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Showing posts from September, 2025

Google is blocking AI searches for Trump and dementia

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Google appears to have blocked AI search results for the query "does trump show signs of dementia" as well as other questions about his mental acuity, even though it will show AI results for similar searches about other presidents. When making the search about President Trump, AI Overviews will display a message that says, "An AI Overview is not available for this search": Go directly to AI Mode, and you'll only receive a list of 10 web results instead of a summarized page of information: Similar searches about Trump are limited in the same way. Various queries about dementia, Alzheimer's, and senility display no AI overview and only prod … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/rFJGeBk

TikTok, #freedom edition

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Hello and welcome to Regulator . Today is the last day of The Verge 's very good subscription sale : $4 for a month and $35 for the year, for full access to the entire site . Don't delay! When we launched Regulator two months ago, the premise was that I'd write about the collision between Big Tech and Big Government. The key word was collision. Tech and politics no longer existed as separate planets that would occasionally cross paths - they were now crashing into each other in very messy and dramatic ways. The plan was to write a column about one subject a week that talked about a recent tech / politics collision. But dear god, there are so … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/Pl06eNo

You can now preorder LG’s 6K 32-inch Thunderbolt 5 display for $2,000

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LG’s UltraFine 32U990A display is nearly here after debuting at CES 2025. | Image: LG LG first announced its new 32-inch UltraFine monitor at CES 2025 . The company still bills it as the “world’s first 6K monitor with Thunderbolt 5 connectivity” built right in. Ahead of the display launching in South Korea and Japan in September, followed by a US launch next month, LG has shared more specs and pricing details. It’s currently available for preorder through B&H’s online store for $1,999.99 with shipping expected to start on October 20th. The UltraFine 32U990A features a 31.5-inch IPS panel with a native resolution of 6,144 x 3,456 and a maximum refresh rate of 60Hz. It supports 10-bit color covering 98 percent of the DCI-P3 and 99.5 percent of the Adobe RGB color spaces. It offers a 2,000:1 contrast ratio with 450 nits of brightness which helps explain why LG’s 6K display is nearly $3,000 cheaper than Apple’s similarly-styled but aging 6K Pro Display XDR which instead offers up...

The best AirPods to buy

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Editor’s note: Amazon’s fall Prime Day event kicks off on October 7th; however, if you want to shop ahead of the two-day sale, we’ve rounded up the best early Prime Day deals you can already get. Whether you’re buying your first pair of AirPods or replacing a well-used older pair, it’s easy to understand why so many iPhone owners prefer Apple’s earbuds and headphones over other options. Apple has spent years gradually adding new features that work best — and sometimes only work at all — with the company’s own devices. These convenient tricks include audio sharing, automatic switching between Apple’s various devices, live translation, Apple TV integration, and more. There are currently four AirPods models to choose from, each with its own distinct appeal and upside. You likely already know whether you’re more interested in earbuds or over-ear headphones, so that’s the first divide. In the case of over-ear headphones, your only choice is the AirPods Max. But in the earbuds categor...

The best instant cameras you can buy right now

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Editor’s note: Amazon’s fall Prime Day event kicks off on October 7th; however, if you want to shop ahead of the two-day sale, we’ve rounded up the best early Prime Day deals you can already get. Even with the ability to take excellent photos with our phones and instantly share them across the world, there’s something magical about the old-school instant camera. With just a click of a button, you can capture a moment in a photo that you can see and touch almost immediately. Images captured by an instant camera aren’t as pristine or perfect as those produced by modern digital cameras, but their soft images and imperfections are often a big part of the allure. Yet not all instant cameras are the same, and some of them are better suited for different needs and budgets. That’s why we tested some of the most popular instant cameras on the market from brands like Fujifilm, Polaroid, Leica, Canon, Kodak, and others.   The best instant camera for most people Best premium instan...

RidePods is the first iPhone game you control with AirPods

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Weave through traffic by just moving your head from side to side. | Image: Apple Developer Ali Tanis has released the first game for iPhones and iPads that’s played using Apple’s AirPods as a wearable motion controller. The RidePods – Race with Head gameplay is relatively basic – you’re just steering a motorcycle through oncoming traffic at high speeds – but instead of swiping the screen or tiling your phone, you control the bike’s movements by tilting your head from side-to-side while wearing AirPods. The game only works with Apple’s wireless headphones that support Spatial Audio including the AirPods Pro, the AirPods Max, and the third and fourth generation AirPods. Spatial Audio relies on the accelerometer and gyroscope included in those AirPods models to track the movements of your head and adjust the position of the audio accordingly. Tanis announced the game’s release on Y Combinator and while they said they had to reverse engineer the Spatial Audio feature to make their g...

$55 billion EA buyout hands Madden over to investors including Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner

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Electronic Arts has announced it is being acquired and taken private in a $55 billion deal involving Silver Lake, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and Affinity Partners, which is founded and led by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027 and is still subject to approval by regulators and EA stockholders. If approved, it will mark one of the biggest buyouts of a publicly traded company. The transaction was approved by EA’s Board of Directors, is expected to close in Q1 FY27 and is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of required regulatory approvals and approval by EA stockholders. Following the close of the transaction, EA’s common stock will no longer be listed on any public market. The transaction will be funded by a combination of cash from each of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners as well as roll-over of PIF’s existing stake in EA, constituting an equity investment of approximately...

CMF’s first over-ear headphones have an energy slider for boosting bass and treble

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The CMF Headphone Pro can be customized by swapping their ear cushions with alternate colors. | Image: Nothing CMF, the budget-focused sub-brand that Nothing plans to spin off into a standalone subsidiary , has launched its first pair of over-ear wireless headphones. The CMF Headphone Pro borrows features like a multi-function roller control from Nothing’s Headphone 1 that debuted in July, but while Nothing’s over-ears feature a polarizing boxy design , CMF’s go hard on the soft curves with round earcups, cushions, and a well-padded headband. The CMF Headphone Pro are available starting today in the EU and UK, but US customers will have to wait until October 7th, 2025, to grab a pair. At $99 they’re much cheaper than Nothing’s $299 Headphone 1 and offer more customizability. The Headphone Pro come in subtle dark gray, light green, and light gray color options, but you can add some color contrast with replacement $25 ear cushions that come in bright orange or light green. Like No...

Apple’s ‘Veritas’ chatbot is reportedly an employee-only test of Siri’s AI upgrades

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Siri’s new logo. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman Apple is testing Siri’s upcoming revamp using an internal chatbot called Veritas . The company’s struggles as it tries to keep pace in the AI race are no secret. The next-gen Siri has been delayed multiple times and the debut of Apple Intelligence was met with a tepid response . Veritas gives Apple the ability to quickly develop, test, and collect feedback on new Siri features like “search[ing] through personal data… and perform[ing] in-app actions like editing photos.“ According to Gurman Veritas resembles other chatbot apps like ChatGPT and Gemini. Employees type requests, have back and forth conversations, and can even revisit old exchanges to dig deeper on a particular topic. But, at least for now, it doesn’t appear like there’s any plan to release it to consumers. (Which Gurman believes is a mistake .) Instead Apple plans to keep its internal chatbot just that, internal. Instead it’s looking increasingly likely that App...

Larry Ellison’s quest to run the world

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For most of his career Larry Ellison has been content to quietly let Oracle be the company, behind the company, behind the technology that makes headlines. Its biggest products being cloud computing and database products that it sells to enterprise customers like DHL, Northwell Health, and Fanatics. But, now in his 80s, Ellison has begun a second act shifting from Silicon Valley pioneer, to media mogul. Compared to many of the other people at the top of the Forbes Billionaires list, Larry Ellison tends to keep a low profile. That's not to say he hasn't seen his fair share of headlines, especially in recent years. But he, and his company Ora … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/gaY7nMW

How the voice of Silksong’s Hornet brought her to life through gibberish

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Silksong resembles the original Hollow Knight in many ways, though right from the start, you can hear one key difference: Hornet. Hollow Knight 's protagonist was silent, but just as Hornet was voiced in that game, as the protagonist of Silksong , she has a voice, too, and actor Makoto Koji brings a lot of personality to the role. "She's confident, she's sure of herself, she's very stoic," Koji says in an interview with The Verge . But Hornet has a goofiness as well, according to Koji, and she thinks Team Cherry did a good job showing how multifaceted Hornet is. This is particularly impressive because Hornet, and all of the characters in Silks … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/esvLfBr

How generative AI boosters are trying to break into Hollywood

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A still from the Critterz short film. This is The Stepback , a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the intersection of entertainment and technology, follow Charles Pulliam-Moore. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here . How it started In just a few short years, text-to-image models went from only being able to churn out smudgy, "dreamlike" approximations of their input to producing detailed visualizations of whatever you describe . As the AI image generators got better, text-to-video models like Runway's Gen series , Meta's Make-A-Video , and Google's Veo also came into their own. Now … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/z8vIr7N

I need a life cool enough for the new GoPro

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Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 99, your guide to the best and Verge -iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy pumpkin spice season, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage .) This week, I've been reading about Lizzo and Uniqlo and book thieves and Max Verstappen , obsessing over both Black Rabbit and The Lowdown , eating aggressively too many Pop'ums pretzels , listening to everything in the AirPods Pro 3s , updating my old Ray-Ban Metas to see if the AI is any good, meal planning with Crouton , and posting all my junk for free on Nextdoor . I also have for you an impressive new GoPro, an em … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/FIA0Mak

Martin Shkreli can be sued for copying Wu-Tang’s one-of-a-kind record

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Wu-Tang’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin Disgraced pharma bro, convicted felon, and perennial challenger for America’s Most Hateable Man , Martin Shkreli will have to face a lawsuit for making copies of the Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin . US District Judge Pamela Chen issued a decision on Thursday that dismissed some claims by the album’s current owners, PleasrDAO , but will allow the suit alleging “misappropriation of trade secrets” to continue. Trade secrets might seem like an odd way to describe the most exclusive album ever made, but Chen says in her decision that: “Trade secrets include all forms and types of business information” so long as the criteria described above pertaining to “reasonable measures” to maintain secrecy and the “independent economic value” from that secrecy are met. Continuing to say that there was, “no serious debate that the value of the Album… was largely based on its secret and exclusive nature.” In August, Shkreli was forced to hand ...

TV giant Sinclair is putting Jimmy Kimmel back on the air

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Sinclair Broadcasting will air Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show on its 38 ABC affiliate stations once again, the company announced , after Disney reinstated Kimmel from a suspension earlier this week. Along with fellow broadcast company Nexstar, Sinclair had suspended airing Kimmel’s show under pressure from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, but Sinclair initially chose to replace Jimmy Kimmel Live! with “news programming” even after the reinstatement, but the show will be back this evening, with Sinclair airing a rerun of Kimmel’s Tuesday episode, Variety reports . In a statement, Sinclair downplayed the influence of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who last week threatened broadcasters that aired Kimmel’s show. The threats came after Kimmel made a joke about the alleged shooter of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, and they were almost immediately followed by Jimmy Kimmel Live!’s removal from Sinclair and another broadcaster, Nexstar, then his suspension at ABC. “Our decision to preempt ...

Costco is already selling piles of Lego Game Boys cheaper than the Lego company

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The Lego Game Boy isn’t supposed to go on sale until October 1st — but I already bought one and built it for you . How? Costco and Sam’s Club have pallets full of them at warehouses across the country, they’re already on sale at a discount, and I’ll tell you how to check if they’re at a Costco near you. @verge Lego Game Boy vs. real Game Boy! The brick version is even better than I imagined: an incredibly faithful, fun, and clever build. You can press every button, spin every wheel; designers nail almost every curve and recreate almost every label. For $48 at Costco or $60 at Lego, it’s downright affordable for a piece of modern Lego decor. (I bought this one myself.) #todayimtoyingwith #gameboy #lego #legogameboy #legotiktok ♬ original sound – The Verge – The Verge Both stores are selling the brand-new set for around $49. That’s a big discount compared to the $59.99 you’d pay at Lego or at Amazon , and some who ordered early through Lego or other stores are annoyed! B...