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The latest tech news about the world’s best (and sometimes worst) hardware, apps, and much more. From top companies like Google and Apple to tiny startups vying for your attention, Verge Tech has the latest in what matters in technology daily.

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
Why is this trailer for the Elizabeth Holmes docudrama so freaky?

The new flick about the disgraced Theranos founder, directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, got a surprise screening at the Telluride Film Festival ahead of its October release. Here’s how A24 describes it:

“Thirty-four days before she’s sent to prison, notorious Silicon Valley founder Elizabeth Holmes invites a skeptical film crew to document her every move. What begins as an intimate portrait of an enigmatic felon becomes a mind-bending three-year journey into the abyss.”

The real reason your phone is getting more expensive

Soaring RAM costs are driving up prices across the tech industry. It may take years to settle down.

Rani Molla
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
SwitchBot made an AI Furby that’s also a smart home controller.

The Kata Mini is one of those weird AI companions that have little purpose other than to be cute and creepy — speaker and microphone on your keychain plushie, anyone?

But the Mini, a portable, camera-less version of a Kata Friend companion, can also control SwitchBot smart home products. That’s a new way to turn on the lights. It’s coming later this year.

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
4 out of 5 EU smartphones fail to provide repair information.

Self-reporting isn’t working, based upon an investigation by Right to Repair Europe. For the last year, tablet and phone manufacturers (and importers) have been required to provide repair instructions and prices for spare parts on a website, but over 80 percent fail to do so. Some leave the field blank, or worse: provide a generic link to temu.com or Aliexpress.com.

This Shenzen I17 tablet shows a perfect repair score but refers prospective owners to Temu.com for spare parts info and repair instructions.
This Shenzen I17 tablet shows a perfect repair score but refers prospective owners to Temu.com for spare parts info and repair instructions.
Image: Right to Repair Europe
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
What do you want to see from Apple’s foldable iPhone Ultra?

We’re expecting the reveal of an all-new iPhone form factor on Wednesday. It will undoubtedly be an expensive beast. So what will it take to make you consider spending your hard-earned money? What features are you hoping to see? What would be a deal-breaker if it were missing?

Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
What if your 14-inch laptop literally stretched to become a 17-inch Netflix machine?

Lenovo’s Project Swan has a screen that literally unrolls. The prototype could use better speakers and some weight balancing, but I love watching it in motion!

The Fairphone 6 Plus is the midrange phone we desperately needed

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Verge Score

Fairphone’s proper US debut feels like a triumph in the middle of RAMageddon.

Allison Johnson
Solar power is having its toaster moment

The US is finally reclassifying plug-in solar as a household appliance to offset high energy costs.

Thomas Ricker
Terrence O'Brien
Terrence O'Brien
Apple Vision Pro is overkill for tracking wall studs, but it works.

TikTok user CatJacks created an app for Apple’s headset that allows him to see through walls. When he’s running cable in a house, he’ll peek in the attic, mark where the studs are, then come around the other side and be able to see them and the cavity in 3D.

Content creators drop the ball

Recent US Open shenanigans and YouTubers’ disastrous golf ad show a risky relationship between brands and influencers.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Sean Hollister
Sean Hollister
This is Project Aeroblade.

Remember Frore and its fan-replacing AirJet cooling tech? Sure looks like Lenovo is taking it seriously!

Jess Weatherbed
Jess Weatherbed
XP-Pen has a new portable Android drawing tablet.

Following the standalone Magic Drawing Pad from 2024, XP-Pen is now launching the Android 16-based Magic Pro 13 next month to tempt creatives away from sketching on iPads. The price hasn’t been announced yet, but it features a 3096 x 2064 resolution LCD display, with 100 percent sRGB coverage, 650-nit brightness, and a refresh rate of up to 120Hz.

The XP-Pen Magic Pro 13.
The XP-Pen Magic 13 Pro joins the small, but growing number of display drawing tablets that don’t need to be plugged into a computer.
Image: XP-Pen
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Spider-Noir’s ending with one season.

Amazon has reportedly canceled Nicolas Cage’s Spider-Man detective series that premiered on Prime Video and MGM Plus earlier this year, according to TheWrap. The report adds that Sony and Amazon “will continue collaborating” on more Marvel projects, and “have already identified the next chapter of the franchise.”

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
PSA: The SmartThings V3 hub is nearly sold out.

And they won’t be making more, meaning there won’t be a way to add Z-Wave devices to a SmartThings smart home. Aeotec, which makes both hubs for Samsung, told me they have about 10,000 left, which may last through the end of the year. Samsung discontinued the V3 last year and replaced it with the Smart Home Hub 2, which has twice the performance, but doesn’t support Z-Wave.

The Smart Home Hub (aka SmartThings V3 hub), right, is on the outs. It’s been replaced by the Smart Home Hub 2 (left).
The Smart Home Hub (aka SmartThings V3 hub), right, is on the outs. It’s been replaced by the Smart Home Hub 2 (left).
Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Tell us how you really feel, Home Assistant.

The fiercely open-source smart home platform had its first-ever booth at IFA this week and, true to form, didn’t pull any punches.

<em>It’s a beautiful, custom embroidered sign</em>.
<em>The booth is a popular spot on the show floor.</em>
1/3Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Nathan Edwards
Nathan Edwards
The Bluesky experience.

Throng turns your Bluesky feed into a 3D walking getting yelled at simulator. The timeline becomes a crowd of people running up to recite each post in your face, then wandering off. Yes, it has ragdoll physics. There is also a giant cow. Happy Friday, everyone.

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
These color-matched Belkin accessories almost make me want to buy a MacBook Neo.

Along with the chargers and cables, Belkin showed off matching power banks for its colorful laptop at IFA this week. The UltraCharge Pro 20K Power Bank ($99.95) and BoostCharge Pro Magnetic Power Bank 5K ($59.95) in matching Neo colors are Apple Store exclusives. The entire collection could really cheer up my desk on a dreary Monday morning.

<em>Belkin’s entire line of Mac Book Neo accessories.</em>
<em>The power bank has an integrated 70 watt cable and digital display.</em>
1/3
Belkin’s entire line of Mac Book Neo accessories.
Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Stevie Bonifield
Stevie Bonifield
Silo returns to Apple TV for its final season on July 9th, 2027.

Following its season three finale this week, Apple released a teaser for Silo’s fourth season, premiering in less than a year — but watch out for spoilers if you haven’t seen this week’s episode yet.

Charles Pulliam-Moore
Charles Pulliam-Moore
Star Guardian: Guardian of the Stars.

If you liked the pilot animatic for Kiana Khansmith’s Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to Be a Magical Girl, you’re going to love the Mercury Filmworks-produced, fully animated version of the first episode that just hit YouTube.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Remarkable adds the ability to capture and copy what’s on screen by circling it.

A software update for Remarkable’s E Ink tablets introduces a new tool that can capture images of on-screen content by drawing a circle, or any shape, around what you want. The captures can be imported into your notebooks and repositioned, resized, and rotated as needed. The update also introduces improved formatting options for EPUB files and new pen stroke colors.

A color screen Remarkable tablet with a stylus lying next to it.
Image: Remarkable
Antonio G. Di Benedetto
Antonio G. Di Benedetto
HP announces new OmniBook laptops and a desktop with Nvidia RTX Spark.

HP is adding to the impending deluge of RTX Spark computers due in October with the OmniBook X 14, OmniBook Ultra 16, and the small form factor OmniDesk. My colleague Dom saw the Ultra among other Nvidia-powered laptops at IFA, but we still don’t know any prices.

Considering HP’s specs show both OmniBooks will start with 32GB of unified memory and 1TB of storage, signs point to them being expensive.

<em>The HP OmniBook Ultra 16, seen at IFA.</em>
<em>Lots of ports, including speedy 40Gbps USB-C.</em>
<em>The smaller OmniBook X 14.</em>
<em>The X 14 has about as many ports as the Ultra 16, including equally fast USB-C, but it lacks the microSD card slot.</em>
<em>The HP OmniDesk.</em>
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The HP OmniBook Ultra 16, seen at IFA.
Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge
Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Watch Dyson’s $499 CameraJet toothbrush clean a fake set of teeth.

We haven’t had the chance to try it on our own pearly whites yet, but The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy got a brief hands-on with Dyson’s new camera-equipped electric toothbrush at IFA 2026 where the company had a set of simulated teeth for taking the brush for a test drive.

Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
I saw a whole bunch of RTX Spark laptops all at once.

Only one of them switched on, and apparently it wasn’t even meant to, so I’ve got no deep performance insights about the first laptops powered by Nvidia’s RTX Spark chip. But Dell, Lenovo, MSI, Asus, HP, and Microsoft are all on board with hardware already — hopefully we’ll get the details on them all before too long.

1/9Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge
Dominic Preston
Dominic Preston
Insta360’s Luna Pro shoots 4K vertical video.

The Luna Pro is already out in China. We’re still waiting for a US launch, but it was on the company’s stand at IFA so I had a play. It’s single-lens, but can use the 8K sensor to capture 4K footage either landscape or portrait, and has the Ultra’s detachable display too.

<em>The Luna Pro looks a lot like the Ultra, with similar controls.</em>
<em>Unlike the Ultra, it only has a single lens.</em>
<em>Visuals are co-engineered with Leica again, who provided three color profiles too.</em>
<em>You can still detach the display to use it as a remote.</em>
<em>It comes in black too, and shoots native 4K vertical video.</em>
<em>An NFC tag in the camera head can open the Insta360 app with a tap for quicker file transfer, though the “Kiss & Fly” name is questionable at best.</em>
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The Luna Pro looks a lot like the Ultra, with similar controls.
Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Wikipedia staffers vote to unionize.

As reported by Wired, more than 200 US-based workers at the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia, will join Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 9415 after management declined to voluntarily recognize the union in July.

Organizing committee member Bryan Davis called it a “huge milestone” and said:

We continue our petition for recognition in the U.K. and hope to see more jurisdiction-specific units call for voluntary recognition in the coming weeks and months. Solidarity will continue to drive our discussions, planning, and actions as we begin working on our collective goals for contract bargaining to support all WMF workers regardless of legal jurisdiction, job duty, or hours of employment.

Andrew Liszewski
Andrew Liszewski
Psimulator brings Sega Dreamcast emulation to the iPhone.

Developer Benjamin Stark (ZodTTD) has been making emulators for iOS since long before Apple officially allowed them in its app store. Following their well-featured Gamma PS1 emulator comes Psimulator that plays Dreamcast games with features like cloud syncing, Bluetooth controller support, and a skin designer right within the $4.99 app.

ZodTTD’s Psimulator Sega Dreamcast emulator running on iOS.
Image: Apple App Store
Richard Lawler
Richard Lawler
Andrew Tate indicted in Romania, again.

More than three years after Tate and his brother were arrested and indicted in Romania on charges of human trafficking, Reuters reports the DIICOT prosecuting unit has indicted Tate again. They’ve charged Tate for “trafficking minors, money laundering, sex with a minor and witness tampering and his brother Tristan for complicity.”

Both Tates were arrested in Miami in July after British authorities requested their extradition, and they are currently in jail in the US.