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Image: Amazon

Amazon is on track to fully remove plastic air pillows from its delivery packaging in North America. On Thursday, the company announced that it has replaced 95 percent of plastic air pillows with paper filler, and it plans to stop using plastic air packaging by the end of this year.
This change will eliminate almost 15 billion plastic air pillows annually, according to Amazon. Unlike the old packaging, paper filler is made with 100 percent recycled content, which should allow customers to easily recycle the material at home. Amazon says the paper filler “offers the same, if not better, protection.”
Despite switching from single-use plastic delivery bags in Europe and India as well as using made-to-fit paper packaging in Australia and Japan, Amazon has been slow to make the transition to paper in the US. Last year, Amazon ditched plastic packaging at a warehouse in Ohio, replacing plastic bubble mailers and air pillows with recyclable paper packaging.

Image: Amazon

A recent report from the nonprofit conservation organization Oceana estimates that the company generated 208 million pounds of plastic waste from its packaging in the US in 2022. Even though Oceana welcomes Amazon’s commitment to do away with plastic air pillows in North America, it acknowledges that there’s still more work to be done.
“While this is a significant step forward for the company, Amazon needs to build on this momentum and fulfill its multiyear commitment to transition its North America fulfillment centers away from plastic,” Matt Littlejohn, Oceana’s senior vice president of strategic initiative, says in a statement. The organization would like to see Amazon phase out single-use plastic packaging “everywhere it sells and ships.”

Image: Amazon

Amazon is on track to fully remove plastic air pillows from its delivery packaging in North America. On Thursday, the company announced that it has replaced 95 percent of plastic air pillows with paper filler, and it plans to stop using plastic air packaging by the end of this year.

This change will eliminate almost 15 billion plastic air pillows annually, according to Amazon. Unlike the old packaging, paper filler is made with 100 percent recycled content, which should allow customers to easily recycle the material at home. Amazon says the paper filler “offers the same, if not better, protection.”

Despite switching from single-use plastic delivery bags in Europe and India as well as using made-to-fit paper packaging in Australia and Japan, Amazon has been slow to make the transition to paper in the US. Last year, Amazon ditched plastic packaging at a warehouse in Ohio, replacing plastic bubble mailers and air pillows with recyclable paper packaging.

Image: Amazon

A recent report from the nonprofit conservation organization Oceana estimates that the company generated 208 million pounds of plastic waste from its packaging in the US in 2022. Even though Oceana welcomes Amazon’s commitment to do away with plastic air pillows in North America, it acknowledges that there’s still more work to be done.

“While this is a significant step forward for the company, Amazon needs to build on this momentum and fulfill its multiyear commitment to transition its North America fulfillment centers away from plastic,” Matt Littlejohn, Oceana’s senior vice president of strategic initiative, says in a statement. The organization would like to see Amazon phase out single-use plastic packaging “everywhere it sells and ships.”

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This is how I feel when I don’t get a deal. | Image: Bandai Namco

Dear Tarnished, it’s time to travel back to the Lands Between — but you don’t have to pay full price.
Elden Ring’s long-awaited Shadow of the Erdtree DLC officially launches tomorrow, June 21st, and both returning and new players can save on either the expansion or a cost-effective bundle with the base game. Fanatical is selling the PC (Steam) version of Shadow of the Erdtree for $35.19 (about $5 off) as well as a digital bundle with the base game for $70.39 (about $9 off / $30 cheaper than buying them separately at full price). Purchasing either option through Fanatical nets you an emailed code to redeem on Steam.
These prices are slightly better than similar discounts out there from fellow third-party retailers like CDKeys and Eneba, making it the cheapest way to currently jump into FromSoftware’s dark fantasy RPG (at least on PC). However, the sale on the DLC itself is set to expire today, June 20th, at 6PM ET / 3PM PT, which is actually when Shadow of the Erdtree unlocks for PC players. (Yes, you get it a little early, you lucky ducks.)

A few extra deals that won’t give you frequent “game over” screens

Max is offering a one-week free trial for new customers until June 23rd. It’s not a whole lot of time, but you’ll be able to get through the first few episodes of the new House of the Dragon season and test out which plan works for you (ad-supported, 1080p ad-free, and 4K ad-free plans are all included).

Lego is selling its Atari 2600 set for $191.99 ($48 off). The 2,532-piece building kit exquisitely captures the retro vibes of the wood-clad console, complete with game cartridges and a hidden ’80s-style room that pops up from the inside.
The Nothing Ear (a) noise-canceling earbuds are $99 ($10 off) in their slick yellow color at Amazon. The latest Nothing wireless earbuds may be a bit budget-conscious, but they offer some very good sound quality for the money. And just look at that striking yellow and see-through design. Read our hands-on.
The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II are selling for $179 ($100 off) at Best Buy and Amazon. These may have been officially replaced (and ever so slightly outclassed) by the newer QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, but the last-gen model is quite similar and still offers some of the best noise-canceling performance you can find in a set of earbuds today. Read our review.

This is how I feel when I don’t get a deal. | Image: Bandai Namco

Dear Tarnished, it’s time to travel back to the Lands Between — but you don’t have to pay full price.

Elden Ring’s long-awaited Shadow of the Erdtree DLC officially launches tomorrow, June 21st, and both returning and new players can save on either the expansion or a cost-effective bundle with the base game. Fanatical is selling the PC (Steam) version of Shadow of the Erdtree for $35.19 (about $5 off) as well as a digital bundle with the base game for $70.39 (about $9 off / $30 cheaper than buying them separately at full price). Purchasing either option through Fanatical nets you an emailed code to redeem on Steam.

These prices are slightly better than similar discounts out there from fellow third-party retailers like CDKeys and Eneba, making it the cheapest way to currently jump into FromSoftware’s dark fantasy RPG (at least on PC). However, the sale on the DLC itself is set to expire today, June 20th, at 6PM ET / 3PM PT, which is actually when Shadow of the Erdtree unlocks for PC players. (Yes, you get it a little early, you lucky ducks.)

A few extra deals that won’t give you frequent “game over” screens

Max is offering a one-week free trial for new customers until June 23rd. It’s not a whole lot of time, but you’ll be able to get through the first few episodes of the new House of the Dragon season and test out which plan works for you (ad-supported, 1080p ad-free, and 4K ad-free plans are all included).

Lego is selling its Atari 2600 set for $191.99 ($48 off). The 2,532-piece building kit exquisitely captures the retro vibes of the wood-clad console, complete with game cartridges and a hidden ’80s-style room that pops up from the inside.
The Nothing Ear (a) noise-canceling earbuds are $99 ($10 off) in their slick yellow color at Amazon. The latest Nothing wireless earbuds may be a bit budget-conscious, but they offer some very good sound quality for the money. And just look at that striking yellow and see-through design. Read our hands-on.
The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II are selling for $179 ($100 off) at Best Buy and Amazon. These may have been officially replaced (and ever so slightly outclassed) by the newer QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, but the last-gen model is quite similar and still offers some of the best noise-canceling performance you can find in a set of earbuds today. Read our review.

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Image: Instagram

Instagram is introducing a way to livestream to a smaller, more private audience.
Beginning today, Instagram users will be able to host Live broadcasts only available to their curated list of Close Friends. Up to three other accounts can join the Live broadcast and stream with the original user. The feature rolls out globally.
Until this point, beginning a Live broadcast meant that anyone could tune in and watch it if your account was public, and all followers could watch the stream if you had a private account. Live videos are a popular feature for influencers and celebrities chatting with followers or fan accounts streaming live footage from concerts — in other words, content that’s more geared toward wide audiences and for public consumption.
The ability to go live only to a small group of people feels closer to a giant FaceTime call than to a public livestream — and, indeed, use case examples offered by the company are decidedly more intimate. A user could start sharing influencer content like haul or “get ready with me” videos without judgment from certain followers, for example, or host a study session with a handful of friends.
Instagram has emphasized more private modes of using the platform, attributing significant growth to features like direct messaging. In November, users got the option to make posts on their grid visible only to close friends as opposed to their full follower list. In May, Instagram added the ability to mute interactions from everyone but your close friends, meaning users wouldn’t see comments, DMs, mentions, and more if they opt in to stricter safety settings. This kind of filtering was intended to limit harassment content creators might face but has since expanded in use and can be deployed by anyone who wants a smaller, more curated Instagram experience.

Image: Instagram

Instagram is introducing a way to livestream to a smaller, more private audience.

Beginning today, Instagram users will be able to host Live broadcasts only available to their curated list of Close Friends. Up to three other accounts can join the Live broadcast and stream with the original user. The feature rolls out globally.

Until this point, beginning a Live broadcast meant that anyone could tune in and watch it if your account was public, and all followers could watch the stream if you had a private account. Live videos are a popular feature for influencers and celebrities chatting with followers or fan accounts streaming live footage from concerts — in other words, content that’s more geared toward wide audiences and for public consumption.

The ability to go live only to a small group of people feels closer to a giant FaceTime call than to a public livestream — and, indeed, use case examples offered by the company are decidedly more intimate. A user could start sharing influencer content like haul or “get ready with me” videos without judgment from certain followers, for example, or host a study session with a handful of friends.

Instagram has emphasized more private modes of using the platform, attributing significant growth to features like direct messaging. In November, users got the option to make posts on their grid visible only to close friends as opposed to their full follower list. In May, Instagram added the ability to mute interactions from everyone but your close friends, meaning users wouldn’t see comments, DMs, mentions, and more if they opt in to stricter safety settings. This kind of filtering was intended to limit harassment content creators might face but has since expanded in use and can be deployed by anyone who wants a smaller, more curated Instagram experience.

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Image: The Verge

We’ve got a special episode of Decoder today — I was traveling last week, so Verge deputy editor Alex Heath and our new senior AI reporter Kylie Robison are filling in for me, with a very different kind of episode about AI.
We talk a lot about AI in a broad sense on Decoder — it comes up in basically every single interview I do these days — and then we also dive deep into very specific problems that AI is causing with things like copyright law, misinformation, and other various policy challenges.
But we don’t spend a ton of time on the day-to-day happenings of the AI industry itself. And that’s for good reason: it’s been moving so rapidly and changing so often that it’s nearly impossible for the average person to keep up. Making sense of all the different players, who’s building what, and what people in the industry honestly think about where it’s all going — it’s a lot.

So, we thought it would be a good idea to take a beat and have Alex and Kylie break down the modern AI boom as it exists today: the companies you need to know, the most important news of the last few months, and what it’s actually like to be fully immersed in this industry every single day.
You’ll hear Alex and Kylie talk about OpenAI, the gravitational pull it’s had on the entire tech sector, and how Google is trying to challenge that — to mixed results. But they also got into the relationship between the overzealous hype driving AI funding and product development and the very real paranoia in the Bay Area around what you’ll hear Kylie refer to as p(doom), shorthand for the probability percentage that AI might actually kill us all.
They also break down all the most important AI companies, how likely it is some smaller AI startup unseats ChatGPT, the open vs. closed source debate, and — as Alex puts it — the “Wall Street-ification” of AI.
Oh, and look out for a mention of an effective accelerationist rave where Grimes DJ’d for the CTO of OpenAI. Those are all real words, all in the same sentence together.

Image: The Verge

We’ve got a special episode of Decoder today — I was traveling last week, so Verge deputy editor Alex Heath and our new senior AI reporter Kylie Robison are filling in for me, with a very different kind of episode about AI.

We talk a lot about AI in a broad sense on Decoder — it comes up in basically every single interview I do these days — and then we also dive deep into very specific problems that AI is causing with things like copyright law, misinformation, and other various policy challenges.

But we don’t spend a ton of time on the day-to-day happenings of the AI industry itself. And that’s for good reason: it’s been moving so rapidly and changing so often that it’s nearly impossible for the average person to keep up. Making sense of all the different players, who’s building what, and what people in the industry honestly think about where it’s all going — it’s a lot.

So, we thought it would be a good idea to take a beat and have Alex and Kylie break down the modern AI boom as it exists today: the companies you need to know, the most important news of the last few months, and what it’s actually like to be fully immersed in this industry every single day.

You’ll hear Alex and Kylie talk about OpenAI, the gravitational pull it’s had on the entire tech sector, and how Google is trying to challenge that — to mixed results. But they also got into the relationship between the overzealous hype driving AI funding and product development and the very real paranoia in the Bay Area around what you’ll hear Kylie refer to as p(doom), shorthand for the probability percentage that AI might actually kill us all.

They also break down all the most important AI companies, how likely it is some smaller AI startup unseats ChatGPT, the open vs. closed source debate, and — as Alex puts it — the “Wall Street-ification” of AI.

Oh, and look out for a mention of an effective accelerationist rave where Grimes DJ’d for the CTO of OpenAI. Those are all real words, all in the same sentence together.

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“Four matrix tweeters and four force-balanced woofers” on the Lenovo Tab Plus deliver 26W of sound. | Image: Lenovo

Tablets aren’t known for their room-shaking bass, but Lenovo’s new 11.5-inch Tab Plus is going all in. It features 26W of sound produced by four tweeters and four woofers split across each side of the tablet (when used in landscape mode). To fully take advantage of the Tab Plus’ sound capabilities, Lenovo has included the option to wirelessly connect other devices to the tablet and use it as a Bluetooth speaker.
Powered by a MediaTek Helio G99 octa-core processor paired with 8GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of storage that’s expandable with a microSD card, the Tab Plus definitely isn’t a powerhouse productivity tool. Lenovo is positioning it as a media consumption device first and foremost, which is further reflected in a front and rear camera that both only muster 8MP. The tablet ships with Android 14, and Lenovo is promising two years of OS upgrades and four years of security patches.

Image: Lenovo
Lenovo has decided we should expect more from how our tablets sound.

The Tab Plus’ 11.5-inch 90Hz 2K LCD display is far from best in class, but Lenovo claims its 8,600mAh battery will keep it streaming for up to 12 hours (it doesn’t specify whether that’s streaming audio or video), while 45W fast charging means a dead battery can be fully revived in 90 minutes.
An integrated pop-out kickstand on the back makes it easier to use the tablet as a Bluetooth speaker, but for those preferring to listen privately, a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack is still included that supports 24-bit 96kHz high-res audio with Dolby Atmos tuning.
One big tradeoff of those four integrated woofers is a very noticeable bulge on the back of the new Tab Plus that pushes the thickness of the 7.77mm tablet to a chonky 13.58mm. Remember, Apple has managed to slim the new 13-inch iPad Pro down to just 5.1mm, aside from its camera bump.
Although Lenovo hasn’t specified where the new 11.5-inch Tab Plus is available starting today aside from “select global markets,” its $289.99 price tag could make it a tempting solution for those tired of lugging around a tablet and a separate wireless speaker to bolster its sound.

“Four matrix tweeters and four force-balanced woofers” on the Lenovo Tab Plus deliver 26W of sound. | Image: Lenovo

Tablets aren’t known for their room-shaking bass, but Lenovo’s new 11.5-inch Tab Plus is going all in. It features 26W of sound produced by four tweeters and four woofers split across each side of the tablet (when used in landscape mode). To fully take advantage of the Tab Plus’ sound capabilities, Lenovo has included the option to wirelessly connect other devices to the tablet and use it as a Bluetooth speaker.

Powered by a MediaTek Helio G99 octa-core processor paired with 8GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of storage that’s expandable with a microSD card, the Tab Plus definitely isn’t a powerhouse productivity tool. Lenovo is positioning it as a media consumption device first and foremost, which is further reflected in a front and rear camera that both only muster 8MP. The tablet ships with Android 14, and Lenovo is promising two years of OS upgrades and four years of security patches.

Image: Lenovo
Lenovo has decided we should expect more from how our tablets sound.

The Tab Plus’ 11.5-inch 90Hz 2K LCD display is far from best in class, but Lenovo claims its 8,600mAh battery will keep it streaming for up to 12 hours (it doesn’t specify whether that’s streaming audio or video), while 45W fast charging means a dead battery can be fully revived in 90 minutes.

An integrated pop-out kickstand on the back makes it easier to use the tablet as a Bluetooth speaker, but for those preferring to listen privately, a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack is still included that supports 24-bit 96kHz high-res audio with Dolby Atmos tuning.

One big tradeoff of those four integrated woofers is a very noticeable bulge on the back of the new Tab Plus that pushes the thickness of the 7.77mm tablet to a chonky 13.58mm. Remember, Apple has managed to slim the new 13-inch iPad Pro down to just 5.1mm, aside from its camera bump.

Although Lenovo hasn’t specified where the new 11.5-inch Tab Plus is available starting today aside from “select global markets,” its $289.99 price tag could make it a tempting solution for those tired of lugging around a tablet and a separate wireless speaker to bolster its sound.

Read More 

GPT-4o, Gemini 1.5, and now Claude 3.5 Sonnet. | Image: Anthropic

The AI arms race continues apace: Anthropic is launching its newest model, called Claude 3.5 Sonnet, which it says can equal or better OpenAI’s GPT-4o or Google’s Gemini across a wide variety of tasks. The new model is already available to Claude users on the web and on iOS, and Anthropic is making it available to developers as well.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet will ultimately be the middle model in the lineup — Anthropic uses the name Haiku for its smallest model, Sonnet for the mainstream middle option, and Opus for its highest-end model. (The names are weird, but every AI company seems to be naming things in their own special weird ways, so we’ll let it slide.) But the company says 3.5 Sonnet outperforms 3 Opus, and its benchmarks show it does so by a pretty wide margin. The new model is also apparently twice as fast as the previous one, which might be an even bigger deal.
AI model benchmarks should always be taken with a grain of salt; there are a lot of them, it’s easy to pick and choose the ones that make you look good, and the models and products are changing so fast that nobody seems to have a lead for very long. That said, Claude 3.5 Sonnet does look impressive: it outscored GPT-4o, Gemini 1.5 Pro, and Meta’s Llama 3 400B in seven of nine overall benchmarks and four out of five vision benchmarks. Again, don’t read too much into that, but it does seem that Anthropic has built a legitimate competitor in this space.

Image: Anthropic
Claude 3.5’s benchmark scores do look impressive — but these things change so fast.

What does all that actually amount to? Anthropic says Claude 3.5 Sonnet will be far better at writing and translating code, handling multistep workflows, interpreting charts and graphs, and transcribing text from images. This new and improved Claude is also apparently better at understanding humor and can write in a much more human way.
Along with the new model, Anthropic is also introducing a new feature called Artifacts. With Artifacts, you’ll be able to see and interact with the results of your Claude requests: if you ask the model to design something for you, it can now show you what it looks like and let you edit it right in the app. If Claude writes you an email, you can edit the email in the Claude app instead of having to copy it to a text editor. It’s a small feature, but a clever one — these AI tools need to become more than simple chatbots, and features like Artifacts just give the app more to do.

Image: Anthropic
The new Artifacts feature is a hint at what a post-chatbot Claude might look like.

Artifacts actually seems to be a signal of the long-term vision for Claude. Anthropic has long said it is mostly focused on businesses (even as it hires consumer tech folks like Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger) and said in its press release announcing Claude 3.5 Sonnet that it plans to turn Claude into a tool for companies to “securely centralize their knowledge, documents, and ongoing work in one shared space.” That sounds more like Notion or Slack than ChatGPT, with Anthropic’s models at the center of the whole system.
For now, though, the model is the big news. And the pace of improvement here is wild to watch: Anthropic launched Claude 3 Opus in March, proudly saying it was as good as GPT-4 and Gemini 1.0, before OpenAI and Google released better versions of their models. Now, Anthropic has made its next move, and it surely won’t be long before its competition does so, too. Claude doesn’t get talked about as much as Gemini or ChatGPT, but it’s very much in the race.

GPT-4o, Gemini 1.5, and now Claude 3.5 Sonnet. | Image: Anthropic

The AI arms race continues apace: Anthropic is launching its newest model, called Claude 3.5 Sonnet, which it says can equal or better OpenAI’s GPT-4o or Google’s Gemini across a wide variety of tasks. The new model is already available to Claude users on the web and on iOS, and Anthropic is making it available to developers as well.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet will ultimately be the middle model in the lineup — Anthropic uses the name Haiku for its smallest model, Sonnet for the mainstream middle option, and Opus for its highest-end model. (The names are weird, but every AI company seems to be naming things in their own special weird ways, so we’ll let it slide.) But the company says 3.5 Sonnet outperforms 3 Opus, and its benchmarks show it does so by a pretty wide margin. The new model is also apparently twice as fast as the previous one, which might be an even bigger deal.

AI model benchmarks should always be taken with a grain of salt; there are a lot of them, it’s easy to pick and choose the ones that make you look good, and the models and products are changing so fast that nobody seems to have a lead for very long. That said, Claude 3.5 Sonnet does look impressive: it outscored GPT-4o, Gemini 1.5 Pro, and Meta’s Llama 3 400B in seven of nine overall benchmarks and four out of five vision benchmarks. Again, don’t read too much into that, but it does seem that Anthropic has built a legitimate competitor in this space.

Image: Anthropic
Claude 3.5’s benchmark scores do look impressive — but these things change so fast.

What does all that actually amount to? Anthropic says Claude 3.5 Sonnet will be far better at writing and translating code, handling multistep workflows, interpreting charts and graphs, and transcribing text from images. This new and improved Claude is also apparently better at understanding humor and can write in a much more human way.

Along with the new model, Anthropic is also introducing a new feature called Artifacts. With Artifacts, you’ll be able to see and interact with the results of your Claude requests: if you ask the model to design something for you, it can now show you what it looks like and let you edit it right in the app. If Claude writes you an email, you can edit the email in the Claude app instead of having to copy it to a text editor. It’s a small feature, but a clever one — these AI tools need to become more than simple chatbots, and features like Artifacts just give the app more to do.

Image: Anthropic
The new Artifacts feature is a hint at what a post-chatbot Claude might look like.

Artifacts actually seems to be a signal of the long-term vision for Claude. Anthropic has long said it is mostly focused on businesses (even as it hires consumer tech folks like Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger) and said in its press release announcing Claude 3.5 Sonnet that it plans to turn Claude into a tool for companies to “securely centralize their knowledge, documents, and ongoing work in one shared space.” That sounds more like Notion or Slack than ChatGPT, with Anthropic’s models at the center of the whole system.

For now, though, the model is the big news. And the pace of improvement here is wild to watch: Anthropic launched Claude 3 Opus in March, proudly saying it was as good as GPT-4 and Gemini 1.0, before OpenAI and Google released better versions of their models. Now, Anthropic has made its next move, and it surely won’t be long before its competition does so, too. Claude doesn’t get talked about as much as Gemini or ChatGPT, but it’s very much in the race.

Read More 

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, has agreed to pay $15 million to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit from the California Civil Rights Department. The lawsuit stemmed from a three-year investigation that found that Snap allegedly failed to “ensure that women were paid or promoted equally.”
The allegations span Snap’s period of rapid growth from 2015 to 2022, when the California-based company increased its headcount from 250 to more than 5,000. During this time, California’s civil rights agency claims Snap paid women less and offered them fewer promotions when compared to male employees.
Additionally, the lawsuit claims that women at the company “were routinely subjected to unwelcome sexual advances and other harassing conduct so severe or pervasive that it created a hostile work environment.” When women complained about their work environment, they allegedly faced retaliation in the form of denied promotions, negative performance reviews, and termination. The Verge reached out to Snap with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
Under the proposed settlement, Snap is to retain an independent consultant to evaluate and make recommendations about Snap’s compensation and promotion policies. It will also need to contract a third-party monitor to audit the company’s sexual harassment, retaliation, and discrimination compliance. Of the $15 million Snap agreed to pay, $14.5 million will go toward compensating women who worked at the company between 2014 and 2024.
Snap’s work culture has been criticized in the past. In 2018, a former software engineer claimed the company created a “sexist” and “toxic” work environment. The company opened an internal investigation into racism and sexism in 2020, and it released its first diversity report in response to growing scrutiny about its work culture that same year.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, has agreed to pay $15 million to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit from the California Civil Rights Department. The lawsuit stemmed from a three-year investigation that found that Snap allegedly failed to “ensure that women were paid or promoted equally.”

The allegations span Snap’s period of rapid growth from 2015 to 2022, when the California-based company increased its headcount from 250 to more than 5,000. During this time, California’s civil rights agency claims Snap paid women less and offered them fewer promotions when compared to male employees.

Additionally, the lawsuit claims that women at the company “were routinely subjected to unwelcome sexual advances and other harassing conduct so severe or pervasive that it created a hostile work environment.” When women complained about their work environment, they allegedly faced retaliation in the form of denied promotions, negative performance reviews, and termination. The Verge reached out to Snap with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.

Under the proposed settlement, Snap is to retain an independent consultant to evaluate and make recommendations about Snap’s compensation and promotion policies. It will also need to contract a third-party monitor to audit the company’s sexual harassment, retaliation, and discrimination compliance. Of the $15 million Snap agreed to pay, $14.5 million will go toward compensating women who worked at the company between 2014 and 2024.

Snap’s work culture has been criticized in the past. In 2018, a former software engineer claimed the company created a “sexist” and “toxic” work environment. The company opened an internal investigation into racism and sexism in 2020, and it released its first diversity report in response to growing scrutiny about its work culture that same year.

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Image: Snapchat

Snapchat offered an early look at its upcoming on-device AI model capable of transforming a user’s surroundings with augmented reality (AR). The new model will eventually let creators turn a text prompt into a custom lens — potentially opening the door for some wild looks to try on and send to friends.
You can see how this might look in the GIF below, which shows a person’s clothing and background transforming in real-time based on the prompt “50s sci-fi film.” Users will start seeing lenses using this new model in the coming months, while creators can start making lenses with the model by the end of this year, according to TechCrunch.

GIF: Snapchat

Additionally, Snapchat is rolling out a suite of new AI tools that could make it easier for creators to make custom augmented reality (AR) effects. Some of the tools now available with the latest Lens Studio update include new face effects that let creators write a prompt or upload an image to create a custom lens that completely transforms a user’s face.
The suite also includes a feature, called Immersive ML, that applies a “realistic transformation over the user’s face, body, and surroundings in real time.” Other AI tools coming to Lens Studio allow lens creators to generate 3D assets based on a text or image prompt, create face masks and textures, as well as make 3D character heads that mimic a user’s expression.

Image: Snapchat
This is Snapchat’s “Immersive ML” effect using the prompt “Matisse Style Painting.”

Over the past year, Snapchat has rolled out several new AI features, including a way for subscribers to send AI-generated snaps to friends. Snapchat also launched a ChatGPT-powered AI chatbot to all users last year.

Image: Snapchat

Snapchat offered an early look at its upcoming on-device AI model capable of transforming a user’s surroundings with augmented reality (AR). The new model will eventually let creators turn a text prompt into a custom lens — potentially opening the door for some wild looks to try on and send to friends.

You can see how this might look in the GIF below, which shows a person’s clothing and background transforming in real-time based on the prompt “50s sci-fi film.” Users will start seeing lenses using this new model in the coming months, while creators can start making lenses with the model by the end of this year, according to TechCrunch.

GIF: Snapchat

Additionally, Snapchat is rolling out a suite of new AI tools that could make it easier for creators to make custom augmented reality (AR) effects. Some of the tools now available with the latest Lens Studio update include new face effects that let creators write a prompt or upload an image to create a custom lens that completely transforms a user’s face.

The suite also includes a feature, called Immersive ML, that applies a “realistic transformation over the user’s face, body, and surroundings in real time.” Other AI tools coming to Lens Studio allow lens creators to generate 3D assets based on a text or image prompt, create face masks and textures, as well as make 3D character heads that mimic a user’s expression.

Image: Snapchat
This is Snapchat’s “Immersive ML” effect using the prompt “Matisse Style Painting.”

Over the past year, Snapchat has rolled out several new AI features, including a way for subscribers to send AI-generated snaps to friends. Snapchat also launched a ChatGPT-powered AI chatbot to all users last year.

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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

If you’ve been putting off your next Windows update, now’s the time to install it. Last week, Microsoft patched a pretty nasty vulnerability in Windows 11 and 10 that could put your PC at risk when connected to a public Wi-Fi network, as spotted earlier by The Register.
The vulnerability (CVE-2024-30078) could let hackers deploy a malicious packet to devices connected to the same Wi-Fi networks in places like airports, coffee shops, hotels, or even workplaces. From there, hackers can remotely run commands and gain access to a system — all without any user interaction or authentication. Microsoft rolled out a security update for the affected versions of Windows on June 11th.
Microsoft has labeled the vulnerability as “important,” which is the company’s second-highest severity rating for security vulnerabilities. Even if you don’t plan on taking your laptop to the coffee shop with you anytime soon, you shouldn’t delay this patch.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

If you’ve been putting off your next Windows update, now’s the time to install it. Last week, Microsoft patched a pretty nasty vulnerability in Windows 11 and 10 that could put your PC at risk when connected to a public Wi-Fi network, as spotted earlier by The Register.

The vulnerability (CVE-2024-30078) could let hackers deploy a malicious packet to devices connected to the same Wi-Fi networks in places like airports, coffee shops, hotels, or even workplaces. From there, hackers can remotely run commands and gain access to a system — all without any user interaction or authentication. Microsoft rolled out a security update for the affected versions of Windows on June 11th.

Microsoft has labeled the vulnerability as “important,” which is the company’s second-highest severity rating for security vulnerabilities. Even if you don’t plan on taking your laptop to the coffee shop with you anytime soon, you shouldn’t delay this patch.

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Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California on Oct. 25, 2022. | Laura Dickinson/San Luis Obsipo Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Congress has passed a bill aimed at giving nuclear energy a boost in the US. The Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act is now waiting for President Joe Biden’s signature to become law. The Senate passed the bill on Tuesday, after the House of Representatives passed a similar bill in February.
The bill is supposed to speed up development of next-generation nuclear reactors and position the US to lead the international market, while also helping aging reactors stay online. Nuclear energy is still a divisive solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change, but it has gained bipartisan support in recent years.
Nuclear energy is still a divisive solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change
The ADVANCE Act directs the Department of Energy (DOE) to streamline its process for approving the international export of American nuclear energy technology and cut down regulatory costs for companies trying to license advanced nuclear reactors. It creates incentives for successfully deploying those technologies, and tasks the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) with creating a “timely” pathway for licensing small reactors at brownfields and former fossil fuel generator sites. It also seeks to accelerate licensing review for new reactors at existing nuclear sites and streamline the environmental review process.
The legislation has already elicited strong reactions from environmental groups that either support or oppose nuclear energy. On one hand, nuclear power is seen as a way to supplement fluctuating renewables like solar and wind energy with a steady source of energy that doesn’t generate planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions.
“As we continue to decarbonize our nation’s energy system and address growing energy demand, we need all options available and nuclear energy will play an important role in making sure we are able to meet these challenges,” Evan Chapman, US federal policy director at Clean Air Task Force, said in an emailed statement.

Other groups are concerned about health and environmental risks with nuclear energy. Beyond meltdowns, like what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan in 2011, the US is still grappling with where to safely store radioactive waste for centuries. There are also worries about the potential environmental fallout of mining and processing uranium for fuel.
“Make no mistake: This is not about making the reactor licensing process more efficient, but about weakening safety and security oversight across the board, a longstanding industry goal,” Edwin Lyman, nuclear power safety director at the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a statement about the ADVANCE Act this week ahead of its passage.

Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California on Oct. 25, 2022. | Laura Dickinson/San Luis Obsipo Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Congress has passed a bill aimed at giving nuclear energy a boost in the US. The Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act is now waiting for President Joe Biden’s signature to become law. The Senate passed the bill on Tuesday, after the House of Representatives passed a similar bill in February.

The bill is supposed to speed up development of next-generation nuclear reactors and position the US to lead the international market, while also helping aging reactors stay online. Nuclear energy is still a divisive solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change, but it has gained bipartisan support in recent years.

The ADVANCE Act directs the Department of Energy (DOE) to streamline its process for approving the international export of American nuclear energy technology and cut down regulatory costs for companies trying to license advanced nuclear reactors. It creates incentives for successfully deploying those technologies, and tasks the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) with creating a “timely” pathway for licensing small reactors at brownfields and former fossil fuel generator sites. It also seeks to accelerate licensing review for new reactors at existing nuclear sites and streamline the environmental review process.

The legislation has already elicited strong reactions from environmental groups that either support or oppose nuclear energy. On one hand, nuclear power is seen as a way to supplement fluctuating renewables like solar and wind energy with a steady source of energy that doesn’t generate planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions.

“As we continue to decarbonize our nation’s energy system and address growing energy demand, we need all options available and nuclear energy will play an important role in making sure we are able to meet these challenges,” Evan Chapman, US federal policy director at Clean Air Task Force, said in an emailed statement.

Other groups are concerned about health and environmental risks with nuclear energy. Beyond meltdowns, like what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in Japan in 2011, the US is still grappling with where to safely store radioactive waste for centuries. There are also worries about the potential environmental fallout of mining and processing uranium for fuel.

“Make no mistake: This is not about making the reactor licensing process more efficient, but about weakening safety and security oversight across the board, a longstanding industry goal,” Edwin Lyman, nuclear power safety director at the Union of Concerned Scientists said in a statement about the ADVANCE Act this week ahead of its passage.

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