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A great concept that falls flat. The Ikko MindOne Pro is delightfully small. I keep calling it a square phone, which isn't quite right; the screen is square, but the phone itself is slightly rectangular. The camera flips up so you can use it for selfies - you can even open it partway to use as a stand or a kind of PopSocket. There's a Clicks-style keyboard accessory that also adds a magnetic ring and a headphone jack. I tried so hard to like it, but this phone is a miss no matter how you look at it. I used it like a normal phone. I downloaded a minimalist launcher and tried using it as kind of a dumb phone. I put the keyboard case on. I took the keyboard case off. Nothing … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/Bk7E2iJ

Fanfiction communities are trying to hunt down writers who haven’t written works with their own hands. | Image: Álvaro Bernis / The Verge Over the past week, a new fanworks movement has kicked off, with the aim to root out authors using generative AI. But the detection methods being implemented are questionable, and any fanfic writer could be caught in the crossfire. Broad distaste around the use of Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI tools has long been a thing in creative communities , including the world of fanfiction. Readers and writers have passed around tips for spotting supposedly AI-generated works, citing anything from em dashes to the broad concept of purple prose. But on June 29th, an anonymous X account called @heatedrivalryai promised a seemingly more reliable solution … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/HizUp3f

The Kuxiu D5 keeps Qi-compatible phones cool while also charging a watch and earbuds. Despite my initial skepticism, I'm now sold on wireless Qi chargers that add integrated fans to keep your phone cool while charging. I figured they'd be too loud, or too weak, or too gimmicky, but I'm a convert after spending a week with the new $59.99 Kuxiu D5 Qi2.2 charging dock. Its active cooling system has kept my phone from heating up, unlike every other Qi charger I've tried. Good thing, given my own history with an overheating phone. Last year I fried the logic board on my titanium iPhone 15 Pro. I was on a sweltering train and trying to edit a 4K video on my phone, which was charging from a magnetically attached Qi power bank . Oof, … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/bf2cWRr

The man whose Tesla struck and killed a woman inside her Texas home last month is now facing manslaughter charges, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal and local news outlet KHOU 11 . 44-year-old Michael Butler was arrested on Wednesday and claimed to have been driving his Model 3 using Tesla's Full-Self Driving (FSD) system at the time of the crash, according to an arrest affidavit . The court document includes the officer saying that data extraction from Butler's phone found several FSD-related Google searches from May 2026: "Tesla fsd not aggressive enough 2026 model," "tesla fsdnot [sic] aggressive enough 2026," "tesla fsdnot [s … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/P0MIho2

Meta has launched a new social app called Pocket that lets you make and share little interactive "gizmos" with an AI prompt, as reported by Business Insider . Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is all in on AI as the new social media , and he's previously described a vision of how users could use AI to make interactive experiences and share them with people. The launch of Pocket appears to be one manifestation of that idea, and it follows Meta hiring engineers from a company called Atma Sciences Inc., which made an app called Gizmo , as Business Insider reported in March . Meta got a non-exclusive license to use the company's technology, and based on sc … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/hurxqJw

July 4th sales are typically a precursor to what we’d see during a mid-July Prime Day, but obviously things are flipped around this year. Last week’s big Prime Day sale is over, yet there are a number of familiar deals still poking around in the week leading up to the nation’s birthday. Best Buy is hosting its own 4th of July sale, for example. And, if you’re on the hunt for tech and gear for the outdoors, REI is hosting a sale on products that will last through the week. There are even some Apple deals you can get, some of which are selling at pre-price hike levels. We’ll be logging the best July 4th sales we find this week below, keeping the list updated with notable discounts as we spot them. Asus ROG Falcata The Falcata is stuffed with features (wired / wireless connectivity, split ergo design, Hall effect customization), and it’s a bargain to get it all at Best Buy’s 4th of July pricing. Read our review . Where t...