Technology news

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Getty Images The Department of Justice’s massive antitrust case against Apple will unfold before a new judge. A court filing on Wednesday reveals that Judge Michael E. Farbiarz has determined his “recusal is necessary” under the code of conduct for US Judges.
The filing says Farbiarz’s “disqualification is mandatory and cannot be remitted by the parties.” Judge Julien Xavier Neals, whom President Joe Biden n

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook rolled out the ability for Messenger users to share 4K photos back in 2017. Now, Meta has announced that users can share HD photos in the app. Confused? We were, too, so we asked about it. The short answer is that, here, HD means 4K, and now 4K photos are... more 4K?
Facebook Messenger comms team representative Liz Sweeney clarified in an email to The Verge that 4K (specifically, 4,096 x 4,096 pixels per inch) shared photos were more compressed be

Illustration: The Verge Another Apple Store is trying to unionize. This time, it’s a group of 104 employees in Short Hills, New Jersey, who filed a petition to unionize with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Tuesday, as reported earlier by Bloomberg.
If the unionization efforts are successful, the Apple Store employees would join the Communications Workers of America — the union that represents other Apple Store employees, along with employees of AT&T, Verizon, Frontie

What? It’s just a sandworm. | Image: Saturday Night Live Dune: Part Two is a sprawling sci-fi epic that The Verge’s Charles Pulliam-Moore called “categorically breathtaking” in his March review. And for AMC moviegoers, the film came with an equally epic exclusive popcorn bucket — one that, apparently, the top brass at AMC Theatres wishes it had never made.
That’s because it kind of looks like a butthole. And the internet noticed. Elizabeth Frank, AMC’s c

You can get a lower-end TU690T for free when you preorder Samsung’s glare-free QD-OLED S95D. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Who doesn’t want a free TV? If you were eyeing Samsung’s new anti-glare OLED or one of the many models it announced back at CES, Samsung and Amazon are both still offering a free 65-inch TV when you preorder select 2024 models. You’ll have to act quickly, though, as the ongoing buy one, get one promo ends tomorrow, April 11th.
Granted, the free T

It’s looking like the troubled Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Remake has lost one of its most important assets: Yuri Lowenthal, the voice actor who played the prince, famously narrated the entirety of the original 2003 game, and is currently renowned for playing Peter Parker’s Spider-Man in the excellent Insomniac games.Yesterday, Tom Henderson, currently one of the most trusted voices in gaming leaks, reported that you should “forget everything you know” about the

The Pixel 8’s Magic Editor is exclusive no more. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Google is making its AI photo editing features available to a lot more people. Starting May 15th, just about all Google Photos users will be able to access features previously limited to Pixel owners and Google One subscribers — a nifty upgrade if you were tired of Photos urging you to “upgrade” to get access to more editing tools (it’s me).Magic Editor is Google’s generative

The Aqara Motion and Light Sensor P2 is the company’s first motion sensor that doesn’t require a Zigbee hub. Aqara’s Thread-based Motion and Light Sensor P2 ($33.99) has been on my smart home wish list since it was announced way back in 2022 — and now, it’s finally here. My home runs on motion sensors, and I’ve been using Aqara’s Zigbee-based ones for years. They’re among my favorites due to their low price, small size, simplicity, and rock-solid r

Image: Prime Video In making successful video game adaptations, it feels more important to strike the right tone rather than follow the source material to the letter. “Tone” in Fallout is Walton Goggins’ whiskey-soaked cowboy drawl ripped straight from the age of Gary Cooper and John Wayne extolling the virtues of bucolic Vault-Tec living with a sign that says “Test Subjects” just a touch off-screen.
In other words: perfection. Image: Amazon Studios
Fallout strikes

Art from the Monopoly mobile game produced by Marmalade Game Studio. | Image: Marmalade Game Studio / Hasbro Monopoly — a board game about forcing people into bankruptcy by buying up as much real estate as possible — does not seem like something that would make for an entertaining cinematic escape from reality, but Lionsgate plans to test that theory.
Variety reports that a Monopoly movie is in the works at Lionsgate that will be produced by Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap — th

Cataclismo. | Image: Digital Sun There’s a new video game showcase on the block. The Triple-i initiative — a play on the term AAA, referring to blockbuster games — is a Nintendo Direct-style event focused entirely on indie releases from studios like Mega Crit, Red Hook Studios, and Evil Empire. “We felt a need for a showcase that highlights wildly different indie games but that have one thing in common; they resonate with millions of players around the world,” Evil

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft is previewing a new Xbox Cloud Gaming interface today that includes the social features and UI you’d normally find in the Xbox dashboard. The new interface includes access to a web version of Xbox party chat, so you can use a browser to join a call with friends instead of the dedicated Xbox desktop and mobile apps.
The updated web interface also includes the ability to find and manage Xbox friends, send messages, view user profiles and achievements, and ev

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Amazon will soon stop paying developers to create skills for Alexa. In a notice spotted by Bloomberg, Amazon told developers it’s ending monthly payouts after June 30th, 2024.
Amazon started paying developers of popular Alexa skills in 2017. The company both offered a $100 monthly credit to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and paid developers based on how popular their skills were. While many developers didn’t make any money from their skills, a

Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge In a cosmic coincidence, just days after I stayed up too late playing Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, a video of that very game being played on an apparent Apple Watch Ultra came across my screen. I’m now fully convinced that emulators on an Apple Watch would be a great way to game.
Sadly, there are no Apple Watch emulators on the App Store that I’m aware of — yet, at least. R3V3RB_7, the Redditor who posted the video, says it actually shows a $35

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The House will soon vote on the reauthorization of a controversial surveillance program ahead of its expiration in nine days. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is set to expire on April 19th, lets US intelligence agencies spy on foreign communications without a warrant — sometimes ensnaring US citizens as well.
Previous negotiations over the FISA reauthorization grew so heated that in February, House Speaker Mike Johnson

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The House has blocked a vote on the reauthorization of a controversial surveillance program that is set to expire in nine days. Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which will sunset on April 19th, lets US intelligence agencies spy on foreign communications without a warrant — sometimes ensnaring US citizens as well.
Previous negotiations over the FISA reauthorization grew so heated that in February, House Speaker Mike Johnson wi

An early render of the SuiPlay0X1. | Image: Mysten Labs Last month, I told you how a new startup is trying to build an Android of PC gaming by picking up where the Steam Deck left off. It’s an intriguing idea from a company with an awful lot to prove.Today, we’re getting the first announcement of the first Playtron-powered handheld, the SuiPlay0X1... but it’s probably not the proof we need? I laughed when I saw GamingOnLinux’s headline: “The first handheld to use Pl

Illustration: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos: Getty Images A new bill would compel tech companies to disclose any copyrighted materials that are used to train their AI models.
The Generative AI Copyright Disclosure bill from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) would require anyone making a training dataset for AI to submit reports on its contents to the Copyrights Register. The reports should include a detailed summary of the copyrighted material in the dataset and the URL for the dataset if it’s

The G502 has stellar ergonomics, sensitivity, and customizability for a reasonable price. | Image: Logitech I’ve tried many gaming mice over the years, but I always seem to come back to Logitech’s G502 Hero. I started with the wired version many moons ago, and it’s just as good as the wireless model if you don’t mind it staying tethered to your PC. It has the advantage of having zero latency (although the wireless model is close) and it’s the more economical choice,

Image: Ford Ford unveiled the 2024 Mustang Mach-E, with more range, faster charging, and quicker acceleration than past models.Ford is the No. 2 seller of EVs in the US but still trails far behind Tesla in terms of total number of sales. The Elon Musk-run company has seen its market share in the US slip quarter over quarter but still commands over 50 percent of the EV market. As such, Ford is tweaking its flagship EV in the hopes of improving its market position.The 2024 Mach-E will now travel a

Microsoft’s Surface Pro X. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Microsoft’s annual developer conference, Microsoft Build, will focus heavily on Windows on Arm and new Windows AI features this year. The Verge revealed earlier this week that a special Surface and AI event a day before Microsoft Build will include a focus on beating Apple’s M3-powered MacBook Air with new Arm-powered Surface devices and a big new Windows AI feature. Now, Microsoft is all but confirming th

The TEA expects to save between $15 and $20 million per year by using its new “automated scoring engine.” | Image: The Verge Students in Texas taking their state-mandated exams this week are being used as guinea pigs for a new artificial intelligence-powered scoring system set to replace a majority of human graders in the region.
The Texas Tribune reports an “automated scoring engine” that utilizes natural language processing — the technology that enables chatbots l

A Divi Divi tree, which always points southwest because of the island’s trade winds. | Image: Hans W. Hannau / Carol Burns and Jane Suter Collection Aruba is backing up its history on the Internet Archive, a first for the digital preservation site. The Archive announced on April 8th that it was opening the portal to Coleccion Aruba, giving worldwide access to more than 100,000 of Aruba’s historical documents. The works include materials that Aruba began collecting under its national

With the geopolitical landscape turning more unstable by the day, EU relations with China are also becoming increasingly turbulent. At the core of the rising tensions lies the quest for tech supremacy as well as economic and national security. “In a world powered by technology, those who lead are those who control the most critical technologies, and their supply chains,” EUcompetition chief Margrethe Vestager said during a speech on Tuesday. With cleantech one of the critical techno

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta promises the next generation of its custom AI chips will be more powerful and able to train its ranking models much faster.The Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) is designed to work best with Meta’s ranking and recommendation models. The chips can help make training more efficient and inference — aka the actual reasoning task — easier.The company said in a blog post that MTIA is a big piece of its long-term plan to build

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta promises the next generation of its custom AI chips will be more powerful and able to train its ranking models much faster.The Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) is designed to work best with Meta’s ranking and recommendation models. The chips can help make training more efficient and inference — aka the actual reasoning task — easier.The company said in a blog post that MTIA is a big piece of its long-term plan to build

Image: Bulgari The Italian luxury brand Bulgari has broken the record for the world’s thinnest mechanical watch yet again. Its new Bulgari Octo Finissimo Ultra COSC watch measures just 1.7mm thick — about the same thickness as your typical strand of spaghetti, as reported earlier by Dezeen.
Bulgari has long held the record for the world’s thinnest watch, but it had to go even thinner following the 2022 release of Richard Mille’s 1.75mm RM UP-01 Ferrari watch. The result i

Illustration: The Verge Sonos will release a substantial update to its mobile app for both Android and iOS on May 7th, The Verge has learned. Based on screenshots provided by people familiar with the company’s plans, the app is receiving a fresh coat of paint. Sonos is also working to make product setup easier and strengthen connectivity between its many speakers. As always, the specific release date is subject to change if the company encounters any last-minute issues.
The revamped app wi

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Finding files on your Mac drive can get tricky — especially when you’re not sure exactly what it is you’re looking for. Apple being Apple, file management “just works” most of the time, but that’s not always the case if you need to hunt down something that’s buried deep.
There are a couple of ways to look for files on macOS: a quick and simple way and a more comprehensive and advanced way. If neither of those work