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Acer has so far stayed out of the handheld gaming PC race, but that’s about to change. It’s just announced its first Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally competitor, the Acer Nitro Blaze 7, which looks like it fits somewhere between last year’s Asus ROG Ally and the newer ROG Ally X.
Like Asus — but unlike most rivals — it features a 7-inch 1080p variable refresh rate IPS screen to keep things smooth, one that refreshes slightly faster at 144Hz. (Acer tells The Verge it’s a landscape-native screen.) It’s also got a newer Ryzen 7 8840HS chip, albeit with the same Radeon 780M integrated GPU as most other Windows handhelds.

With 16GB of 7500 MT/s memory and a 50 watt-hour battery, it’s a step ahead of the original Ally’s 6400 MT/s memory and 40Wh pack, and it comes with up to 2TB worth of SSD storage. But with 24GB of memory and an 80Wh pack, the $800 Asus ROG Ally X is currently the Windows handheld to beat, so I suspect this Acer will need to cost quite a bit less to compete.

Image: Acer
I’m getting a bit of a black widow spider vibe from the shiny black and red.

The Nitro has no touchpads, but it also unusually has no back buttons; most PC handhelds now have at least two macro keys around back. But I suspect some will be happy that it not only has two USB4 ports, but that one of them is on the bottom. Hopefully, we’ll get our choice of whether to charge and dock from top or bottom with this portable PC.

Image: Acer
Lots of dedicated keys on this system.

Acer says it didn’t partner with Microsoft for this one, so I wouldn’t expect this one to roll out with any major UI improvements for Windows handheld gaming PCs. That said, it does come with more dedicated mode switch buttons than most rivals, including a dedicated key to bring up the virtual keyboard.
Here’s the whole spec sheet:

Image: Acer
The Blaze’s spec sheet.

Acer isn’t yet sharing prices or release dates.

Acer has so far stayed out of the handheld gaming PC race, but that’s about to change. It’s just announced its first Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally competitor, the Acer Nitro Blaze 7, which looks like it fits somewhere between last year’s Asus ROG Ally and the newer ROG Ally X.

Like Asus — but unlike most rivals — it features a 7-inch 1080p variable refresh rate IPS screen to keep things smooth, one that refreshes slightly faster at 144Hz. (Acer tells The Verge it’s a landscape-native screen.) It’s also got a newer Ryzen 7 8840HS chip, albeit with the same Radeon 780M integrated GPU as most other Windows handhelds.

With 16GB of 7500 MT/s memory and a 50 watt-hour battery, it’s a step ahead of the original Ally’s 6400 MT/s memory and 40Wh pack, and it comes with up to 2TB worth of SSD storage. But with 24GB of memory and an 80Wh pack, the $800 Asus ROG Ally X is currently the Windows handheld to beat, so I suspect this Acer will need to cost quite a bit less to compete.

Image: Acer
I’m getting a bit of a black widow spider vibe from the shiny black and red.

The Nitro has no touchpads, but it also unusually has no back buttons; most PC handhelds now have at least two macro keys around back. But I suspect some will be happy that it not only has two USB4 ports, but that one of them is on the bottom. Hopefully, we’ll get our choice of whether to charge and dock from top or bottom with this portable PC.

Image: Acer
Lots of dedicated keys on this system.

Acer says it didn’t partner with Microsoft for this one, so I wouldn’t expect this one to roll out with any major UI improvements for Windows handheld gaming PCs. That said, it does come with more dedicated mode switch buttons than most rivals, including a dedicated key to bring up the virtual keyboard.

Here’s the whole spec sheet:

Image: Acer
The Blaze’s spec sheet.

Acer isn’t yet sharing prices or release dates.

Read More 

The GoPro Hero 13 Black with some attachments. | Image: GoPro

GoPro has announced two new action cameras, the GoPro Hero 13 Black and a smaller GoPro Hero. The Hero 13 Black will cost $399 while the Hero will go for $199. Both are up for preorder now and will be released on September 10th and September 22nd, respectively.
Some of the new features GoPro is adding to the 13 Black include magnetic mounting and charging, three new lenses, and a redesigned battery that the company says has a 10 percent higher capacity than its predecessor.

The Hero 13 Black comes with in-camera noise reduction and can record HLG HDR video and 10-bit video in G-Log. It also sports a new burst slo-mo mode that can record 720p video at up to 400 frames per second, 900p at 360fps, and 5.3K at 120fps. The camera also got a bump to Wi-Fi 6, rather than the older Wi-Fi 5 protocol, enabling “up to 40% quicker content transfer speeds.”
Otherwise, as The Verge’s Vjeran Pavic notes in his video above, the camera still has many of the same specs as the previous model, the 12 Black, including the same 8:7 sensor.
New lenses for the Hero 13 Black
GoPro is releasing a new set of HB-Series lenses to go with the Hero 13 Black. The Ultra Wide Lens Mod ($99.99) captures a 177-degree field of view with a 1:1 aspect ratio; its new Macro Lens Mod ($129.99) can grab close-ups, though it can’t focus nearer than 4.3 inches; finally, a new Anamorphic Lens Mod ($129.99) will offer a 21:9 aspect ratio recording and movie-style lens flaring when it’s released next year. (The Ultra Wide and Macro Lens Mods will be out on September 10th.)
A smaller GoPro
As for the Hero, GoPro’s new miniature action camera is 35 percent smaller and 46 percent lighter, at 86 grams, than the Hero 13 Black. The company says its built-in battery can run for up to about 155 minutes when recording 1080p video at 30fps. It also captures 4K video at 30fps and can do 2.7K slow-motion captures at 60fps.

The GoPro Hero 13 Black with some attachments. | Image: GoPro

GoPro has announced two new action cameras, the GoPro Hero 13 Black and a smaller GoPro Hero. The Hero 13 Black will cost $399 while the Hero will go for $199. Both are up for preorder now and will be released on September 10th and September 22nd, respectively.

Some of the new features GoPro is adding to the 13 Black include magnetic mounting and charging, three new lenses, and a redesigned battery that the company says has a 10 percent higher capacity than its predecessor.

The Hero 13 Black comes with in-camera noise reduction and can record HLG HDR video and 10-bit video in G-Log. It also sports a new burst slo-mo mode that can record 720p video at up to 400 frames per second, 900p at 360fps, and 5.3K at 120fps. The camera also got a bump to Wi-Fi 6, rather than the older Wi-Fi 5 protocol, enabling “up to 40% quicker content transfer speeds.”

Otherwise, as The Verge’s Vjeran Pavic notes in his video above, the camera still has many of the same specs as the previous model, the 12 Black, including the same 8:7 sensor.

New lenses for the Hero 13 Black

GoPro is releasing a new set of HB-Series lenses to go with the Hero 13 Black. The Ultra Wide Lens Mod ($99.99) captures a 177-degree field of view with a 1:1 aspect ratio; its new Macro Lens Mod ($129.99) can grab close-ups, though it can’t focus nearer than 4.3 inches; finally, a new Anamorphic Lens Mod ($129.99) will offer a 21:9 aspect ratio recording and movie-style lens flaring when it’s released next year. (The Ultra Wide and Macro Lens Mods will be out on September 10th.)

A smaller GoPro

As for the Hero, GoPro’s new miniature action camera is 35 percent smaller and 46 percent lighter, at 86 grams, than the Hero 13 Black. The company says its built-in battery can run for up to about 155 minutes when recording 1080p video at 30fps. It also captures 4K video at 30fps and can do 2.7K slow-motion captures at 60fps.

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Image: Zillow

Zillow is upgrading its AI search feature with the ability to find homes or rentals based on how far away they are from your office, school, or other points of interest. Instead of narrowing your search by selecting specific locations or filters, you can now simply enter, “Homes 30 min drive from Millennium Park.”
This will be very handy for people like me. I’m always searching for dream homes in spots that I’m not familiar with. Now, I’ll be able to search for “homes near Disney World” rather than casting a huge net over the entirety of Orlando.
Zillow will also let you search for homes to buy or rent based on affordability, such as “Seattle homes under $4,000 monthly.” Zillow first rolled out AI search last year, allowing you to look for homes by describing their layout, location, style, condition, and more. But this update gives you more specific ways to peruse listings based on proximity to certain locations and pricing.
Zillow says its enhanced search feature “takes users’ queries and scans millions of listing details to bring relevant results to the surface” while also training AI models to “better respond to search queries that use natural, human-like sentences.” It’s rolling out to Zillow’s iOS and Android apps now, with support on Zillow’s website coming soon.

Image: Zillow

Zillow is upgrading its AI search feature with the ability to find homes or rentals based on how far away they are from your office, school, or other points of interest. Instead of narrowing your search by selecting specific locations or filters, you can now simply enter, “Homes 30 min drive from Millennium Park.”

This will be very handy for people like me. I’m always searching for dream homes in spots that I’m not familiar with. Now, I’ll be able to search for “homes near Disney World” rather than casting a huge net over the entirety of Orlando.

Zillow will also let you search for homes to buy or rent based on affordability, such as “Seattle homes under $4,000 monthly.” Zillow first rolled out AI search last year, allowing you to look for homes by describing their layout, location, style, condition, and more. But this update gives you more specific ways to peruse listings based on proximity to certain locations and pricing.

Zillow says its enhanced search feature “takes users’ queries and scans millions of listing details to bring relevant results to the surface” while also training AI models to “better respond to search queries that use natural, human-like sentences.” It’s rolling out to Zillow’s iOS and Android apps now, with support on Zillow’s website coming soon.

Read More 

Image: Nintendo

Zelda’s first mainline game feels like a clever crystallization of the franchise’s recent experimental era. Every Legend of Zelda game has had its quirky innovations, but Breath of the Wild revolutionized the franchise in ways that felt monumental and reflective of Nintendo being ready to try something — a number of things, really — new with Link. Breath of the Wild’s openness made its take on Hyrule feel unlike anything we’d ever seen from the series, and its story brought Link to life by building a big, rich world around him that you were meant to spend hours exploring.
Breath of the Wild’s innovative gameplay mechanics worked so well that it wasn’t shocking to see them return in Tears of the Kingdom, which was more of a direct sequel than an entirely new legend. But it’s rather surprising how strongly you can see the influence of those games in Echoes of Wisdom, Nintendo’s newest mainline Zelda entry — the first to let you play as the princess herself. During the time I recently spent hands-on with the game, almost everything about Echoes of Wisdom made it feel like a crystallization of the Zelda franchise’s recent era of experimentation. And while it’s a little hard to imagine at first how a Breath of the Wild-esque openness could lend itself to a more traditional, top-down Zelda game, Nintendo seems to have found a way to make it work beautifully.
After years of waiting on the sidelines while Link hacked and slashed his way through Hyrule, Echoes of Wisdom turns Princess Zelda into the hero as she sets out to stop Ganon. When we first meet this Zelda, it’s clear that she isn’t a stranger to the dangers Ganon poses and the important role Link typically plays in the grand battle between light and dark. But with Link and many other Hylians swallowed up by one of Echoes of Wisdom’s strange portals, Zelda’s left to her own devices to keep her kingdom from plunging into total chaos.

Lots of things about Echoes of Wisdom — like its assortment of monsters and focus on puzzle-centric dungeon crawling — make it feel like a classic Zelda game at first blush. But one of the most novel things about the new title is how much of a Zelda (the character) game it feels like compared to its predecessors outside of the fact that you can finally play as the princess. Zelda is a very different person than her trusted knight. He’s a warrior who runs around yelling and spinning at his enemies, but she’s a thinker who knows that her wits can be sharper than a blade. Echoes of Wisdom tries to make you feel that difference as soon as you’re given the game’s new signature key item, the Tri Rod.
By waving the Tri Rod at certain objects and defeated monsters, Zelda and her companion Tri can create duplicates of them called echoes. Early into my demo, the echoes I learned were of ordinary things you’d find in any top-down Zelda, like a small table and a bed. But rather than simply existing as visual detail, the echoes give you a variety of ways to tackle Echoes of Wisdom’s various puzzles. A single table doesn’t seem like much at first, but a stack of them is perfect for getting Zelda up high enough to sneak out of a prison cell. And in moments when Zelda might need to hide, being able to conjure a large pot she can climb into is very handy.
Even though the puzzles I played through were relatively simple, there were a handful of ways they could have been solved by using different echoes. One approach might make other onscreen characters behave in a certain way that opened up a previously blocked path, and another method could give me an entirely different route to take by creating walkways. Some of that variability comes from the way that echoes interact with their environments by default — one monster, for example, immediately started hopping around and setting things on fire after I called it out. But much of it boils down to the way Echoes of Wisdom encourages you to experiment.

The number of echoes you can create at any given time is determined by the number of triangles floating behind Tri and a point system that assigns different costs to things you can create. While a table echo costs a single triangle, a Moblin echo requires two. The game will automatically delete old echoes in the order you created them as you make new ones, so it requires you to put some thought into what you’re doing as battles become more complicated.
I had a ball summoning a swarm of Keese to sic on Moblins once I was able to get out into the open world, but it wasn’t long before I realized that brute force isn’t the easiest way to play when you start out. With just a few heart containers, it doesn’t take much to knock Zelda out, meaning that you have to be somewhat strategic in how to deploy echoes to fight for you while also taking care to avoid incoming attacks. And because your echoes sustain damage as well, you often have to be ready to conjure new ones at just the right time in order to take out difficult enemies. But the princess does have some other options at her disposal.
Because echoes are such a huge part of the game, it was surprising to see Zelda pick up Link’s sword and gain the ability to fight (and dress) the way he does. In her swordfighter form, Zelda’s more nimble and able to block attacks using a magically manifested shield. But Zelda’s transformations are temporary and tied to a magic meter that quickly depletes if you leave it running for too long. Echoes of Wisdom’s first boss battles did an impressive job of teaching me that as powerful as Zelda’s swordfighter form is, it’s not something you can just default to — at least not when you first start playing the game. The sword is important, but it’s just one of many tools you’re supposed to use strategically as the game pushes you to think about the multiple ways its challenges can be overcome.
Based just on the small chunk of Echoes of Wisdom I was able to get through, it feels like Nintendo’s supercharged the classic top-down Zelda formula by infusing it with many of the franchise’s cleverest innovations. It’s not exactly an open world or classic Zelda, but it’s something new — and it’s a perfect fit for the princess.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom launches on the Nintendo Switch on September 26th.

Image: Nintendo

Zelda’s first mainline game feels like a clever crystallization of the franchise’s recent experimental era.

Every Legend of Zelda game has had its quirky innovations, but Breath of the Wild revolutionized the franchise in ways that felt monumental and reflective of Nintendo being ready to try something — a number of things, really — new with Link. Breath of the Wild’s openness made its take on Hyrule feel unlike anything we’d ever seen from the series, and its story brought Link to life by building a big, rich world around him that you were meant to spend hours exploring.

Breath of the Wild’s innovative gameplay mechanics worked so well that it wasn’t shocking to see them return in Tears of the Kingdom, which was more of a direct sequel than an entirely new legend. But it’s rather surprising how strongly you can see the influence of those games in Echoes of Wisdom, Nintendo’s newest mainline Zelda entry — the first to let you play as the princess herself. During the time I recently spent hands-on with the game, almost everything about Echoes of Wisdom made it feel like a crystallization of the Zelda franchise’s recent era of experimentation. And while it’s a little hard to imagine at first how a Breath of the Wild-esque openness could lend itself to a more traditional, top-down Zelda game, Nintendo seems to have found a way to make it work beautifully.

After years of waiting on the sidelines while Link hacked and slashed his way through Hyrule, Echoes of Wisdom turns Princess Zelda into the hero as she sets out to stop Ganon. When we first meet this Zelda, it’s clear that she isn’t a stranger to the dangers Ganon poses and the important role Link typically plays in the grand battle between light and dark. But with Link and many other Hylians swallowed up by one of Echoes of Wisdom’s strange portals, Zelda’s left to her own devices to keep her kingdom from plunging into total chaos.

Lots of things about Echoes of Wisdom — like its assortment of monsters and focus on puzzle-centric dungeon crawling — make it feel like a classic Zelda game at first blush. But one of the most novel things about the new title is how much of a Zelda (the character) game it feels like compared to its predecessors outside of the fact that you can finally play as the princess. Zelda is a very different person than her trusted knight. He’s a warrior who runs around yelling and spinning at his enemies, but she’s a thinker who knows that her wits can be sharper than a blade. Echoes of Wisdom tries to make you feel that difference as soon as you’re given the game’s new signature key item, the Tri Rod.

By waving the Tri Rod at certain objects and defeated monsters, Zelda and her companion Tri can create duplicates of them called echoes. Early into my demo, the echoes I learned were of ordinary things you’d find in any top-down Zelda, like a small table and a bed. But rather than simply existing as visual detail, the echoes give you a variety of ways to tackle Echoes of Wisdom’s various puzzles. A single table doesn’t seem like much at first, but a stack of them is perfect for getting Zelda up high enough to sneak out of a prison cell. And in moments when Zelda might need to hide, being able to conjure a large pot she can climb into is very handy.

Even though the puzzles I played through were relatively simple, there were a handful of ways they could have been solved by using different echoes. One approach might make other onscreen characters behave in a certain way that opened up a previously blocked path, and another method could give me an entirely different route to take by creating walkways. Some of that variability comes from the way that echoes interact with their environments by default — one monster, for example, immediately started hopping around and setting things on fire after I called it out. But much of it boils down to the way Echoes of Wisdom encourages you to experiment.

The number of echoes you can create at any given time is determined by the number of triangles floating behind Tri and a point system that assigns different costs to things you can create. While a table echo costs a single triangle, a Moblin echo requires two. The game will automatically delete old echoes in the order you created them as you make new ones, so it requires you to put some thought into what you’re doing as battles become more complicated.

I had a ball summoning a swarm of Keese to sic on Moblins once I was able to get out into the open world, but it wasn’t long before I realized that brute force isn’t the easiest way to play when you start out. With just a few heart containers, it doesn’t take much to knock Zelda out, meaning that you have to be somewhat strategic in how to deploy echoes to fight for you while also taking care to avoid incoming attacks. And because your echoes sustain damage as well, you often have to be ready to conjure new ones at just the right time in order to take out difficult enemies. But the princess does have some other options at her disposal.

Because echoes are such a huge part of the game, it was surprising to see Zelda pick up Link’s sword and gain the ability to fight (and dress) the way he does. In her swordfighter form, Zelda’s more nimble and able to block attacks using a magically manifested shield. But Zelda’s transformations are temporary and tied to a magic meter that quickly depletes if you leave it running for too long. Echoes of Wisdom’s first boss battles did an impressive job of teaching me that as powerful as Zelda’s swordfighter form is, it’s not something you can just default to — at least not when you first start playing the game. The sword is important, but it’s just one of many tools you’re supposed to use strategically as the game pushes you to think about the multiple ways its challenges can be overcome.

Based just on the small chunk of Echoes of Wisdom I was able to get through, it feels like Nintendo’s supercharged the classic top-down Zelda formula by infusing it with many of the franchise’s cleverest innovations. It’s not exactly an open world or classic Zelda, but it’s something new — and it’s a perfect fit for the princess.

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom launches on the Nintendo Switch on September 26th.

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Sony

After eight years in development, it took less than a month for Concord to die.
Yesterday, Sony announced that the game, which only launched on August 23rd, would be shutting down on September 6th. Ryan Ellis, game director at developer Firewalk Studios, said that it “didn’t land the way we’d intended.” That seems to be an understatement: the game is going offline, full refunds are being issued, and it’s unclear if Concord will ever come back. While the speed at which the game ended may be surprising, the fact that it happened isn’t. Concord is just the latest victim of publishers chasing the live-service trend with outsize expectations. Unfortunately, there’s only so much room — and Concord was too generic to find space.
It’s easy to see why so many studios and publishers want in. The longevity and profitability of games like Fortnite and League of Legends are impressive. They’re also nearly impossible to replicate. Concord follows other high-profile failures like EA’s Anthem and Xbox’s Redfall. Both instances saw beloved single-player studios — BioWare and Arkane Austin, respectively — pivot to persistent multiplayer games with disastrous results. (Each lasted longer than Concord, but still had relatively short lives in terms of updates.)
They’re far from the only examples. Sega canceled a multiplayer shooter called Hyenas, Warner Bros.’ fighting game Multiversus was taken offline for almost an entire year for retooling, and Amazon and Bandai Namco just ended the anime MMO Blue Protocol. Those are just a few examples that actually launched. Plenty — like Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us spinoff, Remedy’s multiplayer partnership with Tencent, or Ubisoft’s battle royale take on The Division — were never released at all.

There are a few obvious errors specific to Concord. It was a hero shooter, a genre with entrenched competition like Overwatch and Apex Legends, making it a tough sell. Its reach was limited to the PS5 and PC. Worse still, it was a full paid release in a space where free-to-play is the standard. But Concord’s biggest problem was that it was just fine. With generic characters and frustrating map design, there was nothing to make it stand out among so much competition. In the live-service space, where games are designed to suck up as much of your time (and money) as possible, being an average game isn’t enough. There’s only so much of both to go around, and pulling players away from their existing time sinks is not an easy thing. When you’re up against Fortnite, you need a hook.
We’ve seen this play out with the few games that have managed to carve out some longevity in the space. Rare’s pirate sim Sea of Thieves is unlike any other virtual world, while Riot cleverly saw room in the Counter-Strike market when it launched Valorant. These experiences also keep expanding their presence in terms of both content and platforms; Sea of Thieves hit PS5 this year while Valorant made its debut on consoles. Helldivers 2 came out of nowhere to offer a distinct co-op experience. Other smaller games have similarly managed to generate buzz with a notable gimmick, like the dual bodies in Spectre Divide or the game show theme of The Finals.
But those kinds of sustained hits are rare, and Concord will almost certainly not be the last to be buried in the live-service graveyard. It probably won’t even be the last from Sony itself. The company previously announced plans to go hard in the space and then scaled those ambitions back considerably. (Those early plans were the main impetus for spending so much on Destiny developer Bungie.)

It’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s no such thing as too big to fail when it comes to a live-service game, which means that a lot of the high-profile releases coming out soon are not sure things. That includes the likes of Bungie’s Marathon, NetEase’s Marvel Rivals, and even Valve’s Deadlock. (If you think Valve is immune to failure, might I point you to the existence of Artifact.) They might not shut down as quickly as Concord, but it’s not inconceivable that any of them could fail to garner enough sustained attention.
In the post announcing the game’s closure, Ellis said that Concord’s developers were going to “explore options, including those that will better reach our players.” Most likely, that means the game might appear again in the future, with a free-to-play structure and maybe some gameplay tweaks. But addressing those core problems will be a lot tougher than that. When every game wants all of your time, players need a really good reason to give up their favorites. That’s what Concord was missing.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Sony

After eight years in development, it took less than a month for Concord to die.

Yesterday, Sony announced that the game, which only launched on August 23rd, would be shutting down on September 6th. Ryan Ellis, game director at developer Firewalk Studios, said that it “didn’t land the way we’d intended.” That seems to be an understatement: the game is going offline, full refunds are being issued, and it’s unclear if Concord will ever come back. While the speed at which the game ended may be surprising, the fact that it happened isn’t. Concord is just the latest victim of publishers chasing the live-service trend with outsize expectations. Unfortunately, there’s only so much room — and Concord was too generic to find space.

It’s easy to see why so many studios and publishers want in. The longevity and profitability of games like Fortnite and League of Legends are impressive. They’re also nearly impossible to replicate. Concord follows other high-profile failures like EA’s Anthem and Xbox’s Redfall. Both instances saw beloved single-player studios — BioWare and Arkane Austin, respectively — pivot to persistent multiplayer games with disastrous results. (Each lasted longer than Concord, but still had relatively short lives in terms of updates.)

They’re far from the only examples. Sega canceled a multiplayer shooter called Hyenas, Warner Bros.’ fighting game Multiversus was taken offline for almost an entire year for retooling, and Amazon and Bandai Namco just ended the anime MMO Blue Protocol. Those are just a few examples that actually launched. Plenty — like Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us spinoff, Remedy’s multiplayer partnership with Tencent, or Ubisoft’s battle royale take on The Division — were never released at all.

There are a few obvious errors specific to Concord. It was a hero shooter, a genre with entrenched competition like Overwatch and Apex Legends, making it a tough sell. Its reach was limited to the PS5 and PC. Worse still, it was a full paid release in a space where free-to-play is the standard. But Concord’s biggest problem was that it was just fine. With generic characters and frustrating map design, there was nothing to make it stand out among so much competition. In the live-service space, where games are designed to suck up as much of your time (and money) as possible, being an average game isn’t enough. There’s only so much of both to go around, and pulling players away from their existing time sinks is not an easy thing. When you’re up against Fortnite, you need a hook.

We’ve seen this play out with the few games that have managed to carve out some longevity in the space. Rare’s pirate sim Sea of Thieves is unlike any other virtual world, while Riot cleverly saw room in the Counter-Strike market when it launched Valorant. These experiences also keep expanding their presence in terms of both content and platforms; Sea of Thieves hit PS5 this year while Valorant made its debut on consoles. Helldivers 2 came out of nowhere to offer a distinct co-op experience. Other smaller games have similarly managed to generate buzz with a notable gimmick, like the dual bodies in Spectre Divide or the game show theme of The Finals.

But those kinds of sustained hits are rare, and Concord will almost certainly not be the last to be buried in the live-service graveyard. It probably won’t even be the last from Sony itself. The company previously announced plans to go hard in the space and then scaled those ambitions back considerably. (Those early plans were the main impetus for spending so much on Destiny developer Bungie.)

It’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s no such thing as too big to fail when it comes to a live-service game, which means that a lot of the high-profile releases coming out soon are not sure things. That includes the likes of Bungie’s Marathon, NetEase’s Marvel Rivals, and even Valve’s Deadlock. (If you think Valve is immune to failure, might I point you to the existence of Artifact.) They might not shut down as quickly as Concord, but it’s not inconceivable that any of them could fail to garner enough sustained attention.

In the post announcing the game’s closure, Ellis said that Concord’s developers were going to “explore options, including those that will better reach our players.” Most likely, that means the game might appear again in the future, with a free-to-play structure and maybe some gameplay tweaks. But addressing those core problems will be a lot tougher than that. When every game wants all of your time, players need a really good reason to give up their favorites. That’s what Concord was missing.

Read More 

Image: Qualcomm

Google has committed to releasing an Arm64 version of Google Drive on Windows later this year, after Microsoft and Qualcomm have been working hard to convince app developers to port their applications over to Windows on Arm.
Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon made the announcement onstage at the company’s IFA event earlier today, where he also revealed that both NordVPN and ExpressVPN will be available on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon laptops today.
VPN apps and Google Drive have been noticeably absent on the latest Copilot Plus PCs, because they needed to be updated for Windows on Arm. Google currently blocks Drive on the latest Qualcomm-powered devices, but it’s clear Qualcomm and Microsoft have managed to convince the search giant to invest into making Drive a full app on Arm64. Google also previously created an Arm64 version of Chrome for Windows in time for the Copilot Plus launch in June.
It has been just over two months since the latest Qualcomm-powered laptops launched, and Qualcomm is now launching a new 8-core Snapdragon X Plus chip that’s designed to make Windows on Arm laptops cheaper. The Asus Vivobook S 15 and Dell Inspiron 14 now start at just $899 each as a result, and Qualcomm also previously said its laptops would dip as low as the $700 mark in 2025.
Amon also revealed that Qualcomm is “thinking about” the opportunity for Snapdragon chips inside desktop PCs. We’ve seen Qualcomm tease Snapdragon X Elite chips for desktop PCs before, but the only device that comes close to a desktop PC is Qualcomm’s eight-inch dev kit. Qualcomm is hosting a Snapdragon summit in October, so maybe we’ll hear more about the desktop plans then.

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Google has committed to releasing an Arm64 version of Google Drive on Windows later this year, after Microsoft and Qualcomm have been working hard to convince app developers to port their applications over to Windows on Arm.

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon made the announcement onstage at the company’s IFA event earlier today, where he also revealed that both NordVPN and ExpressVPN will be available on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon laptops today.

VPN apps and Google Drive have been noticeably absent on the latest Copilot Plus PCs, because they needed to be updated for Windows on Arm. Google currently blocks Drive on the latest Qualcomm-powered devices, but it’s clear Qualcomm and Microsoft have managed to convince the search giant to invest into making Drive a full app on Arm64. Google also previously created an Arm64 version of Chrome for Windows in time for the Copilot Plus launch in June.

It has been just over two months since the latest Qualcomm-powered laptops launched, and Qualcomm is now launching a new 8-core Snapdragon X Plus chip that’s designed to make Windows on Arm laptops cheaper. The Asus Vivobook S 15 and Dell Inspiron 14 now start at just $899 each as a result, and Qualcomm also previously said its laptops would dip as low as the $700 mark in 2025.

Amon also revealed that Qualcomm is “thinking about” the opportunity for Snapdragon chips inside desktop PCs. We’ve seen Qualcomm tease Snapdragon X Elite chips for desktop PCs before, but the only device that comes close to a desktop PC is Qualcomm’s eight-inch dev kit. Qualcomm is hosting a Snapdragon summit in October, so maybe we’ll hear more about the desktop plans then.

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Ignore my cruddy handwriting to marvel at this beautiful color. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales

A front light and color display are just two of the ways this pretty note taking device puts luxury first. You probably don’t need the Remarkable Paper Pro. It’s too luxury. You know those sports cars that look like spaceships but will drive into a streetlamp if you sneeze? That’s the kind of luxury I’m talking about. This is the hypercar of E-Ink note-taking devices.
It’s got a front light! It’s got color! It’s got a 11.8-inch display! It’s got the very best keyboard case available today! And it’s got a totally audacious choice of a display. It’s not a device for consuming books or comics (though you can sideload them if you want), but for marking up documents and taking notes really, really well. (The operating system is identical to the one for the Remarkable 2.) Starting at $579, the Paper Pro is not a practical device for most people, but Remarkable has pushed E Ink displays to their limits here, and by God do I love it for that.
I need to take a minute here to geek the hell out over the display. The company didn’t go with the faded colors of the Kaleido display found in devices from Kobo and Boox. No, Remarkable decided to use the way less popular Gallery display technology and then put their own spin on it (they call it the CANVAS Color display). Gallery is lauded because the color is richer and clearer than Kaleido. Where Kaleido achieves color by applying black and white pigments to a filter, Gallery skips the filter and moves actual color pigment. But moving all that color comes at a cost: Gallery displays have a much, much, much slower refresh rate.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales/The Verge
The display relies on dithering to maximize the number of colors it can render.

I’m talking unpleasantly slow. The kind of slow that will make you pull your hair out in frustration writing anything. Except on the Remarkable Paper Pro. Writing on this thing is smooth like butter. The experience is just as pleasant as writing on the Remarkable 2. Its just a hair better than the experience found on the Kindle Scribe, or any number of Kobo and Boox devices I’ve tried over the years. Writing in black ink, I am constantly amazed at how perfectly everything seems to work — the knowledge of the Gallery display’s limitations always at war with the impressive reality Remarkable has created.
And then I switch to writing in color ink. There are six colors to choose from: blue, red, green, yellow, cyan, and magenta. Choose any of them and get to doodling. Writing in color is as smooth as writing in black. Pen strokes begin rendering in black, with the chosen color chasing the black away over the course of the stroke. Then when you stop writing, there’s a pause, and the entire screen refreshes, the new colors now in place. It’s one way Remarkable is getting around Gallery’s atrocious refresh rate.
But is it obnoxious in practice? It kind of is! Especially at first. Yet you pick up the rhythm quickly and the annoyance fades away. I found myself being less bothered in only a couple of minutes. And I also kept asking myself, “does this really matter?”

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales/The Verge
Like the previous generations it has pads for stability and pogo pens to connect to the pricey Type Folio.

Because the Remarkable Paper Pro isn’t a tool for artists (though it does support layers and shading). You’re not supposed to unlock creativity. You’re using these colors so slide decks and PDFs of business reports look nice as you circle the changes you want made in red. You’re using these colors to faithfully render a book’s art or add pizzazz to a header you’ve written in a brainstorming notebook. You’re using them to highlight all the numbers you have to remember for that Q4 presentation of profitability. In those cases a little flash is annoying, but not the end times.
And for me the knowledge of how faithful this whole thing is at rendering color has me forgiving the flash — because hot damn, they put Gallery in a Remarkable and pushed it to the limits! That’s some concept-car wildness from a note-taking device company.
But I am surprise that the boldness that inspired the display choice didn’t carry over to the front light. It’s…fine. Its dimmer than what others offer, and you can’t control the color temperature of the light, which is annoying in 2024. Remarkable ostensibly went with a less powerful and flexible front light because of the demands of the Paper Pro’s design. The front light has to be extraordinarily thin so there’s no distracting gap between the glass you’re writing on and the E Ink display beneath. And there isn’t! But I also haven’t found that gap as distracting as one would expect in a Boox or the Kindle Scribe. So while I respect Remarkable’s commitment to minding the gap, I would prefer a better front light.

Thankfully Remarkable’s panache for design reveals one other winner: this company now makes the absolute best keyboard case you can get. The $229 Type Folio puts every other keyboard case I’ve ever used, for tablets and computers alike, to shame. It’s so thin and light I keep finding myself surprised at the exceptional keyboard packed inside. It’s also got great stability when open on your knees and a clever way of keeping the pen out of your way. More than even the bold colors of the Remarkable Paper Pro, it’s the keyboard case that grabs peoples’ eyes. This is what every keyboard case should be like. It’s really that good.
And like the rest of the Remarkable Paper Pro, the Type Folio feels like the company showing off at the expense of price. Like a hypercar, it doesn’t feel necessary for most people to own, and it’s probably too expensive, but it’s showing off the future, and that future is a lot faster and more colorful than you think.

Ignore my cruddy handwriting to marvel at this beautiful color. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales

A front light and color display are just two of the ways this pretty note taking device puts luxury first.

You probably don’t need the Remarkable Paper Pro. It’s too luxury. You know those sports cars that look like spaceships but will drive into a streetlamp if you sneeze? That’s the kind of luxury I’m talking about. This is the hypercar of E-Ink note-taking devices.

It’s got a front light! It’s got color! It’s got a 11.8-inch display! It’s got the very best keyboard case available today! And it’s got a totally audacious choice of a display. It’s not a device for consuming books or comics (though you can sideload them if you want), but for marking up documents and taking notes really, really well. (The operating system is identical to the one for the Remarkable 2.) Starting at $579, the Paper Pro is not a practical device for most people, but Remarkable has pushed E Ink displays to their limits here, and by God do I love it for that.

I need to take a minute here to geek the hell out over the display. The company didn’t go with the faded colors of the Kaleido display found in devices from Kobo and Boox. No, Remarkable decided to use the way less popular Gallery display technology and then put their own spin on it (they call it the CANVAS Color display). Gallery is lauded because the color is richer and clearer than Kaleido. Where Kaleido achieves color by applying black and white pigments to a filter, Gallery skips the filter and moves actual color pigment. But moving all that color comes at a cost: Gallery displays have a much, much, much slower refresh rate.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales/The Verge
The display relies on dithering to maximize the number of colors it can render.

I’m talking unpleasantly slow. The kind of slow that will make you pull your hair out in frustration writing anything. Except on the Remarkable Paper Pro. Writing on this thing is smooth like butter. The experience is just as pleasant as writing on the Remarkable 2. Its just a hair better than the experience found on the Kindle Scribe, or any number of Kobo and Boox devices I’ve tried over the years. Writing in black ink, I am constantly amazed at how perfectly everything seems to work — the knowledge of the Gallery display’s limitations always at war with the impressive reality Remarkable has created.

And then I switch to writing in color ink. There are six colors to choose from: blue, red, green, yellow, cyan, and magenta. Choose any of them and get to doodling. Writing in color is as smooth as writing in black. Pen strokes begin rendering in black, with the chosen color chasing the black away over the course of the stroke. Then when you stop writing, there’s a pause, and the entire screen refreshes, the new colors now in place. It’s one way Remarkable is getting around Gallery’s atrocious refresh rate.

But is it obnoxious in practice? It kind of is! Especially at first. Yet you pick up the rhythm quickly and the annoyance fades away. I found myself being less bothered in only a couple of minutes. And I also kept asking myself, “does this really matter?”

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales/The Verge
Like the previous generations it has pads for stability and pogo pens to connect to the pricey Type Folio.

Because the Remarkable Paper Pro isn’t a tool for artists (though it does support layers and shading). You’re not supposed to unlock creativity. You’re using these colors so slide decks and PDFs of business reports look nice as you circle the changes you want made in red. You’re using these colors to faithfully render a book’s art or add pizzazz to a header you’ve written in a brainstorming notebook. You’re using them to highlight all the numbers you have to remember for that Q4 presentation of profitability. In those cases a little flash is annoying, but not the end times.

And for me the knowledge of how faithful this whole thing is at rendering color has me forgiving the flash — because hot damn, they put Gallery in a Remarkable and pushed it to the limits! That’s some concept-car wildness from a note-taking device company.

But I am surprise that the boldness that inspired the display choice didn’t carry over to the front light. It’s…fine. Its dimmer than what others offer, and you can’t control the color temperature of the light, which is annoying in 2024. Remarkable ostensibly went with a less powerful and flexible front light because of the demands of the Paper Pro’s design. The front light has to be extraordinarily thin so there’s no distracting gap between the glass you’re writing on and the E Ink display beneath. And there isn’t! But I also haven’t found that gap as distracting as one would expect in a Boox or the Kindle Scribe. So while I respect Remarkable’s commitment to minding the gap, I would prefer a better front light.

Thankfully Remarkable’s panache for design reveals one other winner: this company now makes the absolute best keyboard case you can get. The $229 Type Folio puts every other keyboard case I’ve ever used, for tablets and computers alike, to shame. It’s so thin and light I keep finding myself surprised at the exceptional keyboard packed inside. It’s also got great stability when open on your knees and a clever way of keeping the pen out of your way. More than even the bold colors of the Remarkable Paper Pro, it’s the keyboard case that grabs peoples’ eyes. This is what every keyboard case should be like. It’s really that good.

And like the rest of the Remarkable Paper Pro, the Type Folio feels like the company showing off at the expense of price. Like a hypercar, it doesn’t feel necessary for most people to own, and it’s probably too expensive, but it’s showing off the future, and that future is a lot faster and more colorful than you think.

Read More 

Apple’s iPhone 16 event invitation. | Image: Apple

Apple is getting ready to announce the iPhone 16, which will surely be its most powerful and best-camera-having phone yet (at least for the Pro models). It’s also expected to be the first iPhone to launch with Apple Intelligence across the board.
In addition to the iPhone 16 lineup and a slate of new watches and AirPods, Apple is expected to show more AI features, like the ability to understand what’s onscreen, along with features it introduced at WWDC in June, which include an upgraded Siri, image generation, AI rewrite, and call recording and transcription abilities.
The word “glowtime” is likely a reference to the glow effect that appears around the edges of the screen when Siri is activated in the latest developer betas of iOS 18. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, “glow” is also the internal name for macOS Sequoia, which will likely release after the event at around the same time as iOS 18.

Image: Apple
Siri in iOS 18 adds a glow effect around the screen when activated.

When and how to watch the iPhone 16 event
Apple’s iPhone 16 event will be live and in person in Cupertino, California, on September 9th at 1PM ET / 10AM PT, and The Verge will be there live blogging all the news. The event will also be livestreamed on YouTube, Apple TV, and Apple’s website.
New processors for all that AI
Apple Intelligence will require powerful processors. Apple’s trend in the last couple of years was to give the previous generation’s top processor to the base-model iPhone and introduce a new, stronger chip for the Pro. The iPhone 15 Pro’s A17 Pro processor is the only A-series chip right now that supports Apple Intelligence, but rumors suggest all iPhone 16 models will get a new A18 chip. Beyond that, we expect new Apple Watches and additions to the AirPods lineup.
iPhone 16 gets a new camera look
The main iPhone 16 models will come in new colors and look slightly different from the back this year. If leaked dummy units are to be believed, the camera module will now have two lenses stacked vertically, like the iPhone 12 and iPhone X, instead of the diagonal placement used since the iPhone 13.
Vertical lens placement would better support landscape spatial video capture for watching on the Vision Pro. There’s no indication we’ll see an update to the Vision Pro itself, but hopefully we’ll get something to keep customer interest in Apple’s mixed reality tech afloat.
The iPhone 16 lineup will also get better battery life, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max finally match up
The iPhone 16 Pro might finally have the same cameras as the Pro Max, one of several things Google dinged Apple on at the Pixel 9 event. Both models may get the 5x “tetraprism” telephoto lenses that are currently exclusive to the 15 Pro Max. Rumors suggest that the ultrawide camera in the new Pros will also have significant quality improvements thanks to a larger 48MP sensor.
For the Pro models, we’re expecting a new rose finish and a Zune-brown “bronze” titanium finish, and both the regular and Max models are expected to have slightly larger screens than their iPhone 15 counterparts. Gurman says the Pro’s display will go from 6.1 inches to 6.3 and that the Pro Max will jump from 6.7 to 6.9 inches.
The iPhone’s side buttons may change to new pressure-sensitive ones and could include a DSLR-like feature where you can focus with light pressure and take the picture by pressing harder. It’s likely a Pro-only feature, but it could also come to the regular 16.
Overall, the iPhone 16 models won’t be much of a design change. We’re already seeing rumors that the next model, the iPhone 17, will get a slimmer redesign.
Apple Watch, big and thin
The new Apple Watch Series 10 (or X?) may have a thinner and more refined case than the previous Series 9 model, but the real thing to look out for is a model with a bigger screen. Gurman believes the Series 10 will get an Apple Watch Ultra-sized 49mm screen option, plus a new chip.
Super athletes and outdoorsy people can also expect a refreshed Apple Watch Ultra, and a plastic Apple Watch SE is also rumored to make an appearance.
AirPods on the double
The new headphone lineup is expected to include new entry and midtier AirPods and possibly a new USB-C version of the over-the-ear AirPods Max, which might also get new colors.
The new AirPods models will replace the second- and third-generation versions, according to Gurman, with two new models. The midtier model is rumored to have a Pro-style design with noise cancellation, plus speakers in the charging case for Find My support.
Apple’s third-gen AirPods reportedly haven’t sold as well as the second-generation models. The third generation’s higher price tag and an awkward combination of the AirPods Pro shape without removable ear tips might be to blame. The two new models still won’t get ear tips, but their USB-C charging cases will complete Apple’s transition from Lightning for iPhone accessories.
Maybe a new Mini
No, no, no, not the iPhone Mini. Sorry to my fellow one-hander smartphone users. (I still rock an iPhone 13 Mini and am waiting to see if Apple ever swings back). What Apple is planning, though, according to Gurman, is a new Mac Mini, one that is nearly as small as an Apple TV. The new Mac Mini is expected to ship to warehouses this month, and an M Pro chip version might come in October. Considering the short timeframe, there’s a possibility we could hear about the new Mac Mini at the iPhone event, but it could also get its own event, like the prime-time one Apple pulled last year for the colorful iMac M3 refresh.

Apple’s iPhone 16 event invitation. | Image: Apple

Apple is getting ready to announce the iPhone 16, which will surely be its most powerful and best-camera-having phone yet (at least for the Pro models). It’s also expected to be the first iPhone to launch with Apple Intelligence across the board.

In addition to the iPhone 16 lineup and a slate of new watches and AirPods, Apple is expected to show more AI features, like the ability to understand what’s onscreen, along with features it introduced at WWDC in June, which include an upgraded Siri, image generation, AI rewrite, and call recording and transcription abilities.

The word “glowtime” is likely a reference to the glow effect that appears around the edges of the screen when Siri is activated in the latest developer betas of iOS 18. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, “glow” is also the internal name for macOS Sequoia, which will likely release after the event at around the same time as iOS 18.

Image: Apple
Siri in iOS 18 adds a glow effect around the screen when activated.

When and how to watch the iPhone 16 event

Apple’s iPhone 16 event will be live and in person in Cupertino, California, on September 9th at 1PM ET / 10AM PT, and The Verge will be there live blogging all the news. The event will also be livestreamed on YouTube, Apple TV, and Apple’s website.

New processors for all that AI

Apple Intelligence will require powerful processors. Apple’s trend in the last couple of years was to give the previous generation’s top processor to the base-model iPhone and introduce a new, stronger chip for the Pro. The iPhone 15 Pro’s A17 Pro processor is the only A-series chip right now that supports Apple Intelligence, but rumors suggest all iPhone 16 models will get a new A18 chip. Beyond that, we expect new Apple Watches and additions to the AirPods lineup.

iPhone 16 gets a new camera look

The main iPhone 16 models will come in new colors and look slightly different from the back this year. If leaked dummy units are to be believed, the camera module will now have two lenses stacked vertically, like the iPhone 12 and iPhone X, instead of the diagonal placement used since the iPhone 13.

Vertical lens placement would better support landscape spatial video capture for watching on the Vision Pro. There’s no indication we’ll see an update to the Vision Pro itself, but hopefully we’ll get something to keep customer interest in Apple’s mixed reality tech afloat.

The iPhone 16 lineup will also get better battery life, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max finally match up

The iPhone 16 Pro might finally have the same cameras as the Pro Max, one of several things Google dinged Apple on at the Pixel 9 event. Both models may get the 5x “tetraprism” telephoto lenses that are currently exclusive to the 15 Pro Max. Rumors suggest that the ultrawide camera in the new Pros will also have significant quality improvements thanks to a larger 48MP sensor.

For the Pro models, we’re expecting a new rose finish and a Zune-brown “bronze” titanium finish, and both the regular and Max models are expected to have slightly larger screens than their iPhone 15 counterparts. Gurman says the Pro’s display will go from 6.1 inches to 6.3 and that the Pro Max will jump from 6.7 to 6.9 inches.

The iPhone’s side buttons may change to new pressure-sensitive ones and could include a DSLR-like feature where you can focus with light pressure and take the picture by pressing harder. It’s likely a Pro-only feature, but it could also come to the regular 16.

Overall, the iPhone 16 models won’t be much of a design change. We’re already seeing rumors that the next model, the iPhone 17, will get a slimmer redesign.

Apple Watch, big and thin

The new Apple Watch Series 10 (or X?) may have a thinner and more refined case than the previous Series 9 model, but the real thing to look out for is a model with a bigger screen. Gurman believes the Series 10 will get an Apple Watch Ultra-sized 49mm screen option, plus a new chip.

Super athletes and outdoorsy people can also expect a refreshed Apple Watch Ultra, and a plastic Apple Watch SE is also rumored to make an appearance.

AirPods on the double

The new headphone lineup is expected to include new entry and midtier AirPods and possibly a new USB-C version of the over-the-ear AirPods Max, which might also get new colors.

The new AirPods models will replace the second- and third-generation versions, according to Gurman, with two new models. The midtier model is rumored to have a Pro-style design with noise cancellation, plus speakers in the charging case for Find My support.

Apple’s third-gen AirPods reportedly haven’t sold as well as the second-generation models. The third generation’s higher price tag and an awkward combination of the AirPods Pro shape without removable ear tips might be to blame. The two new models still won’t get ear tips, but their USB-C charging cases will complete Apple’s transition from Lightning for iPhone accessories.

Maybe a new Mini

No, no, no, not the iPhone Mini. Sorry to my fellow one-hander smartphone users. (I still rock an iPhone 13 Mini and am waiting to see if Apple ever swings back). What Apple is planning, though, according to Gurman, is a new Mac Mini, one that is nearly as small as an Apple TV. The new Mac Mini is expected to ship to warehouses this month, and an M Pro chip version might come in October. Considering the short timeframe, there’s a possibility we could hear about the new Mac Mini at the iPhone event, but it could also get its own event, like the prime-time one Apple pulled last year for the colorful iMac M3 refresh.

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The flaw doesn’t impact newer YubiKey hardware that doesn’t use the Infineon cryptolibrary. | Image: Yubico

Security researchers have detected a vulnerability in YubiKey two-factor authentication tokens that enables attackers to clone the device according to a new security advisory. The vulnerability was discovered within the Infineon cryptographic library used by most YubiKey products, including the YubiKey 5, Yubikey Bio, Security Key, and YubiHSM 2 series devices.
YubiKey manufacturer Yubico says the severity of the side-channel vulnerability is “moderate” but is difficult to exploit, partly because two-factor systems rely upon something the user has and something only they should know.
“The attacker would need physical possession of the YubiKey, Security Key, or YubiHSM, knowledge of the accounts they want to target, and specialized equipment to perform the necessary attack,” the company said in its security advisory. “Depending on the use case, the attacker may also require additional knowledge including username, PIN, account password, or authentication key.” But those aren’t necessarily deterrents to a highly motivated individual or state-sponsored attack.
As YubiKey firmware can’t be updated, all YubiKey 5 devices before version 5.7 (or 5.7.2 for the Bio series and 2.4.0 for YubiHSM 2) will remain vulnerable forever. Later model versions aren’t affected as they no longer use the Infineon cryptolibrary. NinjaLab, the security firm that discovered the vulnerability, estimates that it’s existed in Infineon’s top security chips for over 14 years. The researchers believe other devices using the Infineon cryptographic library or Infineon’s SLE78, Optiga Trust M, and Optiga TPM microcontrollers are also at risk.

The flaw doesn’t impact newer YubiKey hardware that doesn’t use the Infineon cryptolibrary. | Image: Yubico

Security researchers have detected a vulnerability in YubiKey two-factor authentication tokens that enables attackers to clone the device according to a new security advisory. The vulnerability was discovered within the Infineon cryptographic library used by most YubiKey products, including the YubiKey 5, Yubikey Bio, Security Key, and YubiHSM 2 series devices.

YubiKey manufacturer Yubico says the severity of the side-channel vulnerability is “moderate” but is difficult to exploit, partly because two-factor systems rely upon something the user has and something only they should know.

“The attacker would need physical possession of the YubiKey, Security Key, or YubiHSM, knowledge of the accounts they want to target, and specialized equipment to perform the necessary attack,” the company said in its security advisory. “Depending on the use case, the attacker may also require additional knowledge including username, PIN, account password, or authentication key.” But those aren’t necessarily deterrents to a highly motivated individual or state-sponsored attack.

As YubiKey firmware can’t be updated, all YubiKey 5 devices before version 5.7 (or 5.7.2 for the Bio series and 2.4.0 for YubiHSM 2) will remain vulnerable forever. Later model versions aren’t affected as they no longer use the Infineon cryptolibrary. NinjaLab, the security firm that discovered the vulnerability, estimates that it’s existed in Infineon’s top security chips for over 14 years. The researchers believe other devices using the Infineon cryptographic library or Infineon’s SLE78, Optiga Trust M, and Optiga TPM microcontrollers are also at risk.

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The Verge

Microsoft is holding a special Copilot event later this month that will be focused on “the next phase of Copilot innovation.” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and vice president of AI at work Jared Spataro will host the “wave 2” Copilot event on September 16th.
The event will be hosted on LinkedIn and focus on the business side of Microsoft’s Copilot offerings. I revealed in my Notepad newsletter last month that Microsoft is about to rebrand Copilot in the most Microsoft way possible. This means that instead of “Copilot in Word” it will become “Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word,” alongside a rebranding of “Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365” to “Microsoft 365 Copilot.”

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft’s event won’t be all about the rebranding though, I’m expecting to see a bunch of new Copilot features for Microsoft 365 that will try and tempt more businesses to sign up to the $30 per user per month pricing. Microsoft unlocked its Copilot AI features inside Office apps and more earlier this year, but there’s still a debate among businesses over whether it’s worth the steep monthly price.
We may even see more features announced for Copilot Pro, Microsoft’s consumer subscription for its AI offerings. The $20 monthly subscription provides Copilot features in Word, much like the business-focused subscription, but it hasn’t seen many new features added since it launched earlier this year. Microsoft even removed a GPT Builder feature from Copilot Pro in June.
Microsoft’s Copilot event will take place on Monday September 16th at 8AM PT / 11AM ET, and The Verge will be covering it live with all the very latest news on the AI assistant.

The Verge

Microsoft is holding a special Copilot event later this month that will be focused on “the next phase of Copilot innovation.” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and vice president of AI at work Jared Spataro will host the “wave 2” Copilot event on September 16th.

The event will be hosted on LinkedIn and focus on the business side of Microsoft’s Copilot offerings. I revealed in my Notepad newsletter last month that Microsoft is about to rebrand Copilot in the most Microsoft way possible. This means that instead of “Copilot in Word” it will become “Microsoft 365 Copilot in Word,” alongside a rebranding of “Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365” to “Microsoft 365 Copilot.”

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft’s event won’t be all about the rebranding though, I’m expecting to see a bunch of new Copilot features for Microsoft 365 that will try and tempt more businesses to sign up to the $30 per user per month pricing. Microsoft unlocked its Copilot AI features inside Office apps and more earlier this year, but there’s still a debate among businesses over whether it’s worth the steep monthly price.

We may even see more features announced for Copilot Pro, Microsoft’s consumer subscription for its AI offerings. The $20 monthly subscription provides Copilot features in Word, much like the business-focused subscription, but it hasn’t seen many new features added since it launched earlier this year. Microsoft even removed a GPT Builder feature from Copilot Pro in June.

Microsoft’s Copilot event will take place on Monday September 16th at 8AM PT / 11AM ET, and The Verge will be covering it live with all the very latest news on the AI assistant.

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