The Verge

On Wednesday evening, OpenAI launched an App Directory to browse all the tools currently available and opened its SDK for developers to build new interactive experiences that operate within the bot's UI. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said last month that "We are planning to build the obvious features that you would expect for a robust [...]

In July, Sony sued Tencent to prevent the release of Light of Motiram, a game Sony alleged was a "slavish clone" of its popular Horizon series. But the legal battle is already over; the two companies have reached a "confidential settlement" and the case has been dismissed with prejudice, according to a court document filed [...]

Dolby Atmos FlexConnect technology debuted this year with the TCL Z100 speakers, and now we're getting our first FlexConnect soundbar thanks to LG. The new H7 soundbar - which runs on the same Alpha 11 Gen 3 chip as LG's OLEDs and new Micro RGB LED - is a part of the LG Sound Suite, [...]

Snap just launched a new Quick Cut video editing tool right inside Snapchat that "helps Snapchatters turn their favorite Memories into beat-synced, ready-to-share videos in seconds." With Quick Cut, you can select multiple photos or clips and then "instantly preview a rendered video," and the feature is accessible from multiple places in the app, including [...]

Your mom deserves the best, and we're going to help you get them something special. The right gift can make family or friend time more valuable, after all, or it can greatly enrich time spent alone. If your mom says that she has all that she needs, don't take her word for it and show [...]

The Senate confirmed Jared Isaacman's appointment as the head of NASA on Wednesday, a decision that comes just months after President Donald Trump pulled his nomination before picking him yet again in November, as reported earlier by CNBC. Isaacman, the founder and CEO of a payments platform called Shift4, has flown to space twice through [...]

A defiant Brendan Carr testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday in his first public appearance before lawmakers since threatening broadcasters who aired comedian Jimmy Kimmel's show. Over the course of nearly three hours, the Federal Communications Commission chairman ping-ponged between heated exchanges with Democrats and largely muted questions from Republicans. But at least [...]

Meta has "paused" its program to license its VR operating system to other hardware companies so they could build their own headsets using the platform, as reported by Road to VR . With the program, announced in April 2024, Meta announced that it would be licensing the Quest OS headset - which, at the same [...]

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) fired off a letter on Tuesday to Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and several major data center developers to investigate the impact they're having on Americans' utility bills. The move comes as rising electricity rates became an increasingly hot-button issue in the US, which [...]

If you're looking for a gadget to get as a last-minute Christmas gift, we've got your back. The Beats Solo 4 are among the best on-ear headphones we've tested in the last year or two, and they're currently down to a new low of $79 ($120 off) in select colors at Walmart. If you prefer [...]

Amazon's head of artificial general intelligence (AGI), Rohit Prasad, is leaving the company next year as it reaches an "inflection point" in its development of the technology, CEO Andy Jassy announced on Wednesday. As part of the change, Peter DeSantis, a senior vice president at Amazon Web Services, will helm a new division focused on [...]

Spending on video game hardware during November totalled $695 million, a drop of 27 percent compared to last year, according to market analyst company Circana, "This is the lowest video game hardware spending total for a November month since the $455M reached during the November 2005 tracking period," Circana says. In addition, 1.6 million units [...]

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, there [...]

Sexual fetish content. How to light a match. Where to find knives in the home. These are all conversation topics that recently-recalled children's toys - built atop AI chatbots like OpenAI's GPT-4o - are capable of bringing up to children. On Tuesday, U.S. senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent a letter to [...]

The Oscars are headed to YouTube - in a few years. "Beginning in 2029, the Oscars will broadcast exclusively on YouTube for free globally and on YouTube TV in the U.S.," YouTube announced. YouTube's coverage will include the red carpet, behind the scenes content, and Governors Ball access. The deal runs through 2033, according to [...]

As we tuck into Fallout season 2, eager to see Amazon bring New Vegas to life, there's one person who stands out - and not just because of his power armor. Knight Maximus of the Brotherhood of Steel is the most important of Fallout's three main characters, and I'm glad the new season is finally [...]

Tesla and other automakers working on Level 2 and higher driving systems would be required to restrict their vehicles to specific road types or clearly defined operational domains under a new bill introduced today by Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey (D). Operational design domains, or ODDs, are a set of conditions, either geographic or weather-related, in [...]

Tech billionaires have been obsessed with space for a long time. Now, as the largest AI companies race to build more data centers in a frenzied pursuit of profitability, space is looking less like a pet project and more like a commercial opportunity. In 2025 alone, six proposals for giant AI data centers needing multiple [...]

A new Monday Night Football broadcast will offer an alternate telecast that presents the game live from the All-22 camera angle that shows the entire field, coupled with on-screen analytics and commentary. It's called MNF Playbook with Next Gen Stats, and it premieres next week. To develop the show, ESPN partnered with sports data analytics [...]

Mercedes-Benz sent out a notice to customers recently announcing its plans to discontinue MBUX Sound Drive, an interactive audio feature that syncs music to the car's actions. The feature was first announced less than a year ago at CES in partnership with Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am. Notices went out recently to customers that MBUX [...]

Smartphones with secondary screens on the back aren't a new idea. Most recently the Xiaomi 17 series launched in September with a smaller rear display and while the company suggests using it for widgets or gaming, the most practical use is as a way to frame selfies captured with the phone's superior rear cameras. The [...]

Though Paramount Skydance was trying to buy Warner Bros. Discovery for much more money than Netflix is offering, David Zaslav and the rest of WBD's board are urging their shareholders to give Oracle scion David Ellison the cold shoulder. Today, WBD's board announced that it has unanimously decided that its shareholders would be much better [...]

Google is upgrading its Gemini app with Gemini 3 Flash, a more efficient version of its flagship AI model that's still capable of fielding complex requests. The new model will replace Gemini 2.5 Flash as the default inside the Gemini app, and it's headed to Google Search, too. Its arrival comes one month after the [...]

AI created as much carbon pollution this year as New York City and guzzled up as much H20 as people consume globally in water bottles, according to new estimates. The study paints what's likely a pretty conservative picture of AI's environmental impact since it's based on the relatively limited amount of data that's currently available [...]

Peacock has found a new place to stuff ads. Starting next year, the streaming service will greet you with an ad alongside your profile icon on the "Who's watching?" screen when you open the app. During a press briefing, Peacock parent company NBCUniversal showed off how these "arrival ads" might look. One image shows your [...]

Small robot vacuums that fit into tight spaces rarely deliver strong performance, which is what makes the SwitchBot K11 Plus stand out. And right now, you can purchase the compact yet capable robovac from Amazon and SwitchBot for a new low of $179.99 ($220 off), the latter with code XMAS2GIFT55. Just note that only Switchbot [...]

In all the chaos of 2025, The Verge was able to see through the fog and focus on the consumer technology that really made an impact this year: robot vacuums, thin foldable phones, experimental laptops, handheld gaming consoles, and of course, generative AI. You can watch our standout picks in our video here. All this [...]

Years often go by between new seasons of big streaming shows - just ask fans of Severance or Stranger Things - but with Fallout the wait hasn't been so bad. The first season was a welcome surprise when it started streaming last April, managing to capture the series' distinctly playful take on the end of [...]

The World Cup is happening next year, and Netflix and FIFA are working on a new soccer simulation game in celebration of the tournament. "This summer, when the world gathers to celebrate the FIFA World Cup 2026, fans can play a newly reimagined FIFA football simulation game exclusively on Netflix Games," Netflix says. The new [...]

The OnePlus 15R's battery life is exceptional. It's a smidge better than the very impressive OnePlus 15's, and the 15R costs two hundred dollars less. So why am I having a hard time recommending it? Typically, OnePlus' R-series phone is a simplified, less-expensive follow-up to the main flagship - in this case, the OnePlus 15. [...]

Rad Power Bikes, the once dominant electric bicycle brand in the US, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week as it seeks to sell of its company. The move comes less than a month after Rad Power said it could not afford to recall its older e-bike batteries that had been designated a fire [...]

From pervasive layoffs to continued price hikes, things didn't go so well for Xbox in 2025. But even though Game Pass, the Xbox subscription service, isn't quite the deal it once was, there are still a lot of excellent titles to check out. This was an especially good year for indie titles, with breakout hits [...]

Apple's streaming service got a new name this year - it dropped the "plus" and is now just Apple TV - but its actual programming didn't change all that much. And that's good news for sci-fi fans, as the service continued to cement itself as the preeminent destination for the genre in the streaming era. [...]

Disney Plus and Hulu had an eventful year. Not only did the streaming services release a swath of exciting original shows and new seasons, but they're also in the midst of a transformation that will further integrate Hulu with Disney Plus. The "unified" app experience will have a revamped interface that's supposed to make it [...]

Years from now, I'll look back at 2025 as the year when a fundamental shift happened in wearable technology. Over the last decade, the category has been synonymous with health and fitness. In many ways, that association is still the primary one. But this year, I've seen an increasing number of tech companies pitch another [...]

Tesla could be temporarily locked out of its biggest US market if it doesn't change deceptive marketing that exaggerates the self-driving capabilities of its cars, the California Department of Motor Vehicles warned on Tuesday, adopting the ruling of an administrative law judge. The DMV said Tesla's use of terms like "Autopilot" and "Full Self-Driving" to [...]

Elon Musk, a billionaire who decimated the United States federal workforce using the Department of Government Efficiency, is not remembered fondly by the most powerful woman in Washington: Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff and the gatekeeper to President Donald Trump. In several on-the-record interviews with Vanity Fair's Chris Whipple conducted over the past [...]

Days after a rumor circulated that home arcade machine maker Arcade1Up would be shutting down, the company has finally shared a statement about its future. "Select assets" from Arcade1Up have been acquired by toy company Basic Fun, and although Arcade1Up isn't dead, what's next for the brand is still a little murky. Last week, a [...]

Hello and welcome to 2025's last issue of Regulator. If you're not a Verge subscriber, get off the 2026 naughty list by signing up here. And if you're a Verge subscriber - well, dang, that's really nice of you. Last week, I appeared on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC to talk about my reporting [...]

The Alexa.com website appears to be live for some users. The browser-based home for Alexa Plus, the company's revamped digital voice assistant, was first announced at the Alexa Plus launch event in February. But until recently, Alexa.com redirected to an information page. Now, some users, myself included, are seeing a new Alexa Plus web interface. [...]

Following the release of the 115-inch Micro RGB TV back in August, Samsung has revealed today that its Micro RGB technology will extend into smaller sizes ranging from that 115-inch behemoth all the way down to 55 inches. While we all enjoy dreaming big, it's far more reasonable for most of us to consider putting [...]

X Corp. is suing Operation Bluebird, a recently-announced startup that aims to reclaim the Twitter brand for a new social network. In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, the Elon Musk-owned company alleges Operation Bluebird is "brazenly attempting to steal" Twitter's trademarks, claiming "Twitter never left and continues to be exclusively owned by X Corp." Last [...]

The Office of the US Trade Representative posted on X Tuesday, claiming that US service providers have been hit by "a continuing course of discriminatory and harassing lawsuits, taxes, fines, and directives" from the EU. Earlier this month, X was fined $140 million under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), in addition to new laws, [...]

The Android ecosystem is all about choice. While iPhone owners have a smaller pool of new devices to pick from when it's time to upgrade, there's a wider range of choices on Android. Some Android phones even fold in half! Imagine. On the flip side, all that choice can make for some hard decisions. Here's [...]

Any ebook reader will let you cram a Beauty and the Beast-sized library's worth of books in your pocket, but so will your phone. An ebook reader offers a more book-like reading experience, with fewer distractions and less eye strain, and many include extra features, like adjustable frontlighting. Some really are pocketable. Others are waterproof [...]

On December 9th, Rolling Stone published a story that some saw as a bombshell: a network of coordinated, "inauthentic" social media accounts had a hand in the weekslong discourse that trailed the release of Taylor Swift's recent album, The Life of a Showgirl. It was a big deal for those in the Swiftie/anti-Swiftie universe. Immediately [...]

The CEO of Baldur's Gate 3 studio Larian has inadvertently stirred up some controversy over the use of AI in the developer's next game. Based on an interview with Larian CEO Swen Vincke, Bloomberg reported that the studio uses AI tools for things like developing concept art and writing placeholder text. But following some initial [...]

Hollyland, a company best known for affordable wireless microphones that are popular with creators, has announced its first webcam, the small 4K Lyra. While it lacks advanced features like the Insta360 Link's tracking gimbal, it's one of the first webcams we've seen that's designed to improve how you sound by connecting directly to one of [...]