Dave Eggers attends the "The Turning Point: To Be Destroyed" premiere. | Image: John Lamparski/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival
Last year, Sam Altman invited author Dave Eggers to give a talk to around 200 OpenAI staffers. The man has written countless novels, screenplays, pieces of journalism, started McSweeney's, and founded multiple schools and nonprofits that support writers and the arts more broadly. So one might expect he'd roll into the company's offices and offer tips on being relentlessly prolific, or how to excel in multiple fields. Instead, he apparently laced into the company. According to the Financial Times, Eggers told the staff:
"The effect of ChatGPT on educators' lives is catastrophic. Whether you intended to do it or not, you've made every teache …
The Pixel 10a shipped with a last gen processor. | Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge
Mystic Leaks suggests that the Pixel 11a will return to featuring a flagship-grade processor with the Tensor G6. Rather than the Tensor G5 found in the Pixel 10 and 10 Pro, the Pixel 10a shipped with the previous generation Tensor G4. That was a huge disappointment since, typically, the Pixel a lineup kept the modern processor, but cut corners in other places to keep costs down.
The Tensor G6 is rumored to feature the same PowerVR DXT-48-1536 GPU as the G5, but it should still be an improvement over the Mali-G715 in the Tensor G4. The big upgrade is that the G6 moves on from Samsung's Exynos modems and instead uses a MediaTek M90 modem. Tha …
Now, if you want to, you can use Google's 3D emoji in your own creations. The company shared some details about how it went about designing the little pictograms and why, as part of World Emoji Day on Friday. Things you might not necessarily worry about in a 2D illustration suddenly become very important when you're talking about a 3D model. Is a smiley face a sphere? A mask? A flat disc?
In addition to offering a behind-the-scenes look at Google's design process, it also announced that it would be completely open-sourcing the emoji set:
We're handing over raw .OBJ files to the community so they can use them to build immersive VR worlds, …
The GoPro Max2 can use your earbuds as a microphone over Bluetooth.
A 360-degree camera is a great way to ensure you capture every bit of the action, but prices tend to be on the high end for models worth your attention. That’s why it’s notable that the GoPro Max 2 accessory bundle is discounted to $369 at Amazon (a dollar more at Best Buy and GoPro). The bundle is stuffed for being just $70 more than the base camera, containing everything you need to shoot the best angles during all-day adventures. The capable camera can shoot 360-degree 8K video at 30 frames per second, or 180-degree 4K video at 60FPS, and it can attach to the wide ecosystem of GoPro-compatible mounts.
In addition to the Max 2 camera, the bundle includes a four-foot extension pole, two protective lens caps, two high-capacity batteries, a 64GB microSD card, a curved adhesive mount, a mounting buckle for GoPro mounts, a mounting finger adapter for cameras, two thumb screws, a wrist lanyard, a microfiber cloth, and a USB-C cable. The standalone camera includes most of those accessories, but has fewer mounts, a single battery, no SD card, and no extension pole. The pole and extra battery are $75 on their own, so you’re getting a solid deal before you even take the free microSD card into account.
The Max 2’s six-mic array records in every direction and automatically reduces wind noise. Alternatively, you can connect Bluetooth microphones, too. The 1.82-inch LCD touchscreen lets you quickly check your footage and manage settings, and it’s waterproof up to 16 feet in case you want to take it swimming or surfing. A single battery should last 66 minutes at full 8K, or 90 minutes at 5.6K resolution. The lenses are replaceable, too, in case a bad fall damages them.
Carter Sherman has been covering sex, gender, and the complex personal and national politics that accompany them for years. She was a senior reporter for Vice and has written for Elle, Ms. magazine, and Los Angeles magazine as well. Along the way, she's garnered a Scripps Howard Award, a National Press Club Journalism Award, and four Emmy nominations.
She's also the author of The Second Coming: Sex and the Next Generation's Fight Over Its Future. That book looks at how the internet and our polarized political landscape have changed sex and relationships, from school board battles over sex ed to abortion access. These days she finds herself …
Facial recognition smart locks are here; now you can unlock your door the same way you unlock your phone. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Hands-free unlocking is the future of smart locks. The best smart home tech removes friction, and having your door unlock for you as you walk up is as frictionless as it gets - no passcodes to remember, no need to have a free hand to wave, press, or poke at the lock. One way to achieve this nirvana is through facial recognition. You already unlock your phone with your face; why not your home?
Hands-free unlocking using geofencing has been around for a while, but it can be slow and unreliable, and requires an app running in the background on your phone. Newer innovations - facial recognition and unlocking using an ultrawideband (UWB) radio - …
Sony’s flagship Bravia 9 II is the best RGB LED TV I’ve seen this year.
The Sony Bravia 9 II is the most anticipated new TV in years. It's an amazing RGB LED TV. I watched Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves on the new Bravia with my son, who has been getting into the roleplaying game but had never seen the movie. The landscapes of Faerûn looked natural and real, while the magic cast by the Red Wizards of Thay was vibrant and colorful. Specular highlights in HDR really pop. I saw it with Xenk's glowing sword as he fought in the Underdark in Honor Among Thieves, but also in the explosions as Furiosa flees across the desert in Mad Max: Fury Road and the sun reflecting off the waves in The Meg.
It's been a good few weeks for games on rails. Nintendo's Star Fox remake wisely kept the tightly scripted, action-packed levels from Star Fox 64 largely the same, and they're still fun to fly through nearly 20 years later. Denshattack!, a new game from Undercoders, similarly features levels packed with carefully orchestrated sequences to great effect. Except instead of flying through space as an unnervingly realistic anthropomorphic fox, you're flying - and flipping, and spinning, and grinding - through Japan while driving a blindingly fast train.
Calling Denshattack! a train game radically undersells what you actually do. Across a bright …
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 136, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, hope your neighborhood isn't as smoky as mine, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
You don’t need a $10,000 Amflow PX Carbon Pro, but it doesn’t hurt. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge
Cheater, I'd grumble between huffs as yet another e-bike rider casually skittered past me on a steep ascent. It's this purist attitude that, for years, has left me blind to one simple fact: electric mountain bikes are fun!
My attitude adjustment came a few weeks ago, the very first time I rode an Amflow PX Carbon Pro fitted with the incredibly compact, lightweight, and powerful M2S motor from Avinox, a new DJI offshoot that has incumbents like Bosch and Specialized on edge. The motor doesn't make me a speed demon, but it does let me suck better by compensating whenever my poor technique kills the momentum.
Ninja has added everything from ice cream makers to double-decker toaster ovens to its extensive lineup of counter-clogging appliances, but it's only now introducing its first microwave. What makes the new Ninja Crispi Microwave stand out among its many competitors is that it doubles as an air fryer. After heating your food using microwaves, you have the option to switch over to using superheated air so the results are crispy instead of soggy, while also potentially replacing two kitchen appliances with just one multitasker. It's available starting today through SharkNinja's online store for $449.
Samsung's next flip phone might be tough to tell apart from last year's Galaxy Z Flip 7. As 9to5Google points out, leaked images and specs for the upcoming Galaxy Z Flip 8 shared by WinFuture are nearly identical to Samsung's current flip phone.
According to the leak, Samsung is not planning to upgrade the Z Flip 8 to one of Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors. Instead, it will have a Samsung Exynos 2600 chip, the successor to the previous-generation Exynos 2500 in the Z Flip 7. The only other notable upgrade is support for 45W wired charging.
Samsung is expected to officially announce the Z Flip 8, and the rest of its new lineup of foldable …
After an eight-year run, OnePlus announced today that it has exited the United States. It's bittersweet, as the brand has been on a comeback tour of sorts with its excellent OnePlus 15 and widely praised (though still too expensive) OnePlus Open.
The writing has been on the wall for a while now. T-Mobile stopped stocking OnePlus' flagship phones after 2022, instead deciding to only carry its low-end Nord devices, and Verizon's run with OnePlus only lasted two years, from 2020 through 2021. Even though it continued releasing flagships, OnePlus' US footprint has been fading. In January, Android Headlines even claimed that the brand was being …
1Password has launched a new browser integration for Claude that allows the Anthropic chatbot to access stored security credentials like usernames and passwords. The 1Password for Claude feature means that users can authorize Claude to complete multi-step tasks like booking travel and managing online accounts on their behalf without having to manually input their login credentials, but without actually exposing your security information to Anthropic's AI models, according to 1Password.
That's made possible by a new "zero-exposure security framework" developed by 1Password, which works by injecting the required credentials for each task thro …
Google must give rival AI assistants and search engines greater access to key parts of Android and Google Search after the European Union ordered the company to comply with the bloc's digital antitrust rules.
The two decisions, handed down Thursday, could weaken Google's control over two of the tech industry's most important platforms and have far-reaching consequences for the company, shape the future of its AI tool Gemini, and open up new opportunities for rivals to gain ground. Google has until January 2027 to begin sharing search data and July 2027 to implement changes to Android.
The rulings stem from technical regulatory proceedings …
I stood before a hulking glass and brick structure in the heart of Fort Worth, Texas. Thousands gathered inside to see what had been billed as "the future of policing in the digital age." As press, I was prohibited from entering, but from a number of nearby locations, I met with attendees who told me what was being sold within. And I learned that AI is threatening to seize the very heart of policing in America.
The promise of AI at this year's International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Technology Conference focused on automating routine parts of the job, which also happen to be critical steps in the legal process. It's a similar …
The OnePlus 15 was the company’s final US flagship. | Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge
OnePlus has confirmed what industry observers have long expected: it's quitting the US and European markets, and will no longer launch new products in either region. Parent company Oppo promises that it will honor existing support and warranty agreements, with devices transitioning to its ColorOS for future updates.
"Software updates and after-sale support will be guaranteed" in both the US and Europe, Oppo's senior PR manager in Europe, James Paterson, told The Verge in a call. The company wouldn't confirm any specifics on how it will honor its warranty and support agreements in the US, where it will now have no presence at all. In Europe, …
Skullcandy announced a new version of its Crusher wireless headphones today featuring a few of Bose's audio technologies including its QuietControl ANC and head-tracking spatial audio. The Crusher headphone line differentiates itself from the competition through the use of both full-range and dedicated bass drivers in each ear cup to boost deeper frequencies. Skullcandy admits that approach can result in a loss of audio quality when the bass is heavily boosted, but its new Crusher 1080 ANC are meant to address and improve that with Bose's help.
Available starting today for $279.99 in black, candy, primer, and cement color options, the new C …
HP’s convertible OmniBook has a great feature set for the price. | Image: HP
With storage and memory prices still at an all-time high, we’re happy to tell you about a solid deal on a good laptop when we find one, rare as they are. Best Buy is selling the HP OmniBook X Flip 2 in 1 for $999.99 (usually $1,649.99) with an Intel Core 7 Ultra CPU, 16GB of LPDDR5X memory, and a 1TB SSD. The star of the show is the 1920 x 1200 OLED touchscreen, an uncommon perk at this price point. It will display deeper black levels and have faster response times than screens in other similarly-priced models. Also, it has a 360-degree hinge that lets the screen flip so you can use it like a tablet instead, or tent it if you need some portable entertainment.
This model, like other OmniBooks in this year’s lineup, is a Copilot Plus machine, meaning it has a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) to assist with specialized tasks like helping you quickly find files or live transcribing videos. Whether you use Copilot or not, there’s plenty else to like about this model. For connectivity, the HP includes a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI 2.1, two USB-A ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 6.0. One other perk is that the OLED screen has a 16:10 aspect ratio, so you’ll be able to see more content at once.
An AppleCare Plus subscription for a Mac or iPad will cost more soon, with prices going up by $0.50 per month or $5 per year for new sign-ups while remaining the same for existing subscribers, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman says that under the new AppleCare Plus pricing, "a plan for a new 13-inch MacBook Air increased to $7.99 from $7.49, or to $79.99 from $74.99 annually," following a move last year that similarly raised the plan's price on iPhones. We haven't seen the new pricing reflected on Apple's site in the US or terms of service yet, and Apple has not yet responded to a request for comment.
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