Amazon has announced the dates when its annual Prime Day deal extravaganza will kick off, and it’s happening for much longer than usual. It starts Tuesday, July 8th, at 3AM Eastern and lasts through Friday, July 11th, at the same time. And, instead of being a two-day event that’s exclusive to Prime subscribers, it’s happening for four days in 2025. We will, of course, be reporting for deal duty for the duration, supplying only on the discounts that matter to Verge readers.Four days is a very long time, and we currently don’t know if Amazon plans to blast out the majority of good deals on day one, or divvy them out evenly across the event’s duration. At least, it will attempt to organize the deals with a new “Today’s Big Deals” feature for subscribers, which recaps the biggest deals across various categories.We expect to first see deals arrive on Amazon’s own suite of devices, including Echo smart speakers, smart displays, and other smart home gear. This includes its Kindle lineup, as well as its Fire TV streamers and TVs that run its entertainment-focused OS. Amazon teased some of its early deals beginning soon, which include its lowest price yet on the Blink Mini 2 two-pack as well as the Ring Battery Doorbell bundled with the Ring Floodlight Cam Wired Plus. It also plans to offer the eero 6 Plus mesh Wi-Fi router system, the Fire HD 8 Plus tablet, and more products at up to half off.Once Prime Day begins, deals will expand to include other popular manufacturers that Verge readers care about. Every company under the sun typically takes part in Prime Day on both big-ticket gadgets and affordable tech. We’ll be covering the best deals on TVs, laptops, headphones, tablets, video games, PC accessories and components, and so much more. To reiterate, Prime Day deals are only for Prime subscribers, so you’ll need a subscription to participate (even if it’s a trial). For those who are between the ages of 18 and 24, you can get a six-month subscription for free, with it renewing after that period at $7.49 per month (half the normal cost of Prime).If you’re unsure as to whether you’ll have time to peruse all of the deals with us, you can opt to get a tidy email digest of only the top deals, both on a regular basis and during Prime Day, by subscribing to our Verge Deals newsletter below.

The contract is estimated to complete in July 2026.OpenAI is officially on the Pentagon’s payroll. The Department of Defence announced a $200 million contract with OpenAI to provide the US government with new artificial intelligence tools, including those used for proactive cyber defense.In a post outlining its latest contracts, the DoD said that OpenAI “will develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains.” The work will primarily be completed in the Washington, DC region with an estimated completion date of July 2026.OpenAI said in a new blog post that the DoD contract is its first partnership under a new initiative to provide its AI technology to workers across federal, state, and local governments. The company is offering custom models for national security on “a limited basis,” according to the announcement, with OpenAI saying that all use cases must comply with its policies and guidelines. OpenAI’s current usage policy bans its services from being used to “develop or use weapons” and “injure others or destroy property.”“This contract, with a $200 million ceiling, will bring OpenAI’s industry-leading expertise to help the Defense Department identify and prototype how frontier AI can transform its administrative operations, from improving how service members and their families get health care, to streamlining how they look at program and acquisition data, to supporting proactive cyber defense,” OpenAI said.This isn’t the first time OpenAI has bedded down with the military, having entered a partnership with Anduril Industries in December 2024 to integrate its AI software into the defense tech company’s counterdrone systems. The new one-year DoD contract is antithetical to earlier versions of OpenAI’s terms of service that banned its technology from being used for “military and warfare” — a prohibition removed by the company last year. OpenAI’s DoD contract is the latest of several efforts to bolster military efforts with AI technology, with the US having renamed the AI Safety Institute earlier this month to focus on combating national security risks instead of overall safety. Rival AI developer Anthropic announced an AI model with looser guardrails for US defense and intelligence agencies on June 5th, Google removed commitments in February to not use AI in ways “that cause or are likely to cause overall harm,” and Meta started allowing the US government to use its Llama AI model for “national security applications” last year.

From the time I started watching Pewdiepie's videos on Amnesia: The Dark Descent, I've known for a fact that horror games become less scary and more fun with friends — whether they're watching through a screen or playing right alongside you. There's something inherently hilarious about getting hunted by unspeakable monsters while you and your friends are yelling and running in all directions, or when your squad is crouched in silence but someone sneezes and gets everyone killed.

I’ve been a diehard Proxmox fanboy for a long time, and have used the platform for everything from makeshift Hackintosh VMs to gaming-oriented virtual machines. After all, Proxmox brings a solid set of virtualization features, top-tier performance and massive compatibility with software packages and hardware components. If you’re a part of the container faction, you can even run LXCs on top of the virtualization platform.

It's no secret that Microsoft recommends Windows 11 users to use a Microsoft Account instead of local accounts to log in to PCs. Not only that, but the software giant has even gone so far as to force people to use its online account instead of the local one on PCs. While there are plenty of benefits to using a Microsoft account instead of a local account, especially if you're subscribed to Microsoft 365, you might need to think twice before using it as your primary source of cloud data storage.

Microsoft Word was my go-to writing app for typing documents and stories, but I eventually moved on to Google Docs due to its simplicity and cloud-based design. Google Docs isn't bad, but I found another app that has a more streamlined design and gives me the freedom to work without invasive spelling and grammar-checking tools. I'm always looking to improve my productivity and switched to QuillSpace because it removes all distractions so I can work in peace.

Daily puzzle games are seemingly everywhere right now, and starting today, you’ll be able to add a new stop to your puzzle rotation: The Atlantic.The publication is launching a new hub for its growing game offerings, including already available games like Bracket City and Caleb’s Inferno Crossword Puzzle, as well as some new puzzles. You’ll be able to access the hub on both the web and in The Atlantic’s app.Caleb Madison, The Atlantic’s director of games, gave The Verge a demo of most of the games available in the hub ahead of today’s launch:Bracket City, which The Atlantic licensed earlier this year, requires you to solve clues nested in brackets that eventually resolve into a fun fact about that day in history.Stacks, a new game, is kind of like Tetris meets Wordle, Madison says. You have a bank of words that you have to place in the correct order, on top of letters already on the board, to form other words. In Fluxis, another new game, you try to figure out words that build off the previous word and incorporate some kind of characteristic. Madison showed me an example of needing to build an adjective off the word “checkerboard” — he went with “arduous.”Caleb’s Inferno Crossword Puzzle, which is already included in the monthly Atlantic magazine and available online, is last game Madison showed me. Caleb’s crossword is a narrow rectangle instead of a square, but as you move farther down the puzzle, the clues get more difficult to solve. Madison doesn’t necessarily see The Atlantic’s games as replacing your visits to other daily puzzles. “I think people have a pretty ravenous diet for new games, so I don’t think coming to The Atlantic precludes any of these other amazing games that are at The New York Times or Apple News or LinkedIn,” Madison says. “What I feel like The Atlantic has to offer that’s different from those publications is a little bit more of a bespoken, artisanal aesthetic.”Madison also tries to bring an “aesthetic narrative component” to games to help them feel “immersive and special.” Bracket City, for example, has some city-themed elements sprinkled throughout, like the “fan mail” email being [email protected] with The New York Times, some aspects of The Atlantic’s games will only be available if you’re a paid subscriber. Bracket City and all of its archives are free. The full archives for Stacks, Fluxis, and The Atlantic’s daily mini crossword will be behind a paywall, however; nonsubscribers will only have access to the three most recent puzzles for those games. All of the Caleb’s Inferno crossword puzzles are exclusive to subscribers.Madison says he has “a lot of plans” for more games, including long-form games of some kind. “I’m trying to make no assumptions as to what that would look like and just forge forward creatively to see what a more layered day-to-day experience would be like.” He didn’t want to give anything specific away, but he says, “I am excited to innovate in the game space and bring unique and authentic, long-form game experiences to The Atlantic users and to people online.”

Mario Kart World is an excellent evolution of the series, with exciting new modes like Knockout Tour and drastic changes to the formula, like doubling the number of racers in each race. While it took some time for me to acclimate to these big changes, partially because it's been over a decade since the last time a new Mario Kart was released, some choices don't work as well. The Free Roam mode is a complete miss, between lackluster activities and terrible tracking for those activities. Some of the interconnected races from the Grand Prix feel more like driving on the highway than racing around a Mario Kart track, but every track can be played in the traditional lap-based mode. While it's not the single-player epic I wanted with the Switch 2 launch line-up, Mario Kart World is an essential purchase for the new Nintendo console.

Microsoft’s Copilot advertising has been criticized by an industry watchdog for its productivity claims and confusing use of Copilot branding. The Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division (NAD) has reviewed Microsoft’s Copilot advertising, and recommended that the software giant discontinues or modifies productivity claims about Microsoft 365 Copilot and more clearly disclose the limitations of its Business Chat feature.Microsoft has been claiming that Copilot has productivity and return on investment (ROI) benefits for businesses that adopt the AI assistant, including that “67%, 70%, and 75% of users say they are more productive” after a certain amount of Copilot usage. “NAD found that although the study demonstrates a perception of productivity, it does not provide a good fit for the objective claim at issue,” says the watchdog in its review. “As a result, NAD recommended the claim be discontinued or modified to disclose the basis for the claim.”Alongside the recommended productivity advertising changes, NAD also suggests that users of Copilot could be confused by Microsoft’s wide use of the Copilot branding across multiple products — including Business Chat. “NAD concluded, based on the context of the claims and universal use of the product description as ‘Copilot,‘ that consumers would not necessarily understand the differences.” NAD has recommended that Microsoft now “modify its advertising to clearly and conspicuously disclose any material limitations related to how Business Chat assists users.”Microsoft has had years of confusing branding for Copilot. Microsoft relaunched its Copilot for business with free AI chat and pay-as-you-go agents earlier this year, in an attempt to simplify some of its branding woes. Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat as it’s known now, started off as Bing Chat Enterprise before Microsoft then rebranded it, confusingly, to just Copilot. Somewhere in the middle of all this rebranding, Business Chat — which was originally a chatbot in Teams — is now Business Chat for Microsoft 365 Copilot.As I wrote in Notepad almost a year ago, Microsoft has been rebranding Copilot in the most Microsoft way possible. It’s all part of trying to make businesses use Copilot more, and then pay extra for the Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription.Microsoft says it disagrees with NAD’s conclusions, but that it “will follow NAD’s recommendations for clarifying its claims.” Hopefully that means that Copilot branding is going to be clearer in the future.

Whether you're upgrading to a new PC or buying a single component, you can never really avoid every single one of these hidden traps. No matter how many times you've done it before, upgrading a PC inevitably comes with unspoken biases and rules that you impose on yourself. This leads you to overpay for performance you don't need, and build with components you didn't research enough before buying. On the other end of the spectrum, you could end up cheaping out on the stuff that truly matters. So, here are the top traps to avoid when buying new components for your PC.

Would you purchase a specific brand's GPU because it came with diagnostic LEDs that warned you if your card's power supply wasn't doing so hot? Galax banked on this when it created its take on the GeForce RTX GPUs. Using some pretty clever tech, its last range of cards displayed a visual warning signal when something was going wrong. Fortunately, this same feature has made its way onto Galax's RTX 50 series, too, and given the reports of cards melting power cables, this feature could potentially help you spot the issue before it does too much damage.

Wireless connectivity to the internet is ubiquitous, and to some, it's as necessary as breathing or staying hydrated. I can't exactly argue against that, as I realize how many times an hour I check my smartphone or rely on Wi-Fi for work, but I'm past caring about which standard I'm using. Wi-Fi 7 is still barely supported by devices, requires expensive routers, and isn't a significantly meaningful upgrade over Wi-Fi 6E.