The Verge - All Posts

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Google got a lot of things right with the Pixel 9 lineup. The hardware is lovely, the chip is fast, even the huge camera bump kind of has a way about it, you know? It's a worthy Android flagship in every way. It also - and not to be dramatic here - feels a bit like a harbinger of doom.The Pixel 9's AI photography features, particularly the Reimagine" tool that allows you to change your photos with just a prompt, appears to be a big and worrisome step toward a world in which we won't be able to trust photos of practically any sort. These aren't the AI-generated photos with too many fingers and plenty of other tells; these just look like photos. They are photos! But they're not real. And we're not ready for what that means.On this... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge An appeals court has revived the District of Columbia's antitrust case against Amazon, which the District claims illegally drives up prices on rival platforms. In a decision on Thursday, the DC Court of Appeals ruled that the District's allegations plausibly suggest" that Amazon already has monopoly power over online marketplaces or is close to achieving it.Former DC Attorney General Karl Racine filed the antitrust lawsuit against Amazon in 2021, but it was tossed out in court in 2022. The lawsuit alleges Amazon engages in anticompetitive behavior by restricting third-party sellers from offering products on other online stores, including their own websites, for less than they charge on Amazon - effectively controlling the price of... Continue reading...

Image: Google Google is making a new desktop app called Essentials that packages a few Google services, like Messages and Photos, and includes links to download many others. The app will be included with many new Windows laptops, with the first ones coming from HP.The Essentials app lets you discover and install many of our best Google services," according to Google's announcement, and lets you browse Google Photos as well as send and receive Google Messages in the app. A full list of apps has not yet been announced, but Google's announcement art showcases icons including Google Sheets, Google Drive, Nearby Share, and Google One (a two-month free trial is offered through Essentials for new subscribers).HP will start including Google Essentials... Continue reading...

In May 2024, around 200 employees at Google DeepMind (representing roughly 5 percent of the division) signed a letter urging the company to end its contracts with military organizations, expressing concerns that its AI technology was being used for warfare, Time magazine reported.The letter states that employee concerns aren't about the geopolitics of any particular conflict," but it does link out to Time's reporting on Google's defense contract with the Israeli military, known as Project Nimbus. The letter also points to reports that the Israeli military uses AI for mass surveillance and to select targets in its bombing campaign in Gaza, with Israeli weapon firms mandated by the government to purchase cloud services from Google and... Continue reading...

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Former President Donald Trump is launching a cryptocurrency platform, he announced on Thursday in a post on Truth Social. Trump's post included few other details, but he and his sons have suggested it will target unbanked and underserved communities.For too long, the average American has been squeezed by the big banks and financial elites," the post reads. It's time we take a stand-together. #BeDefiant." The name of the platform, The DeFiant Ones, is a play on decentralized finance."Trump's Truth Social post links to a Telegram channel for the as-of-yet unreleased platform, which has posts dating back to August 15th calling it the only official Telegram channel for the Trump DeFi project." There are no details about what the... Continue reading...

Instead of carrying a bag full of lenses, the new Samyang Remaster Slim lets you only carry alternate optical elements. | Image: Samyang In an attempt to lighten camera bags, Samyang has created a prime lens that allows photographers to change the focal length by swapping out just the optical elements inside it, instead of having to change lenses completely.The simpler design of prime lenses in general - which offer no zoom capabilities - can deliver several advantages, including sharper images and a shallower depth of field. The tradeoff is that photographers have to move closer or further away when framing subjects or swap between several prime lenses with different focal lengths. That approach can get expensive and heavy - problems that Samyang's Remaster Slim autofocus lens, measuring just 0.8 inches thick, may solve.The optical elements in the Remaster Slim sit in... Continue reading...

Photo: Antonio Cascio / Bloomberg via Getty Images The body of billionaire tech mogul Mike Lynch was recovered off the coast of Sicily, the Italian Coast Guard announced on Thursday. Lynch's 184-foot superyacht, the Bayesian, sunk on August 19th, reportedly after being hit by a tornado over the water, called a waterspout. The yacht sank quickly, according to reports, even though its manufacturer claimed it was unsinkable.Lynch was on the yacht with family and friends celebrating his acquittal on fraud charges in June. HP, which bought Lynch's company, Autonomy, for $11 billion in 2011, had alleged accounting improprieties" that misrepresented Autonomy's value. In an interview with the BBC - the only broadcast interview before the yacht sank - Lynch said his wealth helped him deal with... Continue reading...

Image: Cruise The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is closing an investigation from 2022 into the GM-owned robotaxi company. The agency was looking into Cruise vehicles that stopped unexpectedly, including three times where they were struck from behind.From the report (included in full below):

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The US government has charged a member of a Russian ransomware group known as Karakurt, as reported earlier by BleepingComputer. In a press release on Tuesday, the Department of Justice claims 33-year-old Deniss Zolotarjovs of Moscow, Russia, conspired to commit money laundering, wire fraud, and extortion.As outlined in the criminal complaint, the FBI alleges Karakurt stole and threatened to auction sensitive data from several companies throughout the US. The complaint pins Zolotarjovs as the hacking group's negotiator of cold case extortions," in which victims don't respond with a ransom following an attack, according to BleepingComputer.Karakurt, which has been linked to the prolific Russian ransomware group Conti, carried out a... Continue reading...

At least you get a discount on Peloton merch, too? | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Thinking of buying a secondhand Peloton machine? Well, US and Canadian customers who do will now have to pay a one-time $95 (or $125 CAD) used equipment activation fee."Peloton made the announcement in its Q4 2024 shareholder letter. The fee doesn't apply to refurbished models you buy directly from Peloton or its third-party distribution partners. The company clarified in an earnings call that this fee will be applied to folks who buy a Peloton machine directly from a previous owner.The official reason why is so that new members receive the same high-quality onboarding experience Peloton is known for." That may be true, but the fee is also a way for Peloton to get a cut of secondary hardware sales. In today's earnings call, the... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google's new deal with California lawmakers will pay newsrooms across the state up to $250 million over the next five years, while also helping the tech giant avoid an even bigger bill. The first-in-the-nation agreement, funded by taxpayers, Google, and potentially other private sources, allows the search giant to evade a proposed state bill that would force it to pay for linking Californians to news articles.The money will be split between two initiatives administered by the News Transformation Fund at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. According to Politico, $180 million is set for distribution to Californian news outlets (excluding broadcasters), while the remaining $70 million is earmarked for artificial intelligence... Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge A new feature announced by Instagram today will allow users to add a song on their profile - much like Myspace in the early 2000s.The music added to a user's profile shows up in the bio area, according to screenshots shared by Instagram. A song will be featured on a profile until the user removes or replaces it. But unlike Myspace, songs won't autoplay - people viewing a profile with a song can play and pause the track. Image: Instagram Users can add a song by going to the edit profile" page, where they'll be able to search for and select a track from Instagram's library of licensed music that's also available for things like Reels or posts. From there, users will be able to select a 30-second-long portion of the... Continue reading...

Justine Ezarik, better known as iJustine, is a legendary YouTuber. I spent less than an hour hanging out with the legendary YouTuber Justine Ezarik before she had me in a chokehold. Literally. Jiujitsu has become an integral part of her weekly routine, and the Thursday I was hanging out with her happened to be a jiujitsu day. The move we were working on: how to use your Gi uniform as a tool to choke your opponent.Next thing I knew, Justine, a creator I had been watching for years, had me tapping out. I was star-struck, shocked, and couldn't breathe. I was in for a wild day.Justine, better known as iJustine, started creating content in 2006. She was vlogging before Casey Neistat, doing man on the street" interviews before TikTok, and livestreaming before Twitch. By the time I started my tech... Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge The dream of a successful Epic Games Store on iOS sounds like an oasis: a thriving alternative app store that exists outside Apple's walled gardens, where developers won't have to pay Apple's much steeper commission for in-app purchases, and where they can use whatever payment processor they want.Epic's store launched last week in the European Union - thanks to new regulations opening up iOS - and it's likely to be a boon for Epic and its perennial hit, Fortnite. But it's not clear whether Epic will be able to grow the store far beyond its own games. The company wants to welcome in a vibrant ecosystem of third-party developers, but moving to the Epic Games Store could be an impossible ask for any company that doesn't make Fortnite-sized... Continue reading...

Photo illustration by The Verge The new owners of the satire site rescued it from content farm hell. Now, they're relaunching its newspaper. Continue reading...

You don't have to go home, but you can't camp here. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Seven years after launching on iOS and Android, Nintendo has announced that online service for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp will be ending on November 28th at 11AM ET.In a statement today, Nintendo assured current players they would still be able to fully enjoy the game for three more months. We will continue to hold events and add items until the service-end date."

Senior reviews editor Nathan Edwards uses a simple spring clamp to store his headphones. | Photo: Nathan Edwards / The Verge Every year, I ask The Verge's staff what kind of audio gear they like to use. And they are the perfect set of people to ask: besides working on videos and podcasts, our Slack channels are filled with discussions of the podcasts and music we listen to while working, walking, exercising, or just hanging out.So here are the headphones, earbuds, and other devices that some of the folks here like to use, both on a professional and personal level.Headphones and earbudsRODE NTH-100 headphones Andrew Marino, senior audio producerThe RODE NTH-100 headphones are the comfiest headphones I've used. The memory foam cushions let me wear these all day at work without fatigue. The sound is great for the price, too, and the optional headset... Continue reading...

Image: AMD AMD says Microsoft's upcoming Windows 11 version 24H2 update will improve performance for its new Zen 5 CPUs. The Ryzen 9000 series launched earlier this month, and failed to live up to AMD's performance promises in most reviews. After rumors of a Windows bug, AMD has revealed that AMD-specific branch prediction code will be optimized in Windows 11 version 24H2, which is expected to ship next month.Zen 5 will see the biggest boost, but this Windows update will improve performance for Zen 4 and Zen 3 as well," admits AMD. While the chip maker hasn't revealed how much better its older CPUs will perform, it's predicting a 13 percent performance improvement for its 9950X CPU in Far Cry 6 running 24H2 instead of 23H2, and a seven percent... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube has announced a new AI assistant feature to help users recover accounts that have been targeted by hackers. Described as a troubleshooting tool" on Google's support page, the chatbot can be accessed via the YouTube Help Center, and should ask hacked creators a series of questions to guide them through the process of securing their impacted Google logins and reversing any changes that have been made to their YouTube channels.The support assistant is currently only available in English, and access to certain troubleshooting features" is limited to a select group of certain creators," but Google says it plans to eventually make the feature available to all YouTube creators.We've managed to access the tool and the results seem...... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge In a new letter, OpenAI chief strategy officer Jason Kwon insists that AI regulations should be left to the federal government. As reported previously by Bloomberg, Kwon says that a new AI safety bill under consideration in California could slow progress and cause companies to leave the state.

A screenshot from the Megalopolis trailer. | Image: Lionsgate Hours after it was released, Lionsgate pulled a trailer for Megalopolis that was clearly gunning for the haters" with a selection of negative quotes about director Francis Ford Coppola's previous works. That's because reports like this one from Vulture's Bilge Ebiri showed that critic quotes in the trailer lambasting films like The Godfather and Apocalypse Now were fabricated.Lionsgate is immediately recalling our trailer for Megalopolis," a Lionsgate spokesperson said in a statement to Variety. We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry."That all led some people to immediately wonder whether... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple is splitting its App Store division in half, according to a report from Bloomberg. While one group of employees will run the App Store, the other will manage its approach to alternative marketplaces that have started opening up in the European Union.As part of the change, App Store vice president Matt Fischer will leave the company after more than a decade in the role. This has been on my mind for some time, and as we are also reorganizing the team to better manage new challenges and opportunities, now is the right moment to pass the baton to two outstanding leaders on my team," Fischer writes in an email to employees seen by Bloomberg. Fischer has also posted the email on LinkedIn.Now, Apple senior director Carson Oliver will... Continue reading...

Image: Chick-fil-A The streaming space has become so crowded that it's hard to imagine why any company would want to break in now, but that is apparently what Chick-fil-A (yes, the fast food chain) is planning to do.Deadline reports that Chick-fil-A is working with a number of production companies and traditional studios to create multiple original shows for a streaming platform debuting sometime later this year. Initially, the restaurant is said to be focused on family-friendly unscripted programming, including a game show produced by Glassman Media and Sugar23. But down the line, the currently unnamed service could also feature original scripted series, animation, and content that's either licensed or acquired from other entertainment outfits.C... Continue reading...

Lil Jon joins the Georgia delegation at the DNC roll call to raucous applause. | Photo by Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images Compare clips from the Democratic National Convention, which kicked off on Monday in Chicago, to the Republican National Convention in July. They feel like different universes.At the RNC, during the roll call of votes nominating Donald Trump, states were called out to scattered applause along with the number of votes. The room was mostly quiet, and it sounded more like a jury delivering bad news than it did a political party affirming its future.The DNC roll call, meanwhile, included a playlist of music related to each state, like Sweet Home Alabama" for Alabama and Not Like Us" by Kendrick Lamar for his home state of California. Delegates huddled around microphones, screaming and cheering as they announced their support for Vice... Continue reading...

Photo by Brandon Bell / Getty Images A telecom company that transmitted the deepfake robocall of President Joe Biden's voice has agreed to pay $1 million to resolve an enforcement action from the Federal Communications Commission, the agency announced.Lingo Telecom relayed a fake Biden message to New Hampshire voters in January, urging them not to turn out for the Democratic primary. The FCC identified political consultant Steve Kramer as the person behind the generative AI calls and previously proposed Kramer pay a separate $6 million fine.Under the new settlement with Lingo, the FCC said the company will need to strictly adhere to its caller ID authentication rules, including know your customer" principles. The FCC will also require Lingo to more thoroughly verify the... Continue reading...

A line worker tends to fallen power lines in the East End neighborhood of Houston, days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, on Thursday, July 11th, 2024. | Raquel Natalicchio / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images The US has dealt with 60 percent more weather-related outages during warmer months over the past decade than it did during the 2000s, according to data crunched by the nonprofit research organization Climate Central.It's a trend that raises health risks as the planet heats up. Climate change supercharges disasters like storms and wildfires that often cut off power. Soaring demand for air conditioning also stresses out the grid. All of this can leave people without life-saving cooling or electric medical devices at times when they're most vulnerable. Image: Climate Central Climate Central collected data from the Department of Energy on outages that took place between 2000 and 2023. It looked specifically at periods... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Back in 2017, Equifax announced that hackers stole half of the US population's Social Security numbers in what, we said, will likely end up being one of the worst data breaches to ever affect the country." Perhaps - until this year, when about 2.9 billion rows of data were collected through a breach at National Public Data (NPD), a company that resells collected personal data for background checks. This data included names, Social Security numbers, and other personal information.As usual, when this sort of thing hits the news, our immediate reaction is to wonder what we can do to prevent ourselves from falling prey to identity theft, unauthorized withdrawals, false credit applications, and other nasty consequences. And, also, as... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AI-enabled ammunition vending machines could facilitate mass shootings and let people circumvent federal bans prohibiting people with certain criminal convictions from buying ammunition, two senators warn.Massachusetts Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) asking it to closely examine" facial recognition-enabled ammunition vending machines that have recently been installed in supermarkets in certain states.Easy access to ammunition helps to fuel our country's gun violence epidemic, which now claims more than 44,000 lives annually."The machines, distributed by the Texas-based company American Rounds, began appearing in grocery stores in Alabama, Texas,... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google representatives gave ad buyers tips on how they could reach teens, even though the company bars targeted advertisements to users under the age of 18 based on their demographics, according to a report from Adweek.Three unnamed ad buyers told Adweek that Google sales reps suggested they might be able to reach teens by targeting a group of unknown" users, whose age, gender, parental status, or household income" Google doesn't know. Adweek said it also reviewed written documents backing up the sources' claims. A Google spokesperson told Adweek that the unknown category can include users who aren't signed in to their accounts or who've turned off personalized ad targeting.Google's stated policy is to block ad targeting based on... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft says it's planning to allow Windows testers to try out its controversial Recall AI feature in October. The software giant was originally planning to launch Recall with its Copilot Plus PCs in June but was forced to hold back the feature after security concerns were raised.At the time of the delay on June 13th, Microsoft promised the feature - that screenshots nearly everything on your PC - would be available for Windows Insiders in the coming weeks," but that's now more like the coming months. With a commitment to delivering a trustworthy and secure Recall (preview) experience on Copilot Plus PCs for customers, we're sharing an update that Recall will be available to Windows Insiders starting in October," says Windows and... Continue reading...

Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge Tesla is issuing a new recall for more than 9,000 of its Model X SUVs due to roof cosmetic trim pieces that could fly off while driving because they may have been adhered without primer. It's the second such recall from the company to address the issue on the Model X, the first one issued in 2020, and it is again specific to early 2016 vehicle models.Tesla often pushes software updates to address recalls, including a repeat Autopilot safety issue where it does not warn drivers effectively. But for the Model X roof issue, Tesla will need to actually take a gander at thousands of vehicles in person.To remedy the Model X voluntary recall, Tesla Service will test the roof trim adhesion and reattach the trim pieces as necessary" for free.T... Continue reading...

Magic Editor's new tool helped us add the bike and car with nothing more than a text prompt. | Photo: The Verge As it turns out, a rabbit wearing an AI-generated top hat was just the tip of the iceberg.Google is the latest phone company this year to announce AI photo editing tools, following Samsung's somewhat troubling, mostly delightful sketch-to-image feature and Apple's much more seemingly tame Image Playground coming this fall. The Pixel 9's answer is a new tool called Reimagine," and after using it for a week with a few of my colleagues, I'm more convinced than ever that none of us are ready for what's coming.Reimagine is a logical extension of last year's Magic Editor tools, which let you select and erase parts of a scene or change the sky to look like a sunset. It was nothing shocking. But Reimagine doesn't just take it a step further -... Continue reading...

The AI is inconsistent, but the hardware is oh so good. Continue reading...

A new firmware update brings audio sharing to the Beats Studio Pro. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Apple has released a firmware update for the Beats Studio Pro that finally brings audio sharing to the headphones, allowing an iPhone or iPad to stream audio to two pairs of wireless headphones simultaneously. The new feature, spotted by 9to5Mac, was noticeably missing when we reviewed the Beats Studio Pro last year, but now better positions the headphones as an alternative to Apple's more expensive AirPods Max.Audio sharing was added to the Beats line shortly after its debut in 2019. It's a feature found in all of Apple's headphones featuring the company's W1 or H1 chips, but the Beats Studio Pro debuted with a different chip that ensured all of the headphone's features were compatible with both Apple and Android devices.The firmware... Continue reading...

Gimme that excellent desk clock action while charging all the things. | Image: Nomad Nomad is course-correcting from a small design blunder last year on its three-in-one MagSafe charging stand. Like its predecessor, the new Stand One Max for 2024 is a wireless multi-charger for a compatible iPhone, Apple Watch, and set of AirPods. However, now you can charge all of those devices with your phone in landscape orientation, allowing you to use Apple's nifty StandBy mode for glanceable information like the time and weather. The new stand is also Qi2-compatible, and at $150, it's actually $30 cheaper than the original's launch price, which I love to see.Other than that, the new Stand One Max (which Nomad calls third-gen" to align with other models in its lineup, even though it's only the second version) has a lot in common... Continue reading...

The ROG Rapture GT-BE19000 is an '80s retro-future headcrab. | Image: Asus Asus announced three new Wi-Fi 7 products today, including a tri-band ROG Rapture GT gaming router, a dual-band router, and a new Wi-Fi 7 USB adapter.The ROG Rapture GT-BE19000 has a familiar '80s retro-future look shared by predecessors like the quad-band GT-BE98, along with most of the same specs, including two 10Gbps and five 2.5Gbps ethernet ports. It also supports 320MHz channel bandwidth on the 6GHz band, which unlocks much higher throughput (although you'll need a 2Gbps or higher connection to your ISP for that to shine). Image: Asus The ROG Rapture GT-BE19000 has seven ethernet ports. Since the GT-BE19000 uses Wi-Fi 7's multilink operation feature, you can connect a supported device to the 6GHz and... Continue reading...

Photo by Alex Cranz / The Verge Last year, Amazon launched the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition that could default to displaying owners' favorite pictures - as long as they paid an extra fee. Now it looks like that plan has been abandoned, with the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition and its accompanying $2 / month PhotosPlus subscription nearly erased from Amazon's website.One customer received a message saying the service has been canceled and that Amazon will no longer offer the subscription starting September 23rd.The PhotosPlus subscription is what owners need to make photos the primary content you see" on the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition with a slideshow that rotates every 30 seconds. It also offers the ability to show photos indefinitely," as other Echo Show displays will... Continue reading...