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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

Less than 30 minutes into the presidential debate, former president Donald Trump brought up a viral racist lie about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio — and repeated it after fact-checkers asserted that it wasn’t true.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs — the people that came in — they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said in response to a question about why he asked Republican legislators to vote against a bipartisan border security bill. After Trump finished his tirade, ABC News moderator David Muir clarified that Springfield’s city manager told ABC reports of migrants eating pets were false — but Trump repeated the lie. “People on television are saying, ‘My dog was taken and being used for food,’” Trump interjected.

Trump falsely accuses migrants of eating dogs and pets in Springfield, Ohio, then fights the moderators when he gets fact-checked. “I’ve seen people on television.” pic.twitter.com/u5vRymVgEm— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) September 11, 2024

Trump’s resistance to fact-checking shouldn’t come as a surprise by this point. In fact, his campaign has fully leaned into the claim, which took off on right-wing social media over the weekend has since been mainstreamed by the likes of Elon Musk and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
On Tuesday, vice presidential candidate JD Vance claimed his office had “received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield” regarding their pets being eaten, contradicting statements from Springfield police and city officials that they had received no such complaints. Though Vance acknowledged the possibility that “all these rumors will turn out to be false,” he nonetheless encouraged supporters to continue spreading them. “In short, don’t let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots,” Vance posted on X. “Keep the cat memes flowing.”
In the days since the Springfield rumor went viral, Trump’s supporters and campaign surrogates have embraced it, posting AI-generated images depicting Trump as a champion of America’s pets. The Republican Party of Arizona unveiled a dozen billboards in the Phoenix area referencing the meme, urging Arizonans to “eat less kittens” and vote Republican.

THE ARE LIVE! Catch our newest billboard across 12 locations in the Phoenix metro area! https://t.co/bCv6TsBJr3 pic.twitter.com/xkRlfE9AJf— Republican Party of Arizona (@AZGOP) September 10, 2024

These memes have become a visual shorthand for Trump and his supporters’ belief in the white supremacist great replacement theory. And rather than acknowledging the falsehood at the heart of the rumor about Haitians in Springfield, Trump’s supporters have suggested that the media’s focus on fact-checking the viral lie obscures the “replacement” of Americans in Springfield with Haitian migrants.

Some good points here https://t.co/2zoPTjxlkC— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 10, 2024

Trump, the Republican Party’s standard-bearer, isn’t bothering to obfuscate the baseless claims by tying them to locals’ broader concerns about immigrants. Instead, he’s going for the baldest version of the lie.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

Less than 30 minutes into the presidential debate, former president Donald Trump brought up a viral racist lie about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio — and repeated it after fact-checkers asserted that it wasn’t true.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs — the people that came in — they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said in response to a question about why he asked Republican legislators to vote against a bipartisan border security bill. After Trump finished his tirade, ABC News moderator David Muir clarified that Springfield’s city manager told ABC reports of migrants eating pets were false — but Trump repeated the lie. “People on television are saying, ‘My dog was taken and being used for food,’” Trump interjected.

Trump’s resistance to fact-checking shouldn’t come as a surprise by this point. In fact, his campaign has fully leaned into the claim, which took off on right-wing social media over the weekend has since been mainstreamed by the likes of Elon Musk and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

On Tuesday, vice presidential candidate JD Vance claimed his office had “received many inquiries from actual residents of Springfield” regarding their pets being eaten, contradicting statements from Springfield police and city officials that they had received no such complaints. Though Vance acknowledged the possibility that “all these rumors will turn out to be false,” he nonetheless encouraged supporters to continue spreading them. “In short, don’t let the crybabies in the media dissuade you, fellow patriots,” Vance posted on X. “Keep the cat memes flowing.”

In the days since the Springfield rumor went viral, Trump’s supporters and campaign surrogates have embraced it, posting AI-generated images depicting Trump as a champion of America’s pets. The Republican Party of Arizona unveiled a dozen billboards in the Phoenix area referencing the meme, urging Arizonans to “eat less kittens” and vote Republican.

These memes have become a visual shorthand for Trump and his supporters’ belief in the white supremacist great replacement theory. And rather than acknowledging the falsehood at the heart of the rumor about Haitians in Springfield, Trump’s supporters have suggested that the media’s focus on fact-checking the viral lie obscures the “replacement” of Americans in Springfield with Haitian migrants.

Trump, the Republican Party’s standard-bearer, isn’t bothering to obfuscate the baseless claims by tying them to locals’ broader concerns about immigrants. Instead, he’s going for the baldest version of the lie.

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This little gadget keeps getting better and better. | Image: Flipper Devices Inc.

One of our favorite hacking gadgets, the Flipper Zero, received its first major firmware update today. It includes a bunch of features the developers have been working on stabilizing for the last three years, including a big battery life boost that technically arrived with a previous update. While many of the features aren’t technically new, the entire package should make this gadget feel like a supercharged version of its former self.
One of the most notable updates since launch solves one of the developers’ biggest problems: the device’s internal flash memory originally limited how many features they could add. In the past, new features were built into the firmware itself, but they eventually exceeded what the memory could handle. Last year, the device added an app store and let you run new apps from the microSD card instead.

JavaScript is now supported, so coding your own apps could be easier. The NFC subsystem has been rewritten from the ground up, supports more card types, and can read cards faster. Transferring data via Bluetooth with Android devices is also faster, and the speed of firmware updates has increased by 40 percent, according to the developers.
The new firmware also includes more IR protocols, so if you already use the Flipper Zero as a universal remote control, you can now use it with more TVs, ACs, audio systems, and projectors. If you need a longer transmission range, the Flipper Zero supports external infrared modules, too. Here’s an explainer video:

You can also use the Flipper Zero to listen to analog walkie-talkies, and the developers say its sub-GHz radio now supports 89 different radio protocols in all. If the built-in antenna isn’t sensitive enough, you can now also connect it to an external sub-GHz module to get a better one.
You can find more details and a link to the firmware update here.

This little gadget keeps getting better and better. | Image: Flipper Devices Inc.

One of our favorite hacking gadgets, the Flipper Zero, received its first major firmware update today. It includes a bunch of features the developers have been working on stabilizing for the last three years, including a big battery life boost that technically arrived with a previous update. While many of the features aren’t technically new, the entire package should make this gadget feel like a supercharged version of its former self.

One of the most notable updates since launch solves one of the developers’ biggest problems: the device’s internal flash memory originally limited how many features they could add. In the past, new features were built into the firmware itself, but they eventually exceeded what the memory could handle. Last year, the device added an app store and let you run new apps from the microSD card instead.

JavaScript is now supported, so coding your own apps could be easier. The NFC subsystem has been rewritten from the ground up, supports more card types, and can read cards faster. Transferring data via Bluetooth with Android devices is also faster, and the speed of firmware updates has increased by 40 percent, according to the developers.

The new firmware also includes more IR protocols, so if you already use the Flipper Zero as a universal remote control, you can now use it with more TVs, ACs, audio systems, and projectors. If you need a longer transmission range, the Flipper Zero supports external infrared modules, too. Here’s an explainer video:

You can also use the Flipper Zero to listen to analog walkie-talkies, and the developers say its sub-GHz radio now supports 89 different radio protocols in all. If the built-in antenna isn’t sensitive enough, you can now also connect it to an external sub-GHz module to get a better one.

You can find more details and a link to the firmware update here.

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Image: The Verge

Disney was ready to turn part of its feed back on for DirecTV customers tonight — but DirecTV wasn’t interested.
Disney-owned ABC News is hosting tonight’s presidential debate, and Disney offered to make the channel available to DirecTV subscribers for three hours at no charge, Disney spokespeople April Carretta and Bridget Osterhaus wrote in an email this afternoon. They said Disney wanted to provide the feed “at no cost because we want all Americans to be able to view tonight’s debate at this important moment in our history.”
DirecTV subscribers can still watch the debate on other networks
But DirecTV declined the offer, saying it would “cause customer confusion” when those channels quickly disappeared again. In an unsigned statement on its website, DirecTV says that it offered to restore Disney’s channels only if they would stay live through September 17th, enough time for customers to watch the Emmys and Monday Night Football. DirecTV said its counteroffer was rejected.
As a result, ABC News will remain off the air for DirecTV customers tonight.
The debate is being simulcast on multiple other networks and online, though, so DirecTV subscribers will still be able to watch the event. ABC News, on the other hand, may have fewer eyes on a tentpole broadcast (and the two commercial breaks coming with it).

ABC, ESPN, and other Disney channels haven’t been available to DirecTV subscribers since September 1st. The two companies have been in a contract dispute over the terms and fees associated with distributing Disney’s channels. Disney says that DirecTV is undervaluing its channels, while DirecTV says that Disney’s terms aren’t offering it enough flexibility to create different packages for customers.
The two have intermittently released statements sniping at one another in the week since. In the meantime, DirecTV customers have missed out on coverage of the US Open and NFL season opener.
Disney says negotiations continue with DirecTV. “We remain at the table negotiating with DirecTV and the restoration of our programming to their subscribers is completely within their control,” Carretta and Osterhaus wrote. DirecTV said its offer to temporarily restore access “remains on the table.”

Image: The Verge

Disney was ready to turn part of its feed back on for DirecTV customers tonight — but DirecTV wasn’t interested.

Disney-owned ABC News is hosting tonight’s presidential debate, and Disney offered to make the channel available to DirecTV subscribers for three hours at no charge, Disney spokespeople April Carretta and Bridget Osterhaus wrote in an email this afternoon. They said Disney wanted to provide the feed “at no cost because we want all Americans to be able to view tonight’s debate at this important moment in our history.”

But DirecTV declined the offer, saying it would “cause customer confusion” when those channels quickly disappeared again. In an unsigned statement on its website, DirecTV says that it offered to restore Disney’s channels only if they would stay live through September 17th, enough time for customers to watch the Emmys and Monday Night Football. DirecTV said its counteroffer was rejected.

As a result, ABC News will remain off the air for DirecTV customers tonight.

The debate is being simulcast on multiple other networks and online, though, so DirecTV subscribers will still be able to watch the event. ABC News, on the other hand, may have fewer eyes on a tentpole broadcast (and the two commercial breaks coming with it).

ABC, ESPN, and other Disney channels haven’t been available to DirecTV subscribers since September 1st. The two companies have been in a contract dispute over the terms and fees associated with distributing Disney’s channels. Disney says that DirecTV is undervaluing its channels, while DirecTV says that Disney’s terms aren’t offering it enough flexibility to create different packages for customers.

The two have intermittently released statements sniping at one another in the week since. In the meantime, DirecTV customers have missed out on coverage of the US Open and NFL season opener.

Disney says negotiations continue with DirecTV. “We remain at the table negotiating with DirecTV and the restoration of our programming to their subscribers is completely within their control,” Carretta and Osterhaus wrote. DirecTV said its offer to temporarily restore access “remains on the table.”

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Illustration: The Verge

Google just landed a deal to capture planet-heating pollution at a huge bargain: $100 per ton of CO2, the price climate tech startups around the world are racing to achieve in order to make their technologies commercially viable.
The company announced the agreement today with Holocene, a startup with an even shorter history than others in the emerging carbon removal industry that has nevertheless attracted some big-name backers.
“We think it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
If Holocene can actually pull it off — take carbon dioxide out of the air at a price far lower than competitors charging $600 per ton or more for the same service — it could prove that carbon removal technologies are ready to help in the climate fight. But it’s still in its early days, and there’s a lot on the line as Google’s carbon pollution continues to grow.
“We think it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. We need to all believe we can do it and work hard to do it,” says Anca Timofte, cofounder and CEO of Holocene. “Google has to and other partners have to come to the table to support projects like this.”

Timofte was in business school at Stanford when she came across research from Oak Ridge National Laboratory on new chemistry for filtering CO2 out of the air. That became the basis of the technology Holocene uses today.
Since getting off the ground in 2022, Holocene already counts the US Department of Energy (DOE), Elon Musk’s Xprize Carbon Removal, and Bill Gates’ climate investment firm Breakthrough Energy among its funders. Timofte and a fellow cofounder previously worked at Climeworks, one of the first carbon removal companies and which is still a major player in the field with clients including Microsoft and JPMorgan Chase.
Climeworks currently operates the world’s largest carbon removal facilities, called direct air capture (DAC) plants. In June, it announced that its next generation of DAC plants should be able to bring the cost of carbon removal down to $250–350 per ton captured by 2030. That’s obviously still well above the $100 target the DOE has set for making the technology financially feasible. A tax credit for carbon removal expanded under the Biden administration is supposed to help get there, but Holocene also says that its own advances in carbon removal chemistry bring down the price.

Holocene says its technique is more efficient than others because it’s able to continuously run two chemical loops: one that takes in CO2 from the air and another that produces a pure stream of that captured CO2 so that it can eventually be sequestered underground. The first loop involves passing air through water containing amino acids that attract the CO2. Then the chemical guanidine is added to the mix, which reacts with the CO2 to form a solid crystal. Once the solids are separated from the liquid, it’s heated to between 70 and 100 degrees Celsius (the temperature of boiling water) to release the CO2 into a concentrated stream of the greenhouse gas.
Climeworks’ method, on the other hand, can be thought of as a “cartridge” system, as Timofte describes it. It uses solid filters that pull CO2 out of the air. Once the filter is saturated, it needs to be heated to release the CO2, and then the filter can load up on more CO2. In other words, there’s one material that does the loading and unloading of CO2, and you have to stop loading to start unloading. Holocene, meanwhile, does everything all at once.
Climeworks has a more proven track record than Holocene at this point, with two of the world’s first commercial-scale facilities operating in Iceland and more projects underway in the US, Norway, Kenya, and Canada.
For now, Holocene has one small pilot plant in Knoxville, Tennessee, capable of taking just 10 tons of CO2 out of the air each year. The deal it landed with Google is to capture 100,000 tons of CO2 by 2032. Google paid a “significant part” of the $10 million total up front to help bring Holocene’s plans to fruition, Timofte said. The next step is to build a demonstration plant that can capture around 5,000 tons annually and then a commercial plant that can do 500,000 tons.

The whole DAC industry needs a growth spurt if it hopes to make a dent in the carbon pollution that’s built up in the atmosphere. Only some 27 DAC plants have been commissioned around the world to date, with the collective capacity to capture just 10,000 metric tons each year.
Google’s 100,00 ton commitment is roughly the equivalent of taking 20,000 gas-powered cars off the road for a year. But it’s still a small fraction of the 14.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution Google produced last year alone. Its emissions have grown as it tries to outcompete other tech giants with energy-hungry AI tools.
That makes it even more important for companies like Google to prioritize reducing their emissions rather than relying on capturing them after the fact. Carbon removal is no cure-all for climate change. US and global climate goals — aimed at keeping climate change from intensifying to a point at which life on Earth would struggle to adapt — require slashing carbon emissions roughly in half by 2030. That deadline comes before Holocene is even slated to fulfill its task of drawing down just 100,000 tons of CO2 for Google.

Illustration: The Verge

Google just landed a deal to capture planet-heating pollution at a huge bargain: $100 per ton of CO2, the price climate tech startups around the world are racing to achieve in order to make their technologies commercially viable.

The company announced the agreement today with Holocene, a startup with an even shorter history than others in the emerging carbon removal industry that has nevertheless attracted some big-name backers.

If Holocene can actually pull it off — take carbon dioxide out of the air at a price far lower than competitors charging $600 per ton or more for the same service — it could prove that carbon removal technologies are ready to help in the climate fight. But it’s still in its early days, and there’s a lot on the line as Google’s carbon pollution continues to grow.

“We think it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. We need to all believe we can do it and work hard to do it,” says Anca Timofte, cofounder and CEO of Holocene. “Google has to and other partners have to come to the table to support projects like this.”

Timofte was in business school at Stanford when she came across research from Oak Ridge National Laboratory on new chemistry for filtering CO2 out of the air. That became the basis of the technology Holocene uses today.

Since getting off the ground in 2022, Holocene already counts the US Department of Energy (DOE), Elon Musk’s Xprize Carbon Removal, and Bill Gates’ climate investment firm Breakthrough Energy among its funders. Timofte and a fellow cofounder previously worked at Climeworks, one of the first carbon removal companies and which is still a major player in the field with clients including Microsoft and JPMorgan Chase.

Climeworks currently operates the world’s largest carbon removal facilities, called direct air capture (DAC) plants. In June, it announced that its next generation of DAC plants should be able to bring the cost of carbon removal down to $250–350 per ton captured by 2030. That’s obviously still well above the $100 target the DOE has set for making the technology financially feasible. A tax credit for carbon removal expanded under the Biden administration is supposed to help get there, but Holocene also says that its own advances in carbon removal chemistry bring down the price.

Holocene says its technique is more efficient than others because it’s able to continuously run two chemical loops: one that takes in CO2 from the air and another that produces a pure stream of that captured CO2 so that it can eventually be sequestered underground. The first loop involves passing air through water containing amino acids that attract the CO2. Then the chemical guanidine is added to the mix, which reacts with the CO2 to form a solid crystal. Once the solids are separated from the liquid, it’s heated to between 70 and 100 degrees Celsius (the temperature of boiling water) to release the CO2 into a concentrated stream of the greenhouse gas.

Climeworks’ method, on the other hand, can be thought of as a “cartridge” system, as Timofte describes it. It uses solid filters that pull CO2 out of the air. Once the filter is saturated, it needs to be heated to release the CO2, and then the filter can load up on more CO2. In other words, there’s one material that does the loading and unloading of CO2, and you have to stop loading to start unloading. Holocene, meanwhile, does everything all at once.

Climeworks has a more proven track record than Holocene at this point, with two of the world’s first commercial-scale facilities operating in Iceland and more projects underway in the US, Norway, Kenya, and Canada.

For now, Holocene has one small pilot plant in Knoxville, Tennessee, capable of taking just 10 tons of CO2 out of the air each year. The deal it landed with Google is to capture 100,000 tons of CO2 by 2032. Google paid a “significant part” of the $10 million total up front to help bring Holocene’s plans to fruition, Timofte said. The next step is to build a demonstration plant that can capture around 5,000 tons annually and then a commercial plant that can do 500,000 tons.

The whole DAC industry needs a growth spurt if it hopes to make a dent in the carbon pollution that’s built up in the atmosphere. Only some 27 DAC plants have been commissioned around the world to date, with the collective capacity to capture just 10,000 metric tons each year.

Google’s 100,00 ton commitment is roughly the equivalent of taking 20,000 gas-powered cars off the road for a year. But it’s still a small fraction of the 14.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution Google produced last year alone. Its emissions have grown as it tries to outcompete other tech giants with energy-hungry AI tools.

That makes it even more important for companies like Google to prioritize reducing their emissions rather than relying on capturing them after the fact. Carbon removal is no cure-all for climate change. US and global climate goals — aimed at keeping climate change from intensifying to a point at which life on Earth would struggle to adapt — require slashing carbon emissions roughly in half by 2030. That deadline comes before Holocene is even slated to fulfill its task of drawing down just 100,000 tons of CO2 for Google.

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A photo of the disc drive on the slim PS5. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Today may have marked the beginning of the end for game console disc drives. Sony finally announced the $699.99 PS5 Pro, and while it looks to be an impressive machine, it’s the first PlayStation console that will require you to buy the console and a separate disc drive if you want to play your physical games.
Sony’s offered disc-free variants before and inched in this direction with the PS5 “slim,” which you can buy with the separate disc drive already attached or add a disc drive to later. But with the PS5 Pro, you’ll have to get a separate PS5 disc drive, whether that means you buy it for $79.99 or swap a disc drive from a slim PS5 to a PS5 Pro.
Microsoft is clearly eyeing the discless direction with Xbox as well. The more affordable Xbox Series S can’t play discs, and there’s a discless Series X in white that’s set to launch later this year. Last year’s giant Xbox leak revealed a cylindrical, “adorably all digital” Xbox Series X redesign, too. That hasn’t been announced as an official product, but it shows a disc-free future is on Microsoft’s mind.
It’s like Apple removing the disc drive all over again
It seems likely that Sony and Microsoft are testing the waters for going all-digital for the PlayStation 6 and the next-generation Xbox — or at least offering disc drives separately. It’s like Apple removing the disc drive all over again.
But this time, it’s not just the people making the devices. Retailers are stepping back from physical media, too. Redbox is toast. Best Buy said last year that it would stop carrying physical movies, and Target recently confirmed that it would be all but ditching DVDs in its physical stores. I know movies aren’t video games, but it doesn’t seem like a big leap that brick-and-mortar stores might stop carrying physical video games down the line; UK retailer Game has already ended video game trade-ins.
I have mixed feelings about this potential shift to a no-disc drive future. I long ago moved to an entirely digital library for my games, as I like switching games without having to swap discs and because I don’t have a lot of space in my home to store physical cases. It’s convenient!
But digital content exists in a tenuous spot. Being able to run games from a disc matters if, say, PlayStation unexpectedly bans your account and blocks you from your library. It matters when a company makes it harder to buy games through its older stores or when a developer delists a game. Those are all real things that happened and big reminders of why digital ownership sucks.

We’re going to have to wait a few years, likely until the next full console generation, to see how far down the discless path Sony and Microsoft are willing to go. For Xbox, at least, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer recently said the company’s strategy “does not hinge on people moving all-digital” and that “getting rid of physical” is “not a strategic thing for us.” On the other hand, Spencer noted that “a majority” of its customers are buying games digitally, so it might just be a matter of time.
But for now, if you want to buy Sony’s best PlayStation, the PS5 Pro, and you want to play games on discs? Budget accordingly. The disc drive retails for $79.99.

A photo of the disc drive on the slim PS5. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Today may have marked the beginning of the end for game console disc drives. Sony finally announced the $699.99 PS5 Pro, and while it looks to be an impressive machine, it’s the first PlayStation console that will require you to buy the console and a separate disc drive if you want to play your physical games.

Sony’s offered disc-free variants before and inched in this direction with the PS5 “slim,” which you can buy with the separate disc drive already attached or add a disc drive to later. But with the PS5 Pro, you’ll have to get a separate PS5 disc drive, whether that means you buy it for $79.99 or swap a disc drive from a slim PS5 to a PS5 Pro.

Microsoft is clearly eyeing the discless direction with Xbox as well. The more affordable Xbox Series S can’t play discs, and there’s a discless Series X in white that’s set to launch later this year. Last year’s giant Xbox leak revealed a cylindrical, “adorably all digital” Xbox Series X redesign, too. That hasn’t been announced as an official product, but it shows a disc-free future is on Microsoft’s mind.

It seems likely that Sony and Microsoft are testing the waters for going all-digital for the PlayStation 6 and the next-generation Xbox — or at least offering disc drives separately. It’s like Apple removing the disc drive all over again.

But this time, it’s not just the people making the devices. Retailers are stepping back from physical media, too. Redbox is toast. Best Buy said last year that it would stop carrying physical movies, and Target recently confirmed that it would be all but ditching DVDs in its physical stores. I know movies aren’t video games, but it doesn’t seem like a big leap that brick-and-mortar stores might stop carrying physical video games down the line; UK retailer Game has already ended video game trade-ins.

I have mixed feelings about this potential shift to a no-disc drive future. I long ago moved to an entirely digital library for my games, as I like switching games without having to swap discs and because I don’t have a lot of space in my home to store physical cases. It’s convenient!

But digital content exists in a tenuous spot. Being able to run games from a disc matters if, say, PlayStation unexpectedly bans your account and blocks you from your library. It matters when a company makes it harder to buy games through its older stores or when a developer delists a game. Those are all real things that happened and big reminders of why digital ownership sucks.

We’re going to have to wait a few years, likely until the next full console generation, to see how far down the discless path Sony and Microsoft are willing to go. For Xbox, at least, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer recently said the company’s strategy “does not hinge on people moving all-digital” and that “getting rid of physical” is “not a strategic thing for us.” On the other hand, Spencer noted that “a majority” of its customers are buying games digitally, so it might just be a matter of time.

But for now, if you want to buy Sony’s best PlayStation, the PS5 Pro, and you want to play games on discs? Budget accordingly. The disc drive retails for $79.99.

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Popsicles or lightsabers — your choice. | Image: Lifx

Lifx has a new smart “Polychrome” Tube light that can glow with multiple colors and transform your home lamps and fixtures into fun light-up popsicles. The bulbs are made of a frosted glass tube and contain 104 LEDs with 52 controllable zones that enable color-shifting effects and include themes like cracking fire in “Flame Mode” or a lava lamp effect in “Morph Mode.”
The accompanying app also lets you “paint” colors on the bulb surface for a more custom look for your room. Lifx is also releasing a new B10 Polychrome candlelight that has similar features to the tube, including the E26 standard bulb socket so that it can fit in the most common existing lamps or many newer specialty ones (the existing model has E12 tips).

Image: Lifx
The B10 Candle set up like a spooky candy corn looking table light.

The Polychrome T10 Opal Frosted Glass Tube and the B10 Polychrome Candle are available today, exclusively at The Home Depot, for $39.98 and $29.98 each, respectively. The new Lifx bulbs support Matter for interoperability through different smart home systems like Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Samsung SmartThings, with support for scene management with voice control through Alexa and Google.

Popsicles or lightsabers — your choice. | Image: Lifx

Lifx has a new smart “Polychrome” Tube light that can glow with multiple colors and transform your home lamps and fixtures into fun light-up popsicles. The bulbs are made of a frosted glass tube and contain 104 LEDs with 52 controllable zones that enable color-shifting effects and include themes like cracking fire in “Flame Mode” or a lava lamp effect in “Morph Mode.”

The accompanying app also lets you “paint” colors on the bulb surface for a more custom look for your room. Lifx is also releasing a new B10 Polychrome candlelight that has similar features to the tube, including the E26 standard bulb socket so that it can fit in the most common existing lamps or many newer specialty ones (the existing model has E12 tips).

Image: Lifx
The B10 Candle set up like a spooky candy corn looking table light.

The Polychrome T10 Opal Frosted Glass Tube and the B10 Polychrome Candle are available today, exclusively at The Home Depot, for $39.98 and $29.98 each, respectively. The new Lifx bulbs support Matter for interoperability through different smart home systems like Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Samsung SmartThings, with support for scene management with voice control through Alexa and Google.

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The standard Galaxy Buds 3 can’t go toe-to-toe with the pro-grade model, but they do offer many of the same features. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Apple’s forthcoming AirPods 4 might be the latest pair of wireless earbuds to pique our interest, but if you’re a Galaxy phone owner, it’s hard to resist the appeal of the Galaxy Buds 3. And now, thanks to the latest Discover Samsung event, you can pick them up for $159.99 ($20 off) through September 15th from either Best Buy or Samsung.

Like the Galaxy Buds 2 before them, Samsung’s latest earbuds will likely become a default pick for Android phone owners with time. Regardless of whether Samsung will admit it, the Buds 3 take heavy design cues from Apple’s now-ubiquitous AirPods, resulting in an angular stemmed look instead of the more discrete design of earlier models. They sport swipe and pinch-based gestures for controlling playback, too, just like the AirPods Pro, along with up to five hours of battery life with ANC on (or 24 hours with the included charging case). Be aware that their noise cancellation won’t be nearly as effective as it is on the step-up Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, though, namely because Samsung’s entry-level earbuds eschew ear tips in favor of an open-style design.
Also, it’s worth noting that the Buds 3 Pro are on sale via Samsung for $219.99 ($30 off). Samsung’s premium earbuds support wireless charging and carry an IP57 rating against dust and water, just like the standard model, but feature two-way drivers in each earbud, whereas the standard Buds 3 have just single drivers. They also offer a few more ecosystem tricks — as well as ear detection sensors and immersive head-tracking spatial audio — making them a better pick for those looking to get the most out of their Samsung device.

Read our hands-on impressions.

More deals, discounts, and ways to save

Apple’s latest Magic Mouse is currently on sale in black at Amazon for $84.99 ($14 off), which is one of the best prices we’ve seen on the black model to date. Yes, it’s a bit of a bummer that you need to flip the mouse over every few weeks to charge it via USB-C, but if you’re looking for a wireless option to pair with your Mac or iPad, it’s a great pick that supports gesture-based controls for swiping and scrolling. Plus, you know, ergonomics and all that.
Few headphones are as absurd as the Dyson Zone, which are available from Amazon, Macy’s, and Dyson for $399.99 ($300 off), their lowest price to date. The hefty, well-built pair of Bluetooth cans offers surprisingly good noise cancellation and sound, though their marque feature is undoubtedly a built-in air purifier that can filter 99 percent of pollutants for up to four hours, depending on the setting. Just don’t expect to go unnoticed after flipping down that metallic visor and stepping out in public. Read our review.

Aqara’s 20-inch LED Ceiling Light T1M with Matter is down to an all-time low of $119.99 ($30 off) at Amazon. The affordable, easy-to-install smart ceiling light works with all the major smart home platforms (including Amazon Alexa and Google Home) and features a tunable white light fixture and a color-changing LED ring, letting you illuminate rooms up to 200 square feet with a wash of different colors. Read our recent ceiling light comparison.

The standard Galaxy Buds 3 can’t go toe-to-toe with the pro-grade model, but they do offer many of the same features. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Apple’s forthcoming AirPods 4 might be the latest pair of wireless earbuds to pique our interest, but if you’re a Galaxy phone owner, it’s hard to resist the appeal of the Galaxy Buds 3. And now, thanks to the latest Discover Samsung event, you can pick them up for $159.99 ($20 off) through September 15th from either Best Buy or Samsung.

Like the Galaxy Buds 2 before them, Samsung’s latest earbuds will likely become a default pick for Android phone owners with time. Regardless of whether Samsung will admit it, the Buds 3 take heavy design cues from Apple’s now-ubiquitous AirPods, resulting in an angular stemmed look instead of the more discrete design of earlier models. They sport swipe and pinch-based gestures for controlling playback, too, just like the AirPods Pro, along with up to five hours of battery life with ANC on (or 24 hours with the included charging case). Be aware that their noise cancellation won’t be nearly as effective as it is on the step-up Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, though, namely because Samsung’s entry-level earbuds eschew ear tips in favor of an open-style design.

Also, it’s worth noting that the Buds 3 Pro are on sale via Samsung for $219.99 ($30 off). Samsung’s premium earbuds support wireless charging and carry an IP57 rating against dust and water, just like the standard model, but feature two-way drivers in each earbud, whereas the standard Buds 3 have just single drivers. They also offer a few more ecosystem tricks — as well as ear detection sensors and immersive head-tracking spatial audio — making them a better pick for those looking to get the most out of their Samsung device.

Read our hands-on impressions.

More deals, discounts, and ways to save

Apple’s latest Magic Mouse is currently on sale in black at Amazon for $84.99 ($14 off), which is one of the best prices we’ve seen on the black model to date. Yes, it’s a bit of a bummer that you need to flip the mouse over every few weeks to charge it via USB-C, but if you’re looking for a wireless option to pair with your Mac or iPad, it’s a great pick that supports gesture-based controls for swiping and scrolling. Plus, you know, ergonomics and all that.
Few headphones are as absurd as the Dyson Zone, which are available from Amazon, Macy’s, and Dyson for $399.99 ($300 off), their lowest price to date. The hefty, well-built pair of Bluetooth cans offers surprisingly good noise cancellation and sound, though their marque feature is undoubtedly a built-in air purifier that can filter 99 percent of pollutants for up to four hours, depending on the setting. Just don’t expect to go unnoticed after flipping down that metallic visor and stepping out in public. Read our review.

Aqara’s 20-inch LED Ceiling Light T1M with Matter is down to an all-time low of $119.99 ($30 off) at Amazon. The affordable, easy-to-install smart ceiling light works with all the major smart home platforms (including Amazon Alexa and Google Home) and features a tunable white light fixture and a color-changing LED ring, letting you illuminate rooms up to 200 square feet with a wash of different colors. Read our recent ceiling light comparison.

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Apple heavily sprinkled mentions of AI throughout its iPhone 16 event on Monday. However, generative Apple Intelligence features won’t be ready for the public launch of iOS 18 on September 16th or the new iPhones when they’re released on September 20th.
The first set of Apple’s AI features is scheduled for public availability next month in most regions — except the EU — as part of a beta test for iPhone 15 Pro and all iPhone 16s, plus Macs and iPads with M1 or higher Apple Silicon chips. At launch, they’ll be available in US English only.
What’s coming to Apple Intelligence in October
Writing Tools

Text Rewrite: Text Rewrite will morph your email writing draft into a more professional one, and you can change the tone to be friendly or concise as well.

Proofread: As in real life, this proofreading feature should correct your grammar and sentence structure and suggest better words throughout your work.

Summarize Text: It will be like letting AI do a TL;DR for you. Summarize Text will shorten your writing to just the important parts or create a bulleted list or table.

Screenshot: Allison Johnson / The Verge
Apple Intelligence made this table from a scruffy list.

Smart Reply: We’ve seen this AI feature shown off quite a bit. Smart Reply will give you a few contextual suggestions to get you started on a reply in Mail or elsewhere.
New Siri

GIF: Apple
The new Siri glows up.

New look: On iPhone, iPad, or CarPlay, Siri will appear as a rainbow ring around the edges of the screen, and on Mac, Siri can float and be placed anywhere on your desktop.

Apple’s new language model: Siri should also get a bit smarter and better at parsing natural language thanks to Apple’s on-device language model. Meanwhile, more complex questions will be sent to Apple’s “Private Cloud Compute” server, which Apple claims acts as a computational extension to your device and does not retain any data.

Type to Siri: Instead of talking, you’ll be able to type questions to the assistant anytime.

Screenshot: Allison Johnson / The Verge
Sometimes you don’t want to talk to your phone to get stuff done faster.

Photos

Clean Up: Similar to Google’s Magic Eraser, Clean Up will remove unwanted objects in your photos.

Search: You’ll be able to search for photos using natural language to find specific subjects you’re looking for but can’t find scrolling through your library.

Memories: You’ll be able to make a movie using media from your Photos library by writing out a prompt, and it should create a narratively driven story with chapters.

Transcription

Phone call recording and transcription: You’ll be able to record phone calls and get a transcription of the whole call. Activating this feature will tell all parties that the call is being recorded.

Voice recordings in Notes: You’ll be able to record audio within the actual Notes app, and it will transcribe speech into text. You can also use Apple’s other writing tools to help summarize the whole session.

These Apple Intelligence features are arriving later
Apple says other AI features will “roll out later this year and in the months following.” That means these features could arrive as soon as October, or they could arrive next summer or fall. Unfortunately, these are also some of the most eye-catching features coming to Apple Intelligence.

Image: Apple
A combination of using Apple’s Visual Intelligence and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to analyze a photo of a Mediterranean coastline and how to set up a photoshoot there.

Visual Intelligence: Apple’s new Visual Intelligence introduced during the iPhone 16 presentation can search for things by just snapping a photo. You could, for instance, take a picture of a cafe storefront and get information about it, like hours and its menu, or take a photo of a concert poster and add it to your calendar. Visual Intelligence, when it arrives, will be activated using the Camera Control side button on iPhone 16 and 16 Pro.

Genmoji: You’ll be able to create your own emoji by entering a text prompt, and Apple’s image generator will make you a new emoji you can send to friends.

Image: Apple
Make your own emojis.

Image Playground: In addition to making custom emoji, Apple Intelligence will also eventually create custom images. Enter a text prompt for whatever image you’d like (assume some actual restrictions will apply), and Apple’s models will conjure up a picture for you.

Siri Personal Context: Siri’s usefulness will evolve later by contextually helping you with onscreen information on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

OpenAI connection: Anywhere there are Apple Intelligence writing tools, you will also have the option to use ChatGPT for additional generative AI options. ChatGPT should also be able to process your Siri requests for more advanced answers to questions.

Third-party app connections with Siri: Apple’s also promising Siri will, one day, complete in-app requests, like making photo edits in an image editing app using pictures in your Photos app.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Apple heavily sprinkled mentions of AI throughout its iPhone 16 event on Monday. However, generative Apple Intelligence features won’t be ready for the public launch of iOS 18 on September 16th or the new iPhones when they’re released on September 20th.

The first set of Apple’s AI features is scheduled for public availability next month in most regions — except the EU — as part of a beta test for iPhone 15 Pro and all iPhone 16s, plus Macs and iPads with M1 or higher Apple Silicon chips. At launch, they’ll be available in US English only.

What’s coming to Apple Intelligence in October

Writing Tools

Text Rewrite: Text Rewrite will morph your email writing draft into a more professional one, and you can change the tone to be friendly or concise as well.

Proofread: As in real life, this proofreading feature should correct your grammar and sentence structure and suggest better words throughout your work.

Summarize Text: It will be like letting AI do a TL;DR for you. Summarize Text will shorten your writing to just the important parts or create a bulleted list or table.

Screenshot: Allison Johnson / The Verge
Apple Intelligence made this table from a scruffy list.

Smart Reply: We’ve seen this AI feature shown off quite a bit. Smart Reply will give you a few contextual suggestions to get you started on a reply in Mail or elsewhere.

New Siri

GIF: Apple
The new Siri glows up.

New look: On iPhone, iPad, or CarPlay, Siri will appear as a rainbow ring around the edges of the screen, and on Mac, Siri can float and be placed anywhere on your desktop.

Apple’s new language model: Siri should also get a bit smarter and better at parsing natural language thanks to Apple’s on-device language model. Meanwhile, more complex questions will be sent to Apple’s “Private Cloud Compute” server, which Apple claims acts as a computational extension to your device and does not retain any data.

Type to Siri: Instead of talking, you’ll be able to type questions to the assistant anytime.

Screenshot: Allison Johnson / The Verge
Sometimes you don’t want to talk to your phone to get stuff done faster.

Photos

Clean Up: Similar to Google’s Magic Eraser, Clean Up will remove unwanted objects in your photos.

Search: You’ll be able to search for photos using natural language to find specific subjects you’re looking for but can’t find scrolling through your library.

Memories: You’ll be able to make a movie using media from your Photos library by writing out a prompt, and it should create a narratively driven story with chapters.

Transcription

Phone call recording and transcription: You’ll be able to record phone calls and get a transcription of the whole call. Activating this feature will tell all parties that the call is being recorded.

Voice recordings in Notes: You’ll be able to record audio within the actual Notes app, and it will transcribe speech into text. You can also use Apple’s other writing tools to help summarize the whole session.

These Apple Intelligence features are arriving later

Apple says other AI features will “roll out later this year and in the months following.” That means these features could arrive as soon as October, or they could arrive next summer or fall. Unfortunately, these are also some of the most eye-catching features coming to Apple Intelligence.

Image: Apple
A combination of using Apple’s Visual Intelligence and OpenAI’s ChatGPT to analyze a photo of a Mediterranean coastline and how to set up a photoshoot there.

Visual Intelligence: Apple’s new Visual Intelligence introduced during the iPhone 16 presentation can search for things by just snapping a photo. You could, for instance, take a picture of a cafe storefront and get information about it, like hours and its menu, or take a photo of a concert poster and add it to your calendar. Visual Intelligence, when it arrives, will be activated using the Camera Control side button on iPhone 16 and 16 Pro.

Genmoji: You’ll be able to create your own emoji by entering a text prompt, and Apple’s image generator will make you a new emoji you can send to friends.

Image: Apple
Make your own emojis.

Image Playground: In addition to making custom emoji, Apple Intelligence will also eventually create custom images. Enter a text prompt for whatever image you’d like (assume some actual restrictions will apply), and Apple’s models will conjure up a picture for you.

Siri Personal Context: Siri’s usefulness will evolve later by contextually helping you with onscreen information on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.

OpenAI connection: Anywhere there are Apple Intelligence writing tools, you will also have the option to use ChatGPT for additional generative AI options. ChatGPT should also be able to process your Siri requests for more advanced answers to questions.

Third-party app connections with Siri: Apple’s also promising Siri will, one day, complete in-app requests, like making photo edits in an image editing app using pictures in your Photos app.

Read More 

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is launching its Xbox Game Pass Standard tier today. After briefly testing it with Xbox Insiders last month, the new $14.99 per month Game Pass Standard subscription is launching with the usual Game Pass library for Xbox and online console multiplayer access, too. This new tier doesn’t include immediate access to day-one game releases, though.
Microsoft first revealed this new Xbox Game Pass Standard tier in July, alongside price increases for Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers. Existing subscribers of Xbox Game Pass for Console will continue to be able to access day-one games, but new Game Pass subscribers will now only be able to pick between Core, Standard, PC, and Ultimate subscriptions.

Image: Microsoft
The new Xbox Game Pass lineup.

Xbox Game Pass Standard will eventually get new first-party Xbox games and other titles, with Microsoft clarifying recently that “some games coming to Game Pass Ultimate (day one games or other game entries) will not be immediately available with Game Pass Standard and may be added to the library at a future date (can be up to 12 months or more and will vary by title).”
That means that if you want day-one titles and you’re not already subscribed to Xbox Game Pass, only PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate offer that perk now. The new Game Pass lineup includes:

Xbox Game Pass core: $9.99 per month, with over 25 games, online console multiplayer, and deals / discounts

Xbox Game Pass Standard: $14.99 per month, with hundreds of games, online console multiplayer, and deals / discounts

PC Game Pass: $11.99 per month, with hundreds of games, recent day-one titles, EA Play, and deals / discounts

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: $19.99 per month, with hundreds of games, recent day-one titles, EA Play, online console multiplayer, and deals / discounts and perks

Xbox Game Pass Standard arrives just in time for the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Game Pass in October.

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is launching its Xbox Game Pass Standard tier today. After briefly testing it with Xbox Insiders last month, the new $14.99 per month Game Pass Standard subscription is launching with the usual Game Pass library for Xbox and online console multiplayer access, too. This new tier doesn’t include immediate access to day-one game releases, though.

Microsoft first revealed this new Xbox Game Pass Standard tier in July, alongside price increases for Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers. Existing subscribers of Xbox Game Pass for Console will continue to be able to access day-one games, but new Game Pass subscribers will now only be able to pick between Core, Standard, PC, and Ultimate subscriptions.

Image: Microsoft
The new Xbox Game Pass lineup.

Xbox Game Pass Standard will eventually get new first-party Xbox games and other titles, with Microsoft clarifying recently that “some games coming to Game Pass Ultimate (day one games or other game entries) will not be immediately available with Game Pass Standard and may be added to the library at a future date (can be up to 12 months or more and will vary by title).”

That means that if you want day-one titles and you’re not already subscribed to Xbox Game Pass, only PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate offer that perk now. The new Game Pass lineup includes:

Xbox Game Pass core: $9.99 per month, with over 25 games, online console multiplayer, and deals / discounts

Xbox Game Pass Standard: $14.99 per month, with hundreds of games, online console multiplayer, and deals / discounts

PC Game Pass: $11.99 per month, with hundreds of games, recent day-one titles, EA Play, and deals / discounts

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: $19.99 per month, with hundreds of games, recent day-one titles, EA Play, online console multiplayer, and deals / discounts and perks

Xbox Game Pass Standard arrives just in time for the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Game Pass in October.

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

This weekend, ESPN began publishing AI-generated recaps of women’s soccer games, with more sports to come. It’s using Microsoft AI to write each story, with humans only involved in reviewing each recap for “quality and accuracy.” ESPN says these stories will “augment,” rather than detract from, its other content — but needless to say, people have feelings about it.
It’s not that ESPN is masquerading AI work as that of humans. In fact, each story advertises that it’s written by “ESPN Generative AI Services,” and ESPN includes a note at the bottom of each article about how the recap is based on a transcript from the sporting event.
ESPN isn’t the only news organization that does this; The Associated Press started using AI to write sports recaps back in 2016, and both organizations pitch this as a way to cover more underserved sports. In addition to soccer, ESPN will also use it for lacrosse.
But so far, the stories are very bland, basic write-ups — and they’re already missing important nuance, as Parker Molloy points out. One of the National Women’s Soccer League stories failed to mention the significance of one player’s final game and the emotional moments that happened as a result, something ESPN waved at with a later update to the story.

No mention of Alex Morgan at all in ESPN’s AI-generated recap of the final game of her professional career.The article did provide analysis on the performance of her teammate Kennedy Wesley, noting that she contributed “defensively as well as on offense” in Sunday’s game. pic.twitter.com/bKpuGmfaSK— Sports TV News & Updates (@TVSportsUpdates) September 9, 2024

ESPN argued that the AI summaries free up its writers to focus on more in-depth work like “more differentiating features, analysis, investigative, and breaking news coverage,” and in this instance, a human reporter did write an entire story about Alex Morgan’s emotional exit.

Columnist Tom Jones wrote for Poynter last week that despite ESPN’s justification that AI frees up journalists for more impactful work, there’s nothing stopping ESPN “from using AI to cover more and more other sports” down the line.
Jones points to Luis Paez-Pumar’s column for Defector, where he writes that ESPN is “feeding existing soccer and lacrosse journalists’ work into a machine aimed at making them obsolete” rather than hiring them to do this work.
ESPN says it does indeed plan to extend these AI recaps to more sports. Soccer and lacrosse are merely “its first experimentation with AI-generated content.”
Musicians, news organizations, and other creatives are fighting the rise of AI in court, arguing it trains on the work of humans without permission.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

This weekend, ESPN began publishing AI-generated recaps of women’s soccer games, with more sports to come. It’s using Microsoft AI to write each story, with humans only involved in reviewing each recap for “quality and accuracy.” ESPN says these stories will “augment,” rather than detract from, its other content — but needless to say, people have feelings about it.

It’s not that ESPN is masquerading AI work as that of humans. In fact, each story advertises that it’s written by “ESPN Generative AI Services,” and ESPN includes a note at the bottom of each article about how the recap is based on a transcript from the sporting event.

ESPN isn’t the only news organization that does this; The Associated Press started using AI to write sports recaps back in 2016, and both organizations pitch this as a way to cover more underserved sports. In addition to soccer, ESPN will also use it for lacrosse.

But so far, the stories are very bland, basic write-ups — and they’re already missing important nuance, as Parker Molloy points out. One of the National Women’s Soccer League stories failed to mention the significance of one player’s final game and the emotional moments that happened as a result, something ESPN waved at with a later update to the story.

ESPN argued that the AI summaries free up its writers to focus on more in-depth work like “more differentiating features, analysis, investigative, and breaking news coverage,” and in this instance, a human reporter did write an entire story about Alex Morgan’s emotional exit.

Columnist Tom Jones wrote for Poynter last week that despite ESPN’s justification that AI frees up journalists for more impactful work, there’s nothing stopping ESPN “from using AI to cover more and more other sports” down the line.

Jones points to Luis Paez-Pumar’s column for Defector, where he writes that ESPN is “feeding existing soccer and lacrosse journalists’ work into a machine aimed at making them obsolete” rather than hiring them to do this work.

ESPN says it does indeed plan to extend these AI recaps to more sports. Soccer and lacrosse are merely “its first experimentation with AI-generated content.”

Musicians, news organizations, and other creatives are fighting the rise of AI in court, arguing it trains on the work of humans without permission.

Read More