The Verge

Google has detailed an update bringing a slew of new features to its Pixel Buds 2A and Pro 2, which the company says are rolling out now. The new features were first teased in August. The biggest update is Pixel Watch-powered sleep detection, rolling out to both pairs of earbuds. If you're wearing a Pixel [...]

DoorDash, the leading food delivery app, processed 970 million orders in its second quarter this year and generated $4.5 billion in revenue. A 10-person startup called Bites is a blip in comparison: It has just around 300 restaurants signed up in the Bay Area, where it's operating as a pre-seed startup. But this summer, Bites [...]

Two weeks ago, journalists in the San Francisco Bay Area got to try two hot new wearables that weigh only around 100 grams: the just-revealed Meta VR Glasses, and the long-awaited transparent Google XR glasses built in partnership with Xreal. It turns out they're going head-to-head. Xreal has just opened Aura pre-orders starting at $1,279, [...]

Google today announced Playground, a new browser-based platform for making custom games from AI prompts. Playground will be available today in the US for users who are 18 and older at playground.google. The company is pitching it as an "experimental gaming platform" that "lowers the barriers to creation" and doesn't require coding experience. "With Playground's [...]

The Type 01, Jaguar's most important and divisive car in years, has arrived. The production follow-up to the polarising Type 00 concept, Jaguar says the electric, four-door grand tourer is its most powerful road car ever. Even though the Type 00's design chief was reportedly fired earlier this year, most of its aesthetic has carried [...]

Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that offers reviews of apps, services, and entertainment with a focus on youth safety, today said that OpenAI's ChatGPT for Teens is an "unacceptable risk." ChatGPT for Teens, introduced in August, has guardrails for teens and is designed to help students learn, but Common Sense Media says that the teen [...]

OpenAI has revealed solutions to a number of long-standing mathematics problems produced by an unreleased frontier model in a batch of 722 manuscripts, covering 372 result families that group related papers. It extends a run of breakthroughs that have both impressed and unsettled parts of the mathematical community while raising questions about research ethics and [...]

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma told employees that Microsoft is getting ready to do something around Grand Theft Auto VI that "no other platform holder is doing" during an employee all-hands this morning. According to sources familiar with Microsoft's plans, Sharma's brief teaser was actually about Xbox managing to land a deal for game streaming rights [...]

Spending too much time constantly sweeping and mopping? If you have the money to delegate those chores to a robot cleaner, you could save a lot of personal time. Thankfully, it's cheaper than usual to buy a robot vacuum / mop hybrid during Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days, and some of our favorite models are [...]

Apple is collaborating with LG on a new lineup of smart home devices, including a video doorbell, thermostat, indoor camera, and more, according to a report from Bloomberg. The products will reportedly feature LG branding but integrate with the company's rumored smart home hub that's expected to launch during an event on October 13th. Sources [...]

Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco is facing backlash from fellow comics who claim his takeover of SiriusXM's Raw Comedy channel is harming up-and-coming talent, as reported earlier by Deadline. Many established comics, including Patton Oswalt and Margaret Cho, have posted videos online calling on Maniscalco to carry on Raw Comedy's legacy by highlighting newer comedians on his [...]

Google announced a new agreement to update six nuclear power plant sites across the US as the tech giant seeks to generate more electricity for its power-hungry data centers. Google signed the 20-year deal with Constellation, the leading nuclear power plant operator in the US. The power purchase agreement is meant to guarantee the revenue [...]

Calling something last-gen" usually means it comes with big compromises compared to the latest version. That's not as true for the last-gen Kindle Paperwhite as it is with some other tech. The newer version can open books 30 percent faster (not the same as page-turning speed), and its aluminum design is a millimeter thinner - [...]

Is Sony about to announce a new PlayStation Portal game streaming handheld? The Wi-Fi Alliance recently certified two unannounced PlayStation products of some kind, and the certification documents indicate that they could be updates to the PlayStation Portal, which might mean we're getting the OLED screen rumored earlier this year. The two devices, which are [...]

If you've been using an older Amazon Echo device as a speaker through its 3.5mm aux input, Alexa voice commands to play or pause from line in may stop working. Ars Technica points to this Reddit poster claiming they received a message from Amazon about the change, which the company has confirmed. According to Amazon [...]

The Sonos Beam Gen 2 soundbar is on sale for $359 at Amazon and Best Buy during October Prime Day, a healthy $140 discount from its usual price, and $10 lower than the previous Prime Day price. The biggest draw here may be obvious - its native connectivity to other Sonos products - though it's [...]

Apple TV has had a really great run in 2026 - and a cozy new addition is helping expand its lineup even more. As the streaming service has attempted to grow in order to better compete with the likes of Disney and Netflix, it has steadily broadened the range of its series. This year has [...]

For frequent travelers who like to pack light, the Anker Nano 100W universal travel adapter packs multiple USB ports and is equipped with the ability to adapt to outlets in over 200 countries and regions with its US, UK and EU plugs. During October Prime Day, it's only $63.99 (usually $79.99) at Amazon. The adapter [...]

We spotted a variety of discounted headphones and earbuds during October's Prime Big Deals Days, with some of our favorite options discounted to at (or near) their all-time low prices. While some deals on Amazon require a Prime subscription, there are plenty that are available to anyone, and other retailers have gotten in on the [...]

With AI hardware, tech companies are pushing the definition of what does and doesn't constitute a recording. For most of gadget history, it'd be reasonable to assume that a device with a microphone or camera is either recording you or it isn't; it's either on or off, without much gray area. Microphones capture sound. Cameras [...]

HBO Max and Paramount Plus will become one streaming service under Paramount's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. In a press release announcing the completion of the deal, Skydance - the name of the combined companies - says both streamers will "unify into a single service over time." Skydance CEO David Ellison hinted at [...]

There's no denying that Nothing knows how to make eye-catching headphones. If you're considering a new pair of over-ear cans, the Nothing Headphone 1 pack style and great sound, and they're on sale for $189 at Amazon. That's a big discount considering the usual price drifts between $240 and $299. In addition to the unique [...]

Arturia's AstroLab series was already amongst the best stage keyboards out there. They essentially put the company's AnalogLab suite of vintage synth emulations, sampled pianos, and original instrument plugins into playable hardware. But they were ultimately glorified preset browsers. You could lightly tweak patches using the four macro controls, or dial in some effects, but [...]

Normally $169.99, the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro are discounted to $135.99 during Amazon's October sale, beating their previous low price of $149.99, and coming in $14 lower than the AirPods 5. While these earbuds stand out for a number of reasons, like great ANC and a handy screen on the charging case, our favorite aspect [...]

Following more images of the previously leaked Google Fitbit Edge surfacing a few days ago, new details about the upcoming fitness tracker have been revealed, including potential features and pricing. The Fitbit Edge will reportedly sell for 179 in Europe, and 159 in the UK, according to leaked details shared by Dealabs. Given the 99/85 [...]

Trump Mobile appears to have suffered a data breach that may have exposed the data of 3,615 people, according to reports from PCMag and Straight Arrow News. The breach reportedly included names, home addresses, emails, phone numbers, and order information. PCMag and Straight Arrow News contacted several individuals in the dataset, who confirmed that the [...]

The Google Pixel Watch 5 is discounted by $60 during Amazon's October sale, with the 41mm version on sale for $334.99, and the 45mm version for $364.99. The latest version of Google's smartwatch rolled out alongside the Pixel 11 phones in August with improved GPS, gesture controls, and offline Gemini, although we had mixed results [...]

Paramount has completed its $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, forming a combined company known as Skydance. The merger officially puts Paramount and WBD's film studios, along with major networks and brands like HBO, CBS News, and CNN, under one roof. The road to the media megamerger has been a rocky one for Paramount, [...]

A rather strong "planetary wave" recently slammed into South America and is making its way toward California. In case you're worried about headlines warning of the supposedly "freak" phenomenon "bringing trouble," it's worth understanding what this wave really is and isn't. Called a Kelvin wave, it's carrying warm water to the Americas that's typically trapped [...]

During Amazon's October sale, the Pixel 11 Pro and Pixel 11 Pro XL are discounted by $250 or more. The base model Pixel 11 Pro with 256GB of storage is only $849 (originally $1,099), $50 lower than the usual price for the base Pixel 11, while the 256GB 11 Pro XL is $999, a $300 [...]

Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days (also known as October Prime Day) is here, serving as a precursor to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. There are a ton of good deals, and bundling them all into this package is the easiest way to keep the blast of upcoming coverage under control. Below, you'll find every deal [...]

Confession: When BougeRV told me about its remote-controlled wagon with animated lighting, I called it in for a laugh, expecting to eviscerate it in a review. It's ridiculous, to be sure. But the DuneRover also proved very capable, with enough torque to flatten hills even when carrying over 200 pounds of gear. It can also [...]

Google may be expanding its "Call for Me" AI feature beyond business calls so you can use it to send messages to friends and family. Android Authority reports finding a "Gemini Calling" introductory screen in an APK teardown with examples that include "Call Mom and tell her I will be 15 minutes late" and "Call [...]

It's a wild time for retro gaming.Thanks to decompilations and recompilations of classic titles, those games are becoming unshackled from their proprietary code and original hardware to be ported to new devices or updated in ways to completely change the original game. Ever imagined skateboarding in Call of Duty? Or playing the original Halo right [...]

The Matic is our favorite robot vacuum and robo-mop, and it's also now the first to escape the FCC's Roomba ban. Well, sort of - because the Matic wasn't banned to begin with. Here's what's actually happening: On October 2nd, the FCC added the original Matic, model 4MA0001, and its charging dock model 4DK0008 to [...]

People in Utah can now use AI to get a prescription for acne treatment. On Monday, healthcare startup Nolla Health announced that users in the state can scan their faces using its app, allowing its AI system to analyze acne severity and autonomously write a prescription, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. The service is launching [...]

This past year, OpenAI, Anthropic, and other labs have announced breakthroughs on numerous long-standing mathematical problems, in some cases pushing well beyond what researchers expected current systems to be capable of - including resolving one of the famous Millennium Prize problems. But in classic Silicon Valley style, AI labs are moving fast and breaking things, [...]

Following many recent disclosures about AI agents accessing third-party websites and services, the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia, says that it "can confirm that we have discovered some activity" by "rogue" OpenAI agents on Wikimedia platforms. The activity includes edits to Wikimedia wikis, "unsuccessful attempts" to "exploit" the Etherpad note-taking tool that the Wikimedia Foundation [...]

There's been a lot of doom and gloom from the auto industry lately when the subject of China comes up. Automaker CEOs, in particular, warn that allowing low-cost, high-tech Chinese electric vehicles to be sold in the US would effectively spell the end of their businesses. Hyundai CEO Jose Munoz is not as pessimistic as [...]

An invisible, machine-readable watermark in text output is rolling out to ChatGPT and Codex, but only for users in the European Union at first. OpenAI says its textGrain watermarking "matched or exceeded" other approaches like Google DeepMind's SynthID for text, which is also the basis for the watermarking Anthropic announced in August. Like OpenAI, Anthropic [...]

An OpenAI publicist tried to change the topic of CEO Sam Altman's interview with Vanity Fair's Mark Guiducci after the editor brought up a ChatGPT user's suicide. When Guiducci confronted Altman about the incident, the publicist warned Guiducci about running out of time, saying she'd like to "move on" to another topic. The interruption came [...]

Sam Altman thinks that the benefits of AI will be so great that "the world should accept some bad things happening" along the way. The OpenAI CEO pointed to hacks, scams, and "other bad things" as costs society should expect to tolerate because "people will do tremendously orders of magnitude more good stuff" with AI, [...]

Nvidia's Shield TV streaming boxes are the latest victims of the memory shortage that has seen prices increase dramatically for everything from digital cameras to game consoles. When the Shield TV Pro launched nearly seven years ago with an upgraded Tegra X1+ processor, 3GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage, it sold for $199.99. But [...]

Really the only negative associated with the new M6-powered Mac Mini is its high price. While the last-gen model debuted at just $599, the faster, but mostly unchanged 2026 edition starts at $899 - except for right now. You can grab the base model that has 256GB of storage, 16GB RAM, and a 12-core CPU [...]

CNN CEO Mark Thompson will remain at the head of the news network when Paramount's $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition closes this week. Thompson wrote in a memo to employees that he believes the combined company will "fully support the principle and practice of the kind of independent news that CNN has always stood [...]

Today, I'm talking with Sen. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California. Schiff sits on a number of committees with oversight into tech and AI: intellectual property, antitrust, privacy and technology - it's all there. I really wanted to ask him about how we might regulate anything related to the tech industry at this moment in [...]

Amazon and other retailers are knocking down prices on popular products for October Prime Day, which starts October 6th at 3AM ET and lasts through 3AM ET on the 8th if you're on the East Coast (12AM PT). October Prime Day offers a glimpse of deals that will likely be available again during Black Friday [...]

Getting some extra storage space on your Mac could be as easy as deleting Apple's AI features with a new open-source command line tool called RemoveMacAI. There used to be a single Settings toggle for disabling Apple Intelligence, but that was removed in macOS 27. Now, the models stay on your disk, and the features [...]