The Verge

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Phone-Free School Act into law this week, requiring every school district, charter school, and county office of education statewide to implement rules limiting cellphone use by July 1st, 2026. There are exceptions to the rule, including using phones for emergencies or with permission under certain circumstances.We know that excessive smartphone use increases anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues - but we have the power to intervene," said Newsom in a statement.This comes as other states like New York consider pursuing legislation for a total ban on phones in schools. It's part of a wave of laws targeting tech-related child safety at the state and national level, including the... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge The employees at an Apple Store in Oklahoma City voted on Tuesday to ratify their union contract, making it the second retail location to reach a collectively bargained agreement with the company.The store's 78 employees, who are represented by the Communications Workers of America (CWA), shared the details of the contract, which includes wage increases of up to 11.5 percent over the next three years and guaranteed paid time off. The contract also ensures employee involvement in scheduling, job protection in case of a store closure, and health benefits.The Apple Store workers in Oklahoma City voted to unionize in 2022. They later reached a tentative agreement with Apple after holding an informational picket outside the store. In... Continue reading...

Amazon's new 12th-gen Kindle will come in at least two colors: black and matcha green. | Image: MediaMarkt With stock of its current generation of e-readers dwindling, Amazon is expected to announce new Kindles soon, perhaps as early as next week. A Spanish retailer has a listing for a new 2024 version of the entry-level Kindle with a release date listed as September 30th, as spotted by Good e-Reader.The new Kindle will have a six-inch, 300ppi screen with improved contrast and a backlight that's 25 percent brighter than the model Amazon released two years ago. It will also offer faster page turns and a new dark mode that inverts its monochromatic E Ink screen, but there's no mention of it having warm screen lighting or whether it will feature the improved E Ink Carta 1200 screen that Amazon used on the 11th-gen Kindle Paperwhite that debuted... Continue reading...

Palworld | Screenshot: PlayStation (YouTube) Sony included the PS5 launch of Palworld as one of its news items during Tuesday evening's State of Play presentation, but it left out a detail. While the game has launched on PlayStation platforms in 68 countries and regions worldwide, Japan is not one of them.The official Japanese account for the game said on X, according to machine translation, that the release date in Japan has not yet been decided," without going into detail about the reason. It certainly seems like a reason could be the patent infringement lawsuit Nintendo and The Pokemon Company filed against Palworld developer Pocketpair last week, but the tweet didn't confirm things either way.The most recent statement about the issue from Pocketpair is still this one from... Continue reading...

Image: Sony Sony is launching shiny new Chroma" console covers for the PlayStation 5 Slim that come in pearl, indigo, and teal. And if having an iridescent console isn't eye-catching enough, you can also get new DualSense controllers to match.The Chroma console covers will cost $64.99 USD, while the DualSense controllers will cost $79.99. Sony is launching the Chroma pearl and indigo accessories on November 7th, followed by teal on January 23, 2025. The new colors look neat, but they're quite intense - I'm not sure I'd want to swap out the sleek blue, red, or gray of the PS5 Slim for these.You'll be able to preorder covers and controllers from the collection on October 3rd, with availability in the US, UK, France, Germany, Austria, Spain,... Continue reading...

Image: Sucker Punch To close out Sony's State of Play presentation, Sucker Punch debuted a first look at the next game in its award-winning Ghosts series. Dubbed Ghost of Yotei, players will inhabit a new female protagonist named Atsu, who wields a shamisen in addition to a samurai's traditional sword. According to the trailer description, Atsu will travel the wilds around Mount Yotei accompanied by a mysterious wolf companion.Sucker Punch Studios, the developers behind the Sly Cooper and Infamous series, released Ghosts of Tsushima back in 2020. The game was praised for its quiet, contemplative moments as much as it's Akira Kurosawa-style samurai action. Earlier this year, Sucker Punch released a PC port of Tsushima and confirmed that a movie based on the... Continue reading...

Image: Guerrilla Games Sony is releasing a remastered version of Horizon Zero Dawn. The company announced the news during its State of Play event on Tuesday and says the game will be available on PlayStation 5 and PC starting October 31st with stunning new visuals and enhanced features."Rumors about a potential Horizon Zero Dawn remaster first emerged in 2022, but several news outlets spotted an ESRB rating for the remaster on the PS5 and PC just last week.Launched in 2017, Horizon Zero Dawn puts you in control of Aloy, a hunter who lives in a postapocalyptic world overrun by mechanical creatures. It tasks you with taking down enemies using your bow, spear, and a little bit of stealth.Sony brought Horizon Zero Dawn to PC in 2020 and later released an... Continue reading...

Image: PlayStation Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is one of those series of games that has always felt unjustly left behind to me, and at Sony's State of Play today, it's finally getting its due, at least a little. The two classic Crystal Dynamics games, which I enjoyed in their penultimate form on the Dreamcast, are getting a remaster courtesy of Aspyr Media.The remastered games will appear on December 10th on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, and PC (Steam or Epic Games Store).The two Soul Reaver games were supernatural action puzzlers with a heavy Lovecraftian bent released first for the original PlayStation and Windows PCs in 1999, then for the Sega Dreamcast in 2000. In them, you play Raziel, a jawless vampire who was brought back to life by an elder god.... Continue reading...

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge Microsoft is launching a new feature called correction" that builds on the company's efforts to combat AI inaccuracies. Customers using Microsoft Azure to power their AI systems can now use the capability to automatically detect and rewrite incorrect content in AI outputs.The correction feature is available in preview as part of the Azure AI Studio - a suite of safety tools designed to detect vulnerabilities, find hallucinations," and block malicious prompts. Once enabled, the correction system will scan and identify inaccuracies in AI output by comparing it with a customer's source material.From there, it will highlight the mistake, provide information about why it's incorrect, and rewrite the content in question - all before the... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Astro Bot DLC news, and and Sucker Punch's next big game. Continue reading...

Governor Gavin Newsom gave his thoughts on SB 1047 for the first time at Salesforce's Dreamforce event last week. | Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images As Governor Gavin Newsom's decision looms, SAG-AFTRA members leverage star power to push for SB 1047's passage. Continue reading...

Image: Getty Though director James Cameron recently expressed concern about the potential of artificial intelligence to leave people without a sense of purpose, the longtime early adopter has now joined Stability AI's board of directors.Today, Stability AI - the company behind Stable Diffusion - announced that Cameron has signed a deal to become the newest member of its executive leadership team. In a statement, CEO Prem Akkaraju described Cameron's coming on as a monumental statement" for the AI industry as a whole and described the director as someone who lives in the future and waits for the rest of us to catch up." Cameron cited his long history of experimenting with emerging technologies as part of what inspired him to join Stability AI's... Continue reading...

It's hard to believe Nintendo's Classic Edition consoles are already this old. | Image: Nintendo Japan Somehow, Nintendo's NES Classic Edition console is already almost eight years old, while the Super Nintendo Classic Edition is about to turn seven. That's apparently old enough for Nintendo to announce that the Japanese versions of the consoles - the Nintendo Classic Mini Family Computer and the Nintendo Classic Mini Super Famicom - will no longer be eligible for repair once Nintendo Japan's current stock of parts runs out.That doesn't mean that if you wake up tomorrow morning with a mini Famicom that won't boot you're out of luck. Nintendo Japan will continue to accept repairs but is warning users that it doesn't have a definitive timeline for how long that will be the case. Nintendo Japan announced its plan to end repairs of the... Continue reading...

An early prototype of the Super5 OLED Switch Lite upgrade kit. | Screenshot: YouTube Retro Remake has announced that its Switch Lite OLED screen upgrade kits will be available for sale on September 26th at 10PM ET and will start at $49.99. The Super5 OLED kits come with everything needed for the upgrade, including tools like screwdrivers. And unlike many mods, they don't require soldering or modifications to be made to the Switch Lite's shell to fit extra components in.A proof-of-concept video demonstrating a working prototype of the upgrade kit was shared on YouTube by Taki Udon last July, with the price tag confirmed to be under $50. That's still true but with a catch. The Super5 OLED Standard Upgrade Kit will be $49.99 but has a screen that doesn't support touch inputs, making games like Super Mario Maker 2 that... Continue reading...

The new modular jackets feature a reinvention of the button." | Image: Moncler You can now pre-order these modular jackets designed by Jony Ive. The new product from Apple's former chief design officer is a collaboration between his design company LoveFrom and the French fashion brand Moncler. Pieces in the LoveFrom Moncler collection start at $2,440 for the parka, $2,575 for the field jacket, and $3,115 for the down jacket. The dashing orange poncho doesn't appear to be available yet.The sartorial statement pieces (Vogue is hailing them as the Season's Most Functional Outerwear") will ship on October 10th. But you might want to be quick about it; most of the white versions are already sold out.The LoveFrom, Moncler collection features three shell jackets made from high-quality recycled nylon" that connect to a... Continue reading...

Photo by Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images The Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa, alleging that the financial services firm has an illegal monopoly over debit network markets and has attempted to unlawfully crush competitors, including fintech companies like PayPal and Square. The lawsuit, which was first rumored by Bloomberg, follows a multiyear investigation of Visa, which the company disclosed in 2021.We allege that Visa has unlawfully amassed the power to extract fees that far exceed what it could charge in a competitive market," US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. Merchants and banks pass along those costs to consumers, either by raising prices or reducing quality or service. As a result, Visa's unlawful conduct affects... Continue reading...

Arlo cameras and video doorbells are getting an AI-powered upgrade with new facial recognition capabilities and the ability to identify specific cars. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Arlo is upgrading its security cameras and video doorbells with additional AI capabilities. The company is adding the ability for its cameras to recognize people and vehicles and learn to detect custom objects or changes in the surroundings. While an Arlo camera can currently alert you when it spots a person or vehicle (as well as packages and animals), it can now be trained to tell you exactly who it sees and which vehicle.The new capabilities are part of Arlo Secure 5, a package of AI-powered features combined with machine learning. Secure 5 is available now to Arlo users in the US, Canada, and Asia-Pacific, with other regions coming soon, according to Ashton Good, senior director of marketing at Arlo.If the new alerts work well,... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It's time for another PlayStation State of Play livestream where Sony showcases its next big game and hardware announcements. Sony has promised we'll see more than 20 upcoming PS5 and PS VR2 games from studios around the world" during the 30-minute-plus presentation.Sony announced Astro Bot during its May State of Play stream, and the game racked up Game of the Year" nominations once it launched earlier this month. Now, September's showcase will try to present strong follow-ups that keep the momentum going.The new State of Play comes just two weeks after the company announced a new beefed-up PS5 Pro" model, which will be open for preorder on September 26th. The new system's larger GPU and support for PlayStation Spectral Super... Continue reading...

The Dab 1a electric motorcycle was inspired by the atomic purple Game Boy Color. | Image: Dab Motors Dab Motors has announced a new finish for its Dab 1a electric motorcycle that's inspired by Nintendo's atomic purple Game Boy Color. Customers who preorder the bike, which starts at 14,900 (over $16,500 USD), can opt for a transparent purple body that will look familiar to those who remember playing the handheld.Created by Dab Motors' bespoke service branch," the atomic purple version of the Dab 1a also includes custom handlebars with controls made to look like the Game Boy Color's D-pad and action buttons. Between them, the bike's screen features an overlay with a red status light on one side mimicking the Game Boy display many of us spent too much of our childhood staring at. Image: Dab Motors The Dab 1a's GBC... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images You should never voluntarily hand your phone to a police officer.It's going to become increasingly tempting for the cops to ask and for you to comply, especially as more and more states adopt digital ID systems that allow driver's licenses and state IDs to be added to Apple Wallet on iOS and Google Wallet on Android. Californians can now add their driver's licenses and state IDs to their iPhones and Apple Watches in addition to Android devices, making the state one of seven - alongside Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Hawaii, and Ohio - to allow storing digital IDs through Apple's system.These particular digital IDs are so far pretty limited. California's are for use at select TSA checkpoints" and participating businesses, for... Continue reading...

Image: Sony Sony has introduced a new OLED gaming monitor that's aiming to appeal to competitive players across both PC and PS5 systems. The 27-inch InZone M10S was codeveloped with the popular Fnatic esports team to be tournament ready," sporting a 1440p panel that pairs a speedy 0.03ms response time with a variable 480Hz refresh rate.The M10S is available to order online starting today, with a recommended retail price of $1,099.99. Its specs alone make it one of the fastest OLED gaming displays you can buy, matching the capabilities of the high-end panels that LG Display unveiled at CES back in January. Achieving the full 480Hz will be dependent on frame rate and GPU performance for PC users, however, and PS5 consoles will cap that at 120Hz.S... Continue reading...

The noise-canceling AirPods 4 offer a few premium features the standard model lacks, including a case with a built-in speaker. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge It's turning out to be a good week for Apple fans. First, the new black Apple Watch Ultra 2 received a $50 discount, and now both versions of the new AirPods 4 are on sale for the first time. The AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation are down to $169 ($10 off) at Amazon, while the standard AirPods 4 are on sale at Amazon for $119 ($10 off). Neither is an enormous discount, but if you're an early adopter, it beats the prices you'd be paying at Best Buy, Apple, and other retailers.Regardless of which model you choose, the AirPods 4 represent a substantial upgrade over their predecessor. Both pairs of earbuds deliver better sound than the second-gen AirPods, with more bass than the third-gen AirPods. They also sport the Voice Isolation... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alvaro Bernis / The Verge Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) is partnering with Google Cloud to generate closed captioning for content on the studio's Max streaming service in the US. WBD will use a new caption AI" solution that runs on Google Cloud's Vertex AI platform to generate speech-to-text for some shows, starting with unscripted programming."Captions generated for the Max shows will have human oversight for quality assurance. According to Google, the workflow will reduce caption file creation time by up to 80 percent and cut costs by up to 50 percent compared to manual methods. WBD will continuously refine and train caption AI to make fewer mistakes.Notably, most content on Max already has closed captioning tracks, and WBD hasn't said how extensively it... Continue reading...

ANDORRA, SPAIN - FEBRUARY 16: A photovoltaic power plant in Teruel, Aragon. | Photo: Getty Images Nearly 200 countries have pledged to triple global renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade - a goal that's within reach" as long as governments act fast, according to a new report.The International Energy Agency (IEA) released its roadmap today for how countries can make it happen. It's still a tough climb ahead with a hell of a lot new infrastructure needed. But falling costs and supportive policies can help them get there.To ensure the world doesn't miss this huge opportunity, the focus must shift rapidly to implementation," IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in a press release.To ensure the world doesn't miss this huge opportunity, the focus must shift rapidly to implementation."An international commitment to... Continue reading...

Image: Insta360 Insta360 has announced two new versions of its Link webcam with smaller designs and new automated tracking capabilities optimized for presentations or livestreaming. The $199 Link 2 carries forward the innovative two-axis gimbal of the original while introducing improvements to its noise reduction capabilities, while the $149 Link 2C doesn't move itself at all.Both webcams also come with a new magnetic mount making them easier to attach to some surfaces and are much cheaper than the original Insta360 Link, which debuted at $299.99 in 2022. Image: Insta360 The Link 2 has a much smaller base than the original Link webcam. Both the Link 2 and new Link 2C use the same half-inch sensor of the original Link paired... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Google is updating Street View imagery in nearly 80 countries, such as Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Japan, the Philippines, Rwanda, Serbia, South Africa, and more. It's also bringing Street View to a handful of countries where it's never been available, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Namibia, Liechtenstein, and Paraguay.Google says its more portable Street View camera, which launched in 2022, will help offer images of even more places in the future." Image: Google An enhanced Street View image of Logstor, Denmark. Meanwhile, Google Maps and Google Earth are getting sharper satellite imagery as well thanks to the company's cloud-removal AI tool that takes out clouds, shadows, haze, and mist. This should result in... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Dozens of X posts containing images of Mario - including an AI-generated picture of the plumber holding a beer and a cigarette, created by The Verge using xAI's Grok - were removed after a company called Tracer apparently used AI to identify the images and serve takedown notices on behalf of Nintendo.According to an email received by The Verge's Tom Warren, a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice was issued to X by customer success manager" Ben Arzen of Tracer, which offers AI-powered services to companies purported to identify trademark and copyright violations online. Here's the image that got Tom's post removed. Image: X Potential copyright issues aside, why is there cigarette smoke coming out of... Continue reading...

Get ready for a new Mozilla look with old-school internet vibes. | Image: Mozilla Mozilla has overhauled its branding to pay homage to its Netscape roots and better distinguish the wider organization from its Firefox web browser. The most notable change is to the company's logo: what was previously a sans-serif wordmark styled as Moz://a" has been updated to correctly spell out the Mozilla name, featuring a new customized typeface and an M-shaped flag.According to Mozilla, the flag symbolizes the brand's activist spirit." That fits with the image that the Mozilla Foundation, which is leading the company, is attempting to build: describing itself as a non-profit organization that promotes openness, innovation, and participation on the Internet" and regularly releasing privacy reports that investigate tech... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge OpenAI's new model, called o1, appears to think and ponder as you use it. But is it thinking? Or pondering? And what does it mean if it is? Would that make it worth the risks, which appear to be both greater and more plausible than ever? How do you balance the risks of destroying humanity with the possibility of improving it? This is the thing about talking about artificial intelligence: it has this nasty penchant of getting all existential on you.On this episode of The Vergecast, we get all existential about AI. The Verge's Kylie Robison joins the show to discuss why OpenAI built o1, why it's launching the way it is, what to make of the folks who are worried about what they're seeing from the model, and how we should think about this... Continue reading...