Logically, when you look at an antenna for anything, you think that having as much height as possible would be optimal, as in theory, this provides as much coverage as possible. So you tear open the box of your shiny new router, screw the antennas into their threaded posts, and stand every single one of them bolt upright, like a row of tiny radio towers. It looks tidy and intentional, but it's actually killing your Wi-Fi performance. Vertical-only orientation is one of the most persistent Wi-Fi myths in consumer tech, and it quietly creates coverage gaps, leaves multi-antenna hardware underutilized, and causes performance issues that owners usually blame on their router, their ISP, or their walls.

Samsung employees in South Korea are protesting for more competitive wages. | Photo: Seong Joon Cho / Bloomberg via Getty Images The RAM shortage caused by demand from AI datacenters is already driving up prices on phones, PS5s, and Raspberry Pis, but it could be about to get even worse. Samsung is facing employee protests over demands for wages that are more competitive with rival chip manufacturer SK Hynix, including removing Samsung's cap on bonus pay, allocating more money for bonuses, and raising base salaries. According to AP News, an estimated 40,000 union members attended a rally on Thursday outside Samsung's Pyeongtaek, South Korea chip manufacturing facility.If the union and management can't come to an agreement, the union is planning an 18-day strike begi …Read the full story at The Verge.

Home lab upgrades come in many different forms, and it's easy to justify buying new hardware. In the case of jumping to a new motherboard platform specifically, you gain a more solid upgrade path, a manufacturer warranty, and potentially better performance, depending on what you slot onto the board, of course.

Spring has sprung, as they say, and to mark the occasion, Google is running a spring-centric promo until Sunday, April 26th. The limited-time discounts apply to a number of Google’s first-party devices, from the Pixel 10 Pro to the Pixel Buds Pro 2, as well as the wearables like the Pixel Watch 4. In fact, Google’s latest watch is on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store in its 41mm / Wi-Fi configuration starting at $309.99 ($40 off) — or in the 45mm config for $359.99 ($40 off) — which is one of the better prices we’ve seen in recent months.Google Pixel Watch 4Where to Buy: $349.99 $309.99 at Amazon (41mm, Wi-Fi) $349.99 $309.99 at Google (41mm, Wi-Fi) $399.99 $359.99 at Amazon (45mm, Wi-Fi)We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: the Pixel Watch 4 is the Android watch to beat. Google’s newest wearable still works best for Pixel phone owners, though its overall performance, attractive 3,000-nit domed display, and host of upgrades over the third-gen model make it a suitable option for pretty much everyone. You still get a wide range of health and fitness tools, allowing you to track everything from your blood oxygen levels to your heart rate, along with the ability to automatically record certain cardio activities for at least 15 minutes. It also features emergency satellite SOS (in the case of an emergency) and dual-frequency GPS, the latter of which provides improved navigation in challenging environments such as cities and dense forests.Unsurprisingly, the Pixel Watch 4 integrates well with Google’s slate of services — Google Maps, Google Wallet, Google Assistant, etc., etc. — and works with Gemini, now quickly accessible from your wrist using a convenient raise-to-talk gesture. It also benefits from a new speaker, a bigger battery, and a power-efficient processor, which, in our initial testing, allowed us to eke out a commendable 45 hours of battery life with the 45mm model. Much of the watch is now repairable, too, so should you ever break the glass or damage the battery, you don’t need to shell out for an entirely new watch. That’s a welcome design change, one we wish more wearable manufacturers would adopt.Read our full Pixel Watch 4 review.More ways to save todayVerge readers can pick up the third-gen Theragun Mini at Wellbots for $159.99 ($60 off) with code VERGETHERA60, which drops it to its lowest price to date. As someone who routinely uses the three-speed massage gun to soothe minor aches and pains, I can tell you it delivers a surprising amount of pressure for its pint-sized stature. It also comes with a trio of attachments, including a thumb add-on that’s ideal for areas that require more precise pressure.Now through May 21st, you can grab Dreo’s Tower Fan Nomad One on Amazon in either black or white for $59.88 (about $20 off), an all-time low. The four-speed, oscillating fan isn’t particularly fancy (sorry, no Matter support), but with summer right around the corner, the staff favorite is a practical pickup that can blow air up to 34 feet away. The bladeless fan has even found its way into our upcoming graduation gift guide, if you need more convincing.It’s not a new deal, per se, but you can still grab AirPods 4 at Amazon and Walmart for $99 ($30 off), which is a great price for Apple’s entry-level earbuds. The standard model sounds just as good as the step-up version with active noise cancellation, and because they’re outfitted with Apple’s H2 chip, those with a Mac or iPhone can leverage all sorts of ecosystem tricks, from automatic device switching to hands-free Siri commands. Read our review.

Chinese AI company DeepSeek released a preview of its hotly anticipated next-generation AI model V4 on Friday, saying that the open-source model can compete with leading closed-source systems from US rivals including Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI.DeepSeek says V4 marks a major improvement over prior models, especially in coding, a capability that has become central to AI agents and helped drive the success of tools like ChatGPT Codex and Claude Code. The release is also a milestone for China's chip industry, with DeepSeek explicitly highlighting compatibility with domestic Huawei technology. The release comes a year after DeepSeek rattl …Read the full story at The Verge.

Like most of us, I've always treated my editor and terminal as two separate places, with constant back-and-forth between them. I would write code, switch to a terminal, run a script, scan the output, and go back to the editor. This is a very normal loop, but when you think about it, there is a lot of friction here.

In the first 24 hours of the assault on Iran, the US military struck more than 1,000 targets, nearly double the scale of the "shock and awe" attack on Iraq over two decades ago. This acceleration was made possible by AI systems that speed up the targeting process. Chief among them is the Maven Smart System.In her new book, Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare, journalist Katrina Manson investigates the development of Maven from its inception in 2017 as an experiment in applying computer vision to drone footage. The project spurred employee protests at Google, the military's initial contractor, prompting the …Read the full story at The Verge.

Vee looks better than I do wearing the One Pro, but anyone’s going to look a little silly. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Xreal One Pro are the company’s best AR glasses, touting thin optics that keep out reflections so you can enjoy a crisp, contrast-rich image of whatever content you’re watching. Xreal has permanently cut their price from $649 to $599, making them $150 more than its entry-level (but still good) 1S glasses that debuted shortly after CES 2026. You can find the One Pro in stock at Amazon, Best Buy, and from Xreal itself.The 1S and One Pro share a well-built design in common, not to mention some identical features. Both have the X1 chip, allowing for three degrees of freedom (3DoF) that lets you anchor your content in virtual space, and both support Real 3D, which applies a surprisingly good 3D effect to 2D content.Xreal One ProThe Xreal One Pro project a huge virtual display that feels like a 171-inch screen, using micro-OLED panels, a 57-degree field of view, and a 120Hz refresh rate. Powered by Xreal’s X1 chip, the smart glasses offer low-latency tracking with optional 6DoF spatial anchoring so your screen stays fixed in place. They also feature built-in speakers and work with a wide range of USB-C devices.Where to Buy: $599 at Amazon $599 at Best Buy $599 at XrealIf you’re tempted by the idea of having a big, private screen to watch movies, TV shows, and video games on, I recently published a piece that compares the One Pro to Xreal’s cheaper 1S, as well as to Viture’s similarly-priced Beast glasses. The One Pro are most similar to the Beast glasses in terms of visual fidelity, but for a multitude of reasons I get into in the piece, there’s no perfect pair of glasses yet. However, it’s nice that Xreal’s best AR glasses just got a little cheaper.

Tesla's Cybercab is now in production at the company's Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, but Elon Musk is sounding unusually cautious about the rollout. The robotaxi's start of production was announced Thursday on X, with Tesla posting a video shot from inside a steering wheel-less Cybercab as it drove out of the factory with the caption, "Purpose built for autonomy." The company made a few initial Cybercabs back in February, but continuous production only started this month. But with the company's robotaxi plans creeping along much slower than expected, many Tesla watchers are left scratching their heads about the future - especially as Mus …Read the full story at The Verge.

Before I tried making a Slide Deck in NotebookLM, I didn’t think it would do a great job. I expected weird-looking images and cheap designs. But NotebookLM had already won me over with Audio Overviews, so I decided to give the Slide Deck a chance. The visuals looked clean, not cheap. It gave me vibrant colors, but what kept me using it wasn’t just how it looked. It was how useful the decks felt once I started clicking through them.

Imagine Google Street View, except you can walk around like it's a video game. Now imagine you don't need to wait for Google to come film because it's completely DIY. Insta360, the leading maker of 360-degree cameras, is now partnered with a 12-person UK startup called Splatica to help creators do just that.Last January, we wrote about Gaussian splatting, the tech that promises to someday let anyone digitally re-create chunks of the real world in photorealistic 3D. But Splatica is making it surprisingly easy to harness splats today - with nothing more than an off-the-shelf consumer 360-degree camera and a subscription service that handles …Read the full story at The Verge.

The three finalists for the World Press Photo of the year. | Image: World Press Photo We love to muse over how "real" photography is defined here at The Verge now that generative AI is so prolific, and the World Press Photo competition might have the answer. The prestigious award celebrates the best of photojournalism, where capturing reality is paramount. The winning entry for 2026 - "Separated by ICE," captured by photojournalist Carol Guzy - was announced yesterday. The harrowing photograph shows children clinging to their father after an immigration hearing. The photo had to abide by specific rules around the use of AI tools to be eligible for the competition, with the independent, nonprofit organization behind the awar …Read the full story at The Verge.