At one point or another, you might need to find the specifications — or specs — of your Windows 11 PC. It can be useful for troubleshooting if you're having issues, or maybe you just want to know if your laptop is compatible with a certain app or able to run a specific game. If you're more tech-savvy, of course, you probably already purchased your PC based on the specs, but that's not the case for everyone.

Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Internet Archive announced today that it has appealed its loss in a major ebook copyright case. A notice indicates that it’s filed with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Hachette v. Internet Archive, a publishing industry lawsuit over the nonprofit group’s Open Library program. The appeal follows a settlement that saw the Archive limit access to some of its scanned books as well as a second suit filed by music publishers over the Archive’s digitization of vintage records.Hachette and three other publishers — HarperCollins, Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House — sued the Internet Archive in 2020 after it opened a program dubbed the National Emergency Library. The National Emergency Library expanded the Archive’s long-running... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A group of writers is suing OpenAI over claims the company illegally used their works to train its AI ChatGPT chatbot, as reported earlier by Reuters. In a lawsuit filed on Friday, Michael Chabon, David Henry Hwang, Rachel Louise Snyder, and Ayelet Waldman allege OpenAI benefits and profits from the “unauthorized and illegal use” of their copyrighted content.The lawsuit is seeking class-action status and calls out ChatGPT’s ability to summarize and analyze the content written by the authors, stating this “is only possible” if OpenAI trained its GPT large language model on their works. It adds that these outputs are actually “derivative” works that infringe on their copyrights.“OpenAI’s acts of copyright infringement have been... Continue reading…

Photo by Omar Havana / Getty Images The shared electric scooter business has gone through a series of ups and downs over the last few years — mostly downs, if we’re being honest — but now, one company is ready to claim the mantle of victor. Lime released a new set of financial figures that it says proves that last year’s slim profits were no fluke. The company reported gross bookings of $250 million in the first half of the year, a 45 percent increase over the same period last year. And it’s touting an adjusted EBITDA profitability of $27 million — the first time the company has achieved this for the first half of the year and a 45 percent margin increase over last year — and an unadjusted $20.6 million profitability. To say that Lime is feeling itself would be an... Continue reading…

For many years, 15-inch laptops were some of the most popular on the market since they offer a nice balance of portability and screen real estate. But in recent years, you may have noticed a trend, with more and more 16-inch laptops emerging and, in many cases, replacing 15-inch laptops. Many of the best laptops you can buy today have 16-inch screens, and very few have 15-inch displays.

RIP Lightning. You were proprietary, which was annoying, but you were so easy to plug in. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Lightning connector really only had two jobs: be tiny and be foolproof. Apple developed the new port for the iPhone 5, which at the time was simultaneously the largest, thinnest, and lightest iPhone the company had ever made. That made every millimeter of space and milligram of weight matter. For nearly a decade, Apple’s go-to connector had been the 30-pin Dock Connector, which was positively gigantic — about four times the size of a standard Micro USB plug. The Dock Connector was also fragile and a bit fussy. You had to stick the cable in just so in order to get the little hooks on the end to attach to the port. After a decade of Dock Connector, Apple needed something better.When Apple introduced Lightning at its annual fall event... Continue reading…

Photo by Wan Shanchao / VCG via Getty Images We could soon see more lithium-ion batteries made with recycled materials thanks to a new partnership. BASF, a battery materials producer, has announced that it’s teaming up with Nanotech Energy, a maker of graphene-based energy products, to produce lithium-ion batteries with recycled materials for customers in North America.While BASF will create the cathode active materials using recycled metals from a Battle Creek, Michigan facility, Nanotech will use those materials to create the lithium-ion battery cells. Making the batteries with recycled metals could decrease their CO2 footprint by around 25 percent, according to BASF.Additionally, BASF and Nanotech Energy will also work with the American Battery Technology Company (ABTC) and... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge September and October are some of the most exciting months of the year if you’ve been waiting all year to see the latest and greatest tech, even if that just means meeting the annual new iPhone. Of course, events are also planned for entertainment, cars, and more, and you’ll be able to catch all the latest news on major events and conferences here on The Verge. The IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin kicked off the slate, leading into the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) that runs through September 17th.The schedule truly picks up now with Apple’s iPhone 15 launch event, dubbed “Wonderlust.” Apple’s event is on September 12th at 1PM ET / 10AM PT, and we’ll be stepping into the depths of Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park... Continue reading…

Illustration by Carlo Cadenas / The Verge A “cybersecurity issue” at MGM Resorts has forced the famous hotel and casino company to shut down many of its systems, according to a statement the company posted just before noon ET on X (formerly Twitter). MGM replaced its homepage with a message apologizing for the site’s outage and providing a list of concierge phone numbers at several locations, like the Aria, The Cosmopolitan, Mandalay Bay, Bellagio, New York-New York, and Vdara.The issue isn’t limited to MGM’s Las Vegas locations. NBC 10 News in Philadelphia reports that MGM’s Borgata Hotel in Atlantic City was likewise affected by the attack, though hotel representatives didn’t say how. MGM Grand Detroit Casino is also affected, reports Play Michigan, with an X user posting... Continue reading…

Voice recording is one of the most underrated features of a smartphone. From recording hour-long lectures to capturing conversations and interviews, a voice recording app can make your lives easier in more meaningful ways than you can imagine. Even the sheer convenience of recording your flashes of inspiration with a voice note instead of jotting them down on a piece of paper or typing on your phone can't be understated. Not to mention, they can also be a great alternative to the best note-taking apps if you're tired or simply not in the spirit of typing.

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge TikTok videos about the Hollywood writers strike were temporarily blocked as the platform attempted to moderate QAnon conspiracy theories.Media Matters for America, a nonprofit media research group, reported today that TikTok users were unable to search for content related to the Writers Guild of America strike. “WGA” and “WGA strike” didn’t return any search results on the app despite continuing waves of coverage of the writers and actors strikes. Within a few hours of MMFA’s report being published, the search results were restored and now appear to be working as usual.TikTok confirmed that it accidentally blocked searches for the WGA strike content while attempting to block QAnon conspiracy theories; TikTok spokesperson Ben Rathe... Continue reading…

If you have a NAS, then chances are you've been using it to store all kinds of important data. Maybe you have a large collection of movies and TV shows, or something like NextCloud set up as a Google Photos alternative. No matter what, though, you'll want to make sure that data is kept safe, which is why you should protect your data by backing up your NAS.