The Verge

Image: Netflix Henry Cavill may be gone, but Netflix's live-action adaptation of The Witcher is soldiering on with even more seasons inspired by Andrzej Sapkowski's novels. Continue reading...

Game Pass was already the best deal in gaming, but this discount makes it even better. | Photo by Mateusz Slodkowski / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images My digital game library is filled with titles that I've never played, so a few years ago, I promised myself that I would stop buying every new release. It's easy with services like Game Pass, which offers hundreds of games and other benefits. Whether you're new to the scene or in need of a renewal, now might be a good time to tack on some extra months. A three-month subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is 20 percent off at Target, bringing your total down to $39.99 ($10 off). It's not the best price we've seen, but it's still well worth it. You can also get a one-month subscription for $13.59 (close to $4 off) at Target.I've long said that Xbox Game Pass is the best value in gaming, and while competing services are quickly catching... Continue reading...

Image: Warner Bros. Discovery Though the last Matrix movie was basically a warning about corporations sucking the life out of iconic pieces of subversive IP, Warner Bros. Discovery is already going back to the well.Deadline reports that The Martian writer Drew Goddard has been tapped to pen and direct another Matrix movie executive produced by Lana Wachowski. Currently, the new film has no title or projected premiere date, and there's been no announcement as to whether franchise stars like Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, or Jessica Henwick will return.In a statement, Warner Bros. Motion Pictures production head Jesse Ehrman said that Goddard came to the studio with a fresh idea for the franchise's future that would honor... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad for The Verge | Photo by The Verge One of the coolest things you can do with the Apple Vision Pro is use your Mac screen - either floating by itself in a virtual landscape or, better yet, in mixed reality. It's hard to make work exciting, but if you can, why not work on the Moon? Or on top of Haleakal in Hawaii?You can also blow up that Mac screen as big as you like or even stick it on the ceiling if you're so inclined. The catch is that, for now, you can't have multiple Mac screens. So, if you've got dual monitors, you're a bit out of luck there.You can use this feature with a MacBook or a Mac desktop, though the process is slightly different for each. Here's how to get started.Check your settingsBefore diving in, make sure your Mac and Vision Pro are both logged... Continue reading...

Photo by Matt McClain / The Washington Post via Getty Images The Federal Communications Commission will vote on April 25th on a proposal to restore net neutrality rules, the agency announced on Wednesday.If the five-member panel votes to restore the rules, internet service providers (ISP) will be reclassified from information services to common carriers, bringing stricter regulations with the change.The idea of net neutrality is to keep ISPs from treating internet traffic differently by throttling or blocking, for example. The FCC installed net neutrality rules back in 2015, but they were repealed in 2017 under a Trump-nominated chair. Republicans on the commission believed that removing what they saw to be onerous rules would lead to greater innovation. Democrats believed that repealing the... Continue reading...

Oura's new Symptom Radar feature detects early signs of change to your overall wellness. | Image: Victoria Song / The Verge The Oura Ring is getting a bit more experimental. Starting today, Oura users will get access to a new Oura Labs feature, which allows them to opt in to experimental features. The first will be something called Symptom Radar, which detects early signs of physiological strain.Symptom Radar isn't quite illness detection - a feature that Oura and many other wearables companies put a lot of research into during the early days of the covid-19 pandemic. Instead, it notifies users of significant changes in biometric trends like temperature, respiratory rate, resting heart rate, and heart rate variability. When alerted, users can choose whether to enable Rest Mode or lower their daily activity goal to prioritize rest. While illness could... Continue reading...

Photo by NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images A new report from the US Cyber Safety Review Board has found that Microsoft could have prevented Chinese hackers from breaching US government emails through its Microsoft Exchange Online software last year. The incident, described as a cascade of security failures" at Microsoft, allowed Chinese state-sponsored hackers to access online email inboxes of 22 organizations, affecting more than 500 people including US government employees working on national security.The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released a scathing report that found that the hack was preventable" and that a number of decisions inside Microsoft contributed to a corporate culture that deprioritized enterprise security investments and rigorous risk... Continue reading...

The Dudesy podcast agreed to take the allegedly ai-generated comedy special offline as part of the settlement. | Photo by Mark Junge/Getty Images George Carlin's estate has reached a settlement with the media company that purportedly used generative artificial intelligence to imitate the late comedian. The decision arrives as a group representing artists like Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, and Stevie Wonder calls for performers to be better protected against being mimicked by AI technology.According to the New York Times, Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen - the Dudesy podcast creators who imitated Carlin in a faked comedy special titled George Carlin: I'm Glad I'm Dead" - agreed as part of the settlement reached on Tuesday to take the offending content offline and never upload it on any platform. Sassoo and Kultgen also agreed to not use Carlin's voice or likeness in content they produce... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge DMA is about to unleash a brave new world of game emulators, clipboard managers, and uncertainty. Continue reading...

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Intel's chip-making division accumulated $7 billion in operating losses in 2023, Reuters reported on Tuesday. That's a big increase from $5.2 billion it lost in 2022, and while it made $18.9 billion in revenue in 2023, that number is down 31 percent from the $27.49 billion it made the year prior.However, based on CEO Pat Gelsinger's comments to investors, the total loss isn't a total surprise. Gelsinger says these latest numbers are partially the result of Intel's past mistakes catching up with its foundry business, which caused the chipmaker to outsource about 30 percent of all its wafer production to other foundries, like TSMC, one of Intel's biggest competitors currently.But now Intel has invested in using extreme ultraviolet (EUV)... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Linux, the most widely used open source operating system in the world, narrowly escaped a massive cyber attack over Easter weekend, all thanks to one volunteer.The backdoor had been inserted into a recent release of a Linux compression format called XZ Utils, a tool that is little-known outside the Linux world but is used in nearly every Linux distribution to compresses large files, making them easier to transfer. If it had spread more widely, an untold number of systems could have been left compromised for years.And as Ars Technica noted in its exhaustive recap, the culprit had been working on the project out in the open.The vulnerability, inserted into Linux's remote log-in, only exposed itself to a single key, so that it could hide... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images The United States and United Kingdom agreed to work together to monitor advanced AI models for safety risks. The two countries will collaborate on research and do at least one joint safety test.Both countries say safety is a top concern when it comes to using AI models. US President Joe Biden's executive order on AI required companies developing AI systems to report safety test results. Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced the creation of the UK AI Safety Institute, saying that companies like Google, Meta, and OpenAI must allow the vetting of their tools.The agreement between both countries' AI Safety Institutes takes effect immediatelyUS Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the government is committed to developing... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix I'm in awe of how smart the developers of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth are. After seeing a post comparing Cloud during the Nibelheim flashback and his arrival at the city much later in the game, my mind is reeling from the subtle brilliance in how Square used the tiniest of animation details to convey one of the biggest, most shocking plot twists in Final Fantasy narrative history.Spoilers for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth to follow.In a clip shared on X by pwtizza, Cloud, with one of his big-ass swords strapped to his back, is seen sitting at the top of Nibelheim's famous water tower. In the right half of the clip, Cloud removes his sword before sitting at the top of the water tower. In the left half of the clip, he doesn't; Cloud simply... Continue reading...

An Amazon Dash Cart in Whole Foods. | Photo by Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu via Getty Images Amazon has decided to give up on its Just Walk Out program that lets customers leave its brick-and-mortar grocery stores without a formal checkout process. Instead, it's switching fully to Dash Carts," where customers scan products as they toss them in their cart.That's according to The Information, which reports that the company is pulling Just Walk Out from all larger stores where the system is in place and sprucing up the stores across the board" as it prepares to expand Amazon Fresh locations later this year. Amazon will keep using it in smaller corner stores, though.Amazon hasn't managed to get a handle on in-person retail despite buying the upscale, popular Whole Foods chain back in 2017. Over the years, the online shopping... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google just sent out its final reminder that Dropcam and Dropcam Pro cameras and Nest Secure home security systems will stop working next Monday, April 8th. Google first made the announcement a year ago, a month before it rolled out its redesigned Home app.The Dropcam and Dropcam Pro, which came out in 2012 and 2013, respectively, will stop being able to connect to the Nest app and stop recording video. Video history will remain available after April 8th, but the length of time depends on your individual Nest Aware subscription version and tier, which range from five to 60 days.Current users should also check their emails for an offer toward an indoor wired Nest Cam, which expires on May 7th, 2024. But perhaps most importantly, users... Continue reading...

Screenshot: Chris Welch / The Verge I've become almost numb to the deluge of notifications that hit my phone every day. But when an app sends a simple, very human Hi!" message, apparently that's enough to stop me in my tracks. And Starbucks just sent exactly that push notification to god knows how many devices a few minutes ago. For what purpose? Who knows?Just hi. No other context. A random hello on what's (here in New York) a dreary, rainy Tuesday. So I tapped. Doing so just brought me into the Starbucks app without any special destination or obvious promotion attached to the prompt.Starbucks has sent out accidental notifications before. So it's fair to question:

Apple's second-gen AirPods still deliver a lot of value for Apple fans given how well they integrate with other iOS devices. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge We don't often recommend five-year-old earbuds, but Apple's second-generation AirPods are one of those rare gadgets that have stood the test of time. They're still a good option if you just need a simple pair of earbuds that integrate well with other Apple devices, and right now, they're just $89 ($40 off) at Amazon and Walmart. That's $20 shy of the all-time low price set during Black Friday and the best price we've seen them sell for so far this year.Apple's last-gen entry-level earbuds still deliver excellent sound and voice call quality, even if they lack the IPX4 water resistance and MagSafe charging compatibilities of the third-gen AirPods. They nail the basics with long battery life and reliable performance, while letting Apple... Continue reading...

Google Podcasts was a simple but good podcasts app - and now it's gone. | Image: Google Google Podcasts is dead. It has been dying for months, since Google announced last fall that it was killing its dedicated podcast app in order to focus all its podcasting efforts on YouTube Music. This is a bad idea and a big downgrade, and I'd be more mad if only I were more surprised.The Podcasts app is just the latest product to go through a process I've come to call The Google Cycle. It always goes the same way: the company launches a new service with grandiose language about how this fits its mission of organizing and making accessible the world's information, quickly updates it with a couple of neat features, immediately seems to forget it exists, eventually launches a competitor out of some other part of the company, obviously... Continue reading...

As per this still from an Anchorage Daily News video, Aurora is already hard at work spooking the local animals. | Image: Anchorage Daily News The Alaskan government has a new four-legged friend keeping migratory birds and other animals away from the runways at Fairbanks International Airport: a dog-like Boston Dynamics robot dubbed Aurora." The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities posted its new hire" on Instagram last month, saying that the robot will be trialed to enhance and augment airport safety" by trying to prevent hazardous encounters between planes and wildlife.While addressing the Alaska House and Senate transportation committees on March 19th, robot handler Ryan Marlow said the agency opted to trial Aurora after plans to spray repellents like grape juice from flying drones were judged too risky. According to Marlow, Aurora will be put to... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge There are fewer things more ubiquitous in technology than QWERTY keyboards. If you type anywhere, you almost certainly type the QWERTY way. But why? It turns out that by almost any objective measure, the keyboards we use are decidedly unoptimized. Commonly used keys are too hard to reach; your fingers have to move side to side too much; it requires way too much movement overall. There are a million theories about why QWERTY was invented - the most common one holds that its creator wanted to make sure old typewriter mechanisms didn't crash into each other as you whacked the keys - but almost everyone agrees, it's not the best way. And yet, after decades of using it, hardly anybody wants to switch.On this episode of The Vergecast, we have... Continue reading...

The Artifact app will be gone soon - but the Yahoo News app might start to be more like it. | Image: Artifact Instagram's co-founders built a powerful and useful tool for recommending news to readers - but could never quite get it to scale. Yahoo has hundreds of millions of readers - but could use a dose of tech-forward cool to separate it from all the internet's other news aggregators. And so, the two sides are joining forces: Yahoo is acquiring Artifact, the companies announced on Tuesday.The two sides declined to share the cost of the acquisition, but both made clear Yahoo is acquiring Artifact's tech rather than its team. Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom, Artifact's co-founders, will be special advisors" for Yahoo but won't be joining the company. Artifact's remaining five employees have either gotten other jobs or are planning to take some... Continue reading...

The record was broken during a 15-hour stream on April 1st. | Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Game developer Jason Thor Hall, better known by the moniker Pirate Software, has set a new Twitch Hype Train world record, with his channel reaching level 106 on April 1st. Once the Hype Train was initiated, it took Hall roughly three hours to beat his previous level 55 world record from December, with viewers contributing 54,380 gifted subs (alongside regular subscriptions) and 8,225,386 Bits - likely earning Hall a healthy six-figure sum in the process.Hype Trains, a feature that Twitched launched in 2020, are a limited-time event triggered when a channel receives an uptick in Bits or subscriptions, pushing past a streamer-designated threshold. While we won't know the official figure paid by Hall's community, it's sure to be... Continue reading...

Are you there, Bixby? | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Bixby's not dead yet, apparently. A Samsung executive tells CNBC that the company is working so hard" to equip its voice assistant with AI features, suggesting that the company sees the likes of Gemini as competition - not a replacement.That's good to know, because some of us were starting to wonder. Earlier this year as Samsung announced a boatload of new generative AI features for its flagship phones, its voice assistant was scarcely mentioned. Samsung and Google also made a big deal about the Galaxy S24 phones using Gemini Nano - Google's on-device AI model. It wouldn't have been a stretch to see Samsung replace Bixby with Google's Gemini-powered assistant, but apparently, that's not the plan.Samsung's Won-joon Choi, executive... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge You can't really blame Meta's executives for wanting to limit the amount of political yelling on Instagram and Threads. That stuff can get pretty toxic. As a result, both of Meta's social networks now limit what Meta terms political content" from people you are not following.However, if you are a Threads or Instagram user and you want to be exposed to posts likely to mention governments, elections, or social topics that affect a group of people and/or society at large" (which is how Meta describes it), you can still do it by opting in to political content. The only thing that may be a little confusing is that you have to opt in within the Instagram app - even if you are mainly using Threads.Here's how: