Plus: The Department of Homeland Security begins surveilling immigrants' social media, President Donald Trump targets former CISA director who refuted his claims of 2020 election fraud, and more.

Seems unintuitive, but the mounting list of lifeless planets might be exactly what scientists need to figure out how common life is in the universe.

These sweats strike the perfect balance between comfort and looks.

Plus: Nothing teases a new CMF smartphone, Specialized’s new mountain ebike starts at $8,000, and Teenage Engineering's big software update for its sampler.

The approximate 20 percent budget cut could force the closure of the Goddard Space Flight Center and would see projects such as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope scrapped.

The Tamaulipan thorn forest once covered 1 million acres on both sides of the US-Mexico border. Restoring even a fraction of it could help the region cope with the ravages of a warming world.

Two books chart the rise of the chipmaker via its ‘benevolent dictator’ Jensen Huang and an early gamble on deep learning

There’s clever technology behind the de-extinction of species but it may have undesired consequences

I’ve discovered hidden treasures I’d never have found otherwise

Besides 2.0 Experimental Advanced mysteriously appearing (and disappearing) earlier today, a bug with the Gemini app has resulted in users losing the ability to create Audio Overview podcasts.

more…

A new report reveals that the prototype Android XR glasses that Google recently showed off are slated to be released as a Samsung product as soon as next year, a bit later than other reports have hinted.

more…

Erin Brockovich says a chance conversation about a muddy stiletto with her chiropractor led to the making of the award-winning film about her life.

It's been more than 60 years since a woman travelled into space without a man. And now six of them are blasting off from Earth.

Thirteen years ago, Forerunner Ventures began helping to usher in a new era of consumer startups, including Warby Parker, Bonobos, and Glossier. None has gone through a traditional IPO process. Warby Parker was taken public through a special purpose acquisition vehicle. Bonobos was acquired by Walmart. Glossier is still privately held, along with many other […]

Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy look to the power of recent franchises as the Man of Steel prepares to return.

Founders Fund said in a filing with the SEC on Friday that it has closed a $4.6 billion late-stage venture fund.

For a while, it looked like President Donald Trump was going to have Big Tech’s back.

Now, the tech industry is collateral damage in his global trade war.

On Thursday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen floated the idea of placing “a levy on the advertising revenues of digital services” if tariff negotiations with the US go south. This would be the opposite outcome that tech CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg were hoping for when they threw their support behind the new administration. 

To someone like Zuckerberg, Trump was supposed to be the strong-armed leader to bring the overbearing EU to heel. Instead, the rhetoric between the US and EU is ratcheting up just weeks before the EU is already set to fine Meta (and Apple) for violating its Digital Markets Act. 

While certainly more of a self-inflicted wound, Elon Musk’s popularity in the US has “inverted as his support for President Trump has increased,” Nate Silver wrote this week. Tesla’s stock price, meanwhile. has lost over a third of its value this year, and, thanks to tariffs, the company has removed the option to buy new, US-made vehicles in China. 

As I predicted last week, TikTok is particularly s …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Netflix is starting to test search that’s powered by OpenAI, according to Bloomberg.

The new search engine will let users “look for shows using far more specific terms, including the subscriber’s mood, for example, the company said,” per the report. This OpenAI-powered search will also allow users to make queries that “go well beyond genres or actors’ names.”

The feature, which is opt in, is already available for some users to try in Australia and New Zealand on iOS.

Netflix spokesperson MoMo Zhou confirmed to The Verge that Bloomberg’s story is accurate. Zhou says that the test will expand to the US “in the coming weeks and months” and that there aren’t currently plans for the feature outside of iOS.

“It’s early days for the feature and we’re really in a learn and listen phase for this beta,” Zhou says.

OpenAI didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

In an interview on the Decoder podcast last year, The Verge’s editor-in-chief, Nilay Patel, asked Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters about how the company was thinking about AI. Here was part of his response:

We have a long history of using machine learning and artificial intelligence in our recommender systems. We’ve been doing that for 20-some years. Again, we think that our job is to be proactive about understanding where there’s technical innovation. How do we use that both to serve creators, allow them to tell their stories in more compelling ways, and also then to serve our members better user experiences?

Universal Orlando Resort's newest theme park opens soon—do you have your 'fits planned out?

As online users create Barbie-like dolls of themselves, experts urge caution over AI's energy and data use.