The Verge

In June, Mark Zuckerberg went for the ultimate Hail Mary in the ever-intensifying AI race: He spun up a brand-new Meta AI lab after making a $14.3 billion acquisition of Scale AI - and then spending billions more hiring some of the industry's preeminent researchers and engineers. Fast-forward a couple of months, and Zuckerberg may [...]

Dangbei is bringing its S7 Ultra Max all-in-one projector to Berlin next week for the big IFA tech show. That's a good indication that the China-only 4K projector with a ridiculously bright 6,200 ISO lumen output is preparing for a global launch. Here's the teaser Dangbei just sent to my inbox: Experience cinema-grade brilliance with [...]

Google's Phone app is adding Calling Cards" that let you customize the appearance of contact screens for incoming calls. They're similar to the Contact Poster feature that iPhone users have had since 2023, allowing Google Phone app users to replace the teeny contact photos that appear when someone is calling you with full-screen images and [...]

Microsoft has fired two more employees who participated in recent protests against the company's contracts with the Israeli military and government. The two employees, Nisreen Jaradat and Julius Shan, were fired in connection" with demonstrations that saw protesters set up encampments at Microsoft's headquarters, according to Hossam Nasr, an organizer with the No Azure for [...]

Microsoft's AI division announced its first homegrown AI models on Thursday: MAI-Voice-1 AI and MAI-1-preview. The company says its new MAI-Voice-1 speech model can generate a minute's worth of audio in under one second on just one GPU, while MAI-1-preview offers a glimpse of future offerings inside Copilot." Microsoft already uses MA1-Voice-1 to power a [...]

Google is phasing out its Preferred Care extended warranty plan for the Pixel Care Plus program. Pricing between the two is pretty similar. You'll still pay $8 per-month, or $159 for a two-year plan on a Pixel 9. For a Pixel 10 Pro Fold, that jumps up to $339 for two years, or $18 per-month, [...]

On Thursday, Xbox announced it's widely rolling out cross-device play history. With the new update, even if you're on a different Xbox console, Ally handheld, or PC, your recently played game list will remain the same, so you can jump right back in where you left off. The change, which first started testing with Insiders [...]

Look, I sympathize. When General Motors said it would adopt Tesla's North American Charging Standard (NACS) for its electric vehicles back in 2023, we knew this meant adapters. But we never could have imagined how many adapters we would get. Today, GM announced three additional adapters to help EV owners charge at home or in [...]

Production on Star Wars: Starfighter officially began today, and Lucasfilm has finally confirmed the other actors who will be bringing the film to life alongside Ryan Gosling. Lucasfilm announced today that Star Wars: Starfighters has added Flynn Gray, Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Simon Bird, Jamael Westman, Daniel Ings, and Amy Adams to its [...]

EA is promising Battlefield 6 will offer the best PC experience in the history of the franchise," including 4K resolution, 21:9 and 32:9 ultrawide monitors, HDR, uncapped framerates, both PS5 and Xbox gamepad support on PC, the ability to create and browse servers, streamer and incognito modes, and more - but it won't require powerful [...]

Fubo is launching a new Sports plan on September 2nd that costs $55.99 per month and comes with over 20 live sports and news-focused channels, including the ESPN and Fox Sports channels, as well as local stations owned by ABC, CBS, and Fox. Where available, this package includes coverage for network TV-broadcast pro and college [...]

A big draw of Kobo e-readers has always been Pocket integration. But, when Mozilla announced in late May that it was shutting down the read-it-later app in July, the Kobo community was left in a bit of a lurch. To the company's credit, in late July, it announced that it would be replacing Pocket with [...]

So I heard you want to play Kirby on hard mode: tough bosses, tricky platforming, complicated puzzles, hidden collectibles, and maybe even punishments for failing. The Star-Crossed World expansion in Kirby and the Forgotten Land's Switch 2 edition certainly introduces new challenges. There's pressure from time constraints and consecutive platforming sequences, multistep puzzles, and bosses [...]

Anthropic will start training its AI models on user data, including new chat transcripts and coding sessions, unless users choose to opt out. It's also extending its data retention policy to five years - again, for users that don't choose to opt out. All users will have to make a decision by September 28th. For [...]

Microsoft is making a big change to how Word for Windows saves documents. The word processing app will soon automatically save new documents to the cloud, instead of Word users having to enable AutoSave and cloud storage options. We are modernizing the way files are created and stored in Word for Windows," says Raul Munoz, [...]

This week, Netflix shared a few more details about its budding location business: The company will open its very first Netflix House in Philadelphia on November 11th, with a second location set to open in Dallas on December 11th. Both locations will span across 100,000 square feet, and offer ticketed experiences related to Netflix franchises [...]

If FromSoftware's multiplayer take on Elden Ring was just a little too easy for you, the developer has just the thing coming up. The studio announced Deep of Night," a new mode for Nightreign that is focused specifically on difficulty. Namely, it sounds like it'll make things much harder. From describes it as a high-difficulty [...]

If you're considering a gaming laptop, but you understandably don't want to spend anywhere near $2,000, MSI's Katana gaming laptop with the midrange RTX 5070 GPU is $1,099 (was $1,499.99) at Walmart. This machine has a lot to offer aside from a solid graphics chip for gaming. It includes a 15.6-inch QHD screen with a [...]

Honor's Magic V5 is the thinnest book-style foldable in the world, but you probably couldn't tell. It's just 0.1mm thinner - that's four-thousandths of an inch - than the Oppo Find N5 or Samsung's recent Galaxy Z Fold 7. If that's a difference you claim to perceive, then I'm afraid I simply don't believe you. [...]

Honor is bringing the Magic V5 - the world's thinnest foldable phone, though only just - to Europe, where it's available to order now following its Chinese launch last month. It's joined by a new MagicPad 3 tablet and MagicBook Art 14 laptop. I've just reviewed the Magic V5, which is a whole 0.1mm thinner [...]

Taco Bell's plan to outfit hundreds of drive-thrus with an AI voice assistant isn't going exactly as the chain expected. Dane Mathews, Taco Bell's chief digital and technology officer, admitted to The Wall Street Journal that the company is re-evaluating where to deploy the tech as customers air their frustrations on social media, and others [...]

One of the most devastating parts of grief is how it can strike out of nowhere. There you are, doing a perfectly normal, everyday thing, and then that perfectly normal, everyday thing reminds you of something or someone who is no longer there. And when that presence you lost was intimately connected with your life, [...]

ChargePoint is ramping up the power for its next-generation DC fast charging architecture to 600 kW for passenger vehicles, and up to 3.75 megawatts (3,750 kW) for heavy-duty trucks - enough to power an entire football stadium. Most EVs on the road aren't able to accept more than 350 kW of power while charging, but [...]

When this article was originally written in February 2022, the big Spotify controversy was that artists were abandoning the audio service in protest of the company's contract with podcaster Joe Rogan, and some subscribers were deciding to follow the musicians' example. More recently, some users have threatened to bail after CEO Daniel Ek invested in [...]

You can now add swappable magnetic PopSocket grips to Kindle e-readers without undertaking any DIY hacks. PopSocket has launched new PopCase Kindle cases that come with a built-in MagSafe ring, optimally positioned for hand placement and weight management when a MagSafe-compatible PopGrip is attached. The $40 cases are available for 11th and 12th-generation Kindles in [...]

DJI is making its latest wireless lavalier microphone system even smaller without scrimping on features or battery life. The DJI Mic 3 is half the size and weight of its Mic 2 predecessor and introduces new capabilities, including two adaptive gain control modes, three voice tone presets, and a sizable increase in storage capacity for [...]

Apple has removed the iPhone torrenting client, iTorrent, from AltStore PAL's alternative iOS marketplace in the EU, showing that it can still exert control over apps that aren't listed on the official App Store. iTorrent developer Daniil Vinogradov told TorrentFreak that Apple has revoked his distribution rights to publish apps in any alternative iOS stores, [...]

Microsoft has fired two employees that were involved in a sit-in protest in vice chair and president Brad Smith's office. Software engineers Riki Fameliand Anna Hattle were both dismissed today, after being part of a group of seven protesters that managed to get inside Smith's office in Building 34 yesterday. Microsoft was forced to temporarily [...]

On Wednesday, the FDA approved the new round of COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax for use by seniors over the age of 65. But for anyone younger than that, the FDA approval only mentions people who have at least one underlying condition that puts them at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19." [...]

Apple isn't the only tech company to send out launch event invitations this week. If you're keeping score at home, September is actually next week somehow, and Samsung is sneaking a virtual Unpacked in on September 4th before Apple hosts its annual iPhone event the following week. But it's not just a convenient date to [...]

On Wednesday, 4Chan and Kiwi Farms, two of the most controversial social media sites on the internet, filed a federal lawsuit against the British government, arguing that the requirements of the UK's Online Safety Act infringe on their Constitutional rights as American corporations. In a filing submitted to the U.S. District Court in the District [...]

My desire to make authentic-tasing barbecue at home was always tempered by the intimidation of regularly using a smoker. I've tried a couple of smart smokers before, but none were as easy to set up, cook with, and maintain as Brisk It's Zelos-450. An early Labor Day deal has dropped its price to around $328.99 [...]

Some Microsoft employees are willing to risk everything to protest their employer. No Azure for Apartheid, a group led by current and former Microsoft employees, started last year as a petition to Microsoft executives. It demanded that Microsoft end all Azure contracts and partnerships with the Israeli military and government, disclose all ties, call for [...]

Last year, Google proved it could make a phone that looks and feels like a true flagship, despite the software feeling like an AI jumble. This year, the Pixel 10 Pro starts to put AI features together in a way that actually makes sense - and it manages to upgrade the hardware a bit, too. [...]

Disney is suing Sling TV over its new streaming passes that give you access to live cable networks for as little as one day. The lawsuit, filed under seal, claims Sling violated the terms of its licensing agreement with Disney and included its networks in the short-term packages without permission, according to a report from [...]

With Dish Network owner EchoStar selling $23 billion in valuable spectrum to AT&T, any pretense that the TV provider will become a serious wireless competitor is dead. But the project was always doomed to fail, and despite plenty of assurances by the Trump administration and other companies involved, the very obvious writing was always on [...]

After a 16-year-old took his own lifefollowing months of confiding in ChatGPT, OpenAI will be introducing parental controls and is considering additional safeguards, the company said in a Tuesday blog post. OpenAI said it's exploring features like setting an emergency contact who can bereachedwith one-click messages or calls" within ChatGPT, as well as an opt-in [...]

Kwikset is doubling down on open standards and new technologies as it expands its smart lock offerings. In an exclusive interview with The Verge, the company revealed that it will launch its first NFC-powered tap-to-unlock smart lock, as well as a less expensive Matter-over-Thread deadbolt, and a smart garage door opener this fall. Kwikset also [...]

Microsoft is expanding its Xbox Cloud Gaming technology to Xbox Game Pass Core or Standard subscribers, dropping the requirement for the highest tier Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for access to cloud games. As part of an Xbox Insider test, Microsoft is also providing access to some PC games for Game Pass Core and Standard subscribers. [...]

President Donald Trump has made no secret of his disdain for electric vehicles. On the first day of his presidency, he signed an executive order to eliminate EV incentives that he has often falsely portrayed as an electric vehicle mandate." And last month, Republicans in Congress voted to kill the $7,500 tax credit, among other [...]

Google is rolling out a basic version of Vids to everyone. Until now, the AI-powered video editor has only been available to Google Workspace or AI plan subscribers, but now users can broadly access the app with templates, stock media, and a subset of AI capabilities," product director Vishnu Sivaji tells The Verge. Launched last [...]

As we approach the end of August, early Labor Day deals have begun to appear, offering you a chance to save on speakers, noise-canceling headphones, TVs, and outdoor gear. Now we can add Google's 128GB Pixel Tablet to the list, which is down to $249 ($150 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store, [...]

Every once in a while, Slack conversations among The Verge's staff are interrupted by photos of incredibly cute dogs, cats, and other pets. (We even have an occasional discussion about smart home editor Jennifer Pattison Tuohy's chickens.) Naturally, anyone who has a pet wants the best for them - and that includes carriers, feeders,and automatic [...]

Plaud, the company behind an AI wearable that actually works, is launching an upgraded version of its credit card-sized note-taking device. Just like its Plaud Note predecessor, the Plaud Note Pro uses AI to record, transcribe, and summarize your conversations, but it now comes with two additional microphones that allow it to pick up audio [...]

Device tracker brand Chipolo announced the Loop and Card, two new Bluetooth-powered item trackers that can be recharged instead of requiring users to replace their batteries. The Loop and Card both support Apple's Find My and Google's Find My Device networks, and will sit in Chipolo's tracker lineup alongside the colorful Pop pucks that the [...]

Microsoft is addressing muffled audio quality on Bluetooth headsets by introducing a new LE Audio feature for Windows 11. Built on top of the Bluetooth Low Energy radio spec, LE Audio uses a new compression algorithm that results in higher quality audio that Microsoft says will drastically" improve the audio experience in games and calls [...]

Tech brand Nothing has been caught passing off stock images from professional photographers as samples taken by the Phone 3. Five sample images that Nothing claimed were captured by the device were actually licensed photos taken with other cameras. The photographer behind one of the images has anonymously confirmed to The Verge that it wasn't [...]

"Agentic AI systems are being weaponized." That's one of the first lines of Anthropic's new Threat Intelligence report, out today, which details the wide range of cases in which Claude - and likely many other leading AI agents and chatbots - are being abused. First up: "Vibe-hacking." One sophisticated cybercrime ring that Anthropic says it [...]

After bringing 4G and 5G connectivity to the Underground, London's public transport authority has started scolding noisy passengers who subject everyone to music and calls blasting out of their phones. A new poster campaign launched by Transport for London (TfL) this week encourages customers to wear headphones when watching or listening to content on their [...]

Microsoft president Brad Smith hosted an impromptu press conference on Tuesday afternoon, just hours after protesters gained access to a building at the company's headquarters and held a sit-in demonstration inside his office. Seated on the edge of his desk, in the office that had been occupied by protesters earlier that day, Smith addressed a [...]