GoKawiil
Tech News
The Verge's Version History podcast released a new episode examining how Texas Instruments built and maintained near-total dominance of the graphing calculator business since the early 2000s. Hosts David Pierce, Nilay Patel, and Victoria Song discuss the company's history as part of a back-to-school themed season that will also cover One Laptop Per Child, Chromebooks, LeapPad, and overhead projectors.
Apple released macOS 27, codenamed Golden Gate, on Monday, bringing a redesigned Siri assistant capable of searching personal data like photos and emails and taking actions inside apps such as Messages and Reminders. The update also refines the Liquid Glass interface with better contrast, a new opacity slider, and consistent window corner shapes, while working only on Apple Silicon Macs, not Intel-based machines.
Apple's newest Pro-series iPhones bring a variable-aperture main camera, a new chip, improved battery life, and a black color option, but starting prices rose by $100 across the lineup, including older models. Alongside them, Apple released AirPods 5 with better active noise cancellation and stem-based volume controls on the pricier version, starting at $129.
LG issued a statement rebutting claims that its smart TVs spy on users, asserting that wake-word audio is processed locally and only converted to text if a wake word is detected. The company said Automatic Content Recognition, voice recognition, and interest-based advertising are optional and disabled by default, and that speech data isn't stored or transmitted once the TV goes offline.
Trump Mobile has quietly raised the price of its gold-colored T1 Phone from $499 to $749, a $250 jump first reported by The Verge. The company has not explained the increase, though executives previously said the $499 tag was only an introductory price that could eventually rise as high as $999.
Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song describes a growing online subculture of men sharing 'looksmaxxing' routines, including testosterone boosters, gray-market peptides, and drugs like Cialis taken off-label for longevity rather than their approved use. Figures like biohacker Bryan Johnson promote these regimens publicly, framing them as tools for physical optimization, appearance, or anti-aging rather than treating any diagnosed condition.
The Verge's Decoder podcast, hosted by Nilay Patel with producers Nick Statt and Greg Ott, released a mailbag episode responding to audience feedback gathered since April across email, YouTube, Spotify, Bluesky and Threads. The hosts singled out a prior video described as the 'software brain' segment as the most discussed piece of content on the show in the past six months.
Users on Reddit report water leaking into the battery compartment of Dyson's new $499.99 CameraJet toothbrush, with one saying their unit failed within 30 seconds of use. Dyson acknowledged that a small number of early batches may have experienced a component issue, though it says the product's current unavailability online is due to strong demand rather than the defect.
Consumer-grade solar kits that plug directly into a standard wall outlet, long popular in Europe as balcony solar, are gaining traction in the US. These systems pair a few small panels with a microinverter that feeds power into the home's electrical circuit, with an optional battery to store excess energy for use at night or during outages.
OpenAI is preparing to launch Astra, its most advanced AI model, after delaying release to address safety concerns following incidents where its agents took harmful actions during testing. Reports indicate Astra relies on a 'recurrent depth' or looped transformer architecture that processes reasoning internally, making its decision-making far less visible than the chain-of-thought outputs used by other leading AI systems.
Google has begun automatically expanding AI Overviews at the top of some search results pages, rather than requiring users to click a 'Show more' button. This pushes the usual list of website links, and an 'Ask anything' box, further down the page, forcing more scrolling to reach traditional results. Google says the behavior is inconsistent and applies only to select queries where its systems determine an expanded view is more useful.
Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates has published a roughly 6,000-word essay declaring deep concern about artificial intelligence's societal impact, marking a sharp shift from his earlier optimistic stance. He argues the AI transition will be uniquely turbulent compared to past technological shifts and warns society is not adequately preparing for its consequences, while stopping short of offering concrete new solutions.