Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nvidia has officially hit a $2 trillion market capitalization, making it the first chipmaker to cross the threshold. It’s also the third US company to reach over a $2 trillion valuation, right behind Apple ($2.83 trillion) and Microsoft ($3.06 trillion).The California-based company has seen rapid growth over the past year due to its leadership in the AI chip market. Nvidia’s market cap reached $1 trillion only less than one year ago, and it left both Amazon and Alphabet in the rearview mirror as it became a $1.83 trillion company earlier this month.As part of its earnings report last week, Nvidia revealed a record $60.9 billion in revenue in 2023, marking a 126 percent increase from 2022. Other companies, like OpenAI, Microsoft, and... Continue reading…

Corsair’s Scimitar RGB Elite gaming mouse is our top pick for gamers who play a lot of MMOs or MOBAs. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge It’s been a good week for gaming accessory deals. Not only is the official Xbox Wireless Controller on sale for just $44 ($16 off), but you can still replace your Nintendo Switch Joy-Con with the Hori Split Pad Compact for $32.49 ($18 off). And PC gamers can get in on the savings, too, now that Corsair’s Scimitar RGB Elite is down to $59.99 ($20 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. That’s the lowest price we’ve seen on the wired gaming mouse since Black Friday and only $10 shy of its lowest price to date. Corsair’s gaming mouse is our top pick for playing MMOs, MOBAs, and action RPGs like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV. With an adjustable 12-button side panel, the USB-A mouse makes it easy to quickly swap weapons or abilities using... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google has offered a glimpse into its final arguments to a DC federal judge as it seeks to convince the court it’s not operating an unlawful monopoly in search.The company filed an unsealed version of its posttrial brief on Friday in its battle against the US Department of Justice over its search distribution agreements. The DOJ has argued that Google used exclusionary contracts with phone manufacturers and web browser operators to make it harder for other search engines to compete. The agency’s own brief, filed later in the day in conjunction with a coalition of states, contends that Google “exploited its monopoly power to ‘freeze the ecosystem’ of what should otherwise be a vibrant and competitive industry.”In the brief filed Friday,... Continue reading…

If you've been using ChatGPT or hearing about all of the best AI image generators out there, you're probably wondering if ChatGPT can generate images. The short answer is yes, but you'll need a ChatGPT Plus subscription to make use of it. It's powered by DALL-E 3, and can be invoked through normal conversation.

Photo by Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against tax prep company H&R Block for allegedly wasting consumers’ time and money. The company deceptively marketed its services and made them difficult to downgrade, the FTC claims in an administrative complaint issued Friday.“H&R Block designed its online products to present an obstacle course of tedious challenges to consumers, pressuring them into overpaying for its products,” FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection director Samuel Levine said in a statement.The administrative complaint is similar to a lawsuit but results in proceedings before the FTC’s in-house administrative law judge. Findings can ultimately be appealed to a federal court.The agency alleges that H&R Block steered... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google has issued an explanation for the “embarrassing and wrong” images generated by its Gemini AI tool. In a blog post on Friday, Google says its model produced “inaccurate historical” images due to tuning issues. The Verge and others caught Gemini generating images of racially diverse Nazis and US Founding Fathers earlier this week.“Our tuning to ensure that Gemini showed a range of people failed to account for cases that should clearly not show a range,” Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s senior vice president, writes in the post. “And second, over time, the model became way more cautious than we intended and refused to answer certain prompts entirely — wrongly interpreting some very anodyne prompts as sensitive.” S... Continue reading…

There’s something a bit different about this Slackbot icon... | Image: Tom McKay Hiding on Slack isn’t all that hard, apparently; you just have to pretend you’re a bot. That’s what IT Brew’s Tom McKay did when he left Gizmodo in 2022, and he went undetected by the site’s management for months.In a post on X, McKay shared some screenshots of the new “Slackbot” persona he took on after he officially left Gizmodo. He also confirmed to The Verge that this silly prank really happened.If you’re not glued to Slack for most of the day like I am, then you might not know that Slackbot is the friendly robot that lives in the messaging service. It helps you do things like set reminders, find out your office’s Wi-Fi password, or let you know when you’ve been mentioned in a channel that you’re not a part of.it's been long... Continue reading…

No one seems to know what causes it. | Photo by @inphenite / Reddit Vision Pro owners are posting near-identical reports of a crack appearing on the front glass of their headsets. None of them seem to know how it happened, either.The issue was first spotted by MacRumors, and so far, there have been five separate Redditors who have posted about it in the r/VisionPro subreddit. Engadget also reported that the same happened with its review unit. What makes it curious is that all of the uploaded pictures appear to show vertical hairline cracks in the same exact area above the nose bridge. All the affected Redditors say they didn’t do anything obvious to cause the cracks, like dropping the device or storing it improperly. Reddit user @dornbirn claims that they polished the front glass, placed the soft cover... Continue reading…

Microsoft has introduced a new AI edit feature called Generative erase in the Photos app for Windows 11 Insiders, allowing users to remove small and large objects from photos. This feature is similar to Spot fix but more advanced. It can erase large areas from photos and ensure a match in the color scheme, thus creating a seamless and more realistic result after objects are removed.

The market for AI chatbots is rapidly filling up, with no indication that its growth will slow down soon. The rise of ChatGPT, followed by the advent of Microsoft's Copilot and Google's Gemini, has made it difficult for users to choose the language model that best meets their needs. Furthermore, with programs like LM Studio enabling users to launch various models on their own powerful computers, the question of "Which AI chatbot is the right one for me?" has become even more complex to answer.

There are plenty of great tech gifts that can light up someone’s life for less than $25, from smart bulbs to everyday essentials. | Image: Nanoleaf Wanting to treat a friend or a loved one to some tech or a cool gadget while on a very lean budget can feel like an impossible task. Most of the everyday devices we use cost multiple hundreds of dollars, so what do you get when you just want a nice birthday or “just because” kind of gift but can’t break the bank? Sure, you could default to something basic like a pair of socks or a scarf, but that gets boring fast.Here, we’ve assembled a bunch of cool tech ideas on a budget of just $25 that are worth your money, including a headphone stand ($19.99), a quality USB-C cable ($9.99), a unique Bluetooth speaker, and other essentials. Some of these items might not sound very fun or exciting at first, but they’re all helpful gifts that any... Continue reading…

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to do this again. Last year, it seemed like there was no reason to believe Spotify would ever roll out its long-delayed HiFi lossless streaming feature, which was announced in 2021 and then never mentioned again. But then, one of the company’s co-presidents kept hope alive, telling my colleague Alex Heath “we are going to do it.” That was in March 2023. And now here we find ourselves, three years and one day after Spotify HiFi’s buzzy original announcement, and still nothing. Like always, there are signs that the company is continuing to work on HiFi — although it’s unlikely to be called that anymore. And unlike rival services, you’re likely going to have to pay a lot more for it, whenever it actually... Continue reading…