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A better symbiosis between smart technology and our favorite kitchen gadgets is part o the future of the smart kitchen. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

A new moment for connected cooking emerges at the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle. “The world didn’t need a Wi-Fi-enabled rolling pin, and we definitely don’t need Al in a rolling pin.” With this quip, culinary technologist Scott Heimendinger neatly summed up the theme of the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) held in Seattle this week.
To be successful, smart kitchen innovations need to address real problems in the kitchen, not just jump on the bandwagon of whatever is the sizzling hot thing in tech.
For example, take the Joule sous vide. One of the earliest smart kitchen gadgets, this beautiful piece of tech was almost impossible to use because it relied entirely on an app and Wi-Fi connectivity. Two things still largely alien to the kitchen of 2015.
Chris Young, former CEO of ChefSteps which developed Joule, told the SKS audience how the decision to not put a screen on the device lost them half their potential customer base. (Joule was rescued by Breville in 2019, which still hasn’t put a screen on it.)
Young’s latest gadget is the Combustion Predictive Thermometer Plus Display, an incredibly smart meat thermometer that not only has the option of a very big screen but doesn’t need Wi-Fi at all.
This type of pivot is emblematic of what I saw throughout the conference this week: a refocusing by the entrepreneurs and companies in the smart kitchen away from sleek, showy gadgets toward developing products built on an understanding of how people actually cook. Many of the solutions I saw and heard about seem designed to make cooking easier, healthier, and more personalized — the latter being something generative AI will clearly play a big role in.
Of course, there’s still plenty of gadgets — from robot chefs to wirelessly-powered appliances. But there’s also a shift toward improving the software that powers the smart kitchen. Rather than rely on individual apps built by appliance manufacturers, platforms like Fresco are working toward a universal kitchen OS — a cross-kitchen experience that can connect our appliances with each other and with the recipes we want to cook.
My ideal smart kitchen is one that knows what I have in my pantry and fridge, can develop me a meal plan based on those ingredients, shop for whatever extra items I need, then have my appliances prepped and ready to go when I start cooking.
While that dream is still a ways off, from what I saw this week, the future of the smart kitchen is coming into focus. I’ll be sharing snippets and stories around the things that caught my attention at the Smart Kitchen Summit over the next few days, so check back often.

A better symbiosis between smart technology and our favorite kitchen gadgets is part o the future of the smart kitchen. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

A new moment for connected cooking emerges at the Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle.

“The world didn’t need a Wi-Fi-enabled rolling pin, and we definitely don’t need Al in a rolling pin.” With this quip, culinary technologist Scott Heimendinger neatly summed up the theme of the Smart Kitchen Summit (SKS) held in Seattle this week.

To be successful, smart kitchen innovations need to address real problems in the kitchen, not just jump on the bandwagon of whatever is the sizzling hot thing in tech.

For example, take the Joule sous vide. One of the earliest smart kitchen gadgets, this beautiful piece of tech was almost impossible to use because it relied entirely on an app and Wi-Fi connectivity. Two things still largely alien to the kitchen of 2015.

Chris Young, former CEO of ChefSteps which developed Joule, told the SKS audience how the decision to not put a screen on the device lost them half their potential customer base. (Joule was rescued by Breville in 2019, which still hasn’t put a screen on it.)

Young’s latest gadget is the Combustion Predictive Thermometer Plus Display, an incredibly smart meat thermometer that not only has the option of a very big screen but doesn’t need Wi-Fi at all.

This type of pivot is emblematic of what I saw throughout the conference this week: a refocusing by the entrepreneurs and companies in the smart kitchen away from sleek, showy gadgets toward developing products built on an understanding of how people actually cook. Many of the solutions I saw and heard about seem designed to make cooking easier, healthier, and more personalized — the latter being something generative AI will clearly play a big role in.

Of course, there’s still plenty of gadgets — from robot chefs to wirelessly-powered appliances. But there’s also a shift toward improving the software that powers the smart kitchen. Rather than rely on individual apps built by appliance manufacturers, platforms like Fresco are working toward a universal kitchen OS — a cross-kitchen experience that can connect our appliances with each other and with the recipes we want to cook.

My ideal smart kitchen is one that knows what I have in my pantry and fridge, can develop me a meal plan based on those ingredients, shop for whatever extra items I need, then have my appliances prepped and ready to go when I start cooking.

While that dream is still a ways off, from what I saw this week, the future of the smart kitchen is coming into focus. I’ll be sharing snippets and stories around the things that caught my attention at the Smart Kitchen Summit over the next few days, so check back often.

Read More 

Image: CBS Studio

The title sequence for the Among Us animated series made its debut during the Summer Game Fest on Friday. During the sneak peek, we got a glimpse at each of the characters and their various roles aboard the Skeld.
We first heard about the Among Us series last year, which is made in collaboration with CBS Studios, Among Us developer Innersloth, and Titmouse, the animation studio behind Big Mouth and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

We already know some of the characters — and their voice actors — that will appear in the show. Some of the biggest names include Randall Park as the captain Red; Ashley Johnson as the security chief Purple; Patton Oswalt as the contest winner White; Elijah Wood as the unpaid intern Green; Phil LaMarr as the ship cook Brown; and Wayne Knight as the engineer Lime. But what we don’t know is: who’s the Imposter?
Additionally, Innersloth announced Outersloth — an initiative that will fund indie games like Battle Suit Aces, Project Dosa, and Mossfield Archives.

Image: CBS Studio

The title sequence for the Among Us animated series made its debut during the Summer Game Fest on Friday. During the sneak peek, we got a glimpse at each of the characters and their various roles aboard the Skeld.

We first heard about the Among Us series last year, which is made in collaboration with CBS Studios, Among Us developer Innersloth, and Titmouse, the animation studio behind Big Mouth and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

We already know some of the characters — and their voice actors — that will appear in the show. Some of the biggest names include Randall Park as the captain Red; Ashley Johnson as the security chief Purple; Patton Oswalt as the contest winner White; Elijah Wood as the unpaid intern Green; Phil LaMarr as the ship cook Brown; and Wayne Knight as the engineer Lime. But what we don’t know is: who’s the Imposter?

Additionally, Innersloth announced Outersloth — an initiative that will fund indie games like Battle Suit Aces, Project Dosa, and Mossfield Archives.

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Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge

The antitrust lawsuit by the Justice Department and eight states seeking to break up Google’s alleged adtech monopoly will be heard by a judge this fall, as the company preferred. The government’s lawyers had included a damages claim in their lawsuit and pursued a trial by jury. Jury trials can be more unpredictable, like Epic’s courtroom win over Google last year, and a legal expert told The Verge that if the government was successful, it could make Google more likely to settle the case.
But Reuters reports that won’t happen after the company filed a copy of a $2.3 million cashier’s check — without admitting any liability or wrongdoing — that it said would be enough to cover triple the monetary damages requested by the government, if necessary, plus interest.

A photocopy of a cashier’s check for maximum damages, filed to the court docket for the DOJ’s ad tech antitrust action against Google.

Now that US District Judge Leonie Brinkema has ruled on the matter, she’s scheduled a bench trial for September 9th to hear arguments from both sides. Meanwhile, the DOJ and Google continue to wait for a ruling on their big search antitrust showdown after making their closing arguments about a month ago.

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge

The antitrust lawsuit by the Justice Department and eight states seeking to break up Google’s alleged adtech monopoly will be heard by a judge this fall, as the company preferred. The government’s lawyers had included a damages claim in their lawsuit and pursued a trial by jury. Jury trials can be more unpredictable, like Epic’s courtroom win over Google last year, and a legal expert told The Verge that if the government was successful, it could make Google more likely to settle the case.

But Reuters reports that won’t happen after the company filed a copy of a $2.3 million cashier’s check — without admitting any liability or wrongdoing — that it said would be enough to cover triple the monetary damages requested by the government, if necessary, plus interest.

A photocopy of a cashier’s check for maximum damages, filed to the court docket for the DOJ’s ad tech antitrust action against Google.

Now that US District Judge Leonie Brinkema has ruled on the matter, she’s scheduled a bench trial for September 9th to hear arguments from both sides. Meanwhile, the DOJ and Google continue to wait for a ruling on their big search antitrust showdown after making their closing arguments about a month ago.

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Image: 2K Games

It’s been a long wait, but the next Civilization has finally been revealed. At the main Summer Game Fest keynote, publisher 2K officially announced Civilization 7, the first new entry in the strategy series since 2016. We didn’t get any real details or actual gameplay, but instead a very brief teaser trailer that looked a lot like, well, Civilization. But there’s one thing we do know: the game won’t be launching until 2025. And it’s coming to a number of platforms, with the launch planned for PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch.
More details will be coming in August, according to 2K, with a “full gameplay showcase.”
There were some inklings this was coming. Ahead of the show, the publisher teased that “the next iteration in one of 2K’s biggest and most beloved franchises” would be revealed, and earlier today, Civilization VII actually appeared briefly on the company’s website. Longtime Civ developer Firaxis Games revealed that it was working on the next iteration of the franchise last year, though it didn’t explicitly call it Civilization VII at the time.

Image: 2K Games

It’s been a long wait, but the next Civilization has finally been revealed. At the main Summer Game Fest keynote, publisher 2K officially announced Civilization 7, the first new entry in the strategy series since 2016. We didn’t get any real details or actual gameplay, but instead a very brief teaser trailer that looked a lot like, well, Civilization. But there’s one thing we do know: the game won’t be launching until 2025. And it’s coming to a number of platforms, with the launch planned for PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch.

More details will be coming in August, according to 2K, with a “full gameplay showcase.”

There were some inklings this was coming. Ahead of the show, the publisher teased that “the next iteration in one of 2K’s biggest and most beloved franchises” would be revealed, and earlier today, Civilization VII actually appeared briefly on the company’s website. Longtime Civ developer Firaxis Games revealed that it was working on the next iteration of the franchise last year, though it didn’t explicitly call it Civilization VII at the time.

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Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment

One of the cuter reveals at Summer Game Fest was the Lego-ified version of Horizon’s postapocalyptic future. The game is called Lego Horizon Adventures, and it looks like a playful action-adventure game set (obviously) in the Horizon universe. Naturally, there’s lots of building as well. And co-op play. And some very goofy jokes fitting Lego’s many video game spinoffs.
This isn’t the first collaboration between the two, as Lego released a Horizon Forbidden West set in 2022, But it appears that Sony is intent on growing the franchise into one of its tentpoles. The original game was followed by a sequel on the PS5 (and PS4), and it’s also being adapted into a show on Netflix.
Lego Horizon Adventures is launching this holiday. As a Sony property, it’s naturally coming to PlayStation, but it will also be launching day one on the PC and Nintendo Switch as well.

Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment

One of the cuter reveals at Summer Game Fest was the Lego-ified version of Horizon’s postapocalyptic future. The game is called Lego Horizon Adventures, and it looks like a playful action-adventure game set (obviously) in the Horizon universe. Naturally, there’s lots of building as well. And co-op play. And some very goofy jokes fitting Lego’s many video game spinoffs.

This isn’t the first collaboration between the two, as Lego released a Horizon Forbidden West set in 2022, But it appears that Sony is intent on growing the franchise into one of its tentpoles. The original game was followed by a sequel on the PS5 (and PS4), and it’s also being adapted into a show on Netflix.

Lego Horizon Adventures is launching this holiday. As a Sony property, it’s naturally coming to PlayStation, but it will also be launching day one on the PC and Nintendo Switch as well.

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Image: Alex Choi

A YouTuber was arrested after posting a video showing two people in a helicopter shooting fireworks at a Lamborghini. On Thursday, the US Department of Justice charged Suk Min Choi — known as Alex Choi on YouTube — for allegedly breaking the law against having an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft.
The now-deleted video, titled “Destroying a Lamborghini With Fireworks,” was posted on July 4th, 2023. Choi, who has more than 924,000 YouTube subscribers, is shown driving the Lamborghini as two women begin shooting fireworks in the direction of the car. Law enforcement officials believe Choi filmed the video at El Mirage, a dry lake bed in San Bernardino County, California.

The Federal Aviation Administration began investigating the video in December, according to an affidavit filed with the Central District of California. The affidavit cites an email from what appears to be Choi’s account, saying he wants to record a video of an “attack helicopter shooting missiles (mortar style fireworks) at the car, while the car is trying to run away and dodge the missiles using flares (roman candle fireworks attached to the back of the car).”
As noted in the affidavit, the federal government alleges that Choi didn’t obtain permits from the Bureau of Land Management or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives required to film the video. Choi was released on a $50,000 bond on Thursday, with his arraignment set for July 2nd. He faces up to 10 years in federal prison.
In 2022, Choi filmed and posted a video of a rented Tesla performing a “jump” in San Francisco and smashing into two parked cars.

Image: Alex Choi

A YouTuber was arrested after posting a video showing two people in a helicopter shooting fireworks at a Lamborghini. On Thursday, the US Department of Justice charged Suk Min Choi — known as Alex Choi on YouTube — for allegedly breaking the law against having an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft.

The now-deleted video, titled “Destroying a Lamborghini With Fireworks,” was posted on July 4th, 2023. Choi, who has more than 924,000 YouTube subscribers, is shown driving the Lamborghini as two women begin shooting fireworks in the direction of the car. Law enforcement officials believe Choi filmed the video at El Mirage, a dry lake bed in San Bernardino County, California.

The Federal Aviation Administration began investigating the video in December, according to an affidavit filed with the Central District of California. The affidavit cites an email from what appears to be Choi’s account, saying he wants to record a video of an “attack helicopter shooting missiles (mortar style fireworks) at the car, while the car is trying to run away and dodge the missiles using flares (roman candle fireworks attached to the back of the car).”

As noted in the affidavit, the federal government alleges that Choi didn’t obtain permits from the Bureau of Land Management or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives required to film the video. Choi was released on a $50,000 bond on Thursday, with his arraignment set for July 2nd. He faces up to 10 years in federal prison.

In 2022, Choi filmed and posted a video of a rented Tesla performing a “jump” in San Francisco and smashing into two parked cars.

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Image: Summer Game Fest

The hype is real, the hype is here, but Geoff Keighley has warned viewers not to get too hyped for what to expect during the showcase. After months of teases and speculation, Summer Game Geoff is finally here kicking off a weekend full of presentations and special announcements. Even though the showcase is essentially a hype trailer for the video game industry, filling in the marketing hole E3 left behind, Summer Game Fest got its own hype trailer reminding us of what games to expect.
But even though the SGF hype train has left the station, MC Geoff Keighley has cautioned viewers not to get too excited for surprise reveals. During a Q&A livestream, Keighley said that it’s a quieter year for big releases and announcements compared to last year. He also threw cold water on Kingdom Hearts IV fans who are hoping that the game finally gets some kind of update after its initial announcement two years ago.
The Summer Game Fest keynote presentation begins on June 7th at 5PM ET and will stream on Twitch and YouTube.

Image: Summer Game Fest

The hype is real, the hype is here, but Geoff Keighley has warned viewers not to get too hyped for what to expect during the showcase.

After months of teases and speculation, Summer Game Geoff is finally here kicking off a weekend full of presentations and special announcements. Even though the showcase is essentially a hype trailer for the video game industry, filling in the marketing hole E3 left behind, Summer Game Fest got its own hype trailer reminding us of what games to expect.

But even though the SGF hype train has left the station, MC Geoff Keighley has cautioned viewers not to get too excited for surprise reveals. During a Q&A livestream, Keighley said that it’s a quieter year for big releases and announcements compared to last year. He also threw cold water on Kingdom Hearts IV fans who are hoping that the game finally gets some kind of update after its initial announcement two years ago.

The Summer Game Fest keynote presentation begins on June 7th at 5PM ET and will stream on Twitch and YouTube.

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Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

The Biden administration released another vehicle emission rule that was not as strict as the one the president originally proposed.
Under the new rules, fuel economy will increase 2 percent per year for model years 2027–2031 for passenger cars, while light trucks will increase 2 percent per year for model years 2029–2031. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), these increases will bring the average light-duty vehicle fuel economy up to approximately 50.4 miles per gallon of gas by model year 2031.
That’s less ambitious than the rules President Joe Biden first proposed in 2022, in which passenger vehicles would be required to achieve an average of 55 miles per gallon by 2026. And in 2023, NHTSA proposed boosting the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) requirements by 2 percent per year for passenger cars and 4 percent per year for light-duty trucks from 2027 through 2032. Those figures have now been significantly reined in.
Fuel economy will increase 2 percent per year for model years 2027–2031 for passenger cars
It mirrored a similar move by Biden earlier in the year to adopt new automobile standards aimed at slashing greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2032 while also allowing automakers to meet their targets at a slower pace than originally proposed.
The auto industry praised the new CAFE standards, calling them “good and appreciated,” while also questioning whether they were still needed in an industry barreling toward electrification.
Some environmental groups grumbled about the less stringent standards, but most agreed the rules would result in less pollution and cleaner cars.
“NHTSA’s new fuel economy standards will improve gas mileage, ease the burden of high gas prices at the pump for American families, and slash our nation’s oil consumption,” Katherine García, the director of the Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All Campaign, said in a statement. “With these new standards, auto manufacturers will have to deliver cleaner, more efficient vehicles.”
While fuel economy in the US has improved over the years, we are still falling short of what’s needed to meet fast-approaching deadlines. America’s love for large trucks and SUVs has resulted in automakers falling behind their competitors when it comes to getting more miles per gallon of gas.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

The Biden administration released another vehicle emission rule that was not as strict as the one the president originally proposed.

Under the new rules, fuel economy will increase 2 percent per year for model years 2027–2031 for passenger cars, while light trucks will increase 2 percent per year for model years 2029–2031. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), these increases will bring the average light-duty vehicle fuel economy up to approximately 50.4 miles per gallon of gas by model year 2031.

That’s less ambitious than the rules President Joe Biden first proposed in 2022, in which passenger vehicles would be required to achieve an average of 55 miles per gallon by 2026. And in 2023, NHTSA proposed boosting the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) requirements by 2 percent per year for passenger cars and 4 percent per year for light-duty trucks from 2027 through 2032. Those figures have now been significantly reined in.

It mirrored a similar move by Biden earlier in the year to adopt new automobile standards aimed at slashing greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2032 while also allowing automakers to meet their targets at a slower pace than originally proposed.

The auto industry praised the new CAFE standards, calling them “good and appreciated,” while also questioning whether they were still needed in an industry barreling toward electrification.

Some environmental groups grumbled about the less stringent standards, but most agreed the rules would result in less pollution and cleaner cars.

“NHTSA’s new fuel economy standards will improve gas mileage, ease the burden of high gas prices at the pump for American families, and slash our nation’s oil consumption,” Katherine García, the director of the Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All Campaign, said in a statement. “With these new standards, auto manufacturers will have to deliver cleaner, more efficient vehicles.”

While fuel economy in the US has improved over the years, we are still falling short of what’s needed to meet fast-approaching deadlines. America’s love for large trucks and SUVs has resulted in automakers falling behind their competitors when it comes to getting more miles per gallon of gas.

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Creatives are fearful of how Adobe’s adoption of generative AI will impact their privacy and rights over their work. | Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge

A recent notification from Adobe about a terms of service update caused outrage online once many people — forced to accept the new terms for continued access to its apps and services — interpreted it to mean Adobe was permitting itself free rein to access and use their work to train AI models.
Specifically, the notification said Adobe had “clarified that we may access your content through both automated and manual methods” within its TOS, directing users to a section that says “techniques such as machine learning” may be used to analyze content to improve services, software, and user experiences. The update went viral after creatives took Adobe’s vague language to mean that it would use their work to train Firefly — the company’s generative AI model — or access sensitive projects that might be under NDA.

Here it is. If you are a professional, if you are under NDA with your clients, if you are a creative, a lawyer, a doctor or anyone who works with proprietary files – it is time to cancel Adobe, delete all the apps and programs. Adobe can not be trusted. pic.twitter.com/LFnBbDKWLC— Wetterschneider (@Stretchedwiener) June 5, 2024

Adobe has now published a blog to address those concerns and assure its users that this isn’t the case. “Our commitments to our customers have not changed,” Adobe said in its statement, affirming that the company doesn’t train Firefly on customer content or assume ownership of a customer’s work. “Firefly generative AI models are trained on a dataset of licensed content, such as Adobe Stock, and public domain content where copyright has expired.”
A before and after comparison of the TOS update (which you can see below) shows that very little about the policy has actually changed. The inclusion of “machine learning,” particularly, while vague, isn’t new and has been present in the TOS for years. One explanation for this is that variations of AI technology that pre-date Firefly have long been used in tools like Photoshop’s Content-Aware Fill and Lightroom’s Select Subject. Confusingly, however, the updated language within the TOS has actually been live since February, with Adobe having only recently notified users of the change.

Image: Adobe
Here’s a comparison that displays (in pink) what was actually changed within Adobe’s TOS back on February 17th.

Adobe’s chief product officer, Scott Belsky, acknowledged on X that the wording within the notification is “unclear” and said the company’s legal team was working to address concerns about the vague language within the policy. “Adobe has had something like this in TOS for over a decade,” said Belsky. “But trust and transparency couldn’t be more crucial these days.”

“solely for the purpose of operating…”for clarity: any modern software company that has features like reproducing as thumbnails, enabling users to share for review and approval via web link, auto generating variations, indexing for search etc – requires a license (or for…— scott belsky (@scottbelsky) June 6, 2024

Adobe has developed something of an “image” problem as it’s grown over the years, especially among individual creatives who no longer feel the company has their best interests at heart. It’s been criticized for dropping its one-time purchase model in favor of recurring subscriptions and accused of creating a monopoly over the creative software industry — which concerned regulators enough to effectively force the company to abandon its attempt to acquire Figma last year. While similar software is available from other brands like Affinity, Adobe’s is typically considered the “industry standard” and difficult to avoid using in professional environments.

Notably, Adobe has also developed a mountain of generative AI tools and services since introducing its own Firefly model in March 2023, enthusiastically promoting them as a means for people with limited creative experience to quickly produce content at scale. I imagine that sounds very attractive to businesses, but not so much to creative professionals who are anxious about their job security. It’s easy to see why so many feel betrayed by the company, especially when Adobe seemingly struggles to enforce the generative AI policies it introduced to protect them.
That breakdown of trust brings us here. While this viral drama surrounding Adobe’s TOS “update” may blow over, hoards of creatives are watching the company like a hawk. Adobe will have to find an effective way to address those trust issues if it wants independent creators, who have come to expect the worst from the company, to see it as the friend it claims to be rather than a foe.

Creatives are fearful of how Adobe’s adoption of generative AI will impact their privacy and rights over their work. | Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge

A recent notification from Adobe about a terms of service update caused outrage online once many people — forced to accept the new terms for continued access to its apps and services — interpreted it to mean Adobe was permitting itself free rein to access and use their work to train AI models.

Specifically, the notification said Adobe had “clarified that we may access your content through both automated and manual methods” within its TOS, directing users to a section that says “techniques such as machine learning” may be used to analyze content to improve services, software, and user experiences. The update went viral after creatives took Adobe’s vague language to mean that it would use their work to train Firefly — the company’s generative AI model — or access sensitive projects that might be under NDA.

Adobe has now published a blog to address those concerns and assure its users that this isn’t the case. “Our commitments to our customers have not changed,” Adobe said in its statement, affirming that the company doesn’t train Firefly on customer content or assume ownership of a customer’s work. “Firefly generative AI models are trained on a dataset of licensed content, such as Adobe Stock, and public domain content where copyright has expired.”

A before and after comparison of the TOS update (which you can see below) shows that very little about the policy has actually changed. The inclusion of “machine learning,” particularly, while vague, isn’t new and has been present in the TOS for years. One explanation for this is that variations of AI technology that pre-date Firefly have long been used in tools like Photoshop’s Content-Aware Fill and Lightroom’s Select Subject. Confusingly, however, the updated language within the TOS has actually been live since February, with Adobe having only recently notified users of the change.

Image: Adobe
Here’s a comparison that displays (in pink) what was actually changed within Adobe’s TOS back on February 17th.

Adobe’s chief product officer, Scott Belsky, acknowledged on X that the wording within the notification is “unclear” and said the company’s legal team was working to address concerns about the vague language within the policy. “Adobe has had something like this in TOS for over a decade,” said Belsky. “But trust and transparency couldn’t be more crucial these days.”

Adobe has developed something of an “image” problem as it’s grown over the years, especially among individual creatives who no longer feel the company has their best interests at heart. It’s been criticized for dropping its one-time purchase model in favor of recurring subscriptions and accused of creating a monopoly over the creative software industry — which concerned regulators enough to effectively force the company to abandon its attempt to acquire Figma last year. While similar software is available from other brands like Affinity, Adobe’s is typically considered the “industry standard” and difficult to avoid using in professional environments.

Notably, Adobe has also developed a mountain of generative AI tools and services since introducing its own Firefly model in March 2023, enthusiastically promoting them as a means for people with limited creative experience to quickly produce content at scale. I imagine that sounds very attractive to businesses, but not so much to creative professionals who are anxious about their job security. It’s easy to see why so many feel betrayed by the company, especially when Adobe seemingly struggles to enforce the generative AI policies it introduced to protect them.

That breakdown of trust brings us here. While this viral drama surrounding Adobe’s TOS “update” may blow over, hoards of creatives are watching the company like a hawk. Adobe will have to find an effective way to address those trust issues if it wants independent creators, who have come to expect the worst from the company, to see it as the friend it claims to be rather than a foe.

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Meta now allows users to create giant group chats without having an associated Facebook page, as reported by TechCrunch.
The groups, called “Communities,” allow admins to add up to 5,000 people, even if they’re not part of the same Facebook group. Meta previously introduced that feature in 2022, allowing Facebook group admins to create Discord-like chatrooms for members. This new type of chat, meanwhile, is open to anyone — users could make one for their neighborhood, school, or an event, for example.
Meta notes that creating Messenger “Communities” isn’t yet available to everyone and that users should be aware there’s a different level of privacy that they typically associate with personal messages.
The gradual updates to Messenger bring it more in line with platforms like WhatsApp or Discord. In 2022, WhatsApp’s messaging capabilities also expanded, letting admins of groups communicate with thousands of people at once instead of the more private, direct conversations the platform was known for.
Messaging has become a key focus for other Meta platforms like Instagram, too. Instagram head Adam Mosseri has said that DMs account for much of the platform’s growth and that young people especially spend a lot of time messaging. Last year, Instagram rolled out the ability to send mass updates via DMs — called “channels” — in a feature similar to Telegram. Creators can run their own channel for followers and send updates, announcements, and more. The company has also tried to make DMs more interactive with things like contests run through messages.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Meta now allows users to create giant group chats without having an associated Facebook page, as reported by TechCrunch.

The groups, called “Communities,” allow admins to add up to 5,000 people, even if they’re not part of the same Facebook group. Meta previously introduced that feature in 2022, allowing Facebook group admins to create Discord-like chatrooms for members. This new type of chat, meanwhile, is open to anyone — users could make one for their neighborhood, school, or an event, for example.

Meta notes that creating Messenger “Communities” isn’t yet available to everyone and that users should be aware there’s a different level of privacy that they typically associate with personal messages.

The gradual updates to Messenger bring it more in line with platforms like WhatsApp or Discord. In 2022, WhatsApp’s messaging capabilities also expanded, letting admins of groups communicate with thousands of people at once instead of the more private, direct conversations the platform was known for.

Messaging has become a key focus for other Meta platforms like Instagram, too. Instagram head Adam Mosseri has said that DMs account for much of the platform’s growth and that young people especially spend a lot of time messaging. Last year, Instagram rolled out the ability to send mass updates via DMs — called “channels” — in a feature similar to Telegram. Creators can run their own channel for followers and send updates, announcements, and more. The company has also tried to make DMs more interactive with things like contests run through messages.

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