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Image: The Verge

Valve is adding a native gameplay recording tool to Steam so that you can more easily capture and share clips. The game recording feature is available now in beta — including on Steam Deck.
You’ll be able to both continuously record clips with background recording or manually turn on recording with a hotkey, according to Valve’s website about the updates. When you’re recording, you’ll see the “Steam Timeline,” and you can add markers to note interesting moments you might want to come back to later. Developers can also have their games mark notable moments on the timeline, which Valve has already implemented with Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2.

Today we’ve launched Steam Game Recording into Beta. This is a new built-in system for creating and sharing your gameplay footage, that works on any game on Steam. Learn more here: https://t.co/H5z6Reykmx pic.twitter.com/koDAjyUeAe— Steam (@Steam) June 26, 2024

The tool won’t record your desktop, and you can pick which audio channels are included in the recording. To share your clips, Valve will offer a number of options: exporting a clip to MP4; sending the clip to the Steam mobile app; or even creating a temporary link.
As for how the tool might affect your computer’s performance, here’s what Valve has to say:
Steam Game Recording has been designed with the goal of taking as little computer resources away from the game you are playing as possible. It takes advantage of NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards to remove most of the performance cost of creating video recordings. When run on systems without those graphics cards, the system’s CPU is used to create video recordings which may cause a noticeable performance impact on those systems.
Valve promises that more features are in the works for game recording, too, such as individualized game settings.
Earlier this year, Valve launched another big upgrade to Steam: an overhauled family sharing system.

Image: The Verge

Valve is adding a native gameplay recording tool to Steam so that you can more easily capture and share clips. The game recording feature is available now in beta — including on Steam Deck.

You’ll be able to both continuously record clips with background recording or manually turn on recording with a hotkey, according to Valve’s website about the updates. When you’re recording, you’ll see the “Steam Timeline,” and you can add markers to note interesting moments you might want to come back to later. Developers can also have their games mark notable moments on the timeline, which Valve has already implemented with Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2.

The tool won’t record your desktop, and you can pick which audio channels are included in the recording. To share your clips, Valve will offer a number of options: exporting a clip to MP4; sending the clip to the Steam mobile app; or even creating a temporary link.

As for how the tool might affect your computer’s performance, here’s what Valve has to say:

Steam Game Recording has been designed with the goal of taking as little computer resources away from the game you are playing as possible. It takes advantage of NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards to remove most of the performance cost of creating video recordings. When run on systems without those graphics cards, the system’s CPU is used to create video recordings which may cause a noticeable performance impact on those systems.

Valve promises that more features are in the works for game recording, too, such as individualized game settings.

Earlier this year, Valve launched another big upgrade to Steam: an overhauled family sharing system.

Read More 

Hori’s design is a little funky, but those yellow and violet versions look fantastic. | Image: Hori

Nearly five years after Valve discontinued its experimental Steam Controller, a new officially licensed gamepad for Steam is on the way. The new controller is made by Hori, and it’s only coming to Japan (at least for now).
Dubbed the Wireless Horipad for Steam, the PC-centric controller matches the Steam Deck’s menu buttons and has similar touch sensors atop its sticks to activate gyro controls. It also supports Bluetooth wireless and USB-C wired connections as well as a whole bunch of custom programmability using Hori’s software. But while it shares a lot with the Steam Deck, it’s not a Steam Controller 2 — it lacks rumble, a matching set of four back buttons, and the handheld’s signature trackpads.
The new controller is set to launch in Japan on October 31st in four colors (black, white, neon yellow, and violet), selling for 7,890 yen (about $50).

There’s no word yet if this new Steam controller is coming to the US or elsewhere, but the Wireless Horipad bears a striking resemblance to the wired Horipad Pro that’s currently available for Xbox consoles. I tested the Horipad Pro for our Xbox controller buying guide and found it to be serviceable with fine ergonomics and a great D-pad — though it was somewhat outclassed by other options that run cheaper.
However, the Wireless Horipad seems to have a whole lot more going on. For starters, it’s actually wireless, albeit limited to Bluetooth, which is usually less reliable than a USB wireless dongle. The Steam version also has four programmable buttons, although, unlike the Steam Deck, there are only two on the rear — the other two are on the front directly below the D-pad and on the right thumbstick.
It certainly looks familiar if you squint
While it seems long overdue for Valve to once again have a branded go-to gamepad for Steam and docked Steam Deck use, we’ll have to wait to see if or when it becomes more widely available. Hori’s decision to start sales in its home country makes sense, but it may also speak to the rise of PC gaming in Japan, with handhelds being such a popular choice there that Valve spun up a partnership with an entirely different company for Steam Deck distribution (including in-store availability).
In general, gamepad usage in Steam is on the rise — as Valve’s just-released statistics show. Those numbers also come with a summary of new controller optimizations Valve has recently implemented in Steam. Perhaps this is setting the table for a wide swath of licensed Steam controllers from a variety of manufacturers like we see on Xbox consoles — with more wireless options, I hope. One thing I know is I’m now dying to try this Wireless Horipad.

Hori’s design is a little funky, but those yellow and violet versions look fantastic. | Image: Hori

Nearly five years after Valve discontinued its experimental Steam Controller, a new officially licensed gamepad for Steam is on the way. The new controller is made by Hori, and it’s only coming to Japan (at least for now).

Dubbed the Wireless Horipad for Steam, the PC-centric controller matches the Steam Deck’s menu buttons and has similar touch sensors atop its sticks to activate gyro controls. It also supports Bluetooth wireless and USB-C wired connections as well as a whole bunch of custom programmability using Hori’s software. But while it shares a lot with the Steam Deck, it’s not a Steam Controller 2 — it lacks rumble, a matching set of four back buttons, and the handheld’s signature trackpads.

The new controller is set to launch in Japan on October 31st in four colors (black, white, neon yellow, and violet), selling for 7,890 yen (about $50).

There’s no word yet if this new Steam controller is coming to the US or elsewhere, but the Wireless Horipad bears a striking resemblance to the wired Horipad Pro that’s currently available for Xbox consoles. I tested the Horipad Pro for our Xbox controller buying guide and found it to be serviceable with fine ergonomics and a great D-pad — though it was somewhat outclassed by other options that run cheaper.

However, the Wireless Horipad seems to have a whole lot more going on. For starters, it’s actually wireless, albeit limited to Bluetooth, which is usually less reliable than a USB wireless dongle. The Steam version also has four programmable buttons, although, unlike the Steam Deck, there are only two on the rear — the other two are on the front directly below the D-pad and on the right thumbstick.

While it seems long overdue for Valve to once again have a branded go-to gamepad for Steam and docked Steam Deck use, we’ll have to wait to see if or when it becomes more widely available. Hori’s decision to start sales in its home country makes sense, but it may also speak to the rise of PC gaming in Japan, with handhelds being such a popular choice there that Valve spun up a partnership with an entirely different company for Steam Deck distribution (including in-store availability).

In general, gamepad usage in Steam is on the rise — as Valve’s just-released statistics show. Those numbers also come with a summary of new controller optimizations Valve has recently implemented in Steam. Perhaps this is setting the table for a wide swath of licensed Steam controllers from a variety of manufacturers like we see on Xbox consoles — with more wireless options, I hope. One thing I know is I’m now dying to try this Wireless Horipad.

Read More 

A 3D-printed version of Super Monkey Ball’s AiAi completes this custom creation. | Photo: Tom Tilley / X

Gamers could get an edge in Sega’s Super Monkey Ball with the help of a unique DIY controller: a literal monkey in a ball that can be physically rolled around instead of mashing a joystick on a gamepad.
Super Monkey Ball requires players to tilt and roll a series of complex floating platforms to control the monkey’s movements, so Sega designed the original arcade versions of the game with an oversize trackball controller.
That wasn’t carried over to the console versions of the game, and since arcade machines typically cost thousands of dollars, developer Tom Tilley decided to design and build a much cheaper solution made from recycled and 3D-printed materials. “I am a software developer, but I worked for about eight years as a fax and cellular phone technician in the late 80’s, so I have some small amount of electronics knowledge that comes in handy with this sort of thing,” Tilley told The Verge.
Tilley, now a software developer in Australia, spent almost 10 years lecturing at a university while living in Thailand, where they also ran a class that challenged students to come up with unique alternatives to game controllers.

It was there that the idea for a giant trackball made from random recycled parts, an optical mouse, and a basketball, came to fruition. A base made from cardboard holds the basketball in place and allows it to freely roll in all directions with the help of three salvaged roll-on deodorant containers that serve as plastic bearings. Beneath the ball sits an inverted optical mouse upgraded with another deodorant bearing that rolls whenever the ball does, making it easier for the mouse’s sensor to detect its movements.
The original version of the trackball was built to play a 1986 Japanese arcade game called Armadillo Racing, but it has since been modified by Tilley to play other games, including Katamari Damacy, with a soccer ball. Using it to play the Nintendo GameCube version of Super Monkey Ball through emulation required an additional modification, Tilley told The Verge.

Everybody’s adding AI to things these days so I thought I’d add AiAi to my DIY soccer/football controller. #SuperMonkeyBall #sega https://t.co/nk2pcta3OG pic.twitter.com/XBohHHNIOC— Dr Tom Tilley (@DrTomTilley) June 26, 2024

A 3D-printed recreation of the game’s main character, a monkey named AiAi, rides inside a transparent plastic sphere on a weighted wheeled base that keeps him upright at all times. It’s a charming upgrade, but the clear plastic created a new problem. The sphere’s smooth finish didn’t offer enough friction to move the deodorant roller on the mouse. To fix that, Tilley had to swap that part out for a small rubber ball rolling on metal bearings so the mouse’s optical sensor could detect AiAi’s movements.
To make the GameCube version of Super Monkey Ball work with a DIY trackball, Tilley uses a scripting tool called FreePIE (Programmable Input Emulator) that inverts the signals coming from the mouse and maps them to a virtual joystick that’s compatible with the emulator software.
The first new game in the Super Monkey Ball series in a decade releases on the Nintendo Switch this week. If Tilley can make the DIY trackball work with Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble, he just might dominate the game’s multiplayer mode.

A 3D-printed version of Super Monkey Ball’s AiAi completes this custom creation. | Photo: Tom Tilley / X

Gamers could get an edge in Sega’s Super Monkey Ball with the help of a unique DIY controller: a literal monkey in a ball that can be physically rolled around instead of mashing a joystick on a gamepad.

Super Monkey Ball requires players to tilt and roll a series of complex floating platforms to control the monkey’s movements, so Sega designed the original arcade versions of the game with an oversize trackball controller.

That wasn’t carried over to the console versions of the game, and since arcade machines typically cost thousands of dollars, developer Tom Tilley decided to design and build a much cheaper solution made from recycled and 3D-printed materials. “I am a software developer, but I worked for about eight years as a fax and cellular phone technician in the late 80’s, so I have some small amount of electronics knowledge that comes in handy with this sort of thing,” Tilley told The Verge.

Tilley, now a software developer in Australia, spent almost 10 years lecturing at a university while living in Thailand, where they also ran a class that challenged students to come up with unique alternatives to game controllers.

It was there that the idea for a giant trackball made from random recycled parts, an optical mouse, and a basketball, came to fruition. A base made from cardboard holds the basketball in place and allows it to freely roll in all directions with the help of three salvaged roll-on deodorant containers that serve as plastic bearings. Beneath the ball sits an inverted optical mouse upgraded with another deodorant bearing that rolls whenever the ball does, making it easier for the mouse’s sensor to detect its movements.

The original version of the trackball was built to play a 1986 Japanese arcade game called Armadillo Racing, but it has since been modified by Tilley to play other games, including Katamari Damacy, with a soccer ball. Using it to play the Nintendo GameCube version of Super Monkey Ball through emulation required an additional modification, Tilley told The Verge.

A 3D-printed recreation of the game’s main character, a monkey named AiAi, rides inside a transparent plastic sphere on a weighted wheeled base that keeps him upright at all times. It’s a charming upgrade, but the clear plastic created a new problem. The sphere’s smooth finish didn’t offer enough friction to move the deodorant roller on the mouse. To fix that, Tilley had to swap that part out for a small rubber ball rolling on metal bearings so the mouse’s optical sensor could detect AiAi’s movements.

To make the GameCube version of Super Monkey Ball work with a DIY trackball, Tilley uses a scripting tool called FreePIE (Programmable Input Emulator) that inverts the signals coming from the mouse and maps them to a virtual joystick that’s compatible with the emulator software.

The first new game in the Super Monkey Ball series in a decade releases on the Nintendo Switch this week. If Tilley can make the DIY trackball work with Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble, he just might dominate the game’s multiplayer mode.

Read More 

Snapchat will now warn users when a message comes from certain regions or an account that’s been blocked by others. | Image: Snap

Snap is rolling out intense new protections for teenagers’ Snapchat accounts in an effort to “address a growing trend of sophisticated sextortion scams.” Among them are new warnings and automatic friend request blocks targeting accounts that may be bad actors.
The features are aimed at stemming the tide of sextortion scams, the company writes in a blog post about the changes. The scams, in which bad actors threaten teens and children that they will reveal sexually explicit photos of them unless they pay a ransom or send more such material, is a growing problem that “has resulted in an alarming number of deaths by suicide,” according to the FBI. The bureau writes on its site that even when the scammers are paid, they will often release the materials anyway.

To stop scammers, Snap says it will now show a warning message in the app when teens receive a message from someone that others have blocked or reported, or when that person’s account is from a “region where the teen’s network isn’t typically located.” The warning presents options to report or block the person, or just tap “Okay” to chat with them. Before this, the disclaimer would show up for accounts that don’t share mutual friends with you or aren’t associated with someone in your contacts.
The Snapchat app will also “prevent delivery of a friend request altogether” when it comes from an account with no mutual friends or that “has a history of accessing Snapchat in locations often associated with scamming activity.” Snap says these are all potential signs of scammy activity.

Image: Snap

The sextortion issue isn’t just limited to Snapchat. It’s particularly been an issue as AI has enabled people to quickly and easily make fake nudes of others. Warnings like these may not stop it entirely, but companies have to do something to deal with the issue, particularly as governments increasingly push to regulate social media, ostensibly to protect children.
In addition to the new friend request warnings, Snap is also trying to clarify its location sharing settings. It’s moving them all to one location so that users can “see exactly which friends they are sharing their location with, update their location settings, and remove their location from the map.” As shown in the image above, that means you can choose to share your location with all of your friends, all except specific ones, or only certain friends. The company also says it’s adding “more frequent reminders” of who users are sharing their location info with.

Snapchat will now warn users when a message comes from certain regions or an account that’s been blocked by others. | Image: Snap

Snap is rolling out intense new protections for teenagers’ Snapchat accounts in an effort to “address a growing trend of sophisticated sextortion scams.” Among them are new warnings and automatic friend request blocks targeting accounts that may be bad actors.

The features are aimed at stemming the tide of sextortion scams, the company writes in a blog post about the changes. The scams, in which bad actors threaten teens and children that they will reveal sexually explicit photos of them unless they pay a ransom or send more such material, is a growing problem that “has resulted in an alarming number of deaths by suicide,” according to the FBI. The bureau writes on its site that even when the scammers are paid, they will often release the materials anyway.

To stop scammers, Snap says it will now show a warning message in the app when teens receive a message from someone that others have blocked or reported, or when that person’s account is from a “region where the teen’s network isn’t typically located.” The warning presents options to report or block the person, or just tap “Okay” to chat with them. Before this, the disclaimer would show up for accounts that don’t share mutual friends with you or aren’t associated with someone in your contacts.

The Snapchat app will also “prevent delivery of a friend request altogether” when it comes from an account with no mutual friends or that “has a history of accessing Snapchat in locations often associated with scamming activity.” Snap says these are all potential signs of scammy activity.

Image: Snap

The sextortion issue isn’t just limited to Snapchat. It’s particularly been an issue as AI has enabled people to quickly and easily make fake nudes of others. Warnings like these may not stop it entirely, but companies have to do something to deal with the issue, particularly as governments increasingly push to regulate social media, ostensibly to protect children.

In addition to the new friend request warnings, Snap is also trying to clarify its location sharing settings. It’s moving them all to one location so that users can “see exactly which friends they are sharing their location with, update their location settings, and remove their location from the map.” As shown in the image above, that means you can choose to share your location with all of your friends, all except specific ones, or only certain friends. The company also says it’s adding “more frequent reminders” of who users are sharing their location info with.

Read More 

Image: FromSoftware

Shadow of the Erdtree is gonna get easier. Bandai Namco has seemingly heard the great hew and cry from reviewers and players alike that Erdtree is far too difficult. In response, the publisher is implementing a “calibration update” that will reduce the level of difficulty by making players stronger. According to the patch notes for this update:

The attack and damage negation has been increased for the first half of the maximum amount of blessing enhancements, and the second half will now be more gradual.
The attack and damage negation granted by the final level of Blessing enhancements has been slightly increased.

The key to understanding this update is the Scadutree Fragments. They are DLC-specific upgrade materials that increase a player’s attack and defense. The fragments are scattered throughout the map, requiring considerable exploration to find, but the increased power they grant makes them a high-priority resource.
There are 20 tiers of Scadutree Blessings in the game. The calibration update will increase the power granted by the first 10 levels, while the power granted by the second 10 will taper off a bit. This means players in the first part of the DLC should see a sharper increase in power, making the early game bosses (including the dreaded Rellana) a bit easier. Finally, the last blessing will also get a buff ostensibly to help out those struggling against the brutal final boss. I’ll not name that boss here because it’s too soon for a spoiler like that, but rest assured, such a buff is warranted.
There’s a second note in the update dealing with a bug related to ray tracing settings. Loading a previous save from a previous version of the game might automatically enable ray tracing. The notes suggest that if you have issues with your frame rate, check to see if ray tracing has been turned on accidentally.
Erdtree’s difficulty has been dominating the discussion of the DLC. Game director Hidetaka Miyazaki himself said that the difficulty level is intentional, and lowering it could potentially “break the game.” Some players, streamers, and reviewers have countered that even for a Soulsborne game, it’s a little too much. There are even mods that artificially lower the difficulty, including one that halves all incoming damage bearing the unfortunate name of “journalist mode.”
Hopefully, this little buff will squash the difficulty discourse but will probably serve only to exacerbate it, as now there will be a class of players who can gloat that they beat the game before the nerf… like game journalists.

Image: FromSoftware

Shadow of the Erdtree is gonna get easier. Bandai Namco has seemingly heard the great hew and cry from reviewers and players alike that Erdtree is far too difficult. In response, the publisher is implementing a “calibration update” that will reduce the level of difficulty by making players stronger. According to the patch notes for this update:

The attack and damage negation has been increased for the first half of the maximum amount of blessing enhancements, and the second half will now be more gradual.

The attack and damage negation granted by the final level of Blessing enhancements has been slightly increased.

The key to understanding this update is the Scadutree Fragments. They are DLC-specific upgrade materials that increase a player’s attack and defense. The fragments are scattered throughout the map, requiring considerable exploration to find, but the increased power they grant makes them a high-priority resource.

There are 20 tiers of Scadutree Blessings in the game. The calibration update will increase the power granted by the first 10 levels, while the power granted by the second 10 will taper off a bit. This means players in the first part of the DLC should see a sharper increase in power, making the early game bosses (including the dreaded Rellana) a bit easier. Finally, the last blessing will also get a buff ostensibly to help out those struggling against the brutal final boss. I’ll not name that boss here because it’s too soon for a spoiler like that, but rest assured, such a buff is warranted.

There’s a second note in the update dealing with a bug related to ray tracing settings. Loading a previous save from a previous version of the game might automatically enable ray tracing. The notes suggest that if you have issues with your frame rate, check to see if ray tracing has been turned on accidentally.

Erdtree’s difficulty has been dominating the discussion of the DLC. Game director Hidetaka Miyazaki himself said that the difficulty level is intentional, and lowering it could potentially “break the game.” Some players, streamers, and reviewers have countered that even for a Soulsborne game, it’s a little too much. There are even mods that artificially lower the difficulty, including one that halves all incoming damage bearing the unfortunate name of “journalist mode.”

Hopefully, this little buff will squash the difficulty discourse but will probably serve only to exacerbate it, as now there will be a class of players who can gloat that they beat the game before the nerf… like game journalists.

Read More 

Image: Microsoft

A few years ago, Microsoft was planning to launch a dedicated Xbox cloud console, codenamed Keystone. The device looked like a miniature Xbox Series S, a small white box that was dedicated to accessing Xbox games over the company’s Xbox Cloud Gaming service. Microsoft eventually canceled its plans to launch Keystone, but a new patent gives us the best look at what the Xbox cloud console would have looked like.
Spotted by Windows Central, the patent reveals that Keystone would have shipped with an HDMI port, ethernet, and a power connector. At the front, there was an Xbox button, a controller pairing button, and a USB-A port. Underneath, Microsoft had a circular “Hello from Seattle” plate that the console sat on, similar to what it uses on the larger Xbox Series X.
The patent, filed in 2022, is assigned to Chris Kujawski, a principal designer at Microsoft. Kujawski led the design for the Xbox Series S / X consoles.

Image: Microsoft
The front and rear of the Xbox Keystone device.

Microsoft first announced it was planning an Xbox streaming device in 2021 but eventually canceled its Keystone device because it couldn’t quite get the price to around $100. Xbox chief Phil Spencer revealed Keystone on his office shelf in 2022, with the official Xbox account on X claiming it was an “old prototype.”
“It was more expensive than we wanted it to be when we actually built it out with the hardware that we had inside,” said Spencer in an interview with The Verge in late 2022. “We decided to focus that team’s effort on delivering the smart TV streaming app.”
Microsoft went on to launch an Xbox TV app instead. Available on 2022 and above Samsung TVs and monitors, the Xbox TV app launches games from Xbox Cloud Gaming and supports streaming games at 1080p at up to 60fps.

Image: Microsoft

A few years ago, Microsoft was planning to launch a dedicated Xbox cloud console, codenamed Keystone. The device looked like a miniature Xbox Series S, a small white box that was dedicated to accessing Xbox games over the company’s Xbox Cloud Gaming service. Microsoft eventually canceled its plans to launch Keystone, but a new patent gives us the best look at what the Xbox cloud console would have looked like.

Spotted by Windows Central, the patent reveals that Keystone would have shipped with an HDMI port, ethernet, and a power connector. At the front, there was an Xbox button, a controller pairing button, and a USB-A port. Underneath, Microsoft had a circular “Hello from Seattle” plate that the console sat on, similar to what it uses on the larger Xbox Series X.

The patent, filed in 2022, is assigned to Chris Kujawski, a principal designer at Microsoft. Kujawski led the design for the Xbox Series S / X consoles.

Image: Microsoft
The front and rear of the Xbox Keystone device.

Microsoft first announced it was planning an Xbox streaming device in 2021 but eventually canceled its Keystone device because it couldn’t quite get the price to around $100. Xbox chief Phil Spencer revealed Keystone on his office shelf in 2022, with the official Xbox account on X claiming it was an “old prototype.”

“It was more expensive than we wanted it to be when we actually built it out with the hardware that we had inside,” said Spencer in an interview with The Verge in late 2022. “We decided to focus that team’s effort on delivering the smart TV streaming app.”

Microsoft went on to launch an Xbox TV app instead. Available on 2022 and above Samsung TVs and monitors, the Xbox TV app launches games from Xbox Cloud Gaming and supports streaming games at 1080p at up to 60fps.

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

Here’s our coverage from the Summer Games. The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics are about to begin, with the first events kicking off on July 24th and competition ending on August 11th. (You can see the full schedule on the Olympics website.) If you’re a Peacock subscriber, you’ll be able to watch live coverage of every event and take advantage of features like enhanced multiview and, um, daily recaps featuring an AI-generated version of Al Michaels’ voice.
Here’s our coverage of the biggest tech stories out of the Olympics.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

Here’s our coverage from the Summer Games.

The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics are about to begin, with the first events kicking off on July 24th and competition ending on August 11th. (You can see the full schedule on the Olympics website.) If you’re a Peacock subscriber, you’ll be able to watch live coverage of every event and take advantage of features like enhanced multiview and, um, daily recaps featuring an AI-generated version of Al Michaels’ voice.

Here’s our coverage of the biggest tech stories out of the Olympics.

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

The Paris 2024 Olympics are nearly here. The opening ceremony starts on July 26th, and this year’s events run through August 11th. On the main NBC channel, you can see hours of live morning and afternoon coverage of events like swimming and gymnastics ahead of a three-hour primetime recap, to go along with livestreams of every sport and event and full event replays on Peacock.
One key aspect of NBC’s Peacock coverage will be an Olympics hub, which spotlights major events happening live, lets you browse by sport and by “star athlete,” offers an interactive schedule, and includes an up-to-date count of medal standings.

Image: NBC
Peacock’s Olympics hub.

NBC is also offering a way to catch up on the events of the previous day on Peacock — and, because it’s 2024, it of course involves AI. “Your Daily Olympic Recap,” a personalized daily recap, will be narrated by an AI-generated version of legendary sportscaster Al Michaels’ voice. Yes, really — I have some more information on that in another article.
Peacock will also have a new feature called Peacock Live Actions, which NBC describes as “a new interactive tool that lets fans choose their own viewing journey during live and primetime coverage.”
As an example, NBC says that while watching its “Gold Zone” whiparound show that serves as an Olympics-focused version of NFL RedZone and even features RedZone host Scott Hanson, you can choose to keep watching a specific live feed shown during the show instead of being shuffled to whatever Gold Zone covers next.

Image: NBC
Peacock’s Discovery Multiview.

If you want to watch a bunch of events on your TV, phone, tablet, or computer all at the same time, a special Peacock Discovery Multiview will include onscreen information like what’s at stake for a particular competitor or when the person onscreen is a first-time Olympian. The feature means you can keep up with the action even while your audio or captions are tuned in to a different feed. There will also be a “traditional” multiview that NBC says will be available for certain sports, including soccer, track and field, and wrestling. Both multiviews will let you watch up to four events at once.
Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

The Paris 2024 Olympics are nearly here. The opening ceremony starts on July 26th, and this year’s events run through August 11th. On the main NBC channel, you can see hours of live morning and afternoon coverage of events like swimming and gymnastics ahead of a three-hour primetime recap, to go along with livestreams of every sport and event and full event replays on Peacock.

One key aspect of NBC’s Peacock coverage will be an Olympics hub, which spotlights major events happening live, lets you browse by sport and by “star athlete,” offers an interactive schedule, and includes an up-to-date count of medal standings.

Image: NBC
Peacock’s Olympics hub.

NBC is also offering a way to catch up on the events of the previous day on Peacock — and, because it’s 2024, it of course involves AI. “Your Daily Olympic Recap,” a personalized daily recap, will be narrated by an AI-generated version of legendary sportscaster Al Michaels’ voice. Yes, really — I have some more information on that in another article.

Peacock will also have a new feature called Peacock Live Actions, which NBC describes as “a new interactive tool that lets fans choose their own viewing journey during live and primetime coverage.”

As an example, NBC says that while watching its “Gold Zone” whiparound show that serves as an Olympics-focused version of NFL RedZone and even features RedZone host Scott Hanson, you can choose to keep watching a specific live feed shown during the show instead of being shuffled to whatever Gold Zone covers next.

Image: NBC
Peacock’s Discovery Multiview.

If you want to watch a bunch of events on your TV, phone, tablet, or computer all at the same time, a special Peacock Discovery Multiview will include onscreen information like what’s at stake for a particular competitor or when the person onscreen is a first-time Olympian. The feature means you can keep up with the action even while your audio or captions are tuned in to a different feed. There will also be a “traditional” multiview that NBC says will be available for certain sports, including soccer, track and field, and wrestling. Both multiviews will let you watch up to four events at once.

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

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Photo by Cooper Neill / Getty Images

Legendary sportscaster Al Michaels is going to give daily, personalized recaps of the Paris Olympics on Peacock — well, an AI-generated Al Michaels voice will. In practice, the effect is a lot like hearing a sports announcer’s voice in a video game like Madden, except it’s spitting out lines about real-life sports, which, in this case, means custom Olympics coverage.
Here’s how it works. To set up what NBC is calling “Your Daily Olympic Recap” in the Peacock app, you’ll provide your name (the AI voice can welcome the “majority” of people by their first name, NBC says in a press release) and pick up to three types of sports that are interesting to you and up to two types of highlights (for example, “Top Competition” or “Viral & Trending Moments”). Then, each morning, you’ll get your Michaels-led rundown.

Here’s an example of Peacock’s Olympics recap led by the AI-generated Al Michaels voice.

To help protect against potential AI-made weirdness, NBC says that “a team of NBCU editors will review all content, including audio and clips, for quality assurance and accuracy before recaps are made available to users.” But I still feel like there’s the chance somebody’s recap will include an AI-generated hallucination spoken out loud in Al Michaels’ voice, like highlighting the wrong athlete or bungling some unusual outcome in a sport.
The voice was trained using Michaels’ appearances on NBC, according to the press release, and the experience was built in-house, NBCUniversal’s John Jelley tells The Verge in a statement. “Our in-house Peacock team of engineers, product managers and data scientists developed a proprietary process to integrate, optimize and validate state-of-the-art large language model and voice synthesis technology to create this experience.”

Image: NBC

In the press demo where I heard the voice, it sounded convincing, but that’s what you’d expect from a demo. The real test will be when it’s generating millions of unique clips — NBC estimates there could be nearly 7 million personalized variants in the US during the games — crossing dozens of sports, each with its own unique terminology, and identifying an array of athletes from around the globe.
Peacock’s recaps led by the AI Al Michaels will be available starting July 27th in supported browsers and the iOS and Android Peacock apps. The first edition of the recap will feature highlights from the opening ceremony for everyone, and the personalized recaps will start on July 28th.
Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

Photo by Cooper Neill / Getty Images

Legendary sportscaster Al Michaels is going to give daily, personalized recaps of the Paris Olympics on Peacock — well, an AI-generated Al Michaels voice will. In practice, the effect is a lot like hearing a sports announcer’s voice in a video game like Madden, except it’s spitting out lines about real-life sports, which, in this case, means custom Olympics coverage.

Here’s how it works. To set up what NBC is calling “Your Daily Olympic Recap” in the Peacock app, you’ll provide your name (the AI voice can welcome the “majority” of people by their first name, NBC says in a press release) and pick up to three types of sports that are interesting to you and up to two types of highlights (for example, “Top Competition” or “Viral & Trending Moments”). Then, each morning, you’ll get your Michaels-led rundown.

To help protect against potential AI-made weirdness, NBC says that “a team of NBCU editors will review all content, including audio and clips, for quality assurance and accuracy before recaps are made available to users.” But I still feel like there’s the chance somebody’s recap will include an AI-generated hallucination spoken out loud in Al Michaels’ voice, like highlighting the wrong athlete or bungling some unusual outcome in a sport.

The voice was trained using Michaels’ appearances on NBC, according to the press release, and the experience was built in-house, NBCUniversal’s John Jelley tells The Verge in a statement. “Our in-house Peacock team of engineers, product managers and data scientists developed a proprietary process to integrate, optimize and validate state-of-the-art large language model and voice synthesis technology to create this experience.”

Image: NBC

In the press demo where I heard the voice, it sounded convincing, but that’s what you’d expect from a demo. The real test will be when it’s generating millions of unique clips — NBC estimates there could be nearly 7 million personalized variants in the US during the games — crossing dozens of sports, each with its own unique terminology, and identifying an array of athletes from around the globe.

Peacock’s recaps led by the AI Al Michaels will be available starting July 27th in supported browsers and the iOS and Android Peacock apps. The first edition of the recap will feature highlights from the opening ceremony for everyone, and the personalized recaps will start on July 28th.

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

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Image: Figma

Figma is announcing a bunch of new features at its Config conference today, including a major UI redesign, new generative AI tools to help people more easily make projects, and built-in slideshow functionality.
Let’s start with the redesign, which is intended to “lay the foundation for the next decade,” according to a blog post. You’ll see things like a new toolbar, rounded corners, and 200 new icons. As part of the design refresh, the company wants to “focus the canvas less on our UI and more on your work” and make something that’s approachable to new users while still being useful to Figma experts.

Image: Figma
Figma’s “UI3.”

Figma says this is the company’s third “significant redesign” since Figma’s closed beta launch. The new look is rolling out as part of a limited beta, and users can join a waitlist if they want to try it out.
Beyond the redesign, the headline feature addition is new generative AI tools, which look like a useful way to quickly get started with a design. They’re basically a Figma-focused version of the “draft an email”-type AI tools we’ve seen many times.
In a briefing, Figma chief product officer Yuhki Yamashita showed me an example of how Figma could create an app design for a new restaurant. A few seconds after he typed the prompt into a textbox, Figma mocked up an app with menu listings, a tab bar, and even buttons for delivery partners like Uber Eats and DoorDash. It looked like a generic mobile app mock-up, but Yamashita was able to start tweaking it right away.
In another example, Yamashita asked Figma AI to spin up a design for a recipe page for chocolate chip cookies, and sure enough, it did — including an AI-generated image of a cookie. Over Zoom, it looked like a pretty accurate image, but I can’t imagine that a basic image of a chocolate chip cookie is hard for an AI generator to make.

Figma AI can also build a prototype app by connecting design pages and writing suggested content, among other things.

Figma is also introducing AI features that could help speed up small tasks in big ways, such as “AI-enhanced” asset search and auto-generated text in designs instead of generic Lorem ipsum placeholder text.
Ideally, all of the new Figma AI tools will allow people who are newer to Figma to test ideas more easily while letting those who are more well versed in the app iterate more quickly, according to Yamashita. “We’re using AI to lower the floor and raise the ceiling,” Yamashita says in an interview with The Verge — something CEO Dylan Field has said to The Verge as well.
Figma AI is launching in a limited beta beginning on Wednesday, and interested users can get on the waitlist. Figma says the beta period will run through the end of the year. While in beta, Figma’s AI tools will be free, but the company says it might have to introduce “usage limits.” Figma is also promising “clear guidance on pricing” when the AI features officially launch.
In a blog post, Figma also spelled out its approach to training its AI models. “All of the generative features we’re launching today are powered by third-party, out-of-the-box AI models and were not trained on private Figma files or customer data,” writes Kris Rasmussen, Figma’s CTO. “We fine-tuned visual and asset search with images of user interfaces from public, free Community files.”
Rasmussen adds that Figma trains its models so they learn patterns and “Figma-specific concepts and tools” but not from users’ content. Figma is also going to let Figma admins control whether Figma can train on “customer content,” which includes “file content created in or uploaded to Figma by a user, such as layer names and properties, text and images, comments, and annotations,” according to Rasmussen.
Figma won’t start training on this content until August 15th; however, you should know that Starter and Professional plans are by default opted in to share this data, while Organization and Enterprise plans are opted out.
The company is likely being specific about how it trains its AI models because of Adobe’s recent terms of service disaster, where the company had to clarify that it wouldn’t train AI on your work.
In addition to the redesign and the new AI features, Figma is adding a potentially very practical new tool: Figma Slides, a Google Slides-like feature built right into Figma. Yamashita says that users have already been hacking Figma to find a way to make slides, so now there’s an official method to build and share presentations right inside the app.

Image: Figma

There are a few Figma-specific features that designers will likely appreciate. You’ll be able to tweak designs you’ve included in the deck in real time using Figma’s tools. (Note that those changes will only appear in the deck — tweaks won’t currently sync back to the original design files, though Yamashita says that Figma wants to make that possible eventually.)
You can also present an app prototype right from the deck, meaning you don’t need to make a convoluted screen recording just to demonstrate how one piece connects to another. You can also add interactive features for audience members, like a poll or an alignment scale, where people can plot on a range if they agree or disagree with something.
Figma Slides will be available in open beta beginning on Wednesday. It will be free while in beta but will become a paid feature when it officially launches. The company is also adding new features for its developer mode in Figma, including a “ready for dev” task list.
This year’s Config is the first since Adobe abandoned its planned $20 billion acquisition of Figma following regulatory scrutiny. With the dissolution of the merger, Adobe was forced to pay Figma a $1 billion breakup fee.

Image: Figma

Figma is announcing a bunch of new features at its Config conference today, including a major UI redesign, new generative AI tools to help people more easily make projects, and built-in slideshow functionality.

Let’s start with the redesign, which is intended to “lay the foundation for the next decade,” according to a blog post. You’ll see things like a new toolbar, rounded corners, and 200 new icons. As part of the design refresh, the company wants to “focus the canvas less on our UI and more on your work” and make something that’s approachable to new users while still being useful to Figma experts.

Image: Figma
Figma’s “UI3.”

Figma says this is the company’s third “significant redesign” since Figma’s closed beta launch. The new look is rolling out as part of a limited beta, and users can join a waitlist if they want to try it out.

Beyond the redesign, the headline feature addition is new generative AI tools, which look like a useful way to quickly get started with a design. They’re basically a Figma-focused version of the “draft an email”-type AI tools we’ve seen many times.

In a briefing, Figma chief product officer Yuhki Yamashita showed me an example of how Figma could create an app design for a new restaurant. A few seconds after he typed the prompt into a textbox, Figma mocked up an app with menu listings, a tab bar, and even buttons for delivery partners like Uber Eats and DoorDash. It looked like a generic mobile app mock-up, but Yamashita was able to start tweaking it right away.

In another example, Yamashita asked Figma AI to spin up a design for a recipe page for chocolate chip cookies, and sure enough, it did — including an AI-generated image of a cookie. Over Zoom, it looked like a pretty accurate image, but I can’t imagine that a basic image of a chocolate chip cookie is hard for an AI generator to make.

Figma is also introducing AI features that could help speed up small tasks in big ways, such as “AI-enhanced” asset search and auto-generated text in designs instead of generic Lorem ipsum placeholder text.

Ideally, all of the new Figma AI tools will allow people who are newer to Figma to test ideas more easily while letting those who are more well versed in the app iterate more quickly, according to Yamashita. “We’re using AI to lower the floor and raise the ceiling,” Yamashita says in an interview with The Verge — something CEO Dylan Field has said to The Verge as well.

Figma AI is launching in a limited beta beginning on Wednesday, and interested users can get on the waitlist. Figma says the beta period will run through the end of the year. While in beta, Figma’s AI tools will be free, but the company says it might have to introduce “usage limits.” Figma is also promising “clear guidance on pricing” when the AI features officially launch.

In a blog post, Figma also spelled out its approach to training its AI models. “All of the generative features we’re launching today are powered by third-party, out-of-the-box AI models and were not trained on private Figma files or customer data,” writes Kris Rasmussen, Figma’s CTO. “We fine-tuned visual and asset search with images of user interfaces from public, free Community files.”

Rasmussen adds that Figma trains its models so they learn patterns and “Figma-specific concepts and tools” but not from users’ content. Figma is also going to let Figma admins control whether Figma can train on “customer content,” which includes “file content created in or uploaded to Figma by a user, such as layer names and properties, text and images, comments, and annotations,” according to Rasmussen.

Figma won’t start training on this content until August 15th; however, you should know that Starter and Professional plans are by default opted in to share this data, while Organization and Enterprise plans are opted out.

The company is likely being specific about how it trains its AI models because of Adobe’s recent terms of service disaster, where the company had to clarify that it wouldn’t train AI on your work.

In addition to the redesign and the new AI features, Figma is adding a potentially very practical new tool: Figma Slides, a Google Slides-like feature built right into Figma. Yamashita says that users have already been hacking Figma to find a way to make slides, so now there’s an official method to build and share presentations right inside the app.

Image: Figma

There are a few Figma-specific features that designers will likely appreciate. You’ll be able to tweak designs you’ve included in the deck in real time using Figma’s tools. (Note that those changes will only appear in the deck — tweaks won’t currently sync back to the original design files, though Yamashita says that Figma wants to make that possible eventually.)

You can also present an app prototype right from the deck, meaning you don’t need to make a convoluted screen recording just to demonstrate how one piece connects to another. You can also add interactive features for audience members, like a poll or an alignment scale, where people can plot on a range if they agree or disagree with something.

Figma Slides will be available in open beta beginning on Wednesday. It will be free while in beta but will become a paid feature when it officially launches. The company is also adding new features for its developer mode in Figma, including a “ready for dev” task list.

This year’s Config is the first since Adobe abandoned its planned $20 billion acquisition of Figma following regulatory scrutiny. With the dissolution of the merger, Adobe was forced to pay Figma a $1 billion breakup fee.

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