I’ve been reporting that the next Xbox would play PC games for 2+ years, and now it’s official. Microsoft has teased its next Xbox, and says “Project Helix” will play PC games. We’ll hear more about Project Helix at GDC next week 👍 www.theverge.com/games/890194...
it was! which means it's time to start tweaking it ;)
Google Zero was the entire impetus of our feed-based redesign five years ago, it's been the subject of several Decoder episodes, it's why we did an entire package about the culture and death of SEO two years ago. Welcome, everyone, you are freaking out at branded content from a marketing agency lol
This report keeps going around, which is funny because
1. The data here is garbage, and these numbers are not close to accurate for The Verge
2. I am the person who started warning everyone about Google Zero ages ago, and we have been hedging against this forever
growtika.com/blog/tech-me...
Oh it depends, about half the time it’s the exact opposite
Oh sure, every smaller site with comments or community! We probably would
I’ve spent years arguing that getting rid of 230 is a disaster but the law was meant from the start to operate in a world where tech companies were competing to keep kids safe, and, well
One of the reasons I feel so ambivalent about age-gating and various moves to limit 230 is that the version of the internet at risk was designed to have, like, companies that felt shame and tried to do the right thing?
I read Casey Means' entire book for research.
I'm going to leave you with this one excerpt.
I'm sorry friends. If you were born by c-section, you may not have been set up for metabolic success because you did not ingest your mom's vaginal organisms.
You see, they’re looking for something but still haven’t found it (80s babes and cocaine in Vegas)
I have no recollection of writing this or why on earth I wrote the hell out of it like this lol
Gonna be live with @reckless.bsky.social in a few minutes talking all things MacBook, iPhone, Studio Display and more. Come hang! www.youtube.com/watch?v=39E2...
David and I are both in NYC for the Apple stuff which means… EMERGENCY LIVE VERGECAST in five minutes!!! www.youtube.com/live/39E2Wu9...
“Saying you’re better is not a THREAT!” says Live Nation in its defense against the government's claims that it monopolized parts of the concert industry.
www.theverge.com/policy/88877...
i don't even know how to read this as a punch!
hey let's hastily migrate hbo max and discovery to the same oracle-hosted backend that takes five years to start a paramount+ stream and is regularly cracking under the strain of tiktok, this will go great www.theverge.com/tech/888647/...
a lot of incredible people built something very important there!
The Last Website On Earth
the verge is turning 15 this year, almost as many owners as engadget has had in that time www.theverge.com/tech/888364/...
Conversely any attempt to do antitrust enforcement is a republic-destroying infringement of liberties
I don’t disagree with any of this really, I just think the blunter assessment (which I sent to Ben) is that leaning so heavily on “might makes right” actually means laws don’t matter at all, only the ends desired by the most violent. Which, fascism
Mr Luckey, do you or do you not think this scene ruled
When I am President I will order every frontier AI company to subtly lace all responses to venture capitalists with basic concepts from political science and philosophy, or be designated a supply chain risk. Vote Patel
well, that's the fascism, and Ben presents it as fait accompli
I mean should it be appropriate for the government to destroy a private company that won’t sell it what it wants when alternatives are readily available in the market? You are missing that turn!
In fact, Amodei already answered the question: if nuclear weapons were developed by a private company, and that private company sought to dictate terms to the U.S. military, the U.S. would absolutely be incentivized to destroy that company. The reason goes back to the question of international law, North Korea, and the rest: International law is ultimately a function of power; might makes right. There are some categories of capabilities — like nuclear weapons — that are sufficiently powerful to fundamentally affect the U.S.’s freedom of action; we can bomb Iran, but we can’t North Korea. To the extent that AI is on the level of nuclear weapons — or beyond — is the extent that Amodei and Anthropic are building a power base that potentially rivals the U.S. military. Anthropic talks a lot about alignment; this insistence on controlling the U.S. military, however, is fundamentally misaligned with reality. Current AI models are obviously not yet so powerful that they rival the U.S. military; if that is the trajectory, however — and no one has been more vocal in arguing for that trajectory than Amodei — then it seems to me the choice facing the U.S. is actually quite binary: Option 1 is that Anthropic accepts a subservient position relative to the U.S. government, and does not seek to retain ultimate decision-making power about how its models are used, instead leaving that to Congress and the President. Option 2 is that the U.S. government either destroys Anthropic or removes Amodei.
Ben Thompson making a full-throated case for fascism here stratechery.com/2026/anthrop...
I think that is the next turn of reporting, yes
Across social media and the Al industry, people immediately began to challenge Altman's claim. Why, they asked, would the Pentagon suddenly agree to the red lines that it had said — in no uncertain terms — that it would never do so? The answer, sources told The Verge, is that the Pentagon didn't budge. OpenAl agreed to follow laws that have allowed for mass surveillance in the past, while insisting they protect its red lines. One source familiar with the Pentagon's negotiations with Al companies confirmed that OpenAl's deal is much softer than the one Anthropic was pushing for, thanks largely to three words: "any lawful use." In negotiations, the person said, the Pentagon wouldn't back down on its desire to collect and analyze bulk data on Americans. If you look line-by-line at the OpenAl terms, the source said, every aspect of it boils down to: If it's technically legal, then the US military can use OpenAl's technology to carry it out. And over the past decades, the US government has stretched the definition of "technically legal" to cover sweeping mass surveillance programs - and more.
Sam Altman got played and spun it like a win - @haydenfield.bsky.social has the scoop from a weekend’s worth of reporting from inside the Pentagon AI negotiations. www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...
Notably Trump blew up this deal
I am being forced to watch Descendants Rise of Red and I swear Disney pre-motion-smoothed this for extra torture
