Jess Weatherbed | The Verge

Now Google Chrome shares tabs to new devices that save where you were

2026-09-24T09:55:13-04:00

Google is rolling out some new Chrome browser features that are designed to make it easier to research and study complicated topics. The cross-device tab switching feature is getting a memory upgrade, alongside new capabilities for Gemini in Chrome that can analyze more types of media and generate interactive study quizzes.

Chrome has an existing feature that allows you to send a tab from your mobile to a computer (or vice versa) so you can quickly access the same webpage when switching devices. Now, this feature will also remember exactly where you had scrolled to on that tab when you switch, sparing you from having to manually find where you left off — a useful timesaver if you’re reading lengthy research documents. The update also preserves any half-filled forms, letting you complete them on desktop if doing so on mobile is tedious, or switch to mobile to finish them on the go.

Now you don’t have to scroll or search for keywords to pick up where you left off. | GIF: Google" data-portal-copyright="GIF: Google" />

Gemini in Chrome is also getting some new studying-focused perks. Capabilities that allow the AI bot to analyze, visualize, and summarize documents, webpages, and YouTube videos are being expanded to more types of media “to help you get more out of all of the educational content the web has to offer,” according to Google’s blog announcement. This includes podcasts and videos hosted outside of YouTube.

“Listening to a podcast on ancient Rome, or reviewing a recording of your last philosophy lecture?,” Google said. “Gemini in Chrome can identify key takeaways, find specific information, or clarify confusing moments for almost any audio or video file once you’ve played it through.”

Chrome’s Gemini integration can also now generate interactive quizzes based on the content that’s currently displayed on your open tab, providing another way to test your knowledge on subjects outside of just swotting up on notes and study materials. This feature is currently rolling out to the US and India in English on desktop, and will expand to other regions and mobile devices “in the coming months.”

Gemini 4 is almost ready, says new Google DeepMind chief

2026-09-24T05:04:18-04:00

Google is reportedly nearing the launch of its long awaited Gemini 4 model, after dawdling behind rival developers on flagship AI releases. Speaking with The Information during his first media appearance as the leader of Google’s DeepMind division, Koray Kavukcuoglu said that Gemini 4 is currently in its refinement stage, and that the company is aiming to launch the model “much earlier” than the end of the year.

“Our intention is to, like — as soon as possible — to release an early post-training output because we see the results and we are excited,” Kavukcuoglu told the publication, adding that Google would “continue the fast-paced iterations” going forward. This hopefully marks Google returning to a more consistent AI release timeline following a shakeup at DeepMind’s top leadership, with former AI head Demis Hassabis stepping down in August after announcing that “great progress” was being made on Gemini 4.

Google hasn’t released a new flagship AI model since the Gemini 3 series in November 2025. OpenAI’s GPT-6 and Anthropic’s Mythos series models have launched since then. Both outperform Gemini 3 and give the rival AI providers a sizable lead against Google in the AI race. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said at the I/O event in May that a major Gemini 3.5 Pro update would be coming in June to help bridge the gap, but the model was never rolled out.

Kavukcuoglu said the company “took a little bit of a step back” to focus on introducing faster, less powerful Flash models instead of releasing Gemini 3.5 Pro. When asked whether he was concerned about Google falling behind its rivals on AI development, he told The Information that “In my mind, it’s a certainty that we are always gonna be at the frontier.”

Logitech’s new Blue Yeti 2 mic adjusts itself to where you are

2026-09-23T12:01:45-04:00

The LED control display includes a Yeti mascot, because of course it does. | Image: Logitech G

The original Blue Yeti has been one of the most recognizable go-to USB microphones for content creators since it launched in 2009, and now it finally has a successor. Launching today under Logitech G, the Blue Yeti 2 adds some modern upgrades, including an interactive LED display, AI de-noising, and a proximity based voice sensor — which resolves a notable flaw with its predecessor’s design while still paying homage to it.

It’s available in black or white color options for $159.99, which is comparatively cheaper than Shure’s popular MV7 series USB microphones, which are the current choice for podcasters and start at $299. It’s also interestingly just $10 more than the original Blue Yeti’s launch price 17 years ago. A lot has happened since then, with Logitech acquiring the Blue audio production company for $117 million in 2018 and later killing the Blue brand entirely in 2023 when it merged the products with its own gaming-focused Logitech G sub brand. That means this new launch should just be called the Yeti 2, but Logitech clearly has some nostalgia to play with here.

If you prefer to manually adjust your gain and other audio settings then this image suggests you can do so. | Image: Logitech G" data-portal-copyright="Image: Logitech G" />

The Blue Yeti 2 includes a built-in audio proximity sensor that tracks your voice in 3D, and automatically adjusts gain, EQ, and pickup patterns to preserve recording quality regardless of how close or far you are when moving around the mic. That should make this a more beginner friendly USB microphone than the original, as you don’t need to have any knowledge or experience with manually tweaking those settings to achieve optimal results. Plus, it still retains a similar design to the OG Yeti which confused people into incorrectly speaking into the top of it, an issue this new sensor should address.

Here’s how the black and white color options compare… | Image: Logitech G" data-portal-copyright="Image: Logitech G" /> …and a closer look at that “Yeti character” that visualizes your audio setting adjustments. | Image: Logitech G" data-portal-copyright="Image: Logitech G" />

It provides up to 24-bit / 48 kHz high-resolution capture. Other audio features include integrated direct digital signal processing (DSP) to improve voice clarity without additional software, and AI-powered noise removal to reduce unwanted background sounds like computer fans and mouse clicks. Given Logitech is pitching this to streamers, the 1.3-inch color LED display on the front where the controls are located also features a “Yeti character” that provides visual feedback on gain levels and polar patterns.

Discord will now automatically estimate your age

2026-09-23T10:53:25-04:00

Discord is rolling out a new global age assurance system, seven months after pausing its previous verification measures following backlash from users. Starting today in every country except Australia and the UK, Discord will automatically assign users to an estimated age group based on “multiple account signals,” with account restrictions placed on users believed to be between 13 and 17.

The updates follow Discord slamming the brakes on its earlier age verification rollout in February in response to data privacy concerns. Its previous system required adults to verify themselves via video selfies or ID documentation, and faced criticism after a data breach at a third-party Discord vendor exposed user info and scanned photo IDs.

If Discord is unable to automatically assign you an age group, or places you in the wrong one, you’ll have to head to this setting to provide verification information. | Image: Discord" data-portal-copyright="Image: Discord" />

Since then, Discord has now pivoted to a system that shouldn’t require users to take any action themselves. According to the announcement from Discord cofounder Stanislav Vishnevskiy, signals examined by the platform’s age group estimation model include account age and history, activity levels across channels and servers, and connected communities, servers, and games. Vishnevskiy says the system doesn’t look at user “messages, calls, or other content,” and that its age estimation accuracy is on par with “what’s possible with biometrics.” Discord is anticipating that under this system, 90 percent of its users won’t be asked to confirm their age.

Here are all the methods Discord users can now use to manually verify their age. | Image: Discord" data-portal-copyright="Image: Discord" />

Users believed to be over 18 will be placed in the Adult age group, with no changes to their account. Users in the Teen age group will have certain safety protections enabled by default, including filters and blurring for sensitive content, and restricted access for +18 servers and messaging features. Discord pledged to introduce additional verification options when it paused the age assurance launch, and these are now rolling out as part of this update. Alongside face and ID scans, users can also choose to confirm their age via credit cards, Apple’s App Store, Google’s Play Store, Google Wallet, and the AgeKey credential system.

If Discord is unable to automatically estimate the user’s age, some settings and features won’t be available until the user provides additional information to confirm their age group in User Settings > Account Status. Adult users can also use this setting to supply additional verification details if they’re misassigned to the teen group.

“We believe meeting age requirements shouldn’t require ID checks or selfies for everyone. We’d prefer to give you more choices, including less intrusive options that don’t require biometrics or sensitive personal data,” said Vishnevskiy. “My hope is that our approach shows we can preserve what makes Discord special while taking seriously the responsibility that comes with it.”

OpenAI nabs key Patreon execs ahead of upcoming announcement

2026-09-25T10:42:23-04:00

Patreon cofounder Sam Yam is joining OpenAI to lead Creator Product. | Image: The Verge

OpenAI has hired three former Patreon execs to anchor its product strategy for creators. After starting the creator subscription platform 13 years ago, cofounder and technology chief Sam Yam announced on X that he’s joining OpenAI to lead Creator Product. He’s also bringing Patreon’s former product head Drew Rowny and engineering head Shannon Ma with him on the new venture, both of whom stepped down in the past few weeks.

“We’re going to build together with Creators at OpenAI and share early access to a new set of tools that I think will be critically valuable to Creators and their communities,” Yam said in his announcement. “Pay attention to OpenAI DevDay next week! I’m becoming active today (and experimenting with some innovative early tools here!)”

Dev Day is set for Tuesday, September 29th, though Yam also links to a post from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that teases another big announcement will be coming this week.

Bringing key Patreon execs on board suggests that OpenAI is exploring ways to enter the creator monetization business, given Patreon effectively set the blueprint for the creator-subscription economy as we know it. Losing Yam is another blow for Patreon, which recently announced an extensive update roadmap to overhaul its user features after laying off 20 percent of its staff in July.

Correction, September 25th: We incorrectly said that Patreon’s layoffs took place in January. The staffing reductions actually happened in July. We apologize for the error.

Meta patches Muse exploit that let attackers control the AI agent

2026-09-22T07:53:58-04:00

The zero-day exploit required local access to the user’s device, but gave potential attackers access to Muse accounts. | Image: The Verge

Meta has issued a patch for its Muse macOS app following the discovery of a zero-day vulnerability that could allow someone to take control of the AI agent. The bug found by security researcher Patrick Wardle utilized an undocumented Muse setting that enabled potential attackers running local code to redirect transcription processing from Meta’s servers to their own endpoint, Ars Technica reports, giving the attacker access to the Muse account.

Several design decisions reportedly enabled this flaw, including having Muse dictation occur in the cloud instead of on-device, and allowing any app to control all of Muse’s undocumented settings. Proof-of-concept attacks developed by Wardle to test the exploit enabled him to take pictures and write malicious files to disk via Muse, which did not alert the user in many cases.

“We can manipulate the agent and leverage its privileges to do whatever we want. So instead of us having to write a very comprehensive Mac malware stealer, we can just leverage the AI assistant itself,” Wardle told Ars Technica. “At the very least, they should be thinking about security from the very start, and they are just not.”

That stands in contrast with the emphasis that Meta placed on Muse’s privacy and security features when it announced the AI agent earlier this month. Meta patched the vulnerability in the hours following the Ars report being published, and asserts that real-world security concerns were minimal because the exploit required local access to the user’s device.

“This was a local privilege escalation attack, not a remote exploit. Using it to do harm therefore requires malicious code already running on the user’s machine under their user account and the practical risk to users of the Muse Mac app was therefore quite low,” David Singleton of Meta Superintelligence Labs said on X. “Nonetheless, we have issued a hotfix to the app to address the issue.”

While quickly addressed, the Muse exploit comes at a time when Meta’s AI agent is already being scrutinized as the company tries to claw back ground from rival AI providers. Amazon recently blocked Muse from accessing its e-commerce platform and claims Meta never obtained its permission to do so. Still, the launch has been successful for Meta — during its first 12 days, estimated downloads of the Muse mobile app have reportedly outpaced ChatGPT’s own 12-day debut in the US and Canada, with Meta stock climbing by 11 percent on Monday.

Apple’s first live music venue is opening beneath its UK headquarters

2026-09-22T05:56:03-04:00

The venue is opening below Battersea Power Station, also well recognized for featuring on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals album. | Image: Apple

Apple is preparing to open a new “state-of-the-art” live music venue in the UK, a 600-capacity space for hosting performances, recording sessions, and video broadcasts. The venue, called Apple Music Hall, is located underneath Apple’s European headquarters in London’s iconic Battersea Power Station, and is set to open next week on September 28th. Details about the opening show have yet to be announced.

“Apple’s deep love for music dates all the way back to the very beginning, from the launch of the iPod to the long-running iTunes Music Festival to the debut of Apple Music,” said Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and International Content. “Today, with the opening of Apple Music Hall, we are once again taking an unprecedented step further in our commitment to artists and fans by supporting live music in ways only Apple can do.”

The staging area is a pit-like space that can be reconfigured for traditional front-facing sets or more in-the-round experiences. | Image: Apple" data-portal-copyright="Image: Apple" /> Here you can see what appears to be viewing balconies. Apple says that performances out of Apple Music Hall will also be livestreamed globally. | Image: Apple" data-portal-copyright="Image: Apple" /> This room is described as the foyer, and so will likely be used as a waiting area prior to performances. | Image: Apple" data-portal-copyright="Image: Apple" />

The limited capacity and layout is “designed intentionally to close the gap between intimacy and production value,” according to Apple’s announcement, with seating that feels close to the performer while providing artists with a 38-foot-wide stage that can be reconfigured to their needs. Apple Music Hall has a 48-speaker spatial sound system positioned around the audience, is hardwired for 16 or more broadcast cameras, and includes two dedicated recording and mixing studios behind the stage that allow it to operate as a full production facility.

Here you can see some shots of the new Apple Music radio studio. | Image: Apple" data-portal-copyright="Image: Apple" /> Here you can see some shots of the new Apple Music radio studio. | Image: Apple" data-portal-copyright="Image: Apple" /> Here you can see some shots of the new Apple Music radio studio. | Image: Apple" data-portal-copyright="Image: Apple" /> And a look inside a new green room, where more intimate interviews with artists may take place. | Image: Apple" data-portal-copyright="Image: Apple" />

The performance space is opening alongside new Apple Music radio studios in Battersea, with Apple announcing that all of its London-based hosts and shows will now broadcast from the facility. “We’re always looking for new opportunities to connect the artists and the fans because we are fans,” said Apple Music’s global creative director, Zane Lowe. “Great music and memories will be made at Apple Music Hall.”

Apple Music Hall marks the company’s return to London’s music scene, having previously run the iTunes Music Festival in England’s capital city for a decade — hosting acts like One Direction, Lady Gaga, Elton John, and Adele at intimate local venues — before its cancellation in 2017. Battersea Power Station, a decommissioned Art Deco facility that reopened in 2022, also has its own roots in music history, having appeared on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals album.

Apple’s clever software solution lets iPhone batteries skirt shipping limits

2026-09-21T08:37:27-04:00

Apple has developed an unexpected workaround to prevent the iPhone 18 Pro Max from being hit by shipping restrictions on big batteries. There’s a “battery-firmware solution” in place on the new iPhones, according to Apple’s support page, which keeps capacity below the 20Wh limit for single-cell batteries set by international shipping regulations — but this firmware lock automatically removes itself when the device is booted up for the first time.

Following user activation, the iPhone 18 Pro Max is restored to its original rated charging capacity, which is around 21.75Wh for US eSIM-only models and 21.06Wh for European models with a physical SIM slot. If the user needs to send off their phone for repair or resale, the charging limitation can be restored using the “Prepare to Ship” feature, which caps charging to 80 percent for 14 days. The restoration feature can be found under the settings menu by opening General settings, tapping Transfer or Reset iPhone, and then Prepare to Ship.

Apple says the iPhone 18 Pro Max battery “might need to discharge for Prepare to Ship to complete,” and may become warmer than usual during the process. Prepare to Ship can be disabled at any time by heading back into the settings menu.

It’s a novel way to circumvent the battery capacity limits as phone makers continue to chase longer battery life while shrinking devices. By comparison, Android manufacturers generally tend to ship their devices with smaller, dual-cell batteries outside Asia to get around the same shipping restrictions, but those solutions are costlier and less efficient in terms of physical space. If Apple’s firmware fix pans out, we may see Android manufacturers offering a similar solution.

Teardown details the iPhone 18 Pro’s mechanical camera

2026-09-21T09:00:52-04:00

Each of those teeny lens blades is around the same thickness as a human hair. | Image: iFixit

iFixit’s latest device teardown shows us the inner workings of the new variable aperture lens inside Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max, alongside some repair concerns to be mindful of. The adjustable mechanical iris opens and closes magnetically, controlling how much light should pass through to the sensor, featuring six leaf-like overlapping blades that are each about as thin as a human hair.

You can see that scale comparison yourself below in a side-by-side image that iFixit took using a Evident DSX2000 microscope. Cramming that mechanism into the same main camera footprint as the iPhone 17 Pro series models is impressive, with iFixit describing Apple’s variable aperture lens as “a feat of precision engineering.” That said, in our own iPhone 18 Pro review we found it made a “generally marginal” improvement on overall photography, so novice snappers may not even notice any difference.

Here you can see the lens blade up top, compared against the thickness of a human hair below it. | Image: iFixit" data-portal-copyright="Image: iFixit" /> iFixit demonstrated how the blades open and close by passing a magnet over the unpowered iPhone 18 Pro rear camera module. | GIF: iFixit" data-portal-copyright="GIF: iFixit" />

The downside is that mechanism itself probably can’t be fixed if something breaks. Doing so would require specialist tools, techniques, and knowledge that few people possess, making this as close to “impossible” to repair as it gets, according to iFixit. That means users will likely have to replace the entire camera assembly, which is thankfully easy to access. Apple hasn’t released components for its latest iPhone models yet, but the iPhone 17 Pro camera assembly is $249, so we can probably expect the fancy variable aperture lens to increase the repair price for the 18 Pro and Pro Max versions.

Amazon blocks Meta’s Muse AI agent

2026-09-21T09:46:59-04:00

Meta’s Muse AI agent has been blocked from shopping Amazon on behalf of its users, GeekWire reports. A popup message started appearing on Sunday for Muse users saying that “continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon’s Conditions of Use, to which our customers have agreed.”

According to GeekWire, Meta didn’t notify Amazon that Muse would access its store. Amazon also expressed privacy and security concerns over Muse failing to identify itself when it browses, and seemingly capturing customer credentials.

“We think it’s fairly straightforward that third-party applications that offer to make purchases on behalf of customers from other businesses should operate openly and respect service provider decisions about whether or not to participate,” an unnamed Amazon spokesperson said in a statement to GeekWire. We have reached out to Meta for comment.

When Meta launched Muse earlier this month, it said the AI agent cannot see secure login details or card payment information. We used it during testing to successfully purchase tank tops from Amazon while other products were in the basket. Some privacy concerns have emerged since launch, however, with reports that Muse can see the contents of user messages despite not having the necessary access permission enabled.

This marks Amazon’s latest effort to fend off competition from rival agentic AI services and keep its customers shopping with the retailer directly. It sued Perplexity in November last year in a similar attempt to keep the Amazon platform out of the AI search provider’s Comet shopping experience, with a judge siding with Perplexity on the case in August. Confirmation emails from Amazon have also started looking notably sparse since July, with specific item names and product images being omitted to limit that information from being mined by external AI services.