Flappy Bird’s original creator says he has nothing to do with the new game

The new take on Flappy Bird will include alternate game modes. | Screenshot: The Flappy Bird Foundation Last week, The Flappy Bird Foundation announced a game called Flappy Bird. But while the group has been framing it as the triumphant return of a classic mobile game, Flappy Bird’s original developer, Dong Nguyen isn’t calling it a comeback — in fact, he says he’s not involved at all.
Nguyen posted as much on X (for the first time since 2017!) this morning, saying he did

Image: The Verge The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has advanced two high-profile child safety bills that could remake large parts of the internet: the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). The proposed laws passed on a voice vote despite discontent over last-minute changes to KOSA, in particular, that were aimed at quelling persistent criticism.KOSA and COPPA 2.0 would give government agencies more regulatory power ove

A radio device exploded in the city of Baalbek is seen as wireless communications device explosions continued for a second day across Lebanon. | Photo by Suleiman Amhaz/Anadolu via Getty Images A day after exploding pagers targeting Hezbollah members killed 12 people, including two children, and injured nearly 3,000 people in Lebanon and Syria, the attacks started again. The New York Times reports 14 people have died, along with hundreds injured in the second wave of explosions. Lebanese state m

It can’t be used as a speakerphone, but at $24.99 Soundcore’s new Select 4 Go Bluetooth speaker is claimed to have 20 hours of battery and can be paired for stereo sound. | Image: Soundcore Soundcore has launched another ultralight wireless speaker called the Select 4 Go. It’s priced at $24.99, making it the most affordable option in Soundcore’s current lineup of Bluetooth speakers, and much cheaper than similarly sized options such as Ultimate Ears’ recently launch

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It’s been nearly six years since we warned you that ads were coming for your pause button, and 18 months since Google revealed that YouTube would serve them up, too.Now, YouTube confirms advertisers can broadly target your paused screentime: “As we’ve seen both strong advertiser and strong viewer response, we’ve since widely rolled out Pause ads to all advertisers,” YouTube comms manager Oluwa Falodun confirms to The Verge.
Te

Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge Google is rolling out an update that’ll let you adjust the brightness levels of its newest Nest Learning Thermostat, fixing a key issue that made it difficult to read, according to Android Authority.
The Nest Learning Thermostat (4th gen) is Google’s biggest redesign of the smart thermostat since it launched in 2011. Released in August, one of the thermostat’s major new features was the 2.7-inch display, which was double the size of its predecess

Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge Google is rolling out an update that’ll let you adjust the brightness levels on its newest Nest Learning Thermostat, fixing a key issue that made it difficult to read, according to Android Authority.
The fourth-gen Nest Learning Thermostat is Google’s biggest redesign for the smart thermostat since it launched in 2011. Released in August, one of the thermostat’s major new features was the 2.7-inch display, which was double the size of its predece

Image: PayPal Roughly 25 years after it launched payment processing, PayPal is “ushering in a new era for customers” with some generic black text. The company has a new logo, designed by Pentagram, that looks incredibly plain — especially compared to previous iterations of the logo that featured a rakish slant, two shades of blue, and prominent PayPal P’s.Image: PayPalThe evolution of PayPal’s logo.
The company justifies the change by saying that the new black stand

Image: Substack Substack is now letting creators stream live videos as another way to connect with their audiences.Substack has increasingly been expanding from its roots as a newsletter platform, including adding Twitter-like Notes posts, the ability to publish video podcasts, and even letting people follow other users without subscribing to them. As of last month, you don’t even need to set up a publication to share content. With live video, creators will be able to interact with their f

The Focus Vision looks like it’s a bit of a chonker! | Image: HTC HTC has announced the Vive Focus Vision, a new VR headset that builds on the Vive Focus 3 with features like color passthrough and better PC tethering support. The $999 Focus Vision is available for preorder from now until October 17th on HTC’s website.
The Focus Vision can be used either as a standalone device or tethered to your PC using USB-C. It’s essentially a beefed-up version of the Focus 3, which the comp

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube creators can now break their videos up into different seasons and episodes to make them easier for viewers to navigate — and binge watch — on TV. The upcoming feature comes as YouTube has increasingly been pushing into the living room, with YouTuber revenue on TVs up 30 percent year-over-year, according to the company.
Content creators can soon tailor their uploads for viewers in a format that looks very similar to Netflix and other strea

A scene from Megalopolis, one of Lionsgate’s upcoming releases. | Lionsgate AI startup Runway has made a name for itself building generative models seemingly trained on unlicensed content from around the internet. Now the company has signed a deal with Lionsgate that will give it access to the studio’s massive portfolio of films and TV shows.
Today, Lionsgate — the studio behind films like the John Wick and Hunger Games franchises — announced that it is partnering with Ru

As long as there’s a breeze, the Shine 2.0 wind turbine can generate power all night long. | Image: Aurea Technologies Unlike solar panels that can only generate power while the sun’s shining, Aurea Technologies’ new Shine 2.0 portable wind turbine can potentially work all day long. That is, as long as the weather cooperates and provides an 8mph breeze needed to keep the turbine’s blades spinning.
Now available for preorder through a Kickstarter campaign offering discount

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon’s warehouse workers and delivery drivers, the people critical to the company’s ability to get you things fast via Amazon Prime, will soon get Prime subscriptions as part of their employment. The new perk was revealed along with other benefit updates, including an average pay raise, announced by the company on Wednesday.
The free Prime subscription will be part of the benefits package for “front-line” workers starting “e

Photo by Sjoerd van der Wal / Getty Images The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a bill Wednesday requiring new cars to have AM radio, which was introduced in response to an increasing number of vehicles coming out without the first-generation radio broadcast technology. The bill passed the committee on a roll-call vote of 45-2 and now heads to the full House for final approval.
The bill, titled the AM for Every Vehicle Act, would direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrat

Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge OnePlus typically offered competitive specs and features in its devices at aggressive prices, but that’s softened a bit in recent years. The fairly recent OnePlus Pad 2 has some nice qualities, like a 3000 x 2120 resolution / 144Hz display that looks great, but its $550 price plus add-ons isn’t exactly cheap — though there’s a sweet deal right now that helps.
You can get the OnePlus Pad 2 for $449.99 ($100 off) directly from OnePlus when

Photo by Sheena Vasani / The Verge OnePlus typically offered competitive specs and features in its devices at aggressive prices, but that’s softened a bit in recent years. The fairly recent OnePlus Pad 2 has some nice qualities, like a 3000 x 2120 resolution / 144Hz display that looks great, but its $550 price, plus add-ons, isn’t exactly cheap. Right now, though, there’s a sweet deal that helps.
You can get the OnePlus Pad 2 for $449.99 ($100 off) directly from OnePlus when yo

Adrian Wojnarowski looks on during the 2024 NBA Draft | Photo by Michelle Farsi/NBAE via Getty Images Adrian Wojnarowski has been reporting insider NBA news for ESPN since 2017, but he’s best known for his news-breaking tweets about trades, free agency signings, and other deals. Now Wojnarowski says he’s retiring from the NBA beat.
For basketball fans, “woj bombs” became a reason to have your phone on and Twitter notifications set, both to get instant updates about player

Photo: Nilay Patel Apple rolled out updates to all of its major operating systems this week, and the Vision Pro was no exception. With visionOS 2, the company has a chance to show the relative few who bought its spendy headset — and those who might yet — that it’s still committed to the new platform.
After a few months of using it in beta, visionOS 2 isn’t a dramatic change — it’s more like a smoothed-out version of the software the headset launched with. The

YouTube’s Inspiration tab will happily tell you exactly what to make next. | Image: YouTube Artificial intelligence is running rampant across Google’s entire product portfolio, and YouTube is adopting some of the company’s newest tech in service of helping creators create. On Wednesday, at its Made on YouTube event in New York City, the company announced a series of AI-related features on the platform, including a couple that might change how creators make videos — and th

Communities are for creators to talk to their fans — and for fans to talk to each other. | Image: YouTube Many creators post videos on YouTube but take to other platforms to actually interact with their fans and viewers. With a new feature called Communities, YouTube is hoping to offer those types of interactive options right on the platform, so creators might not need to take to Discord, WhatsApp, or maybe Instagram or Reddit anymore.
The Communities feature, which YouTube launched today

Eve’s smart light switch now works with Matter and the Thread device can be controlled directly with an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, no hub required. | Image: Eve Systems With this week’s release of iOS 18, adding smart home devices to Apple Home just got a lot easier. The update brings direct local control of Matter devices to newer iPhones, meaning all you need to set up and control them is an iPhone that can run iOS 18 — no hub or border router required. This is good news for any

Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge The Tesla Cybertruck gets a lot of hate for its polarizing design and even more polarizing creator. However, the Cybertruck also appears to be extremely popular, more popular even than all the other electric trucks on the market, and Elon Musk may end up laughing all the way to the bank.
Tesla’s Cybertruck registrations in July almost match overall EV truck registrations in July, suggesting strong demand for the stainless steel, low poly truck, according to d

Garmin’s upgraded inReach Messenger Plus lets adventurers stay connected and share memories. | Image: Garmin Garmin’s new inReach Messenger Plus is an upgraded version of the company’s satellite communicator that expands the original’s text messaging capabilities with the ability to now send photos and audio clips through the Iridium satellite network.
The original Garmin inReach Messenger debuted in 2022 and is still available for $299.99 for those content with rely