7 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Jay Peters
Jay Peters
This week in the big AI data center buildout.

AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
“It doesn’t work.”

Now that Apple’s touchscreen MBP is here, let’s roll back to what Steve Jobs had to say about touch on laptops.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Google is working on a new agentic AI experience for consumers.

The company launched a new Gemini agent for enterprise earlier this month, and Google will bring that “same experience” to consumers later this year, starting with the Gemini app, CEO Sundar Pichai said on today’s Q3 2026 earnings call.

I’m curious how it will differ from Google’s Gemini Spark agent, which I tested in May, but given the launch window provided by Pichai, we may not have to wait too long to find out.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Swiping around on the new touchscreen MacBook Pro.

Antonio walks us through Apple’s PROLED laptop; check out our full first impressions right here.

Antonio G. Di Benedetto
Antonio G. Di Benedetto
These are the touch settings for the new OLED MacBook Pro.

The new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display has a section in System Settings for Touch Display controls. Much of it is for toggling similar gestures to the trackpad: Mission Control, Show Apps, Show Desktop, etc. You can turn off touchscreen funcions entirely, but that’s buried in Accessibility settings.

Lauren Feiner
Lauren Feiner
FTC demands info from Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and others in a personalized pricing probe.

It also asked airlines and retailers for detailed descriptions of how they use customer information to determine what prices to show. The non-enforcement probe is similar to one launched during the Biden administration, but the Republican-led FTC criticized the prior approach as “mistaken” because of its focus on middlemen.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
The DOJ is reportedly looking into Nvidia’s Hugging Face acquisition.

The US Department of Justice has “made inquiries” about the $13 billion deal, including how it could affect competition in the AI industry, according to a report from Reuters. It adds to existing regulatory scrutiny surrounding Nvidia, as it’s also reportedly facing a DOJ investigation over its AI chip dominance.

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David Pierce
Today’s Vergecast: Amazon built the Trojan Horse for your smart home.

Amazon’s product launch spree continues, this time with a bunch of new Alexa-powered Echo devices. The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy explains what the new Echo Show 16 finally got right, why a digital photo frame could be Amazon’s next big Alexa hit, and whether this new way of thinking about smart home gadgets might help Amazon defeat the HomeView and win a space in your kitchen.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Google is “looking into” a vague AI search response about who won the 2020 US election.

“The Gemini app answers this question more fully but this isn’t the most helpful response on Search,” Google says in a response to the Bluesky user who posted the unhelpful search answer. “We’re looking into this and working to address it.”

A few of us at The Verge weren’t able to recreate it, but Ars Technica has a good rundown of the situation with some of its own testing.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Amazon cut about 250 jobs from its devices team just weeks after launching a bunch of new devices.

In the last 30 days Amazon has launched new tablets, a new Kindle, a picture frame, and multiple new Echo devices. Now the company is cutting around 250 positions from its devices and services team, though Reuters says they’re primarily focused on software development. Amazon did not confirm a reason for the layoffs, but developers are facing increased pressure from increasingly advanced AI coding tools.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The All-In guys can’t stick to SI.

As reported by Semafor, the hosts of the popular podcast haven’t been using President Trump’s preferred “super intelligence” word for AI as much as they did at the beginning of the month.

Hands-on with the new OLED iPad MiniHands-on with the new OLED iPad Mini
First look
Antonio G. Di Benedetto and Jay Peters
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Pixar’s new short is a stylishly un-Pixar-like slice of life.

The studio’s two-minute Driving Lesson appears to be an actual recording of a mother giving her child their first driving lesson. The animation has a real tactile feel, almost like a photocopy, rendered in muted reds and blues. It’s easily the most un-Pixar-like thing Pixar has ever made. Even the aspect ratio is weird!

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
OpenAI now lets you text your Dot.

OpenAI had promised this was coming for its AI agents, but now the feature is here. You can text through iMessage or RCS, OpenAI says. It’s rolling out in preview for US Pro users.

Victoria Song
Victoria Song
RFK Jr. unilaterally gives the OK for some unapproved peptides.

Oh boy. This move refers to BPC-157, TB-500, Mots-C, KPV, epitalon, and semax. A document outlining the decision indicates that this seems to be the Health Secretary’s call, even though FDA scientists advised against it in July. This broadens access, but still requires a patient-specific prescription and adverse reporting.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Can we please stop with the hands?

First X, now Apple’s website? That’s enough hands on my internet today, thank you.

An image of Apple’s Mac lineup, with a hand pointing at the new MacBook Pro.
Image: Apple
You can see every red flag in Theranos 2.0
Optimizer

Knowing common health tech grifts comes in handy for assessing the secretive startups in You Can See Everything.

Victoria Song
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Apple’s polishing cloth adds critical support for the new touchscreen MacBook Pro.

Now that pixel-pushers, editors, musicians, and artists will have their fingers all over the new MacBook Pro’s screen, Apple has updated the listing for its $9 polishing cloth to include support for eradicating fingerprints from that PROLED XDR display.

Apple’s polishing cloth overlaid on a MacBook pro laptop screen.
Image: Apple
Nilay Patel
Nilay Patel
Headphone jack.

You’re all focused on the new MacBook Pro’s touchscreen but here I am, pointing out that the open low-latency audio interconnect is still in the hype reels after all this time.

the words “headphone jack” in the apple macbook pro launch video
Apple
Hands-on with Apple’s touchscreen MacBook Pro
First Look

Apple is finally tackling the challenge of ‘ergonomically terrible’ touchscreen laptops.

Terrence O'Brien and Antonio G. Di Benedetto
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
The Trump administration is loaning $5 billion to build nuclear plants for data centers.

Constellation Energy will receive the funds to expand capacity at eight nuclear plants by 1.1 gigawatts. Most, if not all, of that additional capacity has already been claimed by Google, Meta, or Amazon for their data centers, according to TechCrunch.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Google will let more developers make apps that plug into Search and Gemini.

With the new “Connected Apps” platform, developers can submit apps for people to use within Gemini and Search. This will allow developers to launch integrations similar to the ones OpenTable and Instacart built into Google’s AI tools.

Developers in the US can join the public beta waitlist starting today, which also offers ways to track metrics like traffic and latency.