Technology news

Hurricane Milton swirls over the Gulf of Mexico. | Image: NOAA Hurricane Milton strengthened into a Category 5 storm today, becoming one of the most rapidly intensifying storms ever in the history of the Atlantic hurricane season.It’s likely within the top three fastest storms on record when it comes to rapid intensification, used to describe tropical cyclones with sustained wind speeds that increase by at least 30 knots (roughly 35 miles per hour) in a 24-hour period. Milton has seen an 8

Director Edward Berger wears a Vision Pro headset in the trailer for Submerged. | Screenshot: YouTube Apple just released the trailer for Submerged, the first scripted immersive video for the Vision Pro. The short, written and directed by Edward Berger, is set inside a WWII submarine as its crew deals with “a harrowing torpedo attack.”
The trailer for Submerged consists of behind-the-scenes shots and fisheye-looking clips from the short, along with a voiceover from Berger, who claims

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A federal judge gave the Federal Trade Commission the green light to pursue antitrust claims against Amazon, a newly unsealed order reveals, though some claims under state laws won’t move forward.
Amazon filed a motion to dismiss the 2023 lawsuit, which alleges the company illegally maintains a monopoly by punishing sellers who discount products outside of Amazon and “effectively requires” them to use its own fulfillment services for cove

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge Google’s Android app store is an illegal monopoly — and now it will have to change.Today, Judge James Donato issued his final ruling in Epic v. Google, ordering Google to effectively open up the Google Play app store to competition for three whole years. Google will have to distribute rival third-party app stores within Google Play, and it must give rival third-party app stores access to the full catalog of Google Play apps, unless developers

Star Wars Outlaws sold fewer copies than expected. | Image: Ubisoft Ubisoft is addressing rumors that Tencent is exploring a buyout of the French game publisher — though it isn’t saying much right now. In a statement on Monday, Ubisoft said it “regularly reviews all its strategic options in the interest of its stakeholders and will inform the market if and when appropriate.”
The statement follows an earlier report from Bloomberg, which says the Chinese gaming giant Tencen

Image: Creative Assembly To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the release of Alien: Isolation, the developers at Creative Assembly has announced they’re working on a sequel.
“We have heard your distress calls loud and clear,” wrote Al Hope, creative director at Creative Assembly. “I’m delighted to confirm, on behalf of the team, that a sequel to Alien: Isolation is in early development.”
Alien: Isolation released in 2014 to rave reviews, marking it as one of

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will deliver a keynote at CES 2025 in January. The keynote will take place on January 6th at 6:30PM PT / 9:30PM ET, just a day before the Consumer Electronics Show opens its doors in Las Vegas. It comes amid rumors of next-gen Nvidia GPUs appearing early next year.
A source familiar with Nvidia’s plans told The Verge last month that we might hear more about the RTX 50-series at the Consumer Electronics Show in early 2025. Nvidia is an official guest keynote of the

Illustration: The Verge If you’ve noticed more engagement bait appearing across your Threads feed then you’re not alone — Meta is aware and looking at how to address the issue, according to Instagram boss Adam Mosseri. “We’ve seen an increase in engagement-bait on Threads and we’re working to get it under control,” Mosseri said on Threads in response to comments flagging the issue.Engagement bait on Threads typically covers posts with banal questions or

The Verge / Photo by Bloomberg, Getty Images Gieco says it still offers insurance for Tesla’s Cybertruck, after some customers’ reported being dropped by their insurance company for the expensive and unconventional electric truck.
Several owners have reported difficulties in procuring coverage for their Cybertrucks, fueling speculation that the insurance industry was refusing to write policies for the truck. The speculation reached a fever pitch this weekend when TorqueNews reported

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A data breach has exposed the names, addresses, social security numbers, and birthdates of more than 237,700 Comcast customers. The breach stems from a security incident at Financial Business and Consumer Solutions (FBCS), a debt collection agency Comcast previously used, according to a filing with the state of Maine on Friday reported by Bleeping Computer and TechCrunch.
FBCS revealed that it had suffered a breach in February, exposing the sensitive i

The Apple Pencil Pro is a much easier recommendation at $99. | Photo: David Pierce / The Verge Spending another $129 to get the Apple Pencil Pro after upgrading to the latest iPad Pro and iPad Air devices is a hard pill to swallow. That pill is a little bit smaller now, thankfully.It’s currently discounted to $99 ($30 off) at Amazon, Walmart, and Target, the latter available with a free Target Circle membership. That’s a new all-time low price.The USB-C Apple Pencil (regularly as low

That’s a cheap OLED. | Image: Sansui Last week, Sansui debuted a new 4K 120Hz 55-inch OLED TV (S55VOUG) that’s available for between $799 and $899 “depending on retailer promotions.”
That’s quite a price, considering that a “cheap” OLED is normally priced over $1,000 outside of temporary discounts. Sharp released a Roku TV with similar specs at $1,499.99 last year, and LG’s B4 launched at $1,699. Sansui’s TV sits more in the budget range of s

Stockholm-based Lovable has raised $7.5mn in pre-seed funding for its newly-launched AI coding assistant that promises to make everyone a dev. Dubbed GPT Engineer, the AI coding tool generates production-ready code in real-time, without requiring developer experience. According to the startup, users need only chat with the assistant to build websites and web apps. “We want to expand the world’s coding capabilities beyond the current 1% of the population who can program, and mak

Image: ChargeScape Nissan is coming aboard vehicle-to-grid (V2G) EV integration company ChargeScape as an equal investor, alongside founding automakers BMW, Ford, and Honda.Once the investment transaction is complete, Nissan said it plans to roll out ChargeScape’s services to its electric vehicle customers in the US and Canada.
Formed last year (with operations starting in September), ChargeScape built a software platform that wirelessly “talks” to EVs and utility companies, ma

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Update October 7th: Target’s deal on the WH-1000XM4 is no longer available.
Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days sales event begins tomorrow, but the best tech deal around may have already landed early. The Sony WH-1000XM4 noise-canceling headphones have dropped to a new all-time low of $129.99 ($220 off) at Target (be sure to click “shipping” on the latter for in-stock availability) — and unlike many of the upcoming Prime Day deals, you don

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days sales event begins tomorrow, but the best tech deal around may have already landed early. The Sony WH-1000XM4 noise-canceling headphones have dropped to a new all-time low of $129.99 ($220 off) at Target (be sure to click “shipping” on the latter for in-stock availability) — and unlike many of the upcoming Prime Day deals, you don’t have to be a Prime subscriber for this one. (The deal was also available

The latest update to the Philips Hue app adds the ability to preview various Hue devices in your home using augmented reality. | Image: Signify A recent update to the Philips Hue app has introduced several new features, including an augmented reality and interactive 3D modeling tool to show you how Hue products will look in your space. The update, spotted by Hueblog, also includes updates like a “do not disturb” option for motion sensors.
Version 5.27 of the Hue app is coming to iOS,

Image: Atlus Persona is one of the rare video game series where people actually talk about the menus. They’re functional, sure, but they’re also so incredibly stylish that you almost don’t mind constantly pausing to equip gear or heal your party. So when I had the chance to talk to longtime Persona director Katsura Hashino about his new game, Metaphor: ReFantazio, which continues this tradition of beautiful menus, I had to ask how they do it.
The answer, as Hashino explains it,

Metaphor: ReFantazio. | Image: Atlus Persona 5 helped the roleplaying franchise break out with mainstream audiences, and it’s also a game that was in the works for a long time. Early work began in 2008, just after Persona 4 came out, with full development kicking off three years later. So, just ahead of the game’s launch in 2016, director Katsura Hashino — steward of the franchise since Persona 3 — asked the team what they wanted to do next. “Everyone said fantasy,&

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The iPhone 16 Pro’s camera upgrades may be the true highlights of this year’s phone. So, for the past three weeks, The Verge supervising producer Vjeran Pavic has been testing out everything the camera has to offer.
Apple’s new Camera Control button may be the headline feature, but the iPhone 16 is also equipped with a suite of new photo adjustment tools that let you dial in individual aspects of how an image looks. Apple also beefed up the pho

The Caper Cart. | Image: Instacart If you always have trouble finding that specific pasta sauce like I do, there’s a smart grocery shopping cart that can map it out for you. Instacart’s Caper Cart, which has a touchscreen and payment terminal up front where you’d normally seat your toddler or play Jenga with your produce, now has a new store map system that can help navigate you to products you’re looking for, on-sale items, and even send you on fetch quests that can land

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge For several years now, it’s been possible to personalize your iPhone screen by creating your own icons, mostly by using Apple’s built-in Shortcuts app (and we have instructions for doing just that). But if you want to do a little customization in a short amount of time, a new feature in iOS 18 lets you tweak the color of your app icons in a matter of moments. Here’s how.
On your iPhone homescreen:Long-press somewhere on the background so

It doesn’t simply take a village to raise a startup. It takes a whole ecosystem, driven by the collaboration between governments, corporates, ecosystem builders — and of course, visionary founders. Startup ecosystems have naturally emerged as the foundation of technological innovation and as key drivers for business growth and regional development. But there isn’t a single recipe for success. What’s the best way to build a startup hub? What are the essential support mech

Image: Calligram Studio In Phoenix Springs, it’s not so much the ravishing hand-drawn visuals that first grab the attention, but the voice of narrator and protagonist Iris. Befitting her name, she behaves like a roving eye, investigating and describing her surroundings with a clinical, almost robotic detachment. Yet Iris is no blank slate: you quickly come to learn that she is a snob with little regard for the homeless. She even appears to have short shrift for the player, delivering a wit

Master Chief in Unreal Engine 5. | Image: Halo Studios Microsoft is moving its Halo development to Unreal Engine 5, after more than a year of rumors of an engine switch following a leadership overhaul at 343 Industries, layoffs, and other changes. 343 Industries is now becoming Halo Studios as part of this engine change announcement, hoping to mark a new chapter in the history of Halo.
Halo moving to Unreal Engine 5 is being positioned as the first step of a transformation for Halo Studios to ch

The recently released EU Competitiveness Report from the European Commission delivered a stark message to the bloc’s tech sector. As Mario Draghi, lead author of the report, warned, Europe faces ‘’an existential challenge’’. “The problem is not that Europe lacks ideas or ambition,” the former Italian premier said. “But innovation is blocked at the next stage: we are failing to translate innovation into commercialisation.” Namely, the bloc ne

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Federal Communications Commission has given SpaceX and T-Mobile temporary approval for direct-to-cell service using Starlink satellites in areas affected by Hurricane Helene,SpaceX:The satellites have already been enabled and started broadcasting emergency alerts to cell phones on all networks in North Carolina. In addition, we may test basic texting (SMS) capabilities for most cell phones on the T-Mobile network in North Carolina.SpaceX’s direct