A new teaser trailer for Science Saruâs The Ghost in the Shell anime series has been announced on the official Ghost in the Shell website in a post spotted by Anime News Network. The post also revealed some of the staff heading up the series, which includes people whoâve worked on other shows from the animation studio, including Scott Pilgrim Takes Off and Dandadan, both of which have made their way to the US via Netflix.
The Ghost in the Shell is being directed by Moko-chan (Dandadan), with other staff including scriptwriter EnJoe Toh (Godzilla Singular Point) and character designer / animation director Shuhei Handa (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off), who illustrated the poster above. Itâs due out in 2026, but the announcement doesnât mention whether that includes a US Netflix re …
The creators of Halo and Destiny are finally ready to show off their next big project: Marathon. It’s a long-awaited title from Bungie and revives the classic Marathon IP in the form of a PvPvE extraction shooter. After a teaser nearly two years ago, the Sony-owned studio just spent an hour showing off Marathon gameplay and game mechanics and revealed the game will launch on September 23rd on PS5, Xbox Series S / X, and PC, with full cross-play and cross-save. There’s even an alpha test for fans to try out the game later this month, ahead of its full debut this year.
Marathon is set in a sci-fi universe in 2850, in the remains of Tau Ceti IV, which Bungie describes as a lost colony whose inhabitants disappeared without a trace. Rival factions have hired Runners to scavenge for what’s left behind, and anyone who signs up to be a Runner has given up their human form for a biosynthetic shell with unique abilities and stats.
As a Runner, you fight in a crew of up to three players across a variety of zones and points of interest. You can face rival runners in maps of up to 18 players, so up to six teams, in a bid to grab as much loot as possible and get out. While Marathon is designed to be played in crews, with contextual pings and shared objectives, you can also play solo instead of having to form a dedicated three-person team.
In Marathon runs, there will be what Bungie calls security forces, PvE enemies that roam the world. There are also creatures on these planets that are a threat when you’re navigating toward points on a map. You’ll have to choose whether it’s worth engaging with these enemies and risk revealing your location to rival teams or use a strategy of avoiding these threats in this PvPvE environment.
The maps are filled with bold and vibrant artwork and weapons, materials, and equipment that can be scavenged. Before a run, you build a loadout and select the Runner that fits your play style. In the alpha test, which starts on April 23rd, there will be four runners to choose from, including the stealthy Void character that can go invisible much like a Hunter from Destiny 2.
There’s also a Glitch runner that has fast-paced abilities and, like its name implies, can glitch out enemies. If you’re more of a run-and-gun type of player, Locus has a shield ability and looks similar to the slide and shotgun play of a Titan from Destiny 2. The final runner in the alpha test is Blackbird, designed for recon and scanning the area around you. While there are four runners in the alpha test, there will be six to choose from when Marathon launches in September.
During its livestream, Bungie published a nearly 20-minute video of highlights from 40 creators it says it recently invited to try the game.
If you die, you’ll drop your gear. But if you survive, your loot moves with you to future runs so you get more powerful gear and level up. Teammates can also revive you if you fail a mission.
Bungie isn’t putting a limit on team compositions, so that means everyone on a three-person team can select the same runner. There will be end-game challenges, ranked play, seasonal storytelling, community events, and more.
Bungie has even produced an original short cinematic that’s set in the Marathon universe. Written and directed by Alberto Mielgo (Love, Death, and Robots), this nearly nine-minute short will have Bungie fans poring over it for days to discover every little detail about the Marathon universe.
While Marathon is very slick-looking, there’s a lot riding on this game. It’s entering a crowded market of shooters and live-service games that have tried and failed to break through in recent years. Concord, also from a PlayStation studio, was the biggest example of a shooter that failed to take off recently, forcing Sony to take the game offline less than a month after launch and eventually shut down the studio behind it.
Spectre Divide, a Valorant-like free-to-play shooter, also shut down just months after its launch, with the developer behind the ambitious shooter shutting down, too. These high-profile failures add to the pressure that Marathon is already under on the back of Bungie’s success with Halo and Destiny and Sony’s ambitious live-service game effort that it has been scaling back recently.
The Marathon alpha test will be an opportunity for Bungie to show the world exactly how its latest game will stand out from the competition, and whether it does enough to tempt people away from hero shooters or Call of Duty and Fortnite into the extraction shooter genre that Escape from Tarkov has popularized.
The big question left for Bungie to answer is how much Marathon will cost. It’s not a free-to-play game, but the studio isn’t ready to talk about exact pricing just yet. Destiny 2 is technically free-to-play with an optional season pass, but a lot of additional content requires payment for access to raids, dungeons, and even some of the story content. It’s been a confusing model for new players over the years, so I’m hoping Bungie lands on a clear pricing structure for Marathon.
Marathon debuts on PS5, Xbox Series S / X, and PC on September 23rd. You can sign up for the Marathon closed alpha test on Bungie’s website or on Discord.
Rob McIlhenney and Charlotte Nicdao in Mythic Quest.
Mythic Quest, the Apple TV Plus comedy about a game studio, isnât getting a fifth season, reports Variety. And, like a developer issuing a farewell patch, Apple is updating the final episode of season four with a new âgoodbyeâ ending next week.
Variety published a statement from Mythic Questâs executive producers:
âEndings are hard. But after four incredible seasons, âMythic Questâ is coming to a close,â said series executive producers Megan Ganz, David Hornsby, and Rob McElhenney. âWeâre so proud of the show and the world we got to buildâand deeply grateful to every cast and crew member who poured their heart into it. To all our fans, thank you for playing with us. To our partners at Apple, thank you for believing in the vision from the very beginning. Because endings are hard, with Appleâs blessing we made one final update to our last episodeâso we could say goodbye, instead of just game over.â
The Trump administration has excluded “smartphones, computers, and other electronics,” even those imported from China, from tariffs it levied last week, reports Bloomberg. The exemptions don’t free them from all tariffs, though, as the outlet says others from before Trump’s April 9th tariffs still apply.
Late last night, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) updated its guidance to exempt smartphones, laptops, hard drives, computer processors, and memory chips from the 125 percent additional tariff Trump placed on Chinese goods and the base 10 percent global tariff on most other countries, according to Bloomberg. The same goes for the machines used by companies like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. to make semiconductors, the outlet writes.
After this story was published, Bloomberg updated its story to add that the White House published a memo “indicating that the exemptions also extend to changes in small-parcel shipping duties.” As the outlet notes, Trump’s tariff plans included getting rid of duty-free shipping on low-value packages. The President had tripled the rates for such packages in an executive order amendment published on Tuesday night.
Bloomberg also says in its updated story that products excluded in the CBP’s update are still subject to “a 20% duty applied to pressure Beijing to crack down on fentanyl, including the shipment of precursor materials,” as well as other tariffs, “including those that predate Trump’s current term.”
The news follows Trump’s decision to issue a “90-day pause” on higher tariff rates for most countries, while increasing the total rate for Chinese imports to 145 percent, the same day they went into effect.
It’s been expected that the tariffs — particularly those on China — would mean price hikes on the most popular tech products in the US. In some cases it already seemingly has, with Sony appearing to bake the tariffs into the US prices for its newest TVs and OnePlus raising the price of its new smartwatches without saying why.
Other companies have appeared reluctant to rock the boat while they wait for Trump’s chaotic trade war maneuvers to settle down. For instance, Nintendo delayed US preorders for the Switch 2 but has stayed committed to its $449.99 launch price, while Apple reportedly rushed to import 600 tons of iPhones from India before the tariffs went into effect this week.
Update April 12th: Updated with more details about the exclusions, which emerged after publication.
In December 2024, actor and fashion icon Julia Fox stepped out on the street with a flip-phone buckle strapped across her chest, wires on her nails, and an old Discman-turned-compact mirror hanging from her wrist.
Fox didnât start the retro-tech fashion trend. Celebrities and internet fashionistas were already wearing iPod Shuffle Minis as hair clips and wired headphones as necklaces. But Fox did make waves online, showing off the Y2K-inspired collaboration from French Canadian artist Gab Bois and refurbished electronics marketplace Back Market â and plugging the Right to Repair movement â on her Instagram.
Much of this fashion channels nostalgia over the nascent days of the digital age â both aesthetically and philosophically. Bois previously designed fine jewelry using sim cards, a camcorder clutch, and a Nintendo DS Lite makeup palette.
â[Tech] was clunkier, slower, but also more tactile and charming,â Bois says. âThere was this sense of optimism, too. Everything felt like a glimpse into the future.â
Younger millennials and Gen Z latching on â largely online â seem to be yearning for those simpler times. Digicams from mid-aughts have already made a …
I know, I know. Itâs become a bit of a faux pas to describe one game using another and yet I am compelled. After a few hours with Blue Prince, I realized this game elicits the same feelings in me as Balatro. Not because it has anything to do with cards or passive-aggressive clowns named Jimbo, but because those hours I played passed as breezily by completely unnoticed as they did when I was knee deep in the poker roguelike. Blue Prince is a time-stealer and as with Balatro, you will be happy to be robbed.
Blue Prince is an architectural puzzle mystery game from developer Dogubomb. In it you play as a young man who inherits his uncleâs magical mansion. On your first day at the house you receive a note laying out the rules by which you will earn your inheritance. This house has 45 rooms. Find the secret 46th room thatâs not displayed on any of the mansion’s blueprints (get it, Blue Prince / blueprints) and the house is yours.
To find the 46th room you must create or âdraftâ rooms one after the other connecting them via their doors. You start each day with 50 steps and passing into a room takes one step (or more depending on the type of room). When you run out of steps y …
For a while, it looked like President Donald Trump was going to have Big Techâs back.
Now, the tech industry is collateral damage in his global trade war.
On Thursday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyenfloated the idea of placing âa levy on the advertising revenues of digital servicesâ if tariff negotiations with the US go south. This would be the opposite outcome that tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg were hoping for when they threw their support behind the new administration.
To someone like Zuckerberg, Trump was supposed to be the strong-armed leader to bring the overbearing EU to heel. Instead, the rhetoric between the US and EU is ratcheting up just weeks before the EU is already set to fine Meta (and Apple) for violating its Digital Markets Act.
While certainly more of a self-inflicted wound, Elon Muskâs popularity in the US has âinverted as his support for President Trump has increased,â Nate Silver wrote this week. Teslaâs stock price, meanwhile. has lost over a third of its value this year, and, thanks to tariffs, the company has removed the option to buy new, US-made vehicles in China.
The new search engine will let users “look for shows using far more specific terms, including the subscriber’s mood, for example, the company said,” per the report. This OpenAI-powered search will also allow users to make queries that “go well beyond genres or actors’ names.”
The feature, which is opt in, is already available for some users to try in Australia and New Zealand on iOS.
Netflix spokesperson MoMo Zhou confirmed to The Verge that Bloomberg’s story is accurate. Zhou says that the test will expand to the US “in the coming weeks and months” and that there aren’t currently plans for the feature outside of iOS.
“It’s early days for the feature and we’re really in a learn and listen phase for this beta,” Zhou says.
OpenAI didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
In an interview on the Decoder podcast last year, The Verge’s editor-in-chief, Nilay Patel, asked Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters about how the company was thinking about AI. Here was part of his response:
We have a long history of using machine learning and artificial intelligence in our recommender systems. We’ve been doing that for 20-some years. Again, we think that our job is to be proactive about understanding where there’s technical innovation. How do we use that both to serve creators, allow them to tell their stories in more compelling ways, and also then to serve our members better user experiences?
Baldur’s Gate 3’s Patch 8, which brings changes like 12 new subclasses, crossplay, and a photo mode, launches on April 15th, developer Larian Studios announced on Friday.
The patch, set to be the game’s last major update, was originally announced in November 2024, so it’s been a long time coming (though Larian has been stress testing it ahead of the official launch).
The 12 new subclasses mean that each of the game’s main classes — Bard, Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Fighter, Monk, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock and Wizard — will be getting an additional subclass. You can see the full list of new subclasses in this November post from Larian.
With crossplay, you’ll be able to play multiplayer with your friends no matter what platform they’re on. And the game’s photo mode will offer features like different lens settings, scene settings, and even stickers.
Larian will also be hosting a Twitch stream about Patch 8 on April 16th at 9AM ET.
A new report from ProPublica published Thursday showed how the Louisiana government is using TIGER (Targeted Interventions to Greater Enhance Re-entry), a computer program developed by Louisiana State University to prevent recidivism, to approve or deny parole applications based on a score calculating their risk of returning to prison. Though the algorithm was initially designed to be used as a tool to help rehabilitate inmates by taking their background into account, a TIGER score – which uses data from an inmate’s time before prison, such as work history, criminal convictions, and age at first arrest – is now the sole measure of one’s eligibility.
In interviews, several prisoners revealed that their scheduled parole hearings had been abruptly canceled after their TIGER score determined that they were at “moderate risk” of returning to prison. There is no factor in a TIGER score that takes into account an inmate’s behavior in prison or attempts at rehab – a score that criminal justice activists argue penalizes one’s racial and demographic background. (According to current state Department of Corrections data, half of Louisiana’s prison population of roughly 13,000 would automatically fall in the moderate or high risk categories.)
One included Calvin Alexander, a 70-year-old partially blind man in a wheelchair, who had been in prison for 20 years, but had spent his time in drug rehab, anger management therapy, and professional skills development, and had a clean disciplinary record. “People in jail have … lost hope in being able to do anything to reduce their time,” he told ProPublica.
Parole via algorithm is not just legal in Louisiana, but a deliberate element in Republican Governor Jeff Landry’s crusade against parole. Last year, he signed a law eliminating parole for all prisoners who committed a crime after August 1st, 2024, making Louisiana the first state to eliminate parole in 24 years. A subsequent law decreed that currently-incarcerated prisoners would only be eligible for parole if the algorithm determined they were “low risk”.
YouTube is giving creators a new AI tool that can generate instrumental tracks to use in videos for free without worrying about copyright claims, TechCrunch reports. The new feature was demonstrated in a video posted on the company’s Creator Insider channel this week.
In the video, the host, Lauren, shows a new tab in the Creator Music beta section on YouTube called “Music assistant” where you can enter a prompt like “give me uplifting and motivational music for a workout montage.” The tool then generates several tracks you can review and download so you can add them to your video editor. Lauren says it’s gradually rolling Music assistant out for users who have access to Creator Music.
Music assistant is one of several AI music-generating tools out there. Companies like Stability AI have a diffusion model that can make background audio for projects, and Meta’s open-source AudioCraft and MusicGen models can synthesize sounds and media using prompts, too.
YouTube has also experimented with AI music in other ways. It built a music remixer that lets you “restyle” popular songs to add to your Shorts. And its Dream Track feature, powered by Lyria from Google’s DeepMind, lets you hum songs and turn them into music tracks in the style of participating artists like T-Pain.
The Doom plus Doom II Will It Run Edition, available in Switch, Xbox, PS5, and PC versions, will be available for preorder starting on Friday, April 18th, 2025 at 10:00AM ET. It’s being limited to just 666 units, naturally, at a price of $666.66. When asked if the steep but fitting price tag would be affected by tariffs, Alex Verrey, an LRG spokesperson, told The Verge in an email that “I do not believe there are any plans at this time to change the pricing due to tariffs.”
Although a $29.99 Standard Edition and a $99.99 Big Box Edition will also be available, the Will It Run Edition includes an assortment of extra games, levels, gameplay upgrades, and add-ons that could justify the expensive collection for Doom’s biggest fans. But it’s the other accessories that will be its biggest selling point.
In addition to the Doom-playing box, the Will It Run Edition includes four hours of the game’s soundtrack on four cassette tapes (despite audio CDs existing long before the original Doom launched), a three-inch Cacodemon figurine that floats atop a magnetic base, and a pack of random trading cards. But the pièce de résistance is a Doom-playing handheld shaped like a Cacodemon with several of its teeth doubling as controller buttons. Let’s hope LRG decides to sell that on its own one day.
On the games side of things, the Will It Run Edition includes Doom, Doom II, TNT: Evilution, The Plutonia Experiment, Master Levels for Doom II, No Rest for the Living, Sigil and Sigil II, a new Deathmatch pack with 25 maps, and Legacy of Rust which was released just last year. The games also feature enhancements such as alternate soundtracks, upgraded visuals, modern controller support with gyroscopic aiming, new accessibility options, and eight new translations including Korean, simplified and traditional Chinese, Portuguese, and Polish.
ChatGPT’s latest image generator had an explosive debut thanks to the viral Studio Ghibli art trend, and LinkedIn users have now jumped on a new gimmick: turning yourself into a toy.
There are several flavors of the trend being shared. The “AI Action Figure” variant appears to have gained the most traction, in which a person generates a plastic version of themselves in a blister pack, alongside various accessories — typically a laptop, a book, and a coffee cup, which is fitting given LinkedIn is largely driving this trend. Other versions try to specifically emulate recognizable branding, such as the “Barbie Box Challenge.”
While the trend started on LinkedIn, it’s since started to leak over to other social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. It hasn’t taken off to anywhere near the extent that the Ghibli art craze did, however, which is still outperforming every AI Barbie/action figure/doll term I could think of in Google’s Search rankings. The Ghibli art style trend also attracted some online backlash from creatives and fans of the animation studio over ethical, environmental, and copyright concerns, but that hasn’t popped up to the same extent — yet, at least — with this latest viral bandwagon.
The common theme across every AI-generated figurine is that ChatGPT is typically the only AI image generator mentioned. The text-to-image update was so popular at launch last month that OpenAI had to limit image generation and push back access to free ChatGPT accounts to prevent its servers from being overloaded. This action figure trend may be far smaller than the Ghibli images that preceded it, but it sets another precedent for ChatGPT being the AI service that lures in everyday joes.
Most of this new semi-viral trend is contained within LinkedIn, shared by marketers and wannabe thought leaders with very little engagement to show for it. A few notable brands like Mac Cosmetics and NYX Cosmetics have jumped on board, but recognizable stars and influencers don’t seem interested in joining in. The closest thing to a “famous person” I’ve seen to try it out is Marjorie Taylor Greene. Make of that what you will.
Samsung’s Frame TV uses an anti-glare matte panel that makes it look more akin to a painting than a traditional TV.
Now that Samsung has launched its 2025 lineup, including the high-end Frame Pro, we’re starting to see steep discounts land on the 2024 models. Right now, for example, Samsung’s 85-inchFrame TV — its largest Frame TV to date — has dropped to around $2,498 ($1,800 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Samsung’s online storefront. Other sizes are on sale at Amazon as well, with the 43- and 75-inch configurations going for $797.99 ($200 off) and $1,997.99 ($1,000 off), respectively.
Samsung’s Frame TV remains one of the most unique models on the market, even if Hisense and TCL both launched competing models last year. The 4K QLED can showcase artwork on an anti-glare matte panel when idle, which gives it a canvas-like appearance. The Frame is more than just eye candy, though, as it offers a smooth 120Hz refresh rate, support for several streaming apps, and compatibility with Alexa and Google Assistant. It also boasts HDMI 2.1 support, though it’s still better for streaming shows and movies than it is for gaming.
There are some features you’ll only find in the 2025 models and the Pro, however, like a faster 144Hz refresh rate. Plus, only the Frame Pro comes with a Neo QLED Mini-LED panel and a Wireless One Connect Box, which drastically minimizes cable clutter so only the power cord is visible. But if all you want is a cool TV that looks like a piece of wall art and offers good specs, the last-gen model is still a great choice.
A few more ways to save today
If you’re looking for a minimalist smartphone, you can still preorder the Light Phone III ahead of its August debut for $599 ($200 off). The charming phone is a bit of an upgrade over previous models — it’s got a 3.92-inch OLED panel, a 50-megapixel main shooter, and USB-C — but its main selling point remains its lack of features. It connects to all the major US carriers, but unlike virtually every other smartphone in existence, there’s no app store, no social media, and no browser. We just wish some of the newer features, such as the fingerprint reader, were active. Read our review.
Hades II might already be available for PC in early access, but if you’re holding out for the console release on the Nintendo Switch 2 and need a refresher, Nintendo is selling the digital Switch version of the original Hadesfor $8.74 (about $16 off) through April 21st. The hack-and-slash action RPG was one of our favorite games in 2020, one that combines great roguelike gameplay, gorgeous visuals, and a Greek-mythology-inspired storyline to great effect.
You can buy Baseus’ 3.3-foot Right Angle USB-C Cablefor $12.74 (about $3 off) at Amazon, or the 6.6-foot version for $17.09 (about $2 off). The braided USB-C cable can supply up to 100W of power, while its angled design allows for a more comfortable grip while gaming on an Android phone or a more recent iPhone model.
Black folks are loud. We laugh loud, we love loud, we protest loud. But when we really want to show our approval, we get quiet first. When we laugh at something funny, like really laugh, it sounds like a thin wheeze before sound bursts forth like a storm. And within seconds of starting South of Midnight, as I walked around the protagonist Hazelâs home and seeing a piece of art that was an obvious and deliberate homage to the painter Annie Leeâs Blue Monday, I wordlessly put my Steam Deck down and took a quiet lap around my living room before I started shouting.
South of Midnight is the latest title from Compulsion Games, a Canadian studio best known for making We Happy Few. It follows Hazel, a young woman who must rescue her mother after a hurricane sweeps their home away. Along her journey, she comes into her powers as a Weaver, or guardians who can see the strands that connect all life in what’s known as the Grand Tapestry and can repair it when those strands get knotted by pain and trauma.
The game is an action platformer. Hazel progresses by using her Weaver abilities to heal the blighted landscape and defeat enemies called haints â a Southern term used to describe gho …
DoorDash’s international arm Wolt has already been experimenting with Coco’s fleet of sidewalk robots in Helsinki, Finland. Now, DoorDash is linking up with sidewalk robot maker Coco to expand automated food deliveries to the US. It’s live in Los Angeles and Chicago with nearly 600 merchants set up to drop your lunch and other goods into the bellies of cute little icebox-looking bots.
In a press release, senior director of DoorDash Labs, Harrison Shih, says the Coco partnership is part of the company’s goal of becoming a “multi-modal” platform. “Not every delivery needs a 2-ton car just to deliver two chicken sandwiches,” said Shih.
Besides standard human driver deliveries and Coco bots, the company is also trying drone deliveries with Alphabet’s Wing in the US and Australia. DoorDash has so far completed over 100,000 deliveries worldwide with Coco under its initial pilot phase.
Operating delivery robots isn’t without its difficulties. Companies like Serve Robotics, which also works with Uber Eats, have teams to monitor and help their cute little sidewalk couriers if they get stuck, or rescue them after people vandalize or try to steal from them.
People were already mad at Garmin raising the cost of the Fenix 8 before they added a subscription.
Two weeks ago, Garmin announced it was launching a new subscription. Where the Garmin Connect app had previously offered everything from in-depth metrics and training plans for free, the beloved fitness tech company was now adding premium AI summaries, among other features, behind a paywall. In TheVerge comments, my social media mentions, and the r/Garmin subreddit, cries about enshittification ensued.
Then, earlier this week, Garmin-competitor Polar announced that it, too, was launching a premium subscription called Polar Fitness Plan. There was no AI component, but in a nutshell, Polar is now asking long-time users to pay for training plans that it had previously, in some capacity, offered for free.
The march toward subscriptions, particularly in the wearable space, didnât crop up overnight. You could trace it back to Appleâs infamous services event in 2019 (if not earlier), when the company made a marked shift from hardware to services. But Garmin and Polarâs examples stand out. In the world of premium rugged smartwatches, long-time fans often accepted the several hundreds â sometimes thousands â of dollars for their hardware because they didnât paywall features …
Apple may finally be ready to roll out its smarter, more personalized Siri features before the 2025 holiday season, according to The New York Times. The publication cited three sources with knowledge of Apple’s plan to release a virtual assistant “in the fall” that can edit and send photos to a friend on request — features that were supposed to arrive in iOS 18.
This is the earliest prospective rollout timeline we’ve seen so far. Apple spokesperson Jacqueline Roy said in a statement to Daring Fireball in March that the company expects to start releasing its upgraded Siri features “in the coming year.” Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said Apple’s AI department believes a ”true modernized, conversational version of Siri” won’t be ready until 2027 “at best” due to difficulties with development.
Some of the delays were reportedly caused by leadership issues within the company. John Giannandrea, who formerly led AI and Siri at Apple, was replaced in March after CEO Tim Cook “lost confidence” in his capabilities according to a report from Bloomberg, while The Information reports that senior Apple director Robby Walker and software executive Sebastien Marineau-Mes butted heads over who should oversee Siri’s upgrade project. Several former employees from Apple’s AI and machine learning (AI/ML) group singled Walker out to the publication as lacking the ambition or risk-taking necessary to revamp Siri, and that the team had been dubbed “AIMLess” by internal engineers.
The New York Times reports that earlier setbacks for the project occurred in 2023 when Cook’s efforts to double the team’s budget for AI chips were reportedly dashed by Luca Maestri, Apple’s finance chief. Maestri reportedly “reduced the increase to less than half that” and instead directed the team to make their existing chips — 50,000 of which were more than five years old — more efficient. Sources with knowledge of Cook’s request told the publication that this was “far fewer” than the hundreds of thousands of chips being purchased by competitors like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta.
The Toshiba Aurex AX-RP10 features a built-in rechargeable battery for up to 10 hours of wireless playback. | Image: Toshiba
Toshiba has announced a new record player designed for vinyl enthusiasts who want to make their analog music collections more portable. The Aurex AX-RP10 is by no means pocket-friendly like Sony’s Walkman or Apple’s iPod, but it’s small enough to haul around in an included shoulder bag while still accommodating 12-inch records, and it can be used completely wirelessly thanks to a built-in USB-C charged battery.
The AX-RP10’s compact design is reminiscent of the iconic Audio-Technica Sound Burger which was re-released in 2022, but not quite as small. You can still haul it to the beach or the park for a picnic, but it will also appeal to vinyl enthusiasts trying to minimize the footprint of their hobby at home. Pricing information hasn’t been announced yet, but it’s expected to ship sometime in April 2025.
Like the Sound Burger, the AX-RP10 has a built-in battery with a 2,000mAh capacity that Toshiba says should last up to 10 hours. It’s compatible with both 33 1/3 and 45 rpm records, and uses MM type cartridges. The belt-driven turntable has no speakers of its own, but includes a stereo mini audio jack for plugging in wired headphones or connecting it to a sound system.
If you want to go completely wireless and are okay with the analog sound of your vinyl collection being digitally compressed, the AX-RP10 includes Bluetooth connectivity so it can be used with wireless headphones and speakers. That’s not going to appeal to audiophiles, but neither is the rest of the AX-RP10’s hardware.
The time of year has arrived â Webby Award season. For the 29th annual Webby Awards, The Verge is nominated in two categories: best technology podcast and best technology video. The award show is basically a competition for âBest of the Internet,â and each nominee is up for two awards: the Webby Award and the Peopleâs Voice Award. A panel of judges from the academy will determine if we receive a Webby Award, but the other is voted online by fans like you! Youâve helped us win before, and weâre feeling confident that we can do it together again. You can vote for The Verge in both categories, so visit the links below to cast your votes:
The real reasons Apple wonât put macOS on the iPad – Video & Film Technology: Official listing
You have until 11:59PM PT on Thursday, April 17th to officially put your votes in, and winners will be announced on Tuesday, April 22nd. If we win, we also get a five-word acceptance speech, so let us know in the comments what your suggestions are! (We definitely read them.)
