In the early 1970s, long before social media and more than a decade before the earliest internet forums, a woman named Peggie Ames became a human rolodex for trans women in New York state. Born in Buffalo, Ames spent years working for gay rights organizations in the rural and suburban areas of Western New York. … Read more
Glance is bringing an AI-generated version of yourself to your screensaver. DirecTV wants to use AI to put you, your family, and your pets inside a custom TV screensaver. If that’s not uncanny enough, you’ll find items you can shop for within that AI environment, whether it’s a piece of clothing similar to the one … Read more
Managed accounts allow users to block kids from listening to specific songs and artists. Spotify is expanding shared account features that make it easier for parents to control what their kids listen to. Managed accounts are now launching for Premium Family subscribers in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, and the Netherlands following a … Read more
I renewed my passport the day after Trump won again. It wouldn’t expire for years, but I did it anyway, along with many trans people I knew who could scrape together the fee. We all had the same thought: get your documents in order now, while you still can. For over a decade, I’ve written … Read more
Instagram’s PG-13-inspired rating will avoid recommending more types of content to teens. | Image: Meta Instagram is making a major update to teen accounts that will only allow them to view content similar to what you would see in a PG-13 movie. Under the new system, Instagram will continue to hide content containing nudity, sexual content, … Read more
It’s the end of an era for TiVo. Cord Cutters flagged that the company has removed every digital video recorder product from its website, with TiVo confirming to the publication last week that it has officially ceased making DVR hardware after 26 years in the industry. Its last DVR release was the TiVo Edge in … Read more
Nvidia’s DGX Spark computer. Nvidia will start selling its DGX Spark “personal AI supercomputer” this week. The machine is powerful enough to let users work on sophisticated AI models but small enough to fit on a desktop. Nvidia said Spark can be ordered online at nvidia.com starting Wednesday, October 15th, as well as from select … Read more
Meta wants you to find your next gig on Facebook. Meta, a company that is not shy about bolting new features onto its platforms, is bolting another new feature onto Facebook: jobs. This one is actually a throwback — Facebook initially introduced job postings in 2017, only to retire it less than five years later. … Read more
Microsoft AI just announced its first text-to-image generator, MAI-Image-1, designed and developed in-house. The tech giant, which recently announced its first in-house Microsoft AI models, called the new image generator “the next step on our journey.” Microsoft says it sought feedback from creative professionals in order to avoid “repetitive or generically-stylized outputs.” MAI-Image-1 “excels” at … Read more
Ads in Google search results are getting a more prominent label, and a way to hide them if you’re not interested. Handy! The thing is, you still have to look at them first. Currently, Google labels paid results on search pages individually with a “sponsored” tag on each one. This change groups them all into … Read more
After a brutal few months, Tesla sales are finally picking up thanks to expiring federal EV tax credits. But while customers are snatching up Model 3s and Ys, they are increasingly turning up their noses at the newest addition to Tesla’s lineup: the Cybertruck. Tesla only sold 5,385 Cybertrucks in the third quarter, down 63 … Read more
A bill attempting to regulate the ever-growing industry of companion AI chatbots is now law in California, as of October 13th. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 243, billed as “first-in-the-nation AI chatbot safeguards” by state senator Anthony Padilla. The new law requires that companion chatbot developers implement new safeguards — for instance, … Read more
California joins a growing group of states with a new internet age-gating law after Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed AB 1043, the Digital Age Assurance Act. The law mandates that device operating systems and app stores require users to enter their age or date of birth when setting up a new phone or computer. The … Read more
The plus symbol in the current logo is still present across Apple’s website. The Apple TV Plus streaming service is being rebranded with a “vibrant new identity,” according to the Cupertino company, and is “now simply Apple TV.” The announcement was briefly mentioned at the bottom of Apple’s latest press release regarding the December 12th … Read more
EcoFlow’s Delta Pro Ultra X inverter unit stacked on top of two expansion batteries, and plugged into a Smart Home Panel 3. | Image: EcoFlow EcoFlow just announced its latest “most powerful” and “easy-to-install” whole-home battery backup system. It’s called the Delta Pro Ultra X because when you’ve already launched the superlative-laced Delta Pro Ultra in … Read more
OpenAI is teaming up with Broadcom to produce its own computer chips to power its AI data centers. The deal is the latest in a series of partnerships designed to reduce the company’s reliance on Nvidia and secure enough computing power to fuel apps like ChatGPT and Sora and realize its mission to develop superintelligent … Read more
EagleEye includes “helmet-native hardware” designed for the battlefield. Anduril, the military tech company founded by Oculus creator Palmer Luckey, has announced the first hardware to come out of its recent partnership with Meta: EagleEye, an AI-powered mixed-reality (MR) system designed to be built into soldiers’ helmets. The modular hardware is a “family of systems,” according … Read more
Like all Vivo flagships, the X300 series includes Zeiss-branded cameras. Vivo has announced the X300 and X300 Pro, its latest flagship phones, and they look closer to the company’s even more premium Ultra handsets than ever. On paper, the Pro’s camera setup looks just as good as the X200 Ultra’s, especially thanks to offering support … Read more
The penalties are fairly paltry. The United Kingdom has slapped 4Chan with a £20,000 (around $26,000) fine in a bid to clamp down on platforms that are hindering Online Safety Act (OSA) investigations. UK telecoms regulator Ofcom says the fine was issued after the controversial social media site ignored “legally-binding information requests” related to global … Read more
Slack is testing an update for Slackbot that transforms it into an AI assistant. Presently, it operates as a tool for delivering reminders and notifications. With the update, Slackbot can create custom plans tailored to your workspace, sift through a mountain of messages, gather information from a range of Slack channels, and more. “Slackbot today … Read more
The new standard aims to provide improved stability for devices in congested networks. It feels like the rollout of Wi-Fi 7 is barely out of the gate, but TP-Link is already making advancements towards the next generation of connectivity. The company announced on Monday that it has successfully tested an early prototype of Wi-Fi 8 … Read more
We got our first proper look at the upcoming Wonder Man series, but Marvel has a whole slate of shows in the works. Other than Wonder Man, though, the company didn’t roll into New York Comic Con with a firm release date for anything. The best we got were some broad release windows and few … Read more
Get ready to ask “WTF?” a lot. Spooky season is upon us, and traditional horror films like Bring Her Back (excellently gruesome) or The Evil Dead (stone cold classic) are obvious choices for a cozy movie night at home. But, if you’re looking for something that’s a bit more weird than wicked to get you … Read more
Last week, for James Bond Day, Amazon revealed updated poster art for the movies. But fans immediately noticed that the super spy’s signature Walther PPK was conspicuously missing from every image. In some cases it had clearly and rather clumsily been Photoshopped out. Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan were left awkwardly holding thin air, in … Read more
We’ve been so worried about deepfaked politicians, AI musicians, virtual actresses, and phony satellite imagery that we didn’t even consider the dangers posed by precocious teenagers. Kids are using AI to create images of a disheveled, seemingly unhoused person in their home and sending them to their parents. Understandably, they’re not thrilled and in some … Read more
It’s important to remember that two decades ago, text messages cost 10 cents. Each. Back when we measured our cell phone plans in minutes, and when even 3G connections felt fast, text messages were a huge business for wireless carriers and a huge expense for anyone whose kids learned to T9-type just a little too … Read more
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the downward spiral of the internet, follow Adi Robertson. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Back in 2018, two years after the UK … Read more
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 101, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, hope you like silly accessories, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been reading about Intel factories and Nobel Prize winners and ATM … Read more
Apple’s Clips video editing app is no more. It debuted in 2017 as a way to stitch together videos with music, text, and filters with a clear focus on sharing to social media. Over the years Apple added AR features and more advanced video editing tools. But recently updates had slowed to a trickle. Apple … Read more
This week the Pew Research Center published a study about how parents managed screen time for their kids 12 and under. The results were not particularly surprising (or enlightening, if we’re being honest). A full 90 percent of parents said their children watched TV, and 61 percent said their kids interact with smartphones at least … Read more