Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Where will we all hang out next? Continue reading…

Image: BioWare EA has shared a lengthy blog detailing all the technical work that went into rendering hair in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. While it used to be, and in some cases still is, a struggle to find a game with a character creator that included a diverse range of hairstyles, newer games are getting better at providing styles to represent folks on the kinky / curly hair spectrum where a lot of people of color reside. However, the new struggle is getting those hairstyles to look and act natural. I remember looking at all the hairstyles in Horizon Forbidden West and being bemused that the dreadlocks on Varl looked like they were made out of foam, while his beard was simply straight hair without an ounce of kink a Black man like him typically has.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is testing a new feature that will let creators use AI to “restyle” licensed songs for their shorts. The small group of creators with access can enter a prompt to change up different elements in a song, such as its mood or genre, and the expansion of YouTube’s Dream Track AI feature will generate a reworked 30-second soundtrack.YouTube:If you’re a creator in the experiment group, you can select an eligible song > describe how you want to restyle it > then generate a unique 30-second soundtrack to use in your Short.These restyled soundtracks will have clear attribution to the original song through the Short itself and the Shorts audio pivot page, and will also clearly indicate that the track was restyled with AI YouTube has... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge Apple and A24 are working on a new movie about imprisoned crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried based on The Big Short writer Michael Lewis's book Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon. Variety reported their arrangement and that Girls creator and star Lena Dunham is set to write the film.Going Infinite is Lewis’s chronicle of the rise, spectacular implosion, and eventual conviction of Bankman-Fried and his crypto exchange FTX. Lewis was working on the book already and embedded with Bankman-Fried when FTX collapsed in 2022. SBF was ultimately found guilty of several criminal fraud and conspiracy charges and given a 25-year prison sentence. He’s appealing his conviction, even as his fellow FTX executives are being sentenced and... Continue reading…

Image: Rivian Volkswagen and Rivian have crossed all their T’s and dotted all their I’s in their new $5.8 billion joint venture, which officially kicks off its work on November 13th, the companies announced today. Last June, VW said it would invest $5 billion in Rivian as part of a new joint venture that’s focused on developing a new electrical architecture and vehicle software for future models, including subcompact cars, with the first planned for 2027. Now that investment has grown to $5.8 billion. “Rivian and VW Group Technology, LLC”The new joint venture, dryly named “Rivian and VW Group Technology, LLC,” will be led by Rivian software chief Wassym Bensaid and VW Group chief technology engineer Carsten Helbing. Teams will be based in Palo... Continue reading…

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge For months now, there have been rumors about a smart home display Apple is supposedly working on. Now Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says the display will be wall-mounted and control smart home devices, attend video calls, and more, similar to the Amazon Echo Hub, and works on its own but requires an iPhone to complete the initial setup.The iPad-like device, which will reportedly be available as soon as next March, has a six-inch display with thick edges, a built-in camera, a rechargeable battery, and speakers, according to Gurman. The plan is to have Siri and Apple Intelligence voice control support as well.If the rumors are true, the smart display will offer a centralized way to control HomeKit-compatible lights, security cameras, sensors,... Continue reading…

There's nothing quite like a strong nostalgia trip, especially for those of us who have been involved with tech from an early age. I still vividly remember the days of toying around with my dad's beige PC tower and mashing the keys on his Logitech MX Duo. That experience was so novel at the time, it will be forever etched into my memory. The functionality of these old relics obviously doesn't hold up today, and some of these aesthetics definitely didn't age well, but I don't care. Here are 6 PC aesthetics from the 2000s that I'll forever miss.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge After pleading guilty in March to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act, former Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira was sentenced today to 15 years in prison for posting “hundreds of pages” of classified military documents on Discord.Some of the leaked information included sensitive details about troop movements in Ukraine and previously unknown information about US intelligence gathering on other countries like China, Russia, and South Korea.While stationed at an air base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Teixeira was granted a Top-Secret//Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance necessary for “maintaining and troubleshooting” classified workstations in the... Continue reading…

A screen grab of the video titled “How My Video Gear is Changing!” | Image: MKBHD Marques Brownlee is dealing with another commenter backlash. Fans of Brownlee are furious that his latest video, titled “How My Video Gear is Changing!” on the MKBHD YouTube channel, is a fully sponsored segment for DJI, rather than an editorially independent review. The video also contained a clip of Brownlee driving a sports car way over the speed limit on a suburban road.Commenters have flooded the video with criticism, calling out Brownlee for running the sponsored segment. “This can’t even be considered a sponsored video anymore. It’s literally just a ten minute advertisement,” reads one comment with more than 12,000 likes.In response, Brownlee edited the video to remove the clip of him speeding. It had originally shown him... Continue reading…

Eufy’s new hardwired floodlight camera can record all day long. | Image: Eufy Eufy’s new Floodlight Camera E30 attaches a 2K camera that can tilt and pan 360 degrees to a pair of 2,000-lumen LED floodlights and throws in local video capture without subscription fees. Although Eufy, the smart home brand of Anker, sells similar products with batteries and solar panels offering more flexibility on where they can be mounted, most homes already have a floodlight. That makes the hardwired E30 an easy replacement that is available now through the company’s website and Amazon for $149.99,There are alternatives we currently recommend in our floodlight camera buyer’s guide, but for $150, the Eufy E30 offers several premium features without requiring ongoing fees to actually use them.Being hardwired also means the E30,... Continue reading…

Excel has been the leading spreadsheet application for ages, but there are plenty of other options out there. Whether youre just starting out or a spreadsheet pro, there are many good choices for data crunching beyond Microsoft Excel. Lets check out seven of these Excel alternatives and see how they compare.

Upgrading my multi-screen setup to an ultrawide panel is one of the best changes I've made to my PC. Working with multiple windows on a single display allowed me to get more done and the games I enjoy in the evening all support stretched resolutions. I've rounded up some reasons why I believe you should consider switching to an ultrawide monitor if you've used more than one display.