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The Shokz OpenFit Air are a lightweight pair of open-ear buds that use air conduction.

The bass is pretty good for open-ear fitness buds, but alas, my glasses foiled the ear hook design. Two years ago, I thought my quest for the best running earbuds was over. The Beats Fit Pro were simply perfect in every way. Then I moved to the suburbs. The Beats’ ambient mode was no match for North Jersey drivers’ blatant disregard for speed limits. Open-ear headphones seemed like the obvious answer. But which ones? For a few weeks, I dabbled with some bone conduction headphones, but I missed my bass drops too much. That, in turn, led me to try the $119.95 Shokz OpenFit Air.
While Shokz is best known for its bone conduction tech, the OpenFit Air uses traditional air conduction like any other wireless buds. The speaker sits above your ear canal, while ear hooks hold them securely in place. I normally don’t prefer ear hooks — comfort tends to be hit or miss. But I’ll give anything a go if it means I get to have situational awareness without giving up my bass.

The OpenFit Air hook around your ears, while the speaker sits right above your ear canal.

The good news: the bass is better. The bad news is, it’s not by much. Truthfully, no open-ear headphones are great at bass, but these are at least less muddy than bone conduction. If I’m running next to a busy street, I actually can hear the rumbly “five-star Michelin” verse in “God’s Menu” by Stray Kids. It’s not crystal clear — but I can hear it instead of sighing and wishing I had my Beats Fit Pro. (All bets are off if you’re near a highway, though.)
Aside from bass, the speaker position means you can hear your content pretty well, but open-ear buds always have limitations. I wore these on several commutes to the office. A quiet NJ Transit bus or train? No problem. A noisy New York City subway drowned out my audiobooks to the point where I gave up listening to anything at all. I never got any complaints about sound leakage, but I imagine that’s because the NYC subway is too loud for anyone to hear anything.

At 8.7g, the OpenFit Air are quite lightweight.

As exercise buds, these are a great option. They have about six hours on a single charge, and a 10-minute charge gets you two hours of use, which isn’t too shabby unless you’re an ultramarathoner. With IP55, you can work up a nice sweat or handle a bit of rain, though I’d be wary of a full-on downpour. They’re comfy and pretty secure — that is, until you put some glasses on.
While the hooks are pliable and relatively thin, they took up a lot of space behind my ears. On days when I didn’t wear contacts, the top of my ears felt crowded and weighed down. That heavy sensation made me paranoid that the Air would fall off, and I’d go to readjust them. Often, that ended up with me accidentally triggering the touch controls. Even when I didn’t wear glasses, I unintentionally dislodged the Air whenever I brushed my bangs behind my ears. I don’t love that, as someone who’s been traumatized one too many times by chasing after a bud that fell out of my ear mid-run. To be fair, you may not have these issues. Some of this is likely down to the shape of my ears and the fact my glasses have chunkier arms. But if you really want a secure fit, a wraparound design is a better choice.

To my surprise, I ended up preferring the Air for everyday wear. Maybe it’s just me, but bone conduction headphones scream fitness in a way that feels a little weird when I’m running errands. These remind me more of the sleeker, more discreet Bose Ultra Open Earbuds. My favorite way to wear these was when I was cooking or cleaning. I could easily listen to my audiobooks or podcasts, keep an ear out for beeping appliances, and keep the naughty cat from trying to eat my dinner straight from the pan.
If I had better vision, these might’ve ended my quest for a Beats Fit Pro alternative. They’re pretty affordable at $120, bass is decent for a pair of open-ear buds, and they’re comfy. I want something just a smidge more secure for days when I don’t feel like popping lenses in. Alas, the hunt continues.

The Shokz OpenFit Air are a lightweight pair of open-ear buds that use air conduction.

The bass is pretty good for open-ear fitness buds, but alas, my glasses foiled the ear hook design.

Two years ago, I thought my quest for the best running earbuds was over. The Beats Fit Pro were simply perfect in every way. Then I moved to the suburbs. The Beats’ ambient mode was no match for North Jersey drivers’ blatant disregard for speed limits. Open-ear headphones seemed like the obvious answer. But which ones? For a few weeks, I dabbled with some bone conduction headphones, but I missed my bass drops too much. That, in turn, led me to try the $119.95 Shokz OpenFit Air.

While Shokz is best known for its bone conduction tech, the OpenFit Air uses traditional air conduction like any other wireless buds. The speaker sits above your ear canal, while ear hooks hold them securely in place. I normally don’t prefer ear hooks — comfort tends to be hit or miss. But I’ll give anything a go if it means I get to have situational awareness without giving up my bass.

The OpenFit Air hook around your ears, while the speaker sits right above your ear canal.

The good news: the bass is better. The bad news is, it’s not by much. Truthfully, no open-ear headphones are great at bass, but these are at least less muddy than bone conduction. If I’m running next to a busy street, I actually can hear the rumbly “five-star Michelin” verse in “God’s Menu” by Stray Kids. It’s not crystal clear — but I can hear it instead of sighing and wishing I had my Beats Fit Pro. (All bets are off if you’re near a highway, though.)

Aside from bass, the speaker position means you can hear your content pretty well, but open-ear buds always have limitations. I wore these on several commutes to the office. A quiet NJ Transit bus or train? No problem. A noisy New York City subway drowned out my audiobooks to the point where I gave up listening to anything at all. I never got any complaints about sound leakage, but I imagine that’s because the NYC subway is too loud for anyone to hear anything.

At 8.7g, the OpenFit Air are quite lightweight.

As exercise buds, these are a great option. They have about six hours on a single charge, and a 10-minute charge gets you two hours of use, which isn’t too shabby unless you’re an ultramarathoner. With IP55, you can work up a nice sweat or handle a bit of rain, though I’d be wary of a full-on downpour. They’re comfy and pretty secure — that is, until you put some glasses on.

While the hooks are pliable and relatively thin, they took up a lot of space behind my ears. On days when I didn’t wear contacts, the top of my ears felt crowded and weighed down. That heavy sensation made me paranoid that the Air would fall off, and I’d go to readjust them. Often, that ended up with me accidentally triggering the touch controls. Even when I didn’t wear glasses, I unintentionally dislodged the Air whenever I brushed my bangs behind my ears. I don’t love that, as someone who’s been traumatized one too many times by chasing after a bud that fell out of my ear mid-run. To be fair, you may not have these issues. Some of this is likely down to the shape of my ears and the fact my glasses have chunkier arms. But if you really want a secure fit, a wraparound design is a better choice.

To my surprise, I ended up preferring the Air for everyday wear. Maybe it’s just me, but bone conduction headphones scream fitness in a way that feels a little weird when I’m running errands. These remind me more of the sleeker, more discreet Bose Ultra Open Earbuds. My favorite way to wear these was when I was cooking or cleaning. I could easily listen to my audiobooks or podcasts, keep an ear out for beeping appliances, and keep the naughty cat from trying to eat my dinner straight from the pan.

If I had better vision, these might’ve ended my quest for a Beats Fit Pro alternative. They’re pretty affordable at $120, bass is decent for a pair of open-ear buds, and they’re comfy. I want something just a smidge more secure for days when I don’t feel like popping lenses in. Alas, the hunt continues.

Read More 

Valve has finally, officially announced Deadlock, in the most minimal way imaginable. The game now has a Steam page that lists Valve as its developer and publisher, and a simple notice:
Deadlock is in early development with lots of temporary art and experimental gameplay. Access is currently limited to friend invite via our playtesters.

Valve provides no other details, just an animated teaser image. (You can see a still screenshot of it above.) The system requirements only mention that the game requires a 64-bit processor and operating system.
While the game has ostensibly been a secret until now, details about it have been trickling out for months. Information started to emerge from closed playtests in May. By August, tens of thousands of people were playing the game, as more players invited their friends to check it out. The Verge received an invite and published a hands-on preview last week.
Today, many streamers are playing the game live, including Shroud, after admin Yoshi said in the game’s Discord that Valve was lifting its rules against public conversation.

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge

While Deadlock seems like another promising addition to Valve’s lineup of big multiplayer games, it’s unclear if it will have sustained popularity like Counter-Strike or Dota 2 or will eventually fizzle out like Artifact.

Valve has finally, officially announced Deadlock, in the most minimal way imaginable. The game now has a Steam page that lists Valve as its developer and publisher, and a simple notice:

Deadlock is in early development with lots of temporary art and experimental gameplay. Access is currently limited to friend invite via our playtesters.

Valve provides no other details, just an animated teaser image. (You can see a still screenshot of it above.) The system requirements only mention that the game requires a 64-bit processor and operating system.

While the game has ostensibly been a secret until now, details about it have been trickling out for months. Information started to emerge from closed playtests in May. By August, tens of thousands of people were playing the game, as more players invited their friends to check it out. The Verge received an invite and published a hands-on preview last week.

Today, many streamers are playing the game live, including Shroud, after admin Yoshi said in the game’s Discord that Valve was lifting its rules against public conversation.

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge

While Deadlock seems like another promising addition to Valve’s lineup of big multiplayer games, it’s unclear if it will have sustained popularity like Counter-Strike or Dota 2 or will eventually fizzle out like Artifact.

Read More 

Illustration: The Verge

When will we meet the iPhone 16 and other new items from Apple, like MacBook Pro laptops with M4 chips inside?
Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman says that based on his sources, a launch event on September 10th could reveal the new iPhone 16 lineup, as well as the Apple Watch Series 10 and two different sets of new AirPods in time for them to go on sale as soon as September 20th. Bloomberg reports that the new phones will be similar to last year but with larger screens on the Pro models (reportedly going from 6.1 inches to 6.3 on the Pro and from 6.7 to 6.9 inches on the iPhone 16 Pro Max) and the addition of a dedicated camera button.
The other big updates may be new Apple Intelligence features that are in testing now and are due to start rolling out in iOS 18.1 after the launch of the new phones. For bigger changes to the hardware, Apple phone users may have to wait until next year, which could see the launch of a new “iPhone 17 Slim.”

As for new laptops with the fourth-generation Apple Silicon chips that first appeared in the latest iPad refresh, Gurman points to developer logs showing Macs in testing with four different versions of the M4 chip. Three pair the same 10-core CPU setup from the iPad Pro with a 10-core GPU, while the fourth one reports a CPU with eight cores evenly split between high performance and efficiency — but all of the ones noted have either 16GB or 32GB memory.

Apple doesn’t usually launch new Macs at the same time as its iPhones, but if these debut later this year, it’s possible that making room for local AI models will squeeze 8GB RAM models out of existence.
Last but not least, the Apple Watch Series 10 family is apparently getting thinner but with larger screens. And the AirPods lineup could supplant the current offering of either 2nd generation or 3rd generation earbuds with two new sets, as Gurman reported last fall. He’s said they will look more like a cross between the 3rd gen AirPods and the AirPods Pro, and the upgraded mid-tier set will bring active noise cancellation to the regular AirPods for the first time.

Illustration: The Verge

When will we meet the iPhone 16 and other new items from Apple, like MacBook Pro laptops with M4 chips inside?

Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman says that based on his sources, a launch event on September 10th could reveal the new iPhone 16 lineup, as well as the Apple Watch Series 10 and two different sets of new AirPods in time for them to go on sale as soon as September 20th. Bloomberg reports that the new phones will be similar to last year but with larger screens on the Pro models (reportedly going from 6.1 inches to 6.3 on the Pro and from 6.7 to 6.9 inches on the iPhone 16 Pro Max) and the addition of a dedicated camera button.

The other big updates may be new Apple Intelligence features that are in testing now and are due to start rolling out in iOS 18.1 after the launch of the new phones. For bigger changes to the hardware, Apple phone users may have to wait until next year, which could see the launch of a new “iPhone 17 Slim.”

As for new laptops with the fourth-generation Apple Silicon chips that first appeared in the latest iPad refresh, Gurman points to developer logs showing Macs in testing with four different versions of the M4 chip. Three pair the same 10-core CPU setup from the iPad Pro with a 10-core GPU, while the fourth one reports a CPU with eight cores evenly split between high performance and efficiency — but all of the ones noted have either 16GB or 32GB memory.

Apple doesn’t usually launch new Macs at the same time as its iPhones, but if these debut later this year, it’s possible that making room for local AI models will squeeze 8GB RAM models out of existence.

Last but not least, the Apple Watch Series 10 family is apparently getting thinner but with larger screens. And the AirPods lineup could supplant the current offering of either 2nd generation or 3rd generation earbuds with two new sets, as Gurman reported last fall. He’s said they will look more like a cross between the 3rd gen AirPods and the AirPods Pro, and the upgraded mid-tier set will bring active noise cancellation to the regular AirPods for the first time.

Read More 

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos via Getty Images

The Supreme Court could stall action on climate change yet again as it weighs whether to pause new pollution regulations for coal-fired power plants.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized rules this year aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions from coal plants. But red states and industry groups are challenging the EPA in court and have asked SCOTUS to step in and stop the rules from being implemented while they duke it out.
The request is now in the Supreme Court’s so-called “shadow docket” — meaning SCOTUS can essentially issue a stay on the rules at its whim. The court has already made it way tougher for federal agencies to regulate industry since Donald Trump packed it with conservative-leaning justices. This is another opportunity to gut the EPA’s efforts to limit the pollution causing climate change.
“I would have considered this kind of request laughable just a few years ago.”
“I would have considered this kind of request laughable just a few years ago, but given the way this court is operating — I don’t laugh at anything anymore,” says Sambhav Sankar, senior vice president for programs at the nonprofit environmental law organization Earthjustice.
The rules are a cornerstone of the Biden administration’s efforts to meet climate goals set under the Paris agreement. They require coal plants expected to continue operating for at least 15 years to reduce their climate pollution by 90 percent. Coal happens to be the dirtiest fossil fuel, creating more planet-heating carbon dioxide when burned than oil or gas.

When the EPA finalized the plan in April, it was arguably only a partial victory for environmental and health advocates. The rules had to comply with the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision on West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency. It was a monumental opinion that strengthened the “major questions” doctrine, the idea that federal agencies shouldn’t have the authority to call the shots on issues of major national significance without Congress passing legislation explicitly allowing the agency to do so. The decision meant that the EPA wouldn’t be allowed to determine whether the US gets its electricity from fossil fuels or cleaner sources of energy like wind and solar.
As a result, the EPA’s plans to rein in the greenhouse gas emissions allow fossil fuel power plants to keep running as long as they install technologies that capture carbon dioxide emissions. Fossil fuel companies have championed carbon capture and storage as a way to fight climate change without having to give up coal, oil, or gas. But relying on carbon capture lets down health and environmental advocates who had hoped that a transition to renewable energy would fight climate change and push utilities to phase out fossil fuel plants that spew soot and other kinds of pollutants into nearby neighborhoods.

Now, industry is arguing that carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies aren’t even ready to help fight climate change — at least not to the degree the EPA says is feasible in its power plant rules. Since July, trade groups representing utilities and mining companies and a smattering of red states, led by West Virginia and Ohio, have filed applications asking the Supreme Court to issue a stay on the EPA’s new rules for CO2 emissions (as well as separate rules for hazardous pollutants, including mercury). The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit previously declined to issue a stay.
The petitioners argue that capturing 90 percent of CO2 isn’t an achievable goal yet — that the technology hasn’t been demonstrated at that scale and that there aren’t pipelines in place to transport and store the greenhouse gas safely once it’s been captured.
“With no way to comply with the 90% CCS system, the Rule requires operators to shift electricity generation,” the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association says in its application for a stay. “EPA is once again trying to transform the power sector by forcing a shift in electricity generation to its favored sources.” They’re basically invoking the major questions doctrine again to challenge the new rules.
The Biden administration defended the EPA’s rules in a response filed to the Supreme Court this week, saying that the agency has vetted the technology and set achievable carbon capture goals. The case “does not involve the type of fundamental statutory-interpretation issue that might warrant this Court’s intervention,” the EPA argues. And it points out that a federal appeals court chose not to issue a stay on the matter last month, in a decision that says the litigants haven’t shown that they’ll be able to successfully challenge the merits of the rule, nor that the case involves a “major question.” Moreover, deadlines to comply with the rules don’t kick in until 2030 or 2032 — making it hard for the petitioners to show that they’d suffer “irreparable harm” without a stay.
Nevertheless, the groups have since asked the Supreme Court to issue a stay through its emergency — or shadow — docket. The emergency docket, once reserved for extremely time-sensitive issues like staying executions, is now crowded with requests to pause environmental regulations. It’s an expedited process, allowing the court to issue decisions without much briefing on the issue or hearing oral arguments on the case.
“Many lawyers and others find it deeply disturbing.”
“Many lawyers and others find it deeply disturbing,” says Michael Gerrard, founder and faculty director of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “The Supreme Court can do something colossally important without the full information in front of it.”
It’s a trend that’s grown since 2016 when the Supreme Court issued a surprise stay on the Obama administration’s attempt at regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The Obama-era rules never went into effect and were eventually rolled back by the Trump administration.
Now, history could repeat itself. Donald Trump has pledged to throw out power plant emissions rules once again on the presidential campaign trail. And the Supreme Court can decide at any moment whether to grant the stay. Their decision could potentially influence the case the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit is still considering over whether the rules should be struck down altogether.

SCOTUS’s decision on the stay could potentially also influence new rules the EPA is still crafting for existing gas-fired power plants that make up a bigger source of electricity than coal in the US. Those rules aren’t expected until after the November elections, giving Trump another chance to reverse course.
“I think what will be more relevant will be the outcome of the coming election,” Sankar says. Then again, the Supreme Court has shocked the legal community with landmark decisions lately that hamstring the EPA’s ability to craft regulation. In June, it overturned a legal doctrine called Chevron deference that previously allowed federal courts to defer to the EPA and other federal agencies in disputes over how to interpret ambiguous language in legislation.
“If the untrained, unscientific judges of the Supreme Court show that they are once again willing to second guess the scientists at EPA, then it will be understandable if those scientists get a little more gun shy,” Sankar says.

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos via Getty Images

The Supreme Court could stall action on climate change yet again as it weighs whether to pause new pollution regulations for coal-fired power plants.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized rules this year aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions from coal plants. But red states and industry groups are challenging the EPA in court and have asked SCOTUS to step in and stop the rules from being implemented while they duke it out.

The request is now in the Supreme Court’s so-called “shadow docket” — meaning SCOTUS can essentially issue a stay on the rules at its whim. The court has already made it way tougher for federal agencies to regulate industry since Donald Trump packed it with conservative-leaning justices. This is another opportunity to gut the EPA’s efforts to limit the pollution causing climate change.

“I would have considered this kind of request laughable just a few years ago, but given the way this court is operating — I don’t laugh at anything anymore,” says Sambhav Sankar, senior vice president for programs at the nonprofit environmental law organization Earthjustice.

The rules are a cornerstone of the Biden administration’s efforts to meet climate goals set under the Paris agreement. They require coal plants expected to continue operating for at least 15 years to reduce their climate pollution by 90 percent. Coal happens to be the dirtiest fossil fuel, creating more planet-heating carbon dioxide when burned than oil or gas.

When the EPA finalized the plan in April, it was arguably only a partial victory for environmental and health advocates. The rules had to comply with the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision on West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency. It was a monumental opinion that strengthened the “major questions” doctrine, the idea that federal agencies shouldn’t have the authority to call the shots on issues of major national significance without Congress passing legislation explicitly allowing the agency to do so. The decision meant that the EPA wouldn’t be allowed to determine whether the US gets its electricity from fossil fuels or cleaner sources of energy like wind and solar.

As a result, the EPA’s plans to rein in the greenhouse gas emissions allow fossil fuel power plants to keep running as long as they install technologies that capture carbon dioxide emissions. Fossil fuel companies have championed carbon capture and storage as a way to fight climate change without having to give up coal, oil, or gas. But relying on carbon capture lets down health and environmental advocates who had hoped that a transition to renewable energy would fight climate change and push utilities to phase out fossil fuel plants that spew soot and other kinds of pollutants into nearby neighborhoods.

Now, industry is arguing that carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies aren’t even ready to help fight climate change — at least not to the degree the EPA says is feasible in its power plant rules. Since July, trade groups representing utilities and mining companies and a smattering of red states, led by West Virginia and Ohio, have filed applications asking the Supreme Court to issue a stay on the EPA’s new rules for CO2 emissions (as well as separate rules for hazardous pollutants, including mercury). The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit previously declined to issue a stay.

The petitioners argue that capturing 90 percent of CO2 isn’t an achievable goal yet — that the technology hasn’t been demonstrated at that scale and that there aren’t pipelines in place to transport and store the greenhouse gas safely once it’s been captured.

“With no way to comply with the 90% CCS system, the Rule requires operators to shift electricity generation,” the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association says in its application for a stay. “EPA is once again trying to transform the power sector by forcing a shift in electricity generation to its favored sources.” They’re basically invoking the major questions doctrine again to challenge the new rules.

The Biden administration defended the EPA’s rules in a response filed to the Supreme Court this week, saying that the agency has vetted the technology and set achievable carbon capture goals. The case “does not involve the type of fundamental statutory-interpretation issue that might warrant this Court’s intervention,” the EPA argues. And it points out that a federal appeals court chose not to issue a stay on the matter last month, in a decision that says the litigants haven’t shown that they’ll be able to successfully challenge the merits of the rule, nor that the case involves a “major question.” Moreover, deadlines to comply with the rules don’t kick in until 2030 or 2032 — making it hard for the petitioners to show that they’d suffer “irreparable harm” without a stay.

Nevertheless, the groups have since asked the Supreme Court to issue a stay through its emergency — or shadow — docket. The emergency docket, once reserved for extremely time-sensitive issues like staying executions, is now crowded with requests to pause environmental regulations. It’s an expedited process, allowing the court to issue decisions without much briefing on the issue or hearing oral arguments on the case.

“Many lawyers and others find it deeply disturbing,” says Michael Gerrard, founder and faculty director of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “The Supreme Court can do something colossally important without the full information in front of it.”

It’s a trend that’s grown since 2016 when the Supreme Court issued a surprise stay on the Obama administration’s attempt at regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The Obama-era rules never went into effect and were eventually rolled back by the Trump administration.

Now, history could repeat itself. Donald Trump has pledged to throw out power plant emissions rules once again on the presidential campaign trail. And the Supreme Court can decide at any moment whether to grant the stay. Their decision could potentially influence the case the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit is still considering over whether the rules should be struck down altogether.

SCOTUS’s decision on the stay could potentially also influence new rules the EPA is still crafting for existing gas-fired power plants that make up a bigger source of electricity than coal in the US. Those rules aren’t expected until after the November elections, giving Trump another chance to reverse course.

“I think what will be more relevant will be the outcome of the coming election,” Sankar says. Then again, the Supreme Court has shocked the legal community with landmark decisions lately that hamstring the EPA’s ability to craft regulation. In June, it overturned a legal doctrine called Chevron deference that previously allowed federal courts to defer to the EPA and other federal agencies in disputes over how to interpret ambiguous language in legislation.

“If the untrained, unscientific judges of the Supreme Court show that they are once again willing to second guess the scientists at EPA, then it will be understandable if those scientists get a little more gun shy,” Sankar says.

Read More 

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

An appeals court revived a lawsuit against the anonymous messaging service Yolo, which allegedly broke a promise to unmask bullies on the app. In a ruling issued Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shouldn’t block a claim that Yolo misrepresented its terms of service, overruling a lower court decision. But it determined the app can’t be held liable for alleged design defects that allowed harassment, letting a different part of that earlier ruling stand.
Yolo was a Snapchat-integrated app that let users send anonymous messages, but in 2021, it was hit with a lawsuit after a teenage user died by suicide. The boy, Carson Bride, had received harassing and sexually explicit messages from anonymized users that — he believed — he likely knew. Bride and his family attempted to contact Yolo for help, but Yolo allegedly never answered, and in some cases, emails to the company simply bounced. Snap banned Yolo and another app targeted in the lawsuit, and a year later, it banned all anonymous messaging integration.
There was “no way” Yolo’s ten-person staff could police the app, say families
Bride’s family and a collection of other aggrieved parents argued that Yolo broke a legally binding promise to its users. They pointed to a notification where Yolo claimed people would be banned for inappropriate use and deanonymized if they sent “harassing messages” to others. But as the ruling summarizes, the plaintiffs argued that “with a staff of no more than ten people, there was no way Yolo could monitor the traffic of ten million active daily users to make good on its promise, and it in fact never did.” Additionally, they claimed Yolo should have known its anonymous design facilitated harassment, making it defective and dangerous.
A lower court threw out both of these claims, saying that under Section 230, Yolo couldn’t be held responsible for its users’ posts. The appeals court was more sympathetic. It accepted the argument that families were instead holding Yolo responsible for promising users something it couldn’t deliver. “Yolo repeatedly informed users that it would unmask and ban users who violated the terms of service. Yet it never did so, and may have never intended to,” writes Judge Eugene Siler, Jr. “While yes, online content is involved in these facts, and content moderation is one possible solution for Yolo to fulfill its promise, the underlying duty … is the promise itself.”
“Today’s decision does not expand liability for internet companies or make all violations of their own terms of service into actionable claims”
The Yolo suit built on a previous Ninth Circuit ruling that let another Snap-related lawsuit circumvent Section 230’s shield. In 2021, it found Snap could be sued for a “speed filter” that could implicitly encourage users to drive recklessly, even if users were responsible for making posts with that filter. (The overall case is still ongoing.) On top of their misrepresentation claim, the plaintiffs argued Yolo’s anonymous messaging capability was similarly risky, an argument the Ninth Circuit didn’t buy — “we refuse to endorse a theory that would classify anonymity as a per se inherently unreasonable risk,” Siler wrote.
This recent ruling is part of an extended push-and-pull over Section 230’s scope. Several cases have sought to claim that apps are illegally defective if they lead to harassment or other harms, even if those harms were committed by users. Despite periodic victories, it’s still far from an established doctrine, and the Supreme Court declined to consider it for the Herrick v. Grindr case back in 2019. The Supreme Court also declined to pare down Section 230 in a case over whether YouTube and Twitter supported illegal terrorism. After this Ninth Circuit ruling, Yolo can still mount a defense that it reasonably attempted to enforce its user agreement, and the case isn’t over.
Even so, letting users sue a company for not upholding its content policy could theoretically allow lawsuits against nearly any service that doesn’t practice (often impossibly) perfect moderation. The Ninth Circuit insists that’s not what it’s doing. “Today’s decision does not expand liability for internet companies or make all violations of their own terms of service into actionable claims,” Siler writes. “In our caution to ensure [Section] 230 is given its fullest effect, we must resist the corollary urge to extend immunity beyond the parameters established by Congress and thereby create a free-wheeling immunity for tech companies.”

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

An appeals court revived a lawsuit against the anonymous messaging service Yolo, which allegedly broke a promise to unmask bullies on the app. In a ruling issued Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shouldn’t block a claim that Yolo misrepresented its terms of service, overruling a lower court decision. But it determined the app can’t be held liable for alleged design defects that allowed harassment, letting a different part of that earlier ruling stand.

Yolo was a Snapchat-integrated app that let users send anonymous messages, but in 2021, it was hit with a lawsuit after a teenage user died by suicide. The boy, Carson Bride, had received harassing and sexually explicit messages from anonymized users that — he believed — he likely knew. Bride and his family attempted to contact Yolo for help, but Yolo allegedly never answered, and in some cases, emails to the company simply bounced. Snap banned Yolo and another app targeted in the lawsuit, and a year later, it banned all anonymous messaging integration.

Bride’s family and a collection of other aggrieved parents argued that Yolo broke a legally binding promise to its users. They pointed to a notification where Yolo claimed people would be banned for inappropriate use and deanonymized if they sent “harassing messages” to others. But as the ruling summarizes, the plaintiffs argued that “with a staff of no more than ten people, there was no way Yolo could monitor the traffic of ten million active daily users to make good on its promise, and it in fact never did.” Additionally, they claimed Yolo should have known its anonymous design facilitated harassment, making it defective and dangerous.

A lower court threw out both of these claims, saying that under Section 230, Yolo couldn’t be held responsible for its users’ posts. The appeals court was more sympathetic. It accepted the argument that families were instead holding Yolo responsible for promising users something it couldn’t deliver. “Yolo repeatedly informed users that it would unmask and ban users who violated the terms of service. Yet it never did so, and may have never intended to,” writes Judge Eugene Siler, Jr. “While yes, online content is involved in these facts, and content moderation is one possible solution for Yolo to fulfill its promise, the underlying duty … is the promise itself.”

The Yolo suit built on a previous Ninth Circuit ruling that let another Snap-related lawsuit circumvent Section 230’s shield. In 2021, it found Snap could be sued for a “speed filter” that could implicitly encourage users to drive recklessly, even if users were responsible for making posts with that filter. (The overall case is still ongoing.) On top of their misrepresentation claim, the plaintiffs argued Yolo’s anonymous messaging capability was similarly risky, an argument the Ninth Circuit didn’t buy — “we refuse to endorse a theory that would classify anonymity as a per se inherently unreasonable risk,” Siler wrote.

This recent ruling is part of an extended push-and-pull over Section 230’s scope. Several cases have sought to claim that apps are illegally defective if they lead to harassment or other harms, even if those harms were committed by users. Despite periodic victories, it’s still far from an established doctrine, and the Supreme Court declined to consider it for the Herrick v. Grindr case back in 2019. The Supreme Court also declined to pare down Section 230 in a case over whether YouTube and Twitter supported illegal terrorism. After this Ninth Circuit ruling, Yolo can still mount a defense that it reasonably attempted to enforce its user agreement, and the case isn’t over.

Even so, letting users sue a company for not upholding its content policy could theoretically allow lawsuits against nearly any service that doesn’t practice (often impossibly) perfect moderation. The Ninth Circuit insists that’s not what it’s doing. “Today’s decision does not expand liability for internet companies or make all violations of their own terms of service into actionable claims,” Siler writes. “In our caution to ensure [Section] 230 is given its fullest effect, we must resist the corollary urge to extend immunity beyond the parameters established by Congress and thereby create a free-wheeling immunity for tech companies.”

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

The Justice Department is suing the company behind a widely used software that helps landlords set rental prices. It alleges that RealPage’s rent recommendation algorithm drives up prices and “deprives renters of the benefits of competition on apartment leasing terms.”
In the complaint, the DOJ, along with eight states, claim that RealPage obtains nonpublic rental price information from competing landlords who use the software. RealPage then allegedly feeds this information into its algorithmic pricing software, which landlords can use to get suggestions about their rent rates.

When landlords collude to delegate pricing decisions to algorithms, renters can lose out on the benefits of competition and face higher rates. I called on the DOJ to investigate RealPage’s use of algorithms to set rents and now they are taking action with a major antitrust case.— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) August 23, 2024

As alleged in the lawsuit, “these are more than just ‘recommendations,’” as RealPage also “reviews and weighs in on landlords’ other policies,” in which it attempts to end concessions and discounts for renters. Landlords can also “effectively agree to outsource their pricing function” to RealPage with an “auto accept” option that automatically adjusts their rents based on its algorithm.
“In a competitive marketplace, each landlord may independently decide to offer concessions so that it can better compete in enticing lessors,” the complaint alleges. “But, again, RealPage seeks to replace fully independent, competitive decision-making with collective action by ending concessions.”
Additionally, the DOJ claims RealPage maintains a monopoly in commercial revenue management software for multi-family dwellings, making up around 80 percent of market share. RealPage’s “unlawful agreements” with landlords and the sensitive data it receives from them give the company a competitive advantage, the lawsuit alleges. The Verge reached out to RealPage with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
RealPage has been in the DOJ’s sights for quite some time now. Rumors about a potential lawsuit first surfaced after a 2022 ProPublica report revealed how RealPage’s algorithm may have contributed to increasing rent rates across the country.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

The Justice Department is suing the company behind a widely used software that helps landlords set rental prices. It alleges that RealPage’s rent recommendation algorithm drives up prices and “deprives renters of the benefits of competition on apartment leasing terms.”

In the complaint, the DOJ, along with eight states, claim that RealPage obtains nonpublic rental price information from competing landlords who use the software. RealPage then allegedly feeds this information into its algorithmic pricing software, which landlords can use to get suggestions about their rent rates.

As alleged in the lawsuit, “these are more than just ‘recommendations,’” as RealPage also “reviews and weighs in on landlords’ other policies,” in which it attempts to end concessions and discounts for renters. Landlords can also “effectively agree to outsource their pricing function” to RealPage with an “auto accept” option that automatically adjusts their rents based on its algorithm.

“In a competitive marketplace, each landlord may independently decide to offer concessions so that it can better compete in enticing lessors,” the complaint alleges. “But, again, RealPage seeks to replace fully independent, competitive decision-making with collective action by ending concessions.”

Additionally, the DOJ claims RealPage maintains a monopoly in commercial revenue management software for multi-family dwellings, making up around 80 percent of market share. RealPage’s “unlawful agreements” with landlords and the sensitive data it receives from them give the company a competitive advantage, the lawsuit alleges. The Verge reached out to RealPage with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.

RealPage has been in the DOJ’s sights for quite some time now. Rumors about a potential lawsuit first surfaced after a 2022 ProPublica report revealed how RealPage’s algorithm may have contributed to increasing rent rates across the country.

Read More 

Two of Microsoft’s Copilot Plus PCs. (Left: the Surface Pro; right: the Surface Laptop.) | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Before the beginning of summer, it was a little easier to shop for a basic productivity laptop. You could choose from a single version of Windows (x86), an Apple macOS device, or a Chromebook. Sure, there were still a lot of options from multiple laptop manufacturers, but if you knew what brand or operating system you wanted, especially if you were limited by a budget, it probably wouldn’t have taken too long to narrow down your choices, especially if you had specific preferences. (I know I do.)

But then Copilot Plus PCs arrived. Now there was a new type of less expensive productivity machine occupying shelf space between lower-end old-school Windows laptops and Chromebooks. If you thought you had already narrowed down your choices, you just got handed more research. Depending on what else you need a laptop to do — and how much you’re willing to spend — there are a few more things to look into now.
However, Copilot Plus PCs and Chromebooks are still positioned for different types of users. Selecting one or the other, then, isn’t actually more complicated — just more nuanced. Let’s dig into both of these systems and narrow down the list of options.
Copilot Plus PCs 101
Copilot Plus PCs are Windows systems but with a difference. Copilot Plus PCs run Windows on Arm (Arm64) with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon chips, while Intel and AMD-configured laptops run Windows x86. This isn’t the first time any laptop has run the Arm version, but it is the first time they have been worth buying. They are just as powerful as other Windows laptops and come with the same features, but they have longer battery lives and are more power efficient — and are generally a little cheaper. But their operating system is less versatile.

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

The HP Omnibook x 14 is one of the new Copilot Plus PCs. Read our review.

Though Windows on Arm has native support for nearly all the same major programs as the x86 version of Windows, some crucial ones are still missing, like Adobe Premiere Pro and Google Drive for Desktop. Google Drive also can’t be emulated with Microsoft’s new Prism emulator (which is a lot better than its previous iterations). Many other apps without native Arm64 support can, but they might run noticeably slower.
If you’re considering buying a Copilot Plus PC but are unsure about your favorite app’s compatibility, there’s a website that can help you check. Just keep in mind that it’s not an exhaustive list of everything that is or isn’t compatible, and the website itself doesn’t guarantee 100 percent accuracy. It’s always best to check compatibility yourself.
Chromebooks 101
Chromebooks run ChromeOS and generally have slower and older Intel or AMD processors. Their operating system is primarily designed to run apps in the cloud, so it’s stripped down to handle just the basics. (In some ways, it feels more like navigating a smartphone than an actual computer.) What it can handle on-device is saving and editing Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides files offline, saving and retrieving files from local storage, and playing mobile games, among other lightweight apps. Chromebooks’ simplicity and ease of use in the classroom have made them a popular choice for students in high school and elementary school, especially during the pandemic.
Google has recently added a few quality-of-life features to ChromeOS, like customizing keyboard and mouse shortcuts, which have been available in Windows for a long time.
Small similarities
There are several ways that Copilot Plus PCs and Chromebooks are similar. Not only are they both productivity laptops, but they also share some of the same features: both come in traditional and 2-in-1 form factors (although as of now the only convertible Snapdragon laptop is the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x) and both have models with touchscreens and a host of port options, like USB-A, USB-C, and sometimes even HDMI or a microSD slot.
They both have their own AI ecosystem. Copilot Plus PCs have Microsoft’s Cocreator, Live Captions, and Recall (which is not yet widely available but is accessible in Microsoft’s latest Windows 11 build). The newest Chromebooks have Google Gemini and come with a free 12-month subscription for Google One AI Premium that includes access to Gemini Advanced and a few other features.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The Asus Chromebook Plus CX34. Read our review.

As of right now, both operating systems can run Android apps. On ChromeOS, you can download them directly from the Google Play Store, which comes installed on the device. For Copilot Plus PCs, you’ll have to download the Windows Subsystem for Android app from Amazon’s Appstore first.
(Microsoft is deprecating this feature in March 2025, so if you want to “run” Android apps on Windows, you’ll have to use Phone Link to mirror them starting next year.)
Big differences
However, that’s where the similarities end. In addition to much more powerful processors and a versatile operating system, Copilot Plus PCs are generally better-looking and come with brighter, more color-accurate OLED displays compared to the Chromebooks’ IPS displays. They also usually have faster and larger storage drives, more memory, and a few more hours of battery life. A Wi-Fi 7 adapter is also a common feature, whereas Chromebooks have slower Wi-Fi 6E or earlier adapters. iPhone users can also now link their phone to the Windows OS, but ChromeOS is currently only compatible with Android.
However, ChromeOS is nicer to use on a touchscreen device compared to Windows. The user interface is also more streamlined and easier to navigate — I’ve had way better experiences using 2-in-1 Chromebooks in this way compared to Windows laptops with the same form factor.
Finally, there is a price difference. Copilot Plus PCs are more expensive than Chromebooks because they can do much more and handle more than Chromebooks. The cheapest one available is Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 7, which starts at $1,000 for the base model, while something like the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 with the same amount of memory and storage capacity and a similar display goes for $850 or less — and that’s one of the pricier Chromebooks.
So, which should you get?
If you need to use your laptop for both work and personal tasks but are looking to save some cash, Copilot Plus PCs are the better alternative to Chromebooks — assuming that they can handle all the apps you require. They’re cheaper than other Windows laptops, have longer battery lives, and can run most power-heavy apps. But if you don’t need to manage data-stuffed spreadsheets or edit videos for a film class, a Chromebook will handle the basics just as well for much less.

Two of Microsoft’s Copilot Plus PCs. (Left: the Surface Pro; right: the Surface Laptop.) | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Before the beginning of summer, it was a little easier to shop for a basic productivity laptop. You could choose from a single version of Windows (x86), an Apple macOS device, or a Chromebook. Sure, there were still a lot of options from multiple laptop manufacturers, but if you knew what brand or operating system you wanted, especially if you were limited by a budget, it probably wouldn’t have taken too long to narrow down your choices, especially if you had specific preferences. (I know I do.)

But then Copilot Plus PCs arrived. Now there was a new type of less expensive productivity machine occupying shelf space between lower-end old-school Windows laptops and Chromebooks. If you thought you had already narrowed down your choices, you just got handed more research. Depending on what else you need a laptop to do — and how much you’re willing to spend — there are a few more things to look into now.

However, Copilot Plus PCs and Chromebooks are still positioned for different types of users. Selecting one or the other, then, isn’t actually more complicated — just more nuanced. Let’s dig into both of these systems and narrow down the list of options.

Copilot Plus PCs 101

Copilot Plus PCs are Windows systems but with a difference. Copilot Plus PCs run Windows on Arm (Arm64) with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon chips, while Intel and AMD-configured laptops run Windows x86. This isn’t the first time any laptop has run the Arm version, but it is the first time they have been worth buying. They are just as powerful as other Windows laptops and come with the same features, but they have longer battery lives and are more power efficient — and are generally a little cheaper. But their operating system is less versatile.

Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

The HP Omnibook x 14 is one of the new Copilot Plus PCs. Read our review.

Though Windows on Arm has native support for nearly all the same major programs as the x86 version of Windows, some crucial ones are still missing, like Adobe Premiere Pro and Google Drive for Desktop. Google Drive also can’t be emulated with Microsoft’s new Prism emulator (which is a lot better than its previous iterations). Many other apps without native Arm64 support can, but they might run noticeably slower.

If you’re considering buying a Copilot Plus PC but are unsure about your favorite app’s compatibility, there’s a website that can help you check. Just keep in mind that it’s not an exhaustive list of everything that is or isn’t compatible, and the website itself doesn’t guarantee 100 percent accuracy. It’s always best to check compatibility yourself.

Chromebooks 101

Chromebooks run ChromeOS and generally have slower and older Intel or AMD processors. Their operating system is primarily designed to run apps in the cloud, so it’s stripped down to handle just the basics. (In some ways, it feels more like navigating a smartphone than an actual computer.) What it can handle on-device is saving and editing Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides files offline, saving and retrieving files from local storage, and playing mobile games, among other lightweight apps. Chromebooks’ simplicity and ease of use in the classroom have made them a popular choice for students in high school and elementary school, especially during the pandemic.

Google has recently added a few quality-of-life features to ChromeOS, like customizing keyboard and mouse shortcuts, which have been available in Windows for a long time.

Small similarities

There are several ways that Copilot Plus PCs and Chromebooks are similar. Not only are they both productivity laptops, but they also share some of the same features: both come in traditional and 2-in-1 form factors (although as of now the only convertible Snapdragon laptop is the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x) and both have models with touchscreens and a host of port options, like USB-A, USB-C, and sometimes even HDMI or a microSD slot.

They both have their own AI ecosystem. Copilot Plus PCs have Microsoft’s Cocreator, Live Captions, and Recall (which is not yet widely available but is accessible in Microsoft’s latest Windows 11 build). The newest Chromebooks have Google Gemini and come with a free 12-month subscription for Google One AI Premium that includes access to Gemini Advanced and a few other features.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The Asus Chromebook Plus CX34. Read our review.

As of right now, both operating systems can run Android apps. On ChromeOS, you can download them directly from the Google Play Store, which comes installed on the device. For Copilot Plus PCs, you’ll have to download the Windows Subsystem for Android app from Amazon’s Appstore first.

(Microsoft is deprecating this feature in March 2025, so if you want to “run” Android apps on Windows, you’ll have to use Phone Link to mirror them starting next year.)

Big differences

However, that’s where the similarities end. In addition to much more powerful processors and a versatile operating system, Copilot Plus PCs are generally better-looking and come with brighter, more color-accurate OLED displays compared to the Chromebooks’ IPS displays. They also usually have faster and larger storage drives, more memory, and a few more hours of battery life. A Wi-Fi 7 adapter is also a common feature, whereas Chromebooks have slower Wi-Fi 6E or earlier adapters. iPhone users can also now link their phone to the Windows OS, but ChromeOS is currently only compatible with Android.

However, ChromeOS is nicer to use on a touchscreen device compared to Windows. The user interface is also more streamlined and easier to navigate — I’ve had way better experiences using 2-in-1 Chromebooks in this way compared to Windows laptops with the same form factor.

Finally, there is a price difference. Copilot Plus PCs are more expensive than Chromebooks because they can do much more and handle more than Chromebooks. The cheapest one available is Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 7, which starts at $1,000 for the base model, while something like the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 514 with the same amount of memory and storage capacity and a similar display goes for $850 or less — and that’s one of the pricier Chromebooks.

So, which should you get?

If you need to use your laptop for both work and personal tasks but are looking to save some cash, Copilot Plus PCs are the better alternative to Chromebooks — assuming that they can handle all the apps you require. They’re cheaper than other Windows laptops, have longer battery lives, and can run most power-heavy apps. But if you don’t need to manage data-stuffed spreadsheets or edit videos for a film class, a Chromebook will handle the basics just as well for much less.

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RIP La Jolla. | Photo by David Pierce / The Verge

Meta is calling it quits on making a high-end mixed reality headset to compete with the Apple Vision Pro, The Information reports. This is despite recent news that the headset, codenamed La Jolla, would arrive sometime in 2027.
According to The Information, Meta had already started developing the La Jolla headset in November but told employees to stop working on the device this past week. The decision was due in part to the fact that the La Jolla headset would’ve used pricey MicroOLED displays. The Verge reached out to Meta for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

The move suggests that Meta as a whole may be souring on the idea of premium VR. Purportedly, the goal was to keep the cost of the headset under $1,000, which was looking increasingly difficult given how expensive MicroOLED can be to produce. Compounding matters, the $3,500 Vision Pro has struggled to make an impact with customers and developers, raising questions as to whether there’s even appetite for a high-end competitor. It also doesn’t help that the Quest Pro, which launched at $1,499, was poorly reviewed and quickly faded from the spotlight.
Despite that, Meta still has plans for more headsets and mixed reality tech in the near future. The Verge has previously reported that a more affordable Quest headset, codenamed Ventura, may be coming out later this year. In a similar vein, Meta will reportedly show off some new AR glasses next month at its Meta Connect event. Likewise, the Quest 4 is rumored to have a standard and premium version arriving sometime in 2026.

RIP La Jolla. | Photo by David Pierce / The Verge

Meta is calling it quits on making a high-end mixed reality headset to compete with the Apple Vision Pro, The Information reports. This is despite recent news that the headset, codenamed La Jolla, would arrive sometime in 2027.

According to The Information, Meta had already started developing the La Jolla headset in November but told employees to stop working on the device this past week. The decision was due in part to the fact that the La Jolla headset would’ve used pricey MicroOLED displays. The Verge reached out to Meta for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

The move suggests that Meta as a whole may be souring on the idea of premium VR. Purportedly, the goal was to keep the cost of the headset under $1,000, which was looking increasingly difficult given how expensive MicroOLED can be to produce. Compounding matters, the $3,500 Vision Pro has struggled to make an impact with customers and developers, raising questions as to whether there’s even appetite for a high-end competitor. It also doesn’t help that the Quest Pro, which launched at $1,499, was poorly reviewed and quickly faded from the spotlight.

Despite that, Meta still has plans for more headsets and mixed reality tech in the near future. The Verge has previously reported that a more affordable Quest headset, codenamed Ventura, may be coming out later this year. In a similar vein, Meta will reportedly show off some new AR glasses next month at its Meta Connect event. Likewise, the Quest 4 is rumored to have a standard and premium version arriving sometime in 2026.

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Ring’s latest wired security camera is a lot like the Ring Indoor Cam, only with a motorized base and a lengthy USB-C power cable. | Image: Ring

Many of today’s indoor security cameras are great, but unless you have multiple cameras positioned throughout your home at different angles, it can be tough to keep an eye on your pet, porch, and other happenings while you’re away. Enter Ring’s new Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam, which is now available in either black or white at Amazon, Best Buy, and Ring’s online storefront for a new low of $59.99 ($20 off).

In most respects, Ring’s first integrated pan and tilt camera is an iterative update of Ring’s second-gen Indoor Cam, which remains a cheap solution for monitoring the interior of your home. The wired camera offers 1080p HD video and color night vision, as well as two-way talk, a built-in siren, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connectivity, and a physical privacy cover that lets you block the camera and microphone. The big update, though, is the camera’s motorized base, which allows you to point it up or down and rotate it a full 360 degrees using Ring’s accompanying mobile app. It also comes with a 10-foot USB-C cable and two separate mounts — a ceiling mount and a wall mount — making it a bit easier to eliminate unwanted blind spots in your home.
The biggest downside, as is the case with all Ring cameras, is that you’ll need to sign up for a Ring Protect plan (from $4.99 a month) for person detection, rich notifications, and recorded video. Otherwise, you’ll only be able to take advantage of motion alerts and a live video feed.

Read our hands-on impressions.

Some additional ways to save

Despite once flagging it as a limited-time deal, Walmart is still selling the Animal Crossing-themed Switch Lite — which includes a digital copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons — for an all-time low of $159 ($41 off). Yes, it’s somewhat of an odd time to pick up Nintendo’s aging handheld given that the Switch 2 will reportedly arrive next year; however, upcoming games like Mario & Luigi: Brothership, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, and Super Mario Party Jamboree might make for the perfect swan song for the Switch when they launch in the fall. Read our review.
REI has officially kicked off its Labor Day sale and clearance event, which will end on September 2nd. It’s somewhat slim pickings on the tech front, though Coleman’s Cascade Classic Camp Stove is nearly matching its lowest price to date at $74.99 ($25 off). The relatively compact two-burner stove is pretty basic, as the name implies, but it’s long been my go-to for picnics and car camping, as it offers adjustable windscreens, a matchless igniter, and enough cooking power for most meals (if you’re willing to wait).
Although a gimbal-less sequel to the Insta360 Link is rumored to be in the works, you can still grab the first-gen model from Amazon, B&H Photo, and Insta360 for $199.99 (100 off), which matches its best price to date. The fun, 4K-ready webcam offers great software customization and an array of shooting modes, all of which rely on a capable 0.5-inch sensor and a motorized, three-axis arm that’s designed to keep you centered in the frame while on video calls or livestreams. Read our review.

Ring’s latest wired security camera is a lot like the Ring Indoor Cam, only with a motorized base and a lengthy USB-C power cable. | Image: Ring

Many of today’s indoor security cameras are great, but unless you have multiple cameras positioned throughout your home at different angles, it can be tough to keep an eye on your pet, porch, and other happenings while you’re away. Enter Ring’s new Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam, which is now available in either black or white at Amazon, Best Buy, and Ring’s online storefront for a new low of $59.99 ($20 off).

In most respects, Ring’s first integrated pan and tilt camera is an iterative update of Ring’s second-gen Indoor Cam, which remains a cheap solution for monitoring the interior of your home. The wired camera offers 1080p HD video and color night vision, as well as two-way talk, a built-in siren, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connectivity, and a physical privacy cover that lets you block the camera and microphone. The big update, though, is the camera’s motorized base, which allows you to point it up or down and rotate it a full 360 degrees using Ring’s accompanying mobile app. It also comes with a 10-foot USB-C cable and two separate mounts — a ceiling mount and a wall mount — making it a bit easier to eliminate unwanted blind spots in your home.

The biggest downside, as is the case with all Ring cameras, is that you’ll need to sign up for a Ring Protect plan (from $4.99 a month) for person detection, rich notifications, and recorded video. Otherwise, you’ll only be able to take advantage of motion alerts and a live video feed.

Read our hands-on impressions.

Some additional ways to save

Despite once flagging it as a limited-time deal, Walmart is still selling the Animal Crossing-themed Switch Lite — which includes a digital copy of Animal Crossing: New Horizons — for an all-time low of $159 ($41 off). Yes, it’s somewhat of an odd time to pick up Nintendo’s aging handheld given that the Switch 2 will reportedly arrive next year; however, upcoming games like Mario & Luigi: Brothership, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, and Super Mario Party Jamboree might make for the perfect swan song for the Switch when they launch in the fall. Read our review.
REI has officially kicked off its Labor Day sale and clearance event, which will end on September 2nd. It’s somewhat slim pickings on the tech front, though Coleman’s Cascade Classic Camp Stove is nearly matching its lowest price to date at $74.99 ($25 off). The relatively compact two-burner stove is pretty basic, as the name implies, but it’s long been my go-to for picnics and car camping, as it offers adjustable windscreens, a matchless igniter, and enough cooking power for most meals (if you’re willing to wait).
Although a gimbal-less sequel to the Insta360 Link is rumored to be in the works, you can still grab the first-gen model from Amazon, B&H Photo, and Insta360 for $199.99 (100 off), which matches its best price to date. The fun, 4K-ready webcam offers great software customization and an array of shooting modes, all of which rely on a capable 0.5-inch sensor and a motorized, three-axis arm that’s designed to keep you centered in the frame while on video calls or livestreams. Read our review.

Read More 

Image: Game Science

A perfectly fine action game has become saddled with a lot of baggage. Black Myth: Wukong is a hit: breaking all-time peak player count records on Steam, beating out Counter-Strike and Palworld to become the second most-played game on the platform, and selling more than 10 million copies across all platforms. In the few days after its release, it has become one of the most talked-about games of the summer — but for all the wrong reasons.
Discussion of Wukong on social media has been dominated by people arguing about what constitutes a valid criticism of a piece of art. Reviewers of the game have become the target of harassment, and the general tenor of conversation has reached a level of toxicity that would likely make any potentially curious player run screaming for the safety of yonder Fortnite hills — myself included.
Despite that trepidation, I wanted to know what, if anything, about Black Myth: Wukong as a game was worth all the digital ink being spilled on its behalf. And while no game is worth any kind of harassment, a few hours with Wukong have left me wondering: this is it? Wukong is a gorgeous game, but its simplistic combat drags down the experience into something that’s beautiful to look at but aggressively just OK to play.

Image: Game Science

Black Myth: Wukong is a retelling of the classical Chinese fantasy novel Journey to the West. Its opening moments feature a flashy combination of cinematics and gameplay that has Sun Wukong, the monkey king, facing off against a godlike foe while a pantheon of Chinese gods and their celestial armies observe menacingly in the distance. It goes incredibly hard and tickled all my wuxia / Chinese historical drama-loving bits. However, Sun Wukong is defeated, and the game starts in earnest with the player being given control of a new character tasked with finding the relics that will awaken the monkey king from his centuries-long slumber.
Wukong has some elements of a soulslike game. There are various user interface elements that remind me of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Death causes enemies to respawn and resets player progress back to checkpoints called shrines, but it does not cause the player to lose leveling-up currency. The Destined One (DO), as he’s called in the game, can string together combos of light and heavy attacks. There’s a dodge system that rewards you with essentially more powerful attacks when executing perfect dodges. You also have magic at your disposal that lets you freeze enemies for a short amount of time or transform into creatures that have their own combat capabilities.
I respect that the developers built moments into the game specifically to appreciate that beauty
I’ve been playing on the Steam Deck, which probably isn’t the best device for the game. (Wukong isn’t labeled as Steam Deck certified, but that hasn’t stopped it from being the most-played game on the platform over the last week.) In some spots, it chugged ferociously, even at the lowest settings. Nevertheless, the game’s environments are wonderful to behold, and I respect that the developers built moments into the game specifically to appreciate that beauty. Early on, I found a spot where DO can meditate, and the camera pulled back to show off an utterly gorgeous vista of a mountainous forest.
Despite its bombastic opening, the next few hours of the game did not come close to those initial heights — and combat is to blame. Enemies were trivially simple, and beyond one aberration of an encounter very early in the game, the bosses were, too.

Black Myth: Wukong players are struggling with this boss pic.twitter.com/ahXhgsk26c— Dexerto (@Dexerto) August 22, 2024

After suffering ass-beating after ass-beating in Shadow of the Erdtree, I didn’t mind Wukong’s button-mashy combat style, but after a while, it got boring. The game’s narrative offset my boredom enough to keep me going. There’s a bestiary with highly descriptive entries that read like fairytales. Every time I defeated a new enemy, I’d immediately pause to read the new entry and see the enemy’s portrait that looked like a traditional woodblock painting.
It’d be nice if the conversation about the game ended here, but unfortunately, Black Myth: Wukong has launched with a lot of baggage. In 2020, the game was introduced in the West with a slick, 13-minute trailer highlighting graphics and action that were impressive for a game still early in development. However, in November of last year, IGN released a report on Game Science, the studio making Wukong, that featured sexist comments from the game’s developers made on Chinese social media. When asked about those comments in recent interviews with other outlets, Game Science’s response has been “no comment.”
Then, in the run-up to the game’s launch earlier this week, screenshots of a document from Game Science began circulating on social media featuring instructions on what influencers were and were not allowed to discuss. The prohibited topics included covid-19, politics, the Chinese game industry, fetishization, “feminist propaganda,” and “other content that instigates negative discourse.”
Prerelease embargoes are common, though they’re usually limited to things like special character appearances, boss fights, plot twists, or anything the developers want to keep as a surprise for players. But it’s odd for a developer to dictate how a reviewer can talk about a game.

Image: Game Science

Some of the interesting monster designs from Black Myth: Wukong.

This strange move has made Wukong a cause celebre within certain video game communities on social media. There is a small but loud contingent of gamers who applaud Game Science’s refusal to speak on the sexist comments made by its employees, seeing the game’s success as a repudiation of what they call the “woke” video game industry and its concerted efforts to include the opinions and perspectives of marginalized identities. So much so that reviewers who don’t enthusiastically praise the game, or bring up its developers’ history of making sexist comments, have received Gamergate-levels of harassment.
In Screen Rant’s review, the author’s byline was removed “for their safety.” The IGN reporter who wrote the initial report on Game Science was also subject to harassment, including since-deleted fabricated quotes saying they were “devastated” Wukong had amassed so many players. This level of violent response feels really silly for a game that’s already sold millions and is sitting comfortably at an 81 on Metacritic.
Curiosity is a powerful enticement, and I’m glad mine led me to try Black Myth: Wukong rather than dismissing it out of hand for the unfortunate discourse. As I’ve said earlier, I love Chinese historical dramas, consuming them voraciously wherever I can get them. They have a tendency to run long — sometimes upwards of 100 episodes — and, unfortunately, not all of them can be bangers.
Playing Wukong felt like those middle episodes of a Chinese drama when the plot is spinning its wheels on the same conflict between the heroine and her evil stepmother / empress / sister / concubine. Nothing’s happening, but it’s still too damn pretty to put down.

Image: Game Science

A perfectly fine action game has become saddled with a lot of baggage.

Black Myth: Wukong is a hit: breaking all-time peak player count records on Steam, beating out Counter-Strike and Palworld to become the second most-played game on the platform, and selling more than 10 million copies across all platforms. In the few days after its release, it has become one of the most talked-about games of the summer — but for all the wrong reasons.

Discussion of Wukong on social media has been dominated by people arguing about what constitutes a valid criticism of a piece of art. Reviewers of the game have become the target of harassment, and the general tenor of conversation has reached a level of toxicity that would likely make any potentially curious player run screaming for the safety of yonder Fortnite hills — myself included.

Despite that trepidation, I wanted to know what, if anything, about Black Myth: Wukong as a game was worth all the digital ink being spilled on its behalf. And while no game is worth any kind of harassment, a few hours with Wukong have left me wondering: this is it? Wukong is a gorgeous game, but its simplistic combat drags down the experience into something that’s beautiful to look at but aggressively just OK to play.

Image: Game Science

Black Myth: Wukong is a retelling of the classical Chinese fantasy novel Journey to the West. Its opening moments feature a flashy combination of cinematics and gameplay that has Sun Wukong, the monkey king, facing off against a godlike foe while a pantheon of Chinese gods and their celestial armies observe menacingly in the distance. It goes incredibly hard and tickled all my wuxia / Chinese historical drama-loving bits. However, Sun Wukong is defeated, and the game starts in earnest with the player being given control of a new character tasked with finding the relics that will awaken the monkey king from his centuries-long slumber.

Wukong has some elements of a soulslike game. There are various user interface elements that remind me of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Death causes enemies to respawn and resets player progress back to checkpoints called shrines, but it does not cause the player to lose leveling-up currency. The Destined One (DO), as he’s called in the game, can string together combos of light and heavy attacks. There’s a dodge system that rewards you with essentially more powerful attacks when executing perfect dodges. You also have magic at your disposal that lets you freeze enemies for a short amount of time or transform into creatures that have their own combat capabilities.

I’ve been playing on the Steam Deck, which probably isn’t the best device for the game. (Wukong isn’t labeled as Steam Deck certified, but that hasn’t stopped it from being the most-played game on the platform over the last week.) In some spots, it chugged ferociously, even at the lowest settings. Nevertheless, the game’s environments are wonderful to behold, and I respect that the developers built moments into the game specifically to appreciate that beauty. Early on, I found a spot where DO can meditate, and the camera pulled back to show off an utterly gorgeous vista of a mountainous forest.

Despite its bombastic opening, the next few hours of the game did not come close to those initial heights — and combat is to blame. Enemies were trivially simple, and beyond one aberration of an encounter very early in the game, the bosses were, too.

After suffering ass-beating after ass-beating in Shadow of the Erdtree, I didn’t mind Wukong’s button-mashy combat style, but after a while, it got boring. The game’s narrative offset my boredom enough to keep me going. There’s a bestiary with highly descriptive entries that read like fairytales. Every time I defeated a new enemy, I’d immediately pause to read the new entry and see the enemy’s portrait that looked like a traditional woodblock painting.

It’d be nice if the conversation about the game ended here, but unfortunately, Black Myth: Wukong has launched with a lot of baggage. In 2020, the game was introduced in the West with a slick, 13-minute trailer highlighting graphics and action that were impressive for a game still early in development. However, in November of last year, IGN released a report on Game Science, the studio making Wukong, that featured sexist comments from the game’s developers made on Chinese social media. When asked about those comments in recent interviews with other outlets, Game Science’s response has been “no comment.”

Then, in the run-up to the game’s launch earlier this week, screenshots of a document from Game Science began circulating on social media featuring instructions on what influencers were and were not allowed to discuss. The prohibited topics included covid-19, politics, the Chinese game industry, fetishization, “feminist propaganda,” and “other content that instigates negative discourse.”

Prerelease embargoes are common, though they’re usually limited to things like special character appearances, boss fights, plot twists, or anything the developers want to keep as a surprise for players. But it’s odd for a developer to dictate how a reviewer can talk about a game.

Image: Game Science

Some of the interesting monster designs from Black Myth: Wukong.

This strange move has made Wukong a cause celebre within certain video game communities on social media. There is a small but loud contingent of gamers who applaud Game Science’s refusal to speak on the sexist comments made by its employees, seeing the game’s success as a repudiation of what they call the “woke” video game industry and its concerted efforts to include the opinions and perspectives of marginalized identities. So much so that reviewers who don’t enthusiastically praise the game, or bring up its developers’ history of making sexist comments, have received Gamergate-levels of harassment.

In Screen Rant’s review, the author’s byline was removed “for their safety.” The IGN reporter who wrote the initial report on Game Science was also subject to harassment, including since-deleted fabricated quotes saying they were “devastated” Wukong had amassed so many players. This level of violent response feels really silly for a game that’s already sold millions and is sitting comfortably at an 81 on Metacritic.

Curiosity is a powerful enticement, and I’m glad mine led me to try Black Myth: Wukong rather than dismissing it out of hand for the unfortunate discourse. As I’ve said earlier, I love Chinese historical dramas, consuming them voraciously wherever I can get them. They have a tendency to run long — sometimes upwards of 100 episodes — and, unfortunately, not all of them can be bangers.

Playing Wukong felt like those middle episodes of a Chinese drama when the plot is spinning its wheels on the same conflict between the heroine and her evil stepmother / empress / sister / concubine. Nothing’s happening, but it’s still too damn pretty to put down.

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