Cruise closes one robotaxi investigation with a recall

Based on ODI’s analysis of immobilization data, the potential safety risk is heavily dependent on the context of the immobilized vehicle’s location, detectability of the vehicle due to hazard lights automatically engaging, and none of the immobilization incidents reviewed resulted in a crash or injuries.

ODI also analyzed hard braking data which included 7,632 hard braking events commanded by the Cruise ADS. These events were determined by certain thresholds, including rate of deceleration, without regard to the appropriateness of the braking. ODI determined that Cruise vehicles contributed to 10 crashes that were reported under the Standing General Order 2021-01 (SGO), 4 of which involved a vulnerable road user and resulted in injury

Feds charge alleged negotiator for Russian ransomware group

The US government has charged a member of a Russian ransomware group known as Karakurt, as reported earlier by Bleeping Computer. In a press release on Tuesday, the Department of Justice claims 33-year-old Deniss Zolotarjovs of Moscow, Russia conspired to commit money laundering, wire fraud, and extortion.

As outlined in the criminal complaint, the FBI alleges Karakurt stole and threatened to auction sensitive data from several companies throughout the US. The complaint pins Zolotarjovs as the hacking group’s negotiator of “cold case extortions,” in which victims don’t respond with a ransom following an attack, according to Bleeping Computer.

A bulletin from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) says Karakurt has been known to contact victims’ employees, business partners, and clients “with harassing emails and phone calls to pressure the victims to cooperate.” It also operated a leaks and auction website.

Law enforcement in the Eastern European country of Georgia arrested Zolotarjovs last December and extradited him to the US earlier this month. The DOJ says Zolotarjovs is the first alleged Karakurt member to be arrested and extradited to the US.

Peloton is adding a $95 activation fee for secondhand machines

Thinking of buying a secondhand Peloton machine? Well, US and Canadian customers who do will now have to pay a one-time $95 (or $125 CAD) “used equipment activation fee.”

Peloton made the announcement in its Q4 2024 shareholder letter. The fee doesn’t apply to refurbished models you buy directly from Peloton or its third-party distribution partners. The company clarified in an earnings call that this fee will be applied to folks who buy a Peloton machine directly from a previous owner.

The official reason why is so that new members “receive the same high-quality onboarding experience Peloton is known for.” That may be true, but the fee is also a way for Peloton to get a cut of secondary hardware sales. In today’s earnings call, the company itself said that the fee will also be a “source of incremental revenue and gross profit.” For users, the fee will include a virtual custom fitting for Bike and Bike Plus customers, as well as a history summary of the pre-owned hardware. Peloton says it’ll also extend discounts on bike shoes, mats, and spare parts.

The obvious appeal of buying a Peloton from a secondhand is the savings. On Facebook Marketplace, you can easily find used Peloton Bikes in the $300–$500 range. (The regular Bike retails for $1,445.) There are also private Facebook Groups like Peloton Buy Sell Trade that are popular within the community. Secondhand buyers still have to pay a $44 monthly membership fee to access Peloton’s content, but the initial savings are substantial given that Peloton hardware is expensive for the category.

Otherwise, Peloton’s earnings call was more hopeful than its last, which saw CEO Barry McCarthy step down amid another round of layoffs. Peloton shares rose more than 15 percent as the company showed signs that efforts to reverse its poor fortunes were taking hold, recording modest sales growth and narrowing its losses to $30 million, down from $241 million year over year.

Animal Crossing mobile shuts down in November but will live on in new app

In a statement today, Nintendo assured current players they would still be able to fully enjoy the game for three more months. “We will continue to hold events and add items until the service-end date.”

In addition to the game shutting down on November 28th, Leaf Tickets (which could be used to expedite the building of campsite accessories) will no longer be available for purchase starting on November 27th. As of October 28th, new monthly Pocket Camp Club subscriptions will also no longer be accepted, and existing subscriptions to all three tiers will no longer automatically renew.

November won’t be the permanent end of the trail for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. Nintendo has assured players that their save data can be carried over to a new version of the game currently in development by linking their Nintendo accounts. The company doesn’t plan to reveal the new version until sometime in October but shared a few details today. The new Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp will be a “paid app without in-app purchases” and will not require a constant internet connection to be played.

The announcement is part of Nintendo’s slow shift away from mobile. After the success of the Nintendo DS and the Wii, with many gamers migrating to smartphones, Nintendo did the same. In 2015, it released its first mobile game, Miitomo, which was followed by more ambitious apps like Super Mario Run in 2016, Fire Emblem: Heroes and Pocket Camp in 2017, and Mario Kart Tour in 2019.

The past five years haven’t seen much of anything from Nintendo for iOS or Android, but at least the company isn’t shutting down Pocket Camp entirely and leaving paying players with nothing, like it did when it shut down its free-to-play mobile game Dragalia Lost.

The ad-free Kindle Kids has dropped below $100 for the first time this year

I will be the first to admit that the Kindle deals we saw during Amazon Prime Day in July were lackluster at best. Only the note-taking Kindle Scribe saw a discount worth highlighting, though, thankfully, we’re starting to see prices drop across the entire lineup. Right now, for instance, the latest Kindle Kids is on sale for $94.99 ($15 off) — one of its best prices to date — at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target.

So-called “kid” devices from Amazon are often misunderstood. The ad-free ebook reader is identical to the 11th-gen model rolled out in 2022, which remains the best budget option. It offers a sharp 300ppi display and USB-C support as well as up to six weeks of battery life with average use. The Kids version simply comes with optional parental controls, an extended two-year warranty, and one of several kid-friendly cases, none of which you are required to use. Amazon also includes a year of Amazon Kids Plus with each purchase, which provides access to ad-free games, videos, and books in the Artemis Fowl, Percy Jackson, and Harry Potter series.

If you want a larger display or IPX8 waterproofing, the latest Kindle Paperwhite Kids is also on sale at Amazon and Best Buy for $134.99 ($35 off), nearly matching its second-best price to date. Like the standard Kindle, the 6.8-inch Paperwhite Kids is identical to the base model, only with optional parental controls, a protective case, and all of the aforementioned perks. That makes it a great option for kids and adults alike, especially at the current deal price.

Periphery Synthetic is a chill, accessible audio dream

Space is a soundless vacuum home to countless wonders. Aphotic black holes and the dazzling plasma they stir, starling nebulae, and the pulsars that infuse our physics books with color — the universe is full of sights. Periphery Synthetic asks, what if, rather than a visual cacophony, ours were a universe of sublime noise? Or rather, what if, in this silent universe, sound was all we had by which to navigate?

Periphery Synthetic tasks the player with exploring the stellar system Alpha Periphery. You do this by traversing and scanning planets to assess their viability for colonization. The minerals you find along the way can be used to upgrade your gear to more efficiently carry out your task, and, as you go, you’ll slowly unravel the mysteries of Alpha Periphery in a chill, undemanding, and meditative sound-driven experience.

“There are over 100 unique synths covering the user interface, music, and environmental sounds for each world and other sound effects like footsteps and collisions,” the game’s solo developer, who goes by the handle shiftBacktick, tells The Verge. “Dozens of them are playing at once to make the overall soundscape.”

These sounds are your primary method of navigation. Warbling tones surround collectibles, the crunching roll of synths shifts on different surfaces, and the terrain pulses. All can be momentarily silenced by your scanner, which audibly pings nearby objects and recenters the player in the search for more materials. It’s not a smorgasbord of disparate noise, however. Periphery Synthetic employs two chords — along with harmonics and inversions of those chords — to create a persistent, almost naturalized soundboard by which to communicate everything in its environment.

“Cozy low-stimulus environments that are perfect for your mind’s eye to wander”

The immediate comparison one could make is to Proteus, Ed Key and David Kanaga’s sound-motivated dreamscape. This common ground isn’t entirely accidental. Proteus was the game shiftBacktick played, they said, when first experimenting with acid — an experience they describe as profound. This, however, is as far as the connection goes. “It’s more about packaging that ineffable ephemerality of the psychedelic experience into cozy low-stimulus environments that are perfect for your mind’s eye to wander,” shiftBacktick says.

Wander it will. Playing Periphery Synthetic, whether by sight or sound, is to court a trance-like sensation. What visual world it provides is communicated through a succession of squares of different sizes, concentrations, and orientations. They represent the sun, the stars, collectibles, and the barren landscapes that scroll to the horizon. It brings to mind the synthesized imagery of Windows XP’s Media Player as I listened to David Byrne’s “Like Humans Do” for the umpteenth time because I was too young to understand how to put music on the computer.

The simplicity is beguiling, especially in concert with the reverberating echoes pumping through the speakers. Indeed, though I usually write to a combination of colorful noise, for this feature, I simply booted up the game in the background and let its pulsing tones lull my mind into focus for a similar effect. 

For all of this, though, Periphery Synthetic is a game designed to be played without seeing the screen. This manifests in a settings menu where a host of sliders control the highly parameterized soundboard. Elsewhere, control settings include dead zone adjustment and sensitivity — though no rebinding. In another menu, an extensive “how to play” guide offers context to a game that can be experienced, within the loop it lays down, mostly as the player desires.

Whether you engage in a blistering hunt for minerals or a relaxing drive across Periphery Synthetic’s worlds, meandering into progression when you feel like it, it is a game that is at once both inherently welcoming and customizable. For a solo developer, it’s an admirable level of accessibility in a game designed to be played by sound alone (and which I had no problem playing with one hand, on keyboard).

This is, of course, excellent news for blind and visually impaired gamers as Periphery Synthetic joins a short list of video games that should be playable without assistance. Though it does not include a dedicated text-to-speech function, it does fully support screen readers to make sure its text-heavy lore and menus are as navigable as the rest of the game.

“As a sighted game developer, it’s my moral responsibility to help reduce these barriers for as many folks as I can.”

This, according to shiftBacktick — who has a background in web development and the accessibility that is standard there — is owed in large part to the community that has formed around their development process and our long tradition of audio games. “Learning about the history of these sorts of games and shedding my ego were important steps along my accessibility journey,” shiftBacktick says. “As a sighted game developer, it’s my moral responsibility to help reduce these barriers for as many folks as I can.”

Though the gameplay loop of Periphery Synthetic can be achieved through sight, I would argue the best way to experience it as a sighted player is to turn off its graphics (another menu option), even if only temporarily. The game doesn’t demand much, but even so, I found myself defaulting to the visual as I started. It was only after I switched them off and embraced the avenues its warbling pulses and harmonics led me down that I truly appreciated the meditative, almost hyperfocused quality Periphery Synthetic inspires. 

That feeling carries over to whenever you revisit the game’s graphics, but I would urge sighted players to spend at least a little time in the depths of a black screen being guided by the game’s remarkably broad soundscape. There’s no danger in it — no fail states — but there’s a lot to be discovered by doing so, both about other gamers’ experiences but also about one’s self.

“Periphery Synthetic doesn’t hold your hand or demand much to reach the end,” shiftBacktick says. “I hope it recaptures your childhood sense of exploration and discovery and brings you joy along the way.”

Though gaming has a reputation as a visual medium, Periphery Synthetic proves there is more potential in video games beyond visual acuity. The result is a sympathetic, almost equitable experience in which the features that make it so approachable to so many are less an additive than an invisible vehicle to common ground between varying abilities. It’s blissful to hop across its sprawling worlds, to slide down its mountains, and to let go in its pulsing soundscape.

Periphery Synthetic is a rare game that grants players permission to exist within its loose bounds as they like and unites them in gameplay that is powerfully similar from one player to another, regardless of how they are able to approach the experience.

Periphery Synthetic is out today on PC.

The Verge’s favorite audio gear

Every year, I ask The Verge’s staff what kind of audio gear they like to use. And they are the perfect set of people to ask: besides working on videos and podcasts, our Slack channels are filled with discussions of the podcasts and music we listen to while working, walking, exercising, or just hanging out. 

So here are the headphones, earbuds, and other devices that some of the folks here like to use, both on a professional and personal level. 

Headphones and earbuds

RØDE NTH-100 headphones 

Andrew Marino, senior audio producer

Pair of RØDE NTH-100 headphones Pair of RØDE NTH-100 headphones

Professional-level over-the-ear headphones with memory foam cushions and an optional headset microphone.

The RØDE NTH-100 headphones are the comfiest headphones I’ve used. The memory foam cushions let me wear these all day at work without fatigue. The sound is great for the price, too, and the optional headset microphone is one of the best-quality mics I’ve heard on consumer headsets. 

Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses

Victoria Song, senior reviewer

A pair of folded sun glasses.A pair of folded sun glasses.

$379

Smart glasses equipped with Meta AI, a 12MP camera, and audio, in various styles.

On sunny walks and runs, I’m not interested in getting flattened by wayward SUVs in my neighborhood — I need that situational awareness. Many open-ear headphones wrap around the top of the ear, and since I often wear glasses, that’s a lot to put on my poor ears. The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses kill two birds with one stone; they’re my go-to headphones these days. The audio quality is great, they protect my eyes from UV rays, and once in a while, I use them to snap a photo of a random bunny or stray cat. There’s a mic right by your nose bridge, so you sound pretty great on calls, too. Who doesn’t love a multitasking gadget? 

Sony LinkBuds

Andrew Liszewski, senior reporter

Sony’s LinkBuds have a standout design that’s rooted in comfort and an airy, open sound. They also excel when used for voice calls, outshining pretty much all competitors.

They’re not the wireless earbuds I reach for all the time, but when I’m relaxing on a bike ride at the end of the day, the open design of Sony’s LinkBuds helps keep me aware of my surroundings — whether it’s approaching vehicles or other cyclists who are in more of a hurry. Even with some compromises to sound quality, the LinkBuds still sound very good, and because they sit in my ears, they’re easier to wear with a helmet. My favorite feature is the ability to tap on the side of my head to control playback or adjust the volume while riding. The earbuds detect the nearby vibrations as inputs so I don’t have to precisely target buttons or touchpads.

Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro

A photo of Samsung’s purple Galaxy Buds 2 Pro.A photo of Samsung’s purple Galaxy Buds 2 Pro.

These buds have excellent sound quality and good noise cancellation but work best when you’re part of the Samsung ecosystem.

I love my Galaxy Buds 2 Pro; they’re the first wireless earbuds I’ve ever used, and they made the most sense for me, as I’m knee-deep in Samsung’s ecosystem. They fit comfortably inside my ears and their active noise cancellation works well — almost too well — at the gym or on an airplane.

Miscellaneous and accessories

Shure MV7 USB microphone 

Andrew Marino, senior audio producer 

Shure MV7+ microphone hanging from above.Shure MV7+ microphone hanging from above.

$279

An update to the well-regarded Shure MV7 with customizable color and improved performance.

The Shure MV7 USB has been our go-to microphone to send to remote guests for Verge podcasts. It’s a very flexible dynamic microphone for podcast interviews because of its sonic similarity to typical radio mics like Shure’s SM7b and has both a USB and XLR output for virtually any recording setup. 

Apple’s Lightning and USB-C headphone adapters

Nathan Edwards, senior reviews editor

iPad with headphone jack adapter attachediPad with headphone jack adapter attached

$9

If you miss having a headphone jack in your iPhone or iPod, this adapter can help.

Taking away the headphone jack was and is user-hostile and stupid. It is stupid that I need an adapter to connect wired headphones to my tablet, and it is stupid that I need a different adapter to use them with my phone.

At least Apple’s Lightning and USB-C headphone adapters are small and cheap. And the USB-C one is a surprisingly good DAC. I keep one of each in a little pouch in my backpack, along with some cheap wired earbuds. If only there were some universal wired audio connector! Maybe someday.  

3D-printed rack mounts

Andrew Marino, senior audio producer 

Red audio interface device in a bracket under a desk.Red audio interface device in a bracket under a desk.

$19

Motu offers desk mounting brackets for a variety of audio interfaces, getting them out of the way of your other equipment.

If you have a lot of audio gear on your workspace, I’d recommend making some room by mounting some of that stuff under your desk. I bought a 3D-printed mounting bracket for my Motu audio interface from an Etsy store, which makes my setup look a lot more professional and keeps the tech away from any spilled drinks. 

Teenage Engineering PO-33 K.O.!

Andrew Liszewski, senior reporter

Two hands holding a Teenage Engineer microsampler.Two hands holding a Teenage Engineer microsampler.

$99

This microsampler and drum machine can provide hours of fun for music lovers.

I am by no stretch of the imagination a musician, but I do enjoy living out my Daft Punk fantasies with the Teenage Engineering PO-33 K.O.! It’s part of the company’s Pocket Operators lineup of calculator-sized drum machines, but what sets the PO-33 apart is a built-in microphone that can be used to record sounds that can be turned into beats. I won’t be releasing an album anytime soon, but the PO-33 is an endlessly fun distraction — easy to learn but with enough functionality that it feels like it will take years to master.

Audio-Technica AT-HPH300 headphone hanger

Barbara Krasnoff, reviews editor

Headphone hanging from a tableHeadphone hanging from a table

$24

A convenient way to hang your headphones up next to or under your desk.

My partner spends a lot of time wearing headphones — among other things, he has a radio show and a YouTube channel — but occasionally he does have to put them aside. When he does, he uses the Audio-Technica AT-HPH300 headphone hanger that he bought a few years ago. It fastens securely to the edge of his desk and has an adjustable padded hook. The hook rotates so he can also move the headphones out of the way and under the desk if he needs to. 

A spring clamp

Nathan Edwards, senior reviews editor

Four spring clamps with a fifth being held in a hand.Four spring clamps with a fifth being held in a hand.

These clamps can be used for a variety of useful tasks, including holding up your headphones. Package of four.

I hang my headphones from a spring clamp I found in the garage.

YouTube has a new tool to help restore hacked channels: an AI chatbot

YouTube has announced a new AI assistant feature to help users recover accounts that have been targeted by hackers. Described as a “troubleshooting tool” on Google’s support page, the chatbot can be accessed via the YouTube Help Center, and should ask hacked creators a series of questions to guide them through the process of securing their impacted Google logins and reversing any changes that have been made to their YouTube channels.

The support assistant is currently only available in English, and access to “certain troubleshooting features” is limited to a select group of “certain creators,” but Google says it plans to eventually make the feature available to all YouTube creators.

We’ve managed to access the tool and the results seem… fine. It’s a fairly standard support chatbot with no generative AI weirdness detected so far, and some guardrails appear to be in place. It doesn’t really solve one of the major complaints that creators have voiced, however: that YouTube is nigh impossible to contact when issues arise. Speaking to a YouTube rep directly is typically limited to only the largest creators in the platform’s partner program, leaving smaller accounts left to resolve their own situations via help pages or seemingly automated responses from YouTube support.

AMD says Microsoft’s next big Windows 11 update will improve Zen 5 CPU performance

AMD says Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 11 version 24H2 update will improve performance for its new Zen 5 CPUs. The Ryzen 9000 series launched earlier this month, and failed to live up to AMD’s performance promises in most reviews. After rumors of a Windows bug, AMD has revealed that AMD-specific branch prediction code will be optimized in Windows 11 version 24H2, which is expected to ship next month.

“Zen 5 will see the biggest boost, but this Windows update will improve performance for Zen 4 and Zen 3 as well,” admits AMD. While the chip maker hasn’t revealed how much better its older CPUs will perform, it’s predicting a 13 percent performance improvement for its 9950X CPU in Far Cry 6 running 24H2 instead of 23H2, and a seven percent jump for Cyberpunk 2077. Both are fairly significant increases for a single Windows update. AMD says it’s “collaborating with Microsoft to roll out this optional update to all Windows 11 users soon.”

Reviewers found that in some cases the previous generation Ryzen 9 7950X looked like better value than AMD’s new flagship Ryzen 9 9950X. Over a 13-game average running at 1080p with an RTX 4090, Hardware Unboxed found that the 9950X was just a single percent faster than the existing 7950X. In productivity tasks, that gap was just 3 percent.

We’ll now have to wait for reviewers to test 24H2 with these latest Ryzen chips to see if AMD’s claims of a bigger boost to these chips are accurate, particularly as Zen 4 and Zen 3 processors will be improved too. Despite the poor initial gaming benchmark results for the 9950X, AMD insists the Ryzen 9000 series “delivers leadership performance across content creation, productivity and AI applications.”

OpenAI exec says California’s AI security invoice would possibly gradual progress

In a brand new letter, OpenAI chief technique officer Jason Kwon insists that AI laws needs to be left to the federal authorities. As reported beforehand by Bloomberg, Kwon says {that a} new AI security invoice into account in California might gradual progress and trigger corporations to go away the state.

A federally-driven set of AI insurance policies, quite than a patchwork of state legal guidelines, will foster innovation and place the U.S. to guide the event of worldwide requirements. In consequence, we be part of different AI labs, builders, specialists and members of California’s Congressional delegation in respectfully opposing SB 1047 and welcome the chance to stipulate a few of our key issues.

The letter is addressed to California State Senator Scott Wiener, who initially launched SB 1047, also called the Secure and Safe Innovation for Frontier Synthetic Intelligence Fashions Act.

In keeping with proponents like Wiener, it establishes requirements forward of the event of extra highly effective AI fashions, requires precautions like pre-deployment security testing and different safeguards, provides whistleblower protections for workers of AI labs, offers California’s Legal professional Basic energy to take authorized motion if AI fashions trigger hurt, and requires establishing a “public cloud pc cluster” referred to as CalCompute.

In a response to the letter revealed Wednesday night, Wiener factors out that the proposed necessities apply to any firm doing enterprise in California, whether or not they’re headquartered within the state or not, so the argument “is senseless.” He additionally writes that OpenAI “…doesn’t criticize a single provision of the invoice” and closes by saying, “SB 1047 is a extremely cheap invoice that asks massive AI labs to do what they’ve already dedicated to doing, particularly, take a look at their massive fashions for catastrophic security danger.”

The invoice is at the moment awaiting its last vote earlier than going to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk.

Right here is OpenAI’s letter in full: