Tech
The developers behind a hit sausage-dueling game hope Steam launch will take it furter
Life is a series of battles, and I just lost my last one against four gyoza on a skewer. It was an unexpected blow, because honestly, who could have expected me - a springy, respectably proportioned hot dog - to lose against a seemingly inflexible spear of small, unassuming dumplings? This is my struggle in […]
Version History is live — here’s how to find it
We've been working on a new show for the last few months, called Version History, and the first episode is now live! It's called "Hoverboards: so hot right now," and it's an hour-long tour of the biggest rideable gadget of the 2010s. Hidden inside the history of this weird two-wheeled scooter is a crucial inflection […]
This week’s best deal is a ‘kids’ Kindle Paperwhite that’s better than the adult version
Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days may bring some great Kindle deals, but if you can’t wait, you don’t have to. Right now, the Kindle Kids (Amazon, Best Buy, and Target) and Kindle Colorsoft Kids (Amazon, Best Buy, and Target) are down to their lowest prices ever, but my favorite deal is on the Kindle Paperwhite […]
Daniel Ek stepping down changes nothing for the artists boycotting Spotify
Spotify has found itself the target of artists' ire for many reasons over the years: poor audio quality, terrible payouts, giving Joe Rogan millions of dollars… the list goes on. But recently it's been CEO and founder Daniel Ek's extracurricular activities that have been cause for consternation. Over the past few months his funding of […]
Ecovacs’ Deebot X8 and X9 Pro Omni robovacs have hit a new low price
Robot vacuums that mop well rarely come cheap, but thankfully, some of our favorite models are receiving a significant discount ahead of Amazon’s next Prime Day event next week. Right now, the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni and the newer Deebot X9 Pro Omni are on sale at Amazon for Prime members for $799.99 ($300 off) and […]
Putting ‘Call of Duty’ On Game Pass Reportedly Resulted In $300 Million Loss For Microsoft
One unnamed employee reveals that putting Call of Duty on Game Pass resulted in Microsoft forfeiting around $300 million in sales.
Instagram wants me to make content — I just want to post a photo
Have you tried simply uploading a photo to Instagram lately? It's a minefield. Is that a Story, a Post, or a Reel? Do you want to add music? A caption? A prompt, which is… different than a caption, somehow? How about a poll? A fundraiser? More text, but this time on top of the image? […]
Tilly Norwood is a gen AI psyop
Last week at the Zurich Film Festival, Eline Van der Velden - founder and CEO of AI production house Particle6 and its subsidiary talent studio Xicoia - said that a number of talent agents had expressed interest in working with Tilly Norwood, an AI-generated "actress" created by the companies. Van der Velden has not gone […]
Consume Me is a raw and funny memoir in video game form
There's a lot of math in diet culture. It's all numbers - calories in, calories burned - and a constant tally running in one's head. In some ways, disordered eating can be considered a disturbed sort of strategy game, which is precisely why Jenny Jiao Hsia and AP Thomson's Consume Me works so well. The […]
Oregon’s National Guard lawsuit hinges on Trump’s Truth Social posts
After getting off the phone with Oregon Governor Tina Kotek on Saturday, the president mused over something that had baffled him about the call. Kotek had been "very nice," said Trump in an interview the next day. But she was trying hard to convince him not to send in the National Guard, and that just […]
Discord customer service data breach leaks user info and scanned photo IDs
One of Discord’s third-party customer service providers was compromised by an “unauthorized party,” the company says. The unauthorized party gained access to “information from a limited number of users who had contacted Discord through our Customer Support and/or Trust & Safety teams” and aimed to “extort a financial ransom from Discord.” The unauthorized party “did […]
Tales from the AI hiring frenzy
This is an excerpt of Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. The billboard didn't say "Listen Labs." It didn't say anything about hiring. It consisted of just a plain white background with "https://" and a single line of grouped numbers […]
