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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses can now post Instagram stories directly to your Instagram account without the need for you to bring out a phone. The feature is one of several updates the company is now starting to roll out to the glasses, including support for Amazon Music and the meditation app Calm.
The Instagram support will allow users to prompt the glasses to post to the app before or after taking a picture. They can say, “Hey Meta, share my last photo to Instagram” after taking a photo or tell it to “post a photo to Instagram” before taking a new picture.
Meta also worked with the meditation app Calm to let people do guided meditation on the go and access mindfulness exercises on the glasses. Calm will offer a free three-month subscription to Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses users to test it out.
The glasses are getting the ability to stream Amazon Music, too. By saying, “Hey Meta, play Amazon Music,” the glasses will play a recommended playlist curated for users. Changing volume or pausing music can be done through touch or voice controls without pulling out a phone. The glasses previously had support for Spotify and added Apple Music last month.
Meta says the new features will roll out “gradually.”
In April, Meta added multimodal AI capabilities to the Ray-Ban smart glasses, where glasses wearers can take a photo and have Meta’s AI give more context. It can read signs in different languages, write Instagram captions, and identify landmarks.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses can now post Instagram stories directly to your Instagram account without the need for you to bring out a phone. The feature is one of several updates the company is now starting to roll out to the glasses, including support for Amazon Music and the meditation app Calm.

The Instagram support will allow users to prompt the glasses to post to the app before or after taking a picture. They can say, “Hey Meta, share my last photo to Instagram” after taking a photo or tell it to “post a photo to Instagram” before taking a new picture.

Meta also worked with the meditation app Calm to let people do guided meditation on the go and access mindfulness exercises on the glasses. Calm will offer a free three-month subscription to Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses users to test it out.

The glasses are getting the ability to stream Amazon Music, too. By saying, “Hey Meta, play Amazon Music,” the glasses will play a recommended playlist curated for users. Changing volume or pausing music can be done through touch or voice controls without pulling out a phone. The glasses previously had support for Spotify and added Apple Music last month.

Meta says the new features will roll out “gradually.”

In April, Meta added multimodal AI capabilities to the Ray-Ban smart glasses, where glasses wearers can take a photo and have Meta’s AI give more context. It can read signs in different languages, write Instagram captions, and identify landmarks.

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Image: Warner Bros.

George Miller’s Furiosa paints a broader picture of Mad Max’s apocalyptic world while letting its heroine play second fiddle in her own film. Fury Road jolted the Mad Max franchise back to life with concentrated doses of high-octane, practically produced spectacle ripped directly out of director George Miller’s twisted imagination. The film framed its titular hero as more of an idea than a man and, by doing so, created space for one of Miller’s most riveting new characters to shine.
Furiosa: A Mad Mad Saga — Warner Bros’ new Fury Road prequel — attempts a similar kind of mythologization as it jumps back in time to a point when green things still grew in the apocalypse. Compared to Fury Road’s deranged bombast, Furiosa feels like a leaner, more artfully realized vision of raw humanity struggling to survive in spite of itself. But the new film has a tendency to treat its namesake as the fulcrum around which a story is happening instead of someone participating in it, which is a shame considering how she’s the big draw.
Whereas previous Mad Max films have essentially been snapshots from a war-torn future, Furiosa chronicles the entire young adulthood of Furiosa (Alyla Browne in flashbacks and Anya Taylor-Joy closer to the present), one of the last people to know what it was like to grow up in the fabled Green Place of Many Mothers. Furiosa is just one of many kids able to truly thrive in the Green Place thanks to its natural abundance (read: fresh food and water) and relative seclusion within the treacherous Australian wasteland. But for all the safety Furiosa feels in her early years, she’s also keenly aware of how tenuous that security is. When her people are ultimately attacked by raiders, she knows the Green Place’s survival in secrecy hinges on the outsiders’ deaths.

Image: Warner Bros.

By opening Furiosa in the Green Place and foregrounding it as the environment that first shaped Furiosa herself, Miller establishes early on how interested he is in using this film to illustrate the durability of ideas. As Furiosa’s snatched away from her idyllic home and enslaved by sadistic warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), the film spotlights how life in the wasteland can turn people into their most monstrous selves. But Furiosa’s memories of the Green Place, and its impact on how she sees the world, are part of what make her so well-suited to deal with the outside horrors.
Whereas Fury Road often felt like a gasoline and piss-soaked lucid dream punctuated with guitar riffs and the roar of flamethrowers, Furiosa unfolds much more like a stage play told in bookended acts that all crystalize how Furiosa became a warrior. Miller and co-writer Nico Lathouris emphasize the importance of Furiosa’s perceptiveness as the film fleshes out the cast of weatherbeaten ghouls who serve Dementus. These include The History Man (George Shevtsov) and interpretive dance proclaimer Smeg (David Collins). Though none of Dementus’ goons can make sense of why the enslaved girl won’t speak, through them, she’s able to learn what it means to live among predatory strongmen who harness fear as a weapon.
It’s interesting to see more of Max Max’s dystopian world from the perspective of Dementus’ gang — a band of motorcycle-riding maniacs who frequently turn on one another both out of spite and necessity.
Though Furiosa can’t initially perceive it, there’s a distinct difference between the cultures of Dementus’ horde and that of the Citadel where Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) rules his fanatic War Boys and enforcers like Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke). In Praetorian Jack, you can see shades of Tom Hardy’s Max Rockatansky, which brings a narrative poetry to the larger Furiosa story Miller has been telling with the franchise’s last two films. But from the moment Furiosa meets Dementus, you can almost immediately hear Miller and Lathouris struggling to lock in on what kind of presence they want their mad biker king to be.
Similar to Fury Road’s Immortan Joe before him, Dementus is another font of absurd masculinity whose cartoonish effects contrast with his bloodlust and penchant for torture. Through a face full of prosthetics that distract more than transform, Hemsworth tries to bring Dementus to life with an energy that’s meant to read as unhinged but tends to play as scatterbrained. You can see the spark of a complicated altruism in the paternal shine he takes to Browne’s haunted, adolescent Furisosa toward the beginning of the movie. But as the film brings the Biker Horde and the War Boys together in a prolonged power struggle, Dementus starts to feel more like a character stitched together from leftover ideas for Immortan Joe that didn’t make it into Fury Road or the 2015 Mad Max video game.

Image: Warner Bros.

That feeling of Dementus being an echo of Mad Max villains past intensifies as the younger Immortan Joe — a more level-headed, cautious version of his Fury Road self — becomes a bigger part of Furiosa. The characters’ similarities feel like two expressions of what kind of archetypal tyrant would crave and attract power in the wake of society’s collapse. They’re both macabre brutes whose rages frequently seem to mask deep-seated insecurities about their places in the world. But Furiosa’s characterization of Immortan Joe and his mutilated failsons Scrotus (Josh Helman) and Erectus (Nathan Jones) does so much more to make the movie feel like an organic extension of Fury Road rather than a fancy new limb grafted on in response to the earlier film’s success.
Immortan Joe and his War Boys are also an important part of how Furiosa brings Taylor-Joy’s Imperator-to-be into the picture. And while the older Furiosa continues to say so little that she often feels like the latest example of the silent / deadly girl trope, she also becomes the focal point of some of the movie’s most impressive set pieces. Furiosa’s action sequences — chases through the desert and battles in places like the oil-rich Gas Town — all feel smaller in comparison to Fury Road in a way that actually helps the film establish its own identity.
The sequences’ scale and the way shots of explicit carnage are obfuscated by clouds of smoke and sand almost make it seem as if Miller’s reminding you how much more dire things become for Furiosa in the future. But the steely-eyed determination with which Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa moves through the film’s last third is mesmerizing — at least in moments when the movie just lets her be the star rather than the person who’s forced to step up when the men around her can’t quite get the job done.
For all of Taylor-Joy’s ability to command attention when she’s on-screen, Furiosa still makes its heroine feel like a supporting character in her own movie. This happens essentially right up until its final act, which comes closer to Fury Road than you might expect. And while the two films connect in a way that makes them work as a double feature, watching them back-to-back highlights just how much more the 2015 film gave Furiosa to do.

Image: Warner Bros.

George Miller’s Furiosa paints a broader picture of Mad Max’s apocalyptic world while letting its heroine play second fiddle in her own film.

Fury Road jolted the Mad Max franchise back to life with concentrated doses of high-octane, practically produced spectacle ripped directly out of director George Miller’s twisted imagination. The film framed its titular hero as more of an idea than a man and, by doing so, created space for one of Miller’s most riveting new characters to shine.

Furiosa: A Mad Mad Saga — Warner Bros’ new Fury Road prequel — attempts a similar kind of mythologization as it jumps back in time to a point when green things still grew in the apocalypse. Compared to Fury Road’s deranged bombast, Furiosa feels like a leaner, more artfully realized vision of raw humanity struggling to survive in spite of itself. But the new film has a tendency to treat its namesake as the fulcrum around which a story is happening instead of someone participating in it, which is a shame considering how she’s the big draw.

Whereas previous Mad Max films have essentially been snapshots from a war-torn future, Furiosa chronicles the entire young adulthood of Furiosa (Alyla Browne in flashbacks and Anya Taylor-Joy closer to the present), one of the last people to know what it was like to grow up in the fabled Green Place of Many Mothers. Furiosa is just one of many kids able to truly thrive in the Green Place thanks to its natural abundance (read: fresh food and water) and relative seclusion within the treacherous Australian wasteland. But for all the safety Furiosa feels in her early years, she’s also keenly aware of how tenuous that security is. When her people are ultimately attacked by raiders, she knows the Green Place’s survival in secrecy hinges on the outsiders’ deaths.

By opening Furiosa in the Green Place and foregrounding it as the environment that first shaped Furiosa herself, Miller establishes early on how interested he is in using this film to illustrate the durability of ideas. As Furiosa’s snatched away from her idyllic home and enslaved by sadistic warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), the film spotlights how life in the wasteland can turn people into their most monstrous selves. But Furiosa’s memories of the Green Place, and its impact on how she sees the world, are part of what make her so well-suited to deal with the outside horrors.

Whereas Fury Road often felt like a gasoline and piss-soaked lucid dream punctuated with guitar riffs and the roar of flamethrowers, Furiosa unfolds much more like a stage play told in bookended acts that all crystalize how Furiosa became a warrior. Miller and co-writer Nico Lathouris emphasize the importance of Furiosa’s perceptiveness as the film fleshes out the cast of weatherbeaten ghouls who serve Dementus. These include The History Man (George Shevtsov) and interpretive dance proclaimer Smeg (David Collins). Though none of Dementus’ goons can make sense of why the enslaved girl won’t speak, through them, she’s able to learn what it means to live among predatory strongmen who harness fear as a weapon.

It’s interesting to see more of Max Max’s dystopian world from the perspective of Dementus’ gang — a band of motorcycle-riding maniacs who frequently turn on one another both out of spite and necessity.

Though Furiosa can’t initially perceive it, there’s a distinct difference between the cultures of Dementus’ horde and that of the Citadel where Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) rules his fanatic War Boys and enforcers like Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke). In Praetorian Jack, you can see shades of Tom Hardy’s Max Rockatansky, which brings a narrative poetry to the larger Furiosa story Miller has been telling with the franchise’s last two films. But from the moment Furiosa meets Dementus, you can almost immediately hear Miller and Lathouris struggling to lock in on what kind of presence they want their mad biker king to be.

Similar to Fury Road’s Immortan Joe before him, Dementus is another font of absurd masculinity whose cartoonish effects contrast with his bloodlust and penchant for torture. Through a face full of prosthetics that distract more than transform, Hemsworth tries to bring Dementus to life with an energy that’s meant to read as unhinged but tends to play as scatterbrained. You can see the spark of a complicated altruism in the paternal shine he takes to Browne’s haunted, adolescent Furisosa toward the beginning of the movie. But as the film brings the Biker Horde and the War Boys together in a prolonged power struggle, Dementus starts to feel more like a character stitched together from leftover ideas for Immortan Joe that didn’t make it into Fury Road or the 2015 Mad Max video game.

That feeling of Dementus being an echo of Mad Max villains past intensifies as the younger Immortan Joe — a more level-headed, cautious version of his Fury Road self — becomes a bigger part of Furiosa. The characters’ similarities feel like two expressions of what kind of archetypal tyrant would crave and attract power in the wake of society’s collapse. They’re both macabre brutes whose rages frequently seem to mask deep-seated insecurities about their places in the world. But Furiosa’s characterization of Immortan Joe and his mutilated failsons Scrotus (Josh Helman) and Erectus (Nathan Jones) does so much more to make the movie feel like an organic extension of Fury Road rather than a fancy new limb grafted on in response to the earlier film’s success.

Immortan Joe and his War Boys are also an important part of how Furiosa brings Taylor-Joy’s Imperator-to-be into the picture. And while the older Furiosa continues to say so little that she often feels like the latest example of the silent / deadly girl trope, she also becomes the focal point of some of the movie’s most impressive set pieces. Furiosa’s action sequences — chases through the desert and battles in places like the oil-rich Gas Town — all feel smaller in comparison to Fury Road in a way that actually helps the film establish its own identity.

The sequences’ scale and the way shots of explicit carnage are obfuscated by clouds of smoke and sand almost make it seem as if Miller’s reminding you how much more dire things become for Furiosa in the future. But the steely-eyed determination with which Taylor-Joy’s Furiosa moves through the film’s last third is mesmerizing — at least in moments when the movie just lets her be the star rather than the person who’s forced to step up when the men around her can’t quite get the job done.

For all of Taylor-Joy’s ability to command attention when she’s on-screen, Furiosa still makes its heroine feel like a supporting character in her own movie. This happens essentially right up until its final act, which comes closer to Fury Road than you might expect. And while the two films connect in a way that makes them work as a double feature, watching them back-to-back highlights just how much more the 2015 film gave Furiosa to do.

Read More 

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

T-Mobile has begun notifying customers that it’s hiking their rates by as much as $5 per line per month. The company’s help account on X confirmed the price increase, telling one person that it was “adjusting prices to respond to rising costs.” Reports suggest the hike applies to older plans, including One, Magenta, Magenta 55 Plus / Military, and Simple Choice, but the full extent isn’t known.
T-Mobile told employees that it is notifying the “small fraction of customers” who are affected by the change today, May 22nd, according to an internal document and slides published by The Mobile Report. The company added that the increases, which are either $2 or $5 depending on which plan customers are on, will show up on their next bill “as early as June 5th.”

Screenshot: X

T-Mobile made price lock-in promises in 2015, 2017, and 2022 for the plans that are reportedly affected. But notably, those promises didn’t cover every T-Mobile customer. The company excluded certain plans or limited them to customers switching plans or newly signing up. So it seems as though only those who fall outside of those terms are potentially seeing rate hikes. We’ve asked T-Mobile to clarify who might be affected.

Company consumer group president Jon Freier told employees that recent Go5G plans won’t be affected, nor will “millions of customers” under the company’s Price Lock guarantee, according to a memo seen by CNET.
Future rate increases could impact Price Lock-covered plans, though. T-Mobile revised the Price Lock promise this year so that, starting on January 18th, “customers activating or switching to an eligible rate plan” essentially have a get-out-of-jail-free card for leaving their contract early. If a price increase is too much, they can give the company 60 days’ notice, and it says it will waive their final month’s fees.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

T-Mobile has begun notifying customers that it’s hiking their rates by as much as $5 per line per month. The company’s help account on X confirmed the price increase, telling one person that it was “adjusting prices to respond to rising costs.” Reports suggest the hike applies to older plans, including One, Magenta, Magenta 55 Plus / Military, and Simple Choice, but the full extent isn’t known.

T-Mobile told employees that it is notifying the “small fraction of customers” who are affected by the change today, May 22nd, according to an internal document and slides published by The Mobile Report. The company added that the increases, which are either $2 or $5 depending on which plan customers are on, will show up on their next bill “as early as June 5th.”

Screenshot: X

T-Mobile made price lock-in promises in 2015, 2017, and 2022 for the plans that are reportedly affected. But notably, those promises didn’t cover every T-Mobile customer. The company excluded certain plans or limited them to customers switching plans or newly signing up. So it seems as though only those who fall outside of those terms are potentially seeing rate hikes. We’ve asked T-Mobile to clarify who might be affected.

Company consumer group president Jon Freier told employees that recent Go5G plans won’t be affected, nor will “millions of customers” under the company’s Price Lock guarantee, according to a memo seen by CNET.

Future rate increases could impact Price Lock-covered plans, though. T-Mobile revised the Price Lock promise this year so that, starting on January 18th, “customers activating or switching to an eligible rate plan” essentially have a get-out-of-jail-free card for leaving their contract early. If a price increase is too much, they can give the company 60 days’ notice, and it says it will waive their final month’s fees.

Read More 

Photo: Sonos

He stands behind the new app, which underwent months of testing, but acknowledges that Sonos should’ve warned its (very) passionate customers about missing features. I doubt it’d be much fun to read through Sonos CEO Patrick Spence’s emails from customers over these last couple weeks. Ever since the company rolled out an overhauled mobile app that was rebuilt from scratch to allow for greater personalization and improved performance, the Sonos forums and especially its subreddit have been in upheaval. The new software shipped without a number of features that had been present in the outgoing version. Core functions like sleep timers and alarms were nowhere to be found. And local music search / playback was a mess — an affront to some of the company’s longstanding customers.
In the immediate aftermath, Sonos dug in its heels, and the company’s chief product officer said it took “courage” to introduce a completely new user experience. That response… didn’t exactly land well, either. On balance, the redesign has its advocates. Whether you love it, hate it, or fall somewhere in the middle completely depends on your individual use case and how you normally use your Sonos system. Some people just play music to their speakers with AirPlay or Spotify Connect and have been none the wiser to this whole fiasco.
But it’s easy to understand why many say their trust in Sonos has been shaken after they suddenly lost access to features with zero warning just for hitting the “update” button. Rather than do a public beta preview or temporarily offer the new app side by side with the old, Sonos forced everyone over at once. (The Ace headphones and Roam 2 speaker wouldn’t have worked with the previous app.)
I’ve heard from private beta testers who have told me they did their best to tell the company this app wasn’t exactly ready for prime time. I’ve also got it on good authority that Sonos’ customer support requests have gone through the roof since the redesign, so this is proving to be a rough patch on many levels. Inexcusably, the new app was also a downgrade in terms of accessibility, something that the company has worked quickly to resolve.
“What I wish we would’ve done is probably communicate the roadmap a little more clearly.”
Last week, I briefly chatted with Spence about the new Sonos Ace headphones. Predictably, he’s very excited about them and thinks the headphones will live up to the Sonos brand in terms of sound quality, comfort, and the standout TV Audio Swap feature.
But I obviously had to touch on the app situation. Spence doesn’t have any regrets about Sonos making the leap when it did and says the company’s internal data shows that the new app’s benefits are very real and being felt by (less vocal) customers.
Here’s that part of our discussion:
Patrick Spence: There were two things that customers have been sending me emails about and providing feedback for years. One of them has been headphones, but the other has been the app. I’d say probably the entire time I’ve been at Sonos, but as long as I’ve been CEO, I’ve heard from customers saying, “You need the app to be easier and more modern to navigate. It needs to have faster response and lower latency,” and all of these things. I’ve been using it since Christmas. Everybody at Sonos has been testing it for months. It has delivered — we know from data and from feedback — that it is easier to navigate. But it’s a change for customers. It is faster and more responsive, and it’s a better overall experience.
“Once you add a feature into a platform, it may become one person’s most important thing.”
But of course, there’s a period of time where people need to adapt to that change, and we’re going through that period. We have the most passionate customers in the world. This architecture and everything we’ve done around the architecture allows us to move a little faster. We basically took a monolith and broke it into modular parts, which allows us to move faster in certain elements. Things like the alarm issue was a bug, right? So we could more quickly than we have in the past address it. And we’re going to find other bugs as we go through this. We’re heads down and making sure we get those addressed.
What I wish we would’ve done is probably communicate the roadmap a little more clearly.
Chris Welch: Messaged better, saying, “These features are going to be absent at launch.”
PS: Exactly. And “here’s when they’re coming.” Because we already had a plan for how to go through that. But the “why now” was because it’s actually much easier to navigate, more responsive, and just a better overall experience, and that is the thing for the 99 percent of customers that you’re never going to hear from as you go through it.
But we have to remember that we have the most passionate customers in the world. Once you add a feature into a platform — this is the important thing for us to continue to remember as we go through this — once you add it, it may become one person’s most important thing, and that matters most to that person. Just making sure we have a plan and we’re communicating well on that, I think, is important. And we’ll get better as we go through this.
Just yesterday, Sonos pushed out another update for the new app with a handful of bug fixes focused on accessibility, local music playback, and more. And it’s providing a timeline for other in-the-works improvements. The company is no doubt hoping that in six months, all of this will be a distant memory, the new app will have reached feature parity (and then some) with the software it replaced, and all will be forgiven among its loyal customer base.
But for now, much of the community is still on edge as Sonos approaches the all-important release of its Ace headphones and enters a huge new product category that could spur growth amid declining speaker and soundbar demand.

Photo: Sonos

He stands behind the new app, which underwent months of testing, but acknowledges that Sonos should’ve warned its (very) passionate customers about missing features.

I doubt it’d be much fun to read through Sonos CEO Patrick Spence’s emails from customers over these last couple weeks. Ever since the company rolled out an overhauled mobile app that was rebuilt from scratch to allow for greater personalization and improved performance, the Sonos forums and especially its subreddit have been in upheaval. The new software shipped without a number of features that had been present in the outgoing version. Core functions like sleep timers and alarms were nowhere to be found. And local music search / playback was a mess — an affront to some of the company’s longstanding customers.

In the immediate aftermath, Sonos dug in its heels, and the company’s chief product officer said it took “courage” to introduce a completely new user experience. That response… didn’t exactly land well, either. On balance, the redesign has its advocates. Whether you love it, hate it, or fall somewhere in the middle completely depends on your individual use case and how you normally use your Sonos system. Some people just play music to their speakers with AirPlay or Spotify Connect and have been none the wiser to this whole fiasco.

But it’s easy to understand why many say their trust in Sonos has been shaken after they suddenly lost access to features with zero warning just for hitting the “update” button. Rather than do a public beta preview or temporarily offer the new app side by side with the old, Sonos forced everyone over at once. (The Ace headphones and Roam 2 speaker wouldn’t have worked with the previous app.)

I’ve heard from private beta testers who have told me they did their best to tell the company this app wasn’t exactly ready for prime time. I’ve also got it on good authority that Sonos’ customer support requests have gone through the roof since the redesign, so this is proving to be a rough patch on many levels. Inexcusably, the new app was also a downgrade in terms of accessibility, something that the company has worked quickly to resolve.

Last week, I briefly chatted with Spence about the new Sonos Ace headphones. Predictably, he’s very excited about them and thinks the headphones will live up to the Sonos brand in terms of sound quality, comfort, and the standout TV Audio Swap feature.

But I obviously had to touch on the app situation. Spence doesn’t have any regrets about Sonos making the leap when it did and says the company’s internal data shows that the new app’s benefits are very real and being felt by (less vocal) customers.

Here’s that part of our discussion:

Patrick Spence: There were two things that customers have been sending me emails about and providing feedback for years. One of them has been headphones, but the other has been the app. I’d say probably the entire time I’ve been at Sonos, but as long as I’ve been CEO, I’ve heard from customers saying, “You need the app to be easier and more modern to navigate. It needs to have faster response and lower latency,” and all of these things. I’ve been using it since Christmas. Everybody at Sonos has been testing it for months. It has delivered — we know from data and from feedback — that it is easier to navigate. But it’s a change for customers. It is faster and more responsive, and it’s a better overall experience.

But of course, there’s a period of time where people need to adapt to that change, and we’re going through that period. We have the most passionate customers in the world. This architecture and everything we’ve done around the architecture allows us to move a little faster. We basically took a monolith and broke it into modular parts, which allows us to move faster in certain elements. Things like the alarm issue was a bug, right? So we could more quickly than we have in the past address it. And we’re going to find other bugs as we go through this. We’re heads down and making sure we get those addressed.

What I wish we would’ve done is probably communicate the roadmap a little more clearly.

Chris Welch: Messaged better, saying, “These features are going to be absent at launch.”

PS: Exactly. And “here’s when they’re coming.” Because we already had a plan for how to go through that. But the “why now” was because it’s actually much easier to navigate, more responsive, and just a better overall experience, and that is the thing for the 99 percent of customers that you’re never going to hear from as you go through it.

But we have to remember that we have the most passionate customers in the world. Once you add a feature into a platform — this is the important thing for us to continue to remember as we go through this — once you add it, it may become one person’s most important thing, and that matters most to that person. Just making sure we have a plan and we’re communicating well on that, I think, is important. And we’ll get better as we go through this.

Just yesterday, Sonos pushed out another update for the new app with a handful of bug fixes focused on accessibility, local music playback, and more. And it’s providing a timeline for other in-the-works improvements. The company is no doubt hoping that in six months, all of this will be a distant memory, the new app will have reached feature parity (and then some) with the software it replaced, and all will be forgiven among its loyal customer base.

But for now, much of the community is still on edge as Sonos approaches the all-important release of its Ace headphones and enters a huge new product category that could spur growth amid declining speaker and soundbar demand.

Read More 

The European spec ID.7 electric sedan. | Image: The Verge

Volkswagen’s impressive ID.7 all-electric sedan — a vehicle type that is increasingly uncommon in the US — won’t be showing up on our shores anytime soon, the automaker announced on Wednesday. It cites changes in “market dynamics” as a reason as well as strong SUV sales in the US.
The ID.7, which launched in Europe in 2023, was supposed to be VW’s first electric non-SUV slated for the US market. The automaker claims that after introducing the ID.7 Tourer, which is the station wagon version of the sedan, customer demand for the models is “higher than expected, especially in Germany.”
The US is still getting the ID Buzz retro-inspired microbus EV this year as well as an updated 2024 ID.4 SUV with improved EPA range and performance. The lack of a new four-door family car in the lineup is a shame but checks out in the US, where many automakers are dropping sedans for more SUVs and trucks.
The ID.7 sedan would be a strong challenger to Tesla’s Model 3, which was recently redesigned, and Hyundai’s Ioniq 6. There’s a dearth of affordable all-electric sedans in the US, relegating the category to the upper luxury market, including the Lucid Air and Mercedes-Benz EQS and EQE, which all cost more than $70,000.
Volkswagen’s news follows other recent EV delays including Volvo’s EX90 and Ford’s next-generation EVs. Although EV sales in the US are continuing to rise, a lot of pure electric automakers are losing money thanks to price cuts, charging concerns, and political agendas. Legacy automakers, however, have gas vehicles to lean on and continue to post profits.

The European spec ID.7 electric sedan. | Image: The Verge

Volkswagen’s impressive ID.7 all-electric sedan — a vehicle type that is increasingly uncommon in the US — won’t be showing up on our shores anytime soon, the automaker announced on Wednesday. It cites changes in “market dynamics” as a reason as well as strong SUV sales in the US.

The ID.7, which launched in Europe in 2023, was supposed to be VW’s first electric non-SUV slated for the US market. The automaker claims that after introducing the ID.7 Tourer, which is the station wagon version of the sedan, customer demand for the models is “higher than expected, especially in Germany.”

The US is still getting the ID Buzz retro-inspired microbus EV this year as well as an updated 2024 ID.4 SUV with improved EPA range and performance. The lack of a new four-door family car in the lineup is a shame but checks out in the US, where many automakers are dropping sedans for more SUVs and trucks.

The ID.7 sedan would be a strong challenger to Tesla’s Model 3, which was recently redesigned, and Hyundai’s Ioniq 6. There’s a dearth of affordable all-electric sedans in the US, relegating the category to the upper luxury market, including the Lucid Air and Mercedes-Benz EQS and EQE, which all cost more than $70,000.

Volkswagen’s news follows other recent EV delays including Volvo’s EX90 and Ford’s next-generation EVs. Although EV sales in the US are continuing to rise, a lot of pure electric automakers are losing money thanks to price cuts, charging concerns, and political agendas. Legacy automakers, however, have gas vehicles to lean on and continue to post profits.

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Image: Entertainment Weekly / Netflix

A new actor, but the same white wig. We already knew that Liam Hemsworth was taking over as Geralt of Rivia in Netflix’s adaptation of The Witcher, replacing Henry Cavill. But now we have our first (official, anyway) look at the actor in the role, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly. And he looks like, well, Liam Hemsworth with Geralt’s iconic white hair. It’s not clear if the shift between actors will be referenced in the show itself, but this early image makes it seem like the transition might be relatively seamless.
Cavill exited the role following season 3 (though it wasn’t the most fitting send-off). Hemsworth will take up the wig and double swords starting in season 4 — which is currently in production — through season 5, which has been confirmed as the show’s last. In addition to a new Geralt, season 4 is also introducing other fresh cast members, including Laurence Fishburne, Sharlto Copley, James Purefoy, and Danny Woodburn.
Elsewhere in The Witcher universe, developer CD Projekt Red is working on a follow-up to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which is expected to kick off a new trilogy.

Image: Entertainment Weekly / Netflix

A new actor, but the same white wig. We already knew that Liam Hemsworth was taking over as Geralt of Rivia in Netflix’s adaptation of The Witcher, replacing Henry Cavill. But now we have our first (official, anyway) look at the actor in the role, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly. And he looks like, well, Liam Hemsworth with Geralt’s iconic white hair. It’s not clear if the shift between actors will be referenced in the show itself, but this early image makes it seem like the transition might be relatively seamless.

Cavill exited the role following season 3 (though it wasn’t the most fitting send-off). Hemsworth will take up the wig and double swords starting in season 4 — which is currently in production — through season 5, which has been confirmed as the show’s last. In addition to a new Geralt, season 4 is also introducing other fresh cast members, including Laurence Fishburne, Sharlto Copley, James Purefoy, and Danny Woodburn.

Elsewhere in The Witcher universe, developer CD Projekt Red is working on a follow-up to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which is expected to kick off a new trilogy.

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Here are a few examples showing how Spotify Mix can be changed to suit different playlist covers. | Image: Spotify

Spotify’s latest update is visibly changing the audio streaming service to improve the experience for your eyeballs, rather than your ears. Spotify Mix — the company’s new bespoke typeface — is being rolled out starting today, replacing the Circular typeface variant that Spotify currently uses across its app and desktop experiences.
The confusing name is an homage to the “dynamic and evolving nature of audio culture over the years,” according to Spotify’s global head of brand design, Rasmus Wängelin. Spotify Mix was developed in collaboration with Berlin-based foundry Dinamo Typefaces, with Wängelin saying the new variable font design is “quite literally, a remix” born from merging elements from a variety of different typeface styles.

“The result is a sans-serif typeface that blends features from both classic and contemporary styles, creating a distinctive and unique look,” says Wängelin in Spotify’s press release. “We subtly incorporated the shapes of sound waves to evoke a rhythmic feel. The combination of sharp angles and smooth curves gives the typeface a distinctive character that feels quintessentially Spotify.”
The company intends to use Spotify Mix on everything from playlists to marketing campaigns. Because this is a variable font — which basically means things like weight, width, slant, and other variables can be changed without requiring separate files — it should be super easy for Spotify to customize. That provides some creative flexibility, allowing things like playlist covers, promos, and other content to appear more varied while still sharing a cohesive design.
The wordmark in Spotify’s logo will also be updated to the new typeface, which can already be seen on the company’s news portal. Languages with Latin-based scripts and written content in Vietnamese will be the first to use Spotify Mix, which is gradually rolling out “over the coming weeks.”

Here are a few examples showing how Spotify Mix can be changed to suit different playlist covers. | Image: Spotify

Spotify’s latest update is visibly changing the audio streaming service to improve the experience for your eyeballs, rather than your ears. Spotify Mix — the company’s new bespoke typeface — is being rolled out starting today, replacing the Circular typeface variant that Spotify currently uses across its app and desktop experiences.

The confusing name is an homage to the “dynamic and evolving nature of audio culture over the years,” according to Spotify’s global head of brand design, Rasmus Wängelin. Spotify Mix was developed in collaboration with Berlin-based foundry Dinamo Typefaces, with Wängelin saying the new variable font design is “quite literally, a remix” born from merging elements from a variety of different typeface styles.

“The result is a sans-serif typeface that blends features from both classic and contemporary styles, creating a distinctive and unique look,” says Wängelin in Spotify’s press release. “We subtly incorporated the shapes of sound waves to evoke a rhythmic feel. The combination of sharp angles and smooth curves gives the typeface a distinctive character that feels quintessentially Spotify.”

The company intends to use Spotify Mix on everything from playlists to marketing campaigns. Because this is a variable font — which basically means things like weight, width, slant, and other variables can be changed without requiring separate files — it should be super easy for Spotify to customize. That provides some creative flexibility, allowing things like playlist covers, promos, and other content to appear more varied while still sharing a cohesive design.

The wordmark in Spotify’s logo will also be updated to the new typeface, which can already be seen on the company’s news portal. Languages with Latin-based scripts and written content in Vietnamese will be the first to use Spotify Mix, which is gradually rolling out “over the coming weeks.”

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The Amazon Echo Show 8 is an Alexa-enabled smart speaker. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

It’s no secret that Amazon is busy overhauling Alexa with generative AI, but a new report from CNBC reveals that the company plans to make people pay extra for it. When Amazon launches its “more conversational” version of Alexa to the public later this year, the company will reportedly make users pay for a subscription separate from its $139 membership to Prime.
This isn’t the first we’ve heard of Amazon charging a subscription for Alexa. Last year, David Limp, Amazon’s former senior vice president of devices and services, told The Verge that Amazon “will end up charging something” for a version of Alexa that’s supercharged with AI. At the time, Limp said the existing version of Alexa would remain free to use.
Amazon declined to comment, pointing to the previous reports and statements. If you’d like to try it out yourself, Amazon is already testing elements of the upgraded Alexa in preview. You can enable it by telling your Echo device, “Alexa, let’s chat,” and Amazon will notify you when you can access the preview.

During the company’s device showcase last September, Amazon showed off the updated Alexa powered by a large language model (LLM). The change gives Alexa a better understanding of conversational phrases and allows it to carry out multiple requests from one command. In April, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a letter to shareholders that Amazon plans on “an even more intelligent and capable Alexa.”
Since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, Amazon, Google, and Apple have all been racing to make their existing assistants more useful with generative AI that can include context, vary in tone, and maintain more natural-sounding conversations. Recent rumors point to a major AI update to Siri that we should hear more about during WWDC next month. Meanwhile, Google has already launched a new Gemini AI assistant that lets users replace the standard Google Assistant on their devices but lacks some existing features like routines and interpreter mode, which lets you translate conversations.

The Amazon Echo Show 8 is an Alexa-enabled smart speaker. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

It’s no secret that Amazon is busy overhauling Alexa with generative AI, but a new report from CNBC reveals that the company plans to make people pay extra for it. When Amazon launches its “more conversational” version of Alexa to the public later this year, the company will reportedly make users pay for a subscription separate from its $139 membership to Prime.

This isn’t the first we’ve heard of Amazon charging a subscription for Alexa. Last year, David Limp, Amazon’s former senior vice president of devices and services, told The Verge that Amazon “will end up charging something” for a version of Alexa that’s supercharged with AI. At the time, Limp said the existing version of Alexa would remain free to use.

Amazon declined to comment, pointing to the previous reports and statements. If you’d like to try it out yourself, Amazon is already testing elements of the upgraded Alexa in preview. You can enable it by telling your Echo device, “Alexa, let’s chat,” and Amazon will notify you when you can access the preview.

During the company’s device showcase last September, Amazon showed off the updated Alexa powered by a large language model (LLM). The change gives Alexa a better understanding of conversational phrases and allows it to carry out multiple requests from one command. In April, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a letter to shareholders that Amazon plans on “an even more intelligent and capable Alexa.”

Since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, Amazon, Google, and Apple have all been racing to make their existing assistants more useful with generative AI that can include context, vary in tone, and maintain more natural-sounding conversations. Recent rumors point to a major AI update to Siri that we should hear more about during WWDC next month. Meanwhile, Google has already launched a new Gemini AI assistant that lets users replace the standard Google Assistant on their devices but lacks some existing features like routines and interpreter mode, which lets you translate conversations.

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Go ahead, put as many Goombas as you want here. | Screenshot: YouTube

Nintendo’s Super Mario Maker series of games lets you create your own sidescrolling platformer levels using sprites and 3D objects from several entries in the franchise. It’s created a deeply devoted fan base, but it’s only ever let you make sidescrolling levels. Now, a pair of fans have changed that with Mario Builder 64, a new way to make and play your own Super Mario 64 levels — and do so on Nintendo 64 hardware.
It’s technically a ROM hack, but the term doesn’t really capture what this is. The developers, Arthurtilly and rovertronic, describe it as “a toolbox letting you fulfill all of your SM64 dreams.” Just like the Super Mario Maker series, it lets you create your own levels using a special creator interface that borrows a lot from Minecraft, giving you low-res textured (this is the N64 after all) cubes that you can drop in place.

You can also decide what music you want, place items and villains, and even play with Mario 64 conventions. For instance, there’s no hard limit on how many red coins you can require players to collect to get a star.

To use it, you have to patch a Mario 64 ROM file yourself. The developers have a guide for doing so (in addition to the video above), and you’ll need an emulator or an actual Nintendo 64 to play the game with the Builder 64 modifications in place. As Engadget points out, you can do that with a flashcart that supports SD cards — several options are listed in the guide linked above.
I haven’t been able to play around with Mario Builder 64 just yet, but I’m eager to do so as soon as life affords me the time. It looks like a blast, judging by this video from the Good Vibes Gaming YouTube channel. As pointed out in that video, you can download other user-created levels from Level Share Square, a site that hosts levels made for various fan-made Mario level creators.
But how long will Mario Builder 64 last? Only Nintendo knows what its bar is for taking down projects like this, but it has put emulator developers on edge with some high-profile takedowns lately. There’s its $2.4 million settlement with Switch emulator Yuzu’s developers and subsequent obliteration of GitHub-hosted Yuzu forks — and its insistence that the creators of Garry’s Mod remove two decades of Nintendo-related content.
To be fair, Yuzu let people play Tears of the Kingdom before it was released, and people used Garry’s Mod to turn Super Mario 64 into a first-person shooter, which Nintendo probably wasn’t thrilled about. Mario Builder 64 is just doing Super Mario 64 stuff, so maybe it gets a pass, but that probably depends on Nintendo’s plans for the Mario Maker series, which could easily involve something just like Mario Builder 64.

Go ahead, put as many Goombas as you want here. | Screenshot: YouTube

Nintendo’s Super Mario Maker series of games lets you create your own sidescrolling platformer levels using sprites and 3D objects from several entries in the franchise. It’s created a deeply devoted fan base, but it’s only ever let you make sidescrolling levels. Now, a pair of fans have changed that with Mario Builder 64, a new way to make and play your own Super Mario 64 levels — and do so on Nintendo 64 hardware.

It’s technically a ROM hack, but the term doesn’t really capture what this is. The developers, Arthurtilly and rovertronic, describe it as “a toolbox letting you fulfill all of your SM64 dreams.” Just like the Super Mario Maker series, it lets you create your own levels using a special creator interface that borrows a lot from Minecraft, giving you low-res textured (this is the N64 after all) cubes that you can drop in place.

You can also decide what music you want, place items and villains, and even play with Mario 64 conventions. For instance, there’s no hard limit on how many red coins you can require players to collect to get a star.

To use it, you have to patch a Mario 64 ROM file yourself. The developers have a guide for doing so (in addition to the video above), and you’ll need an emulator or an actual Nintendo 64 to play the game with the Builder 64 modifications in place. As Engadget points out, you can do that with a flashcart that supports SD cards — several options are listed in the guide linked above.

I haven’t been able to play around with Mario Builder 64 just yet, but I’m eager to do so as soon as life affords me the time. It looks like a blast, judging by this video from the Good Vibes Gaming YouTube channel. As pointed out in that video, you can download other user-created levels from Level Share Square, a site that hosts levels made for various fan-made Mario level creators.

But how long will Mario Builder 64 last? Only Nintendo knows what its bar is for taking down projects like this, but it has put emulator developers on edge with some high-profile takedowns lately. There’s its $2.4 million settlement with Switch emulator Yuzu’s developers and subsequent obliteration of GitHub-hosted Yuzu forks — and its insistence that the creators of Garry’s Mod remove two decades of Nintendo-related content.

To be fair, Yuzu let people play Tears of the Kingdom before it was released, and people used Garry’s Mod to turn Super Mario 64 into a first-person shooter, which Nintendo probably wasn’t thrilled about. Mario Builder 64 is just doing Super Mario 64 stuff, so maybe it gets a pass, but that probably depends on Nintendo’s plans for the Mario Maker series, which could easily involve something just like Mario Builder 64.

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Nothing’s official just yet, though. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

The Samsung Galaxy Ring might end up costing around $300 to $350. As far as smart rings go, that’s par for the course. It might also come with a monthly subscription of $10 or less. That, unfortunately, is also increasingly common for wearable tech.
None of this is official yet. The rumored prices were posted by leaker Yogesh Brar on X and have been making the rounds in the hours since. But say it were true, it mostly shows that Samsung is looking to follow market trends rather than buck them.
Right now, the Oura Ring Gen 3 is the smart ring that most people have heard of. That starts at $299, with the fully round Horizon version starting at $349. And while you can buy the ring as a standalone device, the vast majority of its features are paywalled with a $5.99 monthly or $69.99 yearly subscription.

Then there’s the $349 Ultrahuman Ring Air, the $279 RingConn Smart Ring, the $281 Circular Ring, and the $269 Evie Ring. These don’t come with a subscription currently, but it’s not guaranteed they’ll all stay that way.
Oura, for instance, didn’t launch with a subscription. That was only introduced with the Gen 3 model, albeit to significant customer backlash. When I spoke with the company about why it had decided to introduce a subscription, I was told that it was, in part, to fund the company’s ongoing scientific research and one-time hardware sales weren’t cutting it.
Samsung has yet to introduce a wearable health subscription, but that doesn’t mean its competitors haven’t. Google has Fitbit Premium for its Pixel Watch lineup, which costs $9.99 monthly. Apple also has its Fitness Plus service, also $9.99 monthly, which gives access to prerecorded exercise classes that integrate with your Apple Watch or iPhone. On the more niche side of the spectrum, the Whoop 4.0 doesn’t charge for hardware. You just sign up for a $30 monthly subscription.
Given that context, it’s unsurprising to see price rumors in this range. The only thing that’d make me do a double take is the fact that the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 starts at the same price but would be able to do a lot more. For some folks, that’s always been the primary drawback with smart rings. You’re paying a premium to technically get less.

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge
We still don’t know much about the Galaxy Ring, which was teased earlier this year.

What’ll be more interesting to see is what sort of bundling or promotional deals Samsung offers whenever the Galaxy Ring launches later this year. Unlike its smart ring rivals, Samsung already has an ecosystem of wearable gadgets. It can afford to bundle a smartwatch and a smart ring to entice existing users to upgrade. We also have no clue yet as to what that subscription would entail or whether a free tier would be enough for most smartwatch users who primarily see a smart ring as a means to more comfortably track sleep.
Wearable subscriptions are on the rise, even if customers largely hate them. The bigger question is if Samsung can offer enough, either through bundles or features, to make it worth it.

Nothing’s official just yet, though. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

The Samsung Galaxy Ring might end up costing around $300 to $350. As far as smart rings go, that’s par for the course. It might also come with a monthly subscription of $10 or less. That, unfortunately, is also increasingly common for wearable tech.

None of this is official yet. The rumored prices were posted by leaker Yogesh Brar on X and have been making the rounds in the hours since. But say it were true, it mostly shows that Samsung is looking to follow market trends rather than buck them.

Right now, the Oura Ring Gen 3 is the smart ring that most people have heard of. That starts at $299, with the fully round Horizon version starting at $349. And while you can buy the ring as a standalone device, the vast majority of its features are paywalled with a $5.99 monthly or $69.99 yearly subscription.

Then there’s the $349 Ultrahuman Ring Air, the $279 RingConn Smart Ring, the $281 Circular Ring, and the $269 Evie Ring. These don’t come with a subscription currently, but it’s not guaranteed they’ll all stay that way.

Oura, for instance, didn’t launch with a subscription. That was only introduced with the Gen 3 model, albeit to significant customer backlash. When I spoke with the company about why it had decided to introduce a subscription, I was told that it was, in part, to fund the company’s ongoing scientific research and one-time hardware sales weren’t cutting it.

Samsung has yet to introduce a wearable health subscription, but that doesn’t mean its competitors haven’t. Google has Fitbit Premium for its Pixel Watch lineup, which costs $9.99 monthly. Apple also has its Fitness Plus service, also $9.99 monthly, which gives access to prerecorded exercise classes that integrate with your Apple Watch or iPhone. On the more niche side of the spectrum, the Whoop 4.0 doesn’t charge for hardware. You just sign up for a $30 monthly subscription.

Given that context, it’s unsurprising to see price rumors in this range. The only thing that’d make me do a double take is the fact that the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 starts at the same price but would be able to do a lot more. For some folks, that’s always been the primary drawback with smart rings. You’re paying a premium to technically get less.

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge
We still don’t know much about the Galaxy Ring, which was teased earlier this year.

What’ll be more interesting to see is what sort of bundling or promotional deals Samsung offers whenever the Galaxy Ring launches later this year. Unlike its smart ring rivals, Samsung already has an ecosystem of wearable gadgets. It can afford to bundle a smartwatch and a smart ring to entice existing users to upgrade. We also have no clue yet as to what that subscription would entail or whether a free tier would be enough for most smartwatch users who primarily see a smart ring as a means to more comfortably track sleep.

Wearable subscriptions are on the rise, even if customers largely hate them. The bigger question is if Samsung can offer enough, either through bundles or features, to make it worth it.

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