The Verge

Image: The Verge It looks like the fediverse is continuing to open up. In late March, Meta's Threads introduced a beta feature that allows users from the US, Canada, or Japan to cross-post and view likes from Mastodon and, presumably, other federated social networks. In June, it added that ability to over 100 countries.While you can follow a step-by-step process to get to the Fediverse settings dialog, where you can opt in or out of sharing your Threads posts, there is now a single link that will take you right there.If you want to do it the long way around, you can still do it from the mobile app or the web version:

The Snappy grip is designed to improve the ergonomics of smartphone photography. | Image: Buddiesman The Snappy is another mobile grip accessory attempting to improve the ergonomics of smartphone photography, but it goes one step further by adding a motorized gimbal for stabilization.The Camera Control on the new iPhone 16 lineup is Apple's attempt to improve the ergonomics of smartphone photography, but it doesn't solve the problem of securely holding on to those smooth rectangular slabs while framing a shot. Similar to accessories we've seen from companies like Xiaomi, the Snappy adds the grip and buttons of a dedicated camera, plus more device compatibility with its expanding clamp.Buddiesman, a Chinese maker of tripods and heads, created the Snappy and is attempting to crowdfund the smartphone grip through Kickstarter. Full retail... Continue reading...

The Destiny 2 Nerf Ace of Spades blaster. | Image: Hasbro When Bungie and Hasbro decided to create a real-life, dart-blasting Nerf version of one of the most famous Destiny 2 guns, someone got lazy - stealing a fan artist's nine-year-old work instead of creating the Ace of Spades from scratch.To Bungie's credit, the game company has just announced it will make sure" to compensate and credit Tofu Rabbit for their incredible artwork," after a rapid investigation.As you can see in Tofu's examples below, this is an incredibly clear-cut case of copying, despite the changes that Bungie or Hasbro's artists made to the blaster.

Photo by Smith Collection / Gado / Getty Images Keurig made inaccurate statements" about the recyclability of its single-use coffee pods, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company agreed to a cease and desist order and to pay a $1.5 million civil penalty to settle the charges.Corporate recycling claims can be misleadingIt's a helpful reminder that many corporate recycling claims can be misleading. Certain types of plastic are harder to recycle than others. Even if something is supposedly recyclable, it can end up in the trash if the type of plastic is not accepted by a municipal recycling program.The charges against Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. stem from its 2019 and 2020 annual reports, which said that the company tested and validate[d] that [K-Cup pods]... Continue reading...

This photo, from X user @MatthewDR via Reddit user u/boopitysmopp (since deleted), could be of Tesla's long-gestating robotaxi. | Screenshot: u/boopitysmopp, via @MatthewDR A blurry photo of a heavily camouflaged vehicle tooling around on the Warner Bros. movie studio lot surfaced last night, spurring speculation that it's the fabled Tesla robotaxi set to be revealed next month.With its canary yellow wrap and clearly manipulated shape, it's difficult to glean much about the robotaxi from just this sighting. Everything about this photo should be taken with a grain of salt, including the tires, boxy rear end, weird roof bump (lidar?), and upsetting hood indentions. All is not what it seems.According to Electrek, the photo was first posted to Reddit by u/boopitysmopp, who is said to be a lot employee at Warner Bros. (The post has since been removed, and the Reddit user has deleted their profile, so the... Continue reading...

Photo by Mathew Tsang / Getty Images A regularly updated stream of everything we see. Continue reading...

Image: Lionsgate Francis Ford Coppola's long-gestating epic Megalopolis is a series of loosely connected ideas, tied together with an undercooked world and embarrassing dialogue. Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge If kids are asking to hear one song from Encanto on repeat, it can filter back into the algorithm and recommendations for a parent's Spotify profile. The company tried addressing the issue with a dedicated kids app, and last year, Spotify added a feature to exclude specific playlists from a user's taste profile.Now, Spotify is launching a pilot in three countries to test managed accounts for users under the age of 13.

Image: Team Asobi / Sony Astro Bot is a game I cannot help but to evangelize, raving about its cute characters, its bright and varied level design, and its short but dense 8-10 hour runtime. But perhaps the biggest element contributing to the game's joyousness is its sound design, which makes Astro Bot something that engages and delights more than just your mind but your body as well.Astro Bot had me hooked before the game even started. I left my PS5 running on the game's preload screen and was simultaneously soothed by calming bell tones and thrilled because the song conveyed a sense of imminent wonder. It sounded like something that would play in the opening sequence of a children's movie, letting you know that an adventure was on the way. Music has a... Continue reading...

Apple's higher-end iPhones feature a titanium finish and a new desert" option. (That just means dark gold.) | Screenshot: Apple Apple's new iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max are already up for preorder ahead of their debut on September 20th. It'll be a few more weeks before the Apple Intelligence AI features arrive, though, as Apple is serving them up in beta as part of iOS 18.1 in October. But without those hyped-up software features in tow just yet, what's there to be excited about on day one? Well, to make sense of all four models, we've put together a little side-by-side comparison outlining some of the key differences between them (if you're so inclined to make an iPhone 16 your own).Apple Intelligence will (eventually) be available for all four of the new phones, and each comes equipped with Apple's latest processors and the new Camera Control... Continue reading...

Apple's latest entry-level handset starts at $799 once again. | Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge The dust is still settling from Apple's latest iPhone event, which introduced us to the Apple Watch Series 10, a new set of AirPods, and a suite of smartphones that are due to arrive later this month. And while we've only had some initial hands-on time with the new iPhone 16 models, preorders are now open.Apple's latest phones - specifically the iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max - are set to arrive on September 20th. They introduce new processors and a slick new Camera Control button, but none of them look to be a drastic overhaul of last year's iPhone 15 series. That being said, perhaps things will get interesting when Apple Intelligence comes to the new models with the release of iOS 18.1 beta in October.We're currently... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Sony's new PlayStation 5 Pro appears to be very powerful. But at $700 - plus another $80 if you want to buy the disc drive accessory since the console itself doesn't have one - a lot of gamers have been left wondering exactly how powerful it needs to be in order to justify the cost.On this episode of The Vergecast, we try to figure out why the PS5 Pro has the specs and price tag it does and what this new console might tell us about the overall state of the gaming business. Around the same time as Sony's announcement, Microsoft said it was laying off another 650 Xbox employees - these are two companies with very different ideas about the same business, and it's not always obvious who's right.After we finish with our PS5 Pro chat, we... Continue reading...

Pedestrians exit a Waymo self-driving car in front of Google's San Francisco headquarters. | Photo by Smith Collection / Gado / Getty Images Waymo and Uber - bitter enemies turned awkwardly polite work friends - announced they were expanding their two-year robotaxi partnership to two new cities: Austin, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia, starting in early 2025.The companies have been working together in Phoenix, Arizona, since last year - but not in California in San Francisco or Los Angeles. It's a mutually beneficial partnership in which Waymo gets access to Uber's vast customer base, while Uber gets to serve as a platform for a futuristic mode of transportation.When it launches, Waymo's robotaxis will only" be available to hail for rides on Uber's app in Austin and Atlanta. That means Waymo's own ridehail app, Waymo One, will not be operational in either city. The... Continue reading...

The latest Netflix app update will require Apple devices to run iOS 17 or later. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Netflix app is dropping support for older iPhones and iPads that are stuck at iOS 16. 9to5Mac reports that Netflix is showing an alert to users on some iOS 16 devices that says We've updated the Netflix app! To use the latest version, install iOS 17 or later."The change only impacts devices that can't be updated to iOS 17, such as the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus handsets, and Apple's first-generation iPad Pro and iPad 5 tablets. These devices will be unable to receive further Netflix updates, such as important patches for bugs and other security concerns. Apple is rolling out iOS 18 on September 16th.Netflix users stuck on iOS 16 can still access their accounts in the current version of their app, for the time being, as... Continue reading...

A crop of Spider-Man 2 from Sony's PS5 Pro video. | Image: Sony We've got lossless screenshots, but you'll have to download them. Continue reading...

Stray, a game where you play a cat. | Image: Annapurna Annapurna Interactive, the game company famous for publishing indie hits like Stray, Outer Wilds, Gorogoa, Neon White, What Remains of Edith Finch, and many more, may not be the same company anymore.Bloomberg reports that the entire staff of Annapurna Interactive, the gaming division of Megan Ellison's Annapurna, has resigned after failing to convince Ellison to let them spin off its games division into a new company. IGN is corroborating the report.All 25 members of the Annapurna Interactive team collectively resigned,'' former president Nathan Gary and staffers told Bloomberg. This was one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make and we did not take this action lightly."An Annapurna spokesperson told Bloomberg that... Continue reading...

Image: Google Google is testing a new feature for Android tablets that will let you resize apps freely and arrange them on your screen at will, making it easier to juggle multiple tasks. The desktop windowing" feature is now available as a developer preview, and for apps that support it, you could even have more than one instance open.Currently, apps on Android tablets open in full-screen by default. When the new mode is enabled, each app will appear in a window with controls that allow you to reposition, maximize, or close the app. You'll also see a taskbar at the bottom of your screen with your running apps.It sounds a lot like the iPad's Stage Manager feature that similarly lets you resize and move windows around your screen or pretty much any... Continue reading...

You'll want to be extra careful with Huawei's new trifold Mate XT Ultimate Design smartphone. | Image: Huawei Huawei has revealed the cost of replacement parts for the world's first dual-hinged, triple-screen folding phone, and it's another round of sticker shock. The Mate XT Ultimate Design starts at around $2,809, but should you damage its folding screen enough to need repairs, you'll be potentially paying an additional 7,999 yuan, or around $1,123, for a replacement OLED panel.That's assuming you agree to let Huawei recycle the damaged screen for free. Should you turn down that offer, a new screen for the Mate XT will instead cost you 9,799 yuan, or over $1,376. Ouch. Image: Huawei More folds mean more potential points of failure. Huawei does offer some ways to save money on screen repairs for its new trifold phone.... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Image Right-wing media figures and influencers have descended on Springfield, Ohio, hunting for anything that can help them prove the veracity of a viral racist rumor about Haitian migrants in the community - and relying on misleading, occasionally AI-generated content to help them prove their point. Springfield, which has seen its Haitian population grow by an estimated 15,000 people, has become a sort of shorthand for conservatives' fears about immigration and demographic change. One of the most recent examples comes from Tyler Oliveira, a YouTuber and MrBeast associate, who posted a misleading video about Springfield on Wednesday. Oliveira's video intersperses interviews with locals - including some Haitians - with... Continue reading...

Multiple Stream Deck Studio interfaces can be stacked in a studio rack. | Image: Elgato Elgato's new Stream Deck Studio - the largest version of its Stream Deck controller yet - is designed for broadcast environments where workflows involve juggling more hardware, software, and media feeds than streamers and solo content creators typically have to deal with.Available starting today for $899.99, the Stream Deck Studio is a collaboration between Elgato and Bitfocus, whose Companion software already brought more advanced functionality to the original Stream Deck, letting you connect multiple controllers and configure them remotely through a web browser interface.Bitfocus helped make the Stream Deck a useful tool in traditional broadcast settings" and other applications outside of content creation. Companies like Virgin... Continue reading...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The Steam Summer Sale, like summer itself, is sadly well behind us, but Valve is beating one of its best deals on its own gaming handheld. That's because in addition to the Steam Deck LCD with 64GB of storage once again selling for $296.65 (around $52 off), the 512GB version, complete with its fancier antiglare etched screen, is selling for a new low of $336.75 (about $112 off). These are some exceptional deals on the two Steam Deck models that are being phased out.Whichever Steam Deck you choose, you're getting an excellent PC gaming handheld with a seven-inch, 1280 x 800 display that's compatible with many games on Steam. It may be a couple of years old and not as nice as the refreshed Steam Deck OLED model, but it's hard to beat... Continue reading...

Meta will hide the AI Info" label in a menu if an image has been edited with AI. | Image: Meta Meta is updating how it labels content on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads that has been edited or manipulated using generative AI. In an updated blog post, Meta announced that its AI Info" tag will appear within a menu in the top-right corner of images and videos edited with AI - instead of directly beneath the user's name.Users can click on the menu to check if AI information is available and read what may have been adjusted. Meta previously applied the AI Info" tag to all AI-related content - whether it was lightly adjusted in a tool like Photoshop that includes AI features or fully AI-generated from a prompt.The company says the changes are being introduced to better reflect the extent of AI used" across images and videos on... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google is rolling out its Gemini Live voice chat mode to all Android users for free. You can access the conversational AI chatbot on Android through the Gemini app or its overlay.Google first announced Gemini Live during its Pixel 9 launch event last month, but it has only been available to Gemini Advanced subscribers until now. Similar to ChatGPT's voice chat feature, you can ask Gemini Live questions aloud and even interrupt it mid-sentence. There are also several different voices you can choose from.

The Gocycle GXi we reviewed a few years ago. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge Gocycle's designer-in-chief Richard Thorpe is rebooting the e-bike company he founded more than two decades ago. Following a January restructuring to reduce overhead, Thorpe is now turning to crowdfunding to help launch a new series of F1-inspired e-bikes while also expanding into nonelectric foldables - a space currently dominated by Gocycle's British compatriots Brompton.To drum up support, Thorpe is going to tell his story and the challenges and opportunities his small business faces in a series of videos that will be released over the next few weeks. The first, rather earnest installment focuses on Bikeaggedon," Thorpe's word for the turmoil created by soaring e-bike demand at the onset of covid, followed by a collapse of the... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge OpenAI is releasing a new model called o1, the first in a planned series of reasoning" models that have been trained to answer more complex questions, faster than a human can. It's being released alongside o1-mini, a smaller, cheaper version. And yes, if you're steeped in AI rumors: this is, in fact, the extremely hyped Strawberry model.For OpenAI, o1 represents a step toward its broader goal of human-like artificial intelligence. More practically, it does a better job at writing code and solving multistep problems than previous models. But it's also more expensive and slower to use than GPT-4o. OpenAI is calling this release of o1 a preview" to emphasize how nascent it is.ChatGPT Plus and Team users get access to both o1-preview and... Continue reading...

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Google has unlisted an impressive Gemini demo video it posted last December that seemed remarkably conversational. BBB National Programs' National Advertising Division (NAD), an ad industry watchdog, inquired whether the video accurately depicts the performance of Gemini in responding to user voice and video prompts."Google chose to end the inquiry by ending its promotion of the video that showed Gemini quickly responding to various spoken prompts, such as identifying parts of drawings and creating a geography game on the fly.Buried in the description was a disclaimer indicating the demo might not be as good as it seemed: For the purposes of this demo, latency has been reduced and Gemini outputs have been shortened for brevity."A... Continue reading...

Lego's McLaren P1 isn't quite as fast as the real deal. | Image: Lego After releasing a 24-inch-long scale replica of the McLaren P1 earlier this year, Lego has now debuted a full-size drivable version of the hypercar built from over 342,817 Technic pieces and powered by hundreds of Lego electric motors.That eclipses the 3,893 pieces that go into building Lego's 1:8-scale McLaren P1 model. The company says the full-scale version used 393 types of Technic components, including 11 specifically manufactured for the replica. That would make it hard to build a copy yourself, but you'd also struggle to find the time. Lego says it took 6,134 hours to design and plan its P1 and 2,210 hours to assemble it.Lego opted to build with Technic components instead of its standard bricks as it allowed the company's... Continue reading...

On mobile, you get a one-tap unsubscribe under annoying website notifications from Chrome. | Image: Google Google is expanding a Chrome safety feature to help you cancel pesky website notifications with a single tap. It's already available on Pixels and is coming to more Android devices; adding a simple unsubscribe button in the notification so that you can get rid of websites you didn't mean to subscribe to, like horoscopes or weird facts about ducks (there's also an undo button in case you actually do still want those weird duck facts).There's also an updated Safety Check running in the background to automatically revoke permissions from websites that you haven't visited in a long time or are otherwise dangerous. You can see the actions taken in the summary panel, which lists other potential security concerns like compromised passwords and... Continue reading...

Disney's current promo runs through September 27th and extends to both new and returning subscribers. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Like most streaming services, the price of a Disney Plus is about to go up in the not-so-distant future. Fortunately for those dreading the $2 price hike - which is due to take effect on October 17th - both new and returning subscribers can sign up for three months of Disney's ad-supported Basic plan for $1.99 a month through September 27th, saving you $6 a month or $18 over the entire promo period.If you can do without the ability to download content for offline viewing, Disney's ad-supported plan is virtually identical to the ad-free plan. Both provide access to the same Disney Plus shows and films - including the full Star Wars and Marvel slate - along with National Geographic and Pixar content. That means you'll be able to stream... Continue reading...

Image: The Flappy Bird Foundation A self-described team of passionate fans committed to sharing the game with the world" says it's acquired the rights to Flappy Bird, the iconic mobile game whose creator took it offline less than a year after it was released. Now, The Flappy Bird Foundation Group" will relaunch the game on Android and iOS in 2025.But it's unclear whether the original creator of Flappy Bird, Dong Nguyen, is a part of the game's relaunch. The Verge reached out to Nguyen with a request for comment but didn't immediately hear back. His account on X and the website for his game development company don't show any recent updates. The Flappy Bird Foundation said it acquired the rights to the game from Gametech, LLC, which isn't associated with Nguyen.F... Continue reading...

An aerial photo of a warehouse next to homes in Bloomington, California. | Photo by Wes Reel for The Verge The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just handed communities a powerful new way to hold nearby warehouses accountable for the pollution they create.Until recently, air quality regulations largely overlooked tailpipe pollution choking neighborhoods near sprawling warehouses. Warehouses may not have smokestacks releasing pollutants that the EPA and local agencies typically regulate. But they do attract a steady stream of trucks. It's a problem the warehouse wouldn't necessarily have been held accountable for since old-school regulations focused on pollutants coming from the facility itself.Warehouses are expanding to meet demand for e-commerceThat changed with a landmark policy in Southern California called the Warehouse Indirect... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge These days, there are so many digital subscriptions out there - music, movies, fitness, cloud storage, software, podcasts, audiobooks, Patreons, security cameras, AI bots, and more - that it's perfectly understandable if you start losing track of what exactly you're signed up for.To make things even more complicated, you may be paying some subscriptions monthly and others annually. Then, there are those insidious free trials: you sign up to test something out, forget all about it after a few days, and then get billed unexpectedly (this is an occupational hazard for tech journalists). And of course, both Apple and Google make it immensely easy to sign up for various services almost instantly using their account.Luckily, Apple and... Continue reading...

Illustration: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos: Getty Images Apple revealed its iPhone 16 lineup on Monday, and the big selling point was Apple Intelligence. Apple's on-device AI system offers splashy features like the ability to rewrite emails, generate custom emoji, and a significantly upgraded Siri. But underneath it all, AI is delivering one other big change to the iPhone: more RAM.Although Apple never talks about RAM in its smartphones, MacRumors discovered that every iPhone 16 model now has 8GB of RAM, up from 6GB in the base models from last year. And it's not just Apple making changes like that. Last month, Google made similar changes to its AI-heavy Pixel 9; both the standard and pro models saw an increase in RAM, making 12GB the least you can get this year.The impetus behind these RAM... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google Wallet will start beta testing a digital ID soon that works at TSA checkpoints in almost half the country, including states like New York, California, Florida, Texas, and Illinois, but Google still advises that users keep their physical ID handy. Google says it's also working with partners to use digital IDs for other purposes, like car rentals, account recovery, and identity verification.To create the digital ID, you'll scan the security chip on the back of your passport into the Google Wallet app. Google will ask you to verify your identity with a selfie video and then generate the ID pass within a few minutes. The ID is encrypted, so you'll need a passcode or fingerprint to access and share it. Image: Google... Continue reading...