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Illustration: The Verge

Google Wallet will start beta testing a digital ID soon that works at TSA checkpoints in almost half the country, including states like New York, California, Florida, Texas, and Illinois, but Google still advises that users keep their physical ID handy. Google says it’s also working with partners to use digital IDs for other purposes, like car rentals, account recovery, and identity verification.
To create the digital ID, you’ll scan the security chip on the back of your passport into the Google Wallet app. Google will ask you to verify your identity with a selfie video and then generate the ID pass within a few minutes. The ID is encrypted, so you’ll need a passcode or fingerprint to access and share it.

Image: Google

Google announced other new Google Wallet updates for travelers and commuters, like notifications about pass updates, so if the assigned seat on your boarding pass changes, you’ll get an alert. Users can also access passes from the web at wallet.google.com in addition to using their Android devices. Prepaid commuter benefit cards also come to Google Wallet, starting with Edenred and HealthEquity.
Finally, “in the coming months,” Iowa, New Mexico, and Ohio will join the growing list of places where residents can save their state IDs and driver’s licenses in Google Wallet.

Illustration: The Verge

Google Wallet will start beta testing a digital ID soon that works at TSA checkpoints in almost half the country, including states like New York, California, Florida, Texas, and Illinois, but Google still advises that users keep their physical ID handy. Google says it’s also working with partners to use digital IDs for other purposes, like car rentals, account recovery, and identity verification.

To create the digital ID, you’ll scan the security chip on the back of your passport into the Google Wallet app. Google will ask you to verify your identity with a selfie video and then generate the ID pass within a few minutes. The ID is encrypted, so you’ll need a passcode or fingerprint to access and share it.

Image: Google

Google announced other new Google Wallet updates for travelers and commuters, like notifications about pass updates, so if the assigned seat on your boarding pass changes, you’ll get an alert. Users can also access passes from the web at wallet.google.com in addition to using their Android devices. Prepaid commuter benefit cards also come to Google Wallet, starting with Edenred and HealthEquity.

Finally, “in the coming months,” Iowa, New Mexico, and Ohio will join the growing list of places where residents can save their state IDs and driver’s licenses in Google Wallet.

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Level Lock incorporates all the smart tech into a deadbolt that can be retrofitted into an existing lock. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Smart locks may still be a niche product, but lock behemoth Assa Abloy is clearly betting on a digital future for our doors. Despite being sued by the US Department of Justice for trying to buy too many smart lock manufacturers, the Swedish-based company just bought another one: sleek smart lock maker Level Lock.
With this latest purchase, Assa Abloy, which owns a staggering 190 brands in the “access control” space, may now have a significant piece of the puzzle it needs to push the market into a digital future. “Their innovative platform provides an easy transition from mechanical locking to digital access solutions with minimal effort,” said Lucas Boselli, executive vice president of Assa Abloy, in a press release.
Level’s technology dispenses with the large, bulky housing common with connected locks. Instead, it integrates everything needed to digitally control and power the lock into the deadbolt mechanism. From the outside, a Level smart lock looks just like a traditional lock. The company has a retrofit solution for an existing deadbolt and all-in-one smart locks with features like touch-to-unlock and Apple Home Key unlocking.

The obvious move for Assa Abloy is to incorporate Level’s tech — both hardware and software — into its existing stable of locks, including Kwikset and its sister brand, Baldwin, and make smart locks that don’t look like smart locks. This would be an easier transition for the mass market than the current method of sticking a big black box on your door.
Assa Abloy has a history of adapting innovative tech into legacy products. When it bought August in 2014, it added the smart lock startup’s neat auto-open technology to Yale smart door locks and has used the Connected by August modules to keep its products at the forefront of the smart lock market.
However, last year, Assa Abloy was forced to sell Yale and August (to US-based Fortune Brands) in order to buy two arguably bigger fish in the US residential lock hardware market — Kwikset and Baldwin (which were owned by Spectrum Brands). While it lost August completely, it held onto Yale outside the US. Yale is now two separate companies: Yale US (owned by Fortune Brands) and Yale in the rest of the world (owned by Assa Abloy).

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
The Level Lock hides the battery in the bolt, so there is no bulky housing common with smart locks.

According to the DOJ, owning Kwikset and Baldwin, as well as Yale and August, was too many lock makers for one company: “The proposed transaction would transform these markets, giving Assa Abloy a near-monopoly in premium mechanical door hardware and more than a 50 percent share in smart locks, leaving only one significant competitor.” That competitor being Schlage, which is owned by Allegion.
While it complied, just a year later, Assa Abloy has snapped up another smart lock startup in Level. This one — which had $16 million in sales in 2023 — is probably too small to catch the attention of the DOJ again, but Level’s patents in the smart lock space could provide the company with the opportunity for another technological leap forward.

Image courtesy Strategy Analytics

Global smart lock market share as of 2021, when Assa Abloy first tried to buy Spectrum Brands (Kwikset).

While innovative, Level, with its high price point and limited connectivity options, has been a minor player in the smart lock space. Assa Abloy says it will continue as an independent company, but that’s what they said about August. We haven’t seen a new August product since 2020.
As with August and Yale, Level’s tech will likely become part of Assa Abloy’s larger brands, such as Kwikset. Assa Abloy is also all in on Matter, which means it now has a clear path for both technology and connectivity. The next path is making smart locks easier for us to use. Auto-unlocking, fingerprint access, keypads, and app control are all useful, but people really want a digital key.
To address this, Assa Abloy, Apple, Google, Samsung, Allegion, and others are developing the Aliro access control standard. This industry standard is designed to provide a universal way for smartphones and smartwatches to communicate with a lock. The idea is that Aliro will allow you to unlock your door with just a tap, no matter who made the door lock or the phone or watch you’re using.
Aliro is still at the concept stage (there’s no official specification yet), but it will involve UWB, NFC, and Bluetooth. Apple’s recent announcement that it’s bringing UWB auto-unlocking to Apple Home is tied to Aliro, and the company’s Home Key technology will likely be a part of the standard, too. The stage is being set for the next generation of smart locks, and with Level, Kwikset, Matter, and Aliro all in the mix, Assa Abloy is positioning itself right in the spotlight.

Level Lock incorporates all the smart tech into a deadbolt that can be retrofitted into an existing lock. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Smart locks may still be a niche product, but lock behemoth Assa Abloy is clearly betting on a digital future for our doors. Despite being sued by the US Department of Justice for trying to buy too many smart lock manufacturers, the Swedish-based company just bought another one: sleek smart lock maker Level Lock.

With this latest purchase, Assa Abloy, which owns a staggering 190 brands in the “access control” space, may now have a significant piece of the puzzle it needs to push the market into a digital future. “Their innovative platform provides an easy transition from mechanical locking to digital access solutions with minimal effort,” said Lucas Boselli, executive vice president of Assa Abloy, in a press release.

Level’s technology dispenses with the large, bulky housing common with connected locks. Instead, it integrates everything needed to digitally control and power the lock into the deadbolt mechanism. From the outside, a Level smart lock looks just like a traditional lock. The company has a retrofit solution for an existing deadbolt and all-in-one smart locks with features like touch-to-unlock and Apple Home Key unlocking.

The obvious move for Assa Abloy is to incorporate Level’s tech — both hardware and software — into its existing stable of locks, including Kwikset and its sister brand, Baldwin, and make smart locks that don’t look like smart locks. This would be an easier transition for the mass market than the current method of sticking a big black box on your door.

Assa Abloy has a history of adapting innovative tech into legacy products. When it bought August in 2014, it added the smart lock startup’s neat auto-open technology to Yale smart door locks and has used the Connected by August modules to keep its products at the forefront of the smart lock market.

However, last year, Assa Abloy was forced to sell Yale and August (to US-based Fortune Brands) in order to buy two arguably bigger fish in the US residential lock hardware market — Kwikset and Baldwin (which were owned by Spectrum Brands). While it lost August completely, it held onto Yale outside the US. Yale is now two separate companies: Yale US (owned by Fortune Brands) and Yale in the rest of the world (owned by Assa Abloy).

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
The Level Lock hides the battery in the bolt, so there is no bulky housing common with smart locks.

According to the DOJ, owning Kwikset and Baldwin, as well as Yale and August, was too many lock makers for one company: “The proposed transaction would transform these markets, giving Assa Abloy a near-monopoly in premium mechanical door hardware and more than a 50 percent share in smart locks, leaving only one significant competitor.” That competitor being Schlage, which is owned by Allegion.

While it complied, just a year later, Assa Abloy has snapped up another smart lock startup in Level. This one — which had $16 million in sales in 2023 — is probably too small to catch the attention of the DOJ again, but Level’s patents in the smart lock space could provide the company with the opportunity for another technological leap forward.

Image courtesy Strategy Analytics

Global smart lock market share as of 2021, when Assa Abloy first tried to buy Spectrum Brands (Kwikset).

While innovative, Level, with its high price point and limited connectivity options, has been a minor player in the smart lock space. Assa Abloy says it will continue as an independent company, but that’s what they said about August. We haven’t seen a new August product since 2020.

As with August and Yale, Level’s tech will likely become part of Assa Abloy’s larger brands, such as Kwikset. Assa Abloy is also all in on Matter, which means it now has a clear path for both technology and connectivity. The next path is making smart locks easier for us to use. Auto-unlocking, fingerprint access, keypads, and app control are all useful, but people really want a digital key.

To address this, Assa Abloy, Apple, Google, Samsung, Allegion, and others are developing the Aliro access control standard. This industry standard is designed to provide a universal way for smartphones and smartwatches to communicate with a lock. The idea is that Aliro will allow you to unlock your door with just a tap, no matter who made the door lock or the phone or watch you’re using.

Aliro is still at the concept stage (there’s no official specification yet), but it will involve UWB, NFC, and Bluetooth. Apple’s recent announcement that it’s bringing UWB auto-unlocking to Apple Home is tied to Aliro, and the company’s Home Key technology will likely be a part of the standard, too. The stage is being set for the next generation of smart locks, and with Level, Kwikset, Matter, and Aliro all in the mix, Assa Abloy is positioning itself right in the spotlight.

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Those aren’t gas pumps! | Image: GM / EVgo

GM and EVgo are collaborating to build “flagship” EV charging stations at urban sites with a total of 400 EV charging stalls.
The flagship stations are cobranded by GM Energy, the automaker’s battery and charging division, and EVgo. The stations will be located in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New York, and Texas at places with shopping, food, coffee shops, and other amenities.
Each station will include 20 fast charging stalls with units supporting up to 350kW speeds, pull-through stations, security cameras, and gas station-style canopies with ample lighting. The first locations featuring EVgo’s latest easy-deploying and modular prefabricated charging stations will open in 2025.

Image: EVgo
EVgo’s latest chargers that use a prefabrication approach for faster and cheaper installs.

GM said it has opened 1,000 fast charging stalls with EVgo as of August 2023 and expects to have 2,000 of the planned 2,850 DC fast charging stalls open by the end of the year. The GM / EVgo urban stations are separate from a broader strategy to build a coast-to-coast network with 2,000 DC fast charging stations at up to 500 Pilot and Flying J travel centers.
GM and EVgo have been working together since 2020 to grow their charging network, but GM is also dipping its tires into other charging network solutions. GM has its own Ultium 360 network that connects vehicle owners to third-party networks, and the company is contributing to Ionna, the huge joint venture that includes seven major automakers.

Those aren’t gas pumps! | Image: GM / EVgo

GM and EVgo are collaborating to build “flagship” EV charging stations at urban sites with a total of 400 EV charging stalls.

The flagship stations are cobranded by GM Energy, the automaker’s battery and charging division, and EVgo. The stations will be located in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New York, and Texas at places with shopping, food, coffee shops, and other amenities.

Each station will include 20 fast charging stalls with units supporting up to 350kW speeds, pull-through stations, security cameras, and gas station-style canopies with ample lighting. The first locations featuring EVgo’s latest easy-deploying and modular prefabricated charging stations will open in 2025.

Image: EVgo
EVgo’s latest chargers that use a prefabrication approach for faster and cheaper installs.

GM said it has opened 1,000 fast charging stalls with EVgo as of August 2023 and expects to have 2,000 of the planned 2,850 DC fast charging stalls open by the end of the year. The GM / EVgo urban stations are separate from a broader strategy to build a coast-to-coast network with 2,000 DC fast charging stations at up to 500 Pilot and Flying J travel centers.

GM and EVgo have been working together since 2020 to grow their charging network, but GM is also dipping its tires into other charging network solutions. GM has its own Ultium 360 network that connects vehicle owners to third-party networks, and the company is contributing to Ionna, the huge joint venture that includes seven major automakers.

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The new adaptive charging feature could help to save power and preserve the life of controller batteries. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Sony has released a batch of features in its latest PlayStation 5 system update, including support for adaptive controller charging, party link sharing, and a new widget hub. The adaptive charging feature, which monitors and automatically adjusts the power supplied when controllers are connected to the console’s USB ports, is being released globally starting today — but only for the latest PS5 models.
In its announcement, Sony says adaptive charging is only available on the PS5 Slim and its upcoming $700 PS5 Pro. The feature will work on PS5-era DualSense and DualSense Edge wireless controllers, alongside PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers, and the Access adaptive controller kit. Charging is adjusted based on the controller’s current battery levels, which can help save power and extend battery life. If a controller isn’t connected, the console will cut power to the USB port shortly after initiating rest mode.

Image: Sony
Here’s where you can find the new adaptive charging mode within the PS5 console settings.

A new “Welcome hub” is also being released that allows PS5 users to customize their home screen widgets to monitor things like console storage, accessory battery levels, and friends lists. Sony says this is a reimagined version of the Explore tab that was only available in the US, and will be available to “select players” in that region starting today, before rolling out globally in the coming weeks.

Other updates arriving today include the ability to create personalized 3D audio profiles for your headphones or earbuds, and adjustable Remote Play settings to help manage access permissions per individual user. Aside from the adaptive charging update, all of the new features announced today will be available on every PS5 model.
Sony is also expanding party voice chat invitations so they can be shared across messaging and social media apps, allowing users to chat with players who aren’t on their friends lists. This will roll out in the coming weeks, alongside a PlayStation App update that will enable users to share party links from mobile devices.

The new adaptive charging feature could help to save power and preserve the life of controller batteries. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Sony has released a batch of features in its latest PlayStation 5 system update, including support for adaptive controller charging, party link sharing, and a new widget hub. The adaptive charging feature, which monitors and automatically adjusts the power supplied when controllers are connected to the console’s USB ports, is being released globally starting today — but only for the latest PS5 models.

In its announcement, Sony says adaptive charging is only available on the PS5 Slim and its upcoming $700 PS5 Pro. The feature will work on PS5-era DualSense and DualSense Edge wireless controllers, alongside PlayStation VR2 Sense controllers, and the Access adaptive controller kit. Charging is adjusted based on the controller’s current battery levels, which can help save power and extend battery life. If a controller isn’t connected, the console will cut power to the USB port shortly after initiating rest mode.

Image: Sony
Here’s where you can find the new adaptive charging mode within the PS5 console settings.

A new “Welcome hub” is also being released that allows PS5 users to customize their home screen widgets to monitor things like console storage, accessory battery levels, and friends lists. Sony says this is a reimagined version of the Explore tab that was only available in the US, and will be available to “select players” in that region starting today, before rolling out globally in the coming weeks.

Other updates arriving today include the ability to create personalized 3D audio profiles for your headphones or earbuds, and adjustable Remote Play settings to help manage access permissions per individual user. Aside from the adaptive charging update, all of the new features announced today will be available on every PS5 model.

Sony is also expanding party voice chat invitations so they can be shared across messaging and social media apps, allowing users to chat with players who aren’t on their friends lists. This will roll out in the coming weeks, alongside a PlayStation App update that will enable users to share party links from mobile devices.

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Photo by Paul Hennessy / Anadolu via Getty Images

The Starliner debacle fueled speculation that the space agency would dump Boeing. But if it did, it would be left with SpaceX — and Elon Musk. Could things get any worse for Boeing?
Last week, the company’s Starliner spacecraft landed in New Mexico, having made its way home from the International Space Station without its crew. Left behind are two astronauts unexpectedly stuck aboard the ISS for months thanks to Boeing’s failure. They will have to wait to be rescued by Boeing’s archnemesis, SpaceX. The whole thing has been an acute embarrassment for the world’s largest aerospace company already under fire for a series of widely publicized problems with its airplanes.
And yet, while public opinion of Boeing may be dropping fast, NASA has stood by the company and repeatedly expressed its confidence in the spacecraft and its commitment to the relationship.
The whole thing has been an acute embarrassment for the world’s largest aerospace company
That support might be baffling to most people. After all, Starliner is heavily delayed, having been originally intended to perform its first crewed test flight in 2017. And it has faced a series of messy problems during its development, including a failed orbital test flight in 2019. The spacecraft leaked helium on its recent outward journey, and some of its thrusters failed — another black eye for a company that was once the stand-in for quality engineering.
After months of investigation, NASA decided it would rather not put its astronauts on the return leg of the spacecraft’s test flight and would instead leave them on the ISS to be carried home by a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.
It was an underwhelming end to a mission that has been a disappointment for the American space program and a hit to Boeing’s reputation in particular. Originally scheduled to last eight days, the mission ended up stretching over three months of tedious troubleshooting as engineers tried and failed to find a reliable fix for the thrusters.
But NASA won’t throw Boeing under the bus. Its position is clear: the SpaceX Dragon is not enough. The agency wants two commercially operated transport options to carry astronauts to the space station.
“The main goal of the agency’s commercial crew program is two, unique human spaceflight systems,” Steven Siceloff, NASA spokesperson said in comments emailed to The Verge. “Should any one system encounter an issue, NASA still has the capability to launch and return crew to ensure safety and a continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station.”

Photo by Aubrey Gemignani / NASA via Getty Images

Overreliance on the world’s richest man
The reasons for wanting two providers are both practical: NASA can still get its astronauts to the ISS if there is an issue with one company — as happened briefly with SpaceX recently — and also, presumably, because of wariness over a single private company holding that much power over the US’s access to space.
Both House lawmakers and Pentagon officials have expressed concerns over NASA’s reliance on SpaceX, which was only further emphasized by the choice to use a Crew Dragon to carry the Starliner astronauts home. And while SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has enjoyed a broadly positive relationship with the US government, his increasingly temperamental behavior, overt racism, and right-wing political leanings reportedly have officials worried about his control over launch capabilities and space infrastructure through Starlink.
There’s wariness over a single private company holding that much power over the US’s access to space
NASA has made no comment on Musk or his behavior, nor has it waded into the hostilities between SpaceX and Boeing. The agency has expressed public support for both companies in their space development — despite the ongoing disappointments of Boeing’s Starliner program.
NASA is walking a difficult line, dealing with a tight budget while trying to push through expensive and ambitious plans to return to the Moon. It must maintain positive relationships with both of the companies it relies on for transport to the ISS, while still promoting an image of innovation and careful spending to the public and staying out of the increasingly negative news stories about the current state of Boeing and its relationship with SpaceX.
“The companies have some bad feelings toward each other, and their own sets of fans have bad feelings toward each other, and so then NASA, in a sense, is kind of caught in the middle,” said Philip Metzger of the University of Central Florida, who worked at NASA on human space flight programs for over a decade.

Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Weighing the risks to human life
Many of the headlines about the Starliner have focused on the plight of the two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were traveling in the spacecraft. While it’s hard to ascertain the seriousness of the Starliner’s problems until a full review of the mission is completed, it is important to note that the astronauts are safe aboard the space station and are not in any particular danger. Initial reports suggest that they would have been fine had they traveled home on the Starliner as originally planned.
Officials have alluded to a great deal of debate within NASA about whether the Starliner should have been used to fly the astronauts home. But in the end, NASA defaulted to the cautious approach, a norm within the agency that has been in place for decades following the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters in 1986 and 2003, respectively.
NASA didn’t need to use the Starliner because, for the first time, there was another option available. The Starliner would probably have been safe to fly, most observers seemed to agree at the time, but why take the risk? With the SpaceX Dragon, there was a known safe alternative.
“The companies have some bad feelings toward each other”
“In the past, they may have gone ahead and flown it,” Metzger said. And if SpaceX were running its own test flight that experienced similar problems and was in charge of decision-making, he said, it might have chosen to go ahead with the flight, “because SpaceX doesn’t seem to be as cautious as Boeing or NASA.”
It was this culture of risk-taking that allowed SpaceX to rapidly develop its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, which were certified as safe for human spaceflight in 2020. That was still three years after the initial aim of 2017, but it has been in regular use since then, carrying astronauts to the ISS on eight operational NASA commercial crew flights.
The drawbacks of SpaceX’s “move fast and break things” approach are explosive rocket tests like the Starship launches and the environmental damage they cause and a workplace that is reportedly rife with sexism and worker injuries.
When it comes to human spaceflight, the consequences for misjudging a risk could be lethal, and there’s good reason for caution. Developing spaceflight hardware for human use is not like other startup fields or even like satellite deployment, as previous disasters have shown. The total number of companies that have developed a fully orbital human spaceflight vehicle is just two, and it remains to be seen whether SpaceX is the outlier in terms of successful testing or Boeing is.
Now, the future of the Starliner is unclear. NASA has not yet announced whether another test flight will be required before the Starliner can be certified for regular use, and Boeing’s commitment to the program seems to be wavering.
Boeing declined to answer specific questions about the Starliner before its departure but said in a statement, “Boeing continues to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and spacecraft. We are executing the mission as determined by NASA, and we are preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful uncrewed return.”

Photo by Chandan Khanna / AFP via Getty Images

Growing pains of a commercial space sector
One of the reasons that the Starliner program has seemed so scattered from the outside is that it is essentially part of an experiment. When NASA awarded contracts for the commercial crew program in 2011, it signaled a new way of doing business: for this program, NASA would not be paying contractors to build its spacecraft. Rather, it would stay hands-off and allow companies to develop their own designs, on which NASA would purchase seats.
That model takes advantage of growing expertise in the private space sector, but it requires that space exploration be commercially viable. Why would a company develop a spacecraft if it couldn’t make money from it?
Today, we have billionaires like Musk with SpaceX and Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin risking their own capital in service of big space dreams. But for more traditional companies like Boeing, there needs to be a business case to build a spacecraft. With further development work required for the Starliner and the closure of the ISS planned for 2031, it’s not clear if there are enough opportunities for flights to make a reasonable return on investment.
“It’s not easy to find business models that make sense,” Metzger said. “This is the hard problem of space… I don’t think Boeing ever really had a business case.”

Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images

A precarious political balance
To put it mildly, Boeing has had an extremely bad year. From doors that fall off its airplanes and a spacecraft with temperamental thrusters to a workforce threatening to strike, the company has clearly focused more on the bottom line than on quality engineering.
But NASA has notably stood by Boeing, expressing confidence in the company’s ability to get the Starliner working and praising the many things about the Starliner that do work well.
“Spaceflight is one of the most challenging endeavors we undertake as humans, and setbacks are to be expected,” said Siceloff, the NASA spokesperson. “What’s important is how our teams work together to understand the challenges experienced and implement changes to move forward.”
That response can seem puzzling, as NASA has spent billions of dollars with no working spacecraft to show for it. But NASA isn’t going to publicly criticize Boeing because it was heavily involved in the decision to fly the Starliner, and it is toeing a careful line between public relations and political support.
“They don’t want to attack commercial companies,” Metzger said. “They don’t want to disaffect the precarious political balance that they’ve achieved in Congress, which has enabled funding these programs.”
The politicking of what jobs are being sent to what states by what businesses and the impact that has on congressional funding is the reality of the US’s dreamy ambitions of space exploration. But that’s the nature of trying to get things done in a publicly funded agency.
“People don’t like the way NASA is doing business right now. But what I like to say is, ‘The space program that gets funded is better than every space program that gets canceled,’” Metzger said. “If you can’t get through the political process, then, by definition, your space program is a failure.”
Financially, NASA comes out on top
When it comes down to it, despite all of the issues with the Starliner, NASA is making out quite well. Unlike most NASA projects, Boeing and SpaceX are on a fixed-price services contract — so NASA is only required to pay a fixed sum for use of a spacecraft, while delays or overruns are paid by the companies.
“From a purely financial perspective, this continues to be a great financial deal for the space agency because they’re not paying the overruns to either company,” explained Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society. The overruns for the ongoing Starliner disaster are being paid for by Boeing, not NASA.
According to a report by The Planetary Society, the per-seat cost of a flight on a Starliner or Crew Dragon spacecraft is a fraction of that of historical programs like Space Shuttle and Apollo or NASA’s current Orion spacecraft. It’s hard to make direct comparisons because those programs have different aims from commercial crew, but they indicate the high costs that had previously been typical of human spaceflight.
“This continues to be a great financial deal for the space agency”
NASA saves money by not having to rent expensive seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft or develop its own alternative and instead pays SpaceX for each ride. With a regular cadence of astronauts traveling to and from the ISS, the payment for those rides should cover the cost of developing the Dragon.
Compared to SpaceX, though, Boeing has clearly struggled. NASA awarded a $4.2 billion contract to Boeing for the Starliner but paid just $2.6 billion to SpaceX for the Crew Dragon — and the Crew Dragon has been in successful operation since 2020.
That’s part of Boeing’s problem: it needs to clear an extremely high bar. “SpaceX has been so wildly successful that I think it’s created this paradigm of expectation that these will all work and deliver fantastic results for less money,” Dreier said. “And it’s like, well, there’s only really one company like SpaceX. That’s SpaceX.”
Boeing is picking up a $1.6 billion bill
Again, the $1.6 billion in cost overruns for the Starliner is being paid by Boeing and not NASA. The company’s then-CEO, Dave Calhoun, said that the company would never take on a fixed-price contract again. But this points to a different kind of risk: what happens if Boeing cuts its losses and walks away from the project entirely?
A report released on Tuesday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine throws some cold water on NASA’s optimism about commercial partnerships. It warns that continuing to outsource highly specialized projects to commercial entities could erode NASA’s internal expertise and leadership — essentially, that NASA could become an organization of middle managers rather than engineers.
NASA could become an organization of middle managers rather than engineers
And it raises the risk that comes from a commercial provider failing to deliver on its contract or exiting the market altogether. In the case of Boeing, the company is big enough to absorb the financial hit of a long development process, but some of the smaller companies NASA is now contracting for lunar projects may not be.
When the Starliner landed safely, NASA officials were quick to point out all that went well in its test flight and to reiterate their confidence that Starliner would fly astronauts in the future.
Boeing’s response, however, was rather tepid. The company has yet to state a firm commitment to the Starliner’s future, and in a brief statement, Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing’s commercial crew program, said, “I want to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, re-entry and landing. We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program.”
If Boeing bows out, it could potentially license the Starliner to another operator, Metzger speculated, where it could be used for tourist flights or trips to planned commercial space stations.
But Dreier thinks it’s unlikely that Boeing would walk away from the Starliner at this point. There’s still $1.9 billion of potential revenue on the table, not to mention the reputational hit of giving up on the spacecraft.
“Boeing happens to be a fantastically rich, deep-pocketed aerospace contractor that pulls in $50 billion a year, mainly from government contracts, so they can absorb a $1.6 billion loss,” Dreier said. “It’s too high profile of a project for them to give up on.”

Image: Kirk Sides / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images

How the sausage gets made
In the short term, there’s no doubt that Boeing has dramatically underperformed in its development of the Starliner, especially when compared to SpaceX. But in the long run, having two commercial providers of transport is essential — and still a great deal for NASA.
When held up next to the endlessly ballooning costs and excesses of other NASA programs such as the agency’s Space Launch System rocket, the commercial crew program stands out as promoting exactly the kind of fierce competition between companies that is said to drive innovation and lower costs. Many people have called for NASA to take more risks and to meet the lean startup culture that now characterizes the upper echelons of American businesses. “This is exactly what we want NASA to be doing,” Dreier said. “I think NASA should be very pleased with everything that’s happened, despite what is going on at Boeing.”
NASA, of course, isn’t a startup. It must balance a drive for efficiency and speed with the need to keep astronauts safe and prevent another nationally traumatizing catastrophe.
But most importantly, there’s a pressing need to avoid a single US provider controlling access to the ISS. SpaceX’s dominance in space has already resulted in Musk having an outsize influence on global politics, concentrating more power in the hands of one man whose judgment appears dubious at best. The only way to hedge against this is to have a second provider available.
Even after the embarrassment of the Starliner, Boeing is still its best bet.

Photo by Paul Hennessy / Anadolu via Getty Images

The Starliner debacle fueled speculation that the space agency would dump Boeing. But if it did, it would be left with SpaceX — and Elon Musk.

Could things get any worse for Boeing?

Last week, the company’s Starliner spacecraft landed in New Mexico, having made its way home from the International Space Station without its crew. Left behind are two astronauts unexpectedly stuck aboard the ISS for months thanks to Boeing’s failure. They will have to wait to be rescued by Boeing’s archnemesis, SpaceX. The whole thing has been an acute embarrassment for the world’s largest aerospace company already under fire for a series of widely publicized problems with its airplanes.

And yet, while public opinion of Boeing may be dropping fast, NASA has stood by the company and repeatedly expressed its confidence in the spacecraft and its commitment to the relationship.

That support might be baffling to most people. After all, Starliner is heavily delayed, having been originally intended to perform its first crewed test flight in 2017. And it has faced a series of messy problems during its development, including a failed orbital test flight in 2019. The spacecraft leaked helium on its recent outward journey, and some of its thrusters failed — another black eye for a company that was once the stand-in for quality engineering.

After months of investigation, NASA decided it would rather not put its astronauts on the return leg of the spacecraft’s test flight and would instead leave them on the ISS to be carried home by a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

It was an underwhelming end to a mission that has been a disappointment for the American space program and a hit to Boeing’s reputation in particular. Originally scheduled to last eight days, the mission ended up stretching over three months of tedious troubleshooting as engineers tried and failed to find a reliable fix for the thrusters.

But NASA won’t throw Boeing under the bus. Its position is clear: the SpaceX Dragon is not enough. The agency wants two commercially operated transport options to carry astronauts to the space station.

“The main goal of the agency’s commercial crew program is two, unique human spaceflight systems,” Steven Siceloff, NASA spokesperson said in comments emailed to The Verge. “Should any one system encounter an issue, NASA still has the capability to launch and return crew to ensure safety and a continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station.”

Overreliance on the world’s richest man

The reasons for wanting two providers are both practical: NASA can still get its astronauts to the ISS if there is an issue with one company — as happened briefly with SpaceX recently — and also, presumably, because of wariness over a single private company holding that much power over the US’s access to space.

Both House lawmakers and Pentagon officials have expressed concerns over NASA’s reliance on SpaceX, which was only further emphasized by the choice to use a Crew Dragon to carry the Starliner astronauts home. And while SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has enjoyed a broadly positive relationship with the US government, his increasingly temperamental behavior, overt racism, and right-wing political leanings reportedly have officials worried about his control over launch capabilities and space infrastructure through Starlink.

NASA has made no comment on Musk or his behavior, nor has it waded into the hostilities between SpaceX and Boeing. The agency has expressed public support for both companies in their space development — despite the ongoing disappointments of Boeing’s Starliner program.

NASA is walking a difficult line, dealing with a tight budget while trying to push through expensive and ambitious plans to return to the Moon. It must maintain positive relationships with both of the companies it relies on for transport to the ISS, while still promoting an image of innovation and careful spending to the public and staying out of the increasingly negative news stories about the current state of Boeing and its relationship with SpaceX.

“The companies have some bad feelings toward each other, and their own sets of fans have bad feelings toward each other, and so then NASA, in a sense, is kind of caught in the middle,” said Philip Metzger of the University of Central Florida, who worked at NASA on human space flight programs for over a decade.

Weighing the risks to human life

Many of the headlines about the Starliner have focused on the plight of the two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who were traveling in the spacecraft. While it’s hard to ascertain the seriousness of the Starliner’s problems until a full review of the mission is completed, it is important to note that the astronauts are safe aboard the space station and are not in any particular danger. Initial reports suggest that they would have been fine had they traveled home on the Starliner as originally planned.

Officials have alluded to a great deal of debate within NASA about whether the Starliner should have been used to fly the astronauts home. But in the end, NASA defaulted to the cautious approach, a norm within the agency that has been in place for decades following the Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters in 1986 and 2003, respectively.

NASA didn’t need to use the Starliner because, for the first time, there was another option available. The Starliner would probably have been safe to fly, most observers seemed to agree at the time, but why take the risk? With the SpaceX Dragon, there was a known safe alternative.

“In the past, they may have gone ahead and flown it,” Metzger said. And if SpaceX were running its own test flight that experienced similar problems and was in charge of decision-making, he said, it might have chosen to go ahead with the flight, “because SpaceX doesn’t seem to be as cautious as Boeing or NASA.”

It was this culture of risk-taking that allowed SpaceX to rapidly develop its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft, which were certified as safe for human spaceflight in 2020. That was still three years after the initial aim of 2017, but it has been in regular use since then, carrying astronauts to the ISS on eight operational NASA commercial crew flights.

The drawbacks of SpaceX’s “move fast and break things” approach are explosive rocket tests like the Starship launches and the environmental damage they cause and a workplace that is reportedly rife with sexism and worker injuries.

When it comes to human spaceflight, the consequences for misjudging a risk could be lethal, and there’s good reason for caution. Developing spaceflight hardware for human use is not like other startup fields or even like satellite deployment, as previous disasters have shown. The total number of companies that have developed a fully orbital human spaceflight vehicle is just two, and it remains to be seen whether SpaceX is the outlier in terms of successful testing or Boeing is.

Now, the future of the Starliner is unclear. NASA has not yet announced whether another test flight will be required before the Starliner can be certified for regular use, and Boeing’s commitment to the program seems to be wavering.

Boeing declined to answer specific questions about the Starliner before its departure but said in a statement, “Boeing continues to focus, first and foremost, on the safety of the crew and spacecraft. We are executing the mission as determined by NASA, and we are preparing the spacecraft for a safe and successful uncrewed return.”

Growing pains of a commercial space sector

One of the reasons that the Starliner program has seemed so scattered from the outside is that it is essentially part of an experiment. When NASA awarded contracts for the commercial crew program in 2011, it signaled a new way of doing business: for this program, NASA would not be paying contractors to build its spacecraft. Rather, it would stay hands-off and allow companies to develop their own designs, on which NASA would purchase seats.

That model takes advantage of growing expertise in the private space sector, but it requires that space exploration be commercially viable. Why would a company develop a spacecraft if it couldn’t make money from it?

Today, we have billionaires like Musk with SpaceX and Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin risking their own capital in service of big space dreams. But for more traditional companies like Boeing, there needs to be a business case to build a spacecraft. With further development work required for the Starliner and the closure of the ISS planned for 2031, it’s not clear if there are enough opportunities for flights to make a reasonable return on investment.

“It’s not easy to find business models that make sense,” Metzger said. “This is the hard problem of space… I don’t think Boeing ever really had a business case.”

A precarious political balance

To put it mildly, Boeing has had an extremely bad year. From doors that fall off its airplanes and a spacecraft with temperamental thrusters to a workforce threatening to strike, the company has clearly focused more on the bottom line than on quality engineering.

But NASA has notably stood by Boeing, expressing confidence in the company’s ability to get the Starliner working and praising the many things about the Starliner that do work well.

“Spaceflight is one of the most challenging endeavors we undertake as humans, and setbacks are to be expected,” said Siceloff, the NASA spokesperson. “What’s important is how our teams work together to understand the challenges experienced and implement changes to move forward.”

That response can seem puzzling, as NASA has spent billions of dollars with no working spacecraft to show for it. But NASA isn’t going to publicly criticize Boeing because it was heavily involved in the decision to fly the Starliner, and it is toeing a careful line between public relations and political support.

“They don’t want to attack commercial companies,” Metzger said. “They don’t want to disaffect the precarious political balance that they’ve achieved in Congress, which has enabled funding these programs.”

The politicking of what jobs are being sent to what states by what businesses and the impact that has on congressional funding is the reality of the US’s dreamy ambitions of space exploration. But that’s the nature of trying to get things done in a publicly funded agency.

“People don’t like the way NASA is doing business right now. But what I like to say is, ‘The space program that gets funded is better than every space program that gets canceled,’” Metzger said. “If you can’t get through the political process, then, by definition, your space program is a failure.”

Financially, NASA comes out on top

When it comes down to it, despite all of the issues with the Starliner, NASA is making out quite well. Unlike most NASA projects, Boeing and SpaceX are on a fixed-price services contract — so NASA is only required to pay a fixed sum for use of a spacecraft, while delays or overruns are paid by the companies.

“From a purely financial perspective, this continues to be a great financial deal for the space agency because they’re not paying the overruns to either company,” explained Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society. The overruns for the ongoing Starliner disaster are being paid for by Boeing, not NASA.

According to a report by The Planetary Society, the per-seat cost of a flight on a Starliner or Crew Dragon spacecraft is a fraction of that of historical programs like Space Shuttle and Apollo or NASA’s current Orion spacecraft. It’s hard to make direct comparisons because those programs have different aims from commercial crew, but they indicate the high costs that had previously been typical of human spaceflight.

NASA saves money by not having to rent expensive seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft or develop its own alternative and instead pays SpaceX for each ride. With a regular cadence of astronauts traveling to and from the ISS, the payment for those rides should cover the cost of developing the Dragon.

Compared to SpaceX, though, Boeing has clearly struggled. NASA awarded a $4.2 billion contract to Boeing for the Starliner but paid just $2.6 billion to SpaceX for the Crew Dragon — and the Crew Dragon has been in successful operation since 2020.

That’s part of Boeing’s problem: it needs to clear an extremely high bar. “SpaceX has been so wildly successful that I think it’s created this paradigm of expectation that these will all work and deliver fantastic results for less money,” Dreier said. “And it’s like, well, there’s only really one company like SpaceX. That’s SpaceX.”

Boeing is picking up a $1.6 billion bill

Again, the $1.6 billion in cost overruns for the Starliner is being paid by Boeing and not NASA. The company’s then-CEO, Dave Calhoun, said that the company would never take on a fixed-price contract again. But this points to a different kind of risk: what happens if Boeing cuts its losses and walks away from the project entirely?

A report released on Tuesday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine throws some cold water on NASA’s optimism about commercial partnerships. It warns that continuing to outsource highly specialized projects to commercial entities could erode NASA’s internal expertise and leadership — essentially, that NASA could become an organization of middle managers rather than engineers.

And it raises the risk that comes from a commercial provider failing to deliver on its contract or exiting the market altogether. In the case of Boeing, the company is big enough to absorb the financial hit of a long development process, but some of the smaller companies NASA is now contracting for lunar projects may not be.

When the Starliner landed safely, NASA officials were quick to point out all that went well in its test flight and to reiterate their confidence that Starliner would fly astronauts in the future.

Boeing’s response, however, was rather tepid. The company has yet to state a firm commitment to the Starliner’s future, and in a brief statement, Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing’s commercial crew program, said, “I want to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, re-entry and landing. We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program.”

If Boeing bows out, it could potentially license the Starliner to another operator, Metzger speculated, where it could be used for tourist flights or trips to planned commercial space stations.

But Dreier thinks it’s unlikely that Boeing would walk away from the Starliner at this point. There’s still $1.9 billion of potential revenue on the table, not to mention the reputational hit of giving up on the spacecraft.

“Boeing happens to be a fantastically rich, deep-pocketed aerospace contractor that pulls in $50 billion a year, mainly from government contracts, so they can absorb a $1.6 billion loss,” Dreier said. “It’s too high profile of a project for them to give up on.”

How the sausage gets made

In the short term, there’s no doubt that Boeing has dramatically underperformed in its development of the Starliner, especially when compared to SpaceX. But in the long run, having two commercial providers of transport is essential — and still a great deal for NASA.

When held up next to the endlessly ballooning costs and excesses of other NASA programs such as the agency’s Space Launch System rocket, the commercial crew program stands out as promoting exactly the kind of fierce competition between companies that is said to drive innovation and lower costs. Many people have called for NASA to take more risks and to meet the lean startup culture that now characterizes the upper echelons of American businesses. “This is exactly what we want NASA to be doing,” Dreier said. “I think NASA should be very pleased with everything that’s happened, despite what is going on at Boeing.”

NASA, of course, isn’t a startup. It must balance a drive for efficiency and speed with the need to keep astronauts safe and prevent another nationally traumatizing catastrophe.

But most importantly, there’s a pressing need to avoid a single US provider controlling access to the ISS. SpaceX’s dominance in space has already resulted in Musk having an outsize influence on global politics, concentrating more power in the hands of one man whose judgment appears dubious at best. The only way to hedge against this is to have a second provider available.

Even after the embarrassment of the Starliner, Boeing is still its best bet.

Read More 

Image: The Verge

Microsoft is laying off around 650 employees in its gaming division today. The latest cuts come months after Microsoft laid off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees, and after the closure of several game studios, including Redfall developer Arkane Austin.
Xbox chief Phil Spencer announced the layoffs to employees in an internal memo this morning, seen by The Verge. The cuts are related to the Activision Blizzard deal, and Spencer makes it clear in his email that “no games, devices or experiences are being cancelled” and no studios are being closed as part of the layoffs today.
“As part of aligning our post-acquisition team structure and managing our business, we have made the decision to eliminate approximately 650 roles across Microsoft Gaming — mostly corporate and supporting functions — to organize our business for long term success,” says Spencer.
Microsoft completed its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October, following months of battles with regulators in the UK and US. Here’s Phil Spencer’s memo in full:

For the past year, our goal has been to minimize disruption while welcoming new teams and enabling them to do their best work. As part of aligning our post-acquisition team structure and managing our business, we have made the decision to eliminate approximately 650 roles across Microsoft Gaming — mostly corporate and supporting functions — to organize our business for long term success.
I know that this is difficult news to hear. We are deeply grateful for the contributions of our colleagues who are learning they are impacted. In the US, we’re supporting them with exit packages that include severance, extended healthcare, and outplacement services to help with their transition; outside the US packages will differ according to location.
With these changes, our corporate and supporting teams and resources are aligned for sustainable future growth, and can better support our studio teams and business units with programs and resources that can scale to meet their needs. Separately, as part of running the business, there are some impacts to other teams as they adapt to shifting priorities and manage the lifecycle and performance of games. No games, devices or experiences are being cancelled and no studios are being closed as part of these adjustments today.
Throughout our team’s history, we have had great moments, and we have had challenging ones. Today is one of the challenging days. I know that going through more changes like this is hard, but even in the most trying times, this team has been able to come together and show one another care and kindness as we work to continue delivering for our players. We appreciate your support as we navigate these changes and we thank you for your compassion and respect for each other.
Phil

Image: The Verge

Microsoft is laying off around 650 employees in its gaming division today. The latest cuts come months after Microsoft laid off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees, and after the closure of several game studios, including Redfall developer Arkane Austin.

Xbox chief Phil Spencer announced the layoffs to employees in an internal memo this morning, seen by The Verge. The cuts are related to the Activision Blizzard deal, and Spencer makes it clear in his email that “no games, devices or experiences are being cancelled” and no studios are being closed as part of the layoffs today.

“As part of aligning our post-acquisition team structure and managing our business, we have made the decision to eliminate approximately 650 roles across Microsoft Gaming — mostly corporate and supporting functions — to organize our business for long term success,” says Spencer.

Microsoft completed its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October, following months of battles with regulators in the UK and US. Here’s Phil Spencer’s memo in full:

For the past year, our goal has been to minimize disruption while welcoming new teams and enabling them to do their best work. As part of aligning our post-acquisition team structure and managing our business, we have made the decision to eliminate approximately 650 roles across Microsoft Gaming — mostly corporate and supporting functions — to organize our business for long term success.

I know that this is difficult news to hear. We are deeply grateful for the contributions of our colleagues who are learning they are impacted. In the US, we’re supporting them with exit packages that include severance, extended healthcare, and outplacement services to help with their transition; outside the US packages will differ according to location.

With these changes, our corporate and supporting teams and resources are aligned for sustainable future growth, and can better support our studio teams and business units with programs and resources that can scale to meet their needs. Separately, as part of running the business, there are some impacts to other teams as they adapt to shifting priorities and manage the lifecycle and performance of games. No games, devices or experiences are being cancelled and no studios are being closed as part of these adjustments today.

Throughout our team’s history, we have had great moments, and we have had challenging ones. Today is one of the challenging days. I know that going through more changes like this is hard, but even in the most trying times, this team has been able to come together and show one another care and kindness as we work to continue delivering for our players. We appreciate your support as we navigate these changes and we thank you for your compassion and respect for each other.

Phil

Read More 

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Between flashy shots of a sleek new Apple Watch and a colorful array of iPhones, Apple made a major announcement for a two-year-old product: the AirPods Pro 2. The earbuds will soon gain a hearing aid function that anyone can access, a move that will provide a cheaper alternative to traditional hearing aids and an all-in-one solution that could change the way people get help for hearing loss.
The Food and Drug Administration signed off on over-the-counter hearing aids in 2022, giving people access to cheaper alternatives that don’t require them to see a doctor. Provided Apple receives approval from the FDA, Apple’s new “clinical-grade” over-the-counter hearing aid capability will roll out as a free software update this fall. Some people with hearing loss have already used the AirPods Pro as a way to amplify sound, but this update will have the FDA’s stamp of approval and will come with a few other benefits.
Instead of seeing a doctor to get set up with hearing aids, people will be able to take Apple’s five-minute hearing test at home. Users will also be able to create a personalized hearing profile that allows the AirPods Pro 2 to boost the volume of sounds, such as speech or noises within the wearer’s surrounding environment, based on specific hearing needs. The buds will also automatically adjust the audio across a person’s iPhone, iPad, or Mac, whether they’re on a phone call, listening to music, or playing a game. Apple will give users access to their hearing test results within the Health app, where they can retake the test at any time to monitor their hearing.

Since AirPods are just about everywhere at this point, this rollout means a lot of people who already own the second-gen Pro buds will get instant access to Apple’s hearing aid solution. Now, if someone suspects they may have a hearing issue, instead of just cranking up the volume on the TV, they can theoretically get the help they need by popping in the AirPods Pro they already own and turning on some features. That’s something existing OTC hearing aid providers just can’t compete with.
Previously, the second-generation AirPods Pro were considered personal sound amplification products (PSAPs), which aren’t replacements for full-fledged hearing aids. They lacked FDA clearance and any kind of official hearing tests but did include accessibility features like Live Listen and Conversation Boost, which can increase volume and enhance the sound of someone’s voice during a conversation.
“This is a tidal wave in hearing healthcare that just hit the shore.”
Now, the buds will offer an all-in-one solution that not only (hopefully) helps people hear better but also has a hearing protection feature to filter out loud noises. “The longer you live with hearing loss, the more you realize that you want to protect the hearing that you’ve got,” Nancy M. Williams, the founder and president of Auditory Insight, a hearing healthcare consulting firm, tells The Verge. “Paying attention to protection is almost as important as providing assistance to people with hearing loss.”
The AirPods Pro 2 have plenty of other perks, too, including a transparency mode that lets in ambient sound from the surrounding environment as well as conversation awareness that automatically detects when someone is speaking to enhance their voice while lowering media volume. So far, no other OTC hearing aid offers a full-featured solution like this. “This is a tidal wave in hearing healthcare that just hit the shore,” Williams says.

Image: Apple

Plus, so many people have AirPods glued to their ears all day that those with hearing loss might feel more comfortable wearing them compared to other options. Other brands, like Sony, Jabra, Sennheiser, and even HP, have launched OTC hearing aids, but none are as ubiquitous as the AirPods Pro 2. “We believe a significant segment of people who are untreated and have hearing loss are holding back because of stigma,” Williams says. “No one knows to what extent your AirPods Pro 2 are providing hearing assistance. It’s an invisible amount of assistance that’s being applied, and that’s, I think, a very powerful thing for people who suffer from stigma.”
Along with reducing stigma, the AirPods Pro 2 should also break barriers surrounding price. “The price difference alone will completely shake up the market,” Anshel Sag, analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, posted on Threads. At $249, Apple’s AirPods Pro 2 are far cheaper than most other OTC hearing aids, such as Sony’s $1,099 CRE-E10 self-fitting hearing aids or Jabra’s Enhance Select 50R, which start at $995. The big caveat is that users will still need an iPhone with iOS 18 and newer for this new feature to work. Depending on which iPhone model a user already has or wants to get, the total cost of Apple’s hearing aid setup may exceed other OTC options. Despite this, any of these options are still cheaper than your typical prescription hearing aid, which costs an average of $2,300.
A major drawback is that AirPods Pro 2 wearers won’t benefit from the same lengthy battery life they might get when using more expensive OTC or prescription options. The AirPods Pro 2 offer up to six hours of listening time on a single charge, as opposed to Sony’s CRE-E10, which offer up to 26 hours of continuous usage. “That’s a problem for people on the more severe end of the mild to moderate category,” Williams says. “The more severe someone’s hearing loss is — and the more interested they are in having hearing enhancement throughout the day — the more battery life becomes a significant drawback.”
Even with less-than-ideal battery life, the AirPods Pro 2 have the potential to open up access to hearing aids to the millions of people who own them. And because they’re AirPods, they’re basically the most visible — but invisible — hearing aids ever.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Between flashy shots of a sleek new Apple Watch and a colorful array of iPhones, Apple made a major announcement for a two-year-old product: the AirPods Pro 2. The earbuds will soon gain a hearing aid function that anyone can access, a move that will provide a cheaper alternative to traditional hearing aids and an all-in-one solution that could change the way people get help for hearing loss.

The Food and Drug Administration signed off on over-the-counter hearing aids in 2022, giving people access to cheaper alternatives that don’t require them to see a doctor. Provided Apple receives approval from the FDA, Apple’s new “clinical-grade” over-the-counter hearing aid capability will roll out as a free software update this fall. Some people with hearing loss have already used the AirPods Pro as a way to amplify sound, but this update will have the FDA’s stamp of approval and will come with a few other benefits.

Instead of seeing a doctor to get set up with hearing aids, people will be able to take Apple’s five-minute hearing test at home. Users will also be able to create a personalized hearing profile that allows the AirPods Pro 2 to boost the volume of sounds, such as speech or noises within the wearer’s surrounding environment, based on specific hearing needs. The buds will also automatically adjust the audio across a person’s iPhone, iPad, or Mac, whether they’re on a phone call, listening to music, or playing a game. Apple will give users access to their hearing test results within the Health app, where they can retake the test at any time to monitor their hearing.

Since AirPods are just about everywhere at this point, this rollout means a lot of people who already own the second-gen Pro buds will get instant access to Apple’s hearing aid solution. Now, if someone suspects they may have a hearing issue, instead of just cranking up the volume on the TV, they can theoretically get the help they need by popping in the AirPods Pro they already own and turning on some features. That’s something existing OTC hearing aid providers just can’t compete with.

Previously, the second-generation AirPods Pro were considered personal sound amplification products (PSAPs), which aren’t replacements for full-fledged hearing aids. They lacked FDA clearance and any kind of official hearing tests but did include accessibility features like Live Listen and Conversation Boost, which can increase volume and enhance the sound of someone’s voice during a conversation.

Now, the buds will offer an all-in-one solution that not only (hopefully) helps people hear better but also has a hearing protection feature to filter out loud noises. “The longer you live with hearing loss, the more you realize that you want to protect the hearing that you’ve got,” Nancy M. Williams, the founder and president of Auditory Insight, a hearing healthcare consulting firm, tells The Verge. “Paying attention to protection is almost as important as providing assistance to people with hearing loss.”

The AirPods Pro 2 have plenty of other perks, too, including a transparency mode that lets in ambient sound from the surrounding environment as well as conversation awareness that automatically detects when someone is speaking to enhance their voice while lowering media volume. So far, no other OTC hearing aid offers a full-featured solution like this. “This is a tidal wave in hearing healthcare that just hit the shore,” Williams says.

Image: Apple

Plus, so many people have AirPods glued to their ears all day that those with hearing loss might feel more comfortable wearing them compared to other options. Other brands, like Sony, Jabra, Sennheiser, and even HP, have launched OTC hearing aids, but none are as ubiquitous as the AirPods Pro 2. “We believe a significant segment of people who are untreated and have hearing loss are holding back because of stigma,” Williams says. “No one knows to what extent your AirPods Pro 2 are providing hearing assistance. It’s an invisible amount of assistance that’s being applied, and that’s, I think, a very powerful thing for people who suffer from stigma.”

Along with reducing stigma, the AirPods Pro 2 should also break barriers surrounding price. “The price difference alone will completely shake up the market,” Anshel Sag, analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, posted on Threads. At $249, Apple’s AirPods Pro 2 are far cheaper than most other OTC hearing aids, such as Sony’s $1,099 CRE-E10 self-fitting hearing aids or Jabra’s Enhance Select 50R, which start at $995. The big caveat is that users will still need an iPhone with iOS 18 and newer for this new feature to work. Depending on which iPhone model a user already has or wants to get, the total cost of Apple’s hearing aid setup may exceed other OTC options. Despite this, any of these options are still cheaper than your typical prescription hearing aid, which costs an average of $2,300.

A major drawback is that AirPods Pro 2 wearers won’t benefit from the same lengthy battery life they might get when using more expensive OTC or prescription options. The AirPods Pro 2 offer up to six hours of listening time on a single charge, as opposed to Sony’s CRE-E10, which offer up to 26 hours of continuous usage. “That’s a problem for people on the more severe end of the mild to moderate category,” Williams says. “The more severe someone’s hearing loss is — and the more interested they are in having hearing enhancement throughout the day — the more battery life becomes a significant drawback.”

Even with less-than-ideal battery life, the AirPods Pro 2 have the potential to open up access to hearing aids to the millions of people who own them. And because they’re AirPods, they’re basically the most visible — but invisible — hearing aids ever.

Read More 

The entire iPhone 16 lineup also supports faster 25W MagSafe charging. | Image: The Verge

All the new iPhone 16 models unveiled this week can reportedly charge more than 50 percent faster through a wired USB-C connection than the previous series. That’s according to a Chinese certification posted on Weibo indicating that Apple’s latest iPhones can support up to 45W of wired fast charging.
The certification from the China Quality Certification Centre regulatory body, also posted to X by user ShrimpApplePro, shows all of the new iPhone 16 models were tested at 5-15 volts and 3 amps, which equates to a 45W maximum. The iPhone 15 lineup maxed out at 29W. As noted by 9To5Mac, it’s not unusual for Apple to neglect announcements around wired charging.
The 45W max of the iPhone 16 easily bests the Google Pixel 9’s 27W capabilities (37W for the Pixel 9 Pro XL) and is on par with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. But these all fall significantly short of the 240W-plus fast charging capabilities of some Chinese phones — including Realme’s upcoming 320W fast charging tech.
Still, we’ll take what we can get. The latest iPhones also feature faster wireless charging now that MagSafe can deliver up to 25W when paired with a 30W power adapter, up from 15W on previous iPhone models and the Qi2 standard.

The entire iPhone 16 lineup also supports faster 25W MagSafe charging. | Image: The Verge

All the new iPhone 16 models unveiled this week can reportedly charge more than 50 percent faster through a wired USB-C connection than the previous series. That’s according to a Chinese certification posted on Weibo indicating that Apple’s latest iPhones can support up to 45W of wired fast charging.

The certification from the China Quality Certification Centre regulatory body, also posted to X by user ShrimpApplePro, shows all of the new iPhone 16 models were tested at 5-15 volts and 3 amps, which equates to a 45W maximum. The iPhone 15 lineup maxed out at 29W. As noted by 9To5Mac, it’s not unusual for Apple to neglect announcements around wired charging.

The 45W max of the iPhone 16 easily bests the Google Pixel 9’s 27W capabilities (37W for the Pixel 9 Pro XL) and is on par with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. But these all fall significantly short of the 240W-plus fast charging capabilities of some Chinese phones — including Realme’s upcoming 320W fast charging tech.

Still, we’ll take what we can get. The latest iPhones also feature faster wireless charging now that MagSafe can deliver up to 25W when paired with a 30W power adapter, up from 15W on previous iPhone models and the Qi2 standard.

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Image: The Verge

Valve’s new Steam Families feature is now available for everyone following a beta launch earlier this year. With Steam Families, parents are able to share games with their families, manage parental controls for their kids, and approve requests from their kids to buy Steam games.
The big improvement with Steam Families over Valve’s previous Family Sharing setup is that multiple people can play games from a shared library at one time. So if I’m playing Balatro and my partner, who is part of my Steam Family, wants to play Arranger, we can both play those games at the same time. However, if my partner wants to play Balatro while I’m already playing it, she’ll need to buy an additional copy. With Steam Families, you can play shared games offline, too.

Valve says that Steam Families are “intended to contain your immediate family” and that they can include “up to 6 close family members.” Each member of a Steam Family will have their own save games and earn their own achievements. Adults can leave a Steam Family at any time, but if they do, they’ll have to wait a year before they can start or join a new Family. Children can only be removed by a Steam Family by an adult or with the help of Steam support.
In a video, Valve says that the old Family Sharing feature will be retired “eventually,” so if you’ve been using that, you might want to set up Steam Families instead.
You can start using Steam Families by updating Steam. The newest Steam client update has a handful of other updates, too, including a redesigned screenshots manager.

Image: The Verge

Valve’s new Steam Families feature is now available for everyone following a beta launch earlier this year. With Steam Families, parents are able to share games with their families, manage parental controls for their kids, and approve requests from their kids to buy Steam games.

The big improvement with Steam Families over Valve’s previous Family Sharing setup is that multiple people can play games from a shared library at one time. So if I’m playing Balatro and my partner, who is part of my Steam Family, wants to play Arranger, we can both play those games at the same time. However, if my partner wants to play Balatro while I’m already playing it, she’ll need to buy an additional copy. With Steam Families, you can play shared games offline, too.

Valve says that Steam Families are “intended to contain your immediate family” and that they can include “up to 6 close family members.” Each member of a Steam Family will have their own save games and earn their own achievements. Adults can leave a Steam Family at any time, but if they do, they’ll have to wait a year before they can start or join a new Family. Children can only be removed by a Steam Family by an adult or with the help of Steam support.

In a video, Valve says that the old Family Sharing feature will be retired “eventually,” so if you’ve been using that, you might want to set up Steam Families instead.

You can start using Steam Families by updating Steam. The newest Steam client update has a handful of other updates, too, including a redesigned screenshots manager.

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Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Getty Images

Google can now turn your research into an AI-generated podcast, complete with two “hosts” that discuss what you’ve dug up. The experimental feature lives within NotebookLM, the AI note-taking app Google launched last year, and will have AI hosts “summarize your material, make connections between topics, and banter back and forth.”
It’s meant to build on NotebookLM’s existing features that help you interact with all your notes, transcripts, and other research documents. The app already uses Google’s Gemini AI model to help summarize your research, and this is sort of like an audio version of that.
Google isn’t making things up when it says the AI hosts will “banter” with each other, either. When trying out Audio Overview for myself, I plugged in one of the sample notebooks about the invention of the lightbulb, and the results were… a bit uncanny. During the 10-minute-long overview, the two hosts had a lighthearted discussion about how Thomas Edison wasn’t the only person behind the lightbulb and that “in the end, it’s actually a story about teamwork, making the dream work.”

Image: Google

The hosts could almost be mistaken for human podcasters, from the way they emphasized “bam!” when tossing it in the middle of a sentence, to using modern phrasing like “messy as heck.” There were still a couple of quirks, as I noticed the AI spelling out certain words and phrases, like “P-L-U-S.” Some of the writing wasn’t exactly what a human would say, either, with one AI host calling platinum “bling bling metal.”
The feature makes learning about research more engaging, but I’m wondering whether the hosts would maintain their lighthearted, somewhat jokey tone when discussing more serious topics, like cancer or war. There’s quite a bit of filler during the conversation as well, so it might not be the best way to quickly and clearly distill all your information. That’s something Google mentions in its announcement, as it says the feature is “not a comprehensive or objective view of a topic, but simply a reflection” of your notes.

There are some other limitations to Audio Overview as well, as Google says it could take several minutes to generate a podcast-like discussion, and it’s only available in English. Like many AI tools, it isn’t always accurate.
You can try out the feature for yourself by opening up a notebook in NotebookLM. From there, select the Notebook guide in the bottom-right corner of the screen, and then hit Load beneath the “Audio Overview” heading. I know I’m going to be doing some research on a random topic just so I can hear what the AI podcasters have to say.

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Getty Images

Google can now turn your research into an AI-generated podcast, complete with two “hosts” that discuss what you’ve dug up. The experimental feature lives within NotebookLM, the AI note-taking app Google launched last year, and will have AI hosts “summarize your material, make connections between topics, and banter back and forth.”

It’s meant to build on NotebookLM’s existing features that help you interact with all your notes, transcripts, and other research documents. The app already uses Google’s Gemini AI model to help summarize your research, and this is sort of like an audio version of that.

Google isn’t making things up when it says the AI hosts will “banter” with each other, either. When trying out Audio Overview for myself, I plugged in one of the sample notebooks about the invention of the lightbulb, and the results were… a bit uncanny. During the 10-minute-long overview, the two hosts had a lighthearted discussion about how Thomas Edison wasn’t the only person behind the lightbulb and that “in the end, it’s actually a story about teamwork, making the dream work.”

Image: Google

The hosts could almost be mistaken for human podcasters, from the way they emphasized “bam!” when tossing it in the middle of a sentence, to using modern phrasing like “messy as heck.” There were still a couple of quirks, as I noticed the AI spelling out certain words and phrases, like “P-L-U-S.” Some of the writing wasn’t exactly what a human would say, either, with one AI host calling platinum “bling bling metal.”

The feature makes learning about research more engaging, but I’m wondering whether the hosts would maintain their lighthearted, somewhat jokey tone when discussing more serious topics, like cancer or war. There’s quite a bit of filler during the conversation as well, so it might not be the best way to quickly and clearly distill all your information. That’s something Google mentions in its announcement, as it says the feature is “not a comprehensive or objective view of a topic, but simply a reflection” of your notes.

There are some other limitations to Audio Overview as well, as Google says it could take several minutes to generate a podcast-like discussion, and it’s only available in English. Like many AI tools, it isn’t always accurate.

You can try out the feature for yourself by opening up a notebook in NotebookLM. From there, select the Notebook guide in the bottom-right corner of the screen, and then hit Load beneath the “Audio Overview” heading. I know I’m going to be doing some research on a random topic just so I can hear what the AI podcasters have to say.

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