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Updated 2024-11-24 01:00
Panasonic wants to play Fujifilm’s filter game with the new Lumix S9
The Panasonic Lumix S9 is a new $1,500 full-frame camera that comes in four colors. LUTs. The people want LUTs! Or at least that is what Panasonic thinks with its new $1,500 Lumix S9. The S9 is a full-frame, interchangeable lens, mirrorless camera that has most of the guts of the Lumix S5 II, but with a new slimmed-down body and a dedicated LUT" button on the back. The LUT" button on the S9 is located above the articulating screen. A LUT, which stands for Look Up Table," is a way to alter the color or look of an image via a mathematical formula. In the most basic terms, you can think of it as a fancy way to say filter." And the New Lumix S9 can internally store up to 40 different LUTs, though one is reserved for a permanent V-log to 709 LUT.Using the new Lumix Labs app, you can make custom... Continue reading...
Google TV is getting a ‘find my remote’ feature
Walmart's Onn Google TV 4K Pro streaming box (pictured) already supports the feature. | Image: Walmart A useful perk has been included in the latest Android update for Google TV that should make it easier to find missing remotes. Android Authority reports that the beta release for Android 14 for TV - announced during last week's Google I/O conference - contains references to a new find my remote" feature.One text string found within the update reads as follows:
Humane is looking for a buyer after the AI Pin’s underwhelming debut
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Humane, the startup behind the poorly-reviewed AI Pin wearable computer, is already hunting for a potential buyer for its business. That's according to a report from Bloomberg, which says the company - led by former longtime Apple employees Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno - is seeking a price of between $750 million and $1 billion."That might be a tough sell after the $699 AI Pin's debut: the device has been widely panned for its slow responses and a user experience that falls well short of the always-on, wearable AI assistant concept that its founders promised in the run-up to the device's release. The product was pitched at least partially as a way for people to be more present and reduce their ever-growing dependence on... Continue reading...
The OneXPlayer X1 Mini is the most feature-packed handheld gaming PC yet
Images: OneXPlayer Steam Deck, ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go a bit too simplistic for you? The OnePlayer X1 Mini is the most gadget-y handheld yet. The upcoming 8.8-inch, 144Hz Windows gaming tablet has:
Garmin’s fashion-forward Lily 2 tracker is on sale for $50 off
Garmin's unassuming tacker is daintier than most smartwatches, but is that really such a bad thing? | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge As an avid runner, I understand the appeal of tracking fitness metrics. That said, in recent weeks, I've also grown annoyed with the onslaught of notifications I receive on my wrist via my Apple Watch Series 7, which I find to be incredibly distracting. Thankfully, if you're like me, Garmin's back-to-basics Lily 2 is on sale at Amazon and direct from Garmin right now for $199.99 ($50 off), its lowest price to date.Whether it aims to be or not, Garmin's fashion-forward smartwatch is a throwback to the heyday of Fitbits, Misfits, and Jawbones - you know, basic fitness bands. Its compact, 35mm sizing probably means it's best suited for women, though, we'd venture to guess it should work for anyone with smaller wrists who wants a touch of... Continue reading...
Google’s new ‘Add to Chromebook’ badge makes web apps easier to find and install
How the Add to Chromebook" badge looks like on websites. | Image: Google Google is making a new Add to Chromebook" badge that's designed to make it easier for ChromeOS users to find and install progressive web apps (PWAs) and Android apps. The badge links directly to the web app you're looking to install or to the Google Play Store (if it's an Android app), 9to5Google reports.In a Google I/O session video about ChromeOS, the presenter says many people looking for apps start with a Google search and end up on developers' websites - a great place to display an Add to Chromebook badge and get ChromeOS users to the app. There isn't much of a barrier when it comes to finding and installing Android apps on a Chromebook, as most people go straight to the Play Store to install those.However, web apps often end up... Continue reading...
Wisconsin man arrested for allegedly creating AI-generated child sexual abuse material
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images A Wisconsin software engineer was arrested on Monday for allegedly creating and distributing thousands of AI-generated images of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).Court documents describe Steven Anderegg as extremely technologically savvy," with a background in computer science and decades of experience in software engineering." Anderegg, 42, is accused of sending AI-generated images of naked minors to a 15-year-old boy via Instagram DM. Anderegg was put on law enforcement's radar after the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children flagged the messages, which he allegedly sent in October 2023.According to information law enforcement obtained from Instagram, Anderegg posted an Instagram story in 2023 consisting of a... Continue reading...
This Microsoft-approved website tracks how Windows games play on Arm
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge With Microsoft's new Surfaces leading a wave of Copilot Plus PCs powered by Arm chips that could reshape our expectations of Windows laptops, you might be wondering: do they game?We'd already seen a few examples, like Baldur's Gate 3 and Control - but at Build, Microsoft and Qualcomm just revealed a new website with far more examples. WorksOnWoA.com has apparently already tested 1,481 games on the Surface Laptop and other devices with Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite chips, and it lets you search to see whether your game of choice falls into one of four categories: Perfect," Playable," Runs," or Unplayable."Here's what each of those terms mean, according to Linaro, the Arm engineering group that built the website and counts... Continue reading...
The August smart lock finally gets a fingerprint option
The wireless Yale Keypad Touch provides fingerprint and key code access for the new Yale Approach lock and several August smart locks. | Image: Yale August makes excellent smart locks, but careful observers may have noticed that the company hasn't released any new hardware in four years. Owners of August locks may be relieved to know that a new wireless keypad finally brings them the option of fingerprint unlocking.The Yale Keypad Touch is a fingerprint-enabled wireless keypad for Yale and August retrofit locks that works with the fourth-gen August Wi-Fi Smart Lock, third-gen August Smart Lock Pro, third-gen August Smart Lock, and the new Yale Approach Lock with Wi-Fi. In addition to fingerprint and code unlock, it offers one-touch locking on your way out. It's available now for $109.99 at ShopYaleHome.com and August.com.That's a steep upgrade for those who already have an August... Continue reading...
There’s an electric salt spoon that adds umami flavor
A chunky electric spoon for your chunky low-sodium foods. | Image: Kirin If you're cutting salt out of your diet, either for medical reasons or just trying to be healthy, low-sodium foods can be a letdown. But don't despair - Japanese company Kirin claims to have a solution in its Electric Salt Spoon, which uses electrodes to electrify your tongue to give you a little salty shock.The idea, as Reuters puts it, is that it passes a small electric current to concentrate sodium ion molecules on the tongue," enhancing salty flavor. It's like techno-umami. The company says the goal is to get people to eat healthier by letting them eat low-sodium food without being sad about how unsalty it is. Image: Kirin Kirin partnered with Professor Homei Miyashita from Japan's Meiji University School of... Continue reading...
Square Enix will let Kingdom Hearts cook on Steam
Image: Square Enix I've been having these weird thoughts lately... like, should I go back and replay the Kingdom Hearts series or not? Fortunately, Square Enix has made this decision trivial with the announcement that it's releasing the series on Steam on June 13th. To celebrate, and perhaps destabilize an entire generation of adults for whom the first Kingdom Hearts trailer was a transformative experience (aka, me), a trailer was released with a brand-new recording of Hikaru Utada's Simple and Clean."The trailer was executed very intelligently, showing snippets of the Kingdom Hearts games in chronological order, suggesting to potential customers (and reminding lapsed fans like me) in what order the games should be played. Steam will have three Kingdom... Continue reading...
Microsoft’s big bet on building a new type of AI computer
Recall, one of Windows' new AI features, on a Surface Laptop. | Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge Microsoft's new Windows on Arm push is a milestone moment. It's taken nearly five years to get to the point where the software maker is confident it has the upper hand over the MacBook Air on performance, battery life, and app compatibility.But behind the scenes, Microsoft has been working on something even bigger. While Microsoft has spent years working toward an Arm transition that will now play out throughout the summer and beyond, it's the AI overhaul at the heart of this new generation of Copilot Plus PCs" that could fundamentally change how we use Windows on a daily basis.I recently got the chance to hear from the leaders behind Microsoft's big AI push, and they made it clear that this isn't just a silicon change. Microsoft has... Continue reading...
Microsoft Build 2024: everything announced
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at Build 2024. | Screenshot: YouTube Microsoft had a lot to say about Windows and AI - and a little to say about custom emoji - during the Build 2024 keynote. The company, like just about everyone else in the industry, is charging hard at cramming AI into every nook and cranny it can find. That means Copilot watching your screen to help you play Minecraft or giving you AI agent co-workers.The whole event was over two hours long, but you can catch the highlights below.Microsoft wants to put AI agents to work Image: Microsoft Microsoft says Copilot AI agents can soon be used as something like virtual employees that businesses can use for menial tasks like monitoring emails, carrying out a series of automated tasks, helping with employee onboarding, or... Continue reading...
Windows now has AI-powered copy and paste
Illustration: The Verge Microsoft is adding a new Advanced Paste feature to PowerToys for Windows 11 that can convert your clipboard content on the fly with the power of AI. The new feature can help people speed up their workflows by doing things like copying code in one language and pasting it in another, although its best tricks require OpenAI API credits.Advanced Paste is included in PowerToys version 0.81 and, once enabled, can be activated with a special key command: Windows Key + Shift + V. That opens an Advanced Paste text window that offers paste conversion options including plaintext, markdown, and JSON.If you enable Paste with AI in the Advanced Paste settings, you'll also see an OpenAI prompt where you can enter the conversion you want -... Continue reading...
Microsoft is bringing ‘Windows Volumetric Apps’ to Meta Quest headsets
Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge You can already beam your flat Windows desktop and its VR games onto your Meta Quest headset - but what if Windows could send HoloLens-like 3D apps and digital objects to the headset, too?At Build, Microsoft has just announced Windows Volumetric Apps on Meta Quest," a way to extend Windows apps into 3D space."Details are slim, but the company showed off a digital exploded 3D view of an Xbox controller from the perspective of a Meta Quest 3 headset, a digital object you could manipulate with your hands - and says it took its software partner Creo a single day to bring that interactive visualization to Quest. Screenshot: Microsoft Screenshot: Microsoft Microsoft says devs can sign up for the... Continue reading...
Elon Musk’s xAI is working on making Grok multimodal
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, is making progress on adding multimodal inputs to its Grok chatbot, according to public developer documents. What this means is that, soon, users may be able to upload photos to Grok and receive text-based answers.This was first teased in a blog post last month from xAI which said Grok-1.5V will offer multimodal models in a number of domains." The latest update to the developer documents appear to show progress on shipping a new model.In the developer documents, a sample Python script demonstrates how developers can use the xAI software development kit library to generate a response based on both text and images. This script reads an image file, sets up a text prompt, and uses the xAI SDK to generate a... Continue reading...
Microsoft is making File Explorer more powerful with version control and 7z compression
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Here's one more way to stay on top of your favorite programming projects: have them sync to the same File Explorer you already use to navigate your hard drive in Windows.At Build, Microsoft now says it's adding native version control to File Explorer by integrating systems like Git, letting you see new changes and comments directly from the app. Image: Microsoft Here's a cropped and zoomed version of the provided screenshot so you can get a better look: I wonder if this would also let non-programmers keep the latest copies of a project they like synced to their hard drive. I can think of a few projects I like where that'd come in handy.Microsoft says it's also letting File Explorer natively... Continue reading...
Microsoft’s new Windows Copilot Runtime aims to win over AI developers
Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge Microsoft launched a range of Copilot Plus PCs yesterday that includes new AI features built directly into Windows 11. Behind the scenes, the company now has more than 40 AI models running on Windows 11 thanks to a new Windows Copilot Runtime that will also allow developers to use these models for their apps.At Microsoft Build today, the company is providing a lot more details about exactly how this Windows Copilot Runtime works. The runtime includes a library of APIs that developers can tap into for their own apps, with AI frameworks and toolchains that are designed for developers to ship their own on-device models on Windows.Windows Copilot Library consists of ready-to-use AI APIs like Studio Effects, Live Captions Translations,... Continue reading...
Where to preorder the Sonos Ace headphones ahead of June 5th
The stylish Sonos Ace come in black and white. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge At long last, the eagerly anticipated Sonos Ace have arrived. On Tuesday, the company announced that its first pair of wireless headphones will be available on June 5th. Even better, you can already preorder them ahead of launch for $449.We're still testing the Sonos Ace, but in our limited time playing around with them during a recent demo session, we came away impressed. The plush noise-canceling headphones are exceptionally comfortable to wear, with magnetic ear pads made of vegan leather and a memory foam headband. Plus, if you own a Sonos soundbar, you can quickly transfer TV audio from the soundbar to the headphones with a push of a button, allowing for a more immersive audio experience nobody else can hear.Of course, we have... Continue reading...
Pixar cuts 14 percent of workforce, shifts focus back to feature films
Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Like parent company Disney, Pixar is now laying off employees as part of Bob Iger's big plan to get the company's spending under control.According to Variety, Deadline, and The Hollywood Reporter, Pixar is laying off 175 staffers - 14 percent of its workforce - as it shifts its focus back to projects meant for theatrical rather than streaming releases. These layoffs come months after Disney began dismissing employees by the thousands in an effort to reduce spending by around $5.5 billion. Though Pixar was never guaranteed to be shielded from the layoffs, it was able to avoid them last year due to production schedules that were already in place at the time.In a memo sent to staff on Tuesday, Pixar president Jim Morris stressed that the... Continue reading...
Google’s AI search results are already getting ads
Illustration: The Verge Google only just rolled out AI summaries in search results - and now they're getting ads. In an update on Tuesday, Google says it will soon start testing search and shopping ads within AI Overviews for users in the US.In the example shared by Google, the search engine's AI overview lists a response to the question: how do I get wrinkles out of clothes?" Beneath the AI-generated suggestions, there's a new Sponsored" section with a carousel showing wrinkle spray you can buy from places like Walmart and Instacart. GIF: Google Google says it will display ads in AI Overviews when they're relevant to both the query and the information in the AI Overview." Advertisers that already run certain campaigns through Google... Continue reading...
IGN scoops up Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, and more
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge It seems no industry is safe from consolidation, and the latest target is gaming media. IGN Entertainment has acquired the website portfolio of UK publisher Gamer Network, which operates a number of beloved games-focused publications. That list includes Gamesindustry.biz, Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247, and the tabletop site Dicebreaker. The network also holds shares in sites like Nintendo Life and Digital Foundry.Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Gamesindustry.biz reports that some redundancies" have been made across the sites, though it's not clear how many workers have been impacted. According to several posts on X, editors at both Rock Paper Shotgun and Gamesindustry.biz have been laid off. IGN Entertainment is owned by... Continue reading...
Here’s the eight-inch Snapdragon PC for your Windows on Arm experiments
The Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows in a transparent shell; most if not all units will be black. | Image: Qualcomm Excited for an era of long-lasting powerful Windows laptops with Arm chips and 45 TOPS for AI but would rather pay less and plug into the wall? Qualcomm has just revealed a Mac Mini-esque box that's ostensibly just for developers.The new $899.99 Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows" houses the most powerful of Qualcomm's lineup of Snapdragon X Elite chips - the one with the 4.6 TFLOP GPU - as well as 32GB of LPDDR5x RAM, 512GB of NVMe storage, and lots of ports, all within roughly the same volume as Apple's mini desktop. Image: Qualcomm Image: Qualcomm While the spec sheet unfortunately suggests the two-pound PC will only ship in black - not the transparent model at the top of this post - the eight-... Continue reading...
How does the Microsoft Surface Laptop stack up to the MacBook Air?
Image: Microsoft Microsoft's new Surface Laptop could be the most impressive laptop the company has ever made. It has a modern chassis with thin display bezels and a new Arm-based CPU that might just give Apple laptops a run for their money when it comes to performance. That's no mean feat, considering Apple's striking lead since 2020, but we won't know how it compares until we get a Surface Laptop in hand. That didn't stop me from diving deep on their specs to see how they compare on paper.Before we get to the real nitty-gritty, let's take a look at some of the most obvious differences you'll see between the Surface Laptop and the MacBook Air.What's it gonna cost you?The M3 MacBook Air starts at $1,099 for an 8GB model, which already puts it at a... Continue reading...
All the new from Microsoft Build 2024
Image: The Verge Expect a bunch of new developer tools to go along with Microsoft's fresh Copilot Plus PCs announcement. Continue reading...
Microsoft Teams is adding a Slack-favorite emoji feature
Microsoft is adding custom emoji to Teams. | Image: The Verge Microsoft is adding a new feature to its Teams communications platform that enables users to upload their own custom emoji to use in reactions and messages. Announced during its Build developer conference on Tuesday, Microsoft says the new custom emoji will be available to try next month via the Teams public preview, with the goal of helping Teams users collaborate and express themselves more creatively and authentically."IT admins for businesses that use Teams will have the ability to limit which users can upload or delete custom emoji, or they can turn the feature off entirely. Once custom emoji are uploaded into Teams, they'll only be visible within the same organization domain. Microsoft says that general availability for custom... Continue reading...
Microsoft Edge will translate and dub YouTube videos as you’re watching them
Image: The Verge Microsoft Edge will soon offer real-time video translation on sites like YouTube, LinkedIn, Coursera, and more. As part of this year's Build event, Microsoft announced that the new AI-powered feature will be able to translate spoken content through both dubbing and subtitles live as you're watching it.So far, the feature supports the translation of Spanish into English as well as the translation of English to German, Hindi, Italian, Russian, and Spanish. In addition to offering a neat way to translate videos into a user's native tongue, Edge's new AI feature should also make videos more accessible to those who are deaf or hard of hearing.Edge will also support real-time translation for videos on news sites such as Reuters, CNBC, and B... Continue reading...
Microsoft brings out a small language model that can look at pictures
Illustration: The Verge Microsoft announced a new version of its small language model, Phi-3, which can look at images and tell you what's in them.Phi-3-vision is a multimodal model - aka it can read both text and images - and is best used on mobile devices. Microsoft says Phi-3-vision, now available on preview, is a 4.2 billion parameter model (parameters refer to how complex a model is and how much of its training it understands) that can do general visual reasoning tasks like asking questions about charts or images.But Phi-3-vision is far smaller than other image-focused AI models like OpenAI's DALL-E or Stability AI's Stable Diffusion. Unlike those models, Phi-3-vision doesn't generate images, but it can understand what's in an image and analyze it for a... Continue reading...
Microsoft’s new Copilot AI agents act like virtual employees to automate tasks
Image: The Verge Microsoft will soon allow businesses and developers to build AI-powered Copilots that can work like virtual employees and perform tasks automatically. Instead of Copilot sitting idle waiting for queries, it will be able to do things like monitor email inboxes and automate a series of tasks or data entry that employees normally have to do manually.It's a big change in the behavior of Copilot in what the industry commonly calls AI agents, or the ability for chatbots to intelligently perform complex tasks autonomously.We very quickly realized that constraining Copilot to just being conversational was extremely limiting in what Copilot can do today," explains Charles Lamanna, corporate vice president of business apps and platforms at... Continue reading...
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree’s new trailer is a dramatic call to arms
Image: Bandai Namco With only a month until release day, there's a new story trailer for Shadow of the Erdtree, and the Elden Ring lore hounds have their work cut out for them.FromSoftware has been slowly teasing Shadow of the Erdtree and its story beats ever since the gameplay trailer was released back in February. All we knew then was the DLC would take place in the Land of Shadow and feature a bunch of new horrors straight from the slightly warped imagination of game director Hidetaka Miyazaki.This new Land of Shadow was connected somehow to Miquella - the dude in the egg with the withered arm. The trailer mentions him prominently, giving the impression we'll learn more about him, his connection to the Land of Shadow, and what events led him to abandon... Continue reading...
Comcast bundles Netflix, Peacock, and Apple TV Plus for $15 / month
Image: Comcast Get ready for yet another streaming bundle: Comcast is launching a new $15 per month subscription that combines Netflix, Apple TV Plus, and Peacock. The StreamSaver" bundle will be available to Xfinity Internet and TV customers on May 29th - and it offers monthly savings of around $8.If you do subscribe, expect to sit through some commercials, as the bundle includes Netflix's ad-supported plan ($6.99 / month), Peacock's ad-supported Premium plan ($5.99 / month), and Apple TV Plus, which is ad-free by default ($9.99 / month). Variety first reported on rumors of the bundle last week.Comcast is also bundling its bundle with its $20 per month Now TV service, which offers over 40 live TV channels and comes with a Peacock Premium... Continue reading...
For the director of I Saw the TV Glow, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was just the start
Photo by Monica Schipper / Getty Images for IMDb To understand Jane Schoenbrun and their new film, I Saw the TV Glow, you have to appreciate how Buffy the Vampire Slayer evolved in its second season. Continue reading...
Hellblade II’s stunning world is alive with horror
Image: Xbox Traversing the nightmare realms of the human mind has always been central to horror. The stories we tell ourselves about what's moving in the darkness, the creation of monsters out of unknown sounds - from this emerges our fascination with terror. In Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, players navigate a cold, dark ninth-century Iceland in the often wet shoes of the Pictish warrior Senua on her second adventure in the third-person action-horror franchise. I was very fond of the first Hellblade, which saw Senua journey into Hel to save the soul of her lover. But the sequel pulled me in even further, with some of the most unforgettable and unsettling psychological horror I've ever experienced.Senua, who lives with psychosis that causes her to... Continue reading...
Microsoft is in its AI PC era
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge We've heard the story so many times, that this is the time that Windows on Arm will work and we'll get a revolution in powerful, portable, long-lasting PCs. For a decade, the story has been fiction. This time, though... I don't know. It sort of seems real.On this episode of The Vergecast, Tom Warren joins from Seattle to tell us all about Microsoft's latest event, what a Copilot Plus PC is, how the new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop feel, why Recall could be the AI killer app Microsoft needs, and more. If Microsoft is right about how good the Qualcomm X chips are, this could be one of the biggest weeks in Windows history. Don't forget to subscribe to Notepad!After that, Kylie Robison comes on the show to talk about all things OpenAI.... Continue reading...
Adobe Lightroom gets a magic eraser, and it’s impressive
Adobe is adding more mobile app-like AI editing tools to Lightroom. | Image: Adobe Adobe is adding some new generative AI tools to Lightroom that aim to make the photo editing platform easier to use for both professional creatives and inexperienced users alike, even from a phone. These include an in-development object removal feature that's rolling out in beta and new AI lens-blurring effects that are now generally available to all Lightroom users.Generative Remove" - powered by the company's Firefly AI model - is now available to try in early access across Lightroom's mobile, web, and desktop apps. Described as Lightroom's most powerful remove tool yet," the feature allows users to paint" over unwanted objects or people in images and then delete them with a click of a button.It's pretty similar to the Magic... Continue reading...
Sonos’ Roam 2 speaker is easier to use and available today for $179
Image: Sonos Sonos is refreshing its small portable speaker, the Roam, with a second-generation model that mostly adds some minor quality-of-life improvements. It's reasonable to think of the new Roam 2, available today for $199, as more of a Roam 1.5: this is really what Sonos should've released in the first place.As I reported earlier this month, the Roam 2 can be used right out of the box like any other Bluetooth speaker. That differs from the original, which awkwardly required an initial setup process with the Sonos app - on your home Wi-Fi network, no less - before you could use it on the go. Seems silly for a portable audio product, right? Thankfully Sonos now agrees.The Roam 2 also gains a dedicated Bluetooth pairing button on the back,... Continue reading...
The Sonos Ace headphones are here, and they’re damn impressive
The company's app redesign fumble threatens to steal the thunder from what otherwise looks (and feels) like a strong debut in a new category. Continue reading...
Aqara’s new smart outlet can trigger scenes based on power usage
The Aqara Wall Outlet H2 can trigger scenes based upon real-time power usage. | Image: Aqara Aqara just announced the 39.99 Wall Outlet H2, which offers a one-for-one smart replacement for standard 16A wall sockets used in Europe. Its party trick is the ability to monitor the real-time power usage of connected devices and appliances to initiate automations around the home.For example, if you charge your phone when going to sleep you could automatically activate a nighttime scene - arm motion detectors, lock the door, close blinds, and turn off lights - just as soon as the H2 begins pulling more than 10W of power. Or, it can detect when the laundry cycle ends to shut the machine off and send you a notification - that way you don't have to listen to it beep incessantly until you finally walk upstairs with heavy regret for having... Continue reading...
Scarlett Johansson told OpenAI not to use her voice — andshe’snot happy they might have anyway
Photo by Nathan Congleton / NBC via Getty Images Scarlett Johansson says that OpenAI asked her to be the voice behind ChatGPT - but that when she declined, the company went ahead and created a voice that sounded just like her. In a statement shared to NPR, Johansson says that she has now been forced to hire legal counsel" and has sent two letters to OpenAI inquiring how the soundalike ChatGPT voice, known as Sky, was made.Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system," Johansson writes. She says that Altman contacted her agent as recently as two days before the company first demoed the ChatGPT voice asking for her to reconsider.
Volvo teams up with Aurora to reveal an autonomous semi truck
Image: Aurora Volvo revealed its first production-ready" self-driving truck that it's making with Aurora, the autonomous driving technology company founded by former executives from Google, Uber, and Tesla.The truck is based on Volvo's new VNL, which is a Class 8 semi truck built for long-haul transportation. The autonomous version of the truck features an array of sensors and cameras to power Aurora's Level 4 autonomous driving system, which enables the truck to operate without a human behind the wheel. The companies say the truck is purpose-designed and purpose-built" for Aurora's self-driving hardware and software stack.This truck is the first of our standardized global autonomous technology platform, which will enable us to introduce... Continue reading...
She sold her bathwater — PayPal took her profits
Image: X / Belle Delphine Belle Delphine, the woman who went viral in 2019 for selling jars of her bathwater, revealed earlier this month that the stunt earned her $90K in profits. In a thread on X, the adult content creator and model also explained that because of PayPal, the payment processing system she used for the sale, she never saw a dime of that money.PayPal, without any warning closed my PayPal account and took the $90,000 that I earned from selling my bathwater," Belle Delphine wrote. Image: X / Belle Delphine Now, according to a report from Business Insider, PayPal has reversed this decision, with the company returning to Belle Delphine all the proceeds from the bathwater bonanza five years later.Mary-Belle Kirschner, known as... Continue reading...
Apple needs to explain that bug that resurfaced deleted photos
Disclosure is part of a good privacy policy. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Earlier today, Apple issued a fix in iOS and iPadOS 17.5.1. Patching buggy software is a good, normal thing. But that's not the issue here. The issue is that the fix addresses a rare issue where photos that experienced database corruption could reappear in the Photos library even if they were deleted" - and that's all Apple has to say about it.On iOS, deleted photos technically spend 30 days in the Recently Deleted folder before disappearing for good, but the intent to send a photo to digital oblivion is still there. A reasonable person would expect a deleted file to stay that way. That's why it's understandable that people freaked out last week when photos deleted years ago had suddenly reappeared in their iPhone photo library. ... Continue reading...
OpenAI is ‘in conversations’ with Scarlett Johansson over the ChatGPT voice that sounds just like her
Image: OpenAI OpenAI says it has been in touch with representatives for Scarlett Johansson after the company pulled one of the voices on ChatGPT for sounding too similar to the actress.We've been in conversations with ScarJo's team because there seems to be some confusion. We want to take the feedback seriously and hear out the concerns," says Joanne Jang, model behavior lead at OpenAI.Johansson has since responded with a statement of her own, saying, Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system... After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer. Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named Sky"... Continue reading...
Intel’s going inside AI PCs, too — its Lunar Lake chip is coming later this year
Image: Intel Intel has revealed a release window for its Lunar Lake laptop processors. The new x86 chips will arrive in the third quarter of this year, and they're designed to enable the new AI experience in Copilot Plus PCs.Intel's announcement coincides with Microsoft's Surface and AI event, where Microsoft leaned on Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and Plus chips for Copilot Plus PCs that promise high performance and longer battery life. However, Intel claims its Lunar Lake processors are capable of 1.4 times faster performance in Stable Diffusion 1.5 compared to the Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite.The Lunar Lake chips will feature a CPU, an integrated Xe2 GPU, and a neural processing unit (NPU). Intel says the Lunar Lake processor offers three times... Continue reading...
All the Copilot Plus PCs announced at Microsoft’s Surface event
The Copilot Plus PCs announced during Microsoft's Surface event. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge In addition to the Surface Pro and Surface Laptop, Microsoft announced a crop of Copilot Plus PCs from all the major OEMs. Here are all the Copilot Plus PCs announced at Microsoft's Surface event on Monday.Acer Swift 14 AINot to be confused with the other Swift 14 laptops with AI chips, the Swift 14 AI is the only one with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X series processor. This one comes with either the base 12-core Snapdragon X Elite chip or the 10-core X Plus chip and goes up to 32GB of memory and 1TB of M.2 SSD storage.Asus Vivobook S 15Asus is starting its Copilot PC adventure with its Vivobook S 15. It will have two Qualcomm processor options - the base 12-core Snapdragon X Elite and 10-core Snapdragon X Plus - and both options will... Continue reading...
Samsung’s first Copilot Plus PC comes with a free TV
Image: Samsung Microsoft announced a whole passel of Copilot Plus PCs at its Surface event on Monday, and Samsung's entries are a 14-inch laptop and two 16-inch ones, known collectively as the Galaxy Book4 Edge. If you preorder them today, Samsung will throw in a free 50-inch TV! Come on down!The 14-inch Galaxy Book4 Edge starts at $1,349.99 with a 12-core 3.4GHz Snapdragon X Elite processor with 4.0GHz Dual Core Boost, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD (up to 1TB). It has a 14-inch, 120Hz 2880 x 1800 AMOLED touchscreen capable of up to 500 nits brightness, with HDR and VRR and 120 percent of the P3 gamut. It has two USB 4 Type-C ports, HDMI 2.1, and a combo audio jack. It weighs 2.6 pounds. Image: Samsung That's pan-Galactic... Continue reading...
Where to preorder Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop and Surface Pro
Microsoft's 13.8-inch Surface Laptop starts at a cool $999.99. | Image: Microsoft It feels like forever ago that we got new Surface laptops, but Microsoft has taken the wraps off a handful of 2024 refreshes at its hardware event on Monday. We're getting consumer-centric versions of the newest Surface Laptop and Surface Pro, both starting at $999.99 and launching June 18th. Microsoft calls the Copilot Plus PCs the most powerful Windows PCs ever built." They'll be first in line to benefit from Windows 11's next-gen AI features, which we expect to hear about during Microsoft's annual Build conference this week.Microsoft announced business-oriented versions of both laptops in March, each sporting an Intel Core Ultra CPU. The consumer versions come with Qualcomm's Arm-based Snapdragon X chipsets, which have a dedicated... Continue reading...
The latest 13-inch MacBook Air has dropped to a new all-time low
Apple's 13-inch MacBook Air currently starts at just $949.99. | Photography by Amelia Holowaty Krales and Chris Welch Apple's new iPad Air and iPad Pro are impressive, but personally, I prefer laptops with built-in trackpads and keyboards for getting work done. If you feel the same way, the new M3-powered MacBook Air is our top pick for most people, and right now, you can buy the 13-inch base model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for an all-time low of $949.99 ($150 off) at Amazon. If you want a few extra years of service, you can also buy the higher-specced model at Amazon with 512GB of storage and 16GB of RAM for $1,349.99 ($150 off) when you clip the on-page coupon.Thanks to Apple's newer M3 chips, the 13-inch Air offers even better performance than its fantastic predecessor. It comes with a few minor upgrades that make it easier to use, too,... Continue reading...
A first look at Microsoft’s new Surface Pro with Arm chips inside
Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge Microsoft has just announced a new Surface Pro, which is part of the new wave of Copilot Plus PCs. The new Pro, which is technically the 11th edition," starts at $999, comes in four colors, and is powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X processors. The base model comes with a 13-inch LCD screen, but you can upgrade to an OLED in some of the higher-end models. The chip is the star of the show here: it's what enables a lot of the AI features Microsoft touted onstage, what makes possible the 14-hour battery life Microsoft promises, and more.The basic silhouette of the hardware hasn't changed much, save for the new Flex Keyboard attachment. The tablet with an integrated kickstand has been a Surface staple for years now, and Microsoft... Continue reading...
Hands-on with the Surface Laptop on Arm
Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge The Surface Laptop for non-business types is here, and Microsoft hopes that after four years of Apple Silicon, its new Arm-based Copilot Plus PC" has a shot at MacBooks.The sapphire and slightly pink dune color options are fetching in person, and the 13.8-inch screen size feels generous for the machine's small footprint. I spent a few minutes playing around with the new Recall feature, which lets you search for things you were looking at on your computer - whether they were in an email, on a website, or in a slide deck. AI-powered search helps you find the right information and presents it in a kind of everything-timeline so you can (hopefully) find the info you're after and see it in its context. Honestly, it looks like a super... Continue reading...
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