Technology

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has accused Tesla of falsely advertising its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) features, as reported earlier by the Los Angeles Times (via CNBC). The agency filed two separate complaints with the state’s Office of Administrative Hearings on July 28th, alleging Tesla made “untrue or misleading” claims about its vehicles’ autonomous driving capabilities. In the filings, the DMV claims the names of Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD features, as well as the language the company uses to describe them, wrongly imply that cars equipped with the technology can operate autonomously. The DMV specifically points to the information on Tesla’s Autopilot page, which states its FSD system “is designed to be able to conduct short and long distance trips with no ...

Maybe Elon Musk doesn’t want a court battle with Twitter? After having his lawyers spin up a 165-page argument about why he no longer wants to go through with his $44 billion deal to buy the platform, Musk suggested hashing things out in public — perhaps before a jury of the Tesla fans, Dogecoin hodlers, and potential Mars colonizers among his Twitter followers — to get to the bottom of Twitter’s so-called bot issue. “I hereby challenge @paraga to a public debate about the Twitter bot percentage,” Musk proclaims to all 102 million members of his forum. “Let him prove to the public that Twitter has <5% fake or spam daily users!” I hereby challenge @paraga to a public debate about the Twitter bot percentage. Let him prove to the public that Twitter has <5% fake or spam daily users! — E...

Toyota is offering to buy back its bZ4X electric SUV crossovers after recalling the vehicle in June, as first reported by Electrek. The recall, which Toyota issued not even two months after the bZ4X’s release, involves loose hub bolts on the steering wheel that could cause it to detach while driving. Toyota initially advised bZ4X owners not to drive the vehicle, and suggested that they notify their local Toyota dealer so they can pick up and store the car while they wait on a fix. The company would then provide customers with a free loaner car in return. But a letter to customers obtained by Electrek and confirmed by The Verge reveals that Toyota is also offering to throw in a few extra freebies in exchange for the inconvenience, including a $5,000 credit, an extended warranty, and free ch...

Don’t let the name fool you — there is nothing stealthy about this device. The MSI GS77 Stealth has long been the portable option among MSI’s gaming elite, and while that fact remained dubiously true with last year’s 5.4-pound GS76 Stealth, this year’s 0.79-inch-thick, 6.17-pound GS77 has effectively launched that idea into the sun. This laptop is big, thick, and bulky, and while it lacks the light strips and LED grids that other showy gaming laptops boast, its RGB keyboard still makes very clear that it’s for gaming above all else. This isn’t necessarily a huge knock against the device — the GS76 was quite light for what it was, and the GS77 has brought the Stealth series back in line with the rest of the 17-inch market. It now weighs a bit more than Razer’s Blade 17 and Asus’ Zephyrus S1...

Small, premium laptops — truly small ones — have fallen out of fashion in recent years. The smallest computer Apple sells has a 13.3-inch screen. Dell’s tiniest XPS comes with a 13.4-inch panel. HP’s Spectre X360 line scales down to 13.5-inch screens, which the company lists as a 14-inch class. The 11- or 12-inch laptops you can buy (the ones that aren’t tablets trying to masquerade as something else) are typically cheap and slow. Modern laptops have trimmed weights and bezels and frames considerably, making it easier to tote around those 13-inch or larger screens, finding a premium, consumer laptop with 12-inch or smaller screen for the ultimate in portability is a challenge. That’s where Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Go 2 comes in. The least expensive laptop Microsoft sells (not counting th...

Welcome to the weekend. Whether you’re working today, or you’re off, we have a range of deals that you might be interested in. Most of these were big hits throughout the week that we’re resurfacing for your perusal, though we’ve packed in a few deals that popped up more recently. In terms of what to look forward to on The Verge, this week will be Samsung’s Unpacked event. That’s all happening on Wednesday, August 10th, and based on rumors, we expect to see new foldable phones and other gadgets, and plenty of preorder deals. See you then. At the Epic Games Store on PC, you can play as much Far Cry 6 as you can fit into this weekend. The storefront is offering an extended free trial of Ubisoft’s latest open-world first-person shooter. Deals on Far Cry 6 aren’t too uncommon these days (though...

Valve is working to add support for the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Con controllers in Steam. As part of the the newest Steam beta, Joy-Cons will be supported either individually or as a matched pair, similar to how you can use them either way for Switch games. If you want to try the feature out, you can opt into the Steam beta — Valve has helpful instructions on the Steam website — though fingers crossed that your Joy-Cons aren’t experiencing any drift. Valve is also improving its support for Nintendo’s classic controllers it sells for Switch Online subscribers, though in the beta patch notes, the company didn’t specify exactly how. That feature was introduced to the public version of the Steam client just last week, letting you use the Switch-specific NES, SNES, N64, and Sega Genesis controlle...

It starts innocently enough. You download an app, and the app asks for your permission to send you push notifications. Sure, you think. What harm could come of it? I’d like to know when my package arrives or my burrito is ready. But then you download more apps, and they all need your permission to send you notifications, and before you know it your lock screen is awash with apps clamoring for your attention. The apps never shut up. They’re hungry for engagement. They want you to know that your favorite items are on sale, that you haven’t practiced your Spanish today, that your delivery driver is five stops away, that your child at daycare just had a blowout – all day, all at once. Welcome to a place we all live, a place called Notification Hell. We haven’t always lived here. For a while, c...

When Apple introduced passkeys, its implementation of FIDO Alliance’s password-less secure authentication technology, the company did it in the most Apple way possible. It made an icon and printed a very on Apple brand-looking “Passkeys” next to it, complete in the San Francisco font. And if you’ve watched only part of the WWDC presentation on Apple’s passkeys, it’s possible to assume passkeys are an exclusive feature of Apple’s iCloud Keychain. Just a reminder: it’s not. The term “passkey” will also be used by major players Microsoft and Google. It’s used as a common noun and can be pluralized or singular, for instance: “you should set a passkey for your banking app.” In other words, treat the word “passkey” as you would treat the word “password”. Passkeys work by letting you log in to an...

With the anticipated release of Apple‘s iPhone 14 range edging ever closer, new rumors have now suggested that the upcoming generation of the company’s flagship smartphone will carry a purple option once again. The color was made available with the iPhone 12 models, but Apple ultimately elected to forego the option with its current iPhone 13 generation. However, new leaks are suggesting that purple will make a return once again for both the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro, with the former available in purple, green, blue, black, white and red while the latter will come in purple, green, silver, gold, and graphite, meaning the existing pink and sierra blue will be replaced respectively. As the leaker reports, the phone will also boast 30W charging capabilities but carry the same storage options...

Intel had an incredibly rough quarter, unexpectedly losing half a billion dollars due to a PC purchasing slump, and yesterday seemed like more bad news — a report from TrendForce about manufacturing delays sparked rumors that Intel’s next big flagship processor Meteor Lake would be delayed until 2024, which would put it as much as a year behind schedule. (In a February investor meeting, Intel said that Meteor Lake would be “powering on” this summer before shipping in 2023.) However, Intel is flatly denying those rumors today, with spokesperson Thomas Hannaford clarifying to The Verge that not only are they untrue, but that Meteor Lake will actually ship, launch, and be available to consumers in 2023. Intel’s client processor roadmap, as of 2022 Investor DayImage: Intel That’s a good thing ...

Wouldn’t it be neat if you could get free streaming TV channels without downloading an app or signing up for a new service? Well, you just might be getting that soon if you’re Google TV user, 9to5Google has decompiled the latest version of the software and reports the company’s TV streaming platform (formally Android TV) contains text that hints at 50 included live TV channels. The purported new feature seems to be called “Google TV Channels” based on text found in the launcher app. And there’s also an image in the software that hints at what channels will be included in the new service. It’s the usual lineup of internet-streamed free channels like ABC News Live, NBC News Now, and USA Today. There’s also a bunch of background noise channels like Divorce Court, American Classics, and Deal o...