The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A woman in British Columbia, Canada, has received over 50 Amazon packages that she's never asked for, as reported by CBC. As a result of getting these shipments, which she hasn't had the chance to refuse upon arrival, the United Parcel Service (UPS) has sent her customs bills for more than $300.They keep coming and it just doesn't end," Anca Nitu said to CBC. Nitu told the news outlet that it's somehow tied to her own Amazon account - one that she said has been sitting dormant.Amazon told CBC in a written statement that Nitu's case has been addressed and corrective action" is being taken. The company advises anyone receiving packages unexpectedly to report it using the Report Unwanted Package form online.This isn't the same glitch... Continue reading...

Quizlet, a tool that helps personalize studying for students, recently released a set of new AI-powered features.Quizlet is one of the many educational platforms embracing generative AI to facilitate learning, despite consternation from teachers when ChatGPT first burst into the scene. I no longer have assignments to read, but to do my job, I have to read tons of news articles, reports, and research papers fairly quickly. I wondered: can I use Quizlet to make my job easier and test how much of my beat I actually understand?Oh man, it didn't turn out well for me.Quizlet released several AI-powered tools on August 8th. Memory Score schedules reviews and tracks scores to help users remember the material. Quick Summary takes key... Continue reading...

Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of Bumble. | Photo: Ramona Rosales Bumble founder and CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd is coming to the Code Conference, where she'll be interviewed on stage by CNBC senior media and tech correspondent Julia Boorstin.Wolfe Herd's company has moved quickly to adopt AI in targeted ways to help daters. Last year, the company open-sourced an AI tool that Bumble had been using since 2019 to detect - and then blur - nude photos. Bumble's president, Tariq Shaukat, has also said the company is using AI to remove some of the friction" of dating. For Bumble, that means improving early interactions by helping people choose better profile pictures or stopping them from sending rude messages.Bumble also operates Badoo, Fruitz, and Official. The company is also starting to branch out beyond... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Meta has rolled out the ability to verify a link to your Threads profile on social media platforms like Mastodon, according to a Threads post from Instagram head Adam Mosseri. To be clear, this isn't a free way to get a blue checkmark next to your Threads name; you'll probably need to pay Meta to get one of those. Instead, this new feature helps you prove on other platforms that a Threads profile that you link to is one that you own. But it also represents something bigger: an actual Threads feature from Meta that connects with decentralized social media.I got this to work in just a few minutes on my Mastodon profile, meaning that a URL to my Threads account now has a green checkmark. I'll explain how I got this set up a bit later in... Continue reading...

Image: Google Google has launched a new tool that lets you create AI-generated poem postcards based on a piece of artwork and a subject of your choice. The addition of poem postcards comes as part of Google's broader redesign of its Arts & Culture app and its rollout of generative AI features across its other services, like text creation in Docs and the ability to generate code with AI in Sheets.Poem postcards live within Google's Arts & Culture app and website, where you can choose from various types of poems to generate, including a sonnet, limerick, ode, elegy, haiku, and others. The AI will base the contents of the poem on the subject you type into the generator, like ocean" or spring," as well as the painting you want on the cover of the... Continue reading...

A plane flying over Barcelona airport in March 2023. | Photo by Urbanandsport/NurPhoto via Getty Images Google has been working with American Airlines and Bill Gates' climate investment fund, Breakthrough Energy, to chart more sustainable flight routes. The aim is to help pilots limit a flight's impact on the climate by avoiding routes that create contrails, those white streaks in the sky that planes sometimes leave behind.Contrails are a big problem for the planet because they trap heat, accounting for about 35 percent of aviation's global warming impact. Using satellite imagery and AI, they developed a way to forecast where contrails are most likely to form. That could give pilots a chance to avoid them and minimize aviation's environmental footprint in the process.Contrary to what conspiracy theorists say, the streaks behind are not... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Roblox CEO David Baszucki envisions that its generative AI systems might someday work in a way that's somewhat similar to what you might have seen on the sci-fi show Westworld, based on comments during Roblox's Q2 2023 earnings call on Wednesday.The Westworld comparison came up as part of a longer answer about how AI might be able to help Roblox developers.

Image: GM For no reason at all, today seemed like a good day to reflect on where our obsession with supersized SUVs and trucks has taken us and where it's headed with the shift to electric vehicles.I'm kidding, of course. Because today was the day that GM unveiled a brand-new Cadillac Escalade - only this one is electric! The Escalade IQ looks every bit as stately and luxurious as its gas-powered predecessor and is sure to be the EV of choice for wealthy people to be chauffeured around their city of residence.But big SUVs like the Escalade come with major tradeoffs. And when you throw an equally large lithium-ion battery into the mix, those tradeoffs start to erode the environmental benefits of driving an electric vehicle.Big SUVs like the... Continue reading...

Jessica Allain as Lou, Hubert Point-Du Jour as Miles, Colin Woodell as Winston, Adam Shapiro as Lemmy. | Peacock While the very first teaser for Peacock's forthcoming The Continental series was rather light on details, the latest trailer definitely makes it seem like the John Wick prequel is going to live up to the films' action-packed reputation - or die trying.Set in 1970s New York City, The Continental revolves around younger versions of Winston Scott (Colin Woodell) and Charon (Ayomide Adegun) as the two become entangled in an intricate war of assassins that's fated to end with them coming into power at the series' titular hotel. Though Winston's seemingly no stranger to what sort of business goes down at the Continental, the new trailer establishes how it isn't until his brother Frankie (Ben Robson) runs afoul of the hotel's then-head Cormac... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you haven't changed your Verizon data plan in a few years, take note: starting August 29th, the company is increasing the cost of its Mix and Match" unlimited plans that debuted in 2018. They had truly confounding names like Go Unlimited, Beyond Unlimited, and Above Unlimited. I had some feelings on Verizon's perplexing branding at the time.If you've held onto one of those legacy plans in the years since, you can expect a rate increase of $3. The Mobile Report first reported on the news, which Verizon has since confirmed on its website. During a conference interview this morning, the company's chief financial officer, Tony Skiadas, also mentioned the pending hikes.There were changes both on the single line and multi line for the... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Elon Musk's Twitter was fined $350,000 for refusing to comply with a search warrant on Donald Trump's Twitter account earlier this year, according to new court documents unsealed Wednesday. The warrant was issued as part of a Justice Department special investigation.In January, special counsel Jack Smith obtained a search warrant for former President Trump's Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, as part of his investigation into Trump's role in interfering with the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election.X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The unsealed opinion says Twitter, which is now known as X, objected to producing the information demanded in the warrant on February 1st, arguing that its... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Newegg's new AI-generated review summaries could make it easier to sift through user feedback while you search for PC parts and other tech. In addition to providing a short summary of what people are saying about a product, the AI also picks out pros and cons based on user reviews.The feature leverages the technology behind OpenAI's ChatGPT and lives within the Reviews" tab toward the bottom of a product's page. There, you'll see a list of pros and cons that you can click on, allowing you to filter reviews by specific keywords and see where the AI got its information from. Below that, you'll also see an AI-generated summary that combines all the key pieces of feedback into a short paragraph. Screenshot: Emma Roth /... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge The Biden administration is partnering with four top artificial intelligence companies to sponsor a new cybersecurity challenge aimed at protecting the US's critical infrastructure.The AI Cyber Challenge," announced at the Black Hat USA conference in Las Vegas Wednesday, is meant to pair experts with AI models produced by Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI to develop systems to identify and fix software vulnerabilities. The challenge, hosted by DARPA, includes $20 million in prizes for the best systems that could be used in protecting the government infrastructure running everything from transportation to electrical grids.They don't have the tools capable of security at this scale."In an increasingly interconnected world,... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Threads, Meta's Twitter competitor, is getting some new features this week," according to a post from CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The new features include the ability to share a Threads post to your Instagram DMs, a way to add custom alt text to photos and videos that you include in posts, and a new mention button" that lets you easily mention someone's account in your Thread," Zuckerberg says. (For some reason, this link only works for me on mobile.)To share a post via Instagram DMs, tap the paper airplane-like icon on a post. To add alt text, start a post, attach photos or videos using the paperclip icon, and then tap the Alt" button that appears on the image. I don't appear to have the mention button - maybe I'm missing it! - but you... Continue reading...

The ongoing PlayStation promo drops the price of nearly every color, including the classic white model. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The PlayStation 5 is fun to play by yourself, but nothing beats some local co-op with a friend. Like most gaming consoles, however, Sony's next-gen offering only comes with a single controller - which is what makes Sony's ongoing summer sale worth checking out. Now through August 19th, you can pick up a second DualSense Wireless Controller for $49 (up to $25 off) at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy.Sony's default controller for the PS5 adds an immersive element to your gaming thanks to its terrific haptics and adaptive triggers, which make it one of the best controllers around. It also features a built-in mic so you can chat online, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack for plugging in a headset or a pair of wired earbuds if you prefer to go... Continue reading...

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge The Pokemon tabletop card game has radically evolved since its debut, but Nintendo's Game Boy adaptation is still a phenomenal crash course in learning how to play. Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Slack is many things. Which is kind of the problem. The Salesforce-owned company has spent years building a team chat app alongside an alerts system, a file storage system, a knowledge base, and all the other things encompassed by Slack's digital HQ" motto. Over time, though, Slack ran out of space, and too many of those features became either cluttered, buried, or both. Eventually, that even affects the talk to your team" part of Slack, which itself can be harder to manage when you're in lots of workspaces, channels, and group chats.So Slack is changing. It's about to roll out its biggest-ever redesign, changing both the look and the layout of the app to hopefully make things easier to find and easier to manage. It's designed... Continue reading...

Photo by INA FASSBENDER / AFP via Getty Images For years, Tesla was synonymous with everything cool, high tech, and futuristic. But is it still today?Teslas used to look cool and now they don't," said Jessica Resler, a Brooklyn resident recently shopping for an EV who eventually settled on a BMW i4. And they've become the Uber car of the city."In case it wasn't clear, no one wants to be known as the Uber car of the city." Previous designees include various Toyotas - Prius, RAV4, etc. - a brand that's more synonymous with terms like functional" and within my budget" than cool."But maybe it's a good thing, a sign of forward progress, that Tesla is shedding its cool persona and becoming more of a car for the masses. After all, the goal is to get more people into EVs, not... Continue reading...

ESPN Bet pitch and app mockup | Image: Penn Entertainment As ESPN's future drifts in the direct-to-consumer wind, a deal with Penn Entertainment will let the sportsbook rename existing properties, like its Barstool Sportsbook, to ESPN Bet. In return, Penn is scheduled to pay ESPN $1.5 billion over the next ten years, as well as $500 million in warrants to buy shares of the operation and, potentially, the ability to appoint a board member.In early 2022, then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek said Disney's opportunity extends to sports betting, gaming, and the Metaverse." Now, Chapek is gone, the metaverse team is dismantled, and new/old CEO Bob Iger described its gambling strategy in an interview as ...we're not actually causing the bets to be made. We're just enabling people to link to companies that do... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Verizon is shutting down BlueJeans, its Zoom competitor it acquired in the early days of the covid pandemic, as reported by 9to5Google.9to5Google shared the text of an email received by BlueJeans customers that said that we have made the difficult decision to sunset our suite of BlueJeans products." BlueJeans' recently introduced free Basic plan and free trial offerings will be discontinued on August 31st, according to the email. That email doesn't say how long people on BlueJeans' paid offerings will have access to the company's services. Verizon didn't immediately reply to a request for comment.BlueJeans was a huge acquisition for Verizon; when the deal was announced in April 2020, CNBC reported that Verizon was going to pay around $... Continue reading...

Wells Fargo will pay the biggest fine in recent US regulatory enforcement actions. | Photo illustration by Rafael Henrique / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images Several US financial firms, including multiple Wells Fargo companies, will pay a combined $549 million in fines after admitting they couldn't produce discussions about company business from smartphone messaging apps used by their employees, including those at senior levels."Both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined banks for being unable to produce discussions going back to at least 2019. The regulators say employees used their personal devices to discuss official company business via apps like iMessage, WhatsApp, or Signal and that those off-channel communications" weren't maintained or preserved."Not keeping records of those conversations violates the 1934... Continue reading...

Image: Larian Studios I love it when games give you the ability to choose your genitals. Not because of the glaringly obvious horny reasons but because, when games give you the ability to customize The Goods, it almost always leads to patch notes like the one we got in the latest Baldur's Gate 3 hotfix.Warning, this will be slightly Not Safe For WorkBy Larian Studios' count, the hotfix addresses over 300 bugs and issues, including one it put right at the top of the Gameplay" section, letting you know this particular issue was at the tip top of developers' minds. The hotfix reads:Penises C and D no longer clip through some githyanki clothing."Well, thank Tyr! I mean, really, how am I supposed to get anything done around Faerun if penises C and D keep... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Google's milestone" Chrome releases in the stable channel that come every four weeks will now be accompanied by weekly security updates (previously biweekly) to help close the patch gap" between fixes appearing in Canary / Beta releases and when they go out to most users.Bad actors could potentially see what changes are made in beta builds and can confirm and exploit vulnerable users before the stable channel sees an update due to the gap - a real problem for a platform with billions of users who would be vulnerable.The Google Security Blog says the new weekly updates, which will start with Chrome 116, won't change how Chrome is used or updated, and milestone releases will still arrive at the same expected timing. Previously, patch... Continue reading...

Image: Apple TV Plus Gizmodo editor-in-chief Daniel Ackerman has sued Apple and other parties over the 2023 Apple TV Plus film Tetris, alleging it rips off his 2016 book The Tetris Effect. Ackerman claims Apple, Tetris rightsholder the Tetris Company, the Tetris film's producers, and screenwriter Noah Pink copied the exact same feel, tone, approach, and scenes" from The Tetris Effect - particularly its framing of the game's release as a Cold War spy thriller."Initially reported by Reuters, Ackerman's lawsuit outlines a yearslong correspondence with the Tetris Company as he wrote The Tetris Effect. He claims that the Tetris Company was aware of his work and threatened him with legal action for trying to pursue film and TV adaptations of his own book, only... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has shortened its $1 Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass trials to just 14 days instead of a month, just weeks before the release of Starfield. After running for years, the $1 trial for new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers stopped in March before returning last month after Microsoft adjusted its Xbox Game Pass pricing.The trials have typically offered new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers a month's access to the subscription services for just $1, but Microsoft has now adjusted both this week to move them to just 14 days only weeks ahead of Starfield's release on September 6th.Microsoft previously stopped its Xbox Game Pass trials because the company was evaluating different marketing promotions... Continue reading...

US President Joe Biden is greeted as he arrives at Grand Canyon National Park Airport in Grand Canyon Village, Arizona, on August 7th, 2023. | Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP via Getty Images The Biden administration announced the creation of a new national monument surrounding the Grand Canyon in the hopes of protecting it from mining and development. But that still won't stop a controversial mine from producing uranium within the monument's boundaries.Biden's designation of a new national monument is expected to protect nearly 1 million acres of land and stop new mining and development. But with mining rights already grandfathered in, the existing Pinyon Plain Mine is an exception.The mine has been at the center of a decades-long fight over the future of domestic uranium production and nuclear energy in the US. Uranium has already contaminated land and water in the Southwest, making people sick. The Havasupai Tribe and... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A cyberattack that began in August 2021 exposed the personal data of people in the United Kingdom who registered to vote between 2014 and 2022. The attack wasn't detected until October 2022, the UK Electoral Commission reported today. Attackers would have also had access to data from voters who'd opted to keep their data off public voter rolls, according to the BBC.The Electoral Commission said on X (formerly Twitter) that it waited to report the delay so it could stop the attack and assess the extent of the incident" as well as harden its systems and get in touch with the National Cyber Security Centre and the UK Information Commissioner's Office.Much of the data was already in the public domain," wrote the Electoral Commission, but... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nvidia, already the market leader in providing high-end processors for generative AI use, will release an even more powerful chip as the demand to run large AI models continues.The company announced the availability of the GH200 super chip, which Nvidia said can handle the most complex generative AI workloads, spanning large language models, recommender systems and vector databases."The GH200 will have the same GPU as the H100, currently Nvidia's most powerful and popular AI offering, but triple the memory capacity. The company said systems running on GH200 will start in the second quarter of 2024.Nvidia did not reveal the price for the GH200; the H100 line currently sells for roughly $40,000.Complex AI models require powerful... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube's homepage will now look very different if you have your watch history turned off. Instead of surfacing a page full of suggested videos, you'll mostly see nothing.The change is all part of a new viewer experience" Google announced on Tuesday. If you've switched your YouTube watch history to off and have no significant prior watch history," you won't see features that need a watch history to provide recommendations.That means you'll only see the search bar on the homepage, along with the Shorts, Subscriptions, and Library buttons. This could come as a welcome change for people who hate sifting through increasingly extreme thumbnails to find the play button, but it could also be a way to annoy users into turning the history... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Valve now sells certified refurbished" Steam Decks that cost less than if you bought the handheld gaming PC brand new. Valve promises the refurbished Decks are fully tested at Valve facilities" and offer the same 1-year warranty as a new Deck."If you want to order a refurbished Steam Deck, check out Valve's Steam page for the devices. As revealed in listings that appeared ahead of the official launch, the refurbished units offer some nice savings over the prices of new ones:

The podcast cover art for Snap Judgement. | Image: Snap Judgement This is Hot Pod, The Verge's newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.Got a very packed issue of Hot Pod for you today. To start off, I have a scoop for you about KQED's acquisition of Snap Judgment Studios, which produces the shows Snap Judgment and Spooked. I'll also dive into why Apple Podcasts got fined by a court in Moscow. Also, Audacy held an earnings call last week but very much kept it on the down low - I'll break it down below.Finally, be sure to check out my story in The Verge about The Unwell Network, a new Gen Z-focused podcast venture by Call Her Daddy's Alex Cooper. Cooper's controversial podcast often gets criticized for being light on substance - but the show regularly beats Joe... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Valve might sell refurbished Steam Decks sometime soon. The creator of the SteamDB database tweeted Monday about certified refurbished" Steam Decks in all three storage offerings, and deals maestro Wario64 tweeted screenshots of the listings soon after (via Gizmodo). Unfortunately, as I write this, Wario64's links redirect to Steam's main landing page, and it doesn't seem like the links were accessible for very long.If Valve's refurbished Steam Decks do go on sale at the prices in Wario64's screenshots, they'll offer some nice savings over the prices of new ones:

Image: Nintendo Pokemon fans of a certain age have cause for celebration. No, the Pokemon Red / Blue games are not getting a full remake, and no, they're also not getting ported to the Switch. Instead, announced during today's Pokemon Presents event, Pokemon Stadium 2 and Pokemon Trading Card Game are coming to Nintendo Switch Online.Pokemon Trading Card Game was released on the Game Boy Color in 2000 and was the first video game-ification of Pokemon's paper trading card game (better known as Pokemon TCG). There were 226 cards in Pokemon Trading Card Game that were from the first three sets of the real-life TCG, including cards exclusive to the game. Back in the day, you could play against your friends using the Game Boy link cable. But if you wanna... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Dish Network will merge its operations with EchoStar, the satellite internet company that runs HughesNet. The merger is meant to provide more financial flexibility for Dish as it seeks to become a major competitor in the wireless service business, the co-founder and chairman of both companies, Charlie Ergen, told The Wall Street Journal. After the merger, EchoStar CEO Hamid Akhavan will serve as president and CEO, while Dish CEO Erik Carlson will make his exit.EchoStar and Dish were originally part of the same company, operating under the EchoStar name. In 2008, the company renamed itself Dish and split its satellite internet wing off under the EchoStar brand. Today's merger reunites the two, which are still each under the purview of... Continue reading...

Image: The Pokemon Company After months of leaving everyone guessing just when exactly Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's two-part DLC would finally hit the Nintendo Switch, the first half of The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero finally has a release date.During today's Pokemon Presents stream, The Pokemon Company announced that The Teal Mask, the first half of Scarlet and Violet's major DLC drop, is set to debut on September 13th and will introduce a host of new gameplay features as well as multiple new pokemon. A new trailer for the DLC details how players will travel to the land of Kitakami as part of a joint school trip that coincides with a local festival celebrating the Loyal Three - Kitakami's legendary trio - and Ogerpon, a new masked legendary monster.The trailer... Continue reading...

Image: Unity / Weta Digital Unity is releasing some of the specialist 2D and 3D tools from Weta FX - the visual effects company behind Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and James Cameron's Avatar movie franchises - to artists across the wider VFX industry under a new Unity Weta tools division. Unity revealed during its Siggraph 2023 keynote that some of Weta's industry-leading compositing and character creation tools will be coming to its Unity real-time game development engine, almost two years after Unity acquired Weta's VFX division back in 2021.The Weta tools being released into public beta under the new division include add-ons for Wig 1.0 (used to create hair and fur in Autodesk Maya), Eddy 3.0 (used to process volumetric effects like smoke or fire in Nuke),... Continue reading...