Disney gave in to threats from FCC chairman and occasional speech regulator Brendan Carr this evening, announcing that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would be pulled off the air “indefinitely.” Carr was unhappy that Kimmel characterized the alleged shooter of Charlie Kirk as “anything other than” a member of the “MAGA gang” and threatened to pull broadcast licenses of stations airing his show as a result.The clip of Kimmel’s monologue that got him pulled off the air is still available on YouTube. Watch it for yourself and see if it’s so objectionable as to warrant pulling the entire show, let alone entire broadcast networks that air it.“We hit some new lows over the weekend, with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything but one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said near the top of his monologue. The remarks come just after the 2-minute mark in the clip on YouTube.Carr has regularly used his position as FCC chairman to try to manipulate speech by broadcasters that rely on his agency. He previously implied that CBS’s cancellation of Steven Colbert’s late-night show helped get the company’s merger with Paramount approved. The companies had to agree to government speech regulations in order to seal the deal.The Verge has reached out to the FCC to ask what specifically in Kimmel’s show is objectionable and which rules it is in violation of. The commission did not immediately provide comment.

Every PC gaming peripheral seems to hinge on marketing with impressive numbers; numbers like 32,000 DPI, 8,000 Hz polling, or a 0.1 ms response time. On paper these specs sound like game-changers (and they're easy to market), but in reality most are just marketing fluff beyond a certain point. Gamers have been led to chase ever-higher metrics that don't actually improve gameplay in any meaningful way, and as proof of that, you'll find that professional players in esports titles have also identified these metrics simply don't matter.

Meta has announced a new generation of its Ray-Ban smart glasses, featuring significantly improved battery life and the ability to record 3K video, which brings them up to par with the Oakley HSTN smart glasses. The new glasses, technically called the Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2, are available to order today and start at $379.Let’s dig in on battery, which is better on a few fronts. You can use the new Ray-Bans for up to eight hours on a single charge, which is twice the four-hour battery life of the previous generation. The charging case can charge the glasses to 50 percent in 20 minutes — a slight improvement over the 22 minutes to 50 percent for the first generation. The case for the Gen 2 glasses offers an additional 48 hours of battery life, up from 32 hours. As for the camera, you’ll be able to record 3K at 30fps, 1440p at 30fps, and 1200p at 60fps, all for up to three minutes. Later this fall, Meta will also add the ability to capture hyperlapse and slow-motion videos — a feature coming to all of its AI glasses.Meta is adding a cool audio-focused feature called “conversation focus” down the line, too, which will use the speakers on the glasses to boost the voice of a person you’re talking with. The company is improving live translation by expanding it to support German and Portuguese.I tried the Gen 2 glasses at Meta’s Connect event, and there’s not much to say about them at first blush — they’re a solid upgrade on paper, but they’re ultimately still Meta Ray-Ban glasses, so if you’ve used the first generation before, you pretty much get the idea. You’ll be able to buy them in Wayfarer, Skyler, and Headliner styles. The first-generation glasses will still be available, too, starting at $299.

Horizon TV puts your streaming apps in one spot. | Image: Meta Meta is making it easier to stream movies and TV shows on your Quest headset. During its Meta Connect keynote on Wednesday, the company announced that it’s rolling out a Horizon TV hub with access to streaming apps like Prime Video, Peacock, Twitch, and — finally — Disney Plus with Hulu and ESPN.The image shared by Meta shows content recommendations and streaming apps lined up on the homepage, along with tabs to switch between movies, TV shows, “immersive” experiences, sports, music, and your watchlist. It’s unclear whether the tabs will show content from all of these platforms, or just the ones you subscribe to.As part of the launch of Horizon TV, Meta is also partnering with Universal Pictures and Blumhouse, allowing you to watch movies like The Black Phone and M3GAN with 3D effects. Apple similarly partners with Disney to offer 3D movies on its Vision Pro headset.Horizon TV currently supports Dolby Atmos surround sound, but Meta plans on launching support for Dolby Vision later this year.

In gaming, NPC might stand for non-player characters, but the truth is, they are just as important as the player characters themselves. After all, it's NPCs who, through their writing, behaviors, and stories, make questlines, narratives, and experiences unforgettable. They lend credence to game worlds, giving our stories weight and personality, and sometimes, it just so happens that they end up stealing the spotlight, cementing themselves in our brains forever.

Borderlands 4 is now out in the wild, and there's a lot to love and criticize. While people are complaining about the performance issues, it seems they're also gelling with the actual meat and potatoes of the game. In fact, our delightful sister website, GameRant, gave Gearbox's latest title a highly respectable 9/10 score, citing performance as a minor ding but praising the writing, gunplay, and seamless multiplayer experience.

This laptop has everything you need, and it comes in with a substantial discount that's well below its usual retail price. Samsung is best known for its phones and TVs, but it also makes some fine computing products as well, which is why we think this laptop is a good choice for someone looking for something new.

At its Connect keynote on Wednesday, Meta officially introduced the $799.99 Meta Ray-Ban Display, also known as Hypernova. The brand's new, high-end smart glasses feature an in-lens display you can control with wrist-based gestures via the new Meta Neural Band that's included. The display pairs with your phone and allows you to see everything from text messages and Instagram Reels to maps and more - all without having to pull out your device. They seem like a more fully-realized version of Google Glass, and they'll be released on September 30th. That's also when in-store demos will be available at Best Buy, LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, Ray-Ba …Read the full story at The Verge.

Meta’s annual Connect conference is happening on September 17th and 18th, and it seems like there’s going to be a lot of focus on smart glasses.CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Wednesday evening keynote will discuss “the latest on AI glasses,” the company says. Rumors and a video leak from Meta already indicate that we might see Meta launch glasses that have a display on one lens and that are controlled with a neural wristband, as well as wraparound Oakley smart glasses with a camera on the nose bridge. The company also says that Zuckerberg will lay out “Meta’s vision for artificial intelligence and the metaverse,” so there should be some non-smart glasses news to look forward to, too.Zuckerberg’s keynote begins at 8PM ET / 5PM PT, and we’ll be covering the keynote and major announcements from the show live. You can keep up with all of our coverage from the event right here. Conversation focus is the first new feature on deck. Meta’s new Ray-Ban smart glasses have twice the battery life Zuck’s onstage. Ray-Ban’s website posts a “We’ll be back soon” note ahead of Meta Connect. How to watch Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote at Meta Connect 2025 Meta’s new smart glasses are coming this week Meta leaks its new smart glasses with a display It’s time for Meta to add a display to its smart glasses

Meta just showed off all the latest in wearable technology, virtual reality, augmented reality, and more at its annual Connect keynote. In addition to the long-awaited reveal of Meta’s updated Ray-Ban smart glasses, the company had some other exciting surprises to share, too.Here’s a roundup of all the new tech and software updates announced by Meta.Meta’s display-equipped smart specs make their debutRumors have swirled for months about Meta launching a pair of smart glasses with a display, and now they’re finally here. The glasses, dubbed the Meta Ray-Ban Display, feature a full-color, high-res screen in the right lens that you can use to view messages, take video calls, read live captions, see walking directions, and preview the pictures you’re about to take with the built-in 12-megapixel camera.You control the display with a wristband, allowing you to scroll, click, and, eventually, write out messages, using different gestures. The glasses offer up to six hours of “mixed-use” battery life, or up to 30 hours with the collapsible charging case.The Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses start at $799, with both the wristband and glasses coming in black or brown. The glasses will be available in the US starting September 30th at Best Buy, LensCrafters, and Ray-Ban stores.The next-gen Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses have longer battery lifeMeta is launching a new version of its popular Ray-Ban smart glasses with an upgraded eight-hour battery life that nearly doubles that of the original model. The second-gen smart glasses still come with a 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera, but they now support 3K video capture and allow wearers to record videos up to 60 frames per second.Meta upgraded the charging case that comes included with the glasses, too, as it now offers an extra 48 hours of charging, up from 36 hours. There’s also a new “conversation focus” feature coming to the Ray-Ban Meta and the Oakley Meta HSTN glasses that amplifies the sound of the person speaking to you in noisy areas.The Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) glasses will start at $379 and are available now in the familiar Wayfarer, Skyler, and Headliner styles.New athlete-focused AI glasses integrate with Garmin and StravaMeta is partnering with Oakley to launch a new pair of smart glasses designed for “high-intensity sports.” The Oakley Meta Vanguard feature a wraparound design, an IP67 rating for water and dust resistance, along with integrations with fitness apps like Garmin and Strava, allowing you to ask Meta AI about your fitness data and stats.Additionally, the Vanguard glasses feature a 12MP, 122-degree camera on the nose bridge, with the ability to record videos in up to 3K resolution, and they support new capture modes, like slow-motion, time-lapse, and hyperlapse, which are coming to Meta’s other AI glasses as well. Some other standout features include upgraded speakers and up to nine hours of battery life.The Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses cost $499 and will come in four frame and lens color combinations when they launch on October 21st. Preorders are available now.Quest headsets can now put real spaces into VRMeta’s new Hyperscape feature allows users wearing a Quest 3 or Quest 3S headset to scan their surroundings and transform them into a digital space. The company first showed off a demo of the feature at Meta Connect last year, but now users can try out a beta using the Hyperscape Capture app.A new entertainment hub for Quest headsetsMeta is putting a new Horizon TV entertainment hub inside Quest headsets. There, you’ll find all of the streaming apps available on Quest headsets, including Prime Video, Peacock, Twitch, and YouTube. Meta also announced today that Disney Plus with ESPN and Hulu is coming to the platform.The Horizon TV hub supports Dolby Atmos surround sound, and Meta plans on adding Dolby Vision later this year. Some movies you watch through Horizon TV, like M3GAN and The Black Phone, will also come with “immersive special effects” that you can only see inside Quest headsets.The engine powering the metaverse gets a boostMeta revealed that its Horizon Engine “powers better graphics, faster performance, and more advanced worlds.” The engine is capable of powering Meta’s new Hyperscape feature, as well as allowing for larger capacities in virtual worlds. Meta also plans on upgrading its Horizon Studio with an agentic AI assistant that helps “stitch” together its existing AI tools that help people make virtual worlds.

While one of the most common self-hosted services is Jellyfin to roll your own streaming service, it's undeniable that some content is only available from streaming subscriptions. What's more, subscribing to the relevant service doesn't always guarantee you'll get the content you want, because of licensing and distribution agreements.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! usually aired every weeknight at 11:35PM ET. Disney and ABC have pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! off air “indefinitely” after FCC chairman Brendan Carr threatened to pull the broadcast licenses of any station that aired his show over comments Kimmel made about the man charged with killing Charlie Kirk. The decision, according to Variety, was made after television giant Nexstar announced that its local ABC affiliates would pre-empt airings of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, just hours after Carr issued that threat. Nexstar is one of the biggest owners of television stations across the country. We’ve reached out to the FCC for comment on what specifically is objectionable from Kimmel’s show and which FCC regulations he may have violated.Nexstar is also waiting on Carr to approve a pending $6.2 billion merger with rival broadcaster Tegna, according to comments made by CEO Perry Sook during a recent investment call. Earlier today, Carr suggested to MAGA influencer Benny Johnson earlier today that he would consider pulling the broadcast licenses of television stations that air ABC, after late night host Jimmy Kimmel claimed on his show that the “MAGA gang” was “trying to desperately categorize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them”.In the interview, which Johnson posted on X, Carr also offered ABC and its parent company Disney an easier way out: punish Kimmel themselves.“This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he said. “These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead. They have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest.”Carr, a Trump appointee, has spent his tenure at the FCC attacking legacy media outlets for alleged bias against conservatives, regularly threatening to pull broadcast licenses over coverage he dislikes. He’s exploited the FCC’s merger approval process to gain leverage over entertainment companies, particularly Paramount and Skydance, who agreed to let a “bias” watchdog scrutinize the programming they aired. Carr also previously threatened to investigate Disney for its diversity policies.During the manhunt for Kirk’s killer last week, heated speculation arose over possible ideological motives. While Republicans immediately asserted the shooter was on the political left, online speculation over the weekend suggested Robinson might be tied to the far-right groyper movement that had long harassed Kirk — a trend that Kimmel brought up briefly in his monologue on Tuesday night.“We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to desperately categorize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them,” said Kimmel, who then moved on to discuss President Donald Trump’s Friday press conference.  Johnson characterized the comment in an X post as Kimmel “claiming Charlie Kirk’s assassin was a MAGA Conservative.” Carr told him that was enough for the FCC to work with. “There are calls for Kimmel to be fired,” Carr added later. “I think you could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this.”The previous day, Carr had opposed Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recent call to distinguish “free speech” from “hate speech” and prosecute the latter, part of a larger Republican attempt to classify criticism or mockery of Kirk as unlawful. “I think you can draw a pretty clear line, and the Supreme Court has done this for decades, that our First Amendment, our free speech tradition, protects almost all speech,” he said at a summit hosted by Politico.So speech about Kirk flies on the internet, apparently. But broadcast TV is subject to greater government oversight thanks to the FCC’s licensing of spectrum. Kimmel’s comment, Carr claimed, fell under the offense of “news distortion”, which he said was enough to pull the license of stations that broadcast it.“We have a rule on the books that interprets a public interest standard that says news distortion is something that is prohibited. Likewise, we have a rule that addresses broadcast hoaxes, and so again, over the years, the FCC has stepped back from enforcing it, and I don’t think it’s been to the benefit of anybody. Just look at the credibility of these legacy media,” Carr said. (Pulling station licenses for airing a late-night show would be virtually unprecedented — it’s a penalty that’s been used rarely in egregious circumstances.) Disney itself doesn’t hold a broadcast license, so Carr issued his clearest threats to local ABC affiliates. “Disney needs to see some change here, but the individual licensed stations that are taking [Disney’s] content, it’s time for them to step up and say this, you know, garbage — to the extent that that’s what comes down the pipe in the future — isn’t something that we think serves the needs of our local communities,” he said.Nexstar needs the FCC to loosen regulatory restrictions in order to proceed with its proposed merger with Tegna, which would make it the largest owner of broadcast stations in the country.  Under current FCC rules, a single company cannot directly own television stations that reach more than 39 percent of American viewers. The merger would bring it to 80 percent.In an investor conference call last month, Newscast Studio reported that Sook expressed his belief that Carr and the Trump administration would repeal those rules for them.  “We feel very, very positive about moving forward with the regulatory approval process,” Sook said. “We’re meeting this deregulatory moment where it is, and we will work together with regulators as they consider modifying and repealing outdated rules and regulations.”Earlier, Carr noted all the other media outlets he’d threatened with legal recourse were now doing amazing jobs at complying with being fairer to conservatives. “I mean, look, NPR has been defunded. PBS has been defunded. [Stephen] Colbert is retiring. Joy Reid is out at MSNBC,” Carr crowed. “Terry Moran is gone from ABC and is now admitting that they are biased. CBS has now made some commitments to us that they’re going to return to more fact based journalism, and so I think you see some lashing out from people like Kimmel, who are frankly talentless and are looking for ways to get attention.”