1stHeadlinesBreaking News Headlines

The Verge

Technology · RSS · up to 100 stored headlines · Visit site

Text size100%

Data centers lost the midterms

Data center developers are poised to face a more restrictive building environment after voters across the country voted in candidates who favor moratoriums and ballot measures that put more obstacles on their expansion, delivering a stinging blow to a central pillar of the AI industry. Of voters polled by NBC News on…

Uber only fulfilled 4 rides from AI agents last quarter

AI agents won't be stealing Uber's lunch any time soon. Only four rides were arranged by third-party AI agents during the third quarter of 2026, Uber executives disclosed during an earnings call this morning. The volume of Uber Eats orders fulfilled by AI agents was a little higher, with the company recording "around…

My favorite 25W wireless power bank is down to $35

If you’re someone who owns an iPhone, you might have considered getting a MagSafe power bank that can quickly recharge it. I tested a handful of options that claim to deliver 25W Qi2.2 speeds wirelessly, and my top pick was Baseus’ AM52 10,000mAh battery, which happens to be steeply discounted right now at Amazon…

Not even $200 million could help Elon Musk buy Texas

James Talarico, the Democratic Texas senator-elect, not only managed to flip the state in yesterday's midterms but prevailed in the most expensive Senate election to date. More than $573 million was spent on advertisements between Talarico, his Republican opponent Ken Paxton, and their aligned PACs. And a big chunk of…

Bluetooth is getting a big boost to data transfer speeds

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) that oversees the wireless standard has formally adopted Bluetooth High Data Throughput (HDT) as an optional feature of the Bluetooth Core 7.0. It's an upgrade the Bluetooth SIG has been previewing over the past year that increases Bluetooth LE's maximum supported bit rate…

The fight for tech accountability starts now

When Donald Trump began his second term as president, Silicon Valley gratefully embraced moral nihilism. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and more collectively donated millions to Trump's inauguration fund to ensure his favor in a new era of gangster tech regulation. Meta overhauled its content policy to allow calling gay…

SpaceX is working with Qualcomm to build its Starlink Mobile 5G network

SpaceX is teaming up with Qualcomm to build out its nationwide mobile network. Under the multi-year deal, SpaceX will bring Qualcomm's Dragonwing technology to "tens of thousands" of 5G cell sites across the US, with the first deployments set for 2027. The news of the partnership comes as part of SpaceX's push to make…

Does opting out of TV tracking work?

The fact our TVs are gathering our information isn't new, but what and how they're tracking - and if we can stop it - is hard to figure out. Researchers at Northeastern University monitored 12 TVs from 10 manufacturers to test whether opting out of automatic content recognition (ACR) actually works. While opting out…

Google hasn’t figured out how to make AI pay like its search engine

Search queries are growing at their fastest rate in five years, Google parent Alphabet said in its earnings report last week. However, Google's Search revenue growth slowed to 12 percent year over year in the third quarter, down from roughly 17 percent in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, growth in paid clicks - clicks…

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time never gets old

Breath of the Wild changed everything. Two decades after The Legend of Zelda made the transformational shift to 3D, Breath of the Wild reinvigorated the franchise with an open-ended adventure that was built around player freedom and expression. Instead of following a set path, players could go wherever they wanted and…

AMD rides data center riches to ‘largest and most profitable’ quarter in history

AMD CEO Lisa Su said in the company's quarterly earnings call on Tuesday that Q3 2026 was "was the largest and most profitable in our history." AMD reported a record $13.4 billion in quarterly revenue, and it's predicting it will hit another record high next quarter of $17 billion. The company's data center business is

All the news about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake

Ahead of the release of Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto VI, Nintendo is launching its own fall juggernaut: a Switch 2 remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The remake, which is releasing 28 years after the launch of the original version on Nintendo 64, has a much more realistic visual style and

The biggest modding site in PC gaming is taking a stance on AI

The PC gaming mods repository Nexus Mods is making disclosures about AI mandatory for uploads of new mods, meaning that mod authors will have to declare "whether AI has been used in their work," the site announced today as part of a big post about AI-generated content on the platform. "One of the most consistent

Please stop asking me when the AI bubble will pop

People, including on this staff, keep asking me with varying degrees of excitement or trepidation when the AI bubble will burst. I'll tell you what I tell them: If I knew that, I would make a life-changing bet on the market, levered up as far as I could, and then, after I made my money,

Canva is announcing changes and layoffs affecting 22 percent of its staff

Canva is making significant changes affecting 1,271 people, which is 22 percent of its staff, co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins announced today. "For some people, this will mean changes to their roles or being asked to relocate to centralised hubs," says Perkins. "Sadly, it will also mean saying goodbye to teammates…

Sonos adds new Presets and prepares for the 27voice AI beta

Sonos is rolling out a big app update that includes new Presets and early access to its AI voice assistant. You can create a preset to play music at a specific volume in a certain room, which will appear directly on the homescreen so you can quickly start playback. If you're in the US, you

Here’s what it’s like to use Audio Intelligence on the Apple Watch

It's impossible to paint a full picture of what Audio Intelligence on the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 will be right now. The watchOS 27.3 developer beta just dropped earlier this afternoon, and these features are meant to be lived with in day-to-day life. We're definitely going to do that over the next

Those Jeff Bezos hair transplant photos are very fake

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and actor Jason Statham have a distinctive feature in common: They're both famously bald, and that definitely hasn't changed in the last few days. However, there are some images of the two men circulating around X, Threads, and Bluesky in which they both have substantially more hair than…

The Pixel Buds Pro 2 have returned to their lowest price to date

Android owners looking for an earbud upgrade are in luck. The Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 are back down to $169 at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store, matching the lowest price we’ve seen. Google’s site claims the deal will last until 11:59PM PT on November 8th, and other retailers will likely follow suit.

iPhone 18 rumors suggest a bigger battery, higher price next year

After Apple raised iPhone prices earlier this year, a new rumor claims it plans to launch the base iPhone 18 with a higher price, too. A Weibo post from leaker Digital Chat Station, spotted by 9to5Mac, says the base iPhone 18 is getting a couple of upgrades with the price hike, including a larger battery

Apple starts giving Siri AI access to third-party apps

Apple will now let Siri AI perform actions across third-party apps. As part of the iOS 27.3 update rolling out on Tuesday, Apple announced developers can now integrate Siri AI's new features in "all apps," allowing the voice assistant to draw on a user's personal context, process natural language prompts, and use…

You can’t hit a wrong note when playing along with songs on Casio’s new keyboard

Casio announced a new addition to its Casiotone line of portable electronic keyboards with a feature that could help aspiring musicians master skills like rhythm and timing without the frustrations or discouragement of hitting the wrong note. The Casiotone CT-FS1 is available now for $399.99 in a monochromatic black…

Apple’s latest watchOS beta includes its new always-on Audio Intelligence features

Starting today, Siri can tune into the Apple Watch's mic with Audio Intelligence features that are available in the new watchOS 27.3 developer beta rolling out now. The two new additions are Siri Recap, which uses "ambient listening" to generate summaries of your conversation, and Live Rewind, which generates text…

OpenAI says ChatGPT is catching up to Google in search

In many circles, "Ask Chat" has replaced "Google it," and that's reflected in a new announcement from OpenAI: the volume of search queries run through ChatGPT now equals 20 percent of the volume run through Google. Adam Fry, OpenAI's consumer product lead for ChatGPT, made the announcement at a press event on Monday…

Reddit is adding more ads

Reddit is testing ads on another area of its platform: search. With this update, ads will appear within your search results "based on a range of factors, including contextual relevance to a search query," according to Reddit. That means searching for "espresso station" could present you with ads for espresso…

Indie games are missing launch dates because Steam is backed up

Many indie game developers have recently posted on social media about unexpectedly long approval wait times for their game submissions on Steam, with some of the approvals causing developers to miss their planned launch dates. For example, Studio Daimon, the team behind an upcoming title called Food Devils, had…

Google’s Gemini-powered Home Speaker is already on sale for 20 percent off

If you’re looking for a good smart speaker, the Google Home Speaker is down to around $79 ($20 off) in all four colors at Best Buy, Walmart, and Target. That’s the best price we’ve seen for the Gemini-powered speaker, which launched in June and represents Google’s first smart speaker in several years. In her review,

Netflix will show you themed recommendations through a new ‘AI Discover’ tab

Netflix's TV app is getting a new "AI Discover" tab where the company will show experimental, AI-powered features to help you find new shows and movies to watch. The first of these experiments surfaces content based around themes, like "Something Light," "Family Movie Night," or "Quick Watches." When you pick a theme…

Moft’s new origami case adds a kickstand and grip to the iPhone Duo

Originally released in early 2025 as an accessory for the iPad, Moft has redesigned its Dynamic Folio as a case for the iPhone Duo that does more than just protect Apple's folding phone. You can use it to prop the Duo up at several different angles for hands-free use, or reconfigure the Dynamic Folio's origami-like

The Xbox Nano has a hidden cloud secret

Microsoft is about to launch its new Xbox Nano controller tomorrow, and the tiny device has a little secret. The Nano can connect directly to Xbox Cloud Gaming over Wi-Fi to improve latency. It's a feature Microsoft hasn't officially announced yet, but one I've been anticipating since the Xbox Nano leaked earlier this…

Google is entirely disabling Search in schools that don’t want AI

Google is completely turning off Search in schools that reject its AI features, the company told The New York Times. The decision was also shared in a broader education-related update from Google on Tuesday, saying that access to Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom, and Google Search "will be entirely off"…

Windows 11 is now ‘up to 40 percent faster’ on PCs with 8GB of RAM

Microsoft has been doing a lot of work to improve memory usage and increase performance on Windows 11 PCs over the past year. Last month the company revealed Windows 11 is now "more responsive" and runs better on PCs with 8GB of RAM, and now the company is releasing a new update today that includes

Xbox’s smallest-ever controller is surprisingly comfortable

Even though I knew Microsoft's new Xbox Nano controller was tiny, I still gasped when I unboxed it a few days ago. The compact controller is small enough to slip into a pocket unnoticed, and it has been designed specifically for younger people, or for anyone with smaller hands. I'm not young, but I do

Midterm elections 2026: all the news

The 2026 midterm elections will determine the scope of President Donald Trump’s power in his final two years in office, and signal what voters care about going into the 2028 presidential election. While this year’s races are expected to be most broadly defined by affordability issues, there are several topics…

Apple is all in on AI — its own and everyone else’s

Apple's latest earnings show how it's continuing to capitalize on the AI boom without busting its budget on the infrastructure spending consuming its competitors. Overall, Apple posted its best-ever fiscal year for revenue and earnings per share. iPhone and Mac sales continued to grow strongly in the fourth quarter…

GTA VI’s download will need up to 212GB of hard drive space

You're going to need a lot of extra storage space on your console if you're planning to play Grand Theft Auto VI later this month. Rockstar Games confirmed on Tuesday that the pre-load file will require up to 212GB "depending on your device." Rockstar says you can start pre-loading the game on the PlayStation 5

The Elder Scrolls VI officially has a name: Sentinel

Bethesda is officially confirming today that the next Elder Scrolls game will be called The Elder Scrolls VI Sentinel. The confirmation came in a less than 10-minute video celebrating 40 years of Bethesda game studios. It's been more than eight years since Bethesda officially announced the existence of the sixth game…

OpenAI is quietly renaming data centers ‘compute campuses’

People hate data centers. They're loud, resource-hungry eyesores that are so profoundly unpopular they have managed to achieve the near-impossible in today's polarized political landscape: genuine bipartisan opposition. But what about "compute campuses"? Those sound lovely, right? OpenAI seems to be gambling that a…

A truck-sized NASA space telescope is about to crash to Earth

Almost 22 years after it was launched, NASA's Swift Observatory is now about to fall back to Earth on Wednesday after attempts to push it back into a higher orbit failed. NASA announced that the aging space telescope is anticipated to re-enter Earth's atmosphere at approximately 3:30AM ET (give or take 11 hours) and…

Adobe’s Premiere mobile app is adding licensed music from ‘leading artists’

Adobe is teaming up with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group to add a library of licensed music clips to the Premiere mobile video editing app. No specific musicians have been announced with this partnership, but Adobe said it will include "popular songs" from "leading artists," and enable Premiere mobile…

The 2026 iPad Mini is a terrific tiny tablet — for a big price

The iPad Mini sometimes feels like a trap. It is, in some ways and for some people, the perfect iPad: meaningfully larger than my phone's screen but still small and light enough to use for reading in bed or gaming on the subway. As most of the rest of the iPad line has tilted ever

Bambu’s nine-nozzle H3C foretells the future of 3D printing

Three years ago, I told you how home 3D printers had evolved for speed, producing parts in minutes that used to take hours or days. Now, the next evolution is here: printers that can swap between materials on the fly, mix different colors to produce nearly the full rainbow, mix soft and hard materials, and

Peak Design expands its collection of wireless charging accessories

Peak Design, best known for its backpacks and travel bags packed full of useful features, announced it's expanding its collection of chargers and charging accessories with new devices that focus on pairing premium materials with innovative functionality. "Somewhere along the way, we accepted that the electronics we…

Apple is restricting dating apps and romanceable chatbots to over 18s

Apple will soon start asking developers to provide more details about their apps to enforce new App Store age rating requirements for dating and location-sharing features. The upcoming content descriptors announced on Monday will require developers to declare if their apps allow users to share their real-world…

Rivian spinoff Also wants to reinvent the wheel — but first, it has to ship

When Rivian quietly spun off its micromobility brand, Also, a lot of observers wondered if the luxury EV maker had bitten off more than it can chew. Chris Yu insists that's not the case. Yu, a Stanford aeronautics PhD and former CTO at Specialized, runs the startup as an independent business that counts Rivian as

Redmagic upgrades its liquid-cooled gaming phone with extra RGBs

After introducing true liquid cooling to its gaming phones last year, Redmagic is upping the ante in its 12 Pro by building RGB lights into the transparent cooling loop, too. And they work! Sort of. The lights do turn on, and they can be set to glow in set patterns, activate for specific apps, or

Apple set an iPhone sales record even without a new standard iPhone

Apple had a record-breaking quarter for iPhone sales - despite not releasing a standard model during its latest refresh. In its fourth-quarter earnings report released on Monday, Apple says it earned $57.58 billion in iPhone revenue, a 17 percent jump from the same time last year. The increase in revenue follows the…

Meta will end Quest 2 OS updates in 2027

Meta is planning to release the last OS update for its Quest 2 and Quest Pro VR headsets by March 2027, the company announced today. The last OS update for those devices is planned to be v213, and after that, Meta will continue to ship security patches and critical bug fixes through the end of

One of Google’s Android partners turned 1.3 million set-top boxes into a botnet

Google says one of its Android manufacturing partners secretly built a backdoor in 1.3 million devices and turned them into a botnet. The company says it has now dismantled the backdoor and "cut ties" with the manufacturer, the Shenzhen, China-based Videostrong Technology Co., which has been banned from building or…

One of Google’s Android partners turned 1.3 million set-top boxes into a botnet

Google says one of its Android manufacturing partners secretly built a backdoor in 1.3 million devices and turned them into a botnet. The company says it has now dismantled the backdoor and "cut ties" with the manufacturer, the Shenzhen, China-based Videostrong Technology Co., which has been banned from building or…

BMW is taking on Tesla’s FSD with urban driver assist starting in 2027

BMW says that it will expand its navigation-guided, partially automated driving capabilities into urban environments starting in 2027, launching first in Germany with other markets to follow. The new system can help steer, speed up, and slow down the vehicle on both highways and city streets using its built-in GPS…

The Apple Watch Ultra 4 is $100 off, matching its best price to date

The Apple Watch Ultra 4 is the company’s most capable smartwatch. Whether you intend to put its many tracking features to the test, or you simply want the longest battery life of any Apple Watch, it’s currently on sale for $699.99 ($100 off) in multiple colors at Amazon, matching its all-time low price. Powered by

Ford promises not to sell your driving habits to data brokers

Ford vowed to never sell customer driving data to third-party data brokers as part of a new privacy promise aimed at setting the automaker apart from competitors that have faced legal and regulatory blowback for sharing telematics with data brokers without authorization. As part of its new promise, Ford says it will…

Anthropic clamps down on Claude’s AI video game clones

Anthropic has updated Claude Code's system prompt to prevent the AI tool from being used to re-create existing video games, as reported by Tom's Hardware. Retro gaming is currently being overrun with AI-made decompilations, recompilations, and ports, but while Anthropic will still let people use Claude Code to make…

Xbox’s former COO has ‘serious concerns’ about her abrupt departure

Xbox's former chief operating officer, Helen Chiang, suddenly left Microsoft less than two weeks ago after being promoted into the role in July. I wrote in my Notepad newsletter last week that it seemed very weird for Chiang to suddenly depart Microsoft after 21 years with a surprisingly short memo from Xbox CEO Asha…

OpenAI pitches data center power plants as a way to protect nearby areas

In an announcement on Monday, OpenAI says it will pilot its "Grid Protectors Program" at an upcoming data center in Effingham County, Georgia, where the company promises to free up to 1,000 megawatts of power during extreme weather or emergencies, enough to power air conditioners in around 700,000 homes. The…

The New York Times sues Brave web browser for AI scraping and bypassing paywalls

The New York Times and a group of other publications have filed lawsuits against the company that makes the Brave web browser over alleged unlawful scraping to train AI and also letting users bypass their paywalls, as reported by Reuters. According to a complaint filed by the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune…

Apple’s ‘Ultra’ smart home robot might have to wait until 2028

Apple has reportedly delayed the launch of its rumored smart home robot until next year at the earliest or possibly even 2028, according to The Information. It says the robot's hardware "has been finished for around two years," but that the software isn't ready. The device's software team has reportedly pushed to…

Squarespace is laying off 19 percent of employees

The website-building platform Squarespace is laying off 19 percent of its employees as it works to "simplify" its operations, Squarespace spokesperson Jeff Seedman says in a statement to The Verge. The job cuts will affect around 300 of Squarespace's 1,800 employees. "The changes are intended to simplify how we…

Why Peacock is making a huge bet on YouTube

Today, I’m talking with Matt Strauss, who is now chairman of the NBCUniversal Media Group. This is Matt’s second time joining me on the show, and there’s been a whole lot of organizational and structural change at NBCU since the last time he and I spoke just two years ago — pure Decoder bait. First,

Vivo’s first Pro Max phone proves its Ultra is still in a league of its own

When I declared this spring that Vivo's X300 Ultra had the best cameras in any phone, two things made it stand out in my mind: its excellent main camera with a narrow 35mm focal length and what remains the most capable ultrawide in any phone worldwide. You won't find either in the new X500 Pro

Could data center backlash flip Florida?

Patti Zirhut, a lifelong Republican, has been studying her ballot for weeks. Zirhut eagerly voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024, but she isn't toeing the party line this year. "My ballot is all mixed up," she says. She's voting for some Republicans, some independents, and even a few Democrats…

YouTuber Druski is going to make exclusive content for Netflix

Netflix today announced a multiyear deal with the YouTuber, comedian, and influencer Druski, and he'll create original content "exclusively" for the streaming service. The announcement is the latest in Netflix's efforts to bring creators onto the platform, having previously landed deals with YouTubers including Mark…

The 16GB Raspberry Pi 5 got another ‘unavoidable’ RAM price hike

The Raspberry Pi 5 with 16GB of RAM now costs $385 after an $80 price hike, the latest in a string of increases driven by the ongoing RAM shortage. This configuration launched at $120 and now costs more than triple that price. The 16GB versions of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 also got a

SpaceX could buy Boost Mobile as part of its big mobile carrier plans

SpaceX has discussed a deal with Boost Mobile to launch its own service through the budget-friendly carrier, according to a report from The Washington Post. The deal, which comes as SpaceX aims to make Starlink a "major" mobile carrier, reportedly involves the Elon Musk-owned company acquiring Boost Mobile or…

Affinity’s creative studio is now available on iPad for free

Canva is giving digital creatives a new way to design, illustrate, and edit photos on their iPads, and it doesn't have to cost them a thing. After relaunching the Affinity creative suite as an all-in-one desktop app last year, Canva has now introduced Affinity for iPad, which provides the same pro-grade tools for…

More European supermarkets are getting their freezers hacked

Grocery stores across Europe have been hit by another wave of suspected cyberattacks, reporting sudden changes in the temperatures of their fridges and freezers. Major supermarket chains across Belgium, Sweden, Luxembourg, and Estonia were affected, according to local reports shared by Bloomberg and Reuters. One Ica…

Jackery made its portable power stations even smaller

Jackery announced a new portable power station that uses the safer and longer-lasting lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries the company first introduced in 2023. But what makes the new Explorer 100D stand out is that it's Jackery's smallest power station to date, measuring only 4.6 by 3.4 by 3.4 inches and weighing…

NASA hopes the commercial space industry can help save Hubble

Gravity is a cruel mistress, slowly dragging the famed Hubble Space Telescope ever closer to its ultimate demise with every day. Hubble is in no immediate danger of burning up in the Earth's atmosphere, but its time will run out in the early to mid 2030s unless its orbit is boosted. So NASA is taking

Flock keeps ignoring requests to cancel its contracts

While more cities are canceling their contracts with Flock Safety, just as many are discovering how difficult that can be in some instances. The city council in Plymouth, Minnesota, voted to terminate its contract with Flock in September, but the company failed to respond to the city's request. For over a month, the…

Apple’s HomeView could add security camera features

Reddit user pdfu found hints hidden in the HomeView 27.2 code that Apple could be adding security camera features to its smart home hub. The strings describe a security camera mode with motion detection, live streaming, and recording options, as well as privacy functions. According to pdfu, there is a setup page that…

A fully playable version of Portal prequel F-Stop leaked

Leakers have pieced together a playable version of the canceled Portal prequel F-Stop. Most of the assets came from the massive 12-terabyte leak that dropped this August. That didn't include the game's source code or map data, but those final pieces apparently hit the Valve Cut Content Discord this week, allowing a…

North Korea linked to massive Binance crypto heist

The FBI says North Korea was behind the massive $6.3 billion crypto heist that hit Binance on October 29th. The FBI labeled the activity "TraderTraitor" and said that it had observed actors it has connected to hack converting the tokens to Ethereum and preparing for further laundering of the funds. The agency offered…

HomePod Mini 2 first look: Three things I love and one disappointment

When I first heard about the new $149 HomePod Mini 2 at Apple's Welcome Home event last month, I was disappointed. It's been six years since Apple launched its entry-level smart speaker, and all it got in the second gen was a chip bump, some color glowy stuff, and better AirPlay? For $50 more than

Prop 45 in California could be hiding a loophole for data centers

A high-stakes California ballot measure pitched as a fast track for "essential" infrastructure could wind up giving data center developers a loophole to evade public scrutiny, environmental advocates warn. Proposition 45 would shorten timelines for state-mandated environmental assessments for eligible projects and…

New Zelda and GTA represent a games industry that no longer exists

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the biggest game releases of the year, follow Andrew Webster. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started The two biggest games of

Get in the spooky spirit with these horrors from YouTube

Rather than recommend a single horror film or an unsettling album for our final installment of spooky season recs, I present you with a small selection of creepy, disturbing, and just plain weird videos from YouTube. There's a little something for everyone here. Whether you're a fan of surreal art house shorts, cosmic…

Keyboards of The Verge

What is a keyboard if not the original brain-computer interface? You can tap on a touchscreen or talk to the computer, but if your work involves getting information out of your head and into the computer, you're probably spending a lot of time using a keyboard. We've written about many keyboards over the years, from

Binance CEO says 90 percent of stolen assets have been ‘replenished’

After hackers stole a shocking $6.3 billion from Binance customers in a record-breaking crypto heist, the company's CEO says that 90 percent of the funds have been replaced, and the company plans to cover the remaining 10 percent as well. Binance is covering the stolen funds directly, and the remaining 10 percent…

Happy Pikmin Day Eve

This morning, Nintendo announced that tomorrow, November 1st, would be the first annual Pikmin Day. As part of the short Pikmin Day Direct, Shigeru Miyamoto shared new info about Pikmin 4 for the Switch 2, as well as an update for the mobile app Pikmin Bloom, and announced the Hello! Pikmin series of shorts. Players

I built an AI Tamagotchi before Meta could

Mark Zuckerberg's Meta made AI look so stinking cute by giving it a squishy little face - and this holiday season, he wants to sell you a Muse Charm so you can carry your jolly AI helper around like a Tamagotchi. But I won't be buying one, because we have Muse Charm at home. It

Windows 11 tries new shortcuts for Xbox gaming mode and search

The latest Windows 11 Insider build adds some powerful new search features and quick settings while in Xbox mode. The Xbox shortcuts let you control things like Bluetooth, WiFi, and power settings without having to exit gaming mode. The search improvements are quite comprehensive. You can now filter results for files…

Vic Mensa can’t live without the Voice Memos app

Vic Mensa is one of those people who has done so many things that it's hard to remember where you were first introduced to him. Was it his debut mixtape Innanetape, which finally hit the major streaming services for the first time in September? Or maybe his house-influenced single "Down On My Luck"? Maybe you

Best Buy is bundling a $100 gift card with touchscreen MacBook Pro preorders

While the new touch-enabled MacBook Pro with the PROLED XDR screen is available for preorder across a few major retailers, Best Buy is sweetening the deal by including a $100 gift card. The gift card will be automatically added to your cart when you preorder one of Apple’s highest-end laptops available in 14- or…

Here’s why you can’t shake those unhinged political texts

"Its James Talarico. Can you please please please please pretty pretty please rush in even just $1?" "Who's working to elect James Talarico? Marxists." "Wow! Wow! Wow! Mark Kelly just made a HUGE announcement!" "We asked Ben Verlander, MLB analyst and former Tigers prospect, to record a quick video about the election…

Touchscreens everywhere!

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 150, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy Halloween, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I was in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee on a family vacation. It was delightful

Apple Intelligence is finally coming to China with iOS 27.3

Apple will launch Apple Intelligence in China with iOS 27.3, the company announced on its Chinese newsroom website, as reported by MacRumors. The Apple Intelligence features will be available first in an iOS 27.3 beta that's set to launch on November 4th, with a full iOS 27.3 release scheduled for December. This…

Exclusive details about Akai’s MPC Sample Key

Akai teased its new MPC Sample Key on Instagram earlier this week, and said it plans to open-source its software so the modding community can hack it to their hearts' delight. While there's no word yet on when the device will launch or how much it will cost, The Verge has received exclusive images of

Sam Altman says it’s better for RAM to be in a data center than on your desk

Asked about supply chain shortages, like the ongoing RAM shortage, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an interview that it's "terrible" to have RAM in personal PCs instead of data centers. During his appearance on the Cheeky Pint podcast, where he also commented on AI's impact on math, Altman said: "A lot of people want

The biggest names in AI are backing a new way to opt out of scraping

OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Anthropic say they will adopt a new standard that publishers can use to opt out of being scraped by AI, as reported earlier by Search Engine Roundtable. With this control, publishers can apply their AI training preferences across multiple AI companies, instead of setting them…

Google’s satellite AI server transmits its first response to Earth

Google's AI chip-equipped satellite has generated its first response from space. In a blog post on Friday, Google says it successfully booted up the satellite's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), allowing the on-board Gemma 4 model to follow through on a prompt to create a haiku about being in space: Blue marble below…

The delightfully messy state of Apple gadgets

The iPhone has more screens! The MacBook has a touchscreen! The HomeView does CarPlay apps! For the first time in a long time, Apple is in a period of unabashed gadget experimentation, and while the final results aren't always perfect, it's fun to watch the most successful product maker try some new things again. Even

Rivian’s autonomy gamble faces its first real test

During an hourlong earnings call last night, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe spent less time talking about the production ramp of the all-important R2 SUV than he did hyping the company's still-unproven autonomous vehicle ambitions. But the company faces a crucial test later this year, when it rolls out its point-to-point…

Vizio’s discounted Mini LED TV lets you skip the sign-ups and smarts

Modern smart TVs let you skip the streaming device, which is convenient, but they also come with their own issues, including privacy concerns and frequent updates. The Vizio Mini LED Quantum TV lets you cut out the rigamarole and just get straight to the HDMI ports. And right now, it’s discounted at Walmart, with the