12-17-25 -

Mercedes-Benz discontinues feature that syncs music to driving
Mercedes-Benz sent out a notice to customers recently announcing its plans to discontinue MBUX Sound Drive, an interactive audio feature that syncs music to the car's actions. The feature was first announced less than a year ago at CES i...

12-17-25 -

This iPhone case with a second screen lets you snap selfies with its rear cam...
The Selfix case is expected to launch on Kickstarter early next year. | Image: Dockcase Smartphones with secondary screens on the back aren't a new idea. Most recently the Xiaomi 17 series launched in September with a smaller rear display ...

12-17-25 -

Warner Bros. Discovery wants its shareholders to reject Paramounts latest offer
Though Paramount Skydance was trying to buy Warner Bros. Discovery for much more money than Netflix is offering, David Zaslav and the rest of WBD's board are urging their shareholders to give Oracle scion David Ellison the cold shoulder. ...

12-17-25 -

Jimmy Wales trusts the process
Wikipedia will be 25 years old in January. During that time, the encyclopedia has gone from a punchline about the unreliability of online information to the factual foundation of the web. The project's status as a trusted source of facts ...

12-17-25 -

Gemini 3 Flash is here, bringing a huge upgrade to the Gemini app
Google is upgrading its Gemini app with Gemini 3 Flash, a more efficient version of its flagship AI model that's still capable of fielding complex requests. The new model will replace Gemini 2.5 Flash as the default inside the Gemini app,...

12-17-25 -

AI’s water and electricity use soars in 2025
A data center under construction in Phoenix, Arizona in 2024. | Photo: Getty Images AI created as much carbon pollution this year as New York City and guzzled up as much H20 as people consume globally in water bottles, according to new est...

12-17-25 -

Peacock will bombard you with ads as soon as you open the app
Peacock has found a new place to stuff ads. Starting next year, the streaming service will greet you with an ad alongside your profile icon on the "Who's watching?" screen when you open the app. During a press briefing, Peacock ...

12-17-25 -

SwitchBots space-saving robot vacuum is on sale starting at just $179.99
The K11 Plus offers 6,000Pa of suction power and a mop that does a decent job of wiping floors. Small robot vacuums that fit into tight spaces rarely deliver strong performance, which is what makes the SwitchBot K11 Plus stand out. And rig...

12-17-25 -

We asked our staff for their 2026 predictions
In all the chaos of 2025, The Verge was able to see through the fog and focus on the consumer technology that really made an impact this year: robot vacuums, thin foldable phones, experimental laptops, handheld gaming consoles, and of cou...

12-17-25 -

Lets talk about Fallout season 2
Years often go by between new seasons of big streaming shows - just ask fans of Severance or Stranger Things - but with Fallout the wait hasn't been so bad. The first season was a welcome surprise when it started streaming last April, man...

12-17-25 -

Netflix’s next big TV game is FIFA soccer
US defender Tim Ream looks to pass during the international friendly match between Paraguay Men's national team and the US Men's national team. The World Cup is happening next year, and Netflix and FIFA are working on a new soccer simulati...

12-17-25 -

OnePlus 15R review: unbeatable battery life, beatable value
Take note. The OnePlus 15R's battery life is exceptional. It's a smidge better than the very impressive OnePlus 15's, and the 15R costs two hundred dollars less. So why am I having a hard time recommending it? Typically, OnePlus' R-series ...

12-17-25 -

Rad Power Bikes files for bankruptcy protection
Rad Power Bikes, the once dominant electric bicycle brand in the US, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week as it seeks to sell of its company. The move comes less than a month after Rad Power said it could not afford to rec...

12-17-25 -

The best games to play on Xbox Game Pass in 2025
From pervasive layoffs to continued price hikes, things didn't go so well for Xbox in 2025. But even though Game Pass, the Xbox subscription service, isn't quite the deal it once was, there are still a lot of excellent titles to check out...

12-17-25 -

The best shows streaming on Apple TV in 2025
Apple's streaming service got a new name this year - it dropped the "plus" and is now just Apple TV - but its actual programming didn't change all that much. And that's good news for sci-fi fans, as the service continued to ceme...

12-17-25 -

The 10 best shows to stream on Disney Plus and Hulu from 2025
Disney Plus and Hulu had an eventful year. Not only did the streaming services release a swath of exciting original shows and new seasons, but they're also in the midst of a transformation that will further integrate Hulu with Disney Plus...

12-17-25 -

What could’ve been Google’s worst year turned into one of its best
2025 could have been a pretty disastrous year for Google. The company came in knowing it had three major legal battles to fight, increasing competition in the burgeoning AI market, and a new US president to adapt to. It looked possible - ...

12-17-25 -

The Verges 2025 in review
The year 2025 has been, to put it mildly, eventful. If you’re like me, you’ve felt as if it’s pretty much impossible to keep up with things; every day brings something new, much of it baffling or enraging. But that’s not the case...

12-17-25 -

Bluesky claims its new contact import feature is privacy-first
Bluesky is finally letting you find people you already know, one of several common features on other social platforms, like notifications and bookmarks, that have been notably absent at the growing upstart. Unlike rivals, it claims it's n...

12-17-25 -

In 2025, wearables made a hard pivot to AI
Years from now, I'll look back at 2025 as the year when a fundamental shift happened in wearable technology. Over the last decade, the category has been synonymous with health and fitness. In many ways, that association is still the prima...

12-17-25 -

Tesla misled customers about self-driving features, judge rules
Tesla could be temporarily locked out of its biggest US market if it doesn't change deceptive marketing that exaggerates the self-driving capabilities of its cars, the California Department of Motor Vehicles warned on Tuesday, adopting th...

12-16-25 -

Even Trumps chief of staff was aghast at Elon Musks deadly USAID cuts
Elon Musk, a billionaire who decimated the United States federal workforce using the Department of Government Efficiency, is not remembered fondly by the most powerful woman in Washington: Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff and the g...

12-16-25 -

Arcade1Up isn’t dead, maybe
Days after a rumor circulated that home arcade machine maker Arcade1Up would be shutting down, the company has finally shared a statement about its future. "Select assets" from Arcade1Up have been acquired by toy company Basic F...

12-16-25 -

How Silicon Valley turned Trump into a fellow broligarch
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as (L-4th L) White House “AI and Crypto Czar” David Sacks, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and first lady Melania Trump listen during a dinner at the State Dining Room of the White House on September 4, 2025 ...

12-16-25 -

Alexa Plus website is live for some users
Alexa Plus now has a new home on the web. The Alexa.com website appears to be live for some users. The browser-based home for Alexa Plus, the company's revamped digital voice assistant, was first announced at the Alexa Plus launch event in...

12-16-25 -

Samsungs 2026 Micro RGB LED TVs can actually fit in your living room
Following the release of the 115-inch Micro RGB TV back in August, Samsung has revealed today that its Micro RGB technology will extend into smaller sizes ranging from that 115-inch behemoth all the way down to 55 inches. While we all enj...

12-16-25 -

Twitter never left: X sues Operation Bluebird for trademark infringement
X Corp. is suing Operation Bluebird, a recently-announced startup that aims to reclaim the Twitter brand for a new social network. In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, the Elon Musk-owned company alleges Operation Bluebird is "brazenly att...

12-16-25 -

Trump admin threatens retaliation against Spotify and others over EU tech reg...
Flag illustration representing the European Union The Office of the US Trade Representative posted on X Tuesday, claiming that US service providers have been hit by "a continuing course of discriminatory and harassing lawsuits, taxes,...

12-16-25 -

A vague study on Nazi bots created chaos in the Taylor Swift fan universe
On December 9th, Rolling Stone published a story that some saw as a bombshell: a network of coordinated, "inauthentic" social media accounts had a hand in the weekslong discourse that trailed the release of Taylor Swift's recent...

12-16-25 -

Larians CEO says the studio isnt trimming down teams to replace them with AI
A screenshot from Divinity’s reveal trailer. The CEO of Baldur's Gate 3 studio Larian has inadvertently stirred up some controversy over the use of AI in the developer's next game. Based on an interview with Larian CEO Swen Vincke, Bloom...

12-16-25 -

You can pair a tiny wireless mic to this 4K webcam
Hollyland, a company best known for affordable wireless microphones that are popular with creators, has announced its first webcam, the small 4K Lyra. While it lacks advanced features like the Insta360 Link's tracking gimbal, it's one of ...

12-16-25 -

Amazon’sKindleis a great gift, and most models are on sale right now
If you’re shopping for a book lover, it’s hard to beat a Kindle, especially if your giftee already owns a library of Kindle books. Amazon’s latest sale makes them even easier to recommend: the last-gen Kindle Scribe with 32GB of sto...

12-16-25 -

Larry Ellisons big dumb gift to his large adult son
Larry Ellison, co-founder and executive chairman of Oracle Corp., during an executive order signing ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. Media is a business about dreams, and Larry ...

12-16-25 -

OpenAIs new flagship image generator AI is here
OpenAI is overhauling its image generator with a new model and redesigned interface. On Tuesday, the company announced its "new flagship image generation model," GPT Image 1.5, which it said has a better ability to follow instru...

12-16-25 -

Google wants its AI assistant CC to replace your morning scroll
Google wants you to start your day with AI. Google's AI, to be specific, which is why the company is launching an experimental agent to comb through your emails, calendar, and documents to deliver a briefing to your inbox every morning. T...

12-16-25 -

What 1,000 pages of documents tell us about DOGE
Months after staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency were found in the Federal Communications Commission directory, the FCC is being accused of slow-walking demands for information about what they did there. On February 24th...

12-16-25 -

Ghost of Ytei studio Sucker Punch is getting new leadership
Sucker Punch Productions, the PlayStation studio behind games like Ghost of Yōtei and the Infamous and Sly Cooper series, will be headed up by Jason Connell and Adrian Bentley starting January 1st, Sony announced on Tuesday. Stud...

12-16-25 -

Sony’s XM5 over-ear headphones are cheaper than ever and they come wit...
The XM5 headphones come with a free pair of Sony WF-C700N earbuds, which you can gift to someone for the holidays. | Image: The Verge If you’re looking for a solid pair of noise-canceling headphones, the Sony WH-1000XM5 are a great optio...

12-16-25 -

Meta rolls out AI glasses update with conversation boosting feature
Back at Meta Connect, Meta teased that its AI glasses would soon support a conversation boosting feature to help folks hear better in noisy environments. That feature is rolling out starting today for Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta HSTN gla...

12-16-25 -

Microsofts free update brings better Bluetooth to your Xbox Wireless Headset
My favorite kind of update is the one that gives my gadgets entirely new features and specs for free - and Microsoft is unleashing one of those today by bringing Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Audio to its 2024 Xbox Wireless Headset, which unl...

12-16-25 -

Disclosure Days first trailer teases close encounters of a different kind
The first trailer for Steven Spielberg's upcoming film Disclosure Day is here, and it will leave you with more questions than answers about what exactly is going on. There is no denying that something strange is happening to a Kansas City...

12-16-25 -

An iconic joystick from the Commodore 64 era is returning
Over four decades after its launch, the Quickshot II is back. | Image: Retro Games Retro Games, a company known for its upgraded revivals of iconic '80s and '90s era computers, including the Commodore 64 and Amiga, has announced that it's ...

12-16-25 -

Everything is gambling now
Here's a list of things you can bet on, right this second. This year's Super Bowl winner, sure. The winner of Survivor season 49, okay. But the number of gifts Santa will deliver this year? The number of tweets Elon Musk will send in the ...

12-16-25 -

Instagram is putting Reels on your TV
Meta is starting to test a new Instagram app for TVs that lets you watch Reels on a big screen. The app will be available first as a pilot for Amazon Fire TV devices in the US starting Tuesday. The homescreen of the Reels-focused app will...

12-16-25 -

My Favorite Murder and The Breakfast Club podcasts are ditching YouTube for N...
Netflix is plowing ahead with plans to build out a library of video podcasts as it aims to keep viewers locked into the service even when they may not be watching what's on their screens. On Tuesday, Netflix announced that it's teaming up...

12-16-25 -

Texas is suing all of the big TV makers for spying on what you watch
Texas is suing five of the biggest TV makers, accusing them of "secretly recording what consumers watch in their own homes." In separate lawsuits filed on Tuesday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claims the TVs made by Sony, S...

12-16-25 -

Amazon’s Kindle Scribe Colorsoft won’t replace your notebook or ...
I know I misspelled blurple, I was having a day. I wanted to love Amazon's $630 Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. It has everything I covet. An E Ink display with front lighting and color. A pressure-sensitive stylus. The ability to take notes and ...

12-16-25 -

Avatar: Fire and Ash is a gorgeous spectacle of titanic proportions
In the almost 20 years since James Cameron first introduced us to the alien world of Pandora, 20th Century Studios has repeatedly tried to parlay the Avatar films' financial success into a sprawling multimedia franchise. Almost immediatel...

12-16-25 -

Fallouts goofy apocalypse gets serious in season 2
The most impressive thing about Fallout's first season was how well it nailed the tone. The games are a mix of grim and goofy, a postapocalyptic story in a bleak world that's also full of crude jokes and ridiculous characters. It's a toug...

12-16-25 -

Ive been waiting years for Animal Crossings best new features
I never felt done with my Animal Crossing: New Horizons island. Despite playing every day for two years, and racking up 1,700 hours of playtime, I somehow never finished decorating. I had plenty of ideas for my island, sure, but actually ...