News
The future of physical games is not looking great
Grand Theft Auto VI release won’t offer a disc. | Image: Rockstar Games This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on video games and...
Hollywood’s outsize influence on baby names
The name “Tristan” grew in popularity after Brad Pitt played a character with that name in the 1994 movie Legends of the Fall. | Katelyn Mulcahy/FIFA via Getty Images Have you noticed there are a...
The grueling, 630-mile road race where the only fuel is sunlight
The 2018 Solar Car Challenge was the last time participants took their designs out on the open road. | Image: Lehman Marks / Solar Car Challenge On July 19th, dozens of teams of high school students...
Welcome to America’s post-World Cup hangover
We were all so happy when the World Cup was fun. And now… | Paige Vickers/Vox; Getty Images Just a few weeks ago, Americans were able to eat salad without the fear of liquid feces and breathe in air...
Dave Eggers told OpenAI staff that ChatGPT was ‘silencing an entire generation’
Dave Eggers attends the "The Turning Point: To Be Destroyed" premiere. | Image: John Lamparski/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival Last year, Sam Altman invited author Dave Eggers to give a talk to...
France doubles down on restricting access to Polymarket
The country's gambling authority ordered ISPs to block access to the prediction market's website.
Google might not kneecap the Pixel 11a with an old processor
The Pixel 10a shipped with a last gen processor. | Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge Mystic Leaks suggests that the Pixel 11a will return to featuring a flagship-grade processor with the Tensor G6....
X and music publishers quietly settle opposing lawsuits
The original lawsuit was filed in 2023 and claimed Twitter hosted thousands of cases of copyright infringement.
Google is open-sourcing its 3D emoji
Now, if you want to, you can use Google's 3D emoji in your own creations. The company shared some details about how it went about designing the little pictograms and why, as part of World Emoji Day...
How does the Apple Watch water lock feature actually work?
The water lock feature on Apple Watches automatically activates when you're swimming, but what does it do?