This climate tech startup wants to capture carbon and help data centers cool down - Technology news - NewsLocker (2024)

280 Earth’s pilot carbon removal facility in The Dalles, Oregon. | Image: 280 Earth Data centers are a growing climate problem, especially as all the energy needed to train AI models inflates tech companies’ carbon footprints. A startup that spun out of Google’s “moonshot factory” X says its technology can provide a potential solution. It can pull carbon dioxide out of the air, run partially on servers’ waste heat, and even generate water to help cool a data c

Why The Atlantic signed a deal with OpenAI

Illustration: The Verge CEO Nicholas Thompson discusses the deal: ‘AI is coming. It is coming quickly. We want to be part of whatever transition happens.’Continue reading…

Tesla reportedly delaying its robotaxi reveal until October

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Tesla won’t reveal its long-promised fully autonomous robotaxi until October in order to give the company’s engineering team more time to build and test prototypes, Bloomberg reports.The event was originally set for August 8th, which Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced earlier this year amid questions about the company’s commitments to more affordable electric vehicles.The delay has been communicated internally to Tesla employees but has ye

One of our favorite robovacs is down to its all-time low ahead of Prime Day

Unlike the standard model, the iRobot Roomba j7 Plus comes with an auto-empty dock. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge As an extremely lazy person, I am a big fan of robot vacuums like the Roomba j7 Plus. Nothing beats rotting in bed as iRobot’s last-gen flagship navigates my cluttered home and does the cleaning on my behalf. What I don’t like, though, is its high price tag. Thankfully, Prime members can currently pick up the j7 Plus with an auto-empty dock for just $399.

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Notorious Hacker Kingpin ‘Tank’ Is Finally Going to Prison

The cybercrime boss, who helped lead the prolific Zeus malware gang and was on the FBI’s “most wanted” list for years, has been sentenced to 18 years and ordered to pay more than $73 million.

YouTube Shorts adds TikTok-style artificial voiceovers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube has announced a set of new features for YouTube Shorts, some of which are available now, like a new text-to-speech video narration that lets you add an artificial voiceover. On TikTok, those are the sometimes startlingly robotic voices that you hear a lot on videos with something to promote.
The process for adding them is a lot like TikTok’s, in fact: after you create some text, you’ll tap a new “add voice” icon that, in Sho

OpenAI Is Testing Its Powers of Persuasion

Sam Altman is touting AI’s ability to sway people's behavior. His company is also wrestling with the risks.

Verizon’s Total Wireless prepaid brand is now offering a five-year price guarantee

The new circular Total Wireless logo. | Image: Total Wireless Total Wireless, a prepaid brand owned by Verizon, now offers a five-year price lock on unlimited data plans. The company is kicking off its new deal with an updated logo and a customer promo that advertises “less than $30 per month,” although you would need four lines to achieve that price per line.
For a single line on Total, you’ll pay $50 per month to get unlimited data, including access to Verizon’s 5G UWB

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Apple to Allow Rivals to Access ‘Tap and Go’ Technology

In the latest iOS overhaul prompted by European Union rules, the smartphone maker will give third-party developers access to its payment technology.

Google says Gemini AI is making its robots smarter

DeepMind found “preliminary evidence” that Gemini enables its robots to plan how to undertake complex tasks from simple instructions. | Image: Google DeepMind Google is training its robots with Gemini AI so they can get better at navigation and completing tasks. The DeepMind robotics team explained in a new research paper how using Gemini 1.5 Pro’s long context window — which dictates how much information an AI model can process — allows users to more easily interac

Model rocket enthusiasts are learning how to do vertical landings

It took Aryan Kapoor three years to land a model rocket vertically. | Screenshot: YouTube Joe Barnard (or BPS.Space) and Aryan Kapoor are two model rocket enthusiasts who’ve spent years working to advance the hobby with innovative ways to precisely steer model rockets and land them vertically instead of just watching them parachute back to Earth after a launch. Despite many failures and setbacks, they’ve each succeeded in recreating SpaceX’s Falcon 9 landing capabilities at a m

The King of Chum

The man behind the AI gaffes at Sports Illustrated and USA Today has a yearslong history of filling the internet with garbage.Continue reading…

11 Picks for the Best Gaming Mouse, Tested and Reviewed (2024)

Whether you’re into esports or casual fragging, these are the greatest gaming mice we’ve tested.

The Best Nonalcoholic Wines, Chosen by a Bartender (2024)

Nonalcoholic wine is a rapidly growing beverage category. Here are the best red, white, and sparkling options we’ve tasted.

AI design apps made my new apartment look odd

Image: Jackson Gibbs for The Verge I thought AI apps could help design my space, but they’re not quite ready yet.Continue reading…

This is Sonos’ next flagship soundbar

Illustration: The Verge As Sonos continues chipping away at fixing bugs and improving the performance of its poorly received mobile app redesign, the company also remains focused on several new hardware products. Among them is an ultrapremium soundbar that will serve as a successor to the current Sonos Arc — at a significantly higher price. Codenamed Lasso, the device is currently in limited beta testing, and today, I can share the first images of it.The exterior of the Lasso soundbar bear

Semaglutide for the People

This week, we learn how easy it is to buy cloned Ozempic on the internet, and we explore what the latest research is revealing about how GLP-1 drugs affect our bodies.

How to manage a road trip move

Image: Jackson Gibbs for The Verge Uprooting your life and moving hundreds — or thousands — of miles isn’t easy. Here’s how to make sense of it all.Continue reading…

Reid Hoffman Hasn't Given Up on Biden Just Yet

Some of the most prominent conservative venture capitalists have gotten louder about their support for Trump, but Reid Hoffman says not much has actually changed.

‘Death Occurs in the Dark’: Indie Video Game Devs Are Struggling to Survive

Big video game makers like Epic Games and EA have gone through substantial layoffs in the past year. Amid the turmoil, many indie studios are getting shut down completely, threatening a dearth of new ideas.

UEFA, Instagram, and X ruin a killer Euro 2024 celebration

The Killers marked England’s victory against The Netherlands in the Euro 2024 semi-finals with a bright(side) bang. | Image: The Killers The Killers assisted UK fans in celebrating England’s Euro 2024 semifinal victory yesterday by pausing their gig at London’s O2 Arena to project the final moments of the game behind the band. Viral videos across X and Instagram captured the elation that followed as confetti showered the crowd during a rousing rendition of “Mr. Brightside

AI's Energy Demands Are Out of Control. Welcome to the Internet's Hyper-Consumption Era

Generative artificial intelligence tools, now part of the everyday user experience online, are causing stress on local power grids and mass water evaporation.

This Is the Moment RFK Jr. Has Been Waiting For

Since the presidential debate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign has heavily leaned into X and TikTok as part of its strategy to get the third-party candidate into the national conversation. It’s working.

Silicon Valley Hasn’t Embraced Trump. But It’s Wavering on Biden

Venture capitalists on both sides of the aisle suggest Silicon Valley is more anti-Biden than it is pro-Trump.

Shuttered auto plants will become EV factories thanks to $1.7 billion Biden program

Stellantis’ idled Belvidere Assembly Plantis one of the factories that will have new life as an EV facility thanks to $334 million in grant money.| Image: Getty The Biden administration announced $1.7 billion to convert endangered or shuttered plants into electric vehicle manufacturing facilities.Eleven auto factories across eight states that are currently closed or at risk of closing will receive the funding in order to retrofit their operations for EV manufacturing, administration

Starlink Mini is now available for anyone in the US to roam

The Starlink Mini can be powered by a portable USB battery. | Image: SpaceX SpaceX’s Starlink Mini dish — which Elon Musk says “will change the world” — is now available to anyone in the US. The diminutive internet-from-space kit neatly integrates the dish and Wi-Fi router into a weatherproof package that’s significantly smaller and uses less power than previous Starlink kits. The laptop-sized all-in-one dish can even be powered directly by a USB-PD power bank

Redbox’s disc rentals are over

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images A judge overseeing Redbox owner Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment’s bankruptcy case granted a request Wednesday to convert it from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7 bankruptcy, according to Lowpass’ Janko Roettgers and The Wall Street Journal. The company’s lawyers said Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment will lay off its remaining 1,000 employees and liquidate the businesses, including streaming operations and the 24,000 or so disc kiosks that

Florida’s digital ID app has suddenly disappeared

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) has shut down its digital ID app, Florida Smart ID, for iPhones and Android phones. The department emailed users asking them to delete the app and said it’s looking for another vendor to help it revive the service by “early 2025,” according to 9to5Mac.The state promoted its Smart ID app as a contact-free way to show proof of age or identity at stores or when talking

Elon Musk’s Neuralink Is Ready to Implant a Second Volunteer

In a livestreamed update on X, Elon Musk and Neuralink executives gave an update on its next study participant—and the company's next-generation brain implant.

New hope for European tech? VC funding rises to $29B in first half of 2024

Whisper it, but startup funding is showing signs of a rebound. Venture capital investment in Europe has risen by 12% so far in 2024, according to Dealroom. By June, the financing for startups and scaleups had reached $29.3bn. If the current spending rate continues, this year will become third-most active ever for VC in the continent. The leading industry for investment is energy, which raised $5.6bn during the first half of 2024. This continues a trend from last year, when energy companies topp