Technology news

Image: The Verge A physical education teacher and former athletic director of a Baltimore County high school has been arrested and charged with using an AI voice cloning service to frame the school’s principal.
The Baltimore Banner reports that Baltimore County police believe a recording whiich circulated through social media in January with purported audio of Pikesville High School principal Eric Eiswert making racist and antisemitic comments was fake. Experts told The Baltimore Banner an

Image: The Verge A former athletic director of a Baltimore high school has been arrested and charged with using an AI voice cloning service to frame the school’s principal.
The Baltimore Banner reports that Baltimore police believe a purported recording of Pikesville High School principal Eric Eiswert making racist and antisemitic comments was faked. Experts told The Baltimore Banner and Baltimore police that the recording, which circulated through social media in January and briefly resul

Illustration: The Verge The reminders you’ve jotted down in Google Keep will soon show up in Tasks. Google says the long-requested integration is coming over the next year, allowing you to see, edit, and complete your Keep reminders across Tasks, Calendar, and Assistant.
The change will make Tasks the central hub for all to-dos and reminders, hopefully making them far easier to manage. It’s something my colleague David Pierce suggested when talking about Google’s upgraded Keep

Image: The Verge Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
This is the second quarter in a row that Microsoft is including its additional revenue from its Activision Blizzard acquisition that’s pushed gaming to be Microsoft’s third largest business, above Windows.
Investors are also look

Apple TV+ Before AI meant you could impersonate someone’s voice with just a snippet of audio, con artists needed actual skill to impersonate famous figures. Take Hargobind Tahilramani, who allegedly impersonated such powerful Hollywood women as Amy Pascal, Kathleen Kennedy, and Wendi Deng Murdoch. Now, it’s a documentary from Tiger King’s Chris Smith.
The scam artist dubbed “the Con Queen of Hollywood” sent victims to Indonesia, then extracted cash for what seemed l

Illustration: Beatrice Sala The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, is rolling out a program that warns organizations about potential ransomware attacks, CyberScoop reports. The program is currently running as a pilot and will be fully operational by the end of 2024. About 7,000 organizations have signed up for the pilot.
So far, CISA has issued 2,049 warnings since the pilot was launched in January 2023. “The warning pilot is fo

The Q6 isn’t known for top-tier gaming specs and ultra-deep black levels, but it offers a lot of TV for just $450. | Image: TCL Here at The Verge, we spend a lot of time reporting on pristine, high-end TV sets — including the latest panels from Sony, LG, and Samsung. That said, not everyone is in the market for a picture-perfect OLED panel or one purpose-built to reduce glare. Thankfully, TCL’s 65-inch Q6 QLED is a more economical option, one you can grab at Amazon and Best Buy

The grind never stops for rapper I.M, who is currently preparing for a summer tour across Europe, the U.S., and Asia by beating the hell out of his abs. "[When working out] I usually separate my body into chest, back, shoulder, arm, [and] legs," he says over a Zoom call from Seoul. "But I do abs every day."As a member of the K-pop group Monsta X, I.M paired this physical brawn with lyrical machismo. But as a solo artist, I.M's music is more like his mind: introspective with a melancholic yearnin

My experience with Another Crab's Treasure can be summed up with the following observation: after 20 hours adventuring the ocean floor, the game crashed during the final cutscene. A refreshing take on the soulslike genre, Another Crab's Treasure is the latest game from Seattle-based developer Aggro Crab, makers of other indie hits Going Under and Subway Midnight. And while the game markets itself heavily as an attempt to be the cute soulslike, at its core it's an action-platformer with some very

Photo by Joe Scarnici / Getty Images Blizzard has announced it will not hold BlizzCon, the publisher’s annual fan convention, this year. “After careful consideration over the last year, we at Blizzard have made the decision not to hold BlizzCon in 2024,” Blizzard wrote on its website.Instead of BlizzCon, Blizzard wrote that it would be holding other, smaller events throughout the year and mentioned participating in other trade shows, such as Gamescom. Additionally, 2024 marks t

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The State Department will soon impose visa restrictions on people who it says have been involved in the development of spyware. In a press release issued on Monday, the department said it is taking steps to bar 13 people “who have been involved in the development and sale of commercial spyware or who are immediate family members of those involved” from entering the United States.
“These individuals have facilitated or derived financial be

Image: Facepunch Studios The popular physics sandbox game Garry’s Mod is pulling all of its Nintendo-related add-ons following copyright takedown requests from the gaming giant. On Wednesday, the developers of Garry’s Mod made a post on Steam saying users “may have noticed that certain Nintendo related workshop items have recently been taken down,” adding that “this is not a mistake,” as the takedowns came from Nintendo.
“Honestly, this is fair enough. T

Cyber attackers battered Poland after the country’s change of government late last year. DDoS attacks at the end of 2023 were nearly quadruple the country’s average, according to cybersecurity firm NetScout’s observations. The surge began when the Law and Justice party (PiS) lost its majority in last year’s Polish general election. PiS had ruled the country since 2015. It was replaced by a coalition government, which reaffirmed support for Ukraine’s defence ag

Megatron. | Image: Robosen Three years later, Hasbro’s self-transforming, dancing, driving, talking, and attacking Optimus Prime finally has a villain to fight. Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons, is about to arrive. For $1,200 — $899 through May 25th — its robot partner Robosen has created what could be the best auto-converting Transformer yet.Just to make sure you’re getting it: this bot automatically transforms itself into a badass remote-control tank with a gigan

Megatron. | Image: Robosen Three years later, Hasbro’s self-transforming, dancing, driving, talking, and attacking Optimus Prime finally has a villain to fight. Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons, is about to arrive. For $1,200 — $899 through May 25th — its robot partner Robosen has created what could be the best auto-converting Transformer yet.Just to make sure you’re getting it: this bot automatically transforms itself into a badass remote-control tank with a gigan

Finally, long-overdue feature comes to Google Meet.On Wednesday, Google announced a new update for its video conferencing and calling platform Google Meet, which lets users switch devices while connected to a call without dropping the stream. Essentially, this allows users to seamlessly swap between their desktop and mobile devices without other users in the Google Meet knowing about it.With this update, Google Meet brings a feature to its platform that at least one competitor, Zoom, has had for

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google is working on a fix to block crafty individuals from gaining access to the emails of accounts logged in to some Android TV units. The Android TV operating system, which is preloaded on many smart TVs on the market, could allow people with physical access to get into Gmail and other services associated with the owner’s account, as reported by 404 Media.
Since Android TV is just Android under the hood, it treats the owner’s Google account lo

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Chicago and Mobile, Alabama, are cutting ties with ShotSpotter, the controversial gunshot detection company — but the sensors that notify police about shootings probably aren’t going anywhere, according to a new report from Wired and South Side Weekly.Internal ShotSpotter emails reviewed by Wired and South Side Weekly reveal that the company hasn’t removed its sensors from other cities that have ended their contracts, including San Diego,

UPDATE: Apr. 25, 2024, 2:17 p.m. EDT Reddit is back up and fully operational. The company wrote that the "incident has been resolved" shortly before 2 p.m. ET.
Reddit was down for lots of users on Thursday, April 25. The site confirmed it was experiencing a back end issue. The company wrote Thursday afternoon: "An issue with a Reddit backend has impacted many users on our site. We are looking into the cause." So if you're getting something like a 502 bad gateway error message, that's the reason

Despite signing the TikTok "ban" bill, President Joe Biden plans to continue to use the platform to campaign for re-election reports the Financial Times.Biden signed the bill into law yesterday (April 14) as part of a foreign aid package sending 95 billion dollars to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. The bill requires TikTok's China-based parent company ByteDance to divest itself from the app within the next year. If the company fails to do so TikTok will be banned in the U.S. The deadline Jan. 19 fa

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit isn’t working for most users right now. The site isn’t loading and displays an error message reading, “Oops, something went wrong, please try again later.”
Reddit is aware of the issue and says the site will be back “shortly.” At 12:52PM ET, the platform made an update on its status page, saying, “An issue with a Reddit backend has impacted many users on our site.” As of 1:14PM ET, the site said it has &ldquo

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit stopped working for most users this afternoon. For nearly an hour, the site didn’t load and displayed an error message reading, “Oops, something went wrong, please try again later.”
At 12:52PM ET, the platform made an update on its status page, saying, “An issue with a Reddit backend has impacted many users on our site.” The site later said it had “identified the issue” and is “remediating it.” The outa

Illustration: The Verge Just like Instagram, Threads will now automatically filter out potentially offensive words, phrases, or emoji by default. In a post on Thursday, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced that the new Hidden Words feature will apply to both your “Following” and “For You” feeds, along with search results, profiles, and replies to your posts.If you want to cast a wider net over the content Threads filters out, you can add specific words, phrases, or emoji

Illustration: The Verge Just like Instagram, Threads will now automatically filter out potentially offensive words, phrases, or emoji by default. In a post on Thursday, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced that the new Hidden Words feature will apply to both your “Following” and “For You” feeds, along with search results, profiles, and replies to your posts.If you want to cast a wider net over the content Threads filters out, you can add specific words, phrases, or emoji

Been watching Fallout on Prime Video? It turns out there's a bunch of Fallout video games you can play right now if you like that show — and the latest one just got a juicy re-release of sorts.As was announced in a blog post earlier this month, 2015's Fallout 4 just got a shiny new coat of paint. Officially set to launch on April 25 (which you may have noticed is today), Fallout 4 officially has PS5 and Xbox Series ports that promise a plethora of improvements to the nine-year-old game. He

Save $50: Shop the Fitbit Versa 4, the brand's latest smartwatch, and get 25% off. Fitbit Versa 4 $149.95 at Amazon $199.95 Save $50.00Get Deal
The Fitbit Versa 4 smartwatch is one of the best deals on Amazon this week. This latest iteration in the Versa series is $50 off if you're looking for an upgrade to your fitness tech. We previously reviewed the Fitbit Versa 3, which does a great job of tracking data but came at a higher price point. Our friends at PC Mag (owned by Mashable's parent compa

SAVE 46%: As of April 25, get the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro (Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD) for $944.99. That's a savings of $805.Opens in a new windowCredit: AmazonSamsung Galaxy Book3 Pro (Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD)$944.99 at Amazon $1,749.99 Save $805.00Get DealLooking to refresh your tech since you've done your spring cleaning? There are plenty of great laptop deals just about every day, but one of the latest discounts cuts one of Samsung's best computers down even further from the

For Fossil, the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge When Fossil announced it was leaving the Android smartwatch space, I wasn’t surprised. The signs had been there for a while. What I didn’t expect was how sad it made me feel. Fossil’s smartwatches had never been the best. Their battery life was meh, health tracking could be iffy, and before Wear OS 3, the company was often let down by Google’s neglect. But now that Fossil h

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images The Federal Communications Commission voted 3–2 to restore net neutrality rules, reversing a repeal ushered through during the Trump administration.
Net neutrality is the idea that internet service providers (ISPs) should not be able to discriminate against different kinds of content by blocking or throttling connection speeds or offering paid prioritization for different internet traffic. The FCC has sought to accomplish this by reclass

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Image: Wacom Wacom has thrown a tablet-shaped curveball at digital creatives waiting on Apple’s highly anticipated OLED iPads. The company introduced the Wacom Movink 13 on Wednesday, its own OLED-based offering that targets creatives in need of a highly portable display drawing tablet.
Available now for $750 via the Wacom web store, the Movink features a full HD 13.3-inch Samsung OLED display that gives it several advantages over comparably midrange LED-based tablets. The most notable is

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