The White House is making arcade games racist
The PR masterminds at the White House just released a series of vaguely policy-themed "arcade" games, some of which are racist - and modeled on real games whose copyright holders may not be too happy to be associated with the MAGA agenda.
The Tetris Company has already responded to "Build the Wall," which is obviously modeled on the famous puzzle game. In the Trump administration's game, the player has to stack interlocking shapes to stop a "zombie border siege" along the southern border. Aliens - the administration's preferred term for noncitizens, and the subject of previous grotesque attempts at humor - run across the screen, trying to …
GoPro says it’s still committed ‘to your collective stoke’
GoPro CEO Nick Woodman said in a letter to customers that making cameras is still his company's "core DNA," after a proposed $285 million acquisition by Starman was announced earlier this week. He claims the merger puts GoPro in a better position to continue developing its content creation tech, after saying in the deal announcement that it would work with Starman to address "important areas of national security related to cameras, optics and AI infrastructure."
YouTuber Mark "Markiplier" Fischbach, who prior to the acquisition became GoPro's largest individual shareholder, is not mentioned at all.
To our GoPro community, fans and custom …
Roland is getting into generative AI music with Melody Flip
It's not quite the "push button; get song" of Suno, but Roland's new Melody Flip tool marks the company's foray into generative AI music. Available as a plug-in for your digital audio workstation (DAW), Melody Flip offers around 250 "Palettes," which are essentially themed collections of musical ideas sorted by genre. You can start from scratch and ask it to generate any combination of melody, chord progression, bassline, or drums. Or you can feed it a reference track and have it build off the melodic ideas from that.
Unlike Suno or Udio, Melody Flip doesn't spit out fully polished songs with vocals and full arrangements. Instead, it offers …
AGI is whatever you want it to be
OpenAI announced its next big model, GPT-6 Astra, and also, by the way, that "the AGI era" is here now.
Today on The Vergecast, we've got an all-star panel to break down the news of the week.
First, senior AI reporter Hayden Field joins us to talk about our supposed AGI era and Nvidia's acquisition of Hugging Face.
Then, our friend Joanna Stern pops in to talk about new Apple CEO John Ternus, old Apple CEO Tim Cook, and most importantly, to speculate on the format of next week's Apple keynote.
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We wrap things up with a super-special lightning round from the IFA electronics show in Berlin. Senior reviewer J …
Microsoft says virtually nobody was grabbing NYT articles through its chatbot
Microsoft's Copilot rarely reproduces even full sentences from news articles and books, let alone substantive chunks that could substitute for the original, the company says in new legal filings as it fights copyright claims from publishers including The New York Times and book authors.
As part of the lawsuit's discovery, Microsoft provided 8.2 million Copilot chat logs to an expert hired by news publishers. The logs, it claims, were specifically chosen "because they hit on keywords implicating use of News Plaintiffs' websites, and therefore the most likely to contain News Plaintiffs' works." It says the resulting analysis shows that 59,545 …
The best tech and gadgets announced at IFA so far
The doors to Europe's largest consumer tech show officially opened to the public today following a week of news coming out of IFA 2026 in Berlin, Germany. If you're struggling to keep up with what has been announced, here are some of the best new gadgets and upgrades from the show - including a smartphone that attempts to finally rid the world of screen bezels and a powerful robovac that carries a smaller sidekick for cleaning spaces it can't squeeze into.
To catch up on everything announced at IFA 2026 you can follow The Verge's complete coverage right here.
Tecno Bezelless Concept Smartphone
By tucking the edges of its 6.78-inch, 144Hz …
Alienware’s refurbished 16 Aurora is almost $200 off at Woot
Gaming laptop deals aren’t what they used to be (stares daggers at RAMageddon), which is why I consider Woot’s deal on a refurbished Alienware 16 Aurora gaming laptop with Nvidia’s RTX 5050 a pretty good deal at $927 for new Woot customers (with code WOOTALIEN used at checkout). It costs $1,029 for returning Woot shoppers, which is a decent discount off the new $1,099.99 price at Alienware’s site. Notably, this refurb unit includes a one-year Alienware warranty.
These days, most configurations with Nvidia’s RTX 5060 GPU sail well over the $1,200 mark, which is just too much if you ask me. If you’re in the market for a relatively speedy and well-designed machine, perhaps this one will be a good fit for your needs and budget. The Aurora has a 1600p 120Hz 16-inch screen, Intel’s capable Core 7 240H processor, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, and a 512GB SSD. Its RTX 5050 GPU likely won’t be able to play most games at max settings, especially at its native 1600p resolution, but you should be able to get respectable frame rates and visual fidelity with some tweaking.
As for its condition, the company says “it’s as close to new as you can get without technically being “new.” The 16 Aurora features two M.2 slots, letting you greatly boost its included 512GB SSD with other drives. It also has two SO-DIMM slots, so you can upgrade the 8GB x 2 (DDR5 5,600MHz) down the line to 16GB x 2 (it tops out at 32GB RAM). If you have other specs you want to dig into, check out Dell’s comprehensive spec sheet within its support site.
Other great Verge-approved deals
- Live in a really small space? Perhaps, an RV or a van equipped with power to run appliances? The Loch Capsule dishwasher that my colleague Thomas Ricker tested is 20 percent off for a limited time through Labor Day. Normally $459.99 for the skinny dishwasher, it’s down to $367.99 with free shipping at Loch’s site. Now, folks with setups large enough to accommodate a bigger dishwasher shouldn’t consider the Loch Capsule. But it might be just what some are looking for. It can clean and dry (even sanitize) dishes and pans in a 20-minute cycle. It doesn’t require plumbing, and its design isn’t an eye sore. If you can look past its flaws (mainly that it’s sort of loud), it’s worth considering during the sale.
- There are no other speakers that look like the Bowers & Wilkin’s Zeppelin. Not only is its design striking, appearing to levitate, but it boasts a powerful sound (ask me how I know — it was the sole speaker used during my wedding’s afterparty). Its Zeppelin Pro is 29 percent off at Amazon in the black color option, costing $639 (originally $899). We haven’t tested this particular model, but it seems impressive, featuring five drivers (one being a six-inch subwoofer), plus Bluetooth, AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect. It also has an optional downward-firing light that gives it a unique presence in the room.
- You can tell that Samsung is trying to get rid of monitors when it’s selling a whopping 49-inch OLED gaming monitor for $999.99 (originally $1,699.99). That’s how much its ultrawide Odyssey OLED G93SD costs now at Best Buy. Its width is roughly equivalent to sticking two 25-inch 1440p monitors next to other, then curving them inward slightly for a more immersive viewing experience. The full resolution is 5,210 x 1,440 and it features a 240Hz refresh rate. The screen has a 110 pixels per inch density, which isn’t great, though it’s the standard for most QHD OLED gaming monitors. The monitor includes a three-year warranty protecting against defects, however, Samsung’s warranty page doesn’t explicitly mention burn-in.
What to expect at Apple’s September 9th launch event
Apple's September 9th launch event could be one of its biggest in years. It will be Apple's first event since John Ternus took over as CEO on September 1st, stepping in for Tim Cook, and will likely feature the first models in Apple's iPhone 18 lineup. That could include the long-rumored foldable "iPhone Ultra," coming just a couple months after Samsung debuted its own passport-style foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold 8.
Here's how you can watch the event live, and a few possible highlights to keep an eye out for.
How to watch Apple's September launch event
Apple's "Surprise and shine" event kicks off on Wednesday, September 9th, at 1PM ET / 1 …
Nintendo’s next two Direct events are both happening next week
Nintendo just announced two Direct events for next week, scheduled back to back. First up is the Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct on September 8th at 10AM ET / 7AM PT. It's set to last around 30 minutes, streaming live on Nintendo's YouTube channel or the Nintendo Today app.
Images recently leaked showing a special-edition 40th anniversary Zelda Switch 2 console and controller, plus there's the Ocarina of Time remake that's on the way, as well as the live-action Zelda movie expected to hit theaters sometime next year.
The next day, Nintendo is also running a regular Direct showcase at 10AM ET / 7AM PT that will run for around 45 mi …
Rogue OpenAI agents appear to have organized another attack using a German wiki
A swarm of rogue AI agents from OpenAI reportedly commandeered a German website and transformed it into a messaging board for other agents, with officials staying quiet about the incident for weeks as the company prepared to launch its most advanced model yet, Astra. The finding adds to intensifying concern surrounding oversight at frontier AI labs after multiple breaches were discovered this summer.
The incident, first reported by Reuters, is outlined in new research published by four AI safety researchers on Friday. The group said the AI agents found a way to communicate on an obscure German-language wiki, DseWiki, using it to share tips …