While Apple regularly gets lambasted for lack of promotion for its streaming service, Apple TV+, the company seems to be trying harder in recent weeks. It just dropped a βNew for Juneβ sizzle reel, hyping what users can expect to stream on the service in the next month.
The new premieres include comedy series Stick, movie Echo Valley, season two of The Buccaneers, and Taron Egerton drama Smoke. Watch the sizzle reel promo roll after the break below β¦
Businesses are turning to artificial intelligence tools ranging from intelligent agents to predictive systems that can simulate changes in U.S. tariff policies.
Hot water is like internet connectivity for most Verge readers: you just expect it to be there. But that's unlikely to be the case this summer when tent camping at a music festival or road-tripping into the great unknown. That's where BougeRV's battery-powered shower comes in.
The $310 "Portable Propane Outdoor Camping Water Heater" from BougeRV is not only optimized for search engine discovery, it also delivers a luxurious spray of hot steaming water to the unwashed, be they human, canine, or stubborn pots and pans. Charge up the battery, attach a propane canister, drop the pump into a jug of water, and you're ready to get sudsing.
It's so useful and flexible that I've ditched my plans to install a permanent shower cabin and expensive hot water system inside my adventure van, even if I don't completely trust it.
My current portable shower consists of an 11-liter water bag, a manual foot pump, and a spray nozzle. To make it hot, I have to heat water on the stove or hang the bag in the sun for several hours, yet it still costs over $150. For $310, the BougeRV heated shower seems like a bargain.
The BougeRV system can produce a maximum heat output of 20,500 BTUs - about half o β¦
ο»ΏValve CEO Gabe Newell pretends to get a hole drilled into his head for a brain-computer interface.
Valve co-founder and CEO Gabe Newell, the company behind Half-Life and DOTA 2 and Counter-Strike and preeminent PC game distribution platform Steam, has long toyed with the idea that your brain should be more connected to your PC. It began over a decade ago with in-house psychologists studying peopleβs biological responses to video games; Valve once considered earlobe monitors for its first VR headset. The company publicly explored the idea of brain-computer interfaces for gaming at GDC in 2019.
But Newell decided to spin off the idea. That same year, he quietly incorporated a new brain-computer interface startup, Starfish Neuroscience β which has now revealed plans to produce its very first brain chip later this year.
Starfishβs first blog post, spotted by Valve watcher Brad Lynch, makes it clear weβre not talking about a complete implant yet. This bit is the custom βelectrophysiologyβ chip designed to record brain activity (like how Neuralink can βread your mindβ so patients can interact with computers) and stimulate the brain (for disease therapy), but Starfish isnβt claiming itβs already built the systems to power it or the bits to stick it into a personβs head.
βWe anticipate our first chips arriving in late 2025 andΒ we are interested in finding collaborators for whom such a chip would open new and exciting avenues,β writes Starfish neuroengineer Nate Cermak (bolding theirs), suggesting that Starfish might wind up partnering with other companies for wireless power or even the final brain implant.
But the goal, writes Starfish, is a smaller and less invasive implant than the competition, one that can βenable simultaneous access to multiple brain regionsβ instead of just one site, and one that doesnβt require a battery. Using just 1.1 milliwatts during βnormal recording,β Starfish says it can work with wireless power transmission instead.
Hereβs the chipβs current spec sheet:
Low power: 1.1 mW total power consumption during normal recordingΒ
Physically small: 2 x 4mm (0.3mm pitch BGA)Β
Capable of both recording (spikes and LFP) & stimulation (biphasic pulses)Β
32 electrode sites, 16 simultaneous recording channels at 18.75kHzΒ
1 current source for stimulating on arbitrary pairs of electrodesΒ
Onboard impedance monitoring and stim voltage transient measurementΒ
Digital onboard data processing and spike detection allows the device to operate via low-bandwidth wireless interfaces.Β
Fabricated in TSMC 55nm process
Neuralinkβs N1, for comparison, has 1,024 electrodes across its 64 brain-implanted threads, a chip that consumed around 6 milliwatts as of 2019, a battery that periodically needs wireless charging, and the full implant (again, not just the chip) is around 23mm wide and 8mm thick. The Elon Musk-led company has reportedly already implanted it in three humans; while some of the threads did detach from the first patientβs brain, he still has functionality and has been giving interviews.
Starfish says it could be important to connect to multiple parts of the brain simultaneously, instead of just one region, to address issues like Parkinsonβs disease. βthere is increasing evidence that a number of neurological disorders involve circuit-level dysfunction, in which theΒ interactions between brain regionsΒ may be misregulated,β Cermak writes.
In addition to multiple simultaneous brain implants, the companyβs updated website says itβs working on a βprecision hyperthermia deviceβ to destroy tumors with targeted heat, and a brain-reading, robotically guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) system for addressing neurological conditions like bipolar disorder and depression.
In case youβre wondering how any of this might make its way back to gaming, Iβll leave you with Valveβs talk from GDC 2019 about brain-computer interfaces.
A lot has been said about Web2 vs Web3 games, or ownership with or without control. We can all agree that Web3 has been about cutting out the middleman, owning the data and the infrastructure, and the gamer being the [β¦]
Venture capitalists have always focused on investing in companies that leverage technology to either disrupt established industries or create entirely new business categories. But some VCs are starting to flip the script on their investing styles. Rather than funding startups, they are acquiring mature businesses β such as call centers, accounting firms, and other professional [β¦]
As Paramount considers settling a lawsuit with Donald Trump over a "60 Minutes" interview, the Freedom of the Press Foundation warns that it will sue over a deal that allegedly βcould amount to a bribe.β
Trumpβs meme coin dropped 16% the morning after a black-tie gala for buyers, triggering political backlash that threatens to derail stablecoin legislation.
The winners of the $TRUMP meme coin contest did get to see President Donald Trump speak at a private dinner closed to the press - but his speech was probably the least exciting part of their night. They did get a better, more valuable, and potentially more lucrative experience: the opportunity to network with the biggest crypto traders in the game, win watches worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and attend a not-so-exclusive afterparty at the Capitol Hill Marriott afterward - all without having to complete particularly thorough background checks.
The vetting process for entering the dinner was a 'pretty light' KYC check
After being whisked behind the gates of the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, past a throng of journalists snapping photos and protesters screaming at them for being corrupt, the 220 attendees went through security and had their IDs checked. According to one attendee, many were wealthy but some were living on normal-ish paychecks. The other guests, he said, were largely foreigners from overseas, all with an extremely high risk tolerance for gambling with crypto. The attendee said the vetting process for entering the dinner was a "pretty light" β¦
Welcome to episode 55 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, we talk about Android 16 QPR1 Beta 1 and share our first thoughts on Google I/O 2025.
After three seasons, Amazonβs live-action take on Robert Jordan and Brandon Sandersonβs Wheel of Timeseries is coming to an end.
Though The Wheel of Timeβs third season was hailed by fans as the showβs strongest chapter yet, Deadline reports that Amazon has decided not to bring it back due to its relatively high production costs and flagging viewership numbers. Similar to Amazonβs Rings of Power series, The Wheel of Time was clearly a play to produce another Game of Thrones-style hit. When the series first debuted in 2021, it managed to capture an impressively large audience and become one of Amazonβs most-watched programs. But those numbers dwindled in subsequent seasons, leading Amazon to call it quits.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporterback in April right after The Wheel of Timeβs third season concluded, showrunner Rafe Judkins said that when when he and his team were first shopping the series around to studios, they ultimately chose Amazon as a production partner because it βfelt like a place where they do want to invest in shows for the long term.β
βThere are not a lot of places doing that anymore,β Judkins said. βFor Wheel of Time, itβs really important for us to be somewhere that does want to invest in shows for the long term and not just for the splash and leave.β
