The Verge

Nintendo's latest livestreamed event is highlighting the smattering of indie games coming to the Switch consoles later this year, and the Indie World Showcase is scheduled to start on Thursday, August 7th, at 9 AM ET. Hades 2 might make an appearance, and there's a slim chance the long-awaited Hollow Knight: Silksong might show up [...]

A California jury has found that Meta illegally collected user health data from the Flo period-tracking app, violating the state's wiretap law. The verdict concludes a lawsuit filed against Flo, Google, Meta, and app analytics company Flurry in 2021, in which Flo app users accused the companies of collecting their private menstrual health data without [...]

The day after he won an unprecedented $243 million verdict in a wrongful death case against Tesla, attorney Brett Schreiber posted a reel on Instagram celebrating the victory. His song pick: 1992's "Damn It Feels Good To Be a Gangsta" by the Geto Boys. "This is a verdict that will change the world," Schreiber wrote [...]

Apple is teaming up with Samsung to produce digital image sensors for future iPhone models, according to The Financial Times. This is tied to Apple's Wednesday announcement that it is working with Samsung's semiconductor facility in Austin, Texas, to launch an innovative new technology for making chips, which has never been used before anywhere in [...]

GitHub has accidentally announced OpenAI's new range of GPT-5 models. A now-deleted GitHub blog post reveals that GPT-5, which will be available in four different versions, offers major improvements in reasoning, code quality, and user experience." Reddit posters noticed a new GitHub blog post announcing that GPT-5 is generally available in GitHub models, before the [...]

Tom Conrad took over as CEO of Sonos in January as it continues to recover from last year's disastrous mobile app update, and now the company has issued its first quarterly earnings report after he dropped the interim tag from his title. Beyond the numbers, with $344.8 million in revenue and a net loss of [...]

In the very first week of his presidency, Donald Trump vowed to force silicon manufacturing back to the United States by making processors more expensive, a threat he's repeated since. Is he finally going through with that plan? Trump just announced he'll putting an enormous 100 percent tariff on chips and semiconductors - unless your [...]

At a White House press conference to discuss Apple's new US manufacturing plans, CEO Tim Cook presented a gift to President Donald Trump: a unique" piece of glass from iPhone glass manufacturer Corning that's set in a 24-karat gold base. The piece of glass is a large disc with the Apple logo cut into it. [...]

Google's Gemini AI now has a guided learning" mode that tries to help you actually understand the problems you're trying to learn about instead of just giving you the answer. Guided learning acts as a learning companion" that guides you with questions and step-by-step support," CEO Sundar Pichai says in a blog post. Answers from [...]

Apple is putting another $100 billion toward expanding manufacturing in the US as the company responds to pressure from President Donald Trump to manufacture more of its products in the US. The move builds upon the company's initial plan to invest $500 billion in the US over the next four years, and includes a new [...]

The future of Warner Bros. Games is unclear, as it shut down several studios and canceled anticipated games earlier this year. But there's no arguing that the company's back catalog of titles is full of gems, many of which are in Humble's great $12 bundle. Through August 27th, you can jump on this unbeatable deal [...]

Jurassic World: Archipelago is a new expansion pack for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 that lets aspiring pilots explore the five islands of the fictional Cinco Muertes Archipelago featured in the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies. Created by Australian developer Orbx that's known for its flight sim add-ons, the expansion lets you visit many locations [...]

OpenAI is teasing a big announcement on Thursday, and based on a not-so-subtle clue, it seems like the news will be the reveal of its long-awaited GPT-5 AI model. In a post on X, OpenAI announced a LIVE5TREAM THURSDAY 10AM PT" - notice that the s" in the word livestream is swapped for a 5." [...]

It's Tuesday, August 5th, and I have awoken to the news that Valentine, Grok's latest spicy AI companion, has been released! As an OnlyFans content creator and someone who spends a lot of time being paid to sext humans, the idea of flipping the script and interacting with a brooding sex bot as the person [...]

Google says its AI search features aren't tanking website traffic despite recent reports suggesting otherwise. In a blog post published on Wednesday, Google Search head Liz Reid says click volume from the search engine has remained relatively stable" when compared to the same time last year - though some types of websites are getting more [...]

Audio quality is always going to be a speaker's most important feature, but it doesn't hurt if it looks nice too. In our tests, Bose's SoundLink Home is a solid sounding, aesthetically pleasing portable Bluetooth speaker that you can currently pick up for $199.99 ($20 off) from Amazon, Best Buy, and Bose. The SoundLink Home's [...]

To better protect against cheaters, Activision says that Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 players on PC will need to use hardware with Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 and have Windows' Secure Boot feature turned on when the game is available later this year. Ahead of that, Activision is doing a phased rollout" of the [...]

Microsoft started testing its Xbox Copilot on iOS and Android earlier this year, and now it's bringing the chatbot to the Game Bar feature on Windows 11. Xbox Insiders can start testing a preview of the Gaming Copilot integration in the Game Bar today, and Microsoft is planning further optimizations" for this new feature on [...]

Today, I'm excited to announce three newsletter offerings, exclusive to Verge subscribers, that will continue to deliver must-read stories about tech and beyond. First, we're introducing Regulator by Tina Nguyen. Regulator is focused on the battles between Big Tech and Big Government - from the juicy palace intrigue to the devastating consequences of their political [...]

You'll often see tech policy reporting described as the intersection of technology and politics, and for years, that was a pretty accurate description: Silicon Valley existed independent of Washington politics, and every so often, they'd cross paths, discuss some regulatory concern, write a check, shake hands, and then go their separate ways. This is no [...]

I'm excited to announce The Stepback, a weekly subscriber-only newsletter that I'll be editing for The Verge. We'll be bringing you a new story each Sunday from a rotating cast of writers from every corner of the Verge extended universe. If you're a regular reader, you know we cover a broad range of topics across [...]

Nintendo recently made the unexpected decision to increase the prices of its last-gen Switch hardware due to market conditions," adding $30 to the cost of the $199.99 Switch Lite, $40 to the standard $299.99 Switch, and $50 to the $349.99 Switch OLED. The price difference between the Switch OLED and the standalone Switch 2 now [...]

Disney is planning to fully integrate Hulu with Disney Plus, creating a unified" app experience that will launch next year, the company announced as part of its earnings results on Wednesday. The new app will put all of Hulu's content into Disney Plus, calling the future of Hulu's standalone app into question. With Disney's deal [...]

Since its launch in 2022, the capabilities of Sonos Voice Control have expanded to include setting timers and checking the weather. But by the end of this year, the smart assistant will introduce compatibility with the Philips Hue smart home platform allowing it to also control lights through voice commands, according to Hueblog. In late [...]

Instagram is getting several new features that pull from competitors, and it's updating a controversial feature that it added earlier this year. Starting today, users will have the ability to repost public Reels and grid posts from other accounts. And similar to TikTok, reposts will be collected in a designated tab on your profile and [...]

These days, Paducah, Kentucky - population 27,000 and home to the National Quilt Museum - prides itself as "Quilt City." But decades ago, it was also called the "Atomic City" - a moniker it could soon regain as AI's energy needs bring Paducah's nuclear past back to life. The Department of Energy (DOE) operated a [...]

Jeff Buckley captivated an audience of generations with his transcendent voice and soaring guitar. After his untimely passing in 1997 at age 30, he gained posthumous, cult-like status. Never one for the charts, his album Grace has stood the test of time and is listed on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. His [...]

Disney announced that it will no longer report on subscriber numbers for its streaming services in its quarterly financial reports, following in the footsteps of Netflix. The decision comes after a quarter in which it reported 2.6 million new Disney Plus and Hulu subscribers, bringing it to 183 million in total. The decision was announced [...]

The launch of ESPN's long-awaited standalone streaming service is just weeks away. Alongside its earnings results on Wednesday, Disney revealed that ESPN's streaming service and its enhanced" app will arrive on August 21st for $29.99 per month. ESPN's new streaming service, which remains separate from ESPN Plus, will offer access to the network's linear channels, [...]

Nvidia's chief security officer has published a blog post insisting that its GPUs do not and should not have kill switches and backdoors." It comes amid pressure from both sides of the Pacific, with some US lawmakers pushing Nvidia to grant the government backdoors to AI chips, while Chinese officials have alleged that they already [...]

OpenAI released a new free and open GPT model yesterday that can run on a PC, and now Microsoft is making that easy to do for Windows users. The lightweight gpt-oss-20b model is now available on Windows AI Foundry, and will be coming soon to macOS, too. You'll need a PC or laptop with at [...]

Researchers have already found a critical vulnerability in the new NLWeb protocol Microsoft made a big deal about just just a few months ago at Build. It's a protocol that's supposed to be HTML for the Agentic Web," offering ChatGPT-like search to any website or app. Discovery of the embarrassing security flaw comes in the [...]

Google's August Pixel update includes a fix for Android's three-button navigation and gesture navigation systems becoming unresponsive. The issues appear to have started popping up shortly after the official release of Android 16 in June. Ever since that update, the user said that navigation has been a complete mess" and that they ran into issues [...]

If you know where to look, it's surprisingly easy to save on an iPad - even outside of major sales events like Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday. Here's an insider tip: Skip the Apple Store, where discounts are almost nonexistent. Instead, your best bet is to check third-party retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Best [...]

Apple is suing the owner of the Apple Cinemas theater chain, Sand Media, over alleged trademark infringement, as reported by Reuters. In the lawsuit, Apple alleges that Apple Cinemas and Sand Media have made efforts to capitalize on the highly-regarded Apple brand in connection with the aggressive nationwide expansion" and that they have refused to [...]

Connecting to free airport or hotel Wi-Fi can often be a time-consuming and frustrating task that doesn't seem worth the effort for a bag full of wireless devices. TP-Link has announced its first Wi-Fi 7 travel router, providing up to a total of 3.6 Gbps of bandwidth while also making it easier to get multiple [...]

Google rolled out a new tool within its Gemini AI chatbot that lets you create an illustrated story by simply describing it. The feature, called Storybook," generates 10-page stories, each with a short paragraph of text that Gemini can read aloud and an illustration. You can customize your story by asking Gemini to use specific [...]

OpenAI is releasing a new open-weight model dubbed GPT-OSS that can be downloaded for free, be customized, and even run on a laptop. The model comes in two variants: 120-billion-parameter and 20-billion-parameter versions. The bigger version can run on a single Nvidia GPU and performs similarly to OpenAI's existing o4-mini model, while the smaller version [...]

With back-to-school season in full swing, it feels like we're stumbling on great deals for students every day. From Kindles to MacBooks, many of our favorite gadgets are currently receiving a discount - including Sony's latest noise-canceling headphones, the WH-1000XM6. Right now, you can pick them up at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target for around [...]

Camp Snap, a brand known for its budget-friendly screen-free digital cameras, has announced its first video camera. The new Camp Snap CS-8's design was inspired by the Super 8mm film cameras released by companies like Kodak and Canon in the 60s and 70s. Its functionality is similarly limited and streamlined to make the CS-8 user-friendly, [...]

The "spicy" mode for Grok's new generative AI video tool feels like a lawsuit waiting to happen. While other video generators like Google's Veo and OpenAI's Sora have safeguards in place to prevent users from creating NSFW content and celebrity deepfakes, Grok Imagine is happy to do both simultaneously. In fact, it didn't hesitate to [...]

The Google Pixel 9A is a midrange phone done right, offering a great balance of hardware, features, and value. Normally it costs $499, but now you can scoop up the 128GB model for an all-time low of $399 ($100 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store. The Pixel A-series has long been our [...]

WhatsApp is adding another feature designed to protect you from group chat scams. Now, when someone you might not know invites you to a group chat, the app will display a new safety overview" that appears before you can even see the messages. The overview will include information about the group, including when it was [...]

Today, Roku announced the forthcoming arrival of Howdy, a new monthly subscription service that will give its users access to a massive catalog of on-demand films and series. Like other streamers, Howdy will feature a selection of programming licensed from other studios, including Lionsgate and Warner Bros., as well as some of its Roku Original [...]

Fox has finally revealed more information about its new streaming service that will offer access to news and sports across the media company's channels. The service, called Fox One, will cost $19.99 per month or $199.99 per year when it launches on August 21st - just weeks before the start of the 2025 NFL season [...]

When a Trump-branded phone on a Trump-branded mobile network launches sometime this year (if all goes according to plan), US regulators will face what's become a recurring conundrum in Donald Trump's presidency: how to regulate a product with ties to the head of state. Six Democratic lawmakers are confronting key federal agencies with that very [...]

General Motors claimed a new world record for EV driving on a single charge, after a Chevy Silverado EV traveled 1,059.2 miles without recharging its battery. The potentially record-breaking run took place over seven days on public roads near GM's Milford Proving Ground and Detroit's Belle Isle using smart driving techniques" that included limiting the [...]

Google DeepMind is releasing a new version of its AI world" model, called Genie 3, capable of generating 3D environments that users and AI agents can interact with in real time. The company is also promising that users will be able to interact with the worlds for much longer than before and that the model [...]

Google is set to take the wraps off the latest additions to the Pixel lineup in just a couple of weeks, but some devices might not be available at launch. A new report from WinFuture suggests that Google is having supply chain problems" that could push back the release of the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, [...]

Let's be real: the internet is full of a lot of the same stuff. From derivative content on social media to websites that all look the same, what was once a portal to new worlds and experiences has been feeling a bit dry recently, like I've seen all this stuff before. And now, even the [...]