The Verge - All Posts

Now is a good time to consider ditching your older, slower chargers. | Image: Satechi If you're still charging your phone with whatever random wall wart came in the box three phones ago or your laptop with the bulky brick it came with, now is a great time to upgrade. Advances like GaN chargers have led to smaller, faster USB-C chargers for phones and laptops alike, and Qi2 gives iPhones (and maybe soon some Android phones?) MagSafe-speed charging at lower prices. And with Prime Day deals available now, you can save quite a bit and charge in less time, too.There is a sizable selection of charging devices on sale, whether you're looking to outfit a home office or your coffee office. Nearly all of the brands we trust have something on offer, including Anker, Belkin, Ugreen, and Satechi.Prime Day ends after today, July... Continue reading...

Image: Joseph Joseph Amazon Prime Day 2024 is underway! For more deals we recommend across all categories, check out our full roundup.Every month or so, we like to ask our staff about their favorite stuff - whether it's board games, smart tech, or kitchen gadgets. And the results are usually very different, very interesting, and a lot of fun.Since Amazon is currently pushing a lot of deals through its current Prime Day sales, we looked through some of our recent favorites" articles and found deals on a lot of the devices we like. So, we thought we'd list a few in case you have read about them in the past and thought, well, that sort of sounds good, but it's a bit pricey. (Or - that's pretty cheap, but maybe I'll wait until the price goes down some... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge While I edit and write how-to" articles, I also sometimes find myself in need of how-to directions myself. But when I do a search for guidance on, say, a difficult crochet stitch, it often helps to have a blow-by-blow text explanation that I can have handy without having to sit and watch a video over and over again.For that, there's YouTube's automatically generated transcript. A transcript is not only useful when you want to view a text scroll of what's being said while you're watching the video, but it is also handy as a reference point afterward. For example, if you don't have the time or patience to sit through an entire video, then you can simply glance through the transcript to get the gist of the subject and save it for future... Continue reading...

Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for WIRED Fei-Fei Li, the renowned computer scientist known as the godmother of AI," has created a startup dubbed World Labs. In just four months, its already valued at more than $1 billion, the Financial Times reported.World Labs hopes to use human-like processing of visual data to make AI capable of advanced reasoning, Reuters reported in May. The research to make it human-like, much like what ChatGPT is trying to do with generative AI, is still ongoing.Li is best known for her contributions to computer vision, a branch of AI dedicated to helping machines interpret and comprehend visual information. She also spearheaded the development of ImageNet, an extensive visual database used for visual object recognition research. Li headed AI at... Continue reading...

Premium Spotify subscribers can switch between DJ's English and Spanish voice options. | Image: Spotify Spotify is launching a Spanish-language version of its AI DJ" feature. The new Spanish-language voice has been provided by Spotify's senior music editor, Olivia Livi" Quiroz Roa, with users able to switch between hearing Livi or Xavier X" Jernigan, another Spotify staffer who voices the English-speaking DJ variant released in February 2023.The feature uses an AI-generated voice to create radio-like commentary that provides users with additional context and information about the song they're hearing, which Spotify says makes listeners less likely to skip to another track. This commentary is paired with an endless playlist of personalized music recommendations that change based on user activity, such as if users switch to different... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Samsung's new Galaxy Buds 3 Pro underwent a major redesign, making them look much more like AirPods and any number of other stemmed earbuds. So far, my impressions have been quite positive - full review coming soon - but even before the earbuds are widely released on July 24th, early buyers have been running into a frustrating issue.Apparently, the ear tips are quite fragile and can be prone to breaking if you're not careful. Reddit is already starting to light up with examples:

The wrecked bow of the Titanic. | Image: NOAA / Institute for Exploration / University of Rhode Island A pair of remote-operated submersibles (ROV) is heading down to the wreckage of the Titanic this week to conduct digital 3D scans and take high-resolution images of the ship's remains. Orchestrated by RMS Titanic, Inc., the expedition is the company's first to visit the ship since 2010.RMS Titanic's seven-person crew arrived at the Titanic's coordinates last night, according to the company's most recent Instagram update.

Photo by Jia Tianyong / China News Service / VCG via Getty Images The US Commerce Department is expected to issue new rules in August placing limits on vehicle software that comes from China, according to Reuters.The new rules come as the Biden administration ramps up its scrutiny of Chinese auto imports in an effort to prevent the country from flooding the market with cheap electric vehicles.While speaking at a forum in Colorado, Alan Estevez, who serves as under secretary of commerce for industry and security, said that the department would propose rules that would require certain vehicle software be made in the US or by its trade partners. The rules would pertain to key driver components of the vehicle that manage the software and manage the data around that car," Estevez said, according to R... Continue reading...

Canon EOS R5 Mark II | Image: Canon Canon's new EOS R5 Mark II and EOS R1 cameras both have better autofocus performance than their predecessors, with computations powered by a new Digic X processor. That includes a Digic Accelerator that is behind a new Dual Pixel Intelligent AF autofocus system capable of body, joint, and head area estimation, as well as focusing on people other than the subject.Both cameras share much-needed upgrades, like backside illuminated sensors with faster readouts and Canon's unique eye-controlled autofocus, which was only available in the R3. Also, one of the most requested features for filmmakers, support for Canon Log 2 color profile, is now included. Image: Canon R5 Mark II The R5 Mark II is Canon's sweet spot... Continue reading...

Image: Meatly The UK is now the first European country to green-light the sale of lab-grown meat, but with pets instead of human consumers as its first guinea pigs.The UK's Animal and Plant Health Agency and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs granted London-based startup Meatly regulatory approval to produce lab-grown pet food, which described the clearance as a huge leap forward for the cultivated meat industry."Pet parents are crying out for a better way to feed their cats and dogs meat," Meatly CEO Owen Ensor said in a statement, pitching that the company's cultivated pet food would allow them to do so in a way that is kinder to our planet and other animals."Meatly says it plans to launch commercial samples of its first... Continue reading...

Image: Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz and Starbucks are teaming up to install fast electric vehicle chargers at 100 coffee-slinging locations on Interstate 5, which runs along the West Coast from Canada to Mexico.The new stations will be part of the German automaker's $1 billion plan to build 2,000 new EV charging hubs across the globe. Its first station, complete with a swanky waiting area and 400kW charging speeds courtesy of ChargePoint, opened in Atlanta last year.Now it looks like Mercedes is ready to embark on the next phase of its installations, with a primary focus on Starbucks locations along I-5. The two companies said in the announcement that they share an ambition to identify additional opportunities in key markets, including core urban areas,... Continue reading...

Steel in a scrapyard to be recycled into new steel. | Photo by Roger Ball/Worldsteel via Getty Images The Biden administration announced $160 million in grants to projects meant to measure the climate impact of new-fangled construction materials. The grants cover a spectrum of potential alternatives from hemp-based products to bamboo, recycled steel, and more.Scientists and startups have proposed all sorts of new ways to cut down carbon dioxide emissions from building materials that have become a big climate problem. But it's hard to suss out how effective proposed solutions are without metrics in place to compare products. There's also potential for greenwashing, when companies make sustainability claims that they can't back up with evidence.The grants cover a spectrum of potential alternatives from hemp-based products to bamboo,... Continue reading...

AI definitely nailed the right surly energy for this orange cat. The pirate ship in Elliott Bay was one thing, but it was a little blurry bee that sent me over the edge.Samsung would very much like us (and its shareholders) to know that its new phones are the AI-est phones that ever AI-ed, and the Fold 6 that I'm testing comes with a new tool called sketch to image." Draw a rough sketch on a photo or an empty note page, and it will use generative AI to turn that thing into an image. I shrugged it off as just another AI thing when Samsung announced it onstage at Unpacked - but y'all, it's really good. So good that it worries me a little.Using the sketch to image tool in a note is pretty harmless: you draw something, highlight it, and choose from a handful of styles like 3D cartoon" and... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by STR / NurPhoto, Getty Images Elon Musk says he plans to move X and SpaceX's headquarters from California to Texas. Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas," Musk wrote in a tweet, referencing California's SAFETY Act (AB1955).Signed on Monday by California Governor Gavin Newsom, it prevents schools from imposing rules requiring teachers to disclose changes to a student's gender identity without their permission and prohibits retaliation against teachers who refuse to out a student, reports the Los Angeles Times.Another post from Musk a few minutes later said that X, which is currently headquartered in San Francisco, will move to... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix has discontinued its streaming app for Quest headsets, Upload VR reports. The good news for Quest owners is that Meta recently added support for Netflix in the Quest browser, complete with 1080p streaming.Netflix hadn't significantly updated its VR app since porting it to the Quest in 2019. It never gained passthrough or download support, and its resolution stayed pinned at 480p. None of that mattered when the app came out for Samsung Gear VR in 2015, but things have changed a lot in the nine years since then.I'd imagine some people will miss the cozy Netflix cabin in this YouTube Short, though.Streaming in the browser fixes two of those things - passthrough and higher-resolution streaming - but users still can't download... Continue reading...

Katie Couric (L) and Ozy CEO and Co-Founder Carlos Watson speak onstage during Ozy Fest 2017 | Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Ozy Fusion Fest 2017 Carlos Watson and the now-shuttered Ozy Media startup he cofounded were found guilty of fraud by a federal jury on Tuesday, as reported earlier by The New York Times. Over the course of a several-weeks-long trial, the jury heard the government's claims that Ozy Media misled investors by falsifying financial records, inflating audience numbers, and even making up business deals.Watson, the former CEO of Ozy Media, cofounded the company alongside Samir Rao in 2013. The company launched an online magazine, newsletter, and an annual conference in New York City, all while striking high-profile partnerships and receiving millions in investments.But things came to a halt when a 2021 article from New York Times media columnist Ben Smith... Continue reading...

On the Utopia of the Seas you can experience train dining without the bumps and spilled drinks. | Image: Royal Caribbean The new 5,668-passenger Royal Caribbean Utopia of the Seas is docked in Florida, where sites like Cruise Critic have gotten a preview of the amenities before it enters service on July 19th. That includes a unique experience called Royal Railway Utopia Station, where passengers dine on a virtual train ride while staring at simulated scenery zipping by on giant screens.The restaurant is built to look like two full-size rail cars with a lavish interior featuring four-person booths lining the sides, each with its own giant display serving as a virtual window. What diners see out those virtual windows will rotate throughout the year. The first experience is Western-themed, with views of mountains, canyons, and gold rush towns.Murder on the... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge HeHealth's AI-powered Calmara app claimed, Our innovative AI technology offers rapid, confidential, and scientifically validated sexual health screening, giving you peace of mind before diving into intimate encounters," but now it's shut down after an inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).The app prompted daters to submit dick pics to check for sexually transmitted diseases, promising clear, science-backed answers about your partner's sexual health status," according to an FTC letter dated July 11th. The letter lays out some of the agency's concerns with the information HeHealth relied on for claims, including one saying that it could detect more than ten sexually transmitted infections with up to 94 percent accuracy. ... Continue reading...

Image: Universal Though Universal's Twisters is set to drop as the US deals with a massive heatwave, wildfires, and the aftermath of multiple deadly storms, the movie goes out of its way to avoid mentioning climate change because its director didn't want to make audiences uncomfortable.It would have made sense if Twisters - a film about storm chasers studying a spate of unusually powerful and destructive tornadoes - worked climate change into its story. But in a recent interview with CNN, director Lee Isaac Chung said that, even though he thinks cinema should be a reflection of the world," he avoided mentioning climate change in Twisters because he doesn't feel like films are meant to be message-oriented."Chung pointed to the way that some of T... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images The former tech investor likes the FTC's Lina Khan and wants to break up Google, citing its liberal bias. Continue reading...

An iPad version of the iPhone's StandBy mode would be a start for Apple's smart display efforts. But I'd rather see a dedicated Apple Home iPad. | Image: David Pierce / The Verge Apple's smart home efforts need a smart display. If I have to hear Siri say, I found some web results; I can show them if you ask again from your iPhone," one more time, I may throw a HomePod out the window.While smart displays - the more expensive sibling to smart speakers - haven't lived up to their potential, they can be useful and are a missing piece in Apple's smart home, which the company has largely avoided creating products for - so far, just a couple of smart speakers and a bit of help from the Apple TV.An Apple smart display with a touch-screen display, a dedicated Apple Home control panel, a smarter Siri, and the chops to be an Apple Home hub supporting Thread and Matter is something I'd put in my smart home.It appears... Continue reading...

An aerial view of the flooded neighborhood of Juana Matos in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Catano, Puerto Rico, on Friday, September 22nd, 2017. | Photo: Getty Images Puerto Rico filed suit against fossil fuel companies this week, alleging that the oil and gas giants have misled the public about climate change and delayed a transition to clean energy. The suit seeks $1 billion in damages to help Puerto Rico defend itself against climate disasters.In a complaint filed in San Juan yesterday, Puerto Rico's Department of Justice says that the companies violated trade law by promoting fossil fuels without adequately warning about the dangers. The defendants include ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and other energy companies.It's the latest in a slew of lawsuits attempting to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the consequences of climate change. Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil... Continue reading...

The Pixel 8 (left) and Pixel 8 Pro (right). | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge The Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL could help you capture clearer selfies thanks to a major upgrade to the front-facing camera. Leaked marketing materials shared with Android Authority depict the 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL with 50-megapixel autofocusing selfie cameras.The selfie cam and the rear-facing ultrawide and telephoto cameras are all rumored to use 50MP Sony IMX858 image sensors, while the primary rear camera may feature a 50MP sensor from Samsung. You can get an early look at what appears to be the Pixel 9 Pro's camera in action in this video posted to TikTok, which shows an up to 30x Super Res Zoom - just like the Pixel 7 and Pixel 8. The device used in this video appears to be the same leaked hardware the account showed off last week.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge More than 170,000 YouTube videos are part of a massive dataset that was used to train AI systems for some of the biggest technology companies, according to an investigation by Proof News and copublished with Wired. Apple, Anthropic, Nvidia, and Salesforce are among the tech firms that used the YouTube Subtitles" data that was ripped from the video platform without permission. The training dataset is a collection of subtitles taken from YouTube videos belonging to more than 48,000 channels - it does not include imagery from the videos.Videos from popular creators like MrBeast and Marques Brownlee appear in the dataset, as do clips from news outlets like ABC News, the BBC, and The New York Times. More than 100 videos from The Verge a... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge / Fourthwall Celebrate this special day of internet sales with the latest apparel from your friends at The Verge. Continue reading...

The OnePlus Pad 2's optional Stylo 2 stylus vibrates to simulate the feeling of pen on paper. | Image: OnePlus With a larger 12.1-inch screen now powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile platform, the new OnePlus Pad 2 brings several performance upgrades to the company's original tablet. But the most interesting is an optional new stylus accessory that simulates the pen on paper experience using vibrations.The new Stylo 2 stylus is now made with a leather-like material, offering improved grip, a jump from 4,096 to 16,000 levels of pressure sensitivity, swipe controls, and a linear motor inside that makes the tip vibrate to give you that feeling of a pen writing on paper.There are other improvements as well. The OnePlus Pad 2's larger screen, up from 11.6 inches on the original, also gets a resolution bump from 2800 x 2000 pixels to 3000 x 2120... Continue reading...

The Bird Buddy smart bird feeder is getting an AI-powered update allowing users to name specific birds who frequently visit. | Image: Bird Buddy The Bird Buddy smart bird feeder is getting a collection of new features as part of a recently announced Nature Intelligence update. The feeder's ability to identify the species of a visiting bird is being expanded, and users will now get notifications when individual birds stop by.The company describes the Bird Buddy's new Name That Bird feature as being a noninvasive form of bird tagging - a practice that usually keeps tabs on the movements of birds using trackers or tags physically attached to their legs. The Bird Buddy instead relies on images captured by the smart feeder's camera and AI image recognition that can spot the differences between individual birds.The detail made available by the 5MP high-resolution Bird Buddy sensor... Continue reading...

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge The photos aren't blurry! As a longtime iPhone user married to a longtime Android user, I've spent years sending and receiving photos that come through both postage-stamp small and about as sharp as a pointillist painting. But a few minutes after I installed the iOS 18 beta on my iPhone 15 Pro, I asked Anna to send me a photo, and what came through was the blissfully high-res photo I'd hoped for. That, right there, is what I call an upgrade.RCS support is just one of the new things coming in iOS 18, of course. At WWDC a few weeks ago, Apple talked a lot about homescreen customization, improvements to Siri, a revamped Photos app, and more. The company seems to have added support for RCS, a more modern and powerful messaging protocol that... Continue reading...

Image: Porsche Porsche announced two new rear-wheel drive versions of the forthcoming Macan electric SUV, including a higher-powered, lighter-weight 4S model. Porsche said deliveries are expected to begin later this year.When it was announced earlier this year, Porsche said the Macan EV would come in two trims: the Macan 4 and the Macan Turbo, both of which sport dual motors for all-wheel drive. Now, the company is adding two more versions in the hopes of widening its appeal. Image: Porsche The RWD Macan will only have one motor located in the rear axle. It's the same motor as the one used in the Macan 4, with an output of 250kW, or 335 horsepower. Porsche says it will use a 480-amp pulse inverter with silicon carbide... Continue reading...

The hackers say they accessed Disney's internal systems via an employee's compromised computer. | Image: The Verge Over a terabyte of data supposedly obtained from Disney's internal messaging channels has been leaked online by a self-proclaimed hacktivist group," including login credentials, code, images, and information about unreleased projects.The anonymous group calling itself Nullbulge has claimed responsibility for the leak, alleging to have gained access to the company's Slack messaging data via the compromised computer of a Disney employee. Anything we could get our hands on, we downloaded and packaged up," the group said on X, claiming to have obtained 1.1TiB of files and chat messages" from almost 10,000 corporate Disney Slack channels. Disney has since confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that it's investigating this matter."N... Continue reading...

Image: Elgato Amazon Prime Day is just beginning, and Elgato is already dropping a sweet deal. Prime subscribers can get the limited-edition atomic purple version of Elgato's Stream Deck MK. 2 for $124.99 ($35 off) at Amazon.Normally, the standard Stream Deck MK. 2 comes in black or white and sells for $149.99 (or discounted as low as $109.99 during its biggest sales promos), so there is a bit of a premium on the limited-edition model and its aesthetics. But this is the first (and possibly only) time the atomic purple model has been discounted. Elgato only sells this variant on Amazon, and it claims the individually numbered run will no longer be available once it sells out. So you may want to consider jumping on this if you love the recent r... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Powerful record labels, including UMG Recordings, Warner Music, and Sony Music, filed a lawsuit Friday accusing Verizon of intentionally ignoring its customers' copyright violations for profit, reports Music Business Worldwide.The plaintiffs say they are entitled to as much as $150,000 per violation under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which could add up to as much as $2.6 billion.The lawsuit includes a list of 17,335 tracks from artists or bands, including Elvis Presley, Matchbox Twenty, Goo Goo Dolls, and Brandy. (Here's the list if you'd like to dive further in - it starts with Sam Cooke and ends with Wiz Khalifa.) The labels say they've sent nearly 350,000 infringement notices" to Verizon since 2020, alleging that... Continue reading...

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge The FBI said it gained access' to the Trump rally shooter's phone just two days after the attempted assassination. Continue reading...