Vurt, a startup focused on short vertical microdramas, has released dedicated apps for Apple TV and Android TV, giving viewers access to roughly 3,500 episodes across more than 100 series on big screens. The company says its userbase has grown from 10,000 to 675,000 since launching in March, and it monetizes content through ads rather than microtransactions, distinguishing itself from rivals like DramaBox and ReelShort that rely on AI-generated content and paid unlocks.
As NFL franchise valuations surge—highlighted by the Seattle Seahawks' recent $9.6 billion sale to a group led by Vinod Khosla—the Green Bay Packers' unique community-owned structure is being spotlighted as an alternative to billionaire and private-equity control. The Packers remain the NFL's only publicly owned team, with no single owner able to sell the franchise for personal profit.
Researchers at the University of California, Davis measured coast redwood leaves twice monthly over two years and found that photosynthesis activity drops sharply during periods of extreme heat. The trees appear unable to cool themselves fast enough in high temperatures, effectively slowing their internal processes of gas exchange and growth.
Amazon is discontinuing its 15-year-old Fire tablet brand in favor of new Alexa Tablets that run standard Android with Google Play access instead of Fire OS. The lineup includes the Tablet 8 ($229), Tablet 11 ($329), Tablet 12 Pro ($499) and a Nanomatte Pro model ($549), shipping this month in the US, Canada and Mexico with Alexa+ integrated throughout the interface.
Researchers at the University of Limerick had 189 participants interact with male and female-presenting AI assistants in a virtual reality office, dividing real money as payment for completed tasks. The female-presenting agent, "Johanna," received 10.25 percent less pay than the identical male-presenting agent, "Johan," and was also rated as less human-like, according to the study published in Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction.
The Verge's Version History podcast examines the LeapPad, an interactive electronic 'smart book' from LeapFrog that became one of the best-selling children's toys for several years. Hosts David Pierce, Andru Marino, and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy discuss the device's appeal, its cost, and why LeapFrog struggled to produce a lasting successor as tablets like the iPad reshaped the market.
Low-budget horror films Obsession and Backrooms, directed by creators who began on YouTube, have together grossed nearly $1 billion at the box office in 2026, outperforming big-budget franchises like Star Wars. Earlier YouTube-linked horror film Iron Lung also earned more than $50 million without major studio backing, while horror video games such as the Resident Evil series continue to sell tens of millions of copies.
A personal blog post recounts several public figures who recently announced stepping back from online life: Salma left DevRel and social media entirely for an individual-contributor role, Chad Whitacre retired to rural Pennsylvania to make a zine about religion, and Brett Codes publicly declared he is done using AI tools and video. The author frames these as a pattern of people opting out of digital-industry pressures.
A report indicates that a third data center belonging to Yandex Cloud has been struck, though specific details about the nature of the incident were not disclosed in the available source material.
The FBI arrested Edward Dubrovsky, a Canadian cybersecurity executive and ransomware expert, in connection with a hack that exposed sensitive data of current and former FBI employees. He faces extortion and threat-related charges and has been moved to Texas's Eastern District for a detention hearing. FBI Director Kash Patel announced the arrest without naming the suspect, but sources confirmed Dubrovsky's identity to CNN.
According to SFGate reporting, Tesla's Fremont, California factory has applied to the Bay Area Air District for permits that would allow a thirteenfold increase in total suspended particulate emissions, including toxic metals like arsenic, beryllium and cadmium. The plant sits next to Lila Bringhurst Elementary School, and parents say they learned the details mainly through an anonymous Substack post rather than a clear notice from regulators, after an official memo used vague terms like 'modify' and 'abatement.'
A Verge laptop reviewer describes starting to experiment with running AI models locally rather than relying on cloud services, citing privacy concerns about sharing personal data with companies like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Anthropic. The testing includes Apple's new M5 Ultra Mac Studio and upcoming Windows RTX Spark machines with up to 128GB of RAM, starting with the open-source self-hosted tool Hermes Agent, which runs free when used with local large language models.
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