The Verge

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft is planning to add its new Microsoft 365 Copilot assistant to OneNote. The software giant originally announced Copilot for apps like Teams, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint last month, and it’s now ready to demo how note taking will be impacted by an AI-powered assistant.“As your notetaking partner, Copilot uses your prompts to draft plans, generate ideas, create lists, organize information, and more,” explains Greg Mace, a product manager for OneNote. Image: Microsoft How the Copilot integration works in OneNote. Much like Copilot’s integration in Word, the AI assistant can rewrite, format, or summarize existing text in OneNote based on prompts in a sidebar interface. You can also ask the AI assistant to... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft has added Bing Chat AI to its popular SwiftKey keyboard for Android. The integration started appearing on Wednesday and allows SwiftKey Beta users to quickly access Microsoft’s Bing chatbot at the tap of a button in any app.The Bing Chat integration inside SwiftKey includes the usual chat mode that offers access to the chatbot, or a tone mode that will rewrite any text right within the keyboard. If you were only using the Bing mobile app to access the chatbot, this new integration makes that app rather redundant if, instead, you’re willing to install and use SwiftKey everywhere.To access this new Bing Chat integration you’ll need to download the beta version of SwiftKey on the Google Play Store. Pedram Rezaei, Microsoft’s CTO... Continue reading…

Image: Spyra Sypra has made a name for itself by creating powerful, electronic water guns, the first of which launched on Kickstarter in 2018. Now, the company’s adding a third water gun to its lineup, aptly named the SpyraThree, and it includes additional modes for when you want to take your battles super seriously or are just looking for some casual summer fun.Before we get to those, let’s go over what makes the Spyra more than just your standard Super Soaker — and why it can command its eye-popping price tag of $179.00 per gun. Like the SpyraTwo (which you can still buy for around $5 less), the SpyraThree features an electronic firing system that can spray people from around 30 feet away, and can send water almost 50 feet when you charge up a... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft’s Edge is rolling out a limited public preview of its Workspaces feature, which lets you save and share sets of browser tabs using a single link. We got our first look at Workspaces last year, but the new preview gives us a much clearer picture of how it all works.With Workspaces, you can gather a bunch of tabs on a particular topic and save them into neatly labeled groups within Edge. While this sounds a lot like Edge’s Collections feature (which already lets you save and organize webpages), Workspaces adds another layer of functionality by letting you share these saved tabs with your colleagues, who can then add or make changes to the tabs in real time. Screenshot: Emma Roth / The Verge As you can see in... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Apple is heavily rumored to reveal its long-awaited mixed reality headset in just a couple of months, but that reveal seems to be arriving at a time when demand for high-end VR is actually quite low.According to a new blog post from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, some of the biggest recent bets in VR have largely flopped. Kuo reports that:

The screen you’ll see if you visit Genesis Market now. | Image: Europol Several law enforcement agencies have teamed up to take down Genesis Market, a website selling access to “over 80 million account access credentials,” which included the standard usernames and passwords, as well as much more dangerous data like session tokens. According to a press release from the US Department of Justice, the site was seized on Tuesday. The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (or Europol) says that 119 of the site's users have been arrested.Genesis Marketplace has been around since 2018, according to the Department of Justice, and was “one of the most prolific initial access brokers (IABs) in the cybercrime world.” It let hackers search for certain types of credentials, such as ones for social media... Continue reading…

Image: Getty At the rally protesting Trump’s arrest, everyone was a content creator. Continue reading…

Image: Sony Santa Monica Studio Starting today, you can embark on a New Game Plus journey in God of War Ragnarök. More than just a restart of the story campaign, the update adds new sets of armor that can be equipped to modify your combat experience to make the game more challenging.New Game Plus starts you off with all your weapons, armors, and enchantments but with a slight catch: you can’t access areas with the Hex or Sonic arrows or the Draupnir spear before reaching the part in the story where those weapons would be unlocked. It’s a bit of a bummer because there was no way in Helheim I could be bothered to go back to any of those areas once I got the necessary equipment. It, therefore, would have been really nice to be able to unlock those areas as I progressed... Continue reading…

Image: Blizzard Diablo IV’s dungeons are gonna be a nightmare after players complete the campaign. The developers just released a new video outlining the game’s endgame progression, and it’s filled with all sorts of somewhat bewildering things like paragon systems, world tiers, nightmare dungeons, and more.Players will level up their characters via a bog standard skill tree. The video shows that, once players have hit max level, completed the campaign, and completed the capstone dungeon at the end of the game, they’ll get access to an expanded skill board that reminds me a bit of Final Fantasy X’s sphere grid. So even though your character is at the highest level achievable, there will still be a system in place to make them more powerful. The board... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google is introducing a new Play Store rule that will require apps to have a “readily discoverable option” for deleting your account, both in the app itself and on the web. In a blog post on Wednesday, the company says the change is meant to give users “greater clarity and control over their in-app data.”The rule will apply to apps that let you create an account, and Google is trying to make sure that users won’t have to redownload an app because they deleted it before requesting that their account also be deleted. The company plans to add a field to the Google Play Store that will link users to the web address for account deletion. GIF: Google A mock-up of what the data deletion section of the Play Store may... Continue reading…

Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Phil Harrison, who headed up Google’s now-shuttered cloud gaming service Stadia, is no longer at Google, according to Business Insider. Stadia was officially shut down in January, and Harrison apparently left at around that same time.Harrison’s quiet departure marks a muted end to his time at the search giant. He joined the company in January 2018, and while he didn’t specify what he was working on at the time, it was easy to guess that he was probably doing something with gaming: Harrison worked at Sony Computer Entertainment (now Sony Interactive Entertainment) for 15 years, was on the advisory board for the cloud gaming service Gaikai, and led Microsoft’s Xbox and Interactive Entertainment business in Europe from 2012 to 2015. And lo... Continue reading…

Image: Jeep Jeep’s wildly popular plug-in hybrid Wrangler SUV is getting an upgrade. The automaker is rolling out two new trim levels for the 2024 model year, as well as a host of new tech features that it says are designed to chart a path to a completely electrified lineup by 2025.This represents the first major update to the hybrid Wrangler since the first 4xe (pronounced “four by E”) version rolled out in 2021. Jeep is hoping to capitalize on the Wrangler 4xe’s popularity with its adventure-minded customers. According to Stellantis, roughly 1 in 4 Jeep Wranglers sold last year was a plug-in hybrid. That amounted to more than 43,000 Wrangler 4xe models sold in 2022, which was up 46 percent compared to 2021.Jeep’s hoping to keep the momentum... Continue reading…

Move over, NoseFrida. This random Amazon snot sucker is my new go-to. | Image: Allison Johnson / The Verge I have a growing list of recommendations for new parents that exists mainly in my own head. Highlights include “just get the velcro swaddles” and “infant Tylenol is exactly the same as children’s Tylenol, it just costs more and there’s less of it.” But as of this weekend, there’s one thing right at the top of the list: get an electric snot sucker. Forget the NoseFrida, definitely forget the weird little bulb syringe they send you home from the hospital with. This stupid little gadget has possibly saved the last shred of my sanity.To be a new parent is to quickly become acquainted with an entire new world of gadgets and gear. Sure, there are some people who can take a relaxed approach to baby gear — “Our parents didn’t need all that... Continue reading…

Image: Capcom The game takes strides toward a more authentic Spanish experience but is let down by subtitles that don’t translate everything. Continue reading…

Here’s what Substack’s Notes feed will look like. | Image: Substack Substack is getting a new tweet-like feature called “Notes,” the company announced on Wednesday. The feature will let users publish small posts about things like “posts, quotes, comments, images, and links,” according to a blog post from Substack co-founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi.Notes appear in their own dedicated tab, and the feed looks pretty similar to what you might see on Twitter or other social media platforms. On individual posts, for example, you can see familiar icons for likes, replies, and reshares (which Substack will be calling “restacks”). We asked if there is a character limit for Notes, but Substack spokesperson Helen Tobin declined to share details about that.The Notes tab also has two feeds... Continue reading…

Photo by Erik McGregor / LightRocket via Getty Images Former Frank CEO Charlie Javice has been charged with defrauding JPMorgan Chase after the bank acquired her financial aid startup for $175 million in 2021. In a complaint filed on Tuesday, the Department of Justice accuses the fintech founder of “falsely and dramatically inflating” the number of clients her startup served to “fraudulently induce” JPMorgan Chase into acquiring the company.The 31-year-old Javice, who was included in Forbes’ 30 under 30 list in 2019, created Frank in 2016 with the stated goal of simplifying the financial aid process for students and maximizing the amount of aid they received.A list of 4.25 million users allegedly contains fewer than 300,000 real accountsJavice later became a managing director at JPMorgan... Continue reading…

Image: Mengxin Li / The Verge I ripped off the headset, afraid I was going to throw up. I shouted for help. My partner found me in the fetal position in a cold sweat on the bathroom floor.I had spent just an hour in the metaverse dressing my avatar, making faces in the virtual mirror, and learning to raise my virtual wristwatch to adjust system settings. Now, I couldn’t open my eyes without seeing the virtual grid echoed in the tile floor, demarcating the boundary where I had crossed into unsafe territory.I had been aware that nausea was a potential risk of VR. I had read accounts of cybersickness, motion sickness, “VR hangovers.” I’d even known that women are more likely to experience disorientation in VR because of subtle physiological differences from men.... Continue reading…

You use these apps all the time, but can you identify the shades of their logos? Continue reading…

Image: Lego This is the third time we’ve seen the T-65 X-Wing Starfighter in brick form, and it’s Lego’s most detailed yet. The 1,949-piece X-Wing costs $239.99 and joins the other sets in the Lego Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series, which include the behemoths that are the 7,541-piece UCS Millennium Falcon and the 6,785-piece UCS AT-AT.Equipped with 4L4 fusil thrust engines and the KX9 laser cannons, the design of Lego’s latest UCS X-Wing kit doesn’t deviate much from its previous iterations. However, it does feature several hundred more pieces when compared to the 1,304-piece X-Wing set released in 2000 and the 1,559-piece one from 2013. The new X-Wing measures 10.5 inches in height and 21.5 inches in length once complete. I... Continue reading…

The M512a-H6 doesn’t offer a ton of features, but it comes with a subwoofer and a pair of low-profile rear speakers. | Image: Vizio Want to level up your TV experience without paying a couple thousand for a premium surround sound system? Well then, a competent soundbar like Vizio’s M-Series 5.1.2 is probably your best bet. Vizio’s Atmos-ready model can likely deliver better sound than your TV’s built-in speakers for less than $500 — which is why it remains one of our favorite models. What’s more, it’s currently on sale at Amazon and Best Buy for $399.99 ($100 off), which is one of its better prices to date.Along with the soundbar itself, that price includes a six-inch wireless subwoofer, the kind you’d normally have to buy separately. That’s in addition to two upfiring rear speakers that support Dolby Atmos, allowing for a more immersive experience when watching... Continue reading…

Vogue Singapore’s Metaverse Fashion Week booth. That portal took you to another metaverse on an entirely different platform. | Screenshot: Jay Peters / The Verge Decentraland’s Metaverse Fashion Week featured virtual clothes and exhibits from some major names in fashion, but it was lonely, difficult to navigate, and pretty boring. Continue reading…

Image: The Verge Microsoft Edge is getting a block feature for autoplay videos. Microsoft has started testing the new block addition with Edge testers in the Canary channel, providing a this new option alongside existing allow and limit options for auto playing web videos.The Microsoft Edge team says it has “heard your requests for strict blocking of media autoplay” after previously only offering a “limit” option that lets media autoplay depending on whether you’ve visited the page in the past and how you’ve interacted with it. The more restrictive block option is currently being rolled out. “We have started making the feature available to some of our Canary users and will continue to make it available to more customers over the coming weeks,” says... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge Kobo is bringing its Kobo Plus service, which lets you read unlimited ebooks and audiobooks for a flat monthly fee, to the US. There are three different plans available; for $7.99 a month, you can get access to ebooks or audiobooks with the “Read” and “Listen” plans, or you can get both for $9.99 a month.You can access the books through Kobo’s e-readers (though do note that not all of them support audiobooks) or the company’s iOS, Android, and desktop apps. You also don’t have to be constantly connected to Wi-Fi to read them — a Kobo FAQ says that “you can read a maximum of 15 Kobo Plus books while offline over a 30-day period.”Kobo Plus has been around for a while in a few countries, including Canada, New Zealand, and Portugal, but... Continue reading…

Image: Kobo Kobo’s launching a new 10.3-inch E Ink e-reader and writing device, the Kobo Elipsa 2E, on April 19th. The new Kindle Scribe and Onyx Boox Nova Air C rival will retail for $399.99 and comes with an upgraded stylus that you can use to write directly on the pages of ebooks and documents.Those eager to get their hands on Kobo’s latest e-reader can preorder it from Kobo starting today. As an added incentive, the Rakuten-owned Kobo’s throwing in a $25 Kobo e-gift card for customers preordering the device in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.On paper, the Kobo Elipsa 2E appears to be a minor upgrade from its predecessor, the Kobo Elipsa. They both sell for $399 bundled with a stylus, though only the original Elipsa throws in an included... Continue reading…

Screenshot: Tom Warren / The Verge Naughty Dog and Nvidia have released more hotfixes for The Last of Us Part I’s PC port in an attempt to fix various crashes and other bugs that have plagued the game since it launched a week ago. Nvidia says its hotfix driver Version 531.58 is meant to make the game more stable when running on RTX 30-series graphics cards, and in the patch notes for v1.0.1.7 of the game, Naughty Dog says it and co-developer Iron Galaxy are “closely watching player reports to support future improvements and patches.”The changelog also mentions improvements beyond just fixing various crashes. Resetting the graphics options to default should now work, an issue where the game wouldn’t read Xbox controller stick inputs properly has been fixed, and there are... Continue reading…

Mario is his cat form. | Image: Universal From its cheesy nostalgia plays to its breathtaking and imaginative visuals, Universal’s new Mario movie is everything a video game adaptation should be. Continue reading…

Image: Activision Activision is cracking down on third-party hardware cheating in Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. Devices like XIM, Cronus Zen, and ReaSnow S1 have been widely used in Call of Duty to allow mouse and keyboard users to get the benefits of aim assist and reduced recoil from controller mixed with the benefits of movement from mouse and keyboard. Activision has now updated its Ricochet anti-cheat system to detect and eventually suspend or ban players using this third-party hardware.“These devices act as a passthrough for controllers on PC and console and, when used improperly or maliciously, can provide a player with the ability to gain an unfair gameplay advantage, such as reducing or eliminating recoil,” explains... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Online alcohol recovery services Monument and Tempest admitted to sharing private patient information with advertisers for years, as reported earlier by TechCrunch. In a disclosure filed with the California Attorney General, Monument (which acquired Temple in 2022) says the tracking tools used on both services “may have shared” names, birthdates, email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses, insurance information, and more to advertisers.Monument and Tempest, which both provide resources for patients struggling with alcohol addiction, say the leak might have also included patients’ responses to self-evaluations about their drinking habits, something Monument clearly says are “protected” and used only by its care teams. The companies... Continue reading…

Owen Wilson in Paint. | Image: IFC Films Bob Ross has become one of those inescapable facets of the internet. The longtime The Joy of Painting host is firmly entrenched in the realm of online kitsch, featured everywhere from Twitch streams and Marvel ads to Magic: The Gathering sets. His distinct and goofy persona makes him a logical subject for a similarly silly biopic — which is exactly what director Brit McAdams tries to do in Paint. Unfortunately, the film never finds enough of a hook to justify being a feature-length movie; you can get the entire joke mostly from watching the trailer. The result is a 90-minute feature that would’ve been better served as a Saturday Night Live sketch.Now, to be clear, Paint isn’t exactly about Bob Ross. Instead, it centers on a PBS host... Continue reading…

Image: Ryder BrightDrop, the electric van company owned by General Motors, will provide 4,000 delivery vans to Ryder’s rental fleet through 2025. That includes BrightDrop’s upcoming Zevo 400 model and the Zevo 600 vans, 200 of which Ryder will order this year.According to Ryder, the company plans on adding the 2023 Zevo 600 vans to its rental fleet in California, Texas, and New York later this year and also expects to deploy the 2024 Zevo 600 and 400 models “as early as summer 2023 and into the first quarter of 2024.” While BrightDrop’s Zevo 600 and Zevo 400 vans both offer up to 250 miles of range on a full charge, the 600 is the larger of the two, supporting a cargo capacity of over 600 cubic feet as opposed to 400 cubic feet.In addition to... Continue reading…

The new Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft has just officially unveiled a Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock hours after the device leaked. Priced at $299.99, the new Surface dock will connect over USB-C instead of the proprietary Surface Connect port. Microsoft is planning to keep selling its Surface Dock 2, complete with the Surface Connect port that’s designed for Surface devices that don’t have USB-C or Thunderbolt 4.This new Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock will support devices other than Surface for the first time. You can connect to it via USB-C, and it supports data transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps and 96W charging thanks to Thunderbolt 4. At the front, there is a single USB-C port alongside a USB-A port but sadly no SD card slot. The rear of the Surface Thunderbolt 4 Dock... Continue reading…

John Leguizamo and Bob Hoskins in Super Mario Bros. | Image: SMB Movie Archive Nintendo’s first stab at a Super Mario movie was a strange and oh-so-’90s time capsule, a far cry from the safe new animated feature releasing in 2023. Continue reading…

Image: Scott Olson/Getty Images On Monday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered an investigation into a recent move by Walt Disney World’s special planning and tax district to maintain corporate power over the land housing its popular theme parks.In a Monday letter, DeSantis called on Florida’s chief inspector general to investigate whether Disney and its closely aligned special district broke the law by approving new rules undermining the Republican governor’s proposed takeover. The takeover is widely viewed as retaliation after Disney opposed Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law — one of multiple DeSantis-signed bills limiting speech in both the public and private sectors.“These collusive and self-dealing arrangements aim to nullify the recently passed legislation,... Continue reading…