The Verge

Apple CEO Tim Cook personally intervened in an attempt to stop a Texas age verification bill, The Wall Street Journal reports. SB 2420 - passed by the legislature but awaiting a signature by Gov. Greg Abbott - would require app store operators like Apple to verify the age of users accessing their stores. The company's [...]

Following the failure of the 8th Starship test flight in early March that ended in another explosion, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has finally cleared SpaceX for a 9th test which could take place as soon as next week. The FAA conducted a comprehensive safety review of the SpaceX Starship Flight 8 mishap and [...]

The first thing I noticed about the Fujifilm X Half is just how small and light it is. The camera is designed to give you no excuses - you should be able to bring it with you everywhere. And after spending a few hours walking around LA with the camera, I'm starting to understand why [...]

A Microsoft employee has managed to circumvent a block instituted earlier this week that limited mentions of "Palestine," "Gaza," and "Genocide" in email subject lines or in the body of a message. Nisreen Jaradat, a senior tech support engineer at Microsoft, emailed thousands of employees on May 23rd with the subject line: "You can't get [...]

The original Vestaboard revived and modernized the split-flap mechanical displays that were once a mainstay of airports and train stations around the world, but at $3,499 it put a steep price on nostalgia. Its creators are back with a new version called the Vestaboard Note that's much smaller and more affordable. It's available for preorder [...]

Elon Musk isn't as publicly, obviously involved in Washington as he used to be, that much is clear. But celebrations of his political exile are premature. Sure, it's true that Musk and Donald Trump's bombastic joint press conferences have faded. Trump is no longer shooting Tesla ads on the White House lawn. And Musk has [...]

Sony announced a new version of its multi-function shooting grip and compact tripod that puts its wireless controls on a removable remote. Previous versions featured controls that could operate basic functions of an attached camera while holding onto the grip. The new GP-VPT3 makes them even more useful for solo content creators who can now [...]

Here's what we know: it's probably not smart glasses. Beyond that, we don't know much about what Jony Ive and OpenAI are building through their newly combined company io, except that it's some kind of AI super-gadget. But after a couple of years of watching the industry try and shove AI into every form factor [...]

Glitch, the coding platform where developers can share and remix projects, will soon no longer offer its core feature: hosting apps on the web. In an update on Thursday, Glitch CEO Anil Dash said it will stop hosting projects and close user profiles on July 8th, 2025 - but stopped short of saying that it's [...]

After a six-year absence, Nike will soon begin selling products directly on Amazon, having previously stopped in 2019 to go it alone. At the same time, the company is reportedly set to increase prices across most of its sneakers and other clothes in the wake of recent US tariffs. Nike stopped selling through Amazon after [...]

Discord has become the place for gaming communities on the internet. The company just celebrated its 10th anniversary, and its impact is now big enough that it's available directly on PlayStation and Xbox and was ripped off by Nintendo for the Switch 2's GameChat. But as it tries to grow, one of the big challenges [...]

Marvel Studios has pushed back the release dates of Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Doomsday is being delayed from May 1st, 2026, to December 18th, 2026. Secret Wars's release has been pushed from May 7th, 2027 to December 17th, 2027. The Russo brothers are returning to direct the two [...]

Elden Ring will soon be more than just a hit video game. On Thursday, Bandai Namco and A24 announced a live-action Elden Ring film directed by Alex Garland. Japanese developer FromSoftware released Elden Ring across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC in 2022, while a version for the Nintendo Switch 2 is set to be released this [...]

As YouTube prepares to air an exclusive NFL opening week game for free on September 5th, it's hiring former Disney exec Justin Connolly. The move has caused Disney to respond by suing both YouTube and Connolly, saying he was in the middle of leading the team negotiating Disney's license renewal with YouTube. He'd most recently [...]

Tech company CEOs aren't just making their companies AI-first: this week, they're using AI avatars to replace themselves in earnings calls. Buy-now-pay-later company Klarna featured the AI version of CEO and co-founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski in an 83-second video about its Q1 2025 results, as reported by TechCrunch. The video's description says that his AI avatar" [...]

In a pretty bare-bones press release accompanied by a couple of pictures and detailed specs, Ricoh surprise announced that its long-awaited GR IV camera will launch this fall. The GR IV will adhere closely to the design of the GR III from 2018, and it will continue to use an autofocusing 28mm-equivalent f/2.8 lens and [...]

REI's anniversary sale may be winding down in the coming days, but many of our favorite outdoor gadgets and goods are still available at a hefty discount. Although some of our earlier gear recommendations have sold out - sorry, Jetboil stans - the outdoor retailer will continue to offer 30 percent off a large number [...]

Valve has been building up to this for months, first in preview, then in beta, and now finally in a full stable release: a new version of SteamOS that brings brand-new features to the Steam Deck and supports third-party handhelds like Lenovo's Legion Go and Asus' ROG Ally series. SteamOS 3.7.8 is the first stable [...]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has officially dropped its case against Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The FTC filed an order to dismiss its complaint on Thursday, just days after it lost an appeal for a preliminary injunction to prevent Microsoft from finalizing its acquisition. The Commission has determined that the public interest is best [...]

Xiaomi unveiled its hotly anticipated PU7 electric SUV in China today, in the latest potential blow to Tesla's position in the world's hottest EV market. The electronics giant says the PU7 will get up to 518 miles of range on certain trims and accelerate from 0-62mph in just 3.23 seconds. The new EV, which is [...]

Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun - Words of Vengeance is a new typing game based on Warhammer 40,000, and it's available now for free on PC via Steam. The dark sci-fi spin on a typing teacher was shadow-dropped during a series of announcements made during the latest Warhammer Skulls Showcase. Also shown was a trailer for Boltgun [...]

The last 48 hours have been a wild rollercoaster ride for AI hardware. On Tuesday, Google ended its I/O keynote - a roughly two-hour event with copious references to AI - with its vision for Android XR glasses. That included flashy partnerships with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker, as well as the first hands-on opportunity [...]

Apple is planning to debut its first pair of smart glasses next year, according to a report from Bloomberg. The upcoming glasses will reportedly come with cameras, microphones, and speakers, allowing them to analyze the external world and take requests via the Siri voice assistant," Bloomberg says. The glasses would also be capable of taking [...]

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act" that House Republicans narrowly passed early Thursday would strip state legislatures of AI oversight and scale back consumer protection and climate initiatives while funding border surveillance, among many other provisions. The budget reconciliation bill still needs to be approved by the Senate, where some Republicans have voiced concerns with [...]

The US Senate voted today to strip California of its authority to enact state limits on tailpipe pollution that are tougher than national standards. Opponents called it an illegal move by Republican lawmakers that flies in the face of Senate rules and norms. Senate Republicans went forward with the vote today anyway, revoking waivers that [...]

Once Donald Trump won office for a second time, the writing was on the wall. Trump ran on many messages, most of them confusing and contradictory, but one of his loudest and clearest messages was to end President Joe Biden's EV mandate." It made no difference there never was a mandate, just a series of [...]

Microsoft is now testing a new feature in Notepad that can generate text for you using AI. It's part of a Windows 11 update being released to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels with Copilot Plus PCs. The update also includes new AI-powered features for Paint like a sticker generator, and improvements to [...]

House Republicans advanced a sweeping spending package that would roll back Biden-era tax credits for renewable energy projects. If the bill passes the Senate and makes it to President Donald Trump's desk to sign, it could deal a serious blow to renewables, new nuclear technologies, and clean energy manufacturing across the US. The rollbacks would [...]

The wireless GameCube controller that's for use exclusively with the Nintendo Switch 2 can now be pre-ordered by those who have a Switch Online account. The controller costs $64.99, and is currently limited to one per account. For those who've bought one, you'll get it on Switch 2's launch date, which is June 5th. There's [...]

Mozilla is shutting down Pocket, the handy bookmarking tool used to save articles and webpages for later. The organization announced that Pocket will stop working on July 8th, 2025, as Mozilla begins concentrating its resources into projects that better match their browsing habits and online needs." Following the shutdown, you'll only be able to export [...]

From savings on big-ticket items like LG's C4 OLED TVs to smaller ones like the Garmin Forerunner 265, there are plenty of great Memorial Day deals to shop right now - many of which we've gathered in our roundup of the best Memorial Day deals. Here's another good one: the AirPods Max with USB-C are [...]

What Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One lacked in narrative cohesion, it made up for by leaning into the reality that larger-than-life spectacle and Tom Cruise's enthusiasm for doing his own stunt work have always been the franchise's main draw. Even though the film's artificial intelligence-focused plot felt a little shaky, its action was [...]

Meta is beginning to test showing 3D photos on Instagram if you're looking at your feed on a Meta Quest VR headset. Thanks to our AI view synthesis algorithms, we can transform the existing photos that show up in Instagram feed pixel by pixel - no fancy 3D cameras required," Meta says in a blog [...]

Nvidia has gone too far. This week, the company reportedly attempted to delay, derail, and manipulate reviews of its $299 GeForce RTX 5060 graphics card, which would normally be its bestselling GPU of the generation. Nvidia has repeatedly and publicly said the budget 60-series cards are its most popular, and this year it reportedly tried [...]

Google executives took the stage this week at I/O to unveil their latest AI technology: Deep Think. Or was it Deep Search? Then there's the new subscription plan, Google AI Pro, which used to be Gemini Advanced, plus the new AI Ultra plan. Then there's Gemini in Chrome, which is different from AI Mode in [...]

Rode has announced a firmware update for its Wireless Micro microphone system introducing a new feature called Direct Connect that allows the mic to directly connect to iOS devices over Bluetooth. Previously, you needed to use the company's USB-C dongle receiver. First launched last November, Rode's $149 Wireless Micro pairs two tiny rechargeable lavalier mics [...]

Blue Prince's planned 1.10 update, which will add things like a color assist mode, controls remapping, and more, will be the final major update" and the definitive version" of the game, director Tonda Ros says in notes for the 1.04.5 patch that was released today. It had always been my dream to release a definitive [...]

Anthropic has introduced Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4, its latest generation of hybrid-reasoning AI models optimized for coding tasks and solving complex problems. Claude Opus 4 is Anthropic's most powerful AI model to date, according to the company's announcement, and capable of working continuously on long-running tasks for several hours." In customer tests, [...]

If you've ever wondered how the Internet Archive uploads all the physical documents on its site, now you can get a behind-the-scenes look at the process. The Internet Archive launched a new YouTube livestream that shows the digitization of microfiche in real time - complete with some relaxing, lo-fi beats. Microfiche is a sheet of [...]

Google is bringing Gemini intelligence to its Home APIs, allowing smart home developers and manufacturers to tap into Gemini's AI-powered features and potentially making your smart home a lot, well, smarter. The company announced the news in a blog post during the Google I/O developers conference this week. Last summer, Google added several new Gemini-powered [...]

When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella ran into Meta's former engineering chief, Jay Parikh, at a conference last summer, he had the future of AI top of mind. The pair have known each other for around 15 years, but this meeting was different, and Nadella called Parikh shortly after bumping into him to dig into what [...]

Honor has announced the 400 and 400 Pro, two midrange phones that launch today in the UK and Europe. They're capable-looking handsets in plenty of respects, but stand out mostly for the guarantee of six years of software support, bested only by Google's Pixel 9A for the price. In fairness, at 699.99 / 799 (around [...]

Whether you're hunting for a last-minute graduation gift or an early Father's Day present, Grid Studio's deconstructed gadgets are worth a look. The company transforms old-school electronics into collages in shadowbox-style frames, which make for truly memorable gifts. And now through May 27th, many are currently steeply discounted in honor of Father's Day. From vintage [...]

Verizon has asked the Federal Communications Commission to get rid of the rule requiring it to unlock phones after 60 days. In a letter to the FCC spotted by LightReading, Verizon claims the current unlocking requirement benefits bad actors and fraudsters." The FCC first imposed an unlocking requirement following Verizon's purchase of C-Block spectrum in [...]

Xiaomi has unveiled its first in-house flagship chipset, the Xring O1, and it's got enough power to go head-to-head with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite. The company also unveiled a 15S Pro phone and Pad 7 Ultra tablet that the new chip will power, plus a new version of the Watch S4 powered by another Xiaomi [...]

Today, I'm talking with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. We recorded this conversation the day Uber announced a big set of product updates, including new options for shared rides and some features to make commuting easier and more predictable. Dara was in New York for all that, so he came to our studio, and we did [...]

If you've been wanting to grab a subscription to Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud game streaming service, now's a good time to commit. That's because six-month subs to its mid-tier Performance subscription - which offers ad-free 1440p gameplay, short queue times, plus ray-tracing on supported games - is 40 percent off. Instead of $49.99, you'll pay [...]

More details are trickling out about Jony Ive and Sam Altman's new AI device. In a post on Thursday, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says his research indicates that the device could be larger than Humane's AI pin, but with a form factor as compact and elegant as an iPod Shuffle." Kuo adds that one of [...]

There are still plenty of Tamagotchi devices that have you focusing on raising just a single digital character, but the new Tamagotchi Paradise puts you in charge of a planet full of needy dependents. To make it a little easier to navigate its digital world, the device includes a full color screen and complements its [...]

Video game consultants like Laura Kate Dale came into 2023 with a lot of hope. Since 2020, accessibility in games had become a mainstream discussion, bolstered by high-profile releases like The Last of Us Part II, and it appeared things could only get better. Yet, as the year drew on, she says, "there started to [...]