Latest Technology

Nothing’s Android-based Phone 3. London-based consumer tech startup Nothing has raised $200 million and vowed to usher in a new generation of “AI-native” devices running on operating systems that “are significantly different from the ones today.” In a press release that reads part ode to technology and part manifesto, Nothing founder and CEO Carl Pei said the cash infusion — which values Nothing at $1.3 billion — will help the company ramp up distribution and accelerate innovation.  At the heart of Nothing’s plans is AI. Pei said the company is “building the foundations for the future” on a focused “AI OS” to deliver a “hyper-personalized experience.” However, it’s unclear if Nothing’s operating system ambitions are built on top of Android like Nothing OS. We’ve reached out for clarification. This “AI-native platform” will run hardware in widespread use today like smartphones, headphones, and smart watches, Pei said, as well as other devices like smart glasses, electric vehic...

Snap’s 2024 Spectacles are still only available to developers. Last September, Snap revealed its fifth-generation Spectacles, upgraded AR glasses with a twist: they were only ever released to developers. One year later, we still haven't seen even a glimpse of the consumer-ready version of those glasses, which the company still says is coming in 2026 , but Snap is ready to show off Snap OS 2.0, a software update to those developer Spectacles that signals its plans for mainstream AR. The big changes are actually surprisingly boring. A better web browser, a gallery app, some translation tools. These aren't the fun, whimsical AR experiences that Snap has pushed in the past - they're the functional things, t … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/eMqoJ1Q

The AirPods Pro 3 are the slam dunk win of this product cycle. The AirPods Pro are about as ubiquitous as earbuds can get. Step outside your door, and you're almost certain to see people wearing them. For good reason, too. Their active noise cancelling (ANC) is excellent for the price, sound quality is great, and they're comfortable and convenient. If it ain't broke, why fix it? After all, messing with a winning formula just for the sake of change often ends up in disappointment. That's not the case with the $249.99 AirPods Pro 3. Of all the shiny new gadgets Apple launched last week, this is the sole no-brainer upgrade. Everything you liked about the AirPods Pro just got better - and so did everythin … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/QO1XjgT

Qualcomm has explained why this isn’t the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2. Qualcomm has announced that its upcoming flagship mobile chipset is the “Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5,” a confusingly named successor to the Snapdragon 8 Elite. While the processor itself will be unveiled during the Snapdragon Summit on September 23rd-25th, Qualcomm has already published an explanation for the branding update. “It might look like we skipped generations, but the truth is simpler— and more powerful. Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 marks the fifth generation of our premium 8-series platforms since we introduced our new single-digit naming and visual identity, ” Qualcomm said in a blog post. “So, while the naming may look new, it’s actually a continuation of our established framework.” This move aims to make the generational Snapdragon mobile chip lineup easier for consumers to understand. After releasing the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, Gen 2, and Gen 3, Qualcomm broke its naming conventions with last year’s Snapdragon...

Microsoft has started testing a change to how Xbox controllers operate on Windows 11. The change will allow Xbox controllers to easily access the Task View on Windows 11 to tab between apps and games, using the Xbox button. “A new change we’re introducing is when you long press the Xbox button, it will open Task View,” explains Microsoft’s Windows Insider team . “Pressing and holding the Xbox button continues to turn off the game controller.” The change will align Xbox controllers with the work Microsoft is doing for handheld gaming PCs with Windows 11 . The upcoming Xbox Ally devices will have an Xbox button, which opens a handheld-friendly task switcher with a long press. Microsoft has tweaked the task switcher on handhelds so it has new animations, and it’s not clear if this same interface will come to all Windows 11 gaming PCs. You can already use a single press of the Xbox button on handhelds or controllers to open the Game Bar in Windows 11, and access widgets, games, and pe...

Scarlet. Well, I was wrong , and I did manage to make it to one last day at the Toronto International Film Festival. One of the movies I wanted to see the most this year was Scarlet , the latest from Mamoru Hosoda, whose most recent film was the metaverse fairy tale Belle . Whereas that film was a reimagining of Beauty and the Beast , Scarlet is a twist on Hamlet that's full of bold, creative ideas. I mostly enjoyed it, but unfortunately it's saddled with an ending that doesn't really fit. I also managed to squeeze in two other films: a Korean revenge / heist thriller, and a Norwegian film about connecting through art. You can read my thoughts on all th … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/lRufDGk

I would not call the time I'm having with Hollow Knight: Silksong "fun," and yet I'm still playing. In the depths of The Marrow, the second major area of Silksong , there's a particularly nasty midboss. I eventually beat him, but my reward wasn't a new ability, item, or a bench where I could rest and save my progress. All I got was pain, suffering, and death. In Silksong , the only way out is through, but the "through" is a tunnel lined with spikes that occasionally spew gouts of flame. I should have given up right then and there, but I have not abandoned Silksong the same way I do other unfun games. For the life of me, I couldn't figure ou … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/4ry0LAk

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 97, your guide to the best and Verge -iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, hope you're having a good iPhone / back to school / it's-finally-not-hot-anymore week, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage .) It's so good to be back! Huge, huge thanks to Jay Peters for doing such a fabulous job here over the last couple of months, and huge thanks to all of you as always for having such good contributions and ideas. Jay will still be around these parts from time to time, too, so don't worry, your esoteric gaming recommendations aren't going anywhere. I was going … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/0NmEcQH

It’s September, and many among us are dealing with back to school, and anticipating the colder weather that’s on its way (at least, if you live in the northern climes). This, plus a somewhat fraught political atmosphere, means that you might be looking for reliable, affordable ways to escape the doldrums. You don’t need us to tell you that a way to do that is by watching some movies and TV shows. Through September 18th, Paramount is offering a doozy of a deal on both tiers of its Plus streaming service. You can save 50 percent on an annual subscription to Paramount Plus Essential, or its mostly ad-free Premium plan. The Essential Plan is down to $29.99 (from $59.99) and a Premium plan goes to $59.99 (from $119.99). The neat thing is that you can take advantage of this whether you’re a new or a returning subscriber (but be careful to mark your calendar; it will renew after that year at full price). Paramount Plus Essential (annual subscription) Essential gets you ad-supported acce...

If you listen to music the way a lot of people do these days - with a pair of wireless earbuds, from a Bluetooth speaker, or just blaring directly out of your phone - you will never notice a difference between Spotify's high-quality 320Kbps streams and its lossless audio. But, if you usually listen with wired headphones while working at your desk, or have a quality speaker from the likes of Bose that supports Spotify Connect, there actually is something to be gained here. Comparing Spotify's normal quality streams (96Kbps) with the new 24-bit / 44.1kHz lossless FLAC files feels unfair. Even a relatively untrained ear should be able to hear … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/amVCP5z

Imagine if George Cukor's The Women was a modern, Spanish-language telenovela set in Ecuador rather than a 1939 dramedy about the lives of wealthy Manhattanites. Now imagine if the series was directed by Pedro Almodóvar and its characters were brought to life with stop-motion animation instead of being portrayed by Hollywood heavyweights like Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer. Now, think about how transgressive that show would be if it treated queerness as the norm and told a politically charged story about the relationship between colonialism and capitalism. That show would be a lot like Adult Swim's Women Wearing Shoulder Pads. When I recen … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/WcsxfNn

Few video game adaptations understand their source material quite like the Exit 8 film . It takes the rules and structure of the game - which strands players inside of a looping hallway in a Tokyo subway station - and then builds on them with actual characters and a story. And according to director Genki Kawamura, one of the reasons that the movie feels so fresh could be because of how he approached it. "I wasn't necessarily thinking about a film adaptation of a video game," he tells The Verge . "I was thinking about how to create a new cinematic experience that blurs the lines between video game and cinema." The two are very similar, and the … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/Bb0aICs

The iPhone Air starts at $999. | Image: The Verge Apple’s complete 2025 lineup, including the iPhone 17 , the 17 Pro , the 17 Pro Max , and the thin iPhone Air , are available to preorder. They’ll be available next Friday, September 19th, and ordering now is how you can ensure you’ll be among the first to receive your order. Beyond the Air’s shockingly slim design, Apple’s latest iPhone lineup features a number of notable updates that seem worth upgrading for, especially if you have a phone that’s a few generations old. The standard iPhone 17 — which is a shockingly good value , by the way — now features a larger 6.3-inch display with ProMotion and an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz. Meanwhile, the Pro model has returned to an aluminum build while adding the biggest battery of any iPhone yet. The iPhone Air and Pro models have a lot in common, including having a raised “plateau” bump on the back, which contains not just cameras but some internal components, too, leaving some e...

The Xperia 10 VII’s camera bar looks Pixel-perfect. Sony has announced the Xperia 10 VII, a midrange Android phone that’s launching in the UK, Europe, and Asia, though not the US. It’s more notable than most Sony phones because it marks the first major change to the rear design in over five years: a camera bar, just like recent Pixels, and now even iPhones. The Xperia Android line has kept its cameras vertically stacked in one corner since the first-generation Xperia 5 in 2019, with only rare exceptions like the standalone Xperia Pro-I . But the 10 VII reinvents that design language with a horizontal camera pair mounted in a pill-shaped raised bar that stretches across the phone’s back. The matte plastic body comes in black, white, or turquoise, and looks like no Xperia phone before it. It looks a little more like Google’s Pixel phones , a design also aped by Apple’s iPhone Air this week. Things are more recognizable from the front, with Sony’s familiar insistence on a chunky bez...

Here's a hot take: gaming handhelds are better with prongs. How do I know? I hold a lot of handhelds ( and gamepads ) here at The Verge , but Microsoft and Asus's upcoming Xbox Ally X might take the cake for the most comfortable to hold. And that handheld has basically the exact same design as the existing ROG Ally X I've reviewed not once but twice - except for two big prongs that let you grip the device. Seriously, check out my comparison photos: the Xbox Ally X is an Ally X with upside-down antlers. It's the one distinguishing design change, and that change alone instantly makes it feel comfortable, familiar, and secure. From the fro … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/D4SsQAn

A UK-based video game reseller claims Sega was behind a police raid that seized a trove of Nintendo development kits from his home, according to a report from Time Extension . The seller, who reportedly purchased the collection from a scrapyard, accuses Sega of getting the police involved to recover the dev kits after mistakenly throwing them out. The seller tells the outlet that he purchased the rare finds for around £10,000 (~$13,526) from a worker who showed up at the scrapyard with “a van-load of items that had reportedly come from Sega’s office clearance.” Sega moved its Europe office from Brentford, West London, to the city’s Chiswick Business Park earlier this year. On July 14th — around three months after the purchase — police arrested the seller and raided his home, according to Time Extension . “I was woken at around 7:30 am by a loud knock at my door,” the seller tells Time Extension . “When I opened it, I was met by approximately ten officers from the City of London Pol...

I love me a stupid-ass action movie. Something where the plot is thin while the muscles and accents on all the henchmen are thick as hell. Think Broken Arrow or Eraser - movies that were artistically and sometimes commercially terrible but nevertheless thrilling watches that you forgot about almost immediately after leaving the theater. Borderlands 4 is the video game equivalent of that movie. Is it artistically creative? No. Profound in its narrative? Nope. Innovative in its gameplay? Not really. Fun? Absolutely. And honestly, that's all you really need out of a Borderlands game. If you're new to the Borderlands series, it's a looter sho … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/sexDXKM

Nvidia is releasing a new GeForce Game Ready driver today in preparation for the Borderlands 4 release later this week. There’s also an Nvidia app update arriving today that includes a new RTX Remix update to allow modders to improve fire and smoke effects in older games. Today’s Game Ready driver (581.29) includes optimizations for DLSS 4 in Borderlands 4 , with the new game also supporting Multi Frame Generation and Nvidia’s Reflex technology. Dying Light: The Beast is also part of the Game Ready driver, with optimizations ahead of its release next week with DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation, DLSS Super Resolution, and regular DLSS Frame Generation support. The new RTX Remix update lets modders create new particles in Remix that are similar to those found in modern games. More than 165 RTX Remix games are now ready to be modded further to improve smoke and fire effects. Modders have managed to greatly improve older games thanks to RTX Remix, and Nvidia used Half-Life 2 as a show...

A before and after image of a bedroom changed using Zillow’s Virtual Staging tool. Zillow is launching an AI-powered feature that will allow home hunters to empty the room of furniture or subtly change the design style. The intent is to make it easier to overcome the owner’s dodgy design choices and questionable furniture so buyers can better picture themselves living in a property. In concept, the tool, called Virtual Staging, is great. It tackles a genuine and difficult problem that almost anyone who has searched for a home at some point has encountered. “Too many buyers overlook what could be the perfect home for their family simply because they can’t see past the furniture or design choices,” says Zillow home trends expert Amanda Pendleton. Unfortunately, Virtual Staging is rather basic in this phase of the rollout. The lackluster changes are so subtle — adjusting a bit of furniture here, changing the color of a rug there — you’d have trouble knowing anything had changed witho...

Daily Hub aims to combine useful info with curated recommendations, but only sometimes succeeds. When Google launched the Pixel 10 line last month, it gave as much attention to its AI-enabled software tricks as it did the hardware upgrades. But now, less than two weeks after the Pixel 10 series hit store shelves, its already pulled one of those AI features: Daily Hub, which collects the weather and your day’s calendar events, and recommends online content you might want to read, watch, or listen to. In fairness to Google, Daily Hub was only ever in a “public preview,” rather than a full release, but that hadn’t stopped the company from advertising the phones with it . The company has now paused that preview, a spokesperson telling 9to5Google that it is “actively working to enhance its performance and refine the personalized experience.” Apparently Google will reintroduce “an improved Daily Hub when it’s ready.” The public preview meant that Daily Hub hadn’t appeared on every Pix...

Leaked images potentially give us a closer look at the Powerbeats Fit and its color-matched charging case. Apple teased the upcoming Powerbeats Fit last month , and now renders and specifications for the sporty wireless earbuds have appeared online that give us a closer look at what to expect. According to trusted leaker Evan Blass , the new Beats earbuds will be available in four colorways — orange, gray, black, and pink — and provide up to 30 hours of battery life, or “7 hours per bud on one charge” without popping them back in the charging case. The images of the Powerbeats Fit shared by Blass look similar to the $200 Beats Fit Pro earbuds that Apple launched in 2021, and they have several features in common. Both are powered by Apple’s H1 chip, have the same reported battery life, carry an IPX4 resistance to water splashes and sweat, and include a transparency mode and active noise cancellation. Leaks suggest that the Powerbeats Fit provides four ear customizable ear tip sizes...

Firefox will soon let you shake your iPhone to get an AI-generated summary of the webpage you’re on. The feature rolls out this week , and will operate using Apple’s on-device AI model on the iPhone 15 Pro or newer once iOS 26 launches. On older iOS versions, Mozilla will use its own cloud-based AI system to create summaries and insert them on top of the webpage. Along with shaking your phone, you can also access AI-generated summaries by tapping the “thunderbolt” icon in the address bar, or tapping the three dots at the bottom of your screen and selecting “Summarize page.” Mozilla notes that you can turn off the feature at any time, in case you don’t want the browser to misinterpret a fumble of your phone as a summarization request. Shake to summarize will only work on webpages with fewer than 5,000 words. With the launch, Firefox will become one of the first major third-party apps to roll out an integration with Apple Intelligence, which we may hear more about during today’s iPh...

The 3D-printed Switch 2 mockup that started Nintendo’s dispute with Genki. Nintendo has settled the lawsuit it filed against accessory maker Genki over the Switch 2 mockup it showcased at CES before the console was officially revealed, and accessories it promoted using the Switch 2 name. Genki’s parent company, Human Things, will pay Nintendo an undisclosed amount of money in damages to close the case, according to a legal filing submitted on Monday , and has agreed to stop giving its products names that are “confusingly similar” to official Nintendo intellectual property. The dispute began in January after Genki showed off an accurate 3D-printed Switch 2 mockup at CES, even including the console’s logo, days before it was officially launched by Nintendo. The company also began to promote its range of Switch 2 accessories before the console was announced.  Nintendo later filed a complaint against the accessory maker in May over alleged “trademark infringement, unfair competi...

Out with the old iPhone, in with the new. There's probably a lot of market research out there by fancy people who analyze consumer data trying to answer one question: Why do people choose an iPhone? Is it a reputation for better privacy? Long-term reliability? Targeted ad campaigns? I think it's a lot simpler than anyone wants to acknowledge: Their previous iPhone no longer works. They're fed up with an aging battery, or they're tired of a dated processor chugging through app screens. Maybe their previous iPhone ate it altogether. They'll pick up whatever-number-we're-on-now (soon to be 17, with a supposedly "awe dropping" reveal tomorrow ) because they like their old phone well eno … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/mPBE4Fs

Two AI-generated  figures from the production of Critterz. OpenAI is on a mission to show Hollywood that generative artificial intelligence can deliver results and is throwing its weight behind an animated feature film it hopes will stand toe-to-toe with much costlier productions, according to the Wall Street Journal . The film, called “Critterz,” is expected to hit theaters worldwide in 2026 after a planned debut at the Cannes Film Festival, the Journal reported. It will be made primarily with the company’s AI tools, including GPT-5, its flagship model that landed with a thud last month .  “Critterz” is reportedly being made on a budget of less than $30 million in just nine months, fractions of what is normally required for animated features. OpenAI, alongside LA- and London-based partners Native Foreign and Vertigo Films, will be hoping the flick can convince wary Hollywood executives to bet big on AI, a tall order as the industry wrestles with slow uptake, resistance...

It hasn’t been the greatest year for the Ford F-150 Lightning, with sales so far this year down nearly 10 percent as compared to last year. In the hopes of boosting interest in the battery-powered truck, Ford today announced a new appearance package called STX, which the company says is in direct response to customer feedback. The STX, which replaces the XLT in the Lightning lineup, comes equipped with dual motors and an extended range battery that targets an EPA-estimated 290 miles of range. It also will be no slouch on the straightaway, with 536 horsepower and 775 lb.-ft. of torque, as well as a standard rear e-locking differential. Ford also “raided the F-150 parts bin” to add a bunch of rugged features, including off-road running boards from the F-150 Tremor and new wheels and all-terrain tires that are new to Ford’s electric truck. There’s a new grille, blue accent lines, and “STX” badging throughout. Truck owners who like to do actual truck stuf...