The Verge

Great news for Android users who are still mourning the loss of Google Inbox. | Image: Shortwave Shortwave - an email app for iOS and the web that serves as the spiritual successor to Google Inbox - has fully arrived on Android devices following 18 months of beta testing. Version 1.0 of Shortwave is available to download via Google Play. The basic version is free to use, though you'll need to pay a $9 monthly subscription to unlock premium features.Shortwave was specifically developed by a group of former Google employees to fill the gap left after Google shut down its innovative Gmail alternative in 2019. Inbox was fairly radical for its time compared to rival email clients, providing features like Bundles (which automatically organized your email by type) and Delivery Schedules to control when those Bundles would arrive in your... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Every single one" of Amazon's businesses has multiple generative AI initiatives going right now," Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on the company's Q2 2023 earnings call on Thursday. The company offers infrastructure and services via AWS that can help power many generative artificial intelligence applications, which Jassy did discuss on the call, but he also stressed just how important AI is across the company as a whole.Here's more from Jassy about those generative AI initiatives:

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft is facing mounting criticism in the wake of last month's attack on Azure. In a post on LinkedIn, Amit Yoran, the CEO of the cybersecurity company Tenable, says Microsoft's cybersecurity track record is even worse than you think" - and he has an example to back it up.On July 12th, Microsoft disclosed a major breach targeting its Azure platform, which it traced to a Chinese hacking group known as Storm-0558. The attack affected around 25 different organizations and resulted in the theft of sensitive emails from US government officials. Last week, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) sent a letter to the US Department of Justice, asking it hold Microsoft accountable for negligent cybersecurity practices."

Image: Larian Studios There's a lot of ground to cover for such an expansive game, but here are some tips to get you started in your adventure. Continue reading...

Wolfenstein: The New Order. | Image: Bethesda Bethesda's popular Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein games are making their way onto the GeForce Now cloud gaming service this month, Nvidia announced in a blog post. While Nvidia didn't reveal the specific titles in each franchise (although the post teases an image of Wolfenstein: The New Order), you must have the Ultimate or Priority membership to get access when they drop.The new additions are the first Bethesda titles available for streaming on GeForce Now and stem from a 10-year agreement between Nvidia and Microsoft, which owns Bethesda, that brings Xbox PC games onto the platform. Microsoft made the deal as part of its efforts to appease regulators as it moves closer to acquiring Activision Blizzard. The new Bethesda game additions... Continue reading...

Photo by Arturo Holmes / Getty Images Three of Reddit's biggest communities are no longer focused entirely on John Oliver in a form of protest against Reddit. The subreddits had made the switch in June to push back on Reddit's API pricing that ultimately made some popular third-party apps shut down, but now, they're operating pretty much as they did before the protests.One of the subreddits, r/aww (which has more than 34 million subscribers), posted a long explanation for the change. While the r/aww community did vote overwhelmingly" for the John Oliver rule, it was never intended to be permanent," a moderator wrote in the post, which was published earlier this week. More than a month has passed, and as things on the internet go, the passion for the protest has waned and... Continue reading...

Sony's WF-1000XM4 are our favorite noise-canceling earbuds. | Image: Sony Whether you work from home or are trying to crank out a paper from a dorm, a good pair of noise-canceling wireless earbuds will help you focus. Sony's WF-1000XM4 are an excellent option that's hit a new all-time low. Right now, you can buy the earbuds for $169.95 in their lighter color ($110 off) at Amazon.Despite some battery drain issues the new Sony's WF-1000XM5 are supposed to fix, these are still otherwise excellent wireless earbuds for a ton of reasons. For one thing, they offer a terrific balance of superb sound and voice call quality. For another, they boast powerful noise cancellation along with multipoint support, too, so you can connect the earbuds to two Bluetooth devices at once. Sony's new WF-1000XM5 are more comfortable... Continue reading...

Image: Universal Pictures The Super Mario Bros. Movie is officially available to stream. Starting today, you can watch the box office giant exclusively on Peacock.The movie has been an absolute smash hit, breaking $1 billion at the box office less than a month after it hit theaters. And with good reason: it's a new gold standard for video game films. I have to imagine that means it'll be a popular movie when it hits Peacock, too - though if you want to own a copy for yourself, you can currently buy it on digital platforms or on Blu-Ray.The Super Mario Bros Movie isn't the only video game adaptation available on Peacock. Twisted Metal, a TV series based on the PlayStation vehicular combat series, debuted at the end of July. And the spooky-looking Five Nights At... Continue reading...

Image: Google Google is making it a lot easier to find and remove your contact information from its search results. The company will now send out notifications when it finds your address, phone number, or email on the web, allowing you to review and request the removal of that information from Search.All this takes place from Google's results about you" dashboard on mobile and web, which it first rolled out last September. With the update, you can find your information on Google without actually having to conduct the search yourself. Once you input your personal information, the dashboard will automatically pull up websites that contain any matches, letting you review each webpage it appears on and then submit a request to remove it. ... Continue reading...

Graphic by James Bareham / The Verge Pornhub operator MindGeek has blocked all users in Arkansas from the site after the state's new age verification law went into effect on Tuesday.The Arkansas law, SB 66, doesn't ban Pornhub from operating in the state, but it requires porn sites to verify that a user is 18 by confirming their age with identifying documents. On Wednesday, Pornhub blocked all traffic from IP addresses based in Arkansas in protest, arguing that the law, which was intended to protect children, actually harms users.While safety and compliance are at the forefront of our mission, giving your ID card every time you want to visit an adult platform is not the most effective solution for protecting our users, and in fact, will put children and your privacy at... Continue reading...

Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images Starting next year, most US taxpayers will be able to file their taxes completely paperless with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The move will precede the agency's initiative of getting to total paperless processing by the 2025 tax season, saving 200 million sheets of paper annually and cutting tax processing times in half.This isn't some IRS tax preparation service that kicks services like TurboTax from your life - although the agency plans to test its own free tax prep service for some taxpayers next year. However, taxpayers can switch to paperless filings in 2024, which could speed up their refund time by several weeks."Digital filings can reduce headaches for taxpayers and IRS staff since correspondence like document... Continue reading...

Nothing may only have been around for a short couple of years, but the startup is already launching an affordable sub-brand. Speaking during the company's latest community update, Nothing CEO Carl Pei said that the company's new CMF by Nothing" brand aims to offer a new range of products that make better design more accessible."The first pair of products carrying the branding will be a new pair of earbuds and a smartwatch. Both will arrive later this year, with more details promised in the coming months. In case you're wondering, CMF" apparently stands for Color, Material, and Finish" in reference to the design philosophy of a similar name. While the main Nothing brand will focus on design innovation" that's premium" and uses the... Continue reading...

Brave Search will still redirect users to alternative services for more advanced image and video search capabilities for now. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Brave, best known for its privacy-focused web browser, is adding image and video search to Brave Search that now relies on the company's own private index instead of Bing or Google.In a press release published on Thursday, Brave says this new image and video feature for Brave Search - the default search engine used by the Brave browser - is designed to preserve user privacy and be resistant to censorship. Certain capabilities like advanced filters for license type and aspect ratio will not be immediately available but will be added soon," according to Brave. Image: Brave Now, any images retrieved while using Brave Search (as pictured) will utilize the company's own index instead of relying on third-party APIs.... Continue reading...

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. | Image: Paramount Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is a classic retelling of its pizza-obsessed heroes' origin story that's elevated by phenomenal art direction. Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Two simultaneous issues with payments on Patreon are causing problems for both creators and fans.Some Patreon creators are unable to access their earnings due to an issue with a payout provider. The issue first began earlier this week with creators saying their payout attempts were failing.At the same time, some Patreon subscribers are getting notices that their payments are being flagged as fraudulent by their banks. As a result, fans are seeing canceled subscriptions, with some saying they're unable to see the list of creators they were subscribed to before. On Reddit, one creator said they suddenly lost hundreds of subscribers on August 1st.Patreon spokesperson Ellen Satterwhite says the two issues are unrelated. Satterwhite says... Continue reading...

Image: 8BitDo Nobody likes stick drift in their game controllers, but everybody loves a good deal. So this sale on the 8BitDo Ultimate Bluetooth Controller and its drift-free Hall effect sticks is a perfect solution. You can get the white version of the controller with its included charging / receiver dock for $55.99 ($15 off) at Amazon.8BitDo's Ultimate controllers come in a few flavors (both wired and wireless), but this Bluetooth version is made for the Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, and Windows PCs. It's got some pro-level software features - like button remapping, stick and trigger response curves, and custom profiles - that you can tweak via an app, and it even has two mappable rear buttons. But its biggest strength is its magnetic Hall effect... Continue reading...

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge Wired or wireless, stripped-down or packed to the gills with buttons or RGB or both, these are the best gaming mice you can get right now. Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Warner Bros. Discovery lost 1.8 million subscribers in the three months following the launch of Max. The losses weren't exclusive to the Max streaming service, though. In its earnings report on Thursday, the company reported having 95.8 million global subscribers across all of its services - down from 97.6 million at the end of the first quarter of this year.Despite this, the executives at Warner Bros. Discovery don't seem too worried. During an earnings call, the company's chief financial officer, Gunnar Wiedenfels, attributed the downward trend to overlapping subscriber bases between Max and Discovery Plus" as well as expected churn" following the end of The Last of Us season 1 and the series finale of Succession.CEO David Zaslav... Continue reading...

Various technical issues impacting Meta's Ray-Ban Stories have contributed to poor user experience and a 13 percent return rate. | Photo by Amanda Lopez for The Verge Meta is struggling to retain users for its Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses, with over 90 percent of consumers having seemingly abandoned the platform, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. Internal company documents viewed by the publication revealed that around 27,000 of the 300,000 units reportedly sold between September 2021 and February 2023 are still being regularly used each month. Last April, Meta was reported to have sold just 120,000 pairs of the Ray-Ban Stories - less than half its 300,000 goal at that time.The sunglasses, which allow users to take pictures, listen to music, and send / receive Facebook and WhatsApp messages, have seemingly been blighted with various technical problems that have contributed to a poor... Continue reading...

Photo by Andrej Sokolow / picture alliance via Getty Images Waymo's fourth robotaxi city will be Austin, Texas. It will be a bit of a homecoming for the Alphabet-owned self-driving company.Waymo said that it will kick off the process for a commercial robotaxi service in the city later this year. But that doesn't mean passengers can hail one of the company's driverless vehicles quite yet; Waymo's playbook is to start with manual testing, following by supervised testing, fully autonomous driving, and then, eventually, passenger services. The company has been testing its vehicles on the streets of Austin since March, laying the groundwork for the eventual launch of a commercial ridehailing service.But the company's history with the city stretches all the way back to October 2015, when Waymo gave... Continue reading...

Faster repairs and more walk-in repair types? Music to our ears. | Image: Samsung Samsung and its repair provider, Asurion, have announced that certain uBreakiFix locations will be getting an upgrade, helping them turn around Galaxy phone repairs faster. By the end of the year, 50 existing repair centers across the US will be designated as Samsung flagship locations, equipped with specialized tools and larger parts inventory for Galaxy devices. It's a helpful step toward making phone repairs less painful, which remains a deeply uncomfortable process - just ask anyone who's cracked a phone screen in the past, oh, decade or so.Some repair centers in parts of Texas, Orlando, and Los Angeles have already been upgraded to flagship status, and Samsung says that the program will continue to roll out throughout 2023. Staff... Continue reading...

LG's eye-catching 97-inch Signature OLED M TV, which is almost completely free of wires save for a single power cord, finally has a price and release date outside of South Korea.The TV is notable for its Zero Connect Box," that you plug your set-top boxes, games consoles, and Blu-ray players into and which beams content wirelessly to the TV at up to 4K 120Hz. So aside from power, you're not plugging anything into the TV itself.LG says the 97-inch OLED Signature (model 97M3) will be available in the UK from September priced at 27,999.99 (about $35,400). It'll be joined by two other TV sizes, the 83-inch OLED evo for 7,999.99 (about $10,000) and the 77-inch OLED evo for 5,999.99 (about $7,600), which are equipped with the same Zero... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft has accidentally leaked its internal StagingTool" app that is used by employees to enable secret unreleased Windows 11 features. The software giant typically tests experimental or hidden Windows 11 features in public builds of the operating system, but Windows enthusiasts have until now had to rely on third-party tools to get access to secret features that Microsoft hasn't yet enabled for all testers.The accidental release of Microsoft's StagingTool yesterday was part of the company's bug bash" event this week, where engineers encourage feedback from Windows 11 testers to squash any remaining bugs before a big update. Microsoft is expected to deliver its next big Windows 11 update in September, including native support for... Continue reading...

Alienware has clearly heard the feedback. Its prebuilt Aurora desktop PC needs work, particularly in the cooling department. So the new Alienware Aurora R16 is laser-focused on fixing that - to the point the company is largely ditching its trademark out-of-this-world look.The new Aurora R16 has largely the same basic steel chassis inside, with the same 25.2 liters of space for your components. But its boxy new design ditches multiple pounds of plastic to make the entire computer 40 percent smaller in volume - shrinking all the way down from 60.7 liters to 36 liters in total. Image: Alienware Alienware R15 vs. Alienware R16. They have the same internal volume. The goal of not being impeded by plastics" was... Continue reading...

Image: Getty Images White Castle, yes of Harold and Kumar fame, wants to roll out AI-enabled voices to over 100 drive-thrus by 2024 in the hope that people can get their sliders faster with maybe less arguing with someone over speakers.Working with speech recognition company SoundHound for the technology, White Castle will have an AI voice on its speakers interacting with customers and figuring out what the orders are. The companies promise it will process orders in just over a minute.If you've been at a drive-thru recently, you would know that the menu board and speakers are now big and fancy. But you also know that it still involves yelling from the driver's seat, barking out orders, and an employee often mishearing words.White Castle's AI-enabled... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple first launched its AirTags trackers in April 2021, but if you're waiting to get one until a second generation is released, you might be waiting a long time: the next version of AirTags will likely go into mass production" all the way in the fourth quarter of 2024, according to a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.Kuo didn't specify if going into mass production means that the trackers will be available in that timeframe or if that milestone is just Apple ramping up supply ahead of putting the devices on sale. Kuo did say that the tracker could have ties to Apple's forthcoming Vision Pro headset: I believe that spatial computing is a new ecosystem that Apple wants to build, using... Continue reading...

Image: The Writers Guild of America Though it won't necessarily lead to an immediate end to Hollywood's ongoing writing strike, the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are scheduled to have a meeting this Friday - their first since the strike began three months ago.Variety reports that WGA chief negotiator Ellen Stutzman has agreed to meet with AMPTP president Carol Lombardini this Friday in response to a direct request from the AMPTP head to discuss next steps that could lead to labor contract negotiations resuming. In a statement shared to its members on Tuesday evening, the WGA confirmed that Lombardini and Stutzman are set to speak and stressed the importance of paying attention to the union's official channels.We'll... Continue reading...

Here's Reddit's final version of the 2023 canvas before it allowed users to white it out. | Image: Reddit Reddit no longer allows posts or comments on the r/Place subreddit, according to a post from a Reddit admin (employee). The company hosted the third iteration of the collaborative art project, which let users place individual pixels on a giant canvas, over the course of a few days in July.While you can't post or comment in the subreddit, you can still view posts and comments. A pinned post at the top of the subreddit, for example, features images of the final canvas before users posted white pixels to essentially erase everything. That post also links to a time lapse where you can see users banding together to write a very large message protesting CEO Steve Huffman in the waning moments of the r/Place project.Reddit first introduced... Continue reading...

If I asked you the last time you actually had to fax something to someone, odds are you'd stare at me as if I was asking about the last time you hired a horse and buggy. But anyone who has dealt extensively with insurance or medical facilities or with certain legal organizations will know that faxing has not gone away.So let's say you suddenly find that you need to fax a copy of a document to a company - what do you do? You can find the nearest office supply store, many of which offer faxing services. Or you can create a PDF of your document - assuming it isn't already a digital file - and send it via an online faxing service.There are a number of sites out there that will help you send and / or receive faxes online - some quick,... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Roblox just launched in open beta on Meta's Quest VR headsets last week, and it's already been downloaded well over" 1 million times, according to Roblox CEO David Baszucki. That number suggests that the app could potentially be a very popular one for VR devices; according to a February report from The Verge's Alex Heath, Meta has sold nearly 20 million headsets, so it appears that a good number of those Quest owners are dabbling with Roblox.That said, Roblox and Meta have been positioning this open beta as a way for developers to test and optimize their experiences for Quest headsets, and for good reason: I've tried a few Roblox experiences on a Quest 2 and run into a handful of issues. But I imagine that many of the most popular R... Continue reading...

The Sonos Move 2, seen here, will be available in a new green color. Sonos' next portable speaker is near - even if it's going to miss the peak of the outdoor summer season. I've learned that the Move 2 will be released around the end of September. Yes, it's called the Move 2 and not Move (Gen 2). The device will have a similar design to the first-generation model. And it's still a hefty sucker at over six pounds. But Sonos has made substantial improvements to audio performance, battery life, connectivity, the charging base station, and more. The image above, obtained from sources familiar with Sonos' plans, is your first look at the Move 2.The biggest upgrade for listeners is that the Move 2 will switch from mono output to true stereo playback thanks to the inclusion of dual angled tweeters; the... Continue reading...

The Chrome downloads tray is moving to the address bar after years of clogging up browsing windows. | Image: The Verge Google is rolling out some updates to its Chrome web browser that should make it easier to quickly find the information you need, whether you're downloading a bunch of files or just browsing the web.The most notable change to Google Search, perhaps, is that Chrome for Android now shows trending Google searches directly within the address bar. iOS users will be able to access this feature sometime later this year." Image: Google Trending searches (seen center) are great for staying updated about current events. Bringing the feature to mobile makes sense for those frequently on the move. Relevant search suggestions will also now appear in the address bar for Chrome mobile users on iOS and Android across... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google's AI-powered Search Generative Experience is getting a big new feature: images and video. If you've enabled the AI-based SGE feature in Search Labs, you'll now start to see more multimedia in the colorful summary box at the top of your search results. Google's also working on making that summary box appear faster and adding more context to the links it puts in the box.SGE may still be in the experiment" phase, but it's very clearly the future of Google Search. It really gives us a chance to, now, not always be constrained in the way search was working before," CEO Sundar Pichai said on Alphabet's most recent earnings call. It allows us to think outside the box." He then said that over time, this will just be how search... Continue reading...

Image: Worldcoin via Twitter Kenya is pumping the brakes on Worldcoin - the eyeball-scanning crypto project launched by OpenAI founder Sam Altman. The Kenyan government has ordered Worldcoin to stop collecting data in the country while it reviews the project for potential privacy and security risks, as reported earlier by Reuters.Worldcoin is a project that uses your iris to create a unique digital identity, which you can then link to digital currencies managed through the company's World App. The project launched last week and has had people lining up to get their eyeballs scanned by the shiny, silver orbs Worldcoin has set up in major cities around the globe.

Fewer clerks, more ads. | Image: Walmart Walmart is planning to plaster advertisements on its in-store self-checkout screens, TV demo walls, and other surfaces throughout its stores, as reported by CNBC.We can deliver Super Bowl-sized audiences every week," Ryan Mayward, Walmart's senior VP of retail media sales for Walmart Connect, the company's ads division, tells CNBC. Walmart operates 4,684 stores in the US, not including its Sam's Club warehouses and international locations. The company currently serves 240 million weekly customers in its stores worldwide.Walmart plans to get ads onto approximately 170,000 screens throughout its stores and will also pump 30-second radio advertisements from store ceilings. Businesses interested in capturing audiences at the retailer's... Continue reading...