The Verge

Image: Nintendo Nintendo is bringing back online multiplayer for Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon on the Wii U on August 3rd after fixing an issue, according to a post on Nintendo's UK support site.The two games have been offline since March after Nintendo took them offline to fix a vulnerability related to online play." While Nintendo hasn't given details about the vulnerability, a data miner reported that the issue was likely one that could let a bad actor take over a console by connecting to it online.To play the two games online again, you'll need to download a new update. However, Nintendo cautions that if more issues pop up, it may have to discontinue online multiplayer for Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon at short notice." Fingers crossed that doesn't... Continue reading...

Stream from Xbox to Discord. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is improving its Xbox and Discord integration with a new streaming gameplay feature. Xbox owners will soon be able to stream their gameplay from a console to Discord users, allowing friends to watch them play games or even offer advice for solving challenges or boss battles.The new feature is starting to roll out to Xbox Insiders in the Alpha Skip-Ahead and Alpha rings of testing today and should be available to all Xbox owners in the coming months. Much like the existing Discord integration on Xbox, it's all built into the Parties & Chats section of the dashboard. A new stream your game" option will appear once you're connected to a Discord server, with settings to customize the stream.Unfortunately, this is only a one-way... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is starting to test Xbox Game Pass Core, its replacement for Xbox Live Gold. Xbox testers in the Alpha and Alpha Skip-Ahead rings will be able to preview Xbox Game Pass Core this week, provided they're existing Xbox Live Gold members.The full Xbox Game Pass Core subscription will include the usual Xbox online console multiplayer support, deals and discounts, and a new small catalog of more than 25 games. Xbox Insiders will only get access to Psychonauts 2, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, State of Decay 2, and Doom Eternal initially this week as part of the Game Pass Core library testing.The full library will become accessible at launch on September 14," explains Lily Wang, a senior product manager at Xbox. You will also start... Continue reading...

Harley Quinn doing the Batman thing. | Image: Warner Bros. Animation / Max Spoiler: it's Harley. Continue reading...

Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta released a new open-source AI code called AudioCraft, which lets users create music and sounds entirely through generative AI.It consists of three AI models, all tackling different areas of sound generation. MusicGen takes text inputs to generate music. This model was trained on 20,000 hours of music owned by Meta or licensed specifically for this purpose." AudioGen creates audio from written prompts, simulating barking dogs or footsteps, and was trained on public sound effects. An improved version of Meta's EnCodec decoder lets users create sounds with fewer artifacts - which is what happens when you manipulate audio too much.The company let the media listen to some sample audio made with AudioCraft. The generated noise of... Continue reading...

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Instagram appears to be working on new notices that would identify when AI has played a role in creating content on its platform.App researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, who frequently discovers new Instagram features before they're officially announced or released, has posted a screenshot of a page in the Instagram app that reads the creator or Meta said that this content was created or edited with AI." The specific notice notes that in this case it's an image that's been generated by Meta AI," before giving a brief description of what generative AI is, and how to identify posts that use AI.

Like other parts of the X rebrand, there's still some work to be done. | Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge TweetDeck's new name is officially here: XPro. If you visit this URL for TweetDeck while logged out, you should see XPro" at the top of the page (via 9to5Google). Elon Musk, the owner of X, the company formerly known as Twitter, announced the XPro name last week.Like much of Twitter's rebranding to X, there are still a lot of vestiges of the old brand on the page. The image on the landing page still prominently features the Twitter bird logo, and a tagline on the page reads a powerful, real-time tool for people who live on Twitter."However, there are a handful of additional XPro mentions on the page as well, including a line asking if you might be looking for the legacy version of XPro?," a link to go to legacy XPro" (though that t... Continue reading...

Image: EA Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will be released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, EA CEO Andrew Wilson announced during the company's Q1 earnings call on Tuesday. The game launched in April on PS5, Xbox Series X / S, and PC but skipped Sony and Microsoft's older hardware, so with this new release, people who haven't upgraded to the newer consoles will eventually be able to check out the game.However, we don't know exactly when Jedi: Survivor will be coming to older consoles. Here's Wilson's quote about the release: Thanks to the strength of this legendary franchise and community demand, our development team has committed to bringing this Jedi experience to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One."Jedi: Survivor is a sequel to 2019's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen... Continue reading...

Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl. | Image: Warner Music Group The music industry was reshaped by streaming. So earlier this year, Warner Music Group put a streaming executive in charge.The company's new CEO, Robert Kyncl, was most recently the chief business officer of YouTube, where he helped transform the platform into one of the biggest names in creator monetization and streaming music. Before that, he was vice president of content at Netflix, working on partnerships as it entered the streaming era.Next month, Kyncl will sit down with Vox senior correspondent Peter Kafka to talk all things music and streaming at the Code Conference. Kyncl has said he wants to prioritize artists and partners at WMG, sees music as being undervalued," and believes the company's next steps may involve AI -... Continue reading...

Image: Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta has begun blocking all news content on Facebook and Instagram in Canada, a change it expects all users in the country to see within the next few weeks." That's in response to the country's Online News Act, which would require tech companies like Meta and Google to negotiate with and pay publishers for their news content.The blocks don't just apply to news publishers with accounts on the two platforms but also to links shared by users. If a Canadian person is friends with someone who lives in Kansas and that Kansan shares a link on Facebook to, say, this Verge article, their northerly friend won't be able to view it.On Twitter, which is currently rebranding as X, journalists for local Canadian publications IndigiNews and The... Continue reading...

Image: Apple Apple Arcade is adding four new games this month, including a new Samba de Amigo game.Samba de Amigo: Party-To-Go brings the maraca-shaking monkeys to mobile on August 29th - the same day another Samba de Amigo game, Samba de Amigo: Party Central, hits the Switch and Meta Quest. It seems like the two games are essentially the same, with Party-To-Go simply being a mobile port of Party Central. One perk of playing Party-To-Go on Apple Arcade, however, is that you'll get three exclusive songs from PSY ('memba him?), Lady Gaga, and Fitz and The Tantrums, which, coincidentally, kinda looks like my Friday-night party playlist.According to Apple's announcement, Party-To-Go also features the series' first story mode, where players join Amigo... Continue reading...

Image: Amazon You can now start an Amazon Clinic video doctor visit in all 50 states as Amazon expands its virtual care service, which lets patients connect with multiple telehealth provider groups" who each set their own rates for service. The company says those visits will cost an average of $75. Amazon will not accept insurance for the visits, however.Previously, Amazon only offered a message-based version of this in 32 states that would allow you to get in touch with clinicians on its platform using a secure portal for chatting with them about your medical issues and work out a treatment plan. Message-based care is lower in cost, averaging $35 a session, according to Amazon, but it's only been able to add messaging in another two states; the... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you're in the market for a premium console from either Sony or Microsoft, now is the perfect time to pick one up. For the first time we've seen, both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are on sale - each currently selling for $449.99 ($50 off). The disc drive-equipped PS5 is discounted at Monoprice, while you can get Microsoft's flagship Xbox on sale from Dell.It's refreshing to see both consoles running on deals that don't require bundling with a game or added accessories. After they were so hard to get for around two years thanks to shortages, they're now easily buyable and 50 bucks off - no fuss, no muss.While the PS5 and Xbox Series X have a lot in common (both are capable of playing games in 4K at up to 120 fps, come with... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit has rolled out some changes to the logged-out web experience that are intended to deliver a more consistent, reliable, and fast web experience for people not logged in," according to a post from an admin (employee) who goes by whizlogic. The changes are available globally on mobile web and desktop.The updates could make Reddit better for those who stumble upon it through a search engine, whizlogic said. These people are often looking for community-verified content on their mobile, tablet or desktop devices. While some people in this group know Reddit and are seeking it out specifically, many others visit Reddit infrequently or are just finding it for the first time."Here are just some of the changes:

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Chevy's gearing up to deliver its first models of the Blazer EV SUV. The 2024 AWD RS trim is first up and will arrive at dealerships in August, with a price of $60,215.Chevy is also planning to build the 2LT AWD trim this fall, which will cost $56,715. The automaker had previously announced the prices for other trims, including the RS FWD model for $51,995 and the 2LT FWD model for $47,595 last year.Starting off with more expensive models contrasts current trends of EV price cuts from automakers like Ford, which reduced prices on its Mustang Mach-E SUV, including the Premium AWD trim, which has dropped from $53,995 to $49,995, and the F-150 Lighting truck, which is now up to $10,000 cheaper - as the automaker's seen an increase in... Continue reading...

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Image: Getty Images X Corp., the parent company of the platform once known as Twitter, is suing the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) over claims it embarked on a scare campaign" to drive away advertisers. The lawsuit accuses the CCDH of unlawfully" scraping data from Twitter and using it to create flawed" research studies about the platform.The CCDH is an anti-hate organization that publishes research about the spread of hateful content on social media platforms like Twitter. One recent CCDH study claims Twitter has failed to act on 99 percent of hateful content posted by Twitter Blue subscribers, and another states that the anti-LGBTQ+ grooming" narrative has grown exponentially since Elon Musk's takeover.To create these reports, X... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Apple is adding numerous features to the iPhone with iOS 17, and one of the most notable is Contact Poster - a way for you to create your own digital calling card through images, colors, and text.Here's how it works: when you call someone iPhone-to-iPhone and you're saved in their contacts, your Contact Poster will appear on their screen. It replaces the much smaller notification and thumbnail picture that was previously displayed and gives you an opportunity to get creative with how you want to appear to your friends, family, or colleagues.While you're setting up your Contact Poster, you can also make changes to your Apple ID avatar based on the poster. If you head into Settings on your iPhone or Mac, for example, you'll see your... Continue reading...

JigSpace running in Apple's visionOS. | Image: JigSpace Apple, Adobe, Pixar, Nvidia, and Autodesk are teaming up to promote open standards for interoperable 3D tools and data. In a press release, the companies announced the formation of the Alliance for OpenUSD, which will drive the standardization, development, evolution, and growth" of Pixar's Universal Scene Description (USD) technology.Pixar describes USD as the first open-source software that can robustly and scalably interchange 3D scenes" while incorporating various assets, sources, and animations. The animation company calls it a fundamental requirement" for people creating metaverse content.USD enables the various applications used in 3D content creation - like Maya, Houdini, Autodesk 3ds Max, and Adobe Substance 3D Designer -... Continue reading...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta is proposing to make some of its personalized, targeted ads an up-front opt-in choice for users in the European Union, reports The Wall Street Journal. If the EU accepts Meta's proposal, the company says it would need three months or more to let users choose whether to allow the company to target ads based on what they do within its social media services.The company's proposal aims to end its ongoing fight with the EU over its use of personal data for advertisements under European privacy laws, the Journal says. Right now, EU users of Meta's platforms can opt out of this sort of targeting rather than choose to opt in. For those who opt out, the company still targets ads using some broader demographics data, such as users' general... Continue reading...

That Lombardi trophy is going to be a sticky kiss this season. | Image: CBS Sports / Nickelodeon The next Super Bowl is going to be a sticky one. CBS Sports announced that it's connecting with Nickelodeon to air an alternate telecast of Super Bowl LVIII that gives the NFL a more family-friendly watching option by adding superimposed characters like SpongeBob SquarePants and animated slime-filled touchdowns.This year's Super Bowl will take place in Las Vegas at Allegiant Stadium, home of the Raiders, on Sunday, February 11th, 2024, at 6:30PM ET. At that time, fans can tune in to their local CBS station or the Paramount Plus streaming app for the standard broadcast or let their kids change the channel to Nickelodeon - tricking them into enjoying some good gridiron.

The board wants Meta to patch up the policy loopholes that allowed content promoting gender-based violence to slip through moderation. | Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta's Oversight Board is urging the company to take a stricter stance against content that normalizes gender-based violence after discovering a Facebook post mocking an injured woman had remained on the platform for almost two years without being viewed by a human moderator. On Tuesday, the board asked Meta to address a gap within its bullying and harassment policy that seemingly permits content promoting gender-based violence by praising, justifying, celebrating, or mocking it" to slip through its moderation practices.An image depicting a woman with visible marks of a physical attack, including bruises on her face and body" was published on Facebook in May 2021, alongside a caption in Arabic that alludes to her husband being... Continue reading...