5 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Tech Archive

Archives for December 2024

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Lyft claims San Francisco overcharged it $100 million in taxes.

In a lawsuit, Lyft accuses San Francisco of wrongly counting the money earned by drivers as company revenue from 2019 to 2023, as reported by Bloomberg.

“Lyft considers drivers as its customers,” the complaint says, adding that its revenue consists of “fees paid to Lyft by drivers, not charges paid by riders to drivers.” Earlier this year, Lyft won its fight to classify drivers as independent contractors rather than employees in California.

Adi Robertson
Adi Robertson
The year’s hottest word processor! (The year is 1990.)

My retro writing machine collection just got a fun new entry: the Smith-Corona PWP 7000LT, which The New York Times has called “a reasonable alternative to portable computers for people who are not comfortable with more powerful machines.” Somewhat incredibly, it actually works.

A beige word processor that looks like a bulky 1980s laptop with the label Smith-Corona PWP 7000LT.
Not pictured: Smith-Corona’s proprietary 3-inch floppy disk. Pretty sure I am never getting anything I write off this.
Photo: Adi Robertson / The Verge
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Spotify pushes back on claims that it boosted Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.”

The music streaming service responded to Drake’s accusations that it used bots and payola to “artificially inflate” Lamar’s streaming numbers, saying Spotify “invests heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect, and mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform,” Billboard reports.

Even Apple wasn’t able to make VR headsets mainstream in 2024

Glasses may be more promising as the head-worn computers of the future — and there’s a chance Apple might be looking in that direction.

Jay Peters
Bose SoundLink Home review: a speaker that’s all about looks

7

Verge Score

This Bluetooth speaker’s design is a breath of fresh air, but Bose skimped on some features that are usually standard at this price.

Chris Welch
Umar Shakir
Umar Shakir
Netflix’s Christmas NFL stream is working fine so far.

The Chiefs just beat the Steelers, and we’re not hearing about any Paul vs Tyson-level issues other than scattered reports of weird buffering blips and TV going-to-sleep bugs.

But the real test for Netflix’s live broadcast ambitions will come when Beyoncé performs during halftime of the Ravens-Texans game (Update: if you missed it, the stream is staying up for three hours after the broadcast ends, and Netflix says it will be available as a standalone soon.)

One way or another, Netflix’s help page is setting expectations early with a warning message.

Due to today’s livestream, wait time for live help may be longer than usualWe’re getting more customer requests than normal right now. Search our Help Center for answers or check back later.
Screenshot: The Verge
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
The NBA subs in Mickey Mouse and Daffy Duck to help take on the NFL.

As the NFL’s Netflix broadcasts threaten to dominate Christmas and people fret over ratings drops, today’s slate of NBA games includes a “Dunk the Halls” simulcast — similar to other overlay broadcasts we’ve seen recently — available on Disney Plus.

Instead of Jalen Brunson and the Knicks vs. Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs, it’s their cartoon avatars, with occasional drop-ins from recognizable characters. Are any of you watching this instead of Patrick Mahomes and Russell Wilson?

Chris Welch
Chris Welch
Netflix teases Happy Gilmore 2 ahead of today’s NFL stream.

There will be a lot of eyes on Netflix today for the 1PM ET Chiefs/Steelers game, and the company is using that big holiday spotlight to remind viewers of some original content coming next year.

This first look at Happy Gilmore 2 includes familiar faces (like Shooter McGavin) and a very timely cameo. The movie’s release is expected later in 2025.

What podcasts looked like in 2024 — literally

These days, podcasts are going video, and there are a number of visual trends we’ve noticed — some good, some not so much. We’ll show you.

Andru Marino
2024 has been an amazing year for roguelikes

This year showed that a roguelike can be almost anything.

Jay Peters
Umar Shakir
Umar Shakir
Apple would like to step in to defend its Google search deal.

Apple filed papers on Monday to participate in the Department of Justice’s victorious antitrust case against Google, which is now in its penalty phase. Google will need to make significant business changes, such as ending default search deals on devices like iPhones, which Google is OK with.

Apple? Well, its agreement with Google reportedly was worth $20 billion in 2022.