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Weekend reads / Catch up on our favorite stories of the week.

What’s the catch with the Apple Upgrade program?What’s the catch with the Apple Upgrade program?

We did the math on Apple’s new device leasing program so you don’t have to.

Emma Roth
Smart rings are looking like my kind of AI gadget

While everyone tries to make smart glasses, pins, and everything else happen, the most subtle device might be the best device.

David Pierce
Xbox CEO lays out priorities in memo after major ‘reset’

Asha Sharma wants Xbox to return to growth.

Jay Peters and Tom Warren
Why China is giving away its best AI models

Chinese labs like Moonshot are forcing OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic to rethink what they lock away.

Robert Hart

Security alert / New models are raising questions about AI safety.

We’re running out of reasons to ignore AI safetyWe’re running out of reasons to ignore AI safety

In the aftermath of OpenAI’s attack on Hugging Face, experts say it’s time for everyone to take security far more seriously.

Robert Hart
Anthropic says Claude accidentally hacked real companies too

But swears OpenAI’s Hugging Face hack was worse.

Robert Hart
Attack of the killer script kiddies

In the aftermath of Mythos, AI-assisted amateur hackers are waiting to strike.

Yael Grauer
It’s time to panic about AI safety

On The Vergecast: Why everyone’s worried about powerful AI, and why it seems nobody will stop it. Plus, what’s a computer?

David Pierce

Fresh air / Gander at this gear for those who go outside.

Fine, electric mountain bikes don’t suckFine, electric mountain bikes don’t suck

It’s not cheating if you’re just having fun.

Thomas Ricker
This portable light is great for way more than camping

Even at home, I keep reaching for it again and again.

Thomas Ricker
Are you filthy enough for a $700 portable shower? 

The Hottap Go is an all-in-one hot water system that justifies its high price.

Thomas Ricker
DJI’s latest power station is proof that good things come in mini packages

The Power 1000 Mini is the smallest 1kWh power station you can buy.

Thomas Ricker

Streaming solutions / Gadgets and guides to help you find what to stream (and how to do it).

The library rules (and so do library streaming services)The library rules (and so do library streaming services)

This summer, take advantage of everything you can do indoors with the AC on.

Jay Peters
Kaleidescape’s movie player blows streaming, and your wallet, away
0

The Strato E combines the convenience of streaming and the quality of Blu-ray without discs — at a high cost.

John Higgins
The NTS Radio Player brings the best of internet radio to your hi-fi

It also supports your streaming service of choice.

Terrence O'Brien
Your guide to sci-fi streaming season

Silo, Dark Matter, and Sugar return, alongside a handful of all-new series.

Andrew Webster
Skylight’s smart calendars are up to $90 off during its back-to-school saleSkylight’s smart calendars are up to $90 off during its back-to-school sale

Skylight’s calendars make it easier for families to manage busy schedules, and they’re discounted through August 9th.

Sheena Vasani
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Capital One says it closed Trump ⁠Organization accounts over money laundering concerns.

In 2021, the bank closed over 300 accounts affiliated with the Trump family business. The reasons why weren’t made public at the time. Last year, the organization filed suit claiming the closures were politically motivated, but in a filing this week, Capital One revealed that they resulted from an anti-money laundering review.

“The closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by ‌Capital One’s AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance … The transaction patterns identified by Capital One are among the types of activity flagged by federal banking guidance.”

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
This robot plays pretty acoustic guitar melodies.

Music-playing robots are nothing new. It’s been 13 years since Compressorhead went viral, after all. But this DIY project from Reddit user MegCell is still pretty impressive. The melody isn’t hard-coded, either. Instead, the robot can read MusicXML files, meaning, theoretically, it can play almost any song you want.

Pixel 11 specs and price leak with no surprisesPixel 11 specs and price leak with no surprises

More confirmation that price hikes and RAM cuts are coming our way.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Truth Social’s priority access subscription goes live and raises corruption concerns.

Trump Media announced the plan earlier this month for paid, real-time access to its most influential accounts. Today the API went live, with subscriptions as high as $100,000 per month. Other platforms offer similar API services, but none of those count the sitting US president as its most influential user and its largest shareholder.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day leak racks up millions of viewsSpider-Man: Brand New Day leak racks up millions of views

But that didn’t stop it from breaking box office records.

Terrence O'Brien
TC Sottek
TC Sottek
“You always want to be exactly as much trouble as you are worth.”

Those are the words of John Oliver in The Hollywood Reporter, who has been at the helm of one of the best news shows ever to appear on television. Oliver’s contract just got extended another year. It’s an important life raft for his incisive news program, especially as the Ellison family continues to take over media in this country and threatens to ruin even more institutions.

Trump blames Tim Walz for water hacks even though it’s probably IranTrump blames Tim Walz for water hacks even though it’s probably Iran

As usual, the president offered no evidence of his off-the-cuff accusations.

Terrence O'Brien
The Verge’s 2026 back-to-school shopping guide
Cameron Faulkner, Brad Bourque and 1 more
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Google AI Studio is skipping the standalone Android app.

Instead, the company is just going to build its vibe coding tool directly into Gemini. Around 800,000 pre-ordered the mobile app after it was announced in May, but Google has decided to just make Gemini its one-stop AI shop. The robust web platform isn’t going anywhere, though, for those with bigger vibe-coded aspirations.

You could be taking way better photos on your phoneYou could be taking way better photos on your phone

It takes a little more work, but phones can now legitimately rival point and shoot cameras.

David Imel
The Mermaid Mask is a perfect vacation murder mysteryThe Mermaid Mask is a perfect vacation murder mystery

It kept me up way past my bedtime.

Jay Peters
The OG reading app just got a big updateThe OG reading app just got a big update

Plus, in this week’s Installer: Spider-Man is back again, a cozy game worth trying, Elon roasts, and much more.

David Pierce
With Switch 2, iPhone, and laptop tricks, the Sharge Disk Pro 2 is finally a worthy EDCWith Switch 2, iPhone, and laptop tricks, the Sharge Disk Pro 2 is finally a worthy EDC

It’s practically a USB-C Swiss Army Knife.

Sean Hollister
TC Sottek
TC Sottek
Microsoft wants to make Windows work better with 8GB of RAM.

And that’s a good thing, because its own 8GB Surface Laptop 13 struggles so much that it’s a tough buy. Microsoft’s other new areas of “focus” include making Windows onboarding and family controls easier to set up and making “voice [control] more natural and fluid” across apps.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
OpenAI has reportedly found that more of its AI agents went rogue.

Reuters reports the agents “escaped containment,” though they aren’t believed to have left “OpenAI’s network.” OpenAI’s blog post about the accidental hack of Hugging Face noted on Tuesday that the company has been finding “a small number of cases where the models identified and used publicly exposed credentials at the account-level on other publicly-available services.”

On Friday, Anthropic revealed that its Claude models hacked real companies during testing.

Update: Added information from an OpenAI blog post.

Apple’s new AirTags are back down to their best priceApple’s new AirTags are back down to their best price

The latest AirTags offer more precise tracking, a louder speaker, and longer range than before.

Sheena Vasani
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Amazon Luna now has a new Batman game.

Batman: Caped Crusader - Chronicles lets you and up to three friends tackle mysteries based on the Caped Crusader Prime Video show. It’s a clear example of Amazon’s recent push to tie its gaming efforts more closely with its streaming properties.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
You can play Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow natively on Android now.

As spotted by Android Authority, the new, unofficial Gen1Recomp port for the trio of classic Pokémon games also lets you easily add mods, like one that updates the games with cool 3D voxel graphics. You’ll need to use your own game ROM, though.

Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
Today I’m toying with a USB-C HDMI SSD multitool.

At $75 early bird Kickstarter or $90 retail, the Sharge Disk Pro 2 Ultra is a magnetic USB-C hub that doubles as a Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 dock, triples as a bring-your-own-SSD, and unlocks speedy ProRes storage for iPhone. Update: Here’s my full hands-on preview.

Google Earth’s AI deepfake tool only lasted one dayGoogle Earth’s AI deepfake tool only lasted one day

Letting people easily alter images with an AI prompt was a bad idea.

Jay Peters and Stevie Bonifield
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Reddit’s AI copyright lawsuit against Perplexity can move forward.

A judge rejected Perplexity’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which accuses the AI startup and three data-scraping services of vacuuming up Reddit’s content without permission. Ben Lee, Reddit’s chief legal officer, says in a statement to The Verge that the ruling “brings us one step closer to holding bad actors accountable:”

Reddit supports responsible access to public content, but we oppose companies that bypass our protections, ignore our rules, and profit off our communities without permission.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Hank Green says his YouTube channel “may need to pause” after admitting to relying on AI for research.

As Dexerto reports, Green says he wasn’t reading an AI prompt in a clip from a recent Ask Hank Anything video, but confessed that he’s been using AI “to locate papers and other resources for learning about topics.” In a Reddit post, he said he needs to “readjust” now.

I need to come to terms with the fact that the level of dopamine I’ve been getting from interacting with LLMs...with doing more and more and more and more...is not healthy for me or good for the world. It is careless, and has disconnected me from where people are on this.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The Pixel 11’s new light may be named the “HiLight.”

Saw this on 9to5Google. Bad name, IMO. I prefer the previously-rumored “Pixel Glow” is better.

The NHTSA is investigating 1.2 million Tesla vehicles over suspension failure reportsThe NHTSA is investigating 1.2 million Tesla vehicles over suspension failure reports

A potential suspension issue could cause ‘a loss of vehicle directional control.’

Emma Roth
Google might launch a ‘Pixel Tag’Google might launch a ‘Pixel Tag’

The company may be releasing its own take on an AirTag-like item tracker.

Jay Peters
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
OpenAI says its models now reach more than 1 billion weekly active users.

OpenAI shared the news in a blog post that highlights its efforts to make AI available to more people, saying: “Our goal is not simply more compute, bigger models, or lower token prices. It is more useful intelligence within reach.”

As part of these efforts, OpenAI announced on Thursday that it’s slashing the price of its GPT-5.6 Luna model by 80 percent and GPT-5.6 Terra by 20 percent.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Snapchat will no longer recommend ‘wholly AI-generated videos’ in its vertical video feed.

“As low-quality, repetitive, AI-generated content becomes increasingly common across the internet, we want Spotlight to remain a place where people can discover authentic creativity from real people,” Snap says.

Content that’s been “enhanced or edited using Snapchat’s AI creative tools” may still be recommended, and they include “transparency indicators.”

”Stop the Slop!” says CEO Evan Spiegel. “We’re keeping it real on Spotlight.”

Update: Added Spiegel’s post.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
The Daywalker is definitely dead.

The writing has been on the wall about Marvel’s Blade movie starring Mahershala Ali being dead in the water, but in a new interview with GQ, the actor explains why he’s done talking about the project falling apart:

Those questions are for them. They didn’t want to do it, so they should answer that question.

A quirky life sim for Switch that’s worth buying at $53A quirky life sim for Switch that’s worth buying at $53

Plus, score a deal on Apple woven USB-C charging cables, a Marshall Bluetooth speaker, or Tile Slim trackers.

Brad Bourque
Here’s the problem with putting an AI image generator in Google EarthHere’s the problem with putting an AI image generator in Google Earth

Even with Google’s watermarks and restrictions, a tool that created believable flyover images was ripe for misuse, as Henk van Ess demonstrated.

Stevie Bonifield
The major labels propose rules to keep AI slop off the chartsThe major labels propose rules to keep AI slop off the charts

To be eligible for the charts, songs would have to be ‘substantially human made,’ whatever that means.

Terrence O'Brien
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
YouTube is banning some popular ASMR creators.

According to 404 Media, impacted creators have received a notice from YouTube saying that the platform found “severe or repeated violations of our sex and nudity policy.” 404 notes that “Erotic ASMR exists, but that’s not what these artists were doing on YouTube.”

“We terminated these channels for linking to content that violates our nudity and sexual content policy,” YouTube spokesperson Boot Bullwinkle tells The Verge. “Our external link policies apply equally to all creators across YouTube, and this action was taken in accordance with our long-standing policies, not as a change in policy or targeting of ASMR content.”

Update: Added YouTube statement.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Who’s bankrolling Trump’s projects?

The Wall Street Journal gets into the “staggering” fundraising efforts launched by President Donald Trump and his team, including the tech giants making multimillion-dollar donations:

SoftBank donated $50 million toward Trump’s presidential library. Apple cut a check for around $25 million toward his White House ballroom project, while Microsoft gave around $10 million and Amazon chipped in around $5 million, according to people familiar with the contributions. Meta Platforms recently gave $10 million to a Trump-aligned political committee, people familiar said, on top of a multimillion donation to the ballroom and a prior $22 million payment to the planned presidential library.

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