Date Everything! isn't the dating sim it appears to be. Though the game's cutesy art style and lighthearted premise indicate an unserious game that's making yet another joke at the expense of the genre, Date Everything actually contains novel explorations of human relationships and sharp-as-shit political critique. Date Everything (the title technically includes an exclamation […]
Kallie Plagge, The Verge’s senior copy editor, has been working in the media for over 10 years now, mainly at gaming websites. She was primarily a video game critic for a lot of that time and was the reviews editor at GameSpot for about three years, before eventually becoming the senior copy editor at Polygon. […]
The Insta360 Link 2 is more than just a webcam — it’s a smart camera that actively follows your movements whether you’re presenting, streaming, or pacing during a call. It’s also packed with an impressive array of productivity features. And right now, it’s available at a new all-time low of $149.99 ($50 off) at Amazon. […]
Time ticking for defenders as social engineering pros weave wider web
Just a few weeks after warning about Scattered Spider's tactics shifting toward the insurance industry, the same experts now say the aviation industry is now on the ransomware crew's radar.…
NASA's future Artemis booster sputters during test
video Old Space has shown itself to be just as adept at explosive malfunctions as New Space, with Northrop Grumman encountering an anomaly during a static fire test of an updated solid rocket booster design.…
After retreating from watchOS several years ago, Google now only offers a handful of apps for the Apple Watch. That list is expanding to four in total with the launch of a new Google Calendar app rolling out alongside the existing iPhone version, as spotted by 9to5Google. Apple’s native calendar app on watchOS includes customization […]
During which he coded Lotus 1-2-3 and co-founded Mozilla and the EFF
The man behind Lotus 1-2-3 and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has wrapped up a master's degree at MIT Sloan, decades after dropping out to help kickstart the PC software boom.…
Automattic’s plan to move Tumblr’s backend over to WordPress is now “on hold,” Automattic founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg says in a Decoder episode published today. The company announced the plan to move over the more than half a billion blogs on Tumblr last year, saying that the change would “make it easier to share […]
Fitness trackers have come a long way from the simple bands that tracked steps and little else. Modern trackers can monitor everything from your heart health to how well you’ve recovered from a hard bout of training. Even flagship smartwatches, which used to be lackluster trackers, have become pretty adept workout companions. Whatever your fitness […]
Apple Music is celebrating the 10-year anniversary of its streaming service by giving users a throwback to their favorite hits over the last decade. “Replay All Time” — a special version of Apple Music’s annual Replay experience — is being launched for subscribers that allows them to view and listen to their most played songs […]
Canada has scrapped its tax targeting Big Tech companies in the US after President Donald Trump threatened to cut off trade talks in response to the fee. On Sunday, the Canadian government announced that it will no longer implement the Digital Services Tax as it works to reach a trade deal with the US by […]
It's been more than a decade since Apple unveiled the original version of CarPlay. In that time, the system has become indispensable for countless drivers all over the world. But while new iterations of iOS have introduced user interface tweaks and some additional customization features, its basic functionality hasn't advanced much since that announcement back […]
Court says State arm cannot be left without maintenance, patches and upgrades because of Broadcom's new licensing model
Broadcom's VMware subsidiary must provide a Dutch government organization with continued software support for at least two years while it manages a migration to an alternative platform, according to a court ruling, or else face fines up to €25 million ($29 million).…
Today, I’m talking with Matt Mullenweg, the founder and CEO of Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com, Tumblr, and a whole host of other products like the new cross-platform messaging service Beeper. This is Matt’s third time on Decoder; back in 2022, we had him on twice, first to talk about Automattic and WordPress broadly […]
Google announced a variety of new features for its Classroom software suite, including free Gemini AI tools for educators and NotebookLM for users under 18 — the first time the tool has been available to minors. Teachers with a Google Workspace account will have a new dedicated Gemini tab in their Google Classroom, offering tools that […]
Apple seems to have big plans to expand its lineup of extended-reality (XR) devices by launching new Vision series headsets and smart glasses, according to a report from supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. In his report, Kuo shares Apple’s potential roadmap for seven new head-mounted wearables, which could include the release of Meta Ray-Ban-like smart […]
Device compromises and deep-seated access to critical infrastructure exposed surveillance vulnerabilities in agency's work
A major Mexican drug cartel insider grassed on his fellow drug-peddlers back in 2018, telling the FBI that a cartel "hacker" was tracking a federal official and using their deep-rooted access to the country's critical infrastructure to kill informants.…
Google has agreed to purchase electricity from a forthcoming nuclear fusion power plant, the so-called holy grail of clean energy that scientists have been chasing for more than half a century. While the fusion industry reached a significant milestone a few years ago, the technology has yet to prove whether it can be a technically […]
Following the success of 2015’s The Martian, Amazon MGM Studios has released the first trailer for Project Hail Mary based on another best-selling Andy Weir novel. The film features Ryan Gosling, who’s entering his sci-fi era after being cast in Star Wars: Starfighter, as science teacher-turned-astronaut Ryland Grace who wakes up on a spaceship with […]
If you didn't like 24H2, you're probably not going to like 25H2
Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 11 25H2 is almost here. However, the upgrade will be little more than an exercise in feature enablement since Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 share the same source code.…
Anker has issued its second product recall so far this month, warning customers that five additional power bank models should stop being used “immediately due to the risk of overheating, melting, smoke, or fire.” “While the likelihood of malfunction is considered minimal, out of an abundance of caution, we have decided to initiate a voluntary […]
When Ela Darling began performing in porn at the tail end of the 2000s, tube sites like Pornhub were relatively new, and major studios like Vivid and Digital Playground still dominated the market. For performers, the job was straightforward: show up to set, turn in a good performance, and collect a check. Everything else - […]
Joby Aviation is getting ready to take flight. The electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) company has delivered its first production aircraft to Dubai, where it plans to launch a commercial air taxi service in early 2026. Joby, which has successfully completed multiple flight tests with a pilot onboard, says it has begun in-market testing […]
Server shipments surge 70% in 2025, still shy of datacenter dominance goal
Arm-based servers are rapidly gaining traction in the market with shipments tipped to jump 70 percent in 2025, however, this remains well short of the chip designer's ambitions to make up half of datacenter CPU sales worldwide by the end of the year.…
Test run offers hope for a rail system long past its best-before date
Deutsche Bahn (DB) and Siemens Mobility have managed to get an ICE test train to 405 km/h (251 mph) on the Erfurt-Leipzig/Halle high-speed line.…
Serious security flaws have been found in hundreds of Brother printer models that could allow attackers to remotely access devices that are still using default passwords. Eight new vulnerabilities, one of which cannot be fixed by patching the firmware, were discovered in 689 kinds of Brother home and enterprise printers by security company Rapid7. The […]
Spotify is adding new personalization features to Discover Weekly, the popular and influential playlist streamed by millions of users. The regularly updated playlist will now have buttons for genres like pop, R&B, and funk at the top, allowing users to tell Spotify what they want more of. The Discover Weekly playlist is one of the […]
CISPE floats reforms to avoid new costs, fragmentation, and infrastructure flight
The Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE) trade body has put forward recommendations for the EU's Water Resilience Strategy, perhaps mindful that datacenters are perceived as hugely wasteful of precious water resources.…
Like being hard to spot? They’d much rather you didn’t
Opinion There are few tech deceptions more successful than Chrome's Incognito Mode.…
Sensible CEO wouldn’t let our hero take the blame - a shoddy supervisor got the slap
Who, Me? Welcome again to Who, Me? It's the Monday morning column in which readers of The Register admit to making big mistakes and somehow swerving the consequences.…
Paying for successful problem resolution is a better business model, argues Dimitri Masin
interview Dimitri Masin, CEO of Gradient Labs, argues that companies using AI agents for customer support should only pay when the bot does its job.…
Which it will, happily, to create a networking biz that’s still far smaller than Cisco’s or Nvidia’s
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has cleared the way for HPE’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks.…
Chipmaker Loongson says server CPUs on par with 2021’s Ice Lake, as local press tout kit to manage 1,024-qubit systems
Chinese chip designer Loongson last week announced silicon it claims is the equal of western semiconductors from 2021.…
PLUS: Broadband blimps to fly in Japan; Starbucks China put ads before privacy; and more!
Asia In Brief Canada’s government has ordered Chinese CCTV systems vendor Hikvision to cease its local operations.…
PLUS: Crooks target hardware crypto wallets; Bad flaws in Brother printers; ,O365 allows takeover-free phishing; and more
Infosec in Brief Despite warnings not to pay ransomware operators, almost half of those infected by the malware send cash to the crooks who planted it, according to infosec software slinger Sophos.…
Today, we’re looking at two case studies in how to respond when reactionaries
appear in your free software community.
Exhibit A
It is a technical decision.
The technical reason is that the security team does not have the bandwidth to
provide lifecycle maintenance for multiple X server implementations.
It has become almost impossible to browse the internet without having an AI-generated video thrust upon you. Open basically any social media platform, and it won't be long until an uncanny-looking clip of a fake natural disaster or animals doing impossible things slides across your screen. Most of the videos look absolutely terrible. But they're […]
After nearly a decade of wearables testing, I've amassed a truly terrifying amount of health and fitness data. And while I enjoy poring over my daily data, there's one part I've come to loathe: AI summaries. Over the last two years, a deluge of AI-generated summaries has been sprinkled into every fitness, wellness, and wearable […]
When I was a kid, there was a moment when it felt like everyone was obsessed with yo-yos. I never got better than just being able to make the yo-yo go up and down. But with Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo, I could pretend like I was halfway decent - all while playing a silly […]
Over the years, Tesla has built part of its reputation on hosting big, bold events to generate authentic hype for upcoming releases. The robotaxi launch in Austin, Texas, last week wasn't one of them. Coverage of the rollout was dominated by a close-knit cohort of Tesla influencers and Elon Musk superfans, many of whom are […]
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 88, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy heat dome, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about crypto crimes and egg thieves and Gap, watching Last Breath […]
More fiction than science
Feature IT consultancy Gartner predicts that more than 40 percent of agentic AI projects will be cancelled by the end of 2027 due to rising costs, unclear business value, or insufficient risk controls.…
This might be a bigger deal than the robotaxis. Tesla said it completed its first fully autonomous vehicle delivery from factory to customer. A video posted on X shows the vehicle — a Tesla Model Y — leaving the company’s Austin Gigafactory, driving on the highway, passing through suburban sprawl and residential neighborhoods, before arriving […]
Age verification is perhaps the hottest battleground for online speech, and the Supreme Court just settled a pivotal question: does using it to gate adult content violate the First Amendment in the US? For roughly the past 20 years the answer has been "yes" - now, as of Friday, it's an unambiguous "no." Justice Clarence […]
Watch out for supply chain hacks especially
interview The ceasefire between Iran and Israel may prevent the two countries from firing missiles at each other, but it won't carry any weight in cyberspace, according to former NATO hacker Candan Bolukbas.…
The third and final season of the industry-defining Squid Game confidently delivers each new round of the deathly games with spectacularly brutal aplomb - but its attempts at worldbuilding are disappointingly tired and uneven. Some of Squid Game's most interesting dynamics from the first two seasons - the politics among the masked guards, the organ-harvesting […]
Kobo is discounting two of its best e-readers. The Kobo Elipsa 2E, a competitor to the Kindle Scribe, is available for an all-time low of $349.99 ($50 off) from Rakuten Kobo and Target. Meanwhile, the Kobo Libra Colour is available for $209.99 ($20 off) from Amazon, Target, and Rakuten Kobo. The sale runs through July […]
Reddit has become known as the place to go for unfiltered answers from real, human users. But as the site celebrates its 20th anniversary this week, the company is increasingly thinking about how it can augment that human work with AI. The initial rollout of AI tools, like Reddit Answers, is "going really well," CTO […]
Scorching hot days tend to hit certain neighborhoods harder than others, a problem that becomes more dangerous during record-breaking heat like swathes of the US experienced over the past week. A new online dashboard shows how Latino neighborhoods are disproportionately affected in California. Developed by University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), the tool helps fill […]
In the past week, big AI companies have - in theory - chalked up two big legal wins. But things are not quite as straightforward as they may seem, and copyright law hasn't been this exciting since last month's showdown at the Library of Congress. First, Judge William Alsup ruled it was fair use for […]
With the dawning of a new era of hybridization in the automotive industry, more and more manufacturers are integrating electric propulsion into their lineups. Mild-hybrid systems are well-established, and more beneficial plug-in hybrid systems keep getting better and better. Even Lamborghini's participating in the latest wave of hybridization, which might come as a surprise to […]
'This is not a copyright message'
Before plug and play was blowing up Windows 98 on a Comdex stage, Windows 95 engineers were grappling with the technology – and on one fateful day they found some unusual text in the BIOS of several PCs that they had to work around.…
$61B business offers $10K–$50K grants to assess AI’s job-market impact
AI biz Anthropic is trying to recruit academics to find out exactly how much its technology could crater the jobs market.…
For years, Meta's trained its AI programs using the billions of public images uploaded by users onto Facebook and Instagram's servers. But apparently, Meta has decided to try training its AI on the billions of images that users haven't uploaded to those servers. On Friday, TechCrunch reported that Facebook users trying to post something on […]
Taking advantage of the ridiculously complex US healthcare billing system
Criminals masquerading as insurers are tricking patients and healthcare providers into handing over medical records and bank account information via emails and text messages, according to the FBI.…
Over 18? Prove it
The US Supreme Court has ruled that Texas' age certification law for viewing sexually explicit content is valid, meaning that viewers of such material will have to prove their age.…
Our water, health, and energy systems are increasingly vulnerable to cyberattack. Now, when tensions escalate - like when the US bombed nuclear facilities in Iran this month - the safety of these systems becomes of paramount concern. If conflict erupts, we can expect it to be a "hybrid" battle, Joshua Corman, executive in residence for […]
Yesterday, reports from Forbes and CNBC said that Musk had fired Omead Afshar, who formerly led operations in North America and Europe and was a close confidant of Musk’s. (Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal also reported that Afshar left the company, but did not say he was fired.) The firing follows a major slump […]
When AI is a nesting doll of networks, so why reinvent the wheel when you can license it instead
feature GPUs dominate the conversation when it comes to AI infrastructure. But while they're an essential piece of the puzzle, it's the interconnect fabrics that allow us to harness them to train and run multi-trillion-parameter models at scale.…
If you’re looking for a webcam that works with the Nintendo Switch 2’s new GameChat mode that lets you video chat with friends and see their faces within games, it looks like the biggest brand in PC accessories is still your best bet. Logitech is the first webcam maker to confirm to The Verge that […]
Earlier this month, I wrote about a leaked image of what was rumored to be the Nothing Phone 3. That image showed a design with a translucent back and three center-aligned cameras. But a new set of supposed Nothing Phone 3 images reveal a different design — with one of the wildest camera layouts I’ve […]
'Memory vulnerabilities pose serious risks to national security and critical infrastructure,' say CISA and NSA
The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) this week published guidance urging software developers to adopt memory-safe programming languages.…
Gaming laptops come in various shapes and sizes, though many of the heavy hitters remain thick and beefy machines that maximize cooling to get the most out of their powerful chips. Most are awash in RGB lighting and edgy designs geared towards capital-G Gamers, but there are also thinner, lighter options that are more portable […]
So far, Runway is known for bringing generative AI to Hollywood. Now, the $3 billion startup is setting its sights on the gaming industry. This week, I was granted access to a new interactive gaming experience that Runway plans to make available to everyone as soon as next week, according to CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela. The […]
The Senate version of the budget reconciliation bill, backed by President Donald Trump, removes protections for unlicensed spectrum that broadens the capacity of the 6GHz Wi-Fi band. This could result in slower Wi-Fi speeds. Under the bill, which may be voted on at the end of this week, the FCC would sell off some of […]
After a long week, the last thing I want to do is clean my floors (they’re seriously overdue for a cleaning). Busting out the vacuum and mopping can be tiring. That’s why I’m a big fan of robot vacuums, especially ones with built-in mops that can handle all the cleaning on their own. Speaking of, […]
Google’s carbon emissions jumped yet again as the company continues to push ahead in AI. The company’s 2025 sustainability report emphasizes that its “ambition-based emissions” grew 11 percent last year to reach 11.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution, marking a 51 percent increase compared to 2019. That puts Google farther away from its […]
AI will make 'significant changes' to economy, labor market
It may not happen today or even tomorrow, but US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell is confident that someday soon AI is going to seriously change the US economy and labor market. …
The Nintendo Switch 2 is here, and so you might be in the market for a microSD card to store more games. While all microSD cards look the same, only microSD Express cards will work on the Switch 2 for storing and playing games. The card you used in your original Switch or Switch Lite […]
The AI boom needs power, and startup The Nuclear Company aims to help build
Palantir has become the latest tech company to jump on the nuclear power bandwagon - not by making a datacenter deal like Microsoft or Amazon, mind you, but by providing its data analytics software to a startup aiming to help build nuclear plants faster and cheaper.…
Things are looking bright for those who want to nab a great TV in 2025 at a substantial discount. There’s usually a great deal happening on a mid- or high-end TV from LG, TCL, Hisense, or Amazon’s own Fire TV brand — even if the biggest discounts remain reserved for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Amazon […]
As the esports industry searches for new sources of revenue, Riot Games has opened up its League of Legends and Valorant esports leagues to sports betting sponsorships. The decision will permit tier one organizations – or the highest level of professional players – in the North and South America and European esports leagues of Valorant […]
Now play dead, like a lot of NASA science programs if the White House gets its way
The team behind NASA's 19-year-old Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been busy teaching an old spacecraft new tricks, persuading the vehicle to perform a 120-degree roll to peer more clearly into the red planet.…
Getting it in might mean re-racking the entire datacenter and rebuilding the network, though
Cisco is talking up the integration of security into network infrastructure such as its latest Catalyst switches, claiming this is vital to AI applications, and in particular the current vogue for "agentic AI."…
Adobe's Project Indigo is a camera app built by camera nerds for camera nerds. It's the work of Florian Kainz and Marc Levoy, the latter of whom is also known as one of the pioneers of computational photography with his work on early Pixel phones. Indigo's basic promise is a sensible approach to image processing […]
'No impact on safety,' FAA tells The Reg
Hawaiian Airlines said a "cybersecurity incident" affected some of its IT systems, but noted that flights are operating as scheduled.…
No replacement in the wings for info streamed from past their prime rigs, 'termination will be permanent'
Satellite data used for hurricane forecasting is to be abruptly cut off from the end of June due to "recent service changes."…
With the Wear OS 5.1 update that was released last March, Google quietly introduced a new feature called Channel Sounding for the Pixel Watch 3 that could improve the accuracy of pinpointing the location of other devices using its existing Bluetooth hardware. But while Channel Sounding is now supported by the smartwatch, it’s not yet […]
The Supreme Court has upheld a Texas law requiring age verification to access adult websites, saying despite First Amendment claims, the law “only incidentally burdens the protected speech of adults.” The ruling, in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, opens the door to age-gating in states nationwide. The court ruled in Texas’ favor by a margin […]
Pen Test Partners hijack data from Renault Clio to steer, brake, and accelerate in SuperTuxKart
Cybersecurity nerds figured out a way to make those at-home racing simulators even more realistic by turning an actual car into a game controller.…
The Supreme Court ruled that the funding mechanism behind a key broadband subsidy program for schools and underserved areas can continue operating. In a decision issued on Friday, the Supreme Court rejected claims that Congress and the FCC’s implementation of the fund is unconstitutional. The program, known as the Universal Service Fund (USF), helps subsidize […]
When it was all about the baud rate
The world of datacenter networking is crammed with exotic technology and capabilities beyond the imaginings of administrators charged with running big iron decades ago. However, while it might have been a slower and more proprietary time, it was also perhaps a little simpler.…
Eligible Fortnite players who felt bamboozled into making unwanted purchases have been given a second chance to request a refund. The Federal Trade Commission has reopened applications to receive refunds from the $245 million settlement that Epic Games reached with the agency until July 9th, after previously closing requests in February. The agreement was announced […]
I just tried on five different outfits in about 10 minutes — or at least my AI lookalike did. That’s all thanks to Doppl, a new app that Google is testing, which I used to create AI-generated clips of myself wearing outfits that I found across the web. It mostly works, but it has clear […]
A new line of smoke and CO alarms from Gentex called Place is packed with smart features, including phone notifications, a nightlight, motion detection, and temperature and humidity sensing. There’s also optional air quality monitoring and a camera/intercom. The four Place models start at $139, and are available now at The Home Depot. With the […]
Finance, health, and national identification details compromised
Multinational grocery and retail megacorp Ahold Delhaize says upwards of 2.2 million people had their data compromised during its November cyberattack with personal, financial and health details among the trove.…
Universal and Blumhouse's first M3gan feature came out of nowhere with a premise so ridiculous and campy that it was hard not to be at least a little intrigued. Equal parts Child's Play and Small Wonder, M3gan was undeniably silly with its story about an AI-powered doll who sang Sia's "Titanium" and danced around as […]
A lot of the future of AI will be settled in court. From publishers to authors to artists to Hollywood conglomerates, the creative industry is picking a big copyright fight over the vast quantities of data used to train AI models - and the ultimate output of those models. (Disclosure: Vox Media, The Verge's parent […]
Threads has taken another step towards decoupling from Instagram by introducing its own word blocking filters. Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced on Thursday that the Hidden Words setting on Threads includes “newly added custom filters to block words, phrases, and emojis in batches, with optional time limits.” A previous version of Hidden Words was tied […]
Or so hear members of Parliament in the UK
UK lawmakers have learned there is no international protocol for making decisions over how to respond to a prospective life-threatening asteroid strike on Earth.…
Sendi Jia, a designer running her own studio between Beijing, China, and London, England, says she mainly uses AI generators like DALL-E to make fake photos for background panels or websites when her clients don't have access to real ones. That's helped clients with limited budgets, but it's also exposed just how much of the […]
Masked networking costs are coming to AI systems
Analysis Moore's Law has run out of gas and AI workloads need massive amounts of parallel compute and high bandwidth memory right next to it – both of which have become terribly expensive. If it weren't for this situation, the beancounters of the world might be complaining about the cost of networking in the datacenter.…
True digital sovereignty begins at the desktop
Opinion Microsoft, tactically admitting it has failed at talking all the Windows 10 PC users into moving to Windows 11 after all, is – sort of, kind of – extending Windows 10 support for another year.…
Pick a provider based on how good their local 4G and 5G coverage is
The UK's telecoms regulator has released an overhauled tool comparing mobile coverage and performance across the country, claiming this will help the millions of Brits missing out on the best local network.…
When police come to investigate tech support, make sure you have your story straight
On Call Welcome once again to On Call, The Register's Friday column that celebrates the frolicsome fun that readers have experienced when asked to deliver tech support.…
But like cloud computing and digital transformation, this may be a buzzword they can't ignore forever
HPE Discover 2025 HPE envisions a future where customer systems are filled with its agentic AI products, but reactions from the HPE Discover show floor in Las Vegas this week suggest the company has a way to go to convince folks to buy in.…
Brazil debuts, Japan bounces back, and tiny Tuvalu soars on Elon's broadband birds
Eight more nations have passed at least 50 percent IPv6 deployment, according to the Internet Society (ISOC).…
Regulator acknowledges that won’t stop video nasties, but welcomes extra ‘friction’
