The Verge

Insta360's first wireless microphone kit debuted in June with small, lightweight AirTag-sized mics that were easier to wear hidden away. The new Insta360 Mic Pro, which the company is teasing during the 2026 NAB Show in Las Vegas, is instead designed to be prominently displayed. On the front of each transmitter is a round E [...]

The Mercedes-Benz C-Class, typically a benchmark in luxury compact sedans, now gets an all-important electric variant. The new C 400 4MATIC is built on an 800-volt architecture designed for efficiency and long-distance travel. Its estimated range is up to 762 kilometers (473 miles) on the WLTP cycle. And Mercedes boasts that it's the "sportiest C-Class [...]

The new Sonos Era 100 SL keeps costs down by dropping the mics, but if you'd rather keep hands-free voice controls, picking up a refurbished, non-SL model is the way to go. Thankfully, Sonos is taking up to 25 percent off a range of refurbished gear through April 24th, dropping the price of the Sonos [...]

Deezer says it receives nearly 75,000 AI-generated song submissions to its music streaming platform each day, accounting for about 44 percent of all daily uploads, as reported earlier by TechCrunch. Despite the increase in "fraudulent" uploads, Deezer says the consumption of AI songs makes up around 1 to 3 percent of total streams, as the [...]

Following last year's AI-powered Darth Vader in Fortnite that swore in a re-creation of James Earl Jones' voice, Epic Games is now letting Fortnite creators experiment with a new "conversations" tool to create AI-powered characters that players can talk and interact with. "Instead of authoring dialogue trees for characters in your islands, conversations transforms an [...]

La-Z-Boy announced a new AudioLuxe furniture line with recliners and sofas upgraded with built-in sound systems that deliver "crystal clear tones and deep bass vibrations." The company is partnering with Klipsch for the speakers integrated into each piece's headrest and the subwoofer hidden in the base. The furniture can be used as part of a [...]

Birdfy has announced a new version of its camera-equipped metal feeder with an upgraded camera to make you feel even closer to nature while staring at your phone from the sofa. The Birdfy Feeder Metal 2 has a similar design to the original, using metal panels that animals like squirrels can't chew through to access [...]

An autonomous scarlet robot named "Lightning" finished a 13-mile race in Beijing on Sunday in just 50 minutes and 26 seconds, less than half the time of last year's fastest robot, which took two hours and 40 minutes. As Reuters reports, Du Xiaodi, one of the engineers who developed Lightning at smartphone company Honor, said [...]

The Federal Aviation Administration grounded Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket after it shuttled its payload to the wrong orbit during its launch on Sunday, according to a report from the Orlando Sentinel. "The FAA is aware that Blue Origin New Glenn 3 experienced a mishap during the second-stage flight sequence following a successful launch," the [...]

Tesla claims to have launched a robotaxi service in Dallas and Houston over the weekend, but so far, online crowdsourcing tools indicate that very few cars are actually available. On Saturday, @TeslaRobotaxi posted a 14-second video of a Model Y vehicle driving without any human safety monitor in the front seats. Elon Musk re-posted the [...]

It's going to be a little while before The Lands Between is realized in movie form. Bandai Namco just confirmed that the live-action Elden Ring movie, which was announced last year, is expected to hit theaters on March 3rd, 2028, with production kicking off this spring. Based on FromSoftware's open-world fantasy RPG from 2022, Elden [...]

When Vampire Survivors first exploded onto the scene, it was pretty much all I could think about. The formula of jumping into runs, taking on thousands of enemies, and becoming absurdly overpowered kept me picking up the game again and again - Steam says I've played it for more than 60 hours. Over time, though, [...]

As if there weren't already enough devices listening in on everything being said in your home, Prego, the pasta and pizza sauce brand, is releasing a device designed to record everything said around the dinner table for posterity. The Connection Keeper, which looks like an oversized pasta jar lid, was created in collaboration with StoryCorps, [...]

Huawei has launched its passport-style foldable in China, ahead of similar devices said to be coming from Apple and Samsung. That makes the Pura X Max the first wide foldable phone that's actually available to buy, with today's launch now giving us the full specifications and price after its design was unveiled by Huawei last [...]

As an avid vanlifer, I have to carefully curate everything I carry in order to eke out every square inch of storage I can to support life off the grid for weeks at a time. That's why I jumped at the chance to review DJI's latest power station. The DJI Power 1000 Mini is almost [...]

GoPro is pricing its new Mission 1 and Mission 1 Pro cameras at $599.99 and $699.99, respectively, each discounted by $100 if you subscribe to its ecosystem - fine for professional filmmakers, but a tough sell for weekend warriors. The Mission 1 and Mission 1 Pro can both be reserved now, and you'll get the [...]

Today's launch of AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 7 satellite aboard Blue Origin's reusable New Glenn rocket was a partial success. The New Glenn touched down on its landing pad without incident, making it the second launch and landing for the first stage booster, and officially giving Jeff Bezos a reusable launch vehicle. Unfortunately for AST SpaceMobile, [...]

Vercel, a major development platform that hosts and deploys web apps, was compromised, and the hackers are attempting to sell stolen data. A person claiming to be a member of ShinyHunters, which was behind the recent hack of Rockstar Games, posted some data online, including employee names, email addresses, and activity time stamps. Vercel confirmed [...]

Over the past several years, Nothing's budget-centric subsidiary, CMF, has built a reputation for producing attractive, inexpensive products with features often reserved for gadgets that cost twice the price. The CMF Headphone Pro - the company's first pair of over-ear wireless headphones - fit precisely in that lane, especially now that they're on sale at [...]

This might feel like a somewhat obvious recommendation to some, but it flew under my radar until now. Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination (originally published as Tiger! Tiger! in the UK) is a 1956 sci-fi novel that some have cited as a precursor to cyberpunk. It's a work I admit I have some conflicted [...]

Keychron's expansive keyboard catalog covers everything from basic full-size mechanical boards to niche layouts like southpaw Alice or a one-handed half-keyboard for gaming. Its Q and V series are among our go-to recommendations for off-the-shelf keyboards, and the latest iterations - the Q and V Ultra models - are a straightforward upgrade to the lineup, [...]

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more stories on Big Tech versus politics in Washington, DC, follow Tina Nguyen and read Regulator. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started A long time [...]

According to Nikkei Asia, even as suppliers ramp up DRAM production, manufacturers are only expected to meet 60 percent of demand by the end of 2027. SK Group chairman has even said that shortages could last until 2030. The world's largest memory makers - Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron - are all working to add [...]

Jorge L. Alonso, a federal district court judge for the Northern District of Illinois, said that the Trump Administration violated the First Amendment when it pressured Facebook and Apple to remove ICE-tracking groups and apps. Judge Alonso granted the plaintiffs, Kassandra Rosado, who runs the ICE Sightings - Chicagoland Facebook group, and Kreisau Group, the [...]

Fromfancy OLED TVstorobot vacuums with arms, we tend to cover a lot of cool stuff here atThe Vergethat, unfortunately, often costs as much as a month's rent (or more). But with the ongoing tariff situation in the US and a global memory shortage pushing up the cost of, well, everything, we're well aware that not [...]

Two years ago I attended a picturesque outdoor wedding in August where the hot and humid weather had guests occasionally ducking into their cars to enjoy a blast of AC. Dyson's new $99.99 handheld fan would have provided some much-needed relief then, although I'm not sure I would have been comfortable powering it up during [...]

With a vacation comes a big choice: What game should I focus on during the trip? I thought about grinding out the harder levels of Super Meat Boy 3D, but I was looking for something more chill. I could have dabbled more with Slay the Spire II, but I already know that's a game I'll [...]

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 124, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, send me your Coachella fits, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about restaurant bread and GLP-1s and Lenny Rachitsky and [...]

Last month, OpenAI gave up on its Sora video generation tool, and on Friday, the Sora team's leader, Bill Peebles, announced that he is leaving the company. OpenAI has been shifting its priorities as part of an effort to avoid "side quests," and Peebles' departure is just one of many recent changes as the company [...]

Tinder users who prove they're a real person by visiting an identity-verifying orb will soon be able to get five free boosts in the app - and it's just the latest service to embrace the orb. World, which was co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, initially tested Tinder verification using its facial scanning orbs through [...]

The Trump administration has spent nearly two months fighting with AI company Anthropic. It's dubbed the company a "RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY" full of "Leftwing nut jobs" and a menace to national security. But some of the ice may reportedly be melting between the two, thanks to Anthropic's buzzy new cybersecurity-focused model: Claude Mythos Preview. [...]

Prediction market exchanges have created an environment where just about any piece of information is potentially monetizable: How well will BTS's new song perform this week? How hot will Los Angeles get? Will Donald Trump be impeached? Users can wager on all of that and, on some platforms, more gruesome and violent outcomes in the [...]

I've never been as charmed and frustrated by one gadget as I have with the Poetry Camera. It's a delightful object. White and cherry red with a color-matched woven strap, it looks playful and adorably lo-fi. If I saw it on a store shelf, I'd absolutely pick it up. But aside from obviously appealing, I'm [...]

Over the last few months, every phone maker under the sun has refreshed its lineups, especially at the affordable end, with no major budget phone launches now expected until next year. That made it the perfect time to go back and reassess The Verge's recommendations for the best budget phones you can buy right now. [...]

Some of us take a kind of eat to live" rather than a live to eat" approach to gadgets. They're tools that help you get things done, not something you want to invest a lot of time or money in. If that's you - and there's no judgment here from a certifiable gadget nerd - [...]

Dairy Queen is becoming the latest fast food chain to get in on AI, as it's bringing a chatbot to dozens of its drive-thrus across the US and Canada. It aims to help speed up drive-thru service and "encourage customers to add more food to their orders," according to The Wall Street Journal. Following a [...]

From OLED TVs to smartphones, Best Buy's Upgrade Sale has slashed prices on all kinds of tech, including a wide range of Apple devices. We've rounded up the best deals from the sale here, but one of the most notable is the AirPods Pro 3, which are down to $199.99 ($50 off) at Best Buy, [...]

Vacuum cleaners, personal massagers, electronic baby rockers, and walking pads: These are the secondhand machines Rachel Youn sources to create their kinetic sculptures. Made with artificial flowers, metal hardware, and these used electronic components, each one possesses a humanlike presence. Slow Burn is made from an artificial orchid, a neck massager, bits of metal that [...]

"This is no different from Comfort Women or the Holocaust," wrote South Korean President Lee Jae-myung on X last week, quoting a post with a video of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers throwing a body off a rooftop in Gaza. The president's post kicked off an internet firestorm for a thousand different reasons, not least because [...]

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday 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. The camera zooms in on two well-formed cheeks clad in white shorts. These buns of steel belong to [...]

In the latest sign of AI silly season, Allbirds, the shoe company, told the world it was now an AI company and briefly managed to septuple its stock price. The Newbird AI story is really just one of a bunch of things this week that made us wonder: have we reached the peak of AI, [...]

All empires eventually fall, and it seems the creative software industry has collectively decided that Adobe's time has come. The Creative Cloud provider's suite of design tools have been considered the industry standard for decades - despite unpopular decisions to fully embrace generative AI and abandon software licenses in favor of expensive, complicated subscriptions. Pricing [...]

This weekend's scheduled Blue Origin rocket launch is rather momentous. Success would signal an end to SpaceX's monopoly on reusable orbital launch vehicles, and set up a three-way race to make that "No Service" indicator on your phone disappear forever. On Sunday morning, Jeff Bezos' massive New Glenn rocket is scheduled to launch with the [...]

YouTube is making some changes that might affect how you share videos from the mobile app. From the app, you can finally share videos from a specific timestamp, which will make it easier to point someone to a part of a video you might want them to see while you're on your phone. However, this [...]

Google is reportedly partnering with Gucci to make a pair of AI smart glasses stylish enough people might actually want to wear them. According to Reuters, Gucci parent company Kering is planning to launch the glasses sometime in 2027. Google's first pair of Android XR glasses, "Project Aura," are expected to launch this year. They [...]

Connie Ballmer, wife of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and cofounder of the Ballmer Group, has given $80 million to NPR. That's roughly seven years' worth of government funding ($11.2m) after Trump and Congress cut funds for public media, but only a fraction of NPR's full annual budget of $300 million. NPR may still cut [...]

Netflix announced on Thursday that it will be launching a redesigned mobile app, which will include a vertical video feed, at the end of April. "This redesign will better reflect our expanding entertainment offering and make it easier for members to engage how and when they want," the company said in its Q1 2026 earnings [...]

Netflix cofounder and chairman Reed Hastings plans to leave the company after nearly 30 years. The news comes as part of Netflix's Q1 2026 earnings results released on Thursday, which says Hastings "will not stand for re-election to our Board when his current term expires at the Annual Meeting in June." After cofounding Netflix in [...]

After a jury found that Live Nation-Ticketmaster violated antitrust law on several counts, the company warns in a blog post that the verdict "is not the last word on this matter." The company plans to renew a motion for the judge to issue a ruling against the states, claiming that they did not prove their [...]

If you're struggling to get a full night of rest, a good pair of sleep earbuds can help you tune out unwanted distractions. The Ozlo Sleepbuds are one such option, and they're currently available for $249 ($100 off) in the run-up to Mother's Day at Amazon and Ozlo's online storefront, which is easily the lowest [...]