Technology news

Image: The New York Times Strands, The New York Times’ very good word search game, has been officially added to the NYT’s Games app on iOS and Android.
For me personally, this is huge. Strands has become my favorite of the NYT’s games since it launched in beta in March, but I was annoyed that I had to bounce between the app and a browser to complete my daily Wordle, Connections, and Strands. Now, I can do all of the puzzles right in the app over my morning coffee. It’s th

If you follow European AI news, you may have read that Finland’s Silo AI and Germany’s Aleph Alpha recently established a partnership to deliver “sovereign AI.” It would seem whoever is responsible for partnerships at Silo is keeping busy, as the company today announced yet another collaboration, this time with investor darling Mistral AI. The past couple of years have seen businesses scramble to implement AI, often even before they know how they are actually going to us

House Energy Subcommittee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers. | Photo: Getty Images The House Energy and Commerce Committee suddenly canceled a markup to discuss and vote on 11 bills, including the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).The committee did not provide a reason for the cancellation in its online notice, and committee members appeared surprised by the change, according to reporters in the room. But disagreements on the bill with Republican House leadershi

Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge The chair of the Federal Communications Commission proposed a new rule that could make it easier for consumers to unlock their cellphones. The proposed regulation, which the agency announced on Thursday, would require mobile providers to unlock consumers’ phones within 60 days of activation.
Under current regulations, consumers who want to unlock their phone — as in, freeing up a phone so it can move from one network to another — are at the mercy

What, exactly, is Perplexity’s innovation? | Image: The Verge In every hype cycle, certain patterns of deceit emerge. In the last crypto boom, it was “ponzinomics” and “rug pulls.” In self-driving cars, it was “just five years away!” In AI, it’s seeing just how much unethical shit you can get away with.
Perplexity is basically a rent-seeking middleman on high-quality sources
Perplexity, which is in ongoing talks to raise hundreds of millions of dol

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has joined the defense team for a neo-Nazi accused of plotting to sabotage Baltimore’s electrical grid, The Baltimore Banner reports.Attorneys from the ACLU’s National Security Project will be working with Brandon Clint Russell’s defense “for the limited purpose of challenging the government’s secretive warrantless surveillance under Section 702 of the Fore

Meet the Hyundai Inster, the latest cute, small electric vehicle that is being cruelly denied a North American debut. This subcompact EV has over 200 miles of range, an almost retro-inspired interior aesthetic (think lots of plastic and chunky buttons), and an adorable face that won’t be making an appearance on US roads any time soon.Oh, and did I mention that it will be very affordable? Automotive News is reporting that the Inster will be priced below $26,000. So not only is Hyundai ente

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is working on new plans for its YouTube Premium subscriptions, the company said in a community post on Thursday. “We’re committed to bringing members more plan options by expanding our existing offers to more regions, while also introducing new plans and exploring ways for you to share your benefits with friends in the future,” according to a post from a YouTube team member identified as Hazel.
Currently, there are only a handful

In May, Reddit announced it would allow OpenAI to train its models on Reddit content for a price. Now, according to The Verge, Reddit will block most automated bots from accessing, learning from, and profiting from its data without a similar licensing agreement.Reddit plans to do this by updating its robots.txt file, the "basic social contract of the web" that determines how web crawlers can access the site. Most nascent AI companies (including, at one point, OpenAI) train their models on conten

Valve’s new Steam Deck Top Played list will be updated daily based on the past week of statistics. | Screenshot: Steam Today, Valve released a new Steam Charts page highlighting the top played games on the Steam Deck. The list will be updated on a daily basis, revealing what titles are most popular on the handheld.
Good morning! We just shipped a new Steam Charts page featuring the top-played games on Steam Deck. This list is updated daily, and you can explore the top 100 games on Deck by

Image: @evleaks (X) With Samsung’s next Unpacked event less than two weeks away, the sneak peeks are starting to ramp up. Longtime leaker Evan Blass today shared what appear to be official, high-resolution marketing images of the soon-to-be-announced Galaxy Watch Ultra, Galaxy Watch 7, Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, and Galaxy Buds 3.The company’s “Ultra” smartwatch matches up with renders we’ve seen previously, though these shots reveal that the device will use an Apple Watch-

The new Vertex AI capabilities aim to improve the accuracy of Google’s corporate chatbots. | Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Getty Images Vertex AI, the Google Cloud development platform that allows companies to build services using Google’s machine learning and large language models, is getting new capabilities to help prevent apps and services from pushing inaccurate information. After rolling out general availability for Vertex AI’s Grounding with Googl

Instagram wants to be TikTok with Reels, and now TikTok wants to be Instagram with Whee. Like Instagram, Whee allows users to post and edit photos and message other users. It launched earlier this month in some countries to little fanfare. According to TechCrunch, as of Tuesday, the app was only downloaded on 13,000 iOS devices and a little over 10,000 times onAndroid devices. It has yet to breach the Top Free Apps chart in Apple's App Store or become one of the Top 500 Social apps in the countr

As AI boosts demand for more data storage, Europe is considering sending data centres into space — and the plan is not as outlandish as it may first appear.   A 16-month, €2 million study has concluded that space-based data centres are technically, economically, and environmentally feasible.  Thales Alenia Space and Leonardo coordinated the ASCEND study, which was funded by the EU. The research also tapped expertise from the likes of Airbus, ArianeGroup, and the German

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram’s new “AI Studio” will let creators make AI chatbot versions of themselves, and Meta is starting to roll it out as an “early test” in the US, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on his broadcast channel on Thursday.
As part of the test, “you might start seeing AIs from your favorite creators and interest-based AIs in the coming weeks on Instagram,” according to Zuckerberg. “These will primarily show up in m

If Hawk Tuah Girl was hesitant about her sudden overnight fame, maybe things are starting to shift now that the cash is rolling in. The viral star, real name Hailey Welch, has reportedly begun making good money via merchandise. Rolling Stone contacted Fathead Threads, a local Tennessee apparel brand working with Welch to sell shirts and hats. Jason Poteete from Fathead told Rolling Stone that they'd sold about 2,000 hats already, which, via back-of-the-napkin math, equates to roughly $65,000 in

Originally announced in late 2022, TP-Link’s Wi-Fi 7 Archer GE800 gaming router is now available. | Image: TP-Link The TP-Link Archer GE800 Wi-Fi 7 tri-band gaming router was first announced in late 2022 before making appearances at CES 2023 and CES 2024, alongside a bunch of Wi-Fi 7 laptops. It’s finally available starting today for $599.99, although those excited to upgrade immediately can save $100 as part of a “limited-time launch promotion.”
Designed to take full adv

Another day, another newly discovered exploit. But this vulnerability has the potential to be a really big problem.This week, Progress Software announced that it had discovered two new items for the common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) list of the enterprise product MOVEit Transfer, a popular way for businesses to securely transfer and exchange sensitive files and data. SEE ALSO:Two MIT students charged for exploiting Ethereum blockchain bug, stole $25 million in crypto
This most rece

Prime Day 2024 is officially coming. We knew it would land sometime in July, but this week, the brand confirmed the sale will run July 16 and 17. Now that we all have it marked on our calendars, we're officially on the hunt for early deals. We know the bulk of discounts won't arrive until Prime Day starts, but that doesn't mean some hidden gems won't show up on TVs, laptops, and more.We're tracking tablet deals. With the launch of new iPads from Apple just this year, we're staying laser focused

Need a new pair of headphones? Now's the time to buy, with some great deals popping off at Amazon just in time for the 4th of July: Best 4th of July Headphone DealsBest headphones dealBeats Studio Pro$249.99 at Amazon (Save $100 )Get DealBest noise-canceling headphones dealBose 700 headphones$349 at Amazon(Save $30)Get DealBest Apple headphones dealApple AirPods Max$449 at Amazon(Save $101)Get Deal
Ready to grab a new pair of headphones? Now's a great time to do it, especially since there are a

SAVE $168: The Kindle Scribe Essentials Bundle (16GB, Basic Pen) is on sale for $271.97 at Amazon, down from the usual price of $439.97. That's a 38% discount, and the lowest price we've ever seen.Opens in a new windowCredit: AmazonKindle Scribe Essentials Bundle (16GB, Basic Pen)$271.97 at Amazon $439.97 Save $168.00Get DealHave you ever tried packing for a relaxing vacation and realized those 12 books you plan to read pool-side won't fit into your luggage? While reading will forever be one of

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Microsoft’s first round of Copilot Plus PCs launched last week with the promise of better battery life, performance that matches a MacBook Air, and chips ready for AI. I’ve spent the past week testing both of Microsoft’s new Surface devices, and I think they largely live up to Microsoft’s promises.
There are some expected app emulation drawbacks here and there. But for the most part, if you don’t have complex app needs, these new Qua

"All [Rabbit] R1 responses ever given can be downloaded," according to an R1 research group called Rabbitude.Rabbit and its R1 AI device has already been dunked on for being nothing more than an Android app wrapped up in a hardware gadget, but something much more alarming is afoot. SEE ALSO:I tested Rabbit R1 vs. Meta AI: The winning AI assistant will surprise you
The report (via The Verge) said Rabbitude gained access to the codebase and discovered API keys were hardwired into its code. That me

Prime Day 2024 finally released its July dates, and with them come an avalanche of competing sales. Target is among the rival retailers to launch their summer sales with the return of Circle Week, coming July 7 through 13. While other retailers require a paid membership to shop the deals, Target's Circle membership is free and gains you full access to all the deals. Target claims this is their "biggest sale of the season", so we're locked in to see if that's actually true, especially when it's c

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images Over the last day or so, customers of the big three US mobile carriers — Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile — who are using data roaming internationally have complained about an inability to connect and make calls. Complaints about connection problems have spread across social media for hours, with little response from the carriers.
In an email sent to The Verge, AT&T spokesperson Keoni Holoman explained that the is

A report published today by McKinsey on the state of the global quantum tech sector has found that Europe is spending more and more in public funding on technologies such as quantum computers, quantum sensors, and quantum communications.  Quantum technology is increasingly recognised as being of high geopolitical and strategic importance. Governments are drafting national quantum strategies, and many quantum computing and other quantum tech projects are overseen by ministries of defence. T

Amazon deals of the day at a glance:OUR TOP PICKKindle Scribe (32GB) Essentials Bundle$314.97 at Amazon(save $175)Get DealBEST TV DEALAmazon 50-inch Omni Series Fire TV$299.99 at Amazon(save $180 with Prime-exclusive coupon)Get DealBEST ROBOT VACUUM DEALRoborock Q7 Max robot vacuum and mop$279.99 at Amazon(save $320)Get DealBEST TABLET DEALAmazon Fire 10 Kids tablet$109.99 at Amazon(save $80 as a Prime member)Get Deal
Prime Day is mere weeks away, which means Amazon's already ramping up the deal

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Amazon Prime Day is fast approaching (on July 16th and 17th), but you don’t have to wait to get an impressive deal on one of Amazon’s flagship devices. That’s because Woot (which is owned by Amazon) is selling a refurbished third-gen Fire TV Cube for $79.99 with a 90-day warranty, saving you $60 off the cost of a new one until July 5th or until it’s sold out. This is the latest version of the Cube, which streams up to 4K resolution with HD

It's kind of a dire time for social clip sharing features on game consoles, but the Steam Deck soldiers on.Valve revealed on Wednesday that Steam is getting a native app called Steam Game Recording, which does exactly what you think it does: records videos of your gameplay and allows you to edit and share them online. It's available on Steam on PC, of course, but Valve clarified it's also verified to work on Steam Deck. SEE ALSO:MSI Claw 8 AI+ is a new handheld gaming PC: 3 ways it may beat Stea

The countdown to 4th of July is on and if you're looking for some stellar summer deals, we're seeing plenty of offers. Here are some of the best deals to shop during Amazon's 4th of July sale:Best deals at Amazon's 4th of July saleBest tech dealKindle Scribe essentials bundle (16GB, basic pen)$271.97 at Amazon(save $168)Get DealBest robot vacuum dealShark AI Ultra$299.99 at Amazon(save $299.01)Get DealBest camping dealColeman Skydome XL family camping tent (8-person)$142.79 at Amazon(save $87.20