by Nilay Patel on (#66J8S)
Photo Illustration by Will Joel / The Verge The best of Bobs, the worst of Bobs. Continue reading…
The Verge
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| Updated | 2026-08-09 04:47 |
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by Jay Peters on (#66J8T)
Perfect for the holidays. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple on Tuesday announced Apple Music Sing, a karaoke experience that will be built right into the Apple Music app. With Apple Music Sing, you’ll be able to follow along with Apple Music’s real-time lyrics and adjust the volume of the vocals so that you can better hear your singing voice. (I’ll personally be keeping the vocals up as loud as possible to hide my imperfections.)There are a few features designed to make it easier to sing with others, too. Background vocals can appear independently of main vocals, according to Apple, and there will be a duet view as well if you want to sing along with a friend. Apple will have more than 50 “dedicated companion playlists” featuring karaoke-ready songs that you can pick from. ... Continue reading…
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by Cameron Faulkner on (#66J8V)
You can use your spirit ash summons to help you in battle against other players. | Image: Bandai Namco As if there weren’t enough stuff to do already in Elden Ring, Bandai Namco announced that the open-world fantasy game is getting a multiplayer update that adds a new colosseum environment made expressly for player versus player (PvP) bloodbaths. This update will arrive on December 7th for every platform the game is on (PC, PlayStation, Xbox).While you can already engage in PvP battles across many memorable Lands Between locales, there’s nothing like a flat, circular arena to do your bidding. And in the colosseum, you’ll be able to use your spirit ash summons in battle, as you can against the game’s many bosses.The trailer above doesn’t share many details about this new colosseum, like where it is or how you’ll get there and assemble... Continue reading…
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#66J5V)
Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Polestar is offering an over-the-air (OTA) software update that boosts the electric Polestar 2’s performance by 68 horsepower. And rather than lock it behind an annual paywall as other automakers have done, the Chinese-Swedish company says it will only charge a one-time fee of $1,195.The upgrade adds 68 horsepower and 15 pound-feet of torque to the existing 408hp and 487 lb-ft of torque currently offered by the Polestar 2’s dual-motor powertrain, for a total output of 476hp and 502 lb-ft. Because the upgrade is software-based, the performance boost can be downloaded directly to the vehicle without needing to take it to a service center. The performance upgrade is only available to owners of the long-range dual-motor version of the... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#66J5T)
Filling up the heart meter gets you gifts. | Image: Carrot One of Carrot Weather’s main selling points, besides the fact that it’s a genuinely very good app for getting the forecast, is its character. The app has an “AI” that will serve up scalding insults and timely jokes alongside the “feels like” temperature (the only measure that matters, don’t at me). The latest update is taking that experience to a whole new level: according to the app’s developer, Brian Mueller, you’ll be able to “improve your relationship with the homicidal AI” and even “start a ‘romance’ with her.”You endear yourself to Carrot through “bonding activities,” which will increase the number of hearts you have with the app. Those include “debugging” the app (which involves shaking your phone), “charging its servers,” and... Continue reading…
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by Matt Huynh on (#66J5S)
Matt Huynh / The Verge How to Replace the Sky, a comic by Matt Hyunh.At the end of 2020, the painting software I’d used my entire professional life updated itself with a new button.Illustration of a Photoshop window, with the Sky Replacement tool selected in a menu.I made my living as a commercial illustrator, making pictures for advertising agencies, book publishers, and magazines.Illustration of a small propped-up tablet and keyboard.I usually painted with ink and brushes, but I also used drawing tablets and apps for jobs that needed flexibility for changes and a quick turnaround.Matt appears in front of the tablet.I was up-to-date with the latest tools, but I couldn’t imagine why I would need to replace the sky.The walls of an office appear around... Continue reading…
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by Andrew Webster on (#66J5W)
Image: Warner Bros. Pictures You’ll have to wait a bit to see Parasite director Bong Joon-ho’s next project. The sci-fi film, called Mickey 17, will hit theaters on March 29th, 2024. The news was revealed via the briefest of teaser trailers, which shows star Robert Pattinson hanging around shirtless in some kind of tube.The film is based on the novel Mickey 7 by Edward Ashton, which is about a “disposable employee” out on a quest to colonize an icy new world for human habitation (no word yet on where all the extra Mickeys came from). In addition to Pattinson, the film stars Steven Yeun (Nope, Okja), Naomi Ackie (The Rise of Skywalker), Toni Collette (Knives Out), and Mark Ruffalo (everything with the incredible Hulk in it). Outside of the cast, Joon-ho is also... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#66J39)
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is one of the games you’ll be able to play on Luna if you already own it. | Image: Ubisoft Ubisoft and Amazon will now let you play some titles you own for PC via Ubisoft Connect on Amazon’s Luna cloud gaming service, the two companies announced on Tuesday. That means it will be just a bit easier to play some of those games when you may not be right in front of your typical machine thanks to the power of internet streaming.Amazon’s blog post specifically names Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Uno, and Far Cry 6 as titles that will work with this new integration. But in blog posts, both Ubisoft and Amazon are careful to say that this only applies to “select” titles, so it could be a limited batch to start. That said, if you like the experience of playing Ubisoft games over Luna and want to check out more of them, you can... Continue reading…
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#66J38)
Image: Kodiak Robotics Kodiak Robotics, the autonomous truck startup, will receive $49.9 million to help the US Army develop self-driving vehicles for reconnaissance, surveillance, and other “high-risk” missions.The Mountain View, California-based company, which primarily builds self-driving systems for freight trucks, will develop the vehicles for the US Army’s Robotic Combat Vehicle program. The collaboration is set to last 24 months under the agreement with the US Department of Defense, Kodiak says.The details about the types of vehicles that Kodiak says it will develop for the army are still vagueThe details about the types of vehicles that Kodiak says it will develop for the army are still vague. According to the company, “Kodiak will develop... Continue reading…
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by Andrew J. Hawkins on (#66J37)
Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Rad Power Bikes, the number one seller of e-bikes in North America, discovers that when it comes to power, stability, and fun, three is the magic number. Continue reading…
by Jon Porter on (#66J3A)
A monkey in Neuralink’s in-house facility. | Image: Neuralink Neuralink, the brain implant company founded by Elon Musk, is reportedly facing a federal probe over the treatment of animals used in its experiments. Reuters reports that a probe was recently opened by the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) inspector general and focuses on potential violations of the Animal Welfare Act. A spokesperson for the USDA inspector general declined to comment to Reuters on its report.Although Reuters says it’s unclear how wide-ranging the probe is, the news agency details a range of concerns over animal welfare raised in interviews with more than 20 current and former Neuralink employees. These include reports that, in one experiment, 25 out of 60 pigs allegedly had the wrong size of device installed as... Continue reading…
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by Tom Warren on (#66HZD)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is starting to roll out its own custom emotes. The Twitch-like emotes, dubbed YouTube Emotes, can be used across YouTube in comment sections and during live chats, though the platform previously allowed individual streamers to offer their own reactions and emotes. YouTube’s own initial emotes are focused on gaming, but there will be more over time.You’ll now see a list of YouTube emotes when you open YouTube’s emoji picker, and they’ll appear below a channel’s own existing custom emotes. Much like Twitch’s default system-wide emotes, YouTube’s ones also have specific names for autocomplete so you quickly type “:cat-orange-whistling:” for example, and it will automatically fill a comment with an orange cat whistling. ... Continue reading…
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by Adi Robertson on (#66HXE)
Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta’s Oversight Board has released an in-depth report on Facebook and Instagram’s controversial cross-check system, calling on Meta to make the program “radically” more transparent and beef up its resources.The semi-independent Oversight Board cited “several shortcomings” in cross-check, which provides a special moderation queue for high-profile public figures, including former president Donald Trump before his suspension from Facebook. It singled out a failure to make clear when accounts are protected by special cross-check status, as well as cases where rule-breaking material — particularly one case of non-consensual pornography — was left up for a prolonged period of time. And it criticized Meta for not keeping track of moderation... Continue reading…
by Tom Warren on (#66HXG)
Waze on a new Renault vehicle. | Image: Waze Waze is launching a dedicated app on two new cars with Google built in. It’s the first time Waze has been available as a standalone app in cars, thanks to Google’s embedded Android Automotive OS. It means drivers can access Waze’s real-time routing, navigation, and more, without the need to connect a smartphone.All of the usual Waze alerts, navigation, and routing options will be available on dedicated displays inside new Renault Austral Hybrid and Renault Megane E-Tech electric vehicles in Europe.Two new Renault cars will get Waze built inRenault’s openR link multimedia system will now include the dedicated Waze app, and the system also integrates with Google services like Google Maps, Google Assistant, and Google Play to allow you... Continue reading…
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by Jon Porter on (#66HVF)
Illustration: The Verge Google’s search results on desktop will load in a continuous scroll instead of dividing into pages, the company has announced. The move follows a similar change made on mobile in October last year, but isn’t quite an “infinite” scroll. Instead, Google will load six pages of results into a single scroll before offering users a “See more” button to show more results.Google says the change is rolling out first for English searches in the US, but judging by the rollout of the feature on mobile it seems safe to expect to see additional markets and languages added over time.
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by Jon Porter on (#66HVG)
Spare parts and tools are available for select iPhones and MacBooks. | Image: Apple Apple’s self-service repair program, which is designed to let customers repair their own iPhones and MacBooks, is launching in Europe. The company announced today that genuine Apple parts, tools, and manuals will be available to customers in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK to perform their own repairs.Spare parts are available via Apple’s self service repair store, which features a drop-down menu in the top right to select the correct country. As with the service’s launch in the US earlier this year, customers will be able to rent tools to perform the repairs rather than needing to purchase them outright, and receive discounts by sending in their replaced parts to Apple for refurbishment or recycling.... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#66HHA)
The company could be facing another labor board complaint. | Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Apple illegally interrogated and made coercive statements to employees during a union drive at one of its retail stores in Atlanta, Georgia, according to a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board reported on by Bloomberg. The company was being investigated as the result of charges filed by the Communications Workers of America, which has previously claimed that the company’s actions “made a free and fair election impossible” at the location.The NLRB’s regional director “found merit” to the allegations as well as ones that Apple held captive-audience meetings, according to Kayla Blado, a spokesperson for the regulator. Apple will either have to settle the case or face the NLRB filing a complaint against it. The regulator can’t... Continue reading…
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by Sean Hollister on (#66HFK)
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was one of the Steam Deck’s showcase titles when it first went on sale — now, it’s one of likely dozens of popular EA games that don’t launch properly anymore. Nearly four weeks ago, Valve retroactively revoked the Steam Deck Verified status of most popular Electronic Arts games on Steam, including every modern Battlefield, Need for Speed, Mass Effect, FIFA, and Madden title.The good news: both Valve and EA tell The Verge that fixes are on the way. There’s also an easy workaround if you’re comfortable navigating the desktop Linux interface and / or willing to risk your savegames.Here’s a partial list of titles that are no longer Steam Deck Verified, according to SteamDB data:
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by Sheena Vasani on (#66HFM)
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge After shifting iPhone production away from China, it now looks as if Apple’s got its eye on iPad production. According to CNBC, Apple is discussing producing some of its iPads in India to help diversify its supply chain.The news comes almost two years after reports emerged that Apple is considering manufacturing iPads in Vietnam, too. Apple is doing this as the company looks to move up to 30 percent of its manufacturing outside of China.Apple’s been trying to diversify its manufacturing for years amid trade wars between China and the US and rising labor costs in China. More recently, strict covid restrictions sparked countrywide protests that last month forced Apple to cut down the production of iPhone 14s there, leading to shipping... Continue reading…
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by Allison Johnson on (#66H2W)
Google’s December Pixel update includes a couple of anticipated features for its newest phones. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you’ve been eager to try Clear Calling on the Pixel 7 but unwilling to download beta software to use it, then today’s your day — Google is taking it and a couple of other features promised for the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro public in today’s feature drop. That includes new speaker labels for transcriptions in the Recorder app and access to Google One’s VPN feature at no cost — it’s otherwise reserved for subscribers on Google’s $9.99 / month 2TB plan.Clear Calling attempts to reduce background sounds when the person you’re talking to is in a noisy environment. It’s only coming to the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro and won’t be added to Pixel 6 phones in the future. The Pixel 6 series uses the first-gen custom Tensor chipset and apparently lacks some... Continue reading…
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by Ash Parrish on (#66HE2)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As labor movements in the video game industry build up momentum, over 300 quality assurance workers at ZeniMax Online Studios, former Bethesda parent company and current subsidiary of Microsoft, are in the process of organizing a union. The workers are organizing in collaboration with CODE-CWA, which has assisted in the formation of Activision Blizzard’s two unions.In a statement on Twitter, ZeniMax Workers United posted: “Today we, a majority of QA workers at ZeniMax, are proud to announce the launch of our union with [CODE-CWA]. We are the first group of workers at Microsoft to formally unionize. We are empowered to advocate for ourselves & build a future where we can thrive alongside the company.”The move comes just days after QA... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#66HC5)
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Facebook warns it could ban news in the US if Congress passes a bill that would require the platform to negotiate with and compensate publishers for their content. Andy Stone, Meta’s head of policy communications, said on Twitter that Facebook will “be forced to consider removing news” from Facebook if the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) is passed. Facebook previously threatened to block news in Canada and Australia when similar laws were proposed.Introduced last year with bipartisan support, the JCPA would allow publishers to negotiate with platforms like Facebook and Google over the distribution of their content. It’s supposed to give news publishers leverage against Big Tech and could require Facebook to pay for... Continue reading…
by Allison Johnson on (#66HC6)
An alleged render of the unannounced OnePlus 11 shows a round camera bump and a beloved feature sticking around. | Image: OnLeaks via GadgetGang Reliable leaker OnLeaks is offering what’s likely an early look at the upcoming OnePlus 11, with an updated camera bump treatment and the beloved alert slider intact. The image, courtesy of GadgetGang.com, shows a sleek round camera bump, green and black color options, and the alert slider alive and well on the device’s side rail above the power button. It also corroborates an earlier leak. All told, it looks like the 11 will represent a slight cosmetic update to the 10 Pro’s design — a welcome sight to OnePlus fans who feared that the slider was on its way out when it was omitted from the 10T.In addition to a slight design update, the OnePlus 11 is likely to include more of the same under the hood. A previous spec leak points to a... Continue reading…
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by Mia Sato on (#66HC7)
Image: Shein Online shopping behemoth Shein will spend $15 million on upgrades to its suppliers’ factories, the company announced today. The news follows a UK documentary report that found workers were subject to long hours and that wages were withheld, according to The Guardian.Shein says that, through an independent audit, it discovered that workers at two factories in China were working 12.5- and 13.5-hour-long days — more than is legally permitted by local law. While it’s “significantly less than claimed in the documentary,” the e-commerce giant is giving factories until the end of the year to correct the problem, Shein says.The company denied reports that wages were withheld from workers.The $15 million will be spent over the next three to... Continue reading…
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by Adi Robertson on (#66HC8)
Image: Krafton The world is full of mediocre video games, but occasionally there’s a game that makes me actually mad. It’s usually something I have high hopes for — a particularly creative idea or a genre I wish more developers were experimenting with. It’s often something whose priorities seem painfully and dramatically misplaced. The Callisto Protocol — a survival horror game released last week — is both.The Callisto Protocol’s design was spearheaded by Glen Schofield, the co-creator of Dead Space, one of my favorite series of all time. It shares a lot of DNA with Dead Space: both are fairly linear third-person survival horror shooters about fighting zombies in space. And as reviews have emphasized over and over, The Callisto Protocol is — by... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#66HC9)
A Dishy McFlatface satellite dish. | Image: Starlink Starlink’s upcoming daytime data caps will be going into effect in February instead of December, according to revised language on the company’s website (via CNET). When Starlink first announced the caps in November, the company had said they’d kick in sometime this month. Now, they’ll be in place a little bit later than originally planned.The terms of the data caps otherwise seem to be the same. As part of Starlink’s new “Fair Use Policy,” customers will have a dedicated amount of “Priority Access” data every month. Any data used from peak hours, which Starlink defines as 7AM to 11PM, will be pulled from that Priority Access pool. If you go over your Priority Access allocation, you can pay for more data or fall back on “Basic Access”... Continue reading…
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by Andrew Webster on (#66HCA)
Ruth Wilson in His Dark Materials. | Image: HBO Ahead of the premiere on HBO, the cast behind the fantasy series explains why the last season is the darkest and most complex to date. Continue reading…
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by Barbara Krasnoff on (#66HA8)
Samar Haddad / The Verge One of the more popular end-of-year items this year (and many of the past few years) is Spotify Wrapped, where the music service puts together a roundup of everything you listened to that year in various statistical formats, wrapped up (well, that’s what it’s called, right?) in bright, fun graphics. You can see what music categories you followed, get a playlist of your top 100 songs, see where you stand compared to others, and find out what your listening personality is. (Turns out, I’m The Replayer — “you stick with the songs you like.” I’m going to have to experiment more in 2023.)It’s easy to find Spotify Wrapped, although you have to do it using a mobile app.The simplest way is to just open your Spotify mobile app — you should... Continue reading…
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by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy on (#66F6K)
A cool but minor upgrade to an already excellent robot vacuum, iRobot’s Combo j7 adds a mop to the bot and is worth considering if you’ve got hardwood floors and lots of fluffy rugs. For everyone else, the regular j7 vacuum is still your best bet. Continue reading…
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by Tom Warren on (#66H7Q)
Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge Microsoft has offered Sony a 10-year contract to make future Call of Duty games available on PlayStation if its proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition goes ahead. Microsoft president Brad Smith confirmed the deal in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal today, noting that “Sony has emerged as the loudest objector” to Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion acquisition and that “it’s as excited about this deal as Blockbuster was about the rise of Netflix.”“We’ve offered Sony a 10-year contract to make each new ‘Call of Duty’ release available on PlayStation the same day it comes to Xbox,” says Smith. “We’re open to providing the same commitment to other platforms and making it legally enforceable by regulators in the US, UK, and European... Continue reading…
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by Ash Parrish on (#66H7R)
Image: Blizzard Ramattra, the sleek and terrifying new tank coming with Overwatch 2’s second season, will be much easier to earn than the previous hero Kiriko. Aaron Keller, Overwatch 2’s game designer, stated in a brief message on Twitter that developer Blizzard is lowering the level at which Ramattra unlocks from 55 to 45.
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by Mitchell Clark on (#66H5E)
The DHS may need to come up with a better marketing slogan than “be your REAL ID self” before time is up. | Image: Department of Homeland Security The government has extended the deadline for when federal agencies like the TSA will start requiring Real ID cards, moving the date from May 3rd, 2023, to May 7th, 2025. This will give people an extra two years to get an updated driver’s license or ID card; after the deadline, they won’t be allowed to fly without them.The extension is meant to “address the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the ability to obtain a REAL ID driver’s license or identification card,” according to a Monday press release from the Department of Homeland Security. The standard was implemented after 9/11 in an attempt to improve security while flying, so getting one of the cards requires providing several pieces of documentation. That includes proof... Continue reading…
by Tom Warren on (#66H5F)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is increasing the prices of its upcoming first-party Xbox games next month. From 2023 onward, new full-priced games from Xbox Game Studios like Redfall, Starfield, and Forza Motorsport will be priced at $69.99 instead of the usual $59.99. It’s a price increase that matches the pricing that competitors like Sony, Ubisoft, and Take-Two all offer their own games at.Microsoft issued the following statement about the price increases:
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by Justine Calma on (#66H5G)
Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, California, on Tuesday, November 29th, 2022. | David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images Lies about climate change on Twitter escalated to unprecedented levels this year, according to new analyses. The unnerving rise of content that rejects widely accepted climate science — sometimes referred to as climate skepticism or climate denial — piles on top of growing concerns about misinformation and hateful content that’s proliferated since Elon Musk’s takeover of the social media platform.There have been more tweets and retweets “using climate-sceptic terminology” in 2022 than in any other year since Twitter’s founding in 2006, according to analysis conducted for The Times by City, University of London researchers. That’s 850,000 climate-skeptic tweets or retweets this year compared to 650,000 in 2021 and 220,000 in 2020.“... Continue reading…
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by Jay Peters on (#66H5H)
The pixel art in the new version of Dwarf Fortress. | Image: Bay 12 Games Dwarf Fortress, the cult classic simulator game that has been in development since 2003, is getting a new “premium” version this week with entirely new visuals. The original game is well known for its ASCII art, but the version coming to Steam and itch.io will feature really nice pixel art.Dwarf Fortress can be a mind-bogglingly huge game. At its most basic level, the game lets you manage a dwarven outpost in a randomly generated world. But things can go much deeper than that; you can do a lot with your expansive settlements (just read the list of features from developer Bay 12 Games), and the game will even auto-generate a history of your world.But the “classic” version’s ASCII art can be somewhat intimidating (for me, it’s been... Continue reading…
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by Ariel Shapiro on (#66H2Y)
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After the brouhaha of Spotify Wrapped last week, Apple Podcasts has dropped its own end-of-year charts. Apple Podcasts’ daily charts already show which titles are trending year-round, but its year-end charts are an indicator of which shows are doing best on a consistent basis: and no surprise, true-crime programming reigns supreme.Crime Junkie took the top spot on Apple’s list of biggest shows of 2022, followed by The Daily, Dateline NBC, Morbid, and SmartLess. The last time Apple issued its year-end top podcast chart in 2020, only The Daily and Crime Junkie were in the top five. This year’s top 10 featured a blast from the past with Serial, which came in at No. 8. The 2014 show got a boost from the recent exoneration of subject Adnan... Continue reading…
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by Mitchell Clark on (#66H2X)
Tony Johnson / The Verge Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has left users wondering where to go should the platform go up in flames or its content moderation policies unravel. But is there really a viable alternative to Twitter yet? Continue reading…
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by Umar Shakir on (#66H2Z)
BrightDrop’s Zevo all-electric delivery vehicle. | Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge BrightDrop, the GM-backed EV logistics company, is announcing its first international client: DHL Express Canada. This comes alongside news that the company is commencing production of its Zevo 600 delivery vans at its Ontario-based CAMI assembly plant.The CAMI plant is Canada’s first large-scale EV factory, according to BrightDrop. The company projects the location to output 50,000 Zevo EVs per year by 2025. GM poured about $800 million into the CAMI plant to prep it for BrightDrop, with at-scale production of the larger Zevo 600 vehicle set to begin in January while production of its smaller Zevo 400 will start in late 2023.BrightDrop now says more than 25,000 of its EVs are either reserved or intended forDHL Express Canada expects... Continue reading…
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by Tom Warren on (#66H30)
Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge | Photography by Joel Saget / AFP via Getty Images Slack CEO and co-founder Stewart Butterfield is leaving Salesforce in January, reports Business Insider. Butterfield helped co-found Slack in 2013 after Glitch — a social MMORPG — was shut down and Butterfield turned his focus to workplace communication tools instead. Butterfield is leaving Salesforce, the company that acquired Slack for $27.7 billion last year, after less than two years at Salesforce.News of Butterfield’s departure, reportedly announced in a Slack channel, comes just days after Salesforce CEO Bret Taylor also announced he’s leaving the company. “This has nothing to do with Bret’s departure,” Butterfield reportedly wrote in a Slack channel. “Planning has been in the works for several months! Just weird timing.”Lidiane... Continue reading…
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by Ash Parrish on (#66H31)
Riot Games Riot Games shared more news on the progress of its free-to-play fighting game codenamed Project L in a brief but dense developer update on Monday. In a previous update last August, the team revealed a new fighter, Illaoi, and this time around, Project L executive producer Tom Cannon shared that she’s gone from “concept to an early playable form.”Though the Kraken Priestess looked pretty sick with her tentacle-based moveset, Cannon said that she’s nowhere close to her final build.In the second half of the developer update, the team focused on explaining the ideas and systems behind Project L’s gameplay design. Game director Shaun Rivera explained that the idea for Project L is to have a game that’s welcoming to fighting game novices... Continue reading…
by Mia Sato on (#66H0A)
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Facebook is testing ways for people to verify their age when using the platform’s dating app, including using an AI face scanning tool.In a blog post today, Meta announced it would start prompting users on Facebook Dating to verify that they’re over 18 if the platform suspects a user is underage (you must be over 18 to use the dating service). Users can then confirm their age either by submitting a copy of their ID or by uploading a selfie video, which Facebook shares a portion of with a third-party company. Meta says the company, Yoti, uses facial features to estimate a user’s age without identifying them.Meta says the new age verification systems will help stop children from accessing features meant for adults. It doesn’t appear... Continue reading…
by Alice Newcome-Beill on (#66H0B)
The Pro model of the Galaxy Watch 5 has improved battery life and a raised touch bezel. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge Kicking our deals post off this week, you can find the Bluetooth-exclusive model of the 45mm Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro discounted to $379.99 at Best Buy in the titanium gray color. You can also find the black model discounted to around $399 at Amazon and Best Buy. The Watch 5 Pro may be a little bit chunky, but it has a larger screen and improved battery life over the standard model. While the touch bezel will never be quite as good as a physical rotating bezel, the raised edge on the 5 Pro thankfully makes navigating the menus on this Android smartwatch a little less painful. Read our review.B&H Photo is currently offering a discounted bundle that brings together the Logitech MX mechanical wireless keyboard and the MX Master 3S mouse.... Continue reading…
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by Makena Kelly on (#66H0C)
Illustration: The Verge FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried promised to testify before Congress after he finished “learning and reviewing” the events that caused the popular cryptocurrency exchange to file for bankruptcy last month.Bankman-Fried’s promise was made in response to a tweet from House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) last week calling on him to join the committee’s hearing on FTX’s collapse on December 13th. But Bankman-Fried didn’t commit to testifying at the hearing scheduled for next week.“Once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened, I would feel like it was my duty to appear before the committee and explain,” Bankman-Fried said in a tweet on Sunday. “I’m not sure that will happen by the 13th. But when it does, I will... Continue reading…
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by Liam James on (#66H0D)
Jarett Sitter / The Verge One of my favorite TikTokers, Bran Flakezz, quit his full-time job so he could have more time to do tequila shots on camera. I can’t stop laughing at the hangover solution he posted over the weekend, and I don’t even drink. This can’t be sustainable, right?For The Vergecast’s three-part Creator Economies series, we explore emerging elements of the business of being a creator. We dig deep on creator funds and how giant pools of platform money change the way those platforms operate. We also look into livestreaming and why everything from shopping to sleeping is suddenly big livestream business.This week, producer Hadley Robinson reports on the often uncertain world digital creators find themselves in trying to make a living on platforms... Continue reading…
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by Chris Welch on (#66H0E)
Illustration: The Verge When HBO Max and Discovery Plus merge into a single app next spring, the new platform will simply be called “Max.” That’s according to a report from CNBC, which notes that while a final decision hasn’t been made, Max “is the likely choice” and is being vetted by Warner Bros. Discovery’s legal team. The lawyers are also mulling over other potential names, according to the report, and the combined streaming service has been given the codename “BEAM” internally.The reasoning for the “Max” name is simple: Warner Bros. Discovery wants HBO to fit into its huge stable of content without overshadowing programming from Discovery, DC Comics, Warner Bros., CNN, and more. CNBC’s report says the new platform will borrow ideas from Disney Plus and... Continue reading…
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by David Zipper on (#66GSR)
Photo by Emil Lippe for The Washington Post via Getty Images An interview with Karen Levy, an assistant professor of sociology at Cornell, about her new book, Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance Continue reading…
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by Jess Weatherbed on (#66GSS)
Image: Amazon The first trailer for The Boys spinoff show Gen V shows us that superpowered college students are just as flippantly violent as the grown-up supes from the original series. The show takes us to Vought International’s Godolkin University — a college that specializes in educating the next generation of superhumans — where it appears the students are getting a head start on all of the murder and mayhem inflicted by established heroes like Homelander.Familiar characters from The Boys will make guest appearances on the show, including A-Train (Jessie T. Usher), Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie), and Adam Bourke (P.J. Byrne). Gen V otherwise features a new cast, starring Jaz Sinclair, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Clancy Brown, Chance Perdomo, Jason... Continue reading…
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by James Vincent on (#66GR3)
Photo by Jens Büttner/picture alliance via Getty Images Stack Overflow, the go-to question-and-answer site for coders and programmers, has temporarily banned users from sharing responses generated by AI chatbot ChatGPT.The site’s mods said that the ban was temporary and that a final ruling would be made some time in the future after consultation with its community. But, as the mods explained, ChatGPT simply makes it too easy for users to generate responses and flood the site with answers that seem correct at first glance but are often wrong on close examination.“The primary problem is [...] the answers which ChatGPT produces have a high rate of being incorrect.”“The primary problem is that while the answers which ChatGPT produces have a high rate of being incorrect, they typically look... Continue reading…
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by Emma Roth on (#66G7K)
The less expensive Mini 3 could ditch the front-facing obstacle sensors on the Mini 3 Pro. | Image: Konrad Iturbe via Twitter It looks like DJI’s getting ready to launch the rumored non-Pro version of its Mini 3 drone. While a set of images posted to Twitter by DJI enthusiast Jasper Ellens offer a closeup of the Mini 3’s retail packaging, another user shared images of the device already on the shelf at a Best Buy in New Jersey.If the price tag shown in the image of this particular Mini 3 bundle is accurate, the device could cost $859.99 with the Fly More kit, which includes the drone and screen-equipped DJI RC remote controller along with a two-way charging hub, a shoulder bag, extra propellers, and screws. That’s over $200 cheaper than the cost of the $1,098 Mini 3 Pro with the Fly More combo and the same controller.
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by Emma Roth on (#66G1B)
Swifties clearly don’t mess around. | Photo by Tommaso Boddi/WireImage A group of 26 Taylor Swift fans are suing Ticketmaster following last month’s ticketing fiasco that left frustrated users unable to buy tickets for Swift’s The Eras Tour (via Deadline). In a lawsuit submitted to a California court, the fans accuse Ticketmaster’s parent company, LiveNation, of “anticompetitive conduct” that let scalpers snap up a surplus of tickets, resulting in higher ticket prices for the fans who could actually get their hands on them.In addition to alleging that Ticketmaster forces fans to “exclusively” use the service to purchase tickets at prices “above what a competitive market price would be,” the suit claims Ticketmaster also profits off the resale of those tickets through its secondary marketplace. As outlined... Continue reading…
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