The Verge

The Apple we know today is far removed from the one that created the first Macintosh computer that Steve Jobs showed off in a very silly presentation on January 24th, 1984. It's been the most valuable company in the world for most of the last decade. It has a global, meticulously curated supply chain, retail stores around the world, and near-constant legal and regulatory trouble. And its primary hardware driver is a phone.But Apple still makes the Macintosh, and some would argue that we're living in a new golden age for the machines. They're faster than ever and as sleek as any made during Jony Ive's time going ham on the company's industrial design, but they're also practical in a way they haven't been since MacBooks... Continue reading...

Image: Sand Door Games I distinctly remember the first time I saw Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior. It was during Summer Game Fest last year, and the game's brief minute-long reveal trailer was enough to leave a lasting impression. I've been looking forward to playing it ever since. My patience has been rewarded with the news that Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior will launch on February 13th on PC.Lysfanga's trailer gives you a good idea of what you can expect - this is a game where you'll make use of time travel and your past lives to fight monsters - but it can't quite capture how interesting and deep those time travel powers are. In the lead-up to this announcement, I spoke with Lysfanga's developers at Sand Door Studio and had a chance to get a hands-on... Continue reading...

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Ring will no longer let local police publicly ask people for doorbell footage through its Neighbors app. The Amazon-owned company announced it's going to sunset its Request for Assistance tool this week, forcing police to obtain a warrant for most of its video requests.This change might seem like a step in the right direction, but it may actually make the clip-requesting process less transparent, as police can still request clips from Ring during what they consider emergencies." In a statement to The Verge, Amazon spokesperson Yassi Yarger confirmed that on rare occasions," Ring will provide information to law enforcement when there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, such as a kidnapping or an attempted... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft has reached a $3 trillion market cap, the first time in its 48-year history. It's the second company, after Apple, to reach the milestone valuation after stock in Microsoft climbed 1.5 percent in trading on the NASDAQ on Wednesday.Apple first hit the $3 trillion market cap two years ago, more than a year after it surpassed the $2 trillion mark in 2020. Microsoft and Apple have been trading places for the world's most valuable company in recent weeks, with Microsoft briefly overtaking Apple earlier this month.Microsoft's stock has been rallying in recent months, as the company continues to ride an AI hype train from investors. Microsoft announced the pricing for its Copilot for Microsoft 365 service last year, with investors... Continue reading...

A view of Meta's data center in Clonee Co Meath, Ireland. Picture date: Tuesday June 13, 2023. | Photo by Niall Carson/PA Images via Getty Images Data centers could gobble up twice as much electricity by 2026 thanks in large part to cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).We rely on data centers to store all our emails, photos, cat videos, and everything else floating around in the cloud. More and more, data centers are cropping up to mine Bitcoin and train AI.That's already triggered backlash over the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies and AI tools like ChatGPT, since all those data centers are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions tied to their electricity use. The world will need a lot more renewable energy to clean up pollution from power grids and satiate skyrocketing electricity demand... Continue reading...

Amie does tasks and calendar side by side, which is delightful. | Image: Amie There's another company vying to be the place you go to manage your time. It's called Amie, and it's one of the best-looking calendar apps I've used. It's available today for iOS, Mac, and the web after four years in development and many months in beta testing. I've been using it off and on for a long time, and I like it a lot.The first thing that drew me to Amie was that it's set up to be a combination of a task list and a calendar. You have lists of tasks in the left sidebar, and you then drag tasks into the calendar to give them a time slot. Each calendar event is like its own task, too, and you can check them off as you go through your day. A lot of smart productivity people will tell you that time blocking is the best strategy for... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is launching its immersive 3D meetings inside Microsoft Teams today. Microsoft Mesh, the company's mixed reality platform, is coming out of preview and being integrated into Teams to let people gather in virtual spaces with or without a VR headset.I got to try out Mesh inside Microsoft Teams late last year, and it feels a lot like a corporate version of AltspaceVR, the social VR platform Microsoft acquired in 2017 and shut down a year ago. The 3D Mesh meetings in Teams work best with a VR headset, with Microsoft only supporting Meta's Quest devices currently.You can participate in virtual 3D meetings, and the impressive spatial audio feature mimics the ability to have the type of private conversations you'd have in an office... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has started letting developers link to third-party payment processors, but only if it's on Apple's own terms. Continue reading...

Twenty years ago, on the Mac's 20th anniversary, I asked Steve Jobs if the Mac would still be relevant to Apple in the age of the iPod. He scoffed at the prospect of the Mac not being important: of course" it would be.Yet, 10 years later, Apple's revenue was increasingly dominated by the iPhone, and the recent success of the new iPad had provided another banner product for the company. When I interviewed Apple exec Phil Schiller for the Mac's 30th anniversary, I found myself asking him about the Mac's relevance, too. He also scoffed: Our view is, the Mac keeps going forever," he said.Today marks 40 years since Jobs unveiled the original Macintosh at an event in Cupertino, and it once again feels right to ask what's next... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nvidia is launching a new feature for all RTX GPU owners today: RTX Video HDR. Much like how Nvidia's RTX Video Super Resolution can upscale old, blurry web videos, RTX Video HDR uses AI to convert SDR color space video to HDR. You just need an HDR10-compatible monitor with HDR enabled in Windows.RTX Video HDR is part of today's 551.23 Game Ready driver release for the new RTX 4070 Ti Super launch. The Video HDR feature works in both Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome, and during my testing on an HDR600 monitor, I noticed it added subtle color detail to 4K YouTube videos that weren't uploaded in HDR. The effect might be more obvious on a better HDR monitor, but it was difficult to notice unless I toggled it on and off multiple times. I... Continue reading...

Image: Pocket Pair Palworld, a new multiplayer monster-collecting survival game, has sold more than 7 million copies in just five days, and now the developers behind it are sharing a roadmap of what's to come. Dubbed Pokemon with guns" by many, Palworld is set to get player-vs-player (PvP) fights, raid bosses, a PvP arena mode, and Steam / Xbox crossplay support.Developer Pocket Pair revealed the planned future updates in a post on X (formerly Twitter) today with no time frame for when they will arrive. Palworld is also getting various Xbox feature improvements," alongside server transfers and migrations, improvements to the game's building system, and new islands, pals, bosses, and technologies.

Concept Tesla design images shown off in a recent corporate video. | Image: Tesla Tesla is eying a June 2025 kickoff for production of a new mass-market compact crossover, Reuters reports. The company has apparently invited suppliers to bid to work on the car, and is forecasting producing 10,000 vehicles weekly. Tesla did not respond to The Verge's request for comment on Reuters' report.News that production of the next-generation vehicle could be just a year and a half away comes as Tesla is facing intense competition in the electric vehicle market from BYD, a Chinese automaker that Reuters reports overtook Tesla to become the world's top EV maker by sales in the fourth quarter of 2023. While BYD has grown rapidly off the back of its affordable cars, The Wall Street Journal notes that it's moving into selling more... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge We now know the date and time when Nintendo will disconnect online services for 3DS and Wii U software, which is scheduled for April 8th, 2024, at 4PM PT / 7PM ET. If you're in Japan, it will be the morning of April 9th, at 9AM.If you've been using one of those systems, you should note this support page warning users that if you have an unused eShop balance tied to a Nintendo Network ID, you have until March 11th at 10PM PT to link the wallet with a Nintendo Account so that those funds can be used to buy items for use with the Nintendo Switch.Even if you don't have a Switch, you can still create an account and merge the funds.Nintendo announced the spring shutdown a few months ago, explaining that while StreetPass, Pokemon Bank,... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge X is now supporting passkey log-ins on iPhones and iPads, granting members access to the security feature regardless of their Premium" status. Generating a passkey for X allows users to completely skip entering a password when they log in to their accounts and instead rely on the device's security (with Face ID, Touch ID, or your device's passcode).For now, passkeys are only available in the US, and X hasn't revealed when it's rolling out the login technology on Android, for desktop operating systems, or in other countries. Also, X's rollout of passkeys doesn't seem to be complete yet (some users reported still not having access as of Tuesday night on the East Coast), so don't fret if the feature hasn't popped up yet.

Image: Google Google ended its contract with Appen, an Australian data company involved in training its large language model AI tools used in Bard, Search, and other products, even as the competition to develop generative AI tools increases. Our decision to end the contract was made as part of our ongoing effort to evaluate and adjust many of our supplier partnerships across Alphabet to ensure our vendor operations are as efficient as possible," Google spokesperson Courtenay Mencini said in a statement sent to The Verge.Appen notified the Australian Securities Exchange in a filing, saying it had no prior knowledge of Google's decision to terminate the contract."Human workers at companies like Appen often handle many of the more distasteful parts... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge This last weekend I was sitting in a hotel room in Memphis, staring out at the parking lot turned ice skating rink, wanting to just have a couple of hours with my brain turned off. I opened Netflix hoping to find a movie that would give me an evening's respite. Scrolling down to the top 10, I was met with a who's who of the 2010s and 2020s. Cowboy & Aliens, the 2011 flop with a great cast, was on the list. Queenpins, the 2021 flop with a great cast, was also there. At the top of the list was The Legend of Tarzan, a 2016 flop with a great cast. Rounding out the top 10 was a Sylvester Stallone flick from 2019 and a handful of new releases I'd heard nothing about until I saw them in the top 10 list.In a highly competitive streaming market... Continue reading...

ADT has a new smart home security on the works that looks like it will launch next month. | Screenshot: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge All signs are pointing to an imminent launch of ADT's new Smart Home Security System, a DIY security system born of a collaboration between Google and ADT. This could be a better home security option for those of us who loved and lost the excellent but expensive Google Nest Secure system, which Google is sunsetting for good on April 8th, 2024.As The Verge reported in October 2023, hidden support pages on ADT's website indicated the company - which Google invested $450 million into in 2020 - was getting ready to launch a new DIY security system called ADT Smart Home Security.From the leaks, it appeared that the new product had better features and a nicer industrial design than the ADT Self Setup option Google was offering its Nest... Continue reading...

Image: OnLeaks via MySmartPrice The Pixel 8 has only been out for a few months, but that isn't stopping leakers from getting early images of the forthcoming Pixel 9. Reliable leaker OnLeaks shared a set of renders with MySmartPrice, showing what appears to be Google's Pixel 9 Pro flagship with completely flat edges framing the phone and giving off iPhone vibes.That's not the only major design change on this phone - it looks like Google may have also redesigned the rear camera bar. Instead of stretching the camera bar across the entire width of the phone, the renders show the three-camera setup inside of a bulging, oval-shaped island, similar to the Pixel Fold. It also appears to come with a slightly smaller 6.5-inch display (down from 6.7 inches on the Pixel 8 Pro),... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge France's National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) has fined Amazon 32 million, or about $35 million USD, for excessively intrusive" worker surveillance that the commission says puts continuous pressure" on employees in Amazon's warehouses. Amazon called its conclusions, which put the company in violation of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), factually incorrect."Following an investigation prompted by press reports, CNIL said that Amazon's systems measuring and restricting scanning speed (including a stow machine gun" indicator that activates when workers are scanning too fast), along with the company's data collection and retention practices, were excessive" and violated several GDPR articles. So did... Continue reading...

Image: Blizzard We are, as the kids say, so friggin' back.In November, the Overwatch League announced its end after six seasons. At the time, Overwatch League associate PR manager John Nomis said, We are transitioning from the Overwatch League and evolving competitive Overwatch in a new direction," confirming that while the League itself was dead, Overwatch esports would return. Today, we know what shape competitive Overwatch will take in 2024 with the announcement of the Overwatch Champions Series or the OWCS.The OWCS is our new premiere international competitive circuit open to players across North America (NA), Europe, Middle East, and North Africa (EMEA), and Asia," read the announcement post.The Overwatch Champions Series will have an open... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge This is Hot Pod, The Verge's newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.On Friday, Insiders got part one of a Q&A with NPR's new podcasting chief, Collin Campbell, who led new show development at Gimlet before the studio was dismantled by Spotify. We discussed how his strategy for NPR differs from his predecessor and how the network is moving forward after last year's layoffs and cancellations. Today, I have the second part of the interview, in which we got into how NPR is operating in the new, competitive podcasting landscape, and what (if anything) he learned from the tumult at Gimlet.But first, some more Hot Pod Summit news!Throughline and Israel Story are coming to Hot Pod SummitIt's shaping up... Continue reading...

LG's C3 OLED TVs offer bright, vivid displays along with several gamer-friendly features. | Image: LG Super Bowl season traditionally brings with it steep discounts on last year's TVs, and while it's still some time away, the deals are starting to trickle in. If you want to upgrade your TV ahead of the event, BuyDig is throwing in up to $200 in gift cards when you buy the last-gen LG C3 OLED TV in various configurations. You can, for instance, buy the 77-inch model at its all-time low price of $2,296.99 ($200 off) with a $200 gift card, while the 65-inch is $1,596.99 ($1,000 off) with a $100 gift card included. If you prefer a different retailer, Amazon and Best Buy are also discounting the TVs but without a gift card.The forthcoming LG C4 is brighter and has more processing power, but the last-gen TV is still an impressive... Continue reading...

Wyze has announced the second generation of its inexpensive floodlight camera, and it's even cheaper. | Image: Wyze Budget smart home company Wyze announced its second generation wired floodlight camera this week, and it brings some significant upgrades over the first gen. These include bumping up the video resolution to 2K HD from 1080p, increasing the camera's field of view to 160 degrees, and delivering up to 2800 lumens of light with the two floodlights, plus the option for using them as ambient lighting and not just security lighting.The Wyze Cam Floodlight V2 is available to buy now for $83.99 plus shipping ($10 less than the V1 is currently listed for but the same price it launched at). But a launch special of $53.99 plus shipping makes it one of the cheapest floodlight cameras you can buy. Blink has a wired floodlight camera for $100, but... Continue reading...

Chrome's AI features are simple for now - but bigger things are coming. | Image: Google Google's Chrome browser is leaning into AI in a big way. Rather than just shove a Bard sidebar into the browser, Google is rolling out a couple of features that tap into its models in order to hopefully make your browser a little more pleasant to use. They're launching today in an experimental mode (you can go to settings and turn on Experimental AI" to get them), and Google says they're just the beginning of the AI browser takeover.Chrome's new Tab Organizer feature is the most compelling: you can right-click on a Chrome tab and select organize similar tabs," and Chrome will attempt to create a tab group filled with similar stuff. If you're shopping for something, deep diving some esoteric subject, or just opening all your news... Continue reading...

Image: Netflix We're about a month away from the live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix, which can only mean one thing: it's time for a trailer.This clip is focused almost entirely on setting up Aang (played by Gordon Cormier) - the titular Avatar - as a young hero preparing to, well, save the world. It's full of dramatic lines, some cool special effects, and at least one very cute critter. If nothing else, the trailer makes it seem like the live-action series will be a good entry point for newcomers who haven't seen the animated series.It's been a long road to this new take on the franchise. The adaptation was first announced in 2018, and in 2020, the show's original creators stepped away from the project citing creative... Continue reading...

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists decided to keep its Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight. | Image: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Despite a horrific war in Gaza and growing conflict in the region, the hottest year on record, and the hype surrounding artificial intelligence - the Doomsday Clock will stay put this year at 90 seconds to midnight.Last year, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which sets the time each year, moved the clock forward to 90 seconds from midnight - AKA doom. That was the closest the clock has ever been set to annihilation, and it will stay there this year.Ninety seconds to midnight is profoundly unstable and must not engender complacency."There are two key messages in our statement and they are one: that 90 seconds to midnight is profoundly unstable and must not engender complacency and two: the advancement of technology is... Continue reading...

The OnePlus 12 in green. | Image: OnePlus A little over a month and a half after its Chinese launch, OnePlus has officially announced pricing and a release date for its latest flagship in global markets. The OnePlus 12 will ship in the US on February 6th, starting at $799.99 (949 / 849) for its most affordable model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It's one of a trio of devices OnePlus is launching today, with the other two being the lower-end OnePlus 12R and the OnePlus Buds 3 true wireless earbuds.You can check out my colleague Allison Johnson's full review of the OnePlus 12 right here, but the TL;DR is that this is a phone with flagship specs that does a good job of nailing the basics. It offers great battery life, a big screen with an impressively high claimed peak... Continue reading...

How much will you forgive for a one-of-a-kind notebook? Continue reading...

While Samsung and Google were busy shipping AI features as fast as possible, OnePlus doubled down on the essentials. Continue reading...

A portrait of Rep. Ro Khanna. | Photo illustration: The Verge | Photo Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images The Democratic representative from California, whose district includes Apple and Nvidia, discusses the future of tech regulation and the 2024 election. Continue reading...

The TurboTax website on a laptop in an arranged photograph in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, on Friday, September 3rd, 2021. | Image: Tiffany Hagler-Geard / Bloomberg via Getty Images The Federal Trade Commission cracked down on TurboTax, issuing a final order that prohibits the company from calling its services free" when most customers end up having to upgrade to paid services.Parent company Intuit had advertised TurboTax as Free, free free free," even though a majority of customers were in fact ineligible for free services. The Federal Trade Commission sued TurboTax in 2022 over misleading advertising, and the FTC's chief administrative law judge announced an initial decision in September saying Intuit engaged in deceptive advertising in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act."The character of the past violations is egregious."The character of the past violations is egregious. For at least six years, Intuit... Continue reading...

Nvidia's second RTX 40-series Super card isn't as impressive as its first. Continue reading...

Photo by Michelle Farsi/Zuffa LLC Netflix has dabbled in live broadcasts over the last year or so, and now the company has announced a long-term deal with the WWE to broadcast its headline weekly show, Monday Night Raw, starting next year. This is the first time Monday Night Raw, which broadcasts live every week, is leaving traditional linear television, as it has been the No. 1 rated program on NBCUniversal's USA Network, and it has tie-ins to NBCU's streaming platform, Peacock.The deal is even more comprehensive outside of the US, where Netflix is also obtaining the rights to WWE shows like SmackDown and NXT, plus monthly premium live events like WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and the Royal Rumble. NBCUniversal's Peacock service still has the rights locked up for those... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge After last year saw over 9,000 layoffs in the video game industry, 2024 is continuing the trend, and League of Legends maker Riot Games is the latest example. On Monday night, the company announced that we are refocusing on fewer, high-impact projects to move us toward a more sustainable future," which means eliminating roles for 530 people globally, or about 11 percent of its total workforce.This news arrives just days after the results of a Game Developers Conference (GDC) survey showed 56 percent of respondents felt layoffs were in store for their studios due in large part to a post-pandemic course correction."Legends of Runeterra and Riot Forge cuts are part of the adjustments'Some of the significant investments we've made... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Artists on Apple Music will earn a bonus payout of up to 10 percent in royalties for all songs that are also available in spatial audio. That's according to an update sent to record label partners and seen by 9to5Mac. Quoted by Music Business Worldwide, it says that starting with January's month-end payout, pro-rata shares for Spatial Available plays will be calculated using a factor of 1.1 while Non-Spatial Available plays will continue to use a factor of 1." Pro rata refers to the one big pot" of pooled subscription money that's divided based on the number of streams.Bloomberg reported in December that Apple planned to offer financial incentives for musicians and record labels to release songs in the Dolby Atmos-supported format.... Continue reading...

LG's MyView smart monitor | LG Electronics You can now purchase the entire slate of LG's webOS-powered MyView monitors, which debuted at CES earlier this month, including one with a 31.5-inch 4K IPS panel (model 32SR85U) that starts at $599.99. Sure, gamers can find better value for their money than a monitor that maxes out with 5ms response times and a 60Hz refresh rate, but visual creatives might appreciate a 95 percent DCI-P3 color gamut. And when your office work is done, you can fire up a full suite of entertainment apps or stream directly from another device with AirPlay 2 and Miracast support.It could be an ideal monitor for movie watching at your desk without loud fans (or Slack notifications) ruining the immersion, and it's easier to fit into your home office than... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Securities and Exchange Commission has linked a SIM swapping attack to its account breach on X earlier this month, which led to the creation of a fake post announcing approval of Bitcoin ETFs that caused the cryptocurrency's price to spike. In an update on Monday, the SEC says an unauthorized party obtained control of the SEC cell phone number associated with the account in an apparent SIM swap' attack."A SIM-swapping attack occurs when a bad actor obtains a victim's phone number through techniques like social engineering. That allows the attacker to intercept calls and texts intended for the victim, including two-factor authentication codes, which they can then use to sign in to their victim's accounts.In the SEC's case, a bad... Continue reading...