The Verge

Google has reportedly been reaching out to a number of Hollywood's biggest studios, hoping to strike licensing agreements that would allow it to train its AI models on copyrighted material in exchange for massive piles of cash. In theory, these deals would be a win-win: a huge financial boon to the studios that would also [...]

Anthropic says its newest AI models, Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1, address criticisms from customers about price, data retention, and overzealous safeguards. The company claims Claude Fable 5.1 offers stronger performance than Fable 5, but costs around 25 percent less typically and up to 45 percent less for complex agentic tasks, thanks to reduced pricing [...]

Apple Maps has officially changed the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. The company joins Google in re-labeling the Great Lake following an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in the midst of a trade dispute with Canada. The Canadian version of Apple Maps still shows "Lake Ontario" [...]

Best Buy is celebrating Labor Day all week long with big deals, including a deep discount on the Lenovo Yoga 7i 2-in-1, taking its original $1,1199.99 price down to $749.99. It's a capable configuration for the price, with a Core 7 Ultra 256V processor, 16GB of LPDDR5X memory, and a 512GB SSD. The IPS touchscreen [...]

After an unreleased OpenAI model wreaked enough havoc to make international headlines, OpenAI delayed the development of a different unreleased model suite, Astra, in order to shore up its safety work, the company wrote Tuesday in a blog post. In July, an unreleased OpenAI model broke out of its restricted environment, finagled its way into [...]

Sonos unveiled a bunch of new stuff today at its open house event. There's the $699 Beam Ultra soundbar and the $449 Ace Ultra headphones, plus several under-the-hood app updates (some coming sooner than others). While the show floor was a less than ideal venue to judge audio quality of either new product, a private [...]

As he steps down from his post as Apple CEO today, Tim Cook leaves behind a mostly positive environmental record. As far as billionaire tech moguls and the environment go, Cook will likely be remembered as one of the better ones - certainly far from the worst. But it will become harder for the company [...]

Depending on who you ask, developer platform Hugging Face was recently attacked by OpenAI - after it lost control of its own AI tools - or by a succession of AI "civilizations." Welcome to the linguistic battlefield of AI safety, where word choices can shift responsibility for a massive cybersecurity incident from a company to [...]

New Apple CEO John Ternus sent out his first staff memo, thanking his predecessor Tim Cook, and quickly turning to what the company will do next, reports Bloomberg. "We have a huge launch next week that's going to be phenomenal. Thanks for everything you've all done to make it possible," writes Ternus, referring to the [...]

Apple is pushing for "expedited discovery" in its legal battle against OpenAI over concerns the company is actively destroying evidence, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. In a filing on Monday, Apple alleges OpenAI only just handed over a MacBook used by a former employee at the center of the lawsuit, which contained discussions about "destroying [...]

Google announced new features coming to Android devices as part of this month's feature drop update. Among the highlights are the introduction of Motion Assist - Android's version of Apple's Motion Cues feature, which tries to reduce motion sickness by overlaying dots on your screen that move in response to a vehicle's movements - as [...]

HarperCollins probably dropped a pretty penny to get Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson and James Pattterson to collaborate on their newly-released novel, The Most Dangerous Games. But Semafor reports that the publisher might have a hard time making that money back to the the book's very, very low sales. Read the full story at The Verge.

Smart homes have gotten really good at making things really complicated. Turning on a light can involve multiple steps, compared to just flipping a switch. Homey, the Dutch-based smart home platform owned by LG, thinks it has a solution. This week it launched the Homey Portal, a touchscreen smart home controller that looks very promising, [...]

If you missed the release promotions for the recent round of Samsung Galaxy phones, you're in luck. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra is $300 off at Best Buy, the best deal we've seen since the phone launched last month. The phone impressed us with its rear triple camera setup, excellent battery life, and [...]

GoPro suddenly looks like a very different company than it did just last week. First, YouTuber Mark "Markiplier" Fischbach became the company's single largest shareholder, without disclosing that in a sponsored review that came out a week later. Now, almost the entire company has been bought by Starman Holding for $285 million in cash, which [...]

John Deere is testing a new "JD" AI assistant that it says can help farmers make more money, with answers about best practices and historical trends that are based on their own data. It uses their "field, machine and operational data" to answer questions on topics like equipment settings, fuel usage, or harvest timing. The [...]

Sony announced three new tower-style party speakers that will now be the largest options in its ULT Power Sound lineup. The new ULT Tower Max, ULT Tower 7, and ULT Tower 5 all feature expanded connectivity including USB-C, RCA, and XLR ports for connecting to audio gear using physical cables. The new models also come [...]

Google has a new suite of creative design tools for Workspace users called Google Pics, which aims to make editing and generating "professional-grade" AI images less cumbersome for businesses. Built around Gemini and the Nano Banana generative AI model, Google Pics is designed to give more granular control over prompt-based image making and manipulation, allowing [...]

After launching a budget-friendly flood sensor last month with impressive battery life, Shelly announced a new $49.99 security camera today that can be used without any additional subscription fees - although that's still an option if you want to expand its capabilities. The Shelly Camera will be available soon from the company's online store and [...]

At an event in New York City, Sonos announced two new audio products - the Sonos Beam Ultra soundbar and Sonos Ace Ultra headphones, details of which were found in an FCC filing in early August - and a major update to its audio operating system dubbed Sonos 27. It's the biggest single Sonos announcement [...]

As much as any Apple product released during his time as CEO, Tim Cook's tenure will be remembered for its ruthlessly efficient tight-rope walk between an autocrat in China and a would-be autocrat in the US. During his 15 years as CEO, Cook steered Apple through relations with both Chinese President Xi Jinping and US [...]

The multitrillion-dollar home of the iPhone, Mac, and so many other tech gadgets has a new leaader, as Tim Cook has been replaced as CEO as of September 1st by former hardware boss John Ternus. How will we look back on Cook's legacy, and what will Apple look like under the leadership of Ternus and [...]

Florida is banning Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers across state highways, as reported earlier by NBC News and local news outlet WUSF. In a memo on Monday, Florida's Department of Transportation says it's revoking permits for all license plate readers, adding that they must be removed from state highways within 30 days. [...]

We're not even half a day into September, and two new smartphones have already launched: the Poco F9 Pro and F9 Ultra. We're expecting more this week, as the IFA trade show kicks off in Berlin, before we get new iPhones a week after that. And that's only the beginning of what promises to be [...]

Nvidia is officially launching DLSS 5 this week, following a divisive announcement in March where we likened the AI upscaling tech to a "real-time generative AI filter for video games" and "motion smoothing for video games, but worse." DLSS 5 will officially be available on RTX 50-series desktop and laptop GPUs and through GeForce Now [...]

Nvidia knows that DLSS 5 left a bad first impression. In March, many gamers took one look at Resident Evil Requiem protagonist Grace Ashcroft's DLSS 5-ified face and declared it AI slop. So this week, the company's re-introducing its controversial "neural rendering" with firm messaging about how it "preserves artistic intent," "respects the rendered frame," [...]

Just a few weeks ago the only midrange OLED options available were from LG and Samsung. But after Sony officially announced the Bravia 6 last week, Roku has now launched its first-ever OLED TV - the Roku Pro Series - which will be followed by the step-up Pro Series LX next month. The Roku Pro [...]

Mozilla is officially launching ad blocking for Firefox on iOS today, after testing the feature over the past few weeks. The new built-in option will block most third-party ads and trackers before they load on an iPhone, reducing bandwidth use and decluttering mobile websites. Mozilla is using Apple's WebKit Content Blocker technology and the EasyList [...]

Xiaomi spinoff brand Poco has partnered with Bose for the second year in a row for its flagship F9 Pro and Ultra phones. The F9 phones double down on amped up audio, with a light-up subwoofer built into the Ultra, along with extremely bright displays, enormous batteries, and what should be Poco's best cameras yet. [...]

JBL is well known for its portable bluetooth and party speakers, but now it's also stepping into the world of connected whole-home audio. The JBL Cove series of speakers introduced today can work independently, as a stereo pair, or linked together to form a multi-room sound system, placing the range in competition with Sonos and [...]

Every year over 200,000 people descend on Berlin for IFA, the largest tech trade show in Europe. Some of the world's biggest manufacturers turn up to demo everything from appliances to smartphones to smart home gadgets, and this year should be no different. IFA itself runs from September 4th to 8th, but most of the [...]

Expectations for Tim Cook were almost impossibly high when he stepped in to replace Apple's visionary cofounder in 2011. He inherited a company on a blockbuster run, after Steve Jobs returned and revitalized the Mac, launched the iPod, and oversaw the launch of the iPhone. Now, after 15 years in the CEO role, Tim Cook [...]

The Wi-Fi 8 standard is far from finalized, but TP-Link is almost ready to release its first hardware targeting the next-gen spec. It unveiled the Archer 8 Ultra tri-band router and Deco 8 Ultra mesh system at IFA 2026, which utilize the upcoming IEEE 802.11bn standard to "address the connectivity problems people actually notice" instead [...]

For the first time since 2011, one of the world's most valuable companies has a new leader, as today marks John Ternus' first day as Apple's CEO. He's replacing Tim Cook, who will continue on as the executive chairman on Apple's board and departed with a letter to employees that remarked, "This place is proof [...]

Dyson is once again expanding its line of personal care products with a device that focuses on your teeth instead of your hair. As the name implies, the $499 CameraJet is the first electric toothbrush to incorporate a camera into the brush head. Available starting today in ceramic blue or ceramic pink color options, it [...]

Google raised the price of its 4K streaming box to $149, up $50 from its original $99 price. The new price is currently live at the Google Store and Best Buy, but Amazon appears to still be offering the original price. The price hike comes just a couple of weeks after Google launched its new [...]

JMGO's 4K 120Hz Iris Ultra Max all-in-one Google TV projector is now available outside China. It gets its name from a new dual-iris system that lets it produce an impressive 10,000:1 native contrast, according to JMGO. It boosts the contrast - always an issue with projectors - by placing two separate physical apertures (irises) along [...]

The FTC and 22 state attorneys general are suing Amazon for allegedly using a "secret ad surcharge" to drive up prices for ads on its website and app. FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson claims in a blog post on the lawsuit that the higher advertising prices "were largely passed on to American consumers." According to the [...]

This weekend, I strapped on an Apple Vision Pro to watch a baseball game in immersive virtual reality for the first time. It was technically impressive, visually pretty remarkable, and also didn't make that much sense. Apple and Major League Baseball chose a classic match-up of the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees [...]

While memory and storage prices are still high, there are still good discounts on other gaming-related hardware. Take Alienware's AW2726DM, for example. Dell is selling it for $319.99, a $30 break from the usual price of $349.99. The 27-inch gaming monitor features an QD-OLED panel for deep, immersive black levels, and quantum dots for full [...]

Automakers keep shoving more tech into their cars, despite evidence that consumers are increasingly fed up with huge screens and glitchy software. In fact, the features that car owners appreciate the most happen to be the ones they barely notice, according to the latest tech survey from JD Power. The consumer research firm surveyed 68,084 [...]

Longtime Apple executive Phil Schiller is stepping down from his role as the head of the App Store and Apple events, according to a report from Bloomberg. Following the change, Schiller will keep his Apple Fellow title and continue "working on unspecified initiatives," Bloomberg reports. Schiller initially joined Apple in 1987 and became the company's [...]

YouTuber Mark "Markiplier" Fischbach has invested enough in GoPro to become its single largest shareholder, with an 8.5 percent stake in the company, Bloomberg reports. Speaking to Bloomberg, Fischbach said he thought GoPro "seems undervalued" and sees his investment as "part of a larger mission to make filmmaking more accessible," following the release of his [...]

Steve Jobs' successor carried the torch of the iPhone and built Apple into a global powerhouse with few rivals. Since becoming CEO in 2011, Tim Cook has led the company to become one of the most dominant forces in the daily lives of billions of people. Today is his last day as CEO. We'll have [...]

Debian voted to allow developers to use AI tools in their contributions to the Linux distribution's "development, maintenance, [and] documentation." The new policy on AI acknowledges that "responsible" use of AI can improve developers' productivity, and goes on to say, "generative AI is neither exempt from nor subject to special rules beyond the standards already [...]

Sony is one of many companies offering Labor Day discounts on tech products, though its week-long sale on the last-gen WH-1000XM5 is one of the most attractive deals I found upon logging in this morning. The comfy over-ear headphones offer some of the best sound quality and active noise cancelling, and are down to $198 [...]

Cody Wilson, the creator of the first 3D-printed gun, announced a tool last week aimed at skirting a New York law that prevents 3D printers from making firearms - and taunting governor Kathy Hochul in the process. But Hochul isn't having it. In this week's episode of Decoder, Hochul responded to Wilson's "Hochulization" tool, warning [...]

Today, I'm talking with New York Governor Kathy Hochul, and I'll just warn you - this episode moves really fast. It's an election year, after all, with a shocking amount of tech policy at stake, and Governor Hochul has taken strong positions on almost every major tech issue there is. For example, Meta just reached [...]

OpenAI will soon be held accountable for mitigating risks related to ChatGPT's impact on minors, user mental health, and the spread of illegal content in the European Union. That's because ChatGPT is now considered a Very Large Online Search Engine under the EU's Digital Services Act, a set of laws regulating major online services and [...]

Instagram is finally taking steps to address the rise of fake AI-influencer accounts that have gotten harder to spot. It's also renaming the "AI creator" label to "AI-generated profile" to make it clear when a profile features an AI-generated person that's not a real human being. "We've heard that people don't like seeing a profile [...]