Tesla has a new entry-level Cybertruck with longer range, and it’s the cheapest model yet at $69,990 before the federal $7,500 credit. Tesla pulled some significant features to achieve the price cut. 

The new “long range” Cybertruck has just a single RWD motor compared to the two in the AWD model. It also lacks a powered roll-up hard tonneau cover. You can either keep the bed open or buy a $750 fitted soft tonneau cover. As a consolation prize for less storage security, the cover apparently gives you an aerodynamic range boost of 12 miles, according to Tesla.

The Cybertruck Long Range can drive up to 350 miles on a charge, 25 miles more than the AWD model, or up to 362 miles with the soft tonneau cover. Towing capacity is also lower at 7,500 lbs compared to 11,000 lbs on the other trims.

It accelerates slower than the AWD model. The RWD Cybertruck goes 0-60mph in 6.2 seconds versus 4.1 seconds on the more expensive Cybertruck. Tesla removed adaptive suspension and the 120V and 240V power outlets from the RWD model, so it can’t power your tools on the go. The company also removed the battery range extender option this week.

The interior of the Cybertruck RWD comes with textile seats instead of the leatherette ones in the other models, and you aren’t getting the rear seat infotainment touchscreen, either.

At the company’s 2023 delivery event, Tesla said its RWD option had a lower advertised range of 250 miles and would cost $60,990. That version was never released, though. In 2024, the RWD base option was removed. The new, more expensive, RWD model is available for order in the US, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia.

Tesla has had trouble selling Cybertrucks, reportedly selling only 50,000 units in 2024 on apparently one million reservations. The company is also seeing a 13 percent drop in vehicle sales year over year, which can be partly attributed to CEO Elon Musk’s control of the “Department of Government Efficiency” in the Trump Administration.

Ever since Google debuted the original Pixel Watch in 2022, improving battery life has been a major focus of subsequent iterations of the smartwatch. Based on new leaks of the upcoming Pixel Watch 4, it looks like that might be the case again.

Renders published by 91mobiles from leaker OnLeaks show a slightly thicker watch with what appear to be two small buttons on either side of the speaker. (What those buttons do is a mystery.) Purportedly, the Watch 4 will be 14.3mm thick compared to 12.3mm. There are several reasons why a smartwatch can get thicker, but it tends to mean a bigger battery or extra components. Meanwhile, the sensor array no longer shows the four charging pins that were added with the Pixel Watch 2. That would hint that perhaps Google has found out a way to enable faster charging without them. Lastly, 91mobiles reports that the Pixel Watch 4 should still come in two sizes.

The thicker body and lack of charging pins could indicate battery life still weighs heavily on Google’s mind. Dismal battery life was the most annoying thing about the original Pixel Watch, to the point where the company has since worked to rectify it with the Pixel Watch 2 and 3. Adding charging pins angered some Pixel Watch fans, but the main reason was to enable a more secure connection and facilitate faster charging. The problem with pins, besides adding a new proprietary charger, is that they wear down over time.

WearOS 4 and 5 also focused on ways to be more power-efficient. The result is that you can now reliably expect Pixel Watches to last a whole day, but they still trail behind the multiday battery life achieved by rival smartwatches like the OnePlus Watch 3, Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra, and Apple Watch Ultra 2.

We can’t draw any firm conclusions from these leaks. Lots of things can change before a final product launches, and hardware renders don’t tell us anything about what’s inside the device or what the focus of WearOS 6 will be. We could find out more next month at Google I/O.

Six hours into a fantasy ball, actor Zach Harrison is sweating. He’s been wearing handmade leather armor, huge boots, and heavy six-foot bat wings all night, all while ballroom dancing and taking pictures with hundreds of fans without taking a break. 

But they’re not here to see Harrison.

They’re here to meet Cassian, Lord of Bloodshed: a 500-year-old faerie who commands the army of the Night Court. For one night at a time, Harrison dons his elaborate costume and brings to life a beloved character from Sarah J. Maas’ smash hit romantasy book series A Court of Thorns and Roses, performing at balls across the United States and beyond.

@bookboundevents Let us know your favorites💃🕺 #bookboundstarfall2023 #bookbound #starfallball #bookishball #bookishevent #bookbesties #starfallgown #fantasyoutfit #fantasygown ♬ original sound – Book Bound

Boosted by BookTok, the skyrocketing success of romantasy — a genre that mixes romance and fantasy — is changing what it means to engage with books. Fell in love with a faerie king on the page? It doesn’t have to be a private experience. With the help of TikTok’s book community and its own influencers, there’s a gro …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Doctor Who’s shapeshifting Time Lord almost always has a plan when they encounter new threats from beyond the stars. And the Doctor’s companions can usually count on them to pull a convoluted, crisis-averting trick out of their sleeves whenever things get too hairy. In the past, the Doctor has often been presented as more of an eccentric leader whose human friends need them to take charge in dangerous situations. But Doctor Who’s latest season is poised to switch things up by pairing the Doctor with someone who already knows a thing or two about staying levelheaded in times of crisis.

Though Ruby Sunday — the mysterious keyboardist played by Millie Gibson — will still be part of Doctor Who’s upcoming season, that dynamic is going to be complicated by the arrival of a new companion. Like many of the Doctor’s previous traveling partners, Belinda Chandra (Andor alum Varada Sethu) is an ordinary woman who isn’t clued in to the extraterrestrial happenings constantly popping off across the planet. She’s an overworked nurse who loves her job more than she loathes her aggravating roommates.

Because there’s always a doctor who needs her attention at work, Belinda does …

Read the full story at The Verge.

(If you’re reading this, please go vote for The Vergecast in the Webby Awards! Voting is open for roughly another week, and we’re up against some steep competition — it would mean the world to us if you’d pick us. Thank you so much!)

It’s important to keep saying that we still don’t know much about what’s going on with the Trump administration’s tariff policy. They’re on again, they’re off again. They’re a negotiating tactic! They’re a permanent policy don’t even ask! With China, the numbers are quickly becoming so large they’re basically pretend, and with many other countries the number whipsaws back and forth on a practically daily basis.

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That is the chaos tech companies large and small are having to grapple with right now. On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay, David, and The Verge’s Jake Kastrenakes talk about how they’re coping. (After a brief diversion in party speaker territory.) Huge corporations like Nintendo are delaying pre-orders and reassessing prices; smaller companies like Framework are stopping and starting and re-pricing all in the span of a few …

Read the full story at The Verge.

On Monday, Meta will face the Federal Trade Commission in a legal fight that could reshape the social media landscape.

Over the next two months, the US government will make its case that the company’s 2012 acquisition of Instagram and 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp squashed potential threats to its dominance. Meta, which went by the name of Facebook at the time, will defend itself by arguing that it helped grow those acquisitions into large businesses used by billions of people while facing plenty of competition along the way. The company’s senior executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former COO Sheryl Sandberg, are expected to testify during the trial in Washington, DC.  

The trial itself has been a long time coming. It’s based on a lawsuit filed under the first Trump administration and then amended under the Biden administration, seeking solutions as dramatic as unwinding Meta’s big mergers. It’s the third US trial attempting to bust up Big Tech in two years, following the Justice Department’s successful case against Google’s search business and a second one pending a decision against its ad tech business. It kicks off amid a broad rethinking of how antitrust …

Read the full story at The Verge.

When Nintendo announced the Switch 2 would cost $450, my initial reaction was disappointment. “Why does it cost so much more?” I thought to myself. “Why does Japan get it cheaper?” my brain jealously added, once I learned that Nintendo would sell a Japan-only model for the equivalent of just $333.

It felt like Nintendo was about to overcharge the entire rest of the world for a modest improvement to its original $300 console, one that doesn’t come with an OLED display or anti-drift magnetic sticks. Surely it can’t cost Nintendo that much more to make, especially seeing how it’s selling the exact same hardware for so much “less” in Japan? 

But while Nintendo might be charging more than I’d like to spend, particularly with its $80 games and its button that makes you pay extra, I no longer think the company’s being distinctly unfair to gamers outside of Japan. The $450 price makes more sense when you consider what’s happened to the dollar and the yen. 

Since its March 3rd, 2017, debut, Nintendo basically hasn’t changed the price of the original Switch in either the US or Japan. The portable console cost $300 USD or Â¥32,378 in 2017; it costs the same $300 …

Read the full story at The Verge.

WhatsApp has rolled out a dozen new features across chats, calls, and channels that make it easier to manage group conversations, alongside other general quality-of-life improvements. One of the more notable additions is a new “Online” indicator for groups, which displays how many participants are currently using the app in real time.

This is one of several new features that are similar to capabilities on competing communications platforms like Discord, which highlights the online status of server participants. WhatsApp hasn’t mentioned if users will be able to override their own status indicator to manually set themselves as online/offline, but it should make it easier to see how many users are actively reading the chat.

Notifications in group chats will now be easier to manage and organize if you find them overwhelming. Users can select the new “Notify for” setting and tap “Highlight” to place specific limitations on notifications for replies, @mentions, and messages from saved contacts, or select “All” to receive every notification. Group chat participants can also tap on reactions that other users have left on messages to add the same reaction, much like Discord and Slack users can.

Events have been updated to allow users to RSVP as “maybe,” invite a plus one, and specify an end date and time. Events can now also be created in direct messages, and pinned in group chats to make them easier to find.

Two features that are exclusively for iPhone users include a built-in document reader that allows users to scan, crop, and save document files without opening a separate app, and the ability to set WhatsApp as the default app for calls and messages. iPhone users can make the switch by opening their device settings, tapping on “Default Apps,” and selecting WhatsApp.

In the WhatsApp updates tab, users will now find transcriptions of voice messages that they’ve received, and a voice notes feature that allows channel admins to record videos of up to 60 seconds that can be instantly shared with followers. Channel admins can now also link people directly to their channels via a QR code.

Finally, WhatsApp says that video calls have been upgraded to make them “more reliable and higher quality.” WhatsApp users can be added to an ongoing call directly within a chat thread by tapping the call icon, and call participants can now pinch to zoom in to get a closer look at the live video.

Digg’s return to the modern internet is one step closer with the launch of an “early access” group called Groundbreakers. For a one-off $5 fee you can claim your username before someone else does and get a behind the scenes look at the new Digg as it comes together. 

Digg says that the $5 fee “keeps the bots at bay,” and that proceeds will go to a nonprofit to be chosen by the Groundbreakers community. It’s a one-off charge, not an ongoing subscription.

In addition to locking down their username, members of Groundbreakers will get early access to mockups and previews of the new Digg, with the chance to give feedback directly to the development team. They’ll also get a permanent Groundbreakers badge on their profile once Digg goes live. It’s worth noting that this isn’t actually early access to Digg itself just yet, but a group on the Circle community platform.

The rebooted Digg was announced last month, with original founder Kevin Rose returning alongside a group that includes Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian. It will still be centered around sharing and voting on links, but takes inspiration from the rise of Reddit and will incorporate AI to help user-led communities with moderation.

Invites to join Groundbreakers were initially sent out to Digg’s mailing list, but you can now sign up without an invite. There’s apparently a limited number of spaces, though Digg hasn’t said how many.

OpenAI is giving ChatGPT a memory upgrade that allows it to recall old conversations that you didn’t ask it to save. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on X that the chatbot can “now reference all your past conversations,” and that the update aligns with the company’s goal to develop “AI systems that get to know you over your life.”

This builds on the “Memory” feature that was added to ChatGPT last year, which allowed limited information like queries, prompts, and customizations to be retained and used for future responses. With the long-term memory update, ChatGPT will now recall information in two ways — using the “saved memories” that users have manually asked it to remember, and “reference chat history,” which are “insights ChatGPT gathers from past chats to improve future ones,” according to OpenAI.

The update will be available everywhere except in the EU, UK, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein, likely due to these regions having tight AI regulations that Altman has objected to in the past. It’s currently being rolled out to users paying for ChatGPT’s $200 monthly Pro subscription and will be available “soon” for $20 Plus subscribers, according to Altman. OpenAI also says it will be available to Team, Enterprise, and Edu users “in a few weeks,” but there’s no word on when — or if — it will roll out to free users.

Memory is an optional feature for ChatGPT. Users who don’t want the chatbot to save any conversations can toggle off saved memories under the ChatGPT personalization settings, or use the temporary chat function to ask it inquiries that won’t use or affect memory. ChatGPT’s memory upgrade follows a similar update that Google made to Gemini AI in February that allows it to recall older conversations to provide more personalized or relevant responses.

China has once again raised its tariff on US goods to match Trump’s, for what it says is the final time. China’s tariff is now set at 125 percent, as it warns that the US is on track to become an economic “joke.”

In a statement from China’s Ministry of Finance, which we’ve translated using Google, the country says that any further tariffs from the US side would “no longer make economic sense,” and that the US “will become a joke in the history of the world economy.” Trump initially set a tariff of 10 percent for China in February, which has risen four times, now set at 145 percent. Until now, China has retaliated in kind with its own matching tariff hikes.

China says that at the new tariff rate of 125 percent there is no longer any “market acceptance for US goods exported to China,” so there’s no sense in raising tariffs further. “If the US continues to play the tariff numbers game, China will ignore it,” the statement says.

China isn’t ruling out other forms of retaliation, however, ending the statement with a warning: “If the US insists on continuing to substantially infringe on China’s interests, China will resolutely counterattack and fight to the end.” Yesterday the country announced it was reducing the number of Hollywood films it would permit to release, and over the last week it has also restricted import and export rights for a number of US companies.

Microsoft is starting to gradually roll out a preview of Recall, its feature that captures screenshots of what you do on a Copilot Plus PC to find again later, to Windows Insiders, according to a blog post published Thursday.

This new rollout could indicate that Microsoft is finally getting close to launching Recall more widely. Microsoft originally intended to launch Recall alongside Copilot Plus PCs last June, but the feature was delayed following concerns raised by security experts. The company then planned to launch it in October, but that got pushed as well so that the company could deliver “a secure and trusted experience.”

The company did release a preview of Recall in November to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel for Qualcomm Copilot Plus PCs and made a preview available to Intel- and AMD-powered Copilot Plus PC shortly after. And after a couple weeks of testing, my colleague Tom Warren said that Recall is “creepy, clever, and compelling.”

In Thursday’s blog post, Microsoft spells out that you have to opt in to saving snapshots with Recall, and you can pause saving them “at any time.”

Bluesky is updating its app to version 1.100, and the update includes a more comprehensive search page and new chat reactions.

The search page is now known as “Explore,” where you can find trending topics, suggested accounts, and starter packs to jump-start stuff for you to follow on the app. This new Explore page still lets you search from the top, but now, the first thing you see under the search bar are a list of top trends and that may have a tag emphasizing how “hot” or “new” something is.

There’s also a shortcut at the top to edit interests that inform what you see on the Explore page, but you can hide that and adjust your interests later in Settings > Content and media.

As for the chat reactions, you can now hold down on a direct message and select an emoji to react to it with. The feature looks and works similarly to many other chat apps like iMessage.

Previously, holding down on a message brought up a menu on the bottom of the screen to transla …

Read the full story at The Verge.

After years of stuntwork largely being overlooked by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Oscars are about to add a new category. Today, the Academy announced that it intends to start giving out Oscar statues for stunt design starting with films released in 2027 for the awards ceremony’s 100th anniversary.

“Since the early days of cinema, stunt design has been an integral part of filmmaking,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang said in a statement about the new category. “We are proud to honor the innovative work of these technical and creative artists, and we congratulate them for their commitment and dedication in reaching this momentous occasion.”

The Academy has yet to announce any other eligibility rules for films that will be nominated in the new category. “The specifics of the award’s presentation will be determined by the Academy’s Board of Governors and executive leadership at a future date,” according to the Academy’s press release.

Though over 100 stunt workers are currently members of the Academy’s Production and Technology Branch, as The Hollywood Reporter notes, the organization has only ever given out two (honorary) Oscars to stunt performers. Now that the new category has been established, we’re probably going to start seeing studios putting a lot more emphasis on their projects’ death-defying set pieces.

Razer has finally launched its platform for streaming PC games to mobile devices at their native screen resolutions, aspect ratios, and refresh rates. Razer PC Remote Play is now available for download on the App Store and Google Play and is compatible with Windows, Apple, and Android mobile devices running at least Windows 11, iOS 18, and Android 14, respectively.

Built on the Moonlight streaming client, Razer PC Remote Play requires people to install the Razer Cortex game launcher – which now has a redesigned interface – on their PCs, which is compatible with services like Steam, Epic Games, and Microsoft’s PC Game Pass. Mobile devices will need the Razer Nexus game launcher as well as the new Razer PC Remote Play app installed.

Razer PC Remote Play was first announced at CES 2025 and has been in beta. Razer says the launch version of the app now includes the “AV1 video codec for improved quality and lower latency” plus support for the Razer Kishi Ultra and all controllers that are compatible with iOS and Android.

People that are using the Kishi Ultra with Android devices will benefit from Razer’s Sensa HD Haptics feature. Sounds from a game are used to create haptic feedback by leveraging the same hardware mobile devices use to provide silent vibrating notifications.

When streaming PC games to the iPad, the Razer PC Remote Play app is fully compatible with connected keyboards, mice, and trackpads, potentially making Apple’s tablet a good solution for streaming and playing first person shooter games.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) fired about 30 members of the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in February, and many of them were part of a department that assesses the risks of self-driving cars, according to the Financial Times.

One worker laid off from the NHTSA’s so-called “office of vehicle automation safety” told the FT that DOGE’s actions could “weaken NHTSA’s ability to understand self-driving technologies.” Another worker said it’d be “ironic” if the firings would slow down Tesla’s plans for autonomous vehicles. 

Tesla is under multiple investigations from the NHTSA over its automated features, including its Full Self-Driving software and remote summon feature. Tesla’s FSD and Autopilot driver assistant systems have more reported crashes on the road than any other company.

Families of victims who died in Tesla crashes have urged Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to protect Biden-era rules to report automated vehicle crashes, fearing Musk’s involvement in the Trump Administration could influence investigations.

The firings also came just months after the NHTSA released a new framework that could ease regulation on self-driving cars, but in exchange, companies would need to share more data with the regulator.

Garmin has announced a new addition to its Varia line of safety and visibility accessories for cyclists. The Varia Vue is the first to pair a bright headlight with a front-facing 4K camera designed to automatically record incidents and save the footage locally or send it to the cloud through a smartphone. It’s available now through the company’s online store for $549.99 and is also available through Amazon.

The Varia Vue can capture 4K video for up to six hours on a full charge, but battery life is reduced to as little as 1.25 hours with the headlight set to its brightest setting. Dropping the camera’s resolution to 1080P at 30fps can boost recording times to up to nine hours, or up to 1.5 hours with the headlight at full brightness.

Electronic image stabilization helps to reduce shakiness in footage captured on rough terrain, while continuous recording allows the events leading up to an incident (detected by the Vue’s accelerometer) to be stored alongside the aftermath. With the camera paired to devices like Garmin’s smartwatches, cycling computers, or even its mobile app, video is recorded with GPS speed and location info.

To further maximize battery life, the Vue can be connected to Garmin’s camera-equipped radar taillight. Not only does that unlock an additional recording mode where the Vue only starts to capture footage when a vehicle approaches from behind, it also allows incidents to be captured from two different angles.

Footage is recorded locally to an SD card, but when connected to Wi-Fi, videos can be automatically uploaded to the online Garmin Vault for added security. However, that feature requires either a $9.99 monthly subscription or a $99.99 annual one.

Garmin says the Vue’s headlight has a maximum brightness of 600 lumens, but that’s only available in a flashing mode designed for daytime use. At full brightness, the Vue outputs 550 lumens, and can be dimmed to as low as 140 lumens. The headlight is also designed with a cutoff beam that angles the illumination down onto the road so it doesn’t shine in the eyes of oncoming drivers.

One additional feature that will almost certainly appeal to existing Garmin fans is that the company, which has long stuck with Micro USB ports on its products, has opted for a USB-C port on the Vue for charging.

If you were hoping to cop a OnePlus Watch 3, you can finally buy one starting today. The problem is it’s no longer the $329.99 price that was originally intended when OnePlus announced the device a few months ago. It’s now $499, a $170 or roughly 52 percent markup.

The price hike was spotted by a number of Android blogs, but what makes this odd is a lack of official communication from OnePlus itself. Normally, companies will alert press and long-time customers as consumers generally don’t react well to unexplained price hikes. However, no such hint came from OnePlus before the smartwatch went on sale. When asked about the price increase, OnePlus spokesperson Spenser Blank told The Verge, “We don’t have any additional comment to share at this time.”

The obvious explanation, though unconfirmed by OnePlus, would be tariffs. Unless you’ve been hibernating under a rock, you’ve probably seen headlines about President Trump’s ever-increasing tariffs against products shipped from China. (As of this writing, they’re currently sitting at 145 percent.) While most wearables and gadget makers I’ve spoken to have acknowledged tariffs will have an impact on pricing, some have opted to take a more wait-and-see approach. This is, however, one of the first examples of a smartwatch actually increasing in price, let alone by such a dramatic amount.

It’s also unusual given that many gadget makers attempted to delay such price hikes by increasing inventory ahead of the tariffs taking effect — keeping consumers from actually feeling the impact of tariffs on their wallet as soon. Others, like Framework, temporarily opted to halt some sales in the U.S.

But OnePlus may not have been able to stockpile units in the US early because of an ironic mistake. The OnePlus Watch 3 was originally set to launch back in February but was delayed because of an unfixable typo engraved in the backplate.

That typo: ‘Meda in China.’

Vampire Survivors is finally launching cross-saves today, but they won’t be available on PlayStation to start and have a “very slim” chance of coming to the platform because of a “legal issue.” 

“Last month, we told everyone that cross-save would be available on PlayStation 4 / 5, PC, Xbox, Android and iOS alongside our next free VS update in April,” according to a Steam post from Poncle, the game’s developer. “But at last [sic] minute, we’ve run into a legal issue on PlayStation we weren’t aware of that requires us to share info on our partners that we’re unable to. The chances of Cross-Save coming to PlayStation consoles are now very slim, but not impossible, so we’re going to keep working alongside PlayStation to resolve these problems.”

Poncle and PlayStation didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

Cross-saves are now available on Android, iOS, PC, and Xbox, Poncle says. Vampire Survivors on Nintendo Switch will also get cross-saves, but “at a later date.” Poncle wants to bring them to the Apple Arcade version of the game, but only “if we can do so without breaching any privacy commitments.” 

If you want to turn on cross-saves, check out Poncle’s guide. Note that cross-saves aren’t automatically synced, meaning you’ll have to manually save and load your save data across platforms as needed.

Alongside the cross-saves news, Poncle also released a free Vampire Survivors DLC expansion based on the Square Enix’s SaGa franchise titled Emerald Diorama and a chicken-themed update to the main game that Poncle calls “The Coop.”

Three years after signing an overall TV production deal with Amazon, Mike Flanagan is finally developing a new project for the studio.

Deadline reports that Amazon is moving forward with a Carrie series adaptation from Flanagan based on Stephen King’s 1974 novel about a girl born with telekinetic powers. In addition to writing and showrunning the project, Flanagan will direct a selection of its eight episodes.

Flanagan, who connfirmed the news on his Bluesky page today, will also executive produce alongside Trevor Macy. No official casting announcements have been made just yet, but actresses Summer H. Howell (Curse of Chucky) and Siena Agudong (Netflix’s Resident Evil) are reportedly in talks to portray Carrie White and cheerleader Sue Snell, respectively.

In a statement about the project, Amazon MGM’s head of TV Vernon Sanders noted how Carrie “has withstood the test of time with continued cultural relevance.” That’s a positive way of spinning the fact that there have been many Carrie adaptations (and a sequel) following Brian De Palma’s 1976 feature starring Sissy Spacek, Amy Irving, and Piper Laurie.

Though very few of those films were especially great, Flanagan has a solid track record adapting King’s classics, including The Life of Chuck, Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game. Stretching Carrie’s story out over eight episodes will likely to lead to some unexpected narrative changes, but it’s all (probably) still going to go down in flames when the series ultimately debuts.