Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Instagram’s new “AI Studio” will let creators make AI chatbot versions of themselves, and Meta is starting to roll it out as an “early test” in the US, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on his broadcast channel on Thursday.
As part of the test, “you might start seeing AIs from your favorite creators and interest-based AIs in the coming weeks on Instagram,” according to Zuckerberg. “These will primarily show up in messaging for now, and will be clearly labeled as AI.”
Zuckerberg shared a few videos of conversations with creator-made AI chatbots as examples. From a creator’s Instagram, you can tap a “Message” button to kick off a conversation. A notice at the top says that the messages are generated by AI and “some may be inaccurate or inappropriate.” (Let’s hope Meta’s systems can prevent these creator-made AIs from saying something terrible.) Meta also includes “AI” in front of the creator’s name and, at least for now, a “beta” tag after the person’s name.

“We’ve been working closely with creators to build these so they’re helpful in answering the questions they get from their followers and can chat with people in a way that’s useful and fun,” Zuckerberg says. “It’s early days and the first beta version of these AIs so we’ll keep working on improving them, and make them available to more people soon.”
In a new interview, Zuckerberg talked more about the company’s AI strategy. He says, “We think people want to interact with lots of different people and businesses and there need to be a lot of different AIs that get created to reflect people’s different interests.” Meta wants to let creators and eventually small businesses “create an AI for themselves” to interact with their communities and customers. “We think that’s going to create a much more compelling experience and just be more dynamic and useful than just having a single thing that people use.” He also says Meta will let people make AI characters that aren’t necessarily representations of themselves.

Broadly, this is a vision the company has had for a while — Zuckerberg made similar remarks in an interview with my colleague Alex Heath last year when the company announced its Meta AI assistant and celebrity-themed chatbots. Now that the company is actually testing AI Studio, we’ll see if people really do want to chat with AI versions of their favorite creators.

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Instagram’s new “AI Studio” will let creators make AI chatbot versions of themselves, and Meta is starting to roll it out as an “early test” in the US, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on his broadcast channel on Thursday.

As part of the test, “you might start seeing AIs from your favorite creators and interest-based AIs in the coming weeks on Instagram,” according to Zuckerberg. “These will primarily show up in messaging for now, and will be clearly labeled as AI.”

Zuckerberg shared a few videos of conversations with creator-made AI chatbots as examples. From a creator’s Instagram, you can tap a “Message” button to kick off a conversation. A notice at the top says that the messages are generated by AI and “some may be inaccurate or inappropriate.” (Let’s hope Meta’s systems can prevent these creator-made AIs from saying something terrible.) Meta also includes “AI” in front of the creator’s name and, at least for now, a “beta” tag after the person’s name.

“We’ve been working closely with creators to build these so they’re helpful in answering the questions they get from their followers and can chat with people in a way that’s useful and fun,” Zuckerberg says. “It’s early days and the first beta version of these AIs so we’ll keep working on improving them, and make them available to more people soon.”

In a new interview, Zuckerberg talked more about the company’s AI strategy. He says, “We think people want to interact with lots of different people and businesses and there need to be a lot of different AIs that get created to reflect people’s different interests.” Meta wants to let creators and eventually small businesses “create an AI for themselves” to interact with their communities and customers. “We think that’s going to create a much more compelling experience and just be more dynamic and useful than just having a single thing that people use.” He also says Meta will let people make AI characters that aren’t necessarily representations of themselves.

Broadly, this is a vision the company has had for a while — Zuckerberg made similar remarks in an interview with my colleague Alex Heath last year when the company announced its Meta AI assistant and celebrity-themed chatbots. Now that the company is actually testing AI Studio, we’ll see if people really do want to chat with AI versions of their favorite creators.

Read More 

Originally announced in late 2022, TP-Link’s Wi-Fi 7 Archer GE800 gaming router is now available. | Image: TP-Link

The TP-Link Archer GE800 Wi-Fi 7 tri-band gaming router was first announced in late 2022 before making appearances at CES 2023 and CES 2024, alongside a bunch of Wi-Fi 7 laptops. It’s finally available starting today for $599.99, although those excited to upgrade immediately can save $100 as part of a “limited-time launch promotion.”
Designed to take full advantage of the broader 6GHz wireless spectrum that Wi-Fi 6E first had access to, Wi-Fi 7 further increases speeds by doubling the maximum channel bandwidth from 160MHz to 320MHz, allowing more data to be transmitted.
The Wi-Fi 7 spec also allows connections to span multiple bands with a feature called Multi-Link Operation (MLO). For example, a file can be downloaded on the 6Ghz band at 1Gbps and on the 5GHz band at 500Mbps, resulting in combined download speeds of 1.5Gbps. TP-Link boasts the new tri-band Archer GE800 can achieve wireless speeds up to 19Gbps by spreading data across the 6, 5, and 2.4GHz bands simultaneously.
Just keep in mind that you’ll need a Wi-Fi 7-compatible device like the Google Pixel 8, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, or recently announced laptops like the Razer Blade 16 or Lenovo Legion 7i to take full advantage of those speeds. None of the current crop of gaming consoles support Wi-Fi 7.
The Archer GE800 also features a pair of 10Gbps ethernet ports and four 2.5Gbps ports, with one serving as a dedicated gaming port that prioritizes network traffic from a connected console, although the Xbox Series X / S and PS5 only include gigabit ports. And because every piece of gaming hardware needs to put on an elaborate light show, the GE800 features multicolor lighting that can be controlled from a desktop app panel that also provides insights on router performance and the status of the network.

Originally announced in late 2022, TP-Link’s Wi-Fi 7 Archer GE800 gaming router is now available. | Image: TP-Link

The TP-Link Archer GE800 Wi-Fi 7 tri-band gaming router was first announced in late 2022 before making appearances at CES 2023 and CES 2024, alongside a bunch of Wi-Fi 7 laptops. It’s finally available starting today for $599.99, although those excited to upgrade immediately can save $100 as part of a “limited-time launch promotion.”

Designed to take full advantage of the broader 6GHz wireless spectrum that Wi-Fi 6E first had access to, Wi-Fi 7 further increases speeds by doubling the maximum channel bandwidth from 160MHz to 320MHz, allowing more data to be transmitted.

The Wi-Fi 7 spec also allows connections to span multiple bands with a feature called Multi-Link Operation (MLO). For example, a file can be downloaded on the 6Ghz band at 1Gbps and on the 5GHz band at 500Mbps, resulting in combined download speeds of 1.5Gbps. TP-Link boasts the new tri-band Archer GE800 can achieve wireless speeds up to 19Gbps by spreading data across the 6, 5, and 2.4GHz bands simultaneously.

Just keep in mind that you’ll need a Wi-Fi 7-compatible device like the Google Pixel 8, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, or recently announced laptops like the Razer Blade 16 or Lenovo Legion 7i to take full advantage of those speeds. None of the current crop of gaming consoles support Wi-Fi 7.

The Archer GE800 also features a pair of 10Gbps ethernet ports and four 2.5Gbps ports, with one serving as a dedicated gaming port that prioritizes network traffic from a connected console, although the Xbox Series X / S and PS5 only include gigabit ports. And because every piece of gaming hardware needs to put on an elaborate light show, the GE800 features multicolor lighting that can be controlled from a desktop app panel that also provides insights on router performance and the status of the network.

Read More 

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Microsoft’s first round of Copilot Plus PCs launched last week with the promise of better battery life, performance that matches a MacBook Air, and chips ready for AI. I’ve spent the past week testing both of Microsoft’s new Surface devices, and I think they largely live up to Microsoft’s promises.
There are some expected app emulation drawbacks here and there. But for the most part, if you don’t have complex app needs, these new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Plus chips deliver the Windows on Arm experience that Microsoft has been promising for more than a decade. They also put a lot of pressure on Intel to respond.
I’ve been most impressed with the battery life on the $999.99 base model of the Surface Laptop during my testing. There have been times I’ve used it for the entire workday and never worried about having to charge. I’ve closed the lid and, days later, woken the Surface Laptop to find it hadn’t drained the battery life down to zero. I’ve never been confident enough to do that with an Intel-powered laptop.
Intel still has the upper hand when it comes to app compatibility after decades of developers optimizing their apps for Intel’s hardware. But now its competition has caught up on performance and managed to achieve the type of battery life that Intel has promised and failed to deliver for years.
That alone has to make Intel nervous, but there has also been a growing frustration inside Microsoft about Intel’s lack of progress over the past decade. I think most of it started with the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book in 2015. Microsoft was trying something new with the detachable display on the Surface Book, and it relied on Intel’s Skylake chips to deliver its new hardware.
I heard from sources at the time that Intel’s Skylake firmware and drivers caused plenty of issues for the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book, leaving Microsoft’s customers frustrated by devices they’d spent thousands of dollars on. It took months for Microsoft and Intel to deliver fixes to prevent those Surface devices from draining battery during standby. Microsoft wasn’t alone in struggling with the power management of Intel’s Skylake chips, with Dell suffering similar problems. Those headaches helped further conversations inside Microsoft to diversify the silicon inside Surface. The result was evident a few years later, in 2019, when Microsoft launched the 15-inch Surface Laptop 3 and the Surface Pro X, and neither came with an Intel processor. It was the first time Microsoft had picked AMD or Qualcomm for its Surface devices. “We literally spent tens of thousands of hours of co-development and co-engineering hand-in-hand with Microsoft,” said AMD’s Jack Huynh in an interview with me in 2019.
Microsoft was keen to make AMD and Qualcomm the stars of its Surface show that year, so only the smaller 13-inch Surface Laptop 3 shipped with Intel options. Qualcomm also helped co-engineer the SQ1 chip for Microsoft’s Surface Pro X, which led to a pivotal decision to fully exclude Intel from this new device and push Windows on Arm instead.
While the Surface Pro X didn’t deliver a great Windows on Arm experience, it showed a future that was possible for Microsoft’s Surface devices if developers got on board. Qualcomm and Microsoft continued to work on iterations of the SQ line for years, but it wasn’t until Qualcomm’s acquisition of Nuvia in 2021 that things really started to change for Windows on Arm.
Nuvia was originally founded in 2019 by three former Apple engineers and chip specialists who worked on the A-series chips that powered the iPhone and iPad. Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon X Elite chips are based directly on the Oryon CPU tech from its acquisition of Nuvia.
Microsoft and Qualcomm, confident they could kick-start a true Windows on Arm effort eventually, then spent the past two years working toward Copilot Plus PCs. That involved a lot of work convincing software developers to port their apps to ARM64 and getting Microsoft’s PC partners on board to offer a selection of laptops that weren’t just an afterthought or to satisfy a contract.
The results of this multiyear effort are clear to see, with Windows on Arm finally feeling like it’s moving in the right direction and getting the support from developers it so badly needed when Microsoft first launched the Surface Pro X nearly five years ago. I was surprised to see Slack and Google release ARM64 apps just weeks before Microsoft’s launch, and even Adobe has committed to bringing apps like Premiere Pro to Windows on Arm.
Now, we have to see how AMD and Intel respond. Copilot Plus PCs are limited to Qualcomm chips right now, but both AMD and Intel are planning to launch their own versions soon. AMD’s Strix Point chips are coming in July, just a month after Qualcomm’s, but Intel’s Lunar Lake chips won’t arrive until “later this year.” Both AMD and Intel are promising better performance and battery life, but they’re no longer competing against each other here since Qualcomm is now a serious contender on both metrics.
Microsoft also appears to be giving Qualcomm a helping hand. For reasons that Microsoft, AMD, and Intel won’t explain, only Qualcomm will have the AI-powered Copilot Plus features until a mystery update appears at some point in the future.
How Intel responds with its new laptop chips will be particularly important. It feels like we’re now in a transition to Windows on Arm, but it’s not like the transition Apple pulled off with its own silicon. Microsoft has decades of legacy and compatibility it can’t just drop, as it’s a big part of the reason many businesses still rely on Windows every day. Apple was able to drop 32-bit apps and force its developer community to transition to Arm by ditching Intel chips. Even with some of Microsoft’s frustrations over Intel’s progress, I can’t see the same thing happening for Windows.
Instead, Intel will now have to compete knowing Windows OEMs are willing to put Qualcomm chips inside some of their best laptops. AMD is also rumored to be launching its own Arm-based CPUs for Windows laptops as soon as 2025, so that could shake things up further. There’s a lot going on, and we’re only just at the beginning of a Windows AI era that Microsoft is promising could revolutionize how we use PCs.
How Microsoft handles balancing its transition to Windows on Arm and keeping all of its chip partners and OEMs happy will be interesting to witness. I know that the lead-up to this Copilot Plus PC launch hasn’t been easy, particularly with Microsoft attempting to control how OEMs launch their hardware. The Recall mess provided some added tension here, too.
A diversification of silicon is only a good thing for competition and the Windows laptop market. While Windows on Arm laptops are still limited to the premium part of the laptop market, if they’re successful, it won’t be long before they start taking on the budget-focused territory. That’s when Intel’s response will be truly tested. 

The pad

Microsoft has been charged with antitrust violations in the EU. Microsoft has escaped antitrust violations in the EU for 15 years, but that changed this week thanks to its Microsoft Teams bundling. EU regulators have now charged Microsoft with illegally bundling its Teams chat app with its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions. Slack filed a complaint with the EU against Microsoft in 2020, just as Teams was skyrocketing in usage during the covid-19 pandemic. If Microsoft is found guilty of the charges, it could face a fine of up to 10 percent of the company’s annual worldwide turnover.

Xbox cloud console appears in a patent listing. Remember the small little Xbox streaming device that appeared on Phil Spencer’s shelf? Well, Keystone surfaced in a new patent this week. The canceled Xbox streaming console would have shipped with an HDMI port, ethernet, and a power connector. It was designed to access Xbox Cloud Gaming, but Microsoft put it on hold because it couldn’t get to the right price point.

AI work assistants need a lot of hand-holding. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece on how AI work assistants like Copilot require a heavy lift to get the full value out of them. While Microsoft sells a vision of a helpful AI assistant, one CIO says businesses need to clean up and manage their data to really make the most of Copilot.

Xbox founding member Marc Whitten is now Cruise CEO. Marc Whitten left Microsoft for Sonos after the disastrous Xbox One launch and more recently served as president at Unity. He also ran Amazon’s Fire TV and Kindle divisions for a few years, and now he’s taking charge of Cruise, the GM-backed robotaxi company. He certainly has his work cut out for him after a disastrous response to a driverless car crash incident.

Xbox TV app is coming to Amazon’s Fire TV Sticks. You won’t need a Samsung TV to get access to the Xbox TV app soon. Microsoft is bringing its Xbox TV app to some Fire TV Stick devices, opening up any TV to get access to Xbox Cloud Gaming to play Xbox games without a console.

Microsoft makes Copilot less useful on Copilot Plus PCs. The new dedicated Copilot key that’s appearing on new Copilot Plus PCs just launches a Progressive Web App (PWA) version of Copilot. The web app doesn’t even integrate into Windows anymore like the previous Copilot experience did since last year, so you can’t use Copilot to control Windows 11 settings or have it docked as a sidebar. It’s a strange decision for devices that are supposed to be so AI-focused.

The new Surface Pro Flex Keyboard works on a Surface Pro X from five years ago. Microsoft’s commitment to compatibility is unwavering when it comes to the Surface Pro. I managed to get the new Surface Pro Flex Keyboard working on a Surface Pro X (2019) just by plugging it in. It even automatically pairs by Bluetooth so you can use it wirelessly. Microsoft has also issued driver updates and firmware updates to make this new keyboard compatible with other Surface Pro devices.

A Microsoft engineer accidentally leaked 4GB of internal code. Microsoft’s big security effort hit a brick wall earlier this month after it was discovered that an engineer accidentally posted internal code for Microsoft’s PlayReady media file copy prevention technology to a Microsoft developer community. Researchers from AG Security Research were able to successfully build the Windows PlayReady library thanks to the leaked code and instructions on the build process. Oops.

Forza Horizon 4 will be delisted from Microsoft stores and Steam in December. Playground Games is ending sales of Forza Horizon 4 due to licensing and partner agreements. The game will also be removed from Microsoft stores and Steam on December 15th, 2024. This is a good example of why game preservationists aren’t keen on a digital-only future where games can just disappear from stores.

What’s gaming like on Windows on Arm? I need to do more testing, but my first impressions in the Surface Laptop review weren’t great. Others, like Retro Tech Dad, had some luck with a bunch of older games but also found issues with titles like Doom Eternal. Gaming feels like a mixed bag on Windows on Arm right now, despite Microsoft’s promises of a “step forward for gaming on Arm devices.” I’ll dig into this further in a future Notepad issue.

I’m taking a break next week during the July 4th holiday week, so Notepad will return on July 11th. In the meantime, if you picked up one of the new Copilot Plus PCs, please let me know what you think about it. You can reach me via email at notepad@theverge.com.
If you’ve heard about any secret project Microsoft is working on, you can also reach me confidentially on the Signal messaging app where I’m tomwarren.01. I’m also tomwarren on Telegram if you’d prefer to chat there.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Microsoft’s first round of Copilot Plus PCs launched last week with the promise of better battery life, performance that matches a MacBook Air, and chips ready for AI. I’ve spent the past week testing both of Microsoft’s new Surface devices, and I think they largely live up to Microsoft’s promises.

There are some expected app emulation drawbacks here and there. But for the most part, if you don’t have complex app needs, these new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Plus chips deliver the Windows on Arm experience that Microsoft has been promising for more than a decade. They also put a lot of pressure on Intel to respond.

I’ve been most impressed with the battery life on the $999.99 base model of the Surface Laptop during my testing. There have been times I’ve used it for the entire workday and never worried about having to charge. I’ve closed the lid and, days later, woken the Surface Laptop to find it hadn’t drained the battery life down to zero. I’ve never been confident enough to do that with an Intel-powered laptop.

Intel still has the upper hand when it comes to app compatibility after decades of developers optimizing their apps for Intel’s hardware. But now its competition has caught up on performance and managed to achieve the type of battery life that Intel has promised and failed to deliver for years.

That alone has to make Intel nervous, but there has also been a growing frustration inside Microsoft about Intel’s lack of progress over the past decade. I think most of it started with the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book in 2015. Microsoft was trying something new with the detachable display on the Surface Book, and it relied on Intel’s Skylake chips to deliver its new hardware.

I heard from sources at the time that Intel’s Skylake firmware and drivers caused plenty of issues for the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book, leaving Microsoft’s customers frustrated by devices they’d spent thousands of dollars on. It took months for Microsoft and Intel to deliver fixes to prevent those Surface devices from draining battery during standby. Microsoft wasn’t alone in struggling with the power management of Intel’s Skylake chips, with Dell suffering similar problems. Those headaches helped further conversations inside Microsoft to diversify the silicon inside Surface. The result was evident a few years later, in 2019, when Microsoft launched the 15-inch Surface Laptop 3 and the Surface Pro X, and neither came with an Intel processor. It was the first time Microsoft had picked AMD or Qualcomm for its Surface devices. “We literally spent tens of thousands of hours of co-development and co-engineering hand-in-hand with Microsoft,” said AMD’s Jack Huynh in an interview with me in 2019.

Microsoft was keen to make AMD and Qualcomm the stars of its Surface show that year, so only the smaller 13-inch Surface Laptop 3 shipped with Intel options. Qualcomm also helped co-engineer the SQ1 chip for Microsoft’s Surface Pro X, which led to a pivotal decision to fully exclude Intel from this new device and push Windows on Arm instead.

While the Surface Pro X didn’t deliver a great Windows on Arm experience, it showed a future that was possible for Microsoft’s Surface devices if developers got on board. Qualcomm and Microsoft continued to work on iterations of the SQ line for years, but it wasn’t until Qualcomm’s acquisition of Nuvia in 2021 that things really started to change for Windows on Arm.

Nuvia was originally founded in 2019 by three former Apple engineers and chip specialists who worked on the A-series chips that powered the iPhone and iPad. Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon X Elite chips are based directly on the Oryon CPU tech from its acquisition of Nuvia.

Microsoft and Qualcomm, confident they could kick-start a true Windows on Arm effort eventually, then spent the past two years working toward Copilot Plus PCs. That involved a lot of work convincing software developers to port their apps to ARM64 and getting Microsoft’s PC partners on board to offer a selection of laptops that weren’t just an afterthought or to satisfy a contract.

The results of this multiyear effort are clear to see, with Windows on Arm finally feeling like it’s moving in the right direction and getting the support from developers it so badly needed when Microsoft first launched the Surface Pro X nearly five years ago. I was surprised to see Slack and Google release ARM64 apps just weeks before Microsoft’s launch, and even Adobe has committed to bringing apps like Premiere Pro to Windows on Arm.

Now, we have to see how AMD and Intel respond. Copilot Plus PCs are limited to Qualcomm chips right now, but both AMD and Intel are planning to launch their own versions soon. AMD’s Strix Point chips are coming in July, just a month after Qualcomm’s, but Intel’s Lunar Lake chips won’t arrive until “later this year.” Both AMD and Intel are promising better performance and battery life, but they’re no longer competing against each other here since Qualcomm is now a serious contender on both metrics.

Microsoft also appears to be giving Qualcomm a helping hand. For reasons that Microsoft, AMD, and Intel won’t explain, only Qualcomm will have the AI-powered Copilot Plus features until a mystery update appears at some point in the future.

How Intel responds with its new laptop chips will be particularly important. It feels like we’re now in a transition to Windows on Arm, but it’s not like the transition Apple pulled off with its own silicon. Microsoft has decades of legacy and compatibility it can’t just drop, as it’s a big part of the reason many businesses still rely on Windows every day. Apple was able to drop 32-bit apps and force its developer community to transition to Arm by ditching Intel chips. Even with some of Microsoft’s frustrations over Intel’s progress, I can’t see the same thing happening for Windows.

Instead, Intel will now have to compete knowing Windows OEMs are willing to put Qualcomm chips inside some of their best laptops. AMD is also rumored to be launching its own Arm-based CPUs for Windows laptops as soon as 2025, so that could shake things up further. There’s a lot going on, and we’re only just at the beginning of a Windows AI era that Microsoft is promising could revolutionize how we use PCs.

How Microsoft handles balancing its transition to Windows on Arm and keeping all of its chip partners and OEMs happy will be interesting to witness. I know that the lead-up to this Copilot Plus PC launch hasn’t been easy, particularly with Microsoft attempting to control how OEMs launch their hardware. The Recall mess provided some added tension here, too.

A diversification of silicon is only a good thing for competition and the Windows laptop market. While Windows on Arm laptops are still limited to the premium part of the laptop market, if they’re successful, it won’t be long before they start taking on the budget-focused territory. That’s when Intel’s response will be truly tested. 

The pad

Microsoft has been charged with antitrust violations in the EU. Microsoft has escaped antitrust violations in the EU for 15 years, but that changed this week thanks to its Microsoft Teams bundling. EU regulators have now charged Microsoft with illegally bundling its Teams chat app with its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions. Slack filed a complaint with the EU against Microsoft in 2020, just as Teams was skyrocketing in usage during the covid-19 pandemic. If Microsoft is found guilty of the charges, it could face a fine of up to 10 percent of the company’s annual worldwide turnover.

Xbox cloud console appears in a patent listing. Remember the small little Xbox streaming device that appeared on Phil Spencer’s shelf? Well, Keystone surfaced in a new patent this week. The canceled Xbox streaming console would have shipped with an HDMI port, ethernet, and a power connector. It was designed to access Xbox Cloud Gaming, but Microsoft put it on hold because it couldn’t get to the right price point.

AI work assistants need a lot of hand-holding. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece on how AI work assistants like Copilot require a heavy lift to get the full value out of them. While Microsoft sells a vision of a helpful AI assistant, one CIO says businesses need to clean up and manage their data to really make the most of Copilot.

Xbox founding member Marc Whitten is now Cruise CEO. Marc Whitten left Microsoft for Sonos after the disastrous Xbox One launch and more recently served as president at Unity. He also ran Amazon’s Fire TV and Kindle divisions for a few years, and now he’s taking charge of Cruise, the GM-backed robotaxi company. He certainly has his work cut out for him after a disastrous response to a driverless car crash incident.

Xbox TV app is coming to Amazon’s Fire TV Sticks. You won’t need a Samsung TV to get access to the Xbox TV app soon. Microsoft is bringing its Xbox TV app to some Fire TV Stick devices, opening up any TV to get access to Xbox Cloud Gaming to play Xbox games without a console.

Microsoft makes Copilot less useful on Copilot Plus PCs. The new dedicated Copilot key that’s appearing on new Copilot Plus PCs just launches a Progressive Web App (PWA) version of Copilot. The web app doesn’t even integrate into Windows anymore like the previous Copilot experience did since last year, so you can’t use Copilot to control Windows 11 settings or have it docked as a sidebar. It’s a strange decision for devices that are supposed to be so AI-focused.

The new Surface Pro Flex Keyboard works on a Surface Pro X from five years ago. Microsoft’s commitment to compatibility is unwavering when it comes to the Surface Pro. I managed to get the new Surface Pro Flex Keyboard working on a Surface Pro X (2019) just by plugging it in. It even automatically pairs by Bluetooth so you can use it wirelessly. Microsoft has also issued driver updates and firmware updates to make this new keyboard compatible with other Surface Pro devices.

A Microsoft engineer accidentally leaked 4GB of internal code. Microsoft’s big security effort hit a brick wall earlier this month after it was discovered that an engineer accidentally posted internal code for Microsoft’s PlayReady media file copy prevention technology to a Microsoft developer community. Researchers from AG Security Research were able to successfully build the Windows PlayReady library thanks to the leaked code and instructions on the build process. Oops.

Forza Horizon 4 will be delisted from Microsoft stores and Steam in December. Playground Games is ending sales of Forza Horizon 4 due to licensing and partner agreements. The game will also be removed from Microsoft stores and Steam on December 15th, 2024. This is a good example of why game preservationists aren’t keen on a digital-only future where games can just disappear from stores.

What’s gaming like on Windows on Arm? I need to do more testing, but my first impressions in the Surface Laptop review weren’t great. Others, like Retro Tech Dad, had some luck with a bunch of older games but also found issues with titles like Doom Eternal. Gaming feels like a mixed bag on Windows on Arm right now, despite Microsoft’s promises of a “step forward for gaming on Arm devices.” I’ll dig into this further in a future Notepad issue.

I’m taking a break next week during the July 4th holiday week, so Notepad will return on July 11th. In the meantime, if you picked up one of the new Copilot Plus PCs, please let me know what you think about it. You can reach me via email at notepad@theverge.com.

If you’ve heard about any secret project Microsoft is working on, you can also reach me confidentially on the Signal messaging app where I’m tomwarren.01. I’m also tomwarren on Telegram if you’d prefer to chat there.

Read More 

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images

Over the last day or so, customers of the big three US mobile carriers — Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile — who are using data roaming internationally have complained about an inability to connect and make calls. Complaints about connection problems have spread across social media for hours, with little response from the carriers.
In an email sent to The Verge, AT&T spokesperson Keoni Holoman explained that the issue is apparently linked to an unnamed third party:
The AT&T network is operating normally. Some customers traveling internationally may be experiencing service disruptions due to an issue outside the AT&T network. We’re working with one of our roaming connectivity providers to resolve the issue.
That won’t help anyone get connected, but the companies are aware of the issue. A tweet from Verizon’s support account on X says, “Our teams are actively working with local providers to resolve the issue” of calls not connecting for people traveling abroad. T-Mobile declined to provide an on-the-record response to our question that met our standard for publishing.

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images

Over the last day or so, customers of the big three US mobile carriers — Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile — who are using data roaming internationally have complained about an inability to connect and make calls. Complaints about connection problems have spread across social media for hours, with little response from the carriers.

In an email sent to The Verge, AT&T spokesperson Keoni Holoman explained that the issue is apparently linked to an unnamed third party:

The AT&T network is operating normally. Some customers traveling internationally may be experiencing service disruptions due to an issue outside the AT&T network. We’re working with one of our roaming connectivity providers to resolve the issue.

That won’t help anyone get connected, but the companies are aware of the issue. A tweet from Verizon’s support account on X says, “Our teams are actively working with local providers to resolve the issue” of calls not connecting for people traveling abroad. T-Mobile declined to provide an on-the-record response to our question that met our standard for publishing.

Read More 

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Amazon Prime Day is fast approaching (on July 16th and 17th), but you don’t have to wait to get an impressive deal on one of Amazon’s flagship devices. That’s because Woot (which is owned by Amazon) is selling a refurbished third-gen Fire TV Cube for $79.99 with a 90-day warranty, saving you $60 off the cost of a new one until July 5th or until it’s sold out. This is the latest version of the Cube, which streams up to 4K resolution with HDR, supports Wi-Fi 6E for maintaining faster speeds, and also doubles as an Amazon Echo smart speaker for hands-free voice control options.

The Cube is Amazon’s most expensive streaming device, and even if you don’t fully utilize all of its features, you’re still getting some of the snappiest performance among most streamers — outside of the Apple TV 4K and its very high CPU headroom. The downside of Amazon streamers, however, is having to live in Amazon’s ecosystem, which includes various ads on the Fire TV OS homescreen. But if that isn’t a total deal-breaker for you, then this Fire TV Cube deal is definitely worth your attention.

A few more thirsty Thursdeals

Woot is also running a bunch of deals on various Logitech peripherals and accessories, allowing you to take an additional $3 off at checkout with code LOGITECHJUNE2024 until June 30th. The sale includes a slew of keyboards, mice, headsets, and even Logitech’s Cloud game streaming handheld (in refurbished condition). A couple of notable devices include an open-box Logitech Lift vertical ergonomic mouse for $51.99 ($18 off) and an open-box G435 Lightspeed wireless gaming headset in pink and blue for $31.99 ($11 cheaper than the current going rate).

Anker’s 65W Nano II three-port USB charger is $29.99 ($15 off) at Amazon. The compact power adapter has two USB-C ports and one USB-A, and its 65 watts of maximum output means it can even charge a thin and light-style laptop like the MacBook Air.

Rad Power Bikes is already celebrating July 4th on its site. The holiday sale runs until July 7th and includes deals like $300 off the RadRunner Plus and $200 off the RadRunner 2, dropping them down to $1,499 and $1,199, respectively. The RadRunner 2 is the follow-up model to the original that our own Andy Hawkins found to be an excellent daily rider for busy city life. The RadRunner Plus is a seven-speed model with some added extras, while the RadRunner 2 is a single-speed bike — both have a range of around 45 miles and can hit a top speed of 20mph.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Amazon Prime Day is fast approaching (on July 16th and 17th), but you don’t have to wait to get an impressive deal on one of Amazon’s flagship devices. That’s because Woot (which is owned by Amazon) is selling a refurbished third-gen Fire TV Cube for $79.99 with a 90-day warranty, saving you $60 off the cost of a new one until July 5th or until it’s sold out. This is the latest version of the Cube, which streams up to 4K resolution with HDR, supports Wi-Fi 6E for maintaining faster speeds, and also doubles as an Amazon Echo smart speaker for hands-free voice control options.

The Cube is Amazon’s most expensive streaming device, and even if you don’t fully utilize all of its features, you’re still getting some of the snappiest performance among most streamers — outside of the Apple TV 4K and its very high CPU headroom. The downside of Amazon streamers, however, is having to live in Amazon’s ecosystem, which includes various ads on the Fire TV OS homescreen. But if that isn’t a total deal-breaker for you, then this Fire TV Cube deal is definitely worth your attention.

A few more thirsty Thursdeals

Woot is also running a bunch of deals on various Logitech peripherals and accessories, allowing you to take an additional $3 off at checkout with code LOGITECHJUNE2024 until June 30th. The sale includes a slew of keyboards, mice, headsets, and even Logitech’s Cloud game streaming handheld (in refurbished condition). A couple of notable devices include an open-box Logitech Lift vertical ergonomic mouse for $51.99 ($18 off) and an open-box G435 Lightspeed wireless gaming headset in pink and blue for $31.99 ($11 cheaper than the current going rate).

Anker’s 65W Nano II three-port USB charger is $29.99 ($15 off) at Amazon. The compact power adapter has two USB-C ports and one USB-A, and its 65 watts of maximum output means it can even charge a thin and light-style laptop like the MacBook Air.

Rad Power Bikes is already celebrating July 4th on its site. The holiday sale runs until July 7th and includes deals like $300 off the RadRunner Plus and $200 off the RadRunner 2, dropping them down to $1,499 and $1,199, respectively. The RadRunner 2 is the follow-up model to the original that our own Andy Hawkins found to be an excellent daily rider for busy city life. The RadRunner Plus is a seven-speed model with some added extras, while the RadRunner 2 is a single-speed bike — both have a range of around 45 miles and can hit a top speed of 20mph.

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When connected to a smartphone, the Unistellar Envision binoculars can identify over a million landmarks on Earth and in space. | Image: Unistellar

Unistellar’s new Envision binoculars bring smart functionality similar to Swarovski’s Optik AX Visio binoculars announced earlier this year. But instead of recognizing birds and animals, the Envision will use AR to identify and label over a million unique landmarks including mountains and trails and more than 200,000 objects in the night sky.
The French company launched a decade ago with smart telescopes that automate the process of finding and photographing objects like stars and planets. It’s now squeezing that technology into a pair of binoculars featuring 50mm lenses from Nikon upgraded with an augmented reality projection system that overlays contextual information about what’s being viewed in real time.
It’s innovative, but Unistellar will be relying on a crowdfunding campaign to help create its first prototypes next year, and delivery to backers isn’t expected until late 2025.

The Envision binoculars connect to a smartphone over Bluetooth and use that device’s GPS and other sensors to determine where a user is located. With the help of an app, the smartphone also feeds the binoculars info from an online database featuring “millions of cartographic items, including mountains, hills, trails, landmarks, water sources, stars, galaxies, and other celestial objects.” For those headed to remote locations with limited connectivity, they’ll need to download offline maps and data ahead of time.
Battery life is rated at five hours of use or “1,000 binocular engagements per charge.” But when the battery dies, the Envision will continue to function as regular binoculars.

Image: Unistellar
Users can lock onto a target and then pass the Envision binoculars to someone else who will be guided toward the target.

In addition to serving as a handheld tour guide, Unistellar is promising another handy feature: one person can lock onto something they’re looking at and then pass the binoculars to someone else, who will see directional indicators guiding them to that same target.
Unistellar is bringing the Envision binoculars to consumers through a crowdfunded Kickstarter campaign that’s still over $1 million shy of its funding goal. Early bird backers can preorder a pair for $699, which is a significant discount over the expected $1,199 retail pricing (and much cheaper than the $4,799 Swarovski smart binoculars), but delivery for the earliest backers isn’t expected until November 2025.
There’s always a risk when backing a crowdfunded product, even one from a company like Unistellar that’s already delivered several successful devices. But the company isn’t expecting to have its first industrial prototypes of the Envision binoculars until January 2025. Despite a solid track record so far, it might be a good idea to wait until next year to see how these pan out.

When connected to a smartphone, the Unistellar Envision binoculars can identify over a million landmarks on Earth and in space. | Image: Unistellar

Unistellar’s new Envision binoculars bring smart functionality similar to Swarovski’s Optik AX Visio binoculars announced earlier this year. But instead of recognizing birds and animals, the Envision will use AR to identify and label over a million unique landmarks including mountains and trails and more than 200,000 objects in the night sky.

The French company launched a decade ago with smart telescopes that automate the process of finding and photographing objects like stars and planets. It’s now squeezing that technology into a pair of binoculars featuring 50mm lenses from Nikon upgraded with an augmented reality projection system that overlays contextual information about what’s being viewed in real time.

It’s innovative, but Unistellar will be relying on a crowdfunding campaign to help create its first prototypes next year, and delivery to backers isn’t expected until late 2025.

The Envision binoculars connect to a smartphone over Bluetooth and use that device’s GPS and other sensors to determine where a user is located. With the help of an app, the smartphone also feeds the binoculars info from an online database featuring “millions of cartographic items, including mountains, hills, trails, landmarks, water sources, stars, galaxies, and other celestial objects.” For those headed to remote locations with limited connectivity, they’ll need to download offline maps and data ahead of time.

Battery life is rated at five hours of use or “1,000 binocular engagements per charge.” But when the battery dies, the Envision will continue to function as regular binoculars.

Image: Unistellar
Users can lock onto a target and then pass the Envision binoculars to someone else who will be guided toward the target.

In addition to serving as a handheld tour guide, Unistellar is promising another handy feature: one person can lock onto something they’re looking at and then pass the binoculars to someone else, who will see directional indicators guiding them to that same target.

Unistellar is bringing the Envision binoculars to consumers through a crowdfunded Kickstarter campaign that’s still over $1 million shy of its funding goal. Early bird backers can preorder a pair for $699, which is a significant discount over the expected $1,199 retail pricing (and much cheaper than the $4,799 Swarovski smart binoculars), but delivery for the earliest backers isn’t expected until November 2025.

There’s always a risk when backing a crowdfunded product, even one from a company like Unistellar that’s already delivered several successful devices. But the company isn’t expecting to have its first industrial prototypes of the Envision binoculars until January 2025. Despite a solid track record so far, it might be a good idea to wait until next year to see how these pan out.

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An exterior view of the Supreme Court on June 20th, 2024, in Washington, DC.  | Photo by Andrew Harnik / Getty Images

The Supreme Court decided to press pause on the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to prevent smog-forming pollutants from drifting across state borders.
Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, and various trade organizations including fossil fuel industry groups asked the Supreme Court to issue a stay on the plan while they contest the EPA’s actions in lower courts. SCOTUS agreed to put the plan on hold today in its opinion on Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency. Five justices voted in favor of halting implementation for now, while the remaining justices dissented.
“If anything, we see one reason for caution after another,” Justice Neil Gorsuch writes in his opinion.
“If anything, we see one reason for caution after another.”
While the stay is temporary, the decision signals that the conservative-leaning Supreme Court is likely to rule in favor of states opposing the EPA’s plan if the issue makes it to the nation’s highest court again for a final decision on the plan’s legal merit. That could make it harder to improve air quality across the nation since air pollutants typically don’t stay in one place.
The EPA’s Good Neighbor Plan compels 23 “upwind” states to curb certain pollutants from power plants and other industrial facilities before it drifts to other states downwind of them. It applies to nitrogen oxides, a key ingredient for smog (also called ground-level ozone), and replaces state plans that the EPA found to fall short of updated national air quality standards. The EPA expects its plan to prevent 1,300 premature deaths and more than 2,300 hospital and emergency room visits in 2026. It’s also supposed to ensure that those downwind states aren’t burdened by pollution they didn’t create and are able to meet national air quality standards despite their geographic disadvantage.
The rules wouldn’t be fully enforced until 2026, but many states were quick to object. Lower courts have already stayed the plan in 12 states challenging the EPA. The remaining 11 states, Ohio and its fellow plaintiffs say, would face “irreparable, economic injuries” if forced to comply. They also argue that the EPA’s measures would put undue pressure on the power grid and wouldn’t make sense to start to implement since they believe the plan will ultimately get struck down in court.
The legal battle is still playing out in lower courts, which is why some justices opposed weighing in on the matter preemptively.
But the decision issued today by SCOTUS doesn’t bode well for the Good Neighbor Plan as the EPA fights to keep it alive. The Biden administration could also lose this battle outside of court if voters reelect Donald Trump. The Trump administration attempted to roll back more than 100 environmental regulations during his term in office.

Developing…

An exterior view of the Supreme Court on June 20th, 2024, in Washington, DC.  | Photo by Andrew Harnik / Getty Images

The Supreme Court decided to press pause on the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to prevent smog-forming pollutants from drifting across state borders.

Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, and various trade organizations including fossil fuel industry groups asked the Supreme Court to issue a stay on the plan while they contest the EPA’s actions in lower courts. SCOTUS agreed to put the plan on hold today in its opinion on Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency. Five justices voted in favor of halting implementation for now, while the remaining justices dissented.

“If anything, we see one reason for caution after another,” Justice Neil Gorsuch writes in his opinion.

While the stay is temporary, the decision signals that the conservative-leaning Supreme Court is likely to rule in favor of states opposing the EPA’s plan if the issue makes it to the nation’s highest court again for a final decision on the plan’s legal merit. That could make it harder to improve air quality across the nation since air pollutants typically don’t stay in one place.

The EPA’s Good Neighbor Plan compels 23 “upwind” states to curb certain pollutants from power plants and other industrial facilities before it drifts to other states downwind of them. It applies to nitrogen oxides, a key ingredient for smog (also called ground-level ozone), and replaces state plans that the EPA found to fall short of updated national air quality standards. The EPA expects its plan to prevent 1,300 premature deaths and more than 2,300 hospital and emergency room visits in 2026. It’s also supposed to ensure that those downwind states aren’t burdened by pollution they didn’t create and are able to meet national air quality standards despite their geographic disadvantage.

The rules wouldn’t be fully enforced until 2026, but many states were quick to object. Lower courts have already stayed the plan in 12 states challenging the EPA. The remaining 11 states, Ohio and its fellow plaintiffs say, would face “irreparable, economic injuries” if forced to comply. They also argue that the EPA’s measures would put undue pressure on the power grid and wouldn’t make sense to start to implement since they believe the plan will ultimately get struck down in court.

The legal battle is still playing out in lower courts, which is why some justices opposed weighing in on the matter preemptively.

But the decision issued today by SCOTUS doesn’t bode well for the Good Neighbor Plan as the EPA fights to keep it alive. The Biden administration could also lose this battle outside of court if voters reelect Donald Trump. The Trump administration attempted to roll back more than 100 environmental regulations during his term in office.

Developing…

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Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is launching its Xbox TV app on Amazon’s Fire TV Sticks in July. The Xbox app will provide access to Xbox Cloud Gaming so subscribers to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate can stream a variety of games directly to Fire TV devices.
Microsoft will support the Fire TV Stick 4K Max and Fire TV Stick 4K models for its Xbox app, which will be available in more than 25 countries. All you’ll need is a compatible Fire TV Stick, a Bluetooth-enabled wireless controller, and an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription to stream Xbox games.

Image: Microsoft
The Xbox TV app running on a Fire TV Stick.

This marks the first time the Xbox TV app has launched on a device other than Samsung’s recent TVs and monitors. Microsoft first partnered with Samsung in 2022 to launch an Xbox TV app on Samsung’s 2022 smart TVs. An Xbox app also appeared on Meta’s Quest VR headsets last year, providing access to Xbox Cloud Gaming.
“Over the past several years, we have been on a journey to deliver cloud gaming to more devices and to more people around the globe,” says Ashley McKissick, head of Xbox experiences and platforms engineering. “We are excited to add Fire TV to our growing family of cloud gaming devices and eager to welcome new players into this experience.”

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is launching its Xbox TV app on Amazon’s Fire TV Sticks in July. The Xbox app will provide access to Xbox Cloud Gaming so subscribers to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate can stream a variety of games directly to Fire TV devices.

Microsoft will support the Fire TV Stick 4K Max and Fire TV Stick 4K models for its Xbox app, which will be available in more than 25 countries. All you’ll need is a compatible Fire TV Stick, a Bluetooth-enabled wireless controller, and an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription to stream Xbox games.

Image: Microsoft
The Xbox TV app running on a Fire TV Stick.

This marks the first time the Xbox TV app has launched on a device other than Samsung’s recent TVs and monitors. Microsoft first partnered with Samsung in 2022 to launch an Xbox TV app on Samsung’s 2022 smart TVs. An Xbox app also appeared on Meta’s Quest VR headsets last year, providing access to Xbox Cloud Gaming.

“Over the past several years, we have been on a journey to deliver cloud gaming to more devices and to more people around the globe,” says Ashley McKissick, head of Xbox experiences and platforms engineering. “We are excited to add Fire TV to our growing family of cloud gaming devices and eager to welcome new players into this experience.”

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I met Vitus “V” Spehar — the face behind Under the Desk News — a year ago in Washington, DC. I was on location with The Verge filming the TikTok senate hearing along with interviews with senators and content creators for a Verge video about the looming ban. And when we interviewed V outside of the Capitol, V said that TikTok was useful for channels like their own — a news channel that was started because they didn’t believe traditional news sources were accessible enough to younger audiences. V’s TikTok channel now has 3.1 million subscribers.
Every weekday, V sifts through news websites in search of six to eight stories they deem important enough to share with their audience. V then condenses each story into a bite-size snippet, crawls under a desk, and creates a 90-second video that highlights the happenings of the day. It’s this ritual, which started on January 6th, 2021, that has propelled V into TikTok political fame.
But that fame comes with some unique challenges. Under The Desk occupies a tricky space that positions V somewhere between news anchor and internet personality. So while V reports information to millions of people, they view their followers as a community — one that they care about and sometimes give advice to. And when you couple that with the huge divide in US politics, it is a recipe for a whole lot of backlash that V increasingly has to deal with.
In the latest episode of my new creator-focused video series, I spend a day with V to figure out why the hell they continue to do it and, more importantly, how they feel about the looming ban that threatens their main subscriber base.

I met Vitus “V” Spehar — the face behind Under the Desk News — a year ago in Washington, DC. I was on location with The Verge filming the TikTok senate hearing along with interviews with senators and content creators for a Verge video about the looming ban. And when we interviewed V outside of the Capitol, V said that TikTok was useful for channels like their own — a news channel that was started because they didn’t believe traditional news sources were accessible enough to younger audiences. V’s TikTok channel now has 3.1 million subscribers.

Every weekday, V sifts through news websites in search of six to eight stories they deem important enough to share with their audience. V then condenses each story into a bite-size snippet, crawls under a desk, and creates a 90-second video that highlights the happenings of the day. It’s this ritual, which started on January 6th, 2021, that has propelled V into TikTok political fame.

But that fame comes with some unique challenges. Under The Desk occupies a tricky space that positions V somewhere between news anchor and internet personality. So while V reports information to millions of people, they view their followers as a community — one that they care about and sometimes give advice to. And when you couple that with the huge divide in US politics, it is a recipe for a whole lot of backlash that V increasingly has to deal with.

In the latest episode of my new creator-focused video series, I spend a day with V to figure out why the hell they continue to do it and, more importantly, how they feel about the looming ban that threatens their main subscriber base.

Read More 

Illustration: Kristen Radtke / The Verge

On today’s episode of Decoder, we’re talking about money and politics — always a good time — and how they come together in the form of lobbying in America. It’s hard to imagine a time when the influence of big corporations and mouthy billionaires didn’t touch every part of American politics, but the kind of lobbying we have now didn’t really exist before the 1970s.
That’s when big corporations started reacting to a cratering economy and did what they do best: throw money around. Now, of course, our political debates about everything from energy and finance to healthcare are deeply intertwined with corporations and their money — and new big players in tech have started spending tons of political money of their own.

To understand the structure of today’s political lobbying and how we got here, I asked Pulitzer Prize winner Brody Mullins on the show. Brody has a new book he co-wrote with his brother Luke Mullins called The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government, which came out last month. It’s a definitive history of modern lobbying in America, told through the lens of some of the industry’s most unsavory characters and the influence they’ve exerted on DC politics across decades.
Brody and I talked a lot about how lobbying has shifted over the years — from the regulated version on K Street, a real place in DC in proximity of Capitol Hill, to a much more diffuse and hard-to-track form of influence you might call shadow lobbying, in which companies spend tons of money on groups with innocent-sounding names that buy ads and coverage around the country to influence local elections. That avoids disclosure requirements and, in some cases, provides cover for criminal acts.
Over the last nearly five decades, the power of corporate America on the political landscape has been immeasurable, Brody says. There have been some checks on this growing power, like post-Waterform reforms and campaign finance laws, but this melding of money and politics has been a runaway train well into the 21st century, when big tech started to become a major player in the political lobbying scene.
Now, tech companies have more money and more direct influence over their customers than virtually any bank, pharmaceutical company, or oil and gas company you can think of, and they’ve started deploying new lobbying tactics, like in-app prompts, to pressure politicians and thwart regulation. Sometimes it works; you’ll hear Brody and I talk about the famous internet “Blackout” protest of 2012 that brought down laws called SOPA and PIPA. But in some cases, as we saw with TikTok recently, it can backfire.
As you’ll hear Brody explain, this isn’t entirely set in stone. The rise of Donald Trump and his decidedly untraditional approach to influence peddling tactics really turned lobbying on its head in 2016. With another election coming up, the shape of lobbying in America could change yet again and produce the single most effective and powerful lobbyist in American history.

Illustration: Kristen Radtke / The Verge

On today’s episode of Decoder, we’re talking about money and politics — always a good time — and how they come together in the form of lobbying in America. It’s hard to imagine a time when the influence of big corporations and mouthy billionaires didn’t touch every part of American politics, but the kind of lobbying we have now didn’t really exist before the 1970s.

That’s when big corporations started reacting to a cratering economy and did what they do best: throw money around. Now, of course, our political debates about everything from energy and finance to healthcare are deeply intertwined with corporations and their money — and new big players in tech have started spending tons of political money of their own.

To understand the structure of today’s political lobbying and how we got here, I asked Pulitzer Prize winner Brody Mullins on the show. Brody has a new book he co-wrote with his brother Luke Mullins called The Wolves of K Street: The Secret History of How Big Money Took Over Big Government, which came out last month. It’s a definitive history of modern lobbying in America, told through the lens of some of the industry’s most unsavory characters and the influence they’ve exerted on DC politics across decades.

Brody and I talked a lot about how lobbying has shifted over the years — from the regulated version on K Street, a real place in DC in proximity of Capitol Hill, to a much more diffuse and hard-to-track form of influence you might call shadow lobbying, in which companies spend tons of money on groups with innocent-sounding names that buy ads and coverage around the country to influence local elections. That avoids disclosure requirements and, in some cases, provides cover for criminal acts.

Over the last nearly five decades, the power of corporate America on the political landscape has been immeasurable, Brody says. There have been some checks on this growing power, like post-Waterform reforms and campaign finance laws, but this melding of money and politics has been a runaway train well into the 21st century, when big tech started to become a major player in the political lobbying scene.

Now, tech companies have more money and more direct influence over their customers than virtually any bank, pharmaceutical company, or oil and gas company you can think of, and they’ve started deploying new lobbying tactics, like in-app prompts, to pressure politicians and thwart regulation. Sometimes it works; you’ll hear Brody and I talk about the famous internet “Blackout” protest of 2012 that brought down laws called SOPA and PIPA. But in some cases, as we saw with TikTok recently, it can backfire.

As you’ll hear Brody explain, this isn’t entirely set in stone. The rise of Donald Trump and his decidedly untraditional approach to influence peddling tactics really turned lobbying on its head in 2016. With another election coming up, the shape of lobbying in America could change yet again and produce the single most effective and powerful lobbyist in American history.

Read More