Microsoft made OpenAI’s o1 reasoning model free for all Copilot users last month, and now it’s providing unlimited use of this model and Copilot’s voice capabilities to everyone. Previously, both Think Deeper (powered by o1) and Voice in Copilot had limits for free users, but Microsoft is removing these today to allow Copilot users to have extended conversations with the company’s AI assistant.
“We are working hard to scale unlimited access to advanced features to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, starting today with Voice and Think Deeper,” says the Copilot team. “It’s worth noting you may experience delays or interruptions during periods of high demand or if we detect security concerns, misuse or other violations of the Copilot Terms.“
The unlimited use of Copilot Voice and Think Deeper comes two years after Microsoft first launched Copilot inside its Bing search engine, and just a month after the software maker revamped its Copilot Pro subscription and bundled Office AI features into Microsoft 365.
Microsoft is continuing to sell its $20 per month Copilot Pro subscription, and says users “will retain preferred access to our latest models during peak usage, early access to experimental AI features (more on that coming soon), and additional use of Copilot in select Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel and PowerPoint.”
Online education company Chegg filed a lawsuit on February 24th against Google claiming that the company’s AI-generated summaries of search results have hurt its traffic and revenue, Reuters reports. It’s believed to be the first antitrust lawsuit filed by a single company over the AI Overviews feature, Reuters says.
Chegg claims Google uses its power as a monopoly to coerce companies into using their content for AI Overviews, “reaping the financial benefits of Chegg’s content without having to spend a dime,” CEO Nathan Schultz says in prepared remarks for investors. Chegg, which offers textbook rentals and homework help, is now considering getting acquired and going private as a result.
“Our lawsuit is about more than Chegg – it’s about the digital publishing industry, the future of internet search, and about students losing access to quality, step-by-step learning in favor of low-quality, unverified AI summaries,” Schultz says.
“Every day, Google sends billions of clicks to sites across the web, and AI Overviews send traffic to a greater diversity of sites,” says Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda in a statement to Reuters.
The lawsuit comes as a number of media outlets have expressed concern over how Google’s AI summaries have impacted traffic. Last year, the News/Media Alliance — an organization that represents over 2,000 news publishers — published a press release saying its impact will be “catastrophic.”
Tesla is starting to push a software update to its customers in China that appears to fulfill a long-gestating goal for the company to offer its controversial Full Self-Driving features in its largest car market. Or does it?
According to Not a Tesla App, it’s unclear whether the version of FSD that Tesla is offering in China is the same as the one available in North America. For one thing, it’s not even called FSD, but rather, “Urban Road Autopilot Assistance” (URAA). According to the website:
On controlled-access highways and urban roads, URAA guides vehicles according to navigation routes, assisting with entering and exiting highways, navigating intersections, and recognizing traffic lights to perform actions like going straight, turning left or right, or making U-turns.
That sounds like FSD, which is a semiautonomous driver-assist system that responds to traffic lights and stop signs, performs lane changes, and includes a self-parking feature. Not a Tesla App also found a video on X that appears to show a Tesla owner using URAA in China. On the surface, it looks a lot like FSD, including a visualization on the central touchscreen with the familiar blue line emanating from the vehicle to indicate the driving path.
But Reuters reports that the Chinese version of FSD will be “less capable” than the North American version “due to insufficient data training on Chinese roads and traffic rules,” citing unnamed sources. The software update is being pushed out in batches, so it’s unlikely that everyone who paid for the feature — which reportedly costs 64,000 yuan (about $8,800) — will receive it right away. Bloomberg says the update will only be available to vehicles with “HW 4.0,” which includes most Model Y and Model 3 vehicles built in China last year.
Elon Musk has long sought approval for FSD from Chinese regulators, even flying to Beijing last year to meet with government officials about deploying the semiautonomous feature. But he acknowledged that the company was running into obstacles, including a lack of usable training data, and that Tesla engineers were trying to resolve those issues by using videos of driving in China that were found on the internet. Reuters reports that Musk is considering building a local data center in China to process data.
The Chinese version of FSD will be “less capable” than the North American version
The delays have hurt Tesla’s ability to compete with Chinese EV makers, including BYD, which recently rolled out its own advanced driver-assist system called God’s Eye. China is an enormously important market for Tesla, which reported its first year-over-year sales decline in 2024. Xiaomi’s SU7, which sells for less than $30,000, with the company offering a smart city driving feature in its cars for free, has outsold the Model 3 on a monthly basis, according to Reuters. Chinese law requires driver supervision for its Level 2 assist features.
Tesla has said repeatedly that FSD will ultimately lead to fully driverless cars — though Musk recently admitted that most Tesla vehicles will need a significant hardware update in order to achieve unsupervised driving. Tesla’s approach to autonomy has also been criticized for lacking redundant sensors like lidar and for falling short of the capabilities of companies like Waymo.
In its 2024 roadmap, Tesla said it would launch FSD in China and Europe in the first quarter of 2025. The company has yet to receive regulatory approval in Europe for the driver-assist feature.
New color options are available for Android Clicks users. | Image: Clicks
The BlackBerry might be dead, but one of its best ideas — a tiny thumb-friendly keyboard for phones — lives on in the Clicks keyboard case, which will soon be available for several Android devices.
Over 100,000 of the original Clicks keyboard cases have been sold around the world, the company says in a press release, but since launching in January 2024, it’s only been compatible with iPhone 14, 15, and 16 models. Starting in April, the cases will be available for several Motorola, Google Pixel, and Samsung Galaxy devices and will work with a new Android version of the Clicks Keyboard mobile app, allowing the keyboard’s functionality to be customized, including how the caps lock, return, and Clicks keys work.
Preorders for all of the Android Clicks keyboard cases start today through the company’s website, but availability varies by device. The Google Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro (not the XL) version, expected to ship at the end of April, will sell for $99 until March 21st and then increase in price to $139. Color options include surge — described as a “high-vis yellow-green” — and black.
The Motorola Razr Plus (2024) and Razr (2024) version of the Clicks case, available in electric blue or black, can be preordered for $49 to lock in a price of $99. After March 21st, preorders will still be $49, but pricing for the case, which is expected to ship in late May, will jump to $139. It’s the same story for the Samsung Galaxy S25 version of the case, although it’s not expected to ship until June and will be available in red and black.
Some of the key labels are slightly different, but like the original iPhone version, the Android Clicks case still allows keyboard shortcuts to be used for launching apps or quickly navigating Android, including a dedicated key for accessing Google Gemini. It also features backlighting, and instead of a battery, it draws all the power it needs from each Android device’s USB-C port.
The physical design of the case is also similar, although the version for the Motorola Razr Plus and Razr (2024) is split into two halves, allowing both devices to still fold. Clicks is also adding a “strong magnetic array” to the two Pixel cases — a feature the company introduced with the iPhone 16 version to improve MagSafe compatibility — making it a bit easier to use wireless chargers with Google’s latest smartphones.
Automattic-owned Beeper has announced a new beta update to its desktop and iOS apps to finally merge its service with Texts, which Automattic acquired in 2023. You can download the desktop version or see instructions for using the iOS beta in TestFlight by going to this page.
Beeper says the new desktop version is built “on the foundations of the Texts desktop app,” while it built the iOS app “from scratch.” In a post on X, Texts.com founder Kishan Bagaria called it “the next-gen texts app, now rebranded as beeper.” Both are universal messaging services that can connect to and let you message people from several platforms, including WhatsApp, Instagram, Slack, and others.
Things have been quiet for Beeper since it gave up its fight to make iMessage work on Android phones and sold to Automattic, which also owns platforms like WordPress.com and Tumblr.
Beeper isn’t done with iMessage, as Bagaria also says the company plans to support Apple’s protocol in the desktop version of the app. Beeper promises other future updates, including messages being encrypted on your device instead of Beeper’s servers, and support for “multiple accounts for a single network.”
Apple AirTags can help you find your lost items, but what if you need to keep track of more than one or two items, or you want to equip the whole family? The occasional deal on a four-pack can help a ton, especially when it’s down to $67.99 (about $31 off) Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. That’s less expensive than it was on Black Friday, and at $17 per unit, you’re saving a lot compared to buying them individually. However, if you only need one, a single AirTag is on sale for $22.99 (about $6 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart right now.
AirTags are our favorite Bluetooth trackers and remain the first option iPhone owners should consider. That’s because they work with the ultra wideband radios insider newer iPhones, enabling pinpoint precision finding when you’re within Bluetooth range. They also work on the wide and secure Find My network, which uses nearby iPhones to quietly report your item’s last known approximate location so you can easily find it on a map from virtually anywhere.
AirTags can’t be recharged, but they’re some of the only trackers with user-replaceable batteries. They’re also water-resistant and surprisingly sturdy against the occasional drop. Apple continues to enhance their capabilities over time, too, most recently allowing you to share AirTag locations with family and friends, or even with business entities like airlines to help you more easily find lost luggage.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE with 128GB of storage is starting at $279.72 (about $170 off) at Amazon in select colors, which is an all-time low price. You can also get it in other colors for around $299.99 (about $150 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. The mid-range tablet has a 10.9-inch LCD display with a 90Hz refresh rate and runs on the Exynos 1380, offering a good base for light gaming, entertainment, productivity, and browsing. It ships with an S Pen, too, which makes it an even better value over competing starter tablets like the iPad. You can use the S Pen to initiate Google’s Circle to Search, and enjoy other features that Samsung bakes into its Android-based One UI experience.
If you want a solid robot vacuum that can mop, the first-gen Dreame L10s Ultra is down to $399.99 ($500 off) at Amazon, matching its all-time low price. That price puts it well under the average price of Dreame’s lineup, but the robovac still offers good cleaning performance with 5,300Pa suction. It also uses dual oscillating mops, which it washes and dries at the base before emptying and refilling itself for up to 60 days without your help. It uses AI navigation with a camera and Lidar, allowing it to automatically detect carpets and objects to adjust its cleaning properties accordingly. You can set routines and zones in the smartphone app and control it with your voice using Alexa commands. The app even lets you view the robovac’s camera feed remotely, allowing it to double as a roaming security cam or pet cam.
The latest Nothing Ear wireless earbuds are starting at $114 ($45 off) at Amazon, which matches their best price to date. The translucent IP54-rated earbuds offer very good sound quality from their 11mm drivers, plus solid active noise cancellation performance with automatic optimizations based on your ear shape. With all of those tricks enabled, the battery lasts up to five hours, but you can go up to eight hours with ANC disabled. The Nothing Ear also support Android Fast Pair, Microsoft Swift Pair, and Bluetooth multipoint, and even have ChatGPT baked in for your AI assistant needs. Read our hands-on.
This was the display in my nearby Tesco grocery store.
Major newspapers across the UK today are all on the same page for once. Specifically, their front covers, which feature the same campaign imagery protesting government proposals that could eviscerate copyright protections against artificial intelligence. Brits popping into their local store or newsagents will be greeted by a spread of bright blue pages demanding the same thing: MAKE IT FAIR.
Creative and media industries have teamed up on this “Make It Fair” initiative, calling for readers to help protect British creative industries. The campaign was created to fight government proposals that would allow artificial intelligence companies to train their models on copyright-protected work without permission.
The stunt appears to be carefully timed. A public consultation period — in which anyone can submit their opinions to the UK government — closed today following its launch on December 17th, proposing that exceptions be made to copyright law regarding AI training “for any purpose,” including commercial. Creatives would be able to opt out of the new “text and data mining” process via a so-called “rights reservation” process, but that places greater responsibility and labor requirements on individuals to ensure their works are protected.
“Tech companies use creative content, such as news articles, books, music, film, photography, visual art, and all kinds of creative work, to train their generative AI models,” reads the campaign website hosted by the News Media Association (NMA). “Publishers and creators say that doing this without proper controls, transparency or fair payment is unfair and threatens their livelihoods.”
Members of the NMA trade body include The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, and the Guardian, alongside regional print and digital outlets across the UK. The Make It Right campaign is also backed by the Creative Rights in AI Coalition, described as a “broad group of rights holders, AI businesses, and organizations” seeking to ensure that creatives are protected and fairly compensated under generative AI regulations.
The government’s proposals have been widely criticized over concerns that weakening copyright protections and letting AI companies gobble up whatever data they please could have a devastating impact on the UK’s $152 billion creative industry. The Make It Fair campaign is one of several pushbacks that have rolled out today in protest, including a silent album called “Is This What We Want?” released by more than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush and Damon Albarn.
“The ‘Make It Fair’ campaign opposes the government’s proposal in its consultation to weaken copyright law and allow tech firms to run rampant over creative content,” NMA CEO Owen Meredith told The Verge. “This extraordinary show of unity from the news media industry shows the time has come for the government to wake up and recognise the existential threat posed by unchecked exploitation of our creative industries.”
During its consultation period, the UK government invited “anyone with an interest in these issues” to share views and evidence regarding the potential economic impact the copyright protection changes may have. There’s no clear timeline for what will happen next, but the UK government said it will use the consultation responses to “help design the best possible policy” to achieve its objectives around expanding AI — suggesting that at least some changes will be on the horizon.
“We see AI as a powerful tool and a partner to creativity, but a partnership should be on fair and equal terms,” Meredith said. “Tech firms need creative content, and up-to-date professional journalism, to power AI — if they want to use our content, they must also be willing to compensate creators fairly, just as any responsible business would.”
The BBC, Britain’s publicly funded media service, also issued its own statement today saying that the proposal “is currently unworkable.”
“To be clear, we support the Government’s ambition to grow the creative and AI sectors,” said Rhodri Talfan Davies, Director of Nations at the BBC. “But we do not believe securing these goals requires changes that weaken how content is protected under the UK’s Intellectual Property regime.”
Microsoft has decided to delay the release window of its upcoming Fable game to 2026. The Xbox maker originally said last year that Fable would arrive at some point in 2025, but now Xbox Game Studios chief Craig Duncan has provided an update on the game during an appearance on the official Xbox podcast.
“We previously announced the date for Fable as 2025, we are actually going to give Fable more time and it’s going to ship in 2026 now,” says Duncan. “While I know that’s not maybe the news people want to hear, what I want to assure people of is that it’s definitely worth the wait. I have unequivocable confidence in the Playground team.”
We got to see some early gameplay footage of Fable at last year’s Xbox summer showcase, which was largely focused on the characters and story of the fantasy game. Fable will be centered on a hero named Humphry, who “will be forced out of retirement when a mysterious figure from his past threatens Albion’s very existence.” Microsoft provided a little more gameplay footage today, too.
Playground Games is the developer behind this latest Fable installment, best-known for their work on the Forza Horizon series. “What they’re bringing to the Fable franchise, just think of the visuals of what you expect from Playground Games, plus amazing gameplay, British humor, and Playground’s take… in quite frankly the most beautifully realized version of Albion that you’ve ever seen,” says Duncan.
Microsoft still has a busy year of Xbox games ahead, including South of Midnight, id Software’s Doom: The Dark Ages, The Outer Worlds 2, and potentially even Gears of War: E-Day.
Can you drive an Hermès Birkin bag? | Image: Nik Bentel Studio
Looking for an accessory that can keep up with your busy lifestyle? Nik Bentel Studio has created a leather purse with a remote control car built into its base.
The battery-powered RC Car Bag is four wheel drive, and while its rubber tires can handle minor obstacles like discarded napkins and crumbs while zipping across a dining table, its tiny wheels mean it’s unfortunately not going to be much of an off-roader. Its creators claim the bag has a top speed of nine miles per hour, and it includes a stack of tiny orange pylons if you want to set up an obstacle course and test your driving skills after dinner while you wait for your server to bring the check.
The included pistol grip style controller has a range of about 30 feet, and while’s there room inside the purse to store the remote, it doesn’t look like it leaves space for much else. That could make the RC Car Bag’s $295 price tag a tough sell, but fashion doesn’t always have to be practical, does it?
A little more storage capacity would be a welcome upgrade, but adding Bluetooth compatibility and the option to control the RC Car Bag using a mobile app on a smartphone would also let you leave the cumbersome remote control at home on date night. The bag is also only available in black, but other color options, including something close to Ferrari’s iconic Rosso Corsa red, would potentially help broaden the appeal of the accessory to racing fans.
Although Nik Bentel Studio might not be the most recognizable name in fashion, it’s created a collection of fun tech-inspired accessories including slim wallets that look like real-life versions of Windows and macOS’ folder icons.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chair Andrew Ferguson urging the FTC to require that companies admit when you’re not really buying an ebook or video game.
Wyden’s letter, shared with The Verge, requests guidance to “ensure that consumers who purchase or license digital goods can make informed decisions and understand what ownership rights they are obtaining.”
Wyden wants the guidance to include how long a license lasts, what circumstances might expire or revoke the license, and if a consumer can transfer or resell the license. The letter also calls for the information “before and at the point of sale” in a way that’s easily understandable. “To put it simply, prior to agreeing to any transaction, consumers should understand what they are paying for and what is guaranteed after the sale,” Wyden says.
Frequently, when you buy digital copies of things like movies, games, music, or books, you don’t actually own that thing — just a license to access it. As a result, you might unexpectedly lose access to games because of PlayStation Network account bans or no longer be able to download and transfer Kindle books to your computer over USB because of an Amazon change.
Last year, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law banning digital stores from using words like “buy” or “purchase” unless they disclose that you’re just licensing the content they sell, and shortly after, Valve updated its Steam checkout screen to note just that.
“The shift from physical to digital goods presents some complex legal questions,” Wyden says in the letter. “One thing is clear, however: consumers deserve transparency about their ownership rights in digital goods. Guidance from the FTC on this issue will help ensure that digital goods sellers are aware of best practices and that American consumers can make informed buying decisions.”
Starting May 12th, YouTube says it will show fewer mid-roll ads that it thinks will interrupt sentences or action sequences, and more at “natural break points” like pauses or transitions, according to a help page on the change. The company says it’s also inserting “additional, automatic ad-slots at natural break points” into older videos with manually-placed slots, a change creators can opt out of.
YouTubers can decide to use automatically chosen ad slots instead of manual, or a mix of both. Those who prefer to keep things manual can check whether their chosen mid-roll slots “are considered interruptive” using a YouTube Studio feedback tool the company is rolling out. YouTube says that this will ensure creators are picking slots “where ads are likely to be served.”
The company says it found in an experiment last year that videos using a mix of automatic and manual ad slot placement averaged five percent more revenue than those with only manually placed slots. Creators can opt out of letting YouTube place slots for them in the Earn tab in YouTube Studio, but YouTube says “videos with interruptive mid-roll ad slots may earn less revenue” after the May change.
YouTubers will still control if they want to pick where ads are shown, but it’s not clear if doing so means they’ll risk some of those ads simply not being shown, and YouTube didn’t immediately respond to our request for clarification. The company has removed some of creators’ control over ad placement before, like with a late 2023 change that took away creators’ ability to choose when ads are skippable or whether they’re placed at the beginning or the end of a video.
Casio made the CRW001-1 as a limited-edition collectible to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
I am the last person on earth who needs another watch. As The Vergeâs resident wearables reviewer, Iâm always double-wristing the latest smartwatches. I am also the last person who needs another ring after spending a whole summer wearing six of them like a high-tech mafia wife. But I never said I had good sense, so Iâve spent the last few weeks wearing the $120 Casio CRW001-1 â or perhaps more aptly named, the Casio Ring Watch.
There is no pretense here. This is a tiny Casio watch that sits on your finger. Casio made it to celebrate its 50th anniversary and to cash in on your retro design nostalgia for the halcyon age of our collective youth. It harkens back to the vintage watch rings of the â80s and â90s, which you can find on Etsy for $10. This particular one just happens to be fully functional.
Unboxing it, my first thought as a reasonable person is that no one should buy this. For starters, itâs currently unavailable on Casioâs site and is going for upward of $300 on eBay. (Such is the fate of limited-edition gadgety baubles.) In an age when eggs cost $5 a carton â $7, if you live in my neck of the woods â your money can be spent on more practical things, …
To be the best at their jobs, people need relationships in the workplace. Employees who feel comfortable taking work challenges to peers or problem solving in tandem are more likely to excel in their work.
Theyâre also more likely to be happy, as recent research has revealed. Social connections in the workplace contribute to a greater sense of life satisfaction and well-being, one study found. Another examined the relationship between isolation and burnout and found that employees experiencing loneliness âexpressed a desire to be psychologically detached from their jobs for recovery.â Conversely, employee happiness leads to better outcomes, as research shows itâs ânot only correlated with workplace success,â but that employee happiness actually âprecedes measures of success.â
The move to hybrid work has deepened the challenge of establishing authentic workplace relationships, and itâs not going anywhere â 90 percent of businesses plan to keep a hybrid model in place and at least some of their workforce remote, according to Lenovo customer surveys. Amid this new standard for professional life, many employees are struggling to maintain meaningful relationships …
With the rapid introduction of computing that leverages AI, the gaming experience is set to take a step forward in 2025. In January, at CES, GIGABYTE provided a glimpse at that future when it introduced its B800 series motherboards.
Built to work with Intel B860 and AMD B850 chipsets, the mainstream B800 series models are redefining gaming performance. The motherboards continue GIGABYTEâs track record of innovation and the heritage of its Intel Z890 and X870(E) series motherboards, bringing the AI technology, friendly design, and ultra-durable components present in those models to new levels.
How GIGABYTEâs suite of AI solutions unleashes DDR5 performance
With its suite of AI-powered solutions, named D5 Bionic Corsa, GIGABYTE has emerged as a leader in innovation that leans on AI to get the most out of DDR5 memory. The solutions combine AORUS AI SNATCH software and AI-driven PCB design to approach 8600+ MT/s on AMD B850 motherboards, and 9466+ MT/s on Intel B860 motherboards with the HyperTune BIOS feature.
A closer look at the underlying technology:
Better DDR5 performance, in one click: With the AORUS AI SNATCH function, the B800 series delivers truly advanced overcloc …
The modern internet is nearly three decades old, and itâs starting to show its age. Think back to the â90s: some of what we built back then, though groundbreaking, now feels outdated. The Verge recently created a special issue on what we were doing online in 2004, highlighting how Web 2.0 was born. Take a step back and think about how weinteract, transact,andspend our time online. Are we clinging to old structures that no longer serve us? Is it time to remodel our digital lives and rethink how weâre building our online experiences to better reflect the way we live today?
In this emerging AI era, the very ideas of community and human connection are poised for redefinition. Brands and platforms will weaponize the terms in a bid to capture the attention of their ideal audiences.
But where are communities really headed? How should this evolution shape how creators and media companies build products and marketers engage with their audiences? These are the questions that will define the next phase of the internet.
The Verge partnered with Vox Mediaâs Insights and Research team, along with Two Cents Insights, to better understand how American consumers are embracing this s …
Panasonic’s new Lumix S1RII boosts the full-frame camera’s video capabilities to 8K. | Image: Panasonic
Panasonic has announced an upgrade version of 2019’s Lumix S1R with a new sensor, smaller body, faster autofocus, and video recording that tops out at 8K at 30 frames per second. Although the Lumix S1RII’s new 44.3-megapixel back-side illuminated CMOS sensor is smaller than the 47.3-megapixel sensor in its predecessor, its improved video capabilities, including capturing 5.8K Apple ProRes RAW HQ or ProRes RAW without an external recorder, will appeal to shooters looking for a highly capable hybrid camera.
The Panasonic Lumix S1RII is expected to be available in late March for $3,299.99.
Using a faster hybrid autofocus system that introduces phase-detect AF alongside the S1R’s contrast AF, the Lumix S1RII offers improved eye and face detection, along with better AI-powered tracking accuracy for moving human subjects. It can also automatically detect and focus on a wide variety of subjects, including animals, cars, motorcycles, bikes, trains, and airplanes.
The camera can capture full-resolution 12-bit RAW still images at up to 40 frames per second using its electronic shutter, or up to 10 frames per second (nine when capturing 14-bit RAW images) using its mechanical shutter’s “High Speed Plus” mode.
For photographers wanting more than 44.3-megapixels of resolution, the S1RII offers a handheld high-resolution mode that can capture still images at 177-megapixels by shifting the sensor half a pixel and capturing and merging multiple exposures.
In-body image stabilization improves to eight stops of shake reduction, or seven stops when using the S1RII with a telephoto lens that supports its own image stabilization. When capturing video, Panasonic says the camera features cropless electronic image stabilization with distortion correction that reduces “peripheral distortion while preserving the original angle of view.”
The Lumix S1RII includes a 5.76 million dot OLED viewfinder as well as a three-inch articulated 1.84 million dot touchscreen LCD display that flips out and rotates up and down for videographers. That screen is slightly smaller than what the original S1R featured, but then, the new S1RII is smaller and lighter than its predecessor — 1.75-pounds compared to 2.24 pounds.
Both SD USH II and CFexpress Type B card slots are included, but videos can also be captured to an external SSD drive using the camera’s 10Gbps USB-C port. The Lumix S1RII also features a full-sized HDMI port for connecting it to a larger display.
Like Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, Konami and Bloober Team are back in action together. Bloober Team announced that it will continue its partnership with the Japanese publisher on a new project.
âThe trust built upon the success of Silent Hill 2 laid the foundation for signing another agreement for a new project,â the announcement read. And while the new project will be based on Konamiâs IP, the two companies did not share if the next game will be another Silent Hill or something else from Konamiâs back catalog. (Hey, just thinkinâ out loud here, but when was the last Castlevania game released? 2014? Oh, okay.)
Konami and Bloober Team paired up in 2022 when the companies announced they would be collaborating on a remake of Silent Hill 2. Due to lukewarm reviews of Blooberâs original horror game The Medium, there was skepticism that the studio would be able to pull off a remake of one of the most celebrated survival horror games of its time. But Silent Hill 2 launched to ravereviews and sales, making it the fastest-selling entry in the Silent Hill series.Â
Beyond Bloober Team, Konami is also working on a new, non-remake Silent Hill game called Silent Hill Fthat …
There was a time, not so long ago, when people wouldnât shut up about a revolution in automobiles. No matter where you looked, youâd find someone telling you about how self-driving, all-electric vehicles would change the way we think about car ownership, lead to a total reinvention of how cities work, change the economy, and fix climate change forever. All by roughly 2020.
Obviously things didnât quite turn out the way the EV and robotaxi boosters hoped. On this episode of The Vergecast, we dig into why. The Vergeâs Andy Hawkins joins to explain why the momentum continues to turn against the EV revolution â but why carmakers simply canât give up the fight, or risk losing it before it even really starts. He also tells us why robotaxis are suddenly cool again, as Uber and Lyft resume their plans to automate ride-sharing everywhere.
After that, we pivot to the fediverse. Evan Prodromou, the research director at the Social Web Foundation and one of the people overseeing the ActivityPub protocol, catches us up on all things social. We talk through the rise of Bluesky, whatâs going on with Threads, …
The Kanban board is still Trello’s main interface.
Trello is launching several new features this week, all designed to turn the Atlassian-owned app into something like a universal to-do list for everything in your life. By integrating with Slack (and soon Teams), email, and Siri, the company is hoping it can help you put all your important stuff in one place – and then use Trello’s organization tools and a little AI to help you get it all done.
Trello originally became popular because of its structure: Kanban boards are powerful and flexible enough to contain almost any kind of project and system. That part doesn’t need to change, says Guarav Kataria, Trello’s head of product. “It’s just that there are too many things in too many places. You’re in email, in Slack, all the social media places and numerous other work tools… and then when you’re running or walking, you probably get ideas in your head.” So now, there’s a new Inbox column in every board, which you can dump things into from all over the web, to be organized later.
Kataria’s insight is not new — from Slack to Dropbox to Notion to Google, everybody’s trying to solve the too-many-tools problem by adding another tool. Trello’s way of solving the problem is not to integrate with a million other apps or try and help you Do More Work inside Trello itself, though, but rather to just more easily get everything in one place. Forward an email to Trello or save a message for later in Slack, or just tell Siri what you need to get done, and it’ll add it to the inbox. It’ll also summarize the message in the card, plus add relevant due dates and sub-tasks. Making capture fast and easy was the key to the whole design, Kataria tells me.
Since this is Atlassian we’re talking about, there are also a couple of Jira-specific integrations, but for the most part Kataria thinks summarizing the thing and linking out to it is all you really need. And he says that between your email and your messaging app, you’re covered on just about any kind of task. “We are not trying to become an uber project management tool,” he says. “It’s just that we can make an individual user more productive by bringing their action items into Trello, and organizing these action items.”
In addition to the side-scrolling boards, there’s also a new calendar view in Trello, called Trello Planner, which you can use to schedule time for all those emails, Slack messages, and tasks. (Time blocking is a huge trend right in productivity nerd circles.) Tasks you add in Trello sync back to your calendar as events, too.
The new features are in beta now, and rolling out to all Trello users in April. Kataria frames the new features as the beginning of a more AI-focused Trello, but also a return to what made the app a success in the first place. “The focus is homing in on an individual user’s productivity problems, not their company’s project-organization problem,” he says. “We are trying to simplify Trello.” Like so many productivity tools, Trello has become complicated and bloated as customers have demanded new features; now it’s trying to get back to helping you manage your life. And all the apps that come with it.
Adobe has released a powerful new Photoshop mobile app that includes many of the design, editing, and generative AI tools found on the desktop version. The app integrates with Photoshop on the web to allow creatives to work on projects across multiple devices and is globally available today on iPhone, with Android coming “later this year,” according to Adobe.
A simplified version of the popular editing software called Photoshop Express has been available on mobile devices since 2010, but Adobe says the new app is more powerful and provides a broader range of recognizable Photoshop capabilities. The two apps share some common features — including tools for resizing, masking, contrast / saturation adjustments, and removing objects or blemishes — but while Photoshop Express is similar to more typical mobile editing apps like Picsart and Facetune, the new Photoshop app seems closer to the desktop experience.
The free version gives users access to many Photoshop editing tools, including the Spot Healing Brush, Tap Select, layers, selections, masks, and features for compositing and blending images together. It also provides Adobe Stock assets, directly integrates with Creative Cloud apps like Adobe Express, Lightroom, and Fresco, and includes Adobe’s Firefly-powered Generative Fill and Generative Expand AI tools.
Other Photoshop features like Object Select, Magic Wand, Content Aware Fill, Clone Stamp, and the Remove Tool are locked behind a $7.99 monthly or $69.99 annual subscription. This premium Photoshop Mobile and Web Plan also includes light / dark adjustment options, advanced blend modes for controlling transparency, color effects, styles, and integration with Photoshop on the web — alongside access to Generate Similar and Reference Image on the web-based platform.
All users who are already subscribed to a paid Photoshop plan will gain premium access to Photoshop on mobile. Adobe hasn’t mentioned if it has anything in store for Photoshop Express, which currently still provides a more affordable $4.99 monthly premium tier subscription. It’ll be confusing if Adobe plans to support both apps simultaneously, especially as it also has another similarly named editing platform called Adobe Express available on mobile.
Rebooting Photoshop on mobile is a welcome and unsurprising move, however. Photoshop Express, while useful for quick edits and throwing together social media graphics, never truly felt like Photoshop. The user interface on the new Photoshop iPhone app is still heavily optimized for mobile, so you can drag and select tools around with your finger, but the overall experience is more geared toward creative professionals and labor-intensive design tasks.
