Android 16’s first public beta adds Google’s more limited take on live lockscreen notifications Illustration: Alex Castro / The VergeAndroid 16’s first public beta will start rolling out later today, bringing with it dynamic lockscreen notifications for ride-sharing and food delivery, following yesterday’s reveal of a similar feature in Samsung’s Galaxy S25 phones. The new beta also forces apps to be resizable, a move to make sure they run…

Google’s Identity Check for Android keeps phone thieves out of your digital accounts Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeGoogle is officially launching a new Android security feature for Pixel devices with Android 15 to prevent phone thieves from accessing your digital accounts. The feature, called Identity Check, requires biometric authentication to access some account and device settings when you’re not at a trusted locatio…

Fitbit fined $12 million for Ionic smartwatches that burned 78 people Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The VergeFitbit is paying a $12.25 million fine over its Ionic smartwatches, which the company recalled in 2022 after reports that the watches’ lithium-ion batteries overheated and, in some cases, burned customers. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has provisionally accepted the settlement. The commission worked wit…

Everything we saw at Xbox’s Developer Direct 2025 Image: Cath Virginia / The VergeThough Nintendo can technically claim it had the first big gaming news event of the year, at least Xbox’s Developer Direct actually showed off some games and let us know when we can play them. The showcase was anchored by deep dives into the biggest games coming down the green pipe like Doom: The Dark Ages and Com…

Substack is spending $20 million to court TikTokers Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty ImagesMeta and YouTube aren’t the only platforms looking to benefit from TikTok potentially disappearing — Substack wants in on the action, too. The company announced Thursday it’s launching a $20 million “creator accelerator fund,” promising content creators they won’t lose revenue by jumping ship to Subs…

Perplexity now has a mobile assistant on Android Image: The VergePerplexity has turned its AI “answer engine” into a mobile assistant on Android. The new assistant can answer general questions and perform tasks on your behalf, such as writing an email, setting a reminder, booking dinners, and more. It’s also multimodal, meaning you can ask it questions about what’s on your screen as well as ha…

Bill Gates’ nuclear energy startup inks new data center deal A screenshot from a video of TerraPower’s groundbreaking ceremony for its demonstration project in Wyoming.TerraPower, a nuclear energy startup founded by Bill Gates, struck a deal this week with one of the largest data center developers in the US to deploy advanced nuclear reactors. TerraPower and Sabey Data Centers (SDC) are working together o…

The Royal Shakespeare Company is turning Macbeth into a neo-noir game Image: Royal Shakespeare CompanyMacbeth, William Shakespeare’s iconic play, is being reimagined as an interactive video game with a neo-noir vibe — and it’s being developed in part by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The game, titled Lili, is a “screen life thriller video game” where you’ll have access to a modern-day Lady Macbeth’s personal devic…

This is the Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The VergeSamsung just teased the Galaxy S25 Edge — the new ultra-slim entry into the Galaxy S25 lineup. The phone isn’t out yet, and Samsung hasn’t provided any details, but now we know it’s real. And we have pictures. Like pretty much every phone, it’s a thin silver slab. It’s got two cameras on the back, rather than th…

Here’s how the new Galaxy S25 stacks up to the S25 Plus and S25 Ultra Samsung’s latest phones all look and feel very similar, but there are some key differences. | Photo by Chris Welch / The VergeDuring its latest Unpacked event, Samsung dished all the details on the Galaxy S25 lineup. The Galaxy S25 and S25 Plus start at $799.99 and $999.99, respectively, while the S25 Ultra runs a cool $1299.99 in its entry-leve…

Google’s Gemini is already winning the next-gen assistant wars Illustration: The VergeOne of the most important changes in Samsung’s new phones is a simple one: when you long-press the side button on your phone, instead of activating Samsung’s own Bixby assistant by default, you’ll get Google Gemini. This is probably a good thing. Bixby was never a very good virtual assistant — Samsung originally built it …

Canon set a new record with its 410-megapixel 35mm camera sensor Image: CanonThe megapixel race isn’t over if you ask Canon. Today, the company announced a new 35mm full-frame CMOS sensor with a resolution of 410 megapixels. That’s 24,592 x 16,704 pixels and a resolution that’s equivalent to 24K — or 12 times the resolution of 8K and 198 times the resolution of HD. It’s the ”largest number of pixels ever achi…

Nvidia’s triple-fan GPU cooler was one step along the way to a slimmer RTX 5090 The RTX 4090 is a lot thicker than the RTX 5090. | Photo by Tom Warren / The VergeNvidia has posted a new video showcasing a history of Founders Edition graphics card designs that explores the design of its new RTX 5090 and confirms a previously leaked prototype that used an unconventionally large four-slot design. As noted by VideoCardz, the p…

Celeste developers cancel follow-up game Earthblade Image: Extremely OK GamesEarthblade, the next game from the developers of Celeste, has been canceled. The fantasy-inspired game got its first trailer in late 2022, and the game would have let you explore a “free-roaming, dynamically-loading map,” Extremely OK Games’ Maddy Thorson said at the time. But the team decided to cancel the game in Decem…

Tumblr’s experimental GIF feed finally launches after 10 years Illustration: The VergeTumbler has finally launched Tumblr TV as a new tab at the top of its app, the company said today in a brief set of update notes spotted by TechCrunch. Tumblr TV first debuted as a GIF-finding feature in 2015, but now it includes video content as well. Screenshot: Tumblr TV According to Tumblr, “New users will have th…

Galaxy Unpacked 2025: live updates from Samsung’s event We’re expecting the Galaxy S25, S25 Plus and S25 Ultra, and new AI features. Samsung is announcing its new Galaxy S25 phones. We’ll have all of the updates as they come in, but, as you can see below, we had a lot of this embargoed and got an early look. But there may be some surprises! You can tune in to watch the event in the video below once e…

Samsung is bringing ambient sensing to SmartThings Samsung announced a new AI-powered ambient sensing technology for SmartThings designed to make your smart home be more helpful. | Image: SmartThingsSamsung announced today that its connected appliances and smart home devices will soon be able to act as motion and sound sensors for its smart home platform SmartThings. This includes its television…

Google Gemini now works across multiple apps in a single prompt Google has announced a variety of new AI features at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event. | Image: GoogleGoogle’s AI assistant Gemini is now able to carry out tasks across multiple apps in a single interaction, in an update announced today alongside the launch of Samsung’s new Galaxy S25 series. Those phones are also Samsung’s first to feature Gemin…

Samsung goes back to basics with the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s stylus The “Ultra” model in Samsung’s Galaxy S lineup is typically the phone crammed full of every feature the company could think of. But this year, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is actually taking a step backward with the S Pen. The motion gestures and useful remote camera shutter function have been removed, and the stylus is back to being just a stylus. You …

The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra smooths out some sharp edges Stylus still included.The Galaxy S25 Ultra, announced today, sheds more of its Note roots this year with rounded corners and flat edges that align it more with the rest of the S series. It comes with Qualcomm’s latest chipset, an upgraded ultrawide camera, and not much else, hardware-wise. With no price increase over last year’s model — starting…