This is an excerpt of Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. Around the middle of last year, Pim de Witte started reaching out to a handful of prominent AI labs to see if they’d be interested in using data from … Read more
Apple just announced 14-inch MacBook Pro updates that add a new generation M5 processor, faster storage, and a promise of 24-hour battery life, but Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman now reports next year’s refresh will be more thorough. For several years, Gurman has said that, according to his sources, the next major MacBook Pro revamp would add … Read more
A rendering of the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility. | Image: X-energy via Amazon Amazon shared some new details about its plans to help deploy more nuclear energy across Washington State, where the company is headquartered. About a year ago, Amazon announced an agreement with Energy Northwest, a consortium of public utilities in Washington, to support the development of … Read more
On Thursday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law legislation banning the use of price-fixing software by landlords to set rental rates. New York is the first state to outlaw algorithmic pricing by landlords, following a number of city-wide bans in Jersey City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle. Software companies such as RealPage offer … Read more
The Trump administration’s heightened monitoring of immigrants’ social media accounts seeking grounds to revoke their visas stifles the speech rights of both noncitizens and citizens alike, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) alleges in a new lawsuit. The lawsuit seeks to end the State Department’s “Catch-and-Revoke” policy, which threatens to strip visaholders of their legal status … Read more
Residents And Protesters Clash With Federal Agents In Chicago, Illinois. | Getty Images Judge Sara L. Ellis of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois said during a hearing Thursday morning that she would require ICE agents in Chicago engaged in “Operation Midway Blitz” to use body cameras. But the logistics of … Read more
The LiPlay Plus is designed to be held vertically, but can be used to snap photos in a landscape orientation, too. | Image: Fujifilm Fujifilm has announced an update to its Instax Mini LiPlay that first launched in 2019. The new Instax Mini LiPlay Plus offers similar functionality as the original with the ability to … Read more
Pinterest is rolling out a tool that allows users to “dial down the AI” in their feed, the company says. Users can select which categories they want populated with more or less AI-generated content. But Pinterest stops short of promising a feed that’s completely free of AI: the tool will work only on “eligible image … Read more
Starting next week you can bundle Apple TV and Peacock with a significant discount. | Image: Apple Apple has partnered with NBCUniversal for a new subscription bundle that includes Apple TV and Peacock Premium for $14.99 per month, or Apple TV and the mostly ad-free Peacock Premium Plus for $19.99 per month. The newly rebranded … Read more
AI agents spent years as a concept and then as an experiment. Now, AI companies are devoting even more time and resources than before to make their agents actually useful for end users, whether they’re consumers or professionals. Anthropic on Thursday announced its next step toward that goal: Skills for Claude. The tool is made … Read more
This is Lowpass by Janko Roettgers, a newsletter on the ever-evolving intersection of tech and entertainment, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. Big hero images highlighting select TV shows and movies, a row of app icons, a bunch of additional content recommendations: At first glance, Meta’s new Horizon TV app looks a … Read more
OxygenOS 16 brings with it some wide-ranging upgrades. OnePlus has announced OxygenOS 16, its take on Android 16, with upgrades to its Mind Space AI tool including complete integration with Google Gemini. Other updates include new lock screen customizations, improved connectivity options, and design tweaks throughout. Mind Space is where the biggest changes have been … Read more
Google is trying to capitalize on what it calls “frequent and severe” Microsoft 365 outages by offering up services like email, storage, and videoconferencing to businesses in the event of a Microsoft outage. The search giant’s new Business Continuity plan runs a Google Workspace in parallel with Microsoft 365, so if there’s an outage then … Read more
Casio’s new calculator watch features design details inspired by Back to the Future’s DeLorean. | Image: Casio It wasn’t the first watchmaker to release a wristworn calculator, but by making them affordable, Casio’s calculator watches became an icon of ‘80s technology. It was even the timepiece of choice for Back to the Future’s Marty McFly, … Read more
Ugreen’s Revodok Max 208 is on sale for $169.98 If your laptop doesn’t have enough ports, you can fix that issue with Ugreen’s Revodok Max 208, an 8-in-1 Thunderbolt 4 dock that’s on sale for $169.98 ($80 off) at Amazon and from Ugreen. The Revodok Max 208 has four Thunderbolt 4 ports and a gigabit … Read more
Hello, and welcome to Decoder! This is Jake Kastrenakes, executive editor at The Verge. I’m filling in for Nilay for one Thursday episode while he’s settling back into full-time podcast hosting duties. We’ve got a very good episode for you today. My guest is Verge transportation editor Andy Hawkins, and we’re talking about the federal … Read more
In its quest to become the ultimate app for “flexible work,” Uber launched today a new pilot to allow its US drivers and couriers to earn extra money by performing “microtasks” to train AI models. These tasks include audio voice recording, capturing and uploading images, and submitting documents in certain languages. The prompts will vary, … Read more
Guillermo del Toro has been thinking about Mary Shelley’s novel for a lifetime. He has described Frankenstein as “the quintessential teenage book,” and his famous Bleak House in Los Angeles is filled with versions of the creature from various film and stage adaptations. Naturally, the director has also imagined turning it into a movie himself. … Read more
The recently-rumored AI partnership between Spotify and the major record labels is now a reality. The streaming service announced today that it’s entering into an agreement with Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Merlin, and Believe to develop “responsible AI products.” Unfortunately, your guess is as good as ours as to what … Read more
The internet has long been a source of information and support for transgender people. Now, trans rights and the internet itself are in a moment of crisis. What happens next? How trans visibility became a trap People who have documented their lives online are discovering the dark side of digital permanence. The return of the … Read more
While oceans of ink paint trans women as a monstrous threat or pitiable curiosity, trans women themselves have often remained locked out of the publishing world as both writers and presumptive readers — spoken of but not to. Traditional publishing can flatten the diversity of queer experience as a whole, homogenizing it for the benefit … Read more
As Microsoft bids farewell to Windows 10 and gets ready to mark the 40-year milestone of its operating system, it’s looking forward to what’s next for Windows. Microsoft might not be ready to announce Windows 12 just yet, but it clearly wants to turn every Windows 11 PC into an AI PC that Copilot controls … Read more
A Waymo autonomous self-driving Jaguar electric vehicle is seen in Tempe, Arizona, on the outskirts of Phoenix, on September 15, 2025. (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP) (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images) DoorDash customers in Phoenix may soon have their delivery order brought to them by an autonomous Waymo vehicle. The two companies … Read more
It’s Android flagship season in China right now, and today is Oppo’s turn. It has revealed the Find X9 and Find X9 Pro, with industry-leading specs for both the cameras and batteries. Unlike sister company OnePlus, Oppo has maintained its relationship with Hasselblad, now extending it to a branded telephoto extender lens. Oppo also promised … Read more
Ever wanted a robot lawnmower you can ride? If the answer’s yes, then Honda has something for you. The Japanese company will be debuting its new ProZision series of battery-powered riding mowers at the Equip Exposition 2025 in Kentucky next week, one of which Honda says can trim your grass “without needing a human operator … Read more
Ekko Astral is not a trans band. They may have a trans frontwoman in Jael Holzman. Much of their material may deal with being trans. Plus, they may have grown their fan base from word of mouth online in spaces such as trans Twitter. But at the end of the day, they are not a … Read more
The Mint’s design for the $1 Steve Jobs commemorative coin. The US Mint has revealed the design for a commemorative $1 coin honoring late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs. The coin features a young Jobs sitting crosslegged in front of a California landscape of rolling hills, the Mint said. Of course, he’s wearing a … Read more
As trade tensions grow between the US and China, Microsoft is reportedly preparing to move the manufacturing of its Surface laptops and tablets out of China. Nikkei reports that Microsoft is aiming to move manufacturing of Surface devices and data center servers out of China “starting from 2026 at the earliest.” The move will reportedly … Read more
Google is making videos created with the AI filmmaking tool Flow even more realistic — and harder to identify as AI-generated at first glance. The company announced Wednesday that users can add in and change the shadows and lighting of their AI videos. The expanded editing features in Flow are tied to the Veo 3.1 … Read more
Don’t let pings spoil the dingers. When my household quit cable four years ago and I lost access to Seattle Mariners games on TV, I started streaming the radio broadcast on the Google Home speaker in my kitchen. Honestly? Baseball on the radio rules. You get to walk around and do stuff to the pleasant … Read more