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The GIF-picking interfaces in some of your favorite online platforms might look different going forward, as Google prepares to shut down the Tenor API today. While the Tenor website, along with its searchable GIF library, will remain live, platforms like X, Discord, Bluesky, and WhatsApp that previously integrated the API are now having to migrate to alternative GIF picker services. Google acquired the Tenor GIF platform in 2018. Both its website and API allow users to search for GIFs using keywords, similar to competing services like Giphy and Klipy. Google will continue using Tenor across its own services, including Google Messages and Gb … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/959658/google-tenor-api-shutdown-gif-picker

Microsoft is set to announce a wave of layoffs for its Xbox studios and employees next week. Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell The Verge that the layoffs will lead to studio closures or spinoffs, potential mergers of studios, and canceled games. I understand Microsoft is currently weighing closing at least five studios, including the developers behind Marvel's Blade . Sources tell me Microsoft wants to cancel Blade as part of a wave of cost cuts and job losses that are planned for the company's Xbox gaming division. Developed by France-based Arkane Studios, best-known for the Dishonored series, Blade was originally supposed to de … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/report/959467/microsoft-xbox-cancel-blade-game-arkane-studios-closure

To this day, we have yet to see a quantum computer conclusively perform a single useful task. Existing machines are simply too small and error-ridden to solve commercially relevant problems. That hasn't stopped Donald Trump's science adviser from promising a " quantum computer powerful enough for scientific discovery by 2028 " and Trump from issuing a new executive order to speed up the US quantum computing industry in its competition with China, both on June 22nd. Companies drive the hype, too. In June, Microsoft announced a new quantum computing chip named Majorana 2. It claimed the chip was a hardware advancement that accelerates its timel … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/science/959466/quantum-computer-majorana-2-microsoft-trump-eo

The Govee Uplighter in action. | Image: Govee July 4th sales are typically a precursor to what we’d see during a mid-July Prime Day, but obviously things are flipped around this year. Last week’s big Prime Day sale is over, yet there are a number of familiar deals still poking around in the week leading up to the nation’s birthday. Best Buy is hosting its own 4th of July sale, for example. And, if you’re on the hunt for tech and gear for the outdoors, REI is hosting a sale on products that will last through the week. There are even some Apple deals you can get, some of which are selling at pre-price hike levels. We’ll be logging the best July 4th sales we find this week below, keeping the list updated with notable discounts as we spot them. Baseus AM52 power bank (with built-in cable) Through June 30th, Verge readers can get a low price on the best, fastest Qi2 10,000mAh power bank around. This AM52 features a built-in U...

You can reserve the username you want to use before the feature starts rolling out later this year. | Image: Meta / WhatsApp WhatsApp is introducing a new way to add and chat with contacts, without having to share your phone number. Usernames will be launching "later this year," in a move to make the communications platform "even more private," allowing you to keep your phone number concealed from people who aren't already in your contacts. Usernames are available to reserve starting this week, giving you time to claim a specific handle you may already be using elsewhere before the WhatsApp username feature officially launches. The username launch will be rolling out gradually over the coming months, and users will be notified when the feature is available in the … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/958832/whatsapp-usernames-rollout-reservation-availability

A new proposal would ban the sale of Americans' health and location information to data brokers - including information people reveal to an AI chatbot like ChatGPT or Claude. In the coming weeks, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Representative Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) are planning to debut a new version of the Health and Location Data Protection Act that's better suited to the AI era. The former version of the bill, first introduced in June 2022 , prohibited data brokers from collecting and selling health and location data. Four years later, it's expanded to ban other companies from selling such data to brokers, and to specifically cover … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/959033/health-location-data-protection-act-ai-warren-scanlon

Dbrand announced Monday that it's refunding everyone who bought its Steam Machine Companion Cube, which it said it made "without a license from Valve." Dbrand announced the Portal -themed Steam Machine accessory in November and took preorders for it last Monday . But a few days later, the product had disappeared from the company's website and the teaser video promoting it had been made private after Valve contacted the company. Dbrand says that the Companion Cube became "the second-fastest selling product in our 15-year history, behind only the Switch 2 Killswitch" after it opened preorders on June 22nd. However, Valve's legal team reached ou … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/games/959056/dbrand-steam-machine-companion-cube-valve-take-down-canceled

China's Zhipu AI ( Z.ai ) released its open-weight GLM-5.2, and some researchers have claimed that it matches Mythos in certain bug-finding and cybersecurity scenarios. While GLM lags behind models from Anthropic and OpenAI in other, more general tasks, it seems that China has dramatically reduced the gap in the capabilities between its models and those of the US. This level of advancement is particularly concerning to the US government, which has worked to restrict China's access to powerful models like Anthropic's Mythos and Fable, as well as the hardware necessary to train and run them. The Trump administration views Mythos and other advan … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/958804/chinas-z-ai-glm-52-mythos-cybersecurity

Suno has ambitions to be more than just a toy to churn out AI slop, it also wants to be a streaming destination and to break new artists. Spark is their new incubator program for independent artists that provides grants, mentorship, and marketing support. To apply, artists need to be an unsigned singer, songwriter, or producer releasing music under their own name. They also need to agree to some terms and conditions that have raised some eyebrows over on the Suno subreddit . For one, you need to agree to make your songs available on Suno for remixing. That's not necessarily super concerning, but the broad license it grants Suno to your works … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/958801/suno-launches-spark-incubator-program-to-feed-independent-artists-to-its-ai-machine

The LineShine supercomputer at the National Supercomputing Center in Shenzhen. | Photo: Liang Xu/Xinhua via Getty Images Despite trade restrictions, China has reclaimed the title of the world's fastest supercomputer for the first time since 2018 . LineShine has pushed El Capitan out of number one on the TOP500 ranking. That's despite strict limits on what high-powered computing components can be sold to China by US firms, which dominate the list, with America holding three of the top five spots. LineShine doesn't even use any GPUs, which are typically the backbone of modern supercomputers. While reaching the peak of the Top500 carries obvious bragging rights, it also serves as a message from the Chinese government to the US. The Trump administration has sought … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/958768/china-claims-the-worlds-fastest-supercomputer

That sure is a man in a cube, alright. | Image: NBC / Jim Henson Company I'm sure we're all familiar with Dark Crystal , so we know that Jim Henson can be weird and tackle slightly more mature subject matter. But there is little in his oeuvre that is quite as mind-bending as the Muppetless The Cube . This 1969 teleplay was produced for an NBC anthology series called Experiment in Television , which featured, appropriately enough, various experimental films, plays, and documentaries. One episode even featured Marshall McLuhan explaining his oft-cited theory that " the medium is the message ." Even among all these oddities, however, Jim Henson's The Cube stands out. It's a 53-minute bottle film - taking place almost e … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/958757/jim-henson-the-cube-black-mirror-tv-movie-review

A $280 bike lock on a $10,000 e-bike. I've seen lots of so-called "smart" bike locks over the years, but none so far could justify the added cost. A newcomer that got its start securing ATMs for banks is trying to change that. There's nothing wholly unique about the TMD Chain Lock , but the combination of materials, performance, and insurance-friendly ART-2 certification makes it worth considering. TMD's first bicycle lock combines a Bluetooth proximity sensor and motion alarm with a slender core of hardened steel chain wrapped in a soft and lightweight sleeve of high performance Dyneema and Kevlar fibers. That makes this lock tough, yet flexible enough to conveniently wrap arou … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/957603/tmd-smart-keyless-bike-lock-review

Teenage Engineering has already issued multiple substantial updates for its surprisingly capable $329 EP-133 KO II sampler . Its latest is one of the biggest yet. OS 2.5 adds audio over USB, selectable sample rates for lo-fi fun, sample reverse, an arpeggiator, equal-length autochopping, and it extends the maximum length of a sample from 20 seconds to 40 seconds by capturing mono, instead of stereo, audio. Sample reverse is such a simple feature that it's shocking it wasn't implemented earlier. An arpeggiator doesn't always make a ton of sense on a sampler, but the KO II sounds so incredible repitching samples (like the SK-1 successor I've a … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/958723/teenage-engineering-os-25-ep-133-ko-ii-sampler

Margaret Atwood onstage at Detroit Opera House on January 26, 2026 | Photo: Monica Morgan/Getty Images Maraget Atwood, the storied author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Blind Assassin , was interviewed as part of the Babell Literary and Cultural Festival in Porto, Portugal. As it usually does at these things, the issue of AI came up, and Atwood didn't mince words. According to Deadline's recap, Atwood said she'd used an AI chatbot exactly once, Anthropic's Claude, and came away unimpressed. She was looking for information about the British detective series Father Brown and, well: "Claude gave me the wrong answer, or it lied. Of course, it didn't know it was lying because it's not a human being; it's a large language model… It had skimmed a … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/958715/margaret-atwood-ai-problem-garbage-in-garbage-out

Apple is looking to alleviate some of the pressure on its supply chain by seeking an exception from the Trump administration to buy RAM chips from CXMT, a company blacklisted by the Pentagon over ties to the People's Liberation Army, according to the Financial Times . The skyrocketing prices of RAM and storage have driven Apple to raise prices on almost all of its products this week, so it makes sense that it would seek alternative sources. Legally, Apple isn't barred from buying chips from CXMT, but doing business with a company tied to the Chinese military would carry serious reputational risks. It's possible that CXMT could still find it … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/958707/apple-ram-buy-memory-blacklisted-china-cxmt

I can understand why The Verge readers are flocking to the BirdBuddy deal we posted at the beginning of Prime Day. The BirdBuddy Pro with Solar Panels is a wholesome upgrade for your yard, but the full price of $299 is tough to stomach. After all, the BirdBuddy is essentially a video doorbell and solar panels stuck to a bird feeder, something you could assemble yourself in an hour for under $100. Specialized features like bird recognition and naming are locked behind a subscription , so you’re looking at a potentially costly investment for your yard. On the other hand, the discounted Prime Day price of $168 at Amazon is a lot more palatable — and probably why it’s been the most unexpected hit of all the things we posted. Birdbuddy Pro (solar) Birdbuddy’s charming, camera-equipped feeder identifies and snaps shots of each bird that stops by, supplementing its 5-megapixel stills with insightful facts via an app. The solar roof helps keep the ...

Less than 24 hours after news broke that OpenAI would stagger its next model release at the request of the Trump administration, that model, GPT-5.6, is here. On Friday, the company unveiled the limited preview of its new GPT 5.6 model suite: Sol, the flagship; Terra, a medium-tier model for "high-volume work"; and Luna, a "fast and affordable" everyday model. OpenAI says it's especially skilled at coding, cybersecurity, and biology, as well as staying focused during long-horizon agentic AI tasks. Per million tokens, GPT-5.6 Sol is priced at $5 input / $30 output (nearly half the cost of Anthropic's Claude Fable 5, which is $10 input / $5 … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/957845/openai-gpt-5-6-trump-administration-ai-preview

Level’s defining innovation was hiding the battery, motor, and electronics that power the smart lock inside the deadbolt itself. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Assa Abloy has laid off the majority of staff at Level Home , the smart lock company known for building smart tech into traditional-looking deadbolts, and is folding the business into Kwikset, according to a source familiar with the decision. The Verge obtained exclusive details from a person familiar with the restructuring who requested anonymity as they were part of the layoffs. They shared an audio recording of a meeting in which Peter Boriskin, CTO for Assa Abloy North America, and Kimberly Cummins, head of North American HR, informed the staff that their positions had been eliminated, effective immediately, as "a part of a larger restru … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/957802/level-lock-layoffs-assa-abloy-kwikset-smart-loc...

The Hoto 3.6V electric screwdriver kit makes even the smallest home project easier. | Image: Hoto Speaking as someone who just had to buy a new garbage disposal on his lunch break, I know firsthand how much home maintenance can cost, so I’m always excited to find inexpensive home tech that feels like an upgrade. Prime Day is a great time to score deals on video doorbells and cameras, novel methods of interacting with your home like buttons and switches, and a variety of smart outlets and plugs. If you have some tasks clogging up your to-do list, or you’re trying to expand your toolbox, we also found some discounts on more analog gadgets like screwdrivers and box-cutters. For even more tech that won’t cut into your budget, make sure to check out our guide to the best deals under $25 . Blink Battery Doorbell 2K Plus Blink’s battery-powered video doorbell has a 2K resolution camera, two-way audio, and color night vision. Make su...