The Verge

Three advocacy groups are trying to amp up the pressure on Google for allegedly destroying company records. The American Economic Liberties Project, Check My Ads, and the Tech Oversight Project are urging the State Bar of California to investigate Kent Walker, Google's President of Global Affairs and a member of the Bar. They claim Walker coached" the company to engage in widespread and illegal destruction of records relevant to multiple ongoing federal trials."In a letter shared exclusively with The Verge, the groups point to a 2008 memo Walker sent to employees while he served as general counsel. The so-called Walker Memo was highlighted in the Department of Justice's recent antitrust trial, one of multiple cases where Google has... Continue reading...

Spotify's new cover art maker is fun, and surprisingly not AI. | Image: Spotify Spotify now has a new Create cover art" option for playlists that lets you make custom collages to represent your playlists. The beta feature, which is available for both free and Spotify Premium members, is launching for English users in 65 markets. The company says it partnered with artists like Ugly Primo, who designed Bad Bunny's Un Verano Sin Ti album cover, and Cey Adams, who has worked on albums and logos for The Notorious B.I.G and Beastie Boys.I gave it a shot and produced the masterpiece below, using a picture I took of a possum that was lurking outside my kid's bedroom one night. It's a pleasantly robust image maker, with layering, various effects, and the ability to rotate or change the size of images. It's still in beta,... Continue reading...

The Insta360 Ace Pro 2 can now capture 8K footage at 30fps. | Image: Insta360 Insta360 has announced its new Ace Pro 2 action camera, an upgraded version of its GoPro Hero-series competitor. The compact camera now has a larger screen on the back that flips up 180 degrees for framing selfie videos, and it debuts at $399.99 - $50 cheaper than Insta360's original Ace Pro.The design of the Ace Pro 2 still closely resembles the GoPro Hero series and DJI's Osmo Action line, with an offset lens making room for an additional screen on the front. But while the front screen on the cameras of Insta360's competitors can display full-color video, the Ace Pro 2's monochromatic front screen only displays information. Image: Insta360 The front screen on the Ace Pro 2 is still limited to showing information,... Continue reading...

If they look like the Bose Sleepbuds, well, that's by design. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge The Bose Sleepbuds are back. Kind of. After Bose decided to discontinue the product in 2023, three ex-Bose engineers decided to acquire the technology and relaunch the device under the name Ozlo. The buds have been around for a while via a crowdfunding campaign, but starting today, they're officially available for $299.Fans of the Bose Sleepbuds will be happy to know the Ozlo buds keep what was great about the originals while making one key improvement: you can now play your own audio, not just a small library of white noise sounds. And if you want the best of both worlds, the buds can switch over from your content to white noise once they've detected you've fallen asleep. It's been hit or miss in the few nights I've tried it. Some... Continue reading...

Apple's smallest tablet got an upgrade -but it won't feel like much of one unless Apple Intelligence is better than it seems. Continue reading...

Facebook is getting ready to scan your face again. | Image: Meta Facebook and Instagram are testing new facial recognition tools that could help users quickly restore compromised accounts and combat fake celebrity-endorsed scams. Meta announced its plan to roll out experimental features that can scan a user's face to verify their identity by comparing it against profile pictures on Facebook and Instagram.The first usage of these tools aim to protect both celebrities and everyday people from so-called celeb-bait" ads that impersonate notable figures to trick users into visiting scam websites. Meta currently uses automated technology like machine learning to detect content that violates its policies but says celeb-bait can be difficult to distinguish from legitimate ads.If our systems suspect that... Continue reading...

Epic Games' Fab marketplace, which is designed to serve as a unified place to get digital assets like environments and animations, is now live, the company announced today. The launch of the marketplace is an important step in Epic's plans to make it easier for developers to acquire assets for developing games - and, maybe someday, to let them make content for an interoperable metaverse.The company first revealed its plans for Fab - which will combine offerings from the Unreal Engine Marketplace, Sketchfab Store, Quixel, and ArtStation Marketplace into one place - in March 2023. While Epic initially planned to launch Fab in 2023, the company later delayed the launch to 2024.Epic is offering an 88 percent revenue share for goods sold on... Continue reading...

Jack Sweeney says that 38 of his jet tracking accounts have been suspended. | Illustration: The Verge Meta has suspended several Threads and Instagram accounts that track the private jets of celebrities such as Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kim Kardashian, and former US president Donald Trump.Jack Sweeney, who gained notoriety for his @ElonJet account on X and maintained many of the suspended accounts, said on Threads that the development is reminiscent of all my accounts getting suspended on Twitter." The shuttered accounts, which used publicly available data to show the flight paths of private jets, initially displayed a message on Monday that read, The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed."Meta provided no direct warning or explanation for the suspensions, according to Sweeney, who says the... Continue reading...

Image: Google For years, Google has included an extra search box within some search results, encouraging you to dig further and look only within a specific website. But now that sitelinks search box is going away because usage has dropped."Google:

The Roomba Combo 2 Essential can clean and mop floors for up to two hours on a single charge. | Image: iRobot The new Roomba Combo 2 Essential and Roomba Vac 2 Essential include a dock for self-emptying their dirt bins - a feature missing from the budget-friendly Essential robovacs that iRobot introduced six months ago. The 2-in-1 Combo 2 features both vacuuming and mopping capabilities for $424.99 and is slightly more expensive than the Vac 2, which only sucks up dust and dirt for $399.99.The Combo 2 is now the most expensive option in iRobot's Essential line and slightly pricier than the $400 DreameBot D10 Plus, our current choice for the best budget robot vacuum and mop. The Vac 2 is available via select retailers" in North America (including Target and Best Buy, so far) and has the same features as the Combo except for the mopping... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon says that it has gotten rid of plastic air pillows at its warehouses.As of October 2024, we've removed all plastic air pillows from our delivery packaging used at our global fulfillment centers," the e-commerce giant said in an October 9th blog post.It's a welcome change following years of pressure from environmental groups to stop plastic pollution flooding into oceans. The company is still working to reduce the use of single-use plastics more broadly in its packaging.Fantastic news for the world's oceans"The fact that the world's largest e-commerce company has made plastic air pillows history globally is fantastic news for the world's oceans," Matt Littlejohn, senior vice president of strategic initiatives at the... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge News Corp, the parent company of media outlets like The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, is suing the AI search engine Perplexity for infringing copyrighted content. In a lawsuit filed on Monday, News Corp alleges Perplexity copies news articles, analyses, and opinions on a massive scale."Perplexity is an AI startup that trains its AI search models using content from around the web, allowing it to respond to user queries with a summary of its sources. As outlined in the lawsuit, Perplexity bills itself as a platform that lets users skip the links" to online articles, which News Corp alleges drives customers and critical revenues away from those copyright holders."In addition to accusing Perplexity of reproducing some... Continue reading...

Image: TGL Tiger Woods is gearing up to debut TGL, a new tech-infused, team golf league" he co-founded with fellow pro golfer Rory McIlroy next year. The first matchup at the SoFi Center in Florida will premiere on ESPN and ESPN Plus on January 7th, the league announced today.TGL is essentially a big-budget version of Top Golf that happens in a stadium setting. In matches, two teams of golfers will drive balls into a 3,400-square-foot screen until they get within 50 yards of the hole." Then they'll switch to a football field-sized artificial green that morphs between holes using nearly 600 motorized actuators" and a 41-yard-wide rotating section.Each match is expected to take about two hours and will see three of each team's four players... Continue reading...

The Solix C300 DC, one of Anker's latest power stations, provides a healthy balance of power and portability. | Anker Having an alternative power source ready for sudden outages or extended off-grid adventures is never a bad idea. Thankfully, the Anker Solix C300X DC Portable Power Station is a neat, affordable option that loads you up with enough power and USB ports to charge several devices concurrently. And right now, Wellbots is offering it to Verge readers for $148 (about $52 off) with promo code VERGEANKER26.To be clear, this particular version excludes the three AC ports offered on the more expensive Solix C300. That said, it's a viable alternative if you don't anticipate plugging in hardware with AC plugs. It offers the same 90,000mAh (288Wh) capacity and spreads up to 300W of power across four total USB-C ports (two deliver up to 140W, one up... Continue reading...

Killscreen has taken inspiration from the Nintendo GameCube for its latest customized DualSense. | Image: Killscreen Following the 30th anniversary versions of the PlayStation 5 featuring an old-school gray colorway, Killscreen has announced a customized version of the PlayStation 5's DualSense controller called the CubeSense, which comes with a purple shell and custom joysticks inspired by the Nintendo GameCube.Killscreen's customized controllers are all based on a standard DualSense Wireless Controller, so while the CubeSense pairs a matte purple shell on the front with a transparent one on the back, its red, green, and light gray face buttons don't match the unusual button layout Nintendo used for the GameCube's gamepads.But for a starting price of $149, Killscreen has swapped out the standard DualSense's joysticks for versions that closely... Continue reading...

Image: Poncle The world of Dracula and the Belmont family is coming to Vampire Survivors. The newly announced downloadable content for the auto-shooter survival game, Ode to Castlevania, promises a bunch of new stuff: 20 characters, 40 weapons, an extra-large stage, and over 30 music tracks. Developer Poncle said in its announcement post on X that the $3.99 expansion should contain more than 10 hours worth of gameplay - though it's not clear if there will actually be any vampires in the game (I'm still betting there won't be).The new Vampire Survivors DLC is set to launch on October 31st on the PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, Android, and iOS. You can also track its release with a cheesy, 90s-era countdown timer site set up by the developer.... Continue reading...

Image: AMD AMD is officially announcing its first next-generation X3D desktop processors today, based on its latest Zen 5 architecture. I'd love to tell you which Ryzen 9000-series X3D chips are arriving next month, but AMD is strangely only teasing a release date of November 7th and providing no pricing or further details.AMD has only provided a single slide about this X3D announcement, ahead of Intel's Core Ultra 200-series launch on October 24th. Rumors had suggested AMD would announce its highly anticipated Zen 5 X3D chips a day after Intel's performance embargo for the Ultra 9 285K, but AMD has decided to tease the existence of next-gen X3D processors a little earlier than expected.Thanks to other leaks, we're expecting to hear more about... Continue reading...

A motorcycle lights a street under pouring rain during a nationwide blackout caused by a grid failure in Havana, on October 19, 2024. | Photo: Getty Images Tropical Storm Oscar is making it harder to restore power in Cuba after a massive, prolonged power outage that preceded the storm.The nation's power grid failed on Friday after Cuba's largest power plant went offline, leaving more than 10 million people without electricity. The grid reportedly collapsed four more times before Oscar made landfall as a Category 1 storm on Sunday evening.Oscar is hitting a key region for power generation where at least two important power plants in the city of Holguin Santiago de Cuba are located. The storm creates an additional inconvenience," the Associated Press reports Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy saying in a news conference. The storm is still barreling through Cuba today, posing new dangers... Continue reading...

Photo by Rodin Eckenroth / FilmMagic We declined. Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Disney will announce a replacement for CEO Bob Iger in early 2026," according to an update from the company on Monday.The entertainment giant has been on the hunt for a new leader since Iger's return to Disney in 2022. Last year Iger extended his contract with Disney until December 31st, 2026, and, as The New York Times notes, delayed retirement four times during his previous run as the company's CEO before eventually handing control over to Bob Chapek in 2020.Even though we're still years away from hearing who will replace Iger, CNBC reports that Disney has interviewed several potential candidates in recent weeks," including ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro, Disney experiences chairman Josh D'Amaro, and Disney entertainment co-chairmen... Continue reading...

The Halo Select smart lock is Kwikset's first to support Matter. It works over Thread and can also be used as a Wi-Fi lock. | Image: Kwikset The Halo Select is Kwikset's first new smart lock in five years, and its new features, updated design, and creative approach to connectivity could make the long wait worthwhile.The Halo Select is a ground-up redesign of the company's Halo line and its first lock to support Matter. It works with the new standard over the low-power, mesh networking protocol Thread and, interestingly, has the option of skipping Matter and using Wi-Fi.You have Wi-Fi, which is what most customers want today, but it's also future-proofed with Matter and Thread."It's a clever move by Kwikset. Smart locks have limited features in Matter today, but the standard offers greater interoperability and Thread promises better battery life (a key feature in a... Continue reading...

The AirPods Pro 2 will soon offer more robust hearing protection and a new hearing aid feature. But it's the hearing test that really hooked me. Continue reading...

Simply telling playtesters not to share any details hasn't exactly worked out. | Image: The Verge Nintendo has updated the official website for its mysterious Switch Online: Playtest Program" today, privately revealing more information to participants about what it entails. The playtest is running from October 23rd, 9PM ET until November 5th, 8PM ET, and is only available to the roughly 10,000 people who have already registered for the program.The test software is now available to download ahead of the start of gameplay, and requires 2.2GB of free space. Participants didn't sign an NDA, but Nintendo requested in the playtest terms and conditions that users refrain from sharing any details about it - which has gone about as well as can be expected. While Nintendo has already started issuing copyright strikes to take leaked media... Continue reading...

The Special Edition model of the Galaxy Z Fold. | Image: Samsung Samsung just announced the Special Edition model of the Galaxy Z Fold. It's thinner and a little lighter than the Galaxy Z Fold 6 that only recently went on sale, and includes slightly larger displays on the inside and out and a new banded pattern on the back. It also has more memory available for Galaxy AI and an upgraded 200 megapixel wide-angle camera.Great! Unfortunately, it's only been announced for South Korea, priced at 2,789,600 KRW or just over $2,000 when it goes on sale Friday, October 25th. And it seems the only other release market will be China.At 10.6mm and 236 grams, the Galaxy Z Fold SE is 1.5mm thinner and 3 grams lighter than the Galaxy Z Fold 6. Memory is now 16GB standard, and the wide-angle sensor has been bumped... Continue reading...

It's time to dust off your VCR and clean the heads, because Alien: Romulus is coming to VHS as a limited edition on December 3rd alongside the other physical releases, director Fede Alvarez announced during a special Beyond Fest-partnered screening" in Los Angeles yesterday.The fully functioning VHS tape" is meant to celebrate 45 years since the Alien franchise first (chest) burst into theaters, 20th Century Studios wrote in a release emailed to The Verge. It'll present the movie, appropriately, in a 4:3 aspect ratio (hopefully with well-done pan-and-scan). It also comes in a slick, vintage-style sleeve. Image: 20th Century Studios Has anyone seen my composite cables? The art for the box comes from Matt... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge For many a year, Windows users have been dragging their program windows over to the borders of the screen to snap them into position, splitting the screen up evenly into halves or quarters. Now, with the rollout of macOS Sequoia, Mac users can do the same. You can get a Spotify playlist up alongside your email inbox, for example, or a report you're writing up alongside the online articles you're reporting on. It means less switching between windows and more information on the screen.Once you've got macOS Sequoia installed on your Mac, you can take advantage of what Apple calls window tiling. There are several methods you can use.Use the green button

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Early this morning, I received an email from The Internet Archive Team," replying to a message I'd sent on October 9th. Except its author doesn't seem to have been the digital archivists' support team - it was apparently written by the hackers who breached the site earlier this month and who evidently maintain some level of access to its systems.I'm not alone. Users on the Internet Archive subreddit are reporting getting the replies, as well. Here is the message I received:

Image: David Pierce / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 57, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy Kindle Season to all who celebrate, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been reading about sports betting and designer proteins and the Ford Bronco, listening to Bon Iver's new Sable and Brian Eno's old Music for Airports on repeat, watching Archer and Unstable, desperately trying to find a better controller for the Nintendo Switch, and finally seriously making plans to build a whole seltzer system into my kitchen counter. It's just time.I also have for you an unusually gadget-heavy week: new Kindles, new iPads, new retro game consoles, and much more.... Continue reading...

What if I told you the Meta Quest 3S is in some ways just a more powerful Quest 2 with color passthrough? Yes, of course it is," someone who's read our coverage might say, but iFixit shows just how true that is in the teardown video it published today.The first hint of that is the headset's Fresnel lenses, which iFixit's Shahram Mokhtari writes in a blog post are 100% compatible" with those used by the Quest 2. The headset has the older headset's IPD adjustment mechanism, as well; and it shares the same single LCD panel, rather than using one panel per eye, like the Meta Quest 3. Screenshot: YouTube This is what sits behind the faceplate of the Quest 3S. Legacy parts aside, iFixit found that the 3S uses two... Continue reading...

I've never been so happy to use a computer that meets my state's legal drinking age. | Photo: Wes Davis / The Verge It's been 20 years since Apple discontinued the iMac G4, a unique computer with a funky half-globe base and a flatscreen LCD on a fancy hinge and adjustable arm. In its unaltered state, it's a nice-to-look-at, nostalgic relic that's unusable in modern contexts. I coveted it and never got to own one at the time, but thanks to Juicy Crumb's DockLite G4, I'm using this classic iMac every day as an external monitor.The DockLite G4 is a drop-in replacement motherboard for the iMac G4's board that features an HDMI port, along with three USB-A and a single USB-C port, and 3.5mm ports for audio. Most importantly, it uses the iMac's existing mounting holes and internal connectors for power and video, so all you need is a couple of screwdrivers... Continue reading...

The Stoke Voltaic Nomad Cooking System (left) and Joulle Kettle Pot. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge Sometimes you just need a portable electric cookset. Maybe it's during a major power outage when everyone's huddled together over the warm glow of the family power station. Or maybe it's at a tailgate party or picnic. In my case, it's anywhere I decided to park my van over the last few months while testing two cooking systems from Stoke Voltaics.Most portable cooksets are powered by a liquid fuel like propane. It's inexpensive and readily available in canisters of all sizes. But sometimes you'd rather not deal with an open flame, pollutants, and the noise and smell that comes with it. Stoke Voltaics' gear is powered by electricity, which can be easily supplied by a solar generator and replenished by the sun.I tested the company's new $... Continue reading...

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge Book publisher Penguin Random House is putting its stance on AI training in print. The standard copyright page on both new and reprinted books will now say, No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems," according to a report from The Bookseller spotted by Gizmodo.The clause also notes that Penguin Random House expressly reserves this work from the text and data mining exception" in line with the European Union's laws. The Bookseller says that Penguin Random House appears to be the first major publisher to account for AI on its copyright page.What gets printed on that page might be a warning shot, but it also has little to do with actual... Continue reading...

People cross a street while a traffic light is off in Havana on October 18, 2024, during a nationwide blackout caused by a grid failure. | Photo: Getty Images Cuba lost power across the nation on Friday after a major power plant failed, according to the country's energy ministry. Blackouts have been a recurring problem for Cuba's aging power grid, the New York Times reported, noting the country has lacked fuel to run the gird fully for weeks.Its national electricity system was completely disconnected at 11:00AM local time, the energy ministry posted on X. By around 4:00, the ministry reported that it was able to get micro power grid systems running in some areas, and restoration continued throughout the evening and on Friday night.Early Saturday morning, Cuban energy minister Vicente de la O Levy said that two thermoelectric plants were starting up and there were 500MW of power in the system... Continue reading...