The Verge

Meta might be the next company to make an always-on AI wearable. The company is working on prototype "super sensing" always-aware smart glasses that could continuously record audio and snap photos "every few seconds," according to the Financial Times. The wearer could then ask Meta AI about the captured audio and images. However, the images [...]

Even though they haven't been officially announced yet, Samsung is giving you a chance to save some cash when you preorder what we're expecting to be the brand's updated Galaxy Z Fold phones. The next Galaxy Unpacked event will take place on July 22nd, 2026, and features the tagline A new shape unfolds." In addition [...]

As part of Microsoft's big Xbox "reset," which includes layoffs affecting 3,200 staffers, jettisoning studios, and shifting investments to focus on "higher priority projects," Obsidian Entertainment is changing its plans. The studio, behind games like Grounded and The Outer Worlds, is starting work on a new Fallout title and has canceled "multiple projects," including a [...]

When searching for an affordable electric vehicle these days, there are always tradeoffs. How much range are you willing to sacrifice, how much leg room and storage space, how many features, in the pursuit of that magic sticker price that won't break the bank? The Fiat Topolino is basically the ultimate embodiment of those tradeoffs. [...]

A little robotic switch-flipper has become my sidekick in combating cockroaches. Before I got the SwitchBot Bot Rechargeable, I'd tiptoe through the dark every morning, hoping I wouldn't step on one of those terrible bugs scurrying around as I made my way to the light switch across the room. Now I'm ready for battle before [...]

This week, Microsoft took a huge ax to its Xbox business. The company announced that it would be laying off 1,600 workers now, 1,600 more over the next fiscal year, and that it would be shedding four studios. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma hasn't been shy about why she's making such dramatic cuts, saying in a [...]

If you've got a summer trip coming up, the last-gen Twelve South AirFly Pro is one of those gadgets that can make a long flight feel a little shorter. It lets you use your wireless headphones with in-flight entertainment systems, and right now it's on sale for $39.99 ($15 off) at Amazon. That's the best [...]

OpenAI is overhauling ChatGPT's voice mode with a new model that it says is more like "talking to another person." The new GPT-Live-1 is designed to interrupt you less and will also wait for you to continue speaking if you pause mid-conversation. During a press briefing, OpenAI research lead Kundan Kumar called GPT-Live-1 the company's [...]

What if you had a drone that wasn't a buzzy, annoying fly people wanted to swat - but rather a cute dog that runs and jumps? What if it could do tricks on command and film your tricks as well? What if it could get right back up after a nasty-looking crash, dozens of times [...]

Google's upcoming Pixel lineup might cost more than last year's. A report from Dealabs spotted by 9to5Google suggests that Google could raise the starting price of its 41mm Pixel Watch 5 to $399, while adding LTE could bump the price to $499. That's a $50 jump from the base Pixel Watch 4, which starts at [...]

It's not a great time to shop for a gaming laptop. The unprecedented rise in cost for RAM (and storage to a slightly lesser extent) has made laptops with low-to-midrange specs cost much more than they should. Recent deals on gaming laptops worth your attention have been uninspiring, but one recently caught my eye: MSI's [...]

Fi Ultra is the first Starlink-enabled pet tracker you can buy. It expands on GPS and LTE trackers, adding automatic failover to T-Mobile's T-Satellite-branded direct-to-cell service when venturing into cellular dead zones. That lets owners tap into SpaceX's constellation of low Earth orbit Starlink satellites to track their pets anywhere in the US. But it [...]

For the last couple weeks, I've been in an extremely lucky position: I've been spending a lot of time playing games on Valve's Steam Machine. We gave the Steam Machine a 6, and I don't disagree with my colleague Sean Hollister's review. But even though I already own a PS5 and an Xbox Series X, [...]

For more than a decade, one question has loomed over the race to build autonomous vehicles: Are cameras alone enough to safely replace human drivers, or do truly driverless cars need additional, overlapping sensors like lidar and radar to navigate the world reliably? Tesla has bet billions of dollars that artificial intelligence and cameras are [...]

Samsung has announced that its next Galaxy Unpacked launch event will be held on July 22nd, with the tagline: "A new shape unfolds." It's long been rumored that Samsung is about to expand its foldable phone line to a third format, with a shorter and wider version of its big book-style foldables, to match Huawei's [...]

Amid public backlash over its smart glasses, Meta announced that it will be updating its glasses with a new feature that will disable the camera when it detects that someone has tampered with or destroyed the glasses' privacy LED light. The update is meant to address modders who have taken actions such as physically drilling [...]

Even though Netflix is the world's most popular paid streaming service, the company has been struggling to keep viewers watching its series after their first seasons. Beef - the streamer's anthology about people locked in feuds - lost 70 percent of its viewership when it returned earlier this year. There seems to be some confusion [...]

Starting on August 3rd, Netflix's streaming library will include video content from dozens of digital media brands including BuzzFeed, Conde Nast, Hearst Magazines, People Inc, and Tastemade. As reported earlier by TechCrunch, the deal includes a mix of licensed past videos and new ongoing series that would have typically been published on YouTube or other [...]

Meta is launching the first AI image generation model made by its Superintelligence Labs division. The Muse Image model now powers the image-making tools across the Meta AI app, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and it's coming soon to Facebook and Messenger, according to an announcement on Tuesday. It's part of the growing Muse family of AI [...]

While the auto industry wrings its hands over the electric vehicle market, sweating details like aerodynamic efficiency and range anxiety, a new EV startup based in Lisbon, Portugal, is zagging in a different direction. Amble's new electric buggy won't impress anyone with its 0-60 time or its self-driving features (it has none). Instead, it takes [...]

ABC is firing back at the Federal Communications Commission after the agency opened an investigation into The View's airtime of political candidates. In a letter to the FCC on Tuesday, ABC argues that the agency's actions pose a risk to editorial independence by targeting programs "perceived as unfriendly to the current administration," as reported earlier [...]

Starting Tuesday, Anthropic's Claude Cowork AI platform will be available on mobile and web for the first time. The expanded access is rolling out first to Max subscribers and coming to Claude users on other plans "in the coming weeks." Claude Cowork was previously only accessible through the Claude desktop app for macOS and Windows, [...]

Google is hosting its next Made by Google launch event for Pixel hardware on August 12th in New York City, according to an invitation sent by Google to The Verge. Unusually, the event is taking place in the evening: It'll kick off at 6PM ET that day. The email also includes a brief animation teasing [...]

As part of the mass layoffs hitting Xbox, Doom developer id Software has laid off around 50 percent of its staff, according to Game Developer. One source claimed to the publication that the cuts equate to more than 90 redundancies. Another source said that id's QA department was significantly impacted. The report was published the [...]

Discord says a bug affecting its safety system caused it to mistakenly ban more than 8,000 accounts since May. The platform's statement follows a wave of reports from users over the past week, who say they've been banned for posting images containing grids, such as chessboards, game textures, and even Minecraft inventories. Stanislav Vishnevskiy, Discord [...]

You might have a great bed and a good sleepy time routine, but if you're still struggling to fall (or stay) asleep, Anker's Soundcore Sleep A20 are worth considering. They're designed to help muffle distracting sounds, and they've hit a new all-time low price of $99.99 ($80 off) at Best Buy and Target. In his [...]

Microsoft is addressing a Windows 11 bug that caused a folder to take up several gigabytes of storage space. As spotted earlier by Windows Latest, Microsoft included the patch in its optional June 2026 update (KB5095093), which "improves disk space usage for the CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal file." The CapabilityAccessManager.db-wal file is installed on Windows 11 PCs by [...]

Solos announced a new version of its AirGo smart glasses, one that forgoes cameras for a sleeker design and an AI assistant that relies on voice interactions. Last year's AirGo A5 weighed 36 to 40 grams depending on the frame style, but the new AirGo A6 weigh around 19 grams. Part of the weight savings [...]

Google is going to give content creators and website owners a better idea of how people find their social media profiles and YouTube content through Search. With a new feature in the Google Search Console called "platform properties," Google says that you'll be able to "easily track which search terms lead people to your Instagram, [...]

iFixit is best known for its detailed gadget teardowns and toolkits designed to help you crack open and troubleshoot your own electronics. Today it announced a new toolkit that's instead tailored to household repairs or DIY projects like fixing appliances or assembling flat-packed furniture. iFixit describes its $34.95 Megalodon Driver Kit as a "compact kit [...]

Marshall announced new versions of its Acton and Stanmore Bluetooth speakers today with upgraded tweeters, bass ports, and internal designs that improve their ability to fill a room with sound. Both the Acton IV and Stanmore IV replace their four-year-old predecessors with a new focus on repairability. Parts including knobs, feet, and the speakers' front [...]

It's another bad week for the video game industry. Microsoft outlined a series of layoffs on Monday that Xbox CEO Asha Sharma described as "the most significant restructure in Xbox history." But buried in Sharma's memo was a curiously optimistic statement: "I want Xbox to be one of the few companies that entertains more than [...]

In the summer of 2024, former Army National Guard member Andrew Scott Hastings spent a sweaty afternoon carefully packing boxes with parts he made using his 3D printer. These weren't novelty figurines or replacement Ikea pieces. The boxes were instead filled with a handful of homemade firearm lower receivers and more than 100 "switches," small [...]

Nothing is shaking up the branding of its cheapest phones, following up last year's Phone 3A Lite with a new Phone 4B. Combining design elements of the 4A and 4A Pro, it follows Nothing's previous cheaper handsets in skipping the US market. The company already uses the "A" branding to market its cheaper tier of [...]

Nothing announced a new pair of budget-friendly wireless earbuds, but not as part of the company's affordability-focused sub-brand, CMF. The new Nothing Ear 3A are available starting today through the company's online store for $99, which is the same price as Nothing's original Ear (a). That's good news in a time when price increases are [...]

If your Prime Day purchases included a new desk, TV stand, bookshelf, or other furniture you still haven't assembled, Hoto's PixelDrive cordless screwdriver can help speed up the process. It's currently on sale for $59.99 ($20 off) at Amazon, matching its best price to date. From tightening loose screws on furniture to repairing electronics, the [...]

The United States of America recently turned 250 years old. What a spectacle! The fireworks were amazing, and millions of proud people celebrated across the nation - even around the world. France lit up the Eiffel Tower; Japan had fireworks. French fighter jets flew above New York City with trails of red, white, and blue [...]

Bullshit is cheap but truth is expensive. Anyone with half a brain cell can post wild misinformation that goes mega viral, which wastes the time and expertise of highly trained people who feel an obligation to inform others of the truth. Today I want you to meet one of those highly-trained people, Dr. Zachary Rubin, [...]

Microsoft is spinning off four of its Xbox game studios - Compulsion Games, Double Fine Productions, Ninja Theory, and Undead Labs - as part of the restructuring announced today. However, two that are going independent, Double Fine and Compulsion, will get to keep their franchises and games catalogs, according to Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. "Compulsion [...]

I've long argued that Hollywood has simultaneously set and ruined our expectations for smart glasses. But after binge-watching two seasons of Netflix's A Man on the Inside, this is perhaps the first time I've seen Hollywood, perhaps inadvertently, illustrate the biggest cultural problem with smart glasses as they stand today. In a nutshell, Ted Danson [...]

Initially, I was going to tell you about a good deal happening on the DJI Osmo Pocket 3, which is down from the $500 it's sold at most of the year to $378 at multiple retailers. But there's a better deal happening on a nearly identical portable camera, the Xtra Muse, which is $329 (roughly [...]

We've got another special episode of Decoder today, recorded at the Cannes Lions advertising festival in the South of France. I'm talking with Ali Berman and Raina Penchansky, who run the Creators division at United Talent Agency. UTA is an enormous talent agency. Half the people you've ever heard speak or perform or who show [...]

Nintendo is making a new version of the Switch 2 with a replaceable battery in Europe - but its predecessor has a very different future. As part of an updated FAQ about revisions to Nintendo hardware in Europe, the company confirmed that it will stop selling all iterations of the original Switch on the continent [...]

One hundred dollars will buy you 8 pounds of glitter; 10 Domino's pizzas; 406 miniature disco balls from Temu; or 100 cans of Coors Light. For a friend's birthday party one year, Ayla D'Silva spent $100 on sour candy and made a "sour candy salad." Even sweeter was that she didn't have to foot the [...]

Microsoft is laying off 4,800 employees today, and more than 30 percent of the job losses are in the company's Xbox division. The significant gaming cuts will affect nearly every part of Xbox and also involve four game studios being spun off to be run independently from Microsoft. Today's layoffs, which are being described as [...]

A year after cutting around 9,100 employees, Microsoft is making further layoffs today as it begins its new financial year. The software maker is laying off around 4,800 employees today, approximately 2.1 percent of its workforce. Most of the employees affected by today's cuts are in Microsoft's commercial sales business or the company's Xbox division. [...]

Most Americans don't trust AI. It's proven that it doesn't know what safe toppings for pizza are. People don't even want to listen to AI music. But none of that matters for some of America's wealthy, who are turning to AI to teach their kids instead of traditional schools. Companies like Forge Prep and Alpha [...]

There was a period in the early aughts when Definitive Jux (nee: Def Jux) seemed like it was going to be the future of hip-hop. While the label featured plenty of experimental, boundary-pushing, and politically minded acts, Lif stood out as the most "conscious rapper" in the traditional sense. It was clear though, that label [...]