The Verge

Toyota's flagship electric vehicle with the clunky name, the bZ4x, is getting a makeover for the 2026 model year - including a much shorter moniker. Now styled as just bZ, the compact SUV is also getting more range, thanks to expanded battery capacity, and an improved design. The front-wheel drive bZ with 74.7 kWh battery [...]

Microsoft is redesigning the Start menu in Windows 11 this month with a new, wider design that finally lets you disable the recommended feed of files and apps. While the new Start menu looks different to what exists in Windows 11 today, this design refresh could have looked a lot different as Microsoft has now [...]

Some Google Search users are starting to see the platform's AI Mode search engine chatbot in the wild. Several user reports across X and Threads show that Google is testing different locations to display the AI Mode tab - while some examples show it in the search bar itself, besides the search by image" button, [...]

Hours after announcing a 90-day mutual reduction in tariff rates with China, the White House has followed up by confirming a similar reduction on duties for cheap imports from the country. From May 14th, packages from Hong Kong and China valued below $800 will be subject to either a 54 percent tariff - down from [...]

Sony has announced its latest flagship smartphone, the Xperia 1 VII, and it fits right into the company's wheelhouse: a familiar design, tech cobbled together from across Sony's other hardware brands, and a price tag that'll sting. Sony's last few flagships have been technological powerhouses that eschewed tech industry trends in favor of enthusiast features [...]

Samsung's thin phone is here. The Galaxy S25 Edge - first teased back in January - is essentially a slimmed-down S25 Plus, with the same 6.7-inch OLED display, Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset, and AI features. The compact design comes at a price though, and you'll have to do without the telephoto lens or [...]

Get ready for more Fallout. The second season of the hit Prime Video show will premiere in December, and the show has already been renewed for a third, Variety reports. The second season will pick up in the aftermath of Season One's epic finale and take audiences along for a journey through the wasteland of [...]

Duolingo is making a big change: it's moving on from hearts in favor of a new energy" mechanic. The idea is to switch from a system that punishes mistakes to one that's intended to feel more motivating - and a bit more gamified. Under the old system, you'd lose a heart if you made a [...]

Apple's iOS 19 update could include an AI-powered feature designed to conserve battery, according to a report from Bloomberg. The battery management tool will reportedly optimize your iPhone's power consumption based on how you use your device. The new feature will use battery data it has collected from users' devices to understand trends and make [...]

Philips has announced a new initiative that will let consumers 3D print their own replacements for small but essential parts included with many of its personal health products. Philips Fixables is launching in the Czech Republic, where Prusa Research, the company's partner for the initiative, is based. But the actual files that can be downloaded [...]

One of the most convenient USB-C cables around is back down to its lowest price ever, which we last saw in early March. Anker's 2-in-1, braided USB-C cable that can charge two devices from one power source is down to $17.99 for the four-foot version at Amazon (it normally sells between $23 and $25.99). The [...]

Ticketmaster will now show how much you'll pay for tickets - fees included - before checkout. The company announced the All In Prices" initiative on Monday as part of its efforts to comply with the Federal Trade Commission's ban on junk fees, which goes into effect on May 12th. Now, when you're shopping for tickets, [...]

Apple has released iOS 18.5, and one of the most notable features is that it allows the iPhone 13 lineup to access satellite messaging features provided by carriers. With the change, T-Mobile users who have an iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Mini, iPhone 13 Pro, or iPhone 13 Pro Max will be able to use its [...]

The Office cinematic universe is expanding this fall. Peacock has given the previously announced spinoff of the mockumentary series a streaming date and name, while also revealing a first image. It's called The Paper, and it will premiere in September. The image, meanwhile, sure looks like an office. Of a newspaper. The show will feature [...]

The Sega Dreamcast wasn't the first home console to store game saves on a portable memory card, but its virtual memory unit (VMU) stood out with a built-in screen, controls, and playable mini games. 8BitMod's upcoming VMU Pro offers the same functionality as Sega's original, but it's rebuilt from the ground up with upgrades that [...]

Nintendo will give Switch 2 owners the option to sacrifice a little per-session playtime in the interest of battery health longevity. The company announced, via its Nintendo Today news app, that the console will have a setting to slow the console's charge as it approaches 90 percent capacity, then maintain it around that amount. Such [...]

The Nintendo Switch 2 will have an option to set a PIN to unlock your console when you turn it on. You can see the new System Lock" option in a new video in the Nintendo Today app that's actually about a battery-preservation feature. The lock setting locks your system with a PIN to protect [...]

Google has updated its colorful G" logo for the first time in almost a decade. An update to the Google app on iOS and Pixel phones shows a new logo that blends the logo's red, yellow, green, and blue colors into a gradient, as reported by 9to5Google. Google last made a major change to its [...]

The NBA is headed to Peacock this October, and with it a range of new features making the viewing experience distinct from watching basketball on cable and a flood of other sports-focused packages. For starters, Peacock is adding an optional performance view" overlay that will show you player names and a live shot chart that [...]

If you've been wary after getting an email with the subject line Lopez Voice Assistant Class Action Settlement," that's understandable - but it's likely a notification that you're owed part of a $95 million payout over allegations of Siri-enabled spying on private conversations. The settlement is related to Lopez v. Apple Inc, a 2019 class [...]

Fox expects to launch its upcoming streaming service before this year's NFL season, the company announced on Monday. The new service, which it will call Fox One, will allow viewers to access livestreams and on-demand content from several channels, including Fox News, Fox Sports, FS1, FS2, Fox Business, and local stations. During an earnings call [...]

We're doing something a little different on today's episode of Decoder. I asked my friend John Gruber, of the website Daring Fireball, to come on the show and talk about the future of Apple - and, importantly, the App Store. Gruber and I have been friends for over a decade now. Daring Fireball was one [...]

The team of nearly 200 Activision Blizzard developers behind the Overwatch franchise has unionized. Formed under the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the Overwatch Gamemakers Guild is the latest wall-to-wall Blizzard union to be recognized by parent company Microsoft since the World of Warcraft development team announced its own union last July. The CWA announced [...]

I did not expect a TV show called Murderbot to be quite so relatable. On the surface, the Apple TV Plus sci-fi comedy is a somewhat generic futuristic story about a group of humans exploring a dangerous planet with the help of a security bot that's designed to protect them. The key is the perspective: [...]

Every month, a group of Indigenous scientists from around the world gathers on Zoom. They never have an agenda. They meet as colleagues to catch up and commiserate about the challenges of being Indigenous in Western academia. Their February meeting, however, quickly struck a different tone. "There was this cascade that started happening," recalled Max [...]

Google Keep has finally expanded the text formatting options to its web app, almost two years after making them available for Android users. The update for Google's web-based note-taking service is now rolling out to Google Workspace, Workspace Individual, and personal Google account users and provides new options for customizing text and heading styles. It [...]

Chinese phone manufacturer Honor has launched an image-to-video AI generator powered by Google, before it's available to Gemini users. It will be available first for anyone who buys the Honor 400 or 400 Pro phones, which launch next week on May 22nd. The new AI tool, powered by Google's Veo 2 model, creates five-second videos [...]

The United States and China have mutually agreed to a 90-day reduction on tariffs implemented in April, while they continue to negotiate a final trade deal. The deal was hashed out by US and Chinese officials in Geneva over the weekend, and will see the US reducing duties Trump has called reciprocal tariffs" on Chinese [...]

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Friday that her government is suing Google for relabeling the Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America" for US users, CBS News reports. The company had done so in Google Maps after President Trump ordered the name change at the beginning of his Presidential term. The lawsuit makes good on [...]

This morning, while summarizing an Apple product blitz" he expects for 2027, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman writes in his Power On newsletter that Apple is planning a mostly glass, curved iPhone" with no display cutouts for that year, which happens to be the iPhone's 20th anniversary. That follows a report last weekend from The Information, which [...]

The Trump administration has reportedly fired Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter, who leads the US Copyright Office, following the office's choice to release a pre-publication version of its opinion on the fair use status of AI training data that's made up of copyrighted information. Representative Joe Morelle, the ranking Democrat of the Committee on House [...]

At the beginning of the month, things weren't looking good for gaming site Giant Bomb after its content was put on hold amid reports of editorial interference from its parent company, Fandom. Today, some feel-good news: Giant Bomb announced it is now an independent, employee-owned entity. Giant Bomb lives! Fandom has sold the site to [...]

If you're like me, you've been anxiously searching for any relief from the Bad NewsTM and endless stream of AI slop plaguing your feed. Joseph Ricketts' breathtaking wildlife videos could be the antidote. An alligator taking a nap on the floor of a crystal clear spring. Schools of fish glittering in the darkness. A cosmic [...]

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is my favorite game of the year so far, with an exhilarating battle system, excellent exploration, and a haunting soundtrack. But I'm not the only one who loves it: the game has become a huge hit, with more than 2 million copies sold just 12 days after its late April release. [...]

Last Thursday, I boarded one of the first United Airlines planes to be equipped with Starlink's satellite Wi-Fi. As expected, the Wi-Fi was very fast and left me wondering whether this will herald the end of spotty in-flight Wi-Fi, expensive connectivity fees, or even the quaint notion that we can avoid work altogether while cruising [...]

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 82, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, hope you're caught up on Andor, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about AI prophets and ChatGPT cheaters and the [...]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was set to start enforcing the remaining provisions of its click-to-cancel" rule on May 14th, requiring that subscriptions be as easy to cancel as to start. Now, the agency says it won't enforce the rule until July 14th, as TechCrunch reports. Also known as the Negative Option Rule, the big [...]

As Pope Leo XIV laid out his vision for the papacy in an address to the College of Cardinals, he also explained why he picked his papal name. Incredibly, artificial intelligence played a big part. In the Vatican's translation of his speech, Pope Leo XIV explained that his name references Pope Leo XIII, who presided [...]

The music-sharing platform SoundCloud quietly updated its terms of use in February last year, adding language that lets it train AI models on its users' content, as TechCrunch reported. And while the company says it hasn't used user-created content for model training, it doesn't rule out the possibility that it will in the future. Marni [...]

More than 25 years after the first Tony Hawk's Pro Skater put skateboarding games on the map, developers are still finding new ways to explore skating in video games, especially in 2025. Skateboarding fans are about to have some promising new games to play, with Activision's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 remake releasing [...]

After slamming everything from clothing to avocados with tariffs, now President Donald Trump has taken aim at films. "The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death," Trump proclaimed on Truth Social last week, while floating a 100 percent tariff on movies "produced in Foreign Lands." The news stirred up confusion across Hollywood, [...]

Whether you're after a distraction-free reading experience or a fun way to keep the kids engaged this summer, the latest Kindle Paperwhite Kids is worth considering. And now, thanks to Amazon's Mother's Day promo, you can pick it up at either Amazon or Best Buy starting at just $139.99 ($40 off), which matches the e-reader's [...]

Apple is known for prioritizing privacy and security, but there are additional measures you can turn to if you feel you need them. iPhones, iPads, and Macs have what's known as a Lockdown Mode that takes protecting your data to a whole new level. It's clear that this isn't for everyone: Apple describes it as [...]

For a kid with an obsession, it's impossible to think about anything else. When I was really into skateboarding, every piece of architecture was filled with a potential for tricks that I could never actually pull off. When I was on a quest to complete Super Mario Bros. 3 on my own, any piece of [...]

A shoe engineered to be made entirely from additive manufacturing will be polarizing in the first quarter of the 21st century. That's certainly been my experience wearing Adidas' new 3D-printed Climacool sneakers on the beach, trail, or in the city. I felt more eyes on my footwear than normal, with a determined flick upward to [...]

Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum Friday afternoon directing the Department of Energy to consider using all lawful authority to rescind" or weaken regulations for water and energy efficiency for dishwashers and washing machines. The action also includes water use standards for showers, faucets, toilets, and urinals. It closes out a week of attacks on [...]

Google is set to pay $1.375 billion to settle claims of data privacy violations brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, according to a press release. Texas filed two lawsuits in 2022 against Google for unlawfully tracking and collecting users' private data regarding geolocation, incognito searches, and biometric data," the release says. Before now, no [...]

The paid release of Deltarune, Toby Fox's episodic Undertale spinoff, will be available for most people at the same time the Nintendo Switch 2 launches in Japan, Fox says in the Deltarune newsletter for May 2025. Deltarune's first two chapters, released in 2018 and 2021 respectively, were free, but this new release, which adds chapters [...]

PS5 users can now buy games in the PlayStation Store using a new payment method: Apple Pay. You could use Apple Pay in the browser or via the mobile app already, but now the method joins other on-console options like using a saved credit or debit card, and PayPal. As reported by 9to5Mac, you may [...]