Apple airshipped 600 tons of iPhones to the US from India before new US tariffs were scheduled to take effect, as reported by Reuters and The Times of India. Meanwhile, Nikkei Asia reports Apple, Dell, Microsoft, and Lenovo were pressing to ship as many “premium” devices as possible, like high-priced computers above $3,000 that would see the biggest price increases under the new tariffs.
According to Reuters, the company lobbied officials to speed up customs clearance, added workers, and temporarily kept its plant in India running on Sunday to achieve a 20 percent increase in production. Based on the planes’ capacity and the weight of iPhones plus packaging, the outlet estimates that about 1.5 million devices were shipped out since March, which could help Apple avoid raising prices for a while.
Nikkei Asia spoke to an executive at a supplier to Apple, Microsoft, and Google, who said they got the call to ship as many consumer electronics by air as possible, but “there’s only so much” that could be shipped in time before the tariff deadline. HP reportedly initially told suppliers to stick to the original shipping plan, but within 24 hours reversed that and wanted as many devices shipped to the US as possible, while also planning to increase production in Mexico.
Meanwhile, Samsung is reducing smartphone component orders for the middle of 2025, while some PC makers like Lenovo and Acer are indicating they’ll increase output focus for non-US markets.
Last week, President Donald Trump declared a series of tariffs that pitted the United States against the rest of the world. Big companies stayed nervously silent; small ones panicked. The stock market plunged. And surely worst of all, Switch 2 preorders were delayed. Then, the same day the largest tariffs went into effect, Trump hit the brakes with a “90-day pause.” But it’s only sort of a pause â and not on everything. Taxes on items from around the world remain higher than they were a week ago. And an escalating trade war with China has no end in sight.
Here’s roughly what’s happened. Trump announced a 10 percent base tax on goods from nearly every country on the planet, plus even higher tariffs â sometimes reaching 50 percent â on many of America’s most important trading partners. (These joined existing tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, among other things.) The base rate went into effect over the weekend, as Trump declared that despite other countries’ attempts to negotiate, he wasn’t backing down. China retaliated with its own tariffs, so Trump promised an extra 50 percent hike on US taxes on Chinese goods, bringing the number to a staggering 104 percent. As prom …
DJI’s Avinox e-bike drive system includes everything you need to electrify a bicycle. | Image: DJI
Bosch should be worried after several bicycle brands just announced their first e-bikes built on top of DJI’s compact and lightweight Avinox drive system, which is surprisingly powerful and torquey. These international brands include Forbidden, Unno, Smartmotion, Megamo, Paprika 53, and Teewing, all of which have new e-bikes built around the 1000W Avinox motor that’s capable of producing a very responsive 120Nm of max torque.
I haven’t tested the Avinox drive system myself, but a number of reputable reviewers are impressed — and it’s only DJI’s first salvo into the market. The Avinox system was first launched inside a mid-drive electric mountain bike — a segment dominated in sales by Bosch — from the DJI-offshoot brand Amflow. Most of the new bikes announced today are also electric mountain bikes, although newcomer Paprika 53 is positioning its Model 25 GT as an electric gravel bike.
It’s a very promising start for a very promising drive system from the world’s leading maker of consumer drones.
I wasnât really sure what to expect from Microsoftâs 50th birthday party. Sure, cofounder Bill Gates and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer would be there, but I was keen to see how Microsoft would create a party atmosphere while also launching new Copilot features. As it happens, having three CEOs onstage, some energetic hosts, and employee protesters sure kept things eventful.
The day kicked off with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reminiscing about how cofounders Bill Gates and Paul Allen built Microsoft 50 years ago, including how the pair created the software for the Altair 8800, an early personal computer. Nadella also looked ahead to the next 50 years and demonstrated some improvements to GitHub Copilot that allow anyone to code. âWhat started out as a developer tools company 50 years ago is now a platform company where everyone can be a developer,â said Nadella. âOur mission has not changed, itâs only expanded.â
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman appeared onstage next to walk through new Copilot features and reminisce on how important Microsoft had been to him growing up. At just 11 years old, he convinced his parents to buy a PC with a Pentium processor and 8MB …
OpenAI is getting ready to unveil a number of new AI models, sources familiar with the companyâs plans tell The Verge. Among the new AI models will be a release of what Iâm expecting will be branded GPT-4.1, which one source describes as a revamped version of OpenAIâs GPT-4o multimodal model.
GPT-4o was originally introduced last year as a flagship model that reasoned across audio, vision, and text in real time. I understand that OpenAI will launch GPT-4.1 alongside smaller GPT-4.1 mini and nano versions as soon as next week.
OpenAI is also readying the full version of its o3 reasoning model and an o4 mini version that could debut even sooner. AI engineer Tibor Blaho discovered references to o4 mini, o4 mini high, and o3 in a new ChatGPT web version earlier today, suggesting these additions are imminent. I understand o3 and o4 mini are both set to debut next week, unless OpenAI moves the launch plans around.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman teased on X that OpenAI would be launching an exciting feature today, but itâs not clear if this is related to the o3 and o4 mini references in ChatGPT or not. Sources caution that OpenAI has delayed the introduction of some new models recently …
Over a weekend in April each year, the InfoAge Science and History Museums in Wall Township, New Jersey host the Vintage Computer Festival East, which welcomes hundreds of attendees to a former army base to check out a bunch of vintage hardware â not only on display, but also currently in working order.Â
ââThat’s one of the things about our museum, it’s hands-on,â says VCF East showrunner Jeffrey Brace. âIf you go to the Smithsonian, everything’s locked away. You can’t touch it.âÂ
Throughout the festival, I played Oregon Trail on an Apple IIe, operated a renovated Heathkit H-89, doodled using every paint application from the â90s, and tested almost every kind of mechanical keyboard vintage computers had to offer.Â
Both the permanent museum and the exhibit halls for the festival were filled with computers dating back to the 1960s all the way to modern Macs â but the real highlight of the festival is meeting the makers, hobbyists, and educators who are there just to share their collection of vintage electronics and the various projects theyâve been working on to keep them alive. I spoke to a variety of people who were running their own GSM base stations, 3D-p …
Today, I’m talking to Rohit Chopra. He was the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) until the end of January, when President Donald Trump fired him and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) begantryingto dismantle the agency.
The CFPB has been around for just under 15 years now. Congress created the agency in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to protect consumers from various kinds of lending and credit schemes that led to that crash.
Broadly speaking, the CFPB has been pretty popular! This is the agency that keeps consumers safe from predatory lending practices, limits credit card fees, and investigates various kinds of financial fraud. So effectively shutting it down kicked off a number of controversies, not least of which is: do Trump and Musk even have the power to do this? After all, the CFPB was created by Congress with a law, and the US Constitution says the president is supposed to take care that the laws passed by Congress are faithfully executed and not reinterpreted by an unelected billionaire who is deep into crypto. In fact, I don’t think that came up with the founders at all, though it’s been a minute since I watched Hamilton.
Listen to Decoder, a show hosted by The Verge’s Nilay Patel about big ideas — and other problems. Subscribe here!
This all led me to ask Chopra several times who actually made the decision to fire him, who is currently responsible for the various policies of our government, and whether any of those things add up to a clear plan for which someone can actually be held accountable.
I ask questions like this on Decoder all the time, and there are usually answers, even from some of the most powerful executives in the world. In fact, especially from some of the most powerful executives in the world. But here, well, you’re just going to hear Chopra say, over and over again, that he doesn’t know. Sincerely, I don’t think he knows — and that should probably be as worrying as anything.
He and I also talked about the clash between the two main factions of the Trump coalition. On one hand, there are the Musk tech libertarians, and then there’s the more populist MAGA wing. Right now, these two factions are having a big fight over tariffs (and it’s still hard to tell what’s going on there), and they seem poised to be potentially even more at odds as Trump reshapes more of the government.
The CFPB sits right in the middle of that fight; it’s a lot easier for Musk to turn X into an everything app crossed with a crypto payments platform if there’s no regulator on the beat. But the populist wing of the party isn’t exactly in love with big banks and Big Tech gaining even more power. I have no idea how that will play out, so I was curious to see if Chopra had any insight — and what he was most worried about happening without an agency like the CFPB standing guard.
If you’d like to read more about what we discussed in this episode, check out the links below:
After a bit of a brief, unexpected delay due to a component issue, the Google Pixel 9A is here — and it was worth the wait. Allison Johnson’s review of the midrange phone just went live today, and the 9A seems like the ideal phone for those who want many of the same perks found in the pricier 9 Pro series crammed into a smaller, cheaper package. And yes, there are deals already.
The only one (so far) that doesn’t require a carrier commitment is through the Google Store, where you can trade up your old phone to get an unlocked Pixel 9A for $100 or less out of pocket. Not only that, through April 23rd you’ll get a $100 Google Store credit added to your account to use on anything from cases and screen protectors to wireless earbuds. It won’t be enough to cover the Pixel Buds Pro 2 or the Pixel Watch 3, but it’ll knock a serious chunk of change off their respective prices.
In terms of phones you can trade to the Google Store to get the Pixel 9A for cheap (or free), there’s the Pixel Fold ($499 trade-in value), the Pixel 8 Pro ($400), the iPhone 15 Pro and up ($425 and up), Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 6 ($500), and the S24 Ultra ($480).
Elsewhere, you can get the Pixel 9A for free (paid back in billing credits over a two-year period) with a new Google Fi account. AT&T is offering the Pixel 9A for $2.99 per month on any unlimited plan, plus a free pair of Pixel Buds A-Series earbuds if they order before April 24th. At Verizon, it’s free (via billing credits over three years) for new lines on any myPlan accounts, and you’ll get 50 percent off Google One AI Premium each month ($10 instead of $20).
While the Pixel 9A is listed on Amazon, its product page shows a June 1st delivery date. That will likely change soon, though it’s up in the air if the retailer will offer any promotional gift of its own. As far as Best Buy goes, we expect that retailer to stock the phone, although links aren’t currently live.
More deals and discounts
Red Dead Redemption 2 is down to $14.99 on your platform of choice. That’s how much you’ll pay for a copy on Steam, a digital Xbox copy, as well as on PlayStation. While there hasn’t been a major update to the game in some time (Rockstar seems keen to ignore current gen console upgrades, perhaps to focus fully on GTA VI), it’s a fantastic price for a title with lots to offer, especially when it comes to realism. Recently, I learned via an Any Austin YouTube essay that all of the in-game streams and rivers are realistically supplied by larger bodies of water — a testament to Rockstar’s commitment to the little things. Read our review.
In terms of a notable new release that’s already discounted, Blue Prince is 10 percent off on Steam through April 20th, costing $26.99 instead of $29.99. It’s a minor deal on what could be one of the most beloved games of 2025. You may not have to buy it at all if you have a PlayStation or Xbox subscription. The game is available to play now via PlayStation Plus Extra, or through Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
James Austin Johnson and Devon Walker as British rappers Milly Pounds and Shirty. | Image: NBC
“Live from London, it’s Saturday Night” is a phrase you’re going to start hearing on a weekly basis next year.
Variety reports that Sky Studios is working on a British adaptation of NBC’s long-running Saturday Night Live sketch series. Like its American counterpart and previous international riffs on the series, Saturday Night Live UK will feature a blend of comedy, political commentary, music, and a lineup of guest hosts. The new adaptation will also be overseen by SNL creator Lorne Michaels, whose Broadway Video company will produce the show. In a statement about SNL UK, Sky CEO Cécile Frot-Coutaz pointed to Michaels’ “masterful comedic guidance” as one of the reasons the original series has had such a lasting cultural impact.
“The show has discovered and nurtured countless comedy and musical talents over the years and we are thrilled to be partnering with Lorne and the SNL team to bring an all-British version of the show to UK audiences next year – all live from London on Saturday night,” Frot-Coutaz said.
Sky has yet to announce SNL UK’s premiere date, its hosts, or musical guests. There’s also no word on who the show’s regular players will be, but Sky says we can expect to see “a core cast of the funniest British comedians around.”
Around 2009, Dweezil Zappa ran into a space problem. He was busy touring the US, performing some songs written by his father, Frank. Recreating those signature âpeculiar sounds,â as Zappa calls them, required lugging around a massive rig â roughly the size of two large refrigerators â held together by more than 200 connections and cables.
âThe challenge for me on tour was how can I recreate some of these sounds and not use the actual equipment that [Frank] used because some of it didn’t exist anymore,â Zappa says. âIt was a pretty extensive system.â
Zappa began seriously exploring a still relatively new technology: guitar amp modelers. These briefcase-sized devices aimed to capture the essence of analog amplifier and pedal sounds, reinterpret them digitally, and deliver them with an audio fidelity comparable to the real thing. Zappa realized modelers were more than just a space-saver: they also opened up a new dimension of creativity. With the right tweaking, Zappa says he suddenly had almost any sound or effect he could imagine at his disposal.
âIf I have to switch to another song [during a set] that is from 1981, I just step on a button,â Zappa says. âI …
Allison Johnson is the smartphone reviewer for The Verge, along with, as she says, “a bit of telecom on the side, which means I am a professional phone user.” She came to The Verge from DPReview, where she covered digital cameras and smartphone cameras.
That looks like a cozy space. Where in your home is it?
It’s in our bedroom. When my husband and I moved into our house, we were two people who both worked outside of the home. Now, we’re two people who both work from home full time plus a three-year-old, so cozy is an understatement! I actually move around the house a lot with my laptop throughout the day, so the desk is more of a home base.
Could you tell us a bit about the desk itself?
It’s a mini desk from West Elm. It was a lockdown purchase when everyone was buying desks and stuff, so things were a little chaotic. The first time it “arrived,” I opened the box, and there was a lampshade inside. The actual desk came a few months later.
And your chair (including the footrest)?
The chair is from Ikea, and it’s honestly not great, but the pillow helps. The footrest is by a company called Cushion Lab, and it’s so comfy. It’s kind of like a firm memory foam, and I knead my feet into it like a cat making biscuits.
I love how neatly you’ve got your cords arranged.
It wasn’t always this way! I need to have a few different kinds of chargers at the ready, since I switch smartwatches whenever I switch between Android and iOS, plus I’m never giving up my Lightning-charged iPhone 13 Mini. I used to fish the cables off the floor when I needed them but I finally got these stick-on cord holders, and I’ve been a changed woman ever since.
Tell us about the various tech devices you’re using.
I use my company-issued M1 MacBook Air, and the battery life is still so good that I never bring a charger if I’m going to work from somewhere else during the day. At my desk, I use this Logitech Pebble 2 keyboard and mouse that I bought purely based on looks but they’re quite nice. I use this Rain Design laptop stand, which is very sturdy. I bought the fixed version rather than the adjustable and was a little worried I wouldn’t like it, but it’s been great. I also have the infamous Brother laser printer and haven’t had to buy new toner for it in the five years I’ve been using it to print shipping labels. It rules.
I see you’ve got separate storage for your phone review units.
Again, it wasn’t always this way. Unless a company wants their review device back right away, I like to keep them for about a year after the review to revisit them and use them for comparisons. But everything eventually goes back to the manufacturer, unless they specifically don’t want it — in which case I bring it to a center that will either refurbish and reuse them or recycle them. I was keeping them in their boxes until I saw some other phone reviewers had them organized in neat little stands, so I got one, and I’m not sure how I lived without it before.
That’s a lovely lamp!
It gives off this nice orange glow that is essential in the winter when it starts getting dark at 3:30PM. Also, I like that I can use it to let the neighborhood know if the British are coming by land or by sea.
Like many of our colleagues, you also use a paper notebook. Do you have a preference for a certain type?
I’m an absolute sucker for a Moleskine notebook.
Whose work of art is that on the wall next to your desk? (Just above your name-tag collection.)
That’s the work of my son Lennox, approximately age two at that point, I think. You think you’re not going to be a “kid-art-at-your-desk” person until you are.
As a Marx Brothers fan, I couldn’t help noticing the picture of Groucho above the chest of drawers.
I guess other kids in high school were going to parties and stuff while I was at home watching every Marx Brothers movie I could get my hands on. Duck Soup is an all-timer but A Night at the Opera is a close second. I sort of stole this picture from an ex, though I think he knew about it and let me take it. But if you want it back, I’ll send it to you, Matt.
Is there anything we didn’t cover that you’d like to add?
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
The United Kingdom is preparing to respond to the series of tariffs President Donald Trump has introduced since taking office. New taxes on everything from pure-bred horses to bourbon are on the table, but the Labour government seems more interested in a conciliatory approach, and it’s considering sacrificing a popular tax on American tech companies in order to sweeten the deal.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has confirmed that trade talks have included âquestions about the appropriate way to tax digital services,â as The Guardian reports that UK negotiators have offered to water down the Digital Services Tax (DST) in exchange for lower tariffs, following earlier reports that UK negotiators were willing to scrap the tax entirely. Itâs a move that could save Silicon Valley tech giants hundreds of billions, while mounting pressure on other governments worldwide to follow suit. In the UK, it would signal capitulation to American big tech â but pragmatically, some think it might not be a huge loss.
Instead of taxing profits â which are easy to obfuscate or assign to tax havens â the DST taxes tech companies at a rate of 2 percent based on the revenue generated from UK users …
The Busy Bar can be left sitting on a desk, mounted to a wall, or perched atop your computer screen using its folding stand. | Image: Flipper Devices
The creators of the Flipper Zero, a sort of electronic Swiss army knife for communicating with other devices, have come up with another tool that’s designed to boost productivity and reduce distractions. The Busy Bar is a customizable app-connected pixelated display that lets others know when you need to be left alone to focus, but it can also be used to help with self-motivation and sticking to a schedule or routine.
At its most basic functionality, the Busy Bar is an oversized timer with an eight-hour battery and a prominent 72 x 16 LED pixelated screen on the front that can display preset or custom status messages next to a countdown timer. Pressing a large button on the top of the device activates your status such as “busy” or “on call,” while a scroll wheel lets you dial in a specific amount of time so others know how long it will be until you’re available again.
The Busy Bar can be left sitting on your desk, mounted to a wall, or propped up on top of your screen using a folding support stand on the underside. When it’s facing away from you, a smaller secondary monochromatic screen on the back lets you see what status you have displayed on the front, as well as status icons for battery life and connectivity.
You can get similar functionality from a piece of paper, tape, and a Sharpie marker, but the Busy Bar, which is launching through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, justifies its $249 price tag by doing more than just scaring distractions away. When connected to a network over Wi-Fi or a PC with a USB-C cable, it can work alongside mobile and desktop apps to automate status messages.
When you hop on a Zoom call, for example, the Busy Bar will automatically display an “on call” status, or show a “do not enter” if it’s mounted outside your office and you have a meeting scheduled in your calendar. The display also supports the Matter protocol, allowing it to control compatible smart devices. In addition to displaying a “do not enter” message, the Busy Bar can automatically secure the smart lock on your office door when a meeting starts, pause music playing on a smart speaker, and adjust the lights so you look better on camera.
It integrates with third-party apps so you can set up automations, but it goes one step further on mobile devices. With the Busy app installed on your smartphone and connected to the Busy Bar, changing your availability status can also automatically block notifications on iPhones and Android devices and even limit access to distracting apps like TikTok and Instagram so you can focus.
If you’re a developer, you can use the Busy Bar’s open-source SDK to expand its functionality. You could repurpose it as a live display for everything from how your stocks are performing (if you’re brave enough these days) to how many social media followers you’ve amassed. It’s even compatible with the open-source home automation tool, Home Assistant, letting smart home devices trigger actions on the Busy Bar, like sending an alert when your laundry is done drying.
It may not be as effective as an angry look when coworkers stop by to chat while you’re racing a deadline, but the Busy Bar seems like a more capable alternative to taping a “do not disturb” sign to the back of your screen.
Correction, April 10th: An earlier version of this article misstated the price of the Busy Bar. It is $249.
The A-series Pixels have been very good over the past few years. And in the Pixel 9A, Google has taken a good midrange phone and made it great.
Itâs $499, which feels just right for what you get in the 9A. Spend a bit more for the Pixel 9, and youâll get some upgrades like a better ultrawide camera and more RAM, as well as little touches like Wi-Fi 7 rather than Wi-Fi 6E. But every time I wished for something on the 9A that it doesnât offer, I kept coming back to that price. At $499, itâs easier to let go of some things than it was with, oh, the $599 iPhone 16E.
More than just a list of specs, the Pixel 9A behaves like a device in a mature product line. When I transfer a Pixel Watch 2 from another Pixel phone to this one, it just works. When I use fast pair to connect some OnePlus earbuds I used with another Android phone, it just works. That hasnât always been the case with the Google phones Iâve tested, but the company has done a much better job of connecting the dots in its ecosystem for this generation of Pixels. And for $499? Thatâs a real sweet deal.
Hardware, screen and battery life
Last year, when I reviewed the Pixel 8A at home in Seattle, I thought the …
Along with a new season of Black Mirror, Netflix might have just released its most interesting licensed game today. Season 7 of the sc-fi anthology includes an episode called “Plaything,” in which a genius coder in the ‘90s — the same one from the interactive “Bandersnatch” episode — creates a new game that’s a little bit like The Sims and a Tamagotchi. The difference is the little creatures you take care of are actually alive, which leads the episode down some dark and surprising paths. And as part of its fledgling gaming initiative, Netflix has released a version of the game from the show for subscribers.
It’s called Thronglets, and it works like a companion to the episode. You take care of little yellow creatures, known collectively as the throng, by providing food and entertainment, as well as helping out with hygiene. Keep up and they’ll thrive. Don’t and, well, things can get dark. The throng will quickly replicate, and soon you’ll have a huge group to look after. At its core, Thronglets plays like a typical mobile building game. The throng will mine for resources, develop new technologies, and open up new areas for exploration over time. As you progress, you’ll unlock new tools and buildings to speed things up and keep the growing throng happy.
What makes Thronglets interesting is the meta layer. The creatures are sentient and self-aware, and they will frequently speak directly to you, the player. Sometimes it will be for advice on how to proceed; other times, they will ask existential questions, like what it means to die. This extends to the push notifications, which will often feel threatening or guilt-inducing if you haven’t played for a while. Eventually, Thronglets, like the episode it’s based on, gets pretty dark and surreal.
Last month, Netflix revealed a new, seemingly more focused plan for its gaming efforts, and one of the pillars was mainstream titles based on some of its biggest properties. To date, that hasn’t yielded the most exciting results — see Squid Game: Unleashed, for example — but Thronglets represents something more thoughtful. It’s not just a game based on a show, it’s one that extends that show’s world in interesting ways. As Netflix continues to figure out its place in gaming, Thronglets and its tiny critters could represent a welcome path.
Black Mirror started out as a grim, dark, and nihilistic exploration of near-future tech. But with the tragic romance of âSan Juniperoâ in season 3, the anthology slowly started to shift its priorities. Early on, everything was bad: the technology and the people. And the former was used to show how awful the latter was, highlighting how its characters were largely stupid, greedy, and desperate. New technologies just brought out their worst tendencies. Steadily, though, the humans in the show have become more, well, human. Sure, some are stupid and evil, but many are just trying to do their best with the worst-case scenarios introduced by thoughtless tech advancements. The new season takes this philosophy even further â some episodes even have happy endings.
Perhaps the best example of this is the episode âHotel Reverie.â When a golden age-era movie studio finds itself facing closure, it partners with a tech startup led by Kimmy (Awkwafina) that promises to remake its most famous film â Hotel Reverie â cheaply, quickly, and with the help of a Hollywood A-lister. After losing out on all of the Ryans (Gosling and Reynolds), the studio signs Brandy (Issa Rae), a perpetu …
Oppo’s new Find X8 Ultra is the latest entrant in the ongoing competition between Oppo, Xiaomi, and Vivo to produce the world’s best camera phone. But unlike its rivals, Oppo has decided that bigger might not be better.
Let’s be clear: the Find X8 Ultra isn’t a small phone by any means, with a 6.82-inch display and a total weight of 7.97 oz. But at 8.78mm thick, it’s comfortably thinner than either of the phones Oppo sees as its rivals: the Xiaomi 15 Ultra and Vivo X100 Ultra. There’s a new X200 Ultra around the corner too, but early teases for that don’t suggest it’s gotten much thinner.
These are among a new class of Chinese camera phones that run almost comically large, all packing big batteries and circular camera modules that squeeze in as many lenses and sensors as possible. Oppo, at least, seems to be trying to draw a line in the sand when it comes to size, with product specialist Jeff Jiang describing the goal as to make a “relatively normal phone” without compromising on the camera.
With four 50-megapixel rear lenses tuned by Hasselblad, including both 3x and 6x periscopes that have been upgraded with faster apertures, the X8 Ultra arrives with a credible claim to rival Xiaomi and Vivo on the photography front. It includes a dedicated haptic shutter button with touch controls for zooming, along with a new customizable shortcut button that replaces the popular alert slider.
Despite being slightly svelte, the X8 Ultra includes an enormous 6,100mAh battery — larger than that of any direct rival — with 100W wired and 50W wireless charging. The Snapdragon 8 Elite powers the phone, which ships with up to 16GB RAM and 1TB of storage. Like most of this year’s Chinese flagships, it boasts both IP68 and IP69 ratings for protection against dust and water.
Oppo launched the Find X8 Ultra alongside the Find X8s and X8s Plus, refreshes of the Find X8 powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9400 Plus, also announced today. The X8s is a more compact phone, with a 6.3-inch display, while the X8s Plus runs larger at 6.59 inches but boasts a bigger 6,000mAh battery. The bad news is that Oppo has no plans to launch any of the new Find X8 phones outside China.
A man’s recent attempt to use an AI-generated avatar in his legal appeal made an immediate impression on a New York courtroom, but probably not the one he was hoping for.
Jerome Dewald — a 74-year-old that The Register notes is behind a startup that says it’s “revolutionizing legal self-representation with AI” — was chewed out during an employment dispute hearing on March 26th for failing to inform judges that he had artificially generated the man presenting his oral argument. While the court had approved Dewald to submit a video for his case, Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels became confused when the unknown speaker, who clearly wasn’t Dewald, appeared on the screen.
“Hold on,” Manzanet-Daniels said, interrupting the video after the avatar had barely finished its first sentence. “Is that counsel for the case?”
“I generated that,” Dewald responded. “It’s not a real person.”
Dewald told The Register that the avatar — a “big, beautiful hunk of a guy” called Jim — was one of the stock options provided by an AI avatar company called Tavus. Dewald says the video was submitted due to difficulties he experiences with extended speaking, but the courtroom was unaware that the video contents were artificially generated.
“It would have been nice to know that when you made your application. You did not tell me that, sir, I don’t appreciate being misled.” said Manzanet-Daniels, responding to Dewald’s admission. “You are not going to use this courtroom as a launch for your business.”
This is the latest of several snafus that have occurred when people try to mix legal processes with AI technology. Two attorneys and a law firm were penalized in 2023 for submitting fictitious legal research that had been made up by ChatGPT. DoNotPay, a “robot lawyer” company, was also ordered to pay the FTC a $193,000 settlement in February for advertising, without evidence, that its AI legal representation is as good as a real human lawyer.
China says it will look elsewhere to meet demand for foreign films.
China says it will cut the number of US films that are imported into the country in retaliation against the latest wave of tariff increases imposed by the Trump administration. A statement issued by the Chinese Film Administration (CFA) on Thursday, which we’ve translated using Google, said that the decision to increase tariffs against China to 125 percent was “the wrong move,” and will “further reduce the domestic audience’s favorability” towards American-made movies.
“We will follow market rules, respect the audience’s choice, and moderately reduce the number of American films imported,” The CFA said. “China is the world’s second-largest film market. We have always adhered to a high level of opening up to the outside world and will introduce more excellent films from the world to meet market demand.”
Predictions about a potential ban on American film imports into China have been circulating in recent days since Trump ramped up his trade war against the country. Under previous trade agreements, China agreed to release 34 foreign films per year and provide overseas studios with a 25 percent share of ticket sales. It’s unclear how significantly these allowances may be reduced going forward.
While US movies no longer rake in the Chinese audiences they once did, they still managed to gross $585 million in China last year. That’s no small sum for such a limited number of films, but only made up around 3.5 percent of the $17.71 billion Chinese box office.
On Thursday, the EV charging company revealed new AC Level 2 EV chargers that it says effectively double the speed of typical Level 2 chargers. The new architecture also supports bidirectional charging, so owners can use their EVs to power their home or business if the need arises. The first new models are expected to arrive in the US later this year.
ChargePoint says its next-gen Level 2 chargers are rated for 90 amps and can deliver 19.2kW of power, allowing EV owners to charge their batteries from zero to 100 percent in “about four hours.” This is a noticeable increase based on today’s market.
Level 2 chargers are commonly used as home chargers for EV owners, plugged into 220-volt outlets and delivering 15 to 80 amps. The charging rate for most Level 2 chargers can vary dramatically, with a typical 240-volt, 24-amp unit putting out about 6kW of continuous power and faster, 80-amp chargers delivering speeds up to 19.2kW. ChargePoint’s popular Home Flex chargers, for example, are rated for 50 amps and 12kW of power. Today’s announcement represents a “generational leap” in the technology that powers its chargers, the company says.
The company envisions its new architecture being used for a variety of purposes, from residential home chargers, to chargers with multiple plugs for apartment buildings, to public chargers and chargers for commercial fleet owners. ChargePoint didn’t release a price list, but the company said that prices will start below $1,000 and move up from there depending on the model. The company supports both CCS and NACS ports.
Bidirectional charging is frequently considered the next big thing for EV owners. Several EVs sold today have bidirectional capabilities, and now, ChargePoint is producing chargers with the same abilities.
Bidirectional charging works exactly like it sounds: with unidirectional (one-way) EV chargers, electricity flows from the electric grid into the electric vehicle; with bidirectional (two-way) EV chargers, electricity can flow both ways. In essence, it treats high-capacity lithium-ion batteries not only as tools to power EVs but also as backup storage cells to charge other electric devices, an entire home, or even to send power to the electrical grid for possible energy savings.
Several automakers are selling their own vehicle-to-home (V2H) charging equipment so that people who own EVs with bidirectional charging capabilities can use their vehicles to power their homes during blackouts. ChargePoint says its new Level 2 chargers can do the same job, allowing EV owners to power homes or commercial buildings or transfer energy back to the grid.
The new chargers also feature dynamic load balancing, automatically accelerating charging speeds when power is not needed elsewhere in the residence. And they will be able to integrate with smart home systems, like solar charging, home batteries, and smart management systems.
In addition, the hardware has been significantly upgraded, ChargePoint says. The new Level 2 chargers will feature series wiring capabilities, enabling a fleet depot, a multifamily housing garage, or even a single-family home with two EVs to maximize charging without costly service upgrades.
According to the company, ChargePoint possesses 61 percent of the public Level 2 charging market, making it a dominant player in the EV charging space. The company says the new architecture complies with applicable regulations, including the Measuring Instruments Directive (MID) and Eichrecht in Europe and Energy Star in the US.
ChargePoint plans to roll out its new Level 2 chargers starting with Europe this summer, followed by North America at the end of the year.
