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Apple addresses iPhone Duo copycats

11 September 2026 at 11:02
John Ternus, Apple CEO, holds an iPhone Duo at the launch event. | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Apple was far from the first company to announce a passport-shaped folding phone this year, but that doesn't mean it wasn't copied. As my colleague Dom Preston already explained, it's almost impossible to keep product development secret when Apple and its competitors all share the same global suppliers.

Apple's new CEO John Ternus and head of marketing Greg 'Joz' Joswiak addressed the topic during an interview with TechRadar's Lance Ulanoff and Mark Spoonauer of Tom's Guide.

"People knew through leaks that we were working on a foldable," said Joz. "Unfortunately, they got the aspect ratio, and a lot of coincidental instances of people fin …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google search embraces live NFL football

9 September 2026 at 17:00
Go, go escargots! | Image: Google

Google is introducing a new Live Game Feed to keep you updated on NFL games as the regular season kicks off tonight. Look for the red "Live" icon and you'll see a recap of the ongoing game, play-by-play updates, top commentary on social, video highlights, and "AI-powered insights." It's available now on mobile in English, with support for college games and more languages coming later this month.

Search on mobile is also getting a new carousel that lets you flip through scores for other games currently in progress. Stats are improving too, now showing which players lead in categories like passing touchdowns and rushing yards, as well as impr …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Nitecore’s latest power bank is the lightest and most compact yet

8 August 2026 at 08:00
The Nitecore NB10000 Gen 4 power bank is a great option for endurance athletes and backpackers. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

There's two things you should know about me, your intrepid reviewer: I hate the feature creep associated with modern power banks, and I love shaving grams off the gear I carry when backpacking, bikepacking, and trail running. So imagine my delight when Nitecore released a new generation of its ultralight NB10000 battery. After a few weeks with it I can confidently say: Haribo be damned!

The $83.95 NB10000 Gen 4 weighs just 146 grams, according to my scale, and measures 1.45 x 11.6 x 4.68cm (0.57 x 4.57 x 1.84 inches), according to Nitecore's spec sheet. That makes it the lightest and most compact 10,000mAh power bank I can find. Even when …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Forget expensive sleepbuds. Buy this pillow instead

25 July 2026 at 08:00
A pillow with two visible holes, equidistant from the edges on the top surface sits on a bed.
This “piercing pillow” also works great with earbuds you probably already own.

Tech companies love to sell us expensive gadgets to solve all of life's little problems. Sleepbuds sold by the likes of Anker and Ozlo are a good example. These miniature marvels of engineering sit flush in the ear, and allow side-sleepers to doze off listening to podcasts, audiobooks, music, or white noise without annoying their partner. But why pay over $200 for a second pair of highly specialized buds when you can spend a fraction of that for a product that never needs charging, never loses its Bluetooth connection, and won't need replacing in a few years after the battery wears out?

Piercing pillows, as the name suggests, promise pain …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Fine, electric mountain bikes don’t suck

18 July 2026 at 08:00
A mountain bike does a wheelie on a single track in the forest.
You don’t need a $10,000 Amflow PX Carbon Pro, but it doesn’t hurt. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

Cheater, I'd grumble between huffs as yet another e-bike rider casually skittered past me on a steep ascent. It's this purist attitude that, for years, has left me blind to one simple fact: electric mountain bikes are fun!

My attitude adjustment came a few weeks ago, the very first time I rode an Amflow PX Carbon Pro fitted with the incredibly compact, lightweight, and powerful M2S motor from Avinox, a new DJI offshoot that has incumbents like Bosch and Specialized on edge. The motor doesn't make me a speed demon, but it does let me suck better by compensating whenever my poor technique kills the momentum.

Mountain biking has a long histor …

Read the full story at The Verge.

SwitchBot’s Standing Circulator Fan is worth fighting for

20 June 2026 at 08:00
The fan, with a light-ring glowing in the center of the back, pointed at a bed.
I’m a fan.

I can't remember the last time I got excited about a fan. Normally, I just buy whatever Vornado or Dreo model fits my budget, but that was before I started testing the battery-powered Standing Circulator Fan from SwitchBot.

As the name indicates, the SwitchBot fan is a 3D circulator - a fancy way of saying that it can tilt up, down, left, and right to push a decent amount air around a room. It looks okay, despite all the plastic, is relatively quiet, runs for hours on battery, has an integrated nightlight, transforms from a desktop to standing fan in seconds, and works on its own or as part of a smart home. There's a lot to like here.

Over …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Jackery announces ‘world’s slimmest’ fridge battery

17 June 2026 at 14:00
The slim fridgeguard power bank lies sideways on top of a full-sized fridge.
Designed to fit on top of, behind, or next to a fridge for battery backup during a power outage. | Image: Jackery

Jackery is jumping on the fridge-battery trend with what it says is the "world's slimmest." FridgeGuard also looks nice; a break from power stations that tend to look more at home at a job site than the kitchen or living room.

Measuring just 2.63 inches (67mm) thick, the Jackery FridgeGuard power station is meant to be tucked on top of, beside, or behind your refrigerator and automatically spring to life with a 10ms UPS switchover during a power outage. Its modest 800W of AC output (1600W peak) and 1kWh LFP battery will keep the typical US fridge / freezer combo running for about 10 hours - or double that if you add a 1kWh expansion battery …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple’s weird anti-nausea dots cured my car sickness

16 June 2026 at 12:30
Hand holding a phone covered in anti-nausea dots.

I'll just work from the car, I thought. But after a few minutes of staring at my screen on quick mountain switchbacks I could feel the first signs of cold, coagulated nausea bubbling up from that sweaty place in my gut. I looked to the horizon for relief, but nothing helped… until I remembered Apple's magic dots.

Introduced in 2024, Apple's Vehicle Motion Cues promise to tap into your device's accelerometer and gyroscope to reduce or, in my case, even eliminate the motion sickness felt when trying to use an iPhone, iPad, or MacBook inside a moving vehicle.

According to big-S Science, this type of vehicle motion sickness is caused by the e …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Solid-state batteries still aren’t ready, but gels are

14 June 2026 at 13:00

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

Lithium-ion batteries are everywhere as we enter the second quarter of the 21st century, and that's a problem. From exploding e-bikes in stairwells to lithium-ion power banks combusting midflight, the volatile nature of traditional liquid electrolytes has become an undeniable public safety hazard.

In 2025, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) i …

Read the full story at The Verge.

This portable light is great for way more than camping

12 June 2026 at 12:30
Camping symbols around a BougeRV portable camping light.

It's intended for camping, but BougeRV's T1 light is so versatile that it also makes for a great summer travel companion that'll continue to light the dark corners of your life long after you return. I used it for a few months during a recent road trip in my camper van, and it's the light I keep reaching for again and again now that I'm home.

The telescoping light features three articulating LED arms that together direct up to 3,000 lumens of white, warm, or red light in any direction you want. It can illuminate an area over 1,000 square feet and function as a flashlight, a mood light, and a 57Wh USB-C power bank that can deliver up to 30W …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Siri won’t be your AI girlfriend

12 June 2026 at 08:00
‘Listen, that's not what I'm here for.' | Image: Apple

Our early testing has already shown that Siri AI knows when to shut up, and that's very much by design. In an interview with Mostly Human spotted by MacRumors, Craig Federighi said Apple's new Siri won't act all sycophantic like chatbots made by OpenAI, Google, and others.

"As you may know, if you use many of the existing chatbots, they're really focused on engagement to a large degree," said Federighi, who is responsible for software at Apple. "And sycophancy, right? They kind of want to pull you in. They might encourage you to reveal things about yourself, and then use that as a basis to establish a connection."

Apple purposely took a di …

Read the full story at The Verge.

I went to the woods to drink surprisingly great espresso

11 June 2026 at 13:30
IKAPE Portable Coffee Maker on a graphic background.

With summer's return, I'm again reminded of my limits as I head into the great outdoors: I can put up with a heavy, uncomfortable backpack, bug bites, mud, and even bland dehydrated food, but I will not forsake my morning brew.

I've tried every imaginable coffee gadget in my half-century of camping. These range from simple drip systems when ultralight backpacking, an AeroPress when not weighing every gram, French press plungers when assisted by bicycle, and small countertop coffee makers when adventuring by van. Yet I keep returning to handheld espresso makers whenever possible for reasons of taste, convenience, and - let's face it - gadget …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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