The Verge

Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge The Federal Trade Commission has approved a new rule preventing hotels and ticket sellers from hiding extra fees associated with a purchase. Under the rule, businesses must provide up-front disclosure" of the total price of a hotel stay, vacation rental, or live event tickets before checkout.The rule, which was first proposed last year, targets the resort," convenience," and service" fees that often covertly raise the final price of a hotel stay or tickets for a live concert or sporting event. It doesn't ban companies from charging these kinds of fees; it just requires them to disclose the total cost of a purchase (including fees) when advertising or displaying their price.Additionally, businesses must display the total price of a purchase more prominently than most other pricing information." Though businesses can still exclude shipping fees and taxes from advertised prices, they must now show these fees before customers start entering their payment information. The rule is set to go into effect in April 2025.People deserve to know up-front what they're being asked to pay - without worrying that they'll later be saddled with mysterious fees that they haven't budgeted for and can't avoid," FTC Chair Lina Khan said in the press release. The FTC's rule will put an end to junk fees around live event tickets, hotels, and vacation rentals, saving Americans billions of dollars and millions of hours in wasted time."With Andrew Ferguson set to replace Khan as FTC Chair under the Trump administration, the agency has approved several last-minute changes that will directly impact consumers. In addition to approving a new click-to-cancel" rule that should make it easier to cancel subscriptions, the FTC also expanded its Telemarketing Sales Rule to cover tech support scam calls.

Image: Honda Out to prove that the sports coupe is far from dead, Honda announced the return of the Prelude with an all-new hybrid-electric powertrain.It's been over two decades since Honda last released a new Prelude, but the company began laying the groundwork for its return with the release of a concept version last year. Now, a hybrid Prelude is scheduled to arrive in the US in 2025.It will also mark the debut of Honda S+ Shift, a new drive mode that the company says further advances Linear Shift Control to deliver maximum levels of driver engagement."The company is describing the Prelude as having two motors," but that doesn't make it dual-motor or AWD. Honda's hybrid powertrain has had two motors for several generations, both of which sit adjacent to the internal combustion engine.The debut of Honda S+ ShiftOne electric motor acts as a generator, creating electricity for the battery and propulsion," Honda spokesperson Chris Naughton said, and the other is a traction motor that propels the vehicle - and captures regen when slowing."There's not much else to note about the Prelude's return; Honda is probably waiting until closer to the production to release key specs.I'm sure there will be some bemoaning the fact that Honda had an opportunity to release a fully electric Prelude that would have been rad as hell. To be sure, the company says it's still committed to achieving carbon neutrality for all of its products and corporate activity" by 2050 - and that includes 100 percent of EV sales by 2040.But Honda also has a pretty good track record for hybrid vehicles, which it considers an important bridge to full EVs. And clearly, the US is heading toward a dark period for EV sales with the incoming Trump administration expected to roll back a lot of the incentives and regulations aimed at growing EV adoption.Hybrid-electric trims currently make up more than 50 percent of Accord and CR-V sales, Honda says, and the newly introduced Civic hybrid is expected to ultimately represent about 40 percent of Civic sales. Cumulative sales of Honda electrified vehicles top 1 million.Meanwhile, the fully electric Honda Prologue (based on GM's Chevy Equinox EV) is already enjoying brisk sales since its US launch earlier this year. And the company plans to unveil a production-ready Honda Zero model at CES next year.

Illustration: The Verge Google Home is testing a new feature that will allow friends and family members to help manage smart devices around your home. Two access levels are available: Admin" which provides full control over account and device permissions, and Member" for people who require more limited access.Google says that Admin access is for trusted partners or people who co-manage the home with you." Admins can add, remove, and manage users, add and remove devices, and link subscriptions to the home account. Members can manage basic device controls like viewing live security camera feeds, and adjusting personal settings like voice and face match assistant features.Two further permission tiers are available for Members: Settings" to fully control devices and home-wide settings like automation and Nest Wifi device network features; and Activity" to authorize access to device and home-wide history for things like cameras, locks, and sensors.The customizable Member access was first announced in November alongside the Google Home extension for Gemini. Only users who are enrolled in the Google Home public preview can send invitations to the new access levels.Participants can add someone as an Admin or a Member by opening the Google Home app settings, tapping Household and access," and selecting the plus icon to invite a new home member. Those you invite don't need to be enrolled in public preview themselves, but will need to be running the latest version of the Google Home app.

Photo by Andrej Sokolow / picture alliance via Getty Images Waymo's autonomous vehicles are going to Tokyo, marking the first time that the Alphabet company is deploying vehicles on public roads in a foreign market.Waymo is billing the excursion as a simple road trip" for collecting data about the nuances of Japanese driving, including left-hand traffic and navigating a dense urban environment. The vehicles will be driven manually for the purposes of gathering mapping data and will be managed by a local taxi fleet operator, Nihon Kotsu. About 25 vehicles will be sent, with the first set to arrive in early 2025.And while the tests will undoubtedly be seen as laying the groundwork for a future Tokyo-based robotaxi service, Waymo said it isn't ready to announce anything quite yet. While we look forward to bringing the life-saving benefits of the Waymo Driver global, we have no plans to serve riders in Tokyo at this time," Waymo spokesperson Sandy Karp said. Rather, we're bringing our technology to learn and understand how Waymo fits into the existing transportation landscape and learning how to best partner with local officials and communities."The inclusion of GO, a popular taxi app in Japan, in the strategic partnership could signal Waymo's intention to put its autonomous vehicles into service through a locally based mobility provider. Waymo is already doing this in the US, making its autonomous vehicles available on Uber's ridehail app in Austin and Atlanta.We have no plans to serve riders in Tokyo at this time"Waymo's robotaxi business in the US is growing, albeit slowly. The company currently has approximately 700 vehicles in operation in several cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, and Phoenix. It also plans to launch a robotaxi service in Atlanta in an exclusive partnership with Uber and is planning to launch in Miami in 2026. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai recently said that Waymo was providing 175,000 paid trips per week, or about a million miles.In Tokyo, Waymo's vehicles will be operated by trained autonomous specialists employed by Nihon Kotsu. Once the company feels like it's ready, it will transition to hands-free autonomous driving with a safety driver behind the wheel. Karp wouldn't say whether that would eventually progress to fully driverless operations. The vehicles will be geofenced to certain neighborhoods in Tokyo, including Minato, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Chiyoda, Ch, Shinagawa, and Kt.In bringing its vehicles to its first foreign country, Alphabet is trying to project confidence in its technology, especially at a time when companies are pulling back on costly robotaxi projects. General Motors recently announced that it would no longer fund Cruise and would instead pivot to driver-assist technology and personally owned autonomous vehicles.Several companies have tested their autonomous vehicles in Japan, but the country is a bit of a backwater compared to China and the US. Part of the problem seems to be the country's robust auto industry is focusing its testing in countries other than its native one. Toyota and Nissan are both seeking to deploy robotaxis in China in collaboration with local operators.

Illustration: The Verge Threads now has more than 100 million daily active users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Monday. It's a notable milestone not just because it's a big number; it's also the first time Meta has a daily active user figure publicly.In recent weeks, Meta has been very vocal about Threads' growth after a lot of people flocked to Bluesky. While Bluesky tracker says that that platform currently has a little over 25 million total users, Zuckerberg shared Monday that Threads has more than 300 million monthly active users. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it's clear that Threads is still much larger than Bluesky.Threads has also ramped up its feature releases, including updates that appear to be inspired by Bluesky like custom feeds and curated collections of accounts to follow. Meta is also testing the ability to choose your own default feed, which is a much-needed change. But it's not all good; Threads might get ads early next year.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram will now let you schedule direct messages, as first reported by TechCrunch. With this feature, you can long-press on the send" button and then choose a date and time that you'd like to send your message.As noted on Instagram's support page, you can schedule messages containing only text, meaning you can still only send photos, videos, or GIFs to friends or family members in real-time. When you click on a chat with a scheduled message, Instagram will display a notice that shows how many messages you have scheduled. Screenshot: The Verge Tapping into the notice and long-pressing your message also gives you the option to delete it or send it right away. Right now, it looks like you can only schedule a message as far out as 29 days.The company has added several features as part of its efforts to build out its DMs, including a way to edit messages, draw on photos, and share your live locations with friends, similar to Snapchat.

Blackmagic has announced that its URSA Cine Immersive commercial camera for shooting high-quality 3D immersive video is now available to preorder direct from Blackmagic Design Offices," with the first deliveries going out in early 2025. The camera, which could enable more immersive content for the Vision Pro, costs $29,995 - or a mere 8.6 Vision Pros.First revealed in June, the Cine Immersive will let cinematographers shoot 90fps video in stereoscopic 3D at 8160 x 7200 resolution per eye - or more than twice the estimated per-eye resolution of the Vision Pro's screens. They'll be able to edit the footage using the proprietary Apple Immersive Video format in DaVinci Resolve Studio, which Blackmagic plans to add support for early next year.Blackmagic Design CEO Grant Petty said the DaVinci update will enable a true end-to-end workflow for Apple Immersive Video." He added that the company is looking forward to working closely with filmmakers" on immersive videos ahead of the camera's wider release later in 2025.Blackmagic included images of the camera in its email to The Verge. It looks cool, so I've included them for your perusal:The Vision Pro has some immersive content outside of Apple's videos - in apps like Amplium or Explore POV - but none of them quite have the quality of Apple's videos. Until now, Apple has been the only company producing content with its format, and only a handful of such videos are available at this point. That could change, eventually, if studios take advantage of Blackmagic's new camera and DaVinci update.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is rolling out a way for creators to let third-party companies use their videos to train AI models. To be clear, the default setting for this is off, meaning that if you don't want to let third-party companies scrape your videos for AI training, you don't have to do anything. But if, for some reason, you do want to allow that - Google says that some creators and rights holders" may want to - it's going to be an option.We see this as an important first step in supporting creators and helping them realize new value for their YouTube content in the AI era," a TeamYouTube staffer named Rob says in a support post. As we gather feedback, we'll continue to explore features that facilitate new forms of collaboration between creators and third-party companies, including options for authorized methods to access content."YouTube will be rolling out the setting in YouTube Studio over the next few days," and unauthorized scraping remains prohibited," Rob writes.Another support page says that you'll be able to pick and choose from a list of third-party companies that can train on your videos or you can simply allow all third-party companies to train on them. The initial list of companies includes the following, according to TechCrunch:

Image: The Verge ChatGPT's AI search engine is rolling out to all users starting today. OpenAI announced the news as part of its newest 12 days of ship-mas livestream, while also revealing an optimized" version of the feature on mobile and the ability to search with advanced voice mode.ChatGPT's search engine first rolled out to paid subscribers in October. It will now be available at the free tier, though you have to have an account and be logged in.One of the improvements for search on mobile makes ChatGPT look more like a traditional search engine. When looking for a particular location, like restaurants or local attractions, ChatGPT will display a list of results with accompanying images, ratings, and hours. Clicking on a location will pull up more information about the spot, and you can also view a map with directions from directly within the app.Another feature aims to make ChatGPT search faster when you're looking for certain kinds of sites, such as hotel booking websites." Instead of generating a response right away, ChatGPT will surface links to websites before taking the time to provide more information about each option. Additionally, ChatGPT can also automatically provide up-to-date information from the web when using Advanced Voice Mode, though that's only available to paid users.In earlier livestreams, OpenAI also announced the launch of its text-to-image model Sora and rolled out a $200 per month ChatGPT Pro subscription.

An AI-generated image I made in Whisk using Google's suggested images as prompts. | Image: Google via Whisk Google has announced a new AI tool called Whisk that lets you generate images using other images as prompts instead of requiring a long text prompt.With Whisk, you can offer images to suggest what you'd like as the subject, the scene, and the style of your AI-generated image, and you can prompt Whisk with multiple images for each of those three things. (If you want, you can fill in text prompts, too.) If you don't have images on hand, you can click a dice icon to have Google fill in some images for the prompts (though those images also appear to be AI-generated). You can also enter some text into a text box at the end of the process if you want to add extra detail about the image you're looking for, but it's not required.Whisk will then generate images and a text prompt for each image. You can favorite or download the image if you're happy with the results, or you can refine an image by entering more text into the text box or clicking the image and editing the text prompt. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge A screenshot of Whisk. I clicked the dice to generate a subject, scene, and style. I swapped out the auto-generated scene by entering a text prompt. Whisk created the first two images, which I iterated on by asking Whisk to add some steam around the subject (because it's a fire being in water), resulting in the next two images. In a blog post, Google stresses that Whisk is designed to be for rapid visual exploration, not pixel-perfect edits." The company also says that Whisk may miss the mark," which is why it lets you edit the underlying prompts.In the few minutes I've used the tool while writing this story, it's been entertaining to tinker with. Images take a few seconds to generate, which is annoying, and while the images have been a little strange, everything I've generated has been fun to iterate on.Google says Whisk uses the latest" iteration of its Imagen 3 image generation model, which it announced today. Google also introduced Veo 2, the next version of its video generation model, which the company says has an understanding of the unique language of cinematography" and hallucinates things like extra fingers less frequently" than other models (one of those other models is probably OpenAI's Sora). Veo 2 is coming first to Google's VideoFX, which you can get on the Google Labs waitlist for, and it will be expanded to YouTube Shorts other products" sometime next year.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The next time you comment on a YouTube video, you could hear its creator's voice respond to you. YouTube says it's testing out a feature with a small number" of creators that lets them record an audio reply to comments on their videos.YouTube says it hopes this experiment enables more meaningful relationships between creators and their audiences." YouTubers in the test group can use it by tapping the sound wave icon when replying to a comment, tapping record a voice reply," and then posting it as normal. However, anyone else can interact with these replies just like ordinary text comments.Here's one of the creators in YouTube's test group.For now, creators in the test group can only create voice replies in the iOS app, and only on their own videos. Where you can hear the replies seems to be limited, too; I didn't have the option to listen to the above voice reply from YouTuber ThioJoe in a web browser on my Mac, but I could play it in the YouTube app on my iPhone 15 Pro and Pixel 6 phones.

Sony's XM5 deliver impressive noise cancellation, sound, and comfort. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The holiday season is a time of celebration, but it can also be chaotic. With all the parties, travel, and family obligations, it's difficult to carve out time to recharge. That's why noise-canceling earbuds like Sony's WF-1000XM5 are so helpful, as they can help you enjoy some peace and quiet even in the busiest of environments. Thankfully, they're currently on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target for around $198 ($102 off), their best price to date.Sony's WF-1000XM5 are our favorite pair of wireless earbuds on the market. Along with drowning out background noise well, they offer exceptional, detailed sound and clear voice quality. They're also relatively small and lightweight, and come with four foam-style ear tips so you can comfortably wear them on long flights. Battery life is good, too, so you won't need to worry about them dying midway through a flight. They should last eight hours with noise cancellation turned on, and when you do need to charge, they do so extremely quickly.Additionally, Sony's flagship pair of earbuds offer a handful of other conveniences that make them a great investment. They include support for multipoint Bluetooth connectivity, for one thing, so you can pair them with multiple devices simultaneously. They also boast IPX4 water resistance, so they'll even be able to withstand some light rain.Read our Sony WF-1000XM5 review.Some more ways to save today

Sen. Chuck Schumer during a December 15th press conference. | Screenshot: NBC News Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has asked the Department of Homeland Security to provide New York and New Jersey authorities with an advanced drone detection system to help determine what the heck is going on" with continued sightings in the Northeast.We've seen lots of recent sightings in New York, New Jersey, Long Island, Staten Island." Schumer said during a December 15th press conference. With all these sightings over the last while, why do we have more questions than answers?"Over the weekend, parts of Stewart International Airport were temporarily shut down due to the drone sightings, prompting New York Governor Kathy Hochul to say, this has gone too far." Drone activity also shut down airspace over the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio for over four hours.President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday that he's canceling a trip to Bedminster, New Jersey due to drone sightings in the area. He said, the government knows what is happening" and they'd be better off saying what it is."During a press conference on Sunday, Schumer requested a 360-degree" detection system like the one built by Robin Radar Systems. The European company sells micro-doppler radars that it claims can distinguish between birds and drones moving up to 60 miles per hour in 3D space. Its website features case studies of its radars being used for security at airports, during the G7 Summit, and to study bird migration in the Netherlands.Schumer also urged Congress to pass the Safeguarding the Homeland from the Threats Posed by Unmanned Aircraft Systems Act," which could give local law enforcement and federal authorities the power to detect drones.

The Anbernic RG34XX is now available in four colors, including transparent red and green options. | Image: Anbernic Anbernic's latest handheld, which upgrades the design of Nintendo's Game Boy Advance with a larger screen, extra buttons, and the ability to play games through emulation, is now available. The RG34XX can be ordered through Anbernic's website for $69.99, but is discounted to $63.99 until December 18th. It comes in four colors, including the GBA's original purple and black, as well as transparent green and red options.Although it looks nearly identical to the original GBA's hardware, the RG34XX adds a pair of additional action buttons, two more shoulder buttons, microSD card slots, an HDMI port, and a larger 3.4-inch display with a 720x480 resolution and a 3:2 aspect ratio. The handheld also appears to carry over the GBA's volume dial, but it's actually a two-way toggle switch allowing the volume to be adjusted up and down in small increments.The RG34XX only became available for sale starting today, but Anbernic sent units to reviewers last week so we already have our first impressions of the new handheld. Russ Crandall, who runs the YouTube channel Retro Game Corps, found the emulator to be a nearly perfect" recreation of Nintendo's hardware. That can be either a good or bad thing, depending on how you remember the GBA's ergonomics.The RG34XX is powered by the Allwinner H700 chipset that Anbernic has already used in eight other devices. It won't be able to play all the games released for 3D consoles like the Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, and Sony PSP, but the handheld will handle 16-bit games with ease, and excels at emulating the Game Boy Advance given the matching screen ratio. Image: Keep Retro The secondary set of shoulder buttons on the RG34XX are smaller and positioned in a way that larger hands may struggle to comfortably reach. Retro Handhelds, a site that focuses on portable devices for playing classic games, also found the RG34XX to be an accurate recreation of the GBA, but found it a little cramped for larger hands to play. The RG34XX's primary shoulder buttons, located in the same position as the GBA's felt good. However, the secondary set, which are smaller and positioned closer to where the GBA's cartridge slot was located, were not very comfortable to use.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Workers at a Staten Island, New York Amazon warehouse voted on Friday to authorize a strike if the company doesn't agree to set dates for contract negotiations. The workers are asking Amazon to recognize the union and bargain for safer working conditions and better wages, threatening the possibility of a strike during one of Amazon's busiest times of the year.Teamsters general president Sean O'Brien says in a press release that Amazon must agree to bargaining dates by December 15th, which passed yesterday. If Amazon hasn't agreed, it risks facing a strike by the more than 5,500 workers at its Staten Island (JFK8) fulfillment center. Delivery drivers at a Queens (DBK4) last-mile delivery station also voted to authorize a strike.This is my third holiday I'm giving to Amazon," a worker named James said in a video published Friday by labor nonprofit More Perfect Union. I haven't been around for Thanksgiving or Christmas. It's constant speed-up for the holidays. It's like twice as dangerous, I would say."A newly published US Senate Committee report says that, based on an investigation of Amazon's records, the company's warehouse injury rates were more than 1.8 times that of other companies in each of the past seven years," according to The New York Times. Senator Bernie Sanders, who chairs the committee, said Amazon's executives repeatedly chose to put profits ahead of the health and safety of its workers by ignoring recommendations that would substantially reduce injuries."In a statement emailed to The Verge, Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards accused the Teamsters union of intentionally" misleading claims that it represents thousands of Amazon employees and drivers.

Photo by Jia Tianyong / China News Service / VCG via Getty Images The same day that General Motors announced that it would stop funding its beleaguered robotaxi company Cruise, one of China's leading autonomous vehicle operators made a different sort of announcement.Pony.ai said it would expand its robotaxi fleet from about 250 to at least 1,000 vehicles in 2025, thanks to a partnership with GAC Aion, a division of one of China's biggest automakers. With a larger fleet, the company says it plans on growing its service areas in the so-called first-tier cities of Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Pony's current fleet averages 15 rides per vehicle per day, which translates to over 26,000 trips every week.China is winning the raceIt was another example of how access to cheap, plentiful electric vehicles as well as a lax regulatory environment and other state-fueled incentives are fueling China's aggressive approach to autonomous vehicles. Baidu, another major Chinese AV operator, recently detailed its own efforts to bring the cost per vehicle down to around $30,000. Baidu also has a joint venture with automaker Geely to make driverless cars.In the US, the tie-ups between automakers and driverless vehicle operators have faltered. In addition to GM's decision to back away from Cruise, Ford shut down its Argo AI robotaxi project that it had been funding with Volkswagen. Both Ford and GM say they plan to redirect their efforts toward advanced driver-assist technology for personally owned vehicles.The US is on high alert about China's growing dominance in the field of autonomous vehicles. Earlier this year, the Biden administration proposed new rules to block the sale or import" of connected vehicle software originating from China, arguing that vehicles with hardware and software from the country pose an acute" threat to US national security. This followed an earlier move by the administration to lock in new tariffs on Chinese imports, including a 100 percent duty on EVs and new hikes on batteries and key minerals. And President-elect Donald Trump, who has been stacking his cabinet with China hawks, has promised even harsher tariffs.These protectionist trade policies could also slow the development of driverless cars in the US. Waymo, the leading robotaxi company, has said it would use a Chinese EV as its next-generation vehicle. The Zeekr-made vehicle was supposed to be a lower-cost option for the company, which has racked up billions of dollars in expenses over the years.Robotaxis could flounder without access to cheaply made EVs. Indeed, the public markets haven't necessarily openly embraced Pony.ai and other Chinese firms, despite their aggressive expansion plans. The company's initial public offering on Nasdaq valued it at $5.25 billion, or about 40 percent less than the $8.5 billion it was worth two years ago, according to the Financial Times.No AV operator in the world is currently profitable. The fleets are still too small, the companies are mostly cautious about growing too quickly, and the technology is still more expensive than the meager revenues being brought in.Pony.ai and others are hoping that China's government will soon allow their vehicles to expand into suburban areas. Meanwhile, Trump's transition team is weighing whether to create a federal framework for self-driving cars, which could enable a wider deployment of vehicles without traditional controls, like steering wheels and pedals.No AV operator in the world is currently profitableBut the threat of China outpacing the US in robotaxi development hasn't spurred Congress to break the logjam that has stalled AV legislation in Congress for over six years. Disagreements range from increasing the number of AVs on the road to prohibiting states from setting their own performance standards for AVs to liability concerns.Cities may also object to companies trying to push out more driverless vehicles. Officials in San Francisco, for example, have raised a host of complaints, including blocked buses and emergency vehicles, and local residents have logged protests over new rules allowing robotaxis to roam more freely.Those concerns are likely to remain a sticking point. Meanwhile, China has already surpassed the US in robotaxi deployment. The question is how much further ahead they can get.

Image: The Verge; Photo: Hollie Adams / Bloomberg via Getty Images The head of the ubiquitous chip design firm on the breathtaking' pace of AI. Read the full story at The Verge.

Eufy's new Indoor Cam E30 can sit on a table or be mounted to walls and ceilings, but you'll need to run a power cable. | Image: Eufy Eufy has announced a new security camera, the Indoor Cam E30. The camera updates an older model released in 2020 with 4K video recording capabilities and an added spotlight that adds color capture to its typical night vision options. It's available now for $69.99.The Indoor Cam E30 can rotate 360 degrees horizontally and pan 75 degrees vertically, allowing it to monitor an entire room. It uses on-device AI to detect the presence of humans and pets and can also recognize and alert you to audio cues such as an infant crying. The camera can automatically track subjects in motion to keep them in frame. Its position can also be manually controlled, but only available through the Eufy mobile app, not Apple Home.The device is compatible with HomeKit - including Apple's HomeKit Secure Video - allowing you to save recordings to iCloud. But that requires an iCloud Plus subscription and it limits the streaming resolution to 1080P. If you'd prefer to go subscription free, the Indoor Cam E30 includes a microSD card slot for storing local footage, which can be streamed to the Eufy mobile app at 4K. If you need additional storage, the camera can also be connected to Eufy's $149.99 HomeBase S380, which can be expanded to up to 16TB. (Eufy has promised it's fixed the privacy issues we caught in 2022.)Two-way audio allows you to communicate through the camera remotely, which is ideal for telling the dog or cat to get off the couch while you're at work. (Editor's note: has a cat ever listened?) And while the added spotlight allows the Indoor Cam E30 to capture nighttime footage in color, it reduces how far the camera see in the dark to 16.4-feet. Using its infrared lights limits the camera to only seeing in black and white, but it boosts its visual range to a little over 32-feet.

Image: Apple The end of the end of the world is now in sight. Apple just announced that its post-apocalyptic series Silo, which is in the midst of its second season, has been renewed for two more seasons. That means that season 4 will be the show's last.Silo first debuted in 2023, and it tells the story of the remnants of humanity, who live in an underground silo where they're largely safe from the ruined landscape outside. However, things get much more complex very quickly, and the show is laden with mysteries. The series is based on a trilogy of sci-fi novels from Hugh Howey, and Apple says that the final two seasons will tell the complete story" of the books. (So far, the first book has been split across the first two seasons of the show.)With the final two chapters of Silo, we can't wait to give fans of the show an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the many mysteries and unanswered questions contained within the walls of these silos," showrunner Graham Yost said in a statement. Rebecca Ferguson, who stars in the show and serves as an executive producer, added that I have always felt passionately about telling the entire story contained within Hugh Howey's books, so I couldn't be happier that audiences around the world have enthusiastically embraced the show."The second season of Silo wraps up on January 17th. That's the same day that another sci-fi series returns to Apple TV Plus, with season 2 of the workplace thriller Severance.

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Snapchat is tweaking how people earn money on the platform by introducing a new, unified monetization program. The new program will cover content posted to Stories as well as Spotlight, the platform's TikTok-like discovery feed filled with recommended video content. Under the program, influencers earn revenue for ads placed within eligible Stories and Spotlight posts.Previously, monetization of these formats was splintered off from one another: Stories earnings were in one bucket, and Spotlight earnings were handled through a different program.The new program is currently in testing with a small group of users, and will roll out widely on February 1st, 2025. To participate, users need to hit a set of benchmarks to be invited: 50,000 followers and either 10 million Snap views, 1 million Spotlight views, or 12,000 hours of watch time in the last 28 days.They also need to post consistently, with at least 25 times per month to saved Stories or Spotlight and posting to Spotlight or public Stories on at least 10 of the last 28 days. Some of those eligibility requirements are significantly higher than they were under the old structure. To be eligible to earn money through Spotlight, for example, creators previously needed things like a public profile, 1,000 followers, and 10,000 video views.Other video platforms have also streamlined or changed the original creator funds. TikTok, for example, now has one creator program that requires videos longer than 1-minute. On YouTube, Shorts creators earn money via ad revenue - a move by the company to meaningfully compete with TikTok.

The PS Placeable makes the PSP into a tiny PS2. | Image: Retro Mod Works What if you could turn a PSP with a broken screen into a miniature PS2, connect a Bluetooth controller to it, and play PSP games on your TV? That's the idea behind Retro Mod Works' PS Placeable, a mod that consolizes" the PSP and was featured yesterday in a video from the YouTube channel Macho Nacho Productions.Retro Mod Works charges $274.99 for a prebuilt PS Placeable. Those are waitlisted at the moment, though - a message on the site says the project is a one man show" and that the demand for the Placeable was higher than anticipated.Retro also offers to mod customer-provided PSPs for $100 less, and there's an option preorder DIY parts and do the conversion work yourself. The mod requires either a PSP-2000 or PSP-3000 revision, as the first PSP didn't have a video output. It's not clear when the DIY parts will ship - we've asked Retro Mod Works and will update if we get a reply. Image: Retro Mod Works A stack of PS Placeables. The primary person behind the project, named Dan, told Macho Nacho host Tito Perez that he hated the idea of buying digital games" for which he has physical copies, and wanted a way to add Bluetooth controller support while preserving the UMD drive. He's also mentioned in replies on Reddit that his goal is to help people revive broken PSPs with the mod, which doesn't need the console's screen.But buying one of these mod kits can be pricey or require skills most people don't have. If you just want to play PSP games on your TV and don't care about having a UMD drive, the PSP Go - which lacked Sony's oddball optical drive but supported Bluetooth controllers and also had a way to output video - is still pretty easy to come by.

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Hello! I'm here from the future. And I have some news. 12 months from now, all the Big Tech CEOs are still in their jobs, everybody's using folding phones, Apple made a TV, and Nvidia is the most valuable company in the history of the universe. Wild year, huh? Or maybe not? It's hard to remember. Time travel messes with your memory a little.On this episode of The Vergecast, the second installment of our two-part 2025 preview, we debate some seriously iffy storylines from the end of 2025. David, our resident time traveler, brings us some big stories that either did or didn't happen in the year to come, and Nilay Patel and Wall Street Journal columnist Joanna Stern have to help figure out what's real and what isn't.Will someone really buy Snap? Is GTA VI going to be the biggest game ever? Will Bluesky continue to ascend and leave Threads in its wake? Nobody knows yet, not even the time traveler, but we have some thoughts and ideas.As was the case with last week's episode, we're keeping score. Here's how it works: each host has to decide, for each 2025 news story, whether it'll be real or not by the end of the year. Every correct guess earns you a point; every incorrect guess... Read the full story at The Verge.

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 64, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, get ready for some weird documentaries, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been reading about raw milk and $HAWK and WhatsApp, watching A Man on the Inside and the new Ken Burns da Vinci doc, finally getting caught up on The Great British Bake Off (about which I have SO MANY FEELINGS), storing all my loyalty numbers and Airbnb codes in Cheatsheet, and doing a genuinely upsetting amount of research on pizza stones.I also have for you a delightful new mobile game, an E Ink tablet worth a look, a gorgeous new to-dos app, and much more. It's a strangely Netflix-centric week, which is odd for mid-December? But so it goes. Let's dive in.(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you watching / reading / playing / baking / listening to / soldering this week? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)The Drop

Illustration: The Verge This week, Google announced it's rolling out ChromeOS M131 to non-beta users, bringing with it a handy Safety reset" feature that lets Chromebook users reset their laptops without totally wiping them. The update also introduced a new Flash notifications" accessibility option to help those who might not otherwise easily hear or see them.Like Powerwash in ChromeOS, Safety reset will wipe the slate clean if you're experiencing computer virus-like behavior such as unusual pop-ups. But where Powerwash is a full factory reset, Safety reset preserves local data and apps, as well as things like bookmarks and saved passwords, according to a help document about the feature.Google also writes that users can call up the Safety reset dialog box directly by pressing CTRL + Shift + Search + R. Otherwise, you can find it in the Safety and privacy" settings menu or by searching Settings or Launcher for keywords like Pop-up," Spam," or Virus." Image: Google The new flash notifications settings in ChromeOS accessibility settings. As for the new Flash notifications setting, it's available in accessibility settings under Audio and captions," giving an additional visual notification indicator to those who might otherwise miss them because they're hard of hearing or use screen magnification to read content. Users can pick the flash's color from several options, and a preview button lets them see what it looks like.

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft's Phone Link app is warning that Android smartphones using the latest version of Android 15 won't display certain sensitive" notifications, according to a post from Mishaal Rahman spotted by Windows Central.The warning is the result of an Android 15 privacy feature that automatically categorizes notifications like those containing 2FA codes as sensitive" and prevents third-party apps from seeing them. That extra bit of privacy could come in handy if you've unwittingly given a malicious app permission to access your notifications. But it could be inconvenient if you frequently rely on seeing 2FA codes appear on your computer via Phone Link. Screenshot: Windows Phone Link warning Mishaal Rahman posted a screenshot of the warning. According to Rahman, Windows should still show sensitive notifications for Android devices where Phone Link came preinstalled and has requested a Companion Device Role." That includes Samsung phones running One UI 6.1.1, but not other Android phones like Google Pixel or Nothing Phones, writes Windows Central.Rahman wrote in October that users could get around the notification-hiding feature by turning off Enhanced Notifications" in Android 15's notifications settings. However, doing so also turns off things like reply suggestions and could make it easier again for malicious apps to gather details from all of your notifications.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube announced a hefty subscription price increase this week that will shoot the monthly cost up by $10 to $82.99 on January 13th for existing members (or now, if you sign up today). Some subscribers are staving off the hike using the time-honored tradition of threatening to cancel, as one Verge reader indicated in a comment on our original story about the price hike.That's backed up by users in a Reddit thread that 9to5Google spotted, several of whom reported getting the offer to keep paying $72.99 for six more months when they tried to cancel their subscriptions, although some report that didn't work for them. Some who did get to keep the old price say it happened only when they logged in using a web browser on their computer and pushed through offers to pause their subscription instead.One Verge staffer, Jennifer Tuohy, did get the offer to extend her current price. She canceled by logging into YouTube TV in a browser on her computer and navigating to Settings > Membership > Manage. As of this morning, Reddit users continue to report receiving the extension offer.

Photo: Wes Davis / The Verge The group behind the HDMI standard, HDMI Forum, says that it will detail a new spec release in a press conference on January 6th that will enable a wide range of higher resolutions and refresh rates." The new capabilities will be supported with a new cable," according to the HDMI Forum's email to The Verge announcing the presser.The spec is likely to be HDMI 2.2, as VideoCardz notes. The Forum's email hints at it too, noting that the HDMI Licensing Administrator, which two of the planned speakers at the event represent, is appointed to license Version 2.2 of the HDMI specification."HDMI 2.1, which has only ever received lettered revisions since its 2017 introduction, supports 48Gbps bandwidth, up to 120Hz variable refresh rates, and resolutions up to 10240 x 4320. VideoCardz speculates that the updated spec could allow for higher resolutions and framerates without the need for Display Stream Compression.Whatever the spec brings, that mention of a new cable is a tidy reminder that like USB-C, not all HDMI cables are the same. It seems unlikely that HDMI Forum would change the port itself, so you'll probably be able to use your old ones with the updated spec, and some might even support its higher bandwidth. Still, there's always the chance you need fresh cables to get all of the new capabilities when the time comes.

Image: Infold Games Breath of the Styled. Read the full story at The Verge.

Ilya Sutskever. | Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images OpenAI's cofounder and former chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, made headlines earlier this year after he left to start his own AI lab called Safe Superintelligence Inc. He has avoided the limelight since his departure but made a rare public appearance in Vancouver on Friday at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS).Pre-training as we know it will unquestionably end," Sutskever said onstage. This refers to the first phase of AI model development, when a large language model learns patterns from vast amounts of unlabeled data - typically text from the internet, books, and other sources.We've achieved peak data and there'll be no more."During his NeurIPS talk, Sutskever said that, while he believes existing data can still take AI development farther, the industry is tapping out on new data to train on. This dynamic will, he said, eventually force a shift away from the way models are trained today. He compared the situation to fossil fuels: just as oil is a finite resource, the internet contains a finite amount of human-generated content.We've achieved peak data and there'll be no more," according to Sutskever. We have to deal with the data that... Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple CEO Tim Cook will meet with President-elect Donald Trump for dinner on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to The New York Times. It's reportedly Cook's first time meeting with Trump since the election.During Trump's first term, Cook established a direct relationship with the president that other tech CEOs have wanted to replicate. As Trump prepares for his second term, Cook may want to discuss potential tariffs, which could significantly affect Apple's business.Cook may also want to discuss the European Union's actions against Apple; during his presidential campaign, Trump claimed that Cook called him to complain about the fines Apple faces in the European Union, with accusations of anticompetitive behavior in App Store policies and how it manages platforms like the iPhone and Mac.Cook's visit follows reports of Trump's conversation with Google CEO Sundar Pichai yesterday and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos next week. Trump met with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in November.Tech companies and leaders, including Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, have also been appealing to the President-elect with $1 million donations to his inauguration fund.

Frank McCourt. | Getty Images / The Verge So far, ByteDance has shown zero willingness to spin off TikTok in the US. The Chinese parent company seems to be banking on the Supreme Court or President-elect Donald Trump rescuing the app before it's banned next month.The obvious names that would would buy TikTok if they could - Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. - are sitting on the sidelines and waiting to see what happens in the coming weeks. The clock is ticking. Congress just sent letters to Sundar Pichai and Tim Cook reminding them that they will be legally liable for continuing to host TikTok in their app stores after January 19th.Then there's Frank McCourt, the real estate billionaire and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. For months, McCourt has been very public about his desire to buy TikTok. He has ramped up his drumbeat since ByteDance recently lost its legal fight on appeal. This week, he pitched more investors on his Project Liberty plan to buy the app's US operations.When I spoke with McCourt over Zoom in between those investor meetings, he told me he currently has roughly $20 billion behind him for a bid. He has asked Kevin Mayer, who was briefly TikTok's CEO the last time it was almost... Read the full story at The Verge.