Instinct was the buzziest AI agent around — can it survive Muse?
Before there were cute little guys, there was Instinct.
In August, the startup got its AI agent to market with an unusual playbook: invite-only, no marketing, and barely so much as a website. And yet, Instinct quickly became the buzziest thing in AI, garnering praise for its straightforward, text message-based interface and its ability to handle chores like booking DMV appointments and sending follow-up emails.
Then Muse arrived, followed not long after by Dots. The same products, more or less, from two far more powerful companies.
With Big Tech players suddenly in the mix, it was looking dubious that the startup's buzzy launch could keep …
A week with Googlebooks: four notes from our testing so far
Google's new operating system is off to a rocky start. The five newly launched Googlebook laptops have hardware that ranges from great to excellent, but the software in its current state is the weak point. There are four of us on staff at The Verge actively testing Googlebooks and, frankly, our internal Slack discussions have been mostly filled with collective venting of frustrations, disappointments, and bewilderment.
The promise of Googlebooks as a fresh and smartly designed alternative to Windows or Mac for Android phone owners sounds great, but there's more than just a few kinks and quirks to work out. Some of its issues and challenges …
Meta is banning TikTok ads across its platforms
Meta has banned ads from TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance across the US and several other countries as the rivalry between the major social media operators heats up, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. The ban, which went into effect on Thursday, restricts ads and paid marketing messages from ByteDance, along with third-party ads that link to TikTok.
"We don't have to run ads from a competitor whose goal is to pull people off our apps," Meta spokesperson Christopher Sgro said in a statement to The Verge. "Declining promotional services to a competitor is a normal business practice across industries. We will continue to compete on pr …
The humble Playdate has become one of gaming’s best deals
The Playdate, Panic's tiny yellow handheld that launched in 2022, has slowly but surely become a great deal - which is a good thing, because everything else in gaming has only gotten more expensive. Despite being a weird device with a black-and-white screen and a crank jutting out the side, the Playdate has managed to cultivate a strong and constantly growing library of games. And with the handheld's new season 3 of games, the deal has only gotten better.
Playdate's "seasons" are basically curated collections of games that are released over a short period of time. For season 3, there are eight games in total, with two launching weekly over …
OpenAI doubles down on decision to fire three AI safety researchers
OpenAI is standing firm on its decision to fire three safety researchers after an investigation found they committed "a significant breach of trust."
In a post on X on Friday, the company said Jasmine Wang, Tomek Korbak and Mikita Balesni were dismissed for violating "clear policies on handling sensitive information." It insisted the decision was not about the trio speaking out about the company and their concerns about AI safety.
The post is a direct response to an open letter the researchers published on Thursday urging OpenAI to be more transparent about the decision. In it and a series of social media posts, the group said they believ …
Microsoft 365 Family subscribers will finally be able to share AI benefits
Microsoft bundled its AI-powered Office features into Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions last year, but it only allowed the primary account holder to access the AI benefits. Now, Microsoft is about to let Microsoft 365 Family and Premium subscribers share Copilot and AI usage features, alongside access to Office apps and OneDrive storage, with up to five other people on a plan.
In an email to Microsoft 365 Family and Premium subscribers seen by The Verge, Microsoft outlines the changes that are coming to subscription plans over the coming months:
- AI for everyone on your plan: Share your Copilot benefits and AI usage with othe …
US plans livestream of execution by firing squad
The United States' execution of the Fort Hood shooter will be livestreamed, anonymous officials from the Defense Department told the BBC and Associated Press. The planned execution of Nidal Hasan, the former US Army major convicted of killing 13 people at the Texas military base, was announced this week. He is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on December 3rd at 2PM ET.
The Verge contacted YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, Meta, Rumble, and Kick to ask if they plan to allow the livestream to be aired on their platforms. None responded before publication.
"We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need …
Anthropic launches free AI security scans for open-source projects
Anthropic's offering to help open-source projects track down security vulnerabilities with a new service called OSS Scanner. It says open-source projects that opt-in will get "thorough, periodic security scans by our strongest models at no cost." That could mean open-source projects get alerted about possible security issues sooner, but the trade-off is that OSS Scanner's reports don't come with human review:
The outputs of this opt-in vulnerability scanner will be fully model-generated, without human review or triage. This will enable faster and more frequent scanning, but means that it is possible reports will be incorrect or invalid. Th …
SpaceX announces plan to become a ‘major mobile carrier’
SpaceX has acquired a portfolio of low-band spectrum licenses - a move the company says "will pave the way" for its Starlink Mobile service to become a "major" US carrier. When the Federal Communications Commission signs off on the deal, SpaceX says it will deploy its new architecture that combines its satellite-to-mobile constellation with a terrestrial mobile network, directly competing with T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon.
The licenses include up to 14 megahertz of paired spectrum in the 800 MHz band, which SpaceX says will allow Starlink Mobile's signal to penetrate through walls and buildings. SpaceX previously acquired 2GHz spectrum from …
AMD will bring FSR 4 to handhelds by the end of 2026
It's already possible to get AMD's framerate-enhancing FSR 4 boost on handhelds as old as the Steam Deck - but in June, AMD reserved the right to disappoint handheld gamers by not officially bringing FSR 4 to older handhelds. Now, AMD consumer chip boss Jack Huynh says he will bring the tech to some handhelds by the end of the year.
Which handhelds? It's still not clear if it will come to existing handhelds, or if you'll need a new one to get it - because it comes alongside news that AMD is releasing a new FSR4-capable chip.
"We will expand the machine learning AI-based FSR4 technology, which was first introduced to existing external graph …