Sony’s WH-1000XM5 (left) and last-gen WH-1000XM4 (right).Sony will launch a successor to its WH-1000XM5 noise cancelling headphones on May 15th, according to leaked information reported by Dealabs and Android Authority.Details of the new headphones model, called the WH-1000XM6, come from a now pulled Amazon Spain listing for the product that was first spotted by a Reddit user. The XM6 will feature an upgraded noise-canceling processor called the QN3 HD, which according to Dealabs, will be seven times faster than the QN1 chip present in Sony’s XM5. The upgrade should result in better noise cancelling and perhaps sound quality.  It also looks like it has an AI-powered six-microphone beamforming system for calls, and still comes with a headphone jack.Unfortunately the Trump administration’s tariffs seem to be affecting the price of the new XM6. Dealabs says it will launch for $449.99 in the US — $50 more expensive than the $399.99 XM5s, which our senior reviewer Chris Welch has called the best wireless headphones for most people. The XM5, however, is only slightly better at noise canceling than the XM4 that launched in 2020, so the XM6 will need a truly generational improvement to justify the higher price.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has lost its appeal of a ruling in its case against Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.In 2023, the FTC requested a preliminary injunction to prevent the companies from finalizing the deal while its legal challenge to the acquisition from 2022 was in progress.“With control of Activision’s content, Microsoft would have the ability and increased incentive to withhold or degrade Activision’s content in ways that substantially lessen competition – including competition on product quality, price, and innovation,” the FTC said in its complaint.A district court judge denied the FTC’s request, and a day after that ruling, the FTC appealed. The deal was completed in October 2023, nearly two years after the acquisition was first announced.Today, an appeals court panel affirmed that denial, as reported by Reuters. In its opinion, the panel says that “given the FTC’s failure to make an adequate showing as to its likelihood of success on the merits as to any of its theories, the district court properly denied the FTC’s motion for a preliminary injunction on that basis.”The deal is still “the subject of an administrative proceeding that remains pending before the FTC,” according to today’s opinion.FTC spokesperson Vicky Graham and Microsoft spokesperson Alex Haurek declined to comment. 

Nintendo's Switch 2 is just around the corner, as we're approximately under a month away from the system's release. To get things in order, the Japanese company has been working hard with updates for the Switch 1 and existing Switch features to align with the hotly anticipated Switch 2. However, the user interface wasn't the only portion of the Switch that would be getting an enhancement before the Switch 2's June 5th release.

“Make me a fit that’s athleisure but elevated.” The kids are always saying this.Android's new design language looks extremely… Gen Z.That much is obvious from the concept images in the leaked blog post that surfaced today (published by Google, as it tends to do). While the theme is customizable, Google highlighted pink, purple, and coral throughout the interface. It's a decidedly younger, bubblier, and more fun design that screams "look at all this fresh paint!" and less "choose from one of these six popular shades of blue." Google's blog also confirms the push toward youth appeal. Fine; freshening up the interface every once in a while is a good and necessary pursuit. Aside from the inherent cringe factor when a group of designers tries to quantify youth appeal in bar graphs labeled "Coolness attributes," I can't shake the feeling that none of this matters much against Android's biggest hurdle in addressing the younger demographic: the iPhone. Android is the most popular mobile operating system in the world. But here in the US, Apple owns a solid majority of all phones sold. The numbers skew even more heavily toward iOS when you look at younger demographics. A 2025 survey from investment bank Piper Sandler reports that 88 percent of teenagers polled own …Read the full story at The Verge.

The name "Clippy" invokes one of two moods. Either you never met him and you're ambivalent towards his name, or you went through the ordeal of using him as your Office assistant back in 1997. If you're of the former camp, Clippy was a little animated "friend" that took the form of a paperclip that tried to be as helpful as possible. He was, essentially, the personification of every annoying Windows pop-up you've ever had, constantly interjecting with ideas or thoughts until you turned him off.

When the Steam Deck launched in 2022, it took gamers by surprise, delivering an affordable, handheld PC that could run a huge chunk of your Steam library. Naturally, in 2025, fans are eagerly awaiting more details about the Steam Deck 2. But for me?

The old Reddit layout sometimes looks a bit outdated, but it’s beloved by many Reddit users, including me. I’ve worried for some time that Reddit would eventually pull the plug on it in favor of the newer and more modern interface, but based on a recent post from Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, it doesn’t sound like that’s going to happen anytime soon.As part of a larger post published Monday about “Reddit’s next chapter,” which we saw via TechCrunch, Huffman, who goes by the username spez, snuck in what looked like heart-stopping news for us oldheads right at the end.“Sunsetting old.reddit: old.reddit is the version of Reddit that we built back in the mid-2000s,“ Huffman said. ”It doesn’t scale, it’s impossible to develop on, and it’s ugly af. We will be shutting it down at the end of the month.”But, apparently, that was just a joke. (A bold move, given outcry to other Reddit-related shutdowns.) “Just kidding,” he said. “I don’t know why I say stuff like this. We’ll figure out how to work around it and keep it online as long as people are using it.”The post covers many other actual planned changes to the platform, including that “core product improvements” like making it easier to make subreddits and “evolving r/popular” are in the works. Reddit also wants to shift the primary role of moderators from “policing to community cultivation,” in part with “better tools – especially more AI-driven automation,” he said.Huffman acknowledged that “unwelcome AI in communities is a serious concern” and that it’s the worry he hears most from users and mods. But he believes that “Reddit works because it’s human” and said that “our focus is, and always will be, on keeping Reddit a trusted place for human conversation.”Reddit is going to ask for a bit more identifying information from its users, too. Here’s Huffman’s description of what will happen:To keep Reddit human and to meet evolving regulatory requirements, we are going to need a little more information. Specifically, we will need to know whether you are a human, and in some locations, if you are an adult. But we never want to know your name or who you are. The way we will do this is by working with various third-party services that can provide us with the essential information and nothing else. No solution is perfect — including the status quo — but we will do our best to preserve both the humanness and anonymity of Reddit. On Wednesday, Reddit also shared details about improvements it’s making to Reddit Chat, including the ability to add users to an allowlist. The company announced in March that it would be replacing user PMs with Chat.

Hosting a party always sounds like a good idea — until it’s time to pick the music. Playlists are either too safe or too niche. And honestly, I’m not thrilled about handing over my phone every time someone wants to queue up a track.

Two new features coming to Matter are designed to make setting up smart gadgets easier. Multi-device QR codes and a tap-to-pair onboarding via NFC are new options for adding devices like smart lights, plugs, locks, and more to a Matter home network. The updates are part of the new 1.4.1 specification for Matter announced today by the Connectivity Standards Alliance, the organization that runs the smart home interoperability standard developed by Apple, Amazon, Google, Samsung, and others in the industry.With multi-device QR codes, a multi-pack of devices – such as four lightbulbs or a two-pack of plugs – can now use a single QR code. When that’s scanned into a Matter-compatible app, such as Amazon Alexa or Apple Home, it will set up all four bulbs at once, rather than you having to go through the setup four times and scan each code individually, which is the current process. NFC onboarding brings the option to skip the QR code and just tap or bring your phone near to a device to pair it to a Matter platform. This should speed up the process as well as make it easier to set up devices that have codes in awkward spots, such as lightbulbs, which have to be powered on to be paired. Trying to scan a code on a bulb when it’s already in the fixture can be tricky, not to mention painful to the eyes (speaking from experience). NFC set-up isn’t new; Apple has offered it as a way of adding HomeKit accessories for a while, and smart lighting manufacturer Nanoleaf also has it as an option on its devices. But it’s not widely used. Hopefully, the addition to the Matter spec will bring more adoption.A third update with 1.4.1 allows you to accept any terms and conditions a manufacturer requires directly from the smart home controller app you’re using to set up the device — such as Google or Apple’s Home app. Currently, if T&Cs are required, you’ll be kicked into the manufacturer app. Called Enhanced Setup Flow, this appears to be designed to meet regulatory requirements such as Europe’s GDPR, but it could be a step towards adding more manufacturer information in smart home controller apps, meaning less need to use third-party apps. We won’t see security cameras, smart speakers, or any new major features come to Matter until late 2025 at the earliestThe release of the Matter 1.4.1 spec and SDK means developers can now implement these features in their devices. However, it will still be a while before you see them on the gadgets you buy for your smart home, and it could be even longer before the smart home platform you use supports them.Anything that makes setting up a Matter device smoother is a welcome update. To date, the process has been very hit or miss for me, and I’m not alone. While things have definitely improved, easy setup is one of the core ideas behind the standard. It’s been over two years since Matter launched, and I would have hoped this would be solved already. These updates are very minor for a new spec release, which is why it has the 1.4.1 designation — the first dot dot release for Matter. The CSA confirmed this is its official spring release, labeling it Matter’s first “minor release,” and saying that they are still on a bi-annual release cadence following the 1.4 update in November 2024. This means we won’t see security cameras, smart speakers, or any other new device types or major features come to Matter until late 2025, at the earliest.While that’s disappointing for those of us watching Matter closely, it does jive with the CSA’s statement from earlier this year that 2025 is going to be a year of focusing on reliability and performance. What is Matter?Matter is a smart home interoperability standard designed to provide a common language for connected devices to communicate locally in your home without relying on a cloud connection. It is built to be secure and private, easy to set up, and widely compatible.Developed by Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung (and others), Matter is an open-sourced, IP-based connectivity software layer for smart home devices. It works over Wi-Fi, ethernet, and the low-power mesh networking protocol Thread. The standard currently supports most of the main device types in the home, including lighting, thermostats, locks, robot vacuums, refrigerators, dishwashers, dryers, ovens, smoke alarms, air quality monitors, EV chargers, and more.A smart home gadget with the Matter logo can be set up and used with any Matter-compatible ecosystem via a Matter controller and controlled by more than one system via a feature called multi-admin.Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and Apple Home are some major smart home platforms supporting Matter, along with hundreds of device manufacturers.

Google has announced a dedicated iPadOS version of the Gemini app. Previously, you could only run the iOS version of Gemini in compatibility mode on an iPad. Here’s some of the announcement, which Google spokesperson Elijah Lawal emailed to The Verge:With the new app, you can use the split view on the iPad to put Gemini side by side with other apps for multitasking. You can also effortlessly use powerful features like:• Gemini Live: Have natural, free-flowing conversations in over 45 languages.• Deep Research: Quickly generate reports and gather information, saving significant time.• Audio Overview: Easily process and understand audio files.• Canvas: Co-create and edit documents and code in an innovative space built for collaboration with AI.• Image and video generation: Bring your ideas to life by generating stunning, varied images and videos directly on your iPad.The dedicated iPad app is available today in all countries where Gemini is currently offered. You can download it directly from the App Store.Speaking of updated features, we’ve significantly expanded the availability of Audio Overview. Following great initial feedback, this feature, which initially launched in English for Gemini and Gemini Advanced subscribers, is now available in over 45 languages globally.According to the listing, Gemini can also now be added as a homescreen widget, and supports connecting to your Google Photos library. Google launched Gemini for iOS in November. And while it would’ve been nice for it to debut an iPad-native app at the time, the next best time, as they say, is now. And anyway, it’s not like Google is the worst offender there. 

Season 1 of Poker Face, Rian Johnson's eclectic crime dramedy starring Natasha Lyonne as a woman who can always tell when someone is lying, was one of Peacock's first truly fantastic series. Each Columbo-esque episode spun a uniquely wild tale of murder, mystery, and people realizing how different their understandings of the truth can be. And you could see that its massive cast of guest stars was having a ball hamming it up as ridiculous characters that felt like they were ripped right out of a game of Clue.Though every episode dropped Lyonne's character, Charlie Cale, into a new situation involving people she'd just met, Poker Face's first season was still very much a larger story about her being on the run and trying to stay one step ahead of shady figures from her past. The dangerous stakes of that narrative seemed like something that Poker Face might want to crank up when Peacock renewed the series for its second season.But when I spoke with Johnson recently, he told me that he was never all that interested in fiddling with the scope of Poker Face's narrative. For him, the joy of crafting Charlie Cale's story has always been rooted in figuring out how to create novel, emot …Read the full story at The Verge.

A second trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI had a surprise drop this week, and it looked like it mostly focused on the story and world at the expense of gameplay. However, developer Rockstar Games says that isn’t actually the case, and that the trailer was “comprised of equal parts gameplay and cutscenes.” The fact that it’s hard to discern between the two in the trailer is an impressive achievement for the game, though obviously we’ll have to reserve judgement until we are able to actually play it.Here, you can judge for yourself:The studio also confirmed that the trailer was “captured entirely in-game from a PlayStation 5,” something that was noted in the trailer’s fine print. The game will be launching on both the PS5 and the Xbox Series X / S.The trailer — which came more than a year after the first — was released soon after news came that Grand Theft Auto VI was being delayed. Originally slated to launch this fall, the game is now due to release on May 26th, 2026. In a statement, Rockstar said that “we need this extra time to deliver at the level of quality you expect and deserve.”