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Leica’s new $23,000 film camera is platinum-plated and destined for collector shelves
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/25/24279278/leica-m-edition-70-rangefinder-35mm-film-camera-platinum-special-edition
Waymo just raised $5.6 billion to spread robotaxis to more cities
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/25/24279330/waymo-funding-round-series-c-amount-alphabet
Amazon’s Like a Dragon works better as a mob drama than a Yakuza adaptation
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/25/24278893/amazon-like-a-dragon-yakuza-prime-tv
The confusing state of Apple Intelligence
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/25/24279264/apple-intelligence-ipad-mini-perplexity-ai-vergecast
Adobe execs say artists need to embrace AI or get left behind
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/25/24278715/adobe-artists-embrace-generative-ai-creative-community
The company behind Arc is now building a second, much simpler browser
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24279020/browser-company-ai-browser-arc
OpenAI plans to release its next big AI model by December
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278999/openai-plans-orion-ai-model-release-december
Perplexity blasts media as ‘adversarial’ in response to copyright lawsuit
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278950/perplexity-news-corp-response-lawsuit
Scout Motors mounts an electric comeback with new SUV and truck concepts
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24277692/scout-motors-suv-truck-ev-concept-announce-price-specs
Russia reportedly paid a former Florida cop to pump out anti-Harris deepfakes and disinformation
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278626/russia-disinformation-deepfakes-john-dougan-2024-election
Departing OpenAI leader says no company is ready for AGI
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278694/openai-agi-readiness-miles-brundage-ai-safety
Kevin Bacon, Kate McKinnon, and other creatives warn of ‘unjust’ AI threat
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276994/ai-statement-training-data-copyright-threat-actors-authors-musicians-kevin-bacon-kate-mckinnon
A satellite made by Boeing just fell apart in space
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24277073/intelsat-33e-boeing-satellite-fell-apart-space
Plugable’s new 10-port USB-C hub is exactly the overkill my nightstand needs
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276661/plugable-usb-c-hub-power-charger
Arkansas has enough lithium for the world’s EVs — but getting to it is the problem
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276615/ev-car-battery-lithium-reserves-arkansas
Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images
Waymo just completed an oversubscribed funding round of $5.6 billion (https://waymo.com/blog/2024/10/investing-to-bring-the-waymo-driver-to-more-riders/), its largest investment round to date. The company said it will use the funds to support its robotaxi business in its current markets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, as well as bring it to new cities, like Austin and Atlanta (https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/13/24243397/waymo-uber-austin-atlanta-robotaxi-partnership), where its vehicles will be available exclusively on the Uber app.
Waymo also hinted at future “business applications” for its “Waymo Driver,” which is the company’s branding for the hardware and software used to enable its vehicles to drive autonomously. This could be a reference to food and package deliveries (https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/22/21334012/waymo-fca-ram-delivery-self-driving-van), trucking (https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/26/23809237/waymo-via-autonomous-truck-delay-timeline-layoffs), or even personally owned autonomous vehicles (https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/31/17412908/waymo-chrysler-pacifica-minvan-self-driving-fleet) — all possibilities that Waymo has explored in the past.
Waymo also...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/25/24279330/waymo-funding-round-series-c-amount-alphabet)
Image: Amazon MGM Studios
Like a Dragon proves that a quality adaptation doesn’t always have to be a faithful one.
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/25/24278893/amazon-like-a-dragon-yakuza-prime-tv)
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge
The first bits of Apple Intelligence are starting to show up on people’s phones. The features in iOS 18.1 are fairly basic: summarizing messages, writing emails, that kind of thing. Apple is already letting developers play with iOS 18.2, though, which looks like a much more substantial update (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/23/24277926/apple-iphone-default-messaging-apps-ios-18-2). Meanwhile, the company is about to launch (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24266448/apple-mac-announcements-october-2024) a bunch of new M4-powered and AI-focused Macs, and launched the iPad Mini (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24275956/apple-ipad-mini-2024-review) this week. It’s a lot happening all at once, and it’s a lot to make sense of.
On this episode of The Vergecast, we try and make sense of it. The Verge’s Richard Lawler (https://www.theverge.com/authors/richard-lawler) joins us as we talk through the small changes in 18.1 and the much bigger changes in 18.2, debate whether Tim Cook can really use every Apple product every day (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276142/tim-cook-wsj-interview-every-apple-product-every-day), and...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/25/24279264/apple-intelligence-ipad-mini-perplexity-ai-vergecast)
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Getty Images
Adobe is going all in on generative AI models and tools, even if that means turning away creators who dislike the technology. Artists who refuse to embrace AI in their work are “not going to be successful in this new world without using it,” says Alexandru Costin, vice president of generative AI at Adobe.
In an interview with The Verge, Costin said that he “isn’t aware” of any plans for Adobe to launch products that don’t include generative AI for creators who prefer to manually complete tasks or oppose how AI is changing the creative industry.
“We have older versions of our products that don’t use gen AI, but I wouldn’t recommend using them,” Costin said. “Our goal is to make our customers successful, and we think that in order for them...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/25/24278715/adobe-artists-embrace-generative-ai-creative-community)
One of the many prototypes The Browser Company is building for its next browser. | Image: The Browser Company
Stop me if this sounds familiar: The Browser Company is building a browser that it thinks can make your internet life a little more organized, a little more useful, and maybe even a little more delightful. It has new ideas about tabs (https://www.theverge.com/23462235/arc-web-browser-review), and what your browser can do on your behalf.
I’ve heard this story before! But the browser that Browser Company CEO Josh Miller wants to talk about when he calls me on Thursday isn’t Arc, the product he and his team have been working on for the last five years. It’s not Arc 2.0, either, even though Miller has been talking publicly (https://overcast.fm/+ABJxP9blJr4) about Arc 2.0 for a while now. It’s an entirely new browser. And for Miller and The Browser Company, it’s a chance to get back to building the future of browsers they set out to...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24279020/browser-company-ai-browser-arc)
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images
OpenAI plans to launch Orion, its next frontier model, by December, The Verge has learned.
Unlike the release of OpenAI’s last two models, GPT-4o (https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/13/24155493/openai-gpt-4o-launching-free-for-all-chatgpt-users) and o1 (https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/12/24242439/openai-o1-model-reasoning-strawberry-chatgpt), Orion won’t initially be released widely through ChatGPT. Instead, OpenAI is planning to grant access first to companies it works closely with in order for them to build their own products and features, according to a source familiar with the plan.
Another source tells The Verge that engineers inside Microsoft — OpenAI’s main partner for deploying AI models — are preparing to host Orion on Azure as early as November (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278363/microsoft-openai-next-model-orion-notepad). While Orion is seen inside OpenAI as the successor to GPT-4, it’s unclear if the company will call it GPT-5 externally. As always, the release plan is subject to change and...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278999/openai-plans-orion-ai-model-release-december)
The Verge
AI startup Perplexity, which offers an AI search engine, published a blog post (https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/about-the-dow-jones-lawsuit) today pushing back on News Corp’s lawsuit against the company (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/21/24275924/news-corp-wall-street-journal-perplexity-lawsuit-copyright-infringement).
Perplexity has recently come under significant scrutiny following (https://www.wired.com/story/perplexity-plagiarized-our-story-about-how-perplexity-is-a-bullshit-machine/) accusations (https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/06/07/buzzy-ai-search-engine-perplexity-is-directly-ripping-off-content-from-news-outlets/) that it scraped content without permission, and News Corp, which is the parent company of the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal-owner Dow Jones, alleged that Perplexity’s search engine “copies on a massive scale.”
Perplexity, in its response today, argues that news organizations like News Corp that have filed lawsuits against AI companies “prefer to live in a world where publicly reported facts are owned by corporations, and no one can do anything with those publicly reported facts without paying a toll.”
No one,...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278950/perplexity-news-corp-response-lawsuit)
Image: Scout Motors
This is how you revive an iconic brand.
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24277692/scout-motors-suv-truck-ev-concept-announce-price-specs)
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Image
A former Florida sheriff who moved to Russia amid an FBI investigation is a Kremlin-backed propagandist responsible for viral deepfake videos and misinformation targeting Kamala Harris’s campaign, according to European intelligence documents reviewed by the Washington Post.
The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service, gave funding to John Mark Dougan, the operator of several fake news websites. According to documents reviewed by the Post, Dugan was responsible for several websites that seemingly published fake local news, including DC Weekly, Chicago Chronicle, and Atlanta Observer. The documents, which mostly focus on the time between March 2021 and August of this year, show that Dougan worked with Yury Khoroshevsky, an officer...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278626/russia-disinformation-deepfakes-john-dougan-2024-election)
Image: The Verge
Miles Brundage, OpenAI’s senior adviser for the readiness of AGI (aka human-level artificial intelligence), delivered a stark warning as he announced his departure on Wednesday: no one is prepared for artificial general intelligence, including OpenAI itself.
“Neither OpenAI nor any other frontier lab is ready [for AGI], and the world is also not ready,” wrote Brundage, who spent six years helping to shape the company’s AI safety initiatives. “To be clear, I don’t think this is a controversial statement among OpenAI’s leadership, and notably, that’s a different question from whether the company and the world are on track to be ready at the relevant time.”
His exit marks the latest in a series of high-profile departures from OpenAI’s...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278694/openai-agi-readiness-miles-brundage-ai-safety)
Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge
Thousands of creatives, including famous actors like Kevin Bacon and Kate McKinnon, along with other actors, authors, and musicians, have signed a statement (https://www.aitrainingstatement.org/) warning that the unpermitted use of copyrighted materials to train AI models threatens the people who made those creative works. 11,500 names are on the list of signatories so far.
Here is the one-sentence statement:
“The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted.”
The statement was published by Fairly Trained, a group advocating for fair training data use by AI companies. Fairly Trained CEO Ed Newton-Rex told The Guardian that generative AI companies need...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276994/ai-statement-training-data-copyright-threat-actors-authors-musicians-kevin-bacon-kate-mckinnon)
This Ariane 5 rocket carried Intelsat 33e and Intelsat 36 into space in 2016. | Photo by JODY AMIET/AFP via Getty Images
A communications satellite built by Boeing has fallen apart while in orbit, as reported earlier by Jalopnik. On Saturday, Intelsat said its 33e satellite (https://www.intelsat.com/newsroom/intelsat-reports-is-33e-satellite-loss/) stopped working due to an “anomaly” before confirming its “total loss” on Monday.
“We are coordinating with the satellite manufacturer, Boeing, and government agencies to analyze data and observations,” Intelsat said. The company has since established a board to conduct a “comprehensive analysis of the cause of the anomaly.”
The satellite’s breakup doesn’t have great timing for Boeing, following the company’s troubled Starliner (https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/7/24238245/boeing-starliner-landing-nasa-astronauts-stranded-iss) mission and a criminal fraud charge over 737 Max plane crashes (https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/8/24190142/boeing-737-max-doj-guilty-plea-deal-accepted),
The US Space Force also confirmed (https://www.space-track.org/auth/login) the incident:
U.S. Space Forces-Space (S4S) has confirmed the...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24277073/intelsat-33e-boeing-satellite-fell-apart-space)
Plugable’s PS-10CC can deliver 100W to all 10 of its USB-C ports, but not simultaneously. | Image: Plugable
Plugable has announced a new multi-port USB-C hub that can power or charge up to 10 connected devices using intelligent power distribution and an easy-to-understand priority-based charging system.
The company is bringing its new PS-10CC hub to consumers through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/plugable/plugable-turn-one-usb-c-charger-into-ten/description). The earliest backers can get one for $59, while the hub’s full MSRP will be closer to $99, with delivery expected as early as January 2025. There’s always a level of risk when backing a crowdfunded product, but Plugable has successfully delivered three devices through previous Kickstarters and says it already has functional prototypes of its new PS-10CC.
Image: Plugable
You’ll need to supply your own power adapter for the...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276661/plugable-usb-c-hub-power-charger)
Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge
Arkansas is sitting atop lithium reserves that could be vast enough to satisfy the entire world’s demand for EV batteries, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
It estimates that there could be 5 to 19 million tons of lithium under southwestern Arkansas. That would be enough to supply nine times the amount of the key material needed globally for car batteries in 2030, the USGS says.
Lithium is a key ingredient for rechargeable batteries used in EVs and all kinds of devices. As the US tries to limit the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change by encouraging electric vehicle adoption, the Biden administration has made it a priority to build up domestic supply chains (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/09/20/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-takes-further-action-to-strengthen-and-secure-critical-mineral-supply-chains/) for critical minerals including lithium. The US might...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276615/ev-car-battery-lithium-reserves-arkansas)
At just $40, Hoto’s electric screwdriver is a cool tool we’d recommend for anyone doing handiwork. | Image: Hoto
‘Tis the season for assemblies. With the holidays coming up, many will soon have their hands full with a bunch of new decorations and gifts to build. To take some pressure off, you can give Hoto’s electric screwdriver a try. It’s a perennial favorite in our various gift guides (https://www.theverge.com/gift-guide), and now you can get a whole kit with its magnetic carrying case and a 25-piece set of commonly used steel bits for $39.99 (50 percent off) at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/HOTO-Electric-Screwdriver-Cordless-Mechanical/dp/B0BLMQ8BXB?tag=theverge02-20) and Best Buy (https://howl.me/cnlXc1potca). That’s the lowest price we’ve seen on the package so far.
The screwdriver is lightweight (8.8 ounces) and small enough to maneuver tight workspaces, such as the innards of a desktop PC chassis. You can use it in either manual mode or an electric mode with three distinct torque settings, allowing you to...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276194/hotos-25-piece-electric-screwdriver-set-nintendo-switch-game-deal-sale)