The billionaire space race entered a new phase today when Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin successfully launched its 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket this morning from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
At 2:03AM ET this morning, New Glenn’s seven reusable BE-4 engines ignited to propel the NG-1 rocket into space, with the second stage and payload reaching orbit to achieve Blue Origin’s primary mission goal.
In parallel, the first stage booster — dubbed, “So You’re Telling Me There’s A Chance” — autonomously descended to its landing platform located several hundred miles downrange in the Atlantic. As it approached the Jacklyn barge, the booster lost contact with control and stopped sending data. Blue Origin confirmed that the booster was lost during landing.
Nevertheless, Blue Origin’s goal for today’s uncrewed launch was for New Glenn to reach orbit. Anything beyond that would be a bonus — like activating a prototype of the Blue Ring Pathfinder payload vehicle or landing the reusable booster. “No matter what, we will learn a lot,” said Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp ahead of today’s launch.
Image: Blue Origin
Today’s flight profile. Success meant launching into orbit, everything else was a “bonus.”
The launch comes after almost a decade of development and puts Elon Musk’s SpaceX on notice. New Glenn has about the same carrying capacity as SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, and is meant to shuttle cargo into space on the reusable launch platform. This includes satellites for Blue Origin’s rival to Starlink’s high-speed low-latency internet service. The first of these 3,236 Project Kuiper satellites are expected to launch into low Earth orbit soon, aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket before New Glenn can take over the heavy lifting.
LG Display didn’t have its usual exhibit of flashy, breakthrough new screens at this year’s CES. This resulted in an odd situation where it was actually Panasonic that shared the most details about LG Display’s latest and greatest OLED panel. Even before any official announcement, it was already the centerpiece of 2025 flagships like Panasonic’s Z95B and the LG G5 from LG Electronics (not to be confused with the display division).
But now the company is ready to spill the full details on its new four-layer tandem OLED design. “33 percent brighter than the previous generation and optimized for the AI TV era, it is the industry’s first-ever OLED display to achieve a maximum brightness as high as 4,000 nits,” LG Display wrote in a press release that went out tonight. The AI mention made me roll my eyes a bit, but there’s no doubting that this is a very impressive panel.
Here’s the rundown on what’s so innovative, according to LG Display:
The new panel’s innovation centers on a Primary RGB Tandem structure, which is LG Display’s proprietary technology that uses independent stacks of RGB elements to produce light. It had previously used a three-stack light source, with two layers of blue elements emitting relatively short energy wavelengths alongside red, green, and yellow elements in a single layer.
The Primary RGB Tandem structure applied to the fourth-generation OLED TV panel organizes the light source into four stacks by adding two layers of blue elements and independent layers of red and green elements. It improves maximum brightness by increasing the amount of light produced by each layer compared to the previous structure.
Graphic: LG Display
The latest-gen OLED display uses a four-layer structure to maximize brightness — this time without any micro-lens array technology.
Of course, seeing as we’re squarely in the OLED brightness wars, Samsung Display has its own brighter-than-ever QD-OLED screen that’s going into Samsung’s S95F, which was also announced in Las Vegas. But whereas Samsung is going all in on its glare-free display finish, LG is sticking with a more traditional glossy finish — though it uses “ultra-low reflective technology” to lessen any potential distractions.
Energy efficiency has improved again with the fourth-gen LG Display OLED, and the company says that color brightness can reach 2,100 nits, which is a 40 percent improvement compared to the prior version. These peak brightness numbers are what the panel is technically capable of, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that TV makers like Panasonic will necessarily push it that hard in consumer sets.
Either way, OLED keeps getting brighter and more vibrant while still retaining all of its trademark strengths like perfect blacks, fantastic viewing angles, and fast response times for gaming. The best ones don’t come cheap, but they’re worth saving up for. If you’re after more info on the new panel, I recommend these great videos from Caleb Denison at Digital Trends and Vincent Teoh at HDTVTest.
LG Display’s rival, Samsung Display, did have a CES showcase that my colleague Sean Hollister caught during the show, so be sure to give that a watch as well.
The last-gen Kindle Scribe is nearly identical to the new model, only with a few minor upgrades.
If you’re looking for a cheaper alternative to the new Kindle Scribe, we’ve got good news: the first-gen model is on sale for a couple hundred dollars less than the second-gen model. Normally $349.99 in new condition, Amazon is currently selling it with in refurbished configuration with 16GB of storage, a Basic Pen, and a one-year warranty for just $233.99 as a part of a limited-time lightning deal. You can also buy it at Amazon with 32GB of storage for $259.99.
Both of Amazon’s note-taking ebook readers sport a spacious 10.2-inch 300 ppi display and an adjustable warm light, though the latest Scribe builds upon the original with thinner bezels, a textured display, and a soft-tipped Premium Pen. The most significant changes come in the form of software features, which are available on the first-gen model via a free download. That means no matter which e-reader you buy, you can finally write notes directly on pages. You’ll also be able to take advantage of various AI features, including AI-generated summaries and a tool that lets you refine your handwriting. The only difference is that the new Scribe comes with these features baked in.
The Beats Powerbeats Pro are down to $99.99 (half off) at Best Buy, which is their lowest price to date. The wireless earbuds are still exceptionally comfortable despite their age, with over-ear hooks that keep them securely in place during intense workouts. They also continue to deliver good sound, pair well with Apple devices, and last up to nine hours on a single charge, though you’ll still need a Lightning cable to charge them. Read our review.
Amazon and Best Buy are selling the Apple Pencil Pro for$99 ($20 off), which is one of its best prices to date. The stylus is compatible with the latest iPad Pro, iPad Air, and iPad Mini; however, unlike the Apple Pencil (USB-C), the Pro model features Find My support so you can quickly locate it. It also comes with extra creative capabilities, including pressure sensitivity, double-tap tool switching, and a “barrel roll” feature that lets you twist your digital brush’s orientation by turning the stylus as you paint.
You can pick up the Chipolo One Point at Amazon for $22 ($5 off), an all-time low. The puck-shaped Bluetooth tracker is perfect for keeping tabs on various items, whether it be a set of keys or a pet collar. The keyring tracker also features a user-replaceable battery, IPX5 water resistance, and support for Android’s Fast Pair feature, though keep in mind it only supports Google’s Find My platform, not Apple’s.
In Supreme Court oral arguments over a potentially seismic change to the internet, the most memorable question came from Justice Samuel Alito. “One of the parties here is the owner of Pornhub, right?” Alito asked Derek Shaffer, lawyer for the adult industry group Free Speech Coalition. “Is it like the old Playboy magazine? You have essays there by the modern-day equivalent of Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr.?”
The massive adult web portal Pornhub, in case you’re wondering, does not publish essays by distinguished intellectuals. (Shaffer notes that it does host sexual wellness videos.) The question inspired a slewofcommentary on social media, alongside a few quips directed at Justice Clarence Thomas, who declared during oral argumentthat “Playboy was about squiggly lines on cable TV.” But as funny as the quotes were, whatthe justices were getting at was hardly a joke: how much protection does sexual content and other legal speech deserve, if hosted online?
FSC v. Paxton concerns Texas’ HB 1181, which requires sites with a large proportion of sexually explicit content to verify users’ ages and post scientifically unproven health warnings about how porn “is proven to harm...
The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) is suing Southwest Airlines for “illegally operating multiple chronically delayed flights and disrupting passengers’ travel,” according to a press release.
The USDOT’s investigation found that “Southwest operated two chronically delayed flights — one between Chicago Midway International Airport and Oakland, Calif, and another between Baltimore, Md. and Cleveland, Ohio — that resulted in 180 flight disruptions for passengers between April and August 2022,” per the release. “Each flight was chronically delayed for five straight months.”
A flight is considered chronically delayed if “it is flown at least 10 times a month and arrives more than 30 minutes late more than 50 percent of the time,” the USDOT says.
“Southwest is disappointed that DOT chose to file a lawsuit over two flights that occurred more than two years ago,” Southwest spokesperson Laura Swift says in a statement to The Verge. “Since DOT issued its Chronically Delayed Flight (CDF) policy in 2009, Southwest has operated more than 20 million flights with no other CDF violations. Any claim that these two flights represent an unrealistic schedule is simply not credible when compared with our performance over the past 15 years. In 2024, Southwest led the industry by completing more than 99% of its flights without cancellation.”
In addition, the USDOT is taking “enforcement action” against Frontier Airlines for operating chronically delayed flights. USDOT has fined Frontier $650,000 in civil penalties; the US Treasury will be paid $325,000, while the other $325,000 will be suspended if Frontier “does not operate any chronically delayed flights in the next three years,” the USDOT says.
Frontier Airlines spokesperson Jennifer F. de la Cruz declined to comment.
Earlier this month, USDOT announced a $2 million penalty against JetBlue for operating chronically delayed flights. The USDOT also fined Southwest Airlines in 2023 over a holiday meltdown that stranded millions in 2022.
The Tiny SE includes an integrated stand allowing it to sit atop a laptop’s screen or a monitor. | Image: Obsbot
Obsbot has announced a $99 webcam with a two-axis motorized mount that’s capable of tracking and dynamically reframing subjects. The Tiny SE is available now for $99, making it one of the cheapest ways to add a tracking camera to your streaming setup.
To hit that price tag for a two-axis gimbal-mounted webcam with tracking capabilities, the Tiny SE comes with one notable limitation: it tops out at 1080p. For comparison, the $199 Insta360 Link 2 can do 4K at up to 30fps, while Obsbot still offers its 4K-capable Tiny 2 Lite for $179.
Image quality will be lower than more expensive options, but the Tiny SE should still outperform the webcams built into many laptops. It can stream at 1080p at up to 100fps (or up to 120fps with the resolution dropped to 720p) and supports staggered HDR recording at up to 60fps.
Image: Obsbot
The Tiny SE’s tracking can be limited to certain parts of the body like a person’s hands or their upper or lower torso.
The webcam can reframe and tighten up a shot so it better focuses on a person and what they’re interacting with, and it can be limited to track specific body parts like the lower body or the hand, or to keep their face hidden. But with no optical zoom capabilities — only 4x digital zoom — image quality will be further reduced. Using the Obsbot Center app, available for Windows and macOS, you can even adjust the composition of a shot, so tracked targets don’t always appear in the middle of the frame.
Other features include the ability to use hand gestures to manually adjust the framing of a shot while on camera, a built-in microphone with three noise reduction levels, background blur for increased privacy, and a standard tripodmount on the bottom for more flexibility on where it can be used.
Fox announced on Wednesday that Super Bowl LIX will stream live on Tubi, its free, ad-supported streaming service, when it kicks off on February 9th, 2025. You’ll be able to stream the game in 4K for free from the service’s app on your phone or smart TV, but you’ll need an account to watch.
This is the first time the Super Bowl will be available on Tubi. It’s also its biggest live sporting event yet. The free streaming platform, which Fox acquired in 2020, reported reaching 97 million monthly active users earlier this month.
Though Fox had the broadcast rights to the Super Bowl LVII in 2023, it only aired the game on its linear TV channel, website, and app, while giving cord-cutters the option to access the game on pricey live TV streaming services like Fubo and Sling TV. Perhaps the Tubi “interface interruption” commercial shown during Super Bowl LVII was a hint of what’s to come.
Tubi’s Super Bowl coverage will begin at 3:30PM ET on February 9th with a red-carpet event hosted by Olivia Culpo. Along with Tubi, Super Bowl LIX will air across Fox, Fox Deportes, Telemundo, Fox’s website, and the NFL Plus app.
Correction, January 15th: A previous version of the article stated that you will not need an account to stream Super Bowl LIX on Tubi. You do not need an account to watch Tubi, but Tubi spokesperson Seana Sullivan told The Verge after publication that an account will be required to stream the Super Bowl. This article also previously implied that Super Bowl LVII was only available to stream on paid streaming services; Fox also made it available for free on the Fox Sports app.
Samsung, like Apple, is rumored to be working on a super-thin smartphone, and on Wednesday, OnLeaks and Smartprixpublished renders of a phone they call the Galaxy S25 Slim.
The renders show a phone with a flat front, flat back, flat sides, and three cameras on the back — it seems to resemble last year’s Galaxy S24 and the Galaxy S25 renders that leaked last week. However, it will apparently have a depth of 6.4mm, making it 1.2mm thinner than the Galaxy S24. OnLeaks and Smartprix also claim that the Galaxy S25 Ultra will have a depth of 8.2mm, meaning the S25 Slim could be nearly 2mm thinner than that flagship.
Image: OnLeaks and Smartprix
OnLeaks and Smartprix say that the S25 Slim’s camera system will include a 200MP main camera, a 50MP ultrawide camera, and a 50MP telephoto lens with 3.5X optical zoom. The telephoto lens will apparently have a special design:
Samsung is also expected to use its new ALoP (All Lenses on Prism) design for the 3.5X telephoto lens, which arranges the lenses in front of the prism rather than behind it. This design should help the S25 Slim remain “slim” while offering long-range optical zoom.
The S25 Slim will also have a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and 12GB of RAM, according to OnLeaks and Smartprix. The phone will apparently launch in May 2025, though OnLeaks and Smartprix say that the phone “may be showcased” at the January 22nd Galaxy Unpacked event.
Either way, DJI is now reacting to the whole vibe with an official blog post that claims the timing is coincidental.
“We had planned to roll this update in the US months ago but delayed the implementation to ensure the update would work properly,” the company’s unsigned blog post reads.
It also claims, in bold letters, that “Politics does not drive safety decisions at DJI.”
“To suggest that this update is linked to the current political environment in the US is not only false but also dangerous,” DJI’s unnamed author writes.
While the post does contain a variety of additional details about what is and isn’t happening to the company’s geofencing system, it does not dispute that DJI has eliminated the feature that prevents the vast majority of US drone pilots, by default, from flying over airports, power plants, active wildfires, military bases, and government buildings like the White House, apparently without exception.
If politics didn’t drive that decision, what did? The blog post doesn’t quite say. While it promises to offer “the true reasons behind this update,” it continues to generically suggest that DJI has aligned itself with aviation regulators around “the principle of operator responsibility” and, on a lesser note, points out that its No Fly Zones created “missed opportunities, delayed operations, or unnecessary waiting times” for pilots.
“This was especially challenging for commercial operators, drone businesses — and most critically — public safety agencies performing lifesaving work, where delays are simply unacceptable,” DJI writes.
It’s true that DJI’s geofencing system was created voluntarily by DJI and isn’t mandated by US regulators. “The FAA does not require geofencing from drone manufacturers,” FAA spokesperson Ian Gregor told The Verge.
But does removing hard geofencing make us safer, and did it cost DJI anything to keep it in place? We’ve asked DJI the following questions:
If politics did not drive this decision, what did?
Were US regulators or representatives asking DJI to remove No Fly Zones?
Was there a financial benefit to DJI for removing them, or an opportunity cost DJI would pay by maintaining them?
Was DJI technologically unable to update its GEO system with official FAA data while maintaining No Fly Zones?
The blog post suggests that public safety agencies were experiencing unlocking delays — are there specific instances where DJI unlocking delays resulted in specific impacts to lifesaving work?
How does removing No Fly Zones make drones safer?
We’ll let you know how DJI responds.
Even if this decision has nothing to do with China, the company has very strong reasons to get on the radar of US regulators right now — it’s currently facing a total import ban of its drones and cameras in the United States, until or unless “an appropriate national security agency” publicly declares that its products are not an unacceptable national security risk.
Perhaps this move helps highlight how DJI voluntarily made its drones less of a national security risk by keeping them away from important facilities. Perhaps DJI leaders believe the US will only understand that once it takes the feature away.
Google is set to launch its Android Automotive app conversion program this February that helps developers convert their Android apps to in-vehicle screens.
As reported by Android Authority, the “Car ready mobile apps program” guides Android developers to make slight changes to apps so they can be available in vehicles with Google Play Store in the dash.
To start, Google is specifically looking for streaming entertainment, gaming, and browser apps, and they need compatibility with x86 processors since many cars aren’t using Arm chips.
However, a compatibility mode option can also get many apps working in Android Automotive even without following all the guidelines. Google had said it would create an easier path for in-car app approval last May during its I/O 2024 developer conference.
There’s already a growing number of Google Play Store apps in some Android Automotive vehicles such as the Lincoln Nautilus that we reviewed in September. It has games such as Angry Birds, streaming apps like Max and Crunchy Roll, and meeting apps like WebEx that ran similarly to their Android tablet version counterparts.
However, the selection is still slim overall, with primarily car-relevant apps like Waze and A Better Route Planner making the list. Come February, expect a lot more apps to trickle into the dash.
Following a scrubbed launch attempt and weather-related delays, Blue Origin will once again try to send its New Glenn rocket into space for the first time. During the attempt, the Jeff Bezos-owned space company aims to reach orbit, helping to further its goals of shuttling Project Kuiper satellites, equipment, and eventually humans into space.
Here’s what you need to know about when and how to watch New Glenn’s long-awaited inaugural launch.
The rocket has a reusable first stage powered by the company’s BE-4 engines, which run on liquified natural gas and liquid oxygen. Shortly after launch, the first stage is supposed to detach and autonomously land upright on a sea-based platform, where Blue Origin can then retrieve it and reuse it for future missions.
Following separation, New Glenn’s upper stage should fire up its BE-3U engines — a less powerful engine that uses liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen — as it attempts to propel itself into space with its payload. The upper stage is capable of delivering 45 metric tons of cargo into low Earth orbit.
For this uncrewed launch, New Glenn will house the Blue Ring Pathfinder, a payload consisting of a communications array, a power system, and a flight computer. This will let Blue Origin test its Blue Ring spacecraft, which will eventually support missions with refueling, hosting, data relay, and cloud computing capabilities.
Image: Blue Origin
New Glenn’s first stage uses BE-4 engines, while its upper stage has less powerful BE-3U engines.
Blue Origin’s next launch attempt will take place at Launch Complex 36 in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Thursday, January 16th. The three-hour launch window opens at 1AM ET (10PM PT).
Blue Origin says the “vehicle looks good” for Thursday’s launch window, but says it’s “watching weather closely as clouds build over the Space Coast.” If the company can’t attempt to launch New Glenn on the 16th, it will make another attempt Friday, January 17th with a three-hour window opening at 1AM.
Duffy, a former Republican congressman, lobbyist, and Fox News personality, made the comments during his confirmation hearing Wednesday in front of the Senate Commerce Committee. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) asked whether he could maintain objectivity in investigating Tesla, which is headed by Trump donor and supporter Elon Musk.
“Yes, I commit to this committee and to you that I will let NHTSA do their investigation,” he said. “I think I also mentioned to you that a lot of the players in these spaces, I haven’t met any of them.”
Duffy’s comments follow months of reporting about Musk’s unprecedented influence over Trump’s transition, in which the Tesla CEO has sat in on meetings with potential nominees, vetted new hires, and volunteered to co-lead a committee to oversee massive spending cuts. Trump is also reportedly weighing policy decisions that would favor Musk’s business, such as eliminating a crash reporting rule for partial and fully autonomous vehicles.
During the Biden administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched several investigations into the safety of Tesla’s automated driving technology. One the largest probes resulted in a December 2023 recall of more than 2 million Tesla vehicles to install better safeguards for the company’s Autopilot driver assist feature. NHTSA launched another investigation into the adequacy of the recall.
Duffy didn’t say anything more about stepping into a role that could put him at odds with Musk. But he did comment on the needs for national legislation to better regulate the safe rollout of autonomous vehicles. He said:
This is not just a wonderful technology that has a potential of making our roads safer, but this is a national security issue. We can’t fall behind China or other countries as it comes to AV technology. Right now, we have a patchwork of laws from state to state. I believe there has to be a federal law by which all of these innovators can abide by it, no matter if they’re in Texas or in California or somewhere else. And again, I’ll always make sure that safety is key. But after safety, we want to give a wide runway for these companies and innovators to create products that are going to bring us this new technology that, again, can revolutionize the way we get items, how we travel, whether you’re taking an Uber or ... It can be remarkable and exciting.
As transportation secretary, Duffy has a bully pulpit to advocate for a national law for self-driving cars. And its been reported that Trump is in favor of passing such a bill once taking office.
But Congress has taken up several proposals over the past decade, with little to show for it. And its unclear whether major differences will be settled by the time the next opportunity arises.
The federal government has largely taken a back seat to in regulating autonomous vehicles, leaving states to develop their own rulebooks for safe deployment — which Duffy said was not ideal. Legislation that would dramatically increase the number of AVs on the road has been stalled in Congress for over seven years, with lawmakers at odds over a range of issues, including safety, liability, and the right number of exemptions from federal motor vehicle safety standards.
Microsoft will soon let you get in-person repairs for Xbox Series X / S consoles at uBreakiFix stores, the company announced today.
Microsoft already offers in-person Xbox repairs at Microsoft retail stores, but uBreakiFix will be the “the first Xbox Authorized Service Provider,” according to the announcement. You’ll be able to get Xbox repairs at uBreakiFix’s “nearly 700 participating store locations across the US” starting January 20th, Microsoft says. (The company notes that you should check with your local uBreakiFix store to make sure they are participating in the Xbox repairability program.)
In the announcement, Microsoft says that it’s expanding its repairability program for the white Xbox Series S, the white Xbox Series X digital edition, and special edition Xbox Series X “Galaxy Black” model. We’ve asked Microsoft if the black Xbox Series X with a disc drive and the black Xbox Series S qualify for uBreakiFix repairs as well.
If you’re looking to repair your Xbox yourself, sourcing parts for that recently got a bit easier after iFixit started offering genuine Xbox parts and step-by-step repair guides in December. iFixit offers parts and guides for repairing Surface devices, too.
In its announcement today, Microsoft also says that packaging for the white Xbox Series S, the white Xbox Series X digital edition, and Xbox Series X “Galaxy Black” model “are now fully paper and fiber-based, eliminating all single-use plastics.”
This week is quickly becoming a sea change moment for Sonos as the company looks to undo the damage done to its reputation since last May. It all began on Monday with the departure of CEO Patrick Spence, who was replaced by board member Tom Conrad. Then came news that chief product officer Maxime Bouvat-Merlin would also be leaving the company — another indication that Sonos is serious about correcting course and taking accountability for its new app woes.
In a third shakeup within the company’s leadership ranks, I can report that chief commercial officer Deirdre Findlay also plans to leave Sonos in the coming weeks. The company’s corporate governance page says Findlay “oversees all marketing, revenue, and customer experience organizations at Sonos. She is responsible for integrated brand strategy, geographic expansion strategies, and all go to market execution.”
By now, there’s no arguing that Sonos’ go-to-market strategy for its rebuilt mobile app was deeply flawed and rushed. Before he lost his job, Spence eventually conceded that the company should’ve taken a far more cautious approach and offered the new software as a beta release while keeping the previous, more stable...
Will the last device leaving the Nest app please turn out the lights? The day finally arrived; Google has announced it’s transitioning the Nest Protect smoke and CO alarm to the Google Home app. This means you’ll be able to get alerts and notifications for your alarm directly through Google Home, as well as hush alarms, according to a blog post from Google. This means you no longer need the Nest app for any device, but you can still use it — for now, at least.
The Nest Protect was the last device that could only be accessed and controlled from the Nest app, following Google’s efforts over the last couple of years to fully port its Nest cameras and other devices to the Home app. With this move, Google will finally be able to sunset the Nest app, although the company has said it will keep it in maintenance mode indefinitely.
Image: Google Home
Screenshots of the Nest Protect in the Google Home app showing safety checkups, the status of all your Protects, and a view of the heads-up notification page.
The new function for the Nest Protect is coming to Google Home users in Public Preview on Android this week and to iOS “soon.” According to Google, it will enable the following features:
Modify your configuration: change system-wide and alarm-specific settings
View your camera live feeds directly from the emergency alarm card
E911 calling for Nest Aware subscribers - If you are a Nest Aware subscriber in the US, you can use the Google Home app to quickly contact an emergency call center close to your home, even if you’re not home.
Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
The Yale Assure Lock SL with Matter is a Matter smart lock that should soon have more function in the Google Home app.
Alongside the Nest updates, the Google Home app is also getting expanded support for smart locks connected via Matter, adding the ability to set passcodes, among other features. The lock updates are rolling out through the app’s “Public Preview” feature on Android, with iOS support coming in early 2025.
Image: Google Home
Screenshots of smart lock control in the Google Home app, including managing access and creating profiles for guests.
This will allow more manufacturers’ locks to work with Google Home and bring more functions to the app, including passcode management and automatic locking. Google says that not all of the features will work with all Matter locks; it depends on the lock manufacturer. Here’s a rundown of what will be added:
Passcode Management: You’ll be able to manage who has access to your home by sharing and editing passcodes with ease to household members and guests.
One-tap entry: You can enable one-tap entry instead of typing in your passcode and you can lock/unlock your door remotely from the Home app with just a tap of a button.
Automatic locking: Choose how long your lock should wait before automatically re-locking.
Vacation Mode: This mode locks the keypad so it can’t be unlocked from the outside using the touchpad.
One-touch locking: Lock the door using the touchpad or button on the lock.
Much of Severance — the sci-fi workplace thriller on Apple TV Plus — takes place in a brightly lit office, with characters huddled over strange computers where they do work they’re told is both mysterious and important. In the show, that work looks a bit like an alternate reality take on Minesweeper, except the characters are attempting to find numbers that “feel scary,” even though they don’t know what that really means — and the cast is largely going through the same experience.
The computers on the show are functional, so when Mark and Helly are moving pixelated numbers around on a screen, that’s something the performers are doing on set. “When you see us, we really are refining numbers,” Adam Scott, who plays Mark and serves as a producer on the show, tells The Verge. “There is actually a way to do it.”
The computers are the brainchild of prop master Cath Miller and production designer Jeremy Hindle. The office-dwelling characters in Severance have undergone a procedure that separates their work selves from their life outside, effectively creating two people, one of whom exists only within the basement offices of Lumon Industries. As Hindle told me back in 2022, this allowed the team to design the computers with playfulness in mind. “We kept thinking, ‘If you’re experimenting with these people, what would you put in front of them?’” Hindle told me. “Imagine how fun it would be to sit at this thing, as opposed to if I put a laptop in front of them. It’s like a child’s device.”
Image: Apple
A lonely Lumon computer on the severed floor.
Image: Marion Curtis / StarPix for Apple TV Plus
Zach Cherry and Britt Lower using a Lumon computer at an installation at Grand Central Station in New York.
For Scott, using the devices — which pair a vintage-yet-touchscreen monitor with a keyboard that has a built-in trackball — was a nostalgic experience. “They remind me of the old Apple IIe [computers] I grew up using that my brother and my dad had,” he explains. But even though the terminals look familiar, they’re just different enough to make them feel almost surreal — a perfect fit for Severance. “They also have their own interface, and their own keyboard and trackball, but the buttons are in an odd place ergonomically,” Scott adds. “So it’s tricky to use. But I feel like me and [costars Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, and John Turturro] have all figured out how to use it.”
Scott says that the functionality of the computers is a big help for his performance, noting that, often, when actors interact with a gadget, there’s nothing really there onscreen. But on Severance, each actor is able to “actually refine these numbers and come up with your own strategies and apply your own meaning to it.”
That meaning is important because, well, nobody knows what’s really going down in Lumon’s basement. They sit there clicking around a computer without understanding the importance of their work (at this point in the story, viewers don’t know the importance, either). So for the actors, actually using the computers and being just as clueless as their characters helps them better inhabit the role.
“These people have no idea what they’re doing,” says Scott. “They just know that they need to refine numbers by feeling sort of when they get scary. Getting to actually do that when we’re on camera is really important and really helps a lot.”
Severance season 2 hits Apple TV Plus on January 17th.
Streaming TV services keep getting more expensive, and those subscription costs will only continue to rise in 2025 and beyond. Amid all these price hikes, the best we can hope for is that the companies behind them will continue to add new features to ease the sting of paying more. Sling TV is trying to do just that with its cloud DVR, which has removed its previous recording limits and is now “unlimited.”
“Unlimited DVR (previously called DVR Plus) will allow customers to record as much content as they want, with recordings saved for up to nine months,” the company wrote in a press release today. That endless recording freedom still requires an extra $5 each month, however; YouTube TV includes an unlimited cloud DVR in its base subscription — but that subscription costs quite a bit more. Either way, unlimited is certainly better than the 200-hour limit that Sling’s Premium DVR had before.
Here’s what the newly enhanced DVR gets you:
Unlimited DVR: Record without restrictions, whether it’s a single show or an entire season.
Exclusively on Sling: Replay top sports, TV shows and movies - even if you forget to record.
Ad-Skipping Freedom: Fast-forward through commercials or pause and rewind at your convenience.
Cloud-Based Convenience: No need for physical hardware—Sling’s Unlimited DVR is fully cloud-powered.
Cross-Device Accessibility: Watch your recordings on any Sling-supported device.
As usual, there’s the potential for asterisks or exceptions depending on what content you’re trying to save. Sling TV actually has a few different tiers of DVR depending on your needs and which plan you’re subscribed to. The simplest options are free, but unlimited DVR is not:
Freestream DVR provides 10 hours of storage at no cost, with recordings available for up to 30 days. (Freestream is Sling TV’s FAST / free ad-supported TV service and available without a subscription.)
DVR Free plan includes 50 hours of storage with recordings kept for nine months, also free of charge.
Unlimited DVR offers endless storage, allowing users to record as much content as they like with a nine-month retention period.
Sling TV last raised its monthly subscription at the end of 2024. Sling Blue and Orange each now cost $45.99 per month, and the combined package is $61. The service even now has an arcade gaming component. Was anyone asking for that? Probably not. But if you’re paying through the teeth anyway, I guess any incentive counts.
Drake’s ongoing legal battle with his label, Universal Music Group, has escalated. The artist filed a lawsuit in federal court today, accusing UMG of harming his reputation and endangering him for profit. The suit stems from the diss track “Not Like Us” by Kendrick Lamar, another UMG artist. Drake’s legal complaint also again accuses UMG of using bots on Spotify and other streaming platforms, and payola to make the song more popular.
“On May 4, 2024, UMG approved, published, and launched a campaign to create a viral hit out of a rap track that falsely accuses Drake of being a pedophile and calls for violent retribution against him,” the complaint reads. “Even though UMG enriched itself and its shareholders by exploiting Drake’s music for years, and knew that the salacious allegations against Drake were false, UMG chose corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists.”
Image: Aubrey Drake Graham vs. UMG Recordings
Drake accuses UMG of using bots to drive up listens and views, and paying for promotion on social media.
The lawsuit details a shooting at Drake’s (real name: Aubrey Graham) home just a few days after the song was released, during which a security guard was injured. Multiple break-ins occurred in the following days, which the lawsuit says were caused by UMG’s actions.
Why would UMG pit two of its own artists against each other? Drake’s team has a theory:
UMG’s actions are motivated, at least in part, by UMG’s desire to best position itself in negotiations with Kendrick Lamar in 2024 and Drake in 2025. With respect to Lamar, on information and belief, UMG was incentivized to prove that it could maximize Lamar’s sales—by any means necessary—after only being able to get him to sign a short-term exclusive contract. UMG wanted Lamar to see its value on an expedited timeframe in order to convince Lamar to resign exclusively and for a longer period of time. As to Drake, in 2024, his contract was nearing fulfillment. On information and belief, UMG anticipated that extending Drake’s contract would come at a high cost to UMG; as such, it was incentivized to devalue Drake’s music and brand in order to gain leverage in negotiations for an extension
Lamar is not named as a defendant in the suit; instead, Drake’s legal team pins the blame on UMG for releasing the song despite knowing the song’s “allegations are unequivocally false.”
“Drake is not a pedophile. Drake has never engaged in any acts that would require he be “placed on neighborhood watch.” Drake has never engaged in sexual relations with a minor. Drake has never been charged with, or convicted of, any criminal acts whatsoever,” the suit reads.
The suit follows a petition filed in November in which Drake accuses UMG and Spotify of artificially inflating the success of “Not Like Us” using payola and streaming bots. The petition — which itself isn’t a lawsuit but a precursor — was withdrawn this week. But the suit filed today includes similar allegations of “pay-for-play” schemes to get “Not Like Us” played on radio stations and promoted on streaming platforms. The suit also again accuses UMG of using bots to “artificially inflate the spread” of the song. It cites a “whistleblower” who claimed he was paid $2,500 over Zelle “via third parties to use ‘bots’ to achieve 30,000,000 streams on Spotify in the initial days following the Recording’s release.”
As The New York Times notes, Drake has enlisted Michael J. Gottlieb, the lawyer that represented the owner of the restaurant embroiled in the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory. Drake’s complaint draws parallels between the shooting at the artist’s home and the shooting at the restaurant, calling it “the 2024 equivalent of ‘Pizzagate.’”
“The online response was similarly violent and hateful. An avalanche of online hate speech has branded Drake as a sex offender and pedophile, among other epithets,” the complaint reads.
UMG did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Like the wildfire conditions in Los Angeles County, my For You page on TikTok turned overnight.
I woke up last week to a phone screen filled with ravenous flames and video after video of razed homes, businesses, and other structures. Influencers broke from their regular cadence of content to film themselves packing up a suitcase for evacuation; nameless accounts shared footage from streets I didn’t recognize, showcasing the devastation; freshly created profiles asked for help locating their lost pets. Scrolling on TikTok feels like trying to keep track of 1,000 live feeds at once, each urgent and horrifying in its own way.
What all of this amounts to is a different question entirely. Even as there’s no escaping disaster content, the clips, comments, check-ins, and footage are not actually very helpful. Our feeds are awash with both too much and not enough information. Though it’s not yet clear how these fires started, scientists say that climate change will only continue to exacerbate wildfires going forward. Current weather conditions — including a severe lack of rainfall this year in Los Angeles — have created a tinderbox in the region.
Questions like “Where are the shelters?” “Should I evacuate?” and “Where can I get a mask and other supplies?” are left unanswered in favor of frightening first-person reports. And who can blame Los Angeles-area residents? That’s what you’re supposed to do on TikTok. What they can’t do is share a link to mutual aid resources or to a news story about vital, up-to-date evacuation information. They can scroll endlessly on the algorithmic For You page, but they can’t sort content to display the most recent updates first. TikTok is simply not built to disseminate potentially lifesaving breaking news alerts. Instead, it’s filled with endless clips of news crews interviewing people who have lost everything.
The wildfire content machine echoes a similar phenomenon from just a few months ago, when October’s Hurricane Milton tore through Florida, killing dozens and causing billions of dollars in damages. Some of the most visible and viral content from the storm came from influencers and other content creators who stayed behind to vlog their way through the event, racking millions of views. So far, there’s not the same risk-taking-for-viral-content dynamic at play with the fires in Southern California, but the overall experience is not that different: a random infotainment feed where a video of a person losing nearly every earthly possession is followed directly by someone testing a new makeup product. Media critic Matt Pearce put it best: “TikTok was largely indifferent to whether I live or die.”
Instagram seemed slightly more useful, but only, I suspect, if you follow people who post relevant content. In times of crisis — during the Black Lives Matter uprisings of 2020 or the ongoing bombardment of Gaza — Instagram Stories has become something of a bulletin board for resharing infographics and resources. Linking to relevant announcements and news stories is really only possible through Stories, but at least you can. Instagram search, on the other hand, is a chaotic mixture of user-generated infographics, grainy pictures of the fires that have been screenshotted and reuploaded multiple times, and distasteful selfies from bodybuilders wishing LA well.
It should go without saying that depraved conspiracy theories once again spread on X, including from billionaire owner Elon Musk and other right-wing influencers who falsely claimed DEI initiatives were responsible for the fires. Twitter, once functioning like a breaking news feed, is now overrun with crypto spam and Nazi sympathizers. Meanwhile, smaller, more specialized apps like Watch Duty, a nonprofit wildfire monitoring platform, have filled gaps. On Bluesky, an X competitor, users have the option to pin feeds based on trending topics, creating a custom landing page for LA fire content.
We are in for more, not fewer, extreme weather events like storms and heatwaves, and it’s worth asking ourselves whether we are prepared to do this all over again. Platform decay is all the more apparent in times of emergency, when users are forced to wade through astronomical amounts of garbage: video content that scares but doesn’t help us, news websites with so many pop-up ads it feels illegal, or ramblings from tech elites who are looking for someone to blame rather than a way to help. By my estimations, our feeds will return to regularly scheduled programming in five or so business days, and the devastation from these fires will get lost in a sea of comedy skits and PR unboxings. Until, of course, the next one.
Four John Deere combines harvest wheat in tandem near the farm shop and maintenance yard near Pullman, Palouse Region, Washington, USA. | Photo: Getty Images
John Deere’s “unfair” practices raised repair costs for farmers and kept them from being able to make repairs on tractors and other equipment they own, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleges in a new lawsuit.
The FTC and attorneys general for Illinois and Minnesota filed suit today in a long-running fight for the right to repair — a battle that’s become more heated as Deere increasingly incorporated software into farm equipment. The complaint accuses John Deere of “decades” of unlawful practices that forced farmers to turn to the company’s own network of authorized dealers for repairs.
“Illegal repair restrictions can be devastating for farmers, who rely on affordable and timely repairs to harvest their crops and earn their income,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a press release today. “The FTC’s action today seeks to ensure that farmers across America are free to repair their own equipment or use repair shops of their choice—lowering costs, preventing ruinous delays, and promoting fair competition for independent repair shops.”
Deere produced “the only fully functional software repair tool capable of performing all repairs” on its equipment, according to the FTC. It says the tool was only made available to the company’s dealers, which charged higher prices than independent shops. That unlawfully gave Deere “monopoly power” for certain repair services, the FTC alleges.
Deere says it supports customers’ right to repair equipment. The company signed a memorandum of understanding with the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) in January 2023 that was supposed to make its software, tools, and documentation available so that farmers and independent shops can make their own repairs.
“We have and remain committed to enabling customers to repair the products that they buy,” John Deere CTO Jahmy Hindman said in a 2021 Decoder interview.
