The Verge

AST SpaceMobile used an ordinary Samsung Galaxy S22 to make the call. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge AST SpaceMobile - a cellular satellite company backed by AT&T - has placed a satellite call over 5G, marking the first ever" 5G connection between an unmodified smartphone and a satellite in space.To conduct the test, AST SpaceMobile used a Galaxy S22. It made the call on September 8th, 2023, from a wireless dead zone in Maui, Hawaii, with its recipient located in Madrid, Spain. AST SpaceMobile got the cell signal to its destination by leveraging its low Earth orbit test satellite, called BlueWalker 3 (BW3), and AT&T's 5G spectrum. Vodafone, Nokia, and AT&T all validated the call.There have been a few tests leading up to this latest milestone. In April, SpaceMobile routed its first space-based phone call on AT&T's 2G network. It later... Continue reading...

Allen Media Group CEO and founder Byron Allen. | Photo: Allen Media Group. Allen Media Group CEO and founder Byron Allen is coming to the Code Conference this month, where he'll be talking about the state of the media industry with CNBC senior media and tech correspondent Julia Boorstin.Allen's sprawling media company includes local broadcasters across the US, cable networks including Cars.TV and Comedy.TV, and the film distribution group Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures. In 2018, the company acquired The Weather Channel for $300 million, and last year, it launched a Weather Channel streaming service.The group continues to look for opportunities to grow. Allen looked at buying BET earlier this year, and just last week, he made a $10 billion offer to acquire ABC, FX, National Geographic channels, and... Continue reading...

Arlo's new line of Essential cameras and doorbells includes a wired/wireless video doorbell. | Image: Arlo Arlo announced the second generation of its Essential camera and doorbell line on Tuesday, and they all have more affordable starting prices than their predecessors. The lineup includes a new XL outdoor camera, a new outdoor camera, a new indoor camera, and a new video doorbell.The second-generation Essential indoor camera starts at $39.99, which is much cheaper than the $99.99 starting price for the first-generation model and is cheaper than Ring's $59.99 indoor camera. For the base $39.99 price, the new wired Arlo Essential indoor camera only gives you HD / 1080p resolution, but if you want 2K resolution, you can spring for that at a more expensive $79.99.Like its predecessor, the updated indoor camera offers features like a... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is holding a special event" in New York City later this week where it's expected to debut three new Surface devices and AI-powered features for Windows, Office, Bing, Surface, and more.The event is taking place just days after Panos Panay, Microsoft's former head of Windows and Surface, resigned in a surprise announcement. We'll now see how the new leaders of Windows and Surface push ahead with Microsoft's big AI plansHere, we'll cover how and when you can follow the event live, along with the new product announcements we're expecting to see from Microsoft.When is Microsoft's special event" happening?The press event will kick off at 7AM PT / 10AM ET on Thursday, September 21st, making it the first in-person Surface... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is holding a special event" in New York City later this week where it's expected to debut three new Surface devices and AI-powered features for Windows, Office, Bing, Surface, and more.The event is taking place just days after Panos Panay, Microsoft's former head of Windows and Surface, resigned in a surprise announcement. We'll now see how the new leaders of Windows and Surface push ahead with Microsoft's big AI plansHere, we'll cover how and when you can follow the event live, along with the new product announcements we're expecting to see from Microsoft.When is Microsoft's special event" happening?The press event will kick off at 7AM PT / 10AM ET on Thursday, September 21st, making it the first in-person Surface... Continue reading...

Image: Google Google's Bard AI chatbot is no longer limited to pulling answers from just the web - it can now scan your Gmail, Docs, and Drive to help you find the information you're looking for. With the new integration, you can ask Bard to do things like find and summarize the contents of an email or even highlight the most important points of a document you have stored in Drive.There's a whole range of use cases for these integrations, which Google calls extensions, but they should save you from having to sift through a mountain of emails or documents to find a particular piece of information. You can then have Bard use that information in other ways, such as putting it into a chart or creating a bulleted summary. This feature is only available in... Continue reading...

Image: Eve Eve, the monitor and tablet company that some accuse of walking away with their money, hasn't fixed its reputation. Continue reading...

Microsoft gaming CEO Phil Spencer. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer would really like to buy Nintendo someday. In an August 2020 email to two top Microsoft marketing executives, Spencer wrote that Nintendo is THE prime asset for us in Gaming" and that getting Nintendo would be a career moment and I honestly believe a good move for both companies."The emails were revealed as part of a tranche of leaked documents from the FTC v. Microsoft lawsuit. One executive, Takeshi Numoto, asked Spencer and Chris Capossela in an email titled random thought" about why Microsoft isn't finding acquisition targets like Nintendo a more attractive" way to increase our consumer exposure and relevance." (At the time, Microsoft was in discussions to acquire TikTok, and Numoto didn't feel... Continue reading...

A screenshot from the original Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. | Image: Bethesda Softworks Before it was acquired by Microsoft, ZeniMax Media, the parent company of studios like Bethesda Game Studios and id Software, was working on remasters of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3, and a new entry in the Doom franchise, according to new documents revealed as part of FTC v. Microsoft. The games were included in a July 2020 Microsoft presentation about the then-potential ZeniMax acquisition.Unannounced games in the presentation include:

The Yeti GX. | Image: Logitech Logitech is releasing a new set of products that will start shipping on September 24th and are aimed squarely at the likes of gamers, streamers, podcasters, and other creators. The big one is the $149.99 Logitech G Yeti GX, a broadcast-style" USB microphone with a heavy stand and RGB lighting.The Yeti GX is a dynamic supercardioid microphone, which is a kind of unidirectional mic designed to focus on sound in front of the pickup rather than behind the microphone. That's a good thing if you don't want the noise of your keyboard overtaking your voice. It also means if you move off-axis, your voice quickly falls away, but the trade-off can be worth it when you're contending with poor recording spaces. Soren Pedersen, Logitech's global... Continue reading...

The planned Brooklin' Xbox Series X. | Image: FTC vs. Microsoft Microsoft is planning to refresh its Xbox Series X console in 2024 with an all-new design and features. Codenamed Brooklin, the unannounced console refresh has been accidentally revealed in new FTC v. Microsoft documents this week.The new Xbox Series X design looks a lot more circular than the existing console and will ship without a disc drive. Internal confidential Microsoft documents reveal it has 2TB of storage (up from 1TB), a USB-C front port with power delivery, and an all-new, more immersive controller." Image: FTC v. Microsoft Sebile" Xbox controller redesign revealed in court documents with wireless upgrades and modular thumbsticks The new controller, codenamed Sebille, is set to be announced... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix and South Korean ISP SK Broadband have been locked in a legal tussle over network usage cost-sharing since 2020 when Netflix filed a lawsuit against the provider, and SK Broadband responded with its own suit. Now the fight is over, Netflix announced, as the companies drop their lawsuits and instead become partners (via Reuters).The lawsuits started because SK Broadband wanted Netflix to help cover the expense of partially Squid Game-induced increases in streaming traffic in South Korea. A South Korean court said Netflix is obligated to pay for the increased network demands. SK estimated the popular show had cost it an extra 27.2 billion Korean won, which translated then to about $23 million.The companies will start offering... Continue reading...

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the CAADCA last year. | Photo by Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images A federal judge has granted a request to block the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (CAADCA), a law that requires special data safeguards for underage users online. In a ruling issued today, Judge Beth Freeman granted a preliminary injunction for tech industry group NetChoice, saying the law likely violates the First Amendment. It's the latest of several state-level internet regulations to be blocked while a lawsuit against them proceeds, including some that are likely bound for the Supreme Court.The CAADCA is meant to expand on existing laws - like the federal COPPA framework - that govern how sites can collect data from children. But Judge Freeman objected to several of its provisions, saying they would unlawfully target... Continue reading...

Mutant Mayhem comes to Paramount Plus on September 19th. | Image: Paramount Paramount announced that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem will hit Paramount Plus tomorrow in the US and Canada. The CG-animated movie is now the seventh Turtles movie in a line that started with the better-than-it-should've-been 1990 live-action film. Mutant Mayhem is already available to preorder on 4K UHD Blu-ray, standard Blu-ray, and DVD.The movie hits just a day before Paramount Plus ends its 50 percent discount for a year of its ad-supported tier ($29.99) or a year of its Paramount Plus with Showtime plan ($59.99), which would also open up access to Dungeons & Dragons, Top Gun: Maverick, and Star Trek shows like Strange New Worlds.Mutant Mayhem reintroduced the origin story for the Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird... Continue reading...

Dead and Buried is a Wild West arena shootout multiplayer VR game. | Image: Gunfire Games Hope you didn't enjoy playing Dead and Buried, Dead and Buried II, or Bogo on your Rift or Quest headsets - because Meta's shutting them all down with no explanation, just like it already did with Echo VR (aka Echo Arena).We are reaching out to let you know that Dead and Buried will no longer be supported as of Friday, March 15, 2024," reads an email in my inbox. You can continue to hunt ghosts and other creatures in Dead and Buried on your Rift, Rift S, or Quest (via link) devices until 11:59 PM PT on that date."UploadVR and Road to VR report that owners of Wild West shootout sequel Dead and Buried II and virtual pet simulator Bogo are receiving the same shutdown messages about their games, too, with the same March 15th end date.N... Continue reading...

Creating a simple image like this is much easier when you can work in layers. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is on a slow-burn path to making Paint a useful tool for actual creators by finally implementing one of Photoshop's core features: layers. As part of an update rolling out for testing by Windows Insiders (version 11.2308.18.0, available to some people in the Canary or Dev channels), Microsoft Paint is introducing support for both layers and transparency. These features have long been table stakes for general editing in Adobe Photoshop, but they are key to doing proper image manipulation and digital art. And most importantly, they're coming to an app that's free to use on Windows.In the new version of Paint, users can use the core functions necessary for working with layers (adding new layers, moving them around, reordering... Continue reading...

The iPhone 15 Pro Max and iPhone 15 Pro. | Image: The Verge Next year's Pro iPhones are both expected" to have the tetraprism" zoom lens Apple is using for the 5x telephoto camera in the iPhone 15 Pro Max, according to a new post from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. That tetraprism optical system, which is intended to replicate a 120mm lens of a full-frame camera, is exclusive to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, so if it comes to the smaller iPhone Pro next year (which I'm guessing will be called the iPhone 16 Pro), both the Pro and Pro Max might be on closer footing.Here's how the tetraprism system works, as described by Apple's Misha Scepanovic during Tuesday's Wonderlust" event:

Image: Unity Unity plans to change its forthcoming pay-per-install program following widespread criticism from game developers.We apologize for the confusion and angst the runtime fee policy we announced on Tuesday caused," Unity posted on X (formerly Twitter). We are listening, talking to our team members, community, customers, and partners, and will be making changes to the policy. We will share an update in a couple of days."This new communication from Unity comes after nearly a week of clarifications, retractions, and a growing force of upset developers who threaten not only to remove their games from the engine but also a potential class action lawsuit.Though Unity said an update on the pricing model will likely be out sometime this week, a... Continue reading...

watchOS 10 is all about the widgets - and you can try them out for yourself by downloading the public beta. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge If you were intrigued by the idea of widgets on your Apple Watch at this year's WWDC, good news! Apple's watchOS 10 is live and ready to download.That said, before I tell you how to install it, there are a few things you should keep in mind. First off, watchOS 10 is a substantial update. Not only does it reintroduce widgets to the platform, but it also completely redesigns Apple's native watch apps and reimagines how you interact with the device. The controls you're used to have changed. Pressing the side button, for instance, now brings up Control Center while swiping up is how you access widgets. I go into what changes you can expect in my watchOS 10 preview. Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge Widgets are... Continue reading...

Photo by David Becker / Getty Images Panos Panay is reportedly joining Amazon, Bloomberg reports. The former Windows and Surface chief announced his departure from Microsoft earlier today, and Bloomberg reports that he's moving to Seattle's other giant tech company to oversee Amazon's vast hardware products.Panay has been instrumental in the creation of Surface devices and much of their success and will no longer be presenting at Microsoft's event on Thursday. He will remain at Microsoft for another couple of weeks as part of a transition process before joining Amazon.Panay will be taking over from Dave Limp, Amazon's outgoing hardware boss. Limp announced in August that he plans to leave in the next few months after a 13-year career at Amazon, leaving big shoes to fill.... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The RIAA just put out the music industry's midyear revenue report, and it's a stark illustration of the haves / have-not divide that's been accelerating in the streaming era. Actually, scratch that: it's a terrific illustration of how good it is for the haves: retail revenue is up 9.3 percent to an all-time first half high of $8.4 billion, while wholesale revenue is up 8.3 percent to 5.3 billion. (You can read a good explanation of retail versus wholesale here; the industry focuses on retail since that's where consumer streaming services get counted.) Streaming revenue was up 10.3 percent from last year - at $7 billion, it accounts for 84 percent of music revenue in the United States. Importantly, the RIAA explicitly notes... Continue reading...

Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge Along with iOS 17, Apple has just released watchOS 10, the newest version of its smartwatch operating system that fundamentally changes the way you interact with the Apple Watch by reincorporating widgets. This update, available on the Apple Watch Series 4 and up, comes just a few days ahead of the Apple Watch Series 9 and the Apple Watch Ultra, both of which Apple will release on Friday along with the four new iPhone 15 models.The new widgets include the Smart Stack that Apple added to iOS 14, which is a sort of customizable widget bundle that uses machine learning to surface the widgets it predicts you'll want to see and use. Swiping up from the bottom brings up those widgets, and that has a big cascading effect on the OS. Control... Continue reading...

Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge iOS 17 and iPadOS 17, Apple's next major updates for the iPhone and iPad, are now available to download.With iOS 17, some of the biggest new features come to phone calls. Apple's new Contact Posters let you pick a photo (or Memoji) and font that fill up the screen when you give someone a call. Live Voicemail will show you a real-time transcript as someone is leaving you a message. The end call button is also in a slightly new spot. Messages gets some improvements, too, including a new way to access iMessage apps, and thanks to iOS 17's upgraded autocorrect, hopefully your texts will have fewer typos.One particularly cool iOS 17 feature is StandBy. Turn your iPhone into landscape mode when it's charging, and the screen can show things... Continue reading...

While this is technically a photo of second-gen AirPods Pro with a Lightning case, the new USB-C model will look identical. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Apple's biggest announcement last week at its Wonderlust" event was, without a doubt, the iPhone 15's change to USB-C, which is already having a ripple effect, as the AirPods Pro are also ditching Lightning for the port upgrade. Now, surprisingly, you can preorder the new second-gen AirPods Pro with USB-C ahead of its September 22nd release date for $199.99 ($50 off) at Best Buy.The AirPods Pro are the first of Apple's wireless earbuds and headphones to get the USB-C treatment - other than that, they're mostly the same second-gen Pros you can already get with a Lightning port on the case. I say mostly because the new AirPods Pro also get dust resistance and future support for lossless audio with the upcoming Vision Pro VR headset. On... Continue reading...

A screenshot from the Good Burger 2 teaser. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge I bet you forgot or, like me, had completely missed that there's a Good Burger sequel coming out. Well, it's coming to Paramount Plus this Friday, September 22nd. Good Burger 2 stars Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell in a reprisal of their roles as fast-food employees Dexter Reed and Ed.Some other original cast members are back, too. Josh Server plays Fizz, Lori Beth Denberg is Connie Muldoon, and Carmen Electra returns as Roxanne. The movie centers on a modern-day version of the fictitious chain restaurant and sees Dexter return to Good Burger after a failed invention. The film's synopsis says Dexter comes up with a scheme that then puts the business at risk. There's no word if Mondo Burger will return.Good Burger has floated in the... Continue reading...

Jobs was keen to support the liberal arts alongside technological developments at Apple during his time as CEO. | Image: Kimihiro Hoshino / AFP via Getty Images Today, the Steve Jobs Archive (SJA) - an organization that collects and curates information about the late Apple founder's life - has introduced a part-time fellowship program that aims to help a new generation of creative and technologically gifted people follow in Jobs' footsteps.The first nine SJA fellows are a group of young creators" that includes musicians, engineers, storytellers, and more who will receive guidance, resources, and financial support over the coming year to help them make their creative ambitions a reality. According to the SJA press release, each of the fellows selected for the program was chosen for their wide-ranging curiosity, sense of possibility, and determination to leave the world better than they found... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Disney and Charter's historic agreement has introduced a new kind of cable bundle, and it could be the thing that saves cable TV... or destroys it. Continue reading...

You can also make the app impersonate celebrity voices if you don't fancy hearing yourself being imitated. | Image: Carrot / The Verge Carrot Weather - the forecasting app known for its hilariously snarky weather updates - is introducing some new features that make use of the iOS 17 and watchOS 10 software updates coming today, including new weather widgets and a voice impersonation feature.Available on the App Store today, version 5.12 of Carrot can now mimic a user's own voice or imitate a celebrity when providing weather updates thanks to the new Personal Voice accessibility feature included in iOS 17 and previewed in this video from Marques Brownlee.The Carrot app for Apple Watch has been redesigned for watchOS 10, with the main interface now using a vertical tab view for quick switching between current, hourly, and daily forecasts. Each section of the redesigned... Continue reading...

Image: Google Google is axing support for Google Meet and Zoom on its Nest Hub Max smart display. As spotted by 9to5Google, some users are seeing a notice on their device that states they can no longer join meetings through Google Meet starting September 28th.Similarly, a support page updated by Zoom in July states: All Zoom support for Google Nest Hub Max will end on September 30th, 2023." After that date, the Zoom app will stop working, and users will no longer be able to install or update the app. The Verge reached out to Google with a request for more information but didn't immediately hear back.Google first rolled out support for Meet and Zoom on its Nest Hub Max in the midst of the covid pandemic in 2020. At the time, Zoom also arrived on... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge With only a couple of minutes and access to YouTube, you can now make SpongeBob SquarePants sing your favorite Taylor Swift song. Or make Taylor Swift sing your favorite Drake song. Or make Drake sing your song. AI covers and AI-generated originals are suddenly everywhere on the internet, to the point where even diehard fans don't know what's a real leak and what's a generated one. It's a complicated ethical and legal mess and makes being a music fan weirder than ever.That's only the very beginning of the ways AI is coming into the music-making process. There are tools like Suno and Soundful that can create a supposedly original song based only on a text prompt; platforms like Magenta and BeatBot that can generate beats and instruments... Continue reading...

iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. | Photo: Dan Seifert / The Verge It's significantly cheaper to repair the back glass on an iPhone 15 Pro than it was on the iPhone 14 Pro. Apple posted price estimates for its new phones over the weekend, listing a repair price of $169 for the 15 Pro and $199 for the Pro Max to replace either phone's shattered back glass.That's up to a $350 decrease from the repair price for last year's models. For the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max, Apple charged $499 and $549 for back glass replacement - frankly, outlandish prices that ran more expensive than the cost of an (admittedly much lower-end) new iPhone SE.Here's what the current pricing looks like for these repairs:These newly reduced prices, first spotted by 9to5Mac, are likely due to a major design change made by Apple:... Continue reading...

Grand Theft Auto V turns 10. | Image: Rockstar Games It's been exactly 10 years since Grand Theft Auto V first launched on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, followed soon after by Grand Theft Auto Online. In a thread on X today, Rockstar Games thanked fans, calling them the reason GTA V has thrived across multiple console generations."Last week, Rockstar announced new content for GTA Online commemorating the anniversary: new outfits; GTA V-themed weapon finishes; extra modes; a stock car called the Bravado Hotring Hellfire for GTA+ members; and other collectibles and bonuses for playing certain missions.

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Mark Gurman writes in the subscriber edition of his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg from this morning that he expects Apple to finish its transition to USB-C by 2025. Gurman says that, in addition to other products, he expects the company will release USB-C versions of the now-discontinued MagSafe Battery Pack and the MagSafe Duo eventually. But don't hold your breath."By comparison, Apple took either a little over a month or about two years to totally move over to Lightning, depending on how you look at it.The company retired the 30-pin port from its most important products when it launched the fourth-gen iPad a little over a month after the iPhone 5's September 2012 debut. But it also kept the iPod Classic in its stable until... Continue reading...