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The “Game Boy Mini Camera” by Christopher Graves. Twenty-five years ago this month, the Game Boy Camera arrived in the United States and Europe. Now, a modder has made the chonky 118 x 112-pixel greyscale digital imager fully fit inside a standard Game Boy cartridge. And it’s so damn clean. Photo by Christopher Graves Photo by Christopher Graves Christopher Graves is calling his creation the Game Boy Camera Mini, and here’s some video of it in action: Videoooo - just ignore any embarrassing bits pls k thx pic.twitter.com/ux5mKmcII9 — @gameboycamera@glitch.lgbt (@thegameboycam) June 30, 2023 As a refresher, the original Game Boy Camera was an absolute unit. Here’s how far we’ve come in a single image: Photo by... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23780036/game-boy-camera-mini-mod-christopher-graves

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge FTC v. Microsoft is over, but who won? Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23779614/ftc-microsoft-hearing-summary

IRL’s company logo. | Photo illustration by William Joel/The Verge I have a packed issue this week, starting with the implosion of a once-hot social media startup called IRL. It raised $200 million at over a $1 billion valuation, and now its board is dissolving the company after finding that most of its users were fake. The SEC is investigating. It’s a whole mess. I have ex-CEO Abraham Shafi’s first public comments on the situation since he was ousted by the board. Also in this issue: a convo with the earliest investor in MosaicML, the AI startup that just sold to Databricks for more than $1 billion; some notes on Google’s AR strategy; a scoop about Meta getting into the app distribution game; drug use in Silicon Valley; a Musk-versus-Zuckerberg cage match update; and more… But first: Thanks to Roblox... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/30/23780041/command-line-irl-ex-ceo-shocked-fake-users

Heavy-metal band “The Polymetallic Nodules” played to protest against deep-sea mining outside Dutch ministerial buildings in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 8th, 2023. | Photo by Charles M Vella / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images When the island nation of Nauru announced that it would sponsor a deep-sea mining effort for battery materials, the country sent scientists and world leaders into a panic. It meant that companies might soon start harvesting minerals like nickel, cobalt, and copper from the ocean’s deepest depths for the first time. Scientists raised the alarm: what havoc would that do to ecosystems that humans are barely starting to understand? The move set a deadline for the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to decide on regulations for deep-sea mining by July 2023. That deadline to craft regulation is nearly here — and the ISA, an international organization established by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea , is expected to miss... Co

I got results when trying to improve my athletic performance, but it took time, dedication, and a lot of patience with macro logging. Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23777406/lumen-review-metabolism-fitness-health

The A2 is about as affordable as it gets for an LG OLED TV. | Image: LG It’s the Friday before the Fourth of July weekend, which means a couple of things: fly-by-night fireworks sellers are probably popping up in mall parking lots around you, and there are deals to be had (ones that don’t risk you any bodily harm). As for today’s deals, one of the best is the $700 discount Best Buy is currently offering on the 48-inch LG A2 OLED TV . That knocks the price of the entry-level OLED down to $599.99 — an all-time low we’ve seen once or twice before. While the A2 may be considered entry-level compared to LG’s other OLED models, it’s still an excellent panel. The A2 has the rich color contrast expected of OLEDs, and though it may not stack up to the brightness and features of newer, higher-end models like the C2 or... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/30/23779683/lg-a2-oled-tv-gaming-b2g1-totk-ffxvi-nintendo-dell-laptop-deal-sale

Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images EVO doesn’t start until August, but the best fighting game match of the year has already happened. Dominique “SonicFox” McLean is a fighting games legend. They’ve won numerous tournaments in numerous games, including six EVO championships across five different titles. They are, unequivocally, one of the best fighting games players to have ever picked up a fight stick. But apparently, Twitter user BradonNinjaaa was unaware of this. Because only a person who has either been completely absent from the fighting games scene for the last 10 years or is so thoroughly confident in their own abilities to the point of self-delusion would ever do to SonicFox what BradonNinjaa did — challenge them to Mortal Kombat . Yesterday evening, SonicFox... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/30/23779425/sonicfox-mortal-kombat-11-evo-twitter-fight

Image: Getty Images The Supreme Court has ruled that a graphic designer can’t be required to make a website celebrating the wedding of a (possibly hypothetical) gay couple, saying it would violate First Amendment protections against compelled speech. It’s a decision that isn’t necessarily surprising for the current court but one that could intersect strangely with the coming fight over online moderation. Justice Neil Gorsuch delivered the majority opinion in 303 Creative v. Elenis , and it was supported in a 6 to 3 vote, with the court’s liberal minority dissenting. Gorsuch determined that Colorado graphic and web designer Lorie Smith could legally refuse service to a same-sex couple looking to commission a wedding website, something that Smith found morally... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/30/23779806/supreme-court-gorsuch-opinion-303-creative-website-design-first-amendment-speech

You can get up to 20 percent off of the Steam Deck. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The Steam Deck rarely goes on sale, which is why you might want to take advantage of this deal on the portable gaming PC while it’s hot. As a part of the Steam Summer Sale, Valve is taking up to 20 percent off the Steam Deck in the US as well as internationally . You can buy the Steam Deck starting at $359.10 ($40 off) for the base model with 64GB of storage, which matches the price we last saw when the handheld first went on sale in March , and you can save a lot more on the higher-end Decks. If you require more storage, you might want to consider buying the 256 or 512GB model. As my colleague Sean Hollister pointed out , you can easily upgrade it with a new SSD , but there’s a slight risk of damage if you aren’t careful. What’s more, the... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/29/23778674/steam-deck-valve-deal-sale

Windows Copilot is now available to testers. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is making good on its promise of releasing Windows Copilot to testers in June. Today’s Windows Insider Dev Channel build (23493) includes early access to Windows Copilot, native support for RAR and 7-Zip files, a new settings homepage, and even a much better volume mixer. Microsoft first announced Windows Copilot at build earlier this year, and the version that testers can access today works as a sidebar that’s docked to the right-hand side of Windows 11. “It won’t overlap with your desktop content and will run unobstructed alongside your open app windows, allowing you to interact with Windows Copilot anytime you need,” says the Windows team in a blog post today . Image: Microsoft Windows Copilot running... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/29/23778224/microsoft-windows-11-copilot-rar-7-zip-audio-mixer

Image: Roland Quandt via WinFuture The rumored DJI Air 3 might feature an upgraded camera system. In a set of images provided to WinFuture by leaker Roland Quandt, you can see two camera sensors on the gimble mounted to the front of the device. That could offer an improvement over the second-gen DJI Air , which features a single half-inch camera sensor that can shoot 4K videos up to 60FPS, as well as 12- and 48-megapixel photos. The addition of a dual camera system could bring the DJI Air 3 more in line with the high-end Mavic 3 . While the Mavic 3 similarly sports two camera sensors — one main camera and one telephoto lens — it doesn’t look like its Hasselblad branding will carry over to the DJI Air 3. The leaked images also suggest that the DJI Air 3 could come with a... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/29/23778374/dji-air-3-dual-camera-system-leak

Image: Warner Bros. Pictures There are a lot of returning faces in the latest trailer for Dune: Part Two . Timothée Chalamet’s Paul getting prepared to lead an uprising; Stellan Skarsgård’s terrifying Baron; and Zendaya actually getting to do things in her role as Chani. But perhaps most interesting is what’s new — including our first proper look at Christopher Walken as the intimidating emperor Shaddam IV. The new movie will pick up right where the last one left off, given that Part One ended very abruptly and only told half of the story from the original novel . Here’s the basic setup: Dune: Part Two will explore the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a warpath of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family.... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23778532/dune-part-2-trailer-christopher-walken

Eufy’s G20 Hybrid’s a terrific budget-friendly robot vacuum that’s cheaper than ever today. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Robot vacuums are handy little gadgets, but many of the best cost a couple of hundred dollars. If you’ve always wanted one but were turned off by the price, you may want to check out today’s deal on Eufy’s G20 Hybrid . Right now, one of our favorite budget-friendly robot vacuums is on sale for just $129.99 ($150 off) at Amazon . That’s a new all-time low on the robovac, which does a good job of vacuuming and mopping your home for its price. It’s also the quietest and smallest we’ve ever tested, making it particularly ideal if your living quarters are compact or if you need a second bot to quietly clean while in your home office. Plus, the robovac comes with support for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, so you can control it with just your... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/29/23778288/eufys-g20-robot-vacuum-bose-q

A few small design changes can make all the difference. | Image: Adobe Adobe has started using some new branding across the most recent promotional videos for its generative AI apps. The new branding combines the current Adobe corporate mark (the triangular “A” logo) with the company’s Adobe Clean typeface (which is used in the software giant’s current logo) to spell out the name Adobe. You’d be forgiven for assuming this was an update to the logo introduced in 2020, but according to Adobe, this “wordmark” isn’t replacing the official logo that the company currently uses. “It’s not replacing the logo; it’s just a new expression in the way that we are creating the way our brand shows up in the world,” Adobe’s head of brand strategy, Heather Combs, said to Fast Company . ”We’ve had a logo for a long time. A... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/29/23778307/adobe-logo-wordmark-ai-marketing

This is some old hardware. | Image: Narwhal for Reddit Many Reddit users are mourning the June 30th shutdowns of third-party apps like Apollo for Reddit , rif is fun for Reddit (RIF) , and BaconReader , but at least one popular Reddit app will still be around: Narwhal for Reddit. “Narwhal is not going anywhere on July 1st,” Narwhal developer det0ur wrote in a post on the r/getnarwhal subreddit . “It will continue to operate as it has for many years (except it will not have ads anymore).” A lot of popular apps are shutting down because their developers can’t pay the potentially exorbitant API pricing , won’t be allowed to include ads in their apps, and due to the removal of sexually explicit content. However, Narwhal will be changing a bit down the line. “Over the next few months,” det0ur will add... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/29/23777992/reddit-third-party-ios-app-narwhal

The Fire HD 10 is one of many early Prime Day deals you can get, one that’s available at a steep 50 percent discount. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Amazon Prime Day may not start until July 11th , but early deals are already trickling out. We’re expecting to see some worthwhile discounts on wireless earbuds, noise-canceling headphones, tablets, TVs, smart home tech, games, and other gadgets on the actual days of, with the early deals functioning as a kind of small temperature check. As the ghosts of Prime Days past can tell us, the ahead-of-schedule deals are almost always on Amazon-owned devices and brands. There are sure to be more deals coming online in the days ahead — especially since Amazon has promised discounts from brands like Sony and Bose — but early bird shoppers already have some decent discounts to take advantage of. Usually, these early deals will hold through the... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23769772/amazon-prime-day-best-earl

The Astra Carta seal | Image: Sustainable Markets Initiative Jony Ive and his team at LoveFrom have made a new design for King Charles III called the “Astra Carta” seal. The seal is meant to represent the UK’s call to action for public and private sectors to work together on responsible and sustainable use of outer space. It marks his second project for King Charles this year after LoveFrom made a royal emblem to herald the King’s recent coronation earlier. The seal, which is animated on the sustainability initiative’s official site , is a circular badge with the all-caps Latin words “ASTRA CARTA” planted in the middle beneath a crown. In the center, a blue dot represents the planet Earth, while constellations, the Sun, the Moon, and the flowery path taken by Venus surround it. Around the outside... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/28/23776927/jony-ive-lovefrom-astra-carta-seal-king-charles-space-uk

Image: OpenAI People apparently find tweets more convincing when they’re written by AI language models. At least, that was the case in a new study comparing content created by humans to language generated by OpenAI’s model GPT-3. The authors of the new research surveyed people to see if they could discern whether a tweet was written by another person or by Chat-GPT. The result? People couldn’t really do it. The survey also asked them to decide whether the information in each tweet was true or not. This is where things get even dicier, especially since the content focused on science topics like vaccines and climate change that are subject to a lot of misinformation campaigns online. Turns out, study participants had a harder time recognizing... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/28/23775311/gpt-3-ai-language-models-twitter-disinformation-study

Home Screen will be available for “most” Vizio smart TVs from 2016 and later. | Image: Vizio Today, Vizio is announcing a completely overhauled homescreen experience for its TVs that will eventually make its way to models dating back as far as 2016. The new interface looks sleeker and more modern than the company’s existing SmartCast OS. And Vizio went the direct route with branding: the new software is just called Home Screen. Take one look at the revamped user experience and it’s immediately clear where Vizio drew inspiration from: this basically looks like its own streaming service. All the telltale signs are there. A column of navigation icons on the far left? Check. There’s the usual hero slot at the top with immersive artwork, custom typefaces / logos, and autoplaying video. It’s much easier to tell at a glance which... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/28/23776914/vizio-home-screen-tv-software-update-announced

The Shop tab is rolling out today both in the US and globally. | Image: Google Free ad-supported streaming TV is the burgeoning new trend that everyone’s getting in on, and we’ve all got our favorite shows on Netflix and other services , but what about those times when you just want to spontaneously rent or, dare I suggest, buy a movie? If you’ve got a TV or streaming box that runs Google’s Android TV platform, those archaic rentals and digital purchases are about to get a little more convenient — and easier to find. Starting today, Android TV is adding a Shop tab to the main navigation that will appear alongside Search, Home, Discover, and Apps. “The shop tab lets you explore movies to buy or rent and make purchases directly on your Android TV,” Google wrote in a blog post. “So whether you are searching for a new... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/28/23776843/google-android-tv-shop-rentals-purchases-tab-announced

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge It was inevitable that despite their hefty $549 price, Apple’s AirPods Max headphones would eventually start to miss out on the company’s latest software enhancements. Headphones are basically computers now and have evolved into their own platform , so just like with any iPhone or Mac, Apple’s ecosystem tricks and new features increasingly require more powerful silicon and revamped components. We started to see the swan song for the two-and-a-half-years-old AirPods Max earlier this month at WWDC when Apple announced several new features coming this fall that, in nearly all cases, will exclusively apply to the second-generation AirPods Pro — and no other models. The headlining feature is called “Adaptive Audio,” a new sound mode that... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23755432/airpods-max-no-adaptive-audio-conversation-volume-features

Image: BioWare The Star Wars MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic is changing development studios. In a developer blog on the BioWare website, BioWare general manager Greg McKay wrote that while EA will remain the game’s publisher, active development will move from BioWare to Broadsword — the studio known for its work on Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot . “Players will continue to enjoy the SWTOR they know and love,” McKay wrote. “There are also exciting new features planned that the team is not quite ready to talk about yet, but suffice it to say that players can expect improvements and new content into the future.” SWTOR ’s studio move was long rumored. Earlier this month, IGN reported that EA and Broadsword signed a letter of intent indicating that S... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/27/23775530/star-wars-the-old-republic-broadsword-bioware

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Microsoft is going head-to-head with the FTC starting June 22nd. Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23768244/ftc-microsoft-activision-blizzard-case-news-announcements

You can now preorder the Nanoleaf 4D Screen Mirror & Lightstrip Kit for TVs that the company showcased at CES 2023. | Image: Nanoleaf Nanoleaf has unveiled a batch of new, addressable smart lighting and gaming products designed to jazz up your home entertainment experience, including an integration with Overwolf gaming software, the 4D Screen Mirror & Lightstrip Kit, and an expansion to the Ultra Black line of lighting panels. Nanoleaf Shapes Ultra Black Hexagons were announced during the company’s annual Nanoleaf Live event on Tuesday and are available to preorder today from the Nanoleaf webstore. A nine-piece Smarter Kit is priced at $219.99, while a three-pack expansion is available for $69.99. As the name suggests, these are effectively an all-black version of the company’s iconic interconnecting hexagonal LED panels (albeit slightly dimmer if previous Ultra Black... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/27/23775318/nanoleaf-ultra-black-hexagons

SAE support for Tesla’s charger could mean stations like this will only need one kind of plug soon. | Photo by Umar Shakir / The Verge The standards organization known as SAE International is announcing support for Tesla’s EV “North American Charging Standard” or NACS port. SAE’s adoption will make it easier for electric vehicle charging station manufacturers and operators to implement the port while also making charging for EV owners more consistent and reliable. Tesla’s formerly proprietary charging port was opened up last year in a bid to become the de facto EV standard in the US. The US Joint Office of Energy and Transportation has worked with Tesla and the SAE in an effort to expedite the Tesla plug as a standard to improve the country’s charging infrastructure. BIG NEWS from SAE International! Frank Menchaca, President of SAE's Sustainable Mobility Solutions... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/27/23775208/tesla-nacs-electric-car-

Image: Nintendo Do you have 100 friends? If not, time to find some to play Everybody 1-2-Switch! Way back in 2017, the Nintendo Switch launched with 1-2-Switch, a party game that showed off the capabilities of the then-new Joy-Cons. Despite selling a million copies in its first month, 1-2-Switch was largely forgotten mostly because the Switch also launched with a little game you might have heard of called The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild . Now, 1-2-Switch is back with a sequel, Everybody 1-2-Switch , that may actually have a little bit more staying power than its predecessor (despite once again launching within the same window as yet another Zelda game, lol). Everybody 1-2-Switch features more super simple mini-games that might remind people of... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23775359/everybody-1-2-switch-release-date-nintendo-switch

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Paramount Plus is raising the price of its ad-supported plan today. Instead of $4.99 per month, the service’s essential plan will now cost $5.99 per month or $59.99 per year. The price increase comes as Paramount Plus simplifies its subscription options with its new Paramount Plus with Showtime tier . Before this change, Paramount Plus had two separate ad-free premium plans: one without Showtime for $9.99 per month and another with Showtime for $11.99 per month. The new Paramount Plus with Showtime tier replaces the $9.99 per month plan, leaving the service with just two subscription options . Unlike Paramount Plus with Showtime, the service’s ad-supported essential plan comes only with access to content from Paramount Plus, including... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/27/23775370/paramount-plus-price-increase-showtime

Bluetooth trackers come in all shapes and sizes. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge For those of us who can’t ever seem to know where our keys, wallets, and remote controls have disappeared to. Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23769840/best-bluetooth-trackers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix is deep into video games. Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/22772589/netflix-video-games-app-news-updates

Air condition units at an apartment complex during a heatwave in Austin, Texas, US, on Tuesday, July 19th, 2022. | Photo by Sergio Flores / Bloomberg via Getty Images Two-thirds of North America could face electricity shortages when temperatures spike this summer. The warning came from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) today , which cited an analysis by the nonprofit North American Electric Reliability Corporation. Most of the Central and Western US, New England, and Ontario, Canada, are at elevated risk, according to the analysis. Energy shortages are a problem when hotter-than-normal summer temperatures cause electricity demand to skyrocket. People crank up their air conditioning, putting greater pressure on the grid. At the same time, extreme heat can make power plants, as well as solar and wind farms, less efficient when it comes to generating electricity. That mismatch in supply and... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/26/23773878/heat

The Pixel Fold is a powerful device with an entertainment-friendly inner screen, but it feels like it’s at least one generation away from greatness. Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23773594/google-pixel-fold-review-screen-battery-hinge-camera

Image: Netflix The end of an era. Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23774152/the-witcher-season-3-netflix-trailers-news-reviews

The Verge All the Matter-compatible devices you can buy now, plus what’s coming soon to the new Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung-backed smart home standard. Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23568091/matter-compatible-devices-accessories-apple-amazon-google-samsung

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge “Playables” is a new feature in development for YouTube that could add interactive games to the video platform, The Wall Street Journal reports . The feature was apparently detailed in an email Google sent to its employees asking them to test it. Games could either be playable via the YouTube app on iOS and Android or through the browser on desktop. The WSJ ’s report only contains details on one game the service could include, Stack Bounce , which it describes as “an arcade game in which players attempt to smash layers of bricks with a bouncing ball.” It sounds a little bit like Atari classic Breakout to me, but it’s hard to tell without seeing screenshots. In a statement, a YouTube spokesperson declined to confirm the existence of the... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/26/23773922/youtube-playables-games-app-web-desktop

Who’s using AI? AI is suddenly everywhere. Image generators and large language models are at the core of new startups, powering features inside our favorite apps, and — perhaps more importantly — driving conversation not just in the tech world but also society at large. Concerns abound about cheating in schools with ChatGPT, being fooled by AI-generated pictures, and artists being ripped off or even outright replaced. But despite widespread news coverage, use of these new tools is still fairly limited, at least when it comes to dedicated AI products. And experience with these tools skews decidedly toward younger users. Most people have heard of ChatGPT. Bing and Bard? Not quite. Only 1 in 3 people have tried one of these AI-powered... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/c/23753704/ai-chatgpt-data-survey-research

ChatGPT running on Windows 3.1. | Image: dialup.net Someone has created a ChatGPT app for Windows 3.1 PCs. WinGPT brings a very basic version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT responses into an app that can run on an ancient 386 chip. It’s built by the same mysterious developer behind Windle , a Wordle clone for Microsoft’s Windows 3.1 operating system. “I didn’t want my Gateway 4DX2-66 from 1993 to be left out of the AI revolution, so I built an AI Assistant for Windows 3.1, based on the OpenAI API,” says the developer in a Hacker News thread . WinGPT is written in C using Microsoft’s standard Windows API and connects to OpenAI’s API server using TLS 1.3, so there’s no need for a separate modern PC. That was a particularly interesting part of getting this app running on Windows 3.1, alongside managing... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/26/23773756/wingpt-chat-gpt-app-windows-3-1

Android’s Emergency SOS feature is so easy to activate that users in the UK are accidently calling emergency services. | Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge An Android feature designed to help users contact emergency services is making life difficult for first responders in the UK. The BBC reports that police forces across the nation have reported an influx of false emergencies to the 999 switchboard (The UK’s equivalent of 911) in recent weeks which have largely been attributed to the Emergency SOS feature for Android phones. Law enforcement in Scotland , and the English counties of Wiltshire, Devon, Cornwall , and Gloucestershire have reported receiving a higher number of silent or abandoned calls since an Android update released between October 2022 and February 2023 introduced an Emergency SOS calling feature to more Android phones. The BBC reports that each errant call can take around 20... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/26/23773733/android-

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Make way for the electric buses. The US Department of Transportation and the Federal Transit Administration is sending out $1.7 billion from President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to 46 states and territories to fund the acquisition of 1,700 buses — over half of which will be zero-emission models. The new awards will bring the total number of zero-emission buses funded by the infrastructure law up to 1,800, which is more than double the number of clean buses on the roads today. That still only represents a fraction of the roughly 60,000 buses that are currently in operation in the US, but officials hailed it as an important step toward updating the nation’s aging transit fleet with an eye toward fighting climate change. T... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/26/23771167/bus-zero-emission-electric-usdot-fta-biden-buttigieg

With the 5G C-band rollout complete, there may be some flight delays. | Image: The Verge US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Friday there may be some airline delays or cancellations starting July 1st if the last remaining passenger jets haven’t upgraded their altimeters to deal with 5G interference, per a report from The Wall Street Journal report. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) maintains that 5G C-band signals could interfere with radio wave emitters passenger jets use to measure how far they are from the ground, which pilots rely on when landing with low visibility. Though airlines aren’t actually required to get the new equipment in place until February 2024 , those passenger jets that haven’t been certified for operation around C-band 5G signals by the first of July will not be allowed to land in... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/25/23773181/faa-buttigieg-airlines-5g-interference-altimeter-upgrades

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit will make “accessibility improvements” to many moderator tools in its official mobile apps by July 1st, the company announced on Friday . Some moderators rely on third-party apps because Reddit’s apps have what they characterize as “significant accessibility challenges,” and the accessibility community has expressed concerns over how they will moderate on mobile after popular apps like Apollo shut down on June 30th due to potentially expensive API pricing changes . It seems this roadmap, which promises improvements to features like the moderation queue and the ModMail messaging system on Android and iOS, is intended to assuage those fears. Based on the replies to the announcement post, however, many are still unhappy with the... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/25/23772942/reddit-accessibility-improvements-mobile-apps-moderation-tools

Stoffel Vandoorne drives in the Portland ePrix today. | Image: John Lamparski/Getty Images During the Formula E qualifying round in Portland, Oregon, today, the DS Penske team was fined €25,000 after it surreptitiously installed an RFID scanner at the entrance to the pit, which the FIA stewards said could collect data from other race cars and give them an advantage. The team’s racers, Stoffel Vandoorne and Jean-Éric Vergne, were also hit with a pit lane start penalty for today’s race — meaning they will have to wait at the end of the pit lane until all of the other cars have driven past before entering the race. The FIA Stewards explanation for the penalty was provided to The Verge via email: The Stewards were advised by the Technical Delegate that the competitor had installed RFID scanning equipment in the pit lane entry this... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/24/23772725/formula-e-ds-penske-rfid-tire-data-wireless-scanner

Image: Bethesda Microsoft’s Xbox chief has revealed one of the key reasons behind the acquisition of Bethesda parent company ZeniMax: potential Starfield PlayStation exclusivity. Speaking at the FTC v. Microsoft hearing today, Phil Spencer revealed that Sony regularly pays competitors to “skip our platform” and Microsoft felt it needed to own Bethesda to compete. “When we acquired ZeniMax one of the impetus for that is that Sony had done a deal for Deathloop and Ghostwire ... to pay Bethesda to not ship those games on Xbox,” said Spencer. “So the discussion about Starfield when we heard that Starfield was potentially also going to end up skipping Xbox, we can’t be in a position as a third-place console where we fall further behind on our content... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/23/23771828/microsoft-betheda-acquisition-starfield-playstation-exclusive

The Epix Pro is $1,000 and will not acknowledge my naps. Rude. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge Ask any coach, athlete, personal trainer, or doctor: sleep is an important, if not the most important, part of recovery. You cannot get those gains without regular, quality sleep. But life happens, and sometimes regular, high-quality sleep isn’t possible. In those instances, studies have found naps can be an effective way to boost your recovery and athletic performance . So, knowing this, somebody please explain why none of the Garmin smartwatches in my review closet will acknowledge my naps. Miraculously, my occasional bouts of insomnia and Garmin training haven’t overlapped much. It makes sense. I never sleep better or more regularly than when I’m training for something. That streak ended these last few weeks when my insomnia came back... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/23/23771153/garmin-sleep-tracking-naps-smartwatch-wearables

Illustrator by Alex Castro / The Verge Satellite internet competitors OneWeb and SpaceX are in the running to reconnect Alaskans after ice damaged a sub-sea fiber-optic cable in the Arctic Ocean, as reported by numerous local outlets . While repairs are expected to take an additional six to eight weeks, satellites could help locals weather the widespread outage. Last week, residents in the rural towns of Utqiaġvik, Point Hope, Wainwright, Kotzebue, Nome, and other communities found themselves without internet or cellular connectivity when the 1,200-mile fiber cable owned by the Alaska-based broadband company Quintillion suffered a break . Quintillion says the cable broke as “a result of an ice scouring event.” “Our sub-sea system is currently out of service,” Quintillion... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/23/23771194/alaska-internet-quintillion-fiber-cable-satellites-oneweb

Miles Morales going on a trip. | Image: Sony Pictures In the years-long buildup to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ’s release, Sony — for understandable reasons — proudly touted how it had hired over 1,000 animators in order to bring the artistically ambitious project to fruition, and all of that intensive human labor definitely shows. According to a number of artists who contributed to the film, however, the working conditions they were made to operate under during the film’s production were unsustainable, erratic, and largely the result of producer Phil Lord frequently overriding Across the Spider - Verse ’s three directors in order to make endless last-minute changes. In a rather damning new report from Vulture , four animators who worked directly on Across the Spider-Verse described the... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/23/23771199/across-the-spider-verse-working-conditions-phil-lord

Image: Getty Ford will receive $9.2 billion as part of a conditional loan from the US Department of Energy to aid in the construction of three huge electric vehicle battery factories, the agency announced Thursday. The mammoth loan represents the biggest government offering to an automaker since the bailouts following the Great Recession of 2009 . The loan originates from the DOE’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (AVTM) program, which famously helped put Tesla on the map and more recently provided a boost for a joint venture of General Motors and LG Energy Solution to help fund the construction of a new lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility. Another recent recipient was Redwood Materials , the electric vehicle battery recycling and... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/22/23769966/ford-doe-loan-ev-battery-factory-sk-avtm

Image: Square Enix It’s no secret that Game of Thrones has been a major influence on Final Fantasy XVI — the developers have said as much. “When we first started creating the game, we had our core team of about 30 members very early on buy the Blu-ray boxset of Game of Thrones and required everyone to watch it, because we wanted this type of feel,” producer Naoki Yoshida told Eurogamer earlier this year. And man, does it show. The first few hours of the roleplaying game feel designed to show you just how edgy Final Fantasy can be. The previous entry was a wholesome road trip about friendship , told through things like photography and cooking . This game goes in a completely different direction. Characters have sex on-screen (though it never gets all that... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/22/23767522/final-fantasy-16-edgy-game-of-thrones

The OceanGate Titan submersible underwater. | Image: OceanGate Crews are searching for a small sub carrying five tourists was lost on its way to view the wreckage of the HMS Titanic. Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/22/23768340/titan-submersible-lost-titanic-hamish

Image: Square Enix Stay up to date with Square Enix’s grittier take on the classic RPG. Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/23766903/final-fantasy-16-review-trailer-news

Photo by Alex Wong / Getty Images We’re only minutes into the FTC v. Microsoft hearing, and we’ve already had a bombshell revelation. Sony’s PlayStation chief, Jim Ryan, believed that Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard wasn’t about locking games as Xbox exclusives, according to a newly unsealed email. Microsoft counsel revealed the exchange between Ryan and a former Sony CEO discussing the announcement of the deal last year. “It is not an exclusivity play at all,” said Ryan. “They’re thinking bigger than that and they have the cash to make moves like this. I’ve spent a fair amount of time with [Phil] Spencer Bobby [Kotick] and I’m pretty sure we will continue to see Call of Duty on PlayStation for years to come.” The surprise revelation runs counter... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/22/23769790/sonys-playstation-chief-microsofts-activision-deal-xbox-exclusives-ftc

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Twitch is introducing a new feature, Hype Chat , that lets users pay to pin messages at the top of a streamer’s chat feed. If you’ve seen YouTube’s Super Chats, which the company first announced in 2017 , then Hype Chats should look pretty familiar. Streamers will be able to set how much Hype Chats cost (with a minimum of up to $100 and a maximum of up to $500), and based on how much you pay, you’ll have a better-looking chat. “Higher value Hype Chats will stay at the top of chat longer, have longer allowed character counts, and have more standout designs,” Twitch said in a blog post. Right now, the feature is only available on the web, Twitch spokesperson Adiya Taylor tells The Verge. GIF: Twitch Here’s what Hype... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/22/23769055/twitch-hype-chats-pay-pin-posts

Image: Apple While Apple imagines users wearing its Vision Pro headset to do a variety of things, like watch movies, capture videos, and multitask , it still hasn’t mentioned one pretty major application: fitness. But now, a report from The Information suggests that Apple had been planning workout apps for the mixed reality headset, but they just weren’t ready in time for its June reveal. Former Apple employees tell The Information that staff members explored partnering with Nike to create workouts for the Vision Pro and also looked into creating face cushions designed for “sweaty, high-intensity workouts.” Apple employees even reportedly weighed the idea of letting Vision Pro wearers interact with content while on a stationary bike. Although Apple... Continue reading… source https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/21/23768518/apple-planned-fitness-features-vision-pro-headset