The Verge

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 [...]

Windows 11 is rolling out the biggest update to MIDI since the musical communication format was first released in 1983. Microsoft announced that its latest Windows 11 Canary test build includes a public preview of Windows MIDI Services, which supports MIDI 2.0 and updates allowing MIDI 1.0 to run on Windows on Arm. MIDI (which [...]

Warner Bros. has made it easier to watch some of its movies online for once, bucking a trend of wiping them from existence. As spotted by Gizmodo, the official Warner Bros. Entertainment YouTube channel has quietly added more than 30 full movies to a playlist over the past month that you can watch here for [...]

Dog treats made from lab-grown meat have gone on sale in the UK, in what the manufacturers say is a world-first. Chick Bites are getting a limited release at a single pet store from Friday, but Meatly says it is expanding production and hopes to make its lab-grown meat more widely available as it scales [...]

The Zenfone 12 Ultra officially launches today, but unlike previous generations, this one won't be sold in the US. As expected, the 12 Ultra is a de-gamer-ified ROG Phone 9 Pro with a big screen, a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, and a unique gimbal-like stabilizer in the main camera. It's the same formula Asus followed [...]

Key resources for environmental data and public health have already been taken down from federal websites, and more could soon vanish as the Trump administration works to scrap anything that has to do with climate change, racial equity, or gender identity. Warnings floated on social media Friday about an impending purge at the Centers for [...]

US consumers may already be seeing additional fees on shipments from China after President Donald Trump's tariff on Chinese goods took effect on Tuesday. Clint Reid, the founder and CEO of a company that offers software to help with cross-border commerce, posted screenshots on X showing additional charges added to a shipment from DHL: Another [...]

Volkswagen has announced that next month, it will show off a new low-cost, entry-level EV that could cost just 20,000 (about $20,800 USD), the price it suggested it would hit back when it announced the ID. Life concept in 2021. That's a steal compared to current low-end US EVs like the over-$28,000 Nissan Leaf. Meanwhile, [...]

Steam's early access program helps small to medium-sized developers get an idea off the ground, but not every game actually does. Now, Valve has a notice designed to warn Steam users when they visit an early access game's store page if it's been a minute since the last update. If the dev's lofty goals for [...]

The keyboard company Qwertykeys has temporaily halted all shipments to the United States in response to President Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods going into effect. The company says it's working on ways to mitigate shipping costs and that the tariffs have made it so that all keyboards from China to the U.S. are now subject [...]

Ford's electric vehicle and software business lost $5.1 billion in 2024, up from $4.7 billion lost in 2024. And the automaker doesn't anticipate any relief this year, when it predicts it will lose as much as $5.5 billion on its EV business. Ford reported its fourth quarter and full-year earnings on Wednesday, beating Wall Street [...]

Google is joining Meta, Amazon, and other big tech companies in winding down its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. In a Wednesday memo to employees that I obtained (and you can read below), Googleas head of HR, Fiona Cicconi, said there will no longer be DEI hiring targets due to the companyas status as [...]

Amazon sent out five different invites to its upcoming product event, and when pieced together, they spell out a familiar word: Alexa, the name of the company's digital voice assistant. We assumed the event would be about Alexa'slong-heralded renaissance,and given this message, plus AmazontellingReutersthat the event will be Alexa-focused, it seems certain the new Alexa [...]

Things at Sonos are getting worse before they get better - if they're going to get better. Today the company laid off approximately 200 employees, The Verge has learned. The news was announced at around 4PM ET, and a letter to employees from interim CEO Tom Conrad was posted on Sonos' website shortly thereafter. One [...]

Sony has updated its Creators' Cloud platform so that images uploaded to a user's cloud storage from select Sony cameras can be automatically transferred to Google Drive or Adobe Lightroom. With Google Drive, you can save photos for backup and sharing, and with Adobe Lightroom, images can be processed almost immediately, even by a remote [...]

Hey, real quick: look at this keyboard. There's something cool about it. It's a mechanical keyboard. It's a laser keyboard. It's a magnetic induction keyboard. It has the new switches. It has the old switches. It's very thin. It's got a weird layout. It has a trackpoint. Or a screen. It has cool keycaps. It [...]

Nintendo is gearing up for the Switch 2's launch sometime in 2025, and president Shuntaro Furukawa says that the company is taking risks and proceeding with production so that we can meet as much demand as possible," according to a machine translation of an earnings Q&A. The company had some trouble keeping the original Switch [...]

Apps distributed through both Apple and Google's app stores are hiding malicious screenshot-reading code that's being used to steal cryptocurrency, the cybersecurity software firm Kaspersky reported today. It's the first known case" of apps infected with malware that uses OCR tech to extract text from images making it into Apple's App Store, according to a [...]

Herman Miller has announced a new height-adjustable desk that doesn't look like one. Instead of relying on just two columns to raise and lower its work surface, the Spout Sit-to-Stand Table uses four cylindrical legs, each containing their own motor. The design makes the Spout table easier to move around (it even includes optional wheels), [...]

The long block outside of the US Treasury Department on Tuesday was lined with protesters. They flooded across the street with signs bearing slogans: aNobody elected Muska; This is illegal"; aStop the coup.a It was one of multiple DC protests targeting billionaire Elon Musk's reported access to core government payment systems, attended by Democratic members [...]

Last summer, the staff at Gannett's consumer reviews site Reviewed received terrible news: the media giant was shuttering the entire vertical and would be laying off dozens of employees. Effective November 1st, Reviewed would cease operations. Gannett blamed Google's changing search algorithm, which had degraded [its] business model." The shuttering was a blow to the [...]

Google has edited Gemini's AI response in a Super Bowl commercial to remove an incorrect statistic about cheese. The ad, which shows a small business owner using Gemini to write a website description about Gouda, no longer says the variety makes up 50 to 60 percent of the world's cheese consumption." In the edited YouTube [...]

Amazon sent out invites today for a February event in New York City. The invite gives few clues as to what will be announced at the event, which will be hosted by Panos Panay and the Amazon Devices & Services team on February 26th. However, a blue swirly logo behind the words You're invited" does [...]