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Received yesterday — 2 June 2026 The Verge - All Posts

Microsoft Build 2026: The 7 biggest announcements

2 June 2026 at 20:23
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at Build 2026

Microsoft just kicked off Build 2026 with a keynote from CEO Satya Nadella and other company leaders. As expected, it was filled with announcements, ranging from new Surface hardware to an always-on personal assistant and updates across Microsoft's in-house AI models.

If you didn't watch the event live, you can catch up on all the latest news in the roundup below.

A mini Surface PC designed for AI development

The Surface RTX Spark Dev Box is geared toward developers who want to run local AI models on their device, serving as a substitute for Qualcomm's canceled dev kit. It comes equipped with Nvidia's new Arm-based Spark RTX chip and 128G …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google’s Phone app will tell you if a scammer is impersonating one of your contacts

2 June 2026 at 19:00
An image of Google’s fake call detection feature

Google is launching a new feature for its Phone app that aims to protect you from AI impersonation scams. Now, when you receive a call from a scammer that appears to be coming from the same number as one of your contacts, Phone by Google will flag the call as suspicious so you can hang up.

It's part of Google's broader June Android drop, which will add support for Apple AirDrop across more devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S25 lineup. Google is also making its Personal Safety app available to kids under 13, widely rolling out support for its AI-powered clothing try-on feature in Photos, and bringing the ability to find items in an outfi …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Received — 1 June 2026 The Verge - All Posts

The Google Pixel Watch 5 may have been spoiled by… the creator of Borderlands

1 June 2026 at 21:59
Images showing what is claimed to be the Pixel Watch 5

We may just have gotten an early look at the Google Pixel Watch 5 - and from an unusual source. Randy Pitchford, the creator of the Borderlands game franchise, posted a pair of images of a watch on X, saying that his friend found it underwater while scuba diving near Saint Martin, as reported earlier by Kotaku.

"He noted that the reverse of the watch indicates that it is a Google Pixel 5, which has not yet been announced, let alone released," Pitchford writes. "It seems to be fine. The face indicates an empty battery, but seems to have enough reserve power to display the correct time." After putting out a call to find its owner, Pitchford s …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Meta’s own AI was exploited to hijack Instagram accounts

1 June 2026 at 20:20
An image of Meta’s support AI

Meta's AI support chatbot helped hackers hijack Instagram accounts, as reported earlier by 404 Media. In a video shared on Telegram, a hacker shows how they could take over an account by asking Meta's chatbot to switch the email associated with someone else's profile and then reset the password.

The issue, which Meta says has since been patched, cropped up around the same time Barack Obama's White House account on Instagram was hacked. On Sunday, users noticed that the @obamawhitehouse account began posting images containing Iranian propaganda. Hackers appeared to have hijacked the Instagram accounts belonging to the US Space Force Chief Ma …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Strava blames zero-code AI apps and scrapers as it tightens API access

1 June 2026 at 15:06
The Strava logo against a black, orange, and gray background.

The popular fitness-tracking platform, Strava, is restricting access to its API as part of efforts to clamp down on AI scraping, as reported earlier by TechCrunch. Developers who want to build an app using Strava's data now need to pay for a flat $11.99 / month subscription.

In an update on its developer hub, Strava blames the change on "zero-code AI tools" that allow users to quickly create apps that "hammer" APIs. "We have felt this firsthand - developer applications to our program are up 448% year-to-date, API intermediaries have violated policy terms, and scraping attempts have degraded platform performance for everyone," the company wr …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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