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by Wes Davis on (#6CTPK)
Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Apple is experimenting with larger iMacs, including a 32-inch version, for the future of its famous desktop line, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who wrote in the subscriber-only version of his Power On newsletter today that development is still early, so much could change. He doesn't believe we'll see one before the end of 2024.Gurman also tweaked his predicted timeline for the M3-powered iMac he said in March would be coming as soon as the second half of this year at the earliest. This time, he said he expects them by early next year.It makes sense that Apple would be working on a bigger iMac. People like bigger screens! And while the 24-inch model Apple sells now is a solid compromise between the former 21.5-inch and the... Continue reading...
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The Verge
| Link | https://www.theverge.com/ |
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| Updated | 2025-07-04 21:02 |
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by Wes Davis on (#6CTE8)
Illustration: The Verge Google's Med-PaLM 2, an AI tool designed to answer questions about medical information, has been in testing at the Mayo Clinic research hospital, among others, since April, The Wall Street Journal reported this morning. Med-PaLM 2 is a variant of PaLM 2, which was announced at Google I/O in May this year. PaLM 2 is the language model underpinning Google's Bard.WSJ reports that an internal email it saw said Google believes its updated model can be particularly helpful in countries with more limited access to doctors." Med-PaLM 2 was trained on a curated set of medical expert demonstrations, which Google believes will make it better at healthcare conversations than generalized chatbots like Bard, Bing, and ChatGPT.The paper also... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6CTCA)
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge G/O Media, who owns popular tech site Gizmodo along with a slew of other outlets, began publishing AI-generated articles last week, despite strong objections from many of the members of its staff, according to The Washington Post. The articles are all credited to various bots - Gizmodo Bot, for example - with no other indication that the article was created using an AI chatbot. Unsurprisingly, the stories needed a lot of work.The internal reaction to Gizmodo's first chatbot-created story - a chronological list of Star Wars movies that wasn't chronological - wasn't exactly enthusiastic, with journalists reportedly writing in Slack that it was actively hurting our reputations and credibility."Brown told staff in an email in late June... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6CT7V)
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Overnight, users across Twitter began reporting that the older, and much better, version of TweetDeck has returned along with the free API access that made third party Twitter clients possible. TweetDeck was disabled last week when Twitter abruptly threw up a rate-limiting paywall and killed the legacy APIs that allowed the old version of the feature to function, while third-party apps were banned in January.An update this morning from Harpy developer Roberto Doering says they switched to the old v1 API" to get it working again, but they also noted this doesn't mean that harpy will be maintained again, seeing as Twitter will most likely shut down access to their legacy api (again) soon and third party apps are still against their... Continue reading...
by Sheena Vasani on (#6CT7W)
Both the M2 Max and M2 Ultra-powered versions of the Mac Studio are discounted this weekend. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge It's a good week for Apple aficionados looking to score some good deals on Apple's newest computers. Not only is the 15-inch MacBook Air on sale for $100 off at Amazon and B&H Photo, but we're also seeing the first notable discount on Apple's latest Mac Studio. Right now, Expercom - an Apple-authorized retailer - is selling the new M2 Max-powered desktop machine starting at $1,899.05 ($100 off) with 32GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, a 12-core CPU, and a 30-core GPU. If you're looking for even more power, you can buy the M2 Ultra version starting at $3,799.05 ($200 off) with 64GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, a 24-core CPU, and a 60-core GPU.The new Mac Studio is a powerhouse of a desktop, one that's ideal for professionals who need a blazingly... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6CT7X)
Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. | Image: Paramount Pictures and Skydance Paramount's seventh Mission: Impossible is the franchise's biggest, silliest, and most stunt-filled Tom Cruise delivery system yet. But its self-awareness is more of a bug than a welcome feature. Continue reading...
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by David Nield on (#6CT63)
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Chromebooks were originally synonymous with lightweight, online-only, relatively inexpensive computing. Over time, however, they've become more and more capable, not only as useful day-to-day systems but as gaming machines, too.In fact, there are actually more gaming options on ChromeOS than many people may realize. So we're going to take you through the options.To begin with, as well as giving you access to web games that run in a browser, ChromeOS supports Android games as well. Add in the Steam client for Chromebooks, plus the possibilities offered by cloud gaming services, and you're really spoilt for choice.You can pick some or all of these options, depending on your gaming needs and your budget.Android and web gamesChromeOS... Continue reading...
by Jay Peters on (#6CT0S)
James Bareham / The Verge A former Niantic employee filed a lawsuit against the AR gaming company on Friday, alleging that it devalued the work of female employees and women of color, denied equal pay to women employees and women of color. The lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status, accuses Niantic of creating a boys club." The employee was laid off as part of last week's job cuts at the company, which affected about 230 staffers.The employee, who is an anonymous Jane Doe but is described in the complaint as an Asian female, started work at Niantic in February 2020 with a salary of $70,000, the complaint says. Later that year, she was promoted and received a raise to about $84,000, but in approximately" 2021, she learned that Niantic was paying a male... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CSSX)
Image: Square Enix via YouTube Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka has been given a suspended prison sentence and fines of around $1.2 million (or 173 million yen) after he was found guilty of insider trading, according to a report from Japanese news outlet Jiji (via Polygon). While the court handed out a 2.5-year prison sentence, Jiji reports that it was suspended by four years.That means Naka shouldn't wind up behind bars anytime soon, as judges typically waive the prison sentence if the defendant doesn't commit any additional crimes during that period of time. Naka was arrested twice last year for his involvement in two separate insider trading incidents, both of which took place in 2020 when Naka was working at Square Enix.Naka joined Square Enix to work on... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6CSSY)
Pass issuers will need to enable the feature, though, so not every pass will be supported. | Illustration: The Verge Google Wallet is set to get a new pass sharing feature that some users have been asking for since the days of its predecessor, Google Pay.9to5Google spotted that the search giant mentioned adding a way to share your valuables in Google Wallet" in the Google Play system update list of features for Android devices for July. That rather vague entry has since vanished from the update list, but the Google Wallet support page can provide some additional information.A new entry at the bottom of the support page now says that users can share some passes" from their own Wallet with other Google Wallet users. We are working on a feature that will allow Wallet users to share select passes," Google spokesperson Leismer Schulten also confirmed... Continue reading...
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by Jay Peters on (#6CSSZ)
Illustration: The Verge Instagram's new Threads app is not going to do anything to encourage" politics and hard news," Instagram boss Adam Mosseri said in a Threads conversation with The Verge's Alex Heath.The additional scrutiny, negativity, and integrity risks that come with politics and hard news aren't worth the incremental engagement or revenue," Mosseri wrote. There are more than enough amazing communities - sports, music, fashion, beauty, entertainment, etc. - to make a vibrant platform without needing to get into politics or hard news." (Mosseri's strong point of view here is likely informed by his time running Facebook's News Feed.)In recent years, Meta has distanced itself from news and politics, including reducing the amount of political... Continue reading...
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6CSQ0)
Image: Mercedes-Benz AG Mercedes-Benz is the latest automaker to commit to adopting Tesla's electric vehicle charging connectors for its vehicles, bringing Elon Musk's company one step closer to total EV charging dominance.Starting in 2024, the German automaker will offer adapters to its customers so they can access Tesla Supercharger stations, which use the company's North American Charging Standard (NACS) plug and outlet. And in 2025, Mercedes will begin to manufacture EVs with Tesla's charging port, obviating the need for an adapter.The company joins Ford, GM, Volvo, Polestar, and Rivian in adopting Tesla's connector, which is rapidly becoming the de facto charging standard in North America and Europe. Mercedes is also the first German automaker to jump... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6CSQ1)
Jimmy Olsen, Superman, and Lois Lane. | Image: Adult Swim Adult Swim's My Adventures with Superman reimagines the Man of Steel as the charming, bumbling heart of a classic but modern shonen trio. Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CQWE)
Image: Meta The latest app taking on Twitter is getting a boost from Instagram's billions of users. Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CSKQ)
Illustration: The Verge While Google Calendar already lets you set your working location for certain days of the week, you can now specify which times you'll be working from home or in the office. The new update should make it easier for your colleagues to figure out where you'll be if you swap between locations during the day.Once you have access to the feature, you can set your working location by selecting Create from the main Calendar page and clicking Working Locations. From there, you can select a date and specify your whereabouts during different timeframes. Image: Google As an example, you could set your working location to Home" from 9AM to 12PM and to Office" from 1PM to 5PM. That way, your colleagues can work around your... Continue reading...
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by Jay Peters on (#6CS42)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Many communities on Reddit have used the NSFW (Not Safe For Work) designation in some form to protest Reddit's new API pricing, which forced apps like Apollo and rif is fun for Reddit to shut down, as well as a recent pattern of behavior toward its unpaid volunteer moderators that they find threatening." Subreddits, including r/PICS and r/military, had made the NSFW switch, pointing to language from Reddit websites to justify the change.The moderators of the r/military community said they switched their label to NSFW because military content has a chance to be violent content" and argued that this subreddit should have been NSFW already, but we'd never thought to change it until recently," according to a public post on Thursday.M... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CSKR)
Screenshot by Emma Roth / The Verge Some of the ads on Twitter aren't looking quite right. Several users on the platform's mobile app say they're seeing an image of Twitter's logo in place of the advertisement paid for by Amazon, Sky, and the sportswear company On Running.The ads affected by this issue show the advertiser's name, along with what looks like the intended caption. However, instead of linking to the advertiser's website, the busted ads link to Twitter.com and have DPA_Placeholder" as the heading for the link. In advertising, DPA stands for dynamic product ads," which suggests there might be an issue affecting Twitter's ability to display the right ads.
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by Masha Borak on (#6CSGS)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The messaging app has become a key channel for news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But the government's relationship with it is complicated. Continue reading...
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by Elizabeth Lopatto on (#6CSGT)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge I've read a lot of recommendations over the years from so-called travel pros who tell you to take a carry-on. There are reasons to recommend carry-ons! For instance, most airlines don't charge for them. But also, a carry-on bag is for the poor shlubs who are coming up with a packing plan" and using packing cubes." The people who suggest you get an Airbnb so you can do laundry. They're repackaging their shampoo and conditioner and lecturing you about editing" your wardrobe. They're explaining that you should roll your clothes, not fold them, to save space. How virtuous! How boring.Check a bag, you glamorous beast.Ideologically, I am strongly against doing laundry in my hotel sinkOn my last trip, which was a two-week jaunt to five... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CSGV)
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is planning to sell its $3,499 Vision Pro headset on an appointment-only basis at launch, according to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. According to Gurman, Apple will create designated sections where customers can try on the headset in its stores, with the first ones appearing at stores in major areas like New York and Los Angeles.Apple will reportedly ask in-store buyers to schedule an appointment to purchase the Vision Pro, similar to the rollout of the first Apple Watch in 2015. During the appointment, Gurman says Apple will ensure that the Vision Pro fits the wearer and also outfit the device with prescription lens inserts if needed. Gurman says Apple Stores will need to keep hundreds or thousands of lenses" in stock... Continue reading...
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by Brandon Widder on (#6CSGW)
Amazon's Echo Pop speaker comes in a host of fun colors, including an attractive teal option. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Amazon Prime Day inches ever closer, with deals having already kicked off on Amazon devices and a host of other items courtesy of Amazon's Buy with Prime" program. Overall, there are a number of solid deals to find - from Hisense TVs to Anker chargers - but one of the most notable applies to Amazon's newest smart speaker: the Echo Pop. Right now, Prime subscribers can pick up the smart speaker at Amazon for just $17.99 ($22 off) or with a Sengled smart bulb for just $1 more.Unsurprisingly, the Pop sheds a few features found on pricier smart speakers to hit its bargain-level price point. It offers fewer sensors than the fifth-gen Echo Dot, for instance, and skips the physical Action button found on most other Echo models, which lets... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6CSDY)
Products from the Project-CSTF: Protection from Impact line. | Image: Khara / Casetify The Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise has given rise to quite a few interesting real-world smartphones and even more mech-themed accessories over the years. But rather than simply trying to replicate pieces of tech from the classic anime, the new line of Evangelion-inspired cases and chargers from Casetify aims to transform your ordinary iPhone into a device capable of surviving an Impact event.Casetify, the company behind those phone case ads you've undoubtedly seen on Instagram, is collaborating with Studio Khara for a new line of Evangelion-inspired iPhone and AirPods accessories that are all designed to help protect your devices from falls. Like Casetify's classic Impact line, each of the new cases featured in the Project-CSTF:... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6CSDZ)
Even without Wi-Fi 6E, you're still getting your money's worth. | Image: TP-Link TP-Link has launched a new competitively priced Wi-Fi 6 router that might make you think twice before upgrading to Wi-Fi 6E or even Wi-Fi 7. The Deco X55 Pro is a whole-home Wi-Fi 6 mesh router system that's available in a three-pack now on Amazon and the TP-Link webstore at an initial discounted launch price of $239.99 (if you use the 20DECOX55PRO promo code). Once this promotional offer ends on July 31st, the Deco X55 Pro will switch to its standard $299.99 price.Each node of the three-pack mesh router comes with two 2.5 gigabit ethernet ports, and TP-Link advertises the Deco X55 Pro's Wi-Fi 6 capabilities can deliver up to 3Gbps of wireless speed and that it features an AI-driven" mesh system that's designed to automatically switch... Continue reading...
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by Jon Porter on (#6CSBM)
The Linn Sondek LP12-50 turtable. | Image: Linn LoveFrom, the design firm formed by Apple's former design head Jony Ive, has collaborated with British audio brand Linn on a 50th anniversary edition of its Sondek LP12 turntable. Just 250 models of the Linn Sondek LP12-50 will be produced and delivered between August 2023 and March 2024, with the limited edition turntable available to reserve now for an eye-watering $60,000 (50,000).According to a blog post from Linn CEO Gilad Tiefenbrun, the collaboration dates back to early 2022 when Tiefenbrun was offered a meeting with Ive out of the blue over LinkedIn. Eventually, the two companies decided to collaborate on the upcoming turntable, which Fast Company calls Ive's first hardware project post-Apple." Image: Linn... Continue reading...
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by Sean Hollister on (#6CS12)
Reddit has crushed the biggest protest in its history. What's next? Make AI-generated porn legal again, apparently - as long as it's not deepfaked. Today, Reddit has added an explicit carveout to its Content Policy that allows AI-generated sexual media that depicts fictional people or characters."Some backstory: In 2018, Reddit was among the many platforms that banned deepfake AI porn communities, declaring that involuntary pornography" was not okay. Specifically, Reddit modified its Rule 3 to ban depictions of nudity or sexual contact that may have been faked."But as of 2018, Reddit left an explicit carveout for porn distributed with a sexual worker's consent - and today, Reddit has added another carveout for AI-generated sexual... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6CRZ2)
Google's plan to move Pixel phones away from Samsung's modified chips has been delayed. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge According to a report by The Information, Google originally planned to replace the modified Samsung Exynos chipsets it uses in Pixel phones with a Redondo" chip designed in-house sometime in 2024. However, the report claims that Google has now pushed that planned release window back to 2025 and will instead introduce a new custom processor codenamed Laguna."A former Google chip executive told The Information that challenges with retaining employees and coordinating development between US and Indian teams are at least partly to blame for the delay. The team behind the project was frustrated by Google's decision to cancel the development of several Tensor chips over the last two years, according to the outlet's source. We have contacted... Continue reading...
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by Jon Porter on (#6CRZ3)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge European Union regulators have opened an official investigation into Amazon's proposed $1.7 billion acquisition of iRobot, the company behind the popular Roomba lineup of robot vacuum cleaners.In a press release, the European Commission said it's concerned that the transaction would allow Amazon to restrict competition in the market for robot vacuum cleaners (RVCs') and to strengthen its position as online marketplace provider." The European Commission is also looking at how getting access to iRobot users' data may give Amazon an advantage in the market for online marketplace services to third-party sellers (and related advertising services) and / or other data-related markets."We continue to work through the process with the... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CRZ4)
Image: Laura Normand / The Verge Twitter is threatening to sue Meta over concerns about its new Threads app, according to a letter obtained by Semafor. In the letter, which is addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro argues that Meta used Twitter's trade secrets and intellectual property to build Threads.Spiro, who is also Elon Musk's personal lawyer and a partner at the Quinn Emanuel law firm, claims that Meta hired dozens" of ex-Twitter employees to develop Threads, which wouldn't be all that surprising given just how many people were fired following Musk's takeover.But according to Twitter, many of these former workers still have access to Twitter's trade secrets and other confidential information. Twitter alleges that Meta took advantage... Continue reading...
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by Alex Heath on (#6CRWB)
Threads compose window and photo picker on iOS. | Image: Meta Instagram's new Threads app seems like it could be a hit. Mark Zuckerberg said that the app has more than 30 million sign-ups as of Thursday morning, and people who are checking it out are posting... er, threading... a lot, too. According to internal data I've seen, there have already been more than 95 million posts and 190 million likes shared.All that has happened in less than 24 hours. The app launched Wednesday evening on iOS and Android (significantly earlier than the original Thursday launch time), and a lot of people are checking it out; it's currently the top free app on the App Store.There's still a lot missing from Threads. You can't delete your Threads account without deleting your Instagram account, for example, and the... Continue reading...
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by Jay Peters on (#6CRWC)
Image: Meta If you're already tired of Threads and want to delete your account, you can't do that right now unless you delete your entire Instagram account. However, Meta is looking into" a way for that not to be the case, according to a post from Instagram chief Adam Mosseri on Thursday.Threads, Meta's just-launched Twitter competitor, uses Instagram's account system. That has the benefit of letting you bring over your Instagram username when you join the app. But it also ties the apps together in such a way that means you can't delete your Threads account without deleting your Instagram one, which people may not want to do if they've been posting on Instagram proper for years. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Here's M... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CRS2)
Image: Nothing The launch of the Nothing Phone 2 on July 11th is less than a week away, but a new leak spoils some of the device's potential specs. In a thread on Twitter spotted by 9to5Google, leaker Kamila Wojciechowska shares that the Nothing Phone 2 could feature some improvements to its camera system.According to Wojciechowska, the upcoming device could feature a 50MP Sony IMX890 main camera sensor with optical image stabilization (OIS) and in-sensor zoom. That's the same primary sensor used by the OnePlus 11, which my colleague Allison Johnson listed as one of the positive aspects of the device in her review. It's not clear how much this will actually affect the camera quality, though, as the Phone 1 already comes with a 50MP main sensor.
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6CRS3)
After months of leaving us in suspense with little idea about how Pokemon Sleep would work, exactly, The Pokemon Company's released a charming introduction video explaining more about the game and its creative, rest-focused take on filling out the pokedex.Rather than sending you out into the world to search for monsters for your personal collection, Pokemon Sleep switches up the formula of the classic games by pairing players with a different Snorlax every week in order to conduct research with Professor Neroli, a new character who specializes in pokemon sleep research.The new video explains how, after raising their Snorlaxes throughout the day by feeding them various kinds of berries, Pokemon Sleep players can then help their... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Webster on (#6CRP1)
The Witcher season 3. | Photo by Susie Allnutt / Netflix As The Witcher has grown beyond its first season and expanded with not only multiple seasons but prequels, too, the team behind its visual design has had to expand its ambitions as well. In particular, it's had to think a lot about the history of the world and how it influenced the way things like fashion and architecture evolved on the Continent. That could be as simple as the material utilized to make swords in one time period or as large as a ruin in the main timeline that was once a beautiful structure in the past.For Andrew Laws, a production and concept designer on the series, all of those details are vital for making The Witcher universe feel like a real, lived-in place. A lot of the time, you don't get to see all of [the... Continue reading...
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by Jon Porter on (#6CRP2)
Image: Honor A little over a month after its debut in China, former Huawei subbrand Honor is launching its Honor 90 internationally. Although this is a midrange smartphone at its core, powered by a Snapdragon 7 Gen 1-based processor and priced starting from 549 (449.99, around $573), it's notable for having a 200-megapixel main camera, the same resolution as what you'll find in the flagship Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.Of course, more megapixels don't necessarily mean better camera performance. But in the right scenarios, it offers the possibility of more detailed photographs. The Honor 90's camera software can also bin as many as 16 pixels together to create pixels that are effectively 2.24m in size in order to collect more light and produce... Continue reading...
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by Monica Chin on (#5CV78)
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Twitter was once a convenient way to get your memes, world news, and pop culture hot takes all in one place. However, being an active Twitter user also required sifting through a daily deluge of toxic characters, including QAnon, white supremacists, bots, and deepfakes. The Elon Musk circus that has been steadily crushing the formerly popular social network may have you strongly considering the advantages of bailing. And there are a bunch of new social networks vying for the role of Twitter substitute, such as Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon. (More on that later.)Hear me out on this: you don't actually have to use Twitter. You can just delete your account.Don't worry: it doesn't have to be permanent. If you find yourself feeling empty... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CRP3)
Screenshot by Emma Roth / The Verge If you created an account when Instagram's Threads app launched last night, one of the first things you might've noticed was the sheer number of celebrities, brands, and influencers populating your feed. From Gordon Ramsay to Michael Strahan and Jennifer Lopez, Meta pre-filled its new Twitter competitor with a boatload of well-known users to make the app feel less empty at launch.While Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram head Adam Mosseri got spots on the app ahead of time, so did big names such as Mark Cuban, Shakira, and Seth Curry. Meta also got influencers like MKBHD, Lauren Godwin, Alan Chikin Chow, and Michael Le on board early, along with brands like Netflix, as well as Warner Bros. Discovery's Shark Week, Animal Planet, and... Continue reading...
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by Mia Sato on (#6CRP4)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Last week, G/O Media leadership had news for staffers at the many publications the company owns: AI-generated articles were just around the corner.We are both a leading technology company and an editorial organization that covers technology in world class fashion across multiple sites," editorial director Merrill Brown wrote in an email. So it is utterly appropriate - and in fact our responsibility - to do all we can to develop AI initiatives relatively early in the evolution of the technology."G/O's early experiments with AI tools began on Wednesday through a couple of articles appearing on Gizmodo and The A.V. Club credited to the publications' respective bots. And almost immediately, there were embarrassing mistakes.The Gizmodo... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Webster on (#6CRJS)
Image: Apple Humans: a popular online comic strip is being adapted into a new format for your amusement.And by that I mean that Apple TV Plus is turning Nathan W. Pyle's Strange Planet comic into an animated series, with Dan Harmon on board as co-creator and executive producer. It's described as an adult" animated series, and the first episode will premiere on August 9th.The comics follow a pair of aliens struggling to understand human life and customs and describing things in, well, alien ways. It rose to popularity through social media before becoming a hit graphic novel. Here's an example:
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by Alex Cranz on (#6CRJT)
This is basically an admission, right? | Screenshot:AlexCranz/ The Verge Instagram Threads launched last night, and it's the most commercial competitor to Twitter we've seen yet. While it will eventually tie into ActivityPub, the powerful decentralized network that Mastodon operates on, it's just its own thing for now. And as with every microblogging platform that has popped up since Twitter began to shit the bed last year, one outstanding question has immediately presented itself:What do we call these things?No one seems to know! A number of people have been drawn to the word post," and post is a very accurate term. Your parents have heard of this word, and you can say it in polite company without having to explain yourself. But it's also the name of one of these services, and frankly, it's boring. It's... Continue reading...
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6CRJV)
Image: VW Volkswagen announced it will test autonomous vehicles in the US starting with driverless versions of its ID Buzz electric microbus. The new fleet will be tested on public roads in Austin, Texas, starting later this month.The announcement comes months after VW, along with Ford, pulled funding for Argo AI, the self-driving startup that had planned on launching robotaxi services in the US and Europe. The loss of funding caused Argo to shut down and cast a pall over the AV industry, which had been struggling to build a business model around driverless cars for more than a decade.VW had originally planned on using Argo's tech to power a fleet of self-driving ID Buzz microbuses. But now, it's developing the hardware and software in-house,... Continue reading...
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by Sheena Vasani on (#6CRJW)
Both the 40mm and 44mm versions of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 are discounted. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge With Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event just around the corner, the chances we'll see a new Samsung smartwatch very soon are high. If you can't wait until then, though, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 has hit a new all-time low at multiple retailers. Right now, you can buy the Bluetooth-enabled 40mm wearable at Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from Samsung in select configurations starting at $199 ($80 off). You can also buy its 44mm variant, which offers a larger screen and battery, starting at around $229 ($81 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart.The lightweight Android watch offers all the standard health, fitness, and sleep tracking features you'd expect, along with some unique extras, including body composition analysis. It can also measure... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6CRFV)
Affected Spotify Premium subscribers can re-subscribe after their account has been moved to the free membership tier. | Nick Barclay / The Verge It's been over seven years since Spotify stopped allowing new customers to subscribe to its Premium tier membership through Apple's in-app purchase system, and now the streaming giant is dropping support for the payment method entirely. As reported by Variety, Spotify has recently emailed legacy Premium subscribers who are still paying through the Apple App Store to notify them that they will need to resubscribe to the service using an alternative payment system, like PayPal or a credit card, at the end of their final billing period.We're contacting you because when you joined Spotify Premium you used Apple's billing service to subscribe. Unfortunately, we no longer accept that billing method as a form of payment," Spotify said in the... Continue reading...
by Jon Porter on (#6CRDA)
The Instagram head's response to the feature request. | Screenshot: Threads.net Instagram head Adam Mosseri has responded to calls for a Threads home feed that only contains posts from accounts you follow, saying it's on the list" of features the platform would like to add. Mosseri sent the message in response to a post from YouTuber Marques Brownlee requesting the feature, as well as to photographer Noah Kalina. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also chimed in, posting a thumbs up emoji in response to Brownlee's request.Other features that Mosseri has said are on the list" include support for editing posts, a translation option for different languages, and options to switch between different Threads accounts.If your early experience with Meta's Twitter competitor is anything like mine, your home feed is likely filled... Continue reading...
by Thomas Ricker on (#6CR9R)
These types of sensors will alert you when the refrigerator door is left open. | Image: Aqara Aqara's first Matter-over-Thread sensor is now available to buy. The Door and Window Sensor P2 is priced at $29.99 / 29.99 / 32.99 and slots right into existing Matter-enabled smart homes since it doesn't require an Aqara hub to operate. But those who choose to use the sensor with Aqara's upcoming Hub M3 will enable extra features like a built-in programmable button.The Door and Window Sensor P2 uses a magnet to identify if a window or door is opened or closed, a feature that can be useful in any number of smart home automations. For example, they can be used to enhance security, remind you to close a window when it starts to rain, or alert you that a freezer door has been left open too long. The Door and Window Sensor P2 comes with... Continue reading...
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by Casey Newton on (#6CR56)
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge This is Platformer, a newsletter on the intersection of Silicon Valley and democracy from Casey Newton and Zoe Schiffer. Sign up here.In early December, when word first leaked out that Meta was considering new ways to challenge Twitter, I messaged Adam Mosseri.We were then two months into Elon Musk's ownership of Twitter, and it was clear that the social network I depended on the most was beginning to break. For my own sake, it felt important that something like Twitter continue to exist - a place to share news, jokes, and other short snippets of writing, in a chatty public place that gave me a sense of the daily conversation.And so I told Mosseri that I hoped Meta would go through with it.On one hand, the history of Facebook and... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CR3F)
No, that is not the Moon. That is the Sphere. | Image: Sphere Entertainment The Sphere, aka the 366-foot-tall orb situated in the heart of Las Vegas, demonstrated what 1.2 million lit-up LEDs look like. During its first display on Tuesday night, animations showing fireworks, the American flag, the Moon, and even a giant blinking eyeball emanated from the 580,000-square-foot panel.Las Vegas is known for some pretty wild landmarks, but this one is more than just a humongous display-on-a-ball. On the inside, it's a spherical theater that houses 18,000 seats, along with a 16K wraparound LED screen. The whole thing cost Sphere Entertainment over $2 billion to build.According to the company, the LED pucks on this massive screen are spaced eight inches apart and contain 48 individual LED diodes, each of which can... Continue reading...
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by Sheena Vasani on (#6CR3G)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Samsung only just announced that its next Unpacked event will take place on July 26th at 7AM ET, but the deals are already trickling in on the company's next slate of Galaxy devices (including the heavily rumored Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 5). Starting today, you can place a preorder reservation one of two ways, each of which entitles you to $50 in Samsung credit when you preorder one of Samsung's forthcoming, yet-to-be-announced devices at a future date.Like Samsung's previous reservation promos, you won't have to hand over your credit card details, either. All you need to do is fill out your name and email address on Samsung's website or the Shop Samsung app before July 26th. You'll then be eligible to redeem the Samsung... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6CR3H)
Image: Meta Threads, the Twitter competitor created by Meta, has finally arrived after months of rumors, leaks, and a billionaire cage fight challenge between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Now you can access the new platform from its desktop site at Threads.net or by downloading the app for iOS and Android. (If you're not seeing it on iOS or get an error, try force quitting the App Store and going back in.)In an interview about the Threads launch with The Verge's Alex Heath, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said, Obviously, Twitter pioneered the space... but just given everything that was going on, we thought there was an opportunity to build something that was open and something that was good for the community that was already using Instagram.On... Continue reading...
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by Alex Heath on (#6CR3J)
Image: Meta The volatility' of Twitter under Elon Musk has opened a window to compete. It's a risky' bet worth trying, says Instagram boss Adam Mosseri. Continue reading...
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by Allison Johnson on (#6CR3K)
If you're planning on tuning in live from North America, you'll want to brew a pot of coffee first. | Image: Samsung We have a confirmed date for Hot Foldable Summer's biggest party. Samsung has announced it's hosting its next Unpacked on July 26th at 7AM ET - bright and early for the east coast, but it'll be an evening affair in Seoul, where Samsung previously announced that it's hosting the event. The image and text released with the announcement make it quite obvious that we'll see a flip-style foldable at the event, which would naturally be the Galaxy Z Flip 5, and the Z Fold 5 is anticipated as well. We will likely see the Galaxy Watch 6, too, as well as some Galaxy Tablets. That's quite a packed Unpacked.The flip-style foldable in Samsung's promotional image looks right in line with the rumors and leaks we've seen thus far with a lower-profile... Continue reading...
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