Chrome on Android can read webpages out loud from within the app
Illustration: The Verge
Google is rolling out a new option called “Listen to this page” that can read a webpage out loud to you from within the Android Chrome browser. The feature comes with playback controls similar to those you’d find in music or podcast players, letting you pause, change the reading speed, scrub forward, or skip ahead or back by 10 seconds at a time.
You can also change the voice it uses, as well as the language. The feature supports several, including English, French, German, Arabic, Hindi, and Spanish, according to a Google help page about the feature. To see if you have it, head to a page with a lot of text, then tap the three dots menu and “Listen to this page,” which should appear just below the Translate option.
Screenshots: Google Chrome
I recommend the breathy voice of Ruby: Mid-pitch, Calm.
You can also ask Google Assistant to read webpages out loud to you, and can even translate into other languages while it does so. But choosing that option takes you out of Chrome and into the Google app, whereas the new option keeps you in your browser.
Google has also tested the feature for Chrome on desktops. Safari for the iPhone has a similar feature called “Listen to Page” that reads webpages to you in Siri’s voice, with many of the same controls as Google’s. I only saw the new option while using the beta version of Chrome, but that’s fairly normal, since Google regularly handles its rollouts in phases. 9to5Google reports seeing it in version 125 of the Android Chrome app.
The OLED iPad Pro was only the beginning for Apple’s return to thin devices
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The thinness of the OLED iPad Pro is only the beginning of a renewed effort by Apple to make increasingly thin computers, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. The company plans a “significantly skinnier” iPhone 17 and is also working on shaving off some of the thickness of the MacBook Pro and the Apple Watch, he writes.
It’s not the first time we’ve heard about a new, extremely thin “iPhone 17 Slim,” as The Information and multiple supply chain analysts have reported that this phone is on its way, possibly at a higher price than the existing iPhone 15 Pro Max. I haven’t seen concrete rumors about just how slim it will be, but it could have a 6.6-inch display and a smaller Dynamic Island.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Thickness has its advantages.
It’s not surprising that the company wants to go back to its pursuit of thinness, but the key difference now — one hopes — is that the company no longer wants to do it seemingly at all costs. That drive created some of the company’s most impressive devices, but it may also have led to bendy iPhones, limited port selection, cruddy battery life, thermal throttling issues, bad keyboards, and lawsuits for Apple itself. The company started reversing that trend though, and today, the iPhone 15 Pro phones and the MacBook Pro lineup are among the thickest of their respective categories the company has released in years.
I’ve welcomed those changes, but I would be lying if I said I don’t sometimes miss that old-time futuristic feel. I have an iPhone SE sitting on my desk, and any time I pick it up, I’m astounded by how nice it is to use, small screen and chugging processor notwithstanding. I also toss an envious side-eye at iPhone 12 or 13 Minis when I see them.
That time may be coming back, and without the costs that were once associated with it. The current MacBook Air is uncannily thin — even more so than the tiny, fanless 12-inch MacBook — yet it’s powerful and so battery-sipping that I feel perfectly comfortable taking it out of the house without a charger most of the time. And I gather from David Pierce’s Vergereview of the new iPad Pro that being thinner than an iPod Nano hasn’t come with any major compromises that iPads didn’t already have.
Those are encouraging signs that the company may have finally figured things out, and hopefully it won’t get out over its skis again. Because after the last few years, I’m not interested in returning to the thin-for-the-sake-of-thin life; sturdiness and all-day battery are now non-negotiable.
Apple won’t wait until next year for some Siri improvements
Image: Apple
Siri may do more than make the edges of your iPhone a glowy rainbow when iOS 18 drops this fall. Apple Intelligence features won’t be out until 2025 for anyone not testing them in beta this year, but reports suggest that Siri itself will still get natural language updates and other key features before the year is out.
For instance, users will be able to type to Siri without diving into accessibility settings, and it will be more conversational, understanding you even when you trip over your words, according to Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter for Bloomberg.
Image: Apple
Apple could offer instructions for how to do things in iOS this year.
He also writes that Siri will “have greater knowledge of Apple products,” presumably referring to the device support features Apple mentioned during its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote.
For another fun tidbit: Right now, iOS 18 beta testers can change Siri’s wake word to whatever they want using a new accessibility feature called Vocal Shortcuts by going to Settings > Accessibility > Vocal Shortcuts > Set Up Vocal Shortcuts > Siri (not “Siri requests”), as 9to5Mac wrote last week. You have to pause after saying the new wake word or your phone won’t acknowledge it, and the change doesn’t extend to your HomePods. But crucially, the new wake word works even if you turn off “Hey Siri” in the current developer beta. That’s great news if you’re tired of your iPhone activating when you’re trying to talk to your HomePod.
Apart from direct Siri improvements, Apple has also said ChatGPT will be available for free in iOS 18 later this year, though Gurman writes that it may not make the first version of iOS 18. When it comes, Siri will offer to punt requests it can’t handle to a GPT-4o-powered ChatGPT, giving users the opportunity to agree or decline (along with a disclaimer about its trustworthiness).
We won’t know until any of this rolls out if Siri is actually getting good now, but there are at least signs that we could finally get the digital assistant we’ve been waiting for. It’s not clear if the upgraded Siri won’t come to HomePods or iPhones other than the iPhone 15 Pro, though, like Apple Intelligence. Hopefully, the Siri improvements stand apart from the new generative AI features, and less-capable devices like the iPhone 15 and iPads without Apple’s M-series chips will get at least some of them.
The super simple gadget trying to replace your phone
Image: David Pierce / The Verge
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 42, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
I also have for you a new minimalist phone, a book to read, a documentary to watch, a fun hack for your Rabbit R1, and much more. Let’s get into it.
(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you playing, reading, downloading, buying, or bedazzling this week? What are you into that everyone else should be into? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, tell them to subscribe here.)
The Drop
The Light Phone 3. The new version of one of the best minimalist phones comes with a better screen, a camera, an NFC chip, and some big ambitions about replacing your phone. I don’t think I’m physically capable of ditching my smartphone, but I want this thing so badly.
Apple Passwords. We’ll talk a lot more about all of Apple’s WWDC announcements as they start to roll out, but this one’s worth thinking about now: Apple’s cross-platform, presumably well-integrated passwords app looks really good. Might be time to start compiling all your passwords and passkeys.
Moonbound. Robin Sloan is one of my favorite writers on the internet, and both of his previous books were excellent. This one, a deeply meta science fiction epic, seems to be the weirdest one yet — and I mean that in a good way.
How Music Got Free. For people of a certain age, this Paramount Plus doc is going to feel like reliving some formative years — remember Napster and Kazaa and LimeWire and the way the internet completely broke the music industry? So many fun stories in this one.
House of the Dragonseason 2. I confess I didn’t really get into House of the Dragon last season, but so many people have told me they’re excited about the new one starting this weekend that I feel like I have to catch up to be ready. Feels like everyone’s going to be talking about this on Monday.
“I installed Android on Rabbit R1 & Made it Useful.” The top comment on this video just says, “They accidentally made a great dumbphone.” It’s kind of true! The R1 is a fun gizmo running crappy software; as a tiny Android tablet, I confess I kind of love it again. I even got mine out of the drawer to try this for myself.
Yahoo News. Yahoo bought and shut down Artifact earlier this year. That was sad. This is better: some of that recommendation tech is back in the new Yahoo News, which has lots of personalization and streaks and badging and all kinds of good stuff. I’m using Yahoo again! Who woulda thunk!
“Inside Disney’s ‘Area 51,’ Where Lightsabers and Other Tech Are Invented.” Lanny Smoot seems like an extremely cool person with an extremely cool job, and this video does a great job of showing all the wild, futuristic stuff he and Disney are working on for the company’s theme parks and other products. Give me that omnidirectional treadmill now.
Fantasmas. This is a week old, but like 100 of you recommended it this week, so I’m making an exception. (Thanks to everyone who told me about it!) It’s a really unusually structured show, and you definitely can’t half-watch this one, but I’m digging it so far.
Screen share
Andrew Liszewski has long been one of my favorite bloggers on the internet. He spent years at Gizmodo writing about the weirdest, funniest, silliest, coolest stuff on the web, and I’ve definitely spent thousands of dollars on stuff just because he wrote about it.
Now, Andrew works for The Verge! This was his first week, and he’s already in Slack causing chaos. It’s the best. I asked him to share his homescreen with us to see if I could get any tips on how he scours the web. He didn’t reveal all his secrets, but I do know more about the weather in Canada now, so that’s something.
Here’s Andrew’s homescreen, plus some info on the apps he uses and why:
The phone: iPhone 12 Pro (with a battery that’s feeling its age).
The wallpaper: I like a very minimalist wallpaper under my apps, but because I find solid black makes the screen too reflective, I created a custom subtle blue gradient I’ve been using for the past five years. (For my lock screen, I’m using one of Mikael Gustafsson’s dreamy nature scenes.)
The apps: Google Calendar, Clock, Photos, Camera, Google Home, Google Photos, Find My, Instagram, Google Maps, WeatherCAN, Nest, Google Chat, Settings, Watch, Chrome, Apple Books, 1Password, App Store, Apple Notes, Phone, Gmail, Messages, Apple Photos.
My iPhone’s main homescreen is where all my daily driver apps live. This includes Instagram, Google Home, the aging Nest app (which includes functionality for my Nest thermostat I can’t find elsewhere), Chrome, 1Password (which all but solved my password anxiety once I finally switched over), IMDb, Paprika 3, countless smart home remotes, and most importantly, the Environment Canada weather app so I know when to get the grass cut before it rains. I’m obsessive about clearing notifications on my primary homescreen but am happy for them to pile up on the second screen, where I like to keep all other installed apps accessible.
I also asked Andrew to share a few things he’s into right now. Here’s what he sent back:
I’m a big fan of retro gaming and recently added the tiny Anbernic RG28XX to my ever-growing collection of handheld emulators. The Game Boy Micro remains one of my favorite handhelds of all time, but with the RG28XX, I can leave all the cartridges at home.
Our house is mildly obsessed with the reality series Alone, and we’re quite excited to dive into the season 11 premiere this week.
I just finished reading Bill Hammack’s (also known as the “Engineer Guy” on YouTube) book, The Things We Make, which includes fascinating deep dives into the engineering of everything from medieval cathedrals to how the microwave was invented.
When I’m struggling to fall asleep, nothing calms my brain faster than the Joe DIY Instagram account, which features videos of detailed restorations of classic die-cast toys. Give it a shot. Watching a rusted dump truck turn back into a bright yellow Tonka toy is immensely satisfying.
Crowdsourced
Here’s what the Installer community is into this week. I want to know what you’re into right now as well! Emailinstaller@theverge.comor message me on Signal — @davidpierce.11 — with your recommendations for anything and everything, and we’ll feature some of our favorites here every week. For more recommendations than I could fit here, check out the replies tothis post on Threads.
“I just recently came across this Australian company called Juicy Crumb that specializes in creating custom motherboard replacements for old iMacs, which lets people easily repurpose them as monitors. And they made one for the iMac G4! Believe me when I tell you I’ve never hit a ‘buy’ button so quickly (lol). Anyway, I ordered one a few months back and recently swapped it into my 20-inch G4, and it worked like a charm! I plugged it into a M1 Mac Mini I had, and now I’m using an iMac G4 like it’s 2004 again.” – Ryan
“I LOVE the Surface kickstand, enjoy typing onscreen (have done it for 14 years, tbf), and hate cases on my Apple devices. I’m obsessed with this magnet-back cover with a kickstand for my iPad. Could only source it from Amazon Germany, but they shipped to New Zealand for free. Wicked result.” – Brendon
“Your mention of Inbox Ten makes me think you’d appreciate Tony Hsieh’s Yesterbox method, which I’ve used successfully for years!” – Deb
“I’ve been loving journaling in Diarium, especially since it’s completely private and local. If you want to sync between devices, you can use a cloud sync of your choosing — it can even read-only sync with apps like Fitbit, Instagram, Strava, etc. to add everything you’ve done in the day into your journal entry.” – Michael
“I recently subscribed to Scott Belsky’s Implications newsletter, and I’m convinced everyone who is interested in the future of tech and culture should, too.” – Ricky
“I just discovered the app Crouton for recipe collection, and it’s by far the best at scrubbing a URL for the actual recipe. You can even take a photo of a cookbook page, and it’ll generate the recipe. Probably the best example of a real-world use for AI I’ve encountered yet.” – JT
“I’m enjoying the new MLB Morning Lineup podcast. Each episode is 10 minutes or less, and it recaps the previous day’s box scores and news. It’s been a very nice way to catch up on the best sport.” – Mario
“Been trying out Star Wars: Hunters on iOS after it finally launched. It’s a PVP arena combat game, and I’m loving it so far. The hunters are all unique and fun, it’s not too heavy on the pay-to-play stuff, and it’s remarkably good for a quick game. It’s not perfect (the UI is atrocious), but it’s a good start.” – Matt
“Puzzmo just added a new game to their catalog, Pile-Up Poker, and it is stellar.” – Luke
“My friends introduced me to this Call of Duty-like shooter that’s apparently very popular in India. It’s called Free Fire Max. The reason for its popularity is its ability to run on any device.
You should give it a try. The graphics are mediocre, but the experience is great.” – Rudrajit
Signing off
I posted on Threads a few days ago that my number one productivity hack is to take a 25-minute nap in the middle of the day. This made a lot of people have feelings and ask questions, even though I’m totally right. (It’s just science. I don’t make the rules.) But for all the people who asked for tips, here are mine.
The perfect 25-minute nap involves three things. First, realizing that even if you don’t sleep, lying there with your eyes closed for 25 minutes is still very restful; not stressing about sleeping makes it easier to sleep. Second, an episode of a TV show I’ve seen before (I do a lot of Parks and Recreation) can make it easier to quiet my brain and fall asleep. Third, I put on my smartwatch and set an alarm there; waking up from a wrist buzz is infinitely better than a blaring sound. Naps are great, naps forever, happy napping, everybody.
Nintendo’s first US commercial might be this 1980 ad
Got a broken arm? Just play Toss-Up! | Screenshot: YouTube
Nintendo is a gaming juggernaut today, but it wasn’t really on anyone’s radar in the United States in 1980. And what was possibly the first US commercial for hardware produced by the company — a handheld called Toss-Up, from its “Game & Watch” series — certainly didn’t help, as a newly-restored copy shows. That’s because there’s no mention of Nintendo at all, or even Game & Watch.
Game & Watch games were simplistic standalone handheld LCD games not unlike the cheap licensed Tiger Electronics games seemingly every kid had in the 1990s. And in the US, those games were initially licensed to a company called Mego (pronounced “mee-go”), and sold as a series called “Time-Out” instead, according to The Video Game History Foundation in a blog post Time Extension spotted.
The ad was dated June 25th, 1980 — only “a couple of months after Nintendo of America was incorporated,” Gaming historian Chris Kohler, who found the 16mm reel containing the ad on eBay, told the foundation. The hardware was still apparently embossed with a Nintendo logo on the back.
Kohler lent the reel to the foundation, which turned to a company called Movette Film Transfer to digitize the film. It had to be restored because its dyes had faded significantly, leaving it with a magenta hue that will be familiar to anyone that’s seen obscure, unrestored movie prints. (I saw plenty of these in Austin, Texas at Alamo Drafthouse’s once-free-at-midnight “Weird Wednesday” exploitation films series.) The foundation pointed to this “potato quality” version of the commercial that was uploaded to YouTube six years ago to illustrate the differences:
The commercial entreats mostly older, trendy youths (except for the goofy nerdy one because ha, ha, nerds) to enjoy an “electronic sport” when they can’t do real ones. You know, like when you’ve got fallen arches or tennis elbow, or you’re entirely wrapped in a full-body cast. That’s pretty different from Nintendo’s own commercials a few years later! Those tended to focus on kids and families and certainly didn’t have close-ups of butts in skin-tight shorts. Like this one:
The Game & Watch games also came in other form factors besides the one Nintendo resurrected for its standalone collectible versions of the NES Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda games a few years ago. Like this dual-screen one:
The iPad should fold in half
This should fold in half. It just should. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Folding an iPad in half is a very bad idea if you want to keep using your iPad. But hear me out: it should fold in half. Why? Because it would make an absolute banger of a folding phone.
I’m thinking of something like an iPad Mini that doubles as a phone in the style of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 or the Google Pixel Fold. Apple seems to have all kinds of ideas about folding things in half, including a big iPad that’s kind of like a MacBook and a clamshell-style iPhone. (Honestly, those both sound pretty rad, too.) But I’ve come around to the idea that the iPad makes a lot more sense when you imagine it as a folding phone.
Apple has already achieved optimal thinness. The iPad Pro is thinner than most phones (and every other computer Apple makes). What’s the point, if not to fold it in half? Was anyone complaining about the iPad being too thick? The slimmest iPad Pro is 5.1mm — fold that in half, and it’s only a couple of millimeters thicker than an iPhone 15 Pro Max. Mission accomplished. And if Apple is going to insist that things like a floating tab bar are good enough multitasking tools for people to get things done on an iPad, then it may as well just turn the thing into a phone.
And speaking of iOS 18 — excuse me, iPadOS 18 — have you seen the new handwriting features? They look amazing. With an Apple Pencil, you can write out a note and a feature called Smart Script will neaten up your writing automatically. But here’s the great part: you can erase some of your handwritten note or scratch something out, and the text will flow to fill the empty space. That solves one of the issues I run into with stylus writing on phones — adding text is easy, but once you erase something from your grocery list, it gets ugly real fast.
But, let’s be honest, I am not writing out a list on an iPad and then taking it grocery shopping so I can cross things off as I wander around Trader Joe’s. But what if you wrote out those notes on a big, tablet-like screen, then folded the whole thing in half to take it with you? It makes so much more sense. Apple doesn’t want to admit that the iPad is a stay-at-home device; if it could fold in half, maybe we’d be more inclined to take it to go.
It’s possible that executives at Apple fully enjoy selling people a phone and a tablet and have no intention of selling them one product instead. I didn’t go to business school or whatever, but fine. All I’m saying is that it’s hard to get excited about an iPad when I already have a phone and a computer, but an iPad that folds in half? Now we’re talking.
Apple announced RCS with a whimper when it should have been a bang
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge
Apple will finally adopt RCS in iOS 18, effectively ending a yearslong fight for feature parity between iMessage and Android. But the announcement wasn’t a celebration — you could’ve blinked and missed it. Instead of showing how RCS will make things better, Apple softly announced support for the standard and focused on all the great features coming to iMessage users — not RCS ones.
Apple didn’t go over how RCS adoption will finally let iPhone and Android users send each other high-resolution pictures and videos. It didn’t even say how RCS will enable support for cross-platform read receipts and typing indicators. Apple only highlighted the flashy features coming to iMessage, including ways to bold and italicize text, improvements to Tapbacks, and the ability to schedule a text.
These are all great changes, but iPhone users won’t be able to use these features when chatting with someone on Android. And we don’t even know how the emoji created with Genmoji, Apple’s new AI emoji creation tool, will appear in texts sent to users on Android, either.
Image: Apple
Android users are still stuck in green bubbles.
The company buried RCS on its iOS 18 preview page, too. It doesn’t even refer to Android users by name: “RCS (Rich Communication Services) messages bring richer media and delivery and read receipts for those who don’t use iMessage.” The included image shows an RCS chat on the iPhone, which has the green bubbles indicating the person you’re texting isn’t on an iPhone.
Apple first confirmed RCS support was coming last year. “This will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users,” Apple spokesperson Jacqueline Roy said in a statement to The Verge at the time. But it wasn’t necessarily a magnanimous move. Apple was largely forced to support RCS in response to the mounting pressure from global regulators and competing companies. That may help explain the somewhat disgruntled approach to announcing its rollout in iOS 18.
But Apple’s adoption of RCS has been years in the making. Every major carrier already made the switch to RCS. Apple was the only holdout, and regulators, combined with some bad press (remember when Tim Cook told a guy to buy his mom an iPhone?), made it increasingly necessary for the company to address the issue.”
Image: Apple
Can you spot Apple’s mention of RCS?
The fact that Apple skipped over RCS during its keynote makes it seem like Apple didn’t think it was worthy enough of showing off — which is goofy. The whole population of Android users, including myself, has been stuck getting photos and videos from iPhone users that you need a magnifying glass to make out (while also trying to convince them to download a third-party messenger that actually supports high-res media).
This is a massive improvement for both Android and iPhone users! It’s just too bad that the long-awaited unification of the iPhone and Android’s messaging systems was drowned out by unsettling AI-generated emoji and jiggling iMessage bubbles. Even without Apple’s acknowledgment, I’m just stoked that I’ll finally be able to exchange photos and videos from the 21st century with my iPhone-wielding friends and family members for once.
Intel says it still doesn’t have the true fix for its crashing i9 desktop chips
One of the affected Intel processors. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge
For months, Intel’s highest-end desktop gaming processors have had a strange tendency to occasionally make games crash — and despite what you might have seen earlier today, Intel says it doesn’t have a final fix for its 13th and 14th Gen Intel Core i9 “Raptor Lake” and “Raptor Lake S” chips just yet.
“Contrary to recent media reports, Intel has not confirmed root cause and is continuing, with its partners, to investigate user reports regarding instability issues on unlocked Intel Core 13th and 14th generation (K/KF/KS) desktop processors,” reads a statement via Intel spokesperson Thomas Hannaford.
It continues: “The microcode patch referenced in press reports fixes an eTVB bug discovered by Intel while investigating the instability reports. While this issue is potentially contributing to instability, it is not the root cause.”
Intel’s official statement references (and partially confirms) leaked internal Intel documents obtained by Igor’s Lab earlier today. Those documents suggest that part of the problem is how Intel’s chips have been erroneously overclocking their own cores, using a feature called Enhanced Thermal Velocity Boost (eTVB), even when they should have known they were running too hot to do that.
“Root cause is an incorrect value in a microcode algorithm associated with the eTVB feature,” that leaked document began. It continued:
Failure Analysis (FA) of 13th and 14th Generation K SKU processors indicates a shift in minimum operating voltage on affected processors resulting from cumulative exposure to elevated core voltages. Intel® analysis has determined a confirmed contributing factor for this issue is elevated voltage input to the processor due to previous BIOS settings which allow the processor to operate at turbo frequencies and voltages even while the processor is at a high temperature. Previous generations of Intel® K SKU processors were less sensitive to these type of settings due to lower default operating voltage and frequency.
Intel® requests all customers to update BIOS to microcode 0x125 or later by 7/19/2024.
This microcode includes an eTVB fix for an issue which may allow the processor to enter a higher performance state even when the processor temperature has exceeded eTVB thresholds.
But while Intel confirms eTVB was potentially part of the problem, it’s apparently not the “root cause” of the whole issue.
Microsoft’s all-knowing Recall AI feature is being delayed
Image: Microsoft
Microsoft is planning to launch its new Copilot Plus PCs next week without its controversial Recall feature that screenshots everything you do on these new laptops. The software maker is holding back Recall so it can test it with the Windows Insider program, after originally promising to ship Recall as an opt-in feature with additional security improvements.
“We are adjusting the release model for Recall to leverage the expertise of the Windows Insider community to ensure the experience meets our high standards for quality and security,” says Microsoft in an updated blog post. “When Recall (preview) becomes available in the Windows Insider Program, we will publish a blog post with details on how to get the preview.”
This means that Recall won’t even be available initially to Windows Insiders or anyone who buys a Copilot Plus PC. I wrote in Notepad earlier today that Windows engineers were scrambling to get the security improvements tested and implemented in time for the June 18th launch date of Copilot Plus PCs. Now, Microsoft is essentially admitting here that it needs more time to test Recall’s security improvements.
GIF: Microsoft
The Windows Recall feature.
Microsoft first unveiled the Recall feature as part of its upcoming Copilot Plus PCs last month, but since then, privacy advocates and security experts have been warning that Recall could be a “disaster” for cybersecurity without changes. Microsoft committed to three major updates to Recall last week, including making the AI-powered feature an opt-in experience instead of on by default, encrypting the database, and authenticating through Windows Hello.
Recall uses local AI models built into Windows 11 to screenshot mostly everything you see or do on your computer and then give you the ability to search and retrieve items you’ve seen. An explorable timeline lets you scroll through these snapshots to look back on what you did on a particular day on your PC. Everything in Recall is designed to remain local and private on-device, so no data is used to train Microsoft’s AI models.
Microsoft’s decision to delay Recall comes just after vice chair and president Brad Smith testified before the House Homeland Security Committee today. Smith said that Microsoft is putting security above everything, as part of its Secure Future Initiative (SFI). “It is more important even than the company’s work on artificial intelligence,” says Smith.
Smith also revealed that Microsoft will make security a mandatory part of its bi-annual reviews process for all employees. “With this change, cybersecurity will be considered in every employee’s annual bonus and compensation,” Smith said.
I reported earlier today in Notepad that Recall was originally created before Microsoft’s big SFI overhaul begun. Recall was developed in secret at Microsoft, and it wasn’t even tested publicly with Windows Insiders. Microsoft subsequently identified some of the security issues with Recall and started to develop and test changes to the experience in recent months. It clearly now needs more time to make sure these changes stand up to its promise of putting security above AI and everything else.
Musk’s Friends and Fans Applaud Shareholder Vote on His Payday On the social media platform X, which Mr. Musk owns, reactions to a vote that reaffirmed Mr. Musk’s $45 billion package were buoyant.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino Touts Advertiser Return After Musk Takeover Still, Elon Musk, who owns the platform, and his chief executive Linda Yaccarino, have work to do to grow the business, leaders told employees.
Tesla’s Stock Price Shows Doubts About Outlook Under Elon Musk A huge run-up in the stock’s value followed a 2018 vote on Elon Musk’s compensation package. But investors have recently become less enamored.
X all-hands leaves staff with few answers on delayed promotions
Linda Yaccarino. | Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox Media
During an internal all-hands meeting led by X CEO Linda Yaccarino on Wednesday, concerned employees tuned in to hear if she would address the pressing issue on their minds: performance reviews.
Sources inside the company confirm that a promotions process was recently delayed without explanation and that X’s sales team doesn’t expect to meet its revenue targets for the quarter. Given how the company formerly called Twitter has continued to struggle under Elon Musk’s ownership, employees have been bracing for more layoffs.
One of Musk’s key lieutenants, The Boring Company CEO Steve Davis, has been reviewing finances at X’s headquarters in San Francisco over the past several weeks, according to multiple employees who requested anonymity to speak without the company’s permission. As one of them described Davis: “He’s the grim reaper who only shows up for bad things.”
A source at X told The Verge that there have been a handful of people laid off in recent days. Many noticed the sudden departure of Yaccarino’s right-hand man, Joe Benarroch. So, when a rare all-hands meeting with her landed on employee calendars last week, X’s roughly 1,500 remaining staffers anxiously waited to find out more.
The meeting began with a montage of viral tweets, including one by infamous GameStop trader Keith Gill, followed by Yaccarino joining from an X conference room named “eXtraordinary.” She tried to drum up excitement about live events on the platform, such as the Super Bowl and March Madness, and urged employees to discuss Musk’s x.AI chatbot Grok with advertisers. She also emphasized that X’s focus on video has “definitely driving advertising” without elaborating.
As the meeting continued, X’s head of HR, Walter Gilbert, told staff that X is planning to implement a broader and more robust promotion process that will include “doing lighter-weight check-ins throughout the year.” One source who watched the meeting quipped that a bulk of the submitted employee questions were “definitely about HR, promotions, raises/equity” and not addressed.
Musk was noticeably absent despite him being in San Francisco along with Yaccarino. Instead, several other directors joined: Monique Pintarelli, head of advertising for the Americas, Nick Pickles, who leads policy, Kylie McRoberts, the company’s latest head of trust and safety, and Haofei Wang, director of engineering.
While Yaccarino was light on specific data about the performance of the advertising business, Pintarelli told staff that X now has over “50% of our revenue attributed to performance objectives,” which she described “as a pretty big shift from where the business was over the last few years.”
While this all-hands may not have given X employees many answers, Yaccarino did emphasize that the company will be conducting them once a quarter, adding that the team will “also be hearing quite soon from both Elon and I.”
Google is putting more Android in ChromeOS
Illustration: The Verge
ChromeOS will “soon be developed on large portions of the Android stack” so that it can roll out AI features at a faster pace, Google announced on Wednesday. The company says it will be embracing things like the Android Linux kernel and Android frameworks “as part of the foundation of ChromeOS.”
The changes won’t just mean more AI features, according to Google. The company also noted that they will help “simplify engineering efforts” and “help different devices like phones and accessories work better together with Chromebooks,” as detailed in a blog post.
Google surely wants to have Chromebook users trying as many AI-powered features as possible, so these changes will probably accelerate that. But the company cautions that while the changes to the tech stack are “starting now,” they “won’t be ready for consumers for quite some time.”
Waymo issues software and mapping recall after robotaxi crashes into a telephone pole
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Waymo is issuing a voluntary software recall after one of its driverless vehicles collided with a telephone pole in Phoenix, Arizona, last month, the company said. The vehicle was damaged, but no passengers or bystanders were hurt in the incident.
The company is filing the recall with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) after completing a software update to 672 vehicles — the total number of driverless-capable vehicles in Waymo’s fleet. The update corrects an error in the software that “assigned a low damage score” to the telephone pole, and updates its map to account for the hard road edge in the alleyway that was not previously included.
This is Waymo’s second recall ever, after two minor collisions prompted a recall of 444 vehicles last February. And it comes at a time of increased regulatory scrutiny of the driverless vehicle industry, in which federal investigators are probing almost all the major companies operating autonomous vehicles in the US.
The incident that prompted the latest recall took place on May 21st in Phoenix. According to local reports, an unoccupied Waymo vehicle was driving to a passenger pickup location through an alley that was lined on both sides by wooden telephone poles. The poles were not up on a curb but level with the road and surrounded with longitudinal yellow striping to define the viable path for vehicles. As it was pulling over, the Waymo vehicle struck one of the poles at a speed of 8mph, sustaining some damage, the company said.
Image: 12NewsEmergency responders inspecting a Waymo robotaxi after it crashed into a telephone pole.
The passenger who was waiting for the vehicle didn’t witness the crash but did recall hearing it. “It never made it to pick us up,” Jericka Mitchell told 12News.
Waymo’s recall isn’t a recall in the traditional sense. It’s not taking its vehicles off the road for repairs or maintenance. Much like Tesla’s software recalls, the company can simply push an over-the-air update to all the affected vehicles and then continue to operate on public roads after the new software and maps have loaded.
“We have already deployed mapping and software updates across our entire fleet, and this does not impact our current operations,” Waymo spokesperson Katherine Barna said in a statement. “As we serve more riders in more cities, we will continue our safety first approach, working to earn trust with our riders, community members, regulators, and policymakers.”
Waymo is trying to be proactive about its safety — especially as it relates to incidents in which its own vehicles are clearly at fault. The company is under investigation by NHTSA for over two dozen incidents involving its driverless vehicles, including several “single-party” crashes and possible traffic law violations. Several incidents involved crashes with stationary objects, much like the May 21st crash with the telephone poll.
A numberof pedestriansand other bystanders have been injured by driverless vehicles, resulting in more regulatory scrutiny and public ire. Meanwhile, the government is requiring more data from companies than ever before, especially around crashes, in order to determine whether the industry’s safety claims live up to their hype. And the companies are finding that the proliferation of smartphones with cameras is working against them, as more videos of their vehicles behaving unpredictably or dangerously go viral.
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Jabra kills off its consumer earbuds after launching new Elite models
The Jabra Elite 10 gen 2 wireless earbuds (pictured) will still be available, serving as a final farewell to the Elite lineup. | Image: Jabra
Immediately after introducing upgraded versions of its Elite 10 and Elite 8 Active earbuds, Jabra says it’s departing the consumer earbuds market entirely. Jabra’s parent company GN announced that it’s winding down its Elite and Talk audio product ranges in order to “increase focus and resources on more attractive parts” of its business, citing the rising costs of competition.
“The markets have changed over time, and it is today our assessment that we cannot generate a fair return on investment compared to the many other opportunities we have within our Hearing, Enterprise, and Gaming businesses,” said GN CEO Peter Karlstromer. “I am very grateful to our retail partners, who have supported us on the Elite and Talk product lines, as well as to the consumers who made us a part of their lives.”
The departure for Talk — a dated-looking lineup of over-the-ear mono Bluetooth headphones — isn’t surprising given the decline in that category, but Jabra’s Elite range of wireless earbuds have been generally well received since launching in 2016. The decision follows last year’s decision to redirect the Elite lineup towards the premium audio market, with Jabra’s parent now saying the level of investment required to remain competitive is “deemed unjustified in the long-term” despite having initially resulted in “stronger profitability.”
Jabra isn’t exiting the audio category entirely, however, with Digital Trends noting that the company will continue developing its enterprise-focused Evolve lineup. The second-gen Elite 8 Active and Elite 10 earbuds will still be available to buy later this month as the final entries to the Elite lineup. Jabra will continue to provide support for the products for “several years,” and expects its remaining inventory to be depleted by the end of 2024.
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Where to preorder Star Wars Outlaws (and what’s included in each edition)
The open-world Outlaws could be the biggest single-player Star Wars game ever made. | Screenshot: Star Wars
Ubisoft announced in April that Star Wars Outlaws will launch on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on August 30th. If you’ve been on the fence about buying it in advance, then there’s some new material to help you make the decision. We recently got a closer look at its open-world gameplay at Ubisoft Forward 2024, including the title’s combat, space travel, and branching story dialogue. And, thankfully, there’s still plenty of time to secure various exclusive preorder incentives.
Developed by Massive Entertainment, Outlaws follows main character Kay Vess and her trusty alien companion Nix as they navigate a galactic criminal underworld. It takes place throughout a range of familiar locales, including Tatooine and Canto Bight, along with Kijimi, Akiva, and an all-new planet named Toshara. The original trailer suggests Vess is looking to score a large heist from the opulent Zerek Besh family to buy her freedom.
It’s rare to see a Star Wars game with a female protagonist as the lead, and it’s equally rare to see one take place in an open world — Outlaws is the first, in fact. If the work Ubisoft and Massive did on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is any indication, we should be in for a treat. Keep reading for a quick summary of all the preorder details, including the skins, post-launch DLC, and other goodies that come with each edition.
Preordering the Standard Edition of Star Wars Outlaws
Preordering any edition of Star Wars Outlaws from any retailer unlocks the Kessel Runner Bonus Pack, which includes a skin for both your speeder and Trailblazer spaceship. The Standard Edition costs $69.99, and you can currently preorder physical copies for the PS5 and Xbox Series X / S.
If you preorder at Amazon (PS5 / Xbox), you’ll get cosmetics for Kay and Nix in the Rogue Infiltrator Character Pack, which is exclusive to Amazon for the physical copies and otherwise only available in the digital-only Ultimate Edition (more on that below).
As for other retailers, Best Buy is currently offering a $10 gift card with each purchase and Target an exclusive steel box. GameStop shoppers, meanwhile, will get the Sabacc Shark Character Pack, which is exclusive to physical copies and includes character and blaster cosmetics that are normally limited to the Ultimate Edition. You can also preorder it at Walmart (PS5 / Xbox), but the retailer isn’t offering any exclusive incentives.
The Gold Edition of Star Wars Outlaws lets you play three days early and bundles the season pass for $109.99. The pass offers two post-launch pieces of downloadable content that expand the story with new missions and environments. You’ll also get the Jabba’s Gambit bonus mission at launch, plus the Kessel Runner Character Pack that contains additional skins for Kay and Nix.
Best Buy and Target (PS5 / Xbox) are your top choices for retailer-exclusive bonuses, with the former throwing in the same $10 gift card as the Standard Edition and the latter a physical steelbook case. You can also buy copies for the PS5 and Xbox Series X / S at Amazon (PS5 / Xbox), Walmart (PS5 / Xbox), and GameStop; it’s also available for preorder digitally via Microsoft, PlayStation, and Ubisoft’s online storefront (for PC).
Preordering the Ultimate Edition of Star Wars Outlaws
The Ultimate Edition of Star Wars Outlaws retails for $129.99 and contains everything from the Gold Edition as well as two more cosmetic packs with new looks for Kay, Nix, your speeder, and the Trailblazer. It also comes with a digital art book featuring the concept art and cinematic storyboards its developers used to design the game.
As of this writing, physical copies of the ultimate edition aren’t up for preorder, but you can preorder the digital version for the PS5 and Xbox Series X / S through their respective storefronts and for Windows PCs at Ubisoft’s website. You can also subscribe to Ubisoft Plus Premium for $17.99 a month, which includes day-one access to the full Ultimate Edition for no additional cost on PC, Xbox, and Amazon’s Luna cloud gaming service.
Apple has a plan for AI, and we’re finally going to hear more than whispers about it on June 10th during this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference. If you’re not among the lucky few going to Cupertino, California, to see WWDC 2024 live, you can stream the keynote at 1PM ET on YouTube, in the Apple TV app, or on Apple’s events page.
The company is expected to reveal a swath of new AI features for its next big iOS update, including voice memo transcriptions, custom emoji generated on the fly, and Siri improvements that include the ability to control individual app features.
Plenty of these features will work on-device, but some will go to the cloud, for which Apple will reportedly use M2 Ultra-powered servers — which will almost certainly be part of the company’s privacy pitch. The company is also expected to announce a new deal with OpenAI to let ChatGPT have deeper access to iOS.
AI will be most of the story, but Apple may tout other non-AI improvements that include UI updates for Apple Photos, the iOS and macOS settings apps, and Control Center. Messages could get a new feature that’s a little like its full-screen effects (think fireworks or confetti) but for individual words in a text message. Apple will reportedly announce visionOS 2.0 for the Vision Pro, with new features and native versions of first-party apps that until now have been available only as iPad apps.
The company won’t introduce any new hardware at WWDC 2024, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman told subscribers in a recent edition of Power On. Look out for the stream, starting on June 10th at 1PM ET on YouTube or Apple’s site. And of course, keep an eye on The Verge, where we’ll be cutting through the noise to bring you the most important news.
Frontier hackers threaten to release private data for at least 750,000 customers
The RansomHub extortion group have claimed responsibility for the cyberattack against Frontier on April 14th. | Illustration: Beatrice Sala
Frontier Communications has revealed that information for over 750,000 customers — including full names and Social Security numbers — was exposed in a data breach following a cyberattack on April 14th. Hackers claim to have even more and will release it unless Frontier pays a ransom.
The attack enabled hackers to access 751,895 customers’ personal data on Frontier’s systems according to a sample of the notice Frontier submitted to the Office of the Maine Attorney General. Frontier has notified impacted customers and provided them with one year of free credit monitoring and identity theft services, but says it “does not believe” customer financial information was exposed in the breach.
Bleeping Computer reports that the RansomHub extortion group claimed responsibility for the attack on June 4th and is threatening to leak the 5GB of customer data it allegedly stole unless Frontier responds to their demands by June 14th. The group claims the stolen dataset contains information belonging to two million Frontier customers, including their full name, physical address, date of birth, social security number, email address, credit score, and phone number.
Frontier says it’s bolstered its network security following the attack and notified both regulatory authorities and law enforcement. A securities filing reveals that the company was forced to shut down some of its systems to contain the incident.
Xbox chief confirms more games are coming to other platforms
Illustration: The Verge
Xbox chief Phil Spencer has confirmed that more of Microsoft’s own games will be coming to other platforms, like the PS5 and Nintendo Switch. Microsoft revealed earlier this year that four Xbox-exclusive games were launching on PS5 and some on Nintendo Switch, with fans left wondering if it would only be four titles or if there are more to come. Spencer took the opportunity to clear up that mystery in an interview with IGN yesterday.
“Our commitment to our Xbox customers is you’re going to get the opportunity to buy or subscribe to the game, and we’re going to support the game on other screens,” said Spencer. “You are going to see more of our games on more platforms, and we just see that as a benefit to the franchises that we’re building, and we see that from players, and the players love to be able to play.”
The confirmation of more games coming to rival platforms comes months after Spencer denied there was a change to Microsoft’s strategy of Xbox exclusives. “We made a decision that we’re going to take four games to the other consoles, just four games. Not a change to our fundamental exclusive strategy,” said Spencer in an Xbox podcast earlier this year.
Microsoft unveiled a collection of new Xbox games during its big showcase event last night, with Doom: The Dark Ages and Gears of War: E-Day the big new “world premiere” titles. One word Microsoft didn’t use all night was exclusive, though. It’s something I’ve noticed the company has been avoiding for months now. Microsoft-owned Arkane Lyon unveiled its Blade game late last year at the Game Awards, and there was no mention of exclusivity for Xbox.
We also got a first look at Bethesda’s new Indiana Jones and the Great Circle game earlier this year, and while Xbox and PC were confirmed as launch platforms, there was no mention of exclusivity. I understand Microsoft has been weighing up launchingIndiana Jones on PS5 several months after the planned launch for Xbox later this year.
All of these decisions are part of “Project Latitude” inside Microsoft, a secretive project that I recently detailed in my weekly Notepad newsletter. Microsoft is considering a number of games for rival platforms, including the recently-released Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II game. You can read more about Project Latitude here.
IGN didn’t press Spencer further on the Xbox multiplatform plans, and Microsoft largely avoided the elephant in the room during its showcase by never mentioning rival platforms. Instead, it focused on a barrage of game trailers that resulted in one of the best Xbox showcases I’ve seen in years.
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Did an in-game MLB interview cause a player to miss a catch?
During last night’s Major League Baseball telecast on Apple TV Plus, a grounder bounced off the right hand of Los Angeles Dodger player Enrique “Kiké” Hernández and right into his crotch. That gave New York Yankees batter Gleyber Torres enough time to get to first. Does that happen all the time? Sure. It’s just that Hernández was in the middle of an interview when it happened.
Game announcer Dontrelle Willis had just asked Hernández, who was wearing a two-way mic, about his team’s close-knit relationship when Torres hit the ball toward third base. Hernández ran to catch it and simply misjudged how the ball would bounce. ESPN reports that when asked after the game whether the interview had anything to do with the error, Hernández said, “Maybe a little bit,” he said, “but I think I let the ball eat me up. It had a weird hop.”
Even if he did feel the softball question caused him to catch a hardball to the groin, Hernández has no intention of turning down those in-game interviews — when he was asked after the game, he said, “no, because we’re getting paid.” Indeed they are! The Major League Baseball Players Association’s collective agreement (PDF) stipulates that players get $10,000 per game or $15,000 for the postseason, with the money coming out of a joint fund between the MLB and the association.
I’d like to give Ravech the benefit of the doubt and assume he ran this by Casas, but this is a brutal question to ask while a guy is trying to play first base.
Google’s $2.3 million check helped the company get a trial by judge instead of jury
Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge
The antitrust lawsuit by the Justice Department and eight states seeking to break up Google’s alleged adtech monopoly will be heard by a judge this fall, as the company preferred. The government’s lawyers had included a damages claim in their lawsuit and pursued a trial by jury. Jury trials can be more unpredictable, like Epic’s courtroom win over Google last year, and a legal expert told The Verge that if the government was successful, it could make Google more likely to settle the case.
But Reuters reports that won’t happen after the company filed a copy of a $2.3 million cashier’s check — without admitting any liability or wrongdoing — that it said would be enough to cover triple the monetary damages requested by the government, if necessary, plus interest.
A photocopy of a cashier’s check for maximum damages, filed to the court docket for the DOJ’s ad tech antitrust action against Google.
Now that US District Judge Leonie Brinkema has ruled on the matter, she’s scheduled a bench trial for September 9th to hear arguments from both sides. Meanwhile, the DOJ and Google continue to wait for a ruling on their big search antitrust showdownafter making their closing arguments about a month ago.
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