The Verge

When Jane first heard about Memory and Imagination, a rare 1990s documentary about the Library of Congress, she was intrigued. But the Canadian writer in her 30s couldn't find the movie anywhere - not on streaming services, not on YouTube, not on pirate sites - and her intrigue turned into obsession. Worried it might become [...]

On Sunday, Nvidia announced it was launching an investigation into CEO Jensen Huang's relationship with Alice Huang, an AI executive and agent of the Chinese government. In addition to the Board of Directors announcing the investigation, Huang sent a memo to Nvidia employees acknowledging the affair. You can read the full text below. To my [...]

Soul Glo has a new record called NA I'M GON GRAB ALLAT coming out in January, and I, for one, can not wait. While two singles have dropped, it's not enough to truly tide me over, so I've been revisiting Songs to Yeet at the Sun and my favorite album of 2022 - Diaspora Problems. [...]

In October, Epic Games said that it was "investigating" making Fortnite compatible with Valve's Linux-based SteamOS. At the time, Epic Games Launcher was in preview, but SteamOS was not specifically listed as a supported distro. Now, Communications Director Jake Jones has confirmed SteamOS compatibility, along with a handful of other distros, to GamingOnLinux. In response [...]

Nvidia has announced that it is opening an investigation into CEO Jensen Huang and his relationship with Megaspeed executive Alice Huang, who was reportedly recruited by China's Ministry of State Security to spy on the company. A statement posted by the board of directors reads: The NVIDIA Board is initiating an independent investigation in light [...]

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says CEO John Ternus is pressuring AI czar Craig Federighi to accelerate the Siri roadmap and deliver a powerful AI agent that can compete with OpenAI's Dots or Meta's Muse. While Federighi has delivered a functional version of Siri AI on an incredibly short timeline, the company has no illusions that it's [...]

Suno is facing yet another pair of lawsuits. A group of rights holders of Elvis Presley's music and the publisher of some of Eminem's biggest records are suing the AI music company, claiming it illegally generates music and lyrics that mimic those artists. The lawyers in the Presley suit claim that Suno has violated Tennessee's [...]

Code in the iOS 27.3 beta suggests that Apple could add support for chatbots to its smart home hub. There's a flag listed for a "Conversational Apps" category. While there are no details about what apps would fall under that heading, it seems reasonable that AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude could be added to [...]

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the pressures of creating content for the internet, follow Mia Sato. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Almost exactly a decade [...]

With temperatures rising to the 90s in Los Angeles, avoiding the heat wasn't exactly an option while I was at a relative's outdoor party in August. So I sat beneath a patio umbrella with a powerful fan nearby, figuring I was protected from the sun and heat. Half an hour later, I felt exhausted, dizzy, [...]

While some retailers were offering preorder discounts on the remastered Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, it's not too late to save if you missed out. Costco members can currently get $5 off the digital version online, bringing the price down to $54.99. Considering an annual Costco membership runs $65, that discount almost offsets [...]

Twenty-five years ago, Kevin Lewandowski founded Discogs, arguably the destination online for obsessive vinyl collectors and music nerds of all stripes. It is a marketplace for buying and selling records, obviously, but it's also become so much more. It's a shockingly comprehensive database that covers not just albums and singles, but all the various versions [...]

Around 7PM each weeknight, I find myself standing in front of the fridge, trying to decide on something for dinner that won't make my husband complain, "Chicken again?" Yes, I should meal plan more, but I don't, so this is where I'm at. A nightly battle in which the chicken usually wins. Recently, my best [...]

Concerns are being raised that neither the Commerce Department nor Nvidia are doing their due diligence when it comes to vetting Chinese firms cleared to handle the company's H200 AI chips. According to The New York Times, New Matrix is on the list of approved firms, yet its offices are empty, "a hollow gray shell [...]

Today, I'm talking with Alex Stamos, chief security officer at Cognition and longtime cybersecurity expert, about what a mess cybersecurity is right now. This episode is part one of a special series looking at AI in real life. I've always enjoyed talking to Alex because he's so direct, and you're going to hear him say [...]

I'm calling it: time of death, November 6th, 1:30 AM, by tweet. Elon Musk's declaration Friday that Tesla would be "winding down" production of the Cybertruck next year to make room for the Cybercab was fascinating for a number of reasons. First, it was a humiliating way to kill a vehicle that was once hailed [...]

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 151, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, get psyched because it's officially Bad Holiday Movie Season, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about Andrew Garfield and GTA [...]

Anthropic is using AI to build more powerful AI. And it appears to be working remarkably well, with the company's models improving roughly twice as quickly as a year ago, with little indication of slowing down. That's according to a new report published Thursday by the AI safety research organization METR, following an 11-week investigation [...]

OpenAI is now valued at $1.25 trillion in a new round of funding that has raised another $11 billion, according to Bloomberg. That would make it one of the world's most valuable companies, not long after raising $122 billion from investors in March at a valuation of $852 billion. Echoing FT and Wall Street Journal [...]

China's intelligence agency recruited Megaspeed executive Alice Huang to spy on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, according to The New York Times. The Ministry of State Security (MSS) enlisted her to glean information about American AI chips and "potentially influence the company to push for its most advanced chips to be made available to China." Megaspeed [...]

SpaceX has declared that it's going to make Starlink Mobile a major" mobile carrier. The Elon Musk-owned company has already deployed thousands of direct-to-cell satellites, but its next big challenge is building out its 5G network here on Earth. As part of its plans to rival AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, SpaceX has inked a deal [...]

Buying the 4K Blu-ray disc version of KPop Demon Hunters was already going to be a wise idea for some people, especially those who primarily keep their $26.99 Netflix Premium subscription just to watch the hit animated flick in 4K. But at just $24.99 from Barnes and Noble and Amazon instead of its original $49.95 [...]

Massive new data centers are the physical foundation for tech companies' hopes and dreams for AI. But the rush to expand warehouses full of energy-hungry servers has also kicked up fights across the world over their impact on power grids, utility bills, nearby communities, and the environment. Data centers were a major bipartisan issue ahead [...]

While the Shure Mv7 Plus is popular with streamers and podcasters, it's equally good at impressing your friends and coworkers on meetings and Discord calls. It's currently marked down to $255 at various retailers, including Amazon, Guitar Center, and directly from Shure. That's almost $50 lower than its usual price, and just a few dollars [...]

A massive permitting bill that could help energy projects come online much quicker and potentially lower utility bills for Americans is advancing with bipartisan support. And while it could be a catalyst for lots of clean energy, it could also speed up polluting projects and limit oversight of new data centers. With data centers demanding [...]

Meta will now allow you to build customized, app-like experiences within Muse. The new feature, called "spaces," allows its AI assistant to build things like a shopping hub, school dashboard, music tracker, trivia game, and more, which you can interact with directly in the Muse app. Meta says you can create a new space by [...]

Following the Melania documentary movie that premiered earlier this year, Amazon is now planning to release a two-part Prime Video series focusing on the first lady. The show, Melania: The Series, is set to debut on November 20th. "MELANIA, The Series reveals never-before-told stories, offering unprecedented insight into Melania Trump's life, including the extraordinary days [...]

Someone at the White House appears to be running software that could enable outsiders to rent access on the presidential network for just "a few dollars," as reported by Krebs on Security and The Register. That's according to findings from the security firms Layer3 Intel and Synthient, which discovered residential proxy activity on the White [...]

Kobo is launching a new monthly subscription service called Stack that lets you upload your own ebooks and documents to the company's servers where they'll be synced across multiple devices and apps, including your reading progress, highlights, and annotations. Kobo Stack is similar to Amazon's Send to Kindle feature that allows users to upload a [...]

Apple's iPhone Duo has been officially on sale for two weeks, and the company said today that the App Store now has over 100,000 apps that are built for the foldable. "It's been wonderful to see how quickly developers have embraced iPhone Duo, and we're grateful for their creativity and innovation," Susan Prescott, Apple's VP [...]

When Irene moved to San Francisco last year, she started using dating apps as a way to meet new people, get to know her new city, and connect with others who care about the things she does. After the 25-year-old analyst downloaded Hinge and started swiping, she noticed a trend. "Hinge has a prompt where [...]

If you're curious about virtual reality, Meta's Quest 3S is a good entry-level headset for dipping your toes in, especially now it's on sale in refurbished condition for $255.99 directly from Meta's eBay storefront through November 8th when you use coupon code SAVE20TECH. For comparison, the headset recently dropped to $300 in new condition as [...]

On Tuesday, millions of American voters went to the polls and voted overwhelmingly for Democrats and against AI. The fight against Big Tech is about to come roaring back, and the fight over data centers is looking even harder for the folks trying to build them. On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay and David [...]

inMusic, the parent company of Akai, Moog, Native Instruments, and more, has decided to embrace the modding community. In an interview with The Verge, inMusic CEO Jack O'Donnell said, "We're going to provide a toolbox to the community, we're going to provide the inner workings of, say, an MPC or Sample so that people can [...]

Lutra, a South Korean startup, has debuted a new brand called Humans of Authenticity (HOA) that's launching another screen-free digital camera that incorporates a large open viewfinder into its design, as spotted by PetaPixel. The camera is reminiscent of the Godox C100 but the HOA A1 positions its lens and sensor close to the center [...]

A researcher found over 100,000 words and phrases in "every major language" that are blocked from autocomplete and swipe-type in iOS, Reuters reports. The researcher, Derik Kauffman, says you can still type the words on the blocklist one letter at a time. But they won't pop up as predictive text suggestions and iOS's keyboard may [...]

Fox has officially closed its $22 billion acquisition of Roku, the companies announced on Friday. With Roku under its umbrella, Fox now controls a major streaming platform that reaches more than 100 million households in the US. First announced in June, the deal will allow Fox to bring Fox Sports, news content, and local stations [...]

Gift-giving isn't just about grabbing something solid under a determined spending limit. It's an expression of love, a way to show someone how well you really know them. That doesn't mean you have to do it all on your own, though. Sometimes you just need a push in the right direction to get things rolling. [...]

Netflix isn't done with Hawkins, Indiana just yet. The streamer just announced a live-action spinoff of Stranger Things which is expected to debut in 2028. It's called Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure. There aren't a lot of details, but the show will be going back in time quite a bit. According to Netflix, Other [...]

The European Commission claims TikTok broke its online platform rules by offering a recommendation algorithm that creates a "rabbit hole effect" on users. In an announcement on Friday, the regulators allege TikTok's algorithm can harm users with "endless and repeated exposure" to content related to sadness, isolation, or body image. The findings come months after [...]

Amazon is adding a new feature to Alexa for Shopping that allows customers to purchase items by texting the AI shopping assistant. Users can describe the products they're looking to buy and/or provide a photograph of the item, and Alexa for Shopping will search for matching results in Amazon listings, text back with recommendations, and [...]

Note: Some spoilers for Control Resonant's "Recursions and Iterations" mission follow. One of Control Resonant's most memorable missions involves time travel - kind of. There are certainly multiple timelines intersecting, or maybe overlapping, or maybe running in parallel. As protagonist Dylan Faden, you meet some of the researchers who are trapped in and investigating these [...]

When I first read Allison and Nilay's Verge review of the iPhone Duo, I was immediately struck by one of their complaints: that the cover display is too small. That's not how the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 feels, I thought. Had they got it wrong? After a week and a half using the Duo, [...]

I've been wanting to try 3D printing, people tell me. Which printer should I get? I finally have a fairly easy answer: the Bambu Lab P2S Combo. The auto-loading, fully enclosed touchscreen printer is one of the very few I can recommend. It's the only one I'd buy for myself. It's on sale for $649 [...]

It's a bad time and maybe also a great time to make a new smartphone. Brennan Jordan and Austin Boer are two-thirds of the trio behind the Enough Phone, a small phone that will run your choice of stock Android or the minimalist OdysseyOS. They're currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, and just a day after [...]

Protesters have broken into a construction site of a new Microsoft data center in Amsterdam this morning. Members of the Geef Tegengas group helped organize the protest against the construction of three 85-meter data center towers in the outskirts of Amsterdam. Reuters reports that around 100 people made it into the construction site, with some [...]

Tesla is getting the Cybertruck ready for retirement in an effort to ramp up its robotaxi output. In an X post on Friday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the company will be "winding down" Cybertruck production at its Texas Gigafactory sometime around the middle of next year, "to make room for increased Cybercab production." [...]

Following this week's midterms where voters resoundingly voiced their opposition to data center expansion, OpenAI today announced new commitments to communities where it is working on data center projects, including that it won't use non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with public officials. Many data center projects have come under scrutiny for relying on NDAs to hide discussions [...]

Airbnb plans to roll out an AI agent in the first half of 2027 that will help users plan and book travel, the company said in its Q3 2026 earnings shareholder letter released today. "Today's AI agents are good at simple, routine tasks, like making a restaurant reservation or scheduling an appointment," Airbnb said. "But [...]