Grok is spreading misinformation about the Bondi Beach shooting
Grok's track record is spotty at best. But even by the very low standards of xAI, its failure in the aftermath of the tragic mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Australia is shocking. The AI chatbot has repeatedly misidentified 43-year-old Ahmed al Ahmed, the man who heroically disarmed one of the shooters, and claimed the verified video of his deed was something else entirely - including that it was an old viral video of a man climbing a tree.
In the aftermath of the attack, Ahmed has been widely praised for his heroism, but some have tried to dismiss or even deny his actions. Someone even quickly whipped up a fake news site that appears to be …
Absynth is back and weirder than ever after 16 years
Absynth is something of a cult classic in the soft synth world. It was originally released in 2000, and quickly found an audience among the growing cadre of people making music on computers. But its last major update, Absynth 5, was released in 2009, and Native Instruments officially discontinued the instrument in 2022, citing a lack of resources to continue supporting software in desperate need of modernization. But now the Absynth is making a grand return with version six, created in collaboration with the original designer Brian Clevinger, and featuring presets from Brian Eno and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith.
The core of what made it so beloved …
Inside the high drama of the iPhone 4
By 2010, the iPhone era was in full swing. Smartphones were still a new and unfinished idea - the iPhone had only just gotten copy and paste! - but it was clear that these big slabs of glass were going to change the way we did pretty much everything.
Apple was also already on an annual launch strategy, so we all knew there was another iPhone coming. Then an Apple employee left a prototype in a bar. Gizmodo bought it, took it apart, published all the sordid details, and pretty much broke the internet. And thus, the story of the iPhone 4 began well before the launch of the iPhone 4.
And that's just the beginning of the drama! For this epis …
The end of OpenAI, and other 2026 predictions
Here's a thought: what if the next-generation Siri is awesome? Not just awesome for setting timers and dictating text messages (though that would be nice), but so awesome and fun to talk to that people actually start falling in love with their iPhones. We may not be prepared for what happens next.
On this episode of The Vergecast, Sexy Siri is just one of the topics at hand. Nilay and David are joined by Joanna Stern, senior tech columnist at The Wall Street Journal, to talk through their most mild, medium, and spicy predictions for the year to come.
Subscribe: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Pocket Casts | More
There are some re …
I’m finally beginning to trust Microsoft’s handheld Xbox
I still wouldn't buy an Xbox Ally, and I still don't think the tweaked version of Windows that shipped with it is ready for primetime. The Xbox Full Screen Experience (FSE) needs work. But two months after I panned the cheaper $600 white Xbox Ally and wasn't quite sold on the $1,000 black one, one of my most-hated Windows issues is getting better.
I didn't stop testing these handhelds after my October review; I've been playing Hollow Knight: Silksong and Blue Prince on them ever since. I installed FSE on an MSI Claw 8 AI Plus, too. And after too many updates to count, I'm finally beginning to trust two of these handhelds to save my game (an …
AI image generators are getting better by getting worse
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on smartphones and digital imagery - real or otherwise - follow Allison Johnson. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.
How it started
Remember the early days of AI image generation? Oh how we laughed when our prompts resulted in people with too many fingers, rubbery limbs, and other details easily pointing to fakes. But if you haven't been keeping up, I regret to inform you that the joke is over. AI image generators are getting way better at creating realistic fakes, partly thanks to …
A new old idea about video stores
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 109, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, hope you're staying warm, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
This week, I've been reading about Google Maps and shopaganda and life as a pop star, finally getting to watch F1 now that it's streaming, rewatching the first two Avatars ahead of the next one's release, pretending the new Taylor Swift tour doc is a reasonable replacement for actually seeing the tour, buying a bunch of Ikea smart buttons now that they're on sale in the US, playing with the excellent new Obsidian up …
A Kinect for kids is outselling Xbox to become the hot console this holiday
It's a small sample size, likely driven by Black Friday discounts and temporary virality, but the Nex Playground has gone from little-known console curiosity to best-seller. It's now on track to quadruple its sales from last year. According to research firm Circana, the Playground was the second best-selling console in the US for the week ending November 22nd, and third for the week ending November 28th. In October, it wasn't even mentioned by Circana's video game analyst, Mat Piscatella.
The colorful cube got a steep discount for Black Friday, from $249 to $199, which is likely part of what drove sales, especially since Microsoft didn't di …
Slab is the first MIDI controller built exclusively for Serato Studio
Native Instruments and Ableton have had incredible success with their custom MIDI controllers that integrate with their DAWs (digital audio workstations), Maschine and Live, respectively. Native Instruments' Maschine (yes, it's the name of the hardware and the software) and Ableton's Push are pretty much the gold standard for integration between music-making software and hardware. Serato is hoping it can capture even a sliver of that magic with its pairing of Slab and Serato Studio.
Plenty of others have tried their hand at building (or having others build for them) custom controllers for their DAWs - FL Studio, Studio One, and the MPC desk …
This $1,500 robot cooks dinner while I work
As I'm sitting in my office writing this review, delicious, cheesy, garlicky scents are wafting up the stairs. I can hear whizzing and whirring, and the occasional clunk, as a robot chef in my kitchen is making macaroni and cheese. Its app tells me there are three minutes left in the process, and based on the snapshot it's showing, the dish looks like a creamy pile of cheesy goodness.
I'll be heading out the door shortly to pick up my daughter from the school bus, and when we're back, the robot-cooked mac and cheese will be waiting for her to dive into, staying fresh thanks to a "copilot" mode that keeps it warm and stirs it occasionally u …