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Image: Honda

Honda continues to place bets on hydrogen with the debut of a new Class 8 truck powered by the most abundant element in the universe. The concept vehicle joins the automaker’s hydrogen fuel cell SUV revealed earlier this year. And it comes at a time of skyrocketing fuel prices and a shaky outlook for hydrogen in the transportation space.
The truck runs on three of Honda’s new fuel cell systems, which are now in production at the company’s Fuel Cell System Manufacturing joint venture with General Motors in Brownstown, Michigan. Honda is positioning the fuel cell system, which has double the durability but two-thirds the costs of previous generations, as central to its hydrogen business strategy that was developed alongside GM over the last decade.
The truck runs on three of Honda’s new fuel cell systems
Hydrogen fuel cells use compressed hydrogen as their fuel, releasing water vapor as its only emission. A number of automakers have recently seized on the technology for its advantages in the development of heavy-duty vehicles and mobile power generators — and as a way to further transition away from polluting gas-powered vehicles and meet their own climate goals.
Hydrogen’s energy content by volume is low, which makes storing hydrogen a challenge because it requires high pressures, low temperatures, or chemical processes to be stored compactly. Overcoming this challenge is important for light-duty vehicles because they often have limited sizes and weight capacities for fuel storage.
But hydrogen is also an extremely risky investment, thanks to high prices and a weak refueling infrastructure. There are only a handful of hydrogen vehicles available for sale, with most of the market focused on California thanks to the state’s modest investment in fuel stations. But even that is looking pretty grim, with Shell announcing earlier this year that it was closing all seven of its hydrogen fueling stations in California.
According to the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership, a paltry 223 new hydrogen fuel cell cars were sold in the US in the first quarter of 2024 — a 70 percent drop from the same period a year ago.
Still, Honda remains bullish on hydrogen, especially with regard to commercial vehicles. And it has a ready partner in GM, which is also working on a number of applications for its fuel cell technology.

Image: Honda

Honda continues to place bets on hydrogen with the debut of a new Class 8 truck powered by the most abundant element in the universe. The concept vehicle joins the automaker’s hydrogen fuel cell SUV revealed earlier this year. And it comes at a time of skyrocketing fuel prices and a shaky outlook for hydrogen in the transportation space.

The truck runs on three of Honda’s new fuel cell systems, which are now in production at the company’s Fuel Cell System Manufacturing joint venture with General Motors in Brownstown, Michigan. Honda is positioning the fuel cell system, which has double the durability but two-thirds the costs of previous generations, as central to its hydrogen business strategy that was developed alongside GM over the last decade.

Hydrogen fuel cells use compressed hydrogen as their fuel, releasing water vapor as its only emission. A number of automakers have recently seized on the technology for its advantages in the development of heavy-duty vehicles and mobile power generators — and as a way to further transition away from polluting gas-powered vehicles and meet their own climate goals.

Hydrogen’s energy content by volume is low, which makes storing hydrogen a challenge because it requires high pressures, low temperatures, or chemical processes to be stored compactly. Overcoming this challenge is important for light-duty vehicles because they often have limited sizes and weight capacities for fuel storage.

But hydrogen is also an extremely risky investment, thanks to high prices and a weak refueling infrastructure. There are only a handful of hydrogen vehicles available for sale, with most of the market focused on California thanks to the state’s modest investment in fuel stations. But even that is looking pretty grim, with Shell announcing earlier this year that it was closing all seven of its hydrogen fueling stations in California.

According to the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership, a paltry 223 new hydrogen fuel cell cars were sold in the US in the first quarter of 2024 — a 70 percent drop from the same period a year ago.

Still, Honda remains bullish on hydrogen, especially with regard to commercial vehicles. And it has a ready partner in GM, which is also working on a number of applications for its fuel cell technology.

Read More 

Photo by Valerie Macon / AFP via Getty Images

Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies says that bringing a bit more fantasy to the sci-fi show was key to making the new season feel fresh. Doctor Who — a show about a time-traveling alien traipsing through the cosmos in a ship that looks like a British police box — has always been whimsical. But in its newest season, the long-running sci-fi classic leads with a supernatural otherworldliness that makes it feel much more like a magical fantasy.
In the buildup to Doctor Who’s 14th series / season, showrunner Russell T. Davies let everyone know he planned to establish new lore meant to deepen our understanding of Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor. That wasn’t surprising coming from the man who complicated Doctor Who canon in a massive way back in 2005 by introducing the Time War — a conflict that left the Doctor as the sole survivor of his extraordinary race. But it was hard to imagine how Davies could successfully pull off even more massive Doctor Who twists after episodes like “The Timeless Children” (which gave the Doctor a whole new origin story) and “The Giggle” (which split the Doctor into two people) without ruffling some feathers.
When I spoke with Davies recently ahead of the new season’s premiere, he explained that he didn’t spend much time worrying about whether superfans would gripe about changes. As a fan himself, Davies trusted that his enjoyment of the new directions he wanted to take the Doctor was a sign to keep going. But he also felt that opening the season with big changes would be the perfect way to remind viewers how Doctor Who has always been a show about transformation.

Reactions to newer lore establishing the Doctor as both an orphan and an abandoned child were a bit polarizing because it reworked some core aspects of the series in a really unexpected way. What about stepping into this new era of Doctor Who and taking really big swings felt risky to you?
It never feels risky to me, to be honest. I’m the man who created Queer as Folk in 1999 — I live off risk. I love it. I think we can be unfair to fans sometimes when we say the viewers are polarized because there’s nothing fans love more than a good debate. Just go and talk to a bunch of football fans. There are no football fans saying, “Our team is perfect, we’re really happy, and we’ve got nothing to say.” They’re all arguing all the time, and that’s just what fandom is. If things are polarizing, I think we’re in a healthy position, but I also think we sometimes overstate the importance of discourse on Twitter, [now X].
That said, I’m a fan, and I’m not dismissing fan opinions at all, but I think that as long as I personally can find a good emotional path through the story, it’s in a good place. I’m not quite sure where I am when I’m talking about the history of the legend of the Timeless Child. That actually doesn’t mean much to me. But if you say to me, “The Doctor is a foundling” — an orphan who doesn’t know who his parents are — that sells it to me. Suddenly, I can listen to that man and empathize with him. That’s when you know you’re in really rich emotional territory, and I think that’s where Doctor Who is right now.
You’ve said that you wanted to see Doctor Who step into this kind of Marvel-esque era of prominence and production values and scale, and you can definitely see that in these first two episodes. But this is also a time when Marvel fatigue is at an all-time high. Is guarding against a larger sense of Marvel-ification something that you’ve given any consideration to?
I know what you mean, but I have no Marvel fatigue myself at all. What a privileged position to be in to be fatigued by that stuff. Doctor Who is unashamedly a smaller player, and its genius comes from the fact that it’s the cheeky kid at the back of the classroom. It’s not the superhero punching through walls — it’s the whiz kid in the back with the wisecracks being a bit sarcastic about things. Doctor Who has always had a very different glitter compared to other shows. My colleagues in the past always worked very hard to make it look lovely, but we have upgraded it for this new series, I think, and it looks even more lovely.
It’s not a vast budget. We’re not on a Marvel or Star Wars scale, which I’m glad about because I think Doctor Who thrives in ingenuity. We’ve gotten a bit more money for effects, but in this first episode, we haven’t spent it on 1,000 spaceships; we spent it on talking babies, you know? That’s very much in the nature of Doctor Who — to be inventive and a little bit sly that way — and it’s something I’m honestly not tired of.
Both the Christmas special and the season premiere put so much emphasis on children. Why is that?
I find the stories of foundlings fascinating in the modern world because now, of course, for the first time in history, DNA testing exists. These children need to be abandoned, and that was mostly the end of the story. But now they can actually trace their families through DNA. I was watching documentaries and stuff about that, and they started to feed me ideas.
I kind of thought, if you put this concept of modern foundlings into a science fiction setting, it really starts to come alive, and all of these ideas about The Doctor, Ruby, and being abandoned on a church doorstep on Christmas Eve began to chime with each other. We keep going back to that story about Ruby Road, and it’s not finished yet, but it has the most fascinating conclusion.

You’ve talked about the fan perception that Billie Piper’s Rose was treated exceptionally among Doctor Who’s companions but how you yourself never really were consciously trying to write her as being special. Donna Noble grew into being a very distinct companion, but with Ruby, there’s a textual uniqueness to her pretty much right from when we’re introduced to her. What’s been some of the thinking behind your approaching your evolving approach to fleshing out companions?
I think with Ruby, it’s not so much her character or her spirit but that she has a stronger story than I’ve ever given a companion before, and it unfolds in this huge way. But Rose, Donna, Martha, and now Ruby do have one thing in common, which is that I’m initially presenting them as the most ordinary people. That’s the joy of Doctor Who. I think one of the strengths of Star Trek — and I’m a very big Discovery fan — is you’ve got to be the best to be aboard the Enterprise. You are the elite. You are the best of the best of the best. Even the Lower Decks are very good. I think that’s true of American society, which is very aspirational.
Star Trek always feels very demotic and down to earth, but if I was alive in the 24th century, they wouldn’t let me on the ship. They’d say, “No, you’re banned. You’re a fire hazard. Get out.” But the joy of Doctor Who is that the TARDIS could land on a street corner and take anyone. That’s what I used to think when I was walking home from school every day — stepping into the TARDIS and escaping the ordinary. There was nothing wrong with my life and nothing to escape from, but who doesn’t want to go to those endless horizons? That’s what my companions have in common.
Ruby, bless her, turns out to be wonderful and brave and, yes, very special. But her actual life’s very small. She lives with her mum and her gran. She’s earning 50 pounds playing a keyboard in bars. She’s living a low-key life before she meets the Doctor, and it’s only after she embarks on these adventures that her specialness comes to the fore.
You weave The Maestro into Doctor Who’s mythos in such an organic way, but they are a somewhat kind of new presence for this series to a certain extent. Talk to me about what you wanted to do with characters like the Maestro that would set them apart from previous bigger bads in the series.
I wanted to increase the danger for the Doctor, really, and to shoot for a bigger, wider sense of imagination. When you have characters who can change the structure of reality, that’s the time that you can really start playing with the pictures — especially since we’ve gotten this bigger budget. In a science fiction setting, the Doctor is always two steps away from pressing the right button and saving the day.
But when you introduce a fantasy element to the equation — which is only in some episodes — it allows us to take away the buttons. There’s no computer or sonic screwdriver for him to immediately save the day with, and all rules are off, which means the Doctor has to think harder and fight harder than ever before, and I really enjoy that.

Photo by Valerie Macon / AFP via Getty Images

Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies says that bringing a bit more fantasy to the sci-fi show was key to making the new season feel fresh.

Doctor Who — a show about a time-traveling alien traipsing through the cosmos in a ship that looks like a British police box — has always been whimsical. But in its newest season, the long-running sci-fi classic leads with a supernatural otherworldliness that makes it feel much more like a magical fantasy.

In the buildup to Doctor Who’s 14th series / season, showrunner Russell T. Davies let everyone know he planned to establish new lore meant to deepen our understanding of Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor. That wasn’t surprising coming from the man who complicated Doctor Who canon in a massive way back in 2005 by introducing the Time War — a conflict that left the Doctor as the sole survivor of his extraordinary race. But it was hard to imagine how Davies could successfully pull off even more massive Doctor Who twists after episodes like “The Timeless Children” (which gave the Doctor a whole new origin story) and “The Giggle” (which split the Doctor into two people) without ruffling some feathers.

When I spoke with Davies recently ahead of the new season’s premiere, he explained that he didn’t spend much time worrying about whether superfans would gripe about changes. As a fan himself, Davies trusted that his enjoyment of the new directions he wanted to take the Doctor was a sign to keep going. But he also felt that opening the season with big changes would be the perfect way to remind viewers how Doctor Who has always been a show about transformation.

Reactions to newer lore establishing the Doctor as both an orphan and an abandoned child were a bit polarizing because it reworked some core aspects of the series in a really unexpected way. What about stepping into this new era of Doctor Who and taking really big swings felt risky to you?

It never feels risky to me, to be honest. I’m the man who created Queer as Folk in 1999 — I live off risk. I love it. I think we can be unfair to fans sometimes when we say the viewers are polarized because there’s nothing fans love more than a good debate. Just go and talk to a bunch of football fans. There are no football fans saying, “Our team is perfect, we’re really happy, and we’ve got nothing to say.” They’re all arguing all the time, and that’s just what fandom is. If things are polarizing, I think we’re in a healthy position, but I also think we sometimes overstate the importance of discourse on Twitter, [now X].

That said, I’m a fan, and I’m not dismissing fan opinions at all, but I think that as long as I personally can find a good emotional path through the story, it’s in a good place. I’m not quite sure where I am when I’m talking about the history of the legend of the Timeless Child. That actually doesn’t mean much to me. But if you say to me, “The Doctor is a foundling” — an orphan who doesn’t know who his parents are — that sells it to me. Suddenly, I can listen to that man and empathize with him. That’s when you know you’re in really rich emotional territory, and I think that’s where Doctor Who is right now.

You’ve said that you wanted to see Doctor Who step into this kind of Marvel-esque era of prominence and production values and scale, and you can definitely see that in these first two episodes. But this is also a time when Marvel fatigue is at an all-time high. Is guarding against a larger sense of Marvel-ification something that you’ve given any consideration to?

I know what you mean, but I have no Marvel fatigue myself at all. What a privileged position to be in to be fatigued by that stuff. Doctor Who is unashamedly a smaller player, and its genius comes from the fact that it’s the cheeky kid at the back of the classroom. It’s not the superhero punching through walls — it’s the whiz kid in the back with the wisecracks being a bit sarcastic about things. Doctor Who has always had a very different glitter compared to other shows. My colleagues in the past always worked very hard to make it look lovely, but we have upgraded it for this new series, I think, and it looks even more lovely.

It’s not a vast budget. We’re not on a Marvel or Star Wars scale, which I’m glad about because I think Doctor Who thrives in ingenuity. We’ve gotten a bit more money for effects, but in this first episode, we haven’t spent it on 1,000 spaceships; we spent it on talking babies, you know? That’s very much in the nature of Doctor Who — to be inventive and a little bit sly that way — and it’s something I’m honestly not tired of.

Both the Christmas special and the season premiere put so much emphasis on children. Why is that?

I find the stories of foundlings fascinating in the modern world because now, of course, for the first time in history, DNA testing exists. These children need to be abandoned, and that was mostly the end of the story. But now they can actually trace their families through DNA. I was watching documentaries and stuff about that, and they started to feed me ideas.

I kind of thought, if you put this concept of modern foundlings into a science fiction setting, it really starts to come alive, and all of these ideas about The Doctor, Ruby, and being abandoned on a church doorstep on Christmas Eve began to chime with each other. We keep going back to that story about Ruby Road, and it’s not finished yet, but it has the most fascinating conclusion.

You’ve talked about the fan perception that Billie Piper’s Rose was treated exceptionally among Doctor Who’s companions but how you yourself never really were consciously trying to write her as being special. Donna Noble grew into being a very distinct companion, but with Ruby, there’s a textual uniqueness to her pretty much right from when we’re introduced to her. What’s been some of the thinking behind your approaching your evolving approach to fleshing out companions?

I think with Ruby, it’s not so much her character or her spirit but that she has a stronger story than I’ve ever given a companion before, and it unfolds in this huge way. But Rose, Donna, Martha, and now Ruby do have one thing in common, which is that I’m initially presenting them as the most ordinary people. That’s the joy of Doctor Who. I think one of the strengths of Star Trek — and I’m a very big Discovery fan — is you’ve got to be the best to be aboard the Enterprise. You are the elite. You are the best of the best of the best. Even the Lower Decks are very good. I think that’s true of American society, which is very aspirational.

Star Trek always feels very demotic and down to earth, but if I was alive in the 24th century, they wouldn’t let me on the ship. They’d say, “No, you’re banned. You’re a fire hazard. Get out.” But the joy of Doctor Who is that the TARDIS could land on a street corner and take anyone. That’s what I used to think when I was walking home from school every day — stepping into the TARDIS and escaping the ordinary. There was nothing wrong with my life and nothing to escape from, but who doesn’t want to go to those endless horizons? That’s what my companions have in common.

Ruby, bless her, turns out to be wonderful and brave and, yes, very special. But her actual life’s very small. She lives with her mum and her gran. She’s earning 50 pounds playing a keyboard in bars. She’s living a low-key life before she meets the Doctor, and it’s only after she embarks on these adventures that her specialness comes to the fore.

You weave The Maestro into Doctor Who’s mythos in such an organic way, but they are a somewhat kind of new presence for this series to a certain extent. Talk to me about what you wanted to do with characters like the Maestro that would set them apart from previous bigger bads in the series.

I wanted to increase the danger for the Doctor, really, and to shoot for a bigger, wider sense of imagination. When you have characters who can change the structure of reality, that’s the time that you can really start playing with the pictures — especially since we’ve gotten this bigger budget. In a science fiction setting, the Doctor is always two steps away from pressing the right button and saving the day.

But when you introduce a fantasy element to the equation — which is only in some episodes — it allows us to take away the buttons. There’s no computer or sonic screwdriver for him to immediately save the day with, and all rules are off, which means the Doctor has to think harder and fight harder than ever before, and I really enjoy that.

Read More 

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft has reportedly decided to add the next installment of Call of Duty to Xbox Game Pass. The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft will announce that Call of Duty is coming to its game subscription service during the company’s Xbox showcase on June 9th.
I reported earlier this month that Microsoft had been debating whether to put new releases of Call of Duty into Game Pass, with concerns from some at the company that the revenue generated from typical Call of Duty sales would be undermined by Game Pass. Activision traditionally sells copies of Call of Duty for around $70 or more, selling more than 20 million copies on average.
The brief Wall Street Journal report doesn’t make it clear whether Microsoft plans to charge extra for Call of Duty inside Game Pass, nor whether the company will raise its Game Pass Ultimate subscription fee. I understand Microsoft has been considering raising the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate pricing again. Activision is currently targeting a late October release of the next Call of Duty, which is rumored to be set during the ’90s Gulf War.
Microsoft will hold its big Xbox summer showcase on June 9th, with a special Call of Duty direct after the main show ends. I understand Microsoft is currently planning to announce a new Gears of War game during the show. The showcase will also include a number of release dates for upcoming Xbox games like Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Avowed, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft has reportedly decided to add the next installment of Call of Duty to Xbox Game Pass. The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft will announce that Call of Duty is coming to its game subscription service during the company’s Xbox showcase on June 9th.

I reported earlier this month that Microsoft had been debating whether to put new releases of Call of Duty into Game Pass, with concerns from some at the company that the revenue generated from typical Call of Duty sales would be undermined by Game Pass. Activision traditionally sells copies of Call of Duty for around $70 or more, selling more than 20 million copies on average.

The brief Wall Street Journal report doesn’t make it clear whether Microsoft plans to charge extra for Call of Duty inside Game Pass, nor whether the company will raise its Game Pass Ultimate subscription fee. I understand Microsoft has been considering raising the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate pricing again. Activision is currently targeting a late October release of the next Call of Duty, which is rumored to be set during the ’90s Gulf War.

Microsoft will hold its big Xbox summer showcase on June 9th, with a special Call of Duty direct after the main show ends. I understand Microsoft is currently planning to announce a new Gears of War game during the show. The showcase will also include a number of release dates for upcoming Xbox games like Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, Avowed, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Read More 

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge

AI. AI? AI! AI… A. I. This has been a week filled with AI announcements from some of the biggest and most important companies in tech, all of whom seem totally convinced that we’re due for a revolution in virtual assistants. If Silicon Valley gets its way, you might never have to write an email, a line of code, or a joke ever again. All you’ll do is ask your all-knowing, ultra-helpful, maybe slightly too flirty virtual assistant, and it’ll get everything done for you.
On this episode of The Vergecast, we discuss all the AI assistant stuff OpenAI announced at its Spring Update event and the very similar stuff Google announced at its I/O developer conference the next day. Since the early days of Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa, the tech industry has been moving toward the same goal. Are flirty AI assistants really the future of computing?

After that, we talk about the rest of Google I/O, which was just the Gemini show all the way through. We try to make sense of the new AI Overviews and what they’ll do to the way the web works. They’re going to change things, there’s no question about it — the only thing left to find out is what’s on the other side.
Finally, in the lightning round, we talk about laptops and emulators and self-driving cars and iPads and the undeniable ways in which the app model is changing. With a bunch of developer conferences to come, too, there might be more change afoot.

If you want to know more about everything we discussed in this episode, here are a few links to get you started, beginning with OpenAI:

OpenAI releases GPT-4o, a faster model that’s free for all ChatGPT users
ChatGPT will be able to talk to you like Scarlett Johansson in Her
ChatGPT is getting a Mac app
OpenAI’s custom GPT Store is now open to all for free
Google and OpenAI race to build the feature of search
OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is officially leaving
We have to stop ignoring AI’s hallucination problem

And on Google Gemini:

Project Astra: the future of AI at Google is fast, multi-modal assistants like Gemini Live
Google’s Gemini AI is getting a chatty new voice mode
Google will let you create personalized AI chatbots

And on Google Search:

Google is redesigning its search engine — and it’s AI all the way down
Google now offers ‘web’ search — and an AI opt-out button

Gemini is about to get better at understanding what’s on your phone screen
Google’s Gemini video search makes factual error in demo

And on everything else from Google I/O:

Google I/O 2024: everything announced
Android apps will soon let you use your face to control your cursor
Android is getting an AI-powered scam call detection feature
Google Photos is getting its own ‘Ask Photos’ assistant this summer

And in the lightning round:

David Pierce’s pick: Dell leak details next-gen Windows on Arm chips, 29-hour laptops, and more

Alex Cranz’s pick: PPSSPP brings PSP emulation to the iPhone

Nilay Patel’s pick: For self-driving cars, the free ride is over

Nilay’s other pick: Apple iPad Pro (2024) review: the best kind of overkill

And don’t forget to subscribe to Notepad, Tom Warren’s newsletter on all things Microsoft!

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge

AI. AI? AI! AI… A. I. This has been a week filled with AI announcements from some of the biggest and most important companies in tech, all of whom seem totally convinced that we’re due for a revolution in virtual assistants. If Silicon Valley gets its way, you might never have to write an email, a line of code, or a joke ever again. All you’ll do is ask your all-knowing, ultra-helpful, maybe slightly too flirty virtual assistant, and it’ll get everything done for you.

On this episode of The Vergecast, we discuss all the AI assistant stuff OpenAI announced at its Spring Update event and the very similar stuff Google announced at its I/O developer conference the next day. Since the early days of Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa, the tech industry has been moving toward the same goal. Are flirty AI assistants really the future of computing?

After that, we talk about the rest of Google I/O, which was just the Gemini show all the way through. We try to make sense of the new AI Overviews and what they’ll do to the way the web works. They’re going to change things, there’s no question about it — the only thing left to find out is what’s on the other side.

Finally, in the lightning round, we talk about laptops and emulators and self-driving cars and iPads and the undeniable ways in which the app model is changing. With a bunch of developer conferences to come, too, there might be more change afoot.

If you want to know more about everything we discussed in this episode, here are a few links to get you started, beginning with OpenAI:

OpenAI releases GPT-4o, a faster model that’s free for all ChatGPT users
ChatGPT will be able to talk to you like Scarlett Johansson in Her
ChatGPT is getting a Mac app
OpenAI’s custom GPT Store is now open to all for free
Google and OpenAI race to build the feature of search
OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever is officially leaving
We have to stop ignoring AI’s hallucination problem

And on Google Gemini:

Project Astra: the future of AI at Google is fast, multi-modal assistants like Gemini Live
Google’s Gemini AI is getting a chatty new voice mode
Google will let you create personalized AI chatbots

And on Google Search:

Google is redesigning its search engine — and it’s AI all the way down
Google now offers ‘web’ search — and an AI opt-out button

Gemini is about to get better at understanding what’s on your phone screen
Google’s Gemini video search makes factual error in demo

And on everything else from Google I/O:

Google I/O 2024: everything announced
Android apps will soon let you use your face to control your cursor
Android is getting an AI-powered scam call detection feature
Google Photos is getting its own ‘Ask Photos’ assistant this summer

And in the lightning round:

David Pierce’s pick: Dell leak details next-gen Windows on Arm chips, 29-hour laptops, and more

Alex Cranz’s pick: PPSSPP brings PSP emulation to the iPhone

Nilay Patel’s pick: For self-driving cars, the free ride is over

Nilay’s other pick: Apple iPad Pro (2024) review: the best kind of overkill

And don’t forget to subscribe to Notepad, Tom Warren’s newsletter on all things Microsoft!

Read More 

Reddit awards are (kinda) back — with a few notable changes. | Illustration: The Verge

Reddit is re-introducing a revised version of the awards system it phased out last year after acknowledging the golden upvote system had “missed the mark.”
“We tried something new, it wasn’t great (you called it),” Reddit said in its announcement post on Wednesday. “So we’re (re)launching awards, not-so-new but definitely improved. Rollout starts today on reddit.com and Reddit’s iOS and Android apps.”
Most of the previous award system mechanisms will remain the same, according to Reddit, with a few tweaks — such as an award button placed under eligible posts, an updated UI to minimize clutter, and an awards leaderboard that displays the top gold and awards earned for a comment or post. New safety features have been introduced to keep awards off sensitive or NSFW subreddits, and allow users to report when awards are being misused. The platform has also created new awards and updated some of the old award designs.

Image: Reddit
Reddit users can now tap the awards button on posts or comments to give an award and purchase gold.

Image: Reddit
There’s also a leaderboard feature now that displays the top awards and gold earned by a post or comment.

And then there’s coins — the tokens Reddit users previously needed to purchase with real money to buy awards. Reddit acknowledges it “did not adequately communicate” to users why coins were being phased out. As such, the platform is compensating users who had their coin balance removed with a “number of exclusive awards” that they can give out for free.

Image: Reddit
Here are some of the exclusive awards Reddit is giving to users who had their coins removed.

Notably, coins aren’t technically returning. Instead, users will now need to purchase gold, which starts at $1.79 (or $1.99 via mobile) for 100 gold, and was introduced as part of Reddit’s Contributor Program to award other users with “golden upvotes.” Reddit said the golden upvote “wasn’t as fun or expressive as legacy awards,” and will sunset the system now that the old awards program is back, though eligible creators can still use gold to earn money via its Contributor Program.
Unlike golden upvotes, Reddit says its Contributor Program has attracted plenty of interest and is now being expanded to cover 35 countries. The company acknowledged user concerns about the potential for the program to be abused for spam, fraud, and karma farming, but says it hasn’t seen an increase in such behavior since the system was introduced six months ago.
Reddit’s apologetic attempt to placate its users may have only created further tension. Some commenters on the announcement post have expressed confusion about how the revamped awards program functions, and many are displeased that some of its most beloved features — like the ability to “gild” posts by donating a Reddit Premium subscription — are not returning.
So, while awards are coming back, the phrase “thanks for the gold, kind stranger” is still effectively a retired piece of Reddit history.

Reddit awards are (kinda) back — with a few notable changes. | Illustration: The Verge

Reddit is re-introducing a revised version of the awards system it phased out last year after acknowledging the golden upvote system had “missed the mark.”

“We tried something new, it wasn’t great (you called it),” Reddit said in its announcement post on Wednesday. “So we’re (re)launching awards, not-so-new but definitely improved. Rollout starts today on reddit.com and Reddit’s iOS and Android apps.”

Most of the previous award system mechanisms will remain the same, according to Reddit, with a few tweaks — such as an award button placed under eligible posts, an updated UI to minimize clutter, and an awards leaderboard that displays the top gold and awards earned for a comment or post. New safety features have been introduced to keep awards off sensitive or NSFW subreddits, and allow users to report when awards are being misused. The platform has also created new awards and updated some of the old award designs.

And then there’s coins — the tokens Reddit users previously needed to purchase with real money to buy awards. Reddit acknowledges it “did not adequately communicate” to users why coins were being phased out. As such, the platform is compensating users who had their coin balance removed with a “number of exclusive awards” that they can give out for free.

Image: Reddit
Here are some of the exclusive awards Reddit is giving to users who had their coins removed.

Notably, coins aren’t technically returning. Instead, users will now need to purchase gold, which starts at $1.79 (or $1.99 via mobile) for 100 gold, and was introduced as part of Reddit’s Contributor Program to award other users with “golden upvotes.” Reddit said the golden upvote “wasn’t as fun or expressive as legacy awards,” and will sunset the system now that the old awards program is back, though eligible creators can still use gold to earn money via its Contributor Program.

Unlike golden upvotes, Reddit says its Contributor Program has attracted plenty of interest and is now being expanded to cover 35 countries. The company acknowledged user concerns about the potential for the program to be abused for spam, fraud, and karma farming, but says it hasn’t seen an increase in such behavior since the system was introduced six months ago.

Reddit’s apologetic attempt to placate its users may have only created further tension. Some commenters on the announcement post have expressed confusion about how the revamped awards program functions, and many are displeased that some of its most beloved features — like the ability to “gild” posts by donating a Reddit Premium subscription — are not returning.

So, while awards are coming back, the phrase “thanks for the gold, kind stranger” is still effectively a retired piece of Reddit history.

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Illustration: The Verge

On Thursday evening, a lot of iPhone owners (including some here at The Verge) are seeing the “not delivered” flag when trying to send texts via iMessage. Apple’s system status page hasn’t noted any issues as of 6:30PM ET, but reports across social media show something is going on. People have reported the problem across multiple wireless carriers (Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile), countries, and even continents.
If you are having issues getting texts out, then attempting to resend them has worked in some cases, but for now, it’s unclear exactly what is behind the issue or when it will be resolved.

The Verge has reached out to Apple about the problem, and we will update this post once there’s more information available or the problems have gone away. However, if your international friends are all saying, “Just use WhatsApp!” there isn’t really anything we can do about that.

Illustration: The Verge

On Thursday evening, a lot of iPhone owners (including some here at The Verge) are seeing the “not delivered” flag when trying to send texts via iMessage. Apple’s system status page hasn’t noted any issues as of 6:30PM ET, but reports across social media show something is going on. People have reported the problem across multiple wireless carriers (Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile), countries, and even continents.

If you are having issues getting texts out, then attempting to resend them has worked in some cases, but for now, it’s unclear exactly what is behind the issue or when it will be resolved.

The Verge has reached out to Apple about the problem, and we will update this post once there’s more information available or the problems have gone away. However, if your international friends are all saying, “Just use WhatsApp!” there isn’t really anything we can do about that.

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Illustration: The Verge

Google will soon offer schools access to Gemini AI — specifically for educators and students over the age of 18 — and promises not to use their data for AI model training or share it with anyone.
Google will include the extra Gemini data privacy protections on Workspace for Education accounts at no additional charge. However, it does mean relying on the older Gemini 1.0 Pro model instead of newer, more updated models like Gemini 1.5 Pro or Flash, which is designed to provide more accurate answers.
Gemini for Google Workspace launches on May 23rd and will come in two packages for institutions. The first is the lower-cost Gemini Education, which has a monthly usage limit, and the second tier is Education Premium, which opens full access to Workspace AI tools and has additional features like AI notes / summaries for Google Meet as well as data loss prevention.

Image: Google

Chromebooks, which are big sellers in education, are also getting new accessibility features that can help people with blindness or low vision. In the next few months, the Screen magnifier on Chromebooks will gain the ability to follow along with the words as you read things out loud when used in combination with Select to Speak. You can, additionally, make the cursor bigger and turn off the blinking text indicator.

Illustration: The Verge

Google will soon offer schools access to Gemini AI — specifically for educators and students over the age of 18 — and promises not to use their data for AI model training or share it with anyone.

Google will include the extra Gemini data privacy protections on Workspace for Education accounts at no additional charge. However, it does mean relying on the older Gemini 1.0 Pro model instead of newer, more updated models like Gemini 1.5 Pro or Flash, which is designed to provide more accurate answers.

Gemini for Google Workspace launches on May 23rd and will come in two packages for institutions. The first is the lower-cost Gemini Education, which has a monthly usage limit, and the second tier is Education Premium, which opens full access to Workspace AI tools and has additional features like AI notes / summaries for Google Meet as well as data loss prevention.

Image: Google

Chromebooks, which are big sellers in education, are also getting new accessibility features that can help people with blindness or low vision. In the next few months, the Screen magnifier on Chromebooks will gain the ability to follow along with the words as you read things out loud when used in combination with Select to Speak. You can, additionally, make the cursor bigger and turn off the blinking text indicator.

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Photo: Getty Images

Gannett, the media company that owns hundreds of newspapers in the US, is launching a new program that adds AI-generated bullet points at the top of journalists’ stories, according to an internal memo seen by The Verge.
The AI feature, labeled “key points” on stories, uses automated technology to create summaries that appear below a headline. The bottom of articles includes a disclaimer, reading, “The Key Points at the top of this article were created with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and reviewed by a journalist before publication. No other parts of the article were generated using AI.” The memo is dated May 14th and notes that participation is optional at this point.
The summaries appear to already be live on some USA Today stories online (Gannett owns USA Today papers). The AI-generated summary “aims to enhance the reporting process and elevate the audience experience,” according to the memo, which also states that the AI model that powers the tool was trained in-house over nine months.
“The document speaks for itself,” Gannett spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton said in an email.
Gannett has previously experimented with AI content in incidents where the company quickly backtracked after embarrassing flubs. Last August, Gannett pulled the plug on AI-generated sports recaps after readers mocked the awkwardness of the writing. In October, Gannett staff at Reviewed, the company’s consumer products site, claimed that content that was appearing online was produced using AI. As I reported last year, the third-party marketing company that produced that work was also behind the Sports Illustrated AI controversy, where AI-generated authors were credited as writers. At the time, Gannett insisted that the product reviews were not created with AI tools.
The addition of AI-generated summaries comes as members of a local union raise concerns around proposed contract language regarding the use of AI. According to Digiday, unionized workers at the Democrat & Chronicle in Rochester, New York, were alarmed to see a clause added to their contract during bargaining that read: “Artificial intelligence (AI) may be used to generate news content.”
AI-generated summaries on news articles mirror what’s happening to search platforms: at the Google I/O developer conference this week, the tech giant unveiled all the ways AI would become part of Search, including adding AI answers at the top of results pages. Even TikTok is experimenting with AI-generated “overviews” in search results pages. The prospect of elevating AI answers — that are trained on human-created content — above actual websites and links could be detrimental for publishers and their traffic, as users drop off after reading AI summaries instead of continuing on to the source material.
Anton didn’t respond to The Verge’s questions about whether AI summaries could disincentivize readers from reading the actual story.

Photo: Getty Images

Gannett, the media company that owns hundreds of newspapers in the US, is launching a new program that adds AI-generated bullet points at the top of journalists’ stories, according to an internal memo seen by The Verge.

The AI feature, labeled “key points” on stories, uses automated technology to create summaries that appear below a headline. The bottom of articles includes a disclaimer, reading, “The Key Points at the top of this article were created with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and reviewed by a journalist before publication. No other parts of the article were generated using AI.” The memo is dated May 14th and notes that participation is optional at this point.

The summaries appear to already be live on some USA Today stories online (Gannett owns USA Today papers). The AI-generated summary “aims to enhance the reporting process and elevate the audience experience,” according to the memo, which also states that the AI model that powers the tool was trained in-house over nine months.

“The document speaks for itself,” Gannett spokesperson Lark-Marie Anton said in an email.

Gannett has previously experimented with AI content in incidents where the company quickly backtracked after embarrassing flubs. Last August, Gannett pulled the plug on AI-generated sports recaps after readers mocked the awkwardness of the writing. In October, Gannett staff at Reviewed, the company’s consumer products site, claimed that content that was appearing online was produced using AI. As I reported last year, the third-party marketing company that produced that work was also behind the Sports Illustrated AI controversy, where AI-generated authors were credited as writers. At the time, Gannett insisted that the product reviews were not created with AI tools.

The addition of AI-generated summaries comes as members of a local union raise concerns around proposed contract language regarding the use of AI. According to Digiday, unionized workers at the Democrat & Chronicle in Rochester, New York, were alarmed to see a clause added to their contract during bargaining that read: “Artificial intelligence (AI) may be used to generate news content.”

AI-generated summaries on news articles mirror what’s happening to search platforms: at the Google I/O developer conference this week, the tech giant unveiled all the ways AI would become part of Search, including adding AI answers at the top of results pages. Even TikTok is experimenting with AI-generated “overviews” in search results pages. The prospect of elevating AI answers — that are trained on human-created content — above actual websites and links could be detrimental for publishers and their traffic, as users drop off after reading AI summaries instead of continuing on to the source material.

Anton didn’t respond to The Verge’s questions about whether AI summaries could disincentivize readers from reading the actual story.

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

OpenAI has signed a deal for access to real-time content from Reddit’s data API, which means it can surface discussions from the site within ChatGPT and other new products. It’s an agreement similar to the one Reddit signed with Google earlier this year that was reportedly worth $60 million.
The deal will also “enable Reddit to bring new AI-powered features to Redditors and mods” and use OpenAI’s large language models to build applications. OpenAI has also signed up to become an advertising partner on Reddit.
Redditors have been vocal about how Reddit’s executives manage the platform before, and it remains to be seen how they’ll react to this announcement. More than 7,000 subreddits went dark in June 2023 after users protested Reddit’s changes to its API pricing. Recently, following news of a partnership between OpenAI and the programming messaging board Stack Overflow, people were suspended after trying to delete their posts.

No financial terms were revealed in the blog post announcing the arrangement, and neither company mentioned training data, either. That last detail is different from the deal with Google, where Reddit explicitly stated it would give Google “more efficient ways to train models.” There is, however, a disclosure mentioning that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also a shareholder in Reddit but that “This partnership was led by OpenAI’s COO and approved by its independent Board of Directors.”
“Reddit has become one of the internet’s largest open archives of authentic, relevant, and always up-to-date human conversations about anything and everything. Including it in ChatGPT upholds our belief in a connected internet, helps people find more of what they’re looking for, and helps new audiences find community on Reddit,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says.
The company has not always been friendly toward companies scraping its data to train AI models. It threatened to block Google web crawlers from accessing the site. OpenAI also reportedly told the moderators of the subreddit r/ChatGPT that they violated OpenAI’s copyright by using the ChatGPT logo as a display photo.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

OpenAI has signed a deal for access to real-time content from Reddit’s data API, which means it can surface discussions from the site within ChatGPT and other new products. It’s an agreement similar to the one Reddit signed with Google earlier this year that was reportedly worth $60 million.

The deal will also “enable Reddit to bring new AI-powered features to Redditors and mods” and use OpenAI’s large language models to build applications. OpenAI has also signed up to become an advertising partner on Reddit.

Redditors have been vocal about how Reddit’s executives manage the platform before, and it remains to be seen how they’ll react to this announcement. More than 7,000 subreddits went dark in June 2023 after users protested Reddit’s changes to its API pricing. Recently, following news of a partnership between OpenAI and the programming messaging board Stack Overflow, people were suspended after trying to delete their posts.

No financial terms were revealed in the blog post announcing the arrangement, and neither company mentioned training data, either. That last detail is different from the deal with Google, where Reddit explicitly stated it would give Google “more efficient ways to train models.” There is, however, a disclosure mentioning that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also a shareholder in Reddit but that “This partnership was led by OpenAI’s COO and approved by its independent Board of Directors.”

“Reddit has become one of the internet’s largest open archives of authentic, relevant, and always up-to-date human conversations about anything and everything. Including it in ChatGPT upholds our belief in a connected internet, helps people find more of what they’re looking for, and helps new audiences find community on Reddit,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says.

The company has not always been friendly toward companies scraping its data to train AI models. It threatened to block Google web crawlers from accessing the site. OpenAI also reportedly told the moderators of the subreddit r/ChatGPT that they violated OpenAI’s copyright by using the ChatGPT logo as a display photo.

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Illustration: The Verge

TikTok is experimenting with 60-minute video uploads, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The feature is available only to certain users, with no immediate plans to expand widely.
The company has gradually bumped up the length of videos: in January, it gave some creators access to 30-minute clips, and as of now, users can upload content as long as 10 minutes long. Content creators who sell subscriptions also have access to 20-minute-long uploads.

TikTok’s arrival kicked off an era of shortform vertical video content, but these days, the platform has been leaning into longer, more YouTube-like material. Earlier this year, some TikTok creators got notifications that their content would get a “boost” if they shared horizontal clips instead of vertical. The platform’s monetization program now requires that creators share videos longer than a minute in order to qualify.
The explosive popularity of TikTok caused countless other companies — from Meta and YouTube to even LinkedIn — to add shortform video feeds to their platforms. But as everyone else tries to recreate the appeal of the For You page, TikTok is doubling down on longform content and livestreaming, formats more strongly associated with YouTube or Twitch. TikTok regularly hosts livestreamed events, including a music competition last year, as it pushes beyond bite-sized content.

Illustration: The Verge

TikTok is experimenting with 60-minute video uploads, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The feature is available only to certain users, with no immediate plans to expand widely.

The company has gradually bumped up the length of videos: in January, it gave some creators access to 30-minute clips, and as of now, users can upload content as long as 10 minutes long. Content creators who sell subscriptions also have access to 20-minute-long uploads.

TikTok’s arrival kicked off an era of shortform vertical video content, but these days, the platform has been leaning into longer, more YouTube-like material. Earlier this year, some TikTok creators got notifications that their content would get a “boost” if they shared horizontal clips instead of vertical. The platform’s monetization program now requires that creators share videos longer than a minute in order to qualify.

The explosive popularity of TikTok caused countless other companies — from Meta and YouTube to even LinkedIn — to add shortform video feeds to their platforms. But as everyone else tries to recreate the appeal of the For You page, TikTok is doubling down on longform content and livestreaming, formats more strongly associated with YouTube or Twitch. TikTok regularly hosts livestreamed events, including a music competition last year, as it pushes beyond bite-sized content.

Read More