The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nvidia says there’s a fix for a recently discovered issue where Discord being open in the background limited the performance of some graphics cards. According to a tweet from the company, the patch will download automatically when you log into Windows, so you won’t have to go through the trouble of manually downloading a graphics driver or other software update.The issue, which affected systems with cards like the RTX 3080 and RTX 3060 Ti, was seemingly caused by a recent Discord update. It kept GPUs from reaching their maximum memory clocks, missing by around 200Mhz. That came with a slight performance penalty when playing games, which isn’t exactly ideal given that Discord is made to help you talk to friends while gaming.

A deal on a TCL 6-Series TV offers a whole lot of bang for the buck. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge It’s almost time for the Super Bowl, the only game that functions more akin to an annual holiday in the US than a mere sporting event. This means there are bound to be not only good prices on chips and dip at your local grocery store but also great deals on some of our favorite TVs.Even if you don’t care one iota about the NFL or American football as a whole, or you only enjoy tuning in for the spectacle of the halftime show and all the cheesy commercials, there’s no reason not to save money on a new TV set when given the opportunity. So we’ve been on the lookout for 4K models with the best discounts that are worthy of your money — and not the junky, ultra-cheap ones many big-box retailers overhype at this time of year.TCL 6-SeriesY... Continue reading…

It’s currently unclear what the government wants removed from the site. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Wikipedia has been blocked in Pakistan over “sacrilegious” content on the site, according to a report from Bloomberg. The ban comes after the government ordered the site to remove offending content within 48 hours, and the country’s telecom authority “degraded” its services.It’s not currently clear what Wikipedia is being asked to remove, though Bloomberg reports that it’s still in talks with Pakistani officials. Wikimedia, the foundation in charge of Wikipedia, didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment on the matter. According to research from the OpenNet Initiative, the country blocks sites that have content it considers to be “blasphemous, anti-Islamic, or threatening to internal security.”

It’s more regulatory pressure on the deal. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is seemingly facing more regulatory opposition to its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard. According to Politico, the European Union has issued a formal antitrust warning against Microsoft regarding the $68.7 billion deal.Politico didn’t share exact details about the contents of the warning, but the publication says that in a “statement of objections,” EU officials “laid out the reasons why the deal could threaten fair competition on the video game market.”In a statement to The Verge, Microsoft spokesperson David Cuddy said, “We are committed to solutions and finding a path forward for this deal. We are listening carefully to the [European Commission’s] concerns and are confident we can address them.” The EU didn’t... Continue reading…

Image: Mihoyo Elon’s messing up the game — literally. Two extremely popular online games, Arknights and Genshin Impact, have warned that players who use Twitter to log in may be affected by Twitter’s pending API changes.“We are in the process of confirming the impact of the Twitter API adjustments on game account login and the corresponding resolutions,” read the tweet on Genshin Impact’s official Twitter account. “To prevent possible account login problems, we recommend going to the HoYoverse Account page to link your email address for account logins.”Arknights’ tweet suggested similarly. “We STRONGLY recommend players binding their game accounts with the Yostar account if have not done so in case of any contingency.”It’s not known if the changes... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge The competition between Google and Microsoft over tech’s AI future continues to heat up. While Microsoft is firmly entangled with ChatGPT creator OpenAI, Google may have turned to a company founded by former OpenAI employees: the little-known Anthropic.According to a report from the Financial Times, in late 2022, Google invested around $300 million in the startup, though the news was not reported at the time. In return for the money, Google got a 10 percent stake in the company, and Anthropic is required to buy cloud computing resources from the search giant, says the FT.This dynamic is somewhat similar to the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI. There, OpenAI provides the research expertise, while Microsoft supplies not only b... Continue reading…

Image: Getty Images The US Treasury Department says it is modifying the electric vehicle tax credit to potentially allow more vehicles to qualify — for now.In a press release, the department said that to determine whether a vehicle is a sedan, SUV, pickup truck, or van, it would use the Environmental Protection Agency’s Fuel Economy Labeling standard rather than the EPA’s corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standard.In plain language, this could clear up some of the confusion around which vehicles qualify for the $7,500 tax credit, which was written into law last year as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).In plain language, this could clear up some of the confusion around which vehicles qualify for the $7,500 tax credit“This change will... Continue reading…

Samar Haddad / The Verge If you’ve read through our review of the latest HomePod, you’ll know that one of Apple’s smart speakers alone sounds pretty good. But combining two of them in a stereo pair really takes the listening experience to a different level. It’s not a cheap proposition, but you’ll end up with even more immersive room-filling sound — and if you use two HomePods as speakers for an Apple TV, they’ll outperform many sound bars that are in a similar $600 price range.It’s important to note that you need two of the exact same model (first-gen HomePod, HomePod Mini, or second-gen HomePod) for a stereo pair; you can’t mix the old and new HomePods together, for example.Outside of that limitation, Apple makes it simple to pair two HomePods. There are a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A Securities and Exchange Commission probe into Activision Blizzard has concluded with the company paying a $35 million penalty.At the heart of the probe were charges that Activision Blizzard did not have adequate procedures in place that allowed it to document employee workplace misconduct complaints. As a result of this inadequacy, Activision Blizzard could not, therefore, determine if the misconduct problems were severe enough to warrant shareholder disclosure. Additionally, the SEC found that wording in the company’s separation agreements was in violation of an SEC whistleblower protection rule, requiring former employees to notify the company if they received a request for information from the Commission or other investigative... Continue reading…

More media publishers are turning to AI to crank out content. | Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images Another major publisher is using AI to generate stories in the name of efficiency.Arena Group Holdings, a media firm whose brands include Sports Illustrated, TheStreet, Parade, and Men’s Journal, says it’s partnering with AI language startups Jasper and Nota to broaden and increase the speed of “its AI-assisted efforts.” These include training AI language models on the company’s archives to generate stories that are then edited by humans.In Men’s Journal, for example, evergreen articles like “Proven Tips to Help You Run Your Fastest Mile Yet” and “What All Men Should Know About Low Testosterone” have been written using tools made by ChatGPT creator OpenAI. The stories’ bylines are attributed to “Men’s Fitness Editors,” while a... Continue reading…

Evelyne Ily Juhen as Prisca in Mami Wata. | Image: Fiery Film Company Out of all the films that debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, none were quite as visually striking as Nigerian writer / director C.J. Obasi’s Mami Wata, a monochromatic modern-day myth about a small village during a time of upheaval. One doesn’t need to be familiar with Mami Wata’s eponymous embodiment of the divine feminine to appreciate its story about multiple generations of women doing everything in their power to keep their people safe. But as you let Mami Wata wash over you, the film paints a picture of people fighting to understand their beliefs in forces larger than themselves. And in each of those people, you can see shades of Mami Wata.Set in a small village called Iyi, Mami Wata tells the tale of three women whose... Continue reading…

The Emm product lineup includes a case, a cup with biosensors, a portable UV sanitizer, and a tampon-like applicator. | Image: Emm In wearable tech, menstrual health often feels like an afterthought. Case in point: Fitbit, the first major wearable maker to add period tracking to its platform, did so in 2018 — over a decade after launching its first device. So is it any surprise that, in the era of smartphones and smartwatches, people are still using menstrual products that have remained largely unchanged over the last 90 years? Not really, but that might soon change. Emm, a smart menstrual cup, is currently going through beta testing. If all goes well, the product could launch as early as this year.What exactly is a smart menstrual cup? In Emm’s case, it’s a suite of products that center around a wearable device that kind of looks like a shuttlecock-shaped ketchup... Continue reading…

The Sonos Beam soundbar is small enough to fit alongside most TVs. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge It’s far too easy to overlook a key component of a great Super Bowl watch party experience: quality audio. Although we’ve already covered some of the best TV deals taking place ahead of the big game, it’s also advisable to not assemble a room full of football fans when all you have for sound is the tinny built-in speakers on your TV. Thankfully, Sonos is running a sale until February 12th on a few of its speakers and soundbars, which can help you level up your system when it comes to watching sports and listening to music.First off, the midrange Sonos Beam is on sale for $399 at Best Buy, Target, Amazon, and direct from Sonos. That’s $50 off the latest version of the Beam, which supports Dolby Atmos for virtual surround sound and has... Continue reading…

Photos by Bill Atkinson, Graphic by William Joel / The Verge Apple’s legendary Lisa computer was a flop by commercial standards, but its influence on computing can’t be understated. In the 40 years after its debut, ideas from the Lisa changed our relationship with computers – influencing their design to be more human-centered. If you’re reading this on a computer screen, your experience has probably been shaped in some way from the lessons forged by the Lisa.Today, in partnership with The Computer History Museum, we’re excited to share another part of what makes the Lisa feel, well, human: a selection of exclusive Polaroid photos from the Lisa’s development taken by Bill Atkinson, the designer and developer of the computer’s graphical user interface. Atkinson sat down with CHM for an interview... Continue reading…

The current-gen Quest 2. | Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge A key feature from Meta’s $1,499.99 Quest Pro headset will make an appearance — in some form — in a more affordable consumer-focused headset coming later this year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in the company’s latest earnings release. That key feature is support for Meta Reality, the technology that’s designed to allow virtual reality headsets to also be used for augmented reality, resulting in a so-called mixed reality headset.Meta confirmed in a previous earnings call that the headset, likely to be called the Meta Quest 3, is planned for release in late 2023. Zuckerberg expects it to cost between $300 and $500, around a third of the enterprise-focused Quest Pro.“The MR [mixed reality] ecosystem is relatively new, but I think it’s going... Continue reading…

The Vivo X90 Pro, with its vegan leather back. | Image: Vivo Vivo’s X90 Pro, announced for the Chinese market last November, is getting an international release. The X90 Pro is notable for being the latest to use Sony’s 1-inch-type 50-megapixel IMX989 camera sensor, and Vivo is keen to emphasize the low-light photography capabilities such a large (for a smartphone) sensor allows for. It’s joined by the non-Pro X90, which is getting a more limited release outside China.Vivo is being annoyingly vague about exactly when the phones will actually be available to buy outside China, however. For now, it’s only saying that they’ll be releasing gradually across markets, starting with Malaysia, where the X90 Pro will cost 4,999 MYR (around $1,174 / €1,073) and the X90 will cost MYR 3,699 (around $869 /... Continue reading…

A selection of Aqara hubs. From left to right: Hub M2, Camera Hub G2H, and Hub M1S. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge After a brief delay, Aqara is taking its first tentative step towards supporting the new Matter home connectivity standard with the release of a beta firmware update for its M2 hub. Aqara is first targeting M2 hubs manufactured in 2022 and sold outside of China. The company estimates it will take four to six weeks for all M2 hubs to be updated to version V4.0.0 (beta). Other Aqara hubs will receive the Matter-enabled firmware in “the following months.”Over 40 Zigbee-based Aqara devices will be accessible via Matter by anyone that activates it (by selecting “Bind to Matter”) after receiving the firmware update on their M2 hub.Aqara, like many other smart device makers, is choosing to bridge its Zigbee-based devices — like lights,... Continue reading…

The feature isn’t available to desktop users yet, but YouTube said it’s exploring support options and will provide an update sometime in the future. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is rolling out a collaboration feature that allows two users to livestream together. “Go Live Together” was first introduced in November last year, but as per a recent tweet from YouTube (and our own tests), seems to now be available more broadly across iOS and Android mobile devices.The feature enables creators with 50 or more subscribers to invite a guest to livestream with them. Only one guest can be hosted at any given time, however, guests can be rotated during the same livestream and do not share the same 50 subscriber requirement to co-stream — any YouTube creator can be invited to collaborate.

An Xbox 360 and a Kinect. | Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge Microsoft will not be closing down the Xbox 360 Marketplace, the company tells The Verge, even though text on an official Xbox support page indicated that was the plan.Earlier this week, Microsoft said that it would be pulling many beloved games like Jet Set Radio and The Orange Box from the 360 store on February 7th. That was disappointing enough, but then, thanks to a tweet from Wario64, we saw that text on a support page said the company planned to shutter the Xbox 360 Marketplace “over the next year” and that it encouraged players to “purchase any 360 games or DLC by May 2023.” As of this writing, you can still see the message here by scrolling down a little bit.

Illustration: The Verge Google is about to share more about its work in artificial intelligence. Next week, Google will be holding an event about how it’s “using the power of AI to reimagine how people search for, explore and interact with information, making it more natural and intuitive than ever before to find what you need,” according to an invite sent to The Verge. The 40-minute event will be streamed on YouTube on February 8th at 8:30AM ET.The timing of the event is interesting given that Google CEO Sundar Pichai just announced that the company is planning on letting people “interact directly” with its “newest, most powerful language models as a companion to search” soon. Google, long the de facto way to find information on the internet, is likely facing... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google may be gearing up to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT by letting people “interact directly” with its “newest, most powerful language models as a companion to search,” according to CEO Sundar Pichai. It would be a big move for the company — as systems like ChatGPT and DALL-E have gone viral, Google — a company that’s been flexing its AI muscles for years and producing tons of research in the area — hasn’t had a public answer to those sorts of tools, some of which could threaten its core businesses.During an earnings call today, Pichai talked about how the company plans to “unlock the incredible opportunities AI enables,” saying the tech is “reach[ing] an inflection point.” He also says that it was Google’s earlier AI research that... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Apple has reached a new milestone on how many people are actively using iPhones, iPads, Macs, and its other hardware products: 2 billion. The number highlights fast growth for the company, which hit 1.5 billion active devices at the start of 2020 and only surpassed 1 billion back in 2016.Apple was trekking quickly toward the 2 billion milestone after it hit 1.8 billion active devices only a year ago thanks to record device sales in 2021 that dodged supply chain challenges stemming from the pandemic.The news comes as Apple releases its first quarter earnings that highlights its performance during the holiday months. “During the December quarter, we achieved a major milestone and are excited to report that we now have more than 2 billion... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Qualcomm thinks the world won’t be buying very many Qualcomm phones in the first half of this year. On today’s Q1 2023 earnings call, the company says it sees “broadening demand weakness among handsets and IoT products” and expects its customers simply won’t bother shipping as many phones in its second and third fiscal quarters (through June 2023) because they don’t expect people to buy them.Qualcomm already saw an 18 percent drop in phone sales this past quarter (ending December 25th), with research firm IDC calling it the “largest-ever decline in a single quarter” for phones in general, not just in Qualcomm-powered handsets.Next quarter, Qualcomm actually doesn’t expect its phone sales to decline all that much; they’ll be down... Continue reading…

Amazon reported its Q4 earnings on Thursday. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon had better net sales during its holiday quarter than even its best projections, but the results still show a company struggling with economic slowdowns across its divisions.Net sales were up 9 percent year over year, according to Amazon’s just-released Q4 2022 earnings, surpassing the company’s guidance it gave last quarter that growth would be up between 2 and 8 percent year over year. That said, it was its least profitable Q4 ever; the company earned $0.3 billion for quarter, a sharp drop from $14.3 billion a year before.And for the full year, the company posted a net loss of $2.7 billion, its first since 2014 and reversing a trend of rising annual profits and booming growth during the pandemic. Substantially at fault for... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai opened his company’s latest earnings announcement by boasting about “great momentum in Cloud, YouTube subscriptions, and our Pixel devices.” But read a little further, and the numbers show a company is struggling to grow: its revenue for the holiday quarter — the big one for many companies, especially those in the ad business — was essentially flat compared to 2021. It also had worse margins, meaning it was earning less on the money it did spend.Alphabet, Google’s parent company, had an incredible run during the pandemic, posting incredible revenues in 2021 and achieving record profits several quarters in a row. But throughout 2022, its momentum has cooled; its revenue has grown at a slower pace, and its... Continue reading…

Granular Insurance, part of Verily, part of Alphabet, which is Google. | Image: Granular I’ve heard people joke that Google only has a couple of successful businesses, primarily advertising. But it may have found another hit: insuring other companies against their workers’ potentially pricey medical care.The Information is reporting that its healthcare company, Verily, more than doubled its revenue to become the biggest Alphabet subsidiary after Google proper — and that its health insurance business, Granular, is the biggest contributor to that growth. Granular’s revenue “rose nearly sixfold through the first nine months of last year to $151 million, from $27 million a year earlier,” writes The Information.

The data was allegedly used to target GoodRx’s users with personalized advertisements specific to their medications and health on Facebook and Instagram. | Image: GoodRx The Federal Trade Commission has issued a $1.5 million fine against online pharmacy and telehealth provider GoodRx for allegedly sharing the private health data of its customers with Google, Facebook, and other third parties without consent. GoodRx has additionally agreed to an unprecedented provision that will ban the company from further sharing consumer health data with third parties for advertising. The FTC’s complaint comes after investigations by Consumer Reports and Gizmodo first discovered in 2020 that GoodRx was nonconsensually sharing the private health information of its customers with more than 20 companies.In a complaint filed by the Department of Justice on Wednesday, the FTC accuses GoodRx of violating its own privacy... Continue reading…

A color pairing from Colorschemer, which may shut down next week. | Image: Colorschemer / Twitter Twitter says it’s cutting off free access to its third-party API next week, replacing it with a “paid basic tier” for an unspecified price on February 9th. The news potentially affects a lot of Twitter services, and one of them is bots — not the spammer armies that new owner Elon Musk claims he’s been purging but the myriad automated accounts posting cute animals, fictional character quotes, and accessibility aids through Twitter’s API. While Twitter has left users in the dark about the details of its coming change, many bot creators have resigned themselves to shutting down.“My read of those tweets from Twitter is that it’s going to stop working,” says V Buckenham of their service Cheap Bots Done Quick. Launched in 2015, Cheap Bots... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Based on info from Netflix’s support pages, a report published by The Streamable appeared to confirm details about how it will roll out anti-password sharing features in the US and elsewhere. However, Netflix hasn’t announced the details of its plan yet or what it may look like when it rolls out more widely this year.Netflix spokesperson Kumiko Hidaka said in a statement given to The Streamable and The Verge that “For a brief time on Tuesday, a help center article containing information that is only applicable to Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, went live in other countries. We have since updated it.”We already know that Netflix is planning to roll out password sharing more broadly within the coming months. Netflix has been testing the... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge Microsoft is encouraging developers to start using Microsoft Store Ads, which allow people and companies to boost their app’s placement in the Windows store. The company writes in its blog that the ads are “designed to help developers grow their business by getting their apps or games in front of the right customers at the right time, and to inspire Microsoft Store customers with great content,” but similar systems for iOS and Android haven’t always provided the best experience.Microsoft Store Ads have been a long time coming — the company announced it was going to start piloting them in May 2022 and posted about them rolling out on its advertising blog in January. But now, it’s posting about them on its developer blog, telling devs... Continue reading…

You can buy the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra in purple, black, green, and cream colorways. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Apple’s iPhone 14 now has a new rival: the Samsung Galaxy 23. Announced during the company’s recent Unpacked event alongside a slate of new Galaxy Books, the S23 series is available for preorder starting this week with a street date of February 17th. The new phones arrive with faster performance, bigger batteries, and updated selfie cameras, with the Ultra offering an even higher resolution camera than its predecessor.But before you throw down upwards of $799 on a preorder, you may want to know how Samsung’s forthcoming smartphones measure up to Apple’s latest and greatest handsets. While both lineups include phones with impressive specs, there are a couple of key differences to be aware of.The most obvious, perhaps, is the fact that... Continue reading…

Frozen power lines are seen hanging near a sidewalk on February 1st, 2023, in Austin, Texas. | Photo by Brandon Bell / Getty Images Power outages hit hundreds of thousands of Texans during a winter storm this week, bringing to mind deadly blackouts the state suffered in a 2021 cold spell. More than 400,000 customers had no electricity today as the icy storm that started Monday entered its final stretch.This week’s blackouts, however, played out much differently than the 2021 disaster. And fortunately, the ice storm is forecast to finally ease up today. But it was another reminder of the work left to do to shore up Texas’ fragile grid.This week’s blackouts played out much differently than the 2021 disasterThe hashtag #TexasFreeze trended once again with scenes of vehicles skidding on ice-covered roadways and frozen trees wrecking power lines. There’s also... Continue reading…

Evans Hankey won’t be replaced. | Image: The Verge Apple won’t name a new head of hardware design to replace outgoing exec Evans Hankey, according to Bloomberg. Hankey took over hardware design leadership in 2019 after former chief design officer Jony Ive left to start LoveFrom, his own design company, but Bloomberg reported in October that Hankey would be leaving early this year.Going forward, the company’s group of “about 20” industrial designers will instead report to Apple COO Jeff Williams, and many of the team’s veteran designers will get bigger roles, Bloomberg reports. The change will notably broaden Williams’ purview; he already manages “global operations, the supply chain and AppleCare customer support, as well as software engineering for the watch and health efforts,” B... Continue reading…

The blue and green Paperwhite models are both down to $109.99. | Image: Amazon Getting bored staying indoors because it’s too cold to venture outside? We feel you, which is why we found some good deals today that’ll keep you entertained while inside. First up, Amazon is discounting the new green and blue versions of its latest Kindle Paperwhite. Both are on sale with ads and 16GB of storage for $109.99 ($40 off), or you can buy them without ads for $129.99 ($40 off). The new color configurations were announced just yesterday, yet today’s discount is only $10 shy of the Paperwhite’s lowest price to date.This is the same Paperwhite we reviewed (and loved) upon its debut in late 2021 — just a little more colorful. It’s got the same IPX8 waterproofing and months-long battery life, allowing you to read uninterrupted... Continue reading…

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