The Asus ROG Ally, with the Xbox app on Windows. This is not enough. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge The Nintendo Switch is on track to become the bestselling game console of all time. Sony’s PS5 will likely surpass the Xbox One’s entire lifetime sales later this year. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s newer Xbox Series X and S, with their comparatively disappointing exclusive games, are firmly in third place yet again — and it doesn’t look like Xbox Game Pass will ever fill the gap. Microsoft isn’t planning to take this lying down. It’s among the largest video game companies in the world now that it owns Activision Blizzard, and it’s going to act. This Thursday, we expect the company to reveal a seismic shift in strategy, one where it could bring Xbox exclusives like Hi-Fi Rush, Starfield, even Indiana Jones to PlayStation and / or Switch. To... Continue reading…

SVG images and text descriptions fed into Keyframer are automatically converted into animation code. | Image: Apple Researchers at Apple have unveiled Keyframer, a prototype generative AI animation tool that enables users to add motion to 2D images by describing how they should be animated. In a research paper published on February 8th, Apple said that large language models (LLMs) are “underexplored” in animation despite the potential they’ve shown across other creative mediums like writing and image generation. The LLM-powered Keyframer tool is being pitched as one example of how the technology could be applied.Utilizing OpenAI’s GPT4 as its base model, Keyframer can take Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) files — an illustration format that can be resized without interfering with quality — and generate CSS code to animate the image based on a text... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Microsoft and OpenAI are revealing today that hackers are already using large language models like ChatGPT to refine and improve their existing cyberattacks. In newly published research, Microsoft and OpenAI have detected attempts by Russian, North Korean, Iranian, and Chinese-backed groups using tools like ChatGPT for research into targets, to improve scripts, and to help build social engineering techniques.“Cybercrime groups, nation-state threat actors, and other adversaries are exploring and testing different AI technologies as they emerge, in an attempt to understand potential value to their operations and the security controls they may need to circumvent,” says Microsoft in a blog post today. The Strontium group, linked to Russian... Continue reading…

Sony’s Madame Web isn’t especially great or terrible, but it’s surprisingly committed to transporting you back to 2003 — a golden age for comic book movies that were aggressively mid or worse. Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft tweeted that its annual Build conference for developers will take place in Seattle from May 21st through 23rd. The announcement tells everyone to expect to hear updates about “AI, Copilots, and more.”The 2023 event marked a return to the in-person portion, and this year’s event promises to take place both in Seattle and online. Last year, Microsoft ramped up AI efforts that now include tools for developers like Copilot Studio and Windows AI Studio, while its growing AI ambitions around Windows and Microsoft 365 will surely be front and center again.No schedule of events for this year’s gathering has been posted yet, and the page is currently inviting potential attendees to sign up to find out when registration opens. On the... Continue reading…

IBM was once a powerhouse in personal computing, and that was partially solidified by the launch of the IBM Portable Personal Computer 5155. Released on this day in February 1984, this computer was roughly the size of a suitcase and weighed in at 30 pounds, or 30.6 kg. It cost $4,225, which at the time of writing, would cost a rather hefty $12,390.

It doesn’t help that there’s no real killer app yet. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge For some Apple Vision Pro buyers, the honeymoon is already over. It’s no coincidence that there’s been an uptick on social media of Vision Pro owners saying they’re returning their $3,500 headsets in the past few days. Apple allows you to return any product within 14 days of purchase — and for the first wave of Vision Pro buyers, we’re right about at that point.Comfort is among the most cited reasons for returns. People have said the headset gives them headaches and triggers motion sickness. The weight of the device, and the fact that most of it is front-loaded, has been another complaint. Parker Ortolani, The Verge’s product manager, told me that he thought using the device led to a burst blood vessel in his eye. At least one other... Continue reading…

Random-access memory — commonly known as RAM — acts as a sort of broker between your computer's processor (CPU) and storage. Instead of your CPU having to pull everything from your main hard drive, priority data is stored on the RAM for quick access, allowing the CPU to spend less time searching for what it needs. The data stored on RAM is constantly being switched in and out as needed, and the amount of RAM required for certain tasks can differ greatly. This guide aims to answer one of the most notorious tech questions of all time: How much RAM do you need in your computer?

The original PS5 next to last year’s slimmer redesign. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge Sony now expects to sell 4 million fewer PS5 consoles in its 2023 fiscal year ending March 31st compared to previous projections, Bloomberg reports. The revision came as part of today’s third-quarter earnings release which saw Sony lower the PS5 sales forecast from the 25 million consoles it expected to sell down to 21 million.While PS5 sales were up in Sony’s third quarter, increasing to 8.2 million units from 6.3 million in the same quarter the previous year, Bloomberg notes that this was roughly a million units lower than it had previously projected. That’s despite the release of the big first-party title Spider-Man 2, strong sales of third-party titles, and the launch of a new slimmer PS5 in November. “We expect the annual sales... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge A report from the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project (TTP) alleges that X has been selling premium subscriptions to subjects of US sanctions, including leaders of the US-designated terrorist organization Hezbollah. The TTP report identifies 28 accounts that were granted checkmarks under owner Elon Musk’s paid verification plan, evading rules that formally state they’re banned from using it. The allegations raise new questions about how strictly social media platforms should vet users — after the Supreme Court ruled just last year that the platform formerly known as Twitter was not responsible for abetting a terrorist attack.The TTP report lists the full series of sanctioned entities that got verified on Twitter. The wide range of names... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla rolled out two changes in its latest vehicle software update — 2024.2.6 — that appear to be aimed squarely at battery issues that immobilized cars during an extreme cold weather event in January. One of those new features will tell Tesla drivers how much time they can expect until their battery is warm enough for DC fast charging, while the other will automatically defrost the charge port.According to the update’s release notes published by Not a Tesla App, the charge port will start warming automatically when drivers use the car’s navigation feature to get to a charging station. Frozen charge ports could be one of the issues that left drivers stranded during an extreme cold snap in Chicago earlier this year, especially if the... Continue reading…

Image: Aspyr I have been waiting for Tomb Raider I-III Remastered for 21 years. That’s when I first played the second entry in the series, it having been a “gift” from my mother’s boyfriend who gave me both his PlayStation and a handful of games — sans jewel cases — for no other reason than wanting to free up some space in his closet. I played it ceaselessly, enamored with the game’s action and puzzles and the fact it was the first game I ever owned that starred a woman. But after reconnecting with the Tomb Raider II portion of Aspyr’s remaster, I’m left asking: what in the natural hell was 15-year-old Ash thinking?Playing Tomb Raider II on the Switch — it’s also available on Xbox, PC, and Playstation — was an exercise in self-flagellation, with the... Continue reading…