The Verge

Amazon has finally given a release date for its new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft and Kindle Scribe: They'll be available to purchase starting on December 10th, Amazon spokesperson Rachel Erickson tells The Verge. They'll cost the same as what Amazon announced back in September: $629.99 for the Colorsoft and $499.99 for the Scribe, which includes a [...]

This is Lowpass by Janko Roettgers, a newsletter on the ever-evolving intersection of tech and entertainment, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. Get ready for a lot more video content on Spotify. Sometime later this month, the service will start incorporating music videos into its app, and give US-based subscribers the ability [...]

It turns out my parents were wrong. Saying "please" doesn't get you what you want-poetry does. At least, it does if you're talking to an AI chatbot. That's according to a new study from Italy's Icaro Lab, an AI evaluation and safety initiative from researchers at Rome's Sapienza University and AI company DexAI. The findings [...]

OnePlus has launched its delayed US preorders for the flagship OnePlus 15, almost a month after the phone was revealed. The company has been able to start taking orders after receiving FCC clearance for the device -initially held back because of the government shutdown. The OnePlus 15 starts from $899.99 for 12GB of RAM and [...]

Elevation Lab has announced a smaller version of its TimeCapsule battery-boosting case for the Apple AirTag. It's about half the size of the original and uses a pair of smaller AAA batteries instead of AAs so the AirTag's battery life is extended to five years instead of 10. It's available now through the company's website [...]

The Apple Watch SE 3 was one of the best smartwatches we tested in 2025, and you can still pick up the 40mm GPS model for its Cyber Monday price of $199 ($50 off) at Amazon and Walmart. The 44mm GPS model is also matching its all-time low of $229.99 ($50 off) at Amazon and [...]

Meta may slash its budget for metaverse projects by up to 30 percent next year, according to a report from Bloomberg. Sources tell the outlet the potential cuts haven't been finalized, but they would impact the unit that works on Meta's Quest virtual reality headsets, along with its social platform Horizon Worlds. Meta, which changed [...]

Robot vacuums are impressive devices that will clean your floors well and - thanks to bigger batteries and better robot brains - rarely get tired of doing their job. Over the last few years, these floor-sweeping bots have gone from utilitarian devices to full-fledged home robots that vacuum and mop your home, clean themselves, and [...]

Proton has added a new privacy-focused spreadsheet app to its productivity suite to tempt users over from Google and Microsoft's platforms. The new Proton Sheets tool provides real-time collaboration features and end-to-end encryption, according to Proton's announcement, ensuring that no one else, not even Proton, can access your spreadsheet and the information it contains." A [...]

Today, I'm talking with Verge senior AI reporter Hayden Field about some of the people responsible for studying AI and deciding in what ways it might... well, ruin the world. Those folks work at Anthropic as part of a group called the societal impacts team, which Hayden just spent time with for a profile she [...]

Russia is restricting access to Roblox after the country's communications regulator Roskomnadzor accused it of promoting extremism and LGBT propaganda," according to reports from Reuters and Meduza. As reported by Meduza, Russian lawmakers began raising concerns about Roblox days after The Guardian published a report about the platform last month, detailing how the author was [...]

Nvidia launched its first RTX 50-series graphics cards earlier this year without support for PhysX, the GPU-accelerated technology that let games realistically simulate shattering glass, moving liquids, smoke, fog, and more. Now, Nvidia is bringing back PhysX support for the RTX 50-series GPUs for top-played games like Borderlands 2, Mirror's Edge, and Batman: Arkham City. [...]

It's about to be week 14 of the NFL season, and stakes and storylines abound across the league. In a new section of the Yahoo Sports app, Yahoo is hoping it can use AI to capture them all automatically. The company is launching a new feature called Game Breakdowns, which attempt to generate a snapshot [...]

The European Union has launched a formal investigation into Meta over antitrust concerns with AI restrictions in WhatsApp. The probe aims to prevent any possible irreparable harm to competition in the AI space" according to the EU, and follows Meta announcing changes to WhatsApp's terms for businesses in October that will prohibit companies from using [...]

When songwriter Patrick Irwin moved to Nashville last year, he was entering a lottery. Each day hundreds of sessions take place where writers create a song demo to pitch to a publisher. Publishers then share those songs with labels and managers, who may share those songs with the artists. Even if a major country star [...]

iPhone 17 Pro users have fewer ways to take photographs in low-light conditions compared to those using older iPhone models. Specifically, the option to select Night mode when taking snaps in Portrait mode - which gives the camera app an artsy depth-of-field effect - isn't supported on iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max devices, per [...]

With DJI facing an imminent import ban in the US and its flagship drones disappearing from shelves, the new Antigravity A1 didn't need to be a groundbreaking gadget to make headlines. It just needed to be a competent alternative that you can actually buy in the United States. In August, the Chinese brand couldn't promise [...]

BMW has been peppering us with teasers and bits and pieces about its next-gen EV platform, Neue Klasse, for so long - fully two years now - that I confess I've become a bit numb to the hype. I'd seen the dashboard-filling displays, talked to engineers endlessly about the completely retooled active safety suite, and [...]

It's getting harder and harder for the Hubble and other telescopes orbiting Earth to capture pristine images thanks to the sudden surge in satellite launches. Satellite trails could mess up nearly 40 percent of images the Hubble takes and up to 96 percent of those taken by three other telescopes over the next decade, according [...]

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. Dario Amodei took the stage at the DealBook Summit on Wednesday to throw punches without naming names. The Anthropic CEO spent a good chunk of the interview with Andrew [...]

Reddit is moving away" from r/popular, the default feed for new users, and plans to replace it with better, more relevant and personalized feeds," according to CEO Steve Huffman (aka Spez). Huffman also notes that r/popular sucks." For a long while, we were known as the front page of the internet,' but we've outgrown a [...]

President Donald Trump announced a new plan that lets carmakers pollute more by making less fuel efficient vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said today that it'll roll back fuel economy rules finalized last year by the Biden administration for model year 2022-2031 vehicles. The Trump administration has eliminated incentives for EV purchases, [...]

Alan Dye, who has led Apple's UI design team since 2015, is leaving to join Meta as its chief design officer, Bloomberg reports. He'll join Meta on December 31st, and Meta is opening a design studio and giving Dye oversight of design for hardware, software and AI integration for its interfaces," according to Bloomberg. Dye [...]

REI took a hike during Black Friday, but the retailer is back with a full week of deals. Now through December 8th, REI is hosting a Cyber Week sale that offers big discounts on gadgets and gear designed for the outdoors. If you're planning to hit the slopes this winter, now's a good time to [...]

MLB The Show is coming to iOS and Android. Sony has revealed MLB The Show Mobile, which it says is a new standalone experience built from the ground up to deliver realistic baseball gameplay on mobile devices." The game is live now only in the Philippines (here's a Google Play link for the game), and [...]

Woojer is best known for its vibrating vests and belt straps that let you feel the sounds from games, movies, and music. Now the company has taken that same haptic technology and incorporated it into a new mattress topper called the Woojer Mat that will let you feel those same vibrations across your entire body [...]

Micron is retiring the Crucial brand, marking the end of its line of budget-friendly solid-state drives (SSDs) and RAM kits, as reported earlier by VideoCardz. In an announcement on Wednesday, Micron says winding down its consumer-focused business will improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments" - a.k.a. AI companies. The [...]

Fitness trackers have come a long way from the simple bands that tracked steps and little else. Modern trackers can monitor everything from your heart health to how well you've recovered from a hard bout of training. Even flagship smartwatches, which used to be lackluster trackers, have become pretty adept workout companions. Whatever your fitness [...]

Smartwatches have become health gadgets. Over the last five years or so, Apple, Garmin, Google, Samsung, and practically every other company wanting to strap their wares to your wrist have emphasized exercise integrations, sleep tracking, hypertension monitoring, and more. The most expensive among these devices are also satellite communicators, because now that you have a [...]

Elon Musk envisions Grokipedia - xAI's AI-generated, anti-woke spin on Wikipedia - as a definitive monument to human knowledge, something complete and truthful enough to etch in stone and preserve in space. In reality, it's a hot mess, and it's only getting worse now that anyone can suggest edits. Grokipedia was not always editable. When [...]

Spotify may have popularized the Wrapped user recap trend, but more companies are jumping on that bandwagon every year. From rival music streaming providers like Apple, Amazon, YouTube, and Deezer, to completely unrelated services across tech, gaming, and other industries, a huge range of companies are using fun visuals, stats, and personalization features to show [...]

Resideo's newest thermostat looks like a compelling alternative to Nest or Ecobee if you're looking for a premium smart thermostat. TheHoneywell Home X8S is compatible with Matter, supports room sensors, and features a sleek 5-inch touchscreen that works as an intercom for Ring and First Alert video doorbells. The $219.99 thermostat launches this week, and [...]

Horses, a first-person narrative horror game, was banned from the Epic Games Store just hours before it was set to launch on December 2nd. Then, a day after launch, the Humble store banned it as well. The decision shocked the developers at Santa Ragione, makers of the critically respected Saturnalia, as these storefronts were the [...]

All I wanted was a pair of New Balances. I was done trusting stylish influencers who swore Vans, Converse, and Allbirds were up to the challenge of walking 20,000 steps day in and day out. They are not. Fall is the season of holiday sales, so there's no better time to shop... if you're immune [...]

Last year, the House of Representatives was the place where a leading kids online safety bill came to die. On Tuesday, a powerful House committee positioned itself as the place where that bill could be resurrected... along with 18 other proposals. During a three-hour hearing, an Energy and Commerce subcommittee discussed 19 bills recently packaged [...]

Billionaire Elon Musk - who's long used his X (formerly Twitter) platform to stoke anger at immigrants and support antisemitic conspiracy theories -has spent the past day spreading and praising claims that White people are on the verge of extinction," Somali immigrants have no right to be in America," and nonprofits who support them are [...]

After finally passing the 3 percent mark in October, Linux usage on Steam has peaked again in the November Steam Hardware & Software Survey. As of last month, Linux users accounted for 3.2 percent of all Steam users. That pales in comparison to Windows usage (94.79 percent), but it's still a boost from October and [...]

Garmin announced a new version of its inReach satellite communicator with major upgrades that expand and improve the ways you can keep in touch while you're adventuring outside cellphone coverage. The new inReach Mini 3 Plus now features a color display with touchscreen capabilities and adds voice messaging, longer text messages, and the ability to [...]

I was stoked to learn that the recently announced Sony A7 V had improved ergonomics. Just like I was happy to first hear that Sony's flagship A9 III and A1 II cameras got new ergonomic grip designs before that. I actually bought an A9 III to replace my aging A9 II for my wedding photography. [...]

Google has added some new features to its end-of-year Photos app throwback experience, including a selfie count, CapCut integration, and photo curation capabilities. The Google Photos Recap includes insights and graphics that summarize what users have been snapping over the year, and follows the updated presentation format Google introduced in 2024, which looks like a [...]

Earlier this year, a mysterious new company called Tensor announced itself to the world by claiming it would be the first to sell fully autonomous vehicles to customers at scale. The news didn't make much of a splash. No one had ever heard of Tensor, so it was the kind of announcement easy to dismiss [...]

Amazon has launched a new AI-powered feature for Fire TV that lets you jump to specific moments of a movie by describing the scene to Alexa Plus. The feature, which was previously announced during Amazon's hardware event in September, works with Prime Video and builds on the X-Ray feature that provides information about the content [...]

India's government retreated less than a week after sending a private order to smartphone manufacturers instructing them to preload a state-backed app on all phones in the region. The reversal comes after industry sources told Reuters that Apple planned to refuse to comply with the order. Sanchar Saathi is a security app operated by India's [...]

Do you love to tinker with your keyboard layout? Do you love trackballs and think that one that attaches magnetically to your keyboard would be the coolest thing ever? Are you willing to completely blow up your setup in pursuit of possibly huge - or possibly marginal - gains in comfort or efficiency? Then I [...]

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is one of those games that been a long time coming. Fans have been waiting almost a decade for the next entry in Samus' first-person adventures. Early previews painted an alarming picture of overly chatty sidekicks ruining what's traditionally a lonely and moody experience. Meanwhile formal reviews run a gamut of [...]

It's time for year-end lists, annual roundups, and, of course, Spotify Wrapped. The usual suspects are here, like your most listened to song, your total time listened, and your favorite artist. You also get your 2025 Wrapped playlist, which now shows how many times you listened to each of your top 100 tracks this year. [...]

Among a sea of new TVs, robovacs, and smart glasses, Yukai Engineering's Mirumi was a unique standout at CES 2025 earlier this year. The tiny robot has no practical purpose other than looking adorable and bringing a smile to people's faces by simulating an inquisitive personality. The company planned to release the companion bot sometime [...]

I love instant cameras because of how they help me slow down and be creative without the distractions of a phone. Holding a real print also feels grounding in a screen-dominated age, which is why I think a lot of people these days are drawn to them - and why models with old-school vibes like [...]

Indiegogo is planning to launch a new Express Crowdfunding" campaign format that lets creators ship things while the campaign is ongoing instead of forcing creators to wait until the campaign is over. Indiegogo spokesperson Maciej Kuc tells The Verge that the change was spurred by Indiegogo's recent move to the infrastructure from its new owner, [...]