The Verge

This guy isn't being very quiet. | Screenshot: A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead. Saber Interactive says its game A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead will have a fitting feature that might seem obvious but wasn't guaranteed: using your microphone, the game will alert the in-game monsters to your presence if they hear you make a sound - both in the game and out. And if they hear you, they come for you. Just like in the movie!The microphone part is optional, though I'd definitely turn it on myself. While Saber says giving the game access to your microphone could mean that the game's monsters can detect every sound you make in real life," it appears from the trailer that even your controller vibrating or your dryer running could put you in danger.A Quiet Place is far from the only game to use a microphone as part of play... Continue reading...

Ring's new AI-powered video search launches today and lets you find everything from pets to people in red sweaters in your video history. | Image: Ring Ring's new Smart Video Search lets you search through recorded footage to find everything from a lost cat to a red sweater. According to Ring, the AI-powered feature can locate specific events in your Ring video history based on natural language searches, such as a black cat at night," a red truck in the rain," and a kid riding a bike yesterday." Compared to Ring's current smart notifications, which can alert you to doorbell rings, people, or packages, Smart Video Search opens up a whole new level of historical insight.The feature is launching today in beta for users in the US with the Ring Protect Pro plan ($19.99 a month). At launch, Ring says it can search for queries related to animals, vehicles, packages, and people, which can... Continue reading...

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Amazon Prime Day is still going, but sometimes the deals at the outskirts of the multiday sales event are the ones that surprise us the most - like the Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro popping up for sale at Amazon-owned Woot for $151.99 ($98 off) when you use checkout code SAVE20. The deal is good on both the space-y silver and the oh-so-AirPods-looking white colors, running until October 12th or until the Amazon-fulfilled shipments are sold out.There doesn't seem to be a catch to this deal, as they're listed as being in new condition and coming with the full one-year warranty from Samsung. The Buds 3 Pro do have fragile ear tips that suffered from initial quality control issues right after launch, causing shipments to be halted for a bit,... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is holding a technical alpha later this month for the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 release. The technical alpha will be held over an unspecified weekend in October to test the game's core services ahead of its debut on November 19th. Participants in the test phase will need a capable PC gaming rig to try out Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 before its release, as this alpha test won't be available to Xbox players.Free flight and a limited amount of career, challenges, and discovery will be accessible during the technical alpha, alongside a limited number of aircraft. The technical alpha has been designed to gather feedback on specific areas and features, and the scope of what is available is limited," says the M... Continue reading...

Instagram says the feature is in early development. | Illustration: The Verge Threads is working on a new community feature that will seemingly allow users to group together around particular topics and interests, TechCrunch reports. Developer Chris Messina spotted references to Loops" in the code for Threads' latest app update, which vaguely describes something similar to the Communities" feature on X or even subreddits.The code mentions things like the ability to join and leave a Loop community, and giving it a name and bio. The discovery builds upon sleuthing done earlier by developer and established leaker Alessandro Paluzzi, who found examples showing what the Loops feature might look like inside the Threads app, including a shortcut to the composer and the home header." One screenshot shows a speech... Continue reading...

A future-looking SoC. | Image: MediaTek MediaTek has formally announced its new flagship mobile chipset, the Dimensity 9400. It has the year-over-year spec bumps we'd expect to see, along with a few future-looking features just to cover all the bases.The 9400 is built on a 3nm process and is up to 40 percent more power-efficient" than its predecessor, the 9300. It comprises one Arm Cortex-X925 core running at 3.62GHz, along with three Arm Cortex-X4 and four Cortex-A720 cores, both of which were announced at last year's Computex. MediaTek says that this combination results in 35 percent faster single-core performance and 28 percent faster multi-core performance compared to the 9300. The chipset also includes Arm's new 12-core Immortalis-G925 GPU with 40 percent faster ray... Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile customers in areas affected by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton will now be able to send SMS texts over Starlink satellites, according to SpaceX. It's being offered on a best-effort basis" and for free.We have now enabled basic texting (SMS) for those on T-Mobile phones in hurricane affected areas," SpaceX says. Text messages have already been sent and received. You can text loved ones, text 911 and continue to receive emergency alerts."If your phone connects to a Starlink satellite instead of the usual antenna, you'll see 1 to 2 bars of service, and the network name will be T-Mobile SpaceX," according to SpaceX. You might have to retry text messages if they don't go through, and SpaceX says the service works best... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Supreme Court JusticeAlexandre de Moraes ordered the country's telecom agency to unblock X after the company complied with court orders and paid its fines. Continue reading...

Image: The Verge On Tuesday, Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the country's telecommunications agency Anatel to unblock X within 24 hours, writing that it has fulfilled all the requirements necessary for the immediate return of activities.However, this won't mean an immediate return to service for the app. As noted by the Brazilian outlet Poder360, Anatel still needs to notify Brazil's 20,000 different internet service providers to remove the restrictions, which will vary by the system they use.Before capitulating in August to court decisions to block certain popular accounts in Brazil," the company had withdrawn its legal representative in the country, spurring the ban. Then, Justice de Moraes issued the ban on August... Continue reading...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge GM will discontinue the Ultium battery brand name as it looks to expand the types of cells and chemistries it uses in its electric vehicles.During an investor event today, Kurt Kelty, GM's VP of batteries and a former Tesla executive, announced plans to adopt lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery technology in order to decrease the cost of its EVs by up to $6,000." GM uses the more common nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) batteries in its Ultium platform.Some automakers are using LFP-based cells already, including Tesla and Ford. There's less complexity in LFP, they cost less to produce, and they aren't dependent on the excessive cobalt used in NCM batteries. Cobalt has a bad rep as the blood diamond of batteries," and many automakers... Continue reading...

Mastodon is getting some much-needed tweaks. | Image: Mastodon Mastodon just released version 4.3 of its web app, and CEO Eugen Rochko says its new updates, like grouped notifications, should make the open social network easier to use.For example, a Who to follow" carousel that shows up in the home tab now recommends a mix of generalized results" such as profiles that are popular in your language and personalized recommendations based on who you follow, making it easier to find new people you might like to follow, too. And as a little treat, there are explanations for why you're seeing those profiles when you click view all."Rochko says Mastodon is improving these personalized recommendations because it found its earlier version wasn't really helping users with discovery: We found that people... Continue reading...

Photo by Bryan R. Smith / AFP via Getty Images The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is fighting misinformation on top of a major storm cleanup in Florida as Hurricane Milton rapidly intensifies just after Hurricane Helene rocked the state.FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told reporters on a call Tuesday that misinformation around the storms is absolutely the worst I have ever seen," according to Politico. FEMA posted a rumor response page about the hurricane, and though it's not the first time it's taken that kind of approach, Criswell said, I anticipated some of this, but not to the extent that we're seeing."FEMA's rumor response page includes fact-checks to claims made by former President Donald Trump, like that the agency will only provide $750 to disaster... Continue reading...

Photo by Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge General Motors teased some new details about the next-generation Chevy Bolt, which is expected to make its official debut later this year as a model year 2026 vehicle.At an investor event today, GM president Mark Reuss teased the new Bolt during a portion of the event in which the livestream was cut for confidential" reasons so that the company could show images of the still-unannounced vehicle. But Reuss' presentation could still be heard.Last year, GM said it was discontinuing Bolt production but later confirmed that it would resurrect the EV as an Ultium vehicle for 2025. (GM's EV powertrain branding is also not long for this world.) The company is now on the cusp of revealing the next-gen Bolt, and Reuss had some new details to... Continue reading...

Last-gen models are an easy way to snag discounts. | Image: Victoria Song / The Verge There's a new Oura Ring 4 on the block, but if you'd rather snag a deal, the last-gen model is 20 percent off for Prime Day.So long as you don't have new product FOMO, this is an excellent opportunity for bargain hunters. Retailers and companies love discounts on older models right after launching a new one! This is the Horizon model as well, which is normally more expensive than the base Gen 3 due to its fully round shape. Given that Oura comes with a $6 monthly subscription to unlock all the features, getting a discount on hardware can help take some of the sting out. That said, Gen 3 inventory won't last forever.Even if you have FOMO, you won't be missing out on much. I've used the Gen 3 for the past three years and tested a bunch... Continue reading...

Grab this aloe version while it's still in stock. | Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge Google's Pixel 8A is the kind of phone you tell your parents or your hair stylist to buy (hi, Shannon!). The interface is straightforward and clean, it offers a high level of dust and water resistance, and it'll receive regular software updates for the next seven years. That'll give you a lot of peace of mind recommending it to friends and family.The cameras aren't quite as good as what you'd get on the regular Pixel 8 or a newer Pixel 9, but they're reliable and can even tackle some tricky scenarios, like when the northern lights sneak up on you in your own backyard. The 8A also has Qi wireless charging and a smooth-scrolling 120Hz screen - two features that you'll be hard-pressed to find in another phone under $400.Its full price... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service is getting an improved search experience, a new mobile app, colored folders in File Explorer, and much more in the weeks ahead. Starting today, Copilot in OneDrive will now be available to all of Microsoft's commercial customers.Our improved search experience is a game-changer," says Jason Moore, vice president of product for OneDrive. With new filter controls and more detailed results, find the exact file or folder faster and easier-whether it's stored in your OneDrive, a shared library, or a folder from a teammate." Image: Microsoft The improved OneDrive search results. Microsoft says it's giving this OneDrive search experience a major performance boost," with... Continue reading...

If you want to store and play the newest Xbox Series X / S games, a normal hard drive won't do. | Image: Western Digital There's a deluge of games coming to Xbox over the next few months, so you'd better have some extra storage handy. Xbox Series X / S owners only have one real option for newer games: the various expansion cards you can get from Western Digital and Seagate. Thankfully, they're steeply discounted for the October Amazon Prime Day event.Exclusively for Prime members, Western Digital's WD_Black C50 1TB Storage Expansion Card for Xbox is on sale at Amazon for $120.64 (about $37 off), very nearly its lowest price to date. You can also get WD's 512GB card for $65.54 (about $14 off), a few dollars shy of its lowest mark.Seagate expansion cards are on sale, too. They're a bit more expensive, but they also don't require a Prime membership. A... Continue reading...

Though Adult Swim has been very quiet about Juston Gordon-Montgomery's Invincible Fight Girl since sharing a brief tease earlier this summer, the animated series finally has a release date and a snazzy new trailer.Set in a world where seemingly everyone is a self-styled wrestler, Invincible Fight Girl tells the story of Andy (Sydney Mikayla), a young girl who sets out on a mission to become a legendary brawler one match at a time. While Andy's parents want her to become an accountant, she longs for the kind of fame and glory that her retired wrestling champ Aunt P. (Rolonda Watts) enjoyed during her days knocking skulls in front of crowds of roaring fans.Andy's size makes her seem like she might not be all that much of a threat to the... Continue reading...

Michael Regan, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), speaks during an event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, on January 27th, 2023. | Photo: Getty Images The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule today that mandates the replacement of lead pipes in drinking water systems within 10 years. The agency also announced $2.6 billion in funding to upgrade systems and make the changes.Up to 9 million homes across the US still get water that flows through old lead pipes, according to EPA estimates. Lead can get into drinking water when pipes corrode. And as a toxic metal, it can accumulate in the human body over time, which is particularly harmful to children.The announcements today are supposed to accelerate the painfully slow progress that's been made to address the health risks posed by lead exposure - risks that are often magnified in low-income neighborhoods and communities of... Continue reading...

Photo by Alexandra Schuler / picture alliance via Getty Images The New York Times is starting to beta test a new puzzle game called Zorse," as reported by Semafor. The game is a new phrase guessing game where every puzzle is a mash-up of two phrases," NYT spokesperson Jordan Cohen says in a statement to The Verge. As Semafor points out, the Zorse name identifies the offspring of a zebra and another equine," so it seems like the game will focus on wordplay like that.Cohen says Zorse is currently only available in Canada, meaning I can't play it myself. But my Canada-based colleague Andrew Webster gave it a shot and told me about it; the game sounds a bit like Wheel of Fortune with a puzzle-y twist.When you start a Zorse puzzle, you're given a clue and shown a series of blank tiles that, when... Continue reading...

The #M0001 Apple Macintosh prototype is expected to sell at auction for even more than it did in 2019. | Image: Bonhams A rare prototype of the original Apple Macintosh featuring a 5.25-inch disk drive instead of the 3.5-inch drive the personal computer eventually shipped with is headed to auction again as part of Bonhams' upcoming History of Science and Technology collection.The prototype has been nicknamed the Twiggy Macintosh because it features the same 5.25-inch double-sided floppy disk drive originally created for the Apple Lisa, which had been codenamed the Twiggy during its development. Those drives were notoriously unreliable, and since the Macintosh didn't come with any internal storage, a disk drive users could rely on was a critical component.Apple eventually opted to use a new 3.5-inch disk drive design from Sony, and Steve Jobs reportedly... Continue reading...

Image: Roblox Roblox is facing accusations that it lied to investors about the number of people who use the platform. In a report published on Tuesday, the investment firm Hindenburg Research claims Roblox is consistently overstating the amount of people on its platform by 25 percent to 42 percent or more."Roblox, which went public in 2021, reported having 79.5 million daily active users in its most recent earnings report. However, Hindenburg claims Roblox intentionally conflates" actual people with daily users, as that number could also include alt accounts and bots. The research alleges that Roblox can separate alt accounts from single users, even though the company's disclosure says daily active users are not a measure of unique individuals... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge What is a photo? No, like really. What is a photo? What is a photo? What is a photo? What is a photo? When you tap the shutter button on your phone, and it grabs nearly a dozen frames out of a cache that was capturing data well before you pressed anything, then stitches together the best" bits of each one before allowing you to edit everything about all of them, is any of that process you taking a photo? And in a world where AI is good enough to make everything look good, does it even matter? When you ask the question enough times, it becomes the size of the universe - and we've definitely asked the question enough times to get there.On this episode of The Vergecast, we dig into the question again from two different angles. First, we... Continue reading...

The Kindle Paperwhite Kids is an e-reader fit for the whole family, complete with optional parental controls. | Image: Amazon As expected, Amazon is offering some great discounts on its own devices as part of its October Prime Day event - including e-readers like the note-taking Kindle Scribe, which is down to $254.99 ($85 off) at Amazon. However, the Kindle deal that really stands out is on the Kindle Paperwhite Kids. Normally $169.99, right now it's down to just $114.99 ($55 off) at Amazon, which is $5 shy of its best price to date.If you want a Kindle Paperwhite without ads, you'd typically have to pay $169.99 for the privilege. Thankfully, though, the Kindle Paperwhite Kids offers a way around that, making it a great e-reader for the whole family. Despite being marketed for children, the kid-friendly device boasts all the same features we loved in the... Continue reading...

Geoffrey Hinton, called the Godfather of AI," during day Collision 2023 at Enercare Centre in Toronto, Canada. | Photo By Ramsey Cardy / Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images Two scientists credited with laying the foundation of today's powerful machine learning," University of Toronto professor emeritus Geoffrey Hinton and Princeton University professor John Hopfield, were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics today.Their discoveries and inventions laid the groundwork for many of the recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, the Nobel committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. Since the 1980s, their work has enabled the creation of artificial neural networks, computer architecture loosely modeled after the structure of the brain.By mimicking the way our brains make connections, neural networks allow AI tools to essentially learn by example." Developers can train an artificial neural... Continue reading...

Image: Apple While new episodes of Severance won't stream on Apple TV Plus until January, you will be able to own a physical copy of the show's first season in just a few weeks.Unlike Mark Scout (Adam Scott) and his fellow Lumon employees who can never entirely go home, Severance's first season will be making its way to more living rooms after its upcoming Blu-ray release on December 17th. As 9to5 Mac notes, the show is only being released as a Blu-ray at 1080p resolution and won't be coming out in UHD. The release of the Blu-ray (which is available to preorder on Amazon right now) is timed exactly a month ahead of Severance's season 2 return on January 17th, meaning you'll have plenty of time to get caught up before new episodes start dropping. Continue reading...

Just a few taps in Google Photos, and you can AI the crowds away. Skogafoss is a must-see, everyone said, and in a country with as much natural beauty as Iceland, that means it's gonna be some majestic shit. The waterfall didn't disappoint, but even on a chilly weekday in March, the place was mobbed. My photos - and c'mon, you have to take photos - were littered with tourists in puffy coats, all taking their own pictures of the falls. Not exactly the stuff you print and hang on the wall.A couple of months later, I watched a picture of the same waterfall appear onscreen at Google's annual developer conference as the company demonstrated its new AI-powered Magic Editor. In this version, a puffy-coated tourist stood in front of the falls on a gray day. CEO Sundar Pichai talks through the edits happening... Continue reading...

The tabs feature is rolling out now but may take a few weeks to appear. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tabs are being added to Google Docs to make it easier to organize and find information in longer documents. The feature was originally announced in April, and is now gradually rolling out to all Google Workspace users and personal Google accounts, though it may take a few weeks to appear.You can now use tabs to draft and build content in a way that makes it possible for you to find what you're looking for quickly and stay on task," Google announced in its latest Workspace update. Plus, readers can navigate through your document with ease and focus on sections that matter most to them." GIF: Google The new tabs feature makes it easier to jump to specific sections within longer documents instead of creating... Continue reading...

Photo by JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images Samsung, the world's leading memory chip manufacturer, issued a rare apology after saying it expected to post just $6.78 billion in operating profit for the most recent quarter, about $900 million short of analyst expectations.We have caused concerns about our fundamental technological competitiveness and the future of the company due to our performance falling short of the market's expectations," reads the statement attributed to Samsung Vice Chairman Jun Young-hyun. Many people are talking about Samsung's crisis. We, who are leading the business, are responsible for all of this."The so-called crisis" caused the company to instigate a six-day workweek for executives earlier this year. That change came after Samsung posted terrible... Continue reading...

Sleep schedules offer a few ways to automate your sleep routine. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge With iOS 14, Apple introduced the ability to set your sleep schedules in the Health app. The feature itself isn't too complicated. You figure out how many hours you ideally want to get every night, then set a scheduled bedtime and wake time that suits that goal.Of course, you could always just set up a one-time or repeating alarm within the Clock app. The main reason why you'd opt for a sleep schedule instead is that it allows you to set a specific goal and more easily automate a sleep routine. For example, you can automatically launch the Sleep Focus mode at your scheduled bedtime and set up sleep reminders. If you use an Apple Watch or another sleep tracker / sleep app, you can also get notified whenever you meet or exceed your sleep... Continue reading...

Hurricane Milton swirls over the Gulf of Mexico. | Image: NOAA Hurricane Milton strengthened into a Category 5 storm today, becoming one of the most rapidly intensifying storms ever in the history of the Atlantic hurricane season.It's likely within the top three fastest storms on record when it comes to rapid intensification, used to describe tropical cyclones with sustained wind speeds that increase by at least 30 knots (roughly 35 miles per hour) in a 24-hour period. Milton has seen an 80-knot increase in wind speed (more than 92 miles per hour) over 24 hours, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said this morning.This is definitely off the charts"This is almost like three times the threshold that is used. So, yeah, this is definitely off the charts," Karthik Balaguru, a climate scientist at... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A federal judge gave the Federal Trade Commission the green light to pursue antitrust claims against Amazon, a newly unsealed order reveals, though some claims under state laws won't move forward.Amazon filed a motion to dismiss the 2023 lawsuit, which alleges the company illegally maintains a monopoly by punishing sellers who discount products outside of Amazon and effectively requires" them to use its own fulfillment services for coveted positioning on the site. Judge John Chun denied Amazon's attempts to dismiss several federal claims that were based on the FTC Act and the Sherman Act. Chun did deny some claims that Amazon violated state law, the result of state-level attorneys general signing on to the suit. But he gave them a... Continue reading...