The Verge

In the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, a health products company called Xlear began advertising its saline nasal spray to people desperately searching for ways to protect themselves from a new virus. In its marketing, Xlear pointed to studies that it said supported the idea that ingredients in the spray could block viruses from sticking [...]

Build a Rocket Boy has confirmed previous reports from IGN that it is undergoing layoffs less than a month after the tumultuous release of its first game MindsEye. The Verge reached out to Build a Rocket Boy to confirm the layoffs, but they did not respond. In a statement made to IGN, Build A Rocket [...]

The Trump administration wants to open up tens of millions of acres of national forest to development. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced yesterday that it's rescinding a landmark rule that prevents road construction and timber harvesting in the last unfragmented stretches of national forest. The USDA says the move will boost timber production, [...]

Despite the demise of the BlackBerry, there's still a demand for smartphones with physical keyboards, if successful products like the Clicks keyboard case are any indication. Unihertz, a Chinese company best known for its small Android handsets, has announced the Titan 2: a follow-up to its first BlackBerry Passport-inspired smartphone that adds modern upgrades like [...]

With Amazon's Prime Day just a few weeks away, we're already starting to see deals on TVs ahead of the four-day event. If you want to get a head start on your shopping, TCL's subbrand, iFFALCON, has dropped the price of its 55-inch QLED 4K Mural TV to a new low price at Amazon. It [...]

Apple poured some good money into making F1 - a Formula 1 racing movie starring Brad Pitt - and it wants its customers to know that. To that end, many people, including some Verge staffers, noticed an unusual Apple Wallet notification this morning that's both an advertisement and promotion for the film. The notification prompts [...]

Paramount Plus with Showtime" has always been one of the more awkward bits of branding to come out of the streaming era, but soon subscribers will know the tier by another name. This week Paramount informed Paramount Plus subscribers that Paramount Plus with Showtime - the platform's most expensive tier that features Showtime programming and [...]

If you've been enjoying Hades on mobile via Netflix, you better get in those last few runs while you still can. First spotted by Engadget, and confirmed via the Netflix app, Supergiant's Greek mythology-inspired roguelike and 21 other games are being delisted from the service next month. Several titles, like Braid, Katana Zero, and yes, [...]

Samsung has announced an Unpacked event that's happening on Wednesday, July 9th at 10AM ET. Details are sparse, but it shared the tagline Ultra Unfolds," which suggests we're about to learn a whole lot more about a premium foldable phone, and perhaps some other foldables. However, you don't have to wait for the keynote to [...]

This week, Tesla launched its long-promised robotaxi service in Austin, and almost immediately its vehicles were caught fucking up. In a YouTube video, a Tesla robotaxi briefly drives on the wrong side of the road. Another video shared by Ed Niedermeyer, the author of a book about Tesla's origins, shows a robotaxi braking hard in [...]

Google is starting to roll out a feature for Chrome on Android that lets users move the address bar to the bottom of the screen. It's something that iOS Chrome users have been able to do since 2023, and it could help make the address bar more easily accessible, especially if you are using a [...]

Microsoft revealed last year that it will charge consumers $30 for a year of extra security updates to Windows 10. Now, it's allowing consumers to enroll into its Extended Security Updates (ESU) free of charge ahead of the Windows 10 end of support on October 14th. But there's a catch. Consumers will have three options [...]

You'll soon have to pay more for various Philips Hue smart lighting and security gadgets if you live in the US. After vaguely notifying customers that prices will go up" on July 1st in a promotional message, Philips Hue's parent company Signify has confirmed that it's inflating prices across the Philips Hue portfolio as a [...]

Streaming sticks can breathe new life into an older TV, and help you get even more out of a modern one. Amazon's Fire TV Stick 4K is one most affordable around, with a snappy interface, access to a plethora of streaming apps, and the ability to control some smart home devices from your couch. The [...]

Roblox is introducing two new systems that are designed to further encourage creators to bring players onto the social games platform on a regular basis. The systems, part of what Roblox is calling Creator Rewards, will roll out beginning July 24th. One is the Daily Engagement Reward program, which gives Roblox creators 5 Robux for [...]

Nvidia has announced GeForce RTX 5050 GPUs for both desktops and laptops with support for ray tracing and DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation. On the desktop side, the RTX 5050 will start at $249, draw up to 130W of power, and feature 8GB of last-gen GDDR6 video memory (VRAM) and 2,560 Blackwell CUDA cores. [...]

A federal judge has sided with Anthropic in an AI copyright case, ruling that training - and only training - its AI models on legally purchased books without authors' permission is fair use. It's a first-of-its-kind ruling in favor of the AI industry, but it's importantly limited specifically to physical books Anthropic purchased and digitized. [...]

Drag x Drive is the next Switch 2 exclusive to get a release date. Nintendo, via its Nintendo Today news app, announced that the 3 v 3 wheelchair basketball game would be out August 14th. Since the launch of the Switch 2 earlier this month, most of the new console's catalogue has been third party [...]

Microsoft is planning to cut jobs in the company's Xbox gaming business, as early as next week. I first reported in Notepad earlier this month that Microsoft was planning Xbox layoffs potentially by the end of the month," and now Bloomberg says a round of major layoffs" is due next week. I understand managers at [...]

Google is freshening up its Phone app with a new interface that's supposed to make it easier to find contacts and your calls. The test is gradually rolling out to some of Google's public beta users, and also includes some style changes that align with Android's more youthful Material 3 Expressive design language. For starters, [...]

I beat the original Death Stranding, but please don't ask me what happened in it. There was a cataclysm - not quite a Gommage - that made the US more divided than ever, and you play as a babysitter-meets-delivery-guy who has special awareness of invisible, hostile creatures called BTs that are "beached," which isn't as [...]

Google DeepMind is rolling out an on-device version of its Gemini Robotics AI model that allows it to operate without an internet connection. The vision-language-action model (VLA) comes with dexterous capabilities similar to the one released in March, but Google says it's small and efficient enough to run directly on a robot." The flagship Gemini [...]

As a rule, you should never believe anything you see on social media. And you should really never believe anything someone says in a video with a TikTok Shop link, because they are nakedly trying to sell you something. From candy to headphones to supplements to power tools, TikTok has built a remarkable system: creators [...]

Amazon announced its intention to bring same-day and next-day delivery to tens of millions" of people who live in live in smaller towns by the end of 2026. Speedier deliveries will be available to residents in more than 4,000 smaller cities, towns, and rural communities," the company said in a press release Tuesday. Items categorized [...]

TP-Link just launched a bunch of new security cameras for its Tapo smart home brand, including a 4K-capable line for outdoors and a slew of inexpensive pan and tilt cams that can be used indoors and out. The company is also finally releasing its Tapo HomeBase H500 central hub, first shown at CES 2024, which [...]

After years of grand promises about how robotaxis would change the way we buy and use our cars, Tesla finally launched its taxi service. In one small portion of one city. With only a few cars and a few riders. Plus safety monitors in the passenger seat. Caution is a good thing in this industry, [...]

8BitDo announced that eight of its flagship controllers are now compatible with the Nintendo Switch 2 following a firmware update. Although some companies had early access to the Switch 2's specs to build accessories like cases and screen protectors, many had to wait until launch day to ensure their devices were compatible with the new [...]

Google Earth will now let you look at historical imagery from Street View. The update, which comes as part of the tool's 20th anniversary, allows you to see how a location has changed over time. Google Earth already offers the ability to switch to Street View while viewing satellite imagery, but now you can look [...]

At a pristine, multimillion-dollar lab on the Manhattan waterfront, just down the street from a men's homeless shelter and the medical examiner's office, a slice of summer plum is being converted into fragrance code. This is the work of Osmo, a fragrance tech startup claiming to build artificial olfactory intelligence. Osmo has parlayed this innovation [...]

Uber customers in Atlanta now have the option of hailing a driverless Waymo robotaxi, the company announced today. Atlanta is the second market, after Austin, to play host to Uber and Waymo's burgeoning autonomous ridehail partnership. At launch, Waymo's vehicles will be available exclusively on the Uber app in Atlanta. The two companies first announced [...]

Verizon is trying to streamline its customer service experience by overhauling it with more chatbots and AI tools. The My Verizon app is being relaunched today with a new AI-powered Verizon Assistant" that aims to help consumers manage upgrades, add new lines, ask billing questions, take advantage of savings, and more," according to the telecom [...]

Riot Games is closing the studio behind Hytale, its Minecraft-like game that has been in development for nearly a decade. Hypixel Studios, which Riot acquired in 2020 for an undisclosed sum, is shutting down over the next few months," according to Hypixel CEO Aaron Noxy" Donaghey. After years of pushing forward, adapting, and exploring every [...]

Microsoft is testing a new feature in Windows 11 that will let you move hardware indicators pop-ups like volume and screen brightness to the top-left and top-center positions of a display. The customization feature is part of a new Dev Channel build of Windows 11 that also includes a new Recall homepage that lists the [...]

The Raleigh One e-bike is now official afterThe Vergefirst published details of it last week. It was developed for the Accell Group's Raleigh brand with help from VanMoof's cofounders, Ties and Taco Carlier, according to my sources. The announcement never mentions their involvement, which could be viewed as good or bad - good if you [...]

Thanks to a related trademark lawsuit, we know what OpenAI and Jony Ive's first AI device won't be. In court filings submitted this month, leaders from io - the consumer hardware team OpenAI recently acquired from Jony Ive's design studio for $6.5 billion - testified that the first device they plan to release won't be [...]

The Yale Smart Lock with Matter is launching tomorrow, June 24th, for $189.99 - $20 more than when it was first announced in March. Yale tells The Verge the price increase is due to the impact of tariffs.The lock will be available on Amazon and Yale's website. According to Yale, the new smart lock was [...]

Samsung's summer Unpacked is officially on, starting at 10AM ET on Wednesday, July 9th. The invitation features a jazzy little bop and the words Ultra Unfolds," so I think it's safe to assume we're getting that foldable Ultra phone the company previously hinted at. The event is set to take place in Brooklyn, but you [...]

After spending the first half of the year in beta testing, T-Mobile's Starlink-powered satellite service will go public on July 23rd. While it will only include messaging at launch, the company has some ambitious plans to expand the service before the end of the year. When it goes live next month, T-Satellite" will be available [...]

If you missed the chance to pick up Nintendo's new GameCube Controller for the Switch 2, your time has come. It's back in stock for $64.99 at the My Nintendo Store. To add one to your collection, you'll need to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, which starts at $19.99 a year for individuals. Once [...]

Apple's first macOS Tahoe 26 developer beta introduced a big change to the Finder icon that I really didn't like, but thankfully, the company has reversed it with the second beta released today. A big feature of macOS 26 is Apple's new Liquid Glass design language, which it has applied across the operating system to [...]

If you've been itching to get a handheld, but the Switch 2 isn't quite up your alley, now you can get your hands on a Steam Deck OLED. As spotted by @Wario64, Valve has started selling the device on its online store again after it was out of stock in the US and Canada for [...]

The all-Republican Federal Trade Commission agreed to approve a $13.5 billion ad merger if it includes a ban on steering ad dollars away from platforms or publishers based on political or ideological viewpoints." The order, which was reported by The New York Times earlier this month, would prevent ad giant Omnicom from wholesale avoiding platforms [...]

Smart lighting company Hue has released a new version of its Smart Button, one of the simplest ways of controlling Hue's colorful smart lights. The new Smart Button has a bigger design and a bit of price hike - in the U.S., at least, where it now costs $32.99 compared to $29.99 for its predecessor. [...]

My biggest complaint with Liquid Glass in the first iOS 26 developer beta was that it sometimes made Control Center nearly unreadable, but Apple has seemingly fixed that with the second beta, which is out now. In the first beta, the glassiness of everything meant that you could still see a fair amount of what [...]

New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced plans today to develop a new nuclear power plant, the first to be built in the state in decades. It's the latest signal that nuclear energy could see a comeback in the US thanks to wide-ranging support from some strange bedfellows: the Trump administration purporting to seek energy dominance"; [...]

Last year, I lost my old AirPods in my apartment and relied on my old-school Lightning EarPods for months before upgrading to an iPhone 16. Honestly, aside from missing wireless connectivity, I hadn't noticed much difference. That's why I still think they're a good investment in 2025, and why I'm considering picking up the newer [...]

Microsoft is rolling out a new update to its Xbox Home UI that allows Xbox owners to pin apps and games on the homescreen. It's part of a number of customization changes to the Xbox Home UI, including the ability to hide system apps and reduce the number of apps and games listed in the [...]

The House of Representatives has banned staff members from using WhatsApp on government devices, according to a report from Axios. In an email viewed by the outlet, the House's chief administrative officer (CAO) tells staffers that the Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high-risk" because of a lack of transparency in how it protects [...]

Update, June 23rd: Best Buy has sold out of both the standalone console and the Mario Kart World bundle. The Nintendo Switch 2 has been difficult to find in stock since its June 5th launch, though restocks are beginning to ramp up. If you're looking for one, head over to Best Buy's site or use [...]