The Verge

OpenAI is launching Daybreak, an AI initiative focused on detecting and patching vulnerabilities before attackers find them. Daybreak uses the Codex Security AI agent that launched in March to create a threat model based on an organization's code and focus on possible attack paths, validate likely vulnerabilities, and then automate the detection of the higher [...]

The company behind the robot lawn mower that ran me over has changed its tune. Yarbo now plans to completely remove the remote backdoor access that could have let bad actors reprogram the robot over the internet. Yarbo customers will be able to decide whether that feature even gets installed in the first place, co-founder [...]

Thinking Machines, the AI company founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, announced Monday that it's working on something called "interaction models." The idea behind interaction models, according to Thinking Machines, is that they will let people "collaborate with AI the way we naturally collaborate with each other - they continuously take in audio, video, [...]

If you've always liked the idea of the Philips Hue Go portable lamp but couldn't justify the $100+ price tag, Govee recently released a much cheaper alternative, the Govee Table Lamp Classic, and it's already receiving its first discount. Right now, you can pick the rechargeable smart lamp up at Amazon for $63.99 ($16 off), [...]

In late April, Palantir - the software company that, in recent years, has perhaps become best known for its defense industry contracts and work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement - announced that it would be adding new products to its merch store. The latest offering was a cotton chore coat. At $239 and in bright [...]

Apple now lets you have encrypted RCS conversations with Android users through the Messages app on iOS. As part of iOS 26.5, which was released on Monday, Apple added support for end-to-end encrypted RCS messaging in beta, meaning that Apple and Google can't see your messages while they're sent. With iOS 26.5, you'll see a [...]

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Netflix, accusing the company of turning its back on its promise to remain ad-free and safe for kids. The lawsuit, filed on Monday, claims Netflix has "opened Texans' data for inspection by the same Big Ad Tech community it once criticized for exploiting users in [...]

For the first time, Google says it has spotted and stopped a zero-day exploit developed with AI. According to a report from Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG), "prominent cyber crime threat actors" were planning to use the vulnerability for a "mass exploitation event" that would have allowed them to bypass two-factor authentication on an unnamed [...]

A baby's eyes peer directly into the camera lens. A kid with a striped shirt looks up, then away. A boy in a policeman's costume, a gold star on his chest. A messy bedroom that reminds me of my own daughters, with an unmade bunk bed, a little girl's hat and headband, and Hello Kitty [...]

A big part of my job here at The Verge is to find deals on tech that readers will like. But in my personal life, I'm not spending anywhere near as much money on tech as I am on food, litter, and other supplies for our two cats. Sad, but true. If your life is [...]

Sam Altman and Elon Musk are facing off in a high-stakes trial that could alter the future of OpenAI and its most well-known product, ChatGPT. In 2024, Musk filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI of abandoning its founding mission of developing AI to benefit humanity and shifting focus to boosting profits instead. Elon Musk, his financial [...]

General Motors has agreed to pay $12.75 million to settle a California data privacy lawsuit that accused the automaker of selling driver location and driver data, as reported earlier by Reuters. In a proposed settlement filed on Friday, GM agreed to stop selling customer information to data brokers for five years and must give California [...]

Smart energy management just took a step closer to becoming simpler. This week, the organizations behind Matter, the smart-home interoperability standard, and the OpenADR protocol, which sends signals between the grid and the home, announced an agreement to work together. This should make it easier for connected appliances to participate in demand response programs (DR) [...]

My guest today is longtime friend of the show Joanna Stern. You all know Joanna: she is the former senior personal technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, a former Decoder guest host, one of my cofounders here at The Verge, and also just one of my very closest friends. I mention that because Joanna [...]

TikTok is preparing to roll out a paid, ad-free version of its app in the UK. The new subscription announced today will be available to users over 18 "over the coming months," according to TikTok's announcement and will cost 3.99 (about $5.40) per month. In exchange for that, TikTok will remove ads from the user's [...]

Discord is announcing the launch of Nitro Rewards today, a new program for subscribers that bundles benefits from third parties like Microsoft, Logitech, and SteelSeries, into a Nitro subscription. The main addition is that Nitro members will now get a new starter edition of Xbox Game Pass at no extra cost. Xbox Game Pass starter [...]

Wordle could be the next great game show. NBC has greenlit a game show version of The New York Times' popular puzzle game, and it's set to debut in 2027 with Savannah Guthrie as the host. The show will be produced by Universal Television Alternative Studio "in partnership with" Jimmy Fallon's production company and the [...]

Venmo is starting to test a big redesign of its app, and as part of the changes, it will be implementing a major new privacy measure: the onboarding process for new users will set their posts to only be viewable by their friends by default instead of being public. It's a notable update for a [...]

Microsoft is currently testing a new speed boost feature in Windows 11 that is designed to improve app launch times and make things like the Start menu feel more responsive. The feature, which is reportedly called "Low Latency Profile," will ramp up CPU frequency in short bursts to improve the speed of menus, flyouts, apps, [...]

The full version of Playground Games' upcoming Forza Horizon 6 game has leaked online over the weekend and has already been cracked by pirates. The download appeared on file sharing sites after some Steam users were allegedly able to obtain access to an unencrypted preload version of the game. Forza Horizon 6 isn't supposed to [...]

Logitech is reportedly developing a new wireless mouse that folds in half to make it easier to carry around in a bag or pocket. According to leaked marketing images shared by WinFuture, Logitech's foldable mouse caused "22 percent less muscle strain" compared to using a laptop trackpad, and can be used across "multiple operating systems." [...]

Make no mistake, the Bastl Kalimba is a synthesizer, you just play it like a kalimba. Its tines don't really make much sound. There is an internal mic that you can blend in for a little acoustic spice, but it's mostly driven by the synth engine that combines physical modeling and FM. The tines are [...]

I've got to thank my oldest friend and concert buddy, Tim, for turning me on to this one. Ashnymph is a London band that blends post-punk melodies with Krautrock rhythms and industrial grime. Their debut EP, Childhood, drifts between dreamy vocals buried in layers of reverb and four-on-the-floor dancefloor pounding. It's a thrilling opening salvo [...]

I've always been skeptical of products that claim to help you lead a more creative life. But one recently won me over. I've spent three weeks with the Cricut Joy 2, a smart cutting and drawing machine that made it easy for me to get back into making stickers, cards, bookmarks, and more. The small [...]

Substack, the once buzzy newsletter platform, is losing a new swath of writers to rival platforms most people haven't heard of. Just last month, The Ankler, one of Substack's most popular publications, left for a platform that gives it more control over its site. Others who have departed Substack within the past year voiced similar [...]

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on Netflix, follow Andrew Webster. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Boggle has become a spectator sport in my household. Everyone crowds around the [...]

A few months ago, I wrote that the telephoto camera is the only lens that matters any more, at least when it comes to Ultra-class flagships. As phones got better, cameras became where manufacturers tried to stand out. As cameras got better, telephoto lenses became the next point of focus. The most recent Ultra phones [...]

If you're tired of running your vacuum multiple times just to get the dirt and debris out of the carpets in your living room, Dyson's360 Vis Nav is worth a look. It's one of the more powerful robot vacuums currently available, and now through May 11th (or while supplies last), it's on sale at Woot [...]

And just like that, Mother's Day is tomorrow, May 10th, which is too soon for most online purchases to arrive in time. That said, you aren't alone if you waited too long to pick up a gift this year, and you definitely aren't alone in feeling guilty for considering digital gifts instead of something your [...]

Water gets all the credit. When gaming companies want to show off new graphics technology, things tend to get wet; splashing waves that are only possible with the latest physics engine, or puddles that can reflect the world around them thanks to ray tracing. But there's something special about snow. It might not be as [...]

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 127, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, my Scorpion challenges your Sub-Zero to a duel, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about Hasan Piker and lines and [...]

At the Los Angeles Convention Center, two 85-inch TVs sat side by side inside the Nanosys meeting room at Display Week - a yearly business-to-business convention focusing on the technology that goes into displays of all types. One TV was a mini-LED panel with super quantum dots, and the other was an RGB LED - [...]

Asus's latest gaming monitor is a little smaller than usual. The ROG Strix XG129C, announced on Friday, is a 12.3-inch touchscreen IPS display that's intended to be a sidekick for a larger main monitor, similar to the 14.1-inch secondary display in the 2020 Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15. It's a slightly smaller competitor to Corsair's [...]

Amazon Prime Video is joining Netflix and Disney Plus in adding a vertical feed of videos to its streaming app. The new "Clips" feed will offer a stream of short-form videos from shows and movies, with options to jump into the full title, rent, or buy it. Prime Video previously offered a TikTok-style feed with [...]

Yesterday, I told you how a hacker ran me over with a robot lawn mower. We explained how thousands of these bladed Chinese robots, made by Yarbo, could be hijacked with ease - exposing people's GPS coordinates, Wi-Fi passwords, email addresses, and more to any casual hacker who comes along. Today, Yarbo has issued a [...]

Massive new data centers are the physical foundation for tech companies' hopes and dreams for AI. But the rush to expand warehouses full of energy-hungry servers has also kicked up fights across the world over their impact on power grids, utility bills, nearby communities, and the environment. From audacious plans to launch data centers into [...]

The Department of Government Efficiency's cancellation of over $100 million in grants was unconstitutional, according to a ruling on Thursday. In the 143-page decision, US District Judge Colleen McMahon cites DOGE's process for eliminating grants, which involved using ChatGPT to determine if something is related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The ruling, which stems [...]

Where's the Trump phone? We're going to keep talking about it every week. We've reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump phone's whereabouts. This week, Trump Mobile has been trumped. It's been another long week without the Trump phone, but it's no longer the only nonexistent phone I have to worry about. Robot [...]

Apple and Intel reached a "preliminary agreement" for Intel to make chips for Apple hardware, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. Apple had famously moved on from Intel-powered computers with its highly successful transition to Apple Silicon, but now it appears the two companies will be working closely together again. Intel appointed Lip-Bu Tan as [...]

After quickly selling out of the Steam Controller on May 4th, Valve has launched a reservation system to ensure that you can get one without too much hassle. You may not get one as quickly as you'd like to, but at least you can now easily reserve the $99 controller. If your Steam account is [...]

As part of an earnings presentation on Friday, Sony shared how it's thinking about AI at the company, including many details about how it's evaluating AI as part of making PlayStation games. Generative AI has recently been showing up in bigger games - though many indie developers still reject it - and while Sony calls [...]

The EP-136 KO Sidekick is Teenage Engineering's stylish new two-channel mixer, clearly designed to connect two of its KO-II samplers for live performances and DJ sets. Though, it can connect any two audio sources, not just TE gear. The mixer leaked a couple of times, but what those leaks didn't show was that it's also [...]

Google's new Fitbit Air, the $99.99 screenless fitness tracker, comes out on May 26th. It's the company's first Fitbit release in four years, and you can use it on iOS or Android phones without a paid subscription if all you want to do is track activities, sleep, and basic health metrics (heart rate, breathing rate, [...]

Logitech is introducing a new feature to its rugged iPad Combo 4 keyboard case that addresses an ongoing issue with the tablet as Apple continues to push it toward being a laptop alternative. The new Rugged Combo 4c and 4c Touch cases, compatible with the 10th and 11th-gen iPads, add a second USB-C port to [...]

When OpenAI was busy experimenting with AI-powered gaming bots, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman were in the early days of forming an AI partnership. Court documents from the ongoing Musk v. Altman trial have provided a rare look at the communications between Microsoft's top executives about investing in OpenAI and fears [...]

Native Instruments' suite of music production software and gear, including Traktor and Kontakt, will soon live under the inMusic umbrella alongside other music tech brands like Akai Professional and Moog Music. As MusicRadar reports, Native Instruments CEO Nick Williams said the company was looking for a buyer in March, following news it had entered bankruptcy [...]

I'm not sure if we've mentioned this yet, but Govee has been on a tear lately, having recently announced everything from rechargeable table lamps to multicolor, Matter-compatible ceiling lights that can display custom images with retro, pixelated flair. In April, the company also unveiled a 34-foot set of Outdoor Solar String Lights, which are now [...]

It's been a real good news / bad news week for Nintendo. Out of nowhere on Wednesday, the company announced a lush remake of Star Fox 64, jolting the dormant franchise to life and helping to fill out a relatively sparse lineup for the Switch 2 for the rest of the year. But then on [...]