The Verge

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...

The standard Galaxy Buds 3 can't go toe-to-toe with the pro-grade model, but they do offer many of the same features. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Apple's forthcoming AirPods 4 might be the latest pair of wireless earbuds to pique our interest, but if you're a Galaxy phone owner, it's hard to resist the appeal of the Galaxy Buds 3. And now, thanks to the latest Discover Samsung event, you can pick them up for $159.99 ($20 off) through September 15th from either Best Buy or Samsung.Like the Galaxy Buds 2 before them, Samsung's latest earbuds will likely become a default pick for Android phone owners with time. Regardless of whether Samsung will admit it, the Buds 3 take heavy design cues from Apple's now-ubiquitous AirPods, resulting in an angular stemmed look instead of the more discrete design of earlier models. They sport swipe and pinch-based gestures for controlling playback,... Continue reading...

Photo illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Between the Apple Watch Series 10, the Ultra 2, and the second-gen SE, there are more options than ever. We'll help you sort through them. Continue reading...

Photo by Bruce Bennett / Getty Images This week, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) stunned safety advocates by proposing new vehicle rules that it says will help reduce pedestrian deaths in America. The new rules appear aimed directly at the trend of increasingly massive SUVs and trucks, which have been shown to be more deadly to pedestrians than smaller and midsize vehicles.Never in its 50-plus years in existence has the regulator issued new rules for automakers requiring them to change their vehicle designs to better prevent pedestrian fatalities. If enacted, the new rules could change how vehicles are designed in the US - permanently.It's good to see NHTSA acknowledge that a myopic focus on pedestrian detection - which is imperfect - is no... Continue reading...

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is launching its Xbox Game Pass Standard tier today. After briefly testing it with Xbox Insiders last month, the new $14.99 per month Game Pass Standard subscription is launching with the usual Game Pass library for Xbox and online console multiplayer access, too. This new tier doesn't include immediate access to day-one game releases, though.Microsoft first revealed this new Xbox Game Pass Standard tier in July, alongside price increases for Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers. Existing subscribers of Xbox Game Pass for Console will continue to be able to access day-one games, but new Game Pass subscribers will now only be able to pick between Core, Standard, PC, and Ultimate subscriptions. Image:... Continue reading...

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge This weekend, ESPN began publishing AI-generated recaps of women's soccer games, with more sports to come. It's using Microsoft AI to write each story, with humans only involved in reviewing each recap for quality and accuracy." ESPN says these stories will augment," rather than detract from, its other content - but needless to say, people have feelings about it.It's not that ESPN is masquerading AI work as that of humans. In fact, each story advertises that it's written by ESPN Generative AI Services," and ESPN includes a note at the bottom of each article about how the recap is based on a transcript from the sporting event.ESPN isn't the only news organization that does this; The Associated Press started using AI to write sports... Continue reading...

The replacement AirPods Max ear cushions in the new color options are now available. | Image: Apple If you're envious of the new AirPods Max colors but don't think a switch from Apple's proprietary Lightning port to USB-C is enough reason to upgrade, you can now buy replacement ear cushions in the new colorways that are still compatible with the original version of the headphones, as MacRumors discovered.The ear cushions are now listed in Apple's online store at $69 for a set in blue, orange, purple, midnight, or starlight, with shipping expected the next day. The new USB-C version of the AirPods Max are currently available for preorder but won't ship until September 20th.Apple is still selling replacement ear cushions matching the colors of the original Lightning version of the AirPods Max, including green, silver, black, sky blue,... Continue reading...

Image: Mubi Director Coralie Fargeat's The Substance goes full David Cronenberg body horror with a gruesome parable about the violence of youth-obsessed beauty standards. Continue reading...

The Iodyne Pro Mini. | Photo: Iodyne Do you know what's on your portable drives? Or where you saw them last? Are they ready to store and share massive gobs of video? Are they blazing fast?The Iodyne Pro Mini is designed to be the (pricey) answer to all of that.It's the first external SSD with a pair of Frore AirJet Mini Slim inside, a solid-state cooling chip that, the company says, helps it transfer data at a sustained three gigabytes per second with a drive no bigger than an iPhone.It's the first I've seen with a built-in e-paper display that can automatically keep track of remaining storage and the last time it was used - plus your project name, lost-and-found phone numbers or emails, QR codes, or anything else you type in. Image: Iodyne I... Continue reading...

Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A coalition of 42 state and territory attorneys general is calling on Congress to pass regulation requiring warning labels on social media platforms. In a letter on Monday, the attorneys general wrote that the warning labels will bring attention to the inherent risks" social platforms pose to children.US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy first proposed the warning labels in June as part of a plan to avert the mental health crisis" affecting young people. Attorneys general from a significant majority of states, including New York, California, Florida, Oregon, Michigan, and others, are writing in support of the measure, saying the move would help protect future generations of Americans." All told, the letter is signed by 39 state AGs as... Continue reading...

Apple now sells four different AirPods, all of which support USB-C charging. | Image: Apple Alongside the new iPhone 16 and Apple Watch Series 10, Apple announced three new versions of the AirPods during its It's Glowtime" event on Monday. They include the new entry-level AirPods 4 for $129, a higher-end AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation (ANC) that costs $179, and a revised AirPods Max priced at $549. All three will be available on September 20th and can be preordered today.According to Apple, the two new AirPods 4 models offer significantly improved sound over the third generation. And they have new features, like the switch to USB-C. The ANC version also gets a speaker built into the shrunken-down charging case to make Apple's Find My tracker more effective and wireless charging that works with both Qi and Apple... Continue reading...

Image: Insomniac Games Sony finally confirmed the PS5 Pro this morning, and in addition to enhanced features like Wi-Fi 7 and 8K gaming, PlayStation execs shared new info on how recent and older games will perform on the system and all the current games that can take advantage of the Pro's power.One feature the PS5 Pro will include is called Game Boost. The official PlayStation blog says PS5 Pro Game Boost may stabilize or improve the performance of supported PS4 and PS5 games." It also said that the Pro's enhanced image quality" can improve the resolution for certain PS4 games.Sony shared a short, non-comprehensive list of games that will receive free patches to take advantage of the Pro's graphical and performance features. The games that will be noted... Continue reading...

Image: Sony The PS5 Pro is official. After months of leaks, Sony just announced a more powerful PS5 console during a special technical presentation. Mark Cerny, the lead architect of the PS5 console, says the PS5 Pro improves on the original console in three key ways: a larger GPU, advanced ray tracing, and custom AI-driven upscaling.The PS5 Pro will launch on November 7th, priced at $699.99, and it looks similar to the slim version of the PS5 - just like recent leaks suggested it would. It has three stripes down the side, and it doesn't come with a disc drive. You'll be able to purchase a 4K Blu-ray disc drive separately and optional console covers.It's the most powerful console we've ever built," says Cerny. The hardware upgrades inside will... Continue reading...

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Let's be super clear about something: the iPhone 16's Camera Control" is very much a button. It's a cool multipurpose button that has a lot to say about how Apple views cameras and AI and the future of how we interact with technology and the world, but a button just the same. And the new button may be the most interesting thing about the new slate of iPhones.On this episode of The Vergecast, we gather a few hours after Apple's latest iPhone launch to talk through all the new devices. We dig into the differences between the iPhone 16 and the 16 Pro and why fans of the regular iPhone might be in for a good year. We talk about the new cameras, the new colors, and the button. We talk a lot about the button.After that, we talk about the... Continue reading...

The Crew Dragon capsule will launch aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. | Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images SpaceX is getting ready to set out on its historic Polaris Dawn mission, which will send four astronauts into orbit aboard its Crew Dragon capsule. The five-day journey through the Van Allen radiation belts will include the first spacewalk done by private astronauts.If you're curious about the mission, here's what you should know about today's launch targeting currently targeting 5:23AM ET.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance - a vocal proponent of conspiracy theories about immigrants replacing" Americans - is now spreading misinformation about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, killing family pets and protected wildlife.Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country," Vance posted on X on Monday, echoing an unsubstantiated rumor that took off on right-wing social media over the weekend.The unnamed reports" Vance cites are likely from Infowars or the Daily Mail, both of which published thinly sourced posts about Haitian migrants eating pets and wildlife. Both publications reference a Facebook post in which someone claims their neighbor's... Continue reading...

Photo by Jemal Countess / Getty Images James Earl Jones, the distinguished actor behind the voice of Darth Vader, has died at age 93, according to Deadline.Jones was born in Arkabutla, Mississippi, in 1931. After managing to overcome a speech impediment, Jones went on to have a massive acting career, with credits spanning dozens of plays, TV shows, and films over several decades. He got his start on Broadway, starring in Sunrise At Campobello at the Cort Theatre in 1958 - now known as the James Earl Jones Theatre.However, his 1977 role in the very first Star Wars left a huge mark on his audience, though he wasn't initially credited for voicing the villain as a courtesy to David Prowse, who wore Darth Vader's suit. While Jones is best known for his distinctive voice in the S... Continue reading...

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge AMD is saying the quiet part out loud: it's now prioritizing AI chips ahead of flagship GPUs for gamers. The company's just laid out a new business strategy, where it will merge its RDNA gaming graphics and CNDA data center efforts into a single universal UDNA" that's aimed at AI first.In two interviews with Tom's Hardware (you'll definitely want to read both), AMD computing and graphics boss Jack Huynh doesn't beat around the bush. With gaming graphics, he explains, the goal is now building scale and market share at lower price points - not the King of the Hill" flagship GPUs that haven't convinced enough buyers to leave Nvidia behind.Here's the key passage from the first interview:

Beats' new iPhone 16 cases feature a microfiber-lined interior and will come in four colors. | Image: Beats Beats, Apple's other headphone brand, just announced its first collection of smartphone cases designed for the Apple 16 lineup, with full compatibility with the new Camera Control button.The $49 hardshell polycarbonate cases feature flexible sidewalls" to help absorb some of the impact when dropped and a microfiber lining to protect an iPhone's finish. According to Beats, the outer surface of each case has been treated with a glossy scratch-resistant coating," a feature that potentially comes in response to Apple's problematic - and now discontinued - microtwill FineWoven cases, which were prone to scratches.Available to order today through Apple's website in midnight black, summit stone, riptide blue, and sunset purple colorways,... Continue reading...

Image: Apple Apple released a new, more powerful version of the MagSafe charger during its September iPhone 16 event today. The puck will be compatible with all iPhones and any Qi2 device, but only the new iPhone 16 models are listed as supporting the fastest 25W wireless charging rate.That's a higher maximum rate than the phones offered by Samsung and Google right now - the Galaxy S24 series maxes out at 15W, while Google's Pixel 9 phones range from 15W-23W when using the second-generation Google Pixel Stand. (Pixel 9 models can only manage 12W charging on standard Qi chargers.)

The colors are good this year. | Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus are official, with Action Buttons inherited from the 15 Pro and a new look for the camera bump. We've just gotten some hands-on time with them in Cupertino, California, following the announcement, and the great news is that color is back, baby: they look great.The rear cameras are now stacked vertically on a smaller pill-shaped camera bump. This arrangement is better suited for capturing spatial video, lest we all forget about the Vision Pro. It's also just a fresh look for the regular iPhone, and Apple likes to throw one in every few years to shake things up. Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge Camera bump goes sideways. They come with the same size screens as their predecessors: a... Continue reading...

It's quite light on the wrist. I was surprised. Now that Apple's Glowtime event is over, we've gotten to spend some time with the Apple Watch Series 10.This is the 10th anniversary of the Apple Watch, but the Series 10 isn't that different from what you already know. It looks a lot like prior Apple Watch models, but it has an updated design that makes the whole package thinner while expanding the screen sizes to 42mm and 46mm, up from 41mm and 45mm on the Series 9. That said, even though the sizes have crept larger since the Series 7, both the 42mm and 46mm don't feel chunky when you wear them. Apple says the new display is 40 percent brighter and that its always-on mode will now refresh once every second, up from once every minute on older devices. The jet black... Continue reading...

The iPhone 16 Pro Max. | Image: Nilay Patel / The Verge I just spent a few minutes with the new iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max, which feature bigger displays with thinner bezels, revamped cameras, and Apple's new Camera Control button, which is pretty fascinating.Let's start with Camera Control, which is a physical button - it depresses into the case ever so slightly, with additional haptic feedback from Apple's Taptic Engine to make it feel like a chunkier click. You can just click away at it, and it'll fire off photos from the 48MP main camera with zero shutter lag. I was not able to slow it down in my short demo time, but we'll see how that goes in real life. Image: Nilay Patel / The Verge The new Camera Control button on the iPhone 16 Pro Max. The button is also... Continue reading...

Screenshot: The Verge Apple's It's Glowtime" event has just come to a close. While the iPhone 16 was the headliner of today's showcase, Apple had several other announcements to share, including some exciting new additions to its smartwatch and AirPods lineups.Here are all the biggest announcements from the event.The iPhone 16 adds two new buttons Screenshot: Apple In addition to inheriting the iPhone 15 Pro's Action Button, the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus now come equipped with a handy new DSLR-like button that you can use to take pictures and videos as well as adjust settings. They also have rear cameras stacked atop one another that support spatial video recording for viewing on the Apple Vision Pro.The iPhone 16 has a faster A18... Continue reading...

Image: Team Asobi Astro Bot cannot stop winning - whether it be the hearts of fans and critics or racking up some of the highest review scores of a game this year. Now the game will continue its well-earned victory lap with the news that it's getting DLC...for free...this year. Astro Bot director and Team Asobi studio head Nicolas Doucet confirmed the news in an interview with Australian outlet Quest Daily.The DLC update will add new maps geared toward speedrunning challenges, leaderboards, and of course, new PlayStation-themed bots to rescue. However, don't expect something the size of Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree - Doucet says the DLC isn't going to be that huge."The DLC's additional challenge levels should definitely appeal to players who... Continue reading...

Finding out what kind of dog this is with Visual Intelligence. | Screenshot: Apple Apple has announced a new feature called Visual Intelligence that will be part of iOS 18's Apple Intelligence suite of AI features later this year." The feature works much like similar features offered by other multimodal AI systems from Google or OpenAI.Visual Intelligence lets you instantly learn about everything you see," Apple's Craig Federighi said during the company's September event today. Federighi said the feature is enabled by Camera Control," which is the company's name for a new capacitive camera button that's now on the side of the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro phones. To trigger it, users will need to click and hold the button, then point the phone's camera at whatever they're curious about.iPhones use a combination of... Continue reading...

Image: Apple Apple announced the iPhone 16 Pro lineup at Monday's product event, with bigger screens, a new A18 Pro chip, a bunch of new recording features, and improved battery life.The company's new flagship smartphones have slightly bigger screens across both models: 6.3 inches on the iPhone 16 Pro and 6.9 inches on the iPhone 16 Pro Max (up from 6.1 inches and 6.7 inches, respectively, on the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max). Apple also says the phones have the thinnest borders on any Apple product." The bodies of the phones are once again made from titanium. They come in four colors: black, white, natural, and a new desert titanium."The iPhone 16 Pro lineup comes with the A18 Pro chip, with a 16-core neural engine that it says will offer... Continue reading...

Apple Watch Series 10 is available in an aerospace-grade polished titanium" | Screenshot: Apple The titanium Apple Watch Series 10 is carbon neutral, Apple announced during the It's Glowtime" event. Any Apple Watch in any finish can be carbon neutral this year, Apple says.To reduce emissions, the titanium watch is made with 95 percent recycled titanium, Apple's chief operating officer Jeff Williams said. Apple also makes enough renewable energy purchases to match the electricity used to manufacture the watch. It also says it's prioritizing non-air shipping" to limit pollution from transportation.Apple introduced its first-ever carbon-neutral products last year, select case and band combinations of Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2, and Apple Watch SE." Along with the announcement today, the watches are the company's... Continue reading...

Image: Chris Welch / The Verge Apple is adding sleep apnea detection to the Apple Watch. The new feature is coming to the Apple Watch Series 9, the just-announced Series 10, and the Apple Watch Ultra 2, Apple announced at its product event on Monday.Sleep apnea is a disorder that causes you to stop breathing as you sleep. Sleep apnea is a feature that wearables makers have been working on for some time, with Samsung getting cleared by the FDA for sleep apnea tracking with the Galaxy Watch earlier this year. Apple says it's using the accelerometer on its watches to monitor a new metric that it calls breathing disturbances." You'll be able to see your nightly breathing disturbance values in the Health app.The company expects to get FDA clearance for its sleep apnea... Continue reading...