There’s finally a little bit of sunshine in Pluribus
Things might finally be looking up. In the penultimate episode of Pluribus' first season, Carol (Rhea Seehorn) actually seems to be happy. That's a pretty big deal for someone the show describes as the "most miserable person on Earth," who also happens to be living through an odd sort of apocalyptic scenario that she is […]
Semi-solid state MagSafe power banks arrive from the founder of Hyper
A new company called BMX, founded by accessory royalty, has emerged from Kickstarter to make its SolidSafe semi-solid state power banks available to the general public. Like the Kuxiu semi-solid state power banks I've recently reviewed, BMX's promise to have twice the longevity and be safer than traditional power banks, which have been the subject […]
A Starlink satellite seems to have exploded
SpaceX says it has lost control of a Starlink satellite that's now falling back to Earth after suffering an anomaly. The sudden loss of communications, drop in altitude, "venting of the propulsion tank," and "release of a small number of trackable low relative velocity objects," suggests the anomaly was some kind of explosion. SpaceX says […]
TikTok ban: all the news on the app’s shutdown and return in the US
After briefly going dark in the US to comply with the divest-or-ban law targeting ByteDance that went into effect on January 19th, TikTok quickly came back online. It eventually reappeared in the App Store and Google Play as negotiations between the US and China continued, and Donald Trump continued to sign extensions directing officials not […]
TikTok CEO’s memo tells employees it will be sold in January
TikTok has finalized the deal to sell its US business, according to reports from Axios, The Hollywood Reporter, and CNBC. In an internal memo seen by the outlets, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew wrote that the deal will close on January 22nd, with Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi's MGX owning 45 percent of the […]
Threads wants to be the app you can’t wait to open in the morning
This is an excerpt of Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. By all measures, Meta's Threads app had a very good year. The app was Apple's second-most-downloaded iOS app of the year, trailing only ChatGPT. Threads now has 400 million […]
Oh snap, I have a new favorite phone grip
In 2022, we called a simple magnetic ring from Anker the best MagSafe phone grip, but things have evolved dramatically since then! You can buy two or even three magnetic rings joined at the hip these days to wield your iPhone, recent Pixel, or really any phone if you stick a magnetic case or included […]
Steam’s annual winter sale is here — these are the best games to get
If you’re lucky enough to have a bit of time off around the holidays, we have great news: Steam’s annual winter sale kicked off today, and will run through Monday, January 5th at 1PM ET. Now’s a great time to stock up on some of the best games of 2025 at a solid discount, or […]
OpenAI and Anthropic will start predicting when users are underage
OpenAI and Anthropic are making tweaks to their chatbots that they say will make them safer for teens. As OpenAI has updated its guidelines on how ChatGPT should interact with users between the ages of 13 and 17, Anthropic is working on a new way to identify if someone might be underage. On Thursday, OpenAI […]
Instagram wants to limit hashtag spam
If you're tired of seeing Instagram posts with a seemingly endless list of hashtags, Instagram is making a change to stop that. In a post today, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said that the platform will now cap hashtags to five per post. "While I know it can be tempting to use more, a few specific […]