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JustWatch now streams TV shows and movies, too

Several different mobile devices and a TV showing the JustWatch TV interface on screen.

After announcing plans to introduce its own streaming service last month, JustWatch, a popular guide and search engine for finding things to watch on existing platforms like Disney Plus and Netflix, launched JustWatch TV today. The new streaming service offers an ad-supported free subscription, an ad-free paid subscription, and movie rentals with content from 30 global partners.

The streaming service is accessible through JustWatch's existing mobile apps and its website and is currently available in 12 markets including the US, Canada, France, Italy, Australia, and the UK. Content providers include Bleecker Street, Cineverse, Fremantle, New …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Microsoft reportedly plans Xbox handheld in 2027, next-gen console in 2028

Vector illustration of the Xbox logo.

Microsoft is reportedly planning to launch an Xbox "next-generation handheld device" for the holiday season of 2027. The Xbox next-gen console, codename Project Helix, would then launch in the holidays of 2028, according to a new report from Fortune.

The report doesn't make it clear whether the handheld would be made by a manufacturer like Asus, or by Microsoft itself. Xbox teamed up with Asus for its Xbox Ally devices, which ran a modified version of Windows 11 with an Xbox mode enabled. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has also described Project Helix as a "family of devices," suggesting that Microsoft's next Xbox console may not be just one piece of …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Meta pauses Muse sharing after researchers find AI chats on the web

The Muse AI mascot and logo.

Meta says it paused a Muse feature that lets you share conversations with the AI assistant after researchers found the URLs publicly available on the web, as reported by Ars Technica. In a report published this week, researchers at the security firm Claroc say they found more than 6,800 Muse links through public DNS records.

"People have the ability to share specific Muse artifacts, which creates a page that can be accessed by those with the link," Muse spokesperson Tracy Clayton says in an emailed statement to The Verge. "However, we've paused this functionality while we review this report and consider changes to how these links can be dis …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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The $20,000 Voxel bot will help you find misplaced things around your home

Tuesday Labs, a New York City-based robotics lab and design studio, has opened reservations for Voxel, its new bi-pedal robot designed to learn and take over routine tasks throughout your home. Similar to other robots like Weave Robotics' Issac 1 that are designed for household chores beyond mopping or vacuuming floors, Voxel features a pair of highly-articulated arms and an advanced vision system. If you're interested in bringing home what Tuesday Labs describes as a "droid butler" you can reserve one now for $200 while full pricing is expected to be around $20,000 when Voxel ships sometime in 2028.

The model available for preorder is know …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Chrome will now show a warning before you visit ‘suspicious’ sites

Google Chrome’s new warning message for suspicious websites.
If you know for sure that a website flagged as suspicious is actually safe, you can mark it as such. | Image: Google

Google is launching a new browser safety feature for Chrome that aims to keep you better informed about how malicious a website might be before you open it. The new suspicious site warnings, available when Chrome's Enhanced Protection is on, build on a similar two-stage system introduced for Chrome file downloads in 2024, which provides visually different notifications for blocked files based on whether they're determined to be "suspicious" or "dangerous."

For the Chrome site warnings, the feature will flag a website as suspicious if it detects that it has similar qualities to other sites associated with phishing, malware, and scams. Google …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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AMD is bringing FSR 4.1 to Xbox consoles and handhelds

AMD has just revealed that it's bringing its latest upscaling technology, FSR 4.1, to the Xbox Series S and X consoles, as well as laptops, 6000-series GPUs, and handhelds like the Xbox Ally X devices. FSR 4.1 will start appearing for Radeon RX 6000-series GPUs today, as well as Ryzen AI Max 300 and 400 series devices, and Ryzen AI 9 300 and 400 series devices.

AMD launched its FSR 4.1 update for Radeon RX 9000-series graphics cards in March, and promised to bring the technology to older GPUs and handhelds this year. FSR 4.1 can improve performance in more than 300 supported games, including Cyberpunk 2077, Battlefield 6, and Assassin's Cre …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Arturia’s MiniFreak 49 makes its Freak synths more professional

A woman kneeling on a green rug playing the Arturia MiniFreak 49 and using its XYZ touchpad.

Arturia is adding to its Freak line of proudly weird digital synths with the MiniFreak 49. Under the hood, it's almost identical to the current MiniFreak, but it adds a number of more professional features and some interface improvements.

The most noticeable change is that, rather than the MiniFreak's 37 minikeys or the MicroFreak's 25 "key" touchplate, the MiniFreak 49 has (as you may have guessed) 49 full-sized, semi-weighted keys. Though it's somewhat disappointing that they feature only mono aftertouch instead of polyphonic aftertouch. It also trades the touchstrips of the other Freak instruments for proper aluminum pitch and mod wheel …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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The Gospel according to Peter (Thiel)

Peter Thiel with a devil whispering in his ear in front of an apocalyptic tech background.

It's a time of apocalyptic worldviews in Silicon Valley. The latest AI doom cycle is driven by effective altruism (EA), a philosophy that has lurked around the fringes for years but recently burst into the mainstream because its adherents are embedded across the AI industry, from Anthropic to newly appointed AI safety watchdog METR. EA is a utilitarian approach to charity premised on doing the most good for the most people over the longest time, and EA advocates see halting an AI-induced doomsday as critical to saving as many humans as possible.

But EA has an important and equally apocalyptic rival in the crosscutting cosmologies of the tec …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Spotify pulled 50 million AI slop and spam tracks from its recommendations

Spotify’s logo

Spotify says it has removed more than 50 million songs considered AI-generated slop or spam from user recommendations over the past year. That's according to an announcement on Tuesday that says Spotify has also made changes to its recommendation system to highlight more music made by human artists.

"Our editors hold the same standard and don't program content identified as slop or spam," Spotify says. "Since we made these changes, we've seen a marked decrease in listener concerns about this content showing up in recommendations."

Though Spotify has stopped short of mandating labels on all AI tracks, it launched an "AI Persona" badge for …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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TikTok employees said they knew about child safety issues, but execs failed to act

The TikTok logo on a black background with repeating geometric shapes

TikTok was repeatedly warned by its own staffers about risks its platform posed to child safety, according to court records obtained by NPR. The publication reports that employees were frustrated over TikTok executives failing to appropriately act on concerns they raised, including minors bypassing age-restricted content, and appearing in "transactional sexual content" the company could financially benefit from.

The previously unreported depositions of TikTok staffers were filed in federal court in March, and connected to a multi-district litigation initiated in 2022 that brings together hundreds of lawsuits alleging that TikTok, Meta, Snap …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Adobe Lightroom mobile can now open closed eyes in photos with a simple tap

A before and after photo showing open eyes added to a photo of a person with their eyes closed.

Adobe announced yesterday that the mobile version of Lightroom, available for iOS, iPadOS, and Android, can now open closed eyes in photos using generative AI with just a single tap. When the app detects a person, or a group of people, have their eyes closed in a photo it will automatically present users with a new Open Eyes Quick Action that appears as an icon over the image providing easy access to the new feature.

Being able to easily save an otherwise great photo by opening a subject's eyes has been a feature in Adobe's Photoshop Elements for nearly a decade, but as DPReview points out, Elements sources the replacement from another phot …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Antigravity just halved the price of its drone — by swapping its headset for wristwatch control

A wristwatch screen controls a drone flying right above the person’s hand.
The Antigravity A1, with the new Follow Me Kit. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

Last year's Antigravity A1 is the best beginner drone I've ever tried. I put a friend who'd never flown into its virtual cockpit and didn't worry one bit. The A1's also nice for people who'd prefer to think about flying rather than filming, because you can reframe its 360-degree footage after.

But until today, that meant wearing the company's FPV goggles and spending upwards of $1,599 on the complete set. Now, Antigravity is halving the price of entry to $799 in the US with a new "Follow Me" kit that replaces the original headset and motion controller with a wristwatch and ring instead.

The idea is that Antigravity can be your robot cam …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Spotify’s new podcast memberships let you pay for extra perks

An image showing Spotify’s Membership feature for podcast creators.

Spotify is enabling podcast creators to earn more money through the platform by providing their fans with a way to pay to access exclusive content. First announced in May, the new Memberships subscription feature is starting to roll out in 34 regions today, allowing podcasters to offer perks including additional content, early access, bonus episodes, and reduced ads behind a paywall.

Users can find Memberships on a podcast's Spotify page, with the ability to subscribe, pay, and access the exclusive benefits "in just a few taps," according to Spotify. Podcast creators can set their pricing options and bundle benefits across multiple subscrip …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Some Google Home Speakers caught downloading hundreds of gigs of data

A Google Home Speaker.
Google says a fix is rolling out that should solve the issue. | Photo: Jennifer Patison Tuohy / The Verge

Some Google Home Speaker owners are currently experiencing an issue in which hundreds of gigabytes of data are being continuously downloaded to their device in the background. The bug, reported by 9to5Google and several Reddit users over the last week, may be caused by the speakers failing to correctly download and install a firmware update, with one Redditor finding that his device was consuming more than 200GB per day.

Thankfully, Google is aware of the issue. In a statement to 9to5Google, the company said that "a fix is already rolling out that should address this for users." Most of the reports are tied specifically to the new Google Ho …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Baseus’ new security camera has a spotlight that tracks and follows moving targets

Two images showing the spotlight on the Baseus U2 Pro security camera illuminating an intruder.
The bright spotlight’s focused beam improves the quality of video captured at night while scaring off unwanted visitors. | Image: Baseus

Baseus announced a new addition to its lineup of AI-assisted security cameras that's more proactive about discouraging unwanted visitors instead of just recording and alerting you to their presence. The Baseus Security PrimeSentinel U2 Pro Outdoor 3K Dual Camera introduces a motorized spotlight that shines directly on a moving target, even as they're running across your property, so they know they've been detected. The targeted light also improves the quality of video captured in the dark to increase the chances of a subject being identified, and it can assist your family with after-hours activities like taking the dog out.

The Baseus U2 Pr …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Elon Musk’s proposed SpaceX stock giveaway would go into ‘Trump Accounts’

Elon Musk in front of a background of falling money.

President Donald Trump announced this afternoon that Elon Musk's SpaceX shares for children will be given through Trump Accounts. Musk said earlier today that he would give one of his SpaceX shares to "every kid in America" sometime next year. Musk had thanked Trump Account booster Brad Gerstner for "helping enable this," and Trump appeared to confirm the plan in a post on Truth Social.

Given the value of SpaceX's stock on Friday, 72 million shares would be worth approximately $10.5 billion, according to CNBC. "This will be the first of many," Musk said.

Michael and Susan Dell, Ray and Barbara Dalio, Gerstner, and SpaceX president Gwynne …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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CoreWeave’s debt is becoming the whole AI industry’s problem

CoreWeave had a bad week last week. Its bonds slipped into distressed territory by a common definition - when investors demand 1,000 basis points more in yield than they'd get from government bonds. Last Tuesday Chamath "SPAC King" Palihapitiya noticed the distressed debt, and also asked whether the AI buildout was a private credit bubble. Its shares are down more than 20 percent since Tuesday's close, which is kind of a lot! There even seemed to be some collateral damage in the market on other AI companies, too.

Now, I have also asked if the AI industry is a bubble, but when the SPAC King echoes concerns held by a lady whose ongoing questi …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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I tried a $99 plug that promises to track your car and send help when needed — without selling your data

The Miles is a smart plug for your car.

My 15-year-old daughter just got her learner's permit, so when I was pitched a new gadget tailored to teen drivers, I was intrigued. The Miles Plug is a small device that plugs into your car's OBD-II port and monitors location, driving habits, and vehicle health, along with emergency accident response and roadside assistance.

The idea is that knowing all these things should help me feel more comfortable when my daughter starts driving alone. I tested the (now discontinued) Ring Car Cam when my son was learning to drive, but he hated it and refused to turn it on; I wondered if the Miles could provide the same peace of mind without feeling a …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Apple teases MacBook Pro event next week

Apple has sent invites to a second product launch this month, and it's scheduled for October 28th at 1PM ET in Los Angeles.

At the event, Apple is set to announce new Macs and a refreshed iPad Mini, according to Bloomberg. The big announcement is expected to be a new MacBook Pro with an OLED touchscreen that's also lighter and has an iPhone-like Dynamic Island. But Apple is also planning on revealing a 14-inch MacBook Pro and a new iMac with the M6 chip, which was recently introduced with the Mac Mini. Apple's updated iPad Mini will apparently finally get an OLED screen as well and put the selfie cam on the landscape edge.

"Can't wait to p …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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