FREE TECH

Not the kind of statement you can take to the bank | Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge Block, recently targeted by short sellers at Hindenburg Research , is still presumably exploring its legal options . It has, however, released a statement about common investor questions it would like to answer. Unfortunately, none of the questions it wants to answer are “How did you not notice you were issuing a cash card to an obviously fake Donald Trump?” There’s a lot in the Hindenburg repor t, which essentially accuses Block of falling down on the job of fraud prevention. To demonstrate the point, Hindenburg changed its accounts’ names to “Donald Trump” and “Jack Dorsey,” and they were still able to send and receive money. They even got a debit card under the name Donald Trump! To test this, we turned our accounts into “Donald Trump”... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/tTxFNBE

Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Ford is raising the price of the F-150 Lightning for the fourth time — the base “Pro” trim has gone from $55,974 to $59,974, not including a $1,895 shipping charge. When the company announced the Lightning in May 2021 , the starting price for the Pro was $39,974, $20,000 less than where it’s sitting now. Other models in the lineup, such as the Lariat and Platinum, are also getting price bumps. According to Automotive News , the Lariat trim has gone up $1,500 to $77,869, and the Platinum model is now $99,969, up by $1,200. (Those prices do include the shipping charge.) The slightly more attainable XLT trim is the only one that appears to be unaffected — its price rose to $63,474 in December and seems to have stayed there. Even that, though,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/5NrLVIO

A pipe installed as part of the Petra Nova Carbon Capture Project carries carbon dioxide captured from emissions on Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017.  | Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images Keeping coal and gas power plants alive while purporting to tackle climate change will likely make electricity more expensive for consumers, a new analysis warns. Fossil fuel companies have been eager to deploy technologies that filter planet-heating carbon dioxide out of power plant emissions. But relying on the technology, called carbon capture and storage (CCS), is a risky venture and consumers are likely to bear the costs. The cost of electricity from power plants outfitted with carbon capture devices is at least 1.5 to 2 times more expensive than other alternatives, according to a new report from the nonprofit Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). It’s much more affordable to turn to renewable energy like... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift

Image: Chris Welch / The Verge Netflix’s ad-supported tier now works with Apple TV set-top boxes, the company confirmed to TechCrunch . The “Basic with Ads” tier comes at a more affordable $6.99 per month cost, but when it launched in November, people who subscribed to it couldn’t use it on their Apple TV . At the time, Netflix told 9to5Mac that the ads plan would work on Apple TV down the line , and now that support is here. If you want to watch content through the ad-supported plan, you’ll need to be on version 2.3.0 of the Netflix app for Apple TV. I tested the plan on my laptop when it first launched, and whatever you’re imagining Netflix with ads is like, you’re probably right . Personally, I’d recommend the no-ads plans, but if you want to save a few bucks, the ads... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/N0nvk8V

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge BuzzFeed has taken its next step into AI-written content and started publishing AI-generated travel guides, as reported by Futurism . The publisher’s first AI-generated articles were ad-lib quizzes that were largely innocuous, but the travel guides appear to be a more brazen play to attract search traffic about different destinations. You can see the full list of travel articles from BuzzFeed ’s “Buzzy” AI tool right here . Right now, there are 44 posts covering destinations like Morocco, Stockholm, and Cape May, New Jersey. The articles are “written with the help of Buzzy the Robot (aka our Creative AI Assistant) but powered by human ideas,” BuzzFeed says on Buzzy’s profile. The top of each story I’ve seen includes a line noting that an... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/rHTY98E

Epic’s Deserted: Domination has nearly 3,000 players as of this writing. | Image: Epic Games Fortnite’s Discover tab, which lets you pick from Epic Games-made modes like Battle Royale or experiences from non-Epic creators, now show how many players are currently participating in any given experience. The change was officially rolled out on Wednesday , and it could be an important tool for creators to benchmark their work against Epic’s official modes. You can see the player counts in the game’s Discover tab, which represent the global number of players in-match at any given time, Epic spokesperson Dan Walsh tells The Verge . Based on what I saw, it’s overwhelmingly clear that Epic’s Battle Royale and Zero Build (the no-building Battle Royale introduced last year ) are dramatically more popular than any experiences made by non-Epic... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/n2q31pF

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you’re one of the people brave enough to use Google Fi with an iPhone, your experience is about to get a lot better, as Google announced on Wednesday that you can finally use 5G instead of being stuck with LTE ( via 9to5Google ). According to Google’s documentation , using 5G with your iPhone requires iOS 16.4, which was released earlier this week . (Though Fi’s 5G support was spotted during the 16.4 beta process .) You also have to have an iPhone 12 or newer, since older iPhones don’t support 5G. Turning it on after you’ve updated your phone is simple, though: go to Settings > Cellular Data Options > Voice and Data, then select “5G Auto.” Just like that, you’ll have access to T-Mobile’s 5G network. iPhone® users Fi Get fast 5G... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/vo4ja8q

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images On Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) came out in opposition to a bipartisan effort to ban TikTok, condemning Republicans and Democrats for a move he said could chill First Amendment-protected speech. “I hope saner minds will reflect on which is more dangerous: videos of teenagers dancing, or the precedent of the US government banning speech,” Paul said on the Senate floor Wednesday. Paul’s remarks followed an attempt by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) to ban TikTok nationwide on the Senate floor Wednesday. Earlier this year, Hawley, a long-time China hawk, introduced the No TikTok on United States Devices Act, a bill that would direct the president to ban use of the app on US devices, including those belonging to consumers. “I hope saner minds... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/AmCbYBg

Kristen Radtke / The Verge Instagram is building off of its existing collections feature by allowing you to create libraries of posts that you share with friends. In an announcement on Twitter , Instagram says that you can now save content into “collaborative collections” that both you and your friends can view and contribute to, as first reported by TechCrunch . While Instagram first rolled out its Pinterest-like collections feature in 2017 , which lets you save and organize posts into separate categories, this update puts a spin on things by allowing your friends to add posts of their own. According to Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri’s IG Updates channel , you and your friends can save posts from Instagram’s feed, Explore page, and even DMs. Friends who share together,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/qIV2dOe

Tseng from Unicorn: Warriors Eternal . | Image: Adult Swim Though it once seemed as if Cartoon Network might end up taking quite a bit of damage as a consequence of Warner Bros.’ merger with Discovery, Adult Swim president Michael Ouweleen says that’s far from the case as the network gears up to expand its adult-oriented content block. Deadline reports that Cartoon Network plans to start shifting over to Adult Swim programming one hour earlier — up from 8PM ET to 7PM ET — beginning in May as the network makes a more concerted play for viewers older than 18. Speaking to Deadline , Ouweleen said that while the animation industry definitely went through a tumultuous period that lasted throughout 2022, there’s since “been a correction” and emphasized that “the animation bubble hasn’t burst but it’s... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/icWfVMe

Image: David Becker/Getty Images for Nightclub & Bar Media Group Seattle is making sure that some gig workers will be guaranteed rights that have generally only been available to traditional employees. This week, the city’s council passed legislation that requires app-based delivery companies like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Instacart to provide paid sick time off to workers. Food delivery workers in Seattle have had these protections for a while — the city council passed the Gig Worker Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance in July 2020. However, that law was temporary and was set to expire at the end of April (some parts of it had already gone out of effect in November 2022 when Seattle and Washington as a whole ended their covid states of emergency). The new law , called the App-Based Worker Paid Sick and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/7qbVQu6

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. | Image: Spike Chunsoft While detective stories are a mainstay in the worlds of film, television, and literature, they’re comparatively niche when it comes to video games. And with a few notable exceptions , the most beloved detective games tend to be visual novels . Kazutaka Kodaka loves detective stories and is best known for the dark adventure series Danganronpa . But for his studio’s next project, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code , he decided to take things in a slightly different direction. “Mystery games tend to be dull because it’s mostly reading text,” Kodaka says. “But for this we created a world where you can solve various kinds of mysteries and roam around freely.” Rain Code is described as a “lucid-noir” detective game. It takes place in a sort of... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/OrETtHW

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images A number of well-known AI researchers — and Elon Musk — have signed an open letter calling on AI labs around the world to pause development of large-scale AI systems, citing fears over the “profound risks to society and humanity” they claim this software poses. The letter, published by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, notes that AI labs are currently locked in an “out-of-control race” to develop and deploy machine learning systems “that no one — not even their creators — can understand, predict, or reliably control.” “We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.” “Therefore, we call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/c1i6WV2

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge This article was originally published in June 2022. We’re reviving it today since Apple has finally gone through with its plans to launch the service. Apple is getting into the “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) business with its new Pay Later service built into Apple Pay and Apple Wallet. While Apple bills the service as “designed with users’ financial health in mind,” BNPL is a practice that has come under scrutiny by government regulators as something that could potentially harm customers. Apple’s Pay Later service, which has been in the works since at least last year , lets users make a purchase with Apple Pay and then pay it back in four equal installments over the course of six weeks. There’s no interest on these installments, but it... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/uGzaHYh

Image: Kia Kia is ready to pull the wraps on its next big electric vehicle (emphasis on big): the EV9 three-row SUV . The EV9 will have a proper North American debut at the New York International Auto Show next week, but before it does, the automaker is rolling out a list of key specifications to whet our appetite. Kia revealed the production version of the EV9 earlier this month in South Korea, but in doing so, it left out a lot of crucial details. We’ve seen the interior with its swiveling second-row seats as well as the very Soul-like exterior design . Today, the company is filling in some of the gaps as well as outlining its strategy to dominate the full-size electric SUV segment, which it claims is totally up for grabs. Full-size three-row... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/bR58dCY

Obligatory “the truth is out there.” | Fox Ryan Coogler, the director of Creed and both Black Panther films, may be eying another franchise for adaptation. Bloody Disgusting noticed that, in a recent interview with CBC’s On The Coast, X-Files creator Chris Carter mentioned Coogler was looking to “remount” the franchise. He told On The Coast host Gloria Macarenko, “I just spoke to a young man, Ryan Coogler, who is going to remount The X-Files with a diverse cast.” Which makes sense. The X-Files was not a diverse show, though it did create one of pop culture’s standout heroines and kicked off more than its fair share of conversations about women in the sciences. Gillian Anderson’s Dana Scully seemed to inspire a whole generation of young women to become doctors and scientists as... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/fYShoyU

Maat Mons is displayed in this computer-generated 3D perspective of the surface of Venus. | Image: NASA/JPL The recent discovery of volcanic activity on the planet should have been a cause of celebration. But instead, the scientific community is in shock after NASA delayed funding for a key mission to Venus. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/OWALNCx

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Photo: Getty Images Twitter users will need a “verified account” to get recommended on the platform’s For You page starting on April 15th, according to a Monday evening tweet from CEO Elon Musk . Given that Twitter has promised to start dismantling the “legacy” verified system at the beginning of April, that appears to mean that you’ll have to be a company , government entity , or Twitter Blue subscriber if you want to pop into the feeds of people who don’t follow you. Musk claims the move is “the only realistic way to address advanced AI bot swarms taking over.” Verified users are also going to become the only accounts that can vote in polls for the “same reason,” Musk says. It’s worth taking this announcement with a big grain of salt, as Musk’s tweets... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/C235efp

Blizzard Entertainment After two weekends of lengthy server queues, and a brief taste of the game’s opening areas and five classes, the Diablo IV beta is officially over. I personally didn’t get to play too much since I was doing other things , but I enjoyed the brief time I got to spend in Sanctuary. I went into both weekends as a Barbarian. I played a Sorceress in Diablo II , and the ill-conceived Witch Doctor in Diablo III so I wanted something with a bit more in-your-face brutality. As a relative newcomer to the series, Diablo IV seems like a perfect “no thoughts, head empty” kind of game . Spam various attacks as your focus, mana, or spirit meter allows against enemies that really like to group up for maximum area-of-effect damage. Even bosses require no... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/l1ZN62F

Nick Barclay / The Verge So I read through the CFTC complaint against the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, and it seems like the lawyers are having fun with this one. For instance: “Binance’s decision to prioritize commercial success over compliance with US law has been, as Lim paraphrased Zhao’s position on the matter, a ‘biz decision.’” I never get tired of reading these complaints. Now to be clear, I don’t think Binance is the only entity ever to decide that skirting US law to acquire more customers — after all, US pharma companies have been making billion-dollar settlements over that exact same “biz decision.” But I do think explicitly writing that you are deliberately doing that is a real clown move. A government body can’t hold you... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/K0etfDW

Philips Hue’s lighting bridge will not get updated to Matter this month, as previously announced. | Image: Philips Hue Delays have been a major part of the Matter narrative , so it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to hear one of the biggest names attached to the new smart home standard is delaying its rollout. As reported by HueBlog.com , Phillips Hue will not update its bridge to support Matter by the end of Q1 2023 (i.e. now), despite having promised to do so last November. “As Philips Hue is focused on quality, we will take some extra time before making the software update to the Philips Hue Bridge available to all consumers, to invest in really getting it right and delivering to the expectations of consumers,” Kelly Gramuglia of Signify, which owns Philips Hue, told The Verge in an email. The update, when it arrives, will bridge all of Hue’s... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/D6FkP4f

Arc, a browser that my colleague David Pierce described as an attempt to be “the web’s operating system,” is getting a companion app for iPhones on March 30th. Josh Miller, the CEO of Arc developer The Browser Company, says the app is “NOT a replacement for your default mobile browser (yet),” but it should let Arc users access at least some of the features they’ve gotten used to on the desktop version. According to the App Store listing , the iOS browser will let sync your desktop tabs and Spaces (read: groups of tabs, user accounts, and pinned sites), and you’ll be able to view your whiteboard-esque Easels and notes. You’ll also be able to share links to Arc that’ll be saved for you to read later. This Arc companion app is among the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/XAOMjvb

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge The Biden administration is trying to clamp down on the government’s use of any commercial spyware that could also be used by other countries to harm its interests. The president has signed an executive order saying that federal agencies can’t use spyware “that poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person.” The order spells out exactly what disqualifies spyware — software that steals information and data from a device without the user’s knowledge — from being used by the US government. It’s not allowed if it’s: been used by a foreign person or government to target the US government sold by an entity that’s interested... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/pFNDC8i

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Ubisoft is backing out of its planned attendance at the E3 2023 in-person expo in favor of its own show in LA on June 12th, the company confirmed to VGC . “E3 has fostered unforgettable moments across the industry throughout the years,” Ubisoft spokesperson Heather Haefner says in a statement to The Verge . “While we initially intended to have an official E3 presence, we’ve made the subsequent decision to move in a different direction, and will be holding a Ubisoft Forward Live event on June 12 in Los Angeles. We look forward to sharing more details with our players very soon.” E3 organizer ReedPop didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. With Ubisoft backing out, E3 2023, which runs from June 13th through June 16th ,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/KLYHDi9

Image: Nintendo Quite possibly the biggest game of the year is getting an appropriately large gameplay reveal. Nintendo announced that will be releasing a presentation featuring “roughly 10 minutes of gameplay” from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom , the much-anticipated sequel to the defining Breath of the Wild . The presentation will be led by longtime series producer Eiji Aonuma, who has worked on Zelda since Ocarina of Time . It’ll be available on YouTube on March 28th at 10AM ET, and it sounds like the video will be entirely focused on the new Zelda . Join The Legend of #Zelda series producer, Eiji Aonuma, for roughly 10 minutes of gameplay from The Legend of Zelda: #TearsOfTheKingdom on 3/28 at 7:00 a.m. PT on our YouTube channel. ▶️ h... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/UIihNen

When you find a good spatial audio song, Sonos’ new speaker can blow your mind and sounds like nothing else. But it trails the Sonos Five at stereo playback and suffers from the wildly inconsistent state of Atmos mixes. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/csEou3k

The more affordable Era speaker improves upon the Sonos One by nearly every measure and will likely find the same success and popularity among Sonos customers. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/EQryNnU

Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge Parts of Twitter’s source code were recently leaked online via GitHub , the New York Times reports , but were taken down after the social media platform filed a DMCA request. The request, which GitHub has published online , notes that the leaked information included “proprietary source code for Twitter’s platform and internal tools.” The NYT notes that the source code maybe have been public for several months before being removed — the GitHub profile associated with the DMCA takedown lists a single (non-public) code contribution from early January. The name of the account is listed as “FreeSpeechEnthusiast,” in an apparent reference to Twitter CEO Elon Musk calling himself a “ free speech absolutist ” in the past. Twitter has asked for the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/krUfNoy

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has stopped its $1 trial offer for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. The trial has been available for years, with brief periods where it wasn’t always available in certain markets, and it now looks like Microsoft is considering new promotions instead. “We have stopped our previous introductory offer for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass and are evaluating different marketing promotions for new members in the future,” says Kari Perez, head of global communications at Xbox, in a statement to The Verge . The $1 trial has allowed people to sign up to Xbox Game Pass for a month, before the full Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription kicks in at $14.99 per month or $9.99 a month for the PC- or console-only subscriptions.... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/aUZAjx3

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge The Wii U and Nintendo 3DS digital storefronts are shutting down tomorrow, March 27th, 2023. While you’ll no longer be able to purchase games or DLC from either eShop, you’ll still be able to redownload the games you’ve already bought and play online for the time being. Nintendo first warned us of the shutdown last year and started barring users from loading money into the Wii U and 3DS eShops in August. Sadly, this imminent shutdown means we’ll have to bid farewell to the hundreds of great digital-only titles available on either store, such as Dr. Luigi , Pokemon Rumble U , Pushmo , Pokémon Picross , and many others. The closures will also make it impossible to purchase the full range of Virtual Console games on the 3DS and Wii U, which... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/NqYI9FR

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Elon Musk has put a $20 billion value on Twitter, making up less than half of the $44 billion Musk paid to acquire the site, according to reports from Platformer and The Information . In a memo sent to staff viewed by Platformer ’s Zoë Schiffer, Musk reportedly says that employees will receive stock grants based on Twitter’s $20 billion valuation. Musk stated last year that he’s “obviously overpaying” for Twitter at $54.20 per share. Price was also one of the reasons why he attempted to back out of the deal last year, claiming that the company made false and misleading statements about the presence of bots on the platform. Comp increases will be based on X Corp stock. Current grants are based on a $20b valuation. Musk says he sees a... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/kAMjVRS

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Apple could soon launch a USB-C version of its second-gen AirPods Pro. That’s according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo , who believes the company could start shipping the earbuds with a USB-C case during the second and third quarters of this year. This apparently doesn’t apply to Apple’s standard AirPod models, though, as Kuo notes that the company “currently appears to have no plans for USB-C versions of the AirPods 2 & 3.” Kuo hinted at the change in response to a tweet from Twitter user @aaronp613 , who spotted references to a new AirPods model number (A3048), along with a new AirPods case model number (A29680) in iOS 16.4. I think this is likely the USB-C version of the AirPods Pro 2, with mass shipments expected in 2Q23-3Q23. By the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/qaJ7e2y

Brian Cox as Logan Roy. | HBO While Succession’s fourth and final season makes good on the series’ name, it does so while feeling comfortably stuck in a familiar holding pattern of treachery and ‘gotcha’ backstabbing. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/uwHkpPL

Tired: the metaverse. Wired: the message-verse? | Image: OpenAI / David Pierce It’s pretty obvious that nobody saw ChatGPT coming. Not even OpenAI. Before it became by some measures the fastest growing consumer app in history, before it turned the phrase “generative pre-trained transformers” into common vernacular, before every company you can think of was racing to adopt its underlying model, ChatGPT launched in November as a “research preview.” The blog post announcing ChatGPT is now a hilarious case study in underselling. “ChatGPT is a sibling model to InstructGPT, which is trained to follow an instruction in a prompt and provide a detailed response. We are excited to introduce ChatGPT to get users’ feedback and learn about its strengths and weaknesses.” That’s it! That’s the whole pitch! No waxing poetic about... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/gLtz8DO

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has pushed an update to fix a screenshot editing vulnerability in Windows 10 and 11, as spotted earlier by Bleeping Computer . The security flaw, dubbed the “aCropalypse,” could let bad actors recover the edited portions of screenshots, potentially revealing personal information that had been cropped out or concealed. According to Microsoft, the issue (CVE-2023-28303) affects both the Snip & Sketch app on Windows 10 and the Snipping Tool on Windows 11. However, it only applies to images created in a very specific set of steps. That includes those that have been taken, saved, edited, and then saved over the original file, as well as the ones opened in the Snipping Tool, edited, and then saved to the same location. It doesn’t have... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/p7UCnf3

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft doesn’t want its rivals to use Bing’s search index to power their AI chatbots, according to a report from Bloomberg . The company reportedly told two unnamed Bing-powered search engines that it will restrict them from accessing Microsoft’s search data altogether if they continue using it with their AI tools. As noted by Bloomberg , Microsoft licenses out Bing’s search data to several search engines, including DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, and the AI search engine You.com . While DuckDuckGo, for example, uses a combination of Bing and its own web crawler to provide search results, You.com and Neeva also pull some of their results from Bing, helping to conserve some of the time and resources that come along with crawling the entire web. M... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/vxrQ15J

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge “My old Dell XPS 15 has gotten sluggish. The battery dies easily. It’s heavy to cart around, anyhow. Now that I’m going out in public again, I need a new work machine.” These were the thoughts circling my head at yesterday’s Framework event — where the company known for its easily-upgradable laptops announced new chips and a new, longer-lasting battery . “Battery life has consistently been the main negative for the Framework laptop,” said CEO Nirav Patel, hitting on the one reason I’d only ever admired the company’s laptops from a distance. This morning, without that one reason to hold back, it was time to put down a $100 deposit for my own Framework Laptop 13. But I didn’t — because Framework wouldn’t sell me that battery unless I... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/LUIvVNq

This is from Epic’s Unreal Editor for Fortnite, but it’s not from any Mario Kart track that I’m aware of. | Image: Epic Games Epic Games’ new Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) toolset has only been out for two days, but the company is already having to threaten permanent bans for creators making content that violates copyright. That even goes for violating content that creators post about on social media and content that they aren’t going to actually publish . “All content in Fortnite must adhere to Fortnite’s game rating, Fortnite Island Creator Rules and intellectual property and DMCA guidelines ,” Epic wrote in a blog post on Friday . “Those who create violating content in UEFN — even if they never intend to publish it in Fortnite — or share violating content on social media, will face content takedowns and enforcement actions, up to and including permanent... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/P9ZKfsD

Francesco Francavilla’s Us poster. | Image: Francesco Francavilla / Mondo It wasn’t a good sign when Funko announced earlier this month its plans to straight up destroy somewhere between $30 and $36 million worth of its collectible vinyl figurines due to dwindling demand that’s tanked their value. But Funko’s recent decision to lay off about half of the staffers at subsidiary Mondo paints a clear picture of a company struggling to secure its financial footing. Though Funko only acquired Mondo — the Austin-based nostalgic memorabilia outfit known for its small-batch movie posters and vinyl records — from Alamo Drafthouse last summer, The Wrap reports that “most of” Mondo’s staff, including co-founders Rob Jones and Mitch Putnam, were laid off this week. Along with the layoffs, Funko is said to be shuttering... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/hHG0z8S

Image: Blizzard Diablo IV is coming soon , and ahead of the full release, players can now access the open beta. You can check out all the important details on Blizzard’s website , but here’s a rundown of the most pertinent information. Diablo IV ’s general open beta has just kicked off, and it runs through March 27th at 3PM ET. You can access the open beta on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X / S, and Xbox One. Last week, there was an “early access” open beta for players who have prepurchased the game or sacrificed their blood pressure to the almighty chicken gods . However, now that the beta is live to whoever wants to join, you might run into some long queues to get into a game — something that Blizzard is already warning players about . If you want to play, be... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/e0qW1VQ

Image: Showtime The gruesome mystery returns, but it’s lacking some of the punch that made the first season so potent. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Wlpzfix

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has announced that it’ll start “winding down” its legacy verified program and removing “legacy verified checkmarks” starting on April 1st, and is telling users to subscribe to its Blue subscription if they want to keep their blue check. There’s a lot to unpack here. First, the announcement isn’t necessarily a surprise. CEO Elon Musk has been promising to get rid of “legacy” blue check marks, or verification badges that were given under Twitter’s previous rules, since November, and he’s reiterated that they’d be going away “in coming months” several times. According to Musk , those verification badges were given out in a “corrupt and nonsensical” manner (though they are in fact quite useful for letting users confirm that the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/gZPXkl2

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appears before Congress to defend the platform against a ban. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, seemed to arrive at the Capitol well-prepared. Taking his seat before dozens of House Energy and Commerce Committee members Thursday, he opened a packet of notes, diligently indexed with sticky notes. In the packet, there appeared to be a sheet matching the names and faces of the lawmakers preparing to question him — many of whom had already made up their minds over whether the app was safe for Americans. “Your platform should be banned,” Chair Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA) said in her opening statement Thursday. “I expect today you’ll say anything to avoid this outcome.” For more than three years, TikTok has been operating under the looming threat of a nationwide ban. But what was once a GOP-led campaign... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/hi2SAUd

Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge How’s our favorite Bitcoin maxi Jack Dorsey doing ? Well, the short sellers at Hindenburg Research published an absolute barn-burner of a report alleging widespread fraud at his company, Block. Besides that, Hindenburg says Block misled its investors and is engaging in predatory lending practices. Oh, okay! Block is threatening to sue. Its shares closed down almost 15 percent on March 23rd, the day the report was released, from the day before. Sure, it’s rude to bet on someone’s failure and profit off it, but rude isn’t the same as immoral If you aren’t familiar with Hindenburg Research, they are bad motherfuckers ! Like, they wrote a whole report alleging that the electric vehicle company Nikola was “intricate fraud built on dozens of... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/BkdgiR8

Aerial view of an offshore wind farm on July 2nd, 2022, in Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province of China. | Photo by Yao Feng / VCG via Getty Images The wind energy industry is recovering from a worrying slump in 2022, according to a new report from BloombergNEF. Growth in global capacity — encompassing offshore and onshore wind — dropped 15 percent last year. The decline in new offshore wind installations was more stark, falling 46 percent from 2021. Until last year, winds looked favorable for the industry. Turbines have gotten significantly cheaper over the past couple decades. Governments are setting targets to bring more renewable energy online. And within a few years, renewable sources of electricity like wind and solar are expected to dominate global power sector growth. Nevertheless, after two years of record growth at the start of the decade, supply chain constraints and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/mOSNcDJ

Case in point. | Image: Framework Framework CEO Nirav Patel, leader of the first company to fulfill the promise of a truly modular laptop , doesn’t just want you to buy new parts for his computers. He’d like you to keep using the old ones, too. For example: this spring, you’ll be able to turn your old Framework mainboard into a desktop PC with this tiny $39 case. The company partnered with PC case giant Cooler Master to produce the transparent chassis, which may need some additional parts to function — at the very least, you’ll need a USB-C PD charger to act as the power supply and a USB-C cable to your monitor, and you’ll need to supply storage and memory if they aren’t coming along for the ride. Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge (Framework’s... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/mopZTH4

Image: Daedalic Entertainment It is a shame Andy Serkis never won an award for his work as Gollum in the Peter Jackson-helmed The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The way he managed to evoke two distinct personalities — Gollum and his mild-mannered Hobbit alter ego Sméagol — with his voice and body movements is a performance that should have netted him one of those goofy-looking gold statues. In a hands-on demo of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum , I was reminded of Serkis’ mercurial performance as Gollum and was pleased to see that those dual personalities were a fundamental part of the game. In my short time with Gollum , I got to scamper around Mordor chasing troublesome crows and avoiding orcs, which, if they catch you, will automatically give you a “game over.” Sneakiness... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/MEZPS4b

Image: Canva Web-based design platform Canva is introducing a colossal suite of new brand management products and AI-powered design tools focused on helping entire workplaces streamline their content creation process. Announced today at Canva’s Create event , most of these new features are designed to make creating content like social media graphics, presentations, and advertising materials more accessible to those without professional design experience. The idea is this would leave graphic designers free to tackle more pressing tasks. The number of features announced is impressive and could challenge Adobe’s ubiquity in some offices. A new Brand Hub is being added to Canva’s Visual Worksuite , providing tools meant to help users remain consistent with... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/kUODYQL

Dentists hate this one easy trick. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Samsung’s recently caught some flak after widespread reports that its camera software fakes zoom pictures of the moon , but things may be about to get way more unsettling. A Verge reader wrote in on Wednesday to tell us that the company’s software is adding teeth to pictures of their seven-month old daughter. This reader says they recently got an S23 Ultra, and decided to try out the Remaster feature in Samsung’s photo-viewing app, Gallery. (It’s the default photo app for the phone, and the feature is available inside the camera if you visit your photo roll.) They expected something like what Google Photos does, suggesting specific adjustments and filters, unbluring pictures , and the like. Instead, they got the results you can see below,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/22/23652488/samsung-gallery-remaster-feature-teeth-baby-photos-moon

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Coinbase execs revealed today that the crypto exchange has received a “Wells Notice” from the Securities and Exchange Commission, indicating that after an investigation, the agency’s staff plan to recommend some kind of enforcement action. That could include charges or lawsuits, but none of that has happened yet. Last month, the SEC reached a settlement with Kraken over its crypto staking operation, where the company paid a $30 million fine and shut down US operations right around the same time it sent another Wells Notice to the crypto firm Paxos over its minting of the Binance USD (BUSD) token. So what happens next? We avail ourselves of the court system to finally start to get some clarity for the crypto industry in the U.S.... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Jv5G9Ew

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge IFTTT, the productivity platform that lets users create automations across various apps and devices, has announced three new AI-powered services. The platform will now let users incorporate AI-generated social media posts, blogs, and summaries into their automations, but only if they subscribe to its $5 monthly Pro Plus plan. IFTTT, which stands for “if this, then that,” is a service that lets users chain together a series of actions between devices and apps, called “applets.” This includes automations like adding songs from liked videos on YouTube to a Spotify playlist or receiving a notification on your phone about the weather every morning. But now, IFTTT’s adding another layer of automation to its service. Its new automations — AI... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/THo8sQh

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Epic Games has just wrapped its State of Unreal 2023 keynote, where it showed off new enhancements coming to Unreal Engine 5.2, stunning new MetaHuman technology, a big push to unify its disparate assets marketplaces, and Fortnite’s long-awaited Unreal Editor tools. Given the popularity of Unreal Engine and Fortnite , the day’s announcements could have a major impact on the games we play in the future. Here are the biggest announcements from the show. Epic showed off a stunning, foliage-filled Unreal Engine 5.2 demo One of Unreal Engine 5.2’s biggest additions is new procedural generation tools, which Epic showed off in a gorgeous “Electric Dreams” demo that took place in a dense, foliage-filled forest partially created... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/xt3P8ye