IsIs it possible for a phone to have “pretty privilege”? Mediocre features and functionality be damned, the original Motorola Razr V3 and its successors dominated the US cellphone market for four years following its 2004 release — up to and including the iPhone’s introduction in 2007 — seemingly on vibes and aesthetics alone. Not to…
The rumors are true, the Destiny franchise is heading to mobile devices soon. Destiny: Rising is a new free-to-play mobile sci-fi RPG shooter that includes a number of playable hero characters, a shared world, and PvE and PvP modes all set in Bungie’s Destiny universe. China-based NetEase Games has developed Destiny: Rising, after announcing a…
Adobe launched video generation capabilities for its Firefly AI platform ahead of its Adobe MAX event on Monday. Starting today, users can test out Firefly’s video generator for the first time on Adobe’s website, or try out its new AI-powered video feature, Generative Extend, in the Premiere Pro beta app. On the Firefly website, users…
Is it possible for an AI to be trained just on data generated by another AI? It might sound like a harebrained idea. But it’s one that’s been around for quite some time — and as new, real data is increasingly hard to come by, it’s been gaining traction. Anthropic used some synthetic data to…
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 56, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been reading about Bill Lawrence’s TV shows and the massively powerful…
It’s hard to know where to focus when speaking to Christoph Kohstall. The contents of his packed Palo Alto garage compete for attention. To his immediate right stands a tower of electrical components, dotted with flashing lights. To his left is a workbench and the tops of machining tools. A red industrial girder runs along…
I no longer expect video games that tackle the subjects of racism and discrimination through fantasy — as Metaphor: ReFantazio does — to surprise me. Those stories never go beyond well-trodden depictions of “racism is bad,” and I tune them out like so much white noise. But Metaphor: ReFantazio has done the work, and its…
In January last year, German biotech company BioNTech acquired African AI startup Instadeep for over $550 million, a deal finalized in July of the same year. Instadeep, whose exit is currently the largest from Africa, has been operating under the German pharma umbrella for just over a year. Now is a good time to look…
Team, Our business is in a difficult position, and it is hard to overstate the challenges we face together. Beyond navigating our current environment, restoring our company requires tough decisions and we will have to make structural changes to ensure we can stay competitive and deliver for our customers over the long term. We need…
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wants you to know he’s not an AI “doomer.” At least, that’s my read of the “mic drop” of a ~15,000 word essay Amodei published to his blog late Friday. (I tried asking Anthropic’s Claude chatbot whether it concurred, but alas, the post exceeded the free plan’s length limit.) In broad…