Verge Archives

Traffic to ChatGPT’s website fell significantly, according to The Washington Post’s reporting on data from web traffic tracker SimilarWeb (via Gizmodo). Downloads of the ChatGPT iOS app have also fallen, says the story.

Mark Zuckerberg has been giving regular updates on the number of people joining Threads, last sharing that there have been 30 million sign-ups as of this morning.

A glitch took down The Verge homepage for a bit, but, as you can see, we have returned and we have so many things to say.

(And regular posts.) They’re right over there on the left for quickposts, and under the headline for regular posts. We’ve been slowly iterating our redesign for a while now — most of the work has gone into our fancy new live StoryStream feeds, but we’re coming back to the homepage now and I’m excited for you all to see what’s coming next.

Emergency services in the UK are experiencing issues today. 999 calls across many parts of the UK aren’t connecting due to a “technical fault.” The outage is affecting London Ambulance Service, Essex Fire Service, West Midlands Police, and many other services. The Metropolitan Police is recommending that the public call 101 in an emergency until further notice.

While that seems like a lot, 3M faced up to $30 billion in legal liability for products it made with forever chemicals. It’ll now pay up to $12.5 billion to settle hundreds of lawsuits from cities whose water sources have been contaminated with the chemicals. Forever chemicals, or polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), have been linked to a higher risk of developing certain kinds of cancer, liver damage, and reproductive health issues. The chemicals, which 3M said it would stop using in products like Scotchgard fabric protector, are notoriously hard to destroy and disproportionately pollute Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

From today’s issue of Command Line:

Fujifilm announced it’s releasing the Instax Square SQ40 instant camera at the end of June for $149.95.

The kids have a right to “a clean and healthful environment” under Montana’s constitution. This landmark case is supposed to determine whether Montana, the state with the largest coal reserves, is violating that right by propping up the fossil fuel industry. The outcome could influence climate lawsuits across the country.

The mesh Wi-Fi network that kept residents online during Hurricane Sandy more than a decade ago helped New York City residents face another disaster this week. Thanks to the network, a pollution monitor at an urban farm in Red Hook, BK can add the data it gathers to a national air quality map. That helped residents see how polluted the air was outside as wildfire smoke choked the city this week.

The Northeast US is blanketed in smoke that drifted in from wildfires in Canada. The pollution is so bad, New York City briefly ranked as the most polluted city in the world. And particle pollution from smoke can be up to 10 times more harmful to human health than soot from other sources like tailpipes and factories, research has found.

The SEC complaint against Binance is coming in hot, ladies, gentlemen and dirtbags! That’s the chief compliance officer, in 2018.

Google tweeted that Google Workspace admins can sign up for a closed beta of Duet AI image generation in Google Slides yesterday (via 9to5Google). The feature lets users add AI-generated backgrounds with a “Help me visualize” prompt in the sidebar.

Back in 2012, the state of Maryland decided to commemorate the War of 1812 with a license plate that displayed a URL. (Once upon a time, I had one of these on my own car.)

If you’re in my neck of the woods, you’ve seen a remarkable uptick in car stickers bearing the words “Salt Life” in an outrageous typeface, propagating across the automotive populace like so many coastal weeds. I’ve been too afraid to ask what it all means, but thankfully the Times is on it.

Catholic News Agency reports — based on some prior Reddit sleuthing — that a bunch of Vatican City flags out in the world are wrong because they’re based on a bogus file from Wikimedia Commons.

I won’t spoil who turned out to be the #1 boy in the Roy family, but I must credit the EIC of the baby-naming site nameberry.com for predicting it with flair. (Warning: the TikTok contains spoilers.)

As I read through the list of channels offered in Comcast’s new $20 per month “streaming” package I couldn’t help but think of this bit from The Big Short where Anthony Bourdain explains how he repackages stale fish to create a “new” seafood stew.

It’s about to be the 50th anniversary of ethernet, and we’d love to hear your stories about local networking.

I’ve been rewatching Parks and Recreation recently and I forgot about this absolutely hilarious fake ad from the final season, which imagines a future where America only has 8 companies and one of them is Verizon + Chipotle + Exxon.

Two cases argued recently before the Supreme Court put the future of Section 230 into question: a law that has been fundamental to the development of the internet.

Is what I just yelled across my whole neighborhood as I spilled an entire glass of liquid on my desk and keyboard. This seems to happen without fail for me every 6 to 9 months.

The Environmental Protection Agency just proposed its plan to slash greenhouse gas pollution from coal and gas power plants. To do that, it’s relying on controversial carbon capture technologies.

It’s not made for it. It’s not ready. Don’t do it.

AI-generated Ron Howard very nearly crosses the uncanny valley with this Arrested Development themed episode of Succession, making it one of the best uses of voice generation I’ve seen yet. (It helps that the edit is also pretty spot-on for AD fans.)

Those and other big questions — questions like, “why is Microsoft so weird about Edge?” and “why are there blue checks in Gmail now?” — on this Friday’s Vergecast. Like and subscribe!

It’s just a little pixelated castle generator. Refresh the website for a new castle. Enjoy. (via Boing Boing.)

The Amazon founder and Lauren Sanchez double-dated with Kris Jenner and Corey Gamble of Kardashian fame. I have so many questions. Who asked who on the double date? What did they talk about?

And we managed to make it in just the first few minutes of The Vergecast! Then we talked Snap, Netflix, and much more. But Laser Bong will be our legacy. It’s a laser bong.

...so it’s probably time I stop procrastinating on my spring cleaning this weekend. If your plans for Earth Day tomorrow are similarly exciting, you might love this guide to decluttering responsibly. It’s filled with ways to make money and not break the law – did you know throwing away a computer is illegal in some areas?

Who won the race to 5G? Who knows!

Get votes in by 11:59pm PT tonight! I’m already thinking about what our 5-word winning speech could be. Any suggestions?

Here’s former BuzzFeed News editor-in-chief (and now Semafor co-founder) Ben Smith on the shutdown of BuzzFeed News.

Business Insider has always loved reporting from the sky, and this time it’s upgraded from coach: