The Verge

Elon Musk at the Tesla Model 3 launch in 2017. | Photo by Lauren Goode / The Verge A federal tax credit funded through the Inflation Reduction Act can currently shave up to $7,500 off the price of Tesla's Model 3, but that's about to drop in half. The tax credit will fall to $3,750 by January 1st, 2024 for the Model 3 Rear-Wheel Drive and Model 3 Long Range, the company warned.Elon Musk's company made the announcement via a banner on Tesla's website, TechCrunch reports. Starting at around $36,000, the Model 3 comes with the lowest cost of any Tesla vehicle. Now, Tesla says the full tax credit will only be available to deliveries made through December.Why? It looks like Tesla will be unable to meet sourcing requirements under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). That might also affect tax credits for the Model Y and... Continue reading...

ExpressVPN comes to the Apple TV. | Image: ExpressVPN One of the big uses of VPNs is to watch region-locked content, but until recently, you weren't able to use them on Apple TVs. That's now changing with the help of one of the bigger names in VPNs, ExpressVPN, which has released its app for tvOS. ExpressVPN will let Apple TV users connect to servers in any of 105 countries around the world" so they can watch shows and movies and know that the IP address being reported to outside servers isn't their own.To download it, you'll need to make sure you're on tvOS 17 - earlier versions don't support native VPN apps at all. Once set up, the app will route your traffic through faraway servers before forwarding them to whatever streaming service or other internet server the Apple TV contacts.... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge OpenAI may be chasing after enterprise users, but some of its executives warn people not to expect the technology to change their businesses quickly.OpenAI chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said in an interview with CNBC that one of the more overhyped parts of artificial intelligence is that in one fell swoop, [it] can deliver substantive business change."Lightcap said companies have approached OpenAI expecting generative AI to solve many problems, dramatically cut costs, and bring back growth if they're struggling. He said that while AI could improve more, there's never one thing you can do with AI that solves that problem in full" and that the technology is still in its infancy. He added that AI is still in the experimental... Continue reading...

It's not everyday you see such a significant discount on Sony's WH-1000XM5, the best pair of noise-canceling headphones on the market. Looks like Christmas came early if you were on the hunt for a seriously good deal on noise-canceling headphones. Right now, Target is selling the terrific Sony WH-1000XM5 for a new all-time low price of $249.99 ($150 off). That's even cheaper than the $72 discount we found on the over ears during Black Friday, and the deal even applies to both colors.When it comes to noise-canceling headphones, Sony's WH-1000XM5 are the cream of the crop, delivering best-in-class noise cancellation and clear, detail-rich sound. At the same time, they offer several other helpful features, like multipoint Bluetooth support so you can connect them to, say, your phone and laptop simultaneously. Meanwhile, their built-in mics offer top-notch voice call... Continue reading...

Image: Biomemory DNA data storage might sound like a far-off solution. But a startup called Biomemory is bringing it a little closer to reality with the release of new DNA cards that anyone can purchase - if you have $1,000 to blow.DNA has emerged as a theoretical alternative to hard drives, SSDs, and other forms of digital data storage, namely because of its impressive lifespan. Science estimates the technology could potentially last hundreds of thousands of years if stored in a cool, dry environment. That's a heck of a lot longer than the lifespan of your average hard drive, which typically tops out at around five years.Biomemory's DNA cards promise a minimum" lifespan of 150 years. The $1,000 price tag includes two identical cards, each of which... Continue reading...

Image: Puzzmo / Angie Wang The battle over newspaper-style puzzle games is intensifying. Hearst - which publishes the likes of Cosmopolitan, Esquire, and the San Francisco Chronicle - has announced that it has acquired Puzzmo, a puzzle gaming platform led by indie developers Zach Gage and Orta Therox. The move puts Hearst directly up against the gaming efforts of The New York Times. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. As a comparison, in 2022 The New York Times acquired Wordle for an undisclosed price in the low seven figures."Puzzmo launched in a limited beta form in October and is billed as a reimagining of the classic newspaper games page. It features a number of notable Gage-designed titles like SpellTower, Really Bad Chess, and Typeshift, along with a... Continue reading...

Logo: Filmic / Image: The Verge Bending Spoons has laid off all of the staff behind mobile filmmaking app Filmic Pro, including Filmic CEO Neill Barham. Christy Keenan, a spokesperson for Bending Spoons, confirmed the layoffs in an email to The Verge, saying that all 22 members of the original Filmic team" were laid off in November and Filmic has now been fully integrated into the Bending Spoons platform." PetaPixel first reported the layoffs on Friday.Keenan added that because the dedicated team" at the company worked with Filmic's original crew, it possesses the necessary knowledge to ensure a seamless user experience." The company was already involved in mobile video with its Splice video editing app, which it took over from GoPro in 2018.Bending Spoons b... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Verizon will soon offer customers a cheaper way to subscribe to Netflix and Max. Starting December 7th, myPlan customers can get a bundled subscription to both services for just $10 per month.The bundle includes the ad-supported plans for Netflix and Max, each of which are priced at $6.99 and $9.99 per month, respectively. That means Verizon's bundle costs about $7 less than what you would pay for the two separate subscriptions - in line with the rumors we heard about the deal last month. It's a decent offer if you're already a Verizon customer, as there's currently no other bundle for Netflix and Max out there.You can only take advantage of the deal if you're a Verizon myPlan customer. The service includes three unlimited plans that... Continue reading...

Videos from artists like Niall Horan (pictured) that already used the feature have attracted over 2.5 billion views since August 2022. | Photo by Emma McIntyre / Getty Images for iHeartRadio After an initial US launch in August last year, TikTok and Ticketmaster are expanding a partnership that lets TikTok users purchase event tickets without leaving the platform to 20 additional countries. On Monday, TikTok announced that the feature will now work in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Germany, France, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, and several other major markets. That means performers can promote upcoming shows by embedding links in their videos to purchase tickets directly within the app.TikTok says anyone who's been verified as a certified artist on the platform can use the feature, provided they're in one of the regions participating in the partnership. You can check out the full list of countries in the press release linked... Continue reading...

Media files sent as documents don't display a preview in WhatsApp, but you can view them in-app by tapping on them. | Illustration: The Verge WhatsApp is rolling out a new feature on iOS that allows users to share photos and videos as a document to preserve their original quality. As spotted by WABetaInfo the official changelog provided alongside WhatsApp's 23.24.73 update on iOS notes that users can now easily send original quality media as a file," as an alternative to the compressed approaches the communications app defaults to.This feature was spotted being tested by a small subset of users in November, but is now releasing to all iOS users. The changelog notes that this is rolling out over the coming weeks" so it may take a while to appear on your device, but when it does you can access it by tapping the +" in chat, selecting Document" and then Choose Photo or... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge I know you've been waiting all year to hear this: You can use Zoom on your 2nd gen or later Apple TV 4K. Yesterday, AppleInsider spotted a post from Sigmund Judge about the Zoom - for Home TV" app that quietly showed up in the tvOS App Store.Earlier this year, Apple's tvOS 17 update enabled Continuity Camera for the Apple TV, making it possible for anyone with a 2nd-generation-or-later version of the streaming box to use their iPhone or iPad as a webcam for FaceTime on a TV. The iPhone can do the same thing for meetings on macOS. Image: Wes Davis / The Verge Zoom on an Apple TV. Using Zoom's new app is fairly straightforward. Logging into it is a lot like signing into most third-party video streaming apps -... Continue reading...

Image: Epic Games Fortnite is heading underground. Following The Big Bang event on Saturday, which led to the destruction of the Chapter 4 island, some big changes are coming to the battle royale in a new season dubbed Underground." That includes a new island, gameplay features like boss battles, Lego skins, and of course more licensed characters like Metal Gear's Solid Snake and Peter Griffin from Family Guy.Let's start with the island. In the update - which brings the game to Chapter 5: Season 1 - the battle royale island has been completely changed, which means a number of new locations. There's a railway - complete with a train you can actually travel on - as well as marinas, mansions, and an all-new grassland area. There's also quite a bit of snow.... Continue reading...

Illustration: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 16, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome to our delightful corner of the internet, sorry about all the productivity apps, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)Hope you all had a great holiday, or at least a great week with one fewer email in your inbox. This week, I've been testing Supernotes as a daily diary app, reading about what it takes to make an iPhone in India and whatever gamified theater" is, unsubscribing to every brand that sent me a Happy Holidays!" email, hunting for games to play on my new Backbone controller, watching Mike Birbiglia's excellent The Old Man and the Pool special (and listening to his... Continue reading...

Master Chief, the Spartan hero from Halo, will continue his live-action adventures with two episodes of its second season premiering worldwide on February 8th next year. Paramount Plus announced the date, along with a teaser trailer, during CCXP in Brazil.The teaser trailer doesn't reveal much about the story, of course. But Paramount Plus says in its release that the new season will see Schreiber's Master Chief trying to prove that the Covenant (the alien antagonists from the show and the games) are preparing to attack Reach - the humans' military stronghold that fell prior to the story's beginning in the first Halo game.If you've played that game, you know where this goes, and Paramount Plus hints at it in the release. The Master... Continue reading...

Image: Epic Games Fortnite's latest virtual concert was more than just Eminem stomping across a destroyed city - it also teased a number of experiences coming to the game in the future.The Big Bang Event, as it was called, lasted around 10 minutes and whisked players through a variety of spaces. At first, everyone was gathered on the Fortnite OG island to witness a few moments from the game's past happen again: a rocket launched, a meteor crashed, and then everything was sucked into a black hole.From there, players were sucked into a number of portals, each with a different theme. First, there was an island full of Lego characters running around, fighting and building things. Then there was a futuristic race. Finally, Eminem appeared, and while he... Continue reading...

The next chapter of Fortnite will introduce a new island - but it's also adding a Lego-themed game experience. Following The Big Bang event, which marked the conclusion of Fortnite OG (and also starred Eminem), developer Epic Games revealed a new in-game experience called Lego Fortnite. It's described as a new survival crafting game" that will be available within Fortnite starting on December 7th.

This is decidedly not evidence of the existence of parallel realities. | Image: Tessa Coates / Crop: The Verge Depending on how online" you are, you may have seen a picture floating around socials with a strange quirk: a woman - comedian Tessa Coates - is standing in front of two mirrors in a bridal gown and, somehow, holding three poses at once. Coates insisted in her Instagram post that the picture wasn't altered; it just came out that way.So what happened? Was it a glitched iOS Live Photo (the iOS feature that takes short videos and picks out the best one)? A faked image manipulated with Photoshop? A brief glimpse into three different, parallel realities?Nope, it's simpler than all of that. Faruk from the iPhonedo YouTube channel posted a short video to Threads explaining exactly what happened, and it's much more straightforward than you... Continue reading...

It's a good-looking desk accessory - but is it a good mug? | Image: Ember My coffee routine is needlessly fussy but fairly predictable. I wander bleary-eyed into the kitchen, add some water to the kettle, and start heating it to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, grind some coffee beans, get out the Chemex, add and rinse a new filter, put the whole thing on a scale, add 40 grams of beans, slowly pour in 600 milliliters of hot water, pour it into my trusty silver Yeti Rambler, and pad into the living room to either play with my son or look at TikTok on my phone. It's a life, you know?For the last few weeks, the Ember Tumbler has wormed its way into that routine. The $199 Tumbler is Ember's newest product but carries the same promise as the company's popular mugs: it can keep your drink at the exact temperature you want... Continue reading...

Google chief legal officer Kent Walker. | Photo By Alex Zea/Europa Press via Getty Images Judge James Donato is overseeing Epic v. Google, a case that could determine the future of the Android app store - but testimony in this case may have more repercussions for Google too.On Friday, Judge Donato vowed to investigate Google for intentionally and systematically suppressing evidence, calling the company's conduct a frontal assault on the fair administration of justice." We were there in the courtroom for his explanation.I am going to get to the bottom of who is responsible," he said, adding he would pursue these issues on my own, outside of this trial."Testimony in the Epic v. Google trial - and in a parallel DOJ antitrust suit against Google in Washington, DC - revealed that Google automatically deleted chat messages... Continue reading...

Leaked images of the new Samsung S24 Ultra and standard S24. | Image: Windows Report This is the time of year when Samsung unwillingly has major details of its flagship Galaxy S line of phones leaked out months before they launch. So it will come as no surprise that we've now got details on the S24 and S24 Ultra - or at least the phones we assume will carry that name.Today, Windows Report got a hold of new official Samsung images that include the Galaxy S24 Ultra with a new flattened screen design. It confirms an earlier leak by Twitter / X user David Martin, who posted handheld images of the purported new S24 Ultra. The images clearly showed sharper screen edges akin to the changes made with the regular S23 from earlier this year, instead of the gentle curve, and a new gray color finish.As reported last month, Samsung... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge We still don't know the whole story around the conflict between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the company's board, but more and more is leaking out. A new report, from The New Yorker, alleges that OpenAI's old board deliberately excluded Microsoft after initially voting to expel Sam Altman as CEO, and they actually believed the company would back them.In the sprawling story, New Yorker reported Microsoft executives were blindsided by the decision to oust Sam Altman, possibly to prevent Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella from warning Altman what was about to happen.Altman has a reputation for being a shrewd business person, and part of the decision not to inform Microsoft was to ensure that he would be surprised.When OpenAI announced Altman's... Continue reading...

Image: Amazon Amazon is enlisting the help of one of its biggest rivals to shuttle its Project Kuiper internet satellites into space. The company will use SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket for three launches beginning in 2025, Amazon announced on Friday.Project Kuiper is Amazon's low Earth orbit satellite program that could eventually provide users across the globe with internet connectivity. Amazon launched its first two Project Kuiper test satellites into space in October, where it managed to connect to the internet and conduct a two-way video call. However, it still has to do some serious catching up to SpaceX's Starlink, which has already deployed around 5,000 satellites.Despite the rivalry between the two companies, it doesn't exactly come as a surprise... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Gmail experienced some issues with delayed emails twice this week: on Thursday and again on Friday.On Thursday at 12:31PM ET, Google wrote on Gmail's Workspace Status Dashboard that customers impacted by this issue may see delay in sending the emails," but at 5:03PM ET, the company posted an update that indicates things were fixed.The Thursday issues affected at least two of us here at The Verge. Earlier that day, emails sent from our personal emails to our work accounts took a while to show up. Weirdly, emails from our work emails to our personal Gmails sent just fine. 9to5Google reported the opposite, finding that personal emails worked as expected while Workspace account emails weren't arriving as expected.On Friday, Google... Continue reading...

Image: Analogue Three years after its announcement, Analogue is finally shipping the Analogue Duo: a modern reimagining of NEC's systems that can play games made for the TurboGrafx-16, PC Engine, SuperGrafx, TurboGrafx CD, PC Engine CD-ROM, and Super Arcade CD-ROM. In an update on Friday, Analogue says the Duo will start shipping on December 11th and is on track to be delivered before Christmas.The Duo was initially set to launch in 2021, but that date kept getting pushed back until the company finally started taking preorders in May. Priced at $249.99, the machine supports both wired and Bluetooth controllers and is capable of running games in up to 1080p with zero lag." Just like the Analogue Pocket, the Duo relies on the actual game cartridges and... Continue reading...

The Amazon Alexa mobile app has a new design and new features. | Image: Amazon It's been 87 years ... (okay, three), but Amazon has finally updated its Alexa app. The revamp is rolling out fully this week to iOS and Android devices, but it started this summer with some small changes you may have already spotted. The end result is an app that's more streamlined and more tailored to smart home control. And while it's not appreciably faster (boo), it is considerably more intuitive and easier to use (yay).I've not been quiet about my disdain for the Alexa app's (lack of) capabilities. But this new app and the new Map View feature that launched last month, combined with the increased smart home control capabilities of the Echo Show 8 and the new Echo Hub, could convince me to try it again as my smart home daily... Continue reading...

Warner Bros.' animated features based on DC Comics characters have always had that fascinating X-factor that the studio's live-action projects tend to lack. The new trailer for director Eri Osada and writer Tappei Nagatsuki's Suicide Squad Isekai makes it look like the studio's keeping that tradition alive.Set in a continuity outside of DC's core canon (much like an Elseworlds comic), Suicide Squad Isekai follows Harley Quinn (Anna Nagase), Deadshot (Reigo Yamaguchi), Peacemaker (Takehito Koyasu), Clayface (Jun Fukuyama), and King Shark (Subaru Kimura) into an alternate reality as the team is sent on yet another risky, covert mission by the US government. Though the super-felons are all used to working together as Task Force X in their... Continue reading...

The Next World forum in Riyadh was hosted by the Saudi Esports Federation. | Photo by FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images With avowed massive gamer' Mohammed bin Salman at the helm, the kingdom's insatiable appetite and bottomless riches are already remaking the global video game industry. Continue reading...

A new all-time low for Microsoft's obelisk of a console. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge It's the best time to buy an Xbox right now, as the Xbox Series X is selling for just $349. You can get Microsoft's flagship console at eitherAmazonor Walmart and save $150.Xbox may not have all the heavy-hitter console exclusives these days like Sony's PlayStation and its cadre of AAA single-player experiences, but it's a great 4K-capable gaming machine with handy features like Quick Resume to get you back into your game in a near instant. Plus, if you subscribe to Xbox Game Pass, there are all kinds of great and unique games to enjoy for just $16.99 per month - like sleeper hits Hi-Fi Rush, Cocoon, and Remnant 2 (the last of which just stealth-dropped on the service within the last few days).Best Buy is discounting a whole slew of... Continue reading...

In iA Writer's traditional minimalist interface, AI text shows up in grey, while your own words an in black. | Image: iA Writer iA Writer 7, the latest version of the minimalist multi-platform writing software, has a new feature that's designed to clearly mark text contributed by generative AI systems like ChatGPT. While your own words appear in black, you can choose for AI-generated text copied into your iA document to be greyed out. Then, as you tweak and edit the AI additions you can easily keep track of how much text is your original work and how much is artificially generated.In its blog post about the feature, the company outlines its philosophy about using AI-generated text in writing. Rather than letting AI become a ghostwriter" that takes over" and makes you lose your voice," iA Writer's feature is designed to encourage you to use AI as a dialog... Continue reading...

COP28 logo on the opening day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on November 30, 2023. | Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Will there be a future for fossil fuels? How much money do the most polluting countries owe the rest of the world? That's all on the table at the United Nations Climate Change Conference underway in Dubai. Continue reading...