The Verge

Google's Nest Wifi Pro are Wi-Fi 6E-capable mesh routers that come in a range of colors. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge When you're in the middle of a task, there's nothing more frustrating than suddenly losing your internet connection - take it from somebody who lost their Wi-Fi signal while writing this very sentence. Thankfully, Google's Nest Wifi Pro is currently on sale in select colors at Amazon and Best Buy, where a single unit is going for an all-time low of $139.99 ($60 off). Other shades are on sale for $20 more, or you can pick up a set of two or three for around $239.99 ($60 off) and $319.99 ($80 off), respectively.With its resemblance to a Nest Audio speaker, Google's mesh router is an attractive gadget that'll blend in with the rest of your home. At the same time, it's highly capable, with support for Wi-Fi 6E as well as Thread and... Continue reading...

A simulated" image from Samsung showing what the Tesla connections in the SmartThings app may look like. | Image: Samsung Ahead of CES 2024, Tesla and Samsung announced today that they're teaming up on energy management for smart homes. Users of Samsung's SmartThings platform will be able to connect to Tesla products like the Powerwall home battery so that you can keep track of things like energy production and your usage.When connected to the Powerwall, SmartThings Energy can sync with the Storm Watch" feature so that you're notified of heavy weather on a Samsung phone or TV, for example. In addition to the Powerwall, SmartThings Energy will be able to connect to other Tesla products, including its electric vehicles, Solar Inverter, and Wall Connector charging solutions.The collaboration is possible thanks to Tesla's API, which Samsung claims... Continue reading...

Samsung notes that the features shown here are examples of Home-to-Car and Car-to Home services to be developed," so don't take this image as a final representation of what the experience will be like. | Image: Samsung Samsung is teaming up with Hyundai to add Samsung's SmartThings smart home platform to Hyundai and Kia's connected car services, according to a blog post from Samsung and a press release from Hyundai. (Hyundai is the parent company of Kia.) As part of the collaboration, the two companies are going to work on home-to-car" and car-to-home" services and as an integrated home energy management service," Samsung says.In practice, that means at home you'll be able to do things like use SmartThings to control your car's air conditioning or windows, and when you're in your car, you'll be able to control your TV or your home's air conditioning. You'll also be able to plug your car into your SmartThings routines.Here's an example from Samsung... Continue reading...

Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge SpaceX is suing the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after the agency accused the Elon Musk-owned company of illegally firing employees. In a lawsuit filed in federal court on Thursday, SpaceX claims the NLRB's actions are unconstitutional.On Wednesday, the NLRB filed a complaint alleging SpaceX illegally fired a group of employees for drafting an open letter that criticized Musk's behavior. The NLRB also claims SpaceX interrogated employees about their involvement with the letter and encouraged employees to quit if they participated in organized activities.Now, SpaceX is responding with a lawsuit that says the open letter was a distraction to SpaceX employees around the country." It claims the NLRB's proceedings, which involve... Continue reading...

Image: Google The DeepMind robotics team has revealed three new advances that it says will help robots make faster, better, and safer decisions in the wild. One includes a system for gathering training data with a Robot Constitution" to make sure your robot office assistant can fetch you more printer paper - but without mowing down a human co-worker who happens to be in the way.Google's data gathering system, AutoRT, can use a visual language model (VLM) and large language model (LLM) working hand in hand to understand its environment, adapt to unfamiliar settings, and decide on appropriate tasks. The Robot Constitution, which is inspired by Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics," is described as a set of safety-focused prompts" instructing the... Continue reading...

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge After delaying its launch, OpenAI's GPT store is almost ready to open for business.GPT Store, where users can sell and share customized AI agents based on OpenAI's large language models, will officially launch next week, OpenAI said in an email to people signed on as GPT Builders. The email asked users to double-check that their GPT creations meet brand guidelines and reminded people to make their GPTs public. Email sent to GPT Builders. OpenAI first announced at its November developers conference that it would let other people build AI agents, called GPTs, using its GPT-4 large language model. It's only available to ChatGPT Plus and enterprise subscribers and lets people create customized versions of ChatGPT-style... Continue reading...

This is the yellowest thing I have ever seen. | Image: Clicks A new company called Clicks Technology has announced an iPhone case with a built-in keyboard on the bottom. The case is called Clicks, too; it's available for $139 and the iPhone 14 Pro version starts shipping on February 1st, with 15 Pro going out in mid-March. The company is also taking reservations for a $159 iPhone 15 Pro Max model, which is coming in early spring," according to the website. (Whether any of them is a reasonable purchase is between you and your conscience.) Clicks, which was started by Michael Fisher and Kevin Michaluk (aka MrMobile and CrackBerry Kevin), will show the case off at CES next week.There have been other physical keyboard cases for the iPhone, of course. But the one this calls to mind is Typo, a bad (a... Continue reading...

Amazon's big-screen e-reader features a sharp E Ink display and a handy stylus for taking notes or drawing. | Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If I were to venture a guess, the desire to read more books is right up there with getting fit, saving money, and eating healthier when it comes to the most common New Year's resolutions. Fortunately, if you are hoping to up your literary ambitions in 2024, the Kindle Scribe is on sale at Amazon for Prime members with 16GB of storage and a Basic Pen starting at $269.99 ($70 off). You can also pick up the e-reader in the same storage configuration with a Premium Pen, which features a shortcut button and a built-in eraser, starting at $294.99 ($75 off).When we reviewed Amazon's 10.2-inch e-reader upon its release, the big-screen slate was somewhat lacking in both the features and software departments. Note-taking rivals like the Kobo... Continue reading...

The Razer Blade 16 (pictured) will soon be available with a 240Hz OLED panel (not pictured). | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Razer is teasing a major set of display upgrades for the Blade 16 and Blade 18 gaming laptops ahead of a full unveiling of the updated laptops next week at CES.The Blade 16 is getting what Razer says is the world's first 16-inch 240Hz OLED panel, co-developed with Samsung, while the Blade 18 will get a 165Hz 4K LED panel with G-Sync. Both panels will be Calman Verified and individually factory calibrated. Like the current Blade display options, they'll show 100 percent of the DCI-P3 gamut.As an OLED panel, the Razer 16's 2560 x 1600 display should have excellent true blacks and super-fast response time. Razer says it will have a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500 certification, and a VESA ClearMR 11000 rating... Continue reading...

The movie got a theatrical debut back in October. | Image: Apple Martin Scorsese's crime drama Killers of the Flower Moon will be available to stream on Apple TV Plus on January 12th. The film first premiered in theaters last October and debuted digitally in December as part of Apple's collaboration with Paramount.Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon (based on the novel by David Grann) is a three-and-a-half-hour epic that follows a series of murders of the Osage people in 1920s Oklahoma after oil was discovered on tribal land. The movie stars Lily Gladstone, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jesse Plemons, Brendan Fraser, and Robert De Niro and has received waves of positive reviews so far from critics and viewers alike.The theatre-first release timeline for Killers of the Flower Moon comes as part of a growing... Continue reading...

The new Dell XPS lineup. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge This might not be the biggest shake-up of the Dell XPS lineup ever, but between some bigger laptops and a total revamping of the XPS portfolio, it feels like a big deal. The 13-inch Dell XPS laptop is sticking around, but the touch bar-equipped XPS Plus that ran hot in our review is gone, replaced by the 14-inch XPS. And there's a new 16-inch XPS to replace both the 15-inch and 17-inch laptops.Plenty of laptop makers have 14-inch and 16-inch devices - notably, Apple launched a MacBook Pro in both sizes back in 2021 - but Dell's flagship XPS laptops have stuck with the more traditional 13-inch and 15-inch sizes.Dell representatives demurred when I asked them if this new size of XPS laptops is meant as a counter to Apple's own. But it... Continue reading...

Image: LG LG Display, a manufacturer that makes and sells displays to other companies, is showing off a new OLED display that could soon appear in high-end gaming monitors. At 27 inches, this 1440p panel pairs a speedy 0.03ms response time with a 480Hz refresh rate - making it the fastest in OLED displays so far.LG's new screen is even better than the one in the 32-inch OLED Dual-Hz" gaming monitor (32GS95UE) it announced in December. While this monitor similarly offers a refresh rate of up to 480Hz, you have to toggle the display down to 1080p to take advantage of that speed.It also puts LG Display on track to compete with the panel recently announced by Samsung's display arm, which offers a slightly lower 360Hz refresh rate and a 1440p... Continue reading...

It's a scam! | Screenshot: Elizabeth Lopatto / The Verge The video is almost convincing: it features Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko announcing a historic day" for Solana. He thanks the S-O-L" community and offers a giveaway through a QR code and a website. Sure, he sounds a little robotic - his voice is a monotone, unusual for him - and he hardly makes eye contact with the camera, but it's a video, and seeing is believing, right?It's a fake, of course. And it's been up on YouTube for a day. Not only that, at least one internet user says they saw it as an ad. It's not just YouTube, either. The fake video is appearing in ads on the platform formerly known as Twitter and which Elon Musk would prefer you call X.There has been a substantial increase in deepfakes and other AI-generated... Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge A second California state senator has introduced bills meant to regulate AI systems, particularly those used by state agencies.Senator Steve Padilla, a Democrat, introduced Senate Bills 892 and 893, establishing a public AI resource and creating a safe and ethical framework" around AI for the state. Senate Bill 892 will require California's Department of Technology to develop safety, privacy, and non-discrimination standards around services using AI. It also prohibits the state of California from contracting any AI services unless the provider of the services meets the established standards."The other bill, SB 893, would establish a California AI research hub that would provide access to compute resources and data for academics.P... Continue reading...

Image: Laura Normand / The Verge SpaceX is facing a complaint from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that alleges the company illegally fired employees for writing an open letter that criticized CEO Elon Musk.Last year, a group of SpaceX employees drafted an open letter to express concerns about how Musk's behavior is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment." At the time, Musk was in the process of trying to acquire Twitter, which he later renamed X after taking control of the company. SpaceX subsequently fired the employees who helped write the letter.In the complaint filed on Wednesday, the NLRB accuses SpaceX of interrogating workers about their involvement with the letter and told employees not to discuss these interviews. NLRB spokesperson... Continue reading...

Keep your passwords safe from this guy. | Illustration: Beatrice Sala Following a high-profile security breakdown in 2022, LastPass is finally imposing a 12-character minimum for customers' master passwords.BleepingComputer spotted a release from LastPass confirming the change that acknowledges 12 characters was already the default setting, but preexisting users previously had the option to set a shorter password. LastPass removed this option last April, requiring new customers and anyone resetting their master password to hit the 12-character requirement. But if your account had a shorter, less secure password, you'll be forced to change it soon.LastPass' security woes are well documented - breaches in 2022 allowed hackers to steal customer vault data. If you were affected, this meant the only thing... Continue reading...

The GE Profile Smart Smoker is an indoor countertop cooker that claims to create the same flavors as an outdoor smoker. | Image: GE Appliances The newest smart kitchen gadget from GE Appliances solves another cooking pain point you never knew you had... having to go outdoors. The GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker is a countertop smoker that lets you cook with wood pellets inside your home without setting off all your smoke alarms.The world's first indoor smoker, the $999 appliance will be on show at CES 2024 next week. But if you can't wait to add that smokey flavor to your ribs, salmon, or sprouts without having to step foot in your backyard (or even having a backyard, for that matter), you can buy it now at Williams Sonoma and Best Buy.The appliance uses a tech called Active Smoke Filtration, which GE Profile says uses heat and a highly engineered catalyst system to turn... Continue reading...

Starbucks will let customers drive-through with reusable cups at all US and Canada stores. | Image: Starbucks Starbucks announced today that customers will now be able to bring in their reusable cups whether they're walking into a store or driving up in the US and Canada. The company claims it's the first national coffee retailer to give customers this option for drive-thru and mobile orders.For years, customers have been able to walk into select Starbucks locations to fill reusable cups (although the practice was put on hold between 2020 and 2021 due to the covid-19 pandemic). What's changing is that now clean, refillable cups are acceptable in the drive-thru window at all company-operated and participating licensed stores in the US and Canada, expanding a policy that had been in place already at certain locations. Customers earn a $0.10... Continue reading...

The new Moonwalkers X have six wheels, not 10, and they're heavy but not as heavy. | Image: Shift Robotics The Moonwalkers went somewhat viral in 2022 when the company behind them, Shift Robotics, promised it had created the world's fastest shoes." They're not exactly shoes, though: they strap on top of your existing shoes like you're putting on a pair of Tevas, and they put 10 wheels underneath each foot to turn every step into a glide, like you're perpetually walking on a moving sidewalk. They're adult Heelys, basically, only bigger, higher-tech, and more expensive.Now, Shift Robotics is back with a new pair, the Moonwalkers X, which the company says it plans to show off at the CES gadget extravaganza in Las Vegas next week. The new shoes are lighter - 3.2 pounds on each foot, which is still a lot but a full pound lighter than the... Continue reading...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Twitch is changing its sexual content policies again, this time to prohibit implied nudity on the platform. The platform already prohibits nudity, but Twitch's new attire policy, which goes into effect today, also doesn't allow streamers to imply or suggest that they are fully or partially nude," chief customer trust officer Angela Hession says in a blog post.This policy change comes after Twitch's recently loosened policies on sexual content. Twitch updated its sexual content policies in December to allow some previously prohibited content as long as it was labeled correctly. However, just two days later, it rescinded part of the newly updated policy that allowed for artistic nudity" following community concern."Creators continued... Continue reading...

Image: Ubisoft Xbox has revealed its first Game Pass lineup of 2024, which includes headliners like Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Resident Evil 2. But there's still no sign of the Call of Duty games Xbox boss Phil Spencer hinted at for 2024.Game Pass is the subscription service offered by Microsoft that lets you play a changing collection of games on Xbox and PC without paying for each individual game. Last year, Spencer said the long regulatory process associated with Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard meant Xbox wasn't able to release any of the publisher's games on Game Pass right away. Instead, he indicated that they would hit the service in 2024 - unlike how Xbox added several Bethesda games to Game Pass just days after its... Continue reading...

The Phoenix true wireless earbuds and Los Angeles headphones. | Image: Urbanista Urbanista is overhauling its solar charging headphone lineup with the announcement of second-generation versions of both its Los Angeles over-ear headphones and Phoenix true wireless earbuds. Both products are still built around the same Powerfoyle solar charging material from Exeger but have been updated to include more power-efficient internal components, adaptive (rather than simply active) noise cancellation, and more streamlined designs.Both are still in development and aren't going on sale until roughly midway through the year, but when they're released, they'll be priced slightly cheaper than their first-generation counterparts. The second-gen Los Angeles are due to cost $179 (versus $199 for the originals), while the second-gen... Continue reading...

The curved Odyssey OLED G9 above the flat OLED G6 and G8. | Image: Samsung Samsung has announced a trio of new gaming monitors ahead of CES 2024. There's the 49-inch curved ultra-wide Odyssey OLED G9 (G95SD), the 32-inch flat Odyssey OLED G8 (G80SD), and the 27-inch flat Odyssey OLED G6 (G60SD). The latter two are the first flat monitors Samsung has brought to its Odyssey lineup.Because I'm a simple man with simple wants, the Odyssey OLED G6 is the most interesting of these models to me on paper. That's because of its frankly excessive 360Hz refresh rate, which it pairs with a 1440p resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio. Samsung Display announced the start of mass manufacturing of these super-fast OLED panels last month, and the likes of Dell and MSI also appear to be making use of them in their upcoming monitors.... Continue reading...