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Anker’s new earbuds are the first with its AI chip that boosts noise reduction

A person holds the Anker Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Max earbuds in their charging case while touching its screen.
The Liberty 5 Pro Max feature a larger touchscreen with more controls and the ability to record meetings without a phone. | Image: Anker

Anker has announced a new version of its Soundcore Liberty Pro earbuds: the new Liberty 5 Pro. These are the company's first earbuds featuring the Thus AI audio chip Anker announced last month, here being used to bolster noise reduction capabilities and help ensure the user's voice can be clearly heard during calls, even in noisy environments. They're the first new Soundcore Liberty Pro earbuds since the 2024 version that launched with a charging case screen. Joining the Liberty 5 Pro are a new Max version that add AI-powered note-taking capabilities through their charging case.

The Liberty 5 Pro are available starting today for $169.99 in …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Anker’s new earbuds have the best call quality I’ve ever heard

Champagne Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Max earbuds and their case next to blue Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro earbuds on a stone trivet with a mauve-colored background.
The Liberty 5 Pro series are Soundcore’s most ambitious earbuds yet.

Soundcore, Anker's audio brand, has mostly lived in the budget-to-midrange world, but with its new Liberty 5 Pro earbuds, it's aiming at the big guys. The two new earbuds - the Liberty 5 Pro and Liberty 5 Pro Max - use Anker's new Thus chip, which has more processing power than previous Soundcore earbuds to try and compete with the chips found in Apple, Sony, and Bose products. And that extra processing power gives the Liberty 5 Pro the best in-call noise canceling I've heard in any earbuds.

Previously, the highest-priced Soundcore earbuds (not counting the sleep buds) were the Liberty 4 Pro at $150, but the Liberty 5 Pro are $170 and the L …

Read the full story at The Verge.

States ask judge to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster

Photo illustration of a gavel in front of a background of tickets.

A federal judge is officially being tasked with deciding whether to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster.

More than 30 states are asking Judge Arun Subramanian to order a sale of the ticketing giant, a "sufficient number" of large amphitheaters, and limit its ability to tie access to its remaining amps to the use of its promotions services. In April, a jury found that the company is an illegal monopolist, after more than a month of trial. The initial remedies proposal doesn't include a further breakup of some other parts of Live Nation's business that California Attorney General Rob Bonta told The Verge and other outlets earlier this week the …

Read the full story at The Verge.

All of the updates from Elon Musk and Sam Altman’s battle over OpenAI

Graphic photo collage of Sam Altman and Elon Musk.

Sam Altman and Elon Musk are facing off in a high-stakes trial that could alter the future of OpenAI and its most well-known product, ChatGPT. In 2024, Musk filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI of abandoning its founding mission of developing AI to benefit humanity and shifting focus to boosting profits instead.

After nearly a month, with the trial featuring testimony from Musk, Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman, former OpenAI board member and mother of several of Musk’s children Shivon Zilis, and a few others, the jury deliberated for a couple of hours before returning to the “room full of untrustworthy, unreliable people all fighting with each other” with a verdict, deciding to dismiss all charges due to the statute of limitations.

A stylized illustration including both Elon Musk and Sam Altman

Musk was a cofounder of OpenAI and claims that Altman and Brockman tricked him into giving the company money, only to turn their backs on their original goal. However, OpenAI claimed that “This lawsuit has always been a baseless and jealous bid to derail a competitor” in a bid to boost Musk’s own SpaceX / xAI / X companies that have launched Grok as a competitor to ChatGPT.

In his lawsuit, Musk asked for the removal of Altman and Brockman, and for OpenAI to stop operating as a public benefit corporation.

People to Know

Plaintiff

Elon Musk — plaintiff, OpenAI cofounder and now CEO of rival xAI

Steven Molo — lead counsel for the plaintiff

Jared Birchall — manager of Musk’s family office

Shivon Zilis — former OpenAI board member who shares multiple children with Musk

Defendant

Sam Altman — defendant, CEO of OpenAI 

William Savitt — lead counsel for the defendant

Greg Brockman — president of OpenAI as well as a cofounder 

Ilya Sutskever — former chief scientist at OpenAI and a cofounder

Judge

Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers — aka YGR, trial judge

Here’s all the latest on the trial between Musk and Altman:

Firefox is working on a rounded redesign with easy-to-find controls for privacy and AI

Screenshots of the Firefox browser with its Project Nova redesign

Firefox is getting a drastic visual overhaul with a redesigned Settings section that will make it easier to find and use privacy settings, including the switch for turning off all present and future AI features. Mozilla calls the redesign "Project Nova" and plans to begin rolling it out later this year. It features rounded UI elements throughout, including bubble-like tabs, along with a refreshed, fire-inspired color palette. Mozilla says it's also updating icons so they're more visually consistent across light and dark themes.

A screenshot of the Firefox toolbar with the new Project Nova design A screenshot of Firefox 151 with a default new tab page

Firefox's AI features and models aren't downloaded to your computer unless you choose to use them, e …

Read the full story at The Verge.

In desperate times, graduates find hope in humiliating tech CEOs

University graduates are booing and heckling corporate executives who praise AI during their commencement ceremonies, and the only people who seem to be genuinely surprised by this are the executives themselves.

In a procession of viral videos, 2026 commencement speakers like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt face loud and sustained jeers from students after praising AI and describing the technology as both inevitable and mandatory. The videos have clearly struck a chord among young people entering a bleak job market in an increasingly unstable world.

"They deserve everything they're getting," Penny Oliver, who recently graduated with a poli …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Who gets to own the Luigi Mangione story?

Luigi Mangione, accused of the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, attends a court hearing on May 18, 2026. | POOL/AFP via Getty Images

On Monday morning, a judge overseeing the New York state case on the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO ruled that some evidence collected by police could not be shown to a jury.

It wasn't the only news coming out of the hearing. Outside the courthouse, Molly Crane-Newman, a New York Daily News reporter, captured on video several attendees giving incendiary remarks to the press. One of the attendees, Lena Weissbrot, said the children of Brian Thompson, who was shot and killed in December 2024, were "better off without him" and that they "needed to learn to not be like their dad." Another attendee who identified themselves only as Ashley c …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Philips’ new display has a screen on both sides

Two people at a front desk look at one side of a monitor while an employee looks at the other.
Front desk staff will no longer have to turn their displays to show customers or clients. | Image: Philips

Its name might be dull and uninspired, but the Philips 24B2D5300 Business Monitor brings a novel feature I've never seen on a display before: screens on either side. The design will primarily benefit people who are constantly angling their computer screen so those on both sides of a desk can see it, like a car salesperson walking a buyer through configuration options or a doctor conferring with a patient. But there are some potential co-working applications, too.

Starting next month, the dual-sided monitor will be released in parts of Europe for £359.99 (around $484), according to Digital Camera World. It's currently listed on both the UK a …

Read the full story at The Verge.

One of Meta’s big legal reckonings just ended in a settlement

Mark Zuckerberg wearing sunglasses leaving a court house in a black SUV.

After back-to-back losses in trials grappling with its impact on teens' mental health, Meta just settled what was supposed to be its next legal battle with Kentucky's Breathitt County School District. Google's YouTube, Snap, and TikTok all recently settled similar claims brought by the school district, which was seeking payment from the companies to cover the cost of combatting social media-related mental health harms.

The trial had been set to begin in June as the first bellwether trial of the federal multidistrict litigation (MDL) cases, which include claims from school districts, state attorneys general, and individuals against the soci …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Bungie gives up on Destiny

Bungie is moving on from Destiny 2. The studio announced Thursday that it's releasing the last major update for the game on June 9th as its focus "turns towards a new beginning for Bungie." After that final update, the game will remain playable, much like the first Destiny.

"Many changes in this final update will aim to ensure that Destiny 2 is a welcoming place for players to return to," Bungie says.

The announcement post has a lot of information about what will be added to this final update, and up to and shortly after launch, Bungie will share more details about the changes. But after that, its weekly blog entries will "be entering a …

Read the full story at The Verge.