Federal Communications Commission | Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge The Federal Communications Commission will vote next month on whether a single company can own broadcast stations that reach more than 39 percent of US TV households. In a Breitbart op-ed on Wednesday, Republican Chair Brendan Carr announced an August 6th vote to end the national ownership cap rule, which was intended to prevent one company from dominating the media landscape and incentivize serving local communities. Carr argued the rise of social media and streaming platforms renders the rule obsolete, because national programmers can reach "100 percent of the country" without the need to access public airwaves. Under this reasoning, cap …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Elon Musk-owned xAI is suing a South Carolina man who allegedly used the company's Grok AI chatbot to generate child sexual abuse material (CSAM). In a lawsuit reported earlier by Reuters, xAI claims Terry Wayne Harwood "knowingly and intentionally used Grok to circumvent safeguards, alter nonconsensual images, and generate and distribute CSAM," breaching the company's policies.Harwood was arrested in February for allegedly possessing and distributing CSAM and is facing eight felony charges. The lawsuit claims "at least some" of the images related to Harwood's criminal charges "were generated or altered" with Grok, and that Harwood byp …Read the full story at The Verge.

Skullcandy announced a new version of its Crusher wireless headphones today featuring a few of Bose's audio technologies including its QuietControl ANC and head-tracking spatial audio. The Crusher headphone line differentiates itself from the competition through the use of both full-range and dedicated bass drivers in each ear cup to boost deeper frequencies. Skullcandy admits that approach can result in a loss of audio quality when the bass is heavily boosted, but its new Crusher 1080 ANC are meant to address and improve that with Bose's help.Available starting today for $279.99 in black, candy, primer, and cement color options, the new C …Read the full story at The Verge.

An AppleCare Plus subscription for a Mac or iPad will cost more soon, with prices going up by $0.50 per month or $5 per year for new sign-ups while remaining the same for existing subscribers, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman says that under the new AppleCare Plus pricing, "a plan for a new 13-inch MacBook Air increased to $7.99 from $7.49, or to $79.99 from $74.99 annually," following a move last year that similarly raised the plan's price on iPhones. We haven't seen the new pricing reflected on Apple's site in the US or terms of service yet, and Apple has not yet responded to a request for comment.Last month, Apple announced …Read the full story at The Verge.

The Steam Deck’s internals, including the L-shaped battery. Valve has been incredibly friendly to customers who need repairs - which is why it was so surprising to hear that Valve was already discontinuing the battery for the Steam Deck LCD handheld. It would have meant you could no longer just buy a battery from iFixit and install it yourself. Why would Valve stop stocking the most important replacement part just as people are starting to need it?Here is Valve's answer to The Verge, as of 5PM ET: "We just confirmed with iFixit that they plan to have batteries back in stock by next week." "iFixit will be getting the same OEM parts sourced through Valve's partners that they always have," spokespe …Read the full story at The Verge.

When I subscribed to Microsoft 365 last year, I was disappointed by the features. I didn't really utilize the benefits of my cloud storage, and Copilot's functionality was mostly disappointing and could be replicated with other AI assistants. The only two apps I really used were Excel and Word, and even then, my workflow didn't really justify the cost of the yearly subscription.

HP’s convertible OmniBook has a great feature set for the price. | Image: HP With storage and memory prices still at an all-time high, we’re happy to tell you about a solid deal on a good laptop when we find one, rare as they are. Best Buy is selling the HP OmniBook X Flip 2 in 1 for $999.99 (usually $1,649.99) with an Intel Core 7 Ultra CPU, 16GB of LPDDR5X memory, and a 1TB SSD. The star of the show is the 1920 x 1200 OLED touchscreen, an uncommon perk at this price point. It will display deeper black levels and have faster response times than screens in other similarly-priced models. Also, it has a 360-degree hinge that lets the screen flip so you can use it like a tablet instead, or tent it if you need some portable entertainment.HP OmniBook X Flip 2 in 1Where to Buy: $1649.99 $999.99 at Best BuyThis model, like other OmniBooks in this year’s lineup, is a Copilot Plus machine, meaning it has a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) to assist with specialized tasks like helping you quickly find files or live transcribing videos. Whether you use Copilot or not, there’s plenty else to like about this model. For connectivity, the HP includes a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI 2.1, two USB-A ports, a 3.5mm headphone jack, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 6.0. One other perk is that the OLED screen has a 16:10 aspect ratio, so you’ll be able to see more content at once.

I'm terrible at video editing. I don't have the creative instinct a lot of people have of knowing which clip goes where, which caption style fits which video style, when a cut feels snappy versus jarring, and what type of video effects would effectively hook people to keep watching. I also don't have the patience to sit at a timeline and figure it out by trial and error. Editing, to me, is where a good idea goes to die in a scrubbing bar.

It's not often that a motherboard becomes the best deal in the PC market. These are components that launch, sell at roughly the same price for a couple of years, and then disappear from the market. However, in 2026, this pattern seems to be undergoing another change never seen before, thanks to the DRAM crisis and the consequent historic lows in the sales of PC components.

Immutable Linux distros absolutely deserve all of the attention they get. It's a read-only base, atomic updates that either fully apply or not at all, and the applications are sealed off from the system, adding up to a OS that's difficult to actually break. If your goal as a new Linux user is to never have to think about it, then it's an easy recommendation, but immutability isn't what makes Linux rock-solid. On the question of stability and recovery, a normal non-immutable distro can easily meet those requirements.

It's easy to bash Windows 11 for nearly everything that goes wrong on your PC. From subpar gaming performance and unexpected blue screens to bloatware, there's plenty wrong with Microsoft's OS, but your problems might be taking effect long before you boot into Windows. Your BIOS/UEFI is one of the biggest determinants of your PC's performance and stability. The BIOS settings define your CPU's boost behavior and power limits, your memory speed, your system temperatures, and even your GPU performance. Many gamers never change the BIOS defaults after building a PC, unknowingly throttling their system's performance. Even experienced users can sometimes overlook BIOS settings that are essential to extracting your PC's maximum performance. So, before you use Windows optimization tools or aggressively disable background processes, check your UEFI once.

Diagnosing PC performance (or the lack thereof) on the internet can often become a practice of jumping fifteen different hoops before a solution sticks. If you mention that your games "stutter every now and then", you'll likely find a guide that will try to convince you that your CPU is bottlenecking your GPU, another will blame Windows 11, and a few will recommend reinstalling your chipset drivers. These may all be solutions that worked for someone else, but none of them guarantee a fix to your specific problem.