The Verge

Within the past week, Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)-affiliated staffers have gained unprecedented access to sensitive US financial systems with data on millions of Americans, claimed to shut down one federal agency without an act of Congress, and invaded numerous government agencies. They've been opposed by lawsuits, public protests, and resistance [...]

With a 6.13-inch black-and-white E Ink screen, Bigme's new Hibreak Pro looks similar to the Boox Palma 2 that debuted last October. But while the Palma 2 is positioned as a pocket-sized e-reader, the Hibreak Pro features a more powerful processor and dual-SIM 5G capabilities. The Bigme Hibreak Pro is currently available for preorder through [...]

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man star Hudson Thames left many eyebrows raised last week after his comments about fearing the Disney Plus series would be aannoying and woke.a During a subsequent Reddit AMA, series creator Jeff Trammell was quick to start doing damage control, and he insisted that Thames had misspoken. But even in its most [...]

President Donald Trump has paused the removal of the de minimis exemption on goods from China, temporarily putting an end to the confusion and high fees that have plagued both customers and businesses over the past few days. The de minimus exemption allows packages valued at less than $800 to enter the country duty-free, but [...]

The Trump administration's war on electric cars continues with the halt of a national program that sends money to states to install EV charging equipment. It was the latest move by President Donald Trump to reverse Biden-era EV policies - even as those policies have personally enriched his top ally, Elon Musk. According to a [...]

I have a cable problem. Iam the guy with a giant box (three, actually) of ancient power cables that connect to nothing, just in case a time traveler appears with my hard drive from 2006 and demands I plug it in. I have approximately a thousand Lightning cables, even though the only Lightning-charging device I [...]

Dbrand has announced a unique (disturbing? unsettling?) way to protect the Apple Vision Pro that completely negates the sleek aesthetics of the headset's curved laminated glass display. Its new Aperture faceplate, which was originally conceived by a former AR designer at Snap, features a trypophobia-inducing pattern of seemingly random holes that are actually all strategically [...]

Hasbro is teaming up with movie production company Legendary Entertainment to create a live-action film and TV universe" based on Magic: The Gathering. The project will initially focus on a currently untitled feature film according to Hasbro's press release, with television series and other content" then expected to follow as the cinematic universe develops. Neither [...]

We were whizzing down the slopes, screaming because it is sort of ridiculous to go flying down a snowy hill in an inflatable tube. There was a friendly family competition going on to see who could get down the hill the fastest. Other snowtubers had their phones out - my spouse had planned to record [...]

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), a child safety nonprofit that works closely with the government and major tech platforms, has recently removed publications that reference queer and transgender children from its website. The removals come amid reports that NCMEC was ordered to cull mentions of LGBTQ+ issues under threat of losing [...]

Google appears to have faked AI output in a commercial set to run during the Super Bowl. The ad shows a business owner using Gemini to write a website description, but the text portrayed as generated by AI has been available on the business's website since at least August 2020, as shown on this archived [...]

Amazon has agreed to pay the District of Columbia $3.95 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that the retail giant had stolen more than $60 million in tips intended for its Flex delivery drivers. DC Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb announced the settlement today, which includes $2.45 million in penalties and requires Amazon to clearly [...]

Elon Musk and the team at the Department of Government Efficiency figured out one thing really fast: if you control the computers, you control everything. And so Musk and his merry band of engineers have spent the last week or so parading into various US government agencies and taking control of their systems. Thereas so [...]

In the vast number of fields where generative AI has been tested, law is perhaps its most glaring point of failure. Tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT have gotten lawyers sanctioned and experts publicly embarrassed, producing briefs based on made-up cases and nonexistent research citations. So when my colleague Kylie Robison got access to ChatGPT's new adeep [...]

Sony can be somewhat stingy about offering discounts on first-party accessories like the PlayStation Portal, which is why the latest PlayStation sale is worth checking out. Now through February 19th, PlayStation Plus members can buy two PlayStation 5 accessories and get 20 percent off purchases over $100. If you aren't a PS Plus member, you [...]

Apple has reportedly been ordered by the UK government to create a backdoor that would give security officials access to users' encrypted iCloud backups. If implemented, British security services would have access to the backups of any user worldwide, not just Brits, and Apple would not be permitted to alert users that their encryption was [...]

Microsoft has started rolling out a new scareware blocker in its Edge browser this week. The AI-powered feature runs on Windows PCs and can identify and block existing scams, and even detect new and emerging ones thanks to a local machine learning model. Scareware blocker adds a new, first line of defense to help protect [...]

Nvidia's RTX 5090 and 5080 desktop GPUs sort of launched last month, but on the laptop front, we're still awaiting the avalanche of 50-series notebooks to come crashing in, starting with these hefty new mid-rangers from Acer. The (deep breath) Predator Helios Neo 16 AI and Predator Helios Neo 18 AI can be configured with [...]

Will Sony ever release a remake or remaster of Bloodborne, the Dark Souls successor that became one of our favorite games of 2015? Even Sony's former games chief isn't sure - but that isn't stopping Sony's copyright enforcers from shutting down fun in the meanwhile. Last week, it axed the 60fps mod that let the [...]

Newly-published Nintendo patents show that the company has been exploring a version of its Joy-Con controllers that can work like a computer mouse, a feature Nintendo has hinted will be coming to the Switch 2. In its Switch 2 teaser video last month, Nintendo showed two Joy-Con controllers sliding along the ground, much like you'd [...]

Apple's next iPhone SE might be announced as early as next week" ahead of it being on sale later in February, Bloomberg reports. The new phone has already seemingly appeared in photos and video and Bloomberg says Apple's inventory of the current iPhone SE has started running low, which all could point to an imminent [...]

Tinder is updating its Explore page with new categories to help you find dates with similar relationship goals. With the update, you can now browse profiles in groups such as Serious Dater," Long-Term Partner," Non-monogamy," and Short-Term Fun." The dating app notes that you can only qualify for the Serious Dater category if you have [...]

Marko Elez a the 25-year-old Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffer who has reportedly been combing through the Treasury Departmentas payment systems a resigned from his position after the Wall Street Journal uncovered an old social media account linked to him with numerous posts promoting racism and eugenics. a99% of Indian H1Bs will be replaced [...]

We've got more evidence that Apple is developing a tabletop robot for the home, courtesy of a blog post published on Apple's Machine Learning Research site. First spotted by MacRumors, the post summarizes a paper by an Apple research team that developed a robot with expressive movements to see how much more engaging it is [...]

It's been a decade and two console generations since the release of GTA V. But that time's over. Rockstar announced that it would reveal the game's first trailer on Tuesday, December 5th, 2023, at 6AM PT / 9AM ET. Unfortunately, an early leak prompted the company to release the trailer more than half a day [...]

Following AMC's recent changes to its Stubs program - a set of perks that actually seemed like a solid way to get people to sign up - the theater chain is now planning to raise the subscription service's prices. Variety reports that, beginning May 7th, a membership to Stub's A-List tier - which currently allows [...]

Thousands of retailers and carrier stores in the US will be stocked with the Samsung Galaxy S25 ($799.99), S25 Plus ($999.99), and S25 Ultra ($1,299.99) on Friday, February 7th. Hardware-wise, the S25 series is a marginal improvement over last year's S24 series, with the most noteworthy changes coming in the form of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 [...]

Lawmakers' efforts to limit the use of social media by kids are continuing into 2025 with the Kids Off Social Media Act (KOSMA). The bill, which would prevent kids under 13 from creating social media accounts, advanced through the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday, as reported earlier by Politico. Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Ted [...]

Not long before last yearas software quagmire thrust the company into controversy, Sonos tinkered with an idea that some employees believed might resonate with Gen Z customers. Engineers at Sonos prototyped a miniature speaker that could magnetically connect to the back of Appleas recent iPhones. At least conceptually, the since-abandoned product sounds rather similar to [...]

A federal judge in Massachusetts temporarily blocked the Trump administration's deferred resignation" program, meant to push out career government workers as part of the Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency's alleged effort to cut federal spending, several outlets report. The program gave employees a deadline just before midnight on Thursday to accept the offer, which [...]

President Donald Trump has set his sights on Californiaas high-speed rail plan, calling it athe worst-managed projecta with massive cost overruns that deserve to be investigated. aThey have hundreds of billions of dollars of cost overruns,a Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, according to the Los Angeles Times. aItas impossible that something [...]

The Apple Watch Series 10 is a great smartwatch for iPhone owners, but it's overkill if you want to track the basics and little else. In those instances, the latest Apple Watch SE might be the better buy, especially when you can get it at a steep discount. Fortunately, Apple's entry-level watch is available atAmazonandBest [...]

NASA is planning to host a live Twitch stream next week from the International Space Station (ISS) - its first from the ISS. The stream, which takes place on February 12th at 11:45AM ET on NASA's Twitch channel, will feature Don Pettit, an astronaut currently on the ISS, and Matt Dominick, who returned to Earth [...]

After 20 years, World of Warcraft is finally adding player housing. During its Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct last year, Blizzard delighted players with the surprise announcement that the feature - a long-time staple in other MMOs - was on the way. Now the studio has revealed a bit more information with a new blog explaining [...]

Google debuted a pair of new Super Bowl commercials that portray AI as a technology that's as central to people's lives as the phone or computer they access it on. But, like some of Google's other Super Bowl ads, the company is once again attempting to make you pull out your tissues in between plays. [...]

Have you thought about what you're going to do when your smart fridge is too old to download its latest software update? While you'd probably replace your phone or computer when its software hits its end of life, your fridge will still keep your food cold even if it can't stream TikToks like those fancy [...]

Ted Carstensen, the deputy administrator of the United States Digital Service (USDS) organization that has been renamed to Elon Muskas Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is resigning instead of taking the aFork in the Roada deferred resignation offer for federal employees. aI write to let you know that I have decided to resign from USDS [...]

Rooster Teeth - the studio behind animated web series such as RWBY, Red vs. Blue, and Gen:Lock - seemed like it was shuttering for good last year. The company announced that it was winding down operations due to parent company Warner Bros. Discovery's inability to find a party interested in buying the production outfit. But [...]

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has reportedly infiltrated the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency that collects and shares vital weather and climate information. Sources have told The Verge, as well as other news outlets, that they're worried about drastic changes that could impact the public's access to [...]

Google Photos is adding its digital SynthID watermarks to photos that have been edited using the Magic Editor's generative AI feature. The new feature is rolling out this week" according to Google, and is intended to make it easier for people to quickly identify images that have been manipulated using the reimagine" tool in Magic [...]

What exactly is a producer? Well, according to Nick Statt, who is senior producer on The Verge's Decoder podcast with Nilay Patel, the word producer' means a lot of things in a lot of different contexts." In his case - here at The Verge and in the world of audio - it means he and [...]

Meta is shutting down its Workplace platform next year, but Microsoft is planning to keep the dream of Facebook at work very much alive. Multiple sources at Microsoft tell me the company has started testing a fully integrated Facebook-like feed inside Microsoft Teams recently. Teams users will be able to post to the feed, known [...]

In the two days since President Trump enacted new tariffs on goods from China, none of the major US shipping companies and couriers have yet announced detailed policies on new fees, though some have warned of possible delays and disruption. Despite that, both senders and recipients are already reporting being asked to pay import taxes [...]

Researchers managed to create a low-cost AI reasoning model rivaling OpenAI's in just 26 minutes, as outlined in a paper published last week. The model, called s1, was refined using a small dataset of 1,000 questions and for under $50, according to TechCrunch. To do this, researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington used [...]

Spotify and Warner Music Group have inked a new multi-year deal covering publishing and recorded music that aims to shape the future of audio-visual streaming." In its announcement, Spotify says the agreement will expand the streaming platform's catalog of audio and visual content and provide new paid subscription tiers." Spotify and Warner Music Group didn't [...]

On today's episode of Decoder, we're discussing a very big problem with extremely far-reaching consequences: how dysfunctional has the federal government in the United States become, and how much of it has been handed to Elon Musk? If you've even glanced at the news over the past week, you've likely come across some alarming headlines [...]

OM System has announced a new Micro Four Thirds mirrorless camera called the OM-3 with a design inspired by the Olympus OM-1 film camera that first debuted in 1972. Despite its vintage appearance, the OM-3 offers features similar to last year's OM System OM-1 Mark II in a more compact and affordable body. These include [...]

Lyft announced a new partnership with Anthropic to use the Claude AI assistant to handle customer service requests. Claude is already being put to use handling service inquiries from drivers, reducing the average resolution time for a request by 87 percent, the company said. In an example provided by Lyft, a driver asks the chatbot [...]