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The most recent presentation of Apple's WWDC event has come and gone, during which Apple introduced the developer beta of the newly renamed iOS 26 - which is accessible to everyone, non-developers included, for free. If you want to try out an early version of the new OS, we've got directions on how to install it on your iPhone or iPad.

Before we get started, a word of warning: beta software - especially early developer beta - is inherently unfinished and may contain bugs. Think carefully before installing either on any device you depend on. They also may not include all of the features that will be in the final release. Your experience may differ from others depending on the apps you use. And finally, if you do decide to install it, we suggest backing up your device's data in case things go badly.

What features come with the new OS?

Besides a new naming scheme - each update will now be named for the year it will be used - the new operating systems have a number of interesting new features, not the least of which is Liquid Glass, a shiny new (and transparent) look for the OS that may take some getting used to. There are also new windowing features for iPadOS, some new Messages u …

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President Donald Trump says he has reached a deal with China that will ensure the US receives rare earth materials, keeps tariffs at a total of 55 percent, and allows American universities to keep accepting Chinese students. Trump announced the news of the agreement on Truth Social, which he says is still “subject to final approval” by himself and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

As noted by NBC News, the 55 percent figure isn’t new, and includes the 30 percent tariffs Trump introduced earlier this year, along with a pre-existing 25 percent tax. China will also implement a 10 percent tariff on US goods under the agreement.

The purported deal follows weeks of negotiations and economic uncertainty, with a constant back-and-forth between the US and China making tariffs difficult for businesses and consumers to track. In April, China responded to Trump’s up to 145 percent tariffs by introducing new levies, as well as putting restrictions on rare earth minerals and magnets, halting some auto production lines in Europe.

The US and China agreed to pause tariff increases in May while the two worked out an agreement, but tensions increased even more when the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced plans to “aggressively revoke visas” for Chinese students late last month.

But now — at least according to Trump and his administration — the US and China are finally on the verge of an agreement. “We have reached a framework to implement the Geneva consensus and the call between the two presidents,” US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said during a press briefing on Tuesday night.

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There's a fight for control going on inside the cockpits of many modern cars. Enable all the active safety systems in a Tesla, and it'll do most of the steering for you. But if it makes an errant turn or meanders a little too far this way or that in the lane (and trust me, it will), you're left wrestling the wheel out of Autopilot's virtual hands.

Assistance systems from other manufacturers do better at ceding control whenever you feel like taking over, but BMW is about to take that to a new level with the first car built on its upcoming Neue Klasse platform. It includes an advanced driver assist system that the company says is a proper symbiosis, where the car's sensors and systems don't fight with or yell at you but instead work with you to make driving safer and less stressful.

I sampled this suite in a prototype of BMW's iX3, the first electric SUV on the Neue Klasse platform, designed from the ground up to offer more range, better handling, and way more smarts. BMW is promising 400 miles of range from a new battery architecture that can charge at up to 400 kW. That means adding something like 200 miles of range in 10 minutes, but there's a lot more to it than that.

Better …

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Nintendo introduced a new hardware button to the Switch 2 specifically for chatting with your friends, and it's undoubtedly my favorite feature on the console. Instead of using a smartphone app like the original Switch, Switch 2 users can open up a communications channel at any time with the "C" button and chat with friends, whether they're playing the same game or something else.

That idea sounds a little outdated with the popularity of Discord, but Nintendo makes the process seamless enough that I can imagine a lot of people will end up using it. Last Friday, a few of my colleagues and I hopped into a GameChat session together and played Mario Kart World online - all of us communicating through the built-in microphone on our consoles and various USB webcams, with our likeness displayed on the bottom of the screen.

The noise reduction and compression processing on the Switch 2's mic was surprisingly impressive: my audio was clear and easy to understand without any background noise, even when sitting 5-10 feet away from the console. The Switch 2's face detection and background removal with its camera works well, too, and it was hilariously useful when a cutout of our faces showe …

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The Pura 80 Ultra has more lenses than it initially appears.

Huawei has just announced the Chinese launch of its Pura 80 flagship phones, and the Ultra comes with a clever trick: a “switchable” dual-lens telephoto camera that allows two different lenses to share the same sensor.

You can see both lenses side-by-side in the largest of the three camera rings on the 80 Ultra’s rear, but they share more than just a housing. Both lenses are attached to the same set of periscopic elements and the same image sensor, with a movable prism that directs light from the chosen lens. That’s a different approach to the variable telephotos in some Sony Xperia phones, which use a single lens but move parts of the periscopic structure to change the zoom distance.

The Pura 80 Ultra’s two lenses offer 3.7x and 9.4x optical zoom — or 83mm and 212mm if you prefer — which is a wider range than Sony’s take ever managed. The shorter lens has an f/2.4 aperture and Huawei’s spec sheet lists it as a 50-megapixel camera. The other lens is f/3.6 and curiously, despite using the same sensor, is listed with a smaller 12.5-megapixel resolution, suggesting that there’s either sensor-cropping or additional pixel-binning going on when using that lens.

Combining the two telephoto lenses isn’t just a way of grabbing headlines. Image sensors are among the most expensive components in modern phones, so finding ways to use one sensor for multiple lenses could save costs in the long run. It’s also a space saver, even more so by avoiding having two full periscopic systems. That could keep the phone slimmer, but also makes space for better components — the 1/1.28-inch-type sensor used here is larger than most telephotos offer, and possibly enabled by the new design.

Beyond the novel telephoto cameras, the Pura 80 Ultra includes a 50-megapixel main camera with Huawei’s returning dynamic aperture design, plus a 40-megapixel ultrawide. A 6.8-inch LTPO OLED display, 5,700mAh battery, and IP68 and 69 ratings round out the flagship spec sheet. It comes with 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage, but Huawei hasn’t detailed the chipset that powers it — a secrecy that’s become standard in the last few years as it develops its own chips in the wake of US sanctions.

The Ultra has launched alongside three other phones: the Pura 80, 80 Pro, and 80 Pro Plus. All three have similar designs, and even the base model includes a triple rear camera, only slightly smaller 6.6-inch LTPO OLED screen, and 5,600mAh battery. The Pro and Pro Plus are the same size as the Ultra, and share its main camera and ultrawide, but have a single 48-megapixel telephoto each. The only edge the Plus gets is a little extra RAM and support for two types of satellite communications, though every Pura 80 phone can connect to the Beidou satellite system.

All the new Pura phones launch running HarmonyOS 5.1, the latest version of Huawei’s operating system, which is no longer based on Android. The 80 Ultra starts at CNY9,999 (around $1,390), while the Pro models start at CNY 6,500 (around $900); the regular Pura 80 isn’t on sale yet and doesn’t have a price. Last year’s Pura 70 series launched internationally a few weeks after its China debut, so we’ll have to see if the same will be true this year.

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A customer refuels a car at a Chevron gas station in San Francisco on Thursday, May 22nd, 2025. | Photo: Bloomberg via Getty Images

Things are getting nutty in the world of vehicle fuel economy standards.

Last week, Transportation Secretary (and ex-reality TV contestant) Sean Duffy declared that he was resetting the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards that govern vehicle fuel efficiency in the US. Duffy confidently declared that the current CAFE standards, in which fuel economy would increase 2 percent per year for passenger car model years 2027-2031 and 2 percent per year for light-duty trucks model years 2029-2031, "illegally" considered electric vehicles, and therefore were null and void. So while it works on reversing those standards, Duffy said the Trump administration would simply stop enforcing the current ones.

The rules were being rewritten to make "vehicles more affordable and easier to manufacture in the United States," Duffy said. Experts say rolling back the CAFE standards will have the opposite effect: cars will be less fuel efficient, forcing their owners to shell out more for gas over time.

While it works on reversing those standards, Duffy said the Trump administration would simply stop enforcing the current ones

"Making our vehicles less fuel efficient hurts families by forc …

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Gamers who missed out on a chance to get a Nintendo Switch 2 on launch day, or in the rare opportunities since, can buy one through Best Buy’s website or mobile app right now. Although the retailer had plenty of in-store stock on launch day, this particular restock is available exclusively online. You can currently buy either the base $449.99 console or the one bundled with Mario Kart World that costs $499.99 (saving you $30 off the game’s usual cost).

While all of the shopping will be done online, these orders won’t be delivered. They’re for in-store pickup only, so make sure you can arrange a pickup before completing the order.

Nintendo had a relatively smooth Switch 2 launch from a server standpoint. No issues for players who are buying a lot of games, or transferring their Switch 1 data to the Switch 2. It was also a hugely successful launch, with Nintendo announcing that it sold 3.5 million Switch 2 consoles in four days, setting a new record for the company as the fastest-selling hardware yet.

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"This is absurd."

That's all Amba Kak, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute, recalls thinking when she first heard about the proposed moratorium on state AI regulation tucked into President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" - the same funding bill that had Trump and Elon Musk recently trading barbs online. According to the bill's text, no state "may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems" for a 10-year period, which would start the same day the bill is passed.

The moratorium was worse than doing nothing at all to regulate AI, she remembers thinking. Not only was the proposed rule stopping such regulation in the future, but it was also "rolling back the very few protections we have." It could scuttle bills covering anything from data privacy to facial recognition models in Washington, Colorado, and other states.

"It's turning the clock back, and it's freezing it there," Kak says. Days after she learned about the moratorium, she was called to testify about it at the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

The AI moratorium passed without issue as part of the House bil …

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Capcom had an interesting showing at Summer Game Fest with three titles that will carry the developer into 2026 and beyond: Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Resident Evil Requiem, and Pragmata. I got hands-on previews with both Requiem and Pragmata, and a hands-off presentation for Onimusha. Across the three games, I saw a mix of fresh ideas with Onimusha, some stale ones with Requiem, and some weird but interesting choices with Pragmata.

Of the three games, Pragmata represented the biggest tension between what I liked about it and what I didn't. In the game, you play as Hugh, an astronaut stranded on the moon who is aided by a small, child-like robot named Diana. To be frank, I'm utterly exhausted by the trope of a big, gruff dude protecting a small, innocent child. Enough! It's 2025, we have plenty of dad games at home, Capcom, there has to be a more interesting way to do this.

That said, I was impressed by Pragmata's combat. What I thought was a straightforward shooter was still mostly that but with a complexity that dramatically changes the calculus of how you fight. Enemies in Pragmata are shielded and take little damage from Hugh's weapons. To fight effectively, you must use D …

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The first teaser for season 3 of Apple TV Plus’ Foundationhinted at some of the changes coming with the series’ massive timeskip. But the show’s latest trailer really hammers how much wilder this story is about to get.

Though Foundation‘s third season jumps 152 years into the future and picks up at a time when the Cleonic Dynasty’s Empire has lost much of its power, those allied with The Foundation know that peace isn’t guaranteed. Gaal (Lou Llobell) has every reason to stay vigilant about whatever treachery Brother Day (Lee Pace) might be plotting in the shadows. But as tense as relationships between The Foundation and what’s left of the Empire are, both sides can recognize how much more danger is coming their way as a telepath known as the Mule (Pilou Asbæk) appears with a plan to conquer the galaxy.

In addition to showing off some of the psychic battle that will unfold as Gaal and the Mule eventually meet face-to-face, the trailer highlights how much bigger and more explosive Foundation‘s action will be. We’re a little over a month of from the new season’s premiere on July 11th, so if you’ve been meaning to catch up, now’s the time.

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Protesters from The Contra Tiempo Artivist Theater at Grand Park in Los Angeles, Calif., June 9, 2025. | Photo: Ariana Drehsler / The Verge

On Monday after a weekend of demonstrations, hundreds of people flocked to Downtown Los Angeles for another round - to support loved ones who've been detained during recent immigration protests or ICE raids, and to face off with National Guard troops deployed by President Donald Trump.

Helicopters circled over an event led by unions to protest the Friday arrest of labor leader David Huerta, who was ordered released on $50,000 bail as demonstrators marched. Speakers on a stage led prayers and chants: "Freedom now" and "sí se puede." In the shadow of LA's city hall, participants held up signs reading "ICE out of LA", "Keep LA families together", "Educación no deportación."

When the morning rally came to a close and more demonstrators arrived, a march began through downtown, headed toward the detention center in Los Angeles. Organizers on microphones shouted "Peaceful protesting, no tagging!" as youth with hoodies pulled tight around their faces spray painted "fuck ICE" on buildings lining the streets.

"Join us! You think Elon Musk gives a fuck?" a blond woman wearing a pink bandana yelled at a group of officers, her voice cracking.

A band cruising alongside on an open flatbed …

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The Flip Folio is compatible with 11- and 13-inch iPad Air and Pro models. | Image: Logitech

Logitech has announced a new keyboard case for iPad Pro and iPad Air models that lets you remove and position its keyboard exactly where you need it. It’s not an entirely new idea for the company — its Combo Touch case also lets you detach the keyboard — but the new Flip Folio’s keyboard has a much smaller footprint, giving you more flexibility when it comes to where you can use it.

The Flip Folio is priced at $179.99 for a version compatible with 13-inch iPad Air and iPad Pro models, or $159.99 for a slightly smaller case that’s compatible with the 11-inch versions of those tablets. Availability gets a little more complicated depending on what color you want. A graphite version will launch globally in June 2025, as will a black option, but only in North America. A pale grey and lilac version will debut later this year in September 2025 “in select regions,” alongside a sand option that will also be limited to North America.

Both the larger and smaller versions of the wireless keyboard are just over a quarter of an inch thick and weigh less than 207 grams. Each is designed to magnetically attach to the back of the Flip Folio case without adding too much thickness. It includes dedicated iPadOS shortcut keys and multi-device Bluetooth pairing so you can easily switch between using it with your tablet, smartphone, or even a computer.

Battery life is estimated to be up to two years, but that will depend on how frequently you’re using the keyboard. When it dies, you’ll need to replace its coin cell battery, because the keyboard doesn’t feature a rechargeable battery or even a USB port for connecting it to a device with a cable. It’s wireless all the way.

The Flip Folio case itself offers front and back protection for your iPad. Since it connects to the tablet magnetically, you can position the iPad in either landscape or portrait orientations when using it as a multi-angle support stand. With the iPad supported vertically, the Flip Folio has a bit of extra room for supporting a smartphone, too, letting you position them side by side and expand your multitasking.

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There's a line in showbiz that goes, "There's no such thing as bad publicity." Ian Proulx, CEO of 1047 Games and creator of Splitgate 2 has recently learned the hard way that's not entirely true.

Last week, during the Summer Game Fest keynote livestream, Proulx came out to promote his game wearing a black hat that read, "Make FPS Great Again" - an obvious reference to Donald Trump's Make American Great Again slogan. The Splitgate 2 community, journalists, and regular gamers seized on the hat (and not, you know, the game) immediately calling the statement gross and tone deaf statement. As questions from the Splitgate 2 community poured in, Proulx doubled down on social media saying that he would not apologize and that the hat wasn't a political statement and should be taken at face value.

Today, however, he's singing a different tune. He posted on X with the simple caption, "No excuses, I'm sorry," accompanied by a nearly three-minute video explaining the decision to wear the hat and the intention behind it.

"We needed something to grab attention, and the honest truth is, we tried to think of something, and this is what we came up with," Proulx said.

He acknowledged that he …

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Google rolled out a bunch of new features with Android 16 on Tuesday, but the company appears to be saving its big Material 3 Expressive redesign for a future update. The update doesn’t feature the design language’s revamped elements, and a source tells Android Authority’s Mishaal Rahman that Google is planning to launch the new look on September 3rd, 2025, instead.

With Android 16, Google is starting to roll out support for Live Updates with progress-centric notifications and enhanced settings for users with hearing aids. The updates are coming to Pixel devices first, but according to Google, Android users will have to wait for another update to see Live Updates “fully realized.”

Google officially took the wraps off Material 3 Expressive following a leak last month, which features updates to icon shapes, type styles, and color palettes with “more natural, springy animations” across the Android interface. You can still check out some Material 3 Expressive updates in the Android 16 QPR1 beta that’s available now, but Rahman notes that Google plans on launching more design updates in the next Android 16 QPR1 Beta 2.

Google is expected to include Android’s desktop mode in a September launch as well. The new mode, which builds on Samsung’s DeX platform, optimizes apps and content for large-screen devices. It will allow you to resize multiple app windows across your screens, as well as connect phones and tablets to external displays for a desktop-like experience. Users with a Pixel 8 and up can try out these features in the Android 16 beta, but the rest of us will likely have to wait a few more months.

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The FDA has issued its first ever approval on a safety consultation for lab-grown fish. That makes Wildtype only the fourth company to get approval from the regulator to sell cell-cultivated animal products, and its cultivated salmon is now available to order from one Portland restaurant.

Wildtype announced last week that the FDA had sent a letter declaring it had “no questions” about whether the cultivated salmon is “as safe as comparable foods,” the customary final step in the FDA’s approval process for lab-grown animal products. The FDA has sole responsibility for regulating most lab-grown seafood, whereas the task is shared with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for cultivated meat.

The FDA’s pre-market safety consultation is voluntary, but is “helpful for marketability,” IP lawyer Dr. Emily Nytko-Lutz, who specializes in biotechnology patents, explained to The Verge. “There are other pathways involving self-affirmation of safety as well as a longer food additive review process, but the FDA’s authorisation with a ‘No Questions’ letter is a middle ground.”

Wildtype salmon is now on the menu at Haitian restaurant Kann in Portland, Oregon, and the company has opened a waitlist for the next five restaurants to stock the fish. It joins Upside Foods and Good Meat, two companies with permission to sell cultivated chicken in the US, while Mission Barns has been cleared by the FDA but is awaiting USDA approval for its cultivated pork fat. At a state level, the situation is more complicated, with eight states issuing bans on lab-grown meat as the technology becomes a conservative talking point.

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In March, Apple delayed its upgraded Siri, saying that “it’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver” the promised features. At WWDC this week, Apple’s SVP of software Craig Federighi and SVP of worldwide marketing Greg Joswiak shared more details about the decision to delay in an interview with The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern.

As part of its initial Apple Intelligence announcements at WWDC 2024, Apple said that the improved Siri would have awareness of your personal context and the ability to take actions for you in apps. While Apple was showing real software at that show, Siri “didn’t converge in the way, quality-wise, that we needed it to,” Federighi said. Apple wanted it to be “really, really reliable. And we weren’t able to achieve the reliability in the time we thought.”

“Look, we don’t want to disappoint customers,” Joswiak said. “We never do. But it would’ve been more disappointing to ship something that didn’t hit our quality standard, that had an error rate that we felt was unacceptable. So we made what we thought was the best decision. I’d make it again.”

Stern asked why Apple, with all of its resources, couldn’t make it work. “When it comes to automating capabilities on devices in a reliable way, no one’s doing it really well right now,” Federighi said. “We wanted to be the first. We wanted to do it best.” While the company had “very promising early results and working initial versions,” the team came to feel that “this just doesn’t work reliably enough to be an Apple product,” he said.

At WWDC, Federighi also spoke to YouTuber iJustine, and both Federighi and Joswiak were interviewed by Tom’s Guide’s Mark Spoonauer and TechRadar’s Lance Ulanoff. In Apple’s March statement, it said that anticipated rolling out the Siri upgrades “in the coming year,” which, to Spoonauer, Joswiak clarified to mean 2026.

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They’re $750 each, but you can connect multiple versions of these Balloon Dog lamps and speakers together if you’ve got deep pockets. | Image: Lexon Design

Jeff Koons, best known for his Balloon Dog sculptures that have sold for as much as $58 million, has collaborated with Lexon Design and The Broad museum in Los Angeles to make his iconic artworks more functional and accessible.

Available for preorder through Lexon’s website starting June 17th are a new 11-inch tall Balloon Dog Speaker and Balloon Dog Lamp that are each made from (an unspecified) “high-quality translucent material” that reveals the internal electronics that make each more than just a piece of art. Both are only being produced in a “limited supply” and each one will set you back $750 with shipping expected to start sometime in October 2025.

That is extremely expensive, and you’re definitely paying a premium because this is an official collaboration with Koons. But to Lexon’s credit, at least on paper, the company seems to have packed these with solid hardware. Inside the Balloon Dog Speaker are a total of “six ultra-precise active drivers and four finely tuned passive radiators” designed to deliver 360-degrees of “high-fidelity sound.” We haven’t had a chance to test the sound quality of those drivers, but that’s more than similarly-sized Bluetooth speakers that aren’t shaped like a novelty dog often utilize.

The speaker connects to mobile devices using Bluetooth 5.0, and with built-in microphones it can be used as a hands-free speakerphone. If you’ve got $1,500 burning a hole in your pocket, you can also pair two of the Balloon Dog Speakers to create a true stereo sound experience.

Inside the Balloon Dog Lamp you’ll find nearly 400 LEDs hidden in tubes that create the appearance of neon lighting. All combined, the LEDs can generate up to 200 lumens of brightness with color options that include warm and cool white light plus the full spectrum of color lighting. Although preorders are limited to just two of each piece, Lexon says its “Easy Sync technology” allows the lighting intensity and color of an “infinite number of Balloon Dog Lamps” to be synchronized so you can destroy your budget by filling a room, or your entire home, with matching illumination.

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The new $84.99 Pro Controller for the Switch 2 may not be your idea of a pro-grade controller - perhaps not by a long shot. But it's certainly more of one than Nintendo's $69.99 last-gen controller. It has two extra buttons embedded into its grips (one on each side), which can be programmed on a per-game basis, a 3.5mm headphone jack for listening to games or GameChat chatter, and a more premium look and feel. It's no DualSense Edge, but it's pro enough for me.

I like that Nintendo kept almost everything the same from its predecessor, except the semi-transparent smoke black shell that hid a secret message: the Fisher Price-sized face buttons, the snappy directional pad, and the compact form factor are all here. I don't want to generalize, but its size might be perfect for the same crowd who yearns for small phones, those who typically experience hand pain from using the controllers that Sony or Microsoft put out. It has the other trappings that made the last-gen Pro controller worth buying, like Amiibo NFC support and motion controls.

In terms of what's new in the Switch 2-edition of the Pro Controller, I hope you weren't holding your breath for eight years waiting for Hall effe …

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I genuinely never expected to say this: it appears Apple finally figured out multitasking on the iPad. With iPadOS 26, the company hasn't completely taken off the guardrails for how you can use and place apps on your tablet, but it came awfully close. With a couple of clever iPad-specific tricks, and better support for a mouse or trackpad, the whole system just makes sense in a way it never has before. I've been running the very first developer beta for less than a day on an 11-inch iPad Air, and I can already sense a change in how I use my tablet.

The new multitasking system is mostly pretty easy to understand. You unlock the iPad and you're dropped onto the homescreen full of app icons, same as always. When you open an app, it opens full-screen by default; at WWDC, Apple executives were careful to note that if you don't want to encounter the new multitasking system, you never have to, and I think that's true. (You can even turn the whole windowing system off in settings, if you want to.) But as soon as you tap and drag the little icon in the bottom right corner of the window, the app starts to shrink. You can make the app any size you want - any size the developer supports, at …

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, in a blog post published Tuesday, says an average ChatGPT query uses about 0.000085 gallons of water, or “roughly one fifteenth of a teaspoon.” He made the claim as part of a broader post on his predictions about how AI will change the world.

“People are often curious about how much energy a ChatGPT query uses; the average query uses about 0.34 watt-hours, about what an oven would use in a little over one second, or a high-efficiency lightbulb would use in a couple of minutes,” he says. He also argues that “the cost of intelligence should eventually converge to near the cost of electricity.” OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on how Altman came to those figures.

AI companies have come under scrutiny for energy costs of their technology. This year, for example, researchers forecast that AI could consume more power than Bitcoin mining by the end of the year. In an article last year, The Washington Post worked with researchers to determine that a 100-word email “generated by an AI chatbot using GPT-4” required “a little more than 1 bottle.” The publication also found that water usage can depend on where a datacenter is located.

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All sequels have to live up to their predecessors in some form, but few have as daunting a task as Mario Kart World. It's a follow-up to the best-selling game across Nintendo's last two console generations, and a game that eventually doubled in size thanks to an ambitious array of downloadable add-ons. So instead of following Mario Kart 8 with another release that simply adds more, Nintendo shifted in a slightly different direction. Mario Kart World is still Mario Kart; it has a daunting Rainbow Road to speed across and frustrating blue shells to steal victories away from you. But it also introduces an open-world structure that makes the game feel larger and more cohesive. This makes it the ideal game to show off what the Switch 2 is capable of at launch.

The biggest change for World is its structure. In all past Mario Kart games, racetracks were discrete entities. Baby Park and Bowser's Castle had nothing to do with each other. But for World, the entirety of the game takes place on a singular landmass with different areas and biomes, like the map in Fortnite. And because of this, everything is connected. When you race through Grand Prix mode, you go through four tracks that cut …

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The Trump administration is working on an “AI.gov” website and API to “accelerate government innovation with AI,” 404 Media found based on code posted to Github and an early version of the site.

The project appears to be run by the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services, led by former Tesla engineer Thomas Shedd. Shedd, who The New York Times has identified as an ally to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has previously discussed using AI to detect fraud, analyze government contracts, and create “AI coding agents” to write software for federal agencies, according to multiple reports.

The early AI.gov website discovered by 404 Media (the live URL currently redirects to the White House website) describes three tools that are part of the platform, “powered by the best in American AI.” They are: an AI chat assistant, an API to connect with models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, and a console “to analyze agency-wide implementation.” The project is expected to launch on July 4th, 404 reports.

DOGE has sought to use AI to replace the work of the thousands of federal workers it’s helped expel, Wired has reported. Though Musk recently left the government and has been engaged in a posting war with the President, the AI.gov project suggests DOGE’s legacy is still kicking.

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Meta is close to finalizing an almost $15 billion investment in Scale AI, the tech giant’s largest-ever external investment, which would give Meta a 49% stake in the company, according to The Information. As part of the deal, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is personally assembling a team of about 50 people to help Meta supercharge its AI goals — specifically, to achieve artificial general intelligence — and Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang is set to join that group once the deal is final, according to Bloomberg and The New York Times.

AGI is the concept of AI that equals or surpasses human cognitive abilities, and it’s something that nearly every AI industry leader is currently racing to achieve before their competitors. Bloomberg was first to report on the planned multibillion-dollar investment.

Scale, the AI giant that provides training data to industry leaders like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, in April reportedly expected that its 2025 revenue would more than double year-over-year to about $2 billion. It’s also currently planning a tender offer for employees and early investors at a $25 billion valuation.

Meta has been concerned about falling behind in the AI race as competitors like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Microsoft pull ahead. In May, Meta delayed the launch of its new flagship model, dubbed Behemoth, amid concerns about its capabilities compared to competing models, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The company’s investment in Scale AI is likely a bid to catch up as competing tech giants each choose one or more AI startups to back for greater chances of AI success, whether internally or externally.

Amazon has invested at least $8 billion in Anthropic, the AI startup founded by ex-OpenAI research executives, and Anthropic’s tech now powers Amazon’s Alexa Plus. Google has given at least $3 billion to Anthropic, and the two companies share a significant cloud contract. Microsoft has famously invested at least $13 billion in OpenAI and currently gets a share of the company’s revenue.

Besides its forthcoming deal with Meta, Scale has spent the last few months leaning hard into deals with governments across the world, like a five-year deal with Qatar to provide automation tools for civil service, healthcare, and more. The company has said its work with countries in Asia and Europe could account for a big piece of sales coming up. And in March, Scale signed a multimillion-dollar deal with the Department of Defense for a flagship AI agent program for the U.S. military.

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Google is starting to offer buyouts to US-based employees in its sprawling Search organization, along with other divisions like marketing, research, and core engineering, according to multiple employees familiar with the matter.

The buyouts, which Google is referring to as a "voluntary exit program," are currently not being offered to employees in the DeepMind AI division, Google Cloud, YouTube, or Google's central ad sales organization. Employees in Google's platforms and services group, which includes Android and the Pixel line of devices, were offered buyouts earlier this year before the company enacted layoffs. It's unclear if more layoffs will follow this week's buyout announcement. Employees are being offered a minimum of 14 weeks' pay with a July 1st enrollment deadline.

Other parts of Google, including YouTube, are also requiring US employees within a 50-mile radius of an office to return to work at least three days a week by September, or be laid off with severance.

"It's been an incredible few months - we shared our vision at I/O and GML, and we've been shipping at a dizzying pace," Nick Fox, the head of Google's wider "Knowledge and Information" group that includes …

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Alexa Plus was announced in February 2025 and is now rolling out to users in an Early Access program.

While a smarter Siri may have been a no-show at WWDC, Alexa Plus, the generative AI-powered overhaul of Amazon’s voice assistant, is finally appearing in the wild.

No one at The Verge has access yet, but Amazon spokesperson Eric Sveum tells me over a million people now do — up from “hundreds of thousands” just last month. And while it was initially a struggle to find anyone who had it, there is now evidence that Alexa Plus is finally out there, based on recent Reddit and Facebook user posts.

According to Sveum, Alexa Plus is now being rolled out to customers with Echo smart speakers and displays “at an increasing pace” following its late March launch, and the company will “make it even more broadly available over the summer,” he says.

The slow rollout is down to Panos Panay’s insistence that all Alexa Plus problems be ironed out before the full release, according to a recent profile of the new head of Amazon devices and services in The Wall Street Journal. It reported that “he knows that getting Alexa+ right is critical because it will be released to millions of people who depend on the technology across multiple devices. It’s a very public rollout.”

First announced in September 2023, the supercharged Alexa faced more than a year of delays, reportedly in part due to the challenges of imposing the new technology on top of the existing Alexa assistant.

It was finally relaunched under Panay last February as an entirely new assistant, and was slated to roll out to US users in the Early Access program in March. When it eventually gets its full release, the new assistant will cost $19.99 a month and be free for Prime members.

However, it sounds like it’s not fully ready for primetime. Sveum tells me several features announced at the launch event are still not part of the Early Access program. These include the ability to ask Alexa to “jump to your favorite scene on Fire TV; order groceries hands-free; order delivery through Grubhub; schedule your next spa visit; brainstorm the perfect gift idea; set personalized reminders and Routines for your family; create personalized music — on the fly” and “Access Alexa+ on browser.” That last one feels big, as personal computers are a place that Alexa has long struggled to gain traction and is somewhere it will need to be to compete with ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.

Sveum says that these missing features “will ship over the coming weeks and months” and that nearly 90 percent of announced features are live in Early Access. These include the big one, a more conversational voice assistant, which I tested briefly at the launch event. Plus, the ability to ask Alexa to remember important details you tell it and recall things from documents you’ve sent to it (Alexa now has its own email address).

Several features announced at the launch event are still not part of the Early Access program.

Alexa Plus can also manage your calendar and move music from room to room, says Sveum. It can book you an Uber, find tickets for an upcoming event, and source someone to come fix something via Thumbtack. For smart home control, you can create Alexa Routines by voice, control multiple devices at once, and customize your own smart home widget on Echo Show devices. Smart cooking timers are also live, says Sveum.

“A lot of customers are telling us they love having natural, free-flowing conversations with Alexa. It enables them to complete more complex requests like controlling multiple smart home devices at once, deep dive on music or trending topics,” Sveum says. “We’re also getting lots of positive feedback about how easy and helpful it is to get things done — like coordinating calendars, making reservations, and taking care of weekly meal planning.”

There haven’t been any formal reviews of Alexa Plus yet (Amazon PR seems to be keeping a tight lid on this one), but one USA Today columnist got in through the Early Access program. He was largely complimentary about the experience, writing he’s “been very pleased – and occasionally quite impressed.”

This is also the general vibe on Facebook and Reddit user groups from those with access, but there are clearly some bugs to work out. “It’s early days, but it feels a tiny bit closer to what I have with ChatGPT,” said one Reddit user.

Another user agreed, noting they liked how it remembered things they mentioned to it and could recall them. But they did say they weren’t happy that Alexa couldn’t access some smart temperature sensors that the previous Alexa could. One user said controlling multiple smart home devices at once was impressive, but another said they reverted to regular Alexa as the Plus version couldn’t control their smart air fryer.

Control of smart home devices is clearly going to be a huge hurdle here. Existing smart voice assistants with their command and control structure can generally be relied upon to do the correct thing (assuming they heard/understood you). However, the transition to these more conversational, intuitive assistants is potentially fraught with danger, especially when it comes to controlling things in your home. Still, I’m very much looking forward to putting it to the test.

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