Verge Archives

Don’t worry, the new Floating Points single is here to give you a mid-afternoon jolt of throbbing electronica — perfect as you bop your head gently at your desk, gazing blankly at your email.

In his new podcast Shell Game, journalist Evan Ratliff uses AI to clone his voice — and that AI clone tricks his friends and family, shows up to meetings, and even makes small talk with scammers. The show launches July 9, but you can listen to a trailer now.

Rad Power Bikes says that starting July 1st, prices on some of its models will increase $100-$200 due to the recent expiration of the tariff exemption for Chinese-made e-bike batteries. In a letter to customers, Rad Power CEO Phil Molyneux said the company was committed to affordability and would continue to offer free shipping in the US and free two-year warranties on every e-bike purchase. Still, this is just the first indication of what is likely to become an industry-wide problem soon enough.

Any guesses what it might be? (Or what you want it to be, in case it’s not that, but maybe it can be later?) Stay tuned!

David Pierce journeyed to Sin City (or is it Sphere City now?) to witness the Microsoft Excel World Championship. Among the planet’s best spreadsheet makers, he discovered one truth: if you can manipulate Excel like a pro, you become a god among humans.

Another shareholder is excoriating Tesla’s board as lacking sufficient independence from Musk. “I believe the Tesla board of directors is the most conflicted, least independent, and most incapable board of directors in the history of business,” the shareholder says in a prepared statement. Tesla’s board recommends against his proposal too.

James McRitchie is presenting a proposal that is opposed by Tesla’s board. “The Musk premium is already eroding,” he said. “Tesla is Musk’s liquid piggy bank. Since it’s publicly traded, his other companies are not either. He sticks around long enough to use our shareholder capital to fund his other ventures, or he shifts his attention sooner if we reject his pay package, and turn off a money tap.”

Denholm defends the board, which has been accused by Delaware court as too chummy with Musk, as taking its fiduciary duties seriously. “With those responsibilities in mind, we continuously set the highest standards for ethical behavior, corporate citizenship and corporate governance.”

Prior to the votes on Musk’s pay package or the reincorporation in Texas, Denholm is touting Tesla’s sustainability and safety bonafides. She said that the company recovered enough battery materials to build 43,000 RWD Model Ys. On safety, she claims that Tesla vehicles with driver assist technologies engaged “have only a one vehicle accident per 5.64 million miles driven compared to the US.”

On time, too, which is rare for a Tesla event. Tesla board Robyn Denholm is up first, talking about the company’s wins for 2023-2024, including the Model Y becoming the best-selling vehicle in the world, and the release of the Cybertruck.

Earlier today, we issued a story with the headline “Apple’s new custom emoji come with climate costs.” The story was incorrect, as the emoji are generated locally. We’ve removed the story and regret making the error.

That’s what I discovered after Google released its new Education Navigator today, a central hub for training, tools, and resources teachers can use in their classrooms. Practice sets with automatic grading? Awesome. Projecting Google Slides to students’ computers to help them stay focused in-class? Even better.

Our colleague Ash is in the building, and we’ll be covering everything live right in this stream.

Gretchen Krueger, a policy researcher at OpenAI, announced her departure on Wednesday, saying she shares the same concerns as Jan Leike and Ilya Sutskever, who quit the company last week citing safety concerns.

I am assured by our friends at Polygon that this is, indeed, a real holiday.

I’d like to have a word with this Indiana judge who just decided, after a years-long legal battle, that tacos and burritos are sandwiches. To be fair, the tacos in Indiana probably look more like sandwiches than the ones in California, but still. Tacos, burritos, hot dogs, they aren’t sandwiches. Argue with the wall, everybody.

When you need to write something down fast, the last thing you want is software that demands you format, organize, and tag your document. Bebop, which launched today on iOS, is a lightweight app designed specifically around the idea of jotting something down for later. I haven’t gotten to mess around with it too much, but it’s free and the “pro” version is a $5 upgrade — for life. No fussy subscription!

Josh Dzieza got a rare glimpse at the meticulous work of undersea cable repair — the secretive industry that keeps internet infrastructure around the world up and running. If you haven’t read his excellent feature yet, here’s a quick overview of how cable repair works.

This isn’t ISO certified but the closest thing to solar eclipse glasses I could find was this piece of a 5 1/4” floppy disk I had in my closet. I knew these would come in handy one day.

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s follow-up to Drive My Car was one of my favorites out of last year’s New York Film Festival. Fellow Hamaguchi-heads can see it when it comes to theaters May 3rd.

If you’re in the New York area on Monday, April 1st, we’ll be celebrating author (and Verge alum) Zoë Schiffer’s new book Extremely Hardcore. Tickets come with a hardcover and a drink. Space is limited, so sign up fast.

If the current launch needs to be abandoned, the SpaceX livestream presenters said the company has outlined other opportunities to attempt the latest Starship test flight within the next 24-48 hours, depending on how far they can get with today’s testing.

For a while, it seemed like each week brought news of another driverless car making a mess of things in San Francisco. But the number of incidents is actually going down, according to data provided to the San Francisco Chronicle by the city’s fire department. Most of which can be chalked up to GM’s Cruise grounding its fleet following a grisly pedestrian-dragging incident. And now Waymo’s expansion plans are on hold too. We’ll see if these numbers hold up if the companies are given permission to deploy more robots.

If not, read this and then this and come back.

So impressive!

Zoë Schiffer’s Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter, expanded from her extraordinary reporting at Platformer and The Verge, is out today. There’s an excerpt in Vanity Fair, and a glowing review in the Washington Post. The book is available wherever you like to buy books!

The HBO series has already added its Dina, Abbie, and Jesse, and now comes word that Catherine O’Hara will be playing... somebody. Deadline reports that she’s joining the show in an “undisclosed role.” But whatever it is, more Catherine O’Hara is never a bad thing.

I haven’t had the colorful gum in, uh, decades, but I remember loving it when I was a kid. The flavor only lasted a few chews, but baby Jay didn’t know better. He was also apparently influenced by this now-terrifying commercial.