Eight years after it was acquired by Mozilla, the popular bookmarking tool Pocket has been sent to the apps graveyard. According to the company, Pocket is being trashed in order to let Mozilla turn its "resources into projects that better match their browsing habits and online needs."

While Pocket might have lost its gloss in recent years, it was still useful for tracking online articles and other resources that you didn't have time for at the moment but wanted to get back to later. If you're a disappointed Pocket loyalist, or if you're just looking for some way to keep your bookmarks and saved sites in some kind of order, here are a few possibilities. Most offer free versions and sync across a number of devices, including web browsers, Android devices, and iPhones.

Instapaper

Like Pocket, Instapaper started out as a simple web add-on and has gone through several iterations (and owners); currently, it is part of an independent company called Instapaper Holdings. The web app has a nice and simple UI; while there is no grid view, you can turn thumbnails on and off. It works with (and syncs across) web browsers (using a Chrome extension, Safari extension, Firefox extension, or boo …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple CEO Tim Cook personally intervened in an attempt to stop a Texas age verification bill, The Wall Street Journal reports. SB 2420 — passed by the legislature but awaiting a signature by Governor Greg Abbott — would require app store operators like Apple to verify the age of users accessing their stores. The company’s opposition puts it in conflict with social media giant Meta in an escalating fight over whether and how the internet should be age-gated.

In a statement to The Verge, Apple expressed its opposition to the bill. “We share the goal of strengthening kids’ online safety but are deeply concerned that SB 2420 threatens the privacy of all users. If enacted, app marketplaces will be required to collect and keep sensitive personal identifying information for every Texan who wants to download an app, even if it’s an app that simply provides weather updates or sports scores,” says spokesperson Peter Ajemian.

As the Journal notes, several states have proposed sweeping age verification measures, at least nine of which specifically place the burden for checking ages on app stores; one state, Utah, has such a law already passed. These measures are frequently accompanied by plans to ban minors from accessing social media, either without parental consent or entirely, as in a Texas law that’s on the verge of passing. Texas, among other states, already requires age verification for adult websites; the law implementing that requirement has become the center of a Supreme Court battle over age verification that’s expected to be resolved in the coming months.

According to the Journal report, Cook and Abbot had a “cordial” conversation in which Cook asked for either amendments to or a veto of the bill. An Abbott spokesperson told the outlet that the governor will “thoughtfully review this legislation, as he does with any legislation sent to his desk.”

Civil liberties advocates staunchly and consistently oppose mandating digital age verification systems, which tend to either pose significant privacy problems or be ineffectual. But over the past couple of years, the fight has evolved into a game of ping-pong between web services and device makers.

Meta and some others — including the Free Speech Coalition, which filed the suit against Texas’ porn age verification law and represents the operators of adult websites — support making companies like Apple and Google build age-check systems into their products. Both phone makers already offer voluntary parental control systems, but a legal requirement would create substantial risk for them in the case of failure, on top of privacy concerns for users themselves.

Apple’s statement on SB 2420 instead pushed for the passage of the Kids Online Safety Act: a federal bill that would place liability on web platforms to prevent young users from harm. Google, meanwhile, has reportedly backed lobbying against both bills — as owner of the Android operating system and video platform YouTube, it’s stuck in the middle.

Following the failure of the 8th Starship test flight in early March that ended in another explosion, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has finally cleared SpaceX for a 9th test which could take place as soon as next week.

“The FAA conducted a comprehensive safety review of the SpaceX Starship Flight 8 mishap and determined that the company has satisfactorily addressed the causes of the mishap, and therefore, the Starship vehicle can return to flight,” the FAA said in a statement released yesterday.

Similar to how SpaceX’s 7th Starship test flight played out in January, Flight 8 saw the ship successfully separate from the Super Heavy booster rocket that returned to the launch site at Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas where it was caught by the launch tower. But at around nine minutes into its flight, Starship began to tumble and eventually exploded before reaching its engine cutoff stage.

Previously failed test flights resulted in Starship debris raining down over Turks and Caicos and parts of the Bahamas. Although SpaceX has said the debris has been limited to pre-planned Debris Response Areas, on multiple occasions the FAA has briefly slowed and diverted flights, and initiated full ground stops at several Florida airports.

SpaceX plans to reuse a previously launched Super Heavy booster rocket for the first time for Flight 9 – specifically the rocket from Flight 7. As a result, the FAA is expanding the Aircraft Hazard Area (AHA) as an added safety precaution. For Flight 8, the AHA covered approximately 885 nautical miles. For Flight 9, it’s nearly twice the size at 1,600 nautical miles and covers parts of Texas and Florida, as well as the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos.

In addition to expanding the hazard area, the FAA is also requiring the Flight 9 launch window “to be scheduled during non-peak transit periods” in order to “minimize disruption to U.S. and international airspace users.”

Thursday’s update follows the FAA’s decision to issue a launch license earlier this month for SpaceX’s 9th Starship test flight and modify the license to expand the company’s annual operations. “The approval includes final action allowing SpaceX to increase Starship operations from five up to 25 per year at Boca Chica, Texas.”

The FAA is still without a leader after Michael Whitaker stepped down as its administrator on January 20th following clashes with Elon Musk.

The first thing I noticed about the Fujifilm X Half is just how small and light it is. The camera is designed to give you no excuses - you should be able to bring it with you everywhere. And after spending a few hours walking around LA with the camera, I'm starting to understand why you'd want to.

Fujifilm's latest doesn't necessarily impress on paper. The X Half is an $850 camera with a vertically oriented 1-inch sensor capable of taking 18MP photos. There's no electric or hybrid viewfinder, no stabilization, no hot shoe, and it can't even take RAW photos. It's very easy to look at that list of missing features and disregard the camera altogether.

But the X Half's simplicity is very much the point. This is a camera for taking scrappy, quick photos and capturing memories. A lot of its flaws are masked with film simulations, filters, and superimposed grain. Its limitations are a feature, not a bug.

The camera comes with a fixed 32mm equivalent f/2.8 lens. Even with all the added grain and filters turned off, I found it to perform very well. The dynamic range is acceptable with natural highlight falloff, edges are sharp, and there's even some bokeh if you plan accor …

Read the full story at The Verge.

A Microsoft employee has managed to circumvent a block instituted earlier this week that limited mentions of "Palestine," "Gaza," and "Genocide" in email subject lines or in the body of a message. Nisreen Jaradat, a senior tech support engineer at Microsoft, emailed thousands of employees on May 23rd with the subject line: "You can't get rid of us."

"As a Palestinian worker, I am fed up with the way our people have been treated by this company," the note, a copy of which was obtained by The Verge, reads. "I am sending this email as a message to Microsoft leaders: the cost of trying to silence all voices that dare to humanize Palestinians is far higher than simply listening to the concerns of your employees."

It's not immediately clear how Jaradat got around the block. The email calls on Microsoft employees to sign a petition by the No Azure for Apartheid (NOAA) group, which urges Microsoft to end its contracts with the Israeli government. NOAA is behind several high-profile protest actions in recent weeks, and Jaradat, a member, also encourages colleagues to join the group in different capacities. Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw directed The Verge to a previous statement it s …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The original Vestaboard revived and modernized the split-flap mechanical displays that were once a mainstay of airports and train stations around the world, but at $3,499 it put a steep price on nostalgia. Its creators are back with a new version called the Vestaboard Note that’s much smaller and more affordable. It’s available for preorder now, starting at $899 — discounted from $1,299 — with deliveries expected to begin in December 2025.

The company had spent over a year developing a new version of the Vestaboard called the Smart Bits that was “a completely new way to experience Vestaboard’s patented character units” that also “pushed the limits of design, engineering, and manufacturing,” according to the company’s founder and CEO, Dorrian Porter. But, when faced with economic uncertainty as a result of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese-made goods, the company pivoted and instead created the Note.

Functionally, the Note is nearly identical to the original Vestaboard. But instead of using 132 split-flap mechanisms, which the company calls Bits, the Note only features 45. Each can display 64 alphanumeric characters plus other symbols like punctuation, solid colors, and a newly added red heart. The display measures 24.5 inches wide, or 28.4 inches with an optional bezel frame that adds $169 to the full retail pricing.

Messages, patterns, and images can be created using a web interface or a free accompanying mobile app for iOS and Android. They’re sent to the Note over Wi-Fi or an ethernet cable. In addition to a library of existing designs and inspirational quotes, the app allows messages to be scheduled, sent to other Vestaboard users you’re friends with, or even silenced during certain hours of the day. As hypnotic as the sound of over 2,800 spinning flaps may be, you probably don’t want the Vestaboard Note waking you up in the middle of the night.

Elon Musk isn't as publicly, obviously involved in Washington as he used to be, that much is clear. But celebrations of his political exile are premature.

Sure, it's true that Musk and Donald Trump's bombastic joint press conferences have faded. Trump is no longer shooting Tesla ads on the White House lawn. And Musk has said that he'll be stepping away from government and focusing on Tesla.

But Musk loves to lie. He's said he'll spend "a lot less" on politics in the future, but I am also old enough to remember "funding secured." The government is still infested with his lackeys, such as Steve Davis, Chris Young, and Jehn Balajadia. Even in an announcement that was widely reported as Musk stepping back from DC, Musk made it clear he'd spend "a day or two per week" on politics for the rest of Trump's term.

I tend to view the credulous political obituaries people have written as wishful thinking, but I do understand the impulse. So much of Musk's whole thing is spectacle that when he's no longer publicly performing, it's possible to believe nothing is happening. This is a mistake. We don't even know the extent of what DOGE has done so far, and in the absence of a serious GAO repo …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Sony announced a new version of its multi-function shooting grip and compact tripod that puts its wireless controls on a removable remote. Previous versions featured controls that could operate basic functions of an attached camera while holding onto the grip. The new GP-VPT3 makes them even more useful for solo content creators who can now operate a camera while standing in frame in front of it.

Sony still sells the older version for $139.99, but the added functionality of the new GP-VPT3 Multi-Function Shooting Grip comes with a small price bump to $159.99. The bundled remote, which Sony calls the RMT-VP2 Wireless Remote Commander, is sold separately for $89.99 for those who don’t need the grip or don’t want to replace their existing one.

The GP-VPT3 is compatible with Sony’s Alpha Series cameras and smaller vlogging cameras like last year’s ZV-E10 II. It can support up to 3.3 pounds, which means you can potentially use it with larger lenses too, as long as they don’t protrude too far off the camera and shift its center of balance.

The RMT-VP2 remote connects to Sony’s cameras over Bluetooth and has a range of about 33 feet. It includes a shutter button, a dedicated movie record button, a rocker that can be used to control zoom or focus, a button for turning autofocus on and off, and a C1 button that can be customized to control other functions.

As with previous versions of the grip, the new GP-VPT3 connects to a camera using its tripod mount and has a flexible head allowing an attached device to tilt forwards and back and swivel 360 degrees. It can function as an ergonomic handle, putting the most important camera controls at finger’s reach when shooting one-handed. It also unfolds and becomes a stubby tripod, making it easier to set the camera up at a specific angle for timelapses, or for filming yourself.

Here's what we know: it's probably not smart glasses. Beyond that, we don't know much about what Jony Ive and OpenAI are building through their newly combined company io, except that it's some kind of AI super-gadget. But after a couple of years of watching the industry try and shove AI into every form factor you can imagine, we have some guesses.

On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay and David are joined by The Verge's Alex Heath to talk through all the things we know, kind of know, and don't know at all about what io is up to. There's some interesting reporting on the notion of the device as a companion to your phone and laptop, some connections to the original iPod Shuffle, and still a lot of questions about how this will work and whether you'll want it. We won't see this device for a while, but don't worry - we'll surely keep talking about it.

After that, the hosts run down all the news from Google I/O, which both Alex and Nilay attended in person. We talk about Google's wildly ambitious and wildly confusing set of AI products, the ways Gemini and Search are encroaching on one another, and what this all means for the future of the web. It was an impressive, confident d …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Glitch, the coding platform where developers can share and remix projects, will soon no longer offer its core feature: hosting apps on the web. In an update on Thursday, Glitch CEO Anil Dash said it will stop hosting projects and close user profiles on July 8th, 2025 — but stopped short of saying that it’s shutting down completely.

Users will be able to access their dashboard and download code for their projects through the end of 2025, and Glitch is working on a new feature that allows users to redirect their project subdomains. The platform has also stopped taking new Pro subscriptions, but it will continue to honor existing subscriptions until July 8th.

Without these key features, it’s not clear what will be left of Glitch. When The Verge reached out to Dash for clarification, he said the dashboard, app redirects, and code download tools are the “only user features that we’ve confirmed availability” for after July 8th. “Anything else that we would have to share would come in a future update, but it’s just that very minimal feature set for now.”

Dash launched Glitch in 2017 under Fog Creek Software, but it was acquired by the cloud service provider Fastly in 2022. In the blog post announcing the update, Dash said the time and money required to host apps “has greatly increased as the platform has gotten older and bad actors try to misuse the platform.” However, Dash tells The Verge the team is “still figuring out what plans might be possible for Glitch and its community going forward.”

President Donald Trump has threatened Apple with a tariff of “at least 25 percent” just for its iPhones unless it moves production to the United States.

“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S. Thank your for your attention to this matter!”

The threat comes a week after Trump declared that he’d “had a little problem with Tim Cook,” following reports that Apple intends to source all of its US iPhones from India, which will require ramping up Indian production. Just yesterday the Financial Times reported that FoxConn, Apple’s main manufacturer, is developing a $1.5 billion plant in southern India’s Chennai to supply iPhone displays. Apple has been diversifying its production for several years, which was accelerated by both covid and US animosity towards China.

India is currently subject to the “baseline” 10 percent tariff that applies worldwide, while China is at a higher 30 percent rate, though that could rise substantially in August once a 90-day reduction in rates lifts. Phones, and most of Apple’s other products, are exempt from the majority of those rates anyway, but the ongoing uncertainty gives Apple good reason to continue expanding production outside China.

While Apple has pledged to invest $500 billion in the US over the next four years (and CEO Cook personally invested $1 million in Trump’s inauguration fund), it’s widely acknowledged by industry experts that a “Made in America” iPhone isn’t realistic. As Steve Jobs reportedly told Barack Obama in 2011: “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”

After a six-year absence, Nike will soon begin selling products directly on Amazon, having previously stopped in 2019 to go it alone. At the same time, the company is reportedly set to increase prices across most of its sneakers and other clothes in the wake of recent US tariffs.

Nike stopped selling through Amazon after just two years on the platform, blaming the decision to end sales on Amazon’s inability to crack down on counterfeiters and unlicensed sellers. Just as pivotal was its desire to build its own direct-to-consumer sales platforms in the Nike app and website, which saw it reduce its other retail partners around the same time.

Nike goods have continued to appear on Amazon in the years since, but only sold by third-party sellers on the platform. According to The Information those merchants have been told that they have until July 19th to stop selling certain Nike products.

“While independent sellers have listed some Nike inventory in our store for many years, Amazon will soon begin sourcing a much wider range of Nike products directly to expand our selection for US customers,” Amazon spokesperson Megan Lagesse told The Verge. “We value independent sellers, and we’re providing an extended period of time for the small number of sellers affected to sell through their inventory of overlapping items.”

Nike’s direct-to-consumer strategy seemed to be working well during the covid pandemic, when online shopping spiked, but has wobbled since. In 2023 the company began restoring its relationships with retailers including Foot Locker and Macy’s, and new CEO Elliott Hill, who took up the post in October 2024, has made building back Nike’s wholesale business a key pillar of the company’s plans.

CNBC reports that Nike is also set to raise prices across its products from June 1st, likely in response to US tariffs. Adult clothes and shoes priced above $100 will rise by $2 to $10, though cheaper goods and children’s products won’t be affected. Nike will also avoid raising the price of its $115 Air Force 1 shoe and some of its Jordan-branded apparel.

Discord has become the place for gaming communities on the internet. The company just celebrated its 10th anniversary, and its impact is now big enough that it's available directly on PlayStation and Xbox and was ripped off by Nintendo for the Switch 2's GameChat.

But as it tries to grow, one of the big challenges Discord faces is that, for big or longer-running communities, it can be hard to know where to start, hard to catch up to the speed of real-time conversations, and hard to sift through the potentially huge amounts of conversations and channels. A lot of communities used to form around forums, but Discord just isn't a good replacement for that kind of structured messaging, as covered by Aftermath's Luke Plunkett.

"This is something we want to solve," Peter Sellis, Discord's SVP of product, tells The Verge. "It is not our intention to lock a bunch of this knowledge into Discord."

One way Discord wants to tackle the problem is add features that are "more amicable to structured knowledge sharing, like forums, that we could probably do a better job of investing in and is something we want to do for game developers," Sellis says.

Another involves LLMs. "There's an incredibl …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Marvel Studios has pushed back the release dates of Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Doomsday is being delayed from May 1st, 2026, to December 18th, 2026. Secret Wars’s release has been pushed from May 7th, 2027 to December 17th, 2027.

The Russo brothers are returning to direct the two films. Robert Downey Jr. will also be back, though this time as Doctor Doom instead of Iron Man, and Marvel reportedly spent big to get him.

Marvel has also already revealed that Doomsday will have a gigantic cast that includes actors from other Avengers movies, more recent Marvel films, a bunch of X-Men, and even stars from this year’s Fantastic Four: First Steps. Chris Evans is reportedly returning for Doomsday, too, but it’s unclear in what role.

Disney will replace Doomsday’s May 1st, 2026 release slot with The Devil Wears Prada 2, THR says. Earlier this month, Disney released Thunderbolts*, and First Steps will follow on July 25th. 

Elden Ring will soon be more than just a hit video game. On Thursday, Bandai Namco and A24 announced a live-action Elden Ring film directed by Alex Garland.

Japanese developer FromSoftware released Elden Ring across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC in 2022, while a version for the Nintendo Switch 2 is set to be released this year. The action RPG became an instant hit, and puts you in the role of a Tarnished tasked with restoring the Elden Ring by defeating various challenging bosses throughout the Lands Between. The Elden Ring spinoff Nightreign is coming out on May 30th, 2025.

Garland is a writer, director, and producer best known for films like Ex Machina, 28 Days Later, and Dredd.

FromSoftware first hinted at the potential to expand Elden Ring “beyond the realm of games” in 2022. Last year, George R.R. Martin — the A Song of Ice and Fire creator who helped write the game — also said, “There is some talk about making a movie out of Elden Ring.” A publication called Nexus Point News first reported on the adaptation with A24 earlier this month, but pulled its original article and didn’t explain why.

As YouTube prepares to air an exclusive NFL opening week game for free on September 5th, it’s hiring former Disney exec Justin Connolly. The move has caused Disney to respond by suing both YouTube and Connolly, saying he was in the middle of leading the team negotiating Disney’s license renewal with YouTube.

He’d most recently been running the streaming services and linear media networks at Disney, and will take over as YouTube’s new global head of media and sports, as first reported by Bloomberg. After spending more than 20 years at Disney and ESPN, he’ll be managing YouTube’s relationship with the media companies that distribute content on YouTube TV, as well as leading its live sports coverage.

Bloomberg also first reported the lawsuit filed yesterday in California Superior Court, as Disney alleges that YouTube induced Connolly to breach a three-year employment contract that started in January and would’ve kept him there as an executive until an early termination option for March 1st, 2027. Connolly left Disney last week, just months before the launch of its standalone ESPN streaming service this fall.

In its complaint (which you can read below), Disney’s lawyers write:

Critically, Connolly leads the Disney team negotiating a license renewal with YouTube. Connolly has intimate knowledge of Disney’s other distribution deals, the financial details concerning Disney’s content being licensed to YouTube, and Disney’s negotiation strategies, both in general and in particular with respect to YouTube. It would be extremely prejudicial to Disney for Connolly to breach the contract which he negotiated just a few months ago and switch teams when Disney is working on a new licensing deal with the company that is trying to poach him.

YouTube did not comment on the lawsuit.

YouTube has become a growing force in live sports, with its live TV streaming service amassing more than 8 million subscribers and adding the NFL Sunday Ticket package in 2023. The platform will also. Earlier this year, YouTube revealed that it has become more popular on TVs than phones.

Other streaming companies have also increased their focus on sports recently, with Amazon preparing to broadcast NBA games and Inside the NBA next season, Apple’s close relationship with MLB and MLS, as well as Netflix’s broadcasts with the NFL and other events.

Update, May 22nd: Added details of Disney’s lawsuit.

Tech company CEOs aren’t just making their companies AI-first: this week, they’re using AI avatars to replace themselves in earnings calls.

Buy-now-pay-later company Klarna featured the AI version of CEO and co-founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski in an 83-second video about its Q1 2025 results, as reported by TechCrunch. The video’s description says that his “AI avatar” is presenting the results, and the AI avatar kicks off the video by saying that “it’s me, or rather, my AI avatar.” 

Klarna has already been vocal about how it uses AI in its business, with Siemiatkowski telling CNBC this month that the company shrunk its workforce in part as a result of its AI investments. This also isn’t even the first time the company has used an AI version of Siemiatkowski to share earnings.

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan also deployed an AI version of himself for the company’s Q1 2026 earnings call on Wednesday. “Today, I’m using our custom avatars for Zoom Clips with AI Companion to share my part of the earnings report,” Yuan’s avatar said in a video. “I’m proud to be among the first-ever CEOs to use an avatar in an earnings call.” In the top right corner of the video, you can see a message that says “created with Zoom AI Companion.”

The human Yuan showed up for the live Q&A portion of the call, though. “I truly love my AI-generated avatar,” he said while responding to the first question. “I think we are going to continue using that. I can tell you — I like that experience a lot.” Perhaps not surprising from the guy who wants “digital twins” to attend meetings on your behalf.

In a pretty bare-bones press release accompanied by a couple of pictures and detailed specs, Ricoh surprise announced that its long-awaited GR IV camera will launch this fall. The GR IV will adhere closely to the design of the GR III from 2018, and it will continue to use an autofocusing 28mm-equivalent f/2.8 lens and only a rear LCD for composing photos and videos, with no electronic or optical viewfinder available.

The GR IV’s exterior looks very similar to the GR III / GR IIIx, with an oval-shaped shutter button, on / off switch and mode dial up top, and a smattering of rear controls to the right of its LCD. Its buttons look redesigned, removing the spinning dial from around its four-way directional pad. And its adjustment thumb wheel, labeled “ADJ,” looks like it may be a fully turning dial instead of just a back-and-forth toggle that moves left or right. (I may be wishcasting that last part, because I think the thumb toggle on the GR III is annoying and fiddly.)

What’s known for certain based on its spec list is that the GR IV retains the built-in ND filter of the GR III, but it slightly ups the resolution of its large APS-C sensor from 24 megapixels to 26. 

It will also have a higher ISO range that reaches 204,800 at its maximum setting, and five-axis stabilization instead of three-axis stabilization. The GR IV’s lens may be the same focal length and maximum aperture as previous generations, but it’s a new seven-element design in a new arrangement utilizing an additional aspherical element that should yield better corrections. The upcoming camera will also have face and eye detection for its autofocus tracking, and 53GB of usable built-in storage. Onboard storage is great, and it’s much more than the GR III’s 2GB, but the GR IV is also downsizing from full-size SD cards to microSD.

While there isn’t a price yet, Ricoh has confirmed the GR IV is expected to release in the autumn of 2025, with a variant featuring a Highlight Diffusion Filter (HDF) to come “after winter 2025.” The announcement also details that the GR III is scheduled to be discontinued in July, while the GR IIIx continues “for the time being.” 
The Ricoh GR cameras have carved out a niche among street photographers who value their super-compact size and fairly affordable prices compared to a Fujifilm X100 or Leica Q. As cool and fun as I thought the just-announced Fujifilm X Half might be, the GR IV has instantly become my most anticipated camera of 2025.

Valve has been building up to this for months, first in preview, then in beta, and now finally in a full stable release: a new version of SteamOS that brings brand-new features to the Steam Deck and supports third-party handhelds like Lenovo’s Legion Go and Asus’ ROG Ally series.

SteamOS 3.7.8 is the first stable release to add official support for the Lenovo Legion Go S, and the first to offer an official “recovery” image that lets you install SteamOS on other AMD handhelds like the ROG Ally and original Legion Go, as Valve promised us in January of this year.

Until now, those who wanted to try SteamOS on those Windows handhelds could shoehorn the Steam Deck’s original recovery image onto their device, or opt for a similar experience like Bazzite. But now, Valve explicitly provides instructions for getting that image working on a Legion Go or ROG Ally, even as it warns that “support for all devices that is not officially ‘Powered by SteamOS’ is not final.”

But even if you don’t care about rival handhelds, SteamOS 3.7.8 has a lot of improvements for the Steam Deck. I’ve been asking Valve to let me use my Bluetooth earbuds’ microphone since launch, and it’s finally happening in desktop mode (sadly not gaming mode yet) thanks to HFP/HSP profiles. You can turn on your Steam Deck LCD from across the room with a Bluetooth controller, a feature previously exclusive to the OLED model, which comes in handy when you’re docked to a TV.

Speaking of leaving it docked, you can now set a Battery Charge Limit to 80 percent for longevity’s sake if your handheld is always plugged in, frame-limit variable refresh rate displays, and control the P-state frequency of certain AMD CPUs.

It’s all underpinned by new versions of Arch Linux, new Mesa graphics drivers, a much newer version of the Plasma desktop mode, and more. Here’s the full SteamOS 3.7.8 changelog.

An updated SteamOS FAQ seems to suggest that Valve is ready to expand SteamOS beyond Lenovo and the Steam Deck. “We’re currently working with select partners on officially licensed Powered by SteamOS devices. Please reach out to us at [email protected] for more information about licensing SteamOS for your device,” one answer reads.

But the industry is still waiting for Valve’s other shoe(s) to drop. Rumors are still heating up that we’re close to the launch of Valve’s wireless VR headset “Deckard,” and that it might be pointing the way toward a SteamOS-powered living room console too. Valve has been moving slow and steady, but it seems like a master plan for Steam Machines could finally be coming into focus.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has officially dropped its case against Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The FTC filed an order to dismiss its complaint on Thursday, just days after it lost an appeal for a preliminary injunction to prevent Microsoft from finalizing its acquisition.

“The Commission has determined that the public interest is best served by dismissing the administrative litigation in this case,“ says the FTC in its filing. The filing brings an end to the FTC’s fight to try and block Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal, nearly two years after it originally sought a temporary restraining order and injunction from a US federal district court.

Microsoft won its FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard in July 2023, and the deal was completed several months later, in October, nearly two years after the acquisition was first announced. The FTC had appealed the ruling nearly two years ago, but an appeals court panel affirmed the denial of an injunction earlier this month.

“Today’s decision is a victory for players across the country and for common sense in Washington, DC,” says Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith. “We are grateful to the FTC for today’s announcement.”