Wattpad says DMs will be shut down on May 6th, alongside the deletion of all existing messages. | Image: Wattpad Community publishing platform Wattpad is removing the ability for users to send each other direct messages, claiming that the feature has “only been relevant to a small percentage” of its global user base. Users will retain access to their DMs until May 6th, after which all existing messages will be deleted and the feature will no longer be available, according to Wattpad’s help center.Wattpad is instead encouraging its users to communicate via the public commenting feature on stories or the conversation section of profile pages. There is currently no means for users to download their existing DMs, and Wattpad says that it’s unable to retrieve such data. The feature will still exist in a limited capacity solely for Wattpad to... Continue reading…

Demand for Vision Pro is falling. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple is reportedly cutting its Vision Pro headset shipment forecast for the rest of the year due to cooling demand.Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo writes that Apple cut orders for the Vision Pro even before it launched outside of the US. His sources claim that Apple now expects to sell only around 400,000 to 450,000 units in 2024, compared to what Kuo says was a “market consensus” of 700,000 to 800,000. Demand for the $3,500 Vision Pro dropped much lower than the company was expecting.Facing the unanticipated drop in steam, Apple is now adjusting its headset roadmap, possibly pushing the future of a lower-cost entry mixed reality headset beyond 2025 (if at all). Apple’s Vision Pro has largely wowed early adopters due to its technical... Continue reading…

Once you've sorted through the best processors around, decide on an AMD chip, and eventually land on the 8700F, you're going to need a GPU, since the 8700F removes the integrated graphics of the 8700G. Luckily, regardless of whether you're looking for a super premium GPU or a budget-friendly one, you've got great options of graphics card to pair with your 8700F.

Intel has been going through a bit of a transformation of sorts in the last few months. Pushed by the improvements of chip competitor AMD and the AI dominance of Nvidia, the company has put its foot down and committed to supporting both AI and improving its fabrication nodes at a breakneck pace. Intel doesn't just want to ensure its processors are powerful, but it also wants them to be the smartest in the business.

Portable gaming PCs are great, but they don't have the same "buildability" as PCs do. If you don't like the look of the current prebuilt gaming PCs on the market, you can simply buy the parts and make one yourself. While it's not as intuitive to make your own portable gaming powerhouse, that hasn't stopped some people, as one Redditor proved by building a Ryzen 7 7840HS unit that took them three months to make.

Photo by VCG / VCG via Getty Images Tesla reported its first quarter earnings during an incredibly shaky moment for the company in which sales numbers and the stock price have both fallen. Against this backdrop, Tesla reported $1.1 billion in net income on $21 billion in revenue, down 9 percent from $23.3 billion the same time last year.The company’s profits, once the envy of the auto industry, are at their lowest in six years thanks to rampant price cutting and slowing demand. Earlier this week, the company approved its latest price cuts for the US, China, and Germany — all major markets for the EV maker. Tesla’s Q1 operating margins are 5.5 percent, down from 11.4 percent in Q1 2023. In a call with investors, the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, blamed an industrywide shift... Continue reading…

Illustration by The Verge | Photo via Getty Images The Federal Trade Commission has voted to ban noncompete agreements nationwide, saying that they are an “unfair method of competition.” Noncompete agreements — which attempt to prevent employees from working for or starting competing businesses — are especially prevalent in the world of tech, where we’ve seen companies like Amazon enforce and then retract a noncompete agreement for warehouse workers. Acer even sued its former CEO for allegedly breaching a noncompete policy by becoming a consultant for Lenovo. The change will force companies to reverse existing noncompete agreements and notify employees about the change. Existing noncompete agreements for senior executives can stay in place, but companies can’t enter or enforce new... Continue reading…

Jabra’s latest midrange earbuds aren’t the best at any one thing, but they do offer a lot of bang for your buck. | Image: Jabra At this point, it’s safe to say that Jabra makes some of the most reliable earbuds you can buy, especially for the price. The Jabra Elite 5, like the company’s prior midrange models, are good example of a pair that checks all the right boxes, offering up ANC, multipoint, and a host of other welcome features at a competitive price point. And now, thanks to a $60 discount from Amazon and Jabra, you can grab them for a mere $89.99, which nearly matches their second-best price to date.We’ve long considered the Jabra Elite 3 one of the best pairs of sub-$100 earbuds you could buy, though, at the current price, I’d argue the Elite 5 are the better value. The comfy, teardrop-shaped buds don’t excel at any one thing but rather offer a laundry... Continue reading…

More and more, we see companies try to move away from traditional passwords. Windows 11 (and 10) both recommend that you set up a PIN after signing in using a Microsoft account. This is so your Microsoft account password isn't exposed every time you login, and instead you have a unique code to your device.

Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge Today, Framework is the modular repairable laptop company. Tomorrow, it wants to be a consumer electronics company, period. That’s one of the biggest reasons it just raised another $18 million in funding — it wants to expand beyond the laptop into “additional product categories.”Framework CEO Nirav Patel tells me that has always been the plan and that the company originally had other viable ideas beyond laptops, too. “We chose to take on the notebook space first,” he says, partly because Framework knew it could bootstrap its ambitions by catering to the PC builders and tinkerers and Linux enthusiasts left behind by big OEMs and partly because it wanted to go big or go home.If Framework could succeed in laptops, he thought, it would be... Continue reading…

Home internet for when you’re not at home. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile has announced two new home internet plans: Home Internet Plus and Away. Well, technically that’s one home internet plan and one anywhere-but-home plan. These new flavors of T-Mobile’s 5G-powered internet service aim to address different customers, but both serve the same goal: leveraging that sweet 5G spectrum to do more than just keep our phones connected.The new Away plan, importantly, does not allow for “extended use in the same location,” according to a footnote in T-Mobile’s press release. It’s basically a Starlink competitor designed for campers and RV owners, but instead of using satellite connectivity, it’s more like a supercharged cellular hotspot. It can connect up to 64 devices at a time, which seems like way more... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla provided a sneak peek of its upcoming ridehailing mobile app in the company’s latest earnings report. The company’s CEO, Elon Musk, has said that Tesla will unveil a long-gestating robotaxi in August. The company revealed five screens from the forthcoming feature. The first screen shows a big button that says “Summon” with a lower message for the possible wait time. The next screen has a 3D map with a little virtual vehicle following a route to the waiting passenger. It looks a lot like the Uber app — but more Tesla-y. Image: Tesla Tesla’s ridehailing app looks like your average ridehailing app. While they wait, the passenger can set the vehicle’s climate to a preferred temperature. Other details, like... Continue reading…