Новости за 27.02.2024

Twist on your trainer’s cap and try to catch these deals before they sell out. | Image: The Pokémon Company

Oh, would you look at that. It’s Pokémon Day, an annual celebration commemorating the game’s launch on this very day in 1996. Fun fact: Pokémon was first a video game, but it was quickly adapted as a trading card game and anime, both of which are arguably equally as responsible as the Game Boy titles for its success in becoming a global craze.

The Orion smart glasses would be a totally different product from the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses pictured above. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

It’s been long rumored that Meta is working on a pair of augmented reality smart glasses — and it’s possible we could finally get a glimpse of them later this year.

Illustration: The Verge

The owner of Tumblr and WordPress.com is in talks with AI companies Midjourney and OpenAI to provide training data scraped from users’ posts, a report from 404 Media alleges. The report, based on an anonymous source inside the company, says that deals between Automattic and the two AI companies are “imminent.” It follows nebulous rumors that have spread on Tumblr over the past week, suggesting a deal with Midjourney could provide a new revenue stream for the site.

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Apple has halted its long-rumored “Project Titan” work on developing an electric car, according to Bloomberg. The company reportedly announced the news internally on Tuesday and said many people in the 2,000-person team behind the car will shift to generative AI efforts instead.

Image: The Verge

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The company’s most recent new product was the Move 2 portable speaker. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Sonos plans to release its first pair of wireless headphones in June after dealing with some late-stage software setbacks, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The headphones will tie into the company’s ecosystem of speakers and home theater soundbars and are expected to be priced at $449, putting them firmly in the premium market of mainstream consumer headphones.

Aqara’s U200 smart lock is a retrofit, Matter-over-Thread door lock, with support for Apple Home Key promised. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Aqara has launched its Smart Lock U200 on Kickstarter, where you can currently nab the device for $209, down from the $249.99 it’ll cost you when it goes on sale later this year. According to the Kickstarter page, it will ship to backers in April.

Life beyond a phone screen? Or just a neat gadget?

Look, I’m a Humane AI Pin doubter as much as the next person. And I still think the wearable, AI-powered assistant suffers from a case of this-thing-could-have-been-an-app. But I finally got to spend a little face-to-face time with the pin this morning, and you know what? It’s a darn cool gadget. It’s just buried under a layer of marketing so thick that it’s hard to appreciate what it actually could be if Humane wasn’t so self-serious.

The PlayStation 5 version of Persona 5 Tactica is down to just $29.99. | Image: Atlus

Spring may be just around the corner, but it’s still cold and rainy in many parts of the US. If you’re looking for ways to keep yourself entertained while indoors, GameStop is currently taking up to 50 percent off select titles as a part of its ”OMG” sale. The ongoing promotion includes steep 50 percent discounts on newer hits like Persona 5 Tactica for the PlayStation 5 ($29.99) and Sonic Superstars... Читать дальше...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the company behind Pornhub for not complying with state-level age verification rules. The suit, filed in Travis County District Court against Pornhub parent Aylo, accuses Aylo of failing to implement “reasonable age verification methods” on Pornhub and other adult sites that it owns. It seeks millions of dollars in damages under a law that was initially blocked as unconstitutional, then allowed to take effect last year.

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Amelia Holowaty Krales and Getty Images

The bright promise of streaming and digital stores has given way to a darker reality: we rarely have ownership over the art we love, and much is getting lost in the process. Only a fraction of movies released over the last century are available on streaming services, while a staggering 90 percent of classic video games are considered “critically endangered” by archivists. As these platforms continue to dominate the media landscape... Читать дальше...

Image: Lego

The transformation of Fortnite into a gaming platform continues with the addition of some new games from Lego. Following the release of the Minecraft-like survival game Lego Fortnite in December, Lego has launched two more titles inside of Fortnite. One is a multiplayer title called Lego Raft Survival; the other is an obstacle course called Lego Obby Fun. Both games were built with the Unreal Editor for Fortnite tool.

Image: Wendy’s

Imagine waiting in line at your local Wendy’s drive-thru during the lunch rush, only to pull up to the menu board and realize that the spicy chicken nuggets you’ve been craving all day will cost you a dollar extra. That nightmare may soon become a reality, because Wendy’s plans on testing surge pricing that will increase the price of its spicy nuggets, burgers, Frostys, and other favorites during its busiest times.

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge

Crypto miners have successfully blocked the Department of Energy’s (DOE) survey of Bitcoin’s energy consumption in the US. A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order that prevents the DOE from moving forward with data collection.

Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images

Ford, Mercedes-Benz, and Tesla occupy the top three spots in a new ranking of 18 global automakers based on their efforts to eliminate carbon emissions, environmental harms, and human rights violations from their supply chains. US automakers in particular made the most progress in cleaning up their supply chains, with Tesla showing the biggest increase of all the automakers.

Collage by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images

Super Sushi Pinball, a game that does not prominently feature sushi, never actually launched. It was meant to be Sony’s second game in the US, intended for the NES during a time when such news would not have melted the brains of console diehards, and was marketed in video game magazines for over a year. “This is a game that was last seen by anyone in 1990 at a trade show,” said Frank Cifaldi, founder of the Video Game History Foundation. Читать дальше...

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos via Getty Images

During Monday’s Supreme Court arguments in a pair of consequential social media cases, the justices prodded for ways they could rule without giving either side everything they asked for.

Photo by Kate Medley for The Verge

The future for physical video games looks bleak. Major console hardware makers seem to be inching toward removing ways to play discs at all: leaked Microsoft documents revealed a potential disc-less Xbox Series X (though the company says it isn’t completely giving up on the format), while the “slim” PS5 has a detachable disc drive that requires an internet connection to pair with a new console. You can get most games digitally nowadays, but there are... Читать дальше...

Image: The Pokémon Company

The big news out of today’s Pokémon Presents is that the next major Pokémon game is in the works — and it’s launching next year. There aren’t many details yet, but the game is called Pokémon Legends: Z-A (yes, that’s the real title), and it takes place in Lumiose City, where 2013’s Pokémon X and Y were set. The game is expected to launch in 2025 with a simultaneous global release, and it’s coming to the Nintendo Switch. It’s being developed by Game Freak.

Image: Honda

Honda announced a new hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle for the US market in a sign that the automaker has not given up on the most abundant element in the universe for its vehicle lineup.

FreePower for Countertop is a Qi wireless charger built into your countertops. This is a demo unit I tried out to get a feel for the experience. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

I recently remodeled my kitchen, and my first thought during the design process was, “Can I embed wireless charging in my new quartzite countertop?” But I couldn’t find a solution that didn’t involve sticking bulky black boxes under the counter and requiring precise placement of my phone on a vast counter landscape. Читать дальше...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge

Everywhere you go on the internet, it feels like someone’s trying to sell you something. TikTok is being overrun by sales pitches for stuff on the TikTok Shop; Instagram is making it easier to buy everything you see in a post; platforms from Pinterest to Prime Video are adding ever more ads, ever more hungrily trying to get you to buy something.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Sony says it’s laying off around 900 employees of its PlayStation division, a reduction of its global headcount of around 8 percent. Sony’s layoffs will impact a variety of its PlayStation studios, including Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, and Firesprite. Sony’s layoffs are the latest in a wave that has been impacting the gaming and tech industries throughout 2024.

The 1.6 update will be available for macOS, Windows, and Linux on March 19th. | Image: ConcernedApe

Stardew Valley developer Eric Barone — better known as ConcernedApe — has revealed when players can expect the next major update to drop, adding fresh content and expanded multiplayer options to the game. Announced on Monday in line with Stardew Valley’s eighth anniversary, update 1.6 will be available for PC (Windows/macOS/Linux) players on March 19th, with console and mobile to follow... Читать дальше...

Nvidia’s GeForce Now is a cloud gaming platform that spans many devices. | Image: Nvidia

Nvidia’s completely free, no-strings attached trial of its cloud gaming service GeForce Now is about to be very slightly less of a deal — on Wednesday February 28th, Nvidia tells The Verge, users will start seeing ads.