Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge In February 2004, a 19-year-old, flip-flop-wearing Mark Zuckerberg released an online directory of Harvard students. In those days, the internet still felt small. It was mostly about finding webpages, not people.It turned out that the internet was very good for connecting people. More than 1,000 Harvard students signed up for TheFacebook.com in the first 24 hours. The site started spreading quickly by word of mouth around campus. By the end of 2004, dozens of other colleges were on Facebook. The site had 1 million monthly users. Myspace’s user base was about five times larger, though not for long.Social media predated Facebook, but nothing had captured the magic of what Zuckerberg and his classmates hacked together. The 2004 version of... Continue reading…

Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Decades before we got married and started a family, my partner and I connected over a little Boxer pup named Charlie. We tossed a ball around, scrubbed him down when he got dirty, and took him for daily walks. It was a bonding experience — mediated entirely through the original Nintendo DS’s touchscreen. The tactile experience turned an otherwise simple game like Nintendogs, where the goal is to take care of virtual pets, into something that created a deep emotional connection. And years before smartphones were in everyone’s pockets, it helped show a generation of gamers just what’s possible with a touchscreen.Now, we mostly take them for granted, but prior to the arrival of the first DS in 2004, the idea of a touchscreen was, for many... Continue reading…

The keyboard is an important component of the PC or laptop; without it, using Windows is impractical. But do you know this essential tool can infiltrate your privacy and can potentially lead to hacking and other cyber threats? The possibility of a keyboard spying on you seems like a sci-fi concept, but in reality, there is spyware known as a keylogger that, if used with ill intent, can track your keystrokes and take note of everything you type, including passwords, banking information, private messages, and other sensitive information.

Powerline adapters have long been seen as a solution to increasing your network range at home, and to an extent, it does work. It especially works when your only alternative is to trail Ethernet cables everywhere, which can be a problem for renters. However, mesh networks and Wi-Fi networks are much more capable than they used to be, which in turn makes it so that there are even fewer use cases for powerline adapters than there once were. However, using them might actually be detrimental to your connection, and there are a few things you should know about them before you consider them for your home.

Illustration by The Verge | Photo by Tom Williams via Getty Images Meta has begun laying off employees across various departments, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Reality Labs, according to people familiar with the matter. Rather than a mass, companywide layoff, these smaller cuts seem to coincide with reorganizations of specific teams.Some Meta employees have started posting that they’ve been laid off. Among them is Jane Manchun Wong, who gained notoriety for reporting on unannounced features coming to apps before joining the Threads team in 2023.The Verge asked Meta to confirm the layoffs and will update this story if we receive a statement. This new round of layoffs follows a small series of job cuts in the company’s Reality Labs division earlier this year. Meta first laid off 11,000... Continue reading…

Intel launched its Arrow Lake family of processors in the latter half of 2024 to compete against AMD's Ryzen 9000 range. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and AMD Ryzen 9 9950X are powerful flagship CPUs far beyond what most people require for their PC. Should you need either chip for your system, there are notable differences in the architectures, sockets, threads, and other specifications. Choosing the best one for your PC depends on the platform you wish to use. They're both excellent processors, at least on paper. We still have to get the new Intel Core Ultra range on our test benches, but we have no doubt Intel will be able to match AMD.

It's easy to criticize Microsoft for adding a lot of things to Windows 11 that we don't really want or need. Whether it's a Copilot app, a new Outlook app that's not very good, or a news feed filled with terrible articles, there's plenty to complain about. But Microsoft does add great features to Windows every now and then, and sometimes, I feel like they can be severely overlooked because everyone is fine using their PC the away they always have.

With its powerful suite of features, Adobe Photoshop has been the industry standard for a long time. That said, its not the only player in the game. There is no shortage of Photoshop alternatives out there. Among them, GIMP, the free and open-source alternative, has been steadily gaining ground among creatives, offering a compelling set of flexibilities and features that even Photoshop can't match.

Virtual machines and containers are perfect for those who enjoy experimenting with different operating systems and self-hosting services on local hardware. While you could run VirtualBox or VMware Workstation Pro/Fusion Pro on your daily driver, bare metal hypervisors are better for advanced virtualization workloads.

Project Know How builds on Adobe’s work with Content Credentials. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge One of Adobe’s most notable experiments this year could help combat misinformation and ensure artists are credited for their work, no matter where it appears online or offline. Announced during the Sneaks segment at Adobe Max, Project “Know How’ is an in-development tool that can link ownership of an image or video across any online platform, and a multitude of real-world surfaces like posters, tumblers, and textiles.Project Know How builds on Adobe’s Content Credentials tech, which applies a digital tag to track where a piece of content has been posted, who owns it, and if/how it’s been manipulated. Providing an image or video has Content Credentials applied, the tool can help creators establish ownership over their content even if... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has pulled its $1 Xbox Game Pass trial, just days before Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 releases on October 25th. The 14-day Game Pass trial was removed on October 8th, preventing people from signing up for a trial and playing through the Black Ops 6 campaign without paying for a full month of Game Pass.Microsoft first stopped its $1 trial for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass in March last year, before bringing it back and nerfing it down to just 14 days instead of a full month. The Xbox maker then briefly removed the $1 trial just days before Starfield’s debut in September.It’s not surprising to see the $1 Xbox Game Pass trial quietly removed once again, especially as Microsoft looks to Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 to boost... Continue reading…

The Mac menu bar serves as the command center for managing my digital life. The default menu bar items leave a lot to be desired, though. And here is where third-party apps come into play. Over time, I have curated a collection of tools that quietly work in the background to keep me organized and efficient. From seamless file syncing and secure password management, to monitoring system performance, here are the nine marvels that have earned a permanent spot on my Mac menu bar.