The Verge

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Grubhub has agreed to pay $25 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit that claimed the food delivery service misled customers and drivers while also damaging the reputation of restaurants. The proposed settlement will require Grubhub to make several changes to the platform, such as showing the total delivery cost when customers place an order.Along with advertising highly inflated hourly pay rates for drivers," the FTC's initial complaint accused Grubhub of hiding the true cost of its services" by adding delivery fees that raised the price of customers' final orders. The agency claimed that starting around 2019, Grubhub began advertising lower delivery fees to attract more customers but then began tacking on a service" fee that increased the cost of orders anyway.The FTC also alleged the company charged Grubhub Plus members for delivery despite advertising the subscription as having free" or $0" deliveries. The agency claimed Grubhub makes the plan easy to sign up for but difficult to cancel while also allegedly blocking the accounts of users with large gift card balances. Screenshot: FTC The FTC claimed Grubhub charged customers hidden fees, raising their total order price. Additionally, the FTC accused Grubhub of adding restaurants to the platform even if they never signed up to sell food on the service. Grubhub has had as many as 325,000 unaffiliated restaurants on its platform - more than half of all of the available restaurants on Grubhub," the FTC claims. As a result, many customers wound up having issues with their orders, resulting in bad feedback for unaffiliated restaurants.Grubhub is now required to show customers the full cost of delivery and can no longer add junk fees" to orders. It's also banned from listing unaffiliated restaurants on the platform, and can only make driver earnings claims that it can back up with evidence and in writing." Grubhub must also notify customers when they're banned and offer a way to appeal the decision, as well as make it easier to cancel Grubhub Plus.While we categorically deny the allegations made by the FTC, many of which are wrong, misleading or no longer applicable to our business, we believe settling this matter is in the best interest of Grubhub and allows us to move forward," Grubhub spokesperson Najy Kamal said in a statement to The Verge. The company also responded to the settlement in a post on its website.Though Grubhub was initially ordered to pay $140 million, it is partially suspended based on the company's inability to pay the full amount." The company's $25 million will go toward refunding affected customers, but the FTC says the full judgment will be due immediately" if Grubhub is found to have misrepresented its financial status."

Image: The Verge Threads is about to begin testing the ability to schedule posts, according to Instagram's Adam Mosseri. Replies cannot be scheduled," he added, explaining that we want to balance giving people more control to plan their Threads posts while still encouraging real-time conversation."Mosseri also makes sure to note that Instagram has been working on this feature for months." I'm choosing to take as a sign that the Instagram chief is fed up with the notion that Bluesky is the motivating factor behind every new improvement that comes to Threads. Last week, Threads introduced curated collections of people to follow, which drew comparisons to Bluesky's starter packs.Yesterday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Threads now has over 100 million daily active users, marking the first time that the company has revealed a DAU figure for its Twitter / X competitor. Threads also has more than 300 million monthly active users. No matter how Meta is calculating those figures, Bluesky objectively remains far smaller.Instagram has long offered the option to schedule feed posts, and this week it announced the same convenience is being extended to DMs.

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is partnering with the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to help creators identify content using their AI-generated likenesses on the platform and submit removal requests. The company will test the controls with celebrities and athletes early next year before rolling it out to top YouTube creators, creative professionals, and other leading partners representing talent."In September, YouTube announced plans for tools that would help manage AI-generated depictions of creators and their voices. Now, the company says it can give celebrities (and soon, creators) the ability to manage AI copies of their likeness, such as their face, at scale."Last year, CAA introduced the CAAVault, which scans and stores the digital likenesses of its clients, including their faces, bodies, and voices.YouTube is also working on synthetic-singing identification technology" that will detect AI content that attempts to replicate creators' singing voices. YouTube has already started letting music labels request the removal of AI content that simulates an artist's voice, and also began requiring creators to label videos containing AI-generated content earlier this year.

Image: Amazon Amazon's push into video game adaptations shows no signs of letting up. Today the company announced that Secret Level - an anthology of animated shorts all based on different video game properties - has been renewed for a second season on Prime Video. No other details about the new season have been announced yet.Secret Level actually just premiered on Prime Video, and comes from the same team behind Netflix's animated sci-fi anthology Love, Death and Robots. Its 15 episodes span a range of notable video game franchises, including Warhammer 40,000, Dungeons & Dragons, Mega Man, and the recently-shuttered Sony shooter Concord. It also awkwardly straddled the line between TV show and advertisement. In fact, one of Secret Level's most infamous episodes - a bloody, dark reimagining of Pac-Man - turned out to be tied to an upcoming game.Seriously, just look at it:The news comes as Amazon continues to find its footing both developing and publishing video games, as well as adapting them for its streaming service. This year the company had a major hit with Fallout on Prime Video (which is also getting a second season) and followed it up with a live-action take on Yakuza. A Tomb Raider series is also in the works.

Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida with Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe at a press conference in March. | Image: Honda Japanese automakers Honda and Nissan are in talks to merge to better compete with electric vehicle manufacturers like Tesla, BYD, and others. As reported by Nikkei Asia, the two have discussed signing a memorandum of understanding that outlines plans to split equity into a new holding company from which both will do business, according to anonymous sources.Both Honda and Nissan are also discussing a plan to pull Mitsubishi into the party, which would be akin to how various Japanese electronics brands banded together - such as Konica Minolta, JVCKenwood, and others. Honda and Nissan were already working together to develop EV technology and software and had invited Mitsubishi to that party as well.Of the two companies, it's Nissan that's really in trouble and reportedly will only survive another year unless another company (Honda) swoops in to buy Nissan shares. According the Reuters, Nissan's net earnings in the middle of 2024 were down more than 90 percent year over year, and it had to cut its annual operating profit forecast by nearly 70 percent. Nissan and Honda relased statements to Reuters saying:

Image: Riley Testut The Delta gaming emulator is now providing a link to sign up for Patreon-exclusive membership perks directly within the iOS app in Apple's US App Store. Developer Riley Testut is heavily encouraging users to click that external link by tripling the price you'd otherwise pay to Apple for In-App Purchase versions of those same Patreon tiers. Testut calls it the do not buy sale."The update both embraces and protests the External Purchase Link Entitlement that Apple introduced in January, which allows developers to link to outside payment platforms in exchange for giving Apple a slightly reduced 27 percent cut of sales. The App Store policy change was made following rulings in the Epic vs Apple lawsuit that found Apple had acted anticompetitively by preventing developers from telling users about payment methods that bypassed its own payment system. Image: Delta Clicking this link within the Delta app settings will take you to the Patreon page to sign up directly. Testut says Delta is likely the first app to use the entitlement. The $3, $5, and $10 monthly memberships on Patreon - which provide additional benefits like iPad and SEGA Genesis support, and private Discord access depending on the subscription tier - are listed in the iOS app at $10, $15, and $30, respectively.We really don't want people to use in-app purchase," Testut told The Verge. We've been using Patreon for years, and it allows us to do things Apple's IAP system can't - such as issuing refunds and handling customer support - making it much more convenient for creators like us."

Image: The Verge I was driving home the other day and wanted to call my partner and let him know that I was stuck in traffic. (Not an unusual event on Brooklyn's Belt Parkway.) I've got a relatively old car (it's a 2007 model, so we're talking no real smarts), and so I depend on my phone rather than any built-in intelligence to deal with calls, music, etc. Usually, there's no problem, but this time, when I called out, Hey Google - call Jim on his mobile!" my phone informed me - in a very long-winded paragraph - that Gemini doesn't do that:

Colin Angle, the former CEO of iRobot, is launching a home robot startup. | Photo by Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images Colin Angle, the co-founder of iRobot and its CEO for three decades, is getting back into robotics with a new startup called Familiar Machines & Magic. According to The Boston Globe, the company is developing a new kind of home robot focusing on health and wellness that might take the form of an animal or a familiar."The company is currently in stealth mode, Angle tells The Globe, and includes the former CTO of iRobot, Chris Jones, as well as iRobot's Ira Renfrew, who left the company to work on robotics at Amazon, including the shuttered Scout delivery robot.Angle was working to turn iRobot and its Roomba robot vacuum cleaners into the brains of the smart home before he left the company following the collapse of its sale to Amazon in January of this year. Since then, iRobot has slashed its R&D budget, cut almost 50 percent of its staff, and refocused its business on home cleaning machines.Familiar Machines & Magic has raised $15 million from eight investors and is looking for $15 million more, according to TechCrunch. A job listing for the company on LinkedIn describes it as a well-funded, new embodied AI and robotics startup based outside of Boston."It's an interesting pivot for Angle to go from the practical to the personal. To date, robots that can do things for you, such as robot vacuum cleaners, robot litter boxes, and robot lawnmowers, have been more successful than companion bots." Jibo, Moxie, and Anki are just a few that have powered down over the years.However, advances in generative AI could bring more potential to the space. These technologies could make robots such as the lovable Lovot or Sony's Aibo, which the company recently resurrected, seem more human-like, have conversations with you, and be more useful than simply being cute.For example, Israeli startup Intuition Robotics has been working on ElliQ, an AI-powered social robot designed to keep the elderly and home-bound company, since 2017. I've tested a couple of versions of the tabletop robot, and its third-generation model, which incorporates generative AI, is significantly more lifelike and engaging.What exact type of magic Angle and his Familars will conjure up remains to be seen. One investor described furry pets to address loneliness" to The Globe. However, some combination of personality and practicality that positively impacts the health and well-being of household members feels like a good place to start.

Nvidia announced the latest in its Jetson Orin Nano AI computer line, the Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit. Sort of like a Raspberry Pi but for powerful AI processing, the tiny $249 computer packs more of an AI processing punch than the kit did before - for half the price. It's available to buy now.The Jetson Nano line has been a low-cost way for hobbyists and makers to power AI and robotics projects since its introduction in 2019. Nvidia says the Nano Super's neural processing is 70 percent higher, at 67 TOPS, than the 40 TOPS Nano. It also has 50 percent more memory bandwidth, at 102GB/s, which should speed up those operations.The Jetson Orin Nano Super kit uses essentially the same hardware as the original Orin Nano kit, and the company says it will get the same performance gains with a new JetPack update. Nvidia says the boost comes from a new power mode which increases the GPU, memory, and CPU clocks."Nvidia's Jensen Huang showed off the Nano Super in a video:The developer kit includes a reference carrier board and a Jetson Orin Nano 8GB system-on-module, comprised of an Nvidia Ampere GPU with tensor cores and 6-core Arm CPU. Nvidia calls the Nano Super Developer Kit an ideal solution" for building chatbots or visual AI agents, as well as AI-based robots.

A 15-second time exposure image. | Image: Don Pettit NASA astronaut Don Pettit created his own device to help him take photos of the stars while on the International Space Station - and the results are pretty impressive. In a Reddit thread spotted by Space.com, Pettit describes how he brought a homemade star tracker with him to space, allowing his camera to capture long-exposure photos without the stars leaving any trails behind.Star trackers are designed to rotate with the Earth - or in Pettit's case, the ISS - to prevent distortion when taking pictures of the night sky. One of Pettit's photos, which you can see above, was a 15-second time exposure. He says his tracker completes a rotation every 90 minutes to match the ISS's pitch rate. Without this tracker, you can not take photo[s] longer than 1/2 sec without star blur due to the rate of orbital motion," Pettit writes. Image: Don Pettit A photo of a large Magellanic Cloud visible in the southern hemisphere." In a separate post, Pettit notes that aligning the tracker on a moving platform isn't an easy task, adding that he can currently take up to 30-second exposures without significant star motion." Taking photos through the ISS's windows also presents another challenge. Looking through 4 panes of glass, two of which are 30mm thick, at an angle makes for some distortion and relative optically induced star motion," Pettit says. Image: Don Pettit A photo showing Pettit's homemade sidereal orbital tracker. If you want to see even more incredible images captured by Pettit, you can browse through them on his Reddit account page, X, and Instagram. Many show what photos from the ISS look like without compensating for its movement.

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Nearly three years ago in January of 2022, the Senate seemed poised to reform antitrust law and place a check on Big Tech's power. The Senate Judiciary Committee had just voted to advance the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA), led by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA). The bill would have forced major changes to how many tech businesses operate, including by prohibiting them from self-preferencing their own products on their marketplaces.But the bill's momentum petered out in the months to come. Congress did manage to pass two important competition updates that year, the first allowing state attorneys general to choose which courts they filed antitrust suits in, and the second raising merger filing fees on the largest transactions to raise money for federal enforcers. AICOA, though, never passed through the Senate - let alone into law.Klobuchar has been one of the leading advocates of antitrust reform. After House lawmakers launched a probe into Big Tech companies in 2019, she and several other lawmakers concluded the monopoly-busting system was broken. Existing antitrust rules were theoretically powerful, their theory went, yet decades of lax enforcement and unfavorable case law left courts and enforcers with flimsy tools for keeping the industry in check. Congress needed to step in and get it back on track.Legislative efforts to overhaul the system have failed - yet in 2024, antitrust enforcement is experiencing something of a boom. Apple, Amazon, Meta and Google each face a federal anti-monopoly suit (two, in Google's case.) The Department of Justice secured a win in its Google Search case, while Epic Games won a ruling against Android's Play Store. The DOJ and Federal Trade Commission under the Biden administration have tightened merger guidelines and aggressively scrutinized deals.Klobuchar is now reaching the end of her time chairing the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust. While its mission might look a bit less urgent these days, she argues it's as important as ever. It would be a lot easier to have some set rules of the road in place instead of this laborious, long litigation process," she tells The Verge in a phone interview. Today, she's overseeing a hearing about how to continue a bipartisan path to reform as the Trump administration prepares to take over.While the most groundbreaking legislation hasn't passed, she says, antitrust issues have still garnered more interest from congressional leadership on both sides of the aisle in recent years. Maybe because of the bipartisan support and the good work that's being done, we do keep bringing these cases," she says. But the lesson from the last four years is aggressive enforcement matters."Klobuchar expresses hope that President-elect Donald Trump's antitrust watchdogs will continue pursuing important cases. While the Senate won't hold new hearings to approve existing FTC Commissioner Andrew Ferguson's ascendance to chair, she noted that FTC commissioner nominee Mark Meador wrote a positive article about the DOJ's antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster. I consider that a good sign," she says. Klobuchar adds that former Democratic enforcers have told her that Trump's pick to lead the DOJ Antitrust Division, Gail Slater, gets it."Republicans will get to set the subcommittee's agenda next year when they take over the majority in the Senate. But while she'll no longer be chairing the panel, Klobuchar says, she's going to continue to work for reforms. It couldn't be more important right now, with a new administration coming in, that we find ways to work across the aisle to get this done."

Google announced a bunch of new stuff last week, from Gemini 2.0 and Project Mariner to Android XR and Project Moohan. As ever with Google, it feels like a lot of stuff without necessarily a coherent plan behind it. But if you look closely enough, and start to put some of the pieces together, the combination of those announcements might add up to something like Google's vision for the future of everything.On this episode of The Vergecast (our last Tuesday episode of the year), The Verge's Kylie Robison and Victoria Song join the show to do some Google puzzling. They describe their experiences with all of Google's new projects and experiments, and explain why Google thinks XR could be the killer app for AI - and vice versa.After that, Chris Grant, group publisher for The Verge and Polygon, joins to talk about the two biggest 2025 stories in gaming: the impending launches of Grand Theft Auto VI and the Nintendo Switch 2. He explains why GTA is such an important and enduring gaming franchise, why he's confident the Switch 2 won't be like the Wii U, and why the whole gaming world is waiting for these two things so intently.Finally, we answer a question from the Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com!), with some help from The Verge's publisher Helen Havlak. Helen mentioned last week that she uses Figma to manage her garden, and let's just say you all had some follow-up questions about that. So Helen came back to explain her whole system.Oh, and did we mention we're doing a live Vergecast at CES? We're doing a live Vergecast at CES! Wednesday, January 8th, 5PM, at the Brooklyn Bowl at the Linq Promenade. It's free, it's going to be great, come join us!If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with Google:

Image: A New Social, NASA The open social web still isn't as open as we all might want, but a non-profit is being formed to try and change that. The non-profit, called A New Social, is being headed up by Ryan Barrett, the founder of Bridgy Fed, and Anuj Ahooja, an engineering leader and writer.We believe that a healthy ecosystem competes on innovative features, not critical mass," A New Social says on its mission page. The social web should be centered around people, not platforms, and artificial walls should not deny them the relationships they've built online." The organization is betting on services built on open protocols like ActivityPub and ATProto" and says it will work directly with developers to continue ensuring competition in the open social web, with a focus on advocating for users every step of the way."The non-profit is still in its very early stages; Barrett and Ahooja will be recruiting a Board of Directors, identifying cross-protocol projects, and reaching out to developers to collaborate on tools and services needed for cross-protocol community building," according to a press release.But they've already identified A New Social's first project: Barrett's own Bridgy Fed, which you can use to have your Bluesky posts appear on ActivityPub-based platforms like Mastodon (aka the fediverse) and vice versa. And A New Social is already talking with big players in the open social web, including Bluesky, Flipboard, Mastodon, and Meta.All of these platforms are making some big important promises to their users," Ahooja says in an interview with The Verge. He points out that Threads has made promises to federate (which it is doing in baby steps), while Bluesky has promised that its end goal is decentralization. Us sitting in the middle puts us in a place where we have to be loud when they are not keeping those promises up." He says that Bridgy Fed is an implementation of a larger user advocacy problem that we're trying to solve."I think it's a cool idea, but I was a touch skeptical during our interview - just before we talked, I had read about how another promising fediverse project Ahooja worked on, sub.club, would be shutting down. How can users put their faith in open social web projects like Bridgy Fed long term if those projects might just fizzle out?Ahooja says that's part why they're working with platforms, not just users. We think that top-down education is more important than anything," he says. That's also why they're taking a cross-network approach, according to Barrett; individual platforms and tools will grow and shrink, but overall, decentralized social media platforms are gaining mindshare, he says. If they can help the overall space get connected and stay connected, then that's net positive," he says.

Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge The Federal Trade Commission has approved a new rule preventing hotels and ticket sellers from hiding extra fees associated with a purchase. Under the rule, businesses must provide up-front disclosure" of the total price of a hotel stay, vacation rental, or live event tickets before checkout.The rule, which was first proposed last year, targets the resort," convenience," and service" fees that often covertly raise the final price of a hotel stay or tickets for a live concert or sporting event. It doesn't ban companies from charging these kinds of fees; it just requires them to disclose the total cost of a purchase (including fees) when advertising or displaying their price.Additionally, businesses must display the total price of a purchase more prominently than most other pricing information." Though businesses can still exclude shipping fees and taxes from advertised prices, they must now show these fees before customers start entering their payment information. The rule is set to go into effect in April 2025.People deserve to know up-front what they're being asked to pay - without worrying that they'll later be saddled with mysterious fees that they haven't budgeted for and can't avoid," FTC Chair Lina Khan said in the press release. The FTC's rule will put an end to junk fees around live event tickets, hotels, and vacation rentals, saving Americans billions of dollars and millions of hours in wasted time."With Andrew Ferguson set to replace Khan as FTC Chair under the Trump administration, the agency has approved several last-minute changes that will directly impact consumers. In addition to approving a new click-to-cancel" rule that should make it easier to cancel subscriptions, the FTC also expanded its Telemarketing Sales Rule to cover tech support scam calls.

Image: Honda Out to prove that the sports coupe is far from dead, Honda announced the return of the Prelude with an all-new hybrid-electric powertrain.It's been over two decades since Honda last released a new Prelude, but the company began laying the groundwork for its return with the release of a concept version last year. Now, a hybrid Prelude is scheduled to arrive in the US in 2025.It will also mark the debut of Honda S+ Shift, a new drive mode that the company says further advances Linear Shift Control to deliver maximum levels of driver engagement."The company is describing the Prelude as having two motors," but that doesn't make it dual-motor or AWD. Honda's hybrid powertrain has had two motors for several generations, both of which sit adjacent to the internal combustion engine.The debut of Honda S+ ShiftOne electric motor acts as a generator, creating electricity for the battery and propulsion," Honda spokesperson Chris Naughton said, and the other is a traction motor that propels the vehicle - and captures regen when slowing."There's not much else to note about the Prelude's return; Honda is probably waiting until closer to the production to release key specs.I'm sure there will be some bemoaning the fact that Honda had an opportunity to release a fully electric Prelude that would have been rad as hell. To be sure, the company says it's still committed to achieving carbon neutrality for all of its products and corporate activity" by 2050 - and that includes 100 percent of EV sales by 2040.But Honda also has a pretty good track record for hybrid vehicles, which it considers an important bridge to full EVs. And clearly, the US is heading toward a dark period for EV sales with the incoming Trump administration expected to roll back a lot of the incentives and regulations aimed at growing EV adoption.Hybrid-electric trims currently make up more than 50 percent of Accord and CR-V sales, Honda says, and the newly introduced Civic hybrid is expected to ultimately represent about 40 percent of Civic sales. Cumulative sales of Honda electrified vehicles top 1 million.Meanwhile, the fully electric Honda Prologue (based on GM's Chevy Equinox EV) is already enjoying brisk sales since its US launch earlier this year. And the company plans to unveil a production-ready Honda Zero model at CES next year.

Illustration: The Verge Google Home is testing a new feature that will allow friends and family members to help manage smart devices around your home. Two access levels are available: Admin" which provides full control over account and device permissions, and Member" for people who require more limited access.Google says that Admin access is for trusted partners or people who co-manage the home with you." Admins can add, remove, and manage users, add and remove devices, and link subscriptions to the home account. Members can manage basic device controls like viewing live security camera feeds, and adjusting personal settings like voice and face match assistant features.Two further permission tiers are available for Members: Settings" to fully control devices and home-wide settings like automation and Nest Wifi device network features; and Activity" to authorize access to device and home-wide history for things like cameras, locks, and sensors.The customizable Member access was first announced in November alongside the Google Home extension for Gemini. Only users who are enrolled in the Google Home public preview can send invitations to the new access levels.Participants can add someone as an Admin or a Member by opening the Google Home app settings, tapping Household and access," and selecting the plus icon to invite a new home member. Those you invite don't need to be enrolled in public preview themselves, but will need to be running the latest version of the Google Home app.

Photo by Andrej Sokolow / picture alliance via Getty Images Waymo's autonomous vehicles are going to Tokyo, marking the first time that the Alphabet company is deploying vehicles on public roads in a foreign market.Waymo is billing the excursion as a simple road trip" for collecting data about the nuances of Japanese driving, including left-hand traffic and navigating a dense urban environment. The vehicles will be driven manually for the purposes of gathering mapping data and will be managed by a local taxi fleet operator, Nihon Kotsu. About 25 vehicles will be sent, with the first set to arrive in early 2025.And while the tests will undoubtedly be seen as laying the groundwork for a future Tokyo-based robotaxi service, Waymo said it isn't ready to announce anything quite yet. While we look forward to bringing the life-saving benefits of the Waymo Driver global, we have no plans to serve riders in Tokyo at this time," Waymo spokesperson Sandy Karp said. Rather, we're bringing our technology to learn and understand how Waymo fits into the existing transportation landscape and learning how to best partner with local officials and communities."The inclusion of GO, a popular taxi app in Japan, in the strategic partnership could signal Waymo's intention to put its autonomous vehicles into service through a locally based mobility provider. Waymo is already doing this in the US, making its autonomous vehicles available on Uber's ridehail app in Austin and Atlanta.We have no plans to serve riders in Tokyo at this time"Waymo's robotaxi business in the US is growing, albeit slowly. The company currently has approximately 700 vehicles in operation in several cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, and Phoenix. It also plans to launch a robotaxi service in Atlanta in an exclusive partnership with Uber and is planning to launch in Miami in 2026. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai recently said that Waymo was providing 175,000 paid trips per week, or about a million miles.In Tokyo, Waymo's vehicles will be operated by trained autonomous specialists employed by Nihon Kotsu. Once the company feels like it's ready, it will transition to hands-free autonomous driving with a safety driver behind the wheel. Karp wouldn't say whether that would eventually progress to fully driverless operations. The vehicles will be geofenced to certain neighborhoods in Tokyo, including Minato, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Chiyoda, Ch, Shinagawa, and Kt.In bringing its vehicles to its first foreign country, Alphabet is trying to project confidence in its technology, especially at a time when companies are pulling back on costly robotaxi projects. General Motors recently announced that it would no longer fund Cruise and would instead pivot to driver-assist technology and personally owned autonomous vehicles.Several companies have tested their autonomous vehicles in Japan, but the country is a bit of a backwater compared to China and the US. Part of the problem seems to be the country's robust auto industry is focusing its testing in countries other than its native one. Toyota and Nissan are both seeking to deploy robotaxis in China in collaboration with local operators.

Illustration: The Verge Threads now has more than 100 million daily active users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Monday. It's a notable milestone not just because it's a big number; it's also the first time Meta has a daily active user figure publicly.In recent weeks, Meta has been very vocal about Threads' growth after a lot of people flocked to Bluesky. While Bluesky tracker says that that platform currently has a little over 25 million total users, Zuckerberg shared Monday that Threads has more than 300 million monthly active users. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it's clear that Threads is still much larger than Bluesky.Threads has also ramped up its feature releases, including updates that appear to be inspired by Bluesky like custom feeds and curated collections of accounts to follow. Meta is also testing the ability to choose your own default feed, which is a much-needed change. But it's not all good; Threads might get ads early next year.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram will now let you schedule direct messages, as first reported by TechCrunch. With this feature, you can long-press on the send" button and then choose a date and time that you'd like to send your message.As noted on Instagram's support page, you can schedule messages containing only text, meaning you can still only send photos, videos, or GIFs to friends or family members in real-time. When you click on a chat with a scheduled message, Instagram will display a notice that shows how many messages you have scheduled. Screenshot: The Verge Tapping into the notice and long-pressing your message also gives you the option to delete it or send it right away. Right now, it looks like you can only schedule a message as far out as 29 days.The company has added several features as part of its efforts to build out its DMs, including a way to edit messages, draw on photos, and share your live locations with friends, similar to Snapchat.

Blackmagic has announced that its URSA Cine Immersive commercial camera for shooting high-quality 3D immersive video is now available to preorder direct from Blackmagic Design Offices," with the first deliveries going out in early 2025. The camera, which could enable more immersive content for the Vision Pro, costs $29,995 - or a mere 8.6 Vision Pros.First revealed in June, the Cine Immersive will let cinematographers shoot 90fps video in stereoscopic 3D at 8160 x 7200 resolution per eye - or more than twice the estimated per-eye resolution of the Vision Pro's screens. They'll be able to edit the footage using the proprietary Apple Immersive Video format in DaVinci Resolve Studio, which Blackmagic plans to add support for early next year.Blackmagic Design CEO Grant Petty said the DaVinci update will enable a true end-to-end workflow for Apple Immersive Video." He added that the company is looking forward to working closely with filmmakers" on immersive videos ahead of the camera's wider release later in 2025.Blackmagic included images of the camera in its email to The Verge. It looks cool, so I've included them for your perusal:The Vision Pro has some immersive content outside of Apple's videos - in apps like Amplium or Explore POV - but none of them quite have the quality of Apple's videos. Until now, Apple has been the only company producing content with its format, and only a handful of such videos are available at this point. That could change, eventually, if studios take advantage of Blackmagic's new camera and DaVinci update.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is rolling out a way for creators to let third-party companies use their videos to train AI models. To be clear, the default setting for this is off, meaning that if you don't want to let third-party companies scrape your videos for AI training, you don't have to do anything. But if, for some reason, you do want to allow that - Google says that some creators and rights holders" may want to - it's going to be an option.We see this as an important first step in supporting creators and helping them realize new value for their YouTube content in the AI era," a TeamYouTube staffer named Rob says in a support post. As we gather feedback, we'll continue to explore features that facilitate new forms of collaboration between creators and third-party companies, including options for authorized methods to access content."YouTube will be rolling out the setting in YouTube Studio over the next few days," and unauthorized scraping remains prohibited," Rob writes.Another support page says that you'll be able to pick and choose from a list of third-party companies that can train on your videos or you can simply allow all third-party companies to train on them. The initial list of companies includes the following, according to TechCrunch:

Image: The Verge ChatGPT's AI search engine is rolling out to all users starting today. OpenAI announced the news as part of its newest 12 days of ship-mas livestream, while also revealing an optimized" version of the feature on mobile and the ability to search with advanced voice mode.ChatGPT's search engine first rolled out to paid subscribers in October. It will now be available at the free tier, though you have to have an account and be logged in.One of the improvements for search on mobile makes ChatGPT look more like a traditional search engine. When looking for a particular location, like restaurants or local attractions, ChatGPT will display a list of results with accompanying images, ratings, and hours. Clicking on a location will pull up more information about the spot, and you can also view a map with directions from directly within the app.Another feature aims to make ChatGPT search faster when you're looking for certain kinds of sites, such as hotel booking websites." Instead of generating a response right away, ChatGPT will surface links to websites before taking the time to provide more information about each option. Additionally, ChatGPT can also automatically provide up-to-date information from the web when using Advanced Voice Mode, though that's only available to paid users.In earlier livestreams, OpenAI also announced the launch of its text-to-image model Sora and rolled out a $200 per month ChatGPT Pro subscription.

An AI-generated image I made in Whisk using Google's suggested images as prompts. | Image: Google via Whisk Google has announced a new AI tool called Whisk that lets you generate images using other images as prompts instead of requiring a long text prompt.With Whisk, you can offer images to suggest what you'd like as the subject, the scene, and the style of your AI-generated image, and you can prompt Whisk with multiple images for each of those three things. (If you want, you can fill in text prompts, too.) If you don't have images on hand, you can click a dice icon to have Google fill in some images for the prompts (though those images also appear to be AI-generated). You can also enter some text into a text box at the end of the process if you want to add extra detail about the image you're looking for, but it's not required.Whisk will then generate images and a text prompt for each image. You can favorite or download the image if you're happy with the results, or you can refine an image by entering more text into the text box or clicking the image and editing the text prompt. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge A screenshot of Whisk. I clicked the dice to generate a subject, scene, and style. I swapped out the auto-generated scene by entering a text prompt. Whisk created the first two images, which I iterated on by asking Whisk to add some steam around the subject (because it's a fire being in water), resulting in the next two images. In a blog post, Google stresses that Whisk is designed to be for rapid visual exploration, not pixel-perfect edits." The company also says that Whisk may miss the mark," which is why it lets you edit the underlying prompts.In the few minutes I've used the tool while writing this story, it's been entertaining to tinker with. Images take a few seconds to generate, which is annoying, and while the images have been a little strange, everything I've generated has been fun to iterate on.Google says Whisk uses the latest" iteration of its Imagen 3 image generation model, which it announced today. Google also introduced Veo 2, the next version of its video generation model, which the company says has an understanding of the unique language of cinematography" and hallucinates things like extra fingers less frequently" than other models (one of those other models is probably OpenAI's Sora). Veo 2 is coming first to Google's VideoFX, which you can get on the Google Labs waitlist for, and it will be expanded to YouTube Shorts other products" sometime next year.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The next time you comment on a YouTube video, you could hear its creator's voice respond to you. YouTube says it's testing out a feature with a small number" of creators that lets them record an audio reply to comments on their videos.YouTube says it hopes this experiment enables more meaningful relationships between creators and their audiences." YouTubers in the test group can use it by tapping the sound wave icon when replying to a comment, tapping record a voice reply," and then posting it as normal. However, anyone else can interact with these replies just like ordinary text comments.Here's one of the creators in YouTube's test group.For now, creators in the test group can only create voice replies in the iOS app, and only on their own videos. Where you can hear the replies seems to be limited, too; I didn't have the option to listen to the above voice reply from YouTuber ThioJoe in a web browser on my Mac, but I could play it in the YouTube app on my iPhone 15 Pro and Pixel 6 phones.

Sony's XM5 deliver impressive noise cancellation, sound, and comfort. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The holiday season is a time of celebration, but it can also be chaotic. With all the parties, travel, and family obligations, it's difficult to carve out time to recharge. That's why noise-canceling earbuds like Sony's WF-1000XM5 are so helpful, as they can help you enjoy some peace and quiet even in the busiest of environments. Thankfully, they're currently on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target for around $198 ($102 off), their best price to date.Sony's WF-1000XM5 are our favorite pair of wireless earbuds on the market. Along with drowning out background noise well, they offer exceptional, detailed sound and clear voice quality. They're also relatively small and lightweight, and come with four foam-style ear tips so you can comfortably wear them on long flights. Battery life is good, too, so you won't need to worry about them dying midway through a flight. They should last eight hours with noise cancellation turned on, and when you do need to charge, they do so extremely quickly.Additionally, Sony's flagship pair of earbuds offer a handful of other conveniences that make them a great investment. They include support for multipoint Bluetooth connectivity, for one thing, so you can pair them with multiple devices simultaneously. They also boast IPX4 water resistance, so they'll even be able to withstand some light rain.Read our Sony WF-1000XM5 review.Some more ways to save today

Sen. Chuck Schumer during a December 15th press conference. | Screenshot: NBC News Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has asked the Department of Homeland Security to provide New York and New Jersey authorities with an advanced drone detection system to help determine what the heck is going on" with continued sightings in the Northeast.We've seen lots of recent sightings in New York, New Jersey, Long Island, Staten Island." Schumer said during a December 15th press conference. With all these sightings over the last while, why do we have more questions than answers?"Over the weekend, parts of Stewart International Airport were temporarily shut down due to the drone sightings, prompting New York Governor Kathy Hochul to say, this has gone too far." Drone activity also shut down airspace over the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio for over four hours.President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday that he's canceling a trip to Bedminster, New Jersey due to drone sightings in the area. He said, the government knows what is happening" and they'd be better off saying what it is."During a press conference on Sunday, Schumer requested a 360-degree" detection system like the one built by Robin Radar Systems. The European company sells micro-doppler radars that it claims can distinguish between birds and drones moving up to 60 miles per hour in 3D space. Its website features case studies of its radars being used for security at airports, during the G7 Summit, and to study bird migration in the Netherlands.Schumer also urged Congress to pass the Safeguarding the Homeland from the Threats Posed by Unmanned Aircraft Systems Act," which could give local law enforcement and federal authorities the power to detect drones.

The Anbernic RG34XX is now available in four colors, including transparent red and green options. | Image: Anbernic Anbernic's latest handheld, which upgrades the design of Nintendo's Game Boy Advance with a larger screen, extra buttons, and the ability to play games through emulation, is now available. The RG34XX can be ordered through Anbernic's website for $69.99, but is discounted to $63.99 until December 18th. It comes in four colors, including the GBA's original purple and black, as well as transparent green and red options.Although it looks nearly identical to the original GBA's hardware, the RG34XX adds a pair of additional action buttons, two more shoulder buttons, microSD card slots, an HDMI port, and a larger 3.4-inch display with a 720x480 resolution and a 3:2 aspect ratio. The handheld also appears to carry over the GBA's volume dial, but it's actually a two-way toggle switch allowing the volume to be adjusted up and down in small increments.The RG34XX only became available for sale starting today, but Anbernic sent units to reviewers last week so we already have our first impressions of the new handheld. Russ Crandall, who runs the YouTube channel Retro Game Corps, found the emulator to be a nearly perfect" recreation of Nintendo's hardware. That can be either a good or bad thing, depending on how you remember the GBA's ergonomics.The RG34XX is powered by the Allwinner H700 chipset that Anbernic has already used in eight other devices. It won't be able to play all the games released for 3D consoles like the Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, and Sony PSP, but the handheld will handle 16-bit games with ease, and excels at emulating the Game Boy Advance given the matching screen ratio. Image: Keep Retro The secondary set of shoulder buttons on the RG34XX are smaller and positioned in a way that larger hands may struggle to comfortably reach. Retro Handhelds, a site that focuses on portable devices for playing classic games, also found the RG34XX to be an accurate recreation of the GBA, but found it a little cramped for larger hands to play. The RG34XX's primary shoulder buttons, located in the same position as the GBA's felt good. However, the secondary set, which are smaller and positioned closer to where the GBA's cartridge slot was located, were not very comfortable to use.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Workers at a Staten Island, New York Amazon warehouse voted on Friday to authorize a strike if the company doesn't agree to set dates for contract negotiations. The workers are asking Amazon to recognize the union and bargain for safer working conditions and better wages, threatening the possibility of a strike during one of Amazon's busiest times of the year.Teamsters general president Sean O'Brien says in a press release that Amazon must agree to bargaining dates by December 15th, which passed yesterday. If Amazon hasn't agreed, it risks facing a strike by the more than 5,500 workers at its Staten Island (JFK8) fulfillment center. Delivery drivers at a Queens (DBK4) last-mile delivery station also voted to authorize a strike.This is my third holiday I'm giving to Amazon," a worker named James said in a video published Friday by labor nonprofit More Perfect Union. I haven't been around for Thanksgiving or Christmas. It's constant speed-up for the holidays. It's like twice as dangerous, I would say."A newly published US Senate Committee report says that, based on an investigation of Amazon's records, the company's warehouse injury rates were more than 1.8 times that of other companies in each of the past seven years," according to The New York Times. Senator Bernie Sanders, who chairs the committee, said Amazon's executives repeatedly chose to put profits ahead of the health and safety of its workers by ignoring recommendations that would substantially reduce injuries."In a statement emailed to The Verge, Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards accused the Teamsters union of intentionally" misleading claims that it represents thousands of Amazon employees and drivers.

Photo by Jia Tianyong / China News Service / VCG via Getty Images The same day that General Motors announced that it would stop funding its beleaguered robotaxi company Cruise, one of China's leading autonomous vehicle operators made a different sort of announcement.Pony.ai said it would expand its robotaxi fleet from about 250 to at least 1,000 vehicles in 2025, thanks to a partnership with GAC Aion, a division of one of China's biggest automakers. With a larger fleet, the company says it plans on growing its service areas in the so-called first-tier cities of Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. Pony's current fleet averages 15 rides per vehicle per day, which translates to over 26,000 trips every week.China is winning the raceIt was another example of how access to cheap, plentiful electric vehicles as well as a lax regulatory environment and other state-fueled incentives are fueling China's aggressive approach to autonomous vehicles. Baidu, another major Chinese AV operator, recently detailed its own efforts to bring the cost per vehicle down to around $30,000. Baidu also has a joint venture with automaker Geely to make driverless cars.In the US, the tie-ups between automakers and driverless vehicle operators have faltered. In addition to GM's decision to back away from Cruise, Ford shut down its Argo AI robotaxi project that it had been funding with Volkswagen. Both Ford and GM say they plan to redirect their efforts toward advanced driver-assist technology for personally owned vehicles.The US is on high alert about China's growing dominance in the field of autonomous vehicles. Earlier this year, the Biden administration proposed new rules to block the sale or import" of connected vehicle software originating from China, arguing that vehicles with hardware and software from the country pose an acute" threat to US national security. This followed an earlier move by the administration to lock in new tariffs on Chinese imports, including a 100 percent duty on EVs and new hikes on batteries and key minerals. And President-elect Donald Trump, who has been stacking his cabinet with China hawks, has promised even harsher tariffs.These protectionist trade policies could also slow the development of driverless cars in the US. Waymo, the leading robotaxi company, has said it would use a Chinese EV as its next-generation vehicle. The Zeekr-made vehicle was supposed to be a lower-cost option for the company, which has racked up billions of dollars in expenses over the years.Robotaxis could flounder without access to cheaply made EVs. Indeed, the public markets haven't necessarily openly embraced Pony.ai and other Chinese firms, despite their aggressive expansion plans. The company's initial public offering on Nasdaq valued it at $5.25 billion, or about 40 percent less than the $8.5 billion it was worth two years ago, according to the Financial Times.No AV operator in the world is currently profitable. The fleets are still too small, the companies are mostly cautious about growing too quickly, and the technology is still more expensive than the meager revenues being brought in.Pony.ai and others are hoping that China's government will soon allow their vehicles to expand into suburban areas. Meanwhile, Trump's transition team is weighing whether to create a federal framework for self-driving cars, which could enable a wider deployment of vehicles without traditional controls, like steering wheels and pedals.No AV operator in the world is currently profitableBut the threat of China outpacing the US in robotaxi development hasn't spurred Congress to break the logjam that has stalled AV legislation in Congress for over six years. Disagreements range from increasing the number of AVs on the road to prohibiting states from setting their own performance standards for AVs to liability concerns.Cities may also object to companies trying to push out more driverless vehicles. Officials in San Francisco, for example, have raised a host of complaints, including blocked buses and emergency vehicles, and local residents have logged protests over new rules allowing robotaxis to roam more freely.Those concerns are likely to remain a sticking point. Meanwhile, China has already surpassed the US in robotaxi deployment. The question is how much further ahead they can get.

Image: The Verge; Photo: Hollie Adams / Bloomberg via Getty Images The head of the ubiquitous chip design firm on the breathtaking' pace of AI. Read the full story at The Verge.

Eufy's new Indoor Cam E30 can sit on a table or be mounted to walls and ceilings, but you'll need to run a power cable. | Image: Eufy Eufy has announced a new security camera, the Indoor Cam E30. The camera updates an older model released in 2020 with 4K video recording capabilities and an added spotlight that adds color capture to its typical night vision options. It's available now for $69.99.The Indoor Cam E30 can rotate 360 degrees horizontally and pan 75 degrees vertically, allowing it to monitor an entire room. It uses on-device AI to detect the presence of humans and pets and can also recognize and alert you to audio cues such as an infant crying. The camera can automatically track subjects in motion to keep them in frame. Its position can also be manually controlled, but only available through the Eufy mobile app, not Apple Home.The device is compatible with HomeKit - including Apple's HomeKit Secure Video - allowing you to save recordings to iCloud. But that requires an iCloud Plus subscription and it limits the streaming resolution to 1080P. If you'd prefer to go subscription free, the Indoor Cam E30 includes a microSD card slot for storing local footage, which can be streamed to the Eufy mobile app at 4K. If you need additional storage, the camera can also be connected to Eufy's $149.99 HomeBase S380, which can be expanded to up to 16TB. (Eufy has promised it's fixed the privacy issues we caught in 2022.)Two-way audio allows you to communicate through the camera remotely, which is ideal for telling the dog or cat to get off the couch while you're at work. (Editor's note: has a cat ever listened?) And while the added spotlight allows the Indoor Cam E30 to capture nighttime footage in color, it reduces how far the camera see in the dark to 16.4-feet. Using its infrared lights limits the camera to only seeing in black and white, but it boosts its visual range to a little over 32-feet.

Image: Apple The end of the end of the world is now in sight. Apple just announced that its post-apocalyptic series Silo, which is in the midst of its second season, has been renewed for two more seasons. That means that season 4 will be the show's last.Silo first debuted in 2023, and it tells the story of the remnants of humanity, who live in an underground silo where they're largely safe from the ruined landscape outside. However, things get much more complex very quickly, and the show is laden with mysteries. The series is based on a trilogy of sci-fi novels from Hugh Howey, and Apple says that the final two seasons will tell the complete story" of the books. (So far, the first book has been split across the first two seasons of the show.)With the final two chapters of Silo, we can't wait to give fans of the show an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the many mysteries and unanswered questions contained within the walls of these silos," showrunner Graham Yost said in a statement. Rebecca Ferguson, who stars in the show and serves as an executive producer, added that I have always felt passionately about telling the entire story contained within Hugh Howey's books, so I couldn't be happier that audiences around the world have enthusiastically embraced the show."The second season of Silo wraps up on January 17th. That's the same day that another sci-fi series returns to Apple TV Plus, with season 2 of the workplace thriller Severance.

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Snapchat is tweaking how people earn money on the platform by introducing a new, unified monetization program. The new program will cover content posted to Stories as well as Spotlight, the platform's TikTok-like discovery feed filled with recommended video content. Under the program, influencers earn revenue for ads placed within eligible Stories and Spotlight posts.Previously, monetization of these formats was splintered off from one another: Stories earnings were in one bucket, and Spotlight earnings were handled through a different program.The new program is currently in testing with a small group of users, and will roll out widely on February 1st, 2025. To participate, users need to hit a set of benchmarks to be invited: 50,000 followers and either 10 million Snap views, 1 million Spotlight views, or 12,000 hours of watch time in the last 28 days.They also need to post consistently, with at least 25 times per month to saved Stories or Spotlight and posting to Spotlight or public Stories on at least 10 of the last 28 days. Some of those eligibility requirements are significantly higher than they were under the old structure. To be eligible to earn money through Spotlight, for example, creators previously needed things like a public profile, 1,000 followers, and 10,000 video views.Other video platforms have also streamlined or changed the original creator funds. TikTok, for example, now has one creator program that requires videos longer than 1-minute. On YouTube, Shorts creators earn money via ad revenue - a move by the company to meaningfully compete with TikTok.