The Verge

Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Has December slipped by and left you with little time to finish your holiday shopping? I'm not here to judge you for waiting until the last minute (we've all been there, after all). Instead, I'll do you one better by helping you find a variety of gift ideas that should still arrive in time to be wrapped and tucked under the tree before Christmas.There's a wide swath of excellent gifts you can still nab - some of which may even be on sale - including smart home accessories, tablets, wearables, and headphones. Everything here is tech or tech-adjacent stuff that The Verge has tested or vouched for, so you can rest assured you're not compromising on quality for the sake of timeliness. And if you need additional ideas, be sure to check out... Continue reading...

The Verge Microsoft's AI chatbot Copilot will now be able to churn out AI songs on demand - thanks to a new plug-in with Suno. The Cambridge-based AI music startup offers a tool on Discord that can compose an original song - complete with lyrics - based on a text prompt. Now, Copilot users will be able to access Suno using the Microsoft chatbot.In order to start making music, Copilot users only need to sign on to their accounts and enable the Suno plug-in - or click on the logo that says, Make music with Suno." Users then need to think of a simple one- or two-line text prompt that describes their desired song, such as create a folk song about Alaska summers" or write a song about cats in the style of Cat Power" (both prompts I tried... Continue reading...

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Stability AI, the maker of the text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, is now offering a subscription service that standardizes and changes how customers can use its models for commercial purposes.The company said the membership redefines" how it grants commercial rights to users, aiming to strike a balance between profitability and openness. Stability AI's membership offers three tiers: a free one for personal and research use; a $20 per month subscription for creators, developers and startups with less than $1 million in annual revenue, $1 million in institutional funding, and one million active users"; and an enterprise plan. All three offer early access to new AI models, but only members of the two paid tiers are allowed to use... Continue reading...

Screenshot by Emma Roth / The Verge Blue Origin's 24th mission was a success. After its New Shepard rocket took off from West Texas on Tuesday morning, the booster and crew capsule safely separated mid-flight, with both landing back on Earth.Liftoff occurs around 25:44 in the livestream and from there, you can see New Shepard propel to a maximum altitude of about 66 miles, allowing the uncrewed capsule to spend a short time in space. The reusable booster lands upright at 33:00 following the brief trip, and the capsule comes parachuting down after.While Blue Origin originally planned on a December 18th flight, the Jeff Bezos-owned space tourism company scrubbed the launch due to cold temperatures and ground issues" its teams had to troubleshoot. The NS-24 mission carried... Continue reading...

Image: Beeper Beeper claims it has a new fix to let you send iMessages from your Android phone - but the change requires that you own or have easy access to a trusted Mac.First, I'll quote part of an explanation from Beeper about how its iMessage service works - and how Apple has been able to shut things down. From a message posted to Reddit:

Photo by Diego Donamaria / Getty Images for SXSW Your dad's favorite streamer, Ninja, will attempt his best Dick Clark impression (or do the kids only know Ryan Seacrest now?) and will host his own New Year's Eve event that will stream on Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok. According to a report in Variety, the event, known as Ninja's NYE," will feature appearances from other top streamers, giveaways, a Fortnite tournament, and a countdown to midnight.The event is meant to appeal to Gen Z with promises that it's not your parents' New Year's Eve ball drop. Ditch your TV and come hang out with us," reads the event's website. It'll be more fun... we promise."Though Ninja was once the undisputed king of Twitch, he's no longer pulling the viewership numbers he used to. According to Twitch... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Articles published by New York Times-owned sports journal The Athletic and its staff of over 450 full-time writers, editors, and producers are now part of Apple News Plus, Apple's $12.99 per month subscription news plan, in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. Meanwhile, Wirecutter stories are also coming to Apple News and will start appearing in the free feed early next year."Both publications have been off of Apple News since The New York Times left Apple's news aggregator in 2020, blaming the lack of a direct path" for readers to take back to its websites and saying it wanted more control of its relationship with its readers. While the Times' reporting isn't back, Athletic publisher David Perpich told Axios this new deal made... Continue reading...

Microsoft's obelisk keeps getting cheaper and cheaper. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft's top-tier Xbox console keeps getting cheaper. It seemed like a big deal when the Xbox Series X fell to $350 just a couple of weeks ago, but now Best Buy is selling it through one of its limited in-app drop" sales for a new low of $339.99 ($160 off). You can also still grab the console at Walmart for $349 ($150 off), if you prefer to go with a different retailer and don't mind paying slightly more.To take advantage of Best's Buy deal, you'll need a free Best Buy account and the retailer's app. If the direct links here don't take you right to the listing within Best Buy's app to buy the Series X at the discounted price, then look toward the bottom strip of icons in the app and click the Drops icon in the middle. (It depicts a... Continue reading...

Illustration by The Verge | Photo by Flexport His replacement got the boot barely a year into the job. What brought Petersen back? Continue reading...

Image: Netflix Netflix's next sci-fi movie has a surprising lead. The streamer just released the first (very brief) teaser for Spaceman, which stars Adam Sandler as an astronaut who encounters a mysterious alien creature (voiced by Paul Dano) while on a research mission in space. The film, directed by Johan Renck, sounds weird and grim and is based on the Czech novel Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfa.Here's how Netflix describes the premise:

Image: Xfinity Comcast is notifying Xfinity customers of a data security incident" it says resulted in the theft of customer information, including usernames, passwords, contact information, partial social security numbers, and more. In a notice on Monday, Xfinity said there was unauthorized access" to its systems from October 16th to October 19th, 2023.BleepingComputer linked this breach notice published in the state of Maine, which shows the total number of people affected by the breach is 35,879,455, including over 50,000 people in Maine.Xfinity traces the breach to a security vulnerability disclosed by cloud computing company Citrix, which began alerting customers about a flaw in software Xfinity and other companies use on October 10th. While... Continue reading...

Gusto will launch from Antarctica. | Image: Geoffrey Palo / GUSTO Team NASA is preparing to begin an experiment named GUSTO - short for Galactic / Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory - to gather data that will be used to create a 3D map of a portion of the Milky Way Galaxy.The GUSTO experiment involves a telescope that will float 120,000 feet over Antarctica on a high-altitude balloon for at least 55 days, soaking up high-frequency radio waves percolating through the cosmic interstellar medium - a term that refers to the gases, dust, radiation, and other materials that make up the space between stars. NASA has a fun guide to its scientific balloons that explains the zero-pressure and super-pressure balloons it uses for missions like this. Image: Jose Silva / GUSTO Team... Continue reading...

Image: Disney Disney has dropped Jonathan Majors from his leading Marvel role as Kang the Conqueror after he was found guilty of reckless assault in the third degree and of harassment, according to The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. The verdict comes after a two-week trial following Majors' arrest last March after an altercation with his ex-partner Grace Jabbari.Marvel had been setting up for Majors to be the next supervillain for the franchise, but now the company is changing course. It's unclear if Disney plans to recast Kang or change its planned storylines more drastically. Majors had already appeared in both seasons of Loki and in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and was set to star in one of the next planned Avengers movies, subtitled The... Continue reading...

Trevor Milton, the founder and former CEO of electric truck company Nikola, was sentenced to four years in prison after a jury found him guilty of misleading investors about the company's technology. Milton was also ordered to pay a $1 million fine.Federal prosecutor said Milton had lied about Nikola's capabilities, including an assertion that it had built its own electric truck, the Nikola One, from the ground up." They also accused him of staging a video that purportedly showed its Nikola One semi driving under its own power when it was actually rolling down a hill.During the sentencing hearing, Milton made several bizarre statements. He claimed that his resignation from Nikola was not a result of the fraud allegations but because... Continue reading...

Spotify Wrapped 2023 summaries | Image: Spotify You were listening, walking, and playing, and they were watching. Now Spotify and other apps are repackaging that data to recap your 2023. Continue reading...

Image: Acura Acura's first fully electric vehicle is now available for customers to reserve, with the first deliveries scheduled for early 2024.The 2024 Acura ZDX starts at $60,000 and will come in several trims, including the base-model A-Spec, with single-motor rear-wheel drive. A more expensive Type S dual-motor powertrain with 500 horsepower starts at $70,000. Acura previously said that the ZDX will get up to 325 miles of estimated range and have an operating system powered by Google.The 2024 Acura ZDX starts at $60,000 and will come in several trimsThe ZDX will start customer deliveries around the same time as the 2024 Honda Prologue. Like the Prologue, the ZDX will be the product of the three-year partnership between Honda and General... Continue reading...

Travel website Expedia wants to get people to start their travel search on its site with AI instead of using an external search engine.Expedia already uses AI for some customer service features and to help property owners describe their homes and hotels. The company hopes in the future that AI will help it recommend travel destinations to customers based on previous trips and bring more direct traffic to its site. It's a long-term plan to shift the balance of power on the web - albeit one that's still in its earliest stages for the company.Rajesh Naidu, chief architect and head of data management at Expedia, says the goal is to get users started on their trips in one place. Expedia hopes to produce recommendations trained with its... Continue reading...

Flipboard has been experimenting with fediverse integration for months now. | Image: Flipboard Flipboard is taking its biggest step yet into the fediverse. The company announced on Monday that it is beginning to switch its user accounts to ActivityPub, which means that everyone curating stuff on Flipboard is now doing so in a way that apps like Mastodon can see and interact with.Right now, only 25 accounts (including The Verge's) have been federated with ActivityPub, but by March Flipboard says it plans to allow anyone on the platform to open their account to the fediverse and allow any Flipboard user to follow any fediverse account from within the Flipboard app. At that point, Flipboard will essentially be an ActivityPub-based platform like Mastodon or Pixelfed but with an interface designed for reading articles instead of... Continue reading...

One-on-one mech duels in Armored Core VI are a thing of beauty - and stress. | Image: FromSoftware 2023 has been filled wall to wall with great games, but one of the low-key best is now selling for its best price. FromSoftware's Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon is available in disc form for $39.99 ($20 off) at Amazon (PS5 / Xbox / PS4), Best Buy (PS5 / Xbox / PS4), and direct from the Bandai Namco Store. The game is still fresh off its win for Best Action Game at the Keighleys, but it's not gotten many notable discounts before now.The Armored Core series has always been a bit niche, mostly appealing to mecha sickos who love battling through postapocalyptic sci-fi worlds with robots they've customized out the wazoo, and FromSoftware brought it back for 2023 with a true-to-form installment. AC6 may be from the same developer that... Continue reading...

Image: Chris Harris / Netflix Netflix is kicking off 2024 with a vision of our dystopic future. The streamer just released a new trailer for The Kitchen, which imagines a near-future version of London, complete with reckless biker gangs and lots of holographic displays to complete the cyberpunk look. The film is helmed by Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya (who also serves as co-writer and co-producer) and starts streaming on January 19th, 2024.According to Netflix's description, in this version of London the gap between rich and poor has been stretched to its limits," which leads to the titular setting of the movie.

Image: Jason Fochtman / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images Southwest Airlines is facing a $140 million fine after last year's holiday meltdown left millions of passengers stranded at airports across the US. On Monday, the Department of Transportation announced it's imposing the civil penalty over numerous violations of consumer protection laws" during and after the mass cancellations.Following an investigation, the DOT found Southwest failed to provide adequate customer service assistance," stating passengers stranded at airports were met with busy signals, long queues, and dropped calls when trying to get in touch with the airline. The DOT says Southwest didn't provide timely or accurate flight status notifications to customers, either, and also failed to provide prompt refunds to... Continue reading...

Image: Beeper Following a tumultuous few weeks for Beeper, which has been trying to provide an iMessage-compatible Android app, a group of US lawmakers are pushing for the DOJ to investigate Apple for potentially anticompetitive conduct" over its attempts to disable Beeper's services. Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT) as well as Representatives Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Ken Buck (R-CO) said in a letter to the DOJ that Beeper's Android messaging app, Beeper Mini, was a threat to Apple's leverage by creating [a] more competitive mobile applications market, which in turn [creates] a more competitive mobile device market."In an interview with CBS News on Monday, Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky and 16-year-old developer James Gill talked about... Continue reading...

The Verge / Photo Courtesy of Apple Books There are podcasts, videos, games, live performances - and then there are books, one of the oldest and still most popular ways to learn something new or escape (at least temporarily) from today's troubled world. We asked the staff of The Verge what their favorite reads were over the last year. Their answers ranged from science fiction novels to autobiographies to lessons on how to draw and an examination of the addiction of gambling.Read on, and see if there's anything here that you may want to check out during the holidays.Thar She Blows: A NovelBy Susan EmshwillerThis maybe-but-not-quite-fantasy centers on two people, a woman named Ann and her adult son Brian, who through the course of the story learn to trust their own inner... Continue reading...

The Verge / Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales This year has been a relatively quiet one for smartwatches. It makes sense. The smartwatch renaissance of 2022 was always going to be a hard act to follow, let alone top. But among the slew of iterative updates, there was one thing that kept catching my eye: the messy Googlefication of Fitbit.Basically, Google, which owns Fitbit, spent this year taking two steps forward before shooting itself in the foot and taking a step back. Every time I felt encouraged by what I was seeing, unforced errors would leave me doubting again.2023 kicked off with a massive, multiday Fitbit server outage. Shortly after, Fitbit announced it was shuttering legacy community features like Challenges, Adventures, and Groups. Google said these social features... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, may have broken the European Union's tough new Digital Services Act rules, regulators said as they announced the opening of a formal investigation today. A key concern of the investigation is the dissemination of illegal content in the context of Hamas' terrorist attacks against Israel," the European Commission says.In a press release, the Commission said it will look at X's attempts to counter the spread of illegal content on its platform and will examine X's efforts to stop information manipulation" via its Community Notes system and other policies. It's also looking into matters beyond content moderation, including deceptive design" relating to the so-called Blue checks," advertising... Continue reading...

A dog passes a pile of destroyed items that were removed from a once flooded home as residents begin the recovery process from Hurricane Harvey August 31, 2017 in Houston, Texas. | Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images More than 16 million people in the contiguous US - roughly 5 percent of the population - live in a place with heightening flood risk and a shrinking population, according to new research. It makes the case that climate abandonment areas" are becoming a more prevalent phenomenon in the US as people avoid places particularly vulnerable to climate-related disasters.What's a climate abandonment area? It's a census block where flood risk has grown high enough to start pushing people to leave. Many of these areas lie along the Texas Gulf Coast, coastal Florida, and the mid-Atlantic.But it's by no means confined to these regions, which can get hit repeatedly by storms during the Atlantic hurricane season. Climate abandonment areas are... Continue reading...

Image: May Mobility You probably haven't heard of autonomous vehicle operator May Mobility because the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based company is exceptionally good at avoiding the types of headlines generated by other AV companies.In its six years in operation, there haven't been any injuries, crashes, blocked intersections, or mass layoffs. While there have been some struggles, the company has proven to be an outlier among AV operators by continuing to raise money while others have seen their funding dry up.And now, May Mobility is ready to go fully driverless, a milestone that has the company taking stock of its successes - and looking ahead to the future.The most capital-efficient AV company that the world has ever seen"It's not robotaxis," May... Continue reading...