40 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Terrence O'Brien

Terrence O'Brien

Weekend Editor

Weekend Editor

    More From Terrence O'Brien

    Terrence O'Brien
    Terrence O'Brien
    A 16-year-old was handcuffed because AI thought an empty Doritos bag was a gun.

    There are countless examples of AI doing dumb stuff out there, but mistaking an empty bag of chips for a firearm might be a new peak in stupidity. Unfortunately, this is not some simple laughing matter. The incident triggered a “large response” from police who descended on a teen, guns drawn, while he was waiting outside of school to be picked up. Taki Allen told Baltimore’s WMAR-2 News:

    “Police showed up, like eight cop cars, and then they all came out with guns pointed at me talking about getting on the ground. I was putting my hands up like, ‘what’s going on?’ He told me to get on my knees and arrested me and put me in cuffs.”

    Terrence O'Brien
    Terrence O'Brien
    Apple is supposedly adding vapor chamber cooling to the next iPad Pro.

    It makes perfect sense when you think about it: The company already added vapor cooling to the iPhone 17 Pro. And as the iPad Pro chips get more powerful and the OS more capable, cooling is going to be a major issue. Bloomberg’s Mark Gruman says it should be coming with the new M6 chips in the spring of 2027.

    Terrence O'Brien
    Terrence O'Brien
    PSA: Replace your old surge protectors.

    Like most things, surge protectors degrade over time. Best-case scenario, they simply stop protecting your valuable electronics from power spikes. Worst-case, they become fire hazards as our editor-in-chief, Nilay Patel, discovered recently.

    If you’ve got power strips that are 10 or 15 years old, chuck ‘em. It’s generally recommended that you replace surge protectors every three to five years.

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

    Terrence O'Brien
    Terrence O'Brien
    Don’t worry, Gemini can translate those warning posters in Half-Life Alyx for you.

    Brad Lynch, a project manager at EOZ VR, figured out that, while streaming Half-Life Alyx from SteamVR to a Samsung Galaxy XR headset, you can pull up Google Gemini, draw a circle on the screen, and have it spit out English translations of signs for you.

    Terrence O'Brien
    Terrence O'Brien
    Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 walks the line between budget and midrange.

    Qualcomm’s new chip brings its 4nm process to the lowest end of its 6 series chips. It packs four Cortex-A78 performance cores at up to 2.4 GHz and four Cortex-A55 efficiency cores clocked at 1.8 GHz, a nice bump from the 2-and-6 arrangement of the 6s Gen 3. You won’t find too many phones out there running the 6s, but maybe a future version of the Moto G Stylus can benefit.

    Terrence O'Brien
    Terrence O'Brien
    You can bid on a piece of music history owned by Kraftwerk’s Florian Schneider.

    Browsing through the auction is like a trip through a museum. There are iconic drum machines like the Roland TR-606, legendary synths like the Synthi A (mislabeled as an AKS), and rare vocoders, including the Sennheiser VSM-201. There are also pieces of high-end studio equipment, suits, lots of flutes, and... a dentist’s chair? You can place bids online now, but Julien’s will run the auction live on November 19th, starting at 11AM ET.

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

    1930s Telefunken Volks-Trautonium Pre-Synthesizer
    Sennheiser VSM-201 Vocoder used in Kling Klang studios in its original case.
    Korg PS-3200 Polyphonic Synthesizer with PS-3010 Keyboard
    Yamaha CS-30 Synthesizer.
    EMS Synthi A “suitcase” synthesizer.
    1980s Yamaha DD-10 Drum Machine.
    Roland Drumatix TR-606 Drum Machine.
    Two Hand-Built MIDI Devices with Matrix Switches & Phoneme Keyboard with Stand.
    Akai EWI-1000 Breath Controller and EWV-2000 Synthesizer.
    Hohner Guitaret.
    Neumann U47 Tube Condenser Mic with Case and Power Supply
    Vintage Dentist’s Chair because... why not?
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    1930s Telefunken Volks-Trautonium Pre-Synthesizer