California Governor Gavin Newsom attends an event with fellow governors in the East Room of the White House on February 23, 2024 in Washington, DC. | Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images California Governor Gavin Newsom has pledged to “get smartphones out of schools.”“I look forward to working with the Legislature to restrict the use of smartphones during the school day. When children and teens are in school, they should be focused on their studies — not their screens,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.Newsom plans to work with the California legislature to pass those restrictions by August, Politico first reported. That would put California in line with other states that already have strict limits on smartphone use in schools. The move could also be particularly meaningful in California, the nation’s most populous state and home to Silicon Valley.“They should be focused on their studies — not their screens.”M... Continue reading…

You can even stack multiple codes if you want to get ready for the forthcoming onslaught of day-one releases. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Unless you’re flush with cash and time is only conceptual in your world, it may be tough to finance and find the time to enjoy all of the games announced during Microsoft’s recent Xbox Showcase. An Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription can help, though, as it’ll provide day-one access to many of the titles currently in development.Thankfully, CDKeys is now selling one-month subscription codes for $10.19 (about $7 off) and three-month codes for $27.99 (about $23 off), the latter of which is a better deal. CDKeys is a trusted merchant here at The Verge, so don’t feel deterred if you’re unfamiliar with the name. The online retailer specializes in selling heavily discounted key codes for gaming products, whether you’re looking to save on... Continue reading…

Most modern laptops and desktops will have a solid-state drive (SSD) as their primary storage device, but you might also have a secondary hard drive (HDD) for additional, but slower, storage. Regardless of which type you have, you may have wondered how you can see the real-time speed of your SSD or HDD. If you want to take a peek at your computer's operations and disk usage, you can easily do so by using the Task Manager in Windows 11. It will show you stats like active time, response time, read speed, write speed, capacity, and disk type.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Qualcomm’s shareholders have managed to achieve something that Apple and government regulators across the globe tried to and failed to do: get Qualcomm to pay up over its aggressive licensing practices.In a court filing on Tuesday, Qualcomm said it would agree to pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit brought by shareholders, who claim that the company misled them about how its business practices worked and artificially inflated its stock price as a result. The settlement was earlier reported by Reuters.Shareholders took issue with Qualcomm’s failure to fully disclose how it handled patent licensing. At the time, the company refused to license standard essential patents to certain competitors and in some cases made buying its chips a... Continue reading…

Image: Snapchat Snapchat offered an early look at its upcoming on-device AI model capable of transforming a user’s surroundings with augmented reality (AR). The new model will eventually let creators turn a text prompt into a custom lens — potentially opening the door for some wild looks to try on and send to friends.You can see how this might look in the GIF below, which shows a person’s clothing and background transforming in real-time based on the prompt “50s sci-fi film.” Users will start seeing lenses using this new model in the coming months, while creators can start making lenses with the model by the end of this year, according to TechCrunch. GIF: Snapchat Additionally, Snapchat is rolling out a suite of new AI tools that... Continue reading…

Astro Bot. | Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment An adorable platformer, mythological tower defense, RPG / puzzle hybrid, and open-world Star Wars. Continue reading…

Image: The Verge The European Union is getting closer to passing new rules that would mandate the bulk scanning of digital messages — including encrypted ones. On Thursday, EU governments will adopt a position on the proposed legislation, which is aimed at detecting child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The vote will determine whether the proposal has enough support to move forward in the EU’s law-making process.The law, first introduced in 2022, would implement an “upload moderation” system that scans all your digital messages, including shared images, videos, and links. Each service required to install this “vetted” monitoring technology must also ask permission to scan your messages. If you don’t agree, you won’t be able to share images or URLs. As if... Continue reading…

The iPhone 14 Pro is still a very popular phone that many rely on. Sure, the iPhone 15 Pro series is the latest and greatest. Nonetheless, the iPhone 14 series features some of Apple's best mobile technologies and supports iOS 17. This makes it a durable investment that could last you for a number of years. That is, of course, assuming you take good care of it.

The Verge Pornhub plans to block access to its website in Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, and Nebraska in response to age verification laws designed to prevent children from accessing adult websites. The website has now cut off access in more than half a dozen states in protest of similar age verification laws that have quickly spread across conservative-leaning US states.Indiana, Idaho, and Kansas will lose access on June 28th, Kentucky will lose access on June 10th, and Nebraska will lose access on July 17th, according to a spokesperson for Aylo, Pornhub’s parent company, who asked to only be identified as Ian due to safety concerns. Ian said the blackout will apply to all of Aylo’s adult websites, which includes more than a dozen other... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you’ve been putting off your next Windows update, now’s the time to install it. Last week, Microsoft patched a pretty nasty vulnerability in Windows 11 and 10 that could put your PC at risk when connected to a public Wi-Fi network, as spotted earlier by The Register.The vulnerability (CVE-2024-30078) could let hackers deploy a malicious packet to devices connected to the same Wi-Fi networks in places like airports, coffee shops, hotels, or even workplaces. From there, hackers can remotely run commands and gain access to a system — all without any user interaction or authentication. Microsoft rolled out the patch as part of its monthly security update on June 11th.Microsoft has labeled the vulnerability as “important,” which is the... Continue reading…

Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in California on Oct. 25, 2022. | Laura Dickinson/San Luis Obsipo Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images Congress has passed a bill aimed at giving nuclear energy a boost in the US. The Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act is now waiting for President Joe Biden’s signature to become law. The Senate passed the bill on Tuesday, after the House of Representatives passed a similar bill in February.The bill is supposed to speed up development of next-generation nuclear reactors and position the US to lead the international market, while also helping aging reactors stay online. Nuclear energy is still a divisive solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change, but it has gained bipartisan support in recent years. Nuclear energy is still a divisive solution for reducing... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s co-founder and former chief scientist, is starting a new AI company focused on safety. In a post on Wednesday, Sutskever revealed Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), a startup with “one goal and one product:” creating a safe and powerful AI system.The announcement describes SSI as a startup that “approaches safety and capabilities in tandem,” letting the company quickly advance its AI system while still prioritizing safety. It also calls out the external pressure AI teams at companies like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft often face, saying the company’s “singular focus” allows it to avoid “distraction by management overhead or product cycles.”I am starting a new company: https://t.co/BG3K3SI3A1— Ilya Sutskever... Continue reading…