The Verge

Several moments of my two-hour hands-on preview of Donkey Kong Bananza felt like I was playing the gritty 2009 action game Red Faction: Guerilla - except this time I was actually playing as a gorilla. For example, I had to level a multistory building during a timed minigame. Just like in Guerilla, I targeted the [...]

The Google graveyard has claimed another victim: the company has killed the Apple Watch version of its Keep app. While the note-taking app is still available for iPhone and iPad, the 2.2025.26200 Google Keep App Store update released on Monday has removed watchOS support, bringing the total number of Google apps for Apple Watch back [...]

On June 2nd, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy traveled to Newark Liberty International Airport to celebrate the reopening of runway 4L-22R. This was unusual: few runway openings are glamorous enough to warrant a visit from the airport's CEO, let alone a cabinet secretary. But as we reported last month, few airports have come to symbolize [...]

The major internet architecture provider Cloudflare will now block known AI web crawlers by default to prevent them from accessing content without permission or compensation," according to an announcement on Tuesday. With the change, Cloudflare will start asking new domain owners whether they want to allow AI scrapers, and will even let some publishers implement [...]

Tinder is trialing mandatory facial recognition security features in the US to verify profiles and crack down on impersonation and fake accounts. New users in California are now required to provide a biometric Face Check" scan to confirm their face matches their profile photos for the dating service, Axios reported on Monday. The Face Check [...]

Valve has added a new performance monitor to Steam that can help you understand why a game may or may not be running smoothly. Not only does it break out a game's overall frame rate, it can tell you how many of those frames were generated by techniques like Nvidia's DLSS or AMD's FSR, according [...]

AT&T believes its network wasn't at fault for a conference call where President Donald Trump accused the company of being totally unable to make their equipment work properly." Instead, AT&T is blaming an unnamed conference call platform." Earlier on Monday, President Donald Trump complained on Truth Social about apparent issues with AT&T's network during a [...]

Apple is considering enlisting the help of OpenAI or Anthropic to power its AI-upgraded Siri, according to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. As Apple continues to struggle with the development of an upgraded LLM Siri," it reportedly asked OpenAI and Anthropic to create versions of their large language models to test on the company's [...]

Finding a Nintendo Switch 2 hasn't been easy since its launch on June 5th, with sporadic availability over the past few weeks at various retailers. Luckily, if you've missed chances to pick one up, Best Buy will have more stock at its retail stores across the US starting tomorrow, July 1st. The Verge has reached [...]

The US Department of Justice notched an initial win in its antitrust case against Apple today, with a federal judge rejecting Apple's attempt to dismiss the lawsuit outright. The government's allegations are sufficient to demonstrate Apple's specific intent to monopolize the smartphone and performance smartphone market, Judge Julien Neals wrote in an opinion on Monday. [...]

Since it launched in November 2023, you could catch everything from rocket launches to documentaries about space on the NASA Plus streaming service. Starting this Summer, NASA Plus' live programming will also be available on Netflix, and continue to be ad-free. NASA Plus' live programming also includes astronaut spacewalks, mission coverage, and breathtaking live views [...]

In a memo to Meta staff, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the company's new Meta Superintelligence Labs" group that will head up its AI work, Bloomberg reports. Former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, who joined Meta as part of a multibillion dollar deal earlier this month, will head up the group as the company's chief AI [...]

A summer camping trip is the perfect excuse to stop staring at screens, but it doesn't mean you need to go completely off the grid. Jackery's Explorer 1000 Power Station V2 lets you charge your gadgets and have more fun while you're camping. For instance, you can plug in a projector, speakers, or a space [...]

Microsoft will soon no longer let you use its Authenticator app to store or autofill passwords. Starting in July, you won't be able to autofill saved passwords using Authenticator, and you'll have to use Microsoft Edge or another password management solution instead. Microsoft also plans on deleting your saved payment information in Authenticator this July [...]

Date Everything! isn't the dating sim it appears to be. Though the game's cutesy art style and lighthearted premise indicate an unserious game that's making yet another joke at the expense of the genre, Date Everything actually contains novel explorations of human relationships and sharp-as-shit political critique. Date Everything (the title technically includes an exclamation [...]

Kallie Plagge, The Verge's senior copy editor, has been working in the media for over 10 years now, mainly at gaming websites. She was primarily a video game critic for a lot of that time and was the reviews editor at GameSpot for about three years, before eventually becoming the senior copy editor at Polygon. [...]

The Insta360 Link 2 is more than just a webcam - it's a smart camera that actively follows your movements whether you're presenting, streaming, or pacing during a call. It's also packed with an impressive array of productivity features. And right now, it's available at a new all-time low of $149.99 ($50 off) at Amazon. [...]

After retreating from watchOS several years ago, Google now only offers a handful of apps for the Apple Watch. That list is expanding to four in total with the launch of a new Google Calendar app rolling out alongside the existing iPhone version, as spotted by 9to5Google. Apple's native calendar app on watchOS includes customization [...]

Automattic's plan to move Tumblr's backend over to WordPress is now on hold," Automattic founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg says in a Decoder episode published today. The company announced the plan to move over the more than half a billion blogs on Tumblr last year, saying that the change would make it easier to share [...]

Apple Music is celebrating the 10-year anniversary of its streaming service by giving users a throwback to their favorite hits over the last decade. Replay All Time" - a special version of Apple Music's annual Replay experience - is being launched for subscribers that allows them to view and listen to their most played songs [...]

Canada has scrapped its tax targeting Big Tech companies in the US after President Donald Trump threatened to cut off trade talks in response to the fee. On Sunday, the Canadian government announced that it will no longer implement the Digital Services Tax as it works to reach a trade deal with the US by [...]

It's been more than a decade since Apple unveiled the original version of CarPlay. In that time, the system has become indispensable for countless drivers all over the world. But while new iterations of iOS have introduced user interface tweaks and some additional customization features, its basic functionality hasn't advanced much since that announcement back [...]

Google announced a variety of new features for its Classroom software suite, including free Gemini AI tools for educators and NotebookLM for users under 18 -the first time the tool has been available to minors. Teachers with a Google Workspace account will have a new dedicated Gemini tab in their Google Classroom, offering tools that [...]

Anker has issued its second product recall so far this month, warning customers that five additional power bank models should stop being used immediately due to the risk of overheating, melting, smoke, or fire." While the likelihood of malfunction is considered minimal, out of an abundance of caution, we have decided to initiate a voluntary [...]

When Ela Darling began performing in porn at the tail end of the 2000s, tube sites like Pornhub were relatively new, and major studios like Vivid and Digital Playground still dominated the market. For performers, the job was straightforward: show up to set, turn in a good performance, and collect a check. Everything else - [...]

Joby Aviation is getting ready to take flight. The electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) company has delivered its first production aircraft to Dubai, where it plans to launch a commercial air taxi service in early 2026. Joby, which has successfully completed multiple flight tests with a pilot onboard, says it has begun in-market testing [...]

Serious security flaws have been found in hundreds of Brother printer models that could allow attackers to remotely access devices that are still using default passwords. Eight new vulnerabilities, one of which cannot be fixed by patching the firmware, were discovered in 689 kinds of Brother home and enterprise printers by security company Rapid7. The [...]

Spotify is adding new personalization features to Discover Weekly, the popular and influential playlist streamed by millions of users. The regularly updated playlist will now have buttons for genres like pop, R&B, and funk at the top, allowing users to tell Spotify what they want more of. The Discover Weekly playlist is one of the [...]

It has become almost impossible to browse the internet without having an AI-generated video thrust upon you. Open basically any social media platform, and it won't be long until an uncanny-looking clip of a fake natural disaster or animals doing impossible things slides across your screen. Most of the videos look absolutely terrible. But they're [...]

After nearly a decade of wearables testing, I've amassed a truly terrifying amount of health and fitness data. And while I enjoy poring over my daily data, there's one part I've come to loathe: AI summaries. Over the last two years, a deluge of AI-generated summaries has been sprinkled into every fitness, wellness, and wearable [...]

When I was a kid, there was a moment when it felt like everyone was obsessed with yo-yos. I never got better than just being able to make the yo-yo go up and down. But with Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo, I could pretend like I was halfway decent - all while playing a silly [...]

Over the years, Tesla has built part of its reputation on hosting big, bold events to generate authentic hype for upcoming releases. The robotaxi launch in Austin, Texas, last week wasn't one of them. Coverage of the rollout was dominated by a close-knit cohort of Tesla influencers and Elon Musk superfans, many of whom are [...]

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 88, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy heat dome, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about crypto crimes and egg thieves and Gap, watching Last Breath [...]

This might be a bigger deal than the robotaxis. Tesla said it completed its first fully autonomous vehicle delivery from factory to customer. A video posted on X shows the vehicle - a Tesla Model Y - leaving the company's Austin Gigafactory, driving on the highway, passing through suburban sprawl and residential neighborhoods, before arriving [...]

Age verification is perhaps the hottest battleground for online speech, and the Supreme Court just settled a pivotal question: does using it to gate adult content violate the First Amendment in the US? For roughly the past 20 years the answer has been "yes" - now, as of Friday, it's an unambiguous "no." Justice Clarence [...]

The third and final season of the industry-defining Squid Game confidently delivers each new round of the deathly games with spectacularly brutal aplomb - but its attempts at worldbuilding are disappointingly tired and uneven. Some of Squid Game's most interesting dynamics from the first two seasons - the politics among the masked guards, the organ-harvesting [...]

Kobo is discounting two of its best e-readers. The Kobo Elipsa 2E, a competitor to the Kindle Scribe, is available for an all-time low of $349.99 ($50 off) from Rakuten Kobo and Target. Meanwhile, the Kobo Libra Colour is available for $209.99 ($20 off) from Amazon, Target, and Rakuten Kobo. The sale runs through July [...]

Reddit has become known as the place to go for unfiltered answers from real, human users. But as the site celebrates its 20th anniversary this week, the company is increasingly thinking about how it can augment that human work with AI. The initial rollout of AI tools, like Reddit Answers, is "going really well," CTO [...]

Scorching hot days tend to hit certain neighborhoods harder than others, a problem that becomes more dangerous during record-breaking heat like swathes of the US experienced over the past week. A new online dashboard shows how Latino neighborhoods are disproportionately affected in California. Developed by University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), the tool helps fill [...]

In the past week, big AI companies have - in theory - chalked up two big legal wins. But things are not quite as straightforward as they may seem, and copyright law hasn't been this exciting since last month's showdown at the Library of Congress. First, Judge William Alsup ruled it was fair use for [...]

With the dawning of a new era of hybridization in the automotive industry, more and more manufacturers are integrating electric propulsion into their lineups. Mild-hybrid systems are well-established, and more beneficial plug-in hybrid systems keep getting better and better. Even Lamborghini's participating in the latest wave of hybridization, which might come as a surprise to [...]

For years, Meta trained its AI programs using the billions of public images uploaded by users onto Facebook and Instagram's servers. Now, it's also hoping to access the billions of images that users haven't uploaded to those servers. Meta tells The Verge that it's not currently training its AI models on those photos, but it [...]

Our water, health, and energy systems are increasingly vulnerable to cyberattack. Now, when tensions escalate - like when the US bombed nuclear facilities in Iran this month - the safety of these systems becomes of paramount concern. If conflict erupts, we can expect it to be a "hybrid" battle, Joshua Corman, executive in residence for [...]

Yesterday, reports from Forbes and CNBC said that Musk had fired Omead Afshar, who formerly led operations in North America and Europe and was a close confidant of Musk's. (Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal also reported that Afshar left the company, but did not say he was fired.) The firing follows a major slump [...]

If you're looking for a webcam that works with the Nintendo Switch 2's new GameChat mode that lets you video chat with friends and see their faces within games, it looks like the biggest brand in PC accessories is still your best bet. Logitech is the first webcam maker to confirm to The Verge that [...]

Earlier this month, I wrote about a leaked image of what was rumored to be the Nothing Phone 3. That image showed a design with a translucent back and three center-aligned cameras. But a new set of supposed Nothing Phone 3 images reveal a different design - with one of the wildest camera layouts I've [...]

Gaming laptops come in various shapes and sizes, though many of the heavy hitters remain thick and beefy machines that maximize cooling to get the most out of their powerful chips. Most are awash in RGB lighting and edgy designs geared towards capital-G Gamers, but there are also thinner, lighter options that are more portable [...]

So far, Runway is known for bringing generative AI to Hollywood. Now, the $3 billion startup is setting its sights on the gaming industry. This week, I was granted access to a new interactive gaming experience that Runway plans to make available to everyone as soon as next week, according to CEO Cristobal Valenzuela. The [...]