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The 2025 Ford Maverick Lariat in green. | Image: Ford

Ford updated its midsize Maverick truck lineup for 2025, including new looks, updated infotainment, and — by popular demand — a hybrid all-wheel-drive option.
The hybrid Maverick originally only came with front-wheel drive, so you previously had to opt for the gas-only version if you needed to play pretend F-150 for some tasks (and didn’t want to change your whole personality).
The new hybrid Maverick still has the same power capabilities as the previous year, even with AWD. It has a 2.5-liter hybrid engine with a 94kW electric motor that outputs 191 horsepower and 155lb-ft of torque. The AWD model gets 40 miles per gallon in the city, while the FWD version gets 42. The truck can hold 13.8 gallons of fuel.
The cheapest Maverick, the XL, starts at $26,295, and the hybrid engine comes standard. If you want AWD, you’ll have to pay an additional $2,220 — but it comes included on the Lariat trim, which starts at $36,735. Both represent a significant markup over the 2022 hybrid Maverick, which started at just $20,000.

Image: Ford
The XLT Interior.

Fans of the Maverick might love or hate the new front fascia compared to the old crossbar plaque with the logo. Whatever the case, it now has a modern Ford SUV-style grille and options for daytime running lights that look F-150-inspired.
Ford is also adding a 5G modem and a larger infotainment screen, now 13.2 inches. It’ll run on Ford’s latest Sync 4 software, which unfortunately is not the new Android-powered Ford Digital Experience, but it’ll at least serve you wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone connectivity. The bigger screen accommodates touchscreen buttons for HVAC and the new 360-degree camera view.

If you opt for the Lariat or Temor (gas-only) models, you will get Pro Trailer Hitch Assist and Pro Trailer Backup Assist standard, which helps Maverick owners who need to tow stuff.
There’s also a new Maverick Lobo model that’s not exactly designed for towing. Instead, it’s a street truck that rides lower and has a performance-tuned suspension. It’s also got a special interior with Lobo branding on the seats, a special “lobo mode” for use on the track, and Mach-E Rally-style wheels.

Image: Ford
The new Maverick Lobo is performance tuned and has a special grille.

Ford says 60 percent of customers buying Maverick trucks are trading in vehicles from other brands — many of them from vehicles in other segments like small cars and SUVs. Since the Maverick isn’t gigantic like some of its truck brethren, yet is still useful and cheap, it’s easy for people to get behind.
Ford hybrids in general are selling like hotcakes, and the old name Maverick is living on as a success story in a midsize pickup body. Ford is reportedly not making an electric Maverick but might launch another electric truck alongside the F-150 Lightning. Maybe the automaker will give the new EV another old name, like it’s doing with the Capri.

The 2025 Ford Maverick Lariat in green. | Image: Ford

Ford updated its midsize Maverick truck lineup for 2025, including new looks, updated infotainment, and — by popular demand — a hybrid all-wheel-drive option.

The hybrid Maverick originally only came with front-wheel drive, so you previously had to opt for the gas-only version if you needed to play pretend F-150 for some tasks (and didn’t want to change your whole personality).

The new hybrid Maverick still has the same power capabilities as the previous year, even with AWD. It has a 2.5-liter hybrid engine with a 94kW electric motor that outputs 191 horsepower and 155lb-ft of torque. The AWD model gets 40 miles per gallon in the city, while the FWD version gets 42. The truck can hold 13.8 gallons of fuel.

The cheapest Maverick, the XL, starts at $26,295, and the hybrid engine comes standard. If you want AWD, you’ll have to pay an additional $2,220 — but it comes included on the Lariat trim, which starts at $36,735. Both represent a significant markup over the 2022 hybrid Maverick, which started at just $20,000.

Image: Ford
The XLT Interior.

Fans of the Maverick might love or hate the new front fascia compared to the old crossbar plaque with the logo. Whatever the case, it now has a modern Ford SUV-style grille and options for daytime running lights that look F-150-inspired.

Ford is also adding a 5G modem and a larger infotainment screen, now 13.2 inches. It’ll run on Ford’s latest Sync 4 software, which unfortunately is not the new Android-powered Ford Digital Experience, but it’ll at least serve you wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone connectivity. The bigger screen accommodates touchscreen buttons for HVAC and the new 360-degree camera view.

If you opt for the Lariat or Temor (gas-only) models, you will get Pro Trailer Hitch Assist and Pro Trailer Backup Assist standard, which helps Maverick owners who need to tow stuff.

There’s also a new Maverick Lobo model that’s not exactly designed for towing. Instead, it’s a street truck that rides lower and has a performance-tuned suspension. It’s also got a special interior with Lobo branding on the seats, a special “lobo mode” for use on the track, and Mach-E Rally-style wheels.

Image: Ford
The new Maverick Lobo is performance tuned and has a special grille.

Ford says 60 percent of customers buying Maverick trucks are trading in vehicles from other brands — many of them from vehicles in other segments like small cars and SUVs. Since the Maverick isn’t gigantic like some of its truck brethren, yet is still useful and cheap, it’s easy for people to get behind.

Ford hybrids in general are selling like hotcakes, and the old name Maverick is living on as a success story in a midsize pickup body. Ford is reportedly not making an electric Maverick but might launch another electric truck alongside the F-150 Lightning. Maybe the automaker will give the new EV another old name, like it’s doing with the Capri.

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A dirt road leads to a forest clearance concession in Mayumba, Gabon. | Photo: Getty Images

A major watchdog for corporate sustainability is warning that carbon offset credits are a risky tactic for tackling climate change. The nonprofit organization had faced pressure to soften its stance on carbon credits, which many companies promote as a way to deal with pollution. This week’s findings seem to refute that effort.
Plenty of brands have tried to sell themselves as climate-friendly, but consumers struggle to know whether those companies are actually having a positive impact. That’s where the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) steps in, developing standards for climate goals and assessing companies based on those guidelines.
The SBTi is in the process of updating its standards, which could have a big impact on the thousands of companies that have sought to legitimize their sustainability claims through the organization. It released a report this week synthesizing the evidence it has collected on how useful carbon credits purchased by companies are in fighting climate change. Many of them are outright “ineffective,” the report indicates.
“There could be clear risks to corporate use of carbon credits for the purpose of offsetting.”
“There could be clear risks to corporate use of carbon credits for the purpose of offsetting,” the report says. These credits might actually hinder efforts to slash greenhouse gas pollution — the exact opposite of what corporate climate commitments are supposed to achieve.
Carbon credits are supposed to represent tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide pollution either avoided or drawn back down and sequestered. They might be tied to renewable energy projects or other initiatives to prevent deforestation or plant trees that take in and store oxygen, for example. Companies purchase these credits to try to cancel out the impact their own pollution has on the climate.
That allows companies to claim that they’re carbon neutral, even if they’re still pumping out greenhouse gas emissions. But the carbon accounting often doesn’t add up in the real world. Carbon credits have become so popular and cheap that the market has been flooded with faulty credits from poorly designed projects that often overestimate the amount of carbon dioxide they avoid or trap. It’s difficult to measure how much carbon a forest holds, for instance, and its trees need to stay standing for 100 years or more to keep that CO2 from being released back into the atmosphere.
The SBTi report is based on more than 100 unique pieces of evidence the organization reviewed and assessed for their relevance and potential bias. That includes research papers, case studies, regulatory analysis, and other kinds of evidence it solicited last year. The group says its findings only apply to the evidence it reviewed, but the report falls in line with a growing number of investigations and academic research that cast doubt on carbon credits.

The results of SBTi’s review are all the more important considering the organization reportedly faced a mutiny this year over its stance on carbon credits. In the past, the SBTi hasn’t allowed companies to substitute emissions reductions with carbon offset credits. There was an uproar when the group’s board of trustees released a statement in April suggesting that the SBTi might suddenly start to allow a company to offset pollution stemming from its supply chain and the use of its products.
The commotion that followed included staff reportedly trying to oust board members and SBTi’s chief executive. At least one of SBTi’s scientific advisers resigned in protest, and its CEO stepped down in July “for personal reasons.” The SBTi clarified the board’s April statement by saying that it hadn’t yet made any changes on carbon credits and that it would need to follow the organization’s protocol for updating standards.
“Today’s announcement marks a key step in the revision process for the Corporate Net-Zero Standard,” interim CEO Sue Jenny Ehr said in a July 30th statement. The SBTi says it’ll have a draft of its revised guidelines ready for public comment by the end of the year.
Environmental groups say the analysis the SBTi released this week shows why carbon credits shouldn’t play any role in companies’ sustainability plans moving forward. “The SBTi should retract its plan to allow offsets in corporate climate targets, or it risks becoming a tool for precisely this kind of greenwashing,” Jill McArdle, international corporate campaigner at Beyond Fossil Fuels, said in a press release.

A dirt road leads to a forest clearance concession in Mayumba, Gabon. | Photo: Getty Images

A major watchdog for corporate sustainability is warning that carbon offset credits are a risky tactic for tackling climate change. The nonprofit organization had faced pressure to soften its stance on carbon credits, which many companies promote as a way to deal with pollution. This week’s findings seem to refute that effort.

Plenty of brands have tried to sell themselves as climate-friendly, but consumers struggle to know whether those companies are actually having a positive impact. That’s where the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) steps in, developing standards for climate goals and assessing companies based on those guidelines.

The SBTi is in the process of updating its standards, which could have a big impact on the thousands of companies that have sought to legitimize their sustainability claims through the organization. It released a report this week synthesizing the evidence it has collected on how useful carbon credits purchased by companies are in fighting climate change. Many of them are outright “ineffective,” the report indicates.

“There could be clear risks to corporate use of carbon credits for the purpose of offsetting,” the report says. These credits might actually hinder efforts to slash greenhouse gas pollution — the exact opposite of what corporate climate commitments are supposed to achieve.

Carbon credits are supposed to represent tons of planet-heating carbon dioxide pollution either avoided or drawn back down and sequestered. They might be tied to renewable energy projects or other initiatives to prevent deforestation or plant trees that take in and store oxygen, for example. Companies purchase these credits to try to cancel out the impact their own pollution has on the climate.

That allows companies to claim that they’re carbon neutral, even if they’re still pumping out greenhouse gas emissions. But the carbon accounting often doesn’t add up in the real world. Carbon credits have become so popular and cheap that the market has been flooded with faulty credits from poorly designed projects that often overestimate the amount of carbon dioxide they avoid or trap. It’s difficult to measure how much carbon a forest holds, for instance, and its trees need to stay standing for 100 years or more to keep that CO2 from being released back into the atmosphere.

The SBTi report is based on more than 100 unique pieces of evidence the organization reviewed and assessed for their relevance and potential bias. That includes research papers, case studies, regulatory analysis, and other kinds of evidence it solicited last year. The group says its findings only apply to the evidence it reviewed, but the report falls in line with a growing number of investigations and academic research that cast doubt on carbon credits.

The results of SBTi’s review are all the more important considering the organization reportedly faced a mutiny this year over its stance on carbon credits. In the past, the SBTi hasn’t allowed companies to substitute emissions reductions with carbon offset credits. There was an uproar when the group’s board of trustees released a statement in April suggesting that the SBTi might suddenly start to allow a company to offset pollution stemming from its supply chain and the use of its products.

The commotion that followed included staff reportedly trying to oust board members and SBTi’s chief executive. At least one of SBTi’s scientific advisers resigned in protest, and its CEO stepped down in July “for personal reasons.” The SBTi clarified the board’s April statement by saying that it hadn’t yet made any changes on carbon credits and that it would need to follow the organization’s protocol for updating standards.

“Today’s announcement marks a key step in the revision process for the Corporate Net-Zero Standard,” interim CEO Sue Jenny Ehr said in a July 30th statement. The SBTi says it’ll have a draft of its revised guidelines ready for public comment by the end of the year.

Environmental groups say the analysis the SBTi released this week shows why carbon credits shouldn’t play any role in companies’ sustainability plans moving forward. “The SBTi should retract its plan to allow offsets in corporate climate targets, or it risks becoming a tool for precisely this kind of greenwashing,” Jill McArdle, international corporate campaigner at Beyond Fossil Fuels, said in a press release.

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by STR / NurPhoto, Getty Images

Don Lemon is suing Elon Musk and X over the abrupt cancellation of his deal with the social media platform, alleging fraud, negligent misrepresentation, misappropriation of his name and likeness, and breach of express contract. Lemon’s show was canned in March of this year after a contentious interview with Musk — who, according to the complaint, had promised Lemon he’d have free rein over the content on the show.
The complaint — filed on August 1st in the Superior Court of California for San Francisco County — claims that after advertisers fled Twitter in the wake of Musk’s takeover, Musk and other X executives began courting Lemon with the goal of publicizing “a partnership between X and Lemon” that would associate “the X brand with Lemon’s good name, likeness, identity, and reputation” in order to “rehabilitate” the social platform in the eyes of advertisers.
Lemon entered an exclusive partnership deal with X in January 2024, after months of negotiations, according to the complaint, which claims Musk initially contacted Lemon in June 2023 asking him to join the platform. The complaint claims Lemon “expressed his reservations … due to the ongoing controversies surrounding the X platform.” In response, Musk allegedly told Lemon that he would have full control over the work he produced — even if Musk or others at X didn’t like it — and that there was “no need for a formal written agreement or to ‘fill out paperwork.’”
That December, Lemon met with X executives — CEO Linda Yaccarino and Brett Weitz, at the time X’s head of content, talent, and brand sales — for dinner. According to the complaint, Lemon once again expressed his hesitancy to enter into a partnership with the platform. Weeks after the meeting, Weitz texted Lemon, “You’re set up for a lot of $$ this year,” the complaint claims.
As part of the deal, Lemon agreed to produce 10 shortform videos per month and one longform video per week and to exclusively publish that content on X for a 24-hour period before it could be posted on other platforms. The deal guaranteed Lemon $1.5 million, the first $200,000 of which was paid upfront, the complaint alleges. The remaining funds were to be paid out in quarterly installments, and Lemon would also receive additional funds depending on how many followers he got and the amount of programmatic advertising revenue generated from his content. As a result of these financial promises, the complaint alleges, Lemon “incurred hundreds of thousands in expenses” by forming his own media company, collaborating with his agents, entering a production deal with a content studio and production company, and buying equipment.
The X deal fell apart after Lemon interviewed Musk in March. During the “tense” interview, Lemon probed Musk on his politics, drug use, and the increase in hate speech on X since he took over the platform. Lemon asked Musk to comment on his opinions about illegal immigration, the white supremacist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, and opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
“I don’t have to answer questions from reporters,” Musk told Lemon during the interview. “Don, the only reason I’m doing this interview is because you’re on the X platform, and you asked for it. Otherwise, we’re not going to be doing this interview.”
Afterward, Lemon learned the deal was off via a text Musk sent to Lemon’s agent that read, “Contract is canceled.”
Lemon is seeking economic, noneconomic, and punitive damages.
X did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by STR / NurPhoto, Getty Images

Don Lemon is suing Elon Musk and X over the abrupt cancellation of his deal with the social media platform, alleging fraud, negligent misrepresentation, misappropriation of his name and likeness, and breach of express contract. Lemon’s show was canned in March of this year after a contentious interview with Musk — who, according to the complaint, had promised Lemon he’d have free rein over the content on the show.

The complaint — filed on August 1st in the Superior Court of California for San Francisco County — claims that after advertisers fled Twitter in the wake of Musk’s takeover, Musk and other X executives began courting Lemon with the goal of publicizing “a partnership between X and Lemon” that would associate “the X brand with Lemon’s good name, likeness, identity, and reputation” in order to “rehabilitate” the social platform in the eyes of advertisers.

Lemon entered an exclusive partnership deal with X in January 2024, after months of negotiations, according to the complaint, which claims Musk initially contacted Lemon in June 2023 asking him to join the platform. The complaint claims Lemon “expressed his reservations … due to the ongoing controversies surrounding the X platform.” In response, Musk allegedly told Lemon that he would have full control over the work he produced — even if Musk or others at X didn’t like it — and that there was “no need for a formal written agreement or to ‘fill out paperwork.’”

That December, Lemon met with X executives — CEO Linda Yaccarino and Brett Weitz, at the time X’s head of content, talent, and brand sales — for dinner. According to the complaint, Lemon once again expressed his hesitancy to enter into a partnership with the platform. Weeks after the meeting, Weitz texted Lemon, “You’re set up for a lot of $$ this year,” the complaint claims.

As part of the deal, Lemon agreed to produce 10 shortform videos per month and one longform video per week and to exclusively publish that content on X for a 24-hour period before it could be posted on other platforms. The deal guaranteed Lemon $1.5 million, the first $200,000 of which was paid upfront, the complaint alleges. The remaining funds were to be paid out in quarterly installments, and Lemon would also receive additional funds depending on how many followers he got and the amount of programmatic advertising revenue generated from his content. As a result of these financial promises, the complaint alleges, Lemon “incurred hundreds of thousands in expenses” by forming his own media company, collaborating with his agents, entering a production deal with a content studio and production company, and buying equipment.

The X deal fell apart after Lemon interviewed Musk in March. During the “tense” interview, Lemon probed Musk on his politics, drug use, and the increase in hate speech on X since he took over the platform. Lemon asked Musk to comment on his opinions about illegal immigration, the white supremacist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, and opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.

“I don’t have to answer questions from reporters,” Musk told Lemon during the interview. “Don, the only reason I’m doing this interview is because you’re on the X platform, and you asked for it. Otherwise, we’re not going to be doing this interview.”

Afterward, Lemon learned the deal was off via a text Musk sent to Lemon’s agent that read, “Contract is canceled.”

Lemon is seeking economic, noneconomic, and punitive damages.

X did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

Read More 

Spectre Divide. | Image: Mountaintop

I am getting absolutely stomped in Spectre Divide, the just-revealed 3-on-3 online shooter from a new game studio staffed by talent from Oculus VR, Valorant, Apex Legends, Halo Infinite, and more. I am not good at this free-to-play PC game. But I can’t stop thinking about how I might get good — by intelligently swapping between two bodies to outmaneuver my enemies.
If only I’d placed my doppelganger here instead of there, I could’ve had my own back. What if I had teleported my clone behind enemy lines to flank them while I drew their attention elsewhere? Maybe if I’d planted the bomb with one body while camping that door with the other, I’d have caught them unawares?
I’ve never played a shooter like this before — even if, at first, it looks and feels an awful lot like Valorant.

It’s been four years since Mountaintop Studios started building its 70-person fully remote team, raising $60 million and attracting a number of popular streamers along the way. (Twitch star Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek became the company’s lead gameplay adviser for the past year or so, though Mountaintop won’t say if he’s also committed to streaming it.)
After that wait, I was initially disappointed to see it might just be another hero shooter with anime-inspired graphics like Valorant and Overwatch. But not for long, because Mountaintop’s first game doesn’t actually have any heroes or Valorant’s “I never knew what hit me and now I’m sitting out the round” Ultimates. Instead, Spectre Divide gives you two bodies, so, at a minimum, you get a second chance after your first gets wiped out.
“One big thing we’ve solved in tac shooters is sitting and watching,” says director Lee Horn.

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge
All three human players stack up for a push — while our other bodies hang back.

Intriguingly, there’s an in-universe explanation for the twin bodies: nobody is dying in this game. You’re competing in Santai, a relatively bloodless bloodsport where a former military technology called Duality lets players inhabit a pair of empty spectre avatars — “one mind, two bodies,” Mountaintop likes to say.
The game is set in a city called Breakwater, where the sport is popular enough that corporate sponsors have gotten involved, contributing gear (grenades, echolocation pings, vision blockers, traps, and more) that take the place of the abilities you’d have in a hero shooter. Here’s a quick gallery of the options on day one:

Each round, you pick your sponsor, decide how much cash to spend on weapons, armor, and abilities, and either attack or defend in the bomb defusal mode that Counter-Strike popularized nearly 25 years ago. Only now, you’ve got two bodies per person.
Frankly, it’s a lot for a newbie to keep track of. You’re always temporarily leaving one of your two bodies behind, and it’s not always easy to tell what’s happening back there. You do get a “Spectre Warning” Spidey-sense if your distant self hears enemy footsteps, but it can be a huge risk to go check. When I quickly teleported back to help my second self, it meant leaving my first self out in the open to get destroyed. When I spent time safely squirreling away my first self, I was often too late to save my second.

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge
One of the rare rounds where I was directly responsible for victory.

But when you get it right, and properly coordinate with your human teammates and their own other selves, the plays feel great. You can have your entire team cover bomb site A and bomb site B simultaneously by splitting your forces, teleporting to whichever set of bodies is under attack. You can fake an attack at one bomb site, then switch to the other without running across the entire map — just warp into your other body, then throw the “puck” that gradually teleports your first body along for the ride.

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge
The map helps with both strategy and setup: at the beginning of a map, you can immediately teleport your two bodies anywhere in the starting area and angle them as you’d like.

You can rush with all six spectres, reinforcing yourselves by teleporting your spectre forward as you press the attack. (My favorite piece of gear so far is the Dual Amp, which lets me rush down foes by teleporting my clone to my location and improving its rate of fire simultaneously.) But if foes know you’re coming, they can reinforce themselves the same way. This is a game where a player can camp and actively attack you at the same time, so be prepared for that.
You’ll also need to prepare for foes who can head-shot you instantly without skipping a beat or pump nearly every single bullet they fire into you should their headshot miss. One of the biggest ways this game is not like Valorant is that aimed shots are always accurate. If you click a mouse while the targeting reticle is on a head, that’s where the shot will land.

Image: Mountaintop
How to aim.

While hip fire is not accurate beyond close range, the pattern that bullets will spray when you’re aiming down the sights is almost always the same, making it critical to memorize the spray pattern of your weapon and move your mouse accordingly if you want to win face-to-face firefights.
While this might sound great to competitive gamers, I don’t have time to maintain that skill; even as a young adult, the day I personally stopped playing Counter-Strike was the day I tired of getting instantly head-shot by the damn AK.

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Like Counter-Strike, the game has an AWP — only here, it’s called the Prototype-OP. It’s a satisfying, booming one-hit kill that keeps the enemy team’s head down… or provokes them to kill you and steal it.

That said, Spectre’s dual bodies and gadgets mean I don’t always have to fight head-to-head. I can flank, provide covering fire, heal, shield, distract, and snipe with my own spectre to cover me. There’s value in not rushing in, particularly when a round is already lost: saved weapons and armor carry forward to the next round if you don’t die. A team that buys decent weapons every round won’t be able to afford devastating ones later if they keep getting gunned down (or bombed) in the process.
Spectre Divide doesn’t have a release date yet, but the UE4 game already feels fairly polished. The game ran incredibly smoothly on my midrange PC (with RTX 3060 Ti graphics), and my colleague Tom Warren said it barely hit his GPU at all. It currently uses BattlEye anticheat tech, though the company says that’s just the starting point.

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge
Can’t buy everything… though you can request teammates buy it for you if they’ve got extra cash.

It’s only currently planned for PC, with no controller or console plans yet — and Mountaintop won’t necessarily allow Steam Deck to join. “Steam Deck is a concern as a cheating vector, and I think our anti-cheat systems may block it right now,” Mountaintop CEO and cofounder Nate Mitchell tells me.
The game will launch with four maps, with additional ones coming in seasonal updates, and only the single bomb defusal game mode to start. There also aren’t immediate plans to add more weapons since Mountaintop wants to “let the meta settle” and do a balance pass first.
Mountaintop will be publishing the game itself on Steam, and it’ll be free to play, funded by the cosmetic weapon skins and character customization parts you can buy, plus new packages of “sponsor” equipment you can also get by grinding. The company says they’ll be priced similarly to other games. Weapons will be free: “We’re committed to the fact that Spectre Divide won’t be pay-to-win,” the company writes.
Mountaintop says Spectre Divide will be available for the public to play in closed beta soon.

Spectre Divide. | Image: Mountaintop

I am getting absolutely stomped in Spectre Divide, the just-revealed 3-on-3 online shooter from a new game studio staffed by talent from Oculus VR, Valorant, Apex Legends, Halo Infinite, and more. I am not good at this free-to-play PC game. But I can’t stop thinking about how I might get good — by intelligently swapping between two bodies to outmaneuver my enemies.

If only I’d placed my doppelganger here instead of there, I could’ve had my own back. What if I had teleported my clone behind enemy lines to flank them while I drew their attention elsewhere? Maybe if I’d planted the bomb with one body while camping that door with the other, I’d have caught them unawares?

I’ve never played a shooter like this before — even if, at first, it looks and feels an awful lot like Valorant.

It’s been four years since Mountaintop Studios started building its 70-person fully remote team, raising $60 million and attracting a number of popular streamers along the way. (Twitch star Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek became the company’s lead gameplay adviser for the past year or so, though Mountaintop won’t say if he’s also committed to streaming it.)

After that wait, I was initially disappointed to see it might just be another hero shooter with anime-inspired graphics like Valorant and Overwatch. But not for long, because Mountaintop’s first game doesn’t actually have any heroes or Valorant’s “I never knew what hit me and now I’m sitting out the round” Ultimates. Instead, Spectre Divide gives you two bodies, so, at a minimum, you get a second chance after your first gets wiped out.

“One big thing we’ve solved in tac shooters is sitting and watching,” says director Lee Horn.

Intriguingly, there’s an in-universe explanation for the twin bodies: nobody is dying in this game. You’re competing in Santai, a relatively bloodless bloodsport where a former military technology called Duality lets players inhabit a pair of empty spectre avatars — “one mind, two bodies,” Mountaintop likes to say.

The game is set in a city called Breakwater, where the sport is popular enough that corporate sponsors have gotten involved, contributing gear (grenades, echolocation pings, vision blockers, traps, and more) that take the place of the abilities you’d have in a hero shooter. Here’s a quick gallery of the options on day one:

Each round, you pick your sponsor, decide how much cash to spend on weapons, armor, and abilities, and either attack or defend in the bomb defusal mode that Counter-Strike popularized nearly 25 years ago. Only now, you’ve got two bodies per person.

Frankly, it’s a lot for a newbie to keep track of. You’re always temporarily leaving one of your two bodies behind, and it’s not always easy to tell what’s happening back there. You do get a “Spectre Warning” Spidey-sense if your distant self hears enemy footsteps, but it can be a huge risk to go check. When I quickly teleported back to help my second self, it meant leaving my first self out in the open to get destroyed. When I spent time safely squirreling away my first self, I was often too late to save my second.

But when you get it right, and properly coordinate with your human teammates and their own other selves, the plays feel great. You can have your entire team cover bomb site A and bomb site B simultaneously by splitting your forces, teleporting to whichever set of bodies is under attack. You can fake an attack at one bomb site, then switch to the other without running across the entire map — just warp into your other body, then throw the “puck” that gradually teleports your first body along for the ride.

You can rush with all six spectres, reinforcing yourselves by teleporting your spectre forward as you press the attack. (My favorite piece of gear so far is the Dual Amp, which lets me rush down foes by teleporting my clone to my location and improving its rate of fire simultaneously.) But if foes know you’re coming, they can reinforce themselves the same way. This is a game where a player can camp and actively attack you at the same time, so be prepared for that.

You’ll also need to prepare for foes who can head-shot you instantly without skipping a beat or pump nearly every single bullet they fire into you should their headshot miss. One of the biggest ways this game is not like Valorant is that aimed shots are always accurate. If you click a mouse while the targeting reticle is on a head, that’s where the shot will land.

Image: Mountaintop
How to aim.

While hip fire is not accurate beyond close range, the pattern that bullets will spray when you’re aiming down the sights is almost always the same, making it critical to memorize the spray pattern of your weapon and move your mouse accordingly if you want to win face-to-face firefights.

While this might sound great to competitive gamers, I don’t have time to maintain that skill; even as a young adult, the day I personally stopped playing Counter-Strike was the day I tired of getting instantly head-shot by the damn AK.

That said, Spectre’s dual bodies and gadgets mean I don’t always have to fight head-to-head. I can flank, provide covering fire, heal, shield, distract, and snipe with my own spectre to cover me. There’s value in not rushing in, particularly when a round is already lost: saved weapons and armor carry forward to the next round if you don’t die. A team that buys decent weapons every round won’t be able to afford devastating ones later if they keep getting gunned down (or bombed) in the process.

Spectre Divide doesn’t have a release date yet, but the UE4 game already feels fairly polished. The game ran incredibly smoothly on my midrange PC (with RTX 3060 Ti graphics), and my colleague Tom Warren said it barely hit his GPU at all. It currently uses BattlEye anticheat tech, though the company says that’s just the starting point.

It’s only currently planned for PC, with no controller or console plans yet — and Mountaintop won’t necessarily allow Steam Deck to join. “Steam Deck is a concern as a cheating vector, and I think our anti-cheat systems may block it right now,” Mountaintop CEO and cofounder Nate Mitchell tells me.

The game will launch with four maps, with additional ones coming in seasonal updates, and only the single bomb defusal game mode to start. There also aren’t immediate plans to add more weapons since Mountaintop wants to “let the meta settle” and do a balance pass first.

Mountaintop will be publishing the game itself on Steam, and it’ll be free to play, funded by the cosmetic weapon skins and character customization parts you can buy, plus new packages of “sponsor” equipment you can also get by grinding. The company says they’ll be priced similarly to other games. Weapons will be free: “We’re committed to the fact that Spectre Divide won’t be pay-to-win,” the company writes.

Mountaintop says Spectre Divide will be available for the public to play in closed beta soon.

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Image: Google

Google wants to help ease the pain of comparison shopping across multiple tabs in Chrome with a new AI-powered tool that can summarize your tabs into one page.
The tool, which Google is calling “tab compare,” will use generative AI to pull product data from tabs you have open and collect it all into one table. Assuming it works and pulls accurate information, the tool seems like it could be a handy way to look at a number of different products in one unified view.
But while it’s potentially useful, the tool could also take away traffic from sites that collect and compare product information — which might be especially worrying for independent publishers that are already struggling to be seen on Google. I’m also skeptical that Google will correctly pull all of the finer details about various products into the tables it creates with tab compare. I don’t always trust Google’s accuracy right now!
There are some limits on what tab compare can do. The tables it creates are limited to 10 items because “we’ve just found the column layout doesn’t scale very well beyond that,” Google spokesperson Joshua Cruz tells The Verge. I also didn’t get a super clear answer when I asked what specific attributes the feature might look for to pull into a table. “It depends on the category,” according to Cruz. “We’ll automatically try to identify the most salient attributes depending on the product category.”
And right now, the tool is limited to shopping — but it seems like Google is thinking about the obvious next step of allowing it to compare other types of information. In a briefing with reporters, Chrome VP Parisa Tabriz said she could imagine being able to use the tool to compare travel information or details about universities. “I’m excited about how this could evolve to being a tool to help for all kinds of comparisons,” Tabriz said.
Tab compare will launch in the US on Chrome for desktop in the “next few weeks,” Tabriz wrote in a blog post. Google has also announced some other AI-powered features for Chrome, including a Circle to Search-like feature.

Image: Google

Google wants to help ease the pain of comparison shopping across multiple tabs in Chrome with a new AI-powered tool that can summarize your tabs into one page.

The tool, which Google is calling “tab compare,” will use generative AI to pull product data from tabs you have open and collect it all into one table. Assuming it works and pulls accurate information, the tool seems like it could be a handy way to look at a number of different products in one unified view.

But while it’s potentially useful, the tool could also take away traffic from sites that collect and compare product information — which might be especially worrying for independent publishers that are already struggling to be seen on Google. I’m also skeptical that Google will correctly pull all of the finer details about various products into the tables it creates with tab compare. I don’t always trust Google’s accuracy right now!

There are some limits on what tab compare can do. The tables it creates are limited to 10 items because “we’ve just found the column layout doesn’t scale very well beyond that,” Google spokesperson Joshua Cruz tells The Verge. I also didn’t get a super clear answer when I asked what specific attributes the feature might look for to pull into a table. “It depends on the category,” according to Cruz. “We’ll automatically try to identify the most salient attributes depending on the product category.”

And right now, the tool is limited to shopping — but it seems like Google is thinking about the obvious next step of allowing it to compare other types of information. In a briefing with reporters, Chrome VP Parisa Tabriz said she could imagine being able to use the tool to compare travel information or details about universities. “I’m excited about how this could evolve to being a tool to help for all kinds of comparisons,” Tabriz said.

Tab compare will launch in the US on Chrome for desktop in the “next few weeks,” Tabriz wrote in a blog post. Google has also announced some other AI-powered features for Chrome, including a Circle to Search-like feature.

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Illustration: The Verge

Google Lens in desktop Chrome is getting an AI-powered upgrade that could make it feel like a desktop version of Circle to Search. As part of a Chrome update, Google will let you click a new button right in the search box to activate Google Lens so you can select things that you want to search for. Then, thanks to a sidebar that pops up right within the tab you’re looking at, you’ll be able to do a “multisearch,” or a search containing both text and the image that you found with Lens.
The feature could prove to be a more useful way to search, especially since you won’t have to navigate away from the page you’re looking at by doing a separate Google search or opening a new tab.
(Note that you’ve already been able to activate Google Lens with a right-click or from the three dots menu and see results in a sidebar on desktop Chrome, but what’s new here is the Google Lens icon in the search bar and the ability to multisearch right from that sidebar.)
The update that enables this feature is set to roll out over “the next few days” globally, according to a blog post from Chrome VP Parisa Tabriz. The search results that appear in the sidebar can include Google’s sometimes-bizarre AI Overviews, but that feature will only be available to US users, Google spokesperson Joshua Cruz tells The Verge.

Google is also adding an AI-powered feature to Chrome that will essentially let you ask questions about your search history to help find a link you might want to look at again. Tabriz gives the example of asking “what was that ice cream shop I looked at last week?” to see relevant links in your history about ice cream.
The tool, which is rolling out “in the coming weeks” in the US on desktop Chrome, is opt-in and will rely on a cloud-based model to power the results. In a briefing with reporters, Tabriz discussed the possibility of letting the model run on-device “once we can get quality performance to where we think it’s a great user experience.”
Google is also introducing a Chrome feature to help you compare products online while you’re shopping.

Illustration: The Verge

Google Lens in desktop Chrome is getting an AI-powered upgrade that could make it feel like a desktop version of Circle to Search. As part of a Chrome update, Google will let you click a new button right in the search box to activate Google Lens so you can select things that you want to search for. Then, thanks to a sidebar that pops up right within the tab you’re looking at, you’ll be able to do a “multisearch,” or a search containing both text and the image that you found with Lens.

The feature could prove to be a more useful way to search, especially since you won’t have to navigate away from the page you’re looking at by doing a separate Google search or opening a new tab.

(Note that you’ve already been able to activate Google Lens with a right-click or from the three dots menu and see results in a sidebar on desktop Chrome, but what’s new here is the Google Lens icon in the search bar and the ability to multisearch right from that sidebar.)

The update that enables this feature is set to roll out over “the next few days” globally, according to a blog post from Chrome VP Parisa Tabriz. The search results that appear in the sidebar can include Google’s sometimes-bizarre AI Overviews, but that feature will only be available to US users, Google spokesperson Joshua Cruz tells The Verge.

Google is also adding an AI-powered feature to Chrome that will essentially let you ask questions about your search history to help find a link you might want to look at again. Tabriz gives the example of asking “what was that ice cream shop I looked at last week?” to see relevant links in your history about ice cream.

The tool, which is rolling out “in the coming weeks” in the US on desktop Chrome, is opt-in and will rely on a cloud-based model to power the results. In a briefing with reporters, Tabriz discussed the possibility of letting the model run on-device “once we can get quality performance to where we think it’s a great user experience.”

Google is also introducing a Chrome feature to help you compare products online while you’re shopping.

Read More 

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A federal judge in California dismissed a lawsuit from the Republican National Committee that claimed Google’s Gmail inappropriately filtered its emails to users’ spam folders leading up to the 2022 midterm elections.
The case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning that the RNC can’t bring its claims to another court, though it can appeal the district court’s opinion. District Court Judge Daniel Calabretta said that the RNC failed to state a claim under California’s Unfair Competition Law, and that while “the RNC may be correct that Google’s alleged conduct (if proven) is ‘unfair’ in a colloquial sense, the RNC is unable to point to any legislative policy that is implicated by the alleged conduct.” Calabretta also said the RNC couldn’t demonstrate “sufficient harm” to Gmail users suggesting Google engaged in unfair practices. Calabretta had previously dismissed the case, but gave the RNC the chance to amend its complaint.
The Federal Election Commission previously dismissed a similar complaint from the RNC, claiming that Gmail filtered Republican fundraising emails at a higher rate than Democratic ones, amounting to unreported campaign contributions. Republicans were essentially claiming that Google’s filtering practices were an “illegal corporate contribution to Democrat candidates,” since non-monetary contributions are supposed to count toward overall contribution limits. An FEC analysis at the time reviewed by The Wall Street Journal said that, “Google has credibly supported its claim that its spam filter is in place for commercial reasons and thus did not constitute a contribution.”
In the district court case, the judge determined that Google wasn’t entitled to Section 230 immunity — a legal shield that tech platforms can use to protect their ability to moderate content. The judge said the RNC had managed to make “sufficiently plausible” arguments at that early stage that Google had not acted in good faith in sending RNC emails to spam. The most convincing reason he cited from the RNC was that it found that the “mass diversion” of emails that tended to happen at the end of the month stopped after the RNC filed its suit. The judge acknowledged that other technical considerations might have played a role in that change.
Still, the court was unconvinced that the RNC’s claims constituted a violation of the law. “The allegations of political discrimination, if true, are certainly concerning and may have wide and severe implications for the future of political discourse,” Calabretta wrote. “It may even be that Google’s conduct is ‘unfair’ in a colloquial, as opposed to a legal, sense. But it is not the role of this Court to decide these significant policy issues that must be addressed by a legislative body in the first instance. As broad as it is, California’s Unfair Competition Law does not cover the conduct alleged by the RNC.”
Google spokesperson José Castańeda said in a statement the company “will continue investing in spam-filtering technologies that protect people from unwanted emails while still allowing senders to reach the inboxes of users who want their messages.” The RNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A federal judge in California dismissed a lawsuit from the Republican National Committee that claimed Google’s Gmail inappropriately filtered its emails to users’ spam folders leading up to the 2022 midterm elections.

The case was dismissed with prejudice, meaning that the RNC can’t bring its claims to another court, though it can appeal the district court’s opinion. District Court Judge Daniel Calabretta said that the RNC failed to state a claim under California’s Unfair Competition Law, and that while “the RNC may be correct that Google’s alleged conduct (if proven) is ‘unfair’ in a colloquial sense, the RNC is unable to point to any legislative policy that is implicated by the alleged conduct.” Calabretta also said the RNC couldn’t demonstrate “sufficient harm” to Gmail users suggesting Google engaged in unfair practices. Calabretta had previously dismissed the case, but gave the RNC the chance to amend its complaint.

The Federal Election Commission previously dismissed a similar complaint from the RNC, claiming that Gmail filtered Republican fundraising emails at a higher rate than Democratic ones, amounting to unreported campaign contributions. Republicans were essentially claiming that Google’s filtering practices were an “illegal corporate contribution to Democrat candidates,” since non-monetary contributions are supposed to count toward overall contribution limits. An FEC analysis at the time reviewed by The Wall Street Journal said that, “Google has credibly supported its claim that its spam filter is in place for commercial reasons and thus did not constitute a contribution.”

In the district court case, the judge determined that Google wasn’t entitled to Section 230 immunity — a legal shield that tech platforms can use to protect their ability to moderate content. The judge said the RNC had managed to make “sufficiently plausible” arguments at that early stage that Google had not acted in good faith in sending RNC emails to spam. The most convincing reason he cited from the RNC was that it found that the “mass diversion” of emails that tended to happen at the end of the month stopped after the RNC filed its suit. The judge acknowledged that other technical considerations might have played a role in that change.

Still, the court was unconvinced that the RNC’s claims constituted a violation of the law. “The allegations of political discrimination, if true, are certainly concerning and may have wide and severe implications for the future of political discourse,” Calabretta wrote. “It may even be that Google’s conduct is ‘unfair’ in a colloquial, as opposed to a legal, sense. But it is not the role of this Court to decide these significant policy issues that must be addressed by a legislative body in the first instance. As broad as it is, California’s Unfair Competition Law does not cover the conduct alleged by the RNC.”

Google spokesperson José Castańeda said in a statement the company “will continue investing in spam-filtering technologies that protect people from unwanted emails while still allowing senders to reach the inboxes of users who want their messages.” The RNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read More 

Photo by Michael Reaves / Getty Images

At prime time each night, NBC airs the day’s highlights from the Paris Olympics to tens of millions of people. Viewers have watched the US women’s gymnastics team clinch gold in a “redemption tour” after winning silver in Tokyo; they’ve been in awe when US swimmer Katie Ledecky finished a race, her competitors so far behind her that they’re not even in the frame.
But the most fascinating and eccentric Olympics coverage is happening on TikTok.
The appetite for Olympics content was evident before the opening ceremony. For weeks, the official Olympic and Paralympic accounts shared videos meant to get people excited across different social media platforms. The Olympics (and other sporting big events in general) thrive on the storylines: narratives like which teams are longtime rivals, what adversities have athletes faced, and what controversies have their sports had make for gripping television — and great marketing hooks. And along with these usual narratives and story arcs, TikTok has become a place for more offbeat or niche subplots, many of which have bubbled up organically from individual athletes and fans.
For example: have you heard about the chocolate muffins at the Olympic Village? The meme apparently started when Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen posted a video rating various food items at the cafeteria and gave an obscenely gooey chocolate muffin an 11/10. He’s since made at least 10 videos about the Olympic muffins. Now people at the Olympics are running around looking for the muffins. They’re hunting down the actual brand of muffin and begging Costco to import them to the US. There is nothing deeper here other than a pastry that looks kind of good and a tech-savvy Olympian who figured out a good schtick, but people love it.

@henrikchristians1 The single greatest thing about the Olympic Village so far #fyp #muffins #olympics #paris2024 #olympictiktok #olympicvillage ♬ What You Won’t Do for Love – Bobby Caldwell

A swell of content about the Olympics isn’t unique to TikTok or the Paris Olympics. During the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, US women’s rugby player Ilona Maher gained a following on TikTok as she shared behind-the-scenes clips from the event. But Maher was an anomaly: her content did well because it was a novelty. Now, many TikTok users’ feeds are inundated with Olympics content not just from the Games’ biggest stars like Maher or gymnast Sunisa Lee. We’re also seeing try-on videos of Mongolia’s gorgeous team uniforms. People are making fan cams of handsome fencers set to K-pop songs. South Korean shooter Kim Yeji looks so cool that there are TikToks dedicated to her and GQ is writing articles about her style. The vibes are different this time.
TikTok’s global head of sports partnerships, Rollo Goldstaub, told The Verge in an email that the Paris Olympics have “all the right ingredients to be the biggest content moment in TikTok’s history.” In the first five days of the Tokyo Olympics, 29,000 posts used #olympics, according to Goldstaub. Compare that to the 521,000 #olympics posts in the first five days of Paris — more than 17 times the amount of content. So far, #olympics has been used in nearly 1 million videos.
To state the obvious, these Olympic Games are not like Tokyo, where athletes were isolated and venues were largely empty to stop the spread of the coronavirus. France is also just six hours ahead of New York — a much more manageable time difference than the 13 hours separating Japan and the East Coast.
NBC has reported a 79 percent jump in TV ratings for the Paris Olympics compared to Tokyo, in part driven by the streaming platform Peacock, which offers wall-to-wall coverage of the Games. The network has also hired a cadre of more than two dozen influencers to post content from the Olympics across social media including TikTok.
The state of the influencer and content creator industry has also changed since Tokyo, and athletes have cribbed some of the formats and styles TikTok views are used to. There are GRWM (get ready with me) clips of Olympians preparing for the opening ceremony; athletes are doing unboxing videos of their gear as if they’re sharing a Shein haul. It’s the same type of content that floods feeds every day, except in a remarkable setting. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the athletes continue to make influencer content after the Paris Olympics.

@anna_peplowski Let me know ur favorite item #teamusa #olympics2024 #haul #olympicgames ♬ Espresso sped up full song – Sophia⸆⸉ ☕️

It’s clear that TikTok is on athletes’ minds, too. Moments after winning gold in the team event and still reveling in the joy, US gymnasts Lee and Simone Biles were overheard discussing which viral TikTok audio tracks they should use in videos. Imagine missing out on an Olympic medal and then pulling out your phone to make a video about it in meme format.
Mind you, this is the same company that is being pushed by the US government to divest or risk getting kicked out of the country. President Joe Biden signed the so-called TikTok ban bill in April, and though it’s still unclear where presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ policy stands, she has said the US needs to “deal with” its owner, ByteDance. Harris, like Biden and other politicians who have supported the TikTok forced divestment bill, recently joined the platform as her presidential campaign ramps up.
The push to force Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell off TikTok has been fraught: the details from classified briefings are still not public, even as some lawmakers have said the US must take “urgent action” against the company. Politicians who’ve voted to ban TikTok while building their profile on the platform have felt the wrath of users who say it’s hypocritical. And while the US must take national security threats seriously, lawmakers also have to contend with the enormous information apparatus built on TikTok — one that they, too, have helped to prop up.
TikTok is social media, television, a marketing channel, a shopping mall, a music app, a news platform, and now a 24/7 Olympics live feed. It will take lawmakers more than warning the public of the app’s reported dangers to reverse course.
Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

Photo by Michael Reaves / Getty Images

At prime time each night, NBC airs the day’s highlights from the Paris Olympics to tens of millions of people. Viewers have watched the US women’s gymnastics team clinch gold in a “redemption tour” after winning silver in Tokyo; they’ve been in awe when US swimmer Katie Ledecky finished a race, her competitors so far behind her that they’re not even in the frame.

But the most fascinating and eccentric Olympics coverage is happening on TikTok.

The appetite for Olympics content was evident before the opening ceremony. For weeks, the official Olympic and Paralympic accounts shared videos meant to get people excited across different social media platforms. The Olympics (and other sporting big events in general) thrive on the storylines: narratives like which teams are longtime rivals, what adversities have athletes faced, and what controversies have their sports had make for gripping television — and great marketing hooks. And along with these usual narratives and story arcs, TikTok has become a place for more offbeat or niche subplots, many of which have bubbled up organically from individual athletes and fans.

For example: have you heard about the chocolate muffins at the Olympic Village? The meme apparently started when Norwegian swimmer Henrik Christiansen posted a video rating various food items at the cafeteria and gave an obscenely gooey chocolate muffin an 11/10. He’s since made at least 10 videos about the Olympic muffins. Now people at the Olympics are running around looking for the muffins. They’re hunting down the actual brand of muffin and begging Costco to import them to the US. There is nothing deeper here other than a pastry that looks kind of good and a tech-savvy Olympian who figured out a good schtick, but people love it.

A swell of content about the Olympics isn’t unique to TikTok or the Paris Olympics. During the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, US women’s rugby player Ilona Maher gained a following on TikTok as she shared behind-the-scenes clips from the event. But Maher was an anomaly: her content did well because it was a novelty. Now, many TikTok users’ feeds are inundated with Olympics content not just from the Games’ biggest stars like Maher or gymnast Sunisa Lee. We’re also seeing try-on videos of Mongolia’s gorgeous team uniforms. People are making fan cams of handsome fencers set to K-pop songs. South Korean shooter Kim Yeji looks so cool that there are TikToks dedicated to her and GQ is writing articles about her style. The vibes are different this time.

TikTok’s global head of sports partnerships, Rollo Goldstaub, told The Verge in an email that the Paris Olympics have “all the right ingredients to be the biggest content moment in TikTok’s history.” In the first five days of the Tokyo Olympics, 29,000 posts used #olympics, according to Goldstaub. Compare that to the 521,000 #olympics posts in the first five days of Paris — more than 17 times the amount of content. So far, #olympics has been used in nearly 1 million videos.

To state the obvious, these Olympic Games are not like Tokyo, where athletes were isolated and venues were largely empty to stop the spread of the coronavirus. France is also just six hours ahead of New York — a much more manageable time difference than the 13 hours separating Japan and the East Coast.

NBC has reported a 79 percent jump in TV ratings for the Paris Olympics compared to Tokyo, in part driven by the streaming platform Peacock, which offers wall-to-wall coverage of the Games. The network has also hired a cadre of more than two dozen influencers to post content from the Olympics across social media including TikTok.

The state of the influencer and content creator industry has also changed since Tokyo, and athletes have cribbed some of the formats and styles TikTok views are used to. There are GRWM (get ready with me) clips of Olympians preparing for the opening ceremony; athletes are doing unboxing videos of their gear as if they’re sharing a Shein haul. It’s the same type of content that floods feeds every day, except in a remarkable setting. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the athletes continue to make influencer content after the Paris Olympics.

It’s clear that TikTok is on athletes’ minds, too. Moments after winning gold in the team event and still reveling in the joy, US gymnasts Lee and Simone Biles were overheard discussing which viral TikTok audio tracks they should use in videos. Imagine missing out on an Olympic medal and then pulling out your phone to make a video about it in meme format.

Mind you, this is the same company that is being pushed by the US government to divest or risk getting kicked out of the country. President Joe Biden signed the so-called TikTok ban bill in April, and though it’s still unclear where presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ policy stands, she has said the US needs to “deal with” its owner, ByteDance. Harris, like Biden and other politicians who have supported the TikTok forced divestment bill, recently joined the platform as her presidential campaign ramps up.

The push to force Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell off TikTok has been fraught: the details from classified briefings are still not public, even as some lawmakers have said the US must take “urgent action” against the company. Politicians who’ve voted to ban TikTok while building their profile on the platform have felt the wrath of users who say it’s hypocritical. And while the US must take national security threats seriously, lawmakers also have to contend with the enormous information apparatus built on TikTok — one that they, too, have helped to prop up.

TikTok is social media, television, a marketing channel, a shopping mall, a music app, a news platform, and now a 24/7 Olympics live feed. It will take lawmakers more than warning the public of the app’s reported dangers to reverse course.

Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

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The roof of the stadium is made with polygonal shapes. | Image: Saudi 2034

Saudi Arabia has revealed the 11 soccer stadiums it plans to build as part of its bid to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup — and one of them looks like it came out of a video game. The Neom Stadium would be located within the country’s dystopian smart city at more than 350 meters (383 yards) above the ground.
You’ll instantly notice the polygonal shapes making up the roof of the stadium, with the fractured pieces creating a mirror above those seated within the beehive-like setup. The Neom Stadium will be able to hold 46,000 people and “run entirely on renewable energy, generated primarily from wind and solar sources.” Construction is expected to be completed in 2032.

Image: Saudi 2034
How can you focus on the game with reflections on the ceiling?

It looks like the stadium’s aesthetic will fit right in with The Line, the 106-mile-long linear city surrounded by reflective walls with a vertical housing system, a high-speed rail, and “100% renewable energy.” Saudi Arabia has been criticized for reportedly using lethal force to clear villages in the path of The Line as well as concern over the amount of resources that it will need for construction.
The country has also been accused of “sportswashing,” or the act of bolstering a government’s reputation by using a major sporting event like the World Cup to gain positive attention from the media. Saudi Arabia has faced similar criticism over its plans to hold the first Olympic Esports Games.

Image: Saudi 2034
I don’t really know what’s going on here.

Aside from the Neom Stadium, Saudi Arabia is planning to build the three-tiered Prince Mohammed bin Salman Stadium (pictured above) on the side of a cliff surrounded by colored glass and LED screens. Of course, these are just renders, and the real thing could end up looking entirely different.

The roof of the stadium is made with polygonal shapes. | Image: Saudi 2034

Saudi Arabia has revealed the 11 soccer stadiums it plans to build as part of its bid to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup — and one of them looks like it came out of a video game. The Neom Stadium would be located within the country’s dystopian smart city at more than 350 meters (383 yards) above the ground.

You’ll instantly notice the polygonal shapes making up the roof of the stadium, with the fractured pieces creating a mirror above those seated within the beehive-like setup. The Neom Stadium will be able to hold 46,000 people and “run entirely on renewable energy, generated primarily from wind and solar sources.” Construction is expected to be completed in 2032.

Image: Saudi 2034
How can you focus on the game with reflections on the ceiling?

It looks like the stadium’s aesthetic will fit right in with The Line, the 106-mile-long linear city surrounded by reflective walls with a vertical housing system, a high-speed rail, and “100% renewable energy.” Saudi Arabia has been criticized for reportedly using lethal force to clear villages in the path of The Line as well as concern over the amount of resources that it will need for construction.

The country has also been accused of “sportswashing,” or the act of bolstering a government’s reputation by using a major sporting event like the World Cup to gain positive attention from the media. Saudi Arabia has faced similar criticism over its plans to hold the first Olympic Esports Games.

Image: Saudi 2034
I don’t really know what’s going on here.

Aside from the Neom Stadium, Saudi Arabia is planning to build the three-tiered Prince Mohammed bin Salman Stadium (pictured above) on the side of a cliff surrounded by colored glass and LED screens. Of course, these are just renders, and the real thing could end up looking entirely different.

Read More 

Stranger Things. | Image: Netflix

San Diego Comic-Con may have just wrapped up, but there’s still more entertainment news on the way — this time from Netflix. The streamer has confirmed that its now-annual Geeked Week event will take place the week of September 16th, wrapping up with some kind of in-person event in Atlanta, Georgia, on the 19th. There aren’t a lot of details right now, but Netflix did release a short teaser video.
Last year’s Geeked Week included the first trailer for Avatar: the Last Airbender, along with news about 3 Body Problem, Rebel Moon, and games like Hades. Looking at Netflix’s upcoming lineup, this year will likely feature Arcane season 2, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, and the return of Squid Game, which just got a December premiere date for its second season. It’s likely the final season of Stranger Things will also appear in some form, along with more of the streamer’s move into gaming and possibly news about Avatar’s next season.
Netflix isn’t the only one with announcements coming up, either. Disney will hold its D23 fan event in Anaheim, California, this August, and it typically features news and trailers from across the company’s many brands.

Stranger Things. | Image: Netflix

San Diego Comic-Con may have just wrapped up, but there’s still more entertainment news on the way — this time from Netflix. The streamer has confirmed that its now-annual Geeked Week event will take place the week of September 16th, wrapping up with some kind of in-person event in Atlanta, Georgia, on the 19th. There aren’t a lot of details right now, but Netflix did release a short teaser video.

Last year’s Geeked Week included the first trailer for Avatar: the Last Airbender, along with news about 3 Body Problem, Rebel Moon, and games like Hades. Looking at Netflix’s upcoming lineup, this year will likely feature Arcane season 2, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, and the return of Squid Game, which just got a December premiere date for its second season. It’s likely the final season of Stranger Things will also appear in some form, along with more of the streamer’s move into gaming and possibly news about Avatar’s next season.

Netflix isn’t the only one with announcements coming up, either. Disney will hold its D23 fan event in Anaheim, California, this August, and it typically features news and trailers from across the company’s many brands.

Read More