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The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has advanced two high-profile child safety bills that could remake large parts of the internet: the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). The proposed laws passed on a voice vote despite discontent over last-minute changes to KOSA, in particular, that were aimed at quelling persistent criticism.
KOSA and COPPA 2.0 would give government agencies more regulatory power over tech companies with users under 18 years of age. The former imposes a “duty of care” on major social media companies, making them potentially liable for harm to underage users. The latter raises the age of enforcement for the 1998 COPPA law and adds new rules around topics like targeted advertising. Versions of both bills were passed by the Senate in July. Now that they’ve passed a House committee, they can proceed to a vote on the floor, after which they may need to be reconciled with their Senate counterparts before passing to President Joe Biden’s desk — where Biden has indicated he’ll sign them.
Earlier this year, it wasn’t clear KOSA would get a vote in the House. While it passed in the Senate by an overwhelming majority, a Punchbowl News report suggested House Republicans had concerns about the bill. The House’s version of KOSA diverges sharply from its Senate counterpart, however, and numerous lawmakers expressed a desire for changes before a full House vote. Both KOSA and COPPA 2.0 saw last-minute changes that were voted on in committee, leading some lawmakers to protest or withdraw support.
The House’s KOSA amendment modified a list of harms that large social media companies are supposed to prevent. It removed a duty of care for mitigating “anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and suicidal behaviors” and added one for clamping down on the “promotion of inherently dangerous acts that are likely to cause serious bodily harm, serious emotional disturbance, or death.”
The change garnered significant criticism. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who said he would vote for the bill “reluctantly,” complained that the amendment could lead to regulatory agencies censoring potentially “disturbing” content. “Doesn’t all political speech induce some kind of emotional distress for those who disagree with it?” he contended. (Crenshaw supports a flat ban on social media access for younger teens.) Conversely, a number of lawmakers were concerned that removing conditions like depression would make the bill useless for addressing the alleged mental health harms of social media for kids.
KOSA cosponsor Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL), who backed the amendment, said it offered a “weakened” version of the bill with the aim of passing it to a full House vote. But neither version seems likely to satisfy critics who argue the bill could let regulators pressure companies into banning kids’ access to content a particular administration doesn’t like. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and others have raised concerns it could let a Republican president suppress abortion- and LGBTQ+-related content, while some Republican lawmakers are concerned a Democratic president could suppress anti-abortion messaging and other conservative speech.
The vote on COPPA 2.0 was less contentious. But Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) questioned a House provision that would let parents obtain information about their teen’s social media use from the site operators, even against the child’s wishes. Pallone warned the rule could let abusive parents monitor a child’s access to the internet. “In a bill purportedly providing more privacy protection for teens, Congress is creating, in my opinion, a backdoor by which their parents can snoop on their teens’ every click online,” he said. “Teens have a right to privacy as well.”

Image: The Verge

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has advanced two high-profile child safety bills that could remake large parts of the internet: the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). The proposed laws passed on a voice vote despite discontent over last-minute changes to KOSA, in particular, that were aimed at quelling persistent criticism.

KOSA and COPPA 2.0 would give government agencies more regulatory power over tech companies with users under 18 years of age. The former imposes a “duty of care” on major social media companies, making them potentially liable for harm to underage users. The latter raises the age of enforcement for the 1998 COPPA law and adds new rules around topics like targeted advertising. Versions of both bills were passed by the Senate in July. Now that they’ve passed a House committee, they can proceed to a vote on the floor, after which they may need to be reconciled with their Senate counterparts before passing to President Joe Biden’s desk — where Biden has indicated he’ll sign them.

Earlier this year, it wasn’t clear KOSA would get a vote in the House. While it passed in the Senate by an overwhelming majority, a Punchbowl News report suggested House Republicans had concerns about the bill. The House’s version of KOSA diverges sharply from its Senate counterpart, however, and numerous lawmakers expressed a desire for changes before a full House vote. Both KOSA and COPPA 2.0 saw last-minute changes that were voted on in committee, leading some lawmakers to protest or withdraw support.

The House’s KOSA amendment modified a list of harms that large social media companies are supposed to prevent. It removed a duty of care for mitigating “anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and suicidal behaviors” and added one for clamping down on the “promotion of inherently dangerous acts that are likely to cause serious bodily harm, serious emotional disturbance, or death.”

The change garnered significant criticism. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who said he would vote for the bill “reluctantly,” complained that the amendment could lead to regulatory agencies censoring potentially “disturbing” content. “Doesn’t all political speech induce some kind of emotional distress for those who disagree with it?” he contended. (Crenshaw supports a flat ban on social media access for younger teens.) Conversely, a number of lawmakers were concerned that removing conditions like depression would make the bill useless for addressing the alleged mental health harms of social media for kids.

KOSA cosponsor Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL), who backed the amendment, said it offered a “weakened” version of the bill with the aim of passing it to a full House vote. But neither version seems likely to satisfy critics who argue the bill could let regulators pressure companies into banning kids’ access to content a particular administration doesn’t like. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and others have raised concerns it could let a Republican president suppress abortion- and LGBTQ+-related content, while some Republican lawmakers are concerned a Democratic president could suppress anti-abortion messaging and other conservative speech.

The vote on COPPA 2.0 was less contentious. But Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) questioned a House provision that would let parents obtain information about their teen’s social media use from the site operators, even against the child’s wishes. Pallone warned the rule could let abusive parents monitor a child’s access to the internet. “In a bill purportedly providing more privacy protection for teens, Congress is creating, in my opinion, a backdoor by which their parents can snoop on their teens’ every click online,” he said. “Teens have a right to privacy as well.”

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A radio device exploded in the city of Baalbek is seen as wireless communications device explosions continued for a second day across Lebanon. | Photo by Suleiman Amhaz / Anadolu via Getty Images

A day after exploding pagers targeting Hezbollah members killed 12 people, including two children, and injured nearly 3,000 people in Lebanon and Syria, the attacks started again. The New York Times reports 14 people have died, along with hundreds injured in the second wave of explosions. Lebanese state media agency NNA reports they resulted from wireless devices like walkie-talkies and fingerprint analysis devices that also damaged cars and motorcycles and started fires, including one at a lithium battery store.
At least one of the exploding devices on Wednesday went off in the middle of a funeral procession for several of the people killed in the previous attack, causing additional panic as people ran for safety and were asked to remove the batteries from their cellphones.
According to Reuters, a source said the walkie-talkies were purchased months ago, around the same time as the booby-trapped pagers.
Overnight, media outlets like CNN and Reuters reported that the pager blasts were the result of an operation by Israel that placed a board with up to three grams of explosive material inside the devices before they were shipped out. Israeli officials have not commented on the attacks directly. CNN reports that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “The IDF brings excellent achievements, together with the Shin Bet, together with Mossad, all the bodies and all the frameworks and the results are very impressive results… I appreciate that we are at the beginning of a new era in this war and we need to adapt ourselves.”

The pagers bore the brand of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo, but its CEO told reporters that they did not make the devices purchased by Hezbollah. Instead, BAC, a distributor in Hungary, produced them under license. On Wednesday, the Hungarian government said the pagers were not manufactured there and that “the company in question is a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary,” wrote government spokesperson Zoltán Kovács.
In response to Tuesday’s explosions, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said:

Simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession of the targeted devices, their location and their surroundings at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law.
There must be an independent, thorough and transparent investigation as to the circumstances of these mass explosions, and those who ordered and carried out such an attack must be held to account.

A radio device exploded in the city of Baalbek is seen as wireless communications device explosions continued for a second day across Lebanon. | Photo by Suleiman Amhaz / Anadolu via Getty Images

A day after exploding pagers targeting Hezbollah members killed 12 people, including two children, and injured nearly 3,000 people in Lebanon and Syria, the attacks started again. The New York Times reports 14 people have died, along with hundreds injured in the second wave of explosions. Lebanese state media agency NNA reports they resulted from wireless devices like walkie-talkies and fingerprint analysis devices that also damaged cars and motorcycles and started fires, including one at a lithium battery store.

At least one of the exploding devices on Wednesday went off in the middle of a funeral procession for several of the people killed in the previous attack, causing additional panic as people ran for safety and were asked to remove the batteries from their cellphones.

According to Reuters, a source said the walkie-talkies were purchased months ago, around the same time as the booby-trapped pagers.

Overnight, media outlets like CNN and Reuters reported that the pager blasts were the result of an operation by Israel that placed a board with up to three grams of explosive material inside the devices before they were shipped out. Israeli officials have not commented on the attacks directly. CNN reports that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “The IDF brings excellent achievements, together with the Shin Bet, together with Mossad, all the bodies and all the frameworks and the results are very impressive results… I appreciate that we are at the beginning of a new era in this war and we need to adapt ourselves.”

The pagers bore the brand of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo, but its CEO told reporters that they did not make the devices purchased by Hezbollah. Instead, BAC, a distributor in Hungary, produced them under license. On Wednesday, the Hungarian government said the pagers were not manufactured there and that “the company in question is a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary,” wrote government spokesperson Zoltán Kovács.

In response to Tuesday’s explosions, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said:

Simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession of the targeted devices, their location and their surroundings at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law.

There must be an independent, thorough and transparent investigation as to the circumstances of these mass explosions, and those who ordered and carried out such an attack must be held to account.

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It can’t be used as a speakerphone, but at $24.99, Soundcore’s new Select 4 Go Bluetooth speaker is claimed to have 20 hours of battery and can be paired for stereo sound. | Image: Soundcore

Soundcore has launched another ultralight wireless speaker called the Select 4 Go. It’s priced at $24.99, making it the most affordable option in Soundcore’s current lineup of Bluetooth speakers and much cheaper than similarly sized options such as Ultimate Ears’ recently launched $79.99 Miniroll.

Image: Soundcore
A cutaway illustration of the Select 4 Go revealing a 1.75-inch speaker with a passive radiator next to it.

The Select 4 Go pairs a 1.75-inch 5W full-range speaker driver with a passive radiator to help bolster the intensity of lower frequencies. That’s only a slightly smaller speaker than you’ll find inside the pricier Miniroll, which has a claimed 12 hours of battery life. Soundcore says the Select 4 Go has up to 20 hours of playtime on a full charge with the volume set at 40 percent and when using its standard EQ mode.
It has a waterproof IPX67 rating and will even float when used in a pool, but Soundcore warns that you’ll want to make sure the waterproof cover for its USB-C charging port is tightly secured before using the speaker near water.

Image: Soundcore
Eventually, there will be six color options for the Soundcore Select 4 Go.

The Bluetooth range is rated at 30 meters, and two of the Select 4 Go speakers can be paired to produce stereo sound. Other Soundcore products, including the even lighter $40.99 Soundcore Mini 3, allow for over 100 speakers to be paired and all play in sync at the same time. If that’s an important feature to you, you’ll need to spend a bit more.
We haven’t tested the speaker and can’t vouch for its sound quality, but for $24.99, you’re going to get what you pay for: a durable wireless speaker that should at least sound better than playing music through your smartphone’s speaker.
The Soundcore Select 4 Go is available now in two-tone black or blue, but six different colors will be available eventually, including purple and green.

It can’t be used as a speakerphone, but at $24.99, Soundcore’s new Select 4 Go Bluetooth speaker is claimed to have 20 hours of battery and can be paired for stereo sound. | Image: Soundcore

Soundcore has launched another ultralight wireless speaker called the Select 4 Go. It’s priced at $24.99, making it the most affordable option in Soundcore’s current lineup of Bluetooth speakers and much cheaper than similarly sized options such as Ultimate Ears’ recently launched $79.99 Miniroll.

Image: Soundcore
A cutaway illustration of the Select 4 Go revealing a 1.75-inch speaker with a passive radiator next to it.

The Select 4 Go pairs a 1.75-inch 5W full-range speaker driver with a passive radiator to help bolster the intensity of lower frequencies. That’s only a slightly smaller speaker than you’ll find inside the pricier Miniroll, which has a claimed 12 hours of battery life. Soundcore says the Select 4 Go has up to 20 hours of playtime on a full charge with the volume set at 40 percent and when using its standard EQ mode.

It has a waterproof IPX67 rating and will even float when used in a pool, but Soundcore warns that you’ll want to make sure the waterproof cover for its USB-C charging port is tightly secured before using the speaker near water.

Image: Soundcore
Eventually, there will be six color options for the Soundcore Select 4 Go.

The Bluetooth range is rated at 30 meters, and two of the Select 4 Go speakers can be paired to produce stereo sound. Other Soundcore products, including the even lighter $40.99 Soundcore Mini 3, allow for over 100 speakers to be paired and all play in sync at the same time. If that’s an important feature to you, you’ll need to spend a bit more.

We haven’t tested the speaker and can’t vouch for its sound quality, but for $24.99, you’re going to get what you pay for: a durable wireless speaker that should at least sound better than playing music through your smartphone’s speaker.

The Soundcore Select 4 Go is available now in two-tone black or blue, but six different colors will be available eventually, including purple and green.

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

It’s been nearly six years since we warned you that ads were coming for your pause button and 18 months since Google revealed that YouTube would serve them up, too.
Now, YouTube confirms advertisers can broadly target your paused screentime: “As we’ve seen both strong advertiser and strong viewer response, we’ve since widely rolled out Pause ads to all advertisers,” YouTube comms manager Oluwa Falodun confirms to The Verge.
Technically, YouTube started piloting pause ads in 2023 with a limited selection of advertisers, but Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler revealed this April that they were unsurprisingly a big hit with ad firms and lucrative for Google.
Last week, Redditors started posting that the pause ads seemed to be rolling out more widely, as noted by 9to5Google.

YouTube claims that the pause ads are actually designed to let the company offer you a “less interruptive” experience, but it didn’t tell us that its normal ads will appear any less frequently as a result. (It has experimented with longer but less frequent ads before.) The company also introduced unskippable ads in 2023.
YouTube follows Hulu and AT&T in selling pause ads; Sling TV also just introduced pause ads in July, though at the time, you could turn them off from the settings menu.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

It’s been nearly six years since we warned you that ads were coming for your pause button and 18 months since Google revealed that YouTube would serve them up, too.

Now, YouTube confirms advertisers can broadly target your paused screentime: “As we’ve seen both strong advertiser and strong viewer response, we’ve since widely rolled out Pause ads to all advertisers,” YouTube comms manager Oluwa Falodun confirms to The Verge.

Technically, YouTube started piloting pause ads in 2023 with a limited selection of advertisers, but Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler revealed this April that they were unsurprisingly a big hit with ad firms and lucrative for Google.

Last week, Redditors started posting that the pause ads seemed to be rolling out more widely, as noted by 9to5Google.

YouTube claims that the pause ads are actually designed to let the company offer you a “less interruptive” experience, but it didn’t tell us that its normal ads will appear any less frequently as a result. (It has experimented with longer but less frequent ads before.) The company also introduced unskippable ads in 2023.

YouTube follows Hulu and AT&T in selling pause ads; Sling TV also just introduced pause ads in July, though at the time, you could turn them off from the settings menu.

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Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge

Google is rolling out an update that’ll let you adjust the brightness levels on its newest Nest Learning Thermostat, fixing a key issue that made it difficult to read, according to Android Authority.
The fourth-gen Nest Learning Thermostat is Google’s biggest redesign for the smart thermostat since it launched in 2011. Released in August, one of the thermostat’s major new features was the 2.7-inch display, which was double the size of its predecessor and more customizable. For example, you can have the main display be a clock, show the weather or indoor temperature. As you get closer, it can then transition to showing the humidity, outdoor temperature, and even an outdoor air quality index score.

There was one huge drawback, though: owners complained the display was too dim at times. There was no way to fix the problem either, as the thermostat lacked a manual brightness control. Google’s latest software update addresses the issue by adding that manual adjustment and by optimizing how the thermostat automatically adjusts screen brightness.
To start using the new manual brightness setting, head on over to the Settings Menu on your Nest Learning Thermostat. After clicking on Device Settings, tap on Display Brightness and then select Manual to customize the brightness.

Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge

Google is rolling out an update that’ll let you adjust the brightness levels on its newest Nest Learning Thermostat, fixing a key issue that made it difficult to read, according to Android Authority.

The fourth-gen Nest Learning Thermostat is Google’s biggest redesign for the smart thermostat since it launched in 2011. Released in August, one of the thermostat’s major new features was the 2.7-inch display, which was double the size of its predecessor and more customizable. For example, you can have the main display be a clock, show the weather or indoor temperature. As you get closer, it can then transition to showing the humidity, outdoor temperature, and even an outdoor air quality index score.

There was one huge drawback, though: owners complained the display was too dim at times. There was no way to fix the problem either, as the thermostat lacked a manual brightness control. Google’s latest software update addresses the issue by adding that manual adjustment and by optimizing how the thermostat automatically adjusts screen brightness.

To start using the new manual brightness setting, head on over to the Settings Menu on your Nest Learning Thermostat. After clicking on Device Settings, tap on Display Brightness and then select Manual to customize the brightness.

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Image: PayPal

Roughly 25 years after it launched payment processing, PayPal is “ushering in a new era for customers” with some generic black text. The company has a new logo, designed by Pentagram, that looks incredibly plain — especially compared to previous iterations of the logo that featured a rakish slant, two shades of blue, and prominent PayPal P’s.

Image: PayPal
The evolution of PayPal’s logo.

The company justifies the change by saying that the new black standalone wordmark won’t be confused with the rest of the payments processing world — especially “the blue that has become synonymous with fintech.”
And yet:

Image: PayPal
That is a very blue word.

Image: PayPal
Also seeing a lot of blue here.

But even if PayPal doesn’t intend to prioritize the black wordmark, it will be in the good company of many other firms that have moved from something fun and recognizable to boring, plain text! Here’s GoDaddy, Petco, and Johnson & Johnson (hat tip to Parker Lee’s “worst logos” lists):

Image: GoDaddy via Fast Company

Juxtaposition by Parker Lee

Juxtaposition by Parker Lee

It also joins the fine tradition of flattening logos just for the sake of them being flat and inserting weird corporate synergy for no obvious reason. Here, that synergy is actually accomplished in PayPal’s choice to use some colors alongside the word PayPal: “Bright blue and deep blue overlap to reveal Venmo blue,” writes Pentagram.

It does seem like Pentagram put a good bit of thought into this, coming up with a “new bespoke brand typeface, PayPal Pro,” which it says is based on LL Supreme, which, in turn, is based on Futura.
We also appreciated the use of alliteration: “The colors have been calibrated for continuous contrast, to create a sense of depth and dimension.”
For what it’s worth, the pitched PayPal P’s persist: they should appear when you pay digitally.

Image: PayPal
The old PayPal P’s show up and circle when you pay with a watch, it seems.

Image: PayPal
An example digital payment.

Technically, it looks like PayPal already started using the new wordmark earlier this month, though it says it’ll formally launch with the new PayPal debit card — and a new ad campaign starring Will Ferrell, which you can check out below.

Image: PayPal

Roughly 25 years after it launched payment processing, PayPal is “ushering in a new era for customers” with some generic black text. The company has a new logo, designed by Pentagram, that looks incredibly plain — especially compared to previous iterations of the logo that featured a rakish slant, two shades of blue, and prominent PayPal P’s.

Image: PayPal
The evolution of PayPal’s logo.

The company justifies the change by saying that the new black standalone wordmark won’t be confused with the rest of the payments processing world — especially “the blue that has become synonymous with fintech.”

And yet:

Image: PayPal
That is a very blue word.

Image: PayPal
Also seeing a lot of blue here.

But even if PayPal doesn’t intend to prioritize the black wordmark, it will be in the good company of many other firms that have moved from something fun and recognizable to boring, plain text! Here’s GoDaddy, Petco, and Johnson & Johnson (hat tip to Parker Lee’s “worst logos” lists):

Image: GoDaddy via Fast Company

Juxtaposition by Parker Lee

Juxtaposition by Parker Lee

It also joins the fine tradition of flattening logos just for the sake of them being flat and inserting weird corporate synergy for no obvious reason. Here, that synergy is actually accomplished in PayPal’s choice to use some colors alongside the word PayPal: “Bright blue and deep blue overlap to reveal Venmo blue,” writes Pentagram.

It does seem like Pentagram put a good bit of thought into this, coming up with a “new bespoke brand typeface, PayPal Pro,” which it says is based on LL Supreme, which, in turn, is based on Futura.

We also appreciated the use of alliteration: “The colors have been calibrated for continuous contrast, to create a sense of depth and dimension.”

For what it’s worth, the pitched PayPal P’s persist: they should appear when you pay digitally.

Image: PayPal
The old PayPal P’s show up and circle when you pay with a watch, it seems.

Image: PayPal
An example digital payment.

Technically, it looks like PayPal already started using the new wordmark earlier this month, though it says it’ll formally launch with the new PayPal debit card — and a new ad campaign starring Will Ferrell, which you can check out below.

Read More 

Image: Substack

Substack is now letting creators stream live videos as another way to connect with their audiences.
Substack has increasingly been expanding from its roots as a newsletter platform, including by adding Twitter-like Notes posts and the ability to publish video podcasts and even letting people follow other users without subscribing to them. As of last month, you don’t even need to set up a publication to share content. With live video, creators will be able to interact with their fans in real time without having to rely on another platform like Twitch.
When you go live, your subscribers will be notified immediately, and you can make your streams available to everyone, to all subscribers, or only to paid subscribers, according to a blog post. Creators can also bring in another creator to a livestream for a collaboration. Once live videos are done, the recording will be saved to a creator’s drafts if they want to use it in a future post.
The livestreaming feature is currently available in the app to “bestsellers” (or creators with a lot of subscribers), and the company plans to bring it to all Substack users “in the coming months.” If you don’t have the feature yet, you can request early access from Substack.

Image: Substack

Substack is now letting creators stream live videos as another way to connect with their audiences.

Substack has increasingly been expanding from its roots as a newsletter platform, including by adding Twitter-like Notes posts and the ability to publish video podcasts and even letting people follow other users without subscribing to them. As of last month, you don’t even need to set up a publication to share content. With live video, creators will be able to interact with their fans in real time without having to rely on another platform like Twitch.

When you go live, your subscribers will be notified immediately, and you can make your streams available to everyone, to all subscribers, or only to paid subscribers, according to a blog post. Creators can also bring in another creator to a livestream for a collaboration. Once live videos are done, the recording will be saved to a creator’s drafts if they want to use it in a future post.

The livestreaming feature is currently available in the app to “bestsellers” (or creators with a lot of subscribers), and the company plans to bring it to all Substack users “in the coming months.” If you don’t have the feature yet, you can request early access from Substack.

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The Focus Vision looks like it’s a bit of a chonker! | Image: HTC

HTC has announced the Vive Focus Vision, a new VR headset that builds on the Vive Focus 3 with features like color passthrough and better PC tethering support. The $999 Focus Vision is available for preorder from now until October 17th on HTC’s website.
The Focus Vision can be used either as a standalone device or tethered to your PC using USB-C. It’s essentially a beefed-up version of the Focus 3, which the company released in 2021 — it has the same 2448 x 2448 per-eye resolution and 120-degree field of view and also uses a Snapdragon XR2 chip. But it gains features like dual 16MP cameras with color passthrough, and it can now automatically adjust the lenses to compensate for the distance between your eyes.

HTC is going for gamers with this headset. Part of that is the inclusion of foveated rendering, meaning it can focus its graphical resources only where you’re looking instead of across your whole field of view at once. “Now, PC gamers can bring the same high-end headsets used in VR arcades into their homes,” Shen Ye, HTC Vive’s global head of product, said in a press release.
The Focus Vision also adds DisplayPort support via USB-C, which HTC says enables a lossless connection when tethered to your PC. And after an update later this year, DisplayPort tethering will allow the displays’ refresh rate to go from the normal 90Hz to 120Hz. The Focus Vision has 128GB of storage (with a microSD slot for up to 2TB more), and 12GB of RAM, up from the 8GB of its predecessor. The headset also supports all Focus 3 accessories.
A built-in battery can keep the Focus Vision going for 20 minutes, giving you time to swap out the main power pack if you burn through its about two-hour battery life. Additionally, the headset has a new fan that will pull 30 percent more air through for better cooling, according to the company.
The head strap got some love, too. “Users can be pretty abusive,” said Dan O’Brien, HTC president of Americas. But that showed the company where there were “weak points” in the Focus 3’s design, and as a result of that, HTC “improved the metal hook for the back, topside handling, as well as the side arms.”
The Vive Focus Vision aims right at the consumer market that HTC’s Focus 3, with its Quest 2-style controllers, seemed to flirt with. (Previous Focus headsets were heavily business-oriented.) Other headsets from HTC have also targeted consumers, like last year’s Vive XR Elite, a lighter, $1,099 headset that also has color passthrough video but uses lower resolution screens than the Vision.
Anyone who preorders before October 17th will get a free kit that includes a 5-meter USB-C cable with DP 1.4 alternate mode support, as well as multiple adapters for PC VR streaming. The company also says it’s tossing in a “choice of three popular game bundles.”

The Focus Vision looks like it’s a bit of a chonker! | Image: HTC

HTC has announced the Vive Focus Vision, a new VR headset that builds on the Vive Focus 3 with features like color passthrough and better PC tethering support. The $999 Focus Vision is available for preorder from now until October 17th on HTC’s website.

The Focus Vision can be used either as a standalone device or tethered to your PC using USB-C. It’s essentially a beefed-up version of the Focus 3, which the company released in 2021 — it has the same 2448 x 2448 per-eye resolution and 120-degree field of view and also uses a Snapdragon XR2 chip. But it gains features like dual 16MP cameras with color passthrough, and it can now automatically adjust the lenses to compensate for the distance between your eyes.

HTC is going for gamers with this headset. Part of that is the inclusion of foveated rendering, meaning it can focus its graphical resources only where you’re looking instead of across your whole field of view at once. “Now, PC gamers can bring the same high-end headsets used in VR arcades into their homes,” Shen Ye, HTC Vive’s global head of product, said in a press release.

The Focus Vision also adds DisplayPort support via USB-C, which HTC says enables a lossless connection when tethered to your PC. And after an update later this year, DisplayPort tethering will allow the displays’ refresh rate to go from the normal 90Hz to 120Hz. The Focus Vision has 128GB of storage (with a microSD slot for up to 2TB more), and 12GB of RAM, up from the 8GB of its predecessor. The headset also supports all Focus 3 accessories.

A built-in battery can keep the Focus Vision going for 20 minutes, giving you time to swap out the main power pack if you burn through its about two-hour battery life. Additionally, the headset has a new fan that will pull 30 percent more air through for better cooling, according to the company.

The head strap got some love, too. “Users can be pretty abusive,” said Dan O’Brien, HTC president of Americas. But that showed the company where there were “weak points” in the Focus 3’s design, and as a result of that, HTC “improved the metal hook for the back, topside handling, as well as the side arms.”

The Vive Focus Vision aims right at the consumer market that HTC’s Focus 3, with its Quest 2-style controllers, seemed to flirt with. (Previous Focus headsets were heavily business-oriented.) Other headsets from HTC have also targeted consumers, like last year’s Vive XR Elite, a lighter, $1,099 headset that also has color passthrough video but uses lower resolution screens than the Vision.

Anyone who preorders before October 17th will get a free kit that includes a 5-meter USB-C cable with DP 1.4 alternate mode support, as well as multiple adapters for PC VR streaming. The company also says it’s tossing in a “choice of three popular game bundles.”

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Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube creators can now break their videos up into different seasons and episodes to make them easier for viewers to navigate — and binge-watch — on TV. The upcoming feature comes as YouTube has increasingly been pushing into the living room, with YouTuber revenue on TVs up 30 percent year over year, according to the company.
Content creators can soon tailor their uploads for viewers in a format that looks very similar to Netflix and other streaming services when viewed on the TV, with full-screen episode descriptions and a hierarchy of seasons and episodes to navigate.

GIF: Google

YouTube has not described how the new formatting will translate to desktop and mobile UI, but expect to see it in some form on all platforms. Creators are getting other TV-focused tools, too, including the ability to add “immersive content” that plays on their channel page.
Some YouTubers have tediously created seasons and episodes for their shows by utilizing playlists and numbered naming conventions under each upload. But they do not always translate in a friendly way on YouTube’s apps on TV platforms like Apple TV, Roku, and others.

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube creators can now break their videos up into different seasons and episodes to make them easier for viewers to navigate — and binge-watch — on TV. The upcoming feature comes as YouTube has increasingly been pushing into the living room, with YouTuber revenue on TVs up 30 percent year over year, according to the company.

Content creators can soon tailor their uploads for viewers in a format that looks very similar to Netflix and other streaming services when viewed on the TV, with full-screen episode descriptions and a hierarchy of seasons and episodes to navigate.

GIF: Google

YouTube has not described how the new formatting will translate to desktop and mobile UI, but expect to see it in some form on all platforms. Creators are getting other TV-focused tools, too, including the ability to add “immersive content” that plays on their channel page.

Some YouTubers have tediously created seasons and episodes for their shows by utilizing playlists and numbered naming conventions under each upload. But they do not always translate in a friendly way on YouTube’s apps on TV platforms like Apple TV, Roku, and others.

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A scene from Megalopolis, one of Lionsgate’s upcoming releases. | Image: Lionsgate

AI startup Runway has made a name for itself building generative models seemingly trained on unlicensed content from around the internet. Now, the company has signed a deal with Lionsgate that will give it access to the studio’s massive portfolio of films and TV shows.
Today, Lionsgate — the studio behind films like the John Wick and Hunger Games franchises — announced that it is partnering with Runway to create a new customized video generation model intended to help “filmmakers, directors and other creative talent augment their work.”
In a statement about the deal, Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns described it as a path toward creating “capital-efficient content creation opportunities” for the studio, which sees the technology as “a great tool for augmenting, enhancing and supplementing our current operations.” Burns also insisted that “several of our filmmakers are already excited about its potential applications to their pre-production and post-production process.”
Runway cofounder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela echoed Burns’ sentiment about the new model’s usefulness as an augmentation tool and said that the company’s goal is to give filmmakers “new ways of bringing their stories to life.”
Specific details about the deal — like whether creative teams will be compensated if / when their projects are used as training material for the model — are currently scant. But as The Hollywood Reporter notes, the prospect of being able to keep production costs down could have been one of the big selling points for Lionsgate, a studio known for sticking to smaller budgets compared to other entertainment outfits.
News of Lionsgate’s deal with Runway comes at a time when studios have increasingly begun implementing AI into their projects, despite many filmmakers’ concerns about how the technology’s unfettered use could threaten their jobs. Studios insistent on being able to create and use AI replicas of background performers was one of the major points of contention that ultimately led to the SAG-AFTRA strike last year.
Those concerns were part of what led to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s signing of two SAG-AFTRA-backed bills earlier this week that will grant performers and their estates more control over how and when their digitally created likenesses can be used by studios. And later this month, Newsom could very well end up signing into law SB 1047, another piece of hotly contested legislation that would make AI developers liable for the “critical harms” caused by their products.
(We reached out to SAG-AFTRA for comment about the partnership between Runway and Lionsgate but did not hear back in time for publishing.)

A scene from Megalopolis, one of Lionsgate’s upcoming releases. | Image: Lionsgate

AI startup Runway has made a name for itself building generative models seemingly trained on unlicensed content from around the internet. Now, the company has signed a deal with Lionsgate that will give it access to the studio’s massive portfolio of films and TV shows.

Today, Lionsgate — the studio behind films like the John Wick and Hunger Games franchises — announced that it is partnering with Runway to create a new customized video generation model intended to help “filmmakers, directors and other creative talent augment their work.”

In a statement about the deal, Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns described it as a path toward creating “capital-efficient content creation opportunities” for the studio, which sees the technology as “a great tool for augmenting, enhancing and supplementing our current operations.” Burns also insisted that “several of our filmmakers are already excited about its potential applications to their pre-production and post-production process.”

Runway cofounder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela echoed Burns’ sentiment about the new model’s usefulness as an augmentation tool and said that the company’s goal is to give filmmakers “new ways of bringing their stories to life.”

Specific details about the deal — like whether creative teams will be compensated if / when their projects are used as training material for the model — are currently scant. But as The Hollywood Reporter notes, the prospect of being able to keep production costs down could have been one of the big selling points for Lionsgate, a studio known for sticking to smaller budgets compared to other entertainment outfits.

News of Lionsgate’s deal with Runway comes at a time when studios have increasingly begun implementing AI into their projects, despite many filmmakers’ concerns about how the technology’s unfettered use could threaten their jobs. Studios insistent on being able to create and use AI replicas of background performers was one of the major points of contention that ultimately led to the SAG-AFTRA strike last year.

Those concerns were part of what led to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s signing of two SAG-AFTRA-backed bills earlier this week that will grant performers and their estates more control over how and when their digitally created likenesses can be used by studios. And later this month, Newsom could very well end up signing into law SB 1047, another piece of hotly contested legislation that would make AI developers liable for the “critical harms” caused by their products.

(We reached out to SAG-AFTRA for comment about the partnership between Runway and Lionsgate but did not hear back in time for publishing.)

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