Image: The Verge This is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.Hello! It’s been a bit since we checked in on the news. Today, I’ve got a look at the ongoing financial troubles at NPR member stations, the shutdown of Rooster Teeth, and the new season of Serial.Woes mounting at NPR member stations: “Sponsorship dollars won’t return to previous levels.”Two more public radio stations are discussing how they plan to get out of the red: Colorado Public Radio, which is adopting the “broadcast-to-podcast” strategy, and WBUR in Boston, which is appealing to listeners for donations before taking any next steps.Colorado Public Radio laid off 15 members of its staff last week and closed its... Continue reading…

Given that Microsoft and OpenAI have close ties, the Redmond giant's AI assistant, Copilot, has had access to some of the most advanced AI models. However, some of these features are locked behind a payment plan, with Microsoft offering Copilot Pro for people who want more from their assistants. Now, Microsoft has confirmed that Copilot's GPT-4 Turbo model is officially free to use, meaning you don't need a Copilot Pro plan to use it.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony is rolling out a new PS5 update that improves the speakers and microphone on DualSense controllers, adds pointers and emoji reactions to the Screen Share feature, and includes the ability to adjust the brightness of your PS5 power indicator. The update was first made available to testers last month and is rolling out globally to all PS5 owners today.Sony is updating the firmware on the DualSense and DualSense Edge wireless controllers as part of this update to improve the output volume of in-game sounds and voice chat. The microphones on both controllers have also been improved thanks to a new machine learning model that cancels out background noise like button presses. Image: Sony The new emoji reactions... Continue reading…

The Dyson 360 Vis Naz, the British manufacturer’s new robot vacuum, has finally landed in the States. I just got my hands on the $1,199 machine ahead of its official launch on March 19th and have some early thoughts to share. As only Dyson’s second attempt to enter the US robot vacuum market — the first being way back in 2016 — the Vis Nav has a lot riding on its giant wheels. With a whopping 65 air watts of suction, Dyson says it’s the most powerful robot vacuum you can buy. Combined with a largely unique design, and a really big, fluffy brush, there’s a lot to like here. A complete redesign of Dyson’s 360 Eye, which was only briefly sold in the US, the Vis Nav is slimmer, shorter, and wider than its predecessor. The new design... Continue reading…

The artificial intelligence LLM race has been slowly heating up since its jumpstart with ChatGPT. We've seen Google's Bard become Gemini, Microsoft's Bing Chat become Copilot, and we've seen Meta release its open source Llama 2 model that anyone can run on their own computer. Now, as the competition advances, Meta is expected to launch Llama 3 later this year — possibly as soon as July according to reports.

Image: Bluesky Bluesky will soon let users customize how content is moderated in their feeds. The social platform announced that it’s open-sourcing its moderation tool, called Ozone, to let developers create additional moderation services that can be selected by users.Bluesky already has a team dedicated to content moderation, along with its own set of rules users have to follow. However, the new system will let users expand what’s moderated to their liking, allowing them to subscribe to additional moderation services that label, annotate, or hide certain types of posts. Image: Bluesky Here’s what it will look like to subscribe to a moderation service. As an example, Bluesky says someone could use Ozone to create a... Continue reading…

March kicked off to a great start with the release of the M3 MacBook Air from Apple. While the refresh may appear light from the outset, the big upgrade comes from having the M3 processor in the MacBook Air. The M3 has improved graphical performance on the best Macs. According to Apple, the M3 MacBook Air should be a massive performance boost to any of the older Intel-based MacBook Airs. Additionally, the MacBook Air now supports native display output for two displays. Previously, you were limited to one external display, but now, with two available, we decided to create this guide with the best options for secondary monitors for the M3 MacBook Air.

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is finally creating a single version of Microsoft Teams that will allow you to switch between personal and work accounts easily. The new unified app is currently in testing and will let Microsoft Teams users switch between multiple tenants and personal or work account types.This new version of Teams will be rolled out to commercial users in April and will include an account switcher that’s accessible from the profile section. “We received consistent feedback from personal and work users: you prefer a single Teams app that allows you to easily access and switch between personal and work accounts,” says Microsoft in a blog post. “This update lets you use one app for all kinds of Teams accounts.” Image:... Continue reading…

There are plenty of great reasons to add a docking station to your laptop, and you might already know that a dock is necessary to handle all the external devices you'd like to connect to your laptop. A quick search for, say, a great Thunderbolt dock will usually bring up a myriad of options, and it can be tough to figure out which docking station is best for your needs. Let's take a look at some of the best tips when it comes to choosing the best docking station for your laptop to help ensure you buy the right hardware.

Image: Polestar Polestar released new pricing details for its upcoming midsize electric three-row SUV: the Polestar 3. And most notably — and perhaps a reflection of the slowdown in EV sales growth over the past few months — the Polestar 3 will start at a price that’s significantly less than the company originally predicted. Polestar, which was backed by Volvo but is now overseen by Volvo’s Chinese parent company, Geely, first announced the 3 back in October 2022. At the time, the company said the high-tech SUV would start at $83,900, placing it squarely in the luxury segment of vehicles. But now, Polestar says the price for a Polestar 3 Long Range with all-wheel drive will start at $73,400. With the $1,400 destination charge, that increases to... Continue reading…

Videos can be accessed via a “Switch to Video” button on supported tracks. | Image: Spotify Spotify is officially adding support for music videos, the company announced today. The audio streaming service describes the feature as a “beta” with only a “limited catalog” available as of today in 11 markets. Supported artists include Ed Sheeran, Doja Cat, Ice Spice, Aluna, and Asake, with Spotify’s global head of consumer experience Sten Garmark telling TechCrunch that Spotify’s full music video catalog will eventually include “thousands” of songs.The music video feature is accessible via the Now Playing screen on supported tracks, where a “Switch to Video” icon will appear above the song title. Tapping it will restart the song, and start playing its music video in the center of the display. You can rotate an iOS or Android device... Continue reading…

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas tells The Verge that many people are using chatbots like regular search engines. It makes sense to offer information on things they look for, like restaurants, directly from the source. So it’s integrating Yelp’s maps, reviews, and other details in responses when people ask for restaurant recommendations.“Our underlying motivation is that we started off as this tool that appealed to people doing fact checks and research. But research can be on anything, like what if you’re a coffee addict, you’d want to know where the good coffee shops are,” says Srinivas.As The Verge’s David Pierce recently pointed out, how Perplexity mixes text and links when answering questions was already a selling point compared to... Continue reading…