Nick Statt

McDonald's Pulls Down AI-Generated Holiday Ad After Deluge of Mockery McDonald's Netherlands is catching flak for a stupefying AI-generated video, which was roundly condemned on social media.

It's truly wild to me that this just keeps happening. Coca-Cola runs an AI ad and people overwhelmingly react with disgust. They do it again, and people are disgusted again. Now McDonald's makes an AI ad that's so bad that so many people are furious about it they pull it down.

People hate AI slop!

Were tech / SF people always this insufferable online or is this genuinely a post-covid + AI + Elon’s twitter combination? I actually don’t know.

It feels like nothing in AI “culture” endures in any meaningful way. It’s been less than two months and nobody but grifters and engagement baiters are making even passing mentions to Sora outside using it as a proxy for ai video broadly. And we’re supposed to think this is going to eat the world?

Still adjusting to the world of Video Podcasting, but this is a Decoder video essay we just put together with very fun animations courtesy of the talented Alex Parkin. www.theverge.com/podcast/8239...

"Justice for Lost Odyssey": Clair Obscur creative director calls for remaster of cult 2007 RPG "The critical reception at the time was very unfair in my opinion, as the game was criticised for being 'old school'..."

Need someone to track down who was ultimately responsible for choosing White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane to advertise this game on TV n the U.S. back in 2007.

Still one of the best / most inexplicable gaming marketing choices of all time. www.rockpapershotgun.com/justice-for-...

One of the most sinister oval office zoom outs I've ever seen

A lot of people didn’t like the Washington Post journalist who was tortured and dismembered with a bone saw for writing critically about the man sitting next to me

I do feel like "did you ever consider that might suck" is the unofficial Decoder tagline www.theverge.com/podcast/8220...

Apple’s latest sci-fi series Pluribus luxuriates in its mystery An early, spoiler-free look at the show.

Pluribus is really as good as people are saying. It’s one of those “I can’t believe they let him make it” concepts for Vince Gilligan combined with outrageously high-level execution. Plus Rhea Seehorn, one of the best actresses alive today. www.theverge.com/entertainmen...

🚨🚨🚨 The jury has reached a verdict. Sean Dunn, aka the DC Sandwich Guy, has been found NOT GUILTY of assault.

The problems with AI in schools Teachers had one big question: What are we even doing here?

I would very much like to thank the roughly two dozen educators and experts who answered my call when I started in on the research for this episode. It took longer than I meant to make it, but we got there. ❤️

www.theverge.com/podcast/8154...

ah, perhaps instead of pumping millions into endless factional infighting Dem donors could invest in making local Dem organizations genuine civic spaces that can reach people during and between elections

Legitimately the most lit political speech of my entire life

hell yeah eugene debs

Halo co-creator says ICE’s Halo-themed recruitment ad “makes me sick” Another Halo maker says ad "ought to offend every Halo fan, regardless of political orientation." ALSO: A developer whose game just launched on Xbox slams Microsoft’s silence

NEW: I spoke to original Halo devs about that ICE Halo post

One: "abhorrent”

Another: "Using Halo imagery in a call to ‘destroy’ people because of their immigration status goes way too far, and ought to offend every Halo fan, regardless of political orientation”

www.gamefile.news/p/halo-ice-d...

Cinemark to Add 70mm Imax Screens Ahead of Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ Cinemark will add a number of Imax screens ahead of the release of Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey."

Fine, twist my arm I guess I’ll go enjoy the new Odyssey movie and other films at 70mm at one of the only three IMAX theaters in the United States getting upgraded that happens to be 15 minutes from my house variety.com/2025/film/ne...

I asked Microsoft PR about this—specially the DHS using Halo IP to recruit for ICE—and the company declined to comment.

Just me getting the CEO of LexisNexis to ask his new AI research tool about birthright citizenship. Decoder! www.theverge.com/podcast/8071...

Decoder is now a video podcast. We’re very excited to announce that Decoder is now officially on YouTube. So if you prefer to watch and not just listen to your podcasts, you can head over to youtube.com/@decoderpod and subscribe to ...

Lots of big moves at Decoder this month.

We launched ad-free podcasts last week. Today, our YouTube channel is officially live with its first brand-new episode. Catch all of our Monday interview shows in full video every week going forward. www.theverge.com/podcast/8027...

Okay just upgraded and Liquid Glass is really as bad as people said it was, and I’m of the understanding that it used to be worse. What the hell was Apple thinking here?

Words cannot describe how much this gaming achievement hurt me. 7 years in the making, and an unconscionable amount of hours spent practicing.

To Hollow Knight, my favorite game ever 🫡

Microsoft revamps Xbox Game Pass plans and hikes Ultimate to $29.99 a month All Xbox Game Pass tiers are getting big changes

I think we'll look back at the brief window around subscriptions as a business model anomaly for the game industry. Just as streaming tv/movies rose from $5-8 to $20-25, there as just no way Game Pass was ever going to stay in the $10 zone for the full offering. www.theverge.com/news/789424/...

Ford CEO Jim Farley on China, tariffs, and the quest for a $30,000 EV The head of Ford on why the US car industry needs lower-cost EVs to compete with China.

Our final Decoder guest host is the one and only @joannastern.bsky.social, who interviewed Ford CEO Jim Farley… and allowed me to call in with a very specific Nilay question www.theverge.com/podcast/7848...

A screenshot from Sam's conversation with Hank Green on The Verge. The excerpt reads: Interesting. Is there, on the list of reasons that you like this or want to do this, we talked about this before, but let’s end here with this. Is [the idea] that people aren’t doing things weird enough, and you want to do things weird, on that list? One hundred percent. You and I have connected a lot on the topic of Homestar Runner over the years. Homestar Runner may be hugely responsible for my career taking the direction it has. It was incredibly influential on me. And something I loved about it was like, it felt like a walled garden of weird that existed at a URL. Yeah. That resonates. And I think about how sometimes I wish that I could plant a forest full of weird trees on the internet. I wish that the internet were still a place where, just like there was really fun, mysterious, hopeful stuff that existed a URL away. I would hope that Dropout can just be one of those things."

checkitout! chatted with my good friend Hank green about all things business but more importantly homestar runner

Microsoft blocks the Israeli military from some cloud and AI services The Guardian revealed last month that Microsoft’s services were being used for mass surveillance of Palestinians.

BREAKING: Microsoft has blocked the Israeli military from some cloud and AI services. The block comes after The Guardian revealed last month that Microsoft’s services were being used for mass surveillance of Palestinians. Full details 👇 www.theverge.com/news/785733/...

Masterpiece

DOJ Deletes Study Showing Domestic Terrorists Are Most Often Right Wing Following Charlie Kirk’s assassination and the Trump administration’s promise to go after the “radical left” a study showing most domestic terrosim is far-right was disappeared.

The Department of Justice has removed a study showing that white supremacist and far-right violence “continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism” in the United States.

🔗 www.404media.co/doj-deletes-...

The WSJ carelessly spread anti-trans misinformation The Wall Street Journal’s fuckup while covering Charlie Kirk’s killing needs more than an editor’s note.

did a little media criticism www.theverge.com/politics/777...

Just to be blunt, if you want Wired and 404 and The Verge to employ reporters who understand the memes on bullet casings and can connect them to gaming culture while having the legal and support resources to deal with waves of harassment when we do it… you have to subscribe and pay for the work

If you value the work we do at The Verge, please consider subscribing so we can keep doing it. It's $4/month right now, which is a really great deal!