The Verge

A bill attempting to regulate the ever-growing industry of companion AI chatbots is now law in California, as of October 13th. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 243, billed as first-in-the-nation AI chatbot safeguards" by state senator Steve Padilla. The new law requires that companion chatbot developers implement new safeguards -for instance, [...]

California joins a growing group of states with a new internet age-gating law after Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed AB 1043, the Digital Age Assurance Act. The law mandates that device operating systems and app stores require users to enter their age or date of birth when setting up a new phone or computer. The [...]

The Apple TV Plus streaming service is being rebranded with a vibrant new identity," according to the Cupertino company, and is now simply Apple TV." The announcement was briefly mentioned at the bottom of Apple's latest press release regarding the December 12th streaming debut of F1 The Movie. At the time of writing, no changes [...]

EcoFlow just announced its latest most powerful" and easy-to-install" whole-home battery backup system. It's called the Delta Pro Ultra X because when you've already launched the superlative-lacedDelta Pro Ultra in 2024, the only thing left is to add a variable to the name. Perhaps that X stands for 60 percent, which is the increase in [...]

OpenAI is teaming up with Broadcom to produce its own computer chips to power its AI data centers. The deal is the latest in a series of partnerships designed to reduce the company's reliance on Nvidia and secure enough computing power to fuel apps like ChatGPT and Sora and realize its mission to develop superintelligent [...]

Anduril, the military tech company founded by Oculus creator Palmer Luckey, has announced the first hardware to come out of its recent partnership with Meta: EagleEye, an AI-powered mixed-reality (MR) system designed to be built into soldiers' helmets. The modular hardware is a family of systems," according to Anduril's announcement, including a heads-up display, spatial [...]

Vivo has announced the X300 and X300 Pro, its latest flagship phones, and they look closer to the company's even more premium Ultra handsets than ever. On paper, the Pro's camera setup looks just as good as the X200 Ultra's, especially thanks to offering support for the same add-on telephoto extender lens introduced with that [...]

The United Kingdom has slapped 4Chan with a 20,000 (around $26,000) fine in a bid to clamp down on platforms that are hindering Online Safety Act (OSA) investigations. UK telecoms regulator Ofcom says the fine was issued after the controversial social media site ignored legally-binding information requests" related to global revenue and its illegal harms [...]

Slack is testing an update for Slackbot that transforms it into an AI assistant. Presently, it operates as a tool for delivering reminders and notifications. With the update, Slackbot can create custom plans tailored to your workspace, sift through a mountain of messages, gather information from a range of Slack channels, and more. Slackbot today [...]

It feels like the rollout of Wi-Fi 7 is barely out of the gate, but TP-Link is already making advancements towards the next generation of connectivity. The company announced on Monday that it has successfully tested an early prototype of Wi-Fi 8 hardware, marking a critical milestone" in its development. While the test is light [...]

We got our first proper look at the upcoming Wonder Man series, but Marvel has a whole slate of shows in the works. Other than Wonder Man, though, the company didn't roll into New York Comic Con with a firm release date for anything. The best we got were some broad release windows and few [...]

Last week, for James Bond Day, Amazon revealed updated poster art for the movies. But fans immediately noticed that the super spy's signature Walther PPK was conspicuously missing from every image. In some cases it had clearly and rather clumsily been Photoshopped out. Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan were left awkwardly holding thin air, in [...]

We've been so worried about deepfaked politicians, AI musicians, virtual actresses, and phony satellite imagery that we didn't even consider the dangers posed by precocious teenagers. Kids are using AI to create images of a disheveled, seemingly unhoused person in their home and sending them to their parents. Understandably, they're not thrilled and in some [...]

It's important to remember that two decades ago, text messages cost 10 cents. Each. Back when we measured our cell phone plans in minutes, and when even 3G connections felt fast, text messages were a huge business for wireless carriers and a huge expense for anyone whose kids learned to T9-type just a little too [...]

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the downward spiral of the internet, follow Adi Robertson. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Back in 2018, two years after the UK [...]

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 101, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, hope you like silly accessories, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about Intel factories and Nobel Prize winners and ATM [...]

Apple's Clips video editing app is no more. It debuted in 2017 as a way to stitch together videos with music, text, and filters with a clear focus on sharing to social media. Over the years Apple added AR features and more advanced video editing tools. But recently updates had slowed to a trickle. Apple [...]

This week the Pew Research Center published a study about how parents managed screen time for their kids 12 and under. The results were not particularly surprising (or enlightening, if we're being honest). A full 90 percent of parents said their children watched TV, and 61 percent said their kids interact with smartphones at least [...]

Although Amazon's fall Prime Day event has come to an end, there are still some lingering discounts available. That means you have yet another chance to pick up an early gift for the holidays, or just something for yourself. Right now, for instance, Apple's base AirPods 4 are sitting at their lowest price to date, [...]

When Donald Trump's administration issued orders to send the National Guard into Portland, Oregon, a person in a frog balloon suit showed up at the city's ICE facility, where protesters had gathered. After the frog humped the air in front of a throng of federal law enforcement - many dressed in head-to-toe camo with military-grade [...]

Dreams of Another is like playing an art-filled dream. It's filled with unexpected events, disjointed acts, and hazy landscapes. Scenes end abruptly, and then you unexpectedly pick up the thread later on. You'll meet talking angel statues and fish that want to escape their home and swim to the ocean. But it's that same unstable, [...]

Coros' Nomad is marketed as a "go-anywhere, do-anything" adventure watch. It's got GPS and offline maps and will track a lot of activities, from yoga to bouldering. There's an "Adventure Journal," which the marketing copy promises will help you record "every step, catch, and summit." While it doesn't have some of the bells and whistles [...]

This is an excerpt of Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. This week, I got an up-close look at how far apart Silicon Valley and Hollywood are on what to do about AI. First, at OpenAI DevDay, Sam Altman presented [...]

Will OpenAI send police to your door if you advocate for AI regulation? Nathan Calvin, a lawyer who shapes policies surrounding the technology at Encode AI, claims OpenAI did just that. One Tuesday night, as my wife and I sat down for dinner, a sheriff's deputy knocked on the door to serve me a subpoena [...]

Bose is discontinuing support for the cloud-based features available on its SoundTouch products on February 18th, 2026. After February 18, certain features - including access to integrated music services like Spotify and TuneIn, as well as multi-room playback - will no longer be available," Bose says. That same day, the SoundTouch app will stop working, [...]

ChatGPT shouldn't have political bias in any direction," OpenAI wrote in a post on Thursday. The latest GPT-5 models come the closest to achieving that objective goal, according to results from an internal company stress-test" of ChatGPT's responses to divisive issues. The test has been months in the making, the company says, and falls on [...]

It's normal to feel some FOMO after a big sales event like Amazon's fall Prime Day, but don't worry - not every great deal has vanished. LG's 48-inch C4 OLED TV, for instance, is still going for its lowest price yet of around $799.96 ($800 off) at Amazon. Even the newer C5 model is on [...]

Google is introducing a new Chrome browser feature for Android and desktop users that automatically turns off notifications for websites that you're already ignoring. Chrome's Safety Check feature already provides similar functionality for camera access and location tracking permissions. This new auto-revocation feature builds on a similar Android feature that already makes it easier for [...]

Now that the latest versions of Boox's pocketable e-readers are finally available in China, we have a rough idea of what the new P6 Pro and P6 Pro Color will cost if and when the company releases them globally. Unfortunately, in keeping with the theme of price increases in 2025, they're now quite a bit [...]

We're one step closer to a smart home that can manage Thread border routers from different manufacturers. Samsung SmartThings now supports two-way Thread network unification," its fancy way of saying Thread credentials sharing. This means that now, if you add a Samsung device that's a Thread border router to your home, it can join an [...]

Apple is preparing to shuffle executive positions ahead of former COO Jeff Williams' retirement this year, according to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Among other changes, Eddy Cue, Apple's head of services, will reportedly oversee the health and fitness teams that may soon launch a rumored Health Plus subscription. Williams previously led Apple's health [...]

Ford and GM are both backing off their effort to continue offering the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit to customers through the end of the year, Reuters is reporting. Last week, it was revealed that the automakers were working with their respective dealer networks on short-term programs that would allow customers to continue to receive [...]

With RGB lighting, exposed electronics, and a full color screen inside a transparent enclosure, Edifier's latest desktop accessory can easily be mistaken for a decked out gaming PC. In reality, it's primarily a speaker that can connect to sources over Bluetooth, a USB cable, or an analog audio cable, as spotted by Notebookcheck. The Huazai [...]

Amazon's October Prime Day is in the rearview mirror, but that doesn't mean you have to wait until Black Friday and Cyber Monday to score a deal. Case in point, Apple's AirPods Max (USB-C) are still available for $429.99 ($120 off), at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart, which is their lowest price since July. Apple's [...]

Not many gaming headsets have a Scandinavian minimalist aesthetic, which is why Fractal's $199.99 Scape caught my eye. Like many of Fractal's PC cases, this headset looks more sophisticated than you might expect from gaming gear, with clean lines and simplistic color schemes that might blend in better with your furniture and desk setup. I've [...]

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest phones, smartwatches, apps, and other gizmos that swear they're going to change your life. Optimizer arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 10AM ET. Opt in for Optimizer here. I had a major problem during [...]

Microsoft is now selling its Windows XP-themed Crocs. After initially revealing them as a sweepstakes item on Instagram earlier this month, anyone can now purchase the limited edition Crocs for $79.95 at Microsoft's online company store. The Crocs feature the iconic blue sky and clouds from the Windows XP wallpaper, with a green sole to [...]

Big week for OpenAI! The company is running basically every tech industry playbook, all at the same time, and it actually seems to be working. The company is adding apps to ChatGPT, in an effort to turn the chatbot into something more like an operating system. It's offering developers new tools to add ChatGPT into [...]

This week the EU Parliament voted in favor of an amendment that would ban vegetarian and vegan products from using terms including burger" and sausage." But the proposed ban goes further than that, and would also prevent cell-cultured meat - a.k.a. lab-grown - from using the same terms. The regulation, passed by lawmakers 355 to [...]

Broadband customers may find themselves blighted by unexpected charges again, thanks to Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr. The FCC has submitted a proposal to revise unnecessary" requirements for internet service providers to itemize every fee on monthly bills, citing that it may confuse customers." The proposal comes in response to complaints by ISPs over [...]

Microsoft is updating its Copilot app on Windows to allow it to create documents from a chat session and connect to Gmail and Outlook accounts. The updated Copilot app is rolling out initially to all Windows Insiders, ahead of a general release to all Windows 11 users. Copilot on Windows can now create Word documents, [...]

A Minecraft Movie is getting a sequel, and according to a post on X, the new film will debut in theaters on July 23rd, 2027. Jared Hess, who directed the first film, is returning for the second, Deadline reports, but Warner Bros. Discovery hasn't yet said who from the first film's cast might return. The [...]

Meet the Ferrari Elettrica. Well, meet some of it. The Italian supercar maker lifted the hood on the technology that will power its hotly anticipated first electric vehicle, the Elettrica. At an event at its Maranello headquarters, Ferrari showed reporters the chassis and powertrain of the upcoming EV, including its battery pack and motors. No [...]

The Apple Vision Pro is getting new immersive" content for the upcoming NBA season: a selection" of live Los Angeles Lakers games that will be available to watch on the headset in the Apple Immersive Video format, Apple announced today. Vision Pro users will be able to feel the intensity of each game as if [...]

Last week, Amazon launched a major update of its line of Alexa-enabled Echo smart speakers and displays. The redesign - led by former Microsoft design chief Ralf Groene, whom Amazon Devices & Services head Panos Panay coaxed out of retirement - included two new Echo Show smart displays. According to Panay, these new models are [...]

If you're a Nintendo Switch 2 owner who mostly buys digital games as opposed to cartridges (like me!), its 256GB of internal storage will run out quickly. Buying a microSD Express card gives you more storage, though at a higher cost than most people likely want to pay. However, Lexar's 512GB and 1TB microSD Express [...]

YouTube is now giving some creators, including those who were banned for spreading covid and election misinformation, a chance to make a new channel, according to a blog post. Under political pressure, the company had said last month that it was going to set up this pilot program for a subset of creators" and channels [...]

First announced at CES 2025, Belkin's Stage PowerGrip is finally available for $79.99. You can find power banks with wireless charging and more than 9,300mAh capacity for less than that, but Belkin has packed a lot of extra functionality into its latest that could justify the price if you're a smartphone photographer. The imaging capabilities [...]

There's still no telling when George R. R. Martin will turn in The Winds of Winter, and it's not clear when House of the Dragon will be back for its penultimate season. But HBO has finally released a trailer and revealed the premiere date for its newest Game of Thrones spinoff series. Today at this [...]