How the House revived the TikTok ban before most of us noticed

How the House revived the TikTok ban before most of us noticed

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images

An unusually fast process. A classified briefing. Phone lines clogged with teenagers “in near tears.” The bill, meant to force the sale of TikTok, passed by a landslide.

The US push to force TikTok to divorce from its Chinese parent company or else be banned entirely had faded from public discussion for almost a full year. In the course of just over a week, it jumped suddenly from the pile of forgotten ideas to getting halfway through the process of becoming enshrined in law.

But the road to the blockbuster vote in the House of Representatives on Wednesday was months in the making. Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), who chairs the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and is a lead author of the bill, said he’d worked for eight months with colleagues including Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) to prepare it.

“The fact that we didn’t leak the content of those negotiations to the media, it’s just a function of how serious our members were,” Gallagher told a group of reporters after 352 members voted in favor of passing HR 7521, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (just 65 voted against it). “We had multiple iterations. We invited technical assistance from the White House, which improved the bill.”

The legislation is now heading to the Senate where it faces an uncertain future. But how did it get this far in the first place? The bill slid through an unusually fast process in Congress, and a classified hearing last Thursday may have been a major factor in convincing some representatives.

“Students in near tears”

But the clincher was an in-app congressional call-in campaign that backfired spectacularly. When TikTok rolled out notifications to its users urging them to call their representatives, phone lines immediately became clogged across Capitol Hill. Congressional staffers told The Verge about the calls of “students in near tears” with the “chatter of the classroom behind them.”

​​”They’re flooding our offices, often from kids who are about as young as nine years old, their parents have no idea that they’re doing this, they’re calling in, and they’re basically saying things like, ‘What is Congress? What’s a congressman, can I have my TikTok back?’” Krishnamoorthi told The Verge.

“One person threatened self harm unless they got their TikTok. Another impersonated a member of Congress’ son, scaring the bejesus out of the congressman, by the way,” said Krishnamoorthi. “And this is exactly the kind of influence campaign which, in the hands of a foreign adversary in a moment of national peril, could sow chaos and discord and division in a way that could really harm our national security to the benefit of a foreign adversary.”

“I can’t tell you how many people had the ‘aha’ moment just because of that particular push notification,” Krishnamoorthi said.

The road to the ban

The new legislation is not the first time Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi have tried to ban or force a sale of TikTok. The pair introduced the ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act alongside Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in late 2022, which would empower the president to ban social media companies from countries of concern, invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

But that statute comes with legal hurdles, and Gallagher acknowledged after the vote Wednesday that approach “wasn’t the right bill.” HR 7521 takes a different approach, making it illegal for app stores or web hosts to distribute social media services that are “controlled by a foreign adversary.” It also gives covered companies six months to divest from the foreign adversary ownership or stake to remain in the US.

The authors worked with stakeholders and the White House and Department of Justice for months to address concerns — including concerns about whether the legislation could violate the constitution. Even after all the work, Krishnamoorthi told reporters that the 352 votes the bill received “was not predicted.”

“That’s a testament to the power of the bill and the concern about ByteDances’ ownership of TikTok,” he said.

Some members expressed concern about the speed with which the bill made its way to passage

Still, some members expressed concern about the speed with which the bill made its way to passage. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a member of the Select Committee on the CCP alongside Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi, voted against it and called the process “rushed” in a statement. “Congress needs to listen and work instead on a broader data privacy bill to address real concerns without a ban,” he said.

“It was a 12 page bill,” Gallagher said of the speed right after the vote. “I mean, it wasn’t like an omnibus that we just shoved in people’s faces. Even a member of Congress could read 12 pages in a matter of hours.”

TikTok’s ‘number one worst public relations stunt’

Apparently caught off guard by the bill’s introduction last week, TikTok scrambled to activate its enormous US user base to fight it. The app featured a full-screen prompt for users to enter their zip codes and receive the number for their congressperson to call and urge against a TikTok ban.

Lawmakers’ phones began ringing off the hook just ahead of the committee’s vote.

A Democratic staffer for an Energy and Commerce Committee member said their office had hardly seen lobbying engagement of any kind from TikTok since its CEO’s testimony last year. The onslaught of calls took them by surprise.

For four hours, the office’s four phone lines were constantly full, with others going to voicemail. Staffers would take turns handling the phones when others had to get up to use the bathroom.

“It was so bad we had to turn off the phones,” the staffer said.

Several staffers estimated that callers sounded like they were 14, 15 years old

The callers were also unusual as far as congressional call-in campaigns go, based on conversations with five congressional staffers who were not authorized to speak on the record about internal matters. For one, they didn’t seem to have any sort of script. Some would hang up soon after they realized they got through to a live person. And even stranger, most sounded extremely young. Several staffers who spoke to The Verge estimated that callers sounded like they were 14, 15 years old, and sometimes even younger. TikTok has said the notification went to users over 18.

“Kids at recess, kids at lunch,” the Democratic staffer said. “Some kids would pass the phone around … it was a total debacle.”

A senior staffer for a Democratic member on the House Intelligence Committee said their office had gotten calls of “students in near tears, ‘What are you doing, why are you taking TikTok away from me?”

“They’re in class calling our office, you can hear the classroom chatter happening behind them,” the senior staffer added.

“They’re in class calling our office, you can hear the classroom chatter happening behind them”

After this staffer asked a caller to give their name to record their message, the young caller asked if they could leave their comment without giving out their information. The senior staffer recalled explaining that protecting the caller’s private information was exactly the point of the legislation they were calling about.

“I saw the lightbulb go off through the phone,” the senior staffer said.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), an E&C member, told The Verge her office had received about 200 calls on the legislation last Thursday but only about eight to ten had left any information. “When the others heard someone answer the phone, they hung up.”

“If that was their lobbying effort, it was a bust,” she said.

Rather than convincing lawmakers of the affection their constituents have for the app, it seemed to prove to politicians how much power TikTok has as a service with direct access to 170 million US users.

“This was a preview of what could happen if the CCP wanted to use the app to prevent Congress from acting, say, on a debate over authorizing force to defend Taiwan. Or removing China’s permanent normal trade relations status,” Gallagher told reporters after the vote. “The possibility for dangerous propaganda is too immense to allow one of our foremost adversaries to have this control over what is increasingly becoming the dominant news platform in America.”

Many members have already looked skeptically at the proliferation of pro-Palestinian messages on the app in the wake of the October 7th terrorist attack by Hamas, and the subsequent Israeli response that has killed tens of thousands of Gaza residents. Some lawmakers have accused the app of boosting these messages at the behest of the Chinese government. TikTok has denied this, saying that between October 7th and November 2nd, “#standwithisrael” had 1.5 times more views than “#standwithpalestine.”

But TikTok hasn’t seemed to convince many House members. “I think the full court press last week backfired,” Gallagher told reporters after the vote. “I think that actually proved the point to a lot of members who may have been on the fence before.”

“It was probably the number one worst public relations stunt that TikTok pulled,” Krishnamoorthi told The Verge. “That was kind of the secret, not-so-secret reason why, for instance, the House Energy and Commerce Committee had a number of lean-yeses on the day of the vote that became hell-yeses by the time of the vote.”

In a letter to Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi on Monday, TikTok’s vice president of public policy Michael Beckerman wrote, “It is offensive that you would complain about hearing from your constituents and seek to deny them of their constitutional rights. One would hope, as public servants, that you would be well acquainted with the constitutional right to petition the government for redress of grievances.”

Eshoo said she understands why TikTok users would be upset, but that as a member of Congress, she has to factor in other considerations, too.

“If something presents a national security threat to the United States of America, I damn well better pay attention to that as a member of the Congress.”

“I doubt that TikTok’s 170 million users, I don’t think they’re concerned about our national security. That’s not something that they deal with day in, day out. They have their businesses, communications, and all of that with TikTok and they love it,” Eshoo said. “But if something presents a national security threat to the United States of America, I damn well better pay attention to that as a member of the Congress of the United States.”

A classified hearing

Members had access to classified briefings ahead of the vote to better understand the risks. For some members, these sessions seemed instrumental to their decisions to vote for the bill’s passage. Immediately before the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 50–0 to pass the legislation last Thursday, they heard from representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence in a classified hearing.

Eshoo, who noted she’s attended many intelligence briefings after spending about a decade on the House Intelligence Committee, called the one ahead of Thursday’s committee markup “excellent.” She said hearing from intelligence officials helped ease any concerns she might have otherwise had about the process. “If it was brought up without additional, updated briefing, I would have objected,” she said. “But it was, I thought, a very thorough briefing, layered over other briefings that we have had.”

Krishnamoorthi told The Verge that it wasn’t necessarily “any one single revelation” that made the classified briefings impactful. “I think that it’s probably the level of seriousness with which people addressed the topic. And the way it was done, which was not partisan in any way.” He added that the opportunity for lawmakers to have “candid conversations” with each other in a bipartisan, classified setting was also helpful.

“One of the key differences between us and those adversaries is the fact that they shut down newspapers, broadcast stations, and social media platforms. We do not.”

Still, members who opposed the legislation said they either saw it as a rushed process or the wrong tool to fit the concerns. Notably, Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was one of the members who opposed the bill. He said in a statement that, due to his position on the committee, “I have more insight than most into the online threats posed by our adversaries. But one of the key differences between us and those adversaries is the fact that they shut down newspapers, broadcast stations, and social media platforms. We do not. We trust our citizens to be worthy of their democracy. We do not trust our government to decide what information they may or may not see.”

Himes added that he believes “there is a way to address the challenge posed by TikTok that is consistent with our commitment to freedom of expression. But a bill quickly passed by one committee less than a week ago is not that way.”

E&C Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) also expressed concern about the speed of the process ahead of the committee’s classified hearing and vote last week. Pallone said he wanted to hear from the witnesses before making his decision. After emerging from the classified hearing, he joined the rest of his colleagues on the panel in voting for the legislation to pass. He later advocated for it on the floor before casting a vote in favor there, too.

The path ahead in the Senate

Now that the legislation’s fate is in the hands of the Senate, the process could slow down considerably. There’s not yet a companion bill in that chamber, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has not yet committed to a course of action besides reviewing the bill.

But the bill’s sponsors in the House are hopeful that Wednesday’s vote will send a message.

“The number we posted today, I think, makes it impossible for the Senate to ignore the effort,” Gallagher told reporters.

Cantwell has served as a roadblock to popular bipartisan tech legislation in the past

To move forward, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-WA) will need to usher the legislation through her panel. But Cantwell has served as a roadblock to popular bipartisan tech legislation in the past. She was the only one of the “four corners” of the relevant committees (the top Republicans and Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Senate Commerce Committee) to withhold support for the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, the most concrete and comprehensive piece of privacy legislation to reach such an advanced stage. It passed out of the House committee by a vote of 53–2 in 2022.

In a statement after the House vote on the TikTok bill, Cantwell said she’d try to find “a path forward that is constitutional and protects civil liberties,” but did not necessarily commit to advancing that exact legislation.

“I’m very concerned about foreign adversaries’ exploitation of Americans’ sensitive data and their attempts to build backdoors in our information communication technology and services supply chains,” Cantwell said. “These are national security threats and it is good [that] members in both chambers are taking them seriously.”

Another potential speed bump is former President Donald Trump’s new opposition to a TikTok ban.

Trump surprised some by coming out against the TikTok bill last week, despite his own previous efforts during his time in office to ban the app. He said on Truth Social and CNBC that banning TikTok would only help Facebook, which he considers to be “an enemy of the people.”

Speaking with reporters after the vote, Gallagher tried to downplay Trump’s opposition. “If you actually read what Trump said, the goal of the bill is not to shut down TikTok and force its users onto Facebook. That would be a bad outcome,” he said. “So in that sense, I agree with what Trump said. But our bill allows for a divestiture.”

Gallagher also appealed to Trump’s ego and self-crafted image as a dealmaker, saying, “Trump may, if he gets reelected, have an opportunity to consummate the deal of the century.”

Ampler introduces an all-road electric bike alongside series refresh

Ampler introduces an all-road electric bike alongside series refresh

Curt Anyroad in silver. | Image: Ampler

Ampler — one of our favorite European e-bike makers — is back with a 2024 model refresh that includes a new all-road variant of the sporty Curt.

The Curt Anyroad is available with either a high- or low-step frame, the latter being easier to step through when sitting on a fully loaded bike. Both are otherwise identical, offering wider tires, fork mounts for some light gear bags, and a new 10-speed pedal-assisted drivetrain. That should make it suitable for more terrain but it lacks any kind of suspension for dampening bumps. The all-road edition takes the Curt up from a feathery (for an e-bike) 14.4kg (about 32 pounds) to 16.9kg, and still fits riders from small to large. Prices start at a tax-inclusive €3,690 (about $4,000). Shipments being June 21st.

The refresh also brings a new low-step variation of the single-speed, belt-driven Curt (€3,690), as well as new colors for the relaxed Stellar (€3,290), sturdy Stout (€3,290), upright Juna (€2,790), and sporty yet practical Axel (€2,790) e-bikes.

Image: Ampler

Ampler is good at colors, including this lavender Curt Anyroad shown in both low- and high-step.

All Ampler e-bikes feature non-removable batteries that power a European standard 250W rear-hub motor with a max speed of 25km/h, and include a two-year warranty, 14-day returns, and service centers available across Europe should things go wrong.

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The Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra is more screen, less zen

The Asus Zenfone 11 Ultra is more screen, less zen

New big Android phone just dropped.

The days of the small Zenfone are over — maybe? Asus has officially unveiled the Zenfone 11 Ultra, and it is anything but the small-ish device that its last few predecessors were. It comes with a 6.78-inch screen, a huge 5,500mAh battery, and a sizable $899 starting price.

You don’t have to look too hard to identify that the Zenfone 11 Ultra is basically a rebadged ROG Phone 8, minus the gamer lights. Like its gaming-focused sibling, the 11 Ultra uses a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and comes with 12GB of RAM / 256GB of ROM in its base configuration. A 16GB / 512GB model will be sold outside the US. Like previous Zenfones, the 11 Ultra won’t work on Verizon in the US — only AT&T and T-Mobile.

The 11 Ultra uses an LTPO display, so it can ramp the refresh rate all the way down to 1Hz to save on battery life. Refresh rates can also go up to 144Hz, but only while gaming — otherwise, it maxes out at 120Hz. There’s a 50-megapixel main camera with f/1.9 lens, supported by Asus’ impressive six-axis stabilization, a 13-megapixel wide-angle lens, and a stabilized 32-megapixel 3x telephoto.

Not a gamer light in sight.

It’s 2024, so there are a few familiar-sounding AI features, including live language translation and two-way noise cancellation for phone calls. AI can summarize voice memo transcriptions, and the search functions for photos and system settings have been enhanced with AI.

This might be the new shape of the Zenfone, or it might not be — Asus’ global director for smartphones, Chih-Hao Kung, was vague on that point in a recent media briefing. He emphasized that the Zenfone 10 launched in the second half of last year and is still for sale now, but “at this moment, we don’t have any comments on this... This launch only focuses on the large-sized Zenfone 11 Ultra.”

I’m holding out hope for a smaller Zenfone 11 later this year. In the meantime, big phone fans can preorder the Zenfone 11 Ultra starting today; it ships in early April.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge

How Nintendo’s destruction of Yuzu is rocking the emulator world

How Nintendo’s destruction of Yuzu is rocking the emulator world

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images, The Verge

The leading Nintendo Switch emulator is a smoking crater. Others are wary — but hopeful — for the future.

When Nintendo sued the developers of Yuzu out of existence on March 4th, it wasn’t just an attack on the leading way to play Nintendo Switch games without a Switch. It was a warning to anyone building a video game emulator.

Seven developers have now stepped away from projects, are shutting them down, or have left the emulation scene entirely. Of those that remain, many are circling the wagons, getting quieter and more careful, trying not to paint targets on their backs. Four developers declined to talk to The Verge, telling me they didn’t want to draw attention. One even tried to delete answers to my questions after we’d begun, suddenly scared of attracting press.

Not everyone is so afraid. Four other emulator teams tell me they’re optimistic Nintendo won’t challenge them, that they’re on strong legal footing, and that Yuzu may have been an unusually incriminating case. One decade-long veteran tells me everyone’s just a bit more worried.

But when I point out that Nintendo didn’t have to prove a thing in court, they all admit they don’t have money for lawyers. They say they’d probably be forced to roll over, like Yuzu, if the Japanese gaming giant came knocking. “I would do what I’d have to do,” the most confident of the four tells me. “I would want to fight it... but at the same time, I know we exist because we don’t antagonize Nintendo.”

There’s a new meme where Yuzu is the mythical Hydra: cut off one head, and two more take its place. It’s partly true in how multiple forks of Yuzu (and 3DS emulator Citra) sprung up shortly after their predecessors died: Suyu, Sudachi, Lemonade, and Lime are a few of the public names. But they’re not giving Nintendo the middle finger: they’re treating Nintendo’s lawsuit like a guidebook about how not to piss off the company.

In its legal complaint, Nintendo claimed Yuzu was “facilitating piracy at a colossal scale,” giving users “detailed instructions” on how to “get it running with unlawful copies of Nintendo Switch games,” among other things. Okay, no more guides, say the Switch emulator developers who spoke to me.

They also say they’re stripping out some parts of Yuzu that made it easier to play pirated games. As Ars Technica reported, a forked version called Suyu will require you to bring the firmware, title.keys, and prod.keys from your Switch before you can decrypt and play Nintendo games. Only one of those was technically required before. (Never mind that most people don’t have an easily hackable first-gen Switch and would likely download these things off the net.)

The developer of another fork tells me he plans to do something similar, making users “fend for yourself” by making sure the code doesn’t auto-generate any keys.

A Suyu moderator sums it up for us.

Most developers I spoke to are also trying to make it clear they aren’t profiting at Nintendo’s expense. One who initially locked early access builds behind a donation page has stopped doing that, making them publicly available on GitHub instead. The leader of another project tells me nothing will ever be paywalled, and for now, there’s “strictly no donation,” either. The Dolphin Emulator, which faced a minor challenge from Nintendo last year, now publicly exposes its tiny nonprofit budget for anyone to scrutinize.

But I don’t know that these steps are enough to prevent Nintendo from throwing around its weight again, particularly when it comes to emulating the Nintendo Switch, its primary moneymaker. One thing to know about this whole situation: the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been. Emulators have typically lagged behind new console generations since it can take a lot of horsepower to digitally replicate the functionality of a console and time to learn its secrets. But that hasn’t been true for Switch.

Not only did hackers find an unprecedented vulnerability in the original Switch less than a year after release but also the emulator scene managed to develop software that plays Switch games better than the Switch itself within its own lifespan. They muscled in on Nintendo’s turf by competently running on Switch-style portable devices like the Steam Deck as well as some phones. YouTubers published tutorials on emulating Switch games, some of which Nintendo reportedly threatened with copyright claims; Valve even (briefly) showed the Yuzu emulator in an official Steam Deck video.

But the speed of technology may also make it easier for Nintendo to challenge emulators, several developers admit. While Nintendo didn’t begin properly introducing encryption until the Wii, the Switch apparently has five different layers of encryption, and Nintendo’s complaint against Yuzu primarily alleged that the emulator was encouraging users to circumvent them.

That’s an argument that hasn’t yet been tested by the courts, and there’s at least one major reason to think Nintendo might not win if it tried. Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act does allow people to narrowly circumvent copy protection for “interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs,” and the Dolphin Emulator team has publicly argued that would even extend to sharing decryption keys.

But many earlier emulators would never have faced that kind of challenge, and again, no developer has the money to fuck around and find out. “We’re lucky that the systems we’re using are simpler, they don’t have the advanced encryption techniques,” says one developer who focuses on early Nintendo consoles.

Another suggests that the safest emulators are for consoles so old or emulated at so high a level, they don’t even require users to bring a copyrighted BIOS. Sony PSP emulator PPSSPP, for example, can help defend itself by saying it emulates everything, including a BIOS and operating system, using its own code.

But the longer I talk to them, the clearer it becomes that the emulator faithful have been slightly shaken by the collapse of Yuzu. None seem completely convinced that Yuzu was doing it wrong.

First rule of emulator club: you do not talk about piracy

“The Yuzu Discord was really careful about not mentioning piracy — they even scanned the logs from bug reports to check whether the people are using self-made copies of games,” one fork contributor tells me.

“They had a metaphorical gun to their heads,” says another, calling bullshit on Yuzu’s admission that it was “primarily designed to circumvent and play Nintendo Switch games” and thus broke the law.

None of the developers I spoke to have a tremendous amount to lose. It’s not their livelihoods at stake, and they don’t have extra mouths to feed. But they’re still relying on the good graces of companies like Nintendo.

The big companies do sometimes profit from letting emulation run its course. You can download classic games for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 today because of emulators. Nintendo is said to have hired from the scene for its own in-house emulation team, and Sony definitely did, hiring at least one developer of the PlayStation 2 emulator PCSX2 to bring PS2 games to PS4.

Today, his company, Implicit Conversions, works with Sony to put PS1 and PSP games on PS5, with downloadable Sony games like Twisted Metal and Syphon Filter quietly powered by emulation. It’s one reason to be optimistic: maybe Nintendo will see at least some benefit in leaving the rest of the scene alone.

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Microlino electric bubble car review: urban delight

Microlino electric bubble car review: urban delight

The Microlino Dolce is a throwback to mid-century bubble cars.

Fun, fun, fun till a trailer towed my baby away.

“Wow, what an entrance!” said a well-coiffed woman as other patrons seated at the sidewalk cafe, now standing, began to applaud my exit from the electric bubble car like I was stepping out of a limousine.

That really happened in one of Amsterdam’s wealthiest neighborhoods, on a street dotted with Range Rovers and a G-Class Merc costing nearly ten times as much as the little BMW Isetta throwback I was driving. What followed was a bevy of questions I had already answered dozens of times in my one week with the car: What is it? How much does it cost? Can I drive it on the highway?

It’s an Italian-made Microlino from a Swiss-company called Micro with prices starting at around €18,000 (about $19,500). Yes, it’s highway legal.

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While cars in general are embiggening, in some cities a new breed of electric microcars are trending. They’re cheaper to own, easier to park, consume less public space and energy, and maneuver around obstacles that would otherwise block big SUVs and snarl traffic.

And you know what? Some, like the Microlino, are so much fun that maybe, just maybe, they’ll help reverse the trend of people buying increasingly larger and heavier cars. Assuming they’ve fixed a software issue that bricked my test car at the end of the review (more on that later).

The Microlino next to an Opel Rocks, aka, the Citroen Ami in other markets. So small.

Let me start by saying that I don’t own a car, but I do regularly drive one. I’ve long subscribed to a car sharing service with a dedicated fleet parked in dedicated spots around town, that lets me select the right car for my current need: compact, wagon, or panel van; gas or EV. But not everyone lives in a city that spent the last 50-odd years trying to break away from car dependency to perfect multimodal transport, so the desire to own a large car that can do all the car things is understandable.

Yet even here in Amsterdam — a city dominated by bicycles with easy access to good public transportation — there are still lots of privately owned cars suffering from autobesity, just sitting there on the street unused 96 percent of the time, by some accounts. That’s space that could be used for public walkways, cycleways, benches, cafes, greenery... or about three microcars parked side by side.

On this day, I added 6.16kWh — taking it from about 40 percent to 100 percent charge in about three hours. It cost $2 on a nearby public 11kW charger.

The midtier Microlino Dolce I reviewed starts at €20,000 (about $21,700) and is an absolute joy for quick trips to the market or dropping a kid at school while staying warm and dry in bad weather. It has a top speed of 90km/h (55mph) and range of up to 228km (142 miles) for destinations well beyond the city center.

Last weekend, I drove my wife and dog to the sea and back and then returned to the dunes for a trail run the following day before needing to recharge the Microlino, for a real-world range of about 110km. I plugged it in at one of the 12 public 11kW AC chargers in the parking lot with about 20 percent remaining, and returned from my run 90 minutes later to find a 50 percent charge — more than enough for the 30-minute drive home.

The Microlino’s no speed demon, but it’s still an EV and so lightweight that I’d beat unsuspecting taxis off the starting line and “win” the merged lane. The small and responsive steering wheel and super stiff suspension contribute to a go-kart feel when whipping around corners and through traffic circles at I-should-know-better speeds. “It feels like a real car,” is how one owner of a €15,000 (about $16,300) Biro — one of the first and most popular electric microcars to seduce Amsterdammers — described driving the Microlino.

The hinged front makes it very easy to get in and out of the microcar, even in the tightest of spaces.

It’s not without its faults, however. To start with, there’s a lot of plastic inside the Microlino (but the windows are all glass unlike some microcars). One plastic clip helping to keep a plastic service panel in place snapped off in my brief time with the car, which I received with just 10km on the odometer. The motor has a distinct whine, the phone holder rattles when empty, the wiper motor is noisy, and the fan has two settings: loud or louder. The only thing that isn’t loud is the included portable Bluetooth speaker.

I also watched the main display reboot once while driving but without any impact on the motor or controls (thankfully!). And while the front door has a nice soft-close mechanism, the trunk requires a solid slam to catch. The sloped-back roof also exposes the interior to rain when the door is open, and I experienced some drips while driving around curves due to water that must have collected in the door closure.

The “vegan” (fake) leather on the seats and steering wheel were nice touches on my Dolce Edition, as was the intuitive mechanical sunroof, but overall I’d describe the fit and finish of the Microlino Dolce as basic. At least until I drove a top-end Biro and realized just how superior the Microlino was by comparison. A Microlino is a tiny expensive car, whereas a Biro is a tiny expensive golf cart.

The Microlino did, however, suffer a total failure after sitting on a 11kWh public charger for about four hours. When I returned to what should have been a fully charged car, it wouldn’t power on. After hauling it away on a trailer, Micro identified the issue and assures me it won’t affect future cars. They blamed the problem on a system that protects the car against peak voltage from the charging station, which “was not adjusted correctly after a software update.”

Micro tells me that my poor little guy is fine after the update. Good, but such a failure would have been a huge hassle if I was the vehicle’s owner, and without the priority attention afforded to journalists.

Still, despite the mishap and all my nitpicking, none of the aforementioned issues are enough to dissuade my enthusiasm for the Microlino — it’s that much fun.

As much as I enjoyed my week with the Microlino, I’m not yet a convert — there’s simply no faster, more convenient, or healthier way of going door to door than on a bicycle in cities with good cycling infrastructure, despite the rain and cold for which I can dress. And less capable but very appealing microcars like the Opel Rocks (sold as the Citroen Ami in some markets) can be had for half the price at €8,700 (about $9,470).

The Microlino isn’t for everyone. Hell, microcars aren’t even for most people. But they are for anyone who wants a vehicle that’s more nimble, efficient, inexpensive, and fun to drive than a full-sized car.

Fun... there’s that word again. I can’t help but return to it even if it’s impossible to quantify. But anecdotally, my time with the Microlino delivered more smiles per city kilometer — both inside and outside the car — than any car I’ve ever been in, and I’d wager more than any new car available today, no matter the size or price.

Photography by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

Sony’s new PS5 update includes improved DualSense audio and screen sharing

Sony’s new PS5 update includes improved DualSense audio and screen sharing

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Sony is rolling out a new PS5 update that improves the speakers and microphone on DualSense controllers, adds pointers and emoji reactions to the Screen Share feature, and includes the ability to adjust the brightness of your PS5 power indicator. The update was first made available to testers last month and is rolling out globally to all PS5 owners today.

Sony is updating the firmware on the DualSense and DualSense Edge wireless controllers as part of this update to improve the output volume of in-game sounds and voice chat. The microphones on both controllers have also been improved thanks to a new machine learning model that cancels out background noise like button presses.

Image: Sony

The new emoji reactions and pointers.

The Screen Share function on the PS5 is also getting pointers and emoji reactions, allowing friends to draw an instructional line on a shared screen to highlight areas or objects. Viewers can also send emoji reactions to the host of the screen sharing, perfect if you want to celebrate a boss completion. You’ll be able to disable these pointers and emoji if they get a little too distracting. A PlayStation mobile app update is also coming later this month to allow iOS and Android users to use these new Share Screen interactions.

Sony is also allowing PS5 owners to adjust the brightness of the PS5’s power indicator as part of this update. You can pick from three new options: dim, medium, and bright (default). You won’t be able to fully disable the power indicator, though.

In Silicon Valley, Venture Capital Meets a Generational Shift

In Silicon Valley, Venture Capital Meets a Generational Shift Big-name investors such as Reid Hoffman and Michael Moritz are pulling back, creating room for a new generation of tech power brokers.

Epic details new Unreal Engine pricing plan for non-game developers

Epic details new Unreal Engine pricing plan for non-game developers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Fortnite developer Epic Games will charge non-game developers an annual subscription of $1,850 “per seat” to use its Unreal Engine as opposed to the royalty-based model it uses for game developers. The company announced the changes to its payment scheme last year, and now, it’s providing details on the plan, which will come into effect with the release of Unreal Engine version 5.4 in late April.

The changes don’t apply to game developers, who will continue to pay for access to Epic’s tools via a 5 percent royalty on products that earn over $1 million in lifetime gross revenue. Instead, the new per-seat (effectively per-user) subscription fee will apply to non-game developers such as those who use the Unreal Engine to make linear content such as film and television shows, infotainment systems in cars, or immersive experiences such as theme park rides that aren’t sold directly to customers.

Not all non-game developers will have to pay for the Unreal Engine using the new pricing model. Epic is exempting companies that earn less than $1 million in annual gross revenue as well as students, educators, and “hobbyists.” Companies that make plug-ins for the Unreal Engine can continue to use it for free; in these cases, Epic will continue to get its cut via the revenue share model in its Unreal Engine Marketplace.

The $1,850 annual fee includes access to both the Unreal Engine as well as Epic’s Twinmotion real-time visualization tool and RealityCapture photogrammetry software. Epic says it’s bundling the additional tools ahead of integrating them directly into the Unreal Engine by the end of 2025, but they’ll also be available separately for $445 a year for Twinmotion and $1,250 for RealityCapture.

Epic announced plans to introduce the new pricing model just weeks after competitor Unity announced — and then quickly rolled back — a controversial pay-per-download pricing scheme. As with Unity’s rolled back pricing model, Epic says its new pricing model will only apply to games made with the latest version of its engine: Unreal Engine 5.4. If a developer is using version 5.3 or earlier, the pricing changes will not apply until they upgrade.

Motorola’s newest budget phones look surprisingly good

Motorola’s newest budget phones look surprisingly good

Moto G Power: Now with NFC and wireless charging. | Image: Motorola

Motorola’s recent budget phones have been held back by lackluster designs, pointless extra cameras, and underwhelming feature sets. But there appears to be hope on the horizon: the 2024 Moto G Power 5G and Moto G 5G look pretty good — at least on paper.

Both phones finally offer NFC (why that was ever missing in the first place is a mystery), and they come with fetching vegan leather back panels. They even include a microSD card slot and a built-in headphone jack, handy features most phone manufacturers abandoned years ago. The G Power 5G also includes wireless charging for the first time — a rare feature in any budget phone. They’ll start at $199 for the Moto G 5G and $299 for the Moto G Power 5G.

The pricier Moto G Power comes with a 6.7-inch 1080p LCD with a fast 120Hz maximum refresh rate — personally I’d take a contrast-ier OLED panel with a lower refresh rate, but for a $300 phone you take what you can get. It uses a midrange MediaTek Dimensity 7020 chipset with 8GB of RAM, and there are just two rear cameras: a 50-megapixel main with optical stabilization and an 8-megapixel ultrawide with autofocus that doubles as a macro camera. There are no silly, low-res depth sensors or macro cameras here and bless Motorola for that.

Image: Motorola

The Moto G Power comes in midnight blue — seen here — and pale lilac.

The G Power supports up to 30W wired charging, though you’ll have to buy a charger separately to get those speeds. Wireless charging is supported at up to 15W. There’s a massive 5,000mAh battery on board, though the lower-priced Moto G 5G has one of those, too. Fun fact: the 5G Power’s internal codename appears to be Cancun and the Moto G’s is Fogo, based on the file names of the spec sheets Motorola shared with me. I love some inside baseball.

The lower tier Moto G 5G uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 chipset with 4GB of RAM and includes a 6.6-inch 720p LCD, also with a 120Hz refresh rate. There’s a 50-megapixel main camera (and a 2-megapixel macro still hanging around), and wired charging tops out at 18W. Like the G Power, it’s only “water-resistant” and not rated for full dust resistance or water immersion — unfortunate, but normal in the budget class.

Image: Motorola

The Moto G 5G comes in just one color: sage green.

There are promising changes afoot here, but as always, a lot depends on the execution. The last midrange Motorola phone I reviewed was so chock-full of bloatware that I’d hesitate to recommend it to anyone. We won’t have to wait long to find out: the 2024 Moto G Power will be available starting March 22nd at Cricket Wireless and coming to other carriers soon afterward, with an unlocked version arriving on March 29th. The 2024 Moto G 5G will arrive first at T-Mobile starting March 21st, with other carriers to follow. The unlocked version will be a bit of a wait: it arrives on May 2nd.

Gazelle launches ‘first and only’ Class 3 e-bike with Bosch Smart System in the US

Gazelle launches ‘first and only’ Class 3 e-bike with Bosch Smart System in the US

This belt-driven C380 HMB with high-step frame can handle more than flat Dutch cities. | Image: Gazelle

Gazelle, the very popular Dutch bike brand owned by industry giant Pon Holdings, is launching its first Class 3 electric bike in the US.

Gazelle says that its new Eclipse is the “first and only Class 3 e-bike in the US to feature Bosch’s Smart System,” which fully integrates the bike’s motor and electronics with the Bosch Flow app for a personalized ride that will receive continuous over-the-air bug fixes and feature updates long after purchase.

Eclipse is available in both high- and low-step frames and built to easily handle heavy loads and hills on a variety of terrain. It features wide 60mm tires, a front shock, Shimano MT-420 four-piston hydraulic disc brakes, a large 750Wh battery, and a mid-drive Bosh motor with an impressive 85Nm of torque and 28mph top speed.

Specifically, these e-bikes features a smart version of Bosch’s Performance Line Speed Motor offering an Auto mode that automatically adjusts power delivery to compensate for hills or headwinds, not unliked Cowboy’s adaptive power. It also has a walk-assist feature that helps push it up hills and prevent rollback as well as route planning in the Flow app.

One potentially useful feature of the Bosch Smart System recently introduced in version 1.8 is the “Dynamic Display” mode which automatically changes the information presented on Bosch’s Kiox displays so that the most relevant data is always shown to the rider. Climbing? It shows your power, cadence, and elevation. Descending? It switches to focus on speed, before switching again to add distance travelled and range overview when you hit the flats. When at a standstill it then shows summary information like maximum speed of your journey, distance travelled, elevation change, and range remaining. The Kiox can also now show a clear elevation graph for the planned trip, as well as the rider’s current position.

Image: Gazelle

Chain-driven Eclipse T11 HMB with low-step frame.

Gazelle’s Eclipse e-bikes also come fitted with an MIK-compatible rear rack and integrated front and rear lighting. It also comes with a very Dutch cafe lock (or ring lock, if you prefer) that’s bolted into the frame to quickly lock the back wheel..

The Eclipse comes in two models. The 11-speed T11 HMB is the chain-driven model with Shimano Deore XT derailleur and $5,499 price tag. The Eclipse C380 HMB is the model I’d pick — despite costing a bit more at $5,999 — due to its Gates belt drive and smooth shifting Enviolo CVT stepless hub.

Yeah, those are premium prices but that price is still a hell of a lot less than the on-going costs to own a car which this Class 3 e-bike can replace for some. And wouldn’t it be nice to get a little exercise?

Apple to allow iOS app downloads direct from websites in the EU

Apple to allow iOS app downloads direct from websites in the EU

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple is planning to make further changes in EU countries to allow some developers to distribute their iOS apps directly from a website. The new web distribution feature will be available with a software update “later this spring,” according to Apple, providing developers with a key new way to distribute iOS apps in EU markets without the need for a separate app store — as long as they’re willing to adhere to Apple’s strict rules.

While Apple is opening up iOS to more third-party apps here, these are still some key security protections around how apps are distributed via websites — namely, you’ll still have to work within the strict Apple app development ecosystem. “Apps offered through Web Distribution must meet Notarization requirements to protect platform integrity, like all iOS apps, and can only be installed from a website domain that the developer has registered in App Store Connect,” explains Apple.

It’s also not going to be a simple process to install these apps on an iPhone in the EU. “To install apps from a developer’s website, users will first need to approve the developer to install apps in Settings on their iPhone,” says Apple. “When installing an app, a system sheet will display information that developers have submitted to Apple for review, like the app name, developer name, app description, screenshots, and system age rating.”

So this isn’t going to be an open and free way for developers to distribute apps over the web to iOS devices in EU markets. “Apple will authorize developers after meeting specific criteria and committing to ongoing requirements that help protect users,” says Apple. Developers will need to be part of Apple’s Developer Program and be registered in the EU. They’ll also need to agree to a number of key undertakings, as outlined by Apple:

• Be enrolled in the Apple Developer Program as an organization incorporated, domiciled, and or registered in the EU (or have a subsidiary legal entity incorporated, domiciled, and or registered in the EU that’s listed in App Store Connect). The location associated with your legal entity is listed in your Apple Developer account.
• Be a member of good standing in the Apple Developer Program for two continuous years or more, and have an app that had more than one million first annual installs on iOS in the EU in the prior calendar year.
• Only offer apps from your developer account.
• Be responsive to communications from Apple regarding your apps distributed through Web Distribution, particularly regarding any fraudulent, malicious, or illegal behavior, or anything else that Apple believes impacts the safety, security, or privacy of users.
• Publish transparent data collection policies and offer users control over how their data is collected and used.
• Follow applicable laws of the jurisdictions where you operate (for example, the Digital Services Act, the General Data Protection Regulation, and consumer protection laws).
• Be responsible for handling governmental and other requests to take down listings of apps

That’s a lot of hoops for developers to jump through, and it appears that Apple is limiting this to big developers only thanks to the 1 million installs requirement. Having a good standing developer account for two years may also rule Epic Games out of this particular distribution method. Epic Games is still hoping to launch its iOS game store in the European Union soon, though.

Apple currently allows developers to distribute their apps on third-party marketplaces in EU countries, but if those apps reach more than 1 million annual installs per year, they’ll need to pay that 50 euro cent fee for every additional installation and update. That same Core Technology Fee process is part of web distribution of iOS apps, too. Only nonprofit organizations, select educational institutions, and government entities in the EU are exempt from this Core Technology Fee.

Still, the ability for developers to bring their apps directly to iPhone users in the EU without having to go through the App Store or another third-party store will be useful for some willing to put up with the tight restrictions. There’s some obvious friction for end users, but with some third-party stores requiring fees, this allows iOS developers to avoid stores altogether if they’re willing to host their apps directly and abide by Apple’s rules and policies.

Apple is also changing its strict rules around how developers link to an external webpage to complete purchases for digital goods. Developers can now “choose how to design promotions, discounts, and other deals,” according to Apple. That means Apple’s own design templates are optional, instead of being forced on developers.

Samsung’s new midrange Galaxy A55 arrives with improved security and materials

Samsung’s new midrange Galaxy A55 arrives with improved security and materials

Samsung’s Galaxy A55, which reportedly features a metal frame. | Image: Samsung

Samsung’s new Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35 are the latest additions to its midrange A-series lineup, which often contain the company’s bestselling phones. Both the new A55 and A35 include Samsung’s Knox Vault, a security feature designed to protect sensitive data like your lock screen credentials and encryption keys from software and hardware attacks by physically isolating them from the phones’ main processors and memory. The company boasts that this is the first time the security feature has appeared on its A-series devices.

The Galaxy A55 specifically also includes a metal frame, Android Police reports, which would be an upgrade over the plastic used in last year’s Galaxy A54.

Samsung has announced European pricing for the two models, which are due to be available on March 20th, but exact availability of the different versions varies between markets. The Galaxy A55 starts at €479 (£439, around $524) with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, rising to €529 (£489, around $579) for 256GB of storage.

Meanwhile, the Galaxy A35 starts at €379 (around £322 or $415) for 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, while the 8GB/128GB model costs £339 (around €398 or $435), and the 8GB/256GB model costs €449 (£389, around $491).

Image: Samsung

Samsung’s Galaxy A35.

Many of the key specs of the A55 and A35 are consistent across the two devices. Both come with 6.6-inch OLED displays with 1000 nits of peak brightness and up to 120Hz refresh rates, and both will be supported by four years of Android OS updates and five years of security patches (slightly lower than the seven years of both Samsung promises for the Galaxy S24 lineup). Per Android Police, both have IP67 ratings for dust and water resistance, 5000mAh batteries that can be fast charged at up to 25W, and support up to 1TB microSD cards.

The biggest differences between the two phones come down to their processors and camera setups. The Galaxy A55 is powered by a newer Exynos 1480, while the A35 uses the same Exynos 1380 seen in last year’s Galaxy A54. There are also camera differences between the two. Both have 50-megapixel main sensors and 5-megapixel macros, but the A55 has a 12-megapixel ultrawide and a 32-megapixel selfie camera versus an 8-megapixel ultrawide and 13-megapixel front-facing camera in the A35.

We’ve followed up with Samsung to ask if or when the phones could launch in the US like other A-series devices including the Galaxy A54.

Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies

Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies LexisNexis, which generates consumer risk profiles for the insurers, knew about every trip G.M. drivers had taken in their cars, including when they sped, braked too hard or accelerated rapidly.

Oscars 2024 winners: Oppenheimer and Christopher Nolan lead the way

Oscars 2024 winners: Oppenheimer and Christopher Nolan lead the way

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Like many of the movies up for Oscars, this year’s Academy Awards ran longer than most viewers probably considered reasonable. But lengthy as the ceremony was, it was marked by enough surprises to make it one one hell of a watch.

Though host Jimmy Kimmel made sure to get a few good jabs in at most of the filmmakers up for Oscars, few of the stars seemed all that phased as they took to the stage to deliver acceptance speeches that spoke to how stiff this year’s competition was. Da’Vine Joy Randolph kicked off the night winning Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in The Holdovers — which was up for five awards total. And while Hayao Miyazaki wasn’t there to accept his award, The Boy and the Heron took home an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Out of the five awards director Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall was up for, it wound up taking home Best Original Screenplay, while writer / director Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction snagged Best Adapted Screenplay.

Following a surprising bit of nudity from John Cena as he announced Poor Things’ win for Best Costume Design, The Zone of Interest writer / director Jonathan Glazer — who won Best International Feature — gave a pointed and powerful speech about the throughline between his film and the ongoing conflict in Gaza. And while Robert Downey Jr.’s Best Supporting Actor win for his Oppenheimer performance was a bit unexpected, it came as no shock as the Godzilla Minus One creative team carried their Godzilla action figures up on stage to receive awards for Best Visual Effects.

As the night went on, it became clearer and clearer that the Academy really fell in love with Poor Things, which won for Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design, and Best Actress — the second Oscar for Emma Stone, who was up against Killers of the Flower Moon’s Lily Gladstone. And in a profoundly unsurprising turn of events, Oppenheimer came out on top in the end as it also snagged Oscars in the Cinematography, Original Score, Best Actor, and Best Director categories.

The full list of Oscar winners can be read below:

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Directing

• Justine Triet — Anatomy of a Fall
• Martin Scorsese — Killers of the Flower Moon
• Christopher Nolan — Oppenheimer
• Yorgos Lanthimos — Poor Things
• Jonathan Glazer — The Zone of Interest

Actress in a Leading Role

• Annette Bening — Nyad
• Lily Gladstone — Killers of the Flower Moon
• Sandra Hüller — Anatomy of a Fall
• Carey Mulligan — Maestro
• Emma Stone — Poor Things

Actor in a Leading Role

• Bradley Cooper — Maestro
• Colman Domingo — Rustin
• Paul Giamatti — The Holdovers
• Cillian Murphy — Oppenheimer
• Jeffrey Wright — American Fiction

Visual Effects

• The Creator
• Godzilla Minus One
• Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
• Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
• Napoleon

Cinematography

• El Conde
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• Maestro
• Oppenheimer
• Poor Things

Film Editing

• Anatomy of a Fall
• The Holdovers
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• Oppenheimer
• Poor Things

Photo by Rich Polk/Variety via Getty Images

James Price and Shona Heath at the 96th Annual Oscars.

Production Design

• Barbie
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• Napoleon
• Oppenheimer
• Poor Things

Makeup and Hairstyling

• Golda
• Maestro
• Oppenheimer
• Poor Things
• Society of the Snow

Animated Feature Film

• The Boy and the Heron
• Elemental
• Nimona
• Robot Dreams
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

International Feature Film

• Io Capitano
• Perfect Days
• Society of the Snow
• The Teachers’ Lounge
• The Zone of Interest

Documentary Short Film

• The ABCs of Book Banning
• The Barber of Little Rock
• Island In Between
• The Last Repair Shop
• Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó

Documentary Feature Film

• Bobi Wine: The People’s President
• The Eternal Memory
• Four Daughters
• To Kill a Tiger
• 20 Days in Mariupol

Original Song

• “The Fire Inside” — Flamin’ Hot
• “I’m Just Ken” — Barbie
• “It Never Went Away” — American Symphony
• “What Was I Made For” — Barbie
• “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” — Killers of the Flower Moon

Animated Short Film

• Letter to a Pig
• Ninety-Five Senses
• Our Uniform
• Pachyderme
• War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko

Live-Action Short Film

• The After
• Invincible
• Knight of Fortune
• Red, White, and Blue
• The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Photo by Al Seib/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images

Actor in a Supporting Role

• Sterling K. Brown — American Fiction
• Robert De Niro — Killers of the Flower Moon
• Robert Downey Jr. — Oppenheimer
• Ryan Gosling — Barbie
• Mark Ruffalo — Poor Things

Original Screenplay

• Anatomy of a Fall
• The Holdovers
• Maestro
• May December
• Past Lives

Adapted Screenplay

• American Fiction
• Barbie
• Oppenheimer
• Poor Things
• The Zone of Interest

Original Score

• American Fiction
• Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• Oppenheimer
• Poor Things

Sound

• The Creator
• Maestro
• Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
• Oppenheimer
• The Zone of Interest

Costume Design

• Barbie
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• Napoleon
• Oppenheimer
• Poor Things

Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images

Da’Vine Joy Randolph, winner of Actress in a Supporting Role award.

Actress in a Supporting Role

• Emily Blunt — Oppenheimer
• Danielle Brooks — The Color Purple
• America Ferrera — Barbie
• Jodie Foster — Nyad
• Da’Vine Joy Randolph — The Holdovers

Best Picture

• American Fiction
• Anatomy of a Fall
• Barbie
• The Holdovers
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• Maestro
• Oppenheimer
• Past Lives
• Poor Things
• The Zone of Interest

British monarchy rocked by bad Photoshop job

British monarchy rocked by bad Photoshop job

Screenshot by Alex Cranz/The Verge

After months of speculation on the whereabouts of Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales and future Queen of England, the Royal Family released an image today that appears to have been edited. It’s so edited that the Associated Press and Reuters issued rare kill notifications for it.

It is incredible in its ineptitude. If the goal was to reassure the public about Middleton’s whereabouts, the image has backfired spectacularly.

The image is unsettling at first glance. Everyone is smiling so brightly they look like a Snapchat filter. Middleton is seated in the image — understandable given she had some sort of undisclosed abdominal procedure in January — but the perspective seems wrong. Are her arms really that long? The more you stare at the image the more you feel like you’re reading Highlights in the waiting room of your dentist. Can you find every problem in the picture?

It is still up on the Prince and Princess of Wales’ Instagram page so you can go over examine it for yourself, but here are a few screenshots to highlight areas that look like they were edited by someone new to Photoshop and leaning heavy on the Heal tool.

This image was released months after Middleton disappeared from public view. The Royal Family has been cagey about her health and what has led to her absence, leading to conspiracy theories. Dropping a clearly edited image of her on Mother’s Day in the UK isn’t going to help matters.

And for the British monarchy, image is everything, as revealed in Spare, the memoir by Prince Harry. In it, Middleton’s brother-in-law writes about how he was sacrificed to the British tabloids to distract from stories that might have made his father (King Charles) or his brother (Prince William, heir apparent) look bad. The art of image management is key for the royal family, and has been since Queen Elizabeth’s coronation was broadcast live. An important part of the royals’ jobs is appearing in photos.

The palace is chummy enough with the British press that there’s a system — the Royal Rota — for covering them. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Harry and Meghan, bowed out of the Royal Rota, as part of their general retreat from royal duties. Managing the press was also the forte of Middleton’s mother in law, Diana Spencer, who managed to secure a divorce through a bombshell interview with Martin Bashir.

The Middleton photo raises some questions. It’s possible this is just a case of shitty Photoshop used to stitch together several photos so that the best expression on each person’s face was used. (Children are notorious for being difficult to photograph.) But the job is so clumsy, particularly around the hands, that one wonders if the intent was to keep us all talking about Middleton’s prolonged absence.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie sequel is coming in 2026

The Super Mario Bros. Movie sequel is coming in 2026

Image: Universal Pictures

The Super Mario Bros. Movie was a huge hit for Nintendo, raking in over $1 billion at the box office, so producing a follow-up movie was an easy decision to make. In a new video, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto and Illumination Entertainment’s Chris Meledandri shared that the next movie is in development, with a release date set for April 3rd, 2026.

Meledandri says Illumination Studios Paris, which worked on the first film, is storyboarding the movie under the direction, once again, of Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic. He added that animation is starting soon. And after the movie’s April 3rd release in the US “and many other markets globally,” it will come to “select territories” throughout the rest of the month.

Miyamoto says that the movie will “have a bright and fun story” that expands on the world established in the first movie.

With the November announcement of a live-action Legend of Zelda film, we now have not one, but two confirmed movies in development based on major Nintendo intellectual properties. There’s not much information about the company’s theatrical plans for Link. Wes Ball, director of the Maze Runner trilogy and the upcoming Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, will helm the movie, with Avi Arad and Miyamoto producing.

Are you ready for a spooky summer full of
paranormal puzzles? Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD comes to#NintendoSwitch June 27th!https://t.co/IIsLpCS5Rc pic.twitter.com/o94BIm0sWx

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) March 10, 2024

Nintendo also included some gaming info, like that the Switch remake of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, a remaster of the 3DS Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon will be available on May 23rd and June 27th, respectively. And on March 12th, the Nintendo Switch Online Game Boy collection will be expanded to include Dr. Mario for the original Game Boy and Mario Golf and Mario Tennis for the Game Boy Color.

ICYMI: #PaperMario: The Thousand-Year Door
arrives on #NintendoSwitch May 23rd! #PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoorhttps://t.co/4O22wZX7RO pic.twitter.com/Csxn7Jq5Aa

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) March 10, 2024

Update March 10th, 2024, 10:20AM ET: Added context about the in-development Legend of Zelda film.