Nintendo is updating Animal Crossing: New Horizons with new features for the Switch 2. The upgraded game will arrive on January 15th, 2026, offering 4K visuals on TV, mouse controls, and an in-game megaphone that uses the Switch 2’s built-in microphone. It will cost $64.99 but will also be available as an upgrade pack for … Read more
Hello, and welcome to Decoder. This is Sarah Jeong, features editor at The Verge. I’m standing in for Nilay for one final Thursday episode here as he settles back into full-time hosting duties. Today, we’ve got a fun one. I’m talking to Cory Doctorow, prolific author, internet activist, and arguably one of the fiercest tech … Read more
Weavy, now known as Figma Weave, lets you control AI tools in a mind map-like canvas interface. Figma has acquired Weavy, a creative platform that allows users to link AI models and editing tools together, and use them simultaneously in a single canvas. The platform will now live under its new parent company as “Figma … Read more
Ariana Grande is one of Universal Music Group’s most popular artists. Universal Music Group says it has made “industry-first strategic agreements” to “settle copyright infringement litigation” with AI startup Udio and license music for a new AI-powered music platform. The move is one of several anticipated licensing deals expected to land in the next few … Read more
We live in an age where it has become infinitely easier for people to lead lives that are wholly divorced from any semblance of reality. Conspiracy theories run rampant, science denial is en vogue, and there is a vast media ecosystem filled with charlatans encouraging others to “do their own research” instead of believing well-educated … Read more
Say hello to passkey backup encryption. WhatsApp is introducing a passwordless way to instantly secure your chat backups. The messaging platform is launching passkey-encrypted backups for iOS and Android, allowing users to quickly encrypt their stored message history using their face, fingerprint, or device screen lock code. The update is rolling out “gradually over the … Read more
Sora can turn almost anything into a reusable AI video character. OpenAI’s Sora app will now let you turn almost anything into a reusable avatar for its AI-generated videos. These “character cameos” are one of several new features that have been added to the Sora 2 video generator, alongside clip stitching and leaderboards that showcase … Read more
The Nobel committee will love this. | Image: Getty President Donald Trump says he has instructed the Pentagon to immediately start testing nuclear weapons, citing a need to match “other countries [sic] testing programs.” Trump’s post on Truth Social included very few details on the nature of the tests, but says the “process will begin … Read more
When you buy the $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display, you aren’t just getting a pair of smart glasses: you’re also getting Meta’s Neural Band, a small wristband that you use to control what’s on the glasses’ display. It’s an essential part of the product. But, if by some unfortunate circumstance, you need to buy a replacement … Read more
Ursa’s classic spherical profile and centered legends dress up any Topre keyboard. Your Happy Hacking Keyboard can finally get fresh caps. While regular keyboards have an embarrassment of keycap options, Topre boards like the HHKB or Realforce R3 don’t. They’ve more or less been relegated to OEM-profile PBT keycaps with dye-sublimated legends, in light grey, … Read more
Rode’s Wireless Micro Camera Kit includes a charging case to extend the battery life of its receivers and mics. | Image: Rode Last November, Rode launched its Wireless Micro microphone system that paired two tiny lavalier mics with a small receiver that connected to your phone’s charging port. Rode later gave that product a free … Read more
At a Senate hearing Wednesday on government censorship of tech platforms, a Meta executive expressed regret to Republican lawmakers for failing to speak out more against the Biden administration’s requests that it remove health and election misinformation, including satire. Google, meanwhile, held firm in its stance, saying that evaluating – and often rejecting – government … Read more
Kat Abughazaleh, who has announced a campaign for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, carries yard signs into her campaign office Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old Palestinian American and Democratic candidate for Congress in the 9th District of Illinois, has been indicted by the Department of Justice on charges connected to protests outside an ICE facility. The indictment … Read more
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is getting ready to dump even more AI-generated posts into your social feeds. During an earnings call on Wednesday, Zuckerberg said the company will “add yet another huge corpus of content” to its recommendations system as AI “makes it easier to create and remix” work that gets shared online. “Social media … Read more
Xbox sales have been tanking for a while now — and the story hasn’t gotten any brighter. Microsoft just released its Q1 2026 earnings and Xbox hardware revenue was down 29 percent year-over-year. Last quarter, it was down 22 percent. Down 29 percent in the first two quarters of 2025, down 42 percent in Q4 of … Read more
A popular ski resort town in Colorado is adopting a new AI Smart City Solution from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to help it better detect wildfires, as well as update a range of other city services. Vail is expanding its firefighting toolbox as hotter, more arid weather with climate change raises wildfire risk in the … Read more
New iPhones for the AI era. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge If you’ve been holding off on getting a new iPhone, now’s the perfect time to size up your options. Apple recently launched its 2025 iPhone lineup, which includes the iPhone 17, 17 Pro, 17 Pro Max, and a brand-new model, the ultra-thin … Read more
AOL will soon have a new owner. Bending Spoons, the Italian software company that has bought up a range of other digital businesses like Evernote, MeetUp, WeTransfer, and soon Vimeo, announced plans to purchase AOL from Yahoo after securing a $2.8 billion debt financing package. Over the past couple of decades, AOL has been passed … Read more
Abxylute’s M4 Snap-On phone controller trades clamps for magnets. | Image: Abxylute Abxylute, a company known for its Android-based handhelds, has announced a new compact mobile controller for smartphones. Unlike controllers from companies like Backbone and 8BitDo that use an expanding mechanism to clamp onto phones, Abxylute’s smaller and lighter M4 Snap-On controller uses a … Read more
Almost immediately in The Outer Worlds 2, the player receives news of a corporate shake-up: Auntie Cleo and Spacer’s Choice, two of the in-game retail brands, have merged to form Auntie’s Choice. Less a chain of stores and more a feudal power, Auntie’s Choice manages its employees – serfs, really – with the cruelty of … Read more
Finally cut down on that rat’s nest of cables. | Image: The Verge The thing about carrying multiple devices is you usually end up hauling a nest of cables along with them. Now imagine trimming your kit down to a single, versatile cord that can provide power to your smartphone and laptop simultaneously. That’s where … Read more
Microsoft Azure, the company’s cloud computing service, is experiencing an outage just one week after issues with AWS took out swaths of the internet. The issues appear to be impacting Microsoft’s services that run on Azure, including Microsoft 365, Xbox, and even Minecraft. Microsoft confirmed Azure Portal issues on the service’s status page, adding that … Read more
A screenshot from Halo: Campaign Evolved. Halo coming to PlayStation is one of those events that, five years ago, would have been the tell that “something is not right here” in a show about time travel or alternate universes. Looking at the state of Xbox with its layoffs, game cancellations, price hikes, studio closures, and … Read more
The high-end OLED TV is 41 percent off. | Image: LG If you want one of the best home theater experiences LG can provide, the 65-inch LG G5 OLED is down to a new record low price. Regularly $3,399.99, you can buy the TV for around $1,996.99 at Amazon and directly from LG. Other configurations … Read more
You’re going to start seeing more warnings in Chrome when accessing insecure sites. Starting next October, Chrome will soon warn users when they visit a public website without an encrypted HTTPS connection. Chrome already issues a “Your connection is not private” message when you visit pages that have an HTTPS connection that’s misconfigured. But this … Read more
Tesla’s Cybercab isn’t scheduled to go into production until 2026, but when it does, it may end up stuck with a vestige of the automotive past: a steering wheel. To be sure, we still use steering wheels. But the Tesla Cybercab was meant to be the first vehicle of the new future, and there’s nothing … Read more
Google introduced support for the ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless protocol with the Pixel 6 Pro in 2021. But if you’ve been struggling to get your Pixel phone to precisely locate one of the few Android-compatible trackers that support UWB, it’s because that feature is only enabled on the Pro models of the Pixel 8 and above, … Read more
Nvidia has become the world’s first $5 trillion company. Shares soared by up to 5 percent to over $211 around 9:30AM ET on Wednesday morning, according to Bloomberg, marking the latest milestone for a company that only just hit the $4 trillion mark in July. Nvidia shares have been on the rise as the company … Read more
Google smart home users in the US can now get an early taste of the new Gemini for Home assistant, which began rolling out in early access on Tuesday. It’s slated to replace the current Google Assistant on Nest devices, marking one of the most significant updates yet to Google’s smart home ecosystem. It runs … Read more
Symmetric camera lovers, look away now. After Nothing’s recent flagship Phone 3 ditched its trademark Glyph Lights in favor of a dot matrix display, the new Phone 3A Lite brings them back — but only one of them. The affordable phone launches today in the UK and Europe, but won’t get a release in the … Read more