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.
It’s planning to run full-page ads in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and New York Times on Thursday, according to NYT reporter Mike Isaac, on the heels of Meta’s $17 billion settlement with state AGs. Meta is using the settlement to urge its top competitors to take on similar restrictions.
Usually buying new hardware ahead of a revision is a bad thing, but some Mac Mini orders are getting a free upgrade as a result, probably due to RAM and other component shortages.
Some have reported M6 upgrades, while this poster on Reddit is now receiving an M5 Pro. The only downside? While some delivery dates have moved up, MacRumors points out that at least one student says theirs will now ship several weeks later.
You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to preorder the $899.99 translucent green Xbox Series X (unless you received an early invitation from Microsoft), but you can preorder the matching controller now for $79.99. The device will begin shipping on October 20th.
A report from Reuters details Mark Zuckerberg’s “Project Organization Transformation” — a plan that involved having AI “take over much of the daily work performed by thousands of human employees.” Though Meta went through with layoffs affecting 10 percent of its workforce in May, Reuters reports that the company called off further cuts in November as employees began to revolt.
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There’s nothing really wrong with the QuietComfort Headphones 2nd Gen, but there’s nothing exciting about them, either.
It uses a USB4 interface to reach speeds up to 4,000MB/s. Hitting those peak speeds requires a native USB4 or Thunderbolt 4/5 port, and dedicated Thunderbolt 5 SSDs can hit an even faster 6,000MB/s if you’re willing to pay. The P9 starts at $339.99 for 1TB, or $2,699.99 for a whopping 8TB. Sales start August 31st.
Arduino and Qualcomm have opened preorders for the Ventuno Q, an edge AI board designed to run agentic AI locally. Powered by a Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ8 processor offering up to 40 TOPS alongside a dedicated real-time microcontroller, it allows smart devices and robots to process vision, speech, and sensor data completely offline.
Available now for preorder and shipping in “early 2027,” Luffu Link is a screenless, LTE-connected health and safety band for families. Featuring built-in GPS, continuous biometric tracking, and AI-powered voice logging, it lets wearers send their location and emergency alerts to contacts without a phone, and lasts for up to five days before needing a charge.
A new RoboCop show was recently greenlit for Amazon’s Prime Video, and Deadline reports that Stevens will play the lead role. A release date hasn’t been announced, but it’s apparently set to be an eight-episode series.
The GitHub page for the open source project says that, on Monday, “cease and desist letters were sent by X Corp. demanding a permanent takedown of Nitter instances and the project’s repository.” X claims Nitter unlawfully used X’s API, TechCrunch reports.
Nitter was used by the service XCancel, which has also posted a message about receiving a cease and desist letter from X.
In contrast to Threads, Bluesky’s active user growth has trailed off lately, and as it looks to expand its big tent, it’s making one part of the experience better: video.
The maximum length of videos has gone from two minutes to 10 minutes, uploads should be 2-3x faster, and file sizes can be up to 300MB. To kick things off, the official account is featuring a few longer videos like this one.
Starting on August 31st, you’ll be able to start, stop, and pause Gemini’s “take notes for me” feature directly from Google’s meeting room touch controllers. Currently, you have to join the Google Meet from another device in Companion Mode to control the AI notetaking feature.
As spotted earlier by GSMArena, the Nokia 300 Charge offers up to 40 days of standby power but can also serve as a power bank for your smartphone or other devices. There’s a built-in flashlight on the top of the phone, too.
Anthropic has added memory to Cowork, and it’s the same one Claude’s chatbot already uses, making it easier to pick up tasks without re-explaining important information. Memory is on by default, but won’t save sensitive topics like health or beliefs unless you manually enable that setting.
The LG Gallery TV with Frame, originally announced at CES 2026, is now available alongside a collaboration with The Met that gets you access to over 100 works from its collection. It’s already discounted and cheaper than The Frame — $800 for the 55 inch and $1,000 for the 65 inch — and a white frame is included.
As usual, another great segment from Last Week Tonight on corporate greed, consumer protection, and one of our favorite subjects: dark patterns. But we can’t help but notice Oliver roasts Verge alum and friend Joanna Stern for still having a fax subscription (around 10m40s in the video.) Don’t worry, we’re still ride or die, Joanna.
Unlike the computer-controlling AI tool Perplexity launched earlier this year, the Portable Computer feature runs AI models fully locally and will ask for permission if it needs to access the cloud “for more advanced research and reasoning.” It will be available on Nvidia’s DGX Spark first, before rolling out to PCs with compatible Nvidia RTX GPUs.
[Perplexity]
Apple made the slightly controversial decision to put the power button on the bottom of the M4 Mac Mini, and that’s still the case on the newly announced M6 and M5 Pro models.
If you find that irksome, a workaround on macOS 26.5 and later is to set your Mac to always automatically turn on when it receives power — handy after a power outage.
Along with a financial research agent, Google says its new AI legal tool can help law firms draft legal briefs, manage upcoming regulations, and verify citations — something that’s become a big problem as more lawyers adopt AI.
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[Google Cloud Press Corner]
According to Smartlights, Philips Hue is planning to launch a wall light module and adapters for Nanoleaf Triangle, Mini Triangle, and Hexagon panels. It’ll reportedly cost around €40, but that might be worth it if I could control my lights without using Nanoleaf’s laggy app.
Android users will now see more information about non-contact callers, such as what country the number is from and if you have groups in common. Starting today, WhatsApp also lets you add full passwords to two-factor verification, and multiple passkeys to Android and iOS devices.
