X reportedly tests removing headlines from links to news articles
The Verge
A report from Fortune claims that X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, has tested stripping headlines from articles shared on the site. Posts would only include the lead image and the URL, unless the person or publisher posting the link adds their own text, per materials the outlet viewed.
The image would still serve as a link to the article, but there's no word on a timetable to roll it out or confirmation that it will ship at all. “It’s something Elon wants,” a source is quoted as saying, “They were running it by advertisers, who didn’t like it, but it’s happening.”
(if this text was not here, all you would see is this image with no context, no headline, no description — but it would be a clickable article) pic.twitter.com/XIhUQymnv4
Explanations for the change include reducing the height of individual posts so users’ timelines display more content, and that owner Elon Musk apparently “believes the change will help curb clickbait.”
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment beyond an automated response from its press contact address.
Apple’s sci-fi drama Invasion ramps up the tension in season 2
Image: Apple
Invasion was a curious addition to the sci-fi TV landscape when it debuted in 2021. For much of its runtime, it barely felt like science fiction at all. We all knew something alien was happening — it’s right there in the show’s title, after all — but the story was much more focused on the human-level drama going down as the world steadily succumbed to the invading forces. The result was a show that started very slowly, though things did eventually pick up mid-season. Ultimately, season 1 felt like a prologue to a much bigger story.
With all of that setup out of the way, the second season starts out much more exciting — and it doesn’t let up for the first few episodes.
Note:this write-up is based on the first five (of 10) episodes of season 2. I’ll have more on the full season later on.
One of the most notable things about Invasion is its structure. The show follows a handful of characters spread across the globe, each dealing with the invading aliens in different ways. Season 1 was all about survival for pretty much the whole cast, whether it was a mother in America trying to keep her kids alive, a bus full of students stranded and alone in England, or a Japanese communications expert desperately trying to contact a lost astronaut who also happened to be her secret girlfriend. But in season 2, most everybody has a bit more direction, and it makes the show move forward with more purpose and intensity.
The new season picks up a few months after the spiky alien blobs first made their presence known, and things aren’t going so well. Major cities look like war zones, with most people having fled or died, while those who remain struggle to fight against the very tough to kill invaders. If it weren’t for the looming spaceships on the horizon, the show could be mistaken for any number of postapocalyptic series early on. And once again, the cast is spread across the globe, dealing with the invasion — and their own personal struggles — on various fronts.
For example, in the first episode, the aforementioned comms expert Mitsuki (Shioli Kutsuna) finds herself on the frontlines of the conflict, fighting in the streets and using Molotov cocktails to keep the alien invaders at bay. But very soon, she’s picked up by an organization called the WDC (World Defense Coalition) and transported to help research the only downed alien spacecraft on Earth. Her attempts to reach her astronaut lover in season 1 made her the only person on the planet to make contact with the aliens, and here, she’s able to continue that work.
The scenes in and around the alien craft are great. Everything about this species is just so, well, alien; the ship is organic in nature, and anyone who spends too much time inside starts to get a little loopy. Her attempts to make further contact with the aliens feel like a mix of Annihilation and Arrival, and eventually, they have a big impact on humanity’s ability to fight back, with a few scenes reminiscent of Independence Day.
But as much as season 2 can feel like other more prominent sci-fi stories at times, it does a great job of mixing that with the grounded human drama that helped make season 1 stand out. The other half of the first episode follows Aneesha (Golshifteh Farahani), who is living on the run with her two kids, heading north and doing her best to avoid other people in the name of safety. She also happens to still be in possession of a piece of alien metal that the government really wants to get its hands on. Her story is much less about the actual aliens and more about navigating the dangerous new social landscape on Earth.
Image: Apple
The show manages to smoothly jump between the slower character development moments and storylines that are rushing toward something with urgency. Basically, it’s still the same Invasion from season 1, except there’s a lot more forward momentum, which in turn, makes it much more exciting. And it gets much deeper into sci-fi weirdness, with dangerous new aliens and a strange goopy creature that Mitsuki forms a connection with. So far, it fulfills the promise of the first season, which was a very long setup for an epic sci-fi story. Now, we’re seeing that story unfold.
The beginning of Invasion helped us understand the humans at the heart of its story. Now, season 2 is helping us understand the aliens that they’re running from.
Season 2 of Invasion premieres on Apple TV Plus on August 23rd.
Amazon’s Fire TV Channels adds a sidebar and more free streaming content
Image: Amazon
Amazon is updating its recently launched Fire TV Channels app. The free, ad-supported streaming platform has a new sidebar that lets you navigate through different categories of content along with a new slate of shows.
Fire TV Channels first launched in May with a lineup of free shows, live news, music videos, and sports from over 400 different providers, such as ABC News, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, America’s Test Kitchen, Martha Stewart, and others. But now, Amazon says the app will also include content from Variety, Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, TV Line, Funny or Die, GameSpot, Honest Trailer, and more.
Meanwhile, the new app’s sidebar lets you sift through all the different types of content available on the platform, with categories including News, Sports, Entertainment, Gaming, Cooking, Travel, and Music Videos. Fire TV Channels is only available on Fire TV devices in the US, and you can access it from the Your Apps & Channels screen without the need to download the app or create an account.
The voice of Mario is stepping away from the character
Martinet at the launch of Super Mario Galaxy. | Photo by Stephen Kelly - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images
Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario for 27 years, will no longer be voicing the iconic character, according to a tweet from Nintendo. Martinet took on the role with 1996’s Super Mario 64 and has voiced the character in numerous games since, including both mainline Mario releases like Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Galaxy as well as countless spinoffs.
“Charles is now moving into the brand-new role of Mario Ambassador. With this new transition, he will be stepping back from recording character voices for our games,” Nintendo’s statement reads. “It has been an honor working with Charles to help bring Mario to life for so many years and we want to thank and celebrate him.”
Though a fixture in video game history, Martinet was missed as the voice of Mario in the billon-dollar grossing Super Mario Bros. Movie that was released earlier this year. There was also speculation that Martinet was not the voice of Mario in the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Wonder, due out October 20th. Nintendo has not yet confirmed if Super Mario Bros. Wonder would be Martinet’s last time as gaming’s most famous plumber.
Here’s the first outdoor smart plug to work with Matter
Leviton’s new Decora Smart Wi-Fi Outdoor Plug-in Switch is the first to work with Matter. | Image: Leviton
The outdoor smart plug works over 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, has on / off functionality (there’s no dimming), and a built-in light sensor for automating any lights you plug into it to turn on at night and off during the day. This is a neat feature you won’t find on a lot of smart plugs and means you don’t need to use any app or programming for it to be useful right out of the box.
The Decora Outdoor Plug-in can also pair with Leviton’s Anywhere Switch Companion, a wire-free remote control that can be wall mounted, making it easier to control the plug from inside the house, another feature you won’t find on the sub-$30 plugs in this category. It supports 120V, 60Hz, and 15A general-purpose loads, can control motor loads up to 3/4HP, and features a 10-inch line cord and six-inch load cord.
Image: Leviton
The Leviton plug works with Leviton’s app, Apple Home through Matter, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings.
With support for Matter straight out of the box, the plug can work with all Matter-enabled smart devices and Matter-certified smart home platforms, including Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings. To use the plug with Matter, you’ll need a Matter controller from the platform you want to pair it to — so an Echo smart speaker to pair to Alexa or a Nest Hub for Google Home, and so on. Leviton has a Matter guide on its site with more details.
Outside of Matter, the Decora is certified to work directly with Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, IFTTT, and Schlage. You can also use the My Leviton app for scene control, schedules, and an auto shut-off timer feature.
Outdoor smart plugs are useful for more than just lighting. Holiday decorations, pumps for water features, and outdoor fans are just a few use cases. I’ve been running a fan hooked up to a Lutron Caséta Outdoor Smart Plug all summer to keep my chickens cool in the scorching summer heat.
The new Leviton plug has a similar design to Lutron’s Caséta plug, both of which feature a sturdier build with more weatherproofing than most outdoor smart plugs I’ve tested. But at $80, the Lutron costs $25 more than the Leviton and requires a proprietary hub for most smart features. Both plugs only have one controlled outlet and are IP65 rated, meaning they’re durable enough to handle dirt, dust, rain, and snow. But Leviton’s operating temperature is negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, so it can handle colder temps than the Lutron (negative 4 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit). The Lutron supports up to 1/2HP motor loads and can also pair with a wireless wall switch, without needing the hub.
Lutron has not announced support for Matter but is a member of the Connectivity Standards Alliance, which runs the new smart home standard. However, the company’s products already work with most platforms. Lutron’s Caséta does require the hub for many features, whereas the Leviton can work just over Wi-Fi. However, in my experience, using the hub with Lutron’s Clear Connect protocol means the Lutron plug gets impressive range. Wi-Fi smart plugs often struggle the further they are from your Wi-Fi router. I’ll be testing the new Leviton outdoor plug and will report back.
How Nvidia Built a Competitive Moat Around A.I. Chips The most visible winner of the artificial intelligence boom achieved its dominance by becoming a one-stop shop for A.I. development, from chips to software to other services.
Samsung’s announcement doesn’t specify which platforms the game will support HDR10 Plus Gaming on, but we’re assuming it’s PC rather than consoles given neither Sony nor Microsoft have announced support for this latest HDR format on their platforms. On PC, Nvidia announced it was adding support for HDR10 Plus Gaming to its RTX and 16-series graphics cards in November 2022.
The big advantage being advertised for the HDR10 Plus Gaming standard is that it allows games to automatically calibrate their brightness and colors depending on what a connected monitor or TV can support, similar to what Sony’s PS5 offers with select Sony Bravia TVs. In theory this should result in better highlight and shadow detail, and more accurate color reproduction. The process automates what is often a manual calibration that involves adjusting a slider so that you can barely see a logo on a white or black background. During its announcement, Samsung also advertised that HDR10 Plus Gaming is low-latency and is compatible with variable refresh rates.
As well as a compatible PC, you’ll also need an HDR10 Plus Gaming-compatible display in order to take advantage of the new technology. Samsung says its recent high end TVs and Odyssey gaming monitors already offer support, while Nvidia’s press release from last year mentions that select Amazon, Panasonic, TCL, and Vizio TVs are also compatible. But I wouldn’t expect this to be as widely supported as, say, Dolby Vision.
HDR10 Plus has been around for a few years now, and is best known as an open and royalty-free competitor to the Dolby Vision HDR standard. Both offer a couple of key advantages over the standard HDR10 format, and include support for dynamic metadata to offer more accurate colors and better highlight and shadow detail on compatible displays. Xbox consoles already support using the Dolby Vision standard with games, though when HDTVTest’s Vincent Teoh examined the feature in 2021 he found its advantages over standard HDR10 at the time were negligible.
Despite the “world’s first” language in the announcement, this isn’t the first time Samsung has name-dropped specific games in relation to the HDR10 Plus Gaming standard. When it announced its first screens for support with the format in late 2021 it said Saber Interactive’s Redout 2 and Pinball FX as well as another title called Happy Trails and the Kidnapped Princess would be showcased with the technology at CES 2022. We’ve reached out to Saber to find out if its titles ended up supporting the standard when they were released in 2022, but can’t see any evidence that Happy Trails ever made it to market.
As well as the HDR10 Plus Gaming standard, Nvidia recently announced that The First Descendant will also support its DLSS 3 upscaling technology.
USDA announces $667 million in rural broadband funding
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The US Department of Agriculture announced nearly $700 million in funding Monday to expand high-speed broadband access in rural communities across the country.
The USDA’s ReConnect Program is providing $667 million in grants and loans for broadband projects in 22 states and the Marshall Islands in areas that lack access to speeds of at least 100Mbps down and 20Mbps up. Recipients of this funding will be required to build out infrastructure capable of providing upload and download speeds of 100Mbps, surpassing the Federal Communications Commission’s current speed minimums of 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up.
“The reality is, we have faced some challenging times in rural places, and this is a president who believes strongly in ensuring that investments are made in all parts of the country from the most-populated urban centers to the most remote rural places,” USDA Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a call with reporters Friday.
The USDA received this funding from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which included $65 billion to expand access to affordable high-speed broadband and reach universal connectivity by 2030.
Some of the USDA’s approved projects will help serve anywhere from just a few households to thousands, along with many businesses and farms. The Scott County Telephone Cooperative in Virginia is receiving one of the largest grants at $25 million, promising to connect more than 17,000 people, 1,018 businesses, 37 farms, and 49 educational facilities. On the smaller end, Wave Wireless in Iowa is receiving nearly $500,000 benefitting just 228 people, six businesses, and nearly 40 farms.
Since the bipartisan infrastructure package passed, the Biden administration has distributed billions of dollars to meet this goal. In June, the administration distributed more than $40 billion to states based on need, with every state receiving at least $100 million. The Affordable Connectivity Program, also authorized under the law, received $14.2 billion to extend a covid pandemic-era subsidy lowering the cost of internet packages by $30 a month or $75 on tribal lands.
Speaking with reporters Friday, Vilsack said that Monday’s broadband funding will also support farmers accessing emerging tech to help lower greenhouse gas emissions and remove carbon.
“We are as an administration focused on expanding significantly opportunities for farmers to have more and new and better markets,” Vilsack said. “To do that is going to require a lot of technology that will absolutely depend on high-speed internet access.”
Even in War, Ukrainian Soldiers Find Time for World of Tanks Video Game The urge to play a violent video game in the midst of the most brutal land war in Europe since World War II may seem baffling. But it’s a way to cope.
Meta may launch a Threads web version early this week
Illustration: The Verge
Meta will launch the web version of Threads, its competitor to X (formerly known as Twitter) early this week, reports The Wall Street Journal. A web version has been frustratingly missing since the short-form posting service began.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is working on adding the feature along with better search (well, search at all, really — right now, you can only search for usernames on the platform) earlier this month, and that it would be ready in “the next few weeks.”
However, WSJ says, its sources say the feature’s “launch plans aren’t final and could change.” Mosseri posted on Threads last week that Meta had been testing “an early version internally for a week or two,” but that it “needs some work” before wide release.
Threads launched as a very barebones Twitter clone only a month and a half ago, quickly soaring past the 100 million user mark, but it’s been missing several crucial features, which the company has been slowly adding. The company recently added a follow feed, as well as the ability to verify a link with your Mastodon profile, indicating Meta may actually be taking integration with the decentralized social network protocol Activity Pub at least partially seriously.
Russia’s Luna-25 space craft ‘ceased to exist’ after colliding with the Moon.
Luna-25 launching from Russia earlier this month. | Photo by Xinhua via Getty Images
Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft failed to land on the Moon, Roscosmos, Russia’s state-run space corporation, announced today. In a statement, the organization reported that the lander “ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon.” It would’ve been the country’s first Moon landing since 1976.
Luna-25 entered orbit around the Moon last week, and was meant to orbit for just five days before landing on Monday, August 21st, but over the weekend, Roscosmos said it was analyzing a “technical glitch” that occurred as it was preparing the craft to move to a pre-landing orbit. Now the organization says Luna-25 has been lost.
Russia was pushing to beat India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission to land on the Moon. That spacecraft also made lunar orbit this month, and the country’s space agency, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), tweeted this morning that Chandrayaan-3 is set for its own Moon landing on August 23rd. India plans for it to set down on the Moon’s south pole — the same region of the surface targeted by Luna-25 — on August 23rd. If successful, it will be the first spacecraft to land on the Moon’s south pole.
Luna-25’s mission, after landing, was to study the Moon’s south pole ice to gain insight into the satellite’s formation. Analysis of the ice would let scientists “theorize on how water appeared on the surface of the Earth’s natural satellite and whether this process was linked to the emergence of water on the Earth,” according to a scientist quoted by the state-owned Russian news agency TASS. The unnamed scientist said the study would help determine whether the Moon formed independently, or if it was instead blasted apart from the Earth by an extraterrestrial impact.
Luna-25’s Moon-bound mission began in 2015, and this landing was meant to be a precursor to an eventual crewed mission to the Moon in 2029. This mission is an unfortunate setback for Roscosmos, which Russia has starved of funding in favor of its military, writes BBC.
Landing on the Moon is no mean feat, and efforts to do so are frequently met with failure and disappointment. Earlier this year, Japanese startup ispace lost contact with its Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander after a three-month trip, and an Israeli Moon-landing mission ended in catastrophe in 2019 when the Beresheet spacecraft’s engine failed during final descent. The ISRO also reported a failure the same year as it lost contact with the Chandrayaan-2 Vikram lander as it crashed on descent.
Adobe co-founder Dr. John Warnock has died — he was 82
Dr. John Warnock in 2009. | Photo by Patrick Tehan/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images
Adobe co-founder Dr. John Warnock passed away on Saturday at the age of 82, Adobe announces today. A cause of death has not been released; he is survived by his wife, graphic designer Marva Warnock, and his three children.
Warnock founded the revolutionary software company Adobe with his partner, the now-late Dr. Charles Geschke, in 1982. Marva Warnock designed the company’s original logo, and Adobe released its first program, the desktop publishing software Adobe PostScript, two years later. Warnock served mostly as the company’s CEO until 2000 and was co-chairman of the board along with Geschke until 2017. Warnock remained on the company board of directors afterward.
Warnock was “one of the greatest inventors in our generation with significant impact on how we communicate in words, images and videos,” wrote Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen in an email to employees informing them of Warnock’s passing. He later added, “My interactions with John over the past 25 years have been the highlight of my professional career.”
Adobe is widely-associated with Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Photoshop, but the company has maintained an impressively broad portfolio of well-regarded staple applications in multiple industries. During Warnock’s tenure as its CEO, Adobe created industry-standard software for business, graphic design, photography, video editing, audio recording, and more.
SwitchBot says its new smart curtain controller is stronger and quieter
The SwitchBot Curtain 3 on a telescoping rod. | Image: SwitchBot
SwitchBot has announced the Curtain 3, a smart curtain controller it says will be quieter than the Curtain 2, and twice as strong. The company also claims a new, improved (and separately available) solar panel will offer “true unlimited battery power,” something the previous panel didn’t quite achieve. The Curtain 3 and the SwitchBot Solar Panel 3 will retail for $89.99 (£89.99 / €89.99) and $25.99 (£25.99 / €25.99), respectively, when they release on August 25th.
The Curtain 3 is, as the name suggests, the third iteration of the company’s smart curtain controller. It can now pull up to 36 pounds (16kg), according to the company, which is more than double the Curtain 2’s 17lb weight limit. Like the Curtain 2, the new curtain controller uses Bluetooth Low Energy, giving it a range of up to 80m (262ft), assuming a direct line of sight.
Image: SwitchBot
SwitchBot’s Curtain 3 is compatible with multiple types of curtain rod.
SwitchBot’s specs say its new controller hums at about 45dB from 1m away (roughly as loud as a suburban neighborhood at night), while its new 5mm-per-second QuietDrift Mode will drop it to 25dB, which is about as loud as a human whisper. Outwardly, the new design is similar to previous models, but it’s longer (by 30mm) and skinnier now than the Curtain 2. The company says it’s compatible with 99 percent “of curtain tracks found around the world.” Like the Curtain 2, it can be bought in rod rail, U rail, and I rail configurations.
SwitchBot says its new $25.99 SwitchBot Solar Panel 3 has “over twice the charging efficiency,” and will only need three hours in direct sun, “where clear shadows can be formed,” to effectively eliminate the need to charge the Curtain 3. Battery life on its own hasn’t improved though — SwitchBot still expects the Curtain 3, like the previous model, to last for up to 8 months on a full charge.
Earlier this year, SwitchBot introduced its new $70 SwitchBot Hub 2, which serves as a Matter bridge and therefore adds Apple Home compatibility to the Curtain 3 (and its other Bluetooth devices, like the Curtain 2). Without the updated hub, you’re stuck with Samsung SmartThings, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa — though the company also supports Apple Shortcuts, which you can trigger with Siri.
If you haven’t heard of SwitchBot, it’s known for its clever, easy-to-install smart home retrofits, like its $99 smart lock that isn’t a smart door lock at all, but a Bluetooth-connected motor that attaches to your door with a plastic piece that over the thumb turn of your deadbolt. It also makes a button-pressing robot that can toggle paddle switches (amusingly, the company shows a Hue smart switch as one it’s compatible with) or press other buttons, say to start your coffee maker.
In Good Omens, diversity is divine
Good Omens second season highlights how good queer and disabled representation could be in the fantasy genre. | Image: Amazon
Warning: Spoilers ahead for season 2 of Amazon Prime’s Good Omens
With the release of the second season of Good Omens on July 28th, writer Neil Gaiman has officially (and rather devastatingly) put any accusations of queerbaiting to bed. Leaving very little room for interpretation, Crowley and Aziraphale — the respectively demonic and angelic main characters of the Amazon fantasy-comedy series — engaged in some distressingly emotional snogging during the last moments of this season’s final episode, thereby ending over 30 years of speculation about the nature of their relationship. The fight is over. The shippers have won.
Well, not just the shippers.
I’ll provide some context for those of you who aren’t chronically online: “shipping” refers to the act of endorsing a romantic or sexual relationship between two real or fictitious characters. The term comes from the X-Files fandom in the ’90s, which was generally split into “relationshippers” and “Noromo” fans who... well, I think you can guess their feelings on the central couple of Mulder and Scully. Over time, “relationshipper” shortened to “shipper,” and other fandoms adopted the term when talking about their own favorite couples in fandom.
Image: Amazon
They’ve been married for millennia, your honor. They just don’t know it yet.
Ineffable Husbands — the ship name for Crowely and Aziraphale — emerged after Good Omens was released in 2019, but some fans have endorsed a relationship between the two since the original novel penned by Gaiman and the late Terry Pratchett debuted in 1990. The characters are frequently described (in both the book and the series) as sexless cosmic beings that don’t need to understand silly human concepts like gender or sexuality. But there’s an obvious inclination to view them as male-coded, especially with David Tennant and Michael Sheen’s respective portrayals of Crowley and Aziraphale.
An overwhelming majority of the intimate interactions depicted in the second season were visibly, undeniably queer. It wasn’t just that core relationship between these two celestial beings. There’s a secondary storyline that focuses on a lesbian love story, alongside additional romantic representation for other LGBTQ and / or nonbinary characters. Plus, a vast majority of these interactions take place in London’s Soho district — the beating heart of the city’s queer community — which has lost several of its once-iconic LGBTQ+ spaces to redevelopments and gentrification over the years. Even this small detail felt like an act of defiance.
I went into this season with the anticipation that I’d be disappointed because it feels like fantasy media hates being direct about non-heterosexual romance. And when it does include them, the show usually gets canceled immediately after. But while Good Omens hasn’t officially been renewed, that appears to be a quirk of the strike — with most involved planning for a third season. This isn’t a show likely to be cut off at the knees suddenly. So the minute Crowley’s lips canonically smashed into Aziraphale’s, I shrieked, sobbed, and called every other queer friend I had to demand they add the series to their watch list. It’s been years since a show made me feel so validated.
Image: Amazon
Nina and Maggie’s brewing romance added a secondary storyline to what was already shaping to be a queer love story.
During a press junket ahead of the show’s premiere (which took place before the SAG-AFTRA strike officially began), I spoke to David Tennant and Michael Sheen about the new direction their characters took this season.
Even before the first series came out, the book already had a massive online following where people were interpreting the relationship between the two main characters as closer than what was already implied. Did that influence how you portrayed the characters?
David Tennant: I think you just have to play the characters as they are. And you have to allow people to decide what they may or may not think that means or implies, you know. The subtext is to be read by the audience, isn’t it? And I don’t think that you play anything specifically because you’re aware that certain people are hoping the relationship will develop in a certain way.
Michael Sheen: And I think Neil had always been very clear that these aren’t humans, and therefore human labels don’t apply in the same way. But I was always very interested from the very beginning about playing a character who is sort of [comprised] of love, and how that might manifest itself in a very particular relationship with another being. So I found it interesting to see how the more that Aziraphale gets comfortable with living on Earth and being among humans and being among human things, how might that be expressed through him and in terms of this relationship.
I found that very interesting to explore in what we were doing. But like I say, you have to kind of resist putting certain labels on it that aren’t to do with these supernatural beings. They are multifaceted with lots of different aspects. And as Neil played around with in Sandman as well with that character [Dream], they could manifest themselves at different times, as different genders, different sexes, and different ages. There’s no end to the possibilities for them. So there’s also no end to the possibilities of what their relationship can be.
Did either of you have any input into how your characters were going to develop in season 2 now that we’ve moved away from the source material?
MS: Well, only so much, I suppose, in how the relationship developed on camera, how we interpreted the scenes, and inhabited the characters. I think Neil is incredibly open. He’s a fan as much as anybody else of the story and the characters. And I think watching us playing those characters probably suggested certain things to him within the parameters of what he and Terry had already worked out. We brought some of the ideas they had for what could happen after the book into season 1. So their ideas for where the story could go, we still haven’t finished yet. But in terms of actually suggesting things, I mean, Neil tends to have a better handle on that sort of thing.
DT: He’s quite good at all that stuff, isn’t he? So you just want to leave him to it. The last thing you want to do is try to limit his imagination.
MS: [jokingly] “Gaiman — shut it! This is what needs to happen, mate!”
DT: Yeah, we just sit back and let the scripts roll in.
Image: Amazon
The series is quick to remind you that despite outward appearances, all angels and demons are genderless.
None of this is to say that Good Omens is the only TV series setting a new standard for queer representation. The swashbuckling pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death has made similar waves (sorry) for directly depicting relationships across the LGBTQ+ spectrum. Coming-of-age stories like Netflix’s Heartstopper also excel in representing queer romances. Genre shows like Invasion, Warrior Nun, and The Wheel of Time include major romances centered around two women, but the romances, particularly in the fantasy genre, are rarely centered on queer masculine-presenting characters.
With its second season, Good Omens has managed to create a wonderfully diverse world in a setting where, theoretically, anything is possible. And it does so unapologetically and positively — a host of characters are verbally identified as being queer or genderless, which is a breath of fresh air compared to shows that leave these things open to interpretation, thereby denying viewers from seeing themselves officially represented. Similarly, several visibly disabled characters appear in this season, and nobody ever tries to use those physical differences as a plot device. In fact, none of the other characters even mention the differences between them.
Disability representation is something the wider fantasy genre also struggles with. When creator and disability consultant Mark Thompson created the “Combat Wheelchair” for the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop roleplaying game, some players argued that it was unnecessary because in-game magic would have eradicated all disabilities in the D&D universe. Yet, it’s wildly offensive to suggest that a game known for providing unimaginably limitless gameplay possibilities should prevent its players from representing themselves in that universe.
Image: Amazon
Liz Carr’s Saraqael (pictured lower center) might be the only competent angel in the entire series.
I spoke to actor, comedian, and disability rights activist Liz Carr about her portrayal of Saraqael, an archangel in season 2 of Good Omens that, frankly, seems to be the only heavenly employee who’s any good at their job. “I just really loved the casting choices,” she said. “The character was not written for a wheelchair user, so they chose somebody known for being very sarcastic, i.e., the person who’s right for the role.”
“I got approached, and Neil said that, ‘In Heaven, you will be flying. As a wheelchair user, your chair will fly, and on Earth, you’ll be able to form miracles where anything inaccessible will become accessible.’ Cast me or a disabled person, and it gives such fun and such richness, such opportunity. And for people to watch and go, ‘I’ve never seen that. I’ve never seen me’ ... Heaven is about perfect bodies, cured beings. So to not be that — I think that’s very funny.”
Other angels are also depicted with disabilities this season. During the flashback in episode 2, the choir of angels sent to reward Job and his wife for their commitment to God includes individuals with Down syndrome and limb differences. These actors aren’t credited, but their inclusion means that Saraqael isn’t a token inclusion — in Gaiman and Pratchett’s world, anyone can be an angel.
The cliffhanger at the end of the final episode of Good Omens season 2 suggests that the show’s diversity and inclusivity won’t slow down any in subsequent episodes. Season 3 has yet to be greenlit (and likely won’t be anytime soon due to the ongoing writers and actors strikes), but Gaiman says he already has it all planned out should it be approved. If all goes well, book fans may yet get to see the long-teasedretirement cottage in the UK’s South Downs.
X glitch wipes out most pictures and links tweeted before December 2014
The Verge
X, which was formerly known as Twitter until its recent rebranding, is having a problem displaying old posts that came with images attached or any hyperlinks converted through Twitter’s built-in URL shortener. It’s unclear when the problem started, but it was highlighted on Saturday afternoon in a post by Tom Coates, and a Brazilian vtuber, @DaniloTakagi, had pointed it out a couple of days earlier.
As it is, it appears to affect tweets published prior to December 2014, judging by posts visible on my own account. No videos are affected (Twitter only added native image support in 2011 and built-in videos in 2016), but links to YouTube, for example, are now just text with a t.co URL that doesn’t work.
Image: Screenshot of Twitter.comThe image in Ellen DeGeneres’ tweet has been restored, but a reply shows that not everyone has been granted that privilege.
On Saturday afternoon, as Coates pointed out, the glitch claimed the picture from one of the most famous tweets ever (back when they were still called tweets), this selfie posted by 2014 Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres flanked by celebs like Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and others, taken during the show’s broadcast.
I haven’t seen any public comments from owner Elon Musk or X CEO Linda Yaccarino about the problem, but at some point on Saturday night / early Sunday morning, the picture in that post was restored.
Despite speculation that it could be an intentional cost-cutting move by Musk, the fact that the actual media posted hasn’t been deleted suggests an error or bug of some kind, one of many that have arisen since last year’s takeover and mass layoffs.
There’s also at least one other old tweeted image that still worked — the one posted to President Barack Obama’s account after winning his 2012 campaign for reelection, showing a hug between him and the First Lady. It’s unclear if that one had been manually restored, but it was still visible on Saturday afternoon.
The timing for the cutoff in pictures and links that are broken seems related to changes Twitter made in 2016, adding “enhanced URL enrichment” to show previews for linked websites and native attachments that didn’t count against Twitter’s 140-character limit. According to developer documentation, the metadata for these additions “began emerging” in December 2014.
From the X Developer Platform Data Dictionary:
In March 2012, the expanded URL enrichment was introduced. Before this time, the Tweet payloads included only the URL as provided by the user. So, if the user included a shortened URL it can be challenging to match on (expanded) URLs of interest. With both Historical PowerTrack and the Search APIs, these metadata are available starting in March 2012.
In July 2016, the enhanced URL enrichment was introduced. This enhanced version provides a web site’s HTML title and description in the Tweet payload, along with Operators for matching on those. With Historical PowerTrack, these metadata become available in July 2016. With the Search APIs, these metadata begin emerging in December 2014.
In September 2016 Twitter introduced ‘native attachments’ where a trailing shared link is not counted against the 140 Tweet character limit. Both URL enrichments still apply to these shared links.
Twitter, X, or whatever it’s currently called, did not respond to requests for comment.
I’ve never seen a laptop that looks quite like this. I’ve also never seen a laptop with its particular set of problems.
At this point, I feel like people who want to buy an LG Gram know exactly what they’re getting. Grams are made to travel. They’re unbelievably light (they used to weigh a kilogram, or about 2.2 pounds, hence the moniker) and they have great battery life — and that’s most of what they are.
The LG Gram Style adds a new factor to that equation, and it’s right there in the name. When I first got eyes on the Gram Style at CES earlier this year, I predicted that it might be the prettiest laptop of 2023. Of the selection I’ve tested so far this year, that has held up. With the possible exception of the HP Spectre (which, to be fair, is a completely different vibe), there’s not a PC on the market that looks this cool. And while it’s not a cheap laptop, with a current list price of $1,699, it is affordable, as larger Grams go.
That doesn’t mean you should buy it — there is at least one unfortunate reason that you probably shouldn’t, which I’ll get into — but I am still slightly jealous of anyone who gets to carry it around.
The centerpiece of the Style’s unique aesthetic is one you don’t actually see when you’re using it: the lid. It’s coated in an iridescent finish that’s white when seen head-on but can appear anywhere from blue to orange to pink depending on the lighting and viewing angle. The effect isn’t flashy or obnoxious, though; a passerby wouldn’t necessarily know that they weren’t just looking at a pink-ish or orange-ish (sorry, I’m not great with colors) laptop.
It’s not just the lid that has this unique look — the palm rest does as well. In fact, the Gram Style takes after last year’s Dell XPS 13 Plus in that the bottom section of the keyboard deck is one continuous piece of glass with no delineated touchpad. There is a touchpad, of course, but you just kind of have to know where it is. Once you click it (or accidentally brush it with your palm, which I did approximately 3,000 times), some LEDs pop up for a couple of seconds to outline its left and right boundaries. If LG can put a backlit keyboard on the Gram, I’m not sure why it can’t have these pretty light strips be a permanent thing, but anyway.
Don’t see the touchpad? Look closer.
In true Gram fashion, the Style is also quite light. At 2.76 pounds (so, technically, more than a kilogram), it’s lighter than quite a few 13-inch ultrabooks and noticeably lighter than the 15-inch MacBook Air. It’s downright impressive for a 16-inch laptop. You will find some thinner and lighter options out there (many of which will be other Gram models), but this is close to as light as you can get for the category. Needless to say, I loved carrying it around and had no problem doing so with one arm and other things piled on top.
The build, in turn, is a bit flimsier than you typically get at this price. There’s a bit of flex in the keyboard deck and screen. The bezels are also quite visibly plastic, which I really don’t love to see in the year 2023. This is another standard LG Gram thing; these chassis often aren’t the sturdiest, and that’s a big way they shave weight.
The webcam is 1080p, and it’s fine.
Other things I like about the Gram’s chassis:
Audio is surprisingly good for such a thin laptop, with a nice surround quality. I have been obsessed with Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” recently, and these speakers convey the breathy qualities of her voice very well.
The display is a 16:10 3200 x 2000 pixel 120Hz OLED, and it’s stupendous. The details it presents are quite sharp. Brightness is more than adequate. There’s some glare, but nothing concerning. I love the deep blacks, as is always the case with OLEDs.
Port selection includes two USB-C (one is used for charging), one headphone jack, one USB-A, and one microSD. This is a bit sparse for a 16-inch laptop, but beggars can’t be choosers in today’s thin-and-light space.
I love Gram keyboards, this one included. There’s so much travel and such a firm click that typing on it feels more like typing on my mechanical keyboard than it does on other laptops.
There is one thing we need to have a serious discussion about. It’s the touchpad.
I know that it is possible to do a haptic touchpad well because Apple’s been doing it for literal years now. But I keep coming across these truly terrible ones being attempted in the Windows space, and unfortunately, the Style’s invisible one is no exception. It’s just not good. It doesn’t reject palms well and lights up if my hand so much as brushes it while I’m typing. The click requires a lot of force. Even when I was hitting pretty hard, I would estimate that my attempts to click didn’t go through roughly 40 percent of the time. This is especially true if you’re using the device on a non-flat surface; the thing went haywire when I tried to use it on my lap, registering false clicks and missing real ones. The invisible touchpad on Dell’s XPS 13 Plus was bad, but not this bad.
This is something I hope LG can improve in the future, but for the moment, it’s a nonstarter for this computer.
The USB-A port has one of those little trapdoors on the bottom.
The Style is powered by a 12-core Core i7-1360P. (Our model also had 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.) That should theoretically be quite fast, but it’s clear that it’s facing some cooling issues in this thin body. Even when I was just using a few Chrome tabs, the keyboard was consistently toasty. During heavier work in Premiere Pro, the CPU was often venturing into the mid-90s (Celsius).
The Style’s performance when used on its own for office work was completely fine. But when I hooked it up to an external monitor and was running around 10 Chrome tabs, I could tell the thing was chugging. I heard on-and-off fans and coil whine. Performance lagged a bit as well to a degree that wasn’t disruptive but was noticeable.
The Style scored a 184 on PugetBench for Premiere Pro and completed our export test in seven minutes, 29 seconds. While this isn’t a video editing-focused laptop, those aren’t phenomenal scores even among the ultraportable category.
For game results, I saw 26fps from Shadow of the Tomb Raider, 11fps from Horizon Zero Dawn, and 12fps from Red Dead Redemption 2 (all at their highest graphic preset and 1920 x 1200 resolution). Those are basically the same scores that we saw from the Gram 17 with the 12th Gen version of this processor. Needless to say, this isn’t your ideal purchase for AAA gaming or really any kind of processor-intensive work.
Our photographer, Amelia, said this device was a lot of fun to shoot.
Here’s the other side of the coin: battery life was great. I know other reviewers have complained about the Style’s battery life, but my unit did a commendable job. I consistently got over eight hours out of one charge (with the screen at half brightness and the Battery Saver setting on). This is one of the best battery lifespans I’ve seen from a P-series machine (when it comes to my workload, specifically), and I’d love to see more Windows ultraportables hit this eight-hour mark.
Nevertheless, I must mention that the Gram has a large 80Wh battery inside, which makes that figure a bit less impressive. I have been banging this drum for ages now, but I will repeat it for those in the back: putting a P-series chip in a laptop and cutting back its performance to a ridiculous degree in order to eke out usable battery life makes no sense, and I don’t know why companies won’t just use U-series processors for these low-wattage / long battery life situations.
The LG Gram Style is both an interesting experiment and a hilariously impractical buy. I have to commend LG for the creativity that’s gone into designing this device, and it has a combination of truly phenomenal features. The screen, the audio, the keyboard, and the overall chassis (unfortunate bezels aside) are all among the best I’ve tested this year.
The touchpad, unfortunately, keeps me from being able to enthusiastically recommend it, even to those who don’t mind the lower-powered processor. It’s one factor, but it’s the primary way that many people will access the rest of this laptop’s capabilities, and while it looks really neat, it’s just not fun to use right now. As much as it pains me to say, I think most people will have a better experience with a regular old Gram.
Installer: An AI search engine and the coolest speakers ever
Image: William Joel / The Verge
Hi, friends! Welcome back to issue No. 2 of Installer, your guide to all the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. Thanks so much to everyone who’s been emailing, commenting, sending feedback, and telling me what you want to see in this series going forward. I love chatting with you all about what you’re building, what you’re binge-watching, and everything else.
Two housekeeping things: first, a bunch of you told me you didn’t like the whole “(link)” thing, both for aesthetic and accessibility reasons. Fair and fair! So we’re just scrapping it. From now on, it’ll be simpler: I’ll bold the most important link – the direct link to the thing we’re talking about — and regular link everything else. Thanks to everyone who emailed and commented, especially the ones who were nice about it. We’re all learning every day over here, folks.
I also heard from a few folks that last week’s issue was a little Apple-centric. I agree, for what it’s worth, but it’s a tricky problem to solve! It’s just the unfortunate truth that most cool things launch on iOS and Mac before they come to Android and Windows. But also, I’m forever biased toward cross-platform stuff, and when I can, I’ll try and make sure to keep things even. And if you find a cool thing for a platform I’m not covering enough, send it my way!
Oh, and to all of you who asked for an RSS feed: it’s coming. Soon. So soon. Plus we have some other fun ideas about how you can subscribe to Installer. But seriously, so soon.
Anyway, I promised no long preambles, so let’s get to it. This week I’ve been reading up on the fight for the future of the Internet Archive, planning my life in the Amie calendar app, playing too much Laya’s Horizon, trying to figure out how to make extreme pogo-sticking my next career, and trying to get a bunch of work done before I completely disappear into Madden NFL 24 for the next few months. And this week I have some podcast listening for your weekend errands, a new AI app to try, and a set of speakers that are totally absurd and totally wonderful. Let’s go.
(Again, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What do you want to know more about? What awesome tricks do you know that everyone else should? What app should everyone be using? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)
The Drop
Some of the best new stuff on the internet, and in the world, this week.
“The Internet Dilemma” fromRadiolab: One of the better 30-minute summations of the Section 230 fight you’re ever going to hear, I think. It makes pretty convincing arguments for both sides, which is exactly why the fight over 230 is so messy, and it lands in about the right place. (If you haven’t heard it before, the Radiolab episode about the launch of a new cryptocurrency is one of my favorite tech stories ever.)
“The Doomsday AI Scenario in Hollywood fromThe Town: Speaking of good pods to listen to this weekend! The Town is one of my favorite shows about the business of entertainment, and I loved this deep dive with Justine Bateman into what exactly AI might do to Hollywood. It’s a bit fatalistic in spots, I think? But it’s fascinating.
Nokia G310 5G: I don’t know if this is going to be a great phone, but it feels like an important one. It’s a nice-looking $186 midrange phone, but it’s made with user repair explicitly in mind. You can swap in more storage, a new battery, and more. The US doesn’t have a lot of phones like this, and here’s hoping it becomes a trend.
The Keen utility knife: The folks at Studio Neat have long made some of my favorite tools and accessories – the Glif phone stand lived in my bag for years — and its newest project is a small, handsome utility knife. At $120 retail (or $95 on Kickstarter), it’s pretty expensive, but the Studio Neat stuff tends to be worth the price.
Perplexity AI 2.0: AI chatbots are a dime a dozen at this point, but I’ve always liked the way Perplexity handles citing its sources and delivering information — it’s a good mix of answers and links for lots of questions. The 2.0 update is basically just a redesign, but hey, it’s a good redesign!
8BitDo Micro controller: Trust me, a teeny-tiny game controller is exactly the smartphone accessory you need in your life. I think I still prefer the Lite model, which has joysticks, but this one is $25, weighs basically nothing, and will make all your 2D games a little more fun to play.
Supreme Soundsticks: The Harman / Kardon Soundsticks have been around for 23 years, and I think they’re still the best-looking desk speakers on the planet. I am, uh, quite confident that the Supreme collab ones will cost more than the standard $300 price for the Soundsticks 4. But that red, y’all. THAT RED.
Alex Winter knows video. He’s been a well-known actor for decades and has directed everything from an Ice Cube music video to a documentary about the deep web. So just before he and I hung up after finishing a Vergecast chat about his new doc, The YouTube Effect, I asked him to tell me a few of his favorite tech docs. Here’s what he rattled off.
The Great Hack. “It’s a very important documentary that did its job very well. Cambridge Analytica is one of the most important stories in modern times.”
Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World. “[Werner] Herzog’s documentary is kind of bananas. Don’t watch it expecting to come away understanding the internet better, but it’s very entertaining.”
Citizenfour. “Just a really, really great doc about [Edward] Snowden.”
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. “It’s not obviously a tech doc, but it really begins to show you how companies, even if they start with the best intentions, get really off course. And how a few people can really make a bad impact on society.”
2001: A Space Odyssey. “Not a documentary! But it’s, like, the great movie about algorithms being bad for you.”
Screen share
This week was the 25th anniversary of the iMac going on sale, and Jason Snell — a longtime tech reporter, the former editor-in-chief of Macworld, current proprietor of Six Colors, and one of the smartest people I know on all things Apple — wrote a terrific piece for The Verge about how the iMac changed Apple’s fate forever. Curious to see what Jason’s Apple life was like 25 years later, I asked him to share his current setup.
Here’s Jason’s homescreen, plus the apps he uses and why:
The phone: iPhone 14 Pro Max
The widget: The Scriptable app lets you write your own iOS widgets in JavaScript. I took someone else’s hourly forecast widget and altered it to show the daily forecast highs and precipitation chance as well as current temperature data from my own weather station.
The apps: iRobot (robot vacuums are not exactly “set it and forget it”), Mail, Fantastical (instead of Apple’s calendar), Messages, Phone, Maps, Carrot Weather (instead of Apple’s stock Weather app), Photos, Settings, Notes (which I use for all sorts of things like prep for podcasts), AnyList (our shared shopping list), MLB (Go Giants!), Music, Camera, Discord (where my members-only communities are for Six Colors and The Incomparable). In the dock: Overcast (podcasts), ReadKit (RSS reader), Safari, Slack.
The wallpaper: A nature photo, this one’s from Hawaii. I think this one’s from Maui, so sending all the good vibes in the world out to the people of Lāhainā and the rest of the island.
As usual, I also asked Jason to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he said:
Season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds just wrapped up on Paramount Plus, and I couldn’t be more amazed that they’ve captured the spirit of the original Star Trek while making something that’s fun and modern and welcoming to viewers who didn’t grow up with Star Trek like I did.
My friend Scott McNulty recommended the Barker & Llewelyn series of mystery novels by Will Thomas, and I immediately devoured Some Danger Involved and To Kingdom Come, the first two books in that series. I always enjoyed the idea of Sherlock Holmes but found the writing just antiquated enough to make them hard to get into. These are Holmes-esque stories written in a modern voice, featuring a detective and sidekick who are still quirky but not in the Holmes and Watson way. There are 14 books in this series and counting, so I’ve got lots of mystery enjoyment ahead of me.
402 episodes later, I’m still obsessed with The Flop House podcast in which two former Daily Show writers and their handsome bartender pal watch bad movies and then talk about them. The rapport between the three guys is magical. During the WGA strike, they’re reaching back to some “classic” older movies, like Troll 2 and The Net. It’s still my favorite podcast of all time and reduces me to tears on a regular basis. While on a driving vacation around New Zealand, my wife and I had to pull over because we were laughing so hard we couldn’t see the road. I highly recommend The Flop House Animated for some of their greatest hits.
Crowdsourced
Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Emailinstaller@theverge.comwith your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week.
“I’ve used Tripsy in the past, but I much prefer Wanderlog because of its ability to plan a group trip while still being crossplatform.” – Michael
“Reading List for Safari is so disappointing. There’s no organization (folders) and you can’t tag pages you save to keep the stuff that’s similar together. I purchased the GoodLinksapp and love the functionality it offers. It even has its own ‘reader’ mode like you get in Safari! It’s a paid app, but Safari users might just enjoy saving articles more for using it!” – Chris
“My suggestion is an app called Bring! It’s a grocery list app that allows your household to add items to a shared list, with cute little icons to boot. You can send notifications to others who are members of that list that you’re about to go shopping or that you’ve added items to the list as well.” – Aaron
“I bought a low-end robot vacuum cleaner (the Eufy Clean G40+) on Prime Day a few weeks ago. And as someone with very hairy cats, it’s been absolutely life-changing. I spent years thinking these gadgets weren’t any better than our old Henry Hoover, but they’re really great. We run it every day and it keeps the floor so clean. It seems like nowadays, even a low-end model like this Eufy (an Anker sub-brand) are pretty good.” – Richard
“This recommendation came from your sister site Polygon. It’s written by the ladies who created, wrote and starred in The Katering Show, a short YouTube series about an intolerable foodie and a food intolerant. They’re Australian and raunchy and hilarious, and their new show Deadloch on Amazon Prime is no exception.” – Sean
“I’d like to recommend Craft. I moved to it after many (increasingly unhappy) years with Evernote, and after a bunch of months, I’m a convert. It’s got room to grow, but it’s fantastic, and I feel it doesn’t get the attention that some of the others get (like Notion and Bear). I hope you’ll consider giving it a look!” – Bruce
Signing off
Look, I get it: AI-generated songs are a massively complicated issue, with huge ramifications for both the business and the art of music. And yet, I cannot overstate how deep down the rabbit hole of “AI Taylor Swift covers of songs you know but that real Taylor Swift never covered” YouTube I have gone. And you can do this with almost any popular artist! It’s wild! (AI Frank Sinatra covering Lady Gaga is truly the collab of the century.) I almost don’t want to tell you how many times I’ve listened to AI Taylor Swift and AI Ed Sheeran covering Paramore’s “Misery Business.” The future is super weird, y’all.
Haptic Suits Let You Feel Music Through Your Skin Wearable backpacks designed by Music: Not Impossible, which allow people to experience music as vibrations on their bodies, are becoming more accessible to the public.
AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted, rules a US Federal Judge
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
United States District Court Judge Beryl A. Howell ruled on Friday that AI-generated artwork can’t be copyrighted, as noted by The Hollywood Reporter. She was presiding over a lawsuit against the US Copyright Office after it refused a copyright to Stephen Thaler for an AI-generated image made with the Creativity Machine algorithm he’d created.
Thaler had tried multiple times to copyright the image “as a work-for-hire to the owner of the Creativity Machine,” which would have listed the author as the creator of the work and Thaler as the artwork’s owner, but he was repeatedly rejected.
After the Office’s final rejection last year, Thaler sued the Office, claiming its denial was “arbitrary, capricious ... and not in accordance with the law,” but Judge Howell didn’t see it that way. In her decision, Judge Howell wrote that copyright has never been granted to work that was “absent any guiding human hand,” adding that “human authorship is a bedrock requirement of copyright.”
Steven Thaler and/or Creativity Machine
Stephen Thaler’s AI-generated artwork cannot be copyrighted.
That’s been borne out in past cases cited by the judge, like that one involving a monkey selfie. To contrast, Judge Howell noted a case in which a woman compiled a book from notebooks she’d filled with “words she believed were dictated to her” by a supernatural “voice” was worthy of copyright.
Judge Howell did, however, acknowledge that humanity is “approaching new frontiers in copyright,” where artists will use AI as a tool to create new work. She wrote that this would create “challenging questions regarding how much human input is necessary” to copyright AI-created art, noting that AI models are often trained on pre-existing work.
Stephen Thaler plans to appeal the case. His attorney, Ryan Abbot of Brown Neri Smith & Khan LLP, said, “We respectfully disagree with the court’s interpretation of the Copyright Act,” according to Bloomberg Law, which also reported a US Copyright Office statement saying it believed the court’s decision was the right one.
Nobody really knows how things will shake out around US copyright law and artificial intelligence, but the court cases have been piling up. Sarah Silverman and two other authors filed suit against OpenAI and Meta earlier this year over their models’ data scraping practices, for instance, while another lawsuit by programmer and lawyer Matthew Butterick alleges that data scraping by Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI amounted to software piracy.
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Steven Thaler and/or Creativity Machine
