Technology news

Amazon Not long after injecting more artificial intelligence into its shopping experience, Amazon is now testing a new homepage for its shopping app on Android and iOS. Millions of users in the US will see changes starting today, with more slated to see them over the coming months.
Fundamentally, the redesign seems to serve the same purpose as the current layout by surfacing personalized recommendations based on your purchase habits, browsing history, deals, and other signals based on your shopp

Warner Bros. Joker: Folie à Deux has been in theaters for less than a month, but Warner Bros. has already set a home release date for the box office bomb.
Gizmodo reports that Joker: Folie à Deux will be available for purchase on digital platforms starting on October 29th, with a DVD / Blu-ray / 4K physical release to follow on December 17th.
Though Warner Bros. envisioned Todd Phillips’ Joker sequel replicating the first film’s success, the DC Comics-inspired musical f

For nearly as long as the internet has been around, there's a particular rhythm for any curious person with a WiFi connection. You have a question, you Google it, you get an answer. But a mishap during this week's Monday Night Football and the NFL's onside kick rules has show just how unreliable Google can be these days — and how the search giant can help spread misinformation. The confusion was sparked by an unfortunate turn of events. During the waning moments of the MNF matchup the Balt

AT&T will let you try before you buy. | Image: The Verge T-Mobile and Verizon have been offering free network trials for a couple of years at this point; now, AT&T has finally introduced a trial program of its own. It’s a no-commitment way to give the AT&T network a try while still holding on to your current carrier, number, and device. Pretty cool! But you’ll need an unlocked phone, which might disqualify a lot of people who are still paying off their current device &mda

Only Murders in the Building is a delight on many levels, from the joys of comedic cozy crime, to the thrill of playing along in trying to crack the case, to reveling in the incredible chemistry of its amateur sleuths. But one of the biggest joys is watching longtime friends and colleagues Martin Short and Steve Martin mercilessly mock each other in character and on the press tour. As rough as Oliver and Charles (or Short and Martin) are on each other, you can feel the deep bond of brotherhood t

Tim Cook apparently uses a lot more than an iPhone in his daily life. | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images While discussing his daily routine, Tim Cook told Ben Cohen in this WSJ. Magazine interview that “every day” he uses “every product.” In the story, he mentions using an iPhone, an Apple Watch, AirPods, and then, for work, two different MacBooks, an iMac, a Vision Pro, and an iPad Pro.
But what would it look like to truly use everything Apple makes, every single da

Illustration: The Verge Google Messages is trying to banish spammy job-seeking and package-delivery texts from your inbox, and it’s also adding a content warning to blur images that might contain nudity.The Sensitive Content Warning feature is optional, and if enabled, it will show users a “speed bump” with “help-finding resources and options” before they can view an image with nudity detected via on-device scanning. If users try to share an image with nudity, the a

Ecobee’s smart security system and smart doorbell camera will now work with smart locks from Yale and August. | Image: Ecobee In its ongoing quest to become a complete smart home system, Ecobee has added a new smart lock integration. The smart thermostat company is partnering with Yale and August to let you control your smart lock using the Ecobee app.If you have an Ecobee Smart Doorbell Camera, you should now be able to let someone in more easily by tapping "unlock" right from the live vi

Image: Joby The Federal Aviation Administration published highly anticipated final regulations for electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles that it says will chart the path for the “air travel of the future.”The FAA says these “powered lift” vehicles will be the first completely new category of aircraft since helicopters were introduced in 1940. These aircraft will be used for a variety of services, including air taxis, cargo delivery, and rescue and retrieval opera

Image: The Verge Anthropic’s latest Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI model has a new feature in public beta that can control a computer by looking at a screen, moving a cursor, clicking buttons, and typing text. The new feature, called “computer use," is available today on the API, allowing developers to direct Claude to work on a computer like a human does, as shown on a Mac in the video below.
Microsoft’s Copilot Vision feature and OpenAI’s desktop app for ChatGPT have shown what t

Image: The Verge Anthropic’s latest Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI model has a new feature in public beta that can control a computer by looking at a screen, moving a cursor, clicking buttons, and typing text. The new feature, called “computer use," is available today on the API, allowing developers to direct Claude to work on a computer like a human does, as shown on a Mac in the video below.
Microsoft’s Copilot Vision feature and OpenAI’s desktop app for ChatGPT have shown what t

If you've ever wanted to smell a movie, you're in luck. A24 will be hosting multi-sensory experience screenings of the upcoming horror film Heretic, complete with the smell of blueberry pie.SEE ALSO:'Heretic' trailer teases Hugh Grant at his scariest
Why blueberry pie, you may ask? The answer lies in Heretic's first spooky trailer. The film, directed by A Quiet Place writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, sees Mormon missionaries Sister Barnes (Yellowjackets' Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (The

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ElonJet, the social media account that tracks Elon Musk's jet, has been banned once again.But this time it's not by Elon Musk and X, formerly Twitter. The account has been banned there since December 2022. (The platform allows an alternative version of ElonJet which posts Musk's jet's travels on a 24-hour delay.)This time ElonJet has been banned by Mark Zuckerberg and Meta. And it's not alone. Also banned this week were Facebook, Instagram, and Threads accounts that tracked the private jet trave

Image: The Verge Microsoft and OpenAI announced they’re offering a select group of media outlets up to $10 million ($2.5 million in cash plus $2.5 million worth of “software and enterprise credits” from each) to try out AI tools in the newsroom.This news comes while the two companies are still facing a slew of copyright lawsuits, including from The New York Times, The Intercept, Raw Story, AlterNet, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and Alden Global Capital, the hedge fun

The Internet Archive can't catch a break.Just a day after the Internet Archive posted the restoration of its Wayback Machine and other services on its blog, the site has gone dark again. As of this writing, a visit to the Archive’s homepage shows a message confirming that while Archive-It and its blog are back online, the rest of the Internet Archive’s services remain temporarily unavailable.This is the page you'll be greeted with when going to archive.org Credit: Internet Archive /

After a wave of AI updates, Spotify finally launches a tool encouraging user creativity. SEE ALSO:Spotify wants to make you an AI Playlist for every occasion
The streaming giant announced Tuesday a feature allowing users to create custom art for their playlists in the app. It allows users to create collages to accompany their user-generated playlists directly in the app. Users can layer images, text, and stickers to embody the vibe of their playlist visually.Spotify partnered with artists like C

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Plugable’s PS-10CC can deliver 100W to all 10 of its USB-C ports, but not simultaneously. | Image: Plugable Plugable has announced a new multi-port USB-C hub that can power or charge up to 10 connected devices using intelligent power distribution and an easy-to-understand priority-based charging system.
The company is bringing its new PS-10CC hub to consumers through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. The earliest backers can get one for $59, while the hub’s full MSRP will be close

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Best Buy is having a busy week, and the events are all we needed to know about how hard Best Buy is planning to go this holiday season. After announcing Black Friday plans a full 10 days before Halloween, Best Buy is hitting us with a string of three Drops on some pretty major products: The Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro on Oct. 23, the GoPro Hero10 on Oct. 24, and a 98-inch TCL QLED TV on Oct. 25.SEE ALSO:Amazon Prime Day vs. Black Friday: When are the deals better?
If you're not familiar with Best B

The best self-emptying robot vacuums have one huge perk past the obvious act of vacuuming the floor for you. (Hint: It's in the name.)When you outsource vacuuming to a robot, your floors get cleaned way more often. The only downside of this extra attention? More debris off the floor means a dust bin that fills up faster, and emptying a vacuum's dust bin by hand is arguably the worst part of the chore.SEE ALSO:Why Eufy's X10 Pro Omni is the most surprising robot vacuum I've tested all year
Enter

When it comes to shopping for the best cheap laptops, you can do a lot with $1,000. (Heck, even $500 cuts some mustard nowadays.) But you'll probably have to make some compromises along the way to stay below that price point.That doesn't mean you have to settle for a total clunker that doesn't tick any of the boxes on your must-have specs list. It just means you have to shop a little smarter than someone with unlimited funds.That's where we come in. The Mashable team is constantly reviewing new

There's no such thing as a universal best laptop. Whether a laptop works well for you — and there could be several that fit the bill — is a largely subjective decision that comes down to your primary use cases, your preferred operating system, and your budget.This is an annoying fact of life for both laptop shoppers and those of us doling out "best laptop" recommendations, since we can't make custom judgment calls for everyone in need of a new machine. (I would love to, but I've got

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge Arkansas is sitting atop lithium reserves that could be vast enough to satisfy the entire world’s demand for EV batteries, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
It estimates that there could be 5 to 19 million tons of lithium under southwestern Arkansas. That would be enough to supply nine times the amount of the key material needed globally for car batteries in 2030, the USGS says.
Lithium is a key ingredient for rechargeable batteries used in EVs a

If you own a Ford electric vehicle, avoid Tesla superchargers immediately.According to a Ford service bulletin spotted by InsideEVs, Ford EV owners should cease using the company-provided adapter for Tesla superchargers ASAP. You might expect to hear that the problem is on Tesla's end, but actually, it's not. Ford issued adapters to its EV customers that would allow them to use Tesla's supercharger network and is now recalling them because they can potentially have negative effects on charging s

The U.S. presidential election is drawing closer and Americans are stressed. Politics are increasingly visible off and online, even when dating. This isn't new; Mashable reported that political polarization on dating apps was thornier than ever in 2021. Three years on, nothing has changed (except with AI and fandom, maybe it's gotten worse?). The dating app Coffee Meets Bagel (CMB) surveyed around 1,400 of its American users at the end of August and found that a vast majority care about politica

At just $40, Hoto’s electric screwdriver is a cool tool we’d recommend for anyone doing handiwork. | Image: Hoto ‘Tis the season for assemblies. With the holidays coming up, many will soon have their hands full with a bunch of new decorations and gifts to build. To take some pressure off, you can give Hoto’s electric screwdriver a try. It’s a perennial favorite in our various gift guides, and now you can get a whole kit with its magnetic carrying case and a 25-piece

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge The first cracks are starting to show in Netflix’s push into gaming. First reported in Game File and confirmed by Netflix, the streaming company has quietly closed of one of its studios, the first in the three years since the company began its foray into gaming.
According to Game File, the shuttered studio was known as Blue. In 2022, Netflix announced it hired former Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonny to run the studio. Since then, Blue had b

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If you don't feel like waiting around for Black Friday to get some early holiday shopping done, you're not stuck shopping at f

UPDATE: Oct. 22, 2024, 10:40 a.m. EDT This story has been updated with new information about Best Buy's Black Friday plans and hours.Amazon's massive Prime Day events generate consistent hype, but Black Friday remains the biggest shopping holiday of the year by far. Black Friday always takes place on the fourth Friday in November (and the day after Thanksgiving), which happens to fall abnormally late in the month this year. For consumers, that means two things: There's a shorter-than-usual wind

Illustration: The Verge WhatsApp is getting a built-in contact manager that lets you save contacts within the app so you don’t lose them if you switch phones.
WhatsApp typically relies on the smartphone address book it runs on to hold and manage contacts. But that can be a problem for users who lose their device and fail to back up their phone’s contacts, people who share phones, or those who manage multiple accounts with separate contacts on one device.
To start, you’ll be abl

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Payouts from Juul’s $300 million class action settlement are finally getting distributed — and some people are getting a lot more money than they expected.If you scroll through the r/juul subreddit, you can see posts showing the thousands — or hundreds — of dollars hitting people’s Venmo accounts. One screenshot shows someone who said they received more than $9,000, while others report receiving $6,200 and $4,600.Judging by th

The Nintendo Museum in Kyoto. | Image: Nintendo In 2018, Nintendo invited me to a meeting in New York City to see a mysterious new initiative. It was teased as an “interactive experience for Nintendo Switch,” which sent my mind to all sorts of places. This is the company that made a weird dual-screen Game Boy and bongo controllers, after all. It could be anything. Even still, I did not guess that I would spend that meeting folding bits of cardboard — or that those cardboard acc

Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images Even with most of its autonomous vehicle fleet on ice, Cruise is still bleeding cash. The robotaxi company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors lost $435 million in the third quarter of 2024, GM reported this morning. That’s an improvement from the $791 million lost in the third quarter of 2023.It’s an instructive moment to check in with Cruise, because the company has been on hiatus since October 27, 2023, weeks after on

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Image: Microsoft Microsoft is refreshing its Xbox Wireless Headset today, adding an upgraded microphone and improving the battery life. The refreshed headset will also support Dolby Atmos at no extra cost and Bluetooth 5.3.
This updated model has similar rotating ear cup dials to the original, letting you adjust volume and game / audio chat balance. Microsoft has tweaked the design slightly on the outside, removing the green accent in favor of an all-black look. Image: MicrosoftThe new all-black

Here are some of the AI tools that Canva is increasing prices for. | Image: Canva Canva has added a bunch of new AI features to its web-based design platform, including updates for generating text and video effects and a more powerful text-to-image app. The latter is called “Dream Lab” — a new image generator tool born from Canva’s acquisition of generative AI startup Leonardo.ai earlier this year.
Dream Lab is powered by Leonardo’s Phoenix model (not be be confused