Concept art from Dear Upstairs Neighbors that used to train custom builds of Google’s Veo and Imagen models. | Image: Google DeepMind For all the noise that's been made about how generative AI is poised to revolutionize the filmmaking industry, there haven't really been any projects created with the technology that felt like the sort of entertainment people would pay to see. Most AI firms' video models are still only capable of churning out short bursts of visually inconsistent footage. And some of Hollywood's biggest AI partnerships have suddenly evaporated in ways that make it seem like studios might not be able to rely on the new technology coming out of Silicon Valley. For the most part, short-form video slop appears to be the only thing that major production houses ar …Read the full story at The Verge.

On Friday evening, the government ordered Anthropic to block access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all foreign nations, both inside and outside the US, due to national security concerns. That order included employees of Anthropic. To meet those demands, the company has completely cut off access to the models for all customers.In a statement, Anthropic said that while it was complying with the order, the government "did not provide specific details of its national security concern." Instead, it claims that any evidence of potential jailbreak was provided verbally, and that the vulnerabilities discovered were minor and available via other model …Read the full story at The Verge.

Bose’s latest QuietComfort Ultra headphones fold down for easy storage. | Image: Bose If you’re planning on traveling anytime soon, Bose’s second-generation QuietComfort Ultra headphones are a great companion for long flights and train rides. Not only do they offer excellent noise cancellation, but they also retain the foldable design of their predecessor, making them easy to pack in a carry-on. They’re even easier to recommend today, now that they’ve dropped to a new low price of $379 ($70 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones (second-gen)Where to Buy: $449 $379 at Amazon $449 $379 at Walmart $449 $379 at Best BuyThe over-ears improve upon their predecessor with better noise cancellation and support for lossless audio over a USB-C cable, allowing you to enjoy higher-quality sound from compatible devices. Bose also added a new Cinema Mode that helps make movies and TV shows feel more immersive while making dialogue easier to hear, along with an improved transparency mode that surpasses the predecessor’s capabilities of reducing sudden loud noises. Battery life is better too, with the headphones lasting up to 30 hours on a single charge — a six-hour increase over the first-generation model. Bose has also added a few other conveniences, including the ability to automatically enter a low-power standby mode when stored in the included case or laid flat. Plus, the headphones automatically power on and reconnect to a paired device when you put them on. At the same time, the new model retains soft ear cups and a comfortable, lightweight design that’s easy to wear for hours a time. Support for multipoint Bluetooth pairing remains as well, allowing you to stay connected to two devices simultaneously, so you can watch a video on your laptop and answer calls from your phone.

I turned off Siri on the Mac years ago and never looked back. Similarly, I found Apple Intelligence so fruitless I never engage with it. But the new Siri AI coming to macOS 27 Golden Gate has at least got me slightly rethinking things.I'm still early in testing Siri AI, as I've only had access to it in the macOS 27 developer beta for little more than 24 hours. It's also in an early preview state on the dev beta, so there should be lots of runway for improvements before it releases later this year. I don't even know if it's done indexing my files and folders on our review unit M5 MacBook Air and M5 Max MacBook Pro. Unlike on the iOS 27 dev …Read the full story at The Verge.

A new flagship graphics card has turned into a four-figure investment that does a handful of things well. It's a defensible purchase that I've made myself with the goal of high-refresh rate gaming, but if you're building a home lab, a new GPU is the wrong place to put your hard-earned cash. The same money put toward a used OEM workstation like a Dell Precision, HP Z, or a Lenovo ThinkStation buys you a complete, expandable, always-on platform that can start earning its keep from the moment you power it on.

When I returned to my computer five minutes after giving Gemini a lengthy prompt, I had two things: a functional app in a preview window, and a message about a bug."~ Channel is unrecoverably broken and will be disposed!" Sounded bad! But right below it was a button to fix the bug. Pretty weird that I just instructed a computer to build a whole app for me with a single prompt, but it needed me to click a button to fix a bug. I did anyway, and in 233 seconds Gemini reported back that it had succeeded, using words like "blockages" and "race conditions." I didn't understand a bit of it. It was thrilling.This was my second or third attempt a …Read the full story at The Verge.

Mike Rugnetta is a writer, podcast host, producer, audio engineer, educator, musician, sound designer, and father. In short, the man wears a lot of hats. He's the cocreator and host of the award-winning Never Post, an absolutely must-listen podcast about the internet, as well as Fun City, a TTRPG podcast where he's the GM. He's also hosted two different Crash Course series and PBS's Idea Channel. If you're thinking that sounds like a lot, you're not wrong. It made us want to know how Mike stays focused with so much on his plate, and what tools are most indispensable to him with his hectic schedule. But, what we got was so much more than th …Read the full story at The Verge.

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 132, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, happy soccer, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I've been preparing for a month of getting absolutely nothing done during the World Cup. I've also been reading about Steven Spielberg and wearables and the Boeing 747, overloading on computer nostalgia thanks to The Virtual OS Museum, watching that Knicks game winner over and over and over, listening to the fabulous new This Was SportsCenter podcast and the fabulous old The Renner Files podcast, and trying to tame my …Read the full story at The Verge.

Claude Fable 5 was available to the public for only a few days before Anthropic pulled it offline. Not because of a normal product rollback, not because capacity ran out, and not because the company changed its mind about pricing. Anthropic says the US government issued an export-control directive requiring it to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for any foreign national, including foreign-national Anthropic employees, and the company disabled both models for everyone in order to comply.

I honestly feel that if you are still using GUI tools for most of the stuff, you are voluntarily losing time. In 2026, you could easily be using CLI agents for a lot of tasks on your PC and save a lot of time that you would spend navigating through file trees and hunting for buttons. These tools can turn the terminal into a fast, capable workspace where you can get real work done without switching between windows and menus.

Echo Isle is heavily inspired by The Legend of Zelda, and it's not afraid to show it: The retro graphics bear a striking resemblance to Link's Awakening, the main character wears a blue tunic and wields a sword, and he navigates dungeons to collect items and keys to fight bosses and gather magical MacGuffins. But where Echo Isle shines is how it takes the best parts of a Zelda adventure and shrinks them down to their essence - I finished the game in a little more than an hour. The game starts with the main character falling from the sky onto Echo Isle, an island protected by a magical lighthouse that has mysteriously gone dark. While you d …Read the full story at The Verge.

It's an exciting time for KDE Plasma fans. For weeks now, we've heard that the KDE team wanted to get Plasma 6.7 released on June 16th, 2026. However, as is the case with all things technology, the planned release date was more of a goal than a strict deadline. If Plasma 6.7 ended up taking longer to polish, KDE would push the release date back.