The Verge

Usernames have been reserved for current Medium subscription members until March 20th. | Image: The Verge Popular publishing platform Medium is now fully embracing the Twitter alternative Mastodon by opening up its new me.dm instance to paying Medium community members. Joining the Mastodon server requires a subscription to Medium for $5 per month (or $50 per year) which enables perks on the site like ad-free browsing and offline reading. Mastodon instances are generally free to join.Medium is one of the first notable tech companies to utilize Mastodon as a premium social media experience, which is interesting given the publishing company’s historic connections with Twitter. Medium co-founders Ev Williams and Biz Stone also co-founded Twitter back in 2007. A great deal of Mastodon’s recent success was born out of ongoing turmoil with Twitter... Continue reading…

Uber’s app is adding walking directions inside airports to get you to the baggage claim and out the door. | Image: Uber We’ve somehow gone years without Uber holding our hands from the gate to the baggage claim area, out the door, and to an Uber pickup zone where a normal reserved Uber X ride is waiting for us. Now the company is making all of that possible: giving users full walking instructions — complete with photos — for various airports, adjusted ETA times that include walking to baggage claim, and expanding Uber Reserve options that includes booking rides up to 90 days in advance.“You’re not just getting to and from the airport, but also getting through it with less stress,” Uber’s head of product for rides, Jen You, states in a press release. Step-by-step directions from gate to baggage claim to Uber pickup are rolling out to 30 airports worldwide... Continue reading…

The LCD panel used by the 2022 iPhone SE (above) will likely be replaced by a 6.1-inch OLED from Chinese supplier BOE. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge China-based display maker BOE (Beijing Oriental Electronics) has a complicated relationship with Apple. But despite some missteps, it looks like the two companies will be working together for a while longer, at least: a new report from The Elec (spotted by MacRumors) pegs BOE as the display supplier for the rumored iPhone SE 4. This latest report comes as Apple is allegedly working on its own display tech — and trying to lessen reliance on its main display maker and rival, Samsung.Things got off to a rough start with Apple in 2020 when some of BOE’s screens for the iPhone 12 reportedly failed quality tests. Later, Apple caught BOE making unapproved changes to its iPhone 13 display design. And while BOE eventually secured a deal to make... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge If you notice that emails from salespeople or responses from customer support agents seem a bit off — or that they’ve gotten a significant bump in writing quality — you may be have AI to thank. Microsoft has announced that it’ll be introducing AI features into Dynamics 365, its set of enterprise apps for customer relationship management and resource planning.The company calls the set of features “CoPilot,” and is pitching it as a way to help businesspeople “create ideas and content faster, complete time-consuming tasks, and get insights and next best actions.” That involves things like having an AI write customizable emails to customers and automatically generate meeting summaries, write a response to customer service chats and emails... Continue reading…

Outlook for Mac is now free on the App Store. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is making Outlook for Mac free to use today. Outlook is now available free in Apple’s App Store, and you no longer need a Microsoft 365 subscription or Office license to use it. It’s a surprise move that coincides with Microsoft’s push to make its Windows desktop Outlook email client more web-powered.Outlook for Mac includes support for Outlook.com accounts, Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo, and any email provider that has IMAP support. Microsoft redesigned its Mac email client in 2020, with a user interface that’s optimized for Apple’s latest macOS design changes. Image: Microsoft Outlook for Mac will soon support menu bar peek. Outlook for Mac is also optimized for M1 and M2 chips and has a macOS widget for... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge As Microsoft and Google butt heads over whose AI chatbot is better, that isn’t the only use for machine learning and language models. Along with rumored plans to show off more than 20 products powered by artificial intelligence during its annual I/O event this year, Google’s progressing toward its goal of building an AI language model that supports 1,000 different languages. In an update posted on Monday, Google shared more information about the Universal Speech Model (USM), a system Google describes as a “critical first step” in realizing its goals.Last November, the company announced its plans to create a language model supporting 1,000 of the world’s most-spoken languages while also revealing its USM model. Google describes USM as “a... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter’s website is breaking in novel new ways — and while the company managed to recover from its latest outage within a couple of hours, the story behind how it broke suggests there are likely to be similar problems in the near future.On Monday morning, Twitter users logged on to find a thicket of connected issues. Clicking on links would no longer open them; instead, users would see a mysterious error message reporting that “your current API plan does not include access to this endpoint.” Images stopped loading as well. Other users reported that they could not access TweetDeck, the Twitter-owned client for professional users.Chaos took over the timeline, as users tweeted vociferously about the outage — often illustrating their... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google has started to roll out an updated UI for Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides that’s meant to fit in with its Material Design 3 language. The apps still work the same way they used to, but Google writes in an announcement post that they should now be a bit more “simplified,” with less clutter and a few improvements and additions.Writing about the update when it was announced in February, my colleague Jay Peters noted that it’s similar to Gmail’s new look, which makes sense given that Google says it’s trying to “streamline core collaboration journeys across our products.” GIF: Google Easily accessible filters are a nice new feature coming with the design update. I’ll point you toward Jay’s article... Continue reading…

It’s a big screen. | Image: Samsung Samsung has announced that its Odyssey Neo G7 monitor, which it revealed earlier this year, will cost $999.99 and is available today. For the money, you’ll be getting a 43-inch 4K Mini LED display that can run at 144Hz along with Samsung’s Smart Hub software that lets you use streaming services like GeForce Now, Xbox Game Pass, and Netflix without having to connect to a computer or console.Samsung says the display has a matte coating that should help cut down on reflections and glare and that it has VESA Display HDR600 certification and FreeSync Premium Pro. The monitor also includes a healthy selection of I/O, including two HDMI 2.1 ports (one of which supports eArc), a DisplayPort 1.4 connector, and two USB 3 Type-A ports. It also... Continue reading…

Troy Baker as James in The Last of Us. | HBO Even now, The Last of Us’ Troy Baker is still learning new things about the franchise’s characters, like cannibal cultist James from episode 8, When We Are in Need. Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge German and Ukrainian police raided the homes of individuals linked to a prominent cybercrime group that stole millions from large companies and organizations over the course of several years. The authorities worked with Europol and the FBI last month to investigate the residences of members of the hacking group, which often goes by the names Indrik Spider, Double Spider, and Grief.The group notably waged a ransomware attack on the Düsseldorf University Hospital in 2020 using its DoppelPaymer ransomware. At the time, German police blamed the attack for the death of a patient who had to be transferred to another hospital due to systemwide corruption. It also carried out an attack on the UK’s National Health Service in 2017 and took... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter had some problems Monday morning — starting just before noon ET, clicking links within tweets didn’t work, and for many people, images wouldn’t load throughout their timelines. It took a little less than an hour for most parts of the site to start working again.During the partial outage, trying to click a link showed only an error message that said “your current API plan does not include access to this endpoint.” People also seemed to get the error when visiting the site in Incognito mode or if they weren’t logged in.

Image: Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is getting ready to publicly test major new Windows features even earlier. While the software giant has been previewing changes to Windows for nearly a decade, a new Canary channel for Windows Insiders will allow anyone to try out “hot off the presses” builds of Windows that include major changes to the kernel, APIs, and other big parts of Windows. It feels like this new Canary channel is preparation work for Windows 12, which Intel and Microsoft have both been hinting at recently.“The new Canary Channel is going to be the place to preview platform changes that require longer-lead time before getting released to customers,” says Amanda Langowski, Microsoft’s head of the Windows Insider program, in a blog post today. “Some... Continue reading…

Photo by Mario Tama / Getty Images Florida has been a hotbed of government speech regulations under Governor Ron DeSantis, who has lately even taken to saying he will control Disney’s content. So it’s not surprising to see other Republican lawmakers in the state take broader shots at the First Amendment — but I was admittedly not expecting the latest one to be a blogger registry.As covered by WFLA last week, state Senator Jason Brodeur has proposed a bill that would require “bloggers” who are compensated for writing about any Florida elected official to register with a state agency — either the Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics, depending on the post’s subject. Registered bloggers must then submit monthly reports disclosing any posts they’ve... Continue reading…

If you travel and want to drown out the droning of your surroundings, meet your buds. | Image: Chris Welch / The Verge There are lots of excellent wireless earbuds available these days, but one shines above the rest when it comes to noise cancellation: the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II. They’re currently one of our top picks for the best earbuds you can buy, and they’re on sale for $249 ($50 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from Bose.The QuietComfort Earbuds II have noise cancellation that is strong enough to (mostly) silence the droning of an airplane. Or if you prefer, they do a great job as earplugs to wash away the outside world and allow you to focus on your work. But their excellent ANC isn’t the whole picture here, as the Bose also have great audio quality for music and podcast listening. Where they’re not so premium is their lack of... Continue reading…

WASHINGTON DC - AUGUST 26, 2022. A bowl of beef, rice, eggs, and vegetables. | Image: Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post via Getty Images. The global food system, and the agriculture industry that supports it, could cause as much global warming as all human activity has caused since the industrial revolution, new research finds.The planet has already warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times. That might not seem like much, but it’s the primary driver of more extreme weather and a cascade of other dangerous effects from climate change. Under the current status quo, greenhouse gas emissions from our food system alone could warm the planet by an additional degree. That’s enough to blow past global climate goals set under the Paris agreement and significantly intensify climate disasters.Fortunately, there are ways to prevent that grim scenario, according... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge WhatsApp has committed to making its terms of service agreements more transparent in the European Union after the platform published a highly confusing new policy that made users believe it would share their data with Facebook. In a press release posted to the EU Commission’s website, the agency says WhatsApp will make it easier for users to reject terms of service updates and will more clearly outline what happens when they do.The Meta-owned messaging app caused confusion when it rolled out a new privacy policy in 2021 that appeared to give WhatsApp permission to share user data with Facebook. At the time, it even stated users would lose functionality if they didn’t agree to the new terms. WhatsApp later clarified that the policy would... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is holding a special event later this month where it plans to detail “the future of work with AI” and demonstrate how its ChatGPT-like AI will work in Office apps like Teams, Word, and Outlook. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and head of Microsoft 365 Jared Spataro will hold an event on March 16th at 8AM PT / 11AM ET.The Verge revealed last month that Microsoft was planning an AI event in March to demo how its new ChatGPT-like AI will transform its Office productivity apps. After announcing and demonstrating its Prometheus Model in its new Bing search engine last month, it’s now time to see where Microsoft will take this further in the world of work.The Information previously reported earlier this year that GPT models from OpenAI... Continue reading…

Rashida Jones in Silo. | Image: Apple Apple has another dark drama coming to its streaming service. Today, the company showed off the first teaser trailer for Silo, a dystopian series based on the novels by Hugh Howey. It starts streaming on Apple TV Plus on May 5th.The show follows the story of the last 10,000 people left on Earth, who live deep underground in the titular silo to avoid the poisonous surface world. However, the origin of the silo itself remains a mystery and, as the official description explains, “any who try to find out face fatal consequences.” The show stars Rebecca Ferguson, Common, Harriet Walter, Chinaza Uche, Avi Nash, David Oyelowo, Rashida Jones, and Tim Robbins.Silo joins a growing list of dramas on Apple TV Plus that start with the letter S:... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla has lowered the price of its most expensive EV models in the US, reducing the cost of a new Model S by up to five percent and Model X by up to ten percent. The pricing updates are already reflected on the Tesla website, and as Reuters reports, come just days after Chief Executive Elon Musk announced plans to increase production at Tesla’s Shanghai facility in order to meet the soaring demand caused by previous price cuts.Following the latest cuts, a new Tesla Model S Plaid and Model X Plaid — the performance versions for both vehicles — now share the same price of $109,990. Meanwhile, the base Tesla Model S AWD is now $89,990, down from $94,990. When Tesla first unveiled its redesign for the vehicle back in January 2021, Model S... Continue reading…

Image: Valve Valve’s on the precipice of launching a major update to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, according to a report from esports journalist Richard Lewis (via Forbes). Sources close to the situation tell Lewis that Valve could finally release a new version of the game on the company’s Source 2 engine as early as this month.Lewis, who has broken big CS:GO stories in the past, says he’s told that Valve already enlisted a group of professional CS:GO players to try out the updated game at the company’s Seattle headquarters. Migrating the game to the Source 2 engine, which is used by some of Valve’s other games, like Dota 2 and Half-Life: Alyx, could allow for better performance and graphics.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge DJI’s no longer producing AeroScope, the drone-detecting system accused of helping Russians target and attack Ukrainian drone pilots, as first spotted by UAV Hive (via DroneDJ). The device’s product page now displays a pop-up that reads: “The Aeroscope is no longer in production. For the latest in DJI technology, please view our product recommendations below.”You can close out of the notification and view the entirety of AeroScope’s product page, which still has an order form for DJI dealers at the bottom. The China-based DJI hasn’t formally announced the discontinuation of the product, and it’s still not clear whether existing AeroScope devices will lose functionality, or if the platform’s going away forever. According to UAV Hive,... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge With all the hype surrounding ChatGPT, it’s no wonder other companies are vying for a piece of the AI-powered chatbot game. Companies are betting that we’re at a decisive moment in the artificial intelligence industry, where products that adopt and build upon the budding technology could have the potential to reshape technology as we know it — not to mention shake up the Big Tech hierarchy.The stakes are high, and technology’s biggest players don’t want to be left behind as breakthroughs in AI make it more accessible — and much more interesting — to users. While tech giants like Microsoft and Google have already introduced their versions of conversational AI tools built using large language models (LLMs), other lesser-known companies... Continue reading…

The M1-equipped iMac released in 2021. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple’s readying a new iMac that could launch as early as the second half of this year, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. While the new iMac will reportedly feature the same 24-inch display size as the previous model, it’s expected to come with a more powerful M3 chip made with a 3nm process.The new iMac isn’t expected to enter mass production until at least three months, Gurman notes, but could still start shipping in the latter half of this year in the same colorways as its predecessor, including blue, silver, pink, and orange. Gurman says the new iMac is at “an advanced stage of development” and that Apple’s currently “conducting production tests of the machine.” This tracks with previous rumors from Gurman, which... Continue reading…

Amazon’s HQ2 project in Arlington, Virginia. | Image: Getty Images Amazon’s putting the construction of its second headquarters in Virginia on hold as it looks to cut costs across the company, as reported earlier by Bloomberg and CNBC. While Amazon’s still expected to complete the first phase of its headquarters this June, the company’s pausing work on the larger portion of the project located across the street.The company’s Arlington, Virginia-based headquarters, dubbed HQ2, is supposed to consist of two parts: Metropolitan Park, an “urban campus” capable of housing 25,000 workers, and PenPlace, a complex with three 22-story buildings and a corkscrew-shaped glass tower standing 350 feet tall. PenPlace, the second phase of the project, is the portion affected by the delay.John Schoettler, Amazon’s... Continue reading…

Recent iPhone Pro models can access a camera feature called ProRAW for more flexible image processing. | Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge When Apple announced the iPhone 12 Pro, it introduced a powerful new camera feature: ProRAW. This feature is available now for all Pro and Pro Max models, starting with the 12 series and newer, and if you’re picky about your photo processing, it’s definitely a feature worth checking out. ProRAW combines the benefits of computational photography with traditional RAW image capture — kind of the best of both worlds.So why would you want to use ProRAW in the first place? Let’s go back to digital photography school. A traditional RAW image file preserves a lot more of the information that’s captured when you take a photo. Usually, your iPhone’s camera will process that data into a HEIF or JPEG image, throwing away the extra data and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that Alphabet, Google’s parent company, should be considered a joint employer for a group of YouTube Music contractors. The workers are currently attempting to organize with the Alphabet Worker’s Union, and the NLRB’s decision could mean that the tech giant has to negotiate with them if they vote to unionize in an upcoming election.The workers are directly employed by a company called Cognizant, which acts as an Alphabet subcontractor. However, the NLRB believes that Google has enough control over their “benefits, hours of work, supervision, and direction of work” that it counts as a partial employer, according to Bloomberg.“We are proud to win a precedent setting victory not just for... Continue reading…

Image: @MaxWinebach Apple partnered with a bank in 2021 to let small businesses lease new M1 Macs for as low as $30 per month, with easy options to upgrade if and when more powerful devices are released. Now that’s no longer being offered, and businesses that had signed up will now have to sign up for a different program from CIT Group, the bank Apple partnered with, or go another route to get their computers.A business that reached out to The Verge shared an email from CIT Group (aka First Citizens Bank) confirming the Mac Upgrade Program has ended. Now the bank is requesting the business to switch to its FMV lease or continue to lease the equipment at the same monthly rate — though it would run indefinitely with no buyout option. The Verge contacted both... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The electric and digital transformation of the car industry comes with a lot of promises for a better tomorrow. Electric vehicles could dramatically reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector; connected cars will give us access to services and features we don’t currently enjoy; over-the-air software updates could eliminate high repair costs; and automated vehicles may make driving significantly safer.But it’s worth remembering that, at the end of the day, car companies are just out to make a buck, not make the world a better place.This week, it was revealed that Ford applied for a patent on a system that would use connected car technology to better aid in vehicle repossession. News of the patent’s publication was first r... Continue reading…

Sharpshooter insect with pee droplet excreta on the anal stylus. | Image: Bhamla Lab, Georgia Tech The glassy-winged sharpshooter is an insect so impressive when it pees it could inspire more efficient designs for water-resistant devices.Saad Bhamla was in his vegetable garden in Atlanta, Georgia, when he first noticed the feat. The sharpshooter forms neat, round pee droplets that it flicks away with lightning speed. Bhamla, a Georgia Tech assistant professor of biomolecular engineering, whipped out his iPhone to take some slow-motion videos.“The more I zoomed in, the more I realized that it was doing something interesting,” Bhamla tells The Verge.“The more I zoomed in, the more I realized that it was doing something interesting”It turns out the sharpshooter accomplishes something with its urine that hasn’t been documented in a... Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo Nintendo has taken down the online features of the Wii U versions of Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon today due to an unspecified security vulnerability. VGC reports that the games were taken offline at 11:30PM ET last night and that the company suggests the fix could take days (via IGN). The Nintendo Switch versions of the games are not affected.At time of writing, Nintendo’s server operational status page currently has this message posted:

On March 29th, new owners of a Ring Alarm security system will have to pay for a subscription to control it when they’re not home. | Image: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Yet another company will charge its customers more money for using existing features as the subscription-based smart home becomes the norm. Amazon-owned Ring is making several free features part of its paid subscription program starting on March 29th. As of that date, if you have a Ring video doorbell or camera, you will no longer have access to Home and Away Modes in the app without a paid subscription, starting at $3.99 a month ($39.99 a year). Modes is a simple way to tell all your cameras to stop detecting motion when you’re home and start when you leave.Additionally, all new users of the Ring Alarm system on or after March 29th will have to pay for a Ring Protect plan to arm and disarm the system from the app, use the Modes... Continue reading…

Photo by Mark Felix / AFP via Getty Images A new bill in Texas would require internet service providers inside the state to block sites that provide abortion information, as well making it illegal to host or even provide domain registration for sites that help people in Texas obtain or pay for abortions.The bill, filed February 23rd by representative Steve Toth, attempts to crush access to services that ship the pregnancy-terminating drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, as well as aid funds that raise money to cover the cost of abortion-related expenses. Under the new bill’s rules, it would be unlawful to “create, edit, upload, publish, host, maintain, or register a domain name for an internet website, platform, or other interactive computer service that assists or facilitates a... Continue reading…

Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Ford is enjoying its newfound status as the No. 2 seller of electric vehicles in the US. In the interest of maintaining it, the automaker is boosting production of its lineup of plug-in vehicles, including the Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning, and E-Transit.Ford started accelerating production of Mustang Mach-Es this week, making changes at its factory that will enable it to double its hourly assembly and bring its annual manufacturing run rate to a targeted 210,000 units by the end of 2023. Ford also announced it would slash prices on the Mustang Mach-E after the No. 1 EV seller, Tesla, also reduced its prices.This represents the second time that Ford has said it would boost production of the Mustang Mach-E this year. Last January,... Continue reading…

Image: Stability AI / Blender A popular app for 3D artists just received an accessible way to experiment with generative AI: Stability AI has released Stability for Blender, an official Stable Diffusion plug-in that introduces a suite of generative AI tools to Blender’s free 3D modeling software. Third-party plug-ins offer similar functionality, but Stability AI’s own implementation will likely be more polished, and the company is promising regular updates.The add-on allows Blender artists to create images using text descriptions directly within the software — just like the Stable Diffusion text-to-image generator. You can also create images using existing renders, allowing you to experiment with various styles for a project without having to completely remodel the... Continue reading…

It’s a luxury purchase through and through, but Sennheiser’s new soundbar carries forward many of the original Ambeo’s strengths. Unfortunately, it also suffers from short-sighted missteps. Continue reading…