The start of a new school year can feel hectic, as parents juggle their kids’ classes, extracurriculars and sports on top of work, appointments, and other responsibilities. It’s easy for things to slip through the cracks, but Skylight’s shared smart calendars can help keep everyo … | Continue reading
The HP HyperX Omen 15, which I first saw at CES, replaces the HP Victus 15, a longtime bestselling budget gaming laptop. The Victus cost just $800, or less when on sale, and was a good entry point to decent laptop gaming. The Omen 15 has nice little upgrades over the Victus. Its … | Continue reading
Illustrators have spent years sounding the alarm about generative artificial intelligence startups training their models on artists' work without permission. They've pointed out how the practice is tantamount to theft, and in response, many gen AI boosters have argued that it's n … | Continue reading
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on smartphones and Android, follow Dominic Preston. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Believe … | Continue reading
Android Headlines claims to have the specs and price for the entire Pixel 11 lineup. What the site shared basically lines up with everything else that we've heard in the lead-up to the August 12th event. The Pixel 11 is expected to get a $100 price hike, starting at $899, but wil … | Continue reading
Angela Nissel's latest book, Good Grief, Pass the Bread, Mom Is Dead, is my kind of memoir. Sure, it's a deeply emotional tale about caring for a terminally ill parent. But it's delivered with the sort of gallows humor that I often turn to to get me through tough times. Of course … | Continue reading
Fenix Flexin is best known as a member of Shoreline Mafia, a rap duo from Los Angeles. But he's recently found solo success with the track "Rubberz," which has climbed to number 58 on the Billboard Hot 100. Almost immediately, though, questions were raised about the song's origin … | Continue reading
A bootleg of Spider-Man: Brand New Day was up on X for over seven hours before eventually being pulled. During that time, it reached over 5.9 million accounts and accumulated over 143,000 likes. Other accounts have reposted the leaked film, but none have lasted particularly long, … | Continue reading
The FBI, the EPA, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have stopped short of officially blaming Iran for a spate of cyberattacks on Minnesota's water systems, but consensus is that Iran is likely behind them. That, of course, hasn't stopped Donald Trump … | Continue reading
Knowing exactly what your student needs for the school year ahead is next to impossible. Sure, you'll probably nail the essentials, but there will likely be a few items you forgot to buy, or didn't think they'd need to have. We're pulling our weight during the back-to-school seas … | Continue reading
Your smartphone photos can look way better. If you're willing to put in a little extra work, use third party apps and spend a bit of time editing, it's possible to take photos that - under the right circumstances - can rival dedicated digital cameras. I post a lot of smartphone p … | Continue reading
The Mermaid Mask, the next point-and-click game from Tangle Tower developer SFB Games, has everything you could ask for in a great murder mystery. It starts with a compelling setup: The captain of a submarine is found dead in a locked room, his body next to a mysterious cauldron … | Continue reading
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 138, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy August, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about microwave sounds and Meta gla … | Continue reading
Sharge, the company that makes delightful retro Mac-shaped chargers and see-inside batteries, is finally impressing me with a portable SSD. I couldn't recommend the Sharge Disk, Disk Plus, or even the Disk Pro, but I'd be happy to own the new Disk Pro 2 Ultra. This isn't just a d … | Continue reading
We spotted a great deal on Tile trackers earlier this week that’s still live, but if you’re an iPhone owner, we ultimately recommend Apple’s latest AirTag. Right now, you can pick up a four-pack for $89 ($10 off) at Amazon and Target, matching the bundle’s all-time low price. If … | Continue reading
Google has shut down Google Earth feature it launched Thursday that allowed users to edit satellite images with text prompts using AI. The tool essentially let users create AI deepfakes of the real world using text prompts; Digital Digging's Henk van Ess, for example, intentional … | Continue reading
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is probing nearly 1.2 million Tesla vehicles after receiving complaints about a suspension failure that could cause "a loss of vehicle directional control," as reported earlier by Reuters. The preliminary investigation in … | Continue reading
Google is seemingly working on an item tracker that might compete with Apple's AirTag. 9to5Google obtained an image of something called a "Google Pixel Tag" that has a small oval shape. The publication also linked to a Slovenian store listing about the Pixel Tag that describes th … | Continue reading
No other gadget knows as much about your home as a robot vacuum. They map your space, learn your routines, and many now carry a camera and microphone into every room in your house. As AI gives them a better understanding of what they see, the privacy and security risks these auto … | Continue reading
Looking to start your own island paradise full of Miis of family, friends, and celebrities, but don’t feel like paying full fare? Woot has Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream for Switch on sale for $52.99 (usually $59.95). Sort of like Animal Crossing, but more off-kilter, this uniq … | Continue reading
Now a text prompt is all it takes to generate reality-warping images using Google Earth's satellite, aerial, and 3D imagery, like these images generated by Digital Digging's Henk van Ess that show "refugees near the Mexican border" and a bomb crater near a hospital in Gaza. Googl … | Continue reading
Several record labels, including the big three - Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Music Group - have proposed rules regarding chart eligibility for AI songs. In short, they wouldn't be. The proposal goes quite a bit further than a labeling proposal put forth by the R … | Continue reading
New York is suing Kalshi over claims the prediction market is running "an illegal gambling operation." In the lawsuit, New York Attorney General Letitia James accuses Kalshi of violating state laws by accepting wagers without a license from the state's gaming commission, as repor … | Continue reading
When the phrase "OpenAI hacked Hugging Face" has more or less entered mainstream culture, you know we have an AI problem. This week, we learned more about exactly how OpenAI's agent broke out of a sandbox and autonomously traversed the web, including a bunch of other supposedly s … | Continue reading
Anthropic just realized several of its Claude AI models hacked into the systems of three different organizations during testing, acting on their own and without the company noticing. The revelation comes days after rival OpenAI said one of its own models had breached developer pl … | Continue reading
Dungeons & Dragons is no stranger to franchise crossovers, and now it's kicking off its biggest multiverse initiative to date, starting with a World of Warcraft expansion. Wizards of the Coast (WotC) has announced that D&D: World of Warcraft - a new sourcebook that brings Blizzar … | Continue reading
The refurbished railway station in London I entered last week had none of the usual signs of being a tattoo studio. The walls were devoid of any art, and there were no reclining chairs or massage tables in the room. The only tattoo gun on the premises sat in a display case instea … | Continue reading
Cape Fear has always been a thriller about paranoia. And in 2026 there are few things less trustworthy than technology. Apple TV's recent remake of Cape Fear is "inspired" by the 1991 film of the same name (Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg even returned as executive producers … | Continue reading
Sony has received a lot of backlash from PlayStation fans since announcing that it's killing physical game disc production, but that hasn't swayed its decision. During Sony's latest earnings call, chief financial officer Lin Tao said that while the company "put in a lot of though … | Continue reading
Apple may allow users to pay to increase their AI usage limits. During an earnings call on Thursday, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that he believes people will want to use Apple Intelligence and the upcoming Siri AI "a lot," adding that "we will have some kind of upgrade possibilities … | Continue reading
After a massive Xbox "reset" that laid off thousands of employees and spun off four studios, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma wants to get Xbox back to growth. In a memo obtained by The Verge, Sharma told staff by the end of fiscal year 2027 (which runs through next June), "we will return XB … | Continue reading
Apple's iPhone and Mac sales are on the rise even as a global memory shortage squeezes device makers. In its third-quarter earnings report released on Thursday, Apple revealed that iPhone sales jumped 22 percent to $54.25 billion and Mac sales increased 29 percent to $10.35 billi … | Continue reading
I am not by any means an expert at finance but I think I do now have some advice for people who are: Do not name your hedge fund anything that will be hilarious if it blows up. Don't use a name like "Long-Term Capital Management," or "Amaranth Advisors" (named for the floral symb … | Continue reading
The Galaxy Watch 9 launches on August 7th, and not only does Costco have the best preorder incentives we’ve seen so far, the watch is also discounted. The deal includes the 40mm Watch 9 in cream or graphite, two wireless fast chargers for the watch, and a $50 Costco gift card, al … | Continue reading
A lot of content on LinkedIn might seem like AI slop, and now, you'll be able to report those posts. As part of a series of updates to reduce the volume of AI slop on the platform, LinkedIn is introducing an actual button that lets you flag a post as something that "Seems like AI … | Continue reading
Buying multiple lamps for different rooms can get expensive. Govee’s rechargeable Table Lamp Classic gives you one lamp you can use throughout your home instead of getting one for every room, and right now it’s down to $59 ($21 off) at Amazon. That’s just $4 shy of the all-time l … | Continue reading
The latest discovery from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is a field of honeycomb-shaped polygons covering a Martian valley called Valle Grande. As Gizmodo reports, Curiosity has snapped pictures of the unusual terrain texture before, called polygonal fractures, each about 1.5 to 3 i … | Continue reading
Google DeepMind says the latest version of its Gemini Robotics AI model can "control entire humanoid robots." While the previous model focused on controlling a humanoid robot's upper body, Gemini Robotics 2 now supports "whole-body motions" ranging from its feet to fingertips, ac … | Continue reading
ABC filed its formal opposition to the Federal Communications Commission's effort to force it to submit to an early renewal of its broadcast station licenses, calling it an effort to chill the speech of broadcasters across the country. In a new filing with the FCC, ABC charges th … | Continue reading
Google is working on a way to apply Chrome updates without requiring you to restart your browser. In a post on Thursday, Google outlines its approach to bug fixes in the age of AI, while noting that it's trying to make updates less disruptive by "investing in 'dynamic patching' t … | Continue reading
Weeks ahead of Google's next Pixel hardware event, Leaker Evan Blass has shared what appear to be marketing renders of the unannounced Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold in a post on his Substack. The renders, if accurate, show that the new foldable will look fairly similar to last year's … | Continue reading
Do you remember Friend? The Friend that launched an AI pendant, spent $1.8 million of its $2.5 million to acquire friend.com, and plastered the NYC subway with ads promoting artificial companionship? Yeah well, if you didn't remember, Friend is back. And now, it's twice the price … | Continue reading
Best Buy has raised the price of the Asus ROG Astral RTX 5080 OC to $2,099 - the first time a major US retailer is directly selling an RTX 5080 for more than the $1,999 MSRP of the RTX 5090, VideoCardz reports. The ROG Astral RTX 5080 OC now costs 40 percent more than its […] | Continue reading
The SkyNomad N90 Max is the latest electric SUV from Xiaomi and its first extended-range EV, with a claimed range of over 1,705 km (about 1,059 miles). It will come in both five- and seven-seat configurations, as well as an N90 Max Camping Edition. One of the big features of the … | Continue reading
Razer has insisted that optical keyboard switches are the best choice for competitive esports stars and the sweatiest of try-hards, but it's now relenting slightly by offering cheaper keyboards with magnetic switches and a similar array of gaming features. The $120 Razer Huntsman … | Continue reading
Zoox just got permission to charge for robotaxi rides in its boxy, steering-wheel-less vehicles. On Thursday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced it has granted the Amazon-owned Zoox a temporary exemption, allowing it to deploy up to 2,500 vehicles annual … | Continue reading
If you’re keen on getting a laptop that looks fantastic, feels great to use, and doesn’t cost too much, well, pickings are slim right due to RAMageddon. However, there’s a good deal happening at Best Buy through Thursday, July 30th, on Microsoft’s Arm-based, 13.8-inch Surface Lap … | Continue reading
Spotify has introduced a new Running Mode feature that makes it easier to curate playlists around your workout goals, music tastes, and desired beats per minute (BPM). The aim is to help you "spend less time hunting for the right music and more time moving," according to Spotify' … | Continue reading