All the news you need to keep up with the latest developments in the tech world, from product announcements and live events to tariffs, policies, and regulations. Tech touches every aspect of daily news, and our experts are here to keep you informed on what happens and how it all affects you.
There’s a Tascam Portastudio 424 MK III!
He’s also got a Telepathic Instruments Orchid (review here), a couple of Chase Bliss pedals (Lost & Found and Mood MKII), a Hologram Electronics Chroma Console, a Moog Sub37, and an Ableton Move. Proving, once again, that you don’t need piles of fancy gear to make music. Watch the full interview here.
As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix said in an SEC filing that it paid “approximately” $587 million to acquire a company in March — the same month Netflix announced its deal for InterPositive.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
One user even reported an AWS bill of $1.5 trillion, as reported by The Guardian. Scary!
AWS blames the root cause of the problem as “an issue with unit pricing within the estimated billing computation subsystem.” Amazon says that the billing estimates “do not reflect actual usage and charges,” and affected don’t have to take any action right now.
The Pentagon may make a deal where it would pay for billions of dollars of compute from SpaceX, according to The Wall Street Journal.
SpaceX already provides compute to Google and Anthropic, and the company wants to do more in cloud computing, the WSJ says.
[The Wall Street Journal]
“Up to” 32 staffers have been served redundancy or at-risk notices, ZA/UM says. The studio has been the subject of a lot of controversy following the launch of Disco Elysium, and it released a new game this year, Zero Parades: For Dead Spies. However, the Zero Parades’ “commercial performance has not enabled us to sustain a studio of our current size.“
Software makes up “less than 12 percent of the business,” while collectibles are “over half,” Ryan Cohen said in a Bloomberg interview. “So it’s totally, totally irrelevant.”
The numbers differ a bit in GameStop’s latest quarterly report, where collectibles were 41.8 percent of sales in Q1 2026. But they’re a growing part of GameStop’s business — the Q1 collectibles figure was a jump from 28.9 percent in Q1 2025 — which could soften the blow from the dire future for discs.
First announced at CES, the latest version of Samsung’s all-in-one home theater solution is finally available through Samsung’s online store for $1,199.99. That’s a bit steep for 430 ISO lumens and a 1080P resolution when Xgimi’s latest portable does 1,600 ISO lumens for $799, but Samsung’s can correct for distortions on uneven projection surfaces like curtains.
Bungie’s online extraction shooter, Marathon, is having a leadership change as game director Joe Ziegler announced on X that today is his final day with the company. Ziegler, former game director of Valorant, took on the role following former Marathon director Chris Barrett’s firing in August 2024.
Legend has it that we have smart home security cameras and smartphones to thank for discovering the Seattle-based treasure that is Jimothy. At least this modern cryptid doesn’t appear to be AI slop. Happy Friday.
It used to be easy to tell which photos you took on a certain day in Google Photos. I didn’t realize how much I appreciated those little visual gaps breaking up time until a new update removed them, smashburgering my photos and videos, in favor of a persistent bar hovering at the top of the screen. Thankfully, you can reinsert them by clicking the three vertical dots to the right of that floating bar, then select “Show dates in grid.”
Sources tell The New York Times that the deal could be valued at $10 billion over two years, with Anthropic paying Meta in monthly increments. Though Anthropic plans to invest $50 billion in building out its own data centers, it has already struck multibillion-dollar deals to access computing power from SpaceX and TeraWulf.
The DOJ sued Apple in 2024, but the two sides are in “early” and “active” discussions about a settlement, Bloomberg reports.
Caviar is back with yet another ridiculously expensive device, and this time, it’s a Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra with 24-karat gold plating, which is expected to appear at Galaxy Unpacked next week (sans the gold). As spotted by Engadget, Caviar doesn’t list any tech specs, but notes that its device starts with 256GB of storage.
The Google Contacts app is rolling out a new “Your info” card, which shows your image, phone number, email address, and other information — similar to “My Card” on iPhones. Tap into the card, and you’ll see an option to share your details with one of your contacts.
[Android Authority]
San Francisco city attorney David Chiu sent cease-and-desist letters to both companies, demanding that they remove 13 apps that can be used to generate nude images of someone without their consent, according to a report from Wired. The letters ask Google and Apple to stop “aiding and abetting” the sale of sexualized AI deepfakes, which is prohibited under California law.
Google spokesperson Dan Jackson tells The Verge that the company suspended the five Android apps cited in Chiu’s letter, adding that the Play Store “does not allow apps that contain sexual content.”
Following the release of Anbernic’s RG34XX handheld last December, Ayaneo has revealed its own updated take on Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance. The company didn’t share any specs for its upcoming Konkr Pocket Advance, but like Anbernic’s it will include four action buttons and potentially rely on emulation instead of a cartridge slot.
Around 40 employees received the letters, which ask for meetings with Apple’s lawyers and tell them to “preserve documents and communications,” according to a report from the Financial Times. Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI last week and accused two of its former employees of helping the AI giant steal its trade secrets.
[Financial Times]
Not what anyone expected — or wanted — but a Tesla-branded balance bike is now available for the junior edgelord in your life.
Major League Baseball is cracking down on league-issued iPads provided to teams since 2016. Teams can no longer install custom apps that tap into generative AI to recommend “substitutions, pitch calling, and other in-game decisions traditionally made by players and coaches.” It seems up to “a third of the league used the dugout iPads for at least one of these purposes.”
SPCX sunk another three percent in extended trading after last night’s aborted Starship launch, falling further beneath its IPO price of $135. The record-setting IPO made Elon Musk the world’s first (paper) trillionaire. Today he’s worth $838.1 billion. Concerning.
A new report from Meta’s Oversight Board that tested popular AI models from Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google, Meta, and OpenAI found that each LLM is significantly less likely to criticize governments and leaders known for restricting free speech. The reasons for the refusals are varied and often confusing.
Google has been working on beefing up the model’s skills, “particularly in coding,” Bloomberg reports.
At I/O in May, Google said that 3.5 Pro was “already being used internally” and that “we look forward to rolling it out next month.”
Game of Thrones: War for Westeros, announced last year for a 2026 release, is now set to launch in early 2027.
“We remain unwavering in our mission to deliver a real-time strategy game set in the world of Westeros that meets the expectations of both RTS players and Game of Thrones fans,” says developer PlaySide. “This decision gives us the time needed to continue building towards that goal and ensure that the game reaches the high level of quality we are aiming for.”
If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.
The source code for Microsoft Comic Chat is now available, opening up the workings of a project released in 1996 that turned the walls of text from chats into comic strips, generating panels and illustrations that represent the chat and are still backward-compatible with text-only clients.
I wasn’t familiar with the app until now, although it apparently shipped as part of Internet Explorer 3.0, and used Microsoft typographer Vincent Connare’s then-new font for its speech bubbles.
Citing two unnamed sources familiar with the investigation, the Washington Post reported Thursday night that, based on reports from many of the people who fell ill, investigators “have identified shredded iceberg lettuce supplied to Taco Bell restaurants by Taylor Farms as a potential source of contamination.”
Otherwise, CDC officials have only said they have found a likely link among the more than 4,300 cases caused by the “explosive diarrhea parasite.”
The thirteenth, and first post-IPO, flight test of SpaceX’s massive Starship vehicle was supposed to occur Thursday night, but when the countdown hit zero just before 7PM ET, “Some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort,” writes Elon Musk.
PlayStation uploaded new trailers for Marvel’s Wolverine and Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls today, but the comment sections are pretty much all about PlayStation’s plan to kill discs. And this isn’t exactly a new phenomenon.
That’s what Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said during the company’s Q2 2026 earnings call when asked about potential plans to launch free, ad-supported streaming.
“A free offering could make sense in some markets,” Sarandos said, adding that the streamer has “no near-term plans to launch something.”
