The Steam Deck now supports game transfers from PCs
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The Steam Deck now supports game transfers on your local network, allowing you to copy installed games from your PC to the Steam Deck without having to redownload them over the internet. This feature, which comes bundled with the Steam Deck beta update released last week, should help reduce the amount of internet data you use, especially if you find yourself frequently redownloading hefty games to your handheld.
To gain access to the feature, you first have to enable Steam’s beta on both the Steam Deck and the Steam client on your PC. From there, select the game you want to install on your Steam Deck, and Steam will automatically check to see if any PC on your network already has the game. If it finds one, Steam will begin the game transfer process.
Image: Valve
Here’s how game transfers will look.
It’s worth noting that this feature applies to PCs on the same network as well, so you’re free to transfer already-installed Steam games to your PC from any other PCs in your household. Steam goes into more detail about how it all works on its support page, and notes if the devices lose connection during the transfer process “or no more content is available,” Steam will download the rest of the game from its servers instead.
You can also adjust settings that dictate which PCs your Steam Deck (or PC) can download from. While Steam sets it to “Only my own devices by default,” which means you can only transfer games from the devices you’re logged into Steam with, you can also set it to “Only my friends” and “Any user” if you want to get games from a friend or family member’s PC. Unfortunately, Steam doesn’t support game transfers originating from the Steam Deck or PCs in Big Picture mode just yet.
I don’t have a Steam Deck (yet), but I certainly wish I had this feature when I downloaded Elden Ring from my partner’s shared Steam library. Either way, I’m happy it’s here now, as it’s nice to have something that helps me stay below my internet data cap for the month, even if it does make just a slight impact.
Meta’s testing $12 per month paid verification on Instagram and Facebook
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
Meta’s testing paid verification for Instagram and Facebook for $11.99 per month on web and $14.99 per month on mobile. In an update on Instagram, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced having a “Meta Verified” account will grant users a verified badge, increased visibility, prioritized customer support, and more. The feature’s rolling out to Australia and New Zealand this week and will arrive in more countries “soon.”
“This week we’re starting to roll out Meta Verified — a subscription service that lets you verify your account with a government ID, get a blue badge, get extra impersonation protection against accounts claiming to be you, and get direct access to customer support,” Zuckerberg writes. “This new feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services.”
In order to sign up to become Meta Verified, you’ll need to meet minimum activity requirements, be at least 18 years of age or older, and submit a government ID that matches the name and photo you have on Facebook or Instagram. The new offering sounds a lot like Elon Musk’s $8 per month version of Twitter Blue, but Meta notes that it won’t make any changes to accounts that have been verified using the company’s previous requirements, including notability and authenticity.
Additionally, users who sign up for the service will get exclusive stickers for Stories and Reels posted to Instagram and Facebook. It’ll also provide users with 100 free stars per month, or the digital currency you can use to tip creators on Facebook. Meta notes that businesses can’t yet apply for a Meta Verified badge and that you can’t change your “profile name, username, date of birth, or photo on your profile without going through the Meta Verified subscription and verifications application process again.”
Cómo funcionan los chatbots y más dudas de inteligencia artificial Los softwares que simulan conversaciones no tienen conciencia. Te explicamos cómo funciona la tecnología que hay detrás.
Google Meet rolls out 360-degree virtual backgrounds for video calls
Illustration: The Verge
Google Meet’s launching new 360-degree virtual backgrounds for video calls on mobile. While Google first announced the new feature last month, now it’s rolling out on both iOS and Android and uses your device’s gyroscope to move with you.
As you can see in the embedded GIF, the 360-degree background will change depending on where your phone or tablet’s positioned. So, if you move your phone left or right, your background will adjust to show different scenery. Google says users can apply “several” new 360-degree backgrounds during video calls, including one that shows a beach and another with a temple.
Image: Google
While the feature does look pretty cool, I can see how these backgrounds might get distracting if you’re on a call with someone who’s constantly moving their phone around. However, they’re still probably not as obnoxious as Meet’s collection of Snapchat-like filters — which currently includes one that turns you into a cat and another that puts your face on a strawberry.
Last month, Google started rolling out emoji reactions for Meet, including the heart, thumbs-up, party popper, clap, joy, astonished, thinking, cry, and thumbs-down emoji, but it still has a long way to go if it wants to catch up with Zoom’s complete library of reactions. Google’s also in the process of gradually transitioning users to the new Meet app that combines the features of Duo, and sent out its final warnings last month as it prepares to switch users over.
The high profile race to enhance their search products has underscored the importance of artificial intelligence to Google and Microsoft – and the rest of the economy, too. Two of the world’s largest tech companies announced plans for AI-enhanced search this month, ratcheting up a tussle for supremacy in the artificial intelligence space. However, the debut of Google’s new chatbot, Bard, was scuppered when an error appeared, knocking $163bn (£137bn) off the parent company Alphabet’s share price. The stock’s plunge showed how crucial investors think AI could be to Google’s future.
However, the increasing prominence of AI has implications for every corner of the economy. From retail to transport, here’s how AI promises to usher in a wave of change across industries.
The AI industrial revolution puts middle-class workers under threat this time
In the past, leaps in technology replaced low-paid jobs with a greater number of higher-paid jobs. This time, it may be different
The machines are coming and they will eat your job. That’s been a familiar refrain down the years, stretching back to the Luddites in the early 19th century. In the past, step-changes in technology have replaced low-paid jobs with a greater number of higher-paid jobs. This time, with the arrival of artificial intelligence, there are those who think it will be different.
Politicians know that even in the best case AI will cause massive disruption to labour markets, but they are fooling themselves if they think they have years to come up with a suitable response. As the tech entrepreneur Mihir Shukla said at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos: “People keep saying AI is coming but it is already here.”
Official: Twitter will now charge for SMS two-factor authentication
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images
Four hours ago, Platformer’s Zoe Schiffer tweeted a scoop: Twitter would begin charging for SMS two-factor authentication.
Now, it’s official: You have to pay for the privilege of using Twitter’s worst form of authentication. In fact, if you don’t start paying for Twitter Blue ($8 a month on Android; $11 a month on iOS) or switch your account to use a far more reliable authenticator app or physical security key, Twitter will simply turn off your 2FA after March 20th.
That’s how Twitter is trying to justify this change, too, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a simpler reason: it costs money to send SMS messages, and Twitter does not have a lot of money right now. The company had been phasing out SMS even before Elon Musk took over.
Microsoft to Limit Length of Bing Chatbot Conversations The new technology has gone down unusual, sometimes unnerving paths in lengthy conversations with some early users.
Microsoft will limit Bing chat to five replies to stop the AI from getting real weird
Illustration: The Verge
Microsoft says it’s implementing some conversation limits to its Bing AI just days after the chatbot went off the rails multiple times for users. Bing chats will now be capped at 50 questions per day and five per session after the search engine was seen insulting users, lying to them, and emotionally manipulating people.
“Our data has shown that the vast majority of people find the answers they’re looking for within 5 turns and that only around 1 percent of chat conversations have 50+ messages,” says the Bing team in a blog post. If users hit the five-per-session limit, Bing will prompt them to start a new topic to avoid long back-and-forth chat sessions.
Microsoft warned earlier this week that these longer chat sessions, with 15 or more questions, could make Bing “become repetitive or be prompted / provoked to give responses that are not necessarily helpful or in line with our designed tone.” Wiping a conversation after just five questions means “the model won’t get confused,” says Microsoft.
Reports of Bing’s “unhinged” conversations emerged earlier this week, followed by The New York Times publishing an entire two-hour-plus back-and-forth with Bing, where the chatbot said it loved the author and somehow they weren’t able to sleep that night. Many smart people have failed the AI Mirror Test this week, though.
Microsoft is still working to improve Bing’s tone, but it’s not immediately clear how long these limits will last. “As we continue to get feedback, we will explore expanding the caps on chat sessions,” says Microsoft, so this appears to be a limited cap for now.
Bing’s chat function continues to see improvements on a daily basis, with technical issues being addressed and larger weekly drops of fixes to improve search and answers. Microsoft said earlier this week that it didn’t “fully envision” people using its chat interface for “social entertainment” or as a tool for more “general discovery of the world.”
Amazon’s Alexa app gets more Sonos-y with new multiroom audio controls
Image: Dan Seifert / The Verge
Amazon is making its multiroom audio platform more convenient to control with your phone. A recent update to the Alexa mobile app introduced a new capability that lets users manage and move their music between Echo devices (or groups of multiple speakers) within the app itself. (Previously, you needed to use voice commands to perform some of those actions.)
Now, it’s all doable through a menu that lets you move music to any group or Alexa device with a couple of taps — no talking necessary. In our brief time trying it so far, it’s pretty intuitive, and anyone that’s controlled music via AirPlay or Spotify Connect shouldn’t have much trouble figuring this out. Amazon’s current lineup of Echo speakers includes the standard Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Dot with Clock, Echo Studio, and optional Echo Sub subwoofer. You can play audio across Echo Show and Fire TV devices through the Alexa app as well.
Image: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
You can quickly move music between devices and groups with the Alexa app.
Amazon has also developed a new overview screen for the Alexa app that it calls the Active Media List. This can be accessed whenever audio is playing on your system and shows what’s playing where and lets you control multiple products from a single list. The interface will look extremely familiar to Sonos customers — so much so that the latter company might take notice.
Image: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy and Chris Welch / The Verge
The new Active Media List (left) gives an overview and fast access to everything playing across your system. It looks similar to Sonos’ System tab (right).
Sonos is locked in a patents battle with Google; a trial between the two kicks off May 8th in San Francisco. But while Sonos has previously alleged that Amazon is also violating its intellectual property, it hasn’t fired any legal salvos yet. In fact, the two companies seem to be on good terms lately, having just expanded Alexa voice support on Sonos devices to many more countries. And you can run Sonos Voice Control and Alexa side by side on the same speaker. But there are limits to this collaboration: you can’t include Sonos and Echo speakers in the same group for multiroom audio, for example.
Sonos CEO Patrick Spence recently claimed that his company’s Big Tech competitors (Amazon included) aren’t “doing anything interesting” in audio of late. Amazon has been fairly quiet in terms of new Echo speakers, yes, but this Alexa app update is a nice improvement that brings more refinement and polish to the company’s multiroom offering.
The Alexa app is a free download for both Android and iOS.
Amazon deploys fleet of self-driving robotaxis on California streets
Online retailer has been aggressively expanding into driverless technology and bought the startup Zoox
Amazon is testing a fleet of robotaxis on public roads in California, using employees as passengers, as the tech behemoth moves closer to a commercial service for the general public.
The online retailer has been aggressively expanding into self-driving technology and bought the self-driving startup Zoox for $1.3bn in 2020. A test conducted on 11 February saw the robotaxis successfully drive between two Zoox buildings a mile apart at its headquarters in Foster City, California. It was part of the launch of a no-cost employee shuttle service that will also help the company refine its technology.
Tesla fires more than 30 workers after union drive announcement
Workers at the Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, New York, allege employees were fired in response to a union organizing drive
Tesla workers at the Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, New York, allege over 30 workers were fired on 14 February in response to the announcement of a union organizing drive at the 1,000-worker facility.
The Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, has fought union drives in the past. The campaign, Tesla Workers United, is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate Workers United and has filed an injunction with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking to halt the firings.
Ruto ally says Telegram account was hacked before Kenyan election
Strategist says he noticed ‘increased activity’, after revelations about activities of a disinformation unit
A senior strategist with close links to Kenya’s president, William Ruto, has publicly acknowledged that his Telegram account was infiltrated in the lead-up to last year’s election.
Dennis Itumbi told the Star newspaper that he had noticed “increased activity” on his Telegram last year but called it “inconsequential”.
Good for Nothing: Phone 1’s stable Android 13 release is starting to arrive
Nothing’s moody OS is getting its first major update. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge
As spotted by XDA-Developers, Nothing is starting to release its first major OS upgrade for its very first mobile device: Phone 1. Remember the phone that goes blink blink blink? That one. Its Android 13 skin, Nothing OS 1.5, has been in beta testing since late 2022. Now, beta testers are reporting on Reddit and Discord that the stable version has arrived in the form of Nothing OS 1.5.2.
There’s a long list of improvements in Nothing’s release notes for the beta, like a Nothing-ified weather app with the company’s signature dot-matrix UI styling. There are other expected Android 13 updates included, including a QR code scanner in the quick settings menu and privacy updates for the photo picker.
Big difference now, having our own team who previously delivered Oxygen OS together vs. an outsourced team who don't really care about the success or failure of our company. https://t.co/tsersO0WDS
But the single upgrade that Phone 1 owners are likely most looking forward to is improved app loading speeds: specifically, Nothing claims apps open up to 50 percent faster. That could be the result of a shift from external to in-house developers — CEO Carl Pei told Android Authority that since the Phone 1’s launch, the company staffed up its own engineering team. Switching from the externally developed codebase allowed them to make the system “smoother and more stable.”
If you’re a Phone 1 owner eager to check out the new updates but weren’t part of the beta program, it looks like you’ll have to keep waiting just a little while longer. Devices running the previous stable release don’t seem to be part of this first wave of updates — that’s the case with my review unit, too.
Terra founder Do Kwon charged with fraud over its $40 billion crypto crash
Image: Getty Images
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is suing the creator of the collapsed Terra blockchain protocol for securities fraud following last year’s meltdown that sent reverberations throughout the cryptocurrency industry. According to the SEC’s complaint, Terraform Labs and its co-founder Do Kwon “perpetuated a fraudulent scheme that led to the loss of at least $40 billion of market value.”
Today we charged Singapore-based Terraform Labs PTE Ltd and Do Hyeong Kwon with orchestrating a multi-billion-dollar crypto asset securities fraud involving an algorithmic stablecoin and other crypto asset securities.
— U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (@SECGov) February 16, 2023
Kwon co-founded Terraform Labs in 2018 with Daniel Shin and went on to release the cryptocurrency Luna later that year. The company launched its algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD in 2020, which was linked to Luna to help maintain its dollar peg. That’s why when TerraUSD started crashing last year, so did Luna, vaporizing the billions of dollars hopeful investors threw at the cryptocurrencies.
The SEC accuses Terraform and Kwon of misleading investors about the stability of TerraUSD, noting they failed to inform investors that the price of the coin falling below its dollar peg “would spell doom for the entire Terraform ecosystem.” Additionally, the agency claims that Kwon and Terraform falsely told their customers that Chai, the Korean electronic mobile payment app, used the Terraform blockchain to process payments.
“In reality, Chai payments did not use the blockchain to process and settle payments,” the lawsuit states. “Defendants deceptively replicated Chai payments onto the Terraform blockchain in order to make it appear that they were occurring on the Terraform blockchain, when, in fact, Chai payments were made through traditional means.”
“We allege that Terraform and Do Kwon failed to provide the public with full, fair, and truthful disclosure as required for a host of crypto asset securities, most notably for LUNA and Terra USD,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler says in a statement. “We also allege that they committed fraud by repeating false and misleading statements to build trust before causing devastating losses for investors.”
‘It’s a long-term journey we’re on’: taking a ride towards self-driving cars
Nissan’s ServCity project shows how far autonomous vehicles have come and difficulties they still face
The journey in a self-driving Nissan across Woolwich in south-east London begins smoothly enough: fitted with cameras and sensors, the electric car confidently handles pedestrian crossings, vans cutting into its lane without warning and even scurrying jaywalkers.
Then comes an unexpected obstacle: a football-sized rock, fallen from the back of a lorry on to the middle of the road. The specially trained safety driver hastily grabs the steering wheel, taking back control to avoid a nasty crunch.
Help, Bing’s Chatbot Won’t Stop Declaring Its Love For Me A very strange conversation with the chatbot built into Microsoft’s search engine left me deeply unsettled. Even frightened.
Kevin Roose’s Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot: Full Transcript In a two-hour conversation with our columnist, Microsoft’s new chatbot said it would like to be human, had a desire to be destructive and was in love with the person it was chatting with. Here’s the transcript.
We don’t have all the answers to those questions yet (although I need an answer on the Lego Movie stat). We have, however, finally gotten our first glimpse of this highly anticipated Lego set, which (fairly accurately) replicates the set of the Dynamite music video, complete with mini-figs of the seven group members.
The set was based on a fan-submitted idea from two BTS fans and Lego builders. “I watched the music video over and over and tried to capture its essence in the LEGO bricks,” writes 20-year-old Josh Bretz, one of the creators, in Lego’s press release.
The 749-piece set includes several of the primary settings featured in the music video, including the donut shop, the record store, the basketball hoop, and that ice cream truck that’s always hanging around. The stage is also present in the back, though that replica isn’t quite as faithful. All the pieces are modular, so you can move them around.
Notably missing is Jungkook’s bedroom from the opening verse, though I understand that recreating all those posters with Legos would’ve been a whole thing and a half.
Lego has captured some specific details; elements like the graffiti behind the basketball hoop, the addresses printed on the windows of the stores, and the Open sign next to the donut shop are nicely constructed. The green arrow should be angled a bit further down, but I know I’m getting into the weeds here. You also cannot recreate the plane that flies over the second chorus, but you can make Jungkook hold the donut outside the donut shop, which is consolation enough.
Image: Lego
Suga isn’t wearing this outfit in the real shot, so it’s slightly disconcerting, but we’ll roll with it.Click here for a larger image.
The company did a fairly impressive job replicating each member’s hairstyle, considering that we’re talking about...Lego hair. Jungkook’s black hair is easily distinguishable from J-Hope’s black hair, for example.
The seven figurines are dressed in the outfits that the group wears beginning at the song’s second chorus (rather than the costumes from their earlier solo shots or the pastel clothing from the beginning and end). Lego doesn’t provide multiple mini-figs for a costume change (and with a US price of $99.99, this is already not the cheapest piece of BTS merch you can buy). The figurines do have multiple expressions, at least; for example, you can make RM wink or just appear somewhat pensive, while Jungkook has both a smile and the bewildered look from his iconic donut shot.
This Lego set will be on sale in March. While you’re waiting, you can take a look at the pictures Lego has sent over, where the company has made admirable efforts to make the figurines look like they’re doing dance moves with their aerobically-limited limbs.
‘Team Jorge’ and Cambridge Analytica meddled in Nigeria election, emails reveal
Leaked messages show failed plan to discredit Muhammadu Buhari and get Goodluck Jonathan re-elected in 2015
Four weeks before a pivotal presidential election in Nigeria, an Israeli private operative specialising in political “black ops” was preparing his trip to the country. On 17 January 2015 the man, who used the alias “Jorge”, emailed Cambridge Analytica, the political consultancy he was coordinating with on a covert plan to manipulate Africa’s largest democracy.
“Friends, hi, I will be on the ground tomorrow for couple days … Who is best to meet there[?]” he asked. “Low profile as we came in on a special visa and we are watched closely (which is part of our plan :) anyway we need better understanding of the current status, improve communication and coordinate plans, we want to run by you a couple things that we might execute if the stars align. so plz, in very limited circulation, who is best to meet, and whats his/her position, and contact info.”
Apple TV will stream MLS games in 1080p
Photo by Matthew Ashton - AMA / Getty Images
The Major League Soccer (MLS) season kicks off on February 25th, and if you were hoping Apple and MLS’s streaming service would give you the games in 4K, I have some bad news: the streams will top out at 1080p, according to a press release from MLS (via Engadget).
We probably shouldn’t have hoped for anything different; the Major League Baseball games on Apple TV Plus also peak at 1080p. But for the many sports fans who have been waiting for more sports games to stream at true 4K — this year’s Super Bowl, for example, was upscaled to 4K — MLS’s streaming service, MLS Season Pass, won’t be the place to see those.
That said, for soccer fans, MLS Season Pass seems like it will be a pretty good deal. You’ll be able to watch every live regular season game, playoff game, and the Leagues Cup with no blackouts. There will also be an NFL RedZone-like whip-around show called “MLS 360” to help you catch big moments without having to jump between games as well as pre- and post-game programming.
You can sign up for MLS Season Pass now in the Apple TV app ahead of the beginning of the season. The service costs $14.99 per month over the course of the season or $99 per season, and if you’re an Apple TV Plus subscriber, you can sign up at reduced rates of $12.99 per month or $79 per season.
This year will mark the first of a 10-year deal between Apple and Major League Soccer. The two won’t make that deal easy to forget, as every single club’s jersey now has an Apple TV logo.
To help recover balance, robotic exoskeletons have to be faster than human reflexes Wearable robotics promise to help older people retain their mobility and paraplegic patients regain theirs. They could help make humans stronger and faster. But, so far, they're not great at keeping people from falling.
Sony’s PSVR2 teardowns reveal how the headset tracks the Sense controllers
Image: Sony
The PlayStation VR2 headset can track the accompanying Sense controllers thanks to a bunch of IR LEDs hidden in the orb-shaped controllers, according to new teardown videos Sony posted Tuesday evening.
Under the Sense controller cover, the controller itself has a ring of 14 IR LEDs and three placed elsewhere for tracking, as shown in the Sense teardown video. “These infrared lights are used by the VR headset’s tracking camera to detect the controller’s position and orientation,” Sony’s Takeshi Igarashi, who also designed the DualSense controller, explains in the video. “The LEDs have been placed in optimal locations to ensure they are accurately detected no matter what direction the controller is facing.” And the cover on the controllers is even made with a material that “transmits the infrared light emitted internally to track the movement of the controller,” he says.
The Sense teardown video also shows the five capacitive touch sensors on the controller, a look at the adaptive trigger component (which works like it does on the DualSense), and even that there are tiny PlayStation button icons embossed on the controller.
And for the headset itself, that teardown is pretty cool, too; I loved watching Takamasa Araki, the lead designer of the PSVR2 (and the first PSVR!), expertly disassemble both the front of the headset and the headband. I’d particularly recommend scrubbing to 6:07 or so, where you can see what it looks like on the inside of the headset when you turn the lens adjustment dial. Oh, and the headset’s eye tracking feature? As shown by Araki, there’s an IR LED around each lens and an IR camera that captures the light from the LED, and those work together to follow your eye’s movements. Super cool.
Image: Sony
A PSVR2 lens.
I really recommend you watch both the headset and the controller teardowns, they’re fascinating. However, Sony warns that you should not try the teardowns yourself, noting that taking apart your hardware will invalidate the warranty.
Yes, Elon Musk created a special system for showing you all his tweets first
Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge, photo by Christian Marquardt / Getty Images
This story is based on interviews with people familiar with the events involved and supported by documents obtained byPlatformer.
At 2:36 on Monday morning, James Musk sent an urgent message to Twitter engineers.
“We are debugging an issue with engagement across the platform,” wrote Musk, a cousin of the Twitter CEO, tagging “@here” in Slack to ensure that anyone online would see it. “Any people who can make dashboards and write software please can you help solve this problem. This is high urgency. If you are willing to help out please thumbs up this post.”
When bleary-eyed engineers began to log on to their laptops, the nature of the emergency became clear: Elon Musk’s tweet about the Super Bowl got less engagement than President Joe Biden’s.
In the wake of those losses — the Eagles to the Kansas City Chiefs, and Musk to the president of the United States — Twitter’s CEO flew his private jet back to the Bay Area on Sunday night to demand answers from his team.
Within a day, the consequences of that meeting would reverberate around the world, as Twitter users opened the app to find that Musk’s posts overwhelmed their ranked timeline. This was no accident, Platformer can confirm: after Musk threatened to fire his remaining engineers, they built a system designed to ensure that Musk — and Musk alone — benefits from previously unheard-of promotion of his tweets to the entire user base.
In recent weeks, Musk has been obsessed with the amount of engagement his posts are receiving. Last week, Platformer broke the news that he fired one of two remaining principal engineers at the company after the engineer told him that views on his tweets are declining in part because interest in Musk has declined in general.
His deputies told the rest of the engineering team this weekend that if the engagement issue wasn’t “fixed,” they would all lose their jobs as well.
Late Sunday night, Musk addressed his team in-person. Roughly 80 people were pulled in to work on the project, which had quickly become priority number one at the company. Employees worked through the night investigating various hypotheses about why Musk’s tweets weren’t reaching as many people as he thought they should and testing out possible solutions.
One possibility, engineers said, was that Musk’s reach might have been reduced because he’d been blocked and muted by so many people in recent months. Even before the events of this weekend, Musk’s long stint as Twitter’s main character, both in the run-up to and aftermath of his $44 billion takeover of the company, had led huge numbers of people to filter him out of their feeds.
But there were also legitimate technical reasons the CEO’s tweets weren’t performing. Twitter’s system has historically promoted tweets from users whose posts perform better to both followers and non-followers in the For You Tab; Musk’s tweets should have fit that model but showed up less only about half the time that some engineers thought they should.
By Monday afternoon, “the problem” had been “fixed.” Twitter deployed code to automatically “greenlight” all of Musk’s tweets, meaning his posts will bypass Twitter’s filters designed to show people the best content possible. The algorithm now artificially boosted Musk’s tweets by a factor of 1,000 – a constant score that ensured his tweets rank higher than anyone else’s in the feed.
Internally, this is called a “power user multiplier,” although it only applies to Elon Musk, we’re told. The code also allows Musk’s account to bypass Twitter heuristics that would otherwise prevent a single account from flooding the core ranked feed, now known as “For You.”
That explains why people opening the app Monday found that Musk dominated the feed, with a dozen or more Musk tweets and replies visible to anyone who followed him and millions more who did not. Over 90 percent of Musk’s followers now see his tweets, according to one internal estimate.
Some of his tweets Monday were sent while he was on calls with Twitter engineers, to test out whether the solutions they’d designed were working as well as he thought they should.
After Musk’s timeline takeover caused an uproar Monday, he seemed to suggest that the changes would be walked back, at least in part. “Please stay tuned while we make adjustments to the uh .… “algorithm,” he tweeted.
The artificial boosts applied to his account remain in place, although the factor is now lower than 1,000, we’re told. Musk’s handful of tweets Tuesday reported around 43 million impressions, which are on the high end of his recent average.
Absurd as Musk’s antics are, they do highlight a tension familiar to almost anyone who has ever used a social network: why are some posts more popular than others? Why am I seeing this thing, and not that one?
Engineers for services like TikTok and Instagram can offer partial, high-level answers to these questions. But ranking algorithms make predictions based on hundreds or thousands of signals, and deliver posts to millions of users, making it almost impossible for anyone to say with any degree of accuracy who sees what.
For better and for worse, that answer hasn’t been good enough for Musk. As Twitter’s most prominent user, with nearly 129 million followers, his posts often get 10 million or more impressions, as counted by Twitter. (There are good reasons to doubt the accuracy of these counts, but better data is not readily available.)
But Musk’s view counts still fluctuate widely. The bottle-feeding tweet got a reported 118.4 million impressions; his next one, a joke observation previously posted to Reddit and satirically attributed to Abraham Lincoln, got 49.9 million. Some of his tweets from earlier this month had fewer than 8 million.
The most obvious reason for this discrepancy is that people think some tweets are better than others. But it doesn’t have to work like that: you could also change the ranking algorithms so that they show your posts no matter what.
Terrified of losing their jobs, this is the system that Twitter engineers are now building.
“He bought the company, made a point of showcasing what he believed was broken and manipulated under previous management, then turns around and manipulates the platform to force engagement on all users to hear only his voice,” said a current employee. “I think we’re past the point of believing that he actually wants what’s best for everyone here.”
Google Fiber’s 5-gig internet service starts rolling out in three cities
Image: Google Fiber
Google Fiber is now offering 5 Gbps speeds in certain markets (via Engadget). Customers in Kansas City, West Des Moines, and the Salt Lake City metropolitan area will be the first to get the option for the speedier tier, which is rolling out now. Late last year, Google started testing limited access to Fiber’s faster 5-gig and even 8-gig packages for some customers in those same areas.
The new 5 Gbps offering will cost subscribers $125 a month and includes an optional Wi-Fi 6 router, up to two mesh extenders, and professional installation that also upgrades homes to be 10Gbps-ready.
Google Fiber’s 5 Gbps internet offers symmetrical upload and download speeds for those who work heavily in the cloud with large files and is a big upgrade from current 1- to 2.5-gigabit offerings. After staying stagnant for several years, Google is finally working to expand service to more cities and will eventually offer 8-gigabit-plus speeds.
Companies like Frontier and Optimum are starting to offer 5 Gbps service, albeit for a higher $155 per month and $180 per month price (respectively). And, of course, Comcast says it’s close to launching “10G” multi-gig service (read: 2 Gbps up and down, so far) in select markets.
A Link Between Hearing Voices and Hearing Your Own Voice An experiment with bone-conduction headphones suggests a way for neuroscientists to better understand some hallucinations.
Tweetbot’s creators added an edit button to their Mastodon client
Image: Tapbots
The developers who created the now-discontinued Tweetbot client have added an edit button to Ivory, their app for Mastodon. This comes bundled with a couple of other updates for Ivory’s iOS app, including the ability to report users and posts, as well as support for Mastodon’s server language translation services.
While Ivory’s still in early access, Tapbots says there’s much more to come, like quote posts and support for custom instance emoji. So far, Ivory lets you edit your profile on Mastodon, suppress duplicate boosted posts, create content warnings, and approve follow requests from private accounts.
Just like Tweetbot, Ivory’s a paid service, which means you’ll have to pay $1.99 per month or $14.99 per year for full access to the iOS app. You can also demo it in read-only mode if you’re not ready to commit just yet. There’s a macOS app in development as well, but it’s currently available as a limited public alpha through Testflight.
Twitter initially said it would start making developers pay to access its API on February 9th but has since delayed the rollout of the new system to an undetermined date. Access to the API could cost developers much as $100 per month, and CEO Elon Musk has since hinted at a free tier with “light, write-only” access for Twitter bots that create “good” content, whatever that might mean.
Amazon’s weird toaster-shaped robotaxi hits the road in a ‘first’ for the company
Image: Zoox
Zoox, the autonomous vehicle company owned by Amazon, said that its toaster-shaped driverless vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals was approved to drive on public roads with passengers in California. The company celebrated the milestone as the “first time in history a purpose-built robotaxi — without any manual controls — drove autonomously with passengers.”
Zoox is one of dozens of companies currently testing AVs on public roads in the Golden State. And while it trails behind competitors like Waymo and Cruise in the race to commercialize the technology, it is making advancements by introducing a new kind of vehicle to the road — one that lacks traditional controls and could hardly be described as a “car” in the modern sense of the word.
Last week, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles approved a modification to Zoox’s existing testing permit allowing it to test its robotaxi in a “limited area” in Foster City, California, where the company is headquartered.
But Zoox’s purpose-built robotaxi can hardly travel where ever it wants. According to the DMV, the vehicle is limited to a top speed of 40 mph, can only operate on Saturdays and Sundays during daylight hours, and is prohibited from driving during bad weather.
According to Levinson, the Zoox vehicle drove a two-mile loop “dozens of times” on open roads with passengers in the vehicle. “Our vehicle never got stuck, paused, or had any issues whatsoever while driving,” he wrote. “As you’d expect on open public roads, we encountered lots of vehicles, pedestrians, bikes, etc. The route has multiple traffic lights, left/right turns, unprotected cross traffic, and speeds up to 35 MPH.”
Levinson also addressed questions about Zoox’s claim to be the first to deploy a purpose-built autonomous vehicle on public roads, considering Google had ferried passengers in its purpose-built Firefly vehicle on open roads more than five years ago.
Google’s prototype wasn’t built to comply with federal safety standards, nor could it exceed 25 mph, Levinson said. Firefly “was also never designed for production, as it was clearly a test/research vehicle platform (which Waymo then abandoned),” he added. “In contrast, the Zoox robotaxi complies with the complete set of FMVSS, is fully street-legal, and has a comprehensive set of safety and comfort features for our riders.”
Zoox’s vehicle, which was first unveiled in 2020, is currently testing AVs in Seattle, Las Vegas, and the Bay Area. The company mostly uses Toyota Highlanders retrofitted with sensors and cameras as part of its fleet.
Zoox is one of the few companies that is building its own autonomous vehicle. Cruise, a wholly owned subsidiary of General Motors, is expected to begin mass production of its Origin vehicle later this year. Both companies will need permission from the federal government to build vast quantities of vehicles that don’t comply with current safety standards, which require traditional controls like pedals and steering wheels.
T-Mobile suffers major network outage across US
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Thousands of T-Mobile customers in the United States reported significant network problems on Monday night, with many unable to place calls or carry out other basic functions. Issues were reported across the country, with users from California to New York saying that service was up and down or completely unavailable for extended periods.
DownDetector spiked and showed over 80,000 reports of problems. Owners of Apple’s iPhone 14 phones said their signal status showed no cellular connection whatsoever — instead defaulting to the emergency SOS satellite indicator.
By late evening, the carrier seemed to be getting a handle on things, but customers weren’t pleased with the disruption.
Responding to complaints on social media, T-Mobile said it was “aware of and rapidly working to resolve an issue that has created intermittent impacts to our voice, messaging, and data service in several areas for a short period of time this evening.”
In a bizarre coincidence, the outage struck on the same day that T-Mobile network chief Neville Ray announced his upcoming retirement from the company. In a tweet Monday night, Ray blamed the service problems on a “third-party fiber interruption.”
Our teams are rapidly addressing a 3rd party fiber interruption issue that has intermittently impacted some voice, messaging and data services in several areas. The situation is improving and we hope to have a full resolution very soon. We apologize for any disruption caused.
Some affected customers reported success restoring a data signal by toggling airplane mode on and off on their devices. So if you’ve been dealing with this tonight and are without service, that’s worth a try.
Toyota’s first next-gen EV will be a Lexus
The Lexus RZ 450e SUV is the last electric vehicle announced by parent company Toyota. | Image: Lexus
Toyota’s incoming CEO said the automaker would release “next-generation” electric cars under the Lexus brand by 2026. This is just one part of a new strategy in development to overcome problems linked to a slow and expensive EV manufacturing process.
Toyota will also be expanding its current EV lineup, which currently consists of the bZ4X crossover SUV (which required a recall to make sure its wheels don’t fall off) and the Subaru Solterra EV built on top of Toyota’s e-TNGA flexible EV platform. Lexus has yet to release its RZ 450e SUV that’s based on the same platform.
Koji Sato, who is currently the president of Lexus, will replace Akio Toyoda as president and CEO of Toyota on April 1st. During a press conference on Monday, Sato said next-generation battery electric vehicles are the first order of business priority and that the “time is right” to develop EVs under the new team once they take over in April, which is when we should hear more concrete details.
This is coming after years of criticism over Toyota’s slow approach to electric vehicle adoption, resting on its laurels with efficient gas and hybrid cars, and being distracted by the development of hydrogen-powered vehicles. Meanwhile, competitors are already extending purpose-built EV platforms across their product lines, like GM with Ultium.
Sato mentioned Toyota would take an “omnidirectional approach,” suggesting it will continually keep its hybrid business — with vehicles like the now-refreshed Prius — relevant. “We want to stay in tune with customers around the world and provide diverse options,” Sato said.
If Google Photos is broken for you on iOS, you’re not alone
Illustration: The Verge
Google Photos appears to be broken for many users following Apple’s latest iOS 16.3.1 update. Several Verge staff members, as well as peopleonTwitter, report that the app crashes on launch, making it impossible to access or manage your Google photo library.
While the problem isn’t universal — afewpeople, myself included, say they’re able to open Google Photos just fine — the crashing does still appear to be relatively widespread. Other Google apps, such as Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Maps, all appear to be working fine.
It’s currently unclear what could be causing the problem and why it only affects certain people. The iOS update (which may or may not have triggered the issue) is supposedly relatively minor; Apple’s release notes say it’s mainly meant to fix bugs and a few security issues.
Google didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment on whether it was aware of the crashes and if there was a fix in the works. The Google Photos Twitter account, however, hasresponded to two people who mentioned the issue on Monday, one of whom said they were using an older version of iOS.
Twitter is just showing everyone all of Elon’s tweets now
The first of several Elon tweets that appear in my For You feed. | Screenshot: Emma Roth / The Verge
For many of us, Twitter’s “For You” is full of tweets and replies to tweets from Elon Musk. Not everyone is getting the Elon-first feed, but on Monday afternoon, more than a few people noticed something was different.
Several of us here at The Verge are seeing more Musk replies than usual, and I personally counted five at the very top of my feed, with many more sprinkled in between tweets from other users. The same is true for some accounts that don’t even follow Elon Musk.
Is everyone else's entire For You page Elon replies
As reported by Platformer’s Zoë Schiffer and Casey Newton, internal Twitter data indicates that while Musk’s account rose to peak popularity in search rankings in April 2022, engagement has since dropped significantly, and engineers found no issue with Twitter’s algorithm.
Over the weekend, Musk said Twitter rolled out some sort of change to fix this “visibility” issue, with the billionaire CEO stating that 95 percent of his tweets weren’t “getting delivered.” I’m not sure if this is at all related to this Elon-filled feed, but I’m hoping Twitter fixes this issue soon — unless the new mandate is to get the boss more views by any means necessary.
Long day at Twitter HQ with eng team
Two significant problems mostly addressed:
1. Fanout service for Following feed was getting overloaded when I tweeted, resulting in up to 95% of my tweets not getting delivered at all. Following is now pulling from search (aka Earlybird).… https://t.co/oMW54chhRz
Ram 1500 REV loses the prototype’s gimmicks and looks like an electric Ram
The Ram 1500 REV electric truck looks like a regular Ram truck now. | Image: Stellantis
The preproduction Ram 1500 REV now looks very similar to the current gas-powered Ram pickup trucks on the road today. Even the interior, including the infotainment screen, would look wholly familiar to recent Ram owners. Stellantis’ design direction for the REV echoes what Ford did with its F-150 Lighting electric pickup, which looks very similar to its combustion engine counterpart as well.
The Ram 1500 REV will be available starting Q4 2024, according to its website. EV-curious Mopar diehards and others in the market for an electric pickup can get in line to reserve the truck — and become members of “Ram REV Insider Plus” — with a refundable $100 “membership fee.”
Stellantis originally said it would put the truck into production in 2022. A late 2024 release puts it well behind competitors like Ford’s F-150 Lightning, which is currently sold out for the 2023 model year, and Chevy’s Silverado EV, which is supposed to be released later this year.
The production Ram 1500 REV debuted in a Super Bowl ad that connects common electric vehicle buyers’ concerns to sexual stamina while suggesting the truck will have a long range, bigger payload, and won’t have to have you stop often.
“We wanted to directly address any potential concerns about EV truck ownership using an approach that we believe will resonate with our truck-buying consumers,” Stellantis’ global chief marketing officer, Olivier Francois, states in a press release.
The site specifies that members will get early access to preorder the REV and receive early invites to events that include first looks and test drives, as well as up-to-date news on this and future electric Ram trucks. Reservations are open from now until February 28th, 2023, or while “supplies last.” Stellantis has not offered any details on how many reservations it plans on taking.
Chromebooks might finally get customizable keyboard shortcuts
Image: Framework
Google appears to be testing a feature that would let Chromebook users set custom keyboard shortcuts throughout the OS (via Ars Technica). While it doesn’t currently work, About Chromebooks’ Kevin Tofel found a keyboard shortcut editor in the ChromeOS 111 beta that can be accessed by enabling flags with names like “enable-shortcut-customization-app” and “improved-keyboard-shortcuts.”
The screen, which is accessible through the settings app, shows you the list of shortcuts that are available in different parts of the OS and apps, as well as the default keybindings for them. The experimental version lets you add alternative shortcuts, according to Tofel and Ars Technica, though they unfortunately don’t seem to work — you can set shortcuts, but pressing those keys won’t do what you want. The screen also has options to reset the defaults for both specific shortcuts and for all the shortcuts.
There have been hints that this feature was coming for months, but the version in the beta seems to be almost complete. Hopefully, that means it should start rolling out to users within the next few weeks or months. While the current version of ChromeOS lets you easily see the default keyboard shortcuts, it’s always nice to be able to tweak them to match your specific preferences.
Beyond Silicon Valley, Spending on Technology Is Resilient Despite an uncertain outlook, corporations plan to continue investing in their digital projects — a source of stability for the economy.
Monday’s top tech news: Mario’s still got a day job
Image: Illumination
Mario’s plumbing ad was one of several big new trailers from the Super Bowl.
I sometimes forget that in between his adventurous odysseys, Mario’s day job is plumbing. So it’s fun to see the upcoming movie lean into it, using Mario’s profession as an excuse to revive the rap used in the 1989 Super Mario Bros TV show. The clip from the film was one of the half-dozen plus trailers broadcast during last night’s Super Bowl — The Guardian has a neat roundup of the other big ones.
And finally, in case you missed it, my colleague James Vincent did a great breakdown last week highlighting the biggest risks and problems facing Microsoft and Google as they forge ahead into a new era of AI-powered search.
Microsoft to power Bing with AI as race with Google heats up
Company to work with OpenAI to improve search and Edge web browser as rival unveils ChatGPT competitor
Microsoft is revamping its search products with more artificial intelligence, using technology behind the wildly popular ChatGPT, as tech companies race to take advantage of increasingly powerful AI tools.
The company detailed its plans at a special event on Tuesday, saying it would work with OpenAI, the startup behind the ChatGPT tool, to upgrade its Bing search engine and Edge web browser and enhance the information available.
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