The Verge

The Trump administration has spent nearly two months fighting with AI company Anthropic. It's dubbed the company a "RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY" full of "Leftwing nut jobs" and a menace to national security. But some of the ice may reportedly be melting between the two, thanks to Anthropic's buzzy new cybersecurity-focused model: Claude Mythos Preview. [...]

Prediction market exchanges have created an environment where just about any piece of information is potentially monetizable: How well will BTS's new song perform this week? How hot will Los Angeles get? Will Donald Trump be impeached? Users can wager on all of that and, on some platforms, more gruesome and violent outcomes in the [...]

I've never been as charmed and frustrated by one gadget as I have with the Poetry Camera. It's a delightful object. White and cherry red with a color-matched woven strap, it looks playful and adorably lo-fi. If I saw it on a store shelf, I'd absolutely pick it up. But aside from obviously appealing, I'm [...]

Over the last few months, every phone maker under the sun has refreshed its lineups, especially at the affordable end, with no major budget phone launches now expected until next year. That made it the perfect time to go back and reassess The Verge's recommendations for the best budget phones you can buy right now. [...]

Some of us take a kind of eat to live" rather than a live to eat" approach to gadgets. They're tools that help you get things done, not something you want to invest a lot of time or money in. If that's you - and there's no judgment here from a certifiable gadget nerd - [...]

Dairy Queen is becoming the latest fast food chain to get in on AI, as it's bringing a chatbot to dozens of its drive-thrus across the US and Canada. It aims to help speed up drive-thru service and "encourage customers to add more food to their orders," according to The Wall Street Journal. Following a [...]

From OLED TVs to smartphones, Best Buy's Upgrade Sale has slashed prices on all kinds of tech, including a wide range of Apple devices. We've rounded up the best deals from the sale here, but one of the most notable is the AirPods Pro 3, which are down to $199.99 ($50 off) at Best Buy, [...]

Vacuum cleaners, personal massagers, electronic baby rockers, and walking pads: These are the secondhand machines Rachel Youn sources to create their kinetic sculptures. Made with artificial flowers, metal hardware, and these used electronic components, each one possesses a humanlike presence. Slow Burn is made from an artificial orchid, a neck massager, bits of metal that [...]

"This is no different from Comfort Women or the Holocaust," wrote South Korean President Lee Jae-myung on X last week, quoting a post with a video of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers throwing a body off a rooftop in Gaza. The president's post kicked off an internet firestorm for a thousand different reasons, not least because [...]

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday 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. The camera zooms in on two well-formed cheeks clad in white shorts. These buns of steel belong to [...]

In the latest sign of AI silly season, Allbirds, the shoe company, told the world it was now an AI company and briefly managed to septuple its stock price. The Newbird AI story is really just one of a bunch of things this week that made us wonder: have we reached the peak of AI, [...]

All empires eventually fall, and it seems the creative software industry has collectively decided that Adobe's time has come. The Creative Cloud provider's suite of design tools have been considered the industry standard for decades - despite unpopular decisions to fully embrace generative AI and abandon software licenses in favor of expensive, complicated subscriptions. Pricing [...]

This weekend's scheduled Blue Origin rocket launch is rather momentous. Success would signal an end to SpaceX's monopoly on reusable orbital launch vehicles, and set up a three-way race to make that "No Service" indicator on your phone disappear forever. On Sunday morning, Jeff Bezos' massive New Glenn rocket is scheduled to launch with the [...]

YouTube is making some changes that might affect how you share videos from the mobile app. From the app, you can finally share videos from a specific timestamp, which will make it easier to point someone to a part of a video you might want them to see while you're on your phone. However, this [...]

Google is reportedly partnering with Gucci to make a pair of AI smart glasses stylish enough people might actually want to wear them. According to Reuters, Gucci parent company Kering is planning to launch the glasses sometime in 2027. Google's first pair of Android XR glasses, "Project Aura," are expected to launch this year. They [...]

Connie Ballmer, wife of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and cofounder of the Ballmer Group, has given $80 million to NPR. That's roughly seven years' worth of government funding ($11.2m) after Trump and Congress cut funds for public media, but only a fraction of NPR's full annual budget of $300 million. NPR may still cut [...]

Netflix announced on Thursday that it will be launching a redesigned mobile app, which will include a vertical video feed, at the end of April. "This redesign will better reflect our expanding entertainment offering and make it easier for members to engage how and when they want," the company said in its Q1 2026 earnings [...]

Netflix cofounder and chairman Reed Hastings plans to leave the company after nearly 30 years. The news comes as part of Netflix's Q1 2026 earnings results released on Thursday, which says Hastings "will not stand for re-election to our Board when his current term expires at the Annual Meeting in June." After cofounding Netflix in [...]

After a jury found that Live Nation-Ticketmaster violated antitrust law on several counts, the company warns in a blog post that the verdict "is not the last word on this matter." The company plans to renew a motion for the judge to issue a ruling against the states, claiming that they did not prove their [...]

If you're struggling to get a full night of rest, a good pair of sleep earbuds can help you tune out unwanted distractions. The Ozlo Sleepbuds are one such option, and they're currently available for $249 ($100 off) in the run-up to Mother's Day at Amazon and Ozlo's online storefront, which is easily the lowest [...]

An unannounced Teenage Engineering device, the KO-Amp 35, can be found over at the FCC in a new filing. The label clearly marks it as a member of the midrange EP family instruments, which currently includes the KO-II and its spinoffs, the Riddim and the Medieval. The name suggests that TE could be getting into [...]

I was unsure if my parents would notice that the voice on the other end wasn't mine - or that it was mine, sort of, but it wasn't me. The voice said hello, asked my dad how he was doing, and asked again when he didn't respond quickly enough. "What is that, Gaby?" He realized [...]

Casely first recalled over 429,000 of its 5,000mAh Power Pods wireless power banks in April 2025 following 51 reports of their lithium-ion batteries "overheating, expanding or catching fire," resulting in six minor burn injuries. Both the company and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (USCPSC) are reannouncing the same recall today following 28 additional reports [...]

The MacBook Neo is poised to be a top-selling laptop in 2026, thanks in large part to its affordable $599 entry price. Despite launching at a more accessible price point than Apple's $1,099 (though often discounted) 2026 MacBook Air, the Neo makes surprisingly few concessions in terms of build quality. Its design has the same [...]

OpenAI is beefing up its agentic coding and development system, Codex, with a suite of updates that let it use your computer, generate images, and remember from past experiences. The package of updates comes as OpenAI's rivalry with Anthropic intensifies, following the stellar successes of Claude Code and OpenAI aggressively shifting resources to catch up. [...]

Google is upgrading AI Mode in Chrome with a new feature that will allow you to open links to sources alongside your chat. Now, instead of automatically opening a new tab, clicking a source will open the website side by side with AI Mode, allowing you to ask follow-up questions about what's on the page. [...]

Microsoft is preparing to launch new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop models in the coming months. Windows Central reports that the refreshed models will include both Intel and Qualcomm variants, with Microsoft opting for an OLED display option for the Surface Laptop this year. Microsoft is expected to launch new Surface Pro and Laptop models [...]

Microsoft's new Xbox chief has had a busy couple of months after promising "the return of Xbox." Asha Sharma met with publishers at the Game Developers Conference in March, and has also been on the road visiting Microsoft's own game studios and product teams in recent weeks. Sharma, who used to work in Microsoft's CoreAI [...]

Google's Personal Intelligence feature, which lets Gemini pull data from apps like Google Photos to offer responses tailored to you, can now use that data and its Nano Banana 2 image model to create images based on your personal context. With the feature, you can use prompts like "Design my dream house" or "Create a [...]

Anthropic has released its most powerful "generally available" model to date: Claude Opus 4.7. The company called it a step up from Opus 4.6 for advanced software engineering tasks, particularly in complex coding areas that in the past required more hand-holding. It's also supposed to be better at analyzing images and following instructions, and it [...]

This is Lowpass by Janko Roettgers, a newsletter on the ever-evolving intersection of tech and entertainment, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. What do you get if you take a bunch of ripped, shirtless male K-pop idols in boxing gloves and have them spar in the ring until they're sweating? For Netflix: [...]

Woot is making it more affordable to own a frozen drink machine. Ninja's Slushi that has an 88-ounce container for storing your ice-cold creations is down to $184.99 at Woot, which is a whopping 47 percent off its list price. The Slushi requires no ice, just the liquid of your choosing and a little time [...]

Roku continues to solidify itself in a very busy streaming landscape. As of April, over 100 million households are streaming with Roku devices, including its streaming sticks and boxes and Roku TVs. Roku originally spun out of Netflix in 2008, where it was conceived as an in-house streaming device. It's not just Roku that has [...]

In the span of a few years, age verification went from an idea to standard practice on large parts of the internet. Seeking to prevent kids from accessing porn, other inappropriate content, or social media altogether, laws mandating age-gating have spread rapidly across the globe, reaching the UK, the US, Australia, France, Brazil, and many [...]

Today on Decoder, I'm talking with Ronan Farrow, one of the biggest stars of investigative reporting working today. He broke the Harvey Weinstein story, among many, many others. And just last week, he and co-author Andrew Marantz published an incredible deep-dive feature in The New Yorker about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, his trustworthiness, and the [...]

Mired in controversy and legal woes over concerns about its chatbots' interactions with users, particularly teens, Character.AI seems to be playing it safer with a new "Books" mode. The new format lets users step inside familiar worlds for a more structured roleplaying experience, one the company hopes will broaden perceptions of what AI roleplay can [...]

It was at about 36 miles per hour that I decided the Infinite Machine Olto is not a bike. Sure, it has pedals, you don't need a license to ride it in most (but not all!) places in the US, and the folks at Infinite Machine assured me it is allowed in the bike lane. [...]

Moft's MagSafe wallets have long been overachievers with folding designs that double as smartphone stands. Its latest creation, the Moft Trackable Tripod Wallet, does even more. It carries forward the same functionality as Moft's original magnetic wallet that unfolds into a miniature tripod, but adds built-in tracking capabilities through Apple's Find My network, and a [...]

Canva has overhauled its design and workspace suite as it attempts to become the ultimate centralized hub for AI-powered content creation. The platform announced its Canva AI 2.0 update today, introducing updated tools and new prompt-based editing capabilities that allow users to make or adjust their work by describing what they want to create to [...]

Meta is the next tech company to hike up hardware prices due to the global memory shortage. Beginning April 19th, Meta's 128GB Quest 3S VR headset will cost $349.99, the 256GB Quest 3S will cost $449.99, and the Quest 3 will cost $599.99. Those are increases of $50 for both Quest 3S models and $100 [...]

Intel is announcing a family of cheaper Panther Lake laptop processors called the Core Series 3 line. They're built on the same Intel 18A process as the higher-end Core Ultra Series 3 family of chips, but they have less of just about everything spec-wise. The Core Series 3 (non-Ultra) line encompasses six different chips, with [...]

Following months of leaks, DJI has announced the fourth version of its handheld stabilized vlogger camera. Unlike the Osmo Pocket 3 that debuted way back in September 2023 with major upgrades like a 1-inch sensor and a larger rotating touchscreen, the new Osmo Pocket 4 features similar hardware with upgraded capabilities including higher frame rates [...]

Govee has announced an upgraded version of its hanging Curtain Lights Pro that can instead be used nearly anywhere you have access to an outlet or large battery. At $449.99, Govee's new Lightwall is more than twice as expensive as the $199.99 Curtain Lights Pro, but comes with more LEDs in a denser array and [...]

Spotify and the three major labels have won a $322 million default judgement against Anna's Archive, the open-source library and pirate activist group that planned to publicly release millions of music files scraped from Spotify's platform. The judgment comes after the unknown operator of Anna's Archive failed to respond to a lawsuit filed by Spotify, [...]

Apple's $599 MacBook Neo ($499 for students) has sent shockwaves through the PC ecosystem, and now Microsoft is responding with deals targeting students in the US. A new "Microsoft College Offer" is launching today, which will see the software giant bundle 12 months of free Microsoft 365 Premium and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with select [...]

YouTube's time management settings now have an option to put a zero-minute time limit on Shorts, effectively removing them from your app in Android and iOS. The option is an update to the Shorts timer YouTube originally announced in October; the lowest previous option was 15 minutes. The feature was expanded in January to give [...]

Ford is shaking things up as it relates to its EV and software teams. Doug Field, who left Apple five years ago to helm Ford's multibillion-dollar bet on electric vehicles and software, is stepping down next month. Getting a promotion will be Alan Clarke, the ex-Tesla engineer who now leads Ford's California-based skunkworks lab. Clarke's [...]

Hello and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about Big Tech power plays in Washington and beyond. (And when I say beyond, I mean the great beyond, like Heaven, maybe.) If you've found your way to this newsletter from the wild, annual subscriptions are currently 50 percent off. That's $30 a year for [...]

Live Nation-Ticketmaster is an illegal monopolist, a Manhattan jury found, according to Bloomberg. The jury found the company liable on three counts: illegally monopolizing the market for live event ticketing, amphitheaters, and tying its concert promotions business with the use of its venues, Bloomberg reported. The verdict, reached after several days of deliberation, leaves the [...]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a group of eight states have announced a proposed settlement with big ad agencies that will prevent them from working together to avoid certain platforms like X based on their political viewpoints. In a complaint, the FTC argues that ad agencies violated antitrust rules by agreeing to a common [...]