Author: News Room

The Fairphone 6 arrives almost two years after the 5, a testament to the company’s approach to the upgrade cycle. If anything, I suspect the company would be frustrated if Fairphone 5 owners were considering a new model already — these are phones to keep, to repair, and to hold on to until the bitter end.The newest Fairphone continues the company’s commitment to user-repairability, long-term customer support, and ethical production. That means compromises for the consumer: You’ll find more powerful phones with prettier displays and more capable cameras for less money. But this year those compromises are smaller and easier…

Got a 4K TV and a streaming subscription? Then treat your eyes to some eye-popping UHD entertainment There was a time when 4K Ultra HD TVs were rare. No longer: 4K TVs are now in millions of living rooms nationwide, and and there’s a very good chance you’ve already got one (and if not, check out our guide to the best 4K TV to buy today). But finding things to watch on it in that lovely 4K resolution (you can call it UHD or Ultra HD if you prefer) can still be somewhat tricky. There are plenty of the best 4K…

If you’ve been checking out Apple gear recently, you might have seen the term ProMotion floating about with regard to displays. ProMotion is one feature that makes them even better than they once were. The feature makes animations and everyday movements on one of the best phones on sale right now much smoother. But what exactly is it? Here’s our guide to explaining exactly what Apple’s ProMotion is, and what it does for your devices. What exactly is Apple’s ProMotion? ProMotion is Apple’s dolled-up marketing term for a 120Hz refresh rate on the display. For years, 60Hz was the go-to…

After the United Kingdom began enforcing its sweeping Online Safety Act in April, British regulator Ofcom served violation notices to three notorious sites: 4chan, Gab, and Kiwi Farms, each of which risked multimillion-dollar fines. Late last week, Preston Byrne, a First Amendment lawyer representing them, struck back. Byrne announced he would sue Ofcom in US federal court and added an unusual request. He called on the Trump administration “to invoke all diplomatic and legal levers available to the United States” to protect his clients from the OSA’s reach.Byrne’s request could put a trio of sites known as hotbeds of violence,…

So much choice, so little time. So to help you out here’s our list of the top Now TV shows and series to watch today It might lack the overall cachet of Netflix and Amazon Prime, but Now is a streaming service worth shouting about. Not only does Now feature a best-in-class Movies package, it also offers a separate, nicely affordable “Entertainment Pass”. This pass grants you access to hundreds of TV shows and documentaries. Some are available in BBC iPlayer-style catch-up form (based on Sky’s broadcast channels) and box-sets featuring individual seasons or entire runs of a single show. There’s a lot…

I’m a child of the ’80s, an era of home micros, dodgy cassette tapes and cracking toys. For years, my bedroom floor was a minefield of Star Wars figures and ships – and then He-Man characters that looked like they’d got way too friendly with anabolic steroids. Then one day in a local toy shop, I stumbled across something new: Transformers. Robots that turned into cars and jets? Pure catnip to pre-teen me. Alas, my pocket money didn’t transform into a bigger pile of coins, and so I started with Mini-Autobot Gears, whose entire transformation amounted to flipping a truck upright and unfolding limbs. Still, it felt like magic. And…

In January, one of the wildest Intel prototypes I witnessed at CES was a giant handheld gaming PC with an 11-inch autostereoscopic (read: glasses-free) 3D screen, detachable controllers, an Intel Lunar Lake chip, and a dedicated toggle to switch between 2D and 3D modes.Co-developed by Intel and Tencent Games, it was called the Sunday Dragon 3D One and dubbed an experimental product. But now, Abxylute, the company best known for kickstarting a $199 cloud gaming handheld, tells The Verge that it will actually sell this massive Windows handheld as the Abxylute 3D One.It should go on sale in late September…

Fidji Simo is wrapping up her first week at OpenAI, where she is expected to oversee most of the company’s roughly 3,000 employees.To investors and partners, OpenAI leaders have been describing the former Instacart CEO as the kind of steady hand the company needs. Her mandate is clear: turn a chaotic, unprofitable startup into a disciplined, publicly traded tech giant. On paper, she seems well-suited. She lived through Facebook’s hyper-growth era in the early 2010s, helped take Instacart public, and knows the advertising industry inside and out — experience that will be valuable once ads arrive in ChatGPT.Simo’s arrival also…

Apple is suing a former employee on the Apple Watch team who left to join Oppo, alleging that he “conspired to steal Apple’s trade secrets relating to Apple Watch and to disclose them to his new employers.”Ahead of starting his new job at Oppo, the employee, Dr. Chen Shi, attended “dozens” of meetings with technical members on the Apple Watch team to learn about their work and downloaded 63 documents “from a protected Box folder” that he loaded onto a USB drive, according to the lawsuit. Shi allegedly sent a message to Oppo saying that he was working to “collect…

Meta is partnering with Midjourney to “license their aesthetic technology” for use in its own models and products, Meta’s new chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, announced on Friday. The partnership involves a “technical collaboration between our research teams,” Wang said, suggesting the deal involves more than simply using Midjourney’s existing product across Meta services.Wang didn’t specify the terms of arrangement. Meta spokesperson Ashley Gabriel declined to comment and pointed to Wang’s posts. Midjourney didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.Meta has been investing heavily in its AI “superintelligence” efforts as of late to catch up to rivals like OpenAI and…

Bluesky will block access from Mississippi IP addresses in response to a new state law requiring age verification and parental consent for underage users. The decision, outlined in a blog post, will stand until courts decide the fate of the law.“Mississippi’s approach would fundamentally change how users access Bluesky,” says the post, in ways that rules like the UK’s Online Safety Act (which Bluesky complies with) don’t. The law, HB 1126, “would block everyone from accessing the site — teens and adults — unless they hand over sensitive information, and once they do, the law in Mississippi requires Bluesky to…

Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer, and while the prospect of cooler weather and shorter days can be a tough adjustment, at least there is always a great selection of deals to combat the post-summer blues. You’ll have to wait until September 1st to celebrate the actual holiday, sure, but in the meantime, we’ve gone ahead and rounded up the best discounts you can get so far on a variety of Verge-approved gadgets and goods, from earbuds to the latest e-readers.Being that it’s nearly the end of August, it’s also a good reminder that the holidays will be…