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Artistic representation of Lignosat wooden satellite. | Art: KyotoU/Gakuji Tobiyama In a first for the world, scientists launched a satellite made from wood into space. As it orbits the planet from some 250 miles away, researchers will study whether wood is sturdy enough for space.Called LignoSat, after the Latin word for wood, the satellite launched Monday night aboard a SpaceX mission bound for the International Space Station. It'll eventually be released into orbit, where instruments will measure how the wood fares under the harsh conditions of space over six months.With timber, a material we can produce by ourselves, we will be able to build houses, live and work in space forever," Takao Doi, an astronaut and professor at Kyoto University, told Reuters.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Authorities in Canada have arrested a man suspected of stealing information from around 165 companies using Snowflake's cloud storage services, as reported earlier by Bloomberg and 404 Media.In a statement to The Verge, Canada Department of Justice spokesperson Ian McLeod confirmed that authorities arrested Alexander Connor" Moucka on October 30th following a request from the US government. He appeared in court later that afternoon and his case was adjourned to Tuesday November 5, 2024," McLeod said. As extradition requests are considered confidential state-to-state communications, we cannot comment further on this case."In May, Ticketmaster parent company Live Nation revealed that it had suffered a massive data breach after alleged... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Alexa didn't get a big splashy launch event, or come with a bunch of grand proclamations about being the future of anything. Instead, like a phone charger with a made-up name or a knockoff version of your favorite blush, it just kind of appeared on Amazon one day.Ten years ago this week, on November 6th, 2014, Amazon launched the Echo and the smart speaker era. The device quickly spawned countless more, from Amazon and others. It became the emblem of a voice-first way of using technology, the ambient computing" revolution Amazon and others came to believe would change how we do everything. Now there are Alexa devices in millions of homes, just listening and chirping away all day.On this episode of The Vergecast, we wrestle with what... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Black Friday officially kicks off on November 29th, but if you plan to make that the only day you buy gifts this holiday season, you're missing out. Several prominent retailers, including Best Buy and Target, have already started rolling out their holiday discounts online and in-store. Both retailers are offering price protection through most of the holiday shopping season as well, so if you buy early and the same item drops to a lower price, you can retroactively get that better deal.Whether you take advantage of the slew of early holiday deals or hold off until the day after Thanksgiving, it's important to know how every major retailer is handling the shopping event this year. If you plan to spend some cash, here are the schedules... Continue reading...

Image: Epic Games Epic Games is trying to make music collaborations a larger part of its always-changing virtual world. Continue reading...

Finding lost luggage might soon be a little easier. | Image: Apple Apple will be introducing a new feature to its Find My app that allows you to temporarily share the location of a lost AirTag with an airline or a trusted person," according to MacRumors, which is testing the second developer beta release of iOS 18.2. The feature could make it easier for airport staff to locate a missing piece of luggage if Find My indicates it's nearby.In iOS 18.2 the Find My app now has a Share Item Location" option that creates a link that can be sent to anyone, not just your trusted contacts. On Apple devices, the link will open the Find My app, allowing someone else to see the location of the AirTagged item. On non-Apple devices, the link will instead open a web page with a map showing the item's last known... Continue reading...

Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr loves the idea of government speech regulations, and he especially loves the idea that he will be the one to impose them in a future Trump administration.That's the short version.Here's the slightly longer, dumber version: Kamala Harris made a cameo appearance on Saturday Night Live over the weekend, triggering an FCC broadcast TV policy known as the equal time rule". NBC, no stranger to FCC rules, did the legally required thing and offered Trump his own appearance on the network later in the weekend. Everything should be settled... but here's Carr, calling for the government to punish NBC.Seriously! Here's Carr appearing on Fox Business this morning, threatening to revoke NBC's broadcast license in... Continue reading...

Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge Apple's second iOS 18.2 developer beta includes a new feature for update's integration with ChatGPT: users will be able to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus from the Settings menu, 9to5Mac reports.ChatGPT Plus is OpenAI's paid version of ChatGPT, offering features like more messages with its GPT-4o model, for $19.99 per month. If you end up using ChatGPT a lot within iOS - you'll be able to track in Settings if you approach the daily free limit of ChatGPT's more powerful capabilities - the upgrade could be worth it.It's unclear if Apple is taking a cut of those subscriptions made from Settings. Apple and OpenAI didn't immediately reply to a request for comment.Apple is also reportedly in talks with Google on an integration with Google's Gemini.... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images A representative of Elon Musk's America PAC said the winners of its $1 million voter sweepstakes aren't randomly selected. The people who are awarded the checks are chosen to be paid spokespeople" for the pro-Trump PAC, lawyer Chris Gober testified in a Philadelphia court on Monday, as reported by the Associated Press.Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner sued Musk and his PAC over the contest, alleging it's an illegal lottery that violates Pennsylvania state laws. Though Musk says that a winner's selection is random,' that appears false because multiple winners that have been selected are individuals who have shown up at rallies in Pennsylvania," the suit read. America PAC's response confirms Krasner's allegation that the... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix will delist just about all of its interactive shows and films as of December 1st, the company confirms to The Verge. Netflix's Interactive Specials" page lists 24 titles, but only four will remain: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend, Ranveer vs. Wild with Bear Grylls, and You vs. Wild.The removal of the titles marks a disappointing conclusion to Netflix's earliest efforts into interactive content. The company first launched the interactive titles in 2017 with Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale, and I remember being wowed (and horrified) by paths in Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.In addition to specials based on franchises like Carmen Sandiego and Boss Baby, Netflix also tried ideas... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Whether you want everything but the kitchen sink or top-tier performance for a midrange price, you've got options. Continue reading...

Image: Sony Ahead of the PS5 Pro launch later this week, we have confirmation of a few more official specifications for the most powerful version of the PS5 yet. Digital Foundry has shared details from the manual included with its PS5 Pro review unit, confirming the console is powered by an AMD Ryzen Zen 2 8-core/16-thread processor with an RDNA-based graphics engine producing 16.7TF of GPU compute performance compared to the base PS5's 10.23TF.As we noted in March, initial leaked documents showed a much higher figure for the PS5 Pro, mostly due to a change in AMD's RDNA architecture.The manual also reveals that in addition to 16GB of GDDR6 memory, the PS5 Pro will have 2GB of slower DDR5 memory for handling console tasks not related to gaming,... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge This weekend, X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, announced it's starting to launch" a controversial change to how blocking works on its platform. Company owner Elon Musk first revealed the change in September, which will allow people you've blocked to continue to see your posts, and, as noted by TechCrunch, your following and followers lists.Musk claimed that stopping people from seeing your public posts makes no sense," but due to a post-Musk change that stops logged-out users from scrolling even a public profile, this could make it easier for blocked users to continue harassing someone.In October, X's engineering account argued that people who block others could say harmful things about the blocked person who wouldn't know... Continue reading...

Photo: Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images The New York Times Tech Guild went on strike at 12:01AM ET today, reports The Washington Post. The guild represents over 600 software engineers, product managers, data analysts, and designers for the media company. Its strike leaves the company bereft of crucial technical expertise just one day before Election Day, when the Times' crucial backend systems will be under very heavy stress.The guild has been bargaining since 2022 for its first union contract with the company. Negotiations between it and the Times hit logjams over things like a just cause" provision that prevents the company from firing workers unless it's for something like misconduct, as well as pay increases, pay equity, and return-to-office policies, reports the Times. T... Continue reading...

Photo illustration by The Verge / Photo: GM GM's Baris Cetinok is committed to building a custom experience to rival that of Apple and Google. Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Riot Games' investment into its Vanguard system is paying off. Continue reading...

The hardware is chunky and the software is clunky, but this is the best portable audio player I've ever heard. Continue reading...

The Apple Watch Series 10 isn't a dramatic update over the prior model, but it does offer a few notable upgrades. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge In September, Apple launched its latest smartwatch, introducing the Apple Watch Series 10 alongside a black rendition of the Apple Watch Ultra 2. Each wearable has its own pros and cons, as does the second-gen Apple Watch SE, but the recent introduction of the new wearables also means there are now more Apple Watch models on the market than ever before - and a lot more deals to be had.But with all of those options, which one should you pick? Generally speaking, you want to buy the newest watch you can afford so that it continues to receive software updates from Apple. The latest update, watchOS 11, launched in September on the Apple Watch Series 6 and newer, ultimately leaving those still using an older Series 4 or Series 5 behind.P... Continue reading...

The Verge AI search company Perplexity is putting to the test whether it's a good idea to use AI to serve crucial voting information with a new Election Information Hub it announced on Friday. The hub offers things like AI-generated answers to voting questions and summaries of candidates, and on November 5th, Election Day, the company says it will track vote counts live, using data from The Associated Press.Perplexity says its voter information, which includes polling requirements, locations, and times, is based on data from Democracy Works. (The same group powers similar features from Google). And that its election-related answers come from a curated set of the most trustworthy and informative sources."Perplexity spokesperson Sara Platnick... Continue reading...

This, but blasting demons. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge What do John Deere tractors, Ikea smart bulbs, Lego bricks, and the MacBook Pro Touch Bar have in common? They can all run Doom, and naturally, so can Nintendo's adorable Alarmo alarm clock. It was only a matter of time before someone pulled that off, but what I didn't expect was that when it happened, it would be playable.That's exactly what hacker GaryOberNicht, who recently figured out how to run custom firmware on the Alarmo, did in a video posted to Mastodon and their X account yesterday. In it, they play by turning or pressing the mushroom-shaped blob on top of the Alarmo to move and pressing the other buttons to shoot or open doors. Here, have a look:Gary said it's possible to load the shareware version of Doom entirely from... Continue reading...

Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge Guess the artist, win five bucks. Whether you're a random person on the streets of New York, an A-list celebrity, or the sitting Vice President of the United States, that's the pitch behind one of the most fun music shows on social media. You show up, you get some headphones and a microphone, and you hope you know what song is playing.The show is called Track Star, and it's hosted by Jack Coyne. On this episode of The Vergecast, the first in our three-part miniseries about the future of music, Coyne joins the show to tell us the story of Track Star.We talk about the show's beginnings as a trivia show about New York called Public Opinion, how Coyne and his co-creators figured out the show's structure and pace, how he thinks about his... Continue reading...

Tim Stevens My favorite feature of the new $420,000, all-electric Rolls-Royce Spectre isn't the cosseting ride quality or the illuminated stars embedded in the headliner of the insanely ornate interior. It isn't the 577 horsepower or the 266 miles of range. It's neither the yes, that's the spot" massaging seats nor the curbside presence of that upright, chromed front grille. It isn't even the aerodynamically refined yet classically styled Spirit of Ecstasy statuette perched atop.My favorite feature of the Spectre is the sound it makes. As an EV, it doesn't really make any engine sound on its own. It's a rolling cocoon made inherently anti-acoustic thanks to the tireless work of some surely big-eared scientists. So, to inject a little more life... Continue reading...

Image: David Pierce / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 59, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been reading about HotWired and DRAM and Mike Solana, watching The Diplomat, jamming to Dua Lipa's Tiny Desk concert, trying Smashing for news reading and cool-stuff discovery, testing my bandwidth caps downloading Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, and listening to all six hours of the Acquired Meta episode.I also have for you some interesting new AI search products, some new Apple gear, a couple of documentaries to watch this weekend, a calendar app for Windows, and much more.Oh, and thanks to everyone... Continue reading...

Image: David Pierce / The Verge People have started receiving their orders of Amazon's first color e-reader, the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition, and many say they're disappointed to find a yellow, discolored strip at the bottom of the display. Complaints about the $279.99 e-reader's display have spread online and dragged down its Amazon star rating, and Amazon tells The Verge it's aware of the complaints.A Reddit user posted a thread with images (see below), saying it's most obvious when the Kindle is supposed to be evenly lit and colored like a piece of paper." Many others with the same issue say they've exchanged their Colorsoft for a new one or simply returned it. Another said they only noticed it while using the device's edge lighting.Whether the issue... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge The best from Apple, Bose, Samsung, Sony, Beats, Google, and more. Continue reading...

Let's face it, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better location tracker if you're tapped into the Apple ecosystem. | Photo: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Thanksgiving is just around the corner, meaning airports everywhere are about to get slammed. Thankfully, if you plan on flying out of town this holiday season, Apple's AirTags can help you speed through the baggage claim with some extra piece of mind. A four-pack normally goes for $99, but right now, you can buy them for just under $74 at Walmart and Best Buy - a mere $1 shy of their best price to date.If you own an iPhone, Apple's AirTags are the best Bluetooth trackers you can buy. They offer impressively precise tracking thanks to Apple's ultra wideband chip and their ability to tap into Apple's vast Find My system, which lets them cover a broader range than Bluetooth alone. You can also share them with up to five people - assuming... Continue reading...

Adult Swim Juston Gordon-Montgomery sees his new shonen-inspired Adult Swim series as a gateway to the world of wrestling. Continue reading...

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images On Friday evening, Okta posted an odd update to its list of security advisories. The latest entry reveals that under specific circumstances, someone could've logged in by entering anything for a password, but only if the account's username had over 52 characters.According to the note people reported receiving, other requirements to exploit the vulnerability included Okta checking the cache from a previous successful login, and that an organization's authentication policy didn't add extra conditions like requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA).Here are the details that are currently available:

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Apple announced a new service program to fix iPhone 14 Plus phones that have rear cameras that won't show a preview.Here's Apple's specific definition of the affected phones, according to the service program page:

This will fit in most parking spots. | Image: Hyundai The reviews for Hyundai's little electric SUV that could are trickling in, and it's clear that the Inster is a delightful way to move about town - regardless of its lack of quickness compared to other similarly-sized EVs. The Inster's top speed for the long-range version is about 93 miles per hour (or 150 km/h), and it has a zero to 62 mph (100km/h) acceleration in 10.6 seconds, according to the specs Hyundai published today.Hyundai also revealed more details about the Inster's price, with European reviewers saying it's expensive compared to similar competition at 23,495 (about $25,477). In the US, however, that's a price we can only dream about since our most affordable options include the $35,000 Chevy Equinox EV or the hope Tesla... Continue reading...

Thanks to their superb ANC, the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones are our No. 1 pick when it's time to hop aboard a plane. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Well, the early Black Friday deals took less than a day to begin. Amazon, Best Buy, Lowe's, and a number of other major retailers have officially begun running their holiday promotions in anticipation of the annual shopping event, though few of them are offering discounts as steep as Bose. For a limited time, you can grab the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy for an all-time low of $329 ($100 off) or the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds for $229 ($100 off) via the same retailers (Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy).Unsurprisingly, the QC Ultra Headphones and QC Ultra Earbuds are incredibly similar, form factor notwithstanding. Both offer exceptional comfort and best-in-class noise cancellation, allowing you to... Continue reading...

Image: Disney Plus / Marvel But Marvel's WandaVision follow-up stuck the landing by spelling out the secrets that were hiding in plain sight. Continue reading...

Image: Disney Disney released a new trailer for Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, its new Star Wars Disney Plus show premiering next month, and it looks like the show is going to be pretty fun.Star Wars: Skeleton Crew follows the journey of four kids who make a mysterious discovery on their seemingly safe home planet, then get lost in a strange and dangerous galaxy," according to Disney's official description. Finding their way home - and meeting unlikely allies and enemies - will be a greater adventure than they ever imagined."One of the people the kids meet along the way is the mysterious Jod, who is played by Jude Law.Skeleton Crew was originally announced in 2022 with an intended release of 2023. That obviously didn't happen, but Disney confirmed... Continue reading...