Hulu subscribers following the Oscars ceremony on Sunday night were outraged when the streaming service ended its broadcast of the event before the awards show was actually over. Viewers saw a thank you for watching message that falsely claimed the live event has now ended despite the fact that the Best Actress and Best Picture awards were still to come. Social media platforms immediately lit up with complaints.It proved to be a rough night for the Disney-owned service. A few hours earlier, Hulu acknowledged that some customers were having issues logging in: that problem was rectified slightly before 9PM ET. But shutting off the live stream ahead of the evenings biggest announcement was an even more embarassing blunder. The error likely stems from Hulu giving the Oscars stream a set ending time of 10:32PM. Thats exactly when viewers were kicked out of the stream. As usual, several acceptance speeches ran long on Sunday night, and Hulus chosen cutoff time didnt allow for enough wiggle room for an often-unpredictable broadcast. I dont know how were still having these streaming mishaps in 2025 especially from the company that owns the rights to the Oscars telecast but here we are.The Verge has reached out to Hulu for an explanation as to just what went wrong on Hollywoods biggest night.

Lenovo has announced a new concept laptop at Mobile World Congress that encourages you to work outside by reducing your dependence on power cables. The Yoga Solar PC is an early proof of concept device featuring a solar panel integrated into the laptops lid. It can harness light from any source to boost its battery, but as with most solar-powered devices, youll get the most power while working outside on a clear, sunny day.The company hasnt announced any plans to put the Yoga Solar PC into production. However, its ThinkBook Plus Gen 6, featuring an expanding and rollable OLED display, initially debuted as a concept at Mobile World Congress in 2023 but will be available sometime in June 2025 for $3,499.The Yoga Solar PCs light-absorbing panel is made up of 84 solar cells featuring a Back Contact cell design. All of the panels mounting brackets and electrical contacts that collect and transfer the energy thats generated are located behind the solar cells. The front of the panel is able to capture more light, allowing Lenovo to achieve a conversion rate how much of the captured sunlight is converted to usable electricity of more than 24 percent.There are 84 solar cells on the Yoga Solar PCs lid, with brackets and wires hidden behind the panel so it can capture more light. Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The VergeThats more efficient than most of the silicone-based solar panels used in consumer electronics today, but a bit behind panels featuring an added layer of perovskite film on top that can boost light absorption and efficiencies to up to 43 percent. Even at 24 percent efficiency, Lenovo says the Yoga Solar PCs panel can absorb and convert enough solar energy from direct sunlight in 20 minutes to power up to one hour of video playback. The company says its still evaluating how much power is produced in conditions with lower light.Powered by an Intel Lunar Lake paired with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, the Yoga Solar PC measures in at 15 millimeters thick and weighs around 2.29 pounds with its 14-inch OLED display. To help ensure users are able to best take advantage of the light available to them whether indoors or outside the laptop will also feature Lenovos Dynamic Solar Tracking system software showing how much current and voltage the solar panel is producing.Lenovos Solar Power Kit for Yoga can be used to solar charge any gadget with a USB-C cable. Image: LenovoFor existing Yoga laptop users wanting to reduce their battery anxiety while touching grass, Lenovo also revealed an external solar power kit concept. Its a standalone solution that opens like a book to reveal a pair of side-by-side solar panels that can be attached to a backpack or stand on its own with a fold-out kickstand. It can connect and deliver power to a device with a USB-C cable, or the suns rays can be used to charge an included power bank that can power other devices later. But Lenovo hasnt announced plans to put it into production yet.Lenovo created the concept to bridge the gap between functionality and environmental awareness, giving users easy access to an alternative energy source. Youd need the weather to cooperate for a while to fully charge the Yoga Solar PC using its relatively small solar panel, but it could be a welcome fallback for when a power outlet is nowhere in reach.See More:

Honestly Im into this back panel design even without the solar functionality.Chinese phone brand Infinix is known to show off a flashy concept, and at this years MWC the company is looking skyward for inspiration. Its showing a phone with an integrated solar panel on the back, as well as a solar charging phone case. Theyre both in the concept phase, but the demo units I saw at MWC were functional and the idea is plenty appealing.Infinix calls this SolarEnergy-Reserving technology, and it uses perovskite solar cells like Ankers beach umbrella and cloak concept. These cells are thinner and cheaper to produce than traditional silicon solar cells. Thats paired with a system that helps regulate voltage called Maximum Power Point Tracking. The idea is to maximize power while managing heat; sitting under a hot sun might be good for solar cells, but its generally not great if you want to keep your phone from overheating. As it exists now, this technology can charge a phone at up to 2W, and is intended to pad out a phones reserved charge while its not in use.The phone with built-in solar panel on the back is pretty self-explanatory, but I think the case is more interesting. Its paired with a prototype phone that has a couple of small contacts on the side to deliver power from the case. Being able to swap it out for a regular case when youre, say, going out at night would make sense. Likewise, having it around during a power outage would be handy.Infinix is having a little fun at MWC, too, and is also showing off its second-gen color-changing E Ink phone. On the previous version, the back panel only changed color when plugged in. Now, it will run on the phones internal battery power, and is more customizable with a range of patterns and palettes.They all look pretty similar, but in theory you can choose a photo as inspiration for the color palette or set it to change with the weather. Because its 2025, it does this with the help of you guessed it artificial intelligence.

In a pair of social media posts today, President Donald Trump named some cryptocurrencies he says will be part of a Crypto Strategic Reserve being created by an executive order he signed in January. Those include Bitcoin and Ether, which he says will be the heart of the Reserve. Trump said in the first of his two Truth Social posts that his order directed the Presidential Working Group to move forward on a Crypto Strategic Reserve that also includes XRP, Solana (SOL), and Cardano (ADA). Trump hinted at such a reserve on the campaign trail, telling attendees of a crypto conference last year that the US would never sell its Bitcoin holdings. Under Trump, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has quickly backed away from the wary stance toward cryptocurrencies it held prior to Trumps inauguration this year. The agency has recently dropped multiple investigations and lawsuits against cryptocurrency firms that alleged securities violations. One of the currencies Trump mentioned today, Ripples XRP, was the subject of a 2020 SEC lawsuit in which a judge ruled that it functioned as an unregistered security, but only when Ripple sold it to institutional investors. The SEC appealed that decision in October last year; as of this writing, that appeal is ongoing.

An FAA Air Traffic Control tower at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) in Newark, New Jersey. | Photo: Angus Mordant / Bloomberg via Getty Images<br>Officials at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Friday ordered staff to begin finding tens of millions of dollars for a Starlink deal to upgrade air traffic control communications, anonymous sources have told Rolling Stone. The story follows reports that Starlink may be taking the job from Verizon, which already has a multibillion-dollar contract with the government to improve the system.According to Rolling Stone, the talks have mostly, if not entirely, been delivered verbally, something its sources say is unusual for a matter like this. One person the outlet spoke with suggested that it looked like someone does not want a paper trail. Rolling Stone says its not clear whether the Verizon contract has ended yet, nor if any Starlink deal is official. Starlink is a subsidiary of SpaceX, which DOGE head Elon Musk owns.Referring to previous reporting in a statement issued yesterday, House Representatives Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and James Clyburn (D-SC) called the reported deal a glaring conflict of interest in light of Musks government role at the head of DOGE, which has been directing massive, chaotic changes to federal bureaucracy. The two said the deals changes would represent dangerous actions that put Elon Musks personal wealth over the American peoples lives. Musk insisted last week that Verizons system was breaking down very rapidly and putting flyers at risk. He later corrected himself, noting the Verizon system is not yet operational and that the one he was criticizing was made L3 Harris. He also claimed Starlink is providing terminals for free to restore air traffic control connectivity.

HMD announced a new set of earbuds today with a case that doubles as a backup phone battery. The aptly named wireless Amped Buds come in a Qi2 charging case that uses reverse wireless charging to boost your phones charge. With a slim design and a 1,600mAh battery, its a portable case that offers just enough charge to get through the end of the day. Theyre priced at 199 (about $206) and will launch in April. We dont yet know if theyll come to the US.The Amped Buds include active noise cancellation and environmental noise cancellation. The case is rated IPX4 for some dust resistance, and the earbuds are IP54 splash-resistant. The case measures 14mm thick, and the buds are designed with a hinge to fit straight into the case for charging. Theyre spring loaded, so theres a satisfying pop when you put them in or take them out of the case. Remove the buds, and youll fold the stems forward to fit like standard earbuds.The Amped Buds case is portable enough.The cyan case, with wireless charging area shown.Theres a hinge so that the buds fit straight-on into the case.The buds pop in and out of the housing.The case and buds are color-matched and come in cyan, black, and pink. The cases Qi2 support means it will connect magnetically to Qi2 and MagSafe phones for a secure fit while charging. It can be used with magnetic phone cases, too, or with any plain wireless charging phone (it just wont stick securely), and theres a USB port to provide wired charging. Of course, you can just use the case to charge the earbuds themselves more than ten times over, according to HMD, which gets you up to 95 hours of music playback time before you have to charge the case again.Its a clever concept that makes immediate sense. Plenty of us are used to charging and carrying earpods already, so theres no new behavior to learn. You just carry your earbuds with you as usual, and if you happen to run low on battery, you have a back-up on hand, or you just have a huge battery to keep recharging your buds. Pretty slick.HMD announced the buds at MWC where it also unveiled an FC Barcelona-branded phone and a safety-focused phone for teens developed with kids smartwatch maker Xplora. But the earbuds stand out to me as the most interesting new offering.See More:

Apple Intelligence was supposed to finally deliver a more natural version of Siri, but now, people who work in Apples AI department believe the company wont release a truemodernized, conversational version of Siri until iOS 20 at best in 2027, writes Bloombergs Mark Gurman in todays Power On newsletter.Apple is expected to roll out an LLM-powered Siri upgrade in iOS 18.5, but Gurman says this will work as its own separate model from the old Siri, a system that doesnt work as smoothly as it could. According to Gurman, the modernized Siri would merge the two into a new architecture that can handle both simple requests, like setting timers, and the advanced AI-powered abilities Apple showed off last year, like carrying out tasks across apps using context like personal details and whats on your screen. Apple planned to introduce this combined Siri architecture in iOS 19.4, but its running behind and wont be unveiled in June, when the company usually holds WWDC, Gurman writes. Amazon reportedly struggled with its own AI assistant upgrade of Alexa; Amazon head of Devices and Services Panos Panay told my colleague Jennifer Tuohy that the new Alexa Plus system has involved a hundred percent re-architected system that blends the old Alexa with the new. Thats now coming in early access soon, though only to certain devices.Apple is on the same path but with extra challenges. Gurman reports that people in Apples AI department say its models are reaching their limits, but the company has had a hard time securing the AI training hardware it needs to improve things. At the same time, he writes that the department has been plagued by ineffective leadership and workers defecting to rivals, all while those rivals seem to be pushing farther and farther ahead.

Just days after revealing the 15 Ultra in China, Xiaomi has announced a UK and European launch for its latest flagship phone, together with the base Xiaomi 15. Theres no sign of the Pro model, but there is an array of tablets, earbuds, and fitness trackers appearing alongside the phones.The 15 and 15 Ultra are available to order from today, starting at 1,299 / 1,499 (around $1,600) for the Ultra and 899 / 999 (around $1,100) for the 15. Both are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite and include big batteries, fast wired and wireless charging, and IP68 ratings.The cameras are really where the two phones diverge. While both phones feature similar sounding sets of 50-megapixel main, telephoto, and ultrawide cameras, the Ultra actually uses different sensors on every lens, so should net superior results. It also features a fourth lens: a 200-megapixel, 4.3x periscope lens that dominates the already large camera module on the phones back. Xiaomi is also selling a Photography Kit add-on for 179 (around $225), which includes a functional camera grip accessory complete with a shutter button, zoom lever, and exposure dial.The two phones are joined by the Xiaomi Pad 7 and Pad 7 Pro, a pair of 11.2-inch Android tablets with 3.2K 144Hz displays. The two tablets are similarly specced, but the Pro model uses a faster Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chip (compared to a 7 Plus Gen 3 on the 7) and has higher resolution cameras. They go on sale from 369 (around $465) and 449 ($565) respectively. The Pro also ships in a Matte Glass version which should offer reduced screen glare for 549 ($690).Xiaomi has also announced European releases for the Buds 5 Pro, which come in a Bluetooth model and a separate Wi-Fi version for improved quality when paired with a compatible Xiaomi phone. Finally, there are two wearables too: the Smart Band 9 Pro features improved health tracking compared to last years model, while the Watch S4 is a simple smartwatch that features a return of the swappable bezels introduced this time last year in the Watch S3.Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge

Xiaomi has given a European launch to its Buds 5 Pro, the first earbuds to use Qualcomms S7 Pro chip to stream audio over Wi-Fi, in addition to Bluetooth, with no increase in power consumption. Qualcomm announced the technology in October 2023, and this is the first hardware to launch.The Buds 5 Pro were announced in China on Thursday, alongside the 15 Ultra phone, which is also launching in Europe. They come in two versions: a regular Bluetooth model, and a Wi-Fi version that uses Qualcomms Expanded Personal Area Network (XPAN) tech to deliver 96kHz/24bit lossless audio at a bandwidth of up to 4.2Mbps, superior to anything you can get over Bluetooth. Youll also be able to walk away from your phone without the connection deteriorating, so long as you stay within the range of your Wi-Fi network.There are caveats. The obvious one is that youll need to be on Wi-Fi, so youre only likely to get the benefits of better audio on your home network. When it announced XPAN in 2023, Qualcomm told The Verge that your phone will pass over Wi-Fi credentials during pairing, but we dont yet know whether the buds can handle connections to multiple networks, so that they work in the office too. Still, whenever Wi-Fi is unavailable, the buds can always fall back on Bluetooth.Since this is Qualcomm tech, youll also need to use a phone with a compatible Qualcomm flagship chipset, such as the 8 Gen 3 or 8 Elite. That includes Xiaomis new 15 and 15 Ultra of course, but rules out using these over Wi-Fi with any iPhone or other Apple tech.The 10-hour battery life on the buds (with up to 40 including the case) is better than the eight hours of the Bluetooth model, backing up Qualcomms claim that it can deliver lossless Wi-Fi audio at the same power consumption as Bluetooth.Audio comes from a triple-driver system, with an 11mm main driver backed up by a PZT tweeter and planar driver. Theres support for active noise cancellation, and an array of AI features built-in including call recording, transcription, and translation.The Buds 5 Pro Wi-Fi are available for 189.99 (around $240) and only come in black. They cost a little more than the 159.99 (around $200) Bluetooth-only version, available in white or gray.See More:

Mobile World Congress 2025 is nearly upon us, and were heading to Barcelona to see what the worlds smartphone manufacturers have to offer as they launch new devices, tease new features, and talk incessantly about AI. The show officially kicks off on March 3rd and runs to March 6th, but the first announcements should arrive on March 2nd, when Xiaomi, HMD, and Honor all have press conferences scheduled.MWC may be a long way from its glory days when the likes of Samsung and Sony used it as the launchpad for that years flagship phones, but there are still some major players expected to unveil new hardware next week most notably, Xiaomi bringing its flagship 15 series to Europe. Nothing, HMD, and Realme are among the other companies we already know are planning to launch new phones.Read Article >

Samsung is bringing even more AI to its line of budget-friendly phones. The new Galaxy A56, A36, and A26 now come with what the company calls awesome intelligence, enabling an array of new AI-powered image editing features already available with Samsungs pricier S25 lineup.One of these features is Best Face, an AI tool that lets you swap the facial expressions of up to five people in a motion photo in case someone blinks or looks away from the camera. Its similar to Google Pixels Best Take and launched with the Galaxy S25 in January.Theres an improved object removal tool and photo filters, along with Googles Circle to Search feature that allows you to search for text and images just by circling it on your screen. (Samsung added Circle to Search to select A-series devices last August.) The phones will also support up to six years of Android OS and security upgrades, which is longer than what Samsung previously offered for the previous generation.The Galaxy A36 has a last-gen Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chip.Besides new AI features, Samsung made some small design tweaks to each phone, as well. In addition to an oval-shaped rear camera housing, all three devices now have the same 6.7-inch full HD Plus display with an up to 120Hz refresh rate, as opposed to the smaller 6.6-inch screen on the A55 and A35, and 6.5 inches on the A25. The A56 comes with the same 12MP ultrawide sensor, 50MP main camera, and 5MP macro camera. It also has a 12MP selfie shooter (which is lower than the A55s 32MP front-facing sensor).Though the A56 comes with an upgraded Exynos 1580 chip, the A36 has a last-gen Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chip. All three A-series devices have a 5,000 mAh battery, but only the A56 and A36 support 45W charging and come with a larger vapor chamber to improve performance. Samsung has also extended IP67 dust and water resistance to the A26 for the first time. The phones will ship with Android 15 and come in a range of colors that vary by device.The Galaxy A26 gets a slightly larger 6.7-inch display, too. Image: SamsungAt $499, the Galaxy A56 is the most expensive of the bunch and will launch in the US later this year. The A36 will be available on March 26th exclusively at Best Buy starting at $399, while the A26 will cost $299 when it launches on March 28th. The Galaxy A56, A36, and A26 will also be available for purchase in the UK on March 19th for 499, 399, and 299, respectively.See More:

The Ikea Timmerflotte, as represented in an FCC filing.Ikea has registered its first Thread device, a new Matter-supporting temperature and humidity sensor called the Timmerflotte, with the FCC, reports HomeKit News. A diagram from the filing, which was spotted by CybermodStudios, shows a circular device thats powered by two AAA batteries and features a QR code and 11-digit number for Matter setup. The Timmerflotte doesnt appear to use any other wireless protocol other than Thread, HomeKit News notes. That means Ikea, which tends to use the Zigbee or Wi-Fi protocols for its devices, doesnt offer a hub that this device could natively integrate with. Ikeas Dirigera hub lacks both Thread border router capability, for one thing. And although it can now act as a Matter bridge, its not a Matter controller, meaning you cant control Matter products with it.That said, Ikea originally announced that the Dirigera would have Thread support. It ultimately didnt launch with it, but the Timmerflottes listing may be a sign Ikea is ready to switch on the Dirigeras Thread radios and Matter controller functionality. That could let it serve as a standalone smart home hub, similar to the Aqara M3 hub or Flics LR and Mini hubs.

Federal workers started getting emails on Friday night, asking them to provide a list of accomplishments from the week, reports The New York Times. According to the outlet, the message told workers theyll now be expected to provide such a list every Monday by 11:59PM ET. This time around, the Times writes that employees who worked only on classified or sensitive activities were instructed to write all of my activities are sensitive in response. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) reportedly sent the email to agencies that include the FBI, the General Services Administration, and the Departments of Defense, Justice, Labor, and Agriculture. In at least one other case, it was sent by an internal department address, according to The Associated Press.The Times notes that its not clear whether there are any consequences for those who dont respond to the new email or future ones. After a similar email was sent to federal workers last week, Musk wrote on X, Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation a detail that was missing from the original email, something a number of legal experts have said is illegal. On Thursday, a federal judge said the OPM cannot fire employees of another agency and ordered it to rescind directives that resulted in the mass firings of probationary employees, many of whom were senior workers in key roles. In an open letter the same day, Senator Alex Padilla (D-California) urged Musk and the OPM to stop sending emails to employees of legislative branch offices and agencies who are not subject to personnel actions by the Executive branch. Padilla said the messages are wasting time and resources and potentially misleading employees into responding and sharing legislative branch information in an unauthorized manner.Many agencies told employees not to reply to last weeks email, while others said they should. Musk claimed last week, without evidence, that the original round of emails were aimed at finding fraudulent employees. The Times points out he repeated that claim during a Wednesday cabinet meeting, saying there may be a number of people on the government payroll who are dead.

Since its founding in 2007, the Mumbai-based collaborative studio CAMP has used surveillance, TV networks, and digital archives to examine how we move through and record the world. In addition to their film and video projects, the wildly prolific studio runs a rooftop cinema in Mumbai and maintains several online video archives, including the largest digital archive of Indian film.CAMPs first major US museum exhibition is on view now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York through July 20th and includes three video projects spanning two decades of work. The exhibits three films repurposed private television sets into interactive neighborhood portrayals, collected cellphone footage recorded by sailors navigating the Indian Ocean, and reimagined how a CCTV camera could be utilized for exploration rather than control. In one film, CAMP collected cellphone videos that sailors shared at ports via bluetooth; in another, passersby on street level control a surveillance camera 35 stories above.I chatted with two of CAMPs founders, Shaina Anand and Ashok Sukumaran, about the importance of maintaining an open digital archive, the slippery definition of piracy, and how footage that never makes it into a finished film is often the most illuminating.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.Shaina Anand and Ashok Sukumaran at the opening for the exhibit Video After Video: The Critical Media of CAMP, at The Museum of Modern Art in New York on February 20th, 2025. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeYour film, From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf, offers a portrait of sailors navigating the Indian Ocean, using cellphone videos to document their journeys and daily lives. Can you talk about how that project came to be and how this partnership with the sailors began?Ashok Sukumaran: Around the global financial crisis, in 2009, we were walking around the city of Sharjah in the UAE. Sharjah is a creek city, like Dubai. Before oil was discovered, the creeks were the main city center focus. And these boats were these kind of weird, out-of-time wooden ships, and many of them were going to Somali ports. So, we asked them, How come there were no issues with pirates? Because everything we were hearing about Somalia at that time was about piracy. They said, No, no, theres a difference between going to the Somali town carrying everything they need and driving past it with a ton of oil.Shaina Anand: Almost all of these giant wooden boats were built in these twin towns in the Gulf of Kutch, in Gujarat, and they were massive. They were 8002,000-ton giant wooden crafts. AS: Theres a kind of language of the port. The Iranians, the UAE folks, the Somali, and of course, Indians and Pakistanis speak a kind of common language, which is close to a Hindustani mix of Farsi and Urdu. So, we were able to talk to everyone, to some extent, and we discovered a kind of music video genre that was really inspiring. This was the 2000s, with early Nokia phones, and sailors would shoot video and add music to it. Then their memory cards would run out [and theyd get deleted]. Some of the videos were 100 by 200 pixels.SA: It was really important to us to try to trace the genealogy of the cellphone video, and it obviously was changing so fast. [The videos were] 10 frames a second, or 13 frames a second, in odd, square formats. It was rapidly changing. For us, what was striking was that this image emerged in the middle of nowhere, out at sea, when a brethren boat or a comrade boat was filming on a phone. When our film had its festival run at the National Theatre in London, one of the film programmers came and told me, It gives us such joy to see those images on the best screen in London. And it gave us the same joy, too. That there is an equality, then.Many people misread this low-res image and [call it] a poor image, and were like, that is not what it is at all. How were the videos originally transferred and shared among sailors?SA: It was a very physical process because these were not found on the internet. We were physically sitting down with people and saying, Whats on your phone? Can I have a look at it? What did you film? These [videos] were exchanged over Bluetooth, so they were not uploaded to YouTube, but they were literally transferred by putting the phones together.AS: [When the boats] anchor for a bit at these smaller islands along the Gulf of Aden or Gulf of Persia, theyre still always in pairs or threes. They travel together for safety. Thats also the time for leisure and piping in those songs.From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf presented in the first room of the Video After Video: The Critical Media of CAMP exhibition. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeTheres something sweet about this moment of being bored at sea and using that space to create something. SA: In a lot of our work, you see this idea that the subject of the film is usually behind the camera. Theyre usually running the thing, and they are looking out at whatever interests them. At sea, you have a lot of time, even though its busy when its loading and unloading. But at sea, a lot of people are basically hanging out and taking pictures of the things that they can see. Then the music adds the emotional tenor. All the music in the film was found with the video; we didnt add any music ourselves. AS: And then if your phone has 2GB memory, thats the ephemera bit. The video gets deleted, but its found on another boat on someone elses phone.SA: And within these communities, the videos are quite traceable because the boats are known. There are a thousand boats, but people would instantly recognize, Thats so and so. Even by looking at the shape of the boat in a 100-pixel video, they would know which boat it was. You talked a little bit about how these videos were really ephemeral; they got erased very quickly. So much of your work seems to be about a commitment to maintaining an archive. AS: We set up CAMP in 2007, with our collaborators who were lawyers and coders and cinephiles, and then, all of us together, good friends. We set up Pad.ma, our first online archive, and the lawyers were working around copyright law and trying to challenge them legally, pushing fair use. We didnt want to valorize piracy, but we realized how, for countries in Asia, piracy was vital.You didnt even think of [buying software from] Microsoft. You bought the parts of a computer with help from the person selling them, saying, Okay, so much RAM, this motherboard, and so on, and then loaded what you wanted. Shaina Anand, Ashok Sukumaran, Rohan Chavan, and Jan Gerber from left. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeSA: The whole Indian tech sector was built on piracy, or whats called piracy. People were not able to pay the fees. With Pad.ma, we basically initiated this idea of a footage archive or a collection of material that was not films, but things that were shot by people during film projects that never made it into the cut. For political reasons, for economic reasons, for the reasons that the films were only 30 or 60 minutes long and they had filmed for years, all those kinds of things. The idea was that Pad.ma was a footage archive that allowed you to deeply access that material. So its an archive of scraps the things around the edges that maybe werent shown elsewhere.SA: Yeah, but here, the scraps are 20 times the size of the finished thing.AS: I think thats the important thing. You had 100 hours of footage for a 60-minute film. That was really the reason for building a non-state archive, and were the custodians and collaborators who think the 99 hours may be more important. Its not those old remnant scraps.Its the other way around.AS: Its the other way around. I mean, you have a one-hour interview, and two minutes might make it into a film.SA: You had all these examples of European avant-garde filmmakers coming to India making films and then doing these edits of what they thought they were seeing. But the footage is saying much more than their particular edit at the time. It can be very revealing of what was actually going on and how they filmed.So the archives contain a huge amount of data.SA: I mean, we have committed to that. We raised money from various sources for the projects. Indiancine.ma, which is a sister project, thats like the whole of Indian cinema as a metadata archive. AS: There were magical things in 2008 on the platform. One was that the timeline had cut detection. So, you can actually go to a cut just by using your left and right arrow keys. And you dont have that even in [Adobe] Premiere. You could also densely annotate. So you have researchers working, you have activists, you have film scholars, and they may take from the archive. But in that process, theyve given back their expertise or their views of the archive.Can you talk more about your work with participatory filmmaking?AS: On one level, what had been occupying my head space was this critique of how documentary images are taken, or why this relationship between subject, author, and technology is so dumb.I would keep saying, look at the image, and we can say a white guy filmed it, or we can know this really important Indian filmmaker filmed it, or you can say a top feminist filmmaker filmed it, or a queer person filmed it or a person from that community. But somethings a bit off in that form as well. Not just [in terms of] whos speaking for who and all of that. Another of your projects in the exhibit, Khirkeeyaan, which created video portals between neighbors and community centers using CCTV, seems like a place where the subject has a lot of authority over their image.AS: Between 2005 and 2006, CCTV cameras started to proliferate all over. And they were cheap. So, the electronic market where wed go to buy computer stuff now had become a CCTV market.It was $10 for those static cameras. You could get that quad box, like a four-channel mixer. They were everywhere really fast: the grocery store, the dive bar, the beauty salon, the abortion clinic. Wherever I went, I was seeing these tiny things.Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergePhoto by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergePhoto by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergePhoto by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeSA: When you put the camera on top of the TV and you allow the two systems to meet, you can just look into the television, and then thats part of the cable television network. By default, these systems are kind of oppositional. One is a broadcast system, or one is a sucking and one is a closed thing, and if you join them together, they start to talk to each other orDownload and upload simultaneously.AS: Exactly, which was the key property of video. That there was feedback. It was immediate.SA: It was live, and unlike film, you dont have to process it. They were ambient. They would go on for 24 hours. You were able to say that your household TV is now a portal.AS: The key thing was that this wasnt the internet. The cables were all 100 meters each. For a long time, until it got replaced by dish antennas, coaxial cable just used to snake across our cities. The cable would come to your house from the window sill, where the coax would be wrapped around, and thered be a little booster. It would go from neighborhood to neighborhood, building to building, terrace to terrace. [With Khirkeeyaan], the network was neighborly, but these neighbors were meeting each other for the first time. Was there anything that kind of surprised you about the way that this network was used?AS: What always surprises me, and continues to, is that when you set up your own kind of collaboration with the subjects, and then you exit, youre not asking those leading questions of, Tell me about your life, or Which village do you come from? And poetry happens. I think, what was very affirmative for me, was just the confidence with which people sat and looked at their TV sets. You sit and look at your TV set all the time, but the TV set now had a hole in it, and it was looking back at you.Shaina Anand stands in front of the projection of Bombay Tilts Down displayed in the final room of the exhibit, Video After Video: The Critical Media of CAMP. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeAnother of your videos in the show, Bombay Tilts Down, uses a CCTV camera. Can you talk more about your work utilizing surveillance?SA: CCTV, in a way, changes how we behave. It sort of infects, depending on who is watching us and how. In Bombay Tilts Down, it was the simple idea that this gaze of the camera is already there. In the city, there are 5,000 of exactly the same kind of camera, and probably many more.Theyre all at least 4K, and now theyre 8K, but they are robotic controllable cameras that are designed to do facial recognition at a distance. Instead of being a guard, waiting for something to happen, we used it to film the city. And the range is incredible; it goes way beyond the property line of the thing its trying to protect. You can see 15 kilometers away with it, from the 35th floor.So you installed the camera yourself. SA: This one, yes. The people you see in Bombay Tilts Down are looking up at the camera because people could see the stream downstairs, and some of them were moving the camera around, calling the shots.See More:

Google Photos makes backing up photos and videos from your phone pretty seamless: set it to work in the background and all your precious memories are saved to the cloud without you having to do anything else. The smoothness of this process does tend to mean you can find yourself with a rather gigantic collection, however which then creates its own problems when it comes to finding specific items in your ever-growing library. But even if you have a photo library spanning decades, there are tools to help.These are some of the search tricks you can try to find images and videos in Google Photos. Search by person (or pet)Google Photos can find all the photos that contain the same person or pet. Screenshot: GoogleGoogle Photos can recognize people and pets in your photos, and it can even recognize individuals as they age over time. In the web app, you search for a person or pet via the search box atop the Google Photos interface or via the People and pets link on the left-hand navigation panel. In the mobile app, use the search icon at the bottom right of the screen.If youve never identified the person before or if the algorithm doesnt recognize them, you will have to help out with the identification.First, make sure face grouping is enabled (its on by default, but it never hurts to check). In the web app, click the gear icon (top right), then choose Group similar faces and enable Face Groups. In the mobile app, tap your personal icon on the top right, then go to Photos settings > Preferences > Group similar faces and enable Face Groups.In both cases, you should also see an example photo of yourself labeled as me, and you can choose to identify pets along with people.Now, when you want to identify somebody in a photo, select it to see it full screen. In the web app, you should then see a panel on the right with a list of detected faces, together with the names of any people youve already identified. If you cant see the panel, click the info button (the i in a circle).In the mobile app, tap the three dots in the upper right corner; the detected faces, with their names, will be at the bottom of the screen.In either case, if you see photos of any unnamed faces, you can identify them:Click the face thumbnail to see all photos that contain this person or pet.Select Add a name to put a name to the face, then press Enter.You may also see a faces available to add link in the info panel. Click that to see any other people you may want to identify, and then select the pencil icon to match it to someone youve already named.Unfortunately, sometimes Google Photos will not recognize that there is a face in a photo and there isnt currently a way to let it know that there is someone else in the photo you want to name.Search by locationBecause your phone will usually register where you took a picture, you can search for those photos by location. Screenshot: GoogleSearching by location is more straightforward than managing faces. Just type the location youre looking for in the search box atop the web app or use the search icon in the bottom of the mobile app. You can search for countries, cities, towns, and just about anywhere thats marked on Google Maps.To see all the places Google Photos has tagged throughout the years, choose Places from the navigation panel on the left (on the web) or use the Collections icon on the bottom (on the mobile app).Note: while most phones will embed location information by default, you can add a location if your phone hasnt already done so.On the web app, open the info panel to the side of an image when viewing it in full screen (the i in a circle button), then click Add a location.On the mobile app, swipe up until you see Location, then tap the pencil icon. Search by date rangeIf the date information is incorrect on any image, you can change it. Screenshot: GoogleIn your Google Photos library, scroll down and youll see years appear on the right. Select anywhere in this sidebar to jump to a particular point in time.You can also enter a time period in the search box at the top: putting in a year, a month and a year, or even a specific date will return accurate results. Seasons also work, so you could use summer 2023 or winter 2024. Date range searches are possible by using the #date_range:yyyymmdd-yyyymmdd format in the search box. So, for example, #date_range:20250101-20250201 would give you all the photos taken during January 2025.Any images that dont contain date metadata will use the date they were added to Google Photos instead. To edit a photo date, click the pencil icon next to the current date on the right-hand info panel when viewing an image in full screen.Search by subjectYou may not realize how many photos of food youve taken until you search for them. Screenshot: GoogleAI-powered recognition in Google Photos is now advanced enough that it can find a lot of what youre looking for: beaches, bedrooms, trains, people skiing, or the color red, for example. Just type out what youre looking for in the search box at the top.However, the AI hasnt yet progressed to the stage where it can easily cope with two of these searches together so its best to stick to one search term. You cant find cats and dogs, but you can find either cats or dogs in separate searches, for instance.Something else to bear in mind: Google Photos searches through the text in your images, too, which is another way of sifting through them. Any search for table will return not just pictures with tables in them, but photos with the text table somewhere in the shot.See More:

Planning on spending your Sunday watching the 97th annual Academy Awards or catching up on the latest episode of Severance? If you dont already own a smart TV, Amazons latest Fire TV Stick 4K Max can make setup easy and inexpensive, especially now that its down to just $39.99 ($20 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. Thats just $7 shy of its lowest price to date and the best price weve seen this year.Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Max (2023)$40$6033% off$40Amazons latest streaming stick is faster than its predecessor with Wi-Fi 6E and double the storage. It also now displays widgets and artwork when idle while continuing to offer Alexa integration.Amazons newest 4K-capable streaming device functions a lot like its predecessor, only with a few added benefits. It features an upgraded processor for faster performance, for one thing, along with twice the storage (16GB vs. 8GB) and support for Wi-Fi 6E. It also can function more akin to an Echo Show when idle, allowing you to check the weather, gloss reminders, and view a host of widgets at a glance. You can also have it display famous works of art or a series of AI-generated images, which you can personalize with a simple Alexa prompt.RelatedAdditionally, the Fire TV Stick 4K Max provides access to a wide selection of streaming apps and Dolby Atmos, allowing for more immersive audio. It offers broad HDR support including support for Dolby Vision and HDR10 Plus and works impressively well with Alexa, to the point where you can make commands as specific as Alexa, turn to ESPN on Sling TV via the included Alexa remote. Admittedly, the interface is too Prime-centric for some of us at The Verge, but hey, they cant all be as slick as Googles TV Streamer.More deals and discountsAll eyes were on Frameworks 4.5-liter gaming desktop this week, but if you could care less for customizable aesthetics and AMDs Strix Halo, Apples M4 Mac Mini is on sale at Amazon with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage starting at $557 ($42 off). The step-up M4 Pro model offers faster Thunderbolt 5 storage and the option to upgrade to 10-gigabit ethernet; however, the compact entry-level configuration remains a fantastic value with outstanding performance and plenty of I/O. Read our review.Nomads annual Overstock Sale is in full effect, giving you a chance to save up to 70 percent on chargers, cables, cases, and a variety of other goods through Monday, March 3rd. Personally, Im partial to the Modern Leather Foio case for the iPhone 16 (now $49 $70) and the second-gen Stand One charger (now $88 $110), the latter of which features a hefty metal-and-glass design and can provide up to 15W of power to MagSafe-equipped iPhones. That being said, Nomad is also discounting a ton of vintage accessories, meaning youre in luck if youve been holding out for a premium leather case for your *checks notes* Google Pixel 4.Ive been eagerly awaiting Thomas Rickers review of the forthcoming Aurzen Zip, which is still available on Kickstarter for $299 ($100 off) thanks to early bird pricing. The tri-fold projector which is slated to launch later this month can mirror your iPhone or Android device in portrait or landscape orientation, yet its compact enough that you can place it just about anywhere. It also offers 100 lumens of brightness and up to 80 minutes of battery life, though, sadly, it cant stream from services like Netflix, Disney Plus, or Amazon Prime due to DRM restrictions.See More:

The beefy Windows gaming tablet is back, and its done two things I thought impossible. It made me respect integrated graphics, and it convinced me a Windows tablet can be fun. The Asus ROG Flow Z13 is a 13-inch tablet with a detachable keyboard, a bright screen, and the guts of a gaming laptop. I knew it was something special when I used a clamp-on controller to turn a preproduction model into some kind of superpowered, supersized Steam Deck. In daily use, its more like a husky Surface Pro, with an AMD Strix Halo processor featuring powerful integrated graphics for gaming and a battery that lasts a full workday in non-gaming tasks. Its a charming and versatile device that could plausibly replace a desktop, laptop, and a tablet or handheld for a certain type of PC gamer one who doesnt mind the $2,100 starting price.8Verge ScoreAsus ROG Flow Z13 (2025)$2100$2100The GoodImpressive game performance for an iGPU on a tabletCapable 2.5K performanceLaptop-quality keyboard and trackpadBattery can get through a day of work (with no gaming breaks)Play games on your lap without heating up your legsExcellent kickstandThe BadStill a pricey, niche deviceWish the keyboard cover had Bluetooth like the latest Surface ProPower / sleep button is too flushNo auto-brightnessKeyboard case sometimes not detected after waking from sleepSingle-zone keyboard RGB looks basic$2100 at Asus$2200 at Best BuyHow we rate and review productsThe ROG Flow Z13 is a tablet thats also trying to be a hardcore gaming machine. It has a 13.4-inch, 180Hz IPS touchscreen with pen support, 32GB of unified memory (up to 128GB), a 1TB m.2 SSD, and ample port selection, starting at $2,099.99. The Ryzen AI Max Plus 395 APU in our $2,299.99 review unit offers surprisingly good gaming performance, especially for a tablet. And the detachable keyboard with larger keycaps and trackpad feels like its pulled directly from the excellent ROG Zephyrus laptops. It makes for a potent portable gaming device one you can even use on your lap without your legs burning up. I used it keyboardless on the couch for a Discord movie and game night with some buds, and it left enough space on my lap for my cat to curl up. I stuck it on my desk, between my giant 4K monitor and my mechanical keyboard, and it doubled as my desktop computer and a handy secondary screen. I even plugged it into my TV like a game console one with much better graphics than any docked handheld. The ability to do all these things makes it a lot of fun.Its a great second screen to a large monitor.Or a console for a giant TV.But its coziest when chilling on your lap around the house.The Flow Z13s Strix Halo processor is very capable in graphics-heavy games at its native 2560 x 1600-inch resolution. Dont expect extras like path tracing, but do expect solid framerates in the 50 to 60-plus fps range on low-to-medium settings. In games that support FSR 3 and frame generation, you can push things further: with those scaling options enabled, Cyberpunk 2077 hit over 60fps and even pushed into the 70s at high settings on a 4K external monitor.Ive also played a bunch of Elden Ring on the Z13. (I blame the recent Nightreign network test for giving me the itch again.) At native resolution, it was consistently in the 50fps range on high settings, and at 1200p, it hit the games 60fps ceiling. By comparison, the first Z13, back in 2022, could barely muster 30fps at 1200p on medium settings in the Lands Between. That wasnt far off from the much cheaper and less powerful Steam Deck, which tops out around 40fps at 800p and medium settings, with plenty of framerate dips. Elden Ring remains one of the most-played titles on Valves $400 handheld. But its so much better on the new ROG Flow, and the delta between the Z13 and the Steam Deck is now much wider. You can even play for around 90 minutes on battery on the Z13, as opposed to 70 minutes on the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck is cheaper and comfier to use, but its also another device to keep track of. The Z13s detachable keyboard gives it some of the play-anywhere benefit of the Steam Deck while still being good for other things. If the Z13 just had dedicated controllers like I tried to adapt, itd be like a Super Steam Deck.The screen isnt OLED, but its a great looking 180Hz IPS panel.The design is fun and gamer-y without feeling edgelord.This is the first device of any kind weve tested that uses AMDs new Ryzen AI Max Strix Halo processors, which combine speedy CPU cores like the ones on AMDs Strix Point processors with AMDs most powerful integrated graphics cores. It also gives this Z13 much better battery life than previous models. It lasted a very respectable 10 hours in our battery rundown test, and I could get through an eight to nine-hour workday if I wasnt reckless (no games, around 200 to 300 nits brightness, power efficiency mode, and battery saver at 30 percent). The last Flow Z13 we tested, in 2023, with an Intel Core i9-13900H CPU and Nvidia RTX 4070 mobile GPU, lasted around four and a half hours in regular use and just 48 minutes while gaming. Asus ROG Flow Z13 (2025) benchmarksLaptopsGPUGeekbench 6 single-coreGeekbench 6 multicoreGeekbench 6 GPUCinebench 2024 single-coreCinebench 2024 multicore3DMark Time Spy (1440p)Shadow of the Tomb Raider (QHD+)Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra, no RT, FHD+)Asus ROG Flow Z13 (AMD Ryzen AI Max Plus 395)AMD Radeon 8060S29861984580819116145090346355Asus Zenbook S 16 (AMD Ryzen AI 9 370HX)AMD Radeon 890M282813565359911139983335Not testedNot testedAsus ROG Zephyrus G16 (AMD Ryzen AI 9 370HX)Nvidia GeForce RTX 40702901154621134341171218122089575Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (AMD Ryzen 9 8945HS)Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060258312335Not tested10494097676468Dell XPS 14 (Intel Core Ultra 7 155H)Nvidia GeForce RTX 405023401311832661102676Not testedNot testedNot testedRazer Blade 16 (Intel Core i9-14900HX)Nvidia GeForce RTX 40902922176061877331251505Not testedNot tested90In our benchmarks, the Z13s AMD Ryzen AI Max Plus 395 beats the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 of the Asus Zenbook S 16 (a productivity laptop) and Zephyrus G16 (a gaming laptop) and pretty much any Intel chip weve seen in a laptop recently in single-core and multi-core CPU tests. And the 40-core Radeon 8060S is astonishingly powerful for an integrated GPU, rivalling Nvidias RTX 4060. The RTX 4070 in the Zephyrus G16 still handily wins in GPU performance by 40-55 percent in Geekbench and 3DMark Time Spy, but Strix Halo proves formidable. And allow me to emphasize once more: integrated graphics.To get that performance on the Z13, youll have to pony up $2,299.99 for the configuration with the Ryzen AI Max Plus 395. Thats $200 more than the AI Max 390 chip in the base model, but according to YouTuber Cary The Phawx Golombs hourlong deep dive into both versions of the Z13, the upgrade, which gets you four more CPU cores and eight more GPU cores, is worth the money. Component report card:Screen: BWebcam: CRear-facing camera: DMic: CKeyboard: BTouchpad: BPort selection: BSpeakers: CNumber of ugly stickers to remove: 2 (one on the kickstand and one hidden beneath)All configurations of the Z13 are 0.51 inches thick and 2.65 pounds without the keyboard, which adds 0.86 pounds. By comparison, a Surface Pro 11 is 0.68 inches thick and 2.7 pounds with the keyboard. Asuss upcoming 2025 ROG Zephyrus G14 will be 0.63 inches thick and 3.46 pounds, which is slightly lighter and thinner than the chonky-for-a-tablet Z13. Hefty as the Z13 is, its compact size and rigid build make it feel more portable and knockaround-friendly than youd expect. The sturdy kickstand really helps when toting it around the house or repositioning it, since you can stick your hands under it and lift with support from your forearms, as opposed to just your fingers. Its still best thought of as a gaming laptop with a detachable keyboard, but its surprising how much more flexible that makes it. The Z13 also has a 5-megapixel webcam and 13-megapixel rear-facing camera. Youd have to be deranged to take actual pictures with the rear camera on a Windows tablet; its mostly useful for showing people things on video calls. The dual speakers are workable but dont offer a particularly full sound, especially at the low end, and you may accidentally block one when holding it in landscape orientation. And the chunky 200W power adapter uses Asus reversible proprietary connector (it supports 100W Power Delivery via its USB-C 4 ports, as well).1/8Just for fun, heres the Z13 and an older 13-inch iPad Pro. The Asus is certainly a chonk by comparison.As a tablet that makes a plausible gaming laptop and even desktop, the ROG Flow Z13 is as close to an all-in-one device as there is right now. And like any all-in-one, its expensive and it makes some compromises compared to more traditional devices price being the most obvious. You can spend less money on a more powerful (and even more compact) gaming laptop like the Zephyrus G14, or you can go the other way and get a desktop and a Steam Deck. But theres something about the Flow thats charming and joyful. If it werent quite so expensive, Id be tempted to buy it instead of a traditional gaming laptop and handheld.The Strix Halo chip inside the Z13 may end up being a bigger deal than the tablet itself. Thats already evidenced by its implementation in Frameworks endearing little Desktop and more traditional laptops on their way. But, for now, this intriguing chip takes one of the quirkiest and coolest tablet-laptop hybrids and makes it more powerful, more efficient, and a lot more compelling.Asus ROG Flow Z13 specs (as reviewed)Display: 13.4-inch (2560 x 1600) 180Hz IPS touchscreen, 500 nitsCPU: AMD Ryzen AI Max Plus 395 (16 cores, up to 5.1 GHz)GPU: AMD Radeon 8060S (40 cores)Unified memory: 32GB LPDDR5XStorage: 1TB NVMe M.2 PCIe 4.0 (2230)Webcam: 5MP front, 13MP rear, Windows HelloConnectivity: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4Ports: 2x USB 4 (Type-C) with Power Delivery / DisplayPort, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (Type-A), HDMI 2.1, 3.5mm combo audio jack, microSD card slot (UHS-II)Weight: 2.65 pounds (3.5 pounds with keyboard)Dimensions: 11.81 x 8.03 x 0.51 inches (0.59 inches with keyboard)Battery: 70WhPower adapter: 200W, proprietary connectorPrice: $2,299.99Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The VergeSee More:

Of all of my favorite games, Sayonara Wild Hearts might be the hardest to describe. Its a rhythm game, but also you ride on a motorcycle and a dragon, wield giant swords while dodging fireballs, and teleport to a retrofuturistic VR world. Its structured like a pop album, telling a story of love and loss, and is narrated by Queen Latifah. Its Tony Hawks Pro Skater meets R-Type crossed with Rhythm Heaven as directed by Carly Rae Jepsen. It makes sense once you play it, trust me.This was all true when the game first launched in 2019 on the Switch and PS4 (it was also on Apple Arcade, but has since been removed). But now is a good time to check it out if you havent. The game just launched on the PS5 its a free upgrade if you have it on PS4 which adds some performance improvements and a new endless mode called remix arcade that you can read more about here. Really, though, the new platform is just an excellent excuse to dive back into this world.Sayonara Wild Hearts follows the story of a young heartbroken woman who is transported to an alternate realm where she must restore harmony by collecting lots of hearts. To do this, you play through a series of 23 short levels, doing everything from racing through city streets to fighting biker gangs to flying amid the ruins of a destroyed city. Its an arcade-style game, where youre racing through levels in search of a high score (which you get by collecting hearts and other items), and most of what youre doing is in time to the beat of the dreamy pop music that plays throughout.RelatedThe game only lasts around two hours, but it packs so much into that space. What youre doing is constantly changing. Vehicles shift from skateboards to motorcycles to cars to human flight to dragons, and there are about a half dozen different styles of games, from old-school arcade shooters to early 3D platformers to racing games. Almost all of those genres are then filtered through the lens of rhythm action, for a twitchy experience that feels very cohesive. Its also pretty approachable. If you keep failing a section like me during any of the first-person driving sequences you have the option to simply skip it and move on.Just as important, Sayonara Wild Hearts is incredibly stylish. The dream world is slick and beautiful, rendered in pinks, blues, and purples, with characters that dance as they fight and, uh, mechs made out of robotic wolves. Its as weird as it is cool, and its carried by an incredible pop soundtrack from composers Daniel Olsn and Jonathan Eng, alongside vocalist Linnea Olsson. Its all bangers, and Im listening to it right now as I write this story.Just like a great album, Sayonara is something I find myself coming back to again and again. Ive replayed it several times over the last six years, and each time, Ive been struck by just how bold it is. Those feelings havent been diminished over time. It helps that its just the right length so you can easily soak it all in.If you havent heard of Sayonara Wild Hearts before, you might be surprised to learn that it comes from Simogo, the same Swedish studio behind last years cryptic noir puzzler Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. If you have heard of Simogo, well, then nothing will really surprise you. The studios games have covered everything from folklore horror to audio dramas to interactive spy novels. Its an eclectic lineup, but also one thats impressively consistent and inventive, and Sayonara might just be the team at the height of its creativity.See More:

A Paris-based creative studio has announced a minimalist turntable with controls streamlined to just a play button and a volume knob. Waiting For Ideas PP-1 short for Plug and Play doesnt even have a visible tonearm, and its made from a solid block of anodized aluminum requiring about 12 weeks of production time to manufacture. That makes it easier to understand why the PP-1 has a 5,800 (around $6,012) price tag.Although companies like ELP of Japan sell turntables that swap needles and tonearms for laser pickups, the PP-1 does feature more traditional record player hardware. The studio worked with a company called Miniot that created a similarly minimal turntable lacking a visible tonearm. Waiting for Ideas adapted Miniots technology so that the PP-1s inverted cartridge and stylus are hidden behind a closing door system and kept out of sight when theres no record sitting on its platter.Even without a record, the PP-1s stylus and cartridge are hidden behind a pair of metal doors that open and close. Image: Waiting For IdeasTheres also no speed control dial on the PP-1. Miniots technology can automatically detect if a record needs to be played at 33 or 45 RPM, and constantly recalculates the speed of the motor to ensure optimal playback at all times.Its not only a striking piece of design, its also a high-quality turntable. But if youre a vinyl enthusiast, youll need to remember to place your records upside down on the PP-1 to hear the tracks you want.Looking for a (nearly) complete sound system? The PP-1 can be paired with a matching set of passive speakers, but youll need to bring your own amplifier. Image: Waiting For IdeasPower is supplied by a single 5V USB-C port, and the PP-1 features just a single 3.5-millimeter audio jack for connecting it to either active or passive speakers that require an additional amplifier.If youre looking for a complete sound system, Waiting For Ideas has also created a set of passive 85-decibel 80W speakers matching the dimensions of the PP-1. Theyre now available for preorder for 3,200 (around $3,320) and will take 12 weeks to make. Youll just need to budget for a separate amplifier because the studio unfortunately doesnt make a matching one of those.See More:

Zapier informed customers on Friday that an unauthorized user accessed certain Zapier code repositories and may have gained access to customer information as a result. The customer data had been inadvertently copied to the repositories for debugging purposes, according to an email obtained by The Verge.The company says it became aware of the unauthorized access on Thursday. When it did, the company immediately secured access to the repositories and invalidated the unauthorized users access, the email says. Zapier says that the incident did not affect any Zapier database, infrastructure or production, authentication, or payment systems.The code repos shouldnt have included customer data. But after auditing them, Zapier discovered that some information had been inadvertently copied over. Zapiers platform allows users to create automations that work across other companies apps and services, potentially putting it in the middle of a lot of sensitive information.The hacker was able to access the repositories because of a two-factor authentication (2FA) misconfiguration on an employees account. The company says it is now conducting a review of its processes to ensure this does not occur again.Zapier didnt immediately reply to requests for comment.Here is the full email obtained by The Verge, signed by Zapier head of security Zeeshan Khadim:Hello,We are writing to inform you of a security incident. Due to a two-factor authentication (2FA) misconfiguration on an employees account, an unauthorized user gained access to certain Zapier code repositories. Normally, this would not impact our customers. Out of an abundance of caution, we audited the contents of the repositories, and we found that in isolated instances, certain customer information had been inadvertently copied to the repositories for debugging purposes.We became aware of unauthorized access to the affected repositories on Thursday, February 27, 2025 (2025-02-27 09:38:48 UTC). Once we became aware of the issue, we immediately secured access to the repositories and invalidated the unauthorized users access. This incident did not affect any Zapier database, infrastructure or production, authentication, or payment systems.In our audit, we found that a subset of your data was included in a repository and may have been accessed by the unauthorized user. Here is a secure link for you to access a copy of your impacted data.Please review this data, and take appropriate actions, which may include rotating any valid plain text authentication tokens that may have been used in places such as code, or webhook step configuration which were found in the impacted data. Note that your Zap/App authentication tokens were not impacted by this incident. We also recommend that you review security settings on your Zapier account and your other online apps, including activating 2FA where available.We are conducting a thorough audit and remediation of our internal processes to ensure this does not occur again for you or other customers.If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out by using our contact form at https://zapier.com/app/get-help or by responding to this email. We are standing by for any extra assistance you might need.Sincerely,Zeeshan KhadimHead of SecuritySee More:

For the last couple years, it has been evident that Google co-founder Sergey Brin is back in the building. This week, he sent a clear message to hundreds of employees in Googles DeepMind AI division, known as GDM: the pressure to win the AGI race is on.It has been 2 years of the Gemini program and GDM, begins his note, which The New York Times first reported on yesterday and Im publishing below in full. We have come a long way in that time with many efforts we should feel very proud of. At the same time competition has accelerated immensely and the final race to AGI is afoot. I think we have all the ingredients to win this race but we are going to have to turbocharge our efforts.Brin goes on to recommend that Googles AI teams work longer hours (60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivity), come into the office at least every week day, prioritize simple solutions to problems, and generally move faster (cant wait 20 minutes to run a bit of python). What stuck out the most to me was his last point: that Googles AI products are overrun with filters and punts of various kinds. According to Brin, Google needs to trust our users and cant keep building nanny products.While his note was intended for a small audience of AI researchers at DeepMind and not all of Google, its still remarkable in a couple of ways. For one, it came from Brin, who technically has no formal role these days besides being a board member, and not Demis Hassabis, who runs Google DeepMind. As some employees have poined out to me, theres also irony in Brin recommending that employees work 12-hour days when he and co-founder Larry Page arguably left Google rudderless when they retired in 2019 just before this AI boom cycle began in earnest. Finally, its telling that Brin, who attended President Donald Trumps inauguration with CEO Sundar Pichai, is now using his power to seemingly push for removing Geminis guardrails.You can read Brins full note to Gemini researchers below:It has been 2 years of the Gemini program and GDM. We have come a long way in that time with many efforts we should feel very proud of. At the same time competition has accelerated immensely and the final race to AGI is afoot. I think we have all the ingredients to win this race but we are going to have to turbocharge our efforts.Code matters most AGI will happen with takeoff, when the Al improves itself. Probably initially it will be with a lot of human help so the most important is our code performance. Furthermore this needs to work on our own 1p code. We have to be the most efficient coder and Al scientists in the world by using our own Al.Productivity In my experience about 60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivity. Some folks put in a lot more but can burn out or lose creativity. A number of folks work less than 60 hours and a small number put in the bare minimum to get by. This last group is not only unproductive but also can be highly demoralizing to everyone else.Location It is important to work in the office because physically being together is far more effective for communication than gve etc. And, therefore you need to be physically colocated with others working on the same thing. We need to minimize reporting lines across countries, cities, and buildings. I recommend being in the office at least every week day.Organization We need to have clear responsibility and organization with high functioning groups with shared management and technology leadership.Simplicity Lets use simple solutions where we can. Eg if prompting works, just do that, dont posttrain a separate model. No unnecessary technical complexities (such as lora). Ideally we will truly have one recipe and one model which can simply be prompted for different uses.Excellence whether its an eval or a data source or a dashboard or a message in an internal Ul, please make sure they all work and all are good.Speed we need our products, models, internal tools to be fast. Cant wait 20 minutes to run a bit of python on borg.Iterate at small scale we need lots of ideas that we can test quickly. The best way to do this is small scale experiments until you can ramp up and hopefully see increasing advantage at scale. This is an excellent validation. Working too much at just large scale has a habit of minor tweaking and overfitting to evals, checkpoint sniping, etc. We need real wins that scale.No punting we cant keep building nanny products. Our products are overrun with filters and punts of various kinds. We need capable products and [to] trust our users.Andrew Bosworth. Getty Images / The VergeWe just fire those peopleBy now, most employees at Meta have probably seen my story about the company firing around 20 employees for leaking. (A special thanks to the communications team for widely sharing it on Workplace!) Cracking down on leaks is nothing new for Meta, though leadership does seem highly motivated to snuff out this recent wave. Moments after my story was published yesterday, CTO Andrew Bosworth addressed the firings during a company all-hands meeting that was, yes, leaked to me. After joking about how chairs had been rearranged in the room to make the all-hands look more well attended than it actually was, heres what he had to say about leaks:There are three different types of leaks. A lot of times there are accidental leaks, people who are just being casual [and] clumsy with information. Theyre trying to share it to a friend, a housemate, their mom, and theyre not paying attention to what theyre doing. The second kind is people who are trying to be helpful. If only the press understood this one thing, then they would surely tell a good story about us. They wont. And then theres malicious leaks, antagonistic leaks, people who are trying to push an agenda that they hold and they think is more important to them than the company. All three of those leaks are fireable offenses. All three of them. And we take them seriously. We have a team dedicated to identifying these leaks. And so we did conduct a bunch of investigations and we fired more than 20 people for leaking in the last couple of weeks. More than 20. Thats not the entirety of the list. Theres quite a few more investigations that are proceeding right now. So, just to remind everybody, dont be screenshotting stuff, dont be recording stuff. We are getting pretty good at finding these things and those people arent here anymore We just have zero tolerance. It doesnt matter what the excuse is. It doesnt matter how innocuous you think it was. We just fire those people. Okay. Great. Fun. Boy, were really off to a great roll. Nobodys here. We fired people And they wonder why they gave me the Q&A.ElsewhereNewsoms plea: You could hear a pin drop when California Governor (and now podcaster) Gavin Newsom walked out to address hundreds of influential tech investors at the Upfront Summit in Los Angeles earlier this week. It was the first time Id seen him address the tech industry since President Trump won the presidency. He made sure to take shots (its the regulatory market that created Elon Musk in California) but mostly came across as pleading with a cohort he knows the Democrats have already lost: Alabama is an interesting state. Mississippi may be your jam. I dont mean to knock you. Im just saying I think youre leaving a little on the table in terms of opportunity.Amazons Alexa revamp: Reporters werent allowed to test the new Alexa Plus experience on their own at the unveiling in NYC this week. As others have reported, and Ive also heard from company insiders, this AI revamp of Alexa has been plagued from the start with several changes in strategy and release delays. There are still a lot of bugs to be worked out before the new subscription starts slowly rolling out to people next month. Well have more on all this when Nilay Patel drops his Decoder interview with Amazons Panos Panay next week.AI headlines: Nvidias stock price slid after it reported earnings DeepSeek is working on its next model Anthropic released its first hybrid reasoning model OpenAI released GPT-4.5 (and said it is momentarily out of GPUs)... Groks unhinged mode will curse and scream at you Meta is working on a standalone app for its AI assistant.Interview recsElon Musk on Joe Rogan.Andy Jassy on Bloomberg TV.David Luan, head of Amazons AGI research lab, on Unsupervised Learning.Keith Coleman, Xs head of Community Notes, on Lennys Podcast.Mark Chen, OpenAIs head of research, on Big Technology.Dario Amodei on Hard Fork.More linksThe voice demo for Sesame, a new AI glasses startup led by Oculus co-founder Brenden Iribe.A new embodied companion AI app called Tolan.Stripes annual letter.Coatues deep dive on the state of defense tech.Metas blog post on the second version of its glasses research prototype, Project Aria.Housing in Silicon Valley is as out of control as ever.Meet SFs biggest robotaxi addicts.Whats the deal with all these airplane crashes?Our iPhone 16E review.If you havent already, dont forget to subscribe to The Verge, which includes unlimited access to Command Line and all of our reporting.As always, I want to hear from you, especially if you have feedback on this issue or a story tip. Respond here or ping me securely on Signal.Thanks for subscribing.See More:

Mozilla is revising its new Terms of Use for Firefox introduced on Wednesday following criticisms over language that seemed to give the company broad ownership over user data. With the change, were updating the language to more clearly reflect the limited scope of how Mozilla interacts with user data, the company says in a Friday post.The particular language that drew criticism was:When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.That language has been removed. Now, the language in the terms says:You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox. This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox. This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content. Weve been listening to some of our communitys concerns with parts of the TOU, specifically about licensing, the company says. Our intent was just to be as clear as possible about how we make Firefox work, but in doing so we also created some confusion and concern.Fridays post additionally provides some context about why the company has stepped away from making blanket claims that We never sell your data. Mozilla says that in some places, the LEGAL definition of sale of data is broad and evolving,and that the competing interpretations of do-not-sell requirements does leave many businesses uncertain about their exact obligations and whether or not theyre considered to be selling data.Mozilla says that there are a number of places where we collect and share some data with our partners so that Firefox can be commercially viable, but it adds that it spells those out in its privacy notice and works to strip data of potentially identifying information or share it in aggregate.Fridays post follows an update added to the original Wednesday announcement to try and clarify things.See More:

The United Kingdom dealt a significant blow in its war on encryption last week that, aside from blemishing Apples meticulously curated privacy commitments, could have worldwide ramifications for personal data protections. And while several days have passed since Apple pulled its Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature from UK customers, other end-to-end encryption providers like Meta, Signal, and Telegram have yet to meaningfully take an official stand beyond some of their execs posting about it on social media.The UK may have set a precedent for other global governments to follow when it reportedly ordered Apple to give it backdoor access to iCloud data. Under the 2016 Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), the British government can legally demand user data be handed over for the purpose of national security and crime prevention. That seemingly includes worldwide data access, even if its tightly encrypted.Some of these demands would be facilitated by controversial changes that were made to the IPA in April 2024 to expand its surveillance capabilities, like allowing intelligence services to access bulk personal datasets held by third parties and the UK government to interfere with communications companies that want to offer encryption services.We dont know specifically how the UKs order was worded. The Washington Post reported that Apple received a technical capability notice under the IPA that demanded it create a backdoor to its iCloud service that provides blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account.This may be an interpretation of the order. According to Home Office state minister Dan Jarvis, a technical capability notice itself does not require specific information to be disclosed. Instead, it forces companies to have the capability to respond to an individual warrant or authorisation. In other words, it prevents operators from having technology in place such as full encryption services with user-only access that could block the UK from snooping when it chooses to.The order given to Apple is believed to be the first such demand made since the IPA was updated last year. We dont really know if other companies have been slapped with similar orders because its illegal to publicly acknowledge if theyve received one. Britain insidiously designed its war against data encryption to happen almost entirely behind locked doors. Apple can appeal the ruling in secret but cant reveal if it exists. It cant even say if its complying. The only reason we know about the order is because it was leaked to The Washington Post.We dont really know if other companies have been slapped with similar orders because its illegal to publicly acknowledge if theyve received oneThe British Home Office department also wont confirm or deny its involvement. The statement it gave to The Verge said, We do not comment on operational matters, including for example confirming or denying the existence of any such notices.Instead, the Cupertino, California-based company pulled its highest-level data security tool from the country without explanation after The Washington Post article was published. The ADP feature expands the end-to-end encryption provided on passwords, health data, and payment information to include iCloud drives and backups, Notes, Photos, Voice memos, and more.The UK government put Apple in an untenable position by demanding a backdoor in end-to-end encryption in iCloud for users everywhere in the world, Andrew Crocker, surveillance litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told The Verge. Apples decision to disable the feature for UK users could well be the only reasonable response at this point, but it leaves those people at the mercy of bad actors and deprives them of a key privacy-preserving technology.Given the UK reportedly demanded global access to data, its unclear if withdrawing ADP from the country has appeased the order. It will, however, remove some obstacles that prevent the UK government from spying on its own citizens, which, as Crocker notes, makes people less safe from potential security threats and less free. Apple had already threatened to withdraw security features from the UK market when it opposed the IPA bill, but the decision to do so still attracted criticism for clashing with the image its built around being a self-professed defender of privacy rights.Apples withdrawal of ADP can be interpreted as a call to break an intentionally curated silence around Britains bullish efforts to crush end-to-end encryption services. Its a call that other encryption service providers dont seem to be answering, however. Meta, Signal, and Telegram havent made any announcements about their own services that provide full encryption and havent responded to our requests to comment on the situation. Their silence and the ongoing availability of encryption features in the UK would suggest that nothing is amiss. Thorin Klosowski, a security and privacy activist at the EFF, says that this is likely the case because the encryption services provided by most communications companies arent as broad as Apples ADP offering.Few companies offer anything exactly like Advanced Data Protection, and as it stands, Apple is saying it believes it can still offer the end-to-end encryption of iMessage, Klosowski told The Verge. If history is any indication, if the end-to-end encryption of the other communication apps, like Signal or WhatsApp, was targeted, those companies would make noise about it.Few companies offer anything exactly like Advanced Data ProtectionWhatsApp and Signal have both previously threatened to leave the UK if their services were forced to weaken encryption standards under the countrys Online Safety Bill. WhatsApp chief Will Cathcart has also commented on the UK versus Apple situation directly on social media, but neither WhatsApp nor its parent company, Meta, has provided an official statement.Encryption is absolutely critical for keeping people safe, and governments should encourage it, Cathcart said on X. Banning encryption is a dangerous gift to hackers and hostile foreign governments.Most of the outcry hasnt been from at-risk companies but, rather, from privacy rights groups and government officials. The US is also investigating whether the UKs Apple notice violated the CLOUD Act, an agreement between both countries that bars the other from issuing demands for citizen data.If a company offered a backdoor without its customers knowing about it, it would be a massive violation of privacy and trust, said Klosowski. Even taken at face value, these sorts of backdoors put everyone at risk of hacking, identity theft, and fraud, because there is no way to ensure only the good guys would have access. As weve seen in the past, bad actors will find a way into these backdoors.The full ramifications of Apples decision to withdraw ADP from the UK have yet to unfold. Britain isnt the only nation that has a beef with end-to-end encryption several EU countries and other Five Eyes alliance members have expressed interest in weakening the security method, arguing that it hampers efforts to crack down on child sexual abuse material and criminal activity.This situation could be seen as a successful test of the UKs overreaching surveillance powers that may inspire other governments to adopt the same approach. The US and Australia have already proposed laws with similar powers to the IPAs technical capability notices, and the US, in particular, has tried and failed to crack open Apples user security before.Unless a company impacted by these notices dares to violate legally binding gag orders, the IPA can either force targets to provide secretive snooping access or force them to remove the very barriers it installed to prevent it from happening in the first place. Either way, they have nothing to lose we do.See More:

It may be difficult to believe in this time of Zoom, Google Meet, and Slack, but at one point, Skype was one of the primary ways to make contact with friends, family, and colleagues. First released in 2003 and, after going through several owners, finally purchased by Microsoft in 2011, the app allowed you to make phone calls and eventually video calls over the internet. For its time, it was a major convenience. Unfortunately, the once-popular app was fated to be neglected and ignored, and it has finally reached its end. Microsoft has announced that it is shutting Skype down on May 5th; current users will be encouraged to move to Teams or to export their data. But although Skype will be gone, the memories it evokes not to mention the sound of its weird and wonderful ringtone will stay with many of us for years to come.Here are some thoughts from The Verges staff on Skypes passing.Skype was my lifeline back home.In 2006, I was 18 and did a thing only brash teenagers could do: I left the country on my own to live in Japan for seven years. This was before smartphones, when you had to have international calling cards, and my family had only gotten high-speed internet access the year before. On the one hand, I was excited about an adventure in a place where I knew no one and wasnt fluent in the local language. On the other hand, I was petrified. Skype was my lifeline back home. All of my high school friends were on it, and it was cheaper than calling my family with expensive international minutes. The call quality wasnt always great, and the time difference between Tokyo and New York City was tough. But in those early days, it was comforting to set up Skype dates with people who I knew loved me. That distinctive Skype ringtone was a reminder that I could always go home if I wanted to. Nearly a decade later, when my dad had to leave the US to receive more affordable medical treatment in Korea, Skype was the only video chat software he knew how to use. It became the main way I could see him for several months before his health declined. Eventually, we all moved on to other chat and video apps. My Japanese friends all use LINE, and my Korean family all uses KakaoTalk. FaceTime, Zoom, and Google Meet pretty much cover the rest of my friends. I havent thought of Skype in a hot second. But now that its going away, I am grateful it was there for me during some of the hardest moments of my life. Victoria Song, senior reviewerThose long-distance calls were expensive if you didnt use SkypeRemember the first iPhone? No, not that one. Infogear sold products under the name beginning in 1998. It was acquired by Cisco, which later sold Linksys-branded iPhones. (Yes, there was a lawsuit over it.) I remember reviewing the Linksys iPhone CIT400 otherwise known as a Skype phone in 2007.Although there were a couple of competitors, it was relatively unique at the time since it allowed you to use Skype to place voice calls like you would on a normal household phone (remember those?). It was useful because my girlfriend (now wife) was living in Italy. And those long-distance calls were expensive if you didnt use Skype! Todd Haselton, deputy editorIt became a cherished lifelineI actually avoided Skype right up until a few years before its demise. I dont remember it being a popular thing in the UK when I was growing up. When I started jobs that required me to make overseas calls, however, it became a cherished lifeline. My mobile carrier outright blocked me from dialing non-UK numbers, and every attempt to correct the issue fizzled out. Instead, I found it was easier and cheaper to just download Skype and use credits when I needed to make those calls. It was good while it lasted :-( Jess Weatherbed, news writerWe were using Skype for a lot of our productionsWhen I first started producing podcasts at The Verge in 2015, we were using Skype for a lot of our productions. Before each taping of our show Ctrl-Walt-Delete, Id sit in our VO booth on Skype with veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg in DC to make sure his Blue Yeti microphone was still operating with the software. For our show Verge ESP, I remember having to buy Skype credits to call the phone numbers of guests who didnt have / want to use a Skype account. When The Vergecast was live on YouTube every Thursday, we used Skypes NDI (Network Device Interface) to bring remote guests onto the show, which was the best software for our needs in the live control room at the time. However, once Zoom took over, that was the end of using the buggy Skype software. Andru Marino, senior producer If a writer couldnt get to the studio Skype workedFor decades now, my partner Jim Freund has been the host of a radio show called Hour of the Wolf on listener-sponsored NYC station WBAI-FM. He talks about science fiction and fantasy, and over the years, he has interviewed a lot of authors.For many of those years, if a writer couldnt get to the studio to talk and read from their work, Skype worked. It was easy to use the most tech-nervous author could be talked through the downloading and registering process and the quality of the resulting recording was better than youd get over a phone. And if the writer was overseas, the cost wasnt as prohibitive as if youd used the landline.But as time went on, Skype didnt keep up. When Microsoft bought it in 2011, Jim was hopeful that this would mean better quality calls and more features in other words, increased product support and development. However, Skype was, for the most part, ignored. As a result, especially with the increased popularity of Zoom and other apps, it became pretty much forgotten. These days, if a guest is having trouble installing or understanding the video / podcasting software that Jim uses, and he suggests, Well, we could use Skype instead, the current answer is often, Skype? Whats that? When he told me that, I knew Skype was a thing of the past. Barbara Krasnoff, reviews editorI listened to that ringtone so many timesIn 2015, I did a deep dive on Skypes entire soundscape as it was being redesigned under Microsoft:All the actual components [were] recorded organic sounds like wind, water, pops, peoples voices, says [Steve] Pearce. Wind, he says, provided the white noise in a notification. A bubble pop could be recorded from a ketchup bottle, a glass, or a human gasp or gulp. We dont like technical things, even though we are a technical company, he adds.If you actually ask people to hum or sing the Skype ringtone, they cant.Ironically, I listened to that ringtone so many times that, almost 10 years later, doo dee doo, dee doo dee popped into my head immediately. Adi Robertson, senior editor, tech and policyDOO DEE DOO DEE DOO DEE. Jay Peters, news editorSee More:

Cold Wallet, Well Go USAs new darkly comedic home invasion thriller from director Cutter Hodierne, becomes increasingly more absurd as it unfolds. At every turn, the movies heroes a group of excitable retail investors make unhinged choices that make them feel more like cartoons than people who have complex lives outside of Reddit. But in the films story about how quickly big bets on crypto can go left, you can feel Cold Wallet tapping into something very real about what makes people believe that rugs can never be pulled from beneath their feet.Cold Wallet tells the tale of Billy (Ral Castillo), a down-on-his-luck father, who, after a nasty separation from his ex, decides to bet everything he has on a hot, new crypto coin called Tulip. Like his twitchy hacker friend Eva (Melonie Diaz) and MMA-obsessed buddy Dom (Tony Cavalero), Billy sees Tulip as an opportunity to radically change his lot in life. Its easy for the trio to pour their money into Tulip because they genuinely believe that the coins creator, Charles Hegel (Josh Brener), wants to make the world a better place for people like them. But when Tulips value suddenly tanks one day and Hegel an eclectic recluse dies under very dubious circumstances, Billys crew is convinced that theyve been screwed over, and they set out on a deadly mission to put things right.Especially once people start speculating that Hegel isnt actually dead, Cold Wallets plot begins to sound more and more like a heightened riff on the very real story of how thousands of people lost everything in 2018 when Quadriga cofounder Gerald Cotten unexpectedly dropped dead during his honeymoon.When I recently sat down to speak with Hodierne about Cold Wallet, he told me that he very much wanted for the movie to play like the kind of revenge fantasy people hurt by Quadriga might dream about. In Hegel, were supposed to see shades of the greed that made Cotten a wealthy man before his death. But Hodierne also wanted his villain to feel like a larger-than-life example of the way capitalism can turn people into ghoulish caricatures, which is why he looked to Martin Shkreli for inspiration.With Hegel, we wanted to lean into him being the kind of guy who is like the rules are here to be manipulated and taken advantage of; Im just doing my part, Hodierne explained. Hes the type of person who thinks if the rules arent good enough to stop me, then whose problem is that really? That kind of attitude is very dangerous and I think Hegels character resembles a lot of the people who are taking over the country right now.Though Hodierne owns some crypto of his own, he sees memecoins like President Donald Trumps and the Hawk Tuah girls as bastardizations of cryptos true potential that reflect the USs wealth-obsessed culture. It was important to Hodierne that Cold Wallet illustrate what makes people so game to bet on the blockchain even though the crypto space is filled with horror stories. But through Billys character, in particular, Hodierne wanted to reinforce how quickly investing in crypto can upend peoples lives in disastrous ways.With Billy, it was about this tug and pull between enthusiasm and desperation enthusiasm to evangelize Tulip coins possibilities to his friends, and then his desperation when its all gone, Hodierne told me. Hes the embodiment of a freefall event or a crash in the crypto market, and he has this level of rage that has been amplified tenfold because this was his last fucking try and it backfired.As Billy and his friends arm themselves and set out for Hegels remote compound, Cold Wallet frames their mission in a comedic light thats at odds with the fact that theyre psyching themselves up to kill a man if push comes to shove. The framing makes them feel like people whove spent too much time watching action movies, but Hodierne told me that Cold Wallets silliness is, in part, one of the ways he wanted to convey the sense of desperation that often leads to people putting their faith in digital currencies.There are so many systems in place to sort of keep people just getting by, and crypto can feel like a way out, Hodierne said. I have friends who became like multi-millionaires from crypto, and thats the kind of positive reinforcement that can make people think oh, this is worth the risk. That was the vibe when crypto had its major resurgence during the Covid era and everyone was desperate.As dark as Cold Wallet gets, Hodierne always knew that keeping the film funny would be key to making it accessible to folks who have kept their distance from crypto. Billy and his friends are supposed to feel like the sorts of ordinary people you might know and be able to sympathize with. But theyre also meant to remind you that, in most cases, things like Tulip are designed to help the few and hurt the masses.Unfortunately, I think the joke is always on the little guy, Hodierne said. Even with GameStop all that stuff, ultimately, Wall Street was able to follow the movement and benefit from it. Even when the little guy is getting his public win, the big guy can always tack on to it, and it all just reminds you that its hard to beat the house.Cold Wallet is now in theaters and available to purchase digitally.See More:

Tesla is planning to install dozens of Supercharger sites at Steak n Shake locations across the country, according to an exchange between the companies on X. The companies have signed an agreement for over six sites, with over 20 more to come. And if Steak n Shake gets its way, possibly 100 restaurants will see future Supercharger installations. The way the news trickled out was a little weird, yet typical of how Elon Musk likes to use his social media platform, X, to publicize new information about his various companies. It started with seed oilsIt started with a post about how Steak n Shake was switching from seed oils to beef tallow to cook its french fries, referencing Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has repeatedly made controversial claims about seed oils. (We dont have to get into all that now.)Musk, a major Trump supporter who is fronting the DOGE-led effort to overhaul the federal bureaucracy, replied to the post that the fries taste way better! Steak n Shake responded by thanking him and asking whether Tesla planned on installing charging stations at its restaurants. To which Teslas Supercharger account replied:6 sites signed already, 20+ sites in design reviewLets lock in those layouts @Steaknshake Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) February 27, 2025Steak n Shake responded again, suggesting 100 locations could serve as Supercharger sites. Tesla has formed partnerships with restaurant and convenience store chains in the past, including Ruby Tuesday and Sheetz. The company is also currently building its own 1950s-style diner and drive-in movie theater, with over 30 charging stalls. Tesla likely wont be able to rely on federal funding for any new charging locations, after the Trump administration halted a $5 billion federal program to install new EV chargers. Tesla has received $31 million in funds from the program to install 539 DC fast-charging ports, which represents 6 percent of all funds distributed so far,according to a dashboard that tracks the spending.

Severance has always been a horror story, albeit one set in a mostly generic office. That blandness is a large part of what makes it so scary: underneath the corporate speak, drab decor, and unflattering fluorescent lighting is something very sinister. And in the shows latest episode, it uses that energy to tap into a new, even more terrifying kind of fear.Spoilers ahead for Severance, up to season 2, episode 7.The episode, called Chikhai Bardo, picks up with Mark (Adam Scott) recovering from a process called reintegration thats designed to reunite the two halves of his mind: the outie who lives a normal life, and the innie who is confined to the unyielding hell of the basement of tech giant Lumon Industries. Because of this, it has an almost Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind vibe to it. As Mark is passed out on his couch post-surgery, and his brain is seemingly stitching itself back together, we get flashbacks of how he met his wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman) and how their relationship became strained after they struggled to conceive.Gemma is better known to Severance viewers as Miss Casey, the disturbingly calm wellness director at Lumon. In the outside world, she is believed to be dead following a car accident. Her death is the main reason Mark became severed in the first place, as an attempt to avoid the grief, at least a little bit. But one of the shows biggest mysteries has been not only just how it is that shes still alive but also how she ended up living this mysterious life in Lumons basement.RelatedChikhai Bardo provides a little insight into this. In addition to Marks flashbacks, we also get to see how Gemma was transformed into Miss Casey. The process involves all kinds of disturbing tests, which mostly involve sending her innie into strange rooms in one, shes experiencing a plane crashing; in another she undergoes hours of painful dental work and then seeing how her outie reacts afterward. Lumon tracks everything about her physical and mental state and, it seems, uses that information to perfect the severance procedure and make her the ideal wellness instructor, a job that entails helping other innies stay calm and productive. The goal is to subject the innie to brutal conditions and for it to impact the outie as little as possible. The torture is both psychological and physical.But this also points to an incredibly disturbing revelation. Up until now, the severed characters in the show have seemingly all been there by choice. For their own personal reasons, characters like Mark, Helly (Britt Lower), and Dylan (Zach Cherry) all made the decision to split themselves in half. That doesnt erase the hellscape that their innies have to live through, but it does explain how we got to that point. Miss Casey is different. While its not entirely clear how or why she got involved with Lumon, it sure seems like the company was involved in faking Gemmas death and used that as cover to do all of these experiments in secret under the assumption that no one would ever find out about it since shell never be able to leave.Image: AppleWe already knew that Lumon was a terrifying megacorporation that would do unseemly things in the name of efficiency and secrecy. And we knew there was some messed-up stuff going on in that basement the goat farm and the break / torture room are just two examples. But Gemmas transition into Miss Casey shows just how far this corporation will go to make severance work, and how much control it has to pull it off.The severance procedure is spatially dictated, meaning that people switch from innie to outie based on where they are. So far, that has been pretty simple: outies exist out in the wide world, and once they go down to the basement in an elevator, they become their innies, who can only exist elsewhere with special Lumon permission (like when everyone went on a retreat in episode 4). But things are much more complex for Miss Casey and Gemma; they switch back and forth constantly as they enter new rooms, in a way that allows Lumon complete control over where they can go and when. There truly is no escape for either of them. And the fact that Lumon can get away with faking a death to create a human lab rat, well, thats quite a bit scarier than some goat farmers who look like Midsommar extras.Whats been great about the second season of Severance is how each revelation leads to a new, even darker mystery. Discovering more about Miss Casey has only made me want to know even more about her, particularly how she connects to Marks big project, which we know is mysterious and important and the more mysteries are uncovered, the more important it all seems.See More:

Mobile World Congress 2025 is nearly upon us, and were heading to Barcelona to see what the worlds smartphone manufacturers have to offer as they launch new devices, tease new features, and talk incessantly about AI. The show officially kicks off on March 3rd and runs to March 6th, but the first announcements should arrive on March 2nd, when Xiaomi, HMD, and Honor all have press conferences scheduled.MWC may be a long way from its glory days when the likes of Samsung and Sony used it as the launchpad for that years flagship phones, but there are still some major players expected to unveil new hardware next week most notably, Xiaomi bringing its flagship 15 series to Europe. Nothing, HMD, and Realme are among the other companies we already know are planning to launch new phones.Heres what to expect from the companies we know will have news.XiaomiImage: XiaomiIts already been confirmed that Xiaomi is launching the 15 series on March 2nd, with the regular 15 and 15 Ultra expected to appear. The base model has been available in China since October, while the 15 Ultra was only officially revealed on February 27th.The 15 Ultra is another photography-focused flagship, with Leica branding and one version with a two-tone finish that mimics that companys cameras. Its quadruple-rear camera includes a new 200-megapixel periscope lens alongside a trio of 50-megapixel sensors. If its any sort of upgrade on last years 14 Ultra, then it could have a good claim to being the best phone camera in the world.NothingNothing has been busy teasing its 3A series, which will launch on March 4th. The company has confirmed that its introducing its first triple camera, with a 3x optical zoom periscope lens, and its confident enough to have shown off some snaps alongside results from an iPhone 16 Pro Max.Leaks have told us even more. Unfortunately for Nothing, the design and specs of both phones leaked in full last week, revealing that the 3A and 3A Pro will have similar designs, but differ around the cameras. More intriguingly, leaked promo videos show off a new side button that appears to enable an AI assistant and something called the Essential Space. SamsungThis is as close as we could get to the S25 Edge when it was announced. Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The VergeIts been a good few years since Samsung regularly launched its S-series flagships at MWC, and were not expecting any announcements on that scale this year. In fact, were not expecting any announcements at all, but there may be one big tease: the Galaxy S25 Edge.First revealed as the one more thing at the end of Januarys S25 keynote, the Edge is an extra-thin entry in the companys flagship line. Last year, Samsung used that slot to tease its Galaxy Ring wearable before letting us go hands-on with one at MWC, so theres every chance well get a better look at the Edge this time around.GoogleGoogle is another company thats unlikely to make any major hardware announcements at the show it never really does at MWC.Still, it likes to start the show with a slew of Android updates last years big one was the integration of Gemini into the Messages app. Wed expect some similar small announcements this year, likely still centered around the Gemini AI assistant.HMDHMD is one of a few companies that has confirmed a press conference for March 2nd, issuing teasers that promise Two icons. One device, and show off both the iconic Nokia game Snake and HMDs sponsorship of FC Barcelona. Its event is even being held at the soccer teams Camp Nou stadium.Were not sure what that all means, though. Last year HMD long the manufacturer of modern Nokia phones under license used MWC to reveal the first smartphones under its own name, along with a Barbie-branded flip phone. At the time, it promised more collaborations to come, so perhaps the first Barcelona-branded handset is on the way?LenovoLeaker Evan Blass claims the ThinkBook Flip is launching at MWC. Image: EvleaksLenovo hasnt announced anything about its MWC plans, but leaker Evan Blass has stepped up to do the job for it. Blass has shared images across two X threads of an array of laptops, tablets, and other gadgets that he says Lenovo will drop in Barcelona next week. Most interesting by far is the ThinkBook Flip, a laptop with a foldable screen that lifts up to give you double the display or folds back out of the way when you dont need it.HonorHonor has also announced a press conference on March 2nd, but it sounds a little odd. The company hasnt teased new hardware, instead promising that it will unveil a new corporate vision it has branded the Alpha Plan.The company only unveiled its Magic 7 Pro flagship line last month, so its no real surprise that it doesnt have new phones ready for MWC. It has, however, teased an announcement related to cross-system connectivity with iOS devices, so it wont all be dry business stuff.RealmeThe Realme 14 Pro changes color in the cold. Credit: RealmeRealme has teased two major announcements for MWC 2025. The first is the global (read: European) launch of the 14 Pro series, which went on sale in India last month. The exciting element here is the color-changing finish, which shifts from a pearlescent white to a silvery blue when the temperature drops below 16 degrees Celsius (about 61 degrees Fahrenheit).The bigger surprise is the tease of an all-new phone that Realme says has an ultra-large sensor and DSLR-inspired hardware. Realme has steered clear of the flagship space so far, so the big question right now is whether this will be a truly premium rival to the likes of the Galaxy S25 Ultra or something cheaper that seeks to undercut the competition on price.TecnoTecno has already teased a variety of announcements for MWC, centered around the launch of the Camon 40 series of phones. These will feature updated camera software that the company says can more accurately capture a diverse range of skin tones, echoing Googles own work in the same space since 2021.The company has also teased that it will show off practical AI whatever that means and has hinted that it will be bringing smart glasses, an AI-enabled laptop, and perhaps a prototype of its Phantom Ultimate 2 trifold phone, too.TCLEvery year, TCL turns up to MWC with a load of new phones using its Nxtpaper E Ink-esque displays, and we see no reason to expect anything different this time around.See More:

Intel is delaying the opening of its $28 billion Ohio chip plants yet again. In an update on Friday, Intel executive vice president Naga Chandrasekaran said the company now expects its first factory to begin operations between 2030 and 2031 years later than its initial plan to kick off production in 2025.Meanwhile, the second fabrication plant on Intels Ohio campus isnt expected to open until 2032. We are taking a prudent approach to ensure we complete the project in a financially responsible manner, Chandrasekaran said in the post. We will continue construction at a slower pace, while maintaining the flexibility to accelerate work and the start of operations if customer demand warrants.Intels Ohio fabrication units have been beset by delays since the very beginning. In 2022, the chipmaker postponed the groundbreaking ceremony over a lack of government funding. It later bumped the opening of its plants to 2027 or 2028.The past year has been tumultuous for Intel. The company grappled with mass layoffs, major financial losses, and the removal of Pat Gelsigner as CEO. In January, Intel revealed that its canceling its AI chip as the company attempts to simplify its roadmap and concentrate resources.As noted by The Columbus Dispatch, Intel has invested $3.7 billion into its Ohio chip plants since 2022. The company says it has completed the basement level of its fab and has since started to work on the above-ground structure. Chandrasekaran added that the delay allows us to manage our capital responsibly and adapt to the needs of our customers.

DJI has announced the third iteration of its drone-in-a-box solution designed for missions like safely inspecting power lines and emergency response. As with previous versions, the DJI Dock 3 is small enough to be transported in the back of a pickup truck, but its the first that allows DJIs new Matrice 4D and Matrice 4TD drones to be launched from a moving vehicle using an optional gimbal mount accessory.Although the company hasnt revealed how much that special mount for mobile launches will cost, the new DJI Dock 3 will be available in two bundles priced for enterprise customers with sizable budgets. It can be purchased with the DJI Matrice 4D drone for $21,059, or with the Matrice 4TD for $23,409. Those prices dont include installation, deployment services, or optional hardware upgrades and software features.The weather-resistant Dock 3 opens to allow DJI drones to launch or take-off remotely. Image: DJIThe new dock carries forward several features from previous versions like a built-in weather station, antennas, surveillance cameras, and an internal backup battery. It still needs access to power and the internet, but can be upgraded with a cellular 4G dongle for remote deployment.The DJI Dock 3 has an improved IP56 rating for dust and water-resistance and its operational temperature range has been expanded to as hot as 50 degrees Celsius, or as cold as -30 degrees Celsius although DJI says preheating will be needed when temperatures are that cold.It can communicate with drones on missions as far as 10 kilometers away, but that range can be extended to up to 25 kilometers for fixed deployments (such as on a highrise building) through the use of relays mounted at elevated locations. But thats assuming your local jurisdiction allows drones to fly automated routes or be remotely operated at those distances. In the US, the FAA requires drone operators to obtain a Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) waiver for remote operation at extended distances.The Dock 3 is compatible with weather-resistant versions of the DJI Matrice 4 Series drones. Image: DJIThe Dock 3 is designed to work with new IP55-rated water and dust-resistant versions of the DJI Matrice 4 Series of drones that launched earlier this year. The Matrice 4D and 4TD both feature ant-ice propeller blades, 47 minute flight times, and a combination of wide-angle, medium tele, and telephoto cameras. The Matrice 4TD has expanded night time capabilities with the addition of an infrared thermal camera and a near-infrared auxiliary light for added illumination.Correction, February 28th: An earlier version of this article misstated the DJI Dock 3 was an autonomous solution. Automated flight routes need to be programmed by human operators.See More: