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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

OpenAI plans to launch Orion, its next frontier model, by December, The Verge has learned.
Unlike the release of OpenAI’s last two models, GPT-4o and o1, Orion won’t initially be released widely through ChatGPT. Instead, OpenAI is planning to grant access first to companies it works closely with in order for them to build their own products and features, according to a source familiar with the plan.
Another source tells The Verge that engineers inside Microsoft — OpenAI’s main partner for deploying AI models — are preparing to host Orion on Azure as early as November. While Orion is seen inside OpenAI as the successor to GPT-4, it’s unclear if the company will call it GPT-5 externally. As always, the release plan is subject to change and could slip. OpenAI declined to comment for this story.

Orion had previously been teased by one OpenAI executive as potentially up to 100 times more powerful than GPT-4; it’s separate from the o1 reasoning model OpenAI released in September. The company’s goal is to combine its LLMs over time to create an even more capable model that could eventually be called artificial general intelligence, or AGI.
It was previously reported that OpenAI was using o1, code named Strawberry, to provide synthetic data to train Orion. In September, OpenAI researchers threw a happy hour to celebrate finishing training the new model, a source familiar with the matter tells The Verge.

i love being home in the midwest.the night sky is so beautiful.excited for the winter constellations to rise soon; they are so great.— Sam Altman (@sama) September 14, 2024

That timing lines up with a cryptic post on X by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in which he said he was “excited for the winter constellations to rise soon.” If you ask ChatGPT o1-preview what Altman’s post is hiding, it will tell you that he’s hinting at the word Orion, which is the winter constellation that’s most visible in the night sky from November to February.

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge
Even ChatGPT thinks Sam Altman is teasing Orion.

The release of this next model comes at a crucial time for OpenAI, which just closed a historic $6.6 billion funding round that requires the company to restructure itself as a for-profit entity. The company is also experiencing significant staff turnover: CTO Mira Murati just announced her departure along with Bob McGrew, the company’s chief research officer, and Barret Zoph, VP of post training.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

OpenAI plans to launch Orion, its next frontier model, by December, The Verge has learned.

Unlike the release of OpenAI’s last two models, GPT-4o and o1, Orion won’t initially be released widely through ChatGPT. Instead, OpenAI is planning to grant access first to companies it works closely with in order for them to build their own products and features, according to a source familiar with the plan.

Another source tells The Verge that engineers inside Microsoft — OpenAI’s main partner for deploying AI models — are preparing to host Orion on Azure as early as November. While Orion is seen inside OpenAI as the successor to GPT-4, it’s unclear if the company will call it GPT-5 externally. As always, the release plan is subject to change and could slip. OpenAI declined to comment for this story.

Orion had previously been teased by one OpenAI executive as potentially up to 100 times more powerful than GPT-4; it’s separate from the o1 reasoning model OpenAI released in September. The company’s goal is to combine its LLMs over time to create an even more capable model that could eventually be called artificial general intelligence, or AGI.

It was previously reported that OpenAI was using o1, code named Strawberry, to provide synthetic data to train Orion. In September, OpenAI researchers threw a happy hour to celebrate finishing training the new model, a source familiar with the matter tells The Verge.

That timing lines up with a cryptic post on X by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in which he said he was “excited for the winter constellations to rise soon.” If you ask ChatGPT o1-preview what Altman’s post is hiding, it will tell you that he’s hinting at the word Orion, which is the winter constellation that’s most visible in the night sky from November to February.

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge
Even ChatGPT thinks Sam Altman is teasing Orion.

The release of this next model comes at a crucial time for OpenAI, which just closed a historic $6.6 billion funding round that requires the company to restructure itself as a for-profit entity. The company is also experiencing significant staff turnover: CTO Mira Murati just announced her departure along with Bob McGrew, the company’s chief research officer, and Barret Zoph, VP of post training.

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The Verge

AI startup Perplexity, which offers an AI search engine, published a blog post today pushing back on News Corp’s lawsuit against the company.
Perplexity has recently come under significant scrutiny following accusations that it scraped content without permission, and News Corp, which is the parent company of the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal-owner Dow Jones, alleged that Perplexity’s search engine “copies on a massive scale.”
Perplexity, in its response today, argues that news organizations like News Corp that have filed lawsuits against AI companies “prefer to live in a world where publicly reported facts are owned by corporations, and no one can do anything with those publicly reported facts without paying a toll.”
No one, including corporations, owns facts. Copyright can, however, cover how facts are expressed — in other words, the material that News Corp is suing over. (Previously, Forbes accused Perplexity of publishing “eerily similar wording” and “some entirely lifted fragments” from its stories.)

Perplexity thinks that the lawsuit “reflects an adversarial posture between media and tech that is — while depressingly familiar — fundamentally shortsighted, unnecessary, and self-defeating.” The company says there are “countless things we would love to do beyond what the default application of law allows,” and it points to its revenue-sharing program it has launched in partnership with publications like Time, Der Spiegel, and Fortune as something that it’s proud of. It also says the facts alleged in News Corp’s lawsuit are “misleading at best.”
When reached for comment, News Corp shared the same statement from CEO Robert Thomson that it shared on Monday:

Perplexity perpetrates an abuse of intellectual property that harms journalists, writers, publishers and News Corp. The perplexing Perplexity has willfully copied copious amounts of copyrighted material without compensation, and shamelessly presents repurposed material as a direct substitute for the original source. Perplexity proudly states that users can “skip the links” — apparently, Perplexity wants to skip the check.
We applaud principled companies like OpenAI, which understands that integrity and creativity are essential if we are to realise the potential of Artificial Intelligence. Perplexity is not the only AI company abusing intellectual property and it is not the only AI company that we will pursue with vigor and rigor. We have made clear that we would rather woo than sue, but, for the sake of our journalists, our writers and our company, we must challenge the content kleptocracy.

Update, October 24th: Added statement from News Corp.

The Verge

AI startup Perplexity, which offers an AI search engine, published a blog post today pushing back on News Corp’s lawsuit against the company.

Perplexity has recently come under significant scrutiny following accusations that it scraped content without permission, and News Corp, which is the parent company of the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal-owner Dow Jones, alleged that Perplexity’s search engine “copies on a massive scale.”

Perplexity, in its response today, argues that news organizations like News Corp that have filed lawsuits against AI companies “prefer to live in a world where publicly reported facts are owned by corporations, and no one can do anything with those publicly reported facts without paying a toll.”

No one, including corporations, owns facts. Copyright can, however, cover how facts are expressed — in other words, the material that News Corp is suing over. (Previously, Forbes accused Perplexity of publishing “eerily similar wording” and “some entirely lifted fragments” from its stories.)

Perplexity thinks that the lawsuit “reflects an adversarial posture between media and tech that is — while depressingly familiar — fundamentally shortsighted, unnecessary, and self-defeating.” The company says there are “countless things we would love to do beyond what the default application of law allows,” and it points to its revenue-sharing program it has launched in partnership with publications like Time, Der Spiegel, and Fortune as something that it’s proud of. It also says the facts alleged in News Corp’s lawsuit are “misleading at best.”

When reached for comment, News Corp shared the same statement from CEO Robert Thomson that it shared on Monday:

Perplexity perpetrates an abuse of intellectual property that harms journalists, writers, publishers and News Corp. The perplexing Perplexity has willfully copied copious amounts of copyrighted material without compensation, and shamelessly presents repurposed material as a direct substitute for the original source. Perplexity proudly states that users can “skip the links” — apparently, Perplexity wants to skip the check.

We applaud principled companies like OpenAI, which understands that integrity and creativity are essential if we are to realise the potential of Artificial Intelligence. Perplexity is not the only AI company abusing intellectual property and it is not the only AI company that we will pursue with vigor and rigor. We have made clear that we would rather woo than sue, but, for the sake of our journalists, our writers and our company, we must challenge the content kleptocracy.

Update, October 24th: Added statement from News Corp.

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Image: Scout Motors

This is how you revive an iconic brand. Decades ago, Scout Motors helped introduce America to the “sport utility vehicle,” a quirky new automobile that would eventually come to dominate our roads. The brand went bust in 1980 — but now, it’s back, and it’s all-electric.
Scout, which is now an independent company under the Volkswagen Group, introduced its first new-concept vehicles today: the Terra truck and the Traveler SUV. Both vehicles are body-on-frame, sitting on top a brand-new EV platform unique to Scout. And both could start at under $60,000 (with incentives) when production begins in 2027.
But beyond the novelty of launching a new EV brand when sales are still struggling, and on the eve of a major election that could determine the future of the auto industry, Scout is trying to sell something that no one has really tried before: a genuine throwback that also feels modern and fresh.
“It’s sort of this simple concept, but tough to execute,” said Scout CEO Scott Keogh, defining it as “heritage meets ingenuity.”

The “Connection Machine”
Before we get to the story of Scout’s comeback, let’s run through the specs, because there are some real doozies here:

Body-on-frame chassis, solid rear axle, and front and rear mechanical lockers for off-road performance
Projected towing of over 7,000 pounds for the Scout Traveler and over 10,000 pounds for the Scout Terra, both with nearly 2,000 pounds of payload
Estimated zero to 60mph acceleration in 3.5 seconds, made possible by an estimated 1,000 pound-feet of torque through the four-wheel-drive system
Vehicle software built upon a modern zonal architecture, enabling over-the-air updates and remote diagnostics
Bidirectional charging and vehicle-to-home capabilities
One fully electric trim with up to 350 miles of range and an extended range model with more than 500 miles of range through a gas-powered range extender

There’s a lot more, including a removable cabana roof, optional bench seats in both the front and rear, and a lot of tactile touchpoints, like mechanical door handles, grab bars, and big, chunky dials and switches.

Image: Scout Motors

When I first spoke to Keogh earlier this year, he told me he didn’t want to make another hyperminimalist EV, festooned with touchscreens, glassy surfaces, and haptic buttons. He wanted to make something that was real and mechanical — something that you could grab and feel connected to.
“There’s definitely a large segment that wants to bring forth some of the heritage thing,” he said this week. “They don’t want to be isolated from the car… They want to have real switches. They want to have mechanical touch and feel.”
Keogh says the company is calling it the “Connection Machine” — a phrase it appears to be trying to trademark. The idea is that when you’re behind the wheel, tearing through some gravel or ripping up a 100 percent grade, you’re connected to the car through the physical act of driving but also your passengers, bumping up against each other on the same bench seat.

In the zone
That said, there are plenty of design and engineering choices that prove that Scout has its sights set firmly on the horizon. The inclusion of a zonal architecture, rather than a domain-style electrical setup, will help ensure that the vehicles have a lot of “headroom” for future updates, Keogh said, reducing costs not only on the manufacturing side but also for owners through reduced maintenance costs.
Zonal architecture is still relatively niche in the auto industry. Tesla has been doing it for years, but most automakers use domain architectures, with dozens of electronic control units that control everything from power windows and airbags to braking.
Rivian recently switched to a zonal system when it launched the next-gen versions of its R1 vehicles. And VW (which owns Scout) made a big deal of licensing Rivian’s “zonal hardware design” when it announced its plan to invest $5 billion in the EV company.
Scout had the benefit of starting with a “clean sheet,” Keogh told me. “All these things sound quite minor but setting up your IT architecture without a legacy system — this is huge.”

Platform politics
Another thing that caught my attention was the news that the Terra and Traveler would be built on “an all-new and proprietary body-on-frame platform.”
The fact that Scout would develop its own platform, rather than borrow VW’s modular “MEB” electric vehicle platform, might strike some as strange considering how expensive and labor-intensive it is for a brand-new company to develop its own bespoke platform. Sharing platforms is very common, especially when trying to spin up an entirely new production line. (For example, the Audi RS E-tron GT is built on the same platform as the Porsche Taycan.)
“They want to have mechanical touch and feel”
To be sure, VW has been going through its own struggles around EVs. The company’s plug-in models are selling well, but its market share in North America is shrinking. And its software has been plagued by bugs and customer complaints.
But Keogh assured me that Scout wasn’t trying to ignore its advantages over some of its rivals. The company wants to maintain its individuality but will still share some components with its parent company, like drive units and other modules. Considering VW has never before competed in the off-road segment, Scout will take those components and piece them together into something that can tackle the roughest conditions.
“The last thing we want to do is to grab a 100 percent carryover platform with all the modules,” Keogh said, “because then we’d be a badge. And Scout won’t work as a badge at all.”

Range life
The inclusion of a gas-powered range extender is also sure to raise some eyebrows. At a time when car buyers are flocking to hybrids, Scout certainly could have gone that route and no one would have complained. Instead, the company opted to include a small gas-powered generator that charges the battery, rather than powering the engine.
The reason for this was twofold. First, electric trucks have historically struggled with range when carrying heavy payloads or towing large objects. Scout needs to convince truck shoppers that they can do all the truck stuff they love without sacrificing range. The other reason is that Keogh firmly believes that EVs are the future, and he wanted a vehicle that put battery power first, while still offering a smidge of fossil fuels to help quell range anxiety.
“It introduces the buyer to electrification on their American terms,” he said.

Not dystopian
The look of the Terra and Traveler will be immediately recognizable to a lot of people. It successfully blends designs from Ram, Jeep, Range Rover, and Rivian (Scout’s chief designer hails from Stellantis and BMW), while also keeping the same iconic look and feel of the original International Harvester Scouts from the 1960s and ’70s.
Keogh said the goal was to land somewhere between avant-garde and safe. In other words, not too dystopian, like the Tesla Cybertruck, but not overly familiar, like the Ford F-150 Lightning.
“I think it’s got its own stance and its own world,” he said. “But of course, if you see little glimpses of Range Rover, little glimpses of Rivian, little glimpses of Ram, and a little bit of Scout, okay that sounds cool to me.”
Scout already has a storied history — Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is a fan — and now, it’s writing its next chapter.

Image: Scout Motors

This is how you revive an iconic brand.

Decades ago, Scout Motors helped introduce America to the “sport utility vehicle,” a quirky new automobile that would eventually come to dominate our roads. The brand went bust in 1980 — but now, it’s back, and it’s all-electric.

Scout, which is now an independent company under the Volkswagen Group, introduced its first new-concept vehicles today: the Terra truck and the Traveler SUV. Both vehicles are body-on-frame, sitting on top a brand-new EV platform unique to Scout. And both could start at under $60,000 (with incentives) when production begins in 2027.

But beyond the novelty of launching a new EV brand when sales are still struggling, and on the eve of a major election that could determine the future of the auto industry, Scout is trying to sell something that no one has really tried before: a genuine throwback that also feels modern and fresh.

“It’s sort of this simple concept, but tough to execute,” said Scout CEO Scott Keogh, defining it as “heritage meets ingenuity.”

The “Connection Machine”

Before we get to the story of Scout’s comeback, let’s run through the specs, because there are some real doozies here:

Body-on-frame chassis, solid rear axle, and front and rear mechanical lockers for off-road performance
Projected towing of over 7,000 pounds for the Scout Traveler and over 10,000 pounds for the Scout Terra, both with nearly 2,000 pounds of payload
Estimated zero to 60mph acceleration in 3.5 seconds, made possible by an estimated 1,000 pound-feet of torque through the four-wheel-drive system
Vehicle software built upon a modern zonal architecture, enabling over-the-air updates and remote diagnostics
Bidirectional charging and vehicle-to-home capabilities
One fully electric trim with up to 350 miles of range and an extended range model with more than 500 miles of range through a gas-powered range extender

There’s a lot more, including a removable cabana roof, optional bench seats in both the front and rear, and a lot of tactile touchpoints, like mechanical door handles, grab bars, and big, chunky dials and switches.

Image: Scout Motors

When I first spoke to Keogh earlier this year, he told me he didn’t want to make another hyperminimalist EV, festooned with touchscreens, glassy surfaces, and haptic buttons. He wanted to make something that was real and mechanical — something that you could grab and feel connected to.

“There’s definitely a large segment that wants to bring forth some of the heritage thing,” he said this week. “They don’t want to be isolated from the car… They want to have real switches. They want to have mechanical touch and feel.”

Keogh says the company is calling it the “Connection Machine” — a phrase it appears to be trying to trademark. The idea is that when you’re behind the wheel, tearing through some gravel or ripping up a 100 percent grade, you’re connected to the car through the physical act of driving but also your passengers, bumping up against each other on the same bench seat.

In the zone

That said, there are plenty of design and engineering choices that prove that Scout has its sights set firmly on the horizon. The inclusion of a zonal architecture, rather than a domain-style electrical setup, will help ensure that the vehicles have a lot of “headroom” for future updates, Keogh said, reducing costs not only on the manufacturing side but also for owners through reduced maintenance costs.

Zonal architecture is still relatively niche in the auto industry. Tesla has been doing it for years, but most automakers use domain architectures, with dozens of electronic control units that control everything from power windows and airbags to braking.

Rivian recently switched to a zonal system when it launched the next-gen versions of its R1 vehicles. And VW (which owns Scout) made a big deal of licensing Rivian’s “zonal hardware design” when it announced its plan to invest $5 billion in the EV company.

Scout had the benefit of starting with a “clean sheet,” Keogh told me. “All these things sound quite minor but setting up your IT architecture without a legacy system — this is huge.”

Platform politics

Another thing that caught my attention was the news that the Terra and Traveler would be built on “an all-new and proprietary body-on-frame platform.”

The fact that Scout would develop its own platform, rather than borrow VW’s modular “MEB” electric vehicle platform, might strike some as strange considering how expensive and labor-intensive it is for a brand-new company to develop its own bespoke platform. Sharing platforms is very common, especially when trying to spin up an entirely new production line. (For example, the Audi RS E-tron GT is built on the same platform as the Porsche Taycan.)

To be sure, VW has been going through its own struggles around EVs. The company’s plug-in models are selling well, but its market share in North America is shrinking. And its software has been plagued by bugs and customer complaints.

But Keogh assured me that Scout wasn’t trying to ignore its advantages over some of its rivals. The company wants to maintain its individuality but will still share some components with its parent company, like drive units and other modules. Considering VW has never before competed in the off-road segment, Scout will take those components and piece them together into something that can tackle the roughest conditions.

“The last thing we want to do is to grab a 100 percent carryover platform with all the modules,” Keogh said, “because then we’d be a badge. And Scout won’t work as a badge at all.”

Range life

The inclusion of a gas-powered range extender is also sure to raise some eyebrows. At a time when car buyers are flocking to hybrids, Scout certainly could have gone that route and no one would have complained. Instead, the company opted to include a small gas-powered generator that charges the battery, rather than powering the engine.

The reason for this was twofold. First, electric trucks have historically struggled with range when carrying heavy payloads or towing large objects. Scout needs to convince truck shoppers that they can do all the truck stuff they love without sacrificing range. The other reason is that Keogh firmly believes that EVs are the future, and he wanted a vehicle that put battery power first, while still offering a smidge of fossil fuels to help quell range anxiety.

“It introduces the buyer to electrification on their American terms,” he said.

Not dystopian

The look of the Terra and Traveler will be immediately recognizable to a lot of people. It successfully blends designs from Ram, Jeep, Range Rover, and Rivian (Scout’s chief designer hails from Stellantis and BMW), while also keeping the same iconic look and feel of the original International Harvester Scouts from the 1960s and ’70s.

Keogh said the goal was to land somewhere between avant-garde and safe. In other words, not too dystopian, like the Tesla Cybertruck, but not overly familiar, like the Ford F-150 Lightning.

“I think it’s got its own stance and its own world,” he said. “But of course, if you see little glimpses of Range Rover, little glimpses of Rivian, little glimpses of Ram, and a little bit of Scout, okay that sounds cool to me.”

Scout already has a storied history — Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is a fan — and now, it’s writing its next chapter.

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Apple is inviting investigations into the Private Cloud Compute (PCC) system that powers more computationally intensive Apple Intelligence requests. The company is also expanding its bug bounty program to offer payouts of up to $1,000,000 for people who discover PCC vulnerabilities.
The company has boasted about how many AI features (branded as Apple Intelligence) will run on-device without leaving your Mac, iPhone, or other Apple hardware. Still, for more difficult requests, it will send them to PCC servers that are built using Apple Silicon and a new operating system.
Many AI applications from other companies also rely on servers to complete more difficult requests. Still, users don’t have much line of sight into how secure those server-based operations are. Apple, of course, has made a big deal over the years about how much it cares about user privacy, so poorly designed cloud servers for AI could poke a hole in that image. To prevent that, Apple said it designed the PCC so that the company’s security and privacy guarantees are enforceable and that security researchers can independently verify those guarantees.
For researchers, Apple is offering:

A security guide that spells out the technical details of the PCC
A “Virtual Research Environment” that lets you do a security analysis of PCC on your Mac (though you’ll need to have a Mac with Apple Silicon and 16GB more of memory and be running the latest macOS Sequoia 15.1 Developer Preview)
Source code on GitHub for “certain key components of PCC that help to implement its security and privacy requirements”

With the bug bounty, Apple is offering payouts from $50,000 to $1,000,000 for vulnerabilities discovered across a few different categories. Apple also will evaluate any security issue for a potential reward that “has a significant impact to PCC.”
The first Apple Intelligence features are set to launch for everyone with iOS 18.1, which is expected next week. Some of the bigger Apple Intelligence features, including Genmoji and ChatGPT integration, appeared in the first iOS 18.2 developer beta released yesterday.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Apple is inviting investigations into the Private Cloud Compute (PCC) system that powers more computationally intensive Apple Intelligence requests. The company is also expanding its bug bounty program to offer payouts of up to $1,000,000 for people who discover PCC vulnerabilities.

The company has boasted about how many AI features (branded as Apple Intelligence) will run on-device without leaving your Mac, iPhone, or other Apple hardware. Still, for more difficult requests, it will send them to PCC servers that are built using Apple Silicon and a new operating system.

Many AI applications from other companies also rely on servers to complete more difficult requests. Still, users don’t have much line of sight into how secure those server-based operations are. Apple, of course, has made a big deal over the years about how much it cares about user privacy, so poorly designed cloud servers for AI could poke a hole in that image. To prevent that, Apple said it designed the PCC so that the company’s security and privacy guarantees are enforceable and that security researchers can independently verify those guarantees.

For researchers, Apple is offering:

A security guide that spells out the technical details of the PCC
A “Virtual Research Environment” that lets you do a security analysis of PCC on your Mac (though you’ll need to have a Mac with Apple Silicon and 16GB more of memory and be running the latest macOS Sequoia 15.1 Developer Preview)
Source code on GitHub for “certain key components of PCC that help to implement its security and privacy requirements”

With the bug bounty, Apple is offering payouts from $50,000 to $1,000,000 for vulnerabilities discovered across a few different categories. Apple also will evaluate any security issue for a potential reward that “has a significant impact to PCC.”

The first Apple Intelligence features are set to launch for everyone with iOS 18.1, which is expected next week. Some of the bigger Apple Intelligence features, including Genmoji and ChatGPT integration, appeared in the first iOS 18.2 developer beta released yesterday.

Read More 

Image: Notion

After taking on calendar apps earlier this year, Notion is ready to tackle emails with a fully customizable app launching next year. Much like Notion’s other tools, the company says Mail will “distill email down to its building blocks,” allowing you to create an inbox with views, layouts, and actions tailored to your preferences.
You can also use Notion AI to automatically organize, archive, or draft emails based on a prompt. Its AI can schedule meetings for you through integration with Notion’s Calendar app, as well as help you quickly write personalized emails using “one-click snippets.” The Mail app bears some resemblance to Skiff, the secure email service Notion acquired in February.

GIF: Notion

Notion plans on launching its Mail app in “early 2025,” and it will integrate with Google and Gmail accounts at launch. It will also be available on iPhone and Android devices. The Notion Mail app is currently in preview, but you can join the waitlist to gain access from Notion’s website.
In addition to a new Mail app, Notion launched a new Forms tool that you can use to collect responses, much like Google Forms. Notion is also rolling out more ways to customize layouts and new automation that will let you notify people via Gmail. Notion launched an update to its marketplace as well, where people can sell and shop for Notion templates.

GIF: Notion

As my colleague David Pierce noted earlier this year, Notion wants to become the one and only productivity app that a company needs to accomplish all its tasks. Now that it’s going after emails, maybe a presentation app really is next.

Image: Notion

After taking on calendar apps earlier this year, Notion is ready to tackle emails with a fully customizable app launching next year. Much like Notion’s other tools, the company says Mail will “distill email down to its building blocks,” allowing you to create an inbox with views, layouts, and actions tailored to your preferences.

You can also use Notion AI to automatically organize, archive, or draft emails based on a prompt. Its AI can schedule meetings for you through integration with Notion’s Calendar app, as well as help you quickly write personalized emails using “one-click snippets.” The Mail app bears some resemblance to Skiff, the secure email service Notion acquired in February.

GIF: Notion

Notion plans on launching its Mail app in “early 2025,” and it will integrate with Google and Gmail accounts at launch. It will also be available on iPhone and Android devices. The Notion Mail app is currently in preview, but you can join the waitlist to gain access from Notion’s website.

In addition to a new Mail app, Notion launched a new Forms tool that you can use to collect responses, much like Google Forms. Notion is also rolling out more ways to customize layouts and new automation that will let you notify people via Gmail. Notion launched an update to its marketplace as well, where people can sell and shop for Notion templates.

GIF: Notion

As my colleague David Pierce noted earlier this year, Notion wants to become the one and only productivity app that a company needs to accomplish all its tasks. Now that it’s going after emails, maybe a presentation app really is next.

Read More 

Image: Blizzard

Blizzard is bringing back 6v6 matches in testing for Overwatch 2 when it launches its next season in December. The company had previously switched the series to a 5v5 format, and Blizzard is now trying these tests to find how it can “make the core game even stronger” through a balanced new version of the classic 6v6 mode that lets each team have multiple tank characters once again.
Game director Aaron Keller says Blizzard knows the 5v5 format appealed to and brought in a new group of players, and developers are hoping to repeat that success with the addition of 6v6 (which won’t replace current formats). For a detailed write-up of what’s changing, you can read the full director’s take.
In July, Keller noted some of the issues 6v6 faced were hero balancing, game performance, and how to make sure players can still get into games quickly if it splits the population between 5v5 and 6v6 game modes. One hero balancing change includes giving tanks less survivability and making them not as powerful.
Overwatch 2 Season 14 will have two different opportunities to try 6v6; the first will use a new “Open Queue” format where each team of six must have at least one of each role (tank, damage, support) and no more than three of any role. You’ll also be able to switch roles on the fly. The second 6v6 test will happen in the middle of the season and will let you have two of each role per team.
There will also be a 5v5 test in Season 13 in which there will be a maximum of two players in each role, and tanks will be weaker than previously.
My colleague Richard Lawler, who is an avid player, said Overwatch 2’s change that removed one tank player from each team made the game simpler, but also “made it seem like the outcome of the game depended a little too much on that one role.”

Image: Blizzard

Blizzard is bringing back 6v6 matches in testing for Overwatch 2 when it launches its next season in December. The company had previously switched the series to a 5v5 format, and Blizzard is now trying these tests to find how it can “make the core game even stronger” through a balanced new version of the classic 6v6 mode that lets each team have multiple tank characters once again.

Game director Aaron Keller says Blizzard knows the 5v5 format appealed to and brought in a new group of players, and developers are hoping to repeat that success with the addition of 6v6 (which won’t replace current formats). For a detailed write-up of what’s changing, you can read the full director’s take.

In July, Keller noted some of the issues 6v6 faced were hero balancing, game performance, and how to make sure players can still get into games quickly if it splits the population between 5v5 and 6v6 game modes. One hero balancing change includes giving tanks less survivability and making them not as powerful.

Overwatch 2 Season 14 will have two different opportunities to try 6v6; the first will use a new “Open Queue” format where each team of six must have at least one of each role (tank, damage, support) and no more than three of any role. You’ll also be able to switch roles on the fly. The second 6v6 test will happen in the middle of the season and will let you have two of each role per team.

There will also be a 5v5 test in Season 13 in which there will be a maximum of two players in each role, and tanks will be weaker than previously.

My colleague Richard Lawler, who is an avid player, said Overwatch 2’s change that removed one tank player from each team made the game simpler, but also “made it seem like the outcome of the game depended a little too much on that one role.”

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Image

A former Florida sheriff who moved to Russia amid an FBI investigation is a Kremlin-backed propagandist responsible for viral deepfake videos and misinformation targeting Kamala Harris’s campaign, according to European intelligence documents reviewed by the Washington Post.
The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service, gave funding to John Mark Dougan, the operator of several fake news websites. According to documents reviewed by the Post, Dugan was responsible for several websites that seemingly published fake local news, including DC Weekly, Chicago Chronicle, and Atlanta Observer. The documents, which mostly focus on the time between March 2021 and August of this year, show that Dougan worked with Yury Khoroshevsky, an officer within the GRU’s Unit 29155. Two European security officials told the Post that Khoroshevsky’s unit handles sabotage, political interference operations, and cyberwarfare targeting the West.
Dougan also reportedly worked with the Center for Geopolitical Expertise, a Moscow-based institute founded by far-right Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin. The center’s director, Valery Korovin, also works closely with Khoroshevsky, according to documents reviewed by the Post. Khoroshevsky started depositing payments in Dougan’s bank account in April 2022 and frequently met with him and Dougan, the documents show. Dougan received some of the payments after the websites he created had difficulty accessing Western AI generators.
Disinformation experts and the government have been sounding the alarm about Russian operatives attempting to influence the 2024 presidential election. The Biden administration has alleged that Russian influence campaigns have operated websites and social media accounts to influence the election, and that they’ve created fake social media personas to spread disinformation. In July, the Department of Justice seized two domain names and more than 900 media accounts it claims were part of an “AI-enhanced” Russian bot farm.
Dougan may also be responsible for disseminating a video involving false sexual misconduct allegations against Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, disinformation experts told the Post. The person in the video claims to be Matthew Metro, a former student of Walz’s — but the real Matthew Metro has debunked both the video and the claims.
NewsGuard, a company that tracks disinformation online, told the Post that Dougan was the initial source for the claims. Eleven days before the video was posted, Dougan appeared on a podcast with an anonymous man who claimed to be a former exchange student from Kazakhstan who was abused by Walz.
Dougan told the Post he wasn’t behind DC Weekly and other sites and said he didn’t know Korovin or Khoroshenky. He said he worked as an IT consultant for an American company.
“I will tell you hypothetically, if they were my sites,” he said, “then I am merely fighting fire with fire because the West is fucking lying about everything that’s happening,” Dougan said. “They are lying about everything.”

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Image

A former Florida sheriff who moved to Russia amid an FBI investigation is a Kremlin-backed propagandist responsible for viral deepfake videos and misinformation targeting Kamala Harris’s campaign, according to European intelligence documents reviewed by the Washington Post.

The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service, gave funding to John Mark Dougan, the operator of several fake news websites. According to documents reviewed by the Post, Dugan was responsible for several websites that seemingly published fake local news, including DC Weekly, Chicago Chronicle, and Atlanta Observer. The documents, which mostly focus on the time between March 2021 and August of this year, show that Dougan worked with Yury Khoroshevsky, an officer within the GRU’s Unit 29155. Two European security officials told the Post that Khoroshevsky’s unit handles sabotage, political interference operations, and cyberwarfare targeting the West.

Dougan also reportedly worked with the Center for Geopolitical Expertise, a Moscow-based institute founded by far-right Russian nationalist Alexander Dugin. The center’s director, Valery Korovin, also works closely with Khoroshevsky, according to documents reviewed by the Post. Khoroshevsky started depositing payments in Dougan’s bank account in April 2022 and frequently met with him and Dougan, the documents show. Dougan received some of the payments after the websites he created had difficulty accessing Western AI generators.

Disinformation experts and the government have been sounding the alarm about Russian operatives attempting to influence the 2024 presidential election. The Biden administration has alleged that Russian influence campaigns have operated websites and social media accounts to influence the election, and that they’ve created fake social media personas to spread disinformation. In July, the Department of Justice seized two domain names and more than 900 media accounts it claims were part of an “AI-enhanced” Russian bot farm.

Dougan may also be responsible for disseminating a video involving false sexual misconduct allegations against Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, disinformation experts told the Post. The person in the video claims to be Matthew Metro, a former student of Walz’s — but the real Matthew Metro has debunked both the video and the claims.

NewsGuard, a company that tracks disinformation online, told the Post that Dougan was the initial source for the claims. Eleven days before the video was posted, Dougan appeared on a podcast with an anonymous man who claimed to be a former exchange student from Kazakhstan who was abused by Walz.

Dougan told the Post he wasn’t behind DC Weekly and other sites and said he didn’t know Korovin or Khoroshenky. He said he worked as an IT consultant for an American company.

“I will tell you hypothetically, if they were my sites,” he said, “then I am merely fighting fire with fire because the West is fucking lying about everything that’s happening,” Dougan said. “They are lying about everything.”

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Image: The Verge

Miles Brundage, OpenAI’s senior adviser for the readiness of AGI (aka human-level artificial intelligence), delivered a stark warning as he announced his departure on Wednesday: no one is prepared for artificial general intelligence, including OpenAI itself.
“Neither OpenAI nor any other frontier lab is ready [for AGI], and the world is also not ready,” wrote Brundage, who spent six years helping to shape the company’s AI safety initiatives. “To be clear, I don’t think this is a controversial statement among OpenAI’s leadership, and notably, that’s a different question from whether the company and the world are on track to be ready at the relevant time.”
His exit marks the latest in a series of high-profile departures from OpenAI’s safety teams. Jan Leike, a prominent researcher, left after claiming that “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products.” Cofounder Ilya Sutskever also departed to launch his own AI startup focused on safe AGI development.

I just sent this message to my colleagues, and elaborate on my decision and next steps in a blog post (see next tweet): pic.twitter.com/NwVHQJf8hM— Miles Brundage (@Miles_Brundage) October 23, 2024

The dissolution of Brundage’s “AGI Readiness” team, coming just months after the company disbanded its “Superalignment” team dedicated to long-term AI risk mitigation, highlights mounting tensions between OpenAI’s original mission and its commercial ambitions. The company reportedly faces pressure to transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit public benefit corporation within two years — or risk returning funds from its recent $6.6 billion investment round. This shift toward commercialization has long concerned Brundage, who expressed reservations back in 2019 when OpenAI first established its for-profit division.

In explaining his departure, Brundage cited increasing constraints on his research and publication freedom at the high-profile company. He emphasized the need for independent voices in AI policy discussions, free from industry biases and conflicts of interest. Having advised OpenAI’s leadership on internal preparedness, he believes he can now make a greater impact on global AI governance from outside of the organization.
This departure may also reflect a deeper cultural divide within OpenAI. Many researchers joined to advance AI research and now find themselves in an increasingly product-driven environment. Internal resource allocation has become a flashpoint — reports indicate that Leike’s team was denied computing power for safety research before its eventual dissolution.
Despite these frictions, Brundage noted that OpenAI has offered to support his future work with funding, API credits, and early model access, with no strings attached.

Image: The Verge

Miles Brundage, OpenAI’s senior adviser for the readiness of AGI (aka human-level artificial intelligence), delivered a stark warning as he announced his departure on Wednesday: no one is prepared for artificial general intelligence, including OpenAI itself.

“Neither OpenAI nor any other frontier lab is ready [for AGI], and the world is also not ready,” wrote Brundage, who spent six years helping to shape the company’s AI safety initiatives. “To be clear, I don’t think this is a controversial statement among OpenAI’s leadership, and notably, that’s a different question from whether the company and the world are on track to be ready at the relevant time.”

His exit marks the latest in a series of high-profile departures from OpenAI’s safety teams. Jan Leike, a prominent researcher, left after claiming that “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products.” Cofounder Ilya Sutskever also departed to launch his own AI startup focused on safe AGI development.

The dissolution of Brundage’s “AGI Readiness” team, coming just months after the company disbanded its “Superalignment” team dedicated to long-term AI risk mitigation, highlights mounting tensions between OpenAI’s original mission and its commercial ambitions. The company reportedly faces pressure to transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit public benefit corporation within two years — or risk returning funds from its recent $6.6 billion investment round. This shift toward commercialization has long concerned Brundage, who expressed reservations back in 2019 when OpenAI first established its for-profit division.

In explaining his departure, Brundage cited increasing constraints on his research and publication freedom at the high-profile company. He emphasized the need for independent voices in AI policy discussions, free from industry biases and conflicts of interest. Having advised OpenAI’s leadership on internal preparedness, he believes he can now make a greater impact on global AI governance from outside of the organization.

This departure may also reflect a deeper cultural divide within OpenAI. Many researchers joined to advance AI research and now find themselves in an increasingly product-driven environment. Internal resource allocation has become a flashpoint — reports indicate that Leike’s team was denied computing power for safety research before its eventual dissolution.

Despite these frictions, Brundage noted that OpenAI has offered to support his future work with funding, API credits, and early model access, with no strings attached.

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Lilium’s Jet eVTOL. | Image: Lilium

Two years before German air taxi manufacturer Lilium promised to deliver its first two aircraft to customers, the air taxi pioneer has run out of money and will imminently stop making them. In a filing to the US SEC, Lilium says it cannot acquire the funding to continue operations in its subsidiaries (Lilium GmbH and Lilium eAircraft GmbH), and is going into insolvency. We’ve been covering the company continually since 2017, when it successfully took its first flight in Germany.
Lilium had previously confirmed it had begun assembling its first two all-electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft in Germany, while working towards certification from the EASA and FAA, but its first customer deliveries weren’t slated until 2026. The FAA had just finalized its rules for eVTOL operation requirements this week.

Saudi Arabia had ordered up to 100 Lilium Jets and another four units were being sold to UK-based Volare Aviation. Lilium also worked with an aircraft brokerage firm in Texas last year to try and make its $10 million aircraft the first-ever air taxi sold in the US.
But Lilium apparently could not secure enough funding in the long run, and says it failed to get a 50 million Euro loan guaranteed by the State of Bavaria. The company also went public in the US in 2021 via reverse merging with a SPAC.
Now, Lilium faces the reality of losing control of its air taxi subsidiaries, although it’s always possible someone can swoop in and buy them before they’re too late to save. Air taxi firm Joby just got a cool $500 million investment from Toyota and got its Part 135 air carrier certification from the FAA in 2022. Meanwhile, Archer just got the certification this year.

Lilium’s Jet eVTOL. | Image: Lilium

Two years before German air taxi manufacturer Lilium promised to deliver its first two aircraft to customers, the air taxi pioneer has run out of money and will imminently stop making them. In a filing to the US SEC, Lilium says it cannot acquire the funding to continue operations in its subsidiaries (Lilium GmbH and Lilium eAircraft GmbH), and is going into insolvency. We’ve been covering the company continually since 2017, when it successfully took its first flight in Germany.

Lilium had previously confirmed it had begun assembling its first two all-electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft in Germany, while working towards certification from the EASA and FAA, but its first customer deliveries weren’t slated until 2026. The FAA had just finalized its rules for eVTOL operation requirements this week.

Saudi Arabia had ordered up to 100 Lilium Jets and another four units were being sold to UK-based Volare Aviation. Lilium also worked with an aircraft brokerage firm in Texas last year to try and make its $10 million aircraft the first-ever air taxi sold in the US.

But Lilium apparently could not secure enough funding in the long run, and says it failed to get a 50 million Euro loan guaranteed by the State of Bavaria. The company also went public in the US in 2021 via reverse merging with a SPAC.

Now, Lilium faces the reality of losing control of its air taxi subsidiaries, although it’s always possible someone can swoop in and buy them before they’re too late to save. Air taxi firm Joby just got a cool $500 million investment from Toyota and got its Part 135 air carrier certification from the FAA in 2022. Meanwhile, Archer just got the certification this year.

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It may be time to bury the M1 MacBook Air for good. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Apple might be updating several Macs with M4 chips as early as next week, but it’s looking like the MacBook Air lineup might not join the party until early 2025. That said, if you’re on an older MacBook and can’t wait to upgrade, there have been few better times than now. The base 13-inch M2 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage has fallen to an all-time low of $699.9 ($200 off) at Amazon, while the step-up 512GB model is down to $949.99 ($249 off) thanks to an on-page coupon. You can even grab the M3 MacBook Air 13 at Amazon starting at $899 ($200 off), which is $50 shy of its all-time low.

Although the M1 Air was technically discontinued earlier this year, we still considered its $699 price a great value for routine computing. That being said, you should certainly skip that for the M2 upgrade if that’s all you can afford. The M2 Air offers a thinner design and a notched display that’s a touch brighter at 500 nits. It also features an improved 1080p webcam, a better keyboard, and a resurrected MagSafe port for charging, freeing up the second of its two USB-C / Thunderbolt ports. It’s even slated to receive a number of AI-powered features via Apple Intelligence, which will arrive later in October via a software update.
The M3 MacBook Air from earlier this year isn’t a massive upgrade over the M2. It has a slightly faster processor with Wi-Fi 6E radios, faster SSD transfers, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and AV1 video decoding. If those changes don’t benefit your experience in any meaningful way, you’ll likely get by just fine with the M2 model.

Read our MacBook Air M2 (2022) review.

Other deals, discounts, and ways to save

Google’s 128GB Pixel Tablet is on sale at Amazon in select colors starting at $274.99 ($125 off) — an all-time low. Most Android apps aren’t well-optimized for Google’s slate in the same way most Apple apps are for iPadOS; however, the Pixel Tablet still offers a sharp 11-inch display and Google’s speedy Tensor G2 processor, making it a great option for streaming, gaming, and all the usual tablet things. Just note that the current promo is for the standalone tablet, as opposed to the version with the speaker dock, which allows you to turn the tablet into an ad hoc Nest hub. Read our review.
If you’re rocking a newer iPhone, Anker’s baseball-sized MagGo Wireless Charging Station is available from Amazon and Anker (with promo code WS7DV2F7MENG) for $71.99 ($18 off), matching its best price to date. The foldable 3-in-1 charger covers Apple’s gadget trifecta — meaning it lets you simultaneously juice an Apple Watch and a pair of AirPods, in addition to supplying an iPhone with up to 15W of power via a MagSafe-ready Qi2 pad. It also supports Apple’s terrific StandBy mode when folded, allowing you to turn your phone into a desk-friendly smart display of sorts.

Amazon’s latest Fire TV Stick 4K has once again fallen to $29.99 ($20 off) at Amazon, The Home Depot, and Best Buy, with the latter retailer throwing in a month of FuboTV and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with each purchase. Amazon’s newest 4K streamer isn’t drastically different than the prior model, though it does include a faster processor, support for Wi-Fi 6, and broad HDR support for Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HDR10 Plus. We typically recommend the more capable Max model since it retails for only $10 more, but not everyone needs 16GB of storage and support for Wi-Fi 6E.

It may be time to bury the M1 MacBook Air for good. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Apple might be updating several Macs with M4 chips as early as next week, but it’s looking like the MacBook Air lineup might not join the party until early 2025. That said, if you’re on an older MacBook and can’t wait to upgrade, there have been few better times than now. The base 13-inch M2 MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage has fallen to an all-time low of $699.9 ($200 off) at Amazon, while the step-up 512GB model is down to $949.99 ($249 off) thanks to an on-page coupon. You can even grab the M3 MacBook Air 13 at Amazon starting at $899 ($200 off), which is $50 shy of its all-time low.

Although the M1 Air was technically discontinued earlier this year, we still considered its $699 price a great value for routine computing. That being said, you should certainly skip that for the M2 upgrade if that’s all you can afford. The M2 Air offers a thinner design and a notched display that’s a touch brighter at 500 nits. It also features an improved 1080p webcam, a better keyboard, and a resurrected MagSafe port for charging, freeing up the second of its two USB-C / Thunderbolt ports. It’s even slated to receive a number of AI-powered features via Apple Intelligence, which will arrive later in October via a software update.

The M3 MacBook Air from earlier this year isn’t a massive upgrade over the M2. It has a slightly faster processor with Wi-Fi 6E radios, faster SSD transfers, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and AV1 video decoding. If those changes don’t benefit your experience in any meaningful way, you’ll likely get by just fine with the M2 model.

Read our MacBook Air M2 (2022) review.

Other deals, discounts, and ways to save

Google’s 128GB Pixel Tablet is on sale at Amazon in select colors starting at $274.99 ($125 off) — an all-time low. Most Android apps aren’t well-optimized for Google’s slate in the same way most Apple apps are for iPadOS; however, the Pixel Tablet still offers a sharp 11-inch display and Google’s speedy Tensor G2 processor, making it a great option for streaming, gaming, and all the usual tablet things. Just note that the current promo is for the standalone tablet, as opposed to the version with the speaker dock, which allows you to turn the tablet into an ad hoc Nest hub. Read our review.
If you’re rocking a newer iPhone, Anker’s baseball-sized MagGo Wireless Charging Station is available from Amazon and Anker (with promo code WS7DV2F7MENG) for $71.99 ($18 off), matching its best price to date. The foldable 3-in-1 charger covers Apple’s gadget trifecta — meaning it lets you simultaneously juice an Apple Watch and a pair of AirPods, in addition to supplying an iPhone with up to 15W of power via a MagSafe-ready Qi2 pad. It also supports Apple’s terrific StandBy mode when folded, allowing you to turn your phone into a desk-friendly smart display of sorts.

Amazon’s latest Fire TV Stick 4K has once again fallen to $29.99 ($20 off) at Amazon, The Home Depot, and Best Buy, with the latter retailer throwing in a month of FuboTV and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with each purchase. Amazon’s newest 4K streamer isn’t drastically different than the prior model, though it does include a faster processor, support for Wi-Fi 6, and broad HDR support for Dolby Vision, HDR10, and HDR10 Plus. We typically recommend the more capable Max model since it retails for only $10 more, but not everyone needs 16GB of storage and support for Wi-Fi 6E.

Read More