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Sean Hollister
Today I learned the Steam Deck lets you go Inception on its desktop mode.

Why reboot your whole SteamOS handheld to desktop when you can visit the desktop from inside the gaming mode? Nested Desktop does have limitations (no file management, no Steam-within-Steam) but gosh are there times this’d come in handy. Jacob at XDA calls it “the best Steam Deck feature you aren’t using”.

Setup: In desktop mode, tap Steam logo on taskbar > scroll down to Lost and Found > Right-click “Nested Desktop” > “Add to Steam.”

GIF by Sean Hollister / The Verge
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Cameron Faulkner
An affordable 4TB PS5-ready SSD, indeed.

Lexar announced that its Play 2280 SE PCIe 4.0 SSD is available at Costco. New SSDs hit the market all the time, but I’m stunned by how affordable this one is. Costco members can snag one online for $224.99. For context on that price, Samsung’s 4TB 990 Pro has never gone below $279.99.

The Play 2280 SE supports 7000 MB/s max read and 6000 MB/s max write speeds. That makes it a touch slower than the 990 Pro, but you likely won’t notice a difference on your PS5 (we didn’t when we tested several options back in 2021).

If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission.

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Victoria Song
Garmin isn’t rushing to make smart glasses.

In its Q2 2025 earnings call, Garmin CEO Cliff Pemble says, “Glasses have come and gone once, and the utility and concerns around the use of those have always come up in the context.” He went on to say it’s a “wait and see thing.”

He’s not wrong. Privacy is still a major concern with smart glasses. But frankly, Garmin is probably happy enough with another gangbusters quarter in fitness, logging a 41 percent increase year-over-year.

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Mia Sato
About that weird blue jeans ad.

Actor Sydney Sweeney is currently embroiled in a days-long “discourse” cycle about a campaign she shot with American Eagle. The ad — and whether it’s a eugenics dog whistle — is one thing. But I liked this Atlantic piece that zoomed out and put the outrage and online content cycle into perspective. Chat, is discourse cooked?

The Discourse Is Broken

[theatlantic.com]

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Jay Peters
For those who retry after.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s latest patch adds an option to retry battles right after you’re defeated. The game’s checkpoints were already pretty forgiving, but this new pop-up will make jumping back into a battle to practice your parries a little bit faster.

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Justine Calma
Google calls its new AI model a “virtual satellite.”

Called AlphaEarth Foundations, the model stitches together data from actual satellite images, radar, climate simulations, and more to map Earth’s land and coastal waters.

”The Satellite Embedding dataset is revolutionizing our work by helping countries map uncharted ecosystems - this is crucial for pinpointing where to focus their conservation efforts,” Nick Murray, director of the James Cook University Global Ecology Lab and Global Science Lead of Global Ecosystems Atlas, said in a Google DeepMind blog post.

Inside the LG G5’s shocking last-place finish at the 2025 TV Shootout

I helped score the annual Value Electronics TV Shootout. Here’s what goes on behind the scenes.

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Ash Parrish
In Drag x Drive there are way more things to do than drag or drive.

Drag x Drive, the Switch 2’s 3-v-3 wheelchair basketball game, is coming out next month and Nintendo has shared a new trailer. The game, the first exclusive to make extensive use of the Switch 2’s mouse controls, will test more than just your hoopin’ skills.

The trailer showed off a ton of other things you can do like wheelchair races, skills challenges, and more. You can also create pick-up games with your friends, customize your player and their wheels, or practice against the computer when Drag x Drive comes out August 14th.

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Emma Roth
Amazon’s AI training deal with the NYT has a big price tag attached.

The deal, which includes access to the NYT, The Athletic, and NYT Cooking, will have Amazon paying $20 million to $25 million per year, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. In May, the NYT said Amazon will use its content to train AI models and bring article summaries to Alexa.

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Richard Lawler
Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘personal superintelligence’ AI pitch.

The guy who renamed Facebook to Meta went long with a blog post this morning about a grandiose AGI-ish vision for artificial intelligence and why his company is so invested in it. It also might help explain why Meta is making huge offers to hire “post-money” AI experts who aren’t completely convinced Meta is the place to be.

We’re still churning through the whole thing, but you can start with Zuckerberg’s accompanying video right here.

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Adi Robertson
A press freedom group wants Brendan Carr disbarred.

As first reported by Status, the Freedom of the Press foundation filed a complaint with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel at the DC Court of Appeals, arguing his “politicized and unlawful abuse” of his FCC chair position violates the Rules of Professional Conduct he’s bound by as an attorney. His role in the “unconstitutional shakedown” of Paramount was the final straw.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 review: more of a good thing

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More cover screen is indisputably better.

Allison JohnsonCommentsComment Icon Bubble
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 is stuck in a familiar orbit

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I’m at peace with the squircle. Gemini is promising. But the sum of the parts doesn’t add up to a must-have upgrade.

Victoria SongCommentsComment Icon Bubble
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Tom Warren
Microsoft has a Surface Laptop ‘Smurface Edition’ for Smurfs fans.

Microsoft rarely does limited editions of its Surface products, but it has quietly launched a “Smurface Edition” in time for the Smurfs movie. I was expecting it to be a totally blue design, but instead Microsoft has laser-etched the Smurfs to the front, alongside a blue Surface logo. Other than that, it’s a 13-inch Surface Laptop 7 with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage for $999.99. Only 100 units are available, exclusively at Amazon.

The Smurface Edition Surface Laptop 7.
The Smurface Edition Surface Laptop 7.
Image: Microsoft
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Dominic Preston
Chevy teases the next-gen Bolt EV’s redesign.

Get a first look at the new fascia, NACS charging port, and brake lights on the Bolt, with Chevy promising “More this fall.”

GM killed the Bolt in 2023 before resurrecting it for its newer Ultium battery tech (which... it’s also killing, at least as a brand name). The new Bolt will boast faster charging and multiple models, but that won’t include a small hatchback — only the larger EUV Bolt is making a comeback.

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Dominic Preston
The iPhone 17 Pro might be oh so orange.

Leaker Sonny Dickson has shared photos of dummy units from Apple’s upcoming iPhone 17 lineup, including a bright orange for the Pro and Pro Max models. Expect the exact hues to be different in the final phones though.

It follows a video yesterday from another leaker that showed similar Pro finishes, plus a model in gray — but with signs of AI generation in that video, we’d put more stock in Sonny’s shots.

<em>The iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max could come in black, white, dark blue, and bright orange.</em>
<em>The regular iPhone 17 may have five colors — I kinda love the green.</em>
<em>The super slim Air offers the most muted colors of the lot.</em>
<em>Here’s the full set, though oddly omitting the 17’s bright green.</em>
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The iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max could come in black, white, dark blue, and bright orange.
Image: Sonny Dickson
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Dominic Preston
Google says the UK never ordered encryption access.

Until now it’s stayed quiet on whether it received the same order to open a backdoor to user data as Apple, but a spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch that it never did. If it had, Google wouldn’t be allowed to say so.

Apple has pulled iCloud encryption from the UK and appealed its order in the courts. Last week it was reported that the UK is ready to give up the fight following US political pressure.

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Jess Weatherbed
Google falls in line with the EU’s AI plan.

The search giant has followed OpenAI in signing the EU’s voluntary AI code of practice, after Meta snubbed the agreement over “legal uncertainties.” Google also has its complaints despite signing, saying in a statement:

“We remain concerned that the AI Act and Code risk slowing Europe’s development and deployment of AI. In particular, departures from EU copyright law, steps that slow approvals, or requirements that expose trade secrets could chill European model development and deployment.”

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Elizabeth Lopatto
Fortune throws its hat into the obituary slop ring.

Blackstone’s Wesley LePatner, 43, died yesterday in a mass shooting. Bloomberg wrote her a real obit (and says she’s 43, as do The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal); Fortune generated some AI slop that says she’s 44. As of this writing, the Fortune obit also contained the following paragraph:

New York Rep. Ritchie Torres posted on social media that LePatner “represented the very best of New York.” Calling her a “distinguished professional,” he honored her sense of civics, as a “. She left a lasting impact wherever she went: as a senior executive at Blackstone, a “devoted congregant” at the Altneu synagogue and a dedicated board member at the Heschel School.

Guess Fortune has decided to compete with the obituary spammers. “An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing,” the note about AI use reads.

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Justine Calma
A tsunami advisory is in effect for the West Coast.

“Stay away from the coast!” the National Weather Service warns. A magnitude 8.7 earthquake off the east coast of Russia has triggered tsunami alerts across the Pacific. The tsunami advisory means that dangerous currents and waves are possible.

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Emma Roth
Meta is testing out “AI-enabled” job interviews.

The company plans on holding mock interviews where it will give coding candidates access to an AI assistant, according to a report from 404 Media.

“We’re obviously focused on using AI to help engineers with their day-to-day work, so it should be no surprise that we’re testing how to provide these tools to applicants during interviews,” a Meta spokesperson told 404 Media.