The Verge

After right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley's viral video alleging fraud at Minnesota daycares he said were operated by Somali residents, Donald Trump's administration responded by flooding the state with federal immigration agents and freezing funding for childcare services. (A judge ruled that the federal government must continue funding childcare subsidies, at least temporarily.) Now Shirley is [...]

Development on the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Borderlands 4 is on "pause," according to a statement from a Take-Two spokesperson given to Variety. "We made the difficult decision to pause development on that SKU," Take-Two spokesperson Alan Lewis said in the statement published by Variety. "Our focus continues to be delivering quality post-launch content [...]

The Super Bowl is not only one of the biggest sporting events in the world, it's also one of the best times of year to find a deal on a big TV. For major events in particular, a large TV makes sense because it provides a more immersive experience and allows for groups of friends [...]

On Monday, Elon Musk announced that he was merging two of his companies, SpaceX and xAI, in a deal said to be worth $1.25 trillion. The reason, Musk said in an announcement, was that in order for AI to grow, it needed to go to space. AI relies on "large terrestrial data centers" that run [...]

Microsoft says it is working on the Publisher Content Marketplace (PCM), an AI licensing hub that shows usage terms set by publishers. That way, AI companies can easily shop the terms and set up deals to use online content for "grounding" their AI models, while the content owners get usage-based reporting to help set prices. [...]

Apple is building OpenAI and Anthropic's AI-powered coding agents directly into Xcode. New integrations in Xcode 26.3 will give developers the ability to call upon Anthropic's Claude Agent and OpenAI's Codex to write and edit code, update project settings, search documentation, and more. Xcode is the software developers can use to create and test apps [...]

A raid on X's Paris office was carried out by the Paris prosecutor's cybercrime unit on Tuesday with Europol and French police as part of an ongoing investigation that expanded in July to include Grok. As previously reported by Reuters, Elon Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino were also summoned for hearings in April. [...]

Nintendo has had plenty of highs over its few decades in the video game industry. Popularizing home consoles with the NES, introducing new audiences to games through the Wii's motion controls, and the touchscreen Trojan horse that was the Nintendo DS, to name a few. But often these successes were followed by missteps; the Wii [...]

Anthropic's Claude AI models experienced a major outage today, impacting products like Claude Code. Developers were seeing a 500 error when trying to use Claude Code, and Anthropic said that it was seeing elevated error rates on its APIs "across all Claude models." Anthropic quickly identified the root cause and implemented a fix within around [...]

As The Verge's resident robot vacuum reviewer, I don't have a lot of time (or space) in my life for stick vacs, and frankly, the ones I have used have largely disappointed me. Top-heavy, bulky, always getting clogged or running out of battery - they're so... manual. But then I met PencilVac Fluffycones, Dyson's new [...]

If your phone feels too small but most tablets feel too big, Apple's latest iPad Mini functions as a nice in-between. Thankfully, if you've been waiting for a discount, the base model with Wi-Fi and 128GB of storage is on sale at Amazon and Best Buy for $399 ($100 off), which is $50 shy of [...]

When ChatGPT launched, in November of 2022, it started a race that almost immediately consumed the tech industry. OpenAI didn't invent the concept of AI, but most of the state-of-the-art technology was confined to research labs at companies and institutions around the world. Then, suddenly, it was everywhere. And better than anyone expected. So many [...]

China is banning Tesla-style concealed door handles on electric vehicles to address safety concerns regarding people getting trapped inside their cars. The ban will take effect on January 1st next year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's announcement, and will require all vehicles sold in China to have mechanical release door handles [...]

James Park and Eric Friedman, the co-founders of Fitbit who left Google two years ago, have announced a new venture called Luffu. Described as an "intelligent family care system," Luffu collects and logs health and medical information from connected devices, other platforms like Apple Health and Fitbit, and details shared by family members through voice [...]

Ordinary social networks face a constant onslaught of chatbots pretending to be human. A new social platform for AI agents may face the opposite problem: getting clogged up by humans pretending to post as bots. Moltbook - a website meant for conversations between agents from the platform OpenClaw - went viral this weekend for its [...]

Disney has picked a successor for longtime CEO Bob Iger. On Tuesday, the entertainment giant announced that its theme parks head, Josh D'Amaro, will take over as CEO on March 18th, 2026. Rumors about Iger's replacement have been swirling for more than a year now. After a 15-year-long tenure as Disney's CEO, Iger returned from [...]

Activision is trying to crack down on third-party hardware cheating devices in Call of Duty again. Both Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 have been plagued by players using devices like XIM, Cronus Zen, and ReaSnow S1 to enable unfair advantages that exploit aim assist, and now Activision is introducing [...]

Fortnite is going to be getting a lot more crossovers featuring characters from video games. As part of the Epic Games Store's year in review for 2025, Epic shared details about its official program for developers that will give people who purchase their game on the Epic Games Store a related cosmetic they can use [...]

Google Home users, your long nightmare is over. The platform has finally added support for buttons. The release notes for a February 2 update state that several new starter conditions for automations are now available, including "Switch or button pressed." Smart buttons are physical, programmable switches that you can press to trigger automations or control [...]

"Finally." That was my first reaction when I heard Google would combine Android and ChromeOS into a single operating system. Android has long struggled on tablets, and ChromeOS always felt like too much of a stripped-down alternative to tempt me away from Windows and Mac. So last week, it was exciting to see a leaked [...]

YouTube has started to block third-party mobile browsers from using a background playback loophole. Background playback is supposed to be limited to YouTube Premium subscribers through the official iOS or Android app, but many people have been using browsers like Brave, Vivaldi, and Edge to get background playback without a subscription. Not anymore. "Background playback [...]

The Tesla Model S is at the end of its illustrious 14-year run - and what a dizzying ride it's been. In 2012, when Tesla made its first Model S deliveries to customers, Facebook acquired Instagram. Apple launched the iPhone 5 and iOS 6. Barack Obama sailed into his second term. Superstorm Sandy shredded New [...]

With ICE and CBP roaming the streets, united community action is more important than ever right now - from local mutual aid groups to school safety patrols. Known for its privacy features and end-to-end encryption, the Signal messaging app has become a popular platform for organizing these community groups. Signal can be a great tool [...]

The day after the second general strike in Minneapolis, the labor unions of Portland, Oregon, marched in solidarity. It was the warmest day that Portland had seen in a while, with sun peeking out from the clouds here and there. Many people had brought their entire families; not just older children, but toddlers in strollers [...]

The original Switch is officially Nintendo's best-selling console of all time after surpassing the DS handheld in lifetime sales. In its latest earnings release, Nintendo reports that the Nintendo Switch has, as of December 31, 2025, sold 155.37 million units since its launch in 2017, compared to 154.02 million units for the 2004 Nintendo DS. [...]

Adobe is pulling the plug on Adobe Animate. In a FAQ posted to Adobe's website, the company says it will stop selling the animation software on March 1st, citing the emergence of new platforms "that better serve the needs of the users." Users have until March 1st, 2027 (or March 1st, 2029 for enterprise customers) [...]

Waymo announced a $16 billion investment round aimed at bringing its robotaxi business to more US cities, as well as some overseas markets. The funding round was led by Dragoneer Investment Group, a "crossover" firm known for investing in late-stage tech companies before they go public. Waymo's co-CEOs said in a blog post they would [...]

Elon Musk is merging two of the companies that he leads, SpaceX and xAI (which also owns X), into one. According to an announcement from Musk: SpaceX has acquired xAI to form the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world's foremost real-time [...]

Last week, the Department of Justice released a trove of documents related to its case against Jeffrey Epstein, its largest to date. Amid the millions of files were many mentions of Elon Musk. A search of Musk's name in the department's database results in at least 1,500 hits. Since the release, Musk has been - [...]

Users of the text and code editor Notepad++ may have unknowingly downloaded a malicious update for the app after its shared hosting servers were hijacked last year. On Monday, the app's developer, Don Ho, posted an update on the attack with more details, including that the hackers were "likely a Chinese state-sponsored group" and that [...]

Following the debut of its $10 Kallsup Bluetooth speakers at CES 2026, Ikea is introducing another wireless speaker with a playful design and an affordable price tag. The Grejsimojs Portable Bluetooth speaker probably isn't going to wow audiophiles, but it's designed to look like a little purple mouse with a tail that can be used [...]

Unlike many of the companies stuffing AI into their browsers, Mozilla will soon give you a way to turn all of these features off. An update coming on February 24th will add a new "AI control" option to Firefox's settings menu, allowing you to disable or enable the browser's individual AI features, including access to [...]

Crunchyroll is raising its prices in the US and "select international markets," including the first price hike to its lowest-priced tier since 2019. Here are the price changes, according to Crunchyroll: Fan Tier will increase from $7.99/month to $9.99/month. Mega Fan Tier will increase from $11.99/month to $13.99/month. Ultimate Fan Tier will increase from $15.99/month [...]

If you're looking for a versatile gift for Valentine's Day that can be sentimental and practical, Amazon's fourth-generation Echo Show 8 can serve as both a digital photo frame and a smart home controller. And right now, it's on sale at Amazon for $149.99 ($30 off) - a new low price - as part of [...]

Following an initial price increase announced two months ago, Raspberry Pi is raising prices again for several of its single-board computers. "The cost of some parts has more than doubled over the last quarter," Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton said in an announcement today. "As a result, we now need to make further increases to [...]

Emails released by the Justice Department on Friday appear to show that former Windows boss Steven Sinofsky not only consulted Jeffrey Epstein for help in securing his $14 million "retirement" package in November of 2012, but also in working on future career steps at other companies like Samsung or Apple. One document appears to show [...]

Emails between former Windows boss Steven Sinofsky and Jeffrey Epstein, published by the Justice Department on Friday, appear to show that Sinofsky constantly sought Epstein's advice as he negotiated his surprise exit from Microsoft in November 2012, forwarding emails to him in nearly real time as talks progressed. Sinofsky also appears to have paid Epstein [...]

Abxylute, the company behind the M4 magnetic mobile gamepad, has announced a new pair of controllers for the Nintendo Switch 2 designed to replace the stock Joy-Cons while playing in handheld mode. Both are "launching soon" on Kickstarter and feature a design where the Switch 2 docks to the controllers so they can connect to [...]

It's rare for Sony's flagship headphones, even slightly outdated models, to receive a big discount. However, theWH-1000XM5in black or silver is selling at its lowest-ever price today atAdoramawhen you enter the codeJHCE9834at checkout (it's the last step before placing the order). Originally $399, they're $204.56 - practically half price. According to historic pricing data from [...]

An open-source AI agent called OpenClaw (formerly known as both Clawdbot and Moltbot) that runs on your own computer and actually does things" is taking off inside tech circles. Users interact with OpenClaw via messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Discord, and iMessage, giving it the keys to operate independently, managing reminders, writing emails, or [...]

The Department of Justice has released more of its records on self-described science philanthropist" and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Other than Epstein, they've also brought an intense focus on the many powerful people who associated and corresponded with him, including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Google cofounder Sergey Brin, and President Donald Trump. There's also [...]

Today, I'm talking with Allan Thygesen, who is the CEO of Docusign. You know Docusign; it's the platform where you sign things online. It turns out 7,000 people work there, which is one of those facts you see flying around sometimes that's always felt like perfect Decoder bait. What are all those people doing? And [...]

When a video game series goes on for a long time, it raises a question for newcomers: Just where is the best place to jump in? In the case of Dragon Quest, there are nearly a dozen mainline titles, not to mention copious spinoffs and ports that span four decades of history. Of late, though, [...]

After weeks of flooding the internet with nonconsensual sexual deepfakes, X has finally reined in Elon Musk's rogue chatbot Grok. Musk claims Grok obeys local laws and refuses to produce anything illegal - except it hasn't and it can. My testing shows Grok still readily undresses men and is still churning out intimate images on [...]

Ring is opening its Search Party pet finder service to non-Ring owners through the free Ring Neighbors app. The service has helped reunite owners with "more than one lost dog a day" since launch, according to the company. Anyone in the US can share a photo of their missing pet after they download and register [...]

PGYTech, the accessory manufacturer behind the official telephoto extender lenses for recent Vivo and Oppo flagships, has launched a Kickstarter for a new version developed for iPhones. The RetroVa Vintage Imaging Kit looks an awful lot like the camera kits for those phones, complete with a custom case, slide-on camera grip with built-in battery and [...]

When you picture a virtual reality headset user, you're probably not picturing someone like Sherry Dickson. At 69, the snowy-haired, retired elementary school teacher hops into her Meta Quest headset five days a week, for roughly 60 to 90 minutes at a time. She's not attending live concerts or watching immersive films. Dickson, a fitness [...]

Reports of Bill Gates' connections with Jeffrey Epstein grow more lurid with each dump of documents from the Department of Justice. The latest includes somewhat confusing emails that Epstein may have been drafting on behalf of someone named Boris, who worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The messages claim that Bill contracted an [...]

After protests broke out in early January, the Iranian regime shut down the internet, starting the longest blackout in Iranian history. Despite this attempt to stop the protests from spreading, they did not stop. Still, the internet shutdown slowed down the spread of information both inside and outside Iran. Behind the heavily policed borders and [...]

New York City got hit with a hell of a snowstorm last week. And, inevitably, when I'm watching the snow fall, wandering the oddly quiet streets after dark, people hiding inside and staying warm, I put on M83's sophomore record, Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts. Before Nicolas Fromageau left the band and Anthony [...]