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Unlike the Wacom Cintiq Pro 27, the Xencelabs Pen Display 24 includes a stand and ExpressKey accessory as standard. | Image: Xencelabs Graphics hardware manufacturer Xencelabs has announced the Pen Display 24 Studio Series, a new display drawing tablet designed for creative professionals. The 24-inch display is the company’s first drawing tablet with a built-in display to join its range of standard pen tablets and comes equipped with features that rival Wacom’s Cintiq series.The biggest advantage that Xencelabs has against Wacom is affordability — at $1,899, the Pen Display 24 is considerably less expensive than the $3,500 Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 and includes accessories like a stand and a shortcut remote that Wacom doesn’t include as standard.Like the Cintiq Pro 27, the Xencelabs Pen Display 24 features edge-to-edge tempered glass that’s been etched to provide friction... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Ford provided an update Friday on the construction of its massive new EV manufacturing complex in western Tennessee, where it says it will build its next electric truck, codenamed “Project T3.”The so-called BlueOval City campus won’t come online until 2025, but when it does, Ford has said it will be a “mega campus” that houses a vehicle-production facility for Ford’s F-series pickup trucks and a battery assembly division. Now, the company says it will also serve as the main production line for its next electric truck.Details are still scarce, but the new truck will sit alongside an electric Europe-only Ford Explorer, as well as the automaker’s Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning, and E-Transit van, as Ford’s family of electric vehicles... Continue reading…

An air conditioning unit is seen in a window seal during a heatwave on July 21st, 2022, in Houston, Texas. | Image: Brandon Bell/Getty Images Window air conditioners and portable air purifiers will need to get more efficient to comply with new federal standards in the US. The new rules are expected to cut consumer electricity bills by $1.5 billion a year, according to the Department of Energy (DOE), which finalized the standards yesterday.On top of saving consumers’ money, making air conditioners more energy-efficient can help take pressure off power grids during heatwaves and cut down on the greenhouse gas pollution causing climate change. This is also the first time the DOE has issued federal efficiency standards for portable air purifiers, which became a more common household fixture as a result of the covid-19 pandemic and worsening wildfires in the American West.“These... Continue reading…

Image: Blizzard Diablo IV is coming soon, and ahead of the full release, players can now access the open beta. You can check out all the important details on Blizzard’s website, but here’s a rundown of the most pertinent information.Diablo IV’s general open beta has just kicked off, and it runs through March 27th at 3PM ET. You can access the open beta on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X / S, and Xbox One. Last week, there was an “early access” open beta for players who have prepurchased the game or sacrificed their blood pressure to the almighty chicken gods.However, now that the beta is live to whoever wants to join, you might run into some long queues to get into a game — something that Blizzard is already warning players about. If you want to play, be... Continue reading…

Image: Showtime The gruesome mystery returns, but it’s lacking some of the punch that made the first season so potent. Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Update March 24th, 12:24PM ET: Linus Tech Tips, TechLinked, and Techquickie have been restored, and owner Linus Sebastian has shared a video about what happened. Our original story follows.Popular YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips has been hacked this morning, with the channel’s 15.3 million subscribers seeing videos for crypto scams instead of tech hardware reviews. It’s the latest breach in a series of high-profile YouTube accounts being hacked, with scammers regularly gaining access to prominent accounts to rename them and livestream crypto scam videos.The main Linus Tech Tips channel was breached earlier this morning, with several live videos broadcast before the hacker started making old private videos public. The account was... Continue reading…

It brings me much joy that we’re well beyond the limited availability of PS5s. May we never experience that Wild West of restocks again (at least not until the next thing). | Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Whoa, Nelly! We’ve got some hot deals in herre on this Friday. The Sony PlayStation 5 console bundle with God of War Ragnarök is on sale for $509 at Walmart and $509.99 at Best Buy, Amazon, GameStop, and direct from Sony. That’s right, the hottest console with one of the best games of last year is actually discounted by $50. You’re essentially buying the standard PS5 with a disc drive and getting God of War Ragnarök for just $10.Sony’s site indicates that this deal is running through April 16th, so you have a little time to ponder it — but frankly, if you’ve been contemplating a PS5 and even remotely interested in Santa Monica Studio’s latest epic, it’s an easy recommendation. The PS5 may be in its third year, but it remains a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Álvaro Bernis / The Verge The web is full of chattering bots, but which is the most useful and for what? We compare Bard, Bing, and ChatGPT. Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has now sided with Microsoft over concerns the software giant could remove Call of Duty from PlayStation if its proposed Activision Blizzard deal is approved. The regulator still has concerns about the deal’s impact on the cloud gaming market and will complete its investigation by the end of April.“Having considered the additional evidence provided, we have now provisionally concluded that the merger will not result in a substantial lessening of competition in console gaming services because the cost to Microsoft of withholding Call of Duty from PlayStation would outweigh any gains from taking such action,” says Martin Coleman, chair of the independent panel of experts conducting the... Continue reading…

Social media companies have until March 1st, 2024, to comply with or appeal Utah’s new regulations. | Image: Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP Utah has enacted controversial restrictions that will require minors to obtain the consent of a guardian to use social media platforms, the first US state to introduce such measures. Two laws signed by Governor Spencer Cox on Thursday — H.B. 311 and S.B. 152 — form part of the new Utah Social Media Regulation Act, aimed at protecting children from addictive features and targeted ads on social platforms.The H.B. 311 bill prohibits social media companies from broadly “using a design or feature that causes a minor to have an addiction” to their platform and grants minor account holders the right to collect damages for addiction, physical, or emotional harm incurred as a result of using a social media platform. The S.B. 152 bill requires... Continue reading…

Image: Getty Now here’s a path not taken: according to a new report from Semafor, Elon Musk tried — and failed — to take over ChatGPT creator OpenAI in 2018.Musk was part of a small group that founded the AI lab in 2015 as a nonprofit, intending the firm to share research for the wider benefit of society. But by early 2018, says Semafor, Musk was worried the company was falling behind Google. He reportedly offered to take direct control of OpenAI and run it himself but was rejected by other OpenAI founders including Sam Altman, now the firm’s CEO, and Greg Brockman, now its president.Crucially, when Musk walked away from the company — he resigned from its board in 2018 citing a conflict of interest with his work at Tesla — Semafor says he also... Continue reading…

Meta’s promotional art for Direct Touch. | Image: Meta Meta is testing what could become a foundational upgrade to its Quest VR headsets: a way to tap and scroll on virtual elements with only your hands, no controllers required. The idea is that you’ll be able to do actions you might already be familiar with from your smartphone, like swiping up and down a page, pressing a button to activate it, or typing on an onscreen keyboard, using just your fingers in the air.The new experimental feature is called “Direct Touch,” and it’s included with the Quest v50 software update that’s rolling out now. After weeks of waiting, the update finally arrived for me, so, of course, I immediately flipped it on.When hand tracking is on, the Quest 2 uses its external-facing cameras to follow your hands, and... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is gradually rolling out an updated Phone Link app that finally lets you couple an iPhone to a Windows PC. I got access to the new Phone Link version yesterday and immediately paired my iPhone 14 Pro with my PC to send and receive messages via iMessage, make calls, and see the notifications from my phone alongside my usual PC ones.Android users have been able to do all of this this and much more with Phone Link for years, but iPhone users like myself have had to sit by and watch on with envy. The new Phone Link update for iOS is very basic though and literally only supports making and receiving calls, sending and receiving messages to single contacts and not groups (via iMessage), and viewing and dismissing notifications. You... Continue reading…

Imagine this but around 10 times grander. Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail or anything like it takes a lot of research and gear. So what would a research and weight-obsessive tech writer bring? Continue reading…

Image: PayPal Android users should soon be able to log in to PayPal’s website using passkeys, the password-free login system that’s being pushed by Apple, Google, Microsoft, the FIDO alliance, and more. According to an announcement post, the feature is currently rolling out, and will be “more widely available over the coming year.”PayPal says that the rollout will start on its website, rather than its app, and that you have to be running Chrome on Android 9 or up to access passkeys. If it’s available for your account, you may get a prompt asking if you want to create a passkey, which you can authenticate using the biometric system or passcode that you use to unlock your phone.Passkeys are based on FIDO authentication standards, and are generally... Continue reading…

Do Kwon, the founder of Terraform Labs and creator of the collapsed stablecoin Terra, has been charged with eight counts of fraud by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, including “wire fraud, commodities fraud, securities fraud, and conspiracy to defraud and engage in market manipulation,” according to The New York Times. Prosecutors have told the media that they will seek Kwon’s extradition.The charges follow his apparent arrest in Montenegro on Thursday, which was first reported through social media posts by Montenegro Minister of the Interior Filip Adzic on Twitter (where he’s unverified, whether by Twitter Blue or legacy means), and on Facebook (where he is verified, but Facebook’s blue checks have been wrong... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has announced that it’ll start “winding down” its legacy verified program and removing “legacy verified checkmarks” starting on April 1st, and is telling users to subscribe to its Blue subscription if they want to keep their blue check.There’s a lot to unpack here. First, the announcement isn’t necessarily a surprise. CEO Elon Musk has been promising to get rid of “legacy” blue check marks, or verification badges that were given under Twitter’s previous rules, since November, and he’s reiterated that they’d be going away “in coming months” several times. According to Musk, those verification badges were given out in a “corrupt and nonsensical” manner (though they are in fact quite useful for letting users confirm that the... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge People all over the world can now pay for Twitter, as the company has announced that its Twitter Blue subscription service is now available globally. While the subscription has been pretty widely available before (you could sign up for it in almost 50 countries), the expanded availability reflects the company’s drive to make Twitter Blue an increasingly important part of the service.Part of those efforts, however, includes making promises that it hasn’t kept yet. The company’s announcement tweets list some of the benefits of Twitter Blue, such as getting a checkmark, the ability to write longer tweets, getting prioritized ranking in conversations, and seeing half as many ads. Those last two, however, haven’t actually rolled out yet.... Continue reading…

Aerial view of an offshore wind farm on July 2nd, 2022, in Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province of China. | Photo by Yao Feng / VCG via Getty Images The wind energy industry is recovering from a worrying slump in 2022, according to a new report from BloombergNEF. Growth in global capacity — encompassing offshore and onshore wind — dropped 15 percent last year. The decline in new offshore wind installations was more stark, falling 46 percent from 2021.Until last year, winds looked favorable for the industry. Turbines have gotten significantly cheaper over the past couple decades. Governments are setting targets to bring more renewable energy online. And within a few years, renewable sources of electricity like wind and solar are expected to dominate global power sector growth.Nevertheless, after two years of record growth at the start of the decade, supply chain constraints and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge FTX’s failure revealed the flaws and risky financial strategies that fueled the recent crypto and NFT boom. Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge OpenAI is adding support for plug-ins to ChatGPT — an upgrade that massively expands the chatbot’s capabilities and gives it access for the first time to live data from the web.Up until now, ChatGPT has been limited by the fact it can only pull information from its training data, which ends in 2021. OpenAI says plug-ins will not only allow the bot to browse the web but also interact with specific websites, potentially turning the system into a wide-ranging interface for all sorts of services and sites. In an announcement post, the company says it’s almost like letting other services be ChatGPT’s “eyes and ears.”In one demo video (below), someone uses ChatGPT to find a recipe and then order the necessary ingredients from Instacart.... Continue reading…

Image: Patrick George “All electric vehicles drive the same.” That’s a criticism I hear pretty often lately, especially from car enthusiasts who are none too happy to lose things like engine noises and manual transmissions. It’s not exactly accurate; a Porsche Taycan will deliver a pretty radically different experience from a Volkswagen ID.4, for example, and they come from the same parent company. But that assessment isn’t completely incorrect, either.The truth is that there probably are fewer ways EVs feel different from one another compared to internal combustion cars. And the general auto industry consensus seems to be that cars of the future will be less defined by individual driving dynamics and more by software-driven functions and special features.T... Continue reading…

Don’t expect Sonos to drastically change the design of the second-gen Move. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge It’s fixing to be a very busy year of new hardware from Sonos. The company is days away from releasing its latest products, the Era 300 and Era 100 speakers. CEO Patrick Spence has repeatedly stated that Sonos will enter a new product category sometime in 2023. And now, The Verge has learned more details about the company’s next portable speaker. According to people familiar with Sonos’ product road map, the Move (Gen 2) is currently under development for release sometime in the second half of 2023. I’d expect it in the late summer / early fall timeframe.The second-generation speaker, model number S44, will feature a design similar to the original device. That puts it among the larger “portable” Bluetooth speakers on the market, but... Continue reading…

Looks like an XPS, right? | Image: Dell Dell’s new Latitude 9440, as far as I can glean from the photos, is a Latitude with XPS vibes. It’s a convertible made of machined aluminum, it weighs a bit over three pounds, it’s got a 16:10 display, and it’s got a 91.5 percent screen-to-body ratio — which is, according to Dell, the best screen-to-body ratio on a “14-inch commercial ultra-premium PC”. (It’s 12.2. x 8.46 x 0.59 inches.)Hilariously specific accolades aside, this 2-in-1 device (which does not yet have announced pricing and availability, though I’ll spare you the suspense and predict that it will not be cheap) looks like a C-suite-oriented commercial product with a few funky features that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see on... well, a Dell Latitude.For one, the... Continue reading…

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew is set to testify before Congress for the first time on Thursday, facing some of his app’s most dogged opponents in an attempt to mitigate a nationwide ban attempt.For more than three years, TikTok has been operating under the threat of a potential ban in the US. Now, with more than 150 million American users, the threats have escalated into legislation and an ultimatum from the Biden administration. Thursday’s hearing with the GOP-led House Committee on Energy and Commerce could be Chew and TikTok’s last shot at convincing lawmakers that the app is safe.“TikTok has never shared, or received a request to share, U.S. user data with the Chinese government. Nor would TikTok honor such a request if one were ever... Continue reading…

Rewind’s “ChatGPT For Me” feature is a chatbot with access to all of your stuff. | Image: Rewind The idea of a personal search engine is a powerful and enticing one. What if there were an app that knew everything about my meetings, my tasks, my browser history, my email, and everything else and could help me comb through it to find the stuff I care about? Sounds super helpful! Also, in an era of increasing surveillance and the ongoing monetization of our every thought and action, sounds like a terrifying hellscape dystopia!There’s probably a middle ground in there somewhere that works. That’s what Rewind.ai is trying to find with the feature it’s launching today. It’s called “ChatGPT For Me,” and it’s a GPT-4 chatbot that you can use to interact with all the information Rewind’s app collects about you.(Rewind, if you haven’t... Continue reading…

If we automate venture capital, will the hype generate itself? | Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge The AI hype is marketing, baby. Continue reading…

Less than half the price of a Super73-ZX but with more inattention to detail. Continue reading…

Image: Canva Web-based design platform Canva is introducing a colossal suite of new brand management products and AI-powered design tools focused on helping entire workplaces streamline their content creation process. Announced today at Canva’s Create event, most of these new features are designed to make creating content like social media graphics, presentations, and advertising materials more accessible to those without professional design experience. The idea is this would leave graphic designers free to tackle more pressing tasks. The number of features announced is impressive and could challenge Adobe’s ubiquity in some offices.A new Brand Hub is being added to Canva’s Visual Worksuite, providing tools meant to help users remain consistent with... Continue reading…