, and much more in the weeks ahead. Starting today, Copilot in OneDrive will now be available to all of Microsoft's commercial customers.Our improved search experience is a game-changer," says Jason Moore, vice president of product for OneDrive. With new filter controls and more detailed results, find the exact file or folder faster and easier-whether it's stored in your OneDrive, a shared library, or a folder from a teammate." Image: Microsoft The improved OneDrive search results. Microsoft says it's giving this OneDrive search experience a major performance boost," with... Continue reading...

If you want to store and play the newest Xbox Series X / S games, a normal hard drive won't do. | Image: Western Digital There's a deluge of games coming to Xbox over the next few months, so you'd better have some extra storage handy. Xbox Series X / S owners only have one real option for newer games: the various expansion cards you can get from Western Digital and Seagate. Thankfully, they're steeply discounted for the October Amazon Prime Day event.Exclusively for Prime members, Western Digital's WD_Black C50 1TB Storage Expansion Card for Xbox is on sale at Amazon for $120.64 (about $37 off), very nearly its lowest price to date. You can also get WD's 512GB card for $65.54 (about $14 off), a few dollars shy of its lowest mark.Seagate expansion cards are on sale, too. They're a bit more expensive, but they also don't require a Prime membership. A... Continue reading...

Though Adult Swim has been very quiet about Juston Gordon-Montgomery's Invincible Fight Girl since sharing a brief tease earlier this summer, the animated series finally has a release date and a snazzy new trailer.Set in a world where seemingly everyone is a self-styled wrestler, Invincible Fight Girl tells the story of Andy (Sydney Mikayla), a young girl who sets out on a mission to become a legendary brawler one match at a time. While Andy's parents want her to become an accountant, she longs for the kind of fame and glory that her retired wrestling champ Aunt P. (Rolonda Watts) enjoyed during her days knocking skulls in front of crowds of roaring fans.Andy's size makes her seem like she might not be all that much of a threat to the... Continue reading...

Michael Regan, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), speaks during an event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, on January 27th, 2023. | Photo: Getty Images The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule today that mandates the replacement of lead pipes in drinking water systems within 10 years. The agency also announced $2.6 billion in funding to upgrade systems and make the changes.Up to 9 million homes across the US still get water that flows through old lead pipes, according to EPA estimates. Lead can get into drinking water when pipes corrode. And as a toxic metal, it can accumulate in the human body over time, which is particularly harmful to children.The announcements today are supposed to accelerate the painfully slow progress that's been made to address the health risks posed by lead exposure - risks that are often magnified in low-income neighborhoods and communities of... Continue reading...

Photo by Alexandra Schuler / picture alliance via Getty Images The New York Times is starting to beta test a new puzzle game called Zorse," as reported by Semafor. The game is a new phrase guessing game where every puzzle is a mash-up of two phrases," NYT spokesperson Jordan Cohen says in a statement to The Verge. As Semafor points out, the Zorse name identifies the offspring of a zebra and another equine," so it seems like the game will focus on wordplay like that.Cohen says Zorse is currently only available in Canada, meaning I can't play it myself. But my Canada-based colleague Andrew Webster gave it a shot and told me about it; the game sounds a bit like Wheel of Fortune with a puzzle-y twist.When you start a Zorse puzzle, you're given a clue and shown a series of blank tiles that, when... Continue reading...

The #M0001 Apple Macintosh prototype is expected to sell at auction for even more than it did in 2019. | Image: Bonhams A rare prototype of the original Apple Macintosh featuring a 5.25-inch disk drive instead of the 3.5-inch drive the personal computer eventually shipped with is headed to auction again as part of Bonhams' upcoming History of Science and Technology collection.The prototype has been nicknamed the Twiggy Macintosh because it features the same 5.25-inch double-sided floppy disk drive originally created for the Apple Lisa, which had been codenamed the Twiggy during its development. Those drives were notoriously unreliable, and since the Macintosh didn't come with any internal storage, a disk drive users could rely on was a critical component.Apple eventually opted to use a new 3.5-inch disk drive design from Sony, and Steve Jobs reportedly... Continue reading...

Image: Roblox Roblox is facing accusations that it lied to investors about the number of people who use the platform. In a report published on Tuesday, the investment firm Hindenburg Research claims Roblox is consistently overstating the amount of people on its platform by 25 percent to 42 percent or more."Roblox, which went public in 2021, reported having 79.5 million daily active users in its most recent earnings report. However, Hindenburg claims Roblox intentionally conflates" actual people with daily users, as that number could also include alt accounts and bots. The research alleges that Roblox can separate alt accounts from single users, even though the company's disclosure says daily active users are not a measure of unique individuals... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge What is a photo? No, like really. What is a photo? What is a photo? What is a photo? What is a photo? When you tap the shutter button on your phone, and it grabs nearly a dozen frames out of a cache that was capturing data well before you pressed anything, then stitches together the best" bits of each one before allowing you to edit everything about all of them, is any of that process you taking a photo? And in a world where AI is good enough to make everything look good, does it even matter? When you ask the question enough times, it becomes the size of the universe - and we've definitely asked the question enough times to get there.On this episode of The Vergecast, we dig into the question again from two different angles. First, we... Continue reading...

The Kindle Paperwhite Kids is an e-reader fit for the whole family, complete with optional parental controls. | Image: Amazon As expected, Amazon is offering some great discounts on its own devices as part of its October Prime Day event - including e-readers like the note-taking Kindle Scribe, which is down to $254.99 ($85 off) at Amazon. However, the Kindle deal that really stands out is on the Kindle Paperwhite Kids. Normally $169.99, right now it's down to just $114.99 ($55 off) at Amazon, which is $5 shy of its best price to date.If you want a Kindle Paperwhite without ads, you'd typically have to pay $169.99 for the privilege. Thankfully, though, the Kindle Paperwhite Kids offers a way around that, making it a great e-reader for the whole family. Despite being marketed for children, the kid-friendly device boasts all the same features we loved in the... Continue reading...

Geoffrey Hinton, called the Godfather of AI," during day Collision 2023 at Enercare Centre in Toronto, Canada. | Photo By Ramsey Cardy / Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images Two scientists credited with laying the foundation of today's powerful machine learning," University of Toronto professor emeritus Geoffrey Hinton and Princeton University professor John Hopfield, were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics today.Their discoveries and inventions laid the groundwork for many of the recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, the Nobel committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. Since the 1980s, their work has enabled the creation of artificial neural networks, computer architecture loosely modeled after the structure of the brain.By mimicking the way our brains make connections, neural networks allow AI tools to essentially learn by example." Developers can train an artificial neural... Continue reading...

Image: Apple While new episodes of Severance won't stream on Apple TV Plus until January, you will be able to own a physical copy of the show's first season in just a few weeks.Unlike Mark Scout (Adam Scott) and his fellow Lumon employees who can never entirely go home, Severance's first season will be making its way to more living rooms after its upcoming Blu-ray release on December 17th. As 9to5 Mac notes, the show is only being released as a Blu-ray at 1080p resolution and won't be coming out in UHD. The release of the Blu-ray (which is available to preorder on Amazon right now) is timed exactly a month ahead of Severance's season 2 return on January 17th, meaning you'll have plenty of time to get caught up before new episodes start dropping. Continue reading...

Just a few taps in Google Photos, and you can AI the crowds away. Skogafoss is a must-see, everyone said, and in a country with as much natural beauty as Iceland, that means it's gonna be some majestic shit. The waterfall didn't disappoint, but even on a chilly weekday in March, the place was mobbed. My photos - and c'mon, you have to take photos - were littered with tourists in puffy coats, all taking their own pictures of the falls. Not exactly the stuff you print and hang on the wall.A couple of months later, I watched a picture of the same waterfall appear onscreen at Google's annual developer conference as the company demonstrated its new AI-powered Magic Editor. In this version, a puffy-coated tourist stood in front of the falls on a gray day. CEO Sundar Pichai talks through the edits happening... Continue reading...

The tabs feature is rolling out now but may take a few weeks to appear. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tabs are being added to Google Docs to make it easier to organize and find information in longer documents. The feature was originally announced in April, and is now gradually rolling out to all Google Workspace users and personal Google accounts, though it may take a few weeks to appear.You can now use tabs to draft and build content in a way that makes it possible for you to find what you're looking for quickly and stay on task," Google announced in its latest Workspace update. Plus, readers can navigate through your document with ease and focus on sections that matter most to them." GIF: Google The new tabs feature makes it easier to jump to specific sections within longer documents instead of creating... Continue reading...

Photo by JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images Samsung, the world's leading memory chip manufacturer, issued a rare apology after saying it expected to post just $6.78 billion in operating profit for the most recent quarter, about $900 million short of analyst expectations.We have caused concerns about our fundamental technological competitiveness and the future of the company due to our performance falling short of the market's expectations," reads the statement attributed to Samsung Vice Chairman Jun Young-hyun. Many people are talking about Samsung's crisis. We, who are leading the business, are responsible for all of this."The so-called crisis" caused the company to instigate a six-day workweek for executives earlier this year. That change came after Samsung posted terrible... Continue reading...

Sleep schedules offer a few ways to automate your sleep routine. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge With iOS 14, Apple introduced the ability to set your sleep schedules in the Health app. The feature itself isn't too complicated. You figure out how many hours you ideally want to get every night, then set a scheduled bedtime and wake time that suits that goal.Of course, you could always just set up a one-time or repeating alarm within the Clock app. The main reason why you'd opt for a sleep schedule instead is that it allows you to set a specific goal and more easily automate a sleep routine. For example, you can automatically launch the Sleep Focus mode at your scheduled bedtime and set up sleep reminders. If you use an Apple Watch or another sleep tracker / sleep app, you can also get notified whenever you meet or exceed your sleep... Continue reading...

Hurricane Milton swirls over the Gulf of Mexico. | Image: NOAA Hurricane Milton strengthened into a Category 5 storm today, becoming one of the most rapidly intensifying storms ever in the history of the Atlantic hurricane season.It's likely within the top three fastest storms on record when it comes to rapid intensification, used to describe tropical cyclones with sustained wind speeds that increase by at least 30 knots (roughly 35 miles per hour) in a 24-hour period. Milton has seen an 80-knot increase in wind speed (more than 92 miles per hour) over 24 hours, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said this morning.This is definitely off the charts"This is almost like three times the threshold that is used. So, yeah, this is definitely off the charts," Karthik Balaguru, a climate scientist at... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A federal judge gave the Federal Trade Commission the green light to pursue antitrust claims against Amazon, a newly unsealed order reveals, though some claims under state laws won't move forward.Amazon filed a motion to dismiss the 2023 lawsuit, which alleges the company illegally maintains a monopoly by punishing sellers who discount products outside of Amazon and effectively requires" them to use its own fulfillment services for coveted positioning on the site. Judge John Chun denied Amazon's attempts to dismiss several federal claims that were based on the FTC Act and the Sherman Act. Chun did deny some claims that Amazon violated state law, the result of state-level attorneys general signing on to the suit. But he gave them a... Continue reading...

Image: Creative Assembly To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the release of Alien: Isolation, the developers at Creative Assembly have announced they're working on a sequel.We have heard your distress calls loud and clear," wrote Al Hope, creative director at Creative Assembly. I'm delighted to confirm, on behalf of the team, that a sequel to Alien: Isolation is in early development."Alien: Isolation released in 2014 to rave reviews, marking it as one of the best video game adaptations from the Alien franchise. It stars Amanda Ripley, daughter of Ellen get away from her, you bitch" Ripley as she attempts to discover what happened to her mother 15 years after the events of the first Alien movie. Part of the reason for the game's success is because it taps... Continue reading...

Getty Images Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will deliver a keynote at CES 2025 in January. The keynote will take place on January 6th at 6:30PM PT / 9:30PM ET, just a day before the Consumer Electronics Show opens its doors in Las Vegas. It comes amid rumors of next-gen Nvidia GPUs appearing early next year.A source familiar with Nvidia's plans told The Verge last month that we might hear more about the RTX 50-series at the Consumer Electronics Show in early 2025. Nvidia is an official guest keynote of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) for this upcoming CES show after the company previously delivered its own special address" stream at CES 2024 earlier this year.While Huang will undoubtedly focus on the AI hardware and software that has propelled... Continue reading...

Marshall's sturdy Emberton II speaker packs a classic design and plenty of sound for $99.99 ($70 off). | Image: Marshall In case you missed the news, Amazon's fall Prime Day event - once again dubbed Prime Big Deal Days - begins tomorrow, October 8th, and runs through October 9th, offering Prime subscribers a chance to save on all sorts of tech ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The two-day deal blitz is still hours away, but in typical fashion, Amazon has already rolled out a selection of early deals and discounts.Admittedly, there aren't that many gadgets on sale yet - at least not in comparison with what we're likely to see once the promo kicks off in earnest later this week - but we've still managed to dig up a few solid deals, particularly for those already embedded in the Amazon ecosystem. These include sizable discounts on the new Echo Spot... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge If you've noticed more engagement bait appearing across your Threads feed, you're not alone. Meta is aware of the issue and looking at how to address it, according to Instagram boss Adam Mosseri. We've seen an increase in engagement-bait on Threads and we're working to get it under control," Mosseri said on Threads in response to comments flagging the issue.Engagement bait on Threads typically covers posts with banal questions or invites for open-ended discussions to encourage other users to interact. Because Threads, like Instagram, pushes users to see an algorithmic feed of posts by default, getting more interactions can snowball a simple post into virality.When asked about comparisons between Threads and X in a recent Decoder... Continue reading...

The Verge / Photo by Bloomberg, Getty Images Geico says it still offers insurance for Tesla's Cybertruck after some customers reported being dropped by their insurance company for the expensive and unconventional electric truck.Several owners have reported difficulties in procuring coverage for their Cybertrucks, fueling speculation that the insurance industry was refusing to write policies for the truck.The speculation reached a fever pitch this weekend when Torque News reported about a specific case of a Cybertruck owner being informed by Geico that his policy was being terminated. Several owners have posted on Reddit and the Cybertruck Owners Club forum reporting dropped coverage from Geico and State Farm.In an email to The Verge, Geico pushed back. Geico has coverage... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A data breach has exposed the names, addresses, social security numbers, and birthdates of more than 237,700 Comcast customers. The breach stems from a security incident at Financial Business and Consumer Solutions (FBCS), a debt collection agency Comcast previously used, according to a filing with the state of Maine on Friday, as reported by BleepingComputer and TechCrunch.FBCS revealed that it had suffered a breach in February, exposing the sensitive information of more than 4.2 million people. FBCS informed Comcast in July that its customer data had been affected, saying an unauthorized party downloaded data from FBCS systems and encrypted some systems as part of a ransomware attack."Breach Information:

Photo illustration by The Verge / Photo: Rabbit Rabbit's large action model is here, sort of - but everyone else is coming fast. Continue reading...

The Apple Pencil Pro is a much easier recommendation at $99. | Photo: David Pierce / The Verge Spending another $129 to get the Apple Pencil Pro after upgrading to the latest iPad Pro and iPad Air devices is a hard pill to swallow. That pill is a little bit smaller now, thankfully. It's currently discounted to $99 ($30 off) at Amazon, Walmart, and Target, the latter available with a free Target Circle membership. That's a new all-time low price.The USB-C Apple Pencil (regularly as low as $69) is the only other official option for drawing on your iPad Pro M4 or iPad Air M2. Paying an extra $30 to gain the Apple Pencil Pro's advantages makes total sense, then. In addition to more effective pressure sensitivity than the second-gen Apple Pencil and the same double-tap gesture, you now get additional gestures. You can use a barrel... Continue reading...

That's a cheap OLED. | Image: Sansui Last week, Sansui debuted a new 4K 120Hz 55-inch OLED TV (S55VOUG) that's available now for between $799 and $899 depending on retailer promotions."The new OLED's list price is the higher of those two amounts, Elitelux and Sansui Senior VP of Marketing Victor Elmann told The Verge in an email. (You can find it at Micro Center for the lower price right now.) The TV seems to have only launched in the US, as What HiFi? notes.Either is quite a launch price, considering that a cheap" OLED is normally priced over $1,000 outside of temporary discounts. Sharp released a Roku TV with similar specs at $1,499.99 last year, and LG's B4 launched at $1,699. Sansui's TV sits more in the budget range of some Mini-LEDs like the 55-inch Hisense U7.S... Continue reading...

Image: ChargeScape Nissan is coming aboard vehicle-to-grid (V2G) EV integration company ChargeScape as an equal investor, alongside founding automakers BMW, Ford, and Honda.Once the investment transaction is complete, Nissan said it plans to roll out ChargeScape's services to its electric vehicle customers in the US and Canada.Formed last year (with operations starting in September), ChargeScape built a software platform that wirelessly talks" to EVs and utility companies, managing home charging and sending energy back to the grid during periods of high energy demand.EV owners who take advantage of ChargeScape's services can theoretically save money by letting the system pause charging and sell stored EV battery energy back to their local utility... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Update October 7th: Target's deal on the WH-1000XM4 is no longer available.Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days sales event begins tomorrow, but the best tech deal around may have already landed early. The Sony WH-1000XM4 noise-canceling headphones have dropped to a new all-time low of $129.99 ($220 off) at Target (be sure to click shipping" on the latter for in-stock availability) - and unlike many of the upcoming Prime Day deals, you don't have to be a Prime subscriber for this one. (The deal was also available at Amazon, but sold out right before publishing. We'll update this post if it comes back in stock there.)The XM4 headphones may have come out back in 2020 and been surpassed by the newer WH-1000XM5 model with a sleeker design, but... Continue reading...

The latest update to the Philips Hue app adds the ability to preview various Hue devices in your home using augmented reality. | Image: Signify A recent update to the Philips Hue app has introduced several new features, including an augmented reality and interactive 3D modeling tool to show you how Hue products will look in your space. The update, spotted by Hueblog, also includes updates like a do not disturb" option for motion sensors.Version 5.27 of the Hue app is coming to iOS, iPadOS, and Android. But the standout AR feature is limited to iPhone Pro and iPad Pro models with a lidar sensor, which Apple introduced on the iPhone 12 Pro in 2020. Found in the app's Explore tab, it lets you test 12 different Philips Hue products, including the Hue Twilight sunrise lamp, the Hue Dymera wall light that shines both up and down, and the Hue Infuse ceiling light.The AR preview... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The iPhone 16 Pro's camera upgrades may be the true highlights of this year's phone. So, for the past three weeks, The Verge supervising producer Vjeran Pavic has been testing out everything the camera has to offer.Apple's new Camera Control button may be the headline feature, but the iPhone 16 is also equipped with a suite of new photo adjustment tools that let you dial in individual aspects of how an image looks. Apple also beefed up the phone's recording capabilities, which can capture 120fps 4K in slow motion while shooting in ProRes in Apple Log.With all of these options, Vjeran aimed to see just how seamless the iPhone 16 Pro could fit into his personal and professional lifestyles, from going to neighborhood skating events and... Continue reading...