The Verge

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Netflix isn't just programming content only a small group of people would like - it's intent on having a little something for everyone. During an interview with The New York Times, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos says he regrets comparing Netflix to HBO and its more limited selection of content in the past.Here's the quote, published in this 2013 GQ profile of Reed Hastings:

Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge From the earliest pixelated games to the outrageously realistic experiences of today, flight simulators have always been pushing the boundaries of what can be visually recreated in a video game. It's one thing to make space look good; it's another thing entirely to faithfully recreate the cockpit of a 747 and the whole world around which it might fly.On this episode of The Vergecast, the fourth and final installment of our series on the five senses of video games, we asked Polygon's Charlie Hall to help us make sense of the current state of the art in flight simulation. Hall, who once spent more than four months in VR mapping the edge of the Milky Way galaxy in Elite: Dangerous, has more experience in a virtual cockpit than most. We... Continue reading...

Bambu P1P vs. Creality K1C: an easy' 3D printer showdown. Continue reading...

Image: Bungie A jury found on Friday that Phoenix Digital, which owns the cheat mod site AimJunkies, is guilty of violating Bungie copyrights when it created cheats for Destiny 2, reported Stephen Totilo, who has written about Bungie's cheating lawsuits for Axios. The landmark decision may be the first time a jury has agreed that a cheat creator violated a gaming company's copyrights.Yesterday's jury decision awarded Bungie (PDF) a tidy sum of $63,210. Bungie counsel James Barker said in a statement emailed to The Verge that the company is committed to our players and will continue to protect them against cheats, including taking this and future cases all the way to trial."In 2021, Bungie sued AimJunkies and four defendants (here's a PDF of the... Continue reading...

Image: Big Mode / Shared Memory About midway through Animal Well, I felt I had been lied to. I read all the glowing reviews of the game and heard the breathless praise heaped upon it on social media. But my expectations did not match my reality... until I beat the game. Now, I'm well on my way to 100 percent completion for a game I was seriously considering abandoning.Spoilers for Animal Well are below.Though I loved Animal Well's novel take on traditional movement abilities - the tools it provides possess multiple clever uses - platforming itself often felt demoralizing. Initially, Animal Well's platforming felt like it had difficulty spikes that were both too great and too frequent. I could often see where I had to go and how to get there (and I often looked up... Continue reading...

Photo illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Philip Pacheco, Bloomberg, Getty Images Despite Epic Games' surprise win at trial, I was skeptical that Judge James Donato would seriously consider forcing Google to let the Epic Games Store live inside its own Google Play Store, and give it access to every app inside Google Play. Those were two of the biggest demands that Epic revealed in April.But Judge Donato is indeed considering them. He's ordered Google to calculate the costs of complying with those demands by June 24th, one month from today:

Stacker for iPod is a Tetris clone that never made it to retail models. | Image: Apple Demo YouTuber Apple Demo has found a prototype third-generation iPod that contains a game called Stacker, which never made it to retail models. In addition to Apple's own version of Tetris, the engineering sample iPod also came loaded with other unreleased titles, including games called Block0 and Klondike, as noted by Engadget.On the back of the prototype iPod, a DVT" (Design Validation Testing) label is etched where the storage capacity normally goes, which, Apple Demo explains indicates it was from the middle stage of development. Two songs still in its storage and a helpfully-named playlist suggest this device was used for battery testing.After some tinkering and transplanting the internal hard disk into a second-generation iPod Apple... Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Getty Images The UK could subject big tech companies to hefty fines if they don't comply with new rules meant to promote competition in digital markets. On Thursday, lawmakers passed the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Bill (DMCC) through Parliament, which will let regulators enforce rules without the help of the courts.The DMCC also addresses consumer protection issues by banning fake reviews, forcing companies to be more transparent about their subscription contracts, regulating secondary ticket sales, and getting rid of hidden fees. It will also force certain companies to report mergers to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).The European Union enacted a similar law, called the Digital Markets Act (DMA).Only the companies... Continue reading...

Image: Sony The Last of Us went from being a popular post-apocalyptic PlayStation series to a riveting TV show. Here's all the news on the franchise. Continue reading...

Epic and Google are back in court to argue how Google should be forced to change its Play Store business. | Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge After a jury declared the Play Store an illegal monopoly in the Epic v. Google lawsuit last year, both companies faced off in court again on Thursday to decide on the specific changes Google will have to make to rectify the issue, as reported by Reuters and Wired.Epic is hoping the court approves several remedies it had previously submitted, which Google claims are over the top and would harm the privacy, security, and overall experience of consumers." So all eyes are on Judge James Donato, who heard testimony on both sides and offered some hints as to how he's leaning.To start with, while Donato said some of the remedies Epic proposed are open-ended and too vague," Google will have to make changes it doesn't like, but perhaps not as... Continue reading...

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. | Image: Netflix Benoit Blanc is tackling another mystery very soon. Director Rian Johnson has teased the next outing of the detective, which will be called Wake Up Dead Man and is set to premiere sometime in 2025. In addition to the return of Johnson to write and direct, Daniel Craig will be reprising his role as Blanc. For now, that's all the information we have to go on.The first Knives Out mystery premiered in 2019, and after that, Netflix scooped up the rights to its sequels for a reported $450 million. The first sequel, Glass Onion, premiered in 2022; it had a brief theatrical run before eventually streaming on Netflix. (It also featured a guest appearance from this very website.) It seems likely that Wake Up Dead Man will follow a similar release... Continue reading...

Photo by Patrick George for The Verge Electric vehicle sales may be in a bit of a slump, but Hyundai isn't deterred. The South Korea-based automaker is doubling down" on its EV investment, including a $7.6 billion dedicated manufacturing facility in Georgia, said Hyundai Motor America CEO Randy Parker.While other manufacturers are pulling back on their electrification strategy, we continue to be focused on our products," Parker said in an interview this week with The Verge. And our products have done extremely well in the marketplace."Those products include the popular Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 as well as a recently refreshed Kona Electric. And there's also the recently released performance-based Ioniq 5 N, which recently won the 2024 World Performance Car award. ... Continue reading...

The Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam comes in pink and rocking some moves. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge It's pretty in pink, and its 360-degree view is handy. But while Ring's new pan-tilt cam has the moves, it lacks innovation. Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is now letting users securely share passwords with members of their own family group over the internet, making it easier for everyone in the household to access passwords for shared services like Netflix. The new ability is included in the Google Play services update for May 2024 that's rolling out now, as reported by Android Authority.The new password sharing feature just applies to ones that are stored in Google Password Manager, the company's service that natively stores your passwords and passkeys in Chrome and Android and is linked to your Google account. As of today, the new password sharing feature works on mobile - but apparently not via Chrome on desktop, yet. Once you share a password with one of your family members, a... Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Getty Images Imagine this: you've carved out an evening to unwind and decide to make a homemade pizza. You assemble your pie, throw it in the oven, and are excited to start eating. But once you get ready to take a bite of your oily creation, you run into a problem - the cheese falls right off. Frustrated, you turn to Google for a solution.Add some glue," Google answers. Mix about 1/8 cup of Elmer's glue in with the sauce. Non-toxic glue will work."So, yeah, don't do that. As of writing this, though, that's what Google's new AI Overviews feature will tell you to do. The feature, while not triggered for every query, scans the web and drums up an AI-generated response. The answer received for the pizza glue query appears to be based on a comment... Continue reading...

Image: Samsung iFixit just broke up with Samsung over its shaky commitment to right to repair, but things may be worse than we thought. Samsung is apparently forcing independent repair shops to give up your personally identifying information - and report you for using aftermarket parts.404 Media has now obtained a leaked copy of a contract between Samsung and an independent service provider, which states that for every repair, an independent repair shop must send Samsung your name, address, telephone number, your phone's unique serial number and IMEI, your customer complaint," and all the details of your repair.What's more, it tells repair shops they must strip any aftermarket parts out of your phone - even though it's likely perfectly legal for... Continue reading...

Image: Laura Normand / The Verge The Federal Communications Commission has proposed imposing multimillion-dollar fines on the political consultant responsible for the robocall campaign that used an AI-generated deepfake of President Joe Biden's voice - and on the telecom company that facilitated the calls.Longtime Democratic operator Steve Kramer faces a $6 million fine from the FCC, while Lingo Telecom could be fined $2 million. The FCC announced the proposed penalties on Thursday, calling the Lingo fine a first-of-its-kind enforcement action."We will act swiftly and decisively to ensure that bad actors cannot use U.S. telecommunications networks to facilitate the misuse of generative AI technology to interfere with elections, defraud consumers, or compromise... Continue reading...