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The entire Model Y range has also been discounted by $3,000. | Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla has cut the price of its Model 3 and Model Y vehicles in the US for the second time this month, reducing the starting price of Tesla’s most affordable EV below $40,000 (before incentives). The adjusted pricing has been rolled out shortly before Tesla is expected to release its quarterly earnings report later today.The Model 3 Standard Range RWD has been reduced from $41,990 to $39,990. That’s not the cheapest price we’ve seen for the EV — Tesla had previously offered the Standard Range model for $35,000 in 2019 prior to its 2021 update. As noted by Electrek, the Model 3 is Tesla’s only vehicle to have seen its federal tax credit cut from $7,500 to $3,750 under new guidance from the US Treasury regarding battery sourcing... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge For a little bit on Tuesday evening, if you tried search for something on Google, your search results may not have looked quite right: the actual list of blue links was missing. In searches I did while the issue was happening, I would see things like the Top Stories box and the info box on the side, but list of links just wasn’t there.It wasn’t only me, either. There were nearly 20,000 reports of issues on Downdetector, and I saw lots of people reporting problems on Twitter, too. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Here’s a screenshot of what I was seeing while the issue was happening. Google confirmed that something briefly went wrong in a statement to The Verge. “There was a very brief issue affecting the... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit announced new API changes today that will eventually pinch its content pipeline from being used to train artificial intelligence tools, including the models that power OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Microsoft’s Bing AI. AI chatbots’ abilities to provide powerful answers have data resources like Reddit to thank — and now Reddit is planning to put that robot food behind a paywall.Social media resources, including Reddit, are some of the sources used to train large language models (LLM) that can provide cogent responses to human prompts. Some of this data can be scraped in an unstructured manner, but Reddit’s API has helped companies make it easy to directly find and package useful data.Reddit’s API, which has been available... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix is pushing back its plans to crack down on password sharing in the US until sometime before July. In an earnings report released on Tuesday, the streamer says it “shifted out the timing of the broad launch from late Q1 to Q2.”Earlier this year, Netflix committed to cracking down on password sharing “more broadly” toward the end of the first quarter of 2023. While it did roll out new anti-password sharing rules in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain in February, these rules never reached the US.Now, Netflix says that it’s “pleased with the results” of its paid sharing implementation in these four countries so far and that it has helped build up Canada’s paid subscriber base, which is “now growing faster than in the US.”In... Continue reading…

This is what Google’s foldable Pixel smartphone might look like. | Image: OnLeaks and HowToiSolve When will we finally see Google’s first foldable phone? The smart money is now on May 10th, with availability in June. CNBC says it got hold of internal marketing materials showing Google will launch the repeatedly reportedly delayed smartphone at Google I/O.Most of CNBC’s report corroborates what leakers like Roland Quandt and OnLeaks have already told us. You should expect a closed-book 5.8-inch phone that folds out into a 7.6-inch tablet, powered by Google’s Tensor G2 processor, starting at north of $1,700 — making it a direct competitor to Samsung’s $1,800 Galaxy Z Fold 4.Unapologetically (slightly) heavierBut CNBC says they may differ in one important way: the Pixel Fold will have a larger battery “that Google says will last... Continue reading…

Image: Meta Meta is opening up its Horizon Worlds social VR platform to teens in the US and Canada in the coming weeks, the company announced on Tuesday. For teen players, which Meta defines as between the ages of 13 and 17, Meta will have some extra features in place to help provide a safer experience on the platform.Teen profiles will be private by default, for example, and Meta won’t show a teen’s online status unless they choose to flip that on. Its “voice mode” feature that turns voices of people you don’t know into “quiet, friendly sounds” and garbles your own voice will also be on for teens by default. Meta won’t show any adults that a teen player doesn’t know in the “people you might know” tab. And the company says it has expanded its VR... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge This is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.Hello, Hot Podders! We’re kicking off the week with a big announcement.This won’t come as a surprise to anyone who attended Hot Pod Summit in February, but I am very pregnant. Like baby-keeps-kicking-the-laptop-out-of-my-lap pregnant. This is my last week at The Verge before I go on leave. I will be back in September with what will likely be a lot of catching up to do on the audio business since my plans for the next five months mainly entail diapers and not sleeping. So if you see a frizzy, bedraggled new mom pushing a sage green UPPAbaby around Ditmas Park this summer, feel free to say hi! It might be me or one of the dozens... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images The Fox News defamation case was not, in fact, as entertaining as Succession. On the first day of trial, Fox settled with Dominion Voting Systems, heading off a process that could have aired embarrassing revelations about the news giant. Dominion says the settlement included a $787 million payout — apparently enough to compensate it for months of false claims about the 2020 presidential election.As The New York Times reports, a Delaware judge announced the settlement after a morning of jury selection and just before attorneys’ opening statements. The dismissal means Fox Corporation won’t have to put some of its biggest names on the stand, including chairman Rupert Murdoch and Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Dominion revealed the payment... Continue reading…

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Netflix is making its $6.99 per month ad-supported plan a much better value. The company is upping the video quality from 720p to 1080p and will let subscribers watch two streams at once, Netflix said in its Q1 2023 letter to investors. Subscribers in Canada and Spain will get the improved features starting today and be available in all 12 of the markets where the company offers its ads plan sometime this month.Netflix says it is “pleased” with the progress of Basic with Ads, which launched in November, and notes that its total average revenue per membership in the US for the ads plan already exceeds that of the standard plan. It also says that recent licensing deals mean the ads tier now offers “on average ~95 percent content parity... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix, which started as a company that shipped DVDs by mail, is winding down its DVD business. It will ship its final discs from DVD.com on September 29th, the company announced on Tuesday.“After an incredible 25 year run, we’ve decided to wind down DVD.com later this year,” Netflix said in a blog post. “Our goal has always been to provide the best service for our members but as the business continues to shrink that’s going to become increasingly difficult.”

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge A group of Republican lawmakers are calling on their colleagues to stop using TikTok as pressure mounts to ban the app nationwide.In letters to the Senate and House rules committees, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Rep. Dan Crenshaw, and more than a dozen other Republicans demanded that the panels ban elected officials from using TikTok. Last year, Congress and a handful of state legislatures banned the app on government-owned devices, but these rules do not currently apply to members’ personal phones and devices.“It is troublesome that some members continue to disregard these clear warnings and are even encouraging their constituents to use TikTok to interface with their elected representatives — especially since some of these users... Continue reading…

Image: Intel Intel just shipped its first Bitcoin-mining chip last June, the Blockscale 100 ASIC, but it’s already dead — the company has discontinued it less than a year later, reports Tom’s Hardware, without announcing a new chip to succeed it.Does that mean Intel’s already done with crypto chips after pumping the idea last February? Perhaps: Intel dodged a question from Tom’s Hardware about whether it’d exit the Bitcoin ASIC business, saying only, “We continue to monitor market opportunities.”Intel’s timing seems to have been... unfortunate. Between the time Intel announced the chip and the time it shipped, Bitcoin had fallen by more than half — from a high of over $47,000 per coin to under $19,000 each. That said, Bitcoin is back over... Continue reading…

The new HomePod and the HomePod Mini can now alert you to the sound of a smoke or CO alarm in your home. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Starting today, Apple HomePod smart speakers can alert you if a smoke or CO detector goes off in your home. The Sound Recognition feature, first announced when the second-gen HomePod was launched earlier this year, listens for the alarm sound and sends a notification to your phone. Apple says the capability is now rolling out on the first- and second-gen HomePods and the HomePod Mini, though we haven’t yet seen it in our apps.For this to work, you’d need to have smoke and CO alarms installed in your home; the speakers cannot detect actual smoke or carbon monoxide. But they don’t need to be smart smoke alarms or have any internet connection, which is good news. Currently, the only smart smoke alarms compatible with Apple Home in the US... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Apple’s long-rumored VR / AR headset might run adapted versions of iPad apps, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The mixed reality device’s new interface will also apparently let users access “millions” of already-available apps on the App Store.This, in my opinion, is very good news: a bunch of great apps could go a long way in making a compelling case for what’s expected to be a very expensive gadget in a device category that isn’t doing great right now.Here are some of the apps you can expect, according to Bloomberg:

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has quietly altered its Hateful Conduct Policy to remove long-standing protections for its transgender users, as spotted by the nonprofit organization Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). In a section that prohibits attacking other users with “repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category,” Twitter removed a line that specifically includes the “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”According to Wayback Machine, the inclusion of misgendering and deadnaming was removed on April 8th — the day after Twitter announced it had updated the policy to clarify how it defines targeted harassment. The... Continue reading…

Image: Guerrilla Games The team at Guerrilla Games has released patch 1.21 for Horizon Forbidden West in the lead-up to the release of the Burning Shores DLC. The patch adds some neat quality-of-life updates including a sorely needed auto item pickup feature and the ability to increase subtitle size for increased legibility. But perhaps the most interesting feature coming with this patch is the addition of a thalassophobia mode.Thalassophobia, simply put, is the fear of deep water. Throughout Forbidden West, Aloy has the opportunity to do some deep-sea diving in the postapocalyptic San Francisco Bay and elsewhere. There’s a point in the story where she can develop essentially a scuba tank for extended periods of underwater exploration. Thalassophobia mode, a... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge General Motors recently made a decision that, depending on how you look at it, may come back to bite them in the ass.The company announced that for its future lineup of electric vehicles, it would no longer offer access to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. That means future owners of the Chevy Blazer EV or GMC Sierra EV Denali won’t be able to project their phone’s operating systems onto the infotainment screen of their vehicles.The backlash was swift. Car shoppers told the Detroit Free Press that the move was “a dealbreaker” and a “huge blunder.” Auto analysts were left scratching their heads, noting that demand for CarPlay and Android Auto was “massive” and that GM was taking a huge risk by cutting off access.But Scott Miller, vice... Continue reading…

Image: BMW BMW’s 7 Series vehicles have always been about interior space and ride comfort, and now, the newest electric version is the automaker’s “most powerful” EV ever. The new BMW i7 M70 xDrive was handed the title as the vehicle makes its debut this week at the Auto Shanghai international motor show in China.According to BMW, its bestselling model worldwide last year was the BMW i4 M50 — a performance version of the electric 4 Series sedan. Now, the company has three electric performance models, including the BMW iX M60 SUV (a faster version of an already high-tech beast) and this new i7 M70.BMW’s i7 M70 has a dual motor all-wheel drive system output of 485kW and 660 horsepower when the car’s M Launch Control or Sport Boost feature is... Continue reading…

Look at that exceptional crew of actors and Tim Allen. | Image: Dreamworks Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek movie. I’m not trying to start fights here. This isn’t a Picard versus Kirk situation. This is just the facts. There have been a lot of Star Trek movies, and none have managed to blend the whimsy and curiosity of the franchise with the action and grand scale of film as well as Galaxy Quest.But Galaxy Quest, the 1999 film starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and Alan Rickman, also technically isn’t Star Trek; it's a film about the cast of a Star Trek-like series who find themselves stopping actual evil aliens from committing genocide.But now Paramount Plus, the home of all things Star Trek, is looking to adapt the film into a TV series... so I can understand if you’re confused about its relationship... Continue reading…

Photo by Paul Hennessy/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Southwest Airlines has fixed a technical issue that delayed hundreds of flights across the country. In a statement provided to The Verge, Southwest Airlines spokesperson Dan Landson says the company resumed operations after working through “data connection issues resulting from a firewall failure.”The airline started having issues at around 10:30AM ET, with data from FlightAware suggesting that over 1,700 Southwest flights have been delayed so far. The Federal Aviation Administration paused departures at the request of Southwest Airlines around this time and later unpaused flights at 11:10AM ET.

The Emperor Philippa Georgiou has served a lot of good looks. | Image: CBS Television Studios Michelle Yeoh just won an Oscar and is now back to making movies. This time, she’ll be returning to her Star Trek: Discovery character for a new film based on the Star Trek black ops organization known as Section 31.Star Trek: Section 31 follows her character, the Emperor Philippa Georgiou. And if you are not very familiar with Star Trek, you might be confused. There are Emperors? Yes, yes, there are. Settle in, folks, as I explain the history of this character.Philippa Georgiou was the original captain of the ship Shenzhou but was killed in the pilot episode, and her death creates much of the friction for the surviving characters in the first season. Later in the season, her “evil” Mirrorverse counterpart shows up. The Mirrorverse is... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Your Instagram bio can now include up to five links, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a post on his Instagram channel on Tuesday. “Probably one of the most requested features we’ve had,” he wrote.You can add links by editing your profile in the mobile app, where you can give them titles and reorder how they’ll appear. However, if you’ve added more than one link, anyone visiting your profile will still have to click through a “[Your first link] and 1 other” message to see that list of links. That means that, if you have more than one link you have to feature on either your Instagram profile or already use a “Link in bio” service like Linktree, people are going to have to do an extra click to see your links no matter what.Still,... Continue reading…

The Apple Store in Mumbai, India. | Image: Apple Apple has officially opened its first store in India. On Tuesday, hundreds of customers got the chance to step inside the Mumbai-based retail location after years of waiting for the iPhone maker to build a store in the country.As you can see from the images included in the gallery below, the store has a pretty eye-catching design. It features a glass exterior and a ceiling tiled with triangular pieces of timber that stretch past the building’s walls to form a canopy over the store. Apple says each tile is made from 408 pieces of timber and that there are 1,000 tiles in total.

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube will remove additional videos related to eating disorders, including content that shows or discusses “imitable behavior,” the company announced today.Videos promoting or glorifying eating disorders are already banned on YouTube, but this policy update expands the rules to include content that shows or describes eating disorder behaviors that audiences could imitate. Videos that show or describe “weight-based bullying in the context of eating disorders” will also be banned under the new policy. Image: YouTube Resources for eating disorders will appear below videos. YouTube will also begin restricting young viewers from accessing content related to eating disorders, including videos that discuss... Continue reading…

You can choose between medium and high settings for Dialogue Boost. | Image: Amazon It’s a complaint we’ve all heard by now and maybe one you’ve vented about firsthand: voices and conversations are often too difficult to understand when watching TV. I know many people who routinely enable closed captioning — even if they’re not hard of hearing — to be sure they don’t miss anything. Many soundbars and some TVs have added various speech enhancement modes to overcome this, but if you’re stuck with shoddy built-in TV speakers, unintelligible conversation can become very aggravating.With Prime Video, Amazon has decided to do something about this dilemma at the software level. Today, the company is introducing a new Dialogue Boost mode that can be toggled on from any device that offers the streaming service. “Dialogue Boost... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by Will Joel / The Verge. CEO Travis Katz is running a sustainable delivery startup from within a century-old car company. Continue reading…

Microsoft has worked with Qualcomm and AMD on custom chips in the past. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Microsoft is reportedly working on its own AI chips that can be used to train large language models and avoid a costly reliance on Nvidia. The Information reports that Microsoft has been developing the chips in secret since 2019, and some Microsoft and OpenAI employees already have access to them to test how well they perform for the latest large language models like GPT-4.Nvidia is the key supplier of AI server chips right now, with companies racing to buy up these chips and estimates suggesting OpenAI will need more than 30,000 of Nvidia’s A100 GPUs for the commercialization of ChatGPT. Nvidia’s latest H100 GPUs are selling for more than $40,000 on eBay, illustrating the demand for high-end chips that can help deploy AI software.W... Continue reading…

Elden Ring is just one of the games included in GameStop’s BOGO sale. | Image: FromSoftware The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will drop in less than a month, but if you need some games to distract yourself until then, GameStop’s latest BOGO sale is here. Right now, you can buy one of the 40 video games listed here and get a second game of equal or lesser value for free. The promo applies to older Nintendo Switch titles like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD ($59.99)— just in case you want to revisit the series — as well as a plethora of non-Zelda titles.The list covers newer Switch games like Octopath Traveler II, which is on sale for $44.99 ($15 off) as well as the recent remake of Like a Dragon: Ishin! for PlayStation ($59.99). A number of older games are also part of the promotion, including Xenoblade... Continue reading…

Image: Adobe Adobe’s latest Lightroom features are designed to make photo editing more accessible to people without professional experience — no matter how specific the task. The company has expanded the AI masking categories for its “Select People” tool to include new options that automatically select a subject’s clothing and facial hair, allowing users to quickly make adjustments to their color and texture.The update also includes three additional Adaptive Presets for portraits — Darken Beard, Polished Portrait, and Enhance Clothing — allowing users to make predetermined adjustments with a single click. Darken Beard is the most specific, its sole purpose being to make facial hair appear darker so that it stands out more. Meanwhile, Polished... Continue reading…

Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Panic’s little yellow handheld has sold a lot more than anticipated. Today, the company confirmed that the Playdate has sold 53,000 units, more than double the initial production run of 20,000. However, a large number of those customers are still waiting to crank away: Panic says that it has shipped 27,000 of those orders, and “the team is hard at work on getting customers their Playdates, and fully expect to deliver all pre-orders by the end of this year.”In a statement, Playdate’s project lead Greg Maletic said, “When we started, we had no idea how big the audience would be for a weird product like this, but we told the factory: build 20,000. To have now sold more than 53,000 (and counting) is heartening. And this, at a time when... Continue reading…

The 2020 Nest Thermostat will get Matter support starting this week. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Matter has had a rough first few months, with barely any devices available and plenty of problems setting up and using those that are. But the new smart home standard may have just gotten the kick-start it needed. The Nest Thermostat is getting updated to support Matter starting today, April 18th. This is the first smart thermostat to support Matter, and the big change for Nest users is that it will now work with Apple Home without needing third-party hardware. (You will need iOS 16.4, however).An over-the-air update will make the popular thermostat from Google compatible with any Matter smart home platform using Matter over Wi-Fi. The rollout starts today and will be completed over the next few weeks, according to an update to a post... Continue reading…

Marvel Move arrives later this summer and features immersive, audio-based training plans for runners. | Image: Six to Start; Marvel Superhero-themed fitness plans and classes have been on the internet for ages, but this summer, Zombies, Run! creator Six to Start is collaborating with Marvel to launch a new fitness app featuring your favorite comic book superheroes. The forthcoming app, dubbed Marvel Move, will feature a series of immersive audio-based running plans starring popular characters ranging from Thor and his mischievous brother Loki to the X-Men. The app will cost $74.99 per year, though you can get a two-year subscription for $99 for a limited time.The pitch ought to sound familiar if you’ve ever tried the Zombies, Run! app, which is a mix between a running app and a podcast drama set in the Zombocalypse where you star as the main character. Marvel Move... Continue reading…

Sonos Pro is available to businesses starting today. | Image: Sonos Maybe the long-rumored Sonos headphones aren’t coming this year after all. A few months ago, CEO Patrick Spence announced that Sonos would enter four new product categories over the next few years — with the first coming in 2023. But the company is throwing a curveball of sorts: while the easy assumption was that these would all be new hardware categories, it turns out that the first one is all about software. Software as a service (SaaS), to be more specific.Today, Sonos is introducing Sonos Pro, a new service targeted at businesses — restaurants, bars, and retail stores — that makes it easy to play music across numerous locations without breaking any licensing rules. Sonos Pro works with all S2-compatible hardware including the Ikea... Continue reading…

After seven years at Snapchat, I finally learned the truth about why our most important apps seem destined to disappoint us. Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge A number of encrypted messaging apps including WhatsApp and Signal have banded together to oppose a proposed UK law they say could undermine end-to-end encryption. Leaders from each company have signed an open letter asking the UK government to “urgently rethink” sections of its Online Safety Bill to ensure it aligns with “the Government’s stated intention to protect end-to-end encryption and respect the human right to privacy.”The UK’s Online Safety Bill is a new set of laws intended to protect children and adults online by holding social media companies accountable for users’ safety. The bill has been widely criticized for its potential to allow the UK government and its communications regulator OFCOM (Office of Communications) to... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft has started rolling out a new profiles feature in Outlook for Mac that lets you easily separate out work and personal email accounts with different colored themes. The profiles feature is designed to make it easy to switch between accounts and not send the wrong email to someone or avoid storing calendar entries incorrectly.If you create profiles for both work and personal you can switch to the personal one and not see notifications from your work account — useful at the end of a work day. A Control + Tab shortcut lets Outlook for Mac users switch between these new profiles. Microsoft has also added automated switching through Siri shortcuts, so you can automatically switch to personal mode at the end of a work day. ... Continue reading…

The new Withings Body Smart scale features a new “eyes closed” mode. | Image: Withings Even if your goal is to lose weight, the number on the scale isn’t always the best measure of progress. In that vein, Withings’ new Body Smart scale is adding an “eyes closed” mode. Instead of displaying your weight, the scale will instead show encouraging messages or metrics like step count, air quality, and the weather.It might seem odd to exclude weight on a scale, but it’s a helpful feature for folks who want to track their health but may have a history of disordered eating, are easily discouraged, or want to focus on other measures of progress like muscle gain. Or you could merely want to keep your weight private and viewable only within the app. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of feature. The QardioBase 2, for... Continue reading…

Image: Niantic Niantic is working with a different kind of monster for its next release. The studio, best-known for Pokémon Go, announced a partnership with Capcom to make a title based on the Monster Hunter franchise. The new game is called Monster Hunter Now, and it aims to take the core of that series — you know, hunting monsters — and transform it into the kind of real-world, augmented reality experience that Niantic is known for.Gameplay specifics were light (Niantic says more details will be available when the closed beta launches in the near future) but it appears that Monster Hunter Now will follow a somewhat familiar formula. The premise is that the Monster Hunter universe has somehow seeped into our world, and players will be able to... Continue reading…

Image: Polestar Polestar’s fourth vehicle, the aptly named Polestar 4 compact SUV, made its debut today at the Shanghai Auto Show. When it’s released, it will likely compete with luxury heavy hitters like the Tesla Model Y, BMW iX, and Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV.The Polestar 4 is a coupe-style SUV with a targeted range over 300 miles, a substantial 102kWh battery, and a starting price of $60,000. It will be positioned in size and price between the Swedish brand’s Polestar 2 fastback and upcoming Polestar 3 SUV. And it will go on sale first in China starting in late 2023, followed by North America in 2024.Along with the Polestar 3, the Polestar 4 signals an acceleration of the company’s ambitions to broaden its lineup, reach more customers, and compete... Continue reading…

Laura Normand / The Verge Elon Musk says he’s working on “TruthGPT,” a ChatGPT alternative that acts as a “maximum truth-seeking AI.” The billionaire laid out his vision for an AI rival during an interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, saying an alternative approach to AI creation was needed to avoid the destruction of humanity.“I’m going to start something which I call TruthGPT or a maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe,” Musk said. “And I think this might be the best path to safety in the sense that an AI that cares about understanding the universe is unlikely to annihilate humans because we are an interesting part of the universe.”

A Pixel 6A. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Google’s still-unannounced Pixel 7A might cost $499, meaning the rumored midrange phone will launch at a $50 premium over last year’s Pixel 6A, according to 9to5Google. While that price might be a bit of a disappointment, the new phone will apparently getting some big upgrades that could justify the cost.The cameras, for example, are moving up to a 64MP main camera (up from 12MP in the Pixel 6A) and a 13MP ultrawide camera (up from 12MP), 9to5Google reports. The phone will apparently also be getting a 90hz display, the Tensor G2 chip that powers the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro, and wireless charging. Those all seem like nice improvements from the very-good Pixel 6A.If that all sounds good to you, you may not need to wait long to pick up a Pixel... Continue reading…

The logo for the AT Protocol that powers the Bluesky app. | Image: Bluesky This interview was first published in April 13th’s edition of Command Line, my weekly newsletter about the tech industry’s inside conversation. You can subscribe here to get future editions delivered to your inbox.As Elon Musk continues wielding Twitter like a blunt weapon against competitors like Substack, the downsides of centralized social media platforms are becoming more apparent every day. For those like me who have built a valuable audience on Twitter over the years, it’s unnerving to consider that those relationships could be broken or taken away completely in the blink of an eye.That underlying unease animates much of the consternation toward Musk these days. Zooming out, it’s also why I’m closely watching the rise of... Continue reading…

Everrati’s newest Porsche 911 restomod is built in the US. | Image: Everrati Everrati, a UK-based company that restores classic cars and converts them to electric vehicles, has delivered its first US-built Porsche 911 in California, the company announced on Monday.For Everrati, the delivery marks a milestone for the company and its CEO, Justin Lunny, who’s been working hard to expand manufacturing to the US since our conversation with him in 2021. Everrati’s pursuit of local manufacturing follows growing customer interest in the US, where many had voiced the desire to convert their prestigious classic cars to electric.The first US customer to take delivery is Nest co-founder Matt Rogers, who first learned about Everrati through a UK publication. Rogers then became a major investor in Everrati, as we learned in... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Console hacker Gary Bowser is getting released from federal prison after spending over two years behind bars, as first reported by TorrentFreak (via Gizmodo). In an interview with YouTuber Nick Moses, Bowser says he was released to a Washington detention center last month, where he now awaits his return to his home country of Canada.Bowser was arrested and charged with fraud in 2020 for his role in Team Xecuter, a hacking group that made and sold mod chips for the Nintendo Switch, 3DS, NES Classic Edition, Sony’s PlayStation Classic, and other consoles. Since Bowser was living in the Dominican Republic at the time, he was extradited to the US to serve his 40-month sentence, which he says has been cut short due to good behavior.Although... Continue reading…

Image: The Writers Guild of America While contract negotiations between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are still underway, the WGA’s members have just gotten one step closer to striking should this round of talks not resolve before May.Deadline reports that an overwhelming majority (97 percent) of the WGA’s members voted today to authorize a strike — a move that empowers the WGA West Board and the WGA East Council to call for a strike if the WGA and the AMPTP can’t agree upon a fair labor contract by May 1st. (Disclosure: The Verge’s editorial staff is represented by the Writers Guild of America East.) Of the WGA’s eligible voting members, 9,020 voted in favor of the strike authorization, while 198 opposed. In an... Continue reading…

The Maybach EQS SUV is only slightly more gaudy than the regular EQS. | Image: Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz revealed a sumptuous new Maybach version of its all-electric EQS SUV today — and it’s certainly made for owners who aren’t planning on driving it themselves. Instead, they’ll be sitting on one of the two rear captain seats, which are glamorously appointed in diamond-stitched Nappa leather and come with electric recliner seats, pillows, removable tablet screens, and even a bottle chiller to keep the drive alive.The interior of the Maybach, of course, is designed for maximum comfort for the riders — but that comes at the cost of practicality. Even though it’s an SUV, it only sits four instead of five to seven people, something that makes more sense in the sedan S-Class Maybach vehicles.Pricing on the Mercedes-Maybach EQS... Continue reading…

Image: Unbroken Studios / Portkey Games Warner Bros. has revealed the existence of a new Harry Potter game. Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions is a competitive multiplayer game based on the fictional sport popularized by the Harry Potter novels.The game’s website is a little bare, featuring only a sign-up portal to be a play tester and a lengthy FAQ highlighting details about the game, its publisher, Portkey Games, and the level of involvement of noted and vocal transphobe J.K. Rowling, who has said trans women are “predators” and should therefore be disallowed from “single gender” spaces. The FAQ doesn’t say when the game will be released or on what platforms but does denote that it’s been in development for several years.Hogwarts Legacy, the open-world-ish Harry Potter g... Continue reading…

An example of the label you might see. | Image: Twitter Twitter is introducing new labels it will show on tweets the company limits for breaking its rules. The company occasionally restricts tweets that violate its policies by making them harder to find or visible to fewer people, and these new labels will make those actions more clear.The new labels will first appear on tweets that violate Twitter’s Hateful Conduct policy, according to a blog post from the company. “Restricting the reach of Tweets, also known as visibility filtering, is one of our existing enforcement actions that allows us to move beyond the binary ‘leave up versus take down’ approach to content moderation,” Twitter wrote. “However, like other social platforms, we have not historically been transparent when we’ve taken... Continue reading…

That little greenish smudge on the right is the northern lights, as seen by my phone camera’s night mode. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Somewhere over Greenland, I opened up the window shade. People see the northern lights on their flights to Iceland, right? Might as well check. I was sitting parallel to the wing, the blue and yellow Icelandair logo lit against the black sky. But as I looked back toward the tail of the plane, I saw something else: a faint white smudge in the sky. I looked away and back a few times, and sure enough, the light was moving. I could just make out a white line with vertical bands radiating upward. Not the awe-inspiring green waves you’d hope for, but not nothing.The only camera I had close was my iPhone 13 Mini. Not ideal. A picture through a dirty plane window with a tiny phone camera sensor? Pfft. No chance. I figured I’d try anyway just to... Continue reading…