SCROLL NEWS / DISCOVERY

Search headlines

Find the stories shaping the conversation.

Search mode
Refine results
Active filters Keyword All time

Results for " verge " 2,062 found 🔀 AI-powered Shuffle

Nintendo beats earnings thanks to US tariff refunds it won’t share with gamers

Game sales are also booming.

theverge.com logo
Aug 6 • 6:58 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Stop asking if AI is good for medicine

Overgeneralizations about AI can slow down the adoption of tools that work.

statnews.com logo
Aug 6 • 4:30 AM EDT • Health • statnews.com
😐 Neutral (25%)
Smart people in tech and business react to Google's AI restructuring

Opinions diverge on what it means for DeepMind's future as Google overhauls its AI leadership.

businessinsider.com logo
Aug 5 • 4:41 PM EDT • Business • businessinsider.com
☹️ Negative (-14%)
ahah
100%
Apple’s selling refurbished MacBook Neos with a $100 discount

Save a bit of cash on a new laptop for the school year.

theverge.com logo
Aug 5 • 12:59 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Sunbird relaunched its iMessage app for Android users after three years away

Blue bubbles for Android are back.

theverge.com logo
Aug 5 • 10:13 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Chartbook 464 The"China squeeze" - the politics of development counterfactuals.

There are three types of China shock discourse. Each has a distinct temporal register. China shock 1.0 was a phrase coined by US academics in the 2010s to retrospectively summarize the impact on particular US labour markets, which they identified through painstaking empirical investigation. China shock 2.0 on everyone’s lips in Europe in the mid 2020s is an alarm raised by trans-Atlantic policy thinkers warning of a coming disaster which they project onto Europe’s ailing car industry. The third type of China shock discourse - commonly known as the “China squeeze” launched most recently by Indian economists Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian in the pages of Foreign Affairs - mobilizes a different, more speculative temporal register: the counterfactual realm of alternate history. The China squeeze argument asks not what has happened, or what is going to happen, but what might have been. Specifically, what options for economic development might have been open to Global South economies like India or the economies of sub-Saharan Africa, had it not been for China’s spectacular industrialization since the late 1990s and the persistent competitiveness of China’s manufacture in low-skilled segments. Chatterjee and Subramanian’s argument is that whilst China has built a powerful position in electrical machinery and other high-skill manufacturing, which is now delivering China Shock 2.0, it also continues to run a trade surplus in low-skill, labour-intensive manufacturing. This surplus is large and has remained largely unchanged in fifteen years. Indeed, in the 2010s, in trade with low-income countries, China’s surplus rapidly increased. On their reading, this squeezes low-income producers in low-skill sectors in which they “should” be able to compete. Source: “China’s Mercantilist Squeeze on Developing Countries” Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian. Peterson Institute for International Economics 26-7 May 2026 Chatterjee and Subramanian’s wording is telling: (emphasis mine) The canonical trajectory of economic development in the post-World War II period is for countries to transition from agriculture to manufacturing, first in low-skilled manufacturing and then later on to high-skill manufacturing (Herrendorf, Rogerson, and Valentinyi 2013). At the global level, this implies that high-income countries (HICs) that once specialized in low-skilled activities cede manufacturing export space to poorer countries that come along to occupy that space. In 1965, advanced economies accounted for about 60 percent of global value-added exports in four key low-skilled manufacturing sectors, i.e., apparel, leather, textiles, and footwear. Over time this share declined and began to be occupied first by the East Asian tigers and, beginning in the late 1990s, by China. Today China accounts for about 50 percent of the global market. The question is whether China, with its rising prosperity, is continuing to behave like its richer counterparts and ceding export space to poorer followers or to behave unlike them and continuing to occupy space. In terms of the conceptual maneuvers it performs, of the three China shock discourses, the “China squeeze” argument is by far the most ambitious. After all, it bases its critique of China on a counterfactual imagining of the world. Like any counterfactual argument, to construct this alternative reality it must rely on a heuristic model. To make their argument Chatterjee and Subramanian mobilize two key claims. The first reference point is the actual history of rich-country industrialization, what they refer to as the “canonical path”. The idea is that countries transition from agriculture to light industry and low-skilled manufacturing and from there up the value chain. To make this useful as a standard of comparison and a means to construct a normative standard, they adjust sectoral export shares for two factors: 1. the underlying level of economic development of the exporting country, as measured by national income and 2. the degree to which the sector in question is internationalized. The idea being that for a high income country to have a high export share in low-skill sectors is anomalous and even more so if that particular product is highly internationalized and thus suitable for being “conceded” to lower-income competitors. Where should this process end? Here Chatterjee and Subramanian introduce their second benchmark. Their normative idea of a global development path is one in which, in due course, low-skill manufacturing exports are distributed in proportion to a country’s share in the global labour force. They imagine, in other words, a world of proportional, polycentric global development without much national specialization in low-skill manufacturing. A useful benchmark is that, in labor-intensive manufacturing sectors, a country’s share of world exports should be broadly commensurate with its share of the world’s low-skilled labor endowment. … In the Heckscher-Ohlin model, this would be true if value added per worker and export propensities, i.e., fraction of output that is exported, are the same across countries. It is this pleasant liberal vista of orderly global development, progressing towards a general distribution of low-skilled manufacturing against which they judge reality and conclude that the low-income countries are suffering a “China squeeze”. China is not exiting low-skill sectors fast enough Allowing for its gdp level and the degree of globalization, China’s share of low-skill manufacturing exports is far higher than it “should” be. Relative to population, its low-skill share of exports is far too high. That in turn yields the conclusion that huge numbers of jobs - the authors suggest tens of millions - are being hoarded by China. For the four sectors captured in figure 4, this excess in value-added exports is $110 billion in 2022. For all low-skilled sectors overall captured in appendix figure D.1, excess value-added exports amount to $365 billion. The crowding out of LMIC exports by China is therefore substantial. Both these claims have in common that they are strong structuralisms. The first is that development paths ought to resemble each other. The second is that broadly speaking as far as low-skilled manufacturing is concerned, all countries are alike. If the world currently diverges from the distribution of trade implied by these assumptions, if China is not following the advanced economy path and has huge exports, this must be the result of “policy”, which the authors then put in question as illegitimate or unfair. Thus the naturalistic construction of a canonical path leading to a “level” distribution of low-skilled manufacturing reveals itself to be a polemical tool. From the point of view of China shock polemics, this discourse is no doubt welcome. But as an account of economic history, it must surely be regarded as nothing short of bamboozling. Development paths do not follow a regular, natural sequence. As David Fishman put it aptly, “development is not a queue”. They are always and everywhere, through and through political. Development is not so much a process, as a project. Each such project is more or less well adjusted to its context. As Gerschenkron taught uneven and combined development implies differentiation rather than simple imitation on a single parth. It may be true that Europe and the US exited relatively early from low-skill work. But clearly technology has changed. As C&S themselves point out, China no longer enjoys a low wage environment. Do they really believe that such huge differences can be accounted for either by industrial policy, which as they admit does not operate powerfully in low-skill sectors, or by exchange rate manipulation? What is overwhelmingly dominant in explaining the persistence of “low-skill” manufacturing in China are surely the network effects of complex supply chains. Indeed the label of “low-skill” may miss the point. The degree of globalization which Chatterjee and Subramanian decide to conjure away in their model of the development path - to allow for the fact that Europe and American textiles exporters did not enjoy just-in-time logistics in the 1950s - obscures the point that the networks through which Chinese factories supply the world are themselves key parts of the low-skill industrialization project. China isn’t knocking out 1970s style “cheap”. It has redefined the entire product cycle. C&S’s casual reference to “T-shirts” is telling. In today’s “fast fashion”, there is weight on both terms. Fashion and fast. China’s success in delivering on both at unprecedentedly high speed and at unprecedentedly low cost, isn’t a low-skill operation at all. If we see development trajectories not as the serial repetition of the same, but as distinctive, crafted projects that cumulate in complex agglomerations of skill, technology and labor, then this explains why the assumption that low-skilled manufacturing should follow the distribution of population flies in the face of all experience. As countless cases attest, low-wage, low-income developed economies are not by themselves the makings of a competitive production base. As Leon Liao puts it quite fairly: “International trade has never been allocated according to population. A country’s population gives it no natural claim to an equivalent share of global exports." And the remarkable fact is that Subramanian alone and with co-authors has long been making this point, not to pillory China, as is the case of the tendentious _Foreign Affair_s and Peterson pieces, but to highlight the great counterpart to China’s industrial success, namely India’s relative failure. The much-quoted Foreign Affairs piece showed low-skill export shares only for China, not for India. If you put both countries in the picture as Chaterjee and Subramanian have done on other occasions, the picture looks like this. China is far above the line, but India, almost as large in terms of population, is no less anomalous, just in the opposite direction. As far as global populations are concerned, and the imagining of tens of millions of “squeezed” jobs, it is this Sino-Indian pair that account for a huge share of the action. What this graph reveals is not China’s cheating, but India’s “greatest development failure”, at least this is the argument made Arvind Subramanian, this time in co-authorship with Devesh Kapur, in their major book, A Sixth of Humanity. Independent India’s Development Odyssey which appeared with Oxford University Press earlier this year. In this highly critical work on India’s development, China is repeatedly evoked, not to criticize but as a benchmark against which to illuminate what India’s political economy has not delivered i.e. large-scale formal employment for hundreds of millions of citizens. Kapur and Subramanian leave no doubt, if you want to understand why China, not India was the main driver of manufacturing globalization from the 1980s, don’t look to slots opening up in the division of labour thanks to the liberal mindedness of advanced economies, look to the contrasting political economy of the Maoist PRC and India’s post-independence political economy. As Kapur and Subramian note: The great divergence between China and India did not begin in 1978 with the Deng reforms—it was well underway by then. In one of the great ironies of modern history, the conditions created by Maoism turned out to be a great launching pad for industrial globalization. As the comparison of India and China in 1980 makes clear, to imagine manufacturing would be equally distributed when populations are so differently endowed in terms of educational and nutritional is fanciful. Here is the data from Kapur and Subramanian, data which I explored back at the very beginning of Chartbook. As Kapur and Subramanian insist, the striking fact is that even as India’s growth accelerated from the 1980s, structural change has not. Formal employment in India lags woefully behind. Why? As Kapur and Subramanian note, the path-dependent impact of India’s poor early start was devastating. The list of factors they mention is long and weighty: We argue for a new five-fold explanation applicable at different stages of Indian history: in the initial stages, the legacy of two key pre-1980s policies, the neglect of agriculture and the strangling of the domestic private sector, were critical. The failure of broad-based agricultural growth militated against rural industrialization, which would have been devoted to satisfying local needs that would have necessarily been labour intensive. Then, when the boom came after 1980, the thicket of regulation and broader labour protections that were legislated prematurely in a nascent democracy, underpinned by a deep ideological aversion to private capital in general and big capital specifically, became a barrier to attaining the size that would be necessary to compete globally. Similarly, the reforms after 1991, while wide-ranging, did not quite encompass non-tradeable inputs critical to manufacturing, namely, land, logistics infrastructure and power. A combination of low investment (logistics infrastructure), regulation (land) and the continued monopoly supply by state governments (power), combined with residual socialism, kept costs at 75–100 per cent above efficient supply. These factors were compounded on the supply side by the government, which dominated the formal labour market and established exorbitantly high wages at the lower end of the skill spectrum. This made their employment in the labour-intensive sector by the private sector less attractive. Finally, when the services sector and its exports boomed, wages soared even further via a Dutch Disease effect: one successful tradeable sector killed and cannibalized another less-skilled tradable sector, namely, manufacturing. Thus, scarcity-inducing policies of the planning era, precocious democracy and a Gandhian aversion to size; inefficient, monopolistic supply of critical non-tradable inputs; the behemoth of government; and super-successful skill-intensive services successively undermined India’s unskilled labour employment opportunities. The employment failure seems to have been over-determined. … Less quantifiable but no less important are some of the sociological factors that have undermined manufacturing and factory jobs. Take the impact of the success of the IT sector—located in urban areas with better working conditions, such as air-conditioned offices, good schools for children and attractive entertainment options. It became a more attractive place for engineering and management graduates to flock to. … Consider manufacturing and female employment. Indian society makes it difficult for women to work, reflected in India’s unusually low female labour force participation (elaborated in Chapter XIII). Indian society, in particular the routine harassment of women in public spaces, makes it even more difficult for them to travel long distances to take up work.37 Combined with onerous regulations on creating hostels and dormitories for women—which, in turn, prevents multiple shifts of operation—factories need to be located in areas with a large female labour pool. While firms can take apparel plants to female labour or bring them to the plants by building large-scale dormitories, this raises costs. If there was a case for subsidies to encourage labour-intensive manufacturing, housing subsidies to build dormitories for women workers would be a good place to start. All of this meant, that when opportunities did open up, in part thanks to adjustments in China, India was in no position to take advantage. Here is the account of the 2020s from Kapur and Subramanian. It stands in dizzying contrast to the one-sided, “China squeeze” argument delivered in the Peterson and Foreign Affairs pieces: In 2022, for example, India’s share of global exports in clothing (the canonical labour-intensive sector) was 3.1 per cent compared to 32 per cent for China. This is extremely disappointing because China started vacating export space in this sector after the Global Financial Crisis as its wages started rising; it then vacated further space in the aftermath of geopolitical developments that led investors to seek alternative investment locations. Between its peak and today, China lost about 7.5 percentage points of global export share (worth about $43 billion in 2022); over this period, India’s export share remained stagnant at 3 per cent, while that of Vietnam and Bangladesh rose by 3.5 to 4 percentage points. China’s loss did not translate into any gain for India in terms of low-skill exports and employment. Put differently, when the conditions for dynamism and prosperity were established after 1991, and even more tantalizingly when the global export opportunities opened up, it was as if India was a high-wage economy and only skilled labour could benefit from the dynamism. It had converted its physically abundant unskilled workforce into an economically expensive resource, penalizing its use. It is not my mission here to argue for or against Kapur and Subramanian’s interpretation of India’s development trajectory. The point in this context is simply that the “China squeeze” such as it is can only be understood, in relation to the heavy burden of domestic constraints that Kapur and Subramanian so unsparingly enumerate. I am concentrating here on India because it is the great counterpart to China and the unspoken reference point of the “China squeeze” discourse. But the point is more general. Can anyone with a straight face suggest that the main problems afflicting the development of South Africa or Nigeria, the great centers of mass underemployment in sub-saharan Africa, are cheap competition from China driven by Beijing’s industrial policy and an undervalued RMB? Likewise, is the main problem of the American working-class the threat of Chinese competition or the manifest crisis of social reproduction in the United States itself? The point here, as in the discourse around China shock 2.0 in Europe, is to insist that we should not normalize the world and pathologize China, without actually investigating what is going on in America’s industrial wastelands, the German car industry, or India’s lopsided labour market. One-sided pathologization should be understood for what it is, a polemical gesture. Concepts like China shock and China squeeze are, what Reinhart Koselleck, following Carl Schmitt, would have described as “asymmetrische Kampfbegriffe”, or “asymmetrical counter-concepts” or “asymmetrical combat concepts”. If the function of arguments like the “China squeeze” is to alert elites in the rest of the world of the need to rejuvenate and energize their development projects, so be it. But let us see the resulting discourses as the mobilizing interventions that they are. Interestingly, a significant slice of China’s public sphere - the so-called industrial party - have been obsessed for the last twenty years with precisely these questions of counterfactual economic history. Since the mid 2000s, a massive online discourse developed around an alternative history in which Chinese techno-patriots were asked to imagine how they would proceed if they had the possibility of traveling back in time to transport modern technology into the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) thus averting the “great divergence” of the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a fantasy of course, but also a goad. The point was not directed at Westerners. The alternate history is dramatically nationalist, but few n the West had even heard of it until recently. The adherents of the industrial party are not liberal moralists. They don’t project natural ladders of international development and ask why others don’t cede space. They take the Realpolitik of global economic development for granted. Their pointe was directed against fellow Chinese. The rallying cry of the alternative narrative was this: Now that we are beginning to gain steam and push forward on our national development path, now that we are breaking out of the inferior position assigned to us even in the early years following WTO accession, do not lose yourself in humanistic imaginings about better futures. In the spirit of Deng, they called on China to embrace the hard truth of development. Perhaps one might of the Industrial Party as a cultural trend born out of desire for symbolic revenge against those who had inflicted the century of humiliation. In terms of the various temporalities of the “China shock” - retrospective, prospective and counterfactual - one might think of the Industrial Policy discourse as truly speculative, conjuring up the China shock that never was. Or perhaps one might better think of it as imagining a world in which a powerful China was no shock at all, but simply a defining fact of modern history. I love putting out Chartbook. I am particularly pleased that it goes out for free to thousands of subscribers around the world. But, writing this newsletter takes a lot of work. If you are enjoying it and would like to support the project, sign up for one of the subscription options here. It is the equivalent of a fancy cup of coffee per month! Subscribe

adamtooze.substack.com logo
Aug 5 • 7:18 AM EDT • Politics • adamtooze.substack.com
Google Assistant will disappear from your phone next month

It’ll be Gemini or nothing on Android from September 4th.

theverge.com logo
Aug 5 • 7:12 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Ted Lasso returns at an important time for Apple TV

You gotta believe.

theverge.com logo
Aug 5 • 3:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • theverge.com
Don’t screw this up, Marvel

Despite Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s success, the MCU is on shaky ground.

theverge.com logo
Aug 4 • 7:20 PM EDT • Entertainment • theverge.com
‘Not healthy’ LLM use is more common than you think

It’s not just Hank Green.

theverge.com logo
Aug 4 • 1:33 PM EDT • Health • theverge.com
T-Mobile’s $0-down financing plan bundles taxes and fees

No payment required at checkout.

theverge.com logo
Aug 4 • 12:07 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Samsung’s HDR10 Plus Advanced is launching this month on Prime Video

Where’s Dolby Vision 2?

theverge.com logo
Aug 4 • 11:43 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Our favorite memories at the movies

As the box office heats up this summer, The Verge reflects on the magic of theaters

theverge.com logo
Aug 4 • 10:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • theverge.com
Nothing CMF is launching its first open earbuds

It was only a matter of time.

theverge.com logo
Aug 4 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Peak Design’s latest bags have clever integrated hooks

The hook is the hook.

theverge.com logo
Aug 4 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Apple briefly yanked Telegram from the App Store over CSAM violations

Telegram’s ban didn’t last very long.

theverge.com logo
Aug 4 • 8:57 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
The next Xbox could play every Xbox game ever made

One Xbox to play them all?

theverge.com logo
Aug 4 • 7:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
The studio behind Pokémon struggles to find its voice in Beast of Reincarnation

A beast of burden.

theverge.com logo
Aug 3 • 8:00 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Your Fitbit data can now connect directly to Apple Health

No more third-party workarounds.

theverge.com logo
Aug 3 • 5:24 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Your Fitbit data can now connect directly to Apple Health

No more third-party workarounds.

theverge.com logo
Aug 3 • 5:24 PM EDT • Health • theverge.com
The first-gen Kindle Scribe is a big e-reader and digital notebook that’s $150 refurbished

The deal lasts through August 8th.

theverge.com logo
Aug 3 • 1:17 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Microsoft is bringing Xbox 360 games to PC

More ways to play older Xbox games.

theverge.com logo
Aug 3 • 12:31 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Bluesky’s new CEO wants a big tent, not a bubble

Bluesky is many different things in a trenchcoat.

theverge.com logo
Aug 3 • 11:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Palworld’s expanding to mobile with a new MMORPG

Palworld in your pocket.

theverge.com logo
Aug 3 • 10:50 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Spider-Man and The Odyssey are splitting up IMAX screens after a record-breaking weekend

IMAX is having a good run.

theverge.com logo
Aug 3 • 10:26 AM EDT • Entertainment • theverge.com
Lenovo Googlebook leaks reveal a laptop and 2-in-1 tablet

Leaks show lighting bars and a new G key.

theverge.com logo
Aug 3 • 9:12 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Big Walk is like co-op Breath of the Wild

Walk, talk, and explore.

theverge.com logo
Aug 3 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Xbox prices are increasing by up to €200 or £170

Microsoft’s struggling console continues to see unprecedented price bumps.

theverge.com logo
Aug 2 • 12:14 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Skylight’s smart calendars are up to $90 off during its back-to-school sale

All sizes are on sale.

theverge.com logo
Aug 2 • 11:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Foldables are sort of boring now — and that’s great news for Apple

Folding screens are no longer novel, but they’re finally good enough for an iPhone.

theverge.com logo
Aug 2 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Mohamed Amoura set for surprise Bundesliga switch

RB Leipzig are on the verge of completing the signing of VfL Wolfsburg striker Mohamed Amoura, according to reports from France and Algeria. The 26-year-old is expected to remain in the Bundesliga des...

sports.yahoo.com logo
Aug 2 • 6:24 AM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Pixel 11 specs and price leak with no surprises

More confirmation that price hikes and RAM cuts are coming our way.

theverge.com logo
Aug 1 • 5:31 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
The OG reading app just got a big update

In this week’s Installer: Spider-Man, clipboard managers, and roasts of AI and Elon Musk.

theverge.com logo
Aug 1 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
With Switch 2, iPhone, and laptop tricks, the Sharge Disk Pro 2 is finally a worthy EDC

It’s practically a USB-C Swiss Army Knife.

theverge.com logo
Jul 31 • 6:09 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Microsoft wants to make Windows work better with 8GB of RAM.

And that’s a good thing, because its own 8GB Surface Laptop 13 struggles so much that it’s a tough buy. Microsoft’s other new areas of “focus” include making Windows onboarding and family controls easier to set up and making “voice [control] more natural and fluid” across apps. [Link: Windows quality: an update on the commitment we made in March | https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2026/07/31/windows-quality-an-update-on-the-commitment-we-made-in-march/ | Windows Insider Blog]

theverge.com logo
Jul 31 • 5:42 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Google Earth’s AI deepfake tool only lasted one day

The feature generated believable — but edited — images of the real world.

theverge.com logo
Jul 31 • 3:13 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Google might launch a ‘Pixel Tag’

Tagging in.

theverge.com logo
Jul 31 • 2:27 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
This tattoo is permanent, pain-free, and might soon come in the mail

Easy ink in a matter of seconds.

theverge.com logo
Jul 31 • 8:01 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Apple TV’s Cape Fear remake turns it into a paranoid tech thriller

A remake fit for 2026.

theverge.com logo
Jul 31 • 8:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • theverge.com
Tim Cook hints at iCloud Plus tier for AI power users

Apple could charge users to increase their AI usage limits.

theverge.com logo
Jul 30 • 6:29 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Xbox CEO says the team has one year to start growing again

“Our reset has not been easy.”

theverge.com logo
Jul 30 • 6:10 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Google DeepMind’s new AI model can control a robot’s entire body

The new model can help robots tie up trash bags and unscrew lightbulbs, too.

theverge.com logo
Jul 30 • 1:18 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Google is working on Chrome updates that don’t require restarts

As AI-powered tools detect and fix more bugs, Google is looking for ways to make updates less disruptive.

theverge.com logo
Jul 30 • 1:00 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Pixel 11 Pro Fold design leaks ahead of Google launch event

That olive green looks really nice.

theverge.com logo
Jul 30 • 12:57 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Friend re-launches its AI pendant with a speaker that talks to you, for twice the price

Everyone hated it, so Friend is making it even more expensive.

theverge.com logo
Jul 30 • 12:33 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Best Buy is selling an RTX 5080 for more than the RTX 5090’s MSRP

Would you pay RTX 5090 prices for an RTX 5080?

theverge.com logo
Jul 30 • 11:48 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Spotify Running Mode helps match tunes to tempo

A new feature for Spotify’s Fitness hub.

theverge.com logo
Jul 30 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
The new "science golden age" looks suspiciously like a grift

This edition of PN is made possible by paid subscribers. Become one ⬇️ 🚀 Subscribe to PN 🚀 The Trump regime is trying to usher in a “Golden Age in Science” where scientific research is run like a Trump family business, artificial intelligence is all that matters, profit is everything, and expertise is for chumps. Or at least that’s the vision emerging from a new 123-page “Report to the President” from Michael Kratsios, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In a normal administration, you could probably skip over learning about a science policy document — but this is no normal administration, and this is no normal science policy document. Instead, it’s Trump’s attempt to end the actual golden age of science that was kicked off in 1945 with the publication of '“The Endless Frontier” by Vannevar Bush. [ ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/harmeet-dhillon-portland) [ Harmeet Dhillon demonstrates danger of posting through it ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/harmeet-dhillon-portland) Liz Dye · Jul 29 [ Read full story ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/harmeet-dhillon-portland) Bush, at President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s request, laid out a vision of federal support for science that centered on funding universities to do basic research, saying that as long as those institutions were “vigorous and healthy and their scientists are free to pursue the truth wherever it may lead, there will be a flow of new scientific knowledge to those who can apply it to practical problems in Government, in industry, or elsewhere.” Kratsios’s report is supposed to be the successor to Bush’s, and even apes the format, but this isn’t really a document about science policy. It’s one about ending science research as we know it in favor of shoveling cash at big tech companies. While it might be temping to wave this away as an aspirational policy document, Trump has already begun to shift billions in research funds to AI projects and has taken a hatchet to science funding across the board. He’s teed up the shift Kratsios proposes here, and since neither Congress nor the Supreme Court seem inclined to stop him from doing whatever he wants with taxpayer money, it isn’t doomering or hyperbole to say we are staring down the barrel of a world where the only “science” the government intends to support is for-profit tech and defense advancements. Science for dummies Part of how you can tell this isn’t a document about science is that you are immediately faced with an absolute wall of business-speak of the worst sort. Did you know we must “tightly couple our science and technology enterprises to ensure that groundbreaking ideas invented in the United States are rapidly prototyped, tested, manufactured, and scaled domestically”? You do now! That tone isn’t surprising, because Kratsios has no background in science or research. He has a bachelor’s in political science and spent most of his career working for Peter Thiel at Thiel Capital. After a stint in the first Trump administration as Chief Technology Officer, where he also did not do any science, Kratsios was tasked in 2020 with overseeing the Pentagon’s research budget for a brief time, a position that, as the Wall Street Journal put it, “carries a great deal of power in terms of dictating investment allocations.” He spent the Biden years at Scale AI as “head of strategy,” which you will also note is neither a science nor a research job. But Scale AI has contracts with the Department of Defense and, as the Washington Post wrote in 2023, “has been aggressively pitching itself as the company that will help the US military in its existential battle with China.” And now you have the necessary background for our new golden age, which is going to be a golden age of taking money away from scientists and universities and giving it to companies like Scale AI. A note from Aaron: Working with brilliant contributors like Lisa takes resources. If you aren’t already a paid subscriber, please become one to support our work. 👇 Subscribe In a genuinely galling move, Katsios spends a lot of time slamming universities because of “administrative burdens on researchers” and the “well-documented inefficiencies” in academia, the message being that those damn universities waste the time of amazing researchers with paperwork. Except it’s the administration that is attempting to impose inefficient, unnecessary burdens on those researchers with a proposed Office of Management and Budget rule that would require senior political appointees to approve every science grant and ensure it aligns with Trump’s personal priorities. Researchers would also have to seek prior government approval to attend conferences or publicize their research. And political appointees could terminate any grant at any time if they feel like it. [ ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/omb-rule-science-funding) [ The murder of expertise ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/omb-rule-science-funding) Lisa Needham · Jun 11 [ Read full story ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/omb-rule-science-funding) But when it comes to AI, we’re going to “restore permissionless innovation.” The report proposes to give lucky ducky innovators a pile of cash up front for grants lasting five years or longer, saying “awards should be fully-funded in year one, with all resources earmarked upfront, to minimize administrative burdens and reduce pressure for researchers to generate intermediate results to secure continued funding.” Yeah, wouldn’t want to have to make the Very Special Tech Bros show results or get money parceled out year by year like the plebes at universities. The report also proposes that we should have “fast grants” with “simplified applications requiring just a few pages of writing” because that is definitely how science works, just writing a bit off the dome and getting some cash. [ ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-ai-action-plan-altman-llms) [ Tech elites are turning AI into ChatGPTrump ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-ai-action-plan-altman-llms) Paul Waldman · July 29, 2025 [ Read full story ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-ai-action-plan-altman-llms) Oh, and we should have prizes and challenges, where multiple teams compete. The proposed prizes include incentives like “advance procurement commitments,” which means the federal government agrees to buy whatever is being developed. There’s also “regulatory fast-tracking,” making sure all those great AI thingies don’t have to wait too long to be unleashed on a market. These aren’t incentives to do science. These are incentives to develop things with tax dollars that you can then sell to the government for more tax dollars. In the suggestion that might be the most unhinged, the most very opposite of how both government and research work, our new age will include “golden tickets.” That’s where an individual reviewer in an agency — yes, just one person — can “recommend unconventional proposals that may not pass consensus-driven review panels” because somehow this will “surface valuable ideas too divisive for committees and attract higher quality reviewers by empowering them to exercise independent scientific judgment.” Yes, that’s saying that a random person in an agency should be able to shovel money at some idea even if it can’t pass a review panel, and that the opportunity to do so will attract better employees because apparently all the best minds in science are chomping at the bit to be allowed to unilaterally fund AI research based on their personal vibes. But that isn’t at all how actual science works, and actual scientists aren’t unhappy about review panels. They work collaboratively, not siloed in some secret race to create the next AI chatbot. A 2020 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research examined whether peer review panels succeed in helping agencies predict which research ideas will best advance science. Peer review was better at finding “diamond in the rough” applicants than a single government program official. How about that. Trump always wants a taste It’s painfully clear that what Katsios is trying to do here is turn the whole of government science research and funding into the sort of “move fast and break things” paradigm that is the hallmark of big tech. That method works to line the pockets of tech executives, but it isn’t science. There’s a reason the government funds different kinds of research than private tech companies do. What Katsios either fails to understand or deliberately ignores is that the federal government is the main funder of basic research precisely because it can take a long time for it to bear fruit and is not intended to be profitable as such. “Basic” here does not mean rudimentary or simple, but rather research that is designed to advance scientific knowledge instead of achieving a specific outcome or product. Big tech companies don’t widely fund that sort of research, because it doesn’t make them money. Industry dollars account for only about 20 percent of basic research funding, while the government contributes around 60 percent. Big tech companies and startups do, however, rely on and benefit from that basic research. A 2019 study found that 35 percent of all patents obtained by venture-backed startups from 1976 to 2016 cited federally supported research. Basic research funded by the NIH contributed to every single drug the FDA approved from 2010 to 2016. [ ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-saudi-nuclear-deal) [ The Saudi nuclear farce and governance by whim and meme ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-saudi-nuclear-deal) Noah Berlatsky · Jul 27 [ Read full story ](https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-saudi-nuclear-deal) Unlike inventing the next ChatGPT, actual science is slow and iterative. Government funding of research that, on its face, would not appear to lead to any big new invention is actually what underpins those big new inventions. If the government hadn’t funded research into desert lizard venom, we wouldn’t know about semaglutide, and we wouldn’t have Ozempic. If research scientists hadn’t studied how bees optimize nectar foraging within a colony, we wouldn’t have the algorithm that assigns internet traffic across computer servers. The report assiduously ignores that a symbiotic, profitable relationship between the federal government, universities, and private companies already exists. Each federal research dollar generates about $1.50 to $3.00 in long-term economic benefits. The $36 billion the government awarded in NIH research funding in fiscal year 2025 generated $94 billion in new economic activity. Trump’s proposed new golden age is intended to strip those billions from universities, resulting in the dismantling of departments and the shuttering of labs. But Katsios has a plan for that: Universities should just become trade schools to churn out no-show STEM degrees! “Require universities and community colleges to embed practical technical training and externships into STEM curricula. Let hands-on experience and industry credentials count toward degrees.” It’s quite the feat to, on the one hand, strip schools of funding for scientific research while simultaneously demanding to control what is taught and, oh, also, colleges need to give degrees to employees at big tech companies just for being employees at big tech companies. The new golden age would also exacerbate the brain drain Trump’s policies have already caused. Nature found that in the first quarter of 2025, US scientists submitted 32 percent more job applications abroad than in 2024. A March 2025 poll by Nature of roughly 1,600 scientists found that over 1,200 said they were considering leaving the country. Europe is investing $565 million to make it a “magnet for researchers” and provide funding for scientists who relocate. The new golden age is also about embedding Trump’s xenophobia into the fabric of American science. The report complains of an “over-reliance on foreign students” that “creates a security challenge our institutions are ill-equipped to address” and that a “reliance on foreign talent sidelines American students.” This is, to put it mildly, nonsense. International students pay far higher tuition and often receive no financial aid. Their tuition dollars are what make it possible for American students to get financial aid. In the 2023-2024 school year alone, international students contributed $43.8 billion to the US economy and supported over 378,000 jobs. Those 1.1 million international students accounted for only six percent of the total number of students in higher education that year, but were such an economic engine that for every three international students, one job was created or supported. It’s impossible not to wonder whether part of Trump’s loathing for universities and their leading role in scientific research is that there is no way for him to corrupt the process and make money off it in the same way he can by giving millions and billions to Silicon Valley types who, in turn, give him millions in cash. There’s no way for his children to invest in universities that the government then gives no-bid contracts to, fattening the family’s bottom line, which is pretty much the Trump sons’ current venture capital practice. Trump and Katsios’s view of science is narrow, cramped, and wrong. We’re not in a crisis, we’re not a failed state. We’ve been a science superpower for decades, and the only thing that threatens that is Donald Trump. Tech bros are already living high off the hog in this administration. They don’t need any more of our tax dollars. Hopefully this new golden age never comes to pass. Thanks for reading Public Notice. This post is public so feel free to share it. Share We’ll be back with more tomorrow. If you appreciate today’s PN, please do your part to keep us free by signing up for a paid subscription. 🚀 Subscribe to PN 🚀 Thanks for reading, and for your support.

publicnotice.co logo
Jul 30 • 8:12 AM EDT • Science • publicnotice.co
SwitchBot makes a better fan

Runs for days off its rechargeable battery.

theverge.com logo
Jul 30 • 6:30 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Retaining Neurodivergent Talent Will Strengthen the STEM Pipeline

Learn how neuroinclusive management, training, and improving workplace culture can help retain neurodivergent talent and strengthen the STEM pipeline.

the-scientist.com logo
Jul 30 • 12:00 AM EDT • Science • the-scientist.com
Microsoft confirms Copilot ‘super app’ coming this year

Copilot combined.

theverge.com logo
Jul 29 • 6:17 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Xbox revenue drops 10 percent as Microsoft’s cloud and AI business surges

Xbox’s woes continue.

theverge.com logo
Jul 29 • 4:26 PM EDT • Business • theverge.com
Xbox revenue drops 10 percent as Microsoft’s cloud and AI business surges

Xbox’s woes continue.

theverge.com logo
Jul 29 • 4:26 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
What’s the catch with the Apple Upgrade program?

Apple Upgrade may not be for everyone.

theverge.com logo
Jul 29 • 2:40 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
The latest trailer for Jumanji: Open World brings its avatars into the real world.

This time around, Jumanji’s avatars, played by Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black, escape the game in “demo mode,” before a family jumps into their bodies to fix things. The trilogy’s final film is set to release in theaters on December 25th. [Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhApeaHMvfs]

theverge.com logo
Jul 29 • 2:32 PM EDT • Entertainment • theverge.com
OpenAI president says it’s ‘building a family of devices’ for its AI chatbots

Brockman says he thinks we’ll start talking to our computers for most tasks.

theverge.com logo
Jul 29 • 2:15 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 feels like the future

A short king.

theverge.com logo
Jul 29 • 8:22 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Xbox outage shouldn’t have affected games on disc, Microsoft confirms

Very reassuring for the future of physical media.

theverge.com logo
Jul 29 • 6:58 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Neurodiversity In Business Report 2026: Six Key Takeaways

The promise of neurodiversity gain—not simply helping neurodivergent employees cope with existing systems, but building better systems from which everyone can benefit.

forbes.com logo
Jul 29 • 5:59 AM EDT • Business • forbes.com
Jonathan Grennard's Exit Leaves Vikings Dangerously Thin at Edge Rusher

The Vikings fully report to training camp this week, and there are a lot of storylines that could converge in Eagan as the team has had a lot of questions and not a lot of answers this offseason. One such example of uncertain elements of the team that could become more and more urgent as the season gets closer is the Vikings' edge defenders and the depth at that position in particular. To the untrained eye, the Vikings had a plethora of edge rushers last year, but in reality it was actually a facade masked by the star power of their two starters, Andrew Van Ginkel and Jonathan Greenard, who were coming off a season in which they combined for 23.5 sacks and 36 tackles for loss.

sports.yahoo.com logo
Jul 28 • 5:12 PM EDT • Sports • sports.yahoo.com
Apple says iOS 27 ‘Restricted Mode’ isn't for new Upgrade program leases

Apple has told The Verge that missed lease payments will not activate the “Restricted Mode” system currently under development in iOS 27.

9to5mac.com logo
Jul 28 • 4:08 PM EDT • Technology • 9to5mac.com
4GB graphics cards are back

Would you buy a 4GB GPU in 2026?

theverge.com logo
Jul 28 • 11:52 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Twelve South’s stylish charging tray now delivers more wireless power with a smaller footprint

A stylish spot for your phone to charge overnight.

theverge.com logo
Jul 28 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Smart rings are looking like my kind of AI gadget

While everyone tries to make smart glasses, pins, and everything else happen, the most subtle device might be the best device.

theverge.com logo
Jul 28 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Hugging Face is being used to easily undress women and children

Did we learn nothing from Grok?

theverge.com logo
Jul 28 • 5:07 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Nanoleaf’s colorful pegboard and shelf kit is half off

They sync with movies, games, and music too.

theverge.com logo
Jul 27 • 3:24 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Why China is giving away its best AI models

Chinese labs like Moonshot are forcing OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic to rethink what they lock away.

theverge.com logo
Jul 27 • 12:51 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Apple is banking on privacy to set its smart glasses apart

They’re expected be revealed next June at WWDC.

theverge.com logo
Jul 26 • 3:36 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Google basically confirms the Pixel 11 is getting a price hike

The latest victim of RAMageddon.

theverge.com logo
Jul 25 • 2:13 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Kyle Gordon scores another banger.

The comedian and artist behind “Planet of the Bass” and my personal favorite, “Selekta,” has an absolutely incredible sendup parodying Paul Simon’s Graceland jaunt to Africa. Gordon is popularly compared these days to Weird Al but his ability to embed authentically in genre is even more sophisticated. He’s a shapeshifter who does real homework on his parodies. I can’t wait to see what he does next. [Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJBm1n8JUZ8&list=RDqJBm1n8JUZ8&start_radio=1]

theverge.com logo
Jul 25 • 12:31 PM EDT • Entertainment • theverge.com
Synth historian Oli Freke will spend big on a good bicycle

He’s hard at work on the upcoming Beat Gems, a gorgeous coffee-table book about the history of drum machines.

theverge.com logo
Jul 25 • 11:15 AM EDT • Entertainment • theverge.com
Folding and flipping phones are getting seriously good

In this week’s Installer: Phones, e-readers, Splatoon, and more.

theverge.com logo
Jul 25 • 8:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Forget expensive sleepbuds. Buy this pillow instead

No charging or Bluetooth pairing required.

theverge.com logo
Jul 25 • 3:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
After backlash, Meta pauses plan to ‘rate limit’ its smart glasses

A paywall is still coming, though.

theverge.com logo
Jul 24 • 6:27 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Meta just created a moderation nightmare for its smart glasses

A new ban on some Meta glasses content is more complicated than it seems

theverge.com logo
Jul 24 • 3:23 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Neurodivergent kids face special mental health risks. New initiative seeks ways to protect them

Jake Collective and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention are launching a $5 million, five-year initiative

latimes.com logo
Jul 24 • 2:11 PM EDT • Health • latimes.com
Nothing confirms layoffs, but calls market exit rumors ‘fake news’

Cofounder Akis Evangelidis says Nothing is “reorganizing.”

theverge.com logo
Jul 24 • 2:10 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Boox is taking on Xteink with its own tiny e-reader

Boox is downsizing its next e-reader.

theverge.com logo
Jul 24 • 11:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
The tech-broification of American science has officially begun

Trump’s ‘Golden Age’ of American science starts with dismantling it, while funneling billions into AI.

theverge.com logo
Jul 24 • 10:43 AM EDT • Science • theverge.com
Facebook considers giving up and becoming TikTok

If you can’t beat ‘em…

theverge.com logo
Jul 24 • 7:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Microsoft pressures LG into killing unwanted McAfee ads

LG says it isn’t to blame, however.

theverge.com logo
Jul 24 • 5:20 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Alexa Plus is getting an AI update to handle more complicated instructions

Alexa Plus will soon plug into Canva, Priceline, Lyft, and more.

theverge.com logo
Jul 23 • 5:15 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Hunter hunting.

Amazon’s Blade Runner streaming series has been in the works for ages, but it’s starting to feel a little more real. Entertainment Weekly just dropped the first images from the show, featuring stars Michelle Yeoh and Hunter Schafer, while also confirming that Blade Runner 2099 is expected to come out this year. [Image: https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/Hunter-Schafer-as-Cora-in-Blade-Runner-2099-Credit-Clay-Enos-for-Prime-2763-07172026-146c1bfb01944712ae548b76600b0ab4-1.webp?quality=90&strip=all]

theverge.com logo
Jul 23 • 3:58 PM EDT • Entertainment • theverge.com
Claude’s voice mode is now available for Opus and Sonnet

Now you can chat with Anthropic’s more powerful models.

theverge.com logo
Jul 23 • 3:00 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
OpenAI is making big claims as it rolls out ChatGPT Health to everyone

Now everyone can connect their medical records to ChatGPT.

theverge.com logo
Jul 23 • 1:00 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Amazon puts Luna cloud-streamed games like Fallout 4 inside Prime Video

Watch Fallout, then play Fallout.

theverge.com logo
Jul 23 • 12:39 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
The Morning Show heads off into the night.

Apple announced that one of its biggest early hits will be coming back for a fifth and final season in 2027. The Morning Show premiered alongside Apple TV as one of its prestige plays, with a notably star-studded cast. The news comes the same day Apple announced a new dating series. [Image: https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/072226_The_Morning_Show_Fifth_Final_Season_Announcement_Big_Image_02.jpg?quality=90&strip=all]

theverge.com logo
Jul 23 • 12:27 PM EDT • Entertainment • theverge.com
Microsoft is testing free, ad-supported cloud gaming for Xbox Insiders

Would you watch ads to stream your games for free?

theverge.com logo
Jul 23 • 12:00 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Ford picks Apple Maps for its next EV platform and updated BlueCruise

Ford and Apple are teaming up.

theverge.com logo
Jul 23 • 9:49 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Google now lets you sign in to your account using a selfie video

Selfie snappers can now use their face to log in to Google.

theverge.com logo
Jul 23 • 6:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Framework’s premium laptop is shipping with less RAM

Yet another RAMageddon victim.

theverge.com logo
Jul 23 • 5:28 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Lego’s Donkey Kong arcade machine lets Mario jump endless barrels

Nintendo had one special request, too.

theverge.com logo
Jul 22 • 8:30 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
iOS code could reportedly let Apple cut off apps when users miss iPhone payments

“Restricted Mode” would block access to nearly all apps.

theverge.com logo
Jul 22 • 3:13 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Apple is reportedly testing a MacBook Neo with more RAM

New colors aren’t the only changes coming.

theverge.com logo
Jul 22 • 12:35 PM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
A-List celebrities show up for 40/40 Club at Fanatics Fest

Some of the biggest names in sports, music, and fashion, converged in New York City for Fanatics Fest over this past weekend. While many took part in all of

amny.com logo
Jul 22 • 11:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • amny.com
Microsoft is bringing original Xbox games to PC

Xbox backward compatibility for PC allows original Xbox console games to officially run on Windows.

theverge.com logo
Jul 22 • 11:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 9 and Ultra 2 bet big on battery

The Ultra 2 has an 800mAh battery! 800!

theverge.com logo
Jul 22 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
I almost forgot Samsung’s Z Flip 8 was a foldable

If you wanted to use the square screen all the time, you’re in luck.

theverge.com logo
Jul 22 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2026: The 6 biggest announcements

A redesigned wide Z Fold 8 and a new ‘Ultra’ Fold.

theverge.com logo
Jul 22 • 9:00 AM EDT • Technology • theverge.com
How Troy Jackson went from an anti-abortion Republican to the Democrats’ hope for defeating Susan Collins

Troy Jackson is on the verge of replacing Graham Platner as the Democratic nominee for Senate in Maine after harnessing the enthusiasm of former Platner supporters who were galvanized by the oyster farmer’s insurgent campaign.

cnn.com logo
Jul 22 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • cnn.com