Trade shows are some of the most fun times of the year, and IFA 2024 was no different. This time around, Berlin was home to some huge announcements, including brand-new processors from Intel and Qualcomm, which set a lot of things in motion. And of course, we had some of our favorites. So, without further ado, let's dive right into the best of IFA 2024.

This little gadget keeps getting better and better. | Image: Flipper Devices Inc. One of our favorite hacking gadgets, the Flipper Zero, received its first major firmware update today. It includes a bunch of features the developers have been working on stabilizing for the last three years, including a big battery life boost that technically arrived with a previous update. While many of the features aren’t technically new, the entire package should make this gadget feel like a supercharged version of its former self.One of the most notable updates since launch solves one of the developers’ biggest problems: the device’s internal flash memory originally limited how many features they could add. In the past, new features were built into the firmware itself, but they eventually exceeded what the memory could handle. Last... Continue reading…

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images Less than 30 minutes into the presidential debate, former president Donald Trump brought up a viral racist lie about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio — and repeated it after fact-checkers asserted that it wasn’t true.“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs — the people that came in — they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said in response to a question about why he asked Republican legislators to vote against a bipartisan border security bill. After Trump finished his tirade, ABC News moderator David Muir clarified that Springfield’s city manager told ABC reports of migrants eating pets were false — but Trump repeated the lie. “People on television are saying, ‘My dog was taken and... Continue reading…

A photo of the disc drive on the slim PS5. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge Today may have marked the beginning of the end for game console disc drives. Sony finally announced the $699.99 PS5 Pro, and while it looks to be an impressive machine, it’s the first PlayStation console that will require you to buy the console and a separate disc drive if you want to play your physical games.Sony’s offered disc-free variants before and inched in this direction with the PS5 “slim,” which you can buy with the separate disc drive already attached or add a disc drive to later. But with the PS5 Pro, you’ll have to get a separate PS5 disc drive, whether that means you buy it for $79.99 or swap a disc drive from a slim PS5 to a PS5 Pro. Microsoft is clearly eyeing the discless direction with Xbox as well. The more affordable... Continue reading…

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Apple heavily sprinkled mentions of AI throughout its iPhone 16 event on Monday. However, generative Apple Intelligence features won’t be ready for the public launch of iOS 18 on September 16th or the new iPhones when they’re released on September 20th.The first set of Apple’s AI features is scheduled for public availability next month in most regions — except the EU — as part of a beta test for iPhone 15 Pro and all iPhone 16s, plus Macs and iPads with M1 or higher Apple Silicon chips. At launch, they’ll be available in US English only.What’s coming to Apple Intelligence in OctoberWriting ToolsText Rewrite: Text Rewrite will morph your email writing draft into a more professional one, and you can change the tone to be friendly or... Continue reading…

Routers and switches are typically used to connect NAS, PCs, servers, SBCs, and other computing devices over a local area network. However, there are a couple of reasons why you might want to ditch a router/switch and directly interface two devices using their Ethernet ports. Perhaps you dont want other devices in the network to gain access to confidential files. Or maybe you've finally upgraded to 10GbE NICs, but are bottlenecked by the slower speeds of your switchs SFP+/RJ45 sockets. Regardless of your reasons, heres an in-depth guide on how to pair your NAS with a PC over Ethernet.

If you're anything like me, you need little notes to keep track of everything going on. A little while ago, Microsoft added some Sticky Notes to OneNote alongside the default Windows notes, with the added benefit that they played ball with Microsoft's OneNote cloud system. Now, Microsoft has updated these enhanced Sticky Notes with some handy new features, including a way to differentiate them from the default notes app.

Years ago, computing was much harder to deal with, especially when upgrading parts. One frustration was the need to reinstall Windows when switching CPUs because of a quirk of Windows's architecture that didn't go away until Windows 8's release. Yes, the tile-based Start menu might have ruffled some feathers, but the underlying changes to Windows were a net benefit. Nowadays, you don't need to reinstall your operating system after swapping CPUs. You don't even need to reinstall it when changing your motherboard or switching between manufacturers. Let's discuss why and how much better this makes computing overall.

Image: The Verge Disney was ready to turn part of its feed back on for DirecTV customers tonight — but DirecTV wasn’t interested.Disney-owned ABC News is hosting tonight’s presidential debate, and Disney offered to make the channel available to DirecTV subscribers for three hours at no charge, Disney spokespeople April Carretta and Bridget Osterhaus wrote in an email this afternoon. They said Disney wanted to provide the feed “at no cost because we want all Americans to be able to view tonight’s debate at this important moment in our history.”DirecTV subscribers can still watch the debate on other networksBut DirecTV declined the offer, saying it would “cause customer confusion” when those channels quickly disappeared again. In an unsigned statement... Continue reading…

Popsicles or lightsabers — your choice. | Image: Lifx Lifx has a new smart “Polychrome” Tube light that can glow with multiple colors and transform your home lamps and fixtures into fun light-up popsicles. The bulbs are made of a frosted glass tube and contain 104 LEDs with 52 controllable zones that enable color-shifting effects and include themes like cracking fire in “Flame Mode” or a lava lamp effect in “Morph Mode.”The accompanying app also lets you “paint” colors on the bulb surface for a more custom look for your room. Lifx is also releasing a new B10 Polychrome candlelight that has similar features to the tube, including the E26 standard bulb socket so that it can fit in the most common existing lamps or many newer specialty ones (the existing model has E12 tips). ... Continue reading…

The standard Galaxy Buds 3 can’t go toe-to-toe with the pro-grade model, but they do offer many of the same features. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Apple’s forthcoming AirPods 4 might be the latest pair of wireless earbuds to pique our interest, but if you’re a Galaxy phone owner, it’s hard to resist the appeal of the Galaxy Buds 3. And now, thanks to the latest Discover Samsung event, you can pick them up for $159.99 ($20 off) through September 15th from either Best Buy or Samsung.Like the Galaxy Buds 2 before them, Samsung’s latest earbuds will likely become a default pick for Android phone owners with time. Regardless of whether Samsung will admit it, the Buds 3 take heavy design cues from Apple’s now-ubiquitous AirPods, resulting in an angular stemmed look instead of the more discrete design of earlier models. They sport swipe and pinch-based gestures for controlling playback,... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Google just landed a deal to capture planet-heating pollution at a huge bargain: $100 per ton of CO2, the price climate tech startups around the world are racing to achieve in order to make their technologies commercially viable.The company announced the agreement today with Holocene, a startup with an even shorter history than others in the emerging carbon removal industry that has nevertheless attracted some big-name backers. “We think it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”If Holocene can actually pull it off — take carbon dioxide out of the air at a price far lower than competitors charging $600 per ton or more for the same service — it could prove that carbon removal technologies are ready to help in the climate fight. But it’s still... Continue reading…