The Verge

The moment the white smoke appeared above the Sistine Chapel, I immediately turned on my television, because I wanted to see who the new pope would be, and then hopped on social media, because I knew that the internet could tell me more about the new pope faster than television could. That, and the memes [...]

Netflix is removing the last two shows listed on its Interactive Specials page: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend, reports What's on Netflix. The two specials will be pulled on May 12th, 2025, according to the publication, so if you want to watch them, you'll want to catch them soon. [...]

When Adam Mosseri took over Meta-owned Instagram as CEO in 2018, the app was experiencing what he'd later call "concerning" drops and plateaus in user engagement, thanks partly to fierce competition from a new app: TikTok. Instagram estimated in 2019 that 23 percent of the decline in time spent on Instagram in the US was [...]

Alex Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of the collapsed cryptocurrency lending firm Celsius, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for fraud that led to billions in losses," the Department of Justice announced on Thursday. Celsius, which held $25 billion in assets at its peak, abruptly halted withdrawals and transfers during a broader [...]

Apple is launching a new global Viral Chart playlist in Apple Music that consists of tracks people are discovering through the company's Shazam service. The playlist, which is updated daily, shows the top 50 songs people have heard playing out in the real world and have logged through Shazam. You can see charts on Shazam's [...]

Razer has announced three new products today, including an alternative to wireless headphones called the Clio that's designed to attach to your gaming chair and double as a head cushion. Powered by a 5,400mAh battery that Razer says is good for up to 14 hours of use, the Clio uses adjustable straps to attach to [...]

The US government is bringing up Starlink adoption in the midst of tariff trade talks with other countries, according to a report from The Washington Post. In recent weeks, several countries have moved forward with licensing the Elon Musk-owned satellite internet company, including India, Somalia, Lesotho, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam. [...]

The Senate has voted to end a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule that used federal funding to cover Wi-Fi hotspots that could be used outside of school and libraries. The program, first implemented by former FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, applied funds from the $2.6 billion federal E-Rate program to a program that enabled schools and [...]

If you've been harboring complaints about Ticketmaster, now's the time to let it all out. The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are inviting the public to submit comments about harmful practices in live ticketing as part of efforts to identify unfair and anticompetitive" behavior in the industry. In March, President Donald Trump [...]

We live in a golden age of controllers. The gamepads on the market now are of higher quality, more versatile, and more customizable than anything from even one console generation ago. If you play games on an Xbox Series X or Series S (or a Windows PC), you have the unenviable task of choosing between [...]

Ecobee has announced an update to its Smart Doorbell Camera that finally adds integration with Google's Home app and smart displays. The company's video doorbell debuted with support for both Apple Home and Amazon Alexa when it launched in late 2023, but integration with Google's smart home ecosystem was promised as a future update arriving [...]

Apple has made progress" on a chip for potential smart glasses that would be competitors to the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, according to Bloomberg. The chip is apparently based on the chips Apple uses for the Apple Watch, though the company has removed parts and is being designed in such a way that it can [...]

If you're tired of spending your weekends cleaning, you might want to check out today's deal on Roborock's S8 MaxV Ultra. It'll take care of the vacuuming and mopping for you so you can reclaim your free time, and is currently available at an all-time low price of $999.99 ($800 off) from Amazon, Best Buy, [...]

The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, the new LOTR movie that will feature Andy Serkis as both its star and director, will premiere in theaters on December 17th, 2027, Deadline reports. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens, who were all key to the original film trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy, will [...]

A federal judge in Florida dismissed most claims against athletes, actors, YouTubers, and other celebrities who endorsed Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto exchange, ruling that there isn't sufficient proof that they knew about FTX or Bankman-Fried's fraudulent acts. The high-profile defendants, sued by a group of FTX investors, include Tom Brady and his ex-wife, the model Gisele [...]

The long-awaited antitrust trial between Meta and the Federal Trade Commission kicked off on April 14th. Over about two months, DC District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg is hearing arguments about whether then-Facebook illegally monopolized the market for personal social networking services" through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The FTC first brought the case [...]

Kickstarter's new Pledge Manager, featuring tools that "simplify logistics and fulfillment" after funds have been successfully raised, is now available to all creators. It was first announced last February as part of a sneak peek at Kickstarter's 2025 Product Roadmap. Initially only available through the platform's beta program, the Pledge Manager includes Kickstarter's new Tariff [...]

Instagram boss Adam Mosseri is on the stand today in Meta's antitrust trial. In trying to prove the social network is not a monopoly, he shared that the Threads app could have been just a feature inside of Instagram. Meta was working on built-in Threads features for Instagram first to compete with Twitter, which pioneered [...]

OpenAI has hired Fidji Simo, the CEO of Instacart and former Facebook app chief, as the head of the company's apps business. In a post on X, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says introducing the new role will allow him to focus on research, compute, and safety." After joining Facebook in 2011, the company appointed Simo [...]

The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation is challenging the United Kingdom's online safety rules in court over concerns they may enable vandalism, disinformation, or abuse" to go unchecked on its Wikipedia platform. Wikimedia announced on Thursday that its legal challenge specifically targets the Online Safety Act's (OSA) categorization regulations, which the foundation says are written broadly enough [...]

The Old Guard was one of Netflix's more memorable action flicks, and if the first trailer is anything to go on, the same will be true of its sequel. The streamer just released the first proper look at The Old Guard 2, which continues to follow Andromache (Charlize Theron) as the leader of a squad [...]

Apple asked a judge to halt an order forcing it to give up control over App Store payments while it appeals the decision. In a filing on Wednesday, Apple says the order contains extraordinary intrusions" that could result in grave irreparable harm" to the company. Last week, California District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers found [...]

Today, I'm talking with Paul Bascobert, who is the president of Reuters, the news and information service you have undoubtedly heard of. This is part of a special Thursday series we're running this month to explore how leaders at some of the world's biggest companies make decisions in such a rapidly changing environment. You know, [...]

Bill Gates took aim at President Donald Trump and Elon Musk during an interview with The New York Times, saying funding cuts to USAID will cause childhood deaths to increase. On childhood deaths, which over the next few years should have gone from five million to four million - now, unless there's a big reversal, [...]

Following companies like Amazon and Spotify, the Delta emulator is the latest iOS app to take advantage of last month's ruling by Epic Games v. Apple judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. Although it has appealed the decision, Apple has complied with the ruling that it can no longer restrict developers from directing users to alternate payment [...]

Peloton said it's not sweating tariffs in its Q3 2025 earnings today, noting it is predominantly a subscription business" while acknowledging that macroeconomic uncertainty could impact demand for its pricey bikes and treadmills. During the period of GDP decline between 2008 and 2009, external data showed that us spend[ing] on fitness continued to grow, and [...]

Ever since Google introduced the "Audio Overviews" feature into its NotebookLM research tool, I have been experimenting with feeding it bodies of text that I did not want to sit and read: stereo instructions, Wikipedia rabbit holes, my Q1 performance review, etc. With this AI tool, two uncanny valley robot voices are generated to "dive [...]

The ongoing lawsuit between Nintendo and Palworld developer Pocketpair has forced the studio to make some changes to its Pokemon-like game. In a new blog post, Pocketpair explained that a patch in November removed certain gameplay features, and that an upcoming update will cull even more. We have had to make certain compromises in order [...]

It's a scorching afternoon in August 2024, with temps hovering at 101 degrees. I'm flat on my back, sweating under a 1970s Land Rover, trying to rescue a Segway Navimow. It turns out that the first rule of using a robot lawnmower is "don't let anyone park on your lawn." Robot lawnmowers have been around [...]

Alienware is introducing a pair of new, more affordable gaming laptops: the Aurora 16 and 16X, starting at $1,149 and $1,949, respectively. Unlike the flagship Area-51 laptops announced back at CES, the Auroras are meant to be a little more versatile, portable, and comfortable for general laptop use. They replace the older Alienware M, X, [...]

When covid-19 lockdowns swept across India in 2020, they brought religious life to a halt. Temples were shuttered, large gatherings banned, and in-person rituals suspended - many for the first time in living memory. Millions of devotees were suddenly cut off from their usual spiritual routines, from daily temple visits and bhajans (community singing sessions) [...]

Eligible Apple customers can now apply for their share of a $95 million Siri snooping payout. A website has been set up to distribute the funds, allowing Apple device owners in the US who experienced an unintended Siri activation during private conversations between September 17th, 2014, and December 31st, 2024, to submit a claim. The [...]

Tesla has officially scrapped the range extender accessory it was making for Cybertrucks. In emails seen by Electrek, Tesla confirmed to Cybertruck owners that it's no longer planning to sell" the $16,000 battery pack, and that it would be issuing full refunds for the $2,000 deposit put down by customers. The range extender would have [...]

Lenovo is announcing a new 10th-generation Legion 9i gaming laptop coming soon to China and scheduled for the fall in North America. The 18-inch behemoth is packed with top-end specs, including the option for a 4K-capable 2D / 3D screen, Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU, Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX CPU, up to 192GB of RAM, [...]

Nintendo has forecast global sales of 15 million Switch 2 consoles by the end of March 2026,which would be roughly comparable to the original Switch's first year on sale, despite retailing for a much higher price. The company suffered an expected slump in both hardware and software sales this year, according to its latest earnings [...]

Samsung will formally unveil the Galaxy S25 Edge during a virtual Unpacked event on Monday, May 12th at 8PM ET. This answers at least one of our many questions about Samsung's upcoming slim phone which the company teased back in January. A blog post published with today's announcement reveals another tidbit or two, but for [...]

Microsoft's Bing or DuckDuckGo probably won't disrupt Google's dominance in search, said Apple senior vice president of services Eddy Cue - but AI services easily could. Cue was returning to a courtroom in Washington, DC where he last testified in the Justice Department's trial against Google's search monopoly in September 2023. During the current remedies [...]

Running out of time but still want to impress Mom this Mother's Day? Don't panic - there's still time to grab a gift that ships fast and won't scream last-minute." Whether you're after something to make her life easier or something to help her unwind, we've rounded up the best gadgets and goodies to do [...]

The Trump administration is moving to shut down the Energy Star program, which saves homeowners an average of $450 a year. If you wanted to raise families' energy bills, getting rid of the Energy Star label would be a pretty good way," says Steven Nadel of the American Council for Energy Efficiency. The program, which [...]

Google has announced a dedicated iPadOS version of the Gemini app. Previously, you could only run the iOS version of Gemini in compatibility mode on an iPad. Here's some of the announcement, which Google spokesperson Elijah Lawal emailed to The Verge: With the new app, you can use the split view on the iPad to [...]

The old Reddit layout sometimes looks a bit outdated, but it's beloved by many Reddit users, including me. I've worried for some time that Reddit would eventually pull the plug on it in favor of the newer and more modern interface, but based on a recent post from Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, it doesn't sound [...]

Sony will launch a successor to its WH-1000XM5 noise cancelling headphones on May 15th, according to leaked information reported by Dealabs and Android Authority. Details of the new headphones model, called the WH-1000XM6, come from a now pulled Amazon Spain listing for the product that was first spotted by a Reddit user. The XM6 will [...]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has lost its appeal of a ruling in its case against Microsoft's $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. In 2023, the FTC requested a preliminary injunction to prevent the companies from finalizing the deal while its legal challenge to the acquisition from 2022 was in progress. With control of Activision's [...]

A second trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI had a surprise drop this week, and it looked like it mostly focused on the story and world at the expense of gameplay. However, developer Rockstar Games says that isn't actually the case, and that the trailer was comprised of equal parts gameplay and cutscenes." The fact [...]

Android's new design language looks extremely... Gen Z. That much is obvious from the concept images in the leaked blog post that surfaced today (published by Google, as it tends to do). While the theme is customizable, Google highlighted pink, purple, and coral throughout the interface. It's a decidedly younger, bubblier, and more fun design [...]

Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of services, gave an ominous warning today that the iPhone could go the way of the iPod 10 years from now. And the reason, as one might guess, is artificial intelligence. Cue's remarks came during the Google Search antitrust remedies trial today while discussing how AI has the potential [...]

Mitsubishi will launch a new electric vehicle in North America next summer that's based on Nissan's upcoming third-generation Leaf. The new EV, which will be Mitsubishi's second-ever in the US after the pioneering i-MiEV, is part of the company's Momentum 2030" growth plan where it will launch a new or significantly revised vehicle every year [...]

The District of Columbia and 17 states - including New York, Arizona, Massachusetts, California, Colorado, and Illinois -sued the Trump administration Monday over its attempts to stop wind energy developments across the US. The states argue that by signing a presidential memorandum on his first day in office that halted federal approvals for wind energy [...]

Google searches fell in Safari for the first time ever last month, Apple's senior vice president of services, Eddy Cue, said during Google's antitrust trial on Wednesday. "That has never happened in 22 years," Cue added. Cue linked the dip in searches to the growing use of AI, which the company is now considering putting [...]