Technology news

There’s a custom case for this and everything. | Image: Samsung Samsung’s advertising for its Galaxy Z Flip series typically revolves around Gen Z photo shoots and showing off specific features like interpreter mode. But today the company has taken quite a turn by highlighting the foldable phone’s use as... a policing tool.In a post on Samsung’s newsroom titled “Samsung Technology Is Helping Police Authorities Protect the Public’s Safety,” we learn that

Image: Activision Activision is sharing an open-source dataset for Call of Duty: Warzone’s Caldera map for researchers to study and to help support AI model training. “This first-of-its-kind data set release for Call of Duty, now available in OpenUSD, contains the near-complete geometry of Caldera as well as a collection of randomly selected anonymized time samples showing how players move around the map,” Activision writes in a blog post.It’s a huge dataset. According to

Image: Mojang Studios Two of the bestselling games of all time are joining forces for some very strange downloadable content in Minecraft. It involves visiting the “Tetris universe” inside of the game... which has taught me that there is something called the Tetris universe. Notably, the new Minecraft DLC is a form of dungeon crawler that also involves playing Tetris to find lost Tetriminos, those falling blocks that come in an assortment of iconic shapes. (This also isn’t the

The Verge Microsoft just posted the fourth and final quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $64.7 billion in revenue and a net income of $22 billion during Q4. Revenue is up 15 percent, and net income has increased by 10 percent.
Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud revenues, which includes the company’s server products and cloud services, was $28.5 billion overall and up 19 percent year over year. Revenues from this part of Microsoft’s business now make

Brazil's bronze-winning women's gymnastics team made history on Tuesday, winning the nation's first-ever medal in the sport at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Fans at home and online were, of course, joyous. But the internet wasn't just obsessed with the impressive athletic feat of an underdog team. Many were also singing the praises of a now-viral scene: The badass look of a bandaged and bruised Flávia Saraiva hitting the bars and taking home her long-overdue medal. SEE ALSO:Simone Biles' floor

Led by the G.O.A.T. Simone Biles, Team USA's women's gymnastics team secured the gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Tuesday. The U.S. dominated the competition, with no nation challenging their winning score. It was a bit of redemption for the U.S., who came away with a relatively disappointing silver in the last games in Tokyo. This time it was all gold, all the way — the result was never really in doubt, especially with Russia barred from the games due to the ongoing war in Ukraine

The 2024 Paris Olympics saw the gymnastics arena light up with the thrilling women's gymnastics team final. Team USA, led by the phenomenal Simone Biles, aimed for gold—her floor routine was, without a doubt, a historic moment for Team USA and the Olympics.SEE ALSO:How women’s gymnastics is scored at the Olympics, and how Simone Biles pushes those boundaries
NBC assembled an amazing team led by seasoned play-by-play announcer Terry Gannon. Gymnasts Samantha Peszek and Tim Dagget

Google’s partnership with GenAI startup Anthropic is raising eyebrows in the UK as the trend of big tech giants backing young AI companies continues. The Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Tuesday that it’s collecting information on whether the partnership qualifies as a merger and negatively impacts UK competition. In October, Google-parent company Alphabet reportedly committed $2bn to the San-Francisco based startup, which has developed ChatGPT rival Claude. This fol

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon laptops had the summer all to themselves, but that’s coming to an end. AMD is now shipping its Ryzen AI chips — and Intel has just announced it’ll “launch” its next generation of Core Ultra laptop chips, codename Lunar Lake, on a September 3rd livestream. It sounds like they won’t be available quite that soon, but the full reveal should be just five weeks away.As we’ve discussed, Lun

Image: Android Headlines The Pixel Watch 3 looks like it will have a larger screen than the Watch 2, thanks to thinner bezels. Leaked marketing materials shared by Android Headlines suggest that the 41mm Pixel Watch 3 will offer 10 percent more screen than the Watch 2 in the same amount of space.The Pixel Watch 3 could also have a brighter display — up to 2,000 nits, double the peak brightness of the Pixel 2 — as well as 20 percent faster charging. The spec sheet, if legitimate, conf

Image: Sega For almost 20 years, Nintendo and Sega have released Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games to coincide with the international sporting event. But now, according to a report in Eurogamer, that tradition is at an end. In 2020, the IOC made the decision to not renew the game’s licensing deal, ending a run of games that’s covered most Summer and Winter Olympic games since 2007.“Basically the IOC wanted to bring [the licensing] back to themselves internally and look at

USA women's rugby won the bronze medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics — the first-ever podium for the U.S. in rugby — in what might be the most dramatic fashion imaginable. The team won on a wild, last-second, full-field run to clinch the victory.It's hard to overstate how freaking cool the play was. I'm no rugby expert but it was basically the sport's version of a Hail Mary completion to win the game in football. Well, that combined with a powerful run right up the gut. The U.S.'s Spiff

Simone Biles has stunned onlookers once again, as Team USA grabs the gold in the final round of the 2024 Paris Olympics gymnastic team competition. It's a stunning comeback moment for the G.O.A.T.SEE ALSO:How women’s gymnastics is scored at the Olympics, and how Simone Biles pushes those boundaries
The floor event is routinely Team USA's shining moment in world competition — current team member Sunisa Lee won the all-around at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — with Biles' routine featu

Apple’s second-gen earbuds are down to $69.99, which is a price we’ve seen only a handful of times. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Amazon Prime Day brought discounts on a whole swath of Apple products, from iPads and AirTags to the latest 15-inch MacBook Air. We also saw deals across Apple’s entire earbuds lineup — including a terrific deal on the second-gen AirPods, which quickly sold out at Amazon. Luckily, if you missed it the first time around, Apple&rs

Image: OpenAI OpenAI’s new advanced voice mode for ChatGPT is starting to roll out to a small number of people who subscribe to ChatGPT Plus. The feature, which OpenAI showed off at its GPT-4o launch event in May, was criticized for sounding similar to Scarlett Johansson and was later delayed for safety reasons.
At OpenAI’s event, the new voice mode appeared to be noticeably more capable than ChatGPT’s current voice mode. Onstage, OpenAI employees were able to interrupt and ask

Drew Afualo is ready to get vulnerable.That’s one of the reasons the influencer and the internet's "Crusader for Women" decided to write a book. She already has a podcast, The Comment Section with Drew Afualo, and a platform on TikTok with more than 8 million followers. But something about the space on a page and the necessity of self-evaluation drew her to writing a memoir."I was pretty open and vulnerable considering how I typically am publicly," Afualo tells Mashable ahead of its releas

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images The Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (also known as COPPA 2.0), the first major internet bills meant to protect children to reach that milestone in two decades. A legislative vehicle that included both KOSA and COPPA 2.0 passed 91-3.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called it “a momentous day” in a speech ahead of the vote, saying that “the Sen

SAVE $10: Spend $50 or more on select back-to-school items at Amazon and automatically save $10. Opens in a new windowCredit: AmazonSpend $50 and save $10Get DealReady or not, it's back-to-school time. You might be lucky and have your first classes on the calendar for September, but for some kids, the school year will start in just a few weeks. If you're shopping for your kids' supplies to head back to school or stocking up on college essentials, you'll want to listen up to this deal.As of July

The LimeBike (left) and the LimeGlider (right). | Image: Lime Lime is testing two new e-bikes designed to make bike-sharing accessible to a wider range of riders. Alongside throttles that mean you don’t have to pedal to move, the LimeBike and the LimeGlider both offer 20-inch wheels with fat tires for better traction, step-through frames to make getting on and off easier, and lower centers of gravity for more stability.The LimeBike is meant to “complement” the pedal-assist Gen4

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Image: The Verge Texas announced a massive settlement with Meta over the use of facial recognition on Facebook, resolving a lawsuit filed in 2022 claiming that tag suggestions on photos uploaded to Facebook violated the state’s Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act (CUBI) and Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Meta has agreed to pay $1.4 billion over five years to settle the suit, State Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office said today.
It’s the largest settlement ever resulting

Previewing a video game prior to its release is a bit like dipping your fingers in cake batter. You can get a fair idea of the flavour, the ingredients, and what it's aiming to be, but any impressions come with the caveat that it still hasn't been baked.Star Wars Outlaws is like a cake mix in a box. There's nothing inherently wrong with this. The beauty of a box mix is that it's specifically designed to deliver enjoyable, commercially safe results without demanding much effort on your part. Howe

SAVE $59: As of July 30, grab a pair of Apple AirPods (2nd generation), on sale for just $70 at Amazon. That's a 46% discount on their list price of $129 and very close to the all-time low price. Best Buy is matching the deal.Opens in a new windowCredit: AmazonApple AirPods (2nd Generation)$69.99 at Amazon $129.00 Save $59.01Get DealEarbuds are great. You get wireless audio without the bulk of large headphones. That being said, it's difficult to find good ones at an acceptable price. Apple AirPo

What's the Olympics without a little celebrity? The 2024 Paris Olympics has seen all the stars come out to support Team USA, but no one's been a bigger fan than Snoop Dogg and Flavor Flav. The iconic rappers have made their presence known around the City of Lights, becoming two of the biggest hype men for our Olympians than anyone in attendance. They're loving it, social media has been loving it, and NBC definitely loves it, nabbing over 34 million viewers on the first day of Olympics coverage a

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images A bipartisan pair of House lawmakers are proposing a bill to carve out Section 230 protection for tech companies that fail to remove intimate AI deepfakes from their platforms.Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) and Ashley Hinson (R-IA) unveiled the Intimate Privacy Protection Act, Politico first reported, “to combat cyberstalking, intimate privacy violations, and digital forgeries,” as the bill says. The bill amends Section 230 of the Communi

Here we go, folks! Team USA's awe-inspiring women's gymnastics team is gearing up for the podium at the 2024 Paris Olympics, with the team finals kicking off today at 12:15 p.m. ET. And all eyes are on Simone Biles as she and her teammates Sunisa Lee, Hezly Rivera, Jade Carey, and Jordan Chiles go for gold. Gymnasts will then compete for individual medals later in the week — and every point counts. SEE ALSO:When is Simone Biles competing at the Olympics today?
That's because artistic gymna

Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images Marvel’s big plan to pull the MCU out of its multiversal tailspin became very clear this past weekend during San Diego Comic-Con as the studio announced that the Russo brothers are coming back to direct the next two Avengers films. While Avengers: The Kang Dynasty is out, Avengers: Doomsday is in, with Robert Downey Jr. signed on to play the central role. And it seems like Marvel is dropping a pretty penny to make this all happen.
Variety reports th

Save $449: Through December 10, new Verizon mobile and home internet customers (on select plans) and current Verizon customers who upgrade to select mobile Unlimited plans can get a free year of NFL Sunday Ticket (up to a $449 value).Opens in a new windowCredit: Verizon / NFL / YouTubeNFL Sunday Ticket at Verizon Free with select mobile or home internet plansGet DealWatching every NFL game live is an Olympic sport in itself — unless you have NFL Sunday Ticket, that is. Memorizing whic

AI models scraping copyrighted work off the internet is a very real problem. Some researchers may have found a solution.Per MIT Technology Review, some folks at Imperial College London have released research pertaining to "copyright traps," a method they've devised that could help creators figure out if AI has stolen their work. The code for these traps, which is available on GitHub, can hide bits of hidden text throughout copyrighted works that would, theoretically, later show up as smoking gun

SAVE 20%: The Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 4 portable Bluetooth speaker is on sale at Amazon for just $79.99, down from the usual price of $99.99. That's a savings of $20 which also matches its discounted price during Prime Day.Opens in a new windowCredit: Ultimate EarsUltimate Ears Wonderboom 4 portable Bluetooth speaker$79.99 at Amazon $99.99 Save $20.00Get DealSummer is a busy time for all of us. Whether you're trying to keep the kids entertained over summer break or jetting off on a European hol

It’s the new-age Tamagotchi, only it talks back. | Image: Friend A few minutes before Avi Schiffmann and I get on Google Meet to talk about the new product he’s building, an AI companion called “Friend,” he sends me a screenshot of a message he just received. It’s from “Emily,” and it wishes him luck with our chat. “Good luck with the interview,” Emily writes, “I know you’ll do great. I’m here if you need me after.”
Em

Apple Intelligence is here — well, kind of. You can play around with the new suite of AI features and test them. However, it's not officially out to the public just yet.You won't be able to test all of the Apple Intelligence features the Cupertino-based tech giant introduced at WWDC 2024, but you'll get a taste of your iPhone's AI smarts via the iOS 18.1 developer beta that dropped on Monday. You may be wondering, "Which Apple Intelligence features, exactly, will I get the pleasure of expe

SAVE $11.02: As of July 30, get the Thermacell Mosquito Rechargeable Repeller for $28.97 at Amazon. That's a discount of 28%. Opens in a new windowCredit: AmazonThermacell Mosquito Rechargeable Repeller$28.97 at Amazon $39.99 Save $11.02Get DealThe weather's warm, the sun is shining, and the mosquitos are out in full force. Sure, you can slather yourself in mosquito repellent or light a candle. But why do that when you could buy a device that helps repel the pests in the first place? Stop lettin

Don’t mistake Dasung’s portable color E Ink monitor for a tablet, it’s completely dependent on another device. | Image: Dasung It may look like another e-note tablet, but Dasung’s Paperlike Color is actually a portable monitor featuring a 12-inch color E Ink screen with a resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 pixels. For those working remotely, it can provide extra screen real estate for a laptop or a smartphone, or its reflective e-paper panel can serve as an alternative to starin

Gymnastics legend Simone Biles — perhaps the biggest star at the 2024 Paris Olympics (sorry, Pommel Horse Guy) — is set to compete for gold on Tuesday, a welcome return to the world's biggest stage for perhaps the best to ever do it. Biles is scheduled to compete in the women's gymnastics team final, which begins at 12:15 p.m. ET. If you tune in, expect to see lots of Biles. She's expected to compete in the all-around, vault, floor, and beam events. SEE ALSO:Netflix's 'Simone Biles R

Believe it or not, it's been 10 days since a global computer outage took down some of the world's biggest companies.The issue was caused by an error in a software update from CrowdStrike, a third-party cybersecurity company. Since all of the affected devices were Windows-based PCs, Microsoft faced criticism for the outage, too.In a new blog post over the weekend, Microsoft shared its own analysis of the CrowdStrike situation and offered solutions to ensure an outage of this scale doesn't happen