6 – 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.

Antonio G. Di Benedetto
Antonio G. Di Benedetto
What should we test on Apple’s ridiculous $12,299 Mac Studio?

That’s not a typo. The M5 Ultra Mac Studio Apple sent us for review is a doozie. It’s got a 36-core CPU and 80-core GPU, 256GB of RAM, and 4TB of storage, making it mind-bogglingly expensive.

Our regular benchmarks aren’t much of a challenge. So what would you like to see us throw at it?

The review configuration of the M5 Ultra Mac Studio, priced out on Apple’s site.
The review configuration of the M5 Ultra Mac Studio, priced out on Apple’s site.
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Google’s revamping its ‘CC’ AI as an organizing agent for families.

It says the new version of CC can help families manage household tasks like sorting through emails, keeping track of everyone’s schedules, filling out permission slips, and creating shopping lists. Up to six users can manage and interact with the same CC agent and choose what to share with it.

A screenshot of a daily briefing from Google’s CC AI agent
Image: Google
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
King Charles says AI needs “sufficient means of control before it is all too late.”

He joined growing calls for more safety measures around AI at a gathering of AI leaders on Thursday, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Google’s Demis Hassabis, OpenAI’s Sarah Friar, and Anthropic’s Tino Cuéllar.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk reportedly have Trump’s ear on AI.

The three CEOs have apparently have been encouraging him to be hands-off with his approach to AI and “successfully stalled” a plan for an industry-funded AI regulator pitched by Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis, according to The Wall Street Journal. Trump also likes to call Huang while he’s onstage.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The international rollout of Alex Gibney’s Elon Musk movie was in doubt, but now it might happen.

Universal Pictures, which has the rights for Musk outside of North America, hasn’t put a release date on the film yet and sources told The Hollywood Reporter that they believed Universal would be dropping it. In a later report, though, THR said that its initial article led to meetings at Universal, and Universal’s head of comms said in a statement that that “The studio remains committed to releasing it in theaters internationally.”

My colleague Andrew Webster reviewed Musk this week.

Update: Added second THR report.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
A jury was shown this video of a Huawei employee allegedly stealing T-Mobile robot parts.

The video, posted by Inner City Press, was shown during the DOJ’s trial against Huawei, which kicked off last week and follows the 2018 arrest of Huawei’s CFO and an indictment in 2020.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
More people can get refunds from the FTC’s big settlement with Amazon.

The September 2025 agreement said that Amazon would pay up to $1.5 billion over “deceptive” Prime signup practices. But after a court approved a joint motion, more people now qualify for refunds, there is now a maximum payment cap of $200 (up from $51), and Amazon will distribute refunds automatically, according to a press release.

Janko Roettgers
Janko Roettgers
Plex co-founder Elan Feingold is back with a new music app.

Caldera Music brings your Plex music libraries and Winamp-style visuals to Apple TVs and Google TVs. Feingold is also building connected light fixtures and other weird and interesting hardware.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
A snippet about Snap Specs.

Late last night, we published my video about trying Snap’s Specs AR glasses at the company’s headquarters. The hardware, which costs $2,195, is interesting, but the experience of actually using them was rather finicky. Despite yesterday’s splashy launch event, the Specs also don’t yet have a firm release date beyond sometime this fall.

Check out my full article for more.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Amazon says some data was permanently lost after Persian Gulf data center drone strikes.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced on Tuesday that it was “unable to restore access to some customer data hosted in Persian Gulf data centers” following attacks by Iranian drone swarms in the spring that left facilities in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain still “mostly offline,” according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.

Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Tumblr Premium adds saved posts, collections, and animated avatars.

The long-running microblogging platform is adding a bunch of heavily requested features, including the ability to save posts for later and sort them into collections, like musings on physical media or quotes about creativity. Subscribers can also now use animated GIFs as their avatars.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Japanese airports now offer clothing compression machines to free up suitcase space.

Following trials earlier this year, Japan’s Haneda, Narita, Kumamoto, and Naha airports are starting a full-scale implementation of machines that can compress clothing into much smaller cubes in about a minute so tourists have more room in their suitcases. The machines don’t use vacuum bags and don’t damage clothing, according to SoraNews24.

<em>Depending on the type of fabric or material, clothing and towels can be reduced to up to one-seventh of their original volume.</em>
<em>Items like t-shirt compress more efficiently, and be uncompressed by laying them out for 15 minutes.</em>
<em>A full-scale rollout at four Japanese airports is expected in 2027 and may be available for travelers both arriving to and leaving the country.</em>
1/3
Depending on the type of fabric or material, clothing and towels can be reduced to up to one-seventh of their original volume.
Image: Sjoy Co.
TC Sottek
TC Sottek
Meet the three horsemen of the content apocalypse.

There’s a truly wild report today from Futurism about a trio of brothers who have built a content empire filled with fakery, including completely fabricated writers with huge credentials. Apparently they’re getting massive web traffic from this scheme. Maybe it’s a good thing Google is going to zero.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Steve Wozniak launched an online merch shop.

While announcing that he was planning to share more of his adventures on X, Steve Wozniak also revealed a new merchandise store. WozMerch.com carries everything from wireless power banks, to $700 carry-ons, to t-shirts featuring inspirational phrases and colorful images of the Apple co-founder himself.

A black t-shirt featuring a rainbow image of Steve Wozniak.
Image: WozMerch
Your robotaxi might be a narc

Waymo is watching you.

Rani Molla
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
If this week wasn’t dominated by headlines about how AI will kill us all, I’d be quite excited about this.

Google Home just announced MCP integration. Read about how this could help your smart home — assuming we’re not all living in a post-apocalyptic battery farm — in my explainer.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Apple will use the iPhone 18 Pro to shoot some of tomorrow night’s Giants vs. Dodgers game.

After using four iPhone 17 Pros during a Tigers vs. Red Sox game in 2025, Apple will use 14 of its new iPhone 18 Pro to capture “unique perspectives that would be difficult to achieve with traditional broadcast cameras” at tomorrow night’s season final of Friday Night Baseball. The cameras will record “positions within the pitch clock, backstop, foul pole, and both bullpens.”

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

An iPhone 17 Pro used to capture a MLB game at a stadium.
One of the four iPhone 17 Pro phones used to capture an MLB game in 2025.
Image: Apple TV Plus
Microsoft AI CEO says AI threats are real, and Anthropic is making it worse
Play

Mustafa Suleyman on the AI safety debate, why AI isn’t consciousness, and how the industry pushes toward alignment.

Nilay Patel
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Judge orders Google to make its ad tech work with rivals and share ad data with customers.

US District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema said in her unsealed ruling on Google’s ad tech trial that measures to break it up were “neither realistic nor needed,” the New York Times reports. Brinkema also called for Google to appoint a monitor to make sure it complies with the order.

The Apple Watch Series 12 is the start of a new wearable era

8

Verge Score

A surprisingly consequential update for the world’s most popular smartwatch.

Victoria Song
Tom Warren
Tom Warren
Bill Skarsgård is the lead role in Kojima’s Physint.

Physint just switched publishers from PlayStation to Xbox, and Hideo Kojima appeared at Xbox’s Tokyo game show stream today to reveal the lead role for the game. Swedish actor and producer Bill Skarsgård, best known for playing Pennywise the Clown in the It horror films, will portray the lead role alongside Charlee Fraser in Kojima’s upcoming action-espionage game. Kojima says Physint “continues to make steady progress,” months after Sony gave the studio an unexpected cancellation notice in June.

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Tim Cook and Sam Altman are also having dinner with China’s president.

They’ll be joining Nvidia’s Jensen Huang next week at a White House state dinner for Xi Jinping. It’s the first chance for Tim Cook to earn that $47 million pay package in his new role as Apple’s dedicated Trump whisperer: You is smart, you is strong, you is important.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Show’s over!

Spiegel just wrapped us up. I got to try the Specs, check out my story!

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Imogen Heap is onstage and doing an improv music show with Specs.

Heap is a Specs “visionary” (a celebrity partner), and she’s interacting with digital elements she can see in the Specs to make a song in real-time. It’s all very sci-fi.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Specs will have a Harry Potter-themed app.

Spiegel is trying it out now. He’s been flipping through a virtual book to try out different experiences, and got a letter from a virtual owl that was “sitting” on his arm. He’s also doing a Wingardium Leviosa spell.

I wore Snap’s $2,200 smart glasses

Snap has spent half a decade working toward its first consumer pair of AR glasses. They’re finally here — and they’re bold as can be.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Snap is opening a pop-up store for Specs where you can try the AR glasses.

The “SPECS First Look” opens at Westfield Century City in LA on October 1st, where you can “experience SPECS in person, meet members of the team, and check out what we’re building,” Snap says. Meta has also used pop-up shops as a way to show off its hardware.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Snap’s Specs are getting a charging case with cellular connectivity.

The case, available as part of a bundle for $2,395 (a $200 increase over the Specs on their own), gives you an option to more easily get internet while wearing the Specs. In the US, Snap is working with Verizon to offer data plans and financing options.

An image of the Snap Specs case.
The Snap Specs case.
Image: Snap
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Specs for your hobbies.

After a brief interlude about how Specs can work in enterprise environments, Spiegel is pitching how Specs can help you learn things. Spiegel is down a live demo showing himself practicing drawing. He’s using a real pen to trace a digital alien mascot that’s layered over a real piece of paper.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Even on stage, you can see a glow in front of Speigel’s eyes.

I usually can’t see his eyes — they’re hidden behind the digital content he’s looking at.

Right now, doing a live demo where he’s trying to watch a YouTube video in a browser on the Specs, and it’s not working. He’s starting all the way over. (It eventually worked.)

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Snap is going to stream Spiegel’s point of view from Specs he’s wearing onstage.

We’ll see how this goes! Right now, he’s showing some menus, including quick access items that he pulled up by looking at his palm.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Evan Spiegel is on stage at the Specs event.

He’s giving an overview of the Specs AR glasses, which were initially announced in June. He says we’ll get live demos.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
I’m seated for Snap’s big Specs launch event.

Made a friend walking in the door. I should have asked what he’s looking at.

The show starts at 7PM ET, and I’m planning to post anything interesting out of it. You can catch a livestream on Snap’s website.