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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

If you’re a swing state voter, you may have seen ads claiming that vice president Kamala Harris wants to institute a mandatory gun buyback program and make it easier for undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses. These ostensibly pro-Harris ads are the product of Progress 2025, a campaign designed to look like the Democratic answer to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — but they’re actually funded by a group called Building America’s Future, a pro-Trump super PAC that is in turn funded by Elon Musk.
Building America’s Future is expanding an ad campaign targeted at undecided voters in swing states, 404 Media reports. Over the past week, the PAC spent over $300,000 on a dozen Facebook ads, which are sub-targeted to 819 different audience segments. “Imagine a world where the American Dream has no borders,” reads an ad featuring a photo of dozens of migrants at the US-Mexico border. Another ad says Harris “wasn’t just a supporter of the Green New Deal” and claims she supports “a world without gas-powered vehicles.”
The ads aren’t particularly subtle — they highlight and, at times, misrepresent Harris’s stance on controversial topics, including immigration.
According to documents obtained by OpenSecrets, Building America’s Future — which has reportedly received funding from Musk — registered to use Project 2028 as a “fictitious name” in late September. The group previously ran seemingly contradictory ads aimed at voters in different swing states. One ad, which was targeted at Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan, called Harris a steadfast ally of Israel and said her husband Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, is one of her advisers. Another ad targeted at Jewish voters in Pennsylvania claimed that “two-faced Kamala Harris stands with Palestine, not our ally Israel.”
Progress 2028 is one of the many ways Musk is using his fortune to influence the presidential election, especially in battleground states. Musk’s America PAC has been giving $1 million checks to randomly selected swing state voters, a stunt that several campaign finance experts say is illegal.
Musk personally distributed the first of these checks at a pro-Trump event in Pennsylvania and hasn’t let the Department of Justice’s warning that the lottery may be illegal — or a recent lawsuit filed by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner — stop him.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

If you’re a swing state voter, you may have seen ads claiming that vice president Kamala Harris wants to institute a mandatory gun buyback program and make it easier for undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses. These ostensibly pro-Harris ads are the product of Progress 2025, a campaign designed to look like the Democratic answer to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — but they’re actually funded by a group called Building America’s Future, a pro-Trump super PAC that is in turn funded by Elon Musk.

Building America’s Future is expanding an ad campaign targeted at undecided voters in swing states, 404 Media reports. Over the past week, the PAC spent over $300,000 on a dozen Facebook ads, which are sub-targeted to 819 different audience segments. “Imagine a world where the American Dream has no borders,” reads an ad featuring a photo of dozens of migrants at the US-Mexico border. Another ad says Harris “wasn’t just a supporter of the Green New Deal” and claims she supports “a world without gas-powered vehicles.”

The ads aren’t particularly subtle — they highlight and, at times, misrepresent Harris’s stance on controversial topics, including immigration.

According to documents obtained by OpenSecrets, Building America’s Future — which has reportedly received funding from Musk — registered to use Project 2028 as a “fictitious name” in late September. The group previously ran seemingly contradictory ads aimed at voters in different swing states. One ad, which was targeted at Muslim and Arab voters in Michigan, called Harris a steadfast ally of Israel and said her husband Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, is one of her advisers. Another ad targeted at Jewish voters in Pennsylvania claimed that “two-faced Kamala Harris stands with Palestine, not our ally Israel.”

Progress 2028 is one of the many ways Musk is using his fortune to influence the presidential election, especially in battleground states. Musk’s America PAC has been giving $1 million checks to randomly selected swing state voters, a stunt that several campaign finance experts say is illegal.

Musk personally distributed the first of these checks at a pro-Trump event in Pennsylvania and hasn’t let the Department of Justice’s warning that the lottery may be illegal — or a recent lawsuit filed by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner — stop him.

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Miramax is ready to put a new Scary Movie into theaters, and this time around, the studio is doing the sensible thing by keeping the Wayans brothers directly involved.
Deadline reports that Marlon, Shawn, and Keenen Ivory Wayans have signed on to co-write / co-produce a new Scary Movie reboot for Miramax that will, like earlier installments, spoof a variety of other horror films. Rick Alvarez (White Chicks, Little Man) is also set to co-write and produce.

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The Wayans brothers first created the Scary Movie franchise back in 2000, and in a statement about the new film, they expressed excitement about working with “the new Miramax to bring these laughs to theaters, where they belong.”
Miramax head Jonathan Glickman added that “the timing is perfect to bring back the series to the big screen,” and said that the studio is “lucky to have Keenen, Marlon and Shawn’s unique comedic vision bringing it to audiences around the world.”
Though the first two Scary Movies — which were directed by Keenan and starred Marlon and Shawn — were massively successful at the box office, the brothers left the series after contract talks for a third installment fell apart. In a 2021 appearance on the Comedy Gold Minds podcast, Marlon Wayans insisted that he and his brothers “didn’t walk away from a franchise,” but rather that Miramax under Harvey Weinstein’s leadership “didn’t want to make our deal, and they snatched it.”
The new Scary Movie is slated to begin production some time next year. There’s no word yet on who else might be returning from the franchise’s original cast or whether any newcomers might join the project.

Getty

Miramax is ready to put a new Scary Movie into theaters, and this time around, the studio is doing the sensible thing by keeping the Wayans brothers directly involved.

Deadline reports that Marlon, Shawn, and Keenen Ivory Wayans have signed on to co-write / co-produce a new Scary Movie reboot for Miramax that will, like earlier installments, spoof a variety of other horror films. Rick Alvarez (White Chicks, Little Man) is also set to co-write and produce.

The Wayans brothers first created the Scary Movie franchise back in 2000, and in a statement about the new film, they expressed excitement about working with “the new Miramax to bring these laughs to theaters, where they belong.”

Miramax head Jonathan Glickman added that “the timing is perfect to bring back the series to the big screen,” and said that the studio is “lucky to have Keenen, Marlon and Shawn’s unique comedic vision bringing it to audiences around the world.”

Though the first two Scary Movies — which were directed by Keenan and starred Marlon and Shawn — were massively successful at the box office, the brothers left the series after contract talks for a third installment fell apart. In a 2021 appearance on the Comedy Gold Minds podcast, Marlon Wayans insisted that he and his brothers “didn’t walk away from a franchise,” but rather that Miramax under Harvey Weinstein’s leadership “didn’t want to make our deal, and they snatched it.”

The new Scary Movie is slated to begin production some time next year. There’s no word yet on who else might be returning from the franchise’s original cast or whether any newcomers might join the project.

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Image: OpenAI

OpenAI is reportedly working with Broadcom to develop new custom silicon designed to handle its large AI workloads for inference and secured manufacturing capacity with TSMC, according to sources speaking to Reuters. OpenAI has reportedly built a chip development team of about 20 people, including lead engineers who previously worked on Google’s Tensor processors for AI.
Still, on its current timeline, the custom-designed hardware may not start production until 2026.

In the meantime, the sources also said OpenAI is incorporating AMD chips into its Microsoft Azure setup. AMD introduced its MI300 chips last year, which was a big part of the news this summer that its data center business has doubled in a single year as it chases market leader Nvidia.
The Information had reported in July that OpenAI was in discussion with Broadcom and other semiconductor designers about developing its own AI chip, and earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI was working to build its own network of foundries, but according to Reuters, those plans have been put on ice due to cost and time.
The reported strategy puts OpenAI on a similar track to the other tech companies trying to manage costs and access to AI server hardware with custom chip designs. But Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are all already a few generations down the road in their efforts, and OpenAI may need significantly more funding to become a true competitor.

Image: OpenAI

OpenAI is reportedly working with Broadcom to develop new custom silicon designed to handle its large AI workloads for inference and secured manufacturing capacity with TSMC, according to sources speaking to Reuters. OpenAI has reportedly built a chip development team of about 20 people, including lead engineers who previously worked on Google’s Tensor processors for AI.

Still, on its current timeline, the custom-designed hardware may not start production until 2026.

In the meantime, the sources also said OpenAI is incorporating AMD chips into its Microsoft Azure setup. AMD introduced its MI300 chips last year, which was a big part of the news this summer that its data center business has doubled in a single year as it chases market leader Nvidia.

The Information had reported in July that OpenAI was in discussion with Broadcom and other semiconductor designers about developing its own AI chip, and earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI was working to build its own network of foundries, but according to Reuters, those plans have been put on ice due to cost and time.

The reported strategy puts OpenAI on a similar track to the other tech companies trying to manage costs and access to AI server hardware with custom chip designs. But Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are all already a few generations down the road in their efforts, and OpenAI may need significantly more funding to become a true competitor.

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Illustration: The Verge

Google is rolling out some new Chrome memory management features aimed at helping you wrangle out-of-control tabs more easily. The updates include new “Performance issue alerts” and some tweaks to the existing Memory Saver mode, which already tries to free up the resources of inactive tabs in the background.
The new alerts appear when a new Performance Detection tool finds that one of your tabs is using more resources than it should. The notification appears next to your account thumbnail in Chrome’s toolbar as a tiny graphic that looks like a speedometer. (If I didn’t know about it already, I might think I’d accidentally added an Ookla Speedtest extension to my browser.) If you click the graphic, it will list the offending tabs and give you the option to “Dismiss” or “Fix now.”
Here’s what it looks like:

GIF: Google

Google also updated Memory Saver, a feature that the company introduced to Chrome in 2022 that snoozes tabs when they’re hogging your computer’s resources. The company writes that it’s now offering Standard, Balanced, and Advanced modes. According to Google, Standard interprets your system’s needs and manages tabs for you, Balanced operates based on system needs and your browsing habits, and Advanced will deactivate tabs the fastest after you stop using them.

To check out the new settings, simply click the three-dot menu in the upper-right corner of Chrome, click Settings, and click the “Performance” tab on the left. You should see a new “Performance issue alerts” toggle under General and updated Memory Saver options in Memory below that. Here are our screenshots, if you want to see what the Performance issue alert toggle looks like.

Screenshot: Chrome settings
It’s possible we don’t have the new Memory Saver yet, since the names on our modes are “Moderate,” “Balanced,” and “Maximum.”

Illustration: The Verge

Google is rolling out some new Chrome memory management features aimed at helping you wrangle out-of-control tabs more easily. The updates include new “Performance issue alerts” and some tweaks to the existing Memory Saver mode, which already tries to free up the resources of inactive tabs in the background.

The new alerts appear when a new Performance Detection tool finds that one of your tabs is using more resources than it should. The notification appears next to your account thumbnail in Chrome’s toolbar as a tiny graphic that looks like a speedometer. (If I didn’t know about it already, I might think I’d accidentally added an Ookla Speedtest extension to my browser.) If you click the graphic, it will list the offending tabs and give you the option to “Dismiss” or “Fix now.”

Here’s what it looks like:

GIF: Google

Google also updated Memory Saver, a feature that the company introduced to Chrome in 2022 that snoozes tabs when they’re hogging your computer’s resources. The company writes that it’s now offering Standard, Balanced, and Advanced modes. According to Google, Standard interprets your system’s needs and manages tabs for you, Balanced operates based on system needs and your browsing habits, and Advanced will deactivate tabs the fastest after you stop using them.

To check out the new settings, simply click the three-dot menu in the upper-right corner of Chrome, click Settings, and click the “Performance” tab on the left. You should see a new “Performance issue alerts” toggle under General and updated Memory Saver options in Memory below that. Here are our screenshots, if you want to see what the Performance issue alert toggle looks like.

Screenshot: Chrome settings
It’s possible we don’t have the new Memory Saver yet, since the names on our modes are “Moderate,” “Balanced,” and “Maximum.”

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Image: Universal

Netflix will bring even more Universal films to its lineup thanks to a new deal that will send the studio’s live-action movies to the streamer starting in 2027. Under the agreement, Universal and Focus Features’ live-action titles will appear on Netflix no later than eight months after their release in theaters. The new arrangement also includes renewing their exclusive licensing agreement for animated films from the Universal-owned Illumination and DreamWorks Animation (DWA).
Netflix will get to stream Universal’s live-action films exclusively for 10 months following its debut on Peacock — but the movies will return to the NBC-owned service at the end of this window. This will eventually replace Amazon’s existing deal with the studio that started in 2022, as Netflix and NBCUniversal draw closer despite streaming similar kinds of content like live NFL games and the WWE’s impending shift from NBCUniversal to Netflix next year.
Peacock raised the price of its service in July and reported losing 500,000 subscribers in the months prior.

Netflix and Universal’s existing arrangement had brought films like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Sing 2, The Secret Life of Pets, and Kung Fu Panda 4 to Netflix. Now that the agreement has been renewed, we’ll see even more upcoming animated films, such as The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2, Shrek 5, and Minions 3, arrive on the streaming service in the future. Netflix has also secured the rights to “select” titles from Universal’s film library.
As part of its earnings report earlier this month, Netflix emphasized the importance of offering a “breadth of content” to viewers. It said the company’s goal is to ensure it has “a steady drumbeat of great, new TV shows, movies and games throughout the year.”
Disclosure: Comcast is an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

Image: Universal

Netflix will bring even more Universal films to its lineup thanks to a new deal that will send the studio’s live-action movies to the streamer starting in 2027. Under the agreement, Universal and Focus Features’ live-action titles will appear on Netflix no later than eight months after their release in theaters. The new arrangement also includes renewing their exclusive licensing agreement for animated films from the Universal-owned Illumination and DreamWorks Animation (DWA).

Netflix will get to stream Universal’s live-action films exclusively for 10 months following its debut on Peacock — but the movies will return to the NBC-owned service at the end of this window. This will eventually replace Amazon’s existing deal with the studio that started in 2022, as Netflix and NBCUniversal draw closer despite streaming similar kinds of content like live NFL games and the WWE’s impending shift from NBCUniversal to Netflix next year.

Peacock raised the price of its service in July and reported losing 500,000 subscribers in the months prior.

Netflix and Universal’s existing arrangement had brought films like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Sing 2, The Secret Life of Pets, and Kung Fu Panda 4 to Netflix. Now that the agreement has been renewed, we’ll see even more upcoming animated films, such as The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2, Shrek 5, and Minions 3, arrive on the streaming service in the future. Netflix has also secured the rights to “select” titles from Universal’s film library.

As part of its earnings report earlier this month, Netflix emphasized the importance of offering a “breadth of content” to viewers. It said the company’s goal is to ensure it has “a steady drumbeat of great, new TV shows, movies and games throughout the year.”

Disclosure: Comcast is an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.

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Image: Microsoft

Microsoft’s Recall feature, which creates screenshots of mostly everything you see or do on a Copilot Plus PC, has been mired in controversy ever since it was announced earlier this year. After security researchers found that a pre-release version of the Recall database wasn’t encrypted, Microsoft moved to delay the feature and overhaul it with a big focus on security.
Recall still isn’t even available to test yet on Copilot Plus PCs, but some good old fashioned fear, uncertainty, and doubt is spreading about Microsoft supposedly secretly installing it on the latest version of Windows 11.
IT manager and YouTuber Chris Titus first discovered that Microsoft’s latest update to Windows 11, version 24H2, has references to Recall that confusingly make it seem like it’s enabled in the operating system. “Recall is getting installed on every single system in 24H2,” claimed Titus in a YouTube video that claims Recall is mandatory. “More so… it is a dependency in File Explorer. That should alarm a lot of people.”
I saw the YouTube video and immediately started looking into what was going on. Microsoft has been very clear that Recall will be an optional experience once it returns, and even that it can be fully uninstalled by users. So why would a Recall feature look like it’s enabled on 24H2 installs?
“Ever since the Recall security fiasco in summer, all insider and production builds lack Recall completely,” explains Windows watcher Albacore, in messages to The Verge. Albacore created the Amperage tool that allowed Recall to run on older Snapdragon chips. The references we’re seeing in current installs of 24H2 are related to Microsoft making it easier for system admins to remove Recall or disable it. “Ironically, Microsoft going out of its way to make [Recall] removal easier is being flipped into AI / spying / whatever hoaxes,” says Albacore.
Microsoft’s blunt removal of Recall over the summer appears to have led to some bugs in how the feature appears and is controlled. Users of Titus’ Windows Utility had reported crashing issues with File Explorer if the Recall feature was disabled for new installs on Windows 11, version 24H2. An uninstall option for Recall also appeared in September, and Microsoft called it a bug before later revealing that Windows users would, in fact, be able to uninstall Recall.
Recall isn’t part of Windows 11, version 24H2
“Microsoft has an ungodly complex and long winded system for integrating development changes into a mainline build, parts of the optional-izing work were most likely not merged at once, and thus produce crash loops in very specific scenarios that slipped testing,” explains Albacore.
I asked Microsoft to explain the references to Recall appearing in 24H2, but the company would only reinforce once again that Recall is an opt-in experience and you can remove it.
“The preview of Recall for Copilot Plus PCs has not yet been made available to Windows Insiders,” says Brandon LeBlanc, senior product manager of Windows, in a statement to The Verge. “However, information on Recall shared in David Weston’s blog from September, including confirmation that Recall is an opt-in experience and that users can also remove Recall, remains true.”
Fears around Recall being secretly installed or enabled in Windows 11 have now spread across YouTube, with many videos offering up ways to “remove” the feature that isn’t even present in Windows 11 version 24H2. “Recall is implemented by the AIX user experience package, and in all current builds the package is simply a stub,” says Albacore.
We’re now waiting on Microsoft to release Recall to Windows Insiders, something it promised to do in October, so that security researchers can test Microsoft’s latest changes and see how the opt-in and uninstall processes work. With just a few days left until November, Microsoft is cutting it fine if it’s going to release a preview of Recall in time.

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft’s Recall feature, which creates screenshots of mostly everything you see or do on a Copilot Plus PC, has been mired in controversy ever since it was announced earlier this year. After security researchers found that a pre-release version of the Recall database wasn’t encrypted, Microsoft moved to delay the feature and overhaul it with a big focus on security.

Recall still isn’t even available to test yet on Copilot Plus PCs, but some good old fashioned fear, uncertainty, and doubt is spreading about Microsoft supposedly secretly installing it on the latest version of Windows 11.

IT manager and YouTuber Chris Titus first discovered that Microsoft’s latest update to Windows 11, version 24H2, has references to Recall that confusingly make it seem like it’s enabled in the operating system. “Recall is getting installed on every single system in 24H2,” claimed Titus in a YouTube video that claims Recall is mandatory. “More so… it is a dependency in File Explorer. That should alarm a lot of people.”

I saw the YouTube video and immediately started looking into what was going on. Microsoft has been very clear that Recall will be an optional experience once it returns, and even that it can be fully uninstalled by users. So why would a Recall feature look like it’s enabled on 24H2 installs?

“Ever since the Recall security fiasco in summer, all insider and production builds lack Recall completely,” explains Windows watcher Albacore, in messages to The Verge. Albacore created the Amperage tool that allowed Recall to run on older Snapdragon chips. The references we’re seeing in current installs of 24H2 are related to Microsoft making it easier for system admins to remove Recall or disable it. “Ironically, Microsoft going out of its way to make [Recall] removal easier is being flipped into AI / spying / whatever hoaxes,” says Albacore.

Microsoft’s blunt removal of Recall over the summer appears to have led to some bugs in how the feature appears and is controlled. Users of Titus’ Windows Utility had reported crashing issues with File Explorer if the Recall feature was disabled for new installs on Windows 11, version 24H2. An uninstall option for Recall also appeared in September, and Microsoft called it a bug before later revealing that Windows users would, in fact, be able to uninstall Recall.

“Microsoft has an ungodly complex and long winded system for integrating development changes into a mainline build, parts of the optional-izing work were most likely not merged at once, and thus produce crash loops in very specific scenarios that slipped testing,” explains Albacore.

I asked Microsoft to explain the references to Recall appearing in 24H2, but the company would only reinforce once again that Recall is an opt-in experience and you can remove it.

“The preview of Recall for Copilot Plus PCs has not yet been made available to Windows Insiders,” says Brandon LeBlanc, senior product manager of Windows, in a statement to The Verge. “However, information on Recall shared in David Weston’s blog from September, including confirmation that Recall is an opt-in experience and that users can also remove Recall, remains true.”

Fears around Recall being secretly installed or enabled in Windows 11 have now spread across YouTube, with many videos offering up ways to “remove” the feature that isn’t even present in Windows 11 version 24H2. “Recall is implemented by the AIX user experience package, and in all current builds the package is simply a stub,” says Albacore.

We’re now waiting on Microsoft to release Recall to Windows Insiders, something it promised to do in October, so that security researchers can test Microsoft’s latest changes and see how the opt-in and uninstall processes work. With just a few days left until November, Microsoft is cutting it fine if it’s going to release a preview of Recall in time.

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Image: Sony

Sony is closing Firewalk Studios, the studio behind its PlayStation Concord game that it took offline last month after a disastrous launch. In a message to PlayStation staff, Hermen Hulst, CEO of the PlayStation studio business group, says Firewalk Studios will close alongside Neon Koi, a mobile game studio.
“We have spent considerable time these past few months exploring all our options,” says Hulst. “After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio. I want to thank all of Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit and dedication.”
Hulst says Concord didn’t hit Sony’s targets and that the PlayStation maker will “take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area.”
Concord debuted on August 23rd on both PS5 and PC, but Sony took the game offline on September 6th after poor sales of the game. Estimates have put sales at under 25,000, and Concord only managed to hit an all-time peak of just 697 players on Steam, lower than the launch peak of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum.

Sony’s Neon Koi mobile game development studio is also shutting down, despite Hulst saying “mobile remains a priority growth area.” Sony originally acquired the German-Finnish studio when it was known as Savage Game Studios in 2022, and the team was working on an unannounced triple-A mobile live service action game.
“With this re-focused approach, Neon Koi will close, and its mobile action game will not be moving forward,” says Hulst. “Both decisions were given serious thought, and ultimately, we feel they are the right ones to strengthen the organization.”
Some of the impacted developers may find roles within Sony’s other studios, but the rest will join the thousands in the game industry that have been laid off over the past couple of years.

Image: Sony

Sony is closing Firewalk Studios, the studio behind its PlayStation Concord game that it took offline last month after a disastrous launch. In a message to PlayStation staff, Hermen Hulst, CEO of the PlayStation studio business group, says Firewalk Studios will close alongside Neon Koi, a mobile game studio.

“We have spent considerable time these past few months exploring all our options,” says Hulst. “After much thought, we have determined the best path forward is to permanently sunset the game and close the studio. I want to thank all of Firewalk for their craftsmanship, creative spirit and dedication.”

Hulst says Concord didn’t hit Sony’s targets and that the PlayStation maker will “take the lessons learned from Concord and continue to advance our live service capabilities to deliver future growth in this area.”

Concord debuted on August 23rd on both PS5 and PC, but Sony took the game offline on September 6th after poor sales of the game. Estimates have put sales at under 25,000, and Concord only managed to hit an all-time peak of just 697 players on Steam, lower than the launch peak of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum.

Sony’s Neon Koi mobile game development studio is also shutting down, despite Hulst saying “mobile remains a priority growth area.” Sony originally acquired the German-Finnish studio when it was known as Savage Game Studios in 2022, and the team was working on an unannounced triple-A mobile live service action game.

“With this re-focused approach, Neon Koi will close, and its mobile action game will not be moving forward,” says Hulst. “Both decisions were given serious thought, and ultimately, we feel they are the right ones to strengthen the organization.”

Some of the impacted developers may find roles within Sony’s other studios, but the rest will join the thousands in the game industry that have been laid off over the past couple of years.

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Sony’s WH-1000XM5s, our favorite noise canceling headphones, are $100 off. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

It can be hard to get some peace and quiet even on an average day, but with the holidays slowly yet steadily approaching, it’s about to become impossible. Luckily, though, today, Sony’s WH-1000XM5s have dropped to one of their best prices yet, selling for $299.99 ($100 off) at Amazon, Target, and directly from Sony in almost every colorway. That’s about $5 shy of their 2024 all-time low and $50 shy of their best price ever.

When it comes to noise-canceling headphones, few can rival Sony’s WH-1000XM5s, which is why they’re our favorite pair on the market. Along with canceling out noise impressively, they deliver clear, detail-rich sound with support for LDAC, Sony’s codec for higher-quality wireless audio. The over-ears also have a number of other features going for them, including stellar voice call performance and now even compatibility with Google’s Find My Device network. They also boast multipoint Bluetooth support, so you can, say, connect them to your phone while working on your laptop without manually switching back and forth. Plus, they’re just plain comfortable, so you can tune out the world for hours on end.
Read our Sony WH-1000XM5 review.

More ways to save

If you’re a cook looking for an excellent instant-read thermometer, the Thermapen One is on sale for $76.30 ($32.70 off) from ThermoWorks in black, orange, and purple, which is one of its better prices to date. The Thermapen is one of our favorite kitchen gadgets because it delivers accurate readings quickly and is also incredibly simple to use, with a big, backlit display that’s also easy to read.

Amazon’s latest Fire HD 10 with 32GB of storage and lock screen ads starts at just $74.99 ($65 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, which is its best price yet. Compared to its cheaper siblings, the Fire HD 10 offers a relatively sharp 1080p display and is a great, basic entertainment device sufficient for reading, watching Prime video content on the 1080p display, browsing, and even performing some light productivity tasks.
You can buy the UE Megaboom 4 Bluetooth speaker for $169.99 ($30 off) from Amazon and Best Buy, which is $10 shy of its best price yet. Along with sporting a rugged 1P67 rating, the speaker charges via USB-C and should last 20 hours on a single charge. It also supports the new megaphone feature, which amplifies your voice when you speak into it.

Sony’s WH-1000XM5s, our favorite noise canceling headphones, are $100 off. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

It can be hard to get some peace and quiet even on an average day, but with the holidays slowly yet steadily approaching, it’s about to become impossible. Luckily, though, today, Sony’s WH-1000XM5s have dropped to one of their best prices yet, selling for $299.99 ($100 off) at Amazon, Target, and directly from Sony in almost every colorway. That’s about $5 shy of their 2024 all-time low and $50 shy of their best price ever.

When it comes to noise-canceling headphones, few can rival Sony’s WH-1000XM5s, which is why they’re our favorite pair on the market. Along with canceling out noise impressively, they deliver clear, detail-rich sound with support for LDAC, Sony’s codec for higher-quality wireless audio. The over-ears also have a number of other features going for them, including stellar voice call performance and now even compatibility with Google’s Find My Device network. They also boast multipoint Bluetooth support, so you can, say, connect them to your phone while working on your laptop without manually switching back and forth. Plus, they’re just plain comfortable, so you can tune out the world for hours on end.

Read our Sony WH-1000XM5 review.

More ways to save

If you’re a cook looking for an excellent instant-read thermometer, the Thermapen One is on sale for $76.30 ($32.70 off) from ThermoWorks in black, orange, and purple, which is one of its better prices to date. The Thermapen is one of our favorite kitchen gadgets because it delivers accurate readings quickly and is also incredibly simple to use, with a big, backlit display that’s also easy to read.

Amazon’s latest Fire HD 10 with 32GB of storage and lock screen ads starts at just $74.99 ($65 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, which is its best price yet. Compared to its cheaper siblings, the Fire HD 10 offers a relatively sharp 1080p display and is a great, basic entertainment device sufficient for reading, watching Prime video content on the 1080p display, browsing, and even performing some light productivity tasks.
You can buy the UE Megaboom 4 Bluetooth speaker for $169.99 ($30 off) from Amazon and Best Buy, which is $10 shy of its best price yet. Along with sporting a rugged 1P67 rating, the speaker charges via USB-C and should last 20 hours on a single charge. It also supports the new megaphone feature, which amplifies your voice when you speak into it.

Read More 

Image: Nintendo

Though we’re mere months away from the reveal of the Switch’s successor, Nintendo still has some unfinished business with its current hardware. Nintendo has announced that Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, a remaster of Monolith Soft’s 2015 action RPG, will launch on the Switch on March 20, 2025. According to the press release, the remaster features enhanced visuals and added story elements.

Nintendo released a new trailer to mark the occasion and its opening seconds feel hilariously on the nose. There’s something deeply ironic about the trailer for a Switch port of a ten-year old Wii U game starting with the dialogue, “Well, here we are. Not too shabby, huh?” It’s like a tongue-in-cheek joke acknowledging there’s a wealth of Wii U games in desperate need of salvation (coughs Wind Waker coughs) and Xenoblade Chronicles X was one of the lucky ones to get a lifeboat off the sunken, inaccessible ship that is the Nintendo back catalogue.
In addition to porting old Wii U games, Nintendo’s still releasing new titles in the twilight days of the Switch. Mario & Luigi: Brothership is due out next week. Nintendo’s also confirmed that Metroid Prime 4 will get a Switch release too.

Image: Nintendo

Though we’re mere months away from the reveal of the Switch’s successor, Nintendo still has some unfinished business with its current hardware. Nintendo has announced that Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, a remaster of Monolith Soft’s 2015 action RPG, will launch on the Switch on March 20, 2025. According to the press release, the remaster features enhanced visuals and added story elements.

Nintendo released a new trailer to mark the occasion and its opening seconds feel hilariously on the nose. There’s something deeply ironic about the trailer for a Switch port of a ten-year old Wii U game starting with the dialogue, “Well, here we are. Not too shabby, huh?” It’s like a tongue-in-cheek joke acknowledging there’s a wealth of Wii U games in desperate need of salvation (coughs Wind Waker coughs) and Xenoblade Chronicles X was one of the lucky ones to get a lifeboat off the sunken, inaccessible ship that is the Nintendo back catalogue.

In addition to porting old Wii U games, Nintendo’s still releasing new titles in the twilight days of the Switch. Mario & Luigi: Brothership is due out next week. Nintendo’s also confirmed that Metroid Prime 4 will get a Switch release too.

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

GitHub is going multi-model for its Copilot code completion and programming tool. Developers will soon be able to choose models from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI for GitHub Copilot. GitHub is also announcing Spark, an AI tool for building web apps, and updates to GitHub Copilot in VS Code, Copilot for Xcode, and more at its GitHub Universe conference today.
GitHub Copilot users on the web or VS Code can select Claude 3.5, with Gemini 1.5 Pro in the coming weeks. OpenAI’s GPT-4o, o1-preview, and o1-mini models will also be available in GitHub Copilot soon. Developers will be able to toggle between models during a conversation with Copilot Chat to find the model that’s best for a particular task.
“There is no one model to rule every scenario, and developers expect the agency to build with the models that work best for them,” says GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke. “It is clear the next phase of AI code generation will not only be defined by multi-model functionality, but by multi-model choice.”
Microsoft-owned GitHub was the first to launch its AI tool called Copilot in 2021, ahead of Microsoft’s push to make Copilot the center of its AI efforts. It was the first major result of Microsoft’s initial $1 billion investment into OpenAI, and GitHub announced last week that Copilot now has more than 1 million paid subscribers. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft adopts GitHub’s multi-model approach and opens up its own Copilot AI assistant to models from rivals like Google and Anthropic.
GitHub is also announcing Spark today, an AI tool that makes it easier to build web apps using natural language. An initial prompt uses OpenAI and Anthropic models to produce live previews of what the web app will look like, and GitHub Spark users can compare versions as they make changes. GitHub Spark lets experienced developers directly manipulate code, while novice ones can create a web app entirely using natural language.
Once the app is created, you can run it on a desktop, tablet, or mobile device and also share the app with others to let people remix and build on top of Spark apps. GitHub Spark is part of GitHub’s vision to get to 1 billion developers. “For too long, there has been an unscalable barrier of entry separating a vast majority of the world’s population from building software,” says Dohmke. “With Spark, we will enable over one billion personal computer and mobile phone users to build and share their own micro apps directly on GitHub.”
GitHub is also announcing more updates to Copilot at its GitHub Universe today. Multi-file edit for GitHub Copilot in VS Code is arriving on November 1st, allowing users to make edits across multiple files at the same time using Copilot Chat. Copilot Extensions will also be available in early 2025, GitHub Copilot for Xcode enters public preview, and Copilot now has a new code review capability.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

GitHub is going multi-model for its Copilot code completion and programming tool. Developers will soon be able to choose models from Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI for GitHub Copilot. GitHub is also announcing Spark, an AI tool for building web apps, and updates to GitHub Copilot in VS Code, Copilot for Xcode, and more at its GitHub Universe conference today.

GitHub Copilot users on the web or VS Code can select Claude 3.5, with Gemini 1.5 Pro in the coming weeks. OpenAI’s GPT-4o, o1-preview, and o1-mini models will also be available in GitHub Copilot soon. Developers will be able to toggle between models during a conversation with Copilot Chat to find the model that’s best for a particular task.

“There is no one model to rule every scenario, and developers expect the agency to build with the models that work best for them,” says GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke. “It is clear the next phase of AI code generation will not only be defined by multi-model functionality, but by multi-model choice.”

Microsoft-owned GitHub was the first to launch its AI tool called Copilot in 2021, ahead of Microsoft’s push to make Copilot the center of its AI efforts. It was the first major result of Microsoft’s initial $1 billion investment into OpenAI, and GitHub announced last week that Copilot now has more than 1 million paid subscribers. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft adopts GitHub’s multi-model approach and opens up its own Copilot AI assistant to models from rivals like Google and Anthropic.

GitHub is also announcing Spark today, an AI tool that makes it easier to build web apps using natural language. An initial prompt uses OpenAI and Anthropic models to produce live previews of what the web app will look like, and GitHub Spark users can compare versions as they make changes. GitHub Spark lets experienced developers directly manipulate code, while novice ones can create a web app entirely using natural language.

Once the app is created, you can run it on a desktop, tablet, or mobile device and also share the app with others to let people remix and build on top of Spark apps. GitHub Spark is part of GitHub’s vision to get to 1 billion developers. “For too long, there has been an unscalable barrier of entry separating a vast majority of the world’s population from building software,” says Dohmke. “With Spark, we will enable over one billion personal computer and mobile phone users to build and share their own micro apps directly on GitHub.”

GitHub is also announcing more updates to Copilot at its GitHub Universe today. Multi-file edit for GitHub Copilot in VS Code is arriving on November 1st, allowing users to make edits across multiple files at the same time using Copilot Chat. Copilot Extensions will also be available in early 2025, GitHub Copilot for Xcode enters public preview, and Copilot now has a new code review capability.

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