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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Flock says it’s “pausing” exploring a partnership with Ring.

Hot on the heels of Ring’s announcement that it has canceled its integration with Flock Safety, the law enforcement technology company released its own statement.

Flock, which has drawn criticism for connections to ICE (a claim it denies), said in a press release and blog post that the decision to cancel the planned integration with Ring’s Community Request was based on extensive feedback:

Over the past several months, Flock and Ring explored whether their respective platforms could responsibly complement one another in support of public safety. Throughout those discussions, Flock engaged extensively with customers, public officials, and community stakeholders to understand expectations around accountability, transparency, and lawful use.

Based on that engagement, Flock and Ring have chosen to cancel the planned integration.

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Gaby Del Valle
I honestly didn’t think they had it in them.

Senate Democrats blocked a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday, which could trigger a temporary shutdown of the department. The vote was 52 to 47, with just one Democrat — Sen. John Fetterman — voting in favor.

“We will not support an extension of the status quo,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said before the vote.

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The Verge
Jay Peters
PlayStation’s next big State of Play is about to begin.

PlayStation, like other big publishers, has been leaning more into games that follow proven formulas, but I’m hoping we’ll see a few announcements that come out of left field.

The show starts at 2PM ET and is set to last for more than an hour. We’ll be covering it live.

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Andrew J. Hawkins
EPA eliminates credits for ‘much-despised’ start-stop feature in cars.

The system works to save fuel by cutting off the engine when the vehicle comes to a stop at a red light, for example. Automakers were incentivized at add the feature by off-cycle credits from the federal government. But now those credits are gone, and the auto industry is likely to start phasing the feature out. Lee Zeldin claims it will save “$1.3 trillion,” but good luck spending it while the world burns.

Image: X
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Andrew J. Hawkins
DoorDasher offered $11.25 to close a Waymo robotaxi door that was left open.

Since Waymo doesn’t have a vehicle with automatic doors, it has to pay on gig workers for help. (The Washington Post covered this phenomenon recently.) Just another example of the invisible human labor that’s required to keep these autonomous systems afloat.

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Sean Hollister
Meta sold 7 million smart glasses in 2025 — that’s triple 2023 and 2024 combined.

Remember when EssilorLuxottica said it sold 2 million and would hit 10 million a year by 2027? 10M seems well within reach. “In 2025, we sold more than 7 million units of AI glasses, posting exponential growth,” said CEO Francesco Milleri. Prices may stay high in the short term, though, they hinted on the earnings call.

Every little thing she does is magic

Meet Mary, the stop-motion 3D witch from Portsmith

Cath Virginia
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Andrew J. Hawkins
Waymo CEO predicts 1 million weekly rides by the end of the year.

Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana told Bloomberg the robotaxi company was on track to reach the 1 million weekly rides milestone by the end of 2026. The company is currently provides about 400,000 rides per week across six US cities. Waymo just announced that its sixth-generation vehicle is going to start accepting passengers in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

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Terrence O'Brien
Elon Musk might be violating sanctions against Iran with X Premium accounts.

The Tech Transparency Project identified several Iranian government agencies and officials enjoying the perks of X Premium accounts. Normally, Premium requires a paid subscription, which could violate US sanctions. Suspiciously, when Wired flagged some of those accounts to X, they were stripped of their blue checkmarks:

X did not respond to a request for comment, but within hours of WIRED flagging several X accounts belonging to Iranian officials, their blue checkmarks were removed. The rest of the accounts identified by TTP but not shared with X continue to display a blue checkmark.

The surprising case for AI judges
Play

Bridget McCormack of the American Arbitration Association on AI-powered courts and the future of law.

Nilay Patel
The Sony WF-1000XM6 earbuds reclaim the noise-canceling crown

The new flagship earbuds are the best at ANC, if you can get a good seal in your ear.

John Higgins
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Stevie Bonifield
The official Nvidia GeForce Now app has arrived on Amazon Fire TV.

Starting on Thursday, GeForce Now users can stream games directly on Amazon Fire TV devices, including a few new arrivals coming this week like Reanimal and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Fire TVs join a growing list of platforms with support for Nvidia GeForce Now, which even includes Linux.

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Andrew Liszewski
Insta360 will release a DJI Osmo Pocket rival this year.

If rumors and leaks are accurate, DJI will release a follow-up to the Osmo Pocket 3 soon, but it will be facing some new competition. During the company’s annual meeting, Insta360’s CEO Liu Jingkang announced a handheld stabilized dual lens camera called the Luna. It will debut in the first half of 2026, but no other details were revealed.

Insta360 CEO Liu Jingkang on a large stage with a screen behind them revealing the Luna camera.
Insta360 CEO Liu Jingkang says the Luna will launch in the first half of 2026 but details about its capabilities and price weren’t announced.
Image: Igor Bogdanov
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Dominic Preston
Gmail adds label creation on Android.

You’ve been able to add them via desktop for decades, and even iPhone users had the option, but finally Android is catching up. You still can’t customize the colors from your phone, but maybe we’ll get that in another ten years or so.

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Dominic Preston
Even a stopped clock…

There are plenty of good reasons to have your doubts about Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, but he’s right — if understandably self-serving — in criticizing Russia’s “authoritarian” restrictions on both Telegram and WhatsApp.

Cr4shMyCar:

Heartbreaking: worst person you know makes a great point

Get the day’s best comment and more in my free newsletter, The Verge Daily.

HP ZBook Ultra G1a review: a business-class workstation that’s got game

7

Verge Score

This pricey laptop has got sleek no-frills looks and Strix Halo strengths on lock.

Antonio G. Di Benedetto
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Jess Weatherbed
The Pokémon Go stop on Epstein’s island is gone.

Yep, Little Saint James had a single Pokéstop until it was removed by Niantic this week after Pokémon Go players kept spoofing their locations to “visit” the island. We don’t know if Epstein himself used it, though emails show he recommended the game to Deepak Chopra and Sheikh Fahad Bin Hamad.

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Jess Weatherbed
Claude gets more free features to capitalize on ChatGPT ads.

After already dunking on OpenAI’s plan to bring ads to ChatGPT, Anthropic is bolstering its own chatbot to attract anyone jumping ship. Free Claude users can now create and edit files (including spreadsheets, presentations, and PDFs), access Skills for specialized tasks, connect to third-party services, and more — features previously limited to paying subscribers.

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Dominic Preston
Who needs a job anyway?

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman seems to think AI will be ready to replace most white-collar work within two years — presumably not including his own, of course. He also claimed more of Microsoft’s own AI models are due this year.

“White-collar work, where you’re sitting down at a computer, either being a lawyer or an accountant or a project manager or a marketing person — most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.”

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Thomas Ricker
From dumb to dumber.

The sudden closure of El Paso airspace yesterday came after US customs officials fired an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without coordination with the FAA. And, according to The New York Times, it wasn’t triggered by “Mexican cartel drones breaching US airspace” as the administration claimed:

Officials targeted what they thought was a drug cartel drone, but turned out to be a party balloon.

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Jay Peters
Where is the Steam Deck OLED?

It’s out of stock in the US and in parts of Asia, as reported by Windows Central. We reached out to Valve this morning to ask about it, but didn’t get a reply.

Wonder if it’s partly due to the component supply shortages that will affect the price of the Steam Machine.

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Jay Peters
Russia has blocked WhatsApp.

“Trying to isolate over 100mn people from private and secure communication is a backwards step and can only lead to less safety for people in Russia,” WhatsApp says a statement to the Financial Times.

The block follows Telegram reportedly being restricted in the country.

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Jay Peters
Southwest is getting Starlink.

The first Southwest Airlines plane with Starlink will enter this service this summer, and Starlink is set to be available on “more than 300 aircraft” by the end of the year, Southwest says.

Southwest joins airlines like United, WestJet, and British Airways in bringing SpaceX’s Starlink to customers.

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Instagram
Jay Peters
Wyze is sticking it to Ring.
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