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Sony’s $700 PlayStation is here for people who don’t want to muck around. You don’t need me to tell you the new PS5 Pro, on sale November 7th, is the most powerful PlayStation ever made. The real question: could it possibly be worth $700, the most Sony’s ever charged for a game console?
I think I can answer that — but first, I need you to go find a measuring tape.
Find your favorite seat in front of the TV, then measure the distance between your head and the screen. Now measure your screen diagonally. Do you own a 65-inch or 55-inch TV, the most popular sizes? Do you sit 10 feet away or more? Then no, the PS5 Pro is probably not worth $700. Not even if you have 20/20 vision like me. The improved visual fidelity just isn’t tangible enough at that distance.

But if you sit closer, Sony’s new game console can make select games look amazing. Blades of grass, pillars of rough hewn stone, the weave of a backpack — they pop at higher fidelity. It’s enough of an improvement that I found myself wanting to sit closer, or stand, or even plug the PS5 Pro into a 4K computer monitor to use it like a gaming PC.
With some games, playing the original PS5 could feel like looking through a dirty window. The PS5 Pro has the power to wipe that window clean.

I think it’s important to make this clear right away: the PS5 Pro doesn’t make every game “Pro.” To really see a difference, it requires specially patched “PS5 Pro Enhanced” games.
This is no PS6 — Sony has made no suggestion that it’ll kick off a new console generation or have any exclusive games. It still plays the same PS5 and PS4 titles using the same AMD Zen 2 CPU cores, gets the same software updates, uses the same excellent DualSense gamepad, and offers largely the same ports.

If you pick games that already run beautifully on PS5, like the excellent Astro Bot, the only differences you’re getting might be physical ones, like the three curved scimitar-shaped fins that divide the console’s upper and lower halves, or how cool and quiet it runs, or how surprisingly light it feels. The PS5 Pro weighs three pounds less than the original 2020 model, even after you add the optional disc drive. The console’s slightly smaller, too.

Size comparison: Original PS5, PS5 Pro, PS5 Pro with disc drive.

But the PS5 Pro comes with an extra 2GB DDR5 memory, more than double the storage at 2TB, and — most importantly — a 62 percent faster GPU, with 16.7 teraflops of raw graphical compute. Add an AI upscaling technique called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), and it’s easily the most potent home console yet made.

What that actually means for games is up to each studio to some degree. But in practice, many developers are boasting that you no longer need to choose between smoothness and fidelity; you can have your cake and eat it too with 4K-like graphics at 60 frames per second.
At Sony’s PS5 Pro preview event, I told you how that wasn’t strictly accurate: with only 45 percent more rendering performance, some graphical compromises are still being made. But after spending several straight days swapping back and forth between my original PS5 from 2020 and the new PS5 Pro, testing over a dozen games in all their different graphical modes, I think there’s something to that “best of both worlds” claim.
In every title I tried — while sitting no more than eight feet away from a 65-inch TV — the PS5 Pro was clearly the better place to play.
In The Last of Us, I could see individual blades of grass instead of a sea of green. In Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, I could make out the peach fuzz on Aloy’s cheeks. In Demon’s Souls and Spider-Man 2 and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and The Last of Us Part II, the enhanced crispness and smoothness of the entire image helped bring cities to life, making their castle walls and skyscrapers and floating ships and post-apocalyptic frozen wasteland feel more real. Everything’s just more… defined.
Even PS4 games can get a bit crisper on PS5 Pro: I booted up Bloodborne, Gravity Rush 2, and my current kid-favorite Lego Dimensions, and each had slight improvements once I toggled a new PS4 image enhancement option in the console’s setting’s menu.

Tap here for full-size crops. From left to right: Bloodborne on PS5, Bloodborne on PS5 Pro with PS4 image enhancement turned on.

Thing is, my couch isn’t eight feet from my TV. It’s 12 feet, too far to tell a difference between the PS5 and PS5 Pro, because those details melt away. I can just barely make out the difference at 10 feet, sitting on the edge of my seat.
The big exception I’ve tried is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. While I can’t see all its visual improvements leaning back on the couch, Rebirth definitely takes the award for Most Improved on PS5 Pro, no longer forcing me to choose between distractingly choppy or annoyingly blurry. Its new PS5 Pro-exclusive “Versatility” mode offers such a clearer picture than the previous muddy options, the difference is visible at distance; I could see some Final Fantasy uber-fans picking up the console for that reason alone, particularly lapsed fans who haven’t yet purchased a PS5 and only need to justify an extra $270 for the Pro.
Most games don’t have this much room for improvement, though.

Tap here for full-size image. From left to right: PS5 “Performance-Sharp” mode, PS5 “Graphics” mode, PS5 Pro “Versatility” mode.

And you shouldn’t expect the PS5 Pro to necessarily improve graphics in the ways you might prefer. FFVII Rebirth’s open world still does that pop-in thing where plants and bushes appear just as you’re about to run into them, and Alan Wake II still can’t keep Detective Casey’s sideburns and facial hair from strobing in and out of existence.
Speaking of Alan Wake II, it’s also one of the few PS5 Pro Enhanced titles to offer an optional new ray tracing mode. It’s just ray-traced reflections, a far cry from the full-fat ray tracing the game can offer on today’s beefiest gaming PCs. Still, it’s amazing to see how realistic the Oh Deer Diner’s windows look when you can see the whole world reflected on them, and realistically see through them at the same time — the PS5 Pro handles it well. The game runs much slower, targeting 30fps rather than 60fps, but it’s not so much of a performance hit that it becomes unplayable.

The ray tracing in Alan Wake II (and F1 24) is an intriguing taste of what the PS5 Pro might be capable of in the future — if the console sells well enough for developers to seriously target it with their new games. The PS4 Pro eventually got a long list of enhanced games, but it launched at just $400 with an optical drive, generous trade-in offers at GameStop, and a clearer value proposition of taking your games from 1080p to 4K. Adoption was high; Sony recently revealed that 20 percent of PS4 customers wound up buying a PS4 Pro as well.
$700 will be a tough pill for some would-be buyers to swallow, especially considering it doesn’t come with an optical drive. Personally, most of my PS5 and PS4 library is on disc, and I had to special-order the $80 optical drive (they’re a little scarce right now!) to get some of my games running. Sony provided review codes for others.

Adding the optional $80 disc drive is incredibly easy — no screws, just pop the panel off.

You should know that reviewers didn’t have access to all 55 of the PS5 Pro Enhanced patches that Sony’s promising for launch day. As I write these words, major titles that could use enhancements and have promised enhancements, like the just-released Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Star Wars Jedi Survivor, have yet to release their patches. It’s possible some of the games I haven’t tested look better (or worse) than the ones I was able to try out. But at this point, I feel like I’ve seen the gamut from “good” to “meh.” And like the PS4 Pro, there’s real potential here if developers take advantage of it.
Ever since Sony announced the PS5 Pro and revealed both its $700 price tag and lack of optical drive, I’ve heard all kinds of people ridicule the company. Some suggest you need a magnifying glass to see the difference in visual quality. (You don’t.) Some suggest you’d be better off building a gaming PC. (You might, but probably not for $700.)

For that matter, I fired up The Last of Us Part I on my mid-range gaming PC today, a PC whose graphics card alone would still retail for around $300. I sat on a loading screen for 15 minutes just to compile the game’s shaders, then launched a game with buggy hair and dull grey mirrors that don’t reflect. I mucked about with settings for 20 more minutes to make the game playable.
Then, I plugged a PS5 Pro into the same 4K monitor. The game loaded almost instantly. It was both beautiful and playable right away.
The kind of person who should buy a PS5 Pro is the kind of person who doesn’t want to muck around. They’ll want the best console gaming experience money can buy, a large OLED display to go with it, and a plan to park themselves real close to that screen.

Sony’s $700 PlayStation is here for people who don’t want to muck around.

You don’t need me to tell you the new PS5 Pro, on sale November 7th, is the most powerful PlayStation ever made. The real question: could it possibly be worth $700, the most Sony’s ever charged for a game console?

I think I can answer that — but first, I need you to go find a measuring tape.

Find your favorite seat in front of the TV, then measure the distance between your head and the screen. Now measure your screen diagonally. Do you own a 65-inch or 55-inch TV, the most popular sizes? Do you sit 10 feet away or more? Then no, the PS5 Pro is probably not worth $700. Not even if you have 20/20 vision like me. The improved visual fidelity just isn’t tangible enough at that distance.

But if you sit closer, Sony’s new game console can make select games look amazing. Blades of grass, pillars of rough hewn stone, the weave of a backpack — they pop at higher fidelity. It’s enough of an improvement that I found myself wanting to sit closer, or stand, or even plug the PS5 Pro into a 4K computer monitor to use it like a gaming PC.

With some games, playing the original PS5 could feel like looking through a dirty window. The PS5 Pro has the power to wipe that window clean.

I think it’s important to make this clear right away: the PS5 Pro doesn’t make every game “Pro.” To really see a difference, it requires specially patched “PS5 Pro Enhanced” games.

This is no PS6 — Sony has made no suggestion that it’ll kick off a new console generation or have any exclusive games. It still plays the same PS5 and PS4 titles using the same AMD Zen 2 CPU cores, gets the same software updates, uses the same excellent DualSense gamepad, and offers largely the same ports.

If you pick games that already run beautifully on PS5, like the excellent Astro Bot, the only differences you’re getting might be physical ones, like the three curved scimitar-shaped fins that divide the console’s upper and lower halves, or how cool and quiet it runs, or how surprisingly light it feels. The PS5 Pro weighs three pounds less than the original 2020 model, even after you add the optional disc drive. The console’s slightly smaller, too.

But the PS5 Pro comes with an extra 2GB DDR5 memory, more than double the storage at 2TB, and — most importantly — a 62 percent faster GPU, with 16.7 teraflops of raw graphical compute. Add an AI upscaling technique called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), and it’s easily the most potent home console yet made.

What that actually means for games is up to each studio to some degree. But in practice, many developers are boasting that you no longer need to choose between smoothness and fidelity; you can have your cake and eat it too with 4K-like graphics at 60 frames per second.

At Sony’s PS5 Pro preview event, I told you how that wasn’t strictly accurate: with only 45 percent more rendering performance, some graphical compromises are still being made. But after spending several straight days swapping back and forth between my original PS5 from 2020 and the new PS5 Pro, testing over a dozen games in all their different graphical modes, I think there’s something to that “best of both worlds” claim.

In every title I tried — while sitting no more than eight feet away from a 65-inch TV — the PS5 Pro was clearly the better place to play.

In The Last of Us, I could see individual blades of grass instead of a sea of green. In Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, I could make out the peach fuzz on Aloy’s cheeks. In Demon’s Souls and Spider-Man 2 and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and The Last of Us Part II, the enhanced crispness and smoothness of the entire image helped bring cities to life, making their castle walls and skyscrapers and floating ships and post-apocalyptic frozen wasteland feel more real. Everything’s just more… defined.

Even PS4 games can get a bit crisper on PS5 Pro: I booted up Bloodborne, Gravity Rush 2, and my current kid-favorite Lego Dimensions, and each had slight improvements once I toggled a new PS4 image enhancement option in the console’s setting’s menu.

Thing is, my couch isn’t eight feet from my TV. It’s 12 feet, too far to tell a difference between the PS5 and PS5 Pro, because those details melt away. I can just barely make out the difference at 10 feet, sitting on the edge of my seat.

The big exception I’ve tried is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. While I can’t see all its visual improvements leaning back on the couch, Rebirth definitely takes the award for Most Improved on PS5 Pro, no longer forcing me to choose between distractingly choppy or annoyingly blurry. Its new PS5 Pro-exclusive “Versatility” mode offers such a clearer picture than the previous muddy options, the difference is visible at distance; I could see some Final Fantasy uber-fans picking up the console for that reason alone, particularly lapsed fans who haven’t yet purchased a PS5 and only need to justify an extra $270 for the Pro.

Most games don’t have this much room for improvement, though.

And you shouldn’t expect the PS5 Pro to necessarily improve graphics in the ways you might prefer. FFVII Rebirth’s open world still does that pop-in thing where plants and bushes appear just as you’re about to run into them, and Alan Wake II still can’t keep Detective Casey’s sideburns and facial hair from strobing in and out of existence.

Speaking of Alan Wake II, it’s also one of the few PS5 Pro Enhanced titles to offer an optional new ray tracing mode. It’s just ray-traced reflections, a far cry from the full-fat ray tracing the game can offer on today’s beefiest gaming PCs. Still, it’s amazing to see how realistic the Oh Deer Diner’s windows look when you can see the whole world reflected on them, and realistically see through them at the same time — the PS5 Pro handles it well. The game runs much slower, targeting 30fps rather than 60fps, but it’s not so much of a performance hit that it becomes unplayable.

The ray tracing in Alan Wake II (and F1 24) is an intriguing taste of what the PS5 Pro might be capable of in the future — if the console sells well enough for developers to seriously target it with their new games. The PS4 Pro eventually got a long list of enhanced games, but it launched at just $400 with an optical drive, generous trade-in offers at GameStop, and a clearer value proposition of taking your games from 1080p to 4K. Adoption was high; Sony recently revealed that 20 percent of PS4 customers wound up buying a PS4 Pro as well.

$700 will be a tough pill for some would-be buyers to swallow, especially considering it doesn’t come with an optical drive. Personally, most of my PS5 and PS4 library is on disc, and I had to special-order the $80 optical drive (they’re a little scarce right now!) to get some of my games running. Sony provided review codes for others.

You should know that reviewers didn’t have access to all 55 of the PS5 Pro Enhanced patches that Sony’s promising for launch day. As I write these words, major titles that could use enhancements and have promised enhancements, like the just-released Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Star Wars Jedi Survivor, have yet to release their patches. It’s possible some of the games I haven’t tested look better (or worse) than the ones I was able to try out. But at this point, I feel like I’ve seen the gamut from “good” to “meh.” And like the PS4 Pro, there’s real potential here if developers take advantage of it.

Ever since Sony announced the PS5 Pro and revealed both its $700 price tag and lack of optical drive, I’ve heard all kinds of people ridicule the company. Some suggest you need a magnifying glass to see the difference in visual quality. (You don’t.) Some suggest you’d be better off building a gaming PC. (You might, but probably not for $700.)

For that matter, I fired up The Last of Us Part I on my mid-range gaming PC today, a PC whose graphics card alone would still retail for around $300. I sat on a loading screen for 15 minutes just to compile the game’s shaders, then launched a game with buggy hair and dull grey mirrors that don’t reflect. I mucked about with settings for 20 more minutes to make the game playable.

Then, I plugged a PS5 Pro into the same 4K monitor. The game loaded almost instantly. It was both beautiful and playable right away.

The kind of person who should buy a PS5 Pro is the kind of person who doesn’t want to muck around. They’ll want the best console gaming experience money can buy, a large OLED display to go with it, and a plan to park themselves real close to that screen.

Read More 

Some iOS users with the Washington Post app installed may have looked down at their device tonight only to find an undismissable black toggle hovering on their screen, with electoral vote counts in the 2024 presidential race slowly ticking upwards. (On my own iPhone it appears as the dynamic island.) If you tap on it it merely expands to give you more information about the race, along with little drawn portraits of the candidates, which is decidedly not the content you want if you were just trying to find the button to make the whole thing go away.

The Washington Post app has put this little window at the top of my iPhone screen and I can’t make it go away. I don’t even know what it means. WHAT DO THE DASHES EVEN STAND FOR AT THIS POINT— Tim Carmody (@tcarmody.bsky.social) 2024-11-05T23:26:13.373Z

It took me a little bit of jumping around to figure out how to get rid of it, but this is how to dismiss the Electoral College hell-toggle on iOS:
Go to your Settings. Select Apps towards the bottom. Scroll down to the Wash Post app. Click on Live Activities. Turn off the toggle Allow Live Activities. The hell-toggle should vanish.

Turn off “Allow Live Activities” if you want to get rid of the electoral count toggle.

If you want to bring it back, turn on Allow Live Activities again, and then go into the Washington Post app. Click on the gear wheel icon in the upper right to access your settings. Select Live Activity Settings and turn on the toggle to allow live updates from the presidential election. You may need to also click on “Start Presidential Activity” beneath that.
Apparently Apple News also has a hell-toggle, and it presumably can be dismissed in your iOS settings in a similar fashion. I am not plagued with the Apple News hell-toggle, so I wouldn’t know.

Some iOS users with the Washington Post app installed may have looked down at their device tonight only to find an undismissable black toggle hovering on their screen, with electoral vote counts in the 2024 presidential race slowly ticking upwards. (On my own iPhone it appears as the dynamic island.) If you tap on it it merely expands to give you more information about the race, along with little drawn portraits of the candidates, which is decidedly not the content you want if you were just trying to find the button to make the whole thing go away.

It took me a little bit of jumping around to figure out how to get rid of it, but this is how to dismiss the Electoral College hell-toggle on iOS:

Go to your Settings. Select Apps towards the bottom. Scroll down to the Wash Post app. Click on Live Activities. Turn off the toggle Allow Live Activities. The hell-toggle should vanish.

Turn off “Allow Live Activities” if you want to get rid of the electoral count toggle.

If you want to bring it back, turn on Allow Live Activities again, and then go into the Washington Post app. Click on the gear wheel icon in the upper right to access your settings. Select Live Activity Settings and turn on the toggle to allow live updates from the presidential election. You may need to also click on “Start Presidential Activity” beneath that.

Apparently Apple News also has a hell-toggle, and it presumably can be dismissed in your iOS settings in a similar fashion. I am not plagued with the Apple News hell-toggle, so I wouldn’t know.

Read More 

Image: The Verge

Nintendo hasn’t announced its Switch successor yet, but we do know one thing for sure: it will be able to play current Switch games, with carryover for your Nintendo Switch Online services and account. The news was announced during Nintendo’s Corporate Management Policy Briefing, with further information promised “at a later date.”
All three of the major console manufacturers have had spotty records with backward compatibility. Both the Xbox Series X and the PS5 are mostly backward-compatible. But since the transition from the Wii U involved going from discs to cartridges, the Switch is not. Playing a game from previous Nintendo consoles is a function of optimism, involving the hope that either Nintendo releases a remastered Switch port or brings the game to its Switch Online library.

This is Furukawa. At today’s Corporate Management Policy Briefing, we announced that Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch. Nintendo Switch Online will be available on the successor to Nintendo Switch as well. Further information about…— 任天堂株式会社（企業広報・IR） (@NintendoCoLtd) November 6, 2024

The conversation about backward compatibility isn’t just about player satisfaction but also video game preservation. A report from the Video Game History Foundation found that over 87 percent of games released before 2010 are “critically endangered” or unavailable for purchase. While Nintendo has brought some of its back catalog to the Switch, there are still a lot of inaccessible games. Nintendo also directly contributed to the increasing scarcity of older games by shutting down the Wii U / 3DS e-shop last year.

Image: The Verge

Nintendo hasn’t announced its Switch successor yet, but we do know one thing for sure: it will be able to play current Switch games, with carryover for your Nintendo Switch Online services and account. The news was announced during Nintendo’s Corporate Management Policy Briefing, with further information promised “at a later date.”

All three of the major console manufacturers have had spotty records with backward compatibility. Both the Xbox Series X and the PS5 are mostly backward-compatible. But since the transition from the Wii U involved going from discs to cartridges, the Switch is not. Playing a game from previous Nintendo consoles is a function of optimism, involving the hope that either Nintendo releases a remastered Switch port or brings the game to its Switch Online library.

The conversation about backward compatibility isn’t just about player satisfaction but also video game preservation. A report from the Video Game History Foundation found that over 87 percent of games released before 2010 are “critically endangered” or unavailable for purchase. While Nintendo has brought some of its back catalog to the Switch, there are still a lot of inaccessible games. Nintendo also directly contributed to the increasing scarcity of older games by shutting down the Wii U / 3DS e-shop last year.

Read More 

Suzuki is finally making an EV. | Image: Suzuki

Suzuki and Toyota have been working together on a new 4WD-capable electric SUV, and in Italy yesterday, Suzuki revealed the fruits of the collaboration: a new compact called the E Vitara. It’s the automaker’s first EV, and it’s scheduled for production at Suzuki Motor Gujarat in India starting next spring.
The E Vitara will launch in Europe, India, and Japan “around” the summer of next year, and there will be a Toyota-badged version, which will probably look a lot like the Urban SUV Concept Toyota revealed in 2023. Toyota similarly shares its mediocre bZ4X EV with Subaru, which is rebadged as the Solterra EV.

Image: Suzuki

Toyota and Suzuki have been slow to adopt EVs into their lineups, with Toyota refocusing on building more hybrids and a three-row electric SUV for the US market. As reported by Autocar, Suzuki’s previously announced target of launching multiple EVs by 2030 is on hold, with President Toshihiro Suzuki saying the company will “monitor the situation” due to cooling EV demand.

Image: Suzuki

As for the E Vitara, the vehicle will be powered by a lithium iron phosphate battery in either 49 kWh or 60 kWh capacities. Both batteries can be offered in 2WD drivetrains, but 4WD versions only come with the larger one. According to The Japan Times, Suzuki said the E Vitara can get up to 400km (about 248 miles) on a single charge.
At its peak, the E Vitara motor is capable of 135 kW output. It’s fairly underpowered compared to the 150 kW output of the similarly-sized Chevy Bolt, which is just 130mm shorter in length than the 4,275mm E Vitara.
There’s currently no pricing for the E Vitara, and like Hyundai’s Inster, the US market is not in the launch plans for this tiny EV.

Suzuki is finally making an EV. | Image: Suzuki

Suzuki and Toyota have been working together on a new 4WD-capable electric SUV, and in Italy yesterday, Suzuki revealed the fruits of the collaboration: a new compact called the E Vitara. It’s the automaker’s first EV, and it’s scheduled for production at Suzuki Motor Gujarat in India starting next spring.

The E Vitara will launch in Europe, India, and Japan “around” the summer of next year, and there will be a Toyota-badged version, which will probably look a lot like the Urban SUV Concept Toyota revealed in 2023. Toyota similarly shares its mediocre bZ4X EV with Subaru, which is rebadged as the Solterra EV.

Image: Suzuki

Toyota and Suzuki have been slow to adopt EVs into their lineups, with Toyota refocusing on building more hybrids and a three-row electric SUV for the US market. As reported by Autocar, Suzuki’s previously announced target of launching multiple EVs by 2030 is on hold, with President Toshihiro Suzuki saying the company will “monitor the situation” due to cooling EV demand.

Image: Suzuki

As for the E Vitara, the vehicle will be powered by a lithium iron phosphate battery in either 49 kWh or 60 kWh capacities. Both batteries can be offered in 2WD drivetrains, but 4WD versions only come with the larger one. According to The Japan Times, Suzuki said the E Vitara can get up to 400km (about 248 miles) on a single charge.

At its peak, the E Vitara motor is capable of 135 kW output. It’s fairly underpowered compared to the 150 kW output of the similarly-sized Chevy Bolt, which is just 130mm shorter in length than the 4,275mm E Vitara.

There’s currently no pricing for the E Vitara, and like Hyundai’s Inster, the US market is not in the launch plans for this tiny EV.

Read More 

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Arizona resident Jacqueline McAferty is suing Elon Musk and his pro-Trump America PAC in a Texas federal court, alleging that the PAC’s $1 million-a-day lottery to registered voters in swing states was fraud. The proposed class-action lawsuit was filed a day after a Philadelphia judge denied the city’s request to order Musk to end the lottery — and seems to have been spurred by Musk’s legal defense in the Philadelphia case.
The complaint, filed in a federal court in Austin, alleges that Musk falsely claimed the PAC would choose sweepstakes winners randomly when the selections were, in fact, predetermined. The complaint cites comments made yesterday by Chris Gober, a Republican lawyer CNBC identified as America PAC’s former treasurer.
“The $1 million recipients are not chosen by chance,” Gober said during the Monday hearing in the Philadelphia case. “We know exactly who will be announced as the $1 million recipient today and tomorrow.” Grober’s testimony contradicted Musk’s own claim that the funds were awarded “randomly,” as he said when he announced the contest at a political rally in Pennsylvania.

McAferty signed the petition on October 20th, the day Musk announced the contest, according to the complaint. Musk “made the false statements with the intention of inducing individuals to sign the America PAC petition,” which was a scheme to obtain users’ data, the complaint alleges. McAferty is accusing Musk of fraud and breach of contract.
To sign the petition, voters had to provide their first and last name, email address, mailing address, and cell phone number. “The America PAC petition places no limitations on America PAC’s use of or sale of the personal data it collects, nor does it provide any additional information about the planned use of data,” the complaint claims.
The suit also claims that Musk used the lottery to drive “significant traffic to Musk’s X platform.”

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Arizona resident Jacqueline McAferty is suing Elon Musk and his pro-Trump America PAC in a Texas federal court, alleging that the PAC’s $1 million-a-day lottery to registered voters in swing states was fraud. The proposed class-action lawsuit was filed a day after a Philadelphia judge denied the city’s request to order Musk to end the lottery — and seems to have been spurred by Musk’s legal defense in the Philadelphia case.

The complaint, filed in a federal court in Austin, alleges that Musk falsely claimed the PAC would choose sweepstakes winners randomly when the selections were, in fact, predetermined. The complaint cites comments made yesterday by Chris Gober, a Republican lawyer CNBC identified as America PAC’s former treasurer.

“The $1 million recipients are not chosen by chance,” Gober said during the Monday hearing in the Philadelphia case. “We know exactly who will be announced as the $1 million recipient today and tomorrow.” Grober’s testimony contradicted Musk’s own claim that the funds were awarded “randomly,” as he said when he announced the contest at a political rally in Pennsylvania.

McAferty signed the petition on October 20th, the day Musk announced the contest, according to the complaint. Musk “made the false statements with the intention of inducing individuals to sign the America PAC petition,” which was a scheme to obtain users’ data, the complaint alleges. McAferty is accusing Musk of fraud and breach of contract.

To sign the petition, voters had to provide their first and last name, email address, mailing address, and cell phone number. “The America PAC petition places no limitations on America PAC’s use of or sale of the personal data it collects, nor does it provide any additional information about the planned use of data,” the complaint claims.

The suit also claims that Musk used the lottery to drive “significant traffic to Musk’s X platform.”

Read More 

Image: The Verge

Steam Game Recording is officially out of beta and available to all users, giving PC, Mac, and Steam Deck players a built-in way to record and share audio and video from their gaming sessions. It joins many other ways PC gamers have been able to record their highlights, including as a feature of tools like the Xbox Game Bar, Nvidia GeForce, and AMD’s Adrenalin.
This version of the Steam client is also the first to drop support for Windows 7 and 8 machines, as well as Macs running macOS 10.13 and 10.14 after Valve announced the move at the beginning of this year.

Image: Valve

After an automatic update, players can start recordings manually using a hotkey (Ctrl + F11 is the default) or set it to trigger automatically, with options to restrict the length, quality, and storage space that Steam can use. Valve says it works with any game, including non-Steam games that allow Steam Overlay to run. Recording is off by default — you’ll find its settings in a new Game Recording tab in Steam’s settings.

Valve has updated Steam Game Recording with a handful of new features that weren’t there when the beta period began in June, including adding “advanced” export options and the ability to configure game-specific settings. The company also added Session View, which includes a “Recordings & Screenshots manager with game-specific tags and data.”

Image: The Verge

Steam Game Recording is officially out of beta and available to all users, giving PC, Mac, and Steam Deck players a built-in way to record and share audio and video from their gaming sessions. It joins many other ways PC gamers have been able to record their highlights, including as a feature of tools like the Xbox Game Bar, Nvidia GeForce, and AMD’s Adrenalin.

This version of the Steam client is also the first to drop support for Windows 7 and 8 machines, as well as Macs running macOS 10.13 and 10.14 after Valve announced the move at the beginning of this year.

Image: Valve

After an automatic update, players can start recordings manually using a hotkey (Ctrl + F11 is the default) or set it to trigger automatically, with options to restrict the length, quality, and storage space that Steam can use. Valve says it works with any game, including non-Steam games that allow Steam Overlay to run. Recording is off by default — you’ll find its settings in a new Game Recording tab in Steam’s settings.

Valve has updated Steam Game Recording with a handful of new features that weren’t there when the beta period began in June, including adding “advanced” export options and the ability to configure game-specific settings. The company also added Session View, which includes a “Recordings & Screenshots manager with game-specific tags and data.”

Read More 

Sundar Pichai. | Image: Laura Normand / The Verge

Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees ahead of Election Day to make sure “the products we build” are “a trusted source of information to people of every background and belief.”
“As with other elections, the outcome will be a major topic of conversation in living rooms and other places around the world,” Pichai said in an internal memo on November 4th obtained by The Verge and first reported on by The Washington Post. “And of course, the outcome will have important consequences.”
“Whomever the voters entrust, let’s remember the role we play at work, through the products we build and as a business: to be a trusted source of information to people of every background and belief. We will and must maintain that.”
Naturally, Google has already had to contend with accusations of bias before the polls even close. Earlier on Tuesday, Elon Musk amplified a theory that Google was intentionally hiding a map of polling places from Trump voters while showing the map to those who searched “where can I vote for Harris.” The claim compelled Google to say that it had fixed a bug that displayed its polling map for searches with “Harris” and not Trump because her last name is also the name of a county in Texas.
You can read Pichai’s full memo to Google employees below:

Hi Googlers,
Tomorrow is election day here and many in the U.S. will be heading to the polls to vote for everything from school board to judges to the Congress and President.
Teams across Google and YouTube have been working hard to make sure our platforms provide voters with high-quality and reliable information, just as we’ve done for so many other elections around the world — in fact, dozens of countries have held major, hotly contested elections this year, from France to India to the UK to Mexico and many more, with well over a billion people casting votes in 2024.
We should be proud of our work, and also of our teams’ efforts to keep campaigns secure, to deliver accurate information on where and how to vote, and to provide digital advertising solutions to campaigns. Thanks to everyone working around the clock on these efforts throughout the campaign season and as votes are tallied.
As with other elections, the outcome will be a major topic of conversation in living rooms and other places around the world. And of course, the outcome will have important consequences.
Whomever the voters entrust, let’s remember the role we play at work, through the products we build and as a business: to be a trusted source of information to people of every background and belief. We will and must maintain that. In that spirit, it’s important that everyone continue to follow our Community Guidelines and Personal Political Activity Policy.
Beyond election day, our work to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful will continue. Al has given us a profound opportunity to make progress on that mission, build great products and partnerships, drive innovation, and make significant contributions to national and local economies. Our company is at its best when we’re focused on that.
Thanks, Sundar

Sundar Pichai. | Image: Laura Normand / The Verge

Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees ahead of Election Day to make sure “the products we build” are “a trusted source of information to people of every background and belief.”

“As with other elections, the outcome will be a major topic of conversation in living rooms and other places around the world,” Pichai said in an internal memo on November 4th obtained by The Verge and first reported on by The Washington Post. “And of course, the outcome will have important consequences.”

“Whomever the voters entrust, let’s remember the role we play at work, through the products we build and as a business: to be a trusted source of information to people of every background and belief. We will and must maintain that.”

Naturally, Google has already had to contend with accusations of bias before the polls even close. Earlier on Tuesday, Elon Musk amplified a theory that Google was intentionally hiding a map of polling places from Trump voters while showing the map to those who searched “where can I vote for Harris.” The claim compelled Google to say that it had fixed a bug that displayed its polling map for searches with “Harris” and not Trump because her last name is also the name of a county in Texas.

You can read Pichai’s full memo to Google employees below:

Hi Googlers,

Tomorrow is election day here and many in the U.S. will be heading to the polls to vote for everything from school board to judges to the Congress and President.

Teams across Google and YouTube have been working hard to make sure our platforms provide voters with high-quality and reliable information, just as we’ve done for so many other elections around the world — in fact, dozens of countries have held major, hotly contested elections this year, from France to India to the UK to Mexico and many more, with well over a billion people casting votes in 2024.

We should be proud of our work, and also of our teams’ efforts to keep campaigns secure, to deliver accurate information on where and how to vote, and to provide digital advertising solutions to campaigns. Thanks to everyone working around the clock on these efforts throughout the campaign season and as votes are tallied.

As with other elections, the outcome will be a major topic of conversation in living rooms and other places around the world. And of course, the outcome will have important consequences.

Whomever the voters entrust, let’s remember the role we play at work, through the products we build and as a business: to be a trusted source of information to people of every background and belief. We will and must maintain that. In that spirit, it’s important that everyone continue to follow our Community Guidelines and Personal Political Activity Policy.

Beyond election day, our work to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful will continue. Al has given us a profound opportunity to make progress on that mission, build great products and partnerships, drive innovation, and make significant contributions to national and local economies. Our company is at its best when we’re focused on that.

Thanks, Sundar

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Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is pushing back on claims that his return-to-office mandate was a “backdoor layoff.” In a transcript of an all-hands staff meeting seen by Reuters and CNBC, Jassy said the move “is very much about our culture and strengthening our culture.”
In September, Amazon announced that it would start making employees return to the office five days per week starting January 2nd, 2025. The e-commerce giant previously required employees to work in the office three days per week. Some speculated that the five-day-per-week mandate is a “layoff in disguise,” intended to push out employees who couldn’t or wouldn’t make the full return.
“A number of people I’ve seen theorized that the reason we were doing this is, it’s a backdoor layoff, or we made some sort of deal with city or cities,” Jassy said during the meeting, according to Reuters. “I can tell you both of those are not true. You know, this was not a cost play for us.” Amazon has laid off more than 27,000 workers since 2022.
Recent reports suggest many Amazon employees aren’t happy with the return to office mandate, with some even threatening to quit, according to a report from Fortune. Last month, hundreds of employees signed a letter in protest of comments from Amazon Web Services head Matt Garman, who said “there are other companies around” for workers who don’t want to come in five days per week.

Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is pushing back on claims that his return-to-office mandate was a “backdoor layoff.” In a transcript of an all-hands staff meeting seen by Reuters and CNBC, Jassy said the move “is very much about our culture and strengthening our culture.”

In September, Amazon announced that it would start making employees return to the office five days per week starting January 2nd, 2025. The e-commerce giant previously required employees to work in the office three days per week. Some speculated that the five-day-per-week mandate is a “layoff in disguise,” intended to push out employees who couldn’t or wouldn’t make the full return.

“A number of people I’ve seen theorized that the reason we were doing this is, it’s a backdoor layoff, or we made some sort of deal with city or cities,” Jassy said during the meeting, according to Reuters. “I can tell you both of those are not true. You know, this was not a cost play for us.” Amazon has laid off more than 27,000 workers since 2022.

Recent reports suggest many Amazon employees aren’t happy with the return to office mandate, with some even threatening to quit, according to a report from Fortune. Last month, hundreds of employees signed a letter in protest of comments from Amazon Web Services head Matt Garman, who said “there are other companies around” for workers who don’t want to come in five days per week.

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Apple will soon become the first company to incur a fine for violating the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), reports Bloomberg. Sources tell the outlet that the Commission is getting ready to levy the penalty after it found that Apple’s “anti-steering” practices harmed competition on the App Store.
This follows the EU’s €1.84 billion (around $2 billion) fine imposed on Apple in March. After investigating a complaint from Spotify, the EU Commission ruled that Apple restricted developers’ ability to point users to cheaper purchases outside the App Store in March — a practice that’s illegal under the DMA.
We still don’t know how much the EU will fine Apple, but the DMA rules say companies can be charged up to 10 percent of annual global revenue and up to 20 percent for repeat offenses. Based on Apple’s revenue last year, the EU’s initial fine could add up to as much as $38 billion. The Commission may announce the fine as soon as this month before competition head Margrethe Vestager leaves office, Bloomberg reports.
The Verge reached out to Apple with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
Apple is also facing an investigation over whether it’s undermining alternative app stores in the EU. In September, the EU won its fight to make Apple pay €13 billion (about $14.4 billion) in unpaid taxes. Apple CEO Tim Cook even allegedly called former President Donald Trump to complain about the fines his company has accrued.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Apple will soon become the first company to incur a fine for violating the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), reports Bloomberg. Sources tell the outlet that the Commission is getting ready to levy the penalty after it found that Apple’s “anti-steering” practices harmed competition on the App Store.

This follows the EU’s €1.84 billion (around $2 billion) fine imposed on Apple in March. After investigating a complaint from Spotify, the EU Commission ruled that Apple restricted developers’ ability to point users to cheaper purchases outside the App Store in March — a practice that’s illegal under the DMA.

We still don’t know how much the EU will fine Apple, but the DMA rules say companies can be charged up to 10 percent of annual global revenue and up to 20 percent for repeat offenses. Based on Apple’s revenue last year, the EU’s initial fine could add up to as much as $38 billion. The Commission may announce the fine as soon as this month before competition head Margrethe Vestager leaves office, Bloomberg reports.

The Verge reached out to Apple with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.

Apple is also facing an investigation over whether it’s undermining alternative app stores in the EU. In September, the EU won its fight to make Apple pay €13 billion (about $14.4 billion) in unpaid taxes. Apple CEO Tim Cook even allegedly called former President Donald Trump to complain about the fines his company has accrued.

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Sony will stop selling its Airpeak S1 drone on March 31st, 2025. | Image: Sony

Almost four years after teasing it at CES 2021, Sony is discontinuing the Airpeak S1 drone that was designed to work with Sony’s mirrorless cameras. According to a notice posted to Sony Japan’s website on November 1st, sales of the $9,000 drone will end on March 31st, 2025, while all support will end five years later, as reported previously by PetaPixel.
Sony will also stop selling Airpeak S1 accessories like the drone’s gimbal, battery charger, and remote control next year. However, it will continue to sell replacement batteries and propellers until March 31st, 2026, and will offer inspections, repairs, and software maintenance until March 31st, 2030.
The AirPeak S1 promised capabilities including a top speed of 55.9mph, flight times up to 12 minutes with a camera and gimbal attached, and an ability to maintain a stable flight in winds up to 44.7mph when it was officially announced in 2021. However, the drone struggled to compete with offerings from companies like DJI, and early reviews were not positive. PetaPixel reviewed the Airpeak S1 in 2022 and concluded it was “not ready for commercial use.”
Sony eventually improved the drone’s capabilities with software updates that added advanced flight mapping, the ability for the aircraft to return to a home point autonomously, and improved flight path recreation. The company also introduced a lighter camera gimbal and a larger battery that extended flight times to 20 minutes with a payload. However, when Sony announced its ILX-LR1 61-megapixel full-frame drone camera in 2023 that wasn’t compatible with the Airpeak S1, it indicated the drone’s days were numbered. That is now confirmed.

Sony will stop selling its Airpeak S1 drone on March 31st, 2025. | Image: Sony

Almost four years after teasing it at CES 2021, Sony is discontinuing the Airpeak S1 drone that was designed to work with Sony’s mirrorless cameras. According to a notice posted to Sony Japan’s website on November 1st, sales of the $9,000 drone will end on March 31st, 2025, while all support will end five years later, as reported previously by PetaPixel.

Sony will also stop selling Airpeak S1 accessories like the drone’s gimbal, battery charger, and remote control next year. However, it will continue to sell replacement batteries and propellers until March 31st, 2026, and will offer inspections, repairs, and software maintenance until March 31st, 2030.

The AirPeak S1 promised capabilities including a top speed of 55.9mph, flight times up to 12 minutes with a camera and gimbal attached, and an ability to maintain a stable flight in winds up to 44.7mph when it was officially announced in 2021. However, the drone struggled to compete with offerings from companies like DJI, and early reviews were not positive. PetaPixel reviewed the Airpeak S1 in 2022 and concluded it was “not ready for commercial use.”

Sony eventually improved the drone’s capabilities with software updates that added advanced flight mapping, the ability for the aircraft to return to a home point autonomously, and improved flight path recreation. The company also introduced a lighter camera gimbal and a larger battery that extended flight times to 20 minutes with a payload. However, when Sony announced its ILX-LR1 61-megapixel full-frame drone camera in 2023 that wasn’t compatible with the Airpeak S1, it indicated the drone’s days were numbered. That is now confirmed.

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