2 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Tech

The latest tech news about the world’s best (and sometimes worst) hardware, apps, and much more. From top companies like Google and Apple to tiny startups vying for your attention, Verge Tech has the latest in what matters in technology daily.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
This over-engineered desk wirelessly charges your phone wherever you place it.

Instead of relying on a large array of charging coils to power up a Qi-compatible smartphone, this desk uses an overhead camera to locate devices and reposition a single moving charging coil beneath them. It first prioritizes charging phones before moving on to other devices and incorporates a transparent LCD as the desk’s surface that plays animations as power flows.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Meta wants to make game development multiplayer.

During a Meta Connect developer keynote today, the company showed off a “glimpse of the future” where multiple people were in a shared virtual world as playable characters but were also developing it in real time (including with the help of AI). I saw a live demo of it yesterday. As a concept, it’s pretty wild.

Check it out at the one hour and seven minute-mark of Meta’s Developer State of the Union.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
More people can view their digital wardrobe in Google Photos now.

Google is rolling out the feature to all Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in the US, India, and Brazil. It scans your photos to build a digital wardrobe of your clothes, allowing you to view separate pieces and try on new outfits virtually.

Muse sure looks a lot like OpenClaw

Meta’s new tool is very cute — and heavily inspired by its open-source predecessor.

Hayden Field
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Meta’s Developer State of the Union show is about to begin.

Check out the livestream from Meta Connect 2026 on YouTube. I’ll be watching.

It’s sinister that Meta’s Muse AI mascot is so cute

Meta wants to stuff this guy into everything and entrust it with productivity, health, and relationship goals.

Victoria Song
Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Here come those promised Pixel Watch health features.

The blood pressure trends, insulin resistance trends, and sleep breathing quality metrics mentioned at the 2026 Made By Google event weren’t available when the Pixel Watch 5 launched last month, but now Google says they’ll start rolling out to Watch 3 models and later this week. You can set them up in the Google Health app, and trend reports will arrive in “early October.”

Here’s the preview of the blood pressure trend feature we got last month.
Here’s the preview of the blood pressure trend feature we got last month.
Photo: Victoria Song / The Verge
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
8BitDo gives two of its controllers a Tomb Raider makeover.

To celebrate 30 years of Lara Croft’s adventures, reskinned versions of the $119.99 8BitDo Ultimate 3 for Xbox and $79.99 Pro 3 Bluetooth Gamepad are now available for preorder with an official release starting on October 24th.

1/3Image: 8BitDo
The Xbox reset gets uglyThe Xbox reset gets ugly
Tom Warren
Why can’t we just keep rogue AIs off the internet?

Air-gapping AI to keep it away from real-world targets makes testing safer, but less useful.

Robert Hart
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are reportedly planning their own AI safety organization.

According to The Information, the companies will call it the Standards Authority for Frontier AI, or SAFA, which could launch by early 2027. It would handle AI safety regulation tasks like “supporting third-party organizations that conduct testing of models before they’re deployed and laying out how AI developers should report safety and security incidents.”

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Free Rodecaster Video firmware update adds 4K support.

People have been asking for 4K, and Rode is giving it to them. The Rodecaster Video, Video S, and Video Core now have a 4K capture mode. They’re also getting expanded syncing capabilities with the Rodecaster Pro II and Duo for fully integrated audio/video production setups.

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I have some questions for Mark Zuckerberg
Play

What Mark Zuckerberg needs to answer about Meta Glasses, Muse, and teen safety.

Nilay Patel
Everything is spying on you and there’s no opting out

A new wave of AI-enhanced consumer creep-tech disregards the privacy of everyone but the wearer. The people have had enough.

Janus Rose
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Roland’s new bright yellow keyboard speaks Minion.

In an attempt to entice younger aspiring musicians to learn the piano, Roland has introduced a special edition of its GO:KEYS 3 electronic keyboard. While the company could have stopped at coloring it yellow and slapping Minions characters on it, Roland also packed the $450 keyboard with authentic Minions sounds and gibberish, including Bob, Kevin and Stuart’s voices.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Watch Joanna Stern grill Zuckerberg for 30 minutes.

The Verge cofounder got an extended sit-down with the Meta CEO at Connect yesterday. They covered “pervert glasses” and privacy, AI assistants and agents, and what exactly is going on with the Metaverse. He defends the company’s track record on privacy, and its future privacy plans: “More of the things that Meta is going to do going forward are going to look like WhatsApp.”

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Ruby on Rails creator: ‘We’re done writing code by hand.’

David Heinemeier Hansson, who also leads technology at Basecamp developer 37signals, announced the company is moving away from Ruby in favor of vibe-coding everything with AI agents. That’s despite admitting that attempts to do so with Basecamp 5 this spring provided “mixed” results, and claiming last year that he doesn’t use AI because he “can literally feel competence draining out of my fingers.”

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
YouTube is cooking up new Live features.

The Watch With live reactions feature is being expanded to all long-form videos later this year. Additional features are coming in 2027, including livestreamer matchmaking, interactive fan funding on co-hosted streams, and automatic speech translation and dubbing.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
The Motorola Signature 27 will run GrapheneOS.

When Motorola announced its funky-looking new flagship the other day, a bunch of you wanted to know if it falls under the partnership with Graphene. The devs previously said they were waiting for security features in Qualcomm’s new chips. GrapheneOS will also roll out to Motorola foldables, but the Signature 27 comes first.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Opera’s free VPN now offers automatic protection on public Wi-Fi.

The desktop version of the browser now offers an opt-in toggle to automatically enable the built-in VPN whenever you connect to a public or unsecured Wi-Fi network. Sounds like an easy way to make public Wi-Fi Russian roulette a little safer to play. It’s rolling out today in the US and France.

The new setting is an opt-in toggle, so you’ll have to go enable it today if you’re an Opera user.
The new setting is an opt-in toggle, so you’ll have to go enable it today if you’re an Opera user.
Image: Opera
John Higgins
John Higgins
The Beats 360 are essentially true wireless earbuds disguised as headphones.

As confirmed by Beats product manager Jeff Bruksch, the new Beats 360 headphones use a true wireless architecture with each earcup containing its own battery, antenna, and processing components. It allows Beats to “significantly reduce the cabling between the two sides,” according to Bruksch.

Because we don’t have the traditional system including a charging case, we have a cable for power supply and power management between the left and right sides so that you don’t have to charge both sides and the left and right sides power on/off together.

Having a cable for power management only explains the lack of audio support through the USB-C.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Meta’s VR Glasses are getting updated versions of some hit games.

Next year, you’ll be able to play versions of Beat Saber, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney — Dual Destinies, and Tetris Effect in VR on the glasses just with your hands — no controller needed. When the glasses launch in the spring, Meta says more than 75 hands-enabled games will be available.

A screenshot from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Dual Destinies VR.
Image: Capcom
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Soon, you’ll be able to rent or buy movies right on your Quest headset.

Meta is promising that “hundreds” of movies will be available “later this year” in the US, with “thousands of titles available internationally” when the new Meta VR Glasses launch in spring 2027.