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by Jay Peters on (#6ABKQ)
Image: Getty Images E3 has been canceled. Gaming’s big summer show was set to return in person in Los Angeles for the first time since 2019, but it’s been called off after huge gaming companies like Nintendo, Microsoft, and Ubisoft all said they wouldn’t be participating in the event.E3 2023 was scheduled for June 13th through 16th with a mix of industry-focused days and days that would be open to the public. But in the lead-up to June, there had been some worrying signs that things might be rocky for E3’s revival.According to an email sent to employees and verified by IGN, E3 2023 “simply did not garner the sustained interest necessary to execute it in a way that would showcase the size, strength, and impact of our industry.”In an email to The Verge,... Continue reading…
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The Verge - All Posts
| Link | https://www.theverge.com/ |
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| Updated | 2024-11-26 21:00 |
by James Vincent on (#69SPA)
Google has announced a suite of upcoming generative AI features for its various Workspace apps, including Google Docs, Gmail, Sheets, and Slides.The features include new ways to generate, summarize, and brainstorm text with AI in Google Docs (similar to how many people use OpenAI’s ChatGPT), the option to generate full emails in Gmail based on users’ brief bullet points, and the ability to produce AI imagery, audio, and video to illustrate presentations in Slides (similar to features in both Microsoft Designer, powered by OpenAI’s DALL-E, and Canva, powered by Stable Diffusion).The announcement shows Google’s eagerness to catch up to competitors in the new AI race. Ever since the arrival of ChatGPT last year and Microsoft’s launch of... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#6ABKR)
Image: Chris Welch / The Verge Netflix’s ad-supported tier now works with Apple TV set-top boxes, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The “Basic with Ads” tier comes at a more affordable $6.99 per month cost, but when it launched in November, people who subscribed to it couldn’t use it on their Apple TV. At the time, Netflix told 9to5Mac that the ads plan would work on Apple TV down the line, and now that support is here.If you want to watch content through the ad-supported plan, you’ll need to be on version 2.3.0 of the Netflix app for Apple TV. I tested the plan on my laptop when it first launched, and whatever you’re imagining Netflix with ads is like, you’re probably right. Personally, I’d recommend the no-ads plans, but if you want to save a few bucks, the ads... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#6ABKS)
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon has filed three lawsuits against groups that it claims were abusing its takedown system by filing thousands of illegitimate copyright complaints against other products in a bid to get people to buy their merchandise instead. In an announcement on Thursday, the company calls the lawsuits a “new offensive against bad actors.”According to the lawsuits (which you can read here, here, and here), the alleged bad actors didn’t just file fake complaints and then sit back and wait to see if they worked. Amazon says the parties also “created fake, disposable websites, with product images scraped from the Amazon store” and tried to use them as evidence that they were the legitimate copyright holders. There is a sort of dark humor here — it... Continue reading…
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by Callie Wright on (#6ABKT)
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. | Image: Paramount Plus A few months ago, we received the news that Star Trek: Discovery was being canceled and that season 5 would be its last one on Paramount Plus. I was worried. The official Star Trek convention was canceled at what felt like the last minute, the streaming wars are settling down, and media companies are seemingly less and less interested in investing large sums of money in new shows.I spent that day wondering if that was just the first in a string of bad news about new Star Trek.Then, today, we got the news that Paramount has officially ordered a Starfleet Academy series for its streaming service that’s executive produced by Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau (Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, The Magicians) and will start production in 2024.
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by Sean Hollister on (#6ABFG)
Turns out the Framework Laptop 16’s Expansion Bay is designed to accommodate secondary batteries, too. | Image: Framework I may have changed my mind about buying a Framework Laptop 13 this year, but I’m not done being excited about the company’s products. Heck, I’m more enthusiastic than ever — because it looks like Framework is seriously planning to let us snap a second removable battery into a laptop.One week ago today, the modular laptop company announced a 16-inch notebook that promises to let you swap out its entire butt for one that fits a discrete graphics chip, extra fans, or a pair of SSDs — and / or swap out the Framework Laptop 16’s entire keyboard deck to add, say, a numpad or fancy LEDs or virtual piano keys. It promised more details later this year. Image: Framework Piano keys, DJ controls, a wireless charging pad,... Continue reading…
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by Tom Warren on (#6AB3T)
Image: Naughty Dog The Last of Us Part I on PC hasn’t had a smooth launch. PC players have reported crashes, performance issues, and plenty of weird visual glitches. Now, Sony-owned developer Naughty Dog has started issuing bug fixes to try and fix some of the widespread problems and investigate other bugs that are affecting PC players.A new patch arrived on Steam and the Epic Games Store last night, which includes fixes for “several performance & hitch related issues impacting some users.” It’s not clear exactly what has been fixed, and for some players, it was only a 36MB patch on Steam.Naughty Dog has enabled extra crash diagnostic information, though. It’s designed to help the developer investigate crashes related to shader building and “other common... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#6ABFH)
Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge BuzzFeed has taken its next step into AI-written content and started publishing AI-generated travel guides, as reported by Futurism. The publisher’s first AI-generated articles were ad-lib quizzes that were largely innocuous, but the travel guides appear to be a more brazen play to attract search traffic about different destinations.You can see the full list of travel articles from BuzzFeed’s “Buzzy” AI tool right here. Right now, there are 44 posts covering destinations like Morocco, Stockholm, and Cape May, New Jersey. The articles are “written with the help of Buzzy the Robot (aka our Creative AI Assistant) but powered by human ideas,” BuzzFeed says on Buzzy’s profile. The top of each story I’ve seen includes a line noting that an... Continue reading…
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by Umar Shakir on (#6ABFJ)
Image: Victoria Song / The Verge Starting on May 1st, OverDrive app users who still use it to digitally access a library’s collection will need to upgrade to Libby, a newer app from the same company that also lets you rent library ebooks for free.OverDrive’s digital platform started in 2002 and continued to operate separately even after Libby launched in 2017. OverDrive is often accessed via a library’s own OverDrive website instance, but the app effectively has the same purpose of distributing publisher books digitally for free, just like Libby.The OverDrive app was removed from the Apple App Store, Google Play, and Microsoft Store as of February 23rd, 2022. The company said it started displaying in-app discontinuation messages in July.Some aspects of the legacy... Continue reading…
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by Sheena Vasani on (#6AB96)
Samsung’s Galaxy A54 starts at $449.99. | Image: Jon Porter / The Verge Like the looks of Samsung’s Galaxy S23 but turned off by the price? You might want to check out this preorder deal on Samsung’s new Galaxy A54 phone then.Starting at just $449.99 with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, the already affordable Samsung Galaxy A54 is even cheaper when you preorder it from Samsung ahead of its April 6th release date. Right now, the company is taking up to $250 off unlocked Galaxy A54 phones in black or violet when you trade in eligible phones while throwing in a few extra perks. That includes three months of Spotify Premium, a pair of Galaxy Buds Live wireless earbuds for just $49.99 ($100 off), and two months of Adobe Lightroom.Though we have yet to fully review the midrange phone, on first impression, it... Continue reading…
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by Brandon Widder on (#6AB97)
Ring’s flagship video doorbell has a lot to offer, including a sleek design and a great field of view. | Image: Dan Seifert / The Verge In case you needed a reminder, you no longer have to shell out for an all-in-one security system just to monitor what’s happening at your front door. A competent video doorbell like the Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 will often suffice while saving you a small fortune, especially since Ring’s flagship model is on sale right now at Wellbots for $174.30 (about $76 off) when you enter promo code RINGVERGE75 at checkout.The Pro 2 is easily the best wired video doorbell you can buy — and for good reason. The top-of-the-line device offers quick notifications and shoots crisp 1536 x 1536-pixel square video, allowing you to easily keep tabs on your front porch. It also features great motion detection and support for Amazon Alexa along with a solid... Continue reading…
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6AB98)
A scene from Suzume. | Crunchyroll Ahead of director Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume finally being released outside of Japan, Crunchyroll’s debuted a new English dub trailer that spotlights some of the animated feature’s most magical ideas.Like everyone from her town in Kyushu, 17-year-old high school student Suzume (Nichole Sakura) knows all about the abandoned ruins that aren’t too far from where she lives. The wrecked structure appears to be quite abandoned, though, which is likely why Suzume’s confused when a mysterious man named Souta (Josh Keaton) asks her about them one day. Chance as Suzume and Souta’s encounter at first seems to be, the movie’s trailer spells out how fated it actually is — and how the two of them will have to work together in order to prevent some sort... Continue reading…
by Andrew Marino on (#6AB99)
Image: Waves A sigh of relief came to many in the audio production field this week after the software company Waves reversed a plan to exclusively sell its audio plug-in library via a subscription. The subscription offers Waves Essential at $14.99 per month and Waves Ultimate for $24.99 per month and launched as a permanent replacement for purchasing perpetual licenses for individual products. Now, Waves chief technical officer and co-founder Meir Shashoua says those options will return “as quickly as possible.”For the first week after the Waves Creative Access subscription was initially announced, the move upset many music producers and audio engineers who have already been paying subscriptions for a variety of creative software, like Avid Pro... Continue reading…
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6AB9A)
Waymo’s minivans at its Arizona depot in 2018. | Image: Waymo Waymo’s Chrysler Pacificas are heading off into the sunset.On Thursday, the Alphabet-owned autonomous vehicle operator announced it was phasing out the plug-in hybrid minivans it had been using for the last seven years. Instead, Waymo will rely on the all-electric Jaguar I-Pace as a platform for the fifth generation of its “Waymo Driver,” which is the branding the company uses to describe its autonomous driving hardware and software stack that enable its vehicles to drive without a person behind the steering wheel.Waymo’s Chrysler Pacificas are heading off into the sunset“For many, hailing a fully autonomous ride with Waymo may be the easiest way to access an EV,” the company said in a blog post. “Our growing ride-hailing service not... Continue reading…
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by Andrew Webster on (#6AB3R)
Michael Cera at the premiere of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. | Image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images Sex Bob-Omb is getting back together. Netflix has not only confirmed that it’s working on an anime series based on Scott Pilgrim but also revealed that the cast from the live-action Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is coming back.That includes Michael Cera in the titular role, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona, Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells, Anna Kendrick as Stacey Pilgrim, Brie Larson as Envy Adams, Alison Pill as Kim Pine, Aubrey Plaza as Julie Powers, Johnny Simmons as young Neil, Mark Webber as Stephen Stills, Ellen Wong as Knives Chau, and the League of Evil Exes played by Satya Bhabha, Chris Evans, Brandon Routh, Jason Schwartzman, and Mae Whitman.Anime studio Science Saru will be helming the revival, and Bryan Lee O’Malley, who... Continue reading…
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by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy on (#6A97Q)
ADT Self Setup is a new DIY smart home system that can integrate with Google Home devices and the Google Home app. | Image: ADT Three years after Google invested $450 million in home security company ADT, the two companies finally have an integrated offering for customers looking for a DIY smart security setup. ADT’s Self Setup system, which launched last month, will now integrate with Google Nest devices — including its video doorbell and indoor and outdoor cameras.While ADT has offered Google’s smart home devices as part of its professionally-installed packages since shortly after the investment, this is the first time the two companies have offered a complete software security integration for a DIY product.Now ADT’s sensors and Google’s cameras can be controlled directly in the Google Home app or on a Google Nest Hub, as well as through ADT’s app. Plus,... Continue reading…
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by James Vincent on (#6AB3S)
Midjourney’s software can be used to create misinformation, like fake images of Donald Trump being arrested. | Image: Will Joel / The Verge AI image generator Midjourney has halted free trials of its service after a number of its generations — including fabricated images of Donald Trump being arrested and the pope wearing a stylish jacket — went viral online, with many mistaking the fakes for real photographs. Midjourney CEO and founder David Holz announced the change on Tuesday, citing “extraordinary demand and trial abuse” (spotted via The Washington Post).Previously, Midjourney allowed anyone to sign up to use its software via Discord, offering 25 free image generations before charging subscriptions starting at $10 a month. Although experts have been warning for years about the potential of AI to generate misinformation, this was not previously a huge problem given that... Continue reading…
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by Victoria Song on (#5S7ED)
The Gen 3 had a rocky launch, but after a year of testing, it’s easy to see the hype behind this buzzy smart ring. Continue reading…
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6AB3V)
Microsoft has since patched the “BingBang” exploit and made changes to reduce similar vulnerabilities from occurring. | Illustration: Beatrice Sala A dangerous vulnerability was detected in Microsoft’s Bing search engine earlier this year that allowed users to alter search results and access other Bing users’ private information from the likes of Teams, Outlook, and Office 365. Back in January, security researchers at Wiz discovered a misconfiguration in Azure — Microsoft’s cloud computing platform — that compromised Bing, allowing any Azure user to access applications without authorization.The vulnerability was detected in the Azure Active Directory (AAD) identity and access management service. Applications using the platform’s multi-tenant permissions are accessible by any Azure user, requiring developers to validate which users can access their apps. This responsibility isn’t... Continue reading…
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by David Pierce on (#6AB3W)
Arc’s mobile app doesn’t do too much yet, but it’s already fast and simple and useful. | Image: Arc/David Pierce When the team at The Browser Company set out at the beginning of this year to build a mobile web browser, CEO Josh Miller made a rule: we are not allowed to build a default mobile browser. Building another Safari felt like a waste of time because, well, Safari exists. Because of the way Apple locks down browser development, pretty much every other browser on iOS is just another Safari. Besides, The Browser Company isn’t trying to build another web browser — it’s trying to build “the internet computer,” an operating system for the internet that changes the way we interact with apps and content online.Instead of a browser, the team set out to do one thing and one thing only: bring users’ Arc sidebars to mobile phones. The sidebar is the... Continue reading…
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by Adi Robertson on (#6AAZA)
Illustration: The Verge An artificial intelligence-focused tech ethics group has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate OpenAI for violating consumer protection rules, arguing that the organization’s rollout of AI text generation tools has been “biased, deceptive, and a risk to public safety.”The Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP) filed its complaint today following the publication of a high-profile open letter calling for a pause on large generative AI experiments. CAIDP president Marc Rotenberg was one of the letter’s signatories, alongside a number of AI researchers and OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk. Similar to that letter, the complaint calls to slow down the development of generative AI models and implement stricter government oversight.T... Continue reading…
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by Jon Porter on (#6AAZB)
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Roku plans to lay off an additional 200 employees, the company announced today in an 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, a little over four months after announcing a previous round of 200 layoffs last November. While the first round affected its US workforce specifically, today’s filing doesn’t specify where the affected workers are based.The layoffs are expected to impact around 6 percent of Roku’s workforce, and are part of a restructuring plan to “lower the company’s year-over-year operating expense growth and prioritize projects that the company believes will have a higher return on investment.” The restructuring changes are expected to mostly be completed by the end of the second quarter of this year.R... Continue reading…
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by Jon Porter on (#6AAVR)
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has formally announced its revamped API tiers a month and a half after new CEO Elon Musk promised a big shake up of the system. In a thread, the company’s official developer account listed three tiers — free, basic, and enterprise — and provided some details on their prices and read and write limits. It also linked to signup pages, which offer links to get started with the first two tiers, and to express an interest in the third.The company says older tiers will be depreciated “over the next 30 days.” Here’s a short summary of the three replacements (which can also be found on Twitter’s website):
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by Jon Porter on (#6AARR)
Jimi Hendrix with a Marshall amp in 1967. | Image: JJs / Alamy Stock Photo Marshall Amplification, the 60-year-old company that’s produced iconic guitar amps used by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Slash, and Kurt Cobain, is being acquired by Zound Industries, the Swedish company that’s previously licensed the Marshall brand for its headphones and speakers. Exact financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the resulting company will be the privately owned Marshall Group. The Marshall family will serve as its largest shareholder with a 24 percent stake.Jeremy de Maillard, who currently serves as Zound’s CEO and who will be CEO of Marshall Group going forward, said in an interview with The Verge that the deal is as much about acquiring Marshall’s engineering expertise as it is about acquiring the brand name.... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#6AAP9)
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Photo: Getty Images Elon Musk has dethroned former President Barack Obama as the most followed person on Twitter. As of right now, the billionaire has 133,068,709 followers compared to Obama’s 133,042,819, according to the follower counts reported on their respective Twitter profiles.Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter has undoubtedly helped skyrocket his follower count past Obama’s. The Twitter chief hit 100 million followers last June, and that number has only continued to grow in the months that followed.In between posting random and sometimes offensive memes, Musk uses his account to communicate various changes coming to Twitter. He has also polled followers about some major decisions, like letting Donald Trump back onto the platform and whether... Continue reading…
by Sean Hollister on (#6AAJ6)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google’s Bard hasn’t exactly had an impressive debut — and The Information is reporting that the company is so interested in changing the fortunes of its AI chatbots, it’s forcing its DeepMind division to help the Google Brain team beat OpenAI with a new initiative called Gemini. The Information’s report also contains the potentially staggering thirdhand allegation that Google stooped so low as to train Bard using data from OpenAI’s ChatGPT, scraped from a website called ShareGPT. A former Google AI researcher reportedly spoke out against using that data, according to the publication.But Google is firmly and clearly denying the data was used: “Bard is not trained on any data from ShareGPT or ChatGPT,” spokesperson Chris Pappas tells T... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#6AAGG)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix is working on a feature that would let you use your iPhone to control games on your TV, according a new report from Bloomberg and code shared by MacRumors contributing writer Steve Moser. Netflix recently said that it wants to make its games “playable on every Netflix device that you have,” and being able to use your iPhone to play TV games could be one way to help with that mission.According to Moser, the iOS app apparently contains code that says: “A game on your TV needs a controller to play. Do you want to use this phone as a game controller?”
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by Jay Peters on (#6AAGH)
Illustration: The Verge It was inevitable, but Microsoft has confirmed that more ads are coming to Bing’s AI-powered chatbot. Microsoft corporate vice president Yusuf Mehdi said in a blog on Wednesday that the company is “exploring placing ads in the chat experience,” and when we asked for more details, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the change.“Yes, ads will show in the new Bing, specifically in chat (as they do in the traditional search results),” said Caitlin Roulston, a director of communications at Microsoft, says in a statement to The Verge. “Since the new Bing is in preview, there may be some variability in how it’s currently showing up. We’re still exploring new opportunities for ad experiences and will share more over time.”Microsoft has been... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#6AAEE)
Epic’s Deserted: Domination has nearly 3,000 players as of this writing. | Image: Epic Games Fortnite’s Discover tab, which lets you pick from Epic Games-made modes like Battle Royale or experiences from non-Epic creators, now show how many players are currently participating in any given experience. The change was officially rolled out on Wednesday, and it could be an important tool for creators to benchmark their work against Epic’s official modes.You can see the player counts in the game’s Discover tab, which represent the global number of players in-match at any given time, Epic spokesperson Dan Walsh tells The Verge. Based on what I saw, it’s overwhelmingly clear that Epic’s Battle Royale and Zero Build (the no-building Battle Royale introduced last year) are dramatically more popular than any experiences made by non-Epic... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#6AAEF)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you’re one of the people brave enough to use Google Fi with an iPhone, your experience is about to get a lot better, as Google announced on Wednesday that you can finally use 5G instead of being stuck with LTE (via 9to5Google).According to Google’s documentation, using 5G with your iPhone requires iOS 16.4, which was released earlier this week. (Though Fi’s 5G support was spotted during the 16.4 beta process.) You also have to have an iPhone 12 or newer, since older iPhones don’t support 5G. Turning it on after you’ve updated your phone is simple, though: go to Settings > Cellular Data Options > Voice and Data, then select “5G Auto.” Just like that, you’ll have access to T-Mobile’s 5G network.
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by Makena Kelly on (#6AAEG)
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images On Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) came out in opposition to a bipartisan effort to ban TikTok, condemning Republicans and Democrats for a move he said could chill First Amendment-protected speech.“I hope saner minds will reflect on which is more dangerous: videos of teenagers dancing, or the precedent of the US government banning speech,” Paul said on the Senate floor Wednesday.Paul’s remarks followed an attempt by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) to ban TikTok nationwide on the Senate floor Wednesday. Earlier this year, Hawley, a long-time China hawk, introduced the No TikTok on United States Devices Act, a bill that would direct the president to ban use of the app on US devices, including those belonging to consumers.“I hope saner minds... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#6AAEH)
Kristen Radtke / The Verge Instagram is building off of its existing collections feature by allowing you to create libraries of posts that you share with friends. In an announcement on Twitter, Instagram says that you can now save content into “collaborative collections” that both you and your friends can view and contribute to, as first reported by TechCrunch.While Instagram first rolled out its Pinterest-like collections feature in 2017, which lets you save and organize posts into separate categories, this update puts a spin on things by allowing your friends to add posts of their own. According to Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri’s IG Updates channel, you and your friends can save posts from Instagram’s feed, Explore page, and even DMs.
by Jess Weatherbed on (#6AAEJ)
Pricing hasn’t been revealed yet, nor have any hardware specifications. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft has announced a second generation of its Surface Hub 2S interactive whiteboard will be arriving later this year, equipped with new features built around Microsoft’s Teams conferencing software. The updated enterprise device features the same 50-inch and 85-inch design as the current Surface Hub 2S, and will be the first touch-enabled board to run Teams Rooms on Windows.Microsoft Teams Rooms is meant for all-in-one conferencing systems designed to replace individual remote meeting devices like webcams and TVs. Microsoft says that the Teams Rooms on Windows experience adds new features like additional video layouts, chat channel modes, and management capabilities for both users and admins. It also features a new user interface... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#6AAEK)
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Electronic Arts is laying off around 6 percent of its workforce, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. In a blog post published on Wednesday, EA CEO Andrew Wilson says the job cuts come as the game publisher looks to reevaluate its investment strategy and reduce office space.“As we drive greater focus across our portfolio, we are moving away from projects that do not contribute to our strategy, reviewing our real estate footprint, and restructuring some of our teams,” Wilson states. “These decisions are expected to impact approximately six percent of our company’s workforce.”While Wilson doesn’t mention the specific departments that the layoffs are affecting, he says that it will provide “opportunities for our colleagues to... Continue reading…
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6AAB5)
Tseng from Unicorn: Warriors Eternal. | Image: Adult Swim Though it once seemed as if Cartoon Network might end up taking quite a bit of damage as a consequence of Warner Bros.’ merger with Discovery, Adult Swim president Michael Ouweleen says that’s far from the case as the network gears up to expand its adult-oriented content block.Deadline reports that Cartoon Network plans to start shifting over to Adult Swim programming one hour earlier — up from 8PM ET to 7PM ET — beginning in May as the network makes a more concerted play for viewers older than 18.Speaking to Deadline, Ouweleen said that while the animation industry definitely went through a tumultuous period that lasted throughout 2022, there’s since “been a correction” and emphasized that “the animation bubble hasn’t burst but it’s... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#6AAB6)
Image: David Becker/Getty Images for Nightclub & Bar Media Group Seattle is making sure that some gig workers will be guaranteed rights that have generally only been available to traditional employees. This week, the city’s council passed legislation that requires app-based delivery companies like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Instacart to provide paid sick time off to workers.Food delivery workers in Seattle have had these protections for a while — the city council passed the Gig Worker Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance in July 2020. However, that law was temporary and was set to expire at the end of April (some parts of it had already gone out of effect in November 2022 when Seattle and Washington as a whole ended their covid states of emergency). The new law, called the App-Based Worker Paid Sick and... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#6AAB7)
Image: Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images The Yankee Entertainment and Sports (YES) Network, a regional channel that broadcasts games from the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Nets, and the New York Liberty, is introducing a direct subscription so that you don’t need to have cable to watch the channel.The new direct subscription will be sold in monthly and annual packages of $24.99 per month, or $239.99 per year. You can subscribe via the YES app, which is available in a browser or through various smart TV app ecosystems. And if you want to save a few bucks, YES Network is offering introductory deals of $19.99 per month (a price that you can keep through the end of 2023) and $199.99 if you subscribe by April 30th.You’ll have to be in YES Network’s “regional coverage territory” to... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#6AA71)
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Disney has laid off Marvel Entertainment chair Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter as part of its layoffs affecting 7,000 workers, according to a report from The New York Times. Perlmutter, who’s been a Marvel executive since 1993 and joined Disney when Marvel was acquired in 2009, is a divisive figure.Perlmutter helmed Marvel during its sale to Disney and later served as an executive chair. During his 30-year tenure at Marvel, Perlmutter has been blamed for holding back the inclusion of women and people of color in the studio’s films. In a set of leaked emails from 2014, Perlmutter argued that past superhero movies with a female lead flopped, while a memoir from Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed that he had to get past Perlmutter’s “roadblocks” when... Continue reading…
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by Sean Hollister on (#6AA72)
When my six-year-old’s teacher told us we had to buy her a wired headset for school, I must have spent an entire hour doomscrolling Amazon reviews. Normal headsets wouldn’t fit, and every option for younger kids was from an alphabet soup brand of dubious quality — they felt like so much of a gamble that we eventually just went with one of the cheapest options.Logitech’s new Zone Learn would have been an instabuy for me. Not only does the $40 rotating boom mic headset come from a name brand but it also actually looks thoughtfully designed — minus one feature, perhaps.It’s flexible, adjustable, gives you the choice of over-ear ear cups or on-ear ear pads (in case your kid needs more or less isolation or gets claustrophobic or sweaty)... Continue reading…
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by Andrew Webster on (#6AA73)
Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. | Image: Spike Chunsoft While detective stories are a mainstay in the worlds of film, television, and literature, they’re comparatively niche when it comes to video games. And with a few notable exceptions, the most beloved detective games tend to be visual novels. Kazutaka Kodaka loves detective stories and is best known for the dark adventure series Danganronpa. But for his studio’s next project, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, he decided to take things in a slightly different direction. “Mystery games tend to be dull because it’s mostly reading text,” Kodaka says. “But for this we created a world where you can solve various kinds of mysteries and roam around freely.”Rain Code is described as a “lucid-noir” detective game. It takes place in a sort of... Continue reading…
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6AA74)
There might not have been all that much noise being made about Adult Swim’s upcoming series Unicorn: Warriors Eternal from creator Genndy Tartakovsky, but the animated series’ action-packed first trailer might just change that.Set in a world that’s been plagued by a malevolent presence since the dawn of time, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal tells the tale of a group of ancient heroes who, through countless reincarnations, have spent multiple lifetimes fighting to keep the forces of darkness at bay. Though a powerful sorceress named Melinda, a “cosmic monk” called Tseng, and Edred, a warrior elf, are all committed to their mission, their lives are all upended when their reincarnation cycle’s interrupted, which flings their souls into the... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#6AA75)
Image: Apple Apple has announced that its Worldwide Developers Conference, or WWDC, will begin on June 5th. The full event will run from June 5th through June 9th in an online format, but like last year, there will be an in-person experience at Apple Park on the first day of the show. Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of worldwide developer relations, says this year’s WWDC is going to be Apple’s “biggest and most exciting yet.”Traditionally, Apple uses the show to share details on the next versions of its operating systems, such as iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and (sometimes) tvOS. Last year, the company used the event’s keynote to announce iOS 16’s customizable lock screens, its Home app refresh, Stage Manager, the M2 chip, and more.There are... Continue reading…
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by Ash Parrish on (#6AA76)
Image: Square Enix I’m one of the handful of people who actually enjoyed Forspoken. Despite its flaws (and yeah, my glowing review aside, it is a flawed game) I saw a solid story with interesting characters and a unique combat and traversal system that was genuinely fun to play. So the announcement of new story DLC for the game has me pleased that I’ll have another opportunity to hardcore parkour my way through Athia.Spoilers for Forspoken to follow.In Tanta We Trust is set to take place 25 years before the events of Forspoken and will feature Frey venturing into the past to team up with her mother during a great battle. One of my biggest complaints about Forspoken is that Frey didn’t get enough time to process the revelation of who her mother was and... Continue reading…
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by Shannon Liao on (#6AA77)
Image: Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images Executive producer Zoe Bell explains how the paper is keeping the phenomenon going more than a year after acquiring it. Continue reading…
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by Umar Shakir on (#6AA2S)
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Alexa now has the ability to let T-Mobile subscribers make and receive phone calls on dedicated devices hands-free. The new feature comes in the form of an Alexa skill, which can link your T-Mobile service directly to your Alexa Account. The new feature joins the other big US carriers AT&T and Verizon in enabling Alexa to handle phone calls.”This is completely free for T-Mobile customers and it’s fully available to all Alexa customers today,” wrote T-Mobile spokesperson Trang Nguyen in an email to The Verge. In comparison, Verizon still charges you $5 per month to use its Alexa skill.You can enable the new feature by opening your Alexa app and then going to More > Settings > Communication. Then, under accounts, select T-Mobile and... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#6AA2T)
Illustration: The Verge Google’s making it easier to find out more information about the advertisers behind the ads you see across search, YouTube, and the other sites where Google shows ads. The search giant has announced that it’s launching an Ads Transparency Center, a “searchable hub” containing a library of ads from verified advertisers.Some of the information available in the hub includes a list of the ads an advertiser has shown and which regions they appeared in as well as the last date and format in which it ran an ad.You can search for specific ads by heading to the Transparency Center directly or by selecting the three-dots menu that appears beside an ad you want more information about. From there, click the option that says “see more ads this... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#6AA2V)
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter replies are back to normal — well, on the web. Earlier this week, tweet replies stopped showing who the user was actually replying to, which made them look like vague subtweets or random missives with no context. But on Wednesday morning, tweets once again included details about who is replying to whom on the web.It’s unclear if the original shift was a bug or an intentional change. When we asked Twitter to clarify, its press email auto-replied with a poop emoji. Personally, I think it was just a bug given that tweet embeds and tweets on TweetDeck still showed reply information even when tweets on Twitter.com did not. Unfortunately, on iOS, replies still don’t show who people are replying to, but fingers crossed that changes... Continue reading…
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by Antonio G. Di Benedetto on (#6AA2W)
Ahhh, this brings me calm. There are 43 days until The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom comes to fuck our shit up. If you haven’t yet picked up its six-year-old predecessor, whose impact on the gaming world is still being felt, now’s a good time.Walmart is selling the physical version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild for the Nintendo Switch for $39.99 ($20 off), just in time for the hype train to be hitting critical mass. I know you may be thinking, “Why on Earth is this game that’s over half a decade old not dirt cheap at this point?” Well, frankly, it’s just how Nintendo games are. But $40 is as good as its price gets, and for that, you get arguably one of the all-time greats in action-adventure games. It’s easy to get lost in Breath of the... Continue reading…
by Alice Newcome-Beill on (#6AA2X)
You can finally play StarFox64 the way Nintendo intended. | Image: Nintendo If you’re still on the hunt for Nintendo’s official N64 controller, you just might be able to pick up the legendary controller for the Nintendo Switch at the Nintendo eShop. This $49.99 controller allows you to experience N64 games the way they were meant to be played — with a big gray controller that has an awkwardly placed central analog stick.This offer is exclusive to the Nintendo store and is only available to purchase if you’re a current Nintendo Switch Online subscriber. To see if it’s in stock and possibly complete your purchase, you may need to be logged in with your Nintendo account. (Note: you can only access the N64 games with the purchase of the Switch Online Expansion Pack.)The restock for the N64 doesn’t follow the... Continue reading…
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6A9XN)
Image: Lamborghini Revuelto (pronounced rey-WEL-to) either means ‘unruly’ or refers to a dish of creamy scrambled eggs. Either way, it will replace the Aventador as Lamborghini’s flagship vehicle. Continue reading…
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