If you want to get a head start on back-to-school shopping — or upgrade your Apple gear — there are already some great deals worth exploring ahead of Amazon Prime Day. From earbuds and laptops to tablets, the early deals are already starting to trickle in. Prices might drop even further during Amazon’s four-day sales event, sure, but gadgets like the latest AirPods and iPad Air are already matching their all-time low, giving you a solid chance to save before the four-day shopping event officially kicks off on July 8th. Even better, you don’t need to be an Amazon Prime member to take advantage of the current deals, as retailers other than Amazon are offering the same discounts across the board.

Below, we’ve gathered the best discounts across a variety of categories to make your shopping easier. To help you make an informed decision, we’ve also included notes on historical pricing trends, so you can see how they stack up against previous deals. We’ll be updating this guide as Prime Day approaches, too, so be sure to bookmark this page or keep an eye on all of our daily deals coverage.

The best earbud and headphone deals

• The AirPods 4 with ANC are currently on sale for $148.99 ($30 off) at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy, which is their second-best price to date and just $10 shy of their all-time low. Apple’s step-up earbuds are identical to the standard AirPods 4 but include active noise cancellation, though it’s not quite as effective as that of the latest AirPods Pro. They also offer a transparency mode, wireless charging, and a case with a built-in speaker that makes tracking easy via Apple’s Find My feature. Read our review.

• You can buy the Beats Studio Pro for around $179.95, down from $349.99, at Amazon, Target, and Best Buy, which is $20 shy of their best price to date. The over-ear headphones boast noticeably improved noise cancellation and sound over their predecessor, along with support for lossless audio over USB-C. And, like many other Beats headphones and earbuds, they offer native support for both iOS and Android software features. Read our review.
• If you don’t need active noise cancellation, the Beats Solo 4 are also on sale for around $129.95 ($70 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, which is $30 shy of their best price to date. The comfortable headphones build upon the prior model with better, bass-rich sound and support for spatial audio. They also now offer lossless audio via USB-C and an extended battery life of 50 hours. Read our review.

The best iPad and Apple Pencil deals

• You can buy the latest iPad with Wi-Fi and 128GB of storage at Amazon and Walmart starting at $299 ($50 off), which matches its best price to date. The 11th-gen model is a pretty minor upgrade over the 2022 iPad with twice as much base storage and an A16 Bionic chip, which, while faster, doesn’t support any of Apple’s AI-based Apple Intelligence feature. Read our review.
• The Apple Pencil (USB-C) is available from Woot for just $59.99 ($20 off) until July 1st. That’s one of the best prices we’ve seen on the comfortable Apple stylus, which can magnetically attach to the side of most iPad models from within the past three years or so. It also offers tilt sensitivity, though it lacks the Apple Pencil Pro’s pressure sensitivity and support for wireless charging.

The best MacBook deals

• The M4-powered MacBook Air 13 is available at Amazon and B&H Photo with a 10-core CPU, eight-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage starting at just $849 ($150 off), which is $50 shy of its all-time low. The latest Air is faster than its predecessor thanks to the addition of Apple’s newer M4 chip, and now offers double the base RAM at 16GB. It also features a sharper 12-megapixel Center Stage webcam and supports two external displays with the lid open, making it even better for multitasking. Read our review.
• If you prefer the 15-inch Air, the entry-level configuration with the M4 chip, a 10-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage is down to its all-time low of $1,049 ($150 off) at Amazon. The larger Air is identical to its smaller sibling, only it features a better six-speaker sound system and comes with the option of either a 35W Dual USB‑C Port Compact Power Adapter or a 70W USB‑C Power Adapter.

The best Apple Watch deals

• You can buy the latest 40mm, GPS-enabled Apple Watch SE at Amazon and Walmart for $189, which is $40 shy of its best price to date. Apple’s entry-level wearable is great for tracking the essentials, including your heart rate and sleep quality, and offers fall/crash detection, Apple Pay, and other conveniences. While it lacks the Series 10’s temperature sensor, EKG, and depth tracking, the SE still delivers excellent value if you don’t need advanced health features. It will also support the next iteration of watchOS, watchOS 26, when it arrives in the fall with its new wrist flick gesture and AI-powered “Workout Buddy.” Read our review.

Air tags and other miscellaneous deals

• You can buy the Anker MagGo Wireless Charger (Pad) at Amazon for $19.19 ($10 off) right now, which matches the charger’s best price to date. Anker’s Qi2-certified charging pad can deliver up to 15W of power to MagSafe-compatible iPhones, including the newer iPhone 16 models. It also comes with a five-foot cable; however, you will still need to supply your own AC adapter unless you spring for the $24 bundle.

• Anker’s MagGo Wireless Charging Station (Foldable 3-in-1) is available for an all-time low of $82.49 (about $28 off) at Amazon and directly from Anker (with code WS7DV2KWSEEN). The Qi2-certified charger can deliver up to 15W of power to compatible iPhone models while simultaneously charging a pair of AirPods and an Apple Watch. Its foldable, lightweight design also makes it convenient for travel or keeping your nightstand clutter-free.

While it wasn't the first film to feature fast-moving ghouls, there is no denying how much of an impact 28 Days Later had on modern zombie movies. It was a gripping and nauseating wonder, whose action felt uniquely visceral thanks, in part, to director Danny Boyle's inspired use of a digital video camera. And there was a gut-wrenching sense of hopelessness baked into writer Alex Garland's script that made 28 Days Later feel far more grounded than most of the zombie films that inspired it.

Boyle and Garland stepped back from the franchise as it continued with a graphic novel and director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's 28 Weeks Later in 2007, but they are back together again for 28 Years Later. Though it's set in the same world and calls back to the original, the new film hits very differently because of how much more overrun pop culture is with zombie-themed horror. You can feel Boyle and Garland trying not to echo other big pieces of zombie IP as they weave a new tale about how the world has changed almost three decades after the outbreak of a deadly virus. And in a couple of the movie's pivotal moments, the filmmakers manage to avoid being too derivative.

Many of this story's small …

Read the full story at The Verge.

If you’ve been curious about trying out a Mac for the first time or need a small computer powerful enough to be your home media server, we strongly recommend the latest Mac Mini. Thankfully, the step-up M4 model with 512GB of storage and 16GB of RAM is on sale at Amazon and B&H Photo for $689 ($110 off), which marks its lowest price ever. The entry-level model with 256GB of storage is also on sale at Amazon and B&H Photo for $469 ($130 off) — another all-time low.

Former Verge staffer Chris Welch called the machine “a tiny wonder” in his review last year, namely because of its size reduction and power boost over previous generations. Apple managed to pack a lot into a computer that’s five inches wide and two inches tall. We reviewed the upgraded 512GB model on sale here, and it performed very well using synthetic testing software, such as Geekbench 6 and Cinebench, as well as a 4K export in Adobe’s Premiere Pro. If you work with high-resolution audio, video, or photos, Apple’s latest Mini should be able to handle your projects without a problem.

One of the Mini’s other strengths is its abundance of ports. There are three Thunderbolt 3 ports, an HDMI port, and an ethernet jack on the back, along with a pair of USB-C (USB 3) ports and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the front. You can use these ports to connect up to three monitors simultaneously, plug it into a TV or projector without an adapter, switch from Wi-Fi to a wired connection on your home network, or attach other common accessories. Alas, the pair of USB-A ports that have been on the Mini for over a decade are gone.

One of our only knocks against the M4 Mini was how expensive it was to upgrade its RAM and storage capacity, but this deal helps mitigate that. Also, keep in mind that the Mini is a dedicated desktop computer, which means you will need to supply your own monitor, mouse, and keyboard. 

Even more great deals

• If you need a new pair of wireless earbuds for working out, the Powerbeats Pro 2 are still available for around $199.95 ($50 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. Beats’ latest earbuds feature a curved shape that wraps around the back of your ears to ensure a proper fit while exercising, IP4X water resistance to prevent damage from sweat, and heart rate sensors that pulse over 100 times per second to provide an accurate reading. The Pro 2 can also last up to 10 hours per charge and run on Apple’s H2 chip — the same chip found in Apple’s latest AirPods Pro — allowing them to support spatial audio, one-touch pairing with Apple devices, hands-free Siri, and location tracking via Apple’s Find My app. Read our review.
• You can grab a three-pack of Arlo Essential Security Cameras at Amazon for $119.99 ($40 off), which matches the bundle’s second-best price to date. The 1080p battery-powered cameras can be installed indoors or outdoors, and you’ll receive a notification anytime they sense motion. They also feature a spotlight and siren, and you can view a live feed from the cameras through Arlo’s smartphone app or pay for a premium subscription ($7.99 per month) to store videos in the cloud. 
• Marshall’s Emberton III speaker is down to $149.99 ($20 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, which matches its lowest price ever. The Bluetooth speaker can play music in true stereo, and automatically adjust its EQ as you raise and lower the volume to avoid blowing out its drivers. It also carries an IP67 rating, which means it’s dustproof and shouldn’t be damaged when submerged under a meter of water for up to 30 minutes. Marshall says the speaker can last up to 32 hours per charge, and plugging it in for 20 minutes will net you six hours of continuous playback.

Applebee’s and IHOP plan to launch an AI-powered “personalization engine” that could help its restaurants provide recommendations and customized deals, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The personalization engine would use a customer’s past purchases — or the orders of customers similar to them — to make recommendations.

Justin Skelton, the chief information officer at the restaurants’ parent company, Dine Brands, tells the Journal that an AI-powered personalization system would be designed to boost customer loyalty, as well as serve as a way to upsell products. As noted by the Journal, IHOP already has some information about its customers’ ordering habits through its rewards program.

Instead of chasing viral trends like Chili’s, other restaurant franchises have hopped on the AI bandwagon as well, with Wendy’s deploying an AI chatbot at its drive-thrus that can take orders and even upsell menu items. McDonald’s also recently resumed plans to put AI at the drive-thru and inside its restaurants, while Taco Bell revealed plans to put “Voice AI” technology at more than 100 of its drive-thrus across the US.

As noted by the Journal, Dine Brands is considering rolling out AI tools designed for staff members as well. Along with exploring the use of AI-powered cameras to detect when a table needs cleaning, it’s also testing an AI app for managers.

Amazon Prime Day is one of the biggest shopping events of the year outside of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and in 2025 it’s even longer than usual. It’s running from July 8th through the 11th. The four-day shopping affair will grant Prime members access to some of the best prices of the year on Amazon devices, as well as products from Sony, Sonos, Microsoft, Apple, Withings, and other well-known brands. This applies to items spanning a range of categories, including gaming peripherals, laptops, 4K TVs, phones, PC accessories, and more.

As always, you can count on us to publish only the best deals during Prime Day — as well as any worthwhile ones featured at Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and other competing retailers. That said, if you want to be sure you catch any and all deals that are most important to you — or be among the first to know of certain price drops — we’ve compiled some helpful tools and advice.

Below, we’ve spelled out a few of our best deal-hunting tips, from how to use automated price trackers to the different ways you can set up your own personalized deal alerts. All of these methods and tools are free to use, and once you put in just a little bit of work, you can rest easy knowing that you don’t need to take much action until it comes time to make a purchase.

Use a price-tracking tool or deal aggregator

CamelCamelCamel

CamelCamelCamel tracks the price of every product sold on Amazon and can send you alerts only when they reach the price that’s right for you. Once a product reaches the desired price you’ve set (or goes below it), you’ll get an email about it. CamelCamelCamel only works for products on Amazon, so you’ll need to use one of the other methods below if you want to track price movement at Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and other retailers.

To track prices and get alerts via email, you’ll first need to create a free account. We also suggest installing the site’s browser extension, called The Camelizer, which lets you see pricing trends on a product-by-product basis, and allows you to set your desired price without navigating away from Amazon. It’s fantastic and easy to use.

And, if you already have a wishlist saved on Amazon, you can import it into CamelCamelCamel.

Slickdeals

Slickdeals aggregates some of the best deals around the internet, as discovered by its team and community of users. It’s a great place to find a curated set of deals on things you might be interested in. The site also allows you to create deal alerts based on keywords, but they work a little differently on Slickdeals than they do on the above sites.

You can type in a product name, like “Sonos Era 100” or a retailer’s name, and once it’s added to your list, you’ll be notified of a deal alert if it meets your criteria. You can set it to alert you to any deal related to your keyword, or you can filter out deals so that you’ll be notified if, for example, the deal is popular enough to make it to Slickdeals’ front page or earned a high rating from the community. Setting these keywords a little too broadly may result in frequent notification pings and emails, though, so you’ll need to use some discretion and find the right balance of how aggressively you want Slickdeals to notify you.

Keepa

Keepa is another handy tool you can use to track and compare Amazon prices over time. Like CamelCamelCamel, Keepa provides charts that track pricing trends and will alert you when it finds a deal. You can also import any wishlists you’ve previously saved on Amazon.

Unlike CamelCamelCamel, however, you don’t necessarily need to create an account in order to track prices with Keepa. You just need to install the extension, and Keepa will automatically add a price history graph to supported product listings. The embedded extension features different tabs as well, one of which showcases pricing history and another that allows you to specify various pricing details. Once you’ve set your desired price, you’ll then receive price alerts via email, push notification, or RSS.

Set up deal alert notifications through Alexa or the Amazon app

If you’re a Prime member who owns a fourth-gen Echo speaker or a newer model, you can also request that Amazon send you deal notifications up to 24 hours ahead of time on products you’re interested in. Amazon can alert you of price drops on eligible products in your shopping cart or wishlist, as well as anything you’ve marked as “saved for later.” To enable the feature, tap More > Settings > Notifications in the Alexa app, and then tap Amazon Shopping. Then, scroll down to Shopping Recommendations and enable Deal Recommendations. Once done, you’ll receive a notification on both your device and your Echo speaker (the latter in the form of a yellow ring) notifying you of the deal.

Alternatively, you can sign up to receive deal alerts regarding products you’ve recently viewed in the Amazon Shopping app, as well as those related to your recent search history. If you’re a Prime member, you just need to navigate to the Prime Day event page in the mobile app between now and July 8th to create an alert. Once done, you’ll receive push notifications for any deal(s) you’ve subscribed to when the event begins. You can also just open the Amazon Shopping app and tap Settings > Notifications > Deals and Recommendations before toggling “Savings” and / or “Recommendations.”

Look for deals outside of Amazon

Prime Day is meant to show off Amazon’s huge retail presence, so, naturally, other retail chains take notice. Because of this, you can sometimes find better deals at retailers like Target, Walmart, and Best Buy. At the very least, they may be able to match Amazon’s pricing if you ask.

If Amazon’s upcoming sale doesn’t have everything you want or if you just want to make sure you’re getting the best deal, shop around a bit. For example, Target plans to run a “Circle Week” promo for members of its free Target Circle program starting on July 13th through the 19th. Best Buy, too, will be participating with its own “Black Friday in July” event taking place between July 7th and the 13th. Walmart will likely be hosting its own sale, too. And as usual, you’ll be able to find all of our deals coverage in and outside of Amazon here.

Trust the experts

We’re a discerning bunch here at The Verge, so don’t fret if you’re going into this without any prep. We’ll be corralling the best tech deals and keeping our coverage up to date in the run-up to the main event. So mark July 8th on your calendar, sign up for Amazon Prime and our new and improved Verge Deals newsletter, and maybe start putting aside a little spending cash.

Amazon released a new software update for several recent Kindle models last week. The company’s release notes only mention “performance improvements, bug fixes, and other general enhancements,” but the update includes notable upgrades when it comes to adjusting text and line spacing, improving legibility and accessibility for many users, as spotted by The eBook Reader.

The 5.18.3 software update currently supports the Kindle Scribes, Kindle Colorsoft, and 11th and 12th generation versions of the basic Kindle and Paperwhite models. Amazon is slowly rolling it out through the Kindle’s automatic updates system, but if you don’t want to wait, you can download the specific update file for your e-reader, copy it over to your device, and perform a manual update using the instructions Amazon has provided.

Previously, these Kindles only offered three basic line spacing options found under the “Layout” section, including options for adjusting the size of margins. The new spacing options are now found by selecting the button for the “Font” section, which takes you to a dedicated page. There, you will now find four size options for adjusting line spacing, paragraph spacing, word spacing, and even character spacing, plus the option to reset them all to default settings.

Customizing the text and line spacing on Kindles has long lagged behind the options offered by some of Amazon’s competitors in the e-reader space. However, while the latest generation Kobo devices still offer more size adjustment options for font size, line spacing, and margins, they don’t offer specific controls for paragraph, word, and character spacing. With the latest software update, these recent Kindle models could be a better option for users with a visual impairment, or those dealing with dyslexia.

Earlier this month, Microsoft’s Family Safety feature, primarily used by parents and schools as a set of parental controls and filters, started randomly blocking Google’s Chrome browser from opening on Windows. The first reports surfaced on June 3rd, with some Chrome users noticing the browser kept closing or wouldn’t open.

Microsoft has introduced a bug into Family Safety that specifically targets the Chrome browser and prevents it from functioning on Windows. “Our team has investigated these reports and determined the cause of this behavior,” says Chrome support manager Ellen T. “For some users, Chrome is unable to run when Microsoft Family Safety is enabled.”

Other browsers like Firefox or Opera appear to be unaffected, and some users have even found that renaming Chrome.exe to Chrome1.exe works around this issue. Schools or parents who have enabled Family Safety as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription can also disable the “filter inappropriate websites” setting in Family Safety to get Chrome up and running again, but this does leave children able to access any website.

It’s unclear when Microsoft will fix the issue, which has been ongoing for more than two weeks. We reached out to Microsoft to comment on this problem earlier this week, but at the time of publication, the company hasn’t responded.

“We’ve not heard anything from Microsoft about a fix being rolled out,” wrote a Chromium engineer in a bug tracking thread on June 10th. “They have provided guidance to users who contact them about how to get Chrome working again, but I wouldn’t think that would have a large effect.”

Microsoft has a habit of doing weird things on Windows to steer people away from using Chrome. While this Family Safety issue is likely an innocent bug, Microsoft has used prompts, fake AI answers, malware-like popups, and even a poll injected on Google’s Chrome download page to try and sway people to switch to its Edge browser. Earlier this year, Microsoft even used Bing to trick people into thinking they were on Google.

Tesla has begun sending out invitations for its highly anticipated robotaxi service, but there’s one significant caveat: it’s installing a “safety monitor” in the front passenger seat, as previously reported by Electrek. The invites, which were sent to Tesla influencers and investors, say the human monitor will “accompany you on your trip” when rides begin on June 22nd — a move that’s at odds with Elon Musk’s promise of fully unsupervised rides.

Details about Tesla’s robotaxi service have been slim in the weeks leading up to its launch, but Musk said in January that the company would launch its “unsupervised” robotaxi service with “no one in the car” this summer. Musk expanded on this in an April earnings call, saying the 10 to 20 Model Y vehicles would be remotely operated in the event of an emergency.

Tesla’s invitation outlines some requirements for robotaxi rides, including that riders must request service between 6AM and 12AM within a geofenced area, “excluding airports.” It adds that “service may be limited or unavailable in inclement weather,” which is often a challenge for autonomous vehicles. Invitees can bring one additional guest 18 or older.

Over the past couple of months, Tesla has faced pressure from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has asked the EV-maker for more information about “the ability of Tesla’s system to react appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions.” Texas lawmakers have requested that Tesla delay its robotaxi launch until a revision to the state’s autonomous driving law takes effect in September. It will require robotaxi services to get authorization from the Department of Motor Vehicles before operating without a human driver.

The idea behind Trump Mobile is relatively straightforward. It's easy to launch a mobile carrier these days, and it can be extremely lucrative - just ask Ryan Reynolds! You should know, though, that Trump Mobile is a pretty bad deal. And the network's supposed flagship phone? We're willing to bet that this $500, made-in-America, coming-soon device will end up being hardly any of those things. If it exists at all.

On this episode of The Vergecast, Nilay's off doing business meetings or whatever, so David and Jake are joined by The Verge's Dominic Preston to talk about all things Trump Mobile. They talk about the phones that resemble the Trump Mobile T1 Phone 8002, and whether any of them are a good deal in 2025. They talk about the rise in MVNOs, the many ways you can define "made in the USA," and whether there's an inkling of a good thing behind this obvious grift of a product.

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After that, David and Jake talk through some big news in the TV world: namely, that TV is dying faster than anyone expected. They discuss the ongoing rise of both Netflix and YouTube, the underrated success of FAST networks, an …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Meta is announcing its next pair of smart glasses with Oakley. The limited-edition Oakley Meta HSTN (pronounced “how-stuhn”) model costs $499 and is available for preorder starting July 11th. Other Oakley models with Meta’s tech will be available starting at $399 later this summer. 

Like the existing Meta Ray-Ban glasses, the Oakley model features a front-facing camera, along with open-ear speakers and microphones that are built into the frame. After they are paired with a phone, the glasses can be used to listen to music or podcasts, conduct phone calls, or chat with Meta AI. By utilizing the onboard camera and microphones, Meta AI can also answer questions about what someone is seeing and even translate languages. 

Given the Oakley design, Meta is positioning these new glasses as being geared towards athletes. They have an IPX4 water resistance rating and offer double the battery life of the Meta Ray-Bans, providing 8 hours of use, along with a charging case that can power them for up to 48 hours. The built-in camera now shoots in 3K video, up from 1080p for the Meta Ray-Bans. 

The new lineup comes in five Oakley frame and lens combos, all of which are compatible with prescriptions for an extra cost. The frame colors are warm grey, black, brown smoke, and clear, with several lens options available, including transitions. The limited-edition $499 model, available for order starting July 11th, features gold accents and gold Oakley PRIZM lenses. The glasses will be on sale in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark.

Meta recently signed a multi-year deal with EssilorLuxottica, the parent company behind Ray-Ban, Oakley, and other eyewear brands. The Meta Ray-Bans have sold over two million pairs to date, and EssilorLuxottica recently disclosed that it plans to sell 10 million smart glasses with Meta annually by 2026. “This is our first step into the performance category,” Alex Himel, Meta’s head of wearables, tells me. “There’s more to come.”

Late Wednesday night at about 11PM CT, SpaceX was about to perform a static fire test of Ship 36, ahead of a planned 10th flight test for its Starship, when there was suddenly a massive explosion at the Massey’s Testing Center site. SpaceX says “A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted for,” and that there are no hazards to residents in the area of its recently incorporated town of Starbase, Texas.

“After completing a single-engine static fire earlier this week, the vehicle was in the process of loading cryogenic propellant for a six-engine static fire when a sudden energetic event resulted in the complete loss of Starship and damage to the immediate area surrounding the stand,” according to an update on SpaceX’s website. “The explosion ignited several fires at the test site which remains clear of personnel and will be assessed once it has been determined to be safe to approach. Individuals should not attempt to approach the area while safing operations continue.”

The explosion follows others during the seventh, eighth, and ninth Starship flight tests earlier this year. “Initial analysis indicates the potential failure of a pressurized tank known as a COPV, or composite overwrapped pressure vessel, containing gaseous nitrogen in Starship’s nosecone area, but the full data review is ongoing,” SpaceX says. On X, the company called the explosion a “major anomaly.”

Fox 26 Houston says that, according to authorities, there have been no injuries reported. SpaceX also says no injuries have been reported.

This flight test would’ve continued using SpaceX’s “V2” Starship design, which Musk said in 2023, “holds more propellant, reduces dry mass and improves reliability.” SpaceX is also preparing a new V3 design that, according to Musk, was tracking toward a rate of launching once a week in about 12 months.

Update, June 19th: Added information from SpaceX.

Adobe has a new computational photography camera app for iPhones – and one of its creators, Marc Levoy, helped make the impressive computational photography features that made some of Google’s earlier Pixel cameras shine.

The new app, called Project Indigo, was released last week by Adobe Labs. It’s free and available for the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max, iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max, and all iPhone 14 models and above. (Though Adobe recommends using an iPhone 15 Pro or newer.) It also doesn’t require logging into an Adobe account to use.

“Instead of capturing a single photo, Indigo captures a burst of photos and combines them together to produce a high-quality photo with lower noise and higher dynamic range,” according to the app’s description. Indigo tries to produce a natural, “SLR-like” look for photos, and it also offers a bunch of manual controls like focus, shutter speed, ISO, and white balance.

To really understand what’s going on under the hood of Project Indigo, though, I highly recommend reading a detailed blog post from Levoy, now an Adobe Fellow who joined the company in 2020 to build a “universal camera app,” and Florian Kainz, a senior scientist. The post covers things like why smartphone cameras are good, how its computational photography works, how it creates the natural look for its photos, and some details about its image processing pipeline.

It is here I must confess that I am not a camera expert by any means. But even I found the post pretty interesting and informative. The photos in the post do look great, and Adobe has an album of photos you can browse, too.

In the post, Levoy and Kainz say that Project Indigo will also be a testbed for technologies that might get added to other flagship products, like a button to remove reflections. And down the line, the team plans to build things like an Android version, a portrait mode, and even video recording.

“This is the beginning of a journey for Adobe – towards an integrated mobile camera and editing experience that takes advantage of the latest advances in computational photography and AI,” according to Levoy and Kainz. “Our hope is that Indigo will appeal to casual mobile photographers who want a natural SLR-like look for their photos, including when viewed on large screens; to advanced photographers who want manual control and the highest possible image quality; and to anyone – casual or serious – who enjoys playing with new photographic experiences.”

We’ve been waiting for Spotify’s lossless streaming for more than four years, but there are some new and promising hints that the feature might finally arrive sometime soon.

The X account for Spicetify, a command-line tool that lets you customize the Spotify client, says that a new version of Spotify includes some hidden mentions of lossless. In a screenshot the account shared, for example, lossless appears in the sidebar to connect a device. Another screenshot shows lossless as an option for streaming quality in the app’s settings. The Spicetify account also says it has seen code that lossless will be available on Spotify Connect and in the web player.

To be clear: Spotify’s lossless streaming still isn’t available yet. But these small lossless mentions and recent reporting indicate that the company may be ready to add lossless at long last.

Spotify initially announced a “Spotify HiFi” tier in 2021 that it intended to launch that year, but that didn’t happen. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in 2024 that the company was working on a “deluxe” version of Spotify. And in February, Bloomberg reported that Spotify was aiming to roll out a new “Music Pro” tier with features like higher-quality streaming by the end of this year. The tier could cost as much as $5.99 per month more than its current subscriptions, Bloomberg says.

Services like Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal already offer lossless streaming.

Now that warmer weather is here, spring cleaning duties are likely falling by the wayside. But the good news is you can enjoy the outdoors and clean your home with zero effort by letting a robot vacuum do the hard work for you. For that, we recommend a versatile model like the Eufy X10 Pro Omni, which is currently on sale at Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy to $549.99 ($250 off), matching its all-time low.

The X10 Pro Omni, one of our favorite midrange vacuum / mop combos, boasts an array of features to help it tackle daily messes, including oscillating dual spinning brushes capable of cleaning dried stains. An onboard water reservoir means the robot vacuum can clean for longer without having to refill its tank as often as some alternatives. Plus, when it’s finished mopping, a heated mop drying function helps prevent the base from smelling like dirty laundry. Unfortunately, however, it lacks a heated mop washing feature.

In addition to mopping, the X10 Pro Omni features 8,000Pa of suction, which enables it to perform well on both carpet and tile surfaces. It also offers excellent AI-powered object recognition, allowing it to avoid pet messes, cables, and toys. That said, we did encounter a few navigation issues during our testing, with the vacuum unable to escape from a corner. While it did get stuck a few times, its lidar-powered mapping is fast and accurate, laying out multiple rooms correctly on the first try.

To round out the Omni’s capabilities, support for the Eufy Clean app allows you to set schedules, establish no-go zones, create virtual boundaries, and more. It can also automatically empty its dust bin and refill its own water tank, so you can set it and forget it while it does its thing.

The bosses in Elden Ring Nightreign are already pretty tough. But if you’ve gotten good and need a harder challenge, you’ll be able to take on “Everdark Sovereigns,” which are more difficult versions of the game’s Nightlord foes you face to conclude a run.

“These limited-time versions of the Nightlords are extremely challenging and pose an even greater threat to the Nightfarers with new moves and increased power,” according to a blog post from Bandai Namco.

The first Everdark Sovereign you can fight is a new version of Adel, Baron of the Night, aka Gaping Jaw. If you’ve beaten the normal version of that boss, you’ll be able to take on the new form. When you beat an Everdark Sovereign, you’ll get “Sovereign Sigils,” which you can exchange for “special Relics and other items.”

There are a couple caveats to be aware of. You can only fight Everdark Sovereigns while playing online. And Everdark Sovereigns will only be available for a limited time — the upgraded Gaping Jaw, for example, will stick around until June 25th at 8:59 PM ET.

Bandai Namco says a new Everdark Sovereign will be added every week, and over the “next few weeks,” Everdark versions of Sentient Pest and Darkdrift Knight will be added to the game. Other Everdark bosses will be added “at a later date.” Based on the blog post, it seems like Everdark variations will eventually return after they’ve disappeared.

At some point, the game will also get DLC that adds new playable characters and bosses. An Elden Ring movie is in the works, too.

Midjourney has released the first version of its video generation model to the public. For now, the tool can generate short videos based on images uploaded or created on the platform, but Midjourney plans on rolling out more capabilities in the future.

After creating an image using Midjourney, the service will show a new “animate” button that users can press to create a 5-second clip based on a text prompt. It will also show the option to add an image you uploaded to the platform as a “starting frame” for a video. The tool will generate a generic prompt that “just makes things move” by default, but a “manual” button lets users describe how they want the motion to look. 

Users can extend an animation by four seconds up to four times, making for a 21-second-long video in total. There are also high and low motion settings that control whether both the subject and camera move, or just the subject.

Midjourney’s AI video generator is currently only available on the web and through the startup’s Discord server. It requires a subscription to the service, which starts at $10 / month for 3.3 hours of “fast” GPU time (around 200 image generations). The startup says it will charge “about 8x more for a video job than an image job,” adding up to around “‘one image worth of cost’ per second of video.”

Midjourney is currently the subject of a lawsuit from Disney and Universal, which cited the prospect of it launching a video generator as a special point of concern. It contends Midjourney offers a “virtual vending machine, generating endless unauthorized copies of Disney’s and Universal’s copyrighted work.” The in-progress video generation model was first announced in January, and Disney and Universal argued that its training process meant “Midjourney is very likely already infringing Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works.”

In a post announcing the generator, Midjourney founder David Holz says this first version is just “a stepping stone” as the startup works toward creating “models capable of real-time open-world simulations.” Google, OpenAI, and Meta have also launched AI video generators, all of which can generate videos with text prompts.

For the third time, President Donald Trump has extended the deadline for TikTok to spin out from its Chinese parent company or face a US ban. As White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed in a statement Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order on Thursday extending the deadline another 90 days, landing the new deadline in mid-September.

The Trump administration will spend the next 90 days “working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure,” Leavitt said.

The extension, first signed on January 20th, theoretically offers legal cover for TikTok’s US service providers who are subject to the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act from the hundreds of billions in penalties they could face for keeping the app online and in US app stores. But that legal cover was already shaky given that Trump’s extensions are not codified into the law, which was passed overwhelmingly by a bipartisan vote in Congress, and upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court.

As The Verge previously reported, ByteDance and an Oracle-led coalition had nearly hammered out a deal in April, but Trump’s tariffs abruptly blew up the tentative agreement. While trade tensions between the US and China have simmered down, there’s been no recent news about resurrecting that deal or another one. Even when a sale seemed likely, it was unclear whether China would allow ByteDance to sell the valuable algorithm that powers TikTok’s video recommendations.

“The whole thing is a sham if the algorithm doesn’t move from out of Beijing’s hands”

Several lawmakers, including those who’ve criticized a divest-or-ban law for TikTok and ByteDance, have warned that Trump’s repeated extensions are untenable and illegal. After Trump’s last extension in April, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner (D-VA) told The Verge the move was “against the law” and said “the whole thing is a sham if the algorithm doesn’t move from out of Beijing’s hands.”

Even before the second extension, Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Cory Booker (D-NJ), who oppose a ban of TikTok, wrote Trump that it would be “unacceptable and unworkable for your Administration to continue ignoring the requirements in the law.” They warned, “any further extensions of the TikTok deadline will require Oracle, Apple, Google, and other companies to continue risking ruinous legal liability, a difficult decision to justify in perpetuity.” 

That’s because TikTok service providers in the US can be fined for facilitating access to the app after the ban deadline, and Trump’s extensions fall outside of the mechanisms allowed for in the law. So far, however, these companies appear to be relying on assurances from the administration that they won’t be sued for keeping TikTok online, although it reportedly took a letter from the US attorney general herself to assuage Apple and Google’s concerns.

A court could evaluate whether Trump’s actions are legal, but only if somebody sues to stop the extension — and so far, nobody has. Earlier this month, though, a Google shareholder filed a lawsuit against the company for allegedly failing to share internal records about its decision to flout the law under the Justice Department’s assurances. The same shareholder had already filed suit against the DOJ for allegedly failing to share information about its decision not to enforce the law against Apple and Google.

While members of Trump’s party generally haven’t gone so far as to call his extensions illegal, a dozen House Republicans said in a statement in April that “any resolution must ensure that U.S. law is followed, and that the Chinese Communist Party does not have access to American user data or the ability to manipulate the content consumed by Americans.” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told reporters that month that Trump “ought to enforce the statute and ban TikTok. This middle way, I don’t think is viable.”

But it’s not clear what would prevent Trump from approving indefinite extensions or a deal that doesn’t meet the letter of the law. As Hawley acknowledged while speaking to reporters in April, “Congress, we don’t have an enforcement arm of our own.”

Update June 19th, 12:00 PM: Post has been updated to note Trump signed the order extending the deadline.

Beyond the selfies between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and the friendly conversations between the pair on stage, all is not well with Microsoft's $13 billion AI investment. Over the past year, multiple reports have painted a picture of a Microsoft and OpenAI relationship that is straining under pressure.

As OpenAI battles for access to more compute power and less reliance on Microsoft, tensions have been rising during negotiations over the future of OpenAI's business and its Microsoft partnership. Microsoft backed down on being the exclusive cloud provider for OpenAI earlier this year, but OpenAI still needs Microsoft's approval to convert part of its business to a for-profit company. That's led to a potentially explosive outcome.

OpenAI executives have now reportedly considered accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior, which could mean regulators look even more closely at the terms of Microsoft and OpenAI's contract for potential violations of antitrust laws. The Wall Street Journal reports that OpenAI's potential acquisition of AI coding tool Windsurf is at the heart of the latest standoff, as OpenAI wants Windsurf to be exempt from its existin …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The Department of Justice reported yesterday that it filed a civil complaint to seize roughly $225.3 million in cryptocurrency linked to crypto investment scams. In a press release, the DOJ said it traced and targeted accounts that were “part of a sophisticated blockchain-based money laundering network” dispersing funds taken from more than 400 suspected victims of fraud.

The 75-page complaint filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia lays out more detail about the seizure. According to it, the US Secret Service (USSS) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) tied scammers to seven groups of Tether stablecoin tokens. The fraud fell under what’s typically known as “pig butchering:” a form of long-running confidence scam aimed at tricking victims — sometimes with a fake romantic relationship — into what they believe is a profitable crypto investment opportunity, then disappearing with the funds. Pig butchering rings often traffic the workers who directly communicate with victims to Southeast Asian countries, something the DOJ alleges this ring did.

The DOJ says Tether and crypto exchange OKX first alerted law enforcement in 2023 to a series of accounts they believed were helping launder fraudulently obtained currency through a vast and complex web of transactions. The alleged victims include Shan Hanes (referred to in this complaint as S.H.), the former Heartland Tri-State Bank president who was sentenced to 24 years in prison for embezzling tens of millions of dollars to invest in one of the best-known and most devastating pig butchering scams. The complaint lists a number of other victims who lost thousands or millions of dollars they thought they were investing (and did not commit crimes of their own). An FBI report cited by the press release concluded overall crypto investment fraud caused $5.8 billion worth of reported losses in 2024.

Money recovered from this seizure will be put toward returning funds to the known victims of the scammers, the DOJ says. The fervently pro-crypto Trump administration has previously said forfeited money that isn’t sent to victims could be used to fund a US cryptocurrency reserve.

Sluggish Wi-Fi is one of my least favorite tech problems to deal with because it messes with everything: my work, my smart lightbulbs, my online sessions of Mario Kart World. There are many reasons your Wi-Fi may be wonky, but the good news is that you can solve many of them with better routers. One of the best mesh options is the Eero Pro 6E, which is currently available on Amazon in a three-pack - with a $100 Amazon gift card - for an all-time low of $449.99 ($100 off).

The Pro 6E has been improved with updates since our 2022 review, which is good because our initial experience was plagued with reliability issues. A pack of three routers can create a network that covers up to 6,000 square feet with support for over 100 connected devices at once without throttling. In terms of speeds, it can reach a maximum wireless data transfer speed of 1.3Gbps. Connect one to your cable modem, then spread the other two around to different parts of your home to create a strong mesh Wi-Fi network that's (hopefully) free from dead zones. Eero's app makes it easy to set the routers up, and will instruct you on the best practices for positioning them. It can also perform automatic security updates …

Read the full story at The Verge.