verge-rss

Image: Hello Games

The latest No Man’s Sky event will have players straddling the boundary between this world and the next. The Cursed expedition event runs for the next two weeks and features new bosses, new gear, a flying saucer, and a UFO players can make their own.
As with every new NMS event, the developers at Hello Games are changing up how the game works. The Cursed takes place in a new universe where the line between life and… unlife?? is perilously thin. The exosuit, which normally protects players from the harsh environs of space and alien planets, now comes with an “anomaly suppressor” that’ll keep them stable as reality shifts around them. Additionally, players won’t be able to warp between star systems, having to instead travel via a portal system (kinda like how guild navigators ferry everyone about in Dune — minus the all psychoactive drug use).
Speaking of celebrated figures in sci-fi, The Cursed also includes a new hub deemed the Boundary StarShip which according to the blog post takes its artistic inspiration from the works of H.R. Giger. Expect plenty of tubes, fleshy ridges, and wet stuff. The Cursed expedition starts today and lasts for the next two weeks. But if spooky stuff isn’t your jam, Hello Games is also planing something special that’s focused on the pending launch of the PS5 Pro.

Image: Hello Games

The latest No Man’s Sky event will have players straddling the boundary between this world and the next. The Cursed expedition event runs for the next two weeks and features new bosses, new gear, a flying saucer, and a UFO players can make their own.

As with every new NMS event, the developers at Hello Games are changing up how the game works. The Cursed takes place in a new universe where the line between life and… unlife?? is perilously thin. The exosuit, which normally protects players from the harsh environs of space and alien planets, now comes with an “anomaly suppressor” that’ll keep them stable as reality shifts around them. Additionally, players won’t be able to warp between star systems, having to instead travel via a portal system (kinda like how guild navigators ferry everyone about in Dune — minus the all psychoactive drug use).

Speaking of celebrated figures in sci-fi, The Cursed also includes a new hub deemed the Boundary StarShip which according to the blog post takes its artistic inspiration from the works of H.R. Giger. Expect plenty of tubes, fleshy ridges, and wet stuff. The Cursed expedition starts today and lasts for the next two weeks. But if spooky stuff isn’t your jam, Hello Games is also planing something special that’s focused on the pending launch of the PS5 Pro.

Read More 

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

A new report from The Information cites “multiple people” involved in making parts for Apple’s Vision Pro headset to say that production plans have been scaled back in recent months. This follows a Tim Cook interview published this weekend by WSJ. Magazine, where he said, “Obviously I’d like to sell more,” but acknowledged that “At $3,500, it’s not a mass-market product.”
That aligns with The Information’s previous report from this summer, saying Apple has shifted its strategy to focus on making a cheaper headset, which could ship as soon as next year.
According to the report, the company that does the final assembly of Vision Pro headsets has been warned production could wind down in November.

There are caveats, including that production could ramp up if demand increases for some reason, and that a future model could use some of the same parts but with an upgraded processor.
In April, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple had cut Vision Pro shipment estimates for 2024 to between 400,000 and 450,000 units. The Information cites an employee of the assembler, Luxshare, who said it has made between 500,000 to 600,000 headsets since production started last year, suggesting Apple may have enough parts and headsets stockpiled for now.
Tim Cook told the WSJ, “Right now, it’s an early-adopter product. People who want to have tomorrow’s technology today—that’s who it’s for,” but plenty of early adopters are probably waiting around for something a bit cheaper to land on store shelves.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

A new report from The Information cites “multiple people” involved in making parts for Apple’s Vision Pro headset to say that production plans have been scaled back in recent months. This follows a Tim Cook interview published this weekend by WSJ. Magazine, where he said, “Obviously I’d like to sell more,” but acknowledged that “At $3,500, it’s not a mass-market product.”

That aligns with The Information’s previous report from this summer, saying Apple has shifted its strategy to focus on making a cheaper headset, which could ship as soon as next year.

According to the report, the company that does the final assembly of Vision Pro headsets has been warned production could wind down in November.

There are caveats, including that production could ramp up if demand increases for some reason, and that a future model could use some of the same parts but with an upgraded processor.

In April, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple had cut Vision Pro shipment estimates for 2024 to between 400,000 and 450,000 units. The Information cites an employee of the assembler, Luxshare, who said it has made between 500,000 to 600,000 headsets since production started last year, suggesting Apple may have enough parts and headsets stockpiled for now.

Tim Cook told the WSJ, “Right now, it’s an early-adopter product. People who want to have tomorrow’s technology today—that’s who it’s for,” but plenty of early adopters are probably waiting around for something a bit cheaper to land on store shelves.

Read More 

Eero Outdoor 7 is the company’s first outdoor-rated Wi-Fi access point. | Image: Eero

Mesh Wi-Fi pioneer Eero is tackling a new frontier: the outdoors. Today, the Amazon-owned company announced the Eero Outdoor 7. Starting at $349.99, the dual-band 2.4 and 5Ghz Wi-Fi 7 access point boasts an IP66 rating and can provide up to 15,000 square feet of outdoor coverage with speeds of up to 2.1Gbps. That should be enough to stream movies to your outdoor TV or projector, get good connectivity for your security cameras, and even funnel some decent Wi-Fi to that shed at the end of the garden.
With connectivity now a necessity for so many things we do, from work to play, extending your Wi-Fi network beyond your home into your yard feels increasingly more important. Nick Weaver, CEO of Eero, told The Verge in an interview that a purpose-built device to extend an Eero mesh network outdoors is their most requested product. “The thing we’ve heard time and time again from our customers since we launched is, ‘I’ve got all these devices outside. Do you have a product for that?’”
With the Eero Outdoor 7, Eero users can now use their Wi-Fi network outdoors regardless of the weather. The device, which is backward-compatible with all Eero products, has an IP66 rating, meaning it can withstand jets of water and extreme temperatures. “Our design goals were we wanted it to be able to work in the desert in the summer and Alaska in the winter,” said Weaver, explaining it was tested “in the heat of Arizona, a commercial refrigerator, on beaches, and in a tunnel with 100 MPH winds.”
“It’s the proliferation of devices and that people are just accustomed to being able to work everywhere,” Nick Weaver
The device is rated for temperatures as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit and up to 130F and comes with a new three-year warranty. (Indoor Eero devices have a one-year warranty.) The Outdoor 7 is designed to be mounted to a wall and comes with mounting accessories for stucco, vinyl, wood, or fiber cement walls. Weaver says it can also be wrapped on a pole. “It’s really flexible,” said Weaver.
To maintain its waterproofing, there is only one port — a 2.5GbE port that supports Power over Ethernet and has a special sealing gasket. There’s also the option of a 30W Outdoor PoE Plus power adapter that lets you plug the Outdoor 7 into an outdoor AC outlet and connect wirelessly back to an Eero network. Weaver said this comes with an extra-long 18-foot cable. The Outdoor 7 comes bundled with the cable for $399.99.
While Eero’s indoor Eero Max 7 line is a tri-band router adding the 6GHz band, the outdoor model only offers 2.4 and 5GHz. Weaver said this is because there are “some pretty big limitations on outdoor usage of 6GHz. It can really impair the product experience. We felt that with up to 2 gigs a second and given the number of clients outside, this was a great balance in terms of what the technology can support and price point.”

Image: Eero
The Eero Outdoor 7 has a single port for power and ethernet. The device also features a reset button, a vapor vent to release any moisture, and a grounding screw as an extra precaution against lightning strikes.

The Outdoor 7 also offers point-to-point connectivity, so two placed in line of sight can extend a network to other buildings, like a shed or garage. This provides a faster connection, said Weaver. “Hundreds of megabits per second at almost half a mile away,” he said. “Say, if you have a gig in your house, you could easily get 200 to 400 Mbps out in a shed if it’s not too far away.” He said you could also hardwire devices from there using an Eero POE gateway or just use Eero’s mesh networking technology.

Beyond extending Wi-Fi to an outdoor TV or entertainment system or working on your laptop in the garden, an outdoor access point can help with smart home struggles like keeping your security cameras online.
Today, many more outdoor devices need Wi-Fi, from smart sprinklers and landscape lighting to connected pool pumps, gate and garage door controllers, and smart locks. Even cars need Wi-Fi now for software updates. Clearly our connectivity needs are increasing. “It’s the proliferation of devices and that people are just accustomed to being able to work everywhere and a lot of customers are also building outdoor entertainment areas,” said Weaver. The Eero Outdoor 7 also works as a smart home hub, with support for Thread, Zigbee, and Matter devices.
The Outdoor 7 is pricey at $350. A Wi-Fi 6 outdoor access point from TP-Link costs less than half that (a Wi-Fi 7 version is coming soon). Ubiquiti’s new Wi-Fi 7 option is $250. However, the combination of Wi-Fi 7, IP66, and 15,000 square feet of coverage in the Eero appears to be a first for a consumer-level device.
The Eero Outdoor 7 will be available starting on November 13th for $349.99 at eero.com, Amazon, and Best Buy, among others. If you need the outdoor power adapter, it comes in a bundle for $399.99. A Canadian version is coming soon.

Eero Outdoor 7 is the company’s first outdoor-rated Wi-Fi access point. | Image: Eero

Mesh Wi-Fi pioneer Eero is tackling a new frontier: the outdoors. Today, the Amazon-owned company announced the Eero Outdoor 7. Starting at $349.99, the dual-band 2.4 and 5Ghz Wi-Fi 7 access point boasts an IP66 rating and can provide up to 15,000 square feet of outdoor coverage with speeds of up to 2.1Gbps. That should be enough to stream movies to your outdoor TV or projector, get good connectivity for your security cameras, and even funnel some decent Wi-Fi to that shed at the end of the garden.

With connectivity now a necessity for so many things we do, from work to play, extending your Wi-Fi network beyond your home into your yard feels increasingly more important. Nick Weaver, CEO of Eero, told The Verge in an interview that a purpose-built device to extend an Eero mesh network outdoors is their most requested product. “The thing we’ve heard time and time again from our customers since we launched is, ‘I’ve got all these devices outside. Do you have a product for that?’”

With the Eero Outdoor 7, Eero users can now use their Wi-Fi network outdoors regardless of the weather. The device, which is backward-compatible with all Eero products, has an IP66 rating, meaning it can withstand jets of water and extreme temperatures. “Our design goals were we wanted it to be able to work in the desert in the summer and Alaska in the winter,” said Weaver, explaining it was tested “in the heat of Arizona, a commercial refrigerator, on beaches, and in a tunnel with 100 MPH winds.”

The device is rated for temperatures as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit and up to 130F and comes with a new three-year warranty. (Indoor Eero devices have a one-year warranty.) The Outdoor 7 is designed to be mounted to a wall and comes with mounting accessories for stucco, vinyl, wood, or fiber cement walls. Weaver says it can also be wrapped on a pole. “It’s really flexible,” said Weaver.

To maintain its waterproofing, there is only one port — a 2.5GbE port that supports Power over Ethernet and has a special sealing gasket. There’s also the option of a 30W Outdoor PoE Plus power adapter that lets you plug the Outdoor 7 into an outdoor AC outlet and connect wirelessly back to an Eero network. Weaver said this comes with an extra-long 18-foot cable. The Outdoor 7 comes bundled with the cable for $399.99.

While Eero’s indoor Eero Max 7 line is a tri-band router adding the 6GHz band, the outdoor model only offers 2.4 and 5GHz. Weaver said this is because there are “some pretty big limitations on outdoor usage of 6GHz. It can really impair the product experience. We felt that with up to 2 gigs a second and given the number of clients outside, this was a great balance in terms of what the technology can support and price point.”

Image: Eero
The Eero Outdoor 7 has a single port for power and ethernet. The device also features a reset button, a vapor vent to release any moisture, and a grounding screw as an extra precaution against lightning strikes.

The Outdoor 7 also offers point-to-point connectivity, so two placed in line of sight can extend a network to other buildings, like a shed or garage. This provides a faster connection, said Weaver. “Hundreds of megabits per second at almost half a mile away,” he said. “Say, if you have a gig in your house, you could easily get 200 to 400 Mbps out in a shed if it’s not too far away.” He said you could also hardwire devices from there using an Eero POE gateway or just use Eero’s mesh networking technology.

Beyond extending Wi-Fi to an outdoor TV or entertainment system or working on your laptop in the garden, an outdoor access point can help with smart home struggles like keeping your security cameras online.

Today, many more outdoor devices need Wi-Fi, from smart sprinklers and landscape lighting to connected pool pumps, gate and garage door controllers, and smart locks. Even cars need Wi-Fi now for software updates. Clearly our connectivity needs are increasing. “It’s the proliferation of devices and that people are just accustomed to being able to work everywhere and a lot of customers are also building outdoor entertainment areas,” said Weaver. The Eero Outdoor 7 also works as a smart home hub, with support for Thread, Zigbee, and Matter devices.

The Outdoor 7 is pricey at $350. A Wi-Fi 6 outdoor access point from TP-Link costs less than half that (a Wi-Fi 7 version is coming soon). Ubiquiti’s new Wi-Fi 7 option is $250. However, the combination of Wi-Fi 7, IP66, and 15,000 square feet of coverage in the Eero appears to be a first for a consumer-level device.

The Eero Outdoor 7 will be available starting on November 13th for $349.99 at eero.com, Amazon, and Best Buy, among others. If you need the outdoor power adapter, it comes in a bundle for $399.99. A Canadian version is coming soon.

Read More 

For an extra $700 you buy a matching wooden tripod for Marantz’s new wireless speakers. | Image: Marantz

Marantz, a 70-year-old brand best known for high-end audio gear like amplifiers and receivers, announced its first speakers this week. The Marantz Horizon and Grand Horizon both pair an array of drivers with a central subwoofer and feature robust wireless connectivity with direct access to streaming services.
Both speakers will be available starting on January 14th, 2025, in three different colorways: midnight sky, moon ray, and champagne. The Marantz Horizon will sell for $3,500, while the larger Grand Horizon will be $5,500. Marantz will also sell a matching tripod made from American walnut wood for $700.

Image: Marantz
The larger Marantz Grand Horizon offers a little extra power and includes two more drivers than the smaller Horizon speaker.

Marantz’s products have traditionally been designed as components that are part of a larger hi-fi audio system, but its first speakers are all-in-one solutions that don’t need to be paired with amplifiers or other hardware. They each feature a spherical design wrapped in fabric made from recycled ocean plastics that pushes sound in all directions to completely fill a room. On the front of each speaker is a ring of 100 LEDs that illuminate as you approach that can also be used to adjust the volume when touched.
The two speakers are differentiated by their size and the number of drivers they include. The smaller Marantz Horizon features six in total including a 6.5-inch subwoofer, a pair of one-inch silk-dome tweeters, and a trio of two-inch full-range drivers powered by a 310W amp. The larger Marantz Grand Horizon pushes that to eight with an eight-inch sub, three one-inch silk-dome tweeters, and four three-inch full-range drivers powered by a 370W amplifier.

Wireless connectivity includes Bluetooth 5.4, Wi-Fi, and support for AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect. Both speakers run on Denon’s Heos platform (both Marantz and Denon are now owned by Masimo, the company behind the Apple Watch bans and patent dispute) which supports streaming services like Tidal, Spotify, Pandora, Deezer, and Amazon Music, including high res audio options. Heos also allows the speakers to be used as part of a multiroom sound system, or two to be paired for stereo sound when used in the same space.
Both the Horizon and Grand Horizon offer wired connectivity, too, including RCA, an optical TOSLINK port, HDMI eARC for those wanting to use them as TV speakers, and a USB-C port that can play MP3, AAC, and even FLAC files from an external drive.

For an extra $700 you buy a matching wooden tripod for Marantz’s new wireless speakers. | Image: Marantz

Marantz, a 70-year-old brand best known for high-end audio gear like amplifiers and receivers, announced its first speakers this week. The Marantz Horizon and Grand Horizon both pair an array of drivers with a central subwoofer and feature robust wireless connectivity with direct access to streaming services.

Both speakers will be available starting on January 14th, 2025, in three different colorways: midnight sky, moon ray, and champagne. The Marantz Horizon will sell for $3,500, while the larger Grand Horizon will be $5,500. Marantz will also sell a matching tripod made from American walnut wood for $700.

Image: Marantz
The larger Marantz Grand Horizon offers a little extra power and includes two more drivers than the smaller Horizon speaker.

Marantz’s products have traditionally been designed as components that are part of a larger hi-fi audio system, but its first speakers are all-in-one solutions that don’t need to be paired with amplifiers or other hardware. They each feature a spherical design wrapped in fabric made from recycled ocean plastics that pushes sound in all directions to completely fill a room. On the front of each speaker is a ring of 100 LEDs that illuminate as you approach that can also be used to adjust the volume when touched.

The two speakers are differentiated by their size and the number of drivers they include. The smaller Marantz Horizon features six in total including a 6.5-inch subwoofer, a pair of one-inch silk-dome tweeters, and a trio of two-inch full-range drivers powered by a 310W amp. The larger Marantz Grand Horizon pushes that to eight with an eight-inch sub, three one-inch silk-dome tweeters, and four three-inch full-range drivers powered by a 370W amplifier.

Wireless connectivity includes Bluetooth 5.4, Wi-Fi, and support for AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect. Both speakers run on Denon’s Heos platform (both Marantz and Denon are now owned by Masimo, the company behind the Apple Watch bans and patent dispute) which supports streaming services like Tidal, Spotify, Pandora, Deezer, and Amazon Music, including high res audio options. Heos also allows the speakers to be used as part of a multiroom sound system, or two to be paired for stereo sound when used in the same space.

Both the Horizon and Grand Horizon offer wired connectivity, too, including RCA, an optical TOSLINK port, HDMI eARC for those wanting to use them as TV speakers, and a USB-C port that can play MP3, AAC, and even FLAC files from an external drive.

Read More 

Image: Apple

Like a lot of tech companies, Lumon Industries is instituting a return-to-office policy for employees, but of course, this version looks a little scarier than real life. At least, that’s how it seems based on the first proper trailer for season 2 of Severance.
Following last season’s incredibly tense finale, the show picks up with Mark S (Adam Scott) heading back to Lumon to find things a little different than he remembers them, including a number of his coworkers. But some things haven’t changed — namely, the disorienting office hallways and the unyielding intensity of Milchick (Tramell Tillman), who looks intimidating even while holding party balloons.

For the uninitiated, Severance is a sci-fi story about a medical procedure — the titular severance — that allows Lumon employees to separate their memories between work and home, essentially creating two people in one body. It’s an extreme solution to the problem of work-life balance. The outies, as they’re known, remain oblivious to what goes on in the office, while the innies remain trapped in a hellish existence they can never escape. Well, except for the occasional Music Dance Experience.
The show is led by director Ben Stiller and creator / writer Dan Erickson. The first season (which is out on Blu-ray soon) featured a killer cast, many of whom will be returning. In addition to Scott and Tillman, the cast includes Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, Jen Tullock, Michael Chernus, Dichen Lachman, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, and Patricia Arquette.
The 10-episode-long second season of Severance starts streaming on Apple TV Plus on January 17th. In the meantime, the streamer has another sci-fi show returning very soon, with season 2 of Silo kicking off on November 15th.

Image: Apple

Like a lot of tech companies, Lumon Industries is instituting a return-to-office policy for employees, but of course, this version looks a little scarier than real life. At least, that’s how it seems based on the first proper trailer for season 2 of Severance.

Following last season’s incredibly tense finale, the show picks up with Mark S (Adam Scott) heading back to Lumon to find things a little different than he remembers them, including a number of his coworkers. But some things haven’t changed — namely, the disorienting office hallways and the unyielding intensity of Milchick (Tramell Tillman), who looks intimidating even while holding party balloons.

For the uninitiated, Severance is a sci-fi story about a medical procedure — the titular severance — that allows Lumon employees to separate their memories between work and home, essentially creating two people in one body. It’s an extreme solution to the problem of work-life balance. The outies, as they’re known, remain oblivious to what goes on in the office, while the innies remain trapped in a hellish existence they can never escape. Well, except for the occasional Music Dance Experience.

The show is led by director Ben Stiller and creator / writer Dan Erickson. The first season (which is out on Blu-ray soon) featured a killer cast, many of whom will be returning. In addition to Scott and Tillman, the cast includes Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, Jen Tullock, Michael Chernus, Dichen Lachman, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, and Patricia Arquette.

The 10-episode-long second season of Severance starts streaming on Apple TV Plus on January 17th. In the meantime, the streamer has another sci-fi show returning very soon, with season 2 of Silo kicking off on November 15th.

Read More 

Image: Adobe

Adobe is attempting to lure illustrators to join its creative software platform by making its dedicated drawing and painting app entirely free for everyone. Fresco is essentially Adobe’s answer to apps like Procreate and Clip Studio Paint, which all provide a variety of tools for both digital art and simulating real-world materials like sketching pencils and watercolor paints.
Adobe Fresco is designed for touch and stylus-supported devices, and is available on iPad, iPhone, and Windows PCs. The app already had a free-to-use tier, but premium features like access to the full Adobe Fonts library, a much wider brush selection, and the ability to import custom brushes previously required a $9.99 annual subscription. That’s pretty affordable for an Adobe subscription, but still couldn’t compete with Procreate’s $12.99 one-time purchase model.

Image: Adobe
While there was already a free version of Adobe Fresco, it previously restricted users to a smaller subset of features.

Starting today, all of Fresco’s premium features are no longer locked behind a paywall. The app first launched in 2019 and isn’t particularly well-known compared to more established Adobe apps like Photoshop and Illustrator that feature more complex, professional design tools. Fresco still has some interesting features of its own, like reflective and rotation symmetry (which mirror artwork as you draw) and the ability to quickly animate drawings with motion presets like “bounce” and “breathe.”
Competing apps like Procreate, Clip Studio Paint, and Krita are already popular in the digital art community: they’re affordable, easy to use, and supported on iPads, which can be much cheaper compared to buying both a computer and professional drawing tablets. Chances are that most of the fan art, web comics, and general illustrations from hobbyists and indie designers you see online were made using these tools instead of Adobe’s apps, let alone Fresco.
Procreate especially has a notably devoted user base because of both its pricing and vocal pledge against introducing any generative AI tools, which appeals to artists who are concerned about how the technology is trained and may impact job opportunities.
Fresco hasn’t integrated any of Adobe’s generative AI features and has some advantages over Procreate, such as a desktop app and cloud storage support (while Procreate files are saved on-device). Making it completely free could be enough to tempt new users to the platform, despite the wider image problem Adobe has with parts of the creative community.

Image: Adobe

Adobe is attempting to lure illustrators to join its creative software platform by making its dedicated drawing and painting app entirely free for everyone. Fresco is essentially Adobe’s answer to apps like Procreate and Clip Studio Paint, which all provide a variety of tools for both digital art and simulating real-world materials like sketching pencils and watercolor paints.

Adobe Fresco is designed for touch and stylus-supported devices, and is available on iPad, iPhone, and Windows PCs. The app already had a free-to-use tier, but premium features like access to the full Adobe Fonts library, a much wider brush selection, and the ability to import custom brushes previously required a $9.99 annual subscription. That’s pretty affordable for an Adobe subscription, but still couldn’t compete with Procreate’s $12.99 one-time purchase model.

Image: Adobe
While there was already a free version of Adobe Fresco, it previously restricted users to a smaller subset of features.

Starting today, all of Fresco’s premium features are no longer locked behind a paywall. The app first launched in 2019 and isn’t particularly well-known compared to more established Adobe apps like Photoshop and Illustrator that feature more complex, professional design tools. Fresco still has some interesting features of its own, like reflective and rotation symmetry (which mirror artwork as you draw) and the ability to quickly animate drawings with motion presets like “bounce” and “breathe.”

Competing apps like Procreate, Clip Studio Paint, and Krita are already popular in the digital art community: they’re affordable, easy to use, and supported on iPads, which can be much cheaper compared to buying both a computer and professional drawing tablets. Chances are that most of the fan art, web comics, and general illustrations from hobbyists and indie designers you see online were made using these tools instead of Adobe’s apps, let alone Fresco.

Procreate especially has a notably devoted user base because of both its pricing and vocal pledge against introducing any generative AI tools, which appeals to artists who are concerned about how the technology is trained and may impact job opportunities.

Fresco hasn’t integrated any of Adobe’s generative AI features and has some advantages over Procreate, such as a desktop app and cloud storage support (while Procreate files are saved on-device). Making it completely free could be enough to tempt new users to the platform, despite the wider image problem Adobe has with parts of the creative community.

Read More 

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Anyone who has followed a social network knows that sometimes the most innocuous post can attract unpleasant responses, especially on apps like Instagram, where your content — whether video, image, or text — can be out there for anyone to see. There are any number of reasons you might want to set your account to private, even if only temporarily. It would make it so that only people you approve can follow you and see the stuff you post on your grid or in your Stories.
This isn’t a perfect solution. For example, although only your followers can see your posts while your account is private, some aspects of your account, such as your profile, will remain public.
Anyway, let’s begin.

Screenshot: Meta
It’s not hard to find and toggle on Instagram’s Private Account feature.

To toggle your Instagram Private Account on:

Using the iOS or Android mobile app, tap on your profile icon in the lower-right corner and select the three-line hamburger icon in the top right. Using the web app, look for the hamburger icon at the bottom left.
On Android, scroll down and select Account privacy. On iOS, select Settings > Account privacy. On the web app, you’ll find Account privacy in the Settings column on the left.
Toggle Private Account on.

If you want to pare down your followers, you can do that as well.

Screenshot: Meta
You can remove any followers you want to drop.

Go to your profile by selecting your personal icon.
Select the word “followers” to the right of your profile picture.
Tap or click the Remove button next to any followers you want to drop. You’ll be asked to confirm the removal and told that those followers will not be informed of their removal.

In your settings, you can also click the link to the Accounts Center if you want to deal with issues with other Meta apps as well, such as Facebook and Threads, or add other security features such as two-factor authentication.

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Anyone who has followed a social network knows that sometimes the most innocuous post can attract unpleasant responses, especially on apps like Instagram, where your content — whether video, image, or text — can be out there for anyone to see. There are any number of reasons you might want to set your account to private, even if only temporarily. It would make it so that only people you approve can follow you and see the stuff you post on your grid or in your Stories.

This isn’t a perfect solution. For example, although only your followers can see your posts while your account is private, some aspects of your account, such as your profile, will remain public.

Anyway, let’s begin.

Screenshot: Meta
It’s not hard to find and toggle on Instagram’s Private Account feature.

To toggle your Instagram Private Account on:

Using the iOS or Android mobile app, tap on your profile icon in the lower-right corner and select the three-line hamburger icon in the top right. Using the web app, look for the hamburger icon at the bottom left.
On Android, scroll down and select Account privacy. On iOS, select Settings > Account privacy. On the web app, you’ll find Account privacy in the Settings column on the left.
Toggle Private Account on.

If you want to pare down your followers, you can do that as well.

Screenshot: Meta
You can remove any followers you want to drop.

Go to your profile by selecting your personal icon.
Select the word “followers” to the right of your profile picture.
Tap or click the Remove button next to any followers you want to drop. You’ll be asked to confirm the removal and told that those followers will not be informed of their removal.

In your settings, you can also click the link to the Accounts Center if you want to deal with issues with other Meta apps as well, such as Facebook and Threads, or add other security features such as two-factor authentication.

Read More 

Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge

The upcoming release of Apple Intelligence has spurred the iPhone maker’s own “what is a photo?” moment. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Apple software chief Craig Federighi said the company is aiming to provide AI-powered image editing tools that preserve photo authenticity.
“Our products, our phones, are used a lot,” said Federighi. “It’s important to us that we help purvey accurate information, not fantasy.”
iOS 18.1 brings a new “Clean Up” feature to the Photos app that can quickly remove objects and people from images — a capability that Federighi and WSJ reporter Joanna Stern noted is far tamer than editing tools offered by rivals like Google and Samsung, which can add entire AI-generated assets to images. Despite Clean Up’s limited capabilities, Federighi said there had been “a lot of debates internally” about adding it.

“Do we want to make it easy to remove that water bottle, or that mic? Because that water bottle was there when you took the photo,” Federighi said following a demonstration of Clean Up being used to remove items from the background of an image. “The demand for people to want to clean up what seem like extraneous details to the photo that don’t fundamentally change the meaning of what happened has been very very high, so we’ve been willing to take that small step.”

Federighi said that Apple is “concerned” about AI’s impact on how “people view photographic content as something they can rely on as indicative of reality.” It’s a subject we’ve spoken about frequently here at The Verge. Editing tools like Google’s Reimagine feature make it incredibly easy for a large number of users to add lions, bombs, and even drug paraphernalia to pictures using nothing but a text description, which could further erode the trust that people place in photography. Generative AI editing apps, when used nefariously, are making it easier to mislead or deceive others with increasingly convincing fakes.
Apple Intelligence (at least for now) doesn’t allow users to add AI-generated manipulations to images like competing services do. Any images that have been edited using the new object removal feature will also be tagged as “Modified with Clean Up” in the Photos app and embedded with metadata to flag that they have been altered.
Apple isn’t alone in taking such precautions — the Adobe-driven Content Authenticity Initiative has a similar “Content Credentials” metadata system, for example, that aims to help people distinguish between unaltered images and AI fakery. That requires tech, camera, and media companies to voluntarily back it, but support is steadily increasing. It’s unclear if Apple’s own metadata system will support Content Credentials.

Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge

The upcoming release of Apple Intelligence has spurred the iPhone maker’s own “what is a photo?” moment. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Apple software chief Craig Federighi said the company is aiming to provide AI-powered image editing tools that preserve photo authenticity.

“Our products, our phones, are used a lot,” said Federighi. “It’s important to us that we help purvey accurate information, not fantasy.”

iOS 18.1 brings a new “Clean Up” feature to the Photos app that can quickly remove objects and people from images — a capability that Federighi and WSJ reporter Joanna Stern noted is far tamer than editing tools offered by rivals like Google and Samsung, which can add entire AI-generated assets to images. Despite Clean Up’s limited capabilities, Federighi said there had been “a lot of debates internally” about adding it.

“Do we want to make it easy to remove that water bottle, or that mic? Because that water bottle was there when you took the photo,” Federighi said following a demonstration of Clean Up being used to remove items from the background of an image. “The demand for people to want to clean up what seem like extraneous details to the photo that don’t fundamentally change the meaning of what happened has been very very high, so we’ve been willing to take that small step.”

Federighi said that Apple is “concerned” about AI’s impact on how “people view photographic content as something they can rely on as indicative of reality.” It’s a subject we’ve spoken about frequently here at The Verge. Editing tools like Google’s Reimagine feature make it incredibly easy for a large number of users to add lions, bombs, and even drug paraphernalia to pictures using nothing but a text description, which could further erode the trust that people place in photography. Generative AI editing apps, when used nefariously, are making it easier to mislead or deceive others with increasingly convincing fakes.

Apple Intelligence (at least for now) doesn’t allow users to add AI-generated manipulations to images like competing services do. Any images that have been edited using the new object removal feature will also be tagged as “Modified with Clean Up” in the Photos app and embedded with metadata to flag that they have been altered.

Apple isn’t alone in taking such precautions — the Adobe-driven Content Authenticity Initiative has a similar “Content Credentials” metadata system, for example, that aims to help people distinguish between unaltered images and AI fakery. That requires tech, camera, and media companies to voluntarily back it, but support is steadily increasing. It’s unclear if Apple’s own metadata system will support Content Credentials.

Read More 

The Boox Palma 2 features a faster processor and a fingerprint reader. | Image: Boox

Boox has announced the Palma 2, the next version of its popular smartphone-sized e-reader. The Palma 2 addresses some of the original’s shortcomings, with a faster processor to address the original’s laggy interface and by running a newer version of Android.
The new Boox Palma 2 is available for preorder today in ivory white or deep cyan black for $279.99, which is exactly the same price as the original. That’s still more expensive than premium e-readers, including the recently announced $199.99 Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, which features a much larger screen and a more polished interface than the original Palma.

Image: Boox
The original Palma ran on Android 11, but the new Palma 2 will debut with Android 13.

But it was the Palma’s compact size and access to thousands of apps that helped it become a popular Kindle and Kobo alternative, and Boox isn’t messing with that formula for the Palma 2. It features the same 6.13-inch 300ppi E Ink Carta 1200 screen as the original (a generation behind what’s found in the latest Kindle Paperwhite) and once again comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.
Although Boox hasn’t shared specific details, it says the new Palma 2 now runs a “faster octa-core CPU,” which will hopefully help speed up the new e-reader’s interface. It also runs Android 13 instead of Android 11. That’s still a few generations behind the latest version of Android, but it means the Palma 2 will get newer features like improved copying and pasting. It should also give the e-reader a few more years over the original before apps stop supporting its version of the OS.
The other notable upgrade for the Palma 2 is the addition of a fingerprint sensor integrated into its power button, making it easier to secure the device while still being able to quickly unlock it with just one hand.

Image: Boox
The Palma 2 still features a rear-facing camera that can be used for digitizing documents.

Although leaked images from earlier this week suggested Boox could be eliminating cameras from its smartphone-sized e-readers, that was only the case for a version of the Palma limited to China. The Palma 2 has the same 16MP rear camera with flash as the original, which the company suggests is useful for digitizing documents.

Image: Boox
The Boox Note Air4 C features a color E Ink screen and a faster processor than its predecessor.

Alongside the Palma 2, Boox also announced two new e-paper note-taking devices. The 10.3-inch Note Air4 C features the latest-gen Kaleido 3 color E Ink display with improved refresh rates and an octa-core processor that Boox says makes the tablet 50 percent faster than the previous model. The $499.99 Note Air4 C also runs Android 13 and has a new “tablet-like UI” that the company says makes it easier to customize its homescreen and organize apps.
The new Boox Note Max is a black-and-white, stylus-capable tablet featuring a larger 13.3-inch E Ink Carta 1300 display powered by a 2.8GHz octa-core CPU. At just 4.6 millimeters thick, the Note Max is almost half as thick as the Boox Palma 2. But unlike Boox’s other two devices introduced today, it won’t be available for preorder from the company’s online store for a few more weeks.

The Boox Palma 2 features a faster processor and a fingerprint reader. | Image: Boox

Boox has announced the Palma 2, the next version of its popular smartphone-sized e-reader. The Palma 2 addresses some of the original’s shortcomings, with a faster processor to address the original’s laggy interface and by running a newer version of Android.

The new Boox Palma 2 is available for preorder today in ivory white or deep cyan black for $279.99, which is exactly the same price as the original. That’s still more expensive than premium e-readers, including the recently announced $199.99 Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition, which features a much larger screen and a more polished interface than the original Palma.

Image: Boox
The original Palma ran on Android 11, but the new Palma 2 will debut with Android 13.

But it was the Palma’s compact size and access to thousands of apps that helped it become a popular Kindle and Kobo alternative, and Boox isn’t messing with that formula for the Palma 2. It features the same 6.13-inch 300ppi E Ink Carta 1200 screen as the original (a generation behind what’s found in the latest Kindle Paperwhite) and once again comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

Although Boox hasn’t shared specific details, it says the new Palma 2 now runs a “faster octa-core CPU,” which will hopefully help speed up the new e-reader’s interface. It also runs Android 13 instead of Android 11. That’s still a few generations behind the latest version of Android, but it means the Palma 2 will get newer features like improved copying and pasting. It should also give the e-reader a few more years over the original before apps stop supporting its version of the OS.

The other notable upgrade for the Palma 2 is the addition of a fingerprint sensor integrated into its power button, making it easier to secure the device while still being able to quickly unlock it with just one hand.

Image: Boox
The Palma 2 still features a rear-facing camera that can be used for digitizing documents.

Although leaked images from earlier this week suggested Boox could be eliminating cameras from its smartphone-sized e-readers, that was only the case for a version of the Palma limited to China. The Palma 2 has the same 16MP rear camera with flash as the original, which the company suggests is useful for digitizing documents.

Image: Boox
The Boox Note Air4 C features a color E Ink screen and a faster processor than its predecessor.

Alongside the Palma 2, Boox also announced two new e-paper note-taking devices. The 10.3-inch Note Air4 C features the latest-gen Kaleido 3 color E Ink display with improved refresh rates and an octa-core processor that Boox says makes the tablet 50 percent faster than the previous model. The $499.99 Note Air4 C also runs Android 13 and has a new “tablet-like UI” that the company says makes it easier to customize its homescreen and organize apps.

The new Boox Note Max is a black-and-white, stylus-capable tablet featuring a larger 13.3-inch E Ink Carta 1300 display powered by a 2.8GHz octa-core CPU. At just 4.6 millimeters thick, the Note Max is almost half as thick as the Boox Palma 2. But unlike Boox’s other two devices introduced today, it won’t be available for preorder from the company’s online store for a few more weeks.

Read More 

Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge

Thousands of creatives, including famous actors like Kevin Bacon and Kate McKinnon, along with other actors, authors, and musicians, have signed a statement warning that the unpermitted use of copyrighted materials to train AI models threatens the people who made those creative works. 11,500 names are on the list of signatories so far.
Here is the one-sentence statement:
“The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted.”
The statement was published by Fairly Trained, a group advocating for fair training data use by AI companies. Fairly Trained CEO Ed Newton-Rex told The Guardian that generative AI companies need “people, compute, and data” to build their models, and while they spend “vast sums” on the former two, they “expect to take the third – training data – for free.” Newton-Rex founded Fairly Trained after he quit Stability AI, accusing generative AI of “exploiting creators.”
Several professionals and organizations like News Corp and the Recording Industry Association of America have sued AI companies for using copyrighted work while training AI models.

The RIAA is among the organizations that have signed Fairly Trained’s statement and has even posted about it. As has the News/Media Alliance.
There are also some notable names not appearing among the signatories. Scarlett Johansson, who had a high-profile spat with OpenAI after accusations it modeled GPT-4o’s voice after her, isn’t on the list. Neither are actors like Dame Judi Dench and John Cena, who signed up to have Meta AI’s voice chat system replicate them.

Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge

Thousands of creatives, including famous actors like Kevin Bacon and Kate McKinnon, along with other actors, authors, and musicians, have signed a statement warning that the unpermitted use of copyrighted materials to train AI models threatens the people who made those creative works. 11,500 names are on the list of signatories so far.

Here is the one-sentence statement:

“The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted.”

The statement was published by Fairly Trained, a group advocating for fair training data use by AI companies. Fairly Trained CEO Ed Newton-Rex told The Guardian that generative AI companies need “people, compute, and data” to build their models, and while they spend “vast sums” on the former two, they “expect to take the third – training data – for free.” Newton-Rex founded Fairly Trained after he quit Stability AI, accusing generative AI of “exploiting creators.”

Several professionals and organizations like News Corp and the Recording Industry Association of America have sued AI companies for using copyrighted work while training AI models.

The RIAA is among the organizations that have signed Fairly Trained’s statement and has even posted about it. As has the News/Media Alliance.

There are also some notable names not appearing among the signatories. Scarlett Johansson, who had a high-profile spat with OpenAI after accusations it modeled GPT-4o’s voice after her, isn’t on the list. Neither are actors like Dame Judi Dench and John Cena, who signed up to have Meta AI’s voice chat system replicate them.

Read More