Tech
Apple’s big services bet is paying off as iPhone sales dip
/ Services remains a highlight and keeps growing into a bigger revenue driver with over 1 billion paid subscriptions. iPhone sales dipped ahead of the iPhone 15 lineup coming in September. a:hover]:text-gray-63 [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63 dark:[&>a]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray”>Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge This April through June quarter is almost always Apple’s most boring financial stretch of the entire year, and today’s earnings release shows this year was no exception. The company reported revenue of $81.8 billion, down from $83 billion last year. With the new iPhone 15 series still a month and change away, last year’s...
A 1976 Apple Check Signed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak Is Up for Auction
An Apple check signed by Steve Jobs and co-founder Steve Wozniak is heading to auction. Dated 1976, the check marks one of Apple’s first-ever payments, with this one issued to a printed circuit board company that was likely responsible for the boards of the company’s first computers.The check was technically written prior to Apple’s launch as a company. Apple Computer, Inc was officially registered thirteen days after the March 19 check. It also predates the company’s address, which was included on later checks, as Jobs and Wozniak had yet to open their Palo Alto office out of Jobs’ parents’ garage.The historic check “No. 2” will hit the auction block in an online event hosted by Boston’s RR Auction. The auction is already open and the check will be up for bids until August 24."This tempor...
The first Bethesda games are arriving on Nvidia’s GeForce Now service
/ Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming service is getting its first Bethesda games this month thanks to Microsoft’s cloud gaming agreement. a:hover]:text-black [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-e9 dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray-63 [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-13 dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63″>Wolfenstein: The New Order.
Google Researchers Equip AI To Transform Brain Scans Into Music
Researchers from Google joined Japan’s Osaka University to conduct a study that saw them convert brain activity into streamable music.For the effort, five volunteers underwent fMRI scans while being played music from an assortment of 500 tracks across 10 genres.Researchers then took the scans of the volunteers’ brain activity and fed them into an AI model they had built called Brain2Music. The program draws information from the scans to produce songs inspired by those the volunteers were listening to.The new AI-generated songs came from Google’s production tool, MusicLM, which is a text-to-music model that churns out tracks based on text descriptions.In the published study, the researchers described the AI music as resembling “the musical stimuli that human subjects experienced, with respe...
Three big Reddit communities are no longer focused on John Oliver
Reddit/ Tech / r/aww, r/pics, and r/videos are largely operating as they did before the protests. a:hover]:text-gray-63 [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63 dark:[&>a]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray”>Photo by Arturo Holmes / Getty Images Three of Reddit’s biggest communities are no longer focused entirely on John Oliver in a form of protest against Reddit. The subreddits had made the switch in June to push back on Reddit’s API pricing that ultimately made some popular third-party apps shut down, but now, they’re operating pretty much as they did before the protests. One of the subreddits, r/aww (which has more than 34 million subscribers), posted a ...
How Elon Musk took over Tesla using money, strong-arm tactics, and his own popularity
/ Episode two of Land of the Giants: The Tesla Shock Wave features interviews with Tesla’s co-founders, early employees, and investors to tell the story of the company’s origin. a]:text-gray-13″>If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement. a:hover]:text-gray-63 [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63 dark:[&>a]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray”>Image: Getty The story of Tesla and Elon Musk can be traced back to the early 2000s, when Musk was ousted as CEO of his first company, PayPal. That incident taught Musk a crucial lesson about the importance of being in control, even when it wasn’t your ow...
Instagram is working on labels for AI generated content
/ The in-development feature highlights when a piece of content has been ‘created or edited with AI.’ a:hover]:text-gray-63 [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63 dark:[&>a]:text-gray-bd dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray”>Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Instagram appears to be working on new notices that would identify when AI has played a role in creating content on its platform. App researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, who frequently discovers new Instagram features before they’re officially announced or released, has posted a screenshot of a page in the Instagram app that reads “the creator or Meta said that this content was created or edited with AI.” ...
TweetDeck’s new ‘XPro’ branding is starting to show up
Twitter – X/ Tech / But like other parts of the X rebranding, vestiges of Twitter remain. a:hover]:text-black [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-e9 dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray-63 [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-13 dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63″>Like other parts of the X rebrand, there’s still some work to be done.
Twitter Threatens Lawsuit Against Anti-Hate Speech Group
A group monitoring and researching hate speech online has received a letter from Twitter threatening to sue them after a recent report of theirs blaming the company for inaction. The Center for Countering Digital Hate claims that it got the letter on July 20th, accusing them of being biased and not providing research with supported data.
Microsoft Teams adds spatial audio for more immersive conference calls
/ You can use your PC’s speakers or a wired headset, but Bluetooth earbuds and headphones are a no go (for now). a:hover]:text-black [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-e9 dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray-63 [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-13 dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63″>Spatial audio is meant to make conference calls sound closer to real-life conversations.
The incandescent light bulb still isn’t dead — but ‘normal’ ones are now truly banned
Tech/ Policy / 45 lumens per watt is now the bar. a:hover]:text-black [&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-black dark:[&>a:hover]:text-gray-e9 dark:[&>a:hover]:shadow-underline-gray-63 [&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-13 dark:[&>a]:shadow-underline-gray-63″>An incandescent light bulb, next to an LED bulb.
Everything we know about Apple’s Vision Pro headset
People have been speculating about Apple’s entry into the world of virtual and augmented reality headsets for the better part of a decade, and at WWDC 2023, it finally revealed Vision Pro. The new headset runs visionOS, uses two Apple Silicon chips (M2 Ultra and R1), and can be used for up to two hours with a tethered battery pack or for as long as you want if it’s plugged in. It also uses “natural control” with hand and eye tracking as well as voice commands. The Vision Pro headset will arrive “early next year” in the US, and Apple is pricing it at $3,499 to start. Apple had never officially confirmed that it was working on the headset, but over the years, there were all kinds of rumors about what it might make. Now we know the truth about Vision Pro, a mixed reality device capable of bot...
