The Verge

Photo by Daniel Slim / AFP via Getty Images The Supreme Court is set to hear two cases that could decide if the First Amendment allows government officials to block users on personal social media accounts where they post about their work.The cases are O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier and Lindke v. Freed, both concerning public officials who use social media. The first involves two elected school board members who blocked parents who left repetitious comments on their posts. The second involves James Freed, the city manager of Port Huron, who blocked accounts and deleted comments from his Facebook page. Neither case applies to whether platforms can ban or otherwise moderate users, an issue that the Supreme Court is likely to take up at a later point.Public officials blocking users... Continue reading…

Allied Employees Guild Improving Sega Today, workers at Sega of America’s Irvine, California, office have filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The new union, Allied Employees Guild Improving Sega (AEGIS), is partnered with the Communications Workers of America and consists of a supermajority of 144 employees across Sega’s QA, localization, live service, marketing, and product development departments, making AEGIS the largest video game union in the United States made up of workers across numerous departments.The Verge had the opportunity to speak with workers ahead of the filing who talked about their experience with Sega, the organizing process, and what it means to be a part of a small but growing unionization force in the video game... Continue reading…

Image: Yuga Labs A judge has ruled in favor of Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs in a lawsuit against conceptual artists Ryder Ripps and Jeremy Cahen, whom Yuga Labs accused of trademark infringement over a parody of BAYC’s non-fungible token (NFT) collection. On Friday, a California court said that Yuga was entitled to protect the BAYC trademark and that Ripps and Cahen’s project, known as RR/BAYC, isn’t artistic expression protected by the First Amendment. “Defendants’ sale of RR/BAYC NFTs is no more artistic than the sale of a counterfeit handbag,” wrote US District Judge John Walter in a summary judgment.Ripps and Cahen released a set of RR/BAYC NFTs last May featuring duplicates of BAYC artwork and selling them for less than a high-priced... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Rad Power Bikes is partnering with Redwood Materials, a battery company founded by a former Tesla executive, to recycle e-bike batteries when they reach the end of their lifespan.Customers will be able to bring in their depleted batteries to Rad Power Bikes’ retail locations, after which the company will send them to Redwood Materials for processing and recycling. (Rad currently operates 10 retail and service locations in North America.) Select Rad stores in California and Washington will also serve as drop-off locations for old smartphones, laptops, and tablets, for Redwood’s growing consumer e-waste collection program.It’s a noteworthy deal considering that Rad Power Bikes is the number one seller of electric bikes in North... Continue reading…

Runway’s new iOS app is its first available for mobile. | Image: Runway AI startup Runway has launched its first mobile app on iOS, letting people use the company’s video-to-video generative AI model — Gen-1 — directly from their phones. You can download the app here, with free users offered a limited number of credits.Gen-1 allows you to transform an existing video based on a text, image, or video input. Functionally, it works a lot like a style transfer tool (though, unlike style transfer, it generates entirely new videos as an output rather than applying filters). You can upload a video of someone cycling in the park, for example, and apply an aesthetic or theme. You can give the video the look of a watercolor painting or charcoal sketch, and so on.Of course, because this is a generative AI, the output... Continue reading…

Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic While major record labels have been trying to fend off songs using AI voice tracks of famous artists, Grimes has other ideas.“I’ll split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses my voice,” Grimes posted on Twitter Sunday night. “Feel free to use my voice without penalty,” she said, claiming she has no label and “no legal bindings.”At this point, Grimes’ Sunday night tweet seems to be just that — a late-night tweet that maybe, possibly, potentially could become something in the future. Grimes didn’t add much detail as to how arrangements like this would work but said the profit sharing could apply to “viral” or “super popular” tracks made using her voice that are already floating around.Grimes isn’t the first artist... Continue reading…

Honkai: Star Rail. | Image: HoYoverse The studio behind the massively popular online fantasy RPG Genshin Impact is back this week with its next game. Called Honkai: Star Rail, the game looks similar to Genshin but with more of a sci-fi twist. That means slick anime visuals, large worlds to explore, and a seemingly never-ending list of things to do, thanks to its live-service nature.Here’s the basic premise:

The Nintendo Switch OLED Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Edition is available to preorder for $359.99. | Image: Nintendo We’re now just a few days away from Nintendo’s Zelda-inspired Nintendo Switch OLED launch on April 28th. The special-edition console retails for $359.99 and commemorates one of this year’s most anticipated video games, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which will drop alongside a new Zelda-themed controller and carrying case two weeks later, on May 12th.Where to preorder the Nintendo Switch OLED Tears of the Kindom EditionFor those eager to get their hands on the limited-edition console first, you can still preorder it directly from Nintendo as well as Amazon and Best Buy. Unlike the standard Switch, the Switch OLED boasts a vibrant seven-inch OLED display, 64GB of storage, and an improved kickstand, along with a handful of... Continue reading…

The Jib True 2 come in some funky colors, but today’s deal is only on the light gray and blue combo. | Image: Skullcandy I keep rubbing my eyes, thinking my vision must be off, but these wireless earbuds are really on sale for less than one Jackson. That’s right, the Skullcandy Jib True 2 Bluetooth earbuds are just $16.99 ($23 off) at Amazon in their gray-and-blue color combo. These ultra-affordable buds often sell for around $24, but this is a new low that makes them an easy choice for a child or anyone on a tight budget seeking wireless convenience.The Jib True 2 aren’t going to win any awards in the sound department, but while their predecessors were a little overly bass-y, they were more than serviceable for the low price. Plus, this new model has built-in Tile tracking to help locate a missing bud should you misplace one. So they’re not just for... Continue reading…

Olivia. | Photo by Helen Havlak / The Verge If you’ve got a pet, it’s likely you have something cool that you use to either feed the pet, amuse the pet, watch the pet, track the pet, or travel with the pet. Well, the folks here at The Verge are no different: many have animal companions whom they feed, pamper, worry about — even obsess about — and totally enjoy.We asked our co-workers to tell us about some of the techie (and not-so-techie) gadgets that they use to keep their pets clean, fed, and amused — along with portraits of the much-loved dogs and cats. We’ve got some great photos to show you. Enjoy.Aslan Mitchell Clark, former news writer Photo by Mitchell Clark Aslan. We got the WOpet automatic feeder after our vet informed us that our cat Aslan... Continue reading…

The Apple MagSafe Battery Pack attached to an iPhone 12 Mini. | Image: Dieter Bohn / The Verge More details are emerging about the design of Apple’s long-awaited mixed reality headset ahead of its expected unveiling on June 5th. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that the headset’s external battery pack — which is designed to sit in the user’s pocket during use — will have a similar design to Apple’s MagSafe iPhone battery pack and will use a proprietary connector to attach to the headset.This circular connector is reportedly magnetic and designed to lock into the headset during use with a twist so it can’t be accidentally detached. Meanwhile, the opposite end of the cable is reportedly hardwired into the battery pack. The two “aren’t separable,” Bloomberg reports. So if this power cable develops a fault, it sounds like there’s no... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After chief twit Elon Musk made good on his promise to remove Twitter accounts’ legacy verification blue ticks last week, numerous high-profile accounts now appear to be re-verified — including a number of dead celebrities.It’s likely that the re-appearance of their blue ticks is part of a wider (but unannounced) scheme by Twitter to restore verification to users with over one million followers. But hover over the blue ticks of the accounts of dead celebs, and Twitter will tell you they’re verified “because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.”Michael Jackson, Chadwick Boseman, Kobe Bryant, Barbara Walters, Anthony Bourdain, and Paul Walker are just a few of the many deceased stars to have regained... Continue reading…

See inside a few of our favorite things — retro, modern, you name it. Continue reading…

Climate activists wearing masks of company CEOs including LVMH’s Bernard Arnault (2nd L) Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (C), Microsoft founder Bill Gates (2ndR) and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson (R) on April 13th, 2023. | Photo by John MacDougall / AFP via Getty Images Brands love making big promises around Earth Day, and a lot of them are BS. Continue reading…

Photo illustration by Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images Out of all the streaming services I use — Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, and Funimation — Discovery Plus is the one that I use the most. And I don’t even get it for free through some kind of promotion — I actually pay for it.At just $4.99 per month (or $6.99 without ads), it’s one of the cheapest streaming options out there, and for me, those five bucks go a long way. Discovery Plus is a melting pot of all the unscripted reality shows from Discovery itself, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Animal Planet, Investigate Discovery, The History Channel, and a handful of other networks that I haven’t even heard of before, like “Quest.”That means it has some of the most bizarre, disturbing, cringe-worthy, and downright disgusting TV shows that I’ve ever... Continue reading…

Apple’s noise-canceling AirPods Max are currently $100 off in multiple colors. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Happy Earth Day, all! We’ve got a bunch of great deals to kick off the weekend, none of which have anything to do with Earth Day. Now that we’ve established that, let’s get to the deals!First up we have Apple’s AirPods Max, which are a little more affordable now that they’ve dropped to $449.99 ($100 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. The noise-canceling headphones are one of our top picks, boasting excellent sound, premium build quality, and spatial audio support that allows for a more immersive experience. While their battery life is only average, they pair well with other Apple devices, making them a particularly good buy for those who already own an iPhone, iPad, or other Apple gadgets. Plus, they come with a natural-surrounding... Continue reading…

Final Fantasy VI. | Image: Square Enix As I installed the original Final Fantasy, a game that first came out when I was three years old, on Sony’s most advanced console to date, I came to a realization: almost everything I’ve played this year has been old. Between the remakes, rereleases, and retro collections, it’s been a deluge of nostalgia. And I, for one, have welcomed it.These kinds of releases are nothing new, of course. What’s been different through the early months is the sheer quantity of classic releases. Two of the biggest blockbusters so far this year — Dead Space and Resident Evil 4 — are remakes of titles from well over a decade ago. They’re both slick and gorgeous updates that don’t look out of place amongst modern big-budget releases, but part of what makes... Continue reading…

Image via Kuba Wojciechowski You’ve seen renders and perhaps even a plastic mockup, but real-life footage of Google’s first foldable phone? Unless we’re getting the wool pulled over our eyes, behold the Pixel Fold!

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla has won a lawsuit that tried to blame the company’s Autopilot driver assist software for a 2019 crash, Reuters reports. The jurors in the case found that the software wasn’t at fault in a crash where the car turned into a median on a city street while Autopilot was engaged. The jury awarded plaintiff Justine Hsu, who sued Tesla in 2020, no damages.The trial is believed to be the first regarding Autopilot, and could prove to be an important case if Tesla faces future lawsuits over the technology. While Reuters reports that the result of the trial “is not legally binding in other cases,” Tesla is under intense scrutiny for its Autopilot and its Full Self-Driving driver assistance features, which don’t make its cars fully autonomous... Continue reading…

The Pixel Tablet in a coral color. | Image from @saori_vj’s video on Instagram The Pixel Tablet is supposed to launch sometime this year — Google I/O in May feels like a pretty good venue! — and ahead of its eventual release, somebody captured a video of the tablet in real life at Google’s “Shaped by Water” installation currently happening as part of Milan Design Week (via 9to5Google).In the Instagram video from Saori Masuda (you’ll need to browse over to the very last video in the gallery), you can see many Google and Pixel devices laid out along a table, including some Pixel Tablets, Pixel Watches, different versions of Pixel Buds, and Pixel phones.

Din Grogu piloting IG-12. | Image: Lucasfilm / Disney Plus Rather than dotting every single i and crossing all of its t’s The Mandalorian spent its extremely adequate third season trying to forge new lore for lore’s sake. Continue reading…

AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series will apparently add some lower power chips for handhelds. | Image: AMD via Aokzoe You’ve obviously heard of the Steam Deck, and perhaps Asus drew your attention to the upcoming ROG Ally with its not-an-April-Fools’-joke. But that’s apparently just the tip of the iceberg for AMD-powered Steam Deck rivals, which have at least four handhelds based on slivers of silicon the chipmaker has yet to reveal.One of the reasons we got so excited about the Asus ROG Ally is that Asus hinted it might be the first handheld since Steam Deck to offer a custom part specifically tuned for portables — and a growing body of leaks suggests that collaboration with AMD is called the Ryzen Z1.

Collector containers at the Orca direct air capture and storage facility, operated by Climeworks AG, in Hellisheidi, Iceland, on September 7th, 2021. | Image: Arnaldur Halldorsson/Bloomberg via Getty Images Climeworks, the Swiss company that’s capturing CO2 emissions for Microsoft, Stripe, and Shopify, is crafting plans to expand across the US, which is becoming the destination for companies that want to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.“The US is a very interesting place, perhaps the most interesting place at the moment ... from a market perspective, but also from a policy perspective,” says Christoph Beuttler, Climeworks’ chief climate policy officer. The Inflation Reduction Act more than tripled tax credits for direct air capture (DAC) and storage projects. And the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes $12 billion for capturing and storing carbon dioxide.Together with other partners, Climeworks has applied for a slice... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Mullvad, the Swedish company behind Mullvad VPN (virtual private network), says police walked away with nothing after attempting to seize computers from its office, as reported earlier by PCMag. According to an update on Mullvad’s site, the authorities left and didn’t take anything after it informed them that the company doesn’t store customer data.“We argued they had no reason to expect to find what they were looking for and any seizures would therefore be illegal under Swedish law,” Mullvad writes. “After demonstrating that this is indeed how our service works and them consulting the prosecutor they left without taking anything and without any customer information.”

SpaceX Starship prototype stacked on top of a Super Heavy rocket in Boca Chica, Texas. | Image: SpaceX The Starship launched successfully but didn’t last long into its first orbital test flight before blowing up. Continue reading…

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Redbox wants to give Netflix’s DVD business a second chance at life, but Netflix isn’t budging. That’s according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter (via NextTV), which says that Redbox’s parent company has already expressed interest in acquiring Netflix’s DVD business, only to get turned down by the streamer several times.Bill Rouhana, the CEO of Chicken Soup for the Soul, which acquired Redbox for $370 million last year, tells The Hollywood Reporter that Netflix has brushed off his attempts to purchase its DVD business “three or four times” before Netflix announced its decision to sunset the offering on Tuesday. “I’d like to buy it,” Rouhana says. “I wish Netflix would sell me that business instead of shutting it down.”After 25... Continue reading…

For more than a decade, Snapchat has been a fixture in the lives of young people. But the business side of the app has been much less stable. This week I flew down to LA to check in on the company — and while Snap still has plenty of big ideas, I was struck by how much the company’s ambitions seem to be limited at the moment by the recent downturn in the economy.The occasion for my visit was the annual Snap Partner Summit. For the past three years, due to the pandemic, the event had been online-only. But this year the company gathered together its business partners and the press together in person again, in a giant airplane hangar in Santa Monica.It was an inspired location for a tech event. Instead of bringing people together in some... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Considering how much it costs, YouTube TV is sometimes knocked by customers for offering only so-so picture quality. This can vary depending on your location or the specific feed that YouTube TV is serving you, but if you scan the YouTube TV subreddit, you’ll see picture quality as a common grievance. It wasn’t always this way. Now, the company is doing something about it — for certain content, at least.In a post to the aforementioned Reddit community yesterday, YouTube TV shared details on recent (and upcoming) enhancements to the app. The change that easily received the most attention was this one:

Victoria Alonso attends the 33rd annual GLAAD Media Awards. | Photo by Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for GLAAD When Disney suddenly fired Marvel Studios’ former VFX and postproduction head Victoria Alonso earlier this year, it was widely reported that the decision came down as a result of her violating company policy by working on and promoting another studio’s film without permission. It was also suggested that the middling response to some of Marvel’s recent VFX-heavy spectacles Alonso oversaw, like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, might have played a role in her dismissal. But in the latest turn of events, rather than letting a legal battle play out (publicly) in court, Marvel has agreed to settle with Alonso.While the specific details of Disney’s settlement with Alonso haven’t been made public, Deadline reports it as being a... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has removed the “government-funded” and “state-affiliated” labels that led several news outlets to stop tweeting on the platform. When asked why Twitter has dropped the labels, Elon Musk says it was a “suggestion” from Walter Isaacson, the author of his upcoming biography, according to NPR reporter Bobby Allyn.The labels have already disappeared from the profiles of NPR, PBS, CBC, and BBC, all of which publicly criticized the move. NPR became the first major media organization to leave the platform after getting slapped with the “state-affiliated” label and was later followed by PBS and CBC. NPR’s profile no longer has a “state-affiliated” media label. The labels have also been removed from state-controlled... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google is updating its Bard AI chatbot to help developers write and debug code. Rivals like ChatGPT and Bing AI have supported code generation, but Google says it has been “one of the top requests” it has received since opening up access to Bard last month.Bard can now generate code, debug existing code, help explain lines of code, and even write functions for Google Sheets. “We’re launching these capabilities in more than 20 programming languages including C++, Go, Java, Javascript, Python and Typescript,” explains Paige Bailey, group product manager for Google Research, in a blog post.You can ask Bard to explain code snippets or explain code within GitHub repos similar to how Microsoft-owned GitHub is implementing a ChatGPT-like... Continue reading…

Hannah Waddingham pictured performing onstage at the 2023 Olivier Awards. | Image: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images for SOLT Hannah Waddingham, the Emmy-winning actor best known for her role as Rebecca Welton in Ted Lasso, is set to host a musical holiday special on Apple TV Plus later this year. Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas will be recorded live in front of an audience at the London Coliseum and will feature Waddingham performing festive classics and musical numbers alongside a big band and some “special surprise guests.”Big holiday-themed releases have become something of a tradition for Apple in recent years. Last year saw the streamer release Spirited, a retelling of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol starring Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell. Home for Christmas is being produced by Done+Dusted and will be directed by BAFTA award winner... Continue reading…

The Chromecast with Google TV (HD) is a good streaming device if you can get away with 1080p. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you’re looking for a Mother’s Day gift that’s cheap in price but not quality, today’s lead deal is a good one to consider. Right now, you can pick up the Chromecast with Google TV (HD) on sale for $19.99 ($10 off) from Best Buy, Google, and B&H Photo. That’s just $1 shy of the device’s all-time low.Google’s entry-level streaming device is the budget-friendly version of one of our favorite models, the Chromecast with Google TV (4K). Like its pricier sibling, it’s uniquely capable of curating recommendations across a variety of streaming services and provides an array of helpful info, including Rotten Tomatoes ratings. It can also play HDR videos, supports casting, and comes with the same Google Assistant-compatible voice remote as... Continue reading…

A resident holds a phone while walking on debris following Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers, Florida, on October 2nd, 2022. | Image: Eva Marie Uzcategui / Bloomberg via Getty Images For years, Twitter has been a go-to for agencies that need to warn people during a rapidly changing crisis. The National Weather Service uses it to share hurricane and tornado alerts. Firefighting agencies tweet updates about where a blaze is headed. It’s supposed to give people a heads-up so that they can take precautions to keep themselves safe.Recently, though, agencies have started facing the real possibility of losing that resource. Twitter announced in February that it would restrict access to its previously open API, and over the past week, it’s cut off public service accounts for agencies such as the National Weather Service, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and Bay Area Rapid Transit. The accounts were later... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft has released version 1.2 of its DirectStorage SDK and has a surprise addition that will help speed up old hard drives. While DirectStorage initially launched as a way to stream data from the latest speedy NVMe solid state drives to your GPU without a CPU slowing things down, Microsoft has heard from developers that improved support for legacy hard drives would also benefit games.Parts of DirectStorage have always worked on hard drives, but developers have had to use separate methods for NVMe devices and HDDs. That complicates the process of supporting an API that’s really designed for high-speed SSDs that aren’t always used by PC gamers to store and play games.With DirectStorage 1.2, developers can now use the same code on... Continue reading…

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Computing storage manufacturer Seagate has agreed to pay a $300 million penalty imposed by the US Department of Commerce (DOC) for shipping over $1.1 billion worth of hard disk drives to Huawei, violating export control restrictions. An investigation by Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) determined that Seagate shipped 7.4 million hard drives to Huawei between August 2020 and September 2021 without obtaining an export license, despite a rule introduced in August 2020 that restricts sales to the Chinese company.The $300 million penalty is the largest fine ever imposed by the BIS that isn’t tied to a criminal case. The BIS says it’s more than double Seagate’s profits in selling the hard drives.Seagate became Huawei’s sole... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge Something to consider before sending a risky text via WhatsApp is that now, disappearing messages are a bit more optional. Mark Zuckerberg is announcing a new tweak to the service’s burn-after-reading feature, which allows the recipient to long-press a message and choose to keep it.WhatsApp describes the adjustment as a “sender superpower,” and assuming it all works as designed, it still keeps the sender in control of what ultimately happens to the message. That’s because the sender is sent a notification when a recipient tries to save a message, and the sender can then choose if it will disappear or be saved.According to the company’s blog post, this gives senders the ability to “veto” a recipient’s attempt to save a message.... Continue reading…

Dota 2 has a 40-percent larger map. | Image: Valve Dota 2, one of the world’s most popular esports titles serving over 300,000 concurrent players on Steam as I write these words, has just dropped a massive update called New Frontiers that will likely change the free-to-play game forever. And the biggest difference by far is real estate: the game’s entire map is now 40 percent larger, letting you explore around the edges.“The core objective of the game remains the same,” assures Valve — “your lanes aren’t further away from each other, and everything you need to win is still in the center of the map.” Image: Valve A few of the new goodies. But Valve goes on to describe “meta-defining new features,” new locations, new Tormentor mini-bosses, vision-granting... Continue reading…

Image: CNBC A new video obtained by CNBC gives us a first look at the fire that engulfed a set of Ford F-150 Lightnings in a Dearborn, Michigan, holding lot earlier this year. This heavily edited version of the video shows police arriving on the scene as smoke billows from a group of electric trucks tucked in the back of the lot.“Let’s hope it doesn’t blow up,” one police officer says during the video. “The smoke is clear as day.” In February, Ford suspended production the production of and recalled some of its Ford F-150 Lightnings after one of the vehicles caught fire while charging and spread to two neighboring trucks. Ford eventually traced the cause of the fire to a “rare” issue affecting the vehicle’s battery, which is made by South Korean... Continue reading…

Image: Blizzard Wouldya look at that, Diablo IV is getting one more beta before launch. During today’s D4 livestream event, the developers announced that they’ll be holding a third beta.