5 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
An endurance watch with solar on both sides.

Des Yap did some initial testing of the new $649.99 T-Rex Dual Solar from Amazfit — the first endurance watch with a bright and colorful OLED to be fitted with teeny-weeny solar panels. The ring around the display can extend life a bit, but the larger rear panel around the heart-rate sensor can add a few percentage points of charge when you arrive at camp, or when the watch is slung off a running vest, so maybe you can leave your ultralight power bank home on your next multi-day adventure.

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Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
State of Decay developer Undead Labs announces layoffs as it goes independent.

While Undead Labs is avoiding closing as Xbox’s assortment of developers continues to shrink, the studio announced on LinkedIn that “Unfortunately, today we are also saying goodbye to a significant number of our colleagues. It’s difficult to reach this moment knowing that not everyone who helped get us here gets to make the rest of the journey with us.”

Its blog post earlier said that State of Decay 3 development “remains actively underway,” targeting a 2027 release on Xbox, Game Pass, PC, and PlayStation.

Xbox is barely Xbox anymore

Andrew Webster
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
The original smart oven goes dark.

Today, Weber shut down June Oven’s cloud servers, leaving ovens that cost up to $1,500 unable to do anything beyond basic functions.

Owners were notified in July that September 22 would be the end, cutting off remote control via the app, live camera viewing, AI food recognition, and software updates. The ovens still work through their built-in touchscreens, including local food recognition, but support for repairs and parts is also done.

Weber bought June in 2021 and quickly discontinued the ovens, folding June’s technology into Weber Connect. It says it won’t open-source the app because the IP is used in current and potentially future products.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
California will fine creators for sneaky political ads.

Over the weekend, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will penalize creators for failing to disclose paid political content, with fines reaching up to $5,000 per violation, The New York Times reports.

Though the FTC requires influencers to disclose product advertisements, it doesn’t have the same rules for paid political content, which has become widespread in recent campaigns.

Travis Larchuk
Travis Larchuk
Today’s Vergecast: DLSS 5 explained, with Linus Tech Tips.

Nvidia’s new DLSS 5 (Deep Learning Super Sampling 5) rendering technology uses AI to (theoretically) improve video game graphics. When it was announced, social media declared that it was “yassifying” video game characters, changing faces in a way game developers didn’t intend. Linus Tech Tips’ own Linus Sebastian and David Gauthier join guest host David Imel to break down the the hype and controversy.

TC Sottek
TC Sottek
Americans sour even more on data centers.

A new report from the Pew Research Center adds more data points to the thing everyone seems to know by now: data centers are pretty unpopular. Negative marks are up in every category Pew surveyed, with only 4% of respondents thinking that data centers “have a mostly good impact” across the board.

Remarkably, in just 7 months, people who say they’ve heard “nothing at all” about data centers dropped from 25% to 12%. Makes sense: they’re big, noisy, and increasingly have nowhere to hide.

Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
Tesla gets Grok Bot.

The AI agent can “manage your inbox, clean up your calendar, or talk through existing files/chat/tasks – all hands-free,” the company says. Some Tesla owners posted videos using Grok Bot to order Starbucks for them. The AI bot is only available to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers, who pay $300 a month for access. Bloomberg just reported that Grok Bot topped 400,000 weekly users roughly a month after launching.

TC Sottek
TC Sottek
Acer’s CEO expects PC prices to come down… eventually.

Digitimes reported on remarks from CEO Jason Chen, who said recently that he expects PC prices to rise another 20% before coming down in the second-half of 2027. The increase tracks with all of the component spikes we’ve seen, including rumors that AMD and Intel are both about to raise prices by another 10% this year. Chen reportedly said: “a lot of people come and tell us they want to raise prices, and we find it a bit baffling,” noting that memory suppliers have an incentive to push their current cost narrative.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Texas puts data center permits on hold.

Governor Greg Abbott ordered the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to stop granting permits to data centers while the state finishes an audit of the facilities that want to connect to its electric grid. Last week, Abbott also told state regulators to “impose legal consequences” on data centers that don’t disclose information about water usage.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
OpenAI launches faster and more efficient GPT-6 Sol and Luna models.

The two models come packaged with GPT-6 Astra’s advancements in professional work, accuracy, coding, computer use, and alignment, but with higher usage limits and lower costs, according to OpenAI.

ChatGPT Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Edu customers can access both models in ChatGPT Work and Codex, while free and Go users can only use GPT-6 Luna.

GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna’s performance in professional work.
GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna’s performance in professional work.
Image: OpenAI
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Earth’s Changelog highlights the good news around the world you probably missed.

If you need an alternative to all the soul-destroying news filling your feeds all day long you can point your browser to Changelog.earth which is a variation on video game patch notes that instead highlights all the positive progress our planet is making. Believe it or not, good things are still happening.

TC Sottek
TC Sottek
Hackers say they owned the whole FBI workforce.

404 Media reports, with Reuters corroborating in part, that hackers from ShinyHunters claim to have obtained information on “all FBI employees and applicants.” The data reportedly includes phone numbers, home addresses, dates of birth, and “in some cases” details on spouses. The group also reportedly defaced the FBI jobs page earlier today, which is currently displaying a “system unavailable” banner.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Valve is beta testing a new high bandwidth, low latency video codec that uses your GPU.

It may not benefit every setup, the company warns, but Pyrowave is a new Steam Remote Play high bandwidth, low latency video codec now available in Steam beta on macOS, Windows, and Linux. It uses “5-10 times the amount of bandwidth of other streaming codecs,” but leverages your PC’s GPU to “encode and decode frames to achieve extremely low end to end latency with a good network.”

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
DoorDash admits “we screwed up” in paying NYC workers.

The company will pay $131.5 million to settle an NYC legal dispute that accused DoorDash of underpaying workers. “Our mistakes meant some Dashers were underpaid or paid late,” DoorDash says.

The settlement includes $115 million for more than 260,000 impacted DoorDash workers, as well as over $16 million in civil penalties.

Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
Rivian CEO says R3 will be ‘materially’ cheaper than the R2 — and the R4 will be even cheaper.

“We haven’t announced pricing yet, but it will move materially lower,” Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said of the sporty hatchback of my (and many others) dreams, the R3, to the New York Times in a recent interview. “There’s a product beyond that, called R4, which again moves that further.” Wherefore R4? Perhaps one of these mystery vehicles teased a couple years ago?

Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
Waymo expands teen accounts to Nashville.

The company first introduced teen accounts in Phoenix last year, in which riders aged 13-17 can sign up to use the Waymo ridehail app. Now that opportunity is coming to Nashville, where Waymo first started offering rides to the broader public this summer. Teen accounts have to be linked to a parent or guardian, but approved teens will be allowed to ride independently without an adult. The teenagers that got early access were excited about the independence — and the ability to blast their own music. Here’s Nashville teen Asher Huffman, in a quote provided by Waymo:

I really enjoyed being able to hail a ride home from a concert without having to bother my parents, and I even got to show Waymo off to my friend. Getting to play my music as loud as I want, with no one else in the car, was also awesome. Kind of like I was in my own little bubble.”

Nilay Patel
Nilay Patel
Whoop and Peloton integration is finally here.

Vee has hands-on coverge of Peloton’s new treadmills, but the highlight for me is that the company has finally launched a full Whoop integration, which will sync detailed metrics and class info from Peloton workouts to the popular health wearable. Full details here.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
The screen-used hero Batmobile from Tim Burton’s Batman Returns is headed to auction.

If you’re on team Burton instead of team Nolan when it comes to which is the best Batmobile of all time, starting on November 23rd you can bid on an amazing piece of Batman memorabilia. Julien’s Auctions will have the screen-matched Batmobile hero car from Batman Returns up for grabs which is expected to fetch upwards of $7 million.

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1/3Image: Julien’s Auctions
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Jsaux’s E Ink and Pixel Matrix Steam Machine faceplates are now available.

After first teasing their designs last November, the $99.99 E Ink and $89.99 Pixel Matrix magnetic faceplates are now available for preorder from Jsaux’s online store. The Verge’s Sean Hollister got some hands-on time with both displays and while the colorful pixelated faceplate needs a constant USB-C connection to the console, the E Ink is wireless with Bluetooth and a battery.

If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Tom Warren
Tom Warren
Undead Labs has completed its separation from Xbox.

State of Decay 3 developer Undead Labs is now an independent employee-owned studio. It’s the third studio to successfully separate from Xbox, after Double Fine and Compulsion Games did the same recently. “Development of State of Decay 3 remains actively underway at Undead Labs,” says the team. The game is still planned to release in 2027 on Xbox (and Game Pass), PC, and PlayStation.

Sadly, it looks like Ninja Theory won’t be the fourth Xbox studio avoiding closure, though.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Is Apple Music experimenting with a new logo?

A redesigned wordmark has appeared at the start of a new promotional video for Apple Music Hall, and at the top of the venue’s website. That said, the current version is still being used across the Apple Music website, and displayed inside the new show venue. so it’s unclear if Apple will be using the new logo anywhere else.

A comparison between Apple Music wordmarks.
I rather like the redesigned version on the right, it feels more suited for the Apple style vibe. Thoughts?
Image: Apple
Xbox is barely Xbox anymoreXbox is barely Xbox anymore
Andrew Webster
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Zelda Williams slams deepfakers: ‘Have some shame.’

In a post on X, Williams criticized people for sharing a fake AI video that depicts her father Robin Williams pushing conspiracy theories, and said the clip is “not even particularly convincing.” It’s the latest of several condemnations the Williams family has made against AI fakery of the late actor.

“That supposedly ‘private video’ of dad that I’ve been shown talking about conspiracies is clearly AI, and not even particularly convincing AI. Anyone who claims to be a fan who believes it clearly listened to his movies on mute because that voice is robotic and terrible. That said, a human made a robot create it, and to you I say: leave him out of your delusional bullshit and let him rest. If you cannot make your case without making a dead man make it more convincing for you, then tell me: who’s the one manipulating the public thru media now? I hate this cesspool of an app. It’s mostly bots and people willingly being duped by bots at this point so not sure why I feel the need to come back to clarify, but I love him, so I will. Just because he’s gone does not mean he’s now your puppet. Have some shame.“
Here’s the full X post for those of you who prefer not to click through to the platform.
Image: X / The Verge
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
The new Apple Watches also reduce heart rate readings while Theater Mode is active.

If you’re worried about the green LEDs being a bigger distraction in a dark theater now that the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 measure your heart rate every five seconds, Theater Mode now reduces readings to five minute intervals while still silencing alerts and keeping the screen off. But you can override that new feature in the Apple Watch’s settings to restore the continuous monitoring.

The front and back of the Apple Watch Series 12 with its heart rate reading LEDs activated.
Image: Apple