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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Dozens of X posts containing images of Mario - including an AI-generated picture of the plumber holding a beer and a cigarette, created by The Verge using xAI's Grok - were removed after a company called Tracer apparently used AI to identify the images and serve takedown notices on behalf of Nintendo.According to an email received by The Verge's Tom Warren, a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice was issued to X by customer success manager" Ben Arzen of Tracer, which offers AI-powered services to companies purported to identify trademark and copyright violations online. Here's the image that got Tom's post removed. Image: X Potential copyright issues aside, why is there cigarette smoke coming out of... Continue reading...

Get ready for a new Mozilla look with old-school internet vibes. | Image: Mozilla Mozilla has overhauled its branding to pay homage to its Netscape roots and better distinguish the wider organization from its Firefox web browser. The most notable change is to the company's logo: what was previously a sans-serif wordmark styled as Moz://a" has been updated to correctly spell out the Mozilla name, featuring a new customized typeface and an M-shaped flag.According to Mozilla, the flag symbolizes the brand's activist spirit." That fits with the image that the Mozilla Foundation, which is leading the company, is attempting to build: describing itself as a non-profit organization that promotes openness, innovation, and participation on the Internet" and regularly releasing privacy reports that investigate tech... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge OpenAI's new model, called o1, appears to think and ponder as you use it. But is it thinking? Or pondering? And what does it mean if it is? Would that make it worth the risks, which appear to be both greater and more plausible than ever? How do you balance the risks of destroying humanity with the possibility of improving it? This is the thing about talking about artificial intelligence: it has this nasty penchant of getting all existential on you.On this episode of The Vergecast, we get all existential about AI. The Verge's Kylie Robison joins the show to discuss why OpenAI built o1, why it's launching the way it is, what to make of the folks who are worried about what they're seeing from the model, and how we should think about this... Continue reading...

Ecovacs' Deebot N30 Omni includes a dock that cleans and dries its spinning mopping heads. | Image: Ecovacs Ecovacs has announced new additions to its budget-focused N-family line of robovacs. The Deebot N30 Omni includes a base station that can clean and dry the vacuum's mopping heads, while the N20 Pro Plus' dock can empty the robot's dirt bin and store it in a plastic bin that eliminates the need for replaceable dust bags. Both robovacs debut at under $800.The Deebot N30 Omni isn't the cheapest robovac you can buy with mopping capabilities and a dock, but at $799.99, it includes features typically only found on autonomous cleaners well over $1,000, like the Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra and the DreameBot X30 Ultra. The robot includes a spiral brush with a design that helps prevent long hairs from getting tangled around it and a pair of spinning... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Nothing has announced its first pair of open wearable stereo (OWS) earbuds that could be better suited for activities where you actually want to hear what's going on around you. With a design that rests just inside your ear, the new Nothing Ear Open could also be a more comfortable alternative to earbuds that rely on silicone tips inserted into the ear canal.The Nothing Ear Open join a growing trend in headphones where active noise cancelling technology is eschewed for a design that deliberately lets outside sounds in. Shokz' headphones have long offered this through the use of bone conduction technology that keeps your ears completely open. In February, Bose introduced its $299 Ultra Open earbuds and positioned them as headphones that... Continue reading...

Spotify subscribers in additional countries can now create playlists using text descriptions. | Image: Spotify Spotify is expanding an AI feature that creates customized playlists from your text descriptions to additional English-speaking regions. Starting today, people in the US, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand with Premium Spotify subscriptions (which start at $5.99 per month for students or $11.99 for individuals) can access AI Playlist in beta, following its initial launch in the UK and Australia earlier this year.Subscribers can locate the feature within the mobile app by tapping the +" button at the top right of their Spotify library. Selecting AI Playlist" from the drop-down menu will then open a chat box to describe the playlist you want, such as spooky songs to play during Halloween" or soothing folk music for a chill bath time."... Continue reading...

The second-gen QC Earbuds have wireless charging and multipoint right out of the box, which hasn't been the case for Bose's pricier buds. Continue reading...

Image: Roku One day after the Google TV Streamer hit stores, Roku is announcing its latest streaming player. And unlike Google's big design overhaul, the new Roku Ultra is playing things very safe. I'd argue maybe too safe. It's still $99.99, still delivers Dolby Vision and Atmos, and it looks exactly the same as before, though the company says there are notable improvements inside.The 2024 Ultra is 30 percent faster than any of Roku's other players, and it now features Wi-Fi 6. That upgrade puts it ahead of the Google TV Streamer, which stuck with Wi-Fi 5. Roku is now on par with the Apple TV but behind Amazon's flagship Fire TV streamers, which include Wi-Fi 6E connectivity. And yes, there's still a built-in ethernet jack for those of you who... Continue reading...

Image: Brompton It might not be immediately obvious, but the Brompton G Line is the first major redesign of the iconic British folding bicycle in its nearly 50-year history. It's even bigger than the launch of its first e-bike in 2019, literally and figuratively.The G Line is available as a standard bike with an internally geared Shimano Alfine 8-speed hub or as a 4-speed e-bike with derailleur. Both models feature bigger 20-inch wheels with fat grippy Schwalbe tires, hydraulic disc brakes from Tektro, wider handlebars, and a frame geometry that more closely resembles full-size bicycles.It all adds up to what should be a less twitchy ride that's suitable for more varied terrain on a bike that's easier to service over time given the selection of... Continue reading...

Image: Pinterest Pinterest will now let you build upon other collages and mood boards with its new remix feature, making it easier to get started on a creation if you're running low on ideas.You can use the feature to add your own images, text, and drawings to an existing collage. And if you don't want other people adding to your mood board, Pinterest will give you the option to turn remixing on or off. GIF: Pinterest Pinterest first introduced collages with the launch of its Shuffles app in 2022, allowing users to cut out" images and place them on a single canvas to create mood boards, style guides, and other interesting mishmashes. The platform built the feature into the main Pinterest app in 2023 and says it has seen a 418... Continue reading...

Gemini for Workspace is also now certified for SOC 1/2/3 and ISO 27701 security and privacy standards. | Image: The Verge Google is making Gemini AI a core part of its Workspace productivity suite, which could see the chatbot adopted by millions more users. In its latest blog post, the search giant announced that the standalone Gemini app is being included as standard on Workspace Business, Enterprise, and Frontline plans starting sometime in Q4, replacing the need to purchase a separate Gemini add-on.Google says that Gemini is subject to the same enterprise terms as other core Workspace services like Gmail and Docs, and won't use an organization's data, generated responses, or user prompts to train or otherwise improve its Gemini AI model. Workspace Administrators will also soon" be able to manage if Gemini stores generated responses and user prompts,... Continue reading...

Image: Logitech After acquiring Steam Deck rival Loupedeck last year, Logitech is launching a $199.99 MX Creative Console that's designed to control Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro. The control panel includes a Stream Deck-like keypad and a dialpad that has an analog dial and plenty of buttons to speed up creative tasks.Logitech has created custom plugins for Adobe apps like Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, and Illustrator for its MX Creative Console. In Premiere Pro you can use the dial to scrub through a timeline, and there are four buttons around the dial to activate functions like undo.There's also a roller for navigation, allowing you to easily adjust the level of zoom on a Premiere Pro timeline for more... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge An official OpenAI account on X was taken over to peddle a cryptocurrency scam on Monday evening.On Monday at 6:24PM ET, the @OpenAINewsroom account, which shares news from OpenAI and has nearly 54,000 followers, made a now-deleted post advertising an $OPENAI" token.We're very happy to announce $OPEANAI: the token bridging the gap between Al and blockchain technology," the post said. All OpenAI users are eligible to claim a piece of $OPENAI's initial supply. Holding $OPENAI will grant access to all of our future beta programs." The post also included a link to a spoofed version of OpenAI's website at a URL that wasn't openai.com. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Two posts from the hijacked OpenAI Newsroom... Continue reading...

Plastic bottles and other trash piled up along the bank of the San Gabriel River just a few hundred yards from the Pacific Ocean. | Photo: Getty Images ExxonMobil has misled consumers for years by perpetuating a myth" about plastic recycling, according to a new lawsuit filed by the state of California.ExxonMobil is the world's leading producer of single-use plastics that become waste, according to the state attorney general's office. To encourage people to buy products made with single-use plastics, the suit alleges, ExxonMobil deceived Californians for almost half a century by promising that recycling could and would solve the ever-growing plastic waste crisis."They clearly knew this wasn't possible."Plastic is quite difficult to reuse, which is why very little of it is ever recycled. Promoting recycling as a cure-all for plastic waste can actually lead to more of it becoming... Continue reading...

Illustration by Hugo Herrera for The Verge Amazon Prime Day is one of the biggest shopping events of the year outside of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, with this year's autumnal incarnation (once again dubbed Prime Big Deal Days) running from October 8th through the 9th. The two-day shopping affair will likely grant Prime members access to some of the best prices of the year on Amazon devices, as well as products from Sony, Sonos, Peloton, Withings, and other well-known brands. This applies to items spanning a range of categories, including gaming peripherals, laptops, 4K TVs, phones, PC accessories, and more.As always, you can count on us to publish only the best deals during Prime Big Deal Days - as well as any worthwhile ones featured at Walmart, Best Buy, and other... Continue reading...

Image: Riley Testut The excellent Delta emulator for iOS is going to get even better: sometime soon, the app will get support for online multiplayer in Nintendo DS games, according to Delta developer Riley Testut. Testut's post about the feature includes a video of a Mario Kart DS race between two people being played on the emulator, and it immediately transported me back to playing the game on my own DS many years ago.Nintendo shut down the DS's online services way back in 2014, so we asked Testut how the online services will work. It's based on melonDS' online support, which connects to 3rd-party Nintendo [Wi-Fi Connection] servers (such as Kaeru, Wimmfi, AltWFC, etc)," Testut tells The Verge. This means all 10 million+ Delta users will be able to... Continue reading...

You've probably seen those door access panels before. | Image: Assa Abloy Assa Abloy, the major Swedish conglomerate that owns a whole lot of lock and security companies like Kwikset, Level lock, and the non-US version of Yale, is partnering with Boston Dynamics to build a new digital door access system that enables Boston Dynamics' Spot robots autonomous entry into secured areas. The two intend to make it easier for companies to implement a robot security dog that can patrol buildings unfettered inside and outside.Boston Dynamics' Spot robot has been equipped with digital access credentials that use Bluetooth to communicate with Assa Abloy's HID-branded Signo readers, making it easy for the bots to pass through auto-opening doors. No need to tap a paw on the panel.Some companies like Asylon Robotics built... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge X will now make your posts visible to users you've blocked. In a reply on Monday, X owner Elon Musk said the block function will block that account from engaging with, but not block seeing, public post."Currently, X displays a You're blocked" message when trying to view the profile of a person who's blocked you. In addition to blocking all posts, it also prevents you from seeing their replies, media, followers, and following list.While a source at X told The Verge that the platform is making this change because people can already view posts from users who've blocked them when using another account or when logged out, several of us at The Verge (myself included) have noticed that X actually prevents you from viewing someone's profile... Continue reading...

Mercedes-Benz AG Drive Pilot, Mercedes-Benz's Level 3 conditionally automated driving" feature, is getting a speed bump. The system will now support speeds of up to 95km/h (59mph) on German motorways, a sign that the automaker is feeling bullish about its boundary-pushing technology.Mercedes is still waiting for approval from German regulators before pushing out a software update to customers of vehicles that support Drive Pilot. But once that happens, the company boasts that it will have the world's fastest Level 3 system in a series-production vehicle."Drive Pilot is similar to hands-free" highway driving systems like GM's Super Cruise, Ford's BlueCruise, and Tesla's Autopilot in so far that it allows drivers to take their hands off the steering... Continue reading...

The Switch OLED boasts a vibrant seven-inch screen and comes with either white or red and blue Joy-Con controllers. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Just in time for the release of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom on September 26th, Woot is selling the Nintendo Switch OLED for $299.99 ($50 off) with either white or neon red and blue Joy-Con controllers. That's $10 shy of the console's best price to date, and a deal that will last through 1AM ET on September 29th or while supplies last.Nintendo could announce a new Nintendo Switch any day now, one that is expected to sport a larger, eight-inch screen and more horsepower. But for now, the Switch OLED offers the best-looking handheld experience in the existing lineup. Its seven-inch OLED display is more spacious and vibrant than the screen found on the standard Switch or Switch Lite, and it features improved sound and a... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Telegram will now turn over a user's phone number and IP address if it receives a request from authorities, according to its just-updated privacy policy:

An aerial view of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal-fired power station, near Nottingham in central England on September 19, 2024. | Photo: Getty Images By the end of the month, the United Kingdom is set to shutter its last operating coal-fired power plant.The Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire is slated to close on September 30th, marking the end of coal power in the UK. It's turning the page on an era of dirty energy that the UK helped usher in globally and now has to leave behind to meet climate goals.The coal power plant was first commissioned in 1967, and received its last coal delivery in June. The 2,000 megawatt-capacity plant can produce enough electricity for some two million homes, according to the energy company Uniper that owns it. Over its decades in operation, it's generated enough energy to make more than 21 trillion cups of tea, or roughly 1 billion... Continue reading...

Image: WinFuture Nothing is expected to reveal its Ear (Open) headphones tomorrow, but a set of leaked images from WinFuture seems to have spoiled the surprise. The new earbuds appear to have a curved band that hooks around the back of your ear for a potentially more comfortable fit.The speaker, which rests just outside your ear, could come with a 14.2mm driver, according to WinFuture. Just like Nothing's other earbuds, it looks like the Ear (Open) will sport a transparent design on the stem with the company's branding.Additionally, WinFuture reports that the new earbuds offer up to eight hours of battery life without the case (or 30 hours with it). The buds are rumored to come with touch controls, the ability to connect to multiple devices at once,... Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is telling Premium subscribers outside the US that they'll be paying more for the service soon, social media users began reporting over the weekend. So far, the higher prices are being reported in regions that include the EU, the Middle East, and South America, according to Android Authority.The price increases affect both individual and family plans. In some EU countries, people have said they were told their family plans will be going from 17.99 to 25.99 (or 11.99 to 13.99 for individuals) starting on November 7th. Posts on social media are reporting similar increases in places like Singapore, Colombia, and Saudi Arabia. A Reddit user is tracking the amounts in one thread.Another Reddit user posted screenshots of a... Continue reading...

JBL's party lights can sync their animations to the company's speakers. | Image: JBL JBL has announced two new accessories for its PartyBox line of LED-enhanced Bluetooth speakers: the PartyLight Stick, which looks like a glowing animated lightsaber, and the PartyLight Beam, which can cast a light show on walls or ceilings.The $99.95 PartyLight Stick and the $149.95 PartyLight Beam can each function as standalone lights. You can adjust the intensity, speed, and motion of each light to match a party's vibe using a mobile app, but they both include built-in microphones that will make their animated light shows match up to whatever music is playing in the room.Both lights become more capable when wirelessly connected to one of JBL's PartyBox speakers. Their glowing animations will be synchronized to the LEDs in the... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Microsoft made security its No. 1 priority for every employee earlier this year, following years of security issues and a scathing report from the US Cyber Safety Review Board. Nearly six months after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told the entire company that security should be prioritized above all else, the software giant is providing a report on its progress.Microsoft first kicked off its Secure Future Initiative (SFI) in November 2023, just months before the US Cyber Safety Review Board concluded that Microsoft's security culture was inadequate and requires an overhaul." That blistering review really kicked Microsoft into gear, and the company is revealing today that it now has the equivalent of 34,000 full-time engineers working... Continue reading...

The 2023 writers strike and a change in Marvel's releasing schedule kept director Jake Schreier's Thunderbolts from hitting theaters when it was initially planned. But the film's new trailer makes it look like it might have been worth the wait.Set some time after the events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Thunderbolts will tell the story of how a number of former Marvel antagonists find themselves being recruited by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) onto a black ops team that seems like a dark twist on the Avengers. Ex-Black Widow Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) appears to be somewhat aimless as she shows up on her father Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian's (David Harbour) doorstep and finds him living in squalor.... Continue reading...

An employee cleans a BYD during 2024 Wuhan International Auto Show. | Photo by Wang HE / Getty Images The Biden administration proposed new rules blocking the sale or import" of connected vehicle software originating from countries of concern," a move that would effectively ban all auto imports in the US from China.Vehicles with hardware and software from China pose an acute" threat to the US's national security, the White House said in a statement. This includes the potential for sabotage and surveillance, such as remotely disabling a vehicle in the middle of the road."The rules would cover anything that connects a vehicle to the outside world, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular, and satellite components. It also addresses concerns that technology like cameras, sensors, and onboard computers could be exploited by foreign... Continue reading...

Photo illustration by The Verge / Photo: The Verge The Browser Company cofounder thinks it's time to modernize the browser and reinvent the web. Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Nintendo has submitted a mysterious new wireless device to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) this weekend, and it isn't the Switch 2 console we're expecting to be revealed before next April. The CLO-001 model number doesn't reveal what it actually is, but it appears to be an entirely new product line given the 001" codes used on devices like the original Switch (HAC-001) and DS (NTR-001) consoles.It's tagged only as a wireless device," not a wireless game console" or any kind of controller like a Joy-Con. A basic diagram within the documents shows an outline of where the FCC label will be displayed in a depression area on the bottom" of something with a squarish footprint and rounded-off corners.The documents also show... Continue reading...

The at-home treatment could assist people who are unable to travel to immunization appointments. | Photo by Jeff Gritchen/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images The Food and Drug Administration has approved a nasally-administered influenza immunization treatment that can be taken at home. FluMist - a nasal spray vaccine that AstraZeneca initially developed as an in-office treatment two decades ago - will still require a prescription to obtain and is expected to be made available via a new online pharmacy next year, according to The New York Times.The treatment will require people to fill out a questionnaire on the upcoming FlueMist Home website. Once approved by a pharmacist, the nasal spray will be shipped directly to the customer's door. The current out-of-pocket cost is around $35 to $45 per dose according to the NYT, but that may drop depending on insurance coverage.The Centers for Disease... Continue reading...

image: iFixit No sooner has the Phone 16 lineup arrived than the folks at iFixit start taking them apart, a process made easier this time around by the day-one release of repair manuals from Apple. The disassembly process shows the Camera control is a real button that moves, along with a flex cable that likely measures force, and the heat sink that appears positioned to keep the A18 chip's Neural Engine cool while it handles AI workloads.For this year's refresh, the base iPhone 16 may be more interesting than the Pro model for one reason - it's the first one using electrically debondable adhesive for its battery enclosure.As reported in June by The Information, Apple isn't using the new adhesive on all of its phones yet, but now we have a lot more... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Scratch the surface of Windows (and macOS), and you'll find a command line console underneath, a lingering remnant of how these operating systems started out: as user-friendly graphical wrappers built on top of text-based, monochrome interfaces.If you're as old as I am, you might remember having to launch apps and games on a computer by typing out text commands, rather than pointing and clicking. The modern-day methods are much easier, of course, but the old ways are still available - and they're actually still useful for multiple tasks, as the list below shows.To begin with, Windows kept the Command Prompt utility as a reminder of its MS-DOS roots. That was later joined by PowerShell (Command Prompt with extras), and in the latest... Continue reading...

Image: David Pierce / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 53, 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 about Beyonce and Rosanna Pansino and Bowen Yang, pouring my life back into Todoist, watching the end of The Grand Tour, catching up on some My Brother, My Brother and Me episodes, seeing if the Pixel Recorder app can replace my trusty voice recorder, and moving Headspace to my homescreen to see if it helps me meditate more. (So far... no.)I also have for you a truly wild new pair of AR glasses, a Batman-adjacent show on HBO, a great new book about the end of Twitter, a funny twist on... Continue reading...

Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox Media Jony Ive has confirmed that he's working with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on an AI hardware project. The confirmation came today as part of a profile of Ive in The New York Times, nearly a year after the possibility of a collaboration between Altman and the longtime Apple designer was first reported on.There aren't a lot of details on the project. Ive reportedly met Altman through Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, and the venture is being funded by Ive and the Emerson Collective, Laurene Powell Jobs' company. The Times reports it could raise $1 billion in funding by the end of the year, but makes no mention of Masayoshi Son, the SoftBank CEO rumored last year to have invested $1 billion in the project.The project only has 10 employees... Continue reading...

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Back in the Mad Men days, the only thing that might interrupt the corporate blandness of a workspace might be a photo of your family or maybe a coffee cup with a funny saying. But nowadays, especially if we're working at home, we can have some pretty interesting, weird, or just plain nice-looking items on our desks.We asked the folks here at The Verge what they have on their desks or in their offices that they keep just for the hell of it - because they like it, because it means something special, or just because. Here are some of the answers we got.A looping gif of our late cat Pouncey on my keyboard's LCDAntonio G. Di Benedetto, commerce / deals writer GIF: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge The LCD on the... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Brazilian fan account owners might have a reason to rejoice, as X could be returning to Brazil. According to the New York Times, in a court filing Friday night the company agreed to abide by the Supreme Court's request in order to have the countrywide ban lifted: