New York sues Valve, alleging its loot boxes are ‘quintessential gambling’
New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing Valve for "illegally promoting gambling" through the loot box systems it has built for video games like Counter-Strike 2, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2, according to a press release. The attorney general seeks to "permanently stop Valve from promoting gambling features in its games, disgorge all ill-gotten gains, and pay fines for violating New York's laws."
"This loot box model that Valve has developed - charging an individual for a chance to win something of value based on luck alone - is quintessential gambling, prohibited under New York's Constitution and Penal Law," the lawsuit says. Valve …
How the new Galaxy S26 phones stack up against each other on paper
Samsung has just announced its new Galaxy S26 lineup, which includes the S26, S26 Plus, and S26 Ultra. While they aren't radical departures from last year's models, they bring a handful of notable upgrades. All three run on Qualcomm's Galaxy-centric Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which delivers improved performance and powers a slew of new AI-based features. This includes the ability to screen unknown calls and edit photos by typing what you want changed, along with an update to Google Gemini that can carry out certain tasks in supported third-party apps, like Uber and DoorDash, on your behalf.
Starting at $899.99, the S26 is the smallest and mo …
Corsair is halting Drop sales after March 25th
The Drop store, which was acquired by gaming gear giant Corsair in 2023, was a haven for mechanical keyboard enthusiasts and audiophiles to discover and buy hard-to-find gear - sometimes at surprisingly good prices. The company will cease sales after March 25th at 11:59PM PT, which is also the cut off to redeem Drop Rewards. After March 31st, the site will be accessible for a limited time to view order history, but all retail functionality will shift to Corsair.
Corsair's marketing manager Andrew Williams confirmed to The Verge that several products featured on Drop will be integrated into Corsair's site for purchase. Select others will be …
The Peace Corps is recruiting volunteers to sell AI to developing nations
For more than six decades, the Peace Corps has represented itself as an agency focused on helping underserved communities around the globe. But a new initiative, called the "Tech Corps," threatens to unravel the agency's original mission by recruiting de facto Silicon Valley salespeople to promote the biggest names in AI - many of which have ties to President Donald Trump.
Established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, the Peace Corps recruited skilled Americans interested in assisting developing countries in industries like education, healthcare, and agriculture. As noted by the Brookings Institution, the agency was created to "win the …
Trump claims tech companies will sign deals next week to pay for their own power supply
President Donald Trump tried to quell Americans' concerns about rising electricity costs during his State of the Union speech - and now we're learning that the deals he promised could land next week. Trump claimed that he's negotiated a "rate payer protection pledge" with major tech companies, which would see them build out or pay for new electricity generation for their data centers. Leaders from Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle and OpenAI are expected to attend a March 4th event to sign the pledge, Fox News reported today.
There are very few details at this point on what the pledge entails, nor how companies would be held ac …
Here’s how the new Samsung Galaxy S26 compares with last year’s S25
Samsung unveiled its Galaxy S26 lineup at its recent Unpacked event in San Francisco. As expected, the new series consists of the baseline S26, which starts at $899.99, and the bigger S26 Plus, which starts at $1,099.99. At the high end, there's also the $1,299.99 S26 Ultra, which is the largest in the lineup and comes with a bigger battery, better cameras, S Pen support, and expanded options for both storage and RAM. The price difference between Samsung's cheapest and most expensive S26 phones is $400 (last year, it was $500).
While some of its updated Galaxy AI software features are new, it's another year of minor hardware updates for Sam …
Google and Samsung just launched the AI features Apple couldn’t with Siri
Google just announced that Gemini will soon be able to take care of some multistep tasks on your phone, like ordering food or hailing a car, starting first with the Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, and the just-announced Samsung Galaxy S26 phones. It all sounds a bit like features Apple announced for Siri way back at the 2024 Worldwide Developers Conference - before Apple delayed those planned features in March 2025 and which still aren't released.
Onstage, Sameer Samat, Google's president of Android, showed off a demo of how Gemini's new agentic features would work to help wrangle a pizza dinner order from his busy family group chat. Samat asks Gem …
Preorders for Samsung’s S26 phones come with up to $200 in gift cards
As expected, Samsung has taken the wraps off its flagship lineup for 2026. Introduced during the company's recent Unpacked event, the new Galaxy devices - which include the standard S26, the larger S26 Plus, and the high-end S26 Ultra - will be available on March 11th. Preorders are now open ahead of launch, with pricing starting at $899.99 for the base-model S26, $1,099.99 for the Plus, and $1,299.99 for the Ultra.
Overall, the forthcoming S26 lineup looks largely similar to last year's S25 series, only with a handful of notable upgrades. The biggest changes this year are on the software side, with Samsung introducing a privacy display in …
Kalshi says it fined a MrBeast editor and a politician for insider trading
Kalshi, the prediction betting market, has disclosed its first fines for insider trading, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal. In addition to handing down a $20,000 fine to a MrBeast editor, Kalshi also charged a California gubernatorial candidate over $2,000 after a video on X "appeared to show him trading on his own candidacy."
In a notice on Wednesday, Kalshi claims MrBeast editor Artem Kaptur traded about $4,000 on YouTube streaming markets, violating its insider trading rules. "Our surveillance systems flagged his near-perfect trading success on markets with low odds, which were statistically anomalous," Bobby DeNault, legal …
Google Gemini can book an Uber or order food for you on Pixel 10 and Galaxy S26
Google's Gemini AI is getting one step closer to being more like an actual assistant. Starting with some Pixel 10 phones and the Samsung Galaxy S26 series, Gemini will be able to hail an Uber or put together a DoorDash order on its own.
It's called task automation, and it starts with a prompt to Gemini - something like "Get me an Uber to the Palace of Fine Arts." Gemini then launches the app in a virtual window on your device and goes through the process step-by-step. You can watch it all happen, with options to stop the automation or take control if necessary, or just let it run in the background while Gemini does its thing. The assistant …