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The Dell XPS 13 is the first real competitor to the MacBook Neo

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Welcome back. | Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge Dell's last XPS 13 was meant to be a farewell before the company sunset the entire XPS brand . But it was a bitter ending , and an overpriced one as well. Earlier this year, Dell resurrected the XPS name with the excellent (and very expensive) XPS 14 and 16. And now, it's reinvented the XPS 13 as a much more affordable thin-and-light to take on the MacBook Neo . Call it another comeback. The 2026 XPS 13 has the nicest hardware you'll find in a new $700 laptop outside of Apple's Neo. The core components - the screen, keyboard, trackpad, and speakers - are all great or excellent. It's an exquisite package in a sleek and very thin ultra-portable. … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/994636/dell-xps-13-2026-intel-wildcat-lake-8gb-16gb-review

Netflix is making a Crazy Taxi movie and a Sonic show with ‘edge’

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Netflix has announced three new adaptations of Sega games: a Crazy Taxi film, a Sonic animated series "built for kids who want to feel a little edge," and a live-action movie based on the upcoming Stranger Than Heaven from Yakuza developer RGG Studio. The Crazy Taxi movie will be the first project released, though it doesn't have a debut date yet. Netflix also already has three seasons of a Sonic show called Sonic Prime . Here's Netflix's descriptions of the upcoming adaptations: Crazy Taxi : Since its 1999 arcade debut, Crazy Taxi has put players behind the wheel of a fearless cabbie racing the clock through chaotic city streets - flying … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/streaming/994861/netflix-crazy-taxi-sonic-stranger-than-heaven

What happens after a town de-Flocks

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Demonstrators hold a banner against Flock security cameras during a protest outside the G20 Innovation Ministerial in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. Photographer: Cornell Watson/Bloomberg via Getty Images | Bloomberg via Getty Images From Florida to Washington state , local governments across the country are canceling their contracts with Flock, the company behind the controversial AI-enabled license plate readers, in response to public outcry. But ending the contracts doesn't necessarily mean the cameras will come down immediately - or that the information they've gathered will be deleted anytime soon. Even as state and local governments decide to rein in their surveillance capabilities, uncertainty remains about what Flock can and will do with data that has already been collected. Each jurisdiction's contract is different, but many of them let Flock retain data long af … Read the full story at The Verge. ...

Trump and Mike Johnson think the AI industry is overreacting

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Yesterday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a lengthy open letter saying it was time to "pace the frontier" and slow down AI development. OpenAI's Sam Altman and Elon Musk both agreed, publicly voicing their support on X. Even Alphabet's Demis Hassabis offered tentative support for Amodei's proposal. Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, however, seem to think the AI executives are being overreactive and fear that a pause could lead to China outpacing the US in the AI race. According to the Financial Times , Trump said "Look, we're leading China in AI … and, frankly, I want to keep it that way, because whoever wins AI, wins." Jo … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/994441/trump-mike-johnson-ai-industry-overreacting

Apple is reportedly working on iPhone game controllers

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Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says Apple is developing two game controllers for the iPhone and will likely sell them under the Beats brand. Rumors that Apple might enter the game controller business have circulated for some time. But last week, MacRumors reported finding two references in macOS 26.7's code to two game controllers identified as first-party devices. Despite the code being found in macOS, not iOS, Gurman says the controllers are designed for iPhones. Additionally, he says that it is Beats executives leading the charge on this product. Apple sometimes uses its subsidiary brand to experiment with new product categories and compete at … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/994426/apple-iphone-game-controllers

The Units’ Digital Stimulation is synthpunk perfection

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The Units are a band I discovered in part thanks to No Dogs in Space . During their miniseries on The Screamers (another incredible band worth checking out), they mention synthpunk.org as one of their sources. And there's no better way to get my attention than to combine two of my favorite things - punk rock and synthesizers . The site was down that day (it appears to be back up now), but I was able to access a version from July through the Wayback Machine. What greeted me was a bare-bones site with links for six bands, including The Screamers. But at the top was The Units, a band I'd never heard of and, after tracking down their 1980 record D … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/994415/the-units-digital-stimulation-synthpunk-review

Sam Altman says OpenAI going public in 2026 would be ‘ill-advised’

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed that there would be no OpenAI IPO in 2026 during an interview with Fortune . Over the course of 45 minutes, Altman discussed a variety of subjects including the Hugging Face hacking incident, recursive self-improvement, and the possibility of building an AI that was beyond human control. On the latter, he said it was "absolutely" possible, but vowed to take actions to prevent that from happening, even if it meant pausing training, adding that "there are risks we should not be able to incur on behalf of humanity." "We're not rushing into an IPO. I actually think that, given everything happening with safety, th … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/994384/sam-altman-no-openai-ipo-ill-advised