Is the promise of jobs worth all the water and chemicals it takes to manufacture chips in the Arizona desert?
This Associated Press report explains that after getting authorization for a domestic license plate reader in 2017, the readers “have become a major — and in some places permanent — fixture of the border region.”
Readers are operated by the DEA, local law enforcement paid via federal grants, and at least three companies: Rekor, Vigilant Solutions, and Flock Safety.
Negotiators are deadlocked in a tumultuous close to United Nations climate talks. A proposed roadmap for transitioning away from coal, oil, and gas has become a flashpoint. “We’re facing the reality of a no-deal scenario” EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said earlier today.
Amazon’s lawsuit against Perplexity has blown the doors open on the great AI browser fight.
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Verge Score
The latest smartphone-sized reader comes with a lot of new features. They’re not all upgrades.
The company plants to start trading power, a move that could support the buildout of new power plants as grids try to keep up with rising electricity demand from data centers and generative AI, Bloomberg reports.
The feature is rolling out for Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels, according to Microsoft. I like using tables in Apple Notes, so I think they’ll be pretty useful in Notepad, too.
I don’t like where Windows is going. Gaming on Linux has never been more approachable. Time to give it a shot.
A woman died and her husband was seriously injured after first responders struggled to retrieve them from a burning Model 3, according to a new lawsuit filed against the company. The crash took place January 2023 in Washington state and is the latest to allege that Tesla’s door handle design is trapping people inside their vehicles.
We already knew that the old-school blue books were popular again, given how easy it is to cheat with AI. The Economist reports that blue book sales have nearly tripled from 2022 to October 2025, topping $300,000 in just the first 10 months of this year, according to data firm Circana.
[The Economist]
Valve’s big hardware push: you asked, we answered.
Dave Baszucki went on the Hard Fork podcast to talk about child safety on Roblox after its recent news that age estimation will be required to chat starting next year, and the conversation got pretty adversarial. Worth reading or listening to in full.
[The New York Times]
Over one year after its release on PS5 and PC, the Silent Hill 2 remake has finally made its way to Xbox Series X | S consoles. To celebrate its release, Konami is making Silent Hill 2 available on Xbox and PS5 for $34.99 instead of $69.99 for a limited time, with a similar discount coming to PC next week.
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[Konami Digital Entertainment]
Documents released by the House Oversight Committee shed light on Epstein’s day-to-day, largely via email — including his preoccupation with his Google presence.
A blaze broke out in the conference venue Thursday, just ahead of negotiations scheduled to come to a close today in Brazil.
Food logging is tedious enough without AI making stuff up.
The White House drafted an executive order to preempt state AI laws, according to a copy obtained by The Verge, but some Trump allies worry it won’t work. “I don’t think the executive branch has the authority to enforce preemption on the states,” Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA) told Punchbowl News.
[Punchbowl News]
The company shared new details about its Pocket Vert this week. Its minimal controls mimic the Game Boy with a D-pad and action buttons, but the Android-based handheld also features a hidden multipurpose touchpad beneath its front glass panel that can be used as a thumbstick for playing 3D games.
Yesterday Microsoft announced it’s making the classic Zork games open-source, and apparently some folks have gotten a little excited about it.
alectrem:
no need to fork zork when you can uncork zork straight from the zork zource, its like the opposite of zork divorce in zork court due to a zork tort
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Hot on the heels of a second successful launch — and first successful landing — Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has announced the next version of its rocket. The New Glenn 9x4 — named for its number of engines — should operate alongside the existing 7x2, and could compete more closely with SpaceX’s Starship.
Samsung promoted its head of consumer hardware to co-CEO, joining Young Hyun Jun, head of the memory business. Roh led mobile since 2020, taking on TVs and appliances in an acting role this year, which is now permanent too.
The shuffle follows the death of former co-CEO Jong-Hee Han in March.
[Samsung Newsroom]
Everyone expected drama after Ubisoft delayed its financials at the last minute — a sale, a disruption to the Tencent deal, something else!? — but the reality is less thrilling.
Bloomberg reports Ubisoft “improperly booked sales from a partnership as revenue,” requiring it to correct its accounts and putting it in breach of a loan agreement.
