The Verge

Sexual fetish content. How to light a match. Where to find knives in the home. These are all conversation topics that recently-recalled children's toys - built atop AI chatbots like OpenAI's GPT-4o - are capable of bringing up to children. On Tuesday, U.S. senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent a letter to [...]

The Oscars are headed to YouTube - in a few years. "Beginning in 2029, the Oscars will broadcast exclusively on YouTube for free globally and on YouTube TV in the U.S.," YouTube announced. YouTube's coverage will include the red carpet, behind the scenes content, and Governors Ball access. The deal runs through 2033, according to [...]

As we tuck into Fallout season 2, eager to see Amazon bring New Vegas to life, there's one person who stands out - and not just because of his power armor. Knight Maximus of the Brotherhood of Steel is the most important of Fallout's three main characters, and I'm glad the new season is finally [...]

Tesla and other automakers working on Level 2 and higher driving systems would be required to restrict their vehicles to specific road types or clearly defined operational domains under a new bill introduced today by Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey (D). Operational design domains, or ODDs, are a set of conditions, either geographic or weather-related, in [...]

Tech billionaires have been obsessed with space for a long time. Now, as the largest AI companies race to build more data centers in a frenzied pursuit of profitability, space is looking less like a pet project and more like a commercial opportunity. In 2025 alone, six proposals for giant AI data centers needing multiple [...]

A new Monday Night Football broadcast will offer an alternate telecast that presents the game live from the All-22 camera angle that shows the entire field, coupled with on-screen analytics and commentary. It's called MNF Playbook with Next Gen Stats, and it premieres next week. To develop the show, ESPN partnered with sports data analytics [...]

Mercedes-Benz sent out a notice to customers recently announcing its plans to discontinue MBUX Sound Drive, an interactive audio feature that syncs music to the car's actions. The feature was first announced less than a year ago at CES in partnership with Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am. Notices went out recently to customers that MBUX [...]

Smartphones with secondary screens on the back aren't a new idea. Most recently the Xiaomi 17 series launched in September with a smaller rear display and while the company suggests using it for widgets or gaming, the most practical use is as a way to frame selfies captured with the phone's superior rear cameras. The [...]

Though Paramount Skydance was trying to buy Warner Bros. Discovery for much more money than Netflix is offering, David Zaslav and the rest of WBD's board are urging their shareholders to give Oracle scion David Ellison the cold shoulder. Today, WBD's board announced that it has unanimously decided that its shareholders would be much better [...]

Google is upgrading its Gemini app with Gemini 3 Flash, a more efficient version of its flagship AI model that's still capable of fielding complex requests. The new model will replace Gemini 2.5 Flash as the default inside the Gemini app, and it's headed to Google Search, too. Its arrival comes one month after the [...]

AI created as much carbon pollution this year as New York City and guzzled up as much H20 as people consume globally in water bottles, according to new estimates. The study paints what's likely a pretty conservative picture of AI's environmental impact since it's based on the relatively limited amount of data that's currently available [...]

Peacock has found a new place to stuff ads. Starting next year, the streaming service will greet you with an ad alongside your profile icon on the "Who's watching?" screen when you open the app. During a press briefing, Peacock parent company NBCUniversal showed off how these "arrival ads" might look. One image shows your [...]

Small robot vacuums that fit into tight spaces rarely deliver strong performance, which is what makes the SwitchBot K11 Plus stand out. And right now, you can purchase the compact yet capable robovac from Amazon and SwitchBot for a new low of $179.99 ($220 off), the latter with code XMAS2GIFT55. Just note that only Switchbot [...]

In all the chaos of 2025, The Verge was able to see through the fog and focus on the consumer technology that really made an impact this year: robot vacuums, thin foldable phones, experimental laptops, handheld gaming consoles, and of course, generative AI. You can watch our standout picks in our video here. All this [...]

Years often go by between new seasons of big streaming shows - just ask fans of Severance or Stranger Things - but with Fallout the wait hasn't been so bad. The first season was a welcome surprise when it started streaming last April, managing to capture the series' distinctly playful take on the end of [...]

The World Cup is happening next year, and Netflix and FIFA are working on a new soccer simulation game in celebration of the tournament. "This summer, when the world gathers to celebrate the FIFA World Cup 2026, fans can play a newly reimagined FIFA football simulation game exclusively on Netflix Games," Netflix says. The new [...]

The OnePlus 15R's battery life is exceptional. It's a smidge better than the very impressive OnePlus 15's, and the 15R costs two hundred dollars less. So why am I having a hard time recommending it? Typically, OnePlus' R-series phone is a simplified, less-expensive follow-up to the main flagship - in this case, the OnePlus 15. [...]

Rad Power Bikes, the once dominant electric bicycle brand in the US, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week as it seeks to sell of its company. The move comes less than a month after Rad Power said it could not afford to recall its older e-bike batteries that had been designated a fire [...]

From pervasive layoffs to continued price hikes, things didn't go so well for Xbox in 2025. But even though Game Pass, the Xbox subscription service, isn't quite the deal it once was, there are still a lot of excellent titles to check out. This was an especially good year for indie titles, with breakout hits [...]

Apple's streaming service got a new name this year - it dropped the "plus" and is now just Apple TV - but its actual programming didn't change all that much. And that's good news for sci-fi fans, as the service continued to cement itself as the preeminent destination for the genre in the streaming era. [...]

Disney Plus and Hulu had an eventful year. Not only did the streaming services release a swath of exciting original shows and new seasons, but they're also in the midst of a transformation that will further integrate Hulu with Disney Plus. The "unified" app experience will have a revamped interface that's supposed to make it [...]

Years from now, I'll look back at 2025 as the year when a fundamental shift happened in wearable technology. Over the last decade, the category has been synonymous with health and fitness. In many ways, that association is still the primary one. But this year, I've seen an increasing number of tech companies pitch another [...]

Tesla could be temporarily locked out of its biggest US market if it doesn't change deceptive marketing that exaggerates the self-driving capabilities of its cars, the California Department of Motor Vehicles warned on Tuesday, adopting the ruling of an administrative law judge. The DMV said Tesla's use of terms like "Autopilot" and "Full Self-Driving" to [...]

Elon Musk, a billionaire who decimated the United States federal workforce using the Department of Government Efficiency, is not remembered fondly by the most powerful woman in Washington: Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff and the gatekeeper to President Donald Trump. In several on-the-record interviews with Vanity Fair's Chris Whipple conducted over the past [...]

Days after a rumor circulated that home arcade machine maker Arcade1Up would be shutting down, the company has finally shared a statement about its future. "Select assets" from Arcade1Up have been acquired by toy company Basic Fun, and although Arcade1Up isn't dead, what's next for the brand is still a little murky. Last week, a [...]

Hello and welcome to 2025's last issue of Regulator. If you're not a Verge subscriber, get off the 2026 naughty list by signing up here. And if you're a Verge subscriber - well, dang, that's really nice of you. Last week, I appeared on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC to talk about my reporting [...]

The Alexa.com website appears to be live for some users. The browser-based home for Alexa Plus, the company's revamped digital voice assistant, was first announced at the Alexa Plus launch event in February. But until recently, Alexa.com redirected to an information page. Now, some users, myself included, are seeing a new Alexa Plus web interface. [...]

Following the release of the 115-inch Micro RGB TV back in August, Samsung has revealed today that its Micro RGB technology will extend into smaller sizes ranging from that 115-inch behemoth all the way down to 55 inches. While we all enjoy dreaming big, it's far more reasonable for most of us to consider putting [...]

X Corp. is suing Operation Bluebird, a recently-announced startup that aims to reclaim the Twitter brand for a new social network. In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, the Elon Musk-owned company alleges Operation Bluebird is "brazenly attempting to steal" Twitter's trademarks, claiming "Twitter never left and continues to be exclusively owned by X Corp." Last [...]

The Office of the US Trade Representative posted on X Tuesday, claiming that US service providers have been hit by "a continuing course of discriminatory and harassing lawsuits, taxes, fines, and directives" from the EU. Earlier this month, X was fined $140 million under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), in addition to new laws, [...]

The Android ecosystem is all about choice. While iPhone owners have a smaller pool of new devices to pick from when it's time to upgrade, there's a wider range of choices on Android. Some Android phones even fold in half! Imagine. On the flip side, all that choice can make for some hard decisions. Here's [...]

Any ebook reader will let you cram a Beauty and the Beast-sized library's worth of books in your pocket, but so will your phone. An ebook reader offers a more book-like reading experience, with fewer distractions and less eye strain, and many include extra features, like adjustable frontlighting. Some really are pocketable. Others are waterproof [...]

On December 9th, Rolling Stone published a story that some saw as a bombshell: a network of coordinated, "inauthentic" social media accounts had a hand in the weekslong discourse that trailed the release of Taylor Swift's recent album, The Life of a Showgirl. It was a big deal for those in the Swiftie/anti-Swiftie universe. Immediately [...]

The CEO of Baldur's Gate 3 studio Larian has inadvertently stirred up some controversy over the use of AI in the developer's next game. Based on an interview with Larian CEO Swen Vincke, Bloomberg reported that the studio uses AI tools for things like developing concept art and writing placeholder text. But following some initial [...]

Hollyland, a company best known for affordable wireless microphones that are popular with creators, has announced its first webcam, the small 4K Lyra. While it lacks advanced features like the Insta360 Link's tracking gimbal, it's one of the first webcams we've seen that's designed to improve how you sound by connecting directly to one of [...]

If you're shopping for a book lover, it's hard to beat a Kindle, especially if your giftee already owns a library of Kindle books. Amazon's latest sale makes them even easier to recommend: the last-gen Kindle Scribe with 32GB of storage and ads is matching its best price to date starting at $279.99 ($140 off) [...]

Media is a business about dreams, and Larry Ellison's son is dreaming big. This might explain why the case for Paramount Skydance to buy Warner Bros. Discovery is so incoherent. In October, Warner Bros. put itself up for sale, leading to a number of bids. The two we are concerned with are a bid from [...]

Things are looking bright for those who want to nab a great TV in 2025 at a substantial discount. There's usually a great deal happening on a mid- or high-end TV from LG, Sony, Hisense, or Samsung - even if the biggest discounts remain reserved for Black Friday, Amazon Prime Day, and the lead-up to [...]

OpenAI is overhauling its image generator with a new model and redesigned interface. On Tuesday, the company announced its "new flagship image generation model," GPT Image 1.5, which it said has a better ability to follow instructions, edit photos in specific ways, and generate results up to four times more quickly. It's available today to [...]

Google wants you to start your day with AI. Google's AI, to be specific, which is why the company is launching an experimental agent to comb through your emails, calendar, and documents to deliver a briefing to your inbox every morning. The new feature, called CC, delivers a daily "Your Day Ahead" briefing to your [...]

Months after staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency were found in the Federal Communications Commission directory, the FCC is being accused of slow-walking demands for information about what they did there. On February 24th, advocacy group Frequency Forward and journalist Nina Burleigh filed a public records request to the FCC, seeking details about DOGE's [...]

Sucker Punch Productions, the PlayStation studio behind games like Ghost of Ytei and the Infamous and Sly Cooper series, will be headed up by Jason Connell and Adrian Bentley starting January 1st, Sony announced on Tuesday. Studio co-founder Brian Fleming is stepping down and will be "passing Sucker Punch studio leadership on to a new [...]

If you're looking for a solid pair of noise-canceling headphones, the Sony WH-1000XM5 are a great option. While they're not the latest version in Sony's lineup - that's the WH-1000XM6 - they still offer excellent active noise cancellation, detail-rich sound, and enhanced voice call quality thanks to the inclusion of eight microphones. And right now, [...]

Back at Meta Connect, Meta teased that its AI glasses would soon support a conversation boosting feature to help folks hear better in noisy environments. That feature is rolling out starting today for Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta HSTN glasses owners who've opted into the company's Early Access Program. The feature, dubbed Conversation Focus, is [...]

My favorite kind of update is the one that gives my gadgets entirely new features and specs for free - and Microsoft is unleashing one of those today by bringing Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Audio to its 2024 Xbox Wireless Headset, which unlocks a lot of those new features! It could bring better battery life, [...]

The first trailer for Steven Spielberg's upcoming film Disclosure Day is here, and it will leave you with more questions than answers about what exactly is going on. There is no denying that something strange is happening to a Kansas City newscaster (Emily Blunt) who goes into a strange trance on-air in Disclosure Day's new [...]

Retro Games, a company known for its upgraded revivals of iconic '80s and '90s era computers, including the Commodore 64 and Amiga, has announced that it's bringing back another accessory from the same era. If you grew up gaming before the NES hit the US, you were probably using (or drooling over) the Quickshot II. [...]

Meta is starting to test a new Instagram app for TVs that lets you watch Reels on a big screen. The app will be available first as a pilot for Amazon Fire TV devices in the US starting Tuesday. The homescreen of the Reels-focused app will show personalized, horizontal collections of videos to browse through. [...]

Netflix is plowing ahead with plans to build out a library of video podcasts as it aims to keep viewers locked into the service even when they may not be watching what's on their screens. On Tuesday, Netflix announced that it's teaming up with radio giant iHeartMedia to add more than 15 video podcasts to [...]