LLMs have led to an explosion of custom firmware and hacks for synths, samplers, and grooveboxes.
At a moment when voters are fearful of AI, Democrats are finding their footing.
It’s ultra-smooth and looks fantastic, but a few rough edges keep it from greatness.
The Duo’s imminent release means the EU released its energy and durability ratings, including its rated battery capacity of 4,883mAh. Rated capacities are lower than typical marketed capacities, so this battery is bigger than in either the Galaxy Z Fold 8 or Z Fold 8 Ultra, but still smaller than in foldables from Oppo and Honor.
[European Commission]
Wired reports that Character filing for bankruptcy and agreeing to sell assets to Disney last week was the second of “two interrelated and integrated” transactions. The first, which took place in September, involved Disney hiring a “majority” of the chatbot startup’s employees, a familiar move from the “acquihire” playbook.
What’s not to trust about this X post, given the vague deadline of “next year,” and track record of broken promises? Actually doing this would require Musk to give away more than $10 billion worth of shares, but I guess that’s more feasible than President Trump’s $1.3 trillion plan to sway voters.
The Martian Moons eXploration mission is scheduled to launch at 2:41PM ET and, if successful, should return to Earth in 2031 carrying samples from Phobos. It’ll study both Phobos and Deimos on its journey to shed some light on how they came to exist, and hopefully provide new insights into both Mars and Earth.
Amazon started letting US and UK users stream games from Luna inside Prime Video in July, and today the feature will be available in Canada, France, Italy, and Spain to Amazon Prime subscribers on Fire TVs, Amazon says.
In November, Luna in Prime Video will launch in the remaining countries where Luna is available that don’t already have the feature: Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden.
[Amazon Game Studios]
The new Anthropic Public Benefit Fund will be a wholly owned LLC, which the company says will give it “flexibility.” It offered little information about how it would use the money, other than saying it wouldn’t fund lobbying or political donations. It offered limited examples of what it might do:
… we might explore large donations to traditional nonprofits or direct distributions to specific populations.
One example is labor market impacts. AI may generate enormous economic value, but it could also cause instability for many workers. Anthropic has already committed $200 million to studying and addressing this issue, but given the pace of AI progress, bolder approaches may be needed.
Nathan Fielder’s three-hour documentary about Elizabeth Holmes raked in $15 million in its opening weekend. That’s double expectations and enough to place it in second place at the box office this weekend, behind only Street Fighter. What’s more, it’s the largest opening for a non-music or concert documentary since 2004’s Fahrenheit 9/11.
Cage will play Henry Logan, and Banderas will play Rai Garcia. The season will take place in Jamaica Bay, New York and beyond that, not much is known. The series is set to enter production in 2027, and showrunner Issa López will return after the reasonably well-received season four, Night Country.
There are two hugely hyped docs out right now that I am eager to see — Musk and You Can See Everything. But it’s rare for a feature-length documentary to get this much attention and a wide theatrical release. So, what are your favorite docs that others might have missed?
Yesterday it was reported that the TikTok account for Alex Gibney’s Musk documentary had been “permanently suspended.” Today, TikTok US spokesperson Mahsau Cullinane told The Verge, “I can confirm that the advertising account has been restored after an error,” which was described as technical.
According to Mark Gurman, Apple’s retail stores are planning a “reset” on the evening of November 5th into Friday the 6th. Generally, that means new signage and demo devices indicating that it could be the on-sale date for the M6 iMac, touchscreen MacBook Pro, and OLED iPad mini rumored to be announced later this month.
The big problem with smart TVs is that they start to slow down, stutter, and generally suck pretty quickly. Ansub Khan figured out a way to get Claude to clean up the mess and make his old Android TV feel new again. Best part: he lays out step-by-step how to do it on your own TV. Though, as with anything involving AI, proceed cautiously.
Dinosaur Jr.’s frontman finally addresses the AI video for ‘Old Friends.’
In February 2025, US District Court of Delaware Judge Stephanos Bibas ruled against Ross Intelligence, which argued that training its legal AI on data scraped from Thomson Reuters was fair use. Now an appeals court has upheld that decision, though it remains sealed.
Frustrated by federal gridlock, cities and states across the political spectrum are taking matters into their own hands to rein in autonomous vehicles.
A spokesperson told MS Now that Meta pulled the organization’s account and locked out its admins during today’s protests. The profile page is back up, but the organization says it still doesn’t have access to the account. Neither Meta nor No Kings immediately responded to a request for comment.
Update October 18th: Meta’s Andy Stone posted on X that the suspension was part of an automated response that sometimes happens when accounts post at “very high frequencies.” He continued to say that the “automated action was clearly taken in error. Everything is now working as it should and we sincerely apologize.”
They See Your Photos is built using Google’s Computer Vision API, and yes, it is a promotional site for a secure Google Photos competitor. But it still succeeds in creepily demonstrating how much a company can glean from one photo. It nailed my age, income, sexual orientation, political affiliation, and religious beliefs, correctly guessed that I collect vinyl, and suggested targeting me with ads for “specialty coffee and high-end audio gear,” Ableton Live, Muji stationery, and Patagonia outerwear.
[They See Your Photos]
The midterms edition of No Kings is underway, primarily focused on boosting early voting turnout rather than flooding the streets. If you want to keep up with all the news about the latest day of action as it’s happening, follow along at the States Newsroom live blog.
It’s not just celebrity deepfakes that are plaguing social media. AI hot girl accounts are stealing comedians’ jokes, and painters are seeing AI versions of their process videos rack up millions of views. Mosseri says it’s “not practical” to ban AI, but it’s not sure how to handle content that isn’t copyrighted, like jokes.
The Radiolab creator and host of Dolly Parton’s America answers The Verge’s weekend questionnaire.
Elon Musk is pushing SpaceX’s Starlink to become a major competitor to AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. But becoming a fourth major carrier in the United States has a long, messy, and expensive history.
8
Verge Score
Wired earbuds are making a small comeback, and Bose is capitalizing on it — with ANC this time.
