Weekend Editor
Wes Davis holds down The Verge on weekends, reporting on everything tech and entertainment under the sun. He loves fixing what is (and ain’t) broke with gadgetry and smart home tech, and came to The Verge from the freelance Wi-Fi router review world.
When he’s not writing tech news, Wes is cycling (transportation, not racing), gaming, or recording music nobody should listen to. You can find him most places under the username "blunderchief."
AB 1836, which requires studios to get express consent from dead performers’ estates before producing digital replicas of them, passed the state Senate yesterday, reports Variety.
The bill’s passage yesterday came days after California’s legislature passed AB 2602 with similar consent requirements for living actors. SAG-AFTRA released a statement calling the bill a “legislative priority” and encouraging Governor Gavin Newsom to sign it.
The feature, which lets developers put live-updating info on iPhone lock screens (things like sports scores), is limited to refreshing “between 5–15 seconds” in a recent iOS 18 beta, according to an app developer who says their app could do it once a second before.
Apple told them the change was intentional, according to a post spotted by 9to5Mac.
Apple could release a new keyboard accessory for “an entry-level iPad or the new iPad Airs” by mid-2025, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter.
The keyboard won’t have glitzier iPad Pro Magic Keyboard features like a metal palm rest, but could come with a function row, he writes.
Apple Stores’ stock of FineWoven products — phone cases and watch bands alike — is running low, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. As he points out, that’s normal before a big Apple event and doesn’t strictly mean that the no-good, very bad case material is disappearing.
As a refresher, here’s The Verge’s Allison Johnson talking about FineWoven last year.
The platform posted about the milestone this afternoon, which it crossed after Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered a ban on Elon Musk’s X yesterday as part of an ongoing feud with the platform.
Apparently, enough are headed to Bluesky to drive its iOS app to the top of the Brazilian App Store, as TechCrunch writes.
Kevin Roose, whose New York Times story about horny Bing chats went viral last year, writes that chatbots are at times very negative about him since, having seemingly picked up on criticism of his piece.
Now, he writes about how he used techniques that could be considered an AI-focused version of SEO to influence how they respond when asked about him — and what that portends.