The Verge

Beloved US comedian George Carlin (pictured) passed away in 2008 at the age of 72. His estate is now fighting to protect his legacy from AI mimics. | Photo by Mark Junge/Getty Images George Carlin's estate has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Dudesy, the media company that used generative artificial intelligence to produce a fake hour-long comedy special that imitates the deceased star's voice and comedic style. The complaint filed in Los Angeles federal court on Thursday alleges that Carlin's copyrighted materials and likeness were used without permission or appropriate licenses, calling the special a piece of computer-generated click-bait which detracts from the value of Carlin's comedic works and harms his reputation."The AI-generated special, titled George Carlin: I'm Glad I'm Dead, was released on the Dudesy podcast's YouTube channel on January 9th, where it remains live and has since racked up... Continue reading...

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft is adding touch controls to its Xbox apps for iOS and Android devices. The software maker started testing the touch controls in beta versions of the Xbox mobile apps this week, allowing Xbox owners to remotely control their consoles and play games on phones and tablets without a Bluetooth controller.The touch controls are identical to the ones found on Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming service, providing an on-screen overlay to let you remotely navigate around the Xbox UI and open up games and stream them all from your own console without needing to use a controller. Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge The Xbox touch controls work on any game. The touch controls are surprisingly good in a pinch,... Continue reading...

Words in a transcript will light up as the episode progresses. | Image: Apple Apple's first-party Podcasts app is getting support for transcripts in the forthcoming iOS 17.4 update. The company says transcripts will be automatically generated by Apple's software, will appear for English, French, German, and Spanish-language podcasts shortly after they're uploaded, and will be viewable across over 170 countries and regions."The feature should make it far easier to find and skip to the point in a podcast you're most interested in. Transcripts can be searched for specific words and phrases which can be tapped to go directly to the corresponding point in the episode. You can also read along with a transcript as an episode plays, and watch each word be highlighted as it's said out loud. Per 9to5Mac, the feature is... Continue reading...

Even if you already own an Xbox, it wouldn't be the worst idea to buy one as a backup. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge We've seen the original Xbox Series S in white dip below the $249.99 mark over the past several months. But if you missed out on those opportunities, Dell presents another with a sale that brings Microsoft's entry-level gaming console down to $229.99. That's a $70 discount compared to its retail price. We've seen it as low as $199.99, but it's possible we won't see it that low again until the refresh becomes available, so you might consider just spending the extra $30 now.The Xbox Series S gets you most of the way as far as current-gen gaming consoles are concerned. It plays the same games as the Series X, but you're losing a disc drive, 4K resolution (it tops out at QHD but retains up to 120Hz variable refresh rates), and you're only... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge In a blog post, OpenAI said the updated GPT-4 Turbo completes tasks like code generation more thoroughly than the previous preview model and is intended to reduce cases of laziness' where the model doesn't complete a task."The company, however, did not explain what it updated.Some ChatGPT users recently complained about the chatbot frequently refusing to complete prompted tasks and blamed the lack of updates to GPT-4. However, OpenAI's update is for GPT-4 Turbo, a version of the more widely available GPT-4 that was trained on information as recent as April 2023 and is only available in a preview. Those using GPT-4, which learned from data available prior to September 2021, may still experience the same laziness issues.OpenAI said... Continue reading...

Photo by Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu via Getty Images Cruise, the self-driving car subsidiary of General Motors, tried to send a 45-second video to regulators of an incident in which one of its driverless cars dragged a pedestrian 20 feet but was hampered by internet connectivity issues," according to a report compiled by a law firm investigating the incident.The law firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, was hired by Cruise to determine whether its executives misled regulators in the aftermath of the October 2nd incident in which a hit-and-run driver struck a pedestrian, knocking her into the path of a driverless Cruise vehicle. Its conclusions were detailed in a nearly 200-page report that was released today.Cruise also disclosed for the first time that the incident was under... Continue reading...

Fortnite in 2020, when it was banned on the App Store. | Screenshot: Fortnite Epic plans to launch the Epic Games Store on the iPhone this year in the European Union - and it's bringing Fortnite back to the platform along with it.The announcement comes after Apple shared how it will open up iOS in response to the EU's crackdown on Big Tech. Epic CEO Tim Sweeney described Apple's rules as hot garbage," but they are clearly not so hot as to keep Epic away altogether.Epic doesn't have a lot to share about its plans just yet. It says the store will launch later this year," and Fortnite will be available through it. Both will only be available in parts of Europe covered by the Digital Markets Act. Stay tuned for details as we figure out the regulatory timeline," it said in a post on X (formerly Twitter), adding... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic Games, has a lot to say about the changes Apple made to its App Store in the European Union. In a lengthy post on X (formerly Twitter), Sweeney calls the update a new instance of Malicious Compliance" - or, in layman's terms, hot garbage."This afternoon, Apple announced it would allow sideloading, alternative app stores, and third-party browser engines on the iPhone with the rollout of iOS 17.4 this March. The company will also open up the App Store to game streaming services, and will finally allow developers to use alternative in-app payment options. Apple made the changes to comply with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), which requires large tech companies to follow a strict set of rules aimed at... Continue reading...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) opened an inquiry into the investments of Big Tech companies that provide cloud services to smaller AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.The FTC sent letters to Alphabet, Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI, requiring the companies to explain the impact these investments have on the competitive landscape of generative AI. The commission wants to scrutinize corporate partnerships and investments with AI providers to build a better internal understanding of these relationships and their impact on the competitive landscape."Google and Amazon invested in Anthropic, while Microsoft has a close financial relationship with OpenAI.The FTC wants information on the specific investment agreements... Continue reading...

This is the fastest AM4 processor you can upgrade to if you're not ready to buy into AM5. AMD made bank on its Ryzen chipsets on the strength of bored pandemic-era gamers who spent their stimulus checks on new PC builds. Ryzen CPUs offered arguably the best price-to-performance value back then, causing many to go all in on AM4-based systems. AMD has since switched to the next-generation AM5 platform, but there's still plenty of room on the upgrade path for those not interested in shelling out hundreds or thousands on newer hardware. Take the top-line Ryzen 9 5950X, for instance, which has never been cheaper than the $364.99 price currently showing at Amazon (18 percent off).The Ryzen 9 5950X is admittedly overkill for most people. It has 16 physical cores with 32 threads, 3.4GHz base and 4.9GHz boost clock speeds, a very... Continue reading...

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Starting today Apple is opening up its App Store to allow game streaming apps and services. This means that services like Xbox Cloud Streaming and GeForce Now, which previously were only accessible on iOS via a web browser, will be able to offer full-featured apps. Developers can now submit a single app with the capability to stream all of the games offered in their catalog," Apple wrote in a blog post. These changes apply worldwide," according to the company.In 2020, Apple appeared to have carved out a space for these cloud gaming services in the App Store. But that turned out not to be the case, as all games available through each service had to be submitted and reviewed as a standalone app. So the shift to allow one app with a... Continue reading...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge The iPhone's app ecosystem is about to go through its biggest shake-up since the App Store launched in 2008. Today, Apple announced how it plans to change the rules for developers releasing iOS software in the European Union in response to the bloc's Digital Markets Act (DMA) coming into force in March. The big news is that third-party app stores will be allowed on iOS for the first time, breaking the Apple App Store's position as the sole distributor of iPhone apps. The changes will arrive with iOS 17.4 in March.Here's how the new alternative app marketplaces," as Apple called them, will work. Users in the EU and on iOS 17.4 will be able to download a marketplace from that marketplace's website. In order to be used on an iPhone, those... Continue reading...

Many of the posts circulating the offending images are still live. | Illustration: The Verge Sexually explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift have been circulating on X (formerly Twitter) over the last day in the latest example of the proliferation of AI-generated fake pornography and the challenge of stopping it from spreading.One of the most prominent examples on X attracted more than 45 million views, 24,000 reposts, and hundreds of thousands of likes and bookmarks before the verified user who shared the images had their account suspended for violating platform policy. The post was live on the platform for around 17 hours prior to its removal.But as users began to discuss the viral post, the images began to spread and were reposted across other accounts. Many still remain up, and a deluge of new graphic fakes have... Continue reading...

Image: OpenAI When OpenAI announced other people could build their own custom versions of ChatGPT-style chatbots, I was initially only interested in a journalistic way. I knew this was an interesting commercial step for OpenAI, but the value of the store is still an open question. Why should I use most GPTs (as the bots are called), when I can usually call up an app that does the same thing? But I can't deny there's one incredibly useful bot that's changed a (small) part of my work life for the better. It's called What's Another Word For," and I made it myself.What's Another Word For" is a tool to help me find exactly that: another word for terms I overuse. Writing is about 60 percent looking for a synonym to avoid repeating phrases, and it's not... Continue reading...

Hasselblad's latest digital camera is the 100-megapixel 907X & CFV 100C. The resurgence of film photography has shown me that casual photographers are looking for a different experience and a different photographic look from what our phones or traditional mirrorless cameras are offering. And no company can provide as different a camera experience as Hasselblad.Yesterday, the company announced its latest digital camera, the 907X & CFV 100C. It's a mirrorless, medium format camera with a 100-megapixel sensor, phase detection autofocus, and 1TB of internal storage. And although there isn't much new within it - it has the sensor of the Hasselblad X2D 100C put into the 907X body - it signals Hasselblad's continued commitment to a historically elegant way of capturing the world, one that is slow and thoughtful.S... Continue reading...

Image: Blizzard Entertainment In 2022, Blizzard announced that it was making a survival game, which would've marked its first new property since Overwatch debuted in 2016. Now, as part of a recent round of layoffs at Microsoft, the game has been canceled.This morning, Microsoft laid off 1,900 employees in its gaming divisions. The cuts primarily hit staff at Activision Blizzard - which Microsoft acquired in October for $68.7 billion - though some workers at its ZeniMax and Xbox divisions were impacted as well. (The announcement followed similar cuts at League of Legends developer Riot Games, which cut more than 500 jobs earlier this week, part of an ongoing trend of layoffs in the gaming industry.)Today's actions affect multiple teams within Blizzard, including... Continue reading...

Photo by Hakan Nural / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Microsoft is laying off 1,900 employees at Activision Blizzard and Xbox this week. While Microsoft is primarily laying off roles at Activision Blizzard, some Xbox and ZeniMax employees will also be impacted by the cuts.The cuts work out to roughly 8 percent of the overall Microsoft Gaming division that stands at around 22,000 employees in total. The Verge has obtained an internal memo from Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer that confirms the layoffs:

An employee assembles a fuel cell system in the module final assembly at GM and Honda's fuel cell joint venture in Brownstown, Michigan. | Image: Santa Fabio for General Motors General Motors and Honda announced that their joint venture company, FCSM, has begun production of hydrogen fuel cells that will eventually make their way into various product applications."Hydrogen fuel cells use compressed hydrogen as their fuel, releasing water vapor as its only emission. A number of automakers have recently seized on the technology for its advantages in the development of heavy-duty vehicles and mobile power generators - and as a way to further transition away from polluting gas-powered vehicles.Hydrogen fuel cells use compressed hydrogen as their fuel, releasing water vapor as its only emissionFCSM, which stands for Fuel Cell System Manufacturing," was established in 2017 as a joint venture between GM and... Continue reading...

A deep image from theDark Energy Survey. | Image: DES Collaboration / NOIRLab / NSF / AU Dark energy, a force responsible for the expansion of the universe, is mostly unknown. But this month, researchers released a new survey meant to unpack its mysteries. Continue reading...

Macan you dig it? | Image: Porsche The Macan is expected to go into production in the latter half of 2024. Continue reading...

Image: Google A fresh" new color for the Pixel 8 series isn't the only thing Google is announcing today. The company is also detailing its latest feature drop, which brings the brand-new Circle to Search feature - first seen on Samsung's Galaxy S24 - to both the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro. Google says Circle to Search will go live on January 31st, which just so happens to be the release date for Samsung's S24 lineup. With a long press of the home button or navigation bar, you'll be able to circle anything on your phone screen, and Google will serve up more information about the highlighted content.This feature drop also makes the built-in thermometer on the Pixel 8 Pro at least a little more useful: you can now use it to take your own (or someone else's)... Continue reading...

Google wasn't exactly subtle with its teases earlier this week, and now the company has confirmed that it's launching both the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro in a new mint green color. The latest color option is a bit muted compared to the bay" blue 8 Pro. But if you're a fan of the smaller regular Pixel 8, this is your first chance at a color beyond the very safe black, hazel, and rose gold options that have been available since the phone shipped back in October.For both phones, mint is only available with the base 128GB of storage. If you need more than that, you've gotta stick with the original colors. Google sent a sample of the 8 Pro over to me, and a pamphlet included in the package describes mint as inspired by the vibrant hue you'd find... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The PlayStation 5's latest update blocks players from using the Cronus Zen - a device cheaters use to get an unfair advantage in first-person shooters and other games - as spotted by Call of Duty news site CharlieIntel. A notice on the Cronus website warns players that the 24.01-08.60.00 update for the PS5 no longer allows the Cronus Zen to connect to the console.Although Cronus bills the device as a controller emulator," cheaters have been using it to perform all sorts of digital tweaks to their controllers, like reducing recoil and setting macros. Some players using a keyboard and mouse also employ the Cronus Zen to trick their console into thinking they're using a controller for the benefit of their aim and movement abilities. ... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Samsung is making parts and repair guides available for a bunch more of its devices, including three sizes of this year's The Frame TV and both of its flagship foldable phones. The company says that for many of the TV and other display repairs, you'll only need simple tools like a screwdriver to make a fix happen.Samsung says DIYers will be able to replace parts related to picture, power, WiFi connection, [and] sound" for various display types. Users can also buy repair guides and parts for some of the company's 2023 soundbars. Samsung even says all it takes to do any of these repairs are common tools like a Phillips-head screwdriver." (From experience, I urge you to be careful popping the bezel off the TV. The TAB" connections from... Continue reading...

Dollars and sense? | Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge Great news for those of you already experiencing subscription fatigue: you can subscribe to buy now, pay later (BNPL) service Klarna for $7.99 a month.At first glance, this seemed pretty fucking weird to me. I mean, the entire point of Klarna is that you can essentially do layaway without paying any kind of interest; Klarna has partnered with a wide array of retailers - from Dolce & Gabbana to 1-800-Flowers.com to Macy's - to create this service. So what's the consumer value in the subscription?The subtext of the announcement is, Hey look, another revenue stream!"Well, let's say you shop at, I dunno, Target or Kroger or Safeway. These retailers aren't affiliated with Klarna, so if you try to use the service there, you have to pay a... Continue reading...

Who says webcams can't be fun? | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge At this point, I think it's pretty safe to say that remote work is here to stay in at least some capacity, even if Meta, Apple, Google, and a host of other companies have rolled out more stringent WFH policies over the past year. Thankfully for those of us who work from home and still find ourselves knee-deep in Zoom calls, Insta360's Link is on sale at Amazon, B&H Photo, and direct from Insta360 for $249.99 ($50 off), which marks a new low on the auto-swiveling webcam.Although auto-framing is nothing new - Apple introduced its Center Stage feature with the iPad Pro in 2021 - Insta360 has taken a more novel approach to keeping you centered in the frame with its latest webcam. Whereas most digitally pan and zoom, the 0.5-inch Sony... Continue reading...

The Apple we know today is far removed from the one that created the first Macintosh computer that Steve Jobs showed off in a very silly presentation on January 24th, 1984. It's been the most valuable company in the world for most of the last decade. It has a global, meticulously curated supply chain, retail stores around the world, and near-constant legal and regulatory trouble. And its primary hardware driver is a phone.But Apple still makes the Macintosh, and some would argue that we're living in a new golden age for the machines. They're faster than ever and as sleek as any made during Jony Ive's time going ham on the company's industrial design, but they're also practical in a way they haven't been since MacBooks... Continue reading...

Image: Sand Door Games I distinctly remember the first time I saw Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior. It was during Summer Game Fest last year, and the game's brief minute-long reveal trailer was enough to leave a lasting impression. I've been looking forward to playing it ever since. My patience has been rewarded with the news that Lysfanga: The Time Shift Warrior will launch on February 13th on PC.Lysfanga's trailer gives you a good idea of what you can expect - this is a game where you'll make use of time travel and your past lives to fight monsters - but it can't quite capture how interesting and deep those time travel powers are. In the lead-up to this announcement, I spoke with Lysfanga's developers at Sand Door Studio and had a chance to get a hands-on... Continue reading...

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Ring will no longer let local police publicly ask people for doorbell footage through its Neighbors app. The Amazon-owned company announced it's going to sunset its Request for Assistance tool this week, forcing police to obtain a warrant for most of its video requests.This change might seem like a step in the right direction, but it may actually make the clip-requesting process less transparent, as police can still request clips from Ring during what they consider emergencies." In a statement to The Verge, Amazon spokesperson Yassi Yarger confirmed that on rare occasions," Ring will provide information to law enforcement when there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, such as a kidnapping or an attempted... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft has reached a $3 trillion market cap, the first time in its 48-year history. It's the second company, after Apple, to reach the milestone valuation after stock in Microsoft climbed 1.5 percent in trading on the NASDAQ on Wednesday.Apple first hit the $3 trillion market cap two years ago, more than a year after it surpassed the $2 trillion mark in 2020. Microsoft and Apple have been trading places for the world's most valuable company in recent weeks, with Microsoft briefly overtaking Apple earlier this month.Microsoft's stock has been rallying in recent months, as the company continues to ride an AI hype train from investors. Microsoft announced the pricing for its Copilot for Microsoft 365 service last year, with investors... Continue reading...

A view of Meta's data center in Clonee Co Meath, Ireland. Picture date: Tuesday June 13, 2023. | Photo by Niall Carson/PA Images via Getty Images Data centers could gobble up twice as much electricity by 2026 thanks in large part to cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).We rely on data centers to store all our emails, photos, cat videos, and everything else floating around in the cloud. More and more, data centers are cropping up to mine Bitcoin and train AI.That's already triggered backlash over the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies and AI tools like ChatGPT, since all those data centers are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions tied to their electricity use. The world will need a lot more renewable energy to clean up pollution from power grids and satiate skyrocketing electricity demand... Continue reading...

Amie does tasks and calendar side by side, which is delightful. | Image: Amie There's another company vying to be the place you go to manage your time. It's called Amie, and it's one of the best-looking calendar apps I've used. It's available today for iOS, Mac, and the web after four years in development and many months in beta testing. I've been using it off and on for a long time, and I like it a lot.The first thing that drew me to Amie was that it's set up to be a combination of a task list and a calendar. You have lists of tasks in the left sidebar, and you then drag tasks into the calendar to give them a time slot. Each calendar event is like its own task, too, and you can check them off as you go through your day. A lot of smart productivity people will tell you that time blocking is the best strategy for... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is launching its immersive 3D meetings inside Microsoft Teams today. Microsoft Mesh, the company's mixed reality platform, is coming out of preview and being integrated into Teams to let people gather in virtual spaces with or without a VR headset.I got to try out Mesh inside Microsoft Teams late last year, and it feels a lot like a corporate version of AltspaceVR, the social VR platform Microsoft acquired in 2017 and shut down a year ago. The 3D Mesh meetings in Teams work best with a VR headset, with Microsoft only supporting Meta's Quest devices currently.You can participate in virtual 3D meetings, and the impressive spatial audio feature mimics the ability to have the type of private conversations you'd have in an office... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has started letting developers link to third-party payment processors, but only if it's on Apple's own terms. Continue reading...

Twenty years ago, on the Mac's 20th anniversary, I asked Steve Jobs if the Mac would still be relevant to Apple in the age of the iPod. He scoffed at the prospect of the Mac not being important: of course" it would be.Yet, 10 years later, Apple's revenue was increasingly dominated by the iPhone, and the recent success of the new iPad had provided another banner product for the company. When I interviewed Apple exec Phil Schiller for the Mac's 30th anniversary, I found myself asking him about the Mac's relevance, too. He also scoffed: Our view is, the Mac keeps going forever," he said.Today marks 40 years since Jobs unveiled the original Macintosh at an event in Cupertino, and it once again feels right to ask what's next... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nvidia is launching a new feature for all RTX GPU owners today: RTX Video HDR. Much like how Nvidia's RTX Video Super Resolution can upscale old, blurry web videos, RTX Video HDR uses AI to convert SDR color space video to HDR. You just need an HDR10-compatible monitor with HDR enabled in Windows.RTX Video HDR is part of today's 551.23 Game Ready driver release for the new RTX 4070 Ti Super launch. The Video HDR feature works in both Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome, and during my testing on an HDR600 monitor, I noticed it added subtle color detail to 4K YouTube videos that weren't uploaded in HDR. The effect might be more obvious on a better HDR monitor, but it was difficult to notice unless I toggled it on and off multiple times. I... Continue reading...