SimpliSafe’s new live guard outdoor protection service allows its agents to monitor your outdoor security cameras for potential intruders. | Image: SimpliSafe SimpliSafe is bringing live monitoring to its outdoor cameras, adding to the indoor live monitoring service it launched last year. The new live guard outdoor protection service lets SimpliSafe’s human agents view a live feed from its outdoor camera when the system is armed, the camera detects a person, and its AI and facial recognition algorithms determine that person is likely to be a stranger. The idea is that SimpliSafe could more proactively prevent someone from breaking in than traditional alarm systems, which typically only trigger after a home's perimeter has been breached.The DIY smart home security company’s new service uses a combination of on-device AI, cloud-based computer vision, and facial recognition to determine when... Continue reading…

Unlike other Firefly-powered tools that generate sections of an image, Photoshop’s new Generate Image tool will fill the entire canvas. | Image: Adobe Adobe is adding some new generative AI tools to its Photoshop creative software that aim to give users additional ways to control the designs they generate. Powered by Adobe’s new Firefly Image 3 foundation model, these new tools are available today via the Photoshop beta desktop app, and will be generally available “later this year” according to Adobe’s Press release.The most notable tool is Reference Image, which uses user-uploaded images to inspire the output generated by Adobe’s AI, matching similar elements in style and color. For example, instead of repeatedly tweaking a prompt description like “a blue vintage truck with flower decals,” users can instead provide a reference image that Photoshop will use as a guide.“Prompting is a... Continue reading…

Anker’s versatile charging orb functions as both a power strip and a StandBy-ready phone stand. | Image: Nathan Edwards / The Verge A cluttered desk can easily hijack your focus, which is why Anker’s Qi2-certified MagGo Magnetic Charging Station (8-in-1) can prove helpful. It’s small, but it can quickly clear up space by replacing a good chunk of your chargers while doubling as a sturdy phone stand. It normally runs $99.99, but now until 4:45PM PT / 7:45PM ET on April 28th, you can pick up the charger at its all-time low of $69.99 ($30 off) at Amazon and Anker (with promo code WS7DV2GPRWSL).The speedy orb-shaped charger can supply up to 15W of power to MagSafe-equipped iPhones — specifically iPhone 12, 13, 14, and 15 models — while functioning as a versatile power strip that can charge up to seven other devices. It supports up to 67W total power output and comes... Continue reading…

Retro games are great. Old classics like Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, and a ton of others across a span of consoles are some of the greatest games of all time. Modern technology allows you to play them anywhere, and these are some of the best ways you can enjoy the classics no matter where you go.

YouTube Fortnite is rolling out an update on Tuesday that includes a new setting that filters out “confrontational” emotes. The v29.30 update will let players “choose not to see” the following emotes: “Laugh It Up”, “Take the L”, “Whipcrack”, and “Make it Plantain.” The four emotes won’t exactly be hidden per se, they’ll appear as still images in the game — but players performing them won’t dance and they won’t play music. Players can opt to only see these emotes from friends, or hide them altogether. Though Fortnite has hundreds of different emotes, this group of four are controversial because of how and when players will use them. Fortnite players will often play emotes like “Laugh it Up” and “Take the L” after killing another player or... Continue reading…

Have you ever worn your Apple Watch during a workout, only to find out later that it didn't track anything properly? This happens to almost every Apple Watch owner at some point. Maybe you used a third-party app to log your workout, or simply just forgot to hit start or stop at the right time. Fortunately, it's relatively easy to edit Apple Watch workouts (with some limitations). You can also manually add a workout after the fact so it more accurately represents what you did and, conversely, delete one that was added accidentally.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge DolphiniOS, a fork of the popular Dolphin emulator for Nintendo Wii and GameCube games, has confirmed that it’s not coming to the Apple App Store even though emulators are now supported. In a post on Friday, the developer behind the emulator says it’s because Apple doesn’t allow DolphiniOS to use its underlying performance-boosting tech.As explained by developer OatmealDome, DolphiniOS — along with other Wii and GameCube emulators — uses something called Just-in-Time (JIT). This is a compiler that “translates” the GameCube and Wii’s PowerPC-based code into a language other devices can understand, making emulations run a lot smoother.Even with the recent App Store policy changes, DolphiniOS still cannot be submitted to the App Store... Continue reading…

Even in 2024, the Steam Deck is still the one to beat, regarded by many as one of the best PC gaming handhelds you can buy right now. But that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of other options on the market. In fact, there are quite a few to choose from with the likes of the Lenovo Legion Go, Ayaneo Kun, and Asus ROG Ally.

Microsoft Loop is a service the company has been working on for a few years, but it's something that's still shrouded in mystery for a lot of people. Some have called the app a clone of Notion, which may be accurate, but may also not really answer the question of what it is.

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Grzegorz Wajda, Getty Images When Tesla releases its first quarter earnings this afternoon, the company’s CEO Elon Musk will field the usual questions about new products, new factories, and progress toward its futuristic vision of self-driving cars and robot workers. But Musk will also face increasingly urgent questions about its current state of affairs — and why everything seems to be going to shit. Earlier this month, the company reported its first year-over-year sales drop in four years, a sign of rougher waters ahead. Tesla’s stock has fallen more than 40 percent since the start of the year, including a 13 percent drop in the last week. The company laid off over 14,000 employees last week, 10 percent of its global workforce — which could end up being closer to... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft launched the next version of its lightweight AI model Phi-3 Mini, the first of three small models the company plans to release. Phi-3 Mini measures 3.8 billion parameters and is trained on a data set that is smaller relative to large language models like GPT-4. It is now available on Azure, Hugging Face, and Ollama. Microsoft plans to release Phi-3 Small (7B parameters) and Phi-3 Medium (14B parameters). Parameters refer to how many complex instructions a model can understand. The company released Phi-2 in December, which performed just as well as bigger models like Llama 2. Microsoft says Phi-3 performs better than the previous version and can provide responses close to how a model 10 times bigger than it can. Eric Boyd,... Continue reading…

This drone might migrate south to a new location in Arizona. | Image: Amazon Amazon is winding down its Prime Air drone delivery program in Lockeford, California — an early testing zone for a service that allowed local residents to order products weighing up to five pounds and get them delivered to their location via drone in 30 minutes.In the same press release, Amazon also announced that the company is launching a new Prime Air location in Tolleson, Arizona. The new location is expected to provide “same-day” deliveries to residents in the West Valley Phoenix metro area. Amazon expects to begin operations in Arizona starting later this year.The press release doesn’t provide a clear reason as to why the Lockeford location, which opened for business in 2022, is closing, though it does say employees at the... Continue reading…