The Verge

Meta is reversing its plans to shut down its VR metaverse - sort of. On Monday, the company announced that it would be shutting down the VR version of its 3D social platform Horizon Worlds on June 15th in favor of a new focus on the mobile version of the app. But in a Wednesday [...]

Epic Games and Disney are making a big announcement as part of their continually deepening relationship. In June, Epic announced that Fortnite creators would "soon" be able to make custom Star Wars-themed games and experiences, and starting Thursday that feature is finally launching. While creators can start making experiences now, they'll be able to publish [...]

Companies like Bushman already sell omnidirectional camera lights for 360-degree shoots, but they start at over $300, which is more than half the price of popular 360-degree cameras from companies like DJI and Insta360. Harlowe, a company known for lighting accessories that cater to influencers and amateurs, has released a $95 alternative called the Omni [...]

This is Lowpass by Janko Roettgers, a newsletter on the ever-evolving intersection of tech and entertainment, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. Streaming is getting expensive: This week, Amazon Prime Video became the latest streaming service to increase prices. In addition to the annual $139 fee for Prime, consumers now have to [...]

In 2021, the virtual world was the future of the internet. The pandemic had sequestered everyone indoors, heightening the appeal of digital communities. Facebook rebranded to Meta - a sign of the tech giant's investment in and commitment to the metaverse as the future of the internet. Despite losing billions in VR, Meta released an [...]

I've never been comfortable logging into streaming services on a hotel or Airbnb TV. My alternative for watching our favorite shows on a big screen is traveling with a 10-foot HDMI cable and a USB-C-to-HDMI adapter for directly connecting our mobile devices to an unfamiliar TV. Belkin's wireless HDMI adapter will let me leave that [...]

Waymo says its autonomous vehicles have now traveled over 170 million miles while continuing to avoid serious crashes and injuries at a rate much better than human drivers. The company updated its online safety hub to reflect the new driving figures. As of December 2025, Waymo's fleet has driven the equivalent of "200 lifetimes of [...]

Tesla's Full Self-Driving system is facing an expanded investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over its safety during poor road visibility conditions, as previously reported by Reuters. Tesla vehicles with Full Self-Driving (FSD) have a "degradation detection" system that's supposed to alert drivers to take over when the vehicle's cameras can't see the [...]

Can a basic calculator with an old-school segmented LCD screen be beautiful? Casio's response to that question is its new S100X featuring a traditional Japanese hand-painted finish using sap from the lacquer tree, giving the calculator a glossy black finish with warm red highlights around the edges. It somehow looks even more luxurious than if [...]

Today on Decoder, let's talk about the big Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. This deal could reshape all of media and entertainment if and when it closes. That's still an if, which we'll come back to - right now Paramount head David Ellison is very much acting like he's over the finish line after outbidding Netflix, [...]

Soon, some of TikTok's biggest personalities are going to be launching new streaming series on Tubi. Today, Tubi and TikTok announced that they are working together to launch a new Creatorverse Incubator that will help content creators produce long form original series for the Fox-owned streaming service. Once selected for the program, a group of [...]

CEO Carl Pei says Nothing won't release a flagship phone this year. So instead we have the 4A Pro, a $499 phone that looks and feels higher-end than last year's flagship Phone 3, helped in large part by a new metal design. Compare the Phone 4A Pro to its immediate rivals, the Pixel 10A and [...]

Adobe is launching customizable AI image generators that can mimic specific artistic styles and character designs. The Firefly Custom Models are available in public beta starting today, allowing creators and brands to train a model on their own assets to ensure generated images follow a consistent aesthetic for characters, illustrations, and photography. The tool aims [...]

Would you share your medical records with a personal trainer? How about a virtual one? Google, which this week announced it is giving Fitbit's AI health coach the ability to read your medical records, is hoping the answer is yes, following rivals like Amazon, OpenAI, and Microsoft in betting that users are willing to trade [...]

Uber and Rivian are joining forces to deploy 50,000 fully autonomous robotaxis over the next several decades, the companies announced Thursday. As part of the deal, Uber will invest $1.25 billion in Rivian through 2031, contingent on Rivian meeting certain autonomy milestones, starting with an initial $300 million at signing. (The deal is still subject [...]

A bipartisan duo is pushing back on President Donald Trump's attempts to end a program that lets hundreds of thousands of foreign students work in the US for a year after graduation. Reps. Sam Liccardo (D-CA) and Jay Obernolte (R-CA) introduced a bill that would codify Optional Practical Training (OPT), which allows international students to [...]

FBI director Kash Patel admitted that the agency is buying location data that can be used to track people's movements. Unlike information obtained from cellphone providers, this data can be accessed without a warrant - and used to track anyone. "We do purchase commercially available information that's consistent with the Constitution and the laws under [...]

Amazon is going on the defensive after a report from The Wall Street Journal revealed that the e-commerce giant plans to slash shipments with the United States Postal Service, which said this week that it's running out of money. In a lengthy statement published on Wednesday, Amazon says it didn't want to reduce shipments with [...]

Internet platforms' liability shield Section 230 faced another round of attack at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Wednesday, this time with two distinct undercurrents complicating the conversation. One was an unprecedented wave of ongoing legal challenges to the law's scope, and the second was a heightened bipartisan concern over government censorship. "Section 230 is [...]

Hoto makes electric screwdrivers for different budgets. If you don't want to spend much, you can get its most basic model, which we've recommended many times. That one comes with 25 bits, and has three levels of torque for $29.99 (usually $59.99). But if you want more power and versatility, its PixelDrive model might be [...]

Hello and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about the politics of technology and the technology of politics - now landing in your inbox on Wednesdays! If someone has forwarded this email to you, and you're not a Verge subscriber yet, you should sign up right here, and not just because it would [...]

Robinhood is now beta testing a Twitter-like social media platform it calls Robinhood Social. The trading-focused platform was announced last September at the company's HOOD Summit, but it's rolling out to 1,000 people who attended the event and will expand to "an additional 10,000 customers over the coming weeks," according to Robinhood. On Robinhood Social, [...]

When an Australian tech entrepreneur with no background in biology or medicine said ChatGPT helped save his dog from cancer, the story spread with the kind of validation Big Tech has long craved: proof that AI will revolutionize medicine and take on one of its deadliest diseases. The reality, as usual, is more complicated. The [...]

If you're looking for an easy and affordable way to add smarts to your home, you can buy two Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Plug Slim smart plugs on sale for $21.99 ($8 off) at Amazon and B&H Photo. That's the bundle's best price in months and a good opportunity to upgrade things you already own instead [...]

Matic, my current top pick for the best robot vacuum, just got a big update. The unique-looking floor bot now works with Google Home and Apple Home, with support coming through the smart home standard Matter. This enables voice control and smart home integrations, features that have been missing from the robot since launch. Now [...]

Nintendo has been playing it safe of late, whether it's the conservative nature of its Switch successor or the squeaky-clean image presented in its museum. As the company has expanded its ambitions, it's done so while largely trying to avoid risk, which can seem at odds with the playful Nintendo that brought us the likes [...]

If you've been putting off an update to iOS 26, now might be the time to do it. On Wednesday, security researchers published findings on a new hacking tool that targets iPhones running iOS 18.4 to 18.6.2, as reported earlier by Wired. The "DarkSword" exploit allows bad actors to scoop up the personal information on [...]

Not even electronics were able to escape the dominant '80s aesthetic of garishly bright colors. Both Sony and Philips offered devices wrapped in yellow plastic during that era, but Philips has decided to bring its hardware back as part of a new Moving Sound collection celebrating 100 years of the company making audio gear, as [...]

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has a problem: It's not very good at policing insider trading. And insider trading has become a pressing concern for prediction markets. Even Kalshi's recently publicized fines for insider trading - levied against a politician and an employee of YouTube influencer MrBeast - were effectively self-policing. The exchange says it's [...]

The auto industry bet big on electric vehicles, but now those ambitious goals are falling apart. Demand was already slowing down when Donald Trump took office and took an ax to pro-EV policy: the elimination of the federal EV tax credit, kneecapping clean energy, and bulldozing emissions rules. Tariffs have been taking their toll as [...]

Nvidia surely thought it was doing a good thing for gamers by "upgrading" the faces of our favorite video game characters. But that just shows how much the company has lost the plot. Nvidia could've marketed its new DLSS 5 real-time lighting technology as a way to make future, next-gen games look better. Instead, it [...]

BMW's new class of EVs begins with the iX3 SUV, but you had to know it wouldn't end there. The company's engineers didn't spend all that time working up a completely redesigned and substantially more efficient EV platform just for one crossover, and now it's time for the second wave. Meet the new i3, which [...]

It is day 13 of America's surprise war with Iran - by sheer coincidence, it's Friday the 13th - and I am delirious. I haven't had a coffee since I woke up at 5AM, because I'm not allowed to bring outside beverages into the Pentagon (the security screening cutoff was at 7AM for the 8AM), [...]

Earlier this week, Apple unveiled the AirPods Max 2. The forthcoming over-ear headphones build on their predecessor with an H2 chip that powers a range of new features; however, they still don't offer the sort of cross-OS compatibility you'll get with a modern pair of Beats headphones - including the Beats Studio Pro, which are [...]

Remedy is winding down its team shooter FBC: Firebreak with a big update that launches today. But while the game won't be getting any new content going forward, the studio intends to keep it alive for the foreseeable future. It's yet another example of a live-service game struggling amidst a volatile market. The new update [...]

Starting Tuesday, Spotify users will have access to "Exclusive Mode," a new feature in the streaming service's Windows app that can help maximize audio quality by giving the Spotify app full control over your device's audio processing. According to Spotify, "your computer may alter audio before it reaches your DAC by resampling it, mixing other [...]

Ikea's new Matter-over-Thread products were supposed to prove that the smart home could be cheap, accessible, and reliable. The highly anticipated line - which includes sensors, remotes, smart plugs, air-quality monitors, and smart bulbs - has most everything you need to build a smart home, with prices starting at $6. It's an exciting idea, but [...]

Yesterday Nvidia revealed its latest upscaling tech, called DLSS 5, which it described as "the company's most significant breakthrough in computer graphics since the debut of real-time ray tracing in 2018." Sounds good, until you actually see it. According to Nvidia, the tech "infuses pixels with photoreal lighting and materials," but all anyone seemed to [...]

Insta360's Antigravity A1 is one of the most interesting drones on the market thanks to its included Vision Goggles, which provide a 360-degree first-person view through the drone's cameras (a screen on the outside of its lenses shows what the pilot is seeing). Its cameras can shoot 8K video at 30 frames per second, or [...]

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a portentous set of twin babies in the new trailer for Dune: Part Three. Warner Bros. has debuted its first full trailer for Denis Villeneuve's third Dune film. Thankfully, it doesn't give everything about the film away, but it does put a spotlight on a few of [...]

Google announced on Tuesday that all users in the US will now have access to its Personal Intelligence feature, which lets you connect various Google apps to provide context for Gemini's responses and suggestions. Access was previously limited to Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers. Now, free-tier users in the US can also use [...]

Intel has a pair of new flagship CPUs coming to a variety of pricey gaming laptops: the Core Ultra 9 290 HX Plus and Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus. The Arrow Lake Refresh chips sport 24 cores / 24 threads and 20 cores / 20 threads, respectively. Like Intel's recently announced desktop CPUs, the new [...]

The steady stream of news about automakers cancelling or discontinuing electric vehicles continues apace. This week it's Volvo's small, quirky EX30 and Honda's solo electric offering in the US, the Prologue. Both are the latest victims of stagnating EV sales in the US thanks to the Trump administration's decision to eliminate tax incentives. First, the [...]

Amazon's Big Spring Sale kicks off on March 25th, though some great tech sales are already available. Sonos is one of several companies that has switched on sales for its products, including some that haven't previously been discounted this year. While the company is best known for its home theater gear, these discounts largely focus [...]

Microsoft is doing another executive shuffle today to reorganize how it engineers its Copilot assistant. Different teams have been working on the consumer and commercial sides of Copilot for years, but Microsoft is about to unify parts of them in an effort to create a more cohesive Copilot for businesses and consumers. The changes will [...]

Suddenly it seems like everyone's a coder. Or, at the very least, like they play one in the Claude Code app. But even for the seasoned pros, the act of software development is changing fast - many people are writing less code themselves and instead spending their time managing agents and projects. So what does [...]

After lots of rumors, it's now official: Bethesda's sci-fi epic Starfield is coming to the PS5. It'll launch on Sony's console on April 7th, and that day will also see the debut of two major updates for the game - one paid, one free - a combination that Bethesda describes as "the biggest update to [...]

Tumblr has overhauled its reblogging feature to add new options for interacting with chained posts, and it hasn't gone down well with many of the platform's users. The update announced by Tumblr on Monday enables users to like, reblog, and reply to any post nestled within a reblog chain, with subsequent reblogs having their own [...]