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This icy 2025 Audi Q8 E-Tron has a heat pump. | Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge Many EV manufacturers have leaned heavily on energy-gulping resistive heaters to keep the cabin and battery warm in the winter time. But heat pumps, which can cut down on battery range losses in the cold, are becoming more prevalent in EVs, and they could help EV owners in the US who are dealing with the low temperatures across much of the country this week.
EV research site Recurrent reported that heat pumps can impr

Google’s Nest Learning thermostat. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Google is bringing smart home controls in Gemini to everyone. The Google Home extension in the Gemini app is adding a few new features, in addition to letting you adjust your smart lighting, thermostat, speakers, and other compatible devices as long as they’re connected to your Google account.
Google first previewed the extension last November. With it, you can use natural language to control your smart

Image: CD Projekt Red You may have to wait until January 30th to buy Nvidia’s new RTX 5090 graphics card, but owners of last-gen Nvidia 40-series GPUs can already download and install DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation software via the Nvidia app. And if you want a compatible, graphically-intense game to test DLSS 4 out, Cyberpunk 2077’s newly-launched patch 2.21 adds support for it.
Here’s the important info from CD Projekt Red’s changelog for patch 2.21 about DLSS 4:
Added s

Timothy Olyphant, who played Danny Corday on The Office, doesn't seem to remember much about the experience. He was the latest guest on the Office Ladies podcast, hosted by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, who played Pam Beesly and Angela Martin on the show, respectively. Olyphant appeared in just two Season 7 Office episodes, portraying the handsome, super-effective salesman Corday. It adds up, then, that Olyphant might not remember everything about the experience. But one thing he did remember

Operator, OpenAI's agent that can perform multi-step tasks autonomously, has arrived. The ChatGPT maker introduced a preview mode of Operator on Thursday, detailing how it works and what it's capable of. Operator can browse the web, performing tasks like calculating refunds from a canceled order and finding customers with specific criteria in an internal sales database. It can also buy groceries and send emails. On a computer, Operator can perform various tasks, like downloading files, combining

A screenshot from a video of TerraPower’s groundbreaking ceremony for its demonstration project in Wyoming. TerraPower, a nuclear energy startup founded by Bill Gates, struck a deal this week with one of the largest data center developers in the US to deploy advanced nuclear reactors. TerraPower and Sabey Data Centers (SDC) are working together on a plan to run existing and future facilities on nuclear energy from small reactors.
Tech companies are scrambling to determine where to get all

Image: The Verge Perplexity has turned its AI “answer engine” into a mobile assistant on Android. The new assistant can answer general questions and perform tasks on your behalf, such as writing an email, setting a reminder, booking dinners, and more.
It’s also multimodal, meaning you can ask it questions about what’s on your screen as well as have it open your camera and “see” what’s in front of you. In an example shared by Perplexity, a user asks the a

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images Meta and YouTube aren’t the only platforms looking to benefit from TikTok potentially disappearing — Substack wants in on the action, too.
The company announced Thursday it’s launching a $20 million “creator accelerator fund,” promising content creators they won’t lose revenue by jumping ship to Substack. Creators in the program also get “strategic and business support” from Substack, and early access

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Though Nintendo can technically claim it had the first big gaming news event of the year, at least Xbox’s Developer Direct actually showed off some games and let us know when we can play them. The showcase was anchored by deep dives into the biggest games coming down the green pipe like Doom: The Dark Ages and Compulsion Games’ South of Midnight, with a couple of surprises to fill out the nearly one hour-long runtime. Here are the highlights from the

Buying gifts for the special woman in your life can be tricky. What do you buy a person who has everything? What should you gift to someone who's picky about their products? Our advice is to curate a gift according to her interests and personality. A gift for the lady in your life should be just that: A gift for her. Part of our bigger series on the Best Gifts For Everyone, we’ve put together this comprehensive list to guide you on your important mission. And if it happens to be a teen gir

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Fitbit is paying a $12.25 million fine over its Ionic smartwatches, which the company recalled in 2022 after reports that the watches’ lithium-ion batteries overheated and, in some cases, burned customers.The Consumer Product Safety Commission has provisionally accepted the settlement. The commission worked with Fitbit to recall 1.7 million Ionic watches in 2022 after receiving 115 reports of overheating batteries. Of those reports, 78 mentioned burn injur

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is officially launching a new Android security feature for Pixel devices with Android 15 to prevent phone thieves from accessing your digital accounts. The feature, called Identity Check, requires biometric authentication to access some account and device settings when you’re not at a trusted location (such as your home or your workplace).“A stolen device in the wrong hands can expose sensitive data, leaving you vulnerable to identity th

UPDATE: Jan. 24, 2025, 8:06 a.m. EST This article has been updated following clarity from Wisp. The increase in sales occurred on Inauguration Day.Women's telehealth company Wisp has seen a 233 percent increase in emergency contraception (EC, also called the "morning after pill") sales on Trump's inauguration day.The spike occurred on Jan. 20 compared to Jan. 13, and on Inauguration Day itself (1/20), 57 percent of all EC sales were six-packs on Wisp. SEE ALSO:Did Trump's executive order just m

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Android 16’s first public beta will start rolling out later today, bringing with it dynamic lockscreen notifications for ride-sharing and food delivery, following yesterday’s reveal of a similar feature in Samsung’s Galaxy S25 phones. The new beta also forces apps to be resizable, a move to make sure they run full-screen on tablets and foldables. This is expected to be the first of four public beta releases before Android 16’s full re

Image: id Software After revealing its next Doom game last summer, id Software is almost ready to release it: the studio announced that Doom: The Dark Ages is launching on May 15th.
The news came as part of Xbox’s most recent Developer Direct livestream, which provided the best look yet at the prequel. As the name implies, The Dark Ages is set in a medieval fantasy realm and takes place long before the events of Doom Eternal and the franchise’s 2016 reboot. The developers say that th

I don't know if you've ever had the good fortune of seeing a dog discover snow, but it is pure joy. I remember my then-puppy's first snow like it was yesterday. A rare snowstorm, however, has struck the southern U.S. — states like Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida — meaning many dogs are discovering snow. After all, how often does a pup in New Orleans get to see snow? In a time where you might need some cute videos — well, that time is pretty much any time — the

Keen-eyed individuals spotted another blow to LGBTQ protections under the U.S.'s new presidential administration.First flagged by Media Matters for America journalist Ari Drennen, the official page for changing sexual (or gender) identification on government documents — overseen by the Social Security Administration — has been removed from public view. The page currently displays an access denied notice that reads "You are not authorized to access this page."SEE ALSO:Resources for pe

If enough hasn't already happened this week – John McAfee is apparently back from the dead.Well, his account on Elon Musk's X has been revived at the very least.On Wednesday night, John McAfee's @officialmcafee X account started posting again even though McAfee himself was found dead from suicide in June 2021 in a prison in Spain while awaiting extradition to the U.S. To be fair, the X account belonging to the eccentric founder of McAfee antivirus hadn't been completely dormant since

Image: Microsoft Microsoft promised a new game announcement at its Xbox Developer Direct event, and that game turned out to be Ninja Gaiden 4. The new entry in the long-running franchise is being co-developed by Team Ninja along with Platinum Games, the team behind action games like Bayonetta and Nier: Automata. The game is launching in Fall 2025, and will be coming to Xbox, PC, and PS5 (it will also be available via Game Pass).
While the Ninja Gaiden franchise has been around since the late &ls

Sellers on eBay have capitalized on TikTok's uncertain fate in the U.S. by selling secondhand phones for thousands of dollars with the app pre-installed. According to Wired, listings for phones with TikTok installed have proliferated on the online marketplace amidst the TikTok ban saga. On Jan. 18, U.S. users were denied access to the app with a pop-up saying, "A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now." But the very next day, TikTok

The Surface Laptop Go 3 could get a replacement very soon. | Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge It’s been less than a year since Microsoft launched its first Qualcomm Snapdragon X-powered Surface devices, and now a new rumor says followups could debut as soon as this spring. A report from Windows Central updates rumors that have circled since 2023, citing sources who say that new versions of the Surface Laptop and Surface Pro 2-in-1 are in the works, with 11- to 12-inch size screens, Windo

It turns out the way to get me interested in a new Assassin's Creed (well, more interested than I already was) is to include features from the AC games I played 10 to 15 years ago.To be a little more specific, Ubisoft's latest open-world stabbing simulator Assassin's Creed Shadows builds on the recent RPG-ish entries like Valhalla by incorporating mechanics and design philosophies from older entries like Brotherhood and Syndicate. From Brotherhood, it borrows the idea of training and deploying s

Image: OpenAI OpenAI is releasing a “research preview” of an AI agent called Operator that can “go to the web to perform tasks for you,” according to a blog post. “Using its own browser, it can look at a webpage and interact with it by typing, clicking, and scrolling,” OpenAI says. It’s launching first in the US for subscribers of OpenAI’s $200 per month ChatGPT Pro tier.
Operator relies a “Computer-Using Agent” model that combines GPT-

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Epic Games plans to add nearly 20 third-party games onto its mobile app store worldwide on Android and in the European Union on iOS and launching its free games program on mobile beginning with Bloons TD 6 and Dungeon of the Endless: Apogee. It’s also promising to pay some iOS fees for developers that are part of the program to overcome what Epic calls a major hurdle to moving outside the App Store.
“Our aim here isn’t just to launch a bu

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Epic Games is adding nearly 20 third-party games onto its mobile app store worldwide on Android and in the European Union on iOS and launching its free games program on mobile beginning with Bloons TD 6 and Dungeon of the Endless: Apogee. It’s also promising to pay some iOS fees for developers that are part of the program to overcome what Epic calls a major hurdle to moving outside the App Store.
“Our aim here isn’t just to launch a bunch

SAVE $29.01: As of Jan. 23, get a 4-pack of Apple AirTags for $69.99 at Amazon, down from their usual price of $99. That's a discount of 29% and their lowest price yet. Opens in a new windowCredit: AmazonApple AirTag (4-Pack)$69.99 at Amazon $99.00 Save $29.01Get DealAre you the type of person who can't stop losing everything? Would you lose your hand if it wasn't attached to your arm? You could use a smart tracker. And if you're already using the iOS ecosystem, you should consider grabbing an A

GET A FREE $100 AMAZON GIFT CARD: Pre-order the new Samsung Galaxy S25 (128GB or 256GB, unlocked) and get a free $100 Amazon gift card. Orders are expected to begin shipping on Feb. 7.Opens in a new windowCredit: Samsung / AmazonSamsung Galaxy S25 (128GB or 256GB, unlocked) + free $100 Amazon gift cardPre-Order HereEarlier this month, we were treated to tons of new tech announcements at CES. Now we're focused on lots of new product announcements from this week's Samsung Unpacked. If you're eyein

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With Valentine's Day on the horizon, it might be time to show yourself a little

Image: Palworld Pocketpair is getting into the games publishing business. The company has announced that it’s taking the gobs of money it made after launching Palworld, the Steam-record busting, 15-million-copies-sold-in-its-first-month, monster-catching adventure game, to establish Pocketpair Publishing.
“Pocketpair Publishing provides comprehensive support for game development through funding, development assistance, and publishing for indie game developers and small studios,&rdquo

It’s no Arc Ultra, but Sonos’ last-gen soundbar still offers terrific sound if you can afford it. | Image: Chris Welch / The Verge If you’re looking for a way to beef up your sound system ahead of the Super Bowl, it’s worth investing in a good soundbar. And right now, the Sonos Arc is matching its all-time low of around $649 ($250 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and B&H Photo.Before Sonos released the Sonos Arc Ultra last year, the Sonos Arc was the company’s highest-

Image: Google Google is changing the way visible URLs show up on mobile search results worldwide. Search results since 2009 have shown “breadcrumbs” or the hierarchy of a webpage’s URL using “>” after the domain name, but starting today, it will only show the domain on your smartphone or tablet.Web developers have had some control over how results show up according to Google’s structured data guidelines that also control how info shows up in its snippets an

The ability to remotely remove installed extensions is coming “later this year.” | Image: The Verge Google has announced some new business features that can help IT admins better manage Chrome browser extensions, a popular attack vector for cybercriminals. A curated Chrome Web Store experience is launching today for Enterprise workspaces that allows pre-approved extensions to be displayed on the landing page, making them easier for employees to find and install.
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