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Image: Alejandro Otero

The latest news about space junk and global cleanup efforts. What goes up, must come down — unless you’re sending things into space of course, which creates some complications. After more than 60 years of satellite launches and space exploration, manufactured objects like derelict spacecraft and rocket fragments now litter Earth’s orbit as space junk. The waste has damaged or even outright destroyed active spacecraft it collides with, and even caused property damage down here on terra firma when debris has failed to burn up in the atmosphere.
Some efforts, from net-casting satellites to ”Zero Debris” space sustainability initiatives, have been made to address the growing problem. But with analysts estimating that over 2,800 satellites will be launched each year between now and 2032, more needs to be done to ensure that the space around Earth is safe. We’re collecting all our coverage surrounding space junk here to keep you updated.

Image: Alejandro Otero

The latest news about space junk and global cleanup efforts.

What goes up, must come down — unless you’re sending things into space of course, which creates some complications. After more than 60 years of satellite launches and space exploration, manufactured objects like derelict spacecraft and rocket fragments now litter Earth’s orbit as space junk. The waste has damaged or even outright destroyed active spacecraft it collides with, and even caused property damage down here on terra firma when debris has failed to burn up in the atmosphere.

Some efforts, from net-casting satellites to ”Zero Debris” space sustainability initiatives, have been made to address the growing problem. But with analysts estimating that over 2,800 satellites will be launched each year between now and 2032, more needs to be done to ensure that the space around Earth is safe. We’re collecting all our coverage surrounding space junk here to keep you updated.

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Image: Tango Gameworks

Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks has been spared closure, three months after Microsoft announced plans to shut down the studio. Krafton, the South Korean publisher behind PUBG: Battlegrounds and The Callisto Protocol, announced on Monday that it had acquired the game and its Japanese studio, and is working with Xbox to enable a “smooth transition” to ensure the Tango Gameworks team can “continue developing the Hi-Fi Rush IP and explore future projects.”
Microsoft had initially announced in May that it was closing Tango Gameworks, alongside Redfall developer Arkane Austin and Mighty Doom developer Alpha Dog Studios — three studios it inherited after acquiring ZeniMax in 2021. The impending Tango Gameworks closure was widely criticized by the gaming community at the time, as Hi-Fi Rush had won several awards during the 2023–2024 awards season.
Being spared from Microsoft’s wave of layoffs and studio closures is a fate that Tango Gamesworks shares with Skylanders developer Toys For Bob, which instead left Microsoft / Activision to become an independent studio earlier this year.

The value of the deal has not been disclosed. Hi-Fi Rush was the only Tango IP mentioned in Krafton’s announcement, so it’s unclear if Microsoft is relinquishing the rights to the studio’s other franchises like The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo. We have reached out to Krafton for clarification. The PUBG owner says the acquisition won’t impact the availability of Tango Gameworks’ existing game catalog.
Krafton says it will support the Tango Gameworks team to deliver “fresh and exciting experiences for fans” — which means we may yet see the rumored Nintendo Switch Hi-Fi Rush port that never materialized, or possibly even sequels to the game.

Image: Tango Gameworks

Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks has been spared closure, three months after Microsoft announced plans to shut down the studio. Krafton, the South Korean publisher behind PUBG: Battlegrounds and The Callisto Protocol, announced on Monday that it had acquired the game and its Japanese studio, and is working with Xbox to enable a “smooth transition” to ensure the Tango Gameworks team can “continue developing the Hi-Fi Rush IP and explore future projects.”

Microsoft had initially announced in May that it was closing Tango Gameworks, alongside Redfall developer Arkane Austin and Mighty Doom developer Alpha Dog Studios — three studios it inherited after acquiring ZeniMax in 2021. The impending Tango Gameworks closure was widely criticized by the gaming community at the time, as Hi-Fi Rush had won several awards during the 2023–2024 awards season.

Being spared from Microsoft’s wave of layoffs and studio closures is a fate that Tango Gamesworks shares with Skylanders developer Toys For Bob, which instead left Microsoft / Activision to become an independent studio earlier this year.

The value of the deal has not been disclosed. Hi-Fi Rush was the only Tango IP mentioned in Krafton’s announcement, so it’s unclear if Microsoft is relinquishing the rights to the studio’s other franchises like The Evil Within and Ghostwire: Tokyo. We have reached out to Krafton for clarification. The PUBG owner says the acquisition won’t impact the availability of Tango Gameworks’ existing game catalog.

Krafton says it will support the Tango Gameworks team to deliver “fresh and exciting experiences for fans” — which means we may yet see the rumored Nintendo Switch Hi-Fi Rush port that never materialized, or possibly even sequels to the game.

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A Waymo car out on the job. | Photo: Smith Collection / Gado / Getty Images

If you’ve ever wondered what happens to all those self-driving taxis when the world is asleep, one YouTube channel has you covered. Since the beginning of the month, software engineer Sophia Tung has been livestreaming a San Francisco parking lot that Waymo is renting to give its robotaxis somewhere to go during their downtime.
Tung told The Verge via email that the company appeared to “partially” take over the lot on July 28th then later took over the entire lot. Waymo recently opened up its robotaxi service to anyone in San Francisco.

Days later, she set up the livestream, complete with LoFi study beats. Tung told us she’s running it off of a mini PC she had laying around, with a webcam surrounded by a cereal box to reduce glare. Now, any time of day, you can pop in to check out what the Waymo cars are up to. If there aren’t any Waymos in the lot, “the flock will start migrating back” between 7PM and 9PM PST on Sunday through Thursday or 11PM through midnight, Friday and Saturday, says text overlaid on the video.
As I write this, the lot is calm, with just three cars parked in it. But when the lot starts to fill up (which “usually happens at 4AM or so,” according to Tung) what looks like a maddening ballet of autonomous parking — and honking — begins. The noise goes for as much as an hour at a time before it settles down, she said.

Waymo is “aware that in some scenarios our vehicles may briefly honk while navigating our parking lots,” company representative Chris Bonelli told The Verge in an email, adding that Waymo has figured out what’s causing the behavior and is working to fix it.
Tung, who is a self-described micromobility advocate, told The Verge she thinks “generally people are bemused,” and that she likes having the cars there. “Honestly, it’s fun to watch the cars come and go,” she said, adding that “it’s really just the honking that needs to be resolved.”

A Waymo car out on the job. | Photo: Smith Collection / Gado / Getty Images

If you’ve ever wondered what happens to all those self-driving taxis when the world is asleep, one YouTube channel has you covered. Since the beginning of the month, software engineer Sophia Tung has been livestreaming a San Francisco parking lot that Waymo is renting to give its robotaxis somewhere to go during their downtime.

Tung told The Verge via email that the company appeared to “partially” take over the lot on July 28th then later took over the entire lot. Waymo recently opened up its robotaxi service to anyone in San Francisco.

Days later, she set up the livestream, complete with LoFi study beats. Tung told us she’s running it off of a mini PC she had laying around, with a webcam surrounded by a cereal box to reduce glare. Now, any time of day, you can pop in to check out what the Waymo cars are up to. If there aren’t any Waymos in the lot, “the flock will start migrating back” between 7PM and 9PM PST on Sunday through Thursday or 11PM through midnight, Friday and Saturday, says text overlaid on the video.

As I write this, the lot is calm, with just three cars parked in it. But when the lot starts to fill up (which “usually happens at 4AM or so,” according to Tung) what looks like a maddening ballet of autonomous parking — and honking — begins. The noise goes for as much as an hour at a time before it settles down, she said.

Waymo is “aware that in some scenarios our vehicles may briefly honk while navigating our parking lots,” company representative Chris Bonelli told The Verge in an email, adding that Waymo has figured out what’s causing the behavior and is working to fix it.

Tung, who is a self-described micromobility advocate, told The Verge she thinks “generally people are bemused,” and that she likes having the cars there. “Honestly, it’s fun to watch the cars come and go,” she said, adding that “it’s really just the honking that needs to be resolved.”

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The next iPhone SE is expected to look like this iPhone 14. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

So far, the only way to try out Apple Intelligence features on an iPhone is through the iPhone 15 Pro. The entire iPhone 16 line is expected to get the features this fall, but “you can also bet” the iPhone SE, coming “as early as the beginning of 2025,” will have it too, says Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. If that’s true, it could be a lot harder to pass on Apple’s cheapest phone.
The iPhone SE deal has been that you get a cheap, reasonably powerful iPhone that recycles an outdated form factor (most recently, the iPhone 8). It’s always been super obvious that it’s Apple’s budget compromise!

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge
It’s usually very obvious the iPhone SE is the budget pick.

But rumors have said for some time now that the next SE will live in an iPhone 14 chassis, finally doing away with the iPhone 8-style forehead, chin, and home button of the pre-iPhone X phones, and may even sport a 6.1-inch OLED screen. Toss in the fact that Apple’s on-device AI features can’t run on the iPhone 15 because it’s not powerful enough, and it sure sounds like the next iPhone SE is going to be powerful and pretty modern-feeling.

[Exclusive] Apple iPhone SE 4 CAD renders suggest new design, similar to iPhone 14 https://t.co/XIX5LRdgiw— 91mobiles (@91mobiles) March 3, 2024

The iPhone 16, which should be announced soon, is still expected to have other advantages, such as dual cameras and the 15 Pro’s action button, which haven’t been rumored for the iPhone SE. But how much do those features matter to ordinary people? If the next SE looks like an iPhone 14, performs roughly as well as the iPhone 16 lineup, and is priced like, you know, an iPhone SE, will they still skip those savings for the niceties of pricier iPhones? I suppose we may find out soon enough.

The next iPhone SE is expected to look like this iPhone 14. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

So far, the only way to try out Apple Intelligence features on an iPhone is through the iPhone 15 Pro. The entire iPhone 16 line is expected to get the features this fall, but “you can also bet” the iPhone SE, coming “as early as the beginning of 2025,” will have it too, says Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. If that’s true, it could be a lot harder to pass on Apple’s cheapest phone.

The iPhone SE deal has been that you get a cheap, reasonably powerful iPhone that recycles an outdated form factor (most recently, the iPhone 8). It’s always been super obvious that it’s Apple’s budget compromise!

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge
It’s usually very obvious the iPhone SE is the budget pick.

But rumors have said for some time now that the next SE will live in an iPhone 14 chassis, finally doing away with the iPhone 8-style forehead, chin, and home button of the pre-iPhone X phones, and may even sport a 6.1-inch OLED screen. Toss in the fact that Apple’s on-device AI features can’t run on the iPhone 15 because it’s not powerful enough, and it sure sounds like the next iPhone SE is going to be powerful and pretty modern-feeling.

The iPhone 16, which should be announced soon, is still expected to have other advantages, such as dual cameras and the 15 Pro’s action button, which haven’t been rumored for the iPhone SE. But how much do those features matter to ordinary people? If the next SE looks like an iPhone 14, performs roughly as well as the iPhone 16 lineup, and is priced like, you know, an iPhone SE, will they still skip those savings for the niceties of pricier iPhones? I suppose we may find out soon enough.

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Fitbit’s latest LTE-enabled wearable gamifies exercise, only without ads and unwanted microtransactions. | Image: Fitbit

As you might expect, not every parent wants to outfit their kid with a phone, especially given the rise in cyberbullying and the sheer amount of distractions they pose while in school. Thankfully, the Fitbit Ace LTE is a more pared-down alternative, one that’s matching its all-time low of $199.95 ($30 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store through August 25th.

Unlike most smartwatches, the Ace LTE is specifically geared toward children. The durable watch features the same innards as Google’s Pixel Watch 2 and LTE connectivity, which enables calling, messaging, and real-time location sharing. It also comes with a Tamagotchi-like buddy (nicknamed Eejie) and several wrist-based video games, all of which require children to complete various exercise goals to access. What’s more, Fitbit recently rolled out a Tap to Pay feature, allowing kids with either a Greenlight or GoHenry account — both of which offer debit cards for children and teens — to make purchases wherever Google Pay is accepted.
The big caveat with Fitbit’s latest wearable is that it requires a $9.99 monthly or $120 annual subscription to take advantage of the LTE-based features. That said, the Ace LTE doesn’t require a phone, nor do you have to go through a carrier. Plus, Google is offering 50 percent off an annual subscription to Ace Pass through August 31st, dropping the combined price of the watch and its data plan to just $260.

Read our Fitbit Ace LTE hands-on impressions.

More steep savings to consider

Verge readers can currently take an additional 5 percent off PC games at Fanatical with offer code VERGE5. The promo even works on titles already discounted as part of Fanatical’s Summer Sale, dropping games like Dragon’s Dogma 2 to $43.88 ($26.11 off) and the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree Edition bundle to $66.87 ($13.12 off). After checkout, Fanatical will send you the Steam codes to activate and download your games.
If you want an easy way to keep tabs on what everyone in your family is up to, Skylight is selling its 15-inch Skylight Calendar for $259.99 ($40 off) when you use coupon code SCHOOL. The color-coded digital calendar can sync with popular services like Google Calendar and iCloud, and though it’s intended to be a single-use device, it also lets you access chore charts, plan meals, and create to-do lists; however, unlike the Echo Show and other dedicated smart displays, Skylight’s mountable touchscreen shows the calendar all of the time. Read our hands-on impressions.

Amazon’s latest Fire TV Stick 4K Max has returned to its all-time low of $39.99 ($20 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. The new version is similar to the model we reviewed in 2021 — meaning it still comes with Amazon’s much-improved Alexa voice remote and support for Dolby Vision and HDR10 Plus — only it now offers support for Wi-Fi 6E and twice the storage (now 16GB). The flagship 4K streamer also features widgets and a new ambient mode, which turns your TV into an ad hoc smart display when not in use.

Fitbit’s latest LTE-enabled wearable gamifies exercise, only without ads and unwanted microtransactions. | Image: Fitbit

As you might expect, not every parent wants to outfit their kid with a phone, especially given the rise in cyberbullying and the sheer amount of distractions they pose while in school. Thankfully, the Fitbit Ace LTE is a more pared-down alternative, one that’s matching its all-time low of $199.95 ($30 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store through August 25th.

Unlike most smartwatches, the Ace LTE is specifically geared toward children. The durable watch features the same innards as Google’s Pixel Watch 2 and LTE connectivity, which enables calling, messaging, and real-time location sharing. It also comes with a Tamagotchi-like buddy (nicknamed Eejie) and several wrist-based video games, all of which require children to complete various exercise goals to access. What’s more, Fitbit recently rolled out a Tap to Pay feature, allowing kids with either a Greenlight or GoHenry account — both of which offer debit cards for children and teens — to make purchases wherever Google Pay is accepted.

The big caveat with Fitbit’s latest wearable is that it requires a $9.99 monthly or $120 annual subscription to take advantage of the LTE-based features. That said, the Ace LTE doesn’t require a phone, nor do you have to go through a carrier. Plus, Google is offering 50 percent off an annual subscription to Ace Pass through August 31st, dropping the combined price of the watch and its data plan to just $260.

Read our Fitbit Ace LTE hands-on impressions.

More steep savings to consider

Verge readers can currently take an additional 5 percent off PC games at Fanatical with offer code VERGE5. The promo even works on titles already discounted as part of Fanatical’s Summer Sale, dropping games like Dragon’s Dogma 2 to $43.88 ($26.11 off) and the Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree Edition bundle to $66.87 ($13.12 off). After checkout, Fanatical will send you the Steam codes to activate and download your games.
If you want an easy way to keep tabs on what everyone in your family is up to, Skylight is selling its 15-inch Skylight Calendar for $259.99 ($40 off) when you use coupon code SCHOOL. The color-coded digital calendar can sync with popular services like Google Calendar and iCloud, and though it’s intended to be a single-use device, it also lets you access chore charts, plan meals, and create to-do lists; however, unlike the Echo Show and other dedicated smart displays, Skylight’s mountable touchscreen shows the calendar all of the time. Read our hands-on impressions.

Amazon’s latest Fire TV Stick 4K Max has returned to its all-time low of $39.99 ($20 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. The new version is similar to the model we reviewed in 2021 — meaning it still comes with Amazon’s much-improved Alexa voice remote and support for Dolby Vision and HDR10 Plus — only it now offers support for Wi-Fi 6E and twice the storage (now 16GB). The flagship 4K streamer also features widgets and a new ambient mode, which turns your TV into an ad hoc smart display when not in use.

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Illustration: The Verge

Longtime Google rivals like Yelp and DuckDuckGo received a huge victory Monday when a federal judge ruled that Google is an illegal monopoly. But their statements on the ruling expressed restraint. That’s because the work of restoring competition has just begun, and the judge has yet to decide what that work will include. With a lot of options on the table, Google’s competitors are pushing for changes they believe will help their businesses, which might be harder than it sounds.
“While we’re heartened by the decision, a strong remedy is critical,” Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman wrote in a blog post after the ruling, referencing the new trial phase that will kick off in September.
“We’ve passed a key milestone, but there’s still a lot of history to be written,” Kamyl Bazbaz, senior vice president of public affairs for DuckDuckGo, said in a statement. “Google will do anything it can to get in the way of progress which is why we hope to see a robust remedies trial that can really dig into all the details, propose an array of remedies that will actually work, and set up a monitoring body to administer them.”
These statements reflect an understanding that Judge Amit Mehta’s decision on how to restore competition will be just as — if not more – important than his finding that Google violated antitrust law. The recently concluded liability phase determined that Google violated the Sherman Act through exclusionary contracts with phone and browser makers to maintain its default search engine position. In the remedies phase, Mehta will decide how to restore competition in general search services and search text advertising. But a weak remedy will simply give Google a pass.
DuckDuckGo knows better than most how important effective remedies are. Google was ruled a monopolist in the European Union years ago, and the region imposed a choice screen in an attempt to create competition, asking device users to select their default search engine. But the approach hasn’t seemingly produced as much of an impact as competitors once hoped — and Google remains overwhelmingly dominant.
“[W]e can’t underscore this enough: the implementation details matter,” Bazbaz said. In the EU, “there are some solutions that are promising, but Google has found it relatively easy to work around their implementations.” DuckDuckGo is calling for a group of “truly independent” technical experts to monitor any remedies imposed by the court, “to ensure Google doesn’t find new ways to give itself preferential treatment.”
“[W]e can’t underscore this enough: the implementation details matter”
DuckDuckGo said that some solutions from Europe could be effective, if implemented in a better way. Instead of showing up only once during initial setup, for instance, a choice screen could pop up “periodically.” Conversely, the company wants a ban on “dark pattern” popups that push people back toward the default, something it says isn’t enforced in the EU.
DuckDuckGo also proposes that the court bar Google from buying default status or pre-installation (which could scuttle its multibillion-dollar deal with Apple) and provide access to its search and ad APIs.
Yelp’s Stoppelman says that Google should be required to “spin off services that have unfairly benefited from its search monopoly, a straightforward and enforceable remedy to prevent future anticompetitive behavior.” The judge should also prohibit Google from using exclusive default search deals and from “self-preferencing its own content in search results,” Stoppelman said.
Other advocates of enforcement against Google, including groups representing publishers that advertise on the service or rely on search for traffic, also have suggestions. On a call with reporters organized by the American Economic Liberties Project, Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint said forcing Google to separate its Chrome and Android businesses could be a useful solution. That’s because, Kint says, data from the browser and mobile operating system can be used to expand the scale of search queries and make that product even stronger. “The underlying data that interlocks all that is the critical asset that needs to be constrained,” he says. AELP senior legal counsel Lee Hepner adds that separating the businesses “would open up competition for alternative search rivals on Chrome or Android.”
Whatever happens, the process could be a drawn-out one. Google’s president of global affairs Kent Walker has confirmed the company plans to appeal the ruling, saying the decision “recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available.”
Meanwhile, the specter of artificial intelligence looms over the case, threatening to make moot any proposed solution that doesn’t account for how the whole business model of search could change in the coming years. Hepner said the court could consider solutions like requiring Google to open access to its large language model (LLM).
Department of Justice antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter hasn’t commented specifically on what remedies the department will seek, beyond noting they “need to be forward-looking” to account for issues like AI. But he’s previously said that the division would “pursue structural remedies in our conduct cases whenever possible,” meaning break-ups, rather than mandates to change certain behaviors. If the DOJ puts forward a broad remedy and Mehta rules in favor of it, the result could be a whole new tech landscape.
“I believe that Judge Mehta’s decision will be as consequential, if not more so, than the Microsoft antitrust case 23 years ago,” wrote Stoppelman. “That decision spurred an era of unprecedented innovation that allowed promising startups to flourish, including Google. It’s exciting to imagine the new technologies and innovation we’ll see emerge as a result of this ruling over the next decade and beyond.”

Illustration: The Verge

Longtime Google rivals like Yelp and DuckDuckGo received a huge victory Monday when a federal judge ruled that Google is an illegal monopoly. But their statements on the ruling expressed restraint. That’s because the work of restoring competition has just begun, and the judge has yet to decide what that work will include. With a lot of options on the table, Google’s competitors are pushing for changes they believe will help their businesses, which might be harder than it sounds.

“While we’re heartened by the decision, a strong remedy is critical,” Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman wrote in a blog post after the ruling, referencing the new trial phase that will kick off in September.

“We’ve passed a key milestone, but there’s still a lot of history to be written,” Kamyl Bazbaz, senior vice president of public affairs for DuckDuckGo, said in a statement. “Google will do anything it can to get in the way of progress which is why we hope to see a robust remedies trial that can really dig into all the details, propose an array of remedies that will actually work, and set up a monitoring body to administer them.”

These statements reflect an understanding that Judge Amit Mehta’s decision on how to restore competition will be just as — if not more – important than his finding that Google violated antitrust law. The recently concluded liability phase determined that Google violated the Sherman Act through exclusionary contracts with phone and browser makers to maintain its default search engine position. In the remedies phase, Mehta will decide how to restore competition in general search services and search text advertising. But a weak remedy will simply give Google a pass.

DuckDuckGo knows better than most how important effective remedies are. Google was ruled a monopolist in the European Union years ago, and the region imposed a choice screen in an attempt to create competition, asking device users to select their default search engine. But the approach hasn’t seemingly produced as much of an impact as competitors once hoped — and Google remains overwhelmingly dominant.

“[W]e can’t underscore this enough: the implementation details matter,” Bazbaz said. In the EU, “there are some solutions that are promising, but Google has found it relatively easy to work around their implementations.” DuckDuckGo is calling for a group of “truly independent” technical experts to monitor any remedies imposed by the court, “to ensure Google doesn’t find new ways to give itself preferential treatment.”

DuckDuckGo said that some solutions from Europe could be effective, if implemented in a better way. Instead of showing up only once during initial setup, for instance, a choice screen could pop up “periodically.” Conversely, the company wants a ban on “dark pattern” popups that push people back toward the default, something it says isn’t enforced in the EU.

DuckDuckGo also proposes that the court bar Google from buying default status or pre-installation (which could scuttle its multibillion-dollar deal with Apple) and provide access to its search and ad APIs.

Yelp’s Stoppelman says that Google should be required to “spin off services that have unfairly benefited from its search monopoly, a straightforward and enforceable remedy to prevent future anticompetitive behavior.” The judge should also prohibit Google from using exclusive default search deals and from “self-preferencing its own content in search results,” Stoppelman said.

Other advocates of enforcement against Google, including groups representing publishers that advertise on the service or rely on search for traffic, also have suggestions. On a call with reporters organized by the American Economic Liberties Project, Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint said forcing Google to separate its Chrome and Android businesses could be a useful solution. That’s because, Kint says, data from the browser and mobile operating system can be used to expand the scale of search queries and make that product even stronger. “The underlying data that interlocks all that is the critical asset that needs to be constrained,” he says. AELP senior legal counsel Lee Hepner adds that separating the businesses “would open up competition for alternative search rivals on Chrome or Android.”

Whatever happens, the process could be a drawn-out one. Google’s president of global affairs Kent Walker has confirmed the company plans to appeal the ruling, saying the decision “recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available.”

Meanwhile, the specter of artificial intelligence looms over the case, threatening to make moot any proposed solution that doesn’t account for how the whole business model of search could change in the coming years. Hepner said the court could consider solutions like requiring Google to open access to its large language model (LLM).

Department of Justice antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter hasn’t commented specifically on what remedies the department will seek, beyond noting they “need to be forward-looking” to account for issues like AI. But he’s previously said that the division would “pursue structural remedies in our conduct cases whenever possible,” meaning break-ups, rather than mandates to change certain behaviors. If the DOJ puts forward a broad remedy and Mehta rules in favor of it, the result could be a whole new tech landscape.

“I believe that Judge Mehta’s decision will be as consequential, if not more so, than the Microsoft antitrust case 23 years ago,” wrote Stoppelman. “That decision spurred an era of unprecedented innovation that allowed promising startups to flourish, including Google. It’s exciting to imagine the new technologies and innovation we’ll see emerge as a result of this ruling over the next decade and beyond.”

Read More 

Image: Neon

With MaXXXine, Longlegs, and Cuckoo, this summer is about the scary movie that has nothing to say. The release of Get Out in 2017 disturbed Hollywood — not just the box office but, briefly, the entire horror genre, which had long been the most consistent moneymaker in the industry. The film made a multiple of 56 times on its $4.5 million budget and was less a breakthrough and more of a victory lap for Blumhouse, the studio that had for nearly two decades championed scary movies at a low cost with hopes of a high return.
Partly, Get Out was exceptional — not the first movie where the true horror is racism, but one that balanced the terror with humor and absurdity. Eager to repeat that success, Hollywood greenlit a swath of horror movies about racism. Many of them were underwhelming and, in some cases, appalling. Mostly, it was exhausting to see so much repetition in a genre that thrives on novelty. But at least these movies were about something. Now we’re onto the next wave of horror films, which have trended toward being about nothing.
This summer’s three biggest relatively high-brow, low-budget horror films — Maxxxine, Longlegs, and Cuckoo — represent a move toward big moods rather than big ideas. They also represent a wasted opportunity. All three traffic in atmosphere rather than actual scares. A horror movie doesn’t have to be smart to be enjoyable, but is it unfair to ask them to at least not be so dim?
(Some light spoilers to follow.)
Of the bunch, MaXXXine gets the closest to having an idea. Closing out director Ti West’s X trilogy, Mia Goth, who stars in all three, plays an adult film actress who lands a role in a Hollywood movie. The best scene comes early: after being threatened by a man in a dark alley, Maxine pulls out a gun and reverses the power dynamic. She forces the would-be assailant to strip, then crushes his balls with a stiletto heel — rendered briefly on screen, as grotesque and violent as anything you’ll see all summer. The theater gasped, groaned, and laughed. It was truly the stuff of great horror movies. But even more, it also suggested MaXXXine would go in a fascinating, transgressive direction: that perhaps this kind of absurd brutality could be justified in the moral universe of the film.
Disappointingly, it quickly runs in another direction. Whereas the first two films of the X series find their thrills and creativity in budget restraint, MaXXXine is a high-production affair, with much of that money seemingly used to remind you that it’s set in the ’80s. But gone are the charming homages of X or the strange turns of Pearl. MaXXXine shies away from the conceit it appears to be setting up in its first act — true ambition as savagery. Sadly, after the ball-crushing scene, the rest of the movie is figuratively bloodless.
(If you think I’m being too harsh, I offer you a review of MaXXXine by my colleague Charles as a counterpoint.)
Meanwhile Longlegs, a box office surprise (and studio Neon’s biggest opening ever), never even bothers to be about anything. Even with a straightforward setup about an FBI agent tracking down a serial killer, the movie’s best attempts at creating narrative tension amount to incoherence. Characters say stuff like, “You’re not afraid of a little bit of dark because you are the dark.” Come on.
To its credit, Longlegs is the prettiest movie of the bunch. Moody and occasionally spooky, director Osgood Perkins sure knows how to compose a shot that makes the air feel thick. But it uses its runtime to gesture toward themes (parenting, trauma, maybe 9/11?) rather than explore them, and several disparate plot elements (Satan, a bunch of handmade dolls, a main character with ESP) never really intersect in a way that bothers to make sense.
There are things to like about Cuckoo, out this weekend, which situates itself on a remote cabin resort in the German Alps. It rests on familiar tropes: a girl in a new town (Hunter Schafer), locals who act strange, a seemingly friendly scientist type (Dan Stevens). Schafer and Stevens appear to be having tremendous fun running around a saturation-blasted set, and there is at least one clever scare involving a bicycle chase. But even when the film reveals the mystery behind its namesake — a turn that, without giving anything away, is somehow both predictable and still vague — it’s clear that even two strong performances can’t compensate for characters that have little motivation and stand for nothing. Instead, Cuckoo, like MaXXXine and Longlegs, are best enjoyed as exercises in cinematography.
Recently, I encountered a miniseries from Kiyoshi Kurosawa, best known for two horror masterpieces, Pulse and Cure. The show, Penance, was released in Japan in 2012 and is now streaming on Mubi. Knowing little about it other than the pedigree of its director, I was stunned by the way it looks. Pulse and Cure are meticulously filmed; an emphasis on dark and deep shadows, especially for interior scenes, creates a claustrophobic setting for its characters and viewers. Penance, by contrast, is shot like a cheap soap opera — brightly and dully lit, that off-putting veneer of a high frame rate. It’s quite ugly to look at, yet still so eerie. Through careful framing and tight editing, Kurosawa is able to oppress the viewer with so much dread even without the haunted lens of his films.
More than that though, Penance leans heavily on its conceit: a young girl is murdered in a small town, and the four friends who met the killer cannot recall his face. The mother tells the friends that she will never forgive them, and each episode leaps 15 years ahead to see what has become of each of their lives. Kurosawa’s miniseries always points back at a single idea: can a person ever escape their guilt?
Despite being uneven in places, Penance always feels like it’s structurally and thematically consistent, whereas this summer’s lineup of horror movies — MaXXXine, Longlegs, Cuckoo — don’t have anything to say because they never started with a real question. You might have a good time at the theater, but very little of those films will linger.

Image: Neon

With MaXXXine, Longlegs, and Cuckoo, this summer is about the scary movie that has nothing to say.

The release of Get Out in 2017 disturbed Hollywood — not just the box office but, briefly, the entire horror genre, which had long been the most consistent moneymaker in the industry. The film made a multiple of 56 times on its $4.5 million budget and was less a breakthrough and more of a victory lap for Blumhouse, the studio that had for nearly two decades championed scary movies at a low cost with hopes of a high return.

Partly, Get Out was exceptional — not the first movie where the true horror is racism, but one that balanced the terror with humor and absurdity. Eager to repeat that success, Hollywood greenlit a swath of horror movies about racism. Many of them were underwhelming and, in some cases, appalling. Mostly, it was exhausting to see so much repetition in a genre that thrives on novelty. But at least these movies were about something. Now we’re onto the next wave of horror films, which have trended toward being about nothing.

This summer’s three biggest relatively high-brow, low-budget horror films — Maxxxine, Longlegs, and Cuckoo — represent a move toward big moods rather than big ideas. They also represent a wasted opportunity. All three traffic in atmosphere rather than actual scares. A horror movie doesn’t have to be smart to be enjoyable, but is it unfair to ask them to at least not be so dim?

(Some light spoilers to follow.)

Of the bunch, MaXXXine gets the closest to having an idea. Closing out director Ti West’s X trilogy, Mia Goth, who stars in all three, plays an adult film actress who lands a role in a Hollywood movie. The best scene comes early: after being threatened by a man in a dark alley, Maxine pulls out a gun and reverses the power dynamic. She forces the would-be assailant to strip, then crushes his balls with a stiletto heel — rendered briefly on screen, as grotesque and violent as anything you’ll see all summer. The theater gasped, groaned, and laughed. It was truly the stuff of great horror movies. But even more, it also suggested MaXXXine would go in a fascinating, transgressive direction: that perhaps this kind of absurd brutality could be justified in the moral universe of the film.

Disappointingly, it quickly runs in another direction. Whereas the first two films of the X series find their thrills and creativity in budget restraint, MaXXXine is a high-production affair, with much of that money seemingly used to remind you that it’s set in the ’80s. But gone are the charming homages of X or the strange turns of Pearl. MaXXXine shies away from the conceit it appears to be setting up in its first act — true ambition as savagery. Sadly, after the ball-crushing scene, the rest of the movie is figuratively bloodless.

(If you think I’m being too harsh, I offer you a review of MaXXXine by my colleague Charles as a counterpoint.)

Meanwhile Longlegs, a box office surprise (and studio Neon’s biggest opening ever), never even bothers to be about anything. Even with a straightforward setup about an FBI agent tracking down a serial killer, the movie’s best attempts at creating narrative tension amount to incoherence. Characters say stuff like, “You’re not afraid of a little bit of dark because you are the dark.” Come on.

To its credit, Longlegs is the prettiest movie of the bunch. Moody and occasionally spooky, director Osgood Perkins sure knows how to compose a shot that makes the air feel thick. But it uses its runtime to gesture toward themes (parenting, trauma, maybe 9/11?) rather than explore them, and several disparate plot elements (Satan, a bunch of handmade dolls, a main character with ESP) never really intersect in a way that bothers to make sense.

There are things to like about Cuckoo, out this weekend, which situates itself on a remote cabin resort in the German Alps. It rests on familiar tropes: a girl in a new town (Hunter Schafer), locals who act strange, a seemingly friendly scientist type (Dan Stevens). Schafer and Stevens appear to be having tremendous fun running around a saturation-blasted set, and there is at least one clever scare involving a bicycle chase. But even when the film reveals the mystery behind its namesake — a turn that, without giving anything away, is somehow both predictable and still vague — it’s clear that even two strong performances can’t compensate for characters that have little motivation and stand for nothing. Instead, Cuckoo, like MaXXXine and Longlegs, are best enjoyed as exercises in cinematography.

Recently, I encountered a miniseries from Kiyoshi Kurosawa, best known for two horror masterpieces, Pulse and Cure. The show, Penance, was released in Japan in 2012 and is now streaming on Mubi. Knowing little about it other than the pedigree of its director, I was stunned by the way it looks. Pulse and Cure are meticulously filmed; an emphasis on dark and deep shadows, especially for interior scenes, creates a claustrophobic setting for its characters and viewers. Penance, by contrast, is shot like a cheap soap opera — brightly and dully lit, that off-putting veneer of a high frame rate. It’s quite ugly to look at, yet still so eerie. Through careful framing and tight editing, Kurosawa is able to oppress the viewer with so much dread even without the haunted lens of his films.

More than that though, Penance leans heavily on its conceit: a young girl is murdered in a small town, and the four friends who met the killer cannot recall his face. The mother tells the friends that she will never forgive them, and each episode leaps 15 years ahead to see what has become of each of their lives. Kurosawa’s miniseries always points back at a single idea: can a person ever escape their guilt?

Despite being uneven in places, Penance always feels like it’s structurally and thematically consistent, whereas this summer’s lineup of horror movies — MaXXXine, Longlegs, Cuckoo — don’t have anything to say because they never started with a real question. You might have a good time at the theater, but very little of those films will linger.

Read More 

Samsung’s first Copilot Plus PC is everything a thin and light laptop should be — but its performance is limited.  Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon chips have quickly turned Windows on Arm into a viable platform. We’ve tested over half a dozen laptops with the new processors, and even the least powerful chip matches Intel and last-gen AMD on CPU performance and beats them on battery life. But I’ve been eager to get my hands on a laptop with Qualcomm’s fastest Snapdragon processor to see if it can do even more. I got to see the high-end model in action back in April on a demo machine, and it seemed like it would be the chip to help usher in a new era of faster, more power-efficient Windows PCs and take on Apple’s MacBook Air M3 in a way that Intel or AMD hadn’t been able to accomplish.
That chip — the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100 — is only available in one Copilot Plus PC: Samsung’s Galaxy Book4 Edge. It’s Samsung’s thinnest and lightest 16-inch laptop, designed for everyday web browsing, a mix of business- and creative-focused work, and running Windows Copilot Plus AI apps like Live Captions and Cocreator. The Edge has similar features to the Intel-based Galaxy Book4 Ultra, like an AMOLED display and a fingerprint reader, but it also offers faster ports and faster Wi-Fi.
The X1E-84-100 chip is supposed to be up to 20 percent faster than the next model down. Samsung had a chance to make the laptop that could show the platform’s full potential. Instead, it underpowered the hell out of that chip to have the thinnest chassis possible. There’s still a good laptop in the Book4, but you don’t need to buy the best chip to get it — and you’d actually be better off saving the cash.

Surprisingly portable
Heavy, barely portable 16-inch laptops have nearly become a thing of the past, making larger screens an increasingly appealing choice. The Book4 Edge pushes the limits of a 16-inch machine even further. It’s one of a few 16-inch laptops that’s under half an inch thick and under 3.5 pounds, making it one of the most portable large laptops available. It doesn’t strain my back when I carry it in my shoulder bag, and it feels like I can be nimbler with it since its weight is distributed across a larger area compared to some lighter and smaller Copilot Plus PCs I tested. It’s easier to hold, so I’m not afraid of dropping it.
The Edge’s build quality is solid. Its metal chassis is totally rigid, the lid doesn’t flex when you open or close the laptop, and the hinge keeps a firm grip on the lid regardless of how you tilt it. Aesthetically, the machine’s gray keys blend in nicely with its silver body. Samsung says the body color is actually a sapphire blue, but I don’t see any blue in it.

One of the best things about this laptop: 14 hours of battery life.

The keyboard is responsive but not attention-grabbing. I like that the keys are not too shallow and that they don’t make a lot of noise, especially for a heavy-fingered typist like myself. But they feel sluggish. The actual press feels slower and softer than I anticipated. I don’t outright dislike them, but after typing on the Asus Zenbook S 16 — a competing 16-inch laptop that’s nearly the same size and weight — I don’t want to go back to Samsung’s.
Disappointing performance
The Book4 Edge would be great for work, school, or any environment where all you need is a fast, reliable machine to handle the basics. The laptop opens programs a smidge faster than a lot of competing AMD or Intel-based machines, and it can handle a bunch of browser tabs or streaming movies just as well. But since Samsung prioritized design over performance, it passed over a chance to show off what Qualcomm’s fastest Snapdragon chip is capable of at its best.
The base Book4 Edge model comes with a Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 processor, but the higher-end model I reviewed has the X1E-84-100 chip, which is supposed to be up to 20 percent faster. It’s also supposed to be capable of boosting the max clock speed of two of its cores from 3.8GHz to 4.2GHz.

The keyboard is good, but the layout doesn’t suit my small hands.

I monitored the X1E-84-100’s clock speeds during testing. Even in our most punishing multicore benchmarks, none of its 12 cores hit 4.2GHz. Samsung wouldn’t tell me exactly how much power it’s giving the CPU in the Book4 Edge, but it’s clearly not enough. I also track power consumption during benchmarks. The Book4 Edge never drew more than 35W from the wall in my testing; every other laptop I’ve tested with a Qualcomm chip drew closer to 50W.
Like many processors, the Snapdragon X Elite chips can work within a pretty wide power range: give it more power, and it’ll go faster. It will also produce more heat. The thinner the laptop, the less room there is for the cooling system to dissipate that heat, and the less power you can give the processor as a result. By giving the chip less power, Samsung keeps the temperature under control and the chassis thin. Fortunately, the Book4 Edge not hitting its max clock speed does not have any effect on how it feels to use every day. It’s still around the same speed as the other Snapdragon X Elite laptops we’ve tested.
But it was a letdown when I compared its benchmark scores to laptops with lower-tier Snapdragon chips, like the Dell XPS 13 and Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, and saw lower numbers; the Book4 Edge was 13 to 16 percent slower in multicore performance than those laptops, respectively. The Edge is currently the only laptop with Qualcomm’s fastest processor, and I wanted to see it fly!
Long battery life
The upside to the laptop not running full tilt is that it’s fairly power efficient: I typically got around 14 hours of battery life on a charge. I was able to use it for nearly two full work days while loading up Microsoft Edge with dozens of tabs, streaming music, writing, and taking the occasional video call. I had the laptop’s power mode set to the most efficient setting, but there wasn’t a change in Book4 Edge’s responsiveness. (I didn’t see a notable difference in power draw between efficiency mode and performance mode.)

No shortage of ports on this laptop.

And there’s a microSD slot.

The thing that impressed me the most about this laptop’s battery life was that it lasted that long on a relatively small 61.8Wh battery, showing how power-efficient Qualcomm made its Snapdragon processors. Just how efficient? Consider the almost identical 16-inch Galaxy Book4 Ultra, which has an Intel Core Ultra chip and a 76Wh battery. The Book4 Edge outlasts it by about 20 minutes, even with a battery that’s 18 percent smaller. Yeah, the chip is that efficient.
Its 2880 x 1800 (3K) AMOLED display also helps save power. It has around half the pixel count of a 4K display, so the laptop doesn’t need to work as hard to power it. But there are still plenty of pixels to keep images looking clean and sharp while generating an expanse of accurate, vibrant colors. It’s a happy middle ground that doesn’t sacrifice image quality for battery life — a big reason why displays with similar resolutions are starting to crop up more often in productivity and gaming laptops alike.
A compelling base model
The Book4 Edge is a good, thin, and lightweight laptop for someone like a student who needs a big-screen machine that can handle multiple open apps with ease. It has excellent battery life, a nice screen, and good looks. I just can’t see why Samsung put the most powerful Snapdragon X Elite chip into a laptop and then didn’t take advantage of it. There’s no reason to get the $1,750 model I tested; the $1,450 base model is a much better value for 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 chip.

The Snapdragon processor makes the Book4 Edge one of the thinnest, lightest 16-inch Windows laptops you can get, with great battery life and performance. But power users who need a Windows laptop for creative work or gaming are still much better off with an AMD or Intel machine. Those machines will have better app compatibility and better graphics performance, even if, yes, you will have to trade at least a few hours of battery life. Asus’ Zenbook S 16, for instance, starts at $1,699. It has faster performance, comes with more RAM, and costs a little less than the Book4 Edge, but it’s about a third of a pound heavier and gets around 11 hours of battery instead of 14.
Samsung’s Galaxy Book4 Edge is a good laptop for everything that it does offer. But I still haven’t seen what Qualcomm’s most powerful Snapdragon X Elite chip is capable of.
Photography by Joanna Nelius / The Verge

Samsung’s first Copilot Plus PC is everything a thin and light laptop should be — but its performance is limited. 

Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon chips have quickly turned Windows on Arm into a viable platform. We’ve tested over half a dozen laptops with the new processors, and even the least powerful chip matches Intel and last-gen AMD on CPU performance and beats them on battery life. But I’ve been eager to get my hands on a laptop with Qualcomm’s fastest Snapdragon processor to see if it can do even more. I got to see the high-end model in action back in April on a demo machine, and it seemed like it would be the chip to help usher in a new era of faster, more power-efficient Windows PCs and take on Apple’s MacBook Air M3 in a way that Intel or AMD hadn’t been able to accomplish.

That chip — the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100 — is only available in one Copilot Plus PC: Samsung’s Galaxy Book4 Edge. It’s Samsung’s thinnest and lightest 16-inch laptop, designed for everyday web browsing, a mix of business- and creative-focused work, and running Windows Copilot Plus AI apps like Live Captions and Cocreator. The Edge has similar features to the Intel-based Galaxy Book4 Ultra, like an AMOLED display and a fingerprint reader, but it also offers faster ports and faster Wi-Fi.

The X1E-84-100 chip is supposed to be up to 20 percent faster than the next model down. Samsung had a chance to make the laptop that could show the platform’s full potential. Instead, it underpowered the hell out of that chip to have the thinnest chassis possible. There’s still a good laptop in the Book4, but you don’t need to buy the best chip to get it — and you’d actually be better off saving the cash.

Surprisingly portable

Heavy, barely portable 16-inch laptops have nearly become a thing of the past, making larger screens an increasingly appealing choice. The Book4 Edge pushes the limits of a 16-inch machine even further. It’s one of a few 16-inch laptops that’s under half an inch thick and under 3.5 pounds, making it one of the most portable large laptops available. It doesn’t strain my back when I carry it in my shoulder bag, and it feels like I can be nimbler with it since its weight is distributed across a larger area compared to some lighter and smaller Copilot Plus PCs I tested. It’s easier to hold, so I’m not afraid of dropping it.

The Edge’s build quality is solid. Its metal chassis is totally rigid, the lid doesn’t flex when you open or close the laptop, and the hinge keeps a firm grip on the lid regardless of how you tilt it. Aesthetically, the machine’s gray keys blend in nicely with its silver body. Samsung says the body color is actually a sapphire blue, but I don’t see any blue in it.

One of the best things about this laptop: 14 hours of battery life.

The keyboard is responsive but not attention-grabbing. I like that the keys are not too shallow and that they don’t make a lot of noise, especially for a heavy-fingered typist like myself. But they feel sluggish. The actual press feels slower and softer than I anticipated. I don’t outright dislike them, but after typing on the Asus Zenbook S 16 — a competing 16-inch laptop that’s nearly the same size and weight — I don’t want to go back to Samsung’s.

Disappointing performance

The Book4 Edge would be great for work, school, or any environment where all you need is a fast, reliable machine to handle the basics. The laptop opens programs a smidge faster than a lot of competing AMD or Intel-based machines, and it can handle a bunch of browser tabs or streaming movies just as well. But since Samsung prioritized design over performance, it passed over a chance to show off what Qualcomm’s fastest Snapdragon chip is capable of at its best.

The base Book4 Edge model comes with a Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 processor, but the higher-end model I reviewed has the X1E-84-100 chip, which is supposed to be up to 20 percent faster. It’s also supposed to be capable of boosting the max clock speed of two of its cores from 3.8GHz to 4.2GHz.

The keyboard is good, but the layout doesn’t suit my small hands.

I monitored the X1E-84-100’s clock speeds during testing. Even in our most punishing multicore benchmarks, none of its 12 cores hit 4.2GHz. Samsung wouldn’t tell me exactly how much power it’s giving the CPU in the Book4 Edge, but it’s clearly not enough. I also track power consumption during benchmarks. The Book4 Edge never drew more than 35W from the wall in my testing; every other laptop I’ve tested with a Qualcomm chip drew closer to 50W.

Like many processors, the Snapdragon X Elite chips can work within a pretty wide power range: give it more power, and it’ll go faster. It will also produce more heat. The thinner the laptop, the less room there is for the cooling system to dissipate that heat, and the less power you can give the processor as a result. By giving the chip less power, Samsung keeps the temperature under control and the chassis thin. Fortunately, the Book4 Edge not hitting its max clock speed does not have any effect on how it feels to use every day. It’s still around the same speed as the other Snapdragon X Elite laptops we’ve tested.

But it was a letdown when I compared its benchmark scores to laptops with lower-tier Snapdragon chips, like the Dell XPS 13 and Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, and saw lower numbers; the Book4 Edge was 13 to 16 percent slower in multicore performance than those laptops, respectively. The Edge is currently the only laptop with Qualcomm’s fastest processor, and I wanted to see it fly!

Long battery life

The upside to the laptop not running full tilt is that it’s fairly power efficient: I typically got around 14 hours of battery life on a charge. I was able to use it for nearly two full work days while loading up Microsoft Edge with dozens of tabs, streaming music, writing, and taking the occasional video call. I had the laptop’s power mode set to the most efficient setting, but there wasn’t a change in Book4 Edge’s responsiveness. (I didn’t see a notable difference in power draw between efficiency mode and performance mode.)

The thing that impressed me the most about this laptop’s battery life was that it lasted that long on a relatively small 61.8Wh battery, showing how power-efficient Qualcomm made its Snapdragon processors. Just how efficient? Consider the almost identical 16-inch Galaxy Book4 Ultra, which has an Intel Core Ultra chip and a 76Wh battery. The Book4 Edge outlasts it by about 20 minutes, even with a battery that’s 18 percent smaller. Yeah, the chip is that efficient.

Its 2880 x 1800 (3K) AMOLED display also helps save power. It has around half the pixel count of a 4K display, so the laptop doesn’t need to work as hard to power it. But there are still plenty of pixels to keep images looking clean and sharp while generating an expanse of accurate, vibrant colors. It’s a happy middle ground that doesn’t sacrifice image quality for battery life — a big reason why displays with similar resolutions are starting to crop up more often in productivity and gaming laptops alike.

A compelling base model

The Book4 Edge is a good, thin, and lightweight laptop for someone like a student who needs a big-screen machine that can handle multiple open apps with ease. It has excellent battery life, a nice screen, and good looks. I just can’t see why Samsung put the most powerful Snapdragon X Elite chip into a laptop and then didn’t take advantage of it. There’s no reason to get the $1,750 model I tested; the $1,450 base model is a much better value for 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-80-100 chip.

The Snapdragon processor makes the Book4 Edge one of the thinnest, lightest 16-inch Windows laptops you can get, with great battery life and performance. But power users who need a Windows laptop for creative work or gaming are still much better off with an AMD or Intel machine. Those machines will have better app compatibility and better graphics performance, even if, yes, you will have to trade at least a few hours of battery life. Asus’ Zenbook S 16, for instance, starts at $1,699. It has faster performance, comes with more RAM, and costs a little less than the Book4 Edge, but it’s about a third of a pound heavier and gets around 11 hours of battery instead of 14.

Samsung’s Galaxy Book4 Edge is a good laptop for everything that it does offer. But I still haven’t seen what Qualcomm’s most powerful Snapdragon X Elite chip is capable of.

Photography by Joanna Nelius / The Verge

Read More 

The Vision Pro got its first Virtual Boy emulator in an app called VirtualFriend, finally giving me, a person with an irrational love for Nintendo’s most short-lived console, a chance to play it in immersive 3D once more. The app is also available for iOS and iPadOS, where it’s a virtually identical experience, minus the 3D effect.
The first games I played after downloading VirtualFriend were those I owned as a kid: Red Alarm, Wario Land, and Mario’s Tennis. I’m pleased to say that apart from some minor audio glitches in Red Alarm, the games run well — it’s all just as I remember it.

GIF: VirtualFriend
The preset “Game Boy” color scheme might be my favorite.

VirtualFriend supports Bluetooth controllers and keyboard control on the Vision Pro, as well as touchscreen buttons if you’re playing on an iPhone or iPad. Visually, the games look as good as a Virtual Boy game can and have a little help from the app, which lets you customize the console’s two-tone color palette. VirtualFriend also has an eye adjustment slider that helps adjust the image if you find a particular game isn’t working for you.
The big missing features are controller mapping and the ability to save your game at any point using save states. (Developer Adam Gastineau acknowledged the latter in an open issue on the project’s GitHub page.)

Still, VirtualFriend is easy to recommend if you’re at all curious about playing Virtual Boy games or, like me, you once owned and loved the console. It’s free with the option to tip the developer, doesn’t show ads, and according to its App Store listing, won’t collect your data. It’s just good, clean, mid-90s VR fun.

The Vision Pro got its first Virtual Boy emulator in an app called VirtualFriend, finally giving me, a person with an irrational love for Nintendo’s most short-lived console, a chance to play it in immersive 3D once more. The app is also available for iOS and iPadOS, where it’s a virtually identical experience, minus the 3D effect.

The first games I played after downloading VirtualFriend were those I owned as a kid: Red Alarm, Wario Land, and Mario’s Tennis. I’m pleased to say that apart from some minor audio glitches in Red Alarm, the games run well — it’s all just as I remember it.

GIF: VirtualFriend
The preset “Game Boy” color scheme might be my favorite.

VirtualFriend supports Bluetooth controllers and keyboard control on the Vision Pro, as well as touchscreen buttons if you’re playing on an iPhone or iPad. Visually, the games look as good as a Virtual Boy game can and have a little help from the app, which lets you customize the console’s two-tone color palette. VirtualFriend also has an eye adjustment slider that helps adjust the image if you find a particular game isn’t working for you.

The big missing features are controller mapping and the ability to save your game at any point using save states. (Developer Adam Gastineau acknowledged the latter in an open issue on the project’s GitHub page.)

Still, VirtualFriend is easy to recommend if you’re at all curious about playing Virtual Boy games or, like me, you once owned and loved the console. It’s free with the option to tip the developer, doesn’t show ads, and according to its App Store listing, won’t collect your data. It’s just good, clean, mid-90s VR fun.

Read More 

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Tesla has stopped selling the $60,990 RWD Cybertruck, the cheapest version of its angular EV truck, Jalopnik writes. At the same time, the company increased the price of the next-in-line AWD Cybertruck by $20,000. Now $99,990, it elevates the EV’s price floor by a whopping $39,000.
The Cyberbeast — the tri-motor version of the truck with more torque and a higher top speed than the standard all-wheel drive EV — is also costlier, at $119,990 (it was $99,990 before August 6th). The updated prices are especially bleak when you consider Tesla had said in 2019 that the Cybertruck would start at $39,990.

On the bright side, the company bumped up delivery times. Tesla estimates it can get AWD Cybertrucks to customers between August and September 2024, while it cites October to December 2024 for the Cyberbeast. Before, orders were pegged for 2025 deliveries, as shown on The Internet Archive earlier this month.
Other recent bad news for the Cybertruck has included two recalls this year, the first over bad accelerator pedals, then another for faulty wiper blades. More broadly, Tesla has been trudging through a rocky period of falling profits, federal investigations, lawsuits, and recalls.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Tesla has stopped selling the $60,990 RWD Cybertruck, the cheapest version of its angular EV truck, Jalopnik writes. At the same time, the company increased the price of the next-in-line AWD Cybertruck by $20,000. Now $99,990, it elevates the EV’s price floor by a whopping $39,000.

The Cyberbeast — the tri-motor version of the truck with more torque and a higher top speed than the standard all-wheel drive EV — is also costlier, at $119,990 (it was $99,990 before August 6th). The updated prices are especially bleak when you consider Tesla had said in 2019 that the Cybertruck would start at $39,990.

On the bright side, the company bumped up delivery times. Tesla estimates it can get AWD Cybertrucks to customers between August and September 2024, while it cites October to December 2024 for the Cyberbeast. Before, orders were pegged for 2025 deliveries, as shown on The Internet Archive earlier this month.

Other recent bad news for the Cybertruck has included two recalls this year, the first over bad accelerator pedals, then another for faulty wiper blades. More broadly, Tesla has been trudging through a rocky period of falling profits, federal investigations, lawsuits, and recalls.

Read More