The Verge

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 [...]

The Civilization franchise is getting the VR treatment with Sid Meier's Civilization VII - VR on Meta Quest headsets this spring, 2K and Firaxis Games have announced. The virtual and mixed reality" game will be available for the Quest 3 and 3S, but no price or specific release date has been announced quite yet. How [...]

TikTok is now offering US downloads of the Android version of the app on its own website, the company announced last night. With the change, Android users in the United States now have an easy way to download or update the app for the first time since Google removed it from Google Play last month [...]

A federal judge temporarily blocked Elon Musk's DOGE from accessing Treasury Department records containing personal information like Social Security numbers early this morning, reports Inner City Press. The order is in response to a lawsuit filed yesterday in New York's Southern District Court. The suit alleges that the administration exceeded its authority, broke the US [...]

Getting ready for the Big Game? Once you've invited your friends over and picked what food to order, the most important thing is deciding how and where to watch Super Bowl LIX. But thankfully, it's going to be very, very easy to catch the Eagles and Chiefs facing off in New Orleans. If history's anything [...]

Itas odd that a match-3 game got me in my feelings so much that Iam considering adding making games to my profession of covering them. But thatas exactly what happened after my delightful time with Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match-3 To. Itas a mouthful of a name, but damned if the game doesnat do [...]

Iam standing outside a nondescript corporate office park in Las Vegas next to a box-shaped vehicle with no proper front or back. It's got a set of sliding doors, no steering wheel, and touchpad controls. Itas bidirectional, meaning it can move in either direction without turning around. And to be completely frank, it looks more [...]

Access to water is always a concern when heading off the grid in my van a not when Iam home in Amsterdam, a city surrounded by the stuff. That certainty changed recently when government ministers began quietly prodding citizens to stock up on emergency supplies due to an increased risk of armed conflict and other [...]

During a Q&A with employees earlier this week, one of Metaas top executives gave an ominous warning. After lamenting aa tremendous number of leaksa from inside the company, CTO Andrew Bosworth said that, while he didnat want to aruin the surprises,a the company was amaking progress on catching people.a Since Mark Zuckerbergas comments at a [...]

The combustion engine version of the Chevy Blazer is reportedly being discontinued and will eventually only be offered as an EV, sources tell GM Authority. Both the Chevy Blazer EV and the gas-powered Chevy Blazer have been assembled at GM's Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico, but with the gas Blazer now sunsetting with the 2025 [...]

Some Google Calendar users are angrily calling the company out after noticing that certain events like Pride month are no longer highlighted by default. Black History Month, Indigenous People Month, Jewish Heritage, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Hispanic Heritage have also been removed, according toa Google product expert. One usercalled the move shameful"and said that the [...]

Missed out on all the terrific TV deals we saw during Black Friday and Cyber Monday? That's okay, because the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl have historically been one of the better times of the year to snag a discounted set. In fact, Amazon, Best Buy, Woot, and a number of retailers are [...]

Netflix definitely wanted to debut Ezra Edelmanas nine-hour-long documentary chronicling Princeas life, but that wonat be happening thanks to the late singeras estate. Though Edelmanas untitled documentary was already completed, Netflix announced on Thursday that it has acome to a mutual agreementa with Princeas estate to keep the film from being released. As part of [...]

Marko Elez, the 25-year-old staffer Department of Government Efficiency staffer linked to a social media profile with racist posts, will be brought back," shortly after he resigned, Elon Musk announced on X. Elez resigned from his role where he reportedly had the ability to rewrite code in sensitive payments systems at the US Treasury, once [...]

The term climate change" has started to vanish from Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) website. Its former climate resilience" website has been rebranded under the title future conditions." There are still subtle references to climate change there, but it's more of a whisper than an urgent warning as it was before. The edits come as [...]

Customers on AT&T's network are getting one more tool to help them decide when to pick up the phone: an indication of why a business is calling you, right from the incoming call screen. It's a continuation of the branded calling feature that AT&T and TransUnion introduced last year, and only works on Android phones. [...]

Todayas workplace stretches four generations. The oldest members of Generation Z are reaching their mid-20s, while the youngest baby boomers are turning 60. That leaves employers to account for a range of backgrounds and ways of working. Itas become vital that companies use technology to enable more seamless collaboration and productivity. But itas not just [...]

Within the past week, Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)-affiliated staffers have gained unprecedented access to sensitive US financial systems with data on millions of Americans, claimed to shut down one federal agency without an act of Congress, and invaded numerous government agencies. They've been opposed by lawsuits, public protests, and resistance [...]

With a 6.13-inch black-and-white E Ink screen, Bigme's new Hibreak Pro looks similar to the Boox Palma 2 that debuted last October. But while the Palma 2 is positioned as a pocket-sized e-reader, the Hibreak Pro features a more powerful processor and dual-SIM 5G capabilities. The Bigme Hibreak Pro is currently available for preorder through [...]

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man star Hudson Thames left many eyebrows raised last week after his comments about fearing the Disney Plus series would be aannoying and woke.a During a subsequent Reddit AMA, series creator Jeff Trammell was quick to start doing damage control, and he insisted that Thames had misspoken. But even in its most [...]

President Donald Trump has paused the removal of the de minimis exemption on goods from China, temporarily putting an end to the confusion and high fees that have plagued both customers and businesses over the past few days. The de minimus exemption allows packages valued at less than $800 to enter the country duty-free, but [...]

The Trump administration's war on electric cars continues with the halt of a national program that sends money to states to install EV charging equipment. It was the latest move by President Donald Trump to reverse Biden-era EV policies - even as those policies have personally enriched his top ally, Elon Musk. According to a [...]

I have a cable problem. Iam the guy with a giant box (three, actually) of ancient power cables that connect to nothing, just in case a time traveler appears with my hard drive from 2006 and demands I plug it in. I have approximately a thousand Lightning cables, even though the only Lightning-charging device I [...]

Dbrand has announced a unique (disturbing? unsettling?) way to protect the Apple Vision Pro that completely negates the sleek aesthetics of the headset's curved laminated glass display. Its new Aperture faceplate, which was originally conceived by a former AR designer at Snap, features a trypophobia-inducing pattern of seemingly random holes that are actually all strategically [...]

Hasbro is teaming up with movie production company Legendary Entertainment to create a live-action film and TV universe" based on Magic: The Gathering. The project will initially focus on a currently untitled feature film according to Hasbro's press release, with television series and other content" then expected to follow as the cinematic universe develops. Neither [...]

We were whizzing down the slopes, screaming because it is sort of ridiculous to go flying down a snowy hill in an inflatable tube. There was a friendly family competition going on to see who could get down the hill the fastest. Other snowtubers had their phones out - my spouse had planned to record [...]

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), a child safety nonprofit that works closely with the government and major tech platforms, has recently removed publications that reference queer and transgender children from its website. The removals come amid reports that NCMEC was ordered to cull mentions of LGBTQ+ issues under threat of losing [...]

Google appears to have faked AI output in a commercial set to run during the Super Bowl. The ad shows a business owner using Gemini to write a website description, but the text portrayed as generated by AI has been available on the business's website since at least August 2020, as shown on this archived [...]

Amazon has agreed to pay the District of Columbia $3.95 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that the retail giant had stolen more than $60 million in tips intended for its Flex delivery drivers. DC Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb announced the settlement today, which includes $2.45 million in penalties and requires Amazon to clearly [...]

Elon Musk and the team at the Department of Government Efficiency figured out one thing really fast: if you control the computers, you control everything. And so Musk and his merry band of engineers have spent the last week or so parading into various US government agencies and taking control of their systems. Thereas so [...]

In the vast number of fields where generative AI has been tested, law is perhaps its most glaring point of failure. Tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT have gotten lawyers sanctioned and experts publicly embarrassed, producing briefs based on made-up cases and nonexistent research citations. So when my colleague Kylie Robison got access to ChatGPT's new adeep [...]

Sony can be somewhat stingy about offering discounts on first-party accessories like the PlayStation Portal, which is why the latest PlayStation sale is worth checking out. Now through February 19th, PlayStation Plus members can buy two PlayStation 5 accessories and get 20 percent off purchases over $100. If you aren't a PS Plus member, you [...]

Apple has reportedly been ordered by the UK government to create a backdoor that would give security officials access to users' encrypted iCloud backups. If implemented, British security services would have access to the backups of any user worldwide, not just Brits, and Apple would not be permitted to alert users that their encryption was [...]

Microsoft has started rolling out a new scareware blocker in its Edge browser this week. The AI-powered feature runs on Windows PCs and can identify and block existing scams, and even detect new and emerging ones thanks to a local machine learning model. Scareware blocker adds a new, first line of defense to help protect [...]

Nvidia's RTX 5090 and 5080 desktop GPUs sort of launched last month, but on the laptop front, we're still awaiting the avalanche of 50-series notebooks to come crashing in, starting with these hefty new mid-rangers from Acer. The (deep breath) Predator Helios Neo 16 AI and Predator Helios Neo 18 AI can be configured with [...]

Will Sony ever release a remake or remaster of Bloodborne, the Dark Souls successor that became one of our favorite games of 2015? Even Sony's former games chief isn't sure - but that isn't stopping Sony's copyright enforcers from shutting down fun in the meanwhile. Last week, it axed the 60fps mod that let the [...]

Newly-published Nintendo patents show that the company has been exploring a version of its Joy-Con controllers that can work like a computer mouse, a feature Nintendo has hinted will be coming to the Switch 2. In its Switch 2 teaser video last month, Nintendo showed two Joy-Con controllers sliding along the ground, much like you'd [...]

Apple's next iPhone SE might be announced as early as next week" ahead of it being on sale later in February, Bloomberg reports. The new phone has already seemingly appeared in photos and video and Bloomberg says Apple's inventory of the current iPhone SE has started running low, which all could point to an imminent [...]

Tinder is updating its Explore page with new categories to help you find dates with similar relationship goals. With the update, you can now browse profiles in groups such as Serious Dater," Long-Term Partner," Non-monogamy," and Short-Term Fun." The dating app notes that you can only qualify for the Serious Dater category if you have [...]