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The Sonos Move 2 is cheaper than ever, just in time for summer

The portable and capable Sonos Move 2 wireless speaker just hit its lowest price yet at Amazon and Best Buy, costing $336 (was $449) for each of its three available colors. It’s still pricey, but now it’s a better deal. Its built-in battery can last up to 24 hours of continuous playback, and, like the Era speaker lineup, the Move 2 boasts line-in support (but only after you buy the required $19 USB-C adapter) to let you plug in any 3.5mm audio source. Additionally, any audio you stream via Bluetooth to the Move 2 can be synched across any other Sonos speakers you have, which is a feature that’s not present in the first-gen model. Read our review.

Other deals we’re digging

  • Depending on your location, you might be able to find an open-box PlayStation Portal game streaming handheld for the PS5 at a nearby Best Buy that’s up to $70 or so off the usual $199.99 asking price. Pricing and availability will likely vary, but I can nab one in “excellent” condition for $135.99, which is reasonable enough for me to consider taking the leap. Perhaps, it will be for you, too. In addition to streaming PS5 games straight from your console, the Portal can also play cloud-based PS5 games, but only if you have a PS Plus Premium account.
  • I don’t particularly like recommending sound systems that claim to support Dolby Atmos, but that don’t have the upward-firing speakers necessary to really deliver a proper Atmos experience. However, Vizio’s 5.1 system (model SV510X-0806) is a bit too good of a deal to pass up, if you’re in need of a sleek, compact, and affordable kit. This four-piece system that’s down to $187.99 at Walmart (was $228) includes a 33-inch soundbar, a wireless subwoofer, and two satellite speakers for surround sound.
  • Some microSD Express cards have shot up in price since the news broke that the Switch 2 supports this kind of expandable storage, and 1TB cards are out of stock across the board for now. Some 256GB models have gone up to $70 or higher, but you shouldn’t spend that much. PNY’s 256GB card microSD Express card is $55.99 at Amazon. That’s roughly the same price as GameStop’s 256GB model that releases on June 5, the same day as the Switch 2.

Sesame Street’s next season will stream on Netflix

Sunny days are on their way to Netflix. The streamer just announced that the next season of Sesame Street will be available on Netflix “later this year.”

Season 56 of the show won’t be fully exclusive to Netflix, as the company says that it “has exclusive worldwide premiere rights and episodes will be available day-and-date on PBS stations in the US and across PBS KIDS digital platforms.” The streamer also says that the new season will include some format changes, describing it as “reimagined.” Those include new animated segments and what Netflix calls “one 11-minute story” per episode. “The longer format provides the opportunity to tell stories with even more character-driven humor and heart,” Netflix explains.

We are excited to announce that all new Sesame Street episodes are coming to @netflix worldwide along with library episodes, and new episodes will also release the same day on @PBS Stations and @PBSKIDS platforms in the US, preserving a 50+ year relationship.

The support of… pic.twitter.com/B76MxQzrpI

— Sesame Street (@sesamestreet) May 19, 2025

Sesame Street has been searching for a streaming home ever since it was dropped from Max (now HBO Max once again) at the end of 2024. In addition to the new episodes, Netflix says that it will be streaming “90 hours of previous episodes,” though there are no specifics as to what will be available. The streamer also intends to develop Sesame Street games as part of the deal.

The addition of Sesame Street will provide another boost to Netflix’s kid-oriented programming, joining recent additions like Ms. Rachel.

Google I/O 2025: how to watch and what to expect

Google I/O artwork.

Google’s annual I/O developer conference is almost here, and all eyes will be on the company’s opening keynote. But for the first time in years, we know there’s little reason to hope for major Android OS announcements, since Google already did that last week.

Instead, we’re expecting I/O’s keynote to be (almost) all about AI, though we do know there’ll be at least a little time devoted to XR.

When Google I/O will happen and where you can watch

Google I/O happens over two days, May 20th and 21st, but you probably want to know about the opening keynote. That kicks off at 10AM PT / 1PM ET on the 20th. You can watch it on Google’s I/O site or its YouTube channel, and we’ve embedded the livestream above for ease — there’s a version with an American Sign Language interpreter, too.

If you’re planning to watch, be sure to set aside ample time. I/O keynotes usually run for a couple hours, and even with no new Android announcements, we’d expect the same this time.

All about AI

As my colleague Allison Johnson put it over the weekend, the fact that this year’s I/O keynote will be focused on AI shouldn’t come as a surprise. Gemini and its ilk have dominated the event for two years running, and Google is embroiled in an AI race with OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and more. In fact, I/O kicks off a day after Microsoft’s Build developer event, which should make for an interesting back-to-back comparison.

It’s likely that Google will have lots to say about new Gemini features coming to phones and other devices, updated models with increased power, and hopefully some ambitious Project Astra updates that will show us the pie-in-the-sky side of Google’s AI work.

There’ll be some XR, too

I/O won’t be entirely about AI, as Google has already promised updates on Android XR, too. The company’s extended reality OS didn’t get much screentime during last week’s Android Show, other than confirmation of Gemini support to come, but a closing tease from Android head Sameer Samat suggested that we’ll at least see more from Google’s prototype smart glasses.

Samsung still says its Project Moohan Android XR headset is going to launch this year, so this might be Google’s last chance to detail the software side before Samsung steals the limelight.

Don’t expect Pixel or Nest hardware

Google used to use I/O to launch Pixel phones and Nest smart home tech, but it doesn’t seem keen on the idea anymore. If we were going to hear about new phones, tablets, or wearables, then it likely would have happened last week, and Google wouldn’t want anything to distract from its AI updates. There’s a chance we’ll see new XR hardware, but you shouldn’t expect anything beyond that.

How to watch Microsoft’s Build 2025 conference

Microsoft’s annual developer conference kicks off today in Seattle, Washington, during the same week Google hosts its own I/O developer event in Mountain View, California. Build will be focused on Microsoft’s latest platform changes for developers, including new AI announcements that are bound to go head-to-head with Google’s own news.

Microsoft is streaming Build online free of charge and developers, students, and engineers will also be able to attend the in-person event at Seattle’s conference center. I’m expecting Microsoft to focus largely on AI this year, with emphasis on its push for AI agents that Microsoft envisions working alongside humans as digital colleagues.

We may also get some news on Microsoft’s plans to host Elon Musk’s Grok AI model. I revealed in my Notepad newsletter earlier this month that Microsoft is in discussions with xAI to host the Grok AI model on its Azure AI Foundry service, with a potential announcement at Build this week.

Perhaps we’ll also see OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appear at Build, just like he did last year. In Notepad earlier this year I revealed that OpenAI had been planning to launch its GPT-5 model in late May, but sources familiar with OpenAI’s plans tell me that’s less likely now due to service changes and recent delays affecting the launch of other models. Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella are always keen to show that the partnership between the two companies remains strong — amid media reports of tensions — with the pair posing for a selfie earlier this month.

Nadella will kick off all of Microsoft’s AI announcements at 9AM PT / 12PM ET on May 19th, followed by a day two technical keynote hosted by Jay Parikh, Charles Lamanna, and Scott Guthrie.

How to watch Microsoft Build 2025 Keynote and Sessions

If you want to attend any sessions, then register for free here.

The keynote for Microsoft Build 2025 will start at 9AM PT / 12PM ET on May 19th.

Catch the keynote and the sessions here on the Microsoft Build 2025 page.

Stay tuned to The Verge for all the news coming out of the conference!

Apple is trying to get ‘LLM Siri’ back on track

Apple Intelligence has been a wreck since its first features rolled out last year, and a big new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman details why — and how Apple is trying to piece things back together. And much of its effort hinges on rebuilding Siri from the ground up.

Gurman has reported in the past that Apple is working on what it’s internally calling “LLM Siri” — a reworked, generative AI version of the company’s digital assistant. Apple’s previous approach of merging the assistant with the existing Siri hasn’t been working. Gurman describes in great detail a number of reasons why, but here’s a quick summary:

  • Apple software chief Craig Federighi was “reluctant to make large investments in AI.” The company doesn’t like to invest in a goal without a clear endpoint, Gurman writes, but where AI is concerned, one unnamed Apple executive told him “…you really don’t know what the product is until you’ve done the investment.” That would have meant expensive GPUs, which the company didn’t rush to buy and later didn’t have enough of to keep up with competitors.
  • Apple started late. Another executive told Gurman that Apple Intelligence “wasn’t even an idea” before ChatGPT launched in late 2022.
  • Apple AI chief John Giannandrea thought people didn’t want AI chatbots. He told employees that customers commonly want to be able to disable tools like ChatGPT.
  • Old Siri didn’t work with new Siri. Apple apparently saw bolting generative AI features onto the old Siri as the fastest way to catch Apple up in AI, but it wasn’t working. “It’s whack-a-mole. You fix one issue, and three more crop up,” an employee told Gurman.
  • Giannandrea didn’t “fit in” with Apple’s inner circle. Giannandrea was a rare outside executive hire when he came on in 2018, and he didn’t have the same “forceful” personality as others in company leadership. He didn’t fight hard enough to get big funding amounts, the report says. Apple employees told Gurman that Giannandrea didn’t push his workers hard enough, and that he doesn’t see big AI companies like OpenAI or Google as an urgent threat to Apple.
  • Marketing got out over its skis. The company’s AI marketing focused heavily on promised features like an improved Siri or Apple Intelligence being able to take context from apps across your system before they were ready — features that it has since been forced to delay.

Now the company is trying to rejigger its approach. Part of that is a total overhaul of Siri, rather than just trying to make generative AI work in concert with the old Siri. According to Gurman, Apple has its AI team in Zurich working on a new architecture that will “entirely build on an LLM-based engine.” Gurman reported in November last year that the company was working on this, and the idea is that it will make the assistant “more believably conversational and better at synthesizing information.”

Another part of the solution is leveraging iPhones and differential privacy to improve Apple’s synthesized data — comparing fake training data with language from iPhone users’ emails, but doing so on-device and sending only the synthesized data back to Apple for AI training. And one way the company is discussing improving Siri is letting the LLM version loose on the web to “grab and synthesize data from multiple sources.” Basically, Siri as an AI web search tool not unlike Perplexity, which is one of the companies Apple has approached about partnering for AI search in Safari.

Whatever the outcome, apparently Giannandrea won’t be a direct part of it, having been taken off of product development, Siri, and robotics projects in the spring. According to Gurman, Apple execs have talked about putting him “on a path to retirement,” but are concerned that some of the research and engineering folks he brought with him would leave with him, too. Whatever the case, Gurman says Giannandrea plans to stick around, “relieved Siri is now someone else’s problem.”

China begins assembling its supercomputer in space

Rocket launching.
China’s Long March 2D rocket.

China has launched the first 12 satellites of a planned 2,800-strong orbital supercomputer satellite network, reports Space News. The satellites, created by the company ADA Space, Zhijiang Laboratory, and Neijang High-Tech Zone, will be able to process the data they collect themselves, rather than relying on terrestrial stations to do it for them, according to ADA Space’s announcement (machine-translated).

The satellites are part of ADA Space’s “Star Compute” program and the first of what it calls the “Three-Body Computing Constellation,” the company writes. Each of the 12 satellites has an onboard eight-billion parameter AI model and is capable of 744 tera operations per second (TOPS) — a measure of their AI processing grunt — and, collectively, ADA Space says they can manage five peta operations per second, or POPS. That’s quite a bit more than, say, the 40 TOPS required for a Microsoft Copilot PC. The eventual goal is to have a network of thousands of satellites that achieve 1,000 POPs, according to the Chinese government.

The satellites communicate with each other at up-to-100Gbps using lasers, and share 30 terabytes of storage between them, according to Space News. The 12 launched last week carry scientific payloads, including an X-ray polarization detector for picking up brief cosmic phenomena such as gamma-ray bursts. The satellites also have the capability to create 3D digital twin data that can be used for purposes like emergency response, gaming, and tourism, ADA Space says in its announcement.

The benefits of having a space-based supercomputer go beyond saving communications time, according to South China Morning Post. The outlet notes that traditional satellite transmissions are slow, and that “less than 10 per cent” of satellite data makes it to Earth, due to things like limited bandwidth and ground station availability. And Jonathan McDowell, a space historian and astronomer at Harvard University, told the outlet, “Orbital data centres can use solar power and radiate their heat to space, reducing the energy needs and carbon footprint.” He said both the US and Europe could carry out similar projects in the future, writes SCMP.

I used two GPS hiking apps for backpacking and I’ll do it again

In which the phones website goes outside. | Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

For most of my life, I've relied on a paper map when I go outdoors. Then, in March, I joined my friend Rusty on the Appalachian Trail for two weeks. He told me to download FarOut.

FarOut was my introduction to the world of app-based navigation. It's focused on thru-hikers, and has useful details, including comments that tell you whether a specific water source is flowing, and if so, how well. It took me a minute to get the hang of it - I was hiking southbound, and it defaults to northbound - but once I did, I was impressed.

FarOut works like a guidebook. But the kind of backpacking I ordinarily do is on more offbeat trails in the local national forests - not the wilderness highways FarOut specializes in. So for my first solo trip, to the Ventana Wilderness area of the Los Padres National Forest, I thought I'd try out some of the other navigation apps, as part of an absolutely transparent ploy to get my job to let me fuck off outdoors more often; there are a lot of hikes I want to do. I suspect many of our readers are connoisseurs of the great indoors, but I also know you love gadgets, and let me tell you something: so do backpackers. You would not believe the conversations I hav …

Read the full story at The Verge.

In a year full of giant games, some little mice stand out

There have been a lot of big games this year that have felt all-consuming, like Monster Hunter Wilds or Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Maze Mice offers something different: a small, pick-up-and-play experience that takes a bunch of ideas from some classics and adds a clever twist.

The game, from Luck Be a Landlord developer TrampolineTales, mixes elements of Pac-Man, Vampire Survivors, and even the classic Snake. As an adorable, pixelated mouse, you zip around a maze to get blue experience gems that are guarded by cats. When you pass by the cats, they'll wake up and start chasing you, sometimes creating a hilariously long line of felines. (Cute ghost cats will also appear and inconveniently float right into your path.) All the action takes place on one screen, so it's easy to see where everything is at any given time.

When you get enough gems, you can pick from a selection of three power-ups. The upgrades are often a little silly, like knitting needles that fly through the air to attack the cats pursuing you, but as with Vampire Survivors, it's fun to experiment with different abilities to create interesting builds.

Maze Mice's most interesting feature is that time only moves whe …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The best wireless headphones get even better

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 83, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, please don't spoil Andor for me, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I've been reading about Mission: Impossible and Sam Altman's kitchen and bad roommates, ranting to PJ Vogt about all the ways I'm trying to use my phone less, writing all my scratch notes in Antinote, deciding to be cautiously optimistic about The Paper, rewatching the last season of Mythic Quest, watching and reading about life as an air traffic controller, trying to restart a meditation practice after discovering I get Headspace through work, and using Ludex to see if any of my sports cards are worth anything. So far… they're not.

I also have for you a pair of headphones you're practically guaranteed to love, two new sci-fi shows to check out, the new Airbnb, and much more. Let's dive in.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you reading / watching / listening to / playing / carrying around in a backpack this week? What should everyone else be just as into as you are right now? Tell me everything: ins …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Amazon claims it’s ‘constantly inviting’ new customers to Alexa Plus

Yesterday, Reuters ran a story with the headline “Weeks after Amazon’s Alexa+ AI launch, a mystery: where are the users?,” in which it detailed its difficulty locating first-hand accounts of the AI-upgraded assistants’ use online. The Verge asked Amazon about the story, and the company has responded to say that the idea that Alexa Plus isn’t available is “simply wrong.”

Here’s the company’s full — and rather strongly-worded! — statement on the matter, provided by Amazon spokesperson Eric Sveum via email to The Verge:

It’s simply wrong to say that Alexa+ isn’t available to customers—that assertion is false. Hundreds of thousands of customers have access to Alexa+ and we’re constantly inviting more customers that have requested Early Access.

Sveum also shared the below screenshot of what the email invite should look like.

Screenshot of an Alexa Plus invite email.

Alexa Plus is Amazon’s generative AI-updated version of Alexa, which it announced in February is free to Amazon Prime subscribers or $19.99 a month otherwise.

While Reuters doesn’t say Alexa Plus isn’t available to customers yet, it does quote an analyst who said, “There seems to be no one who actually has it.”

The outlet also reported that its efforts to find any real-world Alexa Plus users came up empty, writing that it had “searched dozens of news sites, YouTube, TikTok, X, BlueSky and Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, as well as Amazon’s Twitch and reviews of Echo voice-assistant devices on Amazon.com.” It added that it spoke with two people who’d posted on Reddit claiming to have used Alexa Plus, but that they “did not provide Reuters with hard evidence and their identities could not be corroborated.”

Still, Engadget reported today that a wave of emails had gone out on Friday, inviting Amazon Alexa users to try out Alexa Plus. The outlet also reported that an Amazon spokesperson had told it “hundreds of thousands” of customers have tried the assistant.

Amazon started rolling out its early access program to a few customers at the end of March. At the time, it was missing features like the ability to order takeout from Grubhub using conversational context, or identify family members and remind them about chores. A page on Amazon’s website notes that some features are still “coming soon,” like being able to access Alexa Plus in a web browser or on a Fire TV or Amazon tablet. The company has said it’s prioritizing those who own certain Echo Show devices above others.

How a DoorDash driver scammed the company out of $2.5 million

A former DoorDash delivery driver pleaded guilty this week to a wire fraud conspiracy that scammed the company out of over $2.5 million, the US Attorney’s Office in California’s Northern District announced on Tuesday. He and others made it happen over a period of months using fake customer accounts, deliveries that never happened, driver accounts, and access to DoorDash employee credentials.

Here’s how the Attorney’s office describes the scheme. The driver, Sayee Chaitainya Reddy Devagiri, placed expensive orders from a fraudulent customer account in the DoorDash app. Then, using DoorDash employee credentials, he manually assigned the orders to driver accounts he and the others involved had created. Devagiri would then mark the undelivered orders as complete and prompt DoorDash’s system to pay the driver accounts. Then he’d switch those same orders back to “in process” and do it all over again. Doing this “took less than five minutes, and was repeated hundreds of times for many of the orders,” writes the US Attorney’s Office.

Devagiri faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and is scheduled for a status hearing in September. He and four others were charged in August for their roles in the scheme, which prosecutors say was carried out between November 2020 and February 2021. The DoorDash employee whose insider credentials they used, Tyler Thomas Bottenhorn, was charged separately in 2022 and pleaded guilty the following year, the Attorney’s Office wrote in October.

Epic asks judge to make Apple let Fortnite back on the US App Store

Illustration of the App Store logo in front of a background of gavels.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

Epic is asking District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to order Apple to review — and approve if compliant with Apple’s guidelines — Epic’s submission of Fortnite to the US App Store in a new court filing. The company argues in the document that Apple is once again in contempt of the judge’s April order restricting it from rejecting apps over their use of outside payment links.

In a letter from Apple that Epic shared late Friday, Apple writes that it won’t “take action on the Fortnite app submission until after the Ninth Circuit rules on our pending request for a partial stay of the new injunction.” Epic claims the delay is retaliation for its legal fight with the company, and notes in its filing that Apple “expressly and repeatedly” told it and the court that it would approve Fortnite if the app complied with Apple’s guidelines, which it insists its current submission does.

Following Gonzalez Rogers’ decision in April, Epic said Fortnite would return to the US App Store. The company has since submitted the game twice, most recently to include content from an update to the EU version of the game. But instead of Apple approving Fortnite in the US, the game disappeared from the EU App Store.

Epic claimed that was because it can’t release in the EU because of Apple’s decision to block its US submission. Apple said it had merely asked that it resubmit the app without including the US storefront, “so as not to impact Fortnite in other geographies.” But in a post announcing its new filing, Epic claims that would mean it has to submit multiple versions of the app, which it says is against Apple’s guidelines.

Epic is asking that the court enforce its injunction, find Apple in contempt again, and require the company to “accept any compliant Epic app, including Fortnite, for distribution on the U.S. storefront of the App Store.”

The hitch here is that throughout this case, Judge Gonzalez Rogers hasn’t gone so far as to require Fortnite’s return to the store, finding in her 2021 ruling that Epic had still knowingly broken its developer agreement with apple. 9to5Mac writes that the judge would likely need to agree that Apple is once again in contempt of court, as she did in her April 30th ruling. The difference between now and then — and what could work in Epic’s favor — is just how annoyed she seemed with Apple in the text of that ruling.

Apple did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.

The Verge’s 2025 graduation gift guide

Graduation is one of those unique milestones in life that’s both exciting and nerve-wracking. It’s worth celebrating, but it also marks a new chapter that can feel overwhelming. That’s why your grad will surely appreciate a little support as they step into the next phase of their life, whether that be college or their first job.

Lucky for you, we’ve put together a list of gifts that are designed to make the transition into post-grad life a little smoother. Our picks cover essentials they might need for their first apartment or dorm — from kitchenware to tools — along with a few gifts to remind them of home. We’ve also sprinkled in a ton of gadgets to set them up for success, including e-readers and portable chargers. And because they’ve certainly earned some downtime, we’ve included a selection of other ideas to help them unwind and celebrate a job well done.

It’s time for Logitech to make a real Forever Mouse

A Logitech G502 Lightspeed mouse, black, rakish angles of its buttons toward the camera, surrounded by screws, an adjustable wrench, a precision screwdriver, and several hex keys.

Last fall, Logitech CEO Hanneke Faber was roundly ridiculed after suggesting the company would like to produce a "Forever Mouse" - a mouse with a monthly subscription fee for software updates. It seemed to betray a lack of understanding: many people who buy mice don't want software at all, much less software they have to pay for; the idea they'd pay every month is ridiculous.

But as I sit here with a perfectly good Logitech mouse, the best I've ever owned, I'm starting to think some sort of "forever mouse" wouldn't be such a bad idea. Logitech has an opportunity and a responsibility to make its mice last longer, and I have part of the proof right underneath my palm. I use a great mouse that is slowly disintegrating.

In some ways, my wireless Logitech G502 Lightspeed is already a forever mouse. I may never have to charge or replace its battery again, because I use Logitech's magic wireless charging mouse pad to automatically keep its battery at the perfect level. I haven't plugged in this mouse once in nearly three and a half years.

Luckily, the mouse's buttons and sensor have held up well over the same period, as far as I can tell. But the soft rubber grips that let me hold t …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Huawei’s first trifold is a great phone that you shouldn’t buy

Let's get one thing out of the way immediately: you shouldn't buy Huawei's trifold phone, the Mate XT. And that's alright, because you probably couldn't if you wanted to - while it's no longer exclusive to China, it's only on sale in a handful of countries, and not in the US or Europe.

Besides, I can reel off a list of major problems with the Mate XT: at almost $4,000 it's far too expensive, it doesn't have native support for Google apps (though you can get around that more easily than you might think), it's limited to 4G, and there are some pretty obvious reasons to worry about its durability. Any one of those individually would be a good reason to steer clear of buying the Mate XT. Taken together, they're insurmountable.

But this isn't a phone you're meant to buy, at least not outside China. It's a phone you're meant to gawk at on the internet, to marvel at Huawei's technological prowess, to ooh and ahh about its many and varied folds. This is Huawei showing off, proving to the world that it's still got it. And in fairness, it has.

As I sit and write this - more than six months after Huawei first released the Mate XT in China - it's still the only one of its kind. Rumor has i …

Read the full story at The Verge.

It’s parry season

If you like games with parrying, there are two great new ways to get your fix: Doom: The Dark Ages and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. These very different games - one is a fast-paced first-person shooter, the other a turn-based fantasy RPG - approach the mechanic in very different ways.

Let's start with Doom. One of the big new additions to the game is a giant shield for the Doom Slayer, and you can use it to block projectiles or enemy attacks. The game helpfully signals anything that you can parry in a bright neon green that's easy to see as you're rushing around and destroying hordes of demons.

When a green projectile gets within range or an enemy does a green attack, you can press the parry button at the right time to deflect the danger with a huge reverberation of your shield and an action-movie-like moment of slow motion. Like most of modern Doom's action, it all looks, feels, and sounds very satisfying. But parries are also critical for fights, as they can open up an opportunity to hit the enemy with a punch or a few shots from whatever monstrous gun you're wielding.

Stay keen for something green

In intense battles, I'm always hunting for green glints to find things to par …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google I/O will be an AI show

An image showing the Gemini logo on a dark blue background.

Android is getting its biggest visual update in years, and rather than unveiling it for the first time at its big annual developer conference, Google announced Material Three Expressive at a pre-show event broadcast on YouTube the week before. If a major design language shift for the world's most popular mobile OS doesn't qualify as a headliner at I/O, then what does? You guessed it: AI.

We expect Google to talk all about Gemini during I/O, which kicks off on Tuesday, and how it's improving it and bringing it to products in areas that consumers will see even more.

If you've paid attention to the past couple of I/O keynotes, this won't be a surprise. Android was barely mentioned in 2023, and CEO Sundar Pichai said AI so many times that we lost count. Last year's keynote was more of the same, except that Pichai saved us some trouble and counted mentions of AI for us. All of this reflects the very obvious, inescapable shift that Google and every other tech company have made recently to pump out AI features at a breakneck pace.

But in a way, less news about the newest Android OS at I/O is actually a good thing.

Google has made a big effort in recent years to bring new features to …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Meta faces Democratic probe into plans to power a giant data center with gas

Meta’s building a new AI data center so massive in Louisiana that the local utility company has plans to construct three new gas-fired power plants to provide it with enough electricity. Now, advocates and lawmakers are pressing Meta for answers about how it’ll clean up pollution stemming from the data center’s energy consumption.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, shot off a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday demanding answers about how much energy the data center would use and the greenhouse gas emissions that would be generated. Powering the new data center with gas “flies in the face of Meta’s climate commitments,” the letter says.

Tech companies are rushing to build out data centers to train and run new AI tools, driving up electricity demand. In this case, power utility Entergy wants to meet that demand with new gas infrastructure, raising concerns about the impact Meta’s data center will have on the environment and local residents.

“We urgently need corporate responsibility”

“Meta’s backslide from its own climate pledges risks triggering broader economic harm at a time when we urgently need corporate responsibility,” Sen. Whitehouse said in a statement emailed to The Verge.

In 2020, Meta pledged to reach net-zero emissions across its operations, supply chain, and consumer use of its products by the end of the decade. But the company’s carbon footprint is larger now than it was when it set that goal, according to its latest sustainability report, as it doubles down on AI

The company has tried to reduce its emissions by matching its electricity use with equal purchases of renewable energy. It’s a strategy Meta and other big companies often take: pay to support new clean energy projects to try to cancel out the environmental effects of your facilities plugging into a power grid that runs on dirty energy. Environmental advocates are increasingly concerned that this strategy still burdens communities with local pollution, and that the pressure to meet rising electricity demand from AI is boosting fossil fuel use rather than renewable energy. 

We’re seeing that tussle play out in Richland Parish, Louisiana, where Meta has plans to build its largest data center to date. It’s spending $10 billion on the project, the company announced in December. Once complete, the campus would span 4 million square feet, about as large as 70 football fields. But the project is moot unless Meta can ensure there will be enough electricity available for all those servers, a problem it’s working with Entergy to solve. Entergy proposed building three entirely new gas plants with a total capacity of 2,260 megawatts to support the data center, but it has to get regulatory approval first.

Some advocates contend that there hasn’t been enough transparency around Meta’s data center plans to help the public understand the potential impact on the local power grid. The New Orleans-based Alliance for Affordable Energy and the Union of Concerned Scientists filed a motion in March asking the Louisiana Public Service Commission to add Meta as an official party to proceedings over whether to approve construction of the new gas plants. Doing so would compel the company to disclose more information, and the commission is scheduled to consider the motion on Monday. 

“It’s hard to wrap your brain around [whether] a facility like this either might be good for your community or bad for your community without understanding the possible impact to your electrical system, your bills, and your water,” says Logan Burke, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy.

There are already forecasts that rapidly growing data center electricity demand could raise electricity bills in the US. Meta said in December that it would contribute $1 million a year to an Entergy program that helps older adults and people with disabilities afford their bills. Data centers have also been notorious water-guzzlers, although Meta says it would invest in projects to restore more water than it would consume.

Sen. Whitehouse’s letter, meanwhile, asks Meta to answer a list of questions by May 28th. On top of questions about the data center’s electricity use and greenhouse gas emissions, Whitehouse wants to know what the justification is for building gas-fired power plants rather than renewable energy alternatives. And it presses Meta to explain how the proposal aligns with its 2030 climate goal.

Meta maintains that it’ll continue matching its electricity use with support for renewable energy, including a commitment to help fund 1,500 megawatts of new solar and battery resources in Louisiana. It also said it would help fund the cost of adding technology to at least one power plant that would capture carbon dioxide emissions. Whitehouse wants to know how much funding it will provide and how much carbon will be captured. Carbon capture tech has been prohibitively expensive to deploy and costs are often offset by using the captured CO2 to produce more fossil fuels through a process called enhanced oil recovery.

“We received the letter and look forward to providing a response,” Meta spokesperson Ashley Settle said in an email to The Verge. “We believe a diverse set of energy solutions are necessary to power our AI ambitions – and we continue to explore innovative technology solutions.”

Entergy didn’t immediately respond to inquiries from The Verge. It has a goal of making sure that 50 percent of its generating capacity is carbon pollution-free by 2030. But the utility said that gas “is the lowest reasonable cost option available that can support the 24/7 electrical demands of a large data center like Meta,” in a statement to Fast Company, which first reported on Whitehouse’s letter.

GameStop will have more Switch 2 stock at launch

GameStop will have additional Switch 2 stock available in-store and online when the console launches next month, according to a post on X.

In-store launch events will begin at 3PM local time on June 4th, according to the company. Pickups start on June 5th at 12AM EST / June 4th at 9PM PST.

Online orders will also begin on June 5th at 12AM EST/ June 4th at 9PM PST, spokesperson Nicolle Robles tells The Verge.

Didn't pre-order Switch 2? We got you. pic.twitter.com/6Xa4QUzM3g

— GameStop (@gamestop) May 16, 2025

GameStop opened up its preorders on April 24th, and like with other retailers, the online preorders started poorly. Within a couple hours, the company confirmed that online preorders sold out, but many people, including The Verge’s Ash Parrish, had luck preordering in-store.

Best Buy said this week that “most” stores will have extra Switch 2 consoles available in-store at launch, too. The Verge has contacted Walmart and Target to see if they can share their plans for launch day availability.

And if you requested the chance to buy a console through Nintendo’s direct sales, check your email; invitations started going out on May 8th, and I got my own invite on Wednesday.

Update, May 16th: GameStop confirmed when online orders will begin.

Call of Duty: Warzone is winding down on mobile

Activision is starting to wind down Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile just over a year after its global launch. The game “has not met our expectations with mobile-first players like it has with PC and console audiences,” according to a post on X. The company will be pulling the game from the App Store and Google Play after Sunday, May 18th.

Players who have installed the game before Monday, May 19th will “still have access to the game with continued cross-progression of shared inventories using existing content, and servers with matchmaking for online play,” Activision says.

We deeply appreciate your dedication and passion for Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile. Going forward, we will be streamlining the scope of the game. This decision was made after careful consideration of various factors and while we're proud of the accomplishment in bringing Call of… pic.twitter.com/2FU3itRRZ9

— Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile (@WarzoneMobile) May 16, 2025

However, there will be no new seasonal content or gameplay updates, social features across platforms will not be available, and you won’t be able to buy content with real-world currency, Activision says on a support page. Activision will not be offering refunds for previously purchased content or for unspent COD Points.

Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile launched worldwide on March 21st, 2024, and it shared progression with Call of Duty: Warzone on console and PC. But it apparently wasn’t as successful as Activision and Microsoft, which became a huge force in mobile gaming as a result of the acquisition, would have liked.

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