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Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Pixel HiLight should get better, with new colors on the way.

The Pixel 11 Pro light is so far underwhelming, only working for calls from favorite contacts or Gemini interactions. Google always said message support is on the way, but a report from Android Authority suggests new colors are coming too, expanding on the five available now. That’s still behind what other devs have done with it.

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Sony quits CES.

Sony’s keynotes were once a highlight of the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But the company’s presence has shrunk in proportion to its slow exit from consumer electronics. And with Bravia now a TCL brand, and the Afeela EV joint venture with Honda scrubbed, there’s little reason to attend.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Lenovo’s Googlebook is $150 cheaper than we thought.

We’d been told the 15-inch laptop would start at $1,299, but preorders just opened for a much friendlier $1,149.99. It’s the biggest of the first five Googlebooks, with an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 processor inside, 16GB of RAM and 512GB storage, and an HDMI port. It ships from October 4th.

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

1/4Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge
Tom Warren
Tom Warren
Googlebook OS will be available for some Chromebooks.

Googlebooks will be available at retailers later this week, but you might not need to buy a new device to get Google’s latest laptop OS. “Many of our newest Chromebook devices will be eligible to transition over to Googlebook OS,” says Google in a support note targeted at Chromebook enterprise and education customers. Google hasn’t shared migration paths or device eligibility yet, but it’s encouraging to see the search giant sticking to what it announced earlier this year.

Antonio G. Di Benedetto
Antonio G. Di Benedetto
I think Google has a bit of an SEO problem with ‘Googlebooks.’

Googling “Googlebooks” doesn’t pull up any info about Google’s upcoming laptops. It’s an entire page of links, and even an AI overview, about Google Books — a search index of actual books. Not ideal for potential customers looking for information on new products launching soon.

Google is great at names.

A search for Googlebooks resulting in Google Books.
A search for Googlebooks resulting in Google Books.
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
You can customize the EQ on some AirPods now.

After a recent software update, the custom EQ option is now available on a handful of supported AirPods, 9to5Mac reports. You can find it in the Settings app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac — on my MacBook Air the new Equalizer feature was under Audio & Routing in my AirPods Pro 3 settings.

A screenshot of AirPods EQ settings in the Mac settings app
Screenshot: The Verge
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
The screens are now coming for your cables.

It’s not a new idea, but following the proliferation of status screens on power banks and chargers, tiny inline displays are becoming more common on USB cables. Ugreen’s latest offering comes with a full color LCD on one end displaying the current power draw up to 240W, and is available in 3.3 ($22.99) or 6.6-foot ($26.99) options.

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

<em>Both lengths of the Ugreen Nexode 240W USB-C cable are currently discounted by 26 percent on Amazon.</em>
<em>Power delivery maxes out at 240W if the device and charger both support it, but data transfers are limited to 480Mbps so you can’t use the cable for video.</em>
<em>The cable includes a touch-sensitive button to rotate the screen or turn it off so it doesn’t disturb you at night.</em>
1/3
Both lengths of the Ugreen Nexode 240W USB-C cable are currently discounted by 26 percent on Amazon.
Image: Ugreen
Insta360 conquered 360 cameras — now it’s eyeing glasses

The Chinese brand has 73 percent of the worldwide 360 camera market. What’s next?

Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
I tried the Meta VR Glasses, too — here are my first impressions.
  • “VR Glasses” is the right name. These don’t have a VR headset’s huge, immersive field of view at just 70° horizontal by 66° vertical, but it’s similar to looking through glasses, without a headset’s significant weight.
  • I didn’t terribly mind the reduced immersion outside of games. Movies and desktop windows opened at the proper size without edges cut off.
  • I carried on a conversation with several real human beings in a room and didn’t feel like I had tunnel vision.
  • You can’t see your hands unless they’re in your direct field of view, but the headset can track hands far outside that FoV. I could hit Beat Saber targets while looking an entirely different direction.
  • I got 32WPM touch typing on a keyboard that doesn’t physically exist. That’s less than a third my normal speed, but not bad for a first try.
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
This over-engineered desk wirelessly charges your phone wherever you place it.

Instead of relying on a large array of charging coils to power up a Qi-compatible smartphone, this desk uses an overhead camera to locate devices and reposition a single moving charging coil beneath them. It first prioritizes charging phones before moving on to other devices and incorporates a transparent LCD as the desk’s surface that plays animations as power flows.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Here come those promised Pixel Watch health features.

The blood pressure trends, insulin resistance trends, and sleep breathing quality metrics mentioned at the 2026 Made By Google event weren’t available when the Pixel Watch 5 launched last month, but now Google says they’ll start rolling out to Watch 3 models and later this week. You can set them up in the Google Health app, and trend reports will arrive in “early October.”

Here’s the preview of the blood pressure trend feature we got last month.
Here’s the preview of the blood pressure trend feature we got last month.
Photo: Victoria Song / The Verge
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
8BitDo gives two of its controllers a Tomb Raider makeover.

To celebrate 30 years of Lara Croft’s adventures, reskinned versions of the $119.99 8BitDo Ultimate 3 for Xbox and $79.99 Pro 3 Bluetooth Gamepad are now available for preorder with an official release starting on October 24th.

1/3Image: 8BitDo
Everything is spying on you and there’s no opting out

A new wave of AI-enhanced consumer creep-tech disregards the privacy of everyone but the wearer. The people have had enough.

Janus Rose
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Roland’s new bright yellow keyboard speaks Minion.

In an attempt to entice younger aspiring musicians to learn the piano, Roland has introduced a special edition of its GO:KEYS 3 electronic keyboard. While the company could have stopped at coloring it yellow and slapping Minions characters on it, Roland also packed the $450 keyboard with authentic Minions sounds and gibberish, including Bob, Kevin and Stuart’s voices.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Watch Joanna Stern grill Zuckerberg for 30 minutes.

The Verge cofounder got an extended sit-down with the Meta CEO at Connect yesterday. They covered “pervert glasses” and privacy, AI assistants and agents, and what exactly is going on with the Metaverse. He defends the company’s track record on privacy, and its future privacy plans: “More of the things that Meta is going to do going forward are going to look like WhatsApp.”

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
The Motorola Signature 27 will run GrapheneOS.

When Motorola announced its funky-looking new flagship the other day, a bunch of you wanted to know if it falls under the partnership with Graphene. The devs previously said they were waiting for security features in Qualcomm’s new chips. GrapheneOS will also roll out to Motorola foldables, but the Signature 27 comes first.

John Higgins
John Higgins
The Beats 360 are essentially true wireless earbuds disguised as headphones.

As confirmed by Beats product manager Jeff Bruksch, the new Beats 360 headphones use a true wireless architecture with each earcup containing its own battery, antenna, and processing components. It allows Beats to “significantly reduce the cabling between the two sides,” according to Bruksch.

Because we don’t have the traditional system including a charging case, we have a cable for power supply and power management between the left and right sides so that you don’t have to charge both sides and the left and right sides power on/off together.

Having a cable for power management only explains the lack of audio support through the USB-C.

Meta ditches the camera on its newest smart glasses
Hands-on

Audio-only Ray-Bans have arrived alongside more camera-equipped glasses. What’s missing? Privacy controls to address the ‘perv glasses’ backlash.

Victoria Song
Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
“A very happy Vergemas was had by all.”

One of the latest Today I’m Toying With giveaway winners had this to say:

Everyone in my family wanted at least one thing from the prize box, so a very happy Vergemas™ was had by all. I’m sure running a giveaway like this is a lot of extra busywork, so know it brought us a little joy in the middle of our week. Thank you!

We’re now on Giveaway #13!

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge