Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Sony is investigating claims by the Rhysida ransomware group that it stole sensitive data from Insomniac Games, including personal information for the voice actor who portrayed Peter Parker in Spider-Man 2. Australian outlet Cyber Daily reported today that the group had posted some of the data as proof of the hack and is currently auctioning the full set for around $2 million worth of bitcoin.Some of the data published by Rhysida reportedly includes details about Insomniac’s upcoming Wolverine game, including a screenshot and some character art that Cyber Daily wrote “seems to relate to other Marvel characters” from the game. The outlet also says the data included scans of Insomniac employees’ passports, as well as one for Yuri... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Meta is finally going to let people try its splashiest AI features for the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses, though in an early access test to start. Today, Meta announced that it’s going to start rolling out its multimodal AI features that can tell you about things Meta’s AI assistant can see and hear through the camera and microphones of the glasses. Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated the update in an Instagram reel where he asked the glasses to suggest pants that would match a shirt he was holding. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck)It responded by describing the shirt and offering a couple of suggestions for pants that might complement it. He also had the glasses’ AI... Continue reading…

Image: Fntastic The Day Before, an open-world zombie survival MMO, experienced a dramatic series of events resulting in its developer closing down four days after the game’s launch.After a much-hyped trailer launch back in 2021, The Day Before became one of Steam’s most wishlisted games and, after a couple of delays, it launched in early access on December 7th.After five years of blood, sweat, and tears, we can finally say these words: THE DAY BEFORE IS OUT NOW! https://t.co/q6BL7u9pzO#thedaybefore— Fntastic (@FntasticHQ) December 7, 2023Initial reviews were not great. Though billed as a survival MMO, players remarked that it was more like an extraction shooter but with mediocre loot. Players to team up with were sparse, enemies to shoot were... Continue reading…

Photo by Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images Back at E3 2017, I had a plan. The annual convention always had a wide range of game developers in attendance, offering reporters like me the opportunity to talk to prominent folks from all over the world. I decided it would be the ideal place to chat with Japanese creatives about the then-resurgent mood surrounding the country’s video game efforts. First on my list was Toshihiro Nagoshi, the infamously prickly creator of the Yakuza series. In an attempt to break the ice, I asked the stylish director where he bought his shoes. He replied, very simply — and in a very serious tone — “very expensive.” The only words of English he spoke during our entire conversation.Now that E3 is dead — for real this time — I can’t help but think back on... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple rolled out a revamped Apple TV app as a part of its suite of new software releases on Monday. The tvOS 17.2 update includes a new sidebar for the TV app, which is designed to better showcase non-Apple TV Plus offerings and let users easily jump to other Apple content like MLS Season Pass. It also makes for a quick shortcut to apps like Disney Plus, Max, Prime Video, or Apple’s store, where you can purchase or rent digital titles to stream.Prior to the update, it was easy for live sports and other streaming sources to get buried under Apple’s TV Plus original programming. The new interface does more to highlight this third-party content, which is part of the tech giant’s rumored plan to make the Apple TV app a streaming hub for... Continue reading…

It's week 14 of the NFL season, and Monday Night Football has a double-header going on, the third and final time this will happen during the season. The Packers and the Giants are playing in East Rutherford, N.J., but all eyes will be on the Miami Dolphins as they host the Tennessee Titans.

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge Three years after Fortnite maker Epic Games sued Apple and Google for allegedly running illegal app store monopolies, Epic has a win. The jury in Epic v. Google has just delivered its verdict — and it found that Google turned its Google Play app store and Google Play Billing service into an illegal monopoly.The jury unanimously answered yes to every question put before them — that Google has monopoly power in the Android app distribution markets and in-app billing services markets, that Google did anticompetitive things in those markets, and that Epic was injured by that behavior. They decided Google has an illegal tie between its Google Play app store and its Google Play Billing payment services, too.It’s a historic victory,... Continue reading…

The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X is currently one of the most powerful desktop CPUs for gaming or productivity. This beastly chip boasts 16 cores, a 4.5GHz base clock, and 64MB of L3 cache. It's also a rather expensive and power-hungry CPU, which means you need to pair it with the right motherboard to use it to its true potential.

Lenovo's ThinkPad T14s is in its fourth generation for 2023, and it remains a top business laptop for mobile productivity. In my ThinkPad T14s (2023) review, I noted that it's "ideal for those who need a workhorse business laptop that's easier to carry on flights or back and forth between the home and office." Although the RAM is soldered and cannot be upgraded after purchase, ​​​​​​its M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD is accessible for DIY upgrades.

Gaming handhelds have, by and large, been a mostly dead industry for a few years now. Aside from the Nintendo Switch, nothing has captivated the handheld market in the way that the likes of the Game Boy, Nintendo DS, or the PSP once did in the past. However, PC gaming handhelds are now taking the gaming industry by storm. 2023 was a huge turning point for the handheld market, and 2024 might be when things really take off.

Did you know you could significantly increase the speed of training a deep-learning model in Kaggle by adding a GPU? Tests show that users can enjoy up to 13 times faster performance when model training compared to using a great CPU — and it's not that difficult to add a graphics card to your existing Kaggle project. In fact, Kaggle provides free access to Nvidia cards designed specifically for machine learning (ML) purposes. In this guide, we'll show you how to take advantage of them.

Image: The Verge This is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.We’ve got a bunch of news in podcast world, but first, an announcement: Hot Pod Summit is BACK, baby! We have some really great stuff cooking that I can’t wait to share. Hot Pod Summit is back!I’m excited to announce that Hot Pod Summit is returning to Brooklyn on February 28th, 2024, as part of On Air Fest for a day of in-depth talks, intimate conversations, and industry networking. The invite-only summit is our way of kicking off the year in podcasting and talking about what’s on everyone’s minds — I’m eager to see you all, catch up, and hear what everyone’s thinking.We’ll have more to share about programming in the new year. For... Continue reading…