Sleep tech is more than tracking. Here are the best gadgets I’ve tested that help you fall asleep, stay asleep, or wake up earlier.

Read the full story at The Verge.

The Twelve South AirFly SE is one of those gadgets that can make long flights go by just a little faster, allowing you to eschew the shoddy pair of complimentary earbuds you get with most airlines in favor of your own set of Bluetooth cans. And right now, it’s on sale at Amazon and Best Buy for $29.99 ($5 off), which is a new all-time low.

Twelve South’s entry-level Bluetooth transmitter features an integrated 3.5mm cable, meaning all you need to do is plug it into the seatback entertainment system and pair it with your favorite pair of wireless earbuds or noise-canceling headphones. It doesn’t last as long as the step-up AirFly Pro and Pro Deluxe — nor does it allow for two simultaneous connections — but it still lets a single user eke out 20 hours of continuous playback on a single charge. Plus, it works with virtually any standard audio jack, making the compact dongle an easy way to add Bluetooth connectivity to older devices... including that aging treadmill at the gym that’s always tuned to CNN, SportsCenter, or reruns of Friends.

Other ways to save this weekend

• Like clockwork, eBay has kicked off its annual New Year’s promo, letting you save 20 percent on gaming consoles, 4K OLED TVs, and other items with coupon code NEWYEAR20. Highlights include iRobot’s Roomba j7 Plus and Sony’s WH-1000XM5 headphones, the latter of which are on sale via BuyDig for $238.80 (about $111 off) through January 5th. Personally, I prefer their tighter sound over the XM4, though I do wish they still folded down like the last-gen model for easy transport. Read our review.
• Hoto’s sleek Hand Tool Set has fallen to just $39.99 ($30 off) at Amazon, its lowest price to date. The portable kit is a great example of why a reader once emailed us to call Hoto “the Apple of tools.” Each component, from the claw hammer and self-locking measuring tape to the included steel bits, dons a handsome aesthetic and excellent build quality, making it a great addition to any household in need of some basic tools for small repairs.
• It seems everyone has high hopes of getting fit in the new year, though I doubt most people are thinking about putting together a proper recovery regimen. Thankfully, if you’re looking for an easier way to soothe various aches and pains, the second-gen Theragun Mini is on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from Theragun for $149 ($50 off). That’s an excellent discount on the portable massage gun, which offers three speeds, USB-C charging, and a several attachments for a more personalized touch.

Arlo has once again increased the monthly subscription pricing for its smart home cameras’ Arlo Secure cloud storage plan. The company now charges $9.99 per month (up from $7.99) to store a single camera’s recordings and $19.99 a month (up from $17.99) for unlimited cameras. And instead of calling the cheaper plan Arlo Secure, both are now named Secure Plus.

At $9.99 per month, the cheapest Secure plan is now more than three times the monthly $2.99 Arlo once charged to store video for a single camera in the cloud. The company bumped that to $4.99 in early 2023, then to $7.99 last year. With annual billing, the single-camera plan still works out to $7.99 per month, while the unlimited-camera one is effectively $17.99 per month when you pay for a year upfront.

Screenshot: Arlo website

This latest round of price increases comes after Arlo announced a new set of AI-powered features in September. The features include letting users name specific people or vehicles the camera sees and get notifications about them, or to train its cameras to detect and notify them of events like a sprinkler turning on or garage door opening. The company has also doubled how many days of recordings it will store, from 30 to 60 days.

Arlo has offered at least some users the ability to keep their old rate by switching to an annual plan, according to a screenshot posted to the Arlo subreddit.

Users can still get free storage by using Arlo Base Stations and SmartHub devices that are compatible with their cameras. However, going that route also means missing out on certain subscription-only features that make smart cameras appealing, such as package detection.

The year in tech kicks off with a jam-packed week of gadget news.

Read the full story at The Verge.

It’s time for the biggest tech show of the year. CES 2025 officially kicks off next week, with most of the industry’s biggest names gathering in Las Vegas to announce new products and demonstrate some of the most exciting tech they have coming throughout the year.

CES is traditionally a show about TVs, laptops, and smart home tech. But it’s increasingly become a big show for cars, wearables and health tech, and a whole lot more. This year, expect one abbreviation to show up a lot across every single category: AI. The AI hype cycle is rolling straight into 2025, and there’s certain to be AI popping up on the next generation of TVs and cars, like it or not.

The show officially starts on Tuesday, January 7th, but you can expect announcements to start coming out on Sunday and Monday ahead of the show floor opening and a day of press conferences.

Here are the big beats we’re expecting to see at the show.

TVs

I’m expecting two prevailing trends for TVs at CES 2025: screens will keep getting bigger, and AI features are going to be everywhere — to the point of being...

Read the full story at The Verge.

An alliance of grassroots environmental groups could lose $60 million in federal funding after calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) was named one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “grantmakers” more than a year ago, putting it in charge of distributing subgrants for locally led environmental projects. But out of 11 of the EPA’s grantmakers, the CJA is the only one that has yet to receive any funding. The group has faced a barrage of attacks for publicly opposing the Israel-Hamas war, and some EPA staffers say the group has been singled out as a result.

“We have been deeply disappointed to witness EPA’s current withholding of $60 million to the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), the only one of the eleven grantees that courageously spoke out against the environmental toll and human rights violations in Palestine,” a group of anonymous EPA and Department of Energy employees wrote in an open letter in December.

The money could disappear if it isn’t dispersed before President-elect Donald Trump steps into office. Trump has said he would rescind unspent funds from the Inflation Reduction Act that set aside money for the grants. And if his second term is anything like his first, he’s likely to gut the EPA and roll back environmental protections.

With a deregulatory agenda at the national level, local efforts become even more crucial to safeguarding Americans’ air, water, and climate. It’s those kinds of grassroots initiatives that the EPA’s grantmakers are supposed to support and what’s at risk if the agency doesn’t disburse the funds before it’s too late.

“What this would do is further strip away funds that our communities have been counting on,” says CJA executive director KD Chavez. “We need people to be resourced so that at least on a local level they can do clean up projects, they can have air quality monitoring,” Chavez says, citing examples of how the money might be used.

Money for the EPA’s Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program came from the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $369 billion for clean energy and climate action. The 11 grantmakers include universities and nonprofit organizations charged with doling out a total of $600 million to locally led environmental projects.

That was supposed to make it easier for smaller grassroots groups to access funding, especially those living with the most pollution, which are often communities of color in the United States. The CJA includes around 100 organizations across the US, many of them rooted in communities of color like the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program and the Indigenous Environmental Network.

The CJA, in particular, was chosen to distribute subgrants to EPA regions 8–10, which encompass most of the Western US. It’s also the national grantmaker responsible for outreach to tribal communities. The CJA says it has already spent $1.6 million from its own operational budget to get the organizational infrastructure in place needed to allow community groups to apply for subgrants. It’s supposed to receive $50 million for those subgrants, plus an additional $10 million for technical capacity.

As of January 3rd, only $461 million of the funding from the grantmaking program had been awarded, according to data on the EPA website, leaving the rest of the funds vulnerable to the incoming Trump administration.

“There are questions we have about the singling out of us as an organization. Why have we been singled out as anti-American? Is it because we’re led by working class people, Black Indigenous, and people of color communities?” Chavez says.

Over the past year, conservative media and some Republican lawmakers have accused the CJA of being “radicals,” antisemitic, and “Anti-American” for its stance on the Israel-Hamas war. Even before the EPA announced its selection of 11 grantmakers, the CJA had released a statement in October 2023 calling on President Joe Biden and Congress to demand a ceasefire by Israel and Hamas.

“I was surprised to learn that $50 million has been designated for Climate Justice Alliance, a group which explicitly publishes a ‘free Palestine’ section on its website. On the website, there are dozens of antisemitic and alarming images,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said to former EPA administrator Michael Regan when he testified before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee in July of last year. (Regan stepped down from his post in December.)

The CJA has published its ceasefire statement on its website. “We call on Biden and the US Congress to support an immediate end to the violence by publicly demanding a ceasefire within the region. We stand firmly on the side of peace and support the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, decolonization and life,” the statement says.

“At our core CJA has always been anti war and pro communities,” Chavez says. “We are just collateral damage in a war against regulations,” they add.

The group has also caught flak for its environmental advocacy. A letter from Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Buddy Carter (R-GA) to Regan last May accuses the CJA of supporting “partisan, and in some cases extreme, environmental activism” including “mass organization of climate alarmism protests” and the “litigation of fossil fuel projects.” The letter similarly castigates other grantmakers chosen by the EPA, but the CJA has faced more heat as protests in the US against the war in Gaza gained momentum.

The letter published by EPA and DOE staffers last month (first reported on by The Intercept) urges the agencies to “end their collaboration with Israel until there is a permanent ceasefire” and “release all designated federal funds to Climate Justice Alliance.” It says the funding is needed for Indigenous communities and other groups that have historically been “left out” of environmental protections.

According to Chavez, the EPA told the CJA in a meeting in September that it was under investigation by the agency’s office of general counsel (OGC) without any explanation as to why. The group says the agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights then told the group to expect funding by January 6th — even though grantmakers were initially anticipated to be able to start doling out subgrants in the summer of 2024.

The EPA didn’t verify the CJA’s claims or answer specific questions from The Verge about an investigation into the CJA. “EPA continues to review the grant for the Climate Justice Alliance,” EPA spokesperson Nick Conger said in an email to The Verge. “EPA continues to work through its rigorous process to obligate the funds under the Inflation Reduction Act, including the Thriving Communities Grantmakers program.” The agency is “on track” to award more than 90 percent of the funding by the end of the Biden administration, Conger added.

When The Verge asked the EPA last year how it chose grantmakers for the program, Regan said in a call with reporters that they each “demonstrated a very strong governance structure that creates accountability” and that the agency selected the 11 “knowing that they would be able to operationalize these resources in a way that the communities that need these resources the most would absolutely get them.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook is the next tech exec to donate $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration committee, according to Axios. Cook’s donation follows similar commitments from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos through Amazon, and Meta as Big Tech companies and executives work to curry favor with the incoming administration.

Cook famously built a personal relationship with Trump during his first term that other tech CEOs are looking to replicate. He was one of many to congratulate Trump after his Election Day victory, and Axios reports that Cook has met with Trump at Trump Tower and his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Elon Musk, who dropped in on Bezos’ December dinner with Trump, joined “part of” Cook’s dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Axios says. The New York Times previously reported that Cook met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

Unnamed sources tell Axios that “Cook, a proud Alabama native, believes the inauguration is a great American tradition, and is donating to the inauguration in the spirit of unity.” Apple is “not expected” to donate to the inauguration. The company didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

Samsung and Google are ready to push a new standard, Eclipsa Audio. This format will enable 3D audio experiences on certain YouTube videos later this year, with support available across Samsung’s 2025 lineup of TVs and soundbars. Over the years, Samsung notably hasn’t supported Dolby Vision HDR for dynamic HDR metadata, choosing instead to promote its preferred alternative, HDR10 Plus. Now, it seems ready to make a similar competitive push for open-source 3D audio support.

Eclipsa Audio could eventually serve as a free alternative to Dolby Atmos, the dominant 3D audio format that hardware makers like Samsung pay to license for TVs and other equipment. Samsung says that similar to Atmos, this audio format supports adjusting “audio data such as the location and intensity of sounds, along with spatial reflections” to create a 3D experience.

The two companies first announced a partnership to develop spatial audio technology in 2023, initially calling it Immersive Audio Model and Formats (IAMF). At the time, Samsung spatial audio head WooHyun Nam said the format would provide “a complete open-source framework for 3D audio, from creation to delivery and playback.”

The IAMF spec has also been adopted by the Alliance for Open Media, a group that has been pushing for royalty-free codec support since 2015 and counts companies like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Netflix — along with Samsung and Google — among its members. If they also add support for this audio format, it could help it catch on, although it’s already taken years for their AV1 video codec to see more use.

Samsung and Google are also creating a certification program with the Telecommunications Technology Association “to ensure consistent audio quality” across devices using the format, which also sounds similar to the way companies like Dolby and THX manage the labeling for their specs. We expect to hear more about Eclipsa Audio in the coming days, as CES 2025 kicks off next week.

Ford launched its “Power Promise” initiative in October that included a free home electric vehicle charger with installation for new EV buyers. The promotion was initially scheduled to end on January 2nd, but now Ford is extending it into the first few months of 2025.

Starting today, Ford says its Power Promise promotion will run through March 31st, 2025, giving US customers who buy a new model year 2024 or 2025 Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning, or E-Transit more time to take advantage of the perks. Those include the complementary home charger with “standard” installation, 24/7 customer support for charging questions, and complimentary roadside assistance.

The Ford Power Promise extension comes following a “best ever” quarter for EV sales at the automaker, according to Ford spokesperson Susannah Evans.

Ford Mustang Mach-E sales were up 27 percent to 51,745 units for 2024 compared to the previous year, while the F-150 Lightning was up 39 percent to 33,510, and the E-Transit was up 64 percent to 12,610. The Mustang Mach-E hit a record fourth quarter with 16,119 sold and is the second-best electric SUV in sales in the US after the Tesla Model Y, according to Ford. The company sold 97,865 pure electric vehicles in 2024 — still short of GM, which delivered 114,400 for the year.

Ford’s Model e retail director, Stacey Ferreira shared on LinkedIn that customers have reported high satisfaction in the program, which includes an 11-day average timeframe from quote to install. Ferreira says that approximately 85 percent of the complimentary home charger installations were considered “standard installations,” meaning no additional out-of-pocket costs were necessary.

As promised, I’ve got a special mailbag issue this week. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions. Like last year, I picked a handful that hit some of the themes I plan to continue covering in 2025.

On to your questions…

I’m really concerned / worried / curious about the near-term future. Between now and 10 years from now, I think it is very clear AI will be replacing many job functions. What are we all going to do?

The leaders at the AI labs say that, yes, there will be job loss, but that doesn’t mean catastrophe. The optimistic take is that humans are creative and will invent new jobs, like they always have when technology changes things. At the moment, there’s also a macro belief among the CEOs driving a lot of the spending on infrastructure for AI that its impact will be deflationary and lead to GDP growth.

Job displacement will still be painful, of course. Sam Altman and others believe that some form of universal basic income will be necessary to offset the economic impacts of AGI. Altman has his other startup, Tools for Humanity, already scanning eyeballs and distributing cryptocurrency. But I think it’s way too early to be seriously concerned. As Altman himself recently...

Read the full story at The Verge.

A screenshot that seems to suggest billionaire Elon Musk is cosplaying superfan “Adrian Dittmann” — showing X account permissions beyond that of an ordinary user — is almost certainly fake, a source at X tells The Verge.

The source, who claims no knowledge of Dittmann’s identity, says an image posted to 4chan’s /pol/ board doesn’t reflect an actual interface available to people who work for X. The screenshot was posted by a user who identifies themselves as Adrian Dittmann, showing a post from Musk’s X page. In that screenshot, the X interface includes non-standard links to an “Admin Portal” and a “Bans” page, hinting that the user has special privileges on the site. But the source says neither of these options exist for X employees logged into their accounts. In fact, X employees would see the same interface as other users, with the potential exception of new features currently being trialed for wide release.

Another source familiar with X’s operations confirmed to The Verge that the screenshot isn’t consistent with what employees see.

This suggests that other elements of the screenshot, like an analytics link that only appears for the author of a post, were also deliberate fabrications, seeded as hints that Musk is secretly Dittmann. The hints were picked up overnight, where they spread on social media alongside other posts made by the 4chan user — mostly ones lauding Musk and defending his X policies amid infighting with other conservatives over immigration.

It’s not clear who posted the screenshots. “Adrian Dittmann” is a longtime X user, and his Musk fandom and vocal similarities have led to long-standing rumors that he’s secretly none other than Musk himself. (Musk has cosplayed his son on the site, so it’s not that far-fetched an assertion.) User Mag’s Taylor Lorenz has noted that Dittmann benefits tremendously from the speculation that they’re Musk, and it’s possible the doctored screenshots are Dittmann leaning into that. The 4chan posts could also be from an unrelated impersonator, though, playing up the idea of Musk as a desperate forum poster. (I guess we can’t rule out that Musk, impersonating Dittmann, added fake elements to an actual screenshot of his X account? But I’m ranking that theory low on the list.)

None of this conclusively disproves a link between Musk and Dittmann, of course. But if Musk isn’t spending his precious free hours on a sockpuppet account, that gives him more time for cozying up to President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, attempting to swing Germany’s upcoming election in favor of the far-right AfD party, and playing Diablo IV.

Update 1:40PM ET: Added confirmation from a second source.

It’s easy to lose small stuff like laptop chargers when you’re constantly on the go, which is why Twelve South’s PlugBug is handy. It’s a USB-C wall charger that Apple users can keep tabs of via the Find My App, and it’s currently down to its best price yet. Normally $69.99, right now you can buy the 50-watt version for $55.99 at Amazon and Best Buy. The 120-watt PlugBug is also on sale for $97.99 ($22 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, which is one of its better prices to date.

The 50-watt wall charger features a pair of USB-C ports, so you can choose to slow-charge a laptop or simultaneously power up your smartphone and tablet. If you require faster charging, the 120-watt might be the better option and comes with four USB-C ports. But the PlugBug’s real standout feature, as mentioned, is its support for Apple’s extensive Find My App feature, which allows you to keep tabs of the charger via your iPhone, iPad or Mac. And conveniently, the charger can beep for easier tracking.

As a nice bonus, the PlugBug is also useful when you’re not using it to charge your devices. After all, it’s essentially a location tracker, so you can use it to keeps tab of your bag, suitcase, or wherever else you may have stored it.

Some more ways to save

• Bose’s SoundLink Max has returned to its all-time low price of $299 ($100 off) at Amazon and Best Buy (for My Best Buy Plus and Total members). The Bluetooth speaker offers powerful, room-filling sound along with a 3.5-millimeter aux input for lossless listening. It’s rated IP67 for dust and water resistance, and offers up to 20 hours of battery life on a single charge, rendering it a top-notch portable Bluetooth speaker, great for any occasion. Read our review.
• The latest version of Samsung’s 55-inch The Frame TV is on sale for $867.99 ($630 off) at Woot until January 10th, which matches its best price to date. Samsung’s The Frame can easily pass for home decor, thanks to an anti-glare matte OLED screen that displays artwork as well as photos when idle. Yet it’s also a good 4K TV, with a new energy-saving feature that drops its speedy 120Hz refresh rate to 60hz while displaying art.
• If you’re on the market for an excellent handheld vacuum, the Black & Decker Furbuster is on sale for $67.98 ($32 off) at Amazon, which is its second-best price to date. The 20-watt cordless vacuum does a good job of sucking up dirt as well as fur and is portable, so you can use it as a car vacuum. It also features a long, extendable crevice tool, allowing you to easily clean hard-to-reach spaces.

A day after a Cybertruck exploded in the Trump Hotel valet area, law enforcement officials released more details on the progress of their investigation, including the coroner’s confirmation that the driver was a US Army soldier named Matthew Livelsberger, who died by suicide of a self-inflicted gunshot just before the explosives in the truck’s bed detonated.

“I’m comfortable calling it a suicide with a bombing that occurred immediately thereafter,” said Sheriff Kevin McMahill of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. “I’m not giving it any other labels.” McMahill also noted that police haven’t investigated the suspect’s phones or laptops yet, or identified a possible motive.

Separately, the Denver Gazette reported on text messages Livelsberger sent after renting the truck on December 28th, with videos of the vehicle and boasts about its “ungodly” speed. The New York Post cited an unnamed source saying he left his home in Colorado the day after Christmas after an argument with his wife. The Independent contacted Livelsberger’s uncle, who described him to the paper as someone who “loved the Army” and “loved Trump.”

Image: LMVPD

During the briefing, law enforcement officials displayed surveillance video of the truck once it arrived in Las Vegas on the morning of January 1st and a map of its eight stops at Tesla charging stations over three days. They also said that people from Tesla were coming to assist in the investigation, including possibly recovering video from the truck’s built-in cameras.

Image: LVMPD

While the sheriff said investigators had received information about the charging stops from Elon Musk, they are also looking to see who else may have been charging at the same time to possibly find video captured by those vehicles.

Like the F-150 Lightning used hours earlier in an apparent act of terrorism by driving into a crowd in New Orleans, Livelsberger rented the 2024 Cybertruck via the Turo app.

Turo said on Friday, “We do not believe these two individuals would have been flagged by anyone – including law enforcement.” However, “as an immediate next step while we wait for law enforcement to conclude their investigations, we’re consulting with national security and counterterrorism experts to learn more about how we can get even better and play our part in helping prevent anything like this from happening ever again,” writes CEO Andre Haddad.

It has also been reported that both men spent time at the same military base and served in different areas of Afghanistan in 2009. However, the sheriff said that while they’re not prepared to “rule in or rule out anything at this point,” there’s no evidence at this time of a connection between them or a link between the incidents.

The truck was transported to the department’s fleet services area for further inspection, and the investigators have reported finding the subject’s iPhone, identification, and two firearms that had been purchased two days earlier. The explosive components found inside the truck consisted of consumer-grade fireworks, mortars, and aerial shells, as well as fuel enhancers and the kinds of explosive targets that can be purchased at sporting goods stores, according to Kenneth Cooper, the ATF assistant special agent in charge.

JMGO’s N3 Ultra Max projector simplifies setup with a motorized gimbal that handles alignment automatically. Once positioned in a room, you can change where it’s projecting using its motion-sensing wireless remote. The all-in-one projector will handle the rest of the fine-tuning, including focus, optical zoom, and keystone adjustments to ensure the image is level and perfectly aligned.

Although the 4K N3 Ultra Max debuted in China late last year, JMGO is announcing a new version for the global market at CES that includes improved software, Google TV, and native Netflix support. The company expects it to be available globally, including in the US, sometime in the fourth quarter of 2025, but pricing details haven’t been finalized yet.

Image: JMGO

The N3 Ultra Max joins a growing line of gimbal-mounted projectors from JMGO but is one of the first from the company to feature motorized movements. To increase the projector’s range of motion, JMGO relocated its two HDMI and other I/O ports to the gimbal’s base. However, since the base rotates 360 degrees, there’s still a risk of tangling or the projector’s movements being limited if cables aren’t long enough.

In addition to automated movements, the projector uses a camera and 3D distance sensors to detect and avoid projecting over obstacles on a wall such as artwork or light switches. That will help eliminate visual distractions but could also result in a smaller image depending on how cluttered a wall is.

Image: JMGO

Using a triple laser system, the N3 Ultra Max outputs around 4,000 ISO lumens of brightness, but JMGO says the projector’s performance hasn’t been verified by a third party yet. That’s enough brightness to project an image up to 180 inches in size, the company says, and it will potentially allow the projector to be used in the daytime in a room with ambient light with a smaller image size.

A few months before the first Cybertrucks were delivered to customers, Tesla CEO Elon Musk got on a call with investors and said he wanted to “temper expectations” about the polarizing vehicle.

“It’s a great product, but financially, it will take, I don’t know, a year to 18 months before it is a significant positive cash flow contributor,” Musk said in the October 2023 call. But, ever the showman, Musk couldn’t resist injecting some hype.

“The demand is off the charts,” he said. “We have over 1 million people who have reserved the car.”

But more than a year later, that demand appears to have dried up.

Yesterday, Tesla reported its fourth quarter production and delivery numbers for 2024, giving us as close to a complete picture of the Cybertruck’s first full year of sales as we’re going to get. Tesla doesn’t break out Cybertruck numbers specifically, instead lumping them in with its two older vehicles, the Model S and Model X, as “other models.”

Tesla said it produced 94,105 vehicles in that category in 2024, of which 85,133 were delivered to customers. Kevin Roberts, director of economic and market intelligence at CarGurus, estimates that between 35,000–50,000 of those “other models” sold over the course of the year were Cybertrucks.

“How you view the Cybertruck depends on what your expectations going in were,” Roberts tells me. “If you thought it was going to be a large volume vehicle, a la Ford F-150 competitor, it hasn’t become a large volume competitor. But if you compare it to, say, a lifestyle pickup or the Ford F-150 Lightning, I think it’s done pretty well.”

And yet, the Cybertruck did not meaningfully contribute to Tesla’s growth in 2024, as evidenced by the fact that the company reported its first year-over-year sales decline in over a decade.

Musk claimed that over 1 million people reserved a Cybertruck, and so far, that has not resulted in 1 million Cybertrucks on the road. To be sure, it’s still early days for the angular EV, and it could still prove to be a success. But Tesla lowered the deposit reservation to $100, after initially asking for $1,000, which likely boosted reservations among people who probably weren’t going to end up buying one.

And then there was the rocky rollout: the viral videos of a Cybertruck getting stuck in snow or sand; the numerous recalls (seven since its launch in December 2023), including one related to a faulty accelerator pedal; and Musk’s emergence as a stalwart supporter of Donald Trump and a purveyor of racist, rightwing conspiracies.

Even still, the Cybertruck seemed to come out of the gate strong. It was America’s best-selling electric truck in Q2 of 2024, the third-best-selling EV in the country in Q3, and the best-selling vehicle costing over $100,000 in the first half of the year.

In July, it almost matched combined sales of all other electric trucks on the market, including the Ford F-150 Lightning, Rivian R1T, GMC Hummer EV, and Chevy Silverado EV. But some analysts suggested that Tesla may have been filling a backlog of older orders at the time, which would suggest that the sales numbers weren’t related to increased demand.

But as the year went on, evidence emerged that the Cybertruck may have already passed its peak. There were anecdotal reports of Cybertrucks piling up on used car lots. Tesla Cybertruck factory workers in Austin were told to stay home for three days in December.

Meanwhile, dozens of limited edition Foundation Series Cybertrucks, the first version of the truck to go on sale, were piling up in the automaker’s inventory, leading Tesla to reportedly start buffing the badging off so they could be sold as regular models. And the price of a used Cybertruck keeps dropping: $104,300 on average on December 30th, down from $107,800 the month before, according to CarGurus.

“What’s going on with used Cybertrucks and we can see the number of days those vehicles have been sitting on lots has been going up,” Roberts says. “And the average price of used Cybertrucks has been trending down.”

A brand-new Cybertruck is still very, very expensive: leasing starts at around $900 a month, while someone interested in buying an all-wheel drive base model would be expected to drop at least $90,000.

Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge

And while the Cybertruck just recently qualified for the federal EV tax credit of $7,500, that benefit is likely to be short-lived, as Trump is expected to kill the credit — with Musk’s backing. Musk still has a few more months to make good on his claim from 2023 that the Cybertruck will be a “significant cash flow contributor” within 18 months — but the outlook looks grim.

Tesla could have followed up the enormously successful Model Y with an even more affordable EV, which is what a lot of analysts and investors were expecting. But instead, Musk introduced a highly polarizing, questionably made, lifestyle vehicle that will likely never sell as many units as its predecessors.

“Tesla has had a big volume hit, the Model Y is in the top five selling vehicles in the US,” Roberts says. “So they can get those big volume vehicles. The Cybertruck just hasn’t been that. And it’s going to face some headwinds in 2025 that could make it a challenge for it to get to that kind of volume status.”

If you missed The Wild Robot in the madness of last year’s holiday season, Universal’s about to make it a little easier to catch the animated sci-fi adventure on both the big and small screens.

The Wild Robot has been available to purchase physically on DVD / Blu-ray and on digital platforms like Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video for some time now. But today, Universal announced that, following the film’s upcoming theatrical rerelease on January 17th, it will also be available to stream for Peacock subscribers starting on January 24th. The news comes after The Wild Robot’s successful initial box office run that saw it rake in an impressive $324.3 million worldwide and secure a number of awards from various film critics groups.

The theatrical rerelease feels a lot like Universal’s way of priming the public to be thinking more about The Wild Robot as we march deeper into awards season, but it’s also going to give folks more options to experience one of 2024’s best films.

In September 2023, Meta made a big deal of its new AI chatbots that used celebrities’ likeness: everyone from Kendall Jenner to MrBeast leased themselves out to embody AI characters on Instagram and Facebook. The celebrity-based bots were killed off last summer after less than a year, but users have recently been finding a handful of other, entirely fake bot profiles still floating around — and the reaction is not good.

There’s “Jane Austen,” a “cynical novelist and storyteller”; “Liv,” whose bio claims she is a “proud Black queer momma of 2 & truth-teller”; and “Carter,” who promises to give users relationship advice. All are labeled as “AI managed by Meta” and the profiles date back to when the initial announcement was made. But the more than a dozen AI characters have apparently not been very popular: each has just a few thousand followers, with their posts getting just a few likes and comments.

That is, until the last week or so. After a wave of coverage in outlets like Rolling Stone and posts circulating on social media, the bot accounts are just now being noticed, and the reaction is confusion, frustration, and anger.

“What the fuck does an AI know about dating?????”...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Rumors that viral Elon Musk fanboy Adrian Dittmann is actually a fake online persona used by Musk himself have been reignited following fresh evidence linking the pair. Internet sleuths are pointing to a string of recent activity from Dittmann’s X account and alleged 4Chan posts that feature unexplained X admin permissions and similarities with Musk’s voice and mannerisms.

On Wednesday, a 4chan user identifying themself as Adrian Dittmann posted a screenshot of a post from Musk that displayed interface options that suggest he’s not an ordinary user. (4chan doesn’t use formal accounts, and you’re basically anonymous, but users can adopt unique identifiers that serve a similar purpose, demonstrating the same author is behind multiple posts.) A navigation at the bottom right of the image includes links for “switch account,” “bans,” and “admin portal.” Another link to view the full post engagements can also be seen under the image Musk published — something that’s only visible to the user who created the post.

However, a source at X told The Verge that the “bans” and “admin portal” options seen in the screenshot don’t reflect an actual interface available to people who work for X. Employees would typically see the same interface as other users, with the potential exception of new features currently being trialed for wide release.

The posts from the user identified as Adrian Dittmann, which were made on 4chan’s far-right /pol/ board, have since been deleted.

Additional speculation that Musk is masquerading as Dittmann comes from an X Spaces call hosted by right-wing influencer Laura Loomer on December 29th. After Dittmann joined the call, other X users noted that the account sounded eerily similar to Musk. Similarities between their speech patterns have been raised before following Dittmann’s previous X Spaces appearances, including several instances where he refers to Musk in first person, and another where Musk and Dittmann interacted directly to dispel the rumors.

Dittmann’s parasocial behavior and diehard support of Musk have fueled rumors that the persona is actually the Tesla CEO for over a year. Musk’s daughter has backed the speculation on several occasions. While Dittmann has previously denied being Musk during an appearance on Infowars, the X account, which Journalist Taylor Lorenz notes is eligible for X’s monetization program, has since leaned into the speculation after attracting thousands of followers.

The 4Chan posts were made following Musk in-fighting with hardline anti-immigration Republicans over H-1B visa crackdowns. The fight led to Musk lashing out at his opponents on X, who accused him of demonetizing or suspending them. Dittmann has popped up during this saga to make peace between factions, and his posts on 4chan are, unsurprisingly, defenses of Musk’s moderation on X.

There’s currently no conclusive evidence that confirms Musk behind the Dittmann account on X that frequently responds to his own posts and defends his actions. It wouldn’t be the first time that Musk has used a weird burner account, having previously roleplayed as one of his own children to test X posts. If he isn’t Dittmann, then there’s a real Adrian Dittmann out there praising Musk for being “an amazing father” who gets “lots of sex.”

Update, January 3rd: The story was updated to add details from an X employee who calls the screenshot a fake.

Apple Fitness Plus is getting a fresh makeover in the Strava app. The two companies just announced they’re collaborating to revamp how Fitness Plus integrates with the popular fitness community, which includes more detailed workout summaries, Strava athletes appearing in Fitness Plus content, and a free three-month trial to the service for Strava subscribers.

Starting today, you’ll be able to see a thumbnail of the Fitness Plus workout and information like episode number, music genre, trainer, metrics, and achievements. While mostly a design update, this brings Fitness Plus more in line with other Strava integrations from services like Peloton and Ladder.

Technically, Apple Watch users have been able to import their workouts into Strava from the get-go. However, that integration has been limited with bare-bones workout summaries. While you could see the activity type, calories burned, and basic heart rate metrics, there wasn’t any information about the class or instructor. (As you can see from this screenshot, you’d be hard-pressed to know that my New Year’s Day yoga workout was even a Fitness Plus class.)

The Fitness Plus and Strava integration goes in both directions. For starters, new and existing Strava subscribers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia will get a free three-month trial of Fitness Plus regardless of whether they have an Apple Watch. (You do, however, need an iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV to access the service.) Popular Strava athletes will also feature as guests in Fitness Plus workouts. That includes a strength workout with runner Hellah Sidibe on January 13th and a treadmill workout with Kayla Jeter.

So far, Apple has only offered free Fitness Plus trials with the purchase of a new Apple gadget. And while the service regularly features well-known athletes as guest hosts in its programming, it’s never sourced those guests from a third-party fitness community.

Sidibe, for example, may not be quite as famous as two-time Olympic gold medalist Ted Ligety (who recently hosted a Fitness Plus series). However, if you’re into running and on social media, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with Sidibe’s seven-year daily run streak and penchant for running with four smartwatches.

“Over the past 10 years, we’ve hugely admired what Strava has done to impact the fitness space, especially around community,” says Jay Blahnik, Apple’s vice president of fitness technologies, acknowledging that Apple doesn’t often partake in this sort of collaboration.

Blahnik says working with Strava also presents a new opportunity for Fitness Plus’ reach. When the service first launched, there was an emphasis on making sure it was inclusive, motivating, and accessible for people of all levels. And in those early days, it often felt like Fitness Plus was like a fitness starter pack for the average person who might need a little encouragement — something The Verge pointed out in its initial review. That’s not exactly the typical Strava user.

“They don’t need us for motivation! They’re already self motivated,” says Blahnik. Instead, for seasoned athletes, Blahnik is pitching Fitness Plus as a supplemental resource for cross-training and discovering new activity types.

“Maybe they’re taking up running for the first time, and they want to make sure that they don’t get injured, and they need to do the yoga and the strength,” adds Zipporah Allen, Strava’s chief business officer.

Both Allen and Blahnik also note that the collaboration isn’t a one-and-done type of deal, hinting that the integration could evolve further down the road. While both demurred on providing specifics, Blahnik noted the companies “have bold ambitions for what [they] might be able to do down the road in terms of sharing.” (Asked if perhaps one day you could tap on a Fitness Plus class a Strava friend took and immediately be taken to that workout on your phone, Blahnik said they’d keep that in mind.)

In the short term, it’s a beneficial move for both companies. Strava recently angered users by changing the terms of its API for third-party apps, leaving some disgruntled users questioning the value of a Strava subscription. A free three-month trial to Apple Fitness Plus could appease some of those users. Strava has long been a de facto fitness data hub for dedicated athletes, giving Fitness Plus easy access to long-term athletes who aren’t likely to quit their New Year’s resolutions.

Anthropic has made a deal to settle parts of a copyright infringement lawsuit ​​brought against the maker of the Claude AI model for allegedly distributing protected song lyrics. The agreement was signed off by US District Judge Eumi Lee on Thursday, requiring Anthropic to apply existing guardrails in the training of future AI models and to establish a procedure for music publishers to intervene when copyright infringement is suspected.

In October 2023, several music publishers including Universal Music Group, ABKCO, Concord Music Group, and Greg Nelson Music filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Anthropic for allegedly training its AI system on lyrics from at least 500 protected songs. According to the complaint, when Claude was prompted for the lyrics to songs like Beyoncé’s “Halo,” Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk,” and “Moves like Jagger” by Maroon 5, the chatbot provided responses “that contain all or significant portions of those lyrics.”

While the music publishers acknowledged that platforms like Genius already distribute lyrics online, they noted that those sites pay a licensing fee to use the protected works. Anthropic “intentionally removed or altered copyright management information” from the impacted songs when ingesting data found on those sites to train its AI models, according to the lawsuit filing.

Under the agreement signed by Anthropic on Thursday, the AI company says it will maintain the guardrails it has already implemented that aim to prevent its AI models from infringing on copyrighted content. Anthropic will also apply its existing guardrails to any future AI systems it develops. Music publishers and Anthropic will work together in “good faith” to resolve any instances where the guardrails are deemed ineffective, with the court ready to settle any disputes.

Claude “isn’t designed to be used for copyright infringement, and we have numerous processes in place designed to prevent such infringement,” Anthropic said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “Our decision to enter into this stipulation is consistent with those priorities. We continue to look forward to showing that, consistent with existing copyright law, using potentially copyrighted material in the training of generative AI models is a quintessential fair use.”

The music publishers behind the original complaint have requested a preliminary injunction to bar Anthropic from training future models on their protected song lyrics, with the court expected to issue a ruling in the coming months.