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YouTube says it isn’t testing hiding the dislike button

Illustration of the Youtube logo.

On Tuesday, I published a story about how YouTube appeared to be testing hiding the dislike button on videos, with at least two users on X sharing screenshots of the dislike button moved into the three-dot menu. But a YouTube spokesperson, in a Wednesday statement to The Verge, confirmed that YouTube is "not testing hiding the dislike button on YouTube for users."

However, YouTube is introducing a new UI for creators on their uploaded videos where the dislike button will be moved.

Here's the full statement, from spokesperson Kimberly Taylor:

We are not testing hiding the dislike button on YouTube for users. We're introducing a new UI for …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Tesla says customers can add their own vehicles to the robotaxi fleet next year — will it happen?

Tesla Robotaxi on a graphic yellow background.

For years, Elon Musk has been making big promises to Tesla owners about unsupervised autonomous driving and the ability to add their own vehicles to the company's robotaxi fleet. During today's third-quarter earnings call, the company finally gave itself a deadline.

According to Tesla VP for Autonomous Driving Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla owners will be able to add their own vehicles to the company's robotaxi fleet in the second quarter of 2027. Here's his exact quote (emphasis ours):

Like I mentioned earlier, the software for Cybercabs and Model Y is the same. And pretty soon we'll be able to release the same software as part of the V15 relea …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Meta to create a new class of shares to fund AI push

Vector illustration of the Meta logo.

Meta says it's issuing a new class of shares to fund its AI initiatives. As part of its third-quarter earnings report released on Wednesday, the company says the non-voting stock will also go toward potential acquisitions and employee compensation, with trading beginning in 2027.

"The scale of investment required to compete, sustain growth, expand infrastructure, and pursue new strategic initiatives amidst the AI transformation taking place in the industry is significant," Meta says in the press release. Susan Li, Meta's chief financial officer, added during an earnings call that the new class of shares will "expand our funding tools and gi …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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New York’s first microdrama film festival searches for its audience

Actors Taye Diggs, Autumn Federici, Gary Entin, Troy Brookins, Edmund Entin and Eric Guilmette standing on a red carpet together.
Actors Taye Diggs, Autumn Federici, Gary Entin, Troy Brookins, Edmund Entin and Eric Guilmette attend the world premiere of Microhouse Films and Lifetime's Reunion Island during the ALZA Festival. | Getty Images for Lifetime.

It remains to be seen if people really want to watch vertical content on horizontal TV screens, but many filmmakers and creators were confident that their latest projects would play well at Alza - New York City's first microdrama film festival. Founded by former Tribeca Festival chief operating officer Pete Torres, Alza, which took place October 16th through 18th, was billed as a showcase for the "the creativity, innovation, and growing cultural impact of stories made for the vertical screen." The festival featured a selection of microdrama and film premieres as well as industry-focused panels with executives who all seemed to genuinely beli …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Meta says it would’ve made over $22 billion if it didn’t have to pay a child safety settlement

Photo illustration of a gavel about to hit the Meta logo.

Meta had to shell out $9.89 billion to pay for a chunk of the child safety settlement it reached with US attorneys general. That's according to the company's third-quarter earnings report released on Wednesday, which says Meta's income from operations would have been $22.89 billion without the settlement.

In August, Meta agreed to pay $17.1 billion to settle a massive nationwide lawsuit that claimed the company harmed children by making its social media platforms "addictive" by design. It will also only pay $5.3 billion of this amount if YouTube and TikTok implement stricter settings and safeguards for kids, which Meta also agreed to as par …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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PHP: The three letters that shut down sites all over the internet today

A number of cursors point toward an unhappy face on a laptop

Two bugs found with AI are behind major issues today for 4chan, DeviantArt, Wikipedia, and the blog where the bar around the corner posts pictures of people's dogs. The "critical vulnerabilities" were discovered in the PHP programming language, which underpins much of the internet, including any site built on WordPress. But it's far bigger than that. Some Dutch and Finnish government agencies took their sites down as a precaution. The NSA Cybersecurity account on X recommended that organizations take their systems offline if "an immediate update is not feasible," as did the UK's National Cyber Security Center. Even Pokémon Home and Pokémon C …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Flying Roadsters can’t lift Tesla’s flat Q3 revenues

Elon Musk against a purple background of Tesla logos.

As the smoke clears from its outrageous Roadster demo, Tesla reported Q3 earnings on Wednesday - and the cold reality is that revenue has flatlined.

Tesla said it earned $1.7 billion in net income on $28.0 billion in revenue in the quarter that ended in September 2026. Revenues were flat, while profits dropped 4 percent compared to the third quarter of 2025, when the company earned $1.4 billion in net income on $28.1 billion in revenue. Tesla's revenue came in above Wall Street expectations of $27.9 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG. Tesla's own company-compiled expectations predicted Q3 revenues of $28.3 billion.

The earnings …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Bose acquires Skullcandy to help it reach a wider audience

A pile of Skullcandy headphones sitting on a mixing board in a studio.

Bose announced today it has acquired Skullcandy. Although the two companies are competitors in the consumer audio space, Skullcandy recently partnered with its new owner to bring several of Bose's audio technologies - including its head-tracking spatial audio and excellent active noise cancellation (ANC) - to products like the Skullcandy Crusher 1080 ANC headphones and Method 360 ANC earbuds.

Specific details about the deal weren't shared, but according to a news release, Bose plans to keep Skullcandy a separate brand that will become part of its premium consumer audio business. Skullcandy will remain based in Park City, Utah, where it was …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Airbnb bans making guests do dishes and take out the trash

An image showing the Airbnb logo

Checking out of your next Airbnb might be less of a hassle now that the company is banning hosts from including time-consuming chores in their house rules. Airbnb's updated house rules policy, which starts with reservations booked on or after November 20th, says hosts can't ask guests to "complete tasks that require significant effort or time, or would typically be performed by a cleaner." According to Airbnb, that includes:

  • Dishes: Guests shouldn't be asked to wash and put away dishes, but you can ask them to put used dishes in the sink.
  • Laundry: Guests shouldn't be asked to remove sheets from the bed or start a load of laundry, but yo …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Walmart is inviting AI agents to shop for you

Walmart will soon let AI agents shop on its website for you. Next month, the retail giant will allow you to connect your own AI agent to the site, with systems in place to let you approve and review purchases and set spending limits.

The embrace of AI agents stands in stark contrast to Amazon, which blocked Perplexity's shopping agent and Meta's Muse AI assistant. But Walmart is opening its doors to AI shoppers - as long as they follow the retailer's rules. It has outlined a set of terms for agents, saying that "agents must not take actions beyond what the shopper intends" and cannot change a customer's payment method. Agents also can only …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Meta ordered to pay $25 billion in penalties over the Cambridge Analytica scandal

Photo of Mark Zuckerberg in front of background of Meta logo.
Mark Zuckerberg. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

The Cambridge Analytica scandal has come back to haunt Meta after a New Mexico judge ordered it to pay $25 billion in penalties for more than 43 million violations of the state's unfair practices law. The ruling marks the biggest legal hit Meta has taken this year, even as it's faced several other losses or settlements.

A New Mexico jury ruled in September that Meta misled consumers over how it protected their data and prevented misinformation and hate speech on its platforms. The case stemmed from a 2021 complaint in the wake of the revelations a few years earlier that UK political consultancy Cambridge Analytica harvested data from millio …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Xbox mandates a four-day return to office

Vector collage of the Xbox logo.

Microsoft asked its employees to return to the office three days per week last year, and it's now upping this requirement to four days a week for most Xbox employees. An internal memo, seen by The Verge, describes the change as a "need to create more opportunities for people to work together" after feedback from Xbox employees.

"Starting February 1st, 2027, Xbox employees in Puget Sound who live within 50 commuting miles of Studio D are required to work from the office a minimum of four days a week," says Jacinda Chislum Pearson, Xbox chief people officer, in the internal memo. "We have thousands of Xbox employees within commuting distance …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Will TP-Link really make routers in the US? Here’s what it told us

A TP-Link Wi-Fi 8 router. | Image: TP-Link

TP-Link, one of the world's leading manufacturers of consumer Wi-Fi routers, is in a precarious position in the US. The company just launched its first Wi-Fi 8 routers, but can't bring them here because of President Donald Trump's foreign router ban. Even though competitors Netgear and Asus make their routers in Asia, they've mysteriously obtained blanket waivers for all their new gear; perhaps because of alleged ties to China, TP-Link hasn't managed to get such a waiver yet.

But TP-Link is willing to do something those companies weren't - to invest nearly $1 billion to make routers in the United States, creating "hundreds of high-paying re …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Xbox Cloud Gaming’s pay-as-you-go option starts at $3.99 for 10 hours

Illustration of Xbox and play logos

Microsoft announced last month that it will let anyone access Xbox Cloud Gaming in November, without the need to subscribe to Xbox Game Pass. The new pay-as-you-go model will require players to purchase bundles of cloud hours, and now Microsoft is revealing today that bundles will start at $3.99 for 10 hours of cloud playtime.

Xbox Insiders who don't have a Game Pass subscription will be able to start purchasing cloud playtime today, ahead of a broader rollout next month. Insiders can access "introductory" launch pricing bundles:

  • 10 hours for $3.99
  • 25 hours for $7.99
  • 50 hours for $11.99

All of these cloud hours will include ad-fre …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Supernatural’s comeback starts today, with more music and VR workouts coming soon

Despite Meta saying it would stop creating new content for Supernatural, the beloved fitness VR game is back after spinning off to go its own way and is relaunching with an Early Access preview in the Meta Horizon Store. Thousands of "remastered" workouts and some new ones are available in the new app starting today, but more are on the way. As previously announced, the newly independent app also costs more, going from $9.99 per month to $20 per month or $200 per year.

Starting next week, Supernatural will get new workouts every week. The game's developers also write, "More back-catalog favorites will return in the weeks and months ahead, w …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Apple Music has a new logo

Apple is officially launching a rebrand of Apple Music. Following the appearance of a redesigned wordmark in a video and an updated app icon in an iOS 27.2 beta, Apple introduced the new "identity" for Apple Music today. There's a new logo, the updated wordmark, and a new sound composed by British producer Fred Again and Nest Acoustics.

In a video, Apple says that for the rebrand, the company "wanted sound to create the visuals," showing the music note logo and the wordmark underwater and how that water responded to sound. It's a pretty cool video, honestly, and I like seeing how the water morphs the logo and wordmark. The video is also one …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Conversational Gemini navigation comes to Apple CarPlay

Illustration of the Google Gemini logo.

After introducing its Gemini AI assistant to Android Auto last year, Google is now bringing it to Apple CarPlay users. The conversational Gemini in navigation is available today for US drivers, with "rollout happening globally too," according to Google (we've asked for specific regional availability details).

It's taken almost 12 months for Google to bring this to CarPlay users, but now they can talk to the voice assistant in Google Maps to get some hands-free help while driving. That includes asking it multi-step questions, such as recommendations on places to visit and then prompting it to direct you there while avoiding toll roads. Users …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Apple says it only has ‘limited’ iPhone Duo units for in-store sales

Apple says it will have "limited" iPhone Duo models for sale in stores, according to a report from Reuters. The iPhone Duo launches on Friday, October 23rd, but online preorders quickly sold out, with some delivery estimates extending into next year.

"On Friday morning, our teams look forward ​to welcoming customers at Apple Stores to experience iPhone Duo ​and the incredible iPhone line-up for themselves," Apple said in a statement to Reuters. "Apple Stores will ‌have ⁠limited iPhone Duo available for walk-in customers, and we're working hard to get this revolutionary new product into customers' hands as quickly as possible."

The iPhon …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Blink brings 4K to its low-cost security camera lineup

Five new Blink security cameras.
From left to right, here are the Outdoor 2K XR Plus and Mini Pant-Tilt 2K Plus (top), and the Spotlight Cam 2K Plus, Mini 4K Plus, and Frontier XR Plus (bottom). | Image: Amazon / Blink

Amazon is launching a new lineup of Blink security cameras, including its first 4K, pan-tilt models, and battery-powered spotlight models. These new additions provide better resolution and extended range for monitoring your property compared to Blink's current Mini 2K, Mini 2K Plus, and Outdoor 2K Plus offerings, with a variety of different specializations to best suit your security requirements.

One of the standouts is the $199.99 Blink Frontier XR Plus, a trail camera that's designed for expansive properties that would typically require multiple cameras or specialized monitoring equipment. It can cover up to 7,000 feet with a clear line …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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