Great story and also the recipe sites vs robots thing has been happening for years, except in the age of SEO it was humans trying to get robots’ attention, sometimes at the expense of accuracy. Another example is the “don’t smash a burger to hold in the juices” myth www.theverge.com/c/23998379/g...

Possibly the coolest internship ngl

"LLMs are simply tools that emulate the communicative function of language, not the separate and distinct cognitive process of thinking and reasoning, no matter how many data centers we build."

"As you grow up, you're more involved in society. I think it's a thing."

Leave it to Sean Duffy to make a critical safety milestone — the introduction of a female crash test dummy — grossly transphobic and weird

Another Leica post, another @superantonio64.bsky.social attempt to convince me that sauntering around with the equivalent of a used Prius around my neck is somehow "ok" and "cool" even www.theverge.com/news/824295/...

the verge's reviews program has always been the heart of the site and one reason we jealously protect it and refuse to do brand deals is so we can just say the products are bad www.theverge.com/report/82215...

New from me: The same tactics marketers use to get you to find their toothbrushes or photography business on Google were also used by Jeffrey Epstein & co. to try to launder his reputation online. SEO to try to cover up the most infamous pedophile ring. www.theverge.com/report/82231...

I'm in the verse today talking about reverse engineering the kinect 15 years ago, alongside @theowatson.bsky.social, @memoakten.bsky.social , and @adafruit.com! Thanks for covering this @geoffreybunting.bsky.social! Lots of fun memories.

There is no "vibe shift" when this keep happening

I just don't believe there are 1,000,000 people in the world who want a "robot"

Happy birthday to the Microsoft Kinect, a device I dearly hope to never write about again. For @theverge.com, I recounted the history of its hacking and the echoes of an older, now unreachable, internet that resound in its story. Also, AI, because… 2025.

Trumpoware

"Captured and Bound By My CEO" anyone? Hollywood is investing in stupid microdramas -- short and cheaply made scene clips, sold separately. Binging will cost you way more than a feature, but you get points, so you can binge a little more, if you're into that kind of thing. @jank0.bsky.social:

New incredible detail here: ICE says a match in its facial recognition app Mobile Fortify is a "definitive" determination of a person's status, and that this overrides birth certificates. This is an app ICE is using in the field to scan people www.404media.co/ice-and-cbp-...

Grokipedia misgenders Chelsea Manning, cites a "race science" journal, and redirects DOGE searches to the Shiba Inu meme

Bill Gates 😘 AI

$3500 to look like this

another thing I don’t understand about people who want LLMs to “write” for them—how can you then feel smug about a thing you wrote? Coming up with a good idea better than your nemeses?? That’s the best part!

When your Chotiner interview is going great

Every single Wikipedia "alternative" I've ever come across works like this. IIRC even the NSA's internal Intellipedia cribs extensively from Wikipedia. The amount of work it would take it actually replace Wikipedia is just too massive (unless you wanted dubious machine-generated entries)

doppelgänger slop is here

wrote about the return of the Glasshole and luxury surveillance in the age of fascism for @theverge.com ft. @hypervisible.blacksky.app and @esquiring.bsky.social 👓🚫

the political right and center have spent the past half-decade trying to defang public shaming as a tactic because it's one of the last options non-billionaires have left to stop deeply antisocial stuff like this

impossible to overstate the degree to which we are being governed by people whose formative politics is gamergate, but DHS posting Halo memes to recruit for ICE is pretty close.

“It’s meaningless to talk about ‘clinical-grade’ in the same space as trying to pretend not to provide a clinical tool."

halloween couples costume: monday 6am embargo and friday night news drop

hey friends — if you haven't seen, The Verge is running a series on the future of being trans on the internet. it's got a bunch of very cool stories from talented writers! you should check it out www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

Many commenters have been asking for this... and you don't have to use Spotify.

"If queer and trans folks are going to survive, we’ll need to once again embrace the underground, and learn when to be visible and when to shut the fuck up." Read more from @janus.bsky.social: www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

Hello~ i wrote something for @theverge.com about the surreal horror of online transness in a fascist surveillance state. it’s time to change tactics and make ourselves less legible to this machinery of death — but *without* sacrificing our connection and community.

It's finally (not) jacket weather (at the office)

just going to speak this into the world: I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall for her first meeting with standards and practices. if you know anything, I'm very easy to reach xo

I’m so proud of this show we made, and I cannot overstate the extent to which it would not have been any good (or even existed at all) without Travis

pushing worldcoin ahead of deepfakeocalypse is like giving us a weird umbrella like "you're gonna need this later trust me" and then dropping a piano on us

If you know someone who has money and really loves the First Amendment you can help us ensure this ruling sticks: https://timburkelegalfund.org/

"A lot of gen AI supporters see it as a tool that’s 'democratizing' art by lowering traditional barriers to entry like 'learning how to draw,' 'learning how to play an instrument,' or 'learning how to write a story.'" @charlespulliam.bsky.social in The Stepback newsletter this week

The one where @jaypeters.net talks to Makoto Koji

It's actually quite mentally unsound how I'm used to getting "credit" for all of my rabid workout routine. @vicmsong.bsky.social mules it over on this week's The Optimizer:

"Model v5 might understand that a particular lyric should be sad, but it has no actual emotional connection to the words, because it’s a pile of code, not an artist."

for years when academics warned about the problems with letting media consolidate at the hands of one of two companies people yawned, now every day there's another vivid example of why they were right

Just in: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.424438/gov.uscourts.flmd.424438.217.0.pdf

I need people who complain about film critics to decide if we love everything or hate everything. Gets tiresome to argue both

Saw some pushback at calling Silksong sadistic but I meant it in a sexual way if that makes you feel any better.

Reminds me of this from May www.theverge.com/policy/66210... "Trump didn’t invent scams, but his administration’s dismantling of every institution that protects consumers will allow them to flourish."

"When asked about the possibility of copyright infringement, Jones’ manager, Murphy, directed the question to their lawyer, who declined The Verge’s request for comment."

Chotiner: You've written a lot about the band Weezer over the years. Me: That's right. Chotiner: And The Blue Album is their best work as you've said. Me: 100%. Always has been. Chotiner: In 1996 in a letter to your high school girlfriend you wrote... Me: Can we go off the record real quick?

Subscribe to @theverge.com and opt-in for The Stepback newsletter for more takes from a different writer week-to-week. In your inbox every Sunday at 8am. www.theverge.com/the-stepback...

Nudge nudge

Ahead of Alien: Earth’s season one finale tonight, I sat down with production designer Andy Nicholson to talk about spaceships, European automotive interior design, and the humble portable television