Snap agrees to pay $15 million to settle gender discrimination lawsuit Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeSnap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, has agreed to pay $15 million to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit from the California Civil Rights Department. The lawsuit stemmed from a three-year investigation that found that Snap allegedly failed to “ensure that women were paid or promoted equally.” The …

Anthropic has a fast new AI model — and a clever new way to interact with chatbots GPT-4o, Gemini 1.5, and now Claude 3.5 Sonnet. | Image: AnthropicThe AI arms race continues apace: Anthropic is launching its newest model, called Claude 3.5 Sonnet, which it says can equal or better OpenAI’s GPT-4o or Google’s Gemini across a wide variety of tasks. The new model is already available to Claude users on the web and on iOS, and An…

Lenovo squeezed eight speakers into its chonky new tablet “Four matrix tweeters and four force-balanced woofers” on the Lenovo Tab Plus deliver 26W of sound. | Image: LenovoTablets aren’t known for their room-shaking bass, but Lenovo’s new 11.5-inch Tab Plus is going all in. It features 26W of sound produced by four tweeters and four woofers split across each side of the tablet (when used in landscape …

Inside the players and politics of the modern AI industry Image: The VergeWe’ve got a special episode of Decoder today — I was traveling last week, so Verge deputy editor Alex Heath and our new senior AI reporter Kylie Robison are filling in for me, with a very different kind of episode about AI. We talk a lot about AI in a broad sense on Decoder — it comes up in basically every single interview I do t…

Snapchat AI turns prompts into new lens Image: SnapchatSnapchat offered an early look at its upcoming on-device AI model capable of transforming a user’s surroundings with augmented reality (AR). The new model will eventually let creators turn a text prompt into a custom lens — potentially opening the door for some wild looks to try on and send to friends. You can see how this might l…

Congress votes to advance nuclear energy development in the US Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California on Oct. 25, 2022. | Laura Dickinson/San Luis Obsipo Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty ImagesCongress has passed a bill aimed at giving nuclear energy a boost in the US. The Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act is now waiting for President Joe Bi…

OpenAI’s former chief scientist is starting a new AI company Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeIlya Sutskever, OpenAI’s co-founder and former chief scientist, is starting a new AI company focused on safety. In a post on Wednesday, Sutskever revealed Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), a startup with “one goal and one product:” creating a safe and powerful AI system. The announcement describes SSI as a…

Update your Windows PC to avoid a serious Wi-Fi vulnerability Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeIf you’ve been putting off your next Windows update, now’s the time to install it. Microsoft has patched a pretty nasty vulnerability in Windows 11 and 10 that could put your PC at risk when connected to a public Wi-Fi network, as spotted earlier by The Register. The vulnerability (CVE-2024-30078) could…

California’s governor is trying to crack down on smartphones in schools California Governor Gavin Newsom attends an event with fellow governors in the East Room of the White House on February 23, 2024 in Washington, DC. | Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesCalifornia Governor Gavin Newsom has pledged to “get smartphones out of schools.” “I look forward to working with the Legislature to restrict the use of smartp…

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions are more than 40 percent off right now You can even stack multiple codes if you want to get ready for the forthcoming onslaught of day-one releases. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeUnless you’re flush with cash and time is only conceptual in your world, it may be tough to finance and find the time to enjoy all of the games announced during Microsoft’s recent Xbox Showcase. A…

AT&T is raising prices on old ‘unlimited’ plans Illustration: The VergeAT&T is pushing prices up for customers who have stayed on old, retired “unlimited” data plans. In August, customers can expect to see their bills rise by up to $20 for plans with multiple lines. “This is the total monthly increase, not per line increase,” the company says on its website. Customers with just a single line…

4 great games I played at Summer Game Fest 2024 Astro Bot. | Image: Sony Interactive EntertainmentAn adorable platformer, mythological tower defense, RPG / puzzle hybrid, and open-world Star Wars. Continue reading…

Pornhub to block two more states over age verification laws The VergePornhub plans to block access to its website in Indiana and Kentucky in response to age verification laws designed to prevent children from accessing adult websites. The website has now cut off access in at least half a dozen states in protest of similar age verification laws that have quickly spread across conservative-leaning US state…

EU chat control law proposes scanning your messages — even encrypted ones Image: The VergeThe European Union is getting closer to passing new rules that would mandate the bulk scanning of digital messages — including encrypted ones. On Thursday, EU governments will adopt a position on the proposed legislation, which is aimed at detecting child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The vote will determine whether the proposal …

Qualcomm agrees to pay $75 million to end lawsuit linked to Apple complaints Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeQualcomm’s shareholders have managed to achieve something that Apple and government regulators across the globe tried to and failed to do: get Qualcomm to pay up over its aggressive licensing practices. In a court filing on Tuesday, Qualcomm said it would agree to pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit brought…

You’ll need a new smart lock if you want Apple Home to ‘magically’ unlock your door Existing Home Key-capable smart locks like this Aqara lock won’t work with the new hands-free unlock feature for Apple Home. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The VergeLast week, Apple announced it’s bringing hands-free unlocking for smart locks to Apple Home when iOS 18 arrives this fall. The new capability leverages the U1 ultra wideband (U…

Nvidia overtakes Microsoft as the world’s most valuable company Cath Virginia / The VergeLess than two weeks after Nvidia jumped Apple in terms of its overall valuation, the GPU maker has now passed Microsoft to stand as the world’s most valuable company based on the chips it makes that are key to powering a boom in generative AI technology. At the close of trading on Tuesday, its share price stood at $135….

This universal remote wants to control your smart home sans hub One remote to rule them all (but in the darkness, you probably still can’t find them). | Photo: CantataUniversal remotes might be on a comeback tour if devices like Cantata’s Haptique RS90 and RS90X actually materialize and are as good as advertised. The connected remote purports to double as a comprehensive smart home controller, but it’s merel…

AMD is investigating claims of stolen company data Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeAMD is looking into a potential cyberattack. A threat actor that goes by the alias “IntelBroker” is selling data that it claims was obtained from an AMD.com breach this month, BleepingComputer reports, and the company confirmed in a statement that it’s looking into the purported theft. IntelBroker claim…

An AI video tool just launched, and it’s already copying Disney’s IP Last week, AI startup Luma posted a series of videos created using its new video-generating tool Dream Machine, which the company describes as a “highly scalable and efficient transformer model trained directly on videos.” The only problem? At about 57 seconds in, the Dream Machine-generated trailer for Monster Camp — an animated story about fur…