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You’ll find no upward-firing full-range drivers on the Soundbar Mini. | Image: Sennheiser Sennheiser’s new Ambeo Soundbar Mini is the German audio brand’s third and most affordable soundbar. At $799 (€799 / £699), it’s still an expensive AV accessory, but in the context of the company’s original $2,499.95 Ambeo Soundbar Max and $1,499.95 Ambeo Soundbar Plus, the Mini’s asking price almost looks almost entry-level in comparison (almost). The Ambeo Soundbar Mini maintains many of the core specs of Sennheiser’s previous soundbars. It still supports a range of 3D surround sound formats like Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, 360 Reality Audio, and MPEG-H, it can still be paired with an utterly excessive four Sennheiser Ambeo Subs, and it still supports a full array of streaming options like Bluetooth, Spotify Connect, Chromecast built-in, and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/B3ZrR7U

Image: The Verge Whether you want everything but the kitchen sink or top-tier performance for a midtier price, you’ve got options. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/cfk2psj

Image: Google Google has rolled out a new SafeSearch feature that automatically blurs explicit (meaning violent, sexual, etc.) images in its results. This will occur for all users by default — including those who don’t have SafeSearch enabled. This setting was first announced back in February but was scheduled to roll out globally this month. The announcement is part of a larger Google Search initiative to, as the company puts it, “help you stay in control of your personal information, privacy, and online safety.” The company also recently announced updates to its “results about you” dashboard, which make it easier to request the removal of your own personal information or explicit imagery from search results. It’s also making it easier for families... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/LSv3MZa

Image: Activision First-person shooters like Call of Duty are somewhat infamous for the toxicity of their lobbies and voice chats. Surveys have dubbed the franchise’s fan base the most negative in all of gaming; a feud between two players once resulted in the summoning of a SWAT team . Activision has been trying to crack down on this behavior for years, and part of the solution might involve artificial intelligence. Activision has partnered with a company called Modulate to bring “in-game voice chat moderation” to their titles. The new moderation system, using an AI technology called ToxMod, will work to identify behaviors like hate speech, discrimination, and harassment in real time. ToxMod’s initial beta rollout in North America begins today. It’s active... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/5cugiT6

Leaked by Google. | Image: Google They just... put it in the alt text. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/9HUhAVy

The Steam Deck’s biggest weakness is battery life — and yet somehow, every challenger has failed to raise that bar. The Ayaneo 2 showed us that AMD’s Ryzen 6800U wasn’t ready to compete; the Asus ROG Ally revealed that AMD’s Z1 Extreme couldn’t pull ahead if Asus insisted on matching the Steam Deck’s 40 watt-hour battery pack. But Ayaneo may has an answer: it’s stuffing a 75 watt-hour pack into a larger, heavier handheld called the Ayaneo Kun that — it now claims — can last nearly three and a quarter hours at 15W TDP. That’s nearly double the battery and runtime you’d expect from a Steam Deck at that wattage, though it appears it wasn’t captured while playing a game, exactly . Image: Ayaneo Ayaneo Kun battery... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/RhiIuwK

The Team Coco Radio logo. | Image: Team Coco This is Hot Pod , The Verge’ s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more. It’s only Tuesday, and it’s already been a packed week for podcast news. Shortly before hitting publish on this issue of Hot Pod , I got the news that just about every late-night talk show host in America is teaming up with Spotify to launch a limited podcast series about the Hollywood strike. The five hosts: Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver, have all had their shows on pause since May due to the Writers Guild strike. Strike Force Five will launch on Spotify and other platforms on August 30th, and the plan is for the limited series to run for at least 12 episodes. Notably, the proceeds from the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/8ykMFuw

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Verizon will offer a new $90 monthly cellphone plan called Unlimited Ultimate, announced in an update to the May blog post that announced its myPlan lineup. It offers 60GB of mobile hotspot data (double what you get with the $80 Unlimited Plus plan), 10GB of unthrottled international data, and includes access to the company’s 5G Ultra Wideband network that's a mix of the company’s C-band wireless signal and its faster mmWave 5G. T-Mobile similarly just introduced an expensive new "unlimited" data plan to its Go5G line with the $100 per month Go5G Next plan to complement its C-band spectrum. It offers slightly less hotspot data at 50GB but comes with Netflix Basic and Apple TV Plus and the option to upgrade your phone on a yearly... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Hu3mTRj

Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The US government just helped dismantle a massive network of computers infected with one of the world’s most notorious pieces of malware. According to the FBI , a multinational effort led by the US took down Qakbot, a malware that made its way into over 700,000 computers around the globe. Hackers typically target victims with Qakbot by sending them spam emails containing malicious attachments or links. As soon as a victim downloads the attachment or clicks the link, Qakbot infects their computer, which then becomes part of a botnet — or a network of infected computers controlled remotely by hackers. From there, bad actors can install additional malware on their victims’ devices, such as ransomware. Today, #FBI Director Christopher Wray... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/dGzjgHK

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The US Copyright Office is opening a public comment period around AI and copyright issues beginning August 30th as the agency figures out how to approach the subject. As announced in the Federal Register , the agency wants to answer three main questions: how AI models should use copyrighted data in training; whether AI-generated material can be copyrighted even without a human involved; and how copyright liability would work with AI. It also wants comments around AI possibly violating publicity rights but noted these are not technically copyright issues. The Copyright Office said if AI does mimic voices, likenesses, or art styles, it may impact state-mandated rules around publicity and unfair competition laws. Written comments are due... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/B20Ank1

Panic / The Verge Today, Panic put on its very first game publisher showcase . The showcase was short but very sweet, featuring some of the most interesting and innovative indie games coming to PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Switch. Here are all the highlights, including a surprise announcement from the makers of Untitled Goose Game . Arco Arco comes from an international team of developers, artists, and storytellers. It’s a tactical action game that pits regular people against an all-powerful corporate gang. In the reveal trailer, the diverse landscapes exude so much ecological detail rendered in pixel graphics, and the combat seems like a real-time action game. Arco is due on Steam in 2024. Thank Goodness You’re Here Thank Goodness You’re Here , or TGYH for... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/1YQtuby

Legs may soon come to the unwashed virtual masses. | Image: Meta Meta is adding legs to Quest Avatars in Quest Home — but not Horizon Worlds — in a new beta announced last week in the Meta Community forums ( via UploadVR ). Community manager Ryanality posted in the forums that the “Public Test Channel (PTC) for Quest v57 is starting to roll out for Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 2 soon,” though without specifying any new features. Then, yesterday, a forum user named TomCgcmfc reported their avatar had legs . A post on X (formerly Twitter) from Brad Lynch shows what the legs will look like . For now, beta users can’t see their legs without looking at an in-game mirror, and from the video, it looks like the avatar won’t crouch when the user does so. Although the legs reportedly don’t make an appearance in H... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/EsxyFDd

AMC’s logos as seen in the trailer for the second season of Dark Winds . | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge A handful of AMC Plus shows, including Fear the Walking Dead and Killing Eve, will have a temporary home on Max, Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming service, starting September 1st and going through October 31st. Statements provided to multiple outlets by executives from both services’ parent companies make it clear the goal of the deal is to help AMC Plus while adding more content to Max, which is good because, with the strikes in Hollywood bringing productions to a halt and the challenges AMC is facing in the cable space, both companies probably need it. “This promotional arrangement with Warner Bros. Discovery is a terrific opportunity to serve up some of our most popular and critically acclaimed programming to millions of Max... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/06gAkiX

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is once again flirting with a $35 minimum for non-Prime subscribers to qualify for free shipping. It’s currently testing the increased minimum order amount, which has been set at $25 since 2017 . The price actually started at $25 before Amazon raised it to $35 in 2013 , then raised it again to $49 in 2016 , when it began lowering it to $35 and, later, $25 . (Yes, it’s all very confusing.) Amazon’s ongoing roller-coaster ride of pricing naturally pushes people toward its $139 per-year Prime membership — where you don’t have to worry about minimum order amounts on items that qualify for free two-day shipping (or faster). CNBC’s reporting indicates that the minimum order hike hasn’t yet rolled out to all non-Prime accounts, and a quick... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/pEm5rtG

Photo by Paul Hennessy / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images A new crew recently arrived at the International Space Station (ISS), ready to begin a six-month stint of life in orbit. During its stay, Crew-7 will work on scientific research, including a new suite of experiments into the effects of spaceflight on the human body over time — information that could be crucial to future crewed missions to the Moon and beyond. The crew consists of NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov. The launch had been scheduled for Friday, August 25th, but was delayed by around 24 hours for an extra safety review of the valves in the Dragon’s environmental control and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/6K0RdDx

Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge Elon Musk’s Tesla almost ran a red light while livestreaming a demo of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta software. Musk was also livestreaming the demo while in the driver’s seat, violating Tesla’s rules for its advanced driver-assist technology. Oh, and he kind of doxxes Mark Zuckerberg, too. The roughly 45-minute video was meant to demonstrate the prowess of v12 of Tesla’s advanced driver-assist technology, which has yet to be released to customers. And while the vehicle appears to be operating safely for the majority of the trip, it still ends up being a bizarre experience — which is typical of all things Musk. https://t.co/VzTxpktH1q — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 26, 2023 At around the 19-minute mark, Musk is forced to take... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/bipGlqS

An alleged image of the iPhone 15 USB-C port. | Image: Majin Bu Apple said last year it will bring USB-C to the iPhone, and now alleged pictures of the iPhone 15’s USB-C port hint at light blue and green colors for Apple’s new non-Pro phones, according to leaker Majin Bu ( via AppleInsider ). The images, which were shared on X (formerly Twitter) this morning, show three naked USB-C modules in the two colors, as well as a dark, black shade. In addition, Majin Bu shared pictures of somewhat crude mock-ups of the phone, including one with an apparently off-center hole for the USB-C port. The iPhone 15 series could receive the green color. A mockup of this color was also made. It looks like it will be very similar to the green already seen on the iPhone 12 series. pic.twitter.com/8MI8kJciw6 — Majin Bu... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/v3DlrJH

For two decades, Google Search was the invisible force that determined the ebb and flow of online content. Now, for the first time, its cultural relevance is in question. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/VKA28fR

Image: The Verge WhatsApp is working on a feature that will let you share original quality photos and videos. As spotted by WABetaInfo , the app now includes an option to “select original quality photos or videos” in version 2.23.18.12 of the WhatsApp beta for Android. The app will treat the images and videos as documents, however. A screenshot taken by WABetaInfo shows a new option to “choose from gallery” in the app’s document picker, which specifically mentions the ability to send original quality photos and videos. Previously, you had to use a workaround to send original quality media by changing their file extensions to PDF or DOC, but this new feature should help you avoid that process completely. The ability to send original quality photos and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/FHE7BUa

Illustration: The Verge What if you could have a conversation with your notes? That question has consumed a corner of the internet recently , as companies like Dropbox , Box, Notion , and others have built generative AI tools that let you interact with and create new things from the data you already have in their systems. Google’s version of this is called NotebookLM . It’s an AI-powered research tool that is meant to help you organize and interact with your own notes. (Google originally announced it earlier this year as Project Tailwind but quickly changed the name .) Right now, it’s really just a prototype, but a small team inside the company has been trying to figure out what an AI notebook might look like. Ultimately, if NotebookLM sticks around, it’ll probably... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/tdbO95S

A Pixel Fold. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Google appears to be working on a satellite SOS feature for Google Messages that would let users text emergency services from remote areas without a conventional cell signal. As spotted by developer Neïl Rahmouni , early code in the Google Messages app shows work on an integration with Garmin and its emergency Garmin Response service. Google also appears to have started work on a UI for messaging emergency responders. Garmin’s emergency service uses the Iridium satellite network, which Iridium says is capable of delivering a signal “anywhere on Earth.” There is a big catch, though, when it comes to using satellite SOS services from Garmin: it requires a $15 per month subscription on Garmin’s own devices. So while this would be a great... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Rq9O4bt

The Roomba Combo i5 Plus (left) and Combo j5 Plus (right) are new robot vacuum mops from iRobot. | Images: iRobot iRobot is beefing up its robot mop offerings by launching two new combo models: the Roomba Combo j5 Plus ($799) and the Roomba Combo i5 Plus ($549) . These are combination cleaning bots that can mop and sweep simultaneously and come with a charging dock that also automatically empties their dustbins. When the company’s first robot mop / vacuum, the Combo j7 Plus , launched last year, it was a few years behind the competition and slightly underwhelming. While the robotic arm on the j7 that raises and lowers the mop up and over the robot to avoid your carpets entirely is pretty cool, the mopping itself is less than stellar . (iRobot has had a very effective mopping-only line, the Braava Jet , for several years.) These new models don’t have... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/9LSKENx

British Airways and other flights are affected during this busy bank holiday. | Photo by Urbanandsport / NurPhoto via Getty Images The UK is suffering a major disruption to air travel due to unspecific “technical issues” affecting flight control computer systems. Britain’s National Air Traffic Services (NATS) says it has “applied traffic flow restrictions to maintain safety,” with several airlines reporting disruptions felt at airports across the world. Hundreds of flights in and out of the UK have been delayed, according to The Guardian , with delays of up to 12 hours reported. Despite the disruption, NATS says that UK airspace is not currently closed (as of 12:40PM UK time) during this very heavily traveled bank holiday Monday. NATS provided no indication for when the issue might be resolved. We are currently experiencing a technical issue and have applied... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/UDPJnd1

Image: Dolby Dolby Atmos is about to get a whole lot more adaptable. Today, Dolby is announcing Dolby Atmos FlexConnect, which it describes as “a new feature that seamlessly pairs together a TV’s sound system with accessory wireless speakers to deliver a more extensive and immersive Dolby Atmos sound experience.” Since it factors your TV speakers into the equation, FlexConnect doesn’t necessarily require a soundbar at the center of everything. TCL will become the first TV manufacturer to offer FlexConnect with its upcoming 2024 TV lineup, and it also plans to release a line of wireless speakers optimized to support the feature. Dolby says that FlexConnect “intelligently optimizes the sound for any room layout and speaker setup, offering the freedom... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/WUChkAV

My 2021 iPad Pro 11-inch. | Image: Wes Davis / The Verge As the third tier of Apple’s connected personal computing devices, the iPad sits in an awkward place in 2023. It’s a supremely capable product, there’s no doubt about that. It’s powerful and responsive; most of the models have beautiful screens; and its interface is friendly. But it’s also incomplete and insistent on doing things the Apple-prescribed way. And even as it dominates the tablet landscape, sales of iPads have withered since 2020 , as Mark Gurman noted in Bloomberg today. In short: it needs more. To be clear, I like my 2021 iPad Pro a lot. It’s a nice device for reading and solid for watching TV in bed. It’s also indispensable for following recipes while I’m cooking. But when Steve Jobs first introduced the iPad in 2010, saying... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/hdD7xb4

Honestly, I’d keep this grip attached at all times just for the wrist strap. Camera grips are back, baby. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/ZJ2OPoN

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 3, your guide to the best and Verge -iest stuff in the world. Thanks to everyone who sent stuff in this week — we’re starting to get the hang of how this all works, and I really hope it’s fun and useful! I know I’ve already downloaded a terrifying number of new apps thanks to y’all. Only one housekeeping thing today: Installer now has an RSS feed ! You can add this link to any RSS reader, and it should work (let me know if you run into issues). Also, Installer ’s new homepage has every edition ever — all two of them so far. We’re still working on some cool new ways you can subscribe and contribute to Installer , but hopefully, we’ve got all the basics covered now. This week, I’ve been watching season 3... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/TrcyQWY

The Falcon-9 launches NASA’s Crew-7 mission into space. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center this morning at 3:27AM ET, NASA announced today. The rocket pushed four astronauts on NASA’s Crew-7 mission into orbit before a scheduled Sunday morning dock with the International Space Station (ISS). The mission brings astronauts from four countries to the ISS — Jasmin Moghbeli of NASA, the European Space Agency’s Andreas Mogensen, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furakawa, and Konstantin Borisov, a Russian cosmonaut. When the Dragon spacecraft — named Endurance — autonomously docks with the ISS, it will bring the station’s crew number up to 11 for a few days until board the capsule and return to Earth in a few days. “Aboard station,” says NASA... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/olMAIGE

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A federal judge in California’s eastern district has dismissed the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) lawsuit against Google over the company’s alleged “discriminatory” spam filtering, according to The Washington Post . The suit complained Google intentionally sent RNC political emails to Gmail users’ spam folders , and the RNC sought restitution for “donations it allegedly lost as a result” of those lost emails. The RNC cited a North Carolina State University study that found Gmail was more likely to mark emails from Republican campaigns as spam. One of the study’s authors spoke to the Post in May last year, saying its findings had been misrepresented. Muhammad Shahzad noted that it only tested default email settings — in tests on... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/e4Spl7q

Linus Sebastian discusses changes coming to Linus Tech Tips. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge Linus Media Group (LMG) founder Linus Sebastian explained LMG’s HR policies and how it will improve accuracy and ethics in a video posted to YouTube last night . Following a 10-day pause to evaluate its processes, Sebastian said the company held meetings with team members to “dig through every misstep” and identify “communication and ... teamwork challenges” that resulted in accusations of LMG’s quality issues. He added that the company will no longer insist on uploading videos daily and will slow down to verify its content is accurate. Sebastian did not directly address sexual harassment allegations recently levied by a former employee, Madison Reeve. Sebastian detailed changes to its HR structure over the year, including hiring... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/M3inTHp

It may not feature person detection like the new model, but the third-gen Blink Outdoor is still a good security camera.for the price. | Image: Amazon As we enter the last week of August, it’s time to prepare for a jam-packed fall gadget season. Many companies, including Apple , will likely release new gadgets. Shopping events like Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days and Black Friday are set to take place, and of course, we can’t forget the holidays. Altogether, it amounts to a very busy season, particularly for the mail carriers who’ll be delivering all your purchases – and for the porch pirates, who’ll try to steal all of them. If you want to keep your packages secure, the third-gen Blink Outdoor security camera with the Sync Module 2 included is on sale starting at $49.99 ($50 off) from Amazon and Best Buy . The last-gen budget-friendly camera will help you keep tabs on your goods even... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/SFjLf9M

But has it? | Photo by Fabian Sommer / Picture Alliance via Getty Images A year ago at Berlin’s IFA tech trade show (think European CES), Verge reporter Jon Porter witnessed a Google Nest Hub control an Apple HomeKit smart plug. This “ lightbulb moment for the smart home ” was the first public demonstration of Matter . The new smart home standard is designed to fix the biggest issue facing tech in our homes: interoperability, and witnessing two fierce competitors in the space working together was exciting. Twelve months later, on the eve of IFA 2023 , we’re still waiting for that lightbulb to turn on across the industry. The smart home remains fragmented. Despite being developed by the biggest names in the industry — Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung, and more — Matter has yet to deliver on its main promise. You... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/mlgEJA5

Illustration: The Verge Google is experimenting with a text-to-speech feature for Chrome’s reading mode on desktop, as reported by Android Police . I sometimes use a similar feature in Instapaper, and in Chrome, I could see it being a useful tool to listen to articles in the browser I’m already using while I work. The feature can apparently be found in Chrome Canary, Google’s bleeding edge version of Chrome, according to X user Leopeva64 . If you have the feature, you can click a play button at the top of an article you’re looking at in reading mode to have Google read the text. Leopeva64 also shared a link to a video showing off the feature on Reddit . Chrome for desktop will also have the option to "read aloud" articles, the initial implementation of this... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/PZwHuxB

Illustration: The Verge Google is finally starting to add support for older Nest Cams to the Google Home app, starting with the first-generation Nest Cam Indoor from 2015, according to a post from Google on Thursday. The support is available in the public preview of the Google Home app, and you can find instructions on how to participate in that program on Google’s website . But it might be awhile until you can actually use your Nest Cam Indoor with the app. “Once you’re in the preview, you’ll see a prompt in the Public Preview version of the Home app when you’re able to transfer your camera (it may take a couple of weeks as we slowly add more Nest Cam Indoor users each week) and it will guide you through the process,” Google says in its post about the update .... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/4mD95NG

Image: Warner Bros. Pictures Dune: Part Two has been delayed to March 15th, 2024, according to The Hollywood Reporter and Variety , and it’s just one of a few big shifts in Warner Bros.’ movie slate. The films are moving around amid the ongoing strikes in Hollywood that have affected production and promotion on many films and TV shows . Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire has a new date, too, moving from March 15th to April 12th. The upcoming Lord of the Rings anime , The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim , is shifting from April 12th to December 13th. However, three big Warner Bros. movies set to release in December are, so far, keeping their premiere dates, THR reports. Wonka is still set for December 15th , Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is still set for December... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/AgnF1xc

Citizen is temporarily suspending sales of its CZ Smart watch. | Image: Citizen Citizen is temporarily suspending sales of its second-gen CZ Smart watch due to a “technical issue.” The Wear OS watch, which launched in May, had a feature based on tech from IBM’s Watson and NASA to track a person’s alertness. It appears the decision stems from negative experiences from reviewers. Michael Fisher — better known as MrMobile on YouTube — noted that Citizen said it would suspend sales after he had reached out to the company about the watch’s many issues. That was corroborated by a Wired story , in which reviewer Julian Chokkattu also detailed several bugs, like laggy screens, bad battery life, inaccurate tracking, and watchfaces that can’t even tell the correct time. Good move. My review of the CZ Smart 2.1 would have... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/tsJ72Sb

Monarch Tractor CEO Praveen Penmetsa. | Image: Monarch Tractor Praveen Penmetsa is bringing the AI craze to farms. His company, Monarch Tractor, makes an electric tractor powered by an Nvidia AI platform that allows the vehicle to drive itself through farm fields and work autonomously. The first machines rolled out of the company’s Livermore, California headquarters last year. Now, Monarch Tractor is scaling up production in partnership with a Foxconn plant in Ohio, and Penmetsa is coming to the Code Conference to talk about it. He’ll chat with The Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel about making AI accessible, building in the US, and broader concerns around tractor repairability as their technology becomes all the more advanced. Penmetsa joins a host of other tech and business leaders who’ll be... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/YpOGiz0

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Roughly three months after joining Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft among the world’s trillion-dollar companies — on the back of the AI boom — Nvidia is now making far more money than it’s ever made before. The company raked in $13.5 billion in revenue since May, it revealed in its Q2 2024 earnings , with the unprecedented demand for its generative AI chips blowing past any difficulty it might have had selling desktop and laptop GPUs into a shrinking PC industry . Data center accounted for a record $10.32 billion of that revenue, more than doubling in just one quarter, and Nvidia made $6.188 billion in profit as a result — up 843 percent year over year. And while gaming is more than a billion dollars short of pandemic highs, it was... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/ub5xAo1

Here are the best cheap Chromebooks and laptops you can buy. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales You can get a good laptop on a budget; you just have to know which one to pick. Here are what we recommend for those looking to spend anywhere from $300 to $800 on a new laptop for school, work, or play. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/BdQsKi2

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Epic Games will let developers keep 100 percent of their net revenues from the Epic Games Store for six months if they choose to make their games or apps exclusives for that time through its new First Run program, the company announced on Wednesday . Typically, Epic lets developers keep 88 percent of their revenues, with the company taking a 12 percent cut. For developers who launch a product through First Run, the split will return to 88 / 12 once the six months are up. Developers who choose to participate in the Epic First Run program will see a few other benefits as well. Epic says First Run games and apps will be presented to Store users with “new exclusive badging, homepage placements, and dedicated collections” and will be featured... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/P1wLHB8

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft Paint could be the next Windows app to get the AI treatment. According to a report from Windows Central , Microsoft is exploring ways to bring AI-powered features to the app in Windows 11, which could include the ability to generate a canvas based on a text prompt. Sources tell Windows Central that the AI feature will be powered by the same technology behind Bing’s Image Creator , a tool that spits out an image based on your description. You can see how the integration might look in what appears to be an internal mock-up posted by Windows Central . The image shows a “Magic Paint” button, along with a sidebar that lets you enter a description of an image for it to generate. It seems like you can then transfer that image to your... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/fq5SWKd

Watch this video on YouTube’s website to see if you have the rounded corners yet. | Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge YouTube is rolling out rounded edges on the main video player you see on YouTube.com , spokesperson Allison Toh confirmed to The Verge on Tuesday. They’re coming to all users, so if you’re not seeing them now, you should be seeing them soon. I asked about the corners after noticing them while browsing YouTube on the web over the past day or two. (I included a screenshot of what I see at the top of this post.) I think the rounded corners look really nice. They also make YouTube’s desktop design feel more holistic since you’ll see rounded corners on a video and rounded corners on thumbnails off to the side. Understandably, I’m only seeing the rounded corners when viewing the standard-sized video player; in theater mode, which expands the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/8GkaHTO

The Verge A report from Fortune claims that X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, has tested stripping headlines from articles shared on the site . Posts would only include the lead image and the URL, unless the person or publisher posting the link adds their own text, per materials the outlet viewed. The image would still serve as a link to the article, but there's no word on a timetable to roll it out or confirmation that it will ship at all. “It’s something Elon wants,” a source is quoted as saying, “They were running it by advertisers, who didn’t like it, but it’s happening.” (if this text was not here, all you would see is this image with no context, no headline, no description — but it would be a clickable article) p... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/9fTxs0O

Image: Apple Invasion was a curious addition to the sci-fi TV landscape when it debuted in 2021. For much of its runtime, it barely felt like science fiction at all. We all knew something alien was happening — it’s right there in the show’s title, after all — but the story was much more focused on the human-level drama going down as the world steadily succumbed to the invading forces. The result was a show that started very slowly , though things did eventually pick up mid-season . Ultimately, season 1 felt like a prologue to a much bigger story . With all of that setup out of the way, the second season starts out much more exciting — and it doesn’t let up for the first few episodes. Note: this write-up is based on the first five (of 10) episodes of... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/dcDQLbJ

Martinet at the launch of Super Mario Galaxy . | Photo by Stephen Kelly - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario for 27 years, will no longer be voicing the iconic character, according to a tweet from Nintendo . Martinet took on the role with 1996’s Super Mario 64 and has voiced the character in numerous games since, including both mainline Mario releases like Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Galaxy as well as countless spinoffs. “Charles is now moving into the brand-new role of Mario Ambassador. With this new transition, he will be stepping back from recording character voices for our games,” Nintendo’s statement reads. “It has been an honor working with Charles to help bring Mario to life for so many years and we want to thank and celebrate him.” We have a message for fans of the Mushroom Kingdom. Please... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/nwfHOJP

Leviton’s new Decora Smart Wi-Fi Outdoor Plug-in Switch is the first to work with Matter. | Image: Leviton Smart lighting manufacturer Leviton has a new outdoor smart plug that’s the first to work with Matter. The Decora Smart Wi-Fi Outdoor Plug-in Switch costs $54.99 and is available now at Amazon and The Home Depot. Part of Leviton’s Decora Smart Wi-Fi lighting and load control line , it’s the company’s fifth product to support Matter, following adding Matter support to two of its in-wall switches and smart plugs last month. The outdoor smart plug works over 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, has on / off functionality (there’s no dimming), and a built-in light sensor for automating any lights you plug into it to turn on at night and off during the day. This is a neat feature you won’t find on a lot of smart plugs and means you don’t need to use any app or... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/jNxqs4c

Image: Samsung Almost two years after its initial announcement in October 2021 , Samsung says the first game to support the HDR10 Plus Gaming standard is nearing release. That game is The First Descendant , a free-to-play third-person shooter from Nexon which is running an open beta starting September 19th. Samsung’s announcement doesn’t specify which platforms the game will support HDR10 Plus Gaming on, but we’re assuming it’s PC rather than consoles given neither Sony nor Microsoft have announced support for this latest HDR format on their platforms. On PC, Nvidia announced it was adding support for HDR10 Plus Gaming to its RTX and 16-series graphics cards in November 2022 . HDR calibration without the sliders The big advantage being advertised for... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/sJh2CU0

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The US Department of Agriculture announced nearly $700 million in funding Monday to expand high-speed broadband access in rural communities across the country. The USDA’s ReConnect Program is providing $667 million in grants and loans for broadband projects in 22 states and the Marshall Islands in areas that lack access to speeds of at least 100Mbps down and 20Mbps up. Recipients of this funding will be required to build out infrastructure capable of providing upload and download speeds of 100Mbps, surpassing the Federal Communications Commission’s current speed minimums of 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up. “The reality is, we have faced some challenging times in rural places” “The reality is, we have faced some challenging times in rural... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/EeLXjFw

Illustration: The Verge Meta will launch the web version of Threads , its competitor to X (formerly known as Twitter) early this week, reports The Wall Street Journal. A web version has been frustratingly missing since the short-form posting service began. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is working on adding the feature along with better search (well, search at all, really — right now, you can only search for usernames on the platform) earlier this month, and that it would be ready in “the next few weeks.” However, WSJ says, its sources say the feature’s “launch plans aren’t final and could change.” Mosseri posted on Threads last week that Meta had been testing “an early version internally for a week or two,” but that it “needs some work” before wide... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/wa0vfqK

Luna-25 launching from Russia earlier this month. | Photo by Xinhua via Getty Images Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft failed to land on the Moon , Roscosmos, Russia’s state-run space corporation, announced today. In a statement, the organization reported that the lander “ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon.” It would’ve been the country’s first Moon landing since 1976. Luna-25 entered orbit around the Moon last week, and was meant to orbit for just five days before landing on Monday, August 21st, but over the weekend, Roscosmos said it was analyzing a “technical glitch” that occurred as it was preparing the craft to move to a pre-landing orbit. Now the organization says Luna-25 has been lost. Russia was pushing to beat India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission to land on the Moon. That spacecraft also... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/DxfJ0XU