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Richard Lawler

Richard Lawler

Senior News Editor

Senior News Editor

Richard Lawler joined The Verge as Senior News Editor in 2021 after several years covering news at Engadget. He’s been a tech blogger since before the word was invented, and will never log off.

More From Richard Lawler

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Youtube
Richard Lawler
Apex Legends’ new season, Showdown, is optimized for Switch 2.

EA’s battle royale shooter got a performance bump once the Switch 2 launched, but during the Partner Direct showcase, they announced the August 5th update for Apex Legends will include a Switch 2-native edition, with enhanced resolution and framerate.

The new season also brings Wildcard, a new permanently added game mode on all platforms that has tweaks to speed up gameplay, lets teams have more than one of a particular hero, and includes second chance respawns once your team is eliminated.

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Instagram
Richard Lawler
Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘personal superintelligence’ AI pitch.

The guy who renamed Facebook to Meta went long with a blog post this morning about a grandiose AGI-ish vision for artificial intelligence and why his company is so invested in it. It also might help explain why Meta is making huge offers to hire “post-money” AI experts who aren’t completely convinced Meta is the place to be.

We’re still churning through the whole thing, but you can start with Zuckerberg’s accompanying video right here.

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Twitter
Richard Lawler
AI responses may include mistakes.

Today’s example is a Men’s Health article on Luka Doncic and his offseason workout routine. Pretty standard stuff, until the claim about a 42-inch vertical leap at the NBA Combine -- big if true, but it’s not, and he didn’t participate.

Nick Angstadt pointed out the error and its likely source, Google’s AI Overview. It carries the above warning, but as we know, many people never click through to the source anyway. The article has since been corrected, but now the AI summary incorrectly cites the original text.

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Twitter
Richard Lawler
Is this really an iPhone 17 Pro spotted in the wild?

Now that Google has coughed up a look at the next Pixel, it’s apparently time for more iPhone rumors. The account @Skyfops on X tweeted two pictures of a cap and sunglasses-wearing man with two phones, claiming he’s holding a test development iPhone, complete with another man seemingly running interference to keep them hidden.

The device in the pictures certainly resembles other supposed leaks, but with AI, Photoshop, and bored students in the summer, are you ready to believe this is Apple’s next iPhone? Bloomberg Apple reporter Mark Gurman reshared the tweet, saying, “This looks legit.”

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Richard Lawler
Now everyone can stream their own games in the Xbox PC app.

Now all Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can stream games they own (including some console-only titles) from the cloud through the Xbox PC app, just like they can on other devices, which is a feature that has been in testing with Insiders program members.

Also, now Microsoft’s new blog post confirms that Insiders with Game Pass Ultimate can preview play history that follows them across devices, letting them pick up right where they left off -- which could come in handy with a new Xbox handheld device.

Image: Xbox
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Youtube
Richard Lawler
How tough is Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7?

Yes, we tested Samsung’s latest premium foldable, but we didn’t try to destroy every surface and angle of the phone.

For that, there’s JerryRigEverything on YouTube, with the usual scratching and bending, with the results you’d probably expect, although the new hinge design is surprisingly resilient for something so skinny (and with the protruding camera lenses that make it a bit wobbly).

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Richard Lawler
Elon Musk says Samsung’s mystery $16.5 billion AI chip deal is for Tesla.

A regulatory filing surfaced Monday morning in Korea showing the underperforming electronics giant won an order to build chips for an unnamed large global tech company in a contract that runs through 2033.

Then, a few hours later, Elon Musk tweeted the arrangement was for Tesla’s “next-generation AI6 chip,” built at Samsung’s plant in Texas, confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg.

Update: Added info from Elon Musk’s tweet.

Tweet by Elon Musk reading “Samsung’s giant new Texas fab will be dedicated to making Tesla’s next-generation AI6 chip. The strategic importance of this is hard to overstate. Samsung currently makes AI4. TSMC will make AI5, which just finished design, initially in Taiwan and then Arizona.”
Image: Elon Musk (X)
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Richard Lawler
A few more updates from today about AI.