Tech Talk

Photo by Loren Grush / The Verge Omead Afshar, the Tesla executive tasked with overseeing operations at the company’s Texas factory, is reportedly the subject of an internal investigation over a glass purchase deemed “suspicious,” according to a report from Bloomberg . Sources close to the situation told Bloomberg that Afshar will likely go on a leave of absence before Tesla cuts him from the company completely. Afshar reportedly placed an order for a “special” type of glass that isn’t all that easy to procure amid supply chain constraints, and told staff it was for a “secret project.” According to Bloomberg , Tesla’s finance department flagged the glass purchase earlier this year, sparking the internal probe led by David Searle, Tesla’s acting head of legal. Afshar has worked closely with Musk for years While investigators still aren’t sure whether the glass was for Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s personal use, Bloomberg notes that some employees involved in the incident have already

(Image credit: Marvel Studios) San Diego Comic Con 2022 has been in full swing for two days now, but the main event begins in the next two hours when Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige will take to the stage in Hall H to discuss what the next steps for the comic book juggernaut are going to be.  Among the expected announcements are some details on the MCU Phase 4 slate, particularly the up and coming Black Panther: Wakanda Forever as well as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.  We've already rounded up six things we'd like to see from the panel, including  plans for Phase 5  superhero flicks  and  Disney Plus  TV offerings, but we await to see what we actually get.  The panel kicks off in Hall H at 5 PM PT / 8 PM ET. Those based in the UK, India, and Australia can tune in on Sunday, July 24 at 1 AM BST  / 5:30 AM IST / 10 AM AEST. Stick with us as we follow all the events from Hall H... (Image credit: Marvel Studios/Wal

Image: Paramount The new Star Trek: Picard trailer gives us a first look at the stars set to reprise their roles in the series’ third and final season. Paramount Plus debuted the one-minute trailer at San Diego Comic-Con, which features most of the main cast from Star Trek: The Next Generation , including Patrick Stewart, LeVar Burton, Jeri Ryan, Michelle Hurd, Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Jonathan Frakes, and Gates McFadden. The teaser gives us brief glimpses at each character, along with short, but profound quotes. Notably absent from the trailer is Brent Spiner, although Paramount Plus hinted at his appearance in a trailer back in April . Season 3 reunites Jean-Luc Picard with his old crewmates, and is set to debut on Paramount Plus in 2023. But that’s not the only Star Trek- related news that came out of Comic-Con — Paramount Plus also announced a crossover episode between Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks , which comes from the same cr

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge There’s been a bit of back and forth since the change was originally announced , but this week Microsoft started rolling out an update to Microsoft Office that blocks the use of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros on downloaded documents. Last month, Microsft was testing the new default setting when it suddenly rolled back the update, “temporarily while we make some additional changes to enhance usability.” Despite saying it was temporary, many experts worried that Microsoft might not go through with changing the default setting, leaving systems vulnerable to attacks. Google Threat Analysis Group leader Shane Huntley tweeted , “Blocking Office macros would do infinitely more to actually defend against real threats than all the threat intel blog posts.” Now the new default setting is rolling out, but with updated language to alert users and administrators what options they have when they try to open a file and it’s blocked. This only applies

The hack is costing the company big. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile has agreed to pay $500 million to settle a class-action lawsuit stemming from the 2021 hack that it says exposed around 76.6 million US residents’ data. According to the proposed agreement filled on Friday, which you can read in full below, T-Mobile will put $350 million into a settlement fund to go to lawyers, fees, and, of course, to people who file claims. It’ll also be obligated to spend $150 million on “data security and related technology” during 2022 and 2023, in addition to what it had already budgeted for. In August, the company announced that its systems had been breached, following reports that Social Security numbers, names, addresses, and driver’s license information for over 100 million of its customers was for sale. While the number proved to be slightly inflated, T-Mobile’s figure of how many people were impacted continued to rise over the rest of the month. T-Mobile’s CEO c

The Marvel Studios Animation Panel at San Diego Comic-Con has just come to an end, with lots of exciting announcements about the comic book giant's animated arm offered up to fans.  Among the offerings were a first look at X-Men '97, Marvel Zombies and Spider-Man: Freshman Year as well as previews of I Am Groot and the second season of What If…? The main event for Marvel is tomorrow with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige outlining his plans for the Marvel Cinematic Universe , but fans' appetite was certainly whetted with a slew of announcements from Marvel's animation department.  The panel was led by Marvel Studios' head of streaming, television and animation Brad Winderbaum and head of visual development Ryan Meinerding, with both speaking to a packed-out Ballroom 20 at the San Diego event.  Back from the dead... Inspired by the 2005 series of the same name, Marvel Zombies takes place in an alternate reality where a new generation of heroes must battle a

An image of a Horizon Worlds location made to look like a club | Image: Meta Meta is expanding what type of content is allowed in the virtual worlds that people make for Horizon Worlds, its platform that lets people create VR spaces for shared experiences. The company has added an 18 and up tag for user-created worlds and updated its policy to allow creators to include “mature” content that was previously banned altogether. According to UploadVR , creators who have published worlds received an email saying they have to manually mark whether their world is mature or safe for all audiences — if they don’t, it will be restricted to 18 and up by default. Based on a Wayback Machine archive of Meta’s Horizon Mature Worlds Policy page from April, this means Meta is now allowing content that was previously banned. The page used to say that sexually suggestive content, depictions of “regulated goods or activities” like weed and alcohol, and graphically violent content were completely of