Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, and Brave have each issued critical security patches, reports Stack Diary. The patches address a vulnerability that an attacker could use to gain access to or run malicious code on your computer, and the companies acknowledge it’s been actively exploited in the wild. NIST classifies the vulnerability as severe. Other companies’ applications are affected — the vulnerability is linked to code used to render WebP images, which are widely used. The software version numbers containing the fix are below. Google: Chrome version 116.0.5846.187 (Mac / Linux); Chrome version 116.0.5845.187/.188…
Apple brings satellite-powered Roadside Assistance to the iPhone 15 and iPhone 14 in a partnership with AAA. | Image: Apple During the iPhone 15 launch event in Cupertino, Apple announced it’s adding satellite-powered Roadside Assistance to the iPhone in a partnership with AAA. Buying and activating a new iPhone 14 or iPhone 15 series device will include two years of Emergency SOS and Roadside Assistance access for free. The services they connect you to are covered under the AAA membership terms or available on a pay-per-use basis for non-AAA members. The Roadside Assistance service — which is US only —…
The iPhone 15 and 15 Pro phones will be the first to support the Qi2 open charging standard, but they aren’t Qi2-certified yet. | Image: Apple The iPhone 15 and 15 Pro are the first phones to ship with the new Qi2 magnetic wireless charging standard. Well, sort of: it turns out they aren’t Qi2-certified yet. But neither is anything else. Qi2 is an update to the Qi wireless charging standard that adds a ring of magnets to ensure proper alignment of the charging coils. You know, like MagSafe. Unlike MagSafe, Qi2 is an open standard — Apple even contributed…
Illustration: The Verge September and October are some of the most exciting months of the year if you’ve been waiting all year to see the latest and greatest tech, even if that just means meeting the annual new iPhone. Of course, events are also planned for entertainment, cars, and more, and you’ll be able to catch all the latest news on major events and conferences here on The Verge. The IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin kicked off the slate, leading into the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) that runs through September 17th. The schedule truly picks up now with…
The Verge Disney is releasing a 100-film Blu-ray collection on November 14th called the Disney Legacy Animated Film Collection (via The Wrap). Preorders will start on September 18th at Walmart.com, and we regret to inform you it will cost $1,500, according to The Wrap. The collection includes movies from both Disney and Pixar, all crammed into three volumes of discs that span Disney’s entire feature film history from 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to this year’s Elemental. What’s really impressive is how little filler this package seems to have. Scrolling through the list that The Wrap published, it…
Illustration: The Verge A WhatsApp for Android beta update (version 2.23.19.8) that came out today contains a new screen called Third-party chats, reports WABetaInfo. For now, the screen is neither functional nor accessible by users, according to WABetaInfo. But its title is a strong clue that this is likely the first step to opening Meta’s encrypted messages app to cross-platform compatibility. The beta comes just days after the European Commission confirmed that WhatsApp owner Meta meets the definition of a “gatekeeper” under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which requires communication software like WhatsApp to interoperate with third-party messaging apps…
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…
This one that I got off Amazon for $20 is alright. But it doesn’t do everything I need it to. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge I like big phones, but I cannot lie. They come with tradeoffs. Namely, despite having large hands and piano fingers, my iPhone 14 Pro Max doesn’t always feel secure in my grasp. That’s fine when I’m in bed, surrounded by soft blankets and pillows. It’s less fine when I’m trying to text one-handed on public transit or running errands. I first encountered this problem with my first Big Phone, the iPhone XS…
A screenshot from a 2015 video interview, titled Oral History of Dennis R. Austin, that was published by the Computer History Museum. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge Dennis Austin, who co-created PowerPoint, passed away at his home in Los Altos, California, on September 1st, reports The Washington Post. His son, Michael Austin, said he’d had lung cancer that had metastasized to his brain, according to the Post. He was 76 years old. Austin studied engineering at several universities, including MIT and UC Santa Barbara, before going to work as a software developer, eventually joining the software company Forethought…
Finally, the kind of treatment Nintendo’s 34-year-old handheld deserves. | Image: Grid Happy Saturday, dear readers! If you’re anything like me, chances are you have a soft spot for older tech, specifically the kind of borderline-ancient gadgets and gizmos that often find their way to the landfill or the shoebox under your bed. If so, I’m here to tell you that Grid Studio is running an anniversary sale through Sunday, September 10th, offering discounts on an assortment of framed, nostalgia-inducing gadgets. In terms of what’s available, you have some options. The original Game Boy and iPhone 4S — which are…
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Disney has announced that until October 11th, it will offer a three-month deal on Hulu plus Live TV for $49.99 per month. The $20-a-month discounted subscription, which includes the ad-free tiers for Disney Plus and ESPN Plus, comes right as the final weekend of the US Open championships gets underway and the first NFL games of the season happen. Disney’s Hulu trial is well-timed, given its spat with Spectrum leaving cable customers with legally dubious options for watching some of the year’s biggest sports events. That includes tennis player Daniil Medvedev, who last…
Image: Spike Chunsoft A Japanese court has convicted a man of violating copyright law after he uploaded gameplay and anime videos without publisher permission. Reported by Japanese paper Asahi Shimbun, the 53-year-old man, Shinobu Yoshida, was sentenced to two years in prison and assessed a 1 million yen fine (or about $6,700 USD.) Yoshida was arrested in May of this year after uploading gameplay videos of the visual novel Steins;Gate: My Darling’s Embrace back in 2019. According to a press release from the Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA), a Japanese anti-piracy trade group, the complaint apparently stemmed from the fact…
Image: Microsoft Microsoft is testing a new background removal tool in Paint. The feature is rolling out now to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels (version 11.2306.30.0) and lets you remove an image’s background with a single click. To use the tool, testers can open an image with Paint and then hit the background removal button on the left side of Paint’s toolbar. From there, Paint will automatically detect the subject of an image and cut away the background. Microsoft notes that you can also manually select the portion of the background that you want to remove. Image:…
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…
Photo by Patrick George for The Verge Hyundai introduced a new feature called “Hyundai Pay” that lets owners of the 2024 Hyundai Kona pay for parking at several thousand locations directly from their car’s infotainment screen. It’s the latest example of the auto industry’s multiyear effort to make in-car payments a real thing. Users input their preferred credit card into the app on their infotainment screens, which then can be used to pay for parking at participating Parkopedia locations. The vehicle then uses its cellular connection to communicate with Parkopedia’s software to complete the transaction. Personal details are kept secure…
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Whenever I get a new phone and eventually install Instagram, the first thing I do is dig through the app’s settings menu for a toggle that reads “Upload at highest quality.” According to the app, when enabled, this ensures you’ll “Always upload the highest quality photos and videos, even if uploading takes longer. When this is off, we’ll automatically adjust upload quality to fit network conditions.” But here’s the weird part: by default, this setting is switched off. Aren’t we in the 5G era? Isn’t this the social media platform where people obsess…
Clive, much like this deal, is on fire. | Image: Square Enix With so many major game releases happening this year — and even this week — you could almost forget that a new mainline Final Fantasy dropped just a couple of months back. Well now, it’s already on a sizable sale. Final Fantasy XVI is selling for $49.99 ($20 off) at both Amazon and Best Buy, its lowest price yet. Final Fantasy XVI is the most gritty and blood-soaked installment of the series to date, taking a chapter or three from George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones when it…