The latest tech news about the world’s best (and sometimes worst) hardware, apps, and much more. From top companies like Google and Apple to tiny startups vying for your attention, Verge Tech has the latest in what matters in technology daily.
The companies knew they were driving us toward Google Zero, and did it anyway.
A three-person team of researchers used a corrupted image file and forum software to hack into OpenAI.
Valve’s 0.3.0 update for Steam Frame claims “Substantially faster charging while unit is off / sleeping.” It’s true. I used to see 8-watt charging when plugging in a dead unit, and 27-watt charging at peak. Now I’m getting 19-21W charging right away and up to 42W in game.
That’s enough to plug in a dead Frame and start playing right away.
The price increase reportedly follows higher prices from chip manufacturer TSMC, and could impact everything from AMD’s GPUs to its motherboard chipsets. Intel is reportedly planning a similar price hike, and Qualcomm and Nvidia also raised prices earlier this year.
The team behind Apple’s new foldable basically gave a second keynote to GQ, and snagged a couple brief statements from new CEO John Ternus. “Steve [Jobs] talked about the intersection of technology and liberal arts, and I think iPhone Duo is a perfect example of that,” Ternus told GQ.
After 100 years this Leica I was suffering from light leaks as a result of shutter curtains that had become porous. This satisfying ASMR video shares the two and a half hour process of the camera being disassembled, cleaned, repaired, and put back together by an expert technician.
You’ll have to pay at least $9.99 a month for Apple Home’s new AI-powered features, including video summaries, for just one camera. If you want access on up to five cameras, it’s $59.99 (included in the 12TB iCloud Plus plan). Is this a sign of more subscription fees on the horizon for Apple’s smart home?
Those are just three of 1,400 new words added to the more comprehensive online version of Merriam-Webster’s linguistic repository. Other additions include Mandela Effect, AGI, letterboxing, looksmaxxing, and what seems like a really late acknowledgement for Rickroll.
They’ve opened “at least one criminal probe” following complaints about the glasses being used to film women on the street in public without their consent, Reuters reports. France’s data protection authority also says businesses are “increasingly” asking if they can ban smart glasses at work, similar to a ban under consideration in Australia.
Clicks is offering another updated look at the much-awaited Communicator and a couple of pleasant surprises for those who have already pre-ordered the device: more RAM, a slightly bigger battery, and Android 17 included as standard.
It’s expected to ship in December to customers, and this video gives a look at some of the software features Clicks has been working on.
The annual Small World in Motion Competition has yielded another five bangers. The first place entry used a 100X magnification to capture the abnormal airway cilia inside a child with a genetic disorder affecting respiratory function. Sad, but beautiful. ABC News (Australia) has a roundup.
The agent initially launched earlier this month on iOS, Android, and the web, but now, you can use it on your Mac computer, as announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. With Muse on Mac, the agent can do things like organize files, fill out forms, and pull information from apps including Messages, Calendar, and Notes, Meta says.
The Steam Frame and Meta Quest headsets can natively beam your Windows monitors into a headset — but some still prefer Virtual Desktop, the app that pioneered the idea in 2016 before getting “sherlocked” by Meta. Developer Guy Godin says Valve didn’t send him a Frame, but he’ll try to port it anyhow.
Technically, I can already stream Virtual Desktop Classic, with working 3D video, but my monitors are stitched together and the controls feel awkward.
“Lepton is intended to help game developers bring their VR Android games to the Steam Frame,” Valve writes. “Lepton is not designed for general Android use, instead opting to keep the bare minimum functionality required to launch into games.”
Developers have already used it to port Meta Quest games to the Steam Frame. But could it do more?
[GitLab]
In court documents unredacted Thursday, lawyers for the NYT in its copyright infringement case against Microsoft and OpenAI cited Microsoft’s Director of Applied Science, Brent Hecht, saying that “millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions… almost no one intended for content they created to be used in this fashion, nor are they compensated for its use.”
The Orlando Sentinel, which is also part of the suit, reports a Microsoft filing “framed Hecht as someone on the payroll to play a contrarian.”
On the Noto Emoji site, you can search for emoji, download 2D and 3D files of the (open source) emoji in different formats, and even see the original proposals that helped things get turned into emoji in the first place. (In 2019, I wrote about that proposal process for my submissions of the waffle and yawning face emoji.)
I also recommend Google’s post about designing its Noto 3D emoji, it’s good stuff.
That’s not a typo. The M5 Ultra Mac Studio Apple sent us for review is a doozie. It’s got a 36-core CPU and 80-core GPU, 256GB of RAM, and 4TB of storage, making it mind-bogglingly expensive.
Our regular benchmarks aren’t much of a challenge. So what would you like to see us throw at it?
It says the new version of CC can help families manage household tasks like sorting through emails, keeping track of everyone’s schedules, filling out permission slips, and creating shopping lists. Up to six users can manage and interact with the same CC agent and choose what to share with it.
He joined growing calls for more safety measures around AI at a gathering of AI leaders on Thursday, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Google’s Demis Hassabis, OpenAI’s Sarah Friar, and Anthropic’s Tino Cuéllar.
The three CEOs have apparently have been encouraging him to be hands-off with his approach to AI and “successfully stalled” a plan for an industry-funded AI regulator pitched by Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis, according to The Wall Street Journal. Trump also likes to call Huang while he’s onstage.
[The Wall Street Journal]
Universal Pictures, which has the rights for Musk outside of North America, hasn’t put a release date on the film yet and sources told The Hollywood Reporter that they believed Universal would be dropping it. In a later report, though, THR said that its initial article led to meetings at Universal, and Universal’s head of comms said in a statement that that “The studio remains committed to releasing it in theaters internationally.”
My colleague Andrew Webster reviewed Musk this week.
Update: Added second THR report.
[The Hollywood Reporter]
The video, posted by Inner City Press, was shown during the DOJ’s trial against Huawei, which kicked off last week and follows the 2018 arrest of Huawei’s CFO and an indictment in 2020.
The September 2025 agreement said that Amazon would pay up to $1.5 billion over “deceptive” Prime signup practices. But after a court approved a joint motion, more people now qualify for refunds, there is now a maximum payment cap of $200 (up from $51), and Amazon will distribute refunds automatically, according to a press release.
[Federal Trade Commission]
Caldera Music brings your Plex music libraries and Winamp-style visuals to Apple TVs and Google TVs. Feingold is also building connected light fixtures and other weird and interesting hardware.
Late last night, we published my video about trying Snap’s Specs AR glasses at the company’s headquarters. The hardware, which costs $2,195, is interesting, but the experience of actually using them was rather finicky. Despite yesterday’s splashy launch event, the Specs also don’t yet have a firm release date beyond sometime this fall.
Check out my full article for more.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced on Tuesday that it was “unable to restore access to some customer data hosted in Persian Gulf data centers” following attacks by Iranian drone swarms in the spring that left facilities in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain still “mostly offline,” according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
The long-running microblogging platform is adding a bunch of heavily requested features, including the ability to save posts for later and sort them into collections, like musings on physical media or quotes about creativity. Subscribers can also now use animated GIFs as their avatars.
[Tumblr]
Following trials earlier this year, Japan’s Haneda, Narita, Kumamoto, and Naha airports are starting a full-scale implementation of machines that can compress clothing into much smaller cubes in about a minute so tourists have more room in their suitcases. The machines don’t use vacuum bags and don’t damage clothing, according to SoraNews24.
There’s a truly wild report today from Futurism about a trio of brothers who have built a content empire filled with fakery, including completely fabricated writers with huge credentials. Apparently they’re getting massive web traffic from this scheme. Maybe it’s a good thing Google is going to zero.
While announcing that he was planning to share more of his adventures on X, Steve Wozniak also revealed a new merchandise store. WozMerch.com carries everything from wireless power banks, to $700 carry-ons, to t-shirts featuring inspirational phrases and colorful images of the Apple co-founder himself.
Google Home just announced MCP integration. Read about how this could help your smart home — assuming we’re not all living in a post-apocalyptic battery farm — in my explainer.
After using four iPhone 17 Pros during a Tigers vs. Red Sox game in 2025, Apple will use 14 of its new iPhone 18 Pro to capture “unique perspectives that would be difficult to achieve with traditional broadcast cameras” at tomorrow night’s season final of Friday Night Baseball. The cameras will record “positions within the pitch clock, backstop, foul pole, and both bullpens.”
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Mustafa Suleyman on the AI safety debate, why AI isn’t consciousness, and how the industry pushes toward alignment.
US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema said in her unsealed ruling on Google’s ad tech trial that measures to break it up were “neither realistic nor needed,” the New York Times reports. Brinkema also called for Google to appoint a monitor to make sure it complies with the order.
