Weekend Editor
Wes Davis is The Verge’s weekend editor, reporting on the latest developments in tech and entertainment. He’s specialized in covering smart home and Wi-Fi routers, and has also written about gaming, home entertainment, movies, and more. You can find him published at PC World, Gizmodo, CNN Underscored, Tom’s (both Hardware and Guide), and other places.
Outside of tech, Wes is a longtime cyclist (commuting, not racing) and musician. He likes ridiculous bicycles and once opened for The Village People while fronting an ELO tribute band. It was weird. But fun.
As MacRumors writes, Apple designated the original iPhone SE “vintage” today. The 2016 budget phone crammed the A9 chip — same as Apple’s priciest model at the time — into the flat sides, metal back, and chamfered edges of the 5S.
The first SE got its last major OS update with iOS 15 over two years ago, and it’s been five since Apple last sold it. Does that make our iPhone SE video review vintage, too?
Meet Quantum System 2, a 22 ft wide, 12 ft high, cryogenically cooled package that IBM calls the first “modular, utility-scale quantum computer system,” using three of the company’s new Quantum Heron 133-qubit processors. An updated roadmap says that by 2033, its capabilities could go far beyond today’s supercomputer platforms.
For more, check out Nilay Patel’s Decoder interview with Jerry Chow, IBM’s director of quantum systems.
The answer, according to a pre-print study, is about one. Researchers at AI company Hugging Face and Carnegie Mellon University found that general-purpose AI models like GPT-4 are “orders of magnitude” more power-hungry than purpose-made models powering products like Google Translate.
The study, though not yet peer-reviewed, puts into context the environmental cost of generative AI, particularly of inefficient models (one image from the least efficient image-creating model can use as much CO2 as an average gas car driving about 4 miles, for instance).
Here’s the official trailer for Legendary’s next Monsterverse movie. I don’t know what’s going on in it other than that Godzilla’s atomic fire is pink and King Kong has a Thanos glove for some reason.
Also, there’s a baby Kong, which I assume means King Kong dies at the end like in the Linda Hamilton film King Kong Lives.
The New Empire hits theaters worldwide on April 10th next year.