A woman was arrested in Philly for blocking a delivery robot
Carolyn Marvin was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after blocking the path of an Uber delivery robot and refusing to get out of the way. Marvin told Philadelphia's ABC13 "I know they're taking the jobs of human delivery workers and so, I have been protesting them whenever I saw them by standing in front of them and preventing them from going forward."
Police responded to the scene and asked Marvin to move out of the robot's way. When she refused, they placed her in cuffs and arrested her. The incident was captured on video and has now garnered considerable media attention.
The delivery robots have become a common sight on the …
Video game ownership bill introduced in Congress
Rep. Ritchie Torres of New York's 15th congressional district in the Bronx introduced the Power To The Players Act this week. If passed, the bill would direct the Federal Trade Commission to establish regulations that guarantee consumers ownership of a game when they pay for it, rather than a licensing agreement.
It's increasingly common for games sold to require a connection to a server. Meaning that when a company decides to shut down those servers, the games often become unplayable. Rep. Torres singles out NBA 2K25 as a recent example. 2K will be delisting the game from storefronts at the end of the month and shutting down its servers on …
Lenovo’s fast, comfy SteamOS handheld is hundreds off
The Legion Go S with SteamOS is a pretty solid alternative to the $789 Steam Deck OLED. It runs identical software, but ships in a design with two-stage triggers, a bigger eight-inch IPS screen (1080p and up to 120Hz versus 800p and 90Hz in the Deck OLED), and it’s got double the RAM and storage (32GB and 1TB, respectively), not to mention a slightly faster processor in the Ryzen Z1 Extreme.
At $999.99, its current discounted price at Best Buy, it’s worth considering if you’re deciding on a handheld. The Legion Go S is not as powerful as the $1,299.99 Asus ROG Xbox Ally X20 that just launched, which has the Z2 Extreme and a OLED screen, but it’s no slouch, either.
This model launched with Windows 11 and the Ryzen Z2 Go. Despite being a newer chip, it’s less powerful than the Z1 Extreme in the discounted model. SteamOS and the faster internals within this configuration will provide a better experience. Check out my colleague Sean Hollister’s review of multiple configs of the Go S, and see how it stacks up in his benchmarks.
J Mascis has nothing better to do
Dinosaur Jr. frontman J Mascis is known as something of a slacker guitar god. He stands stoically onstage, barely moving, as he seemingly effortlessly works through deft guitar solos and lopsided riffs. Unfortunately, Mascis has developed a similar reputation as an interview subject, quietly sitting and offering deft nonanswers.
That's not to say that Mascis can't be funny or charming. As our interview was winding down and I was thanking him for his time, he started to loosen up a bit. He told me about his youth as a mini golf "enthusiast." "I had a 3-foot putt for the win" at a mini-golf tournament, he said, but "that's when I realized tha …
Trump says Google kisses his ass
During a rally on Saturday, October 17th, in Highland Heights, Kentucky, Donald Trump bragged about how much more powerful and influential he was during his second term. While listing off his accomplishments, he mentioned his decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario.
"This is a much more powerful term. I can do stuff that's unbelievable … I called Google, Google Maps. See, Google wouldn't have taken my call in the first term. Now they kiss my ass."
Trump seems to be implying that he convinced Google to reflect the name change personally. That would seem to contradict Google's statement on the matter, in which it said that …
The best gadget I bought this year is a milk frother
Back in February, I went to Los Angeles to take in some art and stayed in Koreatown. Down the street from my hotel, there was this little coffee shop - Stagger - that is, I think, best known for its matcha, which is good. But the drink I unexpectedly found myself obsessed with was their cream top, an iced Americano with, yep, vanilla cream on top. When I got back to Oakland, I kept thinking about how badly I wanted one.
For more than 20 years, I've been drinking my coffee - iced or otherwise - black. Originally this was because I knew I could put black coffee that had cooled off in the microwave to reheat it without worrying that the milk i …
How overhead projectors took over your classroom
It used to be so easy to get away with things in school. The teacher, after all, was always turned around writing at the chalkboard! But then came a bit of technology, previously mostly used for military purposes, called the overhead projector. It would change far more than just the disciplinary record of students everywhere.
In this episode of Version History, we tell the story of the overhead projector. David Pierce is joined by The Verge's Jake Kastrenakes and Stanford professor Antero Garcia to discuss how overhead projectors were developed, how they made their way into classrooms, and how they changed so much about the way kids learn. …
Cities want to put the boot on robotaxis
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on autonomous vehicles, policy, and road rules, follow Andrew J. Hawkins. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.
How it started
The first state to pass a law legalizing self-driving cars operating on public roads was Nevada in June 2011 - long before such vehicles were operating on public roads. This was three years before the introduction of Tesla's Autopilot, five years before Waymo spun out of the Google self-driving car project, and seven years before the first commercial robotaxi …
TikTok bans Musk documentary account
Just ahead of the wider release of Alex Gibney's Musk documentary, TikTok has banned the film's social media account from its platform. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film's distributor, Bleecker Street, was informed Friday afternoon that a "permanent suspension" was imminent. Bleecker Street has not yet responded to a request for comment from The Verge.
While TikTok has no official affiliation with Elon Musk, part owner Larry Ellison appears in the film via a text message offering to help Musk fund his Twitter purchase.
Last month, YouTube, Meta, X, and TikTok all face …
Mercedes-AMG’s first ground-up SUV is a 1,150hp electric beast
Earlier this year, Mercedes' AMG performance brand grabbed our attention with the GT four-door coupe, a souped-up sports sedan with three axial flux motors delivering over 1,150 horsepower. Well, now meet its beefier cousin, the 2028 Mercedes-AMG GT SUV, an equally powerful, ultra-fast-charging electric people-hauler.
The AMG GT SUV (say that five times fast) marks the first time in the performance brand's 59-year history that it has developed a full-size SUV entirely in-house from the ground up. Scheduled to hit the US next summer, the new EV is built on Merc's high-performance AMG.EA architecture to combine sports-car handling with full-s …