To close out Friday’s news, a ruling arrived with unexpected speed in a securities fraud trial accusing Elon Musk of fraud based on his 2018 tweets that he was thinking about taking Tesla private.
The jury deliberated for less than two hours before finding Musk is not liable for losses incurred by investors based on the tweet, avoiding a verdict that could have potentially cost him billions of dollars in damages.
It’s funny, Google has been promoting its AI efforts for years, but something about the mainstream attention ChatGPT has been getting, combined with Bing-owner Microsoft’s interest in the technology, seems to have lit a fire underneath the search giant. Google is holding an event about search and AI next week on February 8th. And CEO Sundar Pichai’s recent comments really make it sound as though Google will soon let people interact with its AI technology in a way that’s very similar to ChatGPT.
As we prepare to welcome Sony’s PSVR2 into the world later this month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants you to know it hasn’t forgotten about its own Quest headset. During Meta’s earnings call, the CEO said the new headset would support its mixed reality tech when it launches later this year.
Finally, Aqara, a smart home company that announced a very interesting presence detection sensor at CES this year, is gearing up to support the new Matter smart home standard. Although this paves the way for its tech to integrate more seamlessly with other smart home devices, there are, unfortunately still a lot of caveats.
Stay tuned, as we continue to update this list with the most important news of today: Friday, February 3rd, 2023.
Feb 6
A remastered version of Myst is coming to iOS
The game that frustrated and delighted us decades ago will soon be available for the device in your pocket — in remastered, three-dimensional glory.
Feb 3
Here’s a video of TikTok’s new transparency center.The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz shared an Instagram video of the recent media tour of the center. The Verge got to visit, too; check out our written story from Alex Heath.
Feb 3
Elon Musk cleared of fraud in ‘funding secured’ trial
Tesla investors sued Musk claiming that they incurred losses after he tweeted about taking the auto company private.
Feb 3
How much storage are your phone’s system files using?Mishaal Rahman is polling his users after hearing that the Galaxy S23 Ultra reserves almost 70GB for system files.
Here are some numbers from Verge staffers: 27GB on a Galaxy S22, 8.8GB on a Unihertz Titan Pocket, 17GB on a Pixel 6, and 13GB on a Pixel 6a. For iPhones, we found that iOS took up around 9GB on two iPhones, with “System Data” ranging from 11 to 28GB.
Feb 3
Pakistan is reportedly blocking Wikipedia
At the beginning of the month, the country’s government threatened to do this if it didn’t block or remove ‘sacrilegious’ content.
Feb 3
The EU has reportedly issued a formal warning to Microsoft over the Activision Blizzard deal
The European Union opened an in-depth investigation into the proposed acquisition in November.
Feb 3
It is Bandcamp Friday.As always, I checked first. And now it’s time to make some shortsighted financial decisions that at least benefit musicians a bit more than your average streaming service probably does.
There’s more info on Bandcamp Friday here.
Feb 3
PSA: Twitter’s API changes may make it difficult to log in to your favorite games
The developers of both Genshin Impact and Arknights have warned players that if they use Twitter to log in to their accounts, they might lose access.
Feb 3
Is this Microsoft’s ChatGPT-powered Bing?
Bing users say “the new Bing” interface appeared — and abruptly disappeared — this morning.
Feb 3
Richard Lawler, Nilay Patel and 2 more
Today on the Vergecast — Samsung’s Galaxy S23 and Galaxy Book3 Ultra.We’re back in video form (audio feeds for your podcast app are here), and this time yes, I admit it — I was occasionally using Nvidia AI to enhance my eye contact with Nilay, Allison, and Monica.
Other than the Galaxy Unpacked news, we also discussed earnings results from Apple and Google as they were announced on Thursday and tried to get a handle on what’s happening to big tech companies.
Feb 3
Google invested $300 million in AI firm founded by former OpenAI researchers
The startup, Anthropic, also conducts research into AI language models. The company has built its own general purpose chatbot, a potential rival to ChatGPT named Claude, but has yet to release it publicly.
Feb 3
Elon Musk will share Twitter ad revenue — but only with creators who pay for Twitter Blue
Pay $8 a month to get... something.
Feb 3
The Last of Us Part I on PC delayed by a few weeks
The remake of The Last of Us was set to release on March 3rd, but now it will be coming out on March 28th.
Feb 3
How to stereo pair two Apple HomePods
If you can swing the cost of two HomePods, you’ll get to enjoy the true potential of their sound quality.
Feb 3
Developer pleads guilty to hacking his own company after pretending to investigate himself
Nickolas Sharp held Ubiquiti’s data ransom while posing as an anonymous hacker, but an internet outage that disrupted his VPN helped the feds catch on to his scheme.
Breaking a 16-year-old tradition in Dwarf Fortress
For almost two decades, there was only one programmer working on Dwarf Fortress. Now, following a big launch on Steam and Itch.io, that’s finally changed.
Feb 3
Emm aims to upgrade periods with a smart menstrual cup
The reusable cup inserts like a tampon, tracks biometrics like a wearable, and comes with a portable sanitizer.
Feb 3
Meta’s Quest 3 headset will have better mixed reality tech, according to Zuckerberg
The CEO hinted at what could be coming with its next consumer-focused headset during Meta’s latest earnings call.
Feb 3
Aqara’s affordable smart home lineup makes first jump to Matter
The beta firmware release bridges Aqara’s Zigbee devices to the new smart home protocol. The update might not appear until March for some M2 owners.
Feb 3
Google is holding an event about search and AI on February 8th
It’s promising information on ‘Search, Maps and beyond.’
Feb 2
It sounds like Google’s getting ready to compete with ChatGPT
Sundar Pichai is promising that you’ll be able to ‘interact directly’ with the company’s language models.
