The latest tech news about the world’s best (and sometimes worst) hardware, apps, and much more. From top companies like Google and Apple to tiny startups vying for your attention, Verge Tech has the latest in what matters in technology daily.
How YouTuber Jon Prosser broke Liquid Glass — and what happened in the fallout.
After teasing the “world’s first dual-screen color E Ink + LCD smartphone,” Bigme has announced its new HiBreak Dual. The Android 14 phone features a 6.13-inch color E Ink screen on the front and a 1.85-inch circular LCD on the back. It also supports a pressure-sensitive stylus, while April 16th preorders will start at $359.
Evan Blass has shared leaked images of the upcoming flip phone in four colors, each with a distinct texture. This is the regular Razr 2026 — a.k.a. the Razr 70 — though Motorola should also launch Pro and Ultra versions of the phone, and maybe soon — last year’s Razrs launched in April.
The Meta CEO has always had a bit of an image problem, but surely reported plans to replace him with an AI clone will help?
eatyrgho.st:
“For years, our CEO has been dogged by memes and jokes claiming he is an inhuman freak. How do we fix this?!”
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Microsoft first launched Outlook Lite as a smaller app for Android devices in 2022, at the height of an industry focus on lightweight mobile apps. It was designed to be faster, use less battery, and work well across 2G and 3G networks. Microsoft now says it will fully retire Outlook Lite on May 25th, disabling mailbox access but still allowing the app to launch. It’s time to switch to the regular Outlook app if you’re still relying on Outlook Lite.
That’s the message Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman had for theaters at CinemaCon, pushing for them to make screening windows longer, tickets cheaper, and include fewer pre-show ads.
“Admissions have clearly been down from pre-COVID, and if we’re going to fix that, which we can, we all have urgent work to do. I urge you all now to make some hard choices for the long term rather than the short term.”
An analysis from Originality AI, an AI detection company, found that 23 big news sites block the Internet Archive’s crawler, Wired reports. A USA Today spokesperson told the publication that the move “is not about specifically blocking the Internet Archive” but about attempting to block other scraping bots.
Reddit also limits what the Wayback Machine can archive, telling The Verge last year that it had learned that AI companies were scraping data from the Wayback Machine.
The civil rights organization and 75 other groups published an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, urging him to “immediately halt and publicly disavow” plans for a reported facial recognition feature on its Ray-Ban smart glasses. It’s unsurprising that privacy advocates are wary, especially since documents show Meta originally planned to launch the feature during public unrest.
[ACLU of Massachusetts]
Since launching in 2024 with 48 Hyundai dealerships, we’ve seen Amazon Autos add used cars from Hertz and Ford, but now the Wall Street Journal says it’s active in over 130 cities with Kia, Mazda, Subaru, Chevrolet, and Jeep vehicles listed. According to the article, one benefit to Amazon, beyond the listing fee, is attracting carmakers and dealers as advertisers.
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[Wall Street Journal]
The new Leo (formerly Project Kuiper) antenna will enable air travelers bandwidth of up to 1 gigabit per second for downloads and 400 megabits per second for uploads on Delta, JetBlue, and any other commercial airlines Amazon signs up.
Still, Amazon isn’t close to meeting its deadline from the FCC to launch 1,600 satellites by July 2026, having recently requested a two year extension.
CEO Sarah Personette’s big bet on the place where influencers and reporters might meet
The Find X9 Ultra isn’t coming out for another week or so, but Oppo is ready to show off how it looks, and you can see why. Stay tuned for my full review, and let me know in the comments what you’d like me to test out — the 10x lens is a given.
The field of brain-computer interfaces is moving away from mind-controlled computer cursors to restoring speech.
It wants to make an AI model that can autonomously control machines and robots by 2030, Nikkei reports. The project, part of SoftBank’s robotics push, has buy-in from domestic giants including Sony, Honda, and Nippon Steel. It comes as countries increasingly encourage sovereign AI efforts to compete with US and Chinese firms.
Their morning routine, per an unapologetic New York Times profile, which delivers on the premise that “unabashed rich-person exuberance is back with a Blue Origin bang:”
They don’t touch their phones. Instead, they begin each day by listing 10 things they’re grateful for — and they can’t repeat what they named the day before. From there, the couple drink their morning coffee in a sunroom and watch the sun rise: hers from a mug that reads “Woke Up Sexy as Hell Again,” his from one she got him that spells HUNK in symbols from the periodic table.
And because I know you’re gonna search for it: here’s the mug.
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Elon Musk has apparently made the jump from X to infect both TikTok and Instagram with new verified accounts. According to the New York Times:
Mr. Musk needs to build widespread public interest in SpaceX so it can raise billions of dollars from investors. The public offering could turn the 54-year-old tech mogul, who is already the world’s richest man, into the first trillionaire.
[nytimes.com]
The next big product category Apple is supposedly tackling is display-free smart glasses to rival Meta’s. But the design has yet to be locked in, according to Cupertino whisperer Mark Gurman. The company might launch some or all four of the designs under consideration:
A large rectangular frame, reminiscent of Ray-Ban Wayfarers
A slimmer rectangular design, similar to the glasses worn by Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook
Larger oval or circular frames
A smaller, more refined oval or circular option
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Hisense is the first to release the tech at more affordable prices, but it’s up against tough competition with OLEDs.
OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic are eating the software world alive.
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The Ricoh GR IV Monochrome is the perfect everyday companion that makes the mundane feel interesting.
After failing to get details about a user who said “TSA sucks and we all know it,” via a traditional court order, DHS is now dragging Reddit in front of a grand jury. The government has grown increasingly aggressive in its attempts to deal with online critics. Reddit has not said whether it plans to fight the subpoena, but according to The Intercept:
“Privacy is central to how Reddit operates, and we take our commitment to protecting that seriously,” the company said in a statement to The Intercept. “We do not voluntarily share information with any government, especially not on users exercising their rights to criticize the government or plan a protest.”
When hackers got access to an account belonging to the maintainer of Axios, they inserted a script that granted remote access to users’ Windows, macOS, and Linux devices. This malicious version potentially compromised ChatGPT’s macOS apps, so OpenAI is issuing an update and new certificates to mitigate any risks.
