The company had spent over a year developing a new version of the Vestaboard called the Smart Bits that was “a completely new way to experience Vestaboard’s patented character units” that also “pushed the limits of design, engineering, and manufacturing,” according to the company’s founder and CEO, Dorrian Porter. But, when faced with economic uncertainty as a result of President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese-made goods, the company pivoted and instead created the Note.
Functionally, the Note is nearly identical to the original Vestaboard. But instead of using 132 split-flap mechanisms, which the company calls Bits, the Note only features 45. Each can display 64 alphanumeric characters plus other symbols like punctuation, solid colors, and a newly added red heart. The display measures 24.5 inches wide, or 28.4 inches with an optional bezel frame that adds $169 to the full retail pricing.
Messages, patterns, and images can be created using a web interface or a free accompanying mobile app for iOS and Android. They’re sent to the Note over Wi-Fi or an Ethernet cable. In addition to a library of existing designs and inspirational quotes, the app allows messages to be scheduled, sent to other Vestaboard users you’re friends with, or even silenced during certain hours of the day. As hypnotic as the sound of over 2,800 spinning flaps may be, you probably don’t want the Vestaboard Note waking you up in the middle of the night.
Elon Musk isn't as publicly, obviously involved in Washington as he used to be, that much is clear. But celebrations of his political exile are premature.
Sure, it's true that Musk and Donald Trump's bombastic joint press conferences have faded. Trump is no longer shooting Tesla ads on the White House lawn. And Musk has said that he'll be stepping away from government and focusing on Tesla.
The GP-VPT3 is $20 more expensive than its predecessor, but also more functional. | Image: Sony
Sony announced a new version of its multi-function shooting grip and compact tripod that puts its wireless controls on a removable remote. Previous versions featured controls that could operate basic functions of an attached camera while holding onto the grip. The new GP-VPT3 makes them even more useful for solo content creators who can now operate a camera while standing in frame in front of it.
Sony still sells the older version for $139.99, but the added functionality of the new GP-VPT3 Multi-Function Shooting Grip comes with a small price bump to $159.99. The bundled remote, which Sony calls the RMT-VP2 Wireless Remote Commander, is sold separately for $89.99 for those who don’t need the grip or don’t want to replace their existing one.
The GP-VPT3 is compatible with Sony’s Alpha Series cameras and smaller vlogging cameras like last year’s ZV-E10 II. It can support up to 3.3 pounds, which means you can potentially use it with larger lenses too, as long as they don’t protrude too far off the camera and shift its center of balance.
The RMT-VP2 remote connects to Sony’s cameras over Bluetooth and has a range of about 33 feet. It includes a shutter button, a dedicated movie record button, a rocker that can be used to control zoom or focus, a button for turning autofocus on and off, and a C1 button that can be customized to control other functions.
As with previous versions of the grip, the new GP-VPT3 connects to a camera using its tripod mount and has a flexible head allowing an attached device to tilt forwards and back and swivel 360 degrees. It can function as an ergonomic handle, putting the most important camera controls at finger’s reach when shooting one-handed. It also unfolds and becomes a stubby tripod, making it easier to set the camera up at a specific angle for timelapses, or for filming yourself.
Here's what we know: it's probably not smart glasses. Beyond that, we don't know much about what Jony Ive and OpenAI are building through their newly combined company io, except that it's some kind of AI super-gadget. But after a couple of years of watching the industry try and shove AI into every form factor you can imagine, we have some guesses.
On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay and David are joined by The Verge's Alex Heath to talk through all the things we know, kind of know, and don't know at all about what io is up to. There's some interesting reporting on the notion of the device as a companion to your phone and laptop, some connections to the original iPod Shuffle, and still a lot of questions about how this will work and whether you'll want it. We won't see this device for a while, but don't worry - we'll surely keep talking about it.
Glitch, the coding platform where developers can share and remix projects, will soon no longer offer its core feature: hosting apps on the web. In an update on Thursday, Glitch CEO Anil Dash said it will stop hosting projects and close user profiles on July 8th, 2025 — but stopped short of saying that it’s shutting down completely.
Users will be able to access their dashboard and download code for their projects through the end of 2025, and Glitch is working on a new feature that allows users to redirect their project subdomains. The platform has also stopped taking new Pro subscriptions, but it will continue to honor existing subscriptions until July 8th.
Without these key features, it’s not clear what will be left of Glitch. When The Verge reached out to Dash for clarification, he said the dashboard, app redirects, and code download tools are the “only user features that we’ve confirmed availability” for after July 8th. “Anything else that we would have to share would come in a future update, but it’s just that very minimal feature set for now.”
Dash launched Glitch in 2017 under Fog Creek Software, but it was acquired by the cloud service provider Fastly in 2022. In the blog post announcing the update, Dash said the time and money required to host apps “has greatly increased as the platform has gotten older and bad actors try to misuse the platform.” However, Dash tells The Verge the team is “still figuring out what plans might be possible for Glitch and its community going forward.”
President Donald Trump has threatened Apple with a tariff of “at least 25 percent” just for its iPhones unless it moves production to the United States.
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S. Thank your for your attention to this matter!”
The threat comes a week after Trump declared that he’d “had a little problem with Tim Cook,” following reports that Apple intends to source all of its US iPhones from India, which will require ramping up Indian production. Just yesterday the Financial Times reported that FoxConn, Apple’s main manufacturer, is developing a $1.5 billion plant in southern India’s Chennai to supply iPhone displays. Apple has been diversifying its production for several years, which was accelerated by both covid and US animosity towards China.
India is currently subject to the “baseline” 10 percent tariff that applies worldwide, while China is at a higher 30 percent rate, though that could rise substantially in August once a 90-day reduction in rates lifts. Phones, and most of Apple’s other products, are exempt from the majority of those rates anyway, but the ongoing uncertainty gives Apple good reason to continue expanding production outside China.
After a six-year absence, Nike will soon begin selling products directly on Amazon, having previously stopped in 2019 to go it alone. At the same time, the company is reportedly set to increase prices across most of its sneakers and other clothes in the wake of recent US tariffs.
Nike stopped selling through Amazon after just two years on the platform, blaming the decision to end sales on Amazon’s inability to crack down on counterfeiters and unlicensed sellers. Just as pivotal was its desire to build its own direct-to-consumer sales platforms in the Nike app and website, which saw it reduce its other retail partners around the same time.
Nike goods have continued to appear on Amazon in the years since, but only sold by third-party sellers on the platform. According to The Information those merchants have been told that they have until July 19th to stop selling certain Nike products.
“While independent sellers have listed some Nike inventory in our store for many years, Amazon will soon begin sourcing a much wider range of Nike products directly to expand our selection for US customers,” Amazon spokesperson Megan Lagesse told The Verge. “We value independent sellers, and we’re providing an extended period of time for the small number of sellers affected to sell through their inventory of overlapping items.”
Nike’s direct-to-consumer strategy seemed to be working well during the covid pandemic, when online shopping spiked, but has wobbled since. In 2023 the company began restoring its relationships with retailers including Foot Locker and Macy’s, and new CEO Elliott Hill, who took up the post in October 2024, has made building back Nike’s wholesale business a key pillar of the company’s plans.
CNBC reports that Nike is also set to raise prices across its products from June 1st, likely in response to US tariffs. Adult clothes and shoes priced above $100 will rise by $2 to $10, though cheaper goods and children’s products won’t be affected. Nike will also avoid raising the price of its $115 Air Force 1 shoe and some of its Jordan-branded apparel.
Discord has become the place for gaming communities on the internet. The company just celebrated its 10th anniversary, and its impact is now big enough that it's available directly on PlayStation and Xbox and was ripped off by Nintendo for the Switch 2's GameChat.
But as it tries to grow, one of the big challenges Discord faces is that, for big or longer-running communities, it can be hard to know where to start, hard to catch up to the speed of real-time conversations, and hard to sift through the potentially huge amounts of conversations and channels. A lot of communities used to form around forums, but Discord just isn't a good replacement for that kind of structured messaging, as covered by Aftermath's Luke Plunkett.
"This is something we want to solve," Peter Sellis, Discord's SVP of product, tells The Verge. "It is not our intention to lock a bunch of this knowledge into Discord."
One way Discord wants to tackle the problem is add features that are "more amicable to structured knowledge sharing, like forums, that we could probably do a better job of investing in and is something we want to do for game developers," Sellis says.
Marvel Studios has pushed back the release dates of Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Doomsday is being delayed from May 1st, 2026, to December 18th, 2026. Secret Wars’s release has been pushed from May 7th, 2027 to December 17th, 2027.
The Russo brothers are returning to direct the two films. Robert Downey Jr. will also be back, though this time as Doctor Doom instead of Iron Man, and Marvel reportedly spent big to get him.
Marvel has also already revealed that Doomsday will have a gigantic cast that includes actors from other Avengers movies, more recent Marvel films, a bunch of X-Men, and even stars from this year’s Fantastic Four: First Steps. Chris Evans is reportedly returning for Doomsday, too, but it’s unclear in what role.
Disney will replace Doomsday’s May 1st, 2026 release slot with The Devil Wears Prada 2, THR says. Earlier this month, Disney released Thunderbolts*, and First Steps will follow on July 25th.
Elden Ring will soon be more than just a hit video game. On Thursday, Bandai Namco and A24 announced a live-action Elden Ring film directed by Alex Garland.
Japanese developer FromSoftware released Elden Ring across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC in 2022, while a version for the Nintendo Switch 2 is set to be released this year. The action RPG became an instant hit, and puts you in the role of a Tarnished tasked with restoring the Elden Ring by defeating various challenging bosses throughout the Lands Between. The Elden Ring spinoff Nightreign is coming out on May 30th, 2025.
Garland is a writer, director, and producer best known for films like Ex Machina, 28 Days Later, and Dredd.
FromSoftware first hinted at the potential to expand Elden Ring “beyond the realm of games” in 2022. Last year, George R.R. Martin — the A Song of Ice and Fire creator who helped write the game — also said, “There is some talk about making a movie out of Elden Ring.” A publication called Nexus Point News first reported on the adaptation with A24 earlier this month, but pulled its original article and didn’t explain why.
As YouTube prepares to air an exclusive NFL opening week game for free on September 5th, it’s hiring former Disney exec Justin Connolly. The move has caused Disney to respond by suing both YouTube and Connolly, saying he was in the middle of leading the team negotiating Disney’s license renewal with YouTube.
He’d most recently been running the streaming services and linear media networks at Disney, and will take over as YouTube’s new global head of media and sports, as first reported by Bloomberg. After spending more than 20 years at Disney and ESPN, he’ll be managing YouTube’s relationship with the media companies that distribute content on YouTube TV, as well as leading its live sports coverage.
Bloomberg also first reported the lawsuit filed yesterday in California Superior Court, as Disney alleges that YouTube induced Connolly to breach a three-year employment contract that started in January and would’ve kept him there as an executive until an early termination option for March 1st, 2027. Connolly left Disney last week, just months before the launch of its standalone ESPN streaming service this fall.
In its complaint (which you can read below), Disney’s lawyers write:
Critically, Connolly leads the Disney team negotiating a license renewal with YouTube. Connolly has intimate knowledge of Disney’s other distribution deals, the financial details concerning Disney’s content being licensed to YouTube, and Disney’s negotiation strategies, both in general and in particular with respect to YouTube. It would be extremely prejudicial to Disney for Connolly to breach the contract which he negotiated just a few months ago and switch teams when Disney is working on a new licensing deal with the company that is trying to poach him.
YouTube did not comment on the lawsuit.
YouTube has become a growing force in live sports, with its live TV streaming service amassing more than 8 million subscribers and adding the NFL Sunday Ticket package in 2023. The platform will also. Earlier this year, YouTube revealed that it has become more popular on TVs than phones.
Other streaming companies have also increased their focus on sports recently, with Amazon preparing to broadcast NBA games and Inside the NBA next season, Apple’s close relationship with MLB and MLS, as well as Netflix’s broadcasts with the NFL and other events.
Update, May 22nd: Added details of Disney’s lawsuit.
An image of Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski’s AI-generated avatar.
Tech company CEOs aren’t just making their companies AI-first: this week, they’re using AI avatars to replace themselves in earnings calls.
Buy-now-pay-later company Klarna featured the AI version of CEO and co-founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski in an 83-second video about its Q1 2025 results, as reported by TechCrunch. The video’s description says that his “AI avatar” is presenting the results, and the AI avatar kicks off the video by saying that “it’s me, or rather, my AI avatar.”
Klarna has already been vocal about how it uses AI in its business, with Siemiatkowski telling CNBC this month that the company shrunk its workforce in part as a result of its AI investments. This also isn’t even the first time the company has used an AI version of Siemiatkowski to share earnings.
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan also deployed an AI version of himself for the company’s Q1 2026 earnings call on Wednesday. “Today, I’m using our custom avatars for Zoom Clips with AI Companion to share my part of the earnings report,” Yuan’s avatar said in a video. “I’m proud to be among the first-ever CEOs to use an avatar in an earnings call.” In the top right corner of the video, you can see a message that says “created with Zoom AI Companion.”
The human Yuan showed up for the live Q&A portion of the call, though. “I truly love my AI-generated avatar,” he said while responding to the first question. “I think we are going to continue using that. I can tell you — I like that experience a lot.” Perhaps not surprising from the guy who wants “digital twins” to attend meetings on your behalf.
In a pretty bare-bones press release accompanied by a couple of pictures and detailed specs, Ricoh surprise announced that its long-awaited GR IV camera will launch this fall. The GR IV will adhere closely to the design of the GR III from 2018, and it will continue to use an autofocusing 28mm-equivalent f/2.8 lens and only a rear LCD for composing photos and videos, with no electronic or optical viewfinder available.
The GR IV’s exterior looks very similar to the GR III / GR IIIx, with an oval-shaped shutter button, on / off switch and mode dial up top, and a smattering of rear controls to the right of its LCD. Its buttons look redesigned, removing the spinning dial from around its four-way directional pad. And its adjustment thumb wheel, labeled “ADJ,” looks like it may be a fully turning dial instead of just a back-and-forth toggle that moves left or right. (I may be wishcasting that last part, because I think the thumb toggle on the GR III is annoying and fiddly.)
What’s known for certain based on its spec list is that the GR IV retains the built-in ND filter of the GR III, but it slightly ups the resolution of its large APS-C sensor from 24 megapixels to 26.
It will also have a higher ISO range that reaches 204,800 at its maximum setting, and five-axis stabilization instead of three-axis stabilization. The GR IV’s lens may be the same focal length and maximum aperture as previous generations, but it’s a new seven-element design in a new arrangement utilizing an additional aspherical element that should yield better corrections. The upcoming camera will also have face and eye detection for its autofocus tracking, and 53GB of usable built-in storage. Onboard storage is great, and it’s much more than the GR III’s 2GB, but the GR IV is also downsizing from full-size SD cards to microSD.
While there isn’t a price yet, Ricoh has confirmed the GR IV is expected to release in the autumn of 2025, with a variant featuring a Highlight Diffusion Filter (HDF) to come “after winter 2025.” The announcement also details that the GR III is scheduled to be discontinued in July, while the GR IIIx continues “for the time being.” The Ricoh GR cameras have carved out a niche among street photographers who value their super-compact size and fairly affordable prices compared to a Fujifilm X100 or Leica Q. As cool and fun as I thought the just-announced Fujifilm X Half might be, the GR IV has instantly become my most anticipated camera of 2025.
Valve has been building up to this for months, first in preview, then in beta, and now finally in a full stable release: a new version of SteamOS that brings brand-new features to the Steam Deck and supports third-party handhelds like Lenovo’s Legion Go and Asus’ ROG Ally series.
SteamOS 3.7.8 is the first stable release to add official support for the Lenovo Legion Go S, and the first to offer an official “recovery” image that lets you install SteamOS on other AMD handhelds like the ROG Ally and original Legion Go, as Valve promised us in January of this year.
Until now, those who wanted to try SteamOS on those Windows handhelds could shoehorn the Steam Deck’s original recovery image onto their device, or opt for a similar experience like Bazzite. But now, Valve explicitly provides instructions for getting that image working on a Legion Go or ROG Ally, even as it warns that “support for all devices that is not officially ‘Powered by SteamOS’ is not final.”
But even if you don’t care about rival handhelds, SteamOS 3.7.8 has a lot of improvements for the Steam Deck. I’ve been asking Valve to let me use my Bluetooth earbuds’ microphone since launch, and it’s finally happening in desktop mode (sadly not gaming mode yet) thanks to HFP/HSP profiles. You can turn on your Steam Deck LCD from across the room with a Bluetooth controller, a feature previously exclusive to the OLED model, which comes in handy when you’re docked to a TV.
Speaking of leaving it docked, you can now set a Battery Charge Limit to 80 percent for longevity’s sake if your handheld is always plugged in, frame-limit variable refresh rate displays, and control the P-state frequency of certain AMD CPUs.
It’s all underpinned by new versions of Arch Linux, new Mesa graphics drivers, a much newer version of the Plasma desktop mode, and more. Here’s the full SteamOS 3.7.8 changelog.
An updated SteamOS FAQ seems to suggest that Valve is ready to expand SteamOS beyond Lenovo and the Steam Deck. “We’re currently working with select partners on officially licensed Powered by SteamOS devices. Please reach out to us at [email protected] for more information about licensing SteamOS for your device,” one answer reads.
But the industry is still waiting for Valve’s other shoe(s) to drop. Rumors are still heating up that we’re close to the launch of Valve’s wireless VR headset “Deckard,” and that it might be pointing the way toward a SteamOS-powered living room console too. Valve has been moving slow and steady, but it seems like a master plan for Steam Machines could finally be coming into focus.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has officially dropped its case against Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The FTC filed an order to dismiss its complaint on Thursday, just days after it lost an appeal for a preliminary injunction to prevent Microsoft from finalizing its acquisition.
“The Commission has determined that the public interest is best served by dismissing the administrative litigation in this case,“ says the FTC in its filing. The filing brings an end to the FTC’s fight to try and block Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal, nearly two years after it originally sought a temporary restraining order and injunction from a US federal district court.
Today’s decision is a victory for players across the country and for common sense in Washington, D.C. We are grateful to the FTC for today’s announcement. https://t.co/nnmUI76q0lpic.twitter.com/KgLxhZppx3
Microsoft won its FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard in July 2023, and the deal was completed several months later, in October, nearly two years after the acquisition was first announced. The FTC had appealed the ruling nearly two years ago, but an appeals court panel affirmed the denial of an injunction earlier this month.
“Today’s decision is a victory for players across the country and for common sense in Washington, DC,” says Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith. “We are grateful to the FTC for today’s announcement.”
The electronics giant says the YU7 will get up to 518 miles of range on certain trims and accelerate from 0–62mph in just 3.23 seconds. The new EV, which is widely considered to be China’s version of the Apple car that ultimately failed to materialize, will be available for reservations starting in July.
The YU7 comes on the heels of the SU7, which has been a huge success for Xiaomi since deliveries began in March 2024. The company said it has sold over 200,000 SU7s as of April 2025, surpassing global EV sales for Ford and GM both.
But more importantly, the YU7 is being positioned as a direct competitor to the Tesla Model Y, which is Elon Musk’s company’s global bestseller. Xiaomi has been very clear about its intent to dethrone the Model Y in China. In response to Tesla’s refreshed Model Y, Xiaomi founder, chairman, and CEO Lei Jun responded by posting a size comparison between the two EVs. Yes, a literal EV-measuring contest.
Like the SU7, the YU7 will come in three variants (hat tip to Electrek for the helpful chart):
YU7 variant
Powertrain
Battery chemistry/size
Range
Power
0-100km/h acceleration
Standard
single RWD
LFP/96.3 kWh
835 km (519 miles)
320 Ps (~316 hp)
5.88 sec
Pro
dual AWD
LFP/96.3 kWh
770 km (479 miles)
496 Ps (~489 hp)
4.27 sec
Max
dual AWD
Lithium ternary/101.7 kWh
760 km (472 miles)
690 Ps (~681 hp)
3.23 sec
The YU7 has a lot more going for it, including its sleek, sports car looks. The vehicle is comparable to the Model Y in size and acceleration, but demolishes Musk’s SUV in terms of range. In his presentation, Lei Jun said that range is the number one consideration for EV buyers, which led Xiaomi to develop an SUV that would be a class leader.
On its website, Xiaomi described the Standard, single-motor YU7 as “the longest-range pure electric SUV with a sub-100 kWh battery and the top performer in the mid-to-large-size pure electric SUV category, achieving truly breakthrough range leadership.”
Other notable features include a Nvidia Drive AGX Thor in-vehicle computing platform, active air suspension, and an 800-volt architecture — with a peak voltage of 897V — that can fast-charge from 10–80 percent in 12 minutes, as well as add 620 km (385 miles) of charge in just 15 minutes.
Of course, whether the YU7 will truly oust the Model Y from its perch will depend on its price — and we’re not getting that detail until closer to July 2025.
Correction, May 23rd: This article originally referred to the YU7 as the PU7 in error. It has been amended throughout.
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun – Words of Vengeance is a new typing game based on Warhammer 40,000, and it’s available now for free on PC via Steam. The dark sci-fi spin on a typing teacher was shadow-dropped during a series of announcements made during the latest Warhammer Skulls Showcase. Also shown was a trailer for Boltgun 2, a sequel to Auroch Digital’s first-person shooter the new typing game is based on.
Words of Vengeance follows in the footsteps of games like Typing of the Dead where you type on-screen prompts as quickly and as accurately as you can to defeat enemies and progress in on-rails levels. It’s set in the world of Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun and uses the same pixelated 3D aesthetic with plenty of blood and violence, except the blood is spilled by typing.
As a fan of mechanical keyboards, I personally love occasionally firing up typing tests to hear what the latest keyboard I’m obsessing over sounds and feels like. But as much as I love Monkeytype or Keybr, an actual typing game offers a different kind of fun. The thought of going full boomer-shooter with my proper grammar and punctuation exercises just has me more stoked than ever. Plus, it’s free.
Brother! It’s time to get those fingers moving. More blood for the blood god!
The mystery is the point, but it’s also indicative of where AI hardware is.
The last 48 hours have been a wild rollercoaster ride for AI hardware. On Tuesday, Google ended its I/O keynote - a roughly two-hour event with copious references to AI - with its vision for Android XR glasses. That included flashy partnerships with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker, as well as the first hands-on opportunity with its prototype glasses for the developers and the majority of tech media alike. On the ground, it was among the buzziest things to come out of Google I/O - a glimpse of what Big Tech thinks is the winning AI hardware formula.
A day later, Jony Ive and Sam Altman kicked down the door and told Google, "Hold my beer."
If you've somehow missed the headlines, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that the company was buying Ive's AI hardware startup for $6.5 billion. That alone was enough to set the tech media sphere ablaze. After all, Ive is the legendary figure behind the iPhone and Apple Watch's iconic design, revered for his relationship to Steve Jobs. Altman is not only the most recognizable figure in this new AI era, he's also frequently compared to Jobs himself. It's a narrative that writes itself. But for gadget nerds, the real nugget was the tidbit that Altma …
A source tells Bloomberg that Apple’s glasses will be similar to Meta’s but “better made.”
Apple is planning to debut its first pair of smart glasses next year, according to a report from Bloomberg. The upcoming glasses will reportedly come with cameras, microphones, and speakers, “allowing them to analyze the external world and take requests via the Siri voice assistant,” Bloomberg says.
The glasses would also be capable of taking phone calls, controlling music playback, performing live translations, and offering directions. They’ll also reportedly feature an in-house chip, though plans for incorporating augmented reality still “remain years away.”
A source tells Bloomberg that Apple’s device will be similar to Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, “but better made.” Meta sold more than 1 million pairs of its Ray-Ban smart glasses last year, while Google just announced that it’s working with Xreal, Warby Parker, Samsung, and Gentle Monster to create AI smart glasses on its Android XR platform.
In addition to ramping up work on smart glasses, Bloomberg reports that Apple has scrapped plans to create a smartwatch with cameras and AI features, like Visual Intelligence. Apple is still working on AirPods with cameras, Bloomberg says.
The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that House Republicans narrowly passed early Thursday would strip state legislatures of AI oversight and scale back consumer protection and climate initiatives while funding border surveillance, among many other provisions.
The budget reconciliation bill still needs to be approved by the Senate, where some Republicans have voiced concerns with aspects of the text. But with President Donald Trump pushing for its passage into law, they could face an uphill battle in fighting for changes.
Here are some of the key tech and science provisions in the House version of the text:
Moratorium on state AI laws
States would be stripped of their power to enforce laws regulating artificial intelligence models and “automated decision systems” for 10 years under the budget package. That would likely preempt hundreds of AI-related bills being considered in 2025, as well as dozens that have passed into law — and on top of that, the broad “automated decision” language could nix regulating all kinds of computer systems not frequently classed as AI.
Republican supporters say the rule is necessary to let US companies innovate and keep up with rivals in China, and the idea has been promoted by OpenAI. More than 60 AI-related state bills have been enacted so far, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), many of which could be impacted by the proposed pause. The bills do everything from addressing algorithmic discrimination to regulating how AI can be used by government agencies.
Critics worry the definition could also hamstring laws covering all kinds of systems that feature automation or use machine learning. That might include rules championed by state-level Republicans, who have passed numerous social media regulations in recent years.
“Until we pass something that is federally preemptive, we can’t call for a moratorium”
A couple Republican senators have expressed concern over the moratorium. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), eyeing a run for governor, spoke at a recent congressional hearing about her state’s AI law that seeks to protect a musician’s right to their voice’s likeness. “We certainly know that in Tennessee we need those protections,” Blackburn said, according to The Washington Post. “And until we pass something that is federally preemptive, we can’t call for a moratorium.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who publicly opposed Medicaid cuts in the House bill, also pushed back on the state law pause. “I would think that, just as a matter of federalism, we’d want states to be able to try out different regimes that they think will work for their state,” Hawley recently told Business Insider. “And I think in general, on AI, I do think we need some sensible oversight that will protect people’s liberties.”
The provision could also face a challenge in overcoming the “Byrd rule,” which bars “extraneous” additions in reconciliation bills.
Cuts to green energy tax credits
Biden-era tax credits for electric vehicles would be deprecated within two years if the House package is signed into law, and renewable energy credits would be phased out early and subject to restrictions that would disqualify many projects. The slashed credits include a $7,500 credit for purchasing eligible EVs, or $4,000 for an eligible used one, as well as credit for home refueling infrastructure.
Updates shortly before the vote also rolled back key climate programs from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act even further than the bill initially did, though they also pared down an effort to roll back credits for nuclear reactors.
Scaling back funding for consumer financial protection
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which had already been decimated by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), would see its funding capped further under the bill. House Republicans seek to cap the amount it can receive from the Federal Reserve at 5 percent of the system’s total operating expenses, rather than the current 12 percent. That would reduce the resources the consumer protection agency would have to respond to consumer complaints over things like imminent foreclosures and credit card fraud, and regulate digital payments services.
Border tech funding
The bill includes billions of dollars to lock down US borders, including $12 billion to reimburse states for border security. In addition to the $46 billion it would invest to build and “modernize” the wall between the US and Mexico, the bill would also provide $1 billion in funding for technology to detect drugs and other contraband being brought across the border. Another $2.7 billion would go toward surveillance systems that House Homeland Security Republicans described as “ground detection sensors, integrated surveillance towers, tunnel detection capability, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), and enhanced communications equipment.”
Limiting gender-affirming care
Health care plans beginning in 2027 that are purchased through the Affordable Care Act marketplace would be barred from offering gender-affirming care, including hormone therapy and surgery. Similarly, the bill would prohibit Medicaid from covering “gender transition procedures” for minors and adults while requiring coverage for detransition.
