The Verge

The Plex media streaming platform has been breached in what looks to be a repeat of a2022 incident that saw authentication data and encrypted passwords compromised. The company is urging users tochange their password, enable two-factor authentication, and sign out of any connected devices that might already be logged in. In an email sent to [...]

AMD's FSR 4 AI upscaling and frame-generation technology can now be enabled for most games that support FSR 3.1 with DirectX 12," the company says in the patch notes for its newest 25.9.1 driver. This support has been a big promise from AMD, but it's taken awhile to come to fruition; FSR 4 first launched [...]

Nintendo has notched another victory in its crusade against piracy. Last week, a Washington District Court judge ordered Ryan Daley to pay Nintendo $2 million and stop selling modded Switch consoles online, as reported earlier by Engadget. In a copyright lawsuit filed last year, Nintendo accused Daley of operating the website Modded Hardware, which sold [...]

Google made three major updates to its Gemini-powered products on Monday: The Gemini app now accepts audio files; Search can handle five new languages; and NotebookLM creates reports in the form of blog posts, study guides, quizzes, and more. According to a Monday post on X by Josh Woodward, vice president of Google Labs and [...]

Signal is launching its first paid feature: the ability to make secure, end-to-end encrypted backups of your media history older than 45 days and of your text message history for $1.99 per month. Media requires a lot of storage, and storing and transferring large amounts of data is expensive," Signal's VP of engineering, Jim O'Leary, [...]

It's been five years since Polestar first introduced the Precept, a concept car that the electric automaker described as a manifesto of things to come; a declaration." Well, come they have, because today Polestar finally revealed the production car that's based on this manifesto: the Polestar 5. And wow, these specs: up to 460 miles [...]

After nearly everyone working on the Nova Launcher, one of the most recognizable names in Android launchers, was laid off last year, founder Kevin Barry, Nova's sole remaining developer, said this weekend that he has left Nova's parent company after being asked to stop working on the launcher and an effort to open-source it. Nova [...]

The doors to IFA 2025 in Berlin, Germany, have officially opened and new gadgets, tech, features, and upgrades continue to pour out of Europe's largest consumer tech show. There's a lot of news to stay on top of, and if you're struggling to ingest it all, here are some of the best announcements from the [...]

For months, Google has maintained that the web is thriving," AI isn't tanking traffic, and its search engine is sending people to a wider variety of websites than ever. But in a court filing from last week, Google admitted that the open web is already in rapid decline," as spotted earlier by Jason Kint and [...]

A new group of whistleblowers are coming forward to allege that Meta is restricting research into how its virtual reality offerings could negatively impact kids and teens, The Washington Post reports. Four current and former Meta staffers allege that after an earlier whistleblower, Frances Haugen, leaked internal research to Congress, the company called on its [...]

The 2025-2026 college football season kicked off last week. If you want something to do while you wait for your favorite team to hit the field every week through the fall, I encourage you to check out EA Sports' College Football 26, which is $49.99 ($20 off) at Best Buy, Walmart, and Amazon on PS5 [...]

Dish parent company EchoStar is selling wireless spectrum licenses to SpaceX for around$17 billion, the companies announced on Monday. SpaceX says it will use the spectrum to create the next generation" of Starlink's cellular satellite service, which customers of the EchoStar-owned Boost Mobile will gain access to as part of the deal. According to EchoStar, [...]

Hello, and welcome to Decoder! This is Hank Green, cofounder of Complexly, where we make SciShow, Crash Course, and a bunch of other educational YouTube channels. I'm also an author, a TikToker, and what you might call a poster - you might have seen my face on the internet over the years. You might also [...]

The best part of going to a film festival is finding something new. Sure, it's great to find out that movies you're excited about are in fact good - I've had luck so far with Exit 8, No Other Choice, and Wake Up Dead Man - but it's so much more exciting to be surprised [...]

There's probably a lot of market research out there by fancy people who analyze consumer data trying to answer one question: Why do people choose an iPhone? Is it a reputation for better privacy? Long-term reliability? Targeted ad campaigns? I think it's a lot simpler than anyone wants to acknowledge: Their previous iPhone no longer [...]

OpenAI is on a mission to show Hollywood that generative artificial intelligence can deliver results and is throwing its weight behind an animated feature film it hopes will stand toe-to-toe with much costlier productions, according to the Wall Street Journal. The film, called Critterz, is expected to hit theaters worldwide in 2026 after a planned [...]

I opened TikTok while visiting Germany last week and stumbled across a Vodafone ad being presented by a woman who probably doesn't exist. The ad includes several tells" that suggest the presenter was artificially created using generative AI - the unnatural style and movement of her hair, the way her moles disappear, and the uncanny [...]

It hasn't been the greatest year for the Ford F-150 Lightning, with sales so far this year down nearly 10 percent as compared to last year. In the hopes of boosting interest in the battery-powered truck, Ford today announced a new appearance package called STX, which the company says is in direct response to customer [...]

Uber and one of its many robotaxi partners, Momenta, will test fully driverless cars in Germany next year. The news comes as Europe continues to lag behind the US and China in the number of commercially operational robotaxi services. The companies say they will test Level 4 autonomous vehicles in Munich starting in 2026. (Level [...]

Until very recently it wasn't clear what usage limits were placed on Gemini at the various tiers. Thankfully Google has finally updated its Help Center article detailing Gemini Apps limits & upgrades for Google AI subscribers." Gone are the useless descriptors like limited access" or vague statements like we may at times have to cap [...]

General Motors is going to be scaling back production of the Cadillac Lyriq and Vistiq, as well as the Chevy Bolt EV as it expects sales of electric vehicles to slow dramatically. The $7,500 consumer tax credit for purchasing a new EV is set to expire at the end of the month. That credit has [...]

The Toronto International Film Festival is almost like a preview of the movie slate for the next few months - and this year I'm watching as much as possible to give you all the scoop on what's ahead. To do that, I'll be writing a dispatch covering every movie I've seen that day, which will [...]

Everyone basically agrees: if you want people to transition from polluting gas guzzlers to electric cars, you have to make them more affordable. The luxury EVs, with their big battery packs and fine leather interiors, are all well and good, but if you really want to move the needle on EV adoption, we need more [...]

When director Rian Johnson introduced the new Knives Out film on the third day of TIFF 2025, he exclaimed: "we're going back to church." By that he meant that Wake Up Dead Man, the latest Benoit Blanc mystery, would harken back to the origins of the whodunit, and in particular the gothic vibes of Edgar [...]

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on all things at the intersection of environment and technology, follow Justine Calma. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Some stories that I've worked [...]

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 96, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, has your inbox been as busy as mine the past few days?, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) Over the past two weeks, I've been [...]

A few years ago, artist Modern Biology became a viral sensation when he posted videos of himself controlling a modular synth with mushrooms on TikTok. Pocket Scion gives anyone similar capabilities, but without having to spend thousands of dollars on a Eurorack rig - and in a much more portable package. A core part of [...]

At my second day at TIFF 2025, the longest line I saw wasn't for a movie: it was for the Criterion Closet. The space is housed in a van so that it could make it up to Toronto, and honestly, it felt a little wrong to see the outside of it after watching everyone from [...]

It only took three years, but Bluetti is followingEcoFlow's lead with a fully integrated power system of its own to make vanlifers, off-grid cabins, and boats energy independent. The RVSolar System's main advantage over bespoke systems is a relatively quick and easy installation, requiring just 30 minutes," according to Bluetti's announcement at IFA 2025. While [...]

When I was 16 years old, I wrote my first fanfiction. It was a crossover fic where the cast from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy gave the anime dog demon Inuyasha a makeover. It was stupid and poorly written, and yet, to this very day, I remember it fondly. This is exactly what it's [...]

Herdling is a slow game about herding fuzzy animals through a vibrant natural world. That may not sound particularly exciting, but I found it to be a perfect game to unwind with after a stressful day. In Herdling, you play as a kid who makes friends with and shepherds large fluffy creatures called Calicorns, which [...]

Asking the Pixel 10 to be more than what it is feels greedy. Google's non-Pro Pixel is priced fairly at $799, which is significantly less than the $999 Pixel 10 Pro. It comes with some handy upgrades, like Qi2 charging with built-in magnets. Its AI features finally show promise. It includes a dedicated telephoto lens [...]

If you wanted a sense of the current relationship between the tech right and the populists, you had to be sitting in Breakout Room C on the first day of NatCon 5, the annual gathering of the MAGA right's powerhouses. At the end of the afternoon panel on the culture wars ("The Need for Heroism"), [...]

The Dyson Spot+Scrub Ai Robot is the company's first combination robot vacuum and mop. It debuted at Dyson's Berlin store during the IFA tech show this week and is a follow-up to the company's 360 VisNav robot vacuum, which launched in 2023. Featuring a new round design, a self-cleaning roller mop, lidar navigation, and Dyson's [...]

Eddy Cue deserves a raise. As the executive overseeing Apple's services division, he's highly incentivized to protect the tens of billions of dollars a year that Google pays to be the default search engine in Safari. "I've lost a lot of sleep thinking about it," he said from the witness stand during Google's antitrust trial [...]

YouTube is getting hundreds" of full classic Sesame Street episodes beginning in January 2026. Once the episodes are available, YouTube will have the largest digital library of Sesame Street content," Sesame Workshop says. YouTube is already has a wealth of popular content focused toward kids, including big channels like Cocomelon (which is getting a theatrical [...]

In what's potentially the first major payout to creatives whose work was used to train AI systems,Anthropic has reached an agreement to pay at least" a staggering $1.5 billion, plus interest, to authors to settle its class-action lawsuit. The amount breaks down to smaller payouts expected to be approximately $3,000 per book or work. Lawyers [...]

Showrunner - the startup that wants to revolutionize" the entertainment industry by charging people to prompt up AI-generated videos featuring copyrighted IP - is working on a new project to restore an Orson Welles classic. On Friday, Showrunner announced that it has designed a new generative AI model that is meant to help recreate lost [...]

The just-fully-announced Legion Go 2 will be the first handheld outside of Asus that's confirmed to get the new Xbox full-screen experience (FSE). Lenovo spokesperson Jeff Witt tells me buyers will be able to manually switch the handheld to Xbox FSE after it's ready in the spring 2026 time frame, months after the Legion Go [...]

The European Commission has waged a 2.95 billion (~$3.5 billion) fine against Google for abusing its dominant position" in advertising technology. In its announcement, the Commission claims that Google's alleged anticompetitive practices have increased costs for advertisers and publishers, potentially raising prices for consumers as a result. The Commission has ordered Google to come up [...]

In writer / director Julian Glander's new animated sci-fi feature Boys Go to Jupiter, a young gig worker named Billy 5000 (Planet Money's Jack Corbett) hoverboards his way through life in Florida with only one thing on his mind: he needs $5,000 and is willing to deliver as much food as it takes to make [...]

If you want to stay alert while running or biking, the Nothing Ear Open are a worthwhile alternative to classic in-ear cans. That's because the company's first pair of open-style earbuds - which are now on sale at Nothing's online storefront or Amazon for an all-time low $99 ($50 off)with a Prime membership - let [...]

The rumor mill just churned up a purported render of Samsung's Galaxy S26 Edge, and it only adds to speculation that the super-slim phone will look like the upcoming iPhone 17 Pro. The renders, shared with Android Headlines by reliable leaker OnLeaks, show a device with slim bezels and a prominent rear camera bar housing [...]

Several of the most powerful business leaders in the country gathered around a table last night to fawn over President Donald Trump for his AI policies. You and your policies are really helping a lot," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told the president. AMD CEO Lisa Su praised the amount of acceleration that we've seen just [...]

Greetings from Toronto, Canada! I'm braving long lines and busy streets for the next week or so to attend the Toronto International Film Festival, better known as TIFF, and I'm planning to take you all along with me. Each day I'll be publishing a dispatch covering my time at the festival, including thoughts on every [...]

It wasn't on public display at its IFA 2025 booth, but Boox gave The Verge's Jess Weatherbed a brief but early look at its next Palma smartphone-sized e-reader. The company wasn't yet willing to divulge any technical specs. Still, the new Palma appears to feature a color E Ink screen, and the device's status bar [...]

Elon Musk could become the world's first trillionaire if Tesla shareholders approve a new pay package that was just put forward by the company's board. Musk would need to meet certain milestones in order to receive that eye-popping compensation, such as producing 1 million robotaxis and 1 million humanoid robots, as well as increase Tesla's [...]

Can AI help "smooth over" discussion on abortion, racism, immigration, or Israel-Palestine? Columbia University sure hopes so. The Verge has learned that the university recently began testing Sway, an AI debate program currently in beta. Developed by two researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, Sway matches up students with opposing views to chat one-on-one about hot-button [...]

IFA, the European tech trade show equivalent to CES in the US, is just around the corner. Companies are gearing up to showcase their latest innovations, bringing us the latest product announcements, feature demonstrations, and design concepts that will shape future consumer tech releases. IFA opens its doors between September 5th and 9th, but many [...]