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Bard looks like a search engine, though Google says it isn’t one. | Image: Google “Bard is a complement to search.” That’s how Google describes the relationship between Bard, the new chatbot entering into beta testing today, and its monolithic search engine. The way the company sees it, Bard is less a tool for finding information and more a way to automatically generate ideas and emails. And poems. And poem-emails. You want answers to search queries? That’s what Google search is for. There’s even a “Google It” button at the bottom of most Bard responses.But the thing about Bard — and really the thing about every chatbot including ChatGPT and the new Bing — is that Google doesn’t actually get to choose how you use it. People have spent the last few months using ChatGPT to replace a search engine... and wondering what... Continue reading…

Google is stressing that Bard is an experiment rather than a finished product. | Image: Google Today, Google is opening up limited access to Bard, its ChatGPT rival, a major step in the company’s attempt to reclaim what many see as lost ground in a new race to deploy AI. Bard will be initially available to select users in the US and UK, with users able to join a waitlist at bard.google.com, though Google says the roll-out will be slow and has offered no date for full public access.Like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing chatbot, Bard offers users a blank text box and an invitation to ask questions about any topic they like. However, given the well-documented tendency of these bots to invent information, Google is stressing that Bard is not a replacement for its search engine but, rather, a “complement to search” — a bot that... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft is adding an AI-powered image creator to its Bing search engine today. The Bing Image Creator will be powered by an “advanced version” of OpenAI’s DALL-E model and will let Bing users create images by simply writing what you want to generate.“For those in the Bing preview, Bing Image Creator will be fully integrated into the Bing chat experience, rolling out initially in Creative mode,” explains Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s head of consumer marketing. “By typing in a description of an image, providing additional context like location or activity, and choosing an art style, Image Creator will generate an image from your own imagination.” Image: Microsoft Bing’s chatbot can generate images for you. M... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge Microsoft is building a cryptocurrency wallet for its Edge browser even as the crypto markets struggle. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the software giant has been testing the Microsoft Edge built-in crypto wallet internally in recent months, with plans to eventually ship it to consumers. It’s just the latest feature coming to Microsoft’s increasingly bloated Edge browser.Screenshots of the crypto wallet leaked online last week thanks to Twitter user Albacore, who regularly documents unreleased features in Windows. Microsoft’s description of the crypto wallet says it has “simplified experiences that make Web3 easier to interact with” and that it has “integrated security features to protect you from unsecure... Continue reading…

Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge You bought your parents / grandparents / other relatives a new computer, set it up, and showed them all of its nifty new features. You’ve gone home, knowing that you’ve made them very happy. But deep down, you know that this isn’t the end of the story.It’s not going to be long before that dreaded call comes in asking for support. “I can’t find the draft of the email I started!” “Why can’t I get on that Zoom conference?” “My speaker / mouse / keyboard isn’t working!” They’re going to want you to talk them through a fix, which (depending on how computer-savvy they are) is probably going to take a minimum of several hours out of your day.But there is a solution. If both you and your troubled relative use the Chrome browser (or own a... Continue reading…

Sean Dong / The Verge Mike Vallejo, a 32-year-old technology entrepreneur and self-proclaimed multimillionaire from Portland, Oregon, had recently separated from his wife of four years. Their marriage had been on the skids for a while, the true downfall of which was spurred by Mike making out and getting “handsy,” as he put it, with a much younger woman named Lauren.This past August, Lauren pitched Mike, who was now officially single, on having a threesome with her and her friend Haley. Youthful and blonde, faces impeccably sculpted by makeup, the duo was freewheeling and eager for a good time. Mike readily agreed, and the three of them congregated at a swanky boutique hotel in downtown Portland. “I did a line of cocaine off of Lauren’s ass,” Haley said.... Continue reading…

The Momentum 4 can last more than two days on a single charge. | Image: Chris Welch / The Verge Spring break is here, and before you know it, summer will be, too. That means airports and train stations are about to get a whole lot busier. If you often travel for business or plan on vacationing soon, it’s wise to pick up a pair of noise-canceling headphones in preparation for the chaos. Luckily, Sennheiser’s Momentum 4 Wireless are on sale at Amazon, Walmart, and direct from Sennheiser for $269.95 ($80 off), which is one of their better prices to date.In a nutshell, the Momentum 4 are our favorite pair of headphones for traveling. They last a whopping 60 hours on a single charge and their noise cancellation is excellent, meaning you’ll be able to tune out loud crowds, crying babies, and other unwanted sounds. True, they look more... Continue reading…

The Oppo Find X6 Pro in black, brown, and green. | Image: Oppo Oppo has joined the likes of Xiaomi and sister-company Vivo by including a massive 1-inch-type camera sensor in its latest smartphone, the Find X6 Pro, which also doesn’t skimp on the telephoto and ultrawide camera specs. It’s launching in China today alongside the regular Find X6.In China, the Find X6 Pro starts at 5999 yuan (around $872) for 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, rising to 6999 yuan (around $1017) for 16GB RAM and 512GB of storage. Meanwhile the non-Pro Find X6 starts at 4499 yuan (around $654) for 12GB RAM and 256GB of storage. A spokesperson for the company was unwilling to confirm whether the X6 phones will see a broader international release in the future.The Find X6 Pro’s primary camera is the star of the show, and... Continue reading…

Photo by VES 2021 via Getty Images Zack Snyder, known for films like 300 and the four-hour “Snyder Cut” of Justice League, is working on an RPG set in the universe of his forthcoming Netflix sci-fi movie Rebel Moon, he teased in a podcast interview on Sunday.“The one thing that I’m really having a really good time with is — and I don’t even know if I’m supposed to talk about it — this RPG that we’re doing that is just literally insane and so immersive and so intense and so huge,” Snyder said in an interview on The Nerd Queens podcast.Snyder didn’t share many details beyond that and the Rebel Moon connection — he doesn’t even specify what kind of RPG it is, though it seems like a video game — but he mentioned that he didn’t want to make a “causal” game and that he... Continue reading…

Victoria Alonso at a screening of Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania at Regency Village Theatre in Los Angeles, California. | Photo by Phillip Faraone/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty Images Though Victoria Alonso’s name will still be listed in the credits of a number of Marvel Studios’ upcoming projects like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, The Marvels, and Secret Invasion, the longtime producer is ready to make her exit.Per The Hollywood Reporter, after 17 years of working at Marvel Studios — originally as executive vice president of visual effects and post-production before going on to become president in the department — Alonso left the company last Friday for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. As a co-producer on a number of Marvel’s earliest films like the first Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger, Alonso played a key role in shaping the MCU in its infancy, and 2012’s Avengers marked the beginning... Continue reading…

Image: Agility Robotics Agility Robotics has taken the wraps off its next-gen bipedal bot, which comes with some noticeable upgrades — namely, a cylindrical head and two animated LED “eyes.” In a press release, the company says it made the changes to its warehouse-friendly bot, called Digit, to improve “human robot interaction.”Agility Robotics first introduced the once-headless Digit in 2020, marketing the machine as useful in a wide range of industries, such as logistics, industrial inspection, and telepresence. The bot’s also been made to work in the same area and take up the same amount of space as humans, which is why it measures five feet, nine inches tall and walks on two legs.

The Vergecast logo is old, but Overcast, the app it’s playing on, has been charming us for years. | Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge For the last four weeks, Ashley Esqueda has joined The Vergecast each Monday to talk with someone making something really cool on the internet all by themselves. She’s talked with the maker of Hive, the indie developer of the game Birth, the maker of tiny artisan keycaps, and even the person who built the McRib Locator. It felt fitting that, for the final episode of this miniseries, Ashley would talk to one of the original app makers.Marco Arment has been solo building really cool stuff on the internet for years. While he was the CTO of Tumblr, he launched Instapaper in 2008. He left Tumblr in 2010, sold a majority share of Instapaper in 2013, and then turned his focus to Overcast, one of the absolute best apps you can use for tracking... Continue reading…

UN Secretary-General António Guterres (L) speaks next to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (R) at the start of The International Conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan in Geneva on January 9th, 2023. | Image: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images When it comes to tackling climate change, achieving “net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050” has become a ubiquitous rallying cry. It’s in goals set by cities, states, and the Biden administration. It’s a hallmark of companies’ sustainability pledges, from Big Tech to Big Oil. It’s not enough.The world’s leading climate experts called for more swift action on climate change in a major report released today by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Near-term goals to slash greenhouse gas pollution need to be a much higher priority, advocates say, and there’s precious little time to reach them.“The climate time-bomb is ticking. But today’s IPCC report is a how-to guide to defuse the climate time-bomb.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is laying off another 9,000 workers, according to a memo to employees CEO Andy Jassy sent to workers on Monday. The employees affected by the cut include those in roles in AWS, Twitch, advertising, and human resources.In his memo, Jassy cites the “uncertain economy” as the reason for the cuts and says the company has “chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount.” Amazon just got done laying off a total of 18,000 people across the company late last year and in January, which included workers in its hardware and services, human resources, and retail teams.“The overriding tenet of our annual planning this year was to be leaner while doing so in a way that enables us to still invest robustly in the key long-term... Continue reading…

Monument Valley coming to Netflix in 2024. | Image: Netflix In 2024, Netflix will be adding two of the most revered mobile titles of all time to its fledgling gaming service. The company announced that both Monument Valley and its sequel will be available to Netflix subscribers starting in 2024.It’s a big get, as both games were huge mobile hits on release and are currently available as part of Apple’s Arcade subscription service as well. (It’s not clear yet if the games will be available on both subscriptions simultaneously next year.)The announcement was made as part of a bigger reveal of upcoming titles from Netflix. On April 18th, Ubisoft will be releasing its second game on the service, a roguelite called Mighty Quest: Rogue Palace, while Super Evil Megacorp — the studio behind mobile... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix is still working on its cloud gaming service, which could make its burgeoning games lineup easier to play and available across more devices. The company’s VP of games, Mike Verdu, announced in October that Netflix was “seriously exploring” a cloud gaming service, and work on the project is “underway,” Leanne Loombe, Netflix’s VP of external games, said in a briefing with reporters.“We are very early in that side of our journey,” Loombe said. “We do believe that cloud gaming will enable us to provide that easy access to games on any screen and be frictionless and provide the accessibility into gaming experiences.” She cautioned that Netflix is being “super thoughtful” about how it builds the service, perhaps to avoid a Google... Continue reading…

Image: Ingka Ikea has enlisted more drones to keep tabs on its inventory. In a blog post shared last week, Ikea’s parent company, Ingka, says the retailer now has a total of 100 autonomous drones counting stock in its warehouses during nonoperational hours.Ikea first partnered with the drone-making company Verity in 2020 to deploy the drones in Switzerland, but now, the company says they’re zipping around 16 locations across Belgium, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. The Swedish furniture giant says the drones help improve the accuracy of product availability and also support “a more ergonomic workplace,” as it saves employees from counting stock manually.Verity, which specializes in creating self-flying drones for warehouses... Continue reading…

Tumblr’s poll game phenomenon often shares a likeness with the infinite monkeys on a typewriter theorem. | Image: im-a-freaking-joy / Tumblr On February 3rd, Tumblr user Relientk used the site’s then-recently released poll feature to list several common baking ingredients. “Okay let’s bake a cake,” the poll urged. There were no further instructions, no rules. Users’ votes just implicitly set the percentage of things like butter, flour, sugar... and vanilla extract.If you’re already a Tumblr user, you know how this went. The resulting cake recipe was 44 percent vanilla — briefly turning the phrase “vanilla extract” into a sitewide meme. While the gag was short-lived and the cake (based on one real-life baking test) far from delicious, it’s become part of a much larger trend on Tumblr: turning the site’s polls into sometimes surprisingly complex — and often very funny — games.... Continue reading…

Finland was again named the happiest country in the world for 2023, followed closely by other countries in Northern Europe. | Image: Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP via Getty Images Despite causing millions of deaths, economic downfall, and worldwide disruption these past few years, the 10th annual World Happiness Report reveals that the covid pandemic hasn’t impacted our overall happiness. The 2023 report published today reveals that happiness levels from self-reported “life evaluations” have been “remarkably resilient” — with global averages between 2020 and 2022 just as high as those reported pre-pandemic.The annual World Happiness Report uses data from studies like the Gallup World Poll, which collects around 1,000 self-assessed life evaluations from each of the 137 participating countries to determine its overall rankings. The self-reported evaluations are then broken down into six key factors — social... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is getting ready to launch its Xbox mobile gaming store as soon as next year. The software giant revealed its plans for an Xbox mobile store last year, and now Xbox chief Phil Spencer says the company is building the store in the anticipation of companies like Apple and Google being forced to open up their mobile app stores.“We want to be in a position to offer Xbox and content from both us and our third-party partners across any screen where somebody would want to play,” said Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in an interview with the Financial Times. “Today, we can’t do that on mobile devices but we want to build towards a world that we think will be coming where those devices are opened up.”Microsoft said last year it was... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Around one million accounts are now signed up to Netflix’s ad-supported tier in the US, according to internal figures seen by Bloomberg. The tier was first launched in early November, and is thought to have gotten off to a slow start. Come January, however, 19 percent of new signups in the US opted for the $6.99 ad-supported tier, according to analytics firm Antenna.Bloomberg cautions that the internal data it saw is “at least” a month old, and that it doesn’t account for multiple users watching via the same account. But the figures suggest that Netflix is finding its footing with the new revenue stream, after having been overwhelmingly reliant on subscriber revenue for most of its history. And Bloomberg notes that ad-supported... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you haven’t switched away from Twitter’s SMS two-factor authentication (2FA) method yet, today’s the last day to do it. Starting on March 20th, Twitter will place its text message-based 2FA behind its $8 per month Blue paywall.As part of this change, Twitter will also turn off 2FA for your account completely if you don’t switch away from SMS verification or pay for Blue before that deadline, leaving your account vulnerable to hacking. Fortunately, you can still enable 2FA for free using an authenticator app, like Google Authenticator or Authy. You can also use a security key, but this requires the purchase of an actual piece of hardware.Twitter’s making SMS 2FA a paid feature because it’s the least secure form of authentication.... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The FBI has arrested the person allegedly in charge of the BreachForums online hacking community, as reported earlier by Krebs on Security and Bleeping Computer. Conor Brian Fitzpatrick, also known online as “Pompompurin,” was arrested at his New York home on Wednesday and charged with conspiracy to commit access device fraud, according to a pair of court filings.In a sworn statement, the FBI agent involved in the case claims Fitzpatrick admitted to owning BreachForums at the time of his arrest and identified himself as Pompompurin. Pompompurin created BreachForums after the FBI seized RaidForums, a similar hacking site that also sold leaked information.The hacker is implicated in a number of breaches, with many of them targeting the... Continue reading…

Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Two men have been charged for their alleged roles in last year’s hack of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s web portal, as reported earlier by Gizmodo. In a press release posted earlier this week, the Department of Justice says Sagar Steven Singh and Nicholas Ceraolo stole a police officer’s credentials to access a federal law enforcement database that they used to extort victims.Prosecutors claim the 19-year-old Singh and 25-year-old Ceraolo are members of a hacking group called Vile, which often steals personal information from victims and then threatens to dox them online if they don’t receive a payment. While the DOJ doesn’t explicitly say which agency Singh and Ceraolo allegedly hacked into, it states the portal contains “detailed,... Continue reading…

Look, you can make art on your iPad without having to pay for Apple’s Pencil. For the past few months, I’ve been cheating on my Apple Pencil. Instead of using Apple’s $129 stylus with my iPad Mini for notetaking, I’ve been using an alternative I purchased off of Amazon for about $25. It looks nearly identical, works nearly as well, and even snaps onto and charges from your iPad. And while this $25 stylus doesn’t quite match all of the Apple Pencil’s features, it comes awfully close to providing a similar experience for a fraction of the price.The stylus I’ve been using is from a random brand called “StylusHome,” but there are many similar ones listed on Amazon for around the same price. It apes the styling of Apple’s second-generation Pencil exactly — if it weren’t for the logo on the first-party one, I wouldn’t... Continue reading…

Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell in the original 1997 Good Burger movie. | Photo by Paramount/Getty Images It’s official: Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell will reunite for a Good Burger sequel that’s set to hit Paramount Plus later this year. The duo revealed the news during a segment on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Friday night, noting that they will start filming in the summer.Good Burger 2 takes place in a present-day version of the fictional fast food restaurant of the same name, with Thompson reprising his role as Dexter Reed and Mitchell as Ed, the store’s hilariously oblivious cashier. Here’s the film’s official synopsis:

Apple’s 14-inch MacBook Pro from 2021 offers a lot of the same functionality as the newer M2 models at a fraction of the cost. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The nice thing about the entry-level M2-powered MacBook Air is the fact it's relatively affordable (for a Mac, of course). But that lower price tag comes with a drawback: it’s just not powerful enough for more demanding creative work. Thankfully, today’s $500 discount on the 14-inch MacBook Pro means you can buy a laptop that’s an absolute powerhouse for content creation at what’s closer to an entry-level price for the M2 Air.Right now, the M1 Pro-equipped laptop is on sale at Best Buy with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for $1,599 ($400 off), which is just $100 more than buying an M2-equipped MacBook Air with 512GB of storage and half the RAM. What’s more, the 14-inch MacBook Pro supports up to two external displays as opposed to... Continue reading…

Photo by Carsten Koall/picture alliance via Getty Images It’s a great time to be shopping for an electric cargo bike.Not only are there a bunch of great, modestly priced models that have just been released from an assortment of really interesting companies, but there are also a growing number of states offering incentives to curious shoppers that could help bring the cost down even further.It feels as if the industry and the government have simultaneously woken up to the enormous potential of cargo e-bikes to replace car trips and improve the environment, and honestly, it’s about time.The planet-and-community-saving superpower of cargo e-bikes is widely known. They’ve been shown to decrease car dependency, save people money, reduce carbon emissions, and speed up delivery times for... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Growing up, I learned The Way Things Work from author David Macaulay’s incredible illustrated books. This week, I was surprised to see Macaulay’s endorsement in my inbox for a new illustrated explainer by a different author — but the surprise didn’t last long.Fifteen minutes after I began skimming through an advance copy of Hidden Systems, which just came out this week, I immediately ordered the book for my kids. It looks like a fantastic way to help them conceptualize the internet, the world’s water supply, and our power grid — and get them thinking about the infrastructure of the world they’ll someday inherit. Images by Dan Nott / Random House How Dan Nott defines a hidden system, from his website excerpt. ... Continue reading…