The Verge

Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images DirecTV is launching MySports, a sports-focused streaming package offering access to live NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL games across more than 40 channels, including ESPN, Fox Sports, TNT Sports, and USA Network, along with local ABC, Fox, and NBC stations. The service will cost $69.99 per month and is available to stream from DirecTV's app on mobile and smart TV platforms - no satellite TV subscription required.The announcement comes just days after the Disney-owned ESPN, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery called off their live sports streaming venture, Venu, after facing an antitrust lawsuit from Fubo. Though Fubo dropped its lawsuit after Disney agreed to merge Hulu + Live TV with the service, DirecTV and EchoStar weren't happy about the decision.DirecTV bills MySports as a cheaper alternative to competitors like YouTube TV, which starts at $82.99 per month, and Fubo, which costs $79.99 / month and up.Despite offering access to dozens of channels, MySports is still working to add local CBS content. Vince Torres, DirecTV's chief marketing officer, told Bloomberg the company is in early discussions" with the network about a potential deal. MySports should help fix the fractured sports streaming landscape, which currently scatters live NFL, NBA, and MLB games across different services like Prime Video, Netflix, Peacock, Apple TV Plus, and Paramount Plus.To start, a beta version of MySports will only be available in 24 metro areas, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, and others. The MySports app is supported by several smart TV platforms like Roku, Amazon Fire, and Apple TV, and also offers unlimited DVR. DirecTV says it will add additional networks, local stations, and ESPN Plus to MySports at a later date for no extra cost."Along with this sports streaming package, DirecTV plans to launch similar streamlined bundles soon. This is the first of several genre-based options we plan to launch over the coming months on our path towards a brighter TV future for consumers." DirecTV CEO Bill Morrow said in the press release.

The 2025 Moto G Power is tougher than it looks. | Image: Motorola Motorola has announced the first 2025 updates to its Moto G line of budget phones, with new versions of the Moto G and Moto G Power. The latter is the standout, with an IP69 water-resistance rating that surpasses most flagship phones despite a price tag of just $299.99.The 2025 Moto G Power combines both IP68 and IP69 ratings, meaning it's rated for both submersion in water and exposure to high-pressure water jets and steam, in addition to full protection from dust. It's a level of protection that until recently was restricted to the bulkiest rugged phones, with last week's OnePlus 13 the first mainstream phone in the US to adopt the rating. At $899, that phone costs triple the new Motorola.Like 2023's ThinkPhone, co-branded with Lenovo, the G Power has also passed MIL-STD-810H certification for exposure to harsh environments. Motorola claims the phone has been tested to survive falls from nearly four feet, temperatures from -4 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, and up to 95% humidity. This is all, to be clear, tougher than most people need their phones to be, but there's nothing wrong with a little peace of mind.At less than 9mm thick, the new G Power is surprisingly svelte for how tough it is, but it's by no means a small phone - the 6.8-inch LCD display, covered in Gorilla Glass 5, makes this about the same size as Samsung's Galaxy S24 Ultra. A large 5,000mAh battery and wireless charging make the most of the extra space, which Motorola has also used to squeeze in a 3.5mm headphone jack, a rare treat in 2025. Image: Motorola The 2025 Moto G is the spitting image of its tougher sibling. The G Power is joined by the $199.99 Moto G, which looks similar but with a 6.7-inch display runs just a little smaller, and is limited to IP52 protection and Gorilla Glass 3. However, both phones share the same MediaTek chipset and similar 50 megapixel rear cameras, so performance should be comparable if you don't need the Power's added durability.The big question for Motorola is on software. We were fans of the 2024 Moto G Power's hardware, but felt the phone was spoiled by excessive pre-installed bloatware. Here's hoping Motorola has reined that in a little this year.The unlocked Moto G will be available online at Motorola.com, Amazon, and Best Buy starting January 30th, with the Power following on February 6th. Both will be stocked by all the major carriers over the following months.

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Goodbye to our personal Chinese spies. With five days left until the date by which TikTok is to be either sold or banned in the United States, millions of users are reckoning with what happens when one of the internet's most important media platforms just up and disappears. (Or, more likely, sticks around for a while, consistently gets worse, and then dies with a whimper.)On this episode of The Vergecast, we reckon with how we got here, and where we go next. The Verge's Lauren Feiner walks us through the years-long history of the fight over TikTok, and takes us inside last week's Supreme Court hearing, where the country's highest court appeared to be in favor of the ban. Even with a few days left, though, the story's not over: Donald Trump has said he wants to save the app, and he'll be inaugurated as president the day after the ban is set to go into effect. And now there are rumors Elon Musk might be involved with the app's future, too. If we've learned one thing about the TikTok ban, it's that it's always coming and seemingly never actually here. But it sure feels close now.After that, we chat with Kickstarter CEO Everette Taylor about a different kind of creator platform.... Read the full story at The Verge.

At $439, the DJI Flip could be a good starting point for people who don't typically buy drones at all. You can unfold it, launch it from your hand with a single button, land it on your hand again, or optionally use joysticks, all while capturing higher quality photos and video than the immediate competition.In August, my colleague Thomas Ricker told you how DJI rival Hover had changed the game by selling a $349 flying camera that doesn't require people to learn joysticks; with the $199 DJI Neo, DJI looked poised to muscle in on that in a big way. But the $439 Flip not only lets you launch and film basic dronies, orbits, and follow-me shots from the drone itself, it dramatically increases camera quality, flight stability, battery life (a quoted 31 minutes), and lets you launch it faster. You just won't be able to fly it FPV like some of us were hoping.Not only is the Flip the first DJI drone to look like a Star Wars AT-AT walker or a penny-farthing bicycle when folded, it's also the first to automatically power on when you unfold it, saving two button presses. And when you flip out each of its four spoke-filled full-coverage propeller guards - which DJI says are a first for its folding drones - they join an auto-braking, forward-facing 3D infrared sensor to protect the camera from any front impacts as well.And while that camera isn't quite as impressive as the 1.0-inch type found on DJI's Osmo Pocket 3, I was impressed by my first results in good light! It's smaller 1/1.3-inch 4K60 sensor with 4:3 aspect ratio is capable of taking 2.7K vertical video or 48 megapixel stills behind a fast f/1.7 aperture lens. Here are a couple of my unedited early flights, a drone selfie, and a photo, to give you an idea: An aerial photo from the DJI Flip. Frankly, the DJI Neo - which costs less than half as much - can't come close to this level of performance; over the same lake and the same park, the Neo couldn't even maintain a smooth level shot as the breeze blew its lighter frame around, and its images were muddy and washed out by comparison. The Flip has a three-axis gimbal to help maintain that stability. Also, pros can record in 10-bit D-Log M.But other, pricier DJI drones could offer better performance still, plus true vertical shooting by rotating the gimbal - and it'd be hard to imagine a drone enthusiast picking the Flip instead of waiting to see what DJI's unannounced Mini 5 might bring to the table.There are currently no plans to retire the Mini Series. The DJI Flip is a new entry-level drone series that will be offered alongside the DJI Neo and DJI Mini. Each of these drones are designed to meet the needs of different types of beginners," DJI spokesperson Daisy Kong confirms to The Verge.I am continually surprised by how large the Flip is; while it stays under the 249-gram weight limit that typically triggers government compliance standards like publicly broadcasting your location. Despite its folding arms, it doesn't fold down smaller than a Mini so there's no way I'm fitting it into any but the biggest cargo pants pockets I own. It's also quite loud despite its ducted propellers - absolutely not among the quieter drones that the company sells.And despite costing more than the $199 DJI Neo, it doesn't support any FPV headsets to let you virtually soar like a bird.But the Flip does cost just $439 complete with a basic RC-N3 joystick controller that lets you use your phone as a screen, plus the launch-it-from-your-hand modes; a $779 kit comes with three batteries, a carrying case, and a more capable DJI RC 2 controller with a built-in daylight visible 700-nit screen. The DJI Mini 4 Pro versions of each of same kits cost $959 and $1,099 respectively, a $320 difference.The DJI Flip should be available to buy and ship today, from DJI's website.Photography and video by Sean Hollister / The Verge

The Galaxy S23 phones are the most recent in its flagship line currently eligible for trade-in. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Samsung has announced a change to its Galaxy Trade-In program that allows consumers to trade in select Galaxy smartphone models to the company year-round, without the need to make a new purchase at the same time.The new program is set to start today in South Korea and France, with other markets to follow later in 2025. The company says that its aim is to boost the value of Galaxy devices" in the long-term by providing amazing savings" through the trade-in process.There are two key changes to the program, which will be operated by insurance and repair company Likewize. The main change is the purchase requirement: before this policy shift, trade-ins to the company have required a new purchase from samsung.com or the company's app, with the option to start a trade-in only appearing during the checkout process.The second change is year-round" availability. Trade-ins are already available at any time in the US and most other Western markets, but in South Korea they've previously been locked to specific windows - usually just after major new product launches like next week's S25 reveal, for example.There's still one big limit to the scheme however: you can only trade in specific Samsung flagship phones. Right now, that's limited to the Galaxy S20 series through to the S23, and foldables from the Z Flip 3 and Z Fold 3 through to the Z Flip 5 and Z Fold 5. Curiously, last year's Galaxy S24 and Z Flip/Fold 6 aren't included, so you can't sell anything too recent.

The seventh-gen iPad is the cheapest tablet in Apple's current lineup to support Apple Intelligence. | Photo: David Pierce / The Verge If you're in the market for a highly portable tablet, Apple's smallest tablet has fallen to its lowest price to date at multiple retailers. Right now, the latest iPad Mini is on sale at Amazon and Best Buy with Wi-Fi and 128GB of storage starting at $399 ($100 off). If you need more storage, you can also buy the step-up model with 256GB of storage for $499 ($100 off) or the 512GB variant for $699 ($100 off).With its 8.3-inch screen and lightweight design, the latest iPad Mini is closer in size to the iPhone than any other tablet in Apple's lineup. As a result, it's easier to carry on the go and hold with one hand, making it an excellent option if you read a lot on your tablet. Its small size doesn't come at the expense of performance, though. In fact, the onboard A17 Pro chip is snappier than the A14 Bionic chip found in the entry-level iPad, even if it's not as speedy as the processors in the M4-powered iPad Pro or M2-powered Air.Unlike the base iPad, the seventh-gen Mini supports Apple Intelligence, so you can take advantage of a host of AI-based features - such as AI-assisted summaries, Genmoji, ChatGPT, and the ability to erase unwanted objects in photos. It also supports the newer Apple Pencil Pro, along with Wi-Fi 6E and faster USB-C performance. They're pretty iterative updates overall; however, they're also a lot more appealing at $399 than they are at the tablet's typical retail price of $499.Read our iPad Mini review.

Illustration: The Verge Google is adjusting the profile sharing" feature in its Google Messages app to allow users to set custom contact names and photos on their own devices for their stored contacts and others they send text messages. As reported by 9to5Google, a change rolled out late last year that overrode your custom names and photos with each individual's broadcasted profile, but now you can change it back to give friends, colleagues, and family members the names and avatars that you think they should have.The profile-sharing feature was announced in late 2023, as Google continued to push the rollout of RCS, and works similarly to Contact Posters on iPhones. Android Authority found a reference in Android code in October that Google was working to allow for customer profile photos yet again.Google's updated support page for profile sharing now outlines steps to set a local contact photo that replaces the one shared by your contact. To customize their name or appearance, tap on a contact name or picture of a person in a Google Messages chat, then tap their photo on the details page. From there, you can switch between their shared one or your own custom one for them.

Illustration: The Verge Meta announced last week that it would be ditching fact-checkers in favor of X-like Community Notes, and self-described leaker" Alessandro Paluzzi shared screenshots on Monday showing what the feature might look like in Threads.Based on the screenshots, it appears you'll be able to start the process of writing a Community Note from the three-dots menu on a post, which is where you can already access features like muting an account or reporting a post. Another screenshot shows that when you write a Community Note, your note will be anonymous.A third screenshot appears to show an Instagram help center page about Community Notes that has a button to join a waitlist for the program. However, the layout of the page looks different from other live help center pages I can see right now.Meta didn't immediately reply to a request for comment.Meta said last week that it plans to phase in Community Notes in the US first over the next couple of months" and then improve it over the course of the year," but it hasn't specified exactly when the feature might be available on Threads. My colleague Alex Heath reported Sunday that Community Notes was not on the product roadmap before this week."In addition to the move to Community Notes, Meta said it's also getting rid of a number of restrictions" on topics like immigration and gender, and phasing civil content" back into Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Instagram boss Adam Mosseri published a video today showing how to set the amount of political content you see on Threads.

Image: Games Done Quick Awesome Games Done Quick 2025 has concluded, raising just over $2.5 million for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. Every Games Done Quick event is worth tuning in to either live or later via VODs, but this AGDQ was uniquely fantastic, filled with runs that'll go down as some of the best GDQ has to offer. Here are some of our favorites:New Super Mario Bros. WiiThe great thing about the speedrunning community is that it's often not enough to be the fastest runner of a particular game. That's boring. For Wes, simply running New Super Mario Bros. Wii wasn't enough to satisfy him. He had to get creative with it, deciding to master playing the game as fast as possible while playing the piano. But how can someone play a video game if both their hands are occupied, you ask? The answer is obvious: by controlling the game with your head and feet. I don't know what inspires a human to do this kind of thing, and I don't care. All that matters is that Wes put the depth of human ability (and multitasking) on display, and it was brain-breaking to watch.Elden Ring bonus showcaseSpeaking of incredible human talent, how about playing Elden Ring - a game known for its punishing difficulty - with a saxophone. I was looking forward to this run all week, and Dr. Doot did not disappoint, but not for the reason I expected. It's one thing to beat the likes of Malenia, Blade of Miquella with a specially programmed aerophone. But nothing could have prepared me for every input, from landing an attack to using consumables, sounding a hilarious doot" noise. I cried laughing it was so funny.Super MetroidSuper Metroid is a GDQ staple, often anchoring the event's last day in a week's worth of programming. But lately, GDQ has gotten away from featuring a mere run of the game to instead showcase all the work the Super Metroid modding community has put into keeping this game from 1994 fresh and interesting. This four-way race of Super Metroid included a map randomizer, meaning the game's normal layout had been shuffled around and put together in an all-new configuration.Map randomizers for a Metroid game are uniquely dangerous because all of the abilities you need to progress are no longer laid out in a logical fashion. Samus might run into the fiery pits of Lower Norfair long before finding the heat-shielding Varia suit. And with the map randomized, it's now way harder (and takes way longer) to find where the suit is. Now add an element of competition, and you've got one of the finest races in AGDQ history.Crazy Taxi with live backing bandIt used to be that if you wanted to avoid DMCA strikes for playing a game on Twitch with licensed music, you just turned the music off. But AGDQ has come up with a novel way to get around this old problem. For this run of Crazy Taxi, every song was played by a cover band that transformed AGDQ from a speedrunning video game event into an impromptu punk rock show - mini-mosh pit and all - and it ruled. I'm not gonna share any details. Just go watch it for yourself.GDQ is a uniquely special event for more reasons than featuring cool, creative, or crazy-ass runs. In a world where cowardly corporations have decided it's okay to call women and LGBTQ+ people slurs, and one where gamers have a unique reputation for being awful to each other for differences beyond our control, Games Done Quick has been very vocal in its support of marginalized people. Whether it be its diverse programming with Frame Fatales or Black in a Flash or the mere fact that every other donation featured a message of Trans Rights," which was enthusiastically read aloud and enthusiastically cheered by the live crowd.Games Done Quick has been a shining example of how intentionally curated communities can foster acceptance and be a source of joy and goodness in a climate that needs it, and AGDQ 2025 was one of the best.

Photo Illustration by Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images RedNote, the Chinese social media app also known as Xiaohongshu, rose to the number one spot on the Apple App Store as a US ban closes in on TikTok. The app offers a mix of pictures, short-form videos, and text posts across follow," explore," and nearby" feeds.A cursory scroll through RedNote's Explore page shows English-language posts scattered among those written in Chinese. Many American users call themselves TikTok refugees" in videos, while others write in text posts that they're in search of a new community because of the potential TikTok ban. Some are even asking questions to Chinese users, such as What are some popular memes in China?" Screenshot: The Verge RedNote, which launched in 2013 as a shopping-focused app, now has more than 300 million monthly active users and surpassed $1 billion in profit last year, according to Bloomberg.Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments over whether to uphold the law that will ban TikTok or force its China-based owner, ByteDance, to sell it to an American company. The Supreme Court has until January 19th to issue a decision.TikTok users may be flocking to RedNote now, but the ban also implicates other Chinese-owned apps, including RedNote, WeChat, and the other apps run by ByteDance like Lemon8 and CapCut.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Another day, another announcement from Nintendo that isn't the next Switch. Today the company revealed that its alarm clock, Alarmo, will be available at select retailers starting this March. The announcement includes the US, UK, and Europe.The $99 alarm clock launched late last year, but is currently only available to those with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription. Today's news opens that up to the larger public. The motion-controlled device lets users turn it off simply by getting up, though in my experience, that functionality wasn't much use if you share a bed. It also includes a number of sounds and themes based on Nintendo properties, including Mario Kart 8 Deluxe through a recent update.The news comes the same week that Nintendo is widely expected to detail its next console, which could happen on January 16th. It also follows a series of other announcements in recent months from the company. Most recently, Nintendo announced that a Lego Game Boy was in the works, which was preceded by announcements covering a museum, music service, and a test for a mysterious MMO.

Image: Free Our Feeds Technology advocates and celebrities are backing the launch of Free Our Feeds, a campaign designed to save social media from billionaire capture." The project aims to raise $30 million over three years to support the development of a social media ecosystem powered by the AT Protocol, or the decentralized network powering Bluesky.The raised funds will go toward launching a public interest foundation to support the project, while creating an independently hosted infrastructure" giving Bluesky users, developers, and researchers access to the content and data posted no matter what the company decides to do in the future."After starting as a research project under former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Bluesky became an independent company in 2021 and went on to create the AT Protocol, an open-source infrastructure that aims to create a social ecosystem with interoperable apps. Bluesky built its own social network atop the framework, raising millions in funds and attracting a growing number of users.Despite these efforts, Free Our Feeds believes social infrastructure run in the public interest cannot be governed by a private social media company" forever.Bluesky's underlying technology, the AT Protocol, could offer a new pathway for the social web. Yet as it stands, it is still venture-capital backed," Sherif Elsayed-Ali, the executive director at the Future of Technology Institute, said in a statement. This important initiative aims to safeguard Bluesky's underlying technology and put it on an independent pathway, so that the future of social media can be freed from the whims of any one company or group of billionaires."Free Our Feeds will be led by nine custodians - including the Mozilla Foundation's Nabiha Syed and Mark Surman - who will oversee the project's major governance decisions."Mastodon is also moving away from the single ownership model used by social platforms like Mark Zuckerberg's Meta and Elon Musk's X. On Monday, Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko announced that he will transfer the ownership of the decentralized social network to a nonprofit organization because Mastodon should not be owned or controlled by a single individual."With Meta making drastic changes to its content moderation policy, and X's transformation under Musk's ownership, the Free Our Feeds project couldn't come at a better time - even if it might take some time for its efforts to come to fruition.Correction, January 13th: A previous version of the article misattributed a quote to Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales due to an error from Free Our Feeds. The quote is from Sherif Elsayed-Ali.

Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge Samsung is making the Galaxy Ring available to more people by adding size 14 and 15 rings to its options starting on January 22nd. With the expansion, which was rumored last month, the company says its ring sizes now run from five to 15, though it caveats that both size and color availability will vary by market.The new sizes bring the Galaxy Ring closer to competitor Oura, which already offers its smart ring in sizes four to 15. Samsung's announcement didn't include details about the ring's weight or battery life, but the current lineup's larger size 12 and 13 rings use bigger batteries and can last an extra day versus the others.The bigger options will be nice for those at the upper end of its size range, particularly if they're only a half-size up. As my colleague Victoria Song wrote in her smart ring sizing guide, even if you're able to slide the ring on, it could be hard to take it off again as your fingers swell in response to things like the food you've eaten or the environment you're in.Samsung also announced it's going to sell its smart ring in 16 more countries, including Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Greece, and South Africa, starting on February 7th, though the exact date for each release will vary, it writes.

Mercedes-Benz's MBUX Virtual Assistant will use Google Gemini on the cloud. | Image: Mercedes-Benz / Google Google Cloud's new Automotive AI Agent platform promises to continue conversations and reference information" throughout users' drives, and the first car announced with it is the new Mercedes CLA. That car has the next-generation MB.OS operating system with an upgraded MBUX Virtual Assistant.When Mercedes revealed it at CES in 2024, it didn't say which company's LLM it was running on. Meanwhile, the existing MBUX Voice Assistant system that could handle about 20 commands triggered with Hey Mercedes" now includes results provided by OpenAI's ChatGPT and Microsoft Bing, but it's not a conversational platform. According to Mercedes, there's a plan to roll out this upgraded system to further models" that run the older Voice Assistant, but it didn't specify which ones.The new MBUX Virtual Assistant will feature four personality traits," including natural, predictive, personal, and empathetic. It can also ask you questions for additional clarity to get you what you need.Google's new AI Agent is tailor-made to automotive uses, leveraging Google Maps data to find points of interest, look up restaurant reviews for you, give you recommendations, answer follow-up questions, and more. Google says MBUX Virtual Assistant users will get access to nearly real time" Google Maps updates. It also says it can handle complex, multi-turn dialog."The agent uses Gemini and runs on Google Cloud's Vertex AI development platform, designed to help companies build out AI experiences. This is just the beginning of how agentic capabilities can transform the automotive industry," Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated in a press release.

8BitDo's mobile controller offers a little more grip than others we recommend. | Image: 8BitDo While the cradle-style Backbone One is a great mobile controller we often recommend, it's not the right choice for everyone. Thankfully, 8BitDo's Ultimate Mobile Gaming Controller is a cheaper alternative for Android users, one that's available at Amazon in black for $39.99 ($10 off) for the first time. That's well below the Backbone One's $100 MSRP and its typical sale price of $69.99.The 8BitDo Ultimate Mobile doesn't connect via a USB-C or Lightning port like other mobile options. Instead, it uses Bluetooth for wireless compatibility with most smartphones running Android 9.0 or later. (Sorry, iPhone users!) That does mean you'll need to recharge it occasionally, but 8BitDo says it only requires a 1.5-hour charge for 15 hours of gameplay. It can also accommodate any phone measuring between 100mm and 170mm in length.In terms of hardware, 8BitDo's mobile gamepad offers an Xbox-style button layout and ergonomics, with four face buttons, a clicky D-pad, dual bumpers, and drift-free Hall effect sticks and triggers that should be less prone to failure over time. It also features two rear buttons, a dedicated profile button, and turbo functionality, all of which are customizable with 8BitDo's excellent Ultimate Software.More Monday deals

Image: The Verge Microsoft is creating a new engineering group that's focused on artificial intelligence. Led by former Meta engineering chief Jay Parikh, the new CoreAI - Platform and Tools division will combine Microsoft's Dev Div and AI platform teams together, alongside some employees on the Office of the CTO team, to focus on building an AI platform and tools for both Microsoft and its customers.Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella outlined his vision for this new team in an internal memo today, using a cricket reference (his favorite sport) to note that we're entering the next innings of this AI platform shift" in 2025 that will reshape all application categories." Nadella believes that every part of the application stack will be impacted by AI, and that thirty years of change is being compressed into three years!"To get ready for all this change, Nadella sees the need for an AI-first app stack" inside Microsoft that will impact how its own developers use and build AI apps and tools in the future. In this world, Azure must become the infrastructure for AI, while we build our AI platform and developer tools - spanning Azure AI Foundry, GitHub, and VS Code - on top of it," says Nadella. In other words, our AI platform and tools will come together to create agents, and these agents will come together to change every SaaS application category, and building custom applications will be driven by software (i.e. service as software")."Parikh will lead this new group as the executive vice president of CoreAI - Platform and Tools, after previously being instrumental to Meta's engineering efforts for more than a decade. Microsoft announced Parikh's hire in October, and this is the first major engineering shakeup since he joined the software giant. Parikh also reports directly to Nadella and is a member of Microsoft's senior leadership team. He now has a number of other Microsoft executives reporting up to him in his new role, including AI platform chief Eric Boyd, deputy CTO of AI infrastructure Jason Taylor, head of Microsoft's developer division Julia Liuson, and head of developer infrastructure Tim Bozarth.Microsoft is essentially taking its entire developer division and ensuring it's focused on AI. While there's a mention of Azure AI Foundry, GitHub, and VS Code, Nadella doesn't call out Visual Studio or .NET in his memo. That's probably because the mission, as Nadella describes it, is for this new CoreAI team to now build the end-to-end Copilot & AI stack for both our first-party and third-party customers to build and run AI apps and agents."

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Last week, major location data broker Gravy Analytics disclosed a data breach that may have resulted in the theft of precise location data for millions of people, reports TechCrunch. That appears to include data from popular mobile games like Candy Crush, as well as dating apps, pregnancy tracking apps, and more, as 404 Media wrote on Thursday, following up its report of the breach two days earlier.Baptiste Robert, CEO of digital security company Predicta Lab, said in a series of posts Wednesday that the small sample data set published in a Russian forum contained data for tens of millions of data points worldwide" and included sensitive locations like the White House, Kremlin, Vatican, military bases, and more." As TechCrunch notes, the sample alone contained more than 30 million locations.

Photo illustration by The Verge / Photo: Amazon AWS chief Matt Garman says Amazon is already seeing the benefits of its massive AI investments. Read the full story at The Verge.

Image: Adobe Adobe is launching new generative AI tools that can automate labor-intensive production tasks like editing large batches of images and translating video presentations. The most notable is Firefly Bulk Create," an app that allows users to quickly resize up to 10,000 images or replace all of their backgrounds in a single click instead of tediously editing each picture individually.The tool was created by combining several of Adobe's Firefly-powered APIs for developers, with the aim of making them more accessible to creatives who lack technical coding experience. Bulk Create is launching in beta today, and split into two separate tools on Adobe's Firefly web app: Remove Background" and Resize." The first is pretty self-explanatory - users can upload image files into the tool from their computer, Dropbox, or Adobe Experience Manager, and quickly remove the backgrounds.It should work on any image, but looks especially useful for product marketers. Alongside just removing the background, users can also set the tool to replace backgrounds with a specific image or color (defined by HEX codes) to get variations of each image that are ready for further editing. The file batches can be saved as either PNG or JPEG for now, with Adobe saying that support for Photoshop PSD files will be added in the future. Image: Adobe The background expansion for Resize" might work fine for abstract images like this, but the tool seems to struggle with photographs. The Resize" tool presents a selection of preset options for popular ad banner sizes and platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. It uses generative AI to stretch the backgrounds of images to fit these required dimensions, but the demo I saw wasn't particularly inspiring - there was a lot of obvious warping, with one example strangely copying and blurring wine glasses together that were in the foreground. For simple backgrounds, though, it could spare graphic designers from having to manually resize their marketing assets for each platform. While services like Canva and Adobe Express also have tools that make this easier, Bulk Create can do so in a single click.Adobe is making some new developer APIs for Firefly Services generally available in the coming weeks that developers can use to speed up video and print production workflows. Dubbing and Lip Sync" can translate and edit lip movement for video audio into 14 different languages, and a new InDesign tool can automatically format text and images for print and digital media using predefined templates. Digital avatars" created using text descriptions and voice recordings will also be available in beta this month, which can be used to present videos and product explainers.The power required to edit batches of 10,000 images is presumably expensive. Adobe says there will be a fee to use these new tools based on consumption" - which likely means users will need to pay for a premium Adobe Firefly plan that provides generative credits that can then be spent" on the features.

Image: The Verge Decentralized social network Mastodon has announced plans to transfer its ownership to a new nonprofit entity. Ownership of Mastodon will move away from the control of CEO Eugen Rochko, in contrast to the power exerted by other social media CEOs like Meta cofounder Mark Zuckerberg and X owner Elon Musk.Simply, we are going to transfer ownership of key Mastodon ecosystem and platform components to a new nonprofit organization," Mastodon says in a blog post, affirming the intent that Mastodon should not be owned or controlled by a single individual."Rochko, who founded Mastodon in 2016, will take on a new role with a focus on product strategy while ownership moves to a new not-for-profit entity based somewhere in Europe, with the exact location still to be finalized. The organization is currently headquartered in Germany, where it was a nonprofit until its charitable status was stripped last year. This move is a way of restoring Rochko's original intent for Mastodon.When founder Eugen Rochko started working on Mastodon, his focus was on creating the code and conditions for the kind of social media he envisioned," Mastodon says. The legal setup was a means to an end, a quick fix to allow him to continue operations. From the start, he declared that Mastodon would not be for sale and would be free of the control of a single wealthy individual, and he could ensure that because he was the person in control, the only ultimate decision-maker."In the short term, nothing should change for users. Mastodon will continue to host the mastodon.social and mastodon.online servers and support its federated network. Routine code development and bug fixes are ongoing, though the announcement adds that changes are definitely in the pipeline."Our core mission remains the same: to create the tools and digital spaces where people can build authentic, constructive online communities free from ads, data exploitation, manipulative algorithms or corporate monopolies," Mastodon says.Mastodon's announcement comes at a time when the WordPress open-source project and its cofounder have been embroiled in a months-long legal feud, and Meta's Zuckerberg has made headlines for stripping back Facebook and Instagram's fact-checking and content moderation before lying about it to Joe Rogan.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Tom Conrad, a longtime veteran of the tech industry who joined Sonos' board of directors in 2017, has been appointed interim CEO following today's ouster of Patrick Spence. And in his first letter as the (temporary) new boss, Conrad hits on a number of things that will likely be music to the ears of rank-and-file Sonos employees.I've heard from many of you about your own frustrations about how far we've drifted from our shared ideals," he says in the letter. There's a tremendous amount of work in front of us, including what I'm sure will be some very challenging moments, decisions, and trade-offs, but I'm energized by the passion I see all around me for doing right by our customers and getting back to the innovation that is at the heart of Sonos' incredible history."Conrad says he has already relocated to Santa Barbara - where Sonos is headquartered - and will be in the office daily as he works to reenergize employees after an ordeal that has cratered morale. I think we'll all agree that this year we've let far too many people down. As we've seen, getting some important things right (Arc Ultra and Ace are remarkable products!) is just not enough when our customers' alarms don't go off, their kids can't hear their playlist during breakfast, their surrounds don't fire, or they can't pause the music in time to answer the buzzing doorbell."In a separate letter to employees, Sonos board chair Julius Genachowski said, Tom's mandate is to improve the Sonos core experience for our customers, while optimizing our business to drive innovation and financial performance," and he noted that Conrad has left his job as CEO of Zero Longevity Science to give his full attention to Sonos. Perhaps the interim pick already has an eye on making this appointment more permanent.Below is Conrad's full letter to employees:

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge As chief executive, Spence oversaw many successful products. But there was no coming back from last year's app debacle: it has finally led to his ouster. Sonos CEO Patrick Spence is resigning from the company today, effective immediately, with board member Tom Conrad filling the role of interim CEO. It's the most dramatic development yet in an eight-month saga that has proven to be the most challenging time in Sonos' history.The company's decision to prematurely release a buggy, completely overhauled new app back in May - with crucial features missing at launch - outraged customers and kicked off a monthslong domino effect that included layoffs, a sharp decline in employee morale, and a public apology tour. The Sonos Ace headphones, rumored to be the whole reason behind the hurried app, were immediately overshadowed by the controversy, and my sources tell me that sales numbers remain dismal. Sonos' community forums and subreddit have been dominated by complaints and an overwhelmingly negative sentiment since the spring.In October, Sonos tried to get a handle on the situation, which, by then, had spiraled into a full-on PR disaster, by outlining a turnaround plan. The company vowed to strengthen product development principles, increase transparency internally, and take other steps that it said would prevent any mistake of this magnitude from ever happening again. I can also report for the first time that Sonos hired a crisis management public relations firm to help navigate the ordeal. Image: Sonos But three months later, Sonos' board of directors and Spence have concluded that those steps weren't enough: the app debacle has officially cost Spence his job. No other changes are being made today, however. So for now, chief product officer Maxime Bouvat-Merlin, who some employees have privately told me deserves a fair share of the blame for recent missteps, will remain in his role.We're going to initiate a search for the next CEO, and we'll work on finding a leader who's going to continue to build on our legacy and work with the team to move the company forward," Sonos spokesperson Erin Pategas told me by phone on Sunday afternoon. She described the leadership change as turning a page on the chapter that we're in and forging a path ahead that gets us in the direction that we want to be going for ourselves and our customers."In case you were wondering, that direction will not include a return to the old Sonos app; Pategas said the company remains fully committed to the new software, which has received a slew of bug fixes and gradually added back previous features over the last several months. It's gotten better, but even this far along, complaints remain about speakers randomly vanishing from the app and other problems. Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Spence during happier times, back when the original Sonos Move was released. Spence joined Sonos in 2012 as chief commercial officer. As CEO, he oversaw a wide range of successful hardware products: Sonos released several impressive soundbars (including the still-new Arc Ultra), pushed into portable audio with the Move and Roam, and debuted the forward-looking Era 300 spatial audio speaker. But the app stumbles - and Spence's failure to apologize in the immediate aftermath - ultimately soured his reputation with the company's most loyal customers. There was no overcoming that.Spence will technically remain with Sonos until June 30th of this year, during which time he'll receive a base salary of $7,500 per month for providing the company with strategic advisory services." And when that end date rolls around, he'll be granted a severance of $1,875,000. Those numbers come from an 8K filing that Sonos made with the SEC regarding today's news.It now falls on Conrad, who joined the Sonos board in 2017, to rally disenchanted employees and make good on winning back consumer trust. Conrad's career includes a 10-year tenure as chief technology officer at Pandora and two years as VP of product at Snapchat. He worked on Apple's Finder software during the '90s. Most recently, Conrad served as chief product officer for the ill-fated Quibi streaming service. Pategas believes he's a great fit for the interim CEO position because he's keenly aware of the company's current predicament; Conrad and chief innovation officer Nick Millington have already been spearheading Sonos' fix-the-app effort for months.Despite this seismic shift at the top, Sonos' future product pipeline remains full steam ahead," Pategas told me. The company's next major new product is rumored to be a streaming video player, which would pit it against the likes of Apple, Roku, Amazon, and Google in the living room.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg at the Department of Transportation offices in Washington, DC. | Photo by Cheriss May for The Verge The outgoing transportation secretary on EVs, robotaxis, Trump, Musk, and the work still left to do. The outlook for electric vehicles looks shaky. Sales are up for most companies not named Tesla," but with Donald Trump promising to eliminate all of the generous subsidies and tax credits put in place by the Biden administration, that momentum could falter. Trump is also getting ready to unleash a flood of tariffs on foreign imports, including auto supplies. And he's expected to relax tailpipe emission rules that could slow down EV sales even more - and allow car companies to sell more polluting vehicles.Amid all this, Pete Buttigieg, who oversaw much of Biden's EV policies, is trying to put on a brave face. While the incoming Trump team sharpens its knives, the transportation secretary is finishing out his days by approving as much spending as he can from the administration's two landmark laws, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act, before Trump can claw the rest back.He's also holding on to hope that Republican lawmakers, especially those who have directly benefited from the administration's spending on EVs and clean energy, will resist Trump's efforts to undo his predecessor's accomplishments.I think the bulk of our work will endure"For every conservative legislator publicly threatening to reverse our work, there's two or three who look like they're trying to take credit for it," he said in an exit interview with The Verge. And as long as that ratio keeps up, I think the bulk of our work will endure."Still, you can tell the election results and the coming turnover was weighing on Buttigieg, who seemed a lot more downbeat than in his previous interviews with The Verge. We also asked him what he wasn't able to accomplish while in office and to describe his hopes for himself - and us - for the future.This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.Donald Trump has said he's going to end the EV mandate" on day one. Which of your policies do you see as the most endangered, and which are more likely to survive for the next four years?I'm not that worried about having an EV mandate since there isn't one, but I am concerned that he might take steps to make EVs more expensive for American consumers. And that would be unfortunate. The work we've done to make EVs more affordable is part of why there are more and more jobs being created in the industrial Midwest, in places like where I grew up that are seeing a level of auto industry growth that we haven't had since the '60s. And I think that needs to be kept up, especially because there is clearly a ferocious innovation competition with China. They're using all the tools in their tool kit to try to edge us out, and we can't let that happen.I think the thing that has been the most effective in the short term has been the tax credits and making them more affordable. I think in the medium term, the thing that will matter the most is the charging network. Even though 80 percent of EV charging happens at home, we know that the other 20 percent really matters. And most of the projects that we set into motion will be physically online by 2027.I am concerned that [Trump] might take steps to make EVs more expensive for American consumers."Given that it's likely EVs are going to become more expensive over the next few years, how do you think the auto industry should respond to the elimination of these incentives? And how do you think customers are going to respond?What we've seen lately is, despite some of the coverage and the stories that are out there every single year, more Americans choose EVs. I think that trend will continue even if there's policy fluctuation because of the benefits in terms of the total cost of ownership. Having a vehicle with fewer moving parts and fewer fluids involved and that's just cheaper to fuel will, in the long run, be why the market sends us in that direction.Regardless, I think the important thing is to continue supporting a Made in America" EV industry. And I'm concerned about that. The OEMs are going to do what makes the most sense to them in the given policy environment. They've made a lot of choices that there's really no turning back for them. But of course, they're going to need to modulate that up or down from year to year based on the market. That's what businesses do, and that's totally appropriate.What sort of dangers do you feel exist for the climate from a transportation perspective, considering we've got an incoming administration that is rejecting the idea that climate change is an accepted science and seems ready to enact policies that will help worsen the effects of climate change?The climate doesn't care whether people care about it or not. It's going to keep changing. And we need to keep adapting and doing what we can to prevent it from being worse than it already is. Obviously, it matters when you have an administration that cares about it versus one that doesn't.My experience as a mayor was that if cities, representing the bulk of global GDP, got together and said, We're not going to wait on our national capitals. We're going to take action ourselves." That's how the C40, which became the climate mayors, was born. So I have a lot of confidence that state and local work will continue and that there are new stakeholders, including red states, working-class auto manufacturing families, who will be perhaps a surprisingly strong backstop on the continued importance of the growth of the industry in our country.Have you heard specifically from any of these red state lawmakers in the so-called Battery Belt where these factories are going up, places like Tennessee and Kentucky? Have they told you anything that gives you confidence that maybe there's going to be more pushback on the elimination of these policies?Often, it's more in what they don't say than what they do say. The conspicuous decision of leaders in places like Georgia and Indiana not to try to pile on the anti-EV ideology because, of course, governors like cutting ribbons on good-paying building trades and manufacturing jobs. And that's exactly what's happening because of our work. If anything, I think there will be an attempt for others to try to take credit for it. But the most important thing is that happens at all.The climate doesn't care whether people care about it or not."Was the politicization of EVs over the course of the presidential campaign inevitable? Or do you think there was more the administration could have done to push back against that?I think we did everything we could to stress that this shouldn't be a Republican or Democratic thing. That when you're in a high-stakes innovation competition with a country like China, you have nothing to gain by kind of over-indexing on old technology or telling people that what we did in the last century is going to work in this one without modernizing. I've just never seen a country win out by looking only to its past.As we've seen in our time, everything from public health to transportation policy can get politicized. But again, I think the market will actually point in a pretty powerful direction here. And part of how I know that is you've got a country like China, which is conspicuously not enthusiastic about environmental protection, and they're all in there doing that for a reason. The reason is economic strategy. And we better not be caught sleeping when it comes to our economic strategy. That's a bipartisan concern.The Trump team is also reportedly looking into canceling the standing general order on autonomous vehicle and advanced driver-assist crash reporting. That was another notable thing that happened under your watch. What do we stand to lose there if this sort of transparency is eliminated and we don't have insight into some of these crashes?To put it simply, I think kneecapping a safety initiative is not a good idea. I've seen lots of second-hand reporting on that. I don't know what will actually happen. But what I know is that we need to make sure we have good information about the safety of this technology coming onto our roadways. And I say that not because I'm against that technology. On the contrary, I think it's precisely because of the theoretically lifesaving potential that we need to get the rollout right as a country.I've just never seen a country win out by looking only to its past."Trump also seems to be considering policies that favor his new best friend, Elon Musk. What concerns do you have seeing someone like Musk, with all of his conflicts and government entanglements, so close to power?When you consider the power of any federal agency - certainly one like the USDOT, which has a lot of life-and-death responsibility - it's incredibly important that that power be used in ways that are fair and objective. And we've sought to do that by calling balls and strikes without fear or favor. Sometimes that has meant that in the same month we are congratulating a company for some partnership with us in one realm, we're also launching enforcement actions against them for some concern or violation in another realm. You have to be ready to call balls and strikes. And I hope there is enough public and congressional scrutiny to make sure that happens no matter who's in charge here.Do you think the Biden administration could have courted Musk a little more gently or strategically, given how he has emerged as this force in terms of his support for Trump and how much Tesla has been influential in the EV market?Maybe, it's hard to say in hindsight. One thing I've observed is that a lot of the players in this space - even though you would think it is hyper-rational given how technical and how economic it is - the truth is, there's a pretty big emotion factor there, too. And I think it's important to take that into account.I also wanted to ask you about the ARPA project with infrastructure. That was a big announcement over the last four years. How do you see that sort of progressing into the next administration? Do you feel like there's still going to be support for a Skunk Works-style project around infrastructure?I think so. I hope so. I think there's enormous potential here. I mean, some of the technologies that we use for transportation haven't changed that much since the days of the Romans. And yet we know there's evidence that everything from 500-year concrete to self-healing bridge components is potentially within our grasp. I mean, it could come to fruition in my lifetime. So given that some of those things are trillion-dollar ideas, we should continue investing the modest, comparatively modest millions that make it possible. And this is something, too, I hope is bipartisan. Innovation should be bipartisan. So far, I haven't seen a strong Democrat / Republican valence about unlocking some of those technologies. We just need to be smart about which things the market can take care of and which things just don't happen unless there's government support.A common criticism I heard about the Inflation Reduction Act was that a lot of money was being spent to incentivize cars, but not enough to get people out of their cars and walking and biking. There was an announcement today about $45 million for some active transportation. But compare that to the tens of billions of dollars spent on EVs, it seems kind of like a drop in the bucket. Do you feel like this was the right balance to strike, or do you think more could have been done?That would be true if you looked at the IRA in a vacuum. But the truth is, even though we think we call the IRA the climate bill, in many ways the infrastructure bill was our climate bill as a department. What I mean by that is a lot of the things that went into supporting transit or supporting a new, better way to design our highways and bridges will mean just as much or more for carbon pollution reduction as what's in the IRA. EVs help, but that's only part of the story.How are you personally feeling seeing all of these policies that you spent so much time on - so much effort, so much political capital to get enacted - now that they're all on the chopping block or endangered?I just can't speculate or predict what will happen next. But what I do know is what we did was good policy and good work. One of the most flattering and convincing pieces of evidence I see for that is for every conservative legislator publicly threatening to reverse our work, there's two or three who look like they're trying to take credit for it. And as long as that ratio keeps up, I think the bulk of our work will endure.And for those folks who are waiting with dread about what's going to come down the pike in terms of transportation policy and climate policy - are we screwed, or do you think there's some hope for the future?As a federal official, I have sometimes been impatient with the limitations of the federal level compared to the power that our system places in state and local hands. I think going forward, maybe I'll go back to my mayoral mentality and remember how much of our salvation comes from the local in this country. Again, some things are good policy in a way that endures no matter who's in charge, even if they have a different vocabulary or a different emphasis. I actually think the realm of transportation work is one of the ones that will be the most durably bipartisan, even if, obviously, the next administration will show less interest in issues like climate change, labor union support, or racial and economic justice compared to this one.As a last question, if you had another four years on this job, what are some things you would like to have done?I just launched our Project Delivery Acceleration Council. And it sounds strange to launch something on your way out the door, but what I reminded that team of is that their work is going to be wildly important under the next administration, to make sure that we pay more attention to delivery. It's critically important to fund these things, but you also have to bring out a lot more efficiency in the project delivery process. And it isn't sexy, but it's wildly important to get more value for our taxpayer dollar.So as I think about the second half of this decade, when the bulk of these projects actually enter construction, that's something I would have wanted to work on. I think I'll continue to find some way to work on it on the outside, and I hope it gets continued bipartisan interest in [Washington, DC] because I think delivery is vitally, vitally important, not just on the legislative side.The infrastructure law was a five-year bill and year five is coming up. Congress and the administration will have to negotiate what comes next. And it'll be important to learn from everything good, bad, and indifferent that we've learned from the first infrastructure bill. And then from a safety perspective, I think the biggest piece of unfinished business remains the rail safety legislation - bipartisan, cosponsored by JD Vance, completely deserving of a vote and of being passed into law. And if the next administration is the one to do it, I'll be the first to cheer for that because it's just the right thing to do.

Image: Blue Origin Blue Origin is preparing for its biggest launch yet, but on Monday morning the attempt was scrubbed for technical reasons after several delays were made throughout the three-hour launch window. The window originally opened at 1AM ET.It's unclear when the Jeff Bezos-owned commercial space company will next attempt to send its 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket into space for the first time.

Roborock's Saros Z70 looks set to be the first robot vacuum with an articulating arm to come to market. It's designed to pick up light items like socks and tissues. (Not actual size) | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge CES saw wild innovations from Roborock and Dreame and helpful upgrades from the rest of the pack, all of which are set to make 2025 a banner year for those who'd rather leave the cleaning to the robots. Read the full story at The Verge.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Apple may have settled on iPhone 17 Air as the name for the rumored skinny iPhone that's expected this fall, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in today's Power On newsletter. He writes that the phone will be a testing ground for future technologies," including the tech that leads to the company's first foldables.The name wouldn't be surprising - both the MacBook Air and iPad Air were the thinnest versions of their lines when they were released. The iPhone 17 Air is expected to carry that forward by being about 2 millimeters thinner" than current iPhones, Gurman has written. Other recent rumors have put it between 5.5mm and 6.25mm thick, which is close to the M4 iPad Pro's depth and less than the thinnest iPhone so far, the iPhone 6.The thinness isn't just a flex - realizing it will help Apple along toward future foldable iPads and iPhones, Gurman writes. And he says the phone could be one of Apple's first proving grounds for its in-house cell modem, codenamed Sinope, after it debuts in the iPhone SE this spring. This year's iPhone lineup is also expected to debut Apple-designed Wi-Fi / Bluetooth chips, though Gurman doesn't go as far as saying that includes the 17 Air.Past rumors have said the new 17 Air will get a 6.6-inch ProMotion OLED display - Apple's 120Hz variable refresh rate screen used only on iPhone Pro models so far - and that it will have just a single 48-megapixel camera lens on the back, with a 24-megapixel selfie camera. It may have Apple's A19 chip and, like the iPhone SE 4, is expected to pack 8GB of RAM to run Apple Intelligence AI features.

The Cell BioPrint is designed to be used in retail spaces and dermatology offices. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge Las Vegas is punishingly dry. The arid winter air means I woke up on Day 3 of CES 2025 with a nosebleed, chapped lips, and ashy legs. This in spite of the fact I slathered myself with two pumps of a fermented bean essence, eye cream, moisturizer, and a lip mask. Staring at my face in the hotel mirror, I wonder if any of those products were doing what they're supposed to - and if maybe, I should try something different.This is why I was so eager to try L'Oreal's Cell BioPrint.For anyone who's struggled with their complexion, the Cell BioPrint feels like a holy grail gadget. The device is a mini-lab setup that analyzes a skin sample to generate a report about your skin's current condition. It'll also grade" your skin with regard to oiliness, wrinkles, skin barrier function, pore size, and uneven skin tone. Based on the proteins in your skin, you'll also see whether you're more likely to be susceptible to those issues down the line - even if they aren't issues now. The test also determines whether you're responsive to retinol, a popular and well-studied skincare ingredient that nevertheless causes a ton of confusion online. Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge ... Read the full story at The Verge.

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 66, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy 2025, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been reading about loneliness and Web3 scams and the future of procedural TV, watching Deadpool & Wolverine on an airplane like the director intended, rewatching Severance and Squid Game to get ready for the second seasons, eagerly awaiting the return of Kids Baking Championship, wondering if that's real Sara Dietschy or AI Sara Dietschy, and giving an Apple News Plus subscription a whirl as my go-to news source.I also have for you a big report from CES in Las Vegas. This edition of Installer is a little different than most, just because we saw so many new things, and so many new things launched, and in many cases, it's hard to know whether any of it will ever hit shelves. So think of this as part Installer, part CES recap, part David hopes desperately these things actually ship" list. But I tried hard to pick out the stuff I'm confident will actually end up on sale at some point soon and might be worth your money. I'm sure I'll be wrong about a few... Read the full story at The Verge.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge We view what we are doing as a public service,' says the cofounder of the nonprofit that millions of people are relying on to stay safe. If you live in Los Angeles, you are probably already intimately familiar with Watch Duty, the free app that shows active fires, mandatory evacuation zones, air quality indexes, wind direction, and a wealth of other information that everyone, from firefighters to regular people, have come to rely on during this week's historic and devastating wildfires.Watch Duty is unique in the tech world in that it doesn't care about user engagement, time spent, or ad sales. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit behind it only cares about the accuracy of the information it provides and the speed with which the service can deliver that information. The app itself has taken off, rocketing to the top of Apple's and Google's app stores. Over 1 million people have downloaded it over the last few days alone.The elegance of the app lies in its simplicity. It doesn't scrape user data, show ads, require any kind of login, or track your information. Its simple tech stack and UI - most of which is maintained by volunteer engineers and reporters - has likely helped save countless lives. While Watch Duty is free to use, the app accepts tax-deductible donations and offers two tiers of membership that unlock additional features, like a firefighting flight tracker and the ability to set alerts for more than four counties.With plans to expand the service across the United States, as well as overseas and into other emergency services, Watch Duty may eventually replace some of the slower and less reliable local government alert systems for millions of people. Photo by Lokman Vural Elibol / Anadolu via Getty Images An app born from fireThe idea for Watch Duty came to cofounder John Mills while he was trying to protect his off-grid Sonoma County home from the Walbridge fire in 2020. He realized there wasn't a single source for all the information people needed to protect themselves from the blaze, which ultimately killed 33 people and destroyed 156 homes. John and his friend David Merritt, who is Watch Duty's cofounder and CTO, decided to build an app to help.This came out of an idea that John had, and he talked to me about it four years ago," Merritt tells The Verge. We built the app in 60 days, and it was run completely by volunteers, no full-time staff. It was a side project for a lot of engineers, so the aim was to keep it as simple as possible."Fire reporting is piecemeal at best in fire-prone areas and frequently scattered across platforms like Facebook and X, where fire departments and counties have verified pages sharing relevant updates. But increasingly, social media platforms are putting automated access for alert services behind paywalls. Governments also use a wide variety of alert systems, causing delays that can cost lives, especially in fast-moving fires like the Palisades and Eaton fires that have forced evacuations for more than 180,000 people. And sometimes, these government-run alerts are sent out mistakenly, causing mass confusion.Watch Duty simplifies all that for millions of people.We view what we are doing as a public service," says Merritt. It is a utility that everyone should have, which is timely, relevant information for their safety during emergencies. Right now, it's very scattered. Even the agencies themselves, which have the best intentions, their hands are tied by bureaucracy or contracts. We partner with government sources with a focus on firefighting."We view what we are doing as a public service."One of the biggest issues around fires, in particular, is that they can move quickly and consume large swaths of land and structures in minutes. For example, the winds that drove the Palisades fire to spread to more than 10,000 acres reached 90 miles per hour on Tuesday. When minutes matter, the piecemeal alert system that Watch Duty replaces can cause delays that cost lives.Some of the delivery systems for push notifications and text messages that government agencies use had a 15-minute delay, which is not good for fire," says Merritt. We shoot to have push notifications out in under a minute. Right now, 1.5 million people in LA are getting push notifications through the app. That's a lot of messages to send out in 60 seconds. In general, people are getting it pretty much all at the same time." Image: Watch Duty Image: Watch Duty A simple tech stackFor Watch Duty, this kind of mass communication requires reliable technology as well as a group of dedicated staff and skilled volunteers. Merritt says that Watch Duty relies on a number of corporate partners with whom it has relationships and contracts to provide its service.We shoot to have push notifications out in under a minute."The app is built on a mix of technology, including Google's cloud platform, Amazon Web Services, Firebase, Fastly, and Heroku. Merritt says the app uses some AI, but only for internal routing of alerts and emails. Reporters at Watch Duty - those who listen to scanners and update the app with push notifications about everything from air drops to evacuation updates - are mostly volunteers who coordinate coverage via Slack.All information is vetted for quality over quantity," he says. We have a code of conduct for reporters. For example, we never report on injuries or give specific addresses. It's all tailored with a specific set of criteria. We don't editorialize. We report on what we have heard on the scanners."According to Merritt, the app has 100 percent uptime. Even though it started with volunteer engineers, the nonprofit has slowly added more full-time people. We still have volunteers helping us, but it's becoming more on the internal paid staff as we grow, as things get more complex, and as we have more rigorous processes," he says.All information is vetted for quality over quantity."He says there are no plans to ever charge for the app or scrape user data. The approach is kind of the Field of Dreams method to building a free app that saves people's lives: if you build it well, the funding will come.It's the antithesis of what a lot of tech does," Merritt says. We don't want you to spend time in the app. You get information and get out. We have the option of adding more photos, but we limit those to the ones that provide different views of a fire we have been tracking. We don't want people doom scrolling." Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP via Getty Images Collecting information in the era of TrumpWatch Duty relies heavily on publicly available information from places like the National Weather Service and the Environmental Protection Agency. Should the incoming Trump administration decide to execute on threats to dismantle and disband the EPA (which monitors air quality) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent agency to the National Weather Service, such moves would impact Watch Duty's ability to operate.Even still, Merritt is optimistic. We will be pretty well insulated from any change to policy," he says. We are either buying that information ourselves already or we are happy to buy it, and we will take that cost on. The fact that we're soon going to be covering the entire US will defray the cost of anything that shifts from a policy perspective. Our operation costs are mostly salaries. We are trying to hire really good engineers and have a really solid platform. If we need to raise a grant to buy data from the National Weather Service, then we will."Regardless of what the next administration does, it's clear that Watch Duty has become a critical and necessary app for those in Southern California right now. The app currently covers 22 states and plans to roll out nationwide soon.We got 1.4 million app downloads in the last few days," according to Merritt. I think we have only received 60 support tickets, so that shows that something is working there. We are really just focused on the delivery of this information."

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon will be winding down its Prime Try Before You Buy program, which let Prime members try on clothes before paying for them, reports The Information. It will shutter on January 31st, according to a banner at the top of the service's landing page.Amazon spokesperson Maxine Tagay said in a statement emailed to The Verge that the company is discontinuing the service because it only worked for a limited number of items" and customers have been increasingly using our new AI-powered features" to decide what to buy.Tagay gave examples like Virtual Try-On AR feature that puts 3D renders of shoes from certain brands on your feet using your smartphone's camera. She also mentioned the company's LLM-powered personalized size recommendations" that tweak size recommendations based on customer reviews.Prime Try Before You Buy launched in 2018 for all Prime subscribers as Amazon Wardrobe before the company later changed its name. Through it, Prime members can order up to six items, try them for seven days, then pay for what works and send back the rest - like a very basic version of Stitch Fix's curated clothing service. But a big part of that is returns, which is something the company has been trying to cut back on.The discontinuation of Prime Try Before You Buy comes after years of cost-cutting at the company, as CNBC points out. That's included massive layoffs and shuttering physical stores, as well as scaling back some of its efforts in the grocery industry.Here is the full statement Tagay provided to The Verge:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge New renders of the Samsung Galaxy S25 series have appeared in a leak from Android Headlines ahead of Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event later this month. The most obvious change here is that Samsung has tweaked the design of the S25 Ultra, rounding off the phone's corners a bit.From the renders, it looks like you'll be able to get the non-Ultra S25s in light blue, dark blue, light green, and silver. The Ultra will come in black, gray, and two silvery colors with either a white or blue tint.Here are a couple of the images - you can see the rest at Android Headlines: Image: Android Headlines Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. Image: Android Headlines A minty-colored Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus. Apart from the new colors, the non-Ultra phones are almost indistinguishable from the S24 line. But one finer detail that's changed is the way the camera bumps seem to nod at the look of a traditional camera lens barrel that flares out at the end. Internally, look for a CPU bump from Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chips to new Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile processors, but not much else. You can read more about the internals in a separate specs leak that Android Headlines also published yesterday.Stay tuned for our coverage of the next Galaxy Unpacked event on January 22nd, at which we expect the company will reveal plenty of details about these phones. Naturally, you can bet it will talk about new AI features, too. Maybe by then, I'll have stopped thinking about connecting to compatible ships" through Matter with SmartThings.Update January 11th: Removed the image gallery and replaced with two images.

Photo by PHILIP FONG / AFP via Getty Images Honda's potential merger with Nissan would represent one of the largest shake-ups to the industry since the creation of Stellantis in 2021. But there are huge risks involved, too.On Tuesday in Las Vegas, during a roundtable discussion with select media, Honda executives offered some more insight into the merger, including how combining resources and factories could help the companies stay competitive in the increasingly costly fight with China.Honda is concerned about China's meteoric rise as a dominant and highly competitive player in the EV and autonomous driving space. In late December, when Honda and Nissan announced that they had signed a memorandum of understanding to create an automotive company worth around $50 billion, Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said that the rise of Chinese automakers and new players has changed the car industry quite a lot... We have to build up capabilities to fight with them by 2030, otherwise we'll be beaten."Honda executives offered some more insight into the mergerThe stakes are high, too. According to a recent report by S&P Global Mobility, the global EV market will grow nearly 30 percent year over year, with 89.6 million new EVs expected to be sold this year. According to Allied Market Research, the global autonomous vehicle market is expected to reach around $60.3 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $448.6 billion by 2035. If the Japanese automakers want to continue to dominate the market as they have since the 1960s, they have to iterate quickly and get products into consumers' hands.Since the beginning of last year, we've been in conversation with Nissan," Noriya Kaihara, director and executive vice president at Honda, said through a translator following the company's debut of two production prototypes," the Honda 0 Saloon and the Honda 0 SUV at CES. Nothing has been decided but we've been discussing how to proceed." Photo: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The Honda 0 Saloon at CES. Honda wants Nissan's large SUVs and underutilized factoriesDuring the roundtable, Kaihara said that Honda is looking at Nissan as a way to reduce costs around future software-defined vehicles (SDV).We have significant labor and development costs, and if there are operations we could share, that would be good for us," he said. Developing brand-new software, he continued, including advanced driving systems that move closer to autonomous vehicles and battery-electric vehicles, is both increasingly important for the longevity of established automakers and increasingly expensive.Honda also said that Nissan's large SUVs like the Armada and Pathfinder make it an attractive partner. Toshihiro Akiwa, VP and head of Honda's BEV development center, said through a translator that Honda's hybrid technology is solid but only currently exists in its midsize vehicles like the CR-V and the Accord. The company is interested in Nissan's larger vehicles because Honda's motor and battery capacity can be adapted to the larger vehicle." Image: Honda The Honda Prologue. Image: Nissan The Nissan Armada. While Honda does have the Prologue, that vehicle was part of a $5 billion joint venture with GM that only lasted through the development of two vehicles. The Prologue has been a surprise EV hit, selling over 33,000 in 2024 and outselling the larger gas-powered Honda Passport.Since the partnership with GM went south, it's not likely that the Prologue will be in production long, though Honda has made no announcements about its plans for the vehicle. Honda does not currently offer an all-electric crossover outside of the Prologue, though fans of the brand have been asking for an all-electric CR-V for years.Nissan, on the other hand, saw its earnings decline by as much as 90 percent last year, forcing it to lay off thousands of employees. The company has been struggling since the arrest of former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn in 2018 for financial misconduct. Unsurprisingly, Ghosn isn't pleased about the news, telling Bloomberg that Nissan was in panic mode," calling the deal a desperate move" and noting that the synergies between the two companies are difficult to find."But as Honda executives at the roundtable noted, Nissan's struggle could pose an opportunity for Honda, too. That's because Honda plants that serve the US are currently running at maximum capacity, and they could use the excess capacity at Nissan's factories to meet customer demand. I'm not in a position to make comment [on Nissan], but they have capacity," Kaihara said. Photo by PETER POWER / AFP via Getty Images Honda's factory in Ontario, Canada. Trump's tariff threats and loss of EV incentivesPresident-elect Donald Trump's threats to impose tariffs on foreign imports and eliminate federal subsidies that have helped save Americans billions in EV costs also came up in the conversation. If Trump impacts future government strategy we have to be very flexible when the subsidies are cut or stopped," Kaihara said.That includes where Honda builds and produces its most popular vehicles like the CR-V and Civic. Each factory in Canada and Mexico is almost to full production level," Kaihara said. It's not so easy to change that direction, but depending on the tariff situation, we might have to change the production location to Japan or somewhere else."A significant move like that would be costly and could translate to increased prices for consumers when they go to buy their next Honda.In spite of all this, Honda is not wavering on its commitment to electrification. For the time being, we will have new EVs in the next year for the Zero series," Kaihara said. For the long term, I think, considering the environmental issues, EVs will be the solution for the future, and that will not be changed."

Cool screens are still undefeated at CES. Twelve years ago, I could have told you exactly what happened at my first CES and what happened at my third. Each was a chapter with a beginning, middle, and end; the lines between them drawn clearly. But now, 15 years since I attended my first CES, it's a lot fuzzier. I know I missed my flight home at that first show. I know I saw a lot of cameras at first, and then progressively fewer cameras over the years. I know there were team dinners and early meetings, but I couldn't tell you what happened when.What I do know about my first CESes is that I had - and I cannot stress this enough - no clue what I was doing. The same went for CES two, three, and four, to varying degrees. I think I had a Pentax DSLR loaned to me by a colleague. I had a work-issued BlackBerry and, I'm pretty sure, insisted on wearing nice dresses and impractical shoes to evening events. There was no Uber at the beginning, and you could spend an hour waiting in a cab line at the airport. We stayed at the MGM Grand, which housed live lions at the time.I broke an 11-year streak of not going to CES this year, which gave me a rare opportunity. It's not often in life that we get to step back and see something... Read the full story at The Verge.

Photo by Sean Hollister/ The Verge At CES 2025, Intel let journalists into its private Innovation Showcase," where we saw things like prototype next-gen laptops and giant stereo 3D handheld gaming PCs.While I was there, I also spotted a heavy metal handheld on a table that didn't seem... fully attached... to its screen. When I lifted the screen, it came away easily. It felt suspiciously light to be a real tablet, so I flipped it over and saw three connectors underneath: Above it, on a shelf, was a laptop with a suspiciously sized chunk of plastic on the bottom that looked like a perfect match. A minute later, Intel gaming evangelist Colin Helms confirmed: I was looking at a concept modular PC. That module contains a complete Intel Lunar Lake computer, the entire guts you'd need to make one work outside of peripherals and screen. It's basically a reboot of Intel's abandoned Compute Card idea, except it's not all Intel's doing and you probably shouldn't ever expect it to ship.It's a concept from Quanta, a company whose name you don't typically see on the laptops and tablets they create, because Quanta is an ODM (like Compal, Pegatron, Wistron, and Apple's better known iPhone supplier Foxconn) that designs and manufactures hardware on behalf of brand names. Quanta's calling the whole modular system the AI8A," and the aforementioned module at its heart is the Detachable AI Core." Helms told me it plugs into other concept computers as well, including an all-in-one desktop that Intel didn't have to show off. And presumably, like the Compute Card idea, you could upgrade your computer just by putting a new new module into it.The modular laptop has lots of concept-y bells and whistles too, so many that Intel's CES staff hadn't even worked them all out yet.For starts, the laptop has a motorized hinge, so you can tell it to open and close its own lid; it also claims to offer eye-tracking that lets you sling around multitasking windows just by looking at where you'd like them to be. It apparently comes with a mouse integrated into a ring that you could wear. The most mundane: a built-in Qi wireless charging pad in the palmrest, with indicator lights to show your battery's remaining capacity. I couldn't try any of it working, unfortunately, nor did I manage to ask what AI8A" means, because I mistakenly thought it said Aiba until I checked my photos closely just now. Nor could we hotswap the module between the handheld and laptop, since the module apparently doesn't have a battery inside.Again, this is a cool computing concept car: it's not likely that this computer will ever ship, even in a more practical / less gadgety form. Thankfully, we have begun to see some real, practical modularity in the laptop space since the death of Intel's Compute Card. Framework just celebrated its fifth anniversary this week, and Dell took a smaller step forward at CES with its first modular repairable USB-C port.Photos by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Like Meta, Amazon is ending some of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. In a memo sent last month, Candi Castleberry, Amazon's VP of inclusive experiences and technology, said the company has been winding down outdated programs and materials" related to its efforts around representation and inclusion, as reported earlier by CNBC and Bloomberg.In the memo, a copy of which Amazon provided to The Verge, Castleberry wrote that over the past few years, Amazon has been evaluating its programs across the company, each of which addresses a specific disparity, and is designed to end when that disparity is eliminated." At the same time, Castleberry noted that the company worked to build programs that are open to all" instead of having individual groups build programs." Castleberry said Amazon aimed to complete the discontinuation of some of these outdated" programs by the end of 2024.Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser declined to identify which programs had been ended.This approach - where we move away from programs that were separate from our existing processes, and instead integrating our work into existing processes so they become durable - is the evolution to... Read the full story at The Verge.