When you use a wireless router to access the internet, you are basically transferring and receiving data by converting it into radio signals. Unless properly secured, this form of communication leaves devices wide open to be spied upon, and hackers can steal potentially sensitive information whenever you send or view it. The best way to keep your wireless connections safe is with encryption, and currently WPA2 is one of the best options available.

Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge A good video game speedrun is a marvel to witness. You watch players fly through your favorite games, hitting impossible jumps and finding shortcuts you never knew existed. It makes you see a familiar game in a whole new light. If you’ve never watched a speedrun, check out this world-record run through the original Super Mario Bros., and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Being, you know, a speedrun, it’ll take all of five minutes of your time.But what you won’t see (unless you follow speedrunners on Twitch) is the hours upon hours of work it took to create that perfect run — the thousands of attempts to navigate a game with perfect precision, shaving off every unnecessary move, exploiting every weird glitch. It’s punishing work for the... Continue reading…

The tiny Flextail pump inflated this city bike tire in 45 seconds. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge Social media’s algorithms know that I ride a bike almost every day. My quiver includes a city bike, mountain bike, and gravel bike, in addition to one or two e-bikes I’m always in the process of reviewing. I’m also the family mechanic, which makes me responsible for no less than 16 to 18 tires that I must keep inflated. So, you’d better believe I took notice when Instagram served me several ads for the Flextail Tiny Bike Bump.The mini rechargeable pump works with Presta (the thin one) or Schrader (the old fatty) valves and promises ultra-fast inflation that maxes out at 100psi (about 7 bars) — enough for any bike that doesn’t require a stretchy wardrobe coordinated with your shoes and helmet. The origins of the pump are suspect, as I... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google has had a longstanding ban on sexually explicit ads — but until now, the company hasn’t banned advertisers from promoting services that people can use to make deepfake porn and other forms of generated nudes. That’s about to change. Google currently prohibits advertisers from promoting “sexually explicit content,” which Google defines as “text, image, audio, or video of graphic sexual acts intended to arouse.” The new policy now bans the advertisement of services that help users create that type of content as well, whether by altering a person’s image or generating a new one.The change, which will go into effect on May 30th, prohibits “promoting synthetic content that has been altered or generated to be sexually explicit or... Continue reading…

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Apple hasn’t talked too much about AI so far — but it’s been working on stuff. A lot of stuff. Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge The fate of Google’s search business is now in the hands of Judge Amit Mehta, as closing arguments concluded in the landmark trial on Friday.The Department of Justice and plaintiff states made their last arguments Thursday on Google’s alleged anticompetitive conduct in the general search market, and on Friday focused on its allegedly illegal conduct in search advertising. Google was also under fire (separately) for failing to retain chat messages that the DOJ believes could have been relevant to the case. The government is trying to show that Google locked up key distribution channels for the general search engine market, so that would-be rivals could not grow into significant threats. It says it did so through contracts with phone... Continue reading…

In the vast, competitive realm of online gaming, maintaining game integrity is crucial. Riot Games, renowned for titles such as League of Legends and Valorant, is leading the charge in this arena, employing sophisticated anti-cheat systems to ensure fairness. Recently, Nick Peterson and Phillip Koskinas, key figures in Riot's anti-cheat technology, provided insights into the complexities of gaming security during an interview, addressing questions about the future of anti-cheat technology.

Image: David Pierce / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 36, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, hello, I’m thrilled you found us, the Installerverse loves you, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) I missed you all last week! I was at a friend’s bachelor party in South Carolina, playing golf and eating burgers and mostly staying offline. Thanks to everyone who reached out to say you missed the newsletter! But I’m back now, and so is Installer. We are so back. This week, I’ve been writing about AI gadgets and iPads, watching Baby Reindeer and The Fall Guy, reading A Drink Before the War, and listening to the excellent Challengers score. I also have for you a new browser for... Continue reading…

Thermal design power (TDP) is vital when shopping for the best CPU cooler. The Intel Core i9-13900KS is a power-hungry chip that can draw more than 300W of power from the PSU, but after seeing how well the Noctua NH-P1 performed with the AMD Ryzen 7900, I thought "There's no way it could handle the 14900KS, right?" There's only one way to answer whether you can passively cool the 14900KS and that's to put it to the test. In the name of science, I installed the Noctua NH-P1 with no fan and the Intel Core i9-14900KS on our open-air test bench to see what would happen.

Graphics cards can be a touchy subject for PC gamers. Whether it's the best gaming GPUs on the market or the worst GPUs of all time, people will always have conflicting opinions. However, most of us can probably agree on is that some graphics cards are either objectively poor products or simply unnecessary for the vast majority. Companies like Nvidia and AMD aren't helping either by always adding new entries to the worst GPU deals you've ever seen.

If you didn't keep up with the news this week, you missed some cool projects. A supercomputer went to auction, plus someone revived a PC from the late '80s with MS-DOS 4. Plus, if you're thinking about getting the Rabbit R1, perhaps you should check out the recent drama surrounding it before you fork over any money.

The Verge Microsoft’s latest Windows Insider blog posts say that when it comes to testing new Copilot features in Windows 11, “We have decided to pause the rollouts of these experiences to further refine them based on user feedback.” For people who already have the feature, “Copilot in Windows will continue to work as expected while we continue to evolve new ideas with Windows Insiders.” Microsoft is holding an AI event on May 20th which would be a good time to show more of what’s next, and after setting up 2024 as “the year of the AI PC,” with a new Copilot key on Windows keyboards, there’s a lot to live up to.We’re expecting to see new Surface laptops powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite processors that run Windows on Arm and compete with... Continue reading…