The Toronto International Film Festival is a place to go to see the future of film, but this year it also provided a glimpse at what is coming very soon in the realm of streaming. Four different streamers - Peacock, Netflix, Amazon, and AMC - all premiered early looks at upcoming horror-adjacent series that are dropping very soon. And by doing it at TIFF, they showed just how important the month of October has become in the realm of streaming.
Perhaps the most high-profile is Carrie, which is coming to Prime Video. An adaptation of the classic Stephen King novel, which has already been turned into no fewer than three feature films, this ver …
Snap is introducing "Specs Intelligence," a new AI assistant that can connect other digital accounts to help you with things like work tasks and keeping track of travel information. It seems similar to AI assistants like Meta's Muse and Gemini's Spark, though Snap is pitching Specs Intelligence as an "anticipatory AI service" that "helps you manage what needs attention today, so you can make progress toward your longer-term goals." Like with other AI assistants, you can also chat with it.
Specs Intelligence is being launched alongside Specs, Snap's first consumer pair of augmented reality glasses. But it's also available on iOS today in pre …
My favorite part of wearing the Specs, Snap's new augmented reality glasses, was playing dominoes. Sitting across the table from a Snap employee wearing the same pair of chunky glasses, I could select a virtual domino with a pinch and then move my hand to drop it in place, watching the tile snap down in front of us on a real table. It was unlike anything I've tried in other VR headsets or smart glasses - the ability to sit with another person and have a shared digital experience.
Snap really believes in AR glasses. The company has spent more than half a decade developing the technology, producing two generations of glasses that only ever sh …
Christopher Nolan's engrossing take on The Odyssey dominated at the box office and spurred a newfound interest in classic literature among filmgoers. But a new retelling of the story made entirely with AI is so bad that it might just make viewers hate the original tale altogether.
The new film, called Odysseus: The Fall, comes via AI firm Fountain 0 and is written and directed by company cofounder Ash Koosha, who also lent his likeness to the title character and created all of the music. (The film's credits are very short.) The studio's only previous work is an AI film called Dreams of Violets that made it into Tribeca earlier this year. Th …
E-waste from the AI boom has been vastly underestimated, a new report warns. By 2050, it could become enough trash to fill 23 million shipping containers - roughly enough 40-foot containers to circle the world six times if lined up in a row.
It's a significantly higher estimate of AI's e-waste than previous studies have found because the authors of the new report factor in all the infrastructure needed to support servers in data centers. The broader scope provides a clearer picture of junk AI leaves behind, according to the nonprofit Basel Action Network (BAN), which published the paper today.
When Paul W.S. Anderson's Resident Evil hit theaters in 2002, video game movies were largely seen as a niche. Films like Mortal Kombat and Tomb Raider had proven that big-screen game adaptations could be successful, but the commercial and critical failure of projects like the 1993 Super Mario Bros. still cast a long shadow. And while Anderson's vision of Raccoon City might have captivated audiences on the whole, many hardcore fans of Capcom's games were left disappointed by the way the original movies wildly deviated from the source material.
Weaponsdirector Zach Cregger's new take on Resident Evil is a return to the franchise's fundamenta …
Samus is geared up for another adventure. | Image: Nintendo
The Metroid series is going back to its 2D roots again with Metroid Ravenous for the Nintendo Switch 2, the first side-scrolling game in the series since 2021’s Metroid Dread for the Nintendo Switch. If you’re already excitedenough to consider preordering, you can save $10 on the physical version of the game when you buy it from Walmart. It’s $59.88 instead of $69.99, about the same as buying it digitally. The game launches on January 28th, 2027, but it’s not clear how long the preorder discount will last. If it’s anything like other Walmart preorders, it may occasionally disappear.
Nintendo first showed off the side-scrolling adventure game at its September 2026 Direct, with a frantic trailer cutting between cinematic sequences, Samus dashing and rolling across a variety of environments, and engaging a number of enemies and bosses in battle. Samus absorbs some powerful abilities at the conclusion of Dread, and Ravenous seem to be all about plowing through anyone stopping her from escaping the planet. Other details of the story, including unique new mechanics, are being kept under wraps for the time being.
If you haven’t played Metroid Dread, I recommend it, especially at its $41.99 discounted price at Amazon. It’s part of Nintendo’s “Customer Appreciation” sale happening through September 26th, and several other games and accessories are cheaper, too.
According to The Information, Apple is planning to get back into the server game and might just pair up with Nvidia to make it happen. Apple retired its Xserve line in 2011 and has largely left enterprise machines to other manufacturers since. But the growing demand for compute power as the AI industry continues to expand has apparently led the company to believe there is an opening for its powerful but efficient ARM-based M processors. Its Mac Mini and Mac Studio have proven popular with AI developers, which has led to shortages.
The server product, whether it's called Xserve or something else, likely won't debut until 2029. Word is that i …
My villain origin story is my Whoop age. How do you age at 0.9 times your age and end up four to five years older than you are? | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewerVictoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here.
During last week's Apple Watch announcement, I let out a distinct "Noooo!" in the Steve Jobs Theater. Along with a new readiness metric and a redesigned Health app, Apple had just announced that later this year, it'd be introducing a new longevity feature called Health Age.
This is a familiar concept in the wearable and health tech world. The idea is that if you put effort into your health and fitness, your physiological age c …
Google is inviting third-party agents, including Claude and Open Claw, into Google Home. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Google is opening up its smart home to AI agents, letting tools like Claude and Open Claw access and control your connected devices and analyze your home's data using the standardized Model Context Protocol.
Google Home MCP is a new integration that lets third-party AI agents control and monitor your smart home and act on your behalf. It "allows any AI agents that support MCP, including Google Antigravity, Claude, Hermes or Open Claw, to securely work with all of the devices and event history in your Google Home ecosystem," Taylor Lehman, group product manager at Google Home & Nest, said in a blog post.
Over the past few days, a lot of people who stand to make a lot of money from AI all publicly agreed that it's time to make everyone slow down before we lose control - including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Google DeepMind cofounder Demis Hassabis, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and X CEO Elon Musk.
When people who profit from something declare that it's dangerous and needs to be regulated, there's always reason to be skeptical. But whatever their reason, this is far from the first time AI thought leaders have sounded the alarm.
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution prompted author Samuel Butler to warn about intelligen …
Nintendo has gotten quite good at making open-ended games. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild upended the idea of what a Zelda game could be by giving the player free rein to tackle any part of the map, a philosophy iterated upon with Tears of the Kingdom. On the Switch 2 this idea expanded to Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza. Now, Nintendo has brought this philosophy to Fire Emblem with Fortune's Weave. It works really well; with its many ways to progress through the game and tailor teams to your liking, Fortune's Weave has become my favorite game on the Switch 2 so far.
Fortune's Weave's structure is a big reason why it feels …
Ice cold. | Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Last week, Apple announced an iPhone unlike any it has made in the past. An iPhone that has seemingly already led several other phone manufacturers to pursue entirely different designs for their flagship products. A remarkably distinct device with the kind of "I can't believe they did that" software touches that Apple sometimes pulls off when it's at the top of its game.
That phone is not the iPhone 18 Pro.
The 18 Pro and Pro Max are in the unusual position of being the second-most interesting iPhones that Apple is launching this year. The foldable iPhone Duo stole the show at Apple's launch event, but it's not arriving until next month. …
Meta may be ready to reveal a new pair of smart glasses with no camera at all, amid a PR crisis for the company caused by the video recording capabilities of its flagship smart glasses. A new report from The Information claims the camera-free glasses, codenamed Luna, could be revealed as soon as the Meta Connect event next week.
Instead of a camera, the Luna glasses will reportedly include six microphones that allow users to chat to Meta AI and the new Muse AI agent, along with speakers for audio playback. Stripping the camera out has apparently made it possible to make the glasses' arms smaller, and closer to ordinary frames. Meta is repor …
Nearly two years after the last update to Boox's smartphone-sized black-and-white e-reader, the company announced the Palma 3 with a sleek redesign, new functionality, and a handful of other small updates that may justify its significant price bump depending on how you plan to use it. While the Palma 2 launched in 2024 for $279.99, the Palma 3 will be $339.99 and is expected to be "available soon."
The most obvious upgrade for the Palma 3 is the hardware itself. It still features the same 6.13-inch, 300ppi E Ink Carta screen as its predecessor (which is now quite a few years old), but it's wrapped in a new anodized aluminum frame with a pap …
Canon announced the second-generation of its EOS R8 with a new retro-inspired redesign and the addition of in-body stabilization. That feature was one of the most notable omissions from the original R8 that launched in 2023 as a smaller, cheaper, and more accessible alternative to the Canon R6 Mark II for photographers wanting a larger full-frame shooter. While the new EOS R8 Mark II is slightly heavier than its predecessor at 1.2 pounds thanks to the additional stabilization functionality, it's lighter and cheaper than last year's EOS R6 Mark III.
The Canon EOS R8 Mark II is expected to be available sometime in late October for $1,899 for …
Poll data released Tuesday by The New York Times and Siena University confirms what we've already been seeing, and what politicians are responding to - AI and data centers are incredibly unpopular. Asked if they support or oppose the construction of data centers to power AI tech, 61 percent of the 1,503 likely voters surveyed in early September (ahead of the recent AI safety slowdown discussion) said they were opposed, with only 14 percent saying they strongly support. The split was about even among 2024 Donald Trump voters, at 49 percent support to 45 percent oppose, while people who had voted for Kamala Harris or who didn't vote leaned opp …
It's been more than two years since the last major Windows event, so Microsoft is heading to San Francisco next month to outline the future of Windows and Surface devices. At an event on October 7th, the company says it will host a "conversation on how local AI will shape the next chapter of the PC."
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will be in attendance, alongside Windows and Surface chief Pavan Davuluri. Even Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will be appearing at the event, which suggests that RTX Spark PCs could be the main focus of this event. If that's the case, don't be surprised to hear more about the Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra pricing and avai …
Two years ago, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt released his New York Times bestseller The Anxious Generation. The book posits that the rise of social media and smartphone use is largely to blame for the prominent decline in teen mental health since 2010. It quickly became a central rallying cry of the social media backlash. Haidt has been credited with helping inspire Australia's nationwide teen social media ban. He has joined forces with bereaved parents who are fighting tech companies in court. His name comes up unprompted in conversations with people in power who say his book opened their eyes to an online crisis.
You may not know it, but minivans are making a comeback in the US. Look around, and you'll start to notice an uptick in these breadboxes on wheels. Sales were up 21 percent in 2025, suggesting that the humble minivan is shaking off its "uncool" stigma and finding new fans among an SUV-weary public. I'm here for it.
One of the companies currently carrying the torch for minivans is Kia, which has sold its popular Carnival minivan here since 2021. Kia is also one of the few automakers making all-electric vans. This week, the Korean automaker rolled out its new PV7 at IAA Transportation in Germany. This is the second electric van from Kia's Pla …
Login
