The Verge

AI was a hot topic at the 2023 Game Developers Conference. | Image: GDC The early days of AI in game development have been full of questions and murky answers. Continue reading…

Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images The Boring Company, Elon Musk’s mostly unreliable tunnel digging venture, has won the approval to expand its “Vegas Loop” system to — wait for it — 69 stations. Nice? Not really.The tunnel system is Musk’s supposedly futuristic idea to alleviate road traffic by shifting some of that bumper-to-bumper traffic underground. The expansion, approved by the Clark County Commissioners, allows The Boring Company to construct 25 miles of additional tunnels for a total of 65 miles and 18 additional stations.The original vision for the Vegas Loop was 51 stations and 29 miles of tunnels — so this represents a pretty big vote of confidence in Musk’s idea of an underground network of Teslas whizzing through tunnels that are only slightly larger... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Xbox that’s had fans questioning the state of Microsoft’s console gaming business. First, there was news of a 30 percent drop in Xbox hardware revenue, followed by the CMA’s decision to block Microsoft’s giant $68.7 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition, and topped off by Redfall launching earlier this week to a very lukewarm reception.When you combine all of this with a quiet year of Xbox releases in 2022, Xbox fans are wondering when Microsoft is going to deliver a slew of triple-A games like we saw with the Xbox 360 generation.“We’re not in the business of out console-ing Sony or out console-ing Nintendo,” says Xbox chief Phil Spencer in an interview with Kinda Funny Games. Spencer said s... Continue reading…

It’s got a rower and a treadmill, guys. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Peloton isn’t keen on the fact people mostly think of it as that bike company, which is why CEO Barry McCarthy says the company will “relaunch its brand” later this month so that more people are aware that it does other things, too. Part of that is relaunching the Peloton app with a new tiered subscription structure.There’s no information on the pricing just yet, but on today’s Q3 2023 earnings call, CFO Liz Coddington said the “app tiers will have different amounts of content variances” depending on the price. Only users who have bought Peloton hardware and pay for All-Access membership will get everything Peloton has to offer.McCarthy also noted on the call that unaided awareness for the Row is at 4 percent, while the Guide, its... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple Arcade is getting 20 new games, and that includes the exclusive launch of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle roguelike.The game, called TMNT Splintered Fate, is a top-down co-op roguelike that has Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael fighting their way through enemies as they search for Master Splinter, who’s gone missing. You can team up with friends or go it alone as you traverse New York City while enlisting help from other characters like April, Metalhead, Casey Jones, and more along the way.

Mozilla is jumping on the Mastodon train but taking a very different approach. | Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images If you want to be a member of Mozilla.Social, Mozilla’s new Mastodon instance, you’re not allowed to harass other users. You’re also not allowed to use derogatory language about gender, sex, sexual orientation, race, age, ability, or any other “physical, social or cultural attributes or classifications.” You can’t spread misinformation and disinformation, either. Or impersonate someone. Some of these are normal policies, some are unusually heavy-handed, and they’re all hard to litigate. But Mozilla’s stance is pretty simple and extremely unusual in the social media universe: if it’s debatable, it’s gone.“We’re not going to advertise that we’re some kind of neutral platform,” says Steve Teixeira, Mozilla’s chief product officer. He says... Continue reading…

Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Waymo is dramatically expanding its robotaxi service areas in Phoenix and San Francisco as it seeks to gain new customers, generate more revenue, and make a convincing argument that self-driving cars are more than just an expensive fad.In Phoenix, the company’s autonomous Jaguar I-PACE vehicles will now cover a total of 180 square miles, or roughly twice the size of its current map and four times the size of the area that the company served when it first launched its ride-hailing operation in 2020.Waymo’s two distinct service areas, Downtown Phoenix and the East Valley communities of Tempe, Gilbert, Mesa, and Chandler, will be connected for the first time. And the company’s robotaxis will also now serve the town of Scottsdale, known... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Microsoft is testing new updates to its Photos app for Windows 11, including a Spot Fix tool for fixing up blemishes in photographs and a new slideshow feature. Windows 11 testers in the Canary and Dev Channels can get access to these new features immediately and they should be available to all Windows 11 users in the coming months.The new slideshow experience lets you view your photos in a slideshow format with the usual animations and transitions and cheesy soundtracks. “This was a top feature request we received from the community since launching the new Photos app in Windows 11 last Fall,” says Yvonne Hsieh, a principal product manager for Windows Photos. Image: Microsoft The new slideshow feature in Photos... Continue reading…

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images The White House announced more funding and policy guidance for developing responsible artificial intelligence ahead of a Biden administration meeting with top industry executives.The actions include a $140 million investment from the National Science Foundation to launch seven new National AI Research (NAIR) Institutes, increasing the total number of AI-dedicated facilities to 25 nationwide. Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI and other companies have also agreed to allow their language models to be publicly evaluated during this year’s Def Con. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) also said that it would be publishing draft rules this summer for how the federal government should use AI technology.“These steps build on the... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft is making its Bing GPT-4 chatbot available to everyone today, no more waitlist necessary. All you need to do is sign in to the new Bing or Edge with your Microsoft account, and you’ll now access the open preview version that’s powered by GPT-4. Microsoft is also massively upgrading Bing Chat with lots of new features and even plug-in support.This open preview launch comes nearly two months after Microsoft experimented with removing the waitlist for its new Bing Chat feature. The chatbot originally launched in a private preview in February, and Microsoft has been gradually opening it up ever since. Image: Microsoft Chat history in Bing Chat. Microsoft is now adding more smart features to Bing Chat,... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is revealing a big upgrade for its Bing chatbot today that adds image and video answers, restaurant bookings, chat history, and some smarter Microsoft Edge integration. These new features also coincide with Microsoft making Bing Chat available for anyone to try, moving from private to public preview.Perhaps the biggest addition is a new Actions feature in Bing Chat and Edge. You’ll now be able to use Microsoft’s Bing AI to complete tasks without having to navigate back and forth between sites. So if a search result recommends a restaurant, it can then find a reservation time that works for you and help you book it all in the chat interface. Image: Microsoft Bing Actions can book you a restaurant table.... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission proposed sweeping changes to how Meta operates, accusing the company of violating a suite of child privacy protections, including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).In a press release, the agency alleged that Meta violated a 2020 privacy order it had reached with the agency to resolve its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The proposal cites instances in which the company misled parents on the extent of their abilities to control who their children communicate with over services like Messenger Kids and misrepresented the access the company grants third-party app developers to private user data.“Facebook has repeatedly violated its privacy promises,” said Samuel Levine,... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The security team at Meta is acknowledging broad occurrences of fake ChatGPT malware that exists to hack user accounts and take over business pages.In the company’s new Q1 security report, Meta shares that malware operators and spammers are following trends and high-engagement topics that get people’s attention. Of course, the biggest tech trend right now is AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Bing, and Bard, so tricking users into trying a fake version is now in fashion — sorry, crypto.Meta security analysts have found about 10 forms of malware posing as AI chatbot-related tools like ChatGPT since March. Some of these exist as web browser extensions and toolbars (classic) — even being available through unnamed official web stores. The W... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Discord is taking away the four-digit tag that it puts after its usernames as it looks to make it “easier to connect” with other users. As noted in a post on Discord’s blog, this change will force most users to change their usernames, as Discord will no longer have the four-number tag that distinguishes one person with the same username from another.Instead of having a four-number discriminator appended to your username, you will now have a unique alphanumeric username with the “@” symbol in front of it. You’ll also get to choose a non-unique display name that can include special characters, spaces, emoji, and non-Latin characters, making the platform a lot more like other mainstream social networks, such as Twitter and Instagram. It... Continue reading…

Image: Airbnb Airbnb is making a bigger push into Rooms, the option that lets you rent a private room in someone’s home. In a blog post posted on Wednesday, the platform announced that it’s launching a dedicated Rooms category, where it will now provide more details about the host you’re staying with on each listing.On Airbnb’s website and app, you can now select the Rooms tab to see a list of all the available rooms for rent in the location you want to stay. Each listing has a readily available “host passport” in its bottom-left corner with the host’s photo. Clicking into a passport reveals more information about the host, including their ratings, reviews, and how long they’ve hosted on Airbnb as well as any other information they choose to share,... Continue reading…

Some of you likely do know what this lock icon represents, but most Chrome users apparently don’t. | Image: The Verge The padlock icon indicating website security has appeared in the URL bar of web browsers for so long that it’s practically become part of the furniture at this point — which is exactly why Google is planning to retire it from Chrome later this year. On Tuesday, the search giant announced that the lock will be replaced by a new “tune” icon with the release of Chrome 117 in September as part of a wider Material You-themed redesign of the browser.The reasons for the update go beyond just “prettying” up Chrome: Google claims that in a study it conducted in 2021, only 11 percent of participants actually understood the intended purpose of the lock icon. It first appeared back in the ’90s following Netscape’s introduction of HTTPS, a protocol... Continue reading…

Microsoft’s official headset offers more bells and whistles than you might expect for the budget-friendly price. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Gaming headsets can get expensive fast — just look at Turtle Beach’s latest flagship headset if you need a good case in point. Fortunately, budget-friendly wireless options do exist, offering a way for players to achieve more immersive sound quality without draining their bank account. This is especially true now that Microsoft’s Xbox Wireless Headset is seeing a rare $15 discount at Amazon, dropping the affordable headset down to a mere $85.In terms of features, Microsoft’s official Xbox headset offers a lot of bang for your buck. The attractive matte black accessory is compatible with the Xbox Wireless protocol, meaning it works with both Xbox One and Xbox Series X / S consoles, and it even offers Bluetooth support for concurrent... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge After a surprise decision by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) last week, the biggest acquisition in gaming history hangs in the balance. Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard has been blocked by UK regulators, and EU regulators are due to make a decision in the coming weeks.In Status Update (above), we look back at the history of this deal over the past year, Microsoft and Sony’s battles over Call of Duty, and exactly why regulators are concerned over this giant purchase. The CMA’s decision could be a giant blocker for this giant deal, so what happens next? Microsoft is getting ready to fight, so expect an appeal that will drag on for months and a messy fight with the FTC, too.For now, all eyes... Continue reading…

Image: Epic Games Fortnite, one of the world’s most popular games, has also become a de facto test of the public’s interest in streaming games like they stream YouTube or Netflix. It’s been completely free to stream from Nvidia’s GeForce Now or Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming to almost any device you own, no download and no paid subscription required.Today, Amazon Luna is joining them. “Fortnite has been the most requested game from Luna customers in the U.S. and we’re thrilled to bring the title to the service,” reads a statement from Amazon devices and services VP Daniel Rausch. Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge. Google thinks free streaming is important enough to give it a dedicated section in Fortnite search results.... Continue reading…

Image: Snap Snap has already begun experimenting with sponsored links in its My AI chatbot. During the NewFronts advertising event on Tuesday, the company announced that the bot will start surfacing paid links that are relevant to a conversation.For example, Snap says if you’re using My AI to figure out what to have for dinner, the bot might suggest a sponsored link that leads to a local restaurant or delivery app after providing an initial response. It might even surface links for an airline or hotel if you’re chatting with My AI about planning a trip.Snapchat just revealed its ChatGPT-powered My AI chatbot in February, which can do things like hold conversations, suggest AR filters, and generate photos. After initially releasing My AI... Continue reading…

A render of an AMD Ryzen 7000 chip. | Image: AMD It’s no secret that AMD has a new low-power laptop chip with potent integrated graphics. Companies like Asus, Aokzoe, and Ayaneo are sticking it — or its Z1 Extreme spinoff — into their handheld gaming PCs. But the AMD 7840U was originally designed for thin and powerful laptops, and the company’s finally beginning to share that story today.AMD claims the new chip can give Apple a run for its money, besting the 2022 MacBook Air’s M2 processor in “application performance” by up to 75 percent and taking on the Intel Core i7-1360P by even more than that in both productivity and graphics, as you’ll see stated fairly vaguely in the charts below. Image: AMD Versus Apple M2. Image: AMD Versus... Continue reading…

Tichina, a character from PunkRobot’s Visions Volume 2 short “In the Stars.” | Image: Disney Plus / Lucasfilm Star Wars: Visions’ second season is a breathtaking reminder of how freeing living outside of the canon can be. Continue reading…

Dashlane’s new Passwordless Login uses device authentication, so you can log in to your vault on your computer by scanning a QR code. | Image: Dashlane Password manager company Dashlane is replacing the master password with a new device-based / biometric “Passwordless Login” solution to better protect users’ password vaults. That means Dashlane users will no longer have to create and remember a single password that must be guarded from the world — lest it succumbs to a dastardly phishing scheme that compromises your whole digital life (and probably your identity).Dashlane’s Passwordless Login follows the company’s early support for the rising cryptographic keys solution known as passkeys. However, while Dashlane’s new master password replacement solution also uses cryptographic keys, it's not the same as passkeys, which is the password-free authentication solution developed by FIDO... Continue reading…

The real Joe Rogan at a comedy club in 2019. | Photo by Michael S. Schwartz/Getty Images On a recent podcast episode, you can hear Joe Rogan ask OpenAI founder Sam Altman whether society should be concerned about fake AI content. “How will we be able to tell what’s real and what’s not?” It was a particularly fitting question for the episode — since the entire hourlong conversation was generated by AI.Depending on whom you ask, AI is either an existential threat to every creative industry, a groundbreaking technology that will advance human civilization, or a kind of fun, dumb toy that is ultimately a pale imitation of the real deal. The creator of The Joe Rogan AI Experience, a sort of AI-generated fanfic YouTube podcast that depicts imaginary conversations between Rogan and a new guest every episode, kind of believes all... Continue reading…

The wall of a giant warehouse comes right up to a homeowner’s property on April 26th, 2021, in San Bernardino, California. | Photo by Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images With millions of Americans now living in close proximity to a warehouse, it’s time to start treating these drab, feature-less buildings like pollution hotspots, says a recent report by the Environmental Defense Fund. Warehouses are quickly popping up all over the US, bringing truck traffic and tailpipe emissions with them. And yet there is no federal database to see where current or proposed warehouses are located, unlike other major sources of pollution like oil and gas facilities.In the absence of federal data, the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) completed its own analysis of warehouses in the 10 states where they’ve gained tremendous ground recently. Over the past decade, warehouses have surpassed office spaces to become... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Google’s next step into a passwordless future is here with the announcement that passkeys — a new cryptographic keys solution that requires a preauthenticated device — are coming to Google accounts on all major platforms. Starting today, Google users can switch to passkeys and ditch their passwords and two-step verification codes entirely when signing in.Passkeys are a safer, more convenient alternative to passwords being pushed by Google, Apple, Microsoft, and other tech companies aligned with the FIDO Alliance. They can replace traditional passwords and other sign-in systems like 2FA or SMS verification with a local PIN or a device’s own biometric authentication — such as a fingerprint or Face ID. This biometric data isn’t shared with... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft Edge is a good browser but for some reason Microsoft keeps trying to shove it down everyone’s throat and make it more difficult to use rivals like Chrome or Firefox. Microsoft has now started notifying IT admins that it will force Outlook and Teams to ignore the default web browser on Windows and open links in Microsoft Edge instead.Reddit users have posted messages from the Microsoft 365 admin center that reveal how Microsoft is going to roll out this change. “Web links from Azure Active Directory (AAD) accounts and Microsoft (MSA) accounts in the Outlook for Windows app will open in Microsoft Edge in a single view showing the opened link side-by-side with the email it came from,” reads a message to IT admins from Microsoft.W... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images Today in partnerships that I did not at all see coming, Zillow has announced the launch of a new plug-in for ChatGPT. It is called, as you might expect, the ChatGPT plug-in. And if you enable it, you will be able to do what you’d expect something called the Zillow ChatGPT plug-in to allow you to do: search for a house.Specifically, those who have the plug-in enabled can tell ChatGPT what kind of property they’re looking to purchase or rent, sharing criteria like location, price, and bedroom count. ChatGPT will then dive into Zillow’s database and spit out some options for you.Generative AI is changing the way people search for informationThe plug-in is available for “a select number of ChatGPT users today, with broader access... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After putting its API behind a paywall, Twitter is now reversing course and making an exception for emergency and transportation agencies — some of which have already left the platform.In a tweet sent out from the Twitter Dev account on Tuesday, the platform says “verified gov or publicly owned services who tweet weather alerts, transport updates and emergency notifications” can continue to use the API free of charge. Exactly what the company means by “verified” is unclear. Does it only apply if the agency has enabled a new “verified” account, and do they have to pay to get checkmarks on any sub accounts that may require API access?We already started seeing the effects of these API changes last month when several emergency and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit’s blog post today admits it “didn’t make it easy” to share content like cool conversations and memes to other social platforms — but now it’s finally doing something about it. Reddit is enhancing link embeds for messaging apps and adding more sharing functions like sharing directly to Instagram stories right from Reddit’s app.If you’ve ever tried to share a Reddit link from the official app on, for instance, iMessage on an iPhone, you might recall it not having a particularly content-rich preview. Now the company is enhancing it with a more robust visual preview of the content, its subreddit name, and the number of upvotes and comments it has. Image: Reddit The new preview for Reddit shares in iMessage. ... Continue reading…