The Verge

Image: Eero Owners of Amazon’s Eero 6 and Pro 6 routers will now be able to isolate their HomeKit IoT devices from the rest of their home network and the wider internet, thanks to a new integration with Apple’s HomeKit that’s now rolling out (via MacRumors). The new feature is coming as part of a firmware update, and makes the routers some of the first Wi-Fi 6 systems that support Apple’s integration.The added feature may be welcome, but it’s probably not a surprise for those who have been paying attention: Eero’s other, cheaper routers were updated to support it in February, 2020, and an Eero Support account mentioned in November that the router was going through Apple’s certification process.Setting up your Eero (or any other supported routers)... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge More than 500 Amazon employees have signed an internal letter to Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy calling for the company to acknowledge the plight of the Palestinian people. The move comes after Israeli airstrikes devastated Palestinians in Gaza, leaving 248 people dead. Hamas and Israel have since agreed to a ceasefire.“We ask Amazon leadership to acknowledge the continued assault upon Palestinians’ basic human rights under an illegal occupation... without using language that implies a power symmetry or situational equivalency, which minimizes and misrepresents the disruption, destruction, and death that has disproportionately been inflicted upon the Palestinians in recent days and over several decades,” employees wrote. “Amazon employs... Continue reading…

Google finally has its first all-electric vehicle for capturing Street View. The tech giant and Jaguar Land Rover announced today that they have collaborated to rig up an all-electric I-Pace SUV with the equipment required to capture Street View imagery, and deployed the car in Dublin, Ireland.The I-Pace will also collect more general Google Maps data, and it will be outfitted with air quality sensors from Aclima — something Google has done with its Street View cars for the better part of the last decade. The I-Pace will collect “street-by-street air quality” data in Dublin, measuring nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide emissions, as well as fine particles. Google will make the data available to the Dublin City Council.Jaguar Land... Continue reading…

Philo’s streaming service on various devices. | Image: Philo Philo has become the latest live TV option for cord-cutters hoping to skirt cable contracts to get a price bump — but there’s a workaround for current subscribers.Beginning June 8th, Philo’s monthly subscription cost for incoming customers will hike to $25 from $20. But those who are subscribed to the service before that date will be able to keep their plans at the current cost with no change, Philo CEO Andrew McCollum said in a Tuesday announcement on the company’s blog. To offset the price increase, Philo will be increasing its unlimited DVR storage period to a full year, up from 30 days, and existing customers who’d like to upgrade their storage will be able to bump up to the new price tier if they so choose.McCollum cited an... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Hello again, it has come to my attention that Republican Senator Ted Cruz and I are in perfect alignment on one issue: if you enter your iPhone passcode on live TV, you need to change the passcode. This means you in particular, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal.“I recognize it’s happened before.”I honestly didn’t think anyone needed to explain this, particularly since Kanye West accidentally revealed his passcode (000000, in case you are curious) during a video with then-president Donald Trump in 2018. But here we are.If you are a member of the US federal government, you are a desirable target for all kinds of hackers, most of whom do not have your best interests at heart. Your phone stores a lot of sensitive data about where you... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Hundreds of Amazon tech workers are pressuring Amazon to quit polluting — especially in communities near its warehouses. More than 600 workers signed a petition asking Amazon to bring its pollution down to zero by 2030. They also called on the company to prioritize deploying zero-emissions technologies near the communities hit hardest by Amazon’s pollution.The petition was started after Amazon rejected a shareholder resolution asking the company to report how much pollution it emits in communities of color. Amazon says the proposal was similar to a resolution that was voted down by shareholders last year. Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting is scheduled for May 26th.Amazon’s warehouses have mushroomed around working-class communities... Continue reading…

Photo by Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images The hack of the Colonial Pipeline — which kneecapped oil availability on the East Coast for almost two weeks — was as disastrous as it was likely preventable. A branch of the Department of Homeland Security, however, is hoping to correct course by changing the rules on cybersecurity and disclosure for Colonial and other companies in the pipeline industry.As reported by The Washington Post, the Transportation Security Administration (yes, the same sub-branch of DHS everyone associates with taking their shoes off in airports) will be requiring pipeline companies to report breaches and other cybersecurity incidents, with additional rules on how to keep these critical infrastructure systems secure from digital threats arriving “in coming... Continue reading…

Turntable.fm, the social platform that lets people collaboratively build and perform DJ sets, has raised $7.5 million in venture capital funding, according to a Medium post by CEO Billy Chasen. Turntable.fm was revived by Chasen as a response to the pandemic, after it shut down in 2013. But it’s not the only version of Turntable in the works now, which makes that funding more interesting.The investment was led by the Andreessen Horowitz firm, also known as a16z, which has invested in products like Clubhouse, Coinbase, and Robinhood. The list of investors also includes Seth Goldstein, who was a co-founder and investor for the original incarnation of Turntable.fm in 2011.While Turntable.fm is being run by its original creator, another... Continue reading…

For the last year, FlyQuest has been on a mission. Though the team competes in the League of Legends Championship Series, it has steadily become as known for its socially conscious efforts as its in-game performances. The team launched initiatives centered on planting trees, donating to a coral reef foundation, and improving mental health. But for FlyQuest CEO Tricia Sugita, the process was always a bit incomplete. “While we were doing those actions, a part of it always felt missing,” she tells The Verge. “Because what was lagging behind was our design.”Today, FlyQuest is revealing a brand-new logo meant to invoke its focus on everything green. It’s a fairly simple design: a straightforward “Q” with a leaf in the middle. Despite this... Continue reading…

Image: iFixit iFixit has published a detailed teardown of Apple’s newly redesigned M1 processor-equipped iMac, and it contains bad news about how easy the new all-in-one is to repair. Whether it’s the fans, USB ports, headphone jack, power button, or speakers, iFixit says virtually any repairs to the new desktop require battling through Apple’s adhesives.Like the other M1 Macs, everything is soldered together now — so there’s no upgrading RAM or internal storage even if you do crack it open. The good news is if you do go through the effort of cracking it open, iFixit says most of the other internal parts (including the ports, webcam, and speakers) are relatively easy to swap out with replacements. Photo: iFixit These problems... Continue reading…

Image: Tesla Tesla has stopped building forward-facing radar sensors into its Model 3 sedans and Model Y SUVs in North America, after CEO Elon Musk publicly expressed a desire to rely on cameras to power the company’s advanced driver assistance system, Autopilot.Tesla has been developing the vision-based version of Autopilot during the limited beta test of its “Full Self-Driving” software. But it’s not completely done making sure Autopilot works without the radar sensor, though, as it is limiting or disabling some features on these vehicles for an indefinite amount of time. Autosteer — the Autopilot feature that can keep a Tesla centered in a lane, even around curves — will only be usable at 75 miles per hour and below. Tesla is also only making it... Continue reading…

A screenshot from Knockout City. | Image: EA Knockout City took me back to childhood games of dodgeball with a single sound: “whumphf!” That one noise, which you’ll hear a lot as dodgeballs bounce every which way, represents just how well the game’s virtual version of dodgeball mimics the real thing — including all of the chaos you might remember from games on the playground.Knockout City is made by EA and Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit developer Velan Studios, and its primary mode involves three-on-three matches against online opponents. In each match, you’ll scoop up dodgeballs littered around the city-themed maps and launch them at your unsuspecting targets. When you charge up a throw, the game automatically locks onto a target, meaning you don’t have to worry about precise aim.... Continue reading…

Image: Lordstown Motors Electric vehicle startups have raised an absurd amount of money in the last year by merging with special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs. That money — billions of dollars, collectively — was supposed to be enough to help each of them start fighting for space in a market dominated by Tesla. But many of these startups are still having trouble getting rolling.EV startup struggles are not new. Most of the ones that are still around spent years grappling with the inherent, unavoidable difficulties of automotive manufacturing. Now, though, the bruises of that fight are developing in broad daylight — all while they try to beat deep-pocketed legacy automakers to the punch.Startups going public makes it much easier to see where the... Continue reading…

Wind turbines, of the Block Island Wind Farm, tower above the water on October 14, 2016 off the shores of Block Island, Rhode Island. The first offshore wind project in the US has created more than 300 construction jobs and will deliver the electricity demands for the entire island. / AFP / DON EMMERT | Photo credit should read DON EMMERT/AFP via Getty Images Offshore wind is headed west. The Biden administration announced today that it will open up parts of the Pacific coast to commercial-scale offshore renewable energy development for the first time. The geography of the West Coast poses huge technical challenges for wind energy. But rising to meet those challenges is a big opportunity for both President Joe Biden and California Governor Gavin Newsom to meet their clean energy goals.There are two areas now slotted for development off the coast of Central and Northern California — one at Morro Bay and another near Humboldt County. Together, these areas could generate up to 4.6GW of energy, enough power for 1.6 million homes over the next decade, according to a White House fact sheet.“A... Continue reading…

Image: Focus Features Being a young person in the city is hard enough without being haunted by a cabaret singer from the 1960s, but that’s exactly what Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit) appears to be dealing with in the first trailer for Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho. The film is set to premiere in theaters in October, but the trailer seems like a nice taste of Wright’s clever style through a horror lens.Last Night in Soho follows McKenzie as Eloise, a young fashion fan who seemingly has the ability to dream herself into the past. The problem is she isn’t herself when she visits London’s West End in the 1960s; she’s Anya Taylor-Joy’s Sandy, a singer who, if the trailer is anything to go by, probably shouldn’t be dating whoever Matt Smith is playing... Continue reading…

Image: Asus Asus’ ROG Phone 5 is now available in the US from its official store, with a price tag of $999.99. It’s Asus’ latest maxed-out gaming phone, with all of the top-notch specifications: a Snapdragon 888 Plus, 144Hz display, front-facing speakers, and a massive 6,000mAh battery.Asus says the Ultimate and Pro versions of the phone will be available later this year. We reviewed the Ultimate in March and found that it was a good phone that went a little — okay, maybe a lot — overboard with its specs. The vanilla version available for sale today, though, is perhaps a bit more reasonable: it “only” has 16GB of RAM (as opposed to the Ultimate’s 18GB), has half the storage (256GB instead of 512GB), and features an RGB logo on the back instead of... Continue reading…

Microsoft isn’t talking about its big Windows plans at Build 2021 this week, and that’s because the company is preparing to detail what’s next for its PC operating system separately. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella teased this announcement during his Build keynote this morning, revealing he has been testing “the next generation of Windows” in recent months.

David Hall, the founder of leading lidar manufacturer Velodyne, is going to war with the SPAC that acquired his company. In a letter, Hall is calling for the resignation of two of the company’s SPAC-appointed board directors, whom he blames for Velodyne’s “poor financial performance.”It’s the latest twist in the increasingly dramatic saga of Velodyne, a top maker of the laser sensors that are viewed as crucial for the operation of autonomous vehicles. Last month, Hall was ousted as chair of the company’s board, and his wife, Marta Thoma Hall, was removed as its chief marketing officer. The board cited an investigation into “inappropriate behavior” by both Halls in its justification for their removal. Marta Hall remains a member of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Tuesday, DC Attorney General Karl Racine sued Amazon on antitrust grounds, accusing the e-commerce giant of suppressing competition by placing strict conditions on what third-party sellers can do outside of the company’s platform.“Amazon’s policies have prevented competing platforms, including sellers’ own websites, from competing on price and gaining market share,” Racine said in a press call. “The loss of competition results in less innovation.”Filed in DC Superior Court, the lawsuit alleges that Amazon unlawfully maintains its monopoly power by preventing independent sellers from offering products at lower prices on other platforms. It also claims that these “most favored nation” agreements harm consumers by inflating prices and... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Sonos is refreshing its One SL speaker, which doesn’t have always-on microphones or integrated voice controls, to make it more power efficient and recyclable, the company confirmed to The Verge. However, the new model won’t have any additional features or functionality. The updated speaker first appeared in FCC filings published Monday.The primary change in this new One SL is a “more efficient” wireless radio, according to Sonos. The base of the speaker has also been redesigned to remove extra plastics and “stickering,” and the product packaging has a “more sustainable design” like what’s used with the recently released Sonos Roam. And while there won’t be any new functionality, Sonos says that this updated One SL will only work with... Continue reading…

Image: Tidal Music streaming service Tidal is now available on the Apple Watch, allowing subscribers to stream music directly to Apple’s wearable or download it for offline listening. Instructions on how to get set up can be found on Tidal’s site. Spotify and Deezer both announced similar offline listening features for the Apple Watch last week. Subscription prices for Tidal start at $9.99 a month.Tidal has historically sold itself on the quality of its audio streaming, offering features like lossless playback and even hi-res streaming before many of its bigger rivals. But this year, some of its biggest competitors are starting to catch up. Spotify’s lossless HiFi tier is set to launch later this year, and Apple Music will introduce support for... Continue reading…

Compared to competitors like YouTube TV and Hulu, Sling TV has never had the flashiest app, and the overall user experience leaves something to be desired. It’s been easy enough to overlook these faults since Sling TV undercuts those rivals on price, but today the company announced a completely redesigned app that focuses on more polish and personalized recommendations.The new Sling TV app is rolling out first to “select customers” using Amazon’s Fire TV devices, and other platforms will be added as the year stretches on. (It’ll arrive on Roku sometime this summer, for example.) The Dish-owned company describes this as the “most comprehensive update in Sling TV’s history.” And based on screenshots and the GIF above, it does look like a... Continue reading…

Image: Panasonic Panasonic has announced not one but two follow-up cameras to the Lumix GH5, a camera that’s been popular with videographers since it launched in 2017. There’s the GH6, which Panasonic says features a brand-new sensor and will launch by the end of the year for $2,500, and the GH5 Mark II, which is going up for preorder today, with a body-only package coming in at $1,700.The GH6 will feature a new image engine along with the sensor and will have the capability to record 10-bit 4K at 120fps and 10-bit 5.7K at 60fps. The camera also promises DCI 4K60 at 4:2:2 without a recording time limit. The GH6 is currently in development, so Panasonic didn’t provide many more details, but it did say that the camera would feature a Micro Four Thirds... Continue reading…

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule is seen docked to the International Space Station on May 5th, 2021, shortly before returning four astronauts back to Earth. | Image: NASA / Johnson Space Center Peggy Whitson, one of NASA’s most experienced retired astronauts, is going back to space — this time with a racecar driver and two other passengers in the latest mission planned by Axiom Space. The Houston-based space company announced on Tuesday that Whitson will serve as the mission commander for its second private flight to the International Space Station, with John Shoffner, a GT racer, serving as mission pilot.The Ax-2 mission with Whitson and Shoffner will be similar to Ax-1, Axiom’s first planned flight for early next year: a crew of four private citizens will fly to the International Space Station for a roughly eight-day stay conducting scientific research. It’s the latest private spaceflight planned so far as companies like... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft first let developers build third-party apps into Teams last year, but the company is going a step further at Build 2021 today. In a push to get more app developers building for Teams, Microsoft is opening up its crucial APIs, Teams Store, and tools to what it calls collaborative apps.Developers will soon be able to build apps that plug into the Teams meeting canvas, ones that use in-app purchases or subscriptions, and even create separate apps that get access to Teams’ real-time video and audio streams. “If you can build web apps, you can build extensions into Teams chats, channels, and meetings,” explains Jeff Teper, head of Microsoft 365 collaboration, in an interview with The Verge. “You can build once, run, deploy... Continue reading…

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - JULY 19: Swimmers cool off at 31st Street Beach as temperatures climb into the 90’s with a heat index expected to reach as high as 115 degrees on July 19, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. | Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images In cities across the US, people of color are enduring hotter summer temperatures than their white counterparts, new research shows. It’s another sign that the consequences of rising temperatures will hit vulnerable communities harder than others.Rising temperatures will hit vulnerable communities harderA person of color, on average, lives in a census tract that’s more than a full degree Celsius (nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter in the summer than their non-Hispanic white counterparts, according to a study published today in the journal Nature Communications. That included anyone who did not identify as “white alone,” plus anyone who identifies as Hispanic. The difference in temperature was slightly larger still for Black residents.... Continue reading…

In September 2020, Microsoft purchased an exclusive license to the underlying technology behind GPT-3, an AI language tool built by OpenAI. Now, the Redmond, Washington-based tech giant has announced its first commercial use case for the program: an assistive feature in the company’s PowerApps software that turns natural language into readymade code.The feature is limited in its scope and can only produce formulas in Microsoft Power Fx, a simple programming language derived from Microsoft Excel formulas that’s used mainly for database queries. But it shows the huge potential for machine learning to help novice programmers by functioning as an autocomplete tool for code.“Why don’t we ... speak the language of a normal human?”“There’s... Continue reading…

Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne has a lot in common with the rest of the cult roleplaying series — namely a focus on everything demonic and post-apocalyptic. And despite a punishing difficulty level, the game received rave reviews when it debuted on the PS2. But since then it has remained largely inaccessible. There’s no easy way to play Nocturne on modern hardware.That changes today with the release of a new remastered version that’s available on the Switch, Steam, and PS4. For director Kazuyuki Yamai, it marks yet another chance to bring the game to new players. While Nocturne was initially a Japan-only release, Yamai worked on a special edition dubbed “Maniax” that would eventually launch in North America and Europe, as well as a... Continue reading…

Flexibits — best known for its popular calendar application, Fantastical — has a new, overhauled version of its contact management application Cardhop out today, which updates the app with new features and a fresh coat of paint.But most importantly, like Fantastical before it, Cardhop is also switching to a subscription model. The contact app is being added for free to the existing Fantastical Premium subscription that Flexibits introduced last year. And to mark that expanded scope, Fantastical Premium is also getting a new name: Flexibits Premium.The original Mac and iOS versions of Cardhop previously cost $19.99 and $4.99, respectively. However, similar to Fantastical, Flexibits will now be offering a more limited, free version of... Continue reading…

Photo by Erin Schaff for The Verge Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) is calling on the Treasury Department to fund broadband projects in communities without access to 100Mbps upload and download speeds with the money allocated by the American Rescue Plan earlier this year.In March, President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan, directing the Treasury Department to distribute billions of dollars to help state and local governments amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. As part of the plan, this funding can be used to expand access to high-speed broadband internet in communities that need it.However, the plan’s language suggests funding can only go to “unserved” or “underserved” communities. The Federal Communications Commission classifies communities with speeds of below... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok has changed the voice on its text-to-speech feature, just weeks after an actor claiming to be the original voice filed a lawsuit claiming she never agreed to be featured in the app.The new voice has been showing up in TikToks over the past day — often in videos of people commenting on the change. It sounds a bit more energetic and upbeat, creating a very different vibe than the droll monotone of the prior voice. The feature allows TikTok users to type out text and then have it read aloud over their videos, and it’s often used as a narrator.

A vial of the Mo | Photo by Ramon Costa/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is effective in 12- to 17-year-olds, the company announced today in a press release. It plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration to authorize the shot for this age group in early June.None of the teens who received two shots of the Moderna vaccine in a clinical trial developed COVID-19, and there were no safety concerns. The trial included 3,732 participants. Two-thirds got the shot, and one-third received placebo injections. There were four cases of COVID-19 in the group that received placebo injections.The vaccine was 93 percent effective against even mild forms of the disease in this group as early as 14 days after the first dose, the company said.The Moderna vaccine is currently authorized for... Continue reading…

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one of many first-party Nintendo games on sale right now at GameStop. If you’re a Nintendo Switch owner, you’re probably already familiar with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It remains one of the most ambitious and charming Zelda titles to date. But like most first-party Nintendo games, it’s one that rarely receives a sizeable discount. Right now, though, you can purchase a physical edition of the beloved title at GameStop for $40, with free shipping. The popular retailer is also offering a host of other first- and third-party games at a discount as part of its ongoing Memorial Day sale, including standouts such as Persona V Strikers, Splatoon 2, and Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. Now, if only Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate would make the cut.If you’re more... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Arm has introduced its latest CPU and GPU designs, including its flagship Cortex-X2 and Cortex-A710 CPUs and Mali-G710 GPU. The new CPU and GPU designs aren’t just Arm’s latest chip blueprints, though; they’re also its first designs to utilize its new Armv9 architecture, its first in a decade, which means big jumps in performance, along with new security and AI features.Most consumers probably aren’t familiar with the exact Arm cores inside their phones or computers, but Arm’s designs — and particularly, its big.LITTLE configuration of combining powerful high-performance cores and battery-saving high-efficiency cores — are common to virtually every Android phone. That means the designs introduced here are effectively a preview of what... Continue reading…

Public Public, the trading and social networking app, is the next app to get into live audio. Like many apps before it, the company says it’s planning to roll out live audio features starting this week under the name Public Live. Unlike its competitors, like Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces, however, Public will initially program these chats with moderators it pays, meaning not just anyone can start a conversation. It’ll host about three events a week, and users will receive a push notification to join, along with a badge inside the app allowing them to hop into it. Topics might include coverage of an upcoming IPO, the day’s news, or analysis.The first chat will be between Scott Galloway, who co-hosts the Pivot podcast and is an investor in the... Continue reading…

The Arctis Prime headset alongside the Prime Wireless mouse. SteelSeries has announced the new Prime lineup of high-performance gaming accessories designed alongside esports athletes. They’ve been “designed to win championships,” but they seem fine enough for average people who just take their gaming time seriously, too. There are four new devices, including the wired Arctis Prime headset and three different Prime mice, and they all seem reasonably priced. One thing they have in common is a rather simplistic design that puts ease of use ahead of bundling in so many features that you accidentally hit the wrong button when the moment really matters. Each of these accessories is available starting today.The $99.99 Arctis Prime headset has just a mute button and a volume wheel. The left ear cup also... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Flex CEO Revathi Advaithi on the complicated politics of manufacturing Continue reading…

Microsoft has teamed up with Qualcomm to create a Windows on ARM-based dev kit for developers. The miniature PC will be sold at the Microsoft Store this summer, and is designed to be more affordable to encourage developers to create ARM64 apps for Snapdragon-based PCs.Until now, developers have had to purchase devices like the Surface Pro X to fully test their ARM64 apps on Windows. That’s a costly exercise for developers, particularly when the Surface Pro X retails from $999 and up. While Microsoft and Qualcomm haven’t put a price on this new dev kit, there are promises it will be more affordable than what developers can buy today. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Surface Pro X was one of only a... Continue reading…

A screenshot from Samsung’s 2017 trailer. | Image: Samsung In a new blog post, iFixit heavily criticizes Samsung’s recently announced Galaxy Upcycling program (via ArsTechnica), an initiative which the repair specialists helped launch in 2017. It’s a damning look at how the initiative morphed from its ambitious origins to a “nearly unrecognizable” final form, and completely sidelined iFixit in the process.Here’s how iFixit describes the original plan:

Image: Microsoft Microsoft Build, the company’s annual developer conference, is kicking off today, May 25th. Just like last year, the conference is happening in an online-only format rather than in-person in Seattle. The developer conference is typically where Microsoft details upcoming changes to its Windows, Office, and cloud platforms.There’ll be around 48 hours of Build content in total taking place over the next two days, kicking off with a keynote today on May 25th starting at 11AM ET. A full agenda is available over on the Microsoft Build website, featuring a mix of keynotes, technical deep dives, and breakout sessions.How do I watch Microsoft Build?You’ll need to register to attend the virtual Build conference, but doing so is free and gives... Continue reading…

People like to argue that technology is value neutral; that it’s neither inherently good nor inherently bad, but can simply be put to different uses. As a rebuttal, I’d like to direct the court’s attention to exhibit a), a video of “digital humans” rapping using AI-synthesized voices, that is intrinsically awful.Indeed, I’d argue that the video above not only disproves the whole value-neutral thing, but makes a decent case for shutting down this “technology” lark altogether and heading back to the trees before it’s too late. What I mean is: AI is posting cringe and I don’t like it.Okay, so I’m being a little harsh here and the video is obviously a joke. It’s the work of Replica, an AI startup that does interesting things with synthetic... Continue reading…

The Google Nest Hub. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Google’s long-awaited Fuchsia OS is starting to quietly roll out on its first consumer device, the first-generation Nest Hub, 9to5Google reports. Google’s work on Fuchsia OS first emerged in 2016, and the open-source operating system is notable for not being based on a Linux kernel, instead using a microkernel called Zircon. “You don’t ship a new operating system every day, but today is that day,” tweeted a Google technical lead on the Fuchsia OS project, Petr Hosek.While the rollout on the Nest Hub (which originally released as the Google Home Hub before being renamed) begins today, the whole release process will take several months. It’ll come to users in the Preview Program first, before slowly releasing more broadly. We’ve known... Continue reading…

Xinhua/Cao Yang via Getty Images Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei has reportedly urged the Chinese tech giant’s staff to turn the company into a major software force as a way to alleviate the impact of devastating US sanctions. In an internal memo viewed by Reuters, Ren says that Huawei should focus on software because the industry is “outside of US control and we will have greater independence and autonomy.”Huawei is presently unable to mass-produce much of its hardware products because of sanctions forbidding US firms from doing business with it. The company stockpiled chips and components in an attempt to mitigate the sanctions, but the reserves are limited and in some cases will be swiftly obsoleted. Huawei is also blocked from using Google apps and services on... Continue reading…

“It’s been a long time. How have you been?” J.J. Abrams has said that a movie based on Valve’s Portal is still in the works, and that a script is finally being written, according to IGN. Abrams is light on details, but says that Warner Brothers is excited about the direction the movie is going in, and that it “feels like that thing’s finally on the rails.”We originally heard about the movie all the way back in 2013, when Abrams and Gabe Newell were on stage together at the DICE Summit. At the time, Abrams apparently told Polygon that the plan was “as real as anything in Hollywood ever gets.” That was eight years ago, so it seems he was right to couch it like that. From the archives: Abrams and Newell on stage at DICE 2013 Summit, talking about movies and games.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix has dipped a toe in gaming on occasion, with perhaps the hugely-successful “choose your own adventure”-style film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch as the most prominent example. But the streaming giant may be expanding further into gaming with a new bundle for Netflix subscribers, according to several reports over the past few days.The Information had the first report on Friday, writing that Netflix wants to hire an executive to oversee new gaming efforts, and that the company is considering a bundle of games similar to Apple Arcade. (Hours later, Reuters corroborated that a gaming exec is a planned hire at Netflix.) The company has also chosen not to include ads in the games, according to The Information. But The Information also... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Sure, “hot-tubbing” sounds fun, but in a court context, it’s just a judge encouraging lawyers to argue — which is how Epic v. Apple ended today. Not with a bang but with a quarrel.In honor of the trial’s final day, a raft of spare lawyers were in the gallery, representing Epic and Apple. But everyone who spoke to the judge — Epic’s Gary Bornstein and the three lawyers who handled the end of the case for Apple, Dan Swanson, Veronica Smith Moye, and Richard Doren — had their backs to the gallery the entire time.Throughout the trial, Epic’s general strategy appears to have been to stuff the record as full of evidence as possible — just in case it’s needed on the inevitable appeal. To do that, Epic sacrificed telling a coherent story.A... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor tweeted Monday that after a weekend meeting with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and “leading Bitcoin miners in North America,” the group has agreed to form a Bitcoin Mining Council, “to promote energy usage transparency [and] accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide.”Musk tweeted earlier in the day that the group “committed to publish current & planned renewable usage & to ask miners WW to do so. Potentially promising.” According to Saylor, the group included representatives from Argo Blockchain, Blockcap, Core Scientific, Galaxy Digital, Hive Blockchain Technologies, Hut 8 Mining, Marathon Digital Holdings, and Riot Blockchain.

Photo Illustration by Scott Olson/Getty Images Epic CEO Tim Sweeney is a man who says what’s on his mind, even if it’ll ruffle a few feathers. And apparently the first thing on his mind, following today’s closing remarks in the Epic v. Apple trial, was chicken dinner.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A security unit within the US Commerce Department monitored Americans’ Twitter accounts for posts critical of the US Census and conducted unauthorized surveillance to gather information about US citizens and foreign visitors, according to a fact sheet released Monday by the ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.The Washington Post first reported on the existence of the unit, which is called the Investigations and Threat Management Service (ITMS). According to the fact sheet, ITMS had its operations suspended as of May 14th, after an investigation launched in February by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) showed that the service had conducted “a variety of improper activities dating back to the... Continue reading…

Each model in Sony’s X950H series is known for its impressive color accuracy and wide viewing angles. | Image: Sony If you’re looking for a behemoth 4K TV with impressive motion handling, solid black levels, and vibrant colors right out of the box, it’s hard to go wrong with the Sony X950H series. Sony’s 75-inch HDR display is not cheap at $2,600, however, Best Buy, Amazon, and BuyDig are all currently offering the TV for $600 off the initial list price, bringing it down to $2,000. The X950H model also sports four HDMI ports, compatibility with both Alexa and Google Assistant, and a host of Android TV features. It’s one of the best deals we’ve seen on Sony’s premium LED in recent months, especially when you consider that BuyDig is throwing in a $100 Visa gift card with each purchase.We’ve gushed about the Sony WH-1000XM4 on many occasions — and why... Continue reading…