The Verge

The WH-1000XM5 may not fold up like their prior version, but they're the best around for performance. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you're feeling the post-Fourth of July holiday hangover today, we've got some deals to help distract you. While Amazon's upcoming Prime Day may bring bigger savings for Prime subscribers in less than one week, here are several great deals today that are open to everyone.Starting us off, Woot is selling the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones in black for a new low price of $299 ($100 off). That's the lowest price yet on Sony's excellent noise-canceling over-ear headphones, which remain our top choice of noise-canceling headphones. However, the one small catch here is that the deal only comes with a 90-day warranty from Woot instead of a one-year warranty from Sony. If that's okay with you, then you're getting an excellent value on these... Continue reading...

Whatever content is publically available on the web, Google has given itself permission to use it to train AI. | Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge On Monday, Gizmodo spotted that the search giant updated its privacy policy to disclose that its various AI services, such as Bard and Cloud AI, may be trained on public data that the company has scraped from the web.Our privacy policy has long been transparent that Google uses publicly available information from the open web to train language models for services like Google Translate," said Google spokesperson Christa Muldoon to The Verge. This latest update simply clarifies that newer services like Bard are also included. We incorporate privacy principles and safeguards into the development of our AI technologies, in line with our AI Principles." Image: Google These are the most recent changes to Google's... Continue reading...

Image: OnePlus OnePlus has today announced the OnePlus Nord 3, the latest entry in its midrange Nord lineup and successor to last year's capable OnePlus Nord 2T. One notable improvement compared to last year's phone is the length of support that OnePlus is promising: namely, three major Android updates and four years of security updates. That's a year's increase for both over the Nord 2T, though it falls short of the up to five years of support the company promises for its top-of-the-line OnePlus 11.The OnePlus Nord 3 is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 processor and can be configured with up to 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It has a 120Hz refresh rate screen this time around, rather than the 90Hz panel found on its predecessor, and the... Continue reading...

You won't get the standard Android experience with the Murena version, but that, too, could eventually make its way to the US. | Image: Murena / Fairphone The Fairphone 4 - a user-repairable smartphone built using ethically sourced materials - is finally coming to the US, almost two years after it first debuted back in September 2021. Well, sort of anyway. Fairphone is partnering with Murena, a company best known for de-Googling Android phones, to launch the US pilot of the Murena Fairphone 4 - a variant of the handset that runs on a privacy-oriented Android-based operating system: /e/OS.There are two configurations available: one with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for $599 and another with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $679. The storage of both models can be expanded via microSD, and the phone features a modular design that can be easily disassembled using a standard Phillips #00... Continue reading...

The Threads web interface. | Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge Instagram's new Threads app, a Twitter competitor, isn't supposed to launch until July 6th, but the web interface went live for a few hours today for everyone to explore. It provided an early look at what to expect from the full Threads app that will launch on iOS tomorrow - and presumably Android, too.Meta briefly made Threads available on the web before pulling profiles offline a few hours later. The Verge was able to access Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's first thread (is that what we call them?!) using the web app, and many other brands and creators including Netflix, Gary Vee, and Instagram. Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge Mark Zuckerberg's first post on Threads. The web interface is fairly basic right... Continue reading...

Nintendo Accounts may be key to the transition to a Switch successor. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge At Nintendo's 83rd annual shareholders meeting last week, president and CEO Shuntaro Furukawa said the company is hoping for a smooth transition from the Switch to its unannounced next game console, pointing to Nintendo Accounts as being key to the generational hand-off.Nintendo has pointed to its accounts as being integral to future business in the past, as in the Nintendo Account segment of a special report it released at the end of 2021.In response to an investor asking if the company has any specific measures in place to make the leap to a Switch successor, Furukawa pointed to the difficulty of switching customers from one console to the next, saying in the past, the company had to rebuild a relationship with its customers each... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A US federal judge ruled that a slew of Biden administration officials are prohibited from contacting social media companies about moderating posts protected by the First Amendment.Judge Terry A. Doughty wrote in a 155-page memorandum ruling that he believes the plaintiffs are likely to prove that federal government officials are targeting and suppressing millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens."Doughty:

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge An important deadline just passed for the biggest tech platform companies in the world to notify the European Union (EU) that they are gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Seven companies have officially acknowledged they meet the criteria: Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, ByteDance (TikTok), Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp), Microsoft, and Samsung. Companies on the list have a market capitalization of over 75 billion ($82 billion) and own a social platform or app that has at least 45 million monthly users or 10,000 active business users.The statement published by EU commissioner Thierry Breton says it will now check their submissions and designate the gatekeepers for specific platform services by 6 September," and... Continue reading...

Cassian Bilton and Lee Pace in season 2 of Foundation. | Image: Apple It's already been a pretty eventful summer for science fiction fans. Last week saw the finale of Apple's post-apocalyptic series Silo, Strange New Worlds season 2 is keeping Star Trek going through August, and Disney Plus is still in the midst of Secret Invasion, its alien conspiracy offshoot of the MCU. Oh, and there's the return of Black Mirror. On top of all of that, there are also a number of series making their debut in the coming weeks and months - so many, in fact, that you might need a little help plotting out your precious free time. So here's a handy list to make life a little easier.Foundation season 2Apple TV Plus - July 14thApple's attempt at adapting Foundation got off to a slow start, but by the end of season 1 the... Continue reading...

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Euclid space telescope launches on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on July 1, 2023. | Photo by GREGG NEWTON/AFP via Getty Images This weekend saw the launch of the European Space Agency (ESA)'s Euclid mission: a space telescope which aims to uncover the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. The 2.2 ton spacecraft with its 1.2 meter telescope was carried into space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and is now on its way to its orbit around the sun.The mission had originally been slated to launch using a Russian Soyuz rocket from Europe's spaceport in French Guiana, but following Russia's invasion of Ukraine cooperation between ESA and Russia was halted. So instead, the telescope launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, lifting off at 12:11AM ET on Saturday July 1st.The telescope is headed for an orbit called L2, the second Lagrange point, which... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft thinks we're getting a PS5 Slim model later this year that might be priced at $399.99. The software giant is currently waiting a ruling in the FTC v. Microsoft hearing and as part of the case Microsoft has filed documents which reveal it thinks a PS5 Slim is on the way later this year." Here's exactly what Microsoft says:

Image: Epic Games It's summer in Fortnite, which can only mean it's time for ice cream. Epic has kicked off the battle royale's annual summer event, called Summer Escape, which means a handful of changes to the game, including a number of freebies players can unlock. It runs from now until July 18th.The only major gameplay tweak appears to be the addition of ice cream cones, which, as in the past, grant you various abilities when you eat them. The in-game flare guns have also been replaced with ones that shoot fireworks for a festive touch.As per usual, the real meat of the update comes in the form of quests that have some nice unlockables in addition to some useful experience points. New quests will be added every few days during the event, and players... Continue reading...

The Twitter competitor from Meta, Instagram Threads, is expected to launch on July 6th, according to the App Store listing for the app showing a version ready for Apple's iPhone. Sleuths have also spotted what appears to be an early listing on the Google Play Store, which originally showed up over the weekend.Meta has also added a launch date teaser to the Instagram app. Typing threads" into the search box (or a number of other keywords) causes a ticket icon to appear on the search bar. Tap it and a spinning ticket appears to show your Instagram username alongside a local launch time translated from 10AM ET on the 6th. The spinning ticket also includes a QR code that links to threads.net, seemingly the new social media platform's web... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google can't display tweets and pages from Twitter in search results as effectively as it usually does because of changes at Twitter, according to a statement given to The Verge. We're aware that our ability to crawl Twitter.com has been limited, affecting our ability to display tweets and pages from the site in search results," spokesperson Lara Levin said. Websites have control over whether crawlers can access their content."Over the past few days, Twitter has made some major changes to the visibility of tweets on the site. On Friday, it started blocking unregistered users from being able to browse tweets, and on Saturday, it introduced temporary" limits for the number of tweets people can read in a day. Given Levin's statement, it... Continue reading...

Image: Twitter Twitter is officially launching its new" version of TweetDeck to everyone, according to a tweet from Twitter's support account, which is a step that it had to take to help mitigate some of the issues TweetDeck has been experiencing lately. The switch comes with a potentially-heartbreaking catch: TweetDeck is going to become a Verified-only feature in 30 days, the account says, meaning you'll need to pay for a Twitter Blue subscription to be able to use it.This updated version of TweetDeck has been in preview for nearly two years. All users will be forced to switch over to the new version, according to two Twitter employees, and those staffers have also shared some slight clarifications about what's been going on with... Continue reading...

Image: Tidal Music streaming service Tidal is increasing the pricing of its HiFi tier by one dollar from $9.99 to $10.99 a month on August 1st, the company is announcing in emails to subscribers, Billboard reports. Similar price increases appear to be coming for international subscribers as well, according to reports on Reddit, with users in markets like the UK, Germany, Spain, Mexico, and Argentina all saying they've been contacted.Tidal is just the latest music streaming service to have increased its subscription pricing in the past year. Apple Music's monthly price went from $9.99 to $10.99 last October, while Amazon Music followed suit in January.If recent comments by CEO Daniel Ek are to be believed, Spotify might not be far behind. In an... Continue reading...

Photo Illustration by Adrien Fillon/NurPhoto via Getty Images Pornhub is now blocking people in Mississippi and Virginia from visiting its website over laws that would require the service to verify their age. The company says it's blocking users to protest unfair enforcement of these new laws, claiming that sites enforcing the new rules will lose traffic to irresponsible platforms" that don't follow the law, that don't take user safety seriously, and that often don't even moderate content."Traffic dropped by 80 percent for Pornhub after it began enforcing age verification in Louisiana earlier this year, the company writes. After that experience, it decided to start taking its sites offline instead of enforcing an age gate. In May, it blocked access to users in Utah over a similar law. Techdirt... Continue reading...

Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images An era of the internet is ending, and we're watching it happen practically in real time. Twitter has been on a steep and seemingly inexorable decline for, well, years, but especially since Elon Musk bought the company last fall and made a mess of the place. Reddit has spent the last couple of months self-immolating in similar ways, alienating its developers and users and hoping it can survive by sticking its head in the sand until the battle's over. (I thought for a while that Reddit would eventually be the last good place left, but... nope.) TikTok remains ascendent - and looks ever more likely to be banned in some meaningful way. Instagram has turned into an entertainment platform; nobody's on Facebook anymore.You could argue, I... Continue reading...

A still from Insecure season 5. | Image: HBO Some big HBO titles are heading to Netflix - just not the absolute biggest.Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery have reached a deal to start streaming select HBO series on Netflix's platform. All five seasons of Insecure, which ran on HBO between 2016 and 2021, are now available, and others are on the way.Deadline reports that Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Six Feet Under, and Ballers will come to Netflix, too, and True Blood will stream on Netflix outside the US. The shows will all remain available on Max, as well. The list includes some classic HBO series - but notably not the network's big recent titles, like Game of Thrones and Succession, or some of the biggest titles from its past, like The Sopranos or The Wire.The agreement comes... Continue reading...

Image: IFC Films It's always nice when the end of the world can have some levity. Biosphere, from director Mel Eslyn, manages to mash up a post-apocalyptic story with a buddy comedy for a movie about two best pals who just so happen to be the last remaining people on the planet. It's a high concept told at a small scale, with the entirety of the film taking place inside of an apartment-size biosphere home to lifelong friends Billy (Mark Duplass) and Ray (Sterling K. Brown). Their incredible chemistry propels the film forward, but it's a major twist mid-way through that makes this strange, funny, and at times uncomfortable movie worth checking out.We don't know much about what actually happened to end the world. We do know that the movie appears to... Continue reading...

Cowboy makes some subtle changes to create an e-bike that will likely have even broader mainstream appeal. | Image: Cowboy Boutique Belgian electric bicycle maker Cowboy just added a new more upright and comfortable commuter e-bike to its portfolio. The so-called Cruiser takes the grips, wide saddle, and more relaxed riding position of the company's C4ST (step-through) model and adds a top bar and a wider swept-back handlebar. It's the Dutch-style e-bike you buy if you already liked the C4 but disliked its aggressive forward riding position, skinny saddle, and narrow handlebars.I had a chance to test ride the new 19.3kg Cruiser against the original C4 (now renamed Classic) and step-through C4ST (now known as the Cruiser ST) in Amsterdam at one of Cowboy's new retail partners - an initiative that launched in May with independent bike shops across Europe. ... Continue reading...

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Apple may be planning a new display with a custom Apple silicon chip - similar to the A13-powered Studio Display - that would allow it to be gain behavior that's completely independent of the Mac, such as the ability to act as a smart display when not in use, said Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in the subscriber-only version of his Power On newsletter today.Rumors have swirled about Apple's display plans for a little while. For instance, the company may be working on a 27-inch mini-LED display and a follow-up to the pricey Apple Pro Display XDR, with the ability to summon Siri built into the displays themselves, possibly.The new smart display capability sounds a lot like the StandBy feature coming in iOS 17 later this year. StandBy lets... Continue reading...

The Vision Pro almost had a dedicated controller. | Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple's new Vision Pro headset, which is coming later this year, will use hand-tracking and eye-tracking for control, but at one time, Apple considered a finger-worn input device, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in today's Power On newsletter.Gurman said that early in the Vision Pro's development cycle, Apple tested third-party virtual reality controllers from companies like HTC. Later, it looked into the finger-worn device - indeed, in 2015 a smart ring patent from the company emerged, though at the time seemed more intended as a general wearable device, not something specific to a mixed reality headset.Apple Vision Pro first look.In the end, Gurman says, the company decided that using eye-tracking and hand motions to... Continue reading...

Image: Bluesky Bluesky, a decentralized Twitter-like social network, is pausing new signups temporarily" to try and resolve performance issues it's been experiencing after Twitter introduced limits on the amount of tweets you can see in a day. Even though you still need an invite code to be able to join Bluesky, it seems that the influx of new users has been a problem.We will temporarily be pausing Bluesky sign-ups while our team continues to resolve the existing performance issues," Bluesky wrote in a post. We'll keep you updated when invite codes will resume functionality. We're excited to welcome more users to our beta soon!" Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge An image of Bluesky's post. Bluesky's status page... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge On Thursday, various outlets reported on a June Reddit post from user potterharry97 saying that Steam would no longer be publishing games with AI-generated content. Later in the month, another game dev penned a similar post. Valve says that's not quite right.In a statement emailed to The Verge, Valve PR representative Kaci Boyle said the company's goal is not to discourage the use of [AI] on Steam; instead, we're working through how to integrate it into our already-existing review policies." She went on to say that the company's current review process takes into account current copyright law, and that while developers can use these AI technologies in their work... they can not infringe on existing copyrights."Boyle added that Steam... Continue reading...

Bill Gates has done many AMAs. | Photo by Saeed Adyani / Netflix The moderators of Reddit's IAmA community will no longer solicit and coordinate ask me anything (AMA) conversations with celebrities and high-profile individuals, they wrote in a post on Saturday.Reddit's AMAs featuring notable people have become an iconic aspect of the platform, giving regular users the chance to ask questions of people they may otherwise never have a chance to speak with. (Bill Gates has done 11 of them.) The AMAs are usually a fascinating mix of interesting perspective and personal anecdotes, even if the person being featured is usually doing some sort of self-promotion. And sometimes, the entertainment is reading how the AMAs go south.r/IAmA has more than 22 million subscribers, so the subreddit offers a... Continue reading...

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Alessandro Paluzzi, a developer who routinely digs into app code to expose unreleased features, tweeted early this morning that Meta's Twitter clone, Thread, had been released into the Google Play store. It appears as though that was a mistake, however, because the app is nowhere to be found now.Paluzzi included screenshots that showed off some of the UI elements, including the login screen, which lets users sign in with their Instagram accounts, and another screen with a list of their followed accounts from the image and video site, so they can choose who to follow on Threads. Check out the screenshots in this gallery:It's not surprising that Threads looks... a lot like Twitter. From the screenshots, a new post will show character... Continue reading...

The TSA will expand its facial recognition program to over 400 airports. | Image: Getty Images The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will expand its facial recognition program to around 430 US airports over the next several years following what it calls extremely promising" results in its pilot program, according to Fast Company. The agency reportedly said its program yielded 97% effective results across all demographics, including those with dark skin. The program is currently in use in 25 airports.As pointed out in Fast Company's story, a 97% effectiveness rate across more than two million airline passengers per day means that, for over 60,000 of those people, the biometrics won't work properly if it's used in every airport in the country.At the moment, the pilot program is officially voluntary. It uses 1:1... Continue reading...

Image: Square Enix / Blizzard / The Verge Even if you've never heard of Ralph Ineson, you've heard Ralph Ineson. Continue reading...

Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. | Image: Lucasfilm / Disney The newest Indiana Jones movie isn't trying to reinvent the classic Lucasfilm formula, but it is trying to make you think about what it really means to obsess about the past. Continue reading...

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge After a month of outrage, protests, and unrest from the community, Reddit has finally flipped the switch to shut down some third-party apps.Apollo, an iOS app that became a rallying point for the recent protests against Reddit's imminent API pricing, no longer loads any content from the platform. When I open it up, all I see is a spinning wheel. Developer Christian Selig confirmed to me that Reddit is the one that turned things off, not him: would have been nice to have been given a time," he says in an email to The Verge.

Photo by Sean Hollister Ever heard the urban legend about how the original Nintendo Game Boy survived a bomb? I have reason to believe that's not true. But until recently, the flagship Nintendo Store at New York City's Rockefeller Center housed an original Game Boy that, it claimed, was damaged in a bombing during Operation Desert Storm.We just confirmed with Nintendo New York that, after many years on display, the Gulf War Game Boy is no longer there. VideoGameArt&Tidbits reported the news; they say a worker told them it was returned to Nintendo's US headquarters in Washington state.It may have been sent back months ago: YouTuber Elliot Coll filmed a trip to the store in February where an off-camera voice says we had to send it back to headquarters for... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Many popular third-party Reddit apps will be shutting down on Friday because of the platform's forthcoming paid API, and fans of the apps are sending them off with heartfelt posts and memes.The Apollo for Reddit subreddit, for example, is filled with posts celebrating the app. So long and thanks for everything," said one post for an Apollo-themed version of the was I a good boy" meme. This morning, someone posted a Dawn of the Final Day" image. Even Carrot Weather seems to be mourning Apollo. Seriously, just scroll through them all.

Illustration: The Verge The Apple Card may soon no longer be backed by Goldman Sachs. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Goldman Sachs is in talks to offload its partnership with Apple to American Express.Apple launched its credit card in partnership with Goldman Sachs in 2019 and, more recently, made its new Pay Later service available to users in March. While Apple's new financial division is handling the lending side of its buy now, pay later service, it's still working with Mastercard and Goldman Sachs to enable the program.But now, sources tell the Journal that Goldman Sachs wants to exit from both of these partnerships and have American Express take its place. According to the Journal, a deal with American Express isn't imminent or... Continue reading...

I repeat, the IARC is not a food safety agency. | Photo by Yui Mok / PA Images via Getty Images Yesterday, Reuters broke the news that the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) will declare aspartame as possibly carcinogenic" next month. However, that doesn't mean you have to raid your pantry and toss any sugar-free foods containing the artificial sweetener.Why? Because this is not the agency that consumers should listen to with regard to food safety. The IARC only assesses the hazard of a given substance, not the risk. For example, there is a hazard of a meteor destroying the Earth or the sun causing skin cancer. But that's not what matters to the average person. What matters is the actual risk of a hazard happening. There are thousands of meteors in space, but only the ones hurtling... Continue reading...

The new sign-in prompt now appears as soon as you try to access Twitter and removes the previously available background preview. | Image: Twitter / The Verge If you currently try to access Twitter without logging in to your user account, you'll be unable to see any of the content that was previously available to the wider public. Instead, you'll meet a Twitter window that asks you to either sign in to the platform or create a new account, effectively blocking you from viewing tweets and user profiles or browsing through threads unless you're a registered Twitter user.Twitter didn't immediately make a public announcement, making it unclear if this was an intentional update or another technical mishap. Later on Friday, however, Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted, claiming in a reply that the change is a Temporary emergency measure," blaming data pillaging" for degrading the service for all... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you're looking for a third-party Reddit app for Android after rif is fun for Reddit (RIF) goes away soon, you're going to have a few options. The developer of Relay for Reddit announced Friday that the app would continue to be available after July 1st, while the developer of Now and Nara for Reddit said those apps will continue on, too.Relay will be moving the app to a subscription model, developer DBrady announced in a Reddit post. Reddit will start charging for its paid API on July 1st, and the potential costs of that are forcing apps like RIF and Apollo for Reddit to shut down. But DBrady seems to have found a way to make the numbers work with subscriptions - something they said they were contemplating earlier this month.Relay... Continue reading...