The Verge

Let me let you in on a little secret: Amazon's kid-friendly e-readers are a better deal than the standard models. Each so-called Kids" device is identical to its non-Kids counterpart, except that it comes with a protective case, an extended two-year warranty against damage, and six months of Amazon Kids Plus. They also include optional [...]

Pokemon's 30th anniversary is here and Nintendo (and The Pokemon Company, Game Freak, and Omega Force) are kicking things off with a surprisingly excellent life simulation spinoff game. Pokemon Pokopia arrives on March 5th, and it's one of the first Pokemon titles that will debut exclusively on the Nintendo Switch 2. Equal parts Animal Crossing, [...]

It's been a busy few years for Scott Pilgrim. Following a live-action film and the conclusion of the comics in 2010, the series has slowly been coming back to life. First, in 2021 Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game was rereleased on modern consoles after years of being inaccessible. Two years later came an [...]

Year after year, we mostly know what to expect from our smartphone upgrades. Galaxy, iPhone, Pixel, or whatever else, everything seems to get slightly better (and occasionally more expensive) without many surprises in store. That's not to say there are no new ideas left in smartphones, though. You just have to know where to look. [...]

When it launched the 17 and 17 Ultra in Europe on Saturday, Xiaomi bucked an industry trend: it didn't really talk about AI all that much. And it really didn't talk about AI when it showed off the two phones' cameras, including a special edition 17 Ultra co-created with Leica. According to Angus Ng, the [...]

Following a Direct in February and a Pokemon-focused event last week, Nintendo returned today with a showcase focused on indie games. And it ended with a big one: the absorbing, room-shifting puzzle game Blue Prince is launching on the Switch 2. Even better, it'll be available later today. The rest of the titles revealed during [...]

I am excited about the SpaceX IPO for all the reasons investors shouldn't be. Maybe it'll be a real marquee moment for Silicon Valley, but I see the potential for a shitshow. After all, more than a decade ago, Musk said that SpaceX going public before going to Mars would be bad for the company. [...]

After a few years between updates, Apple has two new 5K monitor options, ranging from expensive to very expensive, with the 27-inch 5K Studio Display and Studio Display XDR. Both have 5,120 x 2,880 resolutions and 12MP Center Stage cameras embedded inside - we'll be eager to see how much better those are this time [...]

Google Home chief Anish Kattukaran announced several updates to the smart home platform that fix a long list of annoyances and idiosyncrasies. There's also one noteworthy new addition: the introduction of "Live Search" for your cameras. So, instead of Gemini only knowing about things that have already happened, it now understands what it sees in [...]

Anthropic is making it easier to switch to its Claude AI from other chatbots with an update that brings Claude's memory feature to users on the free plan, along with a new prompt and dedicated tool for importing data from other chatbots. These upgrades could allow users who have been using rivals like OpenAI's ChatGPT [...]

It's a good day for Apple fans on a budget. Not only did the company introduce a new budget phone, its entry-level AirPods 4 are also on sale. Right now, you can snag a pair of Apple's AirPods 4 starting at just $89 ($30 off) at Walmart. The model with active noise-cancellation are also down [...]

The iPhone 17 lineup now has a budget" option. Announced this week, the iPhone 17E will hit stores on Wednesday, March 11th, starting at $599, with preorders opening on March 4th. The 6.1-inch phone joins the rest of Apple's iPhone 17 lineup, which includes the iPhone 17 ($799), the more powerful iPhone 17 Pro ($1,099), [...]

Apple has asked Google to look into "setting up servers" for a new version of Siri that's Gemini-powered and meets Apple's privacy requirements, The Information reports. Apple had already announced in January that Google's Gemini AI models would help power the upgraded version of Siri it delayed last year, but The Information's report indicates Apple [...]

Sharing content to Mastodon is getting easier with the addition of a universal "Share to Mastodon" button for the decentralized social media platform. Announced on Monday, the widget allows users to share content on any Mastodon server by connecting your Mastodon account and redirecting you to the server that account is on. The blog post [...]

In late February, Puck reported on a strange case: An influencer with more than a million followers was inadvertently promoting products on Instagram. On some of Julia Berolzheimer's posts, a "Shop the look" button hovered in the corner. When followers clicked it, they were fed similar items to what Berolzheimer was wearing. Her job is [...]

Finnish startup Donut Lab is out to prove that its solid-state battery is all that it claims to be. Last week, the test was about fast charging. This week is where things get hot. Like the first test, this one was also conducted by state-owned VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. The team set out [...]

The US Supreme Court has declined to hear a case over whether AI-generated art can obtain a copyright, as reported earlier by Reuters. The Monday decision comes after Stephen Thaler, a computer scientist from Missouri, appealed a court's decision to uphold a ruling that found AI-generated art can't be copyrighted. In 2019, the US Copyright [...]

Vivo rarely has a presence at MWC, but this year it bucked that trend in a big way, with the reveal of its next flagship phone, the X300 Ultra, alongside an upgraded telephoto extender lens and professional camera cage. The company isn't ready to launch the handset just yet - or even reveal very many [...]

Nvidia announced on Monday that it's investing $2 billion each into Lumentum and Coherent, which are both developing photonics technology for data centers, like optical transceivers, circuit switches, and lasers, which are used to move data at high speeds over long distances. Their tech could improve energy efficiency, data transfer speeds, and bandwidth in future [...]

Analogue announced a restock for its Pocket handheld, but for the second time since late 2021, it's getting a price bump, this time to $239.99. The Pocket will once again be available for preorder through Analogue's website in black or white (the brightly colored versions are always limited editions that sell out fast) starting on [...]

Apple's Magic Keyboard cases offer a fantastic typing experience, elevating the iPad to laptop status with a large trackpad that offers haptic feedback, and an articulating hinge to help you angle the display just right for your comfort. It's typically a very pricey accessory, but Woot has new / open-box models selling at great discounts [...]

Now that Paramount Skydance has become the frontrunner to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, CEO David Ellison wants the two studios' streaming services to become one. During a call with investors on Monday, Paramount Skydance head David Ellison insisted that, if his deal to acquire the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery for about $110 billion receives [...]

Just days after showing off the Galaxy S26, Samsung is finally rolling out the ability for users to unlock their home with a tap of their phone or by simply approaching their door. The new feature, called Digital Home Key, will live inside Samsung Wallet and is powered by the Aliro smart home standard. Samsung [...]

On Friday evening, amidst fallout from a standoff between the Department of Defense and Anthropic, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that his own company had successfully negotiated new terms with the Pentagon. The US government had just moved to blacklist Anthropic for standing firm on two red lines for military use: no mass surveillance of [...]

Apple has taken the wraps off the iPhone 17E, its latest entry-level smartphone. The iPhone 17E starts at $599 with a higher 256GB of storage, and is available in black, white, and pink. The company revealed the new device as part of a series of announcements that kicked off this week. Similar to the iPhone [...]

After updating its mid-level tablets last year, Apple has announced a new version of the iPad Air today now powered by the company's M4 processor. That's the same processor found in the 7th-generation iPad Pro as well as MacBook Pro and Mac mini models that debuted in 2024. The new iPad Air with M4 is [...]

Nintendo has a history of fleshing out the larger Pokemon world through spinoffs. What games from the Pokemon Snap and Detective Pikachu series lacked in terms of action, they made up for in the way they made pokemon feel like creatures with rich lives outside of their relationships with trainers. And as the mainline series [...]

It brings me no pleasure to say this, but friends: The next G cometh. The standard formally known as 6G is still being established, but it's going to be a major topic of discussion at Mobile World Congress 2026, which gets started today in Barcelona. 5G arrived back in 2019, but also, did it, entirely? [...]

After teasing a magnetic, modular smartphone concept the other day, Tecno has followed that up with another two phone designs centered around color-changing finishes: one with E Ink, and the other incorporating neon. I'm the most taken with the Pova Neon, which the company says includes genuine neon lighting, not just bright colors: it uses [...]

Like it or not, more AI wearables may be on the horizon - or at least Qualcomm seems to think so. Today the company announced its new Snapdragon Wear Elite chip. At a press briefing, Qualcomm said it considers the Elite to be a "wrist plus" chip. Meaning, it won't replace the previous W5 Plus, [...]

Motorola has revealed a little more about its upcoming folding phone, and all signs point toward a premium option - not the budget-friendlier alternative the category could use. For starters, the Razr Fold will cost 1,999 (about $2,350) bundled with the Moto Pen Ultra. It'll go on sale first in Europe, with North America to [...]

Lenovo has a few new Yoga laptops it's announcing at MWC 2026: the 14-inch Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition, 15-inch Yoga Pro 7a, and 14-inch Yoga 9i 2-in-1 Aura Edition. The most interesting of the pack is that 9i 2-in-1, outfitted with a 2880 x 1800, 120Hz OLED touchscreen. It includes a Yoga Pen Gen [...]

Lenovo is announcing five new ThinkPads and a new ThinkBook laptop for MWC 2026. There are various new chip offerings and updates for this swathe of ThinkPads, but the device I find the most interesting is the X13 Detachable. We haven't seen a major update to Lenovo's tablet-style ThinkPad in years, when it was the [...]

One of Lenovo's big laptop concepts for MWC 2026 is a modular ThinkBook with two screens. Officially called the ThinkBook Modular AI PC Concept, the proof-of-concept is a 14-inch productivity machine with two plug-and-play interchangeable ports and a second 14-inch display magnetically attached to the rear of its lid. The second display is removable and [...]

Alongside a handful of new laptop concepts (and a range of real products too), Lenovo used MWC to announce a pair of AI-based productivity companion concepts. Both are standalone desk devices designed to boost productivity while providing office workers with a bit of artificial dystopic companionship. Lenovo describes its AI Workmate Concept as an "always-on [...]

Lenovo put a foldable display on a gaming handheld. The Legion Go Fold Concept is a Windows-based handheld with a flexible POLED display, detachable Joy-Con-like controllers, and a folio case to turn the whole thing into a mini laptop. You can use it as a standard Steam Deck-esque handheld with the display folded down to [...]

An unannounced Sonos speaker called Play has been spotted on the Canadian Best Buy site. The Sonos Play looks like a slightly shrunk-down version of the Move 2 with a loop on the back for toting it around. While nothing is confirmed yet, it's listed at CAD $399.99 with a release date of March 31st, [...]

In a statement on X, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said his company would pay out positions on "Ali Khamenei out as Supreme Leader?" at the last trading price before his death. Mansour said that Kalshi doesn't "list markets directly tied to death" and that its rules are designed to "prevent people from profiting from death." [...]

Lego's new Smart Brick is a pretty big deal. It packs a miniature computer, a microphone, and NFC tech into a classic 2*4 Lego brick, which can power all sorts of new experiences with select sets. It has so much promise that we awarded it "best in show" at CES 2026, and now, eight Star [...]

We finally have an update to the Soundcore Space One that launched two and a half years ago. At MWC 2026, Soundcore has announced the Space 2, which will be available in the US on April 21st in three colors - linen white, jet black, and seafoam green - for $129.99. That's $30 more than [...]

Honor has revealed more details of its so-called Robot Phone at MWC 2026, and finally showed a working unit in action alongside a dancing humanoid robot. Specs are still thin on the ground, but the company has confirmed it plans to release the phone in the second half of this year - though I've been [...]

Resident Evil turns 30 this year. The series is full of history - the new Resident Evil Requiem is technically the ninth mainline game, but there are a bunch of spinoffs, remakes, movies, and even a TV show - which can make it fun to follow for fans. But it's also intimidating for people like [...]

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the contemporary attention economy, follow Mia Sato. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started "KING BASEBALL, monarch of the American sport world, is sick," [...]

There's never been a better time to add facial recognition to everything! The public at large is gradually becoming numb to our Palantirized surveillance state, and American communities are responding to the militarization of federal law enforcement with their own increasingly intricate webs of sousveillance. The Ray-Ban Meta glasses are sleek, unobtrusive wearables with front-facing [...]

For the third year running, Honor has announced what it says is the world's thinnest book-style folding phone. For the second year, it's combined that with the biggest battery in any foldable too. This year, for its third and final trick, the company went ahead and made sure it was the first foldable with an [...]

Polymarket has been allowing people to bet on when the US would strike Iran next. Obviously, now that it's actually happened and people have died, the prediction betting market is feeling some pressure. The site has been at the center of controversy before, including suspicions of insider trading on the Super Bowl halftime show and [...]

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory's automated alert system is online and already bombarding astronomers with things to look at in the night sky. The system went live publicly on Tuesday, February 24th, and on the first night dropped some 800,000 alerts about asteroids, supernovas, and feasting black holes. And that number is only expected to [...]

Welcome to the weekend, friends! While the rest of our team was checking out Samsung's forthcoming Galaxy S26 lineup and prepping for Apple's special experience" next week, we've been sifting through Woot's Video Games for All" sale and a truly weird slate of deals that, frankly, don't have a throughline. (Some of us have also [...]

Xiaomi has announced its first Bluetooth tracker, and while the Xiaomi Tag has a more elongated design than the Apple AirTag, that lets you use it in more places right out of the box. On one end of the tracker you'll find an integrated metal loop that can be attached to a keyring or clipped [...]

Xiaomi and Leica's long-running phone partnership just got a little closer. Alongside the new international release of its 17 Ultra flagship, Xiaomi has been entrusted with manufacturing a separate version that is the first Leica Leitzphone to release outside of Japan, following three Sharp-made models exclusive to the country. In truth, the Leitzphone is a [...]