NY AG tries to explain how Apple’s free Yankees stream is worse than cable TV

Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images Yankees star Aaron Judge could break a home run record at Friday’s game against the Boston Red Sox, and you’ll be able to watch the game for free through Apple TV’s Friday Night Baseball broadcast. But in tweets ahead of the game, New York Attorney General Letitia James confusingly called for the game to be brought over to New York’s local Yankee Entertainment and Sports (YES) cable network, and after slightly walking that back, called the steps to watch Apple’s broadcast “burdens.”
The whole saga started with a tweet from James at 3:04PM ET.
Millions of New Yorkers paid their cable bills expecting to see live sports programming. Denying them the chance to watch Aaron Judge step up to the plate to make history tonight is wrong and…
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Google’s new adventure game takes a top-down trip through ancient Mesoamerica

I love the cute characters in the game. | Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Google’s Arts & Culture division has released a charming new educational game all about ancient Mesoamerica. The game, The Descent of the Serpent, is available to play right now in your browser or via the Google Arts & Culture iOS and Android apps.
There’s a light plot to Descent of the Serpent, shown in a short video that plays at the beginning of the game. While exploring a museum, a large artifact is stolen by Tezcatlipoca, the Lord of the Smoking Mirror, and a living statue asks for your help to recover 20 icons included on the artifact to prevent floods from taking over the world. You, naturally, agree, and the statue says they’ll send you back in time to ancient Mesoamerica.
You’ll be able to pick from one of four adorable animal…
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Automatic emergency braking is not great at preventing crashes at normal speeds

AAA says the auto industry needs to update their testing protocols for AEB. | Image: AAA Automatic emergency braking (AEB) is pretty good at preventing low-speed rear-end crashes but kind of sucks when vehicles are traveling at more normal speeds, according to new research from the American Automobile Association (AAA).
Starting September 2022, all new cars sold in the US are required to come standard with AEB, which uses forward-facing cameras and other sensors to automatically apply the brakes when a crash is imminent. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety estimates that AEB may help prevent 28,000 crashes and 12,000 injuries by 2025.
Using four common vehicles, AAA wanted to put AEB to the test to see how it’s progressed since first rolling out to production vehicles nearly 20 years ago. What they found was not that…
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Tesla Megapack battery fire is ‘fully controlled,’ shelter-in-place advisory lifted

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A Tesla Megapack battery caught fire this morning at the local utility company PG&E’s Elkhorn Battery Storage facility in Monterey County, California, as reported by local news stations KSBW Action News 8 and KRON4.
The fire started at around 1:30AM this morning, according to PG&E’s operations comm manager, Jeff Smith. No injuries were reported at the scene.
Around 7PM PT / 10PM ET, the North County Fire Department and Monterey County Sheriff’s Office lifted the advisory and reopened the roads. In a tweet from the Public Information for Monterey County account, officials reported on the Megapack battery fire at the Elkhorn facility, saying, “While the fire is considered fully controlled, smoke may still occur in the area for several…
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Microsoft eased up on one DRM hurdle for disc games on Xbox

Put a disc in and play. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft is making it easier to play games on your Xbox Series X, even if it’s offline — as of the 2208 update released earlier this month, you won’t be forced to do an online compatibility check to play a game from an Xbox One disc (via Windows Central). Instead, you can just pop the disc in, install the game, and play; no internet connection required.
The change, which isn’t listed as a feature of the 2208 update on Microsoft’s site, was confirmed by Xbox engineering lead Eden Marie, who tweeted that the check was removed because it wasn’t necessary “in the vast majority of cases” when playing a cross-generation game on the Series X.
Yes, this is true since the 2206 update. We examined data since Series X|S launch & determined the…
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Tom Brady just chucked another Microsoft Surface tablet

Touchdown! Tom Brady might as well have been practicing his touchdown spike when he whipped a Microsoft Surface tablet into the ground during the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game against the Saints on Sunday night. The quarterback was visibly frustrated following an incomplete pass, tossed his helmet onto the field, and stormed back to the sidelines where he chucked the tablet.
The Buccs were losing when Brady threw the tablet, but they ended up coming back and defeating the Saints 20-10. This isn’t Brady’s first documented case of tablet abuse — he threw the thing so hard against the bench after losing a Saints game last year that it actually bounced.
Microsoft Surface chief Panos Panay responded to the incident on his Instagram story this time around,…
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Elden Ring is getting its own board game

Image: Steamforged Elden Ring’s expansive world of the Lands Between will soon be small enough to set atop your table. Steamforged Games, the company behind the board game adaptions of Dark Souls, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Resident Evil, announced that it’s working on an Elden Ring board game through Kickstarter.
The game will allow one to four players to “embark on a huge and varied adventure, visiting iconic locations and crossing paths with familiar enemies and characters,” while offering dice-free combat between both bosses and minor foes. Mat Hart, the co-founder and chief creative officer at Steamforged explains that “fans should expect a dark, richly-realised tabletop world of mystery and peril, with satisfying combat and rewarding exploration.”…
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Apple is too strict with copy and paste in iOS 16

Where’s my “always allow” option, Apple? | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge In my time using iOS 16 so far, I’ve generally been very pleased with the new features and improvements. The customizable lock screen is fun. Removing the background of images just by holding down on a picture’s subject still hasn’t gotten old. But only a few days after the new software rolled out, I’ve already found my biggest frustration: iOS now asks if it’s okay to paste an item from one app to another. Constantly. Over and over and over again.
There’s got to be a better solution than this.
I understand the why behind the new prompt. Your iPhone’s clipboard often contains sensitive data — passwords, personal photos, two-factor passcodes, and so on. Apps likely skim this information more often than any of us realize. And this is…
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Gavin Newsom signs California social media overhaul for minors

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, a law mandating additional safeguards for minors on social media. The bill, AB 2273, passed the state legislature in August, and it’s slated to go into effect on July 1st, 2024.
AB 2273’s supporters pitched it as a supplement to federal online child protection laws, which apply to children under 13. The law raises the age bar to 18, and it covers web services “likely” to get underage visitors, not just those aimed at kids. These sites must assess the potential harms for children on their platform, limit data collection and sharing for these users, and attempt to estimate the age of children on the platform. A press release from Newsom’s office…
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EA’s CEO is following the money to more games with player-created content

The new Skate is expected to offer lots of ways to be creative. | Image: EA EA sees a big opportunity in games that let players create their own content, CEO Andrew Wilson said at a Goldman Sachs conference on Tuesday, as reported by Axios. Games like Minecraft and Roblox with extensive player creation tools have become huge hits with enduring popularity, and it sounds like EA wants to find more ways to let players create content in its own titles.
He highlighted a few EA franchises he feels have notable creative aspects already, like The Sims (which will soon be free to play), FIFA, and Battlefield, and talked about how the upcoming live service Skate title will offer many opportunities for player creation.
“Just like the real world, where skateboarding leans into fashion and music and automotive and building…
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