Author: News Room
Google has just kicked its Chromebook Plus program into high gear, courtesy of all-new MediaTek silicon that promises to bring some of Gemini’s AI smarts out of the cloud and onto your lap. First in line is the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, which launches today from $599/£599 – and after seeing one in the metal at a pre-launch preview, I’m going to need to rethink what it means to be a budget laptop. Each new Chromebook Plus notebook I’ve seen has somehow managed to feel more and more premium; Lenovo’s effort goes even better, with a largely metal build that’s…
While Nothing is gearing up to officially unveil its first over-ear headphones next week, leaked images and videos have given us a good idea of what they look like. The Nothing Headphone 1 sports an unusual design that appears consistently across leaks from multiple sources, featuring a squircle earcup with the company’s signature transparent elements and support for what looks like a 3.5mm audio cable.Nothing announced in a video last month that it would be launching over-ear headphones in “summer 2025,” but remained largely tight-lipped about what to expect. What little was teased — including Nothing’s Tom Ridley saying the…
If you’ve got a Samsung smartphone, a Galaxy Watch is the perfect companion. And, like most smartwatches, they’re great for fitness tracking, counting plenty of metrics. Or at least that’s what they used to do. Samsung has seemingly decided it doesn’t quite make enough money off Galaxy Watch owners yet. Samsung confirmed it is now “exploring” the idea of locking some of its Galaxy Watch health features behind a paywall, with a new premium subscription tier for the Samsung Health app. This was confirmed during an interview with CNET, in what may or may not have been a slip up.…
I have a confession to make: in videogames featuring gunplay, I reload. Excessively. I’m not sure how or when this became a problem, but in bullet-ridden titles like Call of Duty or Apex Legends, I’d down an enemy and immediately mash the reload button on my console controller before they’ve even hit the floor, no matter my ammo status. Meanwhile, their best friend comes steaming around the corner, catching me like you would your dog with their snout in the biscuit tin, desperately trying to jam my virtual magazine into my virtual firearm. And then sweet revenge is theirs. Yes,…
Ah, the MoonSwatch. It would be fair to say Swatch and Omega’s unexpected love-in didn’t get off to the best start. But fast-forward a couple of years from the sheer pandemonium this celestial collection sparked, and the MoonSwatch family is now a two-dozen-plus family of watches as varied as they are characterful. Ditch the Velcro strap in favour of a premium alternative, and the Bioceramic Swatch can look properly upmarket, too, able to compete with some of the best watches around. But which to choose? Some of the latest MoonSwatches are still tricky to buy since they’re only stocked in…
Tesla finally did the damn thing. The company launched its hotly anticipated robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, June 22nd — and we’re now starting to see some of the first reactions roll in.But first, we have to get a few important caveats out of the way. Tellingly, the service is not open to the general public, nor is it completely “unsupervised,” as Elon Musk once promised. The vehicles will include Tesla-employed “safety monitors” in the front passenger seat who can react to a dangerous situation by hitting a kill switch. Other autonomous vehicle operators would place safety monitors…
OpenAI has scrubbed mentions of io, the hardware startup co-founded by famous Apple designer Jony Ive, from its website and social media channels. The sudden change closely follows their recent announcement of OpenAI’s nearly $6.5 billion acquisition and plans to create dedicated AI hardware.OpenAI tells The Verge the deal is still happening, but it scrubbed mentions due to a trademark lawsuit from Iyo, the hearing device startup spun out of Google’s moonshot factory.The announcement blog post and a nine-minute video featuring Ive and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are no longer available. The blog post from Ive and Altman announcing the…
Monotype is keen for you to know what AI might do in typography. As one of the largest type design companies in the world, Monotype owns Helvetica, Futura, and Gill Sans — among 250,000 other fonts. In the typography giant’s 2025 Re:Vision trends report, published in February, Monotype devotes an entire chapter to how AI will result in a reactive typography that will “leverage emotional and psychological data” to tailor itself to the reader. It might bring text into focus when you look at it and soften when your gaze drifts. It could shift typefaces depending on the time of…
Andru Marino is an audio and video producer at The Verge. “I make videos on our YouTube / TikTok / Instagram channels, and have produced our podcasts like Vergecast, Decoder, and Why’d You Push That Button?” He also keeps a lot of notes, and his latest favorite places to keep them are the Triangle and Sidekick notebooks. I asked him about them.Where did you first hear about these notebooks?I don’t really remember when I first saw the Triangle Notebook. It was probably an Instagram ad. I had kept a link to the notebook’s website in a browser tab on my…
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 officially announced Lego sets. There are no rumours, leaks, nor models the writer ham-fistedly pieced together from a pile of random bricks. August 2025 Lego sets Buy this… Porsche 911 GT3 RS Super Car ($26.99/£22.99 • 348 pieces): We’ve been waiting for this one.…
Chinese mega-company BYD has fingers in a lot of pies, but electric cars is where the portfolio is starting to get really lively. We’ve already had the decent BYD Dolphin, very impressive BYD Seal and the not-so-great BYD Seal UDM-i, not to forget BYD’s first UK arrival, the Atto 3. Now there’s the BYD Sealion 7, which is a large family SUV designed to take on the likes of the Tesla Model Y, Hyundai Ioniq 5 or, heaven forbid, the Ford Capri.Those are just three rivals, but the electric SUV marketplace is packed with options. That means the BYD Sealion…
Amazon’s mega sale is nearly upon us. This year, Prime Day will kick off on July 8th and run through July 11th, which, for those counting, is twice as long as previous years. Most everything else will likely be the same — well, aside from Amazon’s so-called “Today’s Big Deals” feature — making it a great time to stock up on essentials and save ahead of tentpole shopping events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.As usual, we’ll be here to highlight all the discounts, limited-time promos, and Prime-exclusive deals worth picking up. We’ll also be pulling together any early deals…