iPhone or Android? It's the age-old question when picking out a new smartphone. Although it may ultimately come down to brand preference, there's certainly more to it than meets the eye.

Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson demonstrating the Gravity SUV’s front trunk seating. | Image: Tim Stevens Different brands do different things under the hoods of their EVs. Some fill that space with inverters and high-voltage cabling. Others carve out a cubby of extra storage, the frunk that many EV aficionados demand but few actually use. With the Gravity SUV, Lucid is taking the frunk option a step further, creating a space that can be used as a seat. I confess, I thought it was a gimmick, but sitting in that frunk is surprisingly comfortable. It’s a bit cozy for two adults, as I found when Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson joined me, but we fit just fine. The Gravity is no longer a conceptRawlinson was representing Lucid at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, where the Gravity was situated on the so-called “Concept Lawn,” just a few feet... Continue reading…

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo: Getty Images Microsoft’s latest monthly security update is wreaking havoc on dual-boot Windows and Linux systems. The software giant issued a security patch last week to fix a two-year-old vulnerability in the GRUB open-source boot loader used by lots of Linux devices. Microsoft’s patch wasn’t supposed to hit dual-boot devices, but many have found it has and it’s now stopping their Linux installs from booting properly.Ars Technica reports that multiple Linux dual-boot users are seeing “security policy violation” messages, along with “something has gone seriously wrong” errors. There are reports of issues across Reddit, Ubuntu forums, and elsewhere. Distributions including Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, Zorin OS, and Puppy Linux have all been affected... Continue reading…

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images A federal judge has blocked the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on noncompete agreements that make it difficult for workers to join their employers’ rivals or launch competing businesses. The ruling prevents the FTC’s ban on noncompete agreements from taking effect on September 4th, though the agency could still appeal the decision.On Tuesday, US District Judge Ada Brown in Dallas, Texas ruled that the antitrust agency exceeded its statutory authority to ban practices related to unfair methods of competition, saying the noncompete agreements ban is “unreasonably overbroad without a reasonable explanation,” and would “cause irreparable harm.” Brown’s decision now stops the FTC from blocking noncompetes nationwide after initially delaying... Continue reading…

The touchscreen on the JBL Tour Pro 3’s charging case is now 30 percent larger. | Image: JBL JBL has announced an upgraded version of its first wireless earbuds with a touchscreen charging case. The new JBL Tour Pro 3’s case features a larger screen and now works as a transmitter, broadcasting audio to the earbuds from a wired source such as a plane’s in-flight entertainment system. However, that larger screen also comes with a steeper price tag. They’ll sell for $299, which is nearly $50 more than the JBL Tour Pro 2.The 1.57-inch touchscreen on the JBL Tour Pro 3’s charging case is 30 percent larger than the screen on the Tour Pro 2’s, giving it enough room to fit additional info like the name of the song currently playing. That will potentially make it even more useful as an alternative to reaching for your smartphone if you... Continue reading…

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge If you subscribe to Twitch channels from Twitch’s mobile app, you might have to pay a bit more starting in October.Twitch announced on Wednesday that Tier 1 and gift subscriptions in more than 40 countries will have a higher price on the iOS and Android apps starting on October 1st. According to emails from Twitch shared by Dexerto and on Reddit, Tier 1 subscriptions will cost $7.99 per month, an increase from the current Tier 1 price on the app of $5.99 per month. The cost of Tier 2 and Tier 3 subscriptions will remain the same.The July price hike, which affected subscriptions on the web, upped a Tier 1 subscription to $5.99 per month in the US, an increase of $1. (Once the new mobile price increase takes effect, subscribing via the... Continue reading…

Photo by Brandon Bell / Getty Images A telecom company that transmitted the deepfake robocall of President Joe Biden’s voice has agreed to pay $1 million to resolve an enforcement action from the Federal Communications Commission, the agency announced.Lingo Telecom relayed a fake Biden message to New Hampshire voters in January, urging them not to turn out for the Democratic primary. The FCC identified political consultant Steve Kramer as the person behind the generative AI calls and previously proposed Kramer pay a separate $6 million fine.Under the new settlement with Lingo, the FCC said the company will need to strictly adhere to its caller ID authentication rules, including “know your customer” principles. The FCC will also require Lingo to “more thoroughly verify the... Continue reading…

Image: Samsung Samsung has announced a new Odyssey gaming monitor lineup at gamescom that uses eye-tracking technology to convert 2D visuals into glasses-free 3D. The Odyssey 3D is set for a global release “within this year” according to Samsung, and will allow users to “seamlessly switch between 2D and 3D modes” based on preference — which may tempt folks who are curious about 3D gaming, but apprehensive to commit.The Odyssey 3D is Samsung’s first 3D gaming monitor, having first teased a concept display at CES earlier this year. It’ll be available in 27- or 37-inch sizes and features a 4K QLED panel with a 165Hz refresh rate, alongside a 1-millisecond response time and support for AMD FreeSync. Both monitors also include a single DisplayPort 1.4 and... Continue reading…

For over a year, Vivaldi has been my go-to web browser after leaving Microsoft Edge behind. It wasn't perfect, but Vivaldi came really close with a lot of things, and I loved using it. Until it decided to stop working properly and wasting my time, which forced me to find an alternative.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AI-enabled ammunition vending machines could facilitate mass shootings and let people circumvent federal bans prohibiting people with certain criminal convictions from buying ammunition, two senators warn.Massachusetts Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) asking it to “closely examine” facial recognition-enabled ammunition vending machines that have recently been installed in supermarkets in certain states.“Easy access to ammunition helps to fuel our country’s gun violence epidemic, which now claims more than 44,000 lives annually.”The machines, distributed by the Texas-based company American Rounds, began appearing in grocery stores in Alabama, Texas,... Continue reading…

A line worker tends to fallen power lines in the East End neighborhood of Houston, days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, on Thursday, July 11th, 2024. | Raquel Natalicchio / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images The US has dealt with 60 percent more weather-related outages during warmer months over the past decade than it did during the 2000s, according to data crunched by the nonprofit research organization Climate Central. It’s a trend that raises health risks as the planet heats up. Climate change supercharges disasters like storms and wildfires that often cut off power. Soaring demand for air conditioning also stresses out the grid. All of this can leave people without life-saving cooling or electric medical devices at times when they’re most vulnerable. Image: Climate Central Climate Central collected data from the Department of Energy on outages that took place between 2000 and 2023. It looked specifically at periods... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Back in 2017, Equifax announced that hackers stole half of the US population’s Social Security numbers in what, we said, “will likely end up being one of the worst data breaches to ever affect the country.” Perhaps — until this year, when about 2.9 billion rows of data were collected through a breach at National Public Data (NPD), a company that resells collected personal data for background checks. This data included names, Social Security numbers, and other personal information. As usual, when this sort of thing hits the news, our immediate reaction is to wonder what we can do to prevent ourselves from falling prey to identity theft, unauthorized withdrawals, false credit applications, and other nasty consequences. And, also, as... Continue reading…