The Verge

Sektori is an old-school twin-stick shooter. Created by a former developer at Returnal studio Housemarque, it puts you in the role of a little ship that blasts through swarms of enemies, and you have to weave through them to get upgrades to help you survive. Often, my runs end after less than a couple minutes, [...]

Even with the ability to take excellent photos with our phones and instantly share them across the world, there's something magical about the old-school instant camera. With just a click of a button, you can capture a moment in a photo that you can see and touch almost immediately. Images captured by an instant camera [...]

A group of more than 150 parents sent a letter on Friday to New York governor Kathy Hochul, urging her to sign the Responsible AI Safety and Education (RAISE) Act without changes. The RAISE Act is a buzzy bill that would require developers of large AI models - like Meta, OpenAI, Deepseek, and Google - [...]

The long take, the unbroken tracking shot, "the oner" - whatever you want to call it, filmmakers agree that it's one of the most difficult technical achievements in cinema. It's a feat of creativity, but also great coordination and choreography when a single, tiny mistake can ruin a shot. Some famous examples: the casino scene [...]

Let's face it, it's easy to fixate on the big gifts that crowd around the Christmas tree. However, we'd argue that the true treasures are the small, useful, and thoughtful gifts tucked within stockings. That's why, for this guide, we've pooled together a bunch of tried-and-tested gadgets and goods to help bolster someone's everyday carry [...]

Today, Apple officially released iOS 26.2 for iPhone 11 and newer devices, which includes new Lock Screen customizations for you to adjust the opacity level, as well as the ability to use AirDrop with people who aren't in your contacts by sharing a one-time code with them instead. There are also new updates going out [...]

After announcing new Matter-compatible smart home devices and stylish wireless speakers over the past few months, Ikea continues to expand its consumer electronics offerings with three new wireless chargers. They're limited to 15W Qi2.0 charging rates but are well priced and feature designs that look more like home decor accents than traditional tech accessories. The [...]

Hollywood director Carl Erik Rinsch was convicted of scamming $11 million from Netflix to spend on luxury items, including five Rolls-Royces and a Ferrari, as reported earlier by Deadline. A New York jury found Rinsch guilty of several charges on Thursday, including fraud and money laundering. Rinsch, who's known for directing 47 Ronin, was charged [...]

Google Translate's latest update brings live speech translations, originally available only on the Pixel Buds, to any headphones you want, with support for over 70 languages. It's rolling out today in beta and just requires a compatible Android phone with the Translate app (unlike Apple's similar feature, which requires AirPods). It's one of a few [...]

Samsung's Frame TV is one of the coolest-looking TVs you can buy, doubling as wall art when you're not watching - but it's pricey. If you like the idea of a TV that displays art when not in use but is far more affordable, Hisense's S7N CanvasTV delivers a similar vibe for a lot less, [...]

When Bryan Fuller set out to make his first feature film, his goal was to make the kind of family-friendly scares that he loved as a kid. Think Gremlins or Ghostbusters. The creator of Hannibal and Pushing Daisies ended up crafting a story called Dust Bunny, about a young girl named Aurora who hires a [...]

HBO Max is launching curated channels, a new feature that will allow you to quickly jump into a continuous feed of a popular series or tune into a specific genre. When you select a channel on HBO Max, the streaming service will start you at the beginning of whatever's playing, while giving you the ability [...]

TCL has been a solid competitor in the midrange TV market for years, going head-to-head with Hisense. Not only are TVs from both manufacturers competitive on features, they even use similar nomenclature to categorize their TV lines - the TCL QM8 and Hisense U8, QM7 and U7, and QM6 and U6. But with TCL's new [...]

Amazon is continuing to celebrate The Game Awards, which took place on December 11th, with a big sale on titles that were nominated in their respective categories. The deals include a discount that brings the PC version of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which ended up taking home nine awards (including game of the year), back [...]

Every week at The Verge, we're tracking what's happening with Trump Mobile's promised and yet undelivered Android phone. Why? Because we cover phones. We also cover vaporware, which the T1 Phone 8002 (gold version) very well may be. The smartphone has now been delayed for months. Trump Mobile no longer claims that it will be [...]

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest phones, smartwatches, apps, and other gizmos that swear they're going to change your life. Optimizer arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 10AM ET. Opt in for Optimizer here. This time last year, I'd cut [...]

You may not even know it, but you've almost certainly encountered songs made mostly or even entirely with AI. If you've scrolled on TikTok the last few weeks, you've probably heard "I Run" a few times, but there are countless others making their way around social and music platforms. AI tools in general, and Suno [...]

Where's the Trump Phone? We're going to keep talking about it every week. We've reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump Phone's whereabouts. As usual, we're still waiting for a response. In the meantime, we're publishing a little reminder of some wireless tech terms. You know, in case you forgot. 6G? 4K? 3D? [...]

The Tetris: My Play Watch may look like an Apple Watch, but it eschews most of the functionality you'll typically find on a smartwatch to focus on two things: playing Tetris and celebrating the game through a UI that's thoroughly Tetris-themed. It's very good at making you want to play Alexey Pajitnov's iconic tetromino-stacking puzzler, [...]

The YouTube watch screen has been given a new look on TVs. The redesign aims to provide a "more intuitive experience with easier navigation," according to YouTube's announcement, relocating the video title and several controls, and adding a new "Description" button to access creator information and other video features. I'm already seeing the update on [...]

The theme of this week is isolation. That's always been a part of what makes Pluribus so unsettling, of course; in the show there are only a handful of human survivors left on Earth, while the rest of the population has turned into an interconnected hive mind, some 7 billion people strong. But watching Carol [...]

Warning: I'm going to make an attempt to justify a $40 paperweight for cable management. I'm not sure how I ended up in this position, or who hurt me. All I can say is that I'm not proud of myself, so please, take pity. I've been using Native Union's 3-cable Weighter for about a week. [...]

While Geoff Keighley had already announced that Tomb Raider would be making a Game Awards appearance, the surprise was that instead of one game announcement there's two. Crystal Dynamics and Amazon Game Studios are releasing two Tomb Raider games back-to-back in 2026 and 2027. First up, coming in 2026 is Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. [...]

One of the easiest things to do during the holidays is spend too much money. It happens to many of us, even when we swear that things are going to be different this year. We want to help you stay true to your intentions to save money when possible, and we're doing that with a [...]

Shortly after appeals court judges ruled against Apple's contempt appeal in a years-long antitrust dispute against the makers of Fortnite, I got to talk to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in an interview. According to Sweeney, today's ruling "completely shuts down" Apple's App Store rules that allow it to collect "junk fees." The three-judge Ninth [...]

Remedy Entertainment is finally showing off the much-anticipated sequel to Control. The new game, dubbed Control Resonant, expands on the original with a new action-RPG framework. It takes place seven years later and shifts the setting from the unsettling Oldest House of the original to a more open Manhattan, while putting players in the role [...]

The next Star Wars game is coming from the director of Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic. Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic was revealed during The Game Awards with a brief trailer that got Geoff Keighley so excited his voice started cracking. Like any announcement trailer, it was brief, featuring a [...]

On Thursday evening, with White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks looking over his shoulder, Donald Trump signed an executive order aiming to grab unilateral power over regulating artificial intelligence for the federal government. The order can't by itself unilaterally override state AI laws, but it directs federal agencies to take steps to reduce [...]

The Game Awards are back once again to showcase a metric ton of commercials, provide the gaming public with their monthly dose of Muppets, and validate gamers' opinions on which title should be named the Game of the Year. I don't wanna say it's a foregone conclusion what this year's GOTY will be - Silksong [...]

If you choose to get an extra controller for your Nintendo Switch 2, you can spend a lot - and get a lot in return. Buying Nintendo's own $89.99 Switch 2 Pro Controller, for instance, will net you the console's only wireless controller with a 3.5mm headphone jack for private listening, not to mention great-feeling [...]

Disney and OpenAI's new $1 billion partnership feels emblematic of the terrible times we're living through. In exchange for access to the generative AI firm's APIs and tools like ChatGPT, the studio plans to let users of OpenAI's Sora AI video generator create clips featuring hundreds of Disney-owned characters. Sora AI users will be able [...]

It's hard to buy a bad pair of wireless earbuds these days, and with constant discounts and deals wherever you look, now is as good a time as any to splurge on the pair you've been eyeing. The market has come a long way since the early era of true wireless earbuds, when we had [...]

At a congressional meeting to vote on the future of kids online safety, the most spirited debate of the day was about a bill that wasn't even on the agenda and Apple CEO Tim Cook. 18 bills that aim to regulate the internet to protect children are now headed for a vote before the full [...]

Amazon Prime Video has pulled its AI-powered video recap of Fallout after viewers noticed that it got key parts of the story wrong. The streaming service began testing Video Recaps last month, and now they're missing from the shows included in the test, including Fallout, The Rig, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, Upload, and Bosch. The [...]

Apple has lost its appeal of a massive district court ruling in its ongoing antitrust dispute with Epic Games. That April ruling from Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said that Apple "willingly" failed to comply with a 2021 order allowing mobile app developers to link to payment options outside of Apple's, and she barred Apple from [...]

Haven't you heard? Phones are boring now. And that's just fine! Most people buying a new phone just want something familiar that works better than the device they're replacing. If that's your MO, then you're sure to find something reliable in my recommendations below. But even if you're looking for something a little more extra, [...]

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill Thursday that will require advertisers to identify if an ad includes AI-generated people. Hochul's announcement said the bill, S.8420-A/A.8887-B, was the first of its kind in the US, describing it as a "common sense" law that would bring increased transparency and protect consumers. A separate bill also [...]

Fortnite players on Android devices in the US can once again download the game directly from the Google Play Store, not long after it returned to Apple's App Store in May. Its return comes five years after it was removed from Google's app store as Epic Games pushed back against Apple and Google's app store [...]

If you know where to look, you can often score discounts on Apple's ever-expanding AirPods lineup. Both the AirPods Max and AirPods 4 (with and without ANC) now consistently receive sizable discounts, as do the newer AirPods Pro 3. Recent shopping events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday brought some of the steepest price cuts [...]

December 31st, 2025 is the deadline to save the Google Stadia controller. That's less than three weeks from today - but there's never been a better time. Last month, I discovered the controller is finally a first-class citizen in Steam and SteamOS. The Stadia controller was originally designed to connect to your Wi-Fi network and [...]

We live in a golden age of controllers. The gamepads on the market now are of higher quality, more versatile, and more customizable than anything from even one console generation ago. If you play games on an Xbox Series X or Series S (or a Windows PC), you have the unenviable task of choosing between [...]

A glass screen protector is one of a few essential accessories that every Switch 2 owner should buy, along with a select few others. In fact, it should be a priority to stick one onto the console's screen as soon as possible to avoid accidental scratches. To test the candidates below, I installed and removed [...]

You may not have heard of Hoto, but as my colleague Sean Hollister pointed out in his recent profile, the company is quickly becoming a household name thanks to its penchant for high-quality design. Hoto's new PixelDrive electric screwdriver is a great example of what the company is capable of, and right now it's on [...]

The Chrome team at Google recently built a new browser. It takes a query or prompt, opens a bunch of related tabs for you, and then builds you a custom app for whatever you're trying to do. Ask it for travel tips and it'll build you a planner app; ask it for study help and [...]

We've seen NSFW offerings from Grok and other chatbots, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been teasing adult content within ChatGPT for a while. Now, we have a timeline. Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of Applications, told reporters during a Thursday briefing about GPT-5.2 that she expects "adult mode" to debut within ChatGPT in the first [...]

GPT-5.2 is here, and with it, OpenAI wants "to unlock even more economic value for people," Fidji Simo, the company's CEO of Applications, told reporters in a Thursday briefing. She said it's been in the works for "many, many months." The company calls GPT-5.2 its "best model yet for everyday professional use" in a release, [...]

Amazon's Luna cloud gaming service is coming to cable boxes from Comcast and Rogers. The Luna app is already available via web browsers, Fire TV devices, Fire tablets, and many smart TVs from Samsung and LG, and this new expansion will bring the service to "millions" more devices, according to Amazon. Starting Thursday, Luna will [...]

Hamlet is having something of a renaissance in 2025. This year's edition of the Toronto International Film Festival featured three different takes on the idea, including Chloe Zhao's adaptation of the play's inspiration and Aneil Karia's rendition set in modern-day London. But the most out-there version came from Belle director Mamoru Hosoda, who transformed Shakespeare's [...]