The Verge

An aerial photo of a warehouse next to homes in Bloomington, California. | Photo by Wes Reel for The Verge The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just handed communities a powerful new way to hold nearby warehouses accountable for the pollution they create.Until recently, air quality regulations largely overlooked tailpipe pollution choking neighborhoods near sprawling warehouses. Warehouses may not have smokestacks releasing pollutants that the EPA and local agencies typically regulate. But they do attract a steady stream of trucks. It's a problem the warehouse wouldn't necessarily have been held accountable for since old-school regulations focused on pollutants coming from the facility itself.Warehouses are expanding to meet demand for e-commerceThat changed with a landmark policy in Southern California called the Warehouse Indirect... Continue reading...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge These days, there are so many digital subscriptions out there - music, movies, fitness, cloud storage, software, podcasts, audiobooks, Patreons, security cameras, AI bots, and more - that it's perfectly understandable if you start losing track of what exactly you're signed up for.To make things even more complicated, you may be paying some subscriptions monthly and others annually. Then, there are those insidious free trials: you sign up to test something out, forget all about it after a few days, and then get billed unexpectedly (this is an occupational hazard for tech journalists). And of course, both Apple and Google make it immensely easy to sign up for various services almost instantly using their account.Luckily, Apple and... Continue reading...

Illustration: Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos: Getty Images Apple revealed its iPhone 16 lineup on Monday, and the big selling point was Apple Intelligence. Apple's on-device AI system offers splashy features like the ability to rewrite emails, generate custom emoji, and a significantly upgraded Siri. But underneath it all, AI is delivering one other big change to the iPhone: more RAM.Although Apple never talks about RAM in its smartphones, MacRumors discovered that every iPhone 16 model now has 8GB of RAM, up from 6GB in the base models from last year. And it's not just Apple making changes like that. Last month, Google made similar changes to its AI-heavy Pixel 9; both the standard and pro models saw an increase in RAM, making 12GB the least you can get this year.The impetus behind these RAM... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google Wallet will start beta testing a digital ID soon that works at TSA checkpoints in almost half the country, including states like New York, California, Florida, Texas, and Illinois, but Google still advises that users keep their physical ID handy. Google says it's also working with partners to use digital IDs for other purposes, like car rentals, account recovery, and identity verification.To create the digital ID, you'll scan the security chip on the back of your passport into the Google Wallet app. Google will ask you to verify your identity with a selfie video and then generate the ID pass within a few minutes. The ID is encrypted, so you'll need a passcode or fingerprint to access and share it. Image: Google... Continue reading...

The iFixit portable soldering station. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge My first USB-C soldering iron was a revelation. You mean I can make liquid metal connections anywhere, in seconds, just by plugging this tiny stick into a USB cable?" Now, repair company iFixit is introducing its own take on the idea. It claims the iFixit FixHub Smart Soldering Iron is powerful enough for pros and easier for beginners than any others that have come before.So far, it's not a new revelation, but after my first couple of hours, I'm loving iFixit's improvements on an already great idea.For starters: the $80 iron comes with a heat-resistant magnetic storage cap so you can safely put it away at a moment's notice, an LED warning light that tells you if it's blistering hot, motion sensors to automatically shut it off if you... Continue reading...

Level Lock incorporates all the smart tech into a deadbolt that can be retrofitted into an existing lock. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Smart locks may still be a niche product, but lock behemoth Assa Abloy is clearly betting on a digital future for our doors. Despite being sued by the US Department of Justice for trying to buy too many smart lock manufacturers, the Swedish-based company just bought another one: sleek smart lock maker Level Lock.With this latest purchase, Assa Abloy, which owns a staggering 190 brands in the access control" space, may now have a significant piece of the puzzle it needs to push the market into a digital future. Their innovative platform provides an easy transition from mechanical locking to digital access solutions with minimal effort," said Lucas Boselli, executive vice president of Assa Abloy, in a press release.Level's technology... Continue reading...

Photo by Paul Hennessy / Anadolu via Getty Images The Starliner debacle fueled speculation that the space agency would dump Boeing. But if it did, it would be left with SpaceX - and Elon Musk. Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Microsoft is laying off around 650 employees in its gaming division today. The latest cuts come months after Microsoft laid off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees, and after the closure of several game studios, including Redfall developer Arkane Austin.Xbox chief Phil Spencer announced the layoffs to employees in an internal memo this morning, seen by The Verge. The cuts are related to the Activision Blizzard deal, and Spencer makes it clear in his email that no games, devices or experiences are being cancelled" and no studios are being closed as part of the layoffs today.As part of aligning our post-acquisition team structure and managing our business, we have made the decision to eliminate approximately 650 roles across... Continue reading...

The entire iPhone 16 lineup also supports faster 25W MagSafe charging. | Image: The Verge All the new iPhone 16 models unveiled this week can reportedly charge more than 50 percent faster through a wired USB-C connection than the previous series. That's according to a Chinese certification posted on Weibo indicating that Apple's latest iPhones can support up to 45W of wired fast charging.The certification from the China Quality Certification Centre regulatory body, also posted to X by user ShrimpApplePro, shows all of the new iPhone 16 models were tested at 5-15 volts and 3 amps, which equates to a 45W maximum. The iPhone 15 lineup maxed out at 29W. As noted by 9To5Mac, it's not unusual for Apple to neglect announcements around wired charging.The 45W max of the iPhone 16 easily bests the Google Pixel 9's 27W capabilities... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Valve's new Steam Families feature is now available for everyone following a beta launch earlier this year. With Steam Families, parents are able to share games with their families, manage parental controls for their kids, and approve requests from their kids to buy Steam games.The big improvement with Steam Families over Valve's previous Family Sharing setup is that multiple people can play games from a shared library at one time. So if I'm playing Balatro, and my partner, who is part of my Steam Family, wants to play Arranger, we can both play those games at the same time. However, if my partner wants to play Balatro while I'm already playing it, she'll need to buy an additional copy. With Steam Families, you can play shared games... Continue reading...

The Apple Watch Series 10 is bigger, thinner, and brighter than previous models - including the rugged Apple Watch Ultra 2. | Image: Apple Earlier this week, during Apple's It's Glowtime" event, the tech giant introduced the new Apple Watch Series 10 and a new look for the Apple Watch Ultra 2. The smartwatches start at $399 and $799, respectively, and both are available for preorder ahead of their forthcoming release on Friday, September 20th.The new Series 10 is both bigger and slimmer than its predecessor, and both the Ultra 2 and Series 10 now come in a slick black color. This is the first time Apple is offering the Ultra in a second shade, but it's not the only change Apple announced for the watch. Both watches will offer new capabilities, including notifications for sleep apnea (pending FDA approval), a disorder that makes people stop breathing while sleeping.... Continue reading...

Klipsch's Flexus Core 300 soundbar will leverage Dirac's room correction calibration tools. | Image: Klipsch Klipsch has announced its new Flexus Core 300 soundbar, which it claims is the industry's first to utilize Dirac's Live Room correction technology to optimize its sound specifically for the room where it's installed and where listeners are sitting. Dirac Live is typically only featured in amplifiers and receivers that are part of a more complex - and more expensive - home theater setup.The $999 Flexus Core 300 will be available this winter," according to What Hi-Fi? and features eight side-firing, front-firing, and up-firing 2.25-inch speakers, plus four 4-inch subwoofers. Connectivity includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ethernet, 8K passthrough HDMI, HDMI eARC, USB-C, and a digital audio port. Switching inputs and adjusting settings like EQ is... Continue reading...

Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images Newsom has until September 30th to decide the bill's fate, and both sides are lobbying hard. Continue reading...

The PS5 Pro looks like a slim that got a growth spurt. | Image: Sony After various rumors and leaks, the PlayStation 5 Pro is finally official - complete with a new GPU, $700 price point, and no built-in disc drive. But is that pretty much it? What makes this new console 40 percent more expensive than the existing PS5 you can buy today for $500? The same one that's bound to go on sale during the holidays, not long after the Pro's November 7th launch date.What are the differences between the PS5 and PS5 Pro that make it (depending who you ask) a worthwhile upgrade or a superfluous expense?Spec and performance differencesThe PS5 Pro has three core performance improvements over the standard PS5, according to Sony's technical presentation announcement, hosted by PS5 lead architect, Mark Cerny. It's got a... Continue reading...

Solar cells are run through a PV cell soldering stringer at Elin Energy's solar panel manufacturing facility. | Photo: Getty Images The US has quadrupled its capacity for manufacturing solar panels in just a couple of years since passing the biggest federal spending package yet on climate and clean energy.Domestic solar module manufacturing capacity grew to 31.3 gigawatts in the second quarter of 2024, according to a report published this week by Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association. That's a significant jump, comparable to around 80 percent of the roughly 40GW of solar the US installed last year.It's some welcome news as the US tries to meet goals it has set under the Paris agreement meant to keep climate disasters like wildfires and flooding from getting significantly worse. The Biden administration has made domestic manufacturing a... Continue reading...

Image: Bluesky Bluesky, the decentralized X alternative, now supports video. The platform announced on Wednesday that you can share videos up to 60 seconds long on its desktop site and mobile app.The videos will autoplay by default, but Bluesky says you can turn this feature off in the settings menu. You can also add subtitles to your videos, as well as apply labels for things like adult content. There are some limitations to Bluesky's video feature, as the platform will only allow up to 25 video uploads (or 10GB of video) per day.

Don't want to commit to a new color of paint? Glasst's Unpaint can be peeled off after a couple of days. | Image: Glasst Glasst has come up with an unusual solution for DIYers struggling to commit to a new wall color. Its Unpaint is a paint alternative that can be applied using standard tools like brushes, rollers, or even sprayers, but not permanently. When it dries, the company claims the paint can be easily peeled off instead of requiring laborious sanding or solvents to remove it.Unpaint uses the Colombian-based company's proprietary Glasstommer technology, which allows a quickly applied liquid material to become a thin removable film. Glasst considers the exact makeup of the material a trade secret but does divulge that it contains a biodegradable elastic component" that dries to create a film that removes as easily as peeling an adhesive."The... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In case you missed the news, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions recently went up in price with the rollout of a new Standard" tier, which doesn't include day-one access to first-party Xbox games. Thankfully, if you're still keen on an Ultimate membership, CDKeys is offering one-month subscription codes for $11.19 ($9 off) and three-month codes for $29.79 (about $30 off). These aren't the lowest prices we've seen, but they sure beat paying the subscription's new price of $19.99 a month.If you need a refresher, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate grants access to a massive library of downloadable games for Xbox consoles and PCs. Naturally, that includes first-party titles like Halo Infinite and Hi-Fi Rush but also great third-party games like S... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile, which is working with SpaceX to let people text and make phone calls over satellite, says it has successfully sent a test emergency alert via a Starlink satellite. Satellite alerts can help ensure that people receive critical communication when they're out of wireless coverage range, and T-Mobile claims this is the first time a wireless emergency alert has been sent over satellite in the US.At 5:13 PM PT on Thursday, September 5th, T-Mobile initiated a test alert for a hypothetical evacuation notice," according to T-Mobile. The alert was sent 217 miles into space where it was received by one of the more than 175 Starlink direct-to-smartphone satellites currently in low earth orbit that effectively function as cell towers in... Continue reading...

Image: the Internet Archive Google Search is now adding links to archived websites in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. That's a bit of good news for anybody lamenting the disappearance of the cached pages link from Google's results.The Internet Archive hosts billions of archived webpages, as it notes in its blog post today about the change. The Wayback Machine is a very helpful tool for looking at older versions of websites to see what may have changed compared to past versions, which, in some cases, can go back decades.

Photo by Win McNamee / Getty Images Following last night's debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, several users on X homed in on the vice president's earrings - speculating that she was using them to get her talking points. Echoing a long history of political conspiracy theories, X users claimed she wore the Nova H1 Audio Earrings, which double as wireless earpieces. But anyone who looks closely can tell those aren't what Harris was wearing.The Nova H1 Audio Earrings were announced last year as part of a Kickstarter campaign. They feature real pearls that hide a pair of wireless speakers, which transmit audio up and into your ears. They're also almost certainly not what Harris was wearing.Apart from the large pearls on both Harris' earrings and the Nova H1... Continue reading...

A Ram 1500 truck assembly process at Stellantis' Sterling Heights, Michigan plant. | Image: Stellantis Stellantis, the European parent company of American brands Ram, Dodge, Chrysler, and Jeep, is retooling its Michigan plants to enable more electric vehicle production.The automaker says it will put more than $400 million into three Michigan facilities to support its multi-energy strategy," enabling manufacturing of electric and gas versions of the same vehicles to be built in the same facilities. Most of the money will roll into the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant (SHAP), where the upcoming 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger, an EV truck with a gas-powered range extender, will be built alongside the all-combustion engine versions of the pickup.Much of the investment will help EV and gas Ram trucks coexist on the same assembly lineSHAP will... Continue reading...

The PS5 Pro's announcement yesterday wasn't a surprise. What was a surprise was the price: at $699.99, it debuts as Sony's most expensive console ever. It brought back memories of the PS3's controversial price tag, a console that when adjusted for inflation is the same $779 price point of a PS5 Pro with the additional disc drive. It's a very expensive PlayStation, and I fear it's a test of what's to come for next-gen console pricing.For years, console gamers have been used to purchasing hardware at a significantly reduced price compared to what you could build yourself in the PC gaming space. Yes, you can find components that match the PS5 or Xbox Series X on paper, but it's still difficult to hit the price points that consoles sell... Continue reading...

Even in shadow, the new SUV looks like any SUV. | Image: Lucid Lucid revealed new information about the EV charge port of its upcoming Gravity SUV and teased an all-new, more affordable vehicle at Tuesday's Technology and Manufacturing Day event.The Lucid Gravity, slated for its first deliveries later this year, will come equipped with a native Tesla-compatible port in 2025." The Tesla connector, now known as the North American Charging Standard, or NACS, is being adopted by largely every auto manufacturer for their future EVs.So far, Hyundai has shown off its 2025 Ioniq 5 with a native NACS port, and Rivian's upcoming R2 SUV is also confirmed to have it. Lucid, however, might be the first to include the port on the driver's side rear, which is the same as Tesla vehicles. That means it likely w... Continue reading...

Hugs and kisses! | Image: Cody Peterson (Each Other) Though I'd heard this XOXO festival would be the last one, many people I spoke to seemed not to believe it. I was told by previous attendees that festival organizers Andy Baio and Andy McMillan - affectionately called the Andys" - always say that." But from the festival's beginning, it also seemed clear that the Andys didn't plan to do this forever.Anyway, this year's XOXO felt like an Irish wake to me. It was like we had all gathered over the body of a specific period on the internet to pay our respects.XOXO began in 2012, born on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, where Baio worked. The basic idea was to celebrate disruptive creativity" - that is, to take all the artists who make a living online and bring them together with... Continue reading...

The Dirigera hub and Ikea's Home smart app. | Image: Ikea Two years after announcing support, Ikea's Dirigera hub can now be updated to act as a bridge between Ikea's smart home devices and Matter-enabled systems. The software update builds upon early beta support by letting Ikea's entire lineup of Zigbee-based smart home devices - like lights, blinds, controllers, air purifiers, and sensors - communicate with Matter-enabled devices from any company.Bridging support for existing devices to Matter is a small but significant step in Ikea's plan to fully support the new smart home protocol. It's the same tepid approach Philips Hue has taken but hopefully with better results. Other companies like Aqara have more fully embraced the standard by launching native Matter devices that don't require... Continue reading...

The display creases are prominant at certain angles, but are barely noticable when looking at the Huawei Mate XT straight on. | Screenshot: Fixed Focus Digital Now that Huawei has officially launched the Mate XT Ultimate Design in China, demonstration videos are popping up online that reveal what the world's first dual-folding, triple-screen phone looks like in real-world conditions.Several unboxing videos show that the Huawei Mate XT is shipped in its unfolded position, which is just 3.6mm (around 0.14 inches) thick at its thinnest point - making it slimmer than Google's 5.1mm (around 0.2 inch) Pixel 9 Pro Fold. When fully folded, the Mate XT measures in at 12.8mm (around 0.5 inches), a smidge thicker than the Pixel 9 Pro Fold's 10.1mm (around 0.39 inches) and the 12.1mm Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6.A hands-on review from Gizmochina shows that the display can be used to view multiple app windows... Continue reading...

Photo by Noam Galai / TAS24 / Getty Images for TAS Rights Management Taylor Swift said on Tuesday that she plans to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in November's presidential election - and that AI-generated images circulating of herself pushed her in part to make her support public.Recently I was made aware that AI of me' falsely endorsing Donald Trump's presidential run was posted to his site. It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation," Swift wrote in an Instagram post. It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter. The simplest way to combat misinformation is with the truth."

This little gadget keeps getting better and better. | Image: Flipper Devices Inc. One of our favorite hacking gadgets, the Flipper Zero, received its first major firmware update today. It includes a bunch of features the developers have been working on stabilizing for the last three years, including a big battery life boost that technically arrived with a previous update. While many of the features aren't technically new, the entire package should make this gadget feel like a supercharged version of its former self.One of the most notable updates since launch solves one of the developers' biggest problems: the device's internal flash memory originally limited how many features they could add. In the past, new features were built into the firmware itself, but they eventually exceeded what the memory could handle. Last... Continue reading...

Image: The Verge Disney was ready to turn part of its feed back on for DirecTV customers tonight - but DirecTV wasn't interested.Disney-owned ABC News is hosting tonight's presidential debate, and Disney offered to make the channel available to DirecTV subscribers for three hours at no charge, Disney spokespeople April Carretta and Bridget Osterhaus wrote in an email this afternoon. They said Disney wanted to provide the feed at no cost because we want all Americans to be able to view tonight's debate at this important moment in our history."DirecTV subscribers can still watch the debate on other networksBut DirecTV declined the offer, saying it would cause customer confusion" when those channels quickly disappeared again. In an unsigned statement... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Google just landed a deal to capture planet-heating pollution at a huge bargain: $100 per ton of CO2, the price climate tech startups around the world are racing to achieve in order to make their technologies commercially viable.The company announced the agreement today with Holocene, a startup with an even shorter history than others in the emerging carbon removal industry that has nevertheless attracted some big-name backers.We think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy."If Holocene can actually pull it off - take carbon dioxide out of the air at a price far lower than competitors charging $600 per ton or more for the same service - it could prove that carbon removal technologies are ready to help in the climate fight. But it's still... Continue reading...

Popsicles or lightsabers - your choice. | Image: Lifx Lifx has a new smart Polychrome" Tube light that can glow with multiple colors and transform your home lamps and fixtures into fun light-up popsicles. The bulbs are made of a frosted glass tube and contain 104 LEDs with 52 controllable zones that enable color-shifting effects and include themes like cracking fire in Flame Mode" or a lava lamp effect in Morph Mode."The accompanying app also lets you paint" colors on the bulb surface for a more custom look for your room. Lifx is also releasing a new B10 Polychrome candlelight that has similar features to the tube, including the E26 standard bulb socket so that it can fit in the most common existing lamps or many newer specialty ones (the existing model has E12 tips). ... Continue reading...