The Verge

It's one thing to do a bit of online shopping during Amazon's Prime Day sales, but it's another to put your money where your mouth is. (Where did that phrase come from, anyway?) If you're curious, here are some of the items that staff members from The Verge bought for themselves. My fancy Withings smart [...]

It's summer travel season once again, and The Verge staffers are preparing to roam, whether it's to follow a story, check out a new tech device, or enjoy some down time away from home. Most people who travel have gear - tech or otherwise - that makes the process easier or more enjoyable. We asked [...]

If you're looking for a budget-friendly smartwatch that doesn't skimp on features, the Amazfit Active 2 is one of the best Prime Day deals you'll find. Normally $99.99, it was already a great deal in and of itself, but right now it's practically a steal starting at $79.99 ($20 off) directly from Amazfit and Amazon, [...]

Not enough foldable phones are priced for people who just want to try them out without going broke. We used to love pointing readers to deals on the Microsoft Surface Duo, which have since gone extinct, it seems. And, the new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip FE? $900 isn't all that cheap, actually. So, this Prime [...]

It's always felt to me like there's a threshold foldables need to hit before they can truly become mainstream: they need to be no bigger than a regular old phone. And now Samsung has finally gotten its flagship there with the Z Fold 7, which is just barely thicker than an iPhone 16 Pro. I [...]

Between our rotation of everyday devices, keeping them all charged can feel like a constant juggling act. Thanks to Prime Day, though, finding deals on the right charging accessories can help tame the chaos. A great GaN wall charger, for example, can power multiple devices simultaneously and reduce desk clutter, while a versatile power bank [...]

One of the pleasant surprises of the Switch 2 launch was how well the hardware managed big games not made by Nintendo. It's something the company's underpowered consoles have often struggled with, but the Switch 2 is a good place to play technical showpieces like Cyberpunk 2077 - though that originally debuted in 2020. Tony [...]

Amazon Prime Day is an excellent time to save on a wide range of big-ticket items, including 4K TVs, laptops, and the latest pairs of noise-canceling headphones. But if you, like me, are in the market for something more budget-friendly, rest assured that there are plenty of deals to be had for $50 or less. [...]

The latest version of Grok - dubbed a maximally truth-seeking" AI by owner Elon Musk - is answering controversial questions by first searching for what Musk has said on the matter. Multiple reports show that Grok will specifically look for Elon Musk's stance across the web and his social media posts when asked questions around [...]

Subnautica 2 has been at the center of a contentious debate between leadership at its developer Unknown Worlds and the game's publisher, Krafton Games. At stake is a $250 million payout, promised to Unknown Worlds if the studio hit certain revenue targets by the end of this year. But a company shakeup and the subsequent [...]

Amazon Prime Day is usually a sprint - two hectic days of lightning deals, overflowing shopping carts, and enough browser tabs to crash a laptop. But this year, Amazon is treating it more like a marathon. Instead of wrapping things up after 48 hours, the retailer is giving Prime members two additional days to shop. [...]

As The Verge's resident disaster writer, I'm tired of this nonsense. So let's just get into it. What is cloud seeding? Cloud seeding is basically an attempt to make precipitation fall from clouds. It targets clouds that have water droplets that are essentially too light to fall. Scientists at MIT learned in the 1940s that [...]

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is threatening Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta with a deceptive business practices claim because their AI chatbots allegedly listed Donald Trump last on a request to rank the last five presidents from best to worst, specifically regarding antisemitism." Bailey's press release and letters to all four companies accuse Gemini, Copilot, [...]

I was told to be ready for anything before my daughter was born. I didn't realize that included being at the ready to constantly fix her electronic toys. Do you know the horrors of the eKids Disney Frozen toy microphone? Well, now I'm an expert at tinkering with it. It wouldn't have been as easy [...]

After recently admitting that it had a spectacularly terrible response" to Joy-Con grip detachment complaints with its Killswitch Nintendo Switch 2 case, Dbrand has some good news: it says its redesigned Joy-Con grips fix the issue and the company will be able to mass produce them. Dbrand had already promised it would be replacing the [...]

We just got a good, long look at PlayStation's next major exclusive. As promised, Sony held an event dedicated to Ghost of Ytei, the PS5-exclusive samurai game from Sucker Punch that launches on October 2nd. The stream was a deep dive exploring everything from combat to the world itself - and it's looking like an [...]

The release notes for the latest Kindle software update that launched a few weeks ago were vague, but some users have discovered a useful feature for anyone with cheaper ad-supported e-readers. In addition to more robust line and text spacing options, you now have the option to filter ads that may not be appropriate for [...]

Every model in Sony's WH-1000XM lineup has consistently ranked among the best headphones you can buy, and thanks to Amazon Prime Day, several of the latest entries are on sale. Right now, for instance, the brand-new WH-1000XM6 are available from Amazon, Best Buy, and Sony for around $428 ($22 off), which is the first cash [...]

Amazon's latest Prime Day sale has officially begun, and we've already highlighted nearly 200 of our favorite deals in our main roundup, including cheap charging accessories, robot vacuums, and some of the best prices we've seen to date on Apple's M3-equipped iPad Air. Unsurprisingly, there are also steep discounts available on a wealth of wireless [...]

Prime Day is one of the best times of the year to stock up on smart home gear. With big price drops on all of Amazon's many smart home brands, from Blink and Ring to Echo speakers and Eero Wi-Fi routers, plus a ton of other manufacturers getting in on the action, making your smart [...]

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is eyeing San Francisco for his next robotaxi city -to which I say, good luck to you, sir. Musk acknowledged that the company is still waiting on regulatory approval," which hints at the uphill company Tesla will face in pushing this process forward. (Get it? Uphill? San Francisco?) The company scored [...]

Bluesky is adding age verification to its platform in the UK as part of efforts to comply with the country's Online Safety Act. In an update on Thursday, the platform says it will let users verify their age by scanning their face, uploading an ID, or entering a payment card. Bluesky will perform age verification [...]

King of the Hill is finally coming back after 15 years, and in the revival's new trailer, the world has become a very different place, I tell you what. Set years after Hank (Mike Judge) has been working in Saudi Arabia on a propane project to secure his and Peggy's (Kathy Najimy) retirement, King of [...]

What you have on your desk and in your workspace at home can reveal a lot about you: how you work, what you like to distract yourself with, what kind of toys and other tchotchkes you like to have around you. That is why we have the What's On Your Desk? series, where we look [...]

Netflix's main Squid Game series may be over, but a second season of the Squid Game reality show is debuting in just a few months - and a third season is on the way. On Thursday, Netflix announced that season 2 of Squid Game: The Challenge will premiere on November 4th. In Season 2 of [...]

Google just launched a new Gemini AI feature that lets you transform photos into video clips. The new photo-to-video capability is powered by Google's Veo 3 video model, and it can transform reference images into eight-second videos complete with AI-generated audio, including background noises, environmental sounds, and speech. The Gemini video update is now available [...]

Nintendo is discontinuing vouchers for Switch games. The program, which lets Switch Online members save money on digital games, will come to an end on January 30th, 2026. Though players will no longer be able to purchase vouchers after this date, vouchers will still expire one year after they're purchased. Nintendo first introduced Switch game [...]

Welcome to Decoder! I'm Alex Heath, Deputy Editor at The Verge and author of the Command Line newsletter. This is the first in a series of Thursday Decoder episodes that I'll be hosting while Nilay is out on parental leave. I've been covering AI a lot at The Verge, and I'm excited to start sharing [...]

Keeping your floors clean feels like a second job, but it doesn't have to. Robot vacuums that can both suck up and mop them can make life easier, although many models out there need a fair amount of babysitting to ensure they're doing good work. The Dreame X40 Ultra is different. It delivers a nearly [...]

On a balmy night in October 2019, the defector rode his bike home. He'd just finished a long shift helping waiters serve yogurt-smothered kabobs at a restaurant in Yalova, a seaside town an hour from Istanbul, Turkey. By this time of night, many of the shops had closed. Most of Yalova was home watching TV; [...]

Following buildable versions of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, Lego's latest collaboration with Hasbro is also its first Decepticon. The 1,505-piece Soundwave, which is three pieces smaller than Lego's 1,508-piece Optimus Prime, stands just shy of 13 inches tall and is Lego's first Transformers set to include a sound brick - but you may have to [...]

The creation of Donkey Kong Bananza started with destruction. "What we were really going for was this gameplay experience that comes from destruction," Bananza director Kazuya Takahashi says in an interview with The Verge. From that simple premise, Bananza's creators have built an entire game about breaking stuff. Bananza is the second major Switch 2 [...]

Let me try to read your mind. You're thinking of getting a new TV, yes, a 4K model with some sort of smart TV operating system that can provide instant access to your favorite streaming apps. Well then. With Prime Day underway, several TV models, as well as streaming devices and soundbars, are on sale. [...]

YouTube is trying to soothe concerns about an incoming update to its monetization policies following backlash from online creators. An announcement that YouTube would be updating restrictions around inauthentic" content under the YouTube Partner Program guidelines was interpreted by some to mean the platform was planning to demonetize a wider variety of videos, including those [...]

Yesterday's Galaxy Unpacked event came and went without a single onstage tease of the rumored Samsung trifold phone, but the head of the company's phone business says that it's on the way, and due this year." I expect we will be able to launch the trifold phone within this year," TM Roh, acting head of [...]

Aqara's successor to the popular G4 video doorbell is now available to buy. The $129.99 G410,announced in January, remains one of the few (only?) doorbells to support Apple's HomeKit Secure Video and both wireless and hardwired installations, while adding an absolute ton of new features to make it one of the most capable video doorbells [...]

Elon Musk's live demo of Grok 4, the latest big-ticket model from his AI startup, began with high-intensity music, claims of a ludicrous rate of progress," and a lot of chatter on X about Grok's scandal-filled week. Musk pronounced it to be the smartest AI in the world." The livestream, slated to start at 8PM [...]

Summer travel season is in full swing, and whether you're headed to the beach, a weekend getaway, or just staying home in the A/C, here are some good Prime Day deals for readers. The latest Kindle Paperwhite and the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Essential let you carry an entire library without the bulk, and right now, [...]

Microsoft's complicated relationship with OpenAI is about to take an interesting turn. As the pair continue to renegotiate a contract to allow OpenAI to restructure into a for-profit company, OpenAI is preparing to release an open language AI model that could drive even more of a wedge between the two companies. Sources familiar with OpenAI's [...]

Samsung's summer Galaxy Unpacked event has come to a close. As expected, the company unveiled next-generation Galaxy Z Flip and Fold smartphones, as well as three new additions to its smartwatch lineup. If you didn't get a chance to watch the event yourself, you can catch up with all of Samsung's major announcements below. The [...]

Samsung's latest clamshell-style foldable is officially here, and it brought a new, more affordable sibling to the party. The Z Flip 7 was announced at Samsung's summer Unpacked event this morning, and it's been updated with an edge-to-edge cover screen. Alongside the Flip 7, Samsung is also launching a new model: the Z Flip 7 [...]

Samsung just announced its seventh-generation folding phones, and it finally retired the long and narrow Z Fold design that it had stuck with for far too long. The Z Flip is also getting an overdue upgrade to a full-size cover screen rather than the file folder shape of the past couple generations. After years of [...]

One thing is immediately noticeable as I try on the new Galaxy Watch 8 and Galaxy Watch 8 Classic just ahead of Samsung Unpacked. The squircle has taken over. The circle-face-in-a-square-case design was introduced last year with the Galaxy Watch Ultra, and it has now made its way to the rest of the lineup. At [...]

Google is adding new AI features to Android's Circle to Search and Gemini Live tools. The update was announced today, alongside the launch of the next-generation Galaxy foldables, and it includes new Gemini Live capabilities for Samsung devices and integrates Google's search-centric AI Mode chatbot right into Circle to Search. AI Mode made its debut [...]

Ikea is relaunching its smart home line in a move that will make its low-cost products work with other brands, with or without Ikea's own hub. Starting in January, the Swedish furniture giant will release more than 20 new Matter-over-Thread smart lights, sensors, and remotes with "more new product types and form factors to come," [...]

Bluetooth and quick-to-music features like Spotify Tap are the future of sound at Ikea now that the Sonos partnership has fizzled. It's an approach that Ikea's David Granath says will make sound more affordable and easier to use for more people. Our aim is to make sound accessible, functional, and enjoyable - without adding complexity," [...]

Over the last two weeks, I've sought to uncover why the Nintendo Switch 2 didn't work with a host of USB-C accessories that worked perfectly fine with other devices, including third-party docks and some of the best-reviewed webcams. But today, I have first-hand confirmation that existing gadgets can work - as long as their manufacturers [...]

Prime Day 2025 is the best time this year to get a big-screen TV. Sure, there are deals in the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, but those are generally on the previous year's TV because most new models haven't been released yet. Prime Day, however, comes after most major TV refreshes - including [...]

Apple CEO Tim Cook is about to take over one of the most significant parts of Apple's business: its design team. The team currently reports to COO Jeff Williams, but once Williams begins his just-announced retirement late in the year," the design team will then transition to reporting directly to Cook," Apple says. The company [...]