New device types, including robot vacuums, smoke alarms, washing machines and refrigerators are coming to Matter. | Photo Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge One year in, and Matter is adding support for fridges, robot vacuums, smoke alarms, and more. It’s a major step toward a complete smart home, but success hinges on platform and manufacturer follow-through. Continue reading…

Image: Marvel / Wizards of the Coast The great IP crossover experiment continues with Marvel showing up in yet another place you don’t typically expect Marvel to be. Today, Wizards of the Coast announced that Marvel’s bringing its iconic (and inescapable) heroes to Magic: The Gathering with new “collectible products and tentpole sets” that will hit your Local Game Store in 2025.Crossovers are not new to Magic: The Gathering. It just launched the card game’s Doctor Who-themed Commander set. Earlier this year, Magic released a Lord of the Rings set (complete with its own One Ring bonanza that caught the attention of prolific Magic collector Post Malone). Throughout the years, Magic has released tons of smaller, collectible sets based on everything from My Little Pony to Bob... Continue reading…

AMD and Qualcomm Surface devices. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Nvidia and AMD are both reportedly planning to launch Arm-based CPUs for Windows-based PCs. Reuters reports that Nvidia has started designing Arm-based CPUs in what could be a major expansion of Microsoft’s Windows on Arm work. Nvidia and AMD could both be ready with PC chips as soon as 2025, according to Reuters.Microsoft has so far exclusively partnered with Qualcomm for Arm-based versions of Windows 11, and the Reuters report comes on the eve of Qualcomm’s next big Snapdragon launch for Arm-based chips that will likely power Samsung’s upcoming flagship phone. Reuters reports that Microsoft executives will be part of Qualcomm’s announcement tomorrow, including vice president of Windows and Devices Pavan Davuluri.Microsoft’s first... Continue reading…

Image: Murena The Murena 2, the follow-up to last year’s de-Googled and privacy-focused Murena One smartphone, is now available to back on Kickstarter and has pulled in more than $156,000, far exceeding its $26,437 goal.The big update for this new model is a physical privacy switch that, when toggled on, disconnects the front and back cameras as well as the microphones. (It’s kind of like the privacy switches we’ve seen for some laptops.) The Murena 2 also has a second physical switch that, when activated, flips on airplane mode to disconnect the phone from networks and turns on do not disturb mode.As for other hardware specs, the Murena 2 has a 6.43-inch screen with a 1080 x 2400 resolution, 128GB of storage, a 4,000mAh battery, and a MediaTek... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The long-awaited EU AI Act is still under debate as European lawmakers can’t agree on how to regulate foundation models, and it’s unlikely to pass regulation before December.As first reported by Reuters, Spain, which currently heads the EU, is pushing for more regular vetting for vulnerabilities and the creation of a tiered system of regulation depending on the number of users a model has.European lawmakers have had three trilogues (a three-party discussion between the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, and the European Commission) around the AI Act, with a fourth expected to happen this week.Another meeting has been set for December, if none of the parties agree on anything this month. This has sparked concern... Continue reading…

A screenshot of the Meta Verified toggle. | Image: Meta Instagram is testing a toggle that lets you only see posts from Meta Verified users, according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri on Monday. “We’re exploring this as a new control for people and a way for businesses and creators to get discovered,” Mosseri wrote on his broadcast channel. The new Meta Verified toggle will appear as an option under “Following” and “Favorites” when you tap the Instagram logo at the top of the app. The prominence of the toggle could make paying for Meta Verified, which costs $11.99 on the web or $14.99 in an app, a more attractive proposition as it gives people a new way to try and appear more prominently in an Instagram feed. That said, Mosseri’s post didn’t say how big the test is or who might have access to... Continue reading…

Metal Gear Solid 3 protagonist “Naked Snake.” | Image: Konami It’s hard to fault the breadth of content Konami has included in its tantalizingly-named ‘Vol. 1’ collection. Just don’t go in expecting many modern upgrades to these decades-old titles. Continue reading…

Here’s a Ram truck at CES 2018. | Image: Sean O’Kane / The Verge Stellantis — the gigantic international automotive conglomerate that owns everything from Jeep to Ram to Alfa Romeo and Opel — has canceled its plans for CES 2024, we are told via a short press release. The company blames the current United Auto Workers (UAW) strikes, which today expanded to include 6,800 workers at the factory that makes Ram 1500 trucks, which is the largest Stellantis factory in the United States. Stellantis has “the worst proposal on the table regarding wage progression, temporary worker pay and conversion to full-time, cost-of-living adjustments (COLA), and more,” the UAW said in a statement to Axios.“As the costs of the ongoing UAW strikes against Stellantis continue to mount, the Company has decided to cancel its... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge In a post earlier this month, Valve announced the Steam Link app will “no longer be available on Samsung TV after November 30th, 2023.” The service lets users wirelessly stream PC games from their Steam library to other devices, such as a TV or phone. It launched with the Steam Link dongle in 2015, which was discontinued in 2018 in favor of the app.Samsung brought the Steam Link app to its TVs in 2017 but stopped supporting it on newer TVs after the launch of its Gaming Hub, which focused on cloud gaming services like the ones from Xbox and Nvidia GeForce Now. However, Steam says users can access the Steam Link app on Apple TV and Android hardware, including the Nvidia Shield or Amazon Fire TV.While the Steam Link app might’ve seemed... Continue reading…

Now your mom and dad can help you find your next potential partner and stop dunking on your questionable dating choices. | Image: Tinder If you’re the kind of person who asks friends and family for help with your love life, Tinder is aiming to make things a little easier by letting them suggest potential partners for you directly within the app. Tinder’s new Matchmaker feature lets users invite their loved ones, regardless of whether they have a Tinder profile or not, to view and recommend potential matches, essentially integrating a “friend test” into the dating app.Tinder Matchmaker is available now in 15 countries including the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, and Germany, with a global rollout expected “in the coming months.” Users can start a Matchmaker session either directly from a profile card, or within the app settings — creating a link that can be shared... Continue reading…

Image: Square Enix Earlier this year, Final Fantasy XIV fans were treated to a first look at the next expansion, Dawntrail. Over the weekend, during the London leg of the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival event, Square Enix shared a bit more detail about the expansion, including a new trailer revealing the newest class: Viper.Viper will be a melee DPS class that seems similar to the Ninja class already present in the game. Vipers will dual-wield swords that can be fused together into one big sword for more damage a la Zidane from Final Fantasy IX. (Remember his Butterfly Sword?) As is tradition, the Viper was introduced by game producer Naoki Yoshida dressed up as the class, and as also is tradition, the look was pretty damn cool.(Eat your heart out, Todd... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The next big Snapdragon chip headed to Android phones is likely to be announced this week — and details have leaked early revealing a heavy focus on AI. According to MSPoweruser, Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will support some handy and creative AI camera tools, including the ability to remove objects from videos, expand areas of a photo, and generate fake backgrounds.The leaked marketing materials also boast about the chip’s ability to run various AI models, including both Stable Diffusion and Meta’s Llama 2. Making that happen is supposed to be an upgraded Hexagon neural processor, which the leaked document says is 98 percent faster (presumably than last year’s processor, but the image doesn’t clarify). Qualcomm showed off t... Continue reading…