The Verge - All Posts

Thunderbolt 5 cables, like their TB4 and TB3 predecessors, have USB-C tips. | Image: Cable Matters Intel's Thunderbolt 5 might be the best USB-C cable ever, with 120Gbps of single-direction bandwidth, 240 watts of power, and enough oomph to drive external SSDs, eGPUs, and high-resolution, high-refresh-rate monitors from a single cable at unheard-of levels. But first, it'd have to ship! Today, Cable Matters is shipping the first three certified Thunderbolt 5 cables, which bring us one big step closer to something practical instead of theoretical.Available today from Amazon in 1-foot (0.3m), 1.6-foot (0.5m), and 3.3-foot (1m) lengths for $23, $27, and $33, respectively, the new cables obviously don't do anything on their own - you'd need a computer with a Thunderbolt 5 port and a dock or accessory of some sort to get some real use out... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Silvergate Bank, once a cornerstone of the crypto financial world until its collapse in early 2023, defrauded its investors by lying about its anti-money laundering controls and misleading investors about how the fallout from the FTX collapse would affect it, the Securities and Exchange Commission says in a lawsuit. Also named in the suit were the company's chief executive officer, chief risk officer, and chief financial officer.Silvergate agreed to pay $50 million to settle the charges, without admitting or denying the allegations, the SEC said in a statement. CEO Alan Lane and CRO Kathleen Fraher also settled for $1 million and $250,000 each.Silvergate said it had an effective anti-money laundering (AML) program tailored specifically... Continue reading...

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. | Photo by Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images A couple of months ago, I was sitting in the audience at a tech conference in San Fransisco watching Bloomberg's Emily Chang interview Reid Hoffman.She asked about Microsoft's hiring of the team behind Inflection, a would-be OpenAI competitor that Hoffman co-founded. It was an acquisition in everything but name, clearly designed to avoid the scrutiny of antitrust regulators. Not only had Microsoft (where Hoffman is a board member) hired most of Inflection's employees - it also licensed the startup's technology in a way that seemed designed to make its investors whole.Speaking with Chang that day onstage, Hoffman predicted that what happened to Inflection will become a pattern" for future AI deals. We are seeing that pattern play out... Continue reading...

Image: Vaio Would you believe today marks an entire decade since Sony spun out its Vaio computer brand? Vaio has stood for lightweight laptops pretty much ever since - and now the company's announcing one of the lightest-ever portable monitors to go with them.The Vaio Vision Plus 14 goes on sale today in Japan as a 14-inch, 1920 x 1200 USB-C monitor that weighs just 0.72 pounds (325g). That's less than half as much as most of the monitors you'll find in a typical best portable monitor" list and notably lighter than the 13.3-inch, 1.08-pound (490g) Asus ZenScreen OLED MQ13AH, despite having a larger screen.The Vaio is also just 12.4mm thick (0.49in) at its widest point and 3.9mm (0.15in) at its thinnest. Images: Vaio The... Continue reading...

Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images While the majority of Americans would like to see more clean energy from solar and wind farms - support for new renewable energy projects has started to wane, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. It also found a drop in interest in electric vehicles following Biden administration policies to slash greenhouse gas emissions and Republican backlash.The share of people who favor more solar power has dropped from 90 to 78 percent since 2020, the survey found. Support for wind power among survey participants similarly dropped more than 10 percentage points to 72 percent over the past four years. And just 29 percent of adults said they'd consider an EV as their next car purchase, compared to 38 percent last year. ... Continue reading...

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Some folks are reporting being left with bricked Pixel 6, 6 Pro, and 6A phones after they factory reset them. Google is aware of the issue and is investigating, according to a comment from a member of the Pixel support forums' product expert program.Users in the forum thread, which was spotted by Indian tech outlet Tech-Issues Today, say that after attempting to reset their phone, the phone doesn't boot, throwing up an error message:

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Apple says the iPhone X, first-generation AirPods, and first-generation HomePod are now considered vintage," as reported by MacRumors. So, if you own a first-generation HomePod - or multiple, like the person I sold my HomePod to in 2022 - it might sting to hear that Apple already considers the six-year-old speaker vintage."Apple's vintage label technically refers to products that it stopped distributing between more than five and less than seven years ago, and fortunately, you can still get service for vintage products from Apple and authorized repair shops. But Apple seems to be moving the original HomePod on a faster track, given that it only discontinued the product three years ago. Apple didn't immediately reply to a request for... Continue reading...

Photo: Getty Images The Supreme Court ruled that presidents are absolutely" immune from criminal prosecution when their actions involve allegedly official acts while they were in office. Former presidents also have a presumption of immunity" for their official acts while in office - but, the court ruled, there is no immunity for unofficial acts."The decision in Trump v. United States means that the special counsel Jack Smith's prosecution against former President Donald Trump - who's currently running to unseat President Joe Biden - may be able to proceed. In his majority decision, Chief Justice John Roberts remanded the case to the lower courts, which now have to determine whether Trump's conduct was official or unofficial.Trump is being prosecuted... Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos via Getty Images On Monday, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton, two consequential cases about the future of speech on the internet. The court explicitly extended First Amendment protections to how social media platforms organize, curate, and moderate their feeds, drawing a comparison between internet content moderation and traditional publishers and editors."The decision elaborates that the compilation and curation of others' speech into an expressive product of its own" is entitled to First Amendment protection and that the government cannot get its way just by asserting an interest in better balancing the marketplace of ideas."The NetChoice cases concern a pair of similar laws in Florida and... Continue reading...

Samsung is bringing Matter 1.2 to its SmartThings smart home platform. | Image: Samsung SmartThings Samsung SmartThings looks set to become the first major smart home platform to fully support Matter 1.2. According to a press release, the SmartThings platform now works with Matter 1.2, so manufacturers and developers can start integrating their compatible devices with the platform. The SmartThings app won't be updated to support Matter until later this summer - so you won't be able to control your Matter-compatible Roborock robot vacuum or Midea dishwasher through SmartThings until then.Samsung also announced several other updates to its smart home platform, including app design improvements, new device control options, a hub backup option, shareable routines, and the gamification of its SmartThings Energy feature.Support for... Continue reading...

Photo illustration by The Verge / Photo: Big Green Egg Fire is literally the oldest tech in the world, but grilling is a very modern business. Continue reading...

Image: The Verge The EU has formally charged Meta with violations of its Digital Markets Act (DMA), marking its second such charge in as many weeks. The European Commission writes in a preliminary ruling that the pay or consent" advertising model that launched last year for Facebook and Instagram users runs afoul of Article 5(2) of the DMA by not giving users a third option that uses less data for ad targeting but is still free to use.Regulators found in their investigation that Meta gives users a binary choice" that forces them to either choose to pay a monthly subscription fee to get the ad-free version of Facebook and Instagram or consent to the ad-supported version. Where Meta runs afoul of its rules, it says, is by not letting users opt for a... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge If you're disappointed that the only AI model that will integrate with Apple devices so far will be ChatGPT, it sounds like you won't have to wait long for that to change. Apple will announce at least" one other deal - to add Google Gemini, too - this fall, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter today.Gemini has been part of the iOS 18 chatbot rumors for as long as OpenAI has. Apple software boss Craig Federighi even hinted at a Google deal shortly after the keynote was over. Anthropic has been mixed up in these rumors as well, and Gurman also suggests Apple could announce a deal with that company at some point, if not this fall. Meta, though, was quickly rejected because its Llama chatbot just isn't good... Continue reading...

Photo by Ivan Porkchop44" for Games Done Quick It's summer, which means it's time for sun and speedruns. The 2024 edition of Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ), the annual speedrunning marathon for charity, kicks off on Sunday and runs until July 6th. This year's lineup is once again packed with runs for some of my favorite games, including Balatro, Alan Wake 2, Elden Ring, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1, 2, 3, and 4 (all in one run), a glitchless Baldur's Gate 3 Honour Mode run, and a shipless Outer Wilds run (how???).But my most anticipated run is a live speedrun from Peanut Butter, the shiba inu who performed a remote run of the NES game Gyromite at Awesome Games Done Quick in January. At SGDQ, Peanut Butter will be live at the event playing Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball... Continue reading...

Image: David Pierce / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 44, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been writing about why I love the Boox Palma, reading about hot dog contests and the history of Markdown and the future of streaming, watching Shoresy and Federer and a lot of soccer (it's been a very sports-y week), mourning the end of the Longform podcast, developing a strange obsession with salt water taffy, retesting the Apple Vision Pro, and trying every method I can find for making good iced coffee at home.I also have for you a couple of great new Bluetooth speakers, the new season of Hulu's... Continue reading...

An Uber and Lyft vehicle in New York. | Photo: Lindsey Nicholson / UCG / Universal Images Group via Getty Images Rideshare drivers in Massachusetts will soon get company-provided benefits, as well as a minimum pay of $32.50 per hour, starting on August 15th. That's thanks to a new settlement between the state and rideshare companies Uber and Lyft, four years after Attorney General Andrea Campbell sued the companies, asserting their drivers ought to be considered employees under state law.The two companies also agreed to pay a combined $175 million, the bulk of which will be paid out to current and former drivers who were underpaid by the companies," Campbell's office announced yesterday. The office says it will release details about who qualifies and how to apply in coming weeks." Despite the settlement and the original thrust of the suit,... Continue reading...

The 10th-gen Kindle Paperwhite may lack USB-C and don a smaller display, but it still nails the basics. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Lately, it seems as though the biggest happenings in the E Ink world revolve around large note-taking devices like the Kindle Scribe and color offerings such as the apt-titled Kobo Libra Colour. That said, if you're looking for a basic ebook reader to burn through your summer reading list, there's nothing wrong with picking up a last-gen e-reader like the 2018 Kindle Paperwhite - which happens to be on sale at Amazon (via Woot) in used condition with ads for $49.99.Amazon's last-gen Paperwhite has become more difficult to find since the arrival of the 2021 model, even if it isn't a dramatic step down in terms of features. It still carries an IPX8 rating for full resistance against water immersion, as well as a crisp six-inch, 300ppi... Continue reading...

A Redbox machine from 2015. Redbox's owner, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, filed for bankruptcy protection overnight. This comes at the tail end of a month in which the DVD rental company defaulted on loans, saw an order for its cars to be repossessed, and missed payroll for employees.Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment informed employees of the filing late Friday, writing in an email seen by The Verge that it had filed for a debtor-in-possession loan - a way for companies that are reorganizing after filing for bankruptcy to secure additional working capital to meet payroll.It's a pressing matter for the company, as employees have been waiting for paychecks since June 21st. The company also promised to reinstate health insurance for his employees,... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Most of the time when you delete a file, it's actually not wiped from existence immediately - as recently discovered by a man whose wife came across illicit texts he'd been sending (and which he thought he had got rid of on his iPhone). The man is now suing Apple.Marital infidelity aside, the safety net that's put in place for deleted files can help you recover data you've erased in error - however, it can also leave your data exposed to other people (if you're selling a device, for example). It's important to know where your deleted files are and how to get them back or erase them permanently.Checking sync status Screenshot: Apple Before you try to delete any files, you should check your iCloud syncing status.... Continue reading...

Image: Epic Games Last weekend, Metallica graced the virtual stage in Fortnite, but the event was more than just a heavy metal concert. It was one piece in a weeks-long rollout of modes and content, which really drove home just how large and complex the game has become. The battle royale has steadily morphed into an entire ecosystem of games and experiences, and the Metallica crossover might've been the most complex to date.The concert was the showcase moment, and it was like going through an interactive version of heavy metal album art. Players were whisked away in a hot rod to a pyro-heavy concert stage before moving on to a gothic bell tower and a fight with a menacing puppet master. Like past virtual concerts featuring Eminem and Ariana Grande, it... Continue reading...

The Solos AirGo Vision glasses, with camera module. | Image: Solos If you want a pair of glasses with hands-free video recording and an AI voice assistant, there aren't a lot of options, and the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses are the clear leader. But Solos, whose smart glasses currently only feature audio, says it'll sell a camera-equipped version later this year - with OpenAI's new GPT-4o AI model to let the camera recognize objects and answer questions about what you're seeing.The Solos AirGo Vision also include the same swappable frame system as Solos' other glasses so you can swap out the camera - if you're going somewhere a camera wouldn't be socially acceptable, or if you'd just rather have a different look or some sun shades instead. Additional frames cost between $89 and $129. The... Continue reading...

Photo by Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit Microsoft AI boss Mustafa Suleyman incorrectly believes that the moment you publish anything on the open web, it becomes freeware" that anyone can freely copy and use.When CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin asked him whether AI companies have effectively stolen the world's IP," he said:

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos via Getty Images Since the New Deal era, the bulk of the functioning US government is the administrative state - think the acronym soup of agencies like the EPA, FCC, FTC, FDA, and so on. Even when Capitol Hill is not mired in deep dysfunction, the speed at which Congress and the courts operate no longer seems suitable for modern life. Both industry and ordinary people look to the administrative state, rather than legislators, for an immediate answer to their problems. And since 1984, the administrative state largely ran on one Supreme Court precedent: Chevron USA, Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).That decision has now been overturned. Admin law is not always interesting, but the simple fact is when it comes to the day-to-day, agencies... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), the nonprofit that produces Mother Jones and Reveal, announced on Thursday that it's suing Microsoft and OpenAI over alleged copyright infringement, following similar actions by The New York Times and several other media outlets.OpenAI and Microsoft started vacuuming up our stories to make their product more powerful, but they never asked for permission or offered compensation, unlike other organizations that license our material," Monika Bauerlein, CEO of the Center for Investigative Reporting, said in a statement. This free rider behavior is not only unfair, it is a violation of copyright. The work of journalists, at CIR and everywhere, is valuable, and OpenAI and Microsoft know it."C... Continue reading...

Image: Nomad Nomad is running an overstock sale of various accessories on its site, and an especially notable one is its original Base One Max 3-in-1 MagSafe Charger - offered in black or silver for $95 ($55 off) or in an extra-fancy gold limited edition" for $120 ($30 off).This is the original, first-gen model from last year that simultaneously charges a MagSafe iPhone, Apple Watch, and compatible AirPods (or other wireless charging-capable earbuds). It's got a weighty heft to it, being made of a mix of aluminum and glass, and it's nearly identical to the revised model that Nomad released soon after, which added Apple Watch fast charging. Faster charging for Apple Watch Series 7 and newer models is a nice feature, but that updated Base One Max... Continue reading...

Photo by David Becker / Getty Images Dr Disrespect's YouTube channel has been demonetized. In a statement to The Verge, YouTube spokesperson Nicole Bell wrote, We have suspended monetization on DrDisrespect's channel for violating our Creator Responsibility policy." Bell also wrote that Dr Disrespect has been suspended from YouTube's partner program following serious allegations against the creator."The allegations refer to multiple reports that the streamer, whose real name is Guy Beahm, was banned from Twitch in 2020 due to inappropriate messages sent to a minor through Whispers, a Twitch communication app. When Beahm was banned, neither he nor Twitch explained the reason, leaving it a mystery for four years. Late last week, however, Cody Conners, a former Twitch... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge AT&T announced Next Up Anytime, a new early upgrade program for customers on an AT&T installment plan, which will be available starting July 16th. At $10 per month, it's more expensive than AT&T's existing $6 per month Next Up add-on but gives subscribers the option of upgrading their smartphone as soon as just one installment payment has been made, up to three times per year.After the new program launches, the cheaper Next Up will no longer be offered to new customers, but people who already have it will be able to keep that until they upgrade their devices. With Next Up, customers were eligible to trade in and upgrade their devices as soon as they paid off half of it, either through monthly installment payments or sooner with a lump... Continue reading...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos via Getty Images On Friday, the Supreme Court overturned a long-standing legal doctrine in the US, making a transformative ruling that could hamper federal agencies' ability to regulate all kinds of industry. Six Republican-appointed justices voted to overturn the doctrine, called Chevron deference, a decision that could affect everything from pollution limits to consumer protections in the US.Chevron deference allows courts to defer to federal agencies when there are disputes over how to interpret ambiguous language in legislation passed by Congress. That's supposed to lead to more informed decisions by leaning on expertise within those agencies. By overturning the Chevron doctrine, the conservative-dominated SCOTUS decided that judges ought to make... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Surely, you've heard Mariah Carey's holiday smash hit, All I Want for Christmas Is You." But have you heard about this other song? It's also called All I Want for Christmas Is You," and uh, it sounds a lot like Mariah Carey. We're about to spend a long time litigating how that happened.On this episode of The Vergecast, with the help of Switched on Pop's Charlie Harding, we dig deep into the new lawsuit filed by the RIAA against two AI companies, Udio and Suno. Those two companies are alleged to have violated music industry copyrights by ingesting vast quantities of recorded songs in order to train their AI models. Copyright law is complicated, these fights against AI companies are everywhere, and there's really no telling how this is... Continue reading...

The Verge The startup's web scraping has raised more than a few eyebrows. Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The NFL has been hit with a $4.7 billion verdict in a class action antitrust lawsuit filed on behalf of residential and commercial customers who paid for its Sunday Ticket package on DirecTV from 2011 through 2022.Originally filed in 2015 by the Mucky Duck sports bar, the lawsuit claimed that the league and its teams had conspired to give DirecTV an illegal monopoly on out-of-market games until YouTube took it over, starting with the 2023 season. The plaintiffs noted that other leagues distributed live, out-of-market games through multiple providers instead of just one exclusive partner like the NFL and argued during the case that the setup not only inflated the price of Sunday Ticket but also forced viewers to pay for games during... Continue reading...

Image: The New York Times Strands, The New York Times' very good word search game, has been officially added to the NYT's Games app on iOS and Android.For me personally, this is huge. Strands has become my favorite of the NYT's games since it launched in beta in March, but I was annoyed that I had to bounce between the app and a browser to complete my daily Wordle, Connections, and Strands. Now, I can do all of the puzzles right in the app over my morning coffee. It's the little things!Each Strands puzzle has a theme. That theme hints at the words you'll need to find - including the spangram" word that spans across opposite sides of the puzzle. Every letter in the puzzle is used for a themed word or the spangram. If you need some help, you can get hints by... Continue reading...

House Energy Subcommittee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers. | Photo: Getty Images The House Energy and Commerce Committee suddenly canceled a markup to discuss and vote on 11 bills, including the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).The committee did not provide a reason for the cancellation in its online notice, and committee members appeared surprised by the change, according to reporters in the room. But disagreements on the bill with Republican House leadership seemed to play a role, according to recent reporting and the top Democrats on the committee. Some Republican House members have recently expressed concerns with the bill, Politico reported last week, adding that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise's (R-LA) top aide said an earlier version of APRA wouldn't get a floor... Continue reading...

What, exactly, is Perplexity's innovation? | Image: The Verge In every hype cycle, certain patterns of deceit emerge. In the last crypto boom, it was ponzinomics" and rug pulls." In self-driving cars, it was just five years away!" In AI, it's seeing just how much unethical shit you can get away with.Perplexity is basically a rent-seeking middleman on high-quality sourcesPerplexity, which is in ongoing talks to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, is trying to create a Google Search competitor. Perplexity isn't trying to create a search engine," though - it wants to create an answer engine." The idea is that instead of combing through a bunch of results to answer your own question with a primary source, you'll simply get an answer Perplexity has found for you. Factfulness and accuracy is... Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has joined the defense team for a neo-Nazi accused of plotting to sabotage Baltimore's electrical grid, The Baltimore Banner reports.Attorneys from the ACLU's National Security Project will be working with Brandon Clint Russell's defense for the limited purpose of challenging the government's secretive warrantless surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act," Ashley Gorski, a senior staff attorney with the National Security Project, said in a statement to The Verge.Based on the government's own disclosures, we have good reason to believe that Mr. Russell was subjected to Section 702 surveillance and his case is a rare and important opportunity to challenge the... Continue reading...

Image: Hyundai Meet the Hyundai Inster, the latest cute, small electric vehicle that is being cruelly denied a North American debut. This subcompact EV has over 200 miles of range, an almost retro-inspired interior aesthetic (think lots of plastic and chunky buttons), and an adorable face that won't be making an appearance on US roads any time soon.Oh, and did I mention that it will be very affordable? Automotive News is reporting that the Inster will be priced below $26,000. So not only is Hyundai entering the fray for affordable EVs, but it's doing it as at an extreme distance from the US - which is very much in need of affordable EVs. Tesla is being wishy-washy on making a more affordable $25,000 Model 2." Ford is still trying to... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is working on new plans for its YouTube Premium subscriptions, the company said in a community post on Thursday. We're committed to bringing members more plan options by expanding our existing offers to more regions, while also introducing new plans and exploring ways for you to share your benefits with friends in the future," according to a post from a YouTube team member identified as Hazel.Currently, there are only a handful of YouTube Premium plans: Individual for $13.99 per month (or 12 months for $139.99); Family for $22.99 per month; and Student for $7.99 per month. By subscribing, you get perks like ad-free videos, the ability to download videos to watch offline, and ad-free access to the YouTube Music library.... Continue reading...