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The Modular Ultra face now allows you to have bezels for your training load and vitals. One thing always irked me about the Apple Watch. Rain or shine, in sickness and in health, it pushed me to close my rings. Never mind if I had covid-19, shin splints, or was mentally in a dark place. It nudged me to be a better" version of myself, so long as better didn't involve a day off. But with watchOS 11 - the public beta of which arrives today - it feels like my Apple Watch is finally cutting me some slack.This is largely due to a trio of new features: the new Vitals app, Training Load feature, and the ability to pause your Activity Rings. I waxed lyrical about the latter right after WWDC, but after spending some time with the developer beta, I'm convinced these are the smartest fitness updates Apple's rolled out in years.T... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Apple lets the public in on beta testing, but Apple Intelligence is likely still months away. Continue reading...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge You can now download the public betas for iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and watchOS 11. Apple's updated operating systems will eventually include Apple Intelligence AI features and a better Siri - if you have the right device, that is. For now, the betas will bring less exciting but still useful features to the various Apple devices.The public iOS 18 beta will bring with it key updates to the way the iPhone software works, including support for RCS messaging and new customization options that let users put apps wherever they want to on the homescreen (finally) or apply a tint to the icons and widgets. It also comes with a new layout for the Photos app, a redesigned, more customizable Control Center, and dark mode icons. Similar... Continue reading...

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge The FBI has successfully broken into the phone of the man who shot at former President Donald Trump at Saturday's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.FBI technical specialists successfully gained access to Thomas Matthew Crooks' phone, and they continue to analyze his electronic devices," the agency said in a statement on Monday.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube Music is testing a new feature that lets you use AI to generate a playlist. In a statement to The Verge, YouTube spokesperson Jessica Gibby said that Premium users in the US will be able to create a custom playlist by describing exactly what they want to hear."As shown in screenshots obtained by 9to5Google, the feature could surface a chat UI that you can use to enter a description or choose from prompts like catchy pop choruses" or upbeat pop anthems." It will then generate a playlist based on your description. Spotify has a similar feature that lets Premium users generate playlists using AI. GIF: YouTube Here's how YouTube's new sound search" will work. Gibby says YouTube Music is also rolling... Continue reading...

The purported Pixel 9 Pro XL (left) and the Pixel 9 (right). | Image: pixo_unpacking via TikTok We might not have to wait until August to get a full-on look at the Google Pixel 9 lineup. A new set of videos posted to the TikTok account pixo_unpacking shows what appears to be the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro XL, as spotted earlier by GSMArena.The videos track with the leaks we've seen so far, with the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro XL swapping out the Pixel 8's camera visor for an oval-shaped housing that protrudes from the back of the device. As shown in the video embedded below, the Pixel 9 Pro XL looks much larger than the base Pixel 9 and nearly as large as the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. The Pixel 9 Pro XL also seems to come with a three-camera setup when compared to the Pixel 9's two cameras.

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images After the assassination attempt on the former president, tech platforms scrambled to curb false information in what will be one of the largest content moderation problems in years. Continue reading...

Image: The Verge The person who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump during a rally on Saturday had a Discord account - though it was rarely used - according to the company.Discord removed the account according to our off-platform behavior policy and we are assisting law enforcement in their investigation," Clint Smith, chief legal officer of Discord, said in an emailed statement. The suspect's account was rarely utilized, has not been used in months, and we have found no evidence that it was used to plan this incident, promote violence, or discuss his political views, but with the investigation ongoing, we are not able to share any additional information at this time." Discord didn't respond to The Verge's questions about how it... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Investigators are working to break into the phone of the man who shot at former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday. The shooting is being probed as an assassination attempt.The FBI said in a statement that it had obtained the shooter's phone for examination." Officials told reporters in a conference call on Sunday, as reported by The New York Times, that agents in Pennsylvania were unable to break into the phone. It's been shipped to the FBI's lab in Quantico, Virginia, where the FBI hopes to get past the phone's password protection, the Times reported.Investigators are still looking for insight into the motives of Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, who they identified as the... Continue reading...

The HP OmniBook Ultra features an AMD Ryzen AI 300-series processor and integrated AMD Radeon 800M graphics. | Image: HP HP's resurrected OmniBook line will soon be getting a performance boost with the new HP OmniBook Ultra, featuring an AMD Ryzen AI 300-series processor with integrated AMD Radeon 800M graphics, up to 32GB of RAM, and a pair of 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports. Available starting in August for $1,449.99, the new HP OmniBook Ultra will eventually receive a free software update to make it one of the first Copilot Plus PCs not powered by an ARM-based processor.The OmniBook branding was originally revived back in May with the HP OmniBook X AI laptop, which, as with most of the Copilot Plus PCs announced at that time, is powered by an ARM-based Snapdragon X Elite processor. Its neural processing unit was rated at 45 trillion operations per... Continue reading...

Photo illustration by The Verge / Photo by OSTP Arati Prabhakar, a former DARPA chief and now director of the White House's OSTP, says the time to regulate AI is now. Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google is considering spending $23 billion to buy Wiz, a cloud cybersecurity startup with partners that include Amazon and Oracle, reports The Wall Street Journal. At close to twice what it spent for Motorola Mobility in 2012, it would be the most Google has ever paid for another company.The New York City-based Wiz offers siloed security tools and scanners" for the enterprise space, according to the company. Wiz writes that it secures corporate cloud infrastructure by creating a normalizing layer between cloud environments," letting businesses rapidly identify and remove critical risks." Buying such a company feels particularly targeted at an increasingly vulnerable-looking Microsoft that's recently weathered multiple high-profile... Continue reading...

Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge AT&T paid a hacker about $370,000 to delete customer data that was stolen from it as part of a hacking spree earlier this year. The hacker then provided a video to prove they had deleted the data, according to a Wired report today.AT&T reportedly negotiated through an intermediary, called Reddington, acting on behalf of a member of the ShinyHunters hacking group. The hacker originally asked for $1 million before AT&T talked them down to the amount, which it paid on May 17th in bitcoin, Wired writes.The outlet reports that Reddington, whom AT&T paid for his part in negotiations, said he believes the only complete copy of the data had been deleted after AT&T paid the ransom, but that it's possible excerpts are still in the wild.... Continue reading...

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Alderon Games, the maker of dinosaur MMO Path of Titans, says it's swapping out its Intel 13th and 14th Gen-based servers for AMD and urges others hosting the game's servers to do the same. The developer has had significant" instability issues that none of the fixes so far have reversed, wrote Alderon founder Matthew Cassells in a blog post last week.Cassells wrote that Alderon has recorded thousands of crashes" on gamers' CPUs using its crash reporting tools and says the processors can also corrupt SSDs and memory. He added that in his team's experience, 100 percent of the affected CPUs deteriorate over time, eventually failing." On the contrary, Unreal Engine decompression tool maker RAD Game Tools, which Cassells cites in the... Continue reading...

Image: David Pierce / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 45, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, sorry I love productivity apps so much, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)I'm back from a few days off, feeling rested and sunburned and ready to rumble. Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes! This week, I've been reading Made for Love and stories about AI gamers and AI musicians and Ferrari EVs, watching Turning Point, replacing my weather app with Lazy Weather, raging at Ira Glass for listening to podcasts at 2x speed, and spilling all my feelings to the Dot AI bot.I also have for you a new phone, a new smart ring, a new / old podcast reunion, a sci-fi show... Continue reading...

Images of UTM SE from its App Store listing. | Screenshots: UTM SE Apple has approved UTM SE, an app for emulating a computer to run classic software and games, weeks after the company rejected it and barred it from being notarized for third-party app stores in the European Union. The app is now available for free for iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS.After Apple rejected the app in June, the developer said it wasn't going to keep trying because the app was a subpar experience." Today, UTM thanked the AltStore team for helping it and credited another developer whose QEMU TCTI implementation was pivotal for this JIT-less build." Screenshot: UTM SE UTM SE doesn't include any virtual machines, but does help you find them. As with other emulators on the App Store, you can't do much... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Conspiracy theories about the shooting at a rally for Donald Trump began surfacing on X shortly after the news broke this afternoon, with the platform promoting topics including #falseflag" and staged" to users. X owner Elon Musk has staunchly advocated for free speech" on social media platforms - which can include misinformation like the above.After the shooting, Musk posted that he would fully endorse" the former president. Bloomberg reported yesterday that Musk donated to a super PAC supporting Trump, giving a sizable amount" to reelection efforts. Musk has taken on increasingly conservative views in recent years, promoting the great replacement" conspiracy theory and endorsing support for white pride. His support adds to a... Continue reading...

The Kobo Elipsa 2E lets you actually take notes directly on pages, which is one of the reasons I recommend it over the Kindle Scribe. | Image: Kobo We're already seeing great deals land on Amazon devices like the Kindle Scribe ahead of Prime Day next week, which makes sense as it's an Amazon event. It's possible we'll see even more Kindle deals arrive soon, but it's less certain what kind of discounts - if any - we'll see on e-readers from rivals like Kobo. Thankfully, if you don't want an Amazon e-reader, Rakuten Kobo has launched a new sale, dropping its top-notch Kobo Elipsa 2E down to an all-time low of $349.99 ($50 off) when you purchase it direct from Rakuten Kobo. You can also pick it up for the same price at Amazon or Target via a third-party seller.I spent a lot of time testing both the Kindle Scribe and the Kobo Elipsa 2E, and ultimately Kobo's is my favorite... Continue reading...

Image: HBO In Julio Torres' series Fantasmas, survival in the future is an intricate, corporate-owned game of feeding your identity to the machine. Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Valve is a famously secretive company with an enormous influence on the gaming industry, particularly because it runs the massive PC gaming storefront Steam. But despite that influence, Valve isn't a large organization on par with EA or Riot Games' thousands of employees: according to leaked data we've seen, as of 2021, Valve employed just 336 staffers.The data was included as part of an otherwise heavily redacted document from Wolfire's antitrust lawsuit against Valve. As spotted by SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik, some data in the document was viewable despite the black redaction boxes, including Valve's headcount and gross pay across various parts of the company over 18 years, and even some data about its gross margins that we weren't... Continue reading...

Image: First Film Corp. Director Gary Hustwit tells us about his living documentary and the technology that changes it for every screening. Continue reading...

Fully equipped direct-to-consumer e-bikes still require compromises at this price range. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump. | Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Former President Donald Trump will no longer be subject to extra severe penalties for content rule violations on his Facebook and Instagram accounts, Meta said on Friday.Previously, Trump's account could be fully suspended for even a relatively small infraction that wouldn't lead to the same penalty for any other account. Now, with the Republican National Convention taking place next week, he'll be treated more like everyone else.In assessing our responsibility to allow political expression, we believe that the American people should be able to hear from the nominees for President on the same basis," Meta's president of of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said in a company blog post. He added that the previous restrictions to Trump's... Continue reading...

And on the other side of the iPhone, there's a Notes app. | Image: Moft Moft is launching a new MagSafe accessory that adds a literal notepad and pen to the back of your iPhone. The company's new Snap Flow" looks like a slim magnetic origami kickstand (like the one Moft is known for) but opens up like a book to reveal a paper pad and a really nifty ballpoint pen that magically folds into a prism shape.It's hard to believe there's a product in 2024 that lets you take handwritten notes while using a revolutionary pocket computing device as a clipboard. Sometimes, the phone and other apps are the hurdles to writing down a story idea in my Notes app before it's gone forever, so it could be nice to jot down thoughts the old-fashioned way.The Snap Flow has refillable notepad paper, a clip so you can use a... Continue reading...

Image: SpaceX SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket experienced an engine failure after it launched late Thursday night from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The mission, Starlink Group 9-3, was carrying Starlink satellites and failed to reignite its upper second stage after developing a leak. Upper stage restart to raise perigee resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown," Elon Musk said overnight, confirming that the engine experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly."SpaceX:

Newport News Shipbuilding, a defense contractor whose shipyard is alleged to have been photographed by drone. | Getty Images A foreign graduate student has pleaded guilty to crimes under the Espionage Act for photographing classified US Navy ships with a drone. The case appears to be a first-of-its kind prosecution by the Department of Justice.Fengyun Shi, a Chinese citizen and graduate student at the University of Minnesota, was arrested in January after a drone he was flying got stuck in a tree in Newport News, Virginia. A suspicious resident called the police and Shi was questioned before abandoning the drone and fleeing. After the FBI seized the drone and pulled the images off it, investigators discovered that Shi had photographed Navy vessels at multiple shipyards in Virginia. One of those shipyards, in Newport News, was actively manufacturing... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images A few days ago, I misplaced my wallet. I remember having it on Sunday, the night of my friend's birthday dinner, because I was the one to put my card down. Maybe I had it on Monday. I didn't spend any money then aside from a Lyft ride home, which famously doesn't require you to swipe a card, so there's no way to know for sure. And even when I did spend money - a case of La Croix at the bodega, an iced latte as a reward for going to the laundromat - my wallet never factored into the equation. I use Apple Pay for almost every purchase, both because it's easy and convenient and because, unlike my wallet, my phone is something I actually can't live without.It wasn't until Wednesday that my lack of a wallet became an issue. I didn't need it... Continue reading...

The TCL Q6 is solid TV for watching the 2024 Olympics, House of the Dragon, and a wild season of election coverage. | Image: TCL TCL's Q6 QLED TV was one of the standout deals from Walmart's recent Walmart Deals" event, and the post-event discounts have only gotten steeper. The 65-inch model, for example, has dropped even further at Walmart, where you can currently pick it up for an all-time low of $388 ($312 off). You can also grab it at Best Buy right now for $399.99 ($300 off) if you prefer shopping at a different retailer.The Q6 was already a decent value before the discounts kicked in, one that makes for a compelling entry-level option for gamers. It's a cost-effective set that allows you to make the most out of newer consoles like the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / S. It uses a 60Hz panel, but it can simulate a 120Hz variable refresh rate with... Continue reading...

Image: Amazon Amazon's AI shopping assistant, Rufus, is rolling out to all users in the US on Amazon's mobile app. You can pull up the shopping assistant by tapping the orange and blue icon in the right corner of the app's navigation bar, where Rufus can answer questions, draw comparisons between items, and give you updates on your order.Amazon first introduced Rufus in February but only made it available to a small group of users. Rufus uses Amazon's product listing details, reviews, and community Q&As, along with some information from the web, to inform its answers. Image: Amazon You can ask the tool things directly related to a product, like Is this coffee maker easy to clean and maintain?" as well as recommendations about... Continue reading...

Despite a $100 price tag, these 8BitDo gamepads don't include any wireless functionality. | Image: 8BitDo 8BitDo's shiny silver- and gold-finished 11th anniversary SN30 Pro gamepads feature housings and controls made of so much metal that they weigh in at 381 grams - almost an entire pound.As spotted by Polygon, the company went nearly all in on the metal facelift for its SN30 Pro gamepad, with the D-pad, action buttons, shoulder triggers, and even joysticks all made of a metal zinc-alloy material." Image: 8BitDo The D-pad, ABXY buttons, joysticks, and triggers are all metal on 8BitDo's shiny new controllers. This controller won't just feel satisfyingly hefty in hand for its size (the beefy Xbox Duke controller weighed 425 grams while the original SNES gamepad was just 79 grams) but it also may be durable enough... Continue reading...

Image: Archer Today, Southwest Airlines became the latest major carrier to join forces with a so-called urban air mobility startup. The Dallas-based airline signed a memorandum of understanding with Archer Aviation to draw up plans for an air taxi service.The service will operate using Archer's battery-powered, four-passenger, tilt-rotor Midnight aircraft, which are designed to take off and land vertically from a landing strip like a helicopter. As part of the deal, the aircraft will get access to 14 California airports where Southwest operates.This is the latest deal between a major airline and an eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) startup, signaling a growing confidence in the ability of these small companies to make their dreams of... Continue reading...

There wasn't a Factory Reset option, previously. | Photo: David Pierce / The Verge Since the launch of the Rabbit R1, the AI assistant device has been storing users' chat logs on-device with no way to erase them, according to a company security bulletin. Rabbit is now addressing the issue with a software update that includes a new Factory Reset option in settings to wipe the device. Previously, you could only unlink your account from an R1, which did not erase all user data.Along with the new ability to fully delete local user data, the software update also addresses another eyebrow-raising behavior of the R1. Prior to the update, stored pairing data that lets the R1 hardware add things to the Rabbithole journal also had permission to read the journal as well. That means a stolen and hacked R1 could potentially have... Continue reading...

Image: Tesla Tesla is bringing back its longest-range Model 3, which will also be the second cheapest version of the popular electric sedan available. The new trim will be available for $42,490, according to the website.The rear-wheel-drive (RWD) version of the Long Range Model 3 will get an EPA-estimated range of 363 miles. That could be a significant addition to Tesla's lineup at a time when production and sales are both drooping.Tesla originally introduced the Long Range RWD Model 3 in 2017 but discontinued it two years later. Now, it's back with a new sticker price and a new look, thanks to a refreshed design that launched in the US at the beginning of the year. Screenshot: Tesla The new trim is almost $5,000 cheaper... Continue reading...

A pedestrian stands in the shade of a small tree during a heatwave in New York on Wednesday, June 30th, 2021. | Photo: Getty Images Nearly 34 million people across 65 US cities - roughly one in 10 Americans - live in a place where the built environment makes temperatures feel at least 8 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than it would without that urban sprawl. That's according to a new study by the nonprofit Climate Central, which mapped the impact of a phenomenon called the urban heat island effect in major cities in the US.Dark, paved surfaces with little greenery tend to absorb heat. Hot exhaust from heavy traffic and industrial facilities can also make certain neighborhoods warmer than others. That's how the urban heat island effect can make a heatwave feel even worse for some communities. In the US, a history of segregation and redlining that resulted in chronic... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge AT&T revealed Friday morning that a cybersecurity attack had exposed call records and texts from nearly all" of the carrier's cellular customers (including people on mobile virtual network operators, or MVNOs, that use AT&T's network, like Cricket, Boost Mobile, and Consumer Cellular). The breach took place during the period between May 1st, 2022, and October 31st, 2022, in addition to an incident that impacted a very small number" of customers on January 2nd, 2023.AT&T spokesperson Alex Byers confirmed to The Verge the threat actor accessed the information through the company's account on a third-party cloud platform, Snowflake, similar to data breaches that have affected Ticketmaster and Santander Bank. AT&T first learned of the... Continue reading...