The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max are the subject of some new and improved battery health claims. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge iPhone 15 owners seemingly got some great news yesterday: long-term battery health is better than Apple initially claimed. Twice as good, in fact! The company is now advertising a much larger number to represent how long its batteries will last. The trouble is, we’re not exactly sure if the batteries have gotten that much better — or if Apple has just changed how it talks about and tests them.As reported by 9to5Mac, Apple retested the batteries in the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro and now claims they can maintain at least 80 percent of their original capacity for 1,000 charging cycles — double its initial claim of 500 cycles. Batteries naturally degrade over time, so the added longevity is welcome news. It’s particularly notable since iPhone 14... Continue reading…

Apple Vision Pro is what Apple calls a "spatial computer," and it launched earlier this month. Apple product launches typically come with a lot of fanfare, but the mainstream public reception to Vision Pro's launch was quite subdued. In part, that's due to the Vision Pro's massive $3,500 price tag, which simply prices out plenty of working people. But there may also be some critical flaws contributing to the lack of interest in Apple's first VR headset. Last Friday was the final day that day-one buyers could return Vision Pro, and by the looks of social media, users were flocking to return the headset.

Photo by JASON HENRY/AFP via Getty Images Waymo’s plan to expand its robotaxi service in Los Angeles and communities south of San Francisco has been put on hold by state regulators. The move follows several incidents involving the Alphabet-owned company’s driverless vehicles, including one in which an autonomous Waymo vehicle struck a cyclist, causing minor injuries. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which voted in favor of allowing robotaxi companies to operate 24/7 last summer, put a hold on Waymo’s application for expanded service “for further staff review,” according to the agency’s website. The hold is set to expire on June 19th, 2024 — 119 days from today. The suspension does not affect the company’s ability to operate in its current service area, which... Continue reading…

Don’t believe smartwatches or smart rings that claim to noninvasively measure blood sugar levels. | Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you see a smartwatch or smart ring for sale that claims to noninvasively measure your blood glucose levels, don’t believe it. Today, the Food and Drug Administration has issued a safety communication that warns consumers, patients, and healthcare professionals that the agency has “not authorized, cleared, or approved any smartwatch or smart ring that is intended to measure or estimate blood glucose values on its own.” To be crystal clear, no major wearable maker has a smartwatch or smart ring that’s currently capable of this. The most any Apple Watch, Fitbit, Samsung watch, or Oura Ring can do is support integrations with an FDA-authorized continuous glucose monitor (CGM), which are wearable devices that use needles to read blood... Continue reading…

The new Google sign-in page that starts rolling out today, February 21st. | Image: Google If you’ve logged in to your Google account recently, you might have seen a message that “a new look is coming soon,” and now, Google is showing off the “more modern look and feel” of its new sign-in page.Of course, if that screenshot feels incredibly familiar, that’s because it’s mostly the same as the old one. The sign-in steps are all the same, except it has a light Material Design makeover that’s now aligned horizontally to work better across many screen types, including large and wide screens, like the ones found inside a Pixel Fold or on a Pixel Tablet. Image: Google Images of the old and new sign-in pages. It’s also still ready to prompt users for their passwords, passkeys, or other authentication, just... Continue reading…

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge A wholesale switch to electric vehicles would be a tremendous boon to the health of many people around the world. But a new report from the American Lung Association highlights the particular advantages for children, especially those vulnerable to respiratory illness. Based on a model in which all new vehicles sold by 2035 are zero-tailpipe emission, the group concludes that there would be 2.7 million fewer asthma attacks among children, as well as 147,000 fewer acute case of bronchitis. The transition to EV-only sales would also prevent 2.67 million cases of upper respiratory symptoms and 1.87 million cases of lower respiratory symptoms in children. And there would be 508 fewer cases of infant mortality.Highlighting the specific... Continue reading…

Microsoft's PowerToys suite includes a ton of tools that can help boost your productivity or get complex tasks done. There are plenty of tools for all kinds of users, and among them is Color Picker, a relatively simple, but potentially super useful tool that lets you grab any color from your screen to use in another app. It's not always easy to grab a color to use in different places, but Color Picker offers a robust solution to this problem so you never have trouble using the color you want again.

The Crucial T700 was the fastest PCIe 5.0 SSD when it launched last year. It was still the fastest until the launch of the T705 a few hours back. The Crucial T705 SSD is the successor of the T700, and while both of them are PCIe 5.0 SSDs, the former offers better read and write speeds. The company claims the T705 is the fastest SSD in the market right now.

The Nintendo Switch OLED sports a seven-inch display and a sturdy, adjustable kickstand. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Nintendo’s so-called Switch 2 might be in the works, but it reportedly won’t arrive until early 2025 despite having originally been pegged for release later this year. Fortunately, if you were hoping to jump on recent standouts like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or any of the indie titles announced during Nintendo’s latest Direct event sooner rather than later, Dell has you covered.Right now, Dell is offering a $75 gift card when you buy a Nintendo Switch OLED with white Joy-Con for $349.99. That’s money you can use toward a variety of Switch games and accessories, including Nintendo’s Switch Pro Controller and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, as well as non-gaming electronics like Philips Hue’s Lightstrip Plus, Google’s third-gen... Continue reading…

A picture of the Framework 13 from The Verge’s 2021 review. | Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge Framework is now selling a $499 version of its modular 2021 Laptop 13, a “barebones configuration” equipped with an 11th-generation Intel i7-1165G7 CPU (Intel is now on its 14th generation for mobile processors). The company says this is a first for its affordable “B-stock Factory Seconds” machines that use leftover parts and ship without memory or storage included. So it’s cheap, but you’ll need to provide a couple of parts on your own.Framework writes in its announcement that it’s also selling refurbished DDR4 RAM for half what it would cost new “to reduce the all-in price.” The base B-stock Laptop 13 configuration is one step up from the version that Monica Chin said in her Verge review was “uniquely friendly to user upgrades,” but... Continue reading…

Photo by Mitchell Clark / The Verge Rivian said it was laying off 10 percent of its workforce as concerns about slower electric vehicle sales continue to reverberate across the industry. The company made the announcement as part of its fourth quarter earnings report, in which it said it likely wouldn’t make any more vehicles this year than it did in 2023. The company said it made 57,232 vehicles in 2023, of which 50,122 were delivered to customers. Rivian’s stock price fell on the news. Rivian has gone through several rounds of layoffs in its short history. The company let go 6 percent of its workforce both in July 2022 and May 2023. This current round of layoffs is expected to affect over a thousand workers at the Irvine, California-based company, which has a combined... Continue reading…

The results for “generate an image of the Founding Fathers,” as of February 21st. | Screenshot: Adi Robertson / The Verge Google has apologized for what it describes as “inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions” with its Gemini AI tool, saying its attempts at creating a “wide range” of results missed the mark. The statement follows criticism that it depicted specific white figures (like the US Founding Fathers) or groups like Nazi-era German soldiers as people of color, possibly as an overcorrection to long-standing racial bias problems in AI.“We’re aware that Gemini is offering inaccuracies in some historical image generation depictions,” says the Google statement, posted this afternoon on X. “We’re working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately. Gemini’s AI image generation does generate a wide range of people. And that’s... Continue reading…