The Verge

SwitchBot’s Standing Circulator Fan is worth fighting for

2026-06-19T07:50:38-04:00

I’m a fan.

I can't remember the last time I got excited about a fan. Normally, I just buy whatever Vornado or Dreo model fits my budget, but that was before I started testing the battery-powered Standing Circulator Fan from SwitchBot.

As the name indicates, the SwitchBot fan is a 3D circulator - a fancy way of saying that it can tilt up, down, left, and right to push a decent amount air around a room. It looks okay, despite all the plastic, is relatively quiet, runs for hours on battery, has an integrated nightlight, transforms from a desktop to standing fan in seconds, and works on its own or as part of a smart home. There's a lot to like here.

Over …

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Nothing cancels this year’s CMF phone due to RAM prices

2026-06-19T17:28:39-04:00

Nothing's next budget phone is the latest victim of RAMageddon. As 9to5Google reports, Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis announced in a post on X that a follow-up to the CMF Phone 2 Pro won't be coming this year:

We were working on a successor but with memory prices where they are right now, we can't build a phone that feels like a genuine step forward at a price that makes sense for CMF. As a result, we've decided not to launch a new CMF phone this year.

Last week, Nothing CEO and co-founder Carl Pei also said the RAM shortage has impacted the cost of the company's mid-range phone, stating, "For Phone 4A, memory costs doubled between …

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NASA selects Eric Schmidt’s rocket company for a 2028 mission to Mars

2026-06-19T14:41:48-04:00

Relativity Space’s CEO is former Google executive Eric Schmidt. | Image: Alexander Tamargo / Getty Images

Relativity Space, the rocket company led by former Google executive Eric Schmidt, was picked to launch NASA's Aeolus payload to Mars in 2028, as reported earlier by TechCrunch. Under a new public-private partnership, Relativity Space will provide the "spacecraft, rocket, and cruise operations" to fly Aeolus to Mars, where the payload will "provide the first integrated, daily, global view of Martian winds, temperatures, dust, and clouds."

The Aeolus payload will have four instruments on board for studying the Martian atmosphere, which NASA says will "directly inform entry, descent, and landing systems and support safer, more predictable mis …

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Hue’s wired wall modules bring non-smart lights into its ecosystem

2026-06-19T13:24:45-04:00

The new Wired Wall Switch Modules fit behind existing switches. | Image: Signify

Smart lighting company Philips Hue has launched its first wired wall modules. Installed behind existing wall switches, the new devices bring non-smart lights into the Hue ecosystem for the first time. Hue also announced new Play table and floor lamps that are more affordable versions of its Signe series, along with upgrades to its E14 candle bulbs that add a broader white light spectrum and Matter-over-Thread compatibility.

The new lights are now available globally; however, the Wired Wall Switch Modules are Europe-only. Signify CTO George Yianni told The Verge that there are currently no plans to launch them in the US, but the company woul …

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The NTS Radio Player brings the best of internet radio to your hi-fi

2026-06-19T12:40:19-04:00

Have I found my Chromecast Audio replacement? | Image: NTS Radio

NTS Radio and Swedish audio company Atonemo have teamed up on a dedicated player that brings NTS's genre-defying mixes and streaming stations to almost any stereo or speaker setup. And, like Atonemo's existing Streamplayer, you can also listen to your favorite streaming services with it, using AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, or Tidal Connect.

The $179 NTS Radio Player puts out 24-bit / 192kHz audio over a standard 3.5mm audio jack and comes with an adapter cable for connecting to RCA on your vintage hi-fi system, or whatever other speakers you have lying around. The top of the device has two buttons for tuning in directly to NTS 1 …

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The film about Sam Altman has been dropped by Amazon MGM

2026-06-19T10:58:45-04:00

Luca Guadagnino's film about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Artificial, has reportedly been dropped by Amazon MGM.

The film, which stars Andrew Garfield and covers the rollercoaster five days in 2023 spanning Altman's termination and reinstatement as CEO, had been in the works for about a year. The cast also includes A Complete Unknown actress Monica Barbaro as OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, Ike Barinholtz as Elon Musk, and Anora's Yura Borisov as OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.

In a statement to Deadline, the studio said it believes the movie "will be better served if it were released by a different studio and is working closely with the filmmak …

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Our long national sunscreen nightmare is almost over

2026-06-18T20:25:24-04:00

You need a quarter teaspoon for your face alone, a half teaspoon if you include the neck (which you should!)

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here.

On TikTok, the tanned youths are explaining why they no longer wear sunscreen. In one video, a young man films himself in the ocean while describing how you can naturally build up a "solar callus" or sun tolerance to getting burned. (You can't.) In another, a young woman confidently states that eating healthy foods full of polyphenols and other antioxidants will help make your body more resilient to sunburn. (Antioxidants help w …

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T1 Phone PR firm is ‘not assisting Trump Mobile any further’

2026-06-18T13:40:47-04:00

Where's the Trump phone? We're going to keep talking about it every week. We don't have the phones we preordered yet, but this week we received unexpected news from Trump Mobile's media relations manager.

If you've been following my reporting on the Trump phone, you'll know that Trump Mobile doesn't exactly keep open lines of communication with the media. That doesn't look to be changing, with the company no longer working with its long-term media relations firm.

Poplar Group has represented Trump Mobile since at least last June, when the company's founding partner Chris Walker gave a statement to USA Today, insisting at the time that "T1 …

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In season 2 of Sugar, Colin Farrell’s quirky detective becomes much more human

2026-06-17T13:30:29-04:00

When Colin Farrell was doing press for the first season of the detective series Sugar, he had to be very careful with how he spoke. Sugar is a story about a quirky private detective, but it's also secretly a work of science fiction, something that doesn't become clear until halfway through the season. "I knew that I could get the show in deep shit if I revealed certain things," he tells me. Now as Sugar heads into its next season, which starts streaming on Apple TV on June 19th, Farrell says he feels "unburdened" by the previous veil of secrecy. "There are certain things I wouldn't mention here about season 2," he says, "but nothing as big a …

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Kaleidescape’s movie player blows streaming, and your wallet, away

2026-06-18T19:03:00-04:00

The Strato E player (here with a Mini Terra Prime server on top of it) is smaller than a Blu-ray disc collection, but you can get a lot of 4K discs for $3,000.

We've lost something in the past 15 years. Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple; they've all convinced us that streaming is the best way to watch movies and shows at home. With everything at our fingertips, there's no need to run to Blockbuster for the weekend's entertainment, or wait for a DVD rental to arrive in the mail. And going to the movie theater is a luxury - one that keeps getting more expensive.

But we were, all of us, deceived. We traded quality for convenience. And while TVs have improved drastically, we feed them inadequate, bitrate-starved, internet-throttled streams that won't let our fancy screens show their full potential. Blu-r …

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