The Verge

Two of Ring’s latest video doorbells are a lot cheaper than usual

2026-08-05T13:53:43-04:00

Both the battery-powered and wired models are over $50 off. | Image: Ring

Ring’s Wired Doorbell Pro and Battery Doorbell Plus are two of the brand’s most well-rounded video doorbells, whether you’re looking for a hardwired model or one that runs on a battery. Right now, its Wired Doorbell Pro is down to $199 ($50 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, while the Battery Doorbell Plus is on sale for $119.99 ($60 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. Both deals are the second-best prices we’ve seen, just $20 shy of their Prime Day lows.

Ring Wired Doorbell Pro

Where to Buy:

Ring Battery Doorbell Plus (second-gen)

Where to Buy:

Aside from how they’re powered, the main difference between the two comes down to video quality. The Wired Doorbell Pro records sharper 4K video, and it can automatically respond to visitors with prerecorded messages. The Battery Doorbell Plus has fewer features and can capture video in slightly less sharp 2K resolution. Beyond that, the two doorbells share many of the same core features.

Both can provide a head-to-toe view of your doorstep and support motion detection, two-way talk, and support for color night vision. If you’re willing to pay $4.99 for a monthly subscription, you also get more specific alerts for people, packages, and vehicles. Upgrading to the $19.99 Ring Pro plan, meanwhile, grants access to extra AI features like facial recognition and text-based activity summaries, all of which are free for the first month. Both also work well with Amazon Alexa, allowing you to view a live feed on a compatible Echo Show smart display and receive audible announcements when someone rings your doorbell.

Uber CEO brushes off reports of a Waymo break-up

2026-08-05T13:34:48-04:00

After Uber and Waymo ended their partnership in Phoenix earlier this year, experts and robotaxi watchers wondered whether the companies' improbable bromance was fraying. Not so, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said today. The two companies are committed to continue working together in Atlanta and Austin, and the partnership remains "very strong."

"Waymo is a very important partner of ours, and we continue to operate in Austin and Atlanta," Khosrowshahi said in an earnings call today. "We believe we'll continue to operate next year in those marketplaces. It's a terrific product, and the on-the-ground partnership continues to be very strong."

The …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple’s selling refurbished MacBook Neos with a $100 discount

2026-08-05T14:20:15-04:00

Apple’s MacBook Neo comes in four different colors. | Image: The Verge

Apple’s most affordable laptop, the MacBook Neo, is available once again at its pre-price hike price. All four colors are currently discounted and available refurbished through the company, with the base 256GB model listed for $599 (usually $699 new), and the upgraded version with 512GB of storage and TouchID selling for $679 (usually $799). The laptops have a one-year manufacturer warranty, with the option to purchase an extended AppleCare plan.

MacBook Neo

Apple’s most affordable laptop, with a 13-inch display, A18 Pro chip, 8GB of RAM, and optional Touch ID fingerprint sensor. Read our review.

Where to Buy:

$599 at Apple (256GB, Refurbished)

My colleague Antonio G. Di Benedetto reviewed the MacBook Neo, and was impressed with its performance given that it’s running on the A18 Pro – an iPhone 16 Pro processor. While power users might feel a bit limited by the 8GB of memory and relatively slow storage, the excellent screen, keyboard and speakers make this a great choice for people who primarily use browsers instead of system-intensive apps. It’s also a fantastic laptop for high school or college students.

Read our Apple MacBook Neo review.

Other deals to consider

Amazon has the Google Pixelsnap Charger on sale for $41.99 (usually $69.99), the lowest price we’ve seen yet. This Qi2 wireless charger has a detachable stand to keep your Pixel 10 series phone upright and visible while charging, and supports up to 25W of power for fast charging. It’s worth noting that older Pixel models will need to use a compatible magnet case to attach to the stand.
You can pick up a Razer Wolverine V3 Tournament Edition from Amazon for $50, half off its usual price. This wired controller packs in features that competitive gamers will appreciate for tuning in their setup, like remappable back paddles, two trigger heights, and hall effect thumbsticks. It’s compatible with PC and Xbox Series S/X over USB.
Fanatical has Steam codes for Peak discounted to $3.75, just over half off its usual price of $7.99. This co-op climbing game challenges you and your friends to scale a mountain together, with a physics system that often leads to hilarious circumstances, and a variety of helpful (or detrimental) items to discover along the way.

Sure seems like Fenix Flexin used AI music generator Treblo

2026-08-05T14:04:57-04:00

And you thought we were done with this one… | Image: Fenix Flexin

We were pretty sure that Fenix Flexin's "Rubberz" was made using AI, but musician Medasin was confident that it was made using Treblo specifically. Now the company and a new detection tool seem to confirm it.

On Monday, the company announced the open-source Treblo AI Music Classifier, which detects when a song was generated using Treblo, though not other AI tools. According to a blog post, it has a false positive rate of less than 1 in 10,000. That's not unimpeachable, but it's notable that the company's own Classifier determined that "Rubberz" was "very likely Treblo" with "high confidence," adding more fuel to the PR nightmare for Fenix.

…

Read the full story at The Verge.

Google just announced a major shakeup of its top AI leadership

2026-08-05T14:01:29-04:00

Google is making some significant AI leadership changes, including a major shift for Google DeepMind leader Demis Hassabis.

Hassabis will become the chair of Google DeepMind and the chief scientist at Alphabet, CEO Sundar Pichai announced on Wednesday. Hassabis will continue to lead Alphabet's Isomorphic Labs, which aims to use AI to develop drugs. Koray Kavukcuoglu, formerly DeepMind's CTO, is stepping up to become Google's SVP of DeepMind and will report to Pichai. Kavukcuoglu will remain Google's chief AI architect as well.

"As you've heard me say many times, I've always believed the No.1 application of AI should be to improve human h …

Read the full story at The Verge.

SpaceX is barely Space and mostly X

2026-08-05T12:44:01-04:00

Privatize the profit, socialize the losses? | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

Once, I had some questions about why SpaceX, Elon Musk's healthiest company, acquired xAI, his sickliest one. Now I have some questions about why we're calling the whole thing SpaceX.

Look, what we have here, by revenue, is primarily a telecom company and a company that rents compute, according to SpaceX's first quarterly earnings statement as a public company. The space sector of the business didn't break a billion dollars this quarter and contributed only a touch over 10 percent of the company's revenue. SpaceX remains its own biggest customer. There just aren't enough other people who want its rockets. And, I dunno, maybe if the rockets …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Reddit is introducing a new moderator: AI

2026-08-05T12:48:11-04:00

Reddit is enlisting AI to help moderate new subreddits - and eventually the rest of site. The company is introducing automated moderation tools that rely on LLMs to help mods manage their communities, and it's expanding who can use those tools today ahead of a full launch later this year.

The company calls the suite of tools "Rules Hub," and the tools let mods decide what rules should be automatically enforced and what should happen when a rule is triggered. Rules Hub relies on LLMs to evaluate "whether a post or comment matches the intent of a rule," which "allows Rules Hub to better handle nuance, natural language, and edge cases while pr …

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Rogue AI agents created fake online identities in another hacking attempt

2026-08-05T11:14:57-04:00

Yet more rogue AI agents from OpenAI and Anthropic have been caught attempting to hack real targets online without permission. The discoveries add to a growing list of previously unknown incidents that have alarmed AI safety experts and intensified pressure for greater oversight of frontier systems.

According to a report from the UK's AI Security Institute, which evaluates frontier models from top AI labs before they are released, agents powered by OpenAI's GPT-5.6-Sol and Anthropic's Mythos 5 went "engaged in sustained, potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organisations." This included trying to insert malicious code i …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Sunbird relaunched its iMessage app for Android users after three years away

2026-08-05T10:13:15-04:00

Sunbird Messaging is back on the Google Play Store, offering Android users blue bubble privileges in iMessage complete with reactions and high quality videos for $2.99 a month. Apple and Google have made cross platform messaging better in recent years with support for RCS, but Android users can still cause issues in iMessage group chats, like breaking reactions and replies.

Android Authority reports that after Sunbird shut down nearly three years ago due to security issues, the company says its new setup addresses those, and that "Any message moving through our infrastructure is protected in transit and released once it's delivered," while …

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Ring upgraded its peephole doorbell camera to 2K

2026-08-05T10:01:20-04:00

Ring has debuted a new version of its smart doorbell camera that's designed to be easily installed as a replacement for a door's peephole without drilling or running wires. The Peephole Cam 2K is a replacement for the brand's Door View Cam that first debuted in 2019 and, alongside a sleeker design, it features a bump from 1080P to 2K video recording, some tracking upgrades, and a cheaper price. It's available for preorder now for $99.99 with shipping expected later this month.

As with previous models, the Peephole Cam 2K is divided into two halves that connect to each other through your door's peephole. On the outside there's a camera, door …

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