The Verge

There are a lot of games that remind me of summer - hot days in the backseat with a copy of Dragon Warrior III, cooling off in the basement while grinding Gran Turismo races - but there aren't a lot of games that are actually about summer. That's part of what makes Kabuto Park so [...]

Apple has been on its back foot, AI-wise, for the past few years. But in a strange way, playing from behind might not be such a bad move. At WWDC on Monday, Apple appears to be getting ready to reintroduce us to the new Siri. Again. As a reminder, we met the new Siri in [...]

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 131, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy last week of productivity before the World Cup starts, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about the World Cup [...]

Back in 2015, the two-person studio Metanet released N++, a brutally hard 2D platformer that was a decade in the making, building off of previous releases dating back to the freeware Flash title N. At the time, cofounder Raigan Burns issued some famous last words: "We hope it's not another 10 years before we come [...]

Who's afraid of the next GTA? Based on the last few days of Summer Game Fest, just about everyone. Grand Theft Auto VI hasn't been present at any of the keynote events, but its presence was felt every time a release date was announced. The month of November, when GTA VI launches, is virtually empty. [...]

Square Enix has officially announced the third and final game in its Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy: Final Fantasy VII Revelation. It will release on multiple platforms simultaneously - PC, PS5, Xbox Series X / S, and Nintendo Switch 2 - in spring 2027. In footage shown onstage at Summer Game Fest Live, there was [...]

Chronologically, Control Resonant is a sequel to 2019's Control. But in most other ways, the games aren't directly connected. To developer Remedy, they're more like two sides of the same coin. When Resonant was first revealed last year, creative director Mikael Kasurinen said you can play the games in any order. The world of Control [...]

The deadline to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is coming up a week from now on June 12th, and legislators seem no closer to reaching a deal. If this sounds like deja vu, it's because we've been here before. Congress reauthorized Section 702 in late April - but only for 45 [...]

Geoff Keighley's annual June showcase for videos games has officially happened, and it was a big one. Across a two hour event - and another hour for Day of the Devs - we got news about the third Final Fantasy VII remake game, a new look at Control Resonant, the reveal of Tupac for RGG [...]

It should have been the final straw. The new power couple of editorial failure - Bari Weiss and Nick Bilton - had fired legendary 60 Minutes journalist Scott Pelley. Why? Because he dared to question the fact that CBS had installed sycophants in its top ranks. Instead of standing in solidarity, correspondents Lesley Stahl, Bill [...]

Whether you're considering starting a Sonos speaker setup, or adding to an existing group, the Sonos Era 100 is worth picking up. The compact, capable smart speaker is currently marked down to $189 ($30 off) at a variety of retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, and directly from Sonos. If you want an even lower price, [...]

We're now deep into developer conference season, and one of the themes so far is the relentless conviction from Big Tech companies that AI is going to change everything about how we do everything. Nvidia's Jensen Huang made that clearer than anyone this week, when he described a completely new way of using our laptops [...]

Even if you've done nothing wrong, it's never a good idea to hand your phone to the cops. But international travelers at American airports often have no choice - even if they're US citizens. When Minnesota labor organizer Janette Zahia Corcelius returned home from a three-week trip to Europe in late April, she was detained [...]

The New York State legislature passed a one-year moratorium on new large data centers, the first statewide ban of its kind if Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul signs it into law. Lawmakers behind the bill say it's meant to give policymakers time to understand the impact of large data centers on the environment and energy prices. [...]

In between beef tallow fries, raw milk, and vaccine denialism, Make America Healthy Again figureheads have set their sights on another slice of life: our clothing. "The MAHA movement doesn't stop with what we EAT - It's also about what we WEAR," Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a post on X in late [...]

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here. A few days ago, I walked into the basement of a midtown gym. Smoothies and healthy snacks were passed out. [...]

When Quilty hit the industry trades earlier this year, the AI startup promised that its tool could accurately predict a film's success just by reading the script. When people actually got a chance to experiment with Quilty's product, though, they were left skeptical. Even with all the available data in the world, it predicted the [...]

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. This week, I'm investigating where it might have been built - and why it definitely wasn't the US. Almost a year after its announcement, the Trump phone has "launched." A [...]

Never underestimate the power that a cheap tablet holds over a kid under six. The Skylight Buddy is a device with one job: to be a cute little guy that helps your kid track routines and chores. It's $139.99, plus an optional subscription. And to my surprise, even though it offers a pretty limited set [...]

The MacBook Neo is Apple's cheapest laptop, its most colorful, and its easiest to repair in years. That means owners can buy replacement parts in all four of its available colors and swap them in on their own. So that got us thinking: What if we bought a Neo just to see how funky we [...]

Back in 2002, Porsche fans sputtered with rage as the Cayenne made its debut at the Paris Motor. More than 20 years later, Porsche now sells more SUVs than anything else in its lineup. Last year, the Macan and Cayenne accounted for 62 percent of all Porsche sales. Now, these SUVs are trolling traditionalists in [...]

Valve now says that the delayed Steam Machine PC and Steam Frame VR headset are set to launch sometime this summer. In a Thursday blog post detailing its Verified programs for both pieces of hardware, Valve concludes by saying that "We're excited for players to try your titles on the new Steam hardware once they [...]

DIYer and TikTok user Annike Tan, who goes by @ubeboobey, can carry her cyberdeck around without anyone noticing because it doesn't look like a computer at all. Tan, who has been featured in The Cut and Wired, went viral earlier this year with a mermaid-themed cyberdeck she made inside an old purse. She has since [...]

Kevin O'Leary agreed to halve the size of his planned 40,000-acre data center in Utah amid mounting pressure from residents and activists, as reported earlier by local affiliate ABC4. The Shark Tank star sent a letter to Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams on Thursday, saying that he will remove 19,430 acres from the project, [...]

Google now lets big creators and publishers in the US claim dedicated profiles in Search to highlight things like videos, articles, and their other profiles online. But this feature won't be available to most people or organizations; Google is limiting it to people with at least 100,000 YouTube subscribers, 100,000 followers on Instagram or X, [...]

Amazon's gaming strategy has never really been clear. It's been very active in the space: acquiring Twitch, launching its Luna cloud gaming service nearly six years ago, investing heavily in MMOs during the peak of live-service wave, and having access to a huge slate of franchises through Prime Video and the MGM Studios library. Late [...]

Most of Belkin's Switch 2 accessories are designed to either protect or power up Nintendo's latest handheld, like its Charging Case Pro that actually does both at the same time. Its new multitasking Charging Grip can also add three or four more hours of playtime through an included 10,000mAh battery pack, while improving the Switch [...]

The convenience of contactless payments can already feel magical, but Cash App is really leaning into that with its latest accessory. The mobile payment service is launching the Cash App Wand: an NFC-enabled, iridescent, star-topped wand that allows users to make on-the-go payments without pulling out their phone or card. This plays on a popular [...]

I can't remember the last time Microsoft kicked off a Build keynote with Windows front and center, but that's exactly what CEO Satya Nadella did this week. Nadella didn't address the issues Microsoft is trying to fix in Windows 11 but chose to woo the audience with Microsoft's slick Surface RTX Spark Dev Kit instead, [...]

Color E Ink tablets aren't usually affordable. I'm not going to say that Woot's price on a refurbished good as new" Remarkable Paper Pro is cheap, but it's pretty fantastic compared to buying one new. Normally $629 just for the tablet, you can get a bundle that includes the big 11.8-inch Paper Pro plus $139 [...]

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. - the world's biggest semiconductor-maker - is struggling to meet demands from American customers even with its factory buildout in the US, according to reports from Reuters and Bloomberg. "Customer demand is so high, and we can only support so much," TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said after a shareholder meeting on [...]

We're always testing out new products here The Verge, which presents a bit of a problem for our inventory closet in New York City. It's literally overflowing with gadgets, new and old, so we're restoring order by giving some of it away to one lucky person. We've stuffed over $800 worth of tech into a [...]

Today on Decoder, I'm talking to Ryan Mac, a technology reporter at The New York Times and coauthor of the excellent book Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter, which came out in 2024. I can't recommend it enough. I wanted to have Ryan on the show because we're on the cusp of the SpaceX [...]

It's almost impossible to avoid seeing AI-generated content online, but it doesn't have to be this way. YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and more have ramped up content authentication efforts over the last year, with many now automatically applying labels to distinguish AI-generated images, videos, and music from those made by real, human creators. That's all very [...]

Some of the AI industry's biggest rivals have put their many, many grievances aside for a common cause: making it harder for people to use their technology to develop biological weapons. In an open letter to US lawmakers, tech leaders are pressing Congress to enact rules closing what they say is an alarming biosecurity gap [...]

This is not an Oura Ring 5 review. That's coming later, once I've had enough time to really test the new durability and battery life claims, plus the new software updates that start rolling out today. In the meantime, I did want to provide an answer to a burning question that I've seen asked in [...]

Aura's digital photo frames will continue to automatically sync with your Google Photos albums, after API changes threatened to remove the feature. Aura is now rolling out a full migration to Google's new Ambient API, allowing your Aura frame slideshows to be automatically updated with new photos, instead of requiring owners to manually add them [...]

Amazon has announced a new version of its fully autonomous warehouse robot, Proteus, that will interact using language instead of code. The expanded capabilities come as part of a growing pivot toward automation as the e-commerce giant replaces its human workers with robots. Amazon says the AI-powered upgrade means its human employees can assign the [...]

Shokz has announced two new versions of its open earbuds. Like the original OpenDots One that launched in May 2025, the new Shokz OpenDots 2 and OpenDots Air are both designed to be worn clipped to the back of your ear with their drivers positioned to project sound toward your ear canals without blocking them. [...]

Nintendo is planning to launch versions of Switch 2 hardware in the EU that will let users easily replace the battery. To meet its obligations from a new EU regulation that's set to go into effect on February 18th, 2027, Nintendo says on its website that it is "implementing measures to comply with these requirements [...]

Apple will introduce age verification in the App Store for users in Texas starting on Thursday, June 4th. The move, as spotted by MacRumors, comes just days after a federal appeals court allowed Texas' App Store Accountability Act to go into effect while a lawsuit against it proceeds. People in Texas who are creating a [...]

WiiM, the audio company that's challenged the idea that audiophile-level performance requires a small loan, is expanding its whole-home ecosystem with the WiiM Bar, which releases in July. Much like its other speakers and audio components, the WiiM Bar supports a bunch of streaming options and expandability at an affordable price - in this case, [...]

Just in case you were wondering, Nvidia's RTX Spark isn't supposed to be a one-off. The company is not just flirting with becoming the fifth high-profile vendor of consumer laptop chips to see if people bite. At Computex 2026 in Taipei, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang confirmed at least two additional generations of RTX Spark are [...]

Some people rarely lose things. Wallets are always exactly where they're supposed to be, keys never go missing, and remotes never slip between the couch cushions. And then there's the rest of us - the folks who can't ever seem to find the thing that was right there a few seconds ago. For us, Bluetooth [...]

Compact power banks have gotten a lot faster in the past year - and it's not just their USB-C charging speeds that have received a boost. The newest Qi2.2-certified models can wirelessly charge an iPhone 16 or later at up to 25W. Combine that with their ability to magnetically snap on via MagSafe, and you've [...]

This week we've got tandem hands-ons with Google's new Gemini AI agent - Spark - from my colleagues David Pierce and Jay Peters. Their takeaways are similar: It's so effective that it's scary. Spark knew that David's dog is named Frida and knew the first name of Jay's wife, even though neither of them explicitly [...]

Amazon's updated search bar will now show you AI-generated images of products as you describe them. For now, the in-app feature only surfaces AI images of clothing and home goods, allowing you to tap on the image that best matches what you're looking for and search for similar-looking items. In a blog post, Amazon positions [...]

PlayStation used its most recent State of Play showcase to make it clear where its focus is. After a series of costly live-service stumbles, it's getting back to focusing on premium, narrative-driven, single-player games. That statement was made clear with how it started and ended the hourlong show. The showcase began with an extended look [...]

A few months ago, Meta effectively handed Supernatural, a popular VR fitness game on the Meta Quest, a death sentence. As part of overarching VR layoffs, the company announced the game would no longer get any new content, enraging its tightly knit, devoted community. Now it looks like Supernatural is getting a second chance. Today, [...]

The Dreame L20 Ultra isn't the company's newest model, but it's still a great robovac / mop hybrid that offers strong performance while requiring very little day-to-day maintenance thanks to its included trash bin and AI obstacle avoidance. Verge readers can get for its best-ever price right now. Originally $1,400 when it launched in 2023, [...]