The Verge

Twitch is announcing a bunch of updates at TwitchCon Europe, including the ability to host a vertical livestream and an open beta test that lets creators stream at a higher quality. The rollout of vertical streams should make livestreams easier to watch in portrait mode on your phone. Down the line, streamers won't be forced [...]

Thanks to the legal discovery process, Google's antitrust trial with the Department of Justice has provided a fascinating glimpse into the future of ChatGPT. An internal OpenAI strategy document titled "ChatGPT: H1 2025 Strategy" describes the company's aspiration to build an "AI super assistant that deeply understands you and is your interface to the internet." [...]

A group of young people - as young as 7 and as old as 25 -are suing the Trump administration to stop its assault on renewable energy and climate action. Executive orders President Donald Trump signed to promote fossil fuels amount to an unconstitutional" overreach of power, they allege in a complaint filed Thursday at [...]

Grindr has always excelled at helping its users find folks looking to spend some quality time together, but the hookup app is looking to speed up the looking?" process even more with its latest feature. Today, Grindr announced that Right Now, its social media-like live feed feature, is rolling out to all of the platform's [...]

Elon Musk appeared alongside President Trump for a press conference in the Oval Office Friday, perhaps for the last time, with a noticeable black eye that he says he got from his young son. "I said, 'Go ahead, punch me in the face.' And he did," he said. Musk is emerging from his five-month stint [...]

Microsoft is adding text formatting to its Windows Notepad app. The significant Notepad update is available for Canary and Dev Channel testers on Windows 11, and introduces bold and italic styling, alongside hyperlinks and even Markdown support. The addition of text formatting in Notepad means there's now a formatting toolbar at the top of the [...]

Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen has signed a bill that cracks down on social platforms' features that could keep kids online for longer. Under the Age-Appropriate Online Design Code Act (LB504), major platforms must let users choose to see a chronological feed, rather than one provided by a recommendation algorithm, which experts have found could negatively [...]

The over 300 quality assurance workers of the ZeniMax Workers United-CWA union have reached a tentative contract agreement with Microsoft. It is the first contract agreement at Microsoft since the concerted effort to unionize the video game industry began roughly four years ago. This is a monumental victory for all current video game workers and [...]

Taylor Swift now owns all of the music I've ever made," she says in a letter posted on her website on Friday. Swift has purchased the masters of her first six albums back from Shamrock Capital, which owned them after entertainment executive Scooter Braun sold them to the company. All I've ever wanted was the [...]

A lot of Polygon's staff was laid off following Vox Media's sale of the publication to Valnet, but two of its former guides writers are launching their own guides-focused website: Big Friendly Guide, which you can find at bigfriendly.guide. Ryan Gilliam and Jeffrey Parkin founded and are co-owners of the site. Guides make Gilliam feel [...]

Riot Games is planning to switch Valorant, its popular first-person tactical hero shooter, over to Unreal Engine 5 in July. The engine upgrade from Unreal Engine 4 is part of a number of new changes coming to the shooter over the coming months, including a replay system in September. Valorant has been running on Unreal [...]

The degree to which Mountainhead, HBO's new black dramedy from Succession creator Jesse Armstrong, will make you laugh depends almost entirely on how much news you consume about tech billionaires who see themselves as ubermensch chosen by fate to shape the arc of history. The more time you've spent listening to Silicon Valley types wax [...]

All microSD cards look pretty much the same, but when it comes to buying the right one for your Nintendo Switch 2, only microSD Express cards will work for storing and playing games. The microSD card you used in your original Switch or Switch Lite will offer limited functionality with Nintendo's new handheld, as it [...]

Peacock may fly under the radar compared to other streaming services like Netflix, but it offers a surprisingly strong library that includes shows like Poker Face and films like Wicked for less money. And now, new and returning subscribers can get a full year of ad-supported Peacock Premium for just $24.99 ($55 off) when they [...]

Elden Ring Nightreign just launched, delivering a multiplayer-focused, roguelike-meets-Soulslike experience, and it's already discounted. Grab it for Steam or Xbox from Newegg at 15 percent off by entering the offer code XVSAVE at checkout. This lets you get it on either platform for $33.99. We previously saw the game discounted by an additional $2 pre-launch, [...]

There's a running theory in tech circles that says, basically, AI is the new UI. Not long from now, some people argue, you simply won't need a homescreen full of app icons or a traditional web browser or really anything other than an interface to an AI assistant and agent that accomplishes everything on your [...]

Back in March, we brought you an exclusive look into how Chevrolet's engineers tuned and tweaked, sculpted and simulated to turn the eighth-generation Corvette into a 233-mph missile, the 1,064-horsepower ZR1. But while I'm a racing simulator fan through and through, there's nothing like driving a real car on a real track, and this past [...]

Imagine playing Fortnite, but instead of fighting other players, all you want to do is break into houses to look for caches of slurp juice. Yes, the storm is closing in on you, and there's a bunch of enemies waiting to kill you, but all you want to do is take a walking tour of [...]

Cath Virginia is the senior designer here at The Verge, who creates illustrations and collages for our articles. However, she also has dabbled" (as she puts it) in feature designs for articles such as 2004 was the first year of the future (which won the 2025 ASME Award for Best News and Entertainment Design), How [...]

The Nintendo Switch Parental Controls app has been updated ahead of the Switch 2's release on June 5th. In addition to adding support for the new console, the app includes new options for managing and limiting a child's access to the Switch 2's GameChat feature, and provides more details on what games they have been [...]

On August 5th, 2024, Judge Amit Mehta ruled in the case of United States of America v. Google, saying, ...the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly. It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act." That ended the biggest tech antitrust trial [...]

Though the first Nintendo Switch era of Pokemon games was undeniably rocky at times, it brought the series' trading and organization systems into a new level of maturity. It wasn't always easy to complete Pokedexes in remakes like Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl and new entries like Sword and Shield. But those games helped The [...]

Two years after legal proceedings began, the SEC has formally dropped its lawsuit against Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange. It was one of the US government's final ongoing actions against crypto companies. Lawyers for the SEC and Binance jointly moved to dismiss the case in a filing on Thursday. It follows a 60-day pause [...]

There are some questionable sources underpinning Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s controversial Make America Healthy Again" commission report. Signs point to AI tomfoolery, and the use of ChatGPT specifically, which calls into question the veracity of the White House report meant to address reasons for the decline in US life expectancy. An investigation by NOTUS found [...]

Disney Plus and Hulu are both launching new Perks programs that offer subscribers discounts, digital freebies, and sweepstakes in an effort to stand out from the streaming competition. The Disney Plus Perks program is available now in the US, with an international rollout planned later this year. Offers include a six-month DashPass membership from DoorDash, [...]

Google Workspace users are going to see a lot more of Gemini's efforts to summarize their emails. Gmail now creates summaries automatically for complex threads, and they'll appear above the emails themselves. AI-powered summaries of emails have been found in Google Workspace accounts since last year, but until now you've had to manually trigger them. [...]

Scuf is adding drift-resistant Hall effect sticks to updated versions of its wireless Envision and Reflex controllers. The revised models include the $149.99 Envision and $199.99 Envision Pro for PC as well as the $249.99 Reflex Pro and $279.99 Reflex FPS for PlayStation 5 and PC. Those are all starting prices, of course, as the [...]

For the past several months, it seemed like President Donald Trump and Elon Musk were inseparable. The tech billionaire and "First Buddy" championed Trump on his reelection campaign trail, slept at the White House, attended deal-making dinners at Mar-a-Lago, and chainsawed a giant hole in the government with firings and spending cuts through DOGE. Now, [...]

Tile trackers are getting more deeply integrated with the Life360 app. In a blog post published this week, Life360 announced that you'll now be able to set up and manage the handy Bluetooth location trackers without using the Tile app at all. Life360, a family safety and location app, purchased Tile's Bluetooth device-tracking business for [...]

Like Amazon and Apple, Netflix is also looking to cash in on the story of how Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison managed to steal billions from the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. Variety reports that Anthony Boyle (Tetris, Manhunt) and Julia Garner (Ozark, The Fantastic Four: First Steps) have been cast in Netflix's upcoming drama series The [...]

Amazon has a new ZeroOne team focused on breakthrough" devices, and it's led by Xbox cofounder and former Microsoft executive J Allard, CNBC reports. Based on a job listing for the team, one of those products is a smart home device. J Allard was one of the main faces of the original Xbox and Xbox [...]

In dribs and drabs, we're starting to get a better idea of what Tesla's robotaxi service will look like when it launches in Austin, Texas, in just a few weeks. But it's not nearly enough given what's at stake. The company is considering June 12th as a possible date to launch its robotaxi service in [...]

AI could soon surpass Bitcoin mining in energy consumption, according to a new analysis that concludes artificial intelligence could use close to half of all the electricity consumed by data centers globally by the end of 2025. The estimates come from Alex de Vries-Gao, a PhD candidate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Institute for Environmental Studies [...]

YouTube is bringing Lens to Shorts. The feature, which will roll out in beta in the coming weeks, will let you search for more information about the animals, plants, and items you spot within a video. If you're watching a Short with a landmark in the background, for example, YouTube says you can use Lens [...]

Instagram now supports photos that have a 3:4 aspect ratio, meaning that when you upload a photo with that ratio, it'll now appear just exactly as you shot it," Instagram head Adam Mosseri says in a Threads post. He also notes that almost every phone camera defaults to" that format. An image from Instagram's broadcast [...]

Following a brief delay stemming from the Trump administration's on-again, off-again tariff policy, Nintendo officially opened up preorders for the Nintendo Switch 2. As expected, the initial rollout process at Walmart, Best Buy, and other retailers on April 24th was an absolute mess - and GameStop didn't fare much better later. As of right now, [...]

The legal battle between two Amazon influencers with unsettlingly similar styles and vibes is nearing resolution. On Wednesday the two influencers asked a judge to dismiss the copyright case, more than a year after it was initially filed and six months after I wrote about it in The Verge. The lawsuit was simultaneously disconcerting and [...]

If you're looking to upgrade your work-from-home setup, the Insta360 Link and Link 2 are gimbal-equipped 4K webcams packed with features to improve how you present in video calls. Now through June 8th, both are down to all-time low prices, with the original Link selling for $149.99 (typically priced at $179.99) at Amazon, B&H Photo, [...]

Fifteen Iranian students and researchers sued the Trump administration for completely halting student visa interviews while it determines whether to vet all visa applicants' social media accounts. The suit, filed against Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a Virginia federal court, claims that the pause on student visa interviews violates the Administrative Procedures Act, a [...]

Democratic senators are probing whether RealPage, a software company accused of colluding with landlords to raise rents, lobbied for a proposed ban on states regulating AI for the next decade. In a letter to RealPage CEO Dana Jones, five Democratic senators -Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Tina [...]

Today, I'm talking with Megan Greenwell, a former top editor at Wired and Deadspin, about her new book Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream. It comes out on June 10th, and it's a searing account of how private equity goes far beyond impacting failing businesses and deeply affects and transforms [...]

Amazon's budget security camera company, Blink, has launched the second generation of its popular video doorbell. The new Blink Video Doorbell adds a head-to-toe view and improved video resolution. It can also now alert you when a person is at your door instead of just the neighborhood cat or a strong gust of wind triggering [...]

Tiger Borgia, a content creator focused on cozy games, has been pulling weeds in Animal Crossing: New Horizons for over five years. Given the current landscape in which game developers constantly release new updates to vie for the attention of audiences, Borgia's dedication to New Horizons can come across as admirable. Nintendo has not released [...]

Healthcare company Kaiser Permanente dealt with a system outage on Wednesday that forced its hospitals and pharmacies to fill out prescriptions with pen and paper and slowed down services at other parts of the company. But in a statement, Kaiser Permanente spokesperson Kathleen Campini Chambers says the issue was fixed Wednesday evening: On May 28, [...]

Nintendo released an update to its Switch Online mobile app yesterday renaming it to simply the Nintendo Switch App and adding support for the Switch 2, which releases on June 5th. Alongside Switch 2 support comes new features, first announced in early April, making it easier to access screenshots on other devices and adding mobile [...]

The New York Times has struck a multi-year AI licensing deal with Amazon that will bring its editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences," the outlet announced on Thursday. Under the agreement, Amazon will include summaries and short excerpts of The Times' content in products like Alexa, and will also use Times articles [...]

I don't want gaming to become another streaming subscription service that keeps going up in price. I don't want to put even more power in Nvidia's hands, particularly not right now. But I can't deny that the company's $20-a-month* GeForce Now is a near-perfect fit for the Steam Deck. I've been covering cloud gaming for [...]