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Image: Marvel / Nick Dragotta, Steve Epting, Chris Sotomayor, Paul Mounts

Victor von Doom is one of Marvel’s most iconic characters for a reason, and his MCU debut could easily be Kevin Feige’s most fantastic or dreadful idea yet. As San Diego Comic-Con attendees roared at the announcement of Robert Downey Jr.’s return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the 59-year-old actor assured his fans that while he’ll be wearing a new mask in Avengers: Doomsday, his (or at least his character’s) larger task would largely be the same. It was an interesting choice of words to describe Marvel’s new plan to introduce Victor von Doom with a twist, just as a fresh version of the Fantastic Four is scheduled to make its big screen debut.
The Doomsday announcement and news of RDJ’s Doom casting immediately read as Marvel betting that it might be able to win audiences back with another massive cinematic event built around a person whose face and voice have long since become synonymous with Iron Man. And it’s not hard to understand why Marvel thought that weaving Doom and Iron Man’s stories together might be a clever way to pivot away from the studio’s now-discarded plans for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.
The metal-masked super scientists have always been some of Marvel’s most fascinating characters in comics where their reputations as uniquely brilliant intellects have occasionally led to them butting heads, cooperating, and — in one instance — becoming one another. As many have noted, there’s definitely some comics precedent for the Stark-as-Doom turn that Doomsday seems to be setting up. But the thing that has always made Doctor Doom a compelling figure is the way he exists independently from his peers while doing everything in his power to illustrate his superiority over them. And it’s going to be hard for the MCU to tap into that energy if Doom is anyone but himself.

Marvel / Mike Mignola, Kevin Nowlan, Gene Colan, Mark Badget, and Bob Sharen

First appearing in The Fantastic Four #5, Doctor Doom was introduced as a maniac with a helicopter and a dream of using the Fantastic Four to steal enchanted relics from pirates in the distant past. Though Marvel’s first family already had its fair share of supervillains, Doom’s grandiosity and striking design set him apart from the likes of Mole Man and the alien Skrulls. He was an old college friend of Reed Richards and a talented engineer in his own right with a knack for the supernatural. But he was also a proud, arrogant man whose early encounters with death left him hardened to the world and distrustful of those he couldn’t control like his mechanical Doombots.

Those aspects of Doom’s personality became easier to understand following Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four Annual #2, which fleshed out his origins in the fictional, Eastern European country of Latveria where his mother, a Romani woman named Cynthia, was murdered for practicing witchcraft. That story added new depth to Doom’s use of magic in his quest for world conquest and his insistence on returning to Latveria to rule as its king. But it also helped establish how Doctor Doom could ultimately become a frequent participant in many of Marvel’s big comics events involving beings from other planes of existence and teams-ups between other villains.
As Doctor Doom became the Fantastic Four’s signature archnemesis, Marvel also leaned into the idea of him being one of many geniuses — like Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and Black Panther — who could (at least privately) appreciate one another’s raw talents. Though Doom would often rather die than acknowledge Reed as an intellectual equal, their fights were sometimes rooted in a shared sense of being the only people capable of going toe-to-toe with each other. That sense of animosity could also be felt in moments like the complicated birth of Valeria Richards — Reed and Sue Storm’s daughter whose delivery required Doom’s assistance and his becoming her godfather — and it has continued to keep the Fantastic Four’s (extended) family dynamic interesting in more recent years.

Marvel / Dale Eaglesham, Paul Mounts

There have been rumors that the cinematic reboot Fantastic Four: First Steps will feature one of the team’s children, which would gel with director Matt Shakman’s recent assertion that the film will gloss over origins we’re all familiar with to get right into the Galactus-flavored meat of its story. But while it would make perfect sense for Doom to show up in the MCU along with Reed and the gang, it currently seems like Marvel intends to debut him in Doomsday with a plot that somehow explains why he looks a lot like Tony Stark, who died in Avengers: Endgame.
With a multiverse full of variants now in play, Marvel could reveal that, in another reality, the figure the audience recognizes as Tony Stark is just named Victor instead and has a fondness for the color green rather than red. The studio could present Doctor Doom as a dark Iron Man who never came to see his weapons-derived wealth as something to be atoned for. It’s also easy to imagine Marvel execs taking one look at Alex Maleev’s cover for Infamous Iron Man #1 and immediately deciding that the MCU could be saved with a very expensive palette swap.
It would be surprising if Marvel were even thinking about touching Civil War II — the crossover event that laid the groundwork for Doom taking up the Iron Man mantle in Infamous. But much like Doom’s existence as a persistent thorn in the sides of Marvel’s heroes, both comics series were key parts of what made his turn to heroism compelling.
After years of Doctor Doom trying to kill the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, it was shocking to see him setting his grievances aside to become Iron Man when Tony Stark no longer physically could. Rather than respect or obedience, Doom’s Iron Man era was shaped by a desire to help protect the world from people like himself whose violent compulsions eclipsed their potential to do good things.

Marvel / Alex Maleev, Matt Hollingsworth

Infamous Iron Man used its supporting cast of heroes and villains — all of whom had plenty of beef with Doom — to explore what it really means for someone to have an existential change of heart and how a person’s words can only do so much to undo things that they have done. And while it wasn’t long before Doom was back to wearing his usual cape and mask ensemble, the time he spent as Iron Man helped hammer home how much more interesting the character is when he’s allowed to exist in a morally gray area surrounded by people with justifiably complicated feelings about him.
The MCU’s movies have never been 1-to-1 adaptations of the comics, and Doomsday is likely going to feature a mix of ideas pulling from Doctor Doom’s long history. But an important part of that history is Doom being a well-known adversary to the world’s heroes — one whose actions have inspired hatred and hope in all of them at various points in time.
That kind of textual significance is something Marvel spent years cultivating in the books with stories that understood how the best heroes and villains are defined by their relationships rather than their harebrained ideas for global domination. And that’s something Avengers: Doomsday might have a tricky time nailing when it hits theaters in 2026.

Image: Marvel / Nick Dragotta, Steve Epting, Chris Sotomayor, Paul Mounts

Victor von Doom is one of Marvel’s most iconic characters for a reason, and his MCU debut could easily be Kevin Feige’s most fantastic or dreadful idea yet.

As San Diego Comic-Con attendees roared at the announcement of Robert Downey Jr.’s return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the 59-year-old actor assured his fans that while he’ll be wearing a new mask in Avengers: Doomsday, his (or at least his character’s) larger task would largely be the same. It was an interesting choice of words to describe Marvel’s new plan to introduce Victor von Doom with a twist, just as a fresh version of the Fantastic Four is scheduled to make its big screen debut.

The Doomsday announcement and news of RDJ’s Doom casting immediately read as Marvel betting that it might be able to win audiences back with another massive cinematic event built around a person whose face and voice have long since become synonymous with Iron Man. And it’s not hard to understand why Marvel thought that weaving Doom and Iron Man’s stories together might be a clever way to pivot away from the studio’s now-discarded plans for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.

The metal-masked super scientists have always been some of Marvel’s most fascinating characters in comics where their reputations as uniquely brilliant intellects have occasionally led to them butting heads, cooperating, and — in one instance — becoming one another. As many have noted, there’s definitely some comics precedent for the Stark-as-Doom turn that Doomsday seems to be setting up. But the thing that has always made Doctor Doom a compelling figure is the way he exists independently from his peers while doing everything in his power to illustrate his superiority over them. And it’s going to be hard for the MCU to tap into that energy if Doom is anyone but himself.

First appearing in The Fantastic Four #5, Doctor Doom was introduced as a maniac with a helicopter and a dream of using the Fantastic Four to steal enchanted relics from pirates in the distant past. Though Marvel’s first family already had its fair share of supervillains, Doom’s grandiosity and striking design set him apart from the likes of Mole Man and the alien Skrulls. He was an old college friend of Reed Richards and a talented engineer in his own right with a knack for the supernatural. But he was also a proud, arrogant man whose early encounters with death left him hardened to the world and distrustful of those he couldn’t control like his mechanical Doombots.

Those aspects of Doom’s personality became easier to understand following Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Fantastic Four Annual #2, which fleshed out his origins in the fictional, Eastern European country of Latveria where his mother, a Romani woman named Cynthia, was murdered for practicing witchcraft. That story added new depth to Doom’s use of magic in his quest for world conquest and his insistence on returning to Latveria to rule as its king. But it also helped establish how Doctor Doom could ultimately become a frequent participant in many of Marvel’s big comics events involving beings from other planes of existence and teams-ups between other villains.

As Doctor Doom became the Fantastic Four’s signature archnemesis, Marvel also leaned into the idea of him being one of many geniuses — like Iron Man, Doctor Strange, and Black Panther — who could (at least privately) appreciate one another’s raw talents. Though Doom would often rather die than acknowledge Reed as an intellectual equal, their fights were sometimes rooted in a shared sense of being the only people capable of going toe-to-toe with each other. That sense of animosity could also be felt in moments like the complicated birth of Valeria Richards — Reed and Sue Storm’s daughter whose delivery required Doom’s assistance and his becoming her godfather — and it has continued to keep the Fantastic Four’s (extended) family dynamic interesting in more recent years.

There have been rumors that the cinematic reboot Fantastic Four: First Steps will feature one of the team’s children, which would gel with director Matt Shakman’s recent assertion that the film will gloss over origins we’re all familiar with to get right into the Galactus-flavored meat of its story. But while it would make perfect sense for Doom to show up in the MCU along with Reed and the gang, it currently seems like Marvel intends to debut him in Doomsday with a plot that somehow explains why he looks a lot like Tony Stark, who died in Avengers: Endgame.

With a multiverse full of variants now in play, Marvel could reveal that, in another reality, the figure the audience recognizes as Tony Stark is just named Victor instead and has a fondness for the color green rather than red. The studio could present Doctor Doom as a dark Iron Man who never came to see his weapons-derived wealth as something to be atoned for. It’s also easy to imagine Marvel execs taking one look at Alex Maleev’s cover for Infamous Iron Man #1 and immediately deciding that the MCU could be saved with a very expensive palette swap.

It would be surprising if Marvel were even thinking about touching Civil War II — the crossover event that laid the groundwork for Doom taking up the Iron Man mantle in Infamous. But much like Doom’s existence as a persistent thorn in the sides of Marvel’s heroes, both comics series were key parts of what made his turn to heroism compelling.

After years of Doctor Doom trying to kill the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, it was shocking to see him setting his grievances aside to become Iron Man when Tony Stark no longer physically could. Rather than respect or obedience, Doom’s Iron Man era was shaped by a desire to help protect the world from people like himself whose violent compulsions eclipsed their potential to do good things.

Infamous Iron Man used its supporting cast of heroes and villains — all of whom had plenty of beef with Doom — to explore what it really means for someone to have an existential change of heart and how a person’s words can only do so much to undo things that they have done. And while it wasn’t long before Doom was back to wearing his usual cape and mask ensemble, the time he spent as Iron Man helped hammer home how much more interesting the character is when he’s allowed to exist in a morally gray area surrounded by people with justifiably complicated feelings about him.

The MCU’s movies have never been 1-to-1 adaptations of the comics, and Doomsday is likely going to feature a mix of ideas pulling from Doctor Doom’s long history. But an important part of that history is Doom being a well-known adversary to the world’s heroes — one whose actions have inspired hatred and hope in all of them at various points in time.

That kind of textual significance is something Marvel spent years cultivating in the books with stories that understood how the best heroes and villains are defined by their relationships rather than their harebrained ideas for global domination. And that’s something Avengers: Doomsday might have a tricky time nailing when it hits theaters in 2026.

Read More 

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

We may be well into the M3 generation of Mac laptops (and even M4 for iPad Pros), but if you’re on a budget the M2 MacBook Air is a great deal for $799 ($200 off) — available now at Best Buy and Amazon.

This is the base model of Apple’s laptop from 2022, which comes equipped with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, two USB-C ports, a headphone jack, and a handy MagSafe charger. If 256GB is a little light on storage, the 512GB upgraded model is also on sale for $999 ($200 off) at Amazon and Best Buy.
A big part of what makes the MacBook Air so great is its excellent battery life and standby time. Combine that with its speedy performance and revised design from the M2 generation that adds MagSafe to free up one of its ports from charging duties and you’ve got an excellent all-rounder for productivity tasks (be it for work or school). Read our review.

More deals for your Thursday

Through August 6th, Drop is offering two coupon codes, DROPAUGUST20 to take $20 off an order of $100 or more and DROPAUGUST10 to takes $10 off an order of $50 or more. Among the various products that Drop carries, this is a chance to save on various mechanical keyboard keycap sets, like the Drop + MiTo GMK Laser for $89 ($20 off) or the Drop + Matt3o MT3 /dev/tty set for $49 ($10 off).

Roku’s Streambar Pro, a two-in-one streaming device and soundbar, is $129.99 ($50 off) at Amazon. It supports 4K streaming with HDR, and as a 32-inch soundbar with 60 watts of output it’s definitely an improvement of just about and built-in TV audio.
The black model of the Bose Soundlink Flex, our top choice among Bluetooth speakers, is selling for $109 ($40 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. This deal comes within $10 of the all-time low we saw during Amazon Prime Day, but that lower price was only on the colorful models and didn’t include the stealthy black. But regardless of color, the SoundLink Flex offers great sound quality and easy portability, with 12 hours of battery life and water / dust resistance so you can take it to the pool.

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

We may be well into the M3 generation of Mac laptops (and even M4 for iPad Pros), but if you’re on a budget the M2 MacBook Air is a great deal for $799 ($200 off) — available now at Best Buy and Amazon.

This is the base model of Apple’s laptop from 2022, which comes equipped with 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, two USB-C ports, a headphone jack, and a handy MagSafe charger. If 256GB is a little light on storage, the 512GB upgraded model is also on sale for $999 ($200 off) at Amazon and Best Buy.

A big part of what makes the MacBook Air so great is its excellent battery life and standby time. Combine that with its speedy performance and revised design from the M2 generation that adds MagSafe to free up one of its ports from charging duties and you’ve got an excellent all-rounder for productivity tasks (be it for work or school). Read our review.

More deals for your Thursday

Through August 6th, Drop is offering two coupon codes, DROPAUGUST20 to take $20 off an order of $100 or more and DROPAUGUST10 to takes $10 off an order of $50 or more. Among the various products that Drop carries, this is a chance to save on various mechanical keyboard keycap sets, like the Drop + MiTo GMK Laser for $89 ($20 off) or the Drop + Matt3o MT3 /dev/tty set for $49 ($10 off).

Roku’s Streambar Pro, a two-in-one streaming device and soundbar, is $129.99 ($50 off) at Amazon. It supports 4K streaming with HDR, and as a 32-inch soundbar with 60 watts of output it’s definitely an improvement of just about and built-in TV audio.
The black model of the Bose Soundlink Flex, our top choice among Bluetooth speakers, is selling for $109 ($40 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. This deal comes within $10 of the all-time low we saw during Amazon Prime Day, but that lower price was only on the colorful models and didn’t include the stealthy black. But regardless of color, the SoundLink Flex offers great sound quality and easy portability, with 12 hours of battery life and water / dust resistance so you can take it to the pool.

Read More 

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

We’ve been talking about AI a lot on Decoder lately; it’s unavoidable. But there’s one piece of feedback we’ve gotten that I really wanted to spend some time on: how the lightning-fast explosion of AI tools affects the climate.
After all, to run AI at scale, we need to build a lot of data centers and pack them full of power-hungry GPUs. That takes a lot of energy, and whether using all that juice is worth it comes up frequently when we talk about AI. It’s both a matter of practical concern — “can our aging grid support all of this?” — and a moral objection — “we shouldn’t build these systems because they’ll wreck the planet.”

What’s particularly complicated is that big tech companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have spent the last few years working with governments around the world to set ambitious goals around sustainable energy usage so that we might slow the rate of climate change to simply “bad” instead of “catastrophic.” But now, with AI, all of those companies are blowing past their emissions targets and are actually getting worse over time. That’s not great.
But putting a bunch of computers in a data center and running them at full tilt is how basically everything works now. If you have a moral objection to AI based on climate concerns, you might have a moral objection to TikTok and YouTube as well, which are constantly ingesting and encoding millions of hours of video. You might have a moral objection to video games, which run both on power-hungry GPUs in people’s homes and often require intense data center workloads for online multiplayer. And I’ll take a guess, but I feel pretty certain anyone with climate concerns about AI has a pretty harsh assessment of crypto, too.
I mean, think about it this way: the Nvidia H100, which is the gold standard for AI GPUs, is pretty similar to the gaming-focused Nvidia RTX 4090 in terms of power draw. What framework should we use to evaluate the climate impact of those cards and how we feel about how they’re used?
It’s messy and complicated, and there are a bunch of apparent contradictions along the way. So it’s perfect for Decoder. To help sort it out, I’ve invited Verge senior science reporter Justine Calma on the show to see if we can untangle this knot. Let us know how we did.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

We’ve been talking about AI a lot on Decoder lately; it’s unavoidable. But there’s one piece of feedback we’ve gotten that I really wanted to spend some time on: how the lightning-fast explosion of AI tools affects the climate.

After all, to run AI at scale, we need to build a lot of data centers and pack them full of power-hungry GPUs. That takes a lot of energy, and whether using all that juice is worth it comes up frequently when we talk about AI. It’s both a matter of practical concern — “can our aging grid support all of this?” — and a moral objection — “we shouldn’t build these systems because they’ll wreck the planet.”

What’s particularly complicated is that big tech companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have spent the last few years working with governments around the world to set ambitious goals around sustainable energy usage so that we might slow the rate of climate change to simply “bad” instead of “catastrophic.” But now, with AI, all of those companies are blowing past their emissions targets and are actually getting worse over time. That’s not great.

But putting a bunch of computers in a data center and running them at full tilt is how basically everything works now. If you have a moral objection to AI based on climate concerns, you might have a moral objection to TikTok and YouTube as well, which are constantly ingesting and encoding millions of hours of video. You might have a moral objection to video games, which run both on power-hungry GPUs in people’s homes and often require intense data center workloads for online multiplayer. And I’ll take a guess, but I feel pretty certain anyone with climate concerns about AI has a pretty harsh assessment of crypto, too.

I mean, think about it this way: the Nvidia H100, which is the gold standard for AI GPUs, is pretty similar to the gaming-focused Nvidia RTX 4090 in terms of power draw. What framework should we use to evaluate the climate impact of those cards and how we feel about how they’re used?

It’s messy and complicated, and there are a bunch of apparent contradictions along the way. So it’s perfect for Decoder. To help sort it out, I’ve invited Verge senior science reporter Justine Calma on the show to see if we can untangle this knot. Let us know how we did.

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

Over 300 high school students converged on Congress to urge lawmakers to vote against KOSA. The bill passed in a landslide. Even before 86 senators voted to close debate on the bill, the Kids Online Safety Act was all but certain to pass in the Senate — KOSA had 70 cosponsors, after all. Still, more than 300 high school students met with lawmakers and their staff last Thursday, urging them to vote “no” on legislation putatively written to make the internet safer for them. By the end of the day, a cloture motion had passed, and in the following week, the bill passed out of the Senate with a staggering 91 votes in favor.
Lawmakers think that teens “don’t know what’s best for us,” said Damarius Cantie, a rising senior from Michigan. “But I think a lot of times, we do.”
The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) would impose new responsibilities on tech platforms accessed by minors. They are the first major internet protections for kids to pass the Senate in over two decades.
KOSA, in particular, has generated hope and support among parent advocates, many of whose children died by suicide after experiencing cyberbullying. Congress doesn’t always listen to grieving parents: parents lobbying against guns, which are the leading cause of death among children and teens, have gained little to no ground. The parent advocates who support KOSA have found much more success.
KOSA imposes a duty of care on tech platforms, requiring them to take reasonable measures to protect kids on their services from a list of harms, including cyberbullying, anxiety, and eating disorders.
Free speech organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — which believes KOSA will stifle speech on the internet and endanger marginalized groups — have vocally opposed the bill. They fear that legal pressure on intermediary platforms will generate chilling effects — here, civil libertarian and industry interests align. For that reason, the ACLU is walking arm in arm with tech-funded groups.

Photo by Lauren Feiner
From left to right: Violet Philhower, Lux Matt, Shradha Bista.

Some of KOSA’s most persuasive proponents were the parent advocates. Perhaps, for that reason, the ACLU brought students to Capitol Hill to lobby lawmakers from the other side. The teens visited as part of the ACLU’s National Advocacy Institute, a weeklong program for high school students interested in social justice advocacy.
KOSA is a rare piece of bipartisan legislation with overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle. “Duty of care” is a rather dry term of art that fails to encapsulate KOSA’s place in the culture war. KOSA might be about big tech to many lawmakers, but for a certain segment of the Republican Party, the issue of kids’ online safety is very much tied to gender.
Early on, lead cosponsor Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) cited “protecting minor children from the transgender in this culture” as a top priority and, shortly after, brought up KOSA and how she thinks children are being “indoctrinated” on social media. Since then, the bill has been amended to pacify critics like the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), with language that theoretically limits enforcing the law on ideological grounds or using it to prevent access to resources for trans youth. GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, The Trevor Project, and others dropped their opposition, though they stopped short of endorsing the bill.
But gender identity and the politicization thereof have not left the conversation. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) voted no on the legislation — on the grounds that the new text of the bill defines “mental health disorder” according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which he says is published by “an extreme and politically driven organization that supports gender-transition treatment for children.” (The American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the DSM, is a professional group of nearly 40,000 people in psychiatric practice and research, and it does not recommend “medical affirmation” for “prepubertal children” with gender dysphoria.)
The teens the ACLU brought to Capitol Hill don’t think the internet is all sunshine and rainbows. Their concerns are wide-ranging, and the content they care about differs from person to person. But one theme kept emerging — the sense that they were being disrespected by the adults in the room.
One theme kept emerging — the sense that they were being disrespected by the adults in the room
There has always been a gap between the grown-ups who make policy and the youth who are affected, but the gulf is particularly wide at this moment in time. The average age in the Senate is the highest it’s been in over a hundred years (65.3 years old).
Anjali Verma, a rising senior from Pennsylvania, said lawmakers underestimate her generation’s intelligence and digital literacy. “We take information online with a grain of salt, and we are able to evaluate sources and think critically and say, ‘Is this something that I want to take to heart? Is this something I want to absorb?’”
Shradha Bista, a rising senior from Maryland, worried that being sheltered from information would leave young people unprepared when the floodgates of the internet fully opened as soon as they come of age. “We lose a lot of the skills that we could be learning at a younger age,” she said.
These students feel that having access to a wide range of resources and community groups online is especially important at a time when movements throughout the country are seeking to keep some narratives or resources out of schools. Verma said she’s seen close-up what it’s like to be in a school district that’s tried to ban books or aspects of their curriculum and worries that limiting teens’ access to information will endanger the “next generation of changemakers because we are not given the adequate information to be free thinkers that are ready to make changes in this world.”
The students were also worried about their ability to share information. “As a Brown woman, I post a lot about immigration. I post about content related to who I am and what my identities are,” said Bista. “And that is how I inform the people around me about the inner workings of my identity and the inner workings of systems in America that may be hurting me and who I am and what I stand for.”
For these teens, their access to information and the ability to share it are not separate concerns. Bista said that, just as she shares information from her own point of view, she learns about the experiences of other communities on the internet. Identity is the ongoing project of understanding oneself and communicating it to the world around you; in the modern era, the internet has become a place to both be yourself and to discover yourself. For many LGBTQ teens, the internet becomes a lifeline to a community they may not otherwise have ready access to.
Book bans “are preventing students from being themselves in school”
Lux Matt, a rising junior from Louisiana whose parent previously worked for the ACLU, said that state “Don’t Say Gay” laws or book bans “are preventing students from being themselves in school. And [for] some of those students, [the internet] is their only place to be themselves.”
Matt is part of a group for trans queer youth in New Orleans that they said relies on Instagram to get the word out about their events and advocacy. They fear KOSA could make it harder for others who could benefit from that community to find the group.
With the politicization of trans healthcare, there’s been a fair amount of attention on KOSA’s potential impact on trans health information, and the bill has been amended in response to those concerns. But the teens had other health information concerns as well. Violet Philhower, a rising senior from California, said she had found valuable information on social media about combating vaping addiction — something she said is common in her peer group. When she came across an Instagram post with 10 strategies to quit vaping, she shared it with several friends she wanted to encourage to quit — she worries that teens won’t be able to see content like that if social media platforms apply broad filters to their feeds on terms like “addiction” in order to avoid legal liability.
At the same time, students doubted how effectively KOSA could minimize the harms it purported to address. For example, even if KOSA limits the reach of posts that are explicitly pro-eating disorder, Matt said this wouldn’t eliminate body image issues that stem from social media. The social context in which kids live means that content like “smaller models just posting on their Instagram” can fuel anxiety and self-doubt.
Matt said their mom was proactive in making sure they followed accounts that would make them feel safe and “happy about who I am” when they joined Instagram at age 15. “That is the parent’s job to protect their kids and decide how much freedom they want their kids to have. But it is not the government’s job to do that,” Matt said.
Philhower actually likes the idea that KOSA could mitigate addictive features like autoplay or infinite scroll feeds. But, she said, with KOSA’s approach, the harms outweigh the benefits. She hopes legislators keep working on ways to protect kids from online harms in a way that doesn’t limit valuable information.
There are other youth organizations that are advocating for KOSA to become law
To be sure, the ACLU helped shape the understanding of KOSA for these students, and there are other youth organizations that are advocating for KOSA to become law.
Ava Smithing, advocacy and operations director of the Young People’s Alliance, for example, has been among KOSA’s most vocal supporters, sharing her story about how algorithmic recommendations pushed her toward eating disorder content. Isabel Sunderland, a youth advocate with Design It For Us, spoke at a press conference led by KOSA’s sponsors, saying that the bill would disrupt a business model that has resulted in a rabbit hole of content that focuses on physical appearance and social comparison, much to the detriment of young people like her.
“This legislation doesn’t ban social media. It doesn’t do away with the internet, doesn’t censor free speech, or deprive us of the ability to enjoy the fundamentally good parts of the internet. The parts where we see connection, compassion, and community,” Sunderland said. “But it does give us the power to shape our experiences online. It moves choice to the top of that priority list. It changes the dynamic and makes it a safer environment for our generation.”
KOSA doesn’t specify how platforms should mitigate risks of mental health disorders or other harms, and it doesn’t prevent them from surfacing either information that teens specifically search for or evidence-backed information meant to combat the harms it contemplates. But opponents like the ACLU believe it could incentivize tech companies to restrict a wide range of posts so as not to risk running afoul of the law. Their concerns aren’t just theoretical. Other large-scale regulatory regimes aimed at platforms, like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), have resulted in overenforcement by tech companies. Even if they aren’t required by law to censor content, from a business standpoint, it’s less risky to err on the side of censorship.
On Tuesday, the Senate passed KOSA in a landslide 91–3 vote.
On the phone after the vote, Matt said they weren’t entirely surprised that the Senate voted the way it did. The students themselves had mostly talked to House legislators. According to the ACLU, the students met primarily with lawmakers from their home states — this included more than 15 senators and more than 60 House representatives from both sides of the aisle.
“I do have faith that the House heard us and saw the impact that it would make on youth, and hopefully when it comes their turn to vote, they will reflect that in their votes,” Matt said.
“For a long time, kids were supposed to sit quietly at the dinner table and not say anything.”
“Lawmakers, they don’t only doubt our media literacy; I think they frankly doubt our literacy about life,” Philhower told The Verge last week. The adults she had spoken to that day were “so proud and so surprised” that she had shown up to lobby on an issue. “And while of course I’ll take the praise, I was kind of frustrated because I was like, ‘Why should this be surprising to you? Why is a youth speaking up about something that she cares about, why is that out of the ordinary?’”
“For a long time, kids were supposed to sit quietly at the dinner table and not say anything,” said Philhower. “So I think there’s kind of this image that youth can’t do anything. But that’s only because we haven’t been allowed to do anything.”
Philhower thinks that’s bound to change. “I think we have the power, and older generations don’t see that. And maybe it’s because they grew up in a world where they weren’t heard and seen. But we want to be heard, and we want to be seen, and it’s time for people to listen to us.”

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

Over 300 high school students converged on Congress to urge lawmakers to vote against KOSA. The bill passed in a landslide.

Even before 86 senators voted to close debate on the bill, the Kids Online Safety Act was all but certain to pass in the Senate — KOSA had 70 cosponsors, after all. Still, more than 300 high school students met with lawmakers and their staff last Thursday, urging them to vote “no” on legislation putatively written to make the internet safer for them. By the end of the day, a cloture motion had passed, and in the following week, the bill passed out of the Senate with a staggering 91 votes in favor.

Lawmakers think that teens “don’t know what’s best for us,” said Damarius Cantie, a rising senior from Michigan. “But I think a lot of times, we do.”

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) would impose new responsibilities on tech platforms accessed by minors. They are the first major internet protections for kids to pass the Senate in over two decades.

KOSA, in particular, has generated hope and support among parent advocates, many of whose children died by suicide after experiencing cyberbullying. Congress doesn’t always listen to grieving parents: parents lobbying against guns, which are the leading cause of death among children and teens, have gained little to no ground. The parent advocates who support KOSA have found much more success.

KOSA imposes a duty of care on tech platforms, requiring them to take reasonable measures to protect kids on their services from a list of harms, including cyberbullying, anxiety, and eating disorders.

Free speech organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — which believes KOSA will stifle speech on the internet and endanger marginalized groups — have vocally opposed the bill. They fear that legal pressure on intermediary platforms will generate chilling effects — here, civil libertarian and industry interests align. For that reason, the ACLU is walking arm in arm with tech-funded groups.

Photo by Lauren Feiner
From left to right: Violet Philhower, Lux Matt, Shradha Bista.

Some of KOSA’s most persuasive proponents were the parent advocates. Perhaps, for that reason, the ACLU brought students to Capitol Hill to lobby lawmakers from the other side. The teens visited as part of the ACLU’s National Advocacy Institute, a weeklong program for high school students interested in social justice advocacy.

KOSA is a rare piece of bipartisan legislation with overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle. “Duty of care” is a rather dry term of art that fails to encapsulate KOSA’s place in the culture war. KOSA might be about big tech to many lawmakers, but for a certain segment of the Republican Party, the issue of kids’ online safety is very much tied to gender.

Early on, lead cosponsor Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) cited “protecting minor children from the transgender in this culture” as a top priority and, shortly after, brought up KOSA and how she thinks children are being “indoctrinated” on social media. Since then, the bill has been amended to pacify critics like the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), with language that theoretically limits enforcing the law on ideological grounds or using it to prevent access to resources for trans youth. GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, The Trevor Project, and others dropped their opposition, though they stopped short of endorsing the bill.

But gender identity and the politicization thereof have not left the conversation. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) voted no on the legislation — on the grounds that the new text of the bill defines “mental health disorder” according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which he says is published by “an extreme and politically driven organization that supports gender-transition treatment for children.” (The American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the DSM, is a professional group of nearly 40,000 people in psychiatric practice and research, and it does not recommend “medical affirmation” for “prepubertal children” with gender dysphoria.)

The teens the ACLU brought to Capitol Hill don’t think the internet is all sunshine and rainbows. Their concerns are wide-ranging, and the content they care about differs from person to person. But one theme kept emerging — the sense that they were being disrespected by the adults in the room.

There has always been a gap between the grown-ups who make policy and the youth who are affected, but the gulf is particularly wide at this moment in time. The average age in the Senate is the highest it’s been in over a hundred years (65.3 years old).

Anjali Verma, a rising senior from Pennsylvania, said lawmakers underestimate her generation’s intelligence and digital literacy. “We take information online with a grain of salt, and we are able to evaluate sources and think critically and say, ‘Is this something that I want to take to heart? Is this something I want to absorb?’”

Shradha Bista, a rising senior from Maryland, worried that being sheltered from information would leave young people unprepared when the floodgates of the internet fully opened as soon as they come of age. “We lose a lot of the skills that we could be learning at a younger age,” she said.

These students feel that having access to a wide range of resources and community groups online is especially important at a time when movements throughout the country are seeking to keep some narratives or resources out of schools. Verma said she’s seen close-up what it’s like to be in a school district that’s tried to ban books or aspects of their curriculum and worries that limiting teens’ access to information will endanger the “next generation of changemakers because we are not given the adequate information to be free thinkers that are ready to make changes in this world.”

The students were also worried about their ability to share information. “As a Brown woman, I post a lot about immigration. I post about content related to who I am and what my identities are,” said Bista. “And that is how I inform the people around me about the inner workings of my identity and the inner workings of systems in America that may be hurting me and who I am and what I stand for.”

For these teens, their access to information and the ability to share it are not separate concerns. Bista said that, just as she shares information from her own point of view, she learns about the experiences of other communities on the internet. Identity is the ongoing project of understanding oneself and communicating it to the world around you; in the modern era, the internet has become a place to both be yourself and to discover yourself. For many LGBTQ teens, the internet becomes a lifeline to a community they may not otherwise have ready access to.

Lux Matt, a rising junior from Louisiana whose parent previously worked for the ACLU, said that state “Don’t Say Gay” laws or book bans “are preventing students from being themselves in school. And [for] some of those students, [the internet] is their only place to be themselves.”

Matt is part of a group for trans queer youth in New Orleans that they said relies on Instagram to get the word out about their events and advocacy. They fear KOSA could make it harder for others who could benefit from that community to find the group.

With the politicization of trans healthcare, there’s been a fair amount of attention on KOSA’s potential impact on trans health information, and the bill has been amended in response to those concerns. But the teens had other health information concerns as well. Violet Philhower, a rising senior from California, said she had found valuable information on social media about combating vaping addiction — something she said is common in her peer group. When she came across an Instagram post with 10 strategies to quit vaping, she shared it with several friends she wanted to encourage to quit — she worries that teens won’t be able to see content like that if social media platforms apply broad filters to their feeds on terms like “addiction” in order to avoid legal liability.

At the same time, students doubted how effectively KOSA could minimize the harms it purported to address. For example, even if KOSA limits the reach of posts that are explicitly pro-eating disorder, Matt said this wouldn’t eliminate body image issues that stem from social media. The social context in which kids live means that content like “smaller models just posting on their Instagram” can fuel anxiety and self-doubt.

Matt said their mom was proactive in making sure they followed accounts that would make them feel safe and “happy about who I am” when they joined Instagram at age 15. “That is the parent’s job to protect their kids and decide how much freedom they want their kids to have. But it is not the government’s job to do that,” Matt said.

Philhower actually likes the idea that KOSA could mitigate addictive features like autoplay or infinite scroll feeds. But, she said, with KOSA’s approach, the harms outweigh the benefits. She hopes legislators keep working on ways to protect kids from online harms in a way that doesn’t limit valuable information.

To be sure, the ACLU helped shape the understanding of KOSA for these students, and there are other youth organizations that are advocating for KOSA to become law.

Ava Smithing, advocacy and operations director of the Young People’s Alliance, for example, has been among KOSA’s most vocal supporters, sharing her story about how algorithmic recommendations pushed her toward eating disorder content. Isabel Sunderland, a youth advocate with Design It For Us, spoke at a press conference led by KOSA’s sponsors, saying that the bill would disrupt a business model that has resulted in a rabbit hole of content that focuses on physical appearance and social comparison, much to the detriment of young people like her.

“This legislation doesn’t ban social media. It doesn’t do away with the internet, doesn’t censor free speech, or deprive us of the ability to enjoy the fundamentally good parts of the internet. The parts where we see connection, compassion, and community,” Sunderland said. “But it does give us the power to shape our experiences online. It moves choice to the top of that priority list. It changes the dynamic and makes it a safer environment for our generation.”

KOSA doesn’t specify how platforms should mitigate risks of mental health disorders or other harms, and it doesn’t prevent them from surfacing either information that teens specifically search for or evidence-backed information meant to combat the harms it contemplates. But opponents like the ACLU believe it could incentivize tech companies to restrict a wide range of posts so as not to risk running afoul of the law. Their concerns aren’t just theoretical. Other large-scale regulatory regimes aimed at platforms, like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), have resulted in overenforcement by tech companies. Even if they aren’t required by law to censor content, from a business standpoint, it’s less risky to err on the side of censorship.

On Tuesday, the Senate passed KOSA in a landslide 91–3 vote.

On the phone after the vote, Matt said they weren’t entirely surprised that the Senate voted the way it did. The students themselves had mostly talked to House legislators. According to the ACLU, the students met primarily with lawmakers from their home states — this included more than 15 senators and more than 60 House representatives from both sides of the aisle.

“I do have faith that the House heard us and saw the impact that it would make on youth, and hopefully when it comes their turn to vote, they will reflect that in their votes,” Matt said.

“Lawmakers, they don’t only doubt our media literacy; I think they frankly doubt our literacy about life,” Philhower told The Verge last week. The adults she had spoken to that day were “so proud and so surprised” that she had shown up to lobby on an issue. “And while of course I’ll take the praise, I was kind of frustrated because I was like, ‘Why should this be surprising to you? Why is a youth speaking up about something that she cares about, why is that out of the ordinary?’”

“For a long time, kids were supposed to sit quietly at the dinner table and not say anything,” said Philhower. “So I think there’s kind of this image that youth can’t do anything. But that’s only because we haven’t been allowed to do anything.”

Philhower thinks that’s bound to change. “I think we have the power, and older generations don’t see that. And maybe it’s because they grew up in a world where they weren’t heard and seen. But we want to be heard, and we want to be seen, and it’s time for people to listen to us.”

Read More 

Jacques Slade is a sneaker influencer and content creator.

I met sneaker influencer and creator Jacques Slade at a party to celebrate The Verge’s 10th birthday. Immediately, I was struck by his radiant joy. He had a huge smile on his face as he told me I could totally rock a pair of cool sneakers instead of the secondhand dress shoes I was wearing. And although I never got the kicks he recommended, I was determined to hit him up when the opportunity to collaborate via my Full Frame: Creators series arose.
Jacques has been making sneaker-centric YouTube and social content for over 10 years. From unboxings and interviews with athletes to giving clues on Jeopardy!, there simply isn’t a part of online sneaker culture that he hasn’t touched. But recently, he has begun pursuing a new audience.
What started as a hosting job for online PGA video content has turned into Jacques leveraging his knowledge of sneakers and pop culture to create content about the sport for his personal channels as well. As a longtime golfer, this has given him the opportunity to expand his audience and spend more time on the course rather than in his studio. Tune in to the video above, where I spend a day with Jacques — and his extensive shoe collection — to figure out how he got to where he is today.

Jacques Slade is a sneaker influencer and content creator.

I met sneaker influencer and creator Jacques Slade at a party to celebrate The Verge’s 10th birthday. Immediately, I was struck by his radiant joy. He had a huge smile on his face as he told me I could totally rock a pair of cool sneakers instead of the secondhand dress shoes I was wearing. And although I never got the kicks he recommended, I was determined to hit him up when the opportunity to collaborate via my Full Frame: Creators series arose.

Jacques has been making sneaker-centric YouTube and social content for over 10 years. From unboxings and interviews with athletes to giving clues on Jeopardy!, there simply isn’t a part of online sneaker culture that he hasn’t touched. But recently, he has begun pursuing a new audience.

What started as a hosting job for online PGA video content has turned into Jacques leveraging his knowledge of sneakers and pop culture to create content about the sport for his personal channels as well. As a longtime golfer, this has given him the opportunity to expand his audience and spend more time on the course rather than in his studio. Tune in to the video above, where I spend a day with Jacques — and his extensive shoe collection — to figure out how he got to where he is today.

Read More 

Image: Venu Sports

Venu Sports, the upcoming live sports streaming service from Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery, will cost $42.99 per month. The three companies say anyone who signs up for the service at launch will be able to lock in this price for one year, hinting at the potential for a price increase down the line.
Venu Sports will offer a seven-day free trial and the ability to cancel at any time. It’s expected to launch this fall, giving viewers access to numerous linear sports networks, including ESPN, ABC, Fox, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, TNT, and others, with coverage spanning the NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA, and more.
”We’re building Venu from the ground up for fans who want seamless access to watch the sports they love, and we will launch at a compelling price point that will appeal to the cord cutter and cord never fans currently not served by existing pay TV packages,” Venu Sports CEO Pete Distad says in the announcement.

Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery first announced the joint venture earlier this year. It’s meant to fill the live sports gap in the streaming space, which is becoming increasingly complex.
With streamers like Amazon’s Prime Video, Apple TV Plus, Peacock, Netflix, Max, and Paramount airing games from different leagues, cord-cutters aren’t able to get their sports in one place unless they pay for a pricier live TV streaming service like Fubo or Sling TV, both of which come with channels sports fans might not need or want. At $42.99 per month, Venu Sports could serve as a more balanced alternative than its pricier live TV streaming counterparts.

Image: Venu Sports

Venu Sports, the upcoming live sports streaming service from Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery, will cost $42.99 per month. The three companies say anyone who signs up for the service at launch will be able to lock in this price for one year, hinting at the potential for a price increase down the line.

Venu Sports will offer a seven-day free trial and the ability to cancel at any time. It’s expected to launch this fall, giving viewers access to numerous linear sports networks, including ESPN, ABC, Fox, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, TNT, and others, with coverage spanning the NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA, and more.

”We’re building Venu from the ground up for fans who want seamless access to watch the sports they love, and we will launch at a compelling price point that will appeal to the cord cutter and cord never fans currently not served by existing pay TV packages,” Venu Sports CEO Pete Distad says in the announcement.

Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery first announced the joint venture earlier this year. It’s meant to fill the live sports gap in the streaming space, which is becoming increasingly complex.

With streamers like Amazon’s Prime Video, Apple TV Plus, Peacock, Netflix, Max, and Paramount airing games from different leagues, cord-cutters aren’t able to get their sports in one place unless they pay for a pricier live TV streaming service like Fubo or Sling TV, both of which come with channels sports fans might not need or want. At $42.99 per month, Venu Sports could serve as a more balanced alternative than its pricier live TV streaming counterparts.

Read More 

Functionally, copying Apple works for the Galaxy Watch Ultra. It’s just disappointing. After Samsung announced the $649.99 Galaxy Watch Ultra on July 10th, I saw a few posts floating around on Threads. The gist was the same. Each post had two images: on the one side, there was the Apple Watch Ultra, and on the other, the Galaxy Watch Ultra. Hmm, users wondered. Where have we seen this before?
It’s harsh, but it was my exact first thought as well. While there are stylistic differences, it’s painfully obvious that Samsung made a list of everything the Apple Watch Ultra had that the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro — Samsung’s first attempt at a more rugged smartwatch — didn’t. It then went down the list, ticking off each feature one by one. By and large, that was a successful strategy. This is a great Android smartwatch. Arguably, it’s the best Android smartwatch.
It just doesn’t feel good.

More specifically, the Ultra’s successes don’t always feel earned. Samsung smartwatches have always had their own unique flair (usually in the form of a physical rotating bezel, which is sadly missing here). Yes, there were some Samsung-y quirks, but it gave the watches character.
Some of that quintessential Samsung-ness is still there. But it’s also undeniable that Samsung overhauled its wearable strategy to be the Apple of Android. My nerdy lil’ heart isn’t broken over it. But it does sting.
In Apple’s shadow
After wearing the Apple Watch Ultra 2 on one arm and the Galaxy Watch Ultra on the other for the last two weeks, it’s easier to say what they don’t have in common. Unlike Apple’s watch, the Galaxy Watch Ultra has a circular face (though it’s set in a squarish case). There’s no digital crown. It has FDA-cleared sleep apnea detection, a 3nm processor, and an upgraded 3-in-1 BioActive Sensor, which measures EKGs, body composition analysis, and other heart rate data. (Apple has EKGs and heart rate, but it’s still on a 5nm chip, and Masimo’s lawsuit has thrown a wrench in its sleep apnea efforts.) Naturally, the Galaxy Watch Ultra runs One UI 6 Watch and Wear OS 5 instead of watchOS.

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra share more in common than not.

Compare that to what they do have in common:

An orange shortcut button (Action Button versus Quick Button)
Three band types based on whether you do water sports, climb, or run
An emergency siren (the Apple siren is 80db; Samsung’s is 85db)
A watchface that turns red for easier reading at night
3,000 nits of screen brightness
Dual-frequency GPS
10ATM of water resistance
New multisport activity for triathletes

I could go on because there are even more similar features — like backtracking for hikes, racing past routes for runners, and functional threshold power for cyclists — but these are the major ones.

It’s understandable why Samsung has followed this route. The Apple Watch Ultra has been successful in a way that the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro has not. And as much as I hate to say it, I can’t say it was a bad idea. All of these additions and upgrades add up to a powerful and capable Android smartwatch. Overall performance is snappy, battery life is good once you finish calibrating (more on that later), and there’s great synergy if you use it with the new Galaxy Ring. I could end the review right now with “this is the Apple Watch Ultra for Android,” and you’d probably have a decent understanding of the Galaxy Watch Ultra’s strengths and weaknesses.
It’s just that when Apple does it better, it takes some of the shine from Samsung’s version. For instance, it’s easier to sync a custom hiking route onto Apple’s Ultra via the Maps app than it is to download a .GPX file from a separate app into the Samsung Health app on your phone. Apple’s Ultra has a native depth app and can be used as a dive computer. You can safely take Samsung’s Ultra for a plunge, but there are no equivalent scuba diving capabilities. Programming and using the Action Button is a bit more intuitive than the Quick Button. If I step into a dark closet, the Apple Watch Ultra’s night mode kicks on automatically. Auto night mode on the Galaxy Watch Ultra seems to be based on the actual time.
But comparison is the thief of joy. Instead, allow me to gripe about one of the Galaxy Watch Ultra’s more distinct features: its polarizing squircle design.
Squaring the circle
In recent years, Samsung watches have been overwhelmingly circular. The official line is that the Ultra’s new squarish case adds durability, though I’d argue the Pro was plenty durable without it. My working theory is that it allows for a better strap swapping mechanism — just like Apple’s — and that Samsung was purposefully going for visual similarity.
But after a few weeks of wear, I wish Samsung had just picked a rectangular display or a circular one instead of splitting the difference. Retaining the circular design would’ve kept it more visually distinct from Apple and, let’s face it, less ugly. (Though, there is an element of color preference here. I find the white titanium version to be much more fetching than the silver or my Halloween-y review unit. The black case is fine, but the strap is so orange.)

It was hard to get a good fit on my petite wrist due to the squircle shape.

Look at those gaps.

Aside from aesthetic sensibilities, Samsung’s 47mm Ultra is chunkier on the wrist than Apple’s 49mm Ultra. That’s because Samsung’s square case looks more squat on the wrist, even if the dimensions are quite similar. It also wasn’t quite as comfy for my petite wrists. The gap between the strap and my wrist was so wide, I could stuff exactly three pens or chopsticks into that space. The added chunkiness also made it difficult to find a good fit. Either I strapped the watch on way too tight, leaving marks on my arm, or it was too loose and would slide up and down my wrist.
Battery life and double pinch
The Galaxy Watch Ultra does offer some notable improvements over the Watch 5 Pro. For me, the two most impactful ones were longer battery life and the double pinch gesture.
The Ultra sports a 590mAh battery, which is the same as the Pro. However, software updates between 2022 and 2024 — and a new exercise power-saving mode — help extend the Ultra’s battery life. Battery life depends heavily on individual usage, but in testing, I got roughly 70 hours on a single charge with heavy GPS usage and power-guzzling features like the always-on display enabled. If I enabled power-saving mode once I hit 15 percent battery, I could stretch it to about 76 hours. (Note: Samsung watches take a few charge cycles to calibrate and learn your usage patterns. The first few days, I got a dismal 36–48 hours on a single charge.) I never quite hit Samsung’s 100-hour estimate, but it’s still a marked improvement over the 50–60 hours I got with the Pro.

The Quick Button (middle) is a customizable shortcut much like Apple’s Action Button.

This is true multiday battery life, though it still falls short of other multisport watches for real outdoorsy types. When I tracked a 3.5-hour hike in a remote area with no cell reception, the Galaxy Watch Ultra lost 22 percent battery, whereas my year-old Ultra 2 lost about 34 percent. While you might get away with leaving the charger at home for a one- or two-day trip, but you’re rolling the dice for anything longer.
Double pinch isn’t a new feature for Samsung watches — it’s been around for a while. It’s just more front and center now. Unlike Apple’s version, it’s not contextual, meaning it’s limited to mostly dismissing alerts, accepting calls, and controlling your phone’s camera. But putting those limitations in place ironically makes it more clear-cut for daily use. There are a few other gestures you can use, which expands your hands-free options. For instance, I programmed the knock knock gesture to open the Camera Controller app and then used double pinch to snap selfies. That’s just neat.
Mixed health tracking
Samsung made a big hullabaloo about adding Galaxy AI health features this year in the form of a new Energy Score and Wellness Tips. There’s also an upgraded 3-in-1 BioActive Sensor, which brings with it an experimental advanced glycation end products (AGEs) metric to gauge metabolic health. Unfortunately, AI doesn’t always know what’s best for you.
I wrote more about the Energy Score metric in my Galaxy Ring review, but the gist is that it’s broadly accurate with some hit-or-miss AI-generated advice. The same is true for the AI-generated Wellness Tips. For example, the other morning, I got two tips that told me that I both was and wasn’t sticking to my sleep schedule.

The Ultra is a capable tracker, though Samsung’s new AI-powered health features are hit or miss.

Meanwhile, the AGEs index metric is baffling. While you sleep, the watch measures for bodily compounds that accumulate when “protein and fat molecules are oxidized by sugar molecules.” Supposedly, that tells you how well you’re metabolically aging, but Samsung has been vague about how this actually works, the value of even having this data, and what you’re supposed to do with it. You’re graded on a spectrum from low to high — it told me I’m in the middle. To improve my score, the app advises me to eat healthy, exercise, and prioritize sleep to improve my AGEs index — which I’m already doing — while other parts of the app tell me to stop working out so hard. Is this a real thing? Maybe in the research field, but in a consumer smartwatch, this is little more than a gimmick.

The new FDA-cleared sleep apnea detection feature is relatively straightforward, but unfortunately, I found it difficult to use. The feature requires you to wear the watch for two nights while you sleep to detect disturbances based on blood oxygen levels. I had a hard time getting valid readings, partly because the Ultra’s size made it hard to get a snug fit. Eventually, I was correctly told I don’t have sleep apnea. The caveat is this feature is not a medical diagnostic tool and may not catch every instance of obstructed breathing — so take from that what you will. Like the EKG feature, it also requires you to have a Galaxy phone.
Honestly, the best fitness update was the addition of dual-frequency GPS. Compared to the Galaxy Watch 7, the Ultra was much more accurate at recording the distance of my runs. I hiked a 4.99-mile route with heavy tree cover, and the Ultra recorded a spot-on 4.99 miles, while my Apple Watch Ultra 2 logged a negligible difference of 5.03 miles.
If you can’t beat ’em…
I genuinely like the Galaxy Watch Ultra. This is the most full-featured Android smartwatch you can buy right now. I would wholeheartedly recommend it to Android users who want a longer-lasting smartwatch with a robust selection of third-party apps.

There is a new multisport activity for triathletes.

However, I fear that in copying Apple so closely, Samsung will eventually stop marching to its own quirky beat. Because it’s not just this watch — the whole Galaxy Watch lineup now mirrors Apple. There’s a budget Galaxy Watch FE to match the Apple Watch SE, a Galaxy Watch 7 sits where the Apple Watch Series 9 does, and at the top, there’s the Galaxy Watch Ultra. Samsung’s signature physical rotating bezel is now limited to last year’s Galaxy Watch 6 Classic — which wasn’t updated this year. It’s unclear if it’ll get a refresh down the road.
This truly was a bittersweet review to write. I can’t deny the Galaxy Watch Ultra fills a void for Android users who want a smarter Garmin alternative. (For a reasonable price, too.) I can’t fault Samsung for trying something different now that it has a rival in the Pixel Watch. After coasting with last year’s watches, it had to do something to regain momentum. I just never thought it would do it by making an Apple Watch.
Photography by Victoria Song / The Verge

Functionally, copying Apple works for the Galaxy Watch Ultra. It’s just disappointing.

After Samsung announced the $649.99 Galaxy Watch Ultra on July 10th, I saw a few posts floating around on Threads. The gist was the same. Each post had two images: on the one side, there was the Apple Watch Ultra, and on the other, the Galaxy Watch Ultra. Hmm, users wondered. Where have we seen this before?

It’s harsh, but it was my exact first thought as well. While there are stylistic differences, it’s painfully obvious that Samsung made a list of everything the Apple Watch Ultra had that the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro — Samsung’s first attempt at a more rugged smartwatch — didn’t. It then went down the list, ticking off each feature one by one. By and large, that was a successful strategy. This is a great Android smartwatch. Arguably, it’s the best Android smartwatch.

It just doesn’t feel good.

More specifically, the Ultra’s successes don’t always feel earned. Samsung smartwatches have always had their own unique flair (usually in the form of a physical rotating bezel, which is sadly missing here). Yes, there were some Samsung-y quirks, but it gave the watches character.

Some of that quintessential Samsung-ness is still there. But it’s also undeniable that Samsung overhauled its wearable strategy to be the Apple of Android. My nerdy lil’ heart isn’t broken over it. But it does sting.

In Apple’s shadow

After wearing the Apple Watch Ultra 2 on one arm and the Galaxy Watch Ultra on the other for the last two weeks, it’s easier to say what they don’t have in common. Unlike Apple’s watch, the Galaxy Watch Ultra has a circular face (though it’s set in a squarish case). There’s no digital crown. It has FDA-cleared sleep apnea detection, a 3nm processor, and an upgraded 3-in-1 BioActive Sensor, which measures EKGs, body composition analysis, and other heart rate data. (Apple has EKGs and heart rate, but it’s still on a 5nm chip, and Masimo’s lawsuit has thrown a wrench in its sleep apnea efforts.) Naturally, the Galaxy Watch Ultra runs One UI 6 Watch and Wear OS 5 instead of watchOS.

Compare that to what they do have in common:

An orange shortcut button (Action Button versus Quick Button)
Three band types based on whether you do water sports, climb, or run
An emergency siren (the Apple siren is 80db; Samsung’s is 85db)
A watchface that turns red for easier reading at night
3,000 nits of screen brightness
Dual-frequency GPS
10ATM of water resistance
New multisport activity for triathletes

I could go on because there are even more similar features — like backtracking for hikes, racing past routes for runners, and functional threshold power for cyclists — but these are the major ones.

It’s understandable why Samsung has followed this route. The Apple Watch Ultra has been successful in a way that the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro has not. And as much as I hate to say it, I can’t say it was a bad idea. All of these additions and upgrades add up to a powerful and capable Android smartwatch. Overall performance is snappy, battery life is good once you finish calibrating (more on that later), and there’s great synergy if you use it with the new Galaxy Ring. I could end the review right now with “this is the Apple Watch Ultra for Android,” and you’d probably have a decent understanding of the Galaxy Watch Ultra’s strengths and weaknesses.

It’s just that when Apple does it better, it takes some of the shine from Samsung’s version. For instance, it’s easier to sync a custom hiking route onto Apple’s Ultra via the Maps app than it is to download a .GPX file from a separate app into the Samsung Health app on your phone. Apple’s Ultra has a native depth app and can be used as a dive computer. You can safely take Samsung’s Ultra for a plunge, but there are no equivalent scuba diving capabilities. Programming and using the Action Button is a bit more intuitive than the Quick Button. If I step into a dark closet, the Apple Watch Ultra’s night mode kicks on automatically. Auto night mode on the Galaxy Watch Ultra seems to be based on the actual time.

But comparison is the thief of joy. Instead, allow me to gripe about one of the Galaxy Watch Ultra’s more distinct features: its polarizing squircle design.

Squaring the circle

In recent years, Samsung watches have been overwhelmingly circular. The official line is that the Ultra’s new squarish case adds durability, though I’d argue the Pro was plenty durable without it. My working theory is that it allows for a better strap swapping mechanism — just like Apple’s — and that Samsung was purposefully going for visual similarity.

But after a few weeks of wear, I wish Samsung had just picked a rectangular display or a circular one instead of splitting the difference. Retaining the circular design would’ve kept it more visually distinct from Apple and, let’s face it, less ugly. (Though, there is an element of color preference here. I find the white titanium version to be much more fetching than the silver or my Halloween-y review unit. The black case is fine, but the strap is so orange.)

Aside from aesthetic sensibilities, Samsung’s 47mm Ultra is chunkier on the wrist than Apple’s 49mm Ultra. That’s because Samsung’s square case looks more squat on the wrist, even if the dimensions are quite similar. It also wasn’t quite as comfy for my petite wrists. The gap between the strap and my wrist was so wide, I could stuff exactly three pens or chopsticks into that space. The added chunkiness also made it difficult to find a good fit. Either I strapped the watch on way too tight, leaving marks on my arm, or it was too loose and would slide up and down my wrist.

Battery life and double pinch

The Galaxy Watch Ultra does offer some notable improvements over the Watch 5 Pro. For me, the two most impactful ones were longer battery life and the double pinch gesture.

The Ultra sports a 590mAh battery, which is the same as the Pro. However, software updates between 2022 and 2024 — and a new exercise power-saving mode — help extend the Ultra’s battery life. Battery life depends heavily on individual usage, but in testing, I got roughly 70 hours on a single charge with heavy GPS usage and power-guzzling features like the always-on display enabled. If I enabled power-saving mode once I hit 15 percent battery, I could stretch it to about 76 hours. (Note: Samsung watches take a few charge cycles to calibrate and learn your usage patterns. The first few days, I got a dismal 36–48 hours on a single charge.) I never quite hit Samsung’s 100-hour estimate, but it’s still a marked improvement over the 50–60 hours I got with the Pro.

The Quick Button (middle) is a customizable shortcut much like Apple’s Action Button.

This is true multiday battery life, though it still falls short of other multisport watches for real outdoorsy types. When I tracked a 3.5-hour hike in a remote area with no cell reception, the Galaxy Watch Ultra lost 22 percent battery, whereas my year-old Ultra 2 lost about 34 percent. While you might get away with leaving the charger at home for a one- or two-day trip, but you’re rolling the dice for anything longer.

Double pinch isn’t a new feature for Samsung watches — it’s been around for a while. It’s just more front and center now. Unlike Apple’s version, it’s not contextual, meaning it’s limited to mostly dismissing alerts, accepting calls, and controlling your phone’s camera. But putting those limitations in place ironically makes it more clear-cut for daily use. There are a few other gestures you can use, which expands your hands-free options. For instance, I programmed the knock knock gesture to open the Camera Controller app and then used double pinch to snap selfies. That’s just neat.

Mixed health tracking

Samsung made a big hullabaloo about adding Galaxy AI health features this year in the form of a new Energy Score and Wellness Tips. There’s also an upgraded 3-in-1 BioActive Sensor, which brings with it an experimental advanced glycation end products (AGEs) metric to gauge metabolic health. Unfortunately, AI doesn’t always know what’s best for you.

I wrote more about the Energy Score metric in my Galaxy Ring review, but the gist is that it’s broadly accurate with some hit-or-miss AI-generated advice. The same is true for the AI-generated Wellness Tips. For example, the other morning, I got two tips that told me that I both was and wasn’t sticking to my sleep schedule.

The Ultra is a capable tracker, though Samsung’s new AI-powered health features are hit or miss.

Meanwhile, the AGEs index metric is baffling. While you sleep, the watch measures for bodily compounds that accumulate when “protein and fat molecules are oxidized by sugar molecules.” Supposedly, that tells you how well you’re metabolically aging, but Samsung has been vague about how this actually works, the value of even having this data, and what you’re supposed to do with it. You’re graded on a spectrum from low to high — it told me I’m in the middle. To improve my score, the app advises me to eat healthy, exercise, and prioritize sleep to improve my AGEs index — which I’m already doing — while other parts of the app tell me to stop working out so hard. Is this a real thing? Maybe in the research field, but in a consumer smartwatch, this is little more than a gimmick.

The new FDA-cleared sleep apnea detection feature is relatively straightforward, but unfortunately, I found it difficult to use. The feature requires you to wear the watch for two nights while you sleep to detect disturbances based on blood oxygen levels. I had a hard time getting valid readings, partly because the Ultra’s size made it hard to get a snug fit. Eventually, I was correctly told I don’t have sleep apnea. The caveat is this feature is not a medical diagnostic tool and may not catch every instance of obstructed breathing — so take from that what you will. Like the EKG feature, it also requires you to have a Galaxy phone.

Honestly, the best fitness update was the addition of dual-frequency GPS. Compared to the Galaxy Watch 7, the Ultra was much more accurate at recording the distance of my runs. I hiked a 4.99-mile route with heavy tree cover, and the Ultra recorded a spot-on 4.99 miles, while my Apple Watch Ultra 2 logged a negligible difference of 5.03 miles.

If you can’t beat ’em…

I genuinely like the Galaxy Watch Ultra. This is the most full-featured Android smartwatch you can buy right now. I would wholeheartedly recommend it to Android users who want a longer-lasting smartwatch with a robust selection of third-party apps.

There is a new multisport activity for triathletes.

However, I fear that in copying Apple so closely, Samsung will eventually stop marching to its own quirky beat. Because it’s not just this watch — the whole Galaxy Watch lineup now mirrors Apple. There’s a budget Galaxy Watch FE to match the Apple Watch SE, a Galaxy Watch 7 sits where the Apple Watch Series 9 does, and at the top, there’s the Galaxy Watch Ultra. Samsung’s signature physical rotating bezel is now limited to last year’s Galaxy Watch 6 Classic — which wasn’t updated this year. It’s unclear if it’ll get a refresh down the road.

This truly was a bittersweet review to write. I can’t deny the Galaxy Watch Ultra fills a void for Android users who want a smarter Garmin alternative. (For a reasonable price, too.) I can’t fault Samsung for trying something different now that it has a rival in the Pixel Watch. After coasting with last year’s watches, it had to do something to regain momentum. I just never thought it would do it by making an Apple Watch.

Photography by Victoria Song / The Verge

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Image: The Verge

It’s been a couple of days since OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT’s new advanced voice mode, and the small group of ChatGPT Plus subscribers given access to it seem pretty impressed so far. Various clips of the feature in action have appeared online, demonstrating its ability to sing, imitate accents, correct language pronunciation, and perform narrative storytelling.
An example of the latter can be seen in the below videos, in which X user @nickfloats asks ChatGPT to “tell me a story as if you’re an airline pilot telling it to passengers on a flight.” The chatbot jumps into action barely a second later, and even alters the audio to sound more like it’s coming from an intercom. ChatGPT struggled to accommodate more complex requests like layering on engine sounds, but the voice itself is clear and emotive and ChatGPT handles user interruptions well.

Guys im never talking to any of you ever again once gpt voice is released. I won’t need friends anymore. AI will tell me whatever I need to hear in any voice I want & it wont talk back or get mad when I interrupt it. Might even fuck around & fall in lovepic.twitter.com/GIRyhZYj9j— Nick St. Pierre (@nickfloats) July 31, 2024

In a conversation uploaded to YouTube, ChatGPT says it can handle inputs in “dozens of languages,” but the exact number can vary “depending on how you count dialects and regional variations.” One clip demonstrates the chatbot’s ability to correct the pronunciation of French words, giving specific pointers on adjusting inflection. Another language demo shows ChatGPT speaking Turkish after following a detailed request to tell an emotive story. While some Turkish X users noted that the accent didn’t sound native, it was able to complete the story request and react appropriately by laughing and crying at certain points.

The bot does a passable job with regional US accents, with one video running through a variety of examples that include New York, Boston, Wisconsin, and a stereotypical “valley girl.” Other videos also show ChatGPT’s advanced voice feature singing in different styles, producing a blues-style take on “Happy Birthday” and, amusingly, trying to imitate what animals like frogs and cats would sound like singing the same tune.

ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode attempting various US regional accents pic.twitter.com/UvDeQUNHLp— Cristiano Giardina (@CrisGiardina) July 31, 2024

A few different male and female-sounding voices were present across these demonstrations, though these notably don’t include the Scarlett Johansson-like “Sky” voice that was pulled from the service in May.
As for anyone who feels left out of these fun demonstrations, OpenAI spokesperson Taya Christianson told The Verge that advanced voice mode will be available to all ChatGPT Plus subscribers (which costs $20 per month) sometime this fall.

Image: The Verge

It’s been a couple of days since OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT’s new advanced voice mode, and the small group of ChatGPT Plus subscribers given access to it seem pretty impressed so far. Various clips of the feature in action have appeared online, demonstrating its ability to sing, imitate accents, correct language pronunciation, and perform narrative storytelling.

An example of the latter can be seen in the below videos, in which X user @nickfloats asks ChatGPT to “tell me a story as if you’re an airline pilot telling it to passengers on a flight.” The chatbot jumps into action barely a second later, and even alters the audio to sound more like it’s coming from an intercom. ChatGPT struggled to accommodate more complex requests like layering on engine sounds, but the voice itself is clear and emotive and ChatGPT handles user interruptions well.

In a conversation uploaded to YouTube, ChatGPT says it can handle inputs in “dozens of languages,” but the exact number can vary “depending on how you count dialects and regional variations.” One clip demonstrates the chatbot’s ability to correct the pronunciation of French words, giving specific pointers on adjusting inflection. Another language demo shows ChatGPT speaking Turkish after following a detailed request to tell an emotive story. While some Turkish X users noted that the accent didn’t sound native, it was able to complete the story request and react appropriately by laughing and crying at certain points.

The bot does a passable job with regional US accents, with one video running through a variety of examples that include New York, Boston, Wisconsin, and a stereotypical “valley girl.” Other videos also show ChatGPT’s advanced voice feature singing in different styles, producing a blues-style take on “Happy Birthday” and, amusingly, trying to imitate what animals like frogs and cats would sound like singing the same tune.

A few different male and female-sounding voices were present across these demonstrations, though these notably don’t include the Scarlett Johansson-like “Sky” voice that was pulled from the service in May.

As for anyone who feels left out of these fun demonstrations, OpenAI spokesperson Taya Christianson told The Verge that advanced voice mode will be available to all ChatGPT Plus subscribers (which costs $20 per month) sometime this fall.

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Image: Netflix

Squid Game’s second season will debut on December 26th with a newly-announced “final season” to follow sometime in 2025, Netflix said on Wednesday. Netflix also shared a brief trailer to accompany the news.
It’s been nearly three years since the first season of Squid Game premiered on Netflix, and the show has gone on to be a humongous success for the streaming service. Netflix is staying pretty tight-lipped about the plot for what’s to come, but here’s a brief plot synopsis from a Netflix PR email:
Three years after winning Squid Game, Player 456 remains determined to find the people behind the game and put an end to their vicious sport. Using this fortune to fund his search, Gi-hun starts with the most obvious of places: look for the man in a sharp suit playing ddakji in the subway. But when his efforts finally yield results, the path toward taking down the organization proves to be deadlier than he imagined: to end the game, he needs to re-enter it.
“We’ll do our best to make sure we bring you yet another thrill ride,” Squid Game director, writer, and executive producer Hwang Dong-hyuk said in a letter. “I hope you’re excited for what’s to come.”
Netflix has already shared a few images of the second season and some details about the season’s cast. Last year, Netflix launched a reality TV show based off of Squid Game. Later this year, Netflix also plans to release a Squid Game multiplayer game.

Image: Netflix

Squid Game’s second season will debut on December 26th with a newly-announced “final season” to follow sometime in 2025, Netflix said on Wednesday. Netflix also shared a brief trailer to accompany the news.

It’s been nearly three years since the first season of Squid Game premiered on Netflix, and the show has gone on to be a humongous success for the streaming service. Netflix is staying pretty tight-lipped about the plot for what’s to come, but here’s a brief plot synopsis from a Netflix PR email:

Three years after winning Squid Game, Player 456 remains determined to find the people behind the game and put an end to their vicious sport. Using this fortune to fund his search, Gi-hun starts with the most obvious of places: look for the man in a sharp suit playing ddakji in the subway. But when his efforts finally yield results, the path toward taking down the organization proves to be deadlier than he imagined: to end the game, he needs to re-enter it.

“We’ll do our best to make sure we bring you yet another thrill ride,” Squid Game director, writer, and executive producer Hwang Dong-hyuk said in a letter. “I hope you’re excited for what’s to come.”

Netflix has already shared a few images of the second season and some details about the season’s cast. Last year, Netflix launched a reality TV show based off of Squid Game. Later this year, Netflix also plans to release a Squid Game multiplayer game.

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Mark Zuckerberg. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

Meta’s second quarter earnings continue the same story from the previous quarter: generative AI may be here, but it’s going to take a long time to make money.
The good news for Meta is that, unlike pretty much every AI startup, it already makes a lot of money. Last quarter, the company made just over $39 billion in revenue, up 22 percent from a year ago, and about $13.5 billion in profit, up 73 percent. 3.27 billion people use at least one of Meta’s apps every day. That kind of scale and money buys the ability to make big bets, which Zuckerberg is famous for doing.
On Meta’s Wednesday earnings call, CFO Susan Li reiterated to investors that financial returns from its recent AI investments will “come in over a longer period of time.” Zuckerberg was direct about why Meta is spending billions on Nvidia hardware and the other infrastructure ahead of these future returns: “It’s hard to predict how this will trend multiple generations into the future, but at this point, I’d rather risk building capacity before it is needed rather than too late.”

He again telegraphed that the Meta AI assistant is on track to be the most used in the world before the end of the year. While he touted that generative AI features “are things that I think will increase engagement in our products,” he said the real revenue will come from business use cases, like AI creating ads from scratch and letting businesses operate their own AI agents in WhatsApp for customer service.
Some other tidbits from the earnings call:

Meta is already preparing to train Llama 4, which Zuckerberg wants to be the “most advanced” model in the industry when it comes out sometime next year. It will need almost 10 times more compute than Llama 3.1. (Jensen Huang probably owes Zuckerberg several leather jackets.)
On the recent talks of Meta investing in the eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica: Zuckerberg didn’t say anything about an investment but said he is excited to build “future generations of AI glasses” after the early traction with the latest Meta Ray-Bans. Supreme/Meta smart glasses incoming?
While the metaverse seems to have taken a backseat to AI at Meta in recent quarters, Zuckerberg did mention that sales of the Quest 3 are exceeding the company’s expectations, though he didn’t specify what those expecations were. Sources tell me a cheaper version of the headset is being announced at the company’s Connect conference in September.
Threads is “about to hit” 200 million monthly users after posting 175 million at the beginning of July.
Facebook is growing again with young adults, apparently: “The numbers we’re seeing especially in the US really go against the public narrative of who is using the app.”

Mark Zuckerberg. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

Meta’s second quarter earnings continue the same story from the previous quarter: generative AI may be here, but it’s going to take a long time to make money.

The good news for Meta is that, unlike pretty much every AI startup, it already makes a lot of money. Last quarter, the company made just over $39 billion in revenue, up 22 percent from a year ago, and about $13.5 billion in profit, up 73 percent. 3.27 billion people use at least one of Meta’s apps every day. That kind of scale and money buys the ability to make big bets, which Zuckerberg is famous for doing.

On Meta’s Wednesday earnings call, CFO Susan Li reiterated to investors that financial returns from its recent AI investments will “come in over a longer period of time.” Zuckerberg was direct about why Meta is spending billions on Nvidia hardware and the other infrastructure ahead of these future returns: “It’s hard to predict how this will trend multiple generations into the future, but at this point, I’d rather risk building capacity before it is needed rather than too late.”

He again telegraphed that the Meta AI assistant is on track to be the most used in the world before the end of the year. While he touted that generative AI features “are things that I think will increase engagement in our products,” he said the real revenue will come from business use cases, like AI creating ads from scratch and letting businesses operate their own AI agents in WhatsApp for customer service.

Some other tidbits from the earnings call:

Meta is already preparing to train Llama 4, which Zuckerberg wants to be the “most advanced” model in the industry when it comes out sometime next year. It will need almost 10 times more compute than Llama 3.1. (Jensen Huang probably owes Zuckerberg several leather jackets.)
On the recent talks of Meta investing in the eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica: Zuckerberg didn’t say anything about an investment but said he is excited to build “future generations of AI glasses” after the early traction with the latest Meta Ray-Bans. Supreme/Meta smart glasses incoming?
While the metaverse seems to have taken a backseat to AI at Meta in recent quarters, Zuckerberg did mention that sales of the Quest 3 are exceeding the company’s expectations, though he didn’t specify what those expecations were. Sources tell me a cheaper version of the headset is being announced at the company’s Connect conference in September.
Threads is “about to hit” 200 million monthly users after posting 175 million at the beginning of July.
Facebook is growing again with young adults, apparently: “The numbers we’re seeing especially in the US really go against the public narrative of who is using the app.”

Read More