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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...

Illustration by The Verge; Photo by Emmanuel Dunand / AFP via Getty Images As the rest of the tech industry seems to mostly shift to overproduced infomercials for their product launches, Samsung is holding fast to its love for giant live events in huge arenas. This year, at Unpacked in Paris, the company announced a whole lineup of new gadgets. The new Fold and Flip look nice but also a bit uninspired; the Watch Ultra and Buds 3 look almost too familiar; and the Galaxy Ring might be the beginning of something really cool.On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk through all of Samsung's announcements and try to figure out whether Apple products but for Android" is actually a winning strategy. It might be! Plus, we debate what to make of Samsung's somewhat lackluster upgrades for the Flip and Fold phones -... Continue reading...

The Verge Microsoft is preparing to enable Copilot in OneNote to read and analyze handwritten notes. The feature entered beta testing late last month, and will allow OneNote users to write handwritten notes using a stylus and then summarize them, ask questions, or even generate to-do lists based on the notes.The AI-powered Copilot feature in OneNote will even be able to convert your handwritten notes into text for easy editing and sharing. Microsoft first launched Copilot inside OneNote in November, and this upgrade will be available to existing Copilot for Microsoft 365 subscribers and Copilot Pro users once it rolls out more broadly. Image: The Verge Copilot can quickly convert your handwritten notes into easier to read... Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images A bipartisan group of senators introduced a new bill to make it easier to authenticate and detect artificial intelligence-generated content and protect journalists and artists from having their work gobbled up by AI models without their permission.The Content Origin Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media Act (COPIED Act) would direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to create standards and guidelines that help prove the origin of content and detect synthetic content, like through watermarking. It also directs the agency to create security measures to prevent tampering and requires AI tools for creative or journalistic content to let users attach information about their origin and prohibit that... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge OpenAI has created an internal scale to track the progress its large language models are making toward artificial general intelligence, or AI with human-like intelligence, a spokesperson told Bloomberg.Today's chatbots, like ChatGPT, are at Level 1. OpenAI claims it is nearing Level 2, defined as a system that can solve basic problems at the level of a person with a PhD. Level 3 refers to AI agents capable of taking actions on a user's behalf. Level 4 involves AI that can create new innovations. Level 5, the final step to achieving AGI, is AI that can perform the work of entire organizations of people. OpenAI has previously defined AGI as a highly autonomous system surpassing humans in most economically valuable tasks."OpenAI's... Continue reading...

Image: Frontier Developments Planet Coaster's sequel isn't just about building the best theme park anymore: it's about water parks, too. The sequel, coming this fall, will finally let you construct everything from wave pools and lazy rivers to custom-built waterslides.You'll also get to outfit your aquatic experience with changing rooms, sunbeds, lifeguards, and more. Planet Coaster 2 builds upon its predecessor with the addition of new building and pathing tools, as well as an advanced event sequencer system that can give your guests new experiences. There are also new rides, scenery pieces, and themes.Another neat feature coming to Planet Coaster 2 is the ability to create shared theme parks with friends - but you can't all build in the park at the same time. T... Continue reading...

The leaked Pixel 9, 9 Pro, and 9 Pro XL. | Image: Rozetked Pixels are leaking again, and this time, it looks like a larger Pixel 9 Pro XL' is coming and coming fast in August. Continue reading...

It's a big price for big sound, but the AirPods Max are a little more reasonable at $398. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The high-end pricing on Apple's first-gen products never ceases to amaze me - just look at the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro or its $5,000 display. The AirPods Max were also probably a bit more expensive than they should have been at their $549 launch price, but that's relatively tame compared to the competition Apple is targeting with its luxe noise-canceling headphones. Thankfully, they're now down to $398 ($151 off) in select colors at Amazon and Walmart, which is a record low.Some may feel the AirPods Max are getting a bit long in the tooth since we first reviewed them in 2020, but Apple's wireless headphones are still our top recommendation for Apple users and some of the best headphones overall. They sound nearly as good as the Sony... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A group of self-proclaimed gay furry hackers" says it breached the Heritage Foundation earlier this month, releasing two gigabytes of the right-wing think tank's internal data on Tuesday. On its Telegram channel, the hacktivist collective SiegedSec - which has previously claimed responsibility for hacking NATO's computer systems - said the Heritage hack was part of its #OpTransRights campaign, which also targeted the far-right media outlet Real America's Voice and the Hillsong megachurch. The group also cited their objections to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's policy proposal for a second term for former President Donald Trump, as a motivating factor.In an email to The Verge, Heritage Foundation spokesperson Noah Weinrich... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Arm is launching its own upscaler for mobile gaming. The chip designer says its Arm Accuracy Super Resolution (ASR) can make games look better, while lowering power consumption on your phone. It's also making the upscaling technology available to developers under an MIT open-source license.Arm based its technology on AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 (FSR 2), which uses temporal upscaling to make PC games look better and boost frame rates. Unlike spatial upscaling, which upscales an image based on a single frame, temporal upscaling involves using multiple frames to generate a higher-quality image.Upscaling is especially useful for lower-powered graphics cards that couldn't otherwise run a game at playable frame rates. AMD FSR, Nvidia... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Warner Bros. Discovery has been debuting its newer IP-based series on Max for the past few years in an effort to make it the one to watch," but the company is now switching things up with a big plan to rebrand multiple projects as - wait for it - HBO shows.Though The Penguin and Dune: Prophecy were both initially billed as Max Originals, Deadline reports that Warner Bros. Discovery will now market them as HBO Originals as part of a larger effort to differentiate what kind of content is released under the two brand umbrellas.Now, the shows will premiere simultaneously on both Max and HBO the way other big tentpoles like House of the Dragon and Succession have in the past. This always kind of seemed like a given because of the success... Continue reading...

Seven different Arduino-based devices can be built with the Plug and Make Kit kit. | Image: Arduino Arduino's new starter kit features electronic components that can be connected without having to know anything about soldering or wiring. It's similar to LittleBits' electronic building blocks that make it easy for kids to learn about electronics but targets an older audience of beginners who eventually aspire to do more with an Arduino.The $87.36 Arduino Plug and Make Kit comes with an Arduino UNO R4 WiFi microcomputer featuring Bluetooth and its own built-in 12 x 8 LED matrix display, plus seven different Modulino components that can all be connected using cables that snap into one-way connector ports, ensuring nothing can be wired incorrectly. Image: Arduino The kit includes an Arduino microcomputer and seven... Continue reading...

Photo illustration: The Verge / Photo by The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson discusses the deal: AI is coming. It is coming quickly. We want to be part of whatever transition happens.' Continue reading...

Unlike the standard model, the iRobot Roomba j7 Plus comes with an auto-empty dock. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge As an extremely lazy person, I am a big fan of robot vacuums like the Roomba j7 Plus. Nothing beats rotting in bed as iRobot's last-gen flagship navigates my cluttered home and does the cleaning on my behalf. What I don't like, though, is its high price tag. Thankfully, Prime members can currently pick up the j7 Plus with an auto-empty dock for just $399.99 ($400 off) at Amazon. That's the best price we've seen on the discontinued robot vacuum, which has been increasingly difficult to find in recent months.Despite being discontinued, the j7 Plus is one of my colleague Jennifer Pattison Tuohy's favorite models. And after spending time with a review unit she sent me, I understand why. It's loud, but given how useful and effective its... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube has announced a set of new features for YouTube Shorts, some of which are available now, like a new text-to-speech video narration that lets you add an artificial voiceover. On TikTok, those are the sometimes startlingly robotic voices that you hear a lot on videos with something to promote.The process for adding them is a lot like TikTok's, in fact: after you create some text, you'll tap a new add voice" icon that, in Shorts, sits in the upper-left corner of the screen and pick the voice you want. YouTube only offers four voices to choose from at the moment, whereas TikTok has... quite a few more. Image: YouTube A look at YouTube Shorts' new caption tool. YouTube says it's also rolling out... Continue reading...

DeepMind found preliminary evidence" that Gemini enables its robots to plan how to undertake complex tasks from simple instructions. | Image: Google DeepMind Google is training its robots with Gemini AI so they can get better at navigation and completing tasks. The DeepMind robotics team explained in a new research paper how using Gemini 1.5 Pro's long context window - which dictates how much information an AI model can process - allows users to more easily interact with its RT-2 robots using natural language instructions.This works by filming a video tour of a designated area, such as a home or office space, with researchers using Gemini 1.5 Pro to make the robot watch" the video to learn about the environment. The robot can then undertake commands based on what it has observed using verbal and / or image outputs - such as guiding users to a power outlet after being shown a phone and asked... Continue reading...

280 Earth's pilot carbon removal facility in The Dalles, Oregon. | Image: 280 Earth Data centers are a growing climate problem, especially as all the energy needed to train AI models inflates tech companies' carbon footprints. A startup that spun out of Google's moonshot factory" X says its technology can provide a potential solution. It can pull carbon dioxide out of the air, run partially on servers' waste heat, and even generate water to help cool a data center more efficiently.The company, 280 Earth, just signed a $40 million agreement to capture carbon dioxide emissions for some big names through an initiative called Frontier that Stripe, Alphabet, Meta, Shopify, and McKinsey launched in 2022 to support emerging carbon removal tech. The buyers include Frontier's founding members as well as Autodesk, H&M Group,... Continue reading...

It took Aryan Kapoor three years to land a model rocket vertically. | Screenshot: YouTube Joe Barnard (or BPS.Space) and Aryan Kapoor are two model rocket enthusiasts who've spent years working to advance the hobby with innovative ways to precisely steer model rockets and land them vertically instead of just watching them parachute back to Earth after a launch. Despite many failures and setbacks, they've each succeeded in recreating SpaceX's Falcon 9 landing capabilities at a much, much smaller scale and without billions of dollars of funding.Barnard, who studied music production in college - not aerospace engineering - spent seven years designing, building, and perfecting various custom components, including a custom thrust vectoring mechanism for model rocket engines.Relying on a pair of servo motors that are geared down... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge As Sonos continues chipping away at fixing bugs and improving the performance of its poorly received mobile app redesign, the company also remains focused on several new hardware products. Among them is an ultrapremium soundbar that will serve as a successor to the current Sonos Arc - and likely at a higher price. Codenamed Lasso, the device is currently in limited beta testing, and today, I can share the first images of it.The exterior of the Lasso soundbar bears a strong resemblance to the Arc, which Sonos introduced over four years ago. But inside, the components and speaker drivers have been completely overhauled and redesigned, and that's expected to result in a cost upwards of $1,200. Sonos aims to ship Lasso later this year,... Continue reading...

The Killers marked England's victory against The Netherlands in the Euro 2024 semi-finals with a bright(side) bang. | Image: The Killers The Killers assisted UK fans in celebrating England's Euro 2024 semifinal victory yesterday by pausing their gig at London's O2 Arena to project the final moments of the game behind the band. Viral videos across X and Instagram captured the elation that followed as confetti showered the crowd during a rousing rendition of Mr. Brightside" - and now they're being taken offline by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA).According to an Instagram takedown notice seen by The Verge, UEFA says the removed videos include content that infringes their copyright." Many of the impacted videos being pulled, such as a clip posted by photographer Bella Falk, contained mere seconds of the live match and are transformative" enough to fall... Continue reading...

Stellantis' idled Belvidere Assembly Plantis one of the factories that will have new life as an EV facility thanks to $334 million in grant money. | Image: Getty The Biden administration announced $1.7 billion to convert endangered or shuttered plants into electric vehicle manufacturing facilities.Eleven auto factories across eight states that are currently closed or at risk of closing will receive the funding in order to retrofit their operations for EV manufacturing, administration officials said in a call with reporters. The types of goods these factories will produce run the gamut from parts for electric motorcycles and school buses, hybrid powertrains, heavy-duty commercial truck batteries, and electric SUVs," the White House says.Building a clean energy economy can and should be a win-win for union autoworkers and automakers," President Joe Biden said in a statement. This investment... Continue reading...

The Starlink Mini can be powered by a portable USB battery. | Image: SpaceX SpaceX's Starlink Mini dish - which Elon Musk says will change the world" - is now available to anyone in the US. The diminutive internet-from-space kit neatly integrates the dish and Wi-Fi router into a weatherproof package that's significantly smaller and uses less power than previous Starlink kits. The laptop-sized all-in-one dish can even be powered directly by a USB-PD power bank capable of 100W (20V/5A) - though it's high constant power draw means most batteries won't last more than an hour or two.Initially, Starlink Mini was only available as an add-on for current Residential subscribers in the US. Now, just a few weeks since launch, it's available to a wide spectrum of vanlifers and digital nomads who want to stay connected no... Continue reading...

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images A judge overseeing Redbox owner Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment's bankruptcy case granted a request Wednesday to convert it from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7 bankruptcy, according to Lowpass' Janko Roettgers and The Wall Street Journal. The company's lawyers said Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment will lay off its remaining 1,000 employees and liquidate the businesses, including streaming operations and the 24,000 or so disc kiosks that have rented out DVDs, Blu-rays, and videogames for years.According to Roettgers, Judge Thomas Horan said, There is no means to continue to pay employees, pay any bills, otherwise finance this case. It is hopelessly insolvent... Given the fact that there may also be at least the possibility of... Continue reading...

The Delta emulator app now provides native iPadOS support. | Image: Riley Testut The Delta iOS app has released a new update that introduces the retro gaming emulator's redesigned logo, alongside native iPad support that allows users to play multiple games simultaneously. Users in the EU can download the update immediately via AltStore PAL, but everyone else will have to wait for App Store approval of Delta 1.6 - Apple rejected the current version according to a screenshot shared by Delta developer Riley Testut.The app was technically available on iPad before today, but the lack of full support forced it to run as a letterboxed iPhone app, which impacted the emulator's touch controls and prevented games from using the full iPad screen.The new Delta 1.6 update rectifies those issues and enables the app to make full... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon's carbon emissions decreased slightly in 2023 after the company ramped up renewable energy purchases and cut down on pollution from construction, hardware, and equipment, according to its latest sustainability report.Back in 2019, Amazon pledged to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2040. Despite that goal, its carbon emissions actually ballooned soon after - climbing from around 51 million metric tons of CO2 in 2019 to more than 71 million metric tons in 2021. Now it seems that the company's carbon footprint has shrunk a bit over the past couple years, decreasing 3 percent in 2023 to just under 69 million metric tons of CO2.To put it in context, Amazon's carbon footprint last year was roughly equivalent to the annual CO2... Continue reading...

Google's service lets you order your photos to go. | Illustration: The Verge Apple and Google are offering a new, nearly painless way to copy files from Google Photos to iCloud. As spotted by 9to5Mac, Google is adding iCloud support to its data transfer tool over the next week, making it possible to move your photo library directly to Apple's service - no download necessary. It's part of a bigger data portability initiative supported by a handful of big tech companies and complements the iCloud-to-Google-Photos service Apple rolled out in 2021.The service is pretty straightforward: photos and videos are sent directly to iCloud, so there's no need to download anything. You can send your whole library at once or specify which albums you want transferred. Google has a list on its support page of the file types you... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft has reached a settlement with an industry group backed by European cloud infrastructure providers, quelling an antitrust battle that could have embroiled it for years and resulted in fines. But if Microsoft doesn't hold up its end of the bargain in the next nine months, the group has promised to revive its antitrust complaint with the European Commission.The group, Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE), agreed to withdraw its 2022 complaint to the European Commission, where it accused Microsoft of irreparably damaging the European cloud ecosystem and depriving European customers of choice in their cloud deployments." It argued at the time that Microsoft's licensing terms exacerbate the harms and introduce... Continue reading...

Image: Ford Ford's classic Capri coupe is returning as a four-door electric vehicle with a profile resembling other chunky-looking electric crossovers like the Polestar 2.Ford Europe design director Amko Leenarts says the look follows an imagined evolution of the Capri since production ended in 1986, as inspired by the rising popularity of SUVs.This beefier Capri follows Ford's other modern takes on classic nameplates, including the Mustang, which became an electric SUV, and the Maverick, which ended up as a pickup truck.It will come in rear-wheel and all-wheel-drive extended-range configurations and a premium" trim option for each. Ford is promising a maximum range of 627km (about 390 miles) on a single charge for the extended-range RWD... Continue reading...

CNN's first subscription offering will arrive later this year. | Photo by Jaap Arriens / NurPhoto via Getty Images CNN is cutting jobs and restructuring its news operations as part of ongoing efforts by the company to boost its digital offerings and be less dependent on its cable news channel.The changes, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter from a memo sent to staff on Wednesday by CNN CEO Mark Thompson, include layoffs of around a hundred" staffers, representing less than 3 percent of the company's workforce of more than 3,500 employees. The cuts follow layoffs in 2022, including jobs lost when the network's streaming service, CNN Plus, was shut down less than a month after launching.Today's memo also outlined Thompson's plans to merge CNN's TV news and digital news teams into a single Global News organization" that will reduce duplicated... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Bose is updating its two most recent pairs of earbuds, the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds and the Ultra Open Earbuds, to add support for multipoint Bluetooth. A new software update rolling out to both products will enable them to pair with two devices at the same time for easier multitasking.The update, which will take a couple weeks to reach all customers, also includes a few bug fixes that are specific to Bose's rather unique Ultra Open Earbuds. Among them are optimizations to voice pickup, overall connectivity, and a few other improvements.Multipoint has become a fairly common feature for premium wireless earbuds (AirPods notwithstanding), so I noted its absence as a downside in the reviews of both earbuds. Now the QC Ultra Earbuds... Continue reading...

Image: Amazon Amazon's Prime Day is less than a week away, and alongside early deals on its smart home devices, Amazon has started selling the days-old Echo Spot for $44.99 ($35 off), exclusively for Prime members.Like its predecessor, the new Spot is a combination smart speaker and alarm clock, but it drops the camera that nobody liked putting in their bedroom. It also now borrows its design from the Echo Pop, which Amazon claims should give it better sound quality. And being an Echo speaker, it of course supports Alexa voice commands to set your alarm for the morning, call up a weather forecast, or have news updates read to you. And if having a microphone in your bedroom still feels creepy, the top of the Spot has a dedicated button to turn it... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge In addition to three new wearables (the Galaxy Ring, Galaxy Watch 7, and Watch Ultra) and a new pair of Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, Samsung has unpacked details on its two newest foldable smartphones: the Galaxy Z Fold 6 ($1,899.99) and Galaxy Z Flip 6 ($1,099.99). Both bring minimal improvements over their predecessors yet start $100 higher than previous releases. Preorders start today, and the devices will begin shipping on July 24th.The Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 most notably add the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which is Qualcomm's latest flagship chipset. It has a dedicated neural processing unit for the growing list of Galaxy AI and Google Gemini features present in Android 14 and One UI 6. Samsung refined their outward design with a flatter... Continue reading...

Image: Napleton Aurora Imports Hyundai pressured its dealers to artificially inflate" its electric vehicle sales figures, instituting a system in which dealers who played ball" were rewarded while those who refused were punished," a new lawsuit alleges.The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Chicago by Napleton Aurora Imports in Illinois and affiliated franchises, says that Hyundai has issued numerous press releases touting the fake" numbers that purport to show year-over-year growth in EV sales.Dealers who declined to participate in the alleged ruse were put at a competitive disadvantage, including being forced to push unpopular vehicles or denied wholesale price discounts for customers.That is a false narrative."Hyundai has emphasized... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Samsung launched the Galaxy Ring, a Galaxy Watch Ultra, new Z Fold and Z Flip phones, and more. Continue reading...