The Verge

Mickey Mouse (pictured) as seen in 1928's Steamboat Willie. | Photo by LMPC via Getty Images Specific versions of Mickey Mouse have been released from Disney's copyright - here's what the public is doing with them. Continue reading...

Image: LG A year ago, LG released its brightest OLED TVs yet, and in doing so, the company overcame one of the long-held downsides of the panel technology: they were finally suitable for bright, sunny rooms. Rtings called 2023's G3 OLED an outstanding TV with no real weaknesses," and many other reviews praised it as one of the best TVs ever released. LG also used CES 2023 to introduce its first wireless" TV, the Signature OLED M, which receives content from a Zero Connect box that can be positioned discreetly in the same room.So while last year brought pretty major technical upgrades, for 2024, LG is shifting its focus to AI and smaller, iterative changes. But the improvements are still meaningful. Across the OLED TV lineup, LG now supports... Continue reading...

Sony's WH-1000XM5 may not fold like the last-gen model, but they're still our favorite pair of noise-canceling headphones. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The holiday shopping season is officially behind us, but that hasn't stopped retailers from finding something else to celebrate with a sale. Right now, it's all about New Year's, and in honor of that fact, eBay is taking an extra 20 percent off select items through January 7th when you use offer code NEWYEARDEAL at checkout.All kinds of gadgets are eligible for the discount, from the Xbox Series X (now $399) to iRobot's Roomba j7 Plus, the latter of which is on sale in refurbished condition with a two-year warranty for $269.98 ($630 off). Our favorite deals, however, are on Sony's WH-1000XM5 headphones and WF-1000XM5 earbuds, both of which are down to their second-best price to date. The XM5 headphones are going for just $278.40 ($122... Continue reading...

The new Ultraloq Bolt Fingerprint Matter smart lock brings Matter-over-Thread support to the company's line-up. | Image: U-Tec Smart lock manufacturer U-tec has announced the first deadbolt smart lock with a fingerprint reader to support Matter-over-Thread. A fingerprint reader is the fastest and easiest way to unlock a smart lock, and Matter-over-Thread connectivity should solve two of the biggest issues of smart locks: poor battery life and poor connectivity.With most connected locks on the market today, you get either a year of battery life but are stuck with the limited range and smart home compatibility of Bluetooth or just a few months of battery life but all the smart home connections you can eat over Wi-Fi. Thread, with its low-power mesh network, is specifically designed to help battery-operated devices last longer, and the new smart home standard... Continue reading...

Horrible. 0/10. The thing about CAPTCHAs is that they're old enough to drink. The bots are better at them than I am. So why am I still being asked to fill them out?I am not talking about the inoffensive ones with the puzzle pieces. I am not talking, even, about matching or rotating shapes. I am talking, specifically, about the grid of insane photos - the kind of thing you may be familiar with from Google's reCAPTCHA system. If you are looking for a measured take on why they exist or the efforts to build replacements, go read this. I am not feeling measured, although I will resentfully note that CAPTCHA exists in order to stop bots and does an okay job at it.You know how I am feeling? Furious.I was trying to buy tickets to a double-feature of Blade... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge A new patent granted to Apple details how the company is thinking of using the Vision Pro's external display to show what the wearer is looking at inside the device.The patent, which includes Jony Ive as an inventor, details ways an outside screen on a generic head-mounted display could be used to indicate what the wearer is seeing to people around them. While the patent isn't specifically about the Vision Pro and its EyeSight" display feature, it's clear that some of the ideas here informed the features in the final headset.For example, Apple has talked publicly about how the outer screen on the Vision Pro can let outsiders see the eyes of the person wearing the headset or display a colorful pattern that indicates the wearer is fully... Continue reading...

Photo by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images Pornhub has restricted access in two more states in protest of continued nationwide state-level efforts to regulate online access to porn. 404Media reported that residents in both North Carolina and Montana visiting Pornhub and other Aylo-owned sites like Redtube or Brazzers are now greeted by a video of performer Cherie DeVille, and a handful of paragraphs, telling them their states are now blocked. Aylo began blocking access in the states last week, according to reporting from multiple outlets including The Fayetteville Observer and KRTV in Great Falls, Montana.The move is meant to protest laws that went into effect in both states on January 1st. Montana passed a standalone ID verification law in May, and North Carolina's new law was... Continue reading...

The Verge I'm afraid that I'm one of those people who have accumulated a number of Google accounts. I have one for subscriptions, newsletters, and other general purposes; one for work; one for my fiction writing; one to use when I want to test an online app; and one - well, quite honestly, I don't remember what that one's for.Normally, it's not a problem - except for those occasions where I found I've put a file or folder in the wrong Drive account. I've tried to fix things by simply sharing the folder / file with the account I want to use it with, but that isn't a satisfactory fix - for one thing, it means the file is taking up space in two accounts. And if, say, I am planning a party and decide to hand the responsibility off to a friend, it... Continue reading...

Photo by Presley Ann / Getty Images for The Skatepark Project Jack Black might be set to play another iconic video game character in a movie: Steve from Minecraft. Black is apparently joining the cast of the upcoming adaptation of the mega-popular game, and Deadline reports that he's going to play Steve, the original default character skin for Minecraft. Variety also reported that Black is part of the cast but didn't say who he might be playing.Black was amazing as Bowser in 2023's The Super Mario Bros. Movie (are you also humming Peaches" right now?) and will portray the snarky robot Claptrap in the Borderlands movie, but Steve doesn't really have a defined personality. He mostly exists as a silent vessel for the player. I'm curious if Black will bring a muted performance to Steve - but if I had... Continue reading...

The Bespoke Jet Bot Combo is the first combined robot vacuum and mop from Samsung. It features steam cleaning and automatic mop removal to keep your carpets dry. | Image: Samsung Samsung is finally bringing out a new version of its Jet Bot robot vacuum, which was last updated in 2021. The Bespoke Jet Bot Combo will be on show at CES 2024 and is the first combination of robot vacuum and mop from the Korean electronics giant. (The company has a standalone robot mop, the Jetbot Mop.)Samsung hasn't announced a price (the previous model, the Jet Bot AI Plus, costs $1,300) or a release date. And it sounds like the robot's features aren't finalized yet (Samsung's press release says the robot is currently in development," and its features are subject to change). But here's a look at what the new robot vacuum might be capable of, according to Samsung.The Bespoke Jet Bot Combo is a robot vacuum and mop with a round form... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge After removing headlines from URL cards on X (formerly Twitter), the platform is adding them back - but they don't work quite the same as before. Some of us at The Verge are seeing on the web that headlines and website title pages are now appearing over the images that link to those pages, which makes it a lot easier to know what you're clicking on.This is a nice change, but there are still some quirks. For example, if a headline or title is too long, it gets cut off with an ellipses, and the text is pretty small. But it's an improvement from how things used to work, where the images would just include the domain of the website it linked out to. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge A headline on an X post. X... Continue reading...

Photo by Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge The list of electric vehicles that qualify for the full $7,500 federal tax credit in the US has shrunk - considerably.Thanks to new requirements about battery minerals and sourcing that kicked in on January 1st, only five battery electric vehicles are eligible for the full credit as well as one plug-in hybrid vehicle. A few more qualify for the $3,750 half credit. And that's about it.As you can see in the table below, the pure EVs that still qualify are as follows: the Chevy Bolt EV and Bolt EUV (soon to be discontinued and replaced with updated versions); two versions of the Ford F-150 Lightning; one version each of the Tesla Model 3 and Model X; and three versions of the Tesla Model Y. And don't forget the Chrysler Pacifica PHEV,... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge EchoStar Corporation announced today that it finalized its purchase of Dish Network on the last day of December. Following the merger, which the companies announced in August, Dish is now a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar," and why? 5G, dear reader.Dish Network was known as EchoStar until 2008 when it renamed itself to Dish and spun its satellite internet business off under the EchoStar name. In recent years, Dish has been pivoting to 5G after buying Boost Mobile and starting Project Genesis, which, in concept, would offer a fourth large network to compete in the US with AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. As of late 2022, when we last tested it out, it wasn't quite impressive yet.EchoStar's COO, John Swieringa, said in the release... Continue reading...

Image: Getty Images Microsoft president Brad Smith wasn't happy with the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) last year after the regulator blocked Microsoft's giant Activision Blizzard deal. Now that Microsoft has restructured its deal and won approval in the UK, Smith has kinder words for the CMA, describing the regulator as tough and fair" in an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today program.Smith originally criticized the CMA and said confidence in the UK had been severely shaken" after the regulator moved to block Microsoft's $68.7 billion deal in April last year. He called it the darkest day" for Microsoft in its four decades of working in Britain and went a step further, saying the European Union is a more attractive place to start a... Continue reading...

Just be careful not to let major elements from later designs slip in. | Disney It's finally happened: after nearly a century, Mickey Mouse has slipped off Disney's copyright leash. The first versions of the iconic cartoon character, seen in Steamboat Willie and a silent version of Plane Crazy, enter the public domain in the US on January 1st, 2024. (An early version of Minnie Mouse is also fortunately included.) There's still a complicated mess of protections around Mickey, but today is a moment public domain advocates have awaited for decades - and there are plenty of other exciting new entries as well.Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain, as usual, has a roundup of prominent works whose copyright protections lapse in the US today. The list includes sound recordings from 1923 and works in... Continue reading...

The LG MyView Smart Monitor. | Image: LG LG will show off a new series of 32-inch 4K computer monitor / TV hybrids called the MyView' at CES this year. The company announced they'll come in a variety of colors, including essence white, mild beige, cotton pink and cotton green." They'll be offered in three variants at two price levels - $599.99 and $499.99, and LG says it will announce availability in the US at a later date."The specs and design language of LG's new smart LED displays are very similar to the Samsung M8. They both come in multiple colors and have a whiff of modern iMac design, though with more adjustable stands (both support tweaks to height, tilt, and rotation). Each can be used as a smart TV with the included remote and all of the new MyView monitors will... Continue reading...

Illustration: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 19, 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.)It's the last Installer of the year, so we're going to do something a little different! We're going to talk about all our favorite things of 2023. Some ground rules / disclaimers: this list is not exhaustive, not everything in here is new this year it's just new to us, this is not an Official List of Every Single Good Thing That Exists, and most importantly, if there's something missing that you find outrageous and unacceptable you know where to find me: installer@theverge.com and (203) 570-8663 on all the... Continue reading...

The LG Qube is so tiny, so boxy, so handle-y. | Image: LG LG announced the CineBeam Qube (model HU710PB) laser projector yesterday: It's got a minimalist look and stature, weighing 3.28 pounds and measuring 135mm square on one side and just 80mm wide at the front. (For comparison, the iPhone 15 Pro is just shy of 147mm tall.) It also has an unspecified number of HDMI eARC and USB-C ports, and a 3W built-in mono speaker. Impressively, LG says it can project an up-to-120-inch image at full 4K resolution with a pretty standard 1.2 throw ratio. Oh, and it has a handle!There are some apparent drawbacks to this itty bitty projector. For starters, it pushes out a relatively dim 500 ANSI lumens (compared to 2200 ANSI lumens of the larger Xgimi Horizon Pro we reviewed two years ago). That means that,... Continue reading...

A lawsuit alleged that Vizio's claims about refresh rates can be misleading. | Image: Vizio If you bought a Vizio TV in California after April 30th, 2014, Vizio may owe you some money. The company has agreed to pay out $3 million after a 2018 class action lawsuit alleged that its marketing of 120Hz and 240Hz effective" refresh rates was false and deceptive." Vizio denies that it did anything wrong, according to the agreement. The deadline for filing claims is March 30th next year, and requires some sort of evidence of ownership, including proof of purchase or the serial number, to qualify.In addition to paying out for verified claims, Vizio would stop the advertising practices" and provide enhanced services and a limited one-year warranty to all Settlement Class Members," according to details from the website set up for... Continue reading...

The Verge / Photos via Getty Images Layoffs are an unfortunate reality of any industry, but the scope and scale of video game layoffs in 2023 are far beyond a typical year. More than any specific video game or piece of news, layoffs defined the past 12 months. Companies large and small have felt their impact. Unofficial figures estimate 9,000 workers have been affected, and at the heart of it all are corporations that valued growth at all costs - including people.In September, Epic Games laid off 830 employees. In a statement, CEO Tim Sweeney wrote, We've been spending way more money than we earn. [...] I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic." Some of that spending was on... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Just days after introducing a Copilot app on Android, Microsoft has rolled out an app for its AI chatbot on iOS and iPadOS. Both versions of the app are now available to download from the Apple App Store.The app gives you access to Microsoft Copilot (formerly Bing Chat) and works similarly to OpenAI's ChatGPT mobile app. In addition to letting you ask questions, draft emails, and summarize text, you can also create images through an integration with the text-to-image generator DALL-E3. Image: Microsoft And, unlike the free version of ChatGPT which runs GPT-3.5, Copilot lets you access GPT-4, the latest large language model (LLM) from OpenAI, without having to pay for a subscription.With Microsoft's rebrand of Bing... Continue reading...

Image: Getty Michael Cohen, the former lawyer for Donald Trump, admitted to citing fake, AI-generated court cases in a legal document that wound up in front of a federal judge, as reported earlier by The New York Times. A filing unsealed on Friday says Cohen used Google's Bard to perform research after mistaking it for a super-charged search engine" rather than an AI chatbot.The document in question was a motion that asked a federal judge to shorten the length of Cohen's three-year probation, which he's now facing following prison time and a guilty plea to tax evasion and other charges. But after reviewing the letter brief, US District Judge Jesse Furman wrote in a filing that none of these cases exist" and asked Cohen's lawyer, David Schwartz, to... Continue reading...

The Verge / Image courtesy of Apple TV We're four years into the existence of Apple TV Plus, and the network still feels like it's punching above its weight class. It doesn't have nearly the expansive library of its competitors, but the shows (and occasional film) it does have are really, really good -usually.I've heard friends compare it to HBO in the 2000s, and that feels like an apt comparison. There are plenty of great movies, but there's also an astonishingly well-programmed group of TV shows that seem to speak to a very wide audience, from its core group of science fiction shows like For All Mankind and Foundation to its more outlandish fair like Schmigadoon! and The Morning Show.Apple TV Plus has found a way to reach a wide audience with a small array of... Continue reading...

The Verge / Photo courtesy of HBO The streaming service formerly known as HBO Max completed its magical girl transformation this year, dropping arguably the most recognizable part of its name to just become Max. The questionable rename came at the conclusion of the merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery and, according to WarnerDiscovery executives, was meant to signal to subscribers that the new Max has content for the whole family to enjoy.Immediately post-merger, Max lost 1.8 million subscribers (that WarnerMedia attributes to simple attrition). But the great mushing together of libraries means that highly polished dramas like The Sopranos and Oz appear alongside the highly popular (what's a polite way to say schlock'?) like 90 Day Fiance and Property Brothers t... Continue reading...

Composite image of a Toyota Corolla and Tesla Cybertruck after the accident. | Image: u/boddhya (Reddit) After Reddit user boddhya posted two pictures of a Cybertruck accident, the California Highway Patrol confirmed to The Verge that units responded to a two-vehicle accident on SR 35 (Skyline Boulevard). It occurred in this area south of Page Mill Road, which Google Maps lists as Palo Alto, around 2:05PM local time and involved a 2023 Tesla Cybertruck carrying three people that appears to have been hit by a 2009 Toyota Corolla driven by a 17-year-old.Tesla's Cybertruck delivery event raised questions about the design and what would occur in an impact with other cars or pedestrians. Fortunately, it doesn't appear that anyone involved in this incident suffered major injury as a result.CHP:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The FDA is warning Amazon to do something about bootleg Viagra" found on its platform, misleadingly disguised as men's energy or health supplements. In a letter to Amazon dated December 20th, the agency threatened legal action and listed seven different products available on the e-commerce platform with ingredients found in Viagra and Cialis. With outlandish names and brightly colored, cartoonish labels, it would be hard to confuse them with real-deal prescription drugs.But a recent investigation by the FDA found several supplements or powders sold on the e-commerce platform contained either sildenafil or tadalafil (the active ingredients in Cialis and Viagra) and failed to disclose it: MANNERS Energy Boost, Round 2, WeFun, Genergy,... Continue reading...

Netflix's new stop-motion Pokemon series from Dwarf Animation Studio is on the shorter side of things, but each episode is a gorgeous testament to the power of relaxation. Continue reading...

A worker drives a Powered Industrial Truck at the Amazon fullfillment center May 3, 2018 in Aurora, Colorado. | Photo by Rick T. Wilking/Getty Images Amazon is making plans to produce hydrogen fuel at its fulfillment centers. The retail behemoth partnered with hydrogen company Plug Power to install the first electrolyzer - equipment that can split water molecules to produce hydrogen - at a fulfillment center in Aurora, Colorado.The electrolyzer will make fuel for around 225 fork lift trucks at the site, although Plug says it has the capacity to fuel up to 400 hydrogen fuel cell-powered forklifts. This is the first time Amazon has tried to make its own hydrogen on site, and it's not likely to be the last.On-site production will make the use of hydrogen even more energy efficient for certain locations and types of facilities," Asad Jafry, Amazon's director of global hydrogen... Continue reading...

Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge Apple has resumed selling the latest Apple Watches on its website after a federal appeals court paused a sales and import ban.The Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 are now once again available on Apple's website, a day after some physical Apple stores began selling the watches on December 27th. Apple previously told The Verge that the watches should be available widely in its physical stores by Saturday.The US International Trade Commission issued the ban after finding that Apple had violated patents from medical device maker Masimo around a blood oxygen saturation feature included in the Series 9 and Ultra 2. Apple pulled both models from shelves and its website last week, ahead of the ban officially starting on December 26th.Apple is... Continue reading...

The Verge / Photo Courtesy of Sony PlayStation's had an interesting year. The company ricocheted between the highs of launching new technology like the PlayStation Portal and a new PS5 Slim (now with a detachable disk drive!) and the lows of layoffs, game cancellations, massive data leaks, and the end of CEO Jim Ryan's 28-year tenure.And though 2023 was the year of the cross-platform blockbusters like Diablo IV and Baldur's Gate 3, PlayStation still had a number of exclusives not to be missed.Spider-Man 2When you start out with a game as good as the original Spider-Man, you don't have to change much. And thankfully that's exactly what the developers at Insomniac did for Spider-Man 2. The sequel has some new ideas - including web wings that let you glide across New... Continue reading...

Samar Haddad; Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Whether you want to go with Samsung, Google, or a different manufacturer, trading in your old Android phone - or selling it - is a smart way to do that, especially since there are those who will decide instead to buy a lightly used phone from an older generation that will suit their needs without breaking the bank.If you've got an older model and are ready for an upgrade, here are a few steps to take in order to get your device ready to sell, followed by how much cash you can expect to earn back. We're going to concentrate on Samsung and Google Pixel phones here, but you can probably expect similar results with phones from other vendors.Inspect your phoneIf your old device is in good condition, you shouldn't have much of a problem... Continue reading...

The Verge / Image courtesy of Amazon Prime Amazon Prime Video is the second-best perk that comes with a Prime subscription (aside from free two-day shipping, of course), and its library only continues to grow. While Prime Video is often overshadowed by the likes of Netflix and Max, it has surprising range, whether you're looking for a lighthearted comedy, psychological thriller, or a thrilling animated series.With that out of the way, here's our list of the best shows released on Amazon Prime Video this year.InvincibleIf you're looking for a fresh take on the superhero genre, you'll want to check out Invincible. The animated series first debuted in 2021, but its second season just came out this year - and it doesn't disappoint. Invincible follows 17-year-old Mark Grayson... Continue reading...

Image: Freewrite Astrohaus will be shipping the cheapest digital typewriter in its Freewright lineup, the Freewright Alpha, in mid-January for $349. You can preorder it now, however, in black or white from the company's website.The Freewrite Alpha is the follow-up to the original $649 Freewrite and the $499 portable Freewrite Traveler from 2020. Like its predecessors, the Wi-Fi-enabled typewriter is free of distractions like web browsers and emails to help you focus on writing. After you're finished, the gadget wirelessly syncs documents with software services like Google Drive and Dropbox so you can edit and share your documents.However, the Alpha drops the E Ink display in favor of a reflective monochromatic LCD screen, thus keeping costs down. It... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge When it comes to apps that I've used for over a year or so - such as the Chrome browser -I can be very boring. I get into the habit of using the app in a particular way, and after that, when interesting new features pop up, I'll often put them aside to try out some other time." After all, if the app's working for me as it is, why bother?The problem is, I should bother - because sometimes those features can be very useful. For example, when I started using and saving tab groups in Chrome, it became much easier to find the tabs associated with a project, and to group them under a single tab temporarily when I didn't need them. (Not that Chrome is the only browser that groups tabs these days; Safari and Edge, among other browsers, have... Continue reading...

Kahhori, one of What If...?'s new characters. | Marvel Studios What If's second season is at its best when it's exploring the edges of Marvel's established cinematic canon. Continue reading...