The Verge

A bloater surrounded by clickers in HBO’s The Last of Us. The Last of Us showrunner Craig Mazin says that future seasons may feature way more of the games’ monstrous fungal mutants to bring an interesting kind of balance to the show. Continue reading…

Image: VW Volkswagen announced that its first gigafactory in North America will be located in the city of St. Thomas in the Canadian province of Ontario. By establishing a battery plant in North America, Volkswagen hopes to meet a major requirement to enable its EVs to be eligible for the US federal tax credit of $7,500.The St. Thomas factory will be a joint venture between VW and Power Co, a new independent company created by the automaker to oversee its massive $20 billion battery initiatives. After starting construction on two other gigafactories, this will be the third plant worldwide and PowerCo’s first cell factory in North America. Production at the St. Thomas factory is set to kick off in 2027.According to VW, the St. Thomas plant... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft spent hundreds of millions of dollars building a massive supercomputer to help power OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, according to a report from Bloomberg. In a pair of blog posts published on Monday, Microsoft explains how it created Azure’s powerful artificial intelligence infrastructure used by OpenAI and how its systems are getting even more robust.To build the supercomputer that powers OpenAI’s projects, Microsoft says it linked together thousands of Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) on its Azure cloud computing platform. In turn, this allowed OpenAI to train increasingly powerful models and “unlocked the AI capabilities” of tools like ChatGPT and Bing.Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s vice president of AI and cloud, said the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge It happens to the best of us. You’ve just purchased a new PC, and you’re excited about all the blessed empty storage that’s there for you to load with your favorite programs. But why is so much of the drive already full? What are all these notifications you’re getting from apps you’ve never heard of? And why is some antivirus program trying to scan everything you download?It sounds like your new device may have a bad case of bloatware. It’s quite common for PCs (even fairly expensive ones) to come preloaded with a bunch of third-party software. Some will be free trials included with the hope that you will upgrade to paid services. There may be apps here and there that you actually want and find useful, but many will likely be garbage... Continue reading…

Night Sight on the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro is getting up to speed with the latest Pixel generation. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Google’s making good on its promise to bring a much-touted photo feature to all of its phones and has a couple of other goodies for Pixel owners in its latest feature drop. The update is being made available now to Pixel phones, and it includes Magic Eraser for all devices, a faster Night Sight for the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, and a Direct My Call enhancement for older Pixels.Magic Eraser debuted on the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro and was also available on last year’s Pixel 7 and 7 Pro. That means it’s only been available on phones with Google’s custom Tensor chipset, which might lead you to believe it could only run on phones with Tensor. That’s clearly not the case — last month, Google announced the feature would be offered with older Pixel devices... Continue reading…

This is one of Tinymakesthings’ artisan keycaps, sculpted in clay. | Image: Tinymakesthings Mechanical keyboard love lovers have created a small boom in small businesses. People are making a living designing and building PCBs, switches, caps, and whole keyboards. They’re partnering with small factories to bring their creations to life. But some artisans are building the products themselves — no factory involved. The artist who goes by the name Tinymakesthings is one of those creators.She’s a keycap artist, crafting individual keycaps that are truly tiny works of art. She uses a few mediums to build her keycaps but relies primarily on clay and resin. She broadcasts her work on Twitch and sells her caps in her own shop, and she felt like a perfect person to speak with for the next episode of Solo Acts.Solo Acts is a five-part V... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon Rivian’s looking to exit from its agreement to exclusively provide delivery vans to Amazon, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal and CNBC. As part of a deal made in 2019, the online retailer signed on to purchase 100,000 delivery vans from Rivian, but with Amazon reportedly only meeting the bare minimum of ordering 10,000 vehicles this year, the two are renegotiating.The terms of the original deal said Amazon would have the exclusive rights to the electric delivery vans for four years after Rivian provided the first batch of vehicles, which Rivian started delivering last year. However, the fine print states that Rivian could cut the exclusivity deal short if Amazon doesn’t purchase 10,000 of its vehicles in each of the... Continue reading…

They sound good, look sleek, aren’t too bulky, and are now on a great sale. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Still feeling groggy from the daylight saving time change? Well, we’ve got some deals to help jolt you awake.The Sony WF-1000XM4, our overall favorite noise-canceling earbuds, are on sale for $198 at Amazon or $199.99 at Best Buy. That’s $82 off, bringing them down to their second-best price to date — being only eclipsed by Black Friday and holiday sales. Not bad for a random Monday in March.The WF-1000XM4 may be an alphabet soup of a name, but these excellent-sounding earbuds have a sleek design in a compact case with conveniences like wireless charging and advanced features like support for Sony’s high-bitrate LDAC codec. They also have some of the best battery life around, with up to eight hours of continuous playback so you can... Continue reading…

A Samsung smartphone identified a blurry photo of the Moon and added detail to create the above image. | Image: u/ibreakphotos For years, Samsung “Space Zoom”-capable phones have been known for their ability to take incredibly detailed photos of the Moon. But a recent Reddit post showed in stark terms just how much computational processing the company is doing, and — given the evidence supplied — it feels like we should go ahead and say it: Samsung’s pictures of the Moon are fake.But what exactly does “fake” mean in this scenario? It’s a tricky question to answer, and one that’s going to become increasingly important and complex as computational techniques are integrated further into the photographic process. We can say for certain that our understanding of what makes a photo fake will soon change, just as it has in the past to accommodate digital cameras,... Continue reading…

Image: SIE Well, after nine weeks of enduring and surviving, the first season of HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us is finally over. If this was your first exposure to the cordyceps apocalypse, you might be thinking now is the time to get into the games: but where to start? The obvious answer is with the original The Last of Us, which just got a nice, shiny remake for the PS5 (and soon PC). But the ideal starting point is actually something smaller and more intimate: a standalone expansion called Left Behind.The following includes spoilers for The Last of Us: the game, the show, the sequel — all of it.Developer Naughty Dog actually recommends you don’t play Left Behind until after completing the base game, but that changes if you’ve watched the... Continue reading…

GM is reportedly using Microsoft’s Azure cloud service — which includes a ChatGPT API — to develop a virtual personal assistant for its vehicles. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The AI language models behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT could soon be powering virtual assistants in General Motors vehicles. As reported by Reuters on Friday, an executive for GM has revealed that the American automaker is exploring potential uses for ChatGPT as part of a broader collaboration with Microsoft. Semafor similarly reported last week that “people with knowledge of the product” had specified GM was using Microsoft’s Azure cloud service — which includes a ChatGPT API — to develop a virtual personal assistant for its vehicles.GM Vice President Scott Miller provided some details for the project in an interview with Reuters last week, saying that “ChatGPT is going to be in everything.” Miller claimed that the chatbot could push things... Continue reading…

I don’t know why you’d want to bring your record collection while fishing in tights, but you be you, stud. | Image: Jackery The absurdity of that promotional image aside, Jackery is actually a respected maker of big-ass portable batteries for anyone needing to recharge their lives when away from the grid. Today, the company is releasing details on its latest flagship product — the Explorer 3000 Pro — first revealed at CES in January alongside the lesser specced Explorer 1500 Pro.The Jackery Explorer 3000 Pro comes loaded with AC and DC ports to charge almost anything you throw at it — including power tools, air conditioners, space heaters, microwaves, blenders, and all your gadgets — producing up to 3000W of sustained AC output with a 6000W peak. You also have the option of plugging up to 1400W of solar input into the unit to keep everything charged while... Continue reading…

Ke Huy Quan (R) accepts the award for Best Picture for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” from Harrison Ford. | Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images With 23 awards to be given out, the 95th Academy Awards Ceremony definitely ran a little long, but after last year’s theatrics, the evening felt like a studied return to form for the Oscars and a fitting end to awards season.As improbable as it might have once seemed, A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once from the Daniels absolutely dominated at this year’s ceremony where it ultimately took home seven of the 11 awards it was nominated for including Best Picture, Best Directing for the Daniels, Best Film Editing for Paul Rogers, and Best Writing (Original Screenplay) also for the Daniels. In his speech for Best Supporting Actor, Ke Huy Quan thanked his wife and brother for keeping him grounded and sticking by him through his Hollywood... Continue reading…

Bella Ramsey as Ellie in The Last of Us. | HBO The Last of Us’ Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin say that the show’s most emotional cameo started as an idea for an animated short and an entirely new video game. Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Signature Bank, one of the two big US destinations for crypto companies, has been closed by New York regulators. “All depositors of this institution will be made whole,” the Treasury, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said in a joint statement.This is the third major bank that has fallen in the space of a week, and investors are spooked. The joint announcement that depositors will be protected above the $250,000 guaranteed by the FDIC appears to be meant to reassure banking customers that their money will not be frozen. Signature had $88.59 billion in deposits as of December 31, 2022. The New York Department of Financial Services has taken possession of the bank.Signature was one of two banks that was widely... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Etsy says some sellers won’t receive their payments on time due to the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. In an email sent out to impacted shop owners, the company says it used the shuttered institution to send out deposits to “some sellers” and that they may not get their scheduled payments as a result, leaving shop owners worried about the future of their stores.Etsy started notifying sellers about the potential delays on Friday, the same day the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and California regulators shut down Silicon Valley Bank. The bank served as a staple in the venture capital and startup industries, with companies like Etsy, Roku, and Roblox having funds tied up in the institution. The FDIC auction for the Silicon... Continue reading…

Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images The 95th annual Academy Awards kicks off tonight and celebrates the achievements across the film industry. The star-studded ceremony takes place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California, and will feature a performance by Rihanna after she headlined this year’s Super Bowl halftime show.Whether you’re hoping to see which film takes home the award for Best Picture or want to catch Rihanna’s second big performance of the year, here’s how and when you can watch the Oscars.When do the Oscars start?The Oscars take place on Sunday, March 12th, 2023 at 8PM ET / 5PM PT.Where can I watch the Oscars?The Academy Awards will be available on several live TV streaming platforms that carry ABC, including Hulu with Live TV, YouTube TV, FuboTV,... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Cerebral, a telehealth startup specializing in mental health, says it inadvertently shared the sensitive information of over 3.1 million patients with Google, Meta, TikTok, and other third-party advertisers, as reported earlier by TechCrunch. In a notice posted on the company’s website, Cerebral admits to exposing a laundry list of patient data with the tracking tools it’s been using as far back as October 2019.The information affected by the oversight includes everything from patient names, phone numbers, email addresses, birth dates, IP addresses, insurance information, appointment dates, treatment, and more. It may have even exposed the answers clients filled out as part of the mental health self-assessment on the company’s website... Continue reading…

Image: Getty Images HP is preventing more customers from using third-party ink with their printers. Numerous reports scattered across Reddit, Twitter, and the HP community forum suggest that a recent printer firmware update is blocking the use of non-HP ink as part of the company’s stringent “dynamic security” policy, as first reported by Ars Technica.First introduced in 2016, dynamic security is part of HP’s cartridge authentication process the company says should “protect the quality of our customer experience, maintain the integrity of our printing systems, and protect our intellectual property.” This means barring the use of ink or toner cartridges that do not contain “new or reused HP chips or electronic circuitry” in some printers, something HP has... Continue reading…

It takes up serious space, but the X1 Omni is a powerful robovac that also doubles as a 2001: A Space Odyssey prop. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy This weekend isn’t just bringing us daylight saving time to once again wreck our sleeping habits, but also a few fresh deals to compliment some highlights from earlier this week that are still available. Today, for example, Ecovacs’ do-everything Deebot X1 Omni robot vacuum is on sale for $999.99 at Amazon and direct from Ecovacs.It’s a big investment for a vacuum, but you have to consider that’s a $600 discount on a bot that vacuums, mops, cleans its own pads, and empties and refills itself. Robot vacuums are meant to keep your house clean on the regular without you having to lift a finger, and the X1 Omni is more hands-off than most. Plus, it touts other helpful features, including AI obstacle avoidance to prevent it from running over... Continue reading…

Edit your ProRAW photo like a pro. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Apple’s ProRAW camera feature is a powerful tool to have in your back pocket. An image taken in ProRAW mode combines the same great post-processing flexibility of a traditional RAW file with the benefits of multi-frame computational photography. Kind of the best of both worlds! But once you’ve gone through the steps to enable it on your iPhone and have taken your photo, that’s when the real work starts: processing and converting it to a shareable format like JPEG, PNG, or HEIF.ProRAW files are saved in Adobe’s ubiquitous DNG format, which is compatible with virtually every RAW photo editing app under the sun. That means you have a lot of options, including just sending the file to a computer and using desktop software. But you don’t... Continue reading…

The right screen protector can make writing on your iPad much more comfortable. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Apple’s iPad and Pencil combination makes for an excellent note-taking or digital drawing solution. But even though writing notes or creating art on the iPad has a lot of advantages over using analog pen and paper, the actual feel of writing with a plastic-tipped stylus on the iPad’s smooth glass isn’t great. The hard plastic of the stylus hitting the hard glass of the iPad can be noisy, slippery, and just unpleasant to use if you’re used to writing on paper.Yet it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. There is a small cottage industry of paper-feel (or paperlike or paper-type) screen protectors for the iPad that address this issue directly. And as someone who takes handwritten notes on the iPad every single day, I now swear by... Continue reading…

Just me and my bud Alucard. | Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge This week, the indie roguelike Dead Cells got a massive Castlevania-themed expansion, the game’s fourth paid DLC. After years of wanting to play Dead Cells, I’ve finally started in earnest, but I feared I would be overwhelmed by everything that had come before. Turns out that I had nothing to worry about: Dead Cells is smartly designed so that newcomers can jump in and have a blast without already knowing about the game’s worlds, weapons, or mysteries.As a 2D action game, it’s pretty easy to grasp the basics of Dead Cells. You’ll explore rooms, collect weapons, and use your arsenal to defeat various enemies that are out to get you. The roguelike elements of the game mean that you’ll frequently stumble upon new and better weapons while... Continue reading…

Image: Nilay Patel / The Verge Ford issued a recall notice for 18 F-150 Lightning pickup trucks with defective battery cells, which caused at least one truck to catch fire. The automaker will restart production of the electric truck on Monday, March 13th, with a “clean stock” of battery packs, after a four-week pause of production and shipment to investigate the cause of the defect.Ford said the “root cause” of the issue was at South Korean battery supplier SK On’s factory in Georgia. In a statement, spokesperson Emma Bergg said that the company was not aware of any reports of accident or injury related to this recall. “Together with SK On, we have confirmed the root causes and have implemented quality actions,” Bergg said. “Production is on track to resume Monday... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge Back in the Great Depression of the 1930s, people found escape from the bad news of the day by going to the movies. In fact, I can’t count how many movies — Sullivan’s Travels, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Matinee, Cinema Paradiso, just to name a few — are about people going to the movies for entertainment and escape. People stood in line and rushed to get their favorite seats; first come, first served. You’re part of a couple who are both comfortably making six figures? You’re paying off a college loan or trying to make it on your Social Security benefits? Doesn’t matter. You’re entitled to the best seat you can wrangle.Even when theaters began selling advance reservations, it was still first come, first served — if you wanted to see a... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Xbox is the latest big gaming brand to officially say that it won’t be on the E3 show floor, confirming the decision to IGN on Friday. Just this week, Microsoft announced the June 11th date for its annual Xbox showcase and a dedicated Starfield show, but we still didn’t know if Xbox would actually be on the floor of this year’s in-person E3 convention.“We can’t wait to host our Xbox Games Showcase on June 11th and will share more details later,” an Xbox spokesperson said in a statement to IGN. “We also look forward to co-streaming our event as part of E3 Digital and will not be on the E3 show floor.”In February, Nintendo confirmed that it wouldn’t be a part of E3, which now means that both Nintendo and Microsoft won’t have booths at... Continue reading…

Photo by Mitchell Clark / The Verge For some Rivian R1T reservation holders, the wait is almost over. “Thousands of R1T reservation holders can expect an invitation from us in the coming days,” says Andy Bowman, director of communications at Rivian. “Once their order is confirmed, they can expect to take delivery in the next 1-4 months.”The announcement comes as the EV startup has struggled to ramp up production, leaving many people on the waitlist for a year or more. The company has a big backlog to work through, too — it’s not sharing how many reservations it has anymore, but last September, the count was around 114,000, according to The Wall Street Journal.According to a Rivian support article, those who get the invitation to order an R1T will get access to the... Continue reading…

Chloe Kim is right at home on the rails. | Image: Epic Games Fortnite doesn’t seem capable of slowing down — and I’m not just talking about the relentless inclusion of seemingly every piece of modern pop culture. I mean the game itself. Fortnite keeps getting faster, and its latest major update, which ushers in a cyberpunk theme, speeds things up even more.This is something that has been brewing for some time and really became apparent when Epic added a “zero build” mode to the battle royale. Without that previously defining build feature, Fortnite had to adapt to give players more mobility options: swimming and sprinting, vehicles like cars and dirtbikes. The additions came slow and steady, but eventually, they made the game feel much speedier and more dynamic.That’s on full display in the new... Continue reading…

Samar Haddad / The Verge Alongside being a great kitchen TV, a handy bedside alarm clock, and a decent digital picture frame, an Echo Show smart display can also double as a security camera monitor. If you have a smart security camera that works with Amazon Alexa, it’s easy to view a live feed from it right on your smart display. This works with indoor cameras, outdoor cameras, doorbell cameras, and even floodlight cameras.Also, new this year, if you have more than one camera, the Echo Show can display multiple feeds at once, so you can surveil your whole domain... like some sort of mad Bond villain.Any Amazon Echo Show or Amazon Fire TV works for viewing live footage from any compatible camera, which includes cameras from Ring, Arlo, Google Nest, Eufy,... Continue reading…

Image: Getty Images Within hours of reports that Silicon Valley Bank was considering a sale after it failed to raise enough money to keep going, state and federal banking regulators shut it down. In an announcement from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the agency said, “All insured depositors will have full access to their insured deposits no later than Monday morning, March 13, 2023.”Silicon Valley Bank is important for venture capital firms and startups. But as the economy has changed, VC-funded companies burned through their available cash. Simultaneously, VC funding dried up. So Silicon Valley Bank’s deposits dropped faster than the bank anticipated.After Silicon Valley Bank announced on Wednesday that it had sold $21 billion in... Continue reading…

Apple’s yellow iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus will be available starting Tuesday, March 14th. | Image: Apple Apple’s iPhone 14 lineup just got a whole lot brighter. Like last spring, the tech giant recently announced that its latest smartphones will now come in a new color: yellow. The bright colorway will only be available for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, not the Pro models, which was the case when Apple debuted the green colorway last year.Aside from the new look, the phones don’t come with any changes. They still offer the same A15 Bionic chipset and feature set, which includes newer features like car crash detection and Emergency SOS via Satellite. The iPhone 14 Plus remains the larger of the two, with its 6.7-inch screen and longer battery life. The phones are just a little more vibrant and join other shades in Apple’s lineup,... Continue reading…

Image: Roku Roku’s upcoming Select and Plus TV sets will be a Best Buy exclusive, and the streaming hardware company is planning to cross-pollinate its ad data with Best Buy’s own ad system. The partnership includes the whole TV lineup that Roku announced at CES this year, and outside brands can partner with the duo to target product ads to Roku viewers based on their Best Buy shopping habits.The news comes just as Roku released its system OS 12 software that’s rolling out in the coming weeks. It’ll include new content discovery features, local news channels, and news recommendations that are curated to streamers and is “powered by AI,” according to the press release.The new system also includes new location-based experiences, which should enable... Continue reading…

A physical recreation of Mario’s boots. | Image: Red Wing Shoes If you’ve ever wondered what Mario’s shoes would look like in real life, wonder no more. Nintendo partnered with footwear maker Red Wing Shoes to recreate Mario’s boots as shown in The Super Mario Bros. Movie.To my eyes, they seem like boots for, well, a fictional Italian plumber. But really nice boots, of course — I’d expect nothing less for the man known for traveling across literal galaxies to stomp on sentient mushroom-like beings and evil turtles. Gotta have good shoes for that!If you want to see the boots for yourself, they’re actually on display at the Nintendo store in New York City right now:

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge AM radio is under the gun, with more and more automakers discontinuing its use, especially as the industry undergoes a rapid shift to electrification. Lawmakers and regulators are worried that the slow demise of AM radio could make it more difficult to broadcast emergency information during a natural disaster or other related events. But automakers are undeterred and seem determined to sweep AM radio into the dustbin of history.The latest model to hit dealerships without the first-generation radio broadcast technology is the 2024 Ford Mustang, according to Ars Technica, citing Ford Authority. Indeed, Ford was one of eight companies to essentially declare AM radio to be an obsolete technology in their response to Senator Ed Markey’s... Continue reading…

The agreement stipulates that Comcast could still force Disney to buy its stake in Hulu, with a final valuation to be determined by independent analysts nearer the deadline. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Hulu’s fate still hangs in the balance following statements from Disney CEO Bob Iger this week. Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Tech, Media, and Telecom conference on Thursday, Iger said that Disney is still debating whether it will buy out Comcast’s 33 percent stake in Hulu, alluding to the current economic downturn and the company’s own difficulties with Disney Plus.“What we’re doing right now, because we own two-thirds of Hulu, and we have an agreement with Comcast that may result in us owning 100 percent, is we’re really studying the business very, very carefully,” Iger said. In an interview with CNBC last month, Iger had similarly refuted assumptions that Disney would buy the remaining stake in Hulu, saying “that that is not... Continue reading…

It’s-a time for his day and it’s-a time for some deals. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge It’s March 10th, which, thanks to the internet and some ace brand marketing, is Mario Day — aka, a low-key celebration of all things involving Nintendo’s beloved plumber. Most importantly, it means there are plenty of discounts and promos to take advantage of, including worthwhile deals on Nintendo games that otherwise frequently sell at full price.Retailers like Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, and Target are discounting a batch of physical and digital first-party Nintendo titles and various accessories — offering around $20 off on many games that usually run $60. Admittedly, the celebration of our little Italian friend feels like an effort to keep building hype for the Super Mario Bros. Movie, which is due to hit theaters in just under a... Continue reading…

The entire exchange system for these things sucks. Time to go DIY. | Photo: The Verge Home seltzer mods have been around for years. CO2 is dirt cheap. So why are any of us putting up with a middleman jacking up the price of fizzy water? Continue reading…

Image: Michele Doying / The Verge Two days after Silvergate Bank announced its shutdown in a collapse with deep ties to problems with some of its crypto customers, Silicon Valley Bank is also struggling. Its stock price plunged more than 60 percent before trading was halted on Friday morning. It may sell itself — CNBC reports it’s now in talks to sell itself, and Reuters says that it’s “exploring options, including a sale.”Silicon Valley Bank is known for serving venture capital firms and the local tech startups those firms invested in. On Wednesday, the bank announced a bunch of bad news. It sold almost all of its securities, some $21 billion worth, at a $1.8 billion loss because deposits dropped quickly. The bank said this was because VC-funded companies were burning... Continue reading…

For $300, Replika sells a companion who will never die, argue, or cheat — until his algorithm is updated. Continue reading…