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Received — 31 May 2026 The Verge - All Posts

Apple’s strategy for smart glasses is the same as for smart watches

31 May 2026 at 22:33
A stock illustration of Apple’s logo.

Apple isn't just looking to take on Meta in the smart glasses market; it's looking to upend eyewear as a whole, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. When the Apple Watch launched, it wasn't simply competing against the Pebbles and the Motorolas of the world. The company also had Swatch, Fossil, and Seiko in its crosshairs. Similarly, Apple's smart glasses will be positioned not just against Meta and Samsung, but against Oakley, Ray-Ban, and Warby Parker in the $200-$500 range.

Apple Watch generates an estimated $17 billion annually, but eyewear is a potentially even bigger prize. Where the watch market is worth an estimated $132 billion, a …

Read the full story at The Verge.

How to watch Nvidia’s Computex keynote

31 May 2026 at 21:20
NVIDIA’s Computex Keynote thumbnail.
Watch the stream below. | Image: NVIDIA

NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang is set to take the stage for his GTC Taipei keynote at 8PM PT / 11PM ET. You can watch all the announcements here and embedded below. Rumors have been flying about what to expect from today's presentation, but the big one is the possibility of a partnership with Microsoft and a renewed Windows on ARM push. Microsoft has been teasing a "new era of PC" for its Surface lineup, and expectations are that new ARM processors from NVIDIA, dubbed the N1 and N1X, will be powering these yet-to-be-announced computers.

Microsoft actually tapped NVIDIA's Tegra ARM CPUs for the Surface RT way back in 2012. But that machine was la …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Here’s your first look at ‘A Minecraft Movie Squared’ with Kirsten Dunst as Alex

31 May 2026 at 20:28
A Mine Craft Movie Squared logo.
Squared. Get it? | Image: Mojang

The A Minecraft Movie sequel officially has a title: A Minecraft Movie Squared. What's more, we now know that Kirsten Dunst will star as Alex, the game's female character option, and that Matt Berry is set to play an even bigger role in this film. He voiced Nitwit in the first movie, but in this one, he'll be playing a human character. Who exactly he'll be hasn't been revealed yet, but in the clip below, he can be heard dismissing a costume choice because "Steve would not be wearing that," suggesting he might be playing the Herobrine, a creepy pasta evil counterpart to Jack Black's Steve.

The director, Jared Hess, and Mojang Chief Creative …

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Feeble Little Horse leans into digital weirdness on bitknot

31 May 2026 at 17:00
Cover of Feeble Little Horse’s bitknot
Even the cover revels in a low-bit digital aesthetic. | Image: Saddle Creek / Feeble Little Horse

From the opening moments of bitknot, it's obvious that Feeble Little Horse has found an entirely new gear. Where on Girl with Fish the blown-out textures were more '90s indie rock and shoegaze, on their latest LP, there's a more modern edge to the distortion and the riffs cut cleaner. Similarly, where the digital glitchiness was mostly relegated to window dressing on their sophomore record, on bitknot it's integral to the arrangements and a core part of their emerging, distinct sound.

We got a preview of this new direction on the one-off single, and one of my favorite songs of 2025, "This Is Real." It blended blast beats, Sonic Youth-esque …

Read the full story at The Verge.

United flight forced to turn around because of a Bluetooth speaker name

31 May 2026 at 16:50
Flight tracking for UA236 showing it returning to Newark.
An hour in flight UA236 returned to Newark. | Screenshot: The Verge

United flight 236 from Newark to Palma de Mallorca on Saturday night was forced to turn around just an hour after takeoff due to security concerns around a Bluetooth signal. Multiple Redditors claimed to be on the flight and reported that the crew repeatedly requested passengers to turn off their Bluetooth. According to one poster, the crew issued a one-minute warning, saying that two devices were still active.

One Redditor reported flight attendants making comments like, "This little joke is ruining it for everyone."

An archived recording from Air Traffic Control (embedded below) confirms that the root of the issue was the name of a disc …

Read the full story at The Verge.

This extravagant gaming laptop could ruin other screens for you

A pre-production 2026 Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 gaming laptop sitting on a black cut mat in front of a blue illuminated backdrop. The large black laptop is emanating colorful lights from its keyboard and underglow around its chassis.
A speedy 18-inch Mini LED that needs to be seen to be believed. | Photo: Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

My eyes have seen the PC gaming promised land, and it's a beautifully bright world without a shred of blurriness. It's warm, it looks lovely, and it's impeccably sharp. Also, it's expensive as hell.

I've dipped my toe in this world by testing a pre-production version of the upcoming Asus ROG Strix Scar 18, which was recently announced ahead of Computex 2026. It's a gigantic 18-inch gaming laptop that comes with a top-of-the-line 24-core Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX CPU and can be fully kitted out with an RTX 5090 Laptop GPU and 128GB of RAM. Asus sent me a model to test that's maxed out on all specs except storage (it's got "just" 4TB). And of …

Read the full story at The Verge.

007 First Light is already discounted for the PS5 and Steam

31 May 2026 at 15:00
A screenshot from 007 First Light.

IO Interactive’s 007 First Light is here, and it’s just as stunning a James Bond mov — err, video game — as we hoped it would be. Pardon the confusion, the title’s engaging tutorial really feels like you’re watching a great Bond movie at times. Whether you’re a longtime Hitman fan who’s been eagerly waiting for the studio’s latest game or not, there are deals to be had on both the PlayStation 5 and Steam PC versions.

Costco members, for instance, can already take advantage of an online-only deal on the disc-based PS5 version, which knocks it down to $62.99 (originally $69.99). It’s not a big discount, but it’s currently the best out there across major retailers. If you have a desktop PC or handheld gaming PC powerful enough to run the game, the Steam version is a little cheaper at Fanatical. The standard digital edition is going for $60.89, while the deluxe digital edition, which includes in-game cosmetics, is down to $69.59 (about $10 off).

First Light is similar in a sense to recent Hitman games. It’s a third-person stealth sandbox game, after all, but it has a little more in common with Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series thanks to its hand-to-hand combat system, quippy protagonist, and wide variety of missions that either have you on foot using fun gadgets or behind the wheel of a muscle car.

Read our full 007 First Light review.

Marathon’s second season is a chance for Bungie to turn things around

31 May 2026 at 15:00

Earlier this month, I finally achieved the elusive goal I had set for myself in Bungie's Marathon. I collected six of the game's rarest items, allowing me to attempt and then successfully clear the raid-style Compiler boss. I felt a massive weight lift off my shoulders - nearly 185 hours of playtime and I had managed to complete Marathon's pinnacle activity. A day later, I took my first break from the game.

I had been playing Marathon virtually every day since it launched in March, and I needed to put it down. Treating a Bungie game like it's a grueling second job is nothing new. Certainly not for me or the many fellow Destiny players that …

Read the full story at The Verge.

NASA confirms exploding meteor caused the sonic boom over Boston

31 May 2026 at 14:44
Satellite imagery of meteor exploding over New England.
Meteor caught by the GOES-19 weather satellite breaking up 40 miles above the ground. | Image: CIRA

On Saturday, at around 2:06 pm ET, a meteor streaked over the northeastern US and exploded north of Cape Cod Bay. The fireball was caught on camera by several people, shook houses, and can even be seen clearly in satellite imagery, lighting up the sky.

Some residents initially thought that the shaking and boom may have been an earthquake, but the United States Geological Survey (USGS) denied that, saying that it was a "widely felt sonic boom from a suspected bolide." In a statement posted on X, NASA described the event as a "bright fireball… accompanied by a loud noise."

The meteor was t …

Read the full story at The Verge.

I went looking for the AI weed vape that gives you Bitcoin for smoking

31 May 2026 at 14:00
A black weed vape next to a weed leaf and a Bitcoin on a trippy background.

The crypto weed vape found me on 4/20, the high holiday of cannabis enthusiasts everywhere. It arrived over Slack with the thumbnail of a man exhaling a plume of vapor, the words "every hit delivers Bitcoin" emblazoned across it. It claimed to be advertising a device called Gudtrip, and I thought everything about it sounded fake.

So I went looking for it. What I eventually found, after weeks of searching, dozens of emails, and a reporting effort that spanned continents, was somehow even dumber than I'd imagined.

An ad for the Gudtrip vape

My first port of call was Gudtrip's website, which only made the vape seem more like a prank. The company's description of the pr …

Read the full story at The Verge.

User-replaceable batteries are coming back in a big way

31 May 2026 at 13:00
Close-up of user-replaceable battery.

This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more news about gadgets and smartphones, follow Dominic Preston. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

In 2023, the European Union agreed on two landmark pieces of legislation mandating how portable tech products with batteries must be designed, aiming to improve longevity, repairability, and recyclability. Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/1670 came into force last year and applies specifically to smartphones and tablets, while Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 takes effect next year …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The Mercedes CLA offers great EV specs for an average price

31 May 2026 at 12:00
Mercedes CLA

Despite headwinds from the current administration, automakers continue to release well-equipped EVs with bigger battery packs and increasingly faster charging speeds. For those who want to travel further between plugging in, the future is still bright, just slightly tinted.

But there haven't been many sedans starting around or below $50,000, as crossover SUVs have largely taken up this territory. Now, Mercedes-Benz has released its CLA compact sedan which ticks every box above for the 2026 and 2027 model year, and throws in pleasant interior amenities and fun driving character for good measure.

What's inside

The CLA w …

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Backrooms is a certified blockbuster with a $38 million opening day

30 May 2026 at 17:58
Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve in a yellow wallpapered backroom.

The Kane Parsons' film Backrooms is expected to earn up to $90 million in its opening weekend after pulling down $38 million on Friday alone. That's not only above expectations, but absolutely obliterates A24's previous opening weekend record of $25.5 million for Alex Garland's Civil War. It's also a better opening day than The Mandalorian and Grogu, which only pulled down $33.7 million on its way to a total $81.6 million for the weekend.

That also means that Backrooms is an incredibly profitable movie, with an estimated $10 million budget. By comparison, the latest Star Wars disappointment cost $165 million and was considered affordable c …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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