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All the evidence revealed so far in Musk v. Altman

2026-05-01T17:22:26-04:00

The Musk v. Altman trial is underway, and that means exhibits, or the evidence to be presented in court, are being revealed piece by piece. So far, email exchanges, photos, and corporate documents are circulating from the earliest days of OpenAI - and from before the AI lab even had a name. Some high-level takeaways: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gave OpenAI an in-demand supercomputer, Musk largely drafted OpenAI's mission and heavily influenced its early structure, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appeared to want to lean heavily on Y Combinator for early support for OpenAI, OpenAI president Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever worried about Musk's level of con …

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Saros reminded me how great the DualSense can be

2026-04-29T08:13:15-04:00

The DualSense controller was one of Sony's main selling points for the PS5. Beyond things like a striking new design and adaptive triggers, the controller's haptic feedback offered genuinely cool new experiences for games. Rumble effects had been around for decades at that point, but the DualSense offered something very different: I'm still blown away by the sand crunching under Astro's feet in Team Asobi's Astro's Playroom or the futuristic pulses from weapons in Housemarque's Returnal.

But there have been few titles since the PS5's release that have captured that same magic and showed off what made the controller so distinct. This week, H …

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Xbox’s weirdest studio is on a roll

2026-04-24T12:13:19-04:00

For a while there, it seemed like Double Fine might be struggling under the Microsoft corporate umbrella. The game studio led by Tim Schafer is beloved for offbeat titles like Brütal Legend and Broken Age, but after being acquired by Microsoft in 2019, its only new release for years was a long-awaited sequel to Psychonauts. Of late, though, Double Fine is on something of a roll. Last year the studio released the wonderfully strange Keeper, a game about a sentient lighthouse. This week, it launched Kiln, a multiplayer brawler with adorable spirits and a whole lot of pottery. It's yet another oddball delight that could only come out of Double …

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A new Republican privacy bill could be ‘worse than no standard at all’

2026-04-23T23:09:40-04:00

It would add protections for many states, but also likely strip some from others. | Image: The Verge, Getty Images

Congress is once again attempting to pass a national data privacy law. But while it would introduce new protections in some states, it would weaken privacy rights in others - and it's missing several elements that privacy advocates deem necessary.

The SECURE Data Act is the product of a Republican data privacy working group led by Rep. John Joyce (R-PA), who introduced the bill alongside House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY). The proposal would require companies to collect only the user data they really need to perform the tasks they promise, let users see what information websites have on them and request its delet …

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Musk vs. Altman is here, and it’s going to get messy

2026-04-27T12:21:14-04:00

Might as well jump, as the poet David Lee Roth once said. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Elon Musk cofounded OpenAI, and then flounced off in a huff when he wasn't anointed CEO, leaving Sam Altman as the last power-hungry man standing. Now, Musk is back with a lawsuit, and a trial is scheduled to start in Oakland, California, on April 27th. Theoretically, it's a legal case about whether OpenAI defrauded Musk. But that's not really what we're all doing here. This is about mess.

Over the past couple of years, Musk's legal theories for punishing OpenAI have run the gamut from breach of contract to unfair business practices to false advertising. Now, he and Altman will be getting called to the stand at a particularly delicate time …

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Netflix can’t seem to follow up its biggest shows

2026-04-23T10:41:17-04:00

It hasn't been that long since Stranger Things ended, but even still fans are clearly clamoring for more. The finale was overshadowed by a conspiracy about a secret episode, and an otherwise standard behind-the-scenes documentary became a hotbed for theorizing. Of course, given the scale of Stranger Things, Netflix was never going to let the franchise die completely, but its first attempt at expanding the franchise largely falls flat. Tales From '85 is a stakes-free return to Hawkins that's missing most of what made the original series such a phenomenon. And it's another example of Netflix struggling to turn its biggest shows into ongoing fr …

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Will a new CEO help realize Apple’s smart home potential?

2026-04-22T13:03:37-04:00

It took Tim Cook years to launch Apple into major new hardware categories, such as the smartwatch. But John Ternus could start his tenure right away with an ambitious new project: smart home hardware.

All signs point to a strong lineup of new smart home devices coming potentially this fall, putting Apple back in the game in a category where it has been painfully slow to ship new devices.

With a hardware man at the helm in Ternus, the chances of Apple fully committing to the smart home feel far higher than under Cook. And while, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Ternus was reluctant to invest deeply in the smart home a decade ago - tak …

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Call of Duty never made much sense for Xbox Game Pass

2026-04-22T09:41:12-04:00

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. | Image: Activision Blizzard

Yesterday Microsoft announced some surprising news: at a time when everything in gaming is getting more expensive, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate was actually getting a price cut. Going forward, the subscription service will drop from $29.99 to $22.99 per month, less than a year after getting a major hike. But there's a caveat. Along with the cheaper price, Microsoft also announced that future Call of Duty games will no longer be available through Game Pass at launch.

It's the end to a strange experiment from Microsoft, in which it attempted to boost its subscription service at the expense of selling Call of Duty games, which also happens to be on …

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First vacuums — then the world

2026-04-27T10:56:15-04:00

Many startups spend years trying to become a household name. Others just spend $10 million on a Super Bowl ad. That's Dreame's bet. The little-known Chinese robot vacuum company has grand ambitions to become a global consumer electronics giant and chose to run a pricey 30-second spot as its opening move. If it works, the ad may be remembered as the beginning of the rise of the next global tech powerhouse. If it doesn't? Well, let's just say Quibi ran a Super Bowl ad, too.

Dreame's CEO wants to be the Chinese Elon Musk

Dreame - pronounced dreamy - used its half-minute of exposure to promise a dizzying product evolution: from robot vacuums a …

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The Mac is in good hands in Apple’s post-Cook era

2026-04-21T13:25:17-04:00

The Mac reached a series of low points in the Tim Cook era: the fiasco of the butterfly keyboard, the clunky transition to USB-C, the underutilized potential of the Touch Bar, and the occasionally lackluster Intel chip performance. For a while, it seemed like Apple had shifted all of its attention, innovation, and care toward the iPad. For Mac users, it was a rough stretch of time.

And then, with the transition to Apple Silicon in 2020, everything changed. The line was revitalized with hugely capable new chips, and Apple began prioritizing usability over thinness at all costs. The Mac is now in a new golden era, and yesterday's changes at A …

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