The Verge

Bluesky There was a moment last year when Bluesky - the weird, irreverent Twitter competitor with a decentralized twist - had captured lighting in a bottle.The app quickly amassed over two million users while in closed beta and became a hot topic of conversation in newsrooms like The Verge's. Now, the conversation about what comes after the platform-now-called-X has largely shifted to ActivityPub, the decentralized protocol powering Mastodon, a budding ecosystem of other services, and eventually, Meta's Threads.Even with ActivityPub taking off, Bluesky is ready to have its moment in the spotlight again. Starting this week, the app is removing its invite system and throwing open its doors to anyone who wants to sign up. And later this month,... Continue reading...

Some app users are seeing options to filter homepage videos by green, blue, or red. | Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is testing a new feature that allows users to filter videos on their home feed by color, creating a more visually cohesive and pleasing experience when browsing. 9to5Google and users on Lemmy have reported seeing a new prompt window appear on the YouTube mobile app, asking users if they're craving something new," with options to create a video feed by red, blue, or green hues.This is an experimental feature and hasn't been rolled out widely. YouTube spokesperson Allison Toh confirmed to The Verge that it's currently available to select users on Android and iOS mobile devices." The company did not explain why it was developing such a feature, however, or provide a timeline for when (or if) it will be widely available. ... Continue reading...

Spotify's growing userbase. | Image: Spotify Spotify now boasts 236 million Premium subscribers, a 4 percent increase over last quarter, while its total number of monthly active users rose 5 percent to 602 million. The announcement came as part of its fourth quarter earnings release, which covers the three months ending on December 31st. Over the course of 2023, Spotify's userbase and premium subscribers grew by 113 and 31 million, respectively, setting records for the company.The results cap off a year that included both cost-cutting and price increases for the world's largest audio streaming service. Last December the company announced it would be laying off 17 percent of its workforce, or over 1,500 people, in what was its third major round of layoffs in 2023. Spotify also... Continue reading...

Image: Cook and Becker Tencent is reportedly working on a free-to-play mobile version of FromSoftware's 2022 smash hit title Elden Ring. That's according to Reuters, which cites three people familiar with the company's plans. The Chinese tech giant apparently has a team of a few dozen people" who've been working on the title after Tencent Holdings acquired a stake of a little over 16 percent of FromSoftware in August 2022. Tencent did not immediately respond to The Verge's request for comment.If the report is accurate, Elden Ring would be the latest in a long line of major game IPs licensed by Tencent to create mobile free-to-play versions. Among the most successful of these have been PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty: Mobile, but Tencent and its subsidiaries are... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony has started testing a new PS5 beta update that will improve the speakers and microphone on the DualSense controller, alongside adding pointers and emoji reactions to the Share Screen feature. The update is available to testers today via an email invite, and it also includes the ability to dim the brightness of the PS5 power indicator.The firmware for both the DualSense and DualSense Edge wireless controllers has been updated with this PS5 beta to improve the volume of the speakers that output in-game sounds and voice chat. Sony is also improving the microphone capabilities of both of the DualSense controllers to better deal with noise.The mic input quality on these controllers has been improved, courtesy of a new AI machine... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is nearly here. It's coming February 29th, and yes, we will find out what happens to Aerith unless the game's producer was playing us. But we won't have to wait that long to get a taste, because Sony will release a playable demo as soon as tomorrow, February 6th.That's the word from Wario64, who spotted a trailer for the demo on PlayStation Network, one you can watch below - and the news that the demo will let you step into the shoes of either Cloud or Sephiroth during the Nibelheim episode."

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reuters reports that Huawei will focus on increasing the manufacturing of its AI chip, the Ascend 910B, at the expense of production of its Mate 60 phones in at least one facility.Huawei makes both its Ascend AI chip and the Kirin chip, which powers the Mate 60, in one facility. However, production in the plant has been low, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, so the company now plans to prioritize the AI chip. Demand for Ascend chips, which aid in training AI models, has been growing domestically. By delaying the production of chips for Mate 60, Huawei can focus on improving the number of usable and sellable chips from the facility. The Mate 60 helped Huawei beat Apple's phone sales in the country in 2023, writes the South... Continue reading...

Image: BrickLink Designer Program If you consider yourself a diehard fan of adult-grade Lego, you might want to be hovering over these buy buttons on Wednesday, February 7th, at 11AM ET. That's when Lego will begin selling five limited-edition sets that are literally a fan dream come true: fans entered a BrickLink Designer Program contest to create these Lego sets all by themselves, and they'll get 5 percent of the proceeds!They're also just really cool builds. I'm definitely eying the $380 Mountain Fortress that looks like an excellent counterpart to my Lion Knight's Castle, the $50 Snack Shack that reminds me of a shrimp truck I loved in Hawaii, and the $320 Parisian Street with its timeless Haussmann architecture and charming storefronts.I'll tell you more about... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is planning to share details about its plans to bring Hi-Fi Rush and other Xbox exclusives to PS5 and Nintendo Switch consoles, according to sources familiar with Microsoft's plans. Details of Microsoft's multi-platform plans have been gradually leaking, with The Verge revealing over the weekend that the upcoming Indiana Jones game is being considered for PS5. Now, Microsoft is getting ready to outline the future of Xbox next week after a weekend of leaks and uncertainty for Xbox fans.We're listening and we hear you," says Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer in a post on X. We've been planning a business update event for next week, where we look forward to sharing more details with you about our vision for the future of Xbox.... Continue reading...

Unlike their predecessor, the third-gen AirPods offer IPX4 water resistance. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Apple's AirPods are some of the most popular wireless earbuds in the world, so it's a safe bet your valentine will love receiving them as a gift. Fortunately, Apple's two most affordable models - the third-gen AirPods and their second-gen predecessor - have returned to some of their best prices to date. The third-gen model is available for $139.99 ($30 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target with a Lightning charging case or at Costco for $139.99 with a MagSafe case. Meanwhile, the last-gen AirPods, which don't offer MagSafe charging, are down to $89.99 ($40 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart.For those who don't need active noise cancellation, Apple's entry-level earbuds are terrific. They integrate well with other iOS devices,... Continue reading...

TikTok users were not best pleased when the removal of UMG-owned music muted their favorite Pedro Pascal fan edit. | Image: 20th Centuary Fox / Canva / The Verge Remember TikTok's thirsty Pedro Pascal fan edits? For several months beginning in January 2023, many of us couldn't open the video platform without being blasted by the familiar sound of Shaggy's Hey Sexy Lady" hit, to which many of the biggest videos were set. If you dive back into any of those videos now, you'll find that swathes of these filtered, edited clips of the Chilean actor have been completely muted - because Hey Sexy Lady," along with many other popular songs used in viral trends, have been taken off TikTok.Last week, TikTok failed to reach a deal to renew licensing rights with Universal Music Group (UMG), leading to thousands, potentially millions, of songs from UMG's library being suddenly removed from the platform.... Continue reading...

Amazon's biggest smart display includes an Alexa Voice Remote and integrated Fire TV support. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge A smart display can amalgamate the various smart home and virtual assistant tools at your disposal, whether you prefer voice-activated assistants or smartphone-like interfaces for direct control. That's exactly what Amazon's Echo Show 15 provides, and right now, the wall-mountable panel is down to $199.99 ($80 off) at Amazon and Best Buy.The Echo Show 15 is a solid 15.6-inch smart display that can double as a 1080p TV thanks to its Fire TV integration, which makes it ideal in the kitchen for viewing recipes or enjoying a side of entertainment with whatever meal you're cooking. The touchscreen display lets you control a range of compatible smart home devices using various widgets and apps - which are great for viewing calendar... Continue reading...

Image: 1Password Update February 5th, 2024, 1:43PM ET: 1Password declared the issue resolved at 12:46PM ET, according to its status page. The original story continues below.1Password says it's looking into reports that users are unable to log in to the app. The company's status page says the issue is currently impacting sign-ins to the 1Password web interface" and is affecting users in Europe, the US, Canada, and elsewhere.A chart on the company's status page shows issues with Single Sign On have hit the company's US / global users and European users, but not Enterprise and Canadian ones. Problems with sign-in, syncing items across devices, and saving passwords are known to be affecting users in all regions.1Password posted about the outage at... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Roblox built an AI model that it says translates text chats so quickly users may not even notice it's translating the messages of other players at first. It works with 16 languages, including English, French, Japanese, Thai, Polish, and Vietnamese.Dan Sturman, Roblox CTO, said in an interview with The Verge that the goal is to make Roblox users feel more comfortable engaging with each other by letting them understand what they are saying. The translator automatically translates chats, but users can click an icon to see the original message.We know engagement goes up when users speak or interact with others in their own language," Sturman said. We took that concept and removed the language barrier with the automatic translation."R... Continue reading...

This Polestar will probably be for sale soon. | Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. Hertz continues to backtrack on its commitment to purchase more electric vehicles for its rental car fleet, as the Financial Times reports that the company has paused plans to acquire more EVs from Swedish automaker Polestar.In 2022, Hertz said it planned on purchasing 65,000 battery-powered Polestars in a bid to become a global leader in EVs. This was on top of 100,000 Teslas that the company already said it would acquire. Tesla's valuation topped $1 trillion for the first time after the news.But a little more than a year later, Hertz had a change of heart, mostly because its acquired EVs had lost most of their value. Price cuts (mostly from Tesla), higher depreciation than expected, and spiraling repair costs have made EVs a bad... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Security consultant and Have I Been Pwned creator Troy Hunt has detailed a vulnerability in the API of Spoutible, a social platform that emerged following Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, that could allow hackers to take full control of users' accounts.After someone alerted Hunt to the vulnerability, he discovered that hackers could exploit Spoutible's API to obtain a user's name, username, and bio, along with their email, IP address, and phone number. Spoutible has since addressed the vulnerability, writing in a post on its site that it didn't leak decrypted passwords or direct messages, while confirming the information scraped included email addresses and some cell phone numbers." It invited anyone who still wants to use the service... Continue reading...

Photo illustration: The Verge The editor of the popular tech newsletter talks about leaving Substack and where he's seeing successful business models in media. Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Snap plans to lay off around 10 percent of its employees as the company continues to struggle with declines in the digital advertising market. The company had around 5,300 employees at the start of 2023. Snap previously cut 20 percent of its staff in 2022 and had a smaller cut of 3 percent in 2023.Snap has struggled to expand beyond its core social networking product. Its augmented reality glasses were never made widely available, and other hardware projects like a selfie drone were scrapped shortly after launch. Even products launched within Snapchat, like the TikTok-esque Spotlight and the Snapchat Plus subscription service, have failed to grow at the pace the company hoped for.Meanwhile, the company has faced the same challenges as... Continue reading...

More or less SUVs in Paris?" reads the above poster, which encouraged Parisians to vote on the matter on Sunday, February 4th. | Photo by THOMAS SAMSON/AFP via Getty Images Parisians have voted to triple parking charges for out-of-town SUV drivers as part of the city's efforts to address road safety, air pollution, and climate change. The proposals were narrowly approved in a referendum vote on Sunday, with The Washington Post reporting that 54.6 percent of participants voted in favor of measures aiming to reduce the presence of heavy, bulky, and polluting" vehicles in the city center.Starting September 1st, gas or hybrid SUVs, and other larger vehicles weighing over 1.6 tonnes (1.76 tons), will be charged 18 (around $19.40) per hour to park in the center of Paris, and 12 (around $12.90) per hour in the rest of the city. The new pricing also applies to electric vehicles weighing over two tonnes (2.20... Continue reading...

The Bambu Lab A1 3D Printer in question. | Image: Bambu Lab Bambu Lab is officially recalling all A1 3D printers (not counting the A1 Mini). The company strongly" urges owners to stop using it for safety reasons after it was alerted to unstable temperature readings" that it first traced to a faulty heatbed cable last week, as reported by Tom's Hardware. After further investigation, Bambu says less than 0.1% of all the A1 printers sold" are affected by the problem, but it can't say with 100 percent certainty what the cause is, so it's offering a full refund to any A1 owner who wants it.The company isn't recalling any other printers in its lineup, so if you own an X1 series, P1 series, or the A1 Mini that our own Sean Hollister called almost the easy button" of printers.Here's a TL;DR of... Continue reading...

Image: Bethesda Bethesda's upcoming Indiana Jones game is also tentatively set to launch on Sony's PlayStation 5 console. We got our first glimpse of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle during Microsoft's Xbox Developer Direct event last month, where it was announced for Xbox and PC. A source familiar with Microsoft's plans tells The Verge that Bethesda is also considering bringing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle to PS5.A new multi-platform approach for certain Xbox games is emerging inside Microsoft, we're told, with the company weighing up which titles will remain exclusive and others that will appear on Switch or PS5 in the future. Indiana Jones appears to be part of this new wave of multi-platform games.While Bethesda will launch its Indiana... Continue reading...

Sometimes you have to put yourself through something painful just to recognize how good you have it. There's a lot to be gained from enduring the most disheartening shit possible: Want to hear depressing news? Want to feel anxious and unsettled? Want to walk away feeling hopeless and cynical about the world?That's the experience of watching Threads, the 1984 television film that is now streaming as a part of Criterion Channel's new Postapocalyptic Sci-fi series. (Sorry, did you think I was talking about a different thing called Threads?) Directed by Mick Jackson and written by novelist Barry Hines, Threads was a cultural phenomenon in the UK when it aired on the BBC. Depicting the aftermath of nuclear fallout with unflinching clarity,... Continue reading...

Image: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 24, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been reading Kyle Chayka's great book about algorithms, Filterworld, getting nostalgic about Tecmo Bowl, seeing if this show can get me into NASCAR like Drive to Survive got me into Formula 1, catching up on old Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend episodes, spending too much time debating whether I want a Vision Pro, trying to make my basement look more like Peter McKinnon's studio, and trying desperately to figure out why everyone's so worked up about rice cookers.I also have for you a new AI search... Continue reading...

Image: Samsung Seeing something on my phone screen that I want to know more about is a regular occurrence, and Google always wants to make it easier to get to, well, Google. And so we have Circle to Search, a new way of looking up information on mobile devices.The idea is pretty simple - and in fact, simplicity is its main selling point. In a video, Samsung (which makes one of the phones that has this feature) gives the example of someone who sees an orange dog lamp in an image, and instead of running a text search describing what they're looking at, they find out they can just circle the lamp with their finger to get matches from the web.Shopping is the obvious use case here, but you can also identify plants and animals, look up words, and get... Continue reading...

Callum at home NOT annoying his partner. | Photo by Callum Booth / The Verge As convenient as e-readers are, I can't quit actual books. Maybe it's their reassuring weight, the satisfying crinkle of their pages, their beguiling musk; but there's something addictive about that combination of paper, ink, and glue.Despite this - and as much as it pains me to say it - physical books aren't perfect. One issue that's been a particularly large albatross around my neck is reading in low-light environments. When I do so, I'm either keeping my partner awake with a blazing bedside lamp, twisting my body into awkward positions to illuminate the pages, or - worst of all - having to turn on the dreaded Big Light.But you know what? That's all history. I've seen the light! More specifically, a neck light. And the longer I use... Continue reading...

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, showing off its cameras. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge How does Samsung defend itself against the notion that its phone cameras are spitting out fake AI photos of not only the Moon, but most anything else you'd care to aim them at these days? For starters, the company's head of product is saying that every photo is fake.Samsung EVP Patrick Chomet told TechRadar recently:

Image: iFixit We thought the 12-pin plug connecting the Vision Pro to its battery pack was the final boss of Lightning cables - but there's one that's even bigger. Hiding within the strap on the Vision Pro headset is what I can only call a Mega Lightning plug.You can see the beefy 10-pin connector in this photo posted by iFixit, which is currently in the process of tearing down the Vision Pro. iFixit has already managed to get the front display off, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else the team might uncover when they post the full teardown over the weekend.

Finding the one true perfect" wall charger seems like an impossible task. We're all carrying different gadgets around. Our laptops have power needs that can vary widely from one to the next. Some people make an effort to lighten the load of tech in their bag when possible; others don't mind lugging an arsenal of accessories around as long as they're prepared for any situation. (I've used the Mini USB-to-USB-C cable in my backpack maybe twice over the course of four years, but it's still got a permanent spot in there just in case.)If you're traveling light with only a phone and / or tablet, I'm not sure Anker's 30-watt charger can be beaten. Where it gets complicated is when you start needing more power than that - or more ports to work... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As first reported by the Financial Times, independent labels Beggars Group, Secretly Group, and Partisan Records are pushing back against Apple's preferential payouts for spatial audio. They say independent artists who can't afford to record in spatial audio would make less because of how streaming music payouts work.Apple said artists on Apple Music can get bonuses of up to 10 percent for creating music with spatial audio. The company will pay out artists with pro rata shares from a pool of subscription money, calculated using a factor of 1.1, instead of just 1 for non-spatial audio tracks, which will be left to split a smaller remaining portion of the money.Unnamed music executives told the Financial Times that producing songs in... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Unger / Zuffa LLC via Getty Images Joe Rogan, podcasting's biggest star, has renewed his deal with Spotify. The new multiyear deal will allow his show, which is currently exclusive to the streamer, to be distributed to YouTube, Apple, and other podcasting platforms.Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed by Spotify, but The Wall Street Journal reports that the deal is estimated to be worth $250 million, including revenue share. His previous deal was estimated to be worth between $100 million and $200 million.The news confirms what insiders told The Verge last year, which is that Rogan would be likely to stay, but with greater flexibility. Even while being exclusive to Spotify, Rogan managed to have the No. 1 podcast in the world. With the new arrangement, during... Continue reading...

With its newest devices, Samsung cleverly mixes original AI features with some familiar concepts. Continue reading...

Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge Tesla's latest massive recall is a weird one. It's not about reported problems with sudden braking or driver monitoring alerts or seat belts. Nope, this one is all about font size.It turns out that the font size for Tesla's brake warning system is a bit too small. How small? Smaller than 3.2 millimeters, or one-eighth of an inch, as prescribed by the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). So the company has to recall all 2.19 million vehicles it has on the road today - again.It may seem minor, but font size can correlate to safety when all your vehicle's controls are ported through a touchscreen. According to the recall notice filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), visual warning indicators... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft has started internally testing a new custom emoji feature for its Microsoft Teams communications platform. Multiple sources tell The Verge that Microsoft employees learned about the surprise new capability after animated emoji of Pepe the Frog - a meme with a troubled past - started appearing in reactions and messages on early internal versions of Microsoft Teams.The Pepe the Frog emotes, which are now widely used in Discord servers and on Amazon's Twitch streaming platform as lighthearted responses, appeared alongside other custom emoji that don't ship in Microsoft Teams right now. We're told Microsoft is testing the custom emoji feature in early so-called dogfood" versions of Microsoft Teams.Microsoft Teams currently... Continue reading...