Technology news

Cath Virginia / The Verge Spotify is getting support for Google’s Gemini Extensions, which will allow users to search for and play music using the generative AI assistant with natural language requests. The extension was first spotted in the code of the Google app in June, and now it’s rolling out to compatible Android devices, as reported by 9to5Google.
Gemini can play music found by song titles, artist names, album names, playlist names, or for a particular activity, but at the mom

Lithium-ion batteries have served us well, powering much of the modern world. However, today’s tech — everything from drones and EVs to the wretched Tesla cyber truck — demands denser batteries that charge faster and take you further. This push is driving scientists to conjure up new battery chemistries or refine old ones. Naturally, it is also spawning a new generation of startups looking to scale the next, best battery. One of those is Molyon.  Molyon recently spun out

The Charger by Counterpart has a built-in 4-foot USB-C cable that can be retracted with the press of a button. | Image: Counterpart The switch to USB-C has vastly simplified my life, and I am very grateful for it, but I still struggle with cable clutter. Dealing with gadgets and gizmos for a family of four means the outlets on my kitchen counter resemble an unappealing bowl of silicon spaghetti, which is why this new $44 Counterpart Charger caught my eye.This compact charger includes a built-in

Mercedes-Benz’s new Apple Watch app replicates the functionality of its mobile app so you don’t need to always reach for your phone. | Image: Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz announced today it’s bringing popular features from its mobile app to the Apple Watch so owners can interact with their vehicles from their wrists without having to reach for their smartphone. The company joins a growing number of automakers adding watchOS capabilities, including Honda, Ford, and Volvo.
The new

You can’t even buy a bag of chips for $1 anymore. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Hulu is again running one of the best streaming deals we’ve seen in Black Friday sales. Now through December 2nd, new and returning (after more than one month) Hulu subscribers can get ad-supported access to the streaming service for $.99 a month ($9 off) for an entire year at Hulu.
You can also find the Disney Bundle Duo Basic, which includes Hulu and Disney Plus each with ads, at the same li

Image: The Verge Meta’s Threads has accrued over 35 million signups so far in November and is “going on three months with more than a million signups a day,” Meta spokesperson Alec Booker told The Verge in an email today.20 million of those signups have come since November 14th, as Axios notes. That’s on top of the 15 million that Instagram head Adam Mosseri said it had gathered in the two weeks prior.
At the same time, Bluesky has seen a surge of interest. The platform g

Christian McCaffrey is on the cover of Madden NFL 25, looking as real as ever. | Image: EA A small, ragtag group of coders with a big idea builds something special. It’s a smash hit, bigger than their wild expectations. Competitors emerge, and the team suddenly has to scramble to keep up. But with a little hard work (and a lot of biz dev), they manage to reassert and maintain their dominance. Then, years go by, the product doesn’t seem to get any better, and you start to wonder if ma

The Bang & Olufsen Beoplay Eleven wireless earbuds will be available in natural aluminum and copper tone colorways. | Image: Bang & Olufsen Bang & Olufsen announced its new Beoplay Eleven wireless earbuds today, carrying forward a stem design similar to Apple’s AirPods that the company first introduced with its Beoplay EX. The Beoplay Eleven will be Bang & Olufsen’s first wireless earbuds with replaceable batteries, making them compliant with EU sustainability regulat

Buying a new keyboard probably won’t make you happy. But this one is orange.| Photo by Nathan Edwards / The Verge The Omnikeys Bauer Lite, one of my favorite keyboards of the year, is down to just $95 ($25 off) this week as part of Omnitype’s ongoing Black Friday sale. I paid full price for mine earlier this year, and it was a steal. It feels great to type on, it has a great layout, it’s customizable and fun to build, and it’s colorful. What’s not to love?The Bauer

Anthropic is adding custom styles to Claude that quickly adjust the tone and length of responses. | Image: Anthropic Anthropic is adding a new feature to its Claude AI assistant that will give users more control over how the chatbot responds to different writing tasks. The new custom styles are available to all Claude AI users, enabling anyone to train it to match their own communication style or select from preset options to quickly adjust the tone and level of detail it provides.
This update a

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge You’d think Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and its wide-reaching Supercharger network, would already know about the workings of the federal National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program that has dedicated $7.5 billion to building a national charging network. However, he needed Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to chime in on X yesterday to stop some Republican leaders from spreading misinformation about the program.
“Please post the reb

A hurricane specialist works on tracking Hurricane Beryl at the National Hurricane Center on July 1st, 2024, in Miami, Florida.  | Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images This is the last week of a truly shitty Atlantic hurricane season. It was record-breaking. People are still recovering. Misinformation managed to make things even worse. Now, we get a six-month-ish break before it starts over again — perhaps with fewer federal resources to respond in the US.
At the very least, we knew wha

Deals this good rarely stick around. Black Friday and AirPods discounts go together like, well, AirPods and iPhones. We thought the latest AirPods Pro were an incredible deal at their recently discounted price of $189, but they’ve dropped even further at Amazon and Walmart, where you can now pick them up for a new low of $153.99 ($95 off). That’s less than the current price for the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, which are down to $168.99.
Sure, the AirPods 4 are newer, but

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google is testing out media playback straight from Android smartwatches’ built-in speakers in Wear OS 5.1, according to Android developer release notes spotted by Mishaal Rahman. That’s in addition to adding support for credential managers in the coming update, which Google revealed is based on Android 15. (Wear OS 5, which rolled out earlier this month, is based on Android 14.)
Watch speaker playback will work for “devices that suppo

Image: Ford With more cars equipped with partial automation hitting the road, safety researchers are growing increasingly worried about driver attention and the potential for these systems to cause crashes. A new survey has a possible solution to the problem of wandering attention while using partial automation: let drivers adjust the steering.The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) conducted a new study that found that drivers were more likely to stay alert while using advanced driver

Image: Humanoid Origin Humanoid Origin, the game studio founded by former BioWare general manager Casey Hudson, is shutting down operations. The closure was announced in a post on the company’s LinkedIn page. “Despite efforts to shield the studio from broader challenges in the industry, an unexpected shortfall of funding left us unable to sustain operations,” the post read.
Humanoid Origin was founded by Hudson in 2021 when it was then known as Humanoid Studios. Hudson started

Anker’s orb-like charging stand can power up eight devices, including iPhones, for just $56. | Image: Nathan Edwards / The Verge If you’re tired of cluttering up your desk with multiple chargers, check out Anker’s MagGo Magnetic Charging Station 8-in-1, because it can probably replace all of them. It’s one of our favorite MagSafe chargers precisely because it can power up eight devices at a time, and right now is down to an all-time low of $55.99 ($44 off) at Amazon for B

Huawei’s new Mate 70 lineup will be the first to offer the company’s HarmonyOS Next that isn’t compatible with Android apps. | Image: Huawei Huawei has announced its new Mate 70 series smartphone lineup, which will be the first offered with the company’s new HarmonyOS Next operating system that doesn’t rely on Google’s Android services and won’t run any Android apps, according to a report by Reuters. The four models of the Mate 70 also don’t featur

Disney Plus / Lucasfilm Ltd. While there were only a few days left until Star Wars: Skeleton Crew was slated to debut on Disney Plus, the streamer has decided to bump the premiere up just a smidge.
Today, Disney announced that rather than dropping on December 3rd, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew will premiere a day earlier on December 2nd with two episodes. Along with the announcement, Disney also posted a new trailer teasing how younglings Wim (Ravi Cabot-Conyers), Neel (Robert Timothy Smith), KB (Kyr

Xbox Avatar as seen in the Microsoft’s October 2018 Xbox Update video. | Screenshot: YouTube Microsoft is shutting down the Xbox Avatar Editor app, reports PureXbox. The Xbox Avatar FAQ says that “due to low engagement and our shift in focus towards delivering other player experiences,” it’s discontinuing the editor as of January 9th, 2025.
After that time, players won’t be able to access their Avatars or the items they’ve bought for them. The company will aut

Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images The US Department of Energy will loan Rivian $6.6 billion to build an electric vehicle factory in Georgia, as Democrats scramble to finalize their climate agenda before Donald Trump takes office.Rivian, lacking the funds to start the construction process, put its Georgia factory plans on hold earlier this year. The company has lost a significant amount of money since its public offering in November 2021, including $1.1 billion

Image: The Verge While Google Assistant is going to be around for a while, the future of Google-powered digital assistants now seems to be Gemini. Gemini comes preinstalled if you buy a Google Pixel 9 phone, and you can install the Android app on older Pixels and non-Pixel handsets. There’s also now an app for the iPhone.Whether you’ve already got it installed or you’re thinking about upgrading from Google Assistant, here’s what you can do with Gemini. (This was tested on

When paired with a charging case, the DJI Mic Mini system can work for up to 48 hours. | Image: DJI DJI has announced its next wireless microphone system, the Mic Mini, which shrinks all the hardware while improving battery life. The new microphones weigh less than half of what the more expensive DJI Mic 2’s transmitters do, but the new system sacrifices useful features like built-in backup recording and the option to connect an even smaller lav mic in the name of improving portability.Alt

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge The Biden administration is giving Intel $7.865 billion in CHIPS Act funding to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing in the US. The agreement confirmed by the US Department of Commerce today is the largest award granted under the CHIPS Act to date, though notably smaller than the up to $8.5 billion earmarked for the chip maker in March.
“Today’s award marks another key step in implementing President Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act and t