The Verge

Google is adding a ton of new Bard features at its I/O conference today. | Image: Google Google is adding a smorgasbord of new features to its AI chatbot Bard, including support for new languages (Japanese and Korean), easier ways to export text to Google Docs and Gmail, visual search, and a dark mode. Most significantly, the company is removing the waitlist for Bard and making the system available in English in 180 countries and territories. It’s also promising future features like AI image generation powered by Adobe and integration with third-party web services like Instacart and OpenTable.Collectively, the news is a shot in the arm for Bard, which was released two months ago for select users in the US and UK. The chatbot — which Google still stresses is an experiment and not a replacement to its search engine — has c... Continue reading…

Image: Google Google’s latest Photos trick is a feature it’s calling Magic Editor, which uses generative AI to let you make major edits to a photo without professional tools. The company revealed the feature at Google I/O 2023.Google shared a couple examples of Magic Editor in action that are both pretty cool. In one, a photo of a person in front of a waterfall, Google entirely moves the person further to the side of the photo, erases people in the background, and makes the sky a prettier blue. Watch this GIF to see it all happen: GIF: Google In another photo, Magic Editor scoots a child on a bench closer to the middle of the photo, which generates “new” parts of the bench and balloons to the left to fill in the space. In this... Continue reading…

Image: SnoopyTech via Twitter Yet another leaked teaser for the Pixel Fold has surfaced just hours before its expected launch at Google I/O. In a promo video by leaker SnoopyTech, Google highlights just how thin its flagship foldable really is and also shows off how you can prop the device up on a table when watching videos.The ad offers a look at what multitasking on the device might be like as well. As shown in the clip, a user has a video call open in one panel when the device is unfolded, while Google Drive is open in another. They’re also able to drag and drop files across both screens.

Image: Nintendo The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is going to have big dungeons with distinct designs, Nintendo confirmed in a developer Q&A published Wednesday. One of the biggest questions for Tears was whether it would offer something different from Breath of the Wild’s Divine Beast dungeons, which all had a largely similar aesthetic. Now, we know that there will be more variety to look forward to.Here’s the relevant passage from the Q&A, and it’s worth reading in full:

Image: Etsy Couples looking for more bespoke or personalized wedding gifts will have the ability to create a registry on Etsy.The platform known for handmade and vintage items has added a wedding registry option, available to users starting today. Couples can create and add items to their list, and guests will be able to search for and purchase gifts off of registries on Etsy.In addition to handmade and vintage items for sale on the platform, couples will also be able to add custom gifts to their registries and specify customizations — names, colors, designs, or other personalization that sellers offer.On the seller end, the process of fulfilling registry orders will be the same as others, but sellers will see a badge signaling it was... Continue reading…

An end view of one of Helion’s prototypes. | Image: Helion Microsoft just signed a jaw-dropping agreement to purchase electricity from a nuclear fusion generator. Nuclear fusion, often called the Holy Grail of energy, is a potentially limitless source of clean energy that scientists have been chasing for the better part of a century.A company called Helion Energy thinks it can deliver that Holy Grail to Microsoft by 2028. It announced a power purchase agreement with Microsoft this morning that would see it plug in the world’s first commercial fusion generator to a power grid in Washington. The goal is to generate at least 50 megawatts of power — a small but significant amount and more than the 42MW that the US’s first two offshore wind farms have the capacity to generate today.“It’s the most... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google has had a rough six months. Since ChatGPT launched last November — followed by the new Bing in February and GPT-4 in March — the company has failed to establish its AI credentials. Its own offering, the “experimental” chatbot Bard, compares poorly to rivals, and insider reports have portrayed a company in panic and disarray. Today, at its annual I/O conference, the company needs to convince the public (and shareholders) that it has a meaningful response. But to do that, it needs a new playbook.Google is undoubtedly a leader in AI research. As its executives like to point out, it was Googlers who created the transformer architecture that powers chatbots like ChatGPT. Just as significantly, it was Googlers who drew attention to... Continue reading…

Nighthawk M6 Pro router, now unlocked. | Image: Netgear If you’re in the market for a portable hotspot, whether to have safer internet connectivity in airports and hotels or to get connected in a rural vacation home, you might have considered Netgear’s incredible M6 Pro router available through AT&T. However, if you didn’t want to be locked to a carrier, Netgear’s unlocked options for 5G mobile routers only included the mmWave-lacking M6 and the shorter-ranged non-6E Wi-Fi having M5.That’s changing, as the company’s newly-released unlocked M6 Pro (MR6550-100PAS) finally brings a more comprehensive solution that combines all of those models’ features. But it also comes in at a high price of $999.99 — a $200 premium over the regular M6, and more than double the price of the $459.99 AT&T-locked... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Uber is launching a new flight booking tool for its UK customers as part of the company’s wider efforts to expand into other travel markets. Hopper, a Canadian-based travel agency, and Uber announced the partnership to sell national and international flights through the ride-sharing app on Wednesday.Uber has already introduced app bookings for flights for some UK users and is planning to make the tool more widely available across the entire region “in the coming weeks,” as reported by The Financial Times. Andrew Brem, General Manager for Uber in the UK, told the publication that this is “the latest and most ambitious step” that the company has taken in its pursuit to create a one-stop shop for all travel booking needs — a so-called... Continue reading…

Dell’s U3224KB, the 6K 32-inch monitor it announced back at CES, is going on sale today for $3,199.99. That’s over $1,000 cheaper than Apple’s 32-inch $4,999 Pro Display XDR, which also targets professionals with a similar high resolution 6K panel. But Dell’s monitor packs in a host of other features like a built-in webcam, speakers, and KVM switch to allow it to work with two computers simultaneously. Dell’s pricing reveal joins the launch of a new 38-inch curved ultrawide display from the company.Obviously, the specs of Dell’s and Apple’s monitors aren’t identical. Most notably, Dell’s monitor is DisplayHDR 600 certified, suggesting a peak brightness in the region of 600 nits versus 1,600 nits on Apple’s monitor. There’s also no... Continue reading…

Image: Google Footage of the Pixel Fold has appeared in a YouTube ad ahead of its anticipated announcement at Google I/O later today. As reported by 9to5Google, the unlisted YouTube video features numerous NBA stars and multiple close-up shots of the upcoming Pixel Fold in everyday use.Titled “Google Pixel x NBA: The Greatest Watch Party,” the link was shared in a tweet posted by the official Google Pixel account last night. It seems Google published the link prematurely as the tweet teasingly instructed readers to “check back in tomorrow.” That said, the tweet also includes a picture of MVP Joel Embiid clearly holding the Pixel Fold, so probably best to not think too hard about it.

Image: Team Cherry We’ll be waiting a little while longer for Hollow Knight: Silksong. The years-in-the-making sequel to the excellent Hollow Knight was supposed to release within 12 months of the 2022 Xbox June showcase, but a representative for the game said Tuesday evening that the title will be missing that release window.“We had planned to release in the 1st half of 2023, but development is still continuing,” Matthew Griffin, who works on marketing and publishing for the game, posted on Twitter. “We’re excited by how the game is shaping up, and it’s gotten quite big, so we want to take the time to make the game as good as we can. Expect more details from us once we get closer to release.”

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is making some big changes to direct messages and expects to introduce encrypted DMs on Wednesday, according to Tuesday evening tweets from the company and owner Elon Musk.Let’s start first with the immediate changes. As detailed in a tweet from the company’s support account, you can now reply to specific messages (which work like the in-line replies you might be familiar with in iMessage) and react to messages with any reaction instead of a limited few. I just downloaded the iOS app to my phone and both features were there. You can access them by pressing and holding on a specific message.

Image: Tucker Carlson via Twitter Just weeks after leaving Fox News amid the wreckage of its $787 defamation lawsuit settlement with Dominion over lies about the 2020 election, Tucker Carlson has announced his show is coming back soon in “a new version,” but this time, it’s on Twitter.In a three-minute video haranguing the mainstream media circus he’s spent his career as a part of, Carlson insists that “the only one remaining” platform allowing free speech is Twitter, as opposed to the cable news outlets that he calls propaganda outlets.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge PlugwalkJoe, aka Joseph James O’Connor, a UK citizen connected to the 2020 Twitter hack affecting many high-profile accounts, including Elon Musk, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Apple, has pled guilty to cyberstalking and other crimes. On Tuesday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that O’Connor has been extradited to the US.In 2020, PlugwalkJoe and unnamed co-conspirators gained access to Twitter’s administrative tools. Using that access, the co-conspirators were able to tweet from several accounts belonging to major companies and celebrities. This allowed them to promote a Bitcoin scam that raked in almost $120,000.DOJ:

Beats could release multiple new products in the coming weeks. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Beats seems on the cusp of having a fairly busy spring. We already know that Studio Buds Plus earbuds are on the way (and likely soon), thanks to a premature Amazon listing. And now 9to5Mac is reporting that a refreshed set of Studio Pro noise-canceling headphones are also in the works after being spotted in the release candidate build of iOS 16.5 that went out to developers yesterday.Citing sources familiar with the headphones, 9to5Mac says we can expect more powerful noise cancellation and an improved transparency mode. The $350 Studio 3 headphones — still being sold by Apple as of now — don’t offer any passthrough / transparency mode whatsoever. But Beats did a pretty good job with the feature on the Solo Pro headphones released in... Continue reading…

Photo by Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images This is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.This week is an exciting one for the audio industry, with Podcast Upfront around the corner and awards season underway. This week, we’ll look at a new community audio project on Bluesky and Spotify’s expansion of its audio ad network in Europe. I also briefly connected with journalist Connie Walker, who won a Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting yesterday.SkySpaces is bringing live audio to BlueskyIt’s been a rough few months for live audio. Spotify shut down Spotify Live. Clubhouse cut half its staff. And Twitter Spaces seems to be at the bottom of Elon Musk’s ever-shifting priorities list (not to mention he’s fired most of the team... Continue reading…

Photo by Zac Goodwin / PA Images via Getty Images International online sports broadcasting company DAZN has joined a global task force that aims to shut down pirated and unauthorized sports streaming operations worldwide. The new group is operated by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), which counts giants like Amazon, Apple, NBC Universal, Netflix, Disney, Sony, and Warner Bros. among its members.Unauthorized streaming sources can often be the only available option for people to watch certain teams and matches subject to complicated broadcasting deals, locked into high-priced bundles, and blackouts. With more tech and entertainment companies using sports as a sweetener for their services (NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube, MLS / MLB for Apple TV Plus, and Thursday Night... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon Amazon’s new “Amazon Anywhere” shopping experience lets you shop for real-world goods inside of games and virtual worlds. The company shared some details of the experience on Tuesday, and you can already try it inside Niantic’s just-launched Peridot game.In Peridot, once you’ve linked your Amazon account, you’ll be able to buy things like shirts and a Peridot-themed pillow right inside the app. (With the shirts, you can even specify things like fit type, color, and size.) Once you’ve made your selection, the app will show you the final price and an estimated delivery date before you check out.You can get an idea of how it all works in this video from Amazon.“We’re creating a new landscape for shoppable entertainment and digital... Continue reading…

Image: Anthropic Anthropic is a bit of an unknown quantity in the AI world. Founded by former OpenAI employees and keen to present itself as the safety-conscious AI startup, it’s received serious funding (including $300 million from Google) and a space at the top table, attending a recent White House regulatory discussion alongside reps from Microsoft and Alphabet. Yet the firm is a blank slate to the general public; its only product is a chatbot named Claude, which is primarily available through Slack. So what does Anthropic offer, exactly?According to co-founder Jared Kaplan, the answer is a way to make AI safe. Maybe. The company’s current focus, Kaplan tells The Verge, is a method known as “constitutional AI” — a way to train AI systems like... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Wendy’s is partnering with Google to create an AI chatbot that can take orders at its drive-thrus, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal. The fast-food chain has plans to bring its first “Wendy’s FreshAI” enabled drive-thru to a Columbus, Ohio, restaurant in June.The chatbot will be able to take verbal orders from customers who line up at Wendy’s drive-thru kiosks, all with the hope that it will help reduce long wait times. Wendy’s worked with Google to build a tailored chatbot on top of the company’s existing large language model (LLM), which it’s bound to reveal updates about at its Google I/O event on Wednesday. This all goes along with Google’s push into AI, as its Cloud unit sells the idea of companies commissioning their... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Chinese authorities have detained a man in the Gansu province in Northern China for allegedly using ChatGPT to write fake news articles. The move appears to be one of the first arrests made under China’s new anti-AI guidelines, which (among other restrictions) prohibit artificial intelligence services from being misused to distribute “false information.”The suspect, identified only by his surname Hong, is accused of using OpenAI’s chatbot to generate news articles describing a fatal train crash that officials say was “false information,” according to a police statement reported by South China Morning Post. After discovering the article on April 25th, authorities found multiple versions of the same story with different accident locations... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge The issueStreaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, and HBO Max have chosen to protect their copyright by placing a black overlay over any screenshot made of one of their videos.Quick fixShut off hardware acceleration on any Chromium-based browser.The full storyBack in 2018, before I was on staff at The Verge, I was working as a freelance writer. Things had gotten a little slow when a friend sent me an ad from a production company looking for extras to play “Jewish Resort Guests” for an episode in the second season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. It sounded like fun, so I applied — and was offered two days of work in two separate scenes.Cut to today. Recently, I was telling the story, and a friend asked if I had... Continue reading…

These odor generators can either be stuck into a wearable mask or on a pill-shaped holder that adheres underneath the nose. | Image: Nature Communications Smells have always been hard to recreate in virtual reality, but researchers may have figured out a solution: wearable odor generators.Researchers from Beihang University and the City University of Hong Kong detailed two types of device formats in a paper published today in Nature Communications. The first type is a wearable that attaches to the skin directly under the nose. The other is a soft mask. (You can see both demoed in the videos below.) The former can create two scents while the latter can create up to nine scents. Both generators contain scented wax that can be heated in about 1.44 seconds to release the desired scent in a localized area.Altogether, the researchers were able to generate 30 different scents, including... Continue reading…

Image: Bethesda We know so little of Starfield, only that it’s from Bethesda, involves stars and fields in some configuration, and that Microsoft and Xbox desperately need it to be a hit after Redfall’s pretty terrible launch. But now, thanks to a new ESRB description, we know... honestly, not that much more, but at least we now know there’s plenty of drugs, lots of blood, and possibly jetpack sex.The ESRB summary starts with a description of who we’ll be playing as: “players assume the role of a miner tasked with finding Artifacts across the galaxy.” From the 15-minute gameplay showcase last year, we know these mysterious artifacts are a key plot point but still have no clues about what they are, what they do, or why they’re so important.After that,... Continue reading…

Bose’s QC Earbuds II boast multipoint Bluetooth support, phenomenal ANC, and plenty of other notable features. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Just in case you’ve been living under the proverbial rock for the past couple of weeks, you should know that Mother’s Day is right around the corner. Thankfully, if you have yet to pick up a gift — or fancy a pair of noise-canceling earbuds for yourself — Bose is currently discounting a slew of our favorite devices in the run-up to Sunday, March 14th.There’s quite a bit on offer, including some of the best discounts we’ve seen on the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II and QuietComfort 45 headphones, both of which offer excellent comfort, a natural-sounding transparency mode for letting outside noise in, and some of the best noise cancellation you can get regardless of form factor. Bose’s ongoing promo drops the QC Earbuds II to $249 ($50... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple is bringing Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro to the iPad. Both apps will be available for $4.99 per month or $49 per year on iPad starting on May 23rd. For comparison, buying Logic Pro on a Mac costs $199.99, and buying Final Cut Pro normally costs $299.99.The video and music editing apps will come with enhancements specifically for iPads. Final Cut Pro, for example, will come with a new jog wheel that’s supposed to make the editing process “easier than ever,” allowing you to navigate the magnetic timeline, move clips, and perform edits using just your finger and multi-touch gestures. Image: Apple A new feature called Live Drawing lets you use your Apple Pencil to draw and write directly on top of video content.... Continue reading…

Image: _H0x0d_ (Twitter) Microsoft is expanding preview access to its Microsoft 365 Copilot, a digital assistant based on OpenAI’s GPT-4 that brings AI-powered capabilities across Microsoft 365 apps and services. The tech giant has also announced a new indexing tool that lets Copilot more accurately report on internal company data, alongside some new Copilot features for apps like Microsoft Whiteboard, Outlook, and PowerPoint.The company is launching the Microsoft 365 Copilot Early Access Program — an invitation-only paid preview that will initially be rolled out to 600 global customers. Prior to this expansion, just 20 customers have been able to test the Microsoft 365 Copilot. Those new customers will be asked to pay an unspecified amount for the privilege,... Continue reading…

Cocktails are fine, but please, we beg you, no penises. | Image: GE Lighting Announced at CES back in January, Cync’s smart rope lights that can uniquely be bent into shapes of your choosing are now available to buy.The so-called Dynamic Effects Neon-Shape Smart Lights are available in 10- ($79.99) and 16-foot ($119.99) lengths. It’s the type of product naming you’d expect from Cync, formerly known as C by GE, a GE Lighting brand now owned by Savant, not GE.No bridge or hub requiredAnyway, the rope lights can be cut to your desired length, support 16 million colors, work over 2.4GHz Wi-Fi or BLE (no bridge or hub required), have a built-in mic to sync with music and gaming audio, and are compatible with Alexa and Google Assistant. They can also be controlled from outside the home using the Cync app to adjust... Continue reading…

Image: Niantic It’s startling when a cuddly little critter, called a dot, stares at you with its gigantic eyes — even if it’s happening through a screen. Dots are the stars of Peridot, the latest release from Pokémon Go creator Niantic Labs, and they’re sort of like puppies, only a lot weirder. Depending on their type, they can have fuzzy bellies or huge horns or feathers like a peacock. Some look like walking bananas. No matter what, though, they all have those big puppy dog eyes to lure you in.Peridot is essentially a high-tech version of a Tamagotchi. It takes what Niantic is known for — location-based games and augmented reality — and applies it to the virtual pet genre. Initially, the appeal is undeniable. They’re just so cute. Raising a little... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge WhatsApp has released an official app for Wear OS, 9to5Google reports, giving beta testers of its Android app the ability to send text and voice messages from their wrist. The functionality was added with version 2.23.10.10 of the beta Android app, which also reportedly contains hints that the service might soon let Android users edit previously sent messages. The Wear OS app reportedly supports smartwatches including the Pixel Watch and Galaxy Watch 5, 9to5Google notes.Android Police notes that the Meta-owned messaging service previously offered a smartwatch app for Android Wear prior to its Wear OS rebrand, but says that it was eventually discontinued due to a lack of adoption. Since then, Wear OS users have only been able to respond... Continue reading…

More simple, more accessible, more reliable, less money. Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google I/O is almost here, and that means the launch of the highly anticipated Pixel Fold and Pixel Tablet is right around the corner. While the annual conference is largely geared toward developers, the company always holds a keynote revealing the latest and greatest things that’ll wind up in consumers’ hands.If you want to watch the keynote live but aren’t attending the event, here’s all the information about when and where you can stream it, as well as what you can expect.When is the main Google I/O 2023 keynote?The main Google I/O 2023 keynote kicks off on May 10th, 2023, at 1PM ET / 10AM PT and will feature remarks from Google CEO Sundar Pichai. This year, the event will take place in person with a limited live audience at the... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google’s I/O event is less than two days away, and a new CNBC report might have just revealed some of the major AI-focused updates to be announced at the show.One big component will be a new large language model (LLM), PaLM 2, which CNBC describes as a “general-use” LLM that is Google’s “most recent and advanced.” The LLM has apparently performed “a broad range of coding and math tests as well as creative writing tests and analysis,” according to CNBC, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google show off some of those capabilities onstage. (The first PaLM was announced in April 2022, months before the recent AI boom fueled by applications like ChatGPT.)CNBC reports that Google will also announce “generative experiences” for search and... Continue reading…