Nintendo has announced a new date for when Switch 2 preorders will kick off in the US; April 24th.

As a part of the announcement, Nintendo said that the price of the Switch 2 will remain at $449.99 despite fears that the Trump administration’s new tariff policy would lead to increased pricing for the console. However, Nintendo also said that the Switch 2 accessories would be more expensive.

Preorders were originally set to begin on April 9th, but Nintendo delayed that following the Trump administration’s announcement of new tariffs.

Specifically, Nintendo delayed preorders “in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions.” At the time, the company said that the Switch 2’s planned June 5th launch date would be “unchanged.”

On April 8th, Nintendo also announced that it would be delaying Switch 2 preorders in Canada “in order to align with the timing of preorders to be determined in the US.”

Nintendo’s new preorder date follows President Trump announcing on April 9th that he had authorized a 90-day pause on tariffs outside of China.

The original preorder date was announced as part of Nintendo’s big reveal event for the Switch 2. At that event, Nintendo also said that the system would cost $449.99 with a $499.99 version available that includes Mario Kart World.

The Switch 2 looks to be a substantial upgrade from the original Switch, with a larger 7.9-inch LCD screen, bigger Joy-Con controllers, and more. In addition to Mario Kart World, Nintendo also showed off Donkey Kong Bananza, a new 3D Donkey Kong game that’s set to launch on July 17th.

The new preorder date also follows Sony raising the price of PS5 models in the EU, UK, Australia, and New Zealand due to “a backdrop of a challenging economic environment.”

Developing…

EcoFlow just announced improved versions of its Glacier refrigerator-freezer combo and Wave air conditioner-heater combo, two battery-powered off-grid appliances that can be recharged with the sun.

The Wave 3 is more powerful than its predecessor, which means it can cool and heat larger spaces than the Wave 2 I reviewed last summer. But that 6100BTU (1800W) of cooling and 6800BTU (2000W) of heating means we’re still talking small RVs, tents, boats, and maybe a tiny bedroom from a device that still punches well above its literal weight. The intake and exhaust hoses are now insulated, which should make this heat pump even more efficient than before, and water drainage has also been improved.

The Wave 3 can be powered in several ways, including a removable 1024Wh LFP battery for up to eight hours of use, an AC wall jack, 12V / 24V car outlet, EcoFlow’s excellent alternator charger, an EcoFlow power station, or 400W of solar panels. EcoFlow says it can lower the temperature by “up to 15 degrees Fahrenheit” in 15 minutes in rooms up to 183 square feet. I’m currently testing how much work that “up to” is doing in EcoFlow’s claim for my upcoming review. 

The best-in-class app from EcoFlow makes it easy to access a number of useful new features on the Wi-Fi (or Bluetooth) connected Wave 3 when far from the device. These include activating a dehumidifier mode to reduce moisture levels and an automatic mode to maintain temperature within a defined range. There’s also a new pet mode that automatically alerts the owner and activates the A/C if temperatures surpass 77F. EcoFlow also ships window stickers inside the box that can assuage any concerned lookie-loos that might worry about your pet overheating inside the locked vehicle.

The Glacier Classic, meanwhile, has ditched the ice maker from the original version I reviewed in 2023 to focus on maximizing internal volume — a move I fully endorse since these 12V fridges are meant to be used in places where water and electricity are scarce. As such, the Glacier Classic is able to fit 45 liters of dual-zone capacity into roughly the same footprint as the 38L original. It’s also available in 35L and 55L capacities, but the former operates as either a freezer or fridge without the dual-zone divider option. 

All three fridge sizes have a built-in 298Wh battery offering up to 43 hours of cooling, according to the company. The battery can be recharged from a standard wall jack, 12V / 24V car outlet, or 110W of solar. The Glacier Classic also features a dual-opening lid for flexible access inside tight spaces like a van or boat. 

EcoFlow says the Glacier Classic uses a more reliable temperature sensor to ensure stable performance. That’s important because some owners of the original Glacier had to replace their units due to sensors going out of control and freezing everything inside. Oops!

The Glacier Classic will list for $799 (35L), $899 (45L), and $1,199 (55L) in the US, with early bird discounts dropping the prices to $699 (35L), $799 (45L), and $899 (55L). It’s available to preorder starting today. 

The Wave 3 with battery is discounted to $1,299 at preorder ($2,198 list), while the Wave 3 sans battery can be had for $749 ($1,299 list). An extra battery costs $599 compared to the $899 list. That’s a lot of money even with early bird pricing, so I’m working hard on getting the review published before the discounts end on May 25th.

Our plan for this episode was to spend some time talking about antitrust regulation, because one of the biggest companies on the planet is currently in the midst of a trial that could fundamentally reshape the internet economy. And that was before Google lost its adtech trial! Two’s definitely a trend, in this case: Meta’s trial is just beginning, and we have a ruling in Google’s, but both companies are staring at a future that looks very different than the last 20 years.

On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge’s Alex Heath joins Nilay and David to talk through what the Google ruling means (with as little ad-tech talk as possible, we promise), as well as what it was like to be in the Meta courtroom all week. So far, the FTC’s case against Meta seems somewhat dubious, and might hinge a little too much on the power of MeWe. But that one is only just beginning, and there are many more questions about Instagram and WhatsApp still to come.

After that, we talk about some big news in the AI world. OpenAI is working on a social network, with plans to rival X and become the place people do… something. Post their ripoff photos? Make funny jokes with the help of ChatGP …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Few gaming laptops stand out like Razer’s Blades. They’ve long been the gaming alternative to the MacBook Pro: sleek, powerful, and grown-up looking, without the bulk and garish stylings of most gaming laptops. But cramming powerful graphics cards into slim confines means Blade laptops have a tendency to run hot, get loud, and carry ridiculous price tags.

So you’d be excused for feeling anxious that the 2025 Blade 16, which offers Nvidia’s most powerful laptop GPU, is 30 percent thinner and significantly lighter than its predecessor. In my initial testing, it only seemed a little more powerful than the 4090 Blade it replaces.

But now I’ve used it much more extensively. I’ve even tested it against cheaper, thicker RTX 5080 laptops with more cooling capacity, which are the better buy if you’re focused squarely on gaming performance. However, nothing quite matches the Blade 16’s balance of top-end specs, thin chassis with all-black aesthetics, and a lovely OLED screen I’d happily stare at all day.

The 2025 Blade 16 is just 0.69 inches at its thickest (0.59 inches at the front) and weighs 4.6 pounds. That isn’t just thinner and lighter than last year’s 0.87-inch / …

Read the full story at The Verge.

If there’s one thing the auto industry hates, it’s uncertainty. When it takes upward of five or six years to bring a new car model to market, a certain administration throwing caution and global goodwill to the wind with a raft of unpredictable tariffs is decidedly bad news. 

Right now, the US tariff situation is constantly shifting, with limited exceptions being granted for certain manufacturers whose leaders are willing to bend the knee. While there is talk of some potential relief, global auto manufacturers have yet to be given a reprieve from a 25 percent tariff on vehicles assembled outside of the United States. 

This is an unprecedented situation, both in terms of the severity of the action and the swiftness with which it was enacted. It’s already had immediate impacts, like Audi holding foreign-made vehicles at port, and Jaguar Land Rover suspending all shipments to the US. 

It remains to be seen which manufacturers will be most affected, but one thing is clear: car shoppers who’d been sitting on the fence about a new purchase are now rushing to their local dealers.  

People like Andrew Neuberger, an Atlanta-area resident who works in the automotive software space, had …

Read the full story at The Verge.

You know, I was simply going to ignore the bizarre Blue Origin stunt flight from earlier this week. But then it flopped beyond my wildest imagination, and so here we all are.

Doubtless you know the contours already: Jeff Bezos’ fiancee Lauren Sánchez, pop star Katy Perry, and four other women did a big space tourism trip in the name of performative femiladyism, wearing “space suits” cut so as to require a pair of Spanx underneath. “We’re going to have lash extensions flying in the capsule,” Sánchez said. “We are going to put the ‘ass’ in astronaut,” Perry said.

This promised to be a marketing bonanza for a nation addled by spectacle. What has happened instead has been a shocking amount of backlash. TikToks mocking Katy Perry’s feigned enthusiasm for “astronomy and astrology.” Suggestions the entire trip was faked. Video footage of what appears to be Bezos literally falling on his face in Texas. Did Bezos even really open the capsule door? Proclamations that the flight “showcased the utter defeat of American feminism.” Social media debates about w …

Read the full story at The Verge.

A new theatrical Star Wars movie is on the way — and this time, it actually has a premiere date. At Star Wars Celebration in Japan, Lucasfilm announced Star Wars: Starfighter, a standalone feature that is set five years after The Rise of Skywalker.

It’s being directed by Shawn Levy, who most recently directed Deadpool & Wolverine, and will star Ryan Gosling. Production is due to begin this fall, and the movie will hit theaters on May 28th, 2027. The new movie is described as “an entirely new adventure featuring all-new characters set in a period of time that has not been explored on screen yet.”

Lucasfilm has struggled to get Star Wars projects into theaters following The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, even though many have either been announced or rumored since then. Levy’s involvement in the Star Wars universe had been rumored for some time. In a blog post, Lucasfilm says that those other projects are still in development, including “films by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, James Mangold, Taika Waititi, and a new trilogy by Simon Kinberg.”

Starfighter isn’t the only upcoming Star Wars movie on the schedule however, as it will be preceded by the Mandalorian spinoff The Mandalorian & Grogu, which will hit theaters on May 22nd, 2026.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is sending out mass layoff notices that appear to be in defiance of a court order blocking further layoffs following DOGE-induced cuts. 

“I regret to inform you that you are affected by a reduction in force (RIF) action,” says a notice reviewed by The Verge that was sent by CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought to an agency employee. “This RIF action is necessary to restructure the Bureau’s operation to better reflect the agency’s priorities and mission.” Access to CFPB systems will be cut off after Friday, and employees will be placed on administrative leave until their official end date, the notice says. 

Fox Business reports that around 1,500 workers will receive RIF notices across core functions, based on an unnamed source. On Thursday night, CFPB Chief Legal Officer Mark Paoletta sent a notice of the agency’s supervision and enforcement priorities that said the CFPB would “shift resources away from enforcement and supervision that can be done by the States” and rescinded previous enforcement and supervision priority documents, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In March, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration not to “terminate any CFPB employee, except for cause related to the individual employee’s performance or conduct; and defendants shall not issue any notice of reduction-in-force to any CFPB employee.” An appeals court order this month partially stayed that portion of the injunction, but only to the extent it would keep the CFPB from issuing a RIF that the agency determined “after a particularized assessment, to be unnecessary to the performance of defendants’ statutory duties.”

The union that brought the original complaint to stop the agency from being gutted filed a motion late Thursday asking the court to require the government to explain how the mass terminations don’t violate its preliminary injunction. “The plaintiffs have been told that entire offices, including statutorily mandated ones, have or soon will be either eliminated or reduced to a single person,” the filing says. “It is unfathomable that cutting the Bureau’s staff by 90 percent in just 24 hours, with no notice to people to prepare for that elimination, would not ‘interfere with the performance’ of its statutory duties, to say nothing of the implausibility of the defendants having made a ‘particularized assessment’ of each employee’s role in the three-and-a-half business days since the court of appeals imposed that requirement.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee who helped establish the agency, called the agency’s “dismantling” of the agency “yet another assault on consumers and our democracy by this lawless Administration, and we will fight back with everything we’ve got.”

Updated March 17th: Added filing from CFPB worker union and statement from Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Tesla’s vehicles may be in a sales slump, but that’s not stopping the company from regularly introducing fresh features for owners. Tesla’s spring software update includes several useful new functions in its EVs, including adaptive high beams on compatible cars and better trip planning.

The update will allow some Tesla owners to use high beams without blinding other drivers and cyclists on the road by enabling the beamforming capabilities of equipped matrix headlights. The company first started installing the hardware across its vehicles in 2022, but are just now enabling it. Tesla had also enabled the features in Europe last year, and the newly refreshed Model Y will ship with the new smart headlights.

Many automakers like Audi have already been using adaptive headlights for about a decade in Europe, but the technology only became legal in the US in 2022. Other US automakers, including Ford and its F-150 Lightning, have the necessary hardware but aren’t yet enabling all the features of adaptive lights by default.

Another very useful feature in the spring release includes “Alternative Trip Plans,” which lets Tesla owners select different EV navigation routes based on whether they want to get there faster, have the fewest stops, or want to visit highly rated restaurants, shops, and restrooms. It adds to an already comprehensive EV navigation experience that other automakers have yet to catch up to, although Tesla still does not include third party chargers in automatic routing. Additionally, you can now set navigation to avoid highways.

Tesla is also giving its Sentry secure video and Dashcam features the ability to record clips from the B-Pillar side cameras, increasing their capture abilities from six of the vehicle’s cameras instead of four. An updated Dashcam viewer on the infotainment screen includes a new grid view to make it easier to review recordings. These new dashcam features, however, only work on Tesla models with AMD-powered infotainment screens, so anyone with Intel-powered ones won’t get the new functionality. 

Other notable features in the update include sideview camera feeds on the instrument cluster for Model S and X, location based trunk height memory so your tailgate doesn’t hit your low-ceiling garage, always-on USB-C and wireless charging, and, for those who refuse to pay Tesla for premium connectivity, the ability to automatically connect to your hotspot when you start to drive.

Netflix said in its first quarter earnings report on Thursday that revenue reached $10.5 billion in the months since it raised prices. That’s a 13 percent increase over the same time last year.

The streaming service’s net income also grew to $2.9 billion, and the company says it expects more growth in the coming months when it sees “the full quarter benefit from recent price changes and continued growth in membership and advertising revenue.”

Netflix raised the prices across most of its plans in January, with its premium plan hitting $24.99 per month. It also increased the price of its Extra Member option — its solution to password sharing — to $8.99 per month. Though Netflix already rolled out the increase in the US, UK, and Argentina, the streamer now plans to do the same in France.

This is the first quarter that Netflix didn’t reveal how many subscribers it gained or lost. It decided to only report “major subscriber milestones” last year, as other streams of revenue continue to grow, like advertising, continue to grow. Netflix last reported having 300 million global subscribers in January.

During an earnings call on Thursday, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters sai …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Razer is selling laptops on its site again after a recent and sudden halt.

In what seemed like a response to ongoing tariff tumult, the US Razer site had quietly pulled its Blade laptops from direct sales, including its new Blade 16 with Nvidia’s 50-series GPUs. Things seemed normal in other regions like Canada. But even after a week of paused sales and Reddit posts discussing Blade 16 preorders getting held up in US Customs, however, Razer never responded to The Verge’s inquiries about what’s going on.

Now, some configurations of the 2025 Blade 16 have reappeared for US residents, though not all Blade laptops have returned to Razer’s US online store.

Before the sales pause, there were still 2024 Blade 16 models available, as well as preorders for the Blade 18. Now, those are nowhere to be seen for US customers.

Also, the 2025 Blade 16 is only available for immediate purchase with the RTX 5080 GPU. The entry-level RTX 5070 Ti and flagship RTX 5090 configurations are only listed with “notify me” buttons.

And even more curious: the 5090 config is limited to 64GB of RAM and 4TB of storage for $4,899.99, but the review spec that Razer sent us for testing with 32GB / 1TB for $4,499.99 isn’t available.

What’s also still unavailable is any pricing on the new Razer Adjustable Laptop Stand. But on the Canadian Razer site, you can find that stand with a $99.99 price, as well as the review spec of the 5090 Blade 16 and preorders for the Blade 18.

We’ve reached out to Razer to try and get clarification about what’s going on.

A federal judge has struck down an Ohio law that would’ve required children under 16 to get parental consent to use social media platforms. In a decision on Wednesday, US District Court Judge Algenon Marbley ruled that the law is unconstitutional, saying it violates the First Amendment.

Signed in 2023, Ohio’s Social Media Parental Notification Act was set to come into force on January 15th, 2024. However, the Big Tech-backed interest group NetChoice challenged the law and won a temporary restraining order blocking it. This new decision permanently prevents the law from taking effect.

“This case resides at the intersection of two unquestionable rights: the rights of children to ‘a significant measure of’ freedom of speech and expression under the First Amendment, and the rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their children free from unnecessary governmental intrusion,” Judge Marbley writes.

Last month, NetChoice succeeded in permanently blocking Arkansas’s age verification law and won a preliminary injunction to prevent California’s landmark online child safety law from going into effect. NetChoice also recently sued to block Maryland’s Kids Code law over concerns it violates free speech.

“The decision confirms that the First Amendment protects both websites’ right to disseminate content and Americans’ right to engage with protected speech online, and policymakers must respect constitutional rights when legislating,” NetChoice director of litigation Chris Marchese said in the group’s announcement.

After 24 hours with Huawei’s Mate XT — a.k.a. the world’s first trifold smartphone — I have this to say for it: the novelty hasn’t worn off.

I’ve tried the Mate XT twice before, first shortly after it launched last September, and then again in February after it was released outside of China. But now Huawei is ready to actually let me review its one-of-a-kind hardware, which at today’s exchange rates would set you back just under $4,000.

I’ll be spending the next week with my SIM card in the Mate XT, as I get used to life with triple the usual space and none of the usual Google Mobile Services support, but one day in, I figured I’d share my first — or is it third? — impressions and a bunch of pictures.

There are really three ways to use the XT: as a regular-ish phone with a 6.4-inch display, in a square shape that resembles other foldables and measures 7.9 inches, or fully opened into what’s essentially a 10.2-inch tablet.

It feels a little unnatural to open at first. Since each segment folds in a different direction, it took me a few hours to get used to where I push and where I pull, and I spent most of that adjustment period worrying I w …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The Trump administration dealt a major blow to the fledgling US offshore wind industry yesterday by ordering a major wind project off the coast of New York to stop construction. 

US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced the move on X yesterday, which ordered a stop on all construction on the Empire Wind project pending “further review of information that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis.” 

President Donald Trump has painted offshore wind as an environmental bogeyman since the campaign trail, falsely linking proposed projects to whale deaths without evidence while promising to “drill, baby, drill” for oil and gas at the same time. Now, his administration is trying to stop offshore wind farms from being built, even those that have already gained federal approvals.

Trump issued an executive order on his first day in office that stopped leasing and permitting for new offshore wind projects. Empire Wind, however, has had a federal lease since 2017 and already had state and federal permits in place. 

Equinor, the Norwegian company developing the project, confirmed in a press release today that it had suspended construction to comply with a notice it received from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. “Empire is engaging with relevant authorities to clarify this matter and is considering its legal remedies, including appealing the order,” the release says. 

Construction on Empire Wind, which Equinor says had a gross book value of roughly $2.5 billion, started this month and was slated to finish in 2027. Once complete, it was supposed to produce enough carbon pollution-free electricity for 500,000 homes in New York. The construction employed 1,500 people, according to Equinor. The project included an onshore staging hub at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, which was anticipated to create around 1,000 union construction jobs.

“Stopping work on the fully federally permitted Empire Wind 1 offshore project should send chills across all industries investing in and holding contracts with the United States Government,” Liz Burdock, president and CEO of offshore energy trade group Oceantic Network, said in an emailed statement. “Preventing a permitted and financed energy project from moving forward sends a loud and clear message to all businesses — beyond those in the offshore wind industry — that their investment in the US is not safe.”

The US lags far behind Europe and China in deploying offshore wind, even though it has more potential than many other nations to harness the resource from its vast coastlines. Offshore wind could meet up to a quarter of the nation’s power needs by 2050, and it could pair well with energy-hungry data centers that are pushing up power demand in the US.

But on top of financial woes brought on by tangled supply chains and rising project costs, offshore wind has faced stiff opposition from the commercial fishing industry and residents concerned about turbines affecting ocean views. A turbine failure off the coast of Massachusetts that led to a blade breaking off and plummeting into the ocean fomented fears about the potential environmental impact of wind farms, although necropsies point to vessel strikes and fishing gear as the leading causes of whale deaths. 

“It’s the industrialization of our ocean, rubber-stamped by federal agencies and delivered by a foreign-owned corporation under the guise of climate action,” Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, said in an opinion published in the New York Post last week. 

Former President Joe Biden had set a goal of growing US offshore wind capacity from 42 to 30,000 megawatts by 2030. Since winds are typically stronger over the ocean than on land, offshore turbines were seen as an abundant source of renewable energy that would help the US eliminate pollution from power plants and fight the climate crisis. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul vowed to fight the Trump administration’s efforts to stop Empire Wind “every step of the way” in a statement released yesterday.

“If Trump had any ounce of compassion or care for the American people, he would be bolstering renewable energy projects like Empire that create stable jobs, allow families to breathe easier, and save more on electricity,” Xavier Boatright, Sierra Club deputy legislative director for clean energy and electrification, said in an emailed statement. “Instead, Trump is yet again prioritizing the interests of Big Fossil Fuel, and making Americans pay the price.” 

Oil and gas interests spent more than $75 million in campaign donations to get Trump elected last year. In January, Trump claimed “no new windmills” would be built while he’s in office, saying they “litter” the US like “garbage in a field.”

RetroTINK, a company that sells hardware for playing retro consoles on modern screens, says it will be temporarily suspending US shipments — even though the company wants to pre-pay President Donald Trump’s tariffs, as reported by Time Extension.

The company is suspending shipments “due to lack of guidance on how tariffs will be collected starting May 2nd,” RetroTINK’s Mike Chi says on Bluesky. “Without proper procedures in place, the risk of delays and lost packages is simply too high.” The company will resume shipments “as soon as we understand how to pre-pay tariffs on behalf of the customer,” he says.

In a post on its website, the company says that “we have not received guidance from the government on how US shipments will be processed.” April 23rd will be the last day to make non-expedited orders and April 28th will be the last day to make expedited orders for US-bound shipments.

Chi also says that the company expects that the situation “will be resolved eventually – but it is impossible to say when or how.”

President Donald Trump announced wide-ranging tariffs on April 2nd, and while he lowered them to 10 percent for many countries shortly after they went into effect a week later, the US currently has a 145 percent tariff in place on goods imported from China.

RetroTINK isn’t the only small business in games dealing with issues created by the tariffs. Fangamer, for example, is delaying preorders of the Pizza Tower Collector’s Edition because of “new tariffs targeting manufacturing in China that have made it impossible for us to estimate the CE’s final price.”

Playdate is about to get a big batch of new games. Today, Panic confirmed the first details of the handheld’s upcoming season 2, which will include 12 new games and run from May 29th to July 3rd, with two titles releasing each week. The full season will cost $39.

When the Playdate first launched back in 2022, it similarly came with a number of games from notable developers that released over time. The idea was that every Playdate owner would receive these mystery games at the same time as they launched weekly throughout the season, but ensuing shipping delays put a wrench in that plan. Panic says that with this second season it “hopes to deliver on that original idea,” while adding that the season will also include “a must see surprise for all those who want something… a little different.”

In addition to the date and price of season 2, Panic also revealed four of the games that will be featured. They include:

• Fulcrum Defender, a “crank-powered, arcade action game” from Subset Games, the studio behind strategy classics Into the Breach and FTL: Faster Than Light.

• Taria & Como, a “physics-based puzzle platformer where movement is built around swinging instead of jumping,” from Popseed Studio Inc and JuVee Productions.
• A classic-style point-and-click adventure from Pixel Ghost called Shadowgate PD.
• And Dig! Dig! Dino! from Dom 2D and Fáyer, which is about, well, digging dino bones.

Panic also announced a new yellow case for the handheld, which is available to order today for $34.

After the Cambridge Analytica data scandal broke in 2018, things got bad enough for Meta (then Facebook) that Mark Zuckerberg had to face Congress to try to explain what had happened. The focus on how much data Facebook had on everyone, including “shadow profiles” for non-Facebook users, was enough to shake financial markets and, eventually, prompt a public apology tour from Mark Zuckerberg.

Now we’ve learned from a slide presented today at FTC v. Meta during former COO Sheryl Sandberg’s testimony that the company’s board of directors considered offering ad-free Facebook subscriptions as part of its response to the backlash. With users realizing that the company’s “free” services were paid for by their own data, maybe offering a way to pay for more privacy could change the narrative.

The Proposed Product and Goal bullet points:

• Paid monthly subscription offering that allows users to experience Facebook (and potentially our other apps) without ads.
• Goal: Provide an advertising ‘opt out’ and address the meme: ‘if you are not paying for a service, you are the product.’

Instead of launching the subscription, the company outlined plans to reduce the amount of data it made available to outside developers. Meta eventually launched an ad-free subscription option in 2023, but only in the European Union. The “pay or consent” model has still drawn criticism from regulators over Meta’s implementation, and last November, it cut the price of the subscription by 40 percent.

The state of New Jersey has filed suit against Discord claiming the company engaged in “deceptive and unconscionable business practices” that put children at risk. The suit was filed Thursday and alleges the popular messaging app of not doing enough to keep its youngest users safe from predators and violent content. Here’s a link to the complaint.

The suit claims that Discord’s existing protections for children are either inadequate or are easy to circumvent. For example, while Discord prohibits users under the age of 13 from making an account, it does nothing to verify users are the age they claim.

“All Discord does to verify a new user’s age is require the user to enter a birthdate — meaning any 8-year-old can access the application merely by saying they are 13,“ the lawsuit reads. Additionally, Discord has settings that will filter messages based on the sender. However by default, the the app lets any message from a user’s friends get through without being scanned. This feature, the lawsuit claims, when combined with the ability to receive friend requests from anyone, permits children to receive inappropriate messages.

Discord has been sued before for allegedly not taking enough steps to protect its youngest users. This suit from the New Jersey attorney general represents the first state action taken against the app and is one of several legal actions taken against large gaming-centric platforms centered on protecting children from exploitation, violence, and sexual content.

Discord has recently implemented an experimental pilot program that scans a user’s face or ID in order to access sensitive content in accordance with local child safety laws in the UK and Australia. In an email to The Verge, Discord spokesperson Jillian Susi wrote, “Discord is proud of our continuous efforts and investments in features and tools that help make Discord safer. Given our engagement with the Attorney General’s office, we are surprised by the announcement that New Jersey has filed an action against Discord today. We dispute the claims in the lawsuit and look forward to defending the action in court.” 

Smartphones with folding OLED screens have been around for over six years, but China’s Readmoo is the first company to announce a consumer-ready e-reader with a folding E Ink display. Details on when its mooInk V will ship, or how much it will cost, haven’t been announced. Yet the company says it has spent nine years working with E Ink to develop an electronic paper screen they claim can survive over 200,000 bends.

When opened, the mooInk V has an 8-inch touchscreen based on E Ink’s Gallery 3 display technology. Unlike the Kaleido 3 screen in the Kindle Colorsoft, which relies on a color filter over a black-and-white E Ink panel that limits color reproduction to just 4,096 shades, Gallery 3 uses colored ink capsules that can produce over 50,000 shades at a resolution of 300ppi. Only a small number of devices currently use the Gallery 3 technology, like last year’s Remarkable Paper Pro.

Although E Ink has demonstrated prototypes of folding e-readers in the past, its display technology is much thicker than OLED panels, making it more difficult to design a reliable hinge and a screen that can survive the rigors of daily use. That’s the main reason it’s taken Readmoo so long to develop and refine the folding panel used in its mooInk V e-reader.

With a body made from lightweight but strong aluminum-magnesium alloy finished with a silver metallic paint, Readmoo says the mooInk V weights around 225 grams, which is just a few grams heavier than the Kindle Colorsoft. Specific dimensions haven’t been revealed, but when folded its dimensions are smaller than a paperback, potentially making it easier to slip into a pocket than a Kindle. The e-reader can also be opened flat for reading, or used at a 90-degree angle, similar to reading a print book, but it remains to be seen how comfortable the ergonomics of holding it that way will be.

It doesn’t look like the two sides of the mooInk V lie perfectly flat against each when the device is folded like phones such as the SamsungGalaxy Z Fold 6 now do. There’s a noticeable gap near the hinge to reduce stress and damage where the E Ink panel actually folds. But it will also be the first folding e-reader to be available for consumers.

Google is the latest AI service provider to court users in higher education. Starting today, college students in the US can sign up for Google’s One AI Premium plan for free, shirking the usual $20 monthly subscription fee until June 30th, 2026.

Applicants will need to sign up before the deal expires on June 30th, 2025 according to Google spokesperson Alex Joseph, and will need a valid .edu email address for verification. He told The Verge that students will be emailed toward the end of their plan, “so you will have plenty of time to cancel.”

The plan includes 2TB of cloud storage and access to an assortment of Google’s AI offerings that aim to help students “study smarter.” Google One AI Premium includes Gemini 2.5 Pro-powered tools like Gemini Advanced, which is Google’s competitor to ChatGPT Plus, and Gemini Deep Research features that can be used to summarize complex topics and convert reports into a podcast-style audio format. 

Users can also access NotebookLM Plus for more studying and audio summarization features, and integrate Google’s Gemini assistant directly into Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Some new tools are also included, such as Google’s new Veo 2 text-to-video AI model, and Whisk, which allows users to “mix text and image prompts to create something new.”

OpenAI and Anthropic have announced their own education initiatives this month, similarly hoping to attract students with a free taste of their AI tools. Academia is an important market, so it’s hardly surprising that Google has thrown its own hat in the ring, especially with AI being the biggest threat to its web search empire.