5 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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News

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.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Meta and Lionsgate are 3D converting new movies for Meta’s VR glasses.

3D-converted movies could be in for another big push, as Deadline reports the arrangement between Meta and Lionsgate will start with The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping.

After their theatrical run, the plan is for the movies to become available on Meta’s $1,300 VR headsets, along with games and other content.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The macOS ChatGPT Classic app is going away.

A banner in the app says the app will “retire” on January 30th, 2027, according to 9to5Mac. The banner also points users toward the updated app, which was released earlier this year.

Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
What if your Mac Mini was a Steam Machine?

Don’t get too excited yet; it’s running in a virtual machine, and trees and water in The Witcher 3 aren’t supposed to look like that! But SteamOS on Arm-based Macs is now a thing with surprisingly decent performance, ETA Prime demonstrates in this video. Here’s the GitHub page.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto on AI and games.

As AI becomes able to do more work, that will create opportunities for everyone to think seriously about what creation really means. Copy-pasted designs have existed before, but they don’t last. When an individual designs something, they create with intention. All a computer does is help with that work. I think that no matter how much it evolves, there will still be things we can do.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
OpenAI is planning to combine ChatGPT chat and work.

According to TechCrunch, OpenAI said in an email to users that it’s merging ChatGPT’s chat and work tabs, but Codex will remain separate. OpenAI’s Thibault Sottiaux said on X that it’s “working on this but it’s not rolling out just yet.” Anthropic merged Claude chat and Cowork earlier this year.

Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
Yakuza creator’s game studio is the latest to shut down.

Nagoshi Studio will never get to release its first game Gang of Dragon, because China’s NetEase stopped funding the studio this summer and it couldn’t find the investment to go indie. We’ve lost a lot of game studios this year, not to mention around 11,000 game developer jobs, but a few studios have managed to go indie.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Google’s Phone, Messages, and Contacts apps have a new look.

The new icons trade the flat blue look for a gradient style in line with the updates across Google’s other logos.

Image: Google
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Techno music co-creator Juan Atkins has died at 64.

Along with fellow Belleville Three members Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May, he created the Detroit techno sound, releasing music under aliases including Cybotron and Model 500.

Atkins was found unresponsive in his hotel room Saturday ahead of a planned performance in Mexico City, and May said, “He never mentioned how sick he was, for years. He just went out and did his job the best way he could. Respect his legacy. Respect the effort. Respect the work. Respect the accomplishments.” Saunderson wrote, “Juan was the originator of Techno, a true visionary who opened the door for so many of us, myself included.”

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Type “zelda” into Google for a little Easter egg.

As a nod to this week’s Ocarina of Time release, you can click the Master Sword that pops up to be transported back to a classic list of blue links, complete with a retro “Google!” logo. I wish this was an option for every search.

A screenshot of Google’s Ocarina of Time Zelda Easter egg that shows a classic list of links.
Searching “Ocarina of Time” works, too.
Image: Google
Mia Sato
Mia Sato
How OpenAI is trying to woo Hollywood.

This profile of friend-to-the-stars Charles Porch (formerly of Meta) details how OpenAI is working to seed AI within the entertainment industry.

Porch describes, for example, how having Real Housewives stars at personal events could pay off in the future: “If an AI model comes up on the show, it might be Chat because we have this nice drumbeat. This is what I’ve been trying to explain to folks: It’s not about deals; it’s about relationships.”

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Anthropic’s updated S-1 has even more eye-popping numbers.

Anthropic updated its IPO prospectus with full third-quarter earnings, reporting $33.24 billion in revenue through September 30th, up 1,200 percent from last year. It also reported a $104 billion net loss during the same period, mostly from accounting charges. For this quarter alone, Anthropic reports roughly $17 billion in revenue with a net loss of $23.29 billion, plus commitments to spend $895.4 billion “mostly on compute and infrastructure.”

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
T-Mobile’s new 5 Gig fiber plan has a 10-year price guarantee.

The fastest fiber internet option T-Mobile offers costs $90 per month, excluding taxes and fees, if you use Autopay. It will be available starting November 3rd.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Tonal’s smart weightlifting machine gets a frosty design update.

The Tonal 2 “Glacier” edition is available for $4,795. Aside from being a white colorway of the Tonal 2, it also has a mirror-like display that reflects the room when idle, built-in accessory storage, and some small design tweaks like arm covers and sculptural refinements across the top and bottom caps.

Image: Tonal
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Birdfy’s smart feeders now identify birds without a subscription.

Starting today, new and existing owners of the company’s smart bird feeders will receive an unlimited number of identifications of over 6,000 different species when a bird lands to feed. Previously, free users were limited to only 10 AI bird recognitions per day. Those wanting more details, including a bird’s sex, age category, and health estimates, can opt for the $79.99-per-year Birdfy Membership Plus subscription or the $149.99-per-year Pro option.

If you buy something from a link, The Verge may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Three Birdfy Feeder 2 Duo smart bird feeders mounted in different spots around a backyard.
Image: Birdfy
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Google is testing scrollable tabs in Chrome (again).

Chrome used to support tab scrolling with an experimental flag, but removed it earlier this year. Now it’s coming back in the latest Canary build for Chrome Desktop. It lets you navigate crowded tab bars using the scroll wheel, gestures, or arrow controls.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
WhatsApp is rolling out smarter message actions.

Long-press a message with an email address, phone number, address, or meeting time, and the app will suggest dynamic actions like sending emails, saving contacts, or creating calendar events. It’s rolling out across iOS and Android, though only some Verge team members are seeing the feature on our phones so far.

Screenshot of WhatsApp showing action prompts from an email address
Screenshot: WhatsApp
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Samsung’s smart glasses might stick to the US and South Korea.

That’s according to the Chosun Ilbo, which reports markets including Europe, China, and Japan will have to wait until later for the “intelligent eyewear,” powered by Google, and designed by Gentle Monster and Warby Parker. Chosun also reports the glasses will go on sale in mid-December, a little later than we’d previously heard.

Robert Hart
Robert Hart
Elon Musk appears to have throttled Grok Bot for being “unsustainably” expensive.

Musk hinted at the change in an X post after users complained they were hitting usage limits sooner than expected. The cost of running xAI’s always-on AI agent was “unsustainably high relative to revenue,” he said, without providing details on what has changed.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
AI is being used to churn out a lot of indie games.

This graph shared by game hosting platform Itch.io doesn’t flag when AI was specifically used in game development, but at a time when so many studios are struggling, its hard to think of another reason why daily game submissions would have doubled in two months.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
OpenAI says it’s tightening ChatGPT controls around violence.

Teen accounts will have further limits on receiving weapons-related information from the chatbot, “even when a question appears harmless.” Additional restrictions for all users are also being placed on how ChatGPT responds to questions about past mass attacks, sharing fewer details about who carried them about, the weapons used, and how they were obtained.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
You can get a religious exemption from using AI at work.

The best part: You don’t need to belong to a church or even believe in a god to do it. David Durman recently secured a religious exemption from using AI at work based on non-theist humanist beliefs. According to TechCrunch:

Durman is the first humanist to secure workplace accommodations that allow him to abstain from AI use, and one of the first people to publicly discuss their pursuit of these protections. He was inspired to seek them when he read that Erin Maus, a Unitarian Universalist and software engineer, was able to secure similar protections for herself.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Billboards around the globe were hacked to show porn.

LED billboards in Egypt, Malaysia, Brazil, and possibly Iraq and China were hacked to show sexually explicit material. The group Leakers$ claimed responsibility for the attack and said that “anyone with two brain cells” could have done it. According to Gizmodo:

A representative said participants using the pseudonyms Never, 19ylegal, CH, and Nivex identified thousands of exposed systems through an automated random scan lasting roughly two hours. The systems were allegedly accessible via web pages and interfaces that lacked basic security protections.