Why the iPhone is about to get more expensive
When Apple debuts the next generation of iPhones this week, they're likely to come with an unwanted change: a higher price tag. A price hike from the supply-chain powerhouse would be the clearest sign yet that soaring memory costs have become unavoidable - with no end to the memory crunch in sight.
Call it "chipflation" or "RAMageddon." The shortage is reversing a decades-long decline in memory costs that helped make consumer electronics more powerful without making them dramatically more expensive. The terms "memory prices" and "memory shortage" appeared in 473 company transcripts last quarter, according to data provided by AlphaSense. The …
Bentley’s Torcal EV tries to balance authenticity with fake V8 sounds
Thanks to their ability to provide a smooth ride and quiet powertrain with ease, electric vehicles are a true shoo-in for the high-end luxury automotive segment. Rolls-Royce has the Spectre, Cadillac's Celestiq is taking bespoke to a whole new level, and Mercedes has given the EQS the full Maybach treatment. From Volkswagen Auto Group, Bentley is just about to debut its 2027 Torcal, a spacious SUV that shares a platform with the electrified Porsche Cayenne.
I recently got a quick ride in a heavily camouflaged preproduction Torcal as a way to experience it before its official debut toward the end of this month. Between this brute's spacious …
Huawei copies Samsung’s privacy display in its latest trifold
Huawei has released its third trifold phone in China, and the company has clearly had half an eye on Samsung during development. Not only does the Mate XT 2 adopt the inward-folding form factor used on Samsung's Galaxy Z TriFold, it's also the first foldable to include a privacy-enhancing display, much like the one Samsung added to the Galaxy S26 Ultra this year.
The first Mate XT, which launched in China in late 2024 and internationally a few months later, used an accordion-esque folding design. It removed the need to include an additional cover screen on the phone, but left parts of the delicate folding display permanently exposed. The fo …
Seattle Times and Newsday sue OpenAI and Microsoft for infringement
The Seattle Times and Newsday are just the latest plaintiffs to take OpenAI to court, alleging copyright infringement. The two outlets say the company used their journalism as training data for its AI models without permission and often reproduces passages from their reporting in response to user queries. This is similar to lawsuits filed by The New York Times, Ziff Davis, Merriam-Webster, and Encyclopedia Britannica against OpenAI.
The Seattle Times and Newsday also named Microsoft as a defendant in the suit, since Copilot is built on OpenAI's technology. The publishers join a list of nearly 400 local newspapers that recently sued the two …
An Amazon cargo plane crashed at Miami International Airport
A plane bearing an Amazon logo overran the runway at Miami International Airport on Sunday during landing, crashing into vehicles and resulting in multiple injuries. The extent of the damage or the seriousness of the injuries was not clear at the time of publication.
In the aftermath of the incident, the FAA released a statement saying:
21 Air Flight 7598 overran the runway after landing at Miami International Airport around 2 p.m. local time on Sunday, Sept. 6. The Boeing 767-300 cargo aircraft departed from Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
As a result, flights at the airport were grounded and over 60 M …
Europe has its first commercial orbital rocket
German company Isar Aerospace has successfully launched Europe's first entirely commercial orbital rocket. It attempted to achieve the feat last March, but that lasted all of 30 seconds before the vehicle crashed into the sea and exploded. This time the company managed to get the two-stage Spectrum into low Earth orbit from a Norwegian spaceport.
CEO and Co-Founder Daniel Metzler said in a press release:
"Today, Isar Aerospace opened space from Continental Europe. Launch continues to be the largest bottleneck for the global space industry and from today on, there is a true alternative for commercial and institutional customers … Europe no …
Boox’s tiny Picco e-reader should land in November
Boox teased the Picco, its take on the buzzy Xteink X4 e-reader, back in July, but provided almost no details. Now, thanks to some reporting out of IFA, we've got a bit more info, though sadly still no price. Unlike the Xteink devices, the Picco will not have magnets on the back for attaching to a phone. The 3.97-inch e-paper display, however, will be touchscreen, which The Verge's Andrew Liszewski called a "welcome upgrade" on the X4 Pro. The Picco has physical page-turn buttons, and they can be customized with different actions for short and long presses.
There's apparently no onboard storage, and it relies entirely on a microSD card to h …
The Fairphone 6 Plus is the midrange phone we desperately needed
The Fairphone 6 Plus feels like an extremely average midrange Android phone and I couldn't be more thrilled.
The mission has always been admirable. Fairphone seeks out ethically sourced materials and offers a high degree of repairability for its devices. But the phones themselves required a lot of sacrifices, like putting up with underpowered processors and bad cameras, in order to embrace the sustainability mission. The latest generations of Fairphone have inched toward closing that gap, and the 6 Plus achieves two huge milestones: It feels very much like using a middling Android phone, and it's actually on sale in the US.
The 6 Plus is a …
Competitive Pokémon is on phones now, but you still need a Switch to become a champion
To get started with competitive Pokémon battles, all you need is your phone. But to compete at the highest level, like at the Pokémon World Championships, you're going to need a Switch. And there doesn't seem to be a good reason why.
Battle simulator Pokémon Champions originally launched on the Switch and Switch 2 in April, with the mobile version following in June. The experience is nearly identical across the game's versions; since it's cross-platform, the choice really comes down to what devices you own and whether you prefer tapping or using a controller. I find myself playing Champions on my phone more often just because it's always in …
DIY plug-in solar gains momentum in the US
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on e-bikes, power stations, and how to work anywhere, follow Thomas Ricker. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.
How it started
With a deep breath, I took the cable seething with 800W of solar power and plugged it directly into a standard wall jack in my home. Nothing sparked, nothing smoked, and by the end of that sunny summer day, my electricity bill had dropped to nearly $0.
As unnerving as it sounds to treat a common household power outlet like a power input, these DIY plug-in s …