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Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge OpenAI didn’t mean to kickstart a generational shift in the technology industry. But it did. Now all we have to decide is where to go from here. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/cyjlCDQ

Voicemod Thanks to AI voice cloning, anyone can sound like Joe Rogan , Oprah, or even Darth Vader. But a newly launched set of features from Voicemod should make it easy for users to create and share their own bespoke AI voices from scratch. Users can now create and tweak unique synthetic voices with AI Voice Changer and then share them with other users on Community Voices. For those outside the world of gaming, Voicemod is an AI voice cloning program popular with streamers and gamers. Prior to this update, it had over 100 options for AI voices, including popular fantasy characters, celebrity actors, astronauts — and even the main characters in Rick and Morty . Users can now use Voicemod’s AI Voice Creator feature to create a unique synthetic... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/r63Unp0

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Users of Firefox’s Android browser are about to have a lot more extensions to choose from. Developer Mozilla has announced that from December 14th, any extension marked as “Android compatible” on Mozilla’s add-ons site will be available to download and use with Firefox’s Android app. Although extensions have been available for use with Firefox on Android for over a decade , for the past three years users have had a limited selection to choose from after Mozilla rebuilt its Android app in 2020 . But next month the ecosystem is opening up once again, and hundreds more extensions will be available for users to download and use without having to mess with developer-focused debug settings. “We can safely say AMO [addons.mozilla.org] will have... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/9V3IKpP

The Verge / Photo by Bloomberg, Getty Images The long-delayed electric truck has finally arrived — sort of. Ten trucks are slated for delivery, but Tesla’s problems extend far beyond this first batch. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/S3eAjcO

Robert De Niro, appearing onstage at the 2023 Gotham Awards in New York. | Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Gotham Film & Media Institute Robert De Niro slammed Apple and the Gotham Film & Media Institute this week after claiming his speech for the Gotham Awards had been censored — allegedly by an Apple employee just minutes before the show started, according to Variety’s sources — to remove criticisms about Donald Trump and the entertainment industry. The actor appeared onstage at the ceremony on Monday night for the presentation of the Gotham Historical Icon and Creator Tribute to Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon , a film distributed by Apple that focuses on a series of murders targeting the Osage people in Oklahoma during the 1920s after oil was discovered on tribal land. At first, De Niro said there was a mistake on the teleprompter, before realizing that... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/aNk16H8

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google Drive users on iOS are getting a new scanning feature that lets them quickly photograph documents and add them to their libraries, the search giant has announced . The feature has been available for Android for over a decade , but until now iPhone and iPad users haven’t had the same option . Google has also upgraded the scanner in Drive’s Android app. iPhone users in the US will also benefit from a new title suggestion feature that attempts to auto-generate a document title based on text it recognizes in the scan. The feature previously came to the Android version of Drive earlier this year. Google also says it’s improving document scanning on Android, adding similar features like the option to automatically capture documents when... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/KGA3Dyt

Illustration by Aaron Fernandez for The Verge Leftovers often get a bad rap, but this small buffet of lingering Cyber Monday deals is just as appetizing as when the deals were fresh. Black Friday and Cyber Monday brought deep discounts across a manner of tech devices, from phones and wearables to video games and headphones. Thankfully, if you haven’t already pounced on a deal, you may still be in luck. While many quietly expired in the middle of the night at Cyber Monday’s conclusion, a bunch are soldiering on. For example, you can still pick up the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds , the Xbox Series X bundled with Diablo IV , the Belkin BoostCharge Pro with MagSafe charger, and the new iRobot Roomba j9 at exceptional discounts. So be sure to take one last look around at what Cyber... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/6vOGiLe

Google partnered with clean energy startup Fervo on a new geothermal project in Nevada that will send electricity to the grid that serves two of Google’s data centers. | Image: Google A first-of-its-kind geothermal project is now up and running in Nevada, where it will help power Google’s data centers with clean energy. Google is partnering with startup Fervo, which has developed new technology for harnessing geothermal power. Since they’re using different tactics than traditional geothermal plants, it is a relatively small project with the capacity to generate 3.5 MW. For context, one megawatt is enough to meet the demand of roughly 750 homes . The project will feed electricity into the local grid that serves two of Google’s data centers outside of Las Vegas and Reno. It’s part of Google’s plan to run on carbon pollution-free electricity around the clock by 2030. To reach that goal, it’ll have to get more sources of... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://if

(Left) Badring water leak sensor; (Right) the Parasoll door and window sensor pair. | Image: Ikea Ikea’s push to democratize the smart home continues with the introduction of three new Zigbee sensors that won’t break the bank. There’s Parasoll, the door and window sensor; Vallhorn, the motion sensor; and Badring, the water leakage sensor. They’ll all be priced less than $10 when they go on sale globally in the first half of next year. Parasoll is a typical window and door sensor that can be discretely mounted to trigger an automation when an open / close event is detected. It can also be paired directly with an Ikea light bulb right out of the box without needing to buy and configure an Ikea Home smart hub. It’s priced at €9.99 in Europe, but exact US pricing is yet to be confirmed for it or any of Ikea’s three new sensors. ... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/UCmxPVc

Illustration: The Verge If you’ve got an old Google account that you want to keep but haven’t used in the past couple of years, you’ll want to sign into it soon to prevent its deletion under Google’s inactive account policy. The new rules were announced in May , when Google said that the earliest it would begin deleting accounts was in December 2023. Google has since started emailing affected users saying accounts will be eligible for deletion from December 1st. To be clear, Google hasn’t said it would delete every eligible account starting on Friday. The company says it plans to take a phased approach, “starting with accounts that were created and never used again.” But now seems like as good a time as any to make sure your old accounts are in order so you... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/kOtNA8X

ByteDance has not confirmed how many employees will be affected by the restructuring. | Photo by Roslan Rahman / AFP via Getty Images TikTok parent company ByteDance is planning to wind down its Nuverse gaming brand and walk away from the mainstream video game industry, according to a new report by Reuters . Four unnamed sources told the publication on Monday that the decision will likely impact hundreds of employees, some of whom were only informed about the company’s restructuring efforts over the weekend. “We regularly review our businesses and make adjustments to centre on long-term strategic growth areas. Following a recent review, we’ve made the difficult decision to restructure our gaming business,” a ByteDance spokesperson told Reuters . Nuverse, a subsidiary set up by ByteDance in 2019, was focused on standalone mobile and web games, including publishing the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/yXMEfxn

A pair of 15-inch M2 MacBook Air laptops at Frore Systems’ HQ in San Jose, California. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Two Fridays ago, I drove down to a squat single-story Silicon Valley office building to see a MacBook Air. There was no security guard, no need to badge in, not even a PR person in my demo room. That’s because I wasn’t visiting Apple headquarters for an unannounced laptop. Instead, I went to San Jose to see an existing MacBook — one surgically modified to prove how far an exotic cooling tech has come. Frore Systems is a startup with $116 million in funding, and I’ve shown you its first product before : the AirJet Mini is a piezoelectric cooling chip that weighs just nine grams and is thinner than two US quarters stacked together. Each nominally consumes one watt and can remove 4.25 additional watts of heat. Here’s the question: what... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/ryVuB4N

Illustration by Aaron Fernandez for The Verge The Monday after a long holiday weekend is no fun, unless you like to save money. If you missed out on all the great Black Friday deals, Cyber Monday offers one more chance to save some serious cash before the holidays. You can still, for example, score significant discounts on a number of popular gifts, ranging from Bose’s QuietComfort Ultra Headphones and Amazon’s Echo Pop to the Sonos Roam and Kindle Paperwhite . There are also a number of deals on other kinds of gadgets, including phones, smartwatches, headphones, chargers, toys, and all sorts of accessories. And not all the deals are Black Friday leftovers, either; other gadgets are even cheaper now, like the second-gen Apple Pencil , Yeedi Vac 2 Pro , and Nanoleaf Shapes Ultra Black... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Sp5G23u

Image: OnePlus OnePlus has unveiled official images of its upcoming OnePlus 12 flagship smartphone on Weibo ahead of its December 5th launch event in China, revealing the handset will be available in three colors: white, black, and green. The design of the device appears visually similar to its predecessor, the OnePlus 11 , though the Alert Slider — a fan-favorite feature that allows users to easily switch between mute, vibrate, and ringer sound profiles — is now located on the left-hand side of the phone instead of the right. According to OnePlus, the relocation was made to accommodate a new integrated antenna that’s designed to boost signal performance and reduce latency for game streaming. “Based on internal testing, it has been determined that the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/1MmxLHp

The second-generation Apple Pencil is an excellent stylus compatible with the latest iPad Air, iPad Mini, and iPad Pro models. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Let’s face it: most early Cyber Monday deals tend to just be rebranded Black Friday deals, but every now and then the shopping event surprises us with a new one entirely. Today’s deal on the second-generation Apple Pencil is one of those deals. Right now, the second-gen Apple Pencil has dropped to a new all-time low of $79.99 ($49 off) at Amazon and at Walmart , though after you sign into your Walmart account. If you own one of Apple’s latest iPad Pro, iPad Air, and iPad Mini models, this is an excellent stylus for drawing and taking notes. The pressure-sensitive Pencil recharges by magnetically attaching to the side of tablets, which is a convenient feature its predecessor lacked. It also supports tap gestures and the hover feature on M... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/eICoJ

iRobot’s flagship robot vacuum and mop the j9 Combo Plus is $400 off for Cyber Monday. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge With a new owner looming , iRobot is already getting into the Amazon discounting game by dropping the prices on its brand-new vacuums this Cyber Monday. On Friday, it started with its new budget and midrange lines , the Roomba Combo i5 Plus and Combo j5 Plus, and on Sunday, iRobot slashed $400 off its new top-of-the-line models , the j9 Plus and Combo j9 Plus. Image: iRobot The Roomba j9 Plus and mopping version the Combo j9 Plus are $400 off for Cyber Monday. The Roomba j9 Plus is the company’s flagship robot vacuum and is on sale for $599, down from $899 at Amazon . It comes with a self-empty dock and all the smarts of the Roomba j7 , including AI-powered obstacle avoidance to steer clear of household clutter... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/bKVlpXR

Apple’s AirTag, our favorite Bluetooth tracker for iPhone owners, is available starting at just $23.99. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge It’s the time of year again when utter chaos descends upon airports nationwide. That means the chances of losing your luggage are higher than usual, so it’s worth preparing for the commotion if you’re planning to travel. Right now, you can buy a single AirTag for just $23.99 ($5 off) at Amazon and Walmart , which is a rare discount that’s just $1 shy of the tracker’s all-time low price. If you want to buy even more AirTags, Amazon , Walmart , and Best Buy are also currently selling a four-pack for $79.99, about $20 off, which is $5 shy of their best price yet. This is the same discount we saw last week for Black Friday — and one likely to carry through Cyber Monday — but it remains one of our favorite budget-friendly deals we’ve seen so... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/E9sk8OC

Illustration by Aaron Fernandez for The Verge Black Friday used to be one day! Feels like it started mid-November this time around, and here we are on Sunday. How is this day different from Cyber Monday? How will Monday be any different than Tuesday? It’s all a barely differentiated smear at this point. But the good news is that the deals are still here. They’ll be here tomorrow, too, but if your Sunday plans include scanning for deals, at least you’ll find plenty of them. Most of the good deals we’ve seen on phones, smartwatches, headphones, and accessories are holding steady through the weekend — we’ve checked them all to be sure. This post is where we collect the highlight deals, but our Black Friday / Cyber Monday / Undifferentiated Commerce Smear coverage goes well beyond a... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/78jrmJL

Illustration by Aaron Fernandez for The Verge Black Friday 2023 has come and gone, and we’re cruising toward Cyber Monday — but that doesn’t mean all of yesterday’s deals are history. Quite the opposite. You can still take advantage of big savings at many retailers. Whether you’re shopping for a new smartphone, the latest noise-canceling headphones, or a stylish smartwatch, a ton of popular products are still heavily discounted. Whether you’re checking off everyone on your list for the upcoming holidays or you’re just shopping for the best prices for yourself, we’re scouring all the quality deals Black Friday has to offer and logging them right here. But keep in mind that our Black Friday and upcoming Cyber Monday coverage goes well beyond a single post. You can find it all here ,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/QUucPXW

Image: triddell24 ( Reddit ) Ubisoft is blaming an unspecified “technical error” for a fullscreen pop-up ad that appeared in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey this week. Reddit users say they spotted the pop-up on Xbox and PlayStation versions of the game, with an ad appearing just when you navigate to the map screen. “This is disgusting to experience while playing,” remarked one Reddit user, summarizing the general feeling against such pop-ups in the middle of gameplay. “We have been made aware that some players encountered pop-up ads while playing certain Assassin’s Creed titles yesterday,” says Ubisoft spokesperson Fabien Darrigues, in a statement to The Verge . “This was the result of a technical error that we addressed as soon as we learned of the issue.” ... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/VBKwZfe

Image: Dbrand Dbrand, the device skin company known for trolling brands like Sony and Nintendo , is waging a legal battle of its own. The company is suing rival Casetify over claims it blatantly copied Dbrand’s Teardown device skins and cases, which are made to look like the internals of whatever phone, tablet, or laptop you’ve purchased them for. (It’s also introducing some new X-Ray skins on the same day it’s revealing the lawsuit.) Dbrand first revealed its Teardown products in 2019 in partnership with JerryRigEverything, a YouTuber who breaks down new devices and sometimes even gives them transparent mods . The Teardown skins and cases make it look as if you’ve taken your entire device apart and slapped on a transparent backing — when in reality,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/gkbE76O

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’ve ever embarrassed yourself by publicly sharing a part of your screen you weren’t supposed to, spare a thought for Mohammad Moniruzzaman, who’s alleged to have shown off the source code he stole from a former employer during a Microsoft Teams call with that same company. The incident has come to light in a lawsuit filed by Moniruzzaman’s old employer, automotive technology company Valeo, which is suing Nvidia — the company Moniruzzaman moved on to — and accusing it of having benefited from these stolen trade secrets. Nvidia has spent the better part of a decade attempting to branch out into the automotive market. Valeo is alleging that Moniruzzaman “downloaded without authorization the entirety of Valeo’s advanced parking and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/X8raO1g

The Verge / Fourthwall It’s nearly Thanksgiving, which means it’s time for some wild Black Friday weekend deals. And the official Verge store is no exception: today through Monday, you can save big on merch from The Verge . Here’s a quick breakdown of our major offers: 30 percent off of all T-shirts , including our three brand-new designs: Content Moderation , Org Charts , and “What is a Photo?” 30 percent off of all hats , including beanies and baseball caps 40 percent off of ceramic mugs , including the ones seen on The Vergecast 25 percent off of AirPods Pro cases , available for Decoder and The Vergecast 20 percent off of all sweatshirts , including crewnecks and hoodies 20 percent off of our eco-friendly tote bag designs , including the USB-Sea Up to... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Pma2Szc

A row of Tesla charging stations. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Tesla is using a new fee to encourage people not to charge their cars to 100 percent at busy Supercharger locations. In the US, the Supercharger Congestion Fee kicks in after a car hits 90 percent charge, at which point drivers will be hit with a $1 fee for each minute they continue to charge their vehicles. The company’s support page says the fee will apply at “certain Supercharging locations” when they’re busy. The launch of the fee arrives ahead of Thanksgiving in the US, which is traditionally a time when lots of people travel to see family. But it also comes as Tesla is opening up its Supercharging locations for use with non-Tesla EVs , which has the potential to increase demand for its charging network (though in the longer term... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Mnec1GH

Image: Microsoft Microsoft’s Windows Hello fingerprint authentication has been bypassed on laptops from Dell, Lenovo, and even Microsoft. Security researchers at Blackwing Intelligence have discovered multiple vulnerabilities in the top three fingerprint sensors that are embedded into laptops and used widely by businesses to secure laptops with Windows Hello fingerprint authentication. Microsoft’s Offensive Research and Security Engineering (MORSE) asked Blackwing Intelligence to evaluate the security of fingerprint sensors, and the researchers provided their findings in a presentation at Microsoft’s BlueHat conference in October. The team identified popular fingerprint sensors from Goodix, Synaptics, and ELAN as targets for their research, with a... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/EpD7f1r

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge The best laptops for you, from ultraportables to gaming machines, MacBooks to Chromebooks. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/vCr6Y9A

“Here, The Doors Don’t Know Me” by Mohamed Mahdy (pictured) was the winning Open Format entry in 2023. | Image: Mohamed Mahdy / Magnum Foundation / World Press Photo Foundation The World Press Photo Contest has updated its entry rules to exclude submissions for AI-generated imagery, just days after announcing that such images could be entered into its Open Format competition category. The World Press Photo Foundation initially said it would welcome AI-generated submissions — a decision met with immediate backlash from photojournalists who said allowing artificially created images into a contest for photojournalists responsible for documenting real-world events was “anathema to everything our industry does.” The foundation has since rolled back its new AI submission guidance and updated contest rules to bar AI-generated images from its Open Format category. “Thanks to the honest and thoughtful feedback over the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/G

The new Insta360 Ace (right) and Ace Pro (left). | Image: Insta360 Insta360’s new action cameras borrow the blocky design of GoPro’s popular Hero series but add the ability to flip up that large 2.4-inch rear touchscreen for easy vlogging. The company’s new “Ace” camera starts at $379.99 for the regular model, and there’s a flagship “Pro” version for $449.99. The higher-end one is equipped with a Leica Summarit lens and a large 1/1.3-inch image sensor for excellent low-light performance and up to 8K at 24 frames per second recording. Both versions are available now. The standard Ace camera model comes with a smaller 1/2-inch image sensor, but it supports recording up to 6K at 30 frames per second, and both models can shoot 4K at a high-speed 120 frames per second and take 48MP pictures. They also have... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/7AiCNRe

The FiiO KB3 has a built-in DAC and headphone amp. | Image: FiiO The KB3 is a new mechanical keyboard from audio brand FiiO with a built-in headphone jack that stands a good chance of sounding better than the existing 3.5mm output on your desktop computer or laptop. That’s because the headphone jack isn’t just passing through analog audio from your computer, it’s plugged into a combination DAC and headphone amp that’s integrated into the keyboard itself. So rather than having a headphone cable snaking across your desk to reach your machine, or cluttering up your workspace with a separate DAC and headphone amplifier, all these devices can theoretically be built right into the keyboard that’s sitting underneath your hands. And it comes from a company which knows a thing or two about audio (even if its... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/rbYts5g

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After FTX’s collapse led to financial woes for CoinDesk ’s parent company, the cryptocurrency news site is getting acquired. Bullish, a crypto exchange run by former New York Stock Exchange president Tom Farley, purchased the entire site in an undisclosed all-cash deal, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal . The acquisition won’t affect CoinDesk ’s existing management team, with the outlet operating “as an independent subsidiary within Bullish.” CoinDesk will also launch an editorial committee led by former Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Matt Murray. While CoinDesk first exposed the hole in FTX’s balance sheet last November, the aftermath caused issues for its parent company , Digital Currency Group (DCG). DCG is a... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/iARQybK

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella onstage at Ignite 2023 in November. | Image: Microsoft Most of the staff at OpenAI have threatened to resign from the company and join Microsoft, which has hired ousted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and former OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman to lead a new “advanced AI research team.” In a letter to OpenAI’s board that was reported on this morning by Wired and journalist Kara Swisher , more than 500 current OpenAI staffers say that “Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAI employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join.” The letter says the OpenAI employees will leave if the board does not reinstate Altman and Brockman and then resign. But seeing as the board has already made its choice, deciding to remain in place and naming a new CEO , while Altman and Brockman head... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/EclLwUQ

Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge Part of the appeal of Google Docs is its clean, accessible interface: open up a document, and the invitation is there to simply dive in and start typing without having to bother with settings screens or page configurations. However, that doesn’t mean the word processor app is lacking in features. Since its arrival way back in 2005 under the name Writely, it’s gradually been adding more and more in the way of useful functionality. If you’re busy with your actual writing, you might not have discovered all of these features yet. Here are a few worth checking out. Take a look and see if they can give your productivity a boost or enhance the way you go about creating your documents. Look up definitions The dictionary built into Google Docs... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/K75WtkP

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Adobe has been issued with a formal antitrust complaint by EU regulators regarding its $20 billion bid for cloud-based product design platform Figma. Following an in-depth investigation that was launched on August 7th , the European Commission reached the preliminary conclusion on Friday that if the deal goes ahead, it may “significantly reduce competition in the global markets” for the supply of interactive product design tools, vector editing tools, and raster editing tools. The Commission has issued a statement of objections outlining its competition concerns. This highlights that EU officials believe Figma already exerts a “significant constraining influence” over Adobe’s Illustrator and Photoshop editing tools, and is “significantly... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/r2WjXvP

Starlink Standard terminal | Image: SpaceX SpaceX quietly introduced a new Standard Starlink terminal that’s slimmer and simpler than the previous version, with a 10 percent broader field of view and no motor for setting up — instead, it comes with a kickstand; to orient it, you simply move it. A Starlink support page says the kit is available “by invitation only to a small group of early customers in the US.” SpaceX bumped its weather resistance rating up from IP54 to IP67, meaning it should be totally dust-proof and can be submerged in one meter of water for as long as 30 minutes before potential damage. Starlink’s specifications page says it can operate in winds over 60MPH. Speaking of which, the company will sell mounts in case you’d rather secure it in place. It’s otherwise... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/j2o4MY5

The Verge Most of ESPN’s accounts were inactive yesterday after Disney announced on Friday that it was done advertising on X, formerly Twitter. Disney’s decision followed posts by platform owner Elon Musk agreeing with antisemitic and white power accounts. AwfulAnnouncing spotted the inactivity yesterday, noting that the main ESPN account has almost 50 million followers. While a handful of the accounts had some activity, the primary ESPN account, NBA on ESPN , First Take , NFL on ESPN , ESPN Plus , and others have not posted, replied, or liked anything since at least Friday as of this writing. Other accounts, like ESPN FC , ESPN College Football , and SportsCenter , each posted or reposted once yesterday, while some, like the ESPN Desportes and ESPN PR... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/d2bVFGw

I would love to be proven wrong about this baffling wearable. | Image: Humane Before you disrupt everything, you have to deeply consider the current cultural norms or no one will wear your wearable. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/WlMSsfu

Image: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 15, your guide to the best and Verge -iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, hello, sorry in advance for all my terrible jokes, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage .) This week, I’ve been watching André 3000 talk about life after “Hey Ya,” reading this fun profile of Marques Brownlee and this wild story about the Mirai hackers , finally conquering all 48 Mario Kart 8 courses , watching unhinged Phil Collins music videos on repeat, and trying to find the silliest possible custom GPTs. ( Add a walrus is a tough one to beat.) I also have for you a new webcam, a new word game, a new show about monsters, a new iMessage hack, and a whole bunch more. Oh, and a favor... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/n6g4Tpc

Nothing Chats shown in a promotional image. | Image: Nothing Nothing has pulled the Nothing Chats beta from the Google Play store, saying it is “delaying the launch until further notice” while it fixes “several bugs.” The app promised to let Nothing Phone 2 users text with iMessage , but it required allowing Sunbird, who provides the platform, log into users’ iCloud accounts on its own Mac Mini servers, which... isn’t great? The removal came after users widely shared a blog from Texts.com showing that messages sent with Sunbird’s system aren’t actually end-to-end encrypted — and that it’s not hard to compromise it. The app launched in beta yesterday after being announced earlier this week . Sunbird has access to every message sent and received through the app. They do this by abusing @getsentry ,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/5UHT7et

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge While a new tentative agreement with the AMPTP has given many people hope of SAG-AFTRA’s ongoing labor strike nearing its end, the contract’s verbiage regarding the use of artificial intelligence seems to be cause for concern. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/pdUrPGm

Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket just took off shortly after 8AM ET from the company’s Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas. A few minutes after the launch and a planned “hot stage” separation, the Super Heavy booster exploded instead of continuing its planned descent and water landing, but Starship itself continued into space. Minutes later, the SpaceX team said it had not received any signal from Starship and that they may have lost the ship. The New York Times wrote that the upper stage made it 90 miles high, putting it into space prior to its loss. SpaceX confirmed in a post after the launch that “the booster experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly” after the separation, but did not comment on Starship itself other... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/QPs9aTi

Illustration by Nico H. Brausch for The Verge Tires are the most important safety component on a car, yet there’s increasing research that they’re doing a good deal of harm, too. Slowly, surely, one mote of black dust at a time, tires are leaving their mark on the environment. According to researchers at Imperial College London , our cars and trucks emit 6 million tons of tire wear particles every year, transportation detritus that goes into the air, the land, and the water. That’s a massive figure that ignores the nearly 250 million tires that are disposed of annually in North America, roughly half of which are burned. It’s a depressing state of affairs, but there is room for optimism. Every major tire manufacturer globally is raising its game — not only in terms of performance in... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/e4DCgmi

Illustration by Nico H. Brausch for The Verge Vijay Janapa Reddi runs a lab at Harvard University where he and his team attempt to solve some of the computer world’s greatest challenges. As a specialist in artificial intelligence systems, the technology he studies even follows him home, where his two daughters love to talk to their Amazon Alexa. “They put a person inside that black box,” Janapa Reddi likes to joke with his four-year-old. Janapa Reddi may be teasing when he tells his daughter a person is squeezed into their machine, but isn’t that where we’re headed? Smart home devices may never host a miniature human being inside of them — this isn’t that one episode of Black Mirror — but as the AI ecosystem evolves, voice assistants will quickly begin to feel hyperrealistic.... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/cLmaflp

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Discord is shutting down Clyde, its experimental AI chatbot. In a support note , Discord says the chatbot will be “deactivated” at the end of the month, and that by December 1st “users will no longer be able to invoke Clyde in DMs, Group DMs or server chats.” Discord first started testing Clyde’s AI features earlier this year, using OpenAI’s models to let the chatbot answer questions and have conversations with Discord users. It has been in limited testing ever since, and the company had planned to make it a fundamental part of its chat and communities app. Image: Discord The Clyde AI chatbot. It’s not clear why Clyde is suddenly shutting down. It’s possible the chatbot may return as a paid Nitro-only feature... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/MYed6pw

A traditional button in place of a cutout. | Image: Bellroy Two months after some case makers were wrong-footed by Apple’s decision to replace the mute switch with an Action Button on the iPhone 15 Pro lineup, Bellroy has released an updated range of cases . Unlike the first run, which had a cutout over the Action Button that could make it hard to reach in and press, the new designs have a more standard integrated button. “The new design includes another button on the case to give the same functionality and experience as the actual device. It’s a lot more natural and seamless,” says Bellroy’s head of product development Arya Ghavifekr. Bellroy says anyone who bought its first run of cases with the cutout will be able to exchange them for the new model. It’s continuing to sell the old cases that... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/sz5QZg0

SynthID works by converting audio into a visual spectogram and adding a visual watermark. | Image: Google Audio created using Google DeepMind’s AI Lyria model, such as tracks made with YouTube’s new audio generation features , will be watermarked with SynthID to let people identify their AI-generated origins after the fact. In a blog post , DeepMind said the watermark shouldn’t be detectable by the human ear and “doesn’t compromise the listening experience,” and added that it should still be detectable even if an audio track is compressed, sped up or down, or has extra noise added. Watermarking tools like SynthID are seen as an important safeguard against some of the harms of generative AI. President Joe Biden’s executive order on artificial intelligence , for example, calls for a new set of government-led standards for watermarking... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/LMBcftU

The new Windows App. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft has created a Windows App for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Windows, and web browsers. The app essentially takes the previous Windows 365 app and turns it into a central hub for streaming a copy of Windows from a remote PC, Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365, Microsoft Dev Box, and Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Services. Microsoft supports multiple monitors through its Windows App, custom display resolutions and scaling, and device redirection for peripherals like webcams, storage devices, and printers. The preview version of the Windows App isn’t currently available for Android, though. Image: Microsoft The Windows App acts as a hub to connect to remote and cloud PCs. The Windows App is also limited to... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/8JsSkUP

Image: Epic Games Epic Games is adding a new voice reporting feature into Fortnite to help catch players who break the company’s community rules. If the feature is on — if you’re under 18, the feature is always on when using voice chats — the device you’re playing the game on will securely capture the past five minutes of audio on a “rolling basis,” according to Epic’s blog post . (Epic stresses that it does not store voice recordings on its servers unless you file a report.) Audio after five minutes is deleted. When you report a conversation, “the voice chat audio captured from the last five minutes will be uploaded with the report and sent to Epic moderators for review,” Epic says. (Reports are anonymous.) Then, the company says it will auto-delete clips... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/b3S5NqD

Illustration by Nico H. Brausch for The Verge For now, the window heat pump in apartment 1D sticks out like a sore thumb. Set between off-white lace curtains, it looks like a brand-new oven installed in a grandma’s living room. The heat pump replaced a radiator — those rattling, hissing things that are hallmarks of most old buildings in New York City. And if the heat pump proves itself this winter, it could one day make its way into virtually every room in every home in the city’s public housing system. And that could just be the start for the future of home heating. The prototype in this room at the Woodside Houses in Queens, New York, is already an engineering feat that New York state has funneled tens of millions of dollars into developing because nothing like it was on the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Eyxn5dD

Illustration by Nico H. Brausch for The Verge Robotaxi companies are eager to present themselves with a green halo. “Climate change is the single biggest issue we face as a global community,” Cruise declared in a blog post published on Earth Day 2022. “Each of us has an opportunity to make an impact. Cruise knows the AV industry can –– and should –– help lead the charge.” Its rival Waymo seems to agree. In a post this summer , the company stated, “Cities where we operate gain another zero-emission transportation option, which could help them meet their climate goals.” Sustainability is critical to the public pitch of robotaxi companies, which are under growing scrutiny after California regulators suspended Cruise’s driverless permit last month due to safety concerns. But the idea... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/0PhCuMe

Orders for the new Model 915 Cyberquad for Kids are expected to ship in late November. | Image: Tesla After being recalled last year for not meeting product safety standards, Tesla’s $1,900 Cyberquad for Kids is once again available to purchase on the Tesla webstore in the US . The latest release of the Cybertruck-inspired ride-on toy — identified as Model 915 — is an updated version of the Model 914 Cyberquad for Kids that launched back in December 2021. Orders for the Model 915 are expected to begin shipping in late November. Like the Model 914, the new Model 915 Cyberquad for Kids was jointly created by Tesla and popular children’s toy maker Radio Flyer, best known as the makers of the Little Red Wagon. The battery-powered Cyberquad for Kids has a 500W motor with a top speed of 10 mph (that parents can switch to 5 mph) and a max range... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/GPi4DSr