verge-rss

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

A Kansas man was sentenced to 24 years in prison after pouring $47.1 million into a pig butchering scam — using money from the bank he was in charge of. Shan Hanes, the former CEO of the small Heartland Tri-State Bank, pleaded guilty to embezzlement after routing the funds to scammers’ crypto accounts, causing the bank to collapse.
As reported by NBC News, Hanes fell for a pig butchering scam that had him purchasing crypto “to unlock the supposed returns on his investments,” which he never received.
In recent years, pig butchering scams have become increasingly common, with a recent study showing victims lost over $75 billion to the ruse globally. Google even sued two alleged scammers earlier this year over accusations they uploaded dozens of apps to the Play Store to carry out their schemes.
Pig butchering scams typically involve a scammer finding and contacting a victim through a messaging app, a dating service, or a social media platform. They’ll then try to form a relationship — often a romantic one — with their victim before eventually luring them into making a series of crypto investments.
From May to June 2023, Hanes set up 11 wire transfers using the bank’s stolen funds. He also embezzled money from a local church, an investment club, and his daughter’s college savings account. The Heartland Tri-State Bank, which was insured by the FDIC at the time, was one of the five banks to close in 2023.
“Hanes’ greed knew no bounds,” US Attorney Kate E. Brubacher says in a statement. “He trespassed his professional obligations, his personal relationships, and federal law. Not only did Shan Hanes betray Heartland Bank and its investors, but his illegal schemes also jeopardized confidence in financial institutions.”

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

A Kansas man was sentenced to 24 years in prison after pouring $47.1 million into a pig butchering scam — using money from the bank he was in charge of. Shan Hanes, the former CEO of the small Heartland Tri-State Bank, pleaded guilty to embezzlement after routing the funds to scammers’ crypto accounts, causing the bank to collapse.

As reported by NBC News, Hanes fell for a pig butchering scam that had him purchasing crypto “to unlock the supposed returns on his investments,” which he never received.

In recent years, pig butchering scams have become increasingly common, with a recent study showing victims lost over $75 billion to the ruse globally. Google even sued two alleged scammers earlier this year over accusations they uploaded dozens of apps to the Play Store to carry out their schemes.

Pig butchering scams typically involve a scammer finding and contacting a victim through a messaging app, a dating service, or a social media platform. They’ll then try to form a relationship — often a romantic one — with their victim before eventually luring them into making a series of crypto investments.

From May to June 2023, Hanes set up 11 wire transfers using the bank’s stolen funds. He also embezzled money from a local church, an investment club, and his daughter’s college savings account. The Heartland Tri-State Bank, which was insured by the FDIC at the time, was one of the five banks to close in 2023.

“Hanes’ greed knew no bounds,” US Attorney Kate E. Brubacher says in a statement. “He trespassed his professional obligations, his personal relationships, and federal law. Not only did Shan Hanes betray Heartland Bank and its investors, but his illegal schemes also jeopardized confidence in financial institutions.”

Read More 

Image: Amazon MGM Studios

Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut has Get Out aspirations, but it lands somewhere closer to Don’t Worry Darling. Zoë Kravitz’s passion for making movies is written all over Blink Twice, Amazon MGM’s new psychological thriller starring Naomi Ackie and Channing Tatum. You can see it in the feature’s meticulously crafted shots and hear it in every carefully placed needle drop. Blink Twice is a promising directorial debut from Kravitz — especially when the film is focused on enchanting you with its glamorous depiction of celebrity. But an impressive eye for the aesthetic can only do so much to carry a story that’s as thorny and difficult as Blink Twice’s. And while many of the movie’s core ideas about sex and power are potent, Blink Twice struggles to explore them in a way that feels substantive or original.
Aside from the fact that she has an unusually good memory for faces, there doesn’t seem to be that much out of the ordinary about cater waiter Frida (Naomi Ackie) as Blink Twice opens the night before she and her roommate Jess (Alia Shawkawt) are meant to be working at a big gala. Under any other circumstance, spending an evening waiting hand and foot on boozed-up, uber-wealthy elites might sound like a nightmare to Frida, who dreams of being able to quit and pursue her passion for nail art. But with the big party being a celebration for embattled billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum), Frida — one of many people smitten with the famous tech bro — can’t help but get excited at the possibility of seeing him. And when their paths do eventually cross, it isn’t long before he invites both women to his private island for a vacation getaway.

Though there’s a frenzied, rushed quality to Blink Twice’s opening act, Kravitz and cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra cleverly use that energy to establish the film as one that’s trying to channel the disorienting experience of being pulled into a superstar’s orbit. Everything about the champagne-soaked world of excess that King and his elite friends / employees (Simon Rex, Geena Davis, Haley Joel Osment, Christian Slater, Levon Hawke) exist in is strange to Frida and Jess. But the undeniable beauty of it all — the private jet, the island, the elaborate multicourse dinners chased with premium drugs — is enough to convince Don’t Blink’s heroines that King has welcomed them to a wonderland.
Kravitz, who cowrote Don’t Blink’s script with High Fidelity’s E.T. Feigenbaum, wants you to feel the fantasy, too, as Frida’s days on the island start blending together into a dreamlike blur of lazy afternoons by the pool and drunken nights running under the stars. Because Don’t Blink takes so many cues from recent horrors like The Menu and Ready or Not, though, it’s hard not to see the film’s dark twists coming from a distance.
Part of the problem is that few of Don’t Blink’s characters have all that much texture to them aside from Tatum’s King and Sarah (Adria Arjona), a former contestant on a Survivor-like show who also shows up on the island looking to party. Aside from one important monologue that falls rather flat, Tatum does a serviceable job of embodying King as an eccentric, yet charming recluse laying low to rehabilitate his image after a very public scandal. And Arjona’s Sarah — a professional celebrity famous for her ability to survive in stressful situations — is a surprise delight whose performance brings some much-needed levity to the film as things start to turn sinister.
But there is so little substance to Frida’s personality outside of her infatuation with King that the character often feels two-dimensional save for a handful of moments when the movie abruptly shifts gears just long enough for her to point out (more for the audience’s benefit) how weird being on the island feels. Those fleeting scenes give Ackie a chance to show off her range, and you can almost feel how much more unnerving Don’t Blink might be if the film showed us more of its heroine’s complexity before she loses it to the island’s strange magic. But for narrative reasons, Kravitz saves Frida’s interiority for Don’t Blink’s dizzying final act when the full picture of its mysterious puzzle comes into focus.

Image: Carlos Somonte

To the film’s credit, it’s an exercise in horror storytelling that’s actually trying to articulate several very specific things about gender and sexual violence rather than just coasting on unsettling vibes. As Don’t Blink peels back the layers of its central mystery, it becomes exceedingly clear that Kravitz means for it to hit many of the same nerves as Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman and Jordan Peele’s Get Out. But whereas those films’ messages about power and trauma were more carefully woven into their narratives on a technical level, Blink Twice hamfistedly spits its ideas out with a bravado that isn’t entirely earned.
With a bit more polish and time spent making its players feel like actual people, Blink Twice’s attempts to shock you with a heavily telegraphed pivot into metaphorical horror might work much more effectively. Instead, the film lands somewhere closer to Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, which is to say stylish but somewhat lacking in its ability to unpack its central themes.
Blink Twice works fairly well on a surface level as a glitzy popcorn thriller that will make your skin crawl. But Kravitz is also clearly striving for more here — and the film never quite hits that deeper level of meaning that would turn it into something truly special.
Blink Twice also stars Liz Caribel, Trew Mullen, Kyle MacLachlan, Cris Costa, and María Elena Olivares. The film is in theaters now.

Image: Amazon MGM Studios

Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut has Get Out aspirations, but it lands somewhere closer to Don’t Worry Darling.

Zoë Kravitz’s passion for making movies is written all over Blink Twice, Amazon MGM’s new psychological thriller starring Naomi Ackie and Channing Tatum. You can see it in the feature’s meticulously crafted shots and hear it in every carefully placed needle drop. Blink Twice is a promising directorial debut from Kravitz — especially when the film is focused on enchanting you with its glamorous depiction of celebrity. But an impressive eye for the aesthetic can only do so much to carry a story that’s as thorny and difficult as Blink Twice’s. And while many of the movie’s core ideas about sex and power are potent, Blink Twice struggles to explore them in a way that feels substantive or original.

Aside from the fact that she has an unusually good memory for faces, there doesn’t seem to be that much out of the ordinary about cater waiter Frida (Naomi Ackie) as Blink Twice opens the night before she and her roommate Jess (Alia Shawkawt) are meant to be working at a big gala. Under any other circumstance, spending an evening waiting hand and foot on boozed-up, uber-wealthy elites might sound like a nightmare to Frida, who dreams of being able to quit and pursue her passion for nail art. But with the big party being a celebration for embattled billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum), Frida — one of many people smitten with the famous tech bro — can’t help but get excited at the possibility of seeing him. And when their paths do eventually cross, it isn’t long before he invites both women to his private island for a vacation getaway.

Though there’s a frenzied, rushed quality to Blink Twice’s opening act, Kravitz and cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra cleverly use that energy to establish the film as one that’s trying to channel the disorienting experience of being pulled into a superstar’s orbit. Everything about the champagne-soaked world of excess that King and his elite friends / employees (Simon Rex, Geena Davis, Haley Joel Osment, Christian Slater, Levon Hawke) exist in is strange to Frida and Jess. But the undeniable beauty of it all — the private jet, the island, the elaborate multicourse dinners chased with premium drugs — is enough to convince Don’t Blink’s heroines that King has welcomed them to a wonderland.

Kravitz, who cowrote Don’t Blink’s script with High Fidelity’s E.T. Feigenbaum, wants you to feel the fantasy, too, as Frida’s days on the island start blending together into a dreamlike blur of lazy afternoons by the pool and drunken nights running under the stars. Because Don’t Blink takes so many cues from recent horrors like The Menu and Ready or Not, though, it’s hard not to see the film’s dark twists coming from a distance.

Part of the problem is that few of Don’t Blink’s characters have all that much texture to them aside from Tatum’s King and Sarah (Adria Arjona), a former contestant on a Survivor-like show who also shows up on the island looking to party. Aside from one important monologue that falls rather flat, Tatum does a serviceable job of embodying King as an eccentric, yet charming recluse laying low to rehabilitate his image after a very public scandal. And Arjona’s Sarah — a professional celebrity famous for her ability to survive in stressful situations — is a surprise delight whose performance brings some much-needed levity to the film as things start to turn sinister.

But there is so little substance to Frida’s personality outside of her infatuation with King that the character often feels two-dimensional save for a handful of moments when the movie abruptly shifts gears just long enough for her to point out (more for the audience’s benefit) how weird being on the island feels. Those fleeting scenes give Ackie a chance to show off her range, and you can almost feel how much more unnerving Don’t Blink might be if the film showed us more of its heroine’s complexity before she loses it to the island’s strange magic. But for narrative reasons, Kravitz saves Frida’s interiority for Don’t Blink’s dizzying final act when the full picture of its mysterious puzzle comes into focus.

To the film’s credit, it’s an exercise in horror storytelling that’s actually trying to articulate several very specific things about gender and sexual violence rather than just coasting on unsettling vibes. As Don’t Blink peels back the layers of its central mystery, it becomes exceedingly clear that Kravitz means for it to hit many of the same nerves as Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman and Jordan Peele’s Get Out. But whereas those films’ messages about power and trauma were more carefully woven into their narratives on a technical level, Blink Twice hamfistedly spits its ideas out with a bravado that isn’t entirely earned.

With a bit more polish and time spent making its players feel like actual people, Blink Twice’s attempts to shock you with a heavily telegraphed pivot into metaphorical horror might work much more effectively. Instead, the film lands somewhere closer to Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, which is to say stylish but somewhat lacking in its ability to unpack its central themes.

Blink Twice works fairly well on a surface level as a glitzy popcorn thriller that will make your skin crawl. But Kravitz is also clearly striving for more here — and the film never quite hits that deeper level of meaning that would turn it into something truly special.

Blink Twice also stars Liz Caribel, Trew Mullen, Kyle MacLachlan, Cris Costa, and María Elena Olivares. The film is in theaters now.

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by STR / NurPhoto, Getty Images

Elon Musk sent an email to X staff overnight about their much anticipated stock grants — but there’s a catch.
In an email to staff viewed by The Verge, the company is planning to award stock options based on the anticipated future impact of employees. That means staff have to submit a one-page summary telling leadership their contributions to the company.
These anticipated stock grants add to the tensions between X leadership and staff after the promotions process was recently delayed without explanation, we previously reported. Given how the company formerly called Twitter has continued to struggle under Elon Musk’s ownership, employees have been bracing for more layoffs.
What’s more, a source at X told The Verge that the company still owes staff their annual equity refresher, which was supposed to be doled out in April.
Developing…

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by STR / NurPhoto, Getty Images

Elon Musk sent an email to X staff overnight about their much anticipated stock grants — but there’s a catch.

In an email to staff viewed by The Verge, the company is planning to award stock options based on the anticipated future impact of employees. That means staff have to submit a one-page summary telling leadership their contributions to the company.

These anticipated stock grants add to the tensions between X leadership and staff after the promotions process was recently delayed without explanation, we previously reported. Given how the company formerly called Twitter has continued to struggle under Elon Musk’s ownership, employees have been bracing for more layoffs.

What’s more, a source at X told The Verge that the company still owes staff their annual equity refresher, which was supposed to be doled out in April.

Developing…

Read More 

Image: The Verge

Microsoft is hosting an important summit on Windows security at its Redmond, Washington, headquarters next month. The Windows Endpoint Security Ecosystem Summit on September 10th will bring together Microsoft engineers and vendors like CrowdStrike to discuss improvements to Windows security and third-party best practices to try and prevent another CrowdStrike incident.
“Microsoft, CrowdStrike and key partners who deliver endpoint security technologies will come together for discussions about improving resiliency and protecting mutual customers’ critical infrastructure,” says Aidan Marcuss, corporate vice president of Microsoft Windows and devices. “Our objective is to discuss concrete steps we will all take to improve security and resiliency for our joint customers.”
The buggy CrowdStrike update that forced 8.5 million Windows devices offline last month has triggered broader discussions about how such an incident can be avoided in the future. Microsoft has already called for changes to Windows to improve resiliency and has dropped some subtle hints about moving security vendors out of the Windows kernel.
CrowdStrike’s software runs at the kernel level — the core part of an operating system that has unrestricted access to system memory and hardware. That enabled the faulty update to cause a Blue Screen of Death at startup on affected machines last month, thanks to CrowdStrike’s special driver that allows it to run at a lower level than most apps so it can detect threats across a Windows system.

While Microsoft doesn’t directly mention Windows kernel access in its blog post announcing its Windows security summit, it’s bound to be a big part of the discussions next month. “The CrowdStrike outage in July 2024 presents important lessons for us to apply as an ecosystem,” says Marcuss. “Our discussions will focus on improving security and safe deployment practices, designing systems for resiliency and working together as a thriving community of partners to best serve customers now, and in the future.”
Microsoft tried to close off access to the Windows kernel in Windows Vista in 2006, but it was met with pushback from cybersecurity vendors and regulators. This time, Microsoft is inviting government representatives to its security summit “to ensure the highest level of transparency to the community’s collaboration to deliver more secure and reliable technology for all.”
Microsoft’s security summit won’t only focus on the Windows kernel access question, simply because improving resiliency and security for Windows goes far beyond just a single issue. The summit will include technical sessions to discuss safe deployment practices, improvements to the Windows platform and API sets, and using more memory-safe programming languages like Rust.
The summit comes right in the middle of Microsoft’s broader security overhaul of its own, following years of security issues and criticisms. Microsoft employees are now being judged directly on their security work, so engineers are understandably keen to engage more closely with vendors like CrowdStrike.
There is bound to be pushback from security vendors at the prospect of being kicked out of the Windows kernel, though. On one side, third-party developers want to develop innovative security solutions for Windows that require deep access, and on the flip side, Microsoft doesn’t want its entire operating system being brought down by a faulty update it has no control over.
Security vendors also often fear that any changes Microsoft makes to Windows will benefit or prioritize its own Defender security products that it sells to businesses. Microsoft has a complicated and unique relationship with security vendors because it builds the Windows platform for them and then competes for paid security customers.
By calling for a summit, Microsoft is clearly hoping to ease some of those tensions and generate short- and long-term actions for everyone involved in improving security and resiliency for Windows. The software giant is planning to share updates on the conversations after the event, and hopefully, there’s a strong consensus on what steps to take to avoid this type of devastating outage again.

Image: The Verge

Microsoft is hosting an important summit on Windows security at its Redmond, Washington, headquarters next month. The Windows Endpoint Security Ecosystem Summit on September 10th will bring together Microsoft engineers and vendors like CrowdStrike to discuss improvements to Windows security and third-party best practices to try and prevent another CrowdStrike incident.

“Microsoft, CrowdStrike and key partners who deliver endpoint security technologies will come together for discussions about improving resiliency and protecting mutual customers’ critical infrastructure,” says Aidan Marcuss, corporate vice president of Microsoft Windows and devices. “Our objective is to discuss concrete steps we will all take to improve security and resiliency for our joint customers.”

The buggy CrowdStrike update that forced 8.5 million Windows devices offline last month has triggered broader discussions about how such an incident can be avoided in the future. Microsoft has already called for changes to Windows to improve resiliency and has dropped some subtle hints about moving security vendors out of the Windows kernel.

CrowdStrike’s software runs at the kernel level — the core part of an operating system that has unrestricted access to system memory and hardware. That enabled the faulty update to cause a Blue Screen of Death at startup on affected machines last month, thanks to CrowdStrike’s special driver that allows it to run at a lower level than most apps so it can detect threats across a Windows system.

While Microsoft doesn’t directly mention Windows kernel access in its blog post announcing its Windows security summit, it’s bound to be a big part of the discussions next month. “The CrowdStrike outage in July 2024 presents important lessons for us to apply as an ecosystem,” says Marcuss. “Our discussions will focus on improving security and safe deployment practices, designing systems for resiliency and working together as a thriving community of partners to best serve customers now, and in the future.”

Microsoft tried to close off access to the Windows kernel in Windows Vista in 2006, but it was met with pushback from cybersecurity vendors and regulators. This time, Microsoft is inviting government representatives to its security summit “to ensure the highest level of transparency to the community’s collaboration to deliver more secure and reliable technology for all.”

Microsoft’s security summit won’t only focus on the Windows kernel access question, simply because improving resiliency and security for Windows goes far beyond just a single issue. The summit will include technical sessions to discuss safe deployment practices, improvements to the Windows platform and API sets, and using more memory-safe programming languages like Rust.

The summit comes right in the middle of Microsoft’s broader security overhaul of its own, following years of security issues and criticisms. Microsoft employees are now being judged directly on their security work, so engineers are understandably keen to engage more closely with vendors like CrowdStrike.

There is bound to be pushback from security vendors at the prospect of being kicked out of the Windows kernel, though. On one side, third-party developers want to develop innovative security solutions for Windows that require deep access, and on the flip side, Microsoft doesn’t want its entire operating system being brought down by a faulty update it has no control over.

Security vendors also often fear that any changes Microsoft makes to Windows will benefit or prioritize its own Defender security products that it sells to businesses. Microsoft has a complicated and unique relationship with security vendors because it builds the Windows platform for them and then competes for paid security customers.

By calling for a summit, Microsoft is clearly hoping to ease some of those tensions and generate short- and long-term actions for everyone involved in improving security and resiliency for Windows. The software giant is planning to share updates on the conversations after the event, and hopefully, there’s a strong consensus on what steps to take to avoid this type of devastating outage again.

Read More 

There’s now another reason to buy a Starlink kit from an authorized reseller. | Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge

In an effort to stop resellers from buying dishes in one region — where the hardware is cheaper — and selling them in another, Starlink is imposing a new “outside region fee” for its satellite internet kits activated “outside of the region they were originally sold in.”
Starlink has designated these six specific regions as the US and Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania. The company only says “it is possible” the fee will be applied to activations — not a guarantee — but it’s steep enough to be a discouragement.
For the Standard and Standard Actuated kits, the fee is $200, but for the Starlink Mini, it’s $300. That’s in US currency, but Starlink also warns the fee “may be applied in USD or local currency,” which could make it even more expensive based on the currency exchange. The company has shared a breakdown of which countries will be charged the fee in US or local currencies.
To avoid the fee, Starlink recommends purchasing the dishes either directly from the company or an “authorized retailer within your region.”

There’s now another reason to buy a Starlink kit from an authorized reseller. | Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge

In an effort to stop resellers from buying dishes in one region — where the hardware is cheaper — and selling them in another, Starlink is imposing a new “outside region fee” for its satellite internet kits activated “outside of the region they were originally sold in.”

Starlink has designated these six specific regions as the US and Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania. The company only says “it is possible” the fee will be applied to activations — not a guarantee — but it’s steep enough to be a discouragement.

For the Standard and Standard Actuated kits, the fee is $200, but for the Starlink Mini, it’s $300. That’s in US currency, but Starlink also warns the fee “may be applied in USD or local currency,” which could make it even more expensive based on the currency exchange. The company has shared a breakdown of which countries will be charged the fee in US or local currencies.

To avoid the fee, Starlink recommends purchasing the dishes either directly from the company or an “authorized retailer within your region.”

Read More 

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

If your Mac suddenly refuses to boot up properly, it can be frustrating — but you don’t have to immediately head to an Apple Store. There are a number of simple tricks you can try to get everything up and running again. I’ll take you through them here.
First, I’ll cover what to do if your computer starts but you only get a blank screen. Later, I’ll talk about some possible actions to take if you see a symbol on the screen or if the Mac doesn’t start at all.
(Problems like this are a reminder to keep everything backed up on macOS at all times. You’ll be thankful for it if you eventually need to replace your system drive or your entire computer.)
Your computer starts but shows a blank screen
Try a restart
If your Mac is showing signs of life at the start of the boot process but only displays a blank screen, then first, try a restart.

Press and hold the power button until the Mac turns off. (This may take up to 10 seconds.)
Press and release the power button to start up the system again.

If you’re in luck, your system was just experiencing a temporary blip. If that doesn’t work, your next port of call should be the macOS Recovery console.
Try the macOS Recovery console
How you get to this depends on how old your Mac is.
On newer Macs with Apple Silicon chipsets:

Press and hold the power button until your Mac turns off. (This may take up to 10 seconds.)
Press and hold the power button until you see the startup options screen, which should show a startup disk icon and a settings icon.
Select Options and then Continue.

Screenshot: Apple
The startup options screen on an Apple Silicon Mac.

On older Intel Macs:

Press and hold the power button until your Mac turns off. (This may take up to 10 seconds.)
Press and release the power button to boot the system again.
As soon as the boot starts, press and hold Cmd + R until you see the Apple logo or a spinning globe.
On some systems, you may be asked to connect to a Wi-Fi network or an ethernet cable.

Whatever route you’ve taken, you should now see a list of utilities onscreen, including the option to reinstall macOS or restore from a backup.
Let Disk Utility help
From here, choose Disk Utility, a comprehensive disk checking and repair tool that may save you a reinstall.
When you have Disk Utility open:

Choose View > Show All Devices.
Select your startup disk on the left — it should be called “Macintosh HD,” unless you’ve changed it. If there are several volumes for the same disk, choose the lowest one in the list (see here for more on file systems).
Click First Aid and then Run.
Repeat the process for each volume on your disk.

Screenshot: Apple
The Disk Utility tool will do its best to fix your problem.

If your startup disk doesn’t show up to be selected, turn off your Mac, remove all peripherals, and go back into Disk Utility. If the system drive is still not showing up, a professional repair might be needed: the official Apple support page for the Disk Utility has more on this.
Assuming your disk is showing up, when you’re done, open the Apple menu and click Restart. If the repair worked, your Mac will boot up as normal. If not, the next step Apple recommends is a full reinstall.
Boot up in safe mode
You also have the option of loading up macOS safe mode, which starts the operating system with a limited number of apps and background processes. However, safe mode is more for investigating software and macOS crashes, rather than boot-up problems. You can try it if you’re not having any luck with Disk Utility, but Disk Utility is the more comprehensive option.
Do a full reinstall
This can be done by going back to the list of utilities using the methods above and then choosing Reinstall macOS from the list of options rather than Disk Utility. Follow the onscreen instructions. If the reinstall is successful, macOS will be reset and working again and all of your apps and data should still be in place.
For an even more comprehensive reinstall, you can wipe the system drive completely (including apps and data) and then put a fresh version of macOS on top. This process is also done through Disk Utility; Apple provides separate instructions for Apple Silicon Macs and Intel silicon Macs.
Your computer shows symbols onscreen
With some boot-up issues, you’ll see a symbol instead of a blank screen, all of which Apple has support documents for. You might see a question mark, or a circle with a line through it, or a globe with an alert symbol on it, or the Apple logo.
These symbols reflect different problems, like an incompatible Mac operating system, but the fixes are mostly the same as those covered above. You’ll need to check the support pages for full instructions, but you may want to try a repair via Disk Utility first.

Screenshot: Apple
One of the symbols you might see if macOS won’t boot.

Your computer doesn’t start at all
If you’re not even getting to a blank screen or any kind of symbol when your computer boots up and there are no signs of life (no lights and no whirring), then you might be looking at a more fundamental problem with your hardware.
Apple’s advice is to run some basic checks: make sure your Mac is connected to power and that you’re using a working power cable. (Try a different one or try the one you’re using on a different computer.)
With that done, remove all the peripherals that you don’t absolutely need to have connected to make sure they’re not interfering in some way. Press and hold the Mac’s power button until it turns off (which may take up to 10 seconds), then press the power button again to restart.
Should you still have problems, Apple suggests resetting the SMC (System Management Controller) chip as one last troubleshooting step. The steps are quite involved and vary depending on the Mac you have, but the full instructions are here.
If you’ve worked your way through all of that, you’re at a point where you need to contact Apple Support directly. You can get assistance over live chat or via a phone call, book an appointment at a local Apple Store, or schedule a repair — and hopefully find a way to get your Mac working again.

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

If your Mac suddenly refuses to boot up properly, it can be frustrating — but you don’t have to immediately head to an Apple Store. There are a number of simple tricks you can try to get everything up and running again. I’ll take you through them here.

First, I’ll cover what to do if your computer starts but you only get a blank screen. Later, I’ll talk about some possible actions to take if you see a symbol on the screen or if the Mac doesn’t start at all.

(Problems like this are a reminder to keep everything backed up on macOS at all times. You’ll be thankful for it if you eventually need to replace your system drive or your entire computer.)

Your computer starts but shows a blank screen

Try a restart

If your Mac is showing signs of life at the start of the boot process but only displays a blank screen, then first, try a restart.

Press and hold the power button until the Mac turns off. (This may take up to 10 seconds.)
Press and release the power button to start up the system again.

If you’re in luck, your system was just experiencing a temporary blip. If that doesn’t work, your next port of call should be the macOS Recovery console.

Try the macOS Recovery console

How you get to this depends on how old your Mac is.

On newer Macs with Apple Silicon chipsets:

Press and hold the power button until your Mac turns off. (This may take up to 10 seconds.)
Press and hold the power button until you see the startup options screen, which should show a startup disk icon and a settings icon.
Select Options and then Continue.

Screenshot: Apple
The startup options screen on an Apple Silicon Mac.

On older Intel Macs:

Press and hold the power button until your Mac turns off. (This may take up to 10 seconds.)
Press and release the power button to boot the system again.
As soon as the boot starts, press and hold Cmd + R until you see the Apple logo or a spinning globe.
On some systems, you may be asked to connect to a Wi-Fi network or an ethernet cable.

Whatever route you’ve taken, you should now see a list of utilities onscreen, including the option to reinstall macOS or restore from a backup.

Let Disk Utility help

From here, choose Disk Utility, a comprehensive disk checking and repair tool that may save you a reinstall.

When you have Disk Utility open:

Choose View > Show All Devices.
Select your startup disk on the left — it should be called “Macintosh HD,” unless you’ve changed it. If there are several volumes for the same disk, choose the lowest one in the list (see here for more on file systems).
Click First Aid and then Run.
Repeat the process for each volume on your disk.

Screenshot: Apple
The Disk Utility tool will do its best to fix your problem.

If your startup disk doesn’t show up to be selected, turn off your Mac, remove all peripherals, and go back into Disk Utility. If the system drive is still not showing up, a professional repair might be needed: the official Apple support page for the Disk Utility has more on this.

Assuming your disk is showing up, when you’re done, open the Apple menu and click Restart. If the repair worked, your Mac will boot up as normal. If not, the next step Apple recommends is a full reinstall.

Boot up in safe mode

You also have the option of loading up macOS safe mode, which starts the operating system with a limited number of apps and background processes. However, safe mode is more for investigating software and macOS crashes, rather than boot-up problems. You can try it if you’re not having any luck with Disk Utility, but Disk Utility is the more comprehensive option.

Do a full reinstall

This can be done by going back to the list of utilities using the methods above and then choosing Reinstall macOS from the list of options rather than Disk Utility. Follow the onscreen instructions. If the reinstall is successful, macOS will be reset and working again and all of your apps and data should still be in place.

For an even more comprehensive reinstall, you can wipe the system drive completely (including apps and data) and then put a fresh version of macOS on top. This process is also done through Disk Utility; Apple provides separate instructions for Apple Silicon Macs and Intel silicon Macs.

Your computer shows symbols onscreen

With some boot-up issues, you’ll see a symbol instead of a blank screen, all of which Apple has support documents for. You might see a question mark, or a circle with a line through it, or a globe with an alert symbol on it, or the Apple logo.

These symbols reflect different problems, like an incompatible Mac operating system, but the fixes are mostly the same as those covered above. You’ll need to check the support pages for full instructions, but you may want to try a repair via Disk Utility first.

Screenshot: Apple
One of the symbols you might see if macOS won’t boot.

Your computer doesn’t start at all

If you’re not even getting to a blank screen or any kind of symbol when your computer boots up and there are no signs of life (no lights and no whirring), then you might be looking at a more fundamental problem with your hardware.

Apple’s advice is to run some basic checks: make sure your Mac is connected to power and that you’re using a working power cable. (Try a different one or try the one you’re using on a different computer.)

With that done, remove all the peripherals that you don’t absolutely need to have connected to make sure they’re not interfering in some way. Press and hold the Mac’s power button until it turns off (which may take up to 10 seconds), then press the power button again to restart.

Should you still have problems, Apple suggests resetting the SMC (System Management Controller) chip as one last troubleshooting step. The steps are quite involved and vary depending on the Mac you have, but the full instructions are here.

If you’ve worked your way through all of that, you’re at a point where you need to contact Apple Support directly. You can get assistance over live chat or via a phone call, book an appointment at a local Apple Store, or schedule a repair — and hopefully find a way to get your Mac working again.

Read More 

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge

Google got a lot of things right with the Pixel 9 lineup. The hardware is lovely, the chip is fast, even the huge camera bump kind of has a way about it, you know? It’s a worthy Android flagship in every way. It also — and not to be dramatic here — feels a bit like a harbinger of doom.
The Pixel 9’s AI photography features, particularly the “Reimagine” tool that allows you to change your photos with just a prompt, appears to be a big and worrisome step toward a world in which we won’t be able to trust photos of practically any sort. These aren’t the AI-generated photos with too many fingers and plenty of other tells; these just look like photos. They are photos! But they’re not real. And we’re not ready for what that means.

On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk about the Pixel 9, and what’s here and what’s coming from AI cameras. After that, we talk through some streaming news, including the possibility of yet another wrinkle in the Paramount acquisition saga and the controversial cancellation of The Acolyte. Then we get to the week’s truly big story: Chick-fil-A’s impending entry into the streaming wars. We have some guesses about the company’s plans, and some (we think) pretty strong content ideas.
Finally, it’s time for the lightning round, in which we talk about JBL’s new headphone case and its even larger screen, the never-ending disaster that is the new Sonos app, and Amazon’s deeply weird decision to cancel the main feature on its digital photo frame.
If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with the Pixel 9:

Google Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL review: AI all over the place

Google’s AI tool helped us add disasters and corpses to our photos
No one’s ready for this
This system can sort real pictures from AI fakes — why aren’t platforms using it?
The AI photo editing era is here
From Digital Trends: I tried Google’s new Pixel Studio app, and it’s a mess

And on all things streaming:

A new $6 billion bid to take over Paramount could undo plans to merge with Skydance.
The 2024 Olympics were a big win for TV of all kinds
The Acolyte has been canceled
Chick-fil-A is reportedly launching a streaming service for some reason
Spotify star Alex Cooper is jumping to a new podcast network

And in the lightning round:

Alex Cranz’s pick: JBL made its charging case touchscreen more useful with a size boost

Richard Lawler’s pick: Amazon cancels the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition’s main feature — focusing on photos

David Pierce’s pick: Sonos CEO says the old app can’t be rereleased

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge

Google got a lot of things right with the Pixel 9 lineup. The hardware is lovely, the chip is fast, even the huge camera bump kind of has a way about it, you know? It’s a worthy Android flagship in every way. It also — and not to be dramatic here — feels a bit like a harbinger of doom.

The Pixel 9’s AI photography features, particularly the “Reimagine” tool that allows you to change your photos with just a prompt, appears to be a big and worrisome step toward a world in which we won’t be able to trust photos of practically any sort. These aren’t the AI-generated photos with too many fingers and plenty of other tells; these just look like photos. They are photos! But they’re not real. And we’re not ready for what that means.

On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk about the Pixel 9, and what’s here and what’s coming from AI cameras. After that, we talk through some streaming news, including the possibility of yet another wrinkle in the Paramount acquisition saga and the controversial cancellation of The Acolyte. Then we get to the week’s truly big story: Chick-fil-A’s impending entry into the streaming wars. We have some guesses about the company’s plans, and some (we think) pretty strong content ideas.

Finally, it’s time for the lightning round, in which we talk about JBL’s new headphone case and its even larger screen, the never-ending disaster that is the new Sonos app, and Amazon’s deeply weird decision to cancel the main feature on its digital photo frame.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with the Pixel 9:

Google Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL review: AI all over the place

Google’s AI tool helped us add disasters and corpses to our photos
No one’s ready for this
This system can sort real pictures from AI fakes — why aren’t platforms using it?
The AI photo editing era is here
From Digital Trends: I tried Google’s new Pixel Studio app, and it’s a mess

And on all things streaming:

A new $6 billion bid to take over Paramount could undo plans to merge with Skydance.
The 2024 Olympics were a big win for TV of all kinds
The Acolyte has been canceled
Chick-fil-A is reportedly launching a streaming service for some reason
Spotify star Alex Cooper is jumping to a new podcast network

And in the lightning round:

Alex Cranz’s pick: JBL made its charging case touchscreen more useful with a size boost

Richard Lawler’s pick: Amazon cancels the Echo Show 8 Photos Edition’s main feature — focusing on photos

David Pierce’s pick: Sonos CEO says the old app can’t be rereleased

Read More 

Image: The Verge

AI audio startup ElevenLabs has now made its text-to-speech Reader app available across the world, adding support for 32 different languages — including Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Mandarin, and Hindi.
The app, which is available on both iOS and Android, was first released in June in the US, UK, and Canada. It allows users to listen to PDFs, articles, newsletters, ePub files or “any other text content” according to the developer, but that support seemingly doesn’t extend to files from Kindle or Apple Books.
There’s a good selection of AI-generated voices available for the text-to-speech tool, including deceased celebrities like Judy Garland, James Dean, and Burt Reynolds. The few I’ve listened to are impressive enough to avoid sounding overly robotic. ElevenLabs said their respective heirs were “excited to see their’ legacies live on” at release, so these voices are presumably licensed.
The reader app is free to download and use, and won’t consume credits from the broader ElevenLabs web-based subscription plan. The company is, however, planning to “eventually launch some premium version of the app,” but is promising to have a “generous free plan” available when that happens.

Image: The Verge

AI audio startup ElevenLabs has now made its text-to-speech Reader app available across the world, adding support for 32 different languages — including Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Mandarin, and Hindi.

The app, which is available on both iOS and Android, was first released in June in the US, UK, and Canada. It allows users to listen to PDFs, articles, newsletters, ePub files or “any other text content” according to the developer, but that support seemingly doesn’t extend to files from Kindle or Apple Books.

There’s a good selection of AI-generated voices available for the text-to-speech tool, including deceased celebrities like Judy Garland, James Dean, and Burt Reynolds. The few I’ve listened to are impressive enough to avoid sounding overly robotic. ElevenLabs said their respective heirs were “excited to see their’ legacies live on” at release, so these voices are presumably licensed.

The reader app is free to download and use, and won’t consume credits from the broader ElevenLabs web-based subscription plan. The company is, however, planning to “eventually launch some premium version of the app,” but is promising to have a “generous free plan” available when that happens.

Read More 

Image: Cruise

Uber has signed up another robotaxi company to offer driverless rides inside its app. Starting sometime next year, for “qualifying” rides, Uber will give you the option to take the trip in one of Cruise’s autonomous vehicles. The two companies announced a “multiyear strategic partnership” on Thursday.
Uber already partnered with Waymo on autonomous rides and announced a long-term deal with driverless truck company Aurora earlier this year. It also offered driverless rides with Motional before Motional paused its robotaxi deployments in May. The original date for Elon Musk’s event revealing Tesla’s robotaxi developments passed a couple of weeks ago, but now it’s supposed to take place October 10th.
Cruise halted its robotaxi service in October following an incident where a Cruise car dragged a pedestrian. The company recently brought autonomous vehicles back to the road with safety drivers. Cruise spokesperson Tiffany Testo tells The Verge that the launch of its partnership with Uber will happen after Cruise brings back its driverless ridehailing service.
In their press release, Uber and Cruise didn’t say what cities the service might be available in, but Testo says that users can “expect” it to launch in one of the cities where it’s doing supervised testing: Phoenix, Dallas, and Houston.

Image: Cruise

Uber has signed up another robotaxi company to offer driverless rides inside its app. Starting sometime next year, for “qualifying” rides, Uber will give you the option to take the trip in one of Cruise’s autonomous vehicles. The two companies announced a “multiyear strategic partnership” on Thursday.

Uber already partnered with Waymo on autonomous rides and announced a long-term deal with driverless truck company Aurora earlier this year. It also offered driverless rides with Motional before Motional paused its robotaxi deployments in May. The original date for Elon Musk’s event revealing Tesla’s robotaxi developments passed a couple of weeks ago, but now it’s supposed to take place October 10th.

Cruise halted its robotaxi service in October following an incident where a Cruise car dragged a pedestrian. The company recently brought autonomous vehicles back to the road with safety drivers. Cruise spokesperson Tiffany Testo tells The Verge that the launch of its partnership with Uber will happen after Cruise brings back its driverless ridehailing service.

In their press release, Uber and Cruise didn’t say what cities the service might be available in, but Testo says that users can “expect” it to launch in one of the cities where it’s doing supervised testing: Phoenix, Dallas, and Houston.

Read More 

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

An appeals court has revived the District of Columbia’s antitrust case against Amazon, which the District claims illegally drives up prices on rival platforms. In a decision on Thursday, the DC Court of Appeals ruled that the District’s allegations “plausibly suggest” that Amazon already has monopoly power over online marketplaces or is close to achieving it.
Former DC Attorney General Karl Racine filed the antitrust lawsuit against Amazon in 2021, but it was tossed out in court in 2022. The lawsuit alleges Amazon engages in anticompetitive behavior by restricting third-party sellers from offering products on other online stores, including their own websites, for less than they charge on Amazon — effectively controlling the price of goods outside of its own platform.

DC was the first jurisdiction to take antitrust enforcement action against Amazon — and we are grateful the FTC and other states have followed suit.We will always fight back against abuse of monopoly power.DC residents deserve fair prices, competition, innovation, and choice.— AG Brian Schwalb (@DCAttorneyGen) August 22, 2024

Though Amazon retracted a policy that required sellers to offer products at the lowest prices on its online marketplace in 2019, the lawsuit argues that Amazon’s Fair Pricing Policy amounts to “an effectively identical substitute.”
Amazon, unsurprisingly, doesn’t agree with the court’s decision to bring back the case. “Just like any store owner who wouldn’t want to promote a bad deal to their customers, we don’t highlight or promote offers that are not competitively priced,” Amazon spokesperson Tim Doyle says in a statement to The Verge. “It’s part of our commitment to featuring low prices to earn and maintain customer trust, which we believe is the right decision for both consumers and sellers in the long run.”
Amazon is also facing antitrust scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, which filed a massive lawsuit against Amazon over claims its monopoly power stifles competition and harms consumers.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

An appeals court has revived the District of Columbia’s antitrust case against Amazon, which the District claims illegally drives up prices on rival platforms. In a decision on Thursday, the DC Court of Appeals ruled that the District’s allegations “plausibly suggest” that Amazon already has monopoly power over online marketplaces or is close to achieving it.

Former DC Attorney General Karl Racine filed the antitrust lawsuit against Amazon in 2021, but it was tossed out in court in 2022. The lawsuit alleges Amazon engages in anticompetitive behavior by restricting third-party sellers from offering products on other online stores, including their own websites, for less than they charge on Amazon — effectively controlling the price of goods outside of its own platform.

Though Amazon retracted a policy that required sellers to offer products at the lowest prices on its online marketplace in 2019, the lawsuit argues that Amazon’s Fair Pricing Policy amounts to “an effectively identical substitute.”

Amazon, unsurprisingly, doesn’t agree with the court’s decision to bring back the case. “Just like any store owner who wouldn’t want to promote a bad deal to their customers, we don’t highlight or promote offers that are not competitively priced,” Amazon spokesperson Tim Doyle says in a statement to The Verge. “It’s part of our commitment to featuring low prices to earn and maintain customer trust, which we believe is the right decision for both consumers and sellers in the long run.”

Amazon is also facing antitrust scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, which filed a massive lawsuit against Amazon over claims its monopoly power stifles competition and harms consumers.

Read More