The Verge

For all the power she wields with the White House's affairs, Laura Loomer does not have the traditional tools that her rivals in the MAGA influencer industrial complex have - the highest follower count, the most political power, the most internet platforms, etc. But the fact remains that she's the influencer responsible for getting Donald [...]

Some of us take a kind of I eat to live" rather than an I 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 [...]

The state of Louisiana has filed a lawsuit against Roblox, alleging that the company has permitted and perpetuated an online environment in which child predators thrive, directly contributing to the widespread victimization of minor children in Louisiana." Roblox sees more than 111.8 million daily active users, and it's hugely popular with children, with users under [...]

If you know where to look, you can often score discounts on Apple's ever-expanding AirPods lineup. Both the newer AirPods Max and AirPods 4 (with and without ANC) now consistently receive discounts, as do the latest AirPods Pro with USB-C. Events like Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday often bring the steepest discounts, [...]

There's a meme currently going around Bluesky where people are posting their first purchases on Steam. Taking a look presents a neat time capsule, offering a glimpse of who we used to be. It also gives us a chance to compare our gaming habits now with what they were 10 or more years ago - [...]

Now that Congress has passed a bill that will defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS is taking drastic measures to stay alive. In an email sent out to PBS station managers on Wednesday, PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger announced that the organization plans to cut its budget by 21 percent in order to [...]

If you've ever juggled a phone, a smartwatch, and a pair of wireless earbuds, you know the struggle of keeping them all charged. Rather than go through the process of charging them one by one, a quality charging station can help you manage the chaos and reduce cable clutter. The Anker MagGo Wireless Charging Station [...]

The nations of the world have been on the precipice of reaching a global agreement to curb plastic pollution for a few years now. Delegates from 184 governments met in Geneva this month to try to hammer out a final treaty, but in the end, they walked away without a deal. This is not necessarily [...]

Anthropic has updated the usage policy for its Claude AI chatbot in response to growing concerns about safety. In addition to introducing stricter cybersecurity rules, Anthropic now specifies some of the most dangerous weapons that people should not develop using Claude. Anthropic doesn't highlight the tweaks made to its weapons policy in the post summarizing [...]

Lamborghini makes fast cars; this is an indisputable fact. So when the iconic Italian automaker says it's new plug-in hybrid is both the most powerful V12 every built" and the fastest Lamborghini ever," you should pay attention. At Monterey Car Week, Lamborghini unveiled its new Fenomeno plug-in hypercar that will be part of the automaker's [...]

A glass screen protector is one of a few essential accessories that every Switch 2 owner should make, along with buying a protective case for the console. In fact, it should be a priority to stick one onto the console's screen as soon as possible to avoid accidental scratches. I've been installing and removing Switch [...]

Apple currently sells MacBooks equipped with its own M-series chips in a wide range of sizes and price points. It discontinued the M1 MacBook Air to make room for newer models, but some retailers are still selling the 2020 laptop starting at $599 ($50 off) at Walmart - a far cry from the $2,499 starting [...]

As economists speculate whether the stock market is in an AI bubble that could soon burst, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has just admitted to believing we're in one. "Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI?" Altman said during a lengthy interview with The Verge and other reporters last [...]

Last week, we ran into an issue: no one on the show had ever vibe coded. So for today's episode, we set out to fix that. Everyone came prepared with a vibe coded project - and some misadventures to go along with it. This week on The Vergecast, we're discussing the fallout of the messy [...]

Even if you've never played a Pokemon game before, you can probably figure out how the type chart works. Fire types are weak to water types, water is weak to grass, and grass is weak to fire. Type matchups are foundational to Pokemon battles, far before you get into the weeds of stats and strats. [...]

On Friday, Lucid Motors introduced an off-road version of its Gravity SUV, a few hours after shooting down a report that it had only sold 9 of the luxury EV in the first six months. The off-road concept includes redesigned front and rear fascias, improved approach and departure angles, a widened track, lifted ride height, [...]

Last week, on GPT-5 launch day, AI hype was at an all-time high. In a press briefing beforehand, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said GPT-5 is "something that I just don't wanna ever have to go back from," a milestone akin to the first iPhone with a Retina display. The night before the announcement livestream, Altman [...]

On Thursday, I had dinner with Sam Altman, a few other OpenAI executives, and a small group of reporters in San Francisco. Altman answered our questions for hours. No topic was off limits, and everything, with the exception of what was said over dessert, was on the record. It's uncommon to have such an extended, [...]

I recently installed the biggest smart home antenna I've ever seen, and it helped open up new areas in my smart home, from the attic to the chicken coop. The towering 12-inch-tall Home Assistant Connect ZWA-2, which launched this week for $69, plugs into any Home Assistant system via USB and can connect to any [...]

Google gave us the first official look at its upcoming Pixel 10 Pro Fold on Tuesday, but now the full specifications have leaked ahead of the device being launched at next week's Made by Google event. According to a spec list seen by WinFuture, the flagship Pixel foldable will carry an IP68 rating that provides [...]

Fortnite players are able to hop into matches following a login issue that Epic Games described as preventing users from getting in reliably." This log-in outage is resolved; all players are able to log-in again across all platforms," Epic said at 8:54PM ET. We'll continue monitoring our services to ensure there are no other issues." [...]

The Supreme Court will let Mississippi's social media age verification law take effect while the case is being argued in court. In an unsigned ruling on Thursday, the court declined to block the law after an emergency petition from trade association NetChoice. The order offers no explanation, but in a concurring opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh [...]

We live in a golden age of controllers. The gamepads on the market now are of higher quality, more versatile, and more customizable than anything from even one console generation ago. If you play games on an Xbox Series X or Series S (or a Windows PC), you have the unenviable task of choosing between [...]

MicroSD cards are tiny but slow; the M.2 storage sticks in your PC are blazing fast but bigger and fully enclosed. Now, a new type of SSD out of China could be the best of both worlds - and it's already set to appear in two cutting-edge gaming portables. Chinese storage manufacturer Biwin is calling [...]

Some cool decor can help a new dorm or apartment feel like home, which is why Nanoleaf's back-to-school sale is worth checking out. The company's offering all-time low prices on a wide range of its modular smart light gear, from skylights to smart light display cases. Some of our favorite deals include Nanoleaf's Blocks Combo [...]

Airbnb has introduced a new reserve now, pay later" option that lets users in the US book a reservation without paying right away. Instead, users can put off their payment to a later date before check-in. Airbnb says it will require payment before the end of a stay's free cancellation period, ensuring hosts have time [...]

A new letter to the Federal Trade Commission, and US attorneys general for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, calls for an urgent investigation into Elon Musk's Grok - especially its new "Imagine" tool for AI-generated image and video. The tool, released by xAI earlier this month, encourages users to create NSFW content [...]

In an internal document, Meta included policies that allowed its AI chatbots to flirt and speak with children using romantic language, according to a report from Reuters. Quotes from the document highlighted by Reuters include letting Meta's AI chatbots engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual," describe a child in terms that [...]

ESR has issued a recall for 33,000 HaloLock wireless power banks, in 6,000mAh and 10,000mAh versions, because their lithium-ion batteries can overheat and ignite, posing fire and burn hazards to consumers." The power banks were cheaper alternatives to Apple's MagSafe accessories (priced between $32 and $40) but offered slower 7.5W wireless charging speeds when used [...]

HP-owned HyperX is announcing a slew of new gaming headsets and streaming-friendly microphones. The HyperX Cloud Alpha 2 is the new flagship at $299.99. It uses 53mm drivers and 2.4GHz wireless lasting up to 250 hours - an impressive 10+ days of continuous use - though it drops to half that when simultaneously connected to [...]

Acura is bringing back the RSX sedan as a premium, dramatic-looking, all-wheel drive electric crossover that's also the first model engineered in-house on Honda's new global EV Platform. This is the same platform that will eventually underpin the automaker's Zero series, which is expected to go into production next year along with the RSX. So [...]

One of the most-discussed subjects among many of my friends and colleagues are headphones: specifically, what provides the best sound, the best noise cancellation, and are the most comfortable to wear. If you're part of the Apple ecosystem, then one of those featured in our roundup of best AirPods to buy are the AirPods Max, [...]

Back-to-school season is closer than you might realize, especially for college students, many of whom are set to return to campus in a matter of a few short weeks. And while school can be a challenging time on many fronts, regardless of the grade, there are tools that can help you better prepare for life [...]

It seems like Google is looking for a way to put AI into everything these days, and now its efforts have reached its airfare-booking service, Flights. On Thursday, Google announced that it's testing a new AI-powered Flight Deals tool, which could come in handy if you're planning a trip on a budget but aren't quite [...]

Microsoft originally encouraged its employees to work from home amid the coronavirus outbreak in 2020. This new flexible working arrangement then became an official "hybrid workplace" policy several months after the pandemic began, allowing managers to approve permanent remote work. Now that the pandemic has settled into endemicity, Microsoft wants employees to return to the [...]

It's game time for streaming services: a growing number of streamers are betting on casual games as a way to keep viewers hooked when they've run out of things to watch. Toronto-based Zone-ify added free casual games to its ad-supported streaming service in June. Last month, close to 70 casual games arrived on Happykids and [...]

Elon Musk is calling in another return on his investment in American politics: he's threatening Apple with a lawsuit because neither X nor xAI's Grok have been recommended on the iOS App Store. How serious this threat is - well, that's hard to say, as it was posted between Grok-generated waifus. "Hey @Apple App Store, [...]

If you want a convenient way to stay well read without amassing a library of physical books, an e-reader may be the right solution. The Boox Palma 2 impressed us with its pocket-friendly size and ability to run Android apps. A bundle including the Boox Palma 2 and a case is $299.99 ($29 off) at [...]

Smart lighting company Philips Hue appears to be launching a new version of its bridge, the first in a decade. According to a product page briefly published on Hue's website and since removed, the Hue Bridge Pro will be faster, have more capacity, and can turn your smart lights into motion sensors." A Hue video [...]

OpenAI is considering ways to bring in additional revenue, and bringing ads to ChatGPT is one option on the table. While being interviewed on Decoder, ChatGPT head Nick Turley said he's humble enough not to rule it out categorically," but hedged that OpenAI would need to be very thoughtful and tasteful" about how ads could [...]

If you're firmly in the Apple hardware ecosystem, Kuxiu's K1 wireless power bank could be more useful to you than other portable MagSafe batteries. You can stick it to the back of your iPhone to keep it charged when you don't have access to power, but rotating the K1 90 degrees reveals a second built-in [...]

Welcome to Decoder! I'm Alex Heath, your Thursday episode guest host and deputy editor at The Verge. Today, I'm talking to a very special guest: Nick Turley, the head of ChatGPT at OpenAI. While Sam Altman is definitely the public face of the company, Nick has been leading ChatGPT's development since the very beginning. It's [...]

Figures reported by BBC News show that popular pornography websites are seeing far fewer visitors from the UK since the country enforced mandatory age verification requirements for online platforms. Pornhub saw a 47 percent decrease in UK traffic between July 24th (a day before the age-gating rules came into effect) and August 8th, according to [...]

With Meta, Google, Samsung, and maybe even Apple working on AI-powered glasses, smart spectacles are quickly becoming the hottest gadget in tech. Now, even HTC is jumping in on the trend with a new pair of Vive Eagle smart glasses that come with built-in speakers, a 12MP ultrawide camera, and an AI voice assistant. The [...]

Sensitive Content Warnings that detect and blur images containing nudity are now rolling out to all Google Messages users on Android, according to 9to5Google. The feature gives users the option to delete blurred images without having to view them and block whoever sent the message. Users who attempt to send or forward nude images will [...]

On the surface, Cadillac's new Elevated Velocity looks like your typical concept car: gull-wing doors; a plush red interior; a retractable steering wheel for fully autonomous driving; and futuristic lighting scheme. But the real attention grabber is the lifted chassis and a new off-roading mode that could hint at a possible new direction for GM's [...]

After debuting its affordable $29.99 Elves 2 controller last month, GuliKit is back with another budget-friendly alternative to Nintendo's Switch 2 Pro Controller - if you prefer an asymmetrical joystick layout. Both the $24.99 GuliKit ES and $29.99 ES Pro controllers are available starting today in gray for the cheaper version and your choice of [...]

I know my way around a pair of joysticks - but I'd prefer to soar. I don't want to think about filming while I'm flying. I'd rather explore. Now, camera maker Insta360 is launching its first drone, under a new drone company, to serve that exact demand. It's called Antigravity, and in January 2026, it'll [...]