technology

After last week’s major Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage took Signal along with it, Elon Musk was quick to criticize the encrypted messaging app’s reliance on big tech. But Signal president Meredith Whittaker argues that the company didn’t have any other choice but to use AWS or another major cloud provider. “The problem here is […]

Samsung warned us last month that ads were coming to the giant Android tablets embedded in its Family Hub smart fridges. I've been eyeing mine ever since - and the first ones are about to arrive. Starting November 3rd, the $2,000-plus connected fridges will get a new widget that serves up ads, Shane Higby, head […]

There are only a handful of albums that I think qualify as genuinely scary. You Won't Get What You Want by Daughters, and Swans To Be Kind both immediately come to mind. But those records come with… let's say, baggage. I've Seen All I Need to See lacks some of the atmospheric spookiness of To […]

Adobe’s computational photography app, Project Indigo, had a bit of trouble adapting to the new square-format selfie sensor in the iPhone 17 series. For the last month or so, the app simply didn’t support Apple’s latest phones at all. Adobe was working behind the scenes to get things up and running, and posting occasional updates […]

"Sharp Dressed Man," by ZZ Top. Hard on a good day, Medium when my friends were over, Expert once and then never ever again. That was my Guitar Hero sweet spot. And for years, it seemed like everybody had one. The plastic guitar controllers became a staple of living rooms everywhere, and the songs - […]

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the legal morass of AI, follow Adi Robertson. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started The song was called "Heart on My Sleeve," and […]

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, […]