School districts are paying extra for basic supplies thanks to unpredictable dynamic pricing on Amazon, which is costing them on average 17 percent more, according to a report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). Unlike the contracts schools and local governments would traditionally make with local suppliers, who would bid to offer the best […]

The Trump administration has ordered US consulates to consider rejecting H1-B visa applicants involved in content moderation or “censorship,” according to a report from Reuters. A State Department cable viewed by the outlet says officials should check an applicant’s resume or LinkedIn profile for a job history involving moderation, fact-checking, online safety, compliance, and misinformation. […]

Microsoft has been publishing data about the gender, race, and ethnic breakdown of its employees for more than a decade. Since 2019 it's been publishing a full diversity and inclusion report annually, and at the same time made reporting on diversity a requirement for employee performance reviews. Now it's scrapping its diversity report and dropping […]

I'm starting to understand where Google's visual AI model gets its name, because after playing around with it for a couple of days, that's how I'd sum it up: bananas. The images it generates are so realistic it's bananas. I feel like I'm going bananas after staring at them for too long. And if I […]

It sounds weird to say it’s a good thing if you missed the Ray-Ban Meta deal on Black Friday, but… it’s kind of true. The original Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses just fell to an even better all-time low of $224.25 ($75) at Amazon and Best Buy, which beats the Black Friday price by $15. That’s a great deal because, even […]

After over 30 years, Amazon may be cutting ties with the United States Postal Service as it looks to expand its own delivery network, as reported by The Washington Post. The outlet, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, cites anonymous sources who said negotiations between Amazon and Trump-appointed USPS Postmaster General David Steiner have reportedly […]

Amazon has finally given a release date for its new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft and Kindle Scribe: They’ll be available to purchase starting on December 10th, Amazon spokesperson Rachel Erickson tells The Verge. They’ll cost the same as what Amazon announced back in September: $629.99 for the Colorsoft and $499.99 for the Scribe, which includes a […]

This is Lowpass by Janko Roettgers, a newsletter on the ever-evolving intersection of tech and entertainment, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. Get ready for a lot more video content on Spotify. Sometime later this month, the service will start incorporating music videos into its app, and give US-based subscribers the ability […]

It turns out my parents were wrong. Saying "please" doesn't get you what you want-poetry does. At least, it does if you're talking to an AI chatbot. That's according to a new study from Italy's Icaro Lab, an AI evaluation and safety initiative from researchers at Rome's Sapienza University and AI company DexAI. The findings […]

OnePlus has launched its delayed US preorders for the flagship OnePlus 15, almost a month after the phone was revealed. The company has been able to start taking orders after receiving FCC clearance for the device — initially held back because of the government shutdown. The OnePlus 15 starts from $899.99 for 12GB of RAM and […]