The Verge

China has launched an antitrust investigation into Google as part of a salvo of responses to US tariff increases, including its own retaliatory tariffs and export controls. China's State Administration for Market Regulation announced the Google probe on Tuesday over suspicions the US search giant has violated Chinese antimonopoly laws, according to a machine translation [...]

Thankfully, the new teaser for Marvel's Fantastic Four: First Steps doesn't spoil all that much of the film, but it does give you a sense of just how big a problem Galactus is going to be for the MCU. Rather than rehashing the details of how Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Sue's [...]

After almost exactly 18 years, you could make the argument that the tech industry has finally finished what the iPhone started. Itas not that thereas no innovation left in phones, or that there arenat other big ideas to be had about the devices we carry around, but the specific thing the first iPhone was a [...]

Food delivery company Grubhub has confirmed that it suffered a security breach, with user, driver, and merchant data compromised, including hashed passwords and partial credit card details. Grubhub says that it noticed unusual activity" that it traced back to an account used by a third-party service provider for its customer support team. The account's access [...]

As the third week of Donald Trumpas presidency begins, workers across federal agencies are scrambling to find their footing among the chaos. From the US Agency for International Development and the Department of Agriculture, to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Labor, federal workers are facing an onslaught of changes that threaten to [...]

Spotify raked in enough cash and new subscribers in 2024 to celebrate its first full year of profitability since the service was launched in 2008. The announcement comes as part of Spotify's fourth-quarter earnings release, with net profits at 1.14 billion (around $1.17 billion) for the whole of 2024, compared to the 532 million (around [...]

Norway-based Opera has announced a new browser, Opera Air, with a focus on mindfulness and mental wellbeing. It includes break reminders, breathing exercises, and a suite of relaxing soundscapes to help users both focus and de-stress. The web is beautiful but it can be chaotic and overwhelming," says Mohamed Salah, Opera's senior director of product. [...]

Netflix and WWE nearly made it a whole month streaming Raw without any major technical hiccups, but that streak was broken on Monday night. Throughout the February 3rd episode, some viewers were annoyed by the feed intermittently cutting out to a black screen. Audio would also drop whenever these glitches occurred. The problems never caused [...]

Elon Musk has an uncanny ability to sort out which of America's rules are real. It turns out punishment from the National Labor Relations Board isnat real, punishment from NASA isnat real, and punishment from the FAA isnat real. The Delaware Chancery Court is extremely real. Based on the past two weeks, the Delaware Chancery [...]

President Donald Trumpas administration is being sued over Elon Muskas alleged amassive and unprecedenteda intrusion into the American governmentas payment systems. The suit, filed in a Washington, DC federal court Monday evening by the advocacy group Public Citizen, calls for the court to stop the aunlawful, ongoing, systematic, and continuous disclosure of personal and financial [...]

SoftBank isn't just part of the group investing $500 billion into Project Stargate to build American AI infrastructure capacity for OpenAI. It's also making a Japanese joint venture with OpenAI, will spend $3 billion deploying OpenAI tech across SoftBank companies, and claims it will revolutionize business with AI agents through a new AI system called [...]

Sony Pictures Television says it's taking over the distribution rights for top game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! from Paramount-owned CBS starting the week of February 10th, reports Bloomberg, while CBS is fighting back by seeking a temporary restraining order. In October, Sony sued CBS for allegedly not putting in enough effort to grow [...]

President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff threats have been touch and go. As it stands currently, the 25 percent tax on goods from Mexico and Canada is on ice for a month, but a 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods is set to take effect on Tuesday, via an executive order of questionable legality. Nestled within [...]

On Monday morning, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and US President Donald Trump announced the US is pausing tariffs against Mexico for one month, as previously reported by Bloomberg. In the afternoon, a similar deal was announced by Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to pause proposed tariffs for 30 days. Trudeau cited Canada's $1.3 [...]

US District Court Judge Amit Mehta denied Apple's emergency request to halt the Google Search monopoly trial that could dismantle their lucrative search that's reportedly worth as much as $18 billion a year. The order came in late Sunday, with Judge Mehta saying Apple hasn't demonstrated satisfactory reasons for its emergency motion to stay that [...]

Meta isn't shy about its ambitions to make its Ray-Ban smart glasses a mainstream gadget. So much so, it's made not one but two Super Bowl ads featuring not one, but two Marvel actors. (And Kris Jenner.) And as a little cherry on top, Meta announced it's creating a limited edition Super Bowl version of [...]

EA has announced a new Battlefield Labs" community testing program to give people the opportunity to test the next Battlefield game. You can sign up for the program now, and EA says that the first phase" of testing will go live in the coming weeks" for invited players in Europe and North America. As I [...]

Audi is launching a new global nomenclature system for its vehicles to more clearly represent a vehicle's type, size, shape, and powertrain. The updated system will still begin with letters like A for low-floor" vehicles or Q for high-floor" ones. That will be followed by numbers 1 through 8 that help represent the size or [...]

In the first two weeks of Donald Trump's presidency, Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have reportedly gained access to core parts of the American government's payment systems, including systems that affect Social Security and Medicare benefits -as federal workers and government officials struggle to respond. DOGE, an unofficial department" that Trump [...]

If you missed out on the steep AirPods discounts we saw during Black Friday, now is your chance. Right now, thesecond-gen AirPods Prowith USB-Care on sale at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy starting at $169 ($81 off), which is just $16 shy of their all-time low. Meanwhile, the AirPods 4 have dropped to a record [...]

President Trump announced tariffs as high as 25 percent on goods imported from Canada, China, and Mexico over the weekend. But some of the biggest names in tech and gaming - who could be significantly impacted by the tariffs - have stayed quiet about them. Shortly after the tariffs were announced, The Verge reached out [...]

EcoFlow has confirmed that it's currently testing new advanced features for its PowerStream Balcony Solar System that were made available to a small group of testers on a paid basis." After other EcoFlow users raised concerns last week about the possibility of having to pay subscription fees for features on devices they already own, the [...]

Treasure Secretary Scott Bessent has been named the Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the bureau announced today. Bessent quickly instructed the agency to to stop all rulemaking, communications, litigation, and other activities," reports Bloomberg Law. A source inside the CFPB told Bloomberg Law that his order appeared to shut down the [...]

Google could soon bring its Adaptive Charging battery protection feature from its Pixel phones to the Pixel Watch line. The feature is designed to preserve battery health by preventing overcharging, and hinges on its ability to predict your charging schedule. Android Authority spotted code strings that reference Adaptive Charging in the latest version of the [...]

Uber introduced a new feature designed to make it easier for people with disabilities to ride with service animals. For years, Uber's policies toward service animals have been in accordance with state and federal law: they are allowed to ride at all times at no extra cost. But now the company is allowing customers to [...]

NetChoice has filed its 10th lawsuit in an ongoing fight against a broad slate of state internet regulations -this time against a Maryland law billed as protecting kids from inappropriate material online. It's the latest effort to oppose what NetChoice calls an unconstitutional speech code in disguise. NetChoice has become one of the fiercest - [...]

A new year means a new Sundance Film Festival, and a fresh crop of promising original features that could go on to become awards season darlings in a few months. It might be hard to top last year's festival where Didi, A Different Man, and I Saw the TV Glow all made strong showings. But [...]

Cloudflare has launched a new feature to help people quickly verify the authenticity of online images. The web security and hosting provider has adopted the Adobe-led Content Credentials system, which applies a digital metadata tag to images and video that tracks who owns it, where it's been posted, and if it's been manipulated - including [...]

Today, I'm talking with Andy Hunter, the CEO of Bookshop.org. Bookshop, at its core, is a website that lets local bookshops all over the country - and in a few other countries - sell their books online. If you want a book, you go to Bookshop and click buy - it's just as easy as [...]

Kobo has increased the price of three of its e-readers following a similar price increase by the company in January 2023. The seven-inch Kobo Libra Colour, as well as the six-inch Kobo Clara Colour and Kobo Clara BW, are all now $10 more expensive, as spotted by TheeBookReader. The prices of the larger (and aging) [...]

Sid Meier developed the first Civilization game in 1991 and has contributed to every iteration since. When I visited Firaxis Games last year, I saw that the company maintains the very computer Meier used to develop the game, which can still be booted up and played. Walking through the halls of the studio, I saw [...]

Sid Meier's Civilization VII is the latest in the long-running 4X strategy franchise that first debuted in 1991 on MS-DOS. The new turn-based game from Firaxis Games and the titular, legendary designer is set to release on PC and modern consoles in on February 11th, 2025 - over eight years after the last installment. Civ [...]

The Beatles have won their eighth competitive Grammy award thanks to a little help from artificial intelligence. The 2023 track Now and Then" - which Billboard reports is the first song knowingly created with AI assistance to earn a Grammy nomination - was awarded Best Rock Performance on Sunday, beating out competition from Green Day, [...]

Microsoft is getting ready to remove the VPN feature from its Microsoft 365 subscription later this month. Originally designed as a privacy feature, the VPN in Microsoft 365 utilizes the Microsoft Defender app to encrypt internet traffic and hide IP addresses. Microsoft is now removing this privacy protection feature from Microsoft 365 on February 28th. [...]

Your next car purchase is probably going to be more expensive, thanks to President Donald Trump. Around 5.3 million vehicles are built in Canada and Mexico, 70 percent of which are destined for the United States. Those vehicles will soon be subject to 25 percent tariffs, which were just announced by the Trump administration. And [...]

Last month, Fortnite Festival, the game'sRock Band-like music mode, rolled out local multiplayer on PlayStation and Xbox. It's a great addition if you and up to three buddies want to relive the halcyon days of 07 on a single TV, particularly if you're using a nostalgia-inducing peripheral like the PDP Riffmaster - which is now [...]

Over the last couple years, it feels like we've heard news of mass layoffs and hiring freezes from tech companies nearly every week, and since the beginning of 2024, there's been a new wave of layoffs and firings. In the first few days of January 2024 alone: And all that adds to the tens of [...]

Smart rings are in the middle of a renaissance. Thatas great because we finally have way more options than just an Oura Ring. The downside is most of Ouraas would-be rivals are launching their first, maybe second-gen smart rings. Meaning, if you want an Oura Ring alternative, thereas a good chance youall have to put [...]

Imagine walking up to your front door and it unlocks a even opens a automatically as you approach. It may sound like the stuff of smart home dreams, but it could soon be a reality, thanks to ultra-wideband (UWB) technology arriving on smart locks. With its precise, real-time location capabilities, UWB enables a smart lock [...]

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 69, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If youare new here, welcome, get ready for some web-slingina, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, Iave been reading about Elon Muskas gamer habits and spy satellites and [...]

Canada will set its own tariffs against US goods in retaliation to broad 25 percent tariffs President Donald Trump announced Saturday on Canadian imports. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a 25 percent tariff on a total of $155 billion worth of American goods - $30 billion of that on Tuesday when Trump's tariffs go into [...]

The National Transportation Safety Board will only update the press about the plane crashes in Washington, DC and Philadelphia on X - not over email, as reported earlier by The Desk. The agency announced on Saturday that it will use its @NTSB_Newsroom account to share "news conferences or other investigative information. The NTSB later said, [...]

The US is officially imposing tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China. President Donald Trump announced that goods imported from Mexico and Canada will face a 25 percent tariff, while goods from China will face a 10 percent tariff. There will also be a lower 10 percent tariff on energy resources from Canada. In a series [...]

Google just debuted a series of Super Bowl ads showing how small businesses use Gemini AI across all 50 states, but the cheese lovers out there might notice something a little off about its Wisconsin one. As spotted by @natejhake on X, the ad shows Gemini AI generating text that says Gouda accounts for 50 [...]

President Donald Trump has fired Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). In a letter posted to X, Chopra confirmed his term as CFPB Director has concluded." Chopra was notified of his removal via an email from the White House, according to a report from the Associated Press. During Chopra's tenure, [...]

In 2008, Mortis Ghost made a game with his friend, composer Alias Conrad Coldwood. It was a surreal roleplaying game about a baseball player fighting ghosts called Off. He shared it for free on a French-speaking forum, where it garnered a small audience. One player was a French artist who was inspired to make a [...]

While your Windows computer should be pretty well locked down with a password or maybe even some kind of biometric protection, it's impossible to guarantee that no one else is ever going to get access to it, whether itas a thief swiping your unlocked laptop from a coffee shop or one of your kids wanting [...]

When you yell aCan you just Google it?a at your AI assistant, itas fair to say that the AI assistant is not doing its job. I was browning some beef on the stove and trying to determine when my husbandas flight was landing. I didnat have the flight number, but there are only so many [...]

On January 9th, 56-year-old Peter Akemann flew his DJI Mini 3 Pro drone far beyond the legal limit of his ability to see - and into a Super Scooper water dumping plane fighting the Los Angeles Palisades wildfires, grounding it for repairs after punching a hole in its left wing. Now that authorities have traced [...]

YouTube is expanding the availability of its dedicated community space feature to more creators on the site, giving them more opportunities to connect with their fans without needing to lean on another platform like Discord. Only available for access via mobile devices, Communities first launched during the Made for YouTube event last fall, letting the [...]