The Verge

The Verge Around 600 workers in Activision Publishing's quality assurance department have formed a union. Assisted by the Communications Workers of America, the employees completed their vote with the results certified on Friday, March 8th. With that, Activision Quality Assurance United - CWA becomes the latest union to arise out of Microsoft's gaming division and the largest video game union in the United States.In 2022, Microsoft affirmed a labor neutrality agreement with the CWA which eases the organization process at the company and its subsidiaries including Activision Blizzard.In an interview with The Verge, Tom Shelley, a technical requirements specialist and one of Activision Quality Assurance United's organizers, said the labor... Continue reading...

Sam Altman. An independent investigation commissioned by OpenAI's nonprofit board has found that CEO Sam Altman's conduct did not mandate removal." After surviving an attempted boardroom coup in November, he will now rejoin the board.In a press release, board chair Bret Taylor said the law firm WilmerHale interviewed board members, employees, and reviewed more than 30,000 documents" to reach the conclusion that Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman are the right leaders for OpenAI."In addition to Altman, Taylor also announced three more OpenAI board members: Sue Desmond-Hellmann, the former CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Nicole Seligman, a former legal executive at Sony; and Fidji Simo, the CEO of Instacart. They will join Taylor,... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google has fired an employee who publicly protested the company's work for the Israeli military. During a presentation by an executive with Google's Israel branch on Monday, the now-former Google Cloud engineer stood up and shouted, I refuse to build technology that powers genocide or surveillance."Google confirmed the firing, which was first reported by CNBC, in an email to The Verge. Earlier this week, an employee disrupted a coworker who was giving a presentation - interfering with an official company-sponsored event," Google spokesperson Bailey Tomson says in an emailed statement. This behavior is not okay, regardless of the issue, and the employee was terminated for violating our policies."

Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge Two Florida middle schoolers were arrested in December and charged with third-degree felonies for allegedly creating deepfake nudes of their classmates. A report by Wired cites police reports saying two boys, aged 13 and 14, are accused of using an unnamed artificial intelligence application" to generate the explicit images of other students between the ages of 12 and 13." The incident may be the first US instance of criminal charges related to AI-generated nude images.They were charged with third-degree felonies under a 2022 Florida law that criminalizes the dissemination of deepfake sexually explicit images without the victim's consent. Both the arrests and the charges appear to be the first of their kind in the nation related to... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge One of the more frustrating aspects of TikTok used to be the difficulty in finding a video that you really liked and wanted to see again but had accidentally swiped past or watched a day or two ago. Previously, there was a long, complex series of steps you had to follow to find out your watch history on TikTok - making it hardly worth the effort. Now, however, you can easily find your watch history - and, if you want, erase it. All you have to do is:

The HomePod Mini isn't for everyone, but it's still a solid choice for Apple users. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge With most of the Apple news this week revolving around the new M3 MacBook Air and Apple's ongoing app store kerfuffles in the EU, it's not surprising that Best Buy's current promos on the HomePod Mini and second-gen HomePod have slipped under the radar. That's a shame, however, given the smart speakers are on sale for $79.99 ($20 off) and $269.99 ($30 off), respectively, which doesn't happen often.If you're deciding between Apple's latest Siri-based smart speakers, there are a few things to consider. The latest HomePod is essentially a rehash of the original model from 2018, only this time, it comes with support for spatial audio, the new Matter standard, and temperature and humidity sensing. The pint-size HomePod Mini, meanwhile,... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Amazon's Drop In feature has become a useful tool for contacting people in your household, finding out what your kids are up to (especially when they're being too quiet), and checking in on elderly relatives. It allows you to literally drop in" using an Alexa-capable device, either just via audio or with audio and video. But since you don't want anyone dropping in on you unwanted, it's a good idea to understand how to set it up and how to use it.Set up your device for Drop InIn order to allow somebody to drop in on an Echo or Fire device (or any Alexa-capable device that allows you to make calls), first you have to enable the Drop In feature on that specific unit.

Image: Abigail Bassett / The Verge The R2 won't go on sale until 2026, but this smaller electric SUV is a crucial product for the young company. Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Epic Games will be able to open its iOS app store in the European Union after all. The game publisher had its developer license revoked by Apple earlier this week, but Epic Games now says that Apple has reversed its decision following an inquiry from the European Commission.In an update on its website, Epic Games says Apple has committed to the European Commission that they will reinstate our developer account." The company is now moving forward as planned to launch the Epic Games Store and bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe."Apple confirmed the decision in an email to The Verge. Following conversations with Epic, they have committed to follow the rules, including our [Digital Markets Act] policies," said Apple spokesperson Fred... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix It took three years, two terabytes, and over 100 hours of cutscenes to preserve Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia. Continue reading...

Image: MSI The MSI Claw has officially arrived, as the base model of MSI's Core Ultra-powered handheld gaming machine is now available from MSI's website for $699.There are two other higher-specced models, too, but they're listed as coming on March 12th. Here's how the three models stack up:

Getty Images for Rivian In a packed theater in Laguna Beach on Thursday morning, Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe opened his presentation to resounding whoops from the audience, well before the company unveiled its three buzzy new vehicles, the Rivian R2, R3, and R3X.While it's not uncommon to pack a room with fans for a vehicle launch, it is unusual for the CEO of a car company outside of Elon Musk to get the kind of response that Scaringe did. For a vehicle unveiling to feel upbeat and exciting without feeling cringe is even rarer. Getty Images for Rivian Every decision we've made, the products, the strategy, what we're building, how we go about building our business, the way we structure our teams, the way we think about our... Continue reading...

Image: Rivian Less than 24 hours since its launch, the Rivian R2 is already proving to be quite popular. The company's CEO, RJ Scaringe, said it's already taken in more than 68,000 reservations" for the $45,000 midsize electric SUV.We are thrilled to see this vehicle resonate so strongly with our community!" Scaringe said in a post on X.Rivian unveiled the R2, as well as the more compact R3 and R3X, at an event in Laguna Beach, California, on Thursday. The new EVs are meant to be more affordable than the company's current lineup, currently made up of the R1T truck and R1S, each of which sells for over $70,000.To be sure, the bar for reserving an R2 is quite lowTo be sure, the bar for reserving an R2 is quite low. The deposit is only $100 and... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft revealed earlier this year that Russian state-sponsored hackers had been spying on the email accounts of some members of its senior leadership team. Now, Microsoft is disclosing that the attack, from the same group behind the SolarWinds attack, has also led to some source code being stolen in what Microsoft describes as an ongoing attack.In recent weeks, we have seen evidence that Midnight Blizzard [Nobelium] is using information initially exfiltrated from our corporate email systems to gain, or attempt to gain, unauthorized access," explains Microsoft in a blog post. This has included access to some of the company's source code repositories and internal systems. To date we have found no evidence that Microsoft-hosted... Continue reading...

Some developers have already taken down their Wordle clones to avoid a legal battle with The New York Times. | Photo by Mike Kemp / In Pictures via Getty Images Hundreds of games inspired by Wordle, the popular web-based word puzzle, are at risk of being deleted due to copyright takedowns issued by The New York Times. As reported by 404 Media, The New York Times - which purchased Wordle back in 2022 - has filed several DMCA notices over Wordle clones created by GitHub coders, citing its ownership over the Wordle name and copyrighted gameplay including 5x6 tile layout and gray, yellow, and green color scheme.Two takedown requests were issued in January against unofficial Korean and Bosnian-language versions of the game. Additional requests were filed this week against Wirdle - a variant created by dialect group I Hear Dee in 2022 to promote the Shaetlan language - and Reactle, an open-source W... Continue reading...

Image: Epic Games Fortnite is going even more old school for its next season. Epic just launched Chapter 5: Season 2 of the battle royale game, dubbed Myths & Mortals," and it's all about Greek mythology. That means playing as Greek gods, fighting across Mount Olympus, and wielding Zeus' thunderbolt. The launch was preceded by a clever in-game event involving Pandora's box.First up, the new locations. A number of mythological locales have been added to the map, including Mount Olympus and the underworld, which, naturally, is guarded by Cerberus. To go along with this are a number of power-ups and items to collect, including the Wings of Icarus so you can fly, Zeus' bolts which let you rise into the air and hurl lightning bolts at your target," and a... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images, Nathan Howard / Stringer President Joe Biden is set to deliver his third State of the Union address on Thursday as he hurdles toward a likely rematch with former President Donald Trump in November.Biden will deliver the speech at the US Capitol at 9PM ET.This year's address comes just a couple of days after Super Tuesday, where Biden and Trump each dominated primary ballots across multiple states. That brings them one step closer to entering the official general election campaigning stage.We'll be watching for what Biden has to say that could shape the tech policy issues at the forefront of both the presidential campaign and the next few legislative months. The White House has made the safe deployment of artificial intelligence a priority in the past year... Continue reading...

Stephen Dubner speaking at On Air Fest | Alexa Hoyer This is an excerpt of an interview that took place at On Air Fest on March 1st between Freakonomics Radio host Stephen Dubner and Hot Pod reporter Ariel Shapiro. The conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.Alright so, you know podcasting. You know economics. What do you make of this moment in the podcasting industry?It really depends on what angle you're coming at it from. The short version is that there was probably a little bit too much panic, because of the combination of the recession that never quite happened, and then the big iOS adjustment and how it's playing out in reality and in perception. Additionally, from the platform side, there was just massive, massive acquisition, acquisition, acquisition,... Continue reading...

Rivian took a page from Steve Jobs and had one more thing" to show off during its R2 reveal event in California today. And it was a stunner.The Rivian R3 is a slightly shorter, sportier-looking electric SUV than the R2, and it will come in a performance variant badged as R3X. Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe said the R3 takes the package of R2 platform [and] shrinks it."The R3 is designed with even tighter dimensions-and at a lower price point-than R2," the company said - though it didn't immediately release the price of the R3. Reservations for the R3 will start at a later date.The R3 and R3X have sloping rear ends compared to the boxier R2. And like the R2, it will come in two battery sizes, both with over 300 miles of range... Continue reading...

Image: Blizzard Overwatch 2 has had a few collaborations since its launch. First there was the One Punch Man collaboration with the big-fisted hero Doomfist getting the highly appropriate Saitama skin. The next crossover was for the K-pop fans, with Overwatch's prominent female heroes getting skins from the girl group Le Sserafim. But this latest collaboration, in my not so humble opinion, is the one best yet. 3... 2... 1... Let's Jam.On March 12th, Overwatch 2 is bringing Cowboy Bebop to the game, and you'll be able to unlock skins for the Bebop crew: Spike Spiegel as Cassidy, Faye Valentine as Ashe, Jet Black as Mauga, Ed as Sombra, while the adorable corgi Ein gets a Wreckingball skin. The detail that went into these legendary skins is blowing my... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Apple's plans to comply with the European Union's new rules governing big tech have already gotten off to an interesting start, and not just because Apple pulled Epic Games' developer license. Apple made last-minute tweaks to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) compliance plan to add flexibility, but they've met mixed reactions among developers.Developers considering Apple's post-DMA fee structure, which comes with a new Core Technology Fee," can now try them out and then switch back to the original terms - instead of, as originally announced, making the change a one-way trip. In an update posted on Tuesday, Apple says it created the one-time option" to revert to Apple's standard agreement in case of unexpected business changes" or if... Continue reading...

SEC Chair Gary Gensler attends a meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council at the U.S. Department of Treasury on December 14, 2023 in Washington, DC. | Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images A landmark climate disclosure rule adopted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yesterday is already facing mounting legal and legislative challenges. Ten states filed suit yesterday shortly after the rule was finalized. Environmental advocates also say they're considering challenging the rule.If implemented, the SEC's new rule would force large, public companies to disclose risks they face due to climate change and share partial information about their greenhouse gas emissions. It would lead to dramatically more transparency than there's been in the past, but would still paint an incomplete picture of a company's environmental footprint since companies would only be mandated to divulge a portion of their emissions.I... Continue reading...

Image: Rivian Rivian is pulling the cover off its latest electric vehicle today, and unless you live anywhere near Laguna Beach, California, you'll probably be watching the livestream.The event starts at 10AM PT/ 1PM ET. According to details that leaked from the Laguna Beach City Council, the company plans to hold the event in the park adjacent to the former South Coast Theater, now named the Rivian South Coast Theater, which serves as the company's first flagship retail location."The event will be livestreamed on YouTube (embedded above). Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe will introduce the R2, a compact SUV that is expected to have broader appeal than the company's $70,000-plus R1T truck and R1S SUV. There may be other products introduced as... Continue reading...

Firefighters battle flames from the Smokehouse Creek fire on March 03, 2024 near Sanford, Texas. | Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images Electric utility Xcel Energy admits that its equipment likely helped ignite the devastating Smokehouse Creek Fire that's blazed across Texas since last week.Xcel Energy has been cooperating with the investigations into the wildfires and has been conducting its own review. Based on currently available information, Xcel Energy acknowledges that its facilities appear to have been involved in an ignition of the Smokehouse Creek fire," the company said in a statement today.The blaze has grown into the largest in state history, consuming more than a million acres, killing at least two people, and destroying hundreds of structures. It was still only 44 percent contained as of Thursday morning.Xcel Energy acknowledges that its facilities... Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Discord says it will sell official game-themed items in its store soon. Discord launched its in-app store in November with avatar decorations and profile effects available for anyone willing to buy them. Anime and fantasy effects have proved popular, so now, Discord is partnering with game developers to create game-themed versions.We've heard a lot of feedback on the kinds of decorations that you'd like to see, including cosmetics themed to the games you love," says the Discord team in a blog post. We've come up with a way to make this happen by working with developers to bring themed profile effects and avatar decorations to the Shop. And most importantly, we'll be sharing the revenue of those purchases with developers so they can... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Our Thursday episodes of Decoder are all about big topics in the news, and this week, we're wrapping up our short series on one of the biggest topics of all: generative AI.In our last couple of episodes, we've talked a lot about some of the biggest, most complicated legal and policy questions surrounding the modern AI industry, including copyright lawsuits and deepfake legislation. But we wanted to end on a smaller, more emotional note: How is AI making people feel? And in particular, how is it affecting how people communicate and connect?Verge reporter Emilia David has covered AI chatbots, specifically AI romance bots, quite a bit. So, we invited her on the show to talk about how generative AI is finding its way into dating because... Continue reading...

Photo by Al Bello / Getty Images Netflix's foray into sports is going in a new direction. Today, the streamer announced that its next major event will be a fight between YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul and former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson that will stream live on Netflix. The bout will take place on July 20th at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.The move is part of a steady expansion into sports from Netflix. So far, that has meant going all in on sports documentaries - including a doc about Paul's fledgling boxing career - as well as a handful of live events featuring golf and tennis. But two headline (if controversial) names duking it out in an NFL stadium that seats 80,000 marks arguably the biggest bet from the company yet. (And it comes at a time when other b... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge I used to enjoy sharing my favorite new music with friends and family via a carefully compiled piece of physical media. Sadly for those of us above a certain age, the switch to digital and streaming music has made the mixtape (or the mix CD) redundant. However, while streaming music apps may have killed off the mixtape, they've brought with them collaborative playlists: being able to easily compile a list of tunes with other people, even if those people aren't in the same physical place you are.This is a feature that's been in Spotify for years, but it's now arrived in Apple Music with iOS 17.3 and macOS 14.3. (So make sure the software on your devices is up to date before you get started).Collaborative playlists on iOS ... Continue reading...

The new $6,995 Leica SL3 has a 60-megapixel sensor. | Image: Becca Farsace / The Verge Today, Leica announced the new SL3, the latest version of its full-frame mirrorless camera system that succeeds the SL2 from 2019. Inside its all-metal body are the guts of the Leica Q3 that launched last spring. It includes a 60-megapixel sensor, improved autofocus, and the ability to shoot video in 8K. But what sets the SL3 apart is hardware that's better suited for pros, including a very large hand grip for extended use and IP54 water resistance for more peace of mind out in the elements. There is no mistaking that the SL3 is a Leica with that huge logo on the front. Outside of specs, what sets the SL3 apart from the SL2 is a slightly smaller size, although it's still very large and in charge, and hardware tuned... Continue reading...

The new retrofit smart door lock from SwitchBot has a sleeker look than its predecessor. | Image: SwitchBot SwitchBot has launched a new version of its retrofit smart lock. The SwitchBot Lock Pro ($119.99) offers a few upgrades over the company's first lock, the SwitchBot Lock, including an aluminum alloy body, a more secure installation, and a new quick key lock / unlock mechanism.The SwitchBot Lock Pro costs $119.99 (139.99 / 139.99) - or $199.99 (239.99 / 239.99) if you want the keypad and Matter hub bundle. This adds fingerprint, NFC tag, and keypad unlocking via the Bluetooth keypad, plus the hub brings compatibility with all the major smart home platforms through Matter and control of the lock when you're away from home.Rather than replacing your entire deadbolt, as most smart locks do, a retrofit lock turns the existing mechanism... Continue reading...