The Verge

Google's new Pixel 8 certainly looks a whole lot like last year's Pixel 7, which looked a lot like the Pixel 6. | Image: Google Last year's Pixel 7 phones were an iterative spec bump and nice refinement in the design department (as polarizing as their looks remained), but part of what made those phones special was how much they offered for fairly competitive prices.Now, Google has announced the $699 Pixel 8 and $999 Pixel 8 Pro (which are $100 price increases over last year's phones), each due to arrive on October 12th, and once again, they look a lot like a slow burn of subtle hardware improvements - albeit in a slick new light-blue color option on the Pro. But the showstopper feature of the new Pixels may be Google's software support, as it's claiming the new phones will see seven whole years of OS and security updates - rivaling Apple's reign as the... Continue reading...

An example of the emergency alert message going out today. | Image: FEMA As a reminder, at about 2:20PM ET on Wednesday, October 4th, your phone will probably make a loud noise and show a message that reads, THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed." A similar message will be broadcast over the air to TVs and radios that are turned on during the test. That's because the government is testing its nationwide alert systems, which it's required to do at least every three years.The test is a big lift, requiring the coordinated effort of the government, wireless carriers, cable and satellite providers, and local broadcasters. All of the major wireless carriers in the country will, during a 30-minute window, transmit the test to all of their subscribers' phones that are... Continue reading...

Image: Lucasfilm Over the course of eight episodes... not a lot really happens in the first season of the Star Wars spinoff Ahsoka. There's plenty of searching for a map and then getting to the destination on that map, but in a lot of ways, the show felt like moving pieces around on a board, setting them up for future adventures. And yet, I found myself really enjoying it - less for narrative reasons and more because the show leans into the mysticism and mythology of Star Wars in a way that's often ignored by the plentiful shows and movies. This is a Star Wars story full of witchcraft and folklore - and nowhere is that more apparent than in its finale.First, a little setup. The first season of Ahsoka has been almost entirely about one thing: a race to... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge French newspaper Liberation has reported that five ex-Ubisoft employees have been arrested in connection with a sexual harassment investigation by French police.According to the paper, in 2021, French police received complaints from the Solidaires Informatique union - a French union that serves digital, consulting, and video game workers - and two individuals. After more than a year of investigation involving extensive interviews with around 50 current and former Ubisoft employees, the arrests were carried out over October 3rd and 4th.Of the five individuals arrested, only two are named - former chief creative officer Serge Hacoset and editorial vice president Tommy Francois, both of whom left the company in 2020.Francois and... Continue reading...

An exasperated-looking Pikachu wearing a detective's hat and standing with his paws on his hips. The pikachu is standing in a park, and behind him you can see overturned apple crates and a number of loose apples rolling on the ground. | Nintendo Though Detective Pikachu Returns has an abundance of personality, its lackluster visuals keep it from feeling like a solid sequel to the original 3DS game. Continue reading...

Image: Google During the Made by Google event, where it debuted new Pixel 8 and Pixel Watch 2 hardware, Google also announced it's launching Assistant with Bard, which leverages generative AI to provide personalized assistance to users. The company says the new AI-enhanced assistant can do things like help plan your next trip, find details in your email inbox, and even create a grocery list.Just like Bard on the web, Assistant with Bard will integrate with some of the company's existing apps, such as Gmail and Docs, to help you find and summarize information. Additionally, you can interact with the tool through text, voice, or images, and it will still retain some of Assistant's key features that allow you to do things like send a text message. ... Continue reading...

Image by Apple TV Plus Bridgerton is big business for Netflix. It's one of the most watched dramas in the service's history (according to Netflix). It launched a boom in Regency romance novels, a spinoff prequel, and there's even a Bridgerton experience. Naturally other streamers are out to replicate the show's success, and Apple TV Plus has entered the fray with one of the most visually similar shows, The Buccaneers.The bright pops of color Bridgerton has made its hallmark are on display in the first trailer for The Buccaneers. But this show isn't based on a steamy series of romance novels, it's based on the unfinished final novel of Edith Wharton, one of the giants of American literature. And where the books Bridgerton is based on were very clearly romance... Continue reading...

An iPhone with The Verge's Blocks skin and a dbrand Grip case. | Image: dbrand Blocks and Monogram are new custom designs from The Verge and are available in either skin or case form from dbrand for all of your favorite devices. Continue reading...

You can get a free Pixel Watch 2 if you preorder the Pixel 8 Pro. | Image: Google Google announced the new Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro on Wednesday during its Made by Google Event, introducing it alongside the new Pixel Watch 2. Both phones will be available on October 12th starting at $699 and $999, respectively, with preorders beginning today, October 4th.Powered by the new Google Tensor G3, both phones should offer improved performance, audio, and voice quality. The chip also allows for new AI capabilities, like Audio Magic Eraser, which removes distracting sounds from videos. In addition, both phones now feature a max refresh rate of 120Hz and the promise of seven years of software support and Android updates. The Pro model, meanwhile, offers improved cameras and additional bells and whistles, like the ability to... Continue reading...

Image: Patreon A decade since launching with the mission of helping creatives make money directly through fan support, Patreon is undergoing a major rebrand - and reimagining what the next decade might look like for the so-called creator economy.Beginning this week, a slew of new features and products that have been in the works will roll out widely to creators and fans. Taken one by one, the features are incremental additions to the company's suite of creator and fan tools. But in the biggest picture, it's clear Patreon has been going beyond the membership-based model it launched with. Patreon is no longer just a paywall for creatives - it's also increasingly a social outlet for fans and a wide-ranging content creation tool.At the same time, the... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber is expanding its package delivery service, Uber Connect, to include returns. Starting today, customers can use Uber to summon a courier, who will return up to five packages to the post office or FedEx or UPS stores.The packages need to be resealed and include all the necessary prepaid postage to be returned by Uber. Customers can track a package's return in real time and will receive a photo confirmation of the receipt once the return has been completed. Uber charges a flat fee of $5 or $3 for Uber One subscribers. Online shopping has grown into a juggernaut, and with it, package returns have become their own booming business. People will often buy several different versions of the same item and then return the... Continue reading...

Image: Roku Today, Roku outlined a slew of new software features that owners of its streaming devices (or Roku TVs) can expect over the coming weeks and months. The company has over 73 million active accounts globally, and as always, it's trying to increase the amount of time each of those users spends on the platform. This time, it's doing so with a wide range of features, with some targeted at sports fans and others at casual viewers who want yet more help finding something to watch.Roku's sports hub will soon let you favorite" your chosen teams, which will make it easier to track when games are happening and faster to hop into the relevant streaming app and start watching. Highlights are also coming to the sports section, and Roku says users... Continue reading...

Magic Studio is a one-stop shop for AI-powered content creation tools. | Image: Canva As part of its 10th birthday celebrations, web-based design platform Canva is releasing Magic Studio - a new suite of AI-powered design tools that aim to make content creation more accessible to everyone, regardless of previous design experience. Canva describes Magic Studio as the world's most comprehensive AI-design platform" for organizations and individual users, providing a host of new tools for automating labor-intensive tasks like converting designs into other media formats or instantly editing images through generative AI.The suite introduces features like Magic Switch, which allows users to instantly transform an existing design into another format, such as converting a blog into an email or social media post, without needing... Continue reading...

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge Next spring, Nintendo will shut down the online services behind nearly all of its 3DS and Wii U software, affecting multiplayer and other connected features. According to Nintendo, This also includes online co-operative play, internet rankings, and data distribution."News of this early April 2024 shutdown follows the return of online features for the Wii U versions of Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon, which had disappeared between March and August while Nintendo dealt with a vulnerability related to online play."

Image: Samsung Samsung's FE series is back after a year off, this time with a pair of Galaxy Buds in the mix.The Galaxy S23 FE has the specs we'd expect of a value flagship" smartphone and a price that makes more sense: $599, rather than the $699 Samsung charged for the S21 FE. The Galaxy Tab S9 FE comes with robust water and dust resistance and a much friendlier $449 price tag than the pricey standard S9, which starts at $799 - but you'll have to settle for an LCD panel rather than OLED. And the Galaxy Buds FE offer active noise cancellation for $99.Samsung's Galaxy S21 FE was the most recent phone in the FE series, and it didn't make a lot of sense priced so closely to the standard S21. The company seems to have recognized the problem with this... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Verizon has announced an exclusive combo offering Netflix Premium and NFL Plus Premium for $25 per month. Netflix Premium costs $19.99 / month right now (though it could go up soon!), and NFL Plus Premium is $16.99 / month. That sounds like a pretty good deal for Verizon customers if they're ready for some football and they need their own Netflix account.NFL Plus Premium includes live access to regional and primetime NFL football games across devices and includes the NFL Network, plus NFL RedZone. It does not include NFL Sunday Ticket, which costs a cool $449 per year and gives you all the Sunday games regardless of region. Verizon's promo page states that existing Netflix customers can transfer their subscriptions over to Verizon and... Continue reading...

Image: Laura Normand / The Verge Forget Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company - Elon Musk is now the owner of Twitter. Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge A judge has ruled that X, the platform previously known as Twitter, must pay $1.1 million in legal fees associated with the investigations of the platform that unfolded during Elon Musk's buyout of the platform last year, according to a report from Bloomberg.As noted by Bloomberg, Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick ruled in favor of former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, former lead policy officer Vijaya Gadde, and other executives, as Twitter violated its duties to cover legal expenses generated by their work for the company."Elon Musk fired Agrawal and other high-level leaders once he took over the company and after Twitter sued Musk for attempting to back out of his agreement for the $44 billion acquisition.In... Continue reading...

A banana bed, as created by DALL-E 3. | Image: OpenAI The image generator inside the AI-powered Bing Chat is getting a big upgrade today: Microsoft announced that OpenAI's latest DALL-E 3 model is now available to all Bing Chat and Bing Image Creator users. It has been rolling out over the last week or so, first to Bing Enterprise users and then to Bing Image Creator, but now it's open to everyone.Bing is getting DALL-E 3 access even before OpenAI's own ChatGPT does - that's scheduled to happen this month, but only for paying users. Microsoft is likely to be the most popular image generating tool for a while.DALL-E 3 is, of course, the third version of OpenAI's image generating model. The company says it understands prompts far better than before and can create images that are both more... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge At Zoomtopia 2023 today, Zoom announced Zoom Docs, a collaboration-focused modular workspace" that integrates the company's Zoom AI Companion for generating new content or populating a doc from other sources - you know the drill by now.Along with the Mail and Calendar offerings launched during last year's event, Zoom Docs is another step toward a full office suite alternative to Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, which both have started to integrate AI-powered tools of their own, dubbed Duet AI and Copilot, respectively. The company says it will be widely available in 2024.Like other AI helper software, users can ask Zoom AI Companion to do things like summarize meetings, chats, and information from inside Zoom Docs or generate... Continue reading...

Emoji reactions are coming to a Gmail inbox near you. | Image: Gmail It's finally here - the tool that could turn your email inbox into a nightmare or a pure delight, depending on your POV. Google is adding the ability to react to an email with an emoji.First rumored last month, Google has now confirmed it is bringing emoji reactions to its Gmail service. The feature will roll out gradually, starting with Android users and coming to web and iOS users over the next few months. Image: Google An animation of how emoji reactions will work. Happily, you'll be able to unsend" just as you can with a regular email (for those times when you accidentally hit the thumbs-down emoji.) When you have access, you'll see a at the bottom of a message. Click on that to choose your emoji from... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge IssueAs Chrome continues to develop - or, rather, as Google continues to tweak it - it is more and more likely that you may find features that you weren't aware of or suddenly be confronted by an icon that means absolutely nothing to you. This happened to me recently when I noticed an icon that resembled a pair of twinned diamonds to the left of the bookmark star in my address bar. Your first question might be: what is that double diamond symbol? The second: what is a service handler? I hovered my cursor over the triangles to find out what they were and was greeted with the phrase page wants to install a service handler."Thanks. Clear as mud. What is a service handler, and should I let the page install it?Quick... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon deployed a secret algorithm to gauge how high it could raise prices before its competitors stopped increasing their prices as well, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal Tuesday.The existence of the algorithm, codenamed Project Nessie, was first revealed late last month in a complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission accusing the e-commerce giant of violating US antitrust law. The FTC's public complaint alluded to Project Nessie, but the section was heavily redacted. According to the Journal, Nessie would inflate prices and monitor whether other retailers, like Target, would follow suit. If the competing retailers maintained the lower price, the algorithm would automatically revert Amazon's to its normal... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is announcing the third generation of its OneDrive cloud storage today, complete with the company's AI-powered Copilot system, a Fluent design refresh, and big improvements to the way businesses share and use cloud documents.OneDrive hosts trillions of files for consumers and businesses, with 2 billion files added every single day. Microsoft is now overhauling a lot of the experience of working in OneDrive for businesses, with many quality-of-life improvements that will make managing and using files a lot better on the web, in Windows, and in Microsoft's various Office apps. Image: Microsoft The new OneDrive web view. Microsoft is overhauling the main OneDrive web app with a new Fluent design. It... Continue reading...

Image: Film at Lincoln Center Gary Johnson has a particular set of skills. He talks to strangers about offing loved ones: family members, business partners, or anybody close to them that they want dead. In imaginative detail, he tells them how he'll murder them. There's a contract, money is exchanged, an agreement is made. But the thing about Gary is that he isn't actually a killer; he's working with the cops.In director Richard Linklater's Hit Man, that's how the sting works. Someone admits they want a person killed and passes Gary the cash. That's enough evidence for the police to make an arrest. And Gary (Glen Powell), the guy posing as the hard-boiled killer who's going to fulfill those contracts? When he's not acting, he's as normcore as they come, a philosophy... Continue reading...

There's more good stuff to watch than ever - if you can afford it. | Image: Amazon Whether you subscribe to Netflix, Disney Plus, Peacock, Hulu, or just about anything else, the cost seems to always be going up. And it may not come down anytime soon. Continue reading...

Photo by Jeff Kravitz / FilmMagic Grimes is suing Elon Musk to establish a parental relationship" with one of their three children, according to the New York Post. Details of the lawsuit remain under seal, but TMZ speculates that it revolves around their youngest child, Tau, after Grimes said that Musk will not allow her to visit one of their children.Last month, Grimes posted on X - the site formerly known as Twitter - that she was pursuing some sort of legal action against Musk. Tell Elon to let me see my son or plz respond to my lawyer," she wrote in a response to Walter Isaacson, who was promoting his biography of the Tesla CEO.The lawsuit, filed September 29th in California, is meant to establish the child's legal parents when their parents are not married. A... Continue reading...

A satellite in space. Dish Network will pay the price for failing to move its EchoStar-7 satellite out of harm's way. | Shutterstock The FCC has issued its first fine for space junk to Dish Network for not properly deorbiting its satellite. The company admitted it was liable for not shifting its EchoStar-7 to a safer spot and will pay a penalty of $150,000 and implement a compliance plan.Space debris - non-functioning manmade materials floating around space - can pose a hazard to working infrastructure, including the ISS, which has had run-ins with debris in the past. According to the FCC, defunct satellites like Dish's can also interfere with the nation's terrestrial and space-based communication systems by increasing the risk of damage to satellite communications systems."This is a breakthrough settlement, making very clear the FCC has strong enforcement... Continue reading...

Photo: Blizzard The Florida Mayhem won what is likely the last Overwatch League Grand Finals in a 4-0 blowout over the Houston Outlaws. Continue reading...

The BlenderCap (right) attaches to a bottle (middle) to produce smoothies and other blended drinks (left). | Image: Cruz Jony Ive is leading an interesting life post-Apple. The latest news from the famed designer is that he's invested an undisclosed amount in Cruz, the company behind a USB-C-powered bottle cap with built-in blades that's designed to turn drink bottles into portable blenders. Cruz launched the $129 BlenderCap back at CES earlier this year. The device comes with a 32-ounce vacuum insulated bottle but is also designed to fit on other wide-mouth bottles from companies like HydroFlask.Although Cruz seems like a left-field investment for Ive, it makes more sense given the company was founded by former Apple engineers Matthew Moore and Dakota Adams, who were part of the team that built the original Apple Watch as well as some iPhone components.... Continue reading...

Stop trying to make segmented consumption of media happen (please). | Image: Paramount Pictures Today is Mean Girls Day, a date that fans of the 2004 teen comedy may recognize as the same day that heartthrob Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett) asked Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan) what day it is (It's October 3rd."), and Paramount Pictures has found an unusual way to celebrate the occasion. The studio has created an official TikTok account where you can watch the entire movie for free - provided you're happy to do so over multiple video snippets.The entire 107-minute long movie has been split into 23 clips, emulating a popular method of streaming piracy on platforms like TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube that's used to circumvent restrictions on the length of uploaded videos and avoid being flagged by copyright detection software. Rather than... Continue reading...

Only Murders in the Building. | Image: Hulu It all began with Natasha Lyonne calling bullshit. At the start of the year, Peacock premiered its first great original series with Poker Face, a Rian Johnson-helmed whodunit created in the mold of classic mystery-of-the-week shows. Since then, it's been a surprisingly fruitful period for mystery shows on streaming services, from the return of The Afterparty to the third season of Only Murders in the Building, which wraps up on Tuesday evening.At a time when streaming networks tend to default to either big-budget blockbusters or low-budget reality hits, the resurgence of the mystery genre has been very welcome. Each of these three shows helps to fill in a nice middle ground once occupied by the likes of Murder, She Wrote and Columbo.... Continue reading...

It'll soon be easier to stop receiving those annoying marketing emails you subscribed to. | Image: Google Google is preparing to enforce new Gmail requirements that aim to reduce spam, improve email security, and make it easier to unsubscribe from commercial email senders. The new requirements will be imposed on bulk senders - defined as those who send over 5,000 messages to Gmail accounts each day - by February 2024.As part of the requirements, Google will begin enforcing a clear spam rate threshold for bulk email senders to prevent them from bombarding Gmail users with unwanted messages. Gmail's existing bulk sender rules advise senders to keep their spam output below 0.3 percent, but this is currently worded as a recommendation. Google says the change should result in less spam clogging your inbox.The update will force bulk email... Continue reading...

Photo illustration by Alex Parkin / The Verge Microsoft's Kevin Scott sat down with us at Code to talk about Bing's competition with Google, the race to acquire and develop high-end GPUs, and how art can survive in the age of AI. Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix is planning to increase the cost of its streaming service yet again, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The streamer will reportedly issue the price hike a few months" after the Hollywood actors strike ends, which could happen in the coming weeks.As reported by the WSJ, Netflix will raise prices in several markets globally," starting with the US and Canada. It's still not clear how much Netflix will raise prices, and Netflix declined to comment. Netflix raised prices across all of its plans last year, bringing the ad-free Standard tier to $15.49 / month and the Premium plan to $19.99 / month. The company also rolled out a $6.99 / month ad-supported plan and later axed its mid-tier $9.99 / month basic ad-free... Continue reading...

An unofficial render of what the OnePlus foldable could look like. | Image: OnLeaks via SmartPrix As the Oppo sub-brand's foldable nears release, here's the story so far. Continue reading...

Image: Naughty Dog Naughty Dog is reportedly cutting some of its contracted staff. According to a Kotaku report, the Sony-owned studio is not renewing the contracts of around 25 temporary workers across numerous departments, with quality assurance staff primarily affected. Full-time staff were apparently not impacted.Naughty Dog is one of the jewels in Sony's first-party crown, developing platform-exclusive hits like The Last of Us and the Uncharted series. Back in January, a live-action interpretation of The Last of Us debuted on HBO to critical and social acclaim, but apparently, that popularity has not been enough to support continued development on its Last of Us multiplayer project.Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that development on the... Continue reading...

The new SteelSeries Alias Pro microphone. | Image: SteelSeries I've been a big fan of SteelSeries' gaming headsets over the years, but I've always paired them with a dedicated XLR microphone for improved quality when I game with friends on Discord, hop on Zoom calls for work, or occasionally stream on Twitch. Now, SteelSeries is filling the gap in its gaming lineup of accessories today with the new Alias and Alias Pro microphones, designed with gamers and streamers in mind.Both of SteelSeries' new microphones are a first for the company, with a pill-shaped design that nests into a sturdy stand or attaches to a boom arm. Both use a custom one-inch condenser capsule that's bigger than what we typically see on gamer-focused microphones, combined with a cardioid pattern. The new... Continue reading...