The Verge

Google is reportedly nearing the launch of its long awaited Gemini 4 model, after dawdling behind rival developers on flagship AI releases. Speaking with The Information during his first media appearance as the leader of Google's DeepMind division, Koray Kavukcuoglu said that Gemini 4 is currently in its refinement stage, and that the company is [...]

Meta is building a dedicated hardware device for its new Muse AI agent. The product, called Muse Charm, was briefly shown off by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the end of tonight's Meta Connect presentation. It looks almost like a chunky smartwatch without the strap - just a big screen, plus a little lanyard for [...]

Meta announced a slate of new wearables during its annual Meta Connect showcase on Wednesday. The star of the event was the new Meta VR Glasses, which pack virtual reality tech into a lightweight smart glasses-style frame with a tethered puck. Meta also announced new pairs of screen-free smart glasses, along with some new AI [...]

Meta is launching new VR hardware: a pair of glasses. The new Meta VR Glasses sit on your ears like a typical pair of glasses instead of being strapped over your head, but they still have immersive displays for watching movies, playing games, and getting work done. Imagine a pair of hefty black sunglasses with [...]

Just a couple of weeks after launching Muse, Meta announced that it's "working on" bringing the agent to its smart glasses, including the new glasses it unveiled at Meta Connect. Users will be able to activate Muse from their glasses by saying its name and ask it to handle tasks like guiding a workout, logging [...]

Walking around Meta Connect 2026, everyone's sporting smart glasses in all sorts of shapes, colors, and sizes. It's a marked difference here, a tech bubble where "pervert glasses" are not a concern. Outside Connect, the public backlash against wearable surveillance tech - a catchall term that encompasses not just smart glasses, but also smartwatches and [...]

Meta is quickly iterating on its new Muse AI agent, announcing a bunch of updates today that make the bot more capable and able to chat with you in more ways. Muse agents are getting their own email addresses that they can use for accomplishing tasks. You'll also be able to communicate with your Muse [...]

It's about time for Meta Connect, the company's annual product launch event. This year, given the company's major focus on AI and wearables like smart glasses, it seems likely that we'll see updates from CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his team on those categories. The company has been facing significant scrutiny because of how some users [...]

It's time once again for Meta's annual September product launch event, and The Verge is on the ground in Menlo Park to cover the show live. Meta says that today's keynote by Mark Zuckerberg will be about how "Meta is building a future for everyone" - something he wrote at length about in a recent [...]

Microsoft is refreshing its Surface Pro 12-inch and Surface Laptop 13-inch devices with Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon X2 Plus chips. The smaller Surface devices retain the same design and hardware features from last year, with faster and more capable chips inside and higher price tags (thanks RAMageddon!). While the 12-inch Surface Pro started at $799.99 last [...]

Microsoft is launching a second generation of its Surface Mouse next month that includes haptic feedback support. The Surface Mouse also has a customizable action button for the first time, which is primarily designed for quick access to Copilot (of course), but can be configured to work with other shortcuts from the Surface app. "Its [...]

Modern life comes with an unending, auto-populating to-do list. It never ceases to amaze me how I can be doing nothing at all, minding my own business, and suddenly something needs to be taken care of. You're telling me a tree branch fell in the backyard and now I have to figure out what to [...]

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a slate of bills on Monday that could finally give communities better data - and more say - on how data centers impact their electricity bills and water supply. As data centers invade a growing number of communities across the US, they've triggered protests over how the infrastructure underpinning AI [...]

Anthropic says its AI Claude has "autonomously discovered" a new enzyme system similar to machinery behind the powerful gene-editing tool Crispr. It's the first result from Anthropic's newly-launched wet lab and an early test of Claude's usefulness for science as the company prepares to go public. The company says Claude found the enzyme system after [...]

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) have introduced new legislation that would ban anyone from developing artificial superintelligence - a technology the bill describes as capable of the "destruction or disempowerment of humanity," including by overthrowing the government. Under the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, AI leaders would face up to 20 years [...]

The original Blue Yeti has been one of the most recognizable go-to USB microphones for content creators since it launched in 2009, and now it finally has a successor. Launching today under Logitech G, the Blue Yeti 2 adds some modern upgrades, including an interactive LED display, AI de-noising, and a proximity based voice sensor [...]

The G Pro Superstrike mouse is one of Logitech's most interesting products. Unlike other gaming mice, it has haptic actuators beneath its two main buttons instead of mechanical switches, which decreases latency and allows for a custom click feel (the click can be super subtle, more jolty, or turned off entirely). The tech debuted in [...]

Xbox appears to be ready to launch its own version of PlayStation's platinum trophies. A new update to the Xbox PC app has revealed Mythic Achievements, which according to data in the app will appear once a player completes all the Achievements in a game. Mythic Achievements appear on screen with a unique unlock sound, [...]

Nintendo's Customer Appreciation" sale continues through September 26th. It includes discounts on Switch games and accessories, and I thought I'd call out one of my favorite games that's cheaper than ever. Metroid Prime Remastered is down to $27.99 in digital format for the Switch and Switch 2, and it's among the best remasters I've played [...]

The Una Watch costs less than most Garmin watches now that its price has been lowered from the Kickstarter offer of $350 to $199, but its modular, repairable design grabbed my attention first. It features a 1.2-inch MIP LCD display and up to 10 days of battery life, similar to the Garmin Forerunner 70 or [...]

Part of the job of a content creator is to figure out how to get their work in front of the most people. Cracking - or fighting - the algorithm has historically been a frustration for creators, but YouTube is increasingly simply telling creators what they should do. At the annual creator-focused Made on YouTube [...]

Discord is rolling out a new global age assurance system, seven months after pausing its previous verification measures following backlash from users. Starting today in every country except Australia and the UK, Discord will automatically assign users to an estimated age group based on "multiple account signals," with account restrictions placed on users believed to [...]

McDonald's is putting ads on its drive-thru menu as part of a "limited" pilot at company-owned restaurants, according to a report from Bloomberg. Drive-thru locations included in the test will show ads from other brands on digital menu boards after a customer places their order, which they'll see while they wait for their meal. In [...]

Video games have given us plenty of ways to traverse huge open worlds, but none have felt quite as oddly exhilarating as manipulating gravity in Control Resonant's twisted version of New York City. It's a game that lets you flip, twist, and fly through the air, while exploring settings that look ripped out of Inception. [...]

Xiaomi's new 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max launched in China today, and feature a more flexible take on the privacy display tech introduced this year on Samsung's Galaxy S26 Ultra. They combine it with returning rear screens, two 200-megapixel cameras, and both of Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chips. A global launch [...]

OpenAI has hired three former Patreon execs to anchor its product strategy for creators. After starting the creator subscription platform 13 years ago, cofounder and technology chief Sam Yam announced on X that he's joining OpenAI to lead Creator Product. He's also bringing Patreon's former product head Drew Rowny and engineering head Shannon Ma with [...]

Eight Sleep announced the next version of its "intelligent sleep system" designed to regulate the temperature of your bed in response to tracked health and sleep metrics like breathing and heart rate. The company calls its new Pod 6 system its "most significant hardware launch to date," and it's centered around a redesigned cooling hub [...]

After turning a string of spectacular mathematical results into a reputational crisis, OpenAI is consulting human mathematicians to help it figure out a less disastrous path forward. On Monday, the company announced a new independent panel of mathematicians tasked with advising it and other AI companies on their interactions with mathematical research and the wider [...]

Now that Paramount has reached a settlement with the 12 states that were suing to block its $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), the studio is even closer to becoming one of the world's biggest production houses. In addition to spending at least $300 million more on film and TV projects produced in [...]

Rabbit, the company behind the underwhelming R1 device, is rolling out a standalone AI agent that you don't need its hardware to use, as reported earlier by Wired. The startup says its new OS3 "agentic operating system" runs in the cloud but operates locally across Windows, Mac, and Linux devices. According to Rabbit, you can [...]

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is mostly known for its global dominance over petroleum production and oil reserves - not necessarily cars and auto manufacturing, and certainly not electric vehicle production. So it was a little surprising on Monday when a Saudi startup called Ceer unveiled a pair of hyper-angular, spaceship-like EVs, with plans to [...]

Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, this year joined by the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 too. The company describes both new phone chips as flagships, and the spec differences are relatively minor, mostly limited to improved AI processing, video capture, and gaming performance on the Extreme model. Both Gen 6 chips [...]

Motorola is the first company to announce a phone running Qualcomm's top-end Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chip. The Signature 27 looks set to be Motorola's most advanced flagship in some years, though we're still waiting for the full specs, price, and release date. Any prospective buyers will first have to get over the [...]

Apple's new texture and grain controls for stylizing photos will be more limited on older phones than initially expected. A confusingly worded press release from Apple indicated that the new features, announced alongside the iPhone 18 and 18 Pro earlier this month, would be "available" on older devices like the iPhone 16 and iPhone Air [...]

The Android-powered Googlebooks are coming soon, with familiar brands and specs that rival Windows Copilot machines. For anyone eager to get their hands on any the new laptops, there's a preorder perk you may want to know about lasting until October 25th, 2026. When you add a Googlebook to your cart at Best Buy, a [...]

Until the end of the day on September 22nd, 2026, Best Buy and Amazon have the black Apple Magic Keyboard on sale for $169.99, a $30 discount from the usual price. This is the souped-up version of Apple's full-size, wireless keyboard, with a Touch ID button, numerical pad, arrow keys, plus additional function keys. The [...]

San Francisco is suing the Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company behind Truth Social, for selling early access to President Donald Trump's posts on the social media site. The lawsuit, filed today in California state court, alleges that the Truth API feed is a "corrupt business scheme" that violates both California's Unfair Competition [...]

Apple is working on a new fitness tracker with a screenless design, similar to the one made by Whoop, according to a report from Bloomberg. A prototype of the device reportedly has "a thin fabric band with a sensor-equipped computing module." The device is in an early stage of development and likely wouldn't arrive before [...]

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is creating an "academy" positioned as a pipeline for young people to build or join a Silicon Valley startup. The "Horowitz Andreessen Academy" will launch with 10 partners, including Anduril, Anthropic, Coinbase, Google, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Palantir, Replit, and Stripe, along with $42 million in funding led by a16z. [...]

Anthropic says its new Claude Opus 5.5 model comes with stronger safeguards in the wake of recent rogue AI hacking incidents. In an announcement on Tuesday, Anthropic says Opus 5.5 comes with improvements to certain risky behaviors, including attempts to escape the company's testing sandbox. It's the first model released by Anthropic after CEO Dario [...]

Rivian always planned for its all-important R2 vehicle to be less expensive than its pricey R1 predecessors, but also less polluting. The production process for the R2 would rely on more renewable energy, and the vehicle itself would feature more recycled and biodegradable materials than the models that came before it. With this and a [...]

In a speech Tuesday morning at the UN General Assembly, Donald Trump railed against Iran, "globalists," climate change, and transgender people while also claiming that the US is now "officially" renaming artificial intelligence to "super intelligence." Oddly, this wasn't one of the entries in the poll Trump posted a few days ago when he started [...]

Xbox has become a shell of its former self - and things are only getting worse. As part of its planned cuts impacting around 3,200 workers, the company announced today more changes that will further dilute the brand. Studios are being consolidated, others are on the brink of being closed altogether, and Xbox's most iconic [...]

Microsoft is uniting its two Forza developers into a single studio today, as part of a massive restructuring of Xbox. Playground Games, which develops Forza Horizon, and Turn 10 Studios, creators of Forza Motorsport, are merging together to focus on Forza Horizon and Fable. "Playground and Turn 10 will come together as one studio focused [...]

Microsoft is laying off around 260 Xbox employees today, as part of an ongoing "reset" of its gaming business. 1,600 Xbox employees were impacted by layoffs in July, with Xbox CEO Asha Sharma describing the cuts as "the most significant restructure in Xbox history." Today's layoffs are part of the 3,200 roles that were previously [...]

Microsoft is announcing a massive restructuring of its Xbox studios today, months after laying off 1,600 Xbox employees and selling off studios. The latest changes will see Activision take on the Halo and Sea of Thieves franchises, as well as Age of Empires. Microsoft is also laying off around 268 Xbox employees as part of [...]

Everyone has seen someone at the gym or running around their neighborhood wearing headphones that were never designed for workouts. Quite often those headphones are Beats. Good news for the earbud haters: The new Beats 360 over-ear headphones are durable and built to withstand sweat, with water resistance and swappable knit ear cups. And there [...]

The White House is now airing reruns of President Donald Trump's speeches, bill signings, and other moments on a YouTube livestream that it's calling "Trump TV," as reported earlier by Time. The 24/7 station launched just days after Trump banned CNN, MS Now, and Politico from the White House. Following several teasers propping up "Trump [...]

Waymo has made several attempts over the years at offering transit discounts to its customers in the hopes of getting them to more frequently use the company's robotaxis to connect with a train or a bus. The Alphabet-owned company announced the latest effort today, teaming up with Visa to offer a discount on robotaxi rides [...]

EssilorLuxottica, the company that Meta partnered with for its Ray-Ban smart glasses, announced a new version of its Nuance Audio glasses that are designed to double as discreet over-the-counter hearing aids. The new Nuance Audio Plus still manages to squeeze their FDA cleared hearing aid tech into temple arms that don't look much thicker than [...]