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Photo illustration: The Verge

Our end-of-year special, featuring guest Nilay Patel. 
Read the full story at The Verge.

Photo illustration: The Verge

Our end-of-year special, featuring guest Nilay Patel. 

Read the full story at The Verge.

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

Looking back at a very busy year.
Read the full story at The Verge.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

Looking back at a very busy year.

Read the full story at The Verge.

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

To get Nosferatu’s nightmarish love triangle right, Robert Eggers looked to Wuthering Heights for inspiration. Though the Dark Universe might be dead, Robert Eggers has crafted something like its spiritual successor with a series of disturbing horror features. The Witch left you wondering how real its demons were, The Lighthouse’s tentacled sea creatures were always slithering somewhere just off-screen, and The Northman was a mythologically charged study of people’s ability to become monsters and how that transformation can rob someone of their humanity. Those films presented their otherworldly elements as reflections of characters’ superstitions and their need to make sense of the worlds around them. But Eggers wants the undead ghoul at the center of his new Nosferatu remake to leave you feeling something much more basic (though not necessarily simple) and carnal.
Eggers’ Nosferatu is brimming with visual and tonal nods to F.W. Murnau’s groundbreaking 1922 silent film. But through his new takes on the vampiric Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) and bedeviled housewife Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp), you can feel Eggers tapping into the darkly sexual energy that made Bram Stoker’s Dracula such a uniquely transgressive horror novel for the Victorian era. The new Nosferatu is arriving at a time when the idea of getting down and dirty with monsters has come much, much more into fashion — so much so that we’ve seen entire cinematic franchises built on the concept.
Viewed through that lens, it’s easy to look at Nosferatu as a story that’s trying to speak to this moment in on-screen monster-fucking. But when I recently sat down with Eggers to discuss the movie, he told me that, as much as vampire tales might feel like manifestations of societal anxieties, channeling the zeitgeist wasn’t at all his goal.

As a lifelong Dracula fan fascinated by the way death and sexual desire define vampire mythos, Eggers knew that he wanted his Nosferatu to be as erotic as it was haunting. But Eggers also wanted his Nosferatu to feel like a decidedly feminist, macabre romance, which is why he took some inspiration from Emily Brontë.
“It was always clear to me that Nosferatu is a demon lover story, and one of the great demon lover stories of all time is Wuthering Heights, which I returned to a lot while writing this script,” Eggers explained. “As a character, Heathcliff is an absolute bastard towards Cathy in the novel, and you’re always questioning whether he really loves her, or if he just wants to possess and destroy her.”
Nosferatu leaves you to ponder those same questions as it introduces Ellen, a perceptive woman whose brilliance is being stifled by the social mores of 19th-century Germany. Though Ellen desperately loves her husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult), he struggles to understand how years of being plagued by strange visions have left her convinced that the embodiment of death is stalking her. It’s easier for Thomas and Nosferatu’s other male characters like Friedrich Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to dismiss Ellen’s nightmares as delusions. But whenever Ellen goes to sleep, it is never long before a monstrous presence reaches out to her mind, urging her to let it inside.
In Depp’s tremulous Ellen, you can see traces of Mina Harker, the sole heroine in Stoker’s novel, whose cleverness winds up being instrumental in Dracula’s ultimate demise. But Eggers wanted this version of Ellen to feel like a woman who, despite “understanding things on a very deep level, doesn’t have the language to articulate her experiences.” It was also important to him that this story emphasize how men’s misogynistic preconceptions of women are a kind of monster in and of themselves.
“Ellen’s husband loves her, but he can’t understand these ‘hysteric’ and ‘melancholic’ feelings she’s experiencing, and he’s dismissive of her,” Eggers said. “The only person she really finds a connection with is this monster, and that love triangle is so compelling to me, partially because of how tragic it is.”

In the same way that Ellen knows that something is out there watching her as it stalks through the shadows, Count Orlok — a long-dead Transylvanian nobleman — can feel that there’s something very special about Ellen. Much of the new Nosferatu’s unsettling strangeness is crystallized in the pair’s unusual psychic connection. It’s alarming to see Ellen seize up and convulse in fits as her mind seemingly leaves her body. But there’s also an increasingly orgasmic quality to the sound of Ellen’s fits that immediately clues you into how, as scary as Orlok is, he also elicits something deeply pleasurable in some of his victims.
More so than many other recent vampire stories, Eggers’ Nosferatu leans into the fact that creatures like Orlok feast on the blood of the living because they themselves are very dead. Whatever magic it is that’s brought Orlok back is impressive, but you would never mistake him for a model with a beating pulse. He’s supposed to read as a reanimated corpse; a once-suave and debonaire one, but a corpse all the same.
Because Nosferatu is a very horny love story, though, Eggers felt Orlok needed to be at least somewhat sexy in order to sell his raw magnetism and “help the audience to know on some level that there’s a beautiful man beneath all that makeup.”
“In my mind, Orlok was definitely handsome when he was alive,” Eggers said. “I wanted him to have strong features, and for there to be a kind of beauty in his brows, cheekbones, and nose because those are the parts of himself that he can show a little bit of in the light to a house guest before they realize that he’s actually rotting and falling apart.”

Nosferatu starts piling the horrors on as Orlok and Ellen’s link strengthens. The air is already thick with death and fear as the film introduces Willem Dafoe’s Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz and Simon McBurney’s Herr Knock. It isn’t long before the men start to understand just how endangered all of their lives are because of their proximity to Ellen. But Eggers also wanted Nosferatu’s male characters to bring a bit of whimsy to the film, if only to help audiences deal with all the tension and appreciate how monsters can have senses of humor.
“Some of those scenes with Thomas and Orlok are definitely scary and intense, but they’re also moments where Orlok is playing with his food,” Eggers explained. “When Louise Ford and I were editing those scenes, we would be in stitches at times because of how pithy Orlok is when you really pay attention.”

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

To get Nosferatu’s nightmarish love triangle right, Robert Eggers looked to Wuthering Heights for inspiration.

Though the Dark Universe might be dead, Robert Eggers has crafted something like its spiritual successor with a series of disturbing horror features. The Witch left you wondering how real its demons were, The Lighthouse’s tentacled sea creatures were always slithering somewhere just off-screen, and The Northman was a mythologically charged study of people’s ability to become monsters and how that transformation can rob someone of their humanity. Those films presented their otherworldly elements as reflections of characters’ superstitions and their need to make sense of the worlds around them. But Eggers wants the undead ghoul at the center of his new Nosferatu remake to leave you feeling something much more basic (though not necessarily simple) and carnal.

Eggers’ Nosferatu is brimming with visual and tonal nods to F.W. Murnau’s groundbreaking 1922 silent film. But through his new takes on the vampiric Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) and bedeviled housewife Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp), you can feel Eggers tapping into the darkly sexual energy that made Bram Stoker’s Dracula such a uniquely transgressive horror novel for the Victorian era. The new Nosferatu is arriving at a time when the idea of getting down and dirty with monsters has come much, much more into fashion — so much so that we’ve seen entire cinematic franchises built on the concept.

Viewed through that lens, it’s easy to look at Nosferatu as a story that’s trying to speak to this moment in on-screen monster-fucking. But when I recently sat down with Eggers to discuss the movie, he told me that, as much as vampire tales might feel like manifestations of societal anxieties, channeling the zeitgeist wasn’t at all his goal.

As a lifelong Dracula fan fascinated by the way death and sexual desire define vampire mythos, Eggers knew that he wanted his Nosferatu to be as erotic as it was haunting. But Eggers also wanted his Nosferatu to feel like a decidedly feminist, macabre romance, which is why he took some inspiration from Emily Brontë.

“It was always clear to me that Nosferatu is a demon lover story, and one of the great demon lover stories of all time is Wuthering Heights, which I returned to a lot while writing this script,” Eggers explained. “As a character, Heathcliff is an absolute bastard towards Cathy in the novel, and you’re always questioning whether he really loves her, or if he just wants to possess and destroy her.”

Nosferatu leaves you to ponder those same questions as it introduces Ellen, a perceptive woman whose brilliance is being stifled by the social mores of 19th-century Germany. Though Ellen desperately loves her husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult), he struggles to understand how years of being plagued by strange visions have left her convinced that the embodiment of death is stalking her. It’s easier for Thomas and Nosferatu’s other male characters like Friedrich Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) to dismiss Ellen’s nightmares as delusions. But whenever Ellen goes to sleep, it is never long before a monstrous presence reaches out to her mind, urging her to let it inside.

In Depp’s tremulous Ellen, you can see traces of Mina Harker, the sole heroine in Stoker’s novel, whose cleverness winds up being instrumental in Dracula’s ultimate demise. But Eggers wanted this version of Ellen to feel like a woman who, despite “understanding things on a very deep level, doesn’t have the language to articulate her experiences.” It was also important to him that this story emphasize how men’s misogynistic preconceptions of women are a kind of monster in and of themselves.

“Ellen’s husband loves her, but he can’t understand these ‘hysteric’ and ‘melancholic’ feelings she’s experiencing, and he’s dismissive of her,” Eggers said. “The only person she really finds a connection with is this monster, and that love triangle is so compelling to me, partially because of how tragic it is.”

In the same way that Ellen knows that something is out there watching her as it stalks through the shadows, Count Orlok — a long-dead Transylvanian nobleman — can feel that there’s something very special about Ellen. Much of the new Nosferatu’s unsettling strangeness is crystallized in the pair’s unusual psychic connection. It’s alarming to see Ellen seize up and convulse in fits as her mind seemingly leaves her body. But there’s also an increasingly orgasmic quality to the sound of Ellen’s fits that immediately clues you into how, as scary as Orlok is, he also elicits something deeply pleasurable in some of his victims.

More so than many other recent vampire stories, Eggers’ Nosferatu leans into the fact that creatures like Orlok feast on the blood of the living because they themselves are very dead. Whatever magic it is that’s brought Orlok back is impressive, but you would never mistake him for a model with a beating pulse. He’s supposed to read as a reanimated corpse; a once-suave and debonaire one, but a corpse all the same.

Because Nosferatu is a very horny love story, though, Eggers felt Orlok needed to be at least somewhat sexy in order to sell his raw magnetism and “help the audience to know on some level that there’s a beautiful man beneath all that makeup.”

“In my mind, Orlok was definitely handsome when he was alive,” Eggers said. “I wanted him to have strong features, and for there to be a kind of beauty in his brows, cheekbones, and nose because those are the parts of himself that he can show a little bit of in the light to a house guest before they realize that he’s actually rotting and falling apart.”

Nosferatu starts piling the horrors on as Orlok and Ellen’s link strengthens. The air is already thick with death and fear as the film introduces Willem Dafoe’s Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz and Simon McBurney’s Herr Knock. It isn’t long before the men start to understand just how endangered all of their lives are because of their proximity to Ellen. But Eggers also wanted Nosferatu’s male characters to bring a bit of whimsy to the film, if only to help audiences deal with all the tension and appreciate how monsters can have senses of humor.

“Some of those scenes with Thomas and Orlok are definitely scary and intense, but they’re also moments where Orlok is playing with his food,” Eggers explained. “When Louise Ford and I were editing those scenes, we would be in stitches at times because of how pithy Orlok is when you really pay attention.”

Read More 

Photo By Joaquin Corchero/Europa Press via Getty Images

Netflix’s push into live sports has snagged another major event. Today the streamer announced that it has acquired US streaming rights for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in both 2027 and 2031. FIFA is calling the deal “a landmark announcement for women’s football.”
The 2027 edition of the tournament will take place in Brazil, while the following World Cup doesn’t yet have a host nation. The Netflix coverage in the US will include both English- and Spanish-language broadcasts, and the streamer says that it will be creating more coverage in addition to the live matches:
Studio shows and top-tier talent will supplement coverage with commentary and entertainment. And in the lead-up to the tournament, Netflix will produce exclusive documentary programming spotlighting the top players, their journeys, and the explosion of the sport around the globe.
The World Cup is the most ambitious addition to Netflix’s growing sports lineup, which to date has mostly included one-off events like the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight, or a pair of NFL games that will stream on Christmas day. The World Cup, meanwhile, spans a month of matches with 32 national teams competing. It will be a huge test for Netflix’s fledgling live infrastructure.
It’s all part of a growing trend of streaming services looking to live events — and sports in particular — as the next frontier. Apple has gone all-in in MLS, Amazon airs NHL games and is getting into the NBA next year, while the likes of Max, Roku, and pretty much every service have gotten into sports in some way.

Photo By Joaquin Corchero/Europa Press via Getty Images

Netflix’s push into live sports has snagged another major event. Today the streamer announced that it has acquired US streaming rights for the FIFA Women’s World Cup in both 2027 and 2031. FIFA is calling the deal “a landmark announcement for women’s football.”

The 2027 edition of the tournament will take place in Brazil, while the following World Cup doesn’t yet have a host nation. The Netflix coverage in the US will include both English- and Spanish-language broadcasts, and the streamer says that it will be creating more coverage in addition to the live matches:

Studio shows and top-tier talent will supplement coverage with commentary and entertainment. And in the lead-up to the tournament, Netflix will produce exclusive documentary programming spotlighting the top players, their journeys, and the explosion of the sport around the globe.

The World Cup is the most ambitious addition to Netflix’s growing sports lineup, which to date has mostly included one-off events like the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight, or a pair of NFL games that will stream on Christmas day. The World Cup, meanwhile, spans a month of matches with 32 national teams competing. It will be a huge test for Netflix’s fledgling live infrastructure.

It’s all part of a growing trend of streaming services looking to live events — and sports in particular — as the next frontier. Apple has gone all-in in MLS, Amazon airs NHL games and is getting into the NBA next year, while the likes of Max, Roku, and pretty much every service have gotten into sports in some way.

Read More 

Illustration: The Verge

Google is planning to add a new “AI Mode” to its search engine, according to a report from The Information. The company will reportedly display an option to switch to AI Mode from the top of the results page, allowing you to access an interface similar to its Gemini AI chatbot.
The new AI Mode tab would live on the left side of the “All,” “Images,” “Videos,” and “Shopping” tabs, The Information reports. When you receive a response in AI Mode, The Information says Google will display links to related webpages and “a search bar below the conversational answer that prompts users to ‘Ask a follow-up…’”

This tracks with Android Authority’s report from earlier this month, which spotted an AI Mode in a beta version of the Google app. 9to5Google also dug up code suggesting you can use AI Mode to ask questions using your voice. The Verge reached out to Google with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
With OpenAI rolling out search in ChatGPT for all users, Google is likely under increased pressure to consolidate search and AI. The company already displays AI search summaries for some queries and recently expanded the feature to dozens of more countries in October.

Illustration: The Verge

Google is planning to add a new “AI Mode” to its search engine, according to a report from The Information. The company will reportedly display an option to switch to AI Mode from the top of the results page, allowing you to access an interface similar to its Gemini AI chatbot.

The new AI Mode tab would live on the left side of the “All,” “Images,” “Videos,” and “Shopping” tabs, The Information reports. When you receive a response in AI Mode, The Information says Google will display links to related webpages and “a search bar below the conversational answer that prompts users to ‘Ask a follow-up…’”

This tracks with Android Authority’s report from earlier this month, which spotted an AI Mode in a beta version of the Google app. 9to5Google also dug up code suggesting you can use AI Mode to ask questions using your voice. The Verge reached out to Google with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.

With OpenAI rolling out search in ChatGPT for all users, Google is likely under increased pressure to consolidate search and AI. The company already displays AI search summaries for some queries and recently expanded the feature to dozens of more countries in October.

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

In 2024, smart locks got better; in 2025, they’re going to be truly great.
Read the full story at The Verge.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

In 2024, smart locks got better; in 2025, they’re going to be truly great.

Read the full story at The Verge.

Read More 

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge

Happy holidays! ‘Tis the season for trimming trees, hanging lights, baking cookies… and spending two weeks at home trying to figure out why you can’t get the lights to automatically come on at night, and which of those stupid bulbs is causing all the rest to not work. Truly the most wonderful time of the year.
Every year on The Vergecast, we like to get into the holiday spirit by getting deep into the weeds on one of the most important specs, protocols, or systems that we all encounter every day. This year, for our annual Holiday Spec-tacular, we’re taking on everyone’s favorite kinda-sorta functional smart home protocol: Matter.

Matter is supposed to be the thing that makes the smart home work, that allows everything from your lights to your fridge to your vacuum cleaner to seamlessly connect. In reality, it is, well, not that. But it might be on its way! We begin the show with Nilay, David, and The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy talking about the state of Matter, and where the smart home has made strides — and made mistakes — this year. We also talk about Thread. A lot. More than we expected.
After that, the trio competes in a game to see who understands the complicated, overlapping jargon of the Matter universe best. (It’s a tight race, but the right person wins in the end.) And finally, Paulus Schoutsen, the creator of Home Assistant and president of the Open Home Foundation, joins the show to talk about what it’s like to work with Matter and whether we’re ever going to get the smart home of our dreams.
This is our last episode of the year — we’ll be back with a live episode at CES, and if you’re going to be in Vegas we hope you’ll come join us! In the meantime, have a wonderful holiday, and may all your smart lights always be the right color.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started:

Matter: everything you need to know about the new smart home protocol
Matter’s plan to save the smart home
The Thread 1.4 spec is here, but it will be a while until we see any benefit
What is Thread and how will it help your smart home?
Every device that works with Matter (December 2024)
Home Assistant
Home Assistant’s next era begins now
The Home Assistant Green is here to make the most powerful smart home platform more accessible
From Home Assistant: The State of Matter

See you in 2025!

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge

Happy holidays! ‘Tis the season for trimming trees, hanging lights, baking cookies… and spending two weeks at home trying to figure out why you can’t get the lights to automatically come on at night, and which of those stupid bulbs is causing all the rest to not work. Truly the most wonderful time of the year.

Every year on The Vergecast, we like to get into the holiday spirit by getting deep into the weeds on one of the most important specs, protocols, or systems that we all encounter every day. This year, for our annual Holiday Spec-tacular, we’re taking on everyone’s favorite kinda-sorta functional smart home protocol: Matter.

Matter is supposed to be the thing that makes the smart home work, that allows everything from your lights to your fridge to your vacuum cleaner to seamlessly connect. In reality, it is, well, not that. But it might be on its way! We begin the show with Nilay, David, and The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy talking about the state of Matter, and where the smart home has made strides — and made mistakes — this year. We also talk about Thread. A lot. More than we expected.

After that, the trio competes in a game to see who understands the complicated, overlapping jargon of the Matter universe best. (It’s a tight race, but the right person wins in the end.) And finally, Paulus Schoutsen, the creator of Home Assistant and president of the Open Home Foundation, joins the show to talk about what it’s like to work with Matter and whether we’re ever going to get the smart home of our dreams.

This is our last episode of the year — we’ll be back with a live episode at CES, and if you’re going to be in Vegas we hope you’ll come join us! In the meantime, have a wonderful holiday, and may all your smart lights always be the right color.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started:

Matter: everything you need to know about the new smart home protocol
Matter’s plan to save the smart home
The Thread 1.4 spec is here, but it will be a while until we see any benefit
What is Thread and how will it help your smart home?
Every device that works with Matter (December 2024)
Home Assistant
Home Assistant’s next era begins now
The Home Assistant Green is here to make the most powerful smart home platform more accessible
From Home Assistant: The State of Matter

See you in 2025!

Read More 

Image: Getty

A bipartisan group of senators is calling out the auto industry for its “hypocritical, profit-driven” opposition to national right-to-repair legislation, while also selling customer data to insurance companies and other third-party interests.
In a letter sent to the CEOs of the top automakers, the trio of legislators — Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) — urge them to better protect customer privacy, while also dropping their opposition to state and national right-to-repair efforts.
“Right-to-repair laws support consumer choice and prevent automakers from using restrictive repair laws to their financial advantage,” the senators write. “It is clear that the motivation behind automotive companies’ avoidance of complying with right-to-repair laws is not due to a concern for consumer security or privacy, but instead a hypocritical, profit-driven reaction.”
“Right-to-repair laws support consumer choice and prevent automakers from using restrictive repair laws to their financial advantage.”
For years, the right-to-repair movement has largely focused on consumer electronics, like phones and laptops. But lately, the idea that you should get to decide how and where to repair your own products has grown to include cars, especially as more vehicles on the road have essentially become giant computers on wheels.
Along with that, automakers have taken to collecting vast amounts of data on their millions of customers, including driving habits, that they then turn around and sell to third-party data brokers. Earlier this year, The New York Times published an investigation into General Motors’ practice of providing microdetails about its customers’ driving habits, including acceleration, braking, and trip length, to insurance companies — without their consent.

Several states have passed right-to-repair laws in recent years, aiming to protect consumers from high prices and unscrupulous practices. In 2020, Massachusetts voters approved a ballot measure to give car owners and independent repair shops greater access to vehicle repair data. But automakers sued to block the law, and four years later, the law remains dormant.

2024.12.19 Letter to Automakers Re Right-To-Repair and Data Sharing (Combined) by ahawkins8223 on Scribd

The auto industry claims to support right to repair. And some facts bear this out. For decades, small, independent auto body and repair shops flourished thanks to the idea that car maintenance is universal — that anyone with a socket wrench and some grease can repair or modify their own vehicle.
But as cars have become more connected, a lot of that work now relies on data and access to the digital information needed to diagnose and repair vehicles. And right-to-repair advocates, along with independent repair shops, are worried that major automakers are trying to kill their businesses by funneling all the work to their franchised dealerships, which typically cost more than the smaller garages.
In the letter, Warren, Merkley, and Hawley demand that automakers drop their “fierce opposition” to these right-to-repair laws, calling it “hypocritical” and monopolistic.
As the gatekeepers of vehicle parts, equipment, and data, automobile manufacturers have the power to place restrictions on the necessary tools and information for repairs, particularly as cars increasingly incorporate electronic components. This often leaves car owners with no other option than to have their vehicles serviced by official dealerships, entrenching auto manufacturers’ dominance and eliminating competition from independent repair shops.
Automakers have raised cybersecurity concerns, including the specter of some bad actor remote hacking your car while driving it, as an excuse for fighting right-to-repair laws. But these concerns are “based on speculative future risks rather than facts,” the senators note. They cite a Federal Trade Commission study that found “no empirical evidence” backing up the auto industry’s claims that independent shops would be more or less likely to compromise customer data than authorized ones.
It’s more likely that auto companies want to limit access to vehicle data for profit-driven reasons, the senators say. And that despite loudly proclaiming to care about cybersecurity, few companies actually comply with basic security standards when collecting, sharing, or selling consumer data.
While carmakers have been fighting tooth and nail against right-to-repair laws that would require them to share vehicle data with consumers and independent repairers, they have simultaneously been sharing large amounts of sensitive consumer data with insurance companies and other third parties for profit — often without clear consumer consent. In fact, some car companies use the threat of increased insurance costs to push consumers to opt into safe driving features, and then use those features to collect and sell the user data.
The senators conclude by urging the auto CEOs to abandon their hypocritical opposition to right-to-repair laws, while also pressing them to answer a list of questions about their data-gathering practices.
“We’re pushing these automakers to stop ripping Americans off,” Warren said in a statement to The Verge. “Americans deserve the right to repair their cars wherever they choose, and independent repair shops deserve a chance to compete with these giants.”

Image: Getty

A bipartisan group of senators is calling out the auto industry for its “hypocritical, profit-driven” opposition to national right-to-repair legislation, while also selling customer data to insurance companies and other third-party interests.

In a letter sent to the CEOs of the top automakers, the trio of legislators — Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) — urge them to better protect customer privacy, while also dropping their opposition to state and national right-to-repair efforts.

“Right-to-repair laws support consumer choice and prevent automakers from using restrictive repair laws to their financial advantage,” the senators write. “It is clear that the motivation behind automotive companies’ avoidance of complying with right-to-repair laws is not due to a concern for consumer security or privacy, but instead a hypocritical, profit-driven reaction.”

For years, the right-to-repair movement has largely focused on consumer electronics, like phones and laptops. But lately, the idea that you should get to decide how and where to repair your own products has grown to include cars, especially as more vehicles on the road have essentially become giant computers on wheels.

Along with that, automakers have taken to collecting vast amounts of data on their millions of customers, including driving habits, that they then turn around and sell to third-party data brokers. Earlier this year, The New York Times published an investigation into General Motors’ practice of providing microdetails about its customers’ driving habits, including acceleration, braking, and trip length, to insurance companies — without their consent.

Several states have passed right-to-repair laws in recent years, aiming to protect consumers from high prices and unscrupulous practices. In 2020, Massachusetts voters approved a ballot measure to give car owners and independent repair shops greater access to vehicle repair data. But automakers sued to block the law, and four years later, the law remains dormant.

The auto industry claims to support right to repair. And some facts bear this out. For decades, small, independent auto body and repair shops flourished thanks to the idea that car maintenance is universal — that anyone with a socket wrench and some grease can repair or modify their own vehicle.

But as cars have become more connected, a lot of that work now relies on data and access to the digital information needed to diagnose and repair vehicles. And right-to-repair advocates, along with independent repair shops, are worried that major automakers are trying to kill their businesses by funneling all the work to their franchised dealerships, which typically cost more than the smaller garages.

In the letter, Warren, Merkley, and Hawley demand that automakers drop their “fierce opposition” to these right-to-repair laws, calling it “hypocritical” and monopolistic.

As the gatekeepers of vehicle parts, equipment, and data, automobile manufacturers have the power to place restrictions on the necessary tools and information for repairs, particularly as cars increasingly incorporate electronic components. This often leaves car owners with no other option than to have their vehicles serviced by official dealerships, entrenching auto manufacturers’ dominance and eliminating competition from independent repair shops.

Automakers have raised cybersecurity concerns, including the specter of some bad actor remote hacking your car while driving it, as an excuse for fighting right-to-repair laws. But these concerns are “based on speculative future risks rather than facts,” the senators note. They cite a Federal Trade Commission study that found “no empirical evidence” backing up the auto industry’s claims that independent shops would be more or less likely to compromise customer data than authorized ones.

It’s more likely that auto companies want to limit access to vehicle data for profit-driven reasons, the senators say. And that despite loudly proclaiming to care about cybersecurity, few companies actually comply with basic security standards when collecting, sharing, or selling consumer data.

While carmakers have been fighting tooth and nail against right-to-repair laws that would require them to share vehicle data with consumers and independent repairers, they have simultaneously been sharing large amounts of sensitive consumer data with insurance companies and other third parties for profit — often without clear consumer consent. In fact, some car companies use the threat of increased insurance costs to push consumers to opt into safe driving features, and then use those features to collect and sell the user data.

The senators conclude by urging the auto CEOs to abandon their hypocritical opposition to right-to-repair laws, while also pressing them to answer a list of questions about their data-gathering practices.

“We’re pushing these automakers to stop ripping Americans off,” Warren said in a statement to The Verge. “Americans deserve the right to repair their cars wherever they choose, and independent repair shops deserve a chance to compete with these giants.”

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Bluesky now has a specific tab for mentions in your notifications as part of the app’s just-released 1.96 update. With the mentions tab, it’s much easier to see your replies or conversations you’ve been tagged in on the platform.
Speaking of replies, update 1.96 lets you easily access settings that let you control how replies on posts appear to you. Replies can be linear, meaning they show up one post after another, or threaded, which means they will appear in indented threads (kind of like how they appear on Reddit). You can also sort replies by newest, oldest, most-liked, “hot,” and “random” (which Bluesky also calls “Poster’s Roulette”).

App Version 1.96 is rolling out now (1/6)

In this release: a notifications Mentions tab, reserving your default username when you verify your account with a domain, and other improvements!— Bluesky (@bsky.app) 2024-12-19T21:54:27.472Z

If you choose to set a custom domain as your username, with 1.96, Bluesky will also reserve your old .bsky.social name so that it can’t be picked up by someone else. I wish this feature had been available when I set my custom domain — when I did that, I made an alt account that’s parked on my old .bsky.social name so that it doesn’t get taken.

Bluesky saw a surge of new users in November, and although growth has slowed as of late, the platform surpassed 25 million total users last week. The company plans to launch a subscription service early next year and, at some point, its own payment platform.
And the platform has some big competition from Meta’s Threads, which seems to be doing everything it can to remind people that it can ship lots of features and that it’s much larger than Bluesky.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Bluesky now has a specific tab for mentions in your notifications as part of the app’s just-released 1.96 update. With the mentions tab, it’s much easier to see your replies or conversations you’ve been tagged in on the platform.

Speaking of replies, update 1.96 lets you easily access settings that let you control how replies on posts appear to you. Replies can be linear, meaning they show up one post after another, or threaded, which means they will appear in indented threads (kind of like how they appear on Reddit). You can also sort replies by newest, oldest, most-liked, “hot,” and “random” (which Bluesky also calls “Poster’s Roulette”).

If you choose to set a custom domain as your username, with 1.96, Bluesky will also reserve your old .bsky.social name so that it can’t be picked up by someone else. I wish this feature had been available when I set my custom domain — when I did that, I made an alt account that’s parked on my old .bsky.social name so that it doesn’t get taken.

Bluesky saw a surge of new users in November, and although growth has slowed as of late, the platform surpassed 25 million total users last week. The company plans to launch a subscription service early next year and, at some point, its own payment platform.

And the platform has some big competition from Meta’s Threads, which seems to be doing everything it can to remind people that it can ship lots of features and that it’s much larger than Bluesky.

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The Verge

A Google Street View image played in role in solving a missing person investigation in Spain, according to reports from the BBC and The New York Times. The image, which can still be seen on Street View, shows what appears to be a person loading a large object into the trunk of a car, as Gizmodo points out. Another image showed someone “transporting a large white bundle in a wheelbarrow,” the BBC reports.
Spanish National Police:

Part of the human remains of the missing person have been found buried in a cemetery in a town in the province of Soria and advanced technical means had to be used to locate them.
One of the clues that investigators had to solve the crime, although it was not decisive, was some images that they detected during the investigations in a location search application.

Screenshot: Google
This is the Google Street View image allegedly linked to the crime.

Though the press release doesn’t explicitly name the location application it used, a spokesperson for the Spanish National Police confirmed to The New York Times that it was Google Maps while also saying, “The image was not the key to solving the case.”
Authorities were investigating the case of a 33-year-old man who disappeared last year while visiting a partner in Tajueco, Soria, according to the Spanish outlet El País. Police arrested a woman and her ex-partner in connection with the crime in November.
Google Maps has been credited with helping investigators in the past, with Italian authorities using Street View to trace the location of a mafia fugitive in 2022.

The Verge

A Google Street View image played in role in solving a missing person investigation in Spain, according to reports from the BBC and The New York Times. The image, which can still be seen on Street View, shows what appears to be a person loading a large object into the trunk of a car, as Gizmodo points out. Another image showed someone “transporting a large white bundle in a wheelbarrow,” the BBC reports.

Spanish National Police:

Part of the human remains of the missing person have been found buried in a cemetery in a town in the province of Soria and advanced technical means had to be used to locate them.

One of the clues that investigators had to solve the crime, although it was not decisive, was some images that they detected during the investigations in a location search application.

Screenshot: Google
This is the Google Street View image allegedly linked to the crime.

Though the press release doesn’t explicitly name the location application it used, a spokesperson for the Spanish National Police confirmed to The New York Times that it was Google Maps while also saying, “The image was not the key to solving the case.”

Authorities were investigating the case of a 33-year-old man who disappeared last year while visiting a partner in Tajueco, Soria, according to the Spanish outlet El País. Police arrested a woman and her ex-partner in connection with the crime in November.

Google Maps has been credited with helping investigators in the past, with Italian authorities using Street View to trace the location of a mafia fugitive in 2022.

Read More