The Verge

The Charger by Counterpart has a built-in 4-foot USB-C cable that can be retracted with the press of a button. | Image: Counterpart The switch to USB-C has vastly simplified my life, and I am very grateful for it, but I still struggle with cable clutter. Dealing with gadgets and gizmos for a family of four means the outlets on my kitchen counter resemble an unappealing bowl of silicon spaghetti, which is why this new $44 Counterpart Charger caught my eye.This compact charger includes a built-in 4-foot USB-C cable that - here's the handy part - retracts with the press of a button, leaving you cable-free. It delivers 35 Watts of GaN charging, which is enough for most phones, tablets, Switches, and the occasional pair of headphones that invariably collect on my counter in search of power. It would even do for my MacBook Air in a pinch.I've been using retractable... Continue reading...

Mercedes-Benz's new Apple Watch app replicates the functionality of its mobile app so you don't need to always reach for your phone. | Image: Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz announced today it's bringing popular features from its mobile app to the Apple Watch so owners can interact with their vehicles from their wrists without having to reach for their smartphone. The company joins a growing number of automakers adding watchOS capabilities, including Honda, Ford, and Volvo.The new app, available now through the Apple Watch App Store, is compatible with Apple Watches running watchOS 9 or later, but requires Mercedes-Benz's mobile app to be installed on the iPhone the wearable is connected to.Mercedes-Benz owners can use the watch app to monitor their vehicle's charge or fuel levels and its estimated range, lock and unlock it remotely, check that the windows are closed, and locate it when... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Meta's Threads has accrued over 35 million signups so far in November and is going on three months with more than a million signups a day," Meta spokesperson Alec Booker told The Verge in an email today.20 million of those signups have come since November 14th, as Axios notes. That's on top of the 15 million that Instagram head Adam Mosseri said it had gathered in the two weeks prior.At the same time, Bluesky has seen a surge of interest. The platform grew to 15 million users earlier this month and continued to add about a million signups per day for several days. It now sits at over 22 million users.That hasn't gone unnoticed by Threads, with Mosseri confirming yesterday that several recent changes the platform has rolled out are... Continue reading...

Christian McCaffrey is on the cover of Madden NFL 25, looking as real as ever. | Image: EA A small, ragtag group of coders with a big idea builds something special. It's a smash hit, bigger than their wild expectations. Competitors emerge, and the team suddenly has to scramble to keep up. But with a little hard work (and a lot of biz dev), they manage to reassert and maintain their dominance. Then, years go by, the product doesn't seem to get any better, and you start to wonder if maybe a little competition was a good thing after all.You can tell this story up and down Silicon Valley, across several decades and some of the most iconic products in tech history - Google Search, Facebook, the iPhone - but few hit the marks quite as cleanly as Madden. In a new four-part documentary on Prime Video, It's in the Game: Madden NFL t... Continue reading...

The Bang & Olufsen Beoplay Eleven wireless earbuds will be available in natural aluminum and copper tone colorways. | Image: Bang & Olufsen Bang & Olufsen announced its new Beoplay Eleven wireless earbuds today, carrying forward a stem design similar to Apple's AirPods that the company first introduced with its Beoplay EX. The Beoplay Eleven will be Bang & Olufsen's first wireless earbuds with replaceable batteries, making them compliant with EU sustainability regulations coming into effect in 2027, as Engadget points out. They still maintain an IP57 dust and water rating, meaning the buds can survive submerging up to one meter.But unlike Fairphone's Fairbuds that have a user-replaceable battery, Bang & Olufsen says the Beoplay Eleven's design allows for battery replacement by service," which means you might have to send them in for battery repairs instead of doing it... Continue reading...

Anthropic is adding custom styles to Claude that quickly adjust the tone and length of responses. | Image: Anthropic Anthropic is adding a new feature to its Claude AI assistant that will give users more control over how the chatbot responds to different writing tasks. The new custom styles are available to all Claude AI users, enabling anyone to train it to match their own communication style or select from preset options to quickly adjust the tone and level of detail it provides.This update aims to personalize the chatbot's replies and make them feel more natural or appropriate for specific applications, such as writing detailed technical documents or professional emails.Three preset styles are available: Formal for clear and polished" text, Concise for shorter and more direct responses, and Explanatory for educational replies that need to include... Continue reading...

A hurricane specialist works on tracking Hurricane Beryl at the National Hurricane Center on July 1st, 2024, in Miami, Florida. | Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images This is the last week of a truly shitty Atlantic hurricane season. It was record-breaking. People are still recovering. Misinformation managed to make things even worse. Now, we get a six-month-ish break before it starts over again - perhaps with fewer federal resources to respond in the US.At the very least, we knew what was coming this year. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecast an above normal" season before it started in June. The agency published a recap yesterday with some data on how it all played out; the TLDR: these are some big numbers.There's also some subtext in there. It took a huge coordinated effort within the agency to put out forecasts and communicate risks to the public. Any efforts to... Continue reading...

Image: Humanoid Origin Humanoid Origin, the game studio founded by former BioWare general manager Casey Hudson, is shutting down operations. The closure was announced in a post on the company's LinkedIn page. Despite efforts to shield the studio from broader challenges in the industry, an unexpected shortfall of funding left us unable to sustain operations," the post read.Humanoid Origin was founded by Hudson in 2021 when it was then known as Humanoid Studios. Hudson started the studio after leaving a 20-year career at BioWare where he worked as a producer and director on several of the studio's seminal titles including Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Hudson left BioWare in 2014 for a brief stint at Microsoft Studios before returning... Continue reading...

Image: Ford With more cars equipped with partial automation hitting the road, safety researchers are growing increasingly worried about driver attention and the potential for these systems to cause crashes. A new survey has a possible solution to the problem of wandering attention while using partial automation: let drivers adjust the steering.The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) conducted a new study that found that drivers were more likely to stay alert while using advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS) when they were allowed to correct the steering without disengaging the partial automation.These results suggest that small differences in system design can nudge drivers toward safer habits," said IIHS president David Harkey in a... Continue reading...

Anker's orb-like charging stand can power up eight devices, including iPhones, for just $56. | Image: Nathan Edwards / The Verge If you're tired of cluttering up your desk with multiple chargers, check out Anker's MagGo Magnetic Charging Station 8-in-1, because it can probably replace all of them. It's one of our favorite MagSafe chargers precisely because it can power up eight devices at a time, and right now is down to an all-time low of $55.99 ($44 off) at Amazon for Black Friday. You can also purchase it at the same price directly from Anker when you apply the promo code WS7DV2NMENHH.Anker's orb-like charger is capable of quickly delivering Qi2 speeds (15 watts) of power to MagSafe-compatible iPhones. Yet it's also a power strip, one that supports up to 67 watts total power output and features a pair of USB-C as well as USB-A ports, along with three AC... Continue reading...

Huawei's new Mate 70 lineup will be the first to offer the company's HarmonyOS Next that isn't compatible with Android apps. | Image: Huawei Huawei has announced its new Mate 70 series smartphone lineup, which will be the first offered with the company's new HarmonyOS Next operating system that doesn't rely on Google's Android services and won't run any Android apps, according to a report by Reuters. The four models of the Mate 70 also don't feature any US hardware following a half decade of US sanctions.The Mate 70, Mate 70 Pro, Mate 70 Pro Plus, and Mate 70 RS will also be offered with Huawei's HarmonyOS 4.3, which first launched in August 2019 as an alternative to Google's Android OS and is still compatible with Android's extensive app library. Users who decide to opt for Huawei's new Android-free HarmonyOS Next will have less choice when it comes to the apps they can... Continue reading...

Disney Plus / Lucasfilm Ltd. While there were only a few days left until Star Wars: Skeleton Crew was slated to debut on Disney Plus, the streamer has decided to bump the premiere up just a smidge.Today, Disney announced that rather than dropping on December 3rd, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew will premiere a day earlier on December 2nd with two episodes. Along with the announcement, Disney also posted a new trailer teasing how younglings Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), Neel (Robert Timothy Smith), KB (Kyriana Kratter), and Fern (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) get swept up in the adventure of a lifetime with Jod Na Nawood (Jude Law) as their Force-sensitive guide.Though some of the trailer's big set pieces feel like classic Star Wars in terms of spectacle, it also emphasizes how S... Continue reading...

Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images The US Department of Energy will loan Rivian $6.6 billion to build an electric vehicle factory in Georgia, as Democrats scramble to finalize their climate agenda before Donald Trump takes office.Rivian, lacking the funds to start the construction process, put its Georgia factory plans on hold earlier this year. The company has lost a significant amount of money since its public offering in November 2021, including $1.1 billion this past quarter. The company recently said it expected to lose up to $2.88 billion in adjusted earnings for the year, up from the previous guidance of $2.7 billion in losses. And it has gone through several rounds of layoffs over the past two years.Rivian said it received conditional commitment" for its... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge While Google Assistant is going to be around for a while, the future of Google-powered digital assistants now seems to be Gemini. Gemini comes preinstalled if you buy a Google Pixel 9 phone, and you can install the Android app on older Pixels and non-Pixel handsets. There's also now an app for the iPhone.Whether you've already got it installed or you're thinking about upgrading from Google Assistant, here's what you can do with Gemini. (This was tested on a Pixel 9 Pro Fold.)Pay or not?You can grab the Gemini app for free for Android and iOS, sign yourself in with your Google account, and switch. As with Gemini on the web, the model you can access will depend on whether you're willing to pay Google $20 a month for Google One AI... Continue reading...

When paired with a charging case, the DJI Mic Mini system can work for up to 48 hours. | Image: DJI DJI has announced its next wireless microphone system, the Mic Mini, which shrinks all the hardware while improving battery life. The new microphones weigh less than half of what the more expensive DJI Mic 2's transmitters do, but the new system sacrifices useful features like built-in backup recording and the option to connect an even smaller lav mic in the name of improving portability.Although the DJI Mic Mini seems like an improvement over the DJI Mic 2 system in many ways, it's not a replacement. The Mic Mini transmitters lack the ability to record backup audio on their own. If that's a concern, you'll need to rely on your recording software, such as DJI's Mimo app, which can capture a second safety track at a lower volume to... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Zoom is changing its name from Zoom Video Communications Inc. to just Zoom Communications Inc. In a post on the company blog, Zoom Communications CEO Eric Yuan writes that Zoom is now an AI-first work platform for human connection" that delivers modern, hybrid work solutions." It's a muddy, if vague, change compared to its 2020 rise when the classic Zoom Meetings product became synonymous with video conferencing and thrived as companies were forced to transition employees to work from home.Now, it no longer wants to be known for video as workers have returned to offices, and bigger, better-resourced competition from Google, Microsoft, and Slack offers video as a feature of the office suites companies already pay for.

Photo by Prince Williams/Wireimage Musically speaking, I'd say Drake lost the tit-for-tat feud this year between himself and Kendrick Lamar, which culminated in Lamar's hit song Not Like Us." But Drake (real name: Aubrey Graham) doesn't seem to want to accept defeat that easily. In a petition filed in New York's state Supreme Court on Monday, Drake is accusing Universal Music Group - the label that's represented him for his entire career and also represents Lamar - and Spotify of shady business practices aimed at making Not Like Us" more of a hit than it already was:

Illustration: The Verge The Google App for iOS can automatically convert some website text into links to Google Search results, as announced in a community post that SERoundtable spotted.Google calls the feature Page Annotations" and says it extracts interesting entities from the webpage and highlights them in line," which can then take you out to Search results when you tap them - inserting links without explicitly asking the user or the site owner first. It seems like a curious move for a company embroiled in antitrust fights over both its search and advertising businesses. Image: Google A screenshot shows what the links, er, Page Annotations" look like. Google has a form for web publishers to opt out of the links. According to... Continue reading...

A gadget with no subscription fee and no terms of service. Nilay's main love language is trolling, and so he sent me this video of Sam Altman talking about note-taking, because he knew it would annoy me.

Home Sports remembers that bowling was the best part of Wii Sports. | Image: Meta A new game called Home Sports is coming to the Meta Quest 3 and 3S on December 11th, and from its aesthetic to its music, this $19.99 title is clearly trying to be the Wii Sports (or Nintendo Switch Sports if you like) for mixed reality. Images: Meta / Nintendo That logo looks very familiar. Like Nintendo's simplistic motion control-based sports series, Home Sports offers several games: hockey, badminton, pickleball, mini-golf, and bowling. It's playable solo and multiplayer, where your Meta avatar represents you in a match. Meta says the game can adapt to your play space, but it also uses the Quest boundaryless mode for those with access to wide-open spaces.A blatant knockoff of Nintendo's Sports series it... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Anthropic has released a new open-source tool to connect AI assistants directly to the information they need to inform their responses or carry out tasks. The new Model Context Protocol (MCP) provides a universal connection to all sorts of data sources, which Anthropic says will improve performance.Earlier this month, OpenAI started testing a new Work with Apps" feature that lets the Mac version of ChatGPT directly connect to certain coding apps. Anthropic's tool, on the other hand, aims to work across all AI systems and data sources.As noted by Alex Albert, Anthropic's head of Claude relations, developers currently have to create custom code for each dataset they want their AI model to draw from. With Anthropic's MCP, Albert says... Continue reading...

GM design rendering of the Cadillac Formula 1 Team concept. | Image: GM General Motors has a deal to join Formula 1 under the Cadillac brand and participate in the FIA Formula One World Championship for the 2026 season, the automaker announced on Monday. Formula 1 says it has accepted in principle and will move GM and Cadillac's application forward to become the 11th team on the grid - making it the first new team to join since 2016.Formula 1 says it's been in talks with GM and its partners at motorsport company TWG Global about the viability of an entry following the commercial assessment and decision" the organization made in January. The announcement mentions that GM will come on as an engine supplier later, and while The Race reports it will join initially as a Ferrari customer, that has not been... Continue reading...

Activists protest against fossil fuels and for climate finance on day 11 at the UNFCCC COP29 climate conference on November 22nd, 2024, in Baku, Azerbaijan. | Photo by Sean Gallup / Getty Images Maybe it was the host of the UN climate summit in Azerbaijan this month calling oil and gas a gift of God." Or the US, the world's biggest oil and gas producer, reelecting a president who says we don't have a global warming problem" just before the conference. Then again, the biggest outcome - or disappointment, depending on how you look at it - was an incremental increase in the amount of climate aid wealthier nations committed to less affluent countries dealing with the consequences of other people's pollution.We have seen the very worst of political opportunism"Any way you look at it, the summit (called the Conference of the Parties, or COP) that fizzed out over the weekend was exasperating, particularly for delegates from parts... Continue reading...

It's no iPhone 13 Mini (pictured above), but maybe the 17 Slim" will capture a bit of the small phone magic anyway. | Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple engineers are wrestling with where to put the SIM card, battery, and thermal materials in the rumored iPhone 17 Slim," according to The Information. Although US iPhones haven't had SIM cards for a couple of years now, they're required to in China, making it a tricky, but necessary hurdle to get over.The 17 Slim's single, center-mounted camera will reportedly be surrounded by a rectangular bump that's made of aluminum instead of glass. It also says the iPhone Plus will leave the lineup, something that's been rumored off and on alongside whispers about this new phone.Other rumors around the 17 Slim (or Air, or whatever Apple names it) include that it will feature a 6.6-inch (or 6.55-inch) display and an aluminum frame. It could... Continue reading...

Photo by Matt Thomas/San Diego Padres/Getty Images Rumble, the video streaming platform that's become the home for right-wing personalities like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and Tim Pool as well as full-throated racists like Nick Fuentes, has a new member joining its ranks: Dr Disrespect. The streamer announced the news via social media and Rumble confirmed it in a press release, stating that the streamer will provide a mix of free and paid content for the platform as well as acting as an advisor and helping to build the Rumble Gaming community."The move to Rumble is the latest development in the Dr Disrespect streaming saga that began four years ago. In 2020, Dr Disrespect, whose real name is Herschel Guy" Beahm, was banned from Twitch with little explanation mere months after... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Threads will now let users decide what feed they want as their default when opening the app. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the news in a post, saying that you'll be able to choose between For You, Following, or any custom feed that you've set up. Zuckerberg's post notes that Threads is testing" this option and will also different feeds more visible" in the app.It took over a year to get here, but Threads is finally doing the obvious thing and allowing people to use the app however they prefer. Hopefully this test expands to all users before long.If you're in the test, here's how to set your default feed: open the Threads app and tap and hold on any feed at the top. From there, choose edit feeds," and that's where you'll... Continue reading...

Photo by Kevin Carter / Getty Images Cars are getting more efficient and less polluting, resulting in better air quality for everyone, according to a new report from the Environmental Protection Agency. But with a new administration coming in that has made climate change and air pollution less of a priority - and drilling for more fossil fuels more of one - it's unclear how sustainable this trend will be.In the US, new model cars are traveling further on less gas, the EPA reports. Real-world fuel economy improved by 1.1 miles per gallon of gasoline to a record high" of 27.1 mpg for model year 2023 vehicles. That's an improvement of 13.1mpg since 1975, when the EPA first began gathering fuel economy data.These gains in fuel economy do not take into account the EPA's... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images Nvidia says its new AI music editor can create sounds never heard before" - like a trumpet that meows. The tool, called Fugatto, is capable of generating music, sounds, and speech using text and audio inputs it's never been trained on.As shown in this video embedded below, this allows Fugatto to put together songs based on wild prompts, like Create a saxophone howling, barking then electronic music with dogs barking."Some other examples shared by the company include the ability to produce unique sound effects based on a description, like Deep, rumbling bass pulses paired with intermittent, high-pitched digital chirps, like the sound of a massive sentient machine waking up."It can even transform the sound of someone's voice,... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge The European Union says Twitter alternative Bluesky violates the EU Digital Services Act rules around information disclosure, reports Reuters. But since Bluesky isn't yet big enough to be considered a very large online platform" under the DSA, the regulator says it can't regulate Bluesky the way it does X or Threads.The Financial Times quotes European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier, who told reporters about the violation during a Monday press briefing:

Photo illustration by The Verge / Photo: GoDaddy Despite everything, websites are still a pretty neat idea - but what if AI builds them? Continue reading...

The Raspberry Pi Pico 2 now comes with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. | Image: Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi has announced an updated version of the Pico 2 microcontroller board with an onboard Wi-Fi chip. Called the Pico 2 W, it's powered by RP2350 microcontroller, which you can find in all manner of nerdy DIY gadgets and fun devices like the minuscule Thumby Color GBA clone. Best of all, it costs $7, up just two bucks from the $5 Pico 2.The Pico 2 W's Wi-Fi chip adds a 2.4GHz signal using the Wi-Fi 4 (aka 802.11n) standard and brings Bluetooth 5.2 along for the ride. Wi-Fi 4 is an older, low-bandwidth standard that's still used in a lot of smart home products today, from basic sensors to security cameras to smart speakers like the HomePod Mini.The Pico 2 W also features a single USB 1.1 port. Tom's Hardware notes in its... Continue reading...

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images California Governor Gavin Newsom vowed to bring back the state's rebate for new electric vehicle purchases if President-elect Donald Trump follow through on his threat to kill the federal tax credit.During the campaign, Trump vowed to eliminate President Joe Biden's EV mandate" on day one" of his presidency. And now with this transition underway, his advisors have already discussed including a measure to kill the $7,500 tax credit for new EV purchases as part of a broader tax reform package.If Trump succeeds, Newsom says he'll step up and revive the state's recently phased out Clean Vehicle Program, which offered rebates from $1,000 to $7,500 for the purchase or lease of new, eligible zero-emission vehicles, including electric,... Continue reading...

Silverstone's new FLP01 PC case looks like a relic from the late 90s. | Screenshot: X SilverStone's new FLP01 PC case looks it was created in a time when desktop computers had turbo buttons and bragging rights were earned by having a Pentium chip inside. In reality, the retro beige box is launching next year for all your modern PC-building needs, doubling as a stand for a monitor that's probably not a 30-pound CRT.The Japanese company SilverStone has been making PC components and cases since it launched in 2003, and last year, during its 20th anniversary, it shared the first details and images of the FLP01 on X timed to coincide with April Fools' Day.

The Verge Roku is making it easier to find and watch its programming on Google TV without jumping between apps. Users can soon search for content from The Roku Channel - Roku's free streaming app - directly on Google TV, providing quick access to Roku's library of over 80,000 movies and TV shows.New category tabs are coming to the Google TV home screen that will suggest recommended Roku content, alongside the ability to jump back into unfinished TV shows and movies from The Roku Channel. The integration will also bring more than 500 of Roku's FAST (free ad-supported streaming television) channels to the live" tab on Google TV. According to Roku, these channels will include free programming across news, sports, cooking, DIY, music, and more." ... Continue reading...

Kristen Radtke / The Verge Parenthood is abrupt and total.When I went to the hospital, I understood that I'd be sent home with a vulnerable being who would require constant care, but it was impossible to prepare for what that actually felt like.I'd loved being in the maternity ward, a leisurely four nights thanks to a C-section and a few complications, where I was surrounded by perky and competent nurses who took care of me and my baby, checking my bandages and bringing me ice and answering my questions.(I had a lot of questions.)If she doesn't want to eat, is that okay?"What does that raspy noise mean?"Her lower lip keeps quivering, is that okay?"Does she need to keep the hat on all the time?"How often should I change her diaper?"When we were... Continue reading...