Google brings keyboard shortcuts and custom mouse buttons to ChromeOS Now you can customize these bad boys. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeGoogle is rolling out a new ChromeOS update (M123) to its stable channel yesterday that brought features like the ability to customize keyboard shortcuts and mouse buttons and enabled hotspot connections on cellular Chromebooks. The company’s April updates also br…

Spotify’s price is reportedly going up again Illustration by Nick Barclay / The VergeFor many years, Spotify held strong at its monthly subscription of $9.99, but that changed last July when Premium jumped up to $10.99. Now it appears that the leading subscription music service is planning another price hike — and not waiting nearly as long this time. Bloomberg reports that the cost will g…

FCC will vote on restoring net neutrality rules Photo by Matt McClain / The Washington Post via Getty ImagesThe Federal Communications Commission will vote on April 25th on a proposal to restore net neutrality rules, the agency announced on Wednesday. If the five-member panel votes to restore the rules, internet service providers (ISP) will be reclassified from information services to common …

Elon Musk’s reputation is falling — and it’s taking Tesla with it Studies show that consumers associated Tesla with Musk, which might be damaging the EV brand’s bottom line. | Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty ImagesElon Musk’s controversial behavior in recent years is “very likely” to be a contributing factor in Tesla’s declining sales, according to corporate reputation tracking firm Caliber. …

Lifx launches two new 1,600-lumen bulbs that work with Matter Par38 Matter-compatible floodlight. | Image: LifxLifx is bringing its high-end smart bulb chops to Matter with two new bulbs that support the standard over Wi-Fi. The two bulbs are an A21 indoor bulb ($39.98) and a Par38 indoor / outdoor option ($34.98) and will be available only through The Home Depot, starting today. The big advantage Lifx has…

AI-generated songs are getting longer, not necessarily better Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeStable Audio 2.0, an audio generation model for Stability AI, now lets users upload their own audio samples that they can then transform using prompts and create AI-generated songs. But the songs will not win any Grammys just yet. The first version of Stable Audio was released in September 2023 and only of…

Welcome to the AI gadget era Image: Cath Virginia / The VergeHumane, Rabbit, Brilliant, Meta, and countless other companies are just about to launch AI-first gadgets. AI hardware may not be as big as the smartphone, but it’s going to be big. Continue reading…

AI George Carlin case settled as performers demand better protection The Dudesy podcast agreed to take the allegedly ai-generated comedy special offline as part of the settlement. | Photo by Mark Junge/Getty ImagesGeorge Carlin’s estate has reached a settlement with the media company that purportedly used generative artificial intelligence to imitate the late comedian. The decision arrives as a group representing…

Microsoft 365’s Copilot gets a GPT-4 Turbo upgrade and improved image generation The VergeMicrosoft is rolling out priority access to GPT-4 Turbo for business subscribers of its AI-powered Copilot assistant. This unlocks access to OpenAI’s latest model inside the Copilot mobile app, on the web, in Windows, and Edge as part of the $30 per user, per month pricing of Copilot for Microsoft 365. While consumers subscribed to Copi…

Microsoft could have prevented Chinese cloud email hack, US cyber report says Photo by NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty ImagesA new report from the US Cyber Safety Review Board has found that Microsoft could have prevented Chinese hackers from breaching US government emails through its Microsoft Exchange Online software last year. The incident, described as a “cascade of security failures” at Microsoft, allowed Chinese state-spon…

Apple MacBook Air M3 review: small upgrades The 13-inch and 15-inch Air are better than ever, but Apple needs to do something about the upgrade funnel. Continue reading…

A first look at Europe’s alternative iPhone app stores Cath Virginia / The VergeDMA is about to unleash a brave new world of game emulators, clipboard managers, and uncertainty. Continue reading…

How one volunteer stopped a backdoor from exposing Linux systems worldwide Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeLinux, the most widely used open source operating system in the world, narrowly escaped a massive cyber attack over Easter weekend, all thanks to one volunteer. The backdoor had been inserted into a recent release of a Linux compression format called XZ Utils, a tool that is little-known outside the Lin…

Intel’s chipmaking business lost a boatload of billions last year Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesIntel’s chip-making division accumulated $7 billion in operating losses in 2023, Reuters reported on Tuesday. That’s a big increase from $5.2 billion it lost in 2022, and while it made $18.9 billion in revenue in 2023, that number is down 31 percent from the $27.49 billion it made the year prior. …

Amazon gives up on no-checkout shopping in its grocery stores An Amazon Dash Cart in Whole Foods. | Photo by Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu via Getty ImagesAmazon has decided to give up on its Just Walk Out program that lets customers leave its brick-and-mortar grocery stores without a formal checkout process. Instead, it’s switching fully to “Dash Carts,” where customers scan products as they toss them in their …

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s biggest twist is concealed in a tiny detail Image: Square EnixI’m in awe of how smart the developers of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth are. After seeing a post comparing Cloud during the Nibelheim flashback and his arrival at the city much later in the game, my mind is reeling from the subtle brilliance in how Square used the tiniest of animation details to convey one of the biggest, most shoc…

NYC’s AI gun detectors hardly work Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty ImagesWhen New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the city would be testing out AI gun detectors on at subway stations last week, he touted the technology as “clearly impressive.” But critics, including the Legal Aid Society, were immediately skeptical of the pilot — and as it turns out, they were …

US and UK will work together to test AI models for safety threats Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty ImagesThe United States and United Kingdom agreed to work together to monitor advanced AI models for safety risks. The two countries will collaborate on research and do at least one joint safety test. Both countries say safety is a top concern when it comes to using AI models. US President Joe Biden…

Apple quietly added Qi2 charging to the iPhone 12 Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The VergeApple never mentioned it, but the iPhone 12 received Qi2 wireless charging support when it got updated to iOS 17.4 last month. That means you can make full use of the Qi2-certified chargers that have entered the market, which have adopted the magnetic attachment and 15W speeds of Apple’s MagSafe tech. …

President Biden is now posting into the fediverse The president’s account can now be found on platforms like Mastodon. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The VergeThe official US president Threads account, currently helmed by President Joe Biden, has begun using Meta’s ActivityPub integration, making Biden the first sitting US president to post on the decentralized networking protocol. If you want to fo…