Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is already on sale with a $10 PlayStation Store gift card If Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse taught us anything, it’s that two spider-men are better than one. | Image: Sony Interactive EntertainmentThere are few types of deals better than a launch day promo, especially when it concerns a sequel that has been five years in the marking. Thankfully for those looking to delve back into the sunset-tinged …

Faze Clan acquired for $17 million, one year after its $725 million SPAC Faze Clan team winning Halo World Championship 2023. | Image: Faze Clan via XGaming analytics and esports brand company Gamesquare, which counts Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones as one of its investors, is acquiring the struggling gaming influencer group Faze Clan. The all-stock deal is worth about $17 million, Bloomberg reports, a steep drop-of…

The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses actually make the future look cool While Meta hasn’t reinvented the category, it’s nailed the execution. But culturally, is the timing right for smart glasses? Continue reading…

How to use Apple’s Conversation Awareness mode on the AirPods Pro Illustration by Samar Haddad / The VergeChatting with someone while wearing your AirPods Pro has never been difficult: all it takes is a quick press-and-hold of the earbuds’ stem to activate transparency mode, and then it’s easy to hear anyone in your vicinity. But now Apple is taking things a step further and attempting to remove any and all fr…

Inside Discord’s reform movement for banned users Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeThis is Platformer, a newsletter on the intersection of Silicon Valley and democracy from Casey Newton and Zoë Schiffer. Sign up here. Today, let’s talk about how the traditional platform justice system is seeing signs of a new reform movement. If it’s successful at Discord, its backers hope that the initi…

How to use the Pixel 8’s Best Take to pick your favorite faces in group photos Google Photos has a clever new feature for your group photos. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The VergeThere are a few things you can always depend on in photography, and one is that someone will always be blinking or making a weird face in a group photo. You can try taking 20 photos in rapid succession to increase your chances that everyone wi…

Pokémon Sleep helped me catch ’em all — all the z’s, that is The mobile app isn’t for everyone, but for one insomniac, Pikachu and Snorlax made a big difference. Continue reading…

In Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Mario’s personality finally comes through Image: NintendoEven though he doesn’t speak, in Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Mario says more than he ever has in any game previous. Beyond his “wahoos” and “okey dokeys,” this Mario has a real personality, facilitated by a suite of power-ups and Nintendo’s meticulous attention to detail. Though we’ve seen a bit of this new personality in the movie,…

Blue checkmarks on X are ‘superspreaders of misinformation’ about Israel-Hamas war X’s community notes feature isn’t doing much to prevent the spread. | Illustration: The VergeThe vast majority of viral misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war being posted on X (formerly Twitter) is being pushed by verified users, according to a recent study by NewsGuard — a for-profit organization that rates the trustworthiness of news sites…

Israel-Hamas war: how social media companies are handling the response Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeThe war in Israel presents content moderation challenges for the most popular social media sites. Continue reading…

Jon Stewart’s Apple TV Plus show ends, reportedly over coverage of AI and China Jon Stewart on the set of The Problem With Jon Stewart. | Image: AppleSnagging Jon Stewart to host a new political talk show after his departure from The Daily Show was one of Apple TV Plus’ biggest achievements when The Problem With Jon Stewart was first announced back in 2020. But ahead of production kicking off on the show’s third season, Ste…

Slack is retiring its status account on X Illustration: Alex Castro / The VergeSlack is retiring its status account on X that previously shared updates about issues and outages on the platform, the company announced on Thursday. “We made the decision to retire the @SlackStatus account in order to consolidate our communications around incidents and focus resources on those most widely us…

Toyota and Lexus join the Tesla charging connector bandwagon Image: LexusToyota and its luxury brand Lexus will start implementing Tesla’s winning charging plug standard known as the North American Charging Standard, or NACS, in “certain” vehicles starting in 2025. Toyota will also provide current and soon-to-be EV buyers with adapters to access 12,000-plus Tesla Supercharger stations. One of Toyota’s fir…

Amazon eliminated plastic packaging at one of its warehouses Amazon’s paper mailers. | Image: AmazonAmazon is fulfilling a small part of its promise to switch from using plastic bubble mailers and air pillows to all recyclable paper packaging for its shipments. The company announced that it has outfitted one facility in Euclid, Ohio, with an upgraded packaging machine that can automatically fold custom-fi…

Amazon, Microsoft, and India crack down on tech support scams Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeAmazon, Microsoft, and India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the country’s federal enforcement agency, have announced a major crackdown on tech support fraud. The CBI’s post details two instances where scammers pretended they were customer support agents for two “well-known multi-national compa…

The latest AI copyright lawsuit involves Mike Huckabee and his books Photo by Steven Ferdman / Getty ImagesFormer Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is among a group of authors suing Meta, Microsoft, and other companies over the use of their work in building AI tools. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, Huckabee and other authors including Christian writer Lysa TerKeurst allege that their books were pirated and used in dat…

OpenAI is opening up DALL-E 3 access Image: OpenAIOpenAI is launching wider availability of its latest text-to-image generator. On Thursday, the company is giving ChatGPT Plus and Enterprise customers access to the new DALL-E 3 model that works within the ChatGPT app. OpenAI says it has prepared a safety mitigation stack for the model that makes it ready for an expanded release. DA…

FCC greenlights superfast Wi-Fi tethering for AR and VR headsets The VergeThe FCC unanimously approved plans by several tech companies to use the 6GHz band for wireless devices on the same day it voted to move forward with restoring net neutrality rules. FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel proposed the new rules, which would authorize very low power (VLP) operations — meaning their signals won’t be able to go very …

Universal Music sues AI company Anthropic for distributing song lyrics Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeMajor record label Universal Music Group and other music publishers have sued artificial intelligence company Anthropic for distributing copyrighted lyrics with its AI model Claude 2. The music publishers’ complaint, filed in Tennessee, claims that Claude 2 can be prompted to distribute almost identical lyr…

Amazon has renewed Gen V for a sophomore season Jaz Sinclair as Marie Moreau. | Photo by Brooke Palmer / Prime VideoAs invested as Amazon has been in its adaptation of The Boys, it always seemed like a given that the series’ new spinoff, Gen V, would be coming back for a second season following its debut last month. But just in case there was any doubt, Amazon’s just made Gen V’s sophomore ye…