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Image: Tesla

Tesla is holding its annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas, today, where investors will decide the fate of CEO Elon Musk’s enormous $50 billion compensation package.
The event is not just about Musk’s payday. Tesla’s board is portraying it as a pivotal moment in the company’s effort to secure Musk’s attention span, which is divided between X Corp., SpaceX, Neuralink, and his other companies. It also hinges on the question of whether Musk can steer Tesla back on track.
From the looks of things, Musk may get exactly what he wants: both the money and the reincorporation of Tesla in Texas in retaliation of a Delaware judge voiding Musk’s package are on track to pass by wide margins, Musk claimed in a post on X.
Meanwhile, Musk is also facing a new lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and retaliation at SpaceX. And institutional investors have said they plan to vote against the pay package, calling it excessive. Will the vote go the other way? Will someone question Musk’s alleged behaviors? Watch it live here.
When is Tesla’s Annual Stockholder Meeting
Tesla’s “Cyber Roundup” Annual Shareholder Meeting will take place on Thursday, June 13th, at 4:30PM ET / 3:30PM CT / 1:30PM PT.
How to watch Tesla’s Annual Stockholder Meeting
Tesla will host a livestream of the meeting on YouTube, which can be viewed at the top of this page or on Tesla’s 2024 shareholder meeting page. Tesla will have a “limited number” of actual shareholders at the event, who were selected in a “random drawing.” Meanwhile, other stockholders can watch and participate virtually.

Image: Tesla

Tesla is holding its annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas, today, where investors will decide the fate of CEO Elon Musk’s enormous $50 billion compensation package.

The event is not just about Musk’s payday. Tesla’s board is portraying it as a pivotal moment in the company’s effort to secure Musk’s attention span, which is divided between X Corp., SpaceX, Neuralink, and his other companies. It also hinges on the question of whether Musk can steer Tesla back on track.

From the looks of things, Musk may get exactly what he wants: both the money and the reincorporation of Tesla in Texas in retaliation of a Delaware judge voiding Musk’s package are on track to pass by wide margins, Musk claimed in a post on X.

Meanwhile, Musk is also facing a new lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and retaliation at SpaceX. And institutional investors have said they plan to vote against the pay package, calling it excessive. Will the vote go the other way? Will someone question Musk’s alleged behaviors? Watch it live here.

When is Tesla’s Annual Stockholder Meeting

Tesla’s “Cyber Roundup” Annual Shareholder Meeting will take place on Thursday, June 13th, at 4:30PM ET / 3:30PM CT / 1:30PM PT.

How to watch Tesla’s Annual Stockholder Meeting

Tesla will host a livestream of the meeting on YouTube, which can be viewed at the top of this page or on Tesla’s 2024 shareholder meeting page. Tesla will have a “limited number” of actual shareholders at the event, who were selected in a “random drawing.” Meanwhile, other stockholders can watch and participate virtually.

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Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

You may see Microsoft’s upcoming Recall feature, which screenshots everything you do (and has now become an opt-in feature) as a convenient way to keep an eye on your history or a problematic privacy violation. However, it’s not the first time your activity on a Windows computer will have been recorded.
As XDA Developers has pointed out, Windows 10 and 11 computers already contain an activity tracker, which was introduced in Windows 10 as part of its Timeline feature. And although Timeline was removed in Windows 11, the tracker apparently was not.

Screenshot: Microsoft
Activity history may still be enabled in Windows 11, even though Timeline has disappeared.

It’s a simple matter to see if the tracker is still there and enabled — and then to disable it.

Go to your Windows Settings.
In the left-hand column, select Privacy & security.
Scroll down to and select Activity history.
Toggle off Store my activity history on this device.
Below that, hit the Clear history button to clear your activity history.

However, if you’re too busy to deal with this right now, you may not have to worry about it.

Screenshot: Microsoft
In Microsoft’s support page, it asserts that your activity history will no longer be used in current versions of Windows 11.

There are now two notes on Microsoft’s support page for Activity history. The first states: “The option to send activity history to Microsoft has been deprecated from Windows 11 23H2 and 22H2, January 23, 2024-KB5034204 update,” while the second adds that you can either clear your history manually (using the above method) or just wait because “your activity history will be automatically deleted within 30 days from when your data was last synced to the cloud.”
So whether or not you decide to go in and manually deactivate your Activity history depends on how much you trust Microsoft.

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

You may see Microsoft’s upcoming Recall feature, which screenshots everything you do (and has now become an opt-in feature) as a convenient way to keep an eye on your history or a problematic privacy violation. However, it’s not the first time your activity on a Windows computer will have been recorded.

As XDA Developers has pointed out, Windows 10 and 11 computers already contain an activity tracker, which was introduced in Windows 10 as part of its Timeline feature. And although Timeline was removed in Windows 11, the tracker apparently was not.

Screenshot: Microsoft
Activity history may still be enabled in Windows 11, even though Timeline has disappeared.

It’s a simple matter to see if the tracker is still there and enabled — and then to disable it.

Go to your Windows Settings.
In the left-hand column, select Privacy & security.
Scroll down to and select Activity history.
Toggle off Store my activity history on this device.
Below that, hit the Clear history button to clear your activity history.

However, if you’re too busy to deal with this right now, you may not have to worry about it.

Screenshot: Microsoft
In Microsoft’s support page, it asserts that your activity history will no longer be used in current versions of Windows 11.

There are now two notes on Microsoft’s support page for Activity history. The first states: “The option to send activity history to Microsoft has been deprecated from Windows 11 23H2 and 22H2, January 23, 2024-KB5034204 update,” while the second adds that you can either clear your history manually (using the above method) or just wait because “your activity history will be automatically deleted within 30 days from when your data was last synced to the cloud.”

So whether or not you decide to go in and manually deactivate your Activity history depends on how much you trust Microsoft.

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Image: The Verge, Getty Images

At WWDC on Monday, Apple revealed Apple Intelligence, a suite of features bringing generative AI tools like rewriting an email draft, summarizing notifications, and creating custom emoji to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Apple spent a significant portion of its keynote explaining how useful the tools will be — and an almost equal portion of time assuring customers how private the new AI system keeps your data.
That privacy is possible thanks to a twofold approach to generative AI that Apple started to explain in its keynote and offered more detail on in papers and presentations afterward. They show that Apple Intelligence is built with an on-device philosophy that can do the common AI tasks users want fast, like transcribing calls and organizing their schedules. However, Apple Intelligence can also reach out to cloud servers for more complex AI requests that include sending personal context data — and making sure that both deliver good results while keeping your data private is where Apple focused its efforts.
The big news is that Apple is using its own homemade AI models for Apple Intelligence. Apple notes that it doesn’t train its models with private data or user interactions, which is unique compared to other companies. Apple instead uses both licensed materials and publicly available online data that are scraped by the company’s Applebot web crawler. Publishers must opt out if they don’t want their data ingested by Apple, which sounds similar to policies from Google and OpenAI. Apple also says it omits feeding social security and credit card numbers that are floating online, and ignores “profanity and other low-quality content.”
A big selling point for Apple Intelligence is its deep integration into Apple’s operating systems and apps, as well as how the company optimizes its models for power efficiency and size to fit on iPhones. Keeping AI requests local is key to quelling many privacy concerns, but the tradeoff is using smaller and less capable models on-device.

Image: Apple

To make those local models useful, Apple employs fine-tuning, which trains models to make them better at specific tasks like proofreading or summarizing text. The skills are put into the form of “adapters,” which can be laid onto the foundation model and swapped out for the task at hand, similar to applying power-up attributes for your character in a roleplaying game. Similarly, Apple’s diffusion model for Image Playground and Genmoji also uses adapters to get different art styles like illustration or animation (which makes people and pets look like cheap Pixar characters).
Apple says it has optimized its models to speed up the time between sending a prompt and delivering a response, and it uses techniques such as “speculative decoding,” “context pruning,” and “group query attention” to take advantage of Apple Silicon’s Neural Engine. Chip makers have only recently started adding Neural cores (NPU) to the die, which helps relieve CPU and GPU bandwidth when processing machine learning and AI algorithms. It’s part of the reason that only Macs and iPads with M-series chips and only the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max support Apple Intelligence.
The approach is similar to what we’re seeing in the Windows world: Intel launched its 14th-generation Meteor Lake architecture featuring a chip with an NPU, and Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X chips built for Microsoft’s Copilot Plus PCs have them, too. As a result, many AI features on Windows are gated to new devices that can perform work locally on these chips.

Image: Apple

According to Apple’s research, out of 750 tested responses for text summarization, Apple’s on-device AI (with appropriate adapter) had more appealing results to humans than Microsoft’s Phi-3-mini model. It sounds like a great achievement, but most chatbot services today use much larger models in the cloud to achieve better results, and that’s where Apple is trying to walk a careful line on privacy. For Apple to compete with larger models, it is concocting a seamless process that sends complex requests to cloud servers while also trying to prove to users that their data remains private.
If a user request needs a more capable AI model, Apple sends the request to its Private Cloud Compute (PCC) servers. PCC runs on its own OS based on “iOS foundations,” and it has its own machine learning stack that powers Apple Intelligence. According to Apple, PCC has its own secure boot and Secure Enclave to hold encryption keys that only work with the requesting device, and Trusted Execution Monitor makes sure only signed and verified code runs.

Apple says the user’s device creates an end-to-end encrypted connection to a PCC cluster before sending the request. Apple says it cannot access data in the PCC since it’s stripped of server management tools, so there’s no remote shell. Apple also doesn’t give the PCC any persistent storage, so requests and possible personal context data pulled from Apple Intelligence’s Semantic Index apparently get deleted on the cloud afterward.
Each build of PCC will have a virtual build that the public or researchers can inspect, and only signed builds that are logged as inspected will go into production.
One of the big open questions is exactly what types of requests will go to the cloud. When processing a request, Apple Intelligence has a step called Orchestration, where it decides whether to proceed on-device or to use PCC. We don’t know what exactly constitutes a complex enough request to trigger a cloud process yet, and we probably won’t know until Apple Intelligence becomes available in the fall.
There’s one other way Apple is dealing with privacy concerns: making it someone else’s problem. Apple’s revamped Siri can send some queries to ChatGPT in the cloud, but only with permission after you ask some really tough questions. That process shifts the privacy question into the hands of OpenAI, which has its own policies, and the user, who has to agree to offload their query. In an interview with Marques Brownlee, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that ChatGPT would be called on for requests involving “world knowledge” that are “out of domain of personal context.”
Apple’s local and cloud split approach for Apple Intelligence isn’t totally novel. Google has a Gemini Nano model that can work locally on Android devices alongside its Pro and Flash models that process on the cloud. Meanwhile, Microsoft Copilot Plus PCs can process AI requests locally while the company continues to lean on its deal with OpenAI and also build its own in-house MAI-1 model. None of Apple’s rivals, however, have so thoroughly emphasized their privacy commitments in comparison.
Of course, this all looks great in staged demos and edited papers. However, the real test will be later this year when we see Apple Intelligence in action. We’ll have to see if Apple can pull off hitting that balance of quality AI experiences and privacy — and continue to grow it in the coming years.

Image: The Verge, Getty Images

At WWDC on Monday, Apple revealed Apple Intelligence, a suite of features bringing generative AI tools like rewriting an email draft, summarizing notifications, and creating custom emoji to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Apple spent a significant portion of its keynote explaining how useful the tools will be — and an almost equal portion of time assuring customers how private the new AI system keeps your data.

That privacy is possible thanks to a twofold approach to generative AI that Apple started to explain in its keynote and offered more detail on in papers and presentations afterward. They show that Apple Intelligence is built with an on-device philosophy that can do the common AI tasks users want fast, like transcribing calls and organizing their schedules. However, Apple Intelligence can also reach out to cloud servers for more complex AI requests that include sending personal context data — and making sure that both deliver good results while keeping your data private is where Apple focused its efforts.

The big news is that Apple is using its own homemade AI models for Apple Intelligence. Apple notes that it doesn’t train its models with private data or user interactions, which is unique compared to other companies. Apple instead uses both licensed materials and publicly available online data that are scraped by the company’s Applebot web crawler. Publishers must opt out if they don’t want their data ingested by Apple, which sounds similar to policies from Google and OpenAI. Apple also says it omits feeding social security and credit card numbers that are floating online, and ignores “profanity and other low-quality content.”

A big selling point for Apple Intelligence is its deep integration into Apple’s operating systems and apps, as well as how the company optimizes its models for power efficiency and size to fit on iPhones. Keeping AI requests local is key to quelling many privacy concerns, but the tradeoff is using smaller and less capable models on-device.

Image: Apple

To make those local models useful, Apple employs fine-tuning, which trains models to make them better at specific tasks like proofreading or summarizing text. The skills are put into the form of “adapters,” which can be laid onto the foundation model and swapped out for the task at hand, similar to applying power-up attributes for your character in a roleplaying game. Similarly, Apple’s diffusion model for Image Playground and Genmoji also uses adapters to get different art styles like illustration or animation (which makes people and pets look like cheap Pixar characters).

Apple says it has optimized its models to speed up the time between sending a prompt and delivering a response, and it uses techniques such as “speculative decoding,” “context pruning,” and “group query attention” to take advantage of Apple Silicon’s Neural Engine. Chip makers have only recently started adding Neural cores (NPU) to the die, which helps relieve CPU and GPU bandwidth when processing machine learning and AI algorithms. It’s part of the reason that only Macs and iPads with M-series chips and only the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max support Apple Intelligence.

The approach is similar to what we’re seeing in the Windows world: Intel launched its 14th-generation Meteor Lake architecture featuring a chip with an NPU, and Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon X chips built for Microsoft’s Copilot Plus PCs have them, too. As a result, many AI features on Windows are gated to new devices that can perform work locally on these chips.

Image: Apple

According to Apple’s research, out of 750 tested responses for text summarization, Apple’s on-device AI (with appropriate adapter) had more appealing results to humans than Microsoft’s Phi-3-mini model. It sounds like a great achievement, but most chatbot services today use much larger models in the cloud to achieve better results, and that’s where Apple is trying to walk a careful line on privacy. For Apple to compete with larger models, it is concocting a seamless process that sends complex requests to cloud servers while also trying to prove to users that their data remains private.

If a user request needs a more capable AI model, Apple sends the request to its Private Cloud Compute (PCC) servers. PCC runs on its own OS based on “iOS foundations,” and it has its own machine learning stack that powers Apple Intelligence. According to Apple, PCC has its own secure boot and Secure Enclave to hold encryption keys that only work with the requesting device, and Trusted Execution Monitor makes sure only signed and verified code runs.

Apple says the user’s device creates an end-to-end encrypted connection to a PCC cluster before sending the request. Apple says it cannot access data in the PCC since it’s stripped of server management tools, so there’s no remote shell. Apple also doesn’t give the PCC any persistent storage, so requests and possible personal context data pulled from Apple Intelligence’s Semantic Index apparently get deleted on the cloud afterward.

Each build of PCC will have a virtual build that the public or researchers can inspect, and only signed builds that are logged as inspected will go into production.

One of the big open questions is exactly what types of requests will go to the cloud. When processing a request, Apple Intelligence has a step called Orchestration, where it decides whether to proceed on-device or to use PCC. We don’t know what exactly constitutes a complex enough request to trigger a cloud process yet, and we probably won’t know until Apple Intelligence becomes available in the fall.

There’s one other way Apple is dealing with privacy concerns: making it someone else’s problem. Apple’s revamped Siri can send some queries to ChatGPT in the cloud, but only with permission after you ask some really tough questions. That process shifts the privacy question into the hands of OpenAI, which has its own policies, and the user, who has to agree to offload their query. In an interview with Marques Brownlee, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that ChatGPT would be called on for requests involving “world knowledge” that are “out of domain of personal context.”

Apple’s local and cloud split approach for Apple Intelligence isn’t totally novel. Google has a Gemini Nano model that can work locally on Android devices alongside its Pro and Flash models that process on the cloud. Meanwhile, Microsoft Copilot Plus PCs can process AI requests locally while the company continues to lean on its deal with OpenAI and also build its own in-house MAI-1 model. None of Apple’s rivals, however, have so thoroughly emphasized their privacy commitments in comparison.

Of course, this all looks great in staged demos and edited papers. However, the real test will be later this year when we see Apple Intelligence in action. We’ll have to see if Apple can pull off hitting that balance of quality AI experiences and privacy — and continue to grow it in the coming years.

Read More 

Apple and Google have already been named “designated providers” and will be impacted by the law. | Photo by Beata Zawrzel / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Following in the footsteps of the European Union, Japan has now passed a law that will restrict Apple and Google from blocking third-party app stores for Japanese users on their platforms. The legislation is expected to come into force by the end of 2025 and aims to reduce app prices and create a more equitable market by forcing the tech giants to compete with smaller challengers.
Dubbed the Act on Promotion of Competition for Specified Smartphone Software, Japan’s law shares some similarities with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), enforcing strict rules against “designated providers.” That includes requiring their platforms to allow third-party app stores, allowing app developers to offer third-party billing services, and making it easier for users to change their default settings and web browsers. The law also prevents tech giants from prioritizing their own services in search results, something Google was targeted for under its own DMA enforcements.

Apple and Google have already been named designated providers, and any further additions will be selected by Japan’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC). Providers that violate the rules face being fined up to 20 percent of the domestic revenue specific to the infringing service, which increases to 30 percent for repeat offenses.
At least one company is already celebrating the news, with Epic Games announcing plans to bring Fortnite and its game store platform to iOS in Japan in late 2025. The company is currently also working on bringing those services back to iOS in the EU “later this year,” following a hiccup where Apple banned (and then unbanned) its developer account.

A big win for mobile gamers and developers: the Japanese government and the Diet have passed a new law to open up mobile app stores!The Epic Games Store & Fortnite will be coming to iOS in Japan in late 2025 https://t.co/Jm9QLOoAZ3— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) June 12, 2024

Japan’s FTC said the changes were being introduced because it believes smartphone operating systems, app stores, browsers, and search engines are an “oligopoly market” that would take existing antimonopoly laws “a remarkably long time” to address. We have contacted Apple and Google for comment on the ruling but haven’t yet heard back.

Apple and Google have already been named “designated providers” and will be impacted by the law. | Photo by Beata Zawrzel / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Following in the footsteps of the European Union, Japan has now passed a law that will restrict Apple and Google from blocking third-party app stores for Japanese users on their platforms. The legislation is expected to come into force by the end of 2025 and aims to reduce app prices and create a more equitable market by forcing the tech giants to compete with smaller challengers.

Dubbed the Act on Promotion of Competition for Specified Smartphone Software, Japan’s law shares some similarities with the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), enforcing strict rules against “designated providers.” That includes requiring their platforms to allow third-party app stores, allowing app developers to offer third-party billing services, and making it easier for users to change their default settings and web browsers. The law also prevents tech giants from prioritizing their own services in search results, something Google was targeted for under its own DMA enforcements.

Apple and Google have already been named designated providers, and any further additions will be selected by Japan’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC). Providers that violate the rules face being fined up to 20 percent of the domestic revenue specific to the infringing service, which increases to 30 percent for repeat offenses.

At least one company is already celebrating the news, with Epic Games announcing plans to bring Fortnite and its game store platform to iOS in Japan in late 2025. The company is currently also working on bringing those services back to iOS in the EU “later this year,” following a hiccup where Apple banned (and then unbanned) its developer account.

Japan’s FTC said the changes were being introduced because it believes smartphone operating systems, app stores, browsers, and search engines are an “oligopoly market” that would take existing antimonopoly laws “a remarkably long time” to address. We have contacted Apple and Google for comment on the ruling but haven’t yet heard back.

Read More 

Image: Lego

Two years after Lego revealed a buildable model of the Transformers’ Optimus Prime that actually transformed, the heroic Autobot leader is finally getting backup with his second-in-command, Bumblebee, debuting as a 950-piece set that transforms into a Volkswagen Beetle — or at least a close facsimile thereof.
In recent years, thanks to the run of big-budget Transformers movies, Bumblebee is best known for transforming into a bright yellow Chevrolet Camaro. But in the original ’80s toy line and animated series, Bumblebee’s alternate vehicle mode was the iconic Volkswagen Beetle.

Image: Lego
Lego Bumblebee’s vehicle mode appears to be a mashup of several different vehicles.

As with its Optimus Prime set, Lego is sticking to the original ’80s designs of the Transformers characters for Bumblebee. But while Lego does have a history of working with Volkswagen to create authentic-looking brick-built models of the automaker’s Beetle and camper vans, the Lego Bumblebee’s vehicle mode looks like a loose interpretation of the beloved VW bug, with a dash of classic Citroën and Peugeot cars added for good measure.
Hasbro’s original Bumblebee toy wasn’t a perfect dupe of the VW Beetle, either, so this might make Lego’s interpretation feel even more authentic to nostalgic collectors who grew up playing with Transformers toys 40 years ago. But given the level of accuracy Lego includes with its smaller and cheaper Speed Champions sets, some, including myself, might be a little disappointed with Bumblebee when he transforms and rolls out.

Image: Lego
Minor disassembly is required to transform Bumblebee from robot to vehicle modes.

Transforming modern Transformers toys can sometimes feel as complex as solving a Rubik’s Cube, but converting Bumblebee between his robot and vehicle modes appears to be a far less frustrating experience, although Lego hasn’t shared exactly how many steps the process involves.

Image: Lego
In robot mode, Bumblebee’s windshield transforms into an optional jetpack.

There does appear to be one minor compromise in the transformation process. Bumblebee’s windshield needs to be completely removed before fully transforming from vehicle to robot modes, but Lego has attempted to appease Transformers fans by having the windshield itself transform into a jetpack, allowing Bumblebee to fly — some imagination required.

Image: Lego
Additional accessories include a buildable ion blaster and a display plaque revealing Bumblebee’s stats.

Other accessories include a display plaque listing Bumblebee’s stats (fans may contest his strength and firepower being ranked at a meager two and one, respectively, but for courage, it’s a solid 10) and a buildable ion blaster.

Image: Lego
Bumper stickers are a cute but optional touch.

Few Lego fans like to see a giant sheet of stickers included with a set, but a pair of cute bumper stickers and a vanity license plate appear to at least make the painstaking application process worth it for Bumblebee.

Image: Lego
Multiple points of articulation, including individual fingers, help make Bumblebee posable in robot mode.

Image: Lego
Although there’s no room inside for a passenger, in vehicle mode, Bumblebee’s doors can be opened.

Image: Lego
A look at the front and back of the Lego Bumblebee set’s packaging.

The set’s best feature might be its price tag. When available starting on July 1st for Lego Insiders (a loyalty program that’s free to sign up for) or July 4th for everyone else, the 950-piece Bumblebee will be almost $100 cheaper than the 1,508-piece, $180 Lego Optimus Prime at $89.99, €89.99, or £79.99.

Image: Lego

Two years after Lego revealed a buildable model of the Transformers’ Optimus Prime that actually transformed, the heroic Autobot leader is finally getting backup with his second-in-command, Bumblebee, debuting as a 950-piece set that transforms into a Volkswagen Beetle — or at least a close facsimile thereof.

In recent years, thanks to the run of big-budget Transformers movies, Bumblebee is best known for transforming into a bright yellow Chevrolet Camaro. But in the original ’80s toy line and animated series, Bumblebee’s alternate vehicle mode was the iconic Volkswagen Beetle.

As with its Optimus Prime set, Lego is sticking to the original ’80s designs of the Transformers characters for Bumblebee. But while Lego does have a history of working with Volkswagen to create authentic-looking brick-built models of the automaker’s Beetle and camper vans, the Lego Bumblebee’s vehicle mode looks like a loose interpretation of the beloved VW bug, with a dash of classic Citroën and Peugeot cars added for good measure.

Hasbro’s original Bumblebee toy wasn’t a perfect dupe of the VW Beetle, either, so this might make Lego’s interpretation feel even more authentic to nostalgic collectors who grew up playing with Transformers toys 40 years ago. But given the level of accuracy Lego includes with its smaller and cheaper Speed Champions sets, some, including myself, might be a little disappointed with Bumblebee when he transforms and rolls out.

Transforming modern Transformers toys can sometimes feel as complex as solving a Rubik’s Cube, but converting Bumblebee between his robot and vehicle modes appears to be a far less frustrating experience, although Lego hasn’t shared exactly how many steps the process involves.

There does appear to be one minor compromise in the transformation process. Bumblebee’s windshield needs to be completely removed before fully transforming from vehicle to robot modes, but Lego has attempted to appease Transformers fans by having the windshield itself transform into a jetpack, allowing Bumblebee to fly — some imagination required.

Other accessories include a display plaque listing Bumblebee’s stats (fans may contest his strength and firepower being ranked at a meager two and one, respectively, but for courage, it’s a solid 10) and a buildable ion blaster.

Few Lego fans like to see a giant sheet of stickers included with a set, but a pair of cute bumper stickers and a vanity license plate appear to at least make the painstaking application process worth it for Bumblebee.

The set’s best feature might be its price tag. When available starting on July 1st for Lego Insiders (a loyalty program that’s free to sign up for) or July 4th for everyone else, the 950-piece Bumblebee will be almost $100 cheaper than the 1,508-piece, $180 Lego Optimus Prime at $89.99, €89.99, or £79.99.

Read More 

Arlo’s new security tag can disarm its security system via its video doorbell. | Image: Arlo

Last year, smart security company Arlo launched a home security system with several features that rivaled the excellent Google Nest Secure (RIP) — including multifunction sensors and an all-in-one hub / keypad. It then promised an NFC security tag that would let you disarm the system with a tap. This week, it delivered on that promise with the launch of the Arlo Security Tag.
The new key fob lets you arm and disarm the system with a tap on the keypad hub inside your home, similar to what was possible with the Nest Secure. But Arlo has also added a handy option to disarm the system by tapping the tag on an Arlo video doorbell before you even enter your house.

The NFC-enabled tag is available now for $19.99 for a two-pack and works with the Arlo Secure app, where you can create access schedules for frequent visitors like dog walkers or housekeepers. They just need to tap the video doorbell with the tag during their designated access period and it will disarm the system.
Of course, the tag is also a useful way to shut off the system for those who live in the home, as it’s often easier to tap a tag on your keychain than pull out your phone to disarm it or punch in a code on the keypad. It doesn’t appear that the system can be disarmed using NFC on your phone, but we reached out to Arlo to confirm.

Image: Arlo
The new security tags come in white and black and cost $19.99 for a two-pack.

The Arlo Home Security System starts at $199.99 and features a central hub / keypad with a motion sensor, speaker, and built-in microphone. It works with Arlo’s All-in-One Sensors that are both contact and motion sensors, as the Nest Secure’s Detect sensors were. Each sensor can similarly be temporarily disarmed with the push of a button right on the device if you need to let the dog out at 2AM.
The multipurpose devices also act as light and temperature sensors, can be used as leak detectors, and can listen for smoke / carbon monoxide alarm audio sirens. The system can be self- or professionally monitored starting at $24.99 a month, which includes video recording for the doorbell and Arlo cameras.
The tag-to-disarm feature only works with the newest Arlo video doorbell, which comes in two versions: one with HD video for $79.99 and one with 2K video resolution for $129.99. Both can be wired or battery-powered.
Arlo is mainly known for its smart security cameras, including the recently launched Arlo Pro 5S 2K ($249.99), which can connect with the security system through a feature called Arlo SecureLink to keep it connected during internet and power outages.
While DIY smart home security systems have exploded in recent years, there haven’t been a lot of features developed that make them easier to use. The ability to tap your doorbell with your key fob seems simple but also really useful. I’ll be testing it out and will have a full review of the system soon.

Arlo’s new security tag can disarm its security system via its video doorbell. | Image: Arlo

Last year, smart security company Arlo launched a home security system with several features that rivaled the excellent Google Nest Secure (RIP) — including multifunction sensors and an all-in-one hub / keypad. It then promised an NFC security tag that would let you disarm the system with a tap. This week, it delivered on that promise with the launch of the Arlo Security Tag.

The new key fob lets you arm and disarm the system with a tap on the keypad hub inside your home, similar to what was possible with the Nest Secure. But Arlo has also added a handy option to disarm the system by tapping the tag on an Arlo video doorbell before you even enter your house.

The NFC-enabled tag is available now for $19.99 for a two-pack and works with the Arlo Secure app, where you can create access schedules for frequent visitors like dog walkers or housekeepers. They just need to tap the video doorbell with the tag during their designated access period and it will disarm the system.

Of course, the tag is also a useful way to shut off the system for those who live in the home, as it’s often easier to tap a tag on your keychain than pull out your phone to disarm it or punch in a code on the keypad. It doesn’t appear that the system can be disarmed using NFC on your phone, but we reached out to Arlo to confirm.

Image: Arlo
The new security tags come in white and black and cost $19.99 for a two-pack.

The Arlo Home Security System starts at $199.99 and features a central hub / keypad with a motion sensor, speaker, and built-in microphone. It works with Arlo’s All-in-One Sensors that are both contact and motion sensors, as the Nest Secure’s Detect sensors were. Each sensor can similarly be temporarily disarmed with the push of a button right on the device if you need to let the dog out at 2AM.

The multipurpose devices also act as light and temperature sensors, can be used as leak detectors, and can listen for smoke / carbon monoxide alarm audio sirens. The system can be self- or professionally monitored starting at $24.99 a month, which includes video recording for the doorbell and Arlo cameras.

The tag-to-disarm feature only works with the newest Arlo video doorbell, which comes in two versions: one with HD video for $79.99 and one with 2K video resolution for $129.99. Both can be wired or battery-powered.

Arlo is mainly known for its smart security cameras, including the recently launched Arlo Pro 5S 2K ($249.99), which can connect with the security system through a feature called Arlo SecureLink to keep it connected during internet and power outages.

While DIY smart home security systems have exploded in recent years, there haven’t been a lot of features developed that make them easier to use. The ability to tap your doorbell with your key fob seems simple but also really useful. I’ll be testing it out and will have a full review of the system soon.

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The Galaxy Watch FE will retail for $199.99 with Bluetooth and $249.99 with LTE. | Image: Samsung

The leaks were right. Samsung just announced it’s launching a third smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch FE. It’s meant to be the company’s new entry-level smartwatch, offering a more affordable option compared to its flagship Galaxy Watch models.
It makes sense that Samsung’s doing this now. The Galaxy Watch series used to be relatively affordable compared to the competition, but in the past two years, Samsung’s raised the starting price of its watches by $50 to keep up with inflation. The FE will retail at $199 for the Bluetooth-only version and at $249.99 for the LTE version — which is more in line with what its watches used to cost. This also makes Samsung’s smartwatch lineup look a bit more like Apple’s, with a budget model, flagship model, and a more premium option.
Like other entry-level models, the FE forgoes some bells and whistles to get that more palatable price. For example, the FE only comes in a single 40mm size with a slightly smaller 1.2-inch OLED display. The FE also has the last-gen Exynos W920 chip instead of the W930, with 1.5GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Most of the sensors remain the same, but you do give up the temperature sensor that was introduced last year. The battery is also smaller at 247mAh. The Verge asked if the FE will support fast charging but did not get a response.

That said, you’re not giving up that much. Despite being the budget model, the FE has the same sapphire crystal lens, IP68 rating, and 5ATM of water resistance. It’s also got the same one-click strap mechanism, NFC payments, and built-in GPS. Connectivity-wise, you get LTE, Bluetooth 5.0, and Wi-Fi. Also like the flagship watches, the FE has OneUI Watch 5 and Wear OS 4, abnormal high / low heart rate notifications, EKGs, body composition analysis, and personalized heart rate zones.
Announcing the FE now is a bit of a surprise. Samsung typically unveils its wearables at its summer Unpacked event, which is expected to take place next month in Paris. That said, this year’s event could be a truly stacked one for Samsung’s wearable lineup. On top of a new Galaxy Watch 7, we’re expecting to see a new Galaxy Watch Ultra and the Galaxy Ring. All things considered, the relatively simple FE would’ve easily gotten lost in the shuffle.
The Bluetooth version of the Galaxy Watch FE goes on sale in the US starting June 24th. The LTE version arrives later this year.

The Galaxy Watch FE will retail for $199.99 with Bluetooth and $249.99 with LTE. | Image: Samsung

The leaks were right. Samsung just announced it’s launching a third smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch FE. It’s meant to be the company’s new entry-level smartwatch, offering a more affordable option compared to its flagship Galaxy Watch models.

It makes sense that Samsung’s doing this now. The Galaxy Watch series used to be relatively affordable compared to the competition, but in the past two years, Samsung’s raised the starting price of its watches by $50 to keep up with inflation. The FE will retail at $199 for the Bluetooth-only version and at $249.99 for the LTE version — which is more in line with what its watches used to cost. This also makes Samsung’s smartwatch lineup look a bit more like Apple’s, with a budget model, flagship model, and a more premium option.

Like other entry-level models, the FE forgoes some bells and whistles to get that more palatable price. For example, the FE only comes in a single 40mm size with a slightly smaller 1.2-inch OLED display. The FE also has the last-gen Exynos W920 chip instead of the W930, with 1.5GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Most of the sensors remain the same, but you do give up the temperature sensor that was introduced last year. The battery is also smaller at 247mAh. The Verge asked if the FE will support fast charging but did not get a response.

That said, you’re not giving up that much. Despite being the budget model, the FE has the same sapphire crystal lens, IP68 rating, and 5ATM of water resistance. It’s also got the same one-click strap mechanism, NFC payments, and built-in GPS. Connectivity-wise, you get LTE, Bluetooth 5.0, and Wi-Fi. Also like the flagship watches, the FE has OneUI Watch 5 and Wear OS 4, abnormal high / low heart rate notifications, EKGs, body composition analysis, and personalized heart rate zones.

Announcing the FE now is a bit of a surprise. Samsung typically unveils its wearables at its summer Unpacked event, which is expected to take place next month in Paris. That said, this year’s event could be a truly stacked one for Samsung’s wearable lineup. On top of a new Galaxy Watch 7, we’re expecting to see a new Galaxy Watch Ultra and the Galaxy Ring. All things considered, the relatively simple FE would’ve easily gotten lost in the shuffle.

The Bluetooth version of the Galaxy Watch FE goes on sale in the US starting June 24th. The LTE version arrives later this year.

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Allison Johnson / The Verge

While the partnership between Apple and OpenAI announced at WWDC this week promises to give ChatGPT a prestigious place in Apple’s ecosystem, it seems neither party is paying the other to make that happen. According to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple instead believes that the exposure OpenAI will receive from being on hundreds of millions of Apple devices is “of equal or greater value than monetary payments.”
The report also says this deal isn’t exclusive to OpenAI, and that Apple is in talks with Anthropic and Google to offer their respective chatbots as an alternative option, with an agreement for Google’s Gemini expected to be in place later this year. While Apple will utilize OpenAI’s GPT-4o model to power various AI tasks on iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, its goal is to offer users a range of third-party AI services, akin to how Apple’s Safari browser supports different search engine options.
One way that Apple is planning to make money from these partnerships, according to the Bloomberg report, is via revenue-sharing agreements. That involves taking a cut from any AI provider that monetizes results in their chatbots, such as the $20-per-month subscription plan for ChatGPT Plus.

Apple is reportedly expecting chatbots and LLMs to start tempting people away from using traditional search engines. That’s not ideal for the extremely lucrative arrangement that has Google paying Apple billions of dollars to be the iPhone’s default search engine, so revenue-sharing deals could be one way for Apple to make up for the shortfall.
The announcements around Apple Intelligence and its OpenAI agreement mark a significant development in Apple’s AI strategy, but it’s still early days. The company is aiming to support Apple Intelligence in additional languages besides American English next year according to Bloomberg, and is reportedly considering deals with Baidu and Alibaba to handle offering chatbot features in China, where access to ChatGPT is limited.

Allison Johnson / The Verge

While the partnership between Apple and OpenAI announced at WWDC this week promises to give ChatGPT a prestigious place in Apple’s ecosystem, it seems neither party is paying the other to make that happen. According to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple instead believes that the exposure OpenAI will receive from being on hundreds of millions of Apple devices is “of equal or greater value than monetary payments.”

The report also says this deal isn’t exclusive to OpenAI, and that Apple is in talks with Anthropic and Google to offer their respective chatbots as an alternative option, with an agreement for Google’s Gemini expected to be in place later this year. While Apple will utilize OpenAI’s GPT-4o model to power various AI tasks on iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, its goal is to offer users a range of third-party AI services, akin to how Apple’s Safari browser supports different search engine options.

One way that Apple is planning to make money from these partnerships, according to the Bloomberg report, is via revenue-sharing agreements. That involves taking a cut from any AI provider that monetizes results in their chatbots, such as the $20-per-month subscription plan for ChatGPT Plus.

Apple is reportedly expecting chatbots and LLMs to start tempting people away from using traditional search engines. That’s not ideal for the extremely lucrative arrangement that has Google paying Apple billions of dollars to be the iPhone’s default search engine, so revenue-sharing deals could be one way for Apple to make up for the shortfall.

The announcements around Apple Intelligence and its OpenAI agreement mark a significant development in Apple’s AI strategy, but it’s still early days. The company is aiming to support Apple Intelligence in additional languages besides American English next year according to Bloomberg, and is reportedly considering deals with Baidu and Alibaba to handle offering chatbot features in China, where access to ChatGPT is limited.

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The new Discord integration on PS5. | Image: Sony

Sony is improving its Discord integration on the PS5 so that you can join voice calls directly from the console. First launched last year, Discord support on PS5 currently requires you to manually transfer a call to a console by using the Discord app on mobile or PC. Sony is now rolling out an update that integrates Discord directly into the PS5 dashboard so you can select the server or DM group you want to join.
The update is rolling out gradually over the coming weeks, starting with PS5 owners in Japan and Asia followed by Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, and then finally the US and Canada. You’ll need to update your PS5 to the latest system software to get this new Discord integration, and a PlayStation Network account will need to be linked to your Discord account, too.

You’ll soon be able to join Discord voice chats directly from your PS5 console The update is gradually rolling out over the coming weeks, starting in Japan/Asia: https://t.co/kcJtWAYOLB pic.twitter.com/KGOFSauZvH— PlayStation (@PlayStation) June 13, 2024

“To start, select the Discord tab in Game Base within the PS5 Control Center and choose the Discord server or DM group you’d like to join,” explains Sabrina Meditz, senior director of product management for the PlayStation platform experience. “Then, select your preferred voice channel. This will reveal more details, such as who is already in the channel chatting. You’ll also receive a PS5 console notification when another Discord user calls you, allowing you to join right away.”
This latest PS5 update puts the Discord experience nearly on par with what Microsoft offers on the Xbox. Microsoft first offered Discord support on Xbox in July 2022 for testers, before then rolling out an improved experience without the need for a phone in November 2022. Discord on Xbox was also updated to let you stream your gameplay to friends last year.
Sony is also rolling out the ability to share your PlayStation Network profile on any messaging or social app, with a new share profile option in the PlayStation mobile app next week. The feature generates a shareable link or QR code so people can easily add you as a friend.

The new Discord integration on PS5. | Image: Sony

Sony is improving its Discord integration on the PS5 so that you can join voice calls directly from the console. First launched last year, Discord support on PS5 currently requires you to manually transfer a call to a console by using the Discord app on mobile or PC. Sony is now rolling out an update that integrates Discord directly into the PS5 dashboard so you can select the server or DM group you want to join.

The update is rolling out gradually over the coming weeks, starting with PS5 owners in Japan and Asia followed by Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, and then finally the US and Canada. You’ll need to update your PS5 to the latest system software to get this new Discord integration, and a PlayStation Network account will need to be linked to your Discord account, too.

“To start, select the Discord tab in Game Base within the PS5 Control Center and choose the Discord server or DM group you’d like to join,” explains Sabrina Meditz, senior director of product management for the PlayStation platform experience. “Then, select your preferred voice channel. This will reveal more details, such as who is already in the channel chatting. You’ll also receive a PS5 console notification when another Discord user calls you, allowing you to join right away.”

This latest PS5 update puts the Discord experience nearly on par with what Microsoft offers on the Xbox. Microsoft first offered Discord support on Xbox in July 2022 for testers, before then rolling out an improved experience without the need for a phone in November 2022. Discord on Xbox was also updated to let you stream your gameplay to friends last year.

Sony is also rolling out the ability to share your PlayStation Network profile on any messaging or social app, with a new share profile option in the PlayStation mobile app next week. The feature generates a shareable link or QR code so people can easily add you as a friend.

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Linda Yaccarino. | Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox Media

During an internal all-hands meeting led by X CEO Linda Yaccarino on Wednesday, concerned employees tuned in to hear if she would address the pressing issue on their minds: performance reviews.
Sources inside the company confirm that a promotions process was recently delayed without explanation and that X’s sales team doesn’t expect to meet its revenue targets for the quarter. Given how the company formerly called Twitter has continued to struggle under Elon Musk’s ownership, employees have been bracing for more layoffs.
One of Musk’s key lieutenants, The Boring Company CEO Steve Davis, has been reviewing finances at X’s headquarters in San Francisco over the past several weeks, according to multiple employees who requested anonymity to speak without the company’s permission. As one of them described Davis: “He’s the grim reaper who only shows up for bad things.”
A source at X told The Verge that there have been a handful of people laid off in recent days. Many noticed the sudden departure of Yaccarino’s right-hand man, Joe Benarroch. So, when a rare all-hands meeting with her landed on employee calendars last week, X’s roughly 1,500 remaining staffers anxiously waited to find out more.
The meeting began with a montage of viral tweets, including one by infamous GameStop trader Keith Gill, followed by Yaccarino joining from an X conference room named “eXtraordinary.” She tried to drum up excitement about live events on the platform, such as the Super Bowl and March Madness, and urged employees to discuss Musk’s x.AI chatbot Grok with advertisers. She also emphasized that X’s focus on video has “definitely driving advertising” without elaborating.
As the meeting continued, X’s head of HR, Walter Gilbert, told staff that X is planning to implement a broader and more robust promotion process that will include “doing lighter-weight check-ins throughout the year.” One source who watched the meeting quipped that a bulk of the submitted employee questions were “definitely about HR, promotions, raises/equity” and not addressed.
Musk was noticeably absent despite him being in San Francisco along with Yaccarino. Instead, several other directors joined: Monique Pintarelli, head of advertising for the Americas, Nick Pickles, who leads policy, Kylie McRoberts, the company’s latest head of trust and safety, and Haofei Wang, director of engineering.
While Yaccarino was light on specific data about the performance of the advertising business, Pintarelli told staff that X now has over “50% of our revenue attributed to performance objectives,” which she described “as a pretty big shift from where the business was over the last few years.”
While this all-hands may not have given X employees many answers, Yaccarino did emphasize that the company will be conducting them once a quarter, adding that the team will “also be hearing quite soon from both Elon and I.”
Alex Heath contributed reporting.

Linda Yaccarino. | Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox Media

During an internal all-hands meeting led by X CEO Linda Yaccarino on Wednesday, concerned employees tuned in to hear if she would address the pressing issue on their minds: performance reviews.

Sources inside the company confirm that a promotions process was recently delayed without explanation and that X’s sales team doesn’t expect to meet its revenue targets for the quarter. Given how the company formerly called Twitter has continued to struggle under Elon Musk’s ownership, employees have been bracing for more layoffs.

One of Musk’s key lieutenants, The Boring Company CEO Steve Davis, has been reviewing finances at X’s headquarters in San Francisco over the past several weeks, according to multiple employees who requested anonymity to speak without the company’s permission. As one of them described Davis: “He’s the grim reaper who only shows up for bad things.”

A source at X told The Verge that there have been a handful of people laid off in recent days. Many noticed the sudden departure of Yaccarino’s right-hand man, Joe Benarroch. So, when a rare all-hands meeting with her landed on employee calendars last week, X’s roughly 1,500 remaining staffers anxiously waited to find out more.

The meeting began with a montage of viral tweets, including one by infamous GameStop trader Keith Gill, followed by Yaccarino joining from an X conference room named “eXtraordinary.” She tried to drum up excitement about live events on the platform, such as the Super Bowl and March Madness, and urged employees to discuss Musk’s x.AI chatbot Grok with advertisers. She also emphasized that X’s focus on video has “definitely driving advertising” without elaborating.

As the meeting continued, X’s head of HR, Walter Gilbert, told staff that X is planning to implement a broader and more robust promotion process that will include “doing lighter-weight check-ins throughout the year.” One source who watched the meeting quipped that a bulk of the submitted employee questions were “definitely about HR, promotions, raises/equity” and not addressed.

Musk was noticeably absent despite him being in San Francisco along with Yaccarino. Instead, several other directors joined: Monique Pintarelli, head of advertising for the Americas, Nick Pickles, who leads policy, Kylie McRoberts, the company’s latest head of trust and safety, and Haofei Wang, director of engineering.

While Yaccarino was light on specific data about the performance of the advertising business, Pintarelli told staff that X now has over “50% of our revenue attributed to performance objectives,” which she described “as a pretty big shift from where the business was over the last few years.”

While this all-hands may not have given X employees many answers, Yaccarino did emphasize that the company will be conducting them once a quarter, adding that the team will “also be hearing quite soon from both Elon and I.”

Alex Heath contributed reporting.

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