It's been nearly ten years since Meta purchased Oculus. And since that time, Meta has poured a lot of money and resources into its VR projects, not only creating a variety of products, but also building and fleshing out a pretty good ecosystem for its devices as well.

We're now in the final stretch. Samsung's next Unpacked event is just days away, and while the brand hasn't shared exactly what's coming, we're pretty sure we are finally going to see that company's next generation foldables. Of course, if you're excited and looking forward to the announcement of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6, then chances are, you're going to want to sign up for this special promotion so that you can save $50 on your upcoming purchase.

While you can use a NAS to run your own Netflix, you can also easily use a NAS to pull from YouTube and build up a local collection of YouTube videos downloaded in their best quality. That's thanks to MeTube, a Docker container that turns youtube-dlp into a web-based UI that can download videos and then let you download them to whatever device you're connected to.

Philips Hue smart LED light bulb gear. | Image: Philips Are your Philips Hue smart light bulbs seemingly going rogue, randomly turning themselves up to full brightness even if you’ve set them dimmer? Philips Hue parent company Signify is aware of the issue, has figured out the root cause, and tells The Verge that a fix is coming as soon as next week. “After extensive analysis, we have identified an interoperability issue with the Matter smarthome standard, in which random temporary radio traffic disruptions are incorrectly recognized as legacy switch power toggles, turning low brightness lights to full brightness,” Signify third-party spokesperson Kate Helander tells The Verge. Matter is supposed to be the one smart home standard to rule them all, but it’s been dicier in practice — we had... Continue reading…

The Logitech G309. | Image: Logitech I haven’t thought about charging my Logitech wireless gaming mouse in two and a half years, because I have a magic mousepad that does it automatically. But Logitech mice that work with the Powerplay mousepad are expensive, heavy, or both, and none of them double as a Bluetooth mouse so I can wirelessly pair them to my laptop, handheld, or phone.Today, Logitech is changing that with the Logitech G309, an $80 mouse that almost does it all. It’s the first Powerplay mouse this inexpensive, the first with Bluetooth, the first that lets you use a AA battery when you’re on the go — and the first Logitech wireless mouse with a supercapacitor inside so you don’t necessarily need a battery at all. Even without Powerplay, the G309 is a dual-mode... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Hulu was having an outage, with as many as 50,000 reports noted on Down Detector late on Monday night. There’s no indication of what has caused the outage, but the official Hulu Support account on X acknowledged the issue, following up with posts from customers after about 11:15PM ET, saying, “Our developers were able to put changes in place to mitigate the interruption. Please reboot your device to start streaming, and let us know if you run into any further trouble.”Not everyone was having trouble accessing Hulu, but for the people who were, posts on social media said they either couldn’t log in or that they didn’t see any content listed on Hulu’s website or apps for streaming. It didn’t seem to exclusively affect people who have or... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge Microsoft is planning to hike its Xbox Game Pass Ultimate pricing again in September, alongside launching a new “standard” subscription that doesn’t include day-one access to first-party Xbox games. The Xbox maker has started emailing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers warning of a price increase to $19.99 a month that starts on September 12th, a $3 increase over the current $16.99 a month pricing.PC Game Pass subscribers will also see a price hike in September, with the service moving from $9.99 to $11.99 per month and maintaining access to day-one titles. If you’re outside the US and wondering how the price increases affect your own subscription, Microsoft has a full list of all the worldwide price changes here.The price increases... Continue reading…

Photo: David Pierce / The Verge Meta is now offering an interest-free $24.99 monthly payment plan to get its Quest 3 VR headset, along with two years’ worth of a Meta Quest Plus gaming subscription and its extended warranty. That starting price is for the 128GB model, but 10 bucks more per month will get you the 512GB version. Whichever way you go, you could pay almost $200 less than you otherwise would by buying everything individually.The loans are supplied by Affirm, one of the more well-known buy now, pay later services that have cropped up in recent years. This “Play Now, Pay Later” package could help Meta get headsets into the hands of people unwilling to pay the entire price upfront, but it’s also a promotion for the Quest Plus service that adds two games to... Continue reading…

When you're looking for a new phone, there are lots of great Android devices, but foldable phones are some of the most exciting picks. Samsung's Z Flip line is certainly an impressive series of smartphones, but you'll need more than just a phone - you'll need some accessories, especially to keep it charged.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram isn’t going to focus on longform video because it might “undermine” the platform’s “core identity to connect people with friends,” Instagram boss Adam Mosseri says in a video. Yes, you can technically post Instagram videos to your feed that are as long as one hour, and yes, Instagram did try to push for longer videos with IGTV before shutting the app down! But now, shortform is where it’s at, Mosseri argues. Mosseri says that Instagram’s two main jobs are to help you connect with friends and to help you explore interests “usually through shortform video.” He says that those two jobs are “symbiotic” because you might send a video that you like to a friend who might also like it. View this post on Instagram ... Continue reading…

Portable SSDs are a great way to save your data, especially since they are now more affordable than ever. With that said though, prices for SSDs are still higher than they were a couple of years ago, which means, if you can find a good deal on one, you should grab it. While there are a lot of great options to go with, we think this 1TB model from SK hynix is an absolute steal, especially at its newly discounted price that comes in at $74.99.

AMD has made its first platform change in some time with Ryzen 7000. The new chips are for the AM5 socket, and all of them need to be cooled. AMD doesn't always include a cooler in the box with its Ryzen CPUs, so you'll often need to provide one yourself, especially for high-end models, because the better the cooling, the better the performance - not to mention a better cooler means quieter fans.