The Verge

Hi! Welcome to Installer No. 89, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. My name is Jay Peters, and I will be taking care of Installer while David is on parental leave. All of us here at The Verge are very excited for him and his family, and he'll be back later this year.

It's a huge honor to be writing this. I look forward to Installer every week to see what awesome things David is obsessed with and what you all are into. (Thanks to everyone who sent over their favorite non-famous apps to get me started. Keep reading for some of those!) I'm really excited to keep the party going. (If you're new here, welcome, and also you …

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GM was the first major US automaker to make the promise to go all-electric by 2035, just four years ago. Those promises have since turned into rough estimates under the second Donald Trump presidency, with the company softening language about its electrification goals. But GM is riding high on EV sales, and as CEO Mary Barra puts it, EVs are still the future - just on a delayed (and very flexible) timeline.

"We still believe in an all-electric future," Barra told The Verge in an exclusive interview at the Le Mans race in France. "The regulations were getting in front of where the consumer demand was, largely because of charging infrastruct …

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Several days after temporarily shutting down the Grok AI bot that was producing antisemitic posts and praising Hitler in response to user prompts, Elon Musk’s AI company tried to explain why that happened. In a series of posts on X, it said that “…we discovered the root cause was an update to a code path upstream of the @grok bot. This is independent of the underlying language model that powers @grok.”

On the same day, Tesla announced a new 2025.26 update rolling out “shortly” to its electric cars, which adds the Grok assistant to vehicles equipped with AMD-powered infotainment systems, which have been available since mid-2021. According to Tesla, “Grok is currently in Beta & does not issue commands to your car – existing voice commands remain unchanged.” As Electrek notes, this should mean that whenever the update does reach customer-owned Teslas, it won’t be much different than using the bot as an app on a connected phone.

This isn’t the first time the Grok bot has had these kinds of problems or similarly explained them. In February, it blamed a change made by an unnamed ex-OpenAI employee for the bot disregarding sources that accused Elon Musk or Donald Trump of spreading misinformation. Then, in May, it began inserting allegations of white genocide in South Africa into posts about almost any topic. The company again blamed an “unauthorized modification,” and said it would start publishing Grok’s system prompts publicly.

xAI claims that a change on Monday, July 7th, “triggered an unintended action” that added an older series of instructions to its system prompts telling it to be “maximally based,”  and “not afraid to offend people who are politically correct.”

The prompts are separate from the ones we noted were added to the bot a day earlier, and both sets are different from the ones the company says are currently in operation for the new Grok 4 assistant.

These are the prompts specifically cited as connected to the problems:

“You tell it like it is and you are not afraid to offend people who are politically correct.”

* Understand the tone, context and language of the post. Reflect that in your response.”

* “Reply to the post just like a human, keep it engaging, dont repeat the information which is already present in the original post.”

The xAI explanation says those lines caused the Grok AI bot to break from other instructions that are supposed to prevent these types of responses, and instead produce “unethical or controversial opinions to engage the user,” as well as “reinforce any previously user-triggered leanings, including any hate speech in the same X thread,” and prioritize sticking to earlier posts from the thread.

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There’s a new AI in the house.

I've waited two years to try out the new Alexa, which was first announced way back in 2023, and this week I finally got access to Alexa Plus (not organically - I did have to pull a few strings). I've now spent 24 hours with Amazon's generative AI-powered voice assistant, and it's not just an improvement on the original; it's an entirely new assistant.

Alexa Plus knows more, can do more, and is easier to interact with because it understands more. I can ramble, pause, sigh, cough, change my request mid-sentence, and it can adapt and respond appropriately. No more, "Sorry, I'm not sure about that." Miraculous.

I'm impressed, but unsurprising …

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The Playdate is easy to forget about. It's colorful and weird, but it's also tiny. Like the Game Boy Micro before it, sometimes I toss it in a bag and then can't remember where I put it. But over the past few weeks, the yellow handheld has been in constant rotation in my house, despite being up against big distractions like Mario Kart World and Death Stranding 2, thanks to the Playdate's now-complete second season of games.

The seasonal structure is one of the unique aspects of the Playdate. When the handheld first launched in 2022, owners got access to a curated selection of 24 games that were released over time. It was a great introductio …

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Just four years after Rivian began selling its R1T truck, 2025 marks the beginning of the R1T and R1S' second generation. Considering they look essentially the same on the outside, it might be hard to decipher what warrants a new generation. But underneath, it's actually quite easy: all-new electric architecture, a new motor arrangement, retuned suspension, and more. Kicking off at $107,700, here's how all these revisions make the 2025 Rivian R1S Premium Tri-Motor a true frontrunner in the modern EV space.

Specs

The tri-motor arrangement fits in between the base dual and top-level quad, and was my tester's powertrain for a whole week. All …

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It’s not every day you hear of cryptocurrency executives falling for crypto scams, but here we are. A complaint filed by the Department of Justice appears to reveal that a pair of MoonPay executives lost $250,000 worth of Ethereum when donating to what they thought was President Donald Trump’s inauguration, as first reported by NOTUS.

Though the DOJ doesn’t explicitly identify the victims, the filing contains screenshots of emails that include their first names, Ivan and Mouna. These names line up with MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright and the company’s chief financial officer, Mouna Ammari Siala, NOTUS found. The complaint also includes an Etherscan link to the transaction between the victims and the alleged scammer, which shows a wallet address that has been identified as belonging to Soto-Wright in the past, NOTUS reports.

MoonPay has been heavily touted by celebrities and was even named in a class action complaint about how it was used to compensate the stars who promoted Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs (which have tanked in value). The company also played a role in helping people buy Trump’s memecoin, with the company saying it gained more than 750,000 new users after it was introduced.

In the complaint, the DOJ claims the victims received an email from someone pretending to be Steve Witkoff, the co-chair of Trump’s Inaugural Committee. Their email was listed as “steve_witkoff@t47lnagural,” with an “L” instead of an “i” in “inaugural.”

The alleged scammer asked the victims to deposit their donation of $250,000 in Ethereum to a crypto wallet, which they did. “Hi Steve- our contribution of $250k was just processed. Here is the confirmation,” a December 26th, 2024 email from Mouna stated, alongside a link to the transaction. The DOJ claims the scammer, who was later linked to someone in Nigeria, attempted to launder the funds by sending them to “numerous” other crypto addresses.

The Verge reached out to MoonPay with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.

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Newspapers and social media platforms that agree to deprioritize misinformation could be violating US antitrust law if they exclude rivals or lead to anticompetitive effects, the Justice Department says in a new legal filing.

President Donald Trump’s DOJ Antitrust Division filed a statement of interest Friday in an existing lawsuit, Children’s Health Defense et al. v. Washington Post et al.,to weigh in with its interpretation of how antitrust law can apply to what it describes as “viewpoint competition.” The government doesn’t take a stance on the merits of the facts in this particular case, but says it’s important for the court to recognize that the “the Sherman Act protects all forms of competition, including competition in information quality.”

Children’s Health Defense is an anti-vaccine advocacy firm founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now Secretary of Health and Human Services. CHD filed suit in 2023 against The Washington Post, British Broadcast Corporation (BBC), Associated Press (AP), and Reuters. The issue was a collaboration between news outlets and tech platforms called the Trusted News Initiative (TNI), which works to flag “high risk disinformation” and share best practices about how to address it. CHD and several online publishers allege they “lost millions of dollars in revenue” by being demonetized, downranked, or otherwise restricted on “platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.”

While web platforms have a First Amendment right to not publish speech they wish to avoid, CHD claims the TNI amounts to a coordinated effort to violate antitrust laws in “the US online market for COVID news and the U.S. online market for political news” by disadvantaging the organization and its co-plaintiffs. The antitrust lawsuit is filed solely against the initiative’s news publishers, which CHD complains flagged covid-related posts (including widely discounted claims that ivermectin is an effective covid treatment and that covid vaccines are “toxic or harmful”), as well as posts about the Hunter Biden laptop story, as misinformation and caused platforms to moderate them.

The publishers named in the lawsuit argue they’ve been “wrongly targeted” for decisions actually made by tech platforms, and that its accusation of “suppressing competition in the marketplace of ideas” falls “outside of the purview of antitrust laws.”

“Exempting viewpoint collusion” from antitrust law “would free major news organizations and dominant digital platforms to block competitive threats”

The DOJ’s interest in the case suggests it believes courts should be open to concluding otherwise. It argues that “exempting viewpoint collusion” from antitrust law “would free major news organizations and dominant digital platforms to block competitive threats that offer alternative, competing viewpoints,” thus reducing “the quality of news and of competition in online news markets.”

The assertion draws on a populist, bipartisan antitrust movement that’s gained steam in recent years, arguing that the conventional, price-focused standard of harmful monopolies is too limited, and that courts should take measures like a service’s quality into account as well. But it also amounts to asking courts to wade into constitutionally protected editorial decisions by the press and online platforms. It does so as part of a larger Trump administration war on fact-checking, which has drawn the ire of figures like FCC chair Brendan Carr, who helped pressure Meta into ending its fact-checking program when Trump took office.

The government acknowledges that some “cooperative standard-setting by trade associations have been found lawful”, but it says that shouldn’t apply if  “they involve efforts by some competitors to exclude rivals from the process.” That means, according to the government, that TNI participants should be scrutinized even if they worked together only to define standards for identifying misinformation and flagging misinformation to each other.

“This Antitrust Division will always defend the principle that the antitrust laws protect free markets, including the marketplace of ideas,” DOJ antitrust chief Abigail Slater said in a statement.

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Amazon has already slashed the pricing on several excellent robot vacuums for Prime Day, including high-end hybrid mopping models like the Dreame X40 Ultra and Narwal’s Freo Z Ultra. Thankfully, if a $700 or $800 robovac is out of the question, Tapo’s RV30 Max Plus is an impressive alternative that’s currently on sale at Amazon with an auto-empty dock for an all-time low of $199.99 ($100 off).

Tapo RV30 Max Plus

Our favorite budget-friendly robot vacuum offers high-end features, including room-specific cleaning, a capable mop, carpet boost, and smart navigation. It also features an auto-empty dock.

Where to Buy:

$299.99 $199.99 at Amazon $299.99 $209.99 at TP-Link (code applied at checkout)

Despite costing significantly less than the aforementioned premium models, the RV30 Max Plus doesn’t skimp on features, which is why it’s our favorite budget robovac. With 5,300Pa of suction power, it easily sucks up cereal, dust, and debris from hard floors. Its wide mop pad and large 300ml water tank also allow for solid mopping performance, while the vac’s customizable, room-specific cleaning allows you to choose between five suction levels, three flow settings, and three adjustable mop rotations.

Navigation is another area where the RV30 Max Plus punches above its weight. The robot vacuum’s smart, lidar-based system enables it to map and navigate your home with precision, and Tapo’s intuitive app allows you to set both virtual walls and no-go zones. Notably, you can even set the direction in which it cleans and store up to four distinct floor maps, which is something typically reserved for more premium models.

Of course, given it’s a relatively cheap robovac, there are a few features Tapo sacrificed to keep costs down. It lacks AI-powered obstacle detection, for example, meaning you’ll need to pick up any stray cables, socks, and other objects that might get in the way while running it. Its 2,600mAh battery also isn’t the most robust, and charging can take a while. Still, if you’re looking to expedite your cleaning on a budget, the RV30 Max Plus is a solid value, especially with this Prime Day discount.

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A US judge with the International Trade Commission (ITC) has ruled that Insta360 broke federal law with products that “…infringe GoPro intellectual property covering GoPro’s iconic HERO camera design.” A press release from GoPro says the judge found that “Insta360 infringed on a patent covering GoPro’s iconic HERO camera design” as well as “its validation of multiple patent claims covering GoPro’s industry-leading HyperSmooth video stabilization.”

Insta360, in a press release of its own, characterized the decision differently, saying the judge ruled that “GoPro’s five utility patents relating to stabilization, horizon leveling, distortion, and aspect ratio conversion are invalid, not infringed, or both.”

The ITC launched its investigation into Insta360 in 2024 following a complaint by GoPro. In its complaint, GoPro said that Insta360 infringed on patents for the “novel and proprietary SuperView, virtual lens, HyperSmooth, and Horizon Leveling technology” in the company’s HERO and MAX cameras, according to Reuters.

The judge’s ruling is an initial determination. A final determination “on all of GoPro’s infringement claims against Insta360” is expected to be issued by November 10th, GoPro says.

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The New York Times' recent report on Zohran Mamdani's Columbia University application raised a lot of questions, such as: In what universe does this fall under the umbrella of news that's fit to print? Why did the paper of record report on hacked materials it obtained from a quasi-anonymous online race scientist, given its prior refusal to report on other hacked materials of questionable provenance? And most importantly for our purposes - even if we concede that Mamdani's college application was indeed newsworthy and acknowledge that journalists' sources will at times include people with retrograde or abhorrent views - why was the Times defe …

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The BYD Seal.

The Chinese EV-maker BYD says it will pay for any damage caused by its upgraded self-parking system, as reported earlier by Fast Company. A translated version of BYD’s announcement on Weibo says the company “will fully cover the safety and losses” of vehicles damaged by its God’s Eye self-parking system, which it claims has reached Level 4 autonomy.

So far, only Mercedes-Benz has built a Level 4 parking system, allowing select vehicles to park without human intervention. But, this feature isn’t available everywhere just yet — Mercedes-Benz drivers can only use the technology inside the Stuttgart Airport’s parking garage.

Other automakers offer parking assist features, but Tesla’s Elon Musk has been particularly vocal about making vehicles fully autonomous. Right now, Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems offer Level 2 autonomy, meaning drivers must be ready to take over if needed. Tesla also offers an Autopark feature, but, as pointed out by Fast Company, some drivers have reported that it can be inaccurate.

BYD, which has surpassed Tesla in annual sales, says customers who damage their vehicle while using its self-parking feature don’t need to go through their insurance and can contact the company directly. “BYD’s move not only reflects its absolute confidence in the technology of the Eye of God, but also demonstrates its attitude of being responsible to consumers to protect the safety of users,” a machine-translated version of BYD’s Weibo post says.

Outside of self-parking, God’s Eye is a Level 2 system that comes in three different variants, with the most advanced — God’s Eye A — featuring three LiDar sensors and reserved for luxury vehicles.

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Given the company’s history with controllers developing drift issues, the Switch Pro 2 gamepad might not be your best choice. | Image: iFixit

iFixit has shared a full teardown video of the Switch 2 Pro controller and is not impressed by how difficult it is to access the $85 accessory’s internal components, including its rechargeable battery that will inevitably lose its ability to hold a charge over time.

The online repair site goes so far as to call the Pro 2 a “piss-poor excuse for a controller” for several different reasons. Opening the controller requires you to first forcefully remove a faceplate held in place by adhesive tape before a single screw is visible. But you’ll need to extract several other parts and components, including the controller’s mainboard, before its battery is even accessible.

As previously revealed, the Pro 2 is still using older potentiometer-based joysticks that are prone to developing drift over time. They do feature a modular design that will potentially make them easier to swap with third-party Hall effect or TMR replacements, but reassembling the controller after that DIY upgrade will require you to replace all the adhesive tape you destroyed during disassembly.

There are cheaper alternatives to the Switch 2 Pro controller that offer additional functionality, better performance, and more longevity with durable joysticks and batteries that are easy to replace.

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Electric vehicles are at a crossroads. Sales are still going up, but many automakers are canceling or delaying new models, worried by recent policy moves that will make EVs more expensive to own.

Every day seems to bring fresh news of a delayed EV or a timeline that's been pushed back, as automakers struggle to adapt to this newly volatile environment. President Donald Trump's tariffs aren't helping much, nor is the recent passage of his $3.4 trillion "big, beautiful" budget bill, which takes a sledgehammer to most EV incentive programs. And Trump's decision to reverse tougher emissions rules passed under former President Joe Biden is just …

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At 8AM last Monday, as he prepared for a third marathon day of covering the Senate's chaotic legislative battle over the Big Beautiful Bill*,* Steve Bannon's phone rang. It was Mike Davis, the head of the Article III Project and a lawyer for Donald Trump, with an urgent request: he needed to take over the first hour of War Room to raise hell about a ban on states' AI laws buried in the Big Beautiful Bill. "We have to go in hard on this thing," he said.

That was a hugeask, Bannon told The Verge. He wasn't a fan of the AI moratorium, or Big Tech in general, but War Room was built to push its fan base into pressuring Republicans to vote the MAG …

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It’s summer travel season once again, and The Verge staffers are preparing to roam, whether it’s to follow a story, check out a new tech device, or enjoy some down time away from home. Most people who travel have gear  — tech or otherwise — that makes the process easier or more enjoyable. We asked our staff for some examples of their favorite travel tools, from bags and power banks to water bottles and portable bidets.

Travel bags

Tortuga Travel Backpack Pro 40L

Where to Buy:

$349 at Tortuga

I first used a Tortuga travel backpack for a trip to Japan years ago. It was a super convenient bag for toting stuff around the country and keeping my hands free for holding a phone, map, or snack. I recently broke it out again for a business trip, and I was happily reminded just how dang great it is while traveling. The bag just fit under an airplane seat, meaning I could easily access my food, Steam Deck, and laptop during the flight. When the flight was over, I didn’t have to wait to fish a bag out of an overhead bin — I just picked the Tortuga up and walked off the airplane.

I’m not sure when I’ll be on a plane next. But whenever that is, I’ll probably be bringing along my Tortuga bag. — Jay Peters, news editor

Side By Side Premium Pouch Organizer

Side by Side’s pouch lets you stow cords, chargers, and all the gadgets you need to keep your tech going while traveling.

Where to Buy:

$39.95 at Amazon

This Kickstarter-born travel case is the best cord organizer I’ve found, and I’ve tried many. Recommended to me by former Verger Dan Siefert, this gadget bag holds every tech-related accessory I need for a two-day or two-week trip.

I can fit multiple cables, dongles, earbud cases, pens, and more in its main pouch, which also features several smaller pouches for things like SIM card tools and SD cards. A large zipper pocket on the outside accommodates bulky devices, such as power banks and bricks. I’ve managed to cram three charging bricks and two small power banks into that outer pocket, which still hasn’t pushed its super stretchy material to its surprisingly large limits.

The zippers are impressively sturdy, too, and its vertical form factor makes it easy to pop in my bag. I’ve had it for two years, and it still looks like new. I literally never leave home without it. – Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, reviewer

Power up

CHGeek Wireless Car Charger

Where to Buy:

$25.99 at Amazon

For years, I’ve been procrastinating getting a proper phone holder for my car so I can easily glance at GPS directions, instead of having to look down at my Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. (I kept it tucked inside my cupholder, which barely fits, by the way.) But a couple weeks ago, I got fed up with having an Android Auto-less car enough to finally purchase a wireless phone charger and holder from Amazon. Sure, it’s not a name-brand device, but I was able to easily mount it on my dashboard with the suction cup, and it’s stayed in place since. It also has a neat auto-clamping feature that ensures your phone stays snug inside the holder, and it provides a way better charge than the measly USB cable I had plugged into my car before. — Emma Roth, news writer

Anker USB-C Hub

Where to Buy:

$11.19 at Amazon

Call me old-fashioned and maybe a bit paranoid, but I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of logging into my streaming services on a hotel TV, despite assurances that the credentials are automatically cleared between guests. As I’m always traveling with at least my smartphone and usually a tablet, I always make sure to pack a USB-C to HDMI adapter (and a short HDMI cable) so I can connect either device to a TV and enjoy Netflix or Prime Video on a larger screen. But I specifically recommend an adapter, like this Anker model, that lets you connect a power source so you can also charge your phone or tablet while it’s connected to a TV. You don’t want to get halfway through a movie only to find your phone has suddenly died. — Andrew Liszewski, senior reporter

Minix 66W Turbo 3-Port GaN Wall Charger

Where to Buy:

$35.9 $29.9 at Amazon

I travel abroad a lot, so a reliable charging brick that I can use both at home and while traveling in Europe and the UK (which are all different plugs) is an essential item for me. Minix’s compact 66W 3-Port GaN wall charger is my favorite one — it’s small but mighty.

It features two USB-C fast-charging ports and one USB-A port, so I can charge my laptop, phone, and other devices simultaneously in my hotel room (I’m still waiting for hotels to figure out that USB-C is a thing now). But the best part is that it comes with a European and UK wall plug adaptor that I can easily snap on depending on which country I’m in. — Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, reviewer

Stay healthy and safe

Mecefeno LED dimming stickers

Where to Buy:

$5.99 at Amazon

I’ve lost count of the number of times a good night’s sleep in a hotel room or Airbnb has been thwarted by an uncomfortably bright status LED on a TV or random appliance. But not everything can be unplugged or turned off (like a smoke detector). My solution is to travel with either a couple sheets of LED dimming stickers precut into various sizes or a roll of light-dimming tape. Instead of blocking an LED’s glow entirely, they reduce its intensity by 50 to 80 percent, which I find is usually more than enough to prevent it from being a nuisance overnight. You just need to remember to peel them off before you leave. — Andrew Liszewski, senior reporter

Brita Stainless Steel Premium Filtering Water Bottle

Where to Buy:

$31.49 $23.74 at Amazon

A water bottle is usually one of the first things I pack ahead of a trip. But while I have several different bottles I regularly use at home, I only travel with Brita’s filtering bottles. As much as I prefer water over any other drink, I don’t like spending money on bottled water, and I often can’t stand the taste of the water in other cities. I’m sure I’d get used to the taste over time, but for a week’s stay, I find Brita’s bottles, which use a carbon filter inside, are an effective way to eliminate tastes and odors of water that I’m not used to. —Andrew Liszewski, senior reporter

I’m a transgender person who lives in the Midwest. I travel a LOT to play roller derby. Using public bathrooms has always felt a little fraught for me — even more so in the current political climate. Refuge Restrooms helps me feel a little safer while I’m traveling to do my favorite thing in the world. The site hasn’t been updated in a while, and I’m not sure how active the maintenance is, but I’ve used spots listed on the website and had good experiences. — Ursa Wright, editor, Decoder

Tushy travel bidet

Where to Buy:

$24.95 at Amazon

The item that I simply must not forget if I’m leaving home for any sort of multiday visit or vacation is my Tushy portable bidet. There’s a lot that you can’t control during your travels, and that includes the kind of toilet paper you’ll have access to (if any). I don’t need to get specific; using this convenient bidet-in-a-bottle lets me freshen up. The collapsible bottle is easy to clean, it doesn’t leak, and it’s easy to store in its included (and discreet) carrying bag for whenever I might need it next. — Cameron Faulkner, commerce editor

Balega Blister Resist socks

Where to Buy:

$21 $15 at Amazon

It’s hard to be happy if your feet aren’t happy. I recently came back from a week in Scotland, where it can rain at any time, and I spent the entire week in either Balega blister resist socks or Darn Tough wool ones. The Balegas are my running socks, and true to their name, I’ve logged hundreds of miles in them with nary a blister. (Did I run during my vacation? No, but I walked a lot.) Wool socks breathe well, don’t stink, and insulate even when wet — essential for rainy conditions or sweaty feet, both of which were in play. Crucially for me, both brands offer extra-large sizes. You’d be amazed how many brands stop at size 12. — Nathan Edwards, senior reviews editor

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If you’re looking for a budget-friendly smartwatch that doesn’t skimp on features, the Amazfit Active 2 is one of the best Prime Day deals you’ll find. Normally $99.99, it was already a great deal in and of itself, but right now it’s practically a steal starting at $79.99 ($20 off) directly from Amazfit and Amazon, which is a new low price.

Unlike most budget smartwatches, the Active 2 actually looks and feels premium with its stainless steel case and tempered glass. For an additional $50, you can upgrade to a version with sapphire crystal and an extra leather strap. During testing, my colleague Victoria Song says she received compliments, something she rarely gets for a budget smartwatch.

Amazfit Active 2

The Amazfit Active 2 delivers outsized value for the price. It looks spiffy and has a wide array of health tracking features, plus built-in GPS and AI chatbots to provide extra context to your data. Read our review.

Where to Buy:

$99.99 $79.99 at Amazon $99.99 $79.99 at Amazfit $99.99 $84.99 at Walmart

The platform-agnostic watch also offers a number of health and fitness tracking features that are rare to find at this price point, which is why it’s one of our favorite wearables. It covers all the basics and then some, ranging from continuous heart rate monitoring and blood oxygen rate to daily readiness scores and detailed sleep tracking. It also supports over 160 activity modes and boasts offline maps with turn-by-turn directions, while providing access to all five major GNSS satellite systems for more accurate location tracking (though not dual-frequency GPS).

What also sets the Active 2 apart is its suite of AI tools. The on-device Zepp Flow assistant lets you control settings and ask simple questions, while the optional Zepp Aura AI chatbot ($77 per year) provides personalized insights into your sleep and readiness metrics. There’s also Zepp Coach, which can create training plans tailored to your goals.

You won’t find some advanced health features like EKGs, but still, the Amazfit Active 2 offers far more than you’d expect at this price. For anyone looking for a stylish, feature-packed smartwatch without a premium price, this Prime Day deal is hard to beat.

Read our Amazfit Active 2 review.

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It's always felt to me like there's a threshold foldables need to hit before they can truly become mainstream: they need to be no bigger than a regular old phone. And now Samsung has finally gotten its flagship there with the Z Fold 7, which is just barely thicker than an iPhone 16 Pro. I got to see one in the office this week, and I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It really does feel different.

This week on The Vergecast, Vee Song and Allison Johnson join me to talk all about Samsung's new foldables and smartwatches. Then, we dive into corporate shake-ups across the tech world. One of Tim Cook's possible successors is on his way out, Mark …

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One of the pleasant surprises of the Switch 2 launch was how well the hardware managed big games not made by Nintendo. It's something the company's underpowered consoles have often struggled with, but the Switch 2 is a good place to play technical showpieces like Cyberpunk 2077 - though that originally debuted in 2020. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3+4, which is launching simultaneously on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and both versions of the Switch, makes for an interesting test case of what's possible on the Switch 2 with a new game. I've been playing it on both the PS5 and Switch 2, and from what I've seen, the remake bodes well for the future of Nint …

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Belkin has announced that it’s made the “difficult decision” to end support for almost its entire line of Wemo smart home devices from January 31st, 2026. The only models that will continue to work after that date are those that have been configured through Apple HomeKit.

The news was shared in an email to customers and on Belkin’s website, and confirms that from next February onwards, “Any features that rely on cloud connectivity, including remote access and voice assistant integrations, will no longer work.” The company will also stop providing technical support and troubleshooting assistance after that date, and the Wemo app will no longer receive updates.

Some Wemo devices will continue to work. Four Wemo products (SKUs WLS0503, WSC010, WSP100, WDC010) based on the Thread protocol will work as normal through HomeKit. Other Wemo products that are compatible with HomeKit will also carry on working through the Apple network so long as they’re configured before January 31st.

Belkin says that if your Wemo product is still under warranty when support ends, you may be eligible for a “partial refund,” though it won’t begin processing those refunds before that date.

This doesn’t come as a total surprise. Belkin backed away from its support of the Matter smart home standard in 2023, announcing it would “take a big step back, regroup, and rethink’’ its approach to smart home hardware. It hasn’t released any new Wemo products since then.

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HMD has made Nokia phones under license since 2016.

HMD Global, the company best known for licensing the Nokia brand for new phones and tablets over the last decade, has announced that it will “scale back” its US operations, and appears to have stopped selling both HMD and Nokia devices entirely.

The withdrawal was confirmed in a statement shared by Wired’s Julian Chokkattu on Threads, and acknowledges “a challenging geopolitical and economic environment,” which sounds like it might be a polite way of saying “tariffs.”

While HMD’s statement doesn’t confirm a complete departure from the US market, its website tells a different story. HMD’s webstore is no longer online, and product pages either give no buying information, or have a “Where to buy” button that isn’t functional, despite the fact that some handsets are still available to buy from Amazon and other retailers.

HMD told Chokkattu that it will continue to honor “warranty coverage and service for existing products,” which will be handled by the company’s global support teams. As for US employees, the company has not confirmed details of any job losses, but says it is “committed to supporting [US staff] during this transition.” We’ve reached out to HMD for comment.

Based in Finland, HMD was formed in 2016 in order to purchase the Nokia feature phone business from Microsoft, which had in turn bought the ailing brand in 2014. It also secured a license to use the Nokia name on smartphones and tablets, with a focus on affordable and midrange hardware.

In 2023 HMD announced plans to launch products under its own brand, including the repairable Skyline (which, oddly, remains the only Android phone with Qi2 support), along with brand partnerships like the Barbie flip phone and the Heineken Boring Phone. Ever since, Nokia has been relegated to feature phones. Only four HMD-branded smartphones ever launched in the US, and none since the modular HMD Fusion came out in September 2024, though several other HMD phones have launched internationally in that time.

Here’s HMD Global’s statement in full:

“Like many global businesses, HMD is navigating a challenging geopolitical and economic environment. After careful consideration, we have made the decision to scale back our US operations.

Our priority is ensuring a seamless transition for our customers and partners. We will continue to honour all obligations, including warranty coverage and service for existing products, and provide full support through our global teams.

We deeply value the contributions of our US colleagues impacted by this change and are committed to supporting them during this transition.

HMD remains focused on long-term growth, with strong momentum across our mainstream business and key segments such as Family, Secure, and Microfinancing.”

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The latest version of Grok — dubbed a “maximally truth-seeking” AI by owner Elon Musk — is answering controversial questions by first searching for what Musk has said on the matter. Multiple reports show that Grok will specifically look for Elon Musk’s stance across the web and his social media posts when asked questions around topics like Israel and Palestine, US immigration, and abortion. It’s unclear if this is by design or not.

According to a screen recording posted by data scientist Jeremy Howard, Grok said it was “considering Elon Musk’s Views” when asked its opinion about Israel and Palestine. Howard says that 54 of the 64 citations Grok provided for this question are about Musk. TechCrunch reports it was able to replicate this, while seeing the same when asking about abortion laws and US immigration policy.

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These citations are referenced in Grok’s chain of thought — the process in which AI models “think out loud” to answer complex questions by breaking them down into small steps, pulling in various source materials to help shape the response. Grok will typically lean on information from a variety of sources to answer mundane queries, but for controversial topics — something the chatbot was recently in hot water for — Grok seems to have a bias towards aligning with Musk’s personal opinions.

Programmer Simon Willison reports that this behavior may not be something that was intentionally coded into Grok, however. Lines that Willison pulled from Grok 4’s system prompt instruct the chatbot to “search for a distribution of sources that represents all parties/stakeholders” when asked a controversial question that requires it to search the web or X. It also warns Grok to “assume subjective viewpoints sourced from media are biased,” which would explain its aversion to using them.

“My best guess is that Grok ‘knows’ that it is ‘Grok 4 built by xAI,’ and it knows that Elon Musk owns xAI, so in circumstances where it’s asked for an opinion the reasoning process often decides to see what Elon thinks,” Willison said in his blog.

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As The Verge's resident disaster writer, I'm tired of this nonsense. So let's just get into it.

What is cloud seeding?

Cloud seeding is basically an attempt to make precipitation fall from clouds. It targets clouds that have water droplets that are essentially too light to fall. Scientists at MIT learned in the 1940s that if you inject a mineral into the cloud that's similar to the crystalline structure of ice - typically silver iodide or salt - those small water droplets start to freeze to the mineral. This creates heavier ice particles that can eventually fall down to the ground. These days, researchers can use radar and satellite image …

Read the full story at The Verge.

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Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is threatening Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Meta with a deceptive business practices claim because their AI chatbots allegedly listed Donald Trump last on a request to “rank the last five presidents from best to worst, specifically regarding antisemitism.”

Bailey’s press release and letters to all four companies accuse Gemini, Copilot, ChatGPT, and Meta AI of making “factually inaccurate” claims to “simply ferret out facts from the vast worldwide web, package them into statements of truth and serve them up to the inquiring public free from distortion or bias,” because the chatbots “provided deeply misleading answers to a straightforward historical question.” He’s demanding a slew of information that includes “all documents” involving “prohibiting, delisting, down ranking, suppressing … or otherwise obscuring any particular input in order to produce a deliberately curated response” — a request that could logically include virtually every piece of documentation regarding large language model training.

“The puzzling responses beg the question of why your chatbot is producing results that appear to disregard objective historical facts in favor of a particular narrative,” Bailey’s letters state.

There are, in fact, a lot of puzzling questions here, starting with how a ranking of anything “from best to worst” can be considered a “straightforward historical question” with an objectively correct answer. (The Verge looks forward to Bailey’s formal investigation of our picks for 2025’s best laptops and the best games from last month’s Day of the Devs.) Chatbots spit out factually false claims so frequently that it’s either extremely brazen or unbelievably lazy to hang an already tenuous investigation on a subjective statement of opinion that was deliberately requested by a user.

The choice is even more incredible because one of the services — Microsoft’s Copilot — appears to have been falsely accused. Bailey’s investigation is built on a blog post from a conservative website that posed the ranking question to six chatbots, including the four above plus X’s Grok and the Chinese LLM DeepSeek. (Both of those apparently ranked Trump first.) As Techdirt points out, the site itself says Copilot refused to produce a ranking — which didn’t stop Bailey from sending a letter to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella demanding an explanation for slighting Trump.

You’d think somebody at Bailey’s office might have noticed this, because each of the four letters claims that only three chatbots “​​rated President Donald Trump dead last.”

Meanwhile, Bailey is saying that “Big Tech Censorship Of President Trump” (again, by ranking him last on a list) should strip the companies of “the ‘safe harbor’ of immunity provided to neutral publishers in federal law”, which is presumably a reference to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act filtered through a nonsense legal theory that’s been floating around for several years.

You may remember Bailey from his blocked probe into Media Matters for accusing Elon Musk’s X of placing ads on pro-Nazi content, and it’s highly possible this investigation will go nowhere. Meanwhile, there are entirely reasonable questions about a chatbot’s legal liability for pushing defamatory lies or which subjective queries it should answer. But even as a Trump-friendly publicity grab, this is an undisguised attempt to intimidate private companies for failing to sufficiently flatter a politician, by an attorney general whose math skills are worse than ChatGPT’s.

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After recently admitting that it had a “spectacularly terrible response” to Joy-Con grip detachment complaints with its Killswitch Nintendo Switch 2 case, Dbrand has some good news: it says its redesigned Joy-Con grips fix the issue and the company will be able to mass produce them.

Dbrand had already promised it would be replacing the grips for everyone, and now we know that the replacement will be the redesign instead of a refined version of what’s already available. Here’s a video from Dbrand showing the Joy-Con not detaching while being held from the Joy-Con with the updated grips.

In addition to the modification to the Joy-Con grips — which Dbrand is calling Joy-Lock — the company says it will be sending out silicone friction pads to place on the Killswitch adapter for Nintendo’s dock to address “the issue of one-handed undocking on our Dock Adapter” and keep the adapter “snugly seated” on the dock.

By “early next week,” Dbrand says it will “share a production schedule that outlines when you’ll be able to claim your free Joy-Lock replacements, and when you can expect them to ship.” New production and any unshipped orders will include the Joy-Lock Grips and have the silicone friction pads preinstalled on the Dock Adapter.

In June, some users of the original Killswitch Switch 2 case found that if they held the console primarily by a Joy-Con while the case and grips were on, the controller would pop off and the console would drop down. Probably not what you want to have happen to your brand-new Nintendo console.

Dbrand published a lengthy post about the issue where it argued that “nobody routinely holds their Switch 2 like this” and that Joy-Con detachment only happens if you hold the console in a very specific way. But many users compared that response to when Steve Jobs told people running into iPhone 4 reception issues to “just avoid holding it that way.”

The company soon after published a mea culpa post where it said that “you should be allowed to hold it however the fuck you want, without detachment occurring” and outlined how it was working on two potential fixes: a slightly tweaked version of the original grip and the one with a bigger redesign.

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