Author: News Room

From fancy OLED TVs to robot vacuums with arms, we tend to cover a lot of cool stuff here at The Verge that, unfortunately, often costs as much as a month’s rent (or more). But with the ongoing tariff situation in the US and a global memory shortage pushing up the cost of, well, everything, we’re well aware that not everyone can spend that kind of money right now.So, as we did last year, we asked The Verge staff to share some of their favorite gadgets under $50. These are the gizmos that don’t fall apart after a few weeks,…

Two years ago I attended a picturesque outdoor wedding in August where the hot and humid weather had guests occasionally ducking into their cars to enjoy a blast of AC. Dyson’s new $99.99 handheld fan would have provided some much-needed relief then, although I’m not sure I would have been comfortable powering it up during the service or reception. The HushJet Mini Cool is as slim and sleek as Dyson’s recent thin vacuum and hair dryer, but it’s not quiet enough to earn the name “Hush.”That’s unfortunate because the HushJet Mini Cool is yet another product Dyson has redesigned to…

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 124, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, send me your Coachella fits, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I’ve been reading about restaurant bread and GLP-1s and Lenny Rachitsky and Artemis II fashion, watching the new boy band doc because I will always watch a boy band doc, also watching every clip I can find from Justin Bieber’s Coachella set, filling the Schitt’s Creek-shaped hole in my heart with Big Mistakes, getting increasingly excited about The…

Want the warmth of analogue audio with modern cordless convenience? The best record players offer exactly that There are plenty of reasons to listen to music using vinyl. Big sleeve artwork is one. Warm analogue sound is another. But while the former just requires your eyes to appreciate, only the best turntables will help you extract that audio loveliness from your record collection. And that’s whether you’re listening through an amplifier and a pair of passive speakers or through a wireless speaker. These record players can fire tracks from your favourite records through Bluetooth speakers – without a wire in…

In the mid-1990s, I was at art college when my supremely talented tutor, Paul Granjon, decided to show a few students this new thing called ‘the internet’. He plugged in his Mac and a modem. Plenty of screeching noises and a couple of minutes later, we were online. Which in those days meant you could type even a quite generic term into a search engine and get only a few dozen results. Paul then showed us the source code for a web page and, in a weird collision of nerdery and punk, insisted anyone could make one. To me, this felt…

Tinder users who prove they’re a real person by visiting an identity-verifying orb will soon be able to get five free boosts in the app — and it’s just the latest service to embrace the orb. World, which was co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, initially tested Tinder verification using its facial scanning orbs through a pilot program in Japan last year. It’s now expanding the service to “select markets, including Japan and the United States.”To verify that they’re not a bot or an AI agent, users have to physically visit one of World’s orbs in person. According to World,…

Earlier this week, Amazon announced a new Fire Stick HD streaming stick with a slimmer design, faster browsing and improved connectivity. However, there was one new feature Amazon didn’t mention in its announcement – the presence of the Vega OS instead of the forked version of Android. Lowpass received word from Amazon that Vega – which debuted on Amazon’s Echo Show smart displays before landing on a Fire TV Stick 4K Select last autumn – is running the show for the first time on a HD model. Vega is based on Linux-based and the rollout is somewhat complicated by support…

Some of us take a kind of “eat to live” rather than a “live to eat” approach to gadgets. They’re tools that help you get things done, not something you want to invest a lot of time or money in. If that’s you — and there’s no judgment here from a certifiable gadget nerd — then you can probably think of more worthwhile ways to spend $1,000 than on a phone.Budget phones to the rescue. These devices are roughly $600 or under, and they’re more capable than ever. You won’t get all the bells and whistles, but you will save…

Google is working on a new hardware-based lighting fixture called Pixel Glow, judging by code spotted within the latest Android 17 beta, and it could be here as soon as the next Pixel phones. In its latest APK Insight piece, 9to5Google found that Google is working on a Pixel branded laptop that’ll have a lighting feature called Pixel Glow. It sounds a lot like the Glyph interface on the Nothing Phone series, which offers different light indicators to represent different notifications on the phone. While the report mentions a Pixel laptop, it would seem a no brainer that Google would…

Prediction market exchanges have created an environment where just about any piece of information is potentially monetizable: How well will BTS’s new song perform this week? How hot will Los Angeles get? Will Donald Trump be impeached? Users can wager on all of that and, on some platforms, more gruesome and violent outcomes in the real world.The rapid rise and expansion of Polymarket and Kalshi have put newsrooms in a strange position. Prediction market evangelists often claim that their odds are more trustworthy and accurate than polls and traditional media — effectively positioning the industry as a replacement for news.…

Introduction It fits into your pocket like a smartphone. It runs on Android 15 like a phone. It has a big colour touchscreen like a phone, a camera like a phone – and even a SIM card slot like a phone. But is the Boox Palma 2 Pro a phone? Not on your nelly. Technically, this is a pocket-sized e-ink tablet that supports mobile data but not calls or messaging – making it, by my reckoning, about 90% of a smartphone. Quite why Boox decided not to support that last 10% is a bit of a mystery to me, but…

I’ve never been as charmed and frustrated by one gadget as I have with the Poetry Camera.It’s a delightful object. White and cherry red with a color-matched woven strap, it looks playful and adorably lo-fi. If I saw it on a store shelf, I’d absolutely pick it up.But aside from obviously appealing, I’m not exactly sure what it is. I mean, I know what it is. It’s a camera that makes AI poems instead of photos. You take a picture, and instead of printing a photo, you get an AI-generated poem inspired by the scene, printed on thermal receipt paper.…