Teenage Engineering’s unique music machines are 30 percent off

Teenage Engineering’s OP-XY has a huge number of functions. | Photo by Terrence O’Brien / The Verge With elements from synthesizers, loopers, and effects pedals, Teenage Engineering’s devices lie somewhere between musical instrument and modern art. These grooveboxes, as they’re often called, are capable of helping you produce songs in real time from a single … Read more

Warner Bros. is suing Amazon for poaching employees

Warner Bros. Discovery has filed suit against Amazon, accusing it of illegally poaching employees, including Pia Barlow, former senior VP for originals marketing. In the complaint, Warner says that “Amazon has chosen to ride on the coattails of other well-established Hollywood mainstays,” and that it engaged in a “lawless employee shopping spree.” Deadline reports that … Read more

Is this e-reader case a gun?

Is an e-reader case as dangerous as a Glock 19? Last month, Louisville, Kentucky-based creator Luke The Maker showed off a bizarre, 3D-printed, pistol-shaped case design for the popular minimalist Xteink X4 e-reader. The X4 lies vertically atop the plastic gun’s slide, with a cutout on the side to access its buttons. Though the frame … Read more

Forget expensive sleepbuds. Buy this pillow instead

This “piercing pillow” also works great with earbuds you probably already own. Tech companies love to sell us expensive gadgets to solve all of life’s little problems. Sleepbuds sold by the likes of Anker and Ozlo are a good example. These miniature marvels of engineering sit flush in the ear, and allow side-sleepers to doze … Read more

Meta just created a moderation nightmare for its smart glasses

Meta’s smart glasses have been a PR headache for the company. Public backlash has been swift, and fierce; people are concerned about the erosion of privacy and expansion of surveillance. Some especially bad actors are using the glasses to film themselves “pranking” random strangers. Women have become unsuspecting social media content for men filming themselves … Read more

Qualcomm is about to raise prices and that’s bad news for everyone

Qualcomm sent a letter to customers on Friday warning of plans to increase its prices by “a percentage in the double digits,” Bloomberg reports. The price hikes will go into effect starting with products shipped after September 1st. Qualcomm claims it has “exhausted its ability to absorb higher costs from suppliers,” as ongoing component shortages … Read more

Midjourney bought the astrology app Co-Star

Midjourney, which has gone from generating AI cat images to full-body ultrasound scans, is getting into a new field: astrology. The AI startup announced on Thursday that it has acquired the personalized astrology app Co-Star, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. Co-Star is a free app that offers daily horoscopes and allows you to check your … Read more

Nothing confirms layoffs, but calls market exit rumors ‘fake news’

raw | Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge In response to a report that Nothing is planning to “exit 12 markets as global shipments decline,” Nothing cofounder Akis Evangelidis said the company is “reorganizing” and laying off some of its staff, but that “the reported numbers are way overblown.” Evangelidis disputed a claim about underwhelming … Read more

You can’t ignore Google Zero anymore

The web and Google once had a deal: Google collects data and indexes webpages and in exchange sends oceans of traffic to websites. The deal wasn’t perfect and certainly made Google more money than it made the websites, but it worked for a long time. Now, however, the deal seems to be dead. And the … Read more

The tech-broification of American science has officially begun

Trump’s science adviser Michael Kratsios has no science background. | Image: Getty / The Verge The Trump administration unveiled the first “Genesis Mission” grants on Thursday, directing $5 billion toward hundreds of AI-driven science projects in an effort the White House has described as “comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project.” At roughly … Read more

What I track in a day

It’s a lot of stuff, generally. | Photo: Victoria Song / The Verge This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they’re going to change your life. Optimizer will be taking a two-week break and will be moving to … Read more

Whack-a-drone

In Pasadena, California, there’s a cute red brick courtyard where one storefront isn’t like the rest. The glass doors open onto a sparse industrial hallway, which leads to a sunlit foyer with a large spiral staircase. Go up, and you’ll see a typical coworking space: open tables, healthy snacks, a collection of meeting rooms with … Read more

TikTok’s protection of minors should not be opt-in, warns EU

TikTok has attracted the ire of the European Union over its protection of children who use the video sharing platform. The European Commission announced preliminary findings today under the Digital Services Act (DSA) that offer specific issues to address. The Commission suggests that TikTok should adjust the default settings of minors’ “public” accounts so the … Read more

Facebook considers giving up and becoming TikTok

Facebook is planning some big changes to try and keep its users from jumping to rival social platforms like TikTok – changes that sound dubiously similar to becoming a TikTok clone. Facebook head Tom Alison announced today that the platform will begin testing a “reimagined experience” later this year that will put a subset of … Read more

Microsoft pressures LG into killing unwanted McAfee ads

Microsoft has intervened to stop Windows 11 users with LG monitors from being bombarded with annoying McAfee trial pop-ups. In response to complaints about the LG bloatware, Microsoft’s Windows chief, Pavan Davuluri, said that LG has agreed to immediately disable the McAfee pop-up from its LG Monitor App Installer, and pledged that Microsoft will “keep … Read more