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Parents will also get a weekly email summarizing their teen’s Twitch activity. | Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Twitch is giving parents more control over how their children are using the streaming platform, including the ability to block them from broadcasting entirely. Parental controls are now available that allow guardians to link Twitch accounts with their 13- to 17-year-old children, providing account management features and a weekly email summarizing their teen's activity, including channels and hours watched. The controls can be used to prevent teens from livestreaming their own content and disabling Whispers, Twitch's private messaging feature. This includes blocking minors from sending or receiving DMs. Parents can also set flexible daily t … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/968480/twitch-parental-controls-block-streaming-live-dms

It must be earnings day, because Tesla is making a Robotaxi announcement. The company said in a post on X that it was launching its Robotaxi service in Orlando and Tampa, attaching a pair of maps that show each city's service area. No word on fleet size or whether interested customers would be able to hail a vehicle right away. The timing of the post is noteworthy, considering later today Tesla CEO Elon Musk is expected to provide an update on the progress of the company's Robotaxi service during its second quarter earnings call. Adding two new cities to the docket probably sounds like progress to some investors. Robotaxi now in Tampa … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/transportation/968624/tesla-robotaxis-orlando-tampa-florida-earnings

A judge partially granted the request from a dozen state attorneys general to temporarily place the $110 billion merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery on hold, as reported by Variety and Reuters . US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said that based on the new company's market share, "the Court is persuaded that it can presume the proposed merger is likely to violate antitrust laws," and that the states showed "irreparable harm" could occur without a temporary restraining order. A week ago , California, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington sued … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/business/968055/paramount-wbd-merger-pause-tro

Welcome to the “what is a photo” debate, Adobe. | Image: Adobe Adobe's experimental camera app has taken an unexpected turn. After Project Indigo was launched last year to provide a "more natural (SLR-like) look" for iPhone photography, the Indigo camera app is now being updated with a suite of generative AI tools. And the change doesn't rely upon Adobe's own Firefly AI models. Adobe describes the new "AI Playground" tooling suite as an experiment and says there's a button that allows users to opt out and continue using the app as before. Free access to the suite with no sign-on requirement is being tested with a small percentage of Indigo users over the next few weeks. "Our goal is to learn how people … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/967791/adobe-indigo-camera-app-ai-playground-update

Sure is a lot of porcelein in there. | Image: Kieran Hebden Just why? ʅ͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡͡(̸̢̛̼̞̭͋ͅ)̸͚̰͛̔̾̀̿͒͂:̴͓̞̑̌̂̆̊͋̀:̸͎̟̯̂̓̌　҉　　　　　͡　͞　͞　͞　҉● ࿀ ●  ࿀  ●　　　҉⃝ 　　　⃝͢ ͞　　　͘　͞⃝̕ ͢　　　　̛　⃝ 　　　̸　̡　　͢⃝̧ 　͡　͡　　̀　̧　̢⃝͜ 　 　҉　　͞...

I’m partial to that avocado green one. | Image: Reto Project Following the success of its $99 Kodak-branded Snapic A1 , Reto Project is releasing the Kodak EC35 , an even more affordable 35mm film camera for just $34.99. The EC35 certainly isn't fancy. Its 25mm acrylic lens with a fixed f/10 aperture and 1/100 shutter speed basically put it on par with a drugstore disposable. The fact that it has a manual wind and rewind only emphasizes that. And you can really lean into that disposable aesthetic thanks to its built-in automatic flash. Unlike the A1, there's no double exposure feature here or zone focusing. The EC35 is designed to require almost no thought to use. Its one special feature is the sliding … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/967687/kodak-ec35-point-and-shoot-film-camera

1010Benja won’t apologize for using AI. | Image: 1010Benja / Instagram I would never go so far as to say there's no place for AI in music (I'm a fan of Holly Herndon, after all). But I generally find music made with generative AI to be offensively boring , especially the outputs of Suno . So I'm having a bit of a tough time processing the fact that I actually quite enjoy 1010Benja's " Semiramis' Dream ." Benja has been unapologetic about his use of generative AI on his latest EP, Time Has Nothing To Do With What You Choose… The other three tracks can't quite hold a candle to what you find on 2024's Ten Total . But the opener "Semiramis' Dream" is infectious. It explodes out of the speakers with a jungle beat and Be … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/967678/1010benja-semiramis-dream-suno-ai-music

ICE agents hide behind masks while skulking through the halls of immigration court | Image: Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images According to the New York Times , federal agents have been told that the FBI will no longer be investigating confrontations involving ICE agents. The DHS and DOJ denied the change in policy to The Times. The reported change in guidance follows renewed scrutiny of violence by ICE agents who have killed two people in the last two weeks. The shootings in Maine and Texas were just the latest civilian deaths at the hands of ICE agents, who have attempted to intimidate witnesses following its recent spate of high-profile killings. The new guidance would end FBI investigations of assaults against DHS agents. The government has aggressively pursu … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/policy/967674/fbi-wont-investigate-ice-assaults

The 2018 Solar Car Challenge was the last time participants took their designs out on the open road. | Image: Lehman Marks / Solar Car Challenge On July 19th, dozens of teams of high school students will begin a five-day, 630-mile road race from Fort Worth to Fort Stockton in Texas. But this is not your typical contest. The students design and build the cars themselves, using off-the-shelf parts and 3D printed materials. The winner is the team that accumulates the most driven miles. And the only fuel they can use to power their Frankenstein-looking vehicles comes from that mass of incandescent gas that hangs in our sky: the Sun. This year is the 30th anniversary of the annual Solar Car Challenge , a contest that brings together high school students from around the country with the on … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/transportation/966701/solar-car-challenge-high-school-student-race-texas

Dave Eggers attends the "The Turning Point: To Be Destroyed" premiere. | Image: John Lamparski/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival Last year, Sam Altman invited author Dave Eggers to give a talk to around 200 OpenAI staffers. The man has written countless novels , screenplays, pieces of journalism, started McSweeney's , and founded multiple schools and nonprofits that support writers and the arts more broadly. So one might expect he'd roll into the company's offices and offer tips on being relentlessly prolific, or how to excel in multiple fields. Instead, he apparently laced into the company. According to the Financial Times , Eggers told the staff: "The effect of ChatGPT on educators' lives is catastrophic. Whether you intended to do it or not, you've made every teache … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/967630/dave-eggers-openai-chatgpt-sil...

The Pixel 10a shipped with a last gen processor. | Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge Mystic Leaks suggests that the Pixel 11a will return to featuring a flagship-grade processor with the Tensor G6. Rather than the Tensor G5 found in the Pixel 10 and 10 Pro , the Pixel 10a shipped with the previous generation Tensor G4. That was a huge disappointment since, typically, the Pixel a lineup kept the modern processor, but cut corners in other places to keep costs down. The Tensor G6 is rumored to feature the same PowerVR DXT-48-1536 GPU as the G5, but it should still be an improvement over the Mali-G715 in the Tensor G4. The big upgrade is that the G6 moves on from Samsung's Exynos modems and instead uses a MediaTek M90 modem. Tha … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/967612/google-pixel-11a-tensor-g6-leak

Now, if you want to, you can use Google's 3D emoji in your own creations. The company shared some details about how it went about designing the little pictograms and why, as part of World Emoji Day on Friday. Things you might not necessarily worry about in a 2D illustration suddenly become very important when you're talking about a 3D model. Is a smiley face a sphere? A mask? A flat disc? In addition to offering a behind-the-scenes look at Google's design process, it also announced that it would be completely open-sourcing the emoji set: We're handing over raw .OBJ files to the community so they can use them to build immersive VR worlds, … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/design/967606/google-open-source-3d-emoji

Apple Music is more expensive now. In the US, an individual plan now costs $11.99 per month, a $1 bump up from the previous $10.99 price. A family plan now costs $19.99 per month, up from $16.99, and a student plan costs $6.99 per month, up from $5.99. Apple, in a statement to Music Business Worldwide , says it is increasing prices "as a result of rising licensing costs." Music Business Worldwide also reports that prices gone up in the UK and Europe, and the publication "understands" that hikes are hitting other countries as well. Apple didn't immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge . Apple Music last got a price increase i … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/967379/apple-music-price-increase

Apple is suing OpenAI . The complaint is readable and intense, as these things often are, though many experts seem to think many of the allegations are just the ways things are done . So what does Apple really want here, and why is it picking such a public fight with OpenAI? On this episode of The Vergecast , Nilay and David go through the lawsuit, and look at Apple's history of splashy litigation to determine whether Apple is worried about a possible competitor or simply looking to capitalize on a weak moment for OpenAI . All this is happening as Apple ships the public betas of its new software, headlined by the new Siri AI , and we have though … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/podcast/967244/apple-openai-lawsuit-vergecast

Leaker Evan Blass shared images of Samsung's redesigned Galaxy Z Fold 8 just days before the July 22nd launch event where Samsung is expected to officially announce the phone. The leaked images show a shorter, wider foldable matching earlier leaks of the Z Fold 8. They also reveal some of its specs, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite For Galaxy processor, 50MP wide and 50MP ultra wide rear cameras, 10MP selfie cameras on the inside and outside screens, and an advertised battery life of "up to 26 hours of video playback." Blass also posted images of the Galaxy Z Flip 8 and shared images of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra in an email receive … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/967198/samsung-galaxy-z-fold-8-images-specs-leak

Sometimes it feels like keeping your floors clean is one of those never-ending chores, which is why it's nice to have a versatile robot vacuum take it off your hands. The Ecovacs Deebot X11 robovac / mop hybrid is designed to do just that, and it's now $699 ($400 off) at Amazon and directly from Ecovacs , which is a new low price. The Deebot X11 is the latest version of one of our former top picks for the best robot vacuum / mop. While the Matic has since taken its place in our rankings, the X11 remains an excellent option, especially at nearly half the price. It combines powerful 19,500Pa suction along with a handful of features that make … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/966651/ecovacs-deebot-x11-robot-vacuum-deal-sale

Google CEO Sundar Pichai | Bloomberg via Getty Images Today, the European Union ordered Google to give its AI rivals greater access to Android, the open-source operating system that powers billions of devices worldwide. The demand is hardly surprising . It may look like a defeat on paper for Google, which has spent years resisting exactly this kind of access, but it is a regulatory win. It's also a sign that Google may have outmaneuvered Apple by playing Brussels' regulatory game far more shrewdly. In one of two decisions handed down on Thursday, the European Commission - the EU's executive arm and the principal enforcer of the bloc's competition rules - said Google must give rival AI assistan … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/policy/966588/eu-dma-ai-android-siri-ai

Google is giving its AI note-taking app a new name. The company announced on Thursday that NotebookLM is becoming Gemini Notebook, but will remain a standalone app even as it integrates more deeply across Gemini and Google Search. Google first revealed Gemini Notebook - then called Project Tailwind - in May 2023 before widely releasing the app just months later . Over the past few years, Google has been adding new features to the app to help organize and make sense of your notes, such as the ability to summarize them as AI podcasts , narrated slideshows , and TikTok-style clips . It recently started letting users connect their notebooks to the … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/966112/google-gemini-notebook-notebooklm

Lucid Motors found itself in a tough bind this week, fending off bankruptcy rumors and watching its stock price plunge as a result. The company quickly denied the report, calling it "completely false" and pointing to its available free cash flow as evidence that it has enough runway to operate into next year. But despite the swift response, the damage was widespread. The panic immediately bled into competing automakers, pulling down shares of Rivian and Polestar as investors speculated about the long-term survival of EV-only companies in the face of slowing consumer demand and whiplash policy shifts. And it cast a harsh light on the precari … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/transportation/965924/lucids-bankruptcy-rumor-is-a-bad-sign-for-the-ev-future

OpenAI is finally releasing some hardware. No, it isn't the mysterious AI-powered device the company is developing with former Apple designer Jony Ive , a project already tangled up in a messy lawsuit . Instead, it's a product designed to be used with its coding platform, Codex. The device, a square-shaped block of buttons called Codex Micro, is a collaboration between the AI company and keyboard maker Work Louder. OpenAI said it is a limited-run collaboration that will give users more ways to monitor and manage their agents. The pad closely resembles Work Louder's Creator Micro 2 , and marketing images show what appears to be an identical … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/965901/openai-hardware-codex-micro-launch

Google is announcing a big change to the Google Images homepage in honor of the platform's 25th anniversary this week. Instead of a mostly blank page with a search bar, the homepage will soon show you a bunch of images that it thinks you might like before you even start searching. The company says the new "browseable" homepage features a "dynamic, immersive gallery of images from across the web - updated in real time and intelligently tailored to your unique interests." Based on images Google has shared, the layout reminds me of platforms like Pinterest and Imgur that stuff a lot of images in one place for you to scroll through. You'll also … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/965138/google-images-homepage-ai-overviews-search-nano-banana

Golden Gate’s public beta should be at parity with the third developer beta, which is pretty stable. The macOS 27 Golden Gate public beta is here , and anyone with an M-series Mac now has easier access to test-drive Apple's latest changes - including a more subdued Liquid Glass aesthetic. That's reason enough to be at least a little excited for macOS 27 (particularly if you're on Tahoe and disliking all the transparency). But there are other things that make trying out this beta a little more appealing than usual. There was a rumor earlier this year that this new macOS would focus on performance optimizations, bug fixes, and a bunch of small quality-of-life improvements, rather than being a major overhaul. And aside from dialing down Liquid … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/964701/apple-macos-27-golden-gate-public-beta-impressions-liquid-glass-siri-ai

As the US war on Iran sent gas prices soaring , American car buyers flocked to electric vehicles - and in particular hybrids . After a sluggish winter and fall, EV sales rebounded in the second quarter of 2026, with automakers posting some of their best numbers since the elimination of the federal EV tax credit last year, according to a Q2 analysis from Cox Automotive . I wouldn't go so far as to say EVs are back to their pandemic-era numbers, but there are some promising signs that we may be through the worst of it. Drivers snapped up about 247,000 EVs in the second quarter of 2026, a nice 14.7 percent jump from the start of the year, acco … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/transportation/964663/ev-sales-q2-2026-gas-prices-tesla-toyota

When Apple employees interviewed for jobs at OpenAI, the AI startup's hardware head allegedly asked them to show up with something unusual: components they were working on and unreleased product samples. That's according to a blockbuster lawsuit filed by Apple, which accuses OpenAI of stealing confidential documents , spying on hardware prototypes, and tricking one of its trusted partners into performing a proprietary product design technique. The lawsuit primarily revolves around the alleged actions of three people: Tang Tan, a 24-year Apple veteran who recently served as the vice president of the Apple Watch. In 2024, Tan left to work on … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/964843/apple-openai-lawsuit-wildest-claims

Waze is getting an AI makeover. Google is integrating its flagship AI assistant, Gemini, into the driving app with the goal of letting users personalize their trips a little more. Of the four new updates, only two are being described as involving Gemini. Waze says its updating its conversation reporting feature, first introduced in 2024 , to allow drivers to use conversational voice commands to report traffic incidents and suggest map updates, like a road closure or outdated house number. In addition, Waze introduced Destination Search, enabling drivers to use (again) use conversation voice commands (e.g., "Find me a coffee shop that's open … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/transportation/964132/waze-gemini-ai-voice-commands-less-chatty

Lorde performing at the 2026 Governors Ball. | Photo: Siegfried Anthony/Billboard via Getty Images Lorde was performing at the Real Cool Festival in Madrid on Thursday and took some time during her set to speak out against AI glasses . While she didn't specify any brands in particular, it's likely she was taking a shot at festival sponsor Ray-Ban, which has collaborated with Meta on a pair of AI smartglasses. The comments were captured in videos shared to social media. After thanking the crowd for being there and taking part in "something real," she said that it was increasingly hard to know is and isn't real, before saying "You don't know if someone is wearing sunglasses or if they're wearing those fucked up fucking… Can I just say, for … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/964539/lorde-says-ray-ban-meta-ai-glasses-are-not-sexy

Matmos are an incredibly accomplished duo between their own solo records like the masterpiece A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure and production classic Bjork records like Vespertine . But Drew Daniel, one half of Matmos, is fiendishly prolific. When he's not literally dreaming up new viral music genres , he's also putting out records under the banner of The Soft Pink Truth. Where Matmos usually focuses on a specific musical experiment - using only samples of medical procedures or building instruments out of PVC tubing - Soft Pink Truth goes wherever Daniel's whims take him. That might be a house record. It might be a bunch of black metal co … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/964532/the-soft-pink-truth-shall-we-go-on-sinning-so-that-grace-may-increase-review

Apple's self-driving car program never really got off the ground , but it may have been what made the company's chips the powerful AI performers they are. Early in the development of the self-driving platform, Apple realized that it would need powerful on-device AI processing . While the car processor was never finished , as Mark Gurman details in his latest Power On newsletter, it did lead to the development of the Neural Engine, the backbone of Apple's on-device AI processing. The Neural Engine made its debut with the iPhone X and the A11 Bionic . In those early days, it was primarily used for computer vision, powering FaceID, Animoji, and a … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/964519/apple-silicon-self-driving-car-ai-m7-ultra

My wife and son spent their weekends exploring and piecing together the mansion in Blue Prince. | Image: Courtesy of Raw Fury I've always been the gamer in the family. When my son was born nearly 11 years ago, gaming was one of the things I looked forward to sharing with him. Pulling up a chair next to me, he would watch as I played Sea of Thieves with friends, often wearing the too-big-for-his-head headset to talk with them, instructing me where to go. Now instead of him watching me play through Clair Obscur , I'm sitting next to him and he battles Calamity Ganon in Breath of the Wild . His real gaming passion for years has been Minecraft - he appreciates the rules and order, as well as the calming environment of creative mode. He also likes to meticulously stack up … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/games/964262/blue-prince-family-bonding

A yard sign opposing a planned data center is displayed along Route 54 in Mount Carmel Township Northumberland County. | Image: Getty Images This is The Stepback , a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the data center buildout, follow Emma Roth . The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here . How it started Years before the AI boom threatened local power grids, a small group of protesters set the stage for the battles cropping up across communities today. In 2015, Apple announced plans to build a roughly $1 billion data center in the sleepy town of Athenry, Ireland. The data center's 500-acre site would power Apple's services in Europe, including iTunes, iMessage, and Siri. At th … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/column/963346/ai-data-centers-fight

More mint green synths please. | Image: Nopia After setting the music gear corner of the internet on fire back in 2023 with the first glimpse at the Nopia , creators Martin Grieco and Rocío Gal are almost ready to bring it to market. The duo brought it to the MusicRadar offices for an in-depth first look and revealed that it will be launching in "a couple of months" for around £550. Nopia is built around harmonic interplay in a unique way. Rather than a few knobs and a keyboard controlling a single synth patch, it blends multiple modules - keys, bass, arp, and pad - into a single performance, not unlike a drumless groovebox . There's a one-octave keyboard called the Chord Builder, a 12-b … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/964499/nopia-viral-synth-finished-price-release-demo

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield had been seeking documents from Paramount related to its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. Rayfield also asked a state circuit court judge to delay the closing of the deal by 60 days so that his office could review the documents. But according to Deadline and Variety , he's now dropped his civil investigative demand for the records. Obviously, Paramount is pleased with Rayfield's decision to withdraw his request, but the AG's office isn't exactly satisfied with the outcome. Jenny Hansson, communications director for Rayfield, told Deadline that, "Paramount made it clear that they weren't going to compl … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/policy/964493/oregons-ag-delay-paramount-warner-bros-merger

Department of Homeland Security. | Image: The Verge Advocates are demanding that the Department of Homeland Security release bodycam footage of the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant who was killed by ICE officers in Houston during a traffic stop earlier this week. But DHS claims the agents involved in the shooting weren't wearing body cameras because of the lengthy government shutdown that prevented ICE and Customs and Border Protection from receiving additional federal funding for 76 days - a shutdown that was itself spurred by congressional bickering over reforms to DHS after federal agents killed two civilians earlier this year. Two competing narratives have em … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/policy/964294/ice-shooting-houston-lorenzo-salgado-araujo

Spotify is giving listeners control to fine-tune what gets surfaced for them in Release Radar - one of its most popular weekly playlists. The new options allow you to narrow the playlist to a specific genre, focus on artists that are new to you, and more. Listeners can choose from up to five options like "Discover new artists," "Editors' picks," and "Pop." They're rolling out now across mobile and desktop apps and will appear at the top of your Release Radar playlist once they're available. Spotify also says it's making tweaks to the algorithm to serve up "more personalized recommendations," along with a new look featuring updated cover and … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/964021/spotify-release-radar-algorithm-controls

Netflix has shows and movies. And video games. And live sports. And podcasts. And also, apparently, YouTube videos ? For a company that used to seem like the next big thing in TV, it all feels a little frenetic, and maybe a tad desperate . For a company that sees sleep as its primary competitor, it might all make perfect sense. On this episode of The Vergecast , David and Nilay try to figure out why Netflix continues to expand its content machine and whether the company's ongoing YouTube-ification makes any sense at all. Many have tried to compete with YouTube; none have succeeded. Does that mean Netflix might inch its way up the Go90 Scale of … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/podcast/964082/netflix-youtube-smart-glasses-vergecast

You can see if ads on Google Search, Google Discover, and YouTube were made or edited using AI from a new section in Google's "My Ad Center," as reported earlier by TechCrunch . The update, announced on Thursday, adds a "created or edited with AI" label under the "how this ad was made" tab. Users can find it by tapping the three dots or info button on ads, which pulls up the same panel where you can also block or report ads. Google says it will automatically apply the AI label to any ads made with its own generative AI advertising tools, but AI ads made elsewhere will need to have the label applied manually. In some regions, Google's new AI … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/963628/google-ai-generated-ads-label

About two weeks after OpenAI's GPT-5.6 was caught up in regulatory drama - rolled out only to government-approved organizations during a "limited preview" period - the company has received the Trump administration's greenlight for a public rollout of the model. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called it "the best model we have ever produced." To celebrate, OpenAI also unveiled a new AI agent on the same day: ChatGPT Work. It's billed as a combination of ChatGPT and Codex, allowing the everyday non-technical user to take advantage of Codex's capabilities for non-coding tasks, and it's powered by the GPT-5.6 model suite (Sol, Terra, and Luna). "It can g … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/963464/openai-gpt-5-6-codex-chatgpt-work

OpenAI is overhauling ChatGPT's voice mode with a new model that it says is more like "talking to another person." The new GPT-Live-1 is designed to interrupt you less and will also wait for you to continue speaking if you pause mid-conversation. During a press briefing, OpenAI research lead Kundan Kumar called GPT-Live-1 the company's "smartest voice model" yet. It will automatically pass your queries to its best text models, like GPT-5.5, when it needs to reason or search the web, allowing it to more quickly transition from researching the topic you've asked about to talking about its findings. The upgraded model will also supplement conv … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/962856/chatgpt-upgraded-voice-mode-gpt-live

Google is hosting its next Made by Google launch event for Pixel hardware on August 12th in New York City, according to an invitation sent by Google to The Verge . Unusually, the event is taking place in the evening: It'll kick off at 6PM ET that day. The email also includes a brief animation teasing what appears to be a phone in the Pixel 11 family that's gold. Pixel 11 leaks that have popped up so far show that the base phone could have slimmer bezels than the Pixel 10 and a solid black camera bar. Leaks of Pixel 11 Pro indicate the phone could be a touch thinner than the Pixel 10 Pro . And the Pixel 11 Pro Fold could also be thinner than … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/tech/962313/made-by-google-pixel-11-launch-event

As part of the mass layoffs hitting Xbox, Doom developer id Software has laid off around 50 percent of its staff, according to Game Developer . One source claimed to the publication that the cuts equate to more than 90 redundancies. Another source said that id's QA department was significantly impacted. The report was published the same day that id is releasing a major expansion for its latest Doom game . A former id employee affected by the cuts, Michael Maynard, corroborated the figure in a LinkedIn post , saying that the layoffs affected "roughly" 50 percent of the company. "We created arguably THE BEST first person engine technology in the … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/games/962223/doom-id-software-xbox-layoffs

The Patrouille de France perform a flyover during the Sail4th 250 Tall Ships Parade along the Hudson River in New York on July 4th, 2026. | Photo by John Lamparski/Bloomberg via Getty Images The United States of America recently turned 250 years old. What a spectacle! The fireworks were amazing, and millions of proud people celebrated across the nation - even around the world. France lit up the Eiffel Tower; Japan had fireworks. French fighter jets flew above New York City with trails of red, white, and blue - our first major ally streaking our shared colors through the sky. Meanwhile, shameful white nationalists paraded through our nation's capital . This has always been a country of paradoxes. Our 250th birthday counts back to the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The declaration was a radical and astonishing document that … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/policy/961802/america-250-free-spee...

Dr. Rubin’s feed Bullshit is cheap but truth is expensive. Anyone with half a brain cell can post wild misinformation that goes mega viral, which wastes the time and expertise of highly trained people who feel an obligation to inform others of the truth. Today I want you to meet one of those highly-trained people, Dr. Zachary Rubin, who works on the front lines against scientific and medical misinformation. Rubin is a pediatric allergist and immunologist and author of the book All About Allergies . He likely came across my TikTok feed because I crave anti-misinformation content; one of my other favorite people doing this work is Rubin's colleague Dr. Idrees … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/science/961483/doctor-zachary-rubin-md-interview

I’m just doing my job, but turns out, it feels lousy holding other people’s privacy in your hands. I've long argued that Hollywood has simultaneously set and ruined our expectations for smart glasses . But after binge-watching two seasons of Netflix's A Man on the Inside , this is perhaps the first time I've seen Hollywood, perhaps inadvertently, illustrate the biggest cultural problem with smart glasses as they stand today. In a nutshell, Ted Danson plays Charles Nieuwendyk, an elderly widower who finds a new purpose working for a private investigator. Armed with a pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses, a voice recorder, and a smartphone, Nieuwendyk infiltrates a retirement home, and several privacy-infringing hijinks ensue as he hunts for the je … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/column/961707/smart-glasses-ai-wearables-meta-surveillance-privacy

Satya Nadella in February 2026. | Photo by Sven Hoppe / picture alliance via Getty Images A year after cutting around 9,100 employees , Microsoft is making further layoffs today as it begins its new financial year. The software maker is laying off around 4,800 employees today, approximately 2.1 percent of its workforce. Most of the employees affected by today's cuts are in Microsoft's commercial sales business or the company's Xbox division. In an internal memo to employees, Amy Coleman, executive vice president and Microsoft's chief people officer, blamed the job losses on a changing technology industry and the "need to adjust resources and roles and shift how we operate" to respond to how AI is impacting companies like Microsof … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/news/961528/microsoft-layoffs-july-2026-sales-xbox

Most Americans don't trust AI . It's proven that it doesn't know what safe toppings for pizza are. People don't even want to listen to AI music . But none of that matters for some of America's wealthy, who are turning to AI to teach their kids instead of traditional schools. Companies like Forge Prep and Alpha School are charging families tens of thousands of dollars to turn their kids into beta testers for AI tutors and "interactive project-based workshops." Unsurprisingly, Silicon Valley have been major adopters of this new model. Shaun Johnson, a San Francisco-based venture capitalist, told the Wall Street Journal that he plans to send his … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/961505/wealthy-ai-schools-alpha-forge-prep

First, you drop bombs, then you send aid. Totally logical. | Image: Definitive Jux There was a period in the early aughts when Definitive Jux (nee: Def Jux) seemed like it was going to be the future of hip hop. While the label featured plenty of experimental, boundary-pushing, and politically minded acts, Lif stood out as the most "conscious rapper" in the traditional sense. It was clear though, that label head El-P envisioned that as an important part of Def Jux's identity, as the first record it put out was 2000's Enter the Colossus EP, from Lif. Mr. Lif's follow-up was 2002's Emergency Rations EP, a sort of place setter for the full-length I, Phantom just a couple of months later. It opens with a skit about Lif missing … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/entertainment/961484/mr-lif-emergency-rations-ep-post-9-11-review

A look at in-game cosmetics you’ll get with the Ultimate edition. | Image: Rockstar Games Rockstar's long-awaited Grand Theft Auto VI is launching November 19th, 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X consoles. The game will be available digitally at launch, with physical cases containing codes, not discs , so your options for preordering are straightforward. The preloading phase for the game begins on November 12th, which should give you plenty of time to install the game. There are two versions of the game to choose from, the $79.99 Standard and $99.99 Ultimate editions. Both include the same preorder perks. You'll get the Vintage Vice City Pack when the game launches. It's a set of in-game items that includes vehicles, we … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/960838/grand-theft-auto-gta-6-vi-preorder-editions-buy

Gears of War: E-Day. This is The Stepback , a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the bleak state of the video game industry, follow Andrew Webster . The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here . How it started Microsoft closed out Summer Game Fest with a bang. The company's annual June showcase was packed with crowd-pleasers: Halo , Gears of War , Fable , a translucent Xbox, and even some pleasant surprises like new Persona and Crazy Taxi games. It was the kind of event that harkened back to the boisterous days of E3, when the industry was in a healthier place an … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/column/960600/xbox-is-a-disaster

Engineers from Katalyst Space Technologies testing Link. | Image: NASA/Scott Wiessinger The Swift Observatory was launched in 2004, but recent solar storms have pushed its orbit lower, and it's in danger of burning up in Earth's atmosphere as soon as this year. To try and stave off its demise , NASA has enlisted Katalyst Space Technologies. The company's Link spacecraft launched Friday with the goal of intercepting Swift, which has no propulsion system, and boosting its orbit back to its original position. Right now, Swift is circling at an altitude of 224 miles, and Link is aiming to raise that by about 150 miles. Using a three-armed spacecraft to lift a satellite 150 miles higher into orbit is challenging enough, but the spee … Read the full story at The Verge. source https://www.theverge.com/science/961459/nasa-emergency-save-swift-observatory-katalyst-space-technologies