The streamer announced its first dating show, called The Last Person on Earth, which it describes as an “eight-episode dating documentary series” about how opposites attract. No word on when it will release, but it’s part of a steady push from Apple to make its streaming service more mainstream.

The conservative backlash is about jobs, the environment, quality of life — and China.




The latest Quick Posts
The cost of AI / The world’s fastest-growing technology comes with a high price.


How you feel about AI’s energy use might change how you feel about computers entirely.

Ads, rate limits, feature restrictions, price hikes. The AI free ride is over.

The company promises to replenish more water than it uses by 2030.

The company’s annual sustainability report also says sustainability solutions aren’t keeping up with AI demands.
Unpacked dispatch / Samsung just made a bunch of announcements at Galaxy Unpacked. Let’s dive in.


The latest Galaxy Unpacked featured a redesigned Galaxy Z Fold 8, a new ‘Ultra’ foldable, and refreshed Galaxy watches.

The watches sport a new chip, bigger batteries, and new health metrics. But the updates come with another price hike.

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

One small step for phones, one giant leap for foldables.
Staff picks / Our favorite stories you don’t want to miss.


Index funds are supposed to be the safest way to invest — does SpaceX change that?

It’s not quite a dumbphone, but it’s definitely not a smartphone. And that’s kind of the whole point.

No amount of clever editing can make this Seedance-generated mess interesting.

Kimi K3 and Qwen3.8 should come as no surprise.
Review roulette / Catch up on some of our latest reviews, from games to gadgets.


6
Verge Score
The new entry-level Surface Laptop 13-inch is last year’s same great hardware with less memory and a higher price.

I tested four locks that unlock with a look, and while hands-free with UWB is better, if you want a sci-fi experience for your front door, facial recognition is worth considering.


Glorious made swapping batteries faster and easier (and more fun) in a $230 headset than its $400 competitors.
Like Sergey Brin going hands-on with Google’s AI push (and in addition to a rumored bid for Liverpool), Reuters reports Bezos has made an unusual move to become personally involved in the “Lighthouse” project updating Prime Video’s homepage, recommendations, and voice control.
Sources said Bezos felt an initial plan “failed to sufficiently highlight the service’s capabilities in AI and personalization.” Not sure why he may have felt that way, but here’s the apparently AI-generated image Prime Video is using to promote Death Race 2000.


The legislation would force tech companies to build controls to shut down or throttle powerful AI systems.
A typical account on the prediction market platform also tended to primarily bet on a single topic, according to research from Pew. Sports are huge categories for both Polymarket and its competitor, Kalshi.
Over the last few years, the two companies have sought to differentiate themselves from traditional sports betting — and have tried to undercut one another as they fight for market share in the US.
[Pew Research Center]


Apple Maps will be embedded into Ford’s ‘universal’ EV platform.
That’s the sound of the Splatoon series exploring a new genre with Splatoon Raiders, which is Nintendo’s take on looter shooters. I quite enjoyed my time with the game, but you can check it out for yourself now, as it launches today on the Switch 2.
Mattel’s older Mega line of building sets included a couple of Halo sets featuring the Warthog, but Amazon Australia leaked a larger and more detailed 935-piece buildable UNSC M12 Warthog that’s part of Mattel’s recent Brick Shop line. There’s no pricing, but the model includes working independent suspension and customizable detailing.
If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.
It’s already been a pretty great year for horror, and that looks to continue with the new Resident Evil, helmed by Weapons director Zach Cregger. The latest trailer makes the movie seem both like a new twist on the franchise, and also like it’s pulling inspiration from the most recent games.
The 15-inch Key Light Air MK.2 is available for $139.99, providing creators with up to 2100 lumens of illumination for filming and streaming. It’s USB-C powered, but the MagSafe ring on the back also snaps onto any compatible holder or power bank for cable-free lighting on the go.
If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.
The smart wearables company has a new feature for its companion app called “UltraSphere,” which provides over 60 suggested actions to improve rest, wellness, and recovery. The actions are location- and weather-aware, and tailored to the user. Suggestions can include things like “get light,” “cut caffeine,” and “wind down.”
Another byproduct of Framework’s new RAM pricing is that preorders for the Ultra X7 358H version of the Framework Laptop 13 Pro jumped from $2,099 to $2,899. Framework’s announcement didn’t specify this config, but the Wayback Machine shows it.
People who got their 32GB preorders bumped down to 16GB also have to pay more if they want to maintain 32GB from Framework, or source their LPCAMM2 RAM elsewhere.
If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.
Despite being out on parental leave, LG’s willingness to force ads onto its monitors and televisions has Tom Warren in a fighting mood when he should be making coo coo sounds at his new son.
Sure, it’s just a poster, but should Ryan Gosling’s “La La Hand” been kept as it was?
.catalyst_:
I know it doesn’t matter, and he has expressed that he’d like it changed, but in a world where AI can change anything you want in a second, it feels like an actor’s intentional choice at the time of production is important. That hand being wrong takes away from the moment that this piece of art was made in.
Again probably doesn’t matter, I’m sure all parties are consenting. It is okay to make a mistake and have that mistake live and breathe, it makes the art just a little more human, and that is so important.
Get the day’s best comment and more in my free newsletter, The Verge Daily.


Google is required to change its policies for both Search and the Play Store.
The extending roof panel on the Solarky SunV provides up to 300W of solar charging for its 10.2kWh LFP battery. And its aluminum chassis and plastic panels make it so lightweight, that it can go about 150km (93 miles) before a recharge — or up to 200km (124 miles) with enough sunshine, according to the company. It’s already on sale in markets including Thailand and Indonesia.


You can prove you’re the account owner by capturing a short video of you turning your head.


The company said prices from its memory supplier have more than doubled.


Nintendo had one special request, too.
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.
[European Commission]


After settling with other social media companies, the plaintiff dropped his case.
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.
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.
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.


Tesla is in negative free cash flow territory, as it increases its expenditures on major projects like AI infrastructure and robotics.
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.
[Nextgov.com]


You can also grab a four-pack of AirTags for $10 off, or a refurbished PS5 slim from Sony that’s $100 less than new.


A new ‘Partner Finance Lock’ would also block users from erasing or reselling devices that are in ‘Restricted Mode.’
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.
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.
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.
If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.
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.
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.
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.
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.


An A19 Pro update is on the way for the MacBook Neo, plus OLED screens for some of Apple’s pricier laptops.

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.
[Search Engine Roundtable]


























