Hyundai announced it will start distributing free CCS to Tesla NACS adapters to its EV customers in the first quarter of 2025. The adapters will enable vehicles such as the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 to connect to “20,000-plus” Tesla Supercharger stations. The free adapter is available to those who purchased or leased their Hyundai EVs on or before January 31st, 2025.

The NACS adapter deal includes 2024 and earlier Kona Electric, Ioniq hatchback, Ioniq 5, and Ioniq 6. It also includes the 2025 Ioniq 6, 2025 Ioniq 5 N, 2025 Kona Electric, and Genesis brand EVs (a full list will be revealed next year). You can request the free adapter through the My Hyundai owner portal.

Hyundai’s sister brand, Kia, is also giving free NACS adapters to some owners starting in early 2025.

Meanwhile, the 2025 Ioniq 5 with a native Tesla port will have Supercharger access as soon as it ships to customers. Tesla posted on X that it has already flipped the switch, enabling the 2025 Ioniq 5 to charge at Superchargers. Still, owners with older CCS-native models must wait for the Hyundai-approved adapters to get access.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is suing Walmart and payroll service provider Branch Messenger for alleged illegal payment practices for gig workers.

The bureau says Walmart was opening direct deposit accounts using Spark delivery drivers’ social security numbers without their consent. The accounts also can come with intense fees that, according to the complaint, would add either 2 percent or $2.99 per transaction, whichever is higher. It also says Walmart repeatedly promised to provide drivers with same-day payments through the platform starting in July 2021 but never delivered on that.

The Bureau alleges that for approximately two years starting around June 2021, defendants engaged in unfair, abusive, and deceptive practices in violation of the Consumer Financial Protection Act of 2010, including by requiring Spark Drivers to receive their compensation in Branch Accounts, opening Branch Accounts for Spark Drivers without their informed consent or, in many instances, on an unauthorized basis, and making deceptive statements about Branch to Spark Drivers.

“Walmart made false promises, illegally opened accounts, and took advantage of more than a million delivery drivers,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra in a statement. “Companies cannot force workers into getting paid through accounts that drain their earnings with junk fees.” The agency sued both companies in the US District Court for the District of Minnesota.

Spark delivery workers have been complaining about Walmart’s Branch Messenger account requirements for years, which forced workers to use these accounts with no option to direct deposit to a preferred credit union or local bank. Walmart allegedly told workers they’d be terminated if they didn’t accept the Branch accounts.

SanDisk is now SANDISK. It’s also now Sandisk. The company is announcing a fresh rebranding this week with a new logo that drops the inter-capped styling it’s generally maintained since 1995 with one that is inspired by “a single point of data” or a “pixel.”

In a new video, Sandisk says its “slab serif is back and bolder” and it maintains its open “D” letter, but pairs it with a new “pixel-driven S.” The company says the letters symbolize “the collaboration and partnership required to actualize our purpose and tap into new possibilities.”

As noted in a report by Fast Company, the Sandisk rebranding comes ahead of a spinoff from its parent company Western Digital planned for next year (it was originally planned for this year). Western Digital had originally acquired Sandisk back in 2016.

Last year, Western Digital was embroiled in controversy surrounding the popular, pricey portable SanDisk Extreme SSD, in which publications reported that the product would wipe owners’ data erroneously. It happened to our supervising producer Vjeran Pavic, and Western Digital refused to answer our questions at the time to explain what was happening.

Controversy aside, we’re big fans of “unfinished” logo styles here at The Verge, and it looks like Sandisk did alright with its rebrand. It certainly could do worse -- just look at PayPal, Kia, Paramount. or JaGUar.

GM is partnering with ChargePoint to build out a new EV charging network under the GM Energy brand, the companies announced today.

GM plans to install up to 500 DC fast-charging ports at stations deployed in “strategic” places across the US, with some equipped with ChargePoint’s Express Plus platform that supports charge speeds up to 500kW. GM and Chargepoint plan to open the stations “rapidly, with the locations deployed by the end of 2025.”

ChargePoint will bring its Omni Port charging hardware for the project, which can connect with vehicles fitted with either CCS or Tesla’s NACS ports so that owners generally would not need to carry an adapter.

“With ultra-fast charging, Omni Port technology, and excellent customer experiences, this collaboration should be another reason why EV drivers and the EV-curious should be excited,” GM Energy VP Wade Sheffer said in a statement.

This isn’t GM Energy’s only EV charger partnership. The automaker also has an ongoing deal with EVgo that has already installed 2,000 DC fast chargers as of December. GM is also building stations with Flying J and Pilot truck stops, while also taking a role in the EV charging consortium Ionna with major players like Hyundai, Kia, BMW, and Stellantis.

Ram brand owner Stellantis is delaying its long-awaited all-electric Ram 1500 Rev pickup truck from the first half of 2025 to 2026. The automaker is now prioritizing the launch of its gas-extended hybrid Ramcharger truck, which is also being delayed beyond the first half of 2025 that it originally targeted.

Stellantis says launching the Ramcharger first is a decision “driven by overwhelming consumer interest” and a slowdown in demand for heavy all-electric models. Stellantis’ CEO Carlos Tavares, stepped down earlier this month following a sharp decline in the automaker’s sales. The company has been accused of degrading its US brands and failing to release more affordable models.

The Ramcharger and the Rev are both built on Stellantis’ STLA Frame body-on-frame platform designed to handle electric, gas, hybrid, and hydrogen powertrains. The platform helps stretch the Ramcharger gas-extended EV range up to 690 miles on a full charge and tank.

Stellantis and battery partner Samsung SDI just secured a federal loan from the Biden administration to build domestic EV batteries.

Following the beta launch of Apple Maps on the web in July, Apple has now recently added Look Around street-level views for several cities to the site, 9to5Mac reports. You can activate Look Around as you would in the Apple Maps app on devices like the iPhone or iPad by selecting the binoculars icon on the bottom left of the map window. You can then click and drag on the map to see different first-person perspectives in many big cities.

At launch, the Apple Maps web beta included basic functionality like searching for points of interest, seeing ratings, browsing area Guides, and getting directions. With Look Around, the web version inches closer to matching functionality with the Apple Maps app on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS — albeit without personalization features such as searching addresses from your contacts or saving locations to your Library.

Personally, I use the Apple Maps app on my Mac more often than any other mapping software, and I often find Apple’s Look Around to be a smoother experience than Google’s Street View. However, I sometimes also have to switch to Google Maps anyway since Apple doesn’t support Look Around for my hometown of Baltimore, MD — even though I spotted an Apple Maps van in the city all the way back in 2017.

You can see the full list of cities where you can use Look Around on Apple’s website.

Japanese automakers Honda and Nissan are in talks to merge to better compete with electric vehicle manufacturers like Tesla, BYD, and others. As reported by Nikkei Asia, the two have discussed signing a memorandum of understanding that outlines plans to split equity into a new holding company from which both will do business, according to anonymous sources.

Both Honda and Nissan are also discussing a plan to pull Mitsubishi into the party, which would be akin to how various Japanese electronics brands banded together — such as Konica Minolta, JVCKenwood, and others. Honda and Nissan were already working together to develop EV technology and software and had invited Mitsubishi to that party as well.

Of the two companies, it’s Nissan that’s really in trouble and reportedly will only survive another year unless another company (Honda) swoops in to buy Nissan shares. According the Reuters, Nissan’s net earnings in the middle of 2024 were down more than 90 percent year over year, and it had to cut its annual operating profit forecast by nearly 70 percent. Nissan and Honda relased statements to Reuters saying:

As announced in March of this year, Honda and Nissan are exploring various possibilities for future collaboration, leveraging each other’s strengths.

EV market growth has slowed worldwide, but Chinese brands are outpacing US, European, and Japanese manufacturers. According to Bloomberg, Japanese automakers are losing big market share in east and southeast Asia from China to Indonesia.

Honda is preparing to launch its new Honda Zero EV platform next year and is finding some success in the US with its GM-based electric Prologue SUV. Meanwhile Nissan had fumbled its early pioneering lead with the 2011 Leaf and has only released one other EV, the Ariya.

Both companies, along with domestic competitor Toyota, have added more hybrid models than full EVs to their product roadmaps. This year Nissan said it would have 16 “electrified” models by 2026, and Honda is looking to launch a really cool hybrid Prelude sports coupe next year.

Police in Serbia are using mobile device hacking tools to break into the phones of activists and journalists and then installing spyware to track them, Amnesty International warns in a report. The organization says the state uses tools built by Israeli company Cellebrite, which are intended to help law enforcement unlock devices for forensic purposes.

Amnesty International calls for the Serbian government to end these surveillance practices:

Serbian authorities must stop using highly invasive spyware and provide effective remedy to victims of unlawful targeted surveillance and hold those responsible for the violations to account. Cellebrite and other digital forensic companies also must conduct adequate due diligence to ensure that their products are not used in a way which contributes to human rights abuses.

Amnesty International gathered various accounts of Serbian authorities processing the phones of civil society members, who were detained under various premises, with additional procedures (such as drug testing and psych evaluations) that added extra time to the length of detention, and therefore the total amount of time the authorities had access to their phones. During this time, police would plant “Novispy” — a spyware program that is likely state-developed — on their phones. Some devices were broken into using a (since-patched) Qualcomm vulnerability, Amnesty International explains in the document.

One case reported by 404 Media mentions Serbian news outlet FAR’s deputy editor, Slaviša Milanov, and the editor-in-chief were driving together when they were stopped by Serbian authorities, who detained them and confiscated their phones. When the phones were returned, they noticed changes, like data and Wi-Fi being toggled off and apps using a lot of energy.

Milanov says his Android device, a Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S, was running extra software when he got it back and that the police had extracted 1.6GB of data even though he had not given up his password.

Cellebrite senior director Victor Cooper responded to questions from Amnesty International, saying the company’s products “are licensed strictly for lawful use” that requires a warrant or a legally-sanctioned investigation per the end user agreement. Cooper also told 404 Media that Cellebrite is investigating the “alleged misuse” of their technology and is “prepared to impose appropriate sanctions” with any relevant agencies.

T-Mobile is letting customers sign up to be the first to test its upcoming Starlink satellite direct-cell service, which promises to fill in 500,000 square miles of terrestrial cell tower dead zones in the US. The company created a new registration page where people can sign up for free, and testing will begin “early next year.”

The T-Mobile Starlink beta program is open to all post-paid customers with “compatible” satellite phones, although the company hasn’t shared a complete list of which devices will work. To start, registered beta testers will only get to try out satellite texting, with voice calls and data coming later.

The FCC handed T-Mobile and satellite partner SpaceX approval last month to allow satellite-to-service for customers, although not with the higher radio emission power needed for real-time voice and video calls. In August, Verizon and AT&T raised concerns that a fully realized T-Mobile service could interfere with their competing satellite services.

T-Mobile tested direct-to-cell emergency alerts in September, and in October, SpaceX turned on satellite text messaging to T-Mobile customers in areas affected by Hurricane Helene and Milton.

We’ve already seen our fair share of bad Apple Intelligence-summarized notifications, but now that the feature is live in the UK, the BBC isn’t finding it so funny. The summarized notification mucked up a BBC headline about the UnitedHealthcare shooting suspect, falsely suggesting the network reported that Luigi Mangione shot himself.

In a report about the notification, a spokesperson for the network says it contacted Apple “to raise this concern and fix the problem.”

Screenshot: BBC

Only the first part of the summarized BBC news notification is incorrect, as it accurately references two other stories about Bashar Al-Assad and a raid on the president of South Korea’s office. As noted by 9to5Mac, the BBC report didn’t specify the original text of the notification or which article it was in reference to.

Other examples of the AI summaries missing the mark that we’ve seen have turned “that hike almost killed me” into “attempted suicide” or a Ring camera appearing to report that people are surrounding someone’s home.

If you’re getting too many summaries on your iPhone that don’t make sense, you can change the list of apps your iPhone summarizes with Apple Intelligence by going to Settings > Notifications > Summarize Notifications or even choose to turn off the feature entirely.

After next season, Max will no longer be the place to watch new episodes of beloved children's show Sesame Street first, The Hollywood Reporter reports. Platform owner Warner Bros. Discovery has decided not to renew its HBO and Max deal with producer Sesame Workshop, which means new episodes of the series will need to find a new home.

Sesame Street is one of several shows for children on Max, but I find that other streaming services such as Disney Plus, Netflix, and even YouTube Kids have more content for parents to play for kids. According to THR, ending its deal for new Sesame Street episodes is part of a change in strategy to focus on adult and broader family content, such as the upcoming Harry Potter series for 2026.

The company is still going to keep current episodes streaming through 2027. Last year, Sesame Workshop executive Kay Wilson Stalling told The Hollywood Reporter that the upcoming 56th season (season 55 will be available on Max starting next month) would be a “reimagining” of the show with longer narrative segments and more sophisticated stories.

Sesame Street moved over to HBO in 2016, where new episodes aired before eventually making their way to PBS for free viewing months later. At the time, you could watch the show on demand via the long-gone HBO Go and HBO Now apps, and when Max launched, it picked up the timed-exclusive streaming deal. But a few years removed from investing heavily in kids’ programming and dropping the “HBO” from Max to become more welcoming as a service parents are comfortable with their kids using, now Warner Bros. Discovery is moving forward with a very different plan.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is warning Americans about “game-like online job scams” that get people to perform tasks with the promise of a continuous income stream — only to be duped into giving money to the scammer. The FTC says in the first six months of this year, these “task scams” have raked in over $220 million from victims, often in the form of cryptocurrency. It’s accounted for about 40 percent of all scam reports in 2024.

There were 20,000 reports of task scams in the first half of 2024, a sharp increase from only 5,000 from 2020-2023.

These scams often start with a WhatsApp or text message to a victim asking them to do tasks about “app optimization” or “product boosting.” Sometimes, the scammers initially pay small amounts of money to seem trustworthy. Afterward, they convince victims to pay into some tasks with the promise of a larger payout, and then the scammers run away with the money.

Image: FTC

These are the three tips the FTC listed to avoid getting scammed:

Ignore generic and unexpected texts or WhatsApp messages about jobs. Real employers will never contact you that way.

Never pay anyone to get paid. Someone telling you to pay money to get the money you have supposedly earned is a sure sign of a scam. No legit business would ever do that.

Don’t trust anyone who says they’ll pay you to rate or “like” things online. That’s illegal and no honest company will do it.

Apple’s rumored combo Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chip might be introduced with some of the company’s home products in 2025, including a new HomePod Mini and Apple TV, reports Mark Gurman for Bloomberg.

Apple’s new chip, codenamed “Proxima,” is meant to be a major transitional change for the company’s devices that reduces reliance on Broadcom, which makes Bluetooth and Wi-Fi components for various devices in Apple’s lineup. Sources speaking to Gurman say the chips have been in development for several years and will be produced by TSMC — the same manufacturer that makes Apple Silicon chips.

Gurman didn’t specify when the new HomePod Mini and Apple TV might debut next year. The Proxima chip could also appear in iPhones later in 2025 and in the iPad and Mac in 2026, Gurman says.

Apple is also working on a standalone security camera, Gurman says. Gurman has previously reported that the company is gearing up to introduce a wall-mounted smart display for controlling your smart home next year as part of a bigger push into the home.

Toyota revealed its latest all-electric vehicle today as the Urban Cruiser compact SUV. The EV, which will be fully revealed at the Brussels Motor Show next month, is intended for the European market, first coming to the UK in the third quarter of 2025.

Toyota says the wheelbase is only about 5 inches longer than the European-only Yaris Cross, making it another fun-sized electric EV slated for the continent like the recently revealed Ford Puma Gen-E or Hyundai Inster.

The Urban Cruiser has clear design inspiration from last year's Urban SUV concept. It also shares its new EV platform built in conjunction with Suzuki, which announced its made-in-India E Vitara SUV last month. Toyota’s other EV, the bZ4X, also shares its EV platform with another automaker, Subaru, which has the Solterra EV.

Image: Toyota

Toyota’s Urban Cruiser has nearly match-for-match specs as the E Vitara, including a relatively small 49 kWh battery with an FWD drivetrain and a 61 kWh battery with an option for AWD.

Toyota says power output can get as high as 135kW in the AWD version (with 40kW on the rear axel for “stable and secure performance on loose and slippery surfaces”) and up to 300 Nm of torque. While the official range is not announced, it’ll likely match the E Vitara’s expected 248 miles on a single charge.

Additionally, the Urban Cruiser has downhill assist and trail modes for added control, and the FWD model includes a snow mode. All models come with a heat pump and include the ability to manually start preconditioning the battery to prepare for a DC fast charging session.

Toyota has been slower in building and adopting EVs than other legacy manufacturers. The automaker has been focused on its outstanding hybrid technology as well as hydrogen vehicles.

But the automaker isn’t done with EVs — it’s planning to have 15 EVs, including six models on a next-gen shared platform by 2026, and it just invested nearly another $1 billion in Kentucky for a paint facility to prepare for a three-row electric SUV for the US.

Hyundai and Kia will integrate Google Maps data into their current vehicle infotainment platforms ahead of a switchover to the Android Automotive operating system, the automakers announced today.

Hyundai, Kia, and the luxury nameplate Genesis will use Google Maps Platform’s Places API to inject 250 million points of interest into the existing navigation software. Kia will be the first to get the new data integration in North America, with “subsequent expansions” to other Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis models globally. Hyundai says the changes are part of an ongoing Google partnership that accelerates their development of what the automaker calls “software-defined vehicles,” or SDV.

We asked Hyundai if current models on the road will get Google Maps data through a software update and will update this story when we get a response. The current navigation app for the companies primarily uses points of interest data from digital mapping company TomTom. Tesla is also one of several automakers that has its own navigation software on a closed OS but uses Places API for mapping data.

However, Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis will soon follow the industry-wide trend of moving to Google’s Android...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Krispy Kreme is currently dealing with a cybersecurity breach that has brought down parts of its online donut ordering service in the US. The company has been working to resolve the issue for over a week now after detecting unauthorized access to its systems on November 29th.

In a filing issued to the SEC on Wednesday, Krispy Kreme says it was “notified regarding unauthorized activity on a portion of its information technology systems” and pulled in “leading cybersecurity experts” for remediation.

The event took down Krispy Kreme’s consumer online ordering operations but it has not affected its commercial distribution business. However, the company says there’s “a material impact” on its business operations and that there will be significant financial implications stemming from the incident due to cybersecurity experts’ and advisers’ fees. Otherwise, Krispy Kreme says it has cybersecurity insurance and it does not expect “long-term material impact on its results of operations and financial condition.”

Krispy Kreme declined to comment on the cause of the cybersecurity incident. As speculated in a report by Bleeping Computer, the timeline may suggest the company is negotiating with possible threat actors so as not to leak internal data.

Lucid Motors began manufacturing its Gravity SUV last week, and now the EPA has finalized the vehicle’s all-electric range, which is 450 miles on a full charge. The new official estimate is slightly above the 440 miles originally advertised by Lucid. The company’s Air sedan can go up to 512 miles, depending on the trim.

Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson announced the updated Gravity range figure today via LinkedIn and also boasted that the vehicle only uses “half of earth’s precious resources compared to some competitors.”

Last week, Lucid had a ceremonious start of production at its Arizona factory to commemorate the first Gravity SUVs coming off the line. The Gravity features three rows of seating plus a frunk that’s good for storage or seating when parked. It is also the first vehicle from Lucid to get a native NACS port for charging at Tesla’s Superchargers.

With big range, however, comes big prices. Lucid started taking orders for the Gravity on November 7th, with initial configurations starting at $94,900 for the Grand Touring models. The cheaper $79,900 Touring versions won’t be available until late 2025. Lucid is also planning a cheaper midsized SUV for late 2026 that’ll cost around $50,000.

Spotify has officially shut down its Car Thing accessory that offered simple and slick control over music and playlists while driving, and it’s giving owners just over a month (January 14th) to reach out to the company and get a refund. The device started to display its final words early today as enthusiasts mourn the loss of the device on its dedicated subreddit.

The final message on the Car Thing reads:

Car Thing is discontinued and no longer operational. Thank you for being on this journey with us, safe travels. For more information, visit carthing.com. Contact customer service by no later than January 14th, 2025 to discuss your refund options.

Spotify announced in May that it intended the already discontinued devices would shut down in December, and now they have. The company also said, eventually, that it would work to issue refunds, but owners need to contact the company and provide proof of purchase to receive compensation.

For most users, the Spotify Car Thing is just another piece of e-waste humans will have to deal with later. The company recommends resetting it to factory settings and “safely disposing of your device following local electronic waste guidelines.”

However, tinkerers are finding new uses for the hardware: Car Thing can be hacked to run custom software that doesn’t require Spotify’s backend. As 9to5Google notes, it’s a bit underpowered to run full-on Android, but some projects like “Desk Thing” can repurpose them as a controller at your computer desk.

China is investigating Nvidia over antitrust violations, reportedly over claims the chipmaker failed to follow conditions set during China’s approval for its $6.9 billion acquisition of Israeli network hardware company Mellanox in 2020.

While announcing the DGX A100 GPU after acquiring Mellanox, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said this while explaining its importance to his company:

“If you take a look at the way modern data centers are architected, the workloads they have to do are more diverse than ever,” explains Huang. “Our approach going forward is not to just focus on the server itself but to think about the entire data center as a computing unit. Going forward I believe the world is going to think about data centers as a computing unit and we’re going to be thinking about data center-scale computing. No longer just personal computers or servers, but we’re going to be operating on the data center scale.”

Since then, the boom in demand for AI chips and servers has driven Nvidia’s value from under $200 billion to over $3 trillion in 2024, surpassing Microsoft, Apple, and Google.

According to Bloomberg, Chinese regulators say Nvidia failed to follow agreements to provide new Mellanox product information within 90 days to other chipmaking firms in the country to avoid a monopoly. At the same time, the US Justice Department is also investigating the company for monopolistic behavior.

The Biden administration also placed new sanctions on China last week to make it more difficult to produce advanced AI chips there, as it also restricts the capabilities of exports by companies like Nvidia. China retaliated with new limitations on key mineral exports to the US.

Microsoft’s first Copilot AI-ready Surface laptop arrived earlier this year, and now Windows Central reports that the rest of the lineup is due for a refresh in 2025.

According to the report, we can expect new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop computers — and we’ve already seen a possible prototype pop up in October — with Intel Lunar Lake chips, that will be Copilot Plus PCs with AI features, just like the current Snapdragon versions.

That would make them the first Intel-powered Surfaces with the label after Microsoft didn’t extend the label and those features to the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6. Those machines had Intel Metor Lake chips with NPUs that didn’t meet the necessary mark. The new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop are also expected to get anti-reflective screen coating, and the Laptop version might get a card reader and 5G options.

It also says the Surface Laptop Studio is due for an upgrade from the current model’s 13th-gen Intel chips that could use Intel or AMD. Whatever the case, I hope it will have better battery life than we saw in our review of the current model. Meanwhile, Microsoft confirmed to Windows Central that the Surface Studio 2 Plus all-in-one is g...

Read the full story at The Verge.