New Mexico goes to trial to accuse Meta of facilitating child predators
At the center of a consequential case about social media liability is a key question: did Meta lie or mislead the public about the safety of its platform, while knowing something very different?
The state of New Mexico opened its case Monday arguing that public statements by Meta's top executives regularly contradicted its own internal discussions and research about the harm Facebook and Instagram posed to teens. According to Don Migliori, an attorney for the state, Meta prioritized profits and its stated commitment to free expression over the safety of young users on Facebook and Instagram. Meanwhile, Meta attorney Kevin Huff told the New …
MrBeast just bought a banking app
Beast Industries, owned by YouTuber Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson, announced on Monday that it has acquired Step, a banking app designed for teens and young adults. The move comes a couple of months after Donaldson announced plans to start a new YouTube channel centered on personal finance and investing. His main channel has 466 million subscribers and has long been one of the most popular on YouTube, frequently featuring videos where Donaldson gives away huge sums of money.
MrBeast's other business ventures also include a chain of ghost restaurants, the Feastables snack brand, and an upcoming phone service company called Beast Mobile. This is …
ChatGPT’s cheapest options now show you ads
ChatGPT users may soon start seeing ads in their chats, as OpenAI announced on Monday that it's officially beginning to test ads on its AI platform. They'll appear as labeled "sponsored" links at the bottom of ChatGPT answers, but OpenAI says the ads "do not influence the answers ChatGPT gives you."
Currently, ads will only show up for users on the free version of ChatGPT or the lowest-cost $8 per month Go plan. Users in the Plus, Pro, Business, Enterprise, and Education plans won't see any ads, so anyone who wants to avoid them has to pay at least $20 per month for the Plus subscription. There is one loophole - OpenAI notes that users can …
FCC accused of withholding DOGE information ‘in bad faith’
One year and nearly 2,000 pages of documents later, a group suing to uncover what the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was doing at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says the agency has withheld relevant documents "in bad faith" and is asking a court to allow discovery and depositions to draw out the information.
"Thus far, the Defendant has sought to delay document production, and when pressed by this Court to act, Defendant has produced only sanitized email threads," Arthur Belendiuk, attorney for advocacy group Frequency Forward and journalist Nina Burleigh, who together filed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) re …
Riot is already cutting staff on its new fighting game
Riot Games is already "reducing the size" of the team working on its recently-released free-to-play fighting game 2XKO, according to a post from executive producer Tom Cannon. The game, set in the League of Legends universe, launched in early access on PC in October and hit consoles just a few weeks ago.
2XKO has been in development for years, with Riot first announcing the project under the codename Project L in 2019 as part of broader plans to expand the company's lineup beyond League of Legends. While some of Riot's expansion ideas have worked out, including Netflix's animated series Arcane and the tactical shooter that would eventually …
The Verge’s 2026 Valentine’s Day gift guide (for her)
Valentine's Day often comes with more pressure than it needs to. At heart, though, February 14th is about showing appreciation for the people you care about in ways that feel thoughtful and sincere. And while big displays of romance can do that, it's often the quieter, more personal gestures - or a meaningful gift that makes life just a little more enjoyable - that matter most.
Below, we've rounded up gift ideas that, in our experience, do just that. Some are practical picks, like a pair of noise-canceling earbuds meant to help you focus or a pair of USB-C hand warmers for those cold, blustery days back east. Others, such as Renpho's eye ma …
Toyota made a game engine
Using a game engine in a "digital cockpit" is useful for things like step-by-step 3D tutorials about a car, mapping the environment around your car, and offering more natural controls, explained Jamie Kerber, an employee of Very Good Ventures, at the FOSDEM 2026 conference. She's a lead engineer on Fluorite, a game engine for use in cars developed by her company as well as Toyota Connected North America and the Automotive Grade Linux project, as reported earlier by Eurogamer and Game*Spark.
Epic Games has made a big push for car companies to use Unreal Engine to power those in-car interfaces and visualize them for design and marketing, and …
Apple is killing the old HomeKit tomorrow
If you haven't yet updated to the new Apple Home, your smart home devices may no longer work in the Home app on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch starting tomorrow. On February 10, 2026, Apple will end support for the original HomeKit architecture.
The biggest impact of the change will be felt by anyone still using an iPad as their Apple Home Hub (which allows you to control devices remotely and create automations).
In the new Apple Home, iPads are no longer supported as hubs. You'll need a HomePod or Apple TV to serve that role. The new architecture also requires your phone and any devices connected to your Home to be running iOS 16. …
AI-generated ads dropped the ball at this year’s Super Bowl
It feels like everyone who produced ad spots for this year's Super Bowl with generative AI failed in terms of making gen AI seem useful or like something worth getting excited about. Though we've seen plenty of AI-generated commercials before (at previous Super Bowls, no less), this year's event was oversaturated with them. That's in part because image and video generation models have become more sophisticated in the past year - though still subpar compared to what humans create, they're just improved enough for a number of brands to now be comfortable having their names associated with AI-derived footage.
Also, it's much, much cheaper and …
Ferrari’s first EV will have an interior designed by Jony Ive
Ferrari released the first interior images of the company's first all-electric supercar, called the Ferrari Luce ("light" in Italian). This is the second time the Italian automaker has teased the Luce (formerly Elettrica) without showing us the actual car, or even a silhouette. But the interior images should suffice given the bold-faced name of the designer: Jony Ive.
Ferrari decided to outsource the work of designing the Luce's interior to Ive and his partner Marc Newson, who together run the design shop LoveFrom. Ive, obviously, is well known for his work as Apple's former chief designer, overseeing such iconic products as the iMac, iPhon …