Tech

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 103, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, sorry everything's so expensive this week, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about gooning and Costco and protein bars and […]

Right now, there are robots stocking convenience store shelves in Japan. We haven't embraced that tech here in America yet, but it's hard to imagine 7-11 or Walmart won't at least experiment with it soon. Walmart gave up on its shelf-scanning robots in 2020, but machine vision and AI have improved a lot in the […]

Apple’s AirTags have become one of my essentials while traveling, namely because they let me check whether my luggage is in the right place instead of panicking at the baggage claim. And right now, you can get a four-pack of AirTags at Amazon and Walmart for $64.99 ($35 off), which is just a few cents […]

It's easy to get into the weeds on a hobby, especially if you're into PC gaming and dreaming of the highest levels of graphical performance. But how much is too much for hardware? Spending top dollar on graphics power, processing, RAM, storage, etc. - like many things - eventually leads to diminishing returns. When it […]

As Immigration and Customs Enforcement carries out raids across the country, the agency is working rapidly to expand an online surveillance system that could potentially track millions of users on the web. Federal records uncovered by The Lever reveal that ICE is paying $5.7 million to use an AI-powered social media monitoring platform called Zignal […]

It took me a while to get into Ball x Pit. The new roguelike blends elements from games like Breakout, Vampire Survivors, and even city builders, creating a complex mix of ideas. But as is the case with many roguelikes, once I figured everything out well enough to get a taste of my first win, […]

During a recent all-hands meeting, Waymo's chief winter weather expert laid it out for all the company's engineers and product managers: if Waymo wants to expand to new cities and new markets, it's robotaxis will need to be able to confidently and safely handle the snow. In its first few years of operation, Waymo has […]

It's dusk, and bugs are chirping all around me. I'm wandering through the middle of a big, virtual swamp toward the sound of thumping bass off in the distance. There isn't much else nearby - some trees, a couple of other players. It's mostly just me and the sound emanating from a large wooden structure […]

This is an excerpt of Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week. Sam Altman has tapped Mikhail Shapiro, an award-winning biomolecular engineer, to join the Merge Labs brain-computer interface startup he's set to announce soon with co-founder Alex Blania. While Shapiro's […]

Earlier this week, Jon Prosser, who is being sued by Apple for allegedly stealing trade secrets, told The Verge that he has been “in active communications with Apple since the beginning stages of this case.” But Apple, in a new filing on Thursday that was reported on by MacRumors, said that while Prosser has “publicly […]

Want to flex your Wordle habit beyond just keeping your streak? The New York Times has added badges to recognize certain achievements in Wordle, Spelling Bee, and Connections. “Have you achieved the infamous Wordle in 1? What about the Perfect Connections Puzzle? How many Pangrams are under your Spelling Bee belt? Badges are rewards you […]