The Verge

If the only thing Roland ever released was the TR-808, the company would still deserve a place in the music gear hall of fame. The 808 is arguably the most important instrument since the creation of the electric guitar. It's been a cornerstone of hip-hop, electronic, and pop music for 45 years now, used by [...]

Life is a series of battles, and I just lost my last one against four gyoza on a skewer. It was an unexpected blow, because honestly, who could have expected me - a springy, respectably proportioned hot dog - to lose against a seemingly inflexible spear of small, unassuming dumplings? This is my struggle in [...]

We've been working on a new show for the last few months, called Version History, and the first episode is now live! It's called "Hoverboards: so hot right now," and it's an hour-long tour of the biggest rideable gadget of the 2010s. Hidden inside the history of this weird two-wheeled scooter is a crucial inflection [...]

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the intersection of transportation and technology, follow Andrew J. Hawkins. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started I vividly remember the first time I [...]

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 100, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, get ready for a big gadget week, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about Tim Berners-Lee and stain removers and [...]

Amazon's Prime Big Deal Days may bring some great Kindle deals, but if you can't wait, you don't have to. Right now, the Kindle Kids (Amazon, Best Buy, and Target) and Kindle Colorsoft Kids (Amazon, Best Buy, and Target) are down to their lowest prices ever, but my favorite deal is on the Kindle Paperwhite [...]

Spotify has found itself the target of artists' ire for many reasons over the years: poor audio quality, terrible payouts, giving Joe Rogan millions of dollars... the list goes on. But recently it's been CEO and founder Daniel Ek's extracurricular activities that have been cause for consternation. Over the past few months his funding of [...]

Robot vacuums that mop well rarely come cheap, but thankfully, some of our favorite models are receiving a significant discount ahead ofAmazon's next Prime Day eventnext week. Right now, the Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni and the newer Deebot X9 Pro Omni are on sale at Amazon for Prime members for $799.99 ($300 off) and [...]

Have you tried simply uploading a photo to Instagram lately? It's a minefield. Is that a Story, a Post, or a Reel? Do you want to add music? A caption? A prompt, which is... different than a caption, somehow? How about a poll? A fundraiser? More text, but this time on top of the image? [...]

Last week at the Zurich Film Festival, Eline Van der Velden - founder and CEO of AI production house Particle6 and its subsidiary talent studio Xicoia - said that a number of talent agents had expressed interest in working with Tilly Norwood, an AI-generated "actress" created by the companies. Van der Velden has not gone [...]

There's a lot of math in diet culture. It's all numbers - calories in, calories burned - and a constant tally running in one's head. In some ways, disordered eating can be considered a disturbed sort of strategy game, which is precisely why Jenny Jiao Hsia and AP Thomson's Consume Me works so well. The [...]

Breaking up Google's ad tech monopoly is, apparently, like going to Mars or trying to replace Michael Jordan - dubiously possible and a huge amount of work. Those were some of the analogies witnesses testifying in Google's defense told a federal judge this week as the company mounts its second attempt to stave off a [...]

I was cautiously optimistic about Acer's Chromebook Plus Spin 514 when I tested a preproduction model last month, but the final unit is here now and it sticks the landing. Well, mostly. Acer's latest convertible Chromebook has zippy performance and oodles of battery life, along with a good touchscreen with stylus support. But crappy speakers [...]

After getting off the phone with Oregon Governor Tina Kotek on Saturday, the president mused over something that had baffled him about the call. Kotek had been "very nice," said Trump in an interview the next day. But she was trying hard to convince him not to send in the National Guard, and that just [...]

One of Discord's third-party customer service providers was compromised by an unauthorized party," the company says. The unauthorized party gained access to information from a limited number of users who had contacted Discord through our Customer Support and/or Trust & Safety teams" and aimed to extort a financial ransom from Discord." The unauthorized party did [...]

This is an excerpt of Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. The billboard didn't say "Listen Labs." It didn't say anything about hiring. It consisted of just a plain white background with "https://" and a single line of grouped numbers [...]

Unity is urging developers to take immediate action" after it disclosed a major security vulnerability affecting games built using versions of its popular development tool dating back to 2017. While there is no evidence of any exploitation of the vulnerability, nor has there been any impact on users or customers," Unity already has fixes available [...]

Just one day after Apple took down the iOS App Store listing for ICEBlock, Google has confirmed to 404 Media that it has removed a similar app, Red Dot, from the Google Play Store. The company also reportedly said it removed apps that share the location of what it describes as a vulnerable group after [...]

Amazon's list of 4K-capable streaming sticks got bigger - and more confusing - after its hardware event this week. The $39.99 4K Select will be released on October 15th, joining the 4K and the 4K Max. You're not alone if you find it tough to tell which is best just by going off names, and [...]

Hori has announced another addition to the ever-growing list of cheaper alternatives to Nintendo's $90 Switch 2 Pro Controller. The Wireless Horipad Turbo is around $35 cheaper than Nintendo's, and while it lacks a lot of premium features such as Amiibo support and the ability to remotely wake the Switch 2, it adds a lock [...]

Tesla's long-rumored more affordable electric vehicle won't be out until next year, but it was recently spotted uncamouflaged on a highway in Texas. And no, your eyes are not fooling you; it's just a cheaper version of the Model Y. The rumor that the affordable EV would just be a bare-bones Model Y has been [...]

An anime version of Jesus Christ flipping tables. OpenAI employees performing in Hamilton costumes. News anchors discussing a story on television. A man doing a thirst-trap TikTok dance. Sam Altman - stealing GPUs on CCTV, listening to a business pitch, crying. Such were the contents of my feed on Sora, OpenAI's new social media app [...]

About two months ago, John P. Coale, one of many lawyers representing Donald Trump in a personal capacity, met with several Alphabet executives, mediators, and lawyers at Mar-a-Lago - along with his client. They all spent a lovely day at the palatial Florida estate, and Trump treated them to lunch as they chatted about anything [...]

Sony is now selling a revised model of the digital PS5 slim in the US that has less storage than the original version. The updated model with 825GB of internal SSD storage instead of 1TB recently went on sale in Europe, but now it's available to buy on the US PlayStation Direct website as well. [...]

Hoto's latest electric screwdriver introduces a couple of novel usability improvements. Now, you'll find a pixelated display on the business end of the driver showing details like its remaining battery life, while a multi-function button lets you adjust its speed and switch directions with just one finger. The new PixelDrive features a similarly sleek design [...]

It's been a while since Kodak launched a new film, and even longer since it actually distributed its own. But the company caught people by surprise yesterday when it announced two new film products - Kodacolor 100 and Kodacolor 200. Just as important, it announced that it would be distributing them itself, rather than going [...]

Microsoft is getting ready to announce an ad-supported version of Xbox Cloud Gaming. Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell The Verge that the software maker has started testing ad-supported games streaming internally, allowing employees to play select titles free without a Game Pass subscription. I understand that the free ad-supported version of Xbox Cloud Gaming [...]

Amazon announced a bunch of new hardware earlier in the week, but the Echo Show 21 wasn't updated and remains its biggest smart display. You can get a bundle that includes the Echo Show 21 and its Premium Adjustable Stand for $439.99 ($84.99 off) at Amazon. If you don't have a stand, the Echo Show [...]

In August 2002, I was probably back-to-school shopping with my mom at our local mall, bouncing from store to store for backpacks, socks, and a first-day-of-school outfit. Gap was no doubt one of our stops - and thanks to Michael Bise, I now know what music was playing as we browsed. When Bise first started [...]

The family of 19-year-old Krysta Tsukahara has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Tesla, alleging its dangerously defective" Cybertruck door handle design trapped her inside a burning vehicle, as first reported by The New York Times. The lawsuit, filed in a California court on Thursday, claims Tesla continued to sell its vehicles despite repeated and [...]

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest phones, smartwatches, apps, and other gizmos that swear they're going to change your life. Optimizer arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 10AM ET. Opt in for Optimizer here. The New York City subway is [...]

Back in 2023, Telly CEO Ilya Pozin came on The Vergecast and made a surprisingly compelling case for the existence of a TV that doesn't cost you a dime - but shows ads all the time. It's a reasonable business model, and a pretty good deal for consumers! But as The Verge's Emma Roth discovered, [...]

Hi! I'm Jennifer Pattison Tuohy (aka Jen), The Verge's smart home reviewer. I just spent the last week in New York City checking out the new smart displays, smart speakers, smart voice assistants, and smart security cameras launched by Amazon and Google. I haven't tested any of them yet, but I've had some hands-on time [...]

Japan is facing a potential shortage of Asahi beer after a cyberattack against the beverage maker forced its systems offline. Asahi Group issued a statement on Monday announcing that order, shipment, and call center operations at the company had been suspended due to the systems outage, and that the disruption was limited to Japan. The [...]

Apple has removed the Waze but for ICE sightings" app ICEBlock from its App Store, as reported previously by Business Insider. A post from its developer relayed Apple's App Review message about the ban, saying, We just received a message from Apple's App Review that #ICEBlock has been removed from the App Store due to [...]

On Thursday afternoon, after agreeing to a short extension while they continued negotiations, NBCUniversal and YouTube announced a new carriage deal to keep the network's channels live on the streaming TV service. If the process sounds familiar, it's because the same thing happened the last time their contract was renewed in 2021. They didn't reveal [...]

There's a new twist in the long and winding saga of Redbox's demise: Assets originally belonging to the company's corporate parent, Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, may have finally found a buyer. But don't expect a resurrection of Redbox's red kiosks, or Chicken Soup's Crackle streaming service, any time soon. According to a late [...]

Microsoft recently announced price hikes for some tiers of Xbox Game Pass, including Ultimate and PC Game Pass. The Ultimate tier, which offers the most games and features (as well as access to PC Game Pass), went from $19.99 per month to $29.99. Those who subscribe to PC Game Pass are now being charged $16.49 [...]

Shein has announced plans to open its first physical locations in France this November, even as the country works on legislation to regulate the fast-fashion industry, as reported by Euronews and Reuters. The online retailer, which manufactures most of its ultra-cheap clothing in China, will open locations inside department stores across Dijon, Grenoble, Reims, Limoges, [...]

This week, Ring, an Amazon-owned smart security company, announced Search Party, a new feature to help find lost dogs. When someone posts a picture of a lost dog on Ring's Neighbors app, they will be able to initiate a Search Party. Ring then uses AI to scan footage from nearby outdoor Ring cameras and doorbells [...]

To WikiHow, Google is both tormentor and savior. And on Wednesday, as the search giant mounted its defense in the ongoing ad tech remedies trial, the how-to site came to Google's rescue. WikiHow CEO Elizabeth Douglas described to a court how websites like hers are the middle of an "AI apocalypse." WikiHow, a website that [...]

Strava is suing its long-time partner Garmin, and wants to block the company from selling most of its current fitness and cycling gadget lineup. The lawsuit filed in the US District Court of Colorado on September 30th, first reported by DC Rainmaker, alleges that Garmin violated an agreement between the companies by infringing on Strava's [...]

Amazon recently announced that its fall Prime Day sale - once again dubbed Prime Big Deal Days - will kick off on Tuesday, October 7th, and run through October 8th. While you have a week or so to get your wishlist in order, the retailer isn't waiting for the main event to roll out the [...]

Sadly, the prices of the Xbox Series X and Series S are set to rise in the U.S. starting tomorrow, October 3rd, 2025. That makes today your last chance to snag an Xbox Series S - either the 512GB model for $379.99 (which is even cheaper on sale for $329.99 at Amazon) or the 1TB [...]

Amazon has announced a new shopping feature for US Prime members called Add to Delivery that lets you add additional items to completed orders that have yet to be delivered, instead of having to create an entirely new order. The feature is only available on Amazon's app and on Amazon.com when accessed on mobile devices, [...]

Elon Musk says he canceled his Netflix subscription and is telling others to do the same over the presence of transgender characters in series that made their debut (and in some cases ended) years ago. Earlier this week, Musk reshared a post on X attacking Dead End: Paranormal Park, an animated series geared toward kids, [...]

After launching to subscribers willing to fork out hundreds of dollars a month this summer, Perplexity's agentic AI browser Comet is now available to everyone for free. The internet is better on Comet," the company says, promising to remain free forever as it styles the browser as a serious challenger to Google's Chrome. Comet puts [...]

Threads is testing a new feature called communities globally on its web platform and mobile apps, which will serve as dedicated spaces where you can find content or posts about your favorite topics. Starting today, you can explore different communities surrounding things like professional basketball, K-pop, books, TV shows, AI, and more. You can join [...]

Last month, I had a conversation with someone wearing glasses - and couldn't see that they had a display right in front of one of their eyes. Through a monitor connected to the glasses, I watched in awe as my colleague Victoria Song scrolled through and wrote WhatsApp messages, used the display as a viewfinder [...]

When Microsoft first revealed that it would be giving day-one Game Pass releases to all of its own Xbox games back in 2018, it suddenly turned the subscription service into a must-have for many fans. It was lauded as "the best deal in gaming," with memes about just how good a value Xbox Game Pass [...]