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Wes Davis

Wes Davis

Former Weekend Editor

Former Weekend Editor

    More From Wes Davis

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    Leaked pictures show a very blue Pixel 9.

    OnLeaks shared a leaked picture of the Pixel 9 that’s expected later this year. The rest of this batch of promo shots are published at 91Mobiles, along with a rendered video. The phone has a 6.1-inch display and may have a telephoto lens, according to the article.

    This follows up yesterday’s Pixel 9 Pro leak, also from OnLeaks.

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    Is this the Pixel 8a?

    X user chunvn8888 posted pictures purporting to be the retail packaging for the yet-unannounced Pixel 8a yesterday, as spotted by 9to5Google.

    Unsurprisingly, it looks a lot like the Pixel 8. Assuming it follows in the footsteps of past budget Pixels, expect the same Tensor processor as the pricier models, but some skimping on fancier features.

    A picture of purported retail packaging for a black Pixel 8a.
    The Pixel 8a, according to this box.
    Image: chunvn8888
    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    What’s going on with the Vision Pro’s availability?

    9to5Mac reported this morning that despite Apple Vision Pro preorders still being set for March shipping, the Apple Store website showed a February 3rd pickup date.

    When I checked, I saw a February 3rd in-store pickup and March 3rd ship date. On a second try, there were no pickups available, with estimated shipping between February 20th – 27th.

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    Threads is working on draft-saving for posts.

    So get ready to sit on those hot takes a little longer. Alessandro Paluzzi, who regularly finds new features by reverse engineering apps, posted a screenshot showing this new “Save draft” option.

    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    Here’s what NASA brought back from the Bennu asteroid.

    The agency was finally able to take a picture of the charcoal-like space gravel of the Bennu asteroid sample after getting the canister’s last two stubborn screws out.

    The picture presented here is nowhere near as interesting as the detailed and very zoomable full-res download you can grab from NASA’s site, though.

    A picture of the Bennu asteroid sample.
    The first asteroid sample ever brought back to Earth.
    Image: NASA
    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    Here’s what it takes to become a human QR code reader.

    With a little casual hexadecimal memorization and pattern recognition skill, you can become a QR code-reading machine — no pesky computer required!

    The black and white boxes represent binary 1s and 0s, respectively, and it’s read in a zig-zagging pattern up and down the code, starting from the bottom-right corner. Check out this handy guide to learn how today!

    A screenshot showing a QR code and visual cues to help decode it, along with details about how the patterns can be interpreted.
    See? It’s easy. Guide written by Piko and blinry for the 37th Chaos Communication Congress in Germany.
    Screenshots: Wes Davis / The Verge
    Wes Davis
    Wes Davis
    What could go wrong if police run facial recognition on an AI-generated face based on old DNA?

    Wired tells the story of California detectives who tried to use facial recognition to identify a face made with machine learning and crime scene DNA by phenotyping company Parabon NanoLabs. That’s not a good idea, said Parabon’s director of bioinformatics, Ellen Greytak:

    “What we are predicting is more like — given this person’s sex and ancestry, will they have wider-set eyes than average,” she says. “There’s no way you can get individual identifications from that.”

    On a related note, a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on AI in criminal investigations is set for Wednesday.