We all knew it would happen, and it has now begun – generative AI is now being used in AAA video games instead of being there in just obscure or hardly-selling online games. Plenty of big studios are now using gen AI, because that’s just the world we live in now. Whether it’s for voice acting, loading screens, or even in-game art, mainstream productions in gaming are now using generative AI for their work, and frankly, it’s nothing but worrisome. At its worst, it’s certainly sickening.

Microsoft is loving Crocs at the moment. After releasing Windows XP-themed Crocs earlier this year, the software maker is now putting an Xbox controller on your feet with a new limited edition pair of Crocs.Available on November 25th for $80, the Xbox Crocs mimic the Xbox One X’s controller with fixed buttons and joysticks. Both Crocs feature the classic X, Y, B, A buttons, D-pad, left and right analog sticks, and even a white Xbox button and bumpers on the sides. The Xbox logo also appears on the ankle strap’s hinges.Microsoft and Crocs are also releasing a five-pack of shoe charms for $20, with characters and icons from Halo, Fallout, Doom, World of Warcraft, and Sea of Thieves. It’s all part of a collaboration between Crocs and Microsoft that marks 20 years since the Xbox 360 was first released. The company’s Windows XP-themed Crocs were also part of Microsoft’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

The Department of Justice has announced a settlement with RealPage, the widely used rent-setting software that it accused of engaging in collusion to drive up rent prices by sharing previously private information from competing landlords. The settlement puts limits on RealPage’s ability to collect and use that data, and blocks it from being used to set rents.Last year, the DOJ and several other states filed an antitrust lawsuit against RealPage, claiming that the company’s rent-setting software combines data from competing landlords to provide daily rental price suggestions. “As competitor-landlords increase their rents, RealPage’s software nudges other competing landlords to increase their rents as well,” the DOJ alleged.If the court approves the DOJ’s settlement, RealPage must only use data from landlords that is 12 months or older to power its algorithm. The settlement also requires RealPage to “remove or redesign” features that discourage landlords from lowering prices or prompt landlords to match their prices with competitors. RealPage would also be barred from offering “hyperlocalized pricing” information, which Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater describes in a video on X as hiking up rents “block-by-block.” RealPage denies any wrongdoing.“RealPage was replacing competition with coordination, and renters paid the price,” Slater said. “We reached a settlement that stops RealPage from coordinating pricing with its customers.” 

The Geekom A9 Max AI has been one of the biggest surprises in my home office, and Black Friday makes it even more appealing thanks to a significant price drop. This compact box replaces the noise, heat, and footprint of a traditional desktop with something far easier to manage. It is fast enough for real work, powerful enough for modern games, and quiet enough that you forget it is running. That combination makes it a great option for anyone who wants a full desktop experience without rearranging their entire workspace.

Signal is launching secure backups on iOS, allowing you to save and restore your messages in case you lose or break your phone. With the free version of the feature, you can store up to 100MB of text messages, along with the past 45 days’ worth of photos, videos, GIFs, and files.There’s also a $1.99 per month option that can back up all of your text messages, in addition to up to 100GB of media beyond the 45-day cap. Signal first launched secure backups on Android devices in September, which store your messages and media using end-to-end encryption. You can access your backup using a 64-character recovery key generated on your device, though Signal notes that it can’t help you recover the code if you lose it.To enable secure backups, head to the Settings menu and select Backups. From there, tap Setup > Enable Backups and then write down or store your recovery key. Once you confirm your recovery key, you can choose between the free or paid plan. Signal will then begin storing your messages and media.Signal plans on bringing secure backups to its desktop app, too, and will eventually allow you to transfer your encrypted messaging history between Android, iOS, and desktop.

How many notes do you have saved on your phone? At a quick glance, I have 743 notes stored in Apple Notes alone. I had more than that in Evernote, and let's not talk about the scattered notebooks littering my bookshelves. As you might imagine, they're pretty useless without any organization. Instead of jotting things down, it's better to have a central place to keep everything. That's what Obsidian is, and one of the reasons it's a great tool for folks who are new to taking notes. Aside from its availability on every platform and the low cost of $0 (thank you, open-source software), Obsidian offers a simple baseline to start from that can grow to be as complex and involved as you want.

For the first time, Meta is offering trade-in discounts for its smart glasses with a pilot program that’s only running through December 31st. According to a legal page on Meta’s website, trade-in discounts can be applied to the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 1, Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2, Oakley Meta HSTN, and Oakley Meta Vanguard. Notably, the Meta Ray-Ban Display didn’t make that list. Limited edition and refurbished glasses also aren’t eligible for the discount. You can trade in your current pair of first-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses if you’re looking to upgrade, but Meta is also surprisingly offering trade-in credit for certain pairs of earbuds. Here’s Meta’s full list of eligible ones:Apple Airpods Pro 2Apple Airpods ProApple Airpods Pro 4Beats Powerbeats Pro 2Beats Studio Buds +Beats Fit ProSamsung Galaxy Buds3Samsung Galaxy Buds3 ProSamsung Galaxy Buds3 FEIt’s worth noting that there isn’t currently a pair of “Apple AirPods Pro 4,” so it’s unclear if Meta was referring to the AirPods 4 or the AirPods Pro 3. To get the trade-in discount, you have to purchase your glasses directly from Meta. Add a pair of eligible glasses to your cart, and you should hopefully see a box with the trade-in offer right above it in the cart. Some Reddit users reported having to try different browsers before finally getting the trade-in offer, so maybe try swapping your browser if you don’t see it at first. Discounts vary based on your device and the condition it’s in, but Meta seems to be offering up to $113 off. That’s a decent dent in the usual $379 price tag on the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2, which offer twice as much battery life as the previous generation along with a moderate camera improvement. It’s worth noting that the first-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses are on sale right now, so if you don’t need all-day battery or don’t have another wearable to trade in, your best bet might be going with that less expensive option.

OpenAI is making it easier to plan out holiday shopping with ChatGPT’s latest feature called “shopping research.” Any shopping question in ChatGPT will trigger this new feature, which is rolling out to all ChatGPT users on free and paid plans on mobile and web, with “nearly unlimited usage” available during the holiday shopping season.Now, if you ask ChatGPT for “best TVs in bright lighting,” for example, as the company’s announcement video shows, the response will end with a button asking if you want to do additional research. This is where the “personal shopper” aspect comes in, although the blog post notes that “shopping research might make mistakes about product details like price and availability, and we encourage you to visit the merchant site for the most accurate details.” Users refine their choices by selecting their preferences during a series of questions that can be filtered based on price, intended use, and desired features, similar to the dropdown menus on most retail websites. The products it pulls up can be purchased on retailers’ websites, but OpenAI said it plans to roll out Instant Checkout, which will allow direct purchasing inside ChatGPT with participating merchants.OpenAI is not alone in trying to encourage shopping within its products. Google also recently released new AI-powered shopping features in its AI Mode, and the AI agent in Perplexity’s Comet browser will shop on your behalf, much to Amazon’s chagrin. (The trend is something The Verge’s Nilay Patel has termed “The DoorDash problem.”)According to OpenAI, it’s built on a version of GPT‑5 mini that has been refined for shopping tasks, with product recommendations from “quality sources” on the internet containing “up-to-date information like price, availability, reviews, specs, and images.” They can also take into account previous conversations with ChatGPT and user “memory” if that is turned on, along with buttons to show “more like this” or “not interested” on specific items.Pro users will see proactively recommended products packaged in “buyer’s guides” based on their past chatlogs with Pulse. “For example, if you’ve been discussing e-bikes, a future Pulse card could suggest useful accessories for you,” OpenAI wrote. 

I got my NAS to work as the central location for all my data needs — it sits on the network, which allows it to connect with every device at my place. While I have it all set up to take care of backups from my Mac and Windows laptops, getting it to work with smartphones takes a bit of work. You can manage everything on your NAS’s web interface, but on phones, you need to install an array of apps to replicate the same features and capabilities. And our digital lives now increasingly live on our smartphones; I wanted to ensure everything worked smoothly.

The command line remains one of the most powerful tools in any operating system, and that, of course, includes Windows 11. You may be used to using a graphical interface for most things, but there's still a ton you can do with just a shell and some text.

As someone who prioritizes portability, I have almost always used a laptop. I can carry it around while traveling, or even move it around the house. Over time, laptops have significantly improved in performance and reliability. So, I am not missing out on anything or facing the same issues I did a couple of years ago. However, one thing remained constant throughout these years: performance degradation over time. While I initially blamed Windows for it, I soon found out that it's not the only culprit. Two years ago, I got an accessory for my laptop that has boosted performance like nothing else ever did: a simple, budget cooling pad costing less than $10.

Big brain hours Christ. Fine. So over the weekend, a strange Substack post from what appears to be a CEO of a pet relocation company went very viral. This post — which to be clear, is bullshit — alleges that Nvidia is engaged in what “may become the largest accounting fraud in technology history.” That’s a load-bearing “may,” in the sense that there’s no credible reason to believe Nvidia is engaged in fraud at all.If and when the AI bubble pops, everything that inflated it will have been obvious the entire timeApparently this spooked Nvidia, which — as first reported by Barron’s — has sent a note to analysts clarifying that it is not, in fact, Enron. That note, which The Verge has seen, addresses the specific allegations in that Substack, as well as claims by famed short-seller Michael Burry that Nvidia’s accounting of stock-based compensation didn’t make sense. (According to Nvidia, Burry seems to have incorrectly added taxes on restricted stock units to get his numbers.)Now, naturally, this caught my attention because I’ve recently used Enron as an analogy for what Nvidia is up to with the neocloud companies it funds:“There is no neocloud that exists without [Nvidia CEO] Jensen [Huang],” says Saari. That makes neoclouds, in effect, extensions of Nvidia, he says. And none of them make money, so to expand, they must take on debt.If we look at these as being, metaphorically, Nvidia’s special purpose vehicles, then it doesn’t really matter if the companies are any good or will survive in the long term. Their job is to boost Nvidia’s sales. Even OpenAI, also an Nvidia investment, kind of falls into this category — because the massive data center buildout that OpenAI wants the government to backstop sure involves an awful lot of Nvidia chips.If you are old enough, or possessed of a certain kind of disposition, you may be thinking, Wait a minute, aren’t you describing Enron? And uh, in some sense, yes! Enron’s whole thing was special purpose vehicles with extremely speculative valuations that were used to take on debt, Luria notes. But Enron lied about what it was doing, and that’s fraud and illegal. (It also got up to other illegal stuff besides.) Nvidia’s relationship with CoreWeave is all happening in plain sight. So are all the relationships with the other neocloud companies. It kind of seems like the tech company version of the GameStop open pump-and-dump.“It’s not good behavior, and it’s not healthy behavior,” Luria says. “But it’s legal. Any investor can see this. Many are just choosing not to.”Since Nvidia has clarified, I’d like to add a clarification of my own: The problem is that Nvidia’s behavior is perfectly legal. In its note, Nvidia says it does not use special purpose entities to hide debt and inflate revenue. This is true! Every single neocloud Nvidia has invested in is its own company. Any debts those companies may have are on their own balance sheets. It’s not Nvidia’s debt. That’s one of the reasons why neoclouds are so convenient for Nvidia — as the company itself informs analysts, Nvidia doesn’t control those companies, and doesn’t provide the financing for them, either. They’re just very useful sin-eaters. In the case of CoreWeave, Nvidia is propping it up by investing in the company, including to make sure its IPO actually happened, and serving as a customer.CoreWeave’s CEO has even bragged about the close relationship, saying, “I’m not bashful about reaching out” to Huang.Personally, I think accusing Nvidia of accounting fraud is effectively taking one’s eye off the ball. It doesn’t have to commit fraud to have a very cozy arrangement with a whole network of companies that juice its earnings and may be inflating an AI bubble — all while its own executive sell shares to lock in their status as millionaires and billionaires. Nvidia has created seven new billionaires, in fact!If and when the AI bubble pops, everything that inflated it will have been obvious the entire time. (That’s very in keeping with the times, isn’t it?) After all, I reported my CoreWeave story from the company’s public filings, following its “Risk Factors” section closely. Should the AI bubble burst, anything that accelerated Nvidia’s growth is likely to accelerate its losses; it will have to mark down its investments in the companies it propped up, for instance. Should those companies go under, that will mean a glut of Nvidia chips on the market as debt holders try to recoup their money, meaning Nvidia will effectively be competing with its own used product at fire-sale prices. It’s all very stupid, but as far as I can tell, not actually illegal.