Earthblade, the next game from the developers of Celeste, has been canceled. The fantasy-inspired game got its first trailer in late 2022, and the game would have let you explore a “free-roaming, dynamically-loading map,” Extremely OK Games’ Maddy Thorson said at the time. But the team decided to cancel the game in December after a team conflict and because of the pressure of trying to follow up on Celeste, Thorson says in a post detailing what happened.

The “disagreement” was between Thorson and Noel Berry (Thorson refers to the two of them as “us”) and Pedro Medeiros over “the IP rights of Celeste,” Thorson says. “We eventually reached a resolution, but both parties also agreed in the end that we should go our separate ways,” and Medeiros is currently working on a game called Neverway. “Losing Pedro wasn’t the only factor in cancelling the game, but it did prompt us to take a serious look at whether fighting through to finish Earthblade was the right path forward,” Thorson says.

The huge success of Celeste also “applied pressure on us to deliver something bigger and better with Earthblade, and that pressure is a large part of why working on it has become so exhausting,” Thorson says. “Pedro isn’t to blame for this — in fact the split with him has given us the clarity to see that we have lost our way, and the opportunity to admit defeat.”

Thorson and Berry want to refocus on “smaller-scale projects” and are “prototyping again” to try and “rediscover game development in a manner closer to how we approached it at Celeste’s or TowerFall’s inception.”

Nvidia has posted a new video showcasing a history of Founders Edition graphics card designs that explores the design of its new RTX 5090 and confirms a previously leaked prototype that used an unconventionally large four-slot design.

As noted by VideoCardz, the prototype “Titan ADA” card first revealed by leaker Kopite7kimi included a triple-fan cooling system, and earlier this month, Gamers Nexus tested and tore down a working version of the prototype.

In the video published today, Nvidia’s EVP of system products, Andrew Bell, explains that Nvidia cards were trending larger and larger, and they wanted to change that. “We didn’t like the idea of it taking up four slots; it was big, it was unwieldy, it worked in a limited number of chassis,” Bell said.

Bell says that the prototype triple-fan cooling system influenced Nvidia’s Blackwell architecture. However, the latest RTX 5090 Founders Edition card that we are currently testing achieves its goals through a modular four-part design with a separate I/O board that allows air to flow through for a more efficient and compact cooler. According to Nvidia, these changes are why the new 5090 fits in two slots on the motherboard compared to the previous three-slot 4090.

The megapixel race isn’t over if you ask Canon. Today, the company announced a new 35mm full-frame CMOS sensor with a resolution of 410 megapixels. That’s 24,592 x 16,704 pixels and a resolution that’s equivalent to 24K — or 12 times the resolution of 8K and 198 times the resolution of HD.

It’s the ”largest number of pixels ever achieved in a 35mm full-frame sensor,” according to Canon, but don’t expect the company to introduce it on its consumer-ready digital cameras. It’s designed for surveillance, medicine, and other industrial “applications that demand extreme resolution,” and don’t mind paying a small fortune for it.

Thanks to a “redesigned circuitry pattern” and a newly developed “back-illuminated stacked formation in which the pixel segment and signal processing segment are interlayered,” Canon says the sensor has a readout speed of “3,280 megapixels per second,” allowing full-resolution images to be captured at eight frames per second.

Canon will also offer a monochrome version of the sensor with a “four-pixel binning” function that improves low-light sensitivity by treating four nearby pixels as one. Although that reduces its overall resolution, it allows the monochromatic version of the sensor to capture 100-megapixel videos at 24 frames per second.

If you want to maximize your megapixels, you typically need to turn to medium-format or larger sensors and bigger cameras. The Phase One XF IQ4 150MP, for example, can capture images at 150-megapixels. But by putting this much resolution into a 35mm sensor that will be compatible with a wide range of lenses already available for full-frame cameras, Canon says it will help “contribute to the miniaturization of shooting equipment.”

One of the most important changes in Samsung’s new phones is a simple one: when you long-press the side button on your phone, instead of activating Samsung’s own Bixby assistant by default, you’ll get Google Gemini.

This is probably a good thing. Bixby was never a very good virtual assistant — Samsung originally built it primarily as a way to more simply navigate device settings, not to get information from the internet. It has gotten better since and can now do standard assistant things like performing visual searches and setting timers, but it never managed to catch up to the likes of Alexa, Google Assistant, and now, even Siri. So, if you’re a Samsung user, this is good news! Your assistant is probably better now. (And if, for some unknown reason, you really do truly love Bixby, don’t worry: there’s still an app.)

The switch to Gemini is an even bigger deal for Google. Google was caught off guard a couple of years ago when ChatGPT launched but has caught up in a big way. According to recent reporting from The Wall Street Journal, CEO Sundar Pichai now believes Gemini has surpassed ChatGPT, and he wants Google to have 500 million users by the end of this year. It might just...

Read the full story at The Verge.

During its latest Unpacked event, Samsung dished all the details on the Galaxy S25 lineup. The Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus start at $799.99 and $999.99, respectively, while the S25 Ultra runs a cool $1299.99 in its entry-level configuration. You can preorder the phones ahead of their launch on February 7th, but before you do, you’re probably wondering what’s new.

The phones don’t look or feel much different, save for the slightly curvier Galaxy S25 Ultra. The Snapdragon Elite 8 is perhaps the S25 family’s most notable hardware upgrade, which is up to 40 percent faster than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and comes with a new neural processing unit to support Samsung’s expanded Galaxy AI experience. The company introduced multimodal and generative AI improvements, after all, and the Galaxy S25 line will be among the first to usher in new Google Gemini features.

Our reviews are still forthcoming, and it’s much too early for us to determine whether any of these phones are actually worth upgrading for. But that doesn’t mean we can’t distill their differences to help you determine which device you’d rather buy. Keep reading for a full breakdown of all of the hardware and software...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Samsung just teased the Galaxy S25 Edge — the new ultra-slim entry into the Galaxy S25 lineup. The phone isn’t out yet, and Samsung hasn’t provided any details, but now we know it’s real. And we have pictures.

Like pretty much every phone, it’s a thin silver slab. It’s got two cameras on the back, rather than the three cameras you’d get with other S25 phones. The Edge is rumored to measure just 6.4mm thick, but my colleagues Allison Johnson and Vjeran Pavic, who are on the ground at Galaxy Unpacked and took the below photos, weren’t able to actually hold or measure the device to confirm.

We’re trying to get closer so we can show perspective, but the place is mobbed with people. There’s a lot of excitement about this phone. By comparison, though, the regular Galaxy S25 is 7.2mm thick. So, it’s... even thinner.

Here are some of the pictures we took:

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Update, January 22nd: Added more photos.

Xbox has a new beta software update rolling out today for Insiders in the Alpha Skip-Ahead ring that enables Series X and S systems to support much larger external hard disks. Previously, the Xbox could only support up to 16TB of space on a single USB-connected drive.

With the new update, Xbox systems can now partition hard disks larger than 16TB into segments to use the full physical storage space. A single 24TB hard disk can now be formatted into multiple partitions (the largest still being 16TB) so you can archive more games, apps, and media than ever — if that’s something you’ve wanted to do.

However, if you have already been using a hard disk greater than 16TB with Xbox, the company says you’ll need to erase it first to take full advantage:

Drives greater than 16TB that have already been formatted will be unaffected by this change and would need to be reformatted to take advantage of the updated support for larger drives.

Although you still can’t play current generation games directly off an external drive, it can be useful to back up all of your installs anyway, or games made for older systems. You won’t need to redownload entire titles such as the 300GB-plus Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 using an internet connection when you feel like playing it again after a hiatus, unless they need an equally-sizable update.

Xbox is also releasing an update that enables new network quality indicators for cloud gaming sessions to tell you if your connection is slow and affecting your gameplay. They will appear in red bubbles on the upper right side of the screen, telling you what is happening, such as packet loss or increased ping, which can help you troubleshoot your connection.

One in 10 game developers lost their job in 2024. That’s according to the results of the annual Game Developers Conference state of the video game survey. The survey sampled over 3,000 developers and covered a number of topics including industry layoffs and what kind of games developers are working on.

Prolific layoffs have ravaged the industry over the last two years making the question of their impact on developers one of the most important in the survey. In addition to 10 percent of developers losing their jobs, 41 percent of respondents said they had been impacted by layoffs in some way, either by being laid off directly or seeing coworkers or colleagues in other departments let go. The survey also noted that the number of people impacted is potentially much higher because of the students and graduates who reported having a difficult time simply getting a job in the industry at all.

When asked what reason companies gave for layoffs, 22 percent said restructuring while 18 said declining revenue. 19 percent gave no reason at all. Developers, though, have their own ideas about why layoffs keep happening. In an analysis of responses to what developers think the reason behind layoffs is, the majority were general statements about the industry’s over-expansion during the pandemic. Companies acquired workers and studios in hopes of meeting a level of demand for games that dried up as covid restrictions loosened. However, some developers believe the reason for layoffs is much simpler. Companies like Microsoft and Sony still reported growing revenues despite multiple rounds of layoffs and studio closures. It’s no surprise then that 13 percent of respondents attributed layoffs to corporate greed.

In addition to layoffs, the last few years have also seen the failure of a number of high-profile, big-budget, live-service games. While there has been some success in that area with new games like Marvel Rivals, it’s generally tough to launch a live-service game that can compete with the overbearing likes of Fortnite, Roblox, and Call of Duty. 2024 was also the year that Balatro, Animal Well, and Astro Bot dominated headlines and award lists suggesting a greater appetite for those kinds of smaller-scoped, single-player experiences. It’s interesting, and perhaps concerning then, that according to the survey, over 30 percent of AAA developers are working on a live-service game.

When it asked developers their thoughts on live-service games the survey answered, “One of the biggest issues mentioned was market oversaturation, with many developers noting how tough it is to break through and build a sustainable player base.”

Dozens of popular subreddits are banning links to X after Elon Musk made a gesture that historians and human rights groups have described as a Nazi salute. Communities that have instituted a ban on links to X include r/formula1, r/military, r/nursing, r/TwoXChromosomes, and r/nintendo.

The shift is spreading across Reddit after neo-Nazis celebrated Musk’s speech at a rally on Monday for Donald Trump’s inauguration. During the speech, Musk twice raised his arm in a salute that historians, elected officials, and organizations that support Holocaust survivors have observed as a Nazi salute. During his speech, Musk places his hand on his chest and throws his arm forward at an angle, holding it mid-air for a few moments. “My heart goes out to you,” he says to supporters. Some supporters of Musk have defended him, saying the gesture went along with his words.

Musk has not disavowed the neo-Nazis reading his gesture as a Sieg Heil, and in fact has minimized criticism, writing on X that “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.” Musk has previously amplified racist, antisemitic conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement Theory and is constantly posting anti-immigrant claims not based in reality. After pouring millions of dollars into US politics to elect Trump, Musk has expanded to German politics as well, endorsing the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Regardless of Musk’s true intentions, extremists are thrilled: as Rolling Stone reported, white supremacists are calling it a “Donald Trump White Power moment” and thanking Musk for “hearing” them.

The subreddits that announced the new rule cover millions of users across geography and interests. Some subreddits have announced they will allow screenshots of content from X but not hyperlinks, and many other large communities like r/nba and r/nfl are discussing following suit. Even setting Musk’s right wing politics aside, viewing X links on Reddit isn’t a great experience: links often don’t unfurl and users need an X account to view the conversation on the platform.

“Reddit has a longstanding commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of association,” said a Reddit spokesperson who asked to remain anonymous citing the sensitivity of the subject. While individual subreddits are able to institute community rules, “Reddit Inc. has no ban on X links — there are still plenty of X links on Reddit,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.

X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Samsung has its Project Moohan headset on display at Galaxy Unpacked, and we’ve just taken a bunch of pictures of it.

This technically isn’t the first time we’ve seen Project Moohan, but it is the first time we’ve been allowed to photograph it. To me, it looks somewhat similar to Apple’s high-end Vision Pro headset with a hint of Meta’s discontinued Quest Pro.

The headset, which Samsung is developing in partnership with Google, runs Android XR, an OS designed specifically for headsets and smart glasses. My colleague Victoria Song got to try Project Moohan late last year, so if you want to know what it’s like to actually wear and use, go check out her impressions.

Samsung plans to launch Project Moohan for developers first, but it won’t be available right away for consumers.

Here are our photos from the event floor at Unpacked:

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Samsung finally took the wraps off its new Galaxy S25 lineup during its Unpacked event on Wednesday, providing us with our first formal look at the forthcoming Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra. Available starting on February 7th, you can already preorder the S25 starting at $799.99, the S25 Plus starting at $999.99, and the S25 Ultra starting at $1,299.99.

On the hardware front, Samsung’s latest phones represent a relatively minor refresh over last year’s S24 series. The new Galaxy S25 phones are all “Qi2 Ready,” meaning they charge at up to 15W on a Qi2 charger using Samsung’s magnetic Qi2 Ready cases. Each phone also features 12GB of RAM by default, along with more processing power thanks to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip.

The new Qualcomm chipset supposedly allows for smarter and occasionally faster AI tools, which, as we noted in our brief hands-on time with the S25 and S25 Plus, are the real changes here. The onboard AI assistant is now based on Google Gemini by default and can control your phone with natural language requests. Other AI features include a video editing tool that can erase distractions like music and wind, as well as daily AI-generated summaries that help you make better sense of your calendar and commute.

We’re still in the process of testing Samsung’s latest phones, but if you want to reserve one ahead of launch, here’s what you need to know.

Where to preorder the Galaxy S25

Starting at $799.99, the Galaxy S25 comes with 12GB of RAM and your choice of either 128GB or 256GB of storage, the latter of which costs $60 more. It’s available for preorder from Samsung, Amazon, and Best Buy in navy, light blue, mint, or silver. It’s also available in a few exclusive colors directly from Samsung, including black, red, and rose gold.

At 6.2 inches, the entry-level Galaxy S25 is the smallest phone in the S25 lineup. It’s lighter and thinner than last year’s S24, and, as mentioned before, it now comes with 12GB of RAM. Otherwise, it’s very similar to its predecessor, with a 120Hz refresh rate and the same 50-megapixel main shooter, a 12-megapixel ultrawide, and a 10-megapixel telephoto lens. It also features a 12-megapixel selfie camera on the front.

In terms of deals, Amazon is offering $100 in credit when you preorder the 128GB model for $799.99 or the 256GB model for $859.99. Samsung is also offering a $100 credit when you preorder the 128GB model for $799.99, along with a $50 discount when you buy the 256GB model for $809.99. Best Buy’s promo is similar to Samsung’s, with the retailer throwing in a $50 gift card when you buy the 128GB model for $799.99 or the 256GB model for $859.99.

Where to preorder the Galaxy S25 Plus

The 256GB S25 Plus runs $999.99 and comes with 12GB of RAM, though you can also buy it with 512GB of storage for $1,119.99. Like the S25, it’s available for preorder from Samsung, Amazon, and Best Buy in navy, light blue, mint, and silver. If you purchase directly from Samsung, you can also grab it in black, red, or rose gold.

The main difference between the S25 and S25 Plus is that the larger model comes with more storage options and sports a 6.7-inch 120Hz display. It also packs a bigger battery than the S25 (4,900mAh versus 4,000mAh), though it remains to be seen if that translates to longer battery life given the larger display on the S25 Plus. Otherwise, it’s similar to the Galaxy S25 in that it features an identical camera system, IP68 dust and water resistance, and plenty of AI-powered features.

If you’re looking for a deal, Amazon is offering a $100 gift card when you preorder the 256GB model for $999.99 or the 512GB model for $1,119.99. Samsung is also offering $150 in credit when you preorder the 256GB model for $999.99 or $50 in credit when you buy the 512GB model for $1,019.99. Lastly, Best Buy is throwing in a $100 gift card when you preorder the 256GB model or the 512GB model at full price.

Where to preorder the Galaxy S25 Ultra

The S25 Ultra comes with 12GB of RAM and retails for $1,299.99 in the 256GB configuration, $1,419.99 in the 512GB configuration, and $1,659.99 in the 1TB variant. The Ultra is available for preorder from Amazon, Best Buy, and Samsung in blue, silver, gray, or black. (The latter retailer is also selling it in a few exclusive colors, such as rose gold and green.)

At 6.9 inches, the redesigned Galaxy S25 Ultra sports a larger display than both the S25 and S25 Plus. It also comes with an S Pen stylus as well as an upgraded camera array that features two telephoto cameras and an improved 50-megapixel ultrawide sensor. You also get more storage options and a more durable titanium build, the latter of which features rounded edges for greater comfort.

In terms of promotions, Amazon is offering a $200 gift card when you preorder the 256GB model for $1,299.99 or the 512GB model for $1,419.99. Samsung is also throwing in a $150 credit when you preorder the 256GB model for $1,299.99, a $130 credit when you preorder the 512GB model for $1,299.99 ($120 off), or a $110 credit when you buy the 1TB model for $1,419.99 ($240 off). In addition, Best Buy is throwing in a $200 gift card when you preorder the 256GB model for $1,299.99, the 512GB model for $1,419.99, or the 1TB model for $1,659.99.

Carrier offers and promotions

• Verizon is currently offering the Galaxy S25 or S25 Plus for free when you trade in an eligible phone or $1,000 off the Galaxy S25 Ultra with a qualifying trade-in. The carrier is also throwing in a free Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 or Galaxy Tab S9 FE. You’ll have to sign up for the Unlimited Ultimate plan to take advantage of Verizon’s ongoing promos, though, which will be administered as trade-in credits over the span of 36 months.
• You can get the Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, or S25 Ultra for free from AT&T when you trade in an eligible device and sign up for an eligible unlimited plan. (The discount will be administered as monthly bill credits.) You can also add a Galaxy Watch FE or Galaxy Tab A9 Plus for 99 cents a month if you activate a new line for either, which will be administrated as monthly credits over 36 months. Additionally, AT&T is offering a 50 percent discount on eligible Samsung accessories when you buy select Samsung-connected devices.
• T-Mobile is offering an assortment of Galaxy S25 promos, all of which are administered as monthly bill credits over the span of 24 months. For instance, you can get the S25 Plus for free or up to $1,000 off the S25 Ultra when you trade in an eligible device in any condition on T-Mobile’s Go5G Next data plan or in working condition on the Go5G Plus plan. You can also get the Galaxy S25 for free when you add a line on Go5G Next or Go5G Plus plans or trade in an eligible device in working condition and add a line on Go5G or most plans.

Update, January 22nd: Added carrier deals from Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile.

Related:

Will cracked screens actually become a thing of the past this decade? We’re definitely on an impressive trajectory! Just two years after Samsung’s Galaxy S23 adopted a new Corning Gorilla Glass that can survive waist-high drops of one meter directly onto concrete, the new Samsung S25 Ultra has a ceramic version that can apparently survive head-high drops of 2.2 meters (7.2 feet).

It’s called Corning Gorilla Armor 2, and you should know that neither Samsung nor Corning is promising that your actual phone will survive such a drop — if it’s anything like the 2023 claim, the 2.2-meter drop is simply what a phone-sized, weighted “puck” was able to survive when dropped face down in the lab. All Samsung said onstage today is that the material is better able to resist damage.

But that’s still over twice the height Corning and Samsung touted two generations ago, and the company impressively claims it was able to achieve that without compromising the scratch resistance of the glass — something that Corning has occasionally had to compromise in the past, as developing new forms of glass can come with tradeoffs between different kinds of protection. The new Armor 2 apparently has the same scratch protection as before, with “over four times more scratch resistance than competitive lithium-aluminosilicate cover glasses with an anti-reflective coating,” according to the companies.

And Corning and Samsung say the glass will still “dramatically” cut down on reflections like last year’s Gorilla Armor, a claim we found held up in our Samsung phone testing.

But, like last year, Samsung’s only promising to offer the best glass on its high-end Ultra model, which starts at $1,299, and it’s important to remember that any number of factors can cause a glass screen to crack sooner than you might like. If it lands on a slightly pointier protrusion than tested in the lab, or if the glass has already been slightly scratched, it could break when dropped from a lower height.

Corning has also provided a form of ceramic glass to Apple for its iPhones since 2020 — it calls that product “Ceramic Shield.”

Related:

Samsung just teased the Galaxy S25 Edge at the end of its Unpacked event, where it announced its Galaxy S25 lineup. It didn’t offer any details beyond the quick naming of the phone.

Below are some screenshots from Samsung’s presentation. It was brief, but it’s a phone, alright.

The Galaxy S25 Edge will come to the US, according to Android Authority, which cited a Samsung South Africa representative.

The outlet quotes the representative:

So, we will have the Ultra, the Plus, the base model. That’ll be South Africa. There is a Slim model, not initially available here. It’ll be available in select markets.

They added:

What will be announced has not finally been decided yet. But certainly US, Korea will be announced (sic). And then that model might be available as a second (wave) launch.

Like Apple’s rumored iPhone Air, the Galaxy S25 Edge is expected to be a super-skinny version of Samsung’s flagship line, measuring 6.4mm thick, according to recent rumors. That makes it thinner than the company’s other Galaxy phones. Rumors had pointed to three rear cameras, but that rumor doesn’t appear to have been accurate, now that we’ve seen it — the phone Samsung showed today only appears to have two on the back.

Rumors suggest that the phone will be released as soon as May.

A Samsung representative told The Verge the company had nothing further to share other than the tease at Unpacked.

Netflix’s big bet on live events is paying off. New data published by the analytics firm Antenna indicates that Netflix added 1.43 million subscribers in the days surrounding the Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul boxing match, while 656,000 members signed up around its NFL Christmas Day games.

Those numbers may seem small in a sea of Netflix’s more than 300 million global subscribers, but the streamer has consistently maintained around 50,000 to 70,000 signups per day since it began its password-sharing crackdown in 2023, according to Antenna.

Image: Antenna

Netflix highlighted its record viewership for live events in a letter to investors on Tuesday, noting that it will focus on airing “can’t-miss, special event programming” rather than regular season sports programming.

“Although our live programming will likely be a small percentage of our total view hours and content expense, we think the eventized nature will result in outsized value to both our members and our business,” Netflix said. The company also raised prices across all of its subscriptions as it continues to “invest in programming and deliver more value.”

Aside from Netflix, Paramount Plus drew in the most subscribers around last year’s Super Bowl LVII, with Antenna’s data showing a 3.2 million spike in signups surrounding the big game. Peacock also saw notable growth when it aired its NFL AFC Wild Card Game and in the first days of the Paris Summer Olympics.

Google worked with the Israeli military in the immediate aftermath of its ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, racing to beat out Amazon to provide AI services, according to company documents obtained by the Washington Post.

In the weeks after Hamas’s October 7th attack on Israel, employees at Google’s cloud division worked directly with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) — even as the company told both the public and its own employees that Google only worked with civilian government ministries, the documents reportedly show.

Weeks after the war began, an employee with Google’s cloud division escalated the IDF’s military’s requests for access to Google’s AI technology, according to the Post. In another document, an employee warned that Google needed to quickly respond to the military’s requests, or else Israel would turn to Amazon for its cloud computing needs. In a November 2023 document, an employee thanks a coworker for handling the IDF’s request. Months later, employees requested additional access to AI tools for the IDF.

Amid this, Google was punishing employees for protesting Project Nimbus, Israel’s $1.2 billion contract for Google and Amazon’s cloud computing services. Google fired 28 employees who staged sit-in protests at the company’s offices in New York and California, some of whom were also arrested during the demonstrations.

At the same time, Google denied that it was working with the Israeli military. “We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy,” Anna Kowalczyk, the external communications manager for Google Cloud, told The Verge in April 2024. “This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services,” Kowalczyk said.

Google did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

The EV tax credit is still alive and kicking — but for how long? 

Read the full story at The Verge.

Samsung and Google are partnering up to build AR glasses, Samsung’s TM Roh told Bloomberg. But there aren’t many other specifics beyond the fact that they’re in development — there’s not even a specific release timeline, with Roh telling the publication that Samsung and Google “will try to reach the quality and readiness we want as soon as possible.”

The announcement follows Meta’s splashy reveal of Orion, its first augmented reality glasses, last year. Those glasses won’t be sold to consumers, but my colleague Alex Heath called them an “impressive demo.”

The news of the Samsung- and Google-made AR glasses also follows the announcement of the Project Moohan mixed reality headset. The headset runs Android XR, which Google recently announced for headsets and smart glasses (and Bloomberg reports that the AR glasses will “eventually launch as part of the company’s efforts to co-develop the Android XR operating system”).

My colleague Victoria Song got to try the headset and the platform last year, and she described it as a “mix between a Meta Quest 3 and the Vision Pro”:

I’m walked through pinching to select items and how to tap the side to bring up the app launcher. There’s an eye calibration process that feels awfully similar to the Vision Pro’s. If I want, I can retreat into an immersive mode to watch YouTube and Google TV on a distant mountain. I can open apps, resize them, and place them at various points around the room. I’ve done this all before. This just happens to be Google-flavored.

At Unpacked, Samsung also revealed details about the Samsung Galaxy S25 lineup of phones, which includes the Galaxy S25, Galaxy S25 Plus, and Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Ahead of Mickey 17’s debut in a few weeks, Warner Bros. has dropped a new trailer that really makes the film’s vision of terraforming alien planets look like absolute hell — at least for the working class.

Everyone has an important role to play in Mickey 17’s take on a future where humanity is trying to colonize other worlds. But in the new trailer, it’s clear that Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) has no idea what he’s agreeing to when he signs up to be an “expendable” on a ship headed to the desolate ice planet Niflheim.

Mickey doesn’t think there’s anything strange about how, once they make it to Niflheim, his crewmates all stay on their ship while encouraging him to wander outside with his helmet off and take deep breaths of whatever viruses might be hanging out in the atmosphere. And he doesn’t even seem all that concerned once his little excursion seemingly leads to a lethal infection that involves coughing up a lot of blood. It’s awful, but it’s also what Mickey’s colleagues expect for him because it’s his job to be a guinea pig who dies over and over again before being cloned by way of a 3D printer.

Though the new trailer gets increasingly more gruesome, it also leans into the movie’s humor as it spells out how messed-up of a situation Mickey has wandered into. And when Mickey 17 hits theaters on March 7th, it’ll probably leave us all reminded of why it’s important to always read your labor contracts.

Samsung announced today that its connected appliances and smart home devices will soon be able to act as motion and sound sensors for its smart home platform SmartThings. This includes its televisions, Music Frame speaker, Family Hub fridge, and more. The company said the updates are slated for release in 2025 and 2026 but didn’t provide specific timelines.

The move is part of its vision of “AI for All,” using AI to simplify technology in the home. By leveraging sensors in its appliances, Samsung’s new Home AI — an artificial intelligence layer that the company is applying to its connected devices — can gather “insights from everyday life to create personalized experiences to fit your needs, transforming your home into a smarter, more efficient space,” according to a Samsung blog post.

This ambient sensing will use motion and sound sensors in Samsung appliances to suggest automations and experiences based on wellness, security, energy savings, and entertainment. It will enable SmartThings to “recognize you and understand your daily activities like cooking, exercising, sleeping, etc., so your home can create the perfect environment for you,” according to Samsung.

Image: Samsung

While that sounds slightly creepy, there are certainly benefits to having sensors built into devices to make your home react the way you want it to — the simplest being automating your lighting. The alternative to achieving any real home automation is to stick little white plastic sensors everywhere. Samsung says the data from its sensors will be fed to Home AI to create more sophisticated automations that can detect and respond to specific activities.

For example, Samsung says motion sensors in a Samsung TV can “detect what kind of exercise you’re doing, guide you on your form, and provide the optimal exercise time for maximum results.” If you sit down in a chair, SmartThings can automatically turn on the nearby reading lamp and adjust the room to your preferred temperature. Samsung says it can also “identify your miniature pinscher jumping onto the couch, activating the air purifier to remove allergens from the air.” And if you’re drying your hair, a device with a speaker, like the Samsung Music Frame, can hear the hair dryer and tell the Samsung robot vacuum to come vacuum up the hair you’ve shed.

Presumably, these “experiences” will be ones you can choose to set up in the SmartThings app, and the robot vacuum isn’t just going to come at you as soon as you start drying your hair. Samsung says that all data from the sensors used by Home AI is stored locally on your SmartThings hub and does not go to the cloud.

Samsung didn’t state exactly what type of technology it’s using in its sensors, but from the specific motion detections mentioned, it’s likely to be mmWave radar sensing, which is becoming popular in the smart home in devices from Aqara and Meross. That’s the only sensing technology outside of cameras that’s precise enough to react to specific movements rather than just motion in general.

The Verge has reached out to Samsung to find out which of its TVs and appliances are currently equipped with these ambient sensors. We also asked if third-party sensors connected to SmartThings can work with the new technology or if it’s limited to Samsung devices at launch. We’ll update this post as we get any new information.

Image: Samsung

Samsung also announced updates to its Map View feature, a layout view of your home that gives you a visual interface to interact with connected devices from your phone, computer, and TV. Map View will get a generative AI upgrade that Samsung says will give it “a deeper understanding of your home’s unique layout and environment, adding more personalization to your Map View.”

You’ll be able to personalize your map by adding photos of your furniture and other objects, and Samsung says this will help the system respond to your presence more accurately. “For example, the system might adjust your lighting or temperature settings based on your proximity to certain areas or objects.”

All of these updates address a major pain point of the smart home — context. If we want our homes to respond to us without the need for voice commands or pulling out an app, they need data about our activities, movements, and preferences. Beyond having a user input everything manually, sensors are the most effective way to get this data. By turning its appliances into sensors, Samsung is adding a big piece of the smart home puzzle to its ecosystem.

Google’s AI assistant Gemini is now able to carry out tasks across multiple apps in a single interaction, in an update announced today alongside the launch of Samsung’s new Galaxy S25 series. Those phones are also Samsung’s first to feature Gemini as the default on-device assistant, relegating Bixby to the app drawer. Those changes are part of a raft of other updates from Google including improvements to the AI-powered Circle to Search.

With today’s update, Gemini is able to carry out more complex multimodal tasks. You might ask it to find a dog-friendly Italian restaurant and send it to your friend, or pull up your NFL team’s upcoming games and add them to your calendar, all in a single prompt.

Source: Google

The multi-app support is built on top of Gemini’s existing app extensions, which cover a spread of Google apps and limited third-party options including WhatsApp and Spotify. Today’s update adds Samsung’s own apps to that list for S25 users — including Samsung Calendar, Notes, Reminder, and Clock — but other multi-extension prompts are available now to all Gemini users across the web, Android, and iOS.

Source: Google

Gemini Live, the assistant’s voice-based conversational mode, is also getting an upgrade, though this one is currently limited to the Galaxy S25 and S24 phones and Google’s own Pixel 9 series. Owners of those devices will be able to share images, files, and YouTube videos to the chat interface, asking Gemini for feedback and information. Google also says that Project Astra features like screen sharing and live video streaming will come to Gemini on Android in the coming months.

With all those upgrades in tow, Samsung has made Gemini the default virtual assistant on the new S25 phones, finally replacing its own Bixby assistant. You can still access Bixby on the phones — the app is preinstalled — but by default, long-pressing the power button will now open up Gemini instead.

Circle to Search is getting improvements, too. It will be able to automatically recognize phone numbers, email addresses, and URLs so you can interact with them more easily. The AI Overviews in search results have also been expanded to work with more kinds of visual search results, increasing the probability that using Circle to Search on an image of a place, artwork, or object will generate an AI Overview in the results.

Finally, Google also announced changes that should make it easier to pair braille screen readers and hearing aids to Android devices.

Google announced the new features alongside Samsung’s launch of the Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra at Galaxy Unpacked today. Two hours earlier, the companies revealed a new Galaxy Watch for Kids mode on Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 LTE. It adds kid-friendly apps and watchfaces plus improved parental controls.