Google has announced that Hangouts on Air — the live-streaming service once used by Barack Obama and Pope Francis — will be mostly discontinued next month. A new post over at Google's YouTube support page lays out the details for Hangouts on Air users, who will have to use YouTub … | Continue reading
We’ve had an idea that HTC would make two Nexus phones this year, which we’ve been referring to by their supposed Google codenames Marlin and Sailfish. Today Ausdroid reports that the FCC approved the two phones and is listing them online. Though the phones aren’t explicitly ref … | Continue reading
No Man’s Sky is an almost impossibly huge game, an entire virtual universe filled with 18 quintillion planets, each one different from the next thanks to the powers of procedural generation. Instead of a typical review, I’m going to be writing daily dispatches from No Man’s Sky, … | Continue reading
US billionaire Warren Buffett likes to note how little advantage his considerable wealth secures him over the average person. He still wears pants like everyone else, lives in a modest house, and uses the sort of technology that’s accessible to the masses. The only thing, Buffett … | Continue reading
Sony’s latest software update to the PlayStation 4 is now coming to beta users. Unlike the last major update, which added support for remote streaming to Macs and PCs, the 4.00 firmware beta (codenamed Shingen) is mostly focused on tweaking the PS4’s user interface. One of the bi … | Continue reading
Here's a puzzle: Google appears to have started work on a completely new operating system, but no one knows quite what it's for. The project's name is Fuchsia, and it currently exists as a growing pile of code on the search giant's code depository and on GitHub too. The fledgling … | Continue reading
The NFL is well into its first week of preseason, and Microsoft is celebrating the return of football to our TV screens with some new Surface Type Covers. There are 32 designs to pick from, featuring all the team logos, and the Type Covers will work with a Surface Pro 3 or Surfac … | Continue reading
By the time the law caught up with him, Ronald Carnes had been on the run for 40 years. He’d been moving from state to state after escaping from a North Carolina prison in 1973, finally landing in Waterloo, Iowa, under a pair of assumed names.He probably could have spent the rest … | Continue reading
The Galaxy Note 7 begins shipping on all four major US carriers on Friday, August 19th. Samsung's giant 5.7-inch handset still sits comfortably in the hand thanks to a dual-curved Super AMOLED display that helps reduce the phone's overall width. Other notable advancements over l … | Continue reading
Twitter is reportedly negotiating with Apple to bring the Twitter app to Apple TV — a move that would give the streaming platform's millions of users access to upcoming NFL games. The talks have been reported by The New York Times as part of the social media platform's plans to b … | Continue reading
New evidence has emerged that Tesla is preparing to release a 100 kWh battery option for its Model S and Model X cars. Both vehicles currently offer 90 kWh batteries as their largest capacity, and the increased size would boost their ranges — perhaps to as much as 380 miles for t … | Continue reading
Microsoft was quick to optimize its Office suite of apps for the iPad Pro and Apple's Pencil stylus, but the company held off on any inking support in Office for iPhone. Starting today, Microsoft is updating Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for iPhone to include a new drawing tab opti … | Continue reading
Apple is reportedly planning to release a trio of new iPads in 2017, including a new size 10.5-inch iPad Pro and a "low-cost" 9.7-inch iPad. This is according to respected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, whose latest predictions for the iPhone-maker were reported by MacRumors. Kuo al … | Continue reading
The long, long wait for Final Fantasy XV just got a little longer, as director Hajime Tabata confirmed rumors that the game has been delayed. The new release date is November 29th, almost two months after the previously announced date of September 30th."Our objective with Final F … | Continue reading
In an extensive interview with The Washington Post, Tim Cook has reflected on what will soon be five years since he took over from Steve Jobs as Apple CEO on August 24th, 2011. Although the interview doesn't stray too far from Apple's well-rehearsed talking points — don't expect … | Continue reading
Dearly departed gorilla Harambe has risen out of nowhere to become the best-known great ape of our time, but apparently it's not his family's first brush with fame. Esquire presented photos of Harambe's mother, Kayla, over the weekend, showing the female gorilla snapped alongside … | Continue reading
One of the coolest things about Netflix’s Stranger Things was the show’s antagonist, a horrifying monster that the show’s characters took to calling the Demogorgon. As the show has been praised for emulating the works of Spielberg and Carpenter, the actor behind the character has … | Continue reading
Welcome back to The Verge’s weekly musical roundup. I’m Jamieson, I’m still your host, and I’ll somehow find it in my heart to forgive the President for stealing my playlisting thunder this week. As much as I’d love to nitpick his selections, the commander-in-chief hasn’t given m … | Continue reading
It’s safe to say that just about everyone is tired of the 2016 Presidential elections this summer. Despite that, Malka Older’s debut novel Infomocracy couldn’t have come at a better time. It’s an intense and intriguing thriller about how technology and the flow of information can … | Continue reading
The Fireside Audiobox is a speaker that plays music and also makes fire dance to the beat of whatever song's playing. The man who created it, Tyron Hazen, is so earnestly passionate about the project, it almost makes me wish I was as into fire dancing as he is. In reality, I’m pr … | Continue reading
This column is part of a series where Verge staffers post highly subjective reviews of animals. Up until now, we've written about animals without telling you whether they suck or rule. We are now rectifying this oversight.For a brief moment in March, a tortoise captured the heart … | Continue reading
Gadget Thirst Trap rounds up the weirdest gadgets of the week that made us thirsty for more. Be sure to follow The Verge (verge) on Snapchat for the video edition. Toasteroid The ToasteroidI have no reason to believe the Toasteroid is real. It’s a Kickstarter camp … | Continue reading
Two years ago, artist Rafael Varona caught the world’s attention with a series of animated GIFs that depicted magical worlds trapped inside tiny glass bottles. The success of the “Impossible Bottles” series led to a number of new illustration gigs, and Varona eventually moved fro … | Continue reading
Another one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets successfully landed on a floating drone ship this evening, after the vehicle launched a Japanese communications satellite into orbit. The feat marks the fourth time SpaceX has landed one of its vehicles at sea and the company’s fifth rocke … | Continue reading
As I watched through Stranger Things over the last two weeks (I finally finished it — promise not to spoil anything here), one thing I kept thinking about was what the show would be like as a more traditional 24-episode per season series. Because in every single episode of Strang … | Continue reading
British actor Kenny Baker, the man who portrayed one of science fiction’s most iconic robots, R2-D2, has passed away according to the Guardian. He was 83 years old.Baker first portrayed the character due to his height - three feet, eight inches. "I got the job right away," he tol … | Continue reading
A group of PhD students from the MIT Media Lab and researchers from Microsoft Research have come up with the ultimate wearable: a temporary tattoo that can turn into a touchpad, remotely control your smartphone, or share data using NFC.The technology, which is described on MIT's … | Continue reading
The first teaser for Donald Glover’s Atlanta didn’t give away much about what it would be about, as much as it gave off a neat vibe. With just a couple of weeks before the show premieres, a new trailer has dropped which has gotten us really interested in watching.From this traile … | Continue reading
DragonCon, Atlanta Georgia’s annual science fiction and fantasy convention turns 30 this year, and with the anniversary, they’ve instituted a new genre award: the Dragon Award. The convention’s organizers released the nominee ballot yesterday, and it’s an intriguing list of works … | Continue reading
It's a familiar problem for podcast listener: a host vaguely references a picture or a video or something in their recording booth, but you can't see what it is this person is talking about. This happened recently on Vergecast 214. Yeah, a video would solve this problem, but you' … | Continue reading
Last month, Twitter added a night mode for Android users, hoping that it would drive people to use the app and boost its flagging user-base. The update wasn’t extended to iOS users, who were left it in the dark (no pun intended). Now, it looks like Twitter might finally be adding … | Continue reading
If you find yourself without Saturday night plans this evening, why not enjoy a nice SpaceX launch? The company’s eighth Falcon 9 launch of this year is scheduled to take off tonight from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 1:26AM ET, sending a Japanese communications satellite — called J … | Continue reading
To put it lightly, Asus' latest ZenWatch has not been among our favorite Android Wear watches. But now it looks like Asus is about to give it another go, and the watch's hardware may look a lot better this time around.Photos of what may well be the ZenWatch 3 started floating aro … | Continue reading
Michelle MacLaren has signed on to direct a film adaptation of The Nightingale, a 2015 novel about French sisters trying to survive World War II. This'll be MacLaren's first big-screen feature, which is something a lot of people have been waiting for.MacLaren has primarily been w … | Continue reading
Polio is back in Nigeria, just when the World Health Organization thought the virus might be gone completely. Two kids have been paralyzed by the virus for the first time in two years, the WHO announced today. Both live in northeastern Nigeria, where it has been hard to vaccinate … | Continue reading
Game maker Niantic, the developer behind mobile sensation Pokémon Go, is now issuing permanent bans to players who violate its terms of service. Though TOS violations vary, these bans appear to be directed at cheaters who rely on GPS spoofing, bots, and other software techniques … | Continue reading
At this point it's pretty clear: smart mirrors won't be a thing for a while, and it's not for lack of trying. There have been a number of Kickstarters that have tried and failed to get a consumer version of the tech we've seen in sci-fi movies like Minority Report — and shown off … | Continue reading
Brendan Dassey, one of the subjects of the Netflix series Making a Murderer, has had his conviction for the murder of Teresa Halbach overturned by a district court judge. Continue reading… | Continue reading
It’s Friday afternoon in August. Some inexplicably over productive colleague has scheduled you to join a meeting you don’t really need to be in. You need to pay attention, but if you took ten seconds here or two minutes there to zone out, that would be okay. You, my friend, shoul … | Continue reading
Human brains and machine brains are different. Human brains are really good at critical analysis. Machine brains are really good at working with lots of data. Human brains are power efficient. Machine brains need 100 million times more power than human brains to perform similar c … | Continue reading
GoldenEye 007, the beloved N64 first-person shooter, has been recreated in high-definition glory by a team of dedicated fans over the course of 10 years. The mod, known as GoldenEye: Source, is free to download starting today and it features 25 recreated maps, 10 different multip … | Continue reading
We were really excited when we learned that the soundtrack to Stranger Things was officially being released. What’s even more exciting is the fact that it’s being released in two parts, and you can pick up the first one today. For now, the only place to get the first volume is on … | Continue reading
The PC version of No Man’s Sky was released today, and this version of the game already seems a bit disappointing.The good news is that the game supports a variety of resolutions, from 640 by 480 all the way up to 4K, and a good number of other graphical options and settings. Be … | Continue reading
Over 28,000 people have signed a change.org petition to turn Harambe, the slain gorilla and runner-up meme of the summer, into a pokémon.Started two days ago by a man named Eric CreamyMemes, the petition asks Nintendo and The Pokémon Company to bring Harambe to life in a short bu … | Continue reading
Earlier this week, it was revealed that researchers at the University of Birmingham had cracked the (rather poor) encryption scheme used by millions of Volkswagens for their remote unlock key fobs. That’s not good. But what’s also not good is that it’s not really new, and that it … | Continue reading
David Mackenzie’s terrifically tense Western Hell or High Water is set in the present, but it keeps emphasizing that in some key ways, life hasn’t changed in West Texas since pioneer days. One old-timer hitches up his horse at a gas station as if he was hitting up the local saloo … | Continue reading
A summary of The Library of Babel, one of my favorite corners of the internet, reads like the log-line of a forgotten episode of The Twilight Zone: though the Library of Babel contains every book from human civilization, you will never find the story you’re looking for.Created by … | Continue reading
Casio has announced a new version of its G-Shock Gulfmaster watch, and it will feature a water depth sensor for the first time. The G-Shock Gulfmaster line of watches are designed for extreme environments and events like sea rescues conducted by the Coast Guard. The watches come … | Continue reading