CD sales are booming as physical media continues its resurgence
There’s some real gems in there. | Photo: Terrence O’Brien / The Verge According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), CD sales exploded in the first half of 2026. A new report from the organization says 17.5 million CDs were sold in the first six months of the year, up from just 12 […]
Fantasy Footballers’ Andy Holloway is a dedicated zero-inbox kinda guy
Andy Holloway cohosts the Fantasy Footballers podcast with his friends Jason Moore and Mike Wright. The show is one of the premier fantasy sports podcasts, netting over 2 million monthly listeners and numerous awards, including Best Sports Podcast from iHeartRadio and People’s Choice at the Podcast Awards four years in a row. Holloway’s goal has […]
Content creators drop the ball
The USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. | Getty Images During Naomi Osaka’s match against Anastasia Zakharova at this year’s US Open earlier this week, a gaggle of ring light-wielding influencers who were packed in a luxury suite became enough of a distraction that the umpire paused the match and repeatedly asked them to […]
The weird and wonderful headphones of CanJam 2026
A collection of headphone manufacturers and fans come together for their love of great sound. | Image: CanJam Global I’ve been reviewing headphones for a long time, and I’ve listened to everything from the barely serviceable to multi-thousand-dollar open-back headphones. But recently I’ve been uninspired by the state of mainstream options. Most are perfectly good […]
OpenAI admits to German wiki ‘incident’
OpenAI says it needs to overhaul how and when it reports instances of AI models attacking real-world targets. The acknowledgement comes as the company manages the fallout from reports that a swarm of its out-of-control agents hijacked a German wiki site. Regarding the “‘wiki incident,’ where our agents wrote to several internet sites,” OpenAI wrote […]
The White House is making arcade games racist
Trump’s racist new “Build the Wall” game. | Image: The White House The PR masterminds at the White House just released a series of vaguely policy-themed “arcade” games, some of which are racist – and modeled on real games whose copyright holders may not be too happy to be associated with the MAGA agenda. The […]
GoPro says it’s still committed ‘to your collective stoke’
GoPro CEO Nick Woodman said in a letter to customers that making cameras is still his company’s “core DNA,” after a proposed $285 million acquisition by Starman was announced earlier this week. He claims the merger puts GoPro in a better position to continue developing its content creation tech, after saying in the deal announcement […]
Roland is getting into generative AI music with Melody Flip
It’s not quite the “push button; get song” of Suno, but Roland’s new Melody Flip tool marks the company’s foray into generative AI music. Available as a plug-in for your digital audio workstation (DAW), Melody Flip offers around 250 “Palettes,” which are essentially themed collections of musical ideas sorted by genre. You can start from […]
AGI is whatever you want it to be
OpenAI announced its next big model, GPT-6 Astra, and also, by the way, that “the AGI era” is here now. Today on The Vergecast, we’ve got an all-star panel to break down the news of the week. First, senior AI reporter Hayden Field joins us to talk about our supposed AGI era and Nvidia’s acquisition […]
Microsoft says virtually nobody was grabbing NYT articles through its chatbot
Microsoft’s Copilot rarely reproduces even full sentences from news articles and books, let alone substantive chunks that could substitute for the original, the company says in new legal filings as it fights copyright claims from publishers including The New York Times and book authors. As part of the lawsuit’s discovery, Microsoft provided 8.2 million Copilot […]