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The Verge

The Vergecast is the flagship podcast from The Verge about small gadgets, Big Tech, and everything in between. Every Friday, hosts Nilay Patel and David Pierce hang out and make sense of the week’s most important technology news. And every Tuesday, David leads a selection of The Verge’s expert staffers in an exploration of how gadgets and software affect our lives – and which ones you should bring into yours.

The Vergecast

It's a big week for the smart home. Jake, Vee, and Jen sit down to chat about all the new tech out of IFA, from robots that carry robot vacuums up stairs to upgrades that turn 10-year-old Hue bulbs into motion sensors. Then, Lauren joins the show to talk about the Google antitrust remedies ruling and what Google is going to have to do to allow more competition in the search market. Finally, the Thunder Round is back and better than ever. We're talking $2,000 smart watches, Amazon yanking a major Prime perk, the Pixel 10 Pro's 100x AI zoom, Instagram for iPad, and drama at the FTC.

Further reading:

 
Eufy built a stairlift for its robovacs

 
Inside Philips Hue’s plans to make all your lights motion sensors

 
Philips Hue responds to cheaper competitors with major product overhaul

 
SwitchBot has ambitions to be the AI that powers your smart home

 
Samsung’s Galaxy S25 FE and Tab S11 are thinner, lighter, and otherwise about the same

 
Google gets to keep Chrome, judge rules in search antitrust case

 
Google critics think the search remedies ruling is a total whiff

 
Here’s what Google and the DOJ had to say about the search remedies ruling

 
The tech antitrust renaissance may already be over

 
Garmin’s Fenix 8 Pro series finally lets you leave your phone at home — sort of

 
Instagram is coming to iPad, 15 years later

 
Amazon ends shared Prime free shipping outside your home

 
Ousted Democratic FTC commissioner can return (again) for now

 
Here’s how the Pixel’s AI zoom compares to a real 100x lens

Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11. We love hearing from you.

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Your robot is about to get its own robot

Hooked on LinkedIn’s Queens? Gotta extend your Wordle streak in the New York Times games app before you start your day? You’re in good company on today’s Vergecast episode. Allison Johnson is joined by Simon Anthony and Mark Goodliffe, world-class puzzle champs and hosts of the delightful Cracking the Cryptic, a YouTube channel where they solve a puzzle on camera every single day.

They specialize in Sudoku — and not just the classic number games you might be familiar with. Simon and Mark tackle mind-bending, seemingly impossible puzzles, working through it all in realtime, sometimes over the course of several hours. What happens when you get stuck? How can you tell the difference between a puzzle made by a human and a computer-generated one? Why are we addicted to puzzle games all of a sudden? They help us crack the clues.

Then Allison sits down with Marc Levoy, one of the pioneers of computational photography, to talk about his new camera app: Project Indigo. Levoy is known for his earlier work on the Pixel camera, and was a driving force in shaping phone photography into what it is now. We last caught up with him in 2020 when he left Google for Adobe, so we got up to speed on what the heck he’s been doing for the last five years — and the important difference between HDR and an HDR-ish photo.

Finally, Allison takes a hotline question from someone who is not particular about their phone camera’s image quality, but does have a beef with camera bumps.

 Cracking the Cryptic — YouTube

 This 25-minute video is the most riveting sudoku puzzle you will ever watch

 The Atlantic is making a big push into games

 I regret to inform you that LinkedIn’s games are very fun

 The mastermind of Google’s Pixel camera quietly left the company in March

 The brain behind the Google Pixel camera is building a universal camera app for Adobe

 Marc Levoy on the balance of camera hardware, software, and artistic expression

 Adobe launches a new ‘computational photography’ camera app for iPhones

 Adobe’s new camera app is making me rethink phone photography

Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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Why are online puzzle games having a moment?

The Pixel 10 is in the house, and we’ve been testing them for over a week now. Allison and Vee sit down with Jake to discuss their tests — the good, the bad, and the poorly translated. They demo the Pixel 10's live phone call translations and dive into Pro Res Zoom, which uses AI to enhance photos zoomed in up to 100x. Then, it’s time to talk Dish, Intel, and Elon. Dish is giving up on being a major mobile carrier, Intel is now partially owned by the US government, and Elon has filed a questionable lawsuit against Apple. Finally, we wrap up with a Thunder Round to discuss K-Pop Demon Hunters, YouTube Shorts’ secret “AI,” Android’s registration requirement for developers, Taco Bell’s drive through AI attempt, and a delivery locker on wheels.

Further reading:

 Google Pixel 10 Pro review: AI, Qi2, and a spec bump too

 Apple’s iPhone 17 launch event is set for September 9th

 Dish gives up on becoming the fourth major wireless carrier

 The Trump administration promised a fourth wireless carrier — America got a hot mess instead

 US government takes 10 percent stake in Intel in exchange for money it was already on the hook for

 Elon Musk’s xAI is suing OpenAI and Apple

 Elon Musk’s xAI quietly dropped its status as a public benefit corporation

 My new beat is K-Pop Demon Hunters

 Taco Bell AI Drive thru sna-fu

 Is YouTube’s Shorts experiment using AI or just upscaling? | The Verge

 This new delivery robot will bring the entire grocery store to you

 Google will verify Android developers distributing apps outside the Play store

Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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The Pixel 10's AI screamed at us

This week on The Vergecast, Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake of PetaPixel’s YouTube channel join The Verge’s Allison Johnson and Vjeran Pavic to geek out about the last half-decade of camera advancements — the good, the bad, and the Sigma BF of it all.

Then, Allison is joined by Verge News Editor and fellow phone nerd Dominic Preston to help answer a boatload of listener questions from people contemplating which smartphone to buy next. They help navigate the intricacies of living in a mixed iOS/Android household to the best options for someone who wants a headphone jack (spoiler alert: there aren’t many).

It’s a mega-hotline-turned-therapy session for iPhone Mini owners reluctant to let go of their tiny phones in a world where phones come in two sizes: big and bigger.

Further reading:

 Sigma BF review: Beautiful Foolishness — PetaPixel

 The Fujifilm X half is Just Plain FUN! — PetaPixel

 Fujifilm X Half hands-on: whimsical, refreshing, and simply fun

 Sigma BF review: the perfect camera for a minimalist

 In pursuit of a viral, five-year-old compact camera

 Samsung Galaxy S25 review: incredibly iterative

 Nothing Phone 3 review: flagship-ish

 If you really want a smaller phone, try the tiny Jelly 2

 Oppo Find N5 review: the final evolution of foldables

 Honor launches the ‘world’s thinnest’ foldable

 Motorola spoiled a good budget phone with bloatware

 The Xperia 1 VII is a greatest hits of Sony R&D

 The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra isn’t so ‘ultra’ anymore

 The Fairphone 6 no longer feels like a compromise (except in the US)

 My first DIY phone fix made me a self-repair believer

 Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold review: in great shape

 Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 review: stunning, bendy, and spendy

 Ditching my phone for an LTE smartwatch was a humbling experience

 I took my own advice and bought a last-gen iPhone — I regret nothing

 How Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip failed me without actually breaking

Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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Zooming in on weird cameras

It’s Pixel week. Jake, Vee, and Allison are chatting about all things Google. First, there’s the Pixel 10, 10 Pro, 10 Pro XL, and 10 Pro Fold, which get a mix of hardware upgrades (dust-proofing on a foldable!) and downgrades (a worse camera on the Pixel 10?) and a ton of new AI features, including Magic Cue and Pro Res Zoom, which puts AI right inside the camera app. Next, there’s the Pixel Watch 4, Fitbit’s AI fitness coach, the Pixel Buds 2A, and a tease of Google’s next smart home speaker. Finally, we wrap it up with the Thunder Round and a discussion of Hank Green’s Focus Friend, Ricoh’s GR IV, Netflix’s new content strategy, Masimo’s attempt to sue over the Apple Watch again, and most importantly, Chipotle’s drone delivery.

Further reading:

 The Made by Google event felt like being sucked into an episode of Wandavision

 The Google Pixel 10 and 10 Pro come with magnets, a new chip, and AI everywhere

 The Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold is the first fully dust-resistant foldable 

 Google says the quiet part out loud: IP68 protection doesn’t last 

 The best new features of the Pixel 10 lineup

 The Pixel 10 Pro puts generative AI right inside the camera 

 The magnets are the coolest thing about the Pixel 10

 Google is launching its first magnetic wireless charging accessories 

 Building a more empathetic big phone. 

 The Pixel Pro 10 phones include a certified Thread radio.

 
Google’s Pixel Watch 4 has big ideas — and an even bigger focus on AI 

 Fitbit’s AI health coach is the first I might actually be interested in

 The unbearable obviousness of AI fitness summaries

 
Google’s Pixel Buds 2A add Gemini, noise cancellation, and a replaceable battery 

 Google’s Pixel Buds Pro 2 are getting new AI-powered features in September

 Gemini for Home is Google’s biggest smart home play in years

 Is that a new Nest smart speaker I spy?

 
Hank Green’s Focus Friend swapped my screen time for bean time 

 Now Masimo is suing US Customs over Apple Watch imports 

 Ricoh GR IV will cost $1500

 It's Raining Chips & Guac: Chipotle Is Testing Drone Delivery

 YouTuber Mark Rober is getting a Netflix series

 YouTube star Ms. Rachel is coming to Netflix

 The Duffer Brothers are joining the Paramount family

Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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Google's AI-stuffed Pixel 10 event

This week on The Vergecast, the co-founder and former CEO of iRobot, Colin Angle, joins The Verge’s smart home reviewer, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, to discuss what the ideal home robot is. Are we close to creating a Rosie the Robot — an all-in-one humanoid robot that can take care of our homes, or should we take an entirely different approach to home robotics? They dive into the advances in technology powering this shift and ponder what purpose robotics in the home should really serve.

Then, Jen takes a journey back into smart home history to help us understand its future. Grant Erickson, Principal of Nuovations, a former Apple, Nest, and Google engineer who was part of the team that developed Thread, joins the show.

He shares the story of how and why, back in 2011, the Nest team, led by Tony Faddell and Matt Rogers, decided to create a smart home protocol. It involves a thermostat, fragmented ecosystems, and one of the best smart home products ever made.

They discuss how Thread became the foundation of the Matter smart home standard — an unprecedented industry collaboration with a herculean task — to make the smart home simpler.

To close out the show, Grant sticks around to help answer a Vergecast hotline question (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com) about how Matter manages your data.

Further reading:

 
Maybe I don’t want a Rosey the Robot after all

 
Amazon left Roomba with a huge mess to clean up

 
Figure will start ‘alpha testing’ its humanoid robot in the home in 2025

 
Amazon Astro review: too much Alexa, not enough arms

 
Samsung is finally releasing Ballie

 
This Pixar-style dancing lamp hints at Apple’s future home robot

 
iRobot’s founder is working on a new kind of home robot

 
iRobot OS is the newest ‘brain’ for your Roomba

 
Amazon bought iRobot to see inside your home

 
I tested a robot vacuum with an arm, and my dog may never forgive me

 
Inside the Nest: iPod creator Tony Fadell wants to reinvent the thermostat

 
Nest CEO Tony Fadell on Google acquisition

 
Fire drill: Can Tony Fadell and Nest build a better smoke detector?

 
How big companies kill ideas — and how to fight back, with Tony Fadell

 
Situation: there are too many competing smart home standards

 
Matter’s plan to save the smart home

 
Nest’s home security system costs $499 and comes with magnetic door sensors

 
Google says Matter is still set to fix the biggest smart home frustrations

 
Thread is Matter’s secret sauce for a better smart home

 
Nanoleaf launches a smart switch after eight years of trying

 
Thread count: Ikea is stitching together a smarter home

 
Why Thread is Matter’s biggest problem right now

 
The four changes in Thread 1.4 that could fix the protocol

 
It could be 2026 before all your Thread border routers work together

 
Matter will be better in 2025 — say the people who make it

 
The Nest Learning Thermostat gets its biggest upgrade in over a decade

 
killedbygoogle.com

 
Google’s ADT partnership finally has a new home security product to show for it

 
Google discontinues Nest Protect smoke alarm and Nest x Yale door lock

 
Google discontinues its Google Nest Secure alarm system

 
Appliance makers are teaming up to reduce your electricity usage — and save you cash

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Do we really want Rosie the Robot?

GPT-5 is here, and it’s not going so well. This week on The Vergecast, Jake, Vee, and Hayden discuss the bumpy launch of OpenAI’s latest model and why GPT-5 isn’t as big of a leap as GPT-4. 

Then, everyone shares their vibe coding projects and the bumpy journey to making anything usable. After that, our newest segment: Corporate Shenanigans, where we rate the week in strange corporate moves on a scale from “actually serious” to “total joke.” 

Finally, the Thunder Round returns, new and improved, to discuss ditching your phone for a smartwatch, doctors relying too much on AI, AOL dial-up shutting down, the Pebble Time 2, and why you shouldn’t trust what AI chatbots say about themselves.

Further reading:

 ChatGPT won’t remove old models without warning after GPT-5 backlash

 OpenAI will update GPT-5’s “personality” after user backlash

 ChatGPT is bringing back 4o as an option because people missed it

 Sam Altman shared more about what went wrong with those GPT-5 graphs

 OpenAI gives some employees a ‘special’ multimillion-dollar bonus

 Anthropic just made its latest move in the AI coding wars

 Anthropic’s Claude chatbot can now remember your past conversations

 Perplexity offers to buy Google Chrome for $34.5 billion

 Apple is suing Apple Cinemas

 Apple Cinemas responds to Apple lawsuit

 Apple returns blood oxygen monitoring to the latest Apple Watches

 Elon Musk says he’s suing Apple for rigging App Store rankings

 Ditching my phone for an LTE smartwatch was a humbling experience

 
Here’s a look at the final Pebble Time 2 design 

 Some doctors got worse at detecting cancer after relying on AI

 Google’s healthcare AI made up a body part — what happens when doctors don’t notice?

 Chatbots aren’t telling you their secrets

 AOL is finally shutting down dial-up

Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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Vibe coding through the GPT-5 mess

This week on The Vergecast, we enter the Jen-era of Hot Girl Vergecast Summer, with a deep dive into the business of the smart home. The Verge’s smart home reviewer, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy (aka Jen), chats with Ken Fairbanks, a longtime customer of Insteon who ended up buying the smart lighting company when it went into bankruptcy.

Ken shares the story of how one of the original smart lighting protocols, founded in the post-X10 era when home automation moved from wired to wireless, floundered, and how he and a band of users brought it back from the dead. He dishes what he’s learned about how to keep the lights on — from customer loyalty and the value of subscriptions, to what tariffs are doing to the industry and how some hardware companies are just pyramid schemes.

Then, in a special supersized (and we mean SUPER) Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com), Jen is joined by smart home expert Richard Gunther, co-host of The Smart Home Show, to tackle a bunch of your burning smart lighting questions. They answer everything from how to move your smart home to which Thread border router you should buy for your Matter setup. Plus, they run down their own smart lighting set-ups.

Further reading:

 Insteon’s troubles are a smart home tale as old as time

 Insteon Raises the Curtain for the Next Act

 Someone turned Insteon’s lights back on

 Insteon customers turned Insteon’s lights back on

 Thread count: Ikea is stitching together a smarter home

 Smart switches or smart bulbs? How to choose the right smart lighting for your home

 Controller for HomeKit

 Philips Hue Play sync box and gradient lightstrip review: wholly unnecessary, totally delightful

 Taming Wi-Fi in the Smart Home:

 Leviton’s new smart light switches don’t require a neutral wire

 Every smart home device that works with Matter

 Aqara’s new seven-inch home control tablet can replace a light switch

 These smart lights could solve the kitchen cabinet problem

 Hue launches a pricey new sunrise lamp

 Smart string light showdown: Nanoleaf versus Lifx

 The best floodlight camera to buy right now

 How to move a smart home

 Moving a smart home - The Smart Home Show

 Living with the ghost of a smart home’s past

 Smart ceiling light showdown: Aqara T1M versus Nanoleaf Skylight

 Binding should be the next big thing for smart home devices

 Aqara adds support for 50 new Matter device types

 Flic is ready to control all your Matter devices

 Thread is Matter’s secret sauce for a better smart home

 Google Nest Thread border routers

 Google TV Streamer review: smarter than your average set-top box

 Google Nest Hub (2nd-gen) review: sleep on it

 Why Thread is Matter’s biggest problem right now

 
The four changes in Thread 1.4 that could fix the protocol

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How to save a smart home company

In this bonus episode of The Vergecast, Senior Reviewer Victoria Song sits down with a bunch of Verge staffers to talk about how they use AI tools in their everyday lives. Not all of it went smoothly — we definitely get into the ways these tools fall short — but we explore how AI can be used to help bedtime go more smoothly for parents, plan big cross-country moves, supplement your internet searches (always double-check!), and even vibe code an app for your next tabletop role-playing game.

If you have any examples where AI was useful to you, we’d love to hear them. (For what it’s worth, we’d also love to hear stories where it spectacularly failed.) Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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We found stuff AI is pretty good at

It’s a huge week in AI, with OpenAI releasing GPT-OSS and GPT-5, Grok getting deeply problematic again with its “spicy” video generator, and Tim Cook admitting that Apple may need to cut some deals. Then we talk the age gating of the internet and how you might soon need an ID card to get just about anywhere online. Finally, the Lightning Round gets re-rebranded. Adi Robertson and Alex Heath join the show to discuss.

Further reading:

 GPT-5 is being released to all ChatGPT users

 OpenAI releases a free GPT model that can run on your laptop

 Why open-source AI became an American national priority

 Mark Zuckerberg promises you can trust him with superintelligent AI

 xAI’s new Grok image and video generator has a ‘spicy’ mode

 Grok’s ‘spicy’ video setting instantly made me Taylor Swift nude deepfakes

 I tested Grok’s Valentine sex chatbot and it (mostly) behaved

 Tim Cook says Apple ‘must’ figure out AI and ‘will make the investment to do it’

 Tim Cook says Apple is ‘open to’ AI acquisitions

 Ready or not, age verification is rolling out across the internet

 The UK is now age-gating the internet

 The UK is slogging through an online age-gate apocalyps

 The UK’s new age-gating rules are easy to bypass

 Reddit and Discord’s UK age verification can be defeated by Death Stranding’s photo mode

 Reddit rolls out age verification in the UK to comply with new rules

 Five EU states to test age verification app to protect children

 The EU approach to age verification

 Commission presents guidelines and age verification app prototype for a safer online space for children

 Porn age-gating is the future of the internet, thanks to the Supreme Court

 The Supreme Court just upended internet law, and I have questions

 Florida Sues Huge Porn Sites Including XVideos and Bang Bros Over Age Verification Law

 “Over the last two and a half years, 19 states – home to more than a third of Americans – have passed laws that require pornography websites to confirm a user’s age by checking a government-issued ID or scanning their face, among other methods.”

 Google is using AI age checks to lock down user accounts

 Today's Supreme Court Decision on Age Verification Tramples Free Speech and Undermines Privacy

 Age Verification Harms Users of All Ages

 Blocking Access to Harmful Content Will Not Protect Children Online, No Matter How Many Times UK Politicians Say So

 Zero Knowledge Proofs Alone Are Not a Digital ID Solution to Protecting User Privacy

 Age Verification in the European Union: The Commission's Age Verification App

 RFK Jr. pulls $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine contracts

 Epic just won its Google lawsuit again, and Android may never be the same

 Google has just two weeks to begin cracking open Android, it admits in emergency filing

 Instagram adds a reposts feed and rips off Snap Maps

 OpenAI charts crime

 OpenAI gets caught vibe graphing

 Nintendo raises the Switch 1 price from $299 to $339

 Apple says Trump’s tariffs are adding another $1 billion to its costs

Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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GPT-5's big new feature: less lying?

Robotaxis: in. EVs: Out? The Verge's Andy Hawkins joins the show to talk about the goings-on in the transportation industry, including the reasons car makers are slowing down on EV production (but not giving up entirely) and why suddenly everyone's back in on robotaxis. Then, The Social Web Foundation's Evan Prodromou tells us what's new with the fediverse. We talk about Bluesky, Threads, Mastodon, and the increasingly ambitious plans for the ActivityPub protocol. Finally, we talk through some feedback on last week's episode about the pricing of the iPhone 16E, and how the way you buy your phone changes the way you feel about its price.
Further reading:

EV truck maker Nikola goes bust

Senate Republicans introduce bills to make EVs more expensive

Volkswagen claims it’s actually making that $20,000 EV and will show it next month

Ford lost $5 billion on EVs in 2024, teases new models

Lyft eyes robotaxi launch in 2026

Uber to Austin: get ready for Waymo

The fediverse, explained: Mastodon, Threads, and the open future of social networking

Flipboard’s Surf app is a feed reader for the fediverse

Tumblr’s fediverse integration might finally happen soon.

The Social Web Foundation

Apple launches the iPhone 16E

Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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We can’t quit electric cars — or robotaxis

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