Brazilian regulators say Meta’s “excessive and unjustified obstacles” make it difficult for users to opt out of AI training. | Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge Brazil’s data protection authority (ANPD) has banned Meta from training its artificial intelligence models on Brazilian personal data, citing the “risks of serious damage and difficulty to users.” The decision follows an update to Meta’s privacy policy in May in which the social media giant granted itself permission to use public Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram data from Brazil — including posts, images, and captions — for AI training.The decision follows a report published by Human Rights Watch last month which found that LAION-5B — one of the largest image-caption datasets used to train AI models — contains personal, identifiable photos of Brazilian children, placing them at risk of deepfakes and other exploitation.As reported by T... Continue reading…

An exploded view of the Amflow PL e-bike showing the Avinox drive system. | Image: DJI DJI is expanding into electric bikes in a big way with its new Avinox drive system and Amflow e-bike brand. The company best known for its drones is launching its first e-bike — the carbon fiber Amflow PL electric mountain bike — before the end of the year, complete with the mid-drive Avinox motor and fast-charging battery. It has so many smart and powerful features packed into a relatively lightweight e-bike that it should catch the attention of competitors like Bosch and Specialized.As a showcase for DJI’s new Avinox drive system, the Amflow PL e-bike features a very impressive 120Nm of max torque and 1000W of on-demand boost power to overcome even the steepest inclines. Otherwise, its “remarkably quiet” mid-drive motor is rated for... Continue reading…

Proton Docs does comments, collaboration, and a bunch of other Google Docs-y things. | Image: Proton Proton Docs looks a lot like Google Docs: white pages, formatting toolbar at the top, live indicators showing who’s in the doc with their name attached to a cursor, the whole deal. That’s not especially surprising, for a couple of reasons. First, Google Docs is hugely popular, and there are only so many ways to style a document editor anyway. Second, Proton Docs exists in large part to be all the things that are great about Google Docs — just without Google in the mix.Docs is launching today inside of Proton Drive, as the latest app in Proton’s privacy-focused suite of work tools. The company that started as an email client now also includes a calendar, a file storage system, a password manager, and more. Adding Docs to the ecosystem... Continue reading…

Illustration by The Verge | Photo via Getty Images A federal judge could block the Federal Trade Commission’s impending ban on noncompete agreements from going into effect. Noncompete agreements are intended to make it difficult for employees to switch to similar positions at other companies or start businesses of their own, and they’ve been a contentious issue within tech companies in particular.The ban had been set to go into force on September 4th, but on Wednesday, Judge Ada Brown issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought against the FTC. For those plaintiffs, the FTC’s ban will no longer go into effect on September 4th. Brown says she plans to rule on their entire challenge to the FCC “on or before August 30, 2024,” potentially stopping the FTC from blocking noncompetes... Continue reading…

Bad Wi-Fi can ruin a good movie with buffering, break your winning streak while gaming due to lag, or make a stressful workday even longer and harder. Its not unreasonable to think things could be improved with AI, but so far, the application of AI in router technology has been underwhelming and not really even worth paying attention to. If youre looking to upgrade your home internet with a new router, AI features should be at the bottom of the priority list, so don't let any marketing fool you here. For most people, the speed of the connection, the number and width of bands supported, and type of chipset will have a way bigger impact on the performance of the best Wi-Fi routers.

There would be many reasons you bought a MacBook for yourself over any other laptop. Like its flawless construction, stunning design, solid performance, proven durability, easy portability, and advanced security.

Illustration by Hugo Herrera for The Verge Amazon Prime Day 2024 is nearly here. The annual two-day super sale will start on July 16th and run through July 17th, bringing with it a treasure trove of discounts, promos, and exclusive deals for Amazon Prime subscribers. It may not be the only Prime Day event we see this year — Amazon has recently taken to hosting a second shopping event in the fall — but it will likely remain one of the best opportunities of the year to score discounts on a range of tech outside of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.Like in previous years, we’re highlighting the best deals on a variety of Verge-approved gadgets and gizmos, from the latest laptops and OLED TVs to robot vacuums that can leave your hardwood floors as spotless as your living room carpet.... Continue reading…

Picking up my new passport at the post office. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Perhaps you’ve heard you can now renew your US passport online. As long as you meet certain requirements, there’s a beta website for that. The State Department tells me it’s not necessarily faster — but anecdotally, my family just had two of the speediest, most painless experiences we’ve ever had with the US government. I applied from my phone, I shot my own digital photo at home — and one week later, I picked up my new passport at the post office. I submitted it on June 15th, my passport was issued on June 20th, and it was waiting for me on the 21st. That’s just six days in total.Five business days eachWhen my wife tried it, her renewal went even quicker: she applied on June 24th, her application was approved on the 26th, her new... Continue reading…

Whether you're building a gaming PC or workstation build, choosing the best RAM is essential to extract the most performance out of your system. The best DDR5 RAM options combine great performance and value, but if you're after a white-themed kit for your all-white PC, you need to look at some specific memory kits to match the overall white theme of your build.

How bad of a webcam do you think you can use on a video call or conference before someone demands you find something better? No matter what you're imagining, nothing can beat a Game Boy camera converted to become a webcam. If you still have some old hardware sitting around, the people behind GB Operator are hard at work developing a new feature that will let you use the ancient camera of yore as your webcam, making for, as they put it, "the worst and the best webcam" you can have.

If you're working on your computer all day, it's a good idea to invest in a good keyboard. While you might not think much of it, a good keyboard can really be a key component if you're looking to improve your productivity. In addition, there are also health benefits here as well, as a good keyboard can do a lot to preserve your fingers and wrists.

Excel is one of the Microsoft 365 services that receive a lot of attention from Microsoft, and users get the benefit in the form of new features every month, just as it did in June. And now that a new month has started, the software giant has already started rolling out another set of changes to Excel for the web, aiming to make spreadsheet tasks "simpler, faster, and more enjoyable".