The Verge

Date Everything! isn't the dating sim it appears to be. Though the game's cutesy art style and lighthearted premise indicate an unserious game that's making yet another joke at the expense of the genre, Date Everything actually contains novel explorations of human relationships and sharp-as-shit political critique. Date Everything (the title technically includes an exclamation [...]

Kallie Plagge, The Verge's senior copy editor, has been working in the media for over 10 years now, mainly at gaming websites. She was primarily a video game critic for a lot of that time and was the reviews editor at GameSpot for about three years, before eventually becoming the senior copy editor at Polygon. [...]

The Insta360 Link 2 is more than just a webcam - it's a smart camera that actively follows your movements whether you're presenting, streaming, or pacing during a call. It's also packed with an impressive array of productivity features. And right now, it's available at a new all-time low of $149.99 ($50 off) at Amazon. [...]

After retreating from watchOS several years ago, Google now only offers a handful of apps for the Apple Watch. That list is expanding to four in total with the launch of a new Google Calendar app rolling out alongside the existing iPhone version, as spotted by 9to5Google. Apple's native calendar app on watchOS includes customization [...]

Automattic's plan to move Tumblr's backend over to WordPress is now on hold," Automattic founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg says in a Decoder episode published today. The company announced the plan to move over the more than half a billion blogs on Tumblr last year, saying that the change would make it easier to share [...]

Apple Music is celebrating the 10-year anniversary of its streaming service by giving users a throwback to their favorite hits over the last decade. Replay All Time" - a special version of Apple Music's annual Replay experience - is being launched for subscribers that allows them to view and listen to their most played songs [...]

Canada has scrapped its tax targeting Big Tech companies in the US after President Donald Trump threatened to cut off trade talks in response to the fee. On Sunday, the Canadian government announced that it will no longer implement the Digital Services Tax as it works to reach a trade deal with the US by [...]

It's been more than a decade since Apple unveiled the original version of CarPlay. In that time, the system has become indispensable for countless drivers all over the world. But while new iterations of iOS have introduced user interface tweaks and some additional customization features, its basic functionality hasn't advanced much since that announcement back [...]

Google announced a variety of new features for its Classroom software suite, including free Gemini AI tools for educators and NotebookLM for users under 18 -the first time the tool has been available to minors. Teachers with a Google Workspace account will have a new dedicated Gemini tab in their Google Classroom, offering tools that [...]

Anker has issued its second product recall so far this month, warning customers that five additional power bank models should stop being used immediately due to the risk of overheating, melting, smoke, or fire." While the likelihood of malfunction is considered minimal, out of an abundance of caution, we have decided to initiate a voluntary [...]

When Ela Darling began performing in porn at the tail end of the 2000s, tube sites like Pornhub were relatively new, and major studios like Vivid and Digital Playground still dominated the market. For performers, the job was straightforward: show up to set, turn in a good performance, and collect a check. Everything else - [...]

Joby Aviation is getting ready to take flight. The electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) company has delivered its first production aircraft to Dubai, where it plans to launch a commercial air taxi service in early 2026. Joby, which has successfully completed multiple flight tests with a pilot onboard, says it has begun in-market testing [...]

Serious security flaws have been found in hundreds of Brother printer models that could allow attackers to remotely access devices that are still using default passwords. Eight new vulnerabilities, one of which cannot be fixed by patching the firmware, were discovered in 689 kinds of Brother home and enterprise printers by security company Rapid7. The [...]

Spotify is adding new personalization features to Discover Weekly, the popular and influential playlist streamed by millions of users. The regularly updated playlist will now have buttons for genres like pop, R&B, and funk at the top, allowing users to tell Spotify what they want more of. The Discover Weekly playlist is one of the [...]

It has become almost impossible to browse the internet without having an AI-generated video thrust upon you. Open basically any social media platform, and it won't be long until an uncanny-looking clip of a fake natural disaster or animals doing impossible things slides across your screen. Most of the videos look absolutely terrible. But they're [...]

After nearly a decade of wearables testing, I've amassed a truly terrifying amount of health and fitness data. And while I enjoy poring over my daily data, there's one part I've come to loathe: AI summaries. Over the last two years, a deluge of AI-generated summaries has been sprinkled into every fitness, wellness, and wearable [...]

When I was a kid, there was a moment when it felt like everyone was obsessed with yo-yos. I never got better than just being able to make the yo-yo go up and down. But with Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo, I could pretend like I was halfway decent - all while playing a silly [...]

Over the years, Tesla has built part of its reputation on hosting big, bold events to generate authentic hype for upcoming releases. The robotaxi launch in Austin, Texas, last week wasn't one of them. Coverage of the rollout was dominated by a close-knit cohort of Tesla influencers and Elon Musk superfans, many of whom are [...]

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 88, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy heat dome, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about crypto crimes and egg thieves and Gap, watching Last Breath [...]

This might be a bigger deal than the robotaxis. Tesla said it completed its first fully autonomous vehicle delivery from factory to customer. A video posted on X shows the vehicle - a Tesla Model Y - leaving the company's Austin Gigafactory, driving on the highway, passing through suburban sprawl and residential neighborhoods, before arriving [...]

Age verification is perhaps the hottest battleground for online speech, and the Supreme Court just settled a pivotal question: does using it to gate adult content violate the First Amendment in the US? For roughly the past 20 years the answer has been "yes" - now, as of Friday, it's an unambiguous "no." Justice Clarence [...]

The third and final season of the industry-defining Squid Game confidently delivers each new round of the deathly games with spectacularly brutal aplomb - but its attempts at worldbuilding are disappointingly tired and uneven. Some of Squid Game's most interesting dynamics from the first two seasons - the politics among the masked guards, the organ-harvesting [...]

Kobo is discounting two of its best e-readers. The Kobo Elipsa 2E, a competitor to the Kindle Scribe, is available for an all-time low of $349.99 ($50 off) from Rakuten Kobo and Target. Meanwhile, the Kobo Libra Colour is available for $209.99 ($20 off) from Amazon, Target, and Rakuten Kobo. The sale runs through July [...]

Reddit has become known as the place to go for unfiltered answers from real, human users. But as the site celebrates its 20th anniversary this week, the company is increasingly thinking about how it can augment that human work with AI. The initial rollout of AI tools, like Reddit Answers, is "going really well," CTO [...]

Scorching hot days tend to hit certain neighborhoods harder than others, a problem that becomes more dangerous during record-breaking heat like swathes of the US experienced over the past week. A new online dashboard shows how Latino neighborhoods are disproportionately affected in California. Developed by University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), the tool helps fill [...]

In the past week, big AI companies have - in theory - chalked up two big legal wins. But things are not quite as straightforward as they may seem, and copyright law hasn't been this exciting since last month's showdown at the Library of Congress. First, Judge William Alsup ruled it was fair use for [...]

With the dawning of a new era of hybridization in the automotive industry, more and more manufacturers are integrating electric propulsion into their lineups. Mild-hybrid systems are well-established, and more beneficial plug-in hybrid systems keep getting better and better. Even Lamborghini's participating in the latest wave of hybridization, which might come as a surprise to [...]

For years, Meta trained its AI programs using the billions of public images uploaded by users onto Facebook and Instagram's servers. Now, it's also hoping to access the billions of images that users haven't uploaded to those servers. Meta tells The Verge that it's not currently training its AI models on those photos, but it [...]

Our water, health, and energy systems are increasingly vulnerable to cyberattack. Now, when tensions escalate - like when the US bombed nuclear facilities in Iran this month - the safety of these systems becomes of paramount concern. If conflict erupts, we can expect it to be a "hybrid" battle, Joshua Corman, executive in residence for [...]

Yesterday, reports from Forbes and CNBC said that Musk had fired Omead Afshar, who formerly led operations in North America and Europe and was a close confidant of Musk's. (Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal also reported that Afshar left the company, but did not say he was fired.) The firing follows a major slump [...]

If you're looking for a webcam that works with the Nintendo Switch 2's new GameChat mode that lets you video chat with friends and see their faces within games, it looks like the biggest brand in PC accessories is still your best bet. Logitech is the first webcam maker to confirm to The Verge that [...]

Earlier this month, I wrote about a leaked image of what was rumored to be the Nothing Phone 3. That image showed a design with a translucent back and three center-aligned cameras. But a new set of supposed Nothing Phone 3 images reveal a different design - with one of the wildest camera layouts I've [...]

So far, Runway is known for bringing generative AI to Hollywood. Now, the $3 billion startup is setting its sights on the gaming industry. This week, I was granted access to a new interactive gaming experience that Runway plans to make available to everyone as soon as next week, according to CEO Cristobal Valenzuela. The [...]

The Senate version of the budget reconciliation bill, backed by President Donald Trump, removes protections for unlicensed spectrum that broadens the capacity of the 6GHz Wi-Fi band. This could result in slower Wi-Fi speeds. Under the bill, which may be voted on at the end of this week, the FCC would sell off some of [...]

After a long week, the last thing I want to do is clean my floors (they're seriously overdue for a cleaning). Busting out the vacuum and mopping can be tiring. That's why I'm a big fan of robot vacuums, especially ones with built-in mops that can handle all the cleaning on their own. Speaking of, [...]

Google's carbon emissions jumped yet again as the company continues to push ahead in AI. The company's 2025 sustainability report emphasizes that its ambition-based emissions" grew 11 percent last year to reach 11.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution, marking a 51 percent increase compared to 2019. That puts Google farther away from its [...]

As the esports industry searches for new sources of revenue, Riot Games has opened up its League of Legends and Valorant esports leagues to sports betting sponsorships. The decision will permit tier one organizations - or the highest level of professional players - in the North and South America and European esports leagues of Valorant [...]

Adobe's Project Indigo is a camera app built by camera nerds for camera nerds. It's the work of Florian Kainz and Marc Levoy, the latter of whom is also known as one of the pioneers of computational photography with his work on early Pixel phones. Indigo's basic promise is a sensible approach to image processing [...]

With the Wear OS 5.1 update that was released last March, Google quietly introduced a new feature called Channel Sounding for the Pixel Watch 3 that could improve the accuracy of pinpointing the location of other devices using its existing Bluetooth hardware. But while Channel Sounding is now supported by the smartwatch, it's not yet [...]

The Supreme Court has upheld a Texas law requiring age verification to access adult websites, saying despite First Amendment claims, the law only incidentally burdens the protected speech of adults." The ruling, in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, opens the door to age-gating in states nationwide. The court ruled in Texas' favor by a margin [...]

The Supreme Court ruled that the funding mechanism behind a key broadband subsidy program for schools and underserved areas can continue operating. In a decision issued on Friday, the Supreme Court rejected claims that Congress and the FCC's implementation of the fund is unconstitutional. The program, known as the Universal Service Fund (USF), helps subsidize [...]

Eligible Fortnite players who felt bamboozled into making unwanted purchases have been given a second chance to request a refund. The Federal Trade Commission has reopened applications to receive refunds from the $245 million settlement that Epic Games reached with the agency until July 9th, after previously closing requests in February. The agreement was announced [...]

I just tried on five different outfits in about 10 minutes - or at least my AI lookalike did. That's all thanks to Doppl, a new app that Google is testing, which I used to create AI-generated clips of myself wearing outfits that I found across the web. It mostly works, but it has clear [...]

A new line of smoke and CO alarms from Gentex called Place is packed with smart features, including phone notifications, a nightlight, motion detection, and temperature and humidity sensing. There's also optional air quality monitoring and a camera/intercom. The four Place models start at $139, and are available now at The Home Depot. With the [...]

Universal and Blumhouse's first M3gan feature came out of nowhere with a premise so ridiculous and campy that it was hard not to be at least a little intrigued. Equal parts Child's Play and Small Wonder, M3gan was undeniably silly with its story about an AI-powered doll who sang Sia's "Titanium" and danced around as [...]

A lot of the future of AI will be settled in court. From publishers to authors to artists to Hollywood conglomerates, the creative industry is picking a big copyright fight over the vast quantities of data used to train AI models - and the ultimate output of those models. (Disclosure: Vox Media, The Verge's parent [...]

Threads has taken another step towards decoupling from Instagram by introducing its own word blocking filters. Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced on Thursday that the Hidden Words setting on Threads includes newly added custom filters to block words, phrases, and emojis in batches, with optional time limits." A previous version of Hidden Words was tied [...]

Sendi Jia, a designer running her own studio between Beijing, China, and London, England, says she mainly uses AI generators like DALL-E to make fake photos for background panels or websites when her clients don't have access to real ones. That's helped clients with limited budgets, but it's also exposed just how much of the [...]

Redwood Materials is repurposing old EV batteries into energy storage systems that cost substantially less" than brand new storage projects, the company said Thursday. The electric vehicle battery recycling and manufacturing venture, which was founded by Tesla's former chief technologist, has created a new division called Redwood Energy to manage these projects. The aim is [...]

During a company-wide all-hands meeting on Thursday, some of Meta's top executives were asked about the "$100 million signing bonuses" that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claimed they had been offering to poach his employees. "Sam is just being dishonest here," Andrew Bosworth, Meta's CTO, said at the meeting when asked about Altman's remarks. "He's suggesting [...]