This is Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter about AI and the tech industry, syndicated just for The Verge subscribers once a week.Building humanoid robots is Meta's next "AR size bet," a top executive told me recently. That suggests the company plans to spend billions of dollars on the effort.During a recent conversation at Meta's headquarters, CTO Andrew Bosworth said he stood up a robotics "research effort" earlier this year at the direction of CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The team's existence has been reported on before, but Bosworth hadn't discussed its strategy in-depth until our interview."I don't think the hardware is the hard part," he …Read the full story at The Verge.

Although macOS has a Unix foundation, it often feels more locked down compared to the openness of Linux. That hasn’t stopped me from shaping my Mac into something much closer to the environment I enjoy on a Linux desktop. With the right tools, I gain access to powerful package management, terminal enhancements, and workflow automation that rival what I’d expect from my favorite Linux setups. These five tools bridge the gap between Apple’s polished ecosystem and the flexibility that keeps me hooked on Linux.

The Lego Game Boy isn’t supposed to go on sale until October 1st — but I already bought one and built it for you. How? Costco and Sam’s Club have pallets full of them at warehouses across the country, they’re already on sale at a discount, and I’ll tell you how to check if they’re at a Costco near you. @verge Lego Game Boy vs. real Game Boy! The brick version is even better than I imagined: an incredibly faithful, fun, and clever build. You can press every button, spin every wheel; designers nail almost every curve and recreate almost every label. For $48 at Costco or $60 at Lego, it’s downright affordable for a piece of modern Lego decor. (I bought this one myself.) #todayimtoyingwith #gameboy #lego #legogameboy #legotiktok ♬ original sound – The Verge – The Verge Both stores are selling the brand-new set for around $49. That’s a big discount compared to the $59.99 you’d pay at Lego or at Amazon, and some who ordered early through Lego or other stores are annoyed! But, neither Costco nor Sam’s Club is likely to let you buy without a paid membership. (Costco’s is $65 a year.) The picture atop this story is my local store, but they’re already available in far more locations. Here are piles upon piles of Lego Game Boys spotted by Redditors across the country, most within the last few days: How do you find out if they’re at a store near you? They’re not listed on the web, but you can use a feature in the Costco app for iOS and Android that lets you check warehouse inventory. Open the app, hit the Warehouse tab at the bottom of the screen, pick a local warehouse, then tap “Search Warehouse Inventory” and search for 1917022. Then tap the “Lego Nintendo Game Boy” item, tap Find Nearby at the bottom of the screen, and you should see a list of every warehouse where it’s in stock near you.You’ll still have to go find it in store; in many cases, it’ll be in the toy aisles alongside other Lego sets and not far from candy and clothing. In my case, it was right inside the entrance. Maybe my Costco was hoping to sell a few more memberships that way?

Whenever Nvidia or AMD announces a new graphics card, they typically showcase their own reference designs first. Nvidia calls its reference design "Founders Edition," whereas AMD refers to it as "Made by AMD" (MBA). The MSRPs that you see after a GPU's launch are for these variants. However, when you shop for new GPUs from online retailers, you'll mostly see aftermarket models from board partners like Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte rather than the reference cards shown at launch. Unfortunately, these models usually cost a bit more.

AI tools have been integrated into nearly every digital workflow over the last few years, but I've found NotebookLM to be more resourceful than other AI tools. It's built for students learning through a chatbot UI that doesn't err or hallucinate as much as Gemini, but with the same logical aptitude chops. It is reliant entirely on the PDFs, text files, Google Docs, and web links I supply, and this simple constraint transforms it from a creative but unreliable chatbot into a focused, factual research partner, complete with inline citations pointing directly to the source material.

The Ring Battery Doorbell Plus is $70 off. With Halloween and Amazon’s fall Prime Day just around the corner, now’s a great time to grab a video doorbell. They make it easy to watch over trick-or-treaters and keep tabs on Prime Day deliveries and right now, one of our favorites — the Ring Battery Doorbell Plus — is on sale for $79.99 ($70 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, which is its best price to date. Ring Battery Doorbell PlusThis wireless Ring doorbell has great video quality, head-to-toe view, and speedy response times for a battery doorbell. It works with Amazon Alexa and can send alerts for people and packages with a Ring Home subscription.Where to Buy: $149.99 $79.99 at Amazon $149.99 $79.99 at Best Buy $149.99 $79.99 at The Home DepotThe Ring Battery Doorbell Plus is top pick for battery-powered doorbells, offering sharp 1536p video with a head-to-toe view that makes it easy to spot packages on the porch floor other doorbells might miss. It’s also the most responsive video doorbell our reviewer has tested, pulling up live feeds in about half the time of others. Beyond that, the doorbell supports radar-based motion detection, which allows for more accurate notifications compared to previous models. It also retains support for color night vision, pre-recorded Quick Replies, and two-way talk, and, for $4.99 a month, you also get bonus features like package and people alerts. And because it works with Amazon Alexa, you can pull up the live feed on an Echo Show or Fire TV with just your voice for free. 

Besides the bright RGB lights that they're often adorned with, RAM sticks aren't flashy. They're there to perform one essential task, and that's it. On consumer PCs, they're relied on to store important data that the rest of your system might need quick access to in day-to-day computing, gaming, and creative workloads.

Following months of delays, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that's supposed to "save" TikTok. Trump claims the deal will make the app "American-operated," fulfilling the divest-or-ban law that threatened the China-owned app's presence in the US. But the Trump administration didn't reveal any information about who will own TikTok's US operations, or how much they'll own. And questions remain about whether the new agreement - and the steps taken to get there - is even legal."The TikTok saga has been the single clearest articulation, the single most vivid example of the lawlessness of this administration, of its imperial …Read the full story at The Verge.

Bloober Team's remake of one of the most popular psychological horror games of all time, Silent Hill 2, was largely a home run. The devs truly understood what the job required, and they stuck to the roots of the original game, delivering a modern remake that genuinely became the definitive way to experience James Sunderland's story. One year later, Bloober Team had an even more unenviable task that came with significantly more pressure — releasing their own, brand-new horror IP.

The UK currently has no citizen ID or legal requirements to carry identification. The United Kingdom is introducing a national digital ID scheme in an effort to crack down on illegal migrant workers. A government press release on Friday announced that the digital ID will be stored on mobile devices through the GOV.UK wallet app currently in development, and will be a mandatory requirement for adults to work in Britain by July 2029.“Digital ID is an enormous opportunity for the UK. It will make it tougher to work illegally in this country, making our borders more secure,” UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in the press release. “And it will also offer ordinary citizens countless benefits, like being able to prove your identity to access key services swiftly — rather than hunting around for an old utility bill.”The digital ID scheme isn’t finalized, and will need to go through parliamentary approval before it can be enforced. A public consultation will be launched by the UK government later this year to receive feedback regarding how the digital ID service will be delivered, according to the press release.The announcement has sparked privacy concerns from civil rights groups, with Big Brother Watch saying the scheme would “fundamentally change the nature of our relationship with the state and turn the UK into a ‘papers, please’ society.” A petition against the introduction of digital ID cards has also attracted more than 830,000 signatures at the time of writing, citing concerns around mass surveillance and digital control.Plans to introduce digital ID were announced in January, with the GOV.UK wallet app initially pitched to give UK citizens the option to digitize their driver’s licenses and make government-issued documents easier to access. The GOV.UK wallet app is still in development, and described as “entirely optional” on the government website.The new mandatory ID requirements and focus on illegal immigration come amid growing public concerns around migrant boat crossings and mounting pressure from the anti-immigration right-wing populist party Reform UK. The UK currently has no citizen ID card and does not legally require people to carry photo ID, such as passports or driver’s licenses.The EU is planning to introduce a similar Digital Identity Wallet next year for “European citizens, residents and businesses to prove who they are when accessing digital services” and a place to “safely store, share and sign important digital documents.”

YouTube is adding AI hosts to radio and mixes in the YouTube Music app as part of a new test available through its new Labs program. The hosts are designed to “deepen your listening experience by sharing relevant stories, fan trivia, and fun commentary about your favorite music,” YouTube says in a blog post.If you want to see if you’re eligible to join YouTube Labs, which is dedicated to AI-focused experiments on the platform, to potentially try the feature out, check YouTube’s website; through the program, “a limited number of US-based participants can test early prototypes and experiments,” according the blog post. Even though I joined YouTube Labs, I don’t seem to have access to the experiment myself. I’ve been playing YouTube Music off my phone for a little while writing this article, and I haven’t heard the hosts just yet.Google has been steadily expanding the capabilities of the AI hosts with NotebookLM to help users review and study different topics, so trying out a similar idea to YouTube Music makes some sense. The new YouTube Labs program also follows Google’s broader Labs program for its AI experiments.Today, YouTube also announced that some of its Premium-only features have expanded to more platforms. For example, the jump ahead feature, which uses AI to skip to the most interesting part of a video, is now “fully available” on YouTube for TV and game consoles, YouTube says. (The feature started showing up for some TV users earlier this year.)

We knew that Aaron Sorkin was working on a companion piece to The Social Network, and now we know what the movie will be called and when Sony plans to debut it in theaters.Deadline reports that the movie, now titled The Social Reckoning, has been given an October 9th, 2026, premiere date. Along with Succession’s Jeremy Strong, who will portray Mark Zuckerberg, the film will also star Mikey Madison as former Meta employee Frances Haugen and Jeremy Allen White as Jeff Horowitz, the Wall Street Journal reporter behind The Facebook Files. Comedian Bill Burr, who is set to perform in Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Comedy Festival, has also been cast in an undisclosed role.