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Stoke Voltaics’ portable electric cookware review
https://www.theverge.com/24273375/stoke-voltaics-portable-electric-cookware-review
OnePlus might be ditching curved edges too
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273650/oneplus-13-leak-rumor-design-flat-edge
Fans come to the rescue of popular Mario content creator
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273563/supper-mario-broth-creator-fan-support
WP Engine asks court to stop Matt Mullenweg from blocking access to WordPress resources
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273448/wp-engine-injunction-matt-mullenweg-wordpress-resources
Nintendo’s Alarmo is cute and cozy — but it’s still just an alarm clock
https://www.theverge.com/24273422/nintendo-alarmo-review-alarm-clock
Feds are investigating Tesla ‘Full Self-Driving’ crashes in reduced visibility
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273418/nhtsa-tesla-full-self-driving-investigation-crashes
The future of the Kindle with Panos Panay
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273208/amazon-kindle-panos-panay-ipad-mini-google-vergecast
Google will once again ban election ads after the polls close
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273374/google-election-ad-ban-donald-trump-kamala-harris-campaigns
Amazon will stream a live election special hosted by Brian Williams
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24273106/amazon-prime-video-election-night-live-special-brian-williams
McLaren updates Google Chrome
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272707/mclaren-us-grand-prix-2024-f1-racing-google-chrome-livery
Brazilian police arrested the hacker who stole everyone’s SSN
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272271/brazilian-police-usdod-hacker-arrest-national-public-data
Unity attempts to turn things around with its latest game engine release
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272699/unity-6-game-engine-release
Hacker arrested for the fake SEC tweet that caused a Bitcoin price spike
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272739/sec-fake-bitcoin-etf-tweet-fbi-arrest-eric-council
Modders are using AI to create chatty companions in Skyrim and Stardew
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24268007/modders-ai-companions-stardew-valley-skyrim
How influencers are changing advertising, with Digitas CEO Amy Lanzi
https://www.theverge.com/24272562/decoder-amy-lanzi-digitas-publicis-influencers-creators-marketing-advertising-generative-ai-adweek
The future of phones is flat. | Image: Digital Chat Station on Weibo
The next OnePlus flagship looks a little flat — and that’s a good thing. The alleged image of the unreleased OnePlus 13 was posted to Weibo (https://weibo.com/6048569942/OC7uJaxV5?pagetype=profilefeed) and has been since removed, but not before it was spotted by 9to5Google. It shows the phone with flat sides rather than the curved edges featured by recent OnePlus phones. It’s a small shift, but it would make OnePlus the latest in a long list of phone makers to adopt the (arguably more comfortable) flat edge design.
The current trend dates back to 2020 when Apple released the iPhone 12 with flat sides, calling on an older design from the iPhone 4 and 5. Over the past few years, other companies followed suit with flat screens and less curved side rails: Samsung started straightening out the Galaxy S...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273650/oneplus-13-leak-rumor-design-flat-edge)
Image: Nintendo
Fans of the popular Mario blog, Supper Mario Broth (https://www.suppermariobroth.com/), have come together to remind us that the internet can still be a place where good things happen.
Supper Mario Broth is one of the most wholesome Mario blogs on the internet. Since 2017, its owner has posted a regular stream of Mario-flavored tidbits he could dig up including interesting glitches, old advertisements and merchandise, screenshots, gifs, artwork, and more. If it’s obscure and has to do with Mario, Supper Mario Broth will let you know about it and the blog has become a celebrated institution in the broader Nintendo community.
However on October 17th, the person behind all this wonderful content posted a video (https://youtu.be/QAPGbeknudY?si=UNRxHxYbatCc8wFZ) saying the entire endeavor was in danger of being permanently...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273563/supper-mario-broth-creator-fan-support)
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge
WP Engine is asking a court to put a stop to Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg’s public campaign against the company. In a motion for a preliminary injunction (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25237665-wp-engine-injunction?responsive=1&title=1) filed against Automattic and Mullenweg on Friday, the third-party hosting platform requests that the court restore its access to WordPress resources and allow it to regain control of its plugin that had been taken over.
In the filing, WP Engine claims it’s facing “multiple forms of immediate irreparable harm” as a result of Mullenweg and Automattic’s actions, including “loss of customers, market share and goodwill.” The company also says it saw a 14 percent increase in cancellation requests from September 26th to the 30th — just days after Mullenweg called WP Engine a “cancer” to the... (https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/23/24252634/wordpress-co-founder-matt-mullenweg-calls-wp-engine-a-cancer)
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273448/wp-engine-injunction-matt-mullenweg-wordpress-resources)
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
I have always had an adversarial relationship with alarm clocks. They are gadgets designed to ruin my most precious time, and in order to work effectively, they must be as annoying as possible. Which is why I was intrigued by Nintendo’s surprise reveal of Alarmo (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/9/24265984/nintendo-alarmo-alarm-clock-date-price). (Once I got over my surprise of it not being the long-awaited Switch 2 announcement (https://www.theverge.com/24051677/nintendo-switch-2-pro-rumors-news).) What if getting up in the morning could be a little more playful? Maybe what I really needed all along was Princess Zelda’s soothing voice or the chirps of tiny pikmin to ease me into consciousness in the morning.
After a week with Alarmo, I have to admit that it hasn’t changed much about my sleep patterns. It has some clever ideas, and it looks great on a shelf, but ultimately, it’s still an...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/24273422/nintendo-alarmo-review-alarm-clock)
Image: Owen Grove / The Verge
NHTSA is opening a preliminary evaluation (https://www.nhtsa.gov/?nhtsaId=PE24031) into Tesla’s Full Self-Driving mode (FSD) over the possibility of crashes in reduced roadway visibility conditions. The agency is opening the investigation after noting four reports of incidents like that, including one last November in Rimrock, AZ, where a Model Y struck and killed a pedestrian, as reported by TechCrunch.
The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) has identified four Standing General Order (SGO) reports in which a Tesla vehicle experienced a crash after entering an area of reduced roadway visibility conditions with FSD -Beta or FSD -Supervised (collectively, FSD) engaged.
In these crashes, the reduced roadway visibility arose from conditions such as sun glare, fog, or airborne...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273418/nhtsa-tesla-full-self-driving-investigation-crashes)
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge
Amazon launched four new Kindles (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/16/24271603/kindle-2024-colorsoft-scribe-paperwhite-specs-price-date) this week, maybe the biggest single launch day in the 17-year history of the company’s wildly successful e-reader. One of them even comes in color (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/16/24271632/amazon-kindle-colorsoft-specs-price-hands-on)! It is very much not a coincidence that the launch happened roughly a year after Panos Panay joined the company (https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/27/23892462/amazon-hires-panos-panay-microsoft). Panay, a longtime Microsoft executive who was for years in charge of all things Windows and Surface, is now leading the devices and services team at Amazon. His big task is Alexa and turning Amazon’s assistant into the AI platform of the future. That’s apparently coming soon. Maybe (https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/13/24177664/amazon-llm-alexa-delayed-fortune). But first: e-readers.
On this episode of The Vergecast, Panay joins the show to talk about how he decided to join Amazon, why people love their Kindles so much, the S... (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/16/24271627/amazon-kindle-scribe-2024-notebook-specs)
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273208/amazon-kindle-panos-panay-ipad-mini-google-vergecast)
Illustration: The Verge
Google is planning to ban advertisers from running ads related to the US presidential election after polls close on November 5th. Axios reports that this is the second time Google has decided to ban election ads once polls close, after first implementing the policy (https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/25/21456323/google-election-ad-ban-donald-trump-early-victory) during the 2020 election.
Google says it’s reenacting the policy again this year “out of an abundance of caution and to limit the potential for confusion, given the likelihood that votes will continue to be counted after Election Day.”
During the last presidential election in 2020, it took days for President Biden’s win to be confirmed after an influx of postal voting during the pandemic. Google’s policy applies to any US election ads or ads that refer to the US elections that...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273374/google-election-ad-ban-donald-trump-kamala-harris-campaigns)
Image: Amazon
Amazon wants Prime Video to be the place you watch coverage of election night. The company announced today that it will be streaming a live election night special on Prime Video hosted by former NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. The show will kick off on November 5th at 5PM ET.
“Brian Williams will be joined live by guests including prominent contributors across news and traditional media, representing a range of backgrounds and perspectives, to share real-time poll results and commentary while also referencing third-party news sources across all political affiliations,” Amazon writes in a blog post (https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/entertainment/election-night-live-with-brian-williams-prime-video-2024-elections). The company adds that it will be an “informative, accessible and non-partisan presentation.” Amazon will announce the guests in “the...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24273106/amazon-prime-video-election-night-live-special-brian-williams)
Image: McLaren
McLaren is updating the version of Google Chrome on its F1 racecar (https://www.mclaren.com/racing/formula-1/2024/united-states-grand-prix/mclaren-formula-1-team-to-bring-back-fan-favourite-chrome-livery/). By that, I mean: McLaren’s got more Google Chrome logos and chrome finish than usual on the F1 car it’s bringing to the US Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, this weekend.
McLaren’s MCL38 continues the tradition of rocking Google-colored wheels and logos, but like last year’s special British Grand Prix version (https://www.mclaren.com/racing/formula-1/2023/british-grand-prix/mclaren-racing-and-google-unveil-chrome-throwback-livery-for-british-grand-prix/), the livery for this weekend’s race has a splash of literal chrome beneath the Chrome logo, looking like it came out of a custom car shop from the aughts. This time, however, McLaren has added extra Chrome logos and what looks like a heavier slathering of metallic chrome that extends down the sidewalls.
It’s a lot of chrome, as driver...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272707/mclaren-us-grand-prix-2024-f1-racing-google-chrome-livery)
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The Federal Police of Brazil announced the arrest of the hacker (https://www.gov.br/pf/pt-br/assuntos/noticias/2024/10/pf-prende-hacker-suspeito-de-invadir-sistemas-da-pf-e-de-outras-instituicoes-internacionais) linked to a breach that leaked 2.9 billion records that included sensitive personal information, including some Social Security numbers. The data from that hack, which came to light in August (https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/14/24220212/national-public-data-breach-social-security-3-billion), was put for sale on the dark web in April by an entity identifying themselves as USDoD.
As pointed out by Bleeping Computer, according to a machine translation of the department’s press release (https://www.gov.br/pf/pt-br/assuntos/noticias/2024/10/pf-prende-hacker-suspeito-de-invadir-sistemas-da-pf-e-de-outras-instituicoes-internacionais), the hacker was linked to “two publications selling” federal police data. The hacker also boasted of disclosing the personal data of 80,000 members of the FBI’s InfraGard program, the department said.
Security researchers at Atlas have created a tool to search the leaked records and told P...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272271/brazilian-police-usdod-hacker-arrest-national-public-data)
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge
Unity hasn’t had the easiest go of things as of late, but as part of its efforts to get back in the good graces of game developers, the company has released Unity 6 globally. In addition to new features like tools that let developers to target mobile web, the game engine maker is also promising that it will dedicate “long-term” resources to “to enhance feature sets and deliver new functionality while maintaining ease of upgrade and continued stability,” according to a press release (https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241017906915/en/Unity-6-Launches-Globally-Next-Gen-Game-Development-Platform-Delivers-Enhanced-Performance-and-Stability/?feedref=JjAwJuNHiystnCoBq_hl-RqSGyeNvWF-qZ8hKEMz48Z5g0wAIXjK73252wRUvTxLWJT50v2g3Ei-19qH0fyPszGrim8IhAkVNXbaI1AGppOzkqEXpa07kut2m9xviGvGKzEpgVj8oZTJfPwAW_-x3g==).
Unity is a widely-used game development engine powering games like Among Us, Hollow Knight, and many more, but the release of Unity 6 follows a turbulent period in the company’s history. Unity charges developers on a per-user basis, but in September 2023, the...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272699/unity-6-game-engine-release)
Illustration: Beatrice Sala
The FBI has arrested an Alabama man (https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/fbi-arrests-alabama-man-january-2024-sec-x-hack-spiked-value-bitcoin) who is accused of hacking the Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account in January. The indictment (PDF (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25230724-sec-x-hacker-indictment?responsive=1&title=1)) alleges that 25-year-old Eric Council Jr. worked with co-conspirators to take control of the account (https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/9/24032095/bitcoin-etf-sec-fake-tweet-x-gary-gensler) and post a fake message from SEC Chair Gary Gensler about Bitcoin ETFs that caused the price of Bitcoin to jump by more than $1,000 momentarily.
To carry out this scheme, Council is accused of creating a fake ID using the information belonging to the person in control of the SEC’s X account. He then allegedly tricked AT&T into providing a SIM card with the victim’s phone number and install it into a new iPhone he purchased. Finally, Council was able to gain control of the SEC’s account using...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24272739/sec-fake-bitcoin-etf-tweet-fbi-arrest-eric-council)
Image: Jack Bullard for The Verge
In Stardew Valley, you can usually only speak to characters a few times per day. This limitation has led to a number of mods that add things for them to say so that players can spend more time with their virtual pals. But like many games, Stardew recently turned to AI, resulting in the addition of a mod with the ability to have theoretically endless conversations with your favorite farm companion.
“The reception has been a lot better than I initially thought [it would be],” says modder DualityOfSoul. In the comments on Nexus Mods, users have called it “brilliant” and “one of the best mods out this year.”
To function, the mod plugs into OpenAI’s API. The implementation is impressive but limited in its own way. Every character...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/17/24268007/modders-ai-companions-stardew-valley-skyrim)
Photo illustration by The Verge / Photo: Digitas
The future of marketing — and, in a way, everything else — is getting a shakeup.
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/24272562/decoder-amy-lanzi-digitas-publicis-influencers-creators-marketing-advertising-generative-ai-adweek)
It was a chilly winter morning in 2004. The scene was Stanley, Idaho — a city with a population of 101 and a current temperature of negative 17. My boyfriend, who had lured me here from London, England, handed me a bright red envelope and asked if I could drop it in the mailbox on my way into town.
“What’s Netflix?” I asked, peering at the white letters printed on the side. “It’s DVD by mail,” he said. “They send you movies in the mail. You send them back when you’re done. Then, they send you another one.” It was a revelation.
While Netflix had been growing in the US since its launch in 1998, it wouldn’t cross the pond (https://www.wired.com/2012/01/netflix-launches-in-the-uk-ireland-as-amazons-lovefilm-battles-back/) for another eight years. For the rest of the world, movie night in 2004 still meant a pilgrimage to the video store. As...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/c/24243754/blockbuster-video-netflix-streaming-dvd-transition-2000s)