Google critics think the search remedies ruling is a total whiff The remedies ruling in the Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Google finally landed on Tuesday. Last year, Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google was a monopolist in the search and advertising markets, but while today’s ruling says that Google will have to share some search data with competitors, Google doesn’t have to spin off […] https://www.theverge.com/news/769738/google-doj-antitrust-remedies-ruling-critics

OpenAI shuffles executive roles, acquires Statsig for $1.1 billion OpenAI has started to build out its Applications team under Fidji Simo, its new CEO of Applications, who left her former position as Instacart’s CEO to start in the executive role on August 18th. On Tuesday, the company confirmed it’s shuffling executive roles, bringing on a new CTO of applications, and acquiring a product analytics […] https://www.theverge.com/openai/769325/openai-statsig-acquisition-executive-moves

The Made by Google event felt like being sucked into an episode of Wandavision For the past twenty years or so, I've had a clear image of what a product launch keynote is supposed to be like. A charismatic executive walks across the stage, points to some animations and pre-taped clips, a live demo or two happens, and the crowd goes wild. Clips proliferate on social media and cue […] https://www.theverge.com/analysis/762891/made-by-google-pixel-10-jimmy-fallon

The best laptop deals you can get right now If you want a great laptop, you’re going to have to fork over a ton of money, right? Not necessarily. There are dozens of good laptops on the market at various price points. However, it can feel overwhelming to find the right one for your needs (some are better suited for, say, college students, whereas […] https://www.theverge.com/good-deals/23161948/apple-macbook-lenovo-acer-deal-sale

Pebblebee’s AirTag alternative can now share your real-time location in an emergency In July, Pebblebee announced a new safety feature for its Clip location tracker. Called Alert, it turns the Apple AirTag alternative into a panic alarm. Rapidly pressing the Clip’s button activates a flashing light and loud 97-decibel siren while also triggering Pebblebee’s mobile app to send a browser link of your current location to a […] https://www.theverge.com/news/757543/pebblebee-clip-tracker-android-ios-alert-live-safety-panic-alarm

OpenAI gets caught vibe graphing During its big GPT-5 livestream on Thursday, OpenAI showed off a few charts that made the model seem quite impressive — but if you look closely, some graphs were a little bit off. In one, ironically showing how well GPT-5 does in “deception evals across models,” the scale is all over the place. For “coding […] https://www.theverge.com/news/756444/openai-gpt-5-vibe-graphing-chart-crime

TP-Link’s new travel router delivers Wi-Fi 7 speeds Connecting to free airport or hotel Wi-Fi can often be a time-consuming and frustrating task that doesn’t seem worth the effort for a bag full of wireless devices. TP-Link has announced its first Wi-Fi 7 travel router, providing up to a total of 3.6 Gbps of bandwidth while also making it easier to get multiple […] https://www.theverge.com/news/719334/tp-link-be3600-wifi-7-travel-router-vpn

Amazon pulls the plug on Sengled’s Alexa skill after months of outages After repeatedly leaving customers without smart control of their lights, Sengled has been booted from Amazon's Works With Alexa program. As first reported by TechHive, beginning August 1st, Sengled's Alexa skill for controlling its line of LED lights, plugs, switches, and sensors with your voice and routines is no longer available. In a statement to […] https://www.theverge.com/analysis/718436/amazon-alexa-skill-ended-for-sengled-smart-lighting

Pokémon looks scary again in the new Z-A trailer One of the most brilliant things about Pokémon Legends: Arceus was the way it dropped you into the wilderness to fend for yourself as wild monsters tried to kill you. It was a surprising deviation from the franchise's typically chill vibe that complimented the game's story about how humans once lived in constant fear of […] https://www.theverge.com/pokemon/763401/pokeon-legends-za-mega-victreebel

How Burning Man VR rebuilt after Microsoft shut it down It was all just supposed to be a one-time thing. When Burning Man got canceled because of covid-19 in 2020, a number of attendees banded together to re-create the festival on the social VR platform Altspace. That virtual Burning Man experience not only attracted around 13,000 visitors, but also accolades from the Producers Guild of […] https://www.theverge.com/lowpass-newsletter/762887/burning-man-vr-microsoft-rebuilt

Is the Flipper Zero the next big car theft gadget? 404 Media has a report out about an underground software market that enables the Flipper Zero to be used to unlock a wide variety of vehicles, including Ford, Audi, Volkswagen, Subaru, Hyundai, Kia, and several other models. The hack works by intercepting and cloning a key fob’s radio signal using custom firmware built for the […] https://www.theverge.com/cars/763446/flipper-zero-car-theft-firmware-hack-key-fob

Silksong finally launches in September Hollow Knight: Silksong, the full sequel to Hollow Knight that has been in development for years, will be released on September 4th. The news was revealed as part of a “special announcement” video that debuted on Thursday. In Silksong, you play as Hornet, a character that appeared in the original Hollow Knight. The game features […] https://www.theverge.com/news/680636/hollow-knight-silksong-release-date-trailer

Amazon is betting on agents to win the AI race Hello, and welcome to Decoder! This is Alex Heath, your Thursday episode guest host and deputy editor at The Verge. One of the biggest topics in AI these days is agents — the idea that AI is going to move from chatbots to reliably completing tasks for us in the real world. But the problem […] https://www.theverge.com/decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel/761830/amazon-david-luan-agi-lab-adept-ai-interview

Google Search’s AI Mode is going global and getting smarter Google is putting AI Mode into Search in 180 countries and territories, allowing the AI-powered search feature to expand beyond the US, UK, and India. The expansion means more people can search for topics using a chatbot-like interface, though it’s still only available in English. Along with a global expansion, Google revealed that it’s building […] https://www.theverge.com/news/763367/google-search-ai-mode-agentic-restaurant-bookings

Insta360 redesigned its compact action cam with a bigger battery and swappable storage Insta360 has announced the next version of its compact Go action camera, which helped the company differentiate itself from established competitors like GoPro several years ago. As Insta360 teased earlier this week, the new Go Ultra not only breaks from the numbered naming convention of previous iterations, but it also ditches the camera’s distinctive pill […] https://www.theverge.com/news/761501/insta360-ultra-go-action-camera-4k-60fps-microsd

Hank Green’s Focus Friend swapped my screen time for bean time Earlier this week, a bean moved into my phone. Their name is Billie Bean King, and when I'm working, they work too, knitting socks and scarves. Billie's knitted wares are more than just cozy clothes - they're currency, used to buy lo-fi decorations for their barren room. But there's a catch: Billie can only work […] https://www.theverge.com/tech/763021/focus-friend-hank-green-app-store-ios-android

You can fine tune the resistance of the joysticks on GuliKit’s new controllers GuliKit was the first company to address the original Switch’s drifting issues with a Hall effect Joy-Con upgrade kit, and it released one of the first controllers that can remotely wake the Nintendo Switch 2. Its latest first, announced at Gamescom 2025 in Germany, is a pair of controllers with the ability to infinitely adjust […] https://www.theverge.com/news/763341/gulikit-tt-pro-max-wireless-switch-2-wake-controllers-adjustable-tension

Google’s next big Android update can force dark mode and icon themes Google has started rolling out its latest batch of Android 16 features to beta testers, including expanded support for dark mode and themed app icons. The QPR2 beta 1 was announced yesterday alongside Google launching the Pixel 10 series, and is expected to get a full public release sometime in December, according to Google’s release […] https://www.theverge.com/news/763334/google-android-16-qpr2-beta-1-availability