The Verge
Character.AI files for bankruptcy
Character.AI, one of the first breakout startups of the generative AI boom, has filed for bankruptcy and is selling some of its assets to Disney. The company, which builds various online bots for user...
The Social Reckoning is flopping at the box office
As important as some of the messages in The Social Reckoning are, the movie has been drastically underperforming at the box office. Per Variety, Aaron's Sorkin's follow up to The Social Network only g...
Meta has some Wonder Full new AI models
Meta is making up for lost time in the AI race. After launching Muse Spark, the first model from its revamped Superintelligence Labs division, and buzzy AI agent Muse, it's now launching two new model...
Elon Musk has donated over $276 million to Republican midterm efforts
Elon Musk has handed out at least $276 million to Republican groups since July, The New York Times reports, making him both the party's top known donor and the biggest established midterm donor. $158 ...
The Yandex outage probably didn’t blitz Russian bots
Multiple Ukrainian drone strikes over the last week have taken Russian data centers offline and reportedly caused online bot traffic to plummet - but in reality it's probably not the kind of bot activ...
Mechanism’s first Switch 2 case is as awesome as I hoped it would be
Most companies have slowed down releasing new Switch 2 cases, but one of my favorite accessory makers recently debuted its first, after a few delays. The $49 Basecase from Mechanism is a snap-on shell...
No Man’s Sky is coming to the iPhone and iPad
The No Man's Sky universe is about to get a little bit smaller - but in a good way. Hello Games announced that its long-running sci-fi exploration game will be coming to iOS, with versions for both th...
Android is the best and worst thing about Googlebooks
My first week with the new Android-powered laptops has been about as rocky as anyone's, but I've slowly learned to like them, even if love still feels a ways off. Every moment that's impressed me has ...
The OnePlus 16 is the company’s most interesting phone in years
Today the OnePlus 16 launched in China, the company's first flagship phone since quitting both the US and European markets this summer. As luck would have it, it also looks like the company's best pho...
Microsoft’s new AI chip makes it less reliant on Nvidia’s GPUs
Microsoft is announcing its third-generation Maia in-house AI chip today, designed to be the "primary AI inference system" for Microsoft's products and services. Maia 300 not only improves the cost an...
How Apple can win the smart home
This week, Apple is hosting its first-ever dedicated smart home event. While the company hasn't shared details about what it will reveal at the "Welcome Home experience" in New York City on Tuesday, O...
Inside the mini factory where GM builds its EV future
If you're driving through GM's sprawling campus in Warren, Michigan, you'd likely ignore the pair of adjacent, anonymous white buildings tucked away in the upper reaches of the 710-acre space. Inside ...
A college in Illinois tried to cancel its Flock contact and it refused
In April of 2025, Elgin Community College had six Flock safety cameras installed to "enhance the safety and security of students." But by September of that year, the school's administration grew conce...
Silicon Valley is falling in line with Trump’s attempt to rename AI
When President Donald Trump announced his plans to rebrand artificial intelligence as "super intelligence," you'd be forgiven for being skeptical that it would catch on. While most of the broader popu...
The new Apple TV could have a built-in mic and a remote with a speaker
The latest rumors are that the new Apple TV will have a built-in microphone, while the upgraded remote will get a speaker. The mic would let users control the set-top box using Siri without having to ...
NASA dumped over 800GB of Artemis II data online
If you thought you'd seen all there is to see from the Artemis II mission, you're wrong. This week NASA posted over 800GB worth of science data, images, and videos on the Artemis II: Sights & Soun...
George A. Romero’s Season of the Witch is a slow-burn feminist occult drama
George A. Romero is obviously best known as the father of the modern zombie movie. But between inventing the genre with Night of the Living Dead and his outbreak horror, The Crazies, Romero made two m...
What to expect from Apple’s ‘Welcome Home’ event
We are quickly coming up on Apple's "Welcome Home" launch event, where we expect a host of smart home-related announcements. We are expecting refreshes to Apple TV and HomePod Mini, as well as a brand...
Vurt wants you to look at vertical videos as a genre of their own
From Disney Plus to HBO Max, almost every major established streaming service is experimenting with ways to get into vertical content. It's clear that these companies see video-focused social media pl...
Why the LeapPad couldn’t survive the iPad
For multiple years, the hottest toy in the United States was a book. But not just any book: a smart book that could play sounds and respond to taps and help kids learn to read. However, buying it came...
Horror is big business
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on how pervasive horror has become, follow Andrew Webster. The Stepback, arrives in our subscr...
Learning to use local AI is exciting, overwhelming, and frustrating
I'm embarking on a journey I've so far been hesitant to go on: actually using AI on the regular. Giving my most personal data to cloud services has been a major hold up for me, but it's increasingly p...
Satya Nadella says we should assume all AI models are ‘compromised’
In a lengthy post on X, Microsoft's CEO laid out his views on the dangers posed by highly advanced AI models and how to confront those risks. Nadella says we can no longer accept a world where AI is.....
DistroKid has been quietly taking down songs in response to UMG lawsuit
Artists are taking to social media to complain that DistroKid has unceremoniously removed their work without notice. Now DistroKid has confirmed to The Verge that the takedowns are a direct response t...
Ledger wallet tampering suspected after reports of crypto thefts
Reports have been mounting that users of the Ledger crypto wallet have seen their accounts drained, and suspicion is that it's related to reseller CryptoBillis and a bit of spy hardware. Ledger has as...
K-pop star Sunmi loves Notion and ear cleaning videos
Sunmi is an undeniable force in K-pop. She first made her debut as a member of the Wonder Girls back in 2007, one of the first K-pop acts to really break through in the West. The English version of......
Anthropic is cutting off its internal evaluations from the internet
After a recent spate of high-profile incidents in which AI agents escaped containment, Anthropic is cutting off internet access for all internal evaluations. In a report Friday, the company detailed "...
Will Warner Bros. kill Skydance — or will David Ellison kill Warner Bros?
Today, I’m talking with Peter Kafka, chief correspondent at Business Insider and host of the Channels podcast, about the gigantic Warner Bros.-Paramount merger and the future of the company now simply...
AI agent makers are promising privacy — will they deliver?
At this year's OpenAI DevDay, CEO Sam Altman unveiled the company's new AI agent Dots - and told the crowd that the company wants to "set a new standard for privacy in frontier AI." OpenAI would spend...
LG’s RGB LED TV is good for certain situations, but an OLED is better
When it comes to TVs, the LG name has long been synonymous with OLEDs, continually leading Samsung and Sony as the top OLED manufacturer. But 2026 is all about RGB LED TVs. Almost every major company ...
The techlash has gone Hollywood
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 147, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, I missed you all, and also you can read all the old editions at the I...
The director of Fjord takes the ‘risky position’ of moderator
Cristian Mungiu's sixth feature, Fjord, concerns a family on trial. They seem like good people, God-fearing. They've just moved from Romania to a small hamlet nestled in the fjords of rural Norway. Th...
My brief romance with an AI bird feeder
It started off promising enough. Dozens of tiny, colorful birds were drawn to my garden just a few weeks after I mounted a $350 $269 Kiwibit Bird Feeder 2 Pro. "Looks like Great Tit!" read the first A...
Decade-old RAM is making a comeback
CPU makers have noticed that the seemingly unending RAM price hikes are making it tough for a lot of us to upgrade our PCs. Their solution? A return to last-gen DDR4 RAM. Intel and AMD are making new ...
Anthropic’s AI gave Philadelphia police a fake tip about an unsolved homicide
An Anthropic AI model provided false information about an unsolved homicide to a Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) tipline, according to a report from 6abc. In a statement released on Friday, the P...
Ohio blogger found guilty of harassment for sending Shrek nude to senator
A jury found an Ohio political blogger guilty of telecommunications harassment after he sent an explicit image of Shrek to a Republican state senator. On Friday, a judge ordered DJ Byrnes, owner of po...
‘Pure insanity’: Mathematicians will need years to make sense of OpenAI’s latest drop
"Staggering." "Overwhelming." "Unprecedented." "Surreal." "Pure insanity." Those were among the descriptions more than three dozen mathematicians reached for in conversations with The Verge as they tr...
Brendan Carr says he’ll let Pete Hegseth decide whether TV networks can air the public execution
FCC chairman Brendan Carr said he will defer to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on whether TV networks can air the planned execution of convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan by firing squad. The P...
Nikon microscopic video competition winner disqualified for using generative AI
Nikon says the video that originally won first place in its Small World in Motion contest "did not comply with the competition rules regarding generative AI." BBC reports that the original first place...
Google teases Fitbit Edge launch next week
It looks like Google is getting ready to take the wraps off its rumored Fitbit Edge next Monday. In a post on X, Google posted a picture of what appears to be the side of the fitness tracker, with......
Amazon’s new Kindles appear to have a light leak problem
Some users are reporting that the new Kindles have a light leak issue that is especially apparent when using dark mode. The latest base-model Kindles have a flush bezel that gives them a sleek appeara...
Microsoft tries to spark new life into Windows
When Microsoft released Windows 11 five years ago, it felt like an operating system that was still being renovated, a work in progress. You'd think by now that those renovations would be complete, wit...
Frances Haugen hopes The Social Reckoning will inspire more whistleblowers
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen was mostly unfazed watching Oscar-winning actress Mikey Madison play a character named after her in The Social Reckoning, except for one thing: the wrist warmers....
Apple and LG leak shows new ‘tap to control’ HomeKit features
A post on X from "pdfu," who has previously posted leaks and renders of suspected Apple features and LG smart home gear, shows new details of rumored Apple Home accessories from LG. According to the n...
YouTube, Meta, and Twitch won’t say if they’ll allow the US government to live stream an execution
YouTube, Twitch, Meta, and X aren't saying whether they'll allow the US government to livestream an execution on their platforms. The four companies didn't respond to The Verge's requests for comment ...
The AI is in the computer
It's gadget season, and a lot of companies are launching a lot of new products. But whether it's Microsoft dropping a high-end laptop, Amazon shipping a fancy Android tablet, or Apple diving headlong ...
Trump’s attempt to rename AI is looking awfully artificial
President Donald Trump has a knack for turning words against his enemies. His first successful presidential run was built on monikers like "Little Marco" and "Crooked Hillary"; he changed "fake news" ...
Instinct was the buzziest AI agent around — can it survive Muse?
Before there were cute little guys, there was Instinct. In August, the startup got its AI agent to market with an unusual playbook: invite-only, no marketing, and barely so much as a website. And yet,...
A week with Googlebooks: four notes from our testing so far
Google's new operating system is off to a rocky start. The five newly launched Googlebook laptops have hardware that ranges from great to excellent, but the software in its current state is the weak p...
Meta is banning TikTok ads across its platforms
Meta has banned ads from TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance across the US and several other countries as the rivalry between the major social media operators heats up, as reported earlier by Bl...





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