The Verge

WiiM, the audio company that's challenged the idea that audiophile-level performance requires a small loan, is expanding its whole-home ecosystem with the WiiM Bar, which releases in July. Much like its other speakers and audio components, the WiiM Bar supports a bunch of streaming options and expandability at an affordable price - in this case, [...]

Just in case you were wondering, Nvidia's RTX Spark isn't supposed to be a one-off. The company is not just flirting with becoming the fifth high-profile vendor of consumer laptop chips to see if people bite. At Computex 2026 in Taipei, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang confirmed at least two additional generations of RTX Spark are [...]

Some people rarely lose things. Wallets are always exactly where they're supposed to be, keys never go missing, and remotes never slip between the couch cushions. And then there's the rest of us - the folks who can't ever seem to find the thing that was right there a few seconds ago. For us, Bluetooth [...]

Compact power banks have gotten a lot faster in the past year - and it's not just their USB-C charging speeds that have received a boost. The newest Qi2.2-certified models can wirelessly charge an iPhone 16 or later at up to 25W. Combine that with their ability to magnetically snap on via MagSafe, and you've [...]

This week we've got tandem hands-ons with Google's new Gemini AI agent - Spark - from my colleagues David Pierce and Jay Peters. Their takeaways are similar: It's so effective that it's scary. Spark knew that David's dog is named Frida and knew the first name of Jay's wife, even though neither of them explicitly [...]

Amazon's updated search bar will now show you AI-generated images of products as you describe them. For now, the in-app feature only surfaces AI images of clothing and home goods, allowing you to tap on the image that best matches what you're looking for and search for similar-looking items. In a blog post, Amazon positions [...]

PlayStation used its most recent State of Play showcase to make it clear where its focus is. After a series of costly live-service stumbles, it's getting back to focusing on premium, narrative-driven, single-player games. That statement was made clear with how it started and ended the hourlong show. The showcase began with an extended look [...]

A few months ago, Meta effectively handed Supernatural, a popular VR fitness game on the Meta Quest, a death sentence. As part of overarching VR layoffs, the company announced the game would no longer get any new content, enraging its tightly knit, devoted community. Now it looks like Supernatural is getting a second chance. Today, [...]

The Dreame L20 Ultra isn't the company's newest model, but it's still a great robovac / mop hybrid that offers strong performance while requiring very little day-to-day maintenance thanks to its included trash bin and AI obstacle avoidance. Verge readers can get for its best-ever price right now. Originally $1,400 when it launched in 2023, [...]

At Microsoft's annual Build conference on Tuesday, the company announced a slew of new or expanded AI initiatives, including a super app, in-house reasoning models, a cybersecurity tool, and OpenClaw-esque AI agents. All this news added up to a clear message: Microsoft is positioned to be one of the biggest players in AI, and it's [...]

Microsoft has two new Surface devices arriving later this year, both powered by Nvidia's RTX Spark chips. I got a chance to take a closer look at both the Surface Laptop Ultra and Surface RTX Spark Dev Box at Microsoft's Build conference this week, and while both have the same chip inside, they're utilizing Nvidia's [...]

Smart lighting company Nanoleaf has been acquired by OneRobotics, the parent company of SwitchBot. In an exclusive interview with The Verge, Nanoleaf CEO Gimmy Chu says the company will remain independent and that he and his cofounder and COO, Christian Yan, will continue to run it. "Nothing is changing operationally," says Chu, adding that there [...]

By the time the Children's Hospital closed its doors to trans patients, Sage had already stopped taking testosterone. A nonbinary high school student, they originally received treatment for the rapid onset of puberty. The changes their body experienced felt frightening and sudden. They developed PMOS, a relatively common hormonal disorder that can lead to hair [...]

In the face of widespread backlash to the AI data center buildout throughout the US, Google is touting its efforts to minimize the environmental impact by actually increasing water for local communities. The company laid out five commitments around water use in a new blog post published Wednesday, including a goal to replenish more water [...]

Online publishers are getting more control over whether their websites appear in Google's AI Search features, thanks to a UK regulatory ruling. The new conduct rule imposed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) requires Google to let website owners keep their content out of features like AI Overviews and prevent it from being used [...]

Sony ended its big State of Play showcase with a major reveal: the next God of War. The new title is called God of War Laufey, and is once again developed by Sony's Santa Monica Studio. Currently, the game doesn't have a date, but it's coming to the PS5 whenever it does launch. This time, [...]

Control Resonant, the upcoming sequel to Remedy Entertainment's Control, will be released on September 24th, 2026, according to a trailer that premiered during Tuesday's PlayStation State of Play show. The trailer also gave a preview of the game's story, which stars Dylan Faden, who was imprisoned for much of the first game. He will be [...]

At its big State of Play show on Tuesday, Sony shared new look Marvel's Wolverine, the next big title from Insomniac Games that's launching exclusively on PS5 on September 15th. Dressed in the iconic yellow Wolverine outfit, Logan slunk around and stabbed his way through a bunch of enemies, using his blades to take them [...]

While the majority of Summer Game Fest takes place over the weekend, Sony is getting a jump on things with its next State of Play showcase, which airs on June 2nd at 5PM ET. It's coming at a pivotal time for the PlayStation brand: The PS5 keeps getting more expensive and Sony's big bet on [...]

Intel couldn't catch a break. Layoffs. Shakedowns. Crashing CPUs torpedoing its reputation, sending desktop gamers fleeing to AMD. Apple and Qualcomm pushing Intel out of multiple flagship laptops. A gaming graphics card going MIA. But its Panther Lake laptop chip, the first on its all-important 18A process, turned out excellent - and a handheld version [...]

Microsoft just kicked off Build 2026 with a keynote from CEO Satya Nadella and other company leaders. As expected, it was filled with announcements, ranging from new Surface hardware to an always-on personal assistant and updates across Microsoft's in-house AI models. If you didn't watch the event live, you can catch up on all the [...]

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday creating a "voluntary framework" for AI companies to share their frontier models with the federal government before they're released "to promote secure innovation and strengthen the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure." The order says the US AI industry has succeeded in part "because we refuse to stifle this [...]

Microsoft claimed last year that it had made a key breakthrough in quantum computing with Majorana 1, the company's first quantum processor. While physicists were immediately skeptical of Microsoft's claims, the software giant is announcing Majorana 2 today, the next generation of its topological quantum chip. Majorana 2 contains qubits, a unit of information in [...]

Microsoft announced a bunch of new in-house AI models at Build 2026, including a new "flagship" model: MAI-Thinking-1. It's an ambitious step into model development for Microsoft, which introduced its initial in-house models last year - before then, it had relied on OpenAI's models. The two companies recently renegotiated their deal to loosen ties. According [...]

I like the UE Wonderboom 4 Bluetooth speaker so much that I bought two of them, though I wish I could have paid less for them. Fortunately, you can stock up on the cheap, so long as you like the color blue. The Wonderboom 4 is available in blue at Amazon for $51.49, and at [...]

Much like Google, Microsoft is launching its own version of OpenClaw. Microsoft Scout is an always-on assistant that integrates into Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams, allowing businesses to assign a virtual assistant to employees to help with organizing calendars, expense reporting, email drafts, and much more. Unlike Copilot that lives inside [...]

Google is launching a new feature for its Phone app that aims to protect you from AI impersonation scams. Now, when you receive a call from a scammer that appears to be coming from the same number as one of your contacts, Phone by Google will flag the call as suspicious so you can hang [...]

A glass screen protector is one of a few essential accessories that I strongly recommend to every Switch 2 owner. In fact, it should be a priority to stick one onto the console's screen as soon as possible to avoid accidental scratches. To test the candidates below, I installed and removed Switch 2 screen protectors [...]

Microsoft just announced "Project Solara," a new OS designed for gadgets that run AI agents, at Build 2026. The company is calling it "a new platform built from the ground up to power agent-driven experiences." It's built on Android, not Windows. Microsoft demonstrated two concept Project Solara devices at Build today: Desk concept and badge [...]

On the Friday before Memorial Day, on the eve of a long weekend, the Trump administration announced that it was further gutting legal immigration. The Department of Homeland Security didn't use this language. "This policy allows our immigration system to function as the law intended instead of incentivizing loopholes," the agency said on X. "The [...]

Microsoft only just announced a new Surface Laptop Ultra at the weekend, and it's now revealing a miniature Surface PC aimed at developers. The new Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is powered by Nvidia's new Arm-based RTX Spark chips, just like the Surface Laptop Ultra, and is optimized for sustained workloads and local AI tasks. [...]

Microsoft is kicking off its Build developer conference today with a promise of making Windows a trusted platform for development. As the company continues to focus on performance and reliability fixes for Windows 11, it's also creating a developer-optimized experience that bundles a lot of useful tools and apps and embraces Linux even further. "We [...]

If you're looking for a way to add a personal touch to Father's Day or graduation gifts, the Cricut Joy 2 can help you customize everything from water bottles and bookmarks to greeting cards and gift cards. The Cricut Joy 2 Rainbow Essential Bundle includes enough vinyl, cardstock, iron-on materials, and other supplies to create [...]

Microsoft's annual developer conference is kicking off on June 2nd in San Francisco with the keynote presentation streaming live at 12:30PM ET / 9:30AM PT, and we will be following along here with everything as it's announced. The Verge's Tom Warren reports that we can expect to hear about new AI models and agentic OpenClaw-like [...]

Ableton already has Max for Live, which allows users to build MIDI effects, synths, and samplers for its digital audio workstation (DAW). But now with its Extensions SDK, features can be added to Ableton Live with common JavaScript. Where Max is largely limited to MIDI and audio processing, Extensions can touch almost any part of [...]

After expanding its offerings to video with the CS-8 inspired by Kodak and Canon's retro Super 8mm film cameras, Camp Snap is returning to its roots. The Camp Snap 2 is a sequel to the company's first screenless digital point-and-shoot camera that updates the original with a slimmer design, faster performance, filters available right out [...]

When Lego announced its tech-packed Smart Bricks at CES, we were impressed by the potential - enough to give it our Best in Show award. But when the first Star Wars sets actually launched in March, we were less enamored. All that promise of clever interaction and creative play ultimately boiled down to a few [...]

Thermacell has launched Liv 2.0, the next generation of its Wi-Fi-connected smart mosquito protection system. It features new hardware and can cover a larger area, and Thermacell says its formula can now deter no-see-ums. But it's also more expensive and requires professional installation. Liv 2.0 uses the same setup as the original Liv - a [...]

Amazon bucked its usual tradition of having Prime Day in July. Prime Day 2026 is happening in June, kicking off in just a few weeks. Prime members will get access to many deals starting June 23rd at 3:01AM ET through June 27th at 3:01AM ET. As with Amazon's previous events, you don't need to be [...]

According to every product demo from the last four years, planning a trip is a killer use case for AI. Just tell it where you're going, they all promise, and your chatbot / agent / other buzzword will exhaustively search travel options, read up on all the fun things to do, check all the local [...]

A unicorn Beanie Baby. A 15-pound green bowling ball. A pair of dentures. These are just some of the items left behind in robotaxis in the past year, according to Uber's annual Lost and Found Index. For the first time, the company is expanding its annual of accounting of things forgotten in Uber vehicles to [...]

Microsoft is kicking off its yearly Build developer conference in San Francisco today, sandwiched between the recent Google I/O and Apple's upcoming WWDC event. While tickets to attend Build in person are sold out, the conference is being streamed for free online, with CEO Satya Nadella opening with a keynote at 12:30PM ET / 9:30AM [...]

We may just have gotten an early look at the Google Pixel Watch 5 - and from an unusual source. Randy Pitchford, the creator of the Borderlands game franchise, posted a pair of images of a watch on X, saying that his friend found it underwater while scuba diving near Saint Martin, as reported earlier [...]

If you're planning to travel this summer, both a Bluetooth tracker and a personal safety device can come in handy, especially if you'll be exploring on your own. The Pebblebee Halo combines those two gadgets into one, and it's currently on sale for $49.99 ($10 off) at Amazon, which is the best price we've seen. [...]

Nvidia's announcement that it's getting into the consumer laptop chip space with RTX Spark is huge. Apple has proved for years that Arm-based chips can perform incredibly well while also delivering great battery life - at least on the Mac. In the Windows world, performance hasn't fully matched up under Qualcomm chips, mostly in the [...]

Google's new "24/7" AI agent, Gemini Spark, can be shockingly good at doing things on your behalf. But I'm not sure it's worth the financial cost and potential privacy tradeoffs. The company gave me access to Spark last week. Google advertises Spark as an AI agent that can take on tasks and work on them [...]

Meta's AI support chatbot helped hackers hijack Instagram accounts, as reported earlier by 404 Media. In a video shared on Telegram, a hacker shows how they could take over an account by asking Meta's chatbot to switch the email associated with someone else's profile and then reset the password. The issue, which Meta says has [...]

Some news: The Vergecast is now a daily podcast! Starting today, we'll be posting every weekday, with even more gadgets and rankings and conversations and feelings and podcasts-within-podcasts. We're excited for all the ways this new schedule lets us tell new kinds of stories, experiment with new tech and new formats, and involve you even [...]

After months of speculation about whether OpenAI or Anthropic would be first in their race to IPO, Anthropic on Monday reached a key milestone: filing to kick off the process with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing sets the stage for what's sure to be a massive IPO. As of its fundraise last [...]

Sony is sharing new details about some of its upcoming gaming-focused hardware, including pricing and August launch dates for its FlexStrike fight stick and its 27-inch monitor. The FlexStrike fight stick will be available starting August 6th - the same day as the new PlayStation-published fighting game Marvel Tkon: Fighting Souls - and will cost [...]