The Verge

Apple raised the cost of its monthly AppleCare subscription prices for iPhones by 50 cents, MacRumors reports. The 50 cent price hike applies to both standard AppleCare Plus and AppleCare Plus with Theft and Loss monthly plans for Apple's current iPhone lineup. So, for example, the standard AppleCare Plus for the iPhone 16 will cost [...]

Threads will now let you share the custom feeds you've created, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Tuesday. This means other users can pin your custom feed to their homepage, giving them access to the same stream of curated content. Threads first rolled out custom feeds in November, which you can use to track your [...]

Defunct robotaxi company Cruise has begun to lay off employees today, sources tell The Verge. The layoffs come two months after General Motors said it would no longer fund Cruise, and would instead shift its spending toward advanced driver assist and personally owned autonomous vehicles. Cruise held an all-hands meeting today, in which it announced [...]

After the most tumultuous nine months in Sonosa history, the brand is trying to find its footing again. Even as work continues to rehabilitate the companyas beleaguered mobile app, Sonos is planning to take a big swing in a new product category: itas getting into video for the first time. In the coming months, Sonos [...]

Nomad has announced a new USB-C cable designed to charge multiple devices simultaneously. Instead of copying Anker's homework and releasing a charging cable with dual USB-C connectors on one end, Nomad's new Universal Cable for Apple Watch features an inline charging puck for Apple's smartwatch on one end. It seems ideal for travelers wanting to [...]

Apple has announced Apple Invites, an event planning app for the iPhone that will let iCloud subscribers create and share invitations to parties and other events. Recipients can RSVP regardless of whether they have an iCloud subscription or an Apple device. Itas also available on the web. With Invites, Apple says hosts can aview and [...]

Fox is getting ready to launch a standalone streaming service by the end of 2025. During an earnings call on Tuesday, Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said the streaming service would offer a holistic" streaming package featuring sports and news from the network's existing brands, according to a transcript. Murdoch positioned the streaming service as a [...]

The Switch is on track to complete a major milestone for Nintendo this year. As of the end of 2024, the Nintendo Switch has sold over 150 million units in the eight years since its release. That's an impressive number, and yet...that's still not enough to make it the company's best selling piece of hardware [...]

Verizon is adding a new option to bundle Google One AI Premium into its wireless myPlan and myHome internet plans, the company announced today. The add-on will be available for an extra $10 per month, or about half of the $19.99 Google charges for the subscription on its own, starting on February 6th. Google One [...]

Fujifilm has announced a new ultra-short throw projector with its lens attached to an articulated arm that can pivot and rotate. Unlike most UST projectors that require moving the entire unit to reposition where an image is being projected, the FP-ZUH6000 can switch between projecting on walls, ceilings, and even floors while remaining mounted in [...]

I've been having a great time with Infinity Nikki. I do my dailies, grind for materials, and desperately search for an outfit that works with the single ugliest piece of clothing in the game: a red vest. But as I've progressed, the game has given me - a gacha newbie - an unfortunate crash-course education [...]

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth is giving the metaverse a year to become a hit, according to an internal forum post reported by Business Insider. That time period will determine whether Reality Labs' mixed reality efforts are the work of visionaries or a legendary misadventure," he writes. Bosworth details his expectations early in the post: We [...]

House of Representative members from California want to know what led to accidental evacuation alerts that fomented confusion during devastating Los Angeles fires in January. The Palisades and Eaton wildfires broke out in early January, killing at least 29 people and destroying more than 16,000 structures. In the midst of the chaos, some 10 million [...]

The folks at Iconfactory, which once made a wonderful Twitter client called Twitterrific, launched a new app on Tuesday. Itas called Tapestry, and itas a cross between a social app and a news reader. The app can ingest feeds of all kinds: someoneas Bluesky posts, your favorite YouTube creatoras videos, a blogas new posts, all [...]

A new bill proposed in California (SB 243) would require AI companies to periodically remind kids that a chatbot is an AI and not human. The bill, proposed by California Senator Steve Padilla, is meant to protect children from the addictive, isolating, and influential aspects" of AI. In addition to limiting companies from using addictive [...]

Adobe is adding features to Acrobat's AI Assistant that should help users to better understand contracts. The new contract intelligence capabilities" allow the PDF management software's chatbot to automatically recognize when files and scanned documents are contracts and summarize complicated language to make it easier for users to understand. The Acrobat AI Assistant is available [...]

China has launched an antitrust investigation into Google as part of a salvo of responses to US tariff increases, including its own retaliatory tariffs and export controls. China's State Administration for Market Regulation announced the Google probe on Tuesday over suspicions the US search giant has violated Chinese antimonopoly laws, according to a machine translation [...]

Thankfully, the new teaser for Marvel's Fantastic Four: First Steps doesn't spoil all that much of the film, but it does give you a sense of just how big a problem Galactus is going to be for the MCU. Rather than rehashing the details of how Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Sue's [...]

After almost exactly 18 years, you could make the argument that the tech industry has finally finished what the iPhone started. Itas not that thereas no innovation left in phones, or that there arenat other big ideas to be had about the devices we carry around, but the specific thing the first iPhone was a [...]

Food delivery company Grubhub has confirmed that it suffered a security breach, with user, driver, and merchant data compromised, including hashed passwords and partial credit card details. Grubhub says that it noticed unusual activity" that it traced back to an account used by a third-party service provider for its customer support team. The account's access [...]

As the third week of Donald Trumpas presidency begins, workers across federal agencies are scrambling to find their footing among the chaos. From the US Agency for International Development and the Department of Agriculture, to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Labor, federal workers are facing an onslaught of changes that threaten to [...]

Spotify raked in enough cash and new subscribers in 2024 to celebrate its first full year of profitability since the service was launched in 2008. The announcement comes as part of Spotify's fourth-quarter earnings release, with net profits at 1.14 billion (around $1.17 billion) for the whole of 2024, compared to the 532 million (around [...]

Norway-based Opera has announced a new browser, Opera Air, with a focus on mindfulness and mental wellbeing. It includes break reminders, breathing exercises, and a suite of relaxing soundscapes to help users both focus and de-stress. The web is beautiful but it can be chaotic and overwhelming," says Mohamed Salah, Opera's senior director of product. [...]

Netflix and WWE nearly made it a whole month streaming Raw without any major technical hiccups, but that streak was broken on Monday night. Throughout the February 3rd episode, some viewers were annoyed by the feed intermittently cutting out to a black screen. Audio would also drop whenever these glitches occurred. The problems never caused [...]

Elon Musk has an uncanny ability to sort out which of America's rules are real. It turns out punishment from the National Labor Relations Board isnat real, punishment from NASA isnat real, and punishment from the FAA isnat real. The Delaware Chancery Court is extremely real. Based on the past two weeks, the Delaware Chancery [...]

President Donald Trumpas administration is being sued over Elon Muskas alleged amassive and unprecedenteda intrusion into the American governmentas payment systems. The suit, filed in a Washington, DC federal court Monday evening by the advocacy group Public Citizen, calls for the court to stop the aunlawful, ongoing, systematic, and continuous disclosure of personal and financial [...]

SoftBank isn't just part of the group investing $500 billion into Project Stargate to build American AI infrastructure capacity for OpenAI. It's also making a Japanese joint venture with OpenAI, will spend $3 billion deploying OpenAI tech across SoftBank companies, and claims it will revolutionize business with AI agents through a new AI system called [...]

Sony Pictures Television says it's taking over the distribution rights for top game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! from Paramount-owned CBS starting the week of February 10th, reports Bloomberg, while CBS is fighting back by seeking a temporary restraining order. In October, Sony sued CBS for allegedly not putting in enough effort to grow [...]

President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff threats have been touch and go. As it stands currently, the 25 percent tax on goods from Mexico and Canada is on ice for a month, but a 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods is set to take effect on Tuesday, via an executive order of questionable legality. Nestled within [...]

On Monday morning, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and US President Donald Trump announced the US is pausing tariffs against Mexico for one month, as previously reported by Bloomberg. In the afternoon, a similar deal was announced by Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to pause proposed tariffs for 30 days. Trudeau cited Canada's $1.3 [...]

US District Court Judge Amit Mehta denied Apple's emergency request to halt the Google Search monopoly trial that could dismantle their lucrative search that's reportedly worth as much as $18 billion a year. The order came in late Sunday, with Judge Mehta saying Apple hasn't demonstrated satisfactory reasons for its emergency motion to stay that [...]

Meta isn't shy about its ambitions to make its Ray-Ban smart glasses a mainstream gadget. So much so, it's made not one but two Super Bowl ads featuring not one, but two Marvel actors. (And Kris Jenner.) And as a little cherry on top, Meta announced it's creating a limited edition Super Bowl version of [...]

EA has announced a new Battlefield Labs" community testing program to give people the opportunity to test the next Battlefield game. You can sign up for the program now, and EA says that the first phase" of testing will go live in the coming weeks" for invited players in Europe and North America. As I [...]

Audi is launching a new global nomenclature system for its vehicles to more clearly represent a vehicle's type, size, shape, and powertrain. The updated system will still begin with letters like A for low-floor" vehicles or Q for high-floor" ones. That will be followed by numbers 1 through 8 that help represent the size or [...]

In the first two weeks of Donald Trump's presidency, Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have reportedly gained access to core parts of the American government's payment systems, including systems that affect Social Security and Medicare benefits -as federal workers and government officials struggle to respond. DOGE, an unofficial department" that Trump [...]

If you missed out on the steep AirPods discounts we saw during Black Friday, now is your chance. Right now, thesecond-gen AirPods Prowith USB-Care on sale at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy starting at $169 ($81 off), which is just $16 shy of their all-time low. Meanwhile, the AirPods 4 have dropped to a record [...]

President Trump announced tariffs as high as 25 percent on goods imported from Canada, China, and Mexico over the weekend. But some of the biggest names in tech and gaming - who could be significantly impacted by the tariffs - have stayed quiet about them. Shortly after the tariffs were announced, The Verge reached out [...]

EcoFlow has confirmed that it's currently testing new advanced features for its PowerStream Balcony Solar System that were made available to a small group of testers on a paid basis." After other EcoFlow users raised concerns last week about the possibility of having to pay subscription fees for features on devices they already own, the [...]

Treasure Secretary Scott Bessent has been named the Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the bureau announced today. Bessent quickly instructed the agency to to stop all rulemaking, communications, litigation, and other activities," reports Bloomberg Law. A source inside the CFPB told Bloomberg Law that his order appeared to shut down the [...]

Google could soon bring its Adaptive Charging battery protection feature from its Pixel phones to the Pixel Watch line. The feature is designed to preserve battery health by preventing overcharging, and hinges on its ability to predict your charging schedule. Android Authority spotted code strings that reference Adaptive Charging in the latest version of the [...]

Uber introduced a new feature designed to make it easier for people with disabilities to ride with service animals. For years, Uber's policies toward service animals have been in accordance with state and federal law: they are allowed to ride at all times at no extra cost. But now the company is allowing customers to [...]

NetChoice has filed its 10th lawsuit in an ongoing fight against a broad slate of state internet regulations -this time against a Maryland law billed as protecting kids from inappropriate material online. It's the latest effort to oppose what NetChoice calls an unconstitutional speech code in disguise. NetChoice has become one of the fiercest - [...]

A new year means a new Sundance Film Festival, and a fresh crop of promising original features that could go on to become awards season darlings in a few months. It might be hard to top last year's festival where Didi, A Different Man, and I Saw the TV Glow all made strong showings. But [...]

Cloudflare has launched a new feature to help people quickly verify the authenticity of online images. The web security and hosting provider has adopted the Adobe-led Content Credentials system, which applies a digital metadata tag to images and video that tracks who owns it, where it's been posted, and if it's been manipulated - including [...]

Today, I'm talking with Andy Hunter, the CEO of Bookshop.org. Bookshop, at its core, is a website that lets local bookshops all over the country - and in a few other countries - sell their books online. If you want a book, you go to Bookshop and click buy - it's just as easy as [...]

Kobo has increased the price of three of its e-readers following a similar price increase by the company in January 2023. The seven-inch Kobo Libra Colour, as well as the six-inch Kobo Clara Colour and Kobo Clara BW, are all now $10 more expensive, as spotted by TheeBookReader. The prices of the larger (and aging) [...]

Sid Meier developed the first Civilization game in 1991 and has contributed to every iteration since. When I visited Firaxis Games last year, I saw that the company maintains the very computer Meier used to develop the game, which can still be booted up and played. Walking through the halls of the studio, I saw [...]

Sid Meier's Civilization VII is the latest in the long-running 4X strategy franchise that first debuted in 1991 on MS-DOS. The new turn-based game from Firaxis Games and the titular, legendary designer is set to release on PC and modern consoles in on February 11th, 2025 - over eight years after the last installment. Civ [...]

The Beatles have won their eighth competitive Grammy award thanks to a little help from artificial intelligence. The 2023 track Now and Then" - which Billboard reports is the first song knowingly created with AI assistance to earn a Grammy nomination - was awarded Best Rock Performance on Sunday, beating out competition from Green Day, [...]

Microsoft is getting ready to remove the VPN feature from its Microsoft 365 subscription later this month. Originally designed as a privacy feature, the VPN in Microsoft 365 utilizes the Microsoft Defender app to encrypt internet traffic and hide IP addresses. Microsoft is now removing this privacy protection feature from Microsoft 365 on February 28th. [...]