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27 Jul

The Verge’s 2025 back-to-school shopping guide

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Back-to-school season is closer than you might realize, especially for college students, many of whom are set to return to campus in a matter of a few short weeks. And while school can be a challenging time on many fronts, regardless of the grade, there are tools that can help you better prepare for life both inside and outside the classroom. With that in mind, we've compiled a selection of dorm-friendly recs from the larger Verge staff, as well as a few essentials suitable for high school and beyond. Apple's AirPods 4 and Roku's latest smart TV, for instance, are…

27 Jul

Apple beta season is here

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Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 91, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, how is summer more than a month over already, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I'm pondering the leaked Pixel 10 lineup, marveling at BYD's leaping Yangwang U9 supercar, reading about why everyone's reading Reddit, already looking forward to Ted Lasso's fourth season, rewatching MKBHD's videos about the Escobar folding phone, melting with joy at the new Pokémon Concierge season 2 trailer, dreaming of buying the Lego Game…

26 Jul

Here are the laptops I’d tell any parent to consider for their back-to-school student

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We’re in the heart of summer fun, but it’s already time for back-to-school planning, especially if that involves buying a new laptop. The dizzying number of different laptops and configurations can feel overwhelming, especially if you want something that doesn’t cost too much but will still last a long time. My general guidelines are to first pick the operating system you need (based on personal preference or class requirements), and then get the best specs you can afford. If your school has specific requirements or recommendations, they are likely found on the school website. A quality laptop should also have…

26 Jul

Online MAGA cope is now Congressional strategy

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When it comes to defending Donald Trump from the worst accusations, the MAGA influencer-industrial complex, whether out of loyalty or self-preservation, often defaults to whataboutism, arguing that the Democrats are just as guilty as Trump, or (ideally) worse. This principle has held true with the current Jeffrey Epstein saga, and as their audience's anger against the Trump administration skyrockets, the MAGA influencer world is trying a new tack: blame the Democrats, not Trump, for keeping the "Epstein Files" under lock and key. Trump, the person who could feasibly order the release of said documents, has spent the past few weeks…

26 Jul

The Drifter is a good old-fashioned thriller

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Point-and-click adventure games often tell silly, lighthearted stories. For me, the mishaps of the pirate Guybrush Threepwood in the Monkey Island series come to mind. The nature of the genre - wandering around, talking to people, and trying to solve puzzles - lends itself well to humor, as every interaction with a person or object offers an opportunity for a joke. The Drifter, a new point-and-click game from Powerhoof, cleverly uses the format to instead tell a dark, twist-filled thriller, and it sucked me in like a gripping novel. In The Drifter, you play as Mick Carter, who you meet…

26 Jul

OnePlus Nord 5 review: selfie-centric midranger

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The OnePlus Nord 5 does exactly what the company's Nord phones have always done: deliver strong specs at a relatively low price. It's one of the more powerful phones at this price point and should easily outstrip Samsung and Google's more expensive alternatives. This is a function-over-form phone, one where the key selling points are a powerful processor and long battery life, which are the boring mainstays that tend to matter the most in midrange models like this. The problem for the Nord 5 is that other midrange phones in the markets where it's available - including Europe and India,…

26 Jul

Inside the struggle to create a cozy Lord of the Rings game

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When new employees start at Weta Workshop, they're herded into a meeting room with a long, unassuming conference table. On the walls, behind panes of glass and in between statues, swords, and masks, are five Oscars. Four of them were awarded to the studio for its efforts on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films. New hires are offered a chance to hold one of those Oscars, but there's a catch: handling the golden statuette marks you with a curse, preventing you from ever winning one yourself. Rarely do inductees take Weta up on the offer. Weta Workshop's fledgling…

25 Jul

GPD’s monster Strix Halo handheld requires a battery ‘backpack’ or a 180W charger

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Yesterday, I mentioned how GPD is teasing the most potent handheld yet made — a GPD Win 5 that will house the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip, with AMD’s most powerful integrated graphics yet, inside a PlayStation Vita-shaped machine. If you’ve been wondering how that huge chip could even fit, handheld expert Cary “The Phawx” Golomb now has the answer: the 7-inch handheld will apparently have no internal battery taking up space. The Win 5 is designed to either be plugged into the wall, with a gaming laptop sized 180-watt charger providing the juice — or powered by a big…

25 Jul

DJI couldn’t confirm or deny it disguised this drone to evade a US ban

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DJI barely sells drones in the United States anymore. The shelves are bare; resellers are jacking up prices. It appears an unofficial ban at US customs is to blame. But on Amazon, you can now buy a drone that's a a dead ringer for the DJI Mini 4 Pro - the SkyRover X1 - for a reasonable $758. And that's probably because DJI made it happen. There's evidence suggesting so, and DJI was not able to deny the SkyRover X1 was a DJI product one day after we reached out. As reported by DroneXL, security researchers have discovered the SkyRover…

25 Jul

Google gets its swag back

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This week, I take a look at the surprisingly strong state of Google, Meta gets a new chief AI researcher, and more. If you haven't already, be sure to check out this week's Decoder episode about deepfakes and where they are headed. Also, do you use an AI coding tool like Cursor or GitHub Copilot? I'd love to know what works and what doesn't… "I think we are doing very well through this moment" After spending time with Google executives during the company's I/O conference in May, it was clear that they were feeling confident. Now, I'm beginning to see…