SanDisk has announced an expensive way to boost the PlayStation 5's storage capacity. The company's new Optimus GX PRO 850P NVMe SSD is an officially licensed PS5 accessory in capacities ranging from 1TB to 8TB. The largest option can store up to 200 PS5 games (based on average installation sizes) SanDisk claims, but thanks to the global memory shortage, it will cost you $2,959.99 when it's eventually available through the company's online store, discounted from $3,699.99.Even after you take into account Sony's recent console price hikes, you can buy three PS5 Pro consoles for the price of just one of these 8TB sticks. But the smaller capa …Read the full story at The Verge.

Matter 1.6 introduces a new way to share smart home devices with different ecosystems. | Image: CSA Matter, the smart home interoperability standard, might finally get a feature that should have been there from day one: a single shared Matter network managed by multiple ecosystems. With this feature, called Joint Fabric, smart devices added to the network will be controllable by any authorized platform - Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and the rest. No need to "share" your smart light between apps; set it up once, and control it everywhere. It's like your smart home is a joint bank account and your platforms of choice all have signing authority. Joint Fabric is part of the new Matter 1.6 spec announced this week at Unify, the Con …Read the full story at The Verge.

Anthropic has spent much of this week fighting to get its newest AI models back online after the Trump administration abruptly ordered the company to cut access for all foreign nationals, including users inside the US and its own employees, forcing Anthropic to block access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for everyone. "To my knowledge, this is the first time US export controls have been used to control access to an AI model in this way."The Trump administration has not publicly explained the legal basis for the order, but in a statement on its website, Anthropic said the government cited "national security authorities" to justify "an export con …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Echo Dot Max comes in a variety of fun colors, including purple. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge We’re seeing good early Prime Day deals ahead of the event next week, and unsurprisingly, some of the best deals are on Amazon’s own devices. Several Echo speakers have dropped to new low prices, including the Echo Dot Max, which is on sale for $64.99 ($35 off) at Amazon.Echo Dot MaxWhere to Buy: $99.99 $64.99 at Amazon $99.99 at Best Buy $99.99 at TargetOur smart home reviewer Jennifer Pattison Tuohy named the Echo Max her top pick among Alexa speakers, calling it “Amazon’s best all-around smart speaker.” The elegant, fabric-wrapped speaker delivers plenty of bass, and comes with its own dedicated tweeter and woofer that provide crisper sound than its predecessor. It’s also faster and more responsive, with Amazon’s AZ3 Neural Edge processor helping it hear voice commands more accurately, even if you’re speaking from across the room or over background noise.The Echo Max also doubles as a capable smart home hub with support for Zigbee, Matter, and Thread, allowing you to connect and control a wide range of compatible smart home devices from brands beyond Amazon. It also supports Alexa Plus, Amazon’s more context-aware AI-powered voice assistant, which can handle multiple requests at once. That means you can do things like dim the lights and lock the doors without having to issue separate commands. In our reviewer’s testing, Alexa was even able to turn off the hallway lights, adjust the upstairs thermostat, and start a robot vacuum in the kitchen all at once.Read our Echo Dot Max review.

Let's be real: There's no shortage of Zelda-style games to play right now. That's true even if you've exhausted all there is to see in Tears of the Kingdom or Echoes of Wisdom. Indie developers keep finding new ways to refresh the formula, whether it's fusing it with a Soulslike, making it cozier, or simply shrinking it down into something more manageable. Now we have Square Enix and The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, a curiously named RPG that mixes the classic Zelda structure with something that resembles Final Fantasy. And it's a combination I can't seem to get enough of.The Adventures of Elliot is the latest in Square Enix …Read the full story at The Verge.

As a hardcore data hoarder, I prefer storing my media files locally instead of relying on online platforms. Thankfully, the home lab ecosystem has dozens of applications that make managing, archiving, and browsing my painstakingly-collected digital library a lot easier. There’s Jellyfin (and Plex too, I guess) for my TV shows and movies, while RomM organizes my collection of retro game files and Immich takes care of all the images I’ve captured over the years.

With how fast AI companies have been iterating, we're now at the point of this technology where all the feature launches sound like variations on the same thing. No matter how often you use AI, one term that has surely made it to your daily vocabulary is "prompt," and it's become such a reflex that every new feature gets quietly filed as just another way to prompt.

If you're looking to transform your monitor into a smart TV, this streaming media stick from Amazon is going to be the way to go. Not only are you going to get easy access to popular streaming apps and game streaming services, but this comes in at a price that's easy to afford. For a limited time, you can now pick up the Fire TV Stick HD for just $16, which is the lowest price we've seen for this model. Don't wait until Prime Day because this is as good as it gets.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel wearing the Snap Specs. They’re not the worst on him, but bold fashion rarely makes for mainstream success. | Screenshot: CNBC Yesterday, Snap debuted its new $2,195 Specs glasses. In an interview with CNBC, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel described the Specs as something the company had been working on for more than 12 years, an attempt to "bring computing into the world" and "make it more human." He positioned them as a device to help people stay more connected to the world around them instead of looking down at their phones. People, he said, are tired of screens. While Spiegel was speaking, I was struck by how, whenever his head moved, the light caught the lenses just so, revealing the hidden outline of the Specs' display. It was ironic that Spiegel was talking about scr …Read the full story at The Verge.

According to the latest Pew Research poll, 49 percent of Americans report using chatbots at least occasionally, but 63 percent think the tech is advancing too quickly. Overall, use of AI chatbots has increased dramatically since 2024, when only 33 percent reported using them. Specifically, ChatGPT's usage has doubled since 2023, with 44 percent of respondents saying they've used it. But opinions remain negative, with only 16 percent saying that AI will have a positive impact on society.Interestingly, it's the younger generations who both report using AI more and who are inclined to have a more pessimistic view. 66 percent of Americans betw …Read the full story at The Verge.

Rockstar Games will allow players to upgrade older versions of Grand Theft Auto V for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / S for free just months before the launch of GTA VI. Starting June 18th, players with any version of GTA V on PS4 or the digital version on Xbox One can get the current-gen version of the game at no additional cost.If you haven't upgraded your copy of GTA V yet, this free update saves you from buying a whole new copy of the game for $39.99 or paying an upgrade fee. Rockstar announced the news as part of an update to GTA Online, which will add the ability to carry out heists at the Kortz Center in July.We're still waiting …Read the full story at The Verge.

CEO of Anthropic Dario Amodei attends a working lunch with G7 leaders, G7 outreach partners, and global tech CEOs on innovation and AI, during the G7 Summit on June 17th, 2026, in Evian-les-Bains, France. | Photo: Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images Hello and welcome to Regulator, an email for Verge subscribers about technology, politics, and what happens when science crashes headlong into self-interest. Not a subscriber? Sign up here today! Got the scoop on a petty feud that's going to somehow fundamentally reshape the entire field of frontier AI development? Send 'em over to [email protected] when I was covering Donald Trump's first presidency, it was incredibly common to read three different versions of the same story. His administration had split into several factions, all of which had different interests, and all of which hated each other. There was the Reince Pr …Read the full story at The Verge.