Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

The second-gen AirPods, Apple’s most affordable earbuds, are on sale for just $89. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

If you know where to look, you can often score discounts on Apple’s ever-popular AirPods. Since Apple launched the third-gen AirPods at the end of 2021, we’ve seen the starting price of the second-gen, entry-level model slowly dip to under $100. And now that the second-gen AirPods Pro have been on the market for over a year, we’re also seeing their price fall more often, too. We’re even seeing great deals land on the newer updated AirPods Pro with USB-C.

Here, we’ve curated the best deals currently available on each model, including the entry-level AirPods, the AirPods Pro, the third-gen AirPods, and the AirPods Max.

The best AirPods (second-gen) deals

In 2021, Apple lowered the list price of the second-gen AirPods — now the...

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Sony’s WF-1000XM5 earbuds are on sale for just $7 shy of their all-time low

Sony’s flagship earbuds are smaller, lighter, and better-sounding than the last-gen model. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Whether you need some peace while working from home or plan on taking some summer travels, a good pair of wireless earbuds is crucial for preserving and protecting your sanity. My favorites have been from Sony’s flagship line. I started with Sony’s WF-1000XM4 before the dastard battery drain bug rendered them unusable. They were great otherwise, and I liked them so much that I took a chance on the WF-1000XM5, which so far haven’t thrust the same thorns in my side. They retail for $299.95, but Amazon is selling them starting at $229.95 right now, which is only a few dollars shy of their all-time low.

The XM5 are Sony’s latest flagship pair of noise-canceling earbuds. They’re comfortable and offer excellent sound quality, not to mention...

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Disney reportedly wants to bring always-on channels to Disney Plus

Image: Nick Barclay / The Verge

The revamped Disney Plus app could soon feature always-on channels dedicated to Star Wars and Marvel shows, according to a report from The Information. The channels, which are reportedly similar to those on free ad-supported streaming services like Pluto or Tubi, could take away the choice when it comes to picking out what to watch next.

In addition to Star Wars and Marvel series, Disney’s lineup of channels could feature stations that continuously stream Disney’s classic animated films or movies from Pixar, The Information reports. Even though viewers would need a Disney Plus subscription to tune in to the channels, they will likely still contain ads — just like traditional television.

There still aren’t any details about when the new...

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Rivian’s new software update will help you avoid all the broken EV chargers

Image: EVgo

Rivian is pushing a new software update that will give its customers better insight into which EV chargers to visit — and which to avoid.

EV charging reliability remains a serious sore spot for a lot of owners of plug-in vehicles, leaving the companies selling the cars scrambling to boost their confidence. Rivian’s solution is to use their vehicle fleet to gather data about broken chargers, which then get downranked in the company’s software algorithm.

“Our North Star is charging and trip planning in EVs should just work,” Wassym Bensaid, Rivian’s head of software, told The Verge. “You should not think about it.”

“Our North Star is charging and trip planning in EVs should just work.”

I had the chance to test out Rivian’s new software...

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Meta is making it easier to bring Quest headsets into the classroom

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Meta is launching a new hub for Quest headsets later this year that should make it easier for educators to use them in schools. In a blog post on Monday, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, writes that the hub will let teachers access “education-specific apps and features,” along with tools to manage all Quest headsets in the classroom.

Meta still hasn’t released the name of the educational product, nor a list of specific features. However, Clegg notes that Meta wants the hub to make it “easier for students to learn, apply and practice new skills” while also seeing places or having experiences that might not be possible outside of virtual reality.

In an interview with Axios, Clegg says Meta’s Quest headsets could let students...

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Limitless is a new AI tool for your meetings — and an all-hearing wearable gadget

The Limitless Pendant comes in a bunch of colors and doesn’t really look like an AI gadget. | Image: Limitless

The Limitless Pendant doesn’t exactly scream “AI.” As Dan Siroker, the CEO of the company behind the new device, lifts it up to show me over Zoom, the round, rubbery-looking gizmo reminds me more of an old-school clippable Fitbit. But what Siroker is actually showing me is a device that can be clipped onto your shirt or worn on a string around your neck that is meant to record everything you hear — and then use AI to help you remember and make sense of it.

The Limitless Pendant is part of the whole Limitless system, which the company is launching today. (Oh, and in case you’re wondering: yes, it’s very much a reference to the movie.) Siroker’s last AI product, Rewind, was an app that ran on your computer and would record your screen and...

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Dropbox CEO Drew Houston wants you to embrace AI and remote work

Photo illustration by The Verge / Photo: Dropbox

Leaders can’t ‘keep mashing the go back to 2019 button.’

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Adobe Premiere Pro is getting generative AI video tools — and hopefully OpenAI’s Sora

Generative AI-powered tools for quickly removing objects in video clips will be arriving in Premiere Pro later this year. | Image: Adobe

Adobe is working on a generative AI video model for its Firefly family that will bring new tools to its Premiere Pro video editing platform. These new Firefly tools — alongside some proposed third-party integrations with Runway, Pika Labs, and OpenAI’s Sora models — will allow Premiere Pro users to generate video and add or remove objects using text prompts (just like Photoshop’s Generative Fill feature) and extend the length of video clips.

Unlike many of Adobe’s previous Firefly-related announcements, no release date — beta or otherwise — has been established for the company’s new video generation tools, only that they’ll roll out “this year.” And while the creative software giant showcased what its own video model is currently capable...

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Senator Elizabeth Warren claims TurboTax ‘relentlessly’ upsells customers in letter to FTC

Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has written a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, saying that TurboTax “continues to relentlessly upsell” customers while also directing them away from services that would otherwise be free.

As noted in the letter, Warren’s staff analyzed TurboTax’s services using a sample taxpayer and found that the company attempted to upsell the customer eight times during the tax filing process. Warren writes that in “several cases,” these solicitations “appear to be efforts to mislead customers into thinking that they must pay the extra fees in order to file their taxes when that is not the case.” Some show up as full-screen prompts, forcing users to scroll to the bottom to deny the upgrade.

In one instance,...

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Sony’s PS5 Pro is real and developers are getting ready for it

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Sony is getting ready to release a more powerful PS5 console, possibly by the end of this year. After reports of leaked PS5 Pro specifications surfaced recently, The Verge has obtained a full list of specs for the upcoming console. Sources familiar with Sony’s plans tell me that developers are already being asked to ensure their games are compatible with this upcoming console, with a focus on improving ray tracing.

Codenamed Trinity, the PlayStation 5 Pro model will include a more powerful GPU and a slightly faster CPU mode. All of Sony’s changes point to a PS5 Pro that will be far more capable of rendering games with ray tracing enabled or hitting higher resolutions and frame rates in certain titles. Sony appears to be encouraging...

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Tesla is reportedly laying off ‘more than 10 percent’ of its workforce

The layoffs follow the company’s first drop in year-over-year vehicle deliveries since 2020. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A few weeks after reporting its first year-over-year decline in vehicle deliveries since 2020, Tesla is now planning to lay off over ten percent of its global workforce, according to an internal company-wide email seen by Electrek. That works out to at least 14,000 of the 140,473 employees that Tesla reported in its latest annual earnings. It’s not clear which teams at Tesla will be impacted.

“There is nothing I hate more, but it must be done,” said Elon Musk, in the email published by Electrek. “This will enable us to be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.”

Today’s development is the latest in a string of bad news for the EV maker. The company reported a miss in delivery estimates ahead of its quarterly earnings...

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Ikea’s new gaming furniture looks like furniture, not an energy drink

Ikea’s Brännboll range is just the right mix of neutrals and bright colors to match most modern homes. | Image: Ikea

Ikea is introducing a new range of gaming furniture that subverts the usual dark, edgy “gamer” aesthetic for designs that are more likely to blend in with your existing home decor.

The company’s Brännboll collection is a lineup of 20 items, including a desk, chairs, accessories, and various storage solutions. Following the mostly-black ROG collaboration Ikea released back in 2021, which was similarly free from overly aggressive “gamer” flourishes, the new Brännboll collection instead focuses on the kind of designs that Ikea does best — simple and recognizably Scandinavian.

Seating is the main focus. There’s an armchair that folds out into a lounging position, a rocking-style chair designed to swing with your body’s movement, and an...

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Google’s Pixel 9 may get an Apple-like satellite SOS feature

Image: OnLeaks / 91Mobiles

Google could be adding a feature very similar to Apple’s Emergency SOS feature to the Pixel 9 and the next Pixel Fold. That’s according to leaker Kamila Wojciechowska, who writes for Android Authority that the company would partner with T-Mobile to offer the feature but may add other providers later.

Just like Apple’s system, Google’s SOS feature would reportedly present future Pixel owners with a series of questions to ascertain what’s happening, rather than let users thumb one out. A video in the Android Authority article features the animation Google will display to users to help them get the phone aligned with a satellite.

According to Wojciechowska, these are some of the questions the feature will ask:

• What happened?
• [Are you/Are...

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Blackmagic Design releases a DaVinci Resolve editing panel for iPads

Blackmagic’s new Micro Color Panel lets you edit video on the go. | Image: Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design announced its video editing software, DaVinci Resolve, was coming to the iPad back in 2022, and although it supports multitouch input and the Apple Pencil, sometimes, nothing beats purpose-built hardware. On Friday, Blackmagic announced the $495 DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panel, which it says will be available worldwide in May and is specifically designed for the iPad.

At 14.33 inches by 7.18 inches, the Micro Color Panel is about the size of a computer keyboard. It has an iPad Pro mounting slot and connects either via Bluetooth or USB-C. Besides being smaller than Blackmagic’s other color panels, the Micro is also significantly cheaper (The next one up — the Mini Panel — is listed at over $2,000 on Blackmagic’s...

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The first Apple-approved emulators for the iPhone have arrived

A screenshot from iGBA. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge

I played Game Boy Advance games on my iPhone last night thanks to a new emulator called iGBA, which appears to be the first Game Boy Advance emulator on the App Store since Apple started allowing emulators worldwide. The only trouble is, it doesn’t look like iGBA is developer Mattia La Spina’s own work.

Emulation developer and AltStore creator Riley Testut says it’s a rip-off of GBA4iOS, the predecessor to his Delta emulator that was originally made for iOS over a decade ago and that he recently resurrected for the Vision Pro, the source code for which he has published online.

Here are some screenshots for comparison, starting with iGBA:

Screenshots: Wes Davis / The Verge

Screenshots from iGBA.

...

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Best video game TV show ever?

The Verge

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 34, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)

This week, I’ve been writing about the Humane AI Pin and the Aboard app, reading about the Com World War and why studios cancel already-made movies, watching Ripleyand a deep dive into the Game Boy’s incredible sturdiness and power, listening to The Rest is Historytake on Martin Luther, and seeing if Amazon’s Echo Frames can replace my headphones.

I also have for you an excellent new video game show, a new ebook reader worth a look, yet another doc about how bad tech is, a sweet new drone, and much more.

I also...

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Police arrested four people with $300,000 of stolen Lego kits

Image: California Highway Patrol

Los Angeles citizens can rest easy knowing that a criminal theft ring is no longer stalking the city’s retail stores to feed a Lego black market. That’s because the California Highway Patrol (CHP) announced this week that it had arrested four people it accused of swiping what police estimated was “approximately $300,000” worth of Lego sets.

The four had allegedly burgled stores like Target, Home Depot, and Lowe’s of their Lego stock and sold them to black-market dealers who would then vend the stolen bricks at “seemingly legitimate businesses, swap meets, or online.” Police say they were booked on “charges related to Organized Retail Theft, Grand Theft, and Conspiracy to commit a crime.”

Image: California Highway Patrol...

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Bluesky lifted its ban on heads of state signups

Image: Bluesky

Bluesky is apparently ready for a bigger challenge. It says it’s allowing heads of state to sign up now, a little over two months after it opened for general signups. In May last year, the site asked its users not to give invitation codes to “recent/prominent heads of state,” stating that it was its policy not to accommodate them.

When Bluesky instituted its heads-of-state policy, the site was still in its showing-everyone’s-ass phase, and its moderation approach wasn’t in place, yet. So instead of the varying degrees of controlled chaos that social networks are, Bluesky was filled with, well, lots of unsettlingly sexy pictures of the cat-eating alien puppet star of the 1980s sitcom Alf, which The Verge’s Elizabeth Lopatto pointed out...

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This week’s trailers offered twists on familiar genres

This week saw some fun trailers tapping into heady science fiction, comic book movies, and taboo horror, each with a fun mixed genre twist. Joker: Folie à Deux is a comic book movie about the love affair of The Joker and Harley Quinn that’s also a musical, and Apple TV Plus’ new Dark Matter series is a kidnapping thriller with an interesting alternate reality twist. Then there’s Maxxxine, a horror slasher that looks to also be a whodunit crime mystery.

Joker: Folie à Deux

Joker: Folie à Deuxtakes a crack at the origin of The Joker and Harley Quinn’s romance, which has been explored in some of the best episodes of Batman: The Animated Series and lightly featured in 2016’s Suicide Squad. This movie is supposed to be a “jukebox musical”...

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Smart string light showdown: Nanoleaf versus Lifx

Which is the best bet to bedazzle your backyard?

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Xgimi’s portable MoGo 2 Pro projector is $200 off right now

The Xgimi MoGo 2 Pro is an excellent Android TV projector with Chromecast built-in. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

Let’s face it, a big TV isn’t always an option, especially if you live in a tiny apartment or prefer a more nomadic lifestyle. In those instances, it might be wiser to buy the Xgimi MoGo 2 Pro, a portable Android TV projector that’s small enough to toss in your backpack before heading out the door. Thankfully, Xgimi’s 1080p smart projector is currently on sale at Amazon for $399.99 ($200 off) when you clip the on-page coupon, which drops it to one of its lowest prices to date.

Despite its small stature and modest 400 ANSI lumens, the MoGo 2 Pro can project large, 200-inch images while delivering surprisingly good picture quality at smaller sizes (think 30 inches). It looks best when viewed in the dark, like most projectors, which...

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Galaxy AI features are coming to last-gen Samsung phones — including the S21 series

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Samsung is planning to bring select Galaxy AI features to several older flagship phones and tablets next month via the One UI 6.1 update, according to 9to5Google and Android Central, both of which referred to a post from a Samsung representative who posted on the company’s community forum in Korea. The Verge has reached out to Samsung for further comment.

A slightly trimmed-down version of Galaxy AI (sans Instant Slow-Mo) will be coming to Samsung’s flagship lineup from 2022, specifically the S22, S22 Plus, S22 Ultra, Z Fold 4, Z Flip 4, Tab S8, and Tab S8 Ultra. Each device will receive the same version of Galaxy AI as Samsung’s lower-priced Galaxy S23 FE. Instant Slow-Mo, which automatically plays a video in slow motion once you tap...

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Tesla slashes price for monthly Full Self-Driving subscription

Photo by Edie Leong for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Tesla is reducing the subscription fee for its Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver-assist software in a reflection of the company’s continuing financial hardships. The company slashed the price to $99 / month, down from $199 where it has been since at least 2021.

Tesla announced the price adjustment in a post on X, in which it described the Level 2 driver-assist system as “FSD (Supervised)” — a name tweak that’s meant to convey the fact that drivers are required to pay attention to the road and stand ready to take control of the vehicle. (The company has been criticized for failing to include proper driver monitoring and other protections against overreliance on the system.)

You can now subscribe to FSD (Supervised) for $99/month in the...

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Japanese man arrested for allegedly hacking Pokémon game to sell custom monsters

The Pokémon Company

Japanese police arrested a man after finding evidence that he illegally tampered with save data for the Nintendo Switch games Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, which he used to create custom characters that he sold on an online gaming marketplace.

According to machine translations of stories at NHKand the Asahi Shimbun, the Kochi Prefectural police arrested 36-year-old Yoshihiro Yamakawa on April 9th after cyber patrol officers caught him selling the characters online. Yamakawa, who used an online tool to modify the game’s save data, was arrested under suspicion of violating a Japanese law known as the Unfair Competition Prevention Act.

The police report, according to both outlets,states that the Japanese police cyber patrol caught Yamakawa...

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The best smartphone you can buy for under $500

You can get a great device for less than $500 these days if you know how to pick your priorities. | Image: The Verge

You can’t have everything at this price, but you can get a great smartphone. Whether you want an iPhone, a 120Hz screen, or water resistance, you’ve got options.

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Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has been renewed for a fourth season

Paramount Plus

Season 3 of Paramount Plus’ Star Trek: Strange New Worldsis still in production, but the streamer has already decided to renew the series. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of Star Trek: Lower Decks, which is coming to an end.

Paramount Plus announced today that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will be back for a fourth season following the premiere of its third sometime in 2025, and Star Wars: Lower Deck’s upcoming fifth season will be the series’ finale. In a statement about Strange New Worlds’ renewal, executive producer Alex Kurtzman and showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers said they were thrilled about being able to continue telling new stories about the crew of the Enterprise.

And while Lower Decks is wrapping up,...

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Game publisher blames media for studio closure

Prytania Media

The grim cadence of video game layoffs continues apace, but this latest news comes with a strange twist. Prytania Media has shut down studio Possibility Space effective immediately. In an email to employees reproduced on social media by Polygon reporter Nicole Carpenter, Jeff Strain, Prytania’s co-founder, seemingly attributed the closure to an as-yet unpublished article from Kotaku reporter Ethan Gach.

Strain wrote that he received questions from Gach regarding an upcoming article and that some of those questions pertained to a not-yet-public project codenamed “Vonnegut.” According to Strain, after receiving questions on Vonnegut, he had an emergency meeting with its publishers wherein it was decided that the publisher would cease...

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With the Vision Pro’s Spatial Personas, you can be lonely with friends

I failed converting Wes to K-pop, but we agreed that Cowboy Carter slaps. | Screenshot: Victoria Song / The Verge

The inside of an Apple Vision Pro is a lonely place to be. My spouse and I can’t watch movies together. It’s hard to describe what the world looks like in there to curious friends. Even if I’m standing next to you, even if there’s a ghostly projection of my eyes on the front display — there’s a barrier between me and you.

Unless you also have a Vision Pro headset and have enabled Spatial Personas.

Apple debuted Spatial Personas last week. It unleashes your uncanny digital avatar from the FaceTime window and into any SharePlay-enabled app as well as your virtual space. Call me intrigued. Loneliness was a con of the Vision Pro that reviewer after reviewer pointed out. Would this help that? I called up our weekend editor Wes Davis, who...

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The Fitbit Charge 5 is a steal at 50 percent off

It wasn’t our favorite fitness tracker at $150, but the Fitbit Charge 5 is a looker at $75. | Image: Fitbit

With nearly a third of 2024 behind us now, you might think it’s out of season to talk about resolutions and fitness goals. But for me, the renewal of the Earth’s vegetation and the prospect of pool parties encourages me to get out and move after a cold, muggy winter. If the same is true for you, a fitness tracker can be a great motivator that can help you chart your progress. Thankfully, Walmart is currently selling the Fitbit Charge 5 starting at just $75, which is 50 percent off and easily one of the best prices we’ve ever seen.

We weren’t big fans of some of Fitbit’s design choices for the last-gen Charge 5. The biggest offender was its lack of a physical navigation button, which made using the finicky touch-based user interface more...

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Microsoft starts testing ads in the Windows 11 Start menu

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft says it’s starting to test ads inside the Start menu on Windows 11. The software maker will use the Recommended section of the Start menu, which usually shows file recommendations, to suggest apps from the Microsoft Store.

“This will appear only for Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel in the US and will not apply to commercial devices (devices managed by organizations),” says Microsoft in a blog post.

The app promotions can be disabled in the Settings section of Windows 11, but it appears that Microsoft will enable these by default. Microsoft is seeking feedback on the changes, so it’s possible the company could decide to ditch these ads in development builds of Windows 11 if there’s enough feedback that suggests they’re...

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