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Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge Wear OS is much better than it used to be, so there’s never been a better time to consider a smartwatch. Read the full story at The Verge.

34 minutes ago

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is warning users that some manually made Windows 11 installer media could contain a bug where new PC installs may not get future security updates. It affects USB and CD installers made with October and November release patches, which may be relevant to professional users who set up PCs within business or education environments, or enthusiasts who recently built their own PCs. Microsoft published the bug in its known issues page for...

42 minutes ago

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Photo illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge From simple fitness bands and rugged sports watches to rings, these are the best trackers you can get. Read the full story at The Verge.

about 2 hours ago

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Apple’s newer M4 Macs are starting to dip in price. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge Apple currently sells MacBooks equipped with its own M-series chips in a wide range of sizes and price points. It discontinued the M1 MacBook Air to make room for the latest models, but some retailers are still selling the last-gen laptop starting at $649 — a far cry from the $2,499 starting price of the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro with...

about 2 hours ago

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Image: The Verge ChatGPT isn’t working for many users right now. With numerous reports on social media, we also confirmed that the chatbot loads but isn’t able to respond to queries, while others are seeing an “internal server error” message. It looks like the outage started around 1:30PM ET, which is when reports began to spike on Down Detector. At 2PM ET, OpenAI posted an update to its status page, saying ChatGPT, the API, and its text-to-video generator Sora are...

about 2 hours ago

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Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Loading up HDR photos and videos can be a great way of showcasing the fancy display on your new phone and testing just how bright it can get. But sometimes, especially at night, you might not want your screen to crank into overdrive with blinding highlights just because someone posted a random video to Instagram in HDR. (Devices are increasingly set to capture video with the increased dynamic range by default, so let’s...

about 4 hours ago

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Illustration: The Verge Apple senior VP of services Eddy Cue says Apple will not create a search engine to compete with Google as it “would cost billions of dollars and take many years,” as recorded in a motion to intervene filed with the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday. The purpose of the motion is to participate in the penalty phase of the DOJ’s antitrust case against Google, where as much as $20 billion could be at stake for Apple...

about 5 hours ago

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WD_Black Xbox expansion cards still sport the brand’s trademark rugged exterior, only in a much tinier form. | Image: Western Digital If you’ve just unwrapped a new Xbox Series X or Series S for Christmas, you’ll have enough storage out of the box to download several games. But you’ll quickly feel the squeeze from 100GB-plus installs, especially if you tend to keep a heavy rotation. Expansion cards are your only relief on Xbox consoles if you’re playing titles optimized for...

about 5 hours ago

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Image: LG LG has developed a new lamp that doubles as an indoor garden. The lamp, which LG will show off at CES in January, serves as an adjustable grow light for the tray of up to 20 plants beneath it, while also brightening up your room. It has two different lighting modes: downward-facing lighting during the day that helps grow your plants, and upward-facing lighting at night to help brighten up your home. The lamp comes equipped with a...

about 6 hours ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Here’s what to watch over the holidays in case all those live sports broadcasts don’t work out. Read the full story at The Verge.

about 7 hours ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Glasses may be more promising as the head-worn computers of the future — and there’s a chance Apple might be looking in that direction. Apple’s Vision Pro headset is an incredible piece of technology, but even Apple’s design and marketing magic hasn’t been enough to convince many people to don a VR headset for an entire day. Instead, people seem more willing to use discreet wearables like Bluetooth headphones, smartwatches, and products...

about 8 hours ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge As a special holiday treat, on December 25th, the social media app Bluesky announced that it has added a new feature to its mobile app: a list of Trending topics that lets you know what subjects are popular among its users. Screenshot: Bluesky Bluesky now shows you its current Trends below the search bar. The new feature can be found by selecting the search icon (the magnifying glass), which appears at the bottom of...

about 8 hours ago

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This Bluetooth speaker’s design is a breath of fresh air, but Bose skimped on some features that are usually standard at this price. Read the full story at The Verge.

about 9 hours ago

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Image: Netflix After years of brand tie-ins and ill-conceived spinoffs, the series is back — and it’s just as tense as ever. Read the full story at The Verge.

about 14 hours ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images These days, podcasts are going video, and there are a number of visual trends we’ve noticed — some good, some not so much. We’ll show you. Read the full story at The Verge.

1 day ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images This year showed that a roguelike can be almost anything. Read the full story at The Verge.

1 day ago

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Image: Atlus Metaphor: ReFantanzio is one of 2024’s best games racking up a stack of Game Awards including best RPG, best art direction, and best narrative. But one category in which Metaphor particularly stood out was its music. The soundtrack, produced by Shoji Meguro – the long-time music director of the Persona series, is one of the outstanding achievements in video game music this year, particularly its battle theme which became a viral hit. In an interview with The Verge,...

2 days ago

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Kobo’s Elipsa 2E is a good e-reader that offers an intuitive note-taking experience. | Image: Kobo Amazon might have released a new Kindle Scribe earlier this month for $399.99, but after testing it, I still don’t think it can compete with its rivals. If you’re looking for a good e-reader with more useful note-taking capabilities, the Kobo Elipsa 2E is still one of my favorites, and it’s down to an all-time low of $349.99 ($50 off) at Amazon or Target....

2 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images We got a healthy dose of Star Wars and Marvel shows on Disney Plus this year, but the more mature series from Hulu helped balance things out. Read the full story at The Verge.

2 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images It was another sci-fi-heavy year for Apple’s streaming service. Read the full story at The Verge.

2 days ago

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Hi, Barbie! The Barbie Phone, much like the doll it pays tribute to, is a thing of beauty. But like that doll whose proportions, historically, are impossible, the Barbie Phone just isn’t built for the modern world. Even if the ultra-feminine aesthetic isn’t your thing — and it’s not really mine — you have to hand it to the Barbie flip phone. From the box it comes in, to the interchangeable back plates, rhinestone stickers, and Barbie-fied interface, it’s a...

2 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images This year paved the way for a future where earbuds are much more than audio accessories. Read the full story at The Verge.

2 days ago

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Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images American Airlines temporarily grounded all of its flights in the US this morning due to unspecified technical issues, disrupting travel at the start of a busy Christmas Eve. Service has now resumed as of 8AM ET according to a statement American Airlines spokesperson Sarah Jantz provided to CNN. The airline suffered a massive system outage according to multiple travelers on X who are facing delays, which prevented boarding passes from being scanned and flights from...

2 days ago

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Image: Serene Industries If statement keyboards are your thing and you have some serious cash to burn, you should check out this brutalist flagship offering from Serene Industries. The Icebreaker is a wedge-shaped mechanical keyboard constructed from a single block of CNC-machined aluminum, featuring hot-swappable aluminum keycaps with configurable RGB backlighting. Preorders are available now, with pricing starting at $1,500 for the wired version. A Bluetooth wireless and a wired version with magnetic hall effect switches are also available for...

2 days ago

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A Marriott Hotel in Germany. | Photo by Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images The Federal Trade Commission announced on Friday it finalized an order (pdf) requiring Marriott International and subsidiary Starwood Hotels to improve their digital security, reports BleepingComputer. The FTC charged the companies with lax security practices that resulted in three big breaches detected in 2015, 2018, and 2020, “affecting more than 344 million customers worldwide,” leaking passport details, payment cards, and other info. The shortest breach lasted...

3 days ago

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Garmins aren’t just multisport behemoths anymore. | Illustration by Will Joel / The Verge Garmin may be best known for its hardcore fitness watches, but it’s got an extensive line of lifestyle offerings, too. Read the full story at The Verge.

3 days ago

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The PayPal Honey browser extension is, in theory, a handy way to find better deals on products while you’re shopping online. But in a video published this weekend, YouTuber MegaLag claims the extension is a “scam” and that Honey has been “stealing money from influencers, including the very ones they paid to promote their product.” Honey works by popping up an offer to find coupon codes for you while you’re checking out in an online shop. But as MegaLag notes,...

3 days ago

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Image: Lux Optics Lux Optics has released a loose product roadmap for its next big iPhone photo app, Halide 3.0 (which it’s calling Halide Mark III). After being more forthright than usual in the development of its Kino video app, which was recently awarded iPhone app of the year for 2024 by Apple, Lux is giving the next version of its popular photo app a touch of the Steam indie dev treatment. Not only is Lux already hyping key upcoming...

3 days ago

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An Ioniq 5 using a CCS to NACS adapter to charge at a Supercharger. | Image: Hyundai Hyundai announced it will start distributing free CCS to Tesla NACS adapters to its EV customers in the first quarter of 2025. The adapters will enable vehicles such as the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 to connect to “20,000-plus” Tesla Supercharger stations. The free adapter is available to those who purchased or leased their Hyundai EVs on or before January 31st, 2025. The...

3 days ago

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Xbox Game Pass, Spotify subscriptions, retail store gift cards, and other digital products make for great last-minute gifts. | Image: Meta Yes, Christmas is a couple of days away — and yes, we know you have yet to buy a gift. We understand that life gets busy, though, and sometimes it feels like the holidays creep up on you out of nowhere. But before you spiral into a full-blown panic attack, take a deep breath. Luckily for you, the internet...

3 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images After its victory against Google in an antitrust trial earlier this year, the Department of Justice recently proposed a sweeping set of changes its search business. The DOJ put a lot on the table, demanding that Google sell its Chrome browser, syndicate its search results, and avoid exclusive deals with companies like Apple for default search placement. It even kept open the possibility of forcing an Android sale. Now, Google has responded...

3 days ago

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Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge Google, Salesforce, H&M and other brands have turned to unlikely allies to help them clean up their carbon pollution: sewage treatment plants and paper mills. The companies joined an $80 million plan to take CO2 out of the atmosphere, though the strategies they’re using have yet to show whether they can have a meaningful impact on climate change. They’re paying $32.1 million to a startup called CREW that aims to trap carbon dioxide...

3 days ago

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Image: Asus Asus is planning to launch a new Rog Strix laptop at CES on January 6th, 2025, the company confirmed in a post spotted by VideoCardz. The short teaser shared by Asus shows a laptop with RGB lighting that wraps all the way around the bottom of the device, likely making for an even more colorful underglow when compared to previous generations. Though Asus doesn’t say which Rog Strix models it will introduce, leaked retail listings suggest Asus could...

3 days ago

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Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A collection of fun, affordable, and unique gifts fit for everyone on your list. Read the full story at The Verge.

3 days ago

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The XM4 are over four years old, but they still sound great for the money. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge A couple of months ago, we saw the Sony WH-1000XM4 drop to $129.99, which was an absolute steal for the last-gen noise-canceling headphones. That deal predictably sold out in a heartbeat, and there’s no telling whether we’ll see it that low again, but Amazon is selling them in black for $178.20 (about $170 off), which would be...

3 days ago

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Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is suing Walmart and payroll service provider Branch Messenger for alleged illegal payment practices for gig workers. The bureau says Walmart was opening direct deposit accounts using Spark delivery drivers’ social security numbers without their consent. The accounts also can come with intense fees that, according to the complaint, would add either 2 percent or $2.99 per transaction, whichever is higher. It also says Walmart repeatedly promised...

3 days ago

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Patrick Mahomes is playing on Christmas. Netflix better not screw it up. | Photo by Jason Miller / Getty Images It hasn’t always gone well for Netflix. Remember the Love Is Blind reunion or the laggy Paul / Tyson fight? But Netflix is betting big that live still matters, even in the on-demand world it helped create. Read the full story at The Verge.

3 days ago

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Performance upgrades and screen improvements make the new Paperwhite’s minor updates feel more substantial. Three years have passed since Amazon last updated its flagship e-reader, and while this year’s Kindle lineup seemed focused on Amazon’s first color offering, the Paperwhite still got some welcome improvements. With a higher-contrast screen and snappier performance, the 12th-generation Kindle Paperwhite remains the best e-reader on the market. I tested the $199.99 Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, which is $40 more than the $159.99 basic Paperwhite....

3 days ago

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Michael Kratsios appearing at the Web Summit in 2019. | Photo by Rita Franca/NurPhoto via Getty Images In a pair of Truth Social posts on Sunday, Donald Trump announced a set of picks for his administration’s tech policy team that will report to David Sacks, Trump’s “AI and crypto czar.” The picks include Michael Kratsios, who will lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) if confirmed by the Senate. Kratsios, who served in Trump’s first term as the...

3 days ago

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Image: Focus Features Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu gets at the heart of what makes vampires an eternally fascinating fixture in our sexual imaginations. Even if you haven’t seen F.W. Murnau’s original Nosferatu or read Bram Stoker’s Dracula, those stories have undoubtedly shaped your ideas about vampires. They weren’t the first tales about undead ghouls rising from the grave to suck the blood out of the living. But by presenting their monsters in such wildly innovative ways, they became a blueprint from...

3 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Despite loud proclamations, AI on smartphones is still mostly a sideshow. Read the full story at The Verge.

3 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Not even authority, just the signifiers of authority Read the full story at The Verge.

3 days ago

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A hybrid supercar that can run on electricity alone, while still delivering that twin-turbo 3.0-liter V6 experience Read the full story at The Verge.

3 days ago

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Photo by PHILIP FONG/AFP via Getty Images Honda and Nissan have announced plans to merge as the Japanese automakers struggle with competition from rival brands in the electric vehicle market. The two companies confirmed on Monday that they had signed a memorandum of understanding that would create the third largest car maker by sales, behind Toyota and Volkswagen. Nissan alliance member Mitsubishi Motors is also in talks with Honda and Nissan to join the integration, with a decision expected by...

3 days ago

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The Verge X has substantially raised the price of its top-tier user subscription in multiple regions to help bolster the platform’s creator payouts. The increase for Premium Plus came into effect on December 21st according to X, raising prices in the US from $16 per month to $22, or from $168 to $229 for annual subscriptions. Many European countries like France, Germany, and Spain are impacted by a similar increase, taking monthly prices from €16 to €21. Monthly subscribers in...

3 days ago

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Image: Canoo Days after furloughing dozens of its employees without pay, EV startup Canoo told the remainder of its staff they will be on a “mandatory unpaid break” through at least the end of the year, TechCrunch reported Friday. A company email seen by the outlet said employees would be locked out of Canoo’s systems by the end of Friday, with their benefits continuing through the end of this month. The report follows Canoo’s announcement last week that it was...

4 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images This year’s Prime Video streaming content was led by adaptations and spinoffs like Fallout and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Read the full story at The Verge.

4 days ago

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A Google Nest doorbell camera. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Apple is working on a new smart doorbell camera that uses Face ID to unlock your door, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. The camera could be released by the end of 2025 “at the soonest,” Gurman writes. The lock would work just like your iPhone, automatically unlocking your door when you or another resident looks at it. Like biometric login info...

4 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Our staff writes about the best books they read over the course of the year. Read the full story at The Verge.

4 days ago

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Do we really need all this? | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The grid is a comfortable place to live. The app grid, I mean: the rows and rows of app icons on your iPhone’s homescreen. It’s familiar. Safe. It’s how I’ve lived with my various phones over the past decade. But at some point, it started to feel oppressive. All those icons staring at me in the face, vying for my attention. The clutter! The distracting...

4 days ago

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Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 65, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, get ready to take up all your phone’s storage space, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This is the last Installer of the year! I’m taking a couple of weeks off for the holidays, and I hope you’re getting some relaxation in too. Thank you so much to everyone who...

4 days ago

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Illustration: The Verge In the latest version of the Files by Google app, summoning Gemini while looking at a PDF gives you the option to ask about the file, writes Android Police. You’ll need to be a Gemini Advanced subscriber to use the feature though, according to Mishaal Rahman, who reported on Friday that it had started rolling out. If you have the feature, when you summon Gemini while looking at a PDF in the Files app, you’ll see an...

5 days ago

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The US Commerce Department has awarded Samsung and Texas Instruments with a combined over $6 billion in “direct funding under the CHIPS Incentives Program’s Funding Opportunity for Commercial Fabrication,” according to a pair of announcements published on Friday. Samsung will get the larger of the two awards at $4.745 billion. The Commerce Department says the company will use this as part of its planned $37 billion investment in Texas chip facilities that include...

5 days ago

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Image: Asus Asus has announced the Asus NUC 14 Pro AI, the first Copilot Plus-capable AI mini PC that crams an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor into a form factor resembling a black M4 Mac Mini. First introduced at IFA in September, Asus is providing a little more detail about the mini PC’s specs than it did before, but still isn’t saying it will become available or how much it will cost. The NUC 14 Pro AI will come in...

5 days ago

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Stellar hardware from a controversial figure. Read the full story at The Verge.

5 days ago

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A screenshot from TCL’s The Audition. | Screenshot: TCLtv Plus Earlier this year, TCL released a trailer for Next Stop Paris — an AI-animated short film that seems like a Lifetime movie on steroids. The trailer had all the hallmarks of AI: characters that don’t move their mouths when they talk, lifeless expressions, and weird animation that makes it look like scenes are constantly vibrating. I thought this might be the extent of TCL’s experimentation with AI films, given the...

5 days ago

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You’d be hard-pressed to find an OLED TV for less right now. | Image: LG One of the best Black Friday deals has returned — and this time, it’s done so with an added perk. Right now, LG’s B4 Series OLED TV is matching its all-time low at Best Buy, where you can pick it up in the 48-inch configuration for $599.99 ($200 off) with a $50 digital gift card. The larger 55-inch panel, meanwhile, is on sale at Best...

5 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Between The Penguin, Dune: Prophecy, and I Saw the TV Glow, Max has you covered when it comes to last-minute streaming options to get you through the holidays. Read the full story at The Verge.

5 days ago

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Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge The Department of Justice’s list of solutions for fixing Google’s illegal antitrust behavior and restoring competition in the search engine market started with forcing the company to sell Chrome, and late Friday night, Google responded with a list of its own (included below). Instead of breaking off Chrome, Android, or Google Play as the DOJ’s filing considers, Google’s proposed fixes aim at the payments it makes to companies like Apple and Mozilla for...

6 days ago

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Image: Josh King / OhSnap When 19-year-old Josh King suggested he would single-handedly redefine mobile gaming with his 3D-printed gamepad, drawing a direct line from himself to Steve Jobs, I have to admit I thought it was a bit much! But it’s no longer just a 3D-printed controller. OhSnap, the company behind the excellent magnetic PopSocket alternatives I showed you in October, is now officially turning his design into the coolest looking gamepad attachment I’ve ever seen for a phone:...

6 days ago

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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge NSO Group, the organization behind the Pegasus spyware, has been found liable in a lawsuit brought by Meta’s WhatsApp over attacks on about 1,400 devices, as reported by The Record. WhatsApp originally filed the suit in 2019, and investigations have found that Pegasus has been used to hack phones belonging to groups like activists, journalists, and government officials. NSO Group is liable for charges of violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse...

6 days ago

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A federal jury in Delaware determined on Friday that Qualcomm didn’t breach its agreement with Arm through its 2021 acquisition of Nuvia, a startup founded by three former Apple engineers. As reported earlier by Bloomberg and Reuters, the decision stems from a two-year-long legal battle that accused Qualcomm of misusing the chip designs Arm licensed to Nuvia before its acquisition. Despite delivering a win for Qualcomm, the jury couldn’t determine whether Nuvia breached...

6 days ago

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge From basic and affordable to premium and ultra-customizable, these are the best controllers we’ve tested for Xbox. And they work with PCs, too. Read the full story at The Verge.

6 days ago

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Illustration: Beatrice Sala The US government has charged a dual Russian and Israeli national with allegedly building and maintaining LockBit’s malware code, while receiving over $230,000 in cryptocurrency for his work. The 51-year-old Rostislav Panev was arrested in Israel pending extradition to the US, making him the third member of the LockBit ransomware group in custody. Authorities previously arrested other alleged members of the LockBit group, including Mikhail Vasiliev and Ruslan Magomedovich Astamirov, both of whom have pleaded guilty to...

6 days ago

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The Echo Pop is a tiny speaker with Alexa-enabled smarts, and is currently down to its best price. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Believe it or not, we’re now just a few days away from Christmas. Don’t panic if you’ve yet to start your holiday shopping, though! While it might be too late to order some of the gifts on your holiday wish list, plenty of other great presents will arrive in time.. if you know where...

6 days ago

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Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images As people scramble for last-minute gifts and late-year bargains, everyone is double-checking their lists and figuring out the fastest way to get their purchases. Thankfully, many retailers are offering generous shipping policies for their products, with some offering free two-day shipping or even same-day delivery if you pay extra. And just in case the gift you choose isn’t quite right, many retailers are also offering extended return policies so your giftee can get something...

6 days ago

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Naveen Rao, VP of AI at Databricks. | Naveen Rao / The Verge For my last issue of the year, I’m focusing on the AI talent war, which is a theme I’ve been covering since this newsletter launched almost two years ago. And keep reading for the latest from inside Google and Meta this week. But first, I need your questions for a mailbag issue I’m planning for my first issue of 2025. You can submit questions via this form...

6 days ago

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Sanwa Supply’s new USB-C cable’s design solves a common point of cable failure. | Image: Sanwa Supply Japanese accessory maker Sanwa Supply has released a new 240W USB-C cable with a flexible design that could help prevent damage, as spotted by Tom’s Hardware. The USB-C connectors on either end of the cable can rotate 360 degrees and bend from side-to-side up to 180 degrees, reducing strain on ports and minimizing bending that could eventually cause wires inside to break. The...

6 days ago

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is taking a tougher stance on clickbait, saying it will remove content with titles or thumbnails that promise viewers “something that the video doesn’t deliver,” as spotted earlier by TechCrunch. This change will “slowly” roll out in India first, according to YouTube’s blog post, but will “expand to more countries” in the “coming months,” YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon says in a statement to The Verge. YouTube says the policy will combat “egregious”...

6 days ago

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Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge For the last day of ship-mas, OpenAI previewed a new set of frontier “reasoning” models dubbed o3 and o3-mini. The Verge first reported that a new reasoning model would be coming during this event. The company isn’t releasing these models today (and admits final results may evolve with more post-training). However, OpenAI is accepting applications from the research community to test these systems ahead of public release (which it has yet to set a...

6 days ago

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Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced a new “voluntary national framework for the evaluation and oversight” of autonomous vehicles, a bureaucratic first step that could eventually open the floodgates for fully driverless cars. But there’s a twist: the agency wants self-driving car companies to cough up more data. The proposed rules were first announced last year as the ADS-Equipped Vehicle Safety, Transparency and Evaluation Program, also known as AV...

6 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has filed a lawsuit against Zelle and three banks that own it — Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase — claiming they failed “to protect consumers from widespread fraud.” Zelle is a payment network designed to compete with payment platforms like Venmo and Cash App, but the CFPB says the banks “rushed” it to market, enabling fraud that’s cost consumers more than $870 million...

6 days ago

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Terradot’s pilot program in Brazil involves spreading crushed basalt over farmland. | Image: Terradot To try to counteract the impact their pollution has on the climate, Google and other big companies have bought into a plan to trap carbon dioxide using rocks. They recently announced multimillion dollar deals with a Sheryl Sandberg-backed startup called Terradot. Google, H&M Group, and Salesforce are among a gaggle of companies that collectively agreed to pay Terradot $27 million to remove 90,000 tons carbon dioxide...

6 days ago

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Image: Netflix In Squid Game, schoolyard games are turned into nightmares, as players compete to survive and — if they’re lucky — earn a massive cash prize. But in Unleashed, a new mobile spinoff that’s part of the streamer’s fledgling gaming efforts, those games are fun. It’s a strange experience that sands off much of the appeal of Squid Game in service of making a multiplayer party game. Unleashed is sort of like Fall Guys but in a Squid Game...

6 days ago

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The iPhone 14 and 14 Plus lack USB-C ports. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Starting December 28th, all new phones sold in the European Union must have USB-C. And while that deadline is still about a week away, Apple has begun pulling the iPhone SE, iPhone 14, and iPhone 14 Plus — the last models with Apple’s proprietary lightning port — from its Swiss online store. The removal was first spotted by MacRumors, based on a report...

6 days ago

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Image: The Verge Google Fiber is changing up its internet plans in Huntsville, Alabama and Nashville, Tennessee. The new Core 1 Gig, Home 3 Gig, and Edge 8 Gig plans appear to have launched last month and streamline the company’s existing options, as spotted earlier by 9to5Google. These options replace the 1 Gig, 2 Gig, 5 Gig, and 8 Gig plans currently available in other supported cities. Like the existing 1 Gig plan, Google Fiber’s new Core 1 Gig option...

6 days ago

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The 14-inch MacBook Pro looks just as nicely as it performs. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge In recent years, base MacBook Pro models have felt like an automatic skip. It made more sense to pay just a few hundred more for upgrades that truly justify the “Pro” moniker, or save money by stepping down to a MacBook Air without many sacrifices. But that’s changed as of the M4 model. With the base MacBook Pro with...

6 days ago

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Image: Alex Parkin/ The Verge We started making this video with one question in mind: “What makes iPhone repair so difficult?” And immediately the answer was: a lot. I’ve never repaired a phone before, so I was particularly nervous that the first one I was opening was an iPhone. This wasn’t just because I didn’t want to destroy a phone with a mistake but also because I was somewhat familiar with Apple’s reputation with repairability. However, I wanted to test...

6 days ago

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Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Life’s busy enough without wasting time on calls that are trying to scam you or sell to you. Unfortunately, stats from Hiya show that 28 percent of the calls you get are going to be suspected spam or fraud. On an iPhone, you don’t have the option to have an AI assistant answer calls for you, as you can on Android — at least not yet. But there are ways to screen calls...

6 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Looking back at a very busy year. Read the full story at The Verge.

6 days ago

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Photo illustration: The Verge Our end-of-year special, featuring guest Nilay Patel.  Read the full story at The Verge.

6 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images To get Nosferatu’s nightmarish love triangle right, Robert Eggers looked to Wuthering Heights for inspiration. Though the Dark Universe might be dead, Robert Eggers has crafted something like its spiritual successor with a series of disturbing horror features. The Witch left you wondering how real its demons were, The Lighthouse’s tentacled sea creatures were always slithering somewhere just off-screen, and The Northman was a mythologically charged study of people’s ability to become...

6 days ago

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Photo By Joaquin Corchero/Europa Press via Getty Images Netflix’s push into live sports has snagged another major event. Today the streamer announced that it has acquired US streaming rights for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in both 2027 and 2031. FIFA is calling the deal “a landmark announcement for women’s football.” The 2027 edition of the tournament will take place in Brazil, while the following World Cup doesn’t yet have a host nation. The Netflix coverage in the US will...

6 days ago

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Illustration: The Verge Google is planning to add a new “AI Mode” to its search engine, according to a report from The Information. The company will reportedly display an option to switch to AI Mode from the top of the results page, allowing you to access an interface similar to its Gemini AI chatbot. The new AI Mode tab would live on the left side of the “All,” “Images,” “Videos,” and “Shopping” tabs, The Information reports. When you receive a...

6 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images In 2024, smart locks got better; in 2025, they’re going to be truly great. Read the full story at The Verge.

6 days ago

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Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Happy holidays! ‘Tis the season for trimming trees, hanging lights, baking cookies... and spending two weeks at home trying to figure out why you can’t get the lights to automatically come on at night, and which of those stupid bulbs is causing all the rest to not work. Truly the most wonderful time of the year. Every year on The Vergecast, we like to get into the holiday spirit by getting deep into the...

6 days ago

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Image: Getty A bipartisan group of senators is calling out the auto industry for its “hypocritical, profit-driven” opposition to national right-to-repair legislation, while also selling customer data to insurance companies and other third-party interests. In a letter sent to the CEOs of the top automakers, the trio of legislators — Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) — urge them to better protect customer privacy, while also dropping their opposition to state and national right-to-repair efforts....

6 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Bluesky now has a specific tab for mentions in your notifications as part of the app’s just-released 1.96 update. With the mentions tab, it’s much easier to see your replies or conversations you’ve been tagged in on the platform. Speaking of replies, update 1.96 lets you easily access settings that let you control how replies on posts appear to you. Replies can be linear, meaning they show up one post after another, or threaded,...

7 days ago

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The Verge A Google Street View image played in role in solving a missing person investigation in Spain, according to reports from the BBC and The New York Times. The image, which can still be seen on Street View, shows what appears to be a person loading a large object into the trunk of a car, as Gizmodo points out. Another image showed someone “transporting a large white bundle in a wheelbarrow,” the BBC reports. Spanish National Police: Part of...

7 days ago

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Apple’s newest iPad Pro, which features an M4 chip, is on sale starting at $899 right now. | Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge While the best iPad deals usually land during major sale events like Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day, many great iPad deals are attainable outside those times. The day-to-day discounts may come and go like changing winds, but there’s often something to be saved, particularly on the more affordable iPads. The most recent iPad Pro and...

7 days ago

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The best screens for screen time. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge The bad news: flagship phones cost a small fortune these days. The good news: we can help you pick the right one and get the most for your money. Read the full story at The Verge.

7 days ago

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Image: HBO The first season of Dune: Prophecy is about to wrap up — but there’s more on the way. Ahead of the finale on December 22nd, HBO has confirmed than the prequel series has been renewed for a second season. The show premiered in November, and takes place 10,000 years before the events of the Dune movies from Denis Villeneuve. It stars Emily Watson and Olivia Williams as two Harkonnen sisters who form the galaxy-defining sect known as the...

7 days ago

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Illustration: The Verge Google Keep is being upgraded to a system app on Android 16 devices, joining the ranks of other Android apps that provide essential services like calling and messaging, reports Android Police. Google’s free note-taking app appears as a system app on the latest Android 16 beta, Android 16 Developer Preview 2. Anyone upgrading to this OS version will no longer be able to uninstall the app unless they have root access. Google integrated Keep with its Tasks...

7 days ago

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The Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition is the first hardware from the open-source smart home platform that’s designed for voice control. | Image: Nabu Casa There’s a new voice assistant in town, and this one can work locally in your home without phoning home to its corporate overloads. This week, the popular hobbyist smart home platform Home Assistant officially launched its first voice assistant hardware — Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition. Built for the open-source smart home platform, Voice PE...

7 days ago

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Thousands of delivery drivers who work for Amazon third-party contractors are now on strike, The New York Times reports. The workers are striking after “Amazon’s repeated refusal to follow the law and bargain with the thousands of Amazon workers who organized with the Teamsters,” according to a Teamsters press release. Workers are picketing at Amazon warehouses from Atlanta, New York City, San Francisco, Southern California, and Skokie, Ill., with other Amazon Teamsters...

7 days ago

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Image: The Verge In what seems to be a battle between Threads and Bluesky for the hearts and minds of ex-Twitterers, Threads has been adding some interesting new features. The latest is the ability to share photos and videos without including the original post — in other words, without quote posting. (There’s a similar feature in X for videos.) There has been some initial pushback on it. A photographer on Threads complained that “there will be a small watermark-like credit...

7 days ago

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Illustration: The Verge Google has introduced a new AI “reasoning” model capable of answering complex questions while also providing a rundown of its “thoughts,” as reported earlier by TechCrunch. The model, called Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking, is still experimental and will likely compete with OpenAI’s o1 reasoning model. In a post on X, Google DeepMind chief scientist Jeff Dean says the model is “trained to use thoughts to strengthen its reasoning,” and also benefits from the speed that comes along...

7 days ago

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8BitDo’s new Mini Wired Xbox controller is smaller and lighter than its Ultimate C gamepad. | Image: 8BitDo 8BitDo has announced an alternate version of its Ultimate C wired Xbox controller that’s 20 percent smaller and 10 percent lighter while still featuring full-sized triggers, joysticks, and buttons. Although the new 8BitDo Ultimate Mini is designed for kids and teens, it will also appeal to any gamer with smaller hands who struggles with the size and weight of standard controllers. At...

7 days ago

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Image: Paramount Variety is reporting that Paramount Pictures is planning to extend the Sonic The Hedgehog trilogy by yet another movie. Sonic The Hedgehog 4 has been greenlit with a target release window of spring 2027. The news comes mere hours before Sonic The Hedgehog 3 releases in theaters on Friday December 19th. The movie once again stars Ben Schwartz as Sonic, Colleen O’Shaughnessey and Idris Elba as his friends Tails and Knuckles, with Jim Carey returning as their nemesis...

7 days ago

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Image: Evan Blass (X) “The future of gaming handhelds is coming to CES ‘25 and you have a front row seat!” the email in my inbox exclaims. Let me translate: it looks like Lenovo just tacitly confirmed it will announce its first SteamOS handheld in Las Vegas on or before January 7th, 2025. We’re expecting it to be the Steam button equipped Legion Go S that leaker Evan Blass revealed last week. Why do I say that? The January 7th...

7 days ago