Oli Freke is a musician and journalist whose works have appeared in Sound on Sound, The Quietus, and Mixmag. This has included using math to explore the melodic potential of the Western 12-tone scale and deep dives on effects plug-ins. He's even written a book tracing the evolution of the synthesizer from 1963 through 1995, charting the change from analog to digital and back.
His new project is Beat Gems, a coffee-table visual history of drum machines from publisher Bjooks. Like other Bjooks titles, Beat Gems is loaded with gorgeous photos, fascinating historical tidbits, and practical advice for making the most of your gear, whether it's …
Teenage Engineering’s OP-XY has a huge number of functions. | Photo by Terrence O’Brien / The Verge
With elements from synthesizers, loopers, and effects pedals, Teenage Engineering’s devices lie somewhere between musical instrument and modern art. These grooveboxes, as they’re often called, are capable of helping you producesongs in real time from a single unit, with an eye-catching design language. A wide swath of the brand’s offerings are 30 percent off at Guitar Center when you use code TE30, atAmazon when you click the on-page coupon for whichever product you’re interested in, and B&H Photo (discount applied automatically at checkout). The terms for the Amazon coupon claim it will run through August 8th, 2026, while Guitar Center deal is listed as “limited time.”
The OP-XY is one of the flagship units, which my colleague Terrence O’Brien described as a “greatest hits tour for Teenage Engineering.” Normally $2,299, the discount code brings the price down to a more palatable $1,609.30, which is a lot cheaper, but still pretty pricey for an aspiring musician. That said, it’s loaded with features for both production and live performance, and has a premium, durable build quality that reflects its price point. It’s currently sold out at Amazon, but in stock and discounted at Guitar Center and B&H Photo. Read our Teenage Engineering OP-XY review.
The model I’m most tempted by is the EP-40 Riddim, a compact sampler with a library of over 400 built-in synth settings and effects particularly well-suited for producing dub and reggae music, plus 128MB of storage for your own loops and recorded sounds. It’s a bit less intimidating for a beginner than the OP-XY, both in terms of price point and features, and itstighter genre focus may help concentrate your efforts and onboarding. Normally $329, the EP-40 is $230.30 at Amazon, Guitar Center, and B&H Photo during the promotion.
Warner Bros. Discovery has filed suit against Amazon, accusing it of illegally poaching employees, including Pia Barlow, former senior VP for originals marketing. In the complaint, Warner says that "Amazon has chosen to ride on the coattails of other well-established Hollywood mainstays," and that it engaged in a "lawless employee shopping spree." Deadline reports that Francesca Orsi, HBO's head of drama series and films, is believed to be one of the other Amazon targets.
Barlow is set to begin a new position as Amazon's head of original series marketing on August 3rd. According to Warner's suit, Barlow was under contract until October 31st …
Last month, Louisville, Kentucky-based creator Luke The Maker showed off a bizarre, 3D-printed, pistol-shaped case design for the popular minimalist Xteink X4 e-reader. The X4 lies vertically atop the plastic gun's slide, with a cutout on the side to access its buttons. Though the frame was digitally modeled after a real gun, this "case" can't shoot bullets. Squeezing the trigger does nothing at all. He calls his contraption the "Gundle."
In a post showing off the wacky accessory, Luke (whose last name is Blackford) can be seen flipping through Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and J.D. Sali …
What Surrounds Us takes its title literally. You play as a circle surrounding a hole in its middle - it looks like a donut with frosting. You work together with other sentient moving circles, sometimes helping them joyfully meet with others. And you traverse a large map that's composed entirely of, you guessed it, a series of circles. But the circles everywhere aren't just an artistic choice; they underscore the game's themes about working in connection with the environment and the things around us.
Despite the trippy design, What Surrounds Us has a familiar format. I kept feeling echoes of The Legend of Zelda as I trekked across three dist …
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 137, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy phone season, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
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 …
Remember when Meta was planning to charge a $20 monthly subscription fee for the smart glasses feature that lets people hear each other more clearly - even though that feature runs locally on your glasses and doesn't require the cloud? Meta has paused those plans, spokesperson Tyler Yee confirms to The Verge.
The company is not giving up on the idea of a subscription fee for certain features - that's still moving forward. Yee confirms that "some premium features will be subscription-based over time."
But Conversation Focus, the accessibility feature, "will remain available for free through our Early Access Program for early testers while w …
Meta's smart glasses have been a PR headache for the company. Public backlash has been swift, and fierce; people are concerned about the erosion of privacy and expansion of surveillance. Some especially bad actors are using the glasses to film themselves "pranking" random strangers. Women have become unsuspecting social media content for men filming themselves hitting on them without their knowledge. When your product is being referred to as "pervert glasses," you have a problem on your hands.
On Thursday, Business Insider reported that Meta was taking the fairly extraordinary step of banning some content filmed with Meta glasses from the c …
Qualcomm sent a letter to customers on Friday warning of plans to increase its prices by "a percentage in the double digits," Bloomberg reports. The price hikes will go into effect starting with products shipped after September 1st.
Qualcomm claims it has "exhausted its ability to absorb higher costs from suppliers," as ongoing component shortages continue to drive up prices. The company also said it attempted to source components from alternate suppliers prior to announcing the price hikes.
As Bloomberg notes, Qualcomm's price increases will likely have a ripple effect, particularly for smartphones. Qualcomm's chips power everything fro …
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