The Verge

Apple is renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in its Maps app. The company started rolling out the name change for US users this afternoon, and Bloomberg reports that it will soon display the name for users globally, too. Google Maps started showing the Gulf of America" for users in the [...]

Google's next I/O developer conference will take place on May 20th and May 21st, the company announced today. The event will be open to everyone online" and will include livestreamed keynotes and sessions," according to an FAQ. The news comes after Google launched a fun puzzle game to help reveal the date of the event. [...]

Nearly two years ago, Framework announced one of the most ambitious laptops ever live on a San Francisco stage, plus an AMD upgrade for its modular Intel machines. On February 25th, it's promising an even bigger set of announcements," and that it'll show everything that we've been working on for the last two years." What [...]

On Tuesday, Shopify shut down the Yeezy store run by Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) after it listed shirts with swastikas for sale. Ye advertised the site in a commercial shown during the Super Bowl on Sunday. It previously sold things like sneakers and t-shirts, but on Monday, the only item for sale was [...]

BuzzFeed plans on launching a new social platform built specifically to spread joy and enable playful creative expression." In a blog post published on Tuesday, BuzzFeed co-founder and CEO Jonah Peretti highlights the growing discontent" with platforms using AI-driven algorithms to keep users glued to their screens, adding that BuzzFeed's social network would use AI [...]

A new set of leaked Pixel 9A renders appears to confirm months of rumors that Google is virtually ditching the camera bump this year. The images, published by Android Headlines, also show the phone in four colors - black (Obsidian), white (Porcelain), pink (Peony), and purple (Iris) - will look like. Smartphones that lay flat [...]

Ninja just announced a new ice cream maker that does something its existing Creami model can't: make soft serve. The Ninja Swirl packs the option to create both regular scooped ice cream and softer swirls, and, like the original Creami, it's versatile enough to create frozen yogurt and other variants too. Because the Swirl is [...]

Kickstarter will start notifying supporters when a fundraising campaign faces significant fulfillment failures" and breaks the platform's rules. The notification will also inform supporters how it's addressing the issue, including by restricting the creator from launching future projects." The update comes as part of a series of changes Kickstarter plans to make this year that [...]

Wish there was a magic wand for quickly covering up your grays? L'Oreal's Colorsonic might be as close as it gets, and today, it's a little more affordable thanks to the skincare company's latest promo. For a limited time, you pick it up directly from L'Oreal Paris for $99 ($25 off), which matches its lowest [...]

Unity has been hit with another round of layoffs. This is according to posts on LinkedIn from recently laid off staff and confirmed by reporting from Game Developer and 80.lvl. According to reports, employees were notified via emails sent out at 5 AM local time, while the layoffs affect a number of different teams within [...]

Unity, a company that makes a suite of video game development tools, has recently sparked a major controversy in the industry after announcing changes to its pricing model. Under the new model, Unity plans to charge developers on a per-install basis after certain revenue and game download thresholds are met. Sentiment regarding the new pricing [...]

Samsung's SmartTags trackers and Galaxy Find network offer similar functionality to Apple's AirTags and Find My network, including precision finding using ultra wideband (UWB) radios. The downside is that they only work with Samsung Galaxy devices. A free open-source app called uTag (short for Universal Tag), developed by Kieron Quinn, lets Samsung's SmartTags trackers work [...]

The Witcher is in a period of transition right now. While the live-action TV series is shifting to a new lead actor in the role of Geralt as it approaches its finale, the next game will switch things up even more, with Ciri as the protagonist. These are huge changes for the fantasy franchise. And [...]

Updating a newer iPhone, iPad, or Mac to the latest software could have an unintended side effect of re-enabling Apple Intelligence. Users who turned off Apple's AI features in iOS / iPadOS 18.3 or macOS 15.3 - the first set of updates to enable the features by default - have reported that the software suite [...]

The European Union says it will channel 200 billion (about $206 billion) into artificial intelligence investments in a bid to compete with the US and China. At the AI Action Summit in Paris on Tuesday, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the bloc would spend 50 billion (about $51 billion) to top up [...]

Meta has partnered with the nonprofit organization Childhelp to create a curriculum that will teach middle schoolers how to recognize forms of online exploitation, such as sextortion scams and grooming. The curriculum was fully funded" by Meta and is free for any school, parent, or organization to access. Meta says the curriculum consists of lesson [...]

In 2023, when I realized small phones were truly dead, I decided I couldn't wait for the Small Android Phone Project to revive them. That project, from the founder of the Pebble smartwatch, just wasn't far enough along. Unfortunately, things aren't any better in 2025 for small phone lovers - now that founder Eric Migicovsky [...]

Sleep tech runs the gamut from trackers and apps to expensive smart beds, but it doesn't all address the same issues. Are you trying to see how your sleep impacts your athletic performance? Hoping to mask the sound of a snoring partner? I've tested all sorts of sleep tech and can point you toward the [...]

Google Maps now shows the Gulf of America" in place of the Gulf of Mexico" for users on both web and mobile in the United States. It made the change after the Trump administration formally changed the name today of the body of water spanning between the eastern coast of Mexico and the Florida panhandle. [...]

Hacker Eric Council Jr. pleaded guilty Monday to charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud after he took over the SEC's X account in January 2024. Once Council gained access to the account, his unnamed co-conspirators posted a doctored image, message, and fake quote by then SEC Chairman Gary Gensler [...]

In a dramatic escalation of Silicon Valley's most heated AI rivalry, Elon Musk just announced that he's leading a $97.4 billion bid to buy OpenAI's nonprofit arm, according to The Wall Street Journal. The bid was reportedly delivered to the board Monday morning. The offer brings together a powerful coalition of backers, including Musk's own [...]

Valentine's Day might seem like any other commercial holiday given the abundance of candy and the sheer number of cards lining store shelves, but if you put in a little effort and a lot of heart, it can be about so much more. After all, at its core, February 14th is about celebrating love in [...]

President Donald Trump's 10 percent tariff on goods imported from China has been in effect for nearly a week. Ahead of the tariff going into effect, I wrote that Big Tech has been silent on Trump's tariffs" -almost no one in the industry had a public reaction or said how they would respond. A week [...]

Google is bringing its upgraded note-taking app to its One AI Premium plan. That means subscribers will now gain access to NotebookLM Plus at no added cost, which offers higher usage limits and premium features, like the ability to customize NotebookLM's responses. Google first launched NotebookLM in 2023, allowing people to use AI to research [...]

If you're wondering what to gift the bibliophile in your life for Valentine's Day, Amazon's ongoing President's Day sale is worth a look. The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition has returned to its best price to date, while the latest Kindle Paperwhite has received its first discount since the holidays. Right now, the ad-supported Paperwhite, one [...]

Apple released iOS 18.3.1, iPadOS 18.3.1, and iPadOS 17.7.5 today to address a zero-day exploit that might allow attackers to access data on a locked device. The update patches the OS against an attack on USB Restricted Mode, which Apple first implemented in devices with the release of iOS 11.4.1 in 2018, to prevent attempts [...]

In a continued shuffling of the top ranks at Sonos, chief marketing officer Jordan Saxemard has exited the company. His departure is effective immediately. The news was announced during an internal call on Monday. Lindsay Whitworth, who has been at Sonos for over 20 years, will lead the brand's marketing on an interim basis. Internally, [...]

Google, OpenAI, Roblox, and Discord have formed a new non-profit organization to help improve child safety online. The Robust Open Online Safety Tools (ROOST) initiative aims to make core safety technologies more accessible for companies and provide free, open-source AI tools for identifying, reviewing, and reporting child sexual abuse material. The initiative was partially motivated [...]

One of the biggest lessons of working on stop-motion video games? Rolling up your sleeves a literally. It's such a nightmare," Talha & Jack Co developer Jack King-Spooner told me over a video call. You spend maybe half an hour doing one of the cutscenes. The cutscenes are the most precarious things because you have [...]

OpenAI remains on track to start producing its in-house AI chip next year, according to a report from Reuters. Sources tell the outlet that OpenAI plans to finalize its design over the next few months before sending it to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) for fabrication. By making a chip of its own, OpenAI [...]

Whether you're picking up after a rowdy Super Bowl party or need help battling a growing army of children, cats, and dogs, grabbing a robot vacuum that can mop is one of the smartest decisions you can make going into 2025. There are a number of great options available, but few can match the mopping [...]

Almost 250 years after the Declaration of Independence, America has gotten herself a new king. His name is Elon Musk. aWait a minute,a you may be saying. aWhat about President Donald Trump?a Trump ran, much like Silvio Berlusconi before him, primarily to avoid prosecutions. He has never liked being president and he has already gotten [...]

Lyft says it will launch a fleet of robotaxis, using self-driving technology from Intel's Mobileye, in Dallas in as soon as 2026," with plans to scale to "thousands" of vehicles in additional markets in the months to follow. To signal its seriousness, the company tapped Marubeni, a Japanese conglomerate, to run fleet operations. Lyft's news [...]

Today, I'm talking with Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat and the senior senator from Oregon. He's been in the Senate for almost 30 years, which makes him one of the longest-serving members of the institution. He's also deeply involved in tech policy - in fact, he co-authored Section 230 in 1996. That's the law that [...]

Teenage Engineering is a design firm as much as it is a musical instrument company. Its devices rarely look or behave anything like what youad buy from a Korg or a Moog. The best distillation of its identity remains the OP-1, a quirky groovebox that garnered as much attention for its aesthetics as its all-in-one [...]

An iOS app called Practice Pro hit the App Store last week that might be the ideal music rehearsal app. It features a customizable interface with widgets like a digital tuner, metronomes, and audio recorder, and it's an ad-free pay-once-and-its-yours affair. The app costs $0.99 cents right now, an introductory price that its developer, Joe [...]

Discord is offering users a new way to block people without the confrontational nature of an actual block. The new feature, called Ignore, is essentially a mute function that can hide annoying or abusive users without attracting unwanted attention - thus avoiding unnecessary anxiety or flare-up drama. You can apply the new Ignore feature by [...]

The cliche new year, new me" rally cry doesn't exclusively apply to resetting common goals related to health, finances, or education. The turning of the calendar is also a great reminder to check whether your daily sanctuary could be more pleasant or functional. There are many ways to usher in change, too, whether that's with [...]

OnePlus has announced that the Watch 3 will launch in the US and Europe on February 18th. It features even better battery life than the OnePlus Watch 2, running for up to five days without needing a charge. It also introduces a new digital crown, which unlike the last one can rotate to navigate Wear [...]

Ah shit, here we go again. Two owners of Nvidia's new RTX 5090 Founders Edition GPUs have reported melted power connectors and damage to their PSUs. The images look identical to reports of RTX 4090 power cables burning or melting from two years ago. Nvidia blamed the issue on people not properly plugging the 12VHPWR [...]

In just ten days time, Oppo will launch the Find N5, the world's thinnest book-style foldable. I just spent a few minutes with the device and what follows are my early impressions. Oppo is careful to use that book-style" disclaimer, because the Find N5 isn't quite as thin as Huawei's trifold Mate XT, launched in [...]

T-Mobile's Starlink-powered direct-to-cell satellite messaging service is now open for anyone in the US to try for free - including people who aren't T-Mobile customers. The service will be limited to text messaging at first but the company hopes to have some apps and even limited multimedia support ready by the time it goes live [...]

Rivian's electric van is now available to be purchased by anyone with a commercial fleet, the automaker said today. For several years, Rivian's van was exclusive to Amazon. Now, the platform on which the e-commerce giant based its delivery van is open to anyone with a fleet of commercial vehicles and some money to burn. [...]

OpenAI just made its Super Bowl debut with a 60-second spot that positions AI alongside humanity's greatest innovations. The commercial traces humanity's technological evolution through a distinctive pointillism-inspired animation style, transforming abstract dots into iconic images of progress a from early tools like fire and the wheel to modern breakthroughs like DNA sequencing and space [...]

Apple CEO Tim Cook was seen making the rounds yesterday in New Orleans, where the Super Bowl LIX matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles is being played today. Accompanying him for at least some of that time has been fellow Apple senior VP of services Eddy Cue. Thanks to his mild-mannered [...]

Following the huge PlayStation Network (PSN) outage that ended yesterday, Sony is giving an automatic five extra days of service to PlayStation Plus subscribers, according to a post from the official Ask PlayStation support account on X. Network services have fully recovered from an operational issue," the company wrote in the post. We apologize for [...]

What was once ridiculous is now possible. Elon Musk, the richest person in the history of the world, has become President Donald Trumpas attack dog. Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have unprecedented access to the governmentas data and computer system. Earlier this week, that came to include systems in the Department of [...]

When you set up a new Mac, youare instructed to keep it locked down with a password, a Touch ID, and / or an Apple Watch authorization. But you can't guarantee that your macOS system will only be seen by you and you alone. Maybe your kids want to borrow your MacBook to play a [...]

A common reader request I get goes something like this: what should I buy if I donat want a smartwatch but want basic fitness tracking? When I suggest alternatives like budget fitness bands or smart rings, I get an unsure hmm and a displeased scrunch of the nose. After a few more back-and-forths, I usually [...]

PlayStation Network (PSN) has finally recovered from an outage that lasted for almost a day. PSN has been restored," Sony says in a post from its @AskPlayStation X account. You should be able to access online features without any problems now." The post also points to Sony's PSN status page and concludes by saying Sorry [...]