The Verge

While AI has made plenty of inroads on people's phones and computers, it's largely failed in dedicated devices. But over the next year, two major AI companies, Meta and OpenAI, will attempt to change that. And they're apparently betting on a similar path: testing appetite for physical hardware with their cutesy software agents. "Hardware is [...]

Reddit is further limiting who can use the "Old Reddit" experience as part of its efforts to combat scraping and automated traffic. Reddit recently started forcing users to log in to be able to use Old Reddit, but in the "next few months," the company says that you'll have to be logged in and have [...]

Amazon deliveries could soon come with a new catch: the delivery driver's smart glasses will be snapping photos of anything they see while they're in use, including people and private property. Bloomberg reports that the glasses could take "several thousand captures in a single driver's typical shift," which Amazon plans to upload to its AI [...]

After hosting a meal with Big Tech leaders on Tuesday, President Donald Trump responded to journalist questions about his artificial intelligence announcements in typical fashion. He said his previous claims regarding fears around AI safety being a "hoax" cooked up by Democrats no longer apply now that he's renamed the technology to "Super Intelligence." He [...]

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here. "I will explode your butthole with this poopmaxxer pesto," a calm Gen Z voice announced from my phone's speakers. "And [...]

This spring, the United States banned all future foreign-made consumer routers - effectively all future routers - unless their makers could 1) convince the US government that they weren't a national security threat, and 2) submit "a detailed, time-bound plan to establish or expand manufacturing in the United States." As of September 9th, Asus now [...]

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has denied reports that Microsoft is considering selling off its Xbox business. The Information reported in June that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood had been considering spinning out Xbox entirely, and then reported earlier this month that both execs have "more recently supported Sharma's plans to overhaul the [...]

A new update to Lux Optics' anti-algorithm Halide camera app for the iPhone and iPad adds two new photography looks and support for the variable aperture on the new iPhone 18 Pro's main camera. Halide isn't the first alternative to the native iOS camera app to add support for the new feature, but it offers [...]

Meta launched a new Muse AI agent it claims can help you with everything from firing off emails to buying stuff online. Muse can be surprisingly effective at delivering on those promises - if you're willing to trust Meta with your data and hand Muse your credit card. Since the launch, Meta's also announced plans [...]

Google has launched a pilot program that pays publishers for their contributions to its AI-powered search features, according to a report from The Information. The pilot program reportedly includes around 100 publishers and comes as Google faces scrutiny over the impact of its AI features on web traffic. Digiday first reported on the pilot program, [...]

Instagram is the latest social media platform to add built-in AI-powered features that will give users feedback on their posts. The company announced Wednesday that its standalone Edits app will now include an AI "creative assistant" that pulls in data from a user's Instagram account and offers suggestions on what to change. Using the new [...]

The new Fire TV Stick 4K will be a little easier to set up than Amazon's previous 4K streaming sticks since it no longer requires a power adapter. You can power the device directly from your TV's USB port, like the updated entry-level Fire TV Stick Amazon launched earlier this year. The Fire TV Stick [...]

The Wing Hummingbird 7000W-B delivery drone weighs less than 15 pounds. It has 16 propellers - four for horizontal movement and 12 for vertical - a top speed of 60 miles per hour, a carrying capacity of up to 2.7 pounds, and a delivery radius of about six miles. It is authorized by the FAA [...]

DoorDash is launching new ways to use the local delivery platform, including text message ordering, drone deliveries, and retail returns. The new message ordering feature builds on capabilities that the Ask DoorDash AI chatbot introduced to the DoorDash app in June, allowing you to get recommendations and offload your browsing while skipping the app entirely. [...]

The original Sonos Ace headphones should have been a triumphant entry into a new product category. Instead, they were overshadowed by Sonos's disastrous app redesign. And while the original Ace are well built, sound good, and are incredibly comfortable, they weren't good Sonos headphones: Their flagship feature let you reroute audio from a Sonos soundbar [...]

We now have the full details of the "morally binding" AI safety deal announced by President Trump yesterday, in which top executives agreed to self-regulate their artificial intelligence technology. The accord, officially titled the Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities, was shared online by tech founder and presidential adviser David Sacks, and has been signed by [...]

Since the Galaxy Tab S10 line, Samsung has updated its flagship Ultra tablet annually, but alternates its regular and Plus variants. It means that this year's Galaxy Tab S12 series includes an Ultra model with few changes from last year's Tab S11 Ultra, and a Plus variant that brings a bigger overhaul to the two-year-old [...]

Samsung has announced its third-generation Bluetooth tracker, the Galaxy SmartTag 3. It combines a smaller design and improved battery life with a few new tracking and software features, including cross-OS support intended to make it easier to share tracking information with friends and family. As revealed by leaks, the SmartTag 3 has adopted a squircle [...]

Apple's long-rumored smart home hub will reportedly be revealed on October 13th. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that the smart home device will be revealed alongside a new HomePod mini and an upgraded Apple TV device. All three products are set to showcase Siri AI, Apple's overhauled AI-powered assistant. The smart home hub, a new product [...]

For months, people have wondered when OpenAI will go public. CEO Sam Altman says it won't happen until the company can make better promises about model safety, with no firm timeline in sight. "We intend to continue with AI progress ... but as the models have had this surge forward in capability, and we see [...]

The US executive branch is no longer acknowledging the existence of "artificial intelligence." Going forward, official policy websites, policy documents, and press releases will refer only to "Super Intelligence," thanks to a new executive order signed by President Donald Trump. "The word super is the best word of all, and it's the simplest," Trump said [...]

When BMW first announced it was reimagining the i3 as an all-electric four-door sedan built on its Neue Klasse platform, it left out a lot of important details, like battery capacity, range, and price. Today, the German automaker is finally starting to fill in the blanks on the i3. Let's start with price. BMW says [...]

Dutch police say they arrested a 24-year-old Amsterdam man in connection with ShinyHunters, the hacking group that claimed responsibility for high-profile attacks on Ticketmaster, Rockstar Games, and more recently, the FBI. In a press release, Dutch authorities state that they arrested the suspect on September 15th - just days before the hacking group claimed to [...]

Grokipedia, the AI-powered online encyclopedia from SpaceXAI, appears to be updating articles once again after a months-long pause. In August, Lawfare reported that articles on Grokipedia hadn't reviewed edits since April, but the platform's live updates site is now showing various recent changes to pages - though as I write this, many are just a [...]

"The chance of human extinction is about a coin flip, in my view," Geoffrey Irving, a former OpenAI and Google DeepMind employee, said in a new interview. It's one of a dozen interviews with AI researchers, including current and former employees at OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Palisade Research, which says it's a nonprofit studying AIs' [...]

Woot has the Razer DeathStalker V2 Pro TKL on sale for $130, a significant discount from its usual $219.99 price point. This keyboard is built for competitive gaming, with a low latency 2.4GHz wireless connection, and low-profile linear optical switches for faster activations that require a lighter touch than regular mechanical switches. The TKL layout [...]

OpenAI is responding to Meta's buzzy Muse AI with agentic helpers of its own: Dots. During its DevDay keynote on Tuesday, OpenAI announced that Dots will serve as always-on AI assistants that can "do nearly anything" across connected apps in the background while learning your preferences over time. The company's capable GPT-6 Astra model powers [...]

On Tuesday, OpenAI's annual DevDay event began with protests, flyers, and chants. "Sam Altman, get off it, put people over profit," said a group of protesters marching in a circle in front of a series of signs that spelled out "PEOPLE OVER PROFIT." More than a dozen organizations came together to sponsor a rally outside [...]

Microsoft is officially announcing its new Xbox Mythic Achievements today, and they're already available for Xbox Insiders to test. Mythic Achievements work a lot like Sony's PlayStation Platinum trophies and are unlocked once you've earned every original achievement for a game. "Mythic Achievements have already been added to eligible games you completed in the past, [...]

John Ternus, Apple's new CEO, wants Apple to launch products more often than its usual splashy moments in the fall and the spring, according to a Bloomberg report detailing some of Ternus's initial plans for the company. Apple regularly holds iPhone launch events in September and often announces products later in the year and in [...]

It's OpenAI's turn in the fall tech events calendar. The company is hosting its annual DevDay on September 29th in San Francisco, and during a live keynote featuring CEO Sam Altman, it revealed several notable updates, including Dots, its AI agent product that rivals Meta's recently-launched Muse. However, unlike Muse, which is available for free, [...]

Google isn't making any significant design changes to its upcoming midrange Pixel update, judging by the leaks shared by Android Headlines. The image renders made by OnLeaks are potentially our first look at the Pixel 11A, which aside from having a slightly rounder oval-shaped rear camera module, looks almost indistinguishable from both the Pixel 10A [...]

Amazon typically introduces new Kindle models a few months ahead of the holiday shopping season, and this year it looks like that will include a bigger update to the entry-level Kindle than what debuted in 2024. The last upgrades to the basic Kindle model were limited to a brighter backlight, a new dark mode, and [...]

Tech YouTuber Matt Robb says that Muse gave out his home address to a total stranger this weekend, after authorizing the bot to handle his Facebook Marketplace account. That's despite Meta placing great emphasis on the security features of Muse when it launched the personal AI agent earlier this month as it tries to catch [...]

It's not even October yet and Amazon is already offering some Prime Big Deal Day discounts on its own hardware, along with plenty of other popular products. It's all to hype up October Prime Day, which starts October 6th at 3AM ET and lasts through 3AM ET on the 8th if you're on the East [...]

The new ergonomic Rival Pro and ambidextrous Sensei Pro wireless gaming mice are some of the company's most interesting models in years. They're familiar designs that feel incredibly lightweight to hold (53 grams each in black, one gram more in white), and they ship with two signature SteelSeries features found in its other product categories: [...]

Following leaks revealing a major redesign earlier this month and an official teaser posted to X yesterday, Fairphone has shared some exclusive details with The Verge about the first follow-up to its Fairbuds wireless earbuds that debuted over two years ago. A full reveal of the Fairbuds 2 is planned for October 14th, but we [...]

Polaroid announced a new instant camera that lets photographers get more creative and experimental with their shots than just changing the aperture or shutter speed. In addition to a Brightness dial on the front for adjusting exposure, the new Polaroid Mod has a dial around the lens for switching between four "creative shooting modes" with [...]

Firefox will look a little different the next time you launch it - more bubbly, with some new pops of color. The browser's latest update brings a design overhaul to all desktop and mobile users, aimed at modernizing Firefox with bubble-like tabs, a rounded address bar, and refreshed colors, icons, and themes. The desktop and [...]

As President Donald Trump prepares to meet tech and AI CEOs in Washington, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is calling for a treaty between the US and China to keep AI from wreaking havoc on the world. But wrangling leaders in both countries to take action could be a long shot. In letters shared exclusively with [...]

As Anthropic gears up for its greatly anticipated public debut, a preview of the company's IPO filing reportedly details its mounting losses, leadership proposals to retain power, and how its AI development plans could "further increase the risk that our models cause harm." These disclosures come as Anthropic eyes a $2 trillion valuation, more than [...]

You hear it all the time: Modern cars are basically smartphones on wheels. And just like the phone in your pocket, the car in your driveway collects vast amounts of data - tracking where you drive, how fast you accelerate, how hard you brake, how aggressively you turn, and much more. The legality of this [...]

Nothing has been on a bit of an audio tear this year, releasing the solid Headphone A and the surprisingly good Ear 3A earbuds. The Headphone A released at $199, while the earbuds are under $100, leaving room for something fancier. That something is the Nothing Headphone 1 Pro, the company's new $399 flagship over-ears [...]

AMD announced today that it's acquiring World Labs, an AI research lab co-founded by the prominent researcher Dr. Fei-Fei Li, in an all-stock deal worth approximately $8.2 billion. World Labs launched in 2024 and was valued at $1 billion in a matter of months. The startup launched its first commercial product, a world generation model [...]

A new firmware update for the $449 Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Gen 2 adds support for Bluetooth LE Audio and Auracast as beta features. The flagship Ultra headphones are the first from Bose to support the audio sharing technology, which the company plans to bring to more devices soon. Only a few major manufacturers include [...]

OpenAI popularized the modern generative AI chatbot, but as its 2026 DevDay event approaches, it's fallen behind in one of the industry's hottest categories: continuously running, consumer-facing AI agents. On Tuesday, it will likely try to capture the lead in that race. Rumors abound that OpenAI will release its own AI agent, dubbed Aeon - [...]

The US Department of Transportation finalized its plans today to weaken fuel efficiency standards, calling it "among the largest deregulatory actions under the second Trump Administration." It's a nail in the coffin for Biden-era standards that would have required fleet average fuel economy to reach 50.4 miles per gallon by model year 2031. President Donald [...]

In March, Janice Malone began getting calls about suspicious activity from her nonprofit organization, Vivian's Door. Vivian's Door, headquartered in Alabama, typically provided training, resources, and community to underserved and minority-owned businesses. The work sometimes put it in close contact with these companies' financial data, which was stored on its systems. But suddenly, concerned callers [...]

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is calling for a judge to block OpenAI from "giving ChatGPT false human attributes," a few months after Florida sued the AI company over safety concerns. According to Uthmeier, users are lulled into a false sense of security by the AI bot, as "ChatGPT's use of language, including first-person pronouns [...]

In a chaotic few months, OpenAI has demonstrated it can do two things with remarkable consistency: make impressive breakthroughs in mathematics, then colossally screw up announcing them. OpenAI is now trying to do better. Somehow, it has botched that too. OpenAI's latest attempt to repair fractured relations with a mathematical community it has repeatedly alienated [...]