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by Chris Welch on (#6F5DN)
Illustration: The Verge Executives from Microsoft and Apple met in 2020 to discuss a possible sale of Bing, according to a new report from Bloomberg. But the talks failed to progress beyond the exploratory phase, indicating that Apple's top brass - including Eddy Cue, who was involved in the meetings - never seriously pursued the idea.Testimony in the ongoing FTC antitrust suit against Google has made clear that Apple has never given much thought to replacing the leading search engine as the default on iPhones. Rather, Microsoft believes Apple has only raised the possibility to extract more money from Google to retain its spot. It is no secret that Apple is making more money on Bing existing than Bing does,'' Microsoft's Mikhail Parakhin said Wednesday in US... Continue reading...
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The Verge
| Link | https://www.theverge.com/ |
| Feed | http://www.theverge.com/rss/index.xml |
| Updated | 2026-08-06 01:33 |
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by Emma Roth on (#6F5BN)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nvidia's France offices were raided by the country's competition authority this week, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. While the French agency doesn't mention Nvidia by name, it confirms it carried out a raid over concerns about anti-competitive practices in the graphics cards industry.Sources tell the WSJ that French authorities specifically targeted Nvidia, which has seen demand for its chips skyrocket in recent months. Several companies, including Microsoft and OpenAI, have purchased thousands of the company's high-end AI chips to power large language models.That massive demand resulted in a lot more money for Nvidia. The chipmaker reported earning a record revenue of $13.51 billion in its latest report, marking a... Continue reading...
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6F5BP)
Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Tesla subjected Black employees at its California factory to severe or pervasive racial harassment" and helped perpetuate a hostile work environment for employees of color, according to a lawsuit filed by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).Racist slurs and epithets and race-based stereotyping permeated Tesla's Fremont Factory subjecting Black employees to racial hostility and offenses," the agency alleges. Black employees were also fired or subject to retaliation after raising complaints about their treatment, the lawsuit says.The lawsuit includes a lot of the language that was alleged to be used at Tesla's factory and has also been echoed by former Black employees of the company in their own lawsuits. The EEOC... Continue reading...
by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6F58A)
Drolta Tzuentes as she appears in Castlevania: Nocturne. | Image: Netflix Netflix's newest Castlevania animated series reworks elements of the franchise's best games into an epic history lesson about freedom and the French Revolution. Continue reading...
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by Mia Sato on (#6F58B)
Image: Spotify Spotify is rolling out auto-generated podcast transcripts to more creators in the coming weeks, the company announced Thursday.The text transcripts will also be time-synced so listeners can visually follow along as a podcast episode progresses. Transcripts are available by scrolling down below the podcast player and tapping into a read along" section. A transcription of a show makes the podcast more accessible to users and allows listeners to skip around and skim an episode without listening through.Spotify says millions" of podcast episodes will get the tool, and in the future, creators could add media to transcripts - a useful feature if a creator is describing an image on the show, for example.Beyond transcripts, mobile... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6F58C)
Illustration: The Verge Google just announced it's giving website publishers a way to opt out of having their data used to train the company's AI models while remaining accessible through Google Search. The new tool, called Google-Extended, allows sites to continue to get scraped and indexed by crawlers like the Googlebot while avoiding having their data used to train the company's present and future AI models.The company says Google-Extended will let publishers manage whether their sites help improve Bard and Vertex AI generative APIs," adding that web publishers can use the toggle to control access to content on a site." Google confirmed in July that it's training its AI chatbot, Bard, on publicly available data scraped from the web.Google-Extended is... Continue reading...
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by Jade Drummond on (#6F58D)
Journalism and other fields are dealing with a new wave of tools like Google Bard. | Image: Google The arrival of generative artificial intelligence has accelerated the use of AI in different fields, including journalism. AI is most visible in journalism when things go wrong. Some newsrooms have published AI articles riddled with errors or offensive suggestions. There's widespread anxiety that AI will be used to replace journalists on the cheap. But a new global survey demonstrates the ways that AI has worked its way into the business, even as journalists worry about its implications - and they don't just involve writing articles.The report was published this week by JournalismAI, an initiative from Polis, the London School of Economics and Political Science's journalism think tank. It is supported by the Google News Initiative.... Continue reading...
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by Sean Hollister on (#6F556)
On Wednesday, Meta didn't announce an obvious killer app alongside the $499 Meta Quest 3 headset - unless you count the bundled Asgard's Wrath 2 or Xbox Cloud Gaming in VR.But if you watched the company's Meta Connect keynote and developer session closely, the company revealed a bunch of intriguing improvements that could help devs build a next-gen portable headset game themselves.Graphics - look how far we've comeThis is the obvious one, but it's also stunning to see just how much better the same games can look on Quest 3 vs. Quest 2. A lot of that's thanks to the doubled graphical horsepower and increased CPU performance of the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2, though there's additional RAM, resolution per eye, and field of view as well: ... Continue reading...
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by Umar Shakir on (#6F557)
Google's Jamboard software and the hardware are both shutting down starting October 1st, 2024. | Photo by James Bareham / The Verge It's never a dull day at the Google graveyard - the company has blogged a Workspace update today announcing the end of its collaborative Jamboard whiteboarding software. Google plans to wind down the app in late 2024 and is introducing the next phase" of whiteboarding solutions: pointing users toward third-party apps that work with Workspace services like Google Meet, Drive, and Calendar.Google says it will offer support to help transition customers to use other whiteboard tools, including FigJam, Lucidspark, and Miro. According to the blog post, Workspace customer feedback indicated the third-party solutions worked better for them thanks to feature offerings like an infinite canvas size, use case templates, voting, and more. So... Continue reading...
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by Ash Parrish on (#6F559)
Image: Creative Assembly / Sega Sega is canceling the live-service shooter Hyenas before the game's launch. Sega announced the news in a press release, stating the cancellation was due to the lower profitability of the European region." In addition to Hyenas, Sega will also cancel other unannounced in-development projects.Hyenas was billed as a live-service extraction shooter that looked similar to the Payday games. However, instead of robbing banks for cash, players in Hyenas would steal high-value collectibles, some of which were based on various video game properties, including a Sonic the Hedgehog doll or an Atari 2600.Hyenas was apparently a source of friction within Sega. During a quarterly earnings call back in August, Sega executives said they were... Continue reading...
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#6F514)
Image: Getty Last night, former President and current Republican frontrunner Donald Trump appeared before a crowd in suburban Detroit and tried out his new attack lines against electric vehicles.EVs are too expensive, the former president argued (via The Detroit News); they don't have enough range and will spur American job losses. EV batteries were another target. They get rid of them," Trump said, according to Discourse Blog, and lots of bad things happen, and when they're digging it out of the ground to make those batteries, it's going to be very bad for the environment." But those trying to protect the environment by promoting EVs are environmental lunatics," he said.His comments were the latest attempt to make electric vehicles a major... Continue reading...
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by Sean Hollister on (#6F515)
College basketball player Lyric Swann poses in the official Nerfball gear. | Photo: Hasbro Here's Nerfball, the first official sport' from the company behind the blasters. Continue reading...
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by Ash Parrish on (#6F516)
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Bloomberg reports that Fortnite developer Epic Games is expected to lay off 16 percent of its workforce.In a statement from Tim Sweeney, Epic has confirmed the layoffs will impact around 830 employees. He wrote that the company intends to divest from Bandcamp - an independent music storefront company Epic acquired just last year - and spin off SuperAwesome, a kid-tech" company that specializes in creating safe online experiences for kids. He also explains that the layoffs are a result of the company spending way more money than we earn." Notably, Sweeney does not apologize to his employees for making the business decisions that have resulted in the disruption of over 800 lives, saying only that his optimism" that such spending would... Continue reading...
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by Jon Porter on (#6F517)
Image: The Verge SpaceX has won its first contract with the US Space Force to provide satellite communications via Starshield, Bloomberg reports. Announced last December, SpaceX describes Starshield as a secured satellite network for government entities," offered alongside its civilian-focused Starlink satellite internet service. Bloomberg notes that the Starshield services will be provided over SpaceX's existing Starlink satellites.The existence of the one-year contract was confirmed to Bloomberg by Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek, who said it was awarded on September 1st. Under the deal, SpaceX will provide Starshield end-to-end service via the Starlink constellation, user terminals, ancillary equipment, network management and other related... Continue reading...
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by Laura Martins on (#6F4X3)
Meta Almost two years ago, Mark Zuckerberg rebranded his company Facebook to Meta - and since then, he has been focused on building the metaverse," a three-dimensional virtual reality. But the metaverse has lost some of its luster since 2021. Companies like Disney have closed down their metaverse divisions and deemphasized using the word, while crypto-based startup metaverses have quietly languished or imploded. In 2022, Meta's Reality Labs division reported an operational loss of $13.7 billion.But at Meta Connect 2023, Zuckerberg still hasn't given up on the metaverse - he's just shifted how he talks about it. He once focused on the metaverse as a completely digital new world. Now, he aims to convince the public that the future is a blend... Continue reading...
by Victoria Song on (#6F4X6)
The Fitbit Charge 6 sticks to what Fitbit does well. | Image: Google / Fitbit Fitbit is back with the Charge 6 - and on paper, this one feels like the most Fitbit-y Fitbit since Google actively began folding the company into its ecosystem. Not only has the price been lowered from $179.95 to $159.95 but the device also adds an improved heart rate tracking algorithm, compatibility with certain gym machines, and better integration with Google services. Oh, and the side button is back, baby.At first glance, the Charge 6 looks nearly identical to the Charge 5, with the most notable difference being the aforementioned return of the side button. But that's huge. Fitbit replaced the physical button with an inductive groove with 2018's Charge 3, and its reliability (or lack thereof) has been a point of contention for... Continue reading...
by Justine Calma on (#6F4X5)
A worker smooths a sample of concrete mix in a canister that contains materials to lower the overall embodied carbon in concrete. | Image: Dan DeLong for Microsoft To clean up some of the pollution stemming from its supply chain and data centers, Microsoft is experimenting with new kinds of concrete.Cement, a key ingredient in concrete, happens to be a big culprit in climate change. It's responsible for around 8 percent of carbon dioxide emissions globally. Avoiding that pollution is no easy task, especially since concrete is the most widely consumed material in the world after water. A host of startups are looking for just the right recipe to make concrete minus the carbon dioxide emissions. And Microsoft wants to be a buyer.Something that we can do right now and we are doing right now is shopping around. You know, concrete supplier A might have lower embodied carbon [emissions] than concrete... Continue reading...
by Emma Roth on (#6F4X4)
For $1,199, the Aura comes nearly ready to use out of the box, complete with a library of readymade designs you can use for an added cost. Continue reading...
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by Richard Lawler on (#6F45E)
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge After years of back-and-forth battling between Fortnite publisher Epic Games and Apple, the gaming company filed a writ of certiorari asking the US Supreme Court to review a lower court ruling in their antitrust case. Epic has argued that Apple unfairly monopolizes the mobile app space with iOS and its in-app purchasing system, thereby making billions on commissions.Epic is asking the Supreme Court to review its case by way of clarifying points of antitrust law that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals relied on in making its ruling in April. On Thursday, Reuters reported Apple has filed an argument asking the Supreme Court to throw out the order from the lower courts that requires changes to its App Store rules.The companies' beef... Continue reading...
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by Dan Seifert on (#6F45D)
Two of these case makers guessed right, two did not. Between Apple no longer making leather products and the utter disappointment of the new FineWoven case, there's more opportunity this year for third-party iPhone case makers than perhaps ever before. But for a lot of manufacturers, the new Action Button in the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max is throwing a big old wrench into their plans.Over the past week, I've received case samples from a number of companies, and it's clear which ones bet correctly on the Action Button's existence and which ones hedged their bets a little too hard on Apple sticking with the traditional ringer switch. Some brands, such as Nomad and MOFT, bet that Apple would replace the ringer switch with a button this year and designed their cases accordingly: there's a... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6F4X7)
Apple You might think that it would take a lot of effort to make Henry Cavill look like a huge dork, but the first trailer for Apple TV Plus' new meta spy comedy Argylle from director Matthew Vaughn proves that all it takes is a velveteen sweater and an unforgiving trip to SuperCuts.Rather than focusing entirely on its namesake himself, Argylle tells the story of how reclusive spy novelist Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is suddenly pulled into the very legit world of espionage after a criminal organization realizes that the plot of her book series is somehow matching up eerily closely to their latest nefarious plan.Despite creating Argylle (Cavill) - a lantern-jawed operative with a widow's peak situation so high and tight you'd think it... Continue reading...
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by Antonio G. Di Benedetto on (#6F4X8)
German headphones that lean toward a utilitarian design? Color me geschockt. | Image: Beyerdynamic Beyerdynamic is making its first wireless gaming headset, offering a premium $249 set of cans that are compatible with PC, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch consoles via a USB receiver. But instead of opting for a gamer-y aesthetic with vivid colors or showy RGB lighting, the Beyerdynamic MMX 200 come in simple black or gray colors (with some small orange accents), both of which are on sale now from the German manufacturer's site.The MMX 200 feature 40mm drivers, a removable boom mic with pop filter, Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity, USB-C charging / wired mode, and a claimed continuous battery life of up to 35 hours. While these fairly pricey headphones don't support noise cancellation like Sony's more expensive InZone H9, the closed-back... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6F4SQ)
Reddit says most users shouldn't see a noticeable difference after the update is live. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit is removing the ability for some users to opt out of ad personalization based on their activity on the platform. Announced on Wednesday alongside several incoming updates to its privacy, advertising, and location settings, Reddit's head of privacy, Jutta Williams, justified the change by saying that Reddit requires very little personal information" from its users and that it would allow the company to better predict which ad may be most relevant to you."Williams contends that the vast majority of Reddit users will see no change to their ads," and users who had previously opted out of ad personalization will not result in seeing more ads or sharing on-platform activity with advertisers." The updates to the platform's... Continue reading...
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by Sheena Vasani on (#6F4SR)
You can get God of War Ragnarok for free if you pick up a PS5 before October 20th. | Image: Santa Monica Studio We're now less than a month away from the release of Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Thankfully, if you have yet to pick up a PlayStation 5 and need a refresher as to what all the fuss is about, Sony is offering a terrific deal on its flagship gaming console through October 20th.Right now, Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Spider-Man Remastered are among the many games you can download for free when you pick up a disc-based PS5 or the PS5 Digital Edition at Amazon, Best Buy, Target, or GameStop. There are 12 games to choose from in all, including notable console exclusives like God of War Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West, Returnal, The Last of Us Part I, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and the excellent Demon's Souls remake from 2020.To take... Continue reading...
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by Elizabeth Lopatto on (#6F4ST)
What evidence is he sitting on? | Image: The Verge And potentially very embarrassing for all of crypto. Continue reading...
by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy on (#6F4SS)
The Philips Hue Bridge is required to access many of Hue's smart lighting system features, and soon, you'll need an account to use them, too. Smart lighting stalwart Philips Hue is making some more changes. After launching a new security system last month and finally making good on its promise to support Matter, the company is now requiring users to sign up for a Hue account to use its app.For most people, this might not seem like a big deal; if you have Hue smart bulbs, you probably already have a Hue account, which has always been optional but lets you do things like connect the bulbs to platforms such as Amazon Alexa for voice control. But for some, the ability to use Hue's line of smart lighting without creating an account was a big part of its appeal. Yes, its products are pricey, but you don't have to give the company your data. That could be about to change.According... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6F4MM)
Ive (pictured) has been brainstorming ideas for the device with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. | Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox Media Apple's former chief design officer, Jony Ive, is reportedly in discussions with OpenAI to build the iPhone of artificial intelligence," aided by over $1 billion in funding from Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son. According to a new report by the Financial Times, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is looking to use Ive's design firm LoveFrom to develop OpenAI's first consumer device, with the duo having discussed what such a product would look like during brainstorming sessions at Ive's San Francisco studio. News of the venture was first reported by The Information on Tuesday.According to three people familiar with the plan, Ive and Altman are aiming to create a device that provides a more natural and intuitive user experience" to interact with artificial... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6F4HH)
Photo by Emma Roth / The Verge Despite doubts that the Raspberry Pi 5 would launch this year, the latest version of the microcomputer has arrived with some notable upgrades at a $60 starting price. Not only is it supposed to perform better than its predecessor but it's also the first Raspberry Pi to come with in-house silicon.Powering the brain of the Raspberry Pi 5 is a 64-bit quad-core Arm Cortex-A76 processor that runs at 2.4GHz, allowing for two to three times the performance boost when compared to the four-year-old Raspberry Pi 4. The device also comes with an 800MHz VideoCore VII graphics chip that the Raspberry Pi Foundation says offers a substantial uplift" in graphics performance.I got to try out the device for myself. While I didn't have time to do much... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6F4CN)
Illustration: The Verge California Northern District Judge Jeffrey White partially denied (PDF) Apple's request to dismiss a proposed federal class action lawsuit over Apple Pay, reports Reuters. Three credit unions argued Apple violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act by charging too much in processing fees and being too exclusionary by not letting other digital wallets access its NFC-scanning hardware.The judge agreed with the credit unions' argument that because QR code payment apps (like Venmo) lack Apple Pay's convenience and functionality, and it's too expensive to switch to Android, iOS tap-to-pay is a market unto itself. And Apple is the only player in a certain market that would have other competition if not for that little NFC reader detail that makes it... Continue reading...
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by Umar Shakir on (#6F4CP)
Image: Kia The 2024 Kia EV9 will start at $54,900 for the Light RWD trim before destination fees or adding options like a bigger battery or two extra motors for AWD. When announced earlier this year, the EV9 caught everyone's attention since there are few (and costly) seven-seater fully-electric vehicles on the market, and the automaker's entry looked like it was primed to disrupt.The EV9 will come standard with 19-inch wheels, dual 12.3-inch screens up front, a 5-inch screen for HVAC controls, CarPlay and Android Auto, a wireless phone charger, advanced driver assistance features like automatic braking and cross traffic check, and support for ultra-wideband smartphone key access (though that requires a subscription). It can charge its battery... Continue reading...
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#6F4AS)
Adobe says it no longer has plans for a free-to-use version of the online photo editing software. | Image: Adobe After almost two years in beta, Adobe's Photoshop on the web service - a simplified online version of the company's desktop photo editing app - is now generally available starting Wednesday, September 27th. According to information Adobe shared with The Verge, Photoshop on the web is launching with the popular Generative Fill and Generative Expand tools that were recently released for the desktop version of Photoshop.Powered by Adobe's Firefly generative AI model, these features are available for commercial use and allow users to quickly add to, remove from, or expand an image using text-based descriptions in over 100 languages, all while matching the original image's lighting conditions and perspective. Image: Adobe... Continue reading...
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by Charles Pulliam-Moore on (#6F4AT)
A comparison of Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat' and Vincent Van Gogh's Self Portrait with Grey Felt Hat' | The Pokemon Company, the Van Gogh Museum If the Pokemon Company's video teasing its upcoming collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum was already enough to have you thinking about booking a ticket to Amsterdam, the promise of an impressionistic Pikachu promo card might just do the trick.In celebration of the Van Gogh Museum's 50th anniversary, it has teamed up with the Pokemon Company for a special event designed to introduce young artists to Van Gogh's work, and to teach people about the way he was profoundly influenced by Japanese art.This collaboration will allow the next generation to get to know Vincent van Gogh's art and life story in a refreshing way," the Van Gogh Museum's general director Emilie Gordenker said in a press release. The Van Gogh Museum and The Pokemon... Continue reading...
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by Victoria Song on (#6F4AV)
Lululemon will end hardware sales by the end of the year. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Lululemon is calling it quits on Mirror. And it's tagging Peloton for help parachuting out of connected fitness.As part of efforts to wind down the business, Bloomberg reports that Lululemon plans on ending hardware sales this year. The companion app will be made unavailable to new users at the end of 2023. Lululemon will continue to offer service and support for existing Mirror owners. According to Bloomberg, those changes will start taking effect on November 1st.To ease the blow, Lululemon has inked a five-year deal with Peloton to provide ongoing content to existing users, as well as develop co-branded apparel. As part of the agreement, Lululemon will start offering Peloton classes on its Mirror device and Lululemon Studio app.... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6F4AW)
Jim Ryan, the head of PlayStation and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, is stepping down. In a press release on Wednesday, Sony announced that Ryan will retire in March 2024, while Sony Group Corporation president and chief operating officer Hiroki Totoki will take on the interim CEO role starting April 1st, 2024.After 30 years, I have made the decision to retire from SIE in March 2024. I've relished the opportunity to have a job I love in a very special company, working with great people and incredible partners," Ryan says in a statement. But I've found it increasingly difficult to reconcile living in Europe and working in North America. I will leave having been privileged to work on products that have touched millions of lives... Continue reading...
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by Monica Chin on (#6F4AX)
Disney CEO Bob Iger foreshadowed the move last month. | Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images Starting on November 1st, Disney Plus will begin restricting password sharing. In Canada.The company announced the change in an email sent to Canadian subscribers. Disney has not provided many details on how it plans to enforce this policy - its email merely states that we're implementing restrictions on your ability to share your account or login credentials outside of your household". The announcement reads more like a strong finger-wag than anything else: You may not share your subscription outside of your household," reads the company's updated Help Center.A new account sharing" section in the Canadian subscriber agreement also notes that the company may analyze the use of your account", and that failing to comply with the... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6F48F)
Counter-Strike 2 | Image: Valve Counter-Strike 2, the highly anticipated upgrade for CS:GO, has finally arrived. Valve announced today that it's launching CS2, which comes with some major updates like improved smoke grenades, redesigned maps, and improved network features.After years of rumors, Valve announced CS2 in March and opened up a limited test. The updated game is based on Valve's Source 2 engine, giving the game a much-needed facelift, reworked audio, UI enhancements, and upgraded Community Workshop tools. There's even a new tick-rate-independent gameplay" that Valve describes as a way for servers to know the exact instant that motion starts, a shot is fired, or a nade is thrown."You can download the 27GB CS2 for free from Steam, with its listing... Continue reading...
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by Sheena Vasani on (#6F48G)
Image: Microsoft Microsoft is testing a DALL-E-powered text-to-image creator in Microsoft Paint for Windows 11, the company announced in a blog post. Called Paint Cocreator, the tool creates art based on a description the user types out.Alternatively, users can select an art style, and Cocreator will then generate three variations. After choosing the one they like, customers can then edit the artwork by, for example, adding layers - a feature that's also new to Paint.It remains to be seen how well OpenAI's latest DALL-E image generation model converts text to image, however - previous generations of DALL-E have struggled to correctly interpret text input. Aside from that, DALL-E has been prone to gender and racial bias. In its blog post, Microsoft says... Continue reading...
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by Wes Davis on (#6F48H)
Illustration: The Verge OpenAI posted today that ChatGPT can once more trawl the web for current information, offering answers taken directly from current and authoritative" sources, which it cites in its responses. The feature, called Browse with Bing, is only open to those with Plus and Enterprise subscriptions for now, but the company says it will roll it out to all users soon."Microsoft's Bing Chat on Windows, in the Edge browser, and in third-party browser plugins could already return live information from the web, and so can Google's Bard in Chrome and other browsers. Both also offer links when searching, as ChatGPT's Browse with Bing feature now does. Meta just announced at Meta Connect that it will also use Bing to power real-time web results in the... Continue reading...
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by Monica Chin on (#6F48J)
Image: EA EA has delisted all prior FIFA games from major storefronts, including Epic Games, Steam, Switch, Xbox, and PS5. The titles, up to and including FIFA 23, are no longer available for purchase. The move, which was first spotted by analyst MauroNL, comes just two days before the upcoming EA Sports FC 24 is set to release.The content is not totally lost: FIFA 23 is still technically available to EA Play subscribers through its collection of legacy titles known as The Play List." Some DLC packs are also still available for purchase, per Kotaku's reporting.FC 24 will be the first iteration of EA's annual soccer video game to lack the FIFA branding. Soccer fans got their first glimpse of gameplay during a livestreamed event earlier this... Continue reading...
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by Andrew Webster on (#6F48K)
Image: Epic Games Fortnite's in-game currency is getting a price adjustment - and it'll make V-bucks more expensive in a number of countries. The pricing change goes into effect on October 27th, and it impacts the following countries: Czech Republic, Denmark, Eurozone countries, Hungary, Japan, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Turkey, and the United States (as well as countries that use the USD in their Fortnite storefronts).These adjustments are based on economic factors such as inflation and currency fluctuations, and follow similar pricing alignments recently completed in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Mexico," developer Epic Games said in a statement, when announcing the changes.The changes aren't huge, but they'll be noticeable to those who spend... Continue reading...
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by Umar Shakir on (#6F45C)
Illustration: The Verge Google is pushing a new ChromeOS update that introduces significant upgrades, including a new look, some useful battery charging controls, accent color accessibility settings, and more (via 9to5Google).ChromeOS, now on stable version 117, adopts Google's Material You" design philosophy, the radical new look introduced on Android 12 in 2021. The change is most prominent in the newly redesigned Quick Settings view that now has easier-to-select (and read) rectangular buttons for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and other settings compared to the previous small circle icons.Updated ChromeOS devices will also get a new notification panel on the bottom right of the screen, giving you easier access to new messages, emails, and other alerts from apps. The... Continue reading...
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by Jay Peters on (#6F45F)
Image: Artifact Artifact, the AI-powered news app from Instagram's co-founders, is adding a major new feature: the ability to post. So far, the app has been an aggregator for news and links from around the internet, but you're going to be able to add posts directly to the app.Mike Krieger, one of the co-founders of Artifact, announced the new features onstage in a conversation with Casey Newton at the Code Conference on Wednesday. The new feature is a logical next step from Artifact's recently launched update that lets users share links. This new feature means you won't just be limited to links; your posts can include things like a title, text, and photos. The posts will also have unique URLs, which should make them easier to share on different apps... Continue reading...
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by Emma Roth on (#6F41S)
Image: Meta Meta is releasing a charging dock for its new Quest 3 headset. For $129.99, the all-in-one charging station allows you to neatly mount and charge the Quest 3 headset and controllers when you're not immersed in virtual reality.This charging station is the first of its kind for Meta. While the company offered a charging dock for the Quest Pro 2, it was wired and didn't provide a way to charge both the headset and controllers on a single platform (mainly because the controllers use AA batteries). This new dock is more similar to the two-in-one station Anker made for the Quest 2. It lets you charge the headset using the contact pads on the bottom of the Quest 3.The controllers are a little trickier, as they likely continue to use AA... Continue reading...
by Sheena Vasani on (#6F41T)
The new Quest 3 is smaller and more powerful than its predecessor. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Meta announced that the Meta Quest 3 will arrive on October 10th during its Meta Connect event, providing a little clarity around the headset's initial fall" launch timing. Unlike its predecessor, the Quest 2, the $499.99 Quest 3 will function as both a virtual reality and mixed reality headset. That means, like Apple's forthcoming Vision Pro headset, you'll be able to see and interact with the real world while you wear it.How well it does outside a highly curated demo space remains to be seen, of course, and we'll let you know after we've fully tested the Quest 3. In the meantime, though, you can check out our initial impressions and place a preorder for the upcoming VR headset.Where to preorder the Quest 3 headsetPowered by the... Continue reading...
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by Ash Parrish on (#6F41V)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Xbox is adding a new feature that will let you better manage your game captures. Starting today, you'll have the ability to set your game screenshots and clips to be automatically backed up in OneDrive, where they're easy to access from a phone or PC for editing and sharing.This also comes with a significant update to how Xbox stores your gamer moments (y'know, the good ones, not the other kind) in the cloud. Now, clips and screenshots that are stored on the Xbox network will be deleted after 90 days. Don't worry, though, Xbox will tell you if there's anything on the network that's marked for deletion so you can save it or move it elsewhere.If you have anything on the Xbox network that you want to keep around for longer, you can bulk... Continue reading...
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by Allison Johnson on (#6F41W)
The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max offer customization aplenty with a new Action Button. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge It's only been around for about a week, but the iPhone 15 Pro's Action Button has quickly become one of our favorite new iPhone features in years. That's thanks in big part to its customizability - with the ability to run a shortcut, this little button can do almost anything you want it to. From the delightfully silly to seriously useful, we've seen a lot of creative applications as newly minted iPhone 15 Pro owners put the new hardware to work.Setting up the Shortcuts app to interplay with Focus modes seems to be the power user move. You can set the button to toggle on a different Focus mode based on the time of day. Or you can have it run different actions based on the current Focus mode to wring a whole lot of utility out of a... Continue reading...
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by Sean Hollister on (#6F41X)
The Meta Quest 3. (It has two controllers, not just the one you see here.) | Image: Qualcomm Meta has just fully revealed its Quest 3 virtual reality headset and announced its Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, and they've both got Qualcomm silicon inside. There's a new Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 in the Quest 3 and a new Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 in the Ray-Bans that boasts onboard AI.We've known since the beginning that the Quest would feature a Snapdragon chip with double the GPU performance to drive its higher-res displays, but the Ray-Bans are a slight surprise - and so is the XR2 Gen 2's baked-in hardware processing for head, hand, and object tracking. Image: Qualcomm Leveraging a custom XR design in the Visual Analysis Engine (EVA), Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 accomplishes over 50% power and latency reduction compared to... Continue reading...
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by David Pierce on (#6F41Y)
They're still camera glasses, but they're also decent headphones, and they don't look half bad. | Image: Meta Meta's smart glasses are not called Stories" anymore. They're just called smart glasses now. Technically, the new model Meta just announced is called the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, and the company will happily correct you anytime you call them something else, but these are simply smart glasses. No ifs, ands, or weird names about it.The new glasses, which Meta just announced at its Connect launch event and which are up for preorder now and will be on sale October 17th starting at $299, have two primary purposes. The first is to replace your headphones: the smart glasses have a similar personal audio system like Amazon's Echo Frames and the Bose Tempo series, all of which play music but endeavor to make sure only you can hear it. With... Continue reading...
by Victoria Song on (#6F41Z)
The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Unlike the original, I kind of see where Meta's going with its second-gen smart glasses. Continue reading...
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by Alex Heath on (#6F420)
Photo illustration by Alex Parkin / The Verge In a rare interview, Meta's CEO dives into where AI is going next, the new Quest 3 headset, and his ongoing rivalry with Elon Musk. Continue reading...
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