Author: News Room

When Lego founder Ole Kirk Kristiansen pivoted his business to plastic bricks, we wonder if he had any idea of the global phenomenon Lego would become. Today, there are many themes, for kids and adult collectors alike. It’s hard to keep track. So we’re doing it for you, with the Stuff guide to the best upcoming Lego sets. Note: this list covers the best officially announced upcoming Lego sets. There are no rumours, leaks, nor models the writer ham-fistedly pieced together from a pile of random bricks. November 2026 Lego sets Consider this… Sagrada Família ($799.99/£649.99 • 12,060 pieces): In 1882, construction began on this huge…

The 9.58-second 100-meter dash record set by Usain Bolt in 2009 has been outpaced by Chinese robots participating at the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. In a preliminary heat on Saturday, Tiangong Ultra, made by the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation ​Center, ran the distance in 9.39 seconds, followed by the Honor-developed Lightning at 9.47 seconds.It’s one of several notable achievements to take place at the event, which can best be described as a sort of annual robot olympics that’s designed to showcase advancements in bipedal bot technology. After launching in 2025, 2,056 robots from 16 countries are participating in…

Tim Endres has been involved with Gamescom – the annual PC, mobile and console gaming event for business and public visitors – since it was inaugurated in 2009 at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany, becoming the event’s director in 2017. As hundreds of thousands of gamers are expected to attend the latest edition this week, we chat to Tim about how Gamescom has grown in nearly two decades as the largest and most important physical event for gaming in the world, starting with his own beginnings in gaming… The first game I played was on a calculator. I was born…

I was aghast when Apple introduced Liquid Glass. It obliterated clarity and readability, unwisely deciding the floating interface aesthetic from an overpriced headset should be inflicted on everyone using an iPhone, an iPad or a Mac. Apple claimed Liquid Glass better showed off your content. Mostly, it showed off itself, screaming for attention with every interaction. I disliked it enough that I still haven’t updated my everyday iPhone from iOS 18. But things are changing. Apple’s imminent ‘27’ updates to iOS, iPadOS and macOS suggest people who understand good design are back in control. The defaults are considerably better than last year’s horror show. Icons…

There’s never been a pair of regular wireless earbuds so light or comfortable that I’ve forgotten they’re in my ears, but it’s becoming an occupational hazard for the OpenFit Air 2. I’ve regularly come home from a run or stepped off my exercise bike and headed for the shower before remembering Open ear audio expert Shokz’ latest fitness-friendly model were still wrapped around my ears. 7.2g per earbud might not sound truly featherweight, but the flexible nickel-titanium alloy frames helps the drivers almost hover over my ears – crucially keeping them unobstructed for great situational awareness when working out. Being…

Following several apparent video leaks of Grand Theft Auto VI, Take-Two Interactive has subpoenaed Microsoft and Discord over content that “infringes copyrights” held for the game, Kotaku reports. In the subpoenas, filed on Thursday, Take-Two says copyrighted material includes “audiovisual content, artwork, images, dialogue, or other creative elements” and it is looking to identify “alleged infringers at issue.” The subpoenas give Microsoft and Discord until September 4th to produce the requested information.The leaked clips have been watermarked by a person or group going by “CyberLeek,” and they have shown what appears to be GTA VI protagonist Jason Duval (one of…

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on GTA VI and the state of the video game industry, follow Andrew Webster. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.Four years ago, fans got a long-awaited look at Grand Theft Auto VI with a huge cache of videos that showed off Rockstar’s latest open-world epic. There were 90 videos in total, providing a glimpse at the next-generation take on Vice City, introducing the game’s new dual protagonists, and generally showing off the…

I remember having a Spirograph as a kid and being obsessed with it. Its geometric patterns are hypnotic and gorgeous. I also love generative music composition. So bringing those two things together in a browser tab, I’m hooked. Musical Spirograph is a relatively simple concept. A set of points dash around the screen according to mathematical equations, generating hypotrochoids and epitrochoids. Those points pass through a series of concentric rings which trigger specific notes.Honestly, that alone is fun enough, but you can customize it quite a bit. There are six different virtual rotors to pick from, you can have up…

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 141, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, I’m newish here too, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I’ve been getting back into the Installer groove, trying out some ergonomic Switch 2 grips I bought on Etsy, researching bike stuff because I’m about to get a Velotric e-bike, inching my way through the fourth book in The Dark Tower series, trying to figure out what feels off about Sonic in the new Fortnite season, wondering why Mark…

Citing “significant increases in memory and storage component costs,” in a statement given to Fortune, Amazon has raised prices on Echos, Kindles, Fire TVs, and Eeros by up to 60 percent.The cheapest products in Amazon’s lineup were hit hardest, with the Echo Dot smart speaker jumping from $49.99 to $79.99. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max also rose by over 40 percent to $84.99, and the base level Kindle now costs $149.99, a nearly 37 percent increase.The only Amazon hardware products apparently not affected are its line of Ring cameras and video doorbells, and the Echo Studio, its higher-end $219.99…

Laptop prices are out of whack. $500 used to get you a tolerable laptop, and $900 got you a really good one. They often had similar CPU, RAM, and storage options because that stuff was comparatively cheap; the difference was often in build quality and screen rather than power. But RAMageddon has thrown everything off. Even laptops like the $950 Surface Laptop now start with 8GB of RAM, which isn’t enough. And on the lower end, where manufacturers are struggling to compete with the $700 MacBook Neo, they’re cutting corners on storage, CPU, and build quality too.However, one low-cost laptop…

In the early 2000s, then proto-tech bro Mark Zuckerberg created FaceMash, a website used to rank women on a university campus. He later claimed it was a hilarious prank rather than a privacy-obliterating sexist piece of garbage. Fortunately for the world, he soon took it down. Unfortunately for the world, Facebook rose from its ashes.  There was less overt sexism in his fledgling social network. But as it grew to dominate the space, Zuckerberg’s monster stomped any semblance of privacy into the ground. So it should probably come as no surprise that when Meta (the company formerly known as Facebook…