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The company behind Arc is now building a second, much simpler browser
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24279020/browser-company-ai-browser-arc
OpenAI plans to release its next big AI model by December
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278999/openai-plans-orion-ai-model-release-december
Perplexity blasts media as ‘adversarial’ in response to copyright lawsuit
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278950/perplexity-news-corp-response-lawsuit
Scout Motors mounts an electric comeback with new SUV and truck concepts
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24277692/scout-motors-suv-truck-ev-concept-announce-price-specs
Russia reportedly paid a former Florida cop to pump out anti-Harris deepfakes and disinformation
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278626/russia-disinformation-deepfakes-john-dougan-2024-election
Departing OpenAI leader says no company is ready for AGI
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278694/openai-agi-readiness-miles-brundage-ai-safety
Kevin Bacon, Kate McKinnon, and other creatives warn of ‘unjust’ AI threat
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276994/ai-statement-training-data-copyright-threat-actors-authors-musicians-kevin-bacon-kate-mckinnon
A satellite made by Boeing just fell apart in space
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24277073/intelsat-33e-boeing-satellite-fell-apart-space
Plugable’s new 10-port USB-C hub is exactly the overkill my nightstand needs
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276661/plugable-usb-c-hub-power-charger
Arkansas has enough lithium for the world’s EVs — but getting to it is the problem
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276615/ev-car-battery-lithium-reserves-arkansas
Hoto’s 25-piece electric screwdriver set is down to its lowest price yet
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276194/hotos-25-piece-electric-screwdriver-set-nintendo-switch-game-deal-sale
Netflix closes AAA game studio before it ever released a game
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276700/netflix-gaming-studio-closure-blue
Meta brings back face scanning to combat scams and account hacking
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276593/meta-facebook-instagram-facial-recognition-tools-test-celeb-bait
Epic’s ambitious digital asset shop is now open
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276113/epic-games-fab-marketplace-digital-assets-live
Celebrity jet-tracking accounts have vanished from Threads and Instagram
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276546/meta-threads-instagram-elonjet-celebrity-jet-tracking-suspended
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images
OpenAI plans to launch Orion, its next frontier model, by December, The Verge has learned.
Unlike the release of OpenAI’s last two models, GPT-4o (https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/13/24155493/openai-gpt-4o-launching-free-for-all-chatgpt-users) and o1 (https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/12/24242439/openai-o1-model-reasoning-strawberry-chatgpt), Orion won’t initially be released widely through ChatGPT. Instead, OpenAI is planning to grant access first to companies it works closely with in order for them to build their own products and features, according to a source familiar with the plan.
Another source tells The Verge that engineers inside Microsoft — OpenAI’s main partner for deploying AI models — are preparing to host Orion on Azure as early as November (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278363/microsoft-openai-next-model-orion-notepad). While Orion is seen inside OpenAI as the successor to GPT-4, it’s unclear if the company will call it GPT-5 externally. As always, the release plan is subject to change and...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278999/openai-plans-orion-ai-model-release-december)
The Verge
AI startup Perplexity, which offers an AI search engine, published a blog post (https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/about-the-dow-jones-lawsuit) today pushing back on News Corp’s lawsuit against the company (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/21/24275924/news-corp-wall-street-journal-perplexity-lawsuit-copyright-infringement).
Perplexity has recently come under significant scrutiny following (https://www.wired.com/story/perplexity-plagiarized-our-story-about-how-perplexity-is-a-bullshit-machine/) accusations (https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/06/07/buzzy-ai-search-engine-perplexity-is-directly-ripping-off-content-from-news-outlets/) that it scraped content without permission, and News Corp, which is the parent company of the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal-owner Dow Jones, alleged that Perplexity’s search engine “copies on a massive scale.”
Perplexity, in its response today, argues that news organizations like News Corp that have filed lawsuits against AI companies “prefer to live in a world where publicly reported facts are owned by corporations, and no one can do anything with those publicly reported facts without paying a toll.”
No one,...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278950/perplexity-news-corp-response-lawsuit)
Image: Scout Motors
This is how you revive an iconic brand.
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24277692/scout-motors-suv-truck-ev-concept-announce-price-specs)
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Image
A former Florida sheriff who moved to Russia amid an FBI investigation is a Kremlin-backed propagandist responsible for viral deepfake videos and misinformation targeting Kamala Harris’s campaign, according to European intelligence documents reviewed by the Washington Post.
The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service, gave funding to John Mark Dougan, the operator of several fake news websites. According to documents reviewed by the Post, Dugan was responsible for several websites that seemingly published fake local news, including DC Weekly, Chicago Chronicle, and Atlanta Observer. The documents, which mostly focus on the time between March 2021 and August of this year, show that Dougan worked with Yury Khoroshevsky, an officer...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278626/russia-disinformation-deepfakes-john-dougan-2024-election)
Image: The Verge
Miles Brundage, OpenAI’s senior adviser for the readiness of AGI (aka human-level artificial intelligence), delivered a stark warning as he announced his departure on Wednesday: no one is prepared for artificial general intelligence, including OpenAI itself.
“Neither OpenAI nor any other frontier lab is ready [for AGI], and the world is also not ready,” wrote Brundage, who spent six years helping to shape the company’s AI safety initiatives. “To be clear, I don’t think this is a controversial statement among OpenAI’s leadership, and notably, that’s a different question from whether the company and the world are on track to be ready at the relevant time.”
His exit marks the latest in a series of high-profile departures from OpenAI’s...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/24/24278694/openai-agi-readiness-miles-brundage-ai-safety)
Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge
Thousands of creatives, including famous actors like Kevin Bacon and Kate McKinnon, along with other actors, authors, and musicians, have signed a statement (https://www.aitrainingstatement.org/) warning that the unpermitted use of copyrighted materials to train AI models threatens the people who made those creative works. 11,500 names are on the list of signatories so far.
Here is the one-sentence statement:
“The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted.”
The statement was published by Fairly Trained, a group advocating for fair training data use by AI companies. Fairly Trained CEO Ed Newton-Rex told The Guardian that generative AI companies need...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276994/ai-statement-training-data-copyright-threat-actors-authors-musicians-kevin-bacon-kate-mckinnon)
This Ariane 5 rocket carried Intelsat 33e and Intelsat 36 into space in 2016. | Photo by JODY AMIET/AFP via Getty Images
A communications satellite built by Boeing has fallen apart while in orbit, as reported earlier by Jalopnik. On Saturday, Intelsat said its 33e satellite (https://www.intelsat.com/newsroom/intelsat-reports-is-33e-satellite-loss/) stopped working due to an “anomaly” before confirming its “total loss” on Monday.
“We are coordinating with the satellite manufacturer, Boeing, and government agencies to analyze data and observations,” Intelsat said. The company has since established a board to conduct a “comprehensive analysis of the cause of the anomaly.”
The satellite’s breakup doesn’t have great timing for Boeing, following the company’s troubled Starliner (https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/7/24238245/boeing-starliner-landing-nasa-astronauts-stranded-iss) mission and a criminal fraud charge over 737 Max plane crashes (https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/8/24190142/boeing-737-max-doj-guilty-plea-deal-accepted),
The US Space Force also confirmed (https://www.space-track.org/auth/login) the incident:
U.S. Space Forces-Space (S4S) has confirmed the...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24277073/intelsat-33e-boeing-satellite-fell-apart-space)
Plugable’s PS-10CC can deliver 100W to all 10 of its USB-C ports, but not simultaneously. | Image: Plugable
Plugable has announced a new multi-port USB-C hub that can power or charge up to 10 connected devices using intelligent power distribution and an easy-to-understand priority-based charging system.
The company is bringing its new PS-10CC hub to consumers through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/plugable/plugable-turn-one-usb-c-charger-into-ten/description). The earliest backers can get one for $59, while the hub’s full MSRP will be closer to $99, with delivery expected as early as January 2025. There’s always a level of risk when backing a crowdfunded product, but Plugable has successfully delivered three devices through previous Kickstarters and says it already has functional prototypes of its new PS-10CC.
Image: Plugable
You’ll need to supply your own power adapter for the...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276661/plugable-usb-c-hub-power-charger)
Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge
Arkansas is sitting atop lithium reserves that could be vast enough to satisfy the entire world’s demand for EV batteries, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
It estimates that there could be 5 to 19 million tons of lithium under southwestern Arkansas. That would be enough to supply nine times the amount of the key material needed globally for car batteries in 2030, the USGS says.
Lithium is a key ingredient for rechargeable batteries used in EVs and all kinds of devices. As the US tries to limit the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change by encouraging electric vehicle adoption, the Biden administration has made it a priority to build up domestic supply chains (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/09/20/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-takes-further-action-to-strengthen-and-secure-critical-mineral-supply-chains/) for critical minerals including lithium. The US might...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276615/ev-car-battery-lithium-reserves-arkansas)
At just $40, Hoto’s electric screwdriver is a cool tool we’d recommend for anyone doing handiwork. | Image: Hoto
‘Tis the season for assemblies. With the holidays coming up, many will soon have their hands full with a bunch of new decorations and gifts to build. To take some pressure off, you can give Hoto’s electric screwdriver a try. It’s a perennial favorite in our various gift guides (https://www.theverge.com/gift-guide), and now you can get a whole kit with its magnetic carrying case and a 25-piece set of commonly used steel bits for $39.99 (50 percent off) at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/HOTO-Electric-Screwdriver-Cordless-Mechanical/dp/B0BLMQ8BXB?tag=theverge02-20) and Best Buy (https://howl.me/cnlXc1potca). That’s the lowest price we’ve seen on the package so far.
The screwdriver is lightweight (8.8 ounces) and small enough to maneuver tight workspaces, such as the innards of a desktop PC chassis. You can use it in either manual mode or an electric mode with three distinct torque settings, allowing you to...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276194/hotos-25-piece-electric-screwdriver-set-nintendo-switch-game-deal-sale)
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
The first cracks are starting to show in Netflix’s push into gaming. First reported in Game File and confirmed by Netflix, the streaming company has quietly closed of one of its studios, the first in the three years since the company began its foray into gaming.
According to Game File, the shuttered studio was known as Blue. In 2022, Netflix announced it hired former Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonny to run the studio. Since then, Blue had brought on a number of game industry veterans with experience working on high profile franchises including Halo and God of War. Reportedly, Blue was developing a multi-platform AAA game for an original IP (https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/17/23686693/netflix-joseph-staten-aaa-game-halo-veteran) but was closed before the game could be announced or released.
Netflix has released a...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276700/netflix-gaming-studio-closure-blue)
Facebook is getting ready to scan your face again. | Image: Meta
Facebook and Instagram are testing new facial recognition tools that could help users quickly restore compromised accounts and combat fake celebrity-endorsed scams. Meta announced its plan (https://about.fb.com/news/2024/10/testing-combat-scams-restore-compromised-accounts/) to roll out experimental features that can scan a user’s face to verify their identity by comparing it against profile pictures on Facebook and Instagram.
The first usage of these tools aim to protect both celebrities and everyday people from so-called “celeb-bait” ads that impersonate notable figures to trick users into visiting scam websites. Meta currently uses automated technology like machine learning to detect content that violates its policies but says celeb-bait can be difficult to distinguish from legitimate ads.
“If our systems suspect that...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276593/meta-facebook-instagram-facial-recognition-tools-test-celeb-bait)
Epic Games’ Fab marketplace, which is designed to serve as a unified place to get digital assets like environments and animations, is now live, the company announced today (https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/fab-epics-new-unified-content-marketplace-launches-today). The launch of the marketplace is an important step in Epic’s plans to make it easier for developers to acquire assets for developing games — and, maybe someday, to let them make content for an interoperable metaverse (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/5/24262376/epic-unreal-engine-6-fortnite-metaverse-plans).
The company first revealed its plans for Fab — which will combine offerings from the Unreal Engine Marketplace (https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/store), Sketchfab Store (https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=66960X1514734&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsketchfab.com%2Fstore&referrer=theverge.com&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F2024%2F10%2F22%2F24276113%2Fepic-games-fab-marketplace-digital-assets-live), Quixel (https://quixel.com/), and ArtStation Marketplace (https://www.artstation.com/marketplace/game-dev) into one place — in March 2023 (https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/22/23645601/epic-games-fab-asset-marketplace-state-of-unreal-2023-gdc). While Epic initially planned to launch Fab in 2023, the company later delayed (https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=66960X1514734&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsketchfab.com%2Fblogs%2Fcommunity%2Fannouncing-fab-the-next-phase-for-sketchfab%2F&referrer=theverge.com&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F2024%2F10%2F22%2F24276113%2Fepic-games-fab-marketplace-digital-assets-live) the launch to 2024.
Epic is offering an 88 percent revenue share for goods sold on...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276113/epic-games-fab-marketplace-digital-assets-live)
Jack Sweeney says that 38 of his jet tracking accounts have been suspended. | Illustration: The Verge
Meta has suspended several Threads and Instagram accounts that track the private jets of celebrities such as Mark Zuckerberg (https://www.instagram.com/ZuckerbergJet/), Elon Musk (elonmusksjet" rel="nofollow">https://www.threads.net/@elonmusksjet), Jeff Bezos (https://www.instagram.com/BezosJets/), Kim Kardashian (https://www.instagram.com/kimkjet/), and former US president Donald Trump (trump_jets" rel="nofollow">https://www.threads.net/@trump_jets).
Jack Sweeney, who gained notoriety for his @ElonJet account on X and maintained many of the suspended accounts, said on Threads (jacksweeney/post/DBah3gRgv4M" rel="nofollow">https://www.threads.net/@jacksweeney/post/DBah3gRgv4M) that the development is “reminiscent of all my accounts getting suspended on Twitter (https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/23/23524060/twitter-elon-musk-jet-tracking-elonjet-elonjetnextday).” The shuttered accounts, which used publicly available data to show the flight paths of private jets, initially displayed a message on Monday that read, “The link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed.”
Meta provided no direct warning or explanation for the suspensions, according to Sweeney, who says the...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/22/24276546/meta-threads-instagram-elonjet-celebrity-jet-tracking-suspended)
The Roomba Combo 2 Essential can clean and mop floors for up to two hours on a single charge. | Image: iRobot
The new Roomba Combo 2 Essential and Roomba Vac 2 Essential (https://media.irobot.com/2024-10-21-iRobot-Brings-More-Power-and-Self-Emptying-to-Affordable-Roomba-Essential-Lineup) include a dock for self-emptying their dirt bins — a feature missing from the budget-friendly Essential robovacs (https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/4/24120812/irobot-roomba-combo-essentials-robot-vacuum-price-release-date) that iRobot introduced six months ago. The 2-in-1 Combo 2 features both vacuuming and mopping capabilities for $424.99 (https://www.anrdoezrs.net/links/8532386/type/dlg/sid/verge/https://www.irobot.com/en_US/roomba-combo-2-essential-robot-plus-autoempty-dock/Y054020.html) and is slightly more expensive than the Vac 2, which only sucks up dust and dirt for $399.99.
The Combo 2 is now the most expensive option in iRobot’s Essential line and slightly pricier than the $400 DreameBot D10 Plus (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09VKZT1FQ?tag=theverge02-20), our current choice for the best budget robot vacuum and mop (https://www.theverge.com/23846479/best-budget-robot-vacuum-robot-mop). The Vac 2 is available via “select retailers” in North America (including Target (https://goto.target.com/c/482924/81938/2092?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.target.com%2Fp%2Firobot-roomba-vacuum-2-essential-robot-and-auto-empty-dock-black%2F-%2FA-93037003&sharedid=theverge.com) and Best Buy (https://howl.me/cnlCKhjc3bf), so far) and has the same features as the Combo except for the mopping...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/21/24275897/irobot-robovac-robot-vacuum-essential-self-empty-dock)