The Verge

Twitter co-founder and Block Head Jack Dorsey launched a new peer-to-peer messaging app over the weekend called Bitchat that runs entirely over Bluetooth. Bitchat relies on Bluetooth Low Energy mesh networks to send encrypted communications directly to nearby devices without requiring internet or cellular service. Bitchat addresses the need for resilient, private communication that doesn't [...]

Lately, it has been difficult to ignore a tendency at The New York Times to make astonishingly bad news judgments. The paper's obsession with a view from nowhere is long-standing, but as Republicans increasingly circulate insane conspiracy theories and racist nonsense, the cult of centrism has taken a self-destructive turn. The most recent - and [...]

Smartwatches aren't for everyone. Maybe you don't want to wear a screen-equipped gadget to bed, or you're just after something that's less obtrusive. Subtlety is where smart rings like the Oura Ring 4 shine, and Prime Day has knocked down its cost. It costs $296.65 ($52.35) from Amazon, which is both its best price and [...]

Microsoft's latest Windows AI features arrived first on new Copilot Plus PCs last year, but they were limited to a special range of laptops. That looks set to change thanks to Intel refreshing its existing Arrow Lake desktop CPUs later this year, that might just deliver Copilot Plus PC features in desktop PC form factors [...]

Apple's new Liquid Glass design language just got a little more... frosted. In the third iOS 26 developer beta, Apple dialed back the transparency of navigation bars, buttons, and tabs that once allowed you to clearly see the content beneath them. Apple already toned down the glassiness of Liquid Glass after many users complained that [...]

Grok, the chatbot developed by Elon Musk's xAI, was updated over the weekend with instructions to "assume subjective viewpoints sourced from the media are biased" and "not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect" - part of Musk's ongoing attempt to shape the bot's point of view. Musk announced on Friday that xAI [...]

In a new post shared to its Windows blog, Microsoft says that it has reached a major milestone" when it comes to improving the speed of Edge's user interface. It now takes Microsoft's browser less than 300 milliseconds to start rendering the first parts of a website for users, whether it's text, images, or parts [...]

Since its launch, the Nintendo Switch 2 has been notoriously difficult to buy, with many retailers selling out of their allotted stock within minutes. Luckily, there's good news: starting at 7PM Eastern today, Walmart Plus members will be able to purchase Nintendo's latest handheld console - either the standalone Switch 2 or the Mario Kart [...]

President Donald Trump plans to impose a 25 percent tariff on goods imported from South Korea and Japan. The levy will go into effect on August 1st, which is when the Trump administration will begin enforcing sweeping tariffs on a wider swath of countries that fail to reach a trade agreement with the US. The [...]

One thing that has been missing from Bluesky until now was the ability to turn on notifications for specific accounts, but now Activity Notifications are live. If you want to know every time The Verge or ESPN, or one of your friends posts, you can, just by toggling the bell icon on their profile page, [...]

Tesla used to be the envy of the auto world, with sky-high valuations, a relentless focus on tech, and a CEO that commanded unprecedented loyalty from his customers. Now the company's reputation is in shambles, its financial future looks increasingly grim, and its costly bets on AI and robotics are unlikely to pay off anytime [...]

Last September, after successfully suing Google for running an illegal app store monopoly, Epic Games sued Samsung, too - alleging the phonemaker of illegally conspiring with Google to undermine third-party app stores. An "Auto Blocker" feature on Samsung Android phones, which was turned on by default, automatically kept users from installing apps from stores that [...]

Amazon Prime Day kicks off tomorrow, July 8th, but you don't have to wait until then to pick up Apple's latest pair of AirPods at a discount. Right now, theAirPods 4 are available for around $99 ($30 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart, while the AirPods 4 with noise cancellation are going for around [...]

A bigger, more powerful Switch means bigger, more intensive games that take more time and money to make. But as development costs skyrocket across the industry, Nintendo seems to have a plan to keep things in control as it transitions into the Switch 2 era. In response to a question during a recent shareholders meeting [...]

Hoping to recapture the popularity of the Barbie movie that grossed over $1.44 billion worldwide, toy maker Mattel has announced that Wicked's Jon M. Chu will direct its upcoming live-action Hot Wheels movie, with Juel Taylor and Tony Rettenmaier, whose credits include Creed II and They Cloned Tyrone, writing the script. The film was first [...]

A climate change activist was arrested after spray-painting Apple's 5th Avenue store as part of a protest against Big Tech's climate hypocrisy." Protestors from the Extinction Rebellion environmental group staged a demonstration at the New York City storefront on Sunday, and one individual spray-painted Boycott" beneath the Apple logo on the building's entrance, along with [...]

Ahead of Galaxy Unpacked this week, Samsung is announcing several new features coming to its smart home platform, SmartThings, including the ability to create routines using natural language. That means you'll be able to simply tell SmartThings what you want your smart home to do, and it'll take care of all the complicated details for [...]

Destiny: Rising, the mobile-exclusive sci-fi RPG shooter set in Bungie's Destiny universe, will be released for iOS and Android on August 28th. The launch date was announced by Chinese developer NetEase Games alongside the release of a new gameplay trailer that shows off some of the missions, strikes, PvP battles, and PvE features that players [...]

Microsoft has finally crossed an important milestone for Windows 11, months ahead of Windows 10's end of support cutoff date. Stat Counter, spotted by Windows Central, now lists Windows 11 as the most used desktop operating system nearly four years after its release, with 52 percent of the market, compared to 44.59 percent for Windows [...]

With two days until the official launch, more details have leaked about the trio of foldable phones Samsung is about to reveal. The latest leak details the screens, storage, batteries, and other core specs of the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7, and new Z Flip 7 FE. The new information comes from WinFuture's [...]

Even with the TikTok divest-or-ban law officially in effect since January, the app has only shut down service in the US for one day. Now, The Information reports that an agreement for a sale satisfying the law's requirements is close and would come with a new, separate version of the app. Any deal, however, would [...]

Amazon's next Prime Day event hasn't officially kicked off yet, but as usual, the retailer has already dropped a selection of early deals ahead of the four-day shopping event. While steeper discounts are surely to arrive when things kick off on July 8th, many of the current offers are already worth considering, especially if you're [...]

Grab your grill, your hot dogs, and your sparklers because it's time to celebrate... Summer Games Done Quick 2025. The annual speedrunning charity marathon benefitting Doctors without Borders is back starting July 6th and finishes July 12th. Here's how and most importantly what to watch as you enjoy the reason for the speedrunning season. Summer [...]

Here at this website, my colleagues and I follow our beats closely, from wearable tech and laptops to influencer culture and federal policy. Last year, I asked a bunch of staff at The Verge to pretend to be trend forecasters for a lighthearted collection of what's hot and what's not. Some of the predictions really [...]

The world of Chromebooks has its MacBook Air. Lenovo's latest Chromebook Plus 14 is an Arm-based thin-and-light with good specs, excellent battery life, a great keyboard, all-around solid build, and a fantastic OLED screen. But the best part is that its bright and punchy 14-inch panel comes standard on the base $649 configuration or as [...]

In May, we learned that the development of a sequel to the Cyberpunk 2077 game is moving forward at CD Projekt Red, and today, at the Anime Expo 2025 event, it officially announced a new season of the anime spinoff for Netflix. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 will have ...an entirely new story, fresh characters, and a [...]

I don't often get asked about the phones I'm testing when I'm out and about, unless it's a folding phone. Then I usually hear some version of the same thing: "Oh, I thought about getting one of those! But then I just got a [insert slab-style phone name here]." My anecdotal data matches the actual [...]

It's been an agonizing wait for more Deltarune. The first chapter of the episodic, parallel story to Toby Fox's acclaimed RPG Undertale came out nearly seven years ago. But the newly released third and fourth chapters are so good that I highly recommend playing everything that's available right now - even if there are still [...]

As exciting as it is to see how electric technology redefines automotive transportation, it's just as exciting to see how it alters what we already have. In the aftermarket, EV-converted restomods are quickly becoming big business. But direct from manufacturers, there's great potential in electrifying legacy badges by seamlessly blending old design with new technology. [...]

The sweeping layoffs announced by Microsoft this week have been especially hard on its gaming studios, but one Xbox executive has a solution to help reduce the emotional and cognitive load that comes with job loss": seek advice from AI chatbots. In a now-deleted LinkedIn post captured by Aftermath, Xbox Game Studios' Matt Turnbull said [...]

Ploopy has announced another desktop accessory called the Ploopy Knob that can function like a control dial for adjusting volume, scrolling documents, or scrubbing through media on a computer. The Canadian company isn't exactly a household name like Logitech, but Ploopy's open-source peripherals offer a lot of customizability, and like its mouse and trackballs, you [...]

Once upon a time in America, there was a tyrant. And Congress rejected him totally. The tyrant, of course, was King George III, the target of the Declaration of Independence. We take it for granted now, but the Declaration was an enormous political innovation - in it, the country that became the United States of [...]

I walked into Blackdot's tattoo studio in Austin's east side on a sweltering May afternoon. After shaking my sweat-soaked hand, founder and CEO Joel Pennington led me up into an office building and opened the door to a small, three-room space. Critics have unflatteringly compared the studio to a sterile hospital room - a comparison [...]

Samsung's upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 7 has been given the thinner, sleeker glow-up we expected, if leaked hands-on photos are any indication. The trio of images posted by leaker @Jukanlosreve seemingly show what the next-gen Galaxy foldable will look like in the real world from a few different angles. The new photographs mostly line up [...]

The new Fairphone 6 is smaller and more modular than older models in the series, but it's just as repairable. The phone picked up a perfect score in iFixit's teardown test, despite no longer offering tool-free battery replacements. It helps that the only tool you do need - throughout the phone - is a T5 [...]

Bicycle phone mounts have been a regular part of my life in bike-obsessed Amsterdam ever since 2008, when I got my first phone with built-in GPS and turn-by-turn navigation. I've used dozens of mounts since, until they were either lost, broken, or stolen, or something better emerged. I could have saved a ton of money [...]

Slate Auto's American-made electric pickup -the one with no paint, no stereo, and no touchscreen- is no longer priced under $20,000." The increase is a result of Trump's Big, beautiful bill," which willend the federal EV tax creditson September 30th when signed into law later today. That sub-$20,000 price for theIndiana-built pickup was a big [...]

The most frequently curated content on the White House Wire, the Trump administration's attempt to aggregate pro-Trump "real news" from across the right-wing media, doesn't come from Truth Social, Breitbart, or even Fox News. It comes from YouTube - notably, from the White House's own channel. The White House Wire was launched at the end [...]

You want your games to play the smoothest they possibly can - but sometimes, screen technology gets in the way. That's why some of the latest TVs and handhelds feature variable refresh rate (VRR) screens that can compensate when your graphics can't deliver a consistent 60 or 120 frames per second. The Nintendo Switch 2 [...]

A Freedom of Information Act request has produced letters that the US Department of Justice sent to Google, Apple, Amazon, and several other companies in order to assuage their concerns about breaking a law that banned US web services from working with TikTok. The documents -obtained by Zhaocheng Anthony Tan, a Google shareholder who sued [...]

One name is popping up a lot across tech startup social media right now, and you might've heard it: Soham Parekh. On X, people are joking that Parekh is single-handedly holding up all modern digital infrastructure, while others are posting memes about him working in front of a dozen different monitors or filling in for [...]

The Republican-controlled US Congress has passed a budget bill that includes cuts to social programs like Medicaid and more funding for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), alongside provisions that discourage wind and solar energy production. Passed after a marathon debate in both houses, it will allow President Donald Trump to realize policy goals he's so [...]

E Ink has developed a new touchpad for laptops featuring the same electronic paper technology found in e-readers. It's not the first company to look at the ever-growing size of laptop touchpads and see the potential of additional functionality, but instead of serving as a second smaller screen for the computer's OS, E Ink is [...]

If you're looking for an affordable way to kick off your July 4th weekend, Paramount Plus has a deal worth checking out. Just in time for the July 17th premiere of the third season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, new subscribers can enjoy two months of Paramount Plus Premium (normally $12.99 per month) or [...]

Whether you've still got the original band that came with your Apple Watch, or if you're hungry for more band color options, Woot has a bevy of bands available at up to 70 percent off their normal prices. The Solo Loop band is the most affordable option, costing just $14.99 at Woot in a range [...]

On Monday, the long-running indie rock band Deerhoof made an announcement: it was pulling its music from Spotify. The impetus was Spotify founder Daniel Ek's newest investment in Helsing, the German defense group that makes AI and drones. Helsing raised 600 million euros in its most recent funding round, which was led by Ek's venture [...]

The tragedy of a niche product is if it sees any success, two things will happen. First, rivals big and small will copy its ideas. Then, to combat that existential threat and appease investors, there'll be an appeal to the larger mass market. A handful of niche products survive the transition to the mainstream. Most [...]

Arrowhead Game Studios' Helldivers 2 will make the jump to the Xbox Series X and S consoles on August 26th, costing $39.99. This is the first PlayStation-published title to launch on Xbox. The title will ship with cross play between all platforms. The cooperative PvE third-person shooter was an unexpected hit when it first launched [...]

At 468-pieces it's no where near as elaborate as Lego's buildable Pac-Man machine, but this 6-inch tall Arcade Machine set will only set you back $39.99 when it launches on August 1st, 2025. At this scale Lego wasn't able to make this arcade machine playable like Pac-Man is, but it still managed to include some [...]

Apple's AI capabilities have been less than impressive to date, but there's one new feature coming with iOS 26 that's actually really handy: adding stuff to your calendar with a screenshot. I've been testing this feature out for the past few weeks in the developer beta, and I'm pleased to report that it works, easily [...]