Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $69,170 Tuesday morning, according to CoinMarketCap, breaching the previous all-time high of $68,990 in November 2021. The price then slipped back under $68,000 soon after reaching its peak.
The Biggest Crypto Heists of 2022…So Far
Ethereum, which currently sits at $3,815, has also been steadily climbing, though it still has a ways to go before reaching $4,721, the all-time high from November 2021.
Bitcoin and every other cryptocurrency rather famously nosedived in 2022, a year that opened with splashy Super Bowl ads featuring celebrities like Larry David and LeBron James. Sam Bankman-Fried, the former head of crypto exchange FTX was exposed as the emperor without clothes in 2022 and was convicted of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering in 2023. SBF is scheduled to be sentenced this month.
Bitcoin bottomed at around $16,500 in late 2022 since the last peak and cryptocurrencies more broadly saw people lose roughly $2 trillion. Obviously, no one knows for certain where the next peak will land, but the best time to buy may have been roughly six months ago. That’s when big players like Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund got in, according to Reuters. The idea in investing is to buy low and sell high, and anyone getting in now due to FOMO—or fear of missing out—could be in for a rude shock if prices don’t climb considerably.
The crypto crash of 2022 caused some hard reassessments from tech reporters who were writing credulously about the world of Web3 and blockchains during the last crypto peak. The New York Times’ Kevin Roose and Platformer’s Casey Newton, for example, recently had a discussion on their podcast Hard Fork about how badly things went in 2022 when the “casino culture” of Bitcoin caused a lot of people to lose money.
“I feel burned by everything that I wrote about crypto,” Newton said last month.
But that hasn’t stopped many of the crypto hype-men from assuming their old positions now that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are once again ascendant in price. Hard Fork even had on Chris Dixon, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, who still believes in crypto and blockchain tech as optimistic and tangible versions of the future.
Chris Dixon Defends Crypto | Interview clip
True believers will point to this new all-time high as proof that Bitcoin is good and blockchains are useful, even though we haven’t seen a convincing use case for the tech beyond money laundering. But take any advice on crypto with a grain of salt, including from us. There are some things that have definitely changed since 2022, including the introduction of spot bitcoin ETFs, which allow institutional money to more easily find its way into crypto.
Just make sure you only buy crypto with money you can afford to lose. Investing in crypto is fun precisely because it’s extremely volatile. And while Bitcoin’s price can go up very, very quickly, it can crash just as fast.
Kayak launched new AI features that let people ask a chatbot for travel tips and find flights with just a screenshot. This brings Kayak in line with many other travel sites that offer AI services for trip planning and, now, price comparisons.
PriceCheck, one of Kayak’s two new AI features, lets users check if they found the best price just by taking a screenshot of flight information they found somewhere else. Kayak said in a statement that customers can upload a screenshot of any flight, even if they found the flight on their competitors’ websites, and PriceCheck will “search hundreds of sites to see if we can find a better price.”
Matthias Keller, chief scientist and senior vice president of technology at Kayak, said in an email to The Verge that the service uses AI to extract information from screenshots, like schedules and airlines, and searches the internet for cheaper flights utilizing the customer’s parameters.
“It’s used to surface relevant content for the user as well as compelling alternatives,” Keller said. “It is also a way for us to attract new users, including those loyal to a specific airline or program, because Kayak Pricecheck might also find a better price, even within this preferred provider.”
This type of AI is called computer vision, where models can scan a photo or a PDF and extract information like key terms or objects. Google, Microsoft, and Apple have been using computer vision for years to identify faces in your photos to tag them or search for terms in a badly scanned PDF.
Kayak also wants to make it easier for customers to get answers for any travel-related questions. Travelers can prompt the Kayak chatbot, Ask Kayak, if they have any questions about travel planning or are looking to narrow down places to stay or things to do. For example, people can ask the chatbot questions like, “What is the cheapest destination I can fly to this weekend?” or “Give me a hotel under $300 a night in New York City.”
Ask Kayak is currently available to users in the United States, the UK, and Canada but will be rolled out to other territories soon. The company built Ask Kayak with ChatGPT.
Since generative AI services became popular, travel planning was one of the first use cases it was expected to disrupt. Kayak is not the only travel website exploring how generative AI can improve how customers search for flights or hotels. Expedia told The Verge it wants to use more AI features to get more people to begin their travel planning on the site rather than Google.
A mortgage refinance is when you take out a home loan to replace your existing mortgage. You’ll also get a new loan term and interest rate with your new mortgage.
For many people, the primary goal of refinancing is to save money by getting a lower mortgage rate. But with mortgage interest rates still high, few homeowners can save enough money to justify the effort of refinancing.
However, you might consider refinancing for other reasons, such as changing your loan term or type. It all depends on your personal circumstances and what you plan to do with the cash.
During the pandemic, many homeowners jumped at the opportunity to refinance their existing mortgages because they could secure new, lower rates.
In early 2022, mortgage rates began to soar in response to high inflation and the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate-hiking strategy. The Fed hasn’t hiked rates since July, and it plans to make its first rate cut later in 2024 as long as inflation continues its downward trajectory.
Since the start of the year, mortgage refinance rates have sat between 6% and 7%. Mortgage rates are projected to creep lower throughout the year, but the days of rock-bottom rates in the 2% range aren’t expected.
For now, homeowners who can save money by refinancing are likely those who bought when rates were at their peak above 8%, according to Alex Thomas, senior research analyst at John Burns Research and Consulting. As the Fed starts to cut interest rates and mortgage rates move lower, refinance activity should pick up.
“The Fed has signaled that they expect to cut rates this year, but they haven’t given us a timeline, and there’s a lot of year left,” Thomas said.
What is refinancing?
When you refinance your mortgage, you pay off your existing mortgage with a new home loan that comes with new rates and terms. If you secured your existing mortgage when interest rates were higher than they are today, refinancing at a lower rate can save you money on your monthly payment or allow you to pay off the loan faster (and sometimes both).
Reasons to consider refinancing
There are many good reasons to refinance when conditions are right. Some of the most common scenarios include:
Reduce your monthly payments
Switching to a new loan with a lower interest rate or longer repayment term can reduce your monthly mortgage payment. The amount you’ll save each month depends on the size of your mortgage and how much lower the new interest rate is compared to your previous loan. Most experts recommend refinancing if you can reduce your interest rate by 0.75%.
Pay off your mortgage sooner
If your original mortgage was a 30-year loan, you could refinance to pay it off sooner. With a lower interest rate, you may be able to switch to a 15-year loan and still have a manageable monthly payment. Reducing the length of the mortgage also lowers the total amount of interest you’ll pay over the life of the loan.
Getting cash out of your home
With a cash-out refinance, you apply for a new loan that’s larger than what you owe on your old loan — and take the difference as a cash payment. Many homeowners use a cash-out refinance to pay for home improvements.
Switch to a fixed-rate loan
If you have an adjustable-rate mortgage, switching to a fixed-rate loan could be a good move. Refinancing can help you reduce future risk, according to Jason Fink, a professor of finance at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Locking in a fixed rate provides both predictability and protection from future rate increases.
Eliminate private mortgage insurance
Most loans require private mortgage insurance if you put less than 20% down when buying a home. As home prices have increased, you may have crossed the 20% equity threshold, creating an opportunity for you to refinance without PMI. (You can also ask your current lender to eliminate the PMI without refinancing.)
Reasons to not refinance
Fees are too high
While refinancing can save money in the long run, you’ll need to pay upfront closing costs that can add up to thousands of dollars.
Interest rates are higher
If the interest rates have increased and your repayment term is the same, your payments will increase and you won’t save money.
You’re planning on moving soon
It could take a few years to recoup your refinance fees. If you expect to move in a few years, the trouble and expense of refinancing now might not make sense.
You’re nearly finished paying off your mortgage
Mortgages are designed so that your highest interest payments come during the early years. The longer you’ve had the mortgage, the more your monthly payment goes to paying off the principal. If you refinance later in the loan term, you’ll revert to primarily paying interest instead of building equity.
Different types of refinancing
There are a few different options for refinancing a mortgage. Here’s a breakdown of some of the different ways to replace your current home loan:
Rate-and-term refinance
A rate-and-term refinance replaces your mortgage with a new rate and/or term with one of two goals: save money or pay off the loan faster. For example, you might decide to refinance a 30-year mortgage with a 7.5% interest rate with a new 30-year mortgage with a 6.5% interest rate to reduce your interest charges. Or you might have 20 years left on a 30-year mortgage and opt to refinance to a 15-year mortgage — ideally with a lower interest rate — to accelerate your payoff timeline.
Cash-out refinance
A cash-out refinance replaces your existing mortgage with a new loan that’s worth more than your current loan. The goal with a cash-out refinance is to tap into your home equity and borrow cash at a lower rate to cover a major expense such as remodeling your kitchen or paying for college.
FHA or VA streamline refinance
If you have a mortgage backed by the FHA or the VA, you may be able to qualify for a streamline refinance. This “streamlines” the process by eliminating some of the additional paperwork involved, including a new home appraisal or proof of income documentation. VA streamline refinances are commonly known as a VA IRRRL, or Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan.
How to get the best refi rate
Getting the lowest refinance rate available is similar to getting the lowest rate possible on a new purchase loan: It starts with your personal finances. Evaluate your credit report at least 30 days before you apply for a refinance. If there is any incorrect information, dispute it. Creditors have 30 days to confirm the accuracy of the information or remove it from your report. Removing inaccurate information can improve your credit score and possibly help you qualify for a lower interest rate.
Taking steps to improve your credit, including paying off credit cards, can lower the risk associated with your new loan. It’s also important to compare options from multiple lenders. In addition to scoring the lowest rate, shopping around can help you find options with lower fees to help save on your closing costs.
Current mortgage and refinance rates
Product
Interest rate
APR
30-year fixed-rate
7.11%
7.16%
15-year fixed-rate
6.65%
6.72%
30-year fixed-rate jumbo
7.21%
7.26%
30-year fixed-rate FHA
6.88%
6.93%
5/1 ARM
6.69%
7.84%
5/1 ARM jumbo
6.39%
7.69%
7/1 ARM
6.70%
7.92%
10/1 ARM
6.99%
8.00%
15-year fixed-rate jumbo
6.73%
6.80%
20-year fixed-rate
6.94%
7.00%
30-year fixed-rate VA
7.00%
7.04%
7/1 ARM jumbo
6.47%
7.66%
15-year fixed-rate refinance
6.70%
6.77%
30-year fixed-rate refinance
7.05%
7.10%
5/1 ARM refinance
6.48%
7.71%
7/1 ARM refinance
6.43%
7.72%
10/1 ARM refinance
6.98%
8.02%
30-year fixed-rate jumbo refinance
7.08%
7.12%
15-year fixed-rate jumbo refinance
6.76%
6.83%
5/1 ARM jumbo refinance
6.32%
7.66%
30-year fixed-rate FHA refinance
6.96%
7.00%
20-year fixed-rate refinance
6.95%
7.00%
30-year fixed-rate VA refinance
7.68%
7.71%
7/1 ARM jumbo refinance
6.47%
7.66%
Updated on March 05, 2024.
How to apply to refinance my home loan
1. Get your credit in great shape: While conventional lenders will approve refinance applications with a credit score of 620 or higher, the best rates go to borrowers with scores of 740 or higher.
2. Figure out how much home equity you have: How much is your house worth? And how much money do you still owe on your current mortgage? The difference is your home equity. Simply put, the higher equity, the better you’ll look in the eyes of a lender.
3. Compare multiple offers: You don’t have to refinance your mortgage with your current lender — though it’s worth starting with them to see what they can offer. Some lenders will waive certain fees for current borrowers who want to refinance. Make sure you compare other options, though. Comparison-shopping is the key to saving money, whether you’re shopping for groceries or a new mortgage.
4. Lock your rate: Rates have increased substantially since the Federal Reserve started hiking interest rates, so it’s important to lock in a rate once you find one that suits your needs. If you don’t, you could wind up paying more. Make sure you ask about a float-down rate lock, which lets you take advantage of lower interest rates if they become available.
5. Communicate: Once you settle on a lender, it’s important to be responsive to requests for financial documentation. The faster you respond, the faster you’ll be able to close on the new loan, and the faster you’ll be able to start saving money with your lower rate.
FAQs
There may be a slight difference between average refinance rates and average rates for purchase loans (the initial mortgage taken out on the home). The bigger difference between buying a new home and refinancing your current mortgage tends to be with the closing costs. The closing costs for refinances are lower, averaging less than 1% of the total loan amount. There are some exceptions, however, in New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware, where closing costs are significantly higher.
Refinancing involves paying closing costs, though the costs tend to be lower than with a new purchase loan. You should expect to pay 2% to 5% of the total mortgage value depending on the size of the loan, though you may be able to roll closing costs into your loan balance. In 2021, the average closing costs to refinance a mortgage for a single-family home added up to $2,375, according to data from ClosingCorp. That figure doesn’t include any local taxes, however, which can add thousands in certain parts of the country.
To figure out if refinancing makes financial sense, you need to determine your break-even point, i.e., when your projected savings are greater than the costs associated with refinancing the loan. This ultimately comes down to how long you plan to live in the home. For example, if you’re going to pay $6,000 to refinance your mortgage for a lower rate, you’ll need to determine if you’ll be in the home long enough for the total monthly savings to add up to more than $6,000.
Superman has found its latest Perry White. Rebecca Ferguson is teaming up with Chris Pratt for Timur Bekmambetov’s new sci-fi movie. Get a look at Fallout’s retro world in three new posts. Plus, what’s coming on the next episode of Halo. To me, my spoilers!
Are Fans Tired of Marvel and DC? Superhero Fatigue at NYCC 2023
Superman
THR reports Wendell Pierce (The Wire) has joined the cast of James Gunn’s Superman as the Daily Planet’s editor-in-chief, Perry White.
Mercy
According to Deadline, Rebecca Ferguson and Chris Pratt are attached to star in Mercy, a new sci-fi thriller from director Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) at Amazon MGM Studios. Based on a script by Marco van Belle, the story concerns “a detective (Chris Pratt) who is accused of a violent crime and forced to prove his innocence” sometime “in the near future when capital crime has increased.”
The Unknown
Bloody-Disgusting also reports a horror film based on Glasgow’s ill-fated, A.I. scripted “Willy Wonka Experience” is now in development at Kaledonia Pictures. The story is said to follow “a renowned illustrator and his wife who are haunted by the tragic death of their son, Charlie. Desperate to escape their grief, the couple leave the world behind for the remote Scottish Highlands–where an unknowable evil awaits them.”
Humane
Coming Soon reports Shudder and IFC Films have acquired the distribution rights to Caitlin Cronenberg’s debut film, Humane. Starring Jay Baruchel, Emily Hampshire and Peter Gallagher, the story, said to take place over a single day, is set “mere months after a global ecological collapse has forced world leaders to take extreme measures to reduce the earth’s population. In a wealthy enclave, a recently retired newsman has invited his grown children to dinner to announce his intentions to enlist in the nation’s new euthanasia program. But when the father’s plan goes horribly awry, tensions flare and chaos erupts among his children.”
Kung Fu Panda 4
Po instigates a bar fight in a new clip from Kung Fu Panda 4.
I’m Only Hungry for VENGEANCE! Po & Zhen’s Tavern Brawl | KUNG FU PANDA 4
The Garfield Movie
Garfield’s estranged father drags him down into the criminal underworld in the latest trailer for The Garfield Movie, starring the voices of Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddingham, Ving Rhames, Cecily Strong, Harvey Guillén, Brett Goldstein, Bowen Yang and Nicholas Hoult as Jon Arbuckle.
THE GARFIELD MOVIE – New Trailer (HD)
Snow White and the Seven Samurai
Elsewhere, a left-for-dead Snow White is trained by an “elite group of female samurai” to enact revenge against her wicked stepmother in the trailer for Snow White and the Seven Samurai.
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN SAMURAI TRAILER
The Complex Forms
We also have a trailer for The Complex Forms, an Italian sci-fi film in which strangers find themselves trapped in limbo.
THE COMPLEX FORMS | OFFICIAL TRAILER
House of the Dragon
Speaking at Morgan Stanley’s Technology, Media and Telecom conference, Warner Bros’ Streaming and Gaming executive J.B. Perrette confirmed that House of the Dragon season 2 will begin airing in June 2024. [Variety]
Fallout
Rotten Tomatoes has three new posters for Amazon’s Fallout TV series.
Halo
Spoiler TV additionally has three photos from “Onyx,” this week’s new episode of Halo.
Photo: Paramount+
Photo: Paramount+
Photo: Paramount+
Interview With the Vampire
Finally, Claudia interrogates Louis in a new clip from the second season of Interview With the Vampire.
The Reticent Vampire of the 9th Arrondissement | Interview with the Vampire S2 | Premieres May 12
I had mixed feelings when Apple did away with the wedge in favor of a more traditional shape for the M2 MacBook Air. Did it feel a bit like sacrilege? Sure, but at least the wedge wasn’t gone gone. There was still the M1 Air.
Except now that the M3 Air is here, it’s been discontinued. Now, it really is the end of the wedge era and I can’t help but feel bereft.
Logically speaking, losing the wedge shape doesn’t affect how well the newer Airs work. I know because I have one: a 15-inch M2 MacBook Air. It’s thin, sleek, and the battery lasts forever. I didn’t pay out the nose for it. These are the defining characteristics for the Air — wedge-less or not.
But I also have an M1 MacBook Air that I use for work. Recently, jumping back and forth between the two, I’ve come to appreciate the wedge more than I thought I would. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I find it easier to type on. When I’m writing a draft, the sloped edge is more comfortable under my palms. When I tuck it under my arm while walking through the office, it just feels better. I’ve owned many MacBook Airs over the years. It was actually the first I ever bought with my own money. I still feel the same fuzzy feeling when I unzip my backpack and see that wedge waiting in the laptop sleeve.
Though, it’s more than nebulous design preferences. To me, the wedge represented a clear and distinct identity for the Air.
I loved everything about my first Air. After breaking my back in college schlepping a 17-inch Dell Latitude, the ultraportable design felt like a marvel. Whenever I’d open my backpack, that tapered profile was such a stark difference. Instead of just a chunky slab, I could carry a laptop and several other things at the same time. A weight had literally been lifted off my shoulders and this feeling of freedom? It’s the exact thing that made the Air such an iconic product.
Goodnight, my sweet wedgy prince.Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Over the years, that shape has wedged itself into my psyche. I see it at coffee shops, planes, offices, etc., and for whatever reason, it’s become a visual cue that helps me get down to business. Ah, my brain thinks, look at all these wedges. I’ve reached the work zone. I distinctly remember spending an afternoon ten years ago at a cafe in San Francisco, eavesdropping on several groups of young entrepreneurs dreaming up the next big thing. Most of their ideas were patently horrible, but the energy was electric. All of them were hunched over MacBook Airs.
The newer Airs, with their flat profiles and squared edges, look a lot more like a Pro with fewer ports, but as the Pros slim down and get lighter, it’s not a guarantee that when I pick one up, I’ll know which is which. It used to be that when I pit a MacBook Pro versus a MacBook Air, there were distinct differences. But as I wrote in my M3 MacBook Pro 14 review, the line between the two are starting to blur. The differences between a 13-inch Air and a 14-inch Pro are clearer, but it’s getting murky in the middle. Buying the 15-inch Air means you’re giving up any real weight advantage — the 14-inch Pro weighs 3.4 pounds while my 15-inch Air weighs 3.3 pounds. Depending on your configuration, you might not be saving money either. When I ran the numbers for myself a few months ago, I was looking at a $100 difference.
Technically, these new wedge-less Airs are thinner, but the flat profile doesn’t hit the same.Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
Going forward, what is there to help differentiate an Air from a base MacBook Pro? A slightly thinner profile? Maybe, if you’re the colorful type, a splashy color? (Apple isn’t nearly as punchy with colors as it could be.) Like I said, weight isn’t necessarily a plus in the Air’s column anymore. Ports? Are ports really the main thing standing between an Air and a base MacBook Pro? That feels wrong.
When I woke up today, I did not expect to feel any sort of way about a wedge. But looking back, a wedge-shaped Air was present during some of the most momentous parts of my life and career. Now that I can’t get another one? I’m going to hold onto this M1 Air for as long as I can.
While the days are getting brighter, spring isn’t set to arrive for another few weeks. Given we’re still dealing with storms in “sunny” Southern California, I’m going to venture a guess that it probably doesn’t feel like winter’s almost over where most of our readers live, either. Thankfully, Amazon’s Smart Thermostat is on sale right now at Amazon for $59.99 ($20 off), its lowest price in nearly three months and the best deal we’ve seen outside of Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day.
Amazon’s budget-friendly smart thermostat offers an impressive set of features for the price. It’s compatible with most 24-volt HVAC systems and adapts to your habits and preferences over time thanks to its support for Hunches, which lets you essentially turn it on and forget about it like you would with a pricier thermostat. It’s helpful in other ways, too, especially since it integrates well with Amazon Alexa and can even reduce your heating and cooling bills. So long as you can do without native temperature sensors and support for voice assistants beyond Alexa, it’s not a bad investment to make at just $60.
Up until now, the only way to save on the Samsung Galaxy S24 was through promotions that involved storage upgrades and gift cards. While nice, sometimes a straight-up cash discount is more helpful. Fortunately, we’re now seeing the first cash discounts on Samsung’s Galaxy S24 lineup. The 6.2-inch Galaxy S24 now starts at $699.99 ($100 off) with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage at Amazon and Best Buy, while the 6.7-inch Galaxy S24 Plus starts at $849.99 ($150 off) with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage at Amazon and Best Buy. You can also pick up the 6.8-inch Galaxy S24 Ultra with 256GB of storage and 12GB of RAM at Amazon and Best Buy for $1,149.99 ($150 off).
Samsung’s latest phones come with the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip and a range of AI-powered features, including generative photo editing and live language translation for phone calls. Samsung also promises seven major Android upgrades and security updates no matter which phone you buy. The S24 Plus sports a larger higher-res screen than the standard S24 and more RAM, but the Ultra is the most capable of the bunch. The latter comes with an S Pen, a better camera system, a titanium build, and an effective anti-glare coating.
There’s one thing you can count on at Mobile World Congress: a whole mess of Android smartphones. This year’s conference in Barcelona, Spain, delivered, with new devices from Xiaomi, Nothing, and others showing off the state of the art in the smartphone world.
But there was something else brewing at this year’s MWC: some new ideas about what a “mobile device” might really mean. As generative AI changes the way we interact with technology, devices like the Humane AI Pin are starting to chart a path past the slab of glass in your pocket. Some of those slabs of glass are becoming more than just bundles of apps.
On this episode of The Vergecast, we talk all about MWC with The Verge’s Jon Porter and Allison Johnson, who were there to see and touch and chat with all the new gadgets. They tell us what’s cool, what’s vaporware, and whether they left Barcelona with any new ideas about the post-smartphone world.
If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are a few links to get you started:
General Motors will release a fleet of medium-duty trucks that run on hydrogen fuel cells as part of a pilot project sponsored by the US Department of Energy. The goal is to prove out the capabilities of hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, as a viable alternative to diesel vehicles.
“We will design, engineer, and develop a fleet of hydrogen fuel-cell medium-duty trucks,” said Jacob Lozier, project lead at GM, “to demonstrate how the capability and strength of our fuel cells can help real-world fleet customers.”
The trucks’ development will receive funds from DOE’s SuperTruck program, which aims to reduce carbon emissions among heavy- and medium-duty vehicles. The total project will cost $65 million, with $26 million coming from DOE, and GM and its partners providing the rest.
The trucks’ development would be funded under DOE’s SuperTruck program
The trucks will share an exterior design with today’s Chevy Silverado 5500 medium-duty trucks. But under the hood, they will run on hydrogen fuel cells developed by GM’s Hydrotec division. The automaker is working on a number of other hydrogen-related projects, including mobile power generators, cement mixers, and heavy-duty vehicles. GM also has a joint venture with Honda to develop hydrogen fuel cells for a variety of products.
GM will deliver the fuel cell trucks to Southern Company, an Atlanta-based gas and electricity utility, for use as shop vehicles for its worksites. The automaker also envisions the trucks being used for farming operations and municipal services. GM will also work with Nel ASA, using the Norwegian company’s PEM Electrolyzer in an effort to create hydrogen more sustainably.
Hydrogen fuel cells use compressed hydrogen as their fuel, releasing water vapor as its only emission. A number of automakers have recently seized on the technology for its advantages in the development of heavy-duty vehicles and mobile power generators — and as a way to further transition away from polluting gas-powered vehicles and meet their own climate goals.
The trucks will share an exterior design with today’s Chevy Silverado 5500 medium-duty trucks
Hydrogen’s energy content by volume is low, which makes storing hydrogen a challenge because it requires high pressures, low temperatures, or chemical processes to be stored compactly. Overcoming this challenge is important for light-duty vehicles because they often have limited sizes and weight capacities for fuel storage.
The Biden administration recently proposed new tax guidelines aimed at making it cheaper to produce hydrogen as a less polluting alternative to fossil fuels. The problem, though, is that most hydrogen is made with the help of fossil fuels, mostly through a process called steam methane reforming that produces carbon dioxide emissions. Methane is an even more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2 and routinely escapes along the supply chain, from production to final use.
But GM says it’s committed to cleaner methods of hydrogen production when they are available. “Our approach right now is to be kind of agnostic what the sources are,” said Charles Freese, executive director of GM’s Hydrotec division.
The main hurdle for hydrogen is the near-total absence of refueling infrastructure in the US. There are only 55 hydrogen stations in California, according to Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership — which is basically the sum total for the whole country. And refueling can be expensive, with the Department of Energy estimating the costs as upward of $90 per vehicle.
“We know how to make hydrogen fuel cells,” Freese said, “but demonstrating it as part of an ecosystem where you’re starting to balance the supply and fueling of hydrogen along with the use and application of the trucks. Those are all elements of what we’re going to demonstrate with this fleet.”
The last few years have been boom times for two distinct documentary formats you’ll find plastered across streamers. The first is more akin to reality TV than anything else, often about a salacious crime or recent tabloid story, cutting between interviews with primary sources and experts and archival footage. The second of these genres — the celebrity documentary — is the glossier of the two. It’s usually well-shot and offers a veneer of intimacy with its subject… who grants the camera meaningful access to their life but more often than not is either an executive producer of the project or has some kind of quiet right of approval.
This year’s slate of nominees for Best Documentary Feature Film are a round rejection of mass appeal. Taken together, they mark a return to a pre-streaming era with films about people you don’t yet know (and one Ugandan pop star turned politician). And though these nominations haven’t come without controversy, with some in the industry who claim they’re a resentful response to a certain kind of success, they’re exactly the films we need in this moment, each pushing the art of nonfiction storytelling forward in different ways. All are available to stream and worth your time.
Four Daughters
Sometimes a documentary is so inventive, it reminds you how truly expansive this form can be. I have thought about Four Daughters a lot since I first saw it in December (at a lone 10:30AM screening at the only theater in New York that showed it).
Without giving away too much, Four Daughters sits in a canon with films like The Act of Killing and Under the Sun, both of which embrace the artifice of film as a storytelling medium and turn it on its head. If documentary is a genre that exists somewhere on a spectrum between journalism and entertainment, in each of these masterpieces, it’s in the tension between performance and reality that we find truth.
Go into Four Daughters as blindly as possible if you want to feel the full weight of its impact in real time. It follows a Tunisian family — Olfa and her daughters, Eya and Tayssir — and asks them to relive the worst moment of their lives, casting actors to share the screen (and the burden). They’ll play many different roles: friend, therapist, journalist, shadow. They ask questions. They try to understand. They try to help us understand. They try to help Olfa, Eya, and Tayssir understand and process their own stories. The seven of them become a closed circuit and at times, the lines between them blur: they turn the past into a performance, and in fleeting moments, a broken family almost seems whole.
Available for rent
Bobi Wine: The People’s President
If Four Daughters arrives at truth by way of performance, Bobi Wine, in contrast, is a deeply journalistic project that tells the story of a pop star-turned-activist’s fight for democracy in Uganda. Bobi Wine meets its namesake character at the beginning of his political career and follows him on his journey to unseat President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986. It’s a difficult film to watch: Wine and his supporters suffer tremendous violence at the hands of an autocratic government. They’re repeatedly arrested, beaten, tortured, and sometimes killed. Co-director Moses Bwayo himself was shot at close range while filming. And yet through it all, Wine, his family, and Bwayo’s camera remain unflinching.
At a time when democracy and freedom of the press face threats all around the world, Bobi Wine is as much a film about the rest of us as it is a film about Uganda. As I watched, I thought about films like Navalny, which captures Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s fight against Putin (winner of the Oscar for Best Documentary last year, and newly resonant after his death), and A Thousand Cuts,about former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s crackdown on the media. Wine’s fight may seem hopeless, but hope is ultimately what drives him, and this film, forward.
Streaming on Disney Plus
20 Days in Mariupol
Produced by the Associated Press and Frontline, 20 Days in Mariupol tells the story of Russia’s invasion through the camera of Ukrainian journalist and filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov and his AP colleague Evgeniy Maloletka, who are the only international journalists left in Mariupol as the conflict begins. Chernov conducts interviews on-the-fly with civilians as they watch Russian tanks roll into their city and upend their lives — some embrace Chernov as their last remaining tie to the wider world, whereas others are skeptical and mistrustful, almost accusatory. Though it’s the least formally inventive of the category, Chernov’s rich and introspective narration is what grounds a film that could easily have been a compendium of distressing news footage. And make no mistake: the fact that 20 Days in Mariupol exists at all is remarkable. It tells a story that autocratic forces do not want told — a graphic document that captures the reality of war and Russian oppression as it is. Dead adults, dead children, dead babies. Bombed-out homes and hospitals. Chernov himself puts it best, somewhat cynically, talking about all the war he’s covered in Ukraine and elsewhere: “We keep filming but everything stays the same. Worse even.”
Streaming on PBS (for free)
To Kill a Tiger
To Kill a Tiger tells the story of 13-year-old Kiran (not her real name) and her parents as they fight for justice after surviving a violent assault. It’s a portrait of resilience, and in this sense, it reminded me a little bit of Bobi Wine. Whereas Bobi Wine uses his platform as a musician to move into politics and push for change on a national level, To Kill a Tiger is a fight for national change that starts from the community up. Like Wine, farmer Ranjit is willing to sacrifice everything for what he holds dear, and he’s guided by the belief that change on a local level might help slowly shift the minds and hearts of his fellow villagers. Even when his plight seems desperate, Ranjit clings to the hope that a victory for his daughter might be a victory for other women and girls, and it’s with this resolve that he is able to go on.
I had an extraordinarily difficult time finding a place (either streaming or in theaters) to see this film, and I was — frankly — a little confused. Now, after having seen it at a packed screening at 7PM on a Friday in February, I understand why: in a live Q&A, director Nisha Pahuja explained that she doesn’t want to use the film’s participants or their stories to sell tickets or promote the project (and indeed, the film itself opens with asking viewers not to post identifiable photos of Kiran). Living in a time where you can watch just about anything at just about any time, there’s something quite radical about that approach. To Kill a Tiger is a movie on a mission and it asks its viewers to take on the responsibility of being thoughtful members of its world.
The film was recently acquired by Netflix and will be streaming this weekend, just in time for the Oscars. We’ll see whether Pahuja’s requests to maintain Kiran’s privacy will be honored now that the doc will be on the world’s biggest streaming service.
Available on Netflix Friday or streaming for free through National Film Board of Canada
The Eternal Memory
Chilean journalist Augusto Góngora and his partner, Paulina Urrutia (Pauli), navigate his Alzheimer’s together. Góngora made a name for himself covering General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, and the film cuts between the past and the present, interspersed with home video and footage from his decades-long career. There’s a strange poetry in watching a man who spent his life preserving Chile’s national memory lose his own. If this were fiction, it’d be too on the nose.
The Eternal Memory is interesting to consider alongside the shortlistedAmerican Symphony:musician Jon Batiste composing an orchestral piece as his wife (author and writer Suleika Jaouad) undergoes cancer treatment. Both films are love stories that let the viewer into a couple’s private world as they try to balance illness with creative practice. In The Eternal Memory, Pauli is a working actor who juggles her caretaking responsibilities by bringing Augusto to rehearsal with her. In the hands of different people, Augusto’s Alzheimer’s could make for a much darker film, and though The Eternal Memory doesn’t shy away from the weight of his disease, it’s a film that’s still full of joy and light, with Augusto and Pauli dancing, singing, and filming their way through the hard stuff.
As my mother reached her 90s, although she was relatively healthy and active, I realized that she was starting to experience some physical limitations and memory issues. And while I didn’t live far away, I knew that I needed to find a way to help her live on her own comfortably and safely despite her increased dependence. More traditional technologies, such as wearable alert systems, could only do so much (especially when she refused to wear them). So I started looking at smart home tech — and started finding some better answers.
I’m not alone. According to the US census, in 2020, the number of people in the United States aged 65 or older reached 55.8 million, or 16.8 percent of the population, and many are choosing to “age in place.” And an increasing number of their children, relatives, and friends — in other words, their caregivers — are looking to smart technology to help.
To get a sampling of how caregivers are using today’s smart technology, I interviewed some members of a support group called Working Daughter; I also spoke to a colleague here at The Verge. What follows are some ways that caregivers are using current smart technology to help their aging or ailing parents live more comfortably at home — and to allow the caregivers themselves to worry less and hopefully have more time for themselves.
Smart assistants
Amazon may have reduced the number of people working at its Alexa division, but as far as many of the people I contacted are concerned, an Alexa device is one of the most useful tools for helping caregivers monitor and help their loved ones. (Interestingly, of the several people who wrote to me, only one used Google Home; all the others had Echo Shows or Dots.)
When I became aware that my mother was starting to have memory issues, I got her an Echo Show 8, hoping that it would help with reminders, perhaps let her feel less isolated — and let me be able to remotely handle any difficulties that came up. And (at least for a while) it worked. Alexa would remind her to take her meds every day, and if she was feeling sad, she could say, “Alexa, play some nice music,” and it would invariably come up with something she enjoyed. And she knew that if she was in an emergency situation and was not near a phone, she could call out, “Alexa, call Barbara,” and it would ring my phone.
The Echo Show allows friends and family members to “drop in” and say hello.Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Sheena Vasani, commerce writer for The Verge, also uses Alexa as a tool for her mother, who has Parkinson’s disease — and who is, Sheena admits, pretty tech adverse. But despite that, the Echo Show has become useful for both Sheena and her mother with a variety of things: to remind them both when medications need to be taken, for example, and so that Sheena can “drop in” on her mom’s room during the workday to make sure everything is okay. Alexa also helps with the isolation that illness can bring. “My mom talks to her like she’s a pet,” Sheena says. “It gives us that companionship.”
Working Daughter member Linda Alpers lives with her parents and says that she has an Alexa in every room of the house. That way, she says, “I can drop in if they don’t answer the phone when I’m out. I also have Blink cameras trained on their chairs in the living room and kitchen in case the TV volume is too loud for them to hear me if I use drop in on Alexa. I also use Alexa to allow them to control lights, TV, and a few things plugged into smart plugs. As my dad’s Parkinson’s took his voice, we got him an iPad and added a customizable speech app called TD Snap and added the Alexa phrases so he could continue to use all of Alexa’s functions he was used to.”
On the whole, she says, “I don’t know how I would have survived this long without the smart technology.”
“I don’t know how I would have survived this long without the smart technology.”
However, some caregivers have found Alexa wanting. Paula Fontes-Paul got her father an Echo for his 94th birthday, set it up for him, and decided to start with something simple: having him request his favorite music. “Despite the fact he is USA born and raised, Spanish is his first language,” she explains, “and he’s always had an accent — one that Alexa had a hard time understanding. Between Alexa not understanding him, and [the fact] that he wore two hearing aids and was still nearly deaf so he didn’t understand her, and his reluctance to have anything to do with modern technology — it was a dismal failure.”
Smart cameras
Sometimes a smart speaker isn’t enough — especially when cognitive decline is involved and something as seemingly easy as remembering to ask an Echo Show to “call my daughter” might be too difficult.
Many caregivers are handling that problem with cameras, which allow them to monitor their parents and watch out for falls and other emergencies. Sarah VonHarten’s mother, who is suffering from dementia, lives alone and has aides during the day. Like many people with dementia, she sometimes has trouble expressing herself or explaining what has really happened when there is a problem. VonHarten uses a Wyze smart camera with two-way audio and is pleased that she can now rewatch any falls or other incidents her mother reports to better understand what happened. In addition, as her mother loses the ability to use a phone, “When I talk using the camera she loves to stand there and talk to me. I can also talk to the EMS if they have to come help her.”
Similarly, Anica Leon-Weil, who is raising a young child and lives about 25 minutes away from her mother, used cameras to deal with her mother’s advancing Alzheimer’s disease. “I set up a camera system so that I could have a visual way to monitor what was going on. And that made a huge difference right off the bat because often she would call about something but she didn’t have the language to describe what was actually happening. Once I put in cameras, I could actually see what was happening.” Like VonHarten, Leon-Weil also used the two-way camera system to communicate with her mother when the latter lost the ability to use a phone.
However, sometimes the tech failed because of weather conditions. Leon-Weil lives in an area where there are frequent storms. “If the internet was out, the cameras were out, and then I could not do any of the things that I needed to do.”
Pill dispensers
According to Liz O’Donnell, the founder of Working Daughter, pill dispensers such as those produced by a company called Hero Health can be incredibly useful. They alert people when it’s time to take pills and dispense the correct pill(s) in the correct dose.
VonHarten uses a medicine dispenser that she calls “a life changer. I [load it with] two weeks of medication and the machine is locked and turns at a set time twice a day, and alarms until it is turned over to release that dose of medication.” She says that, as a result of using the dispenser, her mother’s health improved. Leon-Weil also found that a smart pill dispenser was useful for a time, until her mother was no longer able to manage her own medications.
Trackers
Along with a camera system and a smart pill dispenser, Leon-Weil has used Samsung SmartTags for important items that her mother kept losing — and also to track her mother in case she wandered, which can be a problem for people with Alzheimer’s disease. “It was an imperfect system,” she admits. “My mom lives somewhere where it’s not heavily populated. And the way the tags work is like they hang off of other people’s phones, so sometimes it would be very accurate and sometimes it was less so” depending on how many people with Samsung phones were in the vicinity. (AirTags and Tile trackers are other options.)
Smart “pets” can help alleviate loneliness for some people.Photo: Joy For All
Smart companions
Loneliness can be a problem for older people, especially if they are confined to their homes. Besides smart assistants such as Alexa, there are devices that are specifically meant to act as companions. There are also “pets” created by companies like Joy For All, which, according to O’Donnell, can move and purr. “There’s working daughters I know that are buying those for their family members who have dementia and who are really happy with the results,” she says.
A complete smart home
A caregiver who is really determined and who has the know-how can create a quite sophisticated smart home setup.
The Verge’s Sheena Vasani has started to expand her use of smart technology in her household, adding smart plugs to make it easier to turn lights on and off using Alexa, for example, and a smart thermostat that she or her mother can adjust from the phone. And next? “I’m looking at trying to get her into robot vacuums,” Vasani admits. “Just because I never really have time to vacuum.”
Jena Reed is an IT professional who has been living with her mother, who is disabled and in remission from cancer, for about 14 years. When they moved from a three-story townhouse to a single-level home, “I decided it was just going to be a lot easier if we could automate and voice-activate as much as we possibly could.”
“I decided it was just going to be a lot easier if we could automate and voice-activate as much as we possibly could.”
She got an Amazon Echo device for every room in the house so that her mother could “drop in” to any room if she needed to. “There have been a couple of times where she has fallen,” explains Reed. “Usually it’s because she’s overextended herself, or tried to lean over too far, whatever it may be. So having that capability to allow her just to say [Alexa], drop in on me? I’ve been able to [go and help her] and at least get her situated until the paramedics showed up to lift her.”
Reed also replaced all her light fixtures with smart switches — but then changed her mind. “I found that they only work well for about two or three years,” she explained. As a result, she replaced all her switches with standard ones and installed smart bulbs. “I can set up functions and routines with Alexa and still have the same features.”
“We named all of our lamps [so we can say] ‘Turn on Mom’s light,’ ‘Turn on guest room,’ that kind of thing. And that has worked really well. She can tell the Amazon assistant to set the temperature and she can tell it to turn fans on and off.” Reed also set up smart blinds with a bridge adapter so her mother can tell Alexa to raise or lower the blinds in individual rooms.
And there’s more: Reed has set up Ring outdoor cameras so that her mother both feels secure and can enjoy a view of the outdoors, even at night. And while Reed hasn’t seen the need to set up many inside cameras to help her mother — she feels the cameras on the Amazon Echo Shows are sufficient — she has set up some cameras from Nooie for a different reason. “I volunteer for a local pet rescue, so I have a foster room, and then I have my own animals. I’ve actually set [the cameras] up in various rooms, so she can ‘come in’ and check them out and see what’s going on in the foster room without having to physically go in there.”
Aging in place in the smart home
Today’s smart technology certainly isn’t perfect, and not all caregivers have the knowledge or resources to set up a truly automated smart home. And some older individuals are resistant to technology, which can make things even more difficult for caregivers. However, there are often (but not always) ways around that. For example, Leon-Weil found her mother was willing to work with the devices once she understood what they were for. “I’m fortunate my mom was quite easygoing,” says Leon-Weil. “When I explained it the way that I explained it, which was like, I want to be able to help you better. This will help me to help you.”
But despite the hurdles that caregivers face, many find that even one or two smart displays or a few cameras can make a real difference in their lives — and in the lives of those who are aging and trying to retain their independence.
