TikTok has finalized a deal to sell enough of its US business satisfy the divest-or-ban law, as initially reported by Axios, The Hollywood Reporter, and CNBC. According to a memo sent from CEO Shou Zi Chew to employees (included in full below) on Thursday, they are targeting a closing date of January 22nd, 2026. Once the deal is done, he writes that ownership stakes in TikTok USDS Joint...
This is an excerpt of Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week.
By all measures, Meta's Threads app had a very good year. The app was Apple's second-most-downloaded iOS app of the year, trailing only ChatGPT. Threads now has 400 million monthly and 150 million daily active users.
"There are consumers who are...
The OhSnap Snap Grip 5 next to a Syncwire magnetic ring. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge
In 2022, we called a simple magnetic ring from Anker the best MagSafe phone grip, but things have evolved dramatically since then! You can buy two or even three magnetic rings joined at the hip these days to wield your iPhone, recent Pixel, or really any phone if you stick a magnetic case or...
If you’re lucky enough to have a bit of time off around the holidays, we have great news: Steam’s annual winter sale kicked off today, and will run through Monday, January 5th at 1PM ET. Now’s a great time to stock up on some of the best games of 2025 at a solid discount, or add some classics to your backlog if you’ve got a hole in your library. Thousands of games are on sale, but we’ve...
OpenAI and Anthropic are rolling out new ways to detect underage users. As OpenAI has updated its guidelines on how ChatGPT should interact with users between the ages of 13 and 17, Anthropic is working on a new way to identify and boot users who are under 18.
On Thursday, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT's Model Spec - the guidelines for how its chatbot should behave - will include four new...
If you're tired of seeing Instagram posts with a seemingly endless list of hashtags, Instagram is making a change to stop that. In a post today, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said that the platform will now cap hashtags to five per post.
"While I know it can be tempting to use more, a few specific tags actually perform better than a long list of generic ones," Mosseri says on his "Instagram...
LG says it will let users delete the Microsoft Copilot shortcut it installed on newer TVs after several reports highlighted the unremovable icon. In a statement to The Verge, LG spokesperson Chris De Maria says the company "respects consumer choice and will take steps to allow users to delete the shortcut icon if they wish."
Last week, a user on the r/mildlyinfuriating subreddit posted an...
Google expanded Gemini's AI verification feature to videos made or edited with the company's own AI models. Users can now ask Gemini to determine if an uploaded video is AI-generated by asking, "Was this generated using Google AI?"
Gemini will scan the video's visuals and audio for Google's proprietary watermark called SynthID. The response will be more than a yes or no, Google says....
The CMF Buds 2A are currently on sale starting at just $19.99, making them a great stocking stuffer.
You don’t need to deal with long mall lines or crowded parking lots just to wrap up your holiday shopping, but you probably already knew this. Some of the best deals are online, and even though Christmas is now a day or two away, a lot of Verge-approved gifts should still arrive on time if...
Riot Games says a security flaw in many recent motherboards could be exploited by cheaters undetected, and now companies including Asrock, Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI have released BIOS updates to address the issue. According to Riot, "had this issue gone unnoticed, it would have completely nullified all existing DMA detection and prevention tech currently on the market - including that of...