Technology news

TikTok's battle to stop its ban in the U.S. hit another roadblock.On Friday, a federal appeals court panel unanimously upheld the Biden-era law that gave ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent company, nine months to either get a new owner or be banned in the U.S. The deadline is looming; unless the courts stop it, it will go into effect the day before President-elect Donald Trump takes the Oval Office. A ban would require app stores like Apple and Google and internet hosting companies to stop distr

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Microsoft’s first Copilot AI-ready Surface laptop arrived earlier this year, and now Windows Central reports that the rest of the lineup is due for a refresh in 2025.According to the report, we can expect new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop computers — and we’ve already seen a possible prototype pop up in October — with Intel Lunar Lake chips, that will be Copilot Plus PCs with AI features, just like the current Snapdragon versions.That wou

Arm CEO Rene Haas. | Getty Images / The Verge Arm CEO Rene Haas has a unique, bird’s eye view of the tech industry. His company’s chip designs are in the majority of devices you use on a daily basis, from your smartphone to your car. The SoftBank-backed company he leads is worth almost $150 billion, which is now considerably more than Intel.
With the news earlier this week that Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger “retired” and Intel is evaluating its options for a possible spinoff or

Just two weeks since raising $125mn in funding, British scaleup Tokamak Energy has secured backing from the US and UK to upgrade its ST40 fusion energy plant. The US Department of Energy (DOE), the UK’s Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), and Tokamak Energy will jointly sponsor a $52mn upgrade to the fusion facility in Oxfordshire.  “Fusion has the potential to be a clean and sustainable energy source, transforming how we power our country, and countries around

T-Mobile would just love to sign you up on one of its new plans. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile is once again shuffling its 5G internet options, adding a streaming bundle to its priciest plan and introducing a new mid-tier option. The new plans start at $50 per month (including an autopay discount) and become available starting December 11th.Importantly, it seems that prices are staying consistent with T-Mobile’s previous 5G Home Internet options — if you’re

Illustration: The Verge Google is now rolling out the ability to make a digital ID from your passport that you can store in Google Wallet and use at select TSA checkpoints — but only as a generic form of ID. It does not serve as a passport itself, Google spokesperson Liz Schulten tells The Verge: “The digital ID can’t be used at immigration and border control.”
Here’s how to make the ID, per Google’s September blog post where it initially announced the feature

Illustration: The Verge Google is now rolling out the ability to make a digital ID from your passport that you can store in Google Wallet and use at select TSA checkpoints.
Here’s how to make the ID, per Google’s September blog post where it initially announced the feature:
Select the prompt in the Google Wallet app to “create an ID pass with your U.S. passport” and follow the instructions to scan the security chip in the back of your passport. You’ll be asked to ta

Illustration: The Verge Google is now rolling out the ability to make a digital ID from your passport that you can store in Google Wallet and use at select TSA checkpoints.
Here’s how to make the ID, per Google’s September blog post where it initially announced the feature:
Select the prompt in the Google Wallet app to “create an ID pass with your U.S. passport” and follow the instructions to scan the security chip in the back of your passport. You’ll be asked to ta

Image: The Verge Apple has big plans for its rumored custom modems. Along with using them in iPhones and iPads, Apple also plans on putting the chip inside Macs and maybe even future versions of the Vision Pro, according to a report from Bloomberg.
Macs with cellular connectivity reportedly won’t arrive before 2026, which is when Bloomberg expects Apple to launch its more advanced, second-generation custom modem. Apple may also add the 5G chip to a pair of augmented reality glasses that Bl

Tech founders and Silicon Valley VCs who supported — and threw their money behind — Donald Trump are being handsomely rewarded by the President-elect.Shortly after winning the 2024 election, Trump appointed one of his biggest supporters, Elon Musk, to head up a new agency called the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.Now, Trump is rewarding another wealthy tech founder for their loyalty: investor and podcaster David Sacks."I am pleased to announce that David O. Sacks w

The tsunami warning that came screaming through my cell phone at 10:51 a.m. was blunt: "You are in danger." The warning applied to 5.3 million people in California, according to the Associated Press, although not all received it — and many who did were shocked into disbelief. A tsunami here? Impossible, I thought, at first. I live east of San Francisco, more than a mile inland from the Bay shoreline, about two hundred feet above sea level. Then I thought: I need to get to my kids. SEE ALSO

After weeks of waiting, Apple's iOS 18.2 update is almost here.Expected to launch on Monday, Nov. 9, iOS 18.2 brings some hefty new features to the table. Of particular note are enhancements to Apple Intelligence, which has been in a sort of weird half-baked stage since the iPhone 16 launched earlier this year. The latest iOS update packs in some of the more anticipated Apple Intelligence features, such as the ability to create your own emoji. SEE ALSO:OpenAI announces ChatGPT Pro with a $200 mo

Following the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday, the internet erupted with jokes, memes, and, later, thirst posts for the insurance magnate's shooter. The assassination was an event that could, for many, signal the start of a more critical look at corporations, how the people leading them treat the public, and how the public responds to those executives' choices.Or it was just a perfect opportunity to laugh in the face of a bleak political and economic reality. The inte

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images For over a week, New Jersey residents have spotted unidentified aircraft in the northern part of the state, including Morris County and near Newark — and now the authorities are urging people to remain calm.The FBI’s Newark office, along with Morris County officials, recently issued a statement asking the public to share any information they might have on the mysterious drones, while reiterating that there is “no known threat

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The Tulane Green Wave (9-3) and the No. 24 Army Black Knights (10-1) will face off in the American Athletic Conference Championship this week at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York. The match will take place on Frida

Wondering how to watch college football this season? Here are your best options:Best for affordabilitySling TV Blue Plan $20 for the first month, then $40/month (save $20 )Get DealBEST FOR SINGLE GAMEFuboTV Pro plan7-day free trial, then $59.99/month for 1 month(Save $20)Get Deal
The No. 20 UNLV Rebels (10-1) and the No. 10 Boise State Broncos (11-0) will face off in the Mountain West Conference Championship this week at Albertsons Stadium in Boise, Idaho. The match will take place on Friday, De

Illustration: The Verge There’ve already been renders of Google’s yet-to-be-announced Pixel 9A and one real-world sneak peek. Now we’re getting yet another look at an early prototype of Google’s next mid-range phone. X user fenibook has posted two shots of the phone, and it’s got the company’s usual markings that designate this as a still-under-development device.These latest images offer yet more proof that Google plans to ditch the camera bar — a visua

The Anbernic RG34XX looks inspired by Nintendo’s GBA but with a larger screen and more buttons. | Screenshot: YouTube Anbernic announced its next retro handheld today and it’s easy to see where the design of the RG34XX draws its inspiration. It appears to be a faithful clone of Nintendo’s original Game Boy Advance, although updated with additional action and shoulder buttons allowing games from more recent systems to be played. Pricing and availability hasn’t been reveale

The new modem is rumored to appear in next year’s iPhone SE. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Apple’s betting that its upcoming in-house 5G modem could help it beat Qualcomm's performance eventually, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Apple has worked on developing its own modem for years, but the initiative reportedly experienced technical issues and other setbacks despite purchasing Intel’s modem unit in 2019.The first Apple modem is rumored to come to the iPho

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is expanding the testing of its new Recall AI feature to Intel- and AMD-powered Copilot Plus PCs. The software giant first released a preview of Recall on Qualcomm-powered laptops last month, allowing Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel to test the new AI-powered feature. Now Intel and AMD Copilot Plus PCs are getting access in a new build today.
Recall takes screenshots of almost everything you do on a Copilot Plus PC to make it searchable and easy to recall a memory

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Did you miss out on shopping Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales?

Good news for Google Pixel users — they're bringing back a beloved old feature.The new update will have manual controls for the main screen in the 9.7 version of the Pixel Camera app, making it easier to control white balance, brightness, and shadows — just like it used to, according to Tom's Guide. In the current version of Pixel 9 Pro, you can still control the white balance, brightness, and shadows, but you have to go into the camera's settings menu to do so. Now, you can pin thos

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The Verge Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok is now available to free users on X. Several users noticed the change on Friday, which gives non-Premium subscribers the ability to send up to 10 messages to Grok every two hours.
xAI launched Grok last year as a “humorous AI assistant,” but it was only available to Premium subscribers. In August, xAI added a text-to-image generation feature to Grok, which turned out to be capable of producing some questionable images.TechCrunch reported la

You should definitely skip the base AirPods 4, which are only $9 cheaper right now. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The AirPods Pro stole the spotlight recently with an incredible discount that made them even cheaper than the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation. But now the script is flipped and the AirPods 4 are currently discounted to $139 ($40 off) at Amazon. That’s a new record low for Apple’s newest pair of wireless earbuds and just $9 more than the version without ANC.T

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Beginning in February, health insurer Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield was planning to set a time limit for anesthesia coverage during surgeries and procedures. Now, following days of widespread outrage at the health insurance industry generally, Anthem is walking that policy back, the insurer announced on Thursday.
In mid-November, the American Society of Anesthesiologists issued a press release about the policy, which was set to take effect in February in states like Connecticut, New York, and M

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EPFL’s RAVEN drone trades traditional landing gear for a pair of legs that function similar to a bird’s. | Image: Alain Herzog Researchers from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and UC Irvine have developed a drone capable of landing and taking off in areas that would otherwise leave a fixed-wing aircraft stranded. Their Robotic Avian-inspired Vehicle for multiple ENvironments (RAVEN) trades traditional landing gear for a pair of

Image: Amazon Amazon completed its first drone flight test in Italy on Wednesday. The test used its MK30 drone, which can carry up to five pounds (or 2.27 kilograms) of packages through light rain and, in the US, is licensed to operate Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS).
Italian regulators ENAC and ENAV, which are like the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), authorized Amazon to carry out the test in San Salvo.
Last year, the company announced its intention to expand to Italy and the UK i

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Image: NetflixJentry Chau vs. The Underworld’s first season feels like a classic monster slaying story remixed for a new generation. Though it has been decades since Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s final episode aired, the show’s lasting cultural impact can still be felt through the stories being told by people who were impacted by it. Netflix’s Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld feels like the kind of show that might not exist if it weren’t for the way an entire generation

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images A bill that could ban TikTok from the US unless its Chinese parent company divests it is constitutional, a panel of judges for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled.The decision comes soon before ByteDance’s January 19th deadline to sell the popular video app, or face its expulsion from the US. That deadline now falls one day before President-elect Donald Trump will be inaugurated for the second time — thanks in part to

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