Figma, the platform that specializes in collaborative interface design, has filed for an initial public offering (IPO). The company will trade under the ticker symbol “FIG” as it prepares to “double down” on its investments in AI.
Figma was nearly acquired by Adobe for $20 billion in 2022, but the two companies scrapped the deal in 2023 after facing pressure from regulators in the UK and the European Union. Last year, Figma CEO Dylan Field hinted at going public last year during an interview included in The Verge’s Command Linenewsletter, saying, “There are two paths that venture-funded startups go down. You either get acquired or you go public. And we explored thoroughly the acquisition route.”
Figma confidentially filed for an IPO in April. Its new filing reveals Figma’s revenue spiked to $228.2 million from $156.2 million when compared to the same time last year. This year, Figma expanded its library of tools to include features for website building, AI coding, branded marketing, and digital illustration. It has also started letting AI models gain access to its design servers to make coding more efficient.
“We’re already investing heavily in AI and we plan to double down even more in this area,” Field says in the filing. “AI spend will potentially be a drag on our efficiency for several years, but AI is also core to how design workflows will evolve going forward.”
X is launching a way for developers to create AI bots that can write Community Notes that can potentially appear on posts.
Like humans, the “AI Note Writers” will be able to submit a Community Note, but they will only actually be shown on a post “if found helpful by people from different perspectives,” X says in a post on its Community Notes account. Notes written by AI will be “clearly marked for users” and, to start, “AIs can only write notes on posts where people have requested a note.”
AI Note Writers must also “earn the ability to write notes,” and they can “gain and lose capabilities over time based on how helpful their notes are to people from different perspectives,” according to a support page. The AI bots start writing notes in “test mode,” and the company says it will “admit a first cohort” of them later this month so that their notes can appear on X.
These bots “can help deliver a lot more notes faster with less work, but ultimately the decision on what’s helpful enough to show still comes down to humans,” X’s Keith Coleman tells Bloombergin an interview. “So we think that combination is incredibly powerful.” Coleman says there are “hundreds” of notes published on X each day.
Google’s 4th-gen Nest Learning Thermostat. | Photo: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Google Home’s latest update will make it easier to decide who in your household can control your smart home. It comes with a new feature, which Google first started testing last year, that will let you assign people “Admin” and “Member” roles.
People with Admin status have full control of all the devices, services, and users within their smart home, while Members can only use “basic” device controls, like watching the live view of a security camera. However, admins can grant Members additional privileges by giving them “Settings” access, allowing for control over device and home-wide settings. Admins can also turn on “Activity” access so Members can keep tabs on device history and recent events, such as a visitor picked up by a doorbell camera.
Google is also simplifying the process of adding a child under 13 to the Home app. Once you set up your kid with a Google account through Family Link, you can invite them to your Google Home, which will add them as a Member by default.
The previous process involved using either Family Link, Google Home, or Google Assistant settings to add your child’s voice to your smart home before inviting them to your home, and many usersstruggled to get it to work. It seems Google is now streamlining the process by letting you invite a child to your home through the Google Home app, so long as you add them to your Google family group.
T-Mobile is bringing some of its Uncarrier energy to Ultra Mobile, the carrier’s international-focused MVNO that operates on its network. It announced that its plans now have slightly higher data caps and more international perks, but with the same prices as before for new and existing subscribers — a rare thing to see these days.
The plan with the most notable increase in data cap is its $39-per-month tier, which jumps from 15GB to 24GB per month. It also includes 5GB of data you can use in Mexico before international data roaming charges kick in. If you’re accustomed to churning through a ton of data every month, its $59-per-month unlimited (talk, text, and data) plan is stuffed with more goodies. It includes a combined $20 in international calling and data roaming credits, plus 25GB to use as a mobile hotspot (it previously included 20GB). You’ll also get 100 minutes to call “nearly anywhere,” and either 500 texts or 500MB of roaming data to use while traveling abroad before you have to pay extra.
Whichever plan is best for your budget, Ultra Mobile stands out from Mint Mobile and Metro (other T-Mobile-owned MVNOs), as well as other major carriers, by offering more perks for people who call and text folks in countries outside the US. In addition to unlimited talk and text to Mexico, Canada, and the UK, Ultra allows free calls to landlines and mobile phones in China, India, Australia, and many other countries. Plus, all of its plans support Wi-Fi calling, which makes it easy to take calls even if local coverage is spotty.
Senate Republicans today passed a sweeping spending bill that narrowly avoided punitive tax measures on renewable energy but still threatens to stall its growth in the US.
After wrangling over hundreds of amendments for more than 24 hours in a so-called “vote-a-rama” on Monday and Tuesday, Senate Republicans advanced the bill with provisions that make it near impossible for many renewable energy projects to qualify for tax incentives Congress passed in 2022. But a last-minute amendment eliminated a proposal to impose a new excise tax on solar and wind projects, which industry groups and advocates warned could have done even more to cut jobs and raise electricity bills.
The fate of renewable energy projects — many of them in Republican districts — was a major sticking point that nearly stopped GOP lawmakers from reaching an agreement on the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that’s a key pillar of Donald Trump’s agenda. As passed, the Senate bill could have wide-ranging effects on many Americans’ lives, including cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs, a spectrum auction that could slow down Wi-Fi speeds, massive funding increases for Trump’s mass deportation campaign, and much more. (A 10-year moratorium on state AI laws was dropped at the last minute.) It’s now headed back to the House to vote on any changes that have been made to the text since it passed its own version of the bill in May.
The fate of renewable energy projects — many of them in Republican districts — was a major sticking point
“There’s this push and pull between [GOP] members who … see the importance of doing things for their constituents, and a kind of ideological argument at a national level” that vilifies wind and solar energy, says Nat Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES).
The bill nearly passed with a measure that could have devastated renewable energy companies. On Friday night, a surprise proposal was added for an excise tax on solar and wind projects. The tax would have essentially penalized developers who failed to meet requirements barring “material assistance from prohibited foreign entities.” In other words, they’d have needed to prove that their supply chains weren’t tainted by any materials or business ties to foreign governments the Trump administration deemed unacceptable — including China, which dominates supply chains for solar components and wind turbines. “It’s almost spiteful,” Keohane says of the plan.
The proposed tax was dropped this morning. But some advocates worry that introducing and removing the excise tax was a red herring, drawing attention away from other measures that could still derail renewable energy projects.
Most prominently, the bill sets aggressive deadlines for any wind and solar developers hoping to take advantage of Biden-era tax credits for carbon-pollution-free energy. Biden committed the US to slashing greenhouse gas pollution roughly in half from peak levels by the end of the decade under the Paris Agreement. To reach that goal, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which expanded tax credits for pollution-cutting technologies including renewables, in 2022.
Today, the Senate passed language that stipulates that solar and wind projects would need to either start construction within a year of the bill’s enactment or be placed in service by 2027 in order to qualify for IRA tax credits. Many projects would struggle to meet that truncated timeline given the long lead times needed to secure financing and permits and connect to the power grid.
The fact that solar and wind — favorite punching bags of Trump and other right-wing culture warriors — were targeted rather than other carbon-pollution-free sources of electricity, like nuclear reactors, is telling. Trump, who campaigned with support from the fossil fuel industry, has been particularly vitriolic against wind and solar energy. Misleading claims about renewable energy projects harming wildlife and inaccurate claims about wind and solar leading to power outages have been flagged by researchers as leading talking points in disinformation campaigns about climate change.
Secretary of Energy Chris Wright repeated similar tropes in an op-ed he published in the New York Post last week in support of the bill. Before Trump tapped him for his current role, Wright was CEO of Liberty Energy, a major oil and gas service provider that claims that roughly 10 percent of total US primary energy production comes from wells it fracks. Wright also used to sit on the board of a nuclear energy startup with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Trump has signed executive orders aimed at speeding the development of new nuclear technologies.
Tech giants, including Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon, are also banking on nuclear energy to power data centers that are expanding to support the computing needs of AI. The growth of AI, domestic manufacturing, and the electric vehicle industry has led to electricity demand jumping for the first time in more than a decade in the US.
That issue — on top of the health and climate risks posed by fossil fuel pollution — is a big reason why advocates say this is the worst time to kill new renewable energy projects. It could take years or decades to commercialize new nuclear technologies, but wind turbines and solar panels are already mature technologies.
“At a time when we need new energy more than ever, Republicans are punishing the plentiful wind and solar power that can be quickly added to the grid,” Manish Bapna, president of the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a press release.
“The intentional effort to undermine the fastest-growing sources of electric power will lead to increased energy bills, decreased grid reliability, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs,” American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet said in a press release.
The Senate vote on this bill also reignited Trump’s feud with Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Elon Musk posted on X over the weekend that “a massive strategic error is being made right now to damage solar/battery that will leave America extremely vulnerable in the future” as he renewed calls to create a new political party.
Email is already the “number-one use case” of Grammarly for professional users, the company says, with “the AI assistant helping to revise over 50 million emails per week across more than 20 email providers.” Buying Superhuman makes some sense, then: it gives Grammarly its own email app to showcase its product.
But based on the press release, Grammarly has broader ambitions — which, like many other tech companies, involve AI. Specifically, AI agents.
“Grammarly is evolving into a productivity platform for apps and agents, moving toward a multi-product company with hundreds of intelligent, task-specific agents,” the company says. “Email represents the ideal environment for this multi-agent assistance, with professionals spending more than three hours daily in their inboxes and email remaining foundational to any productivity suite.”
The company says this is a “future platform” that will “enable scenarios where users can work with multiple agents simultaneously,” such as a communication agent, sales agent, support agent, and marketing agent all helping you write a customer memo. But the real test will be if those plans actually pan out — and if Grammarly can compete with tools from AI giants like OpenAI and Google, which also have agenticambitions.
Grammarly acquired the productivity startup Coda late last year, with Coda co-founder and CEO Shishir Mehrotra taking over the combined company as CEO.
Earlier this year, Sonos permanently dropped the price of its Era 100 speaker to $199, making it more affordable for people looking to build a multiroom wireless speaker setup. Now, the small-but-mighty speaker is even cheaper to kick off summer. Sonos is offering the refurbished Era 100 for just $119 ($40 off), the lowest price we’ve seen on the smart speaker. Sonos Certified Refurbished products are thoroughly inspected, cleaned, and tested by the brand’s in-house team, and you get the same one-year warranty as new Sonos products.
Sonos Era 100
The Era 100 is Sonos’ most affordable in-home smart speaker. Offering pleasant sound at a relatively compact size, it improves upon the prior Sonos One with stereo audio, line-in support, and Bluetooth support.
The Sonos Era 100 is the brand’s mainstream home speaker, offering stereo sound, line-in and Bluetooth audio support, and more intuitive physical controls. For instance, there are dedicated track controls — no need for swipe gestures — and a separate indented bar for volume. The speaker features two tweeters, enabling proper left and right channel reproduction. Additionally, the Era 100 comes with a larger midwoofer compared to its predecessor, Sonos One, for more booming bass.
In his review of the Sonos Era 100, former senior reviewer at The Verge, Chris Welch, said the smart speaker provides rich sound that’s consistently strong across genres, making it a great option for first-time buyers or those looking to add to their Sonos system. The Era 100 supports Sonos’ Trueplay feature, allowing you to fine-tune the speaker’s sound based on the room it’s in. Additionally, you can pair a second Era 100 for wider, more immersive sound.
More deals to check out
The refurbished Sonos Move 2 is also being discounted, dropping the price to $269 ($90 off) at Sonos. The portable speaker features stereo sound, excellent battery life, and line-in playback, making it a solid upgrade over the first Move. While you can take the speaker anywhere, it stands at 9.53 inches tall and weighs 6.61 pounds, so it’s more suited to moving around different spots inside and outside your home. Read our review.
The Elgato Stream Deck Neo is down to $79.99 ($20 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, nearly matching its previous all-time low price. The Neo allows you to customize and automate tasks with eight shortcut keys, so you can make repetitive daily tasks easier to execute. It works with both Windows and Mac, and offers integration with several popular services, including Photoshop and Spotify.
The original Google Pixel Fold with 256GB of storage is down to $579 at Woot, letting you save big on a decent starter foldable device. While the Pixel Fold is a few years old by now, it launched for a whopping $1,800, so the price has come down significantly over the years. That said, since the device launched, it has been replaced by the far more capable Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, a sequel that’s currently our favorite book-style foldable.
The MLS Season Pass grants access to this summer’s All Star-Game and Leagues Cup tournament.
Major League Soccer (MLS) is now nearly halfway through its 2025 season, and Apple is giving fans a great reason to tune in. For a limited time, the MLS Season Pass is available for just $49, offering new and returning subscribers access to every remaining match at half the regular price. If you’re an Apple TV Plus subscriber, the deal gets even better: you can grab the pass for just $39 with an additional $10 discount.
The seasonal pass gives you access to every Major League Soccer (MLS) game in 1080p, including the annual Leagues Cup tournament, the MLS All-Star Game, the playoffs this fall, and Sunday Night Soccer. Best of all, there are no regional blackouts, so you can stream any match wherever you are.
In addition to live matches, the pass includes MLS 360, Apple’s “whip-around” show featuring real-time highlights, post-game analysis, player interviews, replays, and more. Subscribers can also share access with up to five family members, and stream the Apple TV app on a wide range of devices – from smart TVs and streaming boxes to both Apple and Android devices.
Just keep in mind: the subscription will auto-renew once the promotional period ends. If you don’t want to be charged the regular rate — $14.99 per month or $99 for the full season (or $12.99 per month or $79 for Apple TV Plus subscribers) — be sure to cancel before the renewal date.
MLS Season Pass
The MLS Season Pass grants access to live MLS games as well as the annual Leagues Cup tournament, the MLS All-Star Game, the playoffs and more. Right now, the 2025 season pass is half off at $49, and Apple TV Plus subscribers can save an extra $10.
Laptop Mag is shutting down after nearly 35 years of providing consumers with in-depth information about laptops and other technology. In a staff meeting seen by The Verge, Faisal Alani, the global brand director at Laptop Mag owner Future PLC, said, “After careful consideration and a review of our long-term strategy, we’ve made the decision to close the Laptop Mag business effective today.”
Laptop Mag has evolved many times over the years. It started as a print publication in 1991, when Bedford Communications launched the Laptop Buyers Guide and Handbook. Laptop Mag was later acquired by TechMedia Network (which is now called Purch) in 2011 and transitioned to digital-only content in 2013. Future PLC, the publisher that owns brands like PC Gamer, Tom’s Guide, and TechRadar, acquired Purch — and Laptop Mag along with it.
“We are incredibly grateful for your dedication, talent, and contributions to Laptop Mag, and we are committed to supporting you throughout this transition,” Alani said. Laptop Mag’s shutdown follows the closure of long-running tech site AnandTech, which was also owned by Future PLC. It’s not clear whether Laptop Mag’s archives will be available following the shutdown. Future PLC declined to comment.
The headphones lay flat in their case, which is pretty slim.
Nothing's first pair of over-the-ear headphones has arrived, bearing the company's signature retro-transparent design that it introduced with the Phone 1. But until now, that design has mostly been in your pocket or peeking out of your ears. With the $299 Nothing Headphone 1, you have to commit to having that aesthetic wrapped around your head or hanging from your neck.
I spent about a week with the Headphone 1 to see how it fits among the competition - and with your outfit.
The Nothing Headphone 1 resembles a cross between Apple's AirPods Max and 1980s FM radio headphones. I dig the design, but wearing it on my head feels silly. The housing feels cheaper than the aluminum casing of the $549 AirPods Max and also less… grown up. I'm almost embarrassed to wear it on the street and worried that I'll look like I'm cosplaying as a cyborg. The ear pads look like that of generic headphones, with rubbery and plastic unremovable pads and a memory foam cen …
They look very cool off of my head. | Photo: Owen Grove / The Verge
Nothing has launched its first pair of over-ear headphones, imaginatively named the Headphone 1. At $299, these are priced to compete with flagship fare, distinguished primarily by their distinctive Nothing design language — right down to the buttons.
While the boxy outline calls to mind Apple’s AirPods Max, the semi-transparent detailing on the outside of each ear cup is all Nothing. So are the buttons, all differently shaped, with some you press, some you flick, and some you toggle. They’re meant to be more intuitive to use by touch alone, so you don’t have to take the headphones off to remind yourself which button turns on pairing.
With active noise canceling, spatial audio, and support for lossless playback, these tick off most of the usual high-end headphone features. There’s 35 hours of battery life with noise cancellation on and an IP52 rating for water resistance, and the audio itself was developed in partnership with HiFi brand KEF, with custom 40mm drivers.
My colleague Andru Marino has already reviewed the Headphone 1, so check out his review to find out how they stack up. Preorders launch on Friday, July 4th, with a full release on the 15th.
“The Glyph interface is not a gimmick,” Nothing founder and CEO Carl Pei told the press as he revealed the Nothing Phone 3 for the first time, shortly before announcing that its new iteration lets you play Spin the Bottle on the back of the phone.
It’s mixed messaging, but in Nothing’s defense, you couldn’t accuse them of making that mistake elsewhere. The Phone 3, we’re told, is Nothing’s “first true flagship phone,” a point the company is keen to hammer home: flagship chip, flagship camera, flagship price. In fact, it’s so flagship that the company is even springing for a true US launch, its first since 2023’s Phone 2, which Pei tells me only makes sense for their “premium” phones.
At $799, the Phone 3 is priced to match the iPhone 16, Galaxy S25, and Pixel 9, as Nothing positions itself firmly outside its mid-range origins, and Pei says the company feels ready “to compete with products in that price level.” Preorders open Friday, July 4th, with general sale starting from the 15th from Nothing’s own webstore and Amazon in the US. Nothing says the phone is fully compatible with T-Mobile and AT&T, with “more limited 5G support” on Verizon.
This is Nothing’s most expensive phone yet, but on paper the specs should keep pace with the price. The Snapdragon 8S Gen 4 chip isn’t the most powerful around right now, but its performance should cope with all but the most demanding mobile games, especially paired with up to 16GB of RAM. Storage starts at 256GB, and for an additional $100, you can get 512GB.
The Nothing Phone 3 uses a silicon-carbon battery, a relatively new technology that makes it easier to fit big batteries into small phones. Here, that means a generous 5,150mAh capacity, combined with a 65W wired charging speed and 15W wireless charging speed. The 6.67-inch OLED screen is more than twice as bright as the Phone 2’s, and the IP68 water- and dust-resistance rating is a first for Nothing too. All four of the cameras — three on the back, one on the front — are 50-megapixel, though it’ll be impossible to say whether they’re any good until we get to test the phone out properly. Nothing’s camera processing has lagged a little behind the competition in the past, so this’ll be the area to watch.
All that’s in line with other flagship phones, so what makes the Phone 3 feel like Nothing? That’s where that new, gimmick-free Glyph design comes in. While previous Nothing phones have featured an array of light strips that can glow and flash in custom patterns for notifications and ringtones, here, those have been swapped out for a small, circular dot matrix LED display in one corner of the back of the phone.
The Glyph Matrix is immediately less striking than the older phones’ designs, and less unique too — Asus has included dot matrix displays on the back of its ROG gaming phones for years. Pei told me that the advantage is that custom notifications can be “much more immediate,” with easily recognizable images or emoji tied to specific apps and contacts rather than abstract animations that might be hard to grok at a glance.
Then there are the Glyph-focused games, officially dubbed Glyph Toys, designed to add a touch of fun that’s “severely lacking in the space right now.” The Phone 3 launches with Spin the Bottle, Rock Paper Scissors, and more functional fare like a stopwatch and battery indicator, which you can cycle between using a haptic button hidden among the many shapes on the semi-transparent rear. Pei suggests you could use Spin the Bottle to help decide how to split the bill at dinner, one of those jokes that plays well during a keynote speech but doesn’t make much sense when you really think about it.
Pei insists that Nothing isn’t done iterating on the Glyph Matrix. He calls the “expandability” the most exciting part of the new design, citing Glyph Toys already developed based on ideas from the company’s “community” of fans, like a magic eight ball. “I think they might invent some novel use cases we haven’t even thought of yet,” Pei says.
The Phone 3 also sees the return of the Essential Key, a side button that debuted on the Phone 3A and 3A Pro earlier this year. It’s customizable, but by default launches Essential Space, an AI-powered app that stores and analyzes screenshots to give you reminders about events or travel plans. New to this phone is the option to transcribe and summarize meeting audio, along with a universal search bar that can track down everything from contacts to photos and answer basic factual queries.
The Phone 3 is a big swing for Nothing. It’s the company’s first move into the flagship market, and its first effort to crack the US in two years, so perhaps it’s no surprise that the phone’s new Glyph design is a little more conservative than we’re used to. Still, Nothing playing it safe has produced a bolder and more divisive phone than any Samsung or Apple has put out in years — just don’t call it a gimmick.
Apple is suing a former employee for allegedly stealing confidential Vision Pro headset research before leaving to join Snap’s product design team. In the complaint filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court on June 24th, Apple accuses Di Liu of downloading thousands of documents containing proprietary information from Apple’s internal systems and saving them to his personal cloud storage account in his final days as a senior design engineer for the Vision Pro.
According to the lawsuit, Liu falsely claimed he was quitting his job for health reasons and did not disclose that he had a new job lined up as a product design engineer for Snap. This prevented Apple from immediately revoking Liu’s access to internal systems, a standard protocol activated by the company upon notice that employees are joining a competitor. Apple alleges that this allowed Liu to copy a “massive volume” of proprietary information that he could later access after being locked out of Apple’s network.
“Mr. Liu’s actions were deliberate; logs on his Apple-issued work laptop show that Mr. Liu individually selected the folders he copied and, in some cases, renamed and reorganized them after moving them to his personal cloud storage account,” Apple said in the complaint. “Further, Mr. Liu took actions to conceal movement of the files, intentionally deleting files from his Apple-issued work laptop.”
Apple says it’s unable to determine exactly what was downloaded by Liu, but argues the overlap between the information Liu took with Snap’s AR Spectacles products “suggests that Mr. Liu intends to use Apple’s Proprietary Information at Snap.” According to the complaint, Apple is pursuing unspecified financial damages from Liu for breaching contractual obligations and requesting that Liu be forced to return the stolen documents.
Apple has not named Snap as a defendant in the suit. Snap said in a statement to SiliconValleythat it had reviewed Apple’s claims, and had “no reason to believe they are related to this individual’s employment or conduct at Snap.”
This is the latest of several lawsuits that Apple has launched against former employees for misappropriating proprietary information about its products. The company dropped a lawsuit against a former iOS engineer in February and settled its case against a former design architect in 2022 after accusing them of leaking confidential trade secrets to journalists.
AT&T is launching a new Account Lock feature that’s designed to protect wireless users against SIM swapping attacks. The feature, which you can enable from the myAT&T app, prevents unauthorized changes to your account, like phone number transfers, SIM card changes, and updates to billing information.
SIM swapping attacks have become increasingly common in recent years. They occur when a bad actor gets ahold of a victim’s phone number, sometimes with social engineering techniques such as impersonating a victim and asking their carrier for a SIM change, and then intercepting messages and phone calls meant for the victim. This can let an attacker receive two-factor authentication codes that they can use to break into sensitive accounts.
Other carriers, including T-Mobile, Verizon, and Google Fi, already have similar features to prevent against this type of fraud. AT&T began gradually rolling out Account Lock earlier this year.
As noted by AT&T, its new Account Lock feature also blocks device upgrades, along with changes to authorized users and phone numbers.
You can turn Account Lock on or off at any time by opening the myAT&T app, selecting Services > Mobile Security > Wireless Account Lock, and selecting which accounts you want to lock or unlock. AT&T will then send the primary account holder an email notifying them of the change, while every active number on the account will receive a text. Only users with primary and secondary access to an AT&T account can use Account Lock.
Threads has officially launched direct messaging for everyone. You can now privately message other users on the Meta-owned X rival, though Threads will only allow DMs between your followers or mutual followers on Instagram to start.
You can send a DM on Threads by selecting the envelope icon in the toolbar at the bottom of your screen in the app. From there, you’ll be directed to your inbox, where you can tap the pencil button in the top-right corner to start composing a message.
Threads’ DMs are currently available to users aged 18 and over on Android, iOS, and the web, but you can only have one-on-one conversations right now. Moving forward, Threads plans to roll out the ability to choose who can send you messages, including people who don’t follow you on Threads and Instagram. You’ll also be able to review a folder dedicated to message requests, similar to what’s offered on X. Threads is working on a group messaging feature and inbox filters, too.
Though the platform says its DMs are “protected by our robust privacy standards, account protections and safety infrastructure,” Threads spokesperson Alec Booker confirmed to The Verge that “Threads will not support end-to-end encryption for messaging.” Booker adds that Meta will “continue evolving DMs on Threads based on feedback from the community.”
Along with DMs, Threads announced a new “highlighter” feature that will call attention to “unique perspectives that lead to thoughtful conversations.” For now, you’ll only see highlighted content in parts of the app where you find new content — like your For You feed — to mark trending topics. Threads plans on bringing its highlighter feature to more areas of the app soon.
Elon Musk and President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington in March. | Image: Andrew Harnik / Getty Images
President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s fighting over the “big, beautiful” domestic policy bill has returned to the spotlight, with the president telling reporters on Tuesday that “we’ll have to take a look” into deporting the billionaire.
He also proposed targeting Musk via the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), saying, “We might have to put DOGE on Elon. You know what DOGE is? DOGE is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon.”
Musk has been a longtime critic of Trump’s budget bill, which he says he opposes because it will increase the budget deficit. However, a proposed removal of EV tax credits that help Tesla, where Musk is CEO, likely plays a role.
After the pair traded insults in early June, both had retreated from publicly squabbling, and Musk deleted some of his posts on X — another of his companies — that linked Trump to Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender.
Then, on Monday evening, as the US Senate worked through a “vote-a-rama” in an attempt to pass the bill, Musk started posting on X again. He reiterated a threat to primary politicians who support the bill and said, “If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day.” Trump posted a response on Truth Social, implying that DOGE (which Musk led before publicly stepping down in May) could cut subsidies for Musk’s companies. Without those subsidies, Trump said, “Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa.”
Trump’s full response, posted on Truth Social:
Elon Musk knew, long before he so strongly Endorsed me for President, that I was strongly against the EV Mandate. It is ridiculous, and was always a major part of my campaign. Electric cars are fine, but not everyone should be forced to own one. Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa. No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!
Musk responded on X to Trump’s comments, saying, “So tempting to escalate this. So, so tempting. But I will refrain for now.
Update, July 1st: Casio has sold out of its online inventory of the Ring Watch.
Casio’s $120 CRW001-1 (AKA the Ring Watch) is back in stock on Casio’s website for the first time since it launched — then swiftly sold out — in December. The Ring Watch was released to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its original digital watch. While it may look like a novelty, the fully-functional watch impressedThe Verge’s Victoria Song as both a fashion statement and a practical gadget. The silver ring has a sub-inch screen and comes in one ring size: 10.5. However, Casio includes 16 and 19 millimeter spacers to accommodate smaller fingers.
Casio CRW001-1 ring watch
A ring-sized, full-metal version of the Casio watch.
The Ring Watch’s LCD screen can display six digits, and be set to standard or military time. The three buttons around its face can start a stopwatch, display the date, or show the time in a different timezone. An alarm function will flash in the corner of its screen when the counter is complete.
As previews for Donkey Kong Bananza come in ahead of the game’s July 17th release date, one tidbit has stood out on the development of this game. It’s been nearly eight years since Super Mario Odyssey, and now we know what that team has been up to, as Nintendo has officially revealed that the developers of Donkey Kong Bananza are the same team that made Odyssey.
Nintendo has a good track record of retaining and training up talent. Developers that worked on early entries in the Kirby, Mario, and Zelda franchises have stuck around to work on or lead the development of subsequent titles. The result has been relative consistency across Nintendo first-party titles, which has allowed the company to weather the last two years a bit better than its competitors. Super Mario Odyssey was one of the top five bestselling games for the original Switch, so Bananza is in more than capable hands.
According to The Verge’s Cameron Faulkner, Donkey Kong Bananza is its own game with a unique identity. But Odyssey’s development team has added a bit of Mario’s 3D platforming DNA to Donkey Kong’s first 3D platformer since Donkey Kong 64. And while the mystery of Bananza’s developer has been solved, a new one has taken its place: will there also be a 3D Mario game coming soon to the Switch 2, or is it just Bananza for now?
The Federal Communications Commission will suspend the enforcement of a rule that would lower the price of prison phone and video calls. On Monday, the Trump-appointed FCC Chair Brendan Carr announced that prisons won’t have to comply with the pricing rules until April 1st, 2027, reversing plans to apply the caps this year.
Family members and friends of incarcerated people have long been charged fees the FCC described in 2024 as “exorbitant” to keep in touch with phone or video calls. Though some states — like Connecticut, California, Minnesota, and Massachusetts — have made phone calls from prison free, the majority of states allow fees that can reach as high as $11.35 for a 15-minute phone call, often including kickbacks to the jails and local governments.
On Monday, however, the FCC declared it will hold off on enforcing these rules for two more years. In his announcement, Carr says that the efforts to regulate prison phone calls are “leading to negative, unintended consequences,” claiming that the rules would make the caps “too low” to cover “required safety measures” and wouldn’t give states enough time to find another source of funds. He adds that the decision to delay these rules is supposed to ensure that “important safety and security protocols are maintained,” which he indicates could include the adoption of public safety tools with “advanced AI and machine learning.” Carr partially voted to approve the phone call caps in 2024.
FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez slammed Carr’s decision to pause the implementation of the Martha Wright-Reed Act. “Rather than enforce the law, the Commission is now stalling, shielding a broken system that inflates costs and rewards kickbacks to correctional facilities at the expense of incarcerated individuals and their loved ones,” Gomez said in a statement. “It’s time for the FCC to do its job. Its responsibility is not to protect profit-driven contracts — it is to uphold the law and serve the public.”
Allison Johnson is a reviewer for The Verge who writes about phones and mobile technology. “Occasionally,” she adds, “I yell at your wireless carrier.”
I asked her if there were any items that she especially liked using, and after thinking about it, she eventually came up with… a pencil sharpener.
Where did you first hear about the Blackwing One-Step Long Point Sharpener?
Last year, I told my husband all I wanted for Christmas was a nice pencil sharpener — and he understood the assignment. Initially, I was thinking of the big kind that you bolt to the wall, like in elementary school, but he found this one, and it’s way more practical. It’s small and light enough that I can just carry it around all the time, along with a couple of fancy Blackwing pencils, just in case a crossword puzzle breaks out at any given moment.
Why did you want one?
At some point over the past few years, I noticed that we didn’t have pencils in our house, which I blamed on a lack of pencil sharpeners. Sometimes, you need to make a little mark on a wall when you’re hanging a picture, and you kind of need a pencil for the job. Also, I wanted to get some Sudoku books, and you really need a pencil for those. So that’s why I landed on a pencil sharpener for Christmas. I also turned 40 this year; these things might all be related.
What do you like about it?
It’s just such a nice little object. It’s reassuringly weighty while still light enough to carry everyday. It has one job: it sharpens pencils beautifully. When the blade gets dull I can order a replacement from Blackwing, and I appreciate a little gadget with a lot of life.
Is there anything about it that you dislike, or that you think could be improved?
You do have to apply a bit of pressure to really get it sharp, and sometimes that creates kind of an indented ring on the pencil wood just above the point. Maybe that’s why people use two-stage sharpeners? I don’t know, I’m new to the luxury pencil game. If so, I think it’s an acceptable tradeoff for one-step sharpening.
Isn’t it a bit expensive for a pencil sharpener?
Yes, but I just tried out a cheaper sharpener from another brand and it absolutely mangled my pencil, so I think the extra cost is worth it.
Who would you recommend it to?
Anyone who appreciates a nice little thing that has a special job. Anyone who also misses having pencils around. Pencils are so handy!
Is there anything I should have asked that I didn’t?
I’ll just note that these are dark times and the simple joy of buying and using a Nice Pencil is way more load-bearing for my mental health than it should be.
