The Verge

AOL will soon have a new owner. Bending Spoons, the Italian software company that has bought up a range of other digital businesses like Evernote, MeetUp, WeTransfer, and soon Vimeo, announced plans to purchase AOL from Yahoo after securing a $2.8 billion debt financing package. Over the past couple of decades, AOL has been passed [...]

Abxylute, a company known for its Android-based handhelds, has announced a new compact mobile controller for smartphones. Unlike controllers from companies like Backbone and 8BitDo that use an expanding mechanism to clamp onto phones, Abxylute's smaller and lighter M4 Snap-On controller uses a Q-shaped mount to magnetically attach to mobile devices that are compatible with [...]

Almost immediately in The Outer Worlds 2, the player receives news of a corporate shake-up: Auntie Cleo and Spacer's Choice, two of the in-game retail brands, have merged to form Auntie's Choice. Less a chain of stores and more a feudal power, Auntie's Choice manages its employees - serfs, really - with the cruelty of [...]

The thing about carrying multiple devices is you usually end up hauling a nest of cables along with them. Now imagine trimming your kit down to a single, versatile cord that can provide power to your smartphone and laptop simultaneously. That's where Anker's 140W 2-in-1 USB-C to USB-C Cable comes in, and right now you [...]

Halo coming to PlayStation is one of those events that, five years ago, would have been the tell that "something is not right here" in a show about time travel or alternate universes. Looking at the state of Xbox with its layoffs, game cancellations, price hikes, studio closures, and a soft release schedule light on [...]

If you want one of the best home theater experiences LG can provide, the 65-inch LG G5 OLED is down to a new record low price. Regularly $3,399.99, you can buy the TV for around $1,996.99 at Amazon and directly from LG. Other configurations are also on sale, with the 77-inch going for around $3,456.99 [...]

You're going to start seeing more warnings in Chrome when accessing insecure sites. Starting next October, Chrome will soon warn users when they visit a public website without an encrypted HTTPS connection. Chrome already issues a Your connection is not private" message when you visit pages that have an HTTPS connection that's misconfigured. But this [...]

Tesla's Cybercab isn't scheduled to go into production until 2026, but when it does, it may end up stuck with a vestige of the automotive past: a steering wheel. To be sure, we still use steering wheels. But the Tesla Cybercab was meant to be the first vehicle of the new future, and there's nothing [...]

Google introduced support for the ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless protocol with the Pixel 6 Pro in 2021. But if you've been struggling to get your Pixel phone to precisely locate one of the few Android-compatible trackers that support UWB, it's because that feature is only enabled on the Pro models of the Pixel 8 and above, [...]

Nvidia has become the world's first $5 trillion company. Shares soared by up to 5 percent to over $211 around 9:30AM ET on Wednesday morning, according to Bloomberg, marking the latest milestone for a company that only just hit the $4 trillion mark in July. Nvidia shares have been on the rise as the company [...]

Google smart home users in the US can now get an early taste of the new Gemini for Home assistant, which began rolling out in early access on Tuesday. It's slated to replace the current Google Assistant on Nest devices, marking one of the most significant updates yet to Google's smart home ecosystem. It runs [...]

After Nothing's recent flagship Phone 3 ditched its trademark Glyph Lights in favor of a dot matrix display, the new Phone 3A Lite brings them back - but only one of them. The affordable phone launches today in the UK and Europe, but won't get a release in the US. The 3A Lite features just [...]

The majority of Amazon smart speakers lean more into the "smart" than the "speaker," except for the Echo Studio. That device, which arrived in November 2019, was an imposing, sound-quality-first speaker that delivered Alexa functionality alongside impressive sound for a $200 device. But that was nearly six years ago - an eternity in tech product [...]

I love the Echo Dot Max. It's an excellent speaker, a good listener, and comes in purple - which is just fun. It's got new, easier-to-use controls and more smart home sensors and radios than earlier models. It's also one of the first devices designed for Alexa Plus. And while the AI-powered assistant isn't mandatory [...]

TikTok announced three new features at its US Creator Summit yesterday. They include an update to revenue sharing for creators that offer subscriptions plus tools that can help with both the early planning stages of a video, and the process of editing longer clips into multiple shorter ones. Smart Split is an AI-powered editing tool [...]

Apple is planning to incorporate OLED displays across more of its devices, including the MacBook Air, iPad Mini, and iPad Air, according to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The company added an OLED display to the iPad Pro last year and the upgraded M5 model released this month, offering improved brightness, better contrast, and [...]

OpenAI is ending October with a new for-profit structure, a new deal with Microsoft, and an entirely new level of pressure to achieve artificial general intelligence. The generally accepted definition of AGI is an artificial intelligence system that equals or surpasses human cognitive ability. But even as it's become a goalpost for the entire AI [...]

AI writing aid Grammarly is now part of Superhuman, alongside Coda, Superhuman Mail, and a new AI assistant called Superhuman Go. The new Superhuman suite, including all those tools, will be available starting today for everyone with a paid Grammarly Pro subscription. Superhuman Go will be available to subscribers for no extra cost through February [...]

Character.AI is gradually shutting down chats for people under 18 and rolling out new ways to figure out if users are adults. The company announced Wednesday that under-18 users will be immediately limited to two hours of "open-ended chats" with its AI characters, and that limit will shrink to a complete ban from chats by [...]

YouTube has announced several new features that aim to improve the viewing experience on TV screens, including an instant shopping tool and visual upgrades for low-resolution videos. Specifically, YouTube says it will start automatically upscaling videos uploaded below 1080p, using AI to bump them to HD resolution, and plans to support upscaling to 4K in [...]

Uber has picked the first city for the launch of its new robotaxi service with Lucid and Nuro. No surprise, it's San Francisco. The companies have already begun on-road testing after the delivery of their first vehicle, a Lucid Gravity SUV modified with Nuro's self-driving software. But they will still need to obtain the driverless [...]

On Monday, a new online encyclopedia" sputtered to life. Grokipedia is the brainchild of Elon Musk and his startup xAI, and the billionaire is promoting it as a supposedly less woke and less biased version of Wikipedia. Musk's goal? The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." In both format and style, Grokipedia [...]

Cameo is suing OpenAI over Sora 2's cameo" feature, accusing the ChatGPT maker of using the name to compete directly with its personalized celebrity video service. The trademark infringement lawsuit filed in a California federal court on Tuesday alleges that OpenAI's usage of cameo is highly likely to dilute and tarnish" Cameo's branding by confusing [...]

Bill Gates wants us all to be more upbeat about climate change. He argues that we've made great progress on the problem, aided in large part by technological advances. So it's time to focus more on improving people's lives, particularly by fighting hunger and disease, he writes in a memo published Tuesday. Of course, he [...]

Apple's Vision Pro remains the best VR headset by a mile, and there are many moments when it feels magical to use. I love staring at 3D photos, watching movies on huge screens, and working across a bunch of floating windows. But I noticed something weird after I wrote my first review in 2024: I [...]

It's been nearly two weeks since Microsoft, a multi-trillion dollar company, shipped a $600 handheld "Xbox" that can't be relied on to sleep, wake, or hold a charge while asleep in my tests. Neither Microsoft nor Asus would admit there's a problem with the white Xbox Ally or offer a timeline to fix it after [...]

Withings first announced its U-Scan, a non-invasive device you install in your toilet to track various health metrics, at CES 2023 two years ago. Unlike Kohler's Dekoda, which uses a camera to analyze your poop, the U-Scan detects and samples your urine, tests it using replaceable cartridges, and sends the results to the Withings app, [...]

A new piece of legislation could require AI companies to verify the ages of everyone who uses their chatbots. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced the GUARD Act on Tuesday, which would also ban everyone under 18 from accessing AI chatbots, as reported earlier by NBC News. The bill comes just weeks [...]

YouTube is updating its policy to age-restrict more content containing video game scenes with graphic violence," the company announced on Tuesday. The update will go into effect on November 17th and will prevent accounts under 18 and signed-out users from watching videos with games focused on showing realistic human characters" involved in scenes of mass [...]

As part of Amazon's mass layoffs announced today, the company is making significant" changes to its gaming division, including halting much of its work on first-party AAA MMOs, according to a memo from Steve Boom, VP of audio, Twitch, and games. While we're proud of our successes in first-party AAA game development and publishing, we [...]

If you spend most of your time commuting, walking around, or exercising, the Nothing Ear Open earbuds are worth considering. These open-ear-style earbuds rest securely in your outer ear rather than inside of your ear canals, allowing you to more easily hear what's going on around you at all times. Right now, they're matching their [...]

Hello and welcome to Regulator. When it comes to the news cycle, only the actual destruction of the White House could have overshadowed the slate of dubious pardons that President Donald Trump issued last week, including former Rep. George Santos, the compulsive fabulist who had been expelled from Congress for making false statements and went [...]

Apple's 4K streaming device rarely goes on sale, but right now it's available for its lowest price to date at Costco.com. Now through October 31st, Costco members can buy the third-gen Apple TV 4K online with an expanded 128GB of storage for just $119.99 ($30 off). If you're not already a member, you can still [...]

This morning, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted 3-0 to let itself retroactively ban gadgets and radio components that it previously approved for entry into the United States, if the company that makes them is deemed a national security risk. Officially, it's a way to close loopholes and protect US networks from backdoors in Chinese [...]

Robotaxi fever is back, baby! After a bunch of automaker-led autonomous driving projects shut down amid concerns over safety and costs, car companies are expressing a renewed interest in self-driving cars, and robotaxis specifically. Stellantis, which oversees brands like Jeep, Ram, Dodge, and Chrysler, announced today a new collaboration" with a diverse range of firms, [...]

Lucid says it will eventually sell privately owned" autonomous vehicles with the help of Nvidia's artificial intelligence technology. The company is the latest to declare its intention to sell Level 4 autonomous vehicles to its customers, despite a range of theoretical and logistical challenges standing in the way. Lucid's autonomous vehicles -which do not exist [...]

Though there's still a new Doctor Who spinoff making its way to Disney Plus, Disney's production partnership with the BBC has come to an end. The BBC announced today that after two seasons of Doctor Who starring Ncuti Gatwa in the titular role, Disney will no longer be a co-producer on the sci-fi series. In [...]

Oppo has announced the international launch of its Find X9 and Find X9 Pro flagships, and both phones are going on sale in the UK and Europe. Best of all, unlike some other Chinese phones, there's been no reduction in battery capacity for the global release, making these two of the longest lasting phones in [...]

Nothing is more frustrating than buying a new pair of headphones, an OLED TV, or a laptop just to find out that you could have gotten it for a lot cheaper somewhere else. That's why, in order to keep customers happy and prevent them from shopping elsewhere, many retailers offer price-matching policies in which they [...]

Attention, Straw Hats - Netflix's surprisingly great One Piece adaptation finally has a season 2 premiere date. Netflix announced today that its take on One Piece is set to return on March 10th, 2026 with 8 new episodes that will follow Monkey D. Luffy (Inaki Godoy) and the rest of his Straw Hat Pirates as [...]

After being announced last week, the BrickBoy kit that turns Lego's buildable Game Boy model into a functional handheld through emulation has finally launched on Kickstarter, but its pricing could be a serious deterrent. Three versions of the BrickBoy are being offered with the cheapest option being the Essential Kit that can only play Game [...]

PayPal announced today that you'll be able to use its wallet to make purchases directly through ChatGPT beginning sometime in 2026. The recently-added Instant Checkout feature in ChatGPT will have an option to pay with PayPal, using the same interface you already see when checking out with PayPal through other services. You'll have access to [...]

GitHub is giving developers access to third-party AI coding agents with the launch of a new Agent HQ." Instead of just using GitHub Copilot, developers will get to try OpenAI's Codex, Anthropic's Claude, Google's Jules, xAI, and Cognition's Devin within GitHub in the coming months. Developers with a GitHub Copilot subscription will be able to [...]

Black Fridayis one month away, but MSI didn't wait to drop the price of its 27-inch Mag 271QP X28 QD-OLED gaming monitor. You can get it for an all-time low price of $519.99 ($130 off) from MSI with the promo code 272QPW40. The display has a 2K (2560 x 1440) resolution, 280Hz refresh rate, and [...]

EA announced today that Battlefield Redsec, the free-to-play battle royale that the company says is built on Battlefield's iconic DNA," is available now. Here's how EA describes the mode in a press release: As part of this free-to-play package, players can jump into Battlefield's biggest map ever Fort Lyndon, and experience an explosive new take [...]

Razer is announcing a new Huntsman V3 Pro 8kHz keyboard for esports-level competition and speed-obsessed PC gamers. The newest version of Razer's top-end wired keyboard supports 8,000Hz polling (both upstream and downstream), and it's got new analog optical switches designed to minimize interference and prioritize speed. Razer claims it put a big emphasis on typing [...]

When Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it was open to the possibility of a sale, the entertainment giant was careful to mention that it has already received multiple unsolicited offers "for both the entire company and Warner Bros." We knew about WBD's plan to split back into two corporate entities, and that the company had [...]

With Meta's new range of smart glasses, Mark Zuckerberg is pitching a vision of the future that sci-fi authors have been warning about for decades - one where privacy is truly dead, and everyone is recording everyone else at all times. This in itself is nothing new. Introduced at the company's recent Meta Connect event, [...]

OpenAI's controversial for-profit restructuring is finally complete, along with a new deal with Microsoft that covers its upcoming plans for consumer hardware and what the next steps are if AGI (artificial general intelligence) is ever achieved. The company's for-profit arm is now a public benefit corporation, dubbed OpenAI Group PBC. The nonprofit is now called [...]

Did you know you should be replacing your surge protectors every three to five years to avoid them becoming a potential fire risk? If you're now on the hunt for replacements, Govee's new Smart Plug Outlet Extender packs a decent amount of functionality into a solution that won't be taking up floor space under your [...]