The Verge

The Verge / Photos by Allison Johnson and Amelia Holowaty Krales Smartphones - the gadgets I spend most of my waking hours thinking about, testing, and tinkering with - are generally considered a mature product category. This means that, in any of the previous, oh, five years, you'd struggle to find a big defining moment for the industry. Likewise, there was no iPhone" moment in 2023, and I'll bet you 20 bucks we won't see one in 2024, either.But that's not to say that it wasn't an interesting year for mobile tech; far from it. We didn't have a singular, spectacular innovation: just a bunch of smaller ones that, altogether, could make a big difference in the long run.Life got a little easier for partnerships and group chats that include Android and iPhone-owning members, for example. We have new... Continue reading...

Nomad's upcoming stand Qi2 charger will help make charging rates more consistent across devices. | Image: Nomad Nomad, a reputable producer of phone cases and accessories, has announced its first stand charger based on the new magnet-enhanced Qi2 standard. The $100 Stand Qi2 Magnetic Wireless Charger is capable of charging MagSafe and Qi2-enabled devices at up to 15W, and features a metal and glass design that'll be available in black or white. You'll have to supply your own 20W USB-C power adapter, but Nomad has at least included a two-meter USB-C to USB-C cable alongside the product.Much like other Qi2-based chargers that have been announced - such as Belkin's new BoostCharge offerings, Anker's latest MagGo accessories, and Mophie's upcoming trio - the Nomad Stand Qi2 charger isn't available to purchase yet. Nomad's marketing director Chuck... Continue reading...

A PornHub banner from the 2023 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo. | Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images Porn sites Pornhub, XVideos, and Stripchat face stricter requirements to verify the ages of their users after being officially designated as Very Large Online Platforms" (VLOPs) under the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA). In a press release today, the European Commission said the three sites fulfil the threshold of 45 million average monthly users in the EU." The sites will have to comply with the DSA obligations by February 2024.Being designated as a VLOP means the sites will also have to conduct risk assessments and mitigate the spread of illegal content like child sexual abuse material and deepfake pornography. There are also transparency requirements like being subject to external audits, publishing transparency reports... Continue reading...

US Vice President Kamala Harris (right) and Michael Regan (left), administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), during an event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, on Friday, January 27th, 2023. | Image: Jemal Countess / UPI / Bloomberg via Getty Images The Environmental Protection Agency named 11 grantmakers" today, universities and nonprofit organizations that will be in charge of doling out $600 million of federal funding to locally led environmental projects. It's a new strategy aimed at making it easier for small grassroots groups - especially those burdened with the most pollution - to access funding.Those groups will be able to apply for subgrants from the EPA's grantmakers, who've been assigned to oversee funds for certain regions. The 11 grantmakers include some of the most prominent voices fighting a legacy of environmental racism and injustice in the US.That includes the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), made up of member organizations across the US - from Brooklyn's oldest... Continue reading...

Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge The electric bike company's new leadership outlines its post-bankruptcy plan to relaunch and expand into more areas of e-mobility. Continue reading...

Image: Getty Rite Aid isn't allowed to use AI-powered facial recognition technology for another five years as part of a settlement it reached with the Federal Trade Commission. In a complaint filed on Tuesday, the FTC accuses Rite Aid of using facial surveillance systems in a reckless" manner from 2012 to 2020.During this period, the FTC says Rite Aid used facial recognition technology to capture images of all consumers as they entered or moved through the stores." It then allegedly created a database of customers identified as shoplifters or exhibiting some other kind of suspicious behavior. For some customers, the database would have accompanying information," such as names, birth dates, and the activity deemed suspicious by the store,... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Blockchain games are returning to Epic Games' marketplace. The Epic Games Store has a strict ban on games classified as Adults Only" by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) - normally games with excessive nudity or violence. But the marketplace announced today that blockchain games classified as AO only because they use blockchain are an exception to this rule.

Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge If you have an iPhone 14 or iPhone 15, you can now use satellite connectivity to access Verizon's roadside assistance service. In a support page spotted by MacRumors, Apple now says you can take advantage of the capability with devices running iOS 17.2 (or higher) and a Verizon SIM card.Verizon's roadside assistance program is run by the Allstate-owned Signature Motor Club and offers help when you're having car trouble, even if you're in a friend's car or a rental. It includes vehicle towing up to 10 miles in any direction, winching, fuel delivery, jump starts, tire service, and more. While Verizon offers a $4.99 per line monthly subscription, it also offers flat fees for Verizon customers who use the service without a subscription.A... Continue reading...

Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Has December slipped by and left you with little time to finish your holiday shopping? I'm not here to judge you for waiting until the last minute (we've all been there, after all). Instead, I'll do you one better by helping you find a variety of gift ideas that should still arrive in time to be wrapped and tucked under the tree before Christmas.There's a wide swath of excellent gifts you can still nab - some of which may even be on sale - including smart home accessories, tablets, wearables, and headphones. Everything here is tech or tech-adjacent stuff that The Verge has tested or vouched for, so you can rest assured you're not compromising on quality for the sake of timeliness. And if you need additional ideas, be sure to check out... Continue reading...

The Verge Microsoft's AI chatbot Copilot will now be able to churn out AI songs on demand - thanks to a new plug-in with Suno. The Cambridge-based AI music startup offers a tool on Discord that can compose an original song - complete with lyrics - based on a text prompt. Now, Copilot users will be able to access Suno using the Microsoft chatbot.In order to start making music, Copilot users only need to sign on to their accounts and enable the Suno plug-in - or click on the logo that says, Make music with Suno." Users then need to think of a simple one- or two-line text prompt that describes their desired song, such as create a folk song about Alaska summers" or write a song about cats in the style of Cat Power" (both prompts I tried... Continue reading...

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Stability AI, the maker of the text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, is now offering a subscription service that standardizes and changes how customers can use its models for commercial purposes.The company said the membership redefines" how it grants commercial rights to users, aiming to strike a balance between profitability and openness. Stability AI's membership offers three tiers: a free one for personal and research use; a $20 per month subscription for creators, developers and startups with less than $1 million in annual revenue, $1 million in institutional funding, and one million active users"; and an enterprise plan. All three offer early access to new AI models, but only members of the two paid tiers are allowed to use... Continue reading...

Screenshot by Emma Roth / The Verge Blue Origin's 24th mission was a success. After its New Shepard rocket took off from West Texas on Tuesday morning, the booster and crew capsule safely separated mid-flight, with both landing back on Earth.Liftoff occurs around 25:44 in the livestream and from there, you can see New Shepard propel to a maximum altitude of about 66 miles, allowing the uncrewed capsule to spend a short time in space. The reusable booster lands upright at 33:00 following the brief trip, and the capsule comes parachuting down after.While Blue Origin originally planned on a December 18th flight, the Jeff Bezos-owned space tourism company scrubbed the launch due to cold temperatures and ground issues" its teams had to troubleshoot. The NS-24 mission carried... Continue reading...

Image: Beeper Beeper claims it has a new fix to let you send iMessages from your Android phone - but the change requires that you own or have easy access to a trusted Mac.First, I'll quote part of an explanation from Beeper about how its iMessage service works - and how Apple has been able to shut things down. From a message posted to Reddit:

Photo by Diego Donamaria / Getty Images for SXSW Your dad's favorite streamer, Ninja, will attempt his best Dick Clark impression (or do the kids only know Ryan Seacrest now?) and will host his own New Year's Eve event that will stream on Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok. According to a report in Variety, the event, known as Ninja's NYE," will feature appearances from other top streamers, giveaways, a Fortnite tournament, and a countdown to midnight.The event is meant to appeal to Gen Z with promises that it's not your parents' New Year's Eve ball drop. Ditch your TV and come hang out with us," reads the event's website. It'll be more fun... we promise."Though Ninja was once the undisputed king of Twitch, he's no longer pulling the viewership numbers he used to. According to Twitch... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Articles published by New York Times-owned sports journal The Athletic and its staff of over 450 full-time writers, editors, and producers are now part of Apple News Plus, Apple's $12.99 per month subscription news plan, in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. Meanwhile, Wirecutter stories are also coming to Apple News and will start appearing in the free feed early next year."Both publications have been off of Apple News since The New York Times left Apple's news aggregator in 2020, blaming the lack of a direct path" for readers to take back to its websites and saying it wanted more control of its relationship with its readers. While the Times' reporting isn't back, Athletic publisher David Perpich told Axios this new deal made... Continue reading...

Microsoft's obelisk keeps getting cheaper and cheaper. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft's top-tier Xbox console keeps getting cheaper. It seemed like a big deal when the Xbox Series X fell to $350 just a couple of weeks ago, but now Best Buy is selling it through one of its limited in-app drop" sales for a new low of $339.99 ($160 off). You can also still grab the console at Walmart for $349 ($150 off), if you prefer to go with a different retailer and don't mind paying slightly more.To take advantage of Best's Buy deal, you'll need a free Best Buy account and the retailer's app. If the direct links here don't take you right to the listing within Best Buy's app to buy the Series X at the discounted price, then look toward the bottom strip of icons in the app and click the Drops icon in the middle. (It depicts a... Continue reading...

Illustration by The Verge | Photo by Flexport His replacement got the boot barely a year into the job. What brought Petersen back? Continue reading...

Image: Netflix Netflix's next sci-fi movie has a surprising lead. The streamer just released the first (very brief) teaser for Spaceman, which stars Adam Sandler as an astronaut who encounters a mysterious alien creature (voiced by Paul Dano) while on a research mission in space. The film, directed by Johan Renck, sounds weird and grim and is based on the Czech novel Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfa.Here's how Netflix describes the premise:

Image: Xfinity Comcast is notifying Xfinity customers of a data security incident" it says resulted in the theft of customer information, including usernames, passwords, contact information, partial social security numbers, and more. In a notice on Monday, Xfinity said there was unauthorized access" to its systems from October 16th to October 19th, 2023.BleepingComputer linked this breach notice published in the state of Maine, which shows the total number of people affected by the breach is 35,879,455, including over 50,000 people in Maine.Xfinity traces the breach to a security vulnerability disclosed by cloud computing company Citrix, which began alerting customers about a flaw in software Xfinity and other companies use on October 10th. While... Continue reading...

Gusto will launch from Antarctica. | Image: Geoffrey Palo / GUSTO Team NASA is preparing to begin an experiment named GUSTO - short for Galactic / Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory - to gather data that will be used to create a 3D map of a portion of the Milky Way Galaxy.The GUSTO experiment involves a telescope that will float 120,000 feet over Antarctica on a high-altitude balloon for at least 55 days, soaking up high-frequency radio waves percolating through the cosmic interstellar medium - a term that refers to the gases, dust, radiation, and other materials that make up the space between stars. NASA has a fun guide to its scientific balloons that explains the zero-pressure and super-pressure balloons it uses for missions like this. Image: Jose Silva / GUSTO Team... Continue reading...

Image: Disney Disney has dropped Jonathan Majors from his leading Marvel role as Kang the Conqueror after he was found guilty of reckless assault in the third degree and of harassment, according to The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. The verdict comes after a two-week trial following Majors' arrest last March after an altercation with his ex-partner Grace Jabbari.Marvel had been setting up for Majors to be the next supervillain for the franchise, but now the company is changing course. It's unclear if Disney plans to recast Kang or change its planned storylines more drastically. Majors had already appeared in both seasons of Loki and in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and was set to star in one of the next planned Avengers movies, subtitled The... Continue reading...

Trevor Milton, the founder and former CEO of electric truck company Nikola, was sentenced to four years in prison after a jury found him guilty of misleading investors about the company's technology. Milton was also ordered to pay a $1 million fine.Federal prosecutor said Milton had lied about Nikola's capabilities, including an assertion that it had built its own electric truck, the Nikola One, from the ground up." They also accused him of staging a video that purportedly showed its Nikola One semi driving under its own power when it was actually rolling down a hill.During the sentencing hearing, Milton made several bizarre statements. He claimed that his resignation from Nikola was not a result of the fraud allegations but because... Continue reading...

Spotify Wrapped 2023 summaries | Image: Spotify You were listening, walking, and playing, and they were watching. Now Spotify and other apps are repackaging that data to recap your 2023. Continue reading...

Image: Acura Acura's first fully electric vehicle is now available for customers to reserve, with the first deliveries scheduled for early 2024.The 2024 Acura ZDX starts at $60,000 and will come in several trims, including the base-model A-Spec, with single-motor rear-wheel drive. A more expensive Type S dual-motor powertrain with 500 horsepower starts at $70,000. Acura previously said that the ZDX will get up to 325 miles of estimated range and have an operating system powered by Google.The 2024 Acura ZDX starts at $60,000 and will come in several trimsThe ZDX will start customer deliveries around the same time as the 2024 Honda Prologue. Like the Prologue, the ZDX will be the product of the three-year partnership between Honda and General... Continue reading...

Travel website Expedia wants to get people to start their travel search on its site with AI instead of using an external search engine.Expedia already uses AI for some customer service features and to help property owners describe their homes and hotels. The company hopes in the future that AI will help it recommend travel destinations to customers based on previous trips and bring more direct traffic to its site. It's a long-term plan to shift the balance of power on the web - albeit one that's still in its earliest stages for the company.Rajesh Naidu, chief architect and head of data management at Expedia, says the goal is to get users started on their trips in one place. Expedia hopes to produce recommendations trained with its... Continue reading...