The Verge - All Posts

Illustration: The Verge r/TranscribersOfReddit, a Reddit community of volunteers who write transcriptions for media that appears on subreddits like r/ProgrammerHumor and r/technicallythetruth, will be closing down in a matter of days, according to a post from a moderator. The community's final day will be June 30th, 2023.Our role in the Reddit community has always been to point out inadequacies in the platform - namely, the lack of accessibility features such as alt text - and provide a temporary, constructive solution while raising awareness of these problems," wrote Rebekah Ginsburg, who goes by u/halailah on Reddit and is chairwoman of the board of Grafeas Group, the nonprofit that operates the system powering r/TranscribersOfReddit. Users on the subreddit... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix Early in Final Fantasy XVI's marketing cycle, producer Naoki Yoshida was asked about the apparent lack of inclusion of people of color in the game. His answer wasn't great, essentially stating that including people of color would violate the narrative boundaries established by the fantasy world the developers created.Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to follow up with Yoshida about that answer, asking him if he had the opportunity to hear the response to his words and if he had anything to say to the fans of color that he upset with them.I believe that with Final Fantasy XVI, we weave together a variety of peoples and cultures set in this kind of sweeping fantasy narrative and world, and one that we strived to create with care... Continue reading...

Illustrator by Alex Castro / The Verge Satellite internet competitors OneWeb and SpaceX are in the running to reconnect Alaskans after ice damaged a sub-sea fiber-optic cable in the Arctic Ocean, as reported by numerous local outlets. While repairs are expected to take an additional six to eight weeks, satellites could help locals weather the widespread outage.Last week, residents in the rural towns of Utqiavik, Point Hope, Wainwright, Kotzebue, Nome, and other communities found themselves without internet or cellular connectivity when the 1,200-mile fiber cable owned by the Alaska-based broadband company Quintillion suffered a break. Quintillion says the cable broke as a result of an ice scouring event."Our sub-sea system is currently out of service," Quintillion... Continue reading...

Miles Morales going on a trip. | Image: Sony Pictures In the years-long buildup to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse's release, Sony - for understandable reasons - proudly touted how it had hired over 1,000 animators in order to bring the artistically ambitious project to fruition, and all of that intensive human labor definitely shows. According to a number of artists who contributed to the film, however, the working conditions they were made to operate under during the film's production were unsustainable, erratic, and largely the result of producer Phil Lord frequently overriding Across the Spider-Verse's three directors in order to make endless last-minute changes.In a rather damning new report from Vulture, four animators who worked directly on Across the Spider-Verse described the... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Since President Joe Biden took office, the Senate has held four confirmation hearings for two separate nominees to break the ongoing deadlock at the Federal Communications Commission. The latest one was yesterday - and it might get the FCC closer to a full staff, but it's a sad landmark to celebrate.The Senate Commerce Committee held a confirmation hearing for several positions on Thursday, including Biden's latest pick for FCC commissioner, Anna Gomez. (You may remember his previous three-time nominee, Gigi Sohn, dropped out in March.) She's a veteran telecom lawyer who's been working for the government for the better part of her career. Gomez has stayed out of the spotlight, so her opinions on controversial issues like net neutrality... Continue reading...

Photo by Eric Lee / Bloomberg via Getty Images The EPA is assembling its first-ever National Environmental Youth Advisory Council, a group of young people to weigh in on issues that affect their communities.We can't tackle the environmental challenges of our time without input from our younger communities, who've long been at the forefront of social movements," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a press release yesterday.The worst effects of climate change are still ahead as greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels keep building up in Earth's atmosphere. The actions policymakers take today to curb that pollution will decide what kind of planet younger generations will inherit. So it makes sense for the EPA to create seats for them at the table.We can't tackle the... Continue reading...

Several thousand disgruntled SmileDirectClub customers are almost certainly smiling now. | Image: SmileDirectClub SmileDirectClub, a mail-order orthodontic provider that sells cheap teeth aligners online, has agreed to release 17,000 US customers dissatisfied with its service from nondisclosure agreements that prohibited them from leaving negative reviews as part of a settlement with the District of Columbia's attorney general. Announced on Thursday, the settlement requires SmileDirectClub to make changes to the company's refund guarantee policy and inform customers who had signed such NDAs that they were now free to discuss their experiences.A report from The New York Times back in 2020 revealed that SmileDirectClub had asked customers requesting a refund beyond the company's 30-day guarantee policy to sign an NDA promising that they will not... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Day one of the FTC v.Microsofthearing was all about a surprise email,Xboxexclusives, and a costly cloud. Continue reading...

Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Under David Zaslav's leadership, we've seen Warner Bros. Discovery cancel a lot of its programming while also memory holing other chunks of its IP for tax breaks, but now the company is reportedly looking to sell off a sizable portion of its catalog of music from films and television shows.Both Hits and Variety are reporting that Warner Bros. Discovery is hoping to secure about $500 million by selling off the rights to slightly less than half" of its movie and TV music catalog to a record label. Though it hasn't been reported exactly which songs from which shows and films Warner Bros. Discovery is ready to part ways with, Sony is said to be one of the frontrunners who might close on the deal.Given WBD's recent focus on paying down... Continue reading...

The OceanGate Titan submersible underwater. | Image: OceanGate Crews believe the small sub carrying five passengers suffered a catastrophic implosion' on its way to view the wreckage of the HMS Titanic. Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge If you've got an active Google account - or especially if you've got one you haven't used in a while - you've probably got more apps and services hooked up to your account than you realize. There are all those places where you've signed in with Google," all those browser extensions you've given permissions to, all those add-ons that you've installed on top of Gmail and Google Drive, and so on.While it's always a good idea to be selective and cautious in choosing which apps and sites get these privileges, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with using your Google account instead of an email address and password combination or in giving another app that may be useful access to your emails or Google storage (depending on the app, of... Continue reading...

Image: Sony There's no shortage of movies already based on real-life, historical incidents surrounding the Stock Market, but everything in the first trailer for Sony's upcoming Dumb Money film - a biographical comedy-drama covering the events of the GameStop short squeeze - beautifully demonstrates why we have such an appetite for them. Especially when it involves a David vs Goliath-like plot where the little guy" takes on the Wall Street establishment.Directed by Craig Gillespie of I, Tonya (2017) and Cruella (2021), Dumb Money is a dramatized retelling of how a bunch of amateur investors on the r/WallStreetBets subreddit intentionally inflated struggling GameStop's stock to screw over the hedge funds who were shorting it while getting rich at... Continue reading...

Apple Pay uses NFC technology, and it requires you to effectively touch the terminal to make a connection. | Image: The Verge Tap-to-pay services like Apple Pay may soon no longer need the actual tapping part to work. That's because NFC, the technology that enables you to pay at shops by touching your phone to a payment terminal, is getting new capabilities over the next next two to five years, such as a communications range boost, more powerful wireless charging for tiny devices like earbuds, and more (via Android Authority).NFC, which stands for Near Field Communication, is inside thousands of devices today ranging from smartphones to video game-enhancing figurines. Now the body that decides how to standardize the technology, the NFC Forum, is outlining key areas that will move NFC tech forward through 2028. The Forum is comprised of hundreds of companies,... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit appears to be ramping up the pressure on moderators to open communities that closed in the blackout protest against recently announced platform changes. A Reddit admin - an employee of Reddit - has told unpaid volunteer moderators of a subreddit that the expectation here is that communities reopen," according to a message shared publicly by a moderator of r/DIY.The pressure worked. The community was closed, but it reopened on Thursday, and a mod said that fears of Reddit actions forced the team's hand: We're re-opening because if we don't, the mods that Reddit appoint may not care about the subreddit the way we do," the mod wrote.The mod's post also announced a vast number of changes to the subreddit's rules that hew more... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube wants to make it easier to dub your videos in other languages by giving you some help with AI. The company announced Thursday at VidCon that it's bringing over the team from Aloud, an AI-powered dubbing service from Google's Area 120 incubator.Here's how it works, according to Aloud's website. The tool first transcribes your video, giving you a transcription that you can review and edit. Then, it translates and produces the dub. This video has the details.YouTube is already testing the tool with hundreds" of creators, YouTube's Amjad Hanif says in a statement to The Verge. And Hanif says that Aloud currently supports a few" languages, with more to come"; according to spokesperson Jessica Gibby, Aloud is currently... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube now requires users who run fan accounts to make it obvious" in their channel name or handle that they don't actually represent the company or artist that their account revolves around. That's according to an update spotted earlier by 9to5Google, which says the new impersonation policy goes into effect on August 21st, 2023.Previously, YouTube's policies never carved out rules for fan accounts. It simply stated that channels designed to impersonate other channels or specific people aren't allowed on the platform. But now, fan accounts must be clear that they aren't affiliated with whoever their accounts are dedicated to or else risk having their account or channel deleted.Content intended to impersonate a person or channel is... Continue reading...

Image: Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images E3 is dead, and it's not coming back for at least a few more years. According to a report from the Los Angeles City Tourism Commission, E3 won't be back in LA in 2024 or 2025.The news was contained in a footnote on a chart highlighting the city's projected and actual number of hotel rooms booked for fiscal year 2022 and 2023. Apparently, the city does not expect E3 to return in 2024 or 2025. This news seems at odds with the messaging from E3's organizers, ReedPop and the ESA. Earlier this year, the ESA - the trade organization that runs E3 - announced it was partnering with ReedPop, the entertainment company that runs large fan conventions like New York Comic-Con and Penny Arcade Expo, to run E3 2023. After the covid-19... Continue reading...

Image: Apple The Apple Vision Pro may come equipped with settings specifically for plane rides. When digging into the first beta of visionOS, MacRumors found that the device's operating system may have a Travel Mode option that you can use during a flight.Several text strings uncovered by MacRumors indicate that you'll be able to turn on the feature, with one noting, If you're on an airplane, you'll need to keep Travel Mode on to continue using your Apple Vision Pro." It also prompts the user to remain stationary in Travel Mode," likely to avoid wearers flailing around while wearing the headset and disturbing whoever's sitting next to them.Other lines of text in visionOS state that some awareness features will be off," MacRumors notes,... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft was working on a separate version of Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) that wouldn't have been tied to its premium Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription. During the FTC v. Microsoft hearing today, the FTC's counsel revealed that Microsoft had been working on a dedicated xCloud SKU" last year.Xbox would very much like to do it," said Sarah Bond, head of Xbox creator experience, in September 2022 - the same month Google announced its Stadia shutdown. Microsoft has now strangely changed its mind amid regulatory concerns over cloud gaming. So what's changed since September 2022?We've continued to get more data about the success and the popularity of xCloud. We've gotten more clear on the costs related to it, and we have signed... Continue reading...

This September, Code Conference enters a new era with a lineup of the most prestigious names in tech, business, and beyond. Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, will interview Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott and Getty CEO Craig Peters - in two 1:1 conversations, they'll tackle the latest in AI, from innovations and competition to what the immediate and long-term futures for these companies might look like. Roblox CEO David Baszucki will sit down with Alex Heath, deputy editor of The Verge, to discuss the impact of AI in gaming, how it will affect Roblox's creator-backed economy, and more.Kevin Scott | CTO & Executive Vice President of AI, Microsoft Kevin Scott Kevin Scott is EVP of AI, and the CTO of Microsoft.... Continue reading...

Image: OceanGate via Twitter The Titan submersible, which disappeared after setting off to tour the wreckage of the Titanic on Sunday, experienced a catastrophic implosion," US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger announced during a press conference on Thursday afternoon.This morning, an ROV, or remote-operated vehicle from the vessel Horizon Arctic discovered the tail cone of the Titan submersible approximately 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic on the seafloor," Mauger stated. The ROV subsequently found additional debris. In consultation with experts from within the unified command, the debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber."The Titan is a 22-foot long, 20,000-pound submersible owned by OceanGate Expeditions, a Titanic... Continue reading...

Image: Klobrille (Twitter) Bethesda's upcoming Indiana Jones game will be exclusive to Xbox and PC. Pete Hines, Bethesda's head of global publishing, confirmed the exclusivity during the FTC v. Microsoft case today. Indiana Jones will also be available day one on Xbox Game Pass.The game was originally announced in 2021, just months before Microsoft finalized its $7.5 billion deal to acquire ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Doom and Fallout studio Bethesda Softworks. The Indiana Jones game is being developed by MachineGames, the same studio behind the Wolfenstein franchise. It's being created under a new Lucasfilm label, which is part of an increased focus on games from Disney.All we've seen so far is a teaser video and no details on when the Indiana Jones... Continue reading...

Image: Getty Ford will receive $9.2 billion as part of a conditional loan from the US Department of Energy to aid in the construction of three huge electric vehicle battery factories, the agency announced Thursday. The mammoth loan represents the biggest government offering to an automaker since the bailouts following the Great Recession of 2009.The loan originates from the DOE's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (AVTM) program, which famously helped put Tesla on the map and more recently provided a boost for a joint venture of General Motors and LG Energy Solution to help fund the construction of a new lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility. Another recent recipient was Redwood Materials, the electric vehicle battery recycling and... Continue reading...

Photo by Nitashia Johnson / Bloomberg via Getty Images Heatwaves are pushing power grids to their brink around the world - a risk that can make an already dangerous situation deadly.When temperatures spike, people tend to need air conditioning the most. But that can put a lot of pressure on a power grid, potentially triggering a blackout if there isn't enough electricity on hand. That's the worst-case scenario grid operators across the world are scrambling to prevent.The worst-case scenario grid operators across the world are scrambling to preventClose to 28.8 million people are under heat alerts today in the US. Texas grid operator ERCOT broke its June record for electricity demand on Monday after issuing a weather watch" for June 15th through 21st and asking residents to voluntarily... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix It's no secret that Game of Thrones has been a major influence on Final Fantasy XVI - the developers have said as much. When we first started creating the game, we had our core team of about 30 members very early on buy the Blu-ray boxset of Game of Thrones and required everyone to watch it, because we wanted this type of feel," producer Naoki Yoshida told Eurogamer earlier this year.And man, does it show.The first few hours of the roleplaying game feel designed to show you just how edgy Final Fantasy can be. The previous entry was a wholesome road trip about friendship, told through things like photography and cooking. This game goes in a completely different direction. Characters have sex on-screen (though it never gets all that... Continue reading...

Photo by Alex Wong / Getty Images We're only minutes into the FTC v. Microsoft hearing, and we've already had a bombshell revelation. Sony's PlayStation chief, Jim Ryan, believed that Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard wasn't about locking games as Xbox exclusives, according to a newly unsealed email. Microsoft counsel revealed the exchange between Ryan and a former Sony CEO discussing the announcement of the deal last year.It is not an exclusivity play at all," said Ryan. They're thinking bigger than that and they have the cash to make moves like this. I've spent a fair amount of time with [Phil] Spencer Bobby [Kotick] and I'm pretty sure we will continue to see Call of Duty on PlayStation for years to come."The surprise revelation runs counter... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix Final Fantasy XVI, out today, is stuffed with neat little homages and references to the Final Fantasy games that came before it. One of the game's menus features sprites of Clive, Jill, Torgal, or whoever else is in your party if you're nostalgic for the old pixel art from the game's early days on the NES. When you speak to Harpocrates and have acquired enough lore, the old victory fanfare plays. But there's one homage that's more likely to inspire fear than warm fuzzy feelings.Red Comet is back, and he wants his revenge.Come with me back in time to 2020 when critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV released patch 5.35 for the Shadowbringers expansion. The patch added typical post-expansion launch endgame activities, including a... Continue reading...

Image: Rolf Vennenbernd / picture alliance via Getty Images Semi trucks and other heavy-duty vehicles would be required to come standard with automatic emergency braking (AEB) under a new rule proposed today by the Biden administration. The announcement follows a similar rule for all new passenger vehicles proposed last month and is part of a larger effort to slow the increase in fatal traffic crashes in recent years.The new rule would require heavy vehicles that weigh in excess of 10,000 pounds to come equipped with AEB, a technology that uses forward-facing cameras and other sensors to automatically apply the brakes when a crash is imminent. The system would be required to bring a vehicle to a complete stop at speeds as low as 6mph and as high as 50mph, the National Highway Traffic Safety... Continue reading...

Image: Google Google has found a fun new way to dunk on Apple with an ad campaign for Pixel phones that straddles the line between cute and cringe. The search giant has released five videos - under the campaign name Best Phones Forever" - which depict sitcom-like interactions between anthropomorphized versions of the Pixel 7 Pro and some sort of iPhone Pro. And it kinda seems like the phones want to bone each other?Google has pitched this as what happens when two phones stop being rivals and start being friends," though the campaign largely focuses on the iPhone's apparent shortcomings compared to Pixel phones - such as astrophotography, security, and Apple's lack of foldable devices. The iPhone is basically portrayed as an outdated, inexperienced... Continue reading...

Image: Robosen After creating the ultimate Optimus Prime toy, Hasbro and Robosen are back with yet another Transformers figure, and this time, it's a 14-inch programmable robot modeled after Bumblebee. With a price tag of $399, this miniature Autobot can walk, squat, kick, lean, dance, and even pick itself up from the ground. But there is one thing it can't do: transform.That's probably one of the reasons why this Bumblebee figure is several hundred dollars less than its self-transforming Optimus Prime counterpart, which costs a cool $700 plus an extra $750 for the auto-converting trailer if you really want to go all out. But if you're okay with the fact that this bot doesn't actually do any transforming - or are just a huge fan of the Transformers... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft / Sony Microsoftis battling a key US regulator here, but the real war looks like it will beMicrosoftvs. Sony. Continue reading...

LG's latestOLED offers more processing power than the C2 and a bevy of gamer-friendly features, including a 120Hz refresh rate. | Image: LG Memorial Day weekend is known for being one of the best times of the year to buy a TV, so it was no surprise when LG's new C3 OLED dropped to a new record low last month. What is surprising, though, is that the TV is even cheaper than it was in May less than a month later.Right now, you can buy LG's 55-inch C3 OLED at an all-time low of around $1,497 ($403 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from LG. Both larger and smaller sizes are on sale as well, including the 48-inch configuration, which is available for a new low of $1,249.99 ($250 off) from Best Buy and LG.In a nutshell, LG's new C3 boasts the kind of impressive black levels, vivid colors, and rich contrast that have come to characterize OLED TVs in recent years. It also... Continue reading...

The Razr Plus is a much better phone than the preceding models. It's a little fiddly, but for the right kind of person, it presents a rewarding experience. Continue reading...

Panel 1: Goodnight Phone," a comic by Gina Wynbrandt. The title card is a nighttime cityscape under a full moon.Panel 2: A woman in a green puffer jacket walks into a room painted pink. She is looking at her phone. A notification labeled All About You" pops up. She is at average energy and cash and has achieved the Work Day Complete" badge. Also, her phone is telling her she's hungry.Panel 3: The woman is cooking a pot of pasta, following the instructions on her phone (it's telling her to stir). A notification awarding Cooking XP" pops up.Panel 4: The woman is taking a selfie while eating the pasta she's just cooked. Her phone awards her a 5K selfie milestone" badge.Panel 5: The woman is brushing her teeth and gets a... Continue reading...

Duck Player is the kind of privacy-first feature DuckDuckGo hopes to build more of. | Image: DuckDuckGo DuckDuckGo's browser is finally available for Windows users. About nine months after launching its browser for Mac, the privacy-focused search engine company is bringing a very similar product to Windows users. It's available now, and its pitch is the same as ever: DuckDuckGo is a browser and a search engine that doesn't collect your data and doesn't track you across the web.The DuckDuckGo browser looks and works like Chrome or Edge, with a row of tabs across the top and a large text box for searching and typing URLs. (DuckDuckGo's search engine is the default when you install the browser, but you can change that if, for some reason, you care deeply about browser privacy but not search privacy.) DuckDuckGo does offer a couple of its own... Continue reading...

Sky's Live camera sitting on top of one of its TVs. | Image: Sky Comcast-owned British broadcaster Sky has launched a new camera that's designed to add more social, fitness, and gaming features to its smart TVs. The Sky Live camera attaches magnetically to the top of Sky Glass smart TVs and connects via USB-C and HDMI. It lets you watch TV simultaneously with other households, supports making video calls over Zoom, can track home workouts, and also comes with Kinect-style motion-controlled games.Sky Live costs 290 (about $370) upfront, but it's also available to buy for 6 per month on a 48-month contract, or 12 per month on a 24-month contract. But The Guardian notes that Sky is also offering introductory deals that bring the cost of the camera down to 3 a month when bought alongside a TV. The... Continue reading...

Adobe's own product design platform may be dropped entirely in favor of Figma. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Days appear to be numbered for Adobe XD. As spotted by developer Alex Ivanovs, the UX / UI product design platform is no longer available as a standalone app under Adobe's Creative Cloud launcher, effectively sunsetting the software for folks who hadn't already purchased it.Considering Adobe is in the process of acquiring Figma, a remarkably similar set of design tools, this news isn't entirely unexpected. But it doesn't mean that the Adobe XD app is dead. Not yet anyway.Anais Gragueb, Senior Manager for Creative Cloud & Innovation Public Relations confirmed to The Verge that Adobe will continue to support Adobe XD for existing customers. If you didn't purchase an XD subscription before it was pulled then the app will still be... Continue reading...