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The Generac EV charger starts at $649. | Image: Generac

Generac — a power and energy management company known for its gas-powered home backup generators — has released its first electric vehicle charger. The new charger joins the company’s home battery solution in its move toward clean energy. Generac also owns Ecobee, a smart thermostat company.
The Generac level 2 charger costs $649 for the 40 amp version or $699 for the 48 amp and is compatible with all EVs on the market today, including Teslas’ with an adaptor. It has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity for managing scheduled charging with the Generac EV charging app.
A Power Sharing feature lets you connect multiple chargers to one circuit (up to 25), and the system will manage the charging so as not to overload it. A Power Boost feature lets you monitor the subpanel or breaker to avoid tripping it.
According to Greg Wischstadt, Generac’s VP of Connectivity, the charger is made by Wallbox, a leading manufacturer of EV chargers, but it will run Generac’s software. Generac invested in the Wallbox late last year.
With the addition of the EV charger, Generac is continuing its move into electric power that has been accelerating since 2020 when it launched its PWRcell home battery — a competitor to the Tesla Power Wall.
In early 2022, the company also hired Brian Dow, Tesla’s director of engineering, as its VP of Clean Energy. It’s been steadily expanding the battery’s solar storage and home backup solution capabilities, including integrating it with its home standby generators.

Image: Ecobee
Generac integrates some of its products with the Ecobee smart thermostat.

While it has Wi-Fi connectivity, the new EV charger doesn’t have any smart home integrations, and the company isn’t yet part of the new Matter smart home interoperability standard — which just added support for EV chargers.
Generac’s standby generators do integrate with Ecobee Smart thermostats to show status and help with energy management in a power outage, and its propane tanks can also display fuel levels on the thermostat’s screen. However, Wischstadt says there are no current plans to integrate the new EV charger with Ecobee.
Still, you can see the pieces potentially falling into place here for an integrated energy management system that’s controllable from inside the home using Ecobee’s touchscreen interface.

The Generac EV charger starts at $649. | Image: Generac

Generac — a power and energy management company known for its gas-powered home backup generators — has released its first electric vehicle charger. The new charger joins the company’s home battery solution in its move toward clean energy. Generac also owns Ecobee, a smart thermostat company.

The Generac level 2 charger costs $649 for the 40 amp version or $699 for the 48 amp and is compatible with all EVs on the market today, including Teslas’ with an adaptor. It has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity for managing scheduled charging with the Generac EV charging app.

A Power Sharing feature lets you connect multiple chargers to one circuit (up to 25), and the system will manage the charging so as not to overload it. A Power Boost feature lets you monitor the subpanel or breaker to avoid tripping it.

According to Greg Wischstadt, Generac’s VP of Connectivity, the charger is made by Wallbox, a leading manufacturer of EV chargers, but it will run Generac’s software. Generac invested in the Wallbox late last year.

With the addition of the EV charger, Generac is continuing its move into electric power that has been accelerating since 2020 when it launched its PWRcell home battery — a competitor to the Tesla Power Wall.

In early 2022, the company also hired Brian Dow, Tesla’s director of engineering, as its VP of Clean Energy. It’s been steadily expanding the battery’s solar storage and home backup solution capabilities, including integrating it with its home standby generators.

Image: Ecobee
Generac integrates some of its products with the Ecobee smart thermostat.

While it has Wi-Fi connectivity, the new EV charger doesn’t have any smart home integrations, and the company isn’t yet part of the new Matter smart home interoperability standard — which just added support for EV chargers.

Generac’s standby generators do integrate with Ecobee Smart thermostats to show status and help with energy management in a power outage, and its propane tanks can also display fuel levels on the thermostat’s screen. However, Wischstadt says there are no current plans to integrate the new EV charger with Ecobee.

Still, you can see the pieces potentially falling into place here for an integrated energy management system that’s controllable from inside the home using Ecobee’s touchscreen interface.

Read More 

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

The former tech investor likes the FTC’s Lina Khan and wants to break up Google, citing its liberal bias. In February, about a hundred people gathered at Bloomberg’s Washington, DC, office for a conference hosted by the startup incubator Y Combinator.
It was an event with some of the biggest names in the modern antitrust reform movement, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan. Both have been advocates of refreshing what they see as an outdated view of American antitrust law, which they believe has allowed the largest tech companies to evade scrutiny, stifling the would-be upstarts that Y Combinator made its name investing in.
Also speaking that day was Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), whom former President Donald Trump just named as his pick for vice president on the Republican ticket. Vance’s ties to Silicon Valley date back to before Trump was elected in 2016, when he worked for the billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel. He was at the small DC event earlier this year to, perhaps surprisingly, share the same message as Warren and Khan: big tech needs to be reined in.
“The fundamental question to me is, how do we build a competitive marketplace that is pro-innovation, pro-competition, that allows consumers to have the right choices and isn’t just so obsessed on pricing power within the market that it sort of ignores all the other things that really matter?” Vance told the audience.
He went on to specifically praise Khan, the Biden official many of his Republican colleagues have sharply criticized for her aggressive stance on blocking tech deals. “I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I actually think is doing a pretty good job,” he said at the Y Combinator event, which was dubbed RemedyFest, a reference to antitrust remedies such as breakups of companies.
“I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I actually think is doing a pretty good job.”
Like many powerful Republicans, Vance sees cracking down on big tech as a way to loosen the control a handful of Bay Area companies have over the way speech is distributed online. It’s an issue the right has taken up in both Congress and the Supreme Court as tech content moderation policies on election misinformation have increasingly come in conflict with what are now mainstream Republican talking points.
A few days before his appearance at RemedyFest, Vance said that “it’s time to break Google up” in response to a post on X claiming that Google News has increasingly cited more left-leaning sources in recent years.
“I think that Google and Facebook have really distorted our political process,” Vance said at RemedyFest, which The Verge attended. “And I think that a lot of my friends on the left would agree with me, but they might disagree with me directionally about how to fix that problem.”
“It’s time to break Google up”
He said he worries that Google could display the results of a search about Joe Biden’s competency to be president in a way that unduly sways voters. “We have got to stop the craziness, and I think one way to do it is to stop the way that these companies control the flow of information in our country.”
In a 2022 televised debate, Vance said he thinks “the 2020 election was stolen from Trump,” an endorsement of the claim that predicated the January 6th riot and Trump subsequently being banned on social media platforms like X and Facebook. Earlier that year, Vance called the January 6th arrestees “political prisoners” in a post on X.
Garrett Ventry, a political consultant who previously served as chief of staff to former Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), told The Verge in a statement that Vance “is a welcome pick for anyone who is interested in reining in Big Tech’s monopoly power.”
Ventry’s former boss had been one of the leading Republicans in the failed bipartisan effort to enact new tech competition before Buck chose to leave Congress. Last year, Buck and Vance both led a letter to the US Trade Representative and the Commerce Secretary urging them not to lock competition policies that were under active discussion in Congress into trade agreements.
Vance has also been vocal about a more relaxed approach to regulating crypto
At the same time, Vance has also been vocal about a more relaxed approach to regulating crypto, a position that is seemingly aligned with Trump and is also attracting hundreds of millions of dollars in PAC contributions from the likes of Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and Elon Musk. At RemedyFest, Vance criticized Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler for his approach to crypto that “seems to be almost the exact opposite of what it should be.”
“The question the SEC seems to ask in regulating crypto is, ‘Is this a token with utility?’” Vance said at the event. “And if it’s a token with utility, then they seem to want to ban it. If it’s token without utility, they don’t seem to care.” Vance thinks tokens with utility can be regulated but shouldn’t be eliminated altogether.
He worries about overregulating blockchain-based technology because he believes that challengers to social media incumbents like Meta will rely on it for features like identity verification. “If we’re not making it possible to do verification, then we’re going to make it really hard to challenge the existing incumbents in the space,” he said at RemedyFest.
It’s not yet clear how much pull Vance would have in a second Trump administration or how Trump’s own views might conflict with his running mate’s. “VPs don’t set policy, presidents do,” Barry Lynn, executive director of the Open Markets Institute, told The Verge in an emailed statement. “Bottom line is that Trump’s policies would destroy the Federal government as we’ve known it since The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. And if you don’t have a functioning Federal government, you can’t enforce antimonopoly law.”
Vance admitted at RemedyFest that he hadn’t spoken with Trump specifically about antitrust policy but said he thinks the former president’s “instincts on this stuff are quite good.”

Photo by Drew Angerer / Getty Images
J.D. Vance at the ultraexclusive tech and media Sun Valley Conference in 2017.

Vance has long-running ties to the tech industry. He worked as an investor for Thiel’s Mithril Capital, and in 2016, he was catapulted to the attention of the Silicon Valley elite with the publication of Hillbilly Elegy, his bestselling memoir about growing up in Kentucky and Ohio. The book’s influence became hard to escape in some tech circles after Trump became president.
Thiel famously played a key role in helping elect Trump in 2016. He later helped bankroll Vance’s successful Senate campaign in 2022. Around that time, both Thiel and Vance invested in Rumble, a conservative competitor to YouTube.
While Thiel distanced himself from Trump after Biden took office in 2020, Vance leaned in. Republican donors from the tech world have been pushing for him to be Trump’s VP pick for some time. Last month, he helped bring to life a fundraiser for Trump in San Francisco that was hosted by tech investors David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya of the All-In podcast.
Vance’s anti-Google, pro-crypto leanings are perfectly in line with a certain corner of Silicon Valley, as is his sympathy for the pronatalist movement, whose obsession with declining birthrates is sometimes at odds with women’s bodily autonomy.
A tech executive who supports Biden and has met Vance multiple times described him as “based” to The Verge. “He is younger and gets it.”
Regardless of the impact that Vance may have on a potential second Trump term, there’s no denying that he would bring a strong view on how to regulate the tech industry to the White House. In his remarks at RemedyFest earlier this year, Vance called back to the inception of US antitrust laws in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and said many of the same arguments advocates made back then apply to the modern era.
“There was a recognition that concentrated private power could be just as dangerous as concentrated public power,” Vance said. “That insight is so important to recover on the right.”

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

The former tech investor likes the FTC’s Lina Khan and wants to break up Google, citing its liberal bias.

In February, about a hundred people gathered at Bloomberg’s Washington, DC, office for a conference hosted by the startup incubator Y Combinator.

It was an event with some of the biggest names in the modern antitrust reform movement, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan. Both have been advocates of refreshing what they see as an outdated view of American antitrust law, which they believe has allowed the largest tech companies to evade scrutiny, stifling the would-be upstarts that Y Combinator made its name investing in.

Also speaking that day was Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), whom former President Donald Trump just named as his pick for vice president on the Republican ticket. Vance’s ties to Silicon Valley date back to before Trump was elected in 2016, when he worked for the billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel. He was at the small DC event earlier this year to, perhaps surprisingly, share the same message as Warren and Khan: big tech needs to be reined in.

“The fundamental question to me is, how do we build a competitive marketplace that is pro-innovation, pro-competition, that allows consumers to have the right choices and isn’t just so obsessed on pricing power within the market that it sort of ignores all the other things that really matter?” Vance told the audience.

He went on to specifically praise Khan, the Biden official many of his Republican colleagues have sharply criticized for her aggressive stance on blocking tech deals. “I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I actually think is doing a pretty good job,” he said at the Y Combinator event, which was dubbed RemedyFest, a reference to antitrust remedies such as breakups of companies.

Like many powerful Republicans, Vance sees cracking down on big tech as a way to loosen the control a handful of Bay Area companies have over the way speech is distributed online. It’s an issue the right has taken up in both Congress and the Supreme Court as tech content moderation policies on election misinformation have increasingly come in conflict with what are now mainstream Republican talking points.

A few days before his appearance at RemedyFest, Vance said that “it’s time to break Google up” in response to a post on X claiming that Google News has increasingly cited more left-leaning sources in recent years.

“I think that Google and Facebook have really distorted our political process,” Vance said at RemedyFest, which The Verge attended. “And I think that a lot of my friends on the left would agree with me, but they might disagree with me directionally about how to fix that problem.”

He said he worries that Google could display the results of a search about Joe Biden’s competency to be president in a way that unduly sways voters. “We have got to stop the craziness, and I think one way to do it is to stop the way that these companies control the flow of information in our country.”

In a 2022 televised debate, Vance said he thinks “the 2020 election was stolen from Trump,” an endorsement of the claim that predicated the January 6th riot and Trump subsequently being banned on social media platforms like X and Facebook. Earlier that year, Vance called the January 6th arrestees “political prisoners” in a post on X.

Garrett Ventry, a political consultant who previously served as chief of staff to former Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), told The Verge in a statement that Vance “is a welcome pick for anyone who is interested in reining in Big Tech’s monopoly power.”

Ventry’s former boss had been one of the leading Republicans in the failed bipartisan effort to enact new tech competition before Buck chose to leave Congress. Last year, Buck and Vance both led a letter to the US Trade Representative and the Commerce Secretary urging them not to lock competition policies that were under active discussion in Congress into trade agreements.

At the same time, Vance has also been vocal about a more relaxed approach to regulating crypto, a position that is seemingly aligned with Trump and is also attracting hundreds of millions of dollars in PAC contributions from the likes of Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and Elon Musk. At RemedyFest, Vance criticized Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler for his approach to crypto that “seems to be almost the exact opposite of what it should be.”

“The question the SEC seems to ask in regulating crypto is, ‘Is this a token with utility?’” Vance said at the event. “And if it’s a token with utility, then they seem to want to ban it. If it’s token without utility, they don’t seem to care.” Vance thinks tokens with utility can be regulated but shouldn’t be eliminated altogether.

He worries about overregulating blockchain-based technology because he believes that challengers to social media incumbents like Meta will rely on it for features like identity verification. “If we’re not making it possible to do verification, then we’re going to make it really hard to challenge the existing incumbents in the space,” he said at RemedyFest.

It’s not yet clear how much pull Vance would have in a second Trump administration or how Trump’s own views might conflict with his running mate’s. “VPs don’t set policy, presidents do,” Barry Lynn, executive director of the Open Markets Institute, told The Verge in an emailed statement. “Bottom line is that Trump’s policies would destroy the Federal government as we’ve known it since The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. And if you don’t have a functioning Federal government, you can’t enforce antimonopoly law.”

Vance admitted at RemedyFest that he hadn’t spoken with Trump specifically about antitrust policy but said he thinks the former president’s “instincts on this stuff are quite good.”

Photo by Drew Angerer / Getty Images
J.D. Vance at the ultraexclusive tech and media Sun Valley Conference in 2017.

Vance has long-running ties to the tech industry. He worked as an investor for Thiel’s Mithril Capital, and in 2016, he was catapulted to the attention of the Silicon Valley elite with the publication of Hillbilly Elegy, his bestselling memoir about growing up in Kentucky and Ohio. The book’s influence became hard to escape in some tech circles after Trump became president.

Thiel famously played a key role in helping elect Trump in 2016. He later helped bankroll Vance’s successful Senate campaign in 2022. Around that time, both Thiel and Vance invested in Rumble, a conservative competitor to YouTube.

While Thiel distanced himself from Trump after Biden took office in 2020, Vance leaned in. Republican donors from the tech world have been pushing for him to be Trump’s VP pick for some time. Last month, he helped bring to life a fundraiser for Trump in San Francisco that was hosted by tech investors David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya of the All-In podcast.

Vance’s anti-Google, pro-crypto leanings are perfectly in line with a certain corner of Silicon Valley, as is his sympathy for the pronatalist movement, whose obsession with declining birthrates is sometimes at odds with women’s bodily autonomy.

A tech executive who supports Biden and has met Vance multiple times described him as “based” to The Verge. “He is younger and gets it.”

Regardless of the impact that Vance may have on a potential second Trump term, there’s no denying that he would bring a strong view on how to regulate the tech industry to the White House. In his remarks at RemedyFest earlier this year, Vance called back to the inception of US antitrust laws in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and said many of the same arguments advocates made back then apply to the modern era.

“There was a recognition that concentrated private power could be just as dangerous as concentrated public power,” Vance said. “That insight is so important to recover on the right.”

Read More 

Image: NCC

There have been leaks aplenty in recent weeks showing every angle of Google’s Pixel 9, 9 Pro, and 9 Pro XL. But so far, the company’s second-generation foldable phone has managed to keep better cover ahead of next month’s product event. So much for that! As reported by Android Authority, new regulatory photos from Taiwan’s National Communications Commission (NCC) have fully revealed the Pixel Fold 2 Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
The images confirm that Google is moving away from the short and squat passport-style design that helped the original Pixel Fold stand out from Samsung’s tall, narrow Galaxy Fold. Now, we’re getting something closer to the OnePlus Open. The outer display still looks very usable in terms of how much screen real estate you’ve got to work with, but it’s definitely taller than before.

Image: NCC
Yep, there’s still a crease. But maybe a less prominent one?

Around back, these photos also confirm that the 9 Pro Fold will ditch the camera bar, which has become one of Google’s signature hardware elements. This time, it’ll be… well, I’m not quite sure what you’d call this style of camera housing. It looks big enough to prevent the phone from having an annoying wobble when laid down on a table at least. As for the inner display, again, the screen ratio is noticeably taller and narrower compared to the original Fold, and it looks as though Google has managed to shave down the bezels some.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
So long, camera bar.

The tradeoff there is that the inner camera is now a cutout on the upper-left part of the display, whereas, last time, it was part of the bezel, giving you an uninterrupted display. I think I prefer the latter approach, but it is what it is. Another thing that has me a little wary is the battery. Apparently Google is going with a slightly smaller capacity (4,560mAh) this time, and the first Pixel Fold (4,727mAh) wasn’t exactly what I’d call a longevity champ. Maybe the company’s latest Tensor processor will help make up for that with some efficiency gains.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
The original Pixel Fold’s short, squat display make it such a good one-handed phone. But it’s a damn heavy one.

I’ve used the Pixel Fold as my daily driver for a good chunk of the last year. There’s just something about it that continues to feel special. Sure, it quickly got lapped in screen brightness by the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, the speakers sound pretty bad, and many app developers never really bothered optimizing their software for the device. Here’s hoping the second try can correct a few of those downsides for a better overall package — even if it’s still likely to cost upward of $2,000.

Image: NCC

There have been leaks aplenty in recent weeks showing every angle of Google’s Pixel 9, 9 Pro, and 9 Pro XL. But so far, the company’s second-generation foldable phone has managed to keep better cover ahead of next month’s product event. So much for that! As reported by Android Authority, new regulatory photos from Taiwan’s National Communications Commission (NCC) have fully revealed the Pixel Fold 2 Pixel 9 Pro Fold.

The images confirm that Google is moving away from the short and squat passport-style design that helped the original Pixel Fold stand out from Samsung’s tall, narrow Galaxy Fold. Now, we’re getting something closer to the OnePlus Open. The outer display still looks very usable in terms of how much screen real estate you’ve got to work with, but it’s definitely taller than before.

Image: NCC
Yep, there’s still a crease. But maybe a less prominent one?

Around back, these photos also confirm that the 9 Pro Fold will ditch the camera bar, which has become one of Google’s signature hardware elements. This time, it’ll be… well, I’m not quite sure what you’d call this style of camera housing. It looks big enough to prevent the phone from having an annoying wobble when laid down on a table at least. As for the inner display, again, the screen ratio is noticeably taller and narrower compared to the original Fold, and it looks as though Google has managed to shave down the bezels some.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
So long, camera bar.

The tradeoff there is that the inner camera is now a cutout on the upper-left part of the display, whereas, last time, it was part of the bezel, giving you an uninterrupted display. I think I prefer the latter approach, but it is what it is. Another thing that has me a little wary is the battery. Apparently Google is going with a slightly smaller capacity (4,560mAh) this time, and the first Pixel Fold (4,727mAh) wasn’t exactly what I’d call a longevity champ. Maybe the company’s latest Tensor processor will help make up for that with some efficiency gains.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
The original Pixel Fold’s short, squat display make it such a good one-handed phone. But it’s a damn heavy one.

I’ve used the Pixel Fold as my daily driver for a good chunk of the last year. There’s just something about it that continues to feel special. Sure, it quickly got lapped in screen brightness by the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro, the speakers sound pretty bad, and many app developers never really bothered optimizing their software for the device. Here’s hoping the second try can correct a few of those downsides for a better overall package — even if it’s still likely to cost upward of $2,000.

Read More 

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge

Instagram will now let you add up to 20 audio tracks to your Reels, according to an update spotted by social media consultant Matt Navarra. When you add different tracks to a reel, Instagram will label the audio mix as belonging to you, allowing other users to share and reuse it.
Before this update, you could only add one track to your Reels. But now that you can include multiple tracks, you can sync different audio to the text, stickers, and clips that appear in your Reels, potentially making for an even more chaotic video.

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A post shared by Instagram’s @Creators (@creators)

To use the feature, hit the new “add to mix” button that appears in Instagram’s video editor. From there, you can choose the tracks you want to include, which portions of the songs to use, and where to place them in your video. After you post a reel, other users can see all the tracks included in it and will also see a button to “use audio mix” in their own videos.
This is one feature that even TikTok doesn’t have yet; users there still need to use a workaround or third-party app to get multiple songs in their videos.

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge

Instagram will now let you add up to 20 audio tracks to your Reels, according to an update spotted by social media consultant Matt Navarra. When you add different tracks to a reel, Instagram will label the audio mix as belonging to you, allowing other users to share and reuse it.

Before this update, you could only add one track to your Reels. But now that you can include multiple tracks, you can sync different audio to the text, stickers, and clips that appear in your Reels, potentially making for an even more chaotic video.

To use the feature, hit the new “add to mix” button that appears in Instagram’s video editor. From there, you can choose the tracks you want to include, which portions of the songs to use, and where to place them in your video. After you post a reel, other users can see all the tracks included in it and will also see a button to “use audio mix” in their own videos.

This is one feature that even TikTok doesn’t have yet; users there still need to use a workaround or third-party app to get multiple songs in their videos.

Read More 

Image: Google

Google is ending a months-old experiment that let people attach colorful notes to search results, the company confirmed to 9to5Google.
Google announced the Notes experiment for Search Labs in November. If you had opted-in to Notes, you could see and add annotations featuring text and images to links in search results in the Google app. (They were kind of a Google-y take on X’s Community Notes.) But given Tuesday’s announcement, it seems the test wasn’t popular enough to warrant a wider release.

“Search Labs is our testbed for bold experimentation and as we’ve shared, not all experiments will launch broadly,” a Google spokesperson told 9to5Google. “We’ve seen in our research that people want to hear from others like them and Notes was an exploration of how to help people share their knowledge right on Search. We’re excited to continue testing new ways to connect people to authentic, relatable voices and look forward to bringing some of our learnings from Notes into future product experiences.”
Google didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge. The “Notes on Search” section in Search Labs currently says “ends soon;” at one point, the end date was May 2024.

Image: Google

Google is ending a months-old experiment that let people attach colorful notes to search results, the company confirmed to 9to5Google.

Google announced the Notes experiment for Search Labs in November. If you had opted-in to Notes, you could see and add annotations featuring text and images to links in search results in the Google app. (They were kind of a Google-y take on X’s Community Notes.) But given Tuesday’s announcement, it seems the test wasn’t popular enough to warrant a wider release.

“Search Labs is our testbed for bold experimentation and as we’ve shared, not all experiments will launch broadly,” a Google spokesperson told 9to5Google. “We’ve seen in our research that people want to hear from others like them and Notes was an exploration of how to help people share their knowledge right on Search. We’re excited to continue testing new ways to connect people to authentic, relatable voices and look forward to bringing some of our learnings from Notes into future product experiences.”

Google didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge. The “Notes on Search” section in Search Labs currently says “ends soon;” at one point, the end date was May 2024.

Read More 

A chumbox pictured at the bottom of a story. | Screenshot: The Verge

Taboola, one of the biggest providers of chumbox ads on the internet, has a deal to sell ads that will show in Apple’s News and Stocks apps, Axios reports. Apple lists Taboola as one of its “Authorised advertising resellers” whose ads appear in the apps’ feeds and “select publisher articles” for users in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada.
The deal doesn’t mean Apple News will soon be littered with chumboxes — those ad boxes formatted to look like news stories that you see at the bottom of articles (including at The Verge) with low-rent, often ridiculous clickbait headlines. Taboola makes those, and they apparently do quite well. But it also sells “native” ads, which are meant to blend in with surrounding content, from “a curated set of premium publishers” through its Taboola Select program, notes Axios.

In the case of Apple, the company’s ad moderator team has “certain levels of control around which advertisers it will sell through to Apple apps,” Axios writes, paraphrasing Taboola CEO Adam Singolda.
It’s not clear when Apple and Taboola made their deal, but the company has been listed on Apple’s site since at least May, according to The Internet Archive. It appears to have replaced Yahoo. NBCUniversal also sells ads that show up in Apple News and Apple Stocks, but only in the US and the UK.
I took a quick jaunt through Apple News while writing this story, and you won’t BELIEVE the ads I saw IN JUST FIVE MINUTES!
… Normal ads. They were just regular, mundane ads.

A chumbox pictured at the bottom of a story. | Screenshot: The Verge

Taboola, one of the biggest providers of chumbox ads on the internet, has a deal to sell ads that will show in Apple’s News and Stocks apps, Axios reports. Apple lists Taboola as one of its “Authorised advertising resellers” whose ads appear in the apps’ feeds and “select publisher articles” for users in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada.

The deal doesn’t mean Apple News will soon be littered with chumboxes — those ad boxes formatted to look like news stories that you see at the bottom of articles (including at The Verge) with low-rent, often ridiculous clickbait headlines. Taboola makes those, and they apparently do quite well. But it also sells “native” ads, which are meant to blend in with surrounding content, from “a curated set of premium publishers” through its Taboola Select program, notes Axios.

In the case of Apple, the company’s ad moderator team has “certain levels of control around which advertisers it will sell through to Apple apps,” Axios writes, paraphrasing Taboola CEO Adam Singolda.

It’s not clear when Apple and Taboola made their deal, but the company has been listed on Apple’s site since at least May, according to The Internet Archive. It appears to have replaced Yahoo. NBCUniversal also sells ads that show up in Apple News and Apple Stocks, but only in the US and the UK.

I took a quick jaunt through Apple News while writing this story, and you won’t BELIEVE the ads I saw IN JUST FIVE MINUTES!

… Normal ads. They were just regular, mundane ads.

Read More 

An iPad version of the iPhone’s StandBy mode would be a start for Apple’s smart display efforts. But I’d rather see a dedicated Apple Home iPad. | Image: David Pierce / The Verge

Apple’s smart home efforts need a smart display. If I have to hear Siri say, “I found some web results; I can show them if you ask again from your iPhone,” one more time, I may throw a HomePod out the window.
While smart displays — the more expensive sibling to smart speakers — haven’t lived up to their potential, they can be useful and are a missing piece in Apple’s smart home, which the company has largely avoided creating products for — so far, just a couple of smart speakers and a bit of help from the Apple TV.
An Apple smart display with a touch-screen display, a dedicated Apple Home control panel, a smarter Siri, and the chops to be an Apple Home hub supporting Thread and Matter is something I’d put in my smart home.
It appears Apple has been working on this type of competitor to Amazon’s Echo Shows and Google’s Nest Hubs for a while, at least based on long-running rumors. But since WWDC last month, the rumor mill has kicked into high gear.

First, MacRumors discovered code indicating a new “Home Accessory” is being readied. Then, last week 9to5Mac found details in the tvOS 18 developer beta 3 about a new interface called PlasterBoard that is touchscreen-ready and has a lock screen — two things an Apple TV doesn’t need. But as HomePods run on a modified version of tvOS it could apply to a new version of the smart speaker with a touchscreen interface.
This means we could see a new Home-focused device from Apple as soon as this fall when tvOS 18 launches to the public. However, Apple watcher Mark Gurman says early next year is more likely. Gurman says Apple has been testing at least four speaker / display devices that could fit into the smart home. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also thinks a HomePod with a seven-inch screen is coming.
With these tasty crumbs in the code, the shape of Apple’s next big smart home move is coming into focus. But the question remains: what will it be? Here’s a look at all the rumors to date, in order of those I think are most likely to happen to the longer shots.
A HomePod with a touchscreen on top

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
The current display on the HomePod could get an upgrade.

Just one small tweak to the existing HomePod could bring us a sort of Apple smart display: rnhancing the touchscreen on top of the $300 smart speaker so it can do more than just show pretty lights and control playback.
This is the simplest and least exciting upgrade option and therefore the most likely. But it would make the HomePod marginally more useful by providing additional controls for switching tracks and audio sources, selecting podcasts, answering incoming calls, and potentially executing simple smart home controls.
The rumor that Apple would do something like this started a while back, and there hasn’t been much evidence to support it recently. The touchscreen interface 9to5Mac found in tvOS 18 could apply here, but feels more relevant for a larger screen.
The small size and positioning of the HomePod’s existing display would limit the function of an enhanced version compared to other smart displays. But it could show some information in response to Siri queries and offer different interfaces based on requests — such as displaying a dimmer dial when you ask to control a light, for example. I could see the interface feeling similar to the controls on an Apple Watch.
An Apple smart display — aka the Echo Show

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
The $150 Echo Show 8 is Amazon’s flagship smart display.

More interesting is the rumored traditional smart display — a combined touchscreen tablet with a smart speaker. This is also the most persistent rumor. Kuo says a HomePod with a seven-inch screen is in the works, and combined with the rumor that Apple engineers have been running tvOS on a modified iPad Mini, many signs point this way.
This product may look like an Echo Show 8 or Google Nest Hub Max, where the screen is embedded in the speaker. Or if you go by Gurman’s reporting at Bloomberg, it could resemble the Echo Show 10 — with a touchscreen on a motorized arm.
I’m with Gurman here. Apple is big on sound quality, and the standard design of smart displays suffers from worse sound than that of smart speakers. The screen blocks the acoustics! Lifting the screen up and away from the speaker definitely helps with this.

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge
The $250 Echo Show 10 is a touchscreen on a smart speaker.

If Apple goes this route, it’ll need to put a good processor in the device. My primary issue with smart displays today is that they’re underpowered. And it looks like this might be Apple’s move.
Last month, Gurman reported that Apple’s “table-top robot,” as he calls it, will be the first Apple Home device from Apple to use Apple Intelligence. The current HomePods don’t have the processing power to support AI. Plus, the code MacRumors found indicating a new “Home Accessory” also points toward the device using the as-yet-unannounced A18 chip, making it primed to be AI-powered.
If all of this is true, it’s unlikely we’ll see this gadget until next spring at the earliest — Gurman has said Apple’s AI efforts won’t be ready until then. It’s also likely to be a very expensive device.
An Apple Home iPad — aka the Echo Hub

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Amazon’s Echo Hub is a $180 wall-mountable smart display.

A souped-up Apple smart display with a big speaker, a smarter Siris, and a robot arm will be a pricey product; $500 to $600 would be my guess. So, I hope Apple also plans to introduce a more budget-friendly option — and it sounds like the company might be working on exactly that.
Bloomberg’s Gurman has reported Apple is developing a low-end iPad just for the home. A HomePad perhaps? This could be similar to Amazon’s Echo Hub — a tablet-style device that can be mounted to the wall or propped on a table for controlling smart home devices, viewing camera feeds, and making video calls.
If Apple can keep it under $300, a HomePad would be a big hit in the smart home
Many Apple Home users have tried to shoehorn an iPad into this role, and they’re commonly seen in high-end smart home installations running custom software. But in my experience, it’s not a great solution because the iPad is designed as a personal device. An Apple Home iPad would need to be designed for multiple users — as the HomePod is today.
An affordable Apple Home iPad feels like the smartest move at this stage. It should be a simple lift from a development and hardware perspective; it addresses all the smart home needs and, without fancy speakers, would be the least expensive option. If Apple can keep it under $300, it would be a big hit in the smart home.
HomePod with a removable iPad — aka the Pixel Tablet

Image: Dan Seifert / The Verge
The $450 Google Pixel Tablet is a tablet attached to a speaker dock.

But maybe that budget-friendly iPad won’t just hang out on the wall. Maybe it will have a dock like the Google Pixel Tablet. The device could know when it’s docked to a speaker — potentially via a MagSafe appendage that could enable an iPad version of Apple’s StandBy feature for the iPhone.
Apple’s DockKit could also come into play here, enabling auto-tracking for FaceTime calls or when following a recipe in the kitchen and having the display move with you.
Still, having used both the Echo Show 10 with its motorized screen and the Pixel Tablet with its removable tablet, I’m not big on either design for home control. A tablet needs to stay in one place if it’s being relied upon to control things like lights and locks or view live camera feeds, and robotic smart displays take up a lot of room — they need a surprising amount of space to rotate.
An all-in-one Apple TV / HomePod / FaceTime camera — aka a smart TV

Just make a TV, Apple.

There’s one final option. Gurman has reported that Apple is working on a product that combines the Apple TV, a HomePod, and a FaceTime camera into a single device.
While this all-in-one TV, smart speaker, and video calling device appeared to be a ways off, MacRumors reports it found evidence of two new Apple TVs in Apple’s code, so it could be here sooner than expected.
There are already smart TVs that can do most of the above, and both Samsung and LG even have models that can act as smart home hubs (for Samsung SmartThings and Google Home, respectively). If Apple is going to put all this functionality into a single device, it makes sense to just produce an actual Apple TV. That thing’s been rumored for over a decade.

An iPad version of the iPhone’s StandBy mode would be a start for Apple’s smart display efforts. But I’d rather see a dedicated Apple Home iPad. | Image: David Pierce / The Verge

Apple’s smart home efforts need a smart display. If I have to hear Siri say, “I found some web results; I can show them if you ask again from your iPhone,” one more time, I may throw a HomePod out the window.

While smart displays — the more expensive sibling to smart speakers — haven’t lived up to their potential, they can be useful and are a missing piece in Apple’s smart home, which the company has largely avoided creating products for — so far, just a couple of smart speakers and a bit of help from the Apple TV.

An Apple smart display with a touch-screen display, a dedicated Apple Home control panel, a smarter Siri, and the chops to be an Apple Home hub supporting Thread and Matter is something I’d put in my smart home.

It appears Apple has been working on this type of competitor to Amazon’s Echo Shows and Google’s Nest Hubs for a while, at least based on long-running rumors. But since WWDC last month, the rumor mill has kicked into high gear.

First, MacRumors discovered code indicating a new “Home Accessory” is being readied. Then, last week 9to5Mac found details in the tvOS 18 developer beta 3 about a new interface called PlasterBoard that is touchscreen-ready and has a lock screen — two things an Apple TV doesn’t need. But as HomePods run on a modified version of tvOS it could apply to a new version of the smart speaker with a touchscreen interface.

This means we could see a new Home-focused device from Apple as soon as this fall when tvOS 18 launches to the public. However, Apple watcher Mark Gurman says early next year is more likely. Gurman says Apple has been testing at least four speaker / display devices that could fit into the smart home. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also thinks a HomePod with a seven-inch screen is coming.

With these tasty crumbs in the code, the shape of Apple’s next big smart home move is coming into focus. But the question remains: what will it be? Here’s a look at all the rumors to date, in order of those I think are most likely to happen to the longer shots.

A HomePod with a touchscreen on top

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
The current display on the HomePod could get an upgrade.

Just one small tweak to the existing HomePod could bring us a sort of Apple smart display: rnhancing the touchscreen on top of the $300 smart speaker so it can do more than just show pretty lights and control playback.

This is the simplest and least exciting upgrade option and therefore the most likely. But it would make the HomePod marginally more useful by providing additional controls for switching tracks and audio sources, selecting podcasts, answering incoming calls, and potentially executing simple smart home controls.

The rumor that Apple would do something like this started a while back, and there hasn’t been much evidence to support it recently. The touchscreen interface 9to5Mac found in tvOS 18 could apply here, but feels more relevant for a larger screen.

The small size and positioning of the HomePod’s existing display would limit the function of an enhanced version compared to other smart displays. But it could show some information in response to Siri queries and offer different interfaces based on requests — such as displaying a dimmer dial when you ask to control a light, for example. I could see the interface feeling similar to the controls on an Apple Watch.

An Apple smart display — aka the Echo Show

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
The $150 Echo Show 8 is Amazon’s flagship smart display.

More interesting is the rumored traditional smart display — a combined touchscreen tablet with a smart speaker. This is also the most persistent rumor. Kuo says a HomePod with a seven-inch screen is in the works, and combined with the rumor that Apple engineers have been running tvOS on a modified iPad Mini, many signs point this way.

This product may look like an Echo Show 8 or Google Nest Hub Max, where the screen is embedded in the speaker. Or if you go by Gurman’s reporting at Bloomberg, it could resemble the Echo Show 10 — with a touchscreen on a motorized arm.

I’m with Gurman here. Apple is big on sound quality, and the standard design of smart displays suffers from worse sound than that of smart speakers. The screen blocks the acoustics! Lifting the screen up and away from the speaker definitely helps with this.

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge
The $250 Echo Show 10 is a touchscreen on a smart speaker.

If Apple goes this route, it’ll need to put a good processor in the device. My primary issue with smart displays today is that they’re underpowered. And it looks like this might be Apple’s move.

Last month, Gurman reported that Apple’s “table-top robot,” as he calls it, will be the first Apple Home device from Apple to use Apple Intelligence. The current HomePods don’t have the processing power to support AI. Plus, the code MacRumors found indicating a new “Home Accessory” also points toward the device using the as-yet-unannounced A18 chip, making it primed to be AI-powered.

If all of this is true, it’s unlikely we’ll see this gadget until next spring at the earliest — Gurman has said Apple’s AI efforts won’t be ready until then. It’s also likely to be a very expensive device.

An Apple Home iPad — aka the Echo Hub

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Amazon’s Echo Hub is a $180 wall-mountable smart display.

A souped-up Apple smart display with a big speaker, a smarter Siris, and a robot arm will be a pricey product; $500 to $600 would be my guess. So, I hope Apple also plans to introduce a more budget-friendly option — and it sounds like the company might be working on exactly that.

Bloomberg’s Gurman has reported Apple is developing a low-end iPad just for the home. A HomePad perhaps? This could be similar to Amazon’s Echo Hub — a tablet-style device that can be mounted to the wall or propped on a table for controlling smart home devices, viewing camera feeds, and making video calls.

Many Apple Home users have tried to shoehorn an iPad into this role, and they’re commonly seen in high-end smart home installations running custom software. But in my experience, it’s not a great solution because the iPad is designed as a personal device. An Apple Home iPad would need to be designed for multiple users — as the HomePod is today.

An affordable Apple Home iPad feels like the smartest move at this stage. It should be a simple lift from a development and hardware perspective; it addresses all the smart home needs and, without fancy speakers, would be the least expensive option. If Apple can keep it under $300, it would be a big hit in the smart home.

HomePod with a removable iPad — aka the Pixel Tablet

Image: Dan Seifert / The Verge
The $450 Google Pixel Tablet is a tablet attached to a speaker dock.

But maybe that budget-friendly iPad won’t just hang out on the wall. Maybe it will have a dock like the Google Pixel Tablet. The device could know when it’s docked to a speaker — potentially via a MagSafe appendage that could enable an iPad version of Apple’s StandBy feature for the iPhone.

Apple’s DockKit could also come into play here, enabling auto-tracking for FaceTime calls or when following a recipe in the kitchen and having the display move with you.

Still, having used both the Echo Show 10 with its motorized screen and the Pixel Tablet with its removable tablet, I’m not big on either design for home control. A tablet needs to stay in one place if it’s being relied upon to control things like lights and locks or view live camera feeds, and robotic smart displays take up a lot of room — they need a surprising amount of space to rotate.

An all-in-one Apple TV / HomePod / FaceTime camera — aka a smart TV

Just make a TV, Apple.

There’s one final option. Gurman has reported that Apple is working on a product that combines the Apple TV, a HomePod, and a FaceTime camera into a single device.

While this all-in-one TV, smart speaker, and video calling device appeared to be a ways off, MacRumors reports it found evidence of two new Apple TVs in Apple’s code, so it could be here sooner than expected.

There are already smart TVs that can do most of the above, and both Samsung and LG even have models that can act as smart home hubs (for Samsung SmartThings and Google Home, respectively). If Apple is going to put all this functionality into a single device, it makes sense to just produce an actual Apple TV. That thing’s been rumored for over a decade.

Read More 

We’re rounding up all the best deals on charging tech for your home, car, and travels. | Photo: Anker

If you’re still charging your phone with whatever random wall wart came in the box three phones ago, or your laptop with the bulky brick it came with, now’s a great time to upgrade. Advances like GaN chargers have led to smaller, faster USB-C chargers for phones and laptops alike, and Qi2 gives iPhones (and maybe soon some Android phones?) MagSafe-speed charging at lower prices. And with Prime Day deals available now, you can save quite a bit and charge in less time, too.

There is a sizable selection of charging devices on sale, whether you’re looking to outfit a home office or your coffee office. Nearly all of the brands we trust have something on offer, including Anker, Belkin, Ugreen, and Satechi.
There will probably be too many for us to mention here in one go, but keep checking back for the latest as we’ll be plugged in all throughout Prime Day. Don’t forget to check our Prime Day guide, where you can learn how to sign up for Amazon Prime and all the benefits you get for doing so, how to find the best deals, and even figure out whether you can get price matches at your favorite retailers.

The best Prime Day deals on chargers

You can get Belkin’s 15W MagSafe wireless charger for $19.99 ($10 off) at Amazon. The puck-shaped charger snaps to the back of your MagSafe iPhone. It has a 6.6-foot cable and a built-in kickstand that lets you prop the phone up horizontally.

Belkin’s 40W Dual-Port USB-C charger is down to $22.98 (about $7 off) at Amazon. Its smaller size and foldable plug make it easy to slip in any bag or pocket.

The 100W Anker 647 charging station is down to $69.99 ($30 off) at Amazon. You’ll get six AC ports, one USB-A port, and one USB-C port on Anker’s 647 charging station. There are also two retractable three-foot USB-C cables drawing from its 100W capacity, and the five-foot power cord gives you some room to pull it away from the wall a bit.

Amazon is selling the 30W Anker 511 charging adapter for $12.99 ($10 off) for Prime Day. It has just a single USB-C port and won’t charge bigger devices like laptops at sufficient speeds, but its petite size and collapsible plug make it handy for travel.
A 65W UGreen travel charger has dropped to $25.19 (about $15 off) at Amazon. It manages to fit two USB-C ports and a USB-A port into its petite frame, and a foldable plug also helps keep it compact.

You can pick up Apple’s 35W Dual USB-C charger for $44.99 ($15 off) at Amazon, which is only one dollar more than the record Black Friday price. You can charge not just your iPad, but also iPhones, AirPods, and anything else you can find an appropriate USB-C cable for.

ESR’s Qi2 MagSafe car mount charger is down to $21.49 (about $13 off) at Amazon when clipping a coupon. You can just clip it onto your car’s air vent, then mount your MagSafe-compatible iPhone for a quick charge.

The best Prime Day deals on power banks

You can get a 10,000mAh Anker Nano power bank for $31.99 ($8 off) at Amazon. It supports 30W charging across one USB-C and one USB-A port. The built-in USB-C cable lets you charge devices without extra wires to trip over, and there’s an integrated display to let you know your remaining capacity and time to charge.
The Anker 522 MagGo battery is down to $34.99 ($15 off) at Amazon. The magnetic power bank touts wireless Qi charging, a folding kickstand, and a convenient USB-C port for wired charging. Just be warned: you won’t get Qi2 speeds here, as it’s limited to 7.5W.

You can get a 10,000mAh Baseus MagSafe-compatible power bank for $25.49 (about $20 off) at Amazon. It’s limited to the slower 7.5W charging speed of the original Qi standard, but you can charge at up to 20W with USB-C Power Delivery, and it supports passthrough charging to top up the power bank and your iPhone at the same time.

Belkin’s 5,000mAh BoostCharge wireless power bank has dropped to $28.99 ($31 off) at Amazon, nearly matching its all-time low. The MagSafe power bank has a handy kickstand, but doesn’t offer Qi2 speeds. It could be a suitable alternative if you don’t want to pay double for the faster options that have recently come out.

We’re rounding up all the best deals on charging tech for your home, car, and travels. | Photo: Anker

If you’re still charging your phone with whatever random wall wart came in the box three phones ago, or your laptop with the bulky brick it came with, now’s a great time to upgrade. Advances like GaN chargers have led to smaller, faster USB-C chargers for phones and laptops alike, and Qi2 gives iPhones (and maybe soon some Android phones?) MagSafe-speed charging at lower prices. And with Prime Day deals available now, you can save quite a bit and charge in less time, too.

There is a sizable selection of charging devices on sale, whether you’re looking to outfit a home office or your coffee office. Nearly all of the brands we trust have something on offer, including Anker, Belkin, Ugreen, and Satechi.

There will probably be too many for us to mention here in one go, but keep checking back for the latest as we’ll be plugged in all throughout Prime Day. Don’t forget to check our Prime Day guide, where you can learn how to sign up for Amazon Prime and all the benefits you get for doing so, how to find the best deals, and even figure out whether you can get price matches at your favorite retailers.

The best Prime Day deals on chargers

You can get Belkin’s 15W MagSafe wireless charger for $19.99 ($10 off) at Amazon. The puck-shaped charger snaps to the back of your MagSafe iPhone. It has a 6.6-foot cable and a built-in kickstand that lets you prop the phone up horizontally.

Belkin’s 40W Dual-Port USB-C charger is down to $22.98 (about $7 off) at Amazon. Its smaller size and foldable plug make it easy to slip in any bag or pocket.

The 100W Anker 647 charging station is down to $69.99 ($30 off) at Amazon. You’ll get six AC ports, one USB-A port, and one USB-C port on Anker’s 647 charging station. There are also two retractable three-foot USB-C cables drawing from its 100W capacity, and the five-foot power cord gives you some room to pull it away from the wall a bit.

Amazon is selling the 30W Anker 511 charging adapter for $12.99 ($10 off) for Prime Day. It has just a single USB-C port and won’t charge bigger devices like laptops at sufficient speeds, but its petite size and collapsible plug make it handy for travel.
A 65W UGreen travel charger has dropped to $25.19 (about $15 off) at Amazon. It manages to fit two USB-C ports and a USB-A port into its petite frame, and a foldable plug also helps keep it compact.

You can pick up Apple’s 35W Dual USB-C charger for $44.99 ($15 off) at Amazon, which is only one dollar more than the record Black Friday price. You can charge not just your iPad, but also iPhones, AirPods, and anything else you can find an appropriate USB-C cable for.

ESR’s Qi2 MagSafe car mount charger is down to $21.49 (about $13 off) at Amazon when clipping a coupon. You can just clip it onto your car’s air vent, then mount your MagSafe-compatible iPhone for a quick charge.

The best Prime Day deals on power banks

You can get a 10,000mAh Anker Nano power bank for $31.99 ($8 off) at Amazon. It supports 30W charging across one USB-C and one USB-A port. The built-in USB-C cable lets you charge devices without extra wires to trip over, and there’s an integrated display to let you know your remaining capacity and time to charge.
The Anker 522 MagGo battery is down to $34.99 ($15 off) at Amazon. The magnetic power bank touts wireless Qi charging, a folding kickstand, and a convenient USB-C port for wired charging. Just be warned: you won’t get Qi2 speeds here, as it’s limited to 7.5W.

You can get a 10,000mAh Baseus MagSafe-compatible power bank for $25.49 (about $20 off) at Amazon. It’s limited to the slower 7.5W charging speed of the original Qi standard, but you can charge at up to 20W with USB-C Power Delivery, and it supports passthrough charging to top up the power bank and your iPhone at the same time.

Belkin’s 5,000mAh BoostCharge wireless power bank has dropped to $28.99 ($31 off) at Amazon, nearly matching its all-time low. The MagSafe power bank has a handy kickstand, but doesn’t offer Qi2 speeds. It could be a suitable alternative if you don’t want to pay double for the faster options that have recently come out.

Read More 

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Everyone loves cheap stuff that’s actually good to use or invaluably helpful in your day-to-day. While Amazon Prime Day offers a deluge of deals on no-name tchotchkes and sketchy knockoffs (many of which have inflated, bot-fueled review scores) it does have its fair share of inexpensive hidden gems that are actually worth your money.

We know not everyone is shopping for big, multi-hundred or thousand dollar tech every time a deal comes around, so we’re always on the lookout for sales that fit into more modest budgets like sub-$100 and sub-$50.
Here, we’re rounding up our top picks for Prime Day that are just 25 bucks or less. Some of them may be ho-hum essentials like a USB-C charging cable, but you may be surprised what kind of tech you can get for such little scratch — like some of Amazon’s Echo smart speakers (because Amazon is always thirsty to get its Alexa assistant into your home).
Even though the below prices are very low, you can rest assured they’re all deals we vouch for on products we’ve reviewed, hands-on tested, or own personally and swear by.
Smart home tech deals under $25

TP-Link’s Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Light Switches don’t require a hub and work with Matter, offering interoperability with the major smart home ecosystems. Amazon has the standard models for $19.99 ($8 off) for a two-pack or a two-pack of dimmers for $24.99 ($9 off).

Tapo’s mini Matter-compatible smart plug (Wi-Fi) is just $7.99 ($12 off) for one plug, or $20.99 ($28 off) for a three-pack. They lack energy monitoring, but if that’s not a deal breaker for you it’s hard to beat about $7 each for a smart plug with Matter.
For a similar smart plug that can brave the outdoors, TP-Link’s Tapo Matter Outdoor smart plug (Wi-Fi) is $17.99 ($7 off) at Amazon. It’s got two outlets that can brave the elements.

Tech basics and essentials under $25

Apple’s basic USB-C EarPods are on sale at Amazon for $17 ($2 off), which is as cheap as they get. They’re nothing fancy, but now that the current iPhones use USB-C you can easily take them from iPhone to iPad to MacBook with no fuss. And before you tell me that’s what Apple’s Handoff feature is for on its wireless AirPods, let me remind you that the mics on Bluetooth earbuds suck. Also, sometimes wired accessories are nice since you don’t have to worry about charging them.

If you don’t need 100W of charging potential like the Ugreen cables above, Anker’s two-pack of 3.3-foot USB-C cables can do 60W and get about as cheap as you’re gonna come by for $7.99 ($6 off) at Amazon.

Sometimes you just need a good quality extension cord with a low profile, three outlets, two USB-A ports, and a USB-C port. This 5-foot cord from Tessan does all that is currently just $15.19 (nearly $8 off) at Amazon. While its not the most powerful extension cord its handy for roadtrips and bridging the gap in rooms where you don’t have enough outlets.
If you need a basic, no-frills way to elevate your laptop to eye level, then this Nulaxy Laptop Stand is likely to get the job done. It’s on sale for just $15.86 ($6 off) when you click the on-page coupon at Amazon.

Nomad is running its anniversary sale up against Prime Day, dropping its Sport Case for the iPhone 15 Pro down to $25 ($25 off) as well as the Modern Leather Case for AirPods Pro to $24 ($6 off).
Games and gaming accessory deals under $25

The Nintendo Switch version of 8Bitdo’s Ultimate C controller with Bluetooth is $23.99 ($6 off) in a few fun pastel color options at Amazon, exclusively for Prime members.

Love Letter, a tabletop card game that’s a mainstay in our gift guides, is on sale for just $10.99 ($4 off) at Amazon. This game is the perfect ice breaker at parties, as it’s simple to pick up and play and it gets people casually competing with a fun card-counting mechanic.

Pandemic: Fall of Rome is down to $22.99 ($6 off) at Amazon. The four-player co-op board game has you working together to stave off the fall of the Roman empire, and just like the original Pandemic, which was about a worldwide biological outbreak, even losing can be a whole lot of fun.

Stray on PlayStation 5 is $21.80 (about $8 off) at Amazon. You play as an adorable cat in a dark, dystopian future inhabited by robots, and there is a button to meow. Need I say more? Read our review.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge for the Nintendo Switch is $24.99 ($10 off) at Amazon, its second-best price of all time. The classic-style beat-em-up supports up to six-players in local or online, which is just beautiful chaos. Read our review.
The PlayStation 5 remaster of PSP classic Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion is $19.99 ($10 off) at Amazon. It’s a prequel to Final Fantasy VII, starring Zach as the main protagonist, and it makes for great extra lore background if you played or intend on playing Remake and Rebirth.

A four-pack of SCUF Elite Series 2 paddles for the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller is $14.99 ($5 off) at Amazon. These are a little shorter than the stock ones from Microsoft, so some may feel they’re a little better balanced for being accessible while not getting in the way. Also, for owners of the Core version of the Elite 2 that did not come with rear paddles at all, this is a cheaper way to add them on.

Miscellaneous and Verge favorites under $25

The Glocusent book light is a favorite among resident Verge bookworms, and it’s selling for $17.99 ($15 off) at Amazon. The neck-worn light easily illuminates what you’re reading without having to clamp anything to your book.

The 14-ounce Yeti Rambler can keep your hot drinks hot and your cold drinks cold for hours on end, and it’s currently just $19.50 ($10.50 off) at Amazon. It’s the humble, logical alternative to those pricey Ember mugs many of us love so much.

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Everyone loves cheap stuff that’s actually good to use or invaluably helpful in your day-to-day. While Amazon Prime Day offers a deluge of deals on no-name tchotchkes and sketchy knockoffs (many of which have inflated, bot-fueled review scores) it does have its fair share of inexpensive hidden gems that are actually worth your money.

We know not everyone is shopping for big, multi-hundred or thousand dollar tech every time a deal comes around, so we’re always on the lookout for sales that fit into more modest budgets like sub-$100 and sub-$50.

Here, we’re rounding up our top picks for Prime Day that are just 25 bucks or less. Some of them may be ho-hum essentials like a USB-C charging cable, but you may be surprised what kind of tech you can get for such little scratch — like some of Amazon’s Echo smart speakers (because Amazon is always thirsty to get its Alexa assistant into your home).

Even though the below prices are very low, you can rest assured they’re all deals we vouch for on products we’ve reviewed, hands-on tested, or own personally and swear by.

Smart home tech deals under $25

TP-Link’s Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Light Switches don’t require a hub and work with Matter, offering interoperability with the major smart home ecosystems. Amazon has the standard models for $19.99 ($8 off) for a two-pack or a two-pack of dimmers for $24.99 ($9 off).

Tapo’s mini Matter-compatible smart plug (Wi-Fi) is just $7.99 ($12 off) for one plug, or $20.99 ($28 off) for a three-pack. They lack energy monitoring, but if that’s not a deal breaker for you it’s hard to beat about $7 each for a smart plug with Matter.
For a similar smart plug that can brave the outdoors, TP-Link’s Tapo Matter Outdoor smart plug (Wi-Fi) is $17.99 ($7 off) at Amazon. It’s got two outlets that can brave the elements.

Tech basics and essentials under $25

Apple’s basic USB-C EarPods are on sale at Amazon for $17 ($2 off), which is as cheap as they get. They’re nothing fancy, but now that the current iPhones use USB-C you can easily take them from iPhone to iPad to MacBook with no fuss. And before you tell me that’s what Apple’s Handoff feature is for on its wireless AirPods, let me remind you that the mics on Bluetooth earbuds suck. Also, sometimes wired accessories are nice since you don’t have to worry about charging them.

If you don’t need 100W of charging potential like the Ugreen cables above, Anker’s two-pack of 3.3-foot USB-C cables can do 60W and get about as cheap as you’re gonna come by for $7.99 ($6 off) at Amazon.

Sometimes you just need a good quality extension cord with a low profile, three outlets, two USB-A ports, and a USB-C port. This 5-foot cord from Tessan does all that is currently just $15.19 (nearly $8 off) at Amazon. While its not the most powerful extension cord its handy for roadtrips and bridging the gap in rooms where you don’t have enough outlets.
If you need a basic, no-frills way to elevate your laptop to eye level, then this Nulaxy Laptop Stand is likely to get the job done. It’s on sale for just $15.86 ($6 off) when you click the on-page coupon at Amazon.

Nomad is running its anniversary sale up against Prime Day, dropping its Sport Case for the iPhone 15 Pro down to $25 ($25 off) as well as the Modern Leather Case for AirPods Pro to $24 ($6 off).

Games and gaming accessory deals under $25

The Nintendo Switch version of 8Bitdo’s Ultimate C controller with Bluetooth is $23.99 ($6 off) in a few fun pastel color options at Amazon, exclusively for Prime members.

Love Letter, a tabletop card game that’s a mainstay in our gift guides, is on sale for just $10.99 ($4 off) at Amazon. This game is the perfect ice breaker at parties, as it’s simple to pick up and play and it gets people casually competing with a fun card-counting mechanic.

Pandemic: Fall of Rome is down to $22.99 ($6 off) at Amazon. The four-player co-op board game has you working together to stave off the fall of the Roman empire, and just like the original Pandemic, which was about a worldwide biological outbreak, even losing can be a whole lot of fun.

Stray on PlayStation 5 is $21.80 (about $8 off) at Amazon. You play as an adorable cat in a dark, dystopian future inhabited by robots, and there is a button to meow. Need I say more? Read our review.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge for the Nintendo Switch is $24.99 ($10 off) at Amazon, its second-best price of all time. The classic-style beat-em-up supports up to six-players in local or online, which is just beautiful chaos. Read our review.
The PlayStation 5 remaster of PSP classic Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion is $19.99 ($10 off) at Amazon. It’s a prequel to Final Fantasy VII, starring Zach as the main protagonist, and it makes for great extra lore background if you played or intend on playing Remake and Rebirth.

A four-pack of SCUF Elite Series 2 paddles for the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller is $14.99 ($5 off) at Amazon. These are a little shorter than the stock ones from Microsoft, so some may feel they’re a little better balanced for being accessible while not getting in the way. Also, for owners of the Core version of the Elite 2 that did not come with rear paddles at all, this is a cheaper way to add them on.

Miscellaneous and Verge favorites under $25

The Glocusent book light is a favorite among resident Verge bookworms, and it’s selling for $17.99 ($15 off) at Amazon. The neck-worn light easily illuminates what you’re reading without having to clamp anything to your book.

The 14-ounce Yeti Rambler can keep your hot drinks hot and your cold drinks cold for hours on end, and it’s currently just $19.50 ($10.50 off) at Amazon. It’s the humble, logical alternative to those pricey Ember mugs many of us love so much.

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

Several close friends of Elon Musk, including Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, venture capitalist Doug Leone, and investor and podcast host David Sacks, have donated lavishly to a super PAC backing former President Donald Trump — and The Wall Street Journal reports that Musk plans on donating as much as $45 million a month to America PAC. In a post on X, Musk replied to the Journal’s article with a meme claiming it was “fake gnus” (fake news), though Bloomberg reported this weekend that he had already contributed an undisclosed amount to the super PAC.
Musk endorsed Trump on Saturday following the assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and praised Trump’s selection of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate. Several of Musk’s friends and business associates have contributed to the PAC, and others have reportedly said they’d do so. Multiple America PAC donors attended a $50,000-a-head fundraiser hosted by Sacks — the host of the All-In podcast, who decried “Democrat rule” in San Francisco in a Monday speech at the Republican National Convention — according to The Washington Post.

pic.twitter.com/RJdF7MWeEi— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 16, 2024

Recent financial disclosures show America PAC has raised more than $8.7 million since June. Founded in May by prominent Republican campaign finance lawyer Chris Gober, the PAC is focused on registering voters and encouraging early and mail-in voting in swing states, one source told the Journal. America PAC has reportedly hired hundreds of employees. In June, The New York Times reported that the PAC spent more than $6.6 million on behalf of Trump in a two-week period, most of which went toward “canvassing/field operations.”
“We believe that four more years of Joe Biden is a grave threat to the financial and physical safety of the United States,” an unnamed America PAC spokesperson said in a statement to The New York Times.
Other donors include Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, early PayPal executive Ken Howery, and Valor Equity Partners founder Antonio Gracias, a former member of Tesla’s board of directors. Keith Rabois, a managing director at Khosla Ventures, told the Financial Times he would donate $1 million to the PAC. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz told employees of their eponymous investment firm that they planned on donating to the PAC, The Information says. Andreessen and Horowitz reportedly told employees that they expect Trump to be more lax on industries like cryptocurrency.
Correction, July 17th: An earlier version misstated the name of Antonio Gracias’s investment firm. It is Valor Equity Partners, not Valor Energy Partners.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

Several close friends of Elon Musk, including Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, venture capitalist Doug Leone, and investor and podcast host David Sacks, have donated lavishly to a super PAC backing former President Donald Trump — and The Wall Street Journal reports that Musk plans on donating as much as $45 million a month to America PAC. In a post on X, Musk replied to the Journal’s article with a meme claiming it was “fake gnus” (fake news), though Bloomberg reported this weekend that he had already contributed an undisclosed amount to the super PAC.

Musk endorsed Trump on Saturday following the assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and praised Trump’s selection of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate. Several of Musk’s friends and business associates have contributed to the PAC, and others have reportedly said they’d do so. Multiple America PAC donors attended a $50,000-a-head fundraiser hosted by Sacks — the host of the All-In podcast, who decried “Democrat rule” in San Francisco in a Monday speech at the Republican National Convention — according to The Washington Post.

Recent financial disclosures show America PAC has raised more than $8.7 million since June. Founded in May by prominent Republican campaign finance lawyer Chris Gober, the PAC is focused on registering voters and encouraging early and mail-in voting in swing states, one source told the Journal. America PAC has reportedly hired hundreds of employees. In June, The New York Times reported that the PAC spent more than $6.6 million on behalf of Trump in a two-week period, most of which went toward “canvassing/field operations.”

“We believe that four more years of Joe Biden is a grave threat to the financial and physical safety of the United States,” an unnamed America PAC spokesperson said in a statement to The New York Times.

Other donors include Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, early PayPal executive Ken Howery, and Valor Equity Partners founder Antonio Gracias, a former member of Tesla’s board of directors. Keith Rabois, a managing director at Khosla Ventures, told the Financial Times he would donate $1 million to the PAC. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz told employees of their eponymous investment firm that they planned on donating to the PAC, The Information says. Andreessen and Horowitz reportedly told employees that they expect Trump to be more lax on industries like cryptocurrency.

Correction, July 17th: An earlier version misstated the name of Antonio Gracias’s investment firm. It is Valor Equity Partners, not Valor Energy Partners.

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