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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The iPhone could finally show you how long it’ll take to finish charging. Code spotted in the second iOS 18.2 beta by 9to5Mac shows a new “BatteryIntelligence” feature that will let you receive a notification with the iPhone’s estimated charging time.
Some Android phones already show how long it takes to charge — a feature that has become increasingly helpful considering the many different types of chargers, cables, and charging protocols that are available. The iPhone’s “BatteryIntelligence” feature still appears to be a work in progress, though, which means might have to wait a little longer until its official release, according to 9to5Mac.

Newer iPhones already have some helpful battery health features. Last year, Apple added a new optimized charging setting for the iPhone 15 and up, which lets you charge the battery up to 80 percent to help it last longer. There’s also a new way to see your iPhone’s battery cycle count.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The iPhone could finally show you how long it’ll take to finish charging. Code spotted in the second iOS 18.2 beta by 9to5Mac shows a new “BatteryIntelligence” feature that will let you receive a notification with the iPhone’s estimated charging time.

Some Android phones already show how long it takes to charge — a feature that has become increasingly helpful considering the many different types of chargers, cables, and charging protocols that are available. The iPhone’s “BatteryIntelligence” feature still appears to be a work in progress, though, which means might have to wait a little longer until its official release, according to 9to5Mac.

Newer iPhones already have some helpful battery health features. Last year, Apple added a new optimized charging setting for the iPhone 15 and up, which lets you charge the battery up to 80 percent to help it last longer. There’s also a new way to see your iPhone’s battery cycle count.

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Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Stephen Morton, Getty Images

The technology that powers Election Day has hit some expected hiccups, but as of early afternoon on Tuesday, nonpartisan groups say that the voting system is mostly holding up. Where it has faltered, they stress, there are robust backup plans that will ensure voters can still cast their ballots and that their votes will be counted.
Members of the nonpartisan Election Protection coalition, which runs a hotline for voters seeking information or help at the polls, said they’re so far seeing reports of pretty standard tech issues. That includes spotty Wi-Fi connections impacting electronic poll books used to check voters in more efficiently, imprecise calibration on voting machine touchscreens, and ballot scanners that are down. These problems don’t seem to be widespread or serious enough to have a major impact on voting access — although they may cause longer waits in some cases.
“Democracy works when you let it”
Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told reporters during a virtual briefing on Tuesday afternoon that while “there have been some isolated incidents … for the most part, people are arriving at the polling locations today, they’re checking in with poll workers, and they’re able to cast their ballots.” Hewitt said that’s particularly “remarkable” in light of the rampant spread of election mis- and disinformation and litigation around efforts to restrict certain voters’ access. “Democracy works when you let it, and sometimes we need to give it a nudge to make sure that there are no obstacles in the way,” Hewitt says.
Voters in Jefferson County, Kentucky, saw delays caused by the tool used to check in voters at polling locations, called “E-Poll Books,” which local officials said was the result of a software update. But the issue seems to be on its way to being resolved, according to local reports. Officials are encouraging voters to come back to vote before polls close at 6PM in the state.
“Like any type of technology, equipment can sometimes fail, but what’s important are the resilience processes in place to keep voters voting in real time”
Hewitt also says the hotline has received reports of issues with the Florida Secretary of State’s polling location lookup tool. Florida’s Department of State says its website has been experiencing “record-high traffic” and that voters who are having issues with the lookup tool can go to their county election officials’ pages for the same service. Hewitt says the hotline can help voters find other tools that will let them look up their polling location, too.
“Like any type of technology, equipment can sometimes fail, but what’s important are the resilience processes in place to keep voters voting in real time,” says Pamela Smith, president and CEO of the nonprofit Verified Voting. Smith says there have been some reports of polling places where voting machines were down and voters were told to come back later. She says voters should not need to make a second trip to the polls in this sort of situation — they’re entitled to request a paper emergency ballot (distinct from a provisional ballot) to fill out and cast their vote.
Even when there is a machine involved, the vast majority of votes cast in this election will be on paper ballots
She also says they’re hearing reports of scanners that count ballots having issues in several states. The backup for that kind of scenario is for poll workers to store voted ballots in a separate container to ensure they are scanned and counted later on.
Some voters have also flagged issues with ballot-marking machines that appear to select a different candidate than the one they intended, Smith says. This kind of problem is common fodder for conspiracy theories and fuels distrust in the process. But Smith says there are pretty mundane explanations: it can happen when the machine is not properly calibrated or when a voter presses the screen in an ambiguous spot or accidentally touches it somewhere they don’t intend to. She advises voters to tap the name of the candidate they want, rather than the tiny checkbox, and to make sure their clothing is not touching the screen. (Should there be a tiny checkbox at all if it’s not the best place to tap? That’s a question for the voting machine companies.)
Voters should always check the paper printout of their selections before casting their ballot, and they can have the polling place discard their ballot and try again if there’s a mistake. “Equipment calibration for touch screens is just a common thing. It’s not anything to worry about,” Smith says.
Even when there is a machine involved, the vast majority of votes cast in this election will be on paper ballots. That means that even if you select your preferred candidates on a screen, there’s likely a piece of paper that will be printed with your choices and stored securely for at least 22 months in case any issues arise that need to be double-checked.
“This election is really shaping up to be the most resilient election yet,” says Smith.

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Stephen Morton, Getty Images

The technology that powers Election Day has hit some expected hiccups, but as of early afternoon on Tuesday, nonpartisan groups say that the voting system is mostly holding up. Where it has faltered, they stress, there are robust backup plans that will ensure voters can still cast their ballots and that their votes will be counted.

Members of the nonpartisan Election Protection coalition, which runs a hotline for voters seeking information or help at the polls, said they’re so far seeing reports of pretty standard tech issues. That includes spotty Wi-Fi connections impacting electronic poll books used to check voters in more efficiently, imprecise calibration on voting machine touchscreens, and ballot scanners that are down. These problems don’t seem to be widespread or serious enough to have a major impact on voting access — although they may cause longer waits in some cases.

Damon Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told reporters during a virtual briefing on Tuesday afternoon that while “there have been some isolated incidents … for the most part, people are arriving at the polling locations today, they’re checking in with poll workers, and they’re able to cast their ballots.” Hewitt said that’s particularly “remarkable” in light of the rampant spread of election mis- and disinformation and litigation around efforts to restrict certain voters’ access. “Democracy works when you let it, and sometimes we need to give it a nudge to make sure that there are no obstacles in the way,” Hewitt says.

Voters in Jefferson County, Kentucky, saw delays caused by the tool used to check in voters at polling locations, called “E-Poll Books,” which local officials said was the result of a software update. But the issue seems to be on its way to being resolved, according to local reports. Officials are encouraging voters to come back to vote before polls close at 6PM in the state.

Hewitt also says the hotline has received reports of issues with the Florida Secretary of State’s polling location lookup tool. Florida’s Department of State says its website has been experiencing “record-high traffic” and that voters who are having issues with the lookup tool can go to their county election officials’ pages for the same service. Hewitt says the hotline can help voters find other tools that will let them look up their polling location, too.

“Like any type of technology, equipment can sometimes fail, but what’s important are the resilience processes in place to keep voters voting in real time,” says Pamela Smith, president and CEO of the nonprofit Verified Voting. Smith says there have been some reports of polling places where voting machines were down and voters were told to come back later. She says voters should not need to make a second trip to the polls in this sort of situation — they’re entitled to request a paper emergency ballot (distinct from a provisional ballot) to fill out and cast their vote.

She also says they’re hearing reports of scanners that count ballots having issues in several states. The backup for that kind of scenario is for poll workers to store voted ballots in a separate container to ensure they are scanned and counted later on.

Some voters have also flagged issues with ballot-marking machines that appear to select a different candidate than the one they intended, Smith says. This kind of problem is common fodder for conspiracy theories and fuels distrust in the process. But Smith says there are pretty mundane explanations: it can happen when the machine is not properly calibrated or when a voter presses the screen in an ambiguous spot or accidentally touches it somewhere they don’t intend to. She advises voters to tap the name of the candidate they want, rather than the tiny checkbox, and to make sure their clothing is not touching the screen. (Should there be a tiny checkbox at all if it’s not the best place to tap? That’s a question for the voting machine companies.)

Voters should always check the paper printout of their selections before casting their ballot, and they can have the polling place discard their ballot and try again if there’s a mistake. “Equipment calibration for touch screens is just a common thing. It’s not anything to worry about,” Smith says.

Even when there is a machine involved, the vast majority of votes cast in this election will be on paper ballots. That means that even if you select your preferred candidates on a screen, there’s likely a piece of paper that will be printed with your choices and stored securely for at least 22 months in case any issues arise that need to be double-checked.

“This election is really shaping up to be the most resilient election yet,” says Smith.

Read More 

Illustration: The Verge

There’s no evidence Google is hiding a map of polling places from Trump voters, despite the suggestions of a video reposted by Elon Musk.
In the video, originally shared by X user DogeDesigner, a user searches Google for “where can I vote for Harris” and “where can I vote for Trump.” The Harris search shows Google’s 2024 US elections panel, which includes a map you can use to find where to vote. The Trump search does not.

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

A screenshot of Elon Musk’s post.

But there’s a complicating factor here: Harris is also the name of a county in Texas. And the polling map pops up when people search terms like “where can I vote” and a location — try searches like “where can I vote for Brooklyn” or “where can I vote for Tampa,” and you’ll see it appear. And in fact, when The Verge staff tried searching “where can I vote for Harris,” we saw a sidebar mentioning Texas alongside the voting map.
Google directly responded to Musk on X and confirmed that explanation. “The ‘where to vote’ panel is triggering for some specific searches” because of the county in Texas, it said — noting that the same thing happened for “where to vote Vance” with a North Carolina county. The company said the issue was “now fixed” in a subsequent post, and as of publication, a search for “where can I vote for Harris” (or Vance) no longer shows the polling map.

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
Google’s response to Elon Musk.

The company also said that “very few people actually search for voting places this way.” If you do still need to find your polling place, you can always bypass Google and go somewhere like Vote.org.

Illustration: The Verge

There’s no evidence Google is hiding a map of polling places from Trump voters, despite the suggestions of a video reposted by Elon Musk.

In the video, originally shared by X user DogeDesigner, a user searches Google for “where can I vote for Harris” and “where can I vote for Trump.” The Harris search shows Google’s 2024 US elections panel, which includes a map you can use to find where to vote. The Trump search does not.

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

A screenshot of Elon Musk’s post.

But there’s a complicating factor here: Harris is also the name of a county in Texas. And the polling map pops up when people search terms like “where can I vote” and a location — try searches like “where can I vote for Brooklyn” or “where can I vote for Tampa,” and you’ll see it appear. And in fact, when The Verge staff tried searching “where can I vote for Harris,” we saw a sidebar mentioning Texas alongside the voting map.

Google directly responded to Musk on X and confirmed that explanation. “The ‘where to vote’ panel is triggering for some specific searches” because of the county in Texas, it said — noting that the same thing happened for “where to vote Vance” with a North Carolina county. The company said the issue was “now fixed” in a subsequent post, and as of publication, a search for “where can I vote for Harris” (or Vance) no longer shows the polling map.

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
Google’s response to Elon Musk.

The company also said that “very few people actually search for voting places this way.” If you do still need to find your polling place, you can always bypass Google and go somewhere like Vote.org.

Read More 

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

It takes me a minute to figure out what’s going on in this TikTok livestream happening on the morning of the US presidential election.
The screen is split in two. On the top, a man is streaming himself from the chest up, shouting at viewers. On the bottom is an electoral map of the US, with each state colored red (Republican), blue (Democrat), yellow (third-party), or tan (unclaimed). The man appears to be auctioning off the Electoral College.
“Uh oh! Two Texas blues just came in, ladies and gentlemen!” he shouts, clicking to change the state of Texas from red to blue. A few seconds later, Texas goes red again. “It’s a neck and neck game right here!” he says. “It’s anybody’s game right here! Oh! I just got an Arizona blue!”

Image: TikTok

I eventually figure out that the rules go like this: comment a state, along with a heart the color of the party you want. If the streamer sees your comment, he will turn the state over accordingly. When I tune in, 5,000 people are watching the streamer click states on a fake interactive electoral map on the website 270toWin. When one of the parties reaches 270 electoral votes — the number required to win the presidency — he resets the country and starts all over. Comments pour in, including a few highly concerning ones: “Who is red and who is blue?” one viewer asks. Another is skeptical of the results they’re seeing: “Is he lying?”
The 270toWin interactive map has been everywhere on TikTok Live this week as the chaos of Election Day has neared. Some streamers play god with the Electoral College, clicking away at the map to make California go to Republicans and Georgia turn blue. Others aim their camera at a forecast map and invite viewers one by one to join the livestream as a cohost and share their election predictions, which are based on nothing. I saw one stream where the host endlessly begged people to comment, like, and otherwise “boost” the stream, where they repeated word-salad phrases about encouraging people to vote and participate in democracy — while they also raked in small amounts of money through digital “gifts” sent by viewers. The streams are sandwiched between posts from NBC News and week-old videos of women talking about a sale at Ulta — all one and the same to my personalized algorithm.

@fluentlyforward Fully dystopian feelings being on social media right now #election ♬ original sound – FluentlyForward

In some ways, this election has felt tailor-made for a platform like TikTok, where sound bites, in-group jokes, and trends carry messages more effectively than a press conference or a stump speech. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign launched with an explosion of lime green, which, in 2024, is not a color at all but a Gen Z rallying call. Harris announced her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, with a video of frenetic jump cuts and glitchy music — what the kids call a “fancam.” And the Kamala HQ TikTok account has spent the last three and a half months spreading the gospel of a Harris presidency and trolling JD Vance about a couch, which has been received with equal enthusiasm. If the election content you’ve seen on your For You page feels like a meme, it’s because memes are a viable political strategy — something Donald Trump perhaps knows more intimately than anyone else. We are forced to take TikTok seriously: the share of adults getting news from the platform is growing faster than any other social media site, according to data from Pew Research Center.
It is perhaps fitting, then, that watching livestreams hosted by unqualified strangers with a few thousand followers at most is how some people are spending their Election Day. On TikTok Live, nearly anything can be gamified, and thus monetized; there is always the incentive to produce more — but not necessarily better — content. As the evening wears on, I expect to see many, many more 270toWin maps on TikTok, whether they’re showing real-time results or the whims of a streamer’s comment section: it’s the easy money of the week.
I messaged the streamer to ask him a few questions about his livestream game, but an hour later, he still hadn’t responded, perhaps because he was still on Live. When I popped back into his livestream, Trump had just won the game for the 45th time.

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

It takes me a minute to figure out what’s going on in this TikTok livestream happening on the morning of the US presidential election.

The screen is split in two. On the top, a man is streaming himself from the chest up, shouting at viewers. On the bottom is an electoral map of the US, with each state colored red (Republican), blue (Democrat), yellow (third-party), or tan (unclaimed). The man appears to be auctioning off the Electoral College.

“Uh oh! Two Texas blues just came in, ladies and gentlemen!” he shouts, clicking to change the state of Texas from red to blue. A few seconds later, Texas goes red again. “It’s a neck and neck game right here!” he says. “It’s anybody’s game right here! Oh! I just got an Arizona blue!”

I eventually figure out that the rules go like this: comment a state, along with a heart the color of the party you want. If the streamer sees your comment, he will turn the state over accordingly. When I tune in, 5,000 people are watching the streamer click states on a fake interactive electoral map on the website 270toWin. When one of the parties reaches 270 electoral votes — the number required to win the presidency — he resets the country and starts all over. Comments pour in, including a few highly concerning ones: “Who is red and who is blue?” one viewer asks. Another is skeptical of the results they’re seeing: “Is he lying?”

The 270toWin interactive map has been everywhere on TikTok Live this week as the chaos of Election Day has neared. Some streamers play god with the Electoral College, clicking away at the map to make California go to Republicans and Georgia turn blue. Others aim their camera at a forecast map and invite viewers one by one to join the livestream as a cohost and share their election predictions, which are based on nothing. I saw one stream where the host endlessly begged people to comment, like, and otherwise “boost” the stream, where they repeated word-salad phrases about encouraging people to vote and participate in democracy — while they also raked in small amounts of money through digital “gifts” sent by viewers. The streams are sandwiched between posts from NBC News and week-old videos of women talking about a sale at Ulta — all one and the same to my personalized algorithm.

In some ways, this election has felt tailor-made for a platform like TikTok, where sound bites, in-group jokes, and trends carry messages more effectively than a press conference or a stump speech. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign launched with an explosion of lime green, which, in 2024, is not a color at all but a Gen Z rallying call. Harris announced her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, with a video of frenetic jump cuts and glitchy music — what the kids call a “fancam.” And the Kamala HQ TikTok account has spent the last three and a half months spreading the gospel of a Harris presidency and trolling JD Vance about a couch, which has been received with equal enthusiasm. If the election content you’ve seen on your For You page feels like a meme, it’s because memes are a viable political strategy — something Donald Trump perhaps knows more intimately than anyone else. We are forced to take TikTok seriously: the share of adults getting news from the platform is growing faster than any other social media site, according to data from Pew Research Center.

It is perhaps fitting, then, that watching livestreams hosted by unqualified strangers with a few thousand followers at most is how some people are spending their Election Day. On TikTok Live, nearly anything can be gamified, and thus monetized; there is always the incentive to produce more — but not necessarily better — content. As the evening wears on, I expect to see many, many more 270toWin maps on TikTok, whether they’re showing real-time results or the whims of a streamer’s comment section: it’s the easy money of the week.

I messaged the streamer to ask him a few questions about his livestream game, but an hour later, he still hadn’t responded, perhaps because he was still on Live. When I popped back into his livestream, Trump had just won the game for the 45th time.

Read More 

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued a warning that fake bomb threats are being emailed to US polling locations in multiple states that “appear to originate from Russian email domains.”
“None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far,” the FBI says. The agency says it is working closely with state and local law enforcement to respond to any election threats and urges the public to “remain vigilant” and report suspicious activity to state and local authorities.
The threats appear to be part of a larger campaign to sow doubt and chaos in the US election. On Friday, a joint statement issued by the FBI, the Director of National Intelligence’s Office, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned of Russian-created fake videos designed to “raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the U.S. election.” In another statement yesterday, the agencies said Russian “influence actors” were amplifying false claims of US officials planning to “orchestrate election fraud using a wide range of tactics.”

These reports come after years of concern about Russian online interference in US politics. That has included influence campaigns carried out by the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency, as well as Russian and Iranian acquisition of US voter registration information that may have been used to threaten people through email if they don’t vote for Trump in 2020.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued a warning that fake bomb threats are being emailed to US polling locations in multiple states that “appear to originate from Russian email domains.”

“None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far,” the FBI says. The agency says it is working closely with state and local law enforcement to respond to any election threats and urges the public to “remain vigilant” and report suspicious activity to state and local authorities.

The threats appear to be part of a larger campaign to sow doubt and chaos in the US election. On Friday, a joint statement issued by the FBI, the Director of National Intelligence’s Office, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned of Russian-created fake videos designed to “raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the U.S. election.” In another statement yesterday, the agencies said Russian “influence actors” were amplifying false claims of US officials planning to “orchestrate election fraud using a wide range of tactics.”

These reports come after years of concern about Russian online interference in US politics. That has included influence campaigns carried out by the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency, as well as Russian and Iranian acquisition of US voter registration information that may have been used to threaten people through email if they don’t vote for Trump in 2020.

Read More 

Image: Swisspod

About a year ago, I wrote a story with the headline “The hyperloop is dead for real this time,” based on the news that Hyperloop One, one of the biggest companies pursuing Elon Musk’s dream of tube-based, 700mph travel, had shut down.
Well, I stand corrected. The hyperloop, in fact, lives on — as a 1/12th scale model in Switzerland.
Sure, this isn’t exactly the full realization of Musk’s 2013 white paper, in which he theorized that aerodynamic aluminum capsules filled with passengers or cargo could be propelled through a nearly airless tube at speeds of up to 760mph. These tubes, either raised on pylons or sunk beneath the earth, could be built either within or between cities. Musk called it a “fifth mode of transportation” and argued it could help change the way we live, work, trade, and travel.

The idea is being put to the test in Lausanne, Switzerland, where a 120-meter circular test track is being operated by a team that includes the Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), the School of Business and Engineering Vaud (HEIG-VD), and Swisspod Technologies. This week, the group announced that it had conducted “the longest” hyperloop test of its kind: traveling 11.8 km (7.3 miles) at a speed of 40.7km/h (25.3mph).
The circular test track has a circumference of 125.6 meters (412 feet) and a diameter of 40 centimeters (15.7 inches). It sounds modest, but the group claims that in a full-scale system, their test “directly translates” to a journey of 141.6 km (88 miles), which is about the distance between Geneva and Bern, or San Francisco to Sacramento, and speeds of up to 488.2 km/h (303.4mph).

The project is called LIMITLESS, which stands for Linear Induction Motor Drive for Traction and Levitation in Sustainable Hyperloop Systems. During the test, the team “monitored the performance of vital subsystems,” including propulsion, communication infrastructure, power electronics, and thermal management. They assessed “energy consumption, thrust variations, [linear induction motor] response, and control during acceleration, cruising, coasting, and braking scenarios.”
Of course, a 1/12th-scale circular test track is hardly a sign that the hyperloop is alive and well. Most of the startups and companies pursuing a full-scale hyperloop have shut down, victims of financial mismanagement, as well as infrastructure and regulatory hurdles. Critics said that while the hyperloop may be technically feasible, it still only amounts to vaporware. It’s been called a “utopian vision” that would be financially impossible to achieve.
But the Swiss team is undeterred, promising to conduct a battery of future tests to further validate the system. Swisspod CEO Denis Tudor said the group plans to test its first freight product soon, and is currently building a larger test track in the US.
“This is a key step toward making hyperloop for passengers a reality and changing how we connect, work, and live,” he said.
That would be a feat unto itself, considering that no full-scale hyperloops exist anywhere in the world. Musk’s test tunnel in California is gone. The man himself has become more enamored with campaigning for Donald Trump than solving the problem of car traffic.
The Boring Company, Musk’s tunneling operation, is still digging underground passageways in Las Vegas — but for Teslas, not hyperloops. The future, it would seem, is nearly the same as the present.

Image: Swisspod

About a year ago, I wrote a story with the headline “The hyperloop is dead for real this time,” based on the news that Hyperloop One, one of the biggest companies pursuing Elon Musk’s dream of tube-based, 700mph travel, had shut down.

Well, I stand corrected. The hyperloop, in fact, lives on — as a 1/12th scale model in Switzerland.

Sure, this isn’t exactly the full realization of Musk’s 2013 white paper, in which he theorized that aerodynamic aluminum capsules filled with passengers or cargo could be propelled through a nearly airless tube at speeds of up to 760mph. These tubes, either raised on pylons or sunk beneath the earth, could be built either within or between cities. Musk called it a “fifth mode of transportation” and argued it could help change the way we live, work, trade, and travel.

The idea is being put to the test in Lausanne, Switzerland, where a 120-meter circular test track is being operated by a team that includes the Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), the School of Business and Engineering Vaud (HEIG-VD), and Swisspod Technologies. This week, the group announced that it had conducted “the longest” hyperloop test of its kind: traveling 11.8 km (7.3 miles) at a speed of 40.7km/h (25.3mph).

The circular test track has a circumference of 125.6 meters (412 feet) and a diameter of 40 centimeters (15.7 inches). It sounds modest, but the group claims that in a full-scale system, their test “directly translates” to a journey of 141.6 km (88 miles), which is about the distance between Geneva and Bern, or San Francisco to Sacramento, and speeds of up to 488.2 km/h (303.4mph).

The project is called LIMITLESS, which stands for Linear Induction Motor Drive for Traction and Levitation in Sustainable Hyperloop Systems. During the test, the team “monitored the performance of vital subsystems,” including propulsion, communication infrastructure, power electronics, and thermal management. They assessed “energy consumption, thrust variations, [linear induction motor] response, and control during acceleration, cruising, coasting, and braking scenarios.”

Of course, a 1/12th-scale circular test track is hardly a sign that the hyperloop is alive and well. Most of the startups and companies pursuing a full-scale hyperloop have shut down, victims of financial mismanagement, as well as infrastructure and regulatory hurdles. Critics said that while the hyperloop may be technically feasible, it still only amounts to vaporware. It’s been called a “utopian vision” that would be financially impossible to achieve.

But the Swiss team is undeterred, promising to conduct a battery of future tests to further validate the system. Swisspod CEO Denis Tudor said the group plans to test its first freight product soon, and is currently building a larger test track in the US.

“This is a key step toward making hyperloop for passengers a reality and changing how we connect, work, and live,” he said.

That would be a feat unto itself, considering that no full-scale hyperloops exist anywhere in the world. Musk’s test tunnel in California is gone. The man himself has become more enamored with campaigning for Donald Trump than solving the problem of car traffic.

The Boring Company, Musk’s tunneling operation, is still digging underground passageways in Las Vegas — but for Teslas, not hyperloops. The future, it would seem, is nearly the same as the present.

Read More 

Watch the game, set up a Halo 2 LAN party, or look at footage of other trucks. | Image: Toyota

Toyota revealed a custom Tundra pickup truck that can pop out five big-screen TVs from its bed for a wild tailgating experience designed to let you watch football from “any angle.” The one-off vehicle is a prototype built for the 2024 SEMA show in Las Vegas, where it’s on display alongside many other cool concepts, including Toyota’s Jeepy open-air Land Cruiser.
This “Ultimate Tailgate Tundra,” however, is unlike anything else at the show in terms of gadgety engineering:
With the push of a button, a custom-built staging shell rises from the bed of the truck on four electric actuators, revealing five 55-inch weatherproof outdoor screens.

Image: Toyota
I guess the cooler goes in the cab.

Image: Toyota
All tucked away.

To keep the glare of the sun at bay, a rack-mounted 180 Dual + R-Filler canopy provides 185 square feet of shaded space and game-time ambiance.
The Tundra also features a bespoke JBL Club Marine Series audio system with four speakers, two subwoofers, and an onboard satellite Wi-Fi system to connect and stream broadcast channels.
In a press release, Toyota marketing VP Mike Tripp said the Ultimate Tailgate Tundra celebrates the automaker’s NFL partnership and showcases just one of many “lifestyle applications” for the truck. So don’t expect to see Toyota sell you a special truck topper so you can easily make your own quintet-screened entertainment pickup.
It’s too bad the Tundra isn’t an EV that could power all this tech itself; instead, Toyota opted to just cram in a generator to keep the entertainment going. That also means you don’t get any frunk storage that could house your other tailgate stuff, like ice-cold brews.

Watch the game, set up a Halo 2 LAN party, or look at footage of other trucks. | Image: Toyota

Toyota revealed a custom Tundra pickup truck that can pop out five big-screen TVs from its bed for a wild tailgating experience designed to let you watch football from “any angle.” The one-off vehicle is a prototype built for the 2024 SEMA show in Las Vegas, where it’s on display alongside many other cool concepts, including Toyota’s Jeepy open-air Land Cruiser.

This “Ultimate Tailgate Tundra,” however, is unlike anything else at the show in terms of gadgety engineering:

With the push of a button, a custom-built staging shell rises from the bed of the truck on four electric actuators, revealing five 55-inch weatherproof outdoor screens.

Image: Toyota
I guess the cooler goes in the cab.

Image: Toyota
All tucked away.

To keep the glare of the sun at bay, a rack-mounted 180 Dual + R-Filler canopy provides 185 square feet of shaded space and game-time ambiance.

The Tundra also features a bespoke JBL Club Marine Series audio system with four speakers, two subwoofers, and an onboard satellite Wi-Fi system to connect and stream broadcast channels.

In a press release, Toyota marketing VP Mike Tripp said the Ultimate Tailgate Tundra celebrates the automaker’s NFL partnership and showcases just one of many “lifestyle applications” for the truck. So don’t expect to see Toyota sell you a special truck topper so you can easily make your own quintet-screened entertainment pickup.

It’s too bad the Tundra isn’t an EV that could power all this tech itself; instead, Toyota opted to just cram in a generator to keep the entertainment going. That also means you don’t get any frunk storage that could house your other tailgate stuff, like ice-cold brews.

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Illustration: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Photo: Getty Images

Elon Musk is a busy man right now. He’s supposedly running X, SpaceX, Tesla, and Neuralink, all while actively campaigning for Trump. But despite those myriad concerns, Musk still finds the time to play Diablo 4. He’s even said he’s pretty good at it, claiming in a recent interview with Joe Rogan that he’s in the top 20 of Diablo 4 players — a feat that apparently only two Americans can claim. If this sounds like the unearned boasting from the same guy who claimed his Cybertrucks are bulletproof… it is.

The Pit is a timed dungeon in Diablo 4. Players are given 15 minutes to clear out monsters and the final boss, with each death shaving an increasing amount of time off the overall timer. Players who can complete The Pit earn endgame materials used to improve their gear, and since this is an endgame dungeon, the fights are pretty difficult. Clearing the dungeon as fast as possible is, therefore, a decent indication that you can Diablo pretty good.
In fact, there’s a leaderboard ranking players by their Pit completion times which is the basis for Musk’s claim. If you check out the Pit leaderboard at helltides.com, sure enough, at the time of publication, Elon Musk is sitting smack dab at number 20.
But here’s the catch.
There are no official leaderboards for The Pit. Helltides.com is not affiliated with Activision Blizzard. These rankings are based on screen-recorded runs submitted by the players themselves. And the number of submissions used to create this list? 881.
To be fair to Musk, clearing The Pit in 2 minutes and 45 seconds is no mean feat. It shows that he knows what he’s doing (or that he at least knows how to look up optimal builds for his class on sites like IcyVeins.com.) But it strains the hell out of credulity to claim he’s in the top 20 Diablo 4 players in the world based on a list made up of only 881 people. Steam’s concurrent player count alone shows the game sitting at 11,000 players.
In an interview with The Verge, Fayz, co-owner of helltides.com, agrees with Musk calling himself a “top 20” Diablo 4 player. “It’s the best global list we have,” Fayz said over Discord. “Elon’s claim is valid.” But Fayz recognizes the leaderboard’s limitations.
“It’s as comprehensive as it gets in terms of recorded Pit runs with video proof, since our community always alerts us when new top runs are recorded and posted on social media,” Fayz wrote. “But, there’s no way for us to know about Pit runs that aren’t recorded and shared.”
Musk is one of many billionaires who’ve made lofty but unverifiable claims about their gaming prowess. In a TikTok video for Pubity, Mark Zuckerberg recently boasted that he’s “close to grandmaster status” in Civilization and that it’d surprise him if anyone in the world could beat him. In 2017, the New York Times reported that Travis Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber, “once held the world’s second-highest score for the Nintendo Wii Tennis video game.” (This led to an interesting deep-dive from Ars Technica, which concluded Kalanick was wrong.) Musk could have legitimately claimed exceptional ability in Diablo 4 and left it at that. But, as is usually the case with billionaires, his ego got in the way, leading him to make statements that just aren’t supported in fact.

Illustration: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Photo: Getty Images

Elon Musk is a busy man right now. He’s supposedly running X, SpaceX, Tesla, and Neuralink, all while actively campaigning for Trump. But despite those myriad concerns, Musk still finds the time to play Diablo 4. He’s even said he’s pretty good at it, claiming in a recent interview with Joe Rogan that he’s in the top 20 of Diablo 4 players — a feat that apparently only two Americans can claim. If this sounds like the unearned boasting from the same guy who claimed his Cybertrucks are bulletproof… it is.

The Pit is a timed dungeon in Diablo 4. Players are given 15 minutes to clear out monsters and the final boss, with each death shaving an increasing amount of time off the overall timer. Players who can complete The Pit earn endgame materials used to improve their gear, and since this is an endgame dungeon, the fights are pretty difficult. Clearing the dungeon as fast as possible is, therefore, a decent indication that you can Diablo pretty good.

In fact, there’s a leaderboard ranking players by their Pit completion times which is the basis for Musk’s claim. If you check out the Pit leaderboard at helltides.com, sure enough, at the time of publication, Elon Musk is sitting smack dab at number 20.

But here’s the catch.

There are no official leaderboards for The Pit. Helltides.com is not affiliated with Activision Blizzard. These rankings are based on screen-recorded runs submitted by the players themselves. And the number of submissions used to create this list? 881.

To be fair to Musk, clearing The Pit in 2 minutes and 45 seconds is no mean feat. It shows that he knows what he’s doing (or that he at least knows how to look up optimal builds for his class on sites like IcyVeins.com.) But it strains the hell out of credulity to claim he’s in the top 20 Diablo 4 players in the world based on a list made up of only 881 people. Steam’s concurrent player count alone shows the game sitting at 11,000 players.

In an interview with The Verge, Fayz, co-owner of helltides.com, agrees with Musk calling himself a “top 20” Diablo 4 player. “It’s the best global list we have,” Fayz said over Discord. “Elon’s claim is valid.” But Fayz recognizes the leaderboard’s limitations.

“It’s as comprehensive as it gets in terms of recorded Pit runs with video proof, since our community always alerts us when new top runs are recorded and posted on social media,” Fayz wrote. “But, there’s no way for us to know about Pit runs that aren’t recorded and shared.”

Musk is one of many billionaires who’ve made lofty but unverifiable claims about their gaming prowess. In a TikTok video for Pubity, Mark Zuckerberg recently boasted that he’s “close to grandmaster status” in Civilization and that it’d surprise him if anyone in the world could beat him. In 2017, the New York Times reported that Travis Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber, “once held the world’s second-highest score for the Nintendo Wii Tennis video game.” (This led to an interesting deep-dive from Ars Technica, which concluded Kalanick was wrong.) Musk could have legitimately claimed exceptional ability in Diablo 4 and left it at that. But, as is usually the case with billionaires, his ego got in the way, leading him to make statements that just aren’t supported in fact.

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

Swing state voters are being inundated with text messages seemingly designed to look like they’re coming from supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris or even from her campaign itself. Some of the messages imply that Harris is misleading the public about her efforts to secure a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, while others say she has “pledged to support Israel as they wage their war in Gaza.” Although the texts are written to sound like standard campaign mass messaging, they contain no call to action or URL to a campaign site. But most bizarrely, the sender will reiterate and emphasize that Harris “will always stand with Israel” if the recipient replies identifying themselves as pro-Palestinian.
“I want to make sure we set the record straight,” reads one message that voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania shared with The Verge. “The Kamala Harris campaign has been running conflicting ads about where she stands on Israel. It is just what she has to do to be able to win. I am reaching out to make sure you know Kamala will always stand with Israel.”
The Verge spoke to two Pennsylvania voters and three people in Michigan who all received similar text messages.

According to internal communications seen by The Verge, the texts traced back to a company called Wonder Cave. The vendor, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, works with Twenty Manor, a digital advocacy and fundraising company founded by Adam Waldeck, a longtime Republican strategist. Twenty Manor and Wonder Cave did not respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
Between May and September, Twenty Manor was paid over $12,000 from Defend Freedom, Tulsi Gabbard’s leadership PAC, primarily for “digital consulting,” according to disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission. In the last year, Twenty Manor received nearly $33,000 from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) for text messaging. The NRSC also paid Twenty Manor over $13,000 in July for “list rental,” and the Republican National Committee paid the company over $11,000 in April for list acquisition. (The Trump National Committee PAC has also paid Twenty Manor in disbursements marked as “fundraising fees.”) The PACs did not immediately respond to The Verge’s requests for comment.
Other groups have attempted a similar playbook during this election: text messages seemingly from pro-Harris organizations, purporting to describe a Harris agenda but pushing divisive, misleading, or even false messaging. Those previous iterations — centered around a fake initiative called Progress 2028 — were backed by Building America’s Future, a pro-Trump dark money group that has reportedly received funding from Elon Musk, according to reporting by OpenSecrets. The Progress 2028 texts appear to be targeted at moderate Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans and claim that Harris supports mandatory gun buybacks and policies that would make it easier for undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses. Building America’s Future did not respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
These Israel-Palestine texts sent to voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania are written in a similar format but have instead been sent to left-leaning Democrats.
The Harris campaign declined to comment.
One person started receiving the ostensibly pro-Harris texts on Saturday and initially believed they were being sent by the Harris campaign
Kumars Salehi, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, told The Verge he started receiving the ostensibly pro-Harris texts on Saturday and initially believed they were being sent by the Harris campaign. Salehi, a longtime pro-Palestinian activist, engaged with the senders, saying Harris’ support for Israel is the reason he didn’t want to vote for her. In response, he was sent a link to a Times of Israel story highlighting Harris’ claim that she is “unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself.”
“I encourage you to check this out to learn more about her positions, which you can share with your friends and family,” the sender told Salehi.
Salehi, who described himself as a “pragmatic” Harris voter who wants to avoid the additional harms of a Trump presidency, said the fact that he’d already decided to vote for Harris was part of the reason he engaged with the messages in the first place.
“The first one honestly confused me. Like, ‘Holy shit, there’s no way she’s going with this tactic.’”
Another Pennsylvania voter who declined to be named shared eight texts they’ve received since November 2nd. “The first one honestly confused me. Like, ‘Holy shit, there’s no way she’s going with this tactic,’” the voter, a registered Democrat who lives in a Philadelphia suburb, told The Verge. “I realized it had to be opposition, faking as a supporter, when it said ‘It’s just what she has to do to win.’”
Zach, a Michigan voter who declined to give his last name, said he’s been getting explicitly pro-Israel Harris texts “at least once a day” since October 24th. “After a few of these I started replying that I don’t support Israel,” Zach told The Verge. “This campaign’s follow up responses directed me to an NBC article about Kamala shutting down pro-Palestinian protestors at an event, and asked me to share that link with my friends and family. I got this same link in response about 4 times.”
Unlike the voters in Pennsylvania, Zach isn’t registered with any political party but generally votes in Democratic primary elections. This year, he was one of more than 100,000 Michigan residents who selected “uncommitted” in the state’s Democratic primary, a protest option for voters who disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Zach said he was suspicious of the texts because he had seen a Chris Hayes segment about anti-Harris dark money campaigns aiming vastly different ads at microtargeted voter segments in Michigan and Pennsylvania, based on reporting from 404 Media.
“A lot of time passed before I realized it was fake,” said Salehi, whose X posts about the interactions went viral. “I didn’t realize until it was way too late that they were trying to get the exact reaction out of me that I was giving them.”

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

Swing state voters are being inundated with text messages seemingly designed to look like they’re coming from supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris or even from her campaign itself. Some of the messages imply that Harris is misleading the public about her efforts to secure a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, while others say she has “pledged to support Israel as they wage their war in Gaza.” Although the texts are written to sound like standard campaign mass messaging, they contain no call to action or URL to a campaign site. But most bizarrely, the sender will reiterate and emphasize that Harris “will always stand with Israel” if the recipient replies identifying themselves as pro-Palestinian.

“I want to make sure we set the record straight,” reads one message that voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania shared with The Verge. “The Kamala Harris campaign has been running conflicting ads about where she stands on Israel. It is just what she has to do to be able to win. I am reaching out to make sure you know Kamala will always stand with Israel.”

The Verge spoke to two Pennsylvania voters and three people in Michigan who all received similar text messages.

According to internal communications seen by The Verge, the texts traced back to a company called Wonder Cave. The vendor, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, works with Twenty Manor, a digital advocacy and fundraising company founded by Adam Waldeck, a longtime Republican strategist. Twenty Manor and Wonder Cave did not respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

Between May and September, Twenty Manor was paid over $12,000 from Defend Freedom, Tulsi Gabbard’s leadership PAC, primarily for “digital consulting,” according to disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission. In the last year, Twenty Manor received nearly $33,000 from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) for text messaging. The NRSC also paid Twenty Manor over $13,000 in July for “list rental,” and the Republican National Committee paid the company over $11,000 in April for list acquisition. (The Trump National Committee PAC has also paid Twenty Manor in disbursements marked as “fundraising fees.”) The PACs did not immediately respond to The Verge’s requests for comment.

Other groups have attempted a similar playbook during this election: text messages seemingly from pro-Harris organizations, purporting to describe a Harris agenda but pushing divisive, misleading, or even false messaging. Those previous iterations — centered around a fake initiative called Progress 2028 — were backed by Building America’s Future, a pro-Trump dark money group that has reportedly received funding from Elon Musk, according to reporting by OpenSecrets. The Progress 2028 texts appear to be targeted at moderate Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans and claim that Harris supports mandatory gun buybacks and policies that would make it easier for undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses. Building America’s Future did not respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

These Israel-Palestine texts sent to voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania are written in a similar format but have instead been sent to left-leaning Democrats.

The Harris campaign declined to comment.

Kumars Salehi, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, told The Verge he started receiving the ostensibly pro-Harris texts on Saturday and initially believed they were being sent by the Harris campaign. Salehi, a longtime pro-Palestinian activist, engaged with the senders, saying Harris’ support for Israel is the reason he didn’t want to vote for her. In response, he was sent a link to a Times of Israel story highlighting Harris’ claim that she is “unequivocal and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself.”

“I encourage you to check this out to learn more about her positions, which you can share with your friends and family,” the sender told Salehi.

Salehi, who described himself as a “pragmatic” Harris voter who wants to avoid the additional harms of a Trump presidency, said the fact that he’d already decided to vote for Harris was part of the reason he engaged with the messages in the first place.

Another Pennsylvania voter who declined to be named shared eight texts they’ve received since November 2nd. “The first one honestly confused me. Like, ‘Holy shit, there’s no way she’s going with this tactic,’” the voter, a registered Democrat who lives in a Philadelphia suburb, told The Verge. “I realized it had to be opposition, faking as a supporter, when it said ‘It’s just what she has to do to win.’”

Zach, a Michigan voter who declined to give his last name, said he’s been getting explicitly pro-Israel Harris texts “at least once a day” since October 24th. “After a few of these I started replying that I don’t support Israel,” Zach told The Verge. “This campaign’s follow up responses directed me to an NBC article about Kamala shutting down pro-Palestinian protestors at an event, and asked me to share that link with my friends and family. I got this same link in response about 4 times.”

Unlike the voters in Pennsylvania, Zach isn’t registered with any political party but generally votes in Democratic primary elections. This year, he was one of more than 100,000 Michigan residents who selected “uncommitted” in the state’s Democratic primary, a protest option for voters who disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Zach said he was suspicious of the texts because he had seen a Chris Hayes segment about anti-Harris dark money campaigns aiming vastly different ads at microtargeted voter segments in Michigan and Pennsylvania, based on reporting from 404 Media.

“A lot of time passed before I realized it was fake,” said Salehi, whose X posts about the interactions went viral. “I didn’t realize until it was way too late that they were trying to get the exact reaction out of me that I was giving them.”

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A mild yellow band appears on The Verge’s Colorsoft review unit. | Image: Andrew Liszewski / The Verge

Amazon says it’s working to fix issues with the Kindle Colorsoft, its first color e-reader, following complaints from early buyers that a yellow band of discoloration appears on the bottom of the display. The company is making “adjustments” so that “new devices” will not have the yellow band; people who already own a unit can contact Amazon for a refund or replacement.
“We take the quality of our products seriously,” Amazon spokesperson Jill Tornifoglio wrote in an email to The Verge. “Customers who notice this [yellow band] can reach out to our customer service team for a replacement or refund, and we’re making the appropriate adjustments to ensure that new devices will not experience this issue moving forward.”
Existing customers can keep using the Colorsoft until they receive a replacement, Tornifoglio said. She added that shipping dates may slide around while the company works to fulfill those replacements alongside new orders for the device.
Shipping dates vary depending on where users are, but generally, the Colorsoft isn’t shipping earlier than next week for US buyers. In the UK, people report seeing even longer delays, with shipments pushed out to the end of the month. Prior to the proliferation of complaints, people could expect the tablet to arrive within a more typical day or two in the US.
The delays come after people who first received the device started reporting the appearance of a yellow band along the bottom of its display. The Verge’s own review unit has it, but Andrew Liszewski, who is testing it for us, says in his case, the discoloration is not especially visible to his eyes and shows up more obviously in photos.

Multiple people in a Reddit thread about the delayed shipping times say the company contacted them after they left bad reviews. One wrote that they were told “they want to have it sent to engineering about the yellowish line at the bottom.”
As of this writing, 1-star ratings make up about 30 percent of Colorsoft reviews on Amazon.

A mild yellow band appears on The Verge’s Colorsoft review unit. | Image: Andrew Liszewski / The Verge

Amazon says it’s working to fix issues with the Kindle Colorsoft, its first color e-reader, following complaints from early buyers that a yellow band of discoloration appears on the bottom of the display. The company is making “adjustments” so that “new devices” will not have the yellow band; people who already own a unit can contact Amazon for a refund or replacement.

“We take the quality of our products seriously,” Amazon spokesperson Jill Tornifoglio wrote in an email to The Verge. “Customers who notice this [yellow band] can reach out to our customer service team for a replacement or refund, and we’re making the appropriate adjustments to ensure that new devices will not experience this issue moving forward.”

Existing customers can keep using the Colorsoft until they receive a replacement, Tornifoglio said. She added that shipping dates may slide around while the company works to fulfill those replacements alongside new orders for the device.

Shipping dates vary depending on where users are, but generally, the Colorsoft isn’t shipping earlier than next week for US buyers. In the UK, people report seeing even longer delays, with shipments pushed out to the end of the month. Prior to the proliferation of complaints, people could expect the tablet to arrive within a more typical day or two in the US.

The delays come after people who first received the device started reporting the appearance of a yellow band along the bottom of its display. The Verge’s own review unit has it, but Andrew Liszewski, who is testing it for us, says in his case, the discoloration is not especially visible to his eyes and shows up more obviously in photos.

Multiple people in a Reddit thread about the delayed shipping times say the company contacted them after they left bad reviews. One wrote that they were told “they want to have it sent to engineering about the yellowish line at the bottom.”

As of this writing, 1-star ratings make up about 30 percent of Colorsoft reviews on Amazon.

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