Author: News Room
When Donut Lab first announced its solid-state battery earlier this year, there was some speculation around whether the Finnish startup had actually produced a supercapacitor, which is a much shorter-term form of electrical storage. Supercapacitors can charge and discharge quickly, similar to Donut Lab’s claimed solid-state battery. But supercapacitors are totally different from batteries in terms of energy storage capacity and long-term use. Was Donut Lab’s battery actually just a supercapacitor in disguise?The startup says no, and it has the independent test results to prove it. The test, which was yet again conducted by state-owned VTT Technical Research Centre of…
The iPhone 17E is a better value than the 16E was when it arrived, but that should matter to basically nobody.The main thing to know about the 17E is that the iPhone 17 exists, it costs $200 more — or maybe more significantly, an extra $9 per month on a two-year payment plan not including whatever discount your carrier offers — and it comes with a long list of upgrades. And if it’s within your means to put down that extra money, you should.The 17E replaces the 16E in Apple’s lineup. The 16E was the first in a new series:…
The newest iPad Air is a chip bump iPad — maybe the chip-bump-iest iPad Air yet. Inside this new machine are, in fact, three upgraded chips compared to last year’s model: an M4 processor, a C1X cellular modem, and an N1 chip that brings the Air Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread support. That is the entire list of upgrades on this year’s device.Apple talks about the Air in a very straightforward way: it’s where Apple’s top-line tech goes after it’s retired from the iPad Pro, typically once Apple has a better version available and can produce the existing version…
Fresh off launching the low-cost MacBook Neo, Apple is reportedly preparing at least three new products that will fit into its highest-end “ultra” lineup. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gruman, the next batch of releases may not bear the “ultra” name, like its Watch, but will all command price premiums over their mainline counterparts.There’s the oft-rumored foldable iPhone, which is expected to cost around $2,000, and a touchscreen MacBook Pro is supposedly slated for the fall. Those are pretty straightforward plays for the higher end of the market. More interesting are the next-gen AirPods, which are rumored to include cameras to…
Crowning the EasySMX S10 the best Switch 2 controller last fall was easy. The $60 wireless gamepad, which is often well below $50, mimics or improves on many of the $90 Switch 2 Pro controller’s best features. The S10 has great-feeling rumble in games, TMR joysticks that will last longer than Nintendo’s, plus amiibo support, comfortable grips, and buttons and triggers that offer satisfying clicks. The new S10 Lite trims away some of those, but builds on EasySMX’s lead with one big, new feature that I expect other companies to copy.The EasySMX S10 Lite is the first third-party controller to…
A site called PSprices has been tracking prices on Sony’s digital game store and noticed something unusual: some games were being offered at different prices to different users. What’s more, those offers are tracked in the PlayStation API with experiment identifiers like IPT_PILOT and IPT_OPR_TESTING.Dynamic pricing is nothing new and is used across a number of industries. But it’s often met with backlash and isn’t typically found in online game stores. According to PSprices, Sony is running A/B testing on prices for over 150 games in 68 regions, though the US doesn’t currently appear to be part of the experiment.…
Walmart bought Vizio in 2024, and now it’s taking the next steps to formally fold the TV maker into itself by phasing out Vizio accounts. Now, when you purchase a new Vizio TV, you’ll be asked to sign in or create a Walmart account. Customers will have the option to merge their Vizio account, if they have one, with their Walmart account. Your only other option will be to simply delete it.According to an email sent by Vizio, customers who choose to delete their account will have 30 days to request a copy of any data related to the account,…
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 118, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, please take my Switch away so I can get some work done, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I’ve been reading about moon factories and railroad monopolies and backing into parking spots, finally digging into the Acquired podcast archives, taking tons of notes on Michael Pollan’s new book about consciousness, watching everything Look Mum No Computer has ever made, breaking my computer trying to get the Obsidian CLI to…
When Elon Musk burst onto the scene in his little Tesla Roadster, it seemed a matter of time before electricity rendered gas-powered sports cars obsolete.It hasn’t worked out that way. Automakers have struggled to bring purely electric two-seaters to market. The ones that managed to emerge have been flatly rejected by consumers. Porsche has walked back plans for an all-electric lineup of Boxster and Cayman models, seemingly spooked by technical hurdles and tepid response from its fanatical customers. Lamborghini last week scrapped plans for its first all-electric model, with the CEO saying the brand’s customers have almost “zero interest” in…
On Valentine’s Day, I brought you a story that’s since made headlines all around the world: How one man, just trying to steer his DJI robot vacuum with a PlayStation gamepad, discovered an entire network of 7,000 remote-control DJI robots ready to let him peek into other people’s homes.To be clear, DJI had already begun addressing some of the related vulnerabilities before the man, Sammy Azdoufal, showed The Verge just how much he could access. But it wasn’t clear whether DJI would pay him for his discovery, particularly after how it treated security researcher Kevin Finisterre back in 2017 —…
The US Customs and Border Protection says it currently can’t comply with an order to process billions of dollars in refunds stemming from tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump. In a filing on Friday, CBP executive director Brandon Lord says the agency’s digital import processing system is “not well suited to a task of this scale,” as reported earlier by CNBC.The CBP’s admission comes after the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs imposed by Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) last month. This week, the International Trade Court ruled that importers impacted by the tariffs are entitled…
Unlike the original Switch, the Nintendo Switch 2 requires microSD Express cards for storing and playing games. While physically identical to microSD cards (aside from a small, easy-to-miss “EX” emblem etched onto the front of the card, as highlighted in the main image above), microSD Express cards are significantly faster. They advertise a 4.4x increase in transfer speeds over regular microSD cards.That speed boost is necessary for loading Switch 2 games that have more detailed textures and larger worlds than those that are possible on the original Switch. You may not need to buy one immediately, however, unless you foresee…