Sean Hollister | The VergeThe Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts.2026-04-28T18:39:51+00:00https://www.theverge.com/authors/sean-hollister-2-2-2-2/rsshttps://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/01/verge-rss-large_80b47e.png?w=150&h=150&crop=1Sean Hollister<![CDATA[Valve launches the Steam Controller without the Steam Machine]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9186222026-04-27T13:24:04-04:002026-04-27T13:00:00-04:00
Now, Valve is releasing the Steam Controller without the Steam Machine.
The Steam Controller is officially going on sale May 4th at 1PM ET for $99 USD, $149 CAD, $149 AUD, £85 in the UK and €99 in the EU. We’ve already spent two weeks with the pad paired to our Steam Decks and gaming desktops, and you can read reviews from my colleagues Jay Peters and Cameron Faulkner right now. It’s pretty great!
What about the Steam Machine living room console and Steam Frame headset? Valve is simply saying stay tuned. “Right now we don’t have any updates on that, but we’re hard at work on it, and we hope to have news soon,” Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais tells The Verge. Valve previously committed to ship the Machine and Frame this year.
You do not need a Steam Machine to use the new Steam Controller. It should work with any computer that runs Steam, and as a generic controller for phones too. People have been asking for a successor to the cult classic original Steam Controller, or rather the Steam Deck’s controls shrunk down into a gamepad, ever since the Deck came out. Some Verge readers got pretty excited in 2022 when Valve’s hardware team revealed it would enjoy making that dream come true.
Now, Jay writes that the Steam Controller does almost exactly what he’d hoped — he’s playing Steam Deck on the TV, with a more comfortable pad, that keeps his controller profiles and muscle memory intact.
The delay for Valve’s other hardware does mean that our Steam Controller reviews feel slightly incomplete. We couldn’t test how well the Steam Controller works with the Steam Machine’s dedicated controller antenna, or how well the Controller works in virtual reality with the Steam Frame. (The controller is a visible object in VR thanks to built-in infrared LEDs that the headset cameras can track.)
But we like what we see, and we got a few additional tidbits of information from Valve, too:
Valve is indeed still working on offering replacement parts for the Steam Controller, and is still partnered with iFixit for those
Valve can’t be sure it’ll meet demand for the controller, but has already built a “significant quantity” of controllers with production capacity for more
Unlike the original 2015 Steam Controller, it’s not all robots building this one
Valve may be adding more ways to see the controller’s battery life in Steam
Valve said it might consider letting users adjust the controller speaker volume in the future
Valve experimented with additional features that didn’t make the cut for cost, weight, or reliability concerns, including touch-sensitive bumpers
The Steam Controller may cost slightly more than originally planned because of current conditions, but it’s not necessarily RAM-related. “Shipping anything by sea, by air, the fuel is more expensive than it was last year.”
Lastly, if you’re wondering whether you’ll ever be able to buy a Steam Deck again, Griffais says Valve is “working hard on trying to address that,” but it’s challenging because “the world is a different place than it was last year.”
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Sean Hollister<![CDATA[360-degree cameras have a new superpower]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9147302026-04-25T03:58:26-04:002026-04-24T11:30:00-04:00
Imagine Google Street View, except you can walk around like it’s a video game. Now imagine you don’t need to wait for Google to come film because it’s completely DIY. Insta360, the leading maker of 360-degree cameras, is now partnered with a 12-person UK startup called Splatica to help creators do just that.
Last January, we wrote about Gaussian splatting, the tech that promises to someday let anyone digitally re-create chunks of the real world in photorealistic 3D. But Splatica is making it surprisingly easy to harness splats today — with nothing more than an off-the-shelf consumer 360-degree camera and a subscription service that handles everything else.
When I say “surprisingly easy,” I mean it — this is all I had to do:
Change two settings on an off-the-shelf Insta360 camera or Antigravity drone
Record a video while walking (or flying) around the area
Sign up for a Splatica account and upload the video
Wait a day for a miniature 3D world to appear in my web browser
I tried it with both an Insta360 X5 camera and an Antigravity A1, and you can check out my results below. While they’re definitely not perfect — splats can often look a bit ethereal, like you’re stepping into a CG painting — I’m already convinced some creators and businesses will buy 360-degree cameras for this purpose alone.
Insta360 cofounder Max Richter tells me the company’s cameras were already in demand for real estate virtual tours, construction progress reports, and facility inspections. If I were a real-estate agent, I’d buy one for this feature right now.
Here’s my Antigravity A1 capture of a giant play structure in my local park (press the play button, then use the WASD keys on a keyboard to fly and a mouse to steer, or drag the onscreen controls on a phone):
And the beat-up basketball hoop at another park down the road. Splatica automatically edits out most people in the scene, so the park’s a little emptier than it was in reality.
If you tap the path button in the upper-right-hand corner, underneath “SD” and “HD,” you should see the exact winding path I took with each camera (and the Insta360 X5’s selfie stick) to create these results.
When I simply circle around the hoop once, as you can see below, it doesn’t look nearly as good. Splatica can only re-create what your camera sees, so you need to film from every place you might want to “stand” in the virtual world.
Below, I tried to simulate a basic bridge inspection at the same park, focusing on one pillar underneath the BART commuter rail. I’m not sure it has enough detail to satisfy real surveyors or safety inspectors — perhaps that’s because the drone’s overzealous obstacle avoidance kept pausing my flight.
But when I spent over five minutes capturing my own backyard with the X5, the results were so expansive my wife and I didn’t feel quite feel comfortable sharing the whole scan. Instead, check out how Splatica re-created all the objects in my backyard by generating a 3D point cloud:
You can summon point clouds for any Splatica scene by pressing X on a desktop keyboard, by the way.
All of these scans can be downloaded in PLY and USDZ format and associated with real-world measurements: Splatica cofounder Andrey Shelomentsev tells me there’s typically a one percent error every 100 centimeters, “good enough for surveying and some rough exploration of the space,” and says measurements can be more accurate by placing some markers around an area.
This actually isn’t the first time I’ve tried to 3D scan my backyard: in 2021, I did it with a Skydio self-flying drone. But back then, Skydio was charging $2,999 per year for the feature, not including a drone or a service to stitch the photos together, while Splatica claims its service does it all autonomously with a normal 360-degree video.
Splatica’s own sample scenes are even more interesting than mine, particularly now that it’s trying to prove companies can use its service to train robots before deploying them for real in factories around the world. Here’s the Imecar Elektronik factory in Antalya, Türkiye:
How is this possible just by walking around with a camera? Shelomentsev tells me his company’s built a proprietary version of SLAM (the Simultaneous Localization and Mapping technique that lets all kinds of robots, self-driving cars, and VR headsets know their position in 3D space) specifically designed to create accurate point clouds from 360-degree video. You can think of point clouds as the “bones” of 3D objects that then get painted with color.
And while Splatica says it can work with any 360-degree camera, it helps that Insta360 and Antigravity’s cameras put all kinds of extra metadata into the video files themselves. “The files carry everything we need: lens distortion parameters, shutter speed, accelerometer and gyroscope data, and GPS — streamed from the Insta360 mobile app directly to the camera during capture,” Splatica CEO and cofounder Eugene Nikolskii tells The Verge.
Above: Corridor Crew visually explains how splats work.
The Insta360/Splatica combo does have its limitations. If you zoom into any of my embedded or linked examples to see fine details, you’ll probably see slightly translucent blobs of color rather than legible textures — that’s how splats are made, after all. Traditional high-res photogrammetry might do a better job if surfaces are what you care about most.
But that isn’t stopping Insta360, Antigravity, and Splatica from launching a marketing campaign called Project Eternal, which the companies are touting as a “global initiative” to preserve cultural landmarks for future generations. It’s offering prizes for the best Gaussian splats, 1,000 free Splatica uploads (first-come first served), and a pilot project to scan Pompeii and the stunning Civita di Bagnoregio in Italy. They’re also “inviting creators worldwide” to scan sites like Roman theaters and Korea’s Jeju Island.
(The companies wouldn’t tell us how much they’re investing in Project Eternal, and admitted they’re not helping creators secure permits for those locations — but Splatica claims it’ll maintain public access indefinitely to any scene submitted to its “Open Heritage Dataset,” and the company’s got a decent privacy policy that makes it clear your content belongs to you.)
Beyond that, Insta360’s Richter says his company already has enterprise customers piloting 3D reconstruction and digital twin workflows in the construction and facilities management realms, and hopes to provide richer data from the camera to 3D reconstruction services and make the process more seamless.
Right now, the biggest barrier to entry with Splatica might be that the service isn’t cheap. The company charges anywhere between 18 cents and 25 cents per second of processed video, and you have to pay a monthly subscription too. The company’s currently experimenting with pricing — last week it was $70, $200, or $385 per month depending on how big a scan you need, while this week the same tiers are $50, $150, and $300.
But if you want to give it a try, you might still be able to get one of the 1,000 free slots. Splatica says it’s waiving its subscription fee for those first 1,000 users, who should each be able to turn around 10 minutes of 360-degree footage into little 3D worlds. You can also explore over 100 additional splats in Splatica’s public gallery.
Update, April 25th: Replacedembeds with ones tweaked by Splatica to hopefully load better on some iOS devices. We’re still working on it.If embeds aren’t working, please try the links to each video instead.
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Richard LawlerSean Hollister<![CDATA[Framework’s Laptop 13 Pro launch event]]>https://www.theverge.com/?post_type=vm_stream&p=9161682026-04-28T14:39:51-04:002026-04-21T14:41:08-04:00
Framework CEO Nirav Patel showed off his company’s latest modular, repairable laptops in San Francisco on Tuesday. The headliner is the new Laptop 13 Pro, which is its first machine fully machined out of aluminum, and Patel says its goal is to be “the MacBook Pro for Linux users.”
Read on below for all the updates from Framework’s April 2026 event.
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Sean Hollister<![CDATA[Framework announces Laptop 13 Pro, ‘the MacBook Pro for Linux users’]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9155082026-04-21T20:39:36-04:002026-04-21T14:08:00-04:00
Gorilla arm who? | Image: Framework
Every time we review a Framework laptop, we find familiar pros and cons. They’re trulyupgradable, incredibly repairable, but we always wish the battery lasted longer. We always wish the build quality were top notch.
Today, Framework is announcing what could be the answer: the Framework Laptop 13 Pro.
I just tried it at Framework’s event in San Francisco, and the build quality feels like night and day compared to the somewhat piecemeal designs the company’s released before.
It’s the company’s first laptop to be fully machined out of blocks of 6000-series aluminum, its first with a haptic trackpad, and its first with a fully custom 13.5-inch, 3:2, 2.8K, variable refresh rate (30-120Hz) IPS screen that comes color-calibrated right out of the box.
Is the $1,499 Framework Laptop 13 Pro the “MacBook Pro for Linux users”? I’m not sure — but it’s the best-feeling modular laptop the company’s yet made! The first-for-Framework CNC machined aluminum chassis is a huge part of that. We got to give it a spin, even tear it down, and the touchpad and keyboard feel pretty dang good without interfering with modularity. Will the new Core Ultra Series 3, LPCAMM2 memory and larger battery add up to MacBook Pro beating battery life and performance? We’ll have to wait and see in a full review after it launches in June. #framework#laptop#tech
With the option to order it preloaded with Ubuntu instead of only Windows, Framework CEO Nirav Patel says its goal for this computer is to be “the MacBook Pro for Linux users.” And — especially in anodized black, though it also comes in silver — it looks like it could play the part!
And while we can’t test that quite yet, Framework let us tear down the entire machine today, play with the keyboard, touchpad, touchscreen, and chassis. It largely feels premium in a way Framework laptops haven’t felt before. The machined aluminum chassis and keyboard have so little flex, the touchpad feels incredibly smooth with nice haptic taps. And, like Apple’s MacBooks, the hinge is properly tensioned so you can open the lid with a single finger. I show that off in our video above!
Here are some photos from my colleague Victoria Barrios, too including us pulling out a LPCAMM2 memory module:
The Laptop 13 Pro is Framework’s first 13-inch laptop with a touchscreen (though no stylus), its first with PCIe 5.0 for up to 8TB of 14,000MB/s SSD storage, and its first with Dolby Atmos certification for its newly side-firing speakers. (“Mid at best” is how Antonio described the speakers in the last 13-inch model, so we’re genuinely hoping for an improvement there.)
And unlike the MacBooks, of course, you can easily replace the M.2 2280 storage and even the RAM, assuming you can find and afford its newfangled LPCAMM2 modules once RAMageddon has subsided.
For what it’s worth, Patel tells us Framework will be able to stock 16GB, 32GB and 64GB modules in its own marketplace after working carefully with memory suppliers like Micron, and Framework has been one of the most transparent companies about the RAM crisis thus far. For now, RAM is priced at $239 for 16GB, $439 for 32GB, and $849 for 64GB of LPCAMM2 LPDDR5X.
For modular gadget lovers, though, the most exciting part might be that you don’t need to buy a whole laptop to get many of these benefits, because the Laptop 13 Pro doesn’t break compatibility with the existing Framework Laptop 13. The Laptop 13 Pro has the same dimensions, including the same 15.85mm thickness, though it weighs slightly more at 1.4kg (3.08lb) vs 1.3kg (2.86lb). You can swap just the new Intel Core Ultra Series 3 into an existing Laptop 13, or just the display, or just the keyboard and trackpad. Or you can buy the new chassis. Or just a new bottom cover and the bigger battery for your existing machine.
We didn’t yet have component prices at publish time to tell whether part swaps are cost-effective. But in a world where a single component (RAM) is driving up the price of practically every computer, upgrades that don’t involve RAM might be quite interesting. Speaking of which, you can also configure the Laptop 13 Pro with last year’s AMD Ryzen AI 300 boards if Intel or LPCAMM isn’t your thing.
The Framework Laptop 13 Pro itself is of course priced higher than previous 13-inch models. It starts at $1,499 for a prebuilt with an Intel Core Ultra 5 325, 16GB of LPCAMM2 memory, and 512GB of storage, or $1,199 for DIY.
That prebuilt price is $400 more than Framework has charged for a Ryzen AI 5 340 with 16GB of RAM and 256GB storage, but you’re theoretically getting a lot more for the cash — and not just in terms of performance, battery life, and doubled storage. There’s also a faster 100W GaN charger and a smoother screen, at up to 120Hz compared to the 60Hz that Framework’s 13-inch display was stuck at previously.
Patel says that after six years in business, “There is essentially no technology that’s theoretically possible where we’re not at a scale we can get it,” and its first fully custom display is an example of that. Patel says Framework went blank slate, including a new backlight, in-cell touch, and a new antiglare coating for higher contrast in ambient lighting.
Framework Laptop 13 Pro (Intel Core Ultra Series 3)
The 2880 x 1920 screen still leaves room for improvement, though. I like the matte coating in person, though it could be brighter; its 700-nit brightness isn’t anything special these days. Patel admits that Framework capped its color gamut at 100 percent of the less comprehensive sRGB color space (not Adobe RGB or DCI-P3) to prioritize the specs that’d lead to better battery. When I ask what “Pro” means if not the visual designer pros who buy MacBooks, Patel says it’s about building “the ultimate developer laptop,” one that developers will compare to the MacBook Pro.
“If you’re a developer who’s coding all day long, we want this to be the perfect laptop for you,” he says.
Framework is opening preorders for the Framework Laptop 13 Pro today, and while we didn’t have full pricing at publish time, it seems that prices go up fast. The next step up from the $1,499 model is a $2,099 Core Ultra X7 358H model with double the CPU cores (16 vs 8), double the RAM (32GB vs 16GB), double the storage (1TB vs 512GB), and triple the integrated graphics cores (12 vs 4). That’s definitely MacBook Pro pricing.
We did see one with a higher-end chip playing Cyberpunk 2077 at around 70fps, admittedly with a lot of help from adaptive upscaling. The company plans to ship the first batch of laptops in June, and said it’d only have a small batch of Intel X9 to start — it sold out by the time we checked back this afternoon.
If you purchase the Laptop 13 Pro mainboards for your existing Laptop 13, you’ll pay $449 for the Ultra 5 325 version, or $799 for an Ultra X7 358H. The X9 isn’t available separately right now.
Update, April 21st: Added hands-on impressions and photos from Framework’s event in San Francisco, and additional pricing.
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Sean Hollister<![CDATA[Framework’s first eGPUs turn its laptop into a desktop PC]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9153282026-04-22T14:19:35-04:002026-04-21T14:07:24-04:00
Remember when Framework made the first laptop where you can easily upgrade its entire internal video card in three minutes flat? The company’s getting into the external graphics game, too. As promised last August, you’ll be able to turn the Framework Laptop 16’s GPU modules into external ones instead. Or, you can plug in a desktop graphics card (or network card, or other PCIe cards) for more power than most laptops ever dream of having, with eight lanes of PCI-Express bandwidth.
Framework’s calling it the OCuLink Dev Kit, because it uses the OCuLink standard to transmit data between your CPU and the external GPU, and because the company wants you to know this isn’t exactly a consumer friendly product. “It’s not like Thunderbolt where it’s a simple plug-and-play solution,” Framework CEO Nirav Patel tells The Verge. “It’s for that enthusiast or power user.”
As I discovered when I plugged an RTX 5090 into a gaming handheld last year, the benefit of OCuLink is that even a relatively weak laptop can become a GPU powerhouse when you’ve got a beefy direct link to the external card. The downsides are that OCuLink connectors aren’t particularly robust, only transmit PCIe data (no USB, no power for your laptop) and generally can’t be hotplugged. “Our recommendation to users is you’re going to need to shut down and power back up,” says Patel.
This OCuLink solution will be more powerful than the one I tried, though: Framework told PCWorld it’ll be the first OCuLink 8i connector in a laptop, with a full eight lanes and 128Gbps of bandwidth, compared to the 4-lane, 64Gbps solutions you’ve generally seen before. It shouldn’t bottleneck GPUs the same way. (Not that four-lane OCuLink was too terrible a bottleneck to use.) That’s even more bandwidth than Thunderbolt 5.
The other reason it’s labeled a Dev Kit is because what Framework is offering is intentionally barebones to keep costs low. Framework provides the GPU adapters, but it’s bring-your-own desktop computer power supply and maybe 3D-print your own docking stand. “We’re releasing design files for people to be able to 3D print their own solutions,” says Patel.
You will be able to pick as many (or as few) of the three components that Framework is building, though, if you want to mix and match with other OCuLink solutions that are already available in the market. Those three components (which you can see in the gallery earlier in this post) are:
An add-in card that fits inside the Framework Laptop 16’s default Expansion Bay Shell to give it an OCuLink port
An adapter to add an OCuLink port and board power to a Framework Laptop 16’s removable graphics card
An adapter to add an OCuLink port and board power to a desktop graphics card
Framework isn’t sharing price or release date for these parts quite yet, but Patel says they should ship this year. There’s no solution here for Framework’s other laptops, only the Laptop 16, but there are some other computers with an OCuLink port, including a variety of relatively inexpensive mini-PCs and that GPD Win Max 2 that I reviewed. Maybe this could help Framework Laptop 16 discrete GPUs get a second life after their owners upgrade.
Theoretically, a Thunderbolt 5 eGPU connection might be more convenient than an OCuLink one, but most laptops that could really benefit from a discrete GPU don’t have Thunderbolt 5 ports, among other considerations. There’s also CopprLink for those who absolutely must have a PCIe x16 connection to an external card, but that’s a hefty, pricy, and, currently, rare connector.
We’ll try to get a look at these OCuLink items in action at Framework’s event today — but we’re making a beeline for the company’s new 13-inch “Pro” notebook and maybe its couch keyboard first.
Update, April 22nd: Added PCWorld’s additional reporting on OCuLink 8i.
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Sean Hollister<![CDATA[Framework is building a better couch keyboard because everyone hates the Logitech one]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9154972026-04-23T18:55:38-04:002026-04-21T14:06:29-04:00
If you have a wireless keyboard with a touchpad that lets you control your PC from across the room, chances are it’s a Logitech K400. Framework CEO Nirav Patel is betting that you hate using it — enough to buy Framework’s spin on the idea when it arrives later this year.
He says that Logitech’s keyboard is precisely the reason he’s building a new one: “It’s that Logitech keyboard that everybody owns and nobody likes,” he tells me. “Everybody’s got the same keyboard, nobody likes that keyboard, and so we figured we can build a better keyboard.”
Have you seen this Logitech couch keyboard? Do you hate it like me? Framework CEO Nirav Patel says “nobody likes” the Logitech K400 so he’s introducing the Framework Wireless Touchpad Keyboard instead, currently in early preview. I brought my own Logitech K400 to San Francisco to compare! And there’s really no comparison. But there’s also no price or release date yet beyond “later this year.” No backlight, either. Correction: previous upload said “next year” when Framework is looking to launch “later this year”#framework#Tech#keyboard
When I heard him say this in an interview, it was a joy. That’s partly because Patel is one of the most mild-mannered tech execs I’ve ever met, someone who never criticizes a competitor in public — and partly because he’s absolutely right. My own Logitech K400, with its squishy buttons and bulky hollow plastic build, feels like a necessary evil rather than a device I actively like.
Is Framework’s version any good? I was skeptical, because it’s based on the Framework Laptop 12’s keyboard, and my colleague Antonio gave that keyboard a “C.”
But I actually brought my own Logitech K400 to Framework’s event, and I’ll tell you right now, typing feels way better than on those old membrane keys. With Framework’s, I got around 90 words per minute in a typing test on my very first try.
It didn’t feel as nice as the keyboard or haptic touchpad on Framework’s new Laptop 13 Pro, and I do wish it were backlit. (It has no backlight, to be clear.) The arrow keys are just OK, with two of them half-height rather than full.
Also, I wasn’t able to try it wirelessly at the event, only wired over USB-C, as the overall wireless radio environment there was terrible. (We had a lot of trouble connecting laptops to Wi-Fi or cellular hotspots there, too.) Also, the touchpad button press hadn’t been implemented yet, though tapping to click worked fine.
Overall, it feels speedy and responsive, if not as solid and premium yet as high-end wireless keyboards and obviously not as satisfying as a mechanical one. I hope that means it’ll be exceptionally affordable — this might be the first Framework product I buy for myself! (The original Laptop 16 was a near miss for me.)
Patel says the company decided when building the Framework Desktop that no good couch keyboard / touchpads exist, and that the same mechanical components in Laptop 12 could fix that, just with a different dimension mousing surface. He also says Framework will release the control board so people can design their own wireless keyboards too.
That board uses a “highly power-efficient Nordic nRF54 radio and open source ZMK Firmware” to pair with up to four Bluetooth hosts at once, plus one USB-A dongle that fits in the back of the keyboard, and you can plug in a wired USB-C cable too. Plus, Framework is making an expansion card for its laptops (and Framework Desktop) that can hold the keyboard dongle flush, instead of having it stick out.
Patel says he’s announcing this one early so developers can start building accessories “like mounts for sim rigs.” Framework will release the external surface CAD files to give developers a head start, and the keyboard should ship later this year. We’re waiting on a price.
Update, April 21st: Added hands-on impressions and photos.
Correction, April 23rd:Going over our footage, I’m realizing I got 87wpm with 93 percent accuracy on my very first typing test, not “over 90 words per minute” as I originally wrote.
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Sean Hollister<![CDATA[The Lenovo Legion Go S is RAMageddon’s latest victim]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9152782026-04-20T19:17:42-04:002026-04-20T18:49:42-04:00
Not every Legion Go S model costs nearly double what it did before, but none are anywhere near what they originally cost. The Windows Z1 Extreme model is listed at $1,679.99 now, though it’s “on sale” for $1,049.99. (B&H has it for $1,299.99.)
Lenovo didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but I suspect the company is quietly axing this version in the face of RAMageddon. Many listings for various versions of the handheld have disappeared entirely from retailers and from Lenovo’s own website.
Perhaps Lenovo has a newer version coming, though? The company’s website is already beginning to refer to it as the “Lenovo Legion Go S Gen 1,” according to Google:
Asus rep Anthony Spence told me earlier this month that there’s “no price increase on the horizon, so far as I can tell,” for the Xbox Ally X in the US. He says that’s still true as of today.
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Sean Hollister<![CDATA[Ballmer gives $80 million to NPR, with strings attached]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9135182026-04-17T05:32:13-04:002026-04-16T16:30:55-04:00
Connie Ballmer, wife of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and cofounder of the Ballmer Group, has given $80 million to NPR. That’s roughly seven years’ worth of government funding ($11.2m) after Trump and Congress cut funds for public media, but only a fraction of NPR’s full annual budget of $300 million. NPR may still cut jobs because the money has strings attached.
The money is specifically “to support the digital innovation that is essential to meeting the needs and serving the interests of public media audiences wherever they are and whenever they seek information,” according to a press release. NPR journalist David Folkenflik writes that this donation, and another $33 million from an anonymous donor, “were intended for specific purposes, not to build the endowment or to expand news coverage.”
It sounds like NPR president and CEO Katherine Maher is expecting to lay off staff despite the additional money. Here’s an excerpt from Folkenflik’s report:
“This does not replace federal funding,” Maher said. “This does not replace the shortfalls. We still need to continue to operate effectively in order to be able to do the work that we do day in and day out.”
Several people within NPR said the network has been planning scenarios for alternative levels of job cuts, though no plans are currently set. Executives also are trying to figure out the degree to which the network could rely more heavily on reporters from local stations for national coverage, staffers said.
“I support NPR because an informed public is the bedrock of our society, and democracy requires strong, independent journalism,” wrote Ballmer, for NPR’s press release. “My hope is that this commitment provides the stability and the spark NPR needs to innovate boldly and strengthen its national network.”
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Sean Hollister<![CDATA[The FCC just saved Netgear from its router ban for no obvious reason]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9118882026-04-15T15:59:12-04:002026-04-14T16:57:07-04:00
The United States’ foreign router ban didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and today may not change that. The FCC has just granted Netgear a conditional approval to import its future consumer routers, cable modems, and cable gateways into the US through October 1st, 2027 — even though the company builds those devices in Asia and has not announced any plan to bring manufacturing to the United States.
Neither the FCC’s announcement nor Netgear’s announcement explain why Netgear was granted the temporary exemption. The FCC only states that the Pentagon has now made “a specific determination” that “such devices do not pose risks to U.S. national security.”
That’s strange, given how the FCC’s original and exceptionally loose justification for the entire router ban was that foreign routers automatically pose a national security threat because of incidents like Volt Typhoon, where Netgear routers were among those primarily targeted by the Chinese hacking group. (The issue was arguably US telecom companies and router owners not following basic security best practices like updating firmware and changing default passwords, not the routers themselves.)
The FCC’s approval is also strange because the agency’s Conditional Approval process makes router makers submit “a detailed, time-bound plan to establish or expand manufacturing in the United States,” but Netgear has not publicly committed to US manufacturing as of today.
When public companies make material disclosures that might affect their fortunes, they’re legally required to inform investors — and Netgear did do that in this case, submitting these twodocuments to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). But Netgear doesn’t say anything about US manufacturing there. Perhaps Netgear doesn’t think it’s investing enough in US manufacturing for it to be a material disclosure? Perhaps Netgear isn’t investing in US manufacturing at all?
We asked Netgear and the FCC to specifically answer whether Netgear submitted “a detailed, time-bound plan to establish or expand manufacturing in the United States” as well as “a description of committed and planned capital expenditures, financing, or other investments dedicated to U.S.-based manufacturing and assembly over the next 1-5 years.” Both are items the FCC specifically asks for when granting conditional approval.
But by Wednesday afternoon, 24 hours after we reached out, neither Netgear nor the FCC had responded to our emails. We checked in again on Wednesday morning but still did not receive a reply.
Specifically, the FCC says it has granted conditional approval for these specific lines of routers, not that it matters very much:
Netgear, Inc.’s Nighthawk consumer mesh, mobile and standalone routers (R, RAX, RAXE, RS, MK, MR, M and MH series), Orbi consumer mesh, mobile and standalone routers (RBK, RBE, RBR, RBRE, LBR, LBK and CBK series), cable gateways (CAX series) and cable modems (CM series)
As I explained last month, the US foreign router ban is on future routers that companies want to import, sell, and market in the United States, not existing ones. Does this mean Netgear can bring any router it wants to the US just by giving it one of these names? I have asked the FCC, and I’ll let you know if they respond.
Lastly, Netgear has made a pair of potentially misleading statements today that we should probably address.
In its SEC disclosure, the company suggests that it is free to “update the software on existing consumer routers indefinitely” as long as it keeps getting conditional approvals, and that without a conditional approval it would have had to stop doing so in March 2027. But as the FCC has itself explained, router makers do not need any FCC approval for software and security updates, only updates that change the performance of their radios.
Second, Netgear’s CEO is suggesting today that the US government’s foreign router ban was actually about “stronger safety and security standards.” “This aligns with our security-first approach, and we believe the steps the FCC are taking will help ensure the security of your digital front door and home networking products,” he writes.
But as we’ve explained, the steps the FCC are taking have nothing to do with safety and security standards — the FCC asks precisely zero questions about safety and security in order to secure a conditional approval — and everything to do with where a router is physically made.
We asked Netgear if it has voluntarily improved its security in any way to help satisfy the FCC; we have not yet received a response.
Update, April 15th: Added that neither Netgear nor the FCC have responded to our emails.
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Sean Hollister<![CDATA[The only USB-C AA battery I’d buy for myself is the Zepath 3600]]>https://www.theverge.com/?p=9070022026-04-09T12:07:11-04:002026-04-08T08:30:00-04:00
It gave me an idea. Could we find the very best USB-C AA batteries by combining my own anecdotal testing with Lumafield’s scanning tech?
The answer seems to be yes! Knowing what I now know, the Zepath 3600mWh is the only rechargeable lithium-ion AA I’d buy for myself — even though USB-C is in the charger, rather than each individual cell.
The Zepath is the only one that passed both Lumafield’s test and my test with flying colors. It has higher capacity than most of the competition, it’s easy to use, and incredibly, it’s one of the cheapest of its kind.
Ever stick a USB-C cable into a AA battery? It’s a whole thing now! USB-C rechargeables are here and they’re actually pretty good for high-drain gadgets, assuming you’re not worried about the rare possibility these lithium-ion cells might explode! The 1.5-volt batteries broadly fall into two categories, “plug in a cable” or “stick them in a charging box,” and you can expect to pay $20-$30 for a set right now. #todayimtoyingwith#battery#batterytest#gadgets#techtok
These AAs cost just $2.50 per cell, less than Panasonic’s famed Eneloop nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries, all while lasting much longer than even Eneloop Pros in my Game Boy Advance and high-power flashlight.
It’s $20 for an eight-pack, and that includes a clamshell charger with a magnetic snap closure. (Think earbuds case, but much larger.) You can drop as many or as few batteries as you want into any of those eight slots — it’ll happily charge three dead batteries alongside three full ones, even if you arrange them in a zig-zag pattern. It pulls about 10 watts to charge all eight batteries at once, and under 3 watts for a pair. You can use either a dumb USB-A-to-USB-C cable or the same kind of USB-C PD charger you use for your phone or laptop.
Plus, the charger has built-in safety precautions that keep it from charging the wrong kinds of batteries. You’ll see eight hidden LEDs shine through the top of the case to indicate whether a battery’s charging (blinking green), charged (solid green), or rejected (blinking red) because you accidentally put an alkaline or NiMH inside instead.
Again, this means the only USB-C AA battery I recommend doesn’t have a built-in USB-C port — but I have good reasons for that.
When Lumafield analyzed 12 different kinds of lithium-ion AA batteries for The Verge, including designs with both built-in USB-C ports and ones with clamshell USB-C chargers, almost every battery other than Zepath was inferior.
Some, like Paleblue, had tried to cram a tiny pouch cell into the battery’s can to make room for the USB-C port. Others, like Coast, use a “can-within-a-can” design, where a smaller preexisting 14400 cell (14mm x 40mm) nests inside the larger battery.
Either way, Lumafield’s Alex Hao found most have relatively poor alignment and one had negative anode overhang, the same worrying defect she discovered in the earlier study of 1,000 larger cylindrical cells. Almost every “Good” we scanned was one with a charging case, including Philips and Mupoer. But the best were Zepath and the very similar Runpower — and Zepath costs less.
“This battery has fairly straight alignment and even anode overhang (AOH). The assembly quality looks good. And the electrodes really maximize the space available in the can. Overall this is a good battery,” is how Hao described the Zepath scans.
I had high hopes for batteries from Coast and Nitecore, with their built-in USB-C ports and their brand reputation for building high-quality flashlights for very savvy clientele. (Costco carries the Coast batteries; this is not a fly-by-night brand.) But Hao thought Coast’s battery looked “a little wonky” with unusually low anode overhang. “There still is overhang, so this battery doesn’t seem super unsafe, but I wouldn’t choose it over others in this cohort,” she noted.
And while she didn’t think the Nitecore was dangerous, the company may have a quality-control issue: Both Hao and I noticed our batteries felt a bit loosely put together, with top terminals that weren’t always straight, and some of the cells Lumafield scanned had shorter overhangs and worse alignment than others, Hao said.
The batteries you might want to avoid are Spyong, which I see has already been pulled from Amazon since Lumafield discovered one cell was entirely deformed inside and had negative anode overhang; NTONPOWER, which had very poor electrode alignment according to Hao; CZVV, which had “virtually non-existent” anode overhang along the bottom of the cell and has also disappeared from Amazon, and surprisingly, Paleblue, a known brand where our internal pouch cell appeared to have anodes bending inward, which could lead to short-circuiting if they ever manage to touch.
By the time I got Hao’s results back, I didn’t mind giving up the USB-C port. I’d already discovered two practical downsides to built-in sockets.
The first: shorter battery life. The Zepath lasted an entire hour and a half longer than the Coast in my screen-modded Game Boy Advance at max brightness; they lasted two hours longer in my budget 1,000-lumen flashlight. (See some of the results in my embedded video above.) And when I tried two different sets of Nitecore in that Nebo flashlight, they strangely didn’t work at all, either turning the high-power LED into a flickering mess or refusing to stay on.
The second reason: This generation of integrated USB-C batteries is fiddly to plug and unplug. The sockets feel too tight on most of them, enough that I feel like I’m risking damage to the battery by forcing it in and out.
And though it might be annoying to remember to pack the Zepath charging case, it’s also possible to forget the four-headed USB-C charging cables that come with the integrated batteries. It’s nice to have an integrated port when you’re charging just one or two batteries, though.
Lithium-ion AAs are not the ultimate battery, port or no. The chemistry is still inherently flammable, even if these ones have a metal casing that protects them from repeated drops, and not all devices benefit from having batteries that reliably put out around 1.5 volts until they’re about to die.
My flashlight lasted a lot longer on low power with NiMH batteries, which die far more slowly, even if the Li-ion batteries worked better on high. So even though I’ve added some Zepath batteries to my home, I won’t be getting rid of Eneloops anytime soon.
