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Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Paramount’s Warner deal gets conditional approval in the EU.

While Paramount’s $110 billion WBD merger is suddenly on hold in the US, in Europe, the European Commission is ready to allow it after Paramount agreed to concessions including giving up its stake in United International Pictures within 13 months of the deal closing.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Bethesda’s union claims laid off employees were told they’d have jobs until September.

The OneBGS union said in a post that Bethesda laid off some of its Canadian employees on July 17th, weeks sooner than employees were warned the layoffs would happen, PC Gamer reports. That same day, Bethesda announced it’s working on Fallout 5.

Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Valve made it easier to find games on your Steam wishlist.

As GamesRadar+ reports, you can now create custom categories for your wishlist, like “buy when on sale,” which could make organization easier for those of us with giant Steam wishlists (myself included). You can filter your wishlist by category and set custom notifications for specific categories.

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

A screenshot of the custom categories editor in a Steam wishlist
Image: Valve
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Google says Gemini now has 950 million monthly users.

It’s a sizeable jump from the 750 million Gemini users Google reported in February. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, shared the stat as part of its Q2 2026 earnings report (pdf), which also revealed a 24 percent increase in revenue to $119.8 billion.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Trump administration announces hundreds of “Genesis Mission” AI science projects.

The push to solve issues, including the soaring energy demands of AI data centers, using AI, revealed “more than $5 billion in Federal commitments” across 278 awards and 342 institutions in its list of awards.

Big tech companies like Microsoft and Google have announced millions in compute and AI credits for the effort, but this WSJ report says the administration could give political appointees more power over grants, while prioritizing fellowships and awards for individuals could hurt large universities reliant on federal research funding.

Cameron Faulkner
Cameron Faulkner
It’s now easier to gift Steam games, even if you don’t have an account.

Valve has made improvements to its gifting processes in Steam, particularly for guest shoppers without an account. You can buy games, not just gift cards or hardware. You can also gift games to an email address, even if it’s not associated with the giftee’s account. Easier cross-region gifting, too. Good stuff.

Note the “Enter email” section that has been added. You don’t need to know the recipient’s Steam account, or have them added as a friend.
Note the “Enter email” section that has been added. You don’t need to know the recipient’s Steam account, or have them added as a friend.
Image: Valve
Lauren Feiner
Lauren Feiner
Mamdani hires Lina Khan to chair economic development in NYC.

The former Federal Trade Commission chair under Biden will help lead the city’s Economic Development Corporation, alongside newly announced president Anthony Shorris, who recently worked as a partner at McKinsey.

Khan was known at the FTC for pursuing antitrust action against Big Tech, which often riled up the business community.

Antonio G. Di Benedetto
Antonio G. Di Benedetto
Sony’s $4,900 FX5 cinema camera looks stacked and is stacked.

The new Sony FX5 has a huge list of features for cinematographers. To name a few: a full-frame fully-stacked 5K sensor with open gate recording, three base ISO settings, dual gain shooting, and up to 120fps recording. And instead of just a typical add-on handle for XLR connections, you can instead slap on a $698 tiltable OLED viewfinder.

I wish every EVF-less camera had an EVF option.

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<em>The FX5 and it’s optional DVF-EL1 electronic viewfinder.</em>
1/8
The FX5 and it’s optional DVF-EL1 electronic viewfinder.
Image: Sony
Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
Any guesses what’s inside?

It’s the prize pack I just boxed up for the second winner of our Today I’m Toying With giveaway. I’m drawing for the third winner right now, and you can enter to possibly become the fourth winner starting today! BTW, anyone need whistles? Those bags in the background are full of ‘em.

Hint: My hand is strategically blocking something.
Hint: My hand is strategically blocking something.
Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Clayface is going heavy on the body horror.

If there was any doubt that DC Studios’ Clayface feature was going to be a proper body horror, the movie’s latest trailer makes it pretty clear that director James Watkins has cooked up something that’s going to make your skin crawl.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
China’s Moonshot trained its AI model on a restricted Nvidia chip, White House claims.

Michael Kratsios, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy director, writes on X that Moonshot accessed Nvidia’s high-end GB300 processors in Thailand, which are subject to strict export controls. Kratsios also accuses Moonshot of distilling Anthropic’s Fable AI model to build Kimi K3, an open-source AI system claimed to rival flagship models from US companies.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Amazon is cutting jobs on its AGI team.

In a statement to The Verge, Amazon spokesperson Jackie Burke says the company is “eliminating some ‌roles ⁠within parts of our AGI [artificial general intelligence] organization” as the company focuses on “initiatives that matter most for customers.” It’s not clear how many workers are impacted.

Here’s what Samsung’s smart glasses actually look like

Plus the first specs, including a battery life better than Meta’s.

Dominic Preston
Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Web scraper nets a win against Google.

A federal judge dismissed Google’s lawsuit against the web-scraping service SerpApi after finding that the tech giant’s allegations were “insufficient” to prove a copyright violation.

Google accused SerpApi of using “deceptive means” to scrape its search results, to which SerpApi argued that it’s just doing “what Google does to everyone else.“ The judge is giving Google 21 days to amend its complaint.

Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
Range Rover’s new EV looks nothing like a Range Rover.

In the spirit of other EVs that deviate significantly from established designs, Range Rover revealed the first images of its (camouflaged) electric GT, which looks nothing like the boxy SUVs the UK-based automaker is mostly known for. The saloon-like grand tourer will be “the most technologically sophisticated Range Rover vehicle ever created,” Range Rover boasts.

1/7Image: Range Rover
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked in 15 minutes.

If you missed Samsung’s event today, you can watch all the highlights here, including the redesigned Galaxy Z Fold 8, the new Z Fold 8 Ultra, and an updated Z Flip 8. You can also check out today’s episode of The Vergecast to hear more about everything Samsung announced.

Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster
That’s the good stuff.

The colorful platformer Poinpy, which comes from the developer behind Downwell, was one of the titles that Netflix cut loose when it moved on from indie games. But now it has been resurrected with a new version for both iOS and Android that’s not only free, but available right now.

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

Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
‘Breaker one-nine, where’s your driver?’

Aurora announced that it is deploying its second-generation driverless truck on public roads in Texas. The trucks will be used to haul freight for Aurora’s commercial trucking customers like Hirschbach, Uber Freight, McLane, Detmar, and more. The initial fleet will be “modest,” spokesperson Rachel Chibidakis said, but expects to ramp up to 200 trucks by year end.

1/5Image: Aurora
Elizabeth Lopatto
Elizabeth Lopatto
“The machines are taking both the content and the readers at an industrial scale, too.”

This is a story about how AI destroyed a long-running site of film data. It’s not just that search no longer refers traffic or that the site itself, The Numbers, is getting scraped. It’s also that there’s no way to defend 30-year-old webpages against malicious actors attempting to get the data early so they could win their Polymarket bets.

Lauren Feiner
Lauren Feiner
Now on TikTok: Trump’s cabinet.

Executive agencies including the Department of Labor and Department of Transportation are joining the app once declared a national security threat. Following the close of the deal to bring TikTok US under a US entity, the Justice Department said government employees are free to download it.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Gemini Task Automation is rolling out for real.

It’s been in beta for a little while, but Samsung’s new foldables mark the official launch, together with an expansion to more than 40 apps.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Samsung’s foldables will get Google’s easier Android switching.

Samsung Smart Switch will make it easier to jump from iOS to a Galaxy Z Flip 8 or Fold 8, sharing photos, videos, contacts and more with just a QR code, no iOS app install required. Similar features are already rolling out on some Pixels with Android 17.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Marshall wrapped a speaker in crushed purple velvet to celebrate Hendrix.

Its $299.99 Acton III Bluetooth speaker is now dramatically more groovy to celebrate the brand’s 60 year anniversary of working with the musician. But it’s not just about the new aesthetics. When you power the speaker on or off it also plays unique sounds sourced from Hendrix’s recordings.

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

1/4Image: Marshall
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
My FanCam is Samsung’s AI video editor for focusing on your favorites.

A fancy person detection algorithm picks subjects to focus on, and crops video to track your favorite. Samsung is pitching it for fans and stans, but I suspect it’ll get more use at kids’ ballet recitals.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Silicon-carbon — by Samsung.

For the first time, Samsung’s three new foldables use silicon-carbon batteries, meaning higher capacity in a smaller space. Samsung says it’s focused on maintaining longevity and stability, sometimes worse with silicon cells, but that’s stopped it hitting the enormous capacities of rivals like Oppo and Honor.

Andrew J. Hawkins
Andrew J. Hawkins
NHTSA wants to know why Tesla got rid of its radar.

Props to Fred Lambert at Electrek for catching this: the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is requesting from Tesla all information about a document called “Radar Saves Us” in its investigation into Full Self-Driving crashes. The details could prove that Tesla knew its camera-only approach to autonomous driving was flawed, which could trigger another massive recall for the company.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Samsung and Google’s smart glasses get two new designs.

The smart glasses come with Google’s Gemini AI on board and will debut this fall with the designs we first saw in May — plus these two new ones from Gentle Monster and Warby Parker.

1/4Image: Samsung / Google
I almost forgot Samsung’s Z Flip 8 was a foldable

Cover screen? More like cover phone.

David Imel