Phil Schiller is leaving his biggest jobs at Apple
Longtime Apple executive Phil Schiller is stepping down from his role as the head of the App Store and Apple events, according to a report from Bloomberg. Following the change, Schiller will keep his Apple Fellow title and continue “working on unspecified initiatives,” Bloomberg reports. Schiller initially joined Apple in 1987 and became the company’s […]
Markiplier is now GoPro’s biggest shareholder
YouTuber Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach has invested enough in GoPro to become its single largest shareholder, with an 8.5 percent stake in the company, Bloomberg reports. Speaking to Bloomberg, Fischbach said he thought GoPro “seems undervalued” and sees his investment as “part of a larger mission to make filmmaking more accessible,” following the release of his […]
Read Tim Cook’s final message to Apple staff as CEO
Steve Jobs’ successor carried the torch of the iPhone and built Apple into a global powerhouse with few rivals. Since becoming CEO in 2011, Tim Cook has led the company to become one of the most dominant forces in the daily lives of billions of people. Today is his last day as CEO. Sending lots […]
Debian won’t ban AI code from its Linux distribution
Debian voted to allow developers to use AI tools in their contributions to the Linux distribution’s “development, maintenance, [and] documentation.” The new policy on AI acknowledges that “responsible” use of AI can improve developers’ productivity, and goes on to say, “generative AI is neither exempt from nor subject to special rules beyond the standards already […]
Enormous 12TB Steam leak includes abandoned Half-Life 2: Episode 3 assets
Over 12 terabytes of data, containing builds of every game uploaded to Steam between 2003 and 2013, has been leaked. We don’t know everything in the archives yet because of its massive size. But people have already dug up assets related to the canceled Half-Life 2: Episode 3, content cut from Portal 2, and a […]
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches to study dark matter and dark energy
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Telescope blasts off. | Photo: NASA / John Kraus After funding struggles and a name change, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has been successfully launched. It will now make a three-month, one-million-mile journey to its orbit at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point (L2) beyond the Moon. From this vantage point, […]
Texas Governor Abbott blocks funding for more Flock cameras
As backlash grows over Flock’s AI surveillance cameras, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has frozen state spending on them. The move came just ahead of the publication of a Texas Tribune investigation that revealed the state spent over $30 million on Flock cameras. That money was primarily raised by tacking a $1 fee onto insurance policies, […]
Chess.com launched a poker site and is planning even more classic games
Chess.com has done one thing, and one thing very well, for almost 20 years, but now it’s going beyond its domain name. The biggest name in online chess quietly launched its first companion site in beta back in May: Gambit, a free online poker website where players can learn the game without risking any real […]
China’s robots race ahead
Humanoid robot competes in the optional boxing routine event during the 2nd World Humanoid Robot Games at National Speed Skating Oval on August 26, 2026 in Beijing, China. | Image: Getty Images This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on falling robots and the […]
The Galaxy Z Flip 8 is at its best when there’s friction
The Z Flip 8 is designed to be used shut more than ever before. | Photo: Dominic Preston / The Verge What do you want from a flip phone when it’s closed? A simple interface, perhaps notifications and a widget or two, for handling the basics? Or a fully fledged Android experience shrunk down for […]