Anthropic refuses Pentagon’s new terms, standing firm on lethal autonomous weapons and mass surveillance
Less than 24 hours before the deadline in an ultimatum issued by the Pentagon, Anthropic has refused the Department of Defense's demands for unrestricted access to its AI.
It's the culmination of a dramatic exchange of public statements, social media posts, and behind-the-scenes negotiations, coming down to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's desire to renegotiate all AI labs' current contracts with the military. But Anthropic, so far, has refused to back down from its two current red lines: no mass surveillance of Americans, and no lethal autonomous weapons (or weapons with license to kill targets with no human oversight whatsoever). OpenAI …
Netflix walks away from its deal to buy Warner Bros. after Paramount came back with a better offer
Netflix has dropped its $83 billion deal to acquire the Warner Bros. studio, HBO, and its streaming service HBO Max. In an announcement on Thursday, co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters say the streamer is "declining to match" the new bid made by Paramount:
The transaction we negotiated would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval. However, we've always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance's latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid.
We believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros.' i …
Microsoft’s Copilot Tasks AI uses its own computer to get things done
Microsoft is previewing a new AI system, Copilot Tasks, that it says is designed to take care of busywork for you in the background, the company announced on Thursday. The feature takes the load off your device using its own cloud-based computer and browser, allowing it to handle a variety of jobs ranging from scheduling appointments to generating study plans while you do something else.
As noted by Microsoft, you can describe what you need to Copilot Tasks using natural language, and assign Copilot Tasks to complete jobs on a recurring, scheduled, or one-time basis. Copilot Tasks will provide a report once its work is complete.
You can ca …
Jack Dorsey’s Block cuts nearly half of its staff in AI gamble
Jack Dorsey's Block, the financial tech company that runs Square and the Cash app, is cutting its workforce by "nearly half" and axing more than 4,000 jobs. The company will shrink from more than 10,000 people to less than 6,000, Dorsey says in a post on X. And the reason why? AI.
"We're not making this decision because we're in trouble," Dorsey says. "Our business is strong. Gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. But something has changed. We're already seeing that the intelligence tools we're creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new …
Lenovo leak reveals a foldable gaming handheld that’s also a Windows laptop
Lenovo's next gaming laptop could be a shapeshifting foldable called the Legion Go Fold, which can be used as a laptop or a handheld gaming PC with two different display sizes, as WindowsLatest reports. Leaked images of the device show it attached to both a keyboard and controllers, with a hinge in the middle of the POLED display, allowing it to unfold from 7.7 inches to 11.6 inches.
Users can attach the controllers with the display folded or unfolded, use the display in a vertical split screen mode, or attach it to the keyboard for laptop mode, for a total of four different form factors rolled into one device. Even the controllers are con …
Why no magnets in Galaxy S26? Samsung R&D chief explains
Magnet rings have changed my life. I grip and mount and satisfyingly snap awesome accessories on and off my phone all day. Even Samsung sells neat ones, like these folding magnetic mirrors. But unlike Apple and Google, Samsung refuses to put the magnets inside the phone.
Why? I asked Samsung's Won-Joon Choi, the executive in charge of both R&D and operations for Samsung's mobile business. He says the added thickness of magnets is a bad tradeoff to make, because you're just going to buy a case anyhow.
"About 80 or 90 percent of people are using a case, and cases with magnets are very popular these days," he tells me.
Smartphone sales could be in for their biggest drop ever
The smartphone industry could experience a record-breaking decline in 2026 as a result of the RAM shortage stemming from memory-hungry AI giants. That's according to the latest report from the International Data Corporation (IDC), which forecasts smartphone shipments to plummet 12.9 percent this year, marking its "lowest annual shipment volume in more than a decade."
At the same time, the average selling price for smartphones is set to hit new highs, with IDC predicting a 14 percent increase to a record $523. "While memory prices are projected to stabilize by mid-2027, they are unlikely to return to previous level," IDC senior researcher Na …
Samsung exec confirms you can blame RAM — and other materials — for the Galaxy S26’s higher price tag
The Samsung Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus are "more of the same for more money," my colleague Allison Johnson reported this week. Now, Samsung is confirming what we previously only suspected: RAMageddon is partly to blame.
Samsung's Won-Joon Choi, the COO of its mobile business, tells The Verge that the memory shortage alone made a "significant contribution" to the price. All the increasing material costs factored into the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus costing $100 more than their predecessors this year, as did tariffs, but the memory was "significant," he tells me.
The S26 does come with double the storage this year at its higher price, with 256GB ra …
FTC declines to enforce a kids privacy law for data collected to verify users’ ages
The Federal Trade Commission is encouraging companies to adopt age verification technologies by announcing it will not enforce a children's online privacy law against certain websites that collect and use minors' personal data in order to verify their ages.
"Age verification technologies are some of the most child-protective technologies to emerge in decades," Christopher Mufarrige, the director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a press release. "Our statement incentivizes operators to use these innovative tools, empowering parents to protect their children online."
There are certain criteria that websites need to meet in order …
Qualcomm won’t be announcing Windows gaming handhelds at GDC after all
In January, Qualcomm hinted to The Verge that it might finally bring its powerful Arm-based Snapdragon processors to Windows gaming handhelds at the 2026 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco - just in time to challenge Nvidia's own first Arm gaming CPU and Intel's first dedicated handheld gaming chips.
But plans have shifted, Qualcomm now tells me. It won't announce any updates to its Snapdragon G Series gaming chips there, nor offer the recently announced updates to the Snapdragon X line for journalists to try or benchmark.
"Snapdragon X Series and Snapdragon G Series processors are pushing the PC, desktop, and handheld gaming dev …