6
Verge Score
It’s bigger for sure, but is that really better?
I’m busy testing the Xiaomi 14 Ultra’s camera but please take a minute to appreciate this gorgeous photography accessory kit. It updates last year’s version with a beefier battery that can power the phone. Just feast your eyes on that gorgeous two-stage shutter button!
One thing I’m noticing so far? It’s heavier than the previous version. That’s not so hot.
Residents of Fukuyama City are looking for a cat that fell into a vat of toxic chemicals at a metal plating factory. After reviewing security footage, officials believe it fell in the tank containing hexavalent chromium on Sunday night, crawled out, and ran off.
Locals are keeping an eye out but are urged not to touch the potentially highly toxic cat. Personally, I’m rooting for the cat’s eventual rise as the greatest supervillain the world has ever seen.
Okay, it’s not exactly Dex, but Mishaal Rahman reports that the latest Android 14 beta allows Pixel 8 phones to use DisplayPort over USB-C for screen mirroring. Plug your phone into a monitor or TV and you’ll be able to output your phone’s display to the big screen — no adapter required. You can’t run a whole desktop environment ala Dex just yet, but that might be in the works.
Google is hosting its quarterly show for Android developers and the ever-watchful Mishaal Rahman caught the response to a great question: will the regular Pixel 8 be able to run Google’s mobile-optimized language model? Google’s answer: No, because of “hardware limitations.”
The thing is, the Pixel 8 uses the very same chipset as the Pixel 8 Pro, which can run Gemini Nano. What the heck, Google?
The Samsung Galaxy S10 Lite and Note 10 Lite were the final two members of the S10 series still getting security updates — until now. 9to5Google notes that their promised four years of updates are up, and they’re no longer on Samsung’s security scope page; just last month they were still listed for quarterly updates. It was a good run, guys.
Remember how T-Mobile won a bunch of mid-band spectrum in 2022? And then the FCC couldn’t actually grant the licenses? So Congress had to pass a bill allowing the FCC actually hand out the spectrum?
That really happened. Today, T-Mobile finally got access to over 7,000 licenses touching mainly rural areas across the country. The new spectrum will start coming online in the next few days.
Former Verge Fellow Ian Carlos Campbell put Carl’s Jr.’s AI drive-thru ordering to the test for Inverse. The AI agent — which might be an actual human! — kept up surprisingly well. But even with the correct number of chicken tenders in his order it proved to be an unsatisfying experience — one that’s blatantly designed to pad out the company’s bottom line.
