13 – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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All the news you need to keep up with the latest developments in the tech world, from product announcements and live events to tariffs, policies, and regulations. Tech touches every aspect of daily news, and our experts are here to keep you informed on what happens and how it all affects you.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
You can now preorder this $8,000 laundry-folding robot.

Made by Weave Robotics, Issac 1 is a fuzzy, colorful home robot that promises to collect dirty clothes, fold and put away laundry, make beds, and tidy clutter. Shipping is slated for later this year, with a $250 deposit required. While its main tasks are automated, Weave says that, like its predecessor Isaac 0, Issac 1 will be teleoperated “when needed to guarantee we complete tasks.”

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
The Paper Boy S3 is a Game Boy clone with an E Ink touchscreen.

Instead of turning M5Stack’s M5PaperS3 development hardware into another Kindle clone, Wenting Zhang used the Playdate’s open source CrankBoy emulator to create a Game Boy alternative with an easy-on-the-eyes E Ink screen. Having to play with touchscreen controls isn’t ideal, but we’d love to see this turned into an app optimized for the Boox Palma devices.

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Google’s $4.7 billion Android fine has been upheld.

The search giant has lost its final appeal to overturn a record-breaking €4.1 billion (about $4.68 billion) penalty imposed by the European Commission over practices that abused Android’s mobile dominance. The charges date back to 2018, so it’s taken almost a decade to close the antitrust case.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Honor’s latest foldable is finally out in the UK and Europe.

The Magic V6 is available to order now in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. It’s officially priced at £1,999.99 / €2,299.99 (about $2,600), but Honor’s early offers slash hundreds off that price and throw in freebies like earbuds or tablets too.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
Apple’s email-hiding feature is reportedly exposing real email addresses.

Tyler Murphy, the co-founder of EasyOptOuts, tells 404 Media that he notified Apple about a bug in its Hide My Email feature more than a year ago, but it’s reportedly still not fixed. The vulnerability allows someone to obtain a person’s real email through the fake one generated by Apple’s tool, 404 Media reports.

Hayden Field
Hayden Field
Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 is officially back online as of this afternoon.

A post on the Claude X account featured a video announcement. The reinstatement was announced last night, alongside a blog post by Anthropic about the weekslong negotiation process leading up to it.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
This week in the big AI data center buildout.

AI data center projects are continuing to pop up across the US, with frequent opposition from locals concerned about their impact. Here are a few recent articles about the projects:

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Meta might launch its own cloud computing business.

The company is weighing plans like selling access to AI models on its infrastructure or letting customers buy compute in a model similar to companies like CoreWeave, Bloomberg reports.

Emma Roth
Emma Roth
OpenAI lawsuit claims ChatGPT-4o escalated a man’s manic episode “into a weeks-long delusion” and self-harm.

This report from Reuters says 34-year-old Michael Lines alleges that conversations with OpenAI’s now-retired GPT-4o model eventually pushed him to attempt suicide. He overdosed on drugs, but survived.

Lines, a competitive powerlifter who suffered a traumatic brain injury before his bipolar diagnosis, said in the lawsuit that he repeatedly told ​the chatbot he was on medication for the disorder. Instead of flagging his clearly manic chats and directing him to help, the chatbot validated his belief ‌that ⁠he was Jesus Christ, and later posed as a divine being itself during their conversations, the lawsuit claims.

If you or anyone you know is considering self-harm or needs to talk, contact the following people who want to help: In the US, text or call 988. Outside the US, contact https://www.iasp.info/.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
This classic PlayStation video didn’t age well.
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
BMW’s new X5 goes heavy on the X.

BMW’s Neue Klasse-ified SUV launched this week, including an all-electric iX5 with 800-volt charging that can add 170 miles of range in 10 minutes and go from 10-80 percent in 22 minutes, plus a 17.9-inch in-car display with Alexa, CarPlay and Android Auto.

But we’re really just looking at those familiar-looking headlights. (And that new statue.)

2027 BMW X5 shown driving on a highway with its distinctive X headlights
Design image of BMW X5 “X” headlights close up
1/11Image: BMW
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Mario Kart World just got two more Knockout Tour routes.

I’ve been playing a lot of Mario Kart World recently, so for me, the new routes in the 1.7.0 update are arriving at the perfect time.

Next up: hopefully more alternate outfits for Donkey Kong, who somehow only has one? And maybe an improved Grand Prix mode?

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Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Grace Rocky save streaming.

Good news for those of you who didn’t catch Project Hail Mary in theaters — it’ll finally be available to stream on Prime Video on July 3rd. Unless you have something better to be doing this weekend…

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
Former Sony gaming chief is baffled by the PlayStation PC pullback.

In an interview with French media outlet PSI, former SIE Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden said bringing Sony exclusives to PC was always about expanding title visability beyond PlayStation consoles, and wasn’t a money-making strategy:

I think if someone’s waiting 18 months for something to come on PC, we didn’t lose a sale to them. They weren’t going to buy the hardware anyway. If it’s a way to cover costs or the burden of making a port, there is some money attached to that, or the distraction or whatever. I don’t know what they’re thinking.”

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Samsung starts teasing its wider foldable phone.

All signs point to Samsung launching a wide version of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 this month, and now the company has released its first teaser. There are video versions too, all along similar lines teasing a “new shape” from the company.

Image: Samsung
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Google AI Mode is making original recipe links more prominent.

The AI search tool will start linking directly to source recipes at the top of cooking queries, with images, ratings, and ingredient numbers. Not every food writer is happy though, since there’s still a full AI-generated recipe below the links, sometimes with opaque sourcing and errors in the instructions.

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Siri AI v. EU, an update.

According to an unnamed spokesperson speaking to the FT, Tim Cook and EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen had a “constructive exchange on topics of common interest” on Tuesday over the current impasse that will leave roughly 450 million people without access to Apple Intelligence that actually works:

The meeting included a discussion of how Apple can launch its reinvented Siri in Europe while avoiding millions of dollars in fines for violating the bloc’s flagship competition rules, according to two people familiar with the talks.

Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Trump pulled in over $1 billion from crypto ventures last year.

The President’s annual disclosure noted that companies owned by Trump and his family received more than $800 million from the WLFI token and $635 million in royalties from Trump memecoins, report Reuters, WSJ, and CNBC.

CoinDesk points out the more than $50 million in Bitcoin, $25 million in ETH, investments in Coreweave and Coinbase, and $6 million from an NFT licensing agreement.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Spark on Mac.

Google is rolling out its frighteningly good AI agent to the Gemini macOS app, meaning Spark can access and work with files on your computer.

The company is adding a few other new features to Spark, too, including the ability to connect Tasks and Keep to the agent, use integrations with apps like Canva and Instacart, and track topics in real time.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Xbox will reportedly still publish Hideo Kojima’s OD.

Xbox is expected to make some tough cuts soon, and it already dropped a new franchise from IO Interactive, but OD will continue to be part of Xbox’s publishing lineup, according to IGN.

Mia Sato
Mia Sato
Kalta? Melshi?

Before plans to spin up its own prediction market app, Meta explored acquiring Kalshi, NPR reports. Meta is now reportedly working on an app known as “Arena” internally, which would allow users to bet with points rather than real money, as Kalshi and Polymarket do. If an acquisition had happened, it wouldn’t be the first (or second, or third) time Meta piggybacked on what was trendy.

Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
AMD patch leaves little doubt: it’s got a new low-power core.

Moore’s Law is Dead claimed Sony’s handheld PS6 would add Zen 6 LP (Low Power) cores, and Phoronix has found new evidence in a Linux kernel patch: “a Low Power core type, in addition to the existing Performance and Efficiency types.” They’re “designed for minimal power consumption during background or idle workloads,” not necessarily gaming on battery.

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
The native Discord app for Meta Quest VR headsets is now available.

With the VR app, you can still chat with friends on Discord using other platforms. Check the app out on the Meta Store.

Meta and Discord announced last year that the app was in the works.

A screenshot of the Discord app for Meta Quest headsets.
Image: Meta
Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Reddit is going to force you to log in to use old Reddit.

The logged-out experience on old Reddit is “a significant source of abusive scraping and automated traffic on the platform,” a Reddit admin (employee) says. The company will start requiring anyone who wants to use it to log in “over the next month.”

The admin adds that Reddit “can’t promise” that old Reddit “will be around forever,” though CEO Steve Huffman said last year that the company will figure out how to keep it online “as long as people are using it.”

Jay Peters
Jay Peters
Looking for a Steam Controller stand?

Mechanism’s Steam Controller Dock might fit the bill. It has a dedicated place to lock in the controller’s puck, which means you can rest and charge the controller upright while you aren’t using it.

You can preorder the Dock now for $39. It’s set to ship on July 6th.

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

A photo of Mechanism’s Steam Controller Dock.
Image: Mechanism