Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio 2 looks to be a minor update of the prior model, with faster performance and new connectivity options. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Microsoft announced the Surface Laptop Studio 2 and Surface Laptop Go 3 during its recent hardware event in New York City, introducing the two laptops alongside a flurry of AI-powered features for Windows 11, Microsoft 365, and Bing. The high-end Surface Laptop Studio 2 starts at $1,099, while the Surface Laptop Go 3 starts at $799; both are slated to launch on October 3rd at 12AM ET. Although the forthcoming…
Later this week, you can watch many cast members from Baldur’s Gate 3, a game that is based heavily on the mechanics and universe of Dungeons & Dragons, play the tabletop version of Dungeons & Dragons as their characters from the video game. It sounds meta but awesome. The cast members will be appearing on High Rollers, a live-play D&D show that streams on Twitch, on Friday at 7PM BST / 2PM ET / 11AM PT. “We have very kindly been approached by [Baldur’s Gate 3 developer] Larian Studios and some rather fine guests to run a little D&D one-shot,”…
Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Mark Gurman writes in the subscriber edition of his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg from this morning that he expects Apple to finish its transition to USB-C by 2025. Gurman says that, in addition to other products, he expects the company will release USB-C versions of the now-discontinued MagSafe Battery Pack and the MagSafe Duo “eventually. But don’t hold your breath.” By comparison, Apple took either a little over a month or about two years to totally move over to Lightning, depending on how you look at it. The company retired the 30-pin…
Grand Theft Auto V turns 10. | Image: Rockstar Games It’s been exactly 10 years since Grand Theft Auto V first launched on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, followed soon after by Grand Theft Auto Online. In a thread on X today, Rockstar Games thanked fans, calling them “the reason GTA V has thrived across multiple console generations.” Last week, Rockstar announced new content for GTA Online commemorating the anniversary: new outfits; GTA V-themed weapon finishes; extra modes; a stock car called the Bravado Hotring Hellfire for GTA+ members; and other collectibles and bonuses for playing certain missions. Celebrate…
The OnePlus Pad as pictured in The Verge’s April review. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge OnePlus is making a new budget tablet called the OnePlus Pad Go, according to Digital Trends. It will have an 11.6-inch 2.4K screen with a 144Hz refresh rate, according to the article, and will launch with OnePlus’ OxygenOS 13. It’s not clear when it’s coming or for how much, though. The OnePlus India X account teased what appears to be the tablet on Thursday, so it sounds like the tablet is at least launching in India soon. Digital Trends’ report was light…
Image: Bungie Destiny 2 has one of the worst — and most hilarious — bugs in its history right now, allowing players to create guns with perks that are game-breaking in activities or PvP. Players can put shotgun frames on auto rifles, resulting in a weapon that obliterates someone in PvP in milliseconds due to the hugely reduced time to kill. Bungie, the developer of Destiny 2, says in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that it will release the fix in two waves, with the first being deployed within the next 24 hours. First, a stopgap: Bungie will disable…
CASEY CRAFFORD/NETFLIX Netflix’s live-action One Piece adaptation is better than it has any business being, and the streamer intends to keep all of the first season’s good momentum going with even more episodes, according to Eiichiro Oda. In a move that only comes as (a bit of) a surprise given how opaque Netflix likes to be about the logic behind its choice to cancel some shows just as they’re really taking off, Oda announced today that the live-action One Piece has been renewed for an unannounced number of new episodes / seasons. In an announcement video featuring one of One…
Yes, you can even create a strawberry koala. | Screenshot by Emma Roth / The Verge You can now create your own emoji combinations directly in Google Search. The company has launched its Emoji Kitchen feature on the web (via 9to5Google), which lets you mash up existing emoji to create different combinations, like an angry pumpkin or a panda wearing a cowboy hat. To start using the tool, all you need to do is type “Emoji Kitchen” into Google Search and click on the “Get cooking” prompt. From there, you pick from dozens of different emoji to combine or play…
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge As you can imagine, there are a lot of interesting — and occasionally off-the-wall — conversations that take place on The Verge’s Slack channels, especially when the weekend is on its way. One of them occurred recently, when reviewer Jennifer Pattison Tuohy happened to ask how many apps people had on their phones. The reaction was immediate — and actually rather telling. It turns out you can find a lot about a person when you talk to them about their phone — and their apps. If you’re at all curious about how…
Image: eBay eBay will give sellers the option to create entire product listings from just a photo using a generative AI tool, the company announced on Thursday. eBay believes the AI-driven product listings will accelerate the selling process, especially for new merchants who might feel overwhelmed by all the details they need to provide. The new tool uses pictures uploaded by sellers to fill in details like a product title, description, item category, and other key information a buyer might want to know. Right now, it’s available only in the iOS app, and according to TechCrunch, it will be available…
That’s Android with a capital A, sir. | Image: Google Google is releasing a grab bag of updates to its mobile apps and services, including an At a Glance Google Assistant widget, enhancements to its Lookout visual accessibility app, and Zoom calls in Android Auto. This comes with a side of branding updates designed to remind us that Android is fun but also a serious Google product. It all arrives as we anticipate Android 14’s imminent release, which is a slightly less exciting milestone when you realize that most new Android features come throughout the year in updates like this…
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge IBM has returned to the facial recognition market — just three years after announcing it was abandoning work on the technology due to concerns about racial profiling, mass surveillance, and other human rights violations. In June 2020, as Black Lives Matter protests swept the US after George Floyd’s murder, IBM chief executive Arvind Krishna wrote a letter to Congress announcing that the company would no longer offer “general purpose” facial recognition technology. “The fight against racism is as urgent as ever,” he wrote. “IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any…
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The US Department of Agriculture announced nearly $700 million in funding Monday to expand high-speed broadband access in rural communities across the country. The USDA’s ReConnect Program is providing $667 million in grants and loans for broadband projects in 22 states and the Marshall Islands in areas that lack access to speeds of at least 100Mbps down and 20Mbps up. Recipients of this funding will be required to build out infrastructure capable of providing upload and download speeds of 100Mbps, surpassing the Federal Communications Commission’s current speed minimums of 25Mbps down and 3Mbps…
The first smart door has landed at The Home Depot, and if you’re good with dropping at least $4,000 on your front door, then you can order one today. That price doesn’t include installation, though, and no matter how handy you are, this one needs the pros — including an electrician to wire it up. First showcased at CES 2022, the Masonite M-PWR Smart Door is the first residential door to come with a Yale smart door lock and Ring video doorbell built in, but the big selling point is they are all powered by your home’s electrics, so there’s…
Image: BwE (X) Sony has been rumored to be working on a revision of the PlayStation 5, often referred to as the PS5 Slim, that includes a removable disc drive. Now images and a video have leaked of a PS5 model that looks slimmer and slightly shorter, and may well have a removable disc drive. The first image leaked of the rumored PS5 Slim in a Chinese forum earlier today, and now a leaked video provides a better look at this rumored device. The video, from Better Way Electronics, an Australian PlayStation repair specialist, shows off the plastic case of…
Threads.net, as of August 2023. | Image by Meta; Screencap by Sean Hollister / The Verge If you go to Threads.net to access Meta’s popular Twitter clone, you’ll still find a spinning placeholder galaxy — but that should change in the next few weeks, according to a new tweet from CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “Search and web coming in the next few weeks,” he tweets, saying he’s “excited about the team’s pace of shipping.” Meta took a gamble on launching a barebones Twitter alternative at breakneck speed while Twitter continued to crumble, and it may have paid off — my colleague…
Illustration: Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Image: Getty Images Elon Musk is talking about the Apple tax again. In a post on Wednesday, the billionaire said he “will speak with @tim_cook” to see if the Apple CEO would adjust the 30 percent commission the company takes on in-app purchases. Right now, Apple takes a 30 percent cut on all in-app purchases on iOS, including the subscriptions sold by creators through Twitter, or X. Musk says he wants to change this so that Apple only takes a 30 percent commission on the portion of the payout kept by Twitter. Super Important…
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Reddit says it has recovered from some big issues that lasted for about an hour. While outages were happening, I couldn’t load any Reddit pages on my browsers where I’m logged into the site — usually, I ran into an error message, though I also hit a blank white screen. However, if I tried to visit the site while logged out, pages loaded fine. As I write this, I’m not having any troubles browsing Reddit. Things weren’t just down for me. A few colleagues here at The Verge were having some troubles loading…
Illustration: The Verge If your kid has been mysteriously busting through the Screen Time limits you set on their Apple device, the Wall Street Journal might know why: the publication found that a bug has been preventing certain Screen Time limits set via the Family Sharing system from saving correctly for months. Apple was supposed to fix the issue back in May, but apparently the problem has persisted. Apple’s Family Sharing system allows parents to put usage limits on their kids’ devices, with one of the key controls being the ability to monitor and limit their usage of specific apps…