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The Verge

The Vergecast is the flagship podcast from The Verge about small gadgets, Big Tech, and everything in between. Every Friday, hosts Nilay Patel and David Pierce hang out and make sense of the week’s most important technology news. And every Tuesday, David leads a selection of The Verge’s expert staffers in an exploration of how gadgets and software affect our lives – and which ones you should bring into yours.

The Vergecast

This week on The Vergecast, we enter the Jen-era of Hot Girl Vergecast Summer, with a deep dive into the business of the smart home. The Verge’s smart home reviewer, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy (aka Jen), chats with Ken Fairbanks, a longtime customer of Insteon who ended up buying the smart lighting company when it went into bankruptcy.

Ken shares the story of how one of the original smart lighting protocols, founded in the post-X10 era when home automation moved from wired to wireless, floundered, and how he and a band of users brought it back from the dead. He dishes what he’s learned about how to keep the lights on — from customer loyalty and the value of subscriptions, to what tariffs are doing to the industry and how some hardware companies are just pyramid schemes.

Then, in a special supersized (and we mean SUPER) Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com), Jen is joined by smart home expert Richard Gunther, co-host of The Smart Home Show, to tackle a bunch of your burning smart lighting questions. They answer everything from how to move your smart home to which Thread border router you should buy for your Matter setup. Plus, they run down their own smart lighting set-ups.

Further reading:

 Insteon’s troubles are a smart home tale as old as time

 Insteon Raises the Curtain for the Next Act

 Someone turned Insteon’s lights back on

 Insteon customers turned Insteon’s lights back on

 Thread count: Ikea is stitching together a smarter home

 Smart switches or smart bulbs? How to choose the right smart lighting for your home

 Controller for HomeKit

 Philips Hue Play sync box and gradient lightstrip review: wholly unnecessary, totally delightful

 Taming Wi-Fi in the Smart Home:

 Leviton’s new smart light switches don’t require a neutral wire

 Every smart home device that works with Matter

 Aqara’s new seven-inch home control tablet can replace a light switch

 These smart lights could solve the kitchen cabinet problem

 Hue launches a pricey new sunrise lamp

 Smart string light showdown: Nanoleaf versus Lifx

 The best floodlight camera to buy right now

 How to move a smart home

 Moving a smart home - The Smart Home Show

 Living with the ghost of a smart home’s past

 Smart ceiling light showdown: Aqara T1M versus Nanoleaf Skylight

 Binding should be the next big thing for smart home devices

 Aqara adds support for 50 new Matter device types

 Flic is ready to control all your Matter devices

 Thread is Matter’s secret sauce for a better smart home

 Google Nest Thread border routers

 Google TV Streamer review: smarter than your average set-top box

 Google Nest Hub (2nd-gen) review: sleep on it

 Why Thread is Matter’s biggest problem right now

 
The four changes in Thread 1.4 that could fix the protocol

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How to save a smart home company

In this bonus episode of The Vergecast, Senior Reviewer Victoria Song sits down with a bunch of Verge staffers to talk about how they use AI tools in their everyday lives. Not all of it went smoothly — we definitely get into the ways these tools fall short — but we explore how AI can be used to help bedtime go more smoothly for parents, plan big cross-country moves, supplement your internet searches (always double-check!), and even vibe code an app for your next tabletop role-playing game.

If you have any examples where AI was useful to you, we’d love to hear them. (For what it’s worth, we’d also love to hear stories where it spectacularly failed.) Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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We found stuff AI is pretty good at

It’s a huge week in AI, with OpenAI releasing GPT-OSS and GPT-5, Grok getting deeply problematic again with its “spicy” video generator, and Tim Cook admitting that Apple may need to cut some deals. Then we talk the age gating of the internet and how you might soon need an ID card to get just about anywhere online. Finally, the Lightning Round gets re-rebranded. Adi Robertson and Alex Heath join the show to discuss.

Further reading:

 GPT-5 is being released to all ChatGPT users

 OpenAI releases a free GPT model that can run on your laptop

 Why open-source AI became an American national priority

 Mark Zuckerberg promises you can trust him with superintelligent AI

 xAI’s new Grok image and video generator has a ‘spicy’ mode

 Grok’s ‘spicy’ video setting instantly made me Taylor Swift nude deepfakes

 I tested Grok’s Valentine sex chatbot and it (mostly) behaved

 Tim Cook says Apple ‘must’ figure out AI and ‘will make the investment to do it’

 Tim Cook says Apple is ‘open to’ AI acquisitions

 Ready or not, age verification is rolling out across the internet

 The UK is now age-gating the internet

 The UK is slogging through an online age-gate apocalyps

 The UK’s new age-gating rules are easy to bypass

 Reddit and Discord’s UK age verification can be defeated by Death Stranding’s photo mode

 Reddit rolls out age verification in the UK to comply with new rules

 Five EU states to test age verification app to protect children

 The EU approach to age verification

 Commission presents guidelines and age verification app prototype for a safer online space for children

 Porn age-gating is the future of the internet, thanks to the Supreme Court

 The Supreme Court just upended internet law, and I have questions

 Florida Sues Huge Porn Sites Including XVideos and Bang Bros Over Age Verification Law

 “Over the last two and a half years, 19 states – home to more than a third of Americans – have passed laws that require pornography websites to confirm a user’s age by checking a government-issued ID or scanning their face, among other methods.”

 Google is using AI age checks to lock down user accounts

 Today's Supreme Court Decision on Age Verification Tramples Free Speech and Undermines Privacy

 Age Verification Harms Users of All Ages

 Blocking Access to Harmful Content Will Not Protect Children Online, No Matter How Many Times UK Politicians Say So

 Zero Knowledge Proofs Alone Are Not a Digital ID Solution to Protecting User Privacy

 Age Verification in the European Union: The Commission's Age Verification App

 RFK Jr. pulls $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine contracts

 Epic just won its Google lawsuit again, and Android may never be the same

 Google has just two weeks to begin cracking open Android, it admits in emergency filing

 Instagram adds a reposts feed and rips off Snap Maps

 OpenAI charts crime

 OpenAI gets caught vibe graphing

 Nintendo raises the Switch 1 price from $299 to $339

 Apple says Trump’s tariffs are adding another $1 billion to its costs

Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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GPT-5's big new feature: less lying?

This week on The Vergecast, guest host Mia Sato talks to YouTube fitness pioneer Cassey Ho (better known as Blogilates) about the well-oiled machine that is the dupe economy. Ho shares her experience creating her own line of athletic wear that sooner or later gets ripped off by countless copycats — and how she tries to fight back. 

Then, Mia brings an audio diary from a visit to Fabscrap, a textile recycling facility in Brooklyn, that is working to save fabric and other materials from the landfill. Fashion is a wasteful industry, not unlike tech — luckily, there are people like Fabscrap staff and volunteers who are working towards solutions.

Finally, Victoria Song swings by to help answer a hotline question about how to make the high-tech Clueless closet a reality. If you have a question for us, call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com.

Further reading

 How dupes turned online shopping upside down

 Lululemon sues Costco over viral alleged “dupes”

 The US finally acknowledges textile waste in new report

 Your stuff is actually worse now

 Ghana becomes dumping ground for the world’s unwanted used clothes

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Online shopping is full of copycats

It’s time. The public betas for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, and more are finally out for everyone to try. Jake Kastrenakes, Vee Song, and Antonio G. Di Benedetto give their takes on Apple’s Liquid Glass design language after two months of living with it. Antonio shares his experiences with macOS and the upgraded Spotlight, and Vee dives into the ups and downs of watchOS’s AI fitness coach. Then, Andy Hawkins and Eater's Matthew Kang talk about Tesla’s rough quarter, the new Tesla Diner, and what Epic Bacon has to do with it all. Finally, the Thunder Round returns, and we all learn what Labubus are.

Further reading:

 ⁠Apple releases public betas of its new software updates with Liquid Glass⁠

 How to install the iOS 26 public beta

 The biggest changes coming to your iPhone with iOS 26

 ⁠Liquid Glass is fine, I guess⁠

 ⁠Apple’s Liquid Glass redesign is shaping up to be a snoozer on Macs⁠

 You can actually multitask on an iPad now and it’s the best new feature in 15 years

 watchOS 26 preview: a subtler take on AI

 ⁠Apple launches $20 subscription service to protect your gadgets⁠

 Tesla’s earnings hit a new low, with largest revenue drop in years

 Elon Musk finally admits the new, more affordable Tesla is just a stripped down Model Y

 Undeterred by limits, Elon Musk plots a big robotaxi expansion

 Everything Eater Editors Ate at the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles

 The Full Tesla Diner Menu, Revealed

 The Tesla Diner Will Track When Guests Are Nearby to Prepare Their Orders

 Inside the New Tesla Diner in Los Angeles

 Anti-Elon Musk protesters are coming for Tesla’s new diner

 Faraday Future is back with another wild EV that probably will never get made

 Amazon buys Bee AI

 Jake: AppleCare One is a good deal, but not for everyone

 Uber’s making it easier for women riders and drivers to find each other

 The frenzied, gamified chase for Labubus

Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.

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Diving into Apple’s Liquid Glass

Summer blockbusters like the new Superman and Jurassic World movies may be doing great at the box office, but promoting them is more complicated than ever. The old celebrity playbook of magazine profiles, TV chat shows and press junkets isn’t enough in an era of audience fragmentation. Publicists now have to strategize which podcasts to make time for, and whether their clients will eat chicken on YouTube with Amelia Dimoldenberg or Sean Evans.

This week on The Vergecast, guest host Mia Sato talks to Vulture’s Fran Hoepfner to break down the ever-changing new media circuit, whether you’re a beloved A-lister, a formerly-beloved A-lister, or an aspiring A-lister.

Then, we take a deep dive with Sarah Fackrell into a controversial legal tactic brands are using to go after online sellers hawking everything from grumpy cat T-shirts to closet hooks.

Finally, Victoria Song joins Mia to answer a Vergecast hotline from a listener wondering whether an AI translator will be able to keep up with his partner’s Colombian mother. If you’ve got a question for us, call 866-VERGE11 or e-mail vergecast@theverge.com.

Further reading:

 
Box Office: ‘Superman’ Surpasses $400 Million Globally, ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ Nears $650 Million Milestone

 
The Celebrity Press-Tour Road Map

 
Fame and Frustration On the New Media Circuit

 
Sydney woman who sold a cartoon cat T-shirt told to pay US$100,000 in Grumpy Cat copyright case

 
How Does a Mom Get Slapped With a $250,000 Judgment Over $380 of Homemade Luke Combs Merch? Experts Cite ‘Cottage Industry’ of Mass Counterfeit Suits in Illinois

 
A SAD Scheme of Abusive Intellectual Property Litigation

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A-lister antics and Schedule A shenanigans

Would you like Siri more if it had a face? This week on The Vergecast, we’re talking about AI assistants getting smarter… and uncomfortably personal. The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy joins the show to talk about her early tests of Alexa Plus, which is finally AI-powered and a lot more capable. Jake shares his uncomfortable first interaction with Grok’s anime girlfriend. And Waveform cohost David Imel is here to talk about Sony’s RX1R III and other premium “compact” cameras. 

Finally, the THUNDER ROUND is back. New, improved, and still loud.

Further reading:

 24 hours with Alexa Plus: we cooked, we chatted, and it kinda lied to me

 
Alexa Plus launches to “small number” of people More than a million people now have Alexa Plus

 Elon Musk’s AI bot adds a ridiculous anime companion with ‘NSFW’ mode

 I spent 24 hours flirting with Elon Musk’s AI girlfriend

 System prompt dump of xAI / Grok’s new AI anime girlfriend

 Elon Musk teases AI anime boyfriend based on Edward Cullen

 “We will, of course, have another character inspired by Mr. Darcy”

 xAI has open roles for building AI “waifus.”

 US government announces $200 million Grok contract a week after ‘MechaHitler’ incident

 Grok will no longer call itself Hitler or base its opinions on Elon Musk’s, promises xAI

 Sony’s pocket-sized RX1R camera returns with its first update in 10 years

 
Original RX1R 

 RX1R II

 Google exec: ‘We’re going to be combining ChromeOS and Android’

 Our biggest questions about ChromeOS and Android merging

 
 Ikea goes all in on Matter/Thread

 
Eric Migicovsky 

 Texts.com

 Google Nest subscription

 The next batch of emoji includes Bigfoot

Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
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The creepy AI era is here

On this episode of The Vergecast, we’re going to dive deep into why accessible design is universal design. First, guest host Victoria Song will chat with Jason Valley, a visually impaired Verge reader. Jason initially reached out to Victoria after her Live AI hands-on, challenging the notion that the feature was a “solution looking for a problem to solve.” Jason shares how the tech has helped him live a more independent life, what he’s hoping to see improve, and how the blind and low-vision community has enthusiastically embraced the technology. 

After that, Victoria sits down with Be My Eyes CEO Mike Buckley. Be My Eyes is an app that pairs blind and low-vision users with sighted volunteers to help them go about their day. Buckley gives his thoughts about how accessible tech design benefits everyone, why smart glasses and AI are a natural combo, and what challenges and opportunities in this space remain. 

And finally, we have features reporter Mia Sato on to answer a spicy question about smart glasses from the Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com). Specifically, do smart glasses belong in the bedroom? 

Further reading:

 Live AI on Meta’s smart glasses is a solution looking for a problem

 Meta’s smart glasses can now describe what you’re seeing in more detail

 The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses actually make the future look cool

 Be My Eyes AI offers GPT-4-powered support for blind Microsoft customers

 The principles of wearable etiquette

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How the low-vision community embraced AI smart glasses

Summer phone season kicks off with Samsung’s latest launch. Jake, Vee, and Allison talk about Samsung’s new lineup of foldables, including the very thin new Z Fold 7 and Allison’s disdain for the Z Flip 7 FE. Vee has impressions of Samsung’s new Galaxy Watch 8 lineup and its squircle-y new redesign. Then, it’s time to talk Big Tech shakeups. Apple’s COO is leaving, Zuckerberg is buying himself an AI dream team, X’s CEO is out — and its chatbot Grok is on a rampage. Finally, big things are in store for the Lightning Round… which shall henceforth be known as the THUNDER ROUND. Lots to talk about, including Lorde’s CD problems, Apple’s Liquid Glass changes, and HBO Max finally becoming HBO Max again.

Further reading:

 Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2025: Everything announced at the July event⁠

 
⁠Galaxy Z Fold 7 hands-on: Samsung finally made the foldables we’ve been asking for⁠ 

 ⁠Samsung cuts price of its foldables with the Z Flip 7 FE⁠

 ⁠Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 series hands-on: squircle squad⁠

 ⁠Samsung seems to have leaked its own trifold phone design⁠

 ⁠Samsung says its trifold phone should launch ‘this year’⁠

 ⁠Samsung snuck a trifold tease into (January) Unpacked⁠

 ⁠One of Tim Cook’s possible successors is leaving Apple⁠

 Sabih Khan⁠

 Apple’s design team will report to Tim Cook⁠

 
A close look at who could succeed Tim Cook⁠ 

 ⁠Mark Zuckerberg announces his AI ‘superintelligence’ super-group⁠

 Meta is paying $14 billion to catch up in the AI race⁠

 Meta’s ‘superintelligence’ hiring spree adds an AI leader from Apple⁠

 Pay packages of up to $300 million over four years⁠

 
Meta is trying to win the AI race with money — but not everyone can be bought⁠ 

 ⁠X CEO Linda Yaccarino is stepping down after two years⁠

 X’s CEO is out after failing at basically everything she claimed she wanted⁠

 Threads is catching up to X on mobile⁠

 X has a new head of product⁠

 Elon Musk’s xAI buys Elon Musk’s X for $33 billion on paper⁠

 xAI updated Grok to be more ‘politically incorrect’⁠

 Grok stops posting text after flood of antisemitism and Hitler praise⁠

 ⁠“In other posts it referred to itself as “MechaHitler”.⁠

 Musk makes grand promises about Grok 4 in the wake of a Nazi chatbot meltdown ⁠

 ⁠Adobe’s new camera app is making me rethink phone photography⁠

 ⁠Ikea’s latest speaker lamp ditches Sonos for Spotify and inexpensive Bluetooth⁠

 Ikea ditches Zigbee for Thread going all in on Matter smart homes⁠

 ⁠Perplexity launches Comet web browser⁠

 OpenAI’s next big launch could be an AI web browser⁠

 ⁠E Ink is turning the laptop touchpad into an e-reader for AI apps⁠

 ⁠Lorde’s new CD is so transparent that stereos can’t even read it⁠

 I tried playing Lorde’s new CD⁠

 ⁠Appeals court strikes down ‘click-to-cancel’ rule⁠

 ⁠Nothing’s ‘first true flagship’ phone plays it a little safe⁠

 ⁠Adding calendar events with a screenshot is AI at its finest⁠

 ⁠The government’s Apple antitrust lawsuit is still on⁠

 ⁠Apple just added more frost to its Liquid Glass design⁠

 ⁠Apple’s second-generation Vision Pro might launch this year⁠

 ⁠Nvidia briefly became the first $4 trillion company on Wednesday⁠

 ⁠The makers of Cameo just launched... a birthday-tracking app?⁠

 ⁠Nintendo is ending its cost-saving Switch game vouchers⁠

 ⁠HBO Max is officially HBO Max again

Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All eyes on Samsung's thin new foldable

On this episode of The Vergecast, we kick off Hot Girl Vergecast Summer with a classic Vergecast segment: the mic test. Guest host Victoria Song is joined by Vergecast producers Andru Marino and Erick Gomez to see how the Nothing Headphone 1, Sony WH-1000XM6, Apple AirPods Max, and Bose QuietComfort Ultra hold up against what’s possibly the noisiest street in Brooklyn. 

After that, Victoria is joined by Ladder CEO Greg Stewart to talk about what it takes to build a successful strength training app — especially for people just starting out. As it turns out, it’s quite challenging, between curating playlists, accommodating users’ different access to equipment, skill levels, and preferences for coaching styles. (And maybe, some occasional beef with Peloton?)

Lastly, we answer a question from the Vergecast Hotline (call 866-VERGE11 or email vergecast@theverge.com) about AI fitness summaries, whether people actually like them, what’s frustrating about them, and what scenarios they might actually be useful for. 

Want to learn more about the topics in this episode? Here are some handy dandy links for your reference:

 Nothing Headphone 1 review

 Sony WH-1000XM6 hands-on

 Apple AirPods Max review

 Bose QuietComfort Ultra review

 A lazy person’s guide to getting into shape

 Ladder isn’t done trolling Peloton

 The unbearable obviousness of AI fitness summaries

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A quest for the best headphone mics

Today on the flagship podcast of the Action Button:
03:34 - The Verge's David Pierce chats with Allison Johnson and Dan Seifert about their reviews of the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro.
41:02 - Victoria Song joins the show to talk about her review of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2.
1:07:58 - David chats with Isaac Mosna and Widgetsmith's David Smith about customizing your iPhone wallpaper and widgets.
Email us at vergecast@theverge.com or call us at 866-VERGE11, we love hearing from you.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

iPhone and watches and wallpapers, oh my

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