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by Justine Calma on (#6M1GR)
A 20-foot chunk of Newport, Rhode Island's beloved Cliff Walk broke off and dove into the depths of the ocean in a significant landslide and partial collapse, pictured on March 4th, 2022. | Photo by Jonathan Wiggs / The Boston Globe via Getty Images The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) is doling out nearly $830 million in grants to 80 different projects aimed at strengthening US infrastructure against climate change.The funding will fan out over 39 states and territories to projects ranging from refurbishing aging bridges to expanding emergency evacuation routes. The grants are the first of their kind," according to USDOT, which is partnering with state, local, and tribal governments thanks to funding made available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.Climate change is intensifying risks to the nation's transportation infrastructure. The number of billion-dollar weather disasters reached a record high last year. And even slow-moving calamities like rising seas are... Continue reading...
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The Verge
| Link | https://www.theverge.com/ |
| Feed | http://www.theverge.com/rss/index.xml |
| Updated | 2025-09-17 12:48 |
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by Victoria Song on (#6M1GS)
Google is piloting removing links to California news websites for a small percentage of users. | Illustration: The Verge Google says it will start removing links to California news websites in a short term test for a small percentage of California users." The move is in response to the pending California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), which would require Google to pay a fee for linking Californians to news articles.If passed, CJPA may result in significant changes to the services we can offer Californians and the traffic we can provide to California publishers," Jaffer Zaidi, Google VP of global news partnerships, wrote in a blog post announcing the decision. The testing process involves removing links to California news websites, potentially covered by CJPA, to measure the impact of the legislation on our product experience."Zaidi adds that... Continue reading...
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6M1GT)
Photo by Sean O'Kane / The Verge The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating an incident involving Ford's hands-free driver-assist system after a Mustang Mach-E driver crashed into another vehicle in Texas, killing the occupant. A second fatal crash involving a Mach-E took place in Philadelphia, although it's not known whether the driver-assist system played a role. Both crashes involved Mach-Es crashing into stationary vehicles.The first incident took place at 9:50PM on February 24th outside of San Antonio, Texas. According to a preliminary report from NTSB, the 44-year-old driver of the Mustang Mach-E was traveling eastbound on Interstate 10 when he rear-ended a stationary Honda CRV. The 56-year-old Honda driver was killed in the crash.Based on data... Continue reading...
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by Tom Warren on (#6M1GV)
Image: Western Digital It wasn't that long ago when we were impressed by a 400GB microSD card, but now, Western Digital is showing off a full-size SD card with 10 times the storage capacity. The new SanDisk Extreme Pro 4TB SD card is designed for cameras and laptops, and it's the first time we've seen this storage size on an SD card.While Western Digital is previewing its four-terabyte SD card at the NAB Show this week, it won't actually be available until 2025. AnandTech notes that the card uses the Ultra High Speed-I (UHS-I) interface, which supports up to 104MB/s data transfers in the UHS104 (SDR104) mode. It also has minimal sequential write speeds of 30MB/s, enough for 8K video recording.The SD Association first announced its Secure Digital Ultra... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6M1E1)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge China has plans to force foreign-made chips out of its telecom systems, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The country's officials reportedly told its telecom providers to replace foreign chips, such as those made by Intel and AMD, by 2027.Under the order from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, telecom providers will have to check their networks for any foreign-made chips and then create a timeline for their removal. This change will mainly affect Intel and AMD, sources tell the WSJ, as the two California-based companies provide the bulk" of the processors included in China's networking equipment.The move echoes the US government's efforts to rip and replace" cellular equipment made by the... Continue reading...
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by Jay Castello on (#6M1E2)
Image: Nintendo In 2015, Nintendo released Super Mario Maker for the Wii U, a game that allowed players to make and share their own 2D Mario levels. In 2021, the company ended the ability to upload courses, the game having been eclipsed by its sequel on the Switch. But in January 2024, Nintendo announced an end to all online services for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS games on April 8th. For Super Mario Maker, that meant the millions of player-made levels would be unceremoniously shuttered.Or at least, it would have been unceremonious, if it weren't for a group called Team 0%. The group had been trying to beat every uncleared level in the game for years, which was made easier once they had a fixed target in 2021. When the announcement came that the Wii U's... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6M1E3)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Unpkg, a content delivery network (CDN) that powers more than 4 billion requests per day, went down for several hours on Friday morning. The outage broke the thousands of websites that use the open-source CDN, leaving developers scrambling for a fix.The outage appeared to have started around 4AM ET, with sites returning a 520 error from Cloudflare, which powers Unpkg. Many developers affected by the outage switched to jsDelivr, another open-source CDN for GitHub and the package manager npm, in order to keep their sites online. Unpkg started coming back online at around 9AM ET. That's when Fly.io - the service that Unpkg's origin server uses to provide auto-scaling infrastructure - announced that it deployed a fix" to recover affected... Continue reading...
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by David Pierce on (#6M1E4)
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Seven. Hundred. Dollars. After a year of asking questions about this much-hyped AI wearable, the Humane AI Pin is here, and, well, we still have lots of questions. We're also still trying to figure out how it all works - and where it goes from here.On this episode of The Vergecast, we dive deep into our review of the AI Pin and try to figure out what went wrong with this device and whether there's a real future for it or any other AI-powered gadget. The trouble, we discover, is that these devices are stacking new technology on top of new technology, and until it all works perfectly, none of it will work very well. Also, did we mention the AI Pin is seven hundred dollars?After that, we talk about the growing rift between OpenAI and... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6M1BE)
The tools could open new revenue streams for artists who otherwise wouldn't see money from unauthorized remixes. | Cath Virginia / The Verge Spotify is working on some seemingly TikTok-inspired remixing features in its latest attempt to capitalize on the social media platform's explosive popularity. According to the Wall Street Journal, Spotify is developing tools that would allow paid subscribers to speed up, mash-up, and otherwise edit" tracks from their favorite artists, which could then be saved for repeat listening.One use case for the tools is to allow Spotify users to adjust the speed of the songs they listen to. These music modifications are already popular with teens and young adults on TikTok, with content analysis firm Pex finding that 38 percent of songs on the platform had their speeds or pitches modified in 2023, compared to 25 percent the year prior.A... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6M173)
The service will be shut down on an unspecified date later this year. | Image: Google Google is shutting down its VPN by Google One service, according to a vague customer email seen by Android Authority, less than four years after it was rolled out in October 2020. The email doesn't specify when this will happen, only that the VPN service will be discontinued later this year."Subscription prices for Google One's VPN start at $1.99, with availability on Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows. The company told 9to5Google that it is killing the service because people simply weren't using it." Perhaps its customers were simply spoilt for choice, given this is actually one of three VPN services provided by Google alongside the VPN offerings still available via Google Fi, and Pixel devices from the Pixel 7 on up.VPN by Google One... Continue reading...
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by Amrita Khalid on (#6M10W)
Illustration: The Verge X giveth, and now X taketh away. The platform is eliminating the ability for Premium users to hide their blue checkmarks, according to a notification received by multiple users on Thursday. X made displaying the blue check optional last summer, and it's unclear exactly why the platform plans to remove the feature - or when.
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by Sean Hollister on (#6M0Z3)
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images, The Verge Discord has shut down the Discord servers for the Nintendo Switch emulators Suyu and Sudachi and has completely disabled their lead developers' accounts - and the company isn't answering our questions about why it went that far. Both Suyu and Sudachi began as forks of Yuzu, the emulator that Nintendo sued out of existence on March 4th.Discord responds to and complies with all legal and valid Digital Millennium Copyright Act requests. In this instance, there was also a court ordered injunction for the takedown of these materials, and we took action in a manner consistent with the court order," reads part of a statement from Discord director of product communications Kellyn Slone to The Verge.The developers of Suyu and Sudachi only... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6M0Z4)
Image: Dbrand Dbrand, the phone case company known for its sassy attitude toward users and tech companies, gave $10,000 to a customer as an apology after it made a racist comment about their last name.On Tuesday, Dbrand reposted a complaint from a customer, Bhuwan Chitransh, who said that the skin they purchased for their MacBook changed color after just two months. Dbrand replied with a crude message that rhymed the customer's name with rash." Chitransh later responded, saying Dbrand's post reflects its racist perspective toward Indian customers.The following day, the company said that it had made a huge fumble." Dbrand said it apologized to Chitransh and offered him $10,000 as a gesture of goodwill." However, Dbrand didn't delete the original... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6M0Z5)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Following Paramount's move to add Showtime programming to certain Paramount Plus streaming plans, the Showtime standalone streaming platform is coming to an end.Variety reports that Showtime streaming subscribers have begun receiving notices that they will no longer be able to access the platform after April 30th. Going forward, subscribers will have to sign up for the $11.99 per month Paramount Plus with Showtime plan. Paramount Global announced its intentions to shutter the Showtime platform last year after also rebranding the traditional Showtime network as "Paramount Plus with Showtime."Though this whole renaming process has been awkward, Paramount's following through on its plan to fully subsume the Showtime brand. And while... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Webster on (#6M0X5)
Image: Apple Apple announced some Godzilla-sized updates for its streaming service. First up, the spinoff series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, which premiered on Apple TV Plus last year, has been renewed for a second season. There aren't any details on what the new season will entail or when it'll start streaming, but showrunners and co-creators Chris Black and Matt Fraction will be returning.On top of that, Apple says that it has signed a deal with Legendary for even more projects based in its monsterverse," which will include multiple spinoff series." It's not clear yet what those series might be, but here's hoping we get a deep dive into the Shobijin. The news comes just a few weeks after the latest feature in the franchise, Godzilla x Kong: The... Continue reading...
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by Ariel Shapiro on (#6M0X7)
Photo: Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images This is Hot Pod, The Verge's newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry.Hi, everyone - I'm starting off today with some big news to share: next week will be my last at Hot Pod and The Verge. Before coming here, all I wanted was to cover the podcasting industry, and I still can't believe I managed to get a job doing just that. Even when the news was bad (which, let's be real, was often), I was buoyed by the passion and innovation of this community. It's been a real privilege getting to know so many of you.I'll have a few more stories coming out before I leave as well as some final thoughts on the state of the industry. My colleague Jake Kastrenakes has a note below with more information about the newsletter moving forward.As... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6M0X6)
Image: A24 Director Alex Garland's new dystopian thriller seems like it has something to say about American society, but it doesn't have the guts to articulate a cohesive, thoughtful point. Continue reading...
by Quentyn Kennemer on (#6M0X8)
Dyson wants to make cleaning fun again, but I was already having fun letting the robots do it. | Image: Dyson Dyson has developed a new feature that uses your smartphone's augmented reality sensors to virtually paint over areas you've vacuumed, so you can see if you've missed a spot.The feature, called CleanTrace, uses the lidar scanner found on Pro or Pro Max iPhones 12 and newer and requires you to attach your phone to the vacuum. For now, the $1,000 Gen5detect is the only dust sucker in Dyson's ranks that will accept the smartphone clamp, which will be sold separately. We're not yet sure how much it'll cost. Dyson is planning to add the feature to its mobile app as a free update when it launches this June.CleanTrace exists because consumers are haphazard and inefficient - regularly overing the same areas multiple times and missing other... Continue reading...
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by Allison Johnson on (#6M0X9)
The countdown to Google I/O starts now. | Image: The Verge / Android Android 15's first public beta is available to download now, provided you have a Pixel phone and a bit of a sense of adventure. It's the first consumer-facing release after two developer previews, and while we have a good idea of what to expect from Google's next mobile OS version, we'll certainly hear more at the company's annual developer conference soon enough.The blog post highlighting updates in today's release covers some pretty pedestrian stuff. Apps will scale edge to edge by default and will draw behind translucent system bars on the top and bottom of the screen, rather than around them. There's OS-level support for app archiving and unarchiving so third-party app stores can take advantage of this feature. Android 15 will also... Continue reading...
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by Sheena Vasani on (#6M0TK)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber has launched a new safety preferences section that gathers all of Uber's safety tools in one place and lets users schedule them to switch on automatically.Some of the safety tools you can customize include audio recording - which saves encrypted audio of the trip that Uber can use to investigate reported incidents - and PIN verification, so you can ensure you're entering the right vehicle. You can also share your live location and ride details with people you trust via ShareMyTrip, while RideCheck notifies Uber when a ride suddenly stops or goes off-course.You can choose to activate all of Uber's safety features by default for every ride or customize your settings based on time and location. For example, you can set it to turn on... Continue reading...
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by Justine Calma on (#6M0TM)
Executives hold shovels during a groundbreaking ceremony at the Occidental Petroleum and 1PointFive carbon removal plant in Ector County, Texas, on April 28th, 2023. | Image: Jordan Vonderhaar / Bloomberg via Getty Images Attempting to filter enough carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to make a significant impact on climate change would require hundreds of billions of dollars in government spending, according to a new report.The suite of technologies emerging to attempt that task all fall under an umbrella called carbon dioxide removal, or CDR. It's still risky and astronomically expensive. But there's been growing chatter about it, particularly as the US continues producing record amounts of oil and gas.According to the new report by research firm Rhodium Group, the US needs to spend roughly $100 billion a year on CDR in order to scale up to a level that would help the country meet its climate goals. A majority of that needs to come in the form of... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6M0TN)
Image: DW / Esau Escorza ,Isaac Escorza, Samuel Plata, Luis Antonio Delgado Taking the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in a bold new visual direction has worked out phenomenally for Paramount in the past, but the studio's next experiment with the characters feels like something that's going to be tricky as hell to pull off well.According to The Hollywood Reporter - Paramount is in the early stages of developing a live-action, R-rated film based on The Last Ronin, IDW's 2020 comic that tells the story of how one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles grows up to become an even deadlier warrior following the death of his three siblings. The movie is set to be produced by former head of DC films Walter Hamada, and Boy Kills World co-writer Tyler Burton Smith is attached to write the script.The comic series - written by... Continue reading...
by Elizabeth Lopatto on (#6M0TP)
Andy Jassy is being persecuted by those meanies at the FTC, says Andy Jassy. | Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge Andy Jassy, CEO of the biggest e-commerce store in the world, is very upset with the regulators who won't let him buy more companies.In January, Amazon decided it wasn't going to buy Roomba maker iRobot for $1.4 billion, after discovering that the EU probably wouldn't approve the deal and that the FTC had some concerns. Regulators blocked the acquisition because, Jassy told CNBC, They worry that we're going to feature our vacuum cleaner, the Roomba, vs. others, which of course is not our model."Weird that the FTC, which has filed a massive lawsuit against Amazon for alleged anticompetitive behavior, would ever even think that! Amazon would never promote its own vacuum cleaner on its site in a way that harmed competition - like, that a... Continue reading...
by Emilia David on (#6M0TQ)
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge TikTok plans to add an AI creator feature to its platform, which may compete with the sponsored ads human influencers make on the site.The Information reports TikTok is developing virtual influencers to promote and sell items on the platform. The AI avatars can read scripts from prompts generated by advertisers or sellers on its TikTok Shop. The feature is not live yet and could still be changed.According to The Information's sources, TikTok staff have been testing AI avatars but found that they were not ready for release and attracted fewer e-commerce sales than human influencers. However, TikTok believes AI creators would complement their crop of creators.TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.It's unclear how... Continue reading...
by Emma Roth on (#6M0TR)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple is getting ready to refresh its entire lineup of Macs with M4 processors that have an emphasis on AI, according to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The new M4-equipped Macs will reportedly start arriving later this year, with the rest coming in early 2025.Even though Apple just launched its first MacBook Pro with an M3 chip in November 2023, the company is nearing production" on its M4 chip, sources tell Bloomberg. Apple will reportedly emphasize the M4's AI-processing capabilities once released, which likely comes in response to the slew of rival AI PCs" hitting the market and a slowdown in Mac sales.The M4 chip will come in at least three different tiers, including the entry-level M4 chip codenamed Donan, the mid-tier... Continue reading...
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by Tom Warren on (#6M0TS)
Image: The Verge Microsoft is trying to entice Windows 10 users to upgrade to Windows 11 with fullscreen prompts 18 months before the end of support cutoff. Reddit user Woopinah9 spotted a notification while in the middle of working," where Microsoft thanks Windows 10 customers" for their loyalty with a full-screen message and then explains the end of support date. You might be expecting a free upgrade as part of this interruption, but unfortunately for this Reddit user, their PC can't upgrade to Windows 11, so it's more hey check out this cool thing we have! oh but you cant have it," as one Redditor puts it.While Some Windows 10 users will see this prompt and be able to upgrade to Windows 11, this Reddit user, in particular, has one of the many... Continue reading...
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by Ash Parrish on (#6M0TT)
Image: Bethesda Bethesda has smartly guessed that with the arrival of the new Fallout series from Amazon, folks are going get curious about all the Fallout games. In addition to making Fallout 3 and Fallout 76 available on Amazon Luna and updating Fallout Shelter to include a bunch of characters from the show, Bethesda has announced that Fallout 4 will get a next-gen update.
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by Emma Roth on (#6M0QN)
Image: Yoto If your kid uses this Yoto Mini speaker, take it away immediately. Yoto has recalled the popular speaker due to a charging cable issue that causes the lithium-ion battery to overheat and catch fire, posing a burn and fire risk.The recall affects the Yoto Mini speakers sold nationwide from November 2021 through April 2024. It includes 251,165 devices in the US and 19,721 in Canada with the PRPLXX00860 SKU. You can find the SKU number, along with the speaker's serial number and model name, on the base of the device. There haven't been any reported injuries. Image: US Consumer Product Safety Commission The recall affects Yoto Mini speakers with the SKU PRPLXX00860. You won't have to get rid of the entire device.... Continue reading...
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by Mia Sato on (#6M0QP)
Photo by Neilson Barnard / Getty Images for The Recording Academy Taylor Swift's catalog of music has returned to TikTok, just a few months after it was purged alongside other popular artists represented by Universal Music Group (UMG).In January, UMG and TikTok's licensing deal expired, and the companies took turns blaming each other for why fans would no longer be able to use UMG artists' music on the app. UMG argued that TikTok wasn't willing to pay what it wanted and that allowing AI-generated content on the app was sponsoring artist replacement" by the technology. Meanwhile, TikTok said UMG was being greedy and that it was able to come to agreements with every other label and publisher.It's not immediately clear how Swift's music has made its way back to TikTok - as Variety noted, Swift may... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Webster on (#6M0MR)
Image: Amazon It's hard to say what, precisely, makes a design timeless. Some classic gadgets are simply beautiful, while others remain functional years after they come out. The list of truly timeless products in tech is small, but there's one name that looms large: RobCo Industries' Pip-Boy. Sure, it's relatively simple, and some of its features only work if you're stuck underground. But when a design hasn't changed for 200 years, you know it's doing something right.For those who have been living under an irradiated rock, a Pip-Boy is a wrist-worn computer that - despite originally being meant for the pre-war world and, later, life inside of a Vault-Tec vault - has become an indispensable tool for survival out in the wasteland. It's large and... Continue reading...
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by Chris Welch on (#6M0MS)
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Sony is changing up the strategy around its mainstream wireless headphones and speakers. Today, the company is announcing several new products and introducing a new brand, ULT Power Sound, to go with them. Any kind of actual name" is an improvement from years past, when Sony would typically just refer to devices by their model number. And as the branding implies, all of these new products - three speakers and one pair of headphones - focus on lively, bass-forward sound.All of them also have an ULT button that can cycle between different sound modes depending on how much bass emphasis you want. ULT1 gets you deeper, lower frequency bass," while ULT2 delivers powerful, punchy bass." And yes, apparently there's a difference between... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6M0H0)
Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Apple is finally making it easier for users to repair their iPhones with used parts. In an update on Thursday, the company announced that this fall, owners of select" iPhone models will be able to repair their devices with used, genuine parts while retaining full functionality.When repairing a phone, Apple requires iPhone users to go through a process called parts pairing, which makes them match the serial number of their device to that of a new part sold by Apple. If a user replaced a part with an aftermarket or used component, the iPhone would display pesky notifications saying that Apple isn't able to verify the newly installed piece. In the case of Face ID and Touch ID sensors, the part might not work at all.This change should do... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Webster on (#6M0H1)
Image: Apple Apple is continuing its run of streaming sci-fi with the upcoming Dark Matter, a thriller about a man who... kidnaps himself. The first trailer looks appropriately trippy and follows a physicist played by Joel Edgerton who is abducted into an alternate version of his life." The show involves him trying to get home while navigating this new multiversal reality, which is powered by a big black box that he invented.The nine-episode-long show is based on the novel of the same name by Blake Crouch and also stars Jennifer Connelly, Alice Braga, Jimmi Simpson, Dayo Okeniyi, and Oakes Fegley. It starts streaming on May 8th with a two-episode premiere, and subsequent episodes debut on Wednesdays after that.Dark Matter joins a growing list of... Continue reading...
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by Brandon Widder on (#6M0H2)
Waluigi is still a scumbag, but his racecourse is pretty great. | Image: Nintendo Despite essentially being a rehash of the bestselling Wii U game of all time, I'd argue Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the quintessential multiplayer game for the Nintendo Switch (sorry, Smash Bros. stans). The 2017 title only got better with the additional 48 tracks Nintendo introduced as DLC, which, thanks to a discount at Amazon and Walmart, you can currently grab alongside the base game for $64.98 ($20 off).The so-called Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - Booster Course Pass includes a digital copy of the original Switch game and all six waves of added DLC content, which Nintendo also offers as a standalone purchase for $24.99 or as part of a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription for $49.99 a year. The booster pack contains eight... Continue reading...
by Sean Hollister on (#6M0H5)
The DJI Avata 2 drone. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The DJI Avata is my favorite drone for people who want to fly, not just film. The starter kit comes with a wand and goggles that let you skim and soar to your heart's delight with a first-person view from the sky. But you might not want to buy an original Avata anymore - because the just-announced DJI Avata 2 seems even better for hundreds of dollars less.After weeks of leaks, DJI is revealing the Avata 2 in full, and we've been playing with one for several days now. It looks better, it flies better, it lasts longer, and most importantly, the kit you want with goggles and controller starts at just $999 - down from the $1,388 you'd pay for the OG or the $1,278 after DJI swapped out the original kit's goggles for a slightly cheaper and... Continue reading...
by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy on (#6M0H4)
The Yale Approach with Wi-Fi is a retrofit smart door lock that works with a wireless keypad. | Image: Yale This week, Yale launched its first retrofit smart door lock, the $129.99 Yale Approach with Wi-Fi. The lock attaches only to the back of your door, so you don't have to replace your entire deadbolt to get access to smart features like auto-unlock and locking your door from your phone. The Yale Approach will also work with a new wireless Yale Keypad ($69.99), with a fingerprint-enabled version coming later this year. Also later this year, Yale says the new lock will have the option of a firmware upgrade to add Matter-over-Thread connectivity.Retrofit locks are great for renters who can't swap out their locks or for people with nice door hardware who want to keep the look of their door while still asking a voice assistant to lock the... Continue reading...
by Emilia David on (#6M0H3)
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Getty Images Generative AI could be coming to your local TV station as The Weather Company, aka the people that run The Weather Channel, is bringing AI tools to make weather videos.The Weather Company announced ReelSphere on Thursday, a video creation tool for broadcasters and other customers that automatically adds captions, graphics, and hyperlocal weather information overlays to video weather reports. ReelSphere even lets users add an AI voice that can sound like a local meteorologist. Think of the quick weather forecast updates you usually see while watching local news. ReelSphere can make all those graphics showing the temperature or radar information for a specific area, especially now as people demand they get up-to-date weather more often... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6M0H6)
The tempo restrictions effectively ban most popular Western music in the region of Chechnya, if it wasn't already restricted. | Image: Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP via Getty Images People partial to a shindig in the Russian republic of Chechnya are about to find their music options will be rather limited. The region is introducing a ban on tunes that don't conform to the Chechen sense of rhythm." In a statement translated by The Guardian, Chechnya's Culture Ministry announced last week, From now on all musical, vocal and choreographic works should correspond to a tempo of 80 to 116 beats per minute," effectively criminalizing anything the region considers to be too fast or too slow.The ban requires local artists to rewrite their music to comply with the restrictions by June 1st, or else they won't be allowed to perform publicly. Borrowing musical culture from other peoples is inadmissible," said Chechen Culture... Continue reading...
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by Amrita Khalid on (#6M0EE)
DuckDuckGo DuckDuckGo is announcing a new bundled subscription service, Privacy Pro, that offers an additional layer of privacy beyond its existing offerings. Users who pay $9.99 per month will get access to a VPN that uses the open-source WireGuard protocol, on-device personal information removal, and 24/7 identity theft restoration. While users of DuckDuckGo's private browser and/or search engine are no fans of online tracking, PrivacyPro seems geared towards the most cautious of its user-base - who are also willing to pay extra for an encrypted internet connection.DuckDuckGo's full array of offerings have long been free to use, including its browser, search engine, various plug-ins, even its email protection service. PrivacyPro is the... Continue reading...
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by David Pierce on (#6M0ED)
For $699 and $24 a month, this wearable computer promises to free you from your smartphone. There's only one problem: it just doesn't work. Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6M0BY)
The new protections for blurring nude images will start rolling out globally in the coming weeks. | Image: Meta Instagram is preparing to roll out a new safety feature that blurs nude images in messages, as part of efforts to protect minors on the platform from abuse and sexually exploitative scams.Announced by Meta on Thursday, the new feature - which both blurs images detected to contain nudity and discourages users from sending them - will be enabled by default for teenage Instagram users, as identified by the birthday information on their account. A notification will also encourage adult users to turn it on.These efforts follow longstanding criticism that platforms like Facebook and Instagram have caused harm to their youngest users, from harming children's mental health and body image, to knowingly platforming abusive parents and creating... Continue reading...
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by Thomas Ricker on (#6M0BZ)
The new 2024 VanMoof S5 in Amsterdam where the majority of this UK-owned company still works. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge Big question: can you trust the new company to build a better S5 and A5 electric bike? Continue reading...
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by Thomas Ricker on (#6BGNW)
A long list of features, but how many do you really need? Continue reading...
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by Gaby Del Valle on (#6M01E)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Two former executives of the firm that recently purchased Truth Social are embroiled in a lawsuit related to the acquisition of Trump's social media company, Wired reports. The former CEO of the Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) - the special purpose acquisition company that was created to purchase the Trump Media & Technology Group - is suing his successor for allegedly hacking his private accounts as part of a coup d'etat."The details are fairly messy. Patrick Orlando, the CEO of DWAC until March 2023, claims he was ousted by Eric Swider, a Trump Media board member who was appointed CEO immediately after Orlando was fired. (Swider served as CEO until March of this year.) Orlando filed the suit against Swider through the... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6M01F)
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Getty Images The Department of Justice's massive antitrust case against Apple will unfold before a new judge. A court filing on Wednesday reveals that Judge Michael E. Farbiarz has determined his recusal is necessary" under the code of conduct for US Judges.The filing says Farbiarz's disqualification is mandatory and cannot be remitted by the parties." Judge Julien Xavier Neals, whom President Joe Biden nominated to the US District in 2021, will preside over the case instead.It's not clear why Judge Farbiarz was disqualified from the case, but there are a couple of possibilities. The specific rule mentioned by the filing - Canon 3(C)(1)(d) - says a judge must disqualify themselves from a proceeding when the judge's impartiality might reasonably... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6M01G)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook rolled out the ability for Messenger users to share 4K photos back in 2017. Now, Meta has announced that users can share HD photos in the app. Confused? We were, too, so we asked about it. The short answer is that, here, HD means 4K, and now 4K photos are... more 4K?Facebook Messenger comms team representative Liz Sweeney clarified in an email to The Verge that 4K (specifically, 4,096 x 4,096 pixels per inch) shared photos were more compressed before, and how they looked was dependent on the network conditions of both the sender and receiver." Now, Sweeney says they won't be as heavily compressed, and users will have a new HD" button that enables 4K sharing. And if you don't tap the button, photos will share in 2K instead. ... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6M01H)
Illustration: The Verge Another Apple Store is trying to unionize. This time, it's a group of 104 employees in Short Hills, New Jersey, who filed a petition to unionize with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Tuesday, as reported earlier by Bloomberg.If the unionization efforts are successful, the Apple Store employees would join the Communications Workers of America - the union that represents other Apple Store employees, along with employees of AT&T, Verizon, Frontier, and more.Four other Apple Stores have moved to unionize within the past couple of years, but only the retail locations in Oklahoma City and Townson, Maryland, have successfully formed a union. These efforts haven't come without some pushback from Apple, however.Last year, the NLRB... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6KZZE)
What? It's just a sandworm. | Image: Saturday Night Live Dune: Part Two is a sprawling sci-fi epic that The Verge's Charles Pulliam-Moore called categorically breathtaking" in his March review. And for AMC moviegoers, the film came with an equally epic exclusive popcorn bucket - one that, apparently, the top brass at AMC Theatres wishes it had never made.That's because it kind of looks like a butthole. And the internet noticed. Elizabeth Frank, AMC's chief content officer, told Variety in an interview published on Monday that collectible popcorn buckets are a material part" of the company's food and beverage business. But she said the company would have never imagined the Dune' thing" and wouldn't have made the bucket topper if it had known it would be celebrated or mocked."What, this... Continue reading...
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by Sheena Vasani on (#6KZZF)
You can get a lower-end TU690T for free when you preorder Samsung's glare-free QD-OLED S95D. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Who doesn't want a free TV? If you were eyeing Samsung's new anti-glare OLED or one of the many models it announced back at CES, Samsung and Amazon are both still offering a free 65-inch TV when you preorder select 2024 models. You'll have to act quickly, though, as the ongoing buy one, get one promo ends tomorrow, April 11th.Granted, the free TV is an entry-level TU690T from 2022, which is a pretty basic 4K TV with a 60Hz panel and only two HDMI ports. But if you were already thinking of picking up the 2024 version of Samsung's OLED S95D, its artsy Frame TV, the Neo QLED 8K, or Neo QLED 4K, the TU69OT can still serve as a decent secondary TV for a spare bedroom or garage. It lacks modern features like local dimming and variable... Continue reading...
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by Ash Parrish on (#6KXY2)
Image: Amazon Everything you need to know about the upcoming streaming show. Continue reading...