The Verge

For years, we've heard rumors of a new home hub device from Apple, meant to take on smart home devices like the Google Nest Hub Mini and Amazon's Echo Show. Besides "HomePod with a screen," details have been sparse. But now, a new report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman sheds some light on the alleged device, [...]

Despite what influencers may say, you don't need to spend $99.99 on Dyson's HushJet Mini Cool or $149.99 for the Shark ChillPill to survive the summer whenever you leave the comfort of air-conditioning. My family has found all the comfort it needs to survive humid baseball games, sweltering concerts, and sweaty hikes with a couple [...]

Following the original's debut at CES earlier this year, Twelve South is introducing a new version of its leather-wrapped Valet charging tray designed for use in places where space is at a premium. While the original Valet was 7.5-inches deep and large enough to serve as a catchall for a couple of items like your [...]

Logitech's new gaming boss, Robin Piispanen, tells me he likes the idea of gaming handhelds. "It's such a charming value proposition," he says, as we sip iced vanilla lattes at my local cafe. But he's not building one right now. He's not sure when or if Logitech should try again, after its underwhelming experiment with [...]

Perplexity has expanded its agentic Personal Computer tool to Windows, allowing computers running the world's most popular OS to be used as a locally run AI system. Like the Mac version that Perplexity launched in April, Personal Computer for Windows operates like a "general-purpose digital worker" that can access local files and apps to perform [...]

Apple has officially introduced "Apple Upgrade," a new leasing program that aims to make it easier to get your hands on the latest iPhone, Mac, iPad, and Apple Watch models. The service is launching today in the US, and works like a car lease - allowing users to keep a device at the end of [...]

Over the last few months, I've spent a lot of time talking to my computer. One underrated feature of the LLM revolution has been a remarkable leap in all kinds of dictation technology - even the fastest, cheapest models are getting very good at understanding and processing speech. I've tested lots of these apps, from [...]

Hugging Face is being used to make nonconsensual deepfakes, and the popular open-source AI model repository is doing very little to prevent it. That's according to a new report published by the European nonprofit AI Forensics, which found that seven out of the top nine image editing models hosted by Hugging Face readily complied with [...]

X Money, a core part of Elon Musk's mission to turn X into an "everything app," is rolling out starting today, 9to5Mac reports. The payment platform offers a digital wallet and peer-to-peer payments similar to Venmo, along with a metal Visa card users can emblazon with their X username. Other perks include Apple Wallet support [...]

Gaming keyboards have evolved over the years to add RGB LEDs, extra knobs, and buttons with screens, but one feature has remained fairly consistent: the mechanical switch. That's slowly changing, with brands introducing adjustable optical switches that are more customizable and have a faster response time. Razer's Huntsman V3 Pro TKL is a compact, wired [...]

An extended Xbox outage that began Sunday evening didn't just cause issues for people trying to play digital games - it blocked people from playing their disc-based games, too. Xbox's status page initially reported the outage on Sunday at about 11PM ET, and it also prevented people from logging in, launching apps, or finding games [...]

Nanoleaf's Blocks Combo XL Smarter Kit is a fun back-to-school buy that can add pops of customizable light and storage to your wall. It combines colorful smart lighting panels with a low-profile shelf and pegboard, and right now you can buy the kit for half off at $99.99 from Nanoleaf, which marks a new low [...]

Silicon Valley has spent much of the past week on red alert, digesting the arrival of Moonshot AI's Kimi K3, a Chinese AI model that can allegedly beat some of the best systems built by US companies at a fraction of the cost. Its performance alone would have been enough to intensify the rivalry between [...]

YouTube's ad-free Premium subscription is getting another perk: access to Peacock. In an announcement on Monday, NBCUniversal says the multi-year agreement will allow Premium subscribers to stream Peacock's ad-supported shows, movies, and live sports directly through the YouTube app in 2027. YouTube will bundle Peacock in its standard subscription, which increased to $15.99 / month [...]

Amazon filed an FCC application on Saturday to launch a new Leo satellite constellation that will provide direct-to-device satellite service for "voice, messaging, data, and emergency services." If approved, Amazon will begin deploying the new constellation of 5,105 satellites in 2028. It says it plans to partner with mobile network operators to offer direct-to-device satellite [...]

Framework laptops always come with compromises in exchange for their unique DIY premise. Even though you pay extra for one compared to sleeker options from competitors, it's easier to excuse minor flaws for modular ports, easy repairs, and an impressive range of upgradeable parts. So what happens when Framework goes "Pro"? We get a one-of-a-kind [...]

Today, I'm talking with Evan Smith, who is cofounder and CEO of Altana, a company that develops software tools to manage big, messy supply chain networks around the world. We last had Evan on in early 2025 to talk about how Trump's first few waves of tariffs were starting to affect global trade and what [...]

The cost of QD-OLED gaming monitors is going down, even as many other PC components are still soaring above their normal prices. If your budget is locked at $300, Samsung's 27-inch 1440p model costs exactly that much thanks to a recent $50 discount at Amazon. Finding a good QD-OLED monitor under $500 these days is [...]

San Diego Comic-Con took place over the weekend, and as per usual it was full of tidbits of news across film, TV, and gaming. Marvel revealed the next Ghost Rider (Ryan Gosling) and Black Panther (David Jonsson), while we also got release dates for God of War: Laufey (February 16th) and the fourth and final [...]

The China-based memory firm ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) had a massive first day on the Shanghai stock exchange after its shares surged 466 percent, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal and CNBC. The stock market frenzy boosted CXMT's valuation to $484 billion, making it the most valuable Chinese company listed on the exchange. [...]

Nvidia on Monday said it is joining forces with Microsoft, SpaceX, IBM, and other tech companies to build and share open-source AI security tools. The new Open Secure AI Alliance said open tools are required to effectively defend against attacks from frontier models. The initiative is a direct response to mounting concerns over the safety [...]

Across New York City, London, and Washington, DC, ads for Meta's smart glasses have been plastered over with satirical posters from activist groups. One guerrilla ad calls these "the biggest advancement in pervert technology since the trenchcoat." Another transposes the words "mass surveillance predator glasses" over influencer Kylie Jenner's face, calling her out for partnering [...]

There's something about a movie like The Room, Troll 2, or Fateful Findings that I find irresistible. These sorts of "so bad they're good" films are marvelous curiosities where ambition far outstrips resources, ability, and self-awareness to become something much greater than the sum of their parts. Champagne and Bullets (also released as GetEven and [...]

According to Mark Gurman, Apple is planning to reveal its first smart glasses at WWDC next June, with an expectation that they'll launch by the end of 2027. Part of the hold-up may be around the company's efforts to get its privacy features and messaging in order. Smart glasses in general, and Meta's in particular, [...]

The government is prosecuting US citizen Sam Tunick for allegedly providing authorities with a "duress password" that wiped his phone when they tried to seize it at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport on January 24th, 2025. Federal agents detained Tunick at the airport, allegedly questioning him about child exploitation images. However, a motion filed by Tunick's lawyers [...]

Mike Flanagan's latest Stephen King adaptation, Carrie (this will be his fourth), is slated to make its debut on Amazon Prime on October 7th. The new trailer dropped at Comic-Con 2026 and doesn't contain many surprises. If you're familiar with Carrie at all, it hits all the expected notes, though it's clearly been updated for [...]

Subscribing to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate on a recurring basis has been tough to justify recently, even after Microsoft reduced the monthly cost from $29.99 to $22.99. But you can get a better deal on a three-month subscription (valued at $69) by grabbing a digital code at Eneba that costs $39.01 at the time of [...]

While perhaps less dramatic than in years past, Marvel nonetheless had some big reveals lined up for Comic-Con. The highest profile was certainly the announcement that Ryan Gosling would be joining the MCU as Ghost Rider, with the Shawn Levy-directed (Deadpool & Wolverine) standalone feature set to drop sometime in 2028. The studio also brought [...]

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on all things vertical video, follow David Pierce. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started For a while, every social and media platform [...]

Google's vice president of devices and services, Shakil Barkat, all but confirmed in an interview with 9to5 Google that its next Pixel phone would cost more than the Pixel 10. Considering the ongoing RAM supply issues due to the explosion of AI data centers, the rumored price hike is not a complete surprise. Companies from [...]

Oli Freke is a musician and journalist whose works have appeared in Sound on Sound, The Quietus, and Mixmag. This has included using math to explore the melodic potential of the Western 12-tone scale and deep dives on effects plug-ins. He's even written a book tracing the evolution of the synthesizer from 1963 through 1995, [...]

With elements from synthesizers, loopers, and effects pedals, Teenage Engineering's devices lie somewhere between musical instrument and modern art. These grooveboxes, as they're often called, are capable of helping you produce songs in real time from a single unit, with an eye-catching design language. A wide swath of the brand's offerings are 30 percent off [...]

Warner Bros. Discovery has filed suit against Amazon, accusing it of illegally poaching employees, including Pia Barlow, former senior VP for originals marketing. In the complaint, Warner says that "Amazon has chosen to ride on the coattails of other well-established Hollywood mainstays," and that it engaged in a "lawless employee shopping spree." Deadline reports that [...]

Is an e-reader case as dangerous as a Glock 19? Last month, Louisville, Kentucky-based creator Luke The Maker showed off a bizarre, 3D-printed, pistol-shaped case design for the popular minimalist Xteink X4 e-reader. The X4 lies vertically atop the plastic gun's slide, with a cutout on the side to access its buttons. Though the frame [...]

What Surrounds Us takes its title literally. You play as a circle surrounding a hole in its middle - it looks like a donut with frosting. You work together with other sentient moving circles, sometimes helping them joyfully meet with others. And you traverse a large map that's composed entirely of, you guessed it, a [...]

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 137, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy phone season, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about Google Zero and armored cars for rich people, watching a [...]

Tech companies love to sell us expensive gadgets to solve all of life's little problems. Sleepbuds sold by the likes of Anker and Ozlo are a good example. These miniature marvels of engineering sit flush in the ear, and allow side-sleepers to doze off listening to podcasts, audiobooks, music, or white noise without annoying their [...]

Remember when Meta was planning to charge a $20 monthly subscription fee for the smart glasses feature that lets people hear each other more clearly - even though that feature runs locally on your glasses and doesn't require the cloud? Meta has paused those plans, spokesperson Tyler Yee confirms to The Verge. The company is [...]

Meta's smart glasses have been a PR headache for the company. Public backlash has been swift, and fierce; people are concerned about the erosion of privacy and expansion of surveillance. Some especially bad actors are using the glasses to film themselves "pranking" random strangers. Women have become unsuspecting social media content for men filming themselves [...]

Qualcomm sent a letter to customers on Friday warning of plans to increase its prices by "a percentage in the double digits," Bloomberg reports. The price hikes will go into effect starting with products shipped after September 1st. Qualcomm claims it has "exhausted its ability to absorb higher costs from suppliers," as ongoing component shortages [...]

Midjourney, which has gone from generating AI cat images to full-body ultrasound scans, is getting into a new field: astrology. The AI startup announced on Thursday that it has acquired the personalized astrology app Co-Star, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. Co-Star is a free app that offers daily horoscopes and allows you to check your [...]

After selling a barely disguised version of the hit DJI Osmo Pocket 3 in the United States last year, Xtra Technology seemed ready to sneak in its version of the new dual-lens Osmo Pocket 4 Pro, too. But today, Xtra has abruptly removed the new Xtra Muse 2 Pro from its website landing page, is [...]

In response to a report that Nothing is planning to "exit 12 markets as global shipments decline," Nothing cofounder Akis Evangelidis said the company is "reorganizing" and laying off some of its staff, but that "the reported numbers are way overblown." Evangelidis disputed a claim about underwhelming sales for Nothing's Phone 4B, saying it "sold [...]

Roku has increased prices across its streaming hardware, with the cheapest HD Streaming Stick now priced at $39.99 instead of $29.99, as first reported by The Desk. The price hike affects all of Roku's other devices as well, with some increasing by as much as $50. Here's a rundown of the changes: Roku is currently [...]

After teasing the series with some first-look images yesterday, Amazon is finally properly unveiling its Blade Runner streaming series. Called Blade Runner 2099, the show hits Prime Video on November 25th with all eight episodes dropping at once. We also got the first trailer for the series, which is full of Blade Runner staples: a [...]

The web and Google once had a deal: Google collects data and indexes webpages and in exchange sends oceans of traffic to websites. The deal wasn't perfect and certainly made Google more money than it made the websites, but it worked for a long time. Now, however, the deal seems to be dead. And the [...]

Weeks after Anthropic's latest toe-to-toe with the US government, and days after an OpenAI security incident that dominated tech industry discussions, Anthropic on Thursday released its newest model, Claude Opus 5. The company said in a release that Opus 5 "comes close to the capabilities of Claude Fable 5 in many domains" and is much [...]

Meta is upgrading its AI chatbot with new productivity features in a bid to compete with rivals like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude. The update will allow Meta AI to tap into your calendar to help you plan events and generate daily briefings, as well as perform in-depth research that you can steer as it progresses. [...]

Tesla's electronic door handles that have been linked to several deaths could lead to tougher safety rules for the entire auto industry. In a notice published today, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that complaints about Tesla's mechanical door release don't warrant a defect investigation. Instead, the issue is better addressed through a broader [...]

Most Chromebooks ship with only 8GB of RAM, which is enough for some people, but certainly not enough for me. Multitaskers who want more memory in their next Chromebook should check out Best Buy, which is discounting Acer's Chromebook Plus Spin 514 for the remainder of the day. Originally $749 for the configuration with 12GB [...]