Popular AO3 fanfiction site goes down in wave of DDoS attacks
The group taking credit for the attack is threatening to keep the site down for weeks. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The popular fanfiction platform Archive of Our Own (AO3) is currently experiencing a wave of distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that have forced the website offline since Monday. AO3 first acknowledged the outage on the company’s official Twitter account on July 10th at 8.24AM ET, later confirming that the issue was caused by “a DDoS attack” — a malicious cybercrime in which threat actors overwhelm a server with traffic — “causing the servers to fall over.”
A group claiming to be Anonymous Sudan has taken credit for the attack, and is demanding a ransom to stop the ongoing operation.
The AO3 team is currently trying to defend against the attack and restore the platform, warning that users may experience various error messages or encounter display issues with the site layout in the meantime. (The site has been completely unreachable for hours in our testing.) The company said that because DDoS attacks don’t compromise private user data, there’s no need for users to change their password in response to the outage. At the time of writing, no estimated timeline has been provided regarding when the archive will be back online. We have reached out to the Organization for Transformative Works, the non-profit parent organization of AO3, for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
We're trying a new approach to defend against the ongoing DDoS attack, so you may see error messages that say "429" instead of "Retry later." (429 is the error code for too many requests.)
A group on the Telegram messaging service claiming to be ‘hacktivist’ organization Anonymous Sudan has taken credit for the attack. According to threat intelligence vendor Flashpoint, Anonymous Sudan has been active since January 2023, claiming responsibility for DDoS attacks against Microsoft and various companiesaround Europe, though it appears that the group has no credible affiliation with the country of Sudan or the previous Anonymous group that operated within it.
AO3 has warned that these claims should be taken with a pinch of salt. “A group presenting themselves as a collective of religiously and politically motivated hackers has claimed responsibility for the attack,” the platform tweeted on Monday. “Cybersecurity experts believe the group claiming responsibility is lying about their affiliation and reasons for attacking websites. View the group’s statements with skepticism.”
The Anonymous Sudan group initially claimed the attack would persist for up to 24 hours, but has since issued a ransom demand for $30k worth of Bitcoin, threatening to keep AO3 down for weeks if the company doesn’t comply. The Organization for Transformative Works (and its AO3 project) is entirely supported by user donations and run by volunteers, which means the company is unlikely to be able to afford such a ransom even if this threat is revealed to be genuine.
Something odd is happening when you try and search Twitter for Threads links
Twitter users trying to find links to Meta’s microblogging rival Threads are finding that the Elon Musk-owned social media network appears to be limiting results. That’s despite Twitter currently being filled with links to Threads content, which you’d expect to be able to find via search. We spotted the behavior via a Threads post from Andy Baio, but the behavior is also being widely reported by Twitter users.
The issue was first noticed when using the “url:” search operator, which is normally used to search for links to a specific URL. For example, searching “url:theverge.com” on Twitter brings up every single tweet that links to any page on The Verge, regardless of whether the URL has been shortened. But searching for “url:threads.net” returns zero results, despite there being plenty of tweets that link to the domain.
Likewise, searching for “threads.net” without the “url:” operator turns up dozens of irrelevant results from users with their Threads account in their display name, or who are talking about the service without linking to it — it doesn’t surface any linked Threads posts.
It’s still possible to find links to Threads posts on Twitter, but you’ll have to get creative. Searching for “url:“threads net”” with a space between “threads” and “net” is the best workaround we’ve seen, and you can also still search for specific Thread post URLs (like this). But the apparent restriction adds friction to the process, making it harder to easily find a broad array of Threads links on Twitter.
It’s unclear how intentional this behavior is, and an enquiry sent to Twitter’s press line returned the customary poop emoji auto-reply. But Twitter owner Elon Musk has been intensely critical of Threads and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “Competition is fine, cheating is not,” Musk tweeted on July 6th. “Zuck is a cuck,” was his less measured response three days later. Twitter has also threatened to sue Meta over Threads, claiming Meta has engaged in “systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”
If it is intentional, however, it wouldn’t be the first time Twitter has limited the visibility of other services on its platform. In early April Twitter limited how users could engage with posts containing links to Substack on the eve of the newsletter service’s launch of its Notes microblogging service. Users were unable to like, reply to, or retweet tweets containing Substack URLs, and Twitter then started marking Substack links as unsafe. Twitter also redirected searches for “Substack” to the much more general “newsletter.”
Elon Musk attempted to justify the limitations placed on Substack links by saying the service “was trying to download a massive portion of the Twitter database to bootstrap their Twitter clone.” But his concerns appeared to be short-lived: a day later Substack said “the suppression of Substack publications on Twitter” appeared to be over.
EA is making a single-player Black Panther game
No screenshots yet, so you’ll have to put up with this logo for now. | Image: EA
Another big Marvel property is being turned into a video game. This time, EA is developing what it calls “an original, third-person, single-player Black Panther game.” We don’t have many other details just yet — not even a screenshot — but development is being handled by a new EA studio called Cliffhanger Games in partnership with Marvel Games. Cliffhanger is led by Kevin Stephens, who was previously studio head at Shadow of Mordor developer Monolith Productions.
“We’re dedicated to delivering fans a definitive and authentic Black Panther experience, giving them more agency and control over their narrative than they have ever experienced in a story-driven video game,” Stephens said in a statement. “Wakanda is a rich superhero sandbox, and our mission is to develop an epic world for players who love Black Panther and want to explore the world of Wakanda as much as we do.”
That’s about all of the detail we have right now. There’s no word on when the game might launch nor what platforms the studio is targeting. EA and Marvel previously announced a deal last year to develop at least three more titles as part of an ongoing partnership.
U.S. and E.U. Finalize Long-Awaited Deal on Sharing Data The agreement ends legal uncertainty for Meta, Google and scores of companies — at least for now.
The Elon Musk private jet tracker resurfaces on Threads and immediately goads Mark Zuckerberg
There’s also an account set up to track Mark Zuckerberg’s private jet, though this hasn’t posted any information yet. | Illustration: The Verge
Jack Sweeney, the college student and creator of the banned @ElonJet Twitter account that tracked the movements of Elon Musk’s personal jet, has now launched the tracking project on Meta’s rival platform, Threads. “ElonJet has arrived to Threads!” Sweeney posted to the new @elonmusksjet account on Thursday. As of Monday, July 10th, the Threads account currently has 80,000 followers.
Sweeney addressed his second posting on the @elonmusksjet Threads account directly to Mark Zuckerberg, asking the Meta founder if he can remain on the platform. Sweeney includes a shoutout in the Threads bio of @elonmusksjet to the @zuckerbergjet account dedicated to tracking the location of Zuckerberg’s private jet. That account hasn’t posted any live information yet, but Sweeney has been actively tracking the movements of Zuckerberg’s jet across Meta’s Facebook and Instagram services for some time.
The account tracking Musk’s jet already appears to have been suspended and subsequently restored on both Threads and Instagram (where it’s been active for months) in the last few days.
Elon Musk suspended the @ElonJet Twitter account in December last year claiming that the tracker was a “direct personal safety risk.” Prior to this suspension, Musk said he wouldn’t ban the account as part of his “commitment to free speech.” Sweeney also runs several other trackers on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky that monitor the flight paths of private jets for notables like Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, and Kim Kardashian. These automated “bot” accounts created by Sweeney pull together publicly available air travel data to chart the locations of the aircraft. The Twitter accounts associated with these trackers were also suspended.
Prior to his @ElonJet Twitter account being suspended, Sweeney once rejected Musk’s $5,000 offer to remove the tracker, requesting that the billionaire increase the offer to $50,000 and provide him with an internship. By calling out Zuckerberg, Sweeney seems to be goading the Meta CEO into taking similar action.
Shortly after Sweeney’s @ElonJet Twitter account was suspended last year, Musk tweeted, “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info.” Twitter’s private information and media policy was also updated in December to specify that sharing publicly available location information is only permitted after a “reasonable time has elapsed” — which allowed Sweeney to create a new Twitter account to track Musk’s jet with a 24-hour delay.
Meta’s recently launched Threads platform appears to be the most significant Twitter rival to date, having amassed 100 million users just days after its release. And that’s without the app being available in the Europe Union yet while it seeks regulatory approval under the EU’s data privacy legislation. Sweeney’s decision to resurrect his real-time Elon jet tracker on Threads could further inflame tensions between the two social media giants. Twitter has already threatened to sue Meta, claiming that Threads was created using Twitter’s trade secrets and intellectual property, and Musk and Zuckerberg appear to be serious about fighting each other in a cage match.
Ugreen’s 300W GaN charger features four high-power USB-C ports for all your devices
Ugreen’s new 300W GaN charger. | Image: Ugreen
Ugreen is teasing a new 300W GaN charger with enough ports to charge a suitcase-worth of gadgetry. The $269 device has four USB-C ports and one USB-A port, and spokesperson Roger Wan says it will go on sale in mid-August. The most powerful port is able to deliver as much as 140W via the PowerDelivery 3.1 spec, enough to fast charge a modern 16-inch MacBook Pro when used with Apple’s MagSafe 3 to USB-C cable, even with four other devices being charged concurrently.
With every USB connection in use, the charger can provide 140W via its first USB-C port, 65W from its second, 45W from its third, 20W from its fourth, and 22.5W from its USB-A port, according to Ugreen’s table below. But if you’ve got fewer devices plugged in then some of these ports can provide more power. The second and third USB-C ports can apparently go up to 100W, while the fourth can provide 45W of power.
Image: Ugreen
A Ugreen chart outlining the kinds of charging wattages you can expect.
My big question is how hot the charger is going to get when its providing power to that many devices. Ugreen advertises that its new 300W charger has a thermal monitoring system built in that takes a temperature reading every half a second to prevent overheating. But when we reviewed its Nexode 140W charger recently we found it got “uncomfortably” hot, even if it was technically under Ugreen’s thermal limit.
Ugreen’s new $269 charger is clearly an expensive accessory, but it’s great to see a compact option for people who need to provide a lot of power to a lot of different devices simultaneously. Last year we were excited to see 140W-compatible chargers with three ports, and now Ugreen is offering a compact charger with five. It’s not hard to see this being the only accessory you need for a holiday or work trip, even if you’re carrying around a power-hungry laptop, phone, games console, camera, and wireless headphones.
In the future, however, we should be prepared for laptops to draw even more power over a single USB-C cable. The latest power standard supports as much as 240W and we’ve already seen cables and laptops that can handle that much wattage. Now, we just need power adapters that are up to the task.
Rad Power Bikes is pulling out of Europe to focus on US e-bike sales
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
After several rounds of layoffs and a number of high-profile lawsuits, Rad Power Bikes’ new CEO is determined to get costs and safety under control
Rad Power Bikes is pulling out of Europe, six years after first opening an office in the Netherlands in an effort to tap into the region’s bike-friendly market. Around 40 employees will be laid off by the end of the year, and the Seattle-based company will no longer sell its electric bikes to customers in the UK and the European Union starting in 2024.
Instead, the e-bike company will redouble its efforts in North America, where Rad feels its brand is strongest. In an interview, Rad Power Bikes CEO Phil Molyneux says the move was necessary in order to sustain its business and achieve long-term success.
“This change really allows us to continue to set the standard for the e-bike revolution in North America, which as you know, that was our starting place,” Molyneux says. “And to continue to have a real laser focus on safety, reliability, continued innovation, going into the future and the aspiration of delivering the highest quality products at affordable prices for our customers.”
He added, “So kind of back to our roots.”
The move is the latest setback for the company, which, in recent years, has established itself as one of the fastest-growing e-bike brands in the world. The covid-19 pandemic led to a boom in bicycle sales, and especially e-bike sales. Rad Power Bikes has raised $329 million in private investment since its launch in 2007. And while the company doesn’t release its sales figures, Molyneux says it has over 600,000 customers worldwide.
Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge
The RadTrike, the company’s latest product.
But Rad has struggled to maintain its position amid an economic slowdown. The company has had four rounds of layoffs since April 2021, when it slashed 100 positions. An additional 63 employees were cut in July 2022, followed by a third round of layoffs in December and a fourth in April 2023. The company currently has 424 employees, according to LinkedIn.
“It was necessary to go through a few rounds of reduction in force,” Molyneux says. “It is highly difficult work and, you know, something that we had to do ... to ensure that the company was right sized for the current outlook of the business.”
In addition to layoffs, the company has faced numerous other challenges, including a wrongful death lawsuit, a lawsuit related to property damage, and a safety recall of nearly 30,000 electric cargo bikes for misaligned tires.
The recall was a blow to Rad’s reputation. The company said it had received 137 reports of tires blowing out, deflating, and separating from the sidewalls. Eight injuries were reported, including five incidents of “road rash, cuts and/or bruises and one report of a broken wrist and one report of a broken arm.” And the wrongful death suit, in which the parents of a 12-year-old girl who died after falling off the back of a RadRunner utility bike are suing the company for negligence, highlighted the lack of regulations for the fast-growing e-bike industry in the US.
Image: Getty
Phil Molyneux, shown here in 2016 when he was president at Dyson US, took over as CEO of Rad Power Bikes last year.
Meanwhile, a rash of battery fires, many of them fatal, has cast a harsh spotlight on the industry’s overreliance on cheaply made batteries, many of them from China. New York City, where many of the most lethal fires have occurred, recently enacted a package of laws requiring e-bikes to receive UL certification, the gold standard for safety compliance, to be legally sold. (No Rad bikes have been implicated in any fires.)
In January, a few months after replacing founder Mike Radenbaugh as CEO of Rad Power Bikes (Radenbaugh remains the board chair), Molyneux issued a letter to customers acknowledging “mistakes” and vowing to make improvements.
In an interview, Molyneux says the company has done a lot to enhance its quality assurance process in which e-bikes are tested before being sold to customers. “If we do find a problem with one of our bikes, we own it,” he says, “and we communicate to the customers and then we develop the solutions and we take full ownership of putting everything right.”
Rad is also seeking UL certification for its e-bikes, which it anticipates receiving before the New York City law goes into effect in September. Rad’s current lineup has been tested for UL 2849 and UL 2271 or UL 62133 compliance, “even though it is not required,” according to the company’s FAQ page.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
There are few laws at the federal or state level regarding e-bike safety or operation. Some states have created incentive programs for customers to buy e-bikes, encouraged by studies that show e-bikes are a more environmental mode of transportation that owners use to replace car trips. A bill has been introduced in Congress that would apply a $1,500 discount to a new e-bike purchase.
But with the rise of safety concerns, Molyneux says he expects — and welcomes — more regulation from local government. “It’s good to ensure that quality bikes are coming into the market,” he says. “And that’s got to be great for the whole industry to move forward in the right dynamic.”
Several states, including California, have passed laws prohibiting children under the age of 16 from operating e-bikes. Rad requires customers to confirm they are older than 16 in order to buy an e-bike. But Molyneux says more work needs to be done, especially around installing infrastructure like bike lanes to encourage the safe operation of bikes.
Despite being around for nearly 16 years, it’s still early days for Rad Power Bikes. The company is going through a familiar cycle of rapid growth, followed by rapid shrinking, that many other startups have experienced. But Molyneux says he remains confident that Rad will emerge on top.
“We care about this industry,” he says. “We want this industry to grow. And we want to get more people out of cars and onto bikes — preferably Rad Power Bikes.”
Instagram’s Threads surpasses 100 million users
Illustration: The Verge
Instagram’s new Threads app has already surpassed 100 million users, meaning it reached the milestone dramatically faster than even ChatGPT. OpenAI’s chatbot passed the mark after two months, but Threads, which only launched on Wednesday, got there in a matter of days. The number of users can be found in the Instagram app, which tracks the size of the Threads userbase.
Threads proved to be an early hit almost immediately. In the first two hours, it hit 2 million users and steadily climbed from there to 5 million, 10 million, 30 million, and then 70 million. The launch has been “way beyond our expectations,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Friday.
Users aren’t just signing up: they’re posting, too. As of Thursday, my colleague Alex Heath reported that there have already been more than 95 million posts and 190 million likes shared on the app.
That said, Threads is still in its infancy, and we’ll have to wait and see if it captures the same cultural cachet that Twitter once did. Meta isn’t specifically targeting trying to replace Twitter, according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri, and the company isn’t going to actively encourage politics and hard news on the platform, but it could end up being the place people go for a conversation-based social media platform. And while Meta “couldn’t be more psyched” about how the launch week has gone, “we don’t even know if this thing is retentive yet,” Mosseri said.
Although the numbers aren’t directly comparable, as of last November Twitter had around 260 million monetizable daily active users, per a tweet from owner Elon Musk at the time. More recently, The Wall Street Journal reports it’s been telling advertisers that it has around 535 million monetizable monthly active users. But external data suggests Twitter’s traffic has been on a downward trend in recent months, with CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince posting to say traffic is “tanking.”
Update July 10th, 3:58AM ET:Updated to add data on Twitter’s user numbers.
Sarah Silverman is suing OpenAI and Meta for copyright infringement.
Comedian and author Sarah Silverman, seen here participating in a Tax Day protest in 2017. | Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
Comedian and author Sarah Silverman, as well as authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey — are suing OpenAI and Meta each in a US District Court over dual claims of copyright infringement.
The suits alleges, among other things, that OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s LLaMA were trained on illegally-acquired datasets containing their works, which they say were acquired from “shadow library” websites like Bibliotik, Library Genesis, Z-Library, and others, noting the books are “available in bulk via torrent systems.”
Golden and Kadrey each declined to comment on the lawsuit, while Silverman’s team did not respond by press time.
In the OpenAI suit, the trio offers exhibits showing that when prompted, ChatGPT will summarize their books, infringing on their copyrights. Silverman’s Bedwetter is the first book shown being summarized by ChatGPT in the exhibits, while Golden’s book Ararat is also used as an example, as is Kadrey’s book Sandman Slim. The claim says the chatbot never bothered to “reproduce any of the copyright management information Plaintiffs included with their published works.”
The complaint lays out in steps why the plaintiffs believe the datasets have illicit origins — in a Meta paper detailing LLaMA, the company points to sources for its training datasets, one of which is called ThePile, which was assembled by a company called EleutherAI. ThePile, the complaint points out, was described in an EleutherAI paper as being put together from “a copy of the contents of the Bibliotik private tracker.” Bibliotik and the other “shadow libraries” listed, says the lawsuit, are “flagrantly illegal.”
In both claims, the authors say that they “did not consent to the use of their copyrighted books as training material” for the companies’ AI models. Their lawsuits each contain six counts of various types of copyright violations, negligence, unjust enrichment, and unfair competition. The authors are looking for statutory damages, restitution of profits, and more.
Lawyers Joseph Saveri and Matthew Butterick, who are representing the three authors, write on their LLMlitigation website that they’ve heard from “writers, authors, and publishers who are concerned about [ChatGPT’s] uncanny ability to generate text similar to that found in copyrighted textual materials, including thousands of books.”
Saveri has also started litigation against AI companies on behalf of programmers and artists. Getty Images also filed an AI lawsuit, alleging that Stability AI, who created the AI image generation tool Stable Diffusion, trained its model on “millions of images protected by copyright.” Saveri and Butterick are also representing authors Mona Awad and Paul Tremblay in a similar case over the company’s chatbot.
Lawsuits like this aren’t just a headache for OpenAI and other AI companies; they are challenging the very limits of copyright. There’s As we’ve said on The Vergecast every time someone gets Nilay going on copyright law, we’re going to see lawsuits centered around this stuff for years to come.
We’ve reached out to Meta, OpenAI, and the Joseph Saveri Law Firm for comment, but they did not respond by press time.
Apple may be ‘experimenting’ with a 32-inch iMac, but don’t expect one soon
Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
Apple is experimenting with larger iMacs, including a 32-inch version, for the future of its famous desktop line, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who wrote in the subscriber-only version of his Power On newsletter today that development is still early, so much could change. He doesn’t believe we’ll see one before the end of 2024.
Gurman also tweaked his predicted timeline for the M3-powered iMac he said in March would be coming as soon as the second half of this year at the earliest. This time, he said he expects them by early next year.
It makes sense that Apple would be working on a bigger iMac. People like bigger screens! And while the 24-inch model Apple sells now is a solid compromise between the former 21.5-inch and the 27-inch Intel iMac that was canceled last year, having a full 5K display is nicer if you’re the type to have tons of apps open at once.
Bigger is also better for creative types. Being able to really see tiny details in art you’re creating on or images you’re editing is crucial. Same goes for music and video production if you’re making precise edits on a timeline, at least for my aging eyeballs. Apple just hasn’t had a great iMac for professional creative work since the 27-inch iMac Pro (or a very upgraded standard iMac), and that’s a shame.
Google’s medical AI chatbot is already being tested in hospitals
Illustration: The Verge
Google’s Med-PaLM 2, an AI tool designed to answer questions about medical information, has been in testing at the Mayo Clinic research hospital, among others, since April, The Wall Street Journal reported this morning. Med-PaLM 2 is a variant of PaLM 2, which was announced at Google I/O in May this year. PaLM 2 is the language model underpinning Google’s Bard.
WSJ reports that an internal email it saw said Google believes its updated model can be particularly helpful in countries with “more limited access to doctors.” Med-PaLM 2 was trained on a curated set of medical expert demonstrations, which Google believes will make it better at healthcare conversations than generalized chatbots like Bard, Bing, and ChatGPT.
The paper also mentions research Google made public in May (pdf) showing that Med-PaLM 2 still suffers from some of the accuracy issues we’re already used to seeing in large language models. In the study, physicians found more inaccuracies and irrelevant information in answers provided by Google’s Med-PaLM and Med-PalM 2 than those of other doctors.
Still, in almost every other metric, such as showing evidence of reasoning, consensus-supported answers, or showing no sign of incorrect comprehension, Med-PaLM 2 performed more or less as well as the actual doctors.
WSJ reports customers testing Med-PaLM 2 will control their data, which will be encrypted, and Google won’t have access to it.
According to Google senior research director Greg Corrado, WSJ says, Med-PaLM 2 is still in its early stages. Corrado said that while he wouldn’t want it to be a part of his own family’s “healthcare journey,” he believes Med-PaLM 2 “takes the places in healthcare where AI can be beneficial and expands them by 10-fold.”
We’ve reached out to Google and Mayo Clinic for more information.
Gizmodo’s staff isn’t happy about G/O Media’s AI-generated content
Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge
G/O Media, who owns popular tech site Gizmodo along with a slew of other outlets, began publishing AI-generated articles last week, despite strong objections from many of the members of its staff, according to The Washington Post. The articles are all credited to various bots — Gizmodo Bot, for example — with no other indication that the article was created using an AI chatbot. Unsurprisingly, the stories needed a lot of work.
The internal reaction to Gizmodo’s first chatbot-created story — a chronological list of Star Wars movies that wasn’t chronological — wasn’t exactly enthusiastic, with journalists reportedly writing in Slack that it was “actively hurting our reputations and credibility.”
Brown told staff in an email in late June that G/O Media’s collection of technology outlets meant it was important that it use AI in its coverage, saying there would be errors, but they’d be promptly fixed. In a company slack from Thursday that The Washington Post viewed, Brown told the team in Slack he was “eager to thoughtfully gather and act on feedback,” saying better things “will come forward as we wrestle with the best ways to use the technology.”
Again, staff journalists expressed dismay, with one calling AI “a solution looking for a problem,” and accusing Brown of “wasting everyone’s time.” Another pointed out that there was nothing in their job descriptions that included “editing or reviewing AI-produced content.”
Gizmodo Deputy Editor James Whitbrook told the Post in an interview that he’d never dealt with “this basic level of incompetence with any of the colleagues that I have ever worked with,” adding that the chatbot’s seeming inability to even put Star Wars movies in the right order meant it couldn’t be trusted to report anything accurately. Whitbrook said he hadn’t asked for the article, nor had he seen it prior to publication.
The Post reports that the articles were written using both Google’s Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
G/O Media is just one of many media companies that have experimented with AI-generated content in the last few months. CNETrecently began overhauling its approach to AI after suffering heavy media criticism over its use of the technology, while Insider started its own experiment with ChatGPT in April.
GMG Union, which represents Gizmodo’s writers and is part of the Writers Guild of America, East, asked readers not to click on any AI-written articles, saying the articles are “unethical and unacceptable.”
We’ve reached out to G/O Media for comment.
Disclosure: Vox Media’s editorial team, which includes The Verge, is also unionized with the Writers Guild of America, East.
The good version of TweetDeck is back, but for how long?
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images
Overnight, users across Twitter began reporting that the older, and much better, version of TweetDeck has returned. It was disabled last week when Twitter abruptly threw up a rate-limiting paywall and killed the legacy APIs that allowed the old version of the feature to function.
A scan of Twitter’s official accounts, as well as those is Elon Musk and new CEO Linda Yaccarino didn't show anyone saying anything about the old TweetDeck’s return — the Twitter Support account’s most recent tweet is the one from several days ago announcing the launch of the new TweetDeck.
Afterwards, Twitter foisted its “new, improved” TweetDeck, which has been in preview for over two years, on the world. It announced via the Twitter support account that the feature would go behind the Twitter Verified paywall for Twitter Blue subscribers and those the company deems worthy of a free blue check.
Twitter claimed its decision to limit the number of tweets its users could see in a day was a necessary, and temporary, decision caused by companies scraping its site to feed AI models. The company is also facing its most formidable copycat with the launch of Instagram's Threads app, which Meta rushed out the door ahead of schedule this week in a bid to take advantage of Twitter at its most vulnerable and quickly registered over 70 million accounts in less than two days.
How to run games on a Chromebook
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge
Chromebooks were originally synonymous with lightweight, online-only, relatively inexpensive computing. Over time, however, they’ve become more and more capable, not only as useful day-to-day systems but as gaming machines, too.
In fact, there are actually more gaming options on ChromeOS than many people may realize. So we’re going to take you through the options.
To begin with, as well as giving you access to web games that run in a browser, ChromeOS supports Android games as well. Add in the Steam client for Chromebooks, plus the possibilities offered by cloud gaming services, and you’re really spoilt for choice.
You can pick some or all of these options, depending on your gaming needs and your budget.
Android and web games
ChromeOS has supported running Android apps and games for years at this point, and if you click on the ChromeOS Launcher button, open Play Store, and switch to the Games tab, you can see what’s available. Note that the Play Store lists games that are particularly suited to Chromebooks right at the top.
You can find a number of games on Google’s Play Store.
Not every Android game is built to run on ChromeOS, but a lot of them are: any games that aren’t compatible simply won’t show up in the Play Store. And if your favorite Android games are there, you can then take advantage of all that extra screen space to enjoy your games even more. (Having a physical keyboard comes in handy as well.)
Don’t ignore browser-based games, either. As browser technology has evolved and internet speeds have increased, so the sophistication of web games has grown as well. A lot of the games you’ll come across are free to play and load pretty much instantly, and they cover a host of different gaming genres, too.
We don’t have the space here for a full guide to the best browser-based games on the web, but some fine examples out there include the addictive word game Wordle, the fast-paced Line Rider, the turn-based strategy epic Freeciv, OGC Open for golf fans, the open-world RPG Fallen London, and Sonic the Hedgehog for the retro gaming enthusiasts.
Steam on ChromeOS
Steam support on ChromeOS is official, albeit in a beta form — which means you may see occasional bugs, and you’re not going to be able to play everything in your Steam library. Hundreds of games can be played, though, if you have a fairly recent and fairly powerful Chromebook: there’s a list of supported Chromebooks here.
You’ll need to switch to the beta channel to run Steam on ChromeOS.
You’ll need to switch to the beta channel of ChromeOS to find the Steam client if you’re not already on it. If a switch is required, make sure all the local files on your Chromebook are backed up somewhere safe.
Open Settings, then the About Chrome OS tab.
Click Additional details > Change channel.
Select Beta, then click Change channel.
Once ChromeOS has downloaded the beta version of the operating system, you’ll see a Restart button on the About Chrome OS tab. After that’s done, you need to enable a flag.
Type “chrome://flags” in the Chrome address bar and hit Enter.
Look for the “#borealis-enabled” flag via the search box at the top, click the drop-down menu to the right of its entry, and change it to Enabled.
Click Restart at the bottom of the flags list.
When you’re back in ChromeOS, click the Launcher button to find the Steam client. You’ll then be able to log in using your normal credentials and see which games in your library can be run on your Chromebook.
There is another Steam option, which works on any Chromebook with Android app support. If you install the Steam Link app from the Play Store, you can stream gameplay from another computer on the same Wi-Fi network. Games can be controlled using a keyboard and mouse or a Steam-compatible controller connected via Bluetooth or USB.
Another option is to stream from another computer using the Steam Link app.
When Steam Link launches, it’ll scan for computers running Steam on the local network. Click the relevant computer and a connection will be established after you’ve verified it with a PIN shown on-screen. Select Start Playing and you have access to everything installed on the connected computer.
Cloud gaming options
Chromebooks are built for the cloud, so it makes a lot of sense to use them for cloud gaming too. (Though Google’s own Stadia service is, of course, now shuttered.) All the major cloud gaming services will work on Chromebooks, and the system requirements aren’t prohibitive. Assuming you’ve got a fast enough connection, you simply log in inside a browser tab, and you’re ready to go.
Amazon Luna has supported Chromebooks since back in 2021: you’ll need the latest version of ChromeOS and an internet speed of 10 Mbps or more. Games can be controlled through a keyboard and mouse, through an Xbox or PlayStation controller (connected via USB or Bluetooth), or through a Luna controller (which connects directly to your Wi-Fi). A limited number of games are available to Prime members for no extra fee, while a subscription to Luna Plus costs $9.99 a month.
Amazon Luna has supported Chromebooks since back in 2021.
Then there’s GeForce Now from Nvidia. It works with Chromebooks that have 4GB of RAM or more, along with a minimum internet speed of 15 Mbps. You can use a keyboard and mouse for game control or pretty much any Xbox, PlayStation, or third-party gaming controller — these can be connected via Bluetooth or USB. There’s a basic free plan that lets you play games you already own from the cloud, while paid packages that give you more time and more games start from $9.99 per month.
Finally, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate works on Chromebooks, too, giving you access to hundreds of popular titles streamed from the cloud. It’ll cost you $16.99 a month, and you’re going to need an Xbox-compatible gaming controller connected to your Chromebook via Bluetooth or USB. In addition, Microsoft is the most demanding of all these services when it comes to internet speeds, recommending a minimum 20 Mbps connection.
But no matter what your level of gaming is — from a casual and occasional gamer to a hardcore enthusiast with hundreds of Steam titles — there should be a solution for Chromebooks that’ll work for you.
Pokémon Go creator Niantic accused of ‘systemic sexual bias’ in lawsuit
James Bareham / The Verge
A former Niantic employee filed a lawsuit against the AR gaming company on Friday, alleging that it devalued the work of female employees and women of color, denied equal pay to women employees and women of color. The lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status, accuses Niantic of creating a “boys club.” The employee was laid off as part of last week’s job cuts at the company, which affected about 230 staffers.
The employee, who is an anonymous Jane Doe but is described in the complaint as an Asian female, started work at Niantic in February 2020 with a salary of $70,000, the complaint says. Later that year, she was promoted and received a raise to about $84,000, but in “approximately” 2021, she learned that Niantic was paying a male colleague more money even though she had a higher job title and more responsibilities than he did.
In 2022, he was allegedly paid $127,000 per year, but she was paid $105,000 per year despite being one job level higher. In or around spring 2023, she received a raise to $115,000 per year, still below her male colleague.
Around that same time, the employee also saw that Niantic posted the pay range for her job title and level — as of 2023, California employers with more than 15 staffers have to share pay ranges in job listings because of a pay transparency law — and saw that she was being paid more than $10,000 less than the bottom end of that range.
The employee discussed her concerns with other female staffers, and sexism and equal pay were brought up in the company’s employee resources group for women, Wolfpack.
But when the employee brought her concerns to Niantic’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion Director and Principal People Partner, they “made clear” that “they and male upper management at Niantic were hostile to her complaints or voiced concerns about sexism or sexual bias in the workplace,” the complaint says.
The executives in the meeting also allegedly said her job evaluations were affected by her discussing workplace issues with her colleagues and said that she was paid below the range because she had raised concerns with her colleagues. According to the complaint, the employee then “immediately unsubscribed” from the Wolfpack group “in fear that her association with Wolfpack would disadvantage Wolfpack employees or her.”
This year, Wolfpack found in a survey of staffers that “many female employees viewed Niantic as a sexist work culture that disadvantages female employees” and a majority of respondents “expressed concerns about equal pay at Niantic,” the complaint says. When those survey findings where shared with upper management, “Niantic’s Chief Marketing Officer, Mike Quigley, required Wolfpack to remove references to Boys Club and similar comments about sexism in the workplace from their presentation to Wolfpack members about the results of the survey.” The group was also told that they could not survey staffers without approval from upper management.
Niantic didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
The lawsuit against Niantic is just the latest legal action toward a major gaming company based on allegations from female employees. The state of California sued Activision Blizzard in 2021 alleging that it fostered a culture of “constant sexual harassment,” while Riot Games announced that year that it would pay $100 million to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit.
As part of its recent layoffs, CEO John Hanke reiterated the company’s focus on Pokémon Go, its cash cow. The company has struggled to find its next big hit, shutting down games based on Harry Potter, Catan, and, as of last week, its NBA game.
Here are the best Apple Watch deals right now
The Apple Watch Series 8 isn’t a massive step up from the prior model, but it does offer a few new features. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Editor’s note:Amazon Prime Dayis nearly here. Thankfully, if you’re looking to get a leg up on the two-day shopping event, we’ve rounded up thebest early Prime Day dealsyou can already get.
In September, Apple launched its latest batch of smartwatches, introducing the first-ever Ultra ($799) alongside the Series 8 ($399) and a new Apple Watch SE ($249). Each wearable has its own pros and cons, but the introduction of the high-end Ultra also means there are now more Apple Watch models on the market before than ever before — and a lot more deals to be had.
But with all of those options, which one should you pick? Generally speaking, you want to buy the newest watch you can afford so that it continues to receive software updates from Apple. The latest update, watchOS 9, launched on the Apple Watch Series 4 and newer models in September, and watchOS 10 will offer the same compatibility when it arrives in the fall. Also, keep in mind that, unlike some Apple products, the largest discounts are typically reserved for the newest models, not the last-gen ones.
Picking up a watch from the latest (or a recent) generation ensures you’re getting a smartwatch with an updated design, a robust number of features, and plenty of sensors. And thankfully, now that the Series 3 is officially out of commission (it was long overdue), it’s harder to end up with a watch that will quickly feel outdated.
Now, let’s get into the deals.
The best Apple Watch Series 8 deals
The Apple Watch Series 8 represents the latest wearable in Apple’s flagship Series lineup. It brings a new chipset (that our colleague Victoria Song says isn’t faster than the previous iteration), new temperature sensors that enable menstrual tracking, Crash Detection, and a host of other enhancements. While the subtle improvements are welcome, the Series 8 isn’t all that different from the prior model, the Apple Watch Series 7.
We recently saw the starting price of the base Apple Watch Series 8 drop to $329 ($70 off), however, the 41mm model with GPS is only available right now in select styles at Amazon for $379 ($20 off) and Walmart for $389 ($10 off). As for the larger, 45mm model with GPS, it’s currently on sale in select configurations at Amazon and Walmart for $419.99, which is a mere $10 off and far more expensive than the watch’s all-time low of $359.
If you’re looking to snag an LTE-equipped model, the 41mm configuration is available at Walmart in red for $429 ($70 off). Walmart is also selling the 45mm variant for the same price, though, the retailer is only offering the $100 discount on the white configuration.
The Apple Watch SE received a refresh in late 2022. It has the same chipset as the Series 8, which is great, but with fewer sensors, no always-on display, and a slightly outdated design compared to the Series 7 and Series 8. Those omissions might take this out of the running for some people, but it still may be exactly what you’re after. Best of all, it starts at $249 for the 40mm Wi-Fi / GPS model, which is $30 less than the previous generation’s baseline cost. Opting for cellular connectivity bumps up the starting price to $299 for the 40mm size (44mm adds $20 to each configuration).
Right now, the 40mm Apple Watch SE with GPS is available at Amazon in select styles starting at $239.99 ($9 off). The GPS-only model is also available at Amazon in the 44mm sizing for $269.99 ($9 off) or in the LTE configuration at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target starting at $299 (its full retail price).
Apple’s big, thick, and capable Watch Ultra launched at $799 with GPS and LTE support, and in case you aren’t in the know, it has the most features, sensors, and ruggedness of any Apple Watch model available thus far. Its 49mm case houses a screen that can get brighter than the Series 8, it has a longer-lasting battery and more precise GPS tracking, and it’s loaded with sensors that essentially turn it into a swimming and diving guide.
In May, we saw select Apple Watch Ultra configurations drop to $701.99 (about $97 off). Right now, however, Apple’s premium wearable is only on sale at Amazon in select configurations for as low as $779.99 ($19 off), which is only the watch’s third-lowest price to date.
While all of the Apple Watch models and colorways covered here are encased in aluminum (except the Ultra, which has a titanium build), Apple does make a more premium range built out of stainless steel and titanium. These offerings are functionally and aesthetically similar to their aluminum counterparts, with slightly refined colors and finishings — polished for the stainless steel and brushed for the titanium. However, they start at much steeper prices of $749 and above. They, too, can often be found on sale, but they’re never discounted as low as the standard base models, so we don’t include them here.
Buying Apple’s Vision Pro headset could require an appointment and a face scan
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Apple is planning to sell its $3,499 Vision Pro headset on an appointment-only basis at launch, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. According to Gurman, Apple will create designated sections where customers can try on the headset in its stores, with the first ones appearing at stores in major areas like New York and Los Angeles.
Apple will reportedly ask in-store buyers to schedule an appointment to purchase the Vision Pro, similar to the rollout of the first Apple Watch in 2015. During the appointment, Gurman says Apple will ensure that the Vision Pro fits the wearer and also outfit the device with prescription lens inserts if needed. Gurman says Apple Stores will need to keep “hundreds or thousands of lenses” in stock as a result.
The other element he mentions is that Apple’s working on both an iPhone app and a physical machine that scans a person’s head to figure out if it has the right light seal — a component that prevents light from interfering with a wearer’s field of view. When the company opens online orders in the US in early 2024, it will reportedly have customers upload their lens prescription and their head scan data.
The demos at the last WWDC didn’t include that step, with only a vision test and ear scanning for spatial audio.
The headset, which is set to launch in the US early next year, won’t be available in other countries until late 2024, Gurman says. After it releases the Vision Pro in the US, Apple will reportedly bring the headset to the UK and Canada afterward, with other countries in Asia and Europe to follow. The company doesn’t plan on bringing the device to third-party retailers until at least 2025, Gurman notes.
Apple may also be working on some additional accessories for the Vision Pro. According to Gurman, it’s exploring a second strap that goes across the wearer’s head to help people with “smaller body sizes and heads” wear the headset for long periods of time. It is also looking into creating a shoulder pouch for the Vision Pro headset’s external battery pack, as some people who wear certain kinds of cultural apparel may not have pockets.
Amazon’s colorful Echo Pop is on sale for just $17.99 ahead of Prime Day
Amazon’s Echo Pop speaker comes in a host of fun colors, including an attractive teal option. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Unsurprisingly, the Pop sheds a few features found on pricier smart speakers to hit its bargain-level price point. It offers fewer sensors than the fifth-gen Echo Dot, for instance, and skips the physical Action button found on most other Echo models, which lets you prompt Alexa without saying a wake word. Nonetheless, the Pop is the cheapest Matter controller you can buy at the moment, rendering it as futureproof as it is colorful. What’s more, it features quick performance and plenty of Alexa-based smarts, making it a great option if you want to upgrade from an older Echo model or dip your toe into Amazon’s vast ecosystem of smart home devices.
The season for spring cleaning might be over, but there’s rarely been a better time than now to grab iRobot’s Roomba i3 Evo. Normally $349.99, the budget-friendly robot vacuum is on sale at Amazon right now for just $250, nearly matching its best price to date.
Several years after making its debut, the i3 Evo remains our favorite robovac for those working with a tighter budget. It lacks many of the premium bells and whistles associated with our top pick, the poop-dodging iRobot j7, yet it still offers the same suction power and a similar set of software features. It sports a physical spot-cleaning button for tackling quick jobs, along with smart mapping, letting you control which rooms you’d like it to clean. What it lacks is the j7’s bigger battery and AI obstacle avoidance — two features that are by no means a deal-breaker given the i3 Evo currently costs half the price without its optional auto-empty station.
A few more deals to kick-start your weekend
In case you missed it in one of our aforementioned Prime Day guides, the latest Kindle Paperwhite Kids is on sale at Amazon for Prime members for $104.99 ($65 off). That’s easily the best price to date on the ad-free ebook reader, which is identical to the standard Paperwhite but comes with an extended two-year warranty, a year of Amazon Kids Plus, and one of three kid-friendly covers. Read our review.
Right now, you can pick up a single 1,100-lumen Wyze Bulb Colorfor just $12.29 on Amazon. Wyze’s full-color, dimmable A19 bulbs typically go for around $16, making today’s discount a solid deal if you’re looking for a good budget smart bulb that works over Wi-Fi and supports scheduling, timers, and voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant.
Not to be outdone, Walmart plans to host its own deal extravaganza next week to compete with Prime Day. We don’t know much about what will be on offer, but we do know Walmart Plus subscribers will get early access to deals beginning on July 10th. Thankfully, if you’re not already a Walmart Plus subscriber, new members can still sign up for an annual membership at Walmart for just $49 (half off). The premium membership functions a lot like Amazon Prime, giving you access to exclusive perks such as free shipping, limited-time deals, and streaming services like Paramount Plus.
Casetify’s gorgeous Evangelion iPhone and AirPods cases are (not) just a dream
Products from the Project-CSTF: Protection from Impact line. | Image: Khara / Casetify
The Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise has given rise to quite a few interesting real-world smartphones and even more mech-themed accessories over the years. But rather than simply trying to replicate pieces of tech from the classic anime, the new line of Evangelion-inspired cases and chargers from Casetify aims to transform your ordinary iPhone into a device capable of surviving an Impact event.
Casetify, the company behind those phone case ads you’ve undoubtedly seen on Instagram, is collaborating with Studio Khara for a new line of Evangelion-inspired iPhone and AirPods accessories that are all designed to help protect your devices from falls. Like Casetify’s classic Impact line, each of the new cases featured in the Project-CSTF: Protection from Impact series wraps your device in layers of impact-absorbing shielding meant to minimize damage from spills and falls.
Along with regular cases emblazoned with various Evangelion pilots and MagSafe cases that resemble the mechs themselves, Casetify is also releasing a charging dock inspired by the mobile ejection stands seen in Evangelion as well as an AirPods Pro / Pro 2 case modeled after Eva Test Type-01’s head.
To celebrate the Evangelion collab’s debut on July 20th, Casetify is putting on a limited-run outdoor exhibition at Shinjuku Kabukicho Cine City Square in Japan that will run until July 25th and feature a 13-foot-tall EVA-01. Casetify’s yet to announce any pricing for the Project-CSTF: Protection from Impact series, but ahead of its release on the 20th, interested fans can sign up for a waitlist and head into any one of Casetify’s Studio store locations to receive a special AR marker card that unlocks digital replicas of the line’s products.
TP-Link’s new three-pack mesh router reminds you it’s okay to just have Wi-Fi 6
Even without Wi-Fi 6E, you’re still getting your money’s worth. | Image: TP-Link
TP-Link has launched a new competitively priced Wi-Fi 6 router that might make you think twice before upgrading to Wi-Fi 6E or even Wi-Fi 7. The Deco X55 Pro is a whole-home Wi-Fi 6 mesh router system that’s available in a three-pack now on Amazon and the TP-Link webstore at an initial discounted launch price of $239.99 (if you use the 20DECOX55PRO promo code). Once this promotional offer ends on July 31st, the Deco X55 Pro will switch to its standard $299.99 price.
Each node of the three-pack mesh router comes with two 2.5 gigabit ethernet ports, and TP-Link advertises the Deco X55 Pro’s Wi-Fi 6 capabilities can deliver up to 3Gbps of wireless speed and that it features an “AI-driven” mesh system that’s designed to automatically switch between network sources for a better connection.
Image: TP-Link
You get a total of six 2.5 gigabit ethernet ports for the trio, which is handy if you have a large family with a lot of wired devices.
TP-Link claims the mesh router trio covers up to 6,500 square feet, which should be a large enough Wi-Fi net to blanket most homes, helping to eliminate weak signals and dead zones in areas where less robust systems may struggle to permeate — such as bathrooms, garages, and basements. It can also support over 150 devices, according to TP-Link, more than some pricier Wi-Fi systems like the Eero Pro 6E’s advertised 100-plus devices.
This is a dual-band Wi-Fi system, meaning it only supports the usual single 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands. You’ll have a hard time finding a tri-band system available at a similar price, though — for example, the Wi-Fi 6-enabled Eero Pro 6 provides an additional 5GHz band, but that’ll still cost you $399 despite the product being almost three years old. If you wanted to explore Wi-Fi 6E, then the TP-Link Deco XE75 tri-band system is also available for $299, though that’s for two rather than a three-pack of base stations. It’ll give you a 6GHz band to play with, but the Deco XE75 duo doesn’t have as large of a range as this Deco X55 Pro triple-pack, and there still aren’t many 6GHz-compatible devices out there yet.
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