It’s been nearly four years since Spotify announced a HiFi tier for its music streaming service that would support lossless audio. That wait could end this year, Bloomberg reports, as the company works to finalize details, including streaming rights. Spotify could charge as much as $5 or $6 extra per month for the new tier — said to be named “Music Pro” — which is in line with estimates CEO Daniel Ek shared last year. Spotify’s Premium tier currently starts...
about 3 hours ago
The Department of Government Efficiency has requested access to the Internal Revenue Service’s taxpayer data system — potentially giving it access to highly sensitive information, including Social Security Numbers and tax returns — according to a report from CNN. DOGE has also launched an IRS-specific account on X and is soliciting “insights on finding and fixing waste, fraud, and abuse” within the agency. DOGE is seeking help from the public! Please DM this account with insights on finding and fixing...
about 5 hours ago
President Donald Trump kicked off the first day of his presidency by signing a flurry of executive actions, including halting enforcement of the TikTok ban and rolling back the Biden administration’s artificial intelligence order. Having already run the country once before, Trump entered the presidency with the goal of hitting the ground running, having already selected nominees and chairs for key agencies that oversee tech. This time, Trump has the backing of many tech billionaires who attended his inauguration and...
about 5 hours ago
It being winter and all, there’s a high probability that many of us are spending more time bingeing TV shows and movies indoors than we might otherwise. And while it’s true that most streaming services don’t cost much in comparison to most of the tech we cover, we all know monthly subscription fees have a way of adding up. Before you know it, you’re spending as much on streaming as you would on cable. However, if you’re trying to cut...
about 5 hours ago
A team from Elon Musk’s SpaceX is visiting the Air Traffic Control Command Center in Virginia Monday to help overhaul the system in the wake of last month’s deadly air disaster in Washington, DC, US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced. The news comes after CNN reported that the Federal Aviation Administration fired hundreds of probationary employees who maintain critical air traffic control infrastructure. The exact number of workers losing their jobs is unknown, but the union representing them said...
about 5 hours ago
BMW’s Vision Driving Experience is a test mule for its Neue Klasse platform. | Image: BMW Last November, I strapped into the rear passenger seat of an all-electric, four-door sedan with BMW test driver and 24-hour racer Jens Klingmann behind the wheel. It was a cold day at BMWâs Performance Driving Center in Greer, SC, and beneath the five-point harnesses, roll cage, and heavily camouflaged body, Klingmann had an unexpected co-pilot: a tiny black box called the âHeart of Joy.â...
about 6 hours ago
Tons of devices are on sale right now, including Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Air. Thanks to the one-two punch that is Valentine’s Day and Presidents Day, there are plenty of sales to take advantage of throughout the month of February. And while V-Day might officially be behind us, Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and plenty of other retailers are still discounting a range of tech for Presidents Day, including some of the gadgets and gizmos we often fawn over at The Verge....
about 7 hours ago
Violent metaphors abound for whatâs happening in Washington: Elon Musk and his allies have taken a âslash-and-burnâ approach to the government and a âsledgehammerâ to government institutions, doing away with supposed waste and excess while leaving the fundamental structure intact. All of this is being done with the stated goal of ridding the federal workforce of the scourge of wokeness and âDEIâ â diversity, equity, and inclusion, a term that has become a catchall for anything Musk and other MAGA...
about 9 hours ago
X users are currently unable to post links to Signal.me, which are used to quickly and securely send direct messages to Signal users. A variety of failure notifications are being reported when X users attempt to post Signal links on the platform, some of which identify the blocked message as containing spam, harmful content, or malicious activity. When my colleague tried, he was met with an error message saying “something went wrong, but don’t fret — let’s give it another...
about 11 hours ago
The New York Times has reportedly approved artificial intelligence tools that newsroom staff can use for editing copy, summarizing information, coding, and writing. The publication announced in an internal email that product and editorial staff will receive AI training, according to Semafor, and introduced a new internal AI tool called Echo for summarizing articles, briefings, and other company activity. Staff were reportedly sent new editorial guidelines detailing permitted uses for Echo and other AI tools, which encourage newsroom employees to...
about 13 hours ago
DeepSeek is shaking up the AI industry with cost-efficient large language models it claims can perform just as well as rivals from giants like OpenAI and Meta. The Chinese startup says its flagship R1 reasoning model is capable of achieving “performance comparable” to OpenAI’s o1 equivalent, while the newly released Janus Pro multimodal AI model can supposedly outperform Stable Diffusion and DALL-E 3. DeepSeek’s ChatGPT competitor quickly soared to the top of the App Store, and the company is disrupting...
about 14 hours ago
Days after YouTube published a blog post saying it could lose Paramount content soon, it updated the post to announce a deal to keep it. The company posted on X that, as a result, channels such as CBS, CBS Sports, and Nickelodeon and add-ons like Paramount Plus, Showtime, and BET Plus will stick around after all. The company had said in its post on February 12th that it would offer an $8 credit if Paramount content was “unavailable for an...
1 day ago
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 71, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If youâre new here, welcome, happy long weekend to all those allowed to celebrate, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, Iâve been reading about Alan Turing and OnlyFans and street booze and convenience stores, dusting off my Fortnite skills for the first time in a while, reading The Ministry of Time, working up...
1 day ago
Protestors gathered outside a Tesla showroom in New York on Saturday. | Photo: Stephanie Keith / Bloomberg via Getty Images<br> Today marked a second weekend of scattered protests at Tesla showrooms, following a “TeslaTakeover” hashtag that has been trending on Twitter alternative Bluesky this week. Protestors’ messages largely focused on the divisive efforts of Tesla CEO Elon Musk as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency since the start of Donald Trump’s Presidency. The protests don’t appear to be...
2 days ago
The popular Nintendo DS emulator Drastic has disappeared from the Google Play store, reports Android Authority. It’s not clear at the moment why the app is now gone, but it seems likely that it was the developer, not Nintendo, that prompted its removal. Developer Exophase made Drastic free-to-download last year and indicated that it planned to remove the app from Google Play and open-source its code, though that doesn’t seem to have ever happened. The announcement came after a Nintendo...
2 days ago
It seems like Nintendo just revealed its mysterious device that recently crossed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) — and it’s not the Switch 2. On Wednesday, Nintendo announced, of all things, the “Alarmo” alarm clock. But in classic Nintendo fashion, the clock has some playful tricks. The clock responds to your movements, which you can use to snooze your alarm with motion. Its faces feature Nintendo characters from franchises like Super Mario and Zelda, and you can set the alarm...
2 days ago
Big players, including Microsoft, with Copilot, Google, with Gemini, and OpenAI, with GPT-4o, are making AI chatbot technology previously restricted to test labs more accessible to the general public. How do these large language model (LLM) programs work? OpenAI’s GPT-3 told us that AI uses “a series of autocomplete-like programs to learn language” and that these programs analyze “the statistical properties of the language” to “make educated guesses based on the words you’ve typed previously.” Or, in the words of...
2 days ago
Amazon won’t launch the AI-powered upgrade for Alexa for at least a month after its showcase at an event set for February 26th, according to The Washington Post. The delay is reportedly at least partly because the updated assistant has issues with giving inaccurate answers to test questions. An anonymous Amazon employee told the outlet that the upgrade won’t come “until March 31 or later” due to the issues. The new Alexa could be tied to a subscription, with features...
2 days ago
The next Elden Ring entry welcomes all Tarnished on May 30th. Elden Ring Nightreign’s rocky network test might have left some fans disappointed this week, but I sincerely doubt a few breif server issues did much to diminish the growing anticipation for FromSoftware’s next soulslike for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. Thankfully, if you were still planning on picking up the Elden Ring spin-off when it launches on May 30th, it’s already available for preorder with a $10 gift card at...
2 days ago
The Vision Pro is Apple’s newest computing platform, and that means we’re going to see a whole bunch of new apps. Apple pitches apps built for the Vision Pro as “spatial” experiences, and even after our initial review experience, we’ll have to see how those differ from or improve upon the virtual reality and mixed reality experiences we’ve seen on other platforms. Of course, the Vision Pro can run iPhone and iPad apps, too, and display the screen of your...
2 days ago
It really makes you want to reach out and pick up one of the players. The NBA has introduced a new AR feature for its Vision Pro app this week called Tabletop, which places a floating render of a basketball court in your space during “select” live games, according to an NBA help page describing the feature. On the court, digital avatars mirror the game’s actual players as they move, pass, and shoot — but only for live games that...
2 days ago
It can be surprisingly daunting to follow up on a great pair of earbuds. The objective is to make improvements wherever possible without sacrificing anything that people loved about the previous set. Thatâs where Technics found itself with the $299.99 EAH-AZ100 earbuds, which it announced at CES 2025. I was rather taken with the companyâs last flagship set, the AZ80, because of their rich sound and unique ability to pair with three devices at the same time. The new buds...
2 days ago
Boredom is something of a dying concept. Our phones, filled with games and videos and social feeds, allow us to fill every moment with something, whether weâre on a long flight or in line for 30 seconds waiting for coffee. But the silly and playful While Waiting is a good reminder that that can be a good thing â an opportunity for our minds to wander in unexpected directions. Possibly the best way to describe While Waiting is that itâs...
2 days ago
The smart home holds so much promise. It can make life more convenient with lights that turn on as you walk in a room, doors that unlock as you approach, and robots that clean your floors. It can also make your home safer, more energy efficient, and even a little more fun. (Have you tried asking Alexa to beam you up?) But for all its benefits, the smart home can be complicated, confusing, and occasionally maddening. It’s also hard to...
3 days ago
Google has disabled its Android earthquake detection feature in Brazil after many smartphone users in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro received false emergency alerts on Friday morning, Android Police reports. The alerts of a nonexistent 5.5 magnitude earthquake were sent to devices around 2AM this morning, and pinpointed earthquakes in the country’s Ubatuba and Baixada Santista regions. Google launched the earthquake detection network that uses accelerometers in Android devices as a seismometer in California in 2020, and over the...
3 days ago
The internet is filled with awesome stuff to read, and there’s new awesome stuff to read being published every day! That’s the good news. The bad news is that finding the good stuff feels harder than ever. You either find your favorite writers or sources and check them religiously or just hope that the algorithm gods deliver you something you’ll like. It’s all a lot more work than just tapping the TikTok icon, you know? Allow The Verge to help...
3 days ago
Nearly 400 videos that were posted on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s YouTube page have been removed, as the Trump administration continues to pare back the agency, including its team of skilled technologists. The CFPB YouTube page, which has 15,000 subscribers and was created in 2011, has had every one of its videos removed as of Friday. An archived version of the page shows that as recently as February 8th, it hosted 386 videos. The archived page shows videos with...
3 days ago
OpenAI’s board of directors has responded to Elon Musk’s bid to buy the company. In a statement on X, OpenAI chair Bret Taylor said, “OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt his competition.” Musk and a coalition of backers offered to buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion earlier this week. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman quickly responded to the news on X, saying “no thank you but we will buy twitter for...
3 days ago
Amazon is making it harder to download purchased books to a computer in older formats. | Photo: Andrew Liszewski / The Verge Starting on February 26th, 2025, Amazon is removing a feature from its website allowing you to download purchased books to a computer and then copy them manually to a Kindle over USB. It’s a feature that a lot of Kindle users are probably not aware of, given books can be more easily sent to devices over Wi-Fi, but...
3 days ago
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 goals are, there’s probably a fitness tracker that can help you achieve them. Compared to some other gadgets, wearables are incredibly personal, which means there...
3 days ago
President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered federal agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to add disclaimers railing against “gender ideology” to pages restored by a recent court order, The Washington Post reported. The notice reads: Per a court order, HHS is required to restore this website as of 11:59 PM on February 11, 2025. Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological...
3 days ago
Mastodon is making a change that might have some users divided. In an update on Friday, the decentralized platform announced that it’s working to add quote posts “to help people to transition away from proprietary, billionaire-owned social media to the open social web,” as spotted earlier by TechCrunch. Mastodon initially decided against implementing quote posts because it saw them used for “malicious purposes,” such as quoting someone out of context or for harassment. However, it ultimately found that its lack...
3 days ago
Splashy blockbuster games are great, but there are there are a huge number of indie and smaller video games worth playing, too. Whether they’re pushing the boundaries of the medium and or offering a creative spin on classic ideas, indie games can be just as interesting as big-budget epics. Sometimes, though, indie games can fly under the radar. But we here at The Verge love seeking out hidden gems, so we want to use this space to share some of...
3 days ago
An Environmental Protection Agency building in Washington, DC. | Photo Getty Images A grassroots environmental alliance that called for a “free Palestine” has lost the more than $50 million it was supposed to receive under the Biden administration’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act. The Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) became the target of conservative attacks after advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza, and a group of of federal workers wrote an open letter last year signaling that the CJA had been singled out as a result. The...
3 days ago
WhatsApp is turning up the customization features for chats by including new theme options, custom colors for chat bubbles, and a bunch of new wallpapers to choose from. A new blog post says the feature is rolling out now and will be available globally “over the coming weeks.” There are 30 new wallpaper options to choose from — many of which are included in preset themes that will select the bubble and text colors for you. It could help personalize...
3 days ago
Two weeks ago, we exclusively reported Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s remarks on how many pairs of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses the company had recently sold and might theoretically sell — 1 million pairs in 2024, with the possibility of reaching 2 million or even 5 million by the end of 2025. But glasses giant EssilorLuxottica, which produces those glasses for Meta, has now publicly revealed 2 million pairs of Meta Ray-Bans have sold since their October 2023 debut, and that...
3 days ago
Two bills were introduced in the Senate that, if enacted, would dramatically increase the price for most electric vehicles. The first bill, sponsored by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), would eliminate the $7,500 EV tax credit, while a second one from Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) would impose a $1,000 tax on the purchase of any new EV. None of this is exactly surprising, except perhaps the timing. After taking office, Donald Trump signed executive orders signaling his intent to eliminate the...
3 days ago
The electric vehicle tax credit, also known as the “clean vehicle tax credit,” or 30D, if you like IRS code, can offer up to $7,500 off the purchase of a new EV. Sounds nice, right? But of course, it’s not that easy. This is the IRS we’re talking about after all. Before you can collect your $7,500 credit from the government, there are a few rules that must be satisfied — rules about where the vehicle is made, where the...
3 days ago
Considering the trajectory of 2025 so far, perhaps we should’ve known that Netflix finally playing nice with the Apple TV app was too good to be true. And now the streaming giant has confirmed that’s exactly the case. Netflix spokesperson MoMo Zhou has told The Verge that this morning’s window where Netflix appeared as a “participating” service in Apple TV — including temporary support for the watchlist and “continue watching” features — was an error and has now been rolled...
3 days ago
Two government watchdogs will investigate the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to sensitive Treasury payments systems, they confirmed in letters to Congress. In a letter to Senate Democrats, Treasury Deputy Inspector General Loren Sciurba said that the office opened an audit into the Bureau of Fiscal Service’s payments systems on February 6th. The IG’s office will investigate whether adequate controls were in place to grant access to the system, and to ensure that only legally sound payments are disbursed. The...
3 days ago
The Roomba Combo i5 can vacuum and mop for just $189, which is a 40 percent discount. Looking for a robot vacuum or mop that won’t set you back a few hundred dollars? Right now, Verge readers can pick up the Roomba Combo i5 — the upgrade to our top budget pick, the Roomba i3 Evo — from Wellbots for a new low of $189 ($160 off) with offer VERGE160. The Roomba Combo j5, which is nearly identical to the i5, is...
3 days ago
After briefly going dark in the US to comply with the divest-or-ban law targeting ByteDance that went into effect on January 19th, TikTok quickly came back online, but it was still missing from app stores. That persisted even after Donald Trump issued an executive order “instructing the Attorney General not to take any action to enforce the Act for a period of 75 days from today” on January 20th, but on February 13th, Google and Apple both restored TikTok’s listings...
3 days ago
Happy Valentineâs Day. Iâm sending this from the NBA All-Star Technology Summit in San Francisco, where Iâve never seen so many major streaming competitors onstage at once. This week, I go inside TikTok, Google, and Meta. Keep reading for what Elon Musk really wants with his bid for OpenAI⦠TikTok turns up the heat â and scores a win On Wednesday night, ByteDance employees tuned in to their company all-hands meeting with senior leaders from across the company, including TikTok...
3 days ago
Meta is planning to design the hardware and software for humanoid robots, according to a report from Bloomberg. Sources tell the outlet that a newly formed team within Meta’s Reality Labs division will start by working on “humanoid robot hardware” capable of completing household chores. Bloomberg notes that Meta has broader goals of making “the underlying AI, sensors and software for robots that will be manufactured and sold by a range of companies.” That means the company might not make...
3 days ago
As the new Congress has already started working on legislation to protect kids from social media harms, Roblox is doubling down on its efforts to convince lawmakers it shouldnât be lumped in with products like Instagram and YouTube. Even though the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) failed to become law last year, despite passing handily in the Senate, protecting kids from social media still seems to be one of the few issues that unites many Democrats and Republicans. Itâs not...
3 days ago
Instagram is beginning to test a button that “gives people a private way to signal that they don’t feel good about that particular comment,” Instagram boss Adam Mosseri says in a post on Threads. The button, based on a screenshot from a Threads user, is a downward-facing arrow next to the like button in comments. If you see the button and press it, however, people won’t know that you did so, and there won’t be a dislike count shown, according...
3 days ago
President Donald Trump has announced that he’s imposing a tariff on goods from some of the US’s biggest trade partners: Canada, Mexico, and China. Under the executive orders signed on February 1st, Canada and Mexico will face a 25 percent tariff, while goods from China will be subject to a 10 percent tax. Energy resources from Canada will also have a lower 10 percent tariff. Trump positioned the tariffs as a way to “halt the flood of poisonous drugs into...
3 days ago
President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico are presented by the president and his boosters as a boon to American businesses. If products from China are more expensive, the argument goes, then people will instead buy from counterparts based in the US. But for small businesses manufacturing in the US, the tariffs are already causing their costs to go up — which, in turn, will force them to raise prices for consumers. Valerie Schafer Franklin, one of the...
3 days ago
Robert Eggers’ excellent Nosferatu remake will finally be available to stream very soon. Peacock announced today that Nosferatu — which stars Lily-Rose Depp, Nicholas Hoult, and Bill Skarsgård — will make its streaming debut on February 21st. Along with the film’s original theatrical cut, Peacock subscribers will also be able to watch the extended cut that was previously only available on DVD / Blu-ray or by buying it from a digital platform. As Deadline notes, Nosferatu was one of Focus...
3 days ago
Hisense models are great starter TVs that you can grow into. I sorely recall the early onset of the current gaming generation, which kicked off in late 2020. The Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 were a bit difficult to come by, so much so that I committed the cardinal sin of paying a reseller more than $200 over MSRP for the latter. The TVs that could take full advantage of their capabilities were also exorbitantly expensive — I’m talking...
3 days ago
The third season of Yellowjackets is a bit like getting lured back to the high school reunion that was delightfully fun the first time but eventually becomes an exercise in diminishing returns. Maybe itâs part of our soft human inability to let go of the past, especially coming-of-age drama that seems increasingly romantic and valid as we continue hurtling toward old age and (hopefully) painless deaths. Maybe itâs the misplaced optimism that middle-aged reunions will evoke some kind of sobering...
3 days ago
Elden Ring is finally here. The huge game, from Dark Souls developer FromSoftware, is set in a world created in part by Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin. It largely lives up to the massive hype, but it didn’t have a perfect launch. Bandai Namco issued a PSA on the day of release, promising updates to fix a PS5 save bug and some PC issues. And The Verge’s Ash Parrish wrote about how the game’s character creator fails Black...
3 days ago
The rear finish looks like a real camera. It looks like Xiaomi is soon launching a new flagship Ultra smartphone model that takes its Leica licensing beyond just the lens. Android Headlines has posted what appear to be official renders of a Xiaomi 15 Ultra, with Leica camera styling that includes duo-tone white and rough-finished black verticle strips down the rear of the phone. Held sideways, the large, round camera protrusion and Xiaomi branding in the corner make it look...
3 days ago
The paid search engine Kagi has added an even more private way to search. The new feature, called Privacy Pass, lets you make searches without having them traced back to you. Privacy Pass is based on an authentication protocol standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force. It works by allowing users to authenticate themselves to servers like Kagi by generating tokens, which Kagi says are “indistinguishable from a randomly generated token from the server’s point of view.” The server can...
3 days ago
Activists are calling for demonstrations at Tesla showrooms. Protestors are planning more demonstrations outside Tesla showrooms nationwide this weekend, as Elon Musk’s polarizing behavior and political activities within the Trump administration continue to have negative side effects on his electric car business. The protests are being advertised on BlueSky under the tags “Tesla Takeover” and “Tesla Takedown,” similar to demonstrations held last weekend. At least three dozen events are listed on Action Network’s website, with a banner urging people who...
3 days ago
There are no bad iPads. That’s the best news about Apple’s tablet lineup: 15 years after Steve Jobs first debuted the device, the iPad is the best tablet on the market, and it’s not particularly close. Apple’s App Store is enormous and filled with great apps, Apple’s performance and battery life are consistently excellent, and the iPad is still the company’s most versatile device. That’s one easy answer to your question: yes, if you want a tablet, you should buy...
3 days ago
Itâs hard to think of a time when a single figure has been so central to seemingly everything in the way that Elon Musk is right now. Musk is overseeing and overhauling the federal government, while bending it toward his own financial gain. Heâs also ubiquitous in the artificial intelligence world, where this week he offered to buy part of OpenAI, adding more pressure and chaos to an already complicated company in an already complicated spot. Subscribe: Spotify | Apple...
3 days ago
Some Apple TV 4K users in the US are being prompted to connect their Netflix accounts to the Apple TV app. This would appear to signal an end to the streaming service’s longtime refusal to have its content aggregated into third-party platforms. Users who link their accounts are able to add certain Netflix originals like Squid Game and Stranger Things to their Apple TV app watchlist, with shows also appearing in the Continue Watching section. The Verge has also verified...
3 days ago
Around 20 technologists at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were fired on Thursday evening, gutting a team that specialized in understanding Big Techâs entrance into financial products, three sources familiar with the matter tell The Verge. It follows an earlier round of layoffs of mostly contractors and probationary employees on Tuesday, as reported by Wired, representing the latest cuts to an agency with oversight over a field that one of Elon Muskâs companies is trying to enter. Musk, who now...
3 days ago
My first time playing Elden Ring Nightreign, I was stressed the hell out. My team and I were in an underground dungeon, trying to make our way past traps and dangerous blind corners, all while knowing there was an invisible clock ominously ticking down above our heads. If we were still underground when it hit zero a deadly storm called Nightâs Tide would close in, potentially trapping us. That kind of anxiety was exactly what Elden Ring combat designer and...
3 days ago
The open-source code repository Codeberg has blamed the far right for a recent campaign of abuse and harassment across its systems. “Projects advocating tolerance and equal rights” were subjected to spam campaigns using abusive messages, which escalated to spam emails sent to users via Codeberg’s own automated systems. Codeberg says it stands strong “against hate and hatred” that endangers free software projects. On February 12th, some Codeberg users received emails from Codeberg containing abusive content. The site says that this...
3 days ago
Such security, much open. The DOGE website created to document how Elon Musk’s team is eviscerating the US federal government is wide open for anyone to edit. This is the same DOGE organization that has gained unprecedented access to sensitive US financial systems with data on millions of Americans. Two web development experts reported the security flaw to 404Media after discovering that doge.gov is pulling from a database that third parties can access and update, pushing unauthorized entries to the...
4 days ago
Microsoft is adding a super useful button to Outlook mobile that will let you quickly minimize a draft email and task switch on the go. If you’re like me and you send a lot of emails from your iPhone or Android device, it can be really annoying to have to switch out of a draft email and find a date in your calendar or look at another email thread and then have to navigate back to your drafts folder and...
4 days ago
Elon Musk bought Twitter, and now he’s rebranding it as X. Signs have gone up (and back down), icons are changing, and an old plan is new. How’d we get here? On April 4th, 2022, we learned that Musk had purchased enough shares of Twitter to become its largest individual shareholder. Eventually, he followed up with an unsolicited offer to buy 100 percent of Twitter’s shares for $54.20 each, or about $44 billion. Twitter accepted Musk’s offer, but then things got...
4 days ago
Nearly a month after it was banned in the US, TikTok has returned to the App Store for iPhones and other Apple devices as well as the Google Play store for Android phones and tablets.The return follows US Attorney General Pam Bondi sending a letter to Apple assuring that it won’t be fined for hosting the app, according to Bloomberg, which first reported that the app would return. Trump has reportedly tasked Vice President JD Vance to oversee negotiations for a...
4 days ago
You can save a bunch on some of our favorite models, including the Roomba Combo j7 Plus. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge We’re in an age where you can realistically delegate tasks to smart hunks of metal, whether it’s a self-driving car or a robot that can clean on your behalf. Most of us probably won’t be able to afford the helpful sentient humanoids being developed in our lifetimes, but robot vacuums are an affordable way...
4 days ago
Google’s Gemini AI assistant can now recall past conversations to provide more relevant responses if you have a subscription to Gemini Advanced via Google One AI Premium. With the update, you’ll no longer have to recap previous chats or search for a thread to pick up a conversation, as Gemini will already have the context it needs. You can also ask Gemini to summarize previous conversations and build upon existing projects. Google already widely rolled out the ability for Gemini...
4 days ago
Nvidia’s RTX 50-series GPUs are just around the corner, with the first releases — the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 — dropping on January 30th. The RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 will follow that with their own releases in February, but some are already getting a sneak peek at the software benefits of the GPUs through DLSS 4. Tom Warren’s Verge review of the $1,999 RTX 5090 indicates it’s expectedly a powerhouse but not quite the generational leap that...
4 days ago
As always, the most important Nvidia graphics card is the one you can actually buy, and Nvidia’s talked a big game for its RTX 5070, making the dubious but nuanced claim it can deliver RTX 4090 performance for just $549. On February 28th, AMD will get its chance to intercept with the Radeon RX 9070 and 9070 XT, in a streaming event it just announced today. But Nvidia has now made its own wiggle room, delaying the launch of the...
4 days ago
Google’s Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL are up to $200 off. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge If you’re on the market for an excellent Android phone, multiple retailers are offering some of the best prices we’ve seen on some of Google’s devices. The last-gen Pixel 8 (8GB RAM/128GB storage) starts at $399 ($300 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, for example, but the real highlight is the Pixel 9 lineup. Right now, the Pixel 9...
4 days ago
Update: Apple and Google have restored TikTok to their respective app stores in the US. You can now download TikTok for iOS and TikTok for Android once again through the platformsâ native stores. The ban on TikTok technically remains in effect, however President Trump has ordered his administration not to enforce it for 75 days, starting January 20th. That means Apple and Google could be required to pull the apps once again if the administration begins to enforce the law...
4 days ago
Amazon’s Prime Video app just got a big update on Apple TV. The app is now better optimized for tvOS, allowing you to swipe on the Siri Remote to scroll through Prime Video’s shows and movies as well as use touchpad gestures for fast-forwarding, rewinding, and scrubbing through content. Amazon has updated the app’s search feature too, which will now automatically show results as you enter your search. You can also search with your voice using the Siri Remote. Additionally,...
4 days ago
Audio-Technica’s ATH-CC500BT2 offer similar advantages to bone conduction headphones but with improved battery life. | Image: Audio-Technica Audio-Technica has announced a new version of its open-ear cartilage conduction headphones the company says deliver improved sound and better battery life. The headphones use a technology that’s similar to bone conduction headphones from companies like Shokz and Suunto but instead deliver sound through the softer cartilage around your ears. The approach still leaves the ear canal open so you can hear what’s...
4 days ago
Despite how they appear, the Ultra Open Earbuds don’t hurt while gripping your ears. If you need a new pair of headphones, earbuds, or a portable Bluetooth speaker, Bose’s ongoing Presidents Day sale presents a few compelling options. In fact, now through February 17th, several QuietComfort and SoundLink devices are receiving steep discounts, including some of our favorite models. Several products are matching their lowest price to date, such as the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, which are available from Amazon,...
4 days ago
Lee Zeldin, Donald Trump’s pick to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, speaks during his Senate Environment and Public Works confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on January 16, 2025 in Washington, DC. | Photo: Getty Images The Trump administration is attempting to take back around $20 billion of funding that the Biden administration previously awarded to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Trump’s appointee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lee Zeldin, posted a cryptic video last...
4 days ago
Double magnetic rings. I like my phone, so I put a ring on it back in 2022 â the year my colleagues Jen and Allison introduced me to the Anker ring we now call âThe best MagSafe phone gripâ. Itâs a simple magnetic ring attached to a non-magnetic finger ring that doubles as a kickstand. @verge Double magnetic ring mounts are here — letting you prop up your MagSafe-compatible phone at any angle, attach it to anything made of ferrous...
4 days ago
Apple is preparing a new 27-inch display with Mini LED backlighting for release later in 2025 or early next year, according to analyst Ross Young (and highlighted by MacRumors). The purported follow-up to 2022’s Studio Display would leave the monitor’s size unchanged but offer meaningful gains in contrast, black levels, and (potentially) overall brightness. Even at the time of its release, the original Studio Display trailed modern TVs and many displays with its traditional LED technology, which lights up the...
4 days ago
On Wednesday, reports from The New York Times and Drop Site News pointed out that the US Department of State included an order for $400 million worth of armored Teslas in its 2025 procurement forecast. But shortly after these reports emerged, the agency replaced its mention of “Armored Tesla (Production Units)” with a much vaguer line listing “Armored Electric Vehicles,” as reported earlier by Bloomberg. Now, the State Department tells the NYT that the “solicitation is on hold, and there...
4 days ago
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now President Donald Trump’s new secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) following a Senate confirmation vote. As head of the HHS, Kennedy will oversee agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. While Kennedy has said that he is not anti-vaccine, a CNN fact check chronicles false claims he has made about vaccines, including that parents should not vaccinate their babies. The Senate voted...
4 days ago
Android’s camera app is getting hybrid auto-exposure controls and precise color temperature and tint adjustments. | Image: Google Google is releasing the second public beta of Android 16 today that will introduce new features for professional photographers who want more control while capturing images and videos. The upgrades include new manual control options when using auto-exposure, precise color temperature and tint adjustments, and support for Ultra HDR images in the HEIC image format. Following today’s release, two more public beta...
4 days ago
The encryption wars have reached a fever pitch, and the most contentious battle is not happening in the United States, where much of the action has been in the past â like the governmentâs efforts to restrict exports of encryption software until the 1990s and the FBI’s standoff with Apple in 2016. It’s in the United Kingdom, where the government has reportedly ordered Apple to give officials blanket access to iCloud usersâ encrypted backups. And the order allegedly didnât just...
4 days ago
With its first few Captain America films, Marvel Studios sold audiences on the idea that its superhero movies could be more than live-action cartoons. By borrowing from other genres, they could become gritty, character-focused thrillers like The Winter Soldier or splashy crossover events like Civil War. And the tonal shifts between each feature made it feel like the first Avenger was evolving in tandem with the larger MCUâs ongoing story. That evolution came to a climax with Avengers: Endgame, which...
4 days ago
The Jeff Bezos-owned space company Blue Origin has announced plans to lay off around 10 percent of its workforce. The company currently has more than 10,000 workers, according to Bloomberg, meaning the layoffs could affect around 1,000 employees. In an email obtained by The Verge, Blue Origin CEO David Limp told employees that fast growth led to “more bureaucracy and less focus than we needed.” As a result, Limp said the company is “thinning out our layers of management” and...
4 days ago
OnePlus says it won’t launch a new foldable phone this year, axing expectations that the company was prepping a proper sequel to its Open foldable from 2023, 9to5Google reports. A new OnePlus “Open 2” could have followed the blueprint of its subsidiary company Oppo’s new ultra-thin Find N5 that’s launching in China and internationally next week, but it (like many Oppo devices) won’t make it to the US. OnePlus’ last foldable device, the limited edition “Apex Edition” launched last year,...
4 days ago
The 2025 iPhone SE is rumored to feature a notch and a single rear camera. | Image: <a href="https://x.com/MajinBuOfficial/status/1884345920940388386" target="_blank">Majin Bu</a> Apple has confirmed a product launch on February 19th, and we think it’ll be the new iPhone SE. That could mark a major shake-up to the company’s affordable iPhone line, adding in Face ID and killing off the classic home button. We don’t expect Apple to hold a full launch event for the new SE, instead simply announcing the...
4 days ago
Apple TV Plus has steadily become the preeminent home of streaming sci-fi shows, and that reputation has really only grown over time. Silo just wrapped up its thrilling second season, Severance is back after a long hiatus, and promising adaptations of Neuromancer and The Murderbot Diaries are in the works. Even the serviceâs detective shows can pull off a compelling sci-fi twist. Unfortunately, the same canât be said for Appleâs slate of genre films. The offerings are scant, and what...
4 days ago
Iâve been thinking a lot about the next Xbox lately. While Microsoft publicly lines up a busy year of game releases and ports for the PS5 and Switch 2, the company has also been secretly building its future Xbox hardware and platform. There havenât been any giant leaks about next-gen hardware yet, but Microsoft has been dropping hints over the past year that make it clear the next Xbox is going to be a lot different from the box that...
4 days ago
Square Enix has shut down the iOS version of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and removed it from the App Store following an unfixable bug that blocked people from accessing content they had paid for. “The issue is due to changes made to the in-app purchases model,” Square Enix says in a post. “Further investigation revealed that we are unable to completely fix the bug and implement the new changes, making it unlikely to resume service for the game.” Square Enix...
4 days ago
It’s going to be a hot vehicular combat summer: Peacock has announced that the second of Twisted Metal will start streaming later this year. The show, which is an adaptation of a classic and long-dormant PlayStation series, premiered in the summer of 2023 and was renewed later that year. Season 1 was an origin story of sorts, starring Anthony Mackie as a delivery driver with amnesia, Stephanie Beatriz as his eventual partner, and Joe Seanoa and Will Arnett as the...
4 days ago
The last iPhone SE was released in 2022. Apple is getting ready to show its newest device during an event on Wednesday, February 19th. Tim Cook revealed the date in a post on X, saying “Get ready to meet the newest member of the family,” alongside a GIF of the Apple logo. Apple is widely expected to reveal the latest generation of its iPhone SE, which hasn’t seen a refresh since 2022. Last week, a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman...
4 days ago
I’ve been the editor-in-chief of The Verge for over 10 years now, and a tech journalist for about 15 — and until recently, it felt pretty safe to assume that there was a zero percent chance that the US government would punish me for doing my job. There’s that whole First Amendment in this country, after all — we don’t usually tolerate government interference with speech, and we have a high bar for how public figures like politicians and celebrities...
4 days ago
At least one more season of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will be coming to the small screen sooner than later. Today, Amazon announced that it has greenlit production on another installment of its Lord of the Rings prequel series starring Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, Charlie Vickers as Sauron, Robert Aramayo as Elrond, and Daniel Weyman as Gandalf. In a press release about the renewal, Amazon shared that, while it has yet to lock in...
4 days ago
The best screens for screen time. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Haven’t you heard? Phones are boring now. And that’s just fine! Most people buying a new phone just want something familiar that works better than the device they’re replacing. If that’s your MO, then you’re sure to find something reliable in my recommendations below. But even if you’re looking for something a little more extra, you’ve got some great options. They’re going to be pretty iterative compared...
4 days ago
It’s much nicer to look at than to use. The Dell XPS 13 was once the best thin-and-light Windows laptop you could get, with amazing build quality, good battery life, and decent port selection (and eventually, a serviceable webcam). But it peaked in 2020 and itâs been slipping since. It got OLED screen options that tanked the battery life. Then there was a baffling redesign that made the keyboard, trackpad, and port selection worse, paired with power-hungry 12th Gen Intel...
4 days ago
The first teaser for Sony and Screen Gems’ big screen Until Dawn adaptation made it seem like it might just be another supernatural horror with a splash of Groundhog Day tossed in to keep things mildly interesting. But judging from the way the studios are describing the film, it sounds like this Until Dawn will also feature another important element from its video game counterpart. Though old man Hill (Peter Stomare) still won’t tell Clover (Ella Rubin) and her friends...
4 days ago
YouTube has added new generative AI video features that creators can use when making Shorts. The video platform announced that Google’s Veo 2 video model is being integrated into YouTube’s experimental Dream Screen feature, alongside allowing users to generate standalone video clips that can be added to Shorts. Dream Screen was introduced in September 2023 and already generates images and videos for Shorts content based on text descriptions; however, these could only previously be applied as virtual green screen backgrounds....
4 days ago
Bethesda is adding DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation and DLSS Ray Reconstruction to Indiana Jones and the Great Circle in an update due next week. Both technologies will improve the image quality of Indiana Jones, and Multi Frame Generation will also enable smoother frame rates in the process. Nvidia has released a new Game Ready driver today (572.42) that includes support for the Indiana Jones improvements. Both the DLSS Super Resolution and DLAA features of the game will be updated...
4 days ago
Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida, Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe, and Mitsubishi CEO Takao Kato. Honda and Nissan have announced they are calling off a $60 billion plan to merge their two companies. The pair were in talks for just over a month trying to join forces, a plan that was especially important for Nissan, since it reportedly would only survive another year due to nosediving profits. The merger could have also strategically strengthened the Japanese auto industry against rising competition from...
4 days ago
Alibaba has announced that it is partnering with Apple to provide artificial intelligence features to iPhones in China. Apple Intelligence features have not yet been enabled in China, which is thought to have contributed to the company’s local decline in smartphone sales. “They talked to a number of companies in China. In the end they chose to do business with us. They want to use our AI to power their phones,” Alibaba chairman Joseph Tsai said. “We feel extremely honoured...
4 days ago
Apple’s Vision Pro is finally here. Tim Cook arrived at Apple’s Fifth Avenue store in New York City to greet the crowd of customers at the doors who were waiting to try out the headset or buy one for themselves. The Vision Pro is Apple’s take on a mixed-reality headset, which, according to our review, ”feels like magic when it works and frustrates you completely when it doesn’t.” There are more than 600 apps for the headset that take advantage of its...
4 days ago