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Well, I was wrong, and I did manage to make it to one last day at the Toronto International Film Festival. One of the movies I wanted to see the most this year was Scarlet, the latest from Mamoru Hosoda, whose most recent film was the metaverse fairy tale Belle. Whereas that film was a [...]

I would not call the time I'm having with Hollow Knight: Silksong "fun," and yet I'm still playing. In the depths of The Marrow, the second major area of Silksong, there's a particularly nasty midboss. I eventually beat him, but my reward wasn't a new ability, item, or a bench where I could rest and [...]

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on phones and other tech outside the US, follow Dominic Preston. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Smartphone batteries are bigger than ever, while [...]

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 97, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, hope you're having a good iPhone / back to school / it's-finally-not-hot-anymore week, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) It's so good to be back! [...]

It's been a few years since Netflix confirmed that Liam Hemsworth would be taking over as Geralt of Rivia in the live-action Witcher series. And while we caught a brief glimpse of him in action last year, the first proper clip from season 4 of the show reveals just how Hemsworth will be inhabiting the [...]

It's September, and many among us are dealing with back to school, and anticipating the colder weather that's on its way (at least, if you live in the northern climes). This, plus a somewhat fraught political atmosphere, means that you might be looking for reliable, affordable ways to escape the doldrums. You don't need us [...]

If you listen to music the way a lot of people do these days - with a pair of wireless earbuds, from a Bluetooth speaker, or just blaring directly out of your phone - you will never notice a difference between Spotify's high-quality 320Kbps streams and its lossless audio. But, if you usually listen with [...]

Imagine if George Cukor's The Women was a modern, Spanish-language telenovela set in Ecuador rather than a 1939 dramedy about the lives of wealthy Manhattanites. Now imagine if the series was directed by Pedro Almodovar and its characters were brought to life with stop-motion animation instead of being portrayed by Hollywood heavyweights like Joan Crawford [...]

Few video game adaptations understand their source material quite like the Exit 8 film. It takes the rules and structure of the game - which strands players inside of a looping hallway in a Tokyo subway station - and then builds on them with actual characters and a story. And according to director Genki Kawamura, [...]

While interviewing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman this week, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson brought up his belief in a conspiracy theory that former OpenAI researcher Suchir Balaji was definitely murdered." The researcher's death in November 2024, which was ruled a suicide by the San Francisco police, followed his release of statements online and in [...]

Elon Musk is pressing Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to look into Blizzard employees who criticized Charlie Kirk after his death. Musk's post quotes an X thread listing names and screenshots of the developers. What's going on here, @satyanadella?" Musk said. These are Microsoft employees," he added in another post. Musk's direct question to Nadella follows [...]

While I generally respect The Wall Street Journal, every once in a while it sees fit to remind me that it is, in fact, owned by Rupert Murdoch. This time, it printed something dangerously close to anti-trans blood libel in the wake of Charlie Kirk's shooting. In its live-update blog yesterday, the Journal wrote, "Ammunition [...]

In wake of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk's public killing, around two dozen Republican lawmakers are pushing for House leadership to create a new select committee that would investigate The money, influence, and power behind the radical left's assault on America and the rule of law." The letter amounts to a request for subpoena power to [...]

Discord denies that the suspect accused of killing Charlie Kirk used the messaging platform to discuss his crime, following the service getting mentioned by law enforcement in a press conference -and after accusations that it helped radicalize the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson. In a statement to The Verge, Jud Hoffman, Discord's vice president of trust [...]

Stellantis announced that it was discontinuing its Ram 1500 REV electric truck, citing slowing sales of heavy-duty electric trucks. The name plate, however, will live on. Stellantis said that it was renaming its Range-Extended Electric Vehicle (REEV) Ramcharger pickup to Ram 1500 REV. This vehicle will set a new benchmark in the half-ton segment, offering [...]

The circle is now complete: you can install your Steam copy of Hollow Knight Silksong on an Android phone, play it with your automatically downloaded Steam save games - and today, as of the new GameHub 5.0.4 update, you can easily upload your phone savegame back to Steam to resume on PC. To get save [...]

The AI web search company Perplexity is being hit by another lawsuit alleging copyright and trademark infringement, this time from Encyclopedia Britannica and Merriam-Webster. Britannica, the centuries-old publisher that owns Merriam-Webster, sued Perplexity in New York federal court on September 10th. In the lawsuit, the companies allege that Perplexity's answer engine" scrapes their websites, steals [...]

Tyler Robinson, apprehended last night in connection to the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, allegedly left engraved bullets at the crime scene that were covered in a furry meme, a reference from the video game Helldivers 2, and an extremely online taunt. In an FBI briefing this morning about his arrest, Utah Gov. [...]

Apple's new smartwatches have the spotlight this week, but Android users have a reason to celebrate, too. That's because Samsung's gorgeous, Bluetooth-enabled Galaxy Watch 8 Classic is cheaper than ever at Woot through September 19th. It's down to $359.99 ($140 off), nearly matching the price of the $349.99 Galaxy Watch 8. Not a bad discount [...]

Apple will release iOS 26 on September 15th and along with new iPhone features like the company's new Liquid Glass design language and live translation capabilities, the update will bring new features to the Powerbeats Pro 2. Released earlier this year, they were Apple's first earbuds with heart rate monitoring but after next week's big [...]

There was a lot in September's Nintendo Direct. We got a new trailer for the Super Mario Bros Movie sequel, a new Yoshi game, a new Mario Tennis game, this weird thing, a Hades II release date, a new Pokemon game, and Metroid Prime 4's release date. But if that weren't enough, and apparently it [...]

We still don't know all that much about Pokemon Legends Z-As main storyline, but Nintendo is already hyping up a big expansion for the new game. During today's hourlong Direct showcase of upcoming games, Nintendo revealed that Pokemon Legends Z-A is getting a paid DLC update titled Mega Dimension that will introduce more story content [...]

A new Pokemon spinoff is on the way, and it looks very different than any other entry in the long-running franchise. In fact, it looks a little bit like Minecraft - and it's called Pokemon Pokopia. The game has players controlling a Ditto that has taken on the form of a human, which means that [...]

Everybody say thank you Nintendo! During its Direct livestream Hades II, the follow-up to Supergiant Game's phenomenal roguelike Hades, finally has a release date. Prepare to bring death to Chronos on Switch and PC September 25th. During the Direct, Hades II revealed a splashy new animated trailer, reminiscent of the first Hades trailer. It features [...]

There's a lot happening in the world of artificial intelligence. There is always a lot happening in the world of artificial intelligence. The money is enormous; the stakes are high; the products are, well, all over the place. Sit on your couch and read about it all long enough, and you're bound to feel some [...]

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. About a month ago, I was [...]

You won't have to wait too long now for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. Nintendo surprised us so soon after the Kirby Air Riders direct with another direct showcase today. Clocking in at a luxurious 60 minutes, the direct covered a bunch of games (and movies) coming in the latter quarter of the year and beyond. [...]

Nintendo's oft-maligned VR headset the Virtual Boy is getting a new life on modern hardware. Nintendo announced that the platform will be coming to its collection of retro games available to Switch Online subscribers, and will be available on both the Switch and Switch 2. The twist is that in order to play these games [...]

The Ultraloq Bolt NFC smart lock is receiving a free upgrade that enables near-field communication (NFC) tap-to-unlock with compatible Android phones. The model currently supports Apple's Home Key, which lets you tap-to-unlock with an iPhone. The update makes it one of the first locks to offer the functionality across both iOS and Android, without requiring [...]

Nintendo wouldn't be Nintendo if it didn't offer surprises every now and again. During its direct showcase, the company revealed more information on the sequel to The Super Mario Bros Movie - The Super Mario Galaxy Movie including a brand new trailer. The teaser trailer was just that, a taste of what's to come. It [...]

Mastodon is officially rolling out quote posts. Starting next week, you'll see an option to quote another user by selecting the repost - or boost" - button, allowing you to add your thoughts to someone else's post. The decentralized platform initially planned not to launch quote posts over concerns that they could be used for [...]

If you missed out on the limited edition Astro Bot DualSense wireless controller for PlayStation 5 last year, we have good news: Sony is launching a new "Joyful" version of the gamepad for $84.99 on October 30th, and preorders have just begun at the PlayStation store. Last year, Sony and Team Asobi - the developer [...]

Apple has postponed preorders of the iPhone Air in mainland China, which were due to open today, with regulatory issues around eSIM almost certainly to blame. The Chinese store page for the super-slim iPhone says that release information will be updated later" (translated from Chinese). Apple had originally announced that the Air would go on [...]

Apple's complete 2025 lineup, including the iPhone 17, the 17 Pro, the 17 Pro Max, and the thin iPhone Air, are available to preorder. They'll be available next Friday, September 19th, and ordering now is how you can ensure you'll be among the first to receive your order. Beyond the Air's shockingly slim design, Apple's [...]

Sony has announced the Xperia 10 VII, a midrange Android phone that's launching in the UK, Europe, and Asia, though not the US. It's more notable than most Sony phones because it marks the first major change to the rear design in over five years: a camera bar, just like recent Pixels, and now even [...]

Here's a hot take: gaming handhelds are better with prongs. How do I know? I hold a lot of handhelds (and gamepads) here at The Verge, but Microsoft and Asus's upcoming Xbox Ally X might take the cake for the most comfortable to hold. And that handheld has basically the exact same design as the [...]

Microsoft has avoided a fine from the European Commission after it was charged with EU antitrust violations for bundling its Teams app with Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions. The European Commission says it has accepted commitments from Microsoft to address competition concerns related to Microsoft Teams, following an anti-competitive complaint filed by Slack in [...]

Asus' ProArt P16 laptop is getting RTX 50-series GPUs and a unique new screen in its high-end configuration. Its biggest upgrades include Nvidia's top-tier RTX 5090 mobile GPU and a bright 16-inch 3840 x 2400 tandem OLED touchscreen, capable of up to 1,600 nits of brightness in HDR and 120Hz refresh with VRR. The new [...]

Starting next week, Apple's new hypertension notification feature will be coming to Watch Series 9 and later and Apple Watch Ultra 2 and later with the launch of watchOS 26. That's according to an emailed statement from Apple spokesperson Zaina Khachadourian saying the feature that monitors blood pressure has been cleared by the FDA. Apple's [...]

As OpenAI attempts to restructure itself and eventually go public, a hurdle for the startup, recently valued at $500 billion, is its increasingly complicated partnership with Microsoft. On Thursday afternoon, the two companies released this joint statement about an agreement they've reached. Microsoft & OpenAI: Microsoft and OpenAI have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding [...]

Microsoft AI launched its first in-house models last month, adding to the already complicated relationship with its OpenAI partner. Now, Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman says the company is making "significant investments" in the compute capacity required to Microsoft's own future frontier models. "We should have the capacity to build world class frontier models in [...]

In the wake of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk's fatal shooting, some political figures are threatening a crackdown on free speech - a cause Kirk claimed to fight for. Members of Congress, the State Department, and President Donald Trump have all attacked people who celebrated Kirk's death online or criticized him while he was alive, in [...]

Anthropic will now let its Claude AI chatbot remember" the details of previous conversations without prompting. The feature is only rolling out for Team and Enterprise users for now, allowing Claude to automatically incorporate someone's preferences, the context of the project they're working on, and their main priorities into each of its responses. Anthropic rolled [...]

Earlier today, the FBI shared two blurry photos on X of a person of interest in the shooting of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. Numerous users replied with AI-upscaled, enhanced" versions of the pictures almost immediately, turning the pixelated surveillance shots into sharp, high-resolution images. But AI tools aren't uncovering secret details in a fuzzy picture, [...]

The work of creating artificial intelligence that holds to the guardrails of human values, known in the industry as alignment, has developed into its own (somewhat ambiguous) field of study rife with policy papers and benchmarks to rank models against each other. But who aligns the alignment researchers? Enter the Center for the Alignment of [...]

A quality pair of headphones can make a huge difference in your gaming experience, and Sony's InZone Buds are among the best wireless gaming earbuds available. They're currently $143.98 ($86 off) at GameStop, dropping them to a new all-time low price. The Verge's commerce editor, Cameron Faulkner, says they deliver excellent sound quality and versatility, [...]

Amazon's Prime Video is bringing more AI to the football field with new features designed to give viewers more insight into Thursday Night Football games, as highlighted earlier by Deadline. One feature, called Pocket Health, uses AI to analyze tens of thousands of data points" across the offensive line during a play, allowing Prime Video [...]

An exciting discovery on Mars is being overshadowed by turmoil at NASA, with budget cuts threatening to destroy a scientific legacy that has been built over decades. Yesterday, the agency shared a finding, published in Nature, of potential biosignatures identified by the Mars Perseverance rover in a 3.5 billion-year-old rock. "This very well could be [...]