This digest compiles the latest from The Verge.
Today’s The Verge Roundup
Snap is turning its smart glasses team into its own company
28 Jan 2026, 2:00 pm by Jess Weatherbed
Snap is launching a separate business for its upcoming Specs augmented reality glasses in a bid to lure new investors to the project. The new company, aptly named “Specs,” will operate under Snap as a distinct subsidiary ahead of the long-awaited public launch of Specs glasses later this year.
“Establishing Specs Inc. as a wholly-owned subsidiary provides greater operational focus and alignment, enables new partnerships and capital flexibility including the potential for minority investment, allows us to grow a distinct brand, and supports clearer valuation of the business,” reads Snap’s announcement.
The announcement reaffirms existing pl …
Send Help is an ode to every worker who has had a bad boss
28 Jan 2026, 2:00 pm by Charles Pulliam-Moore
When it comes to director Sam Raimi‘s films, you have to go into the theater understanding that you’re about to experience a piece of cinema that vacillates between being absolute batshit and utterly sublime. Though Send Help is much more grounded than the projects he’s best known for, like The Evil Dead or Drag Me to Hell, it’s a quintessential Raimi film that makes no pretense of hiding how unhinged and disturbing its story is going to be.
On more than one occasion, Send Help almost feels like a live-action cartoon. Its heavy-handed foreshadowing and ridiculous set pieces are meant to leave you wincing in horror before making you laugh a …
Ted Lasso season 4 hits Apple TV in the summer
28 Jan 2026, 1:55 pm by Andrew Webster
One of Apple TV’s biggest hits is returning later this year: the streamer confirmed that season 4 of Ted Lasso will premiere this summer. There’s no firm date beyond that, but the announcement marks an important moment for the service, as the show, which is one of Apple TV’s most popular series, has been dormant for several years.
Ted Lasso‘s third season wrapped up back in 2023, and at the time appeared to mark the end of the series. But Apple confirmed that a season 4 was in the works last year, and followed that up with a first-look image in July. To keep things going, the show will kick off a new storyline that sees Ted (Jason Sudeikis) …
Bluesky is testing ‘live’ features to take on X
28 Jan 2026, 1:37 pm by Jess Weatherbed
Bluesky says it’s planning to make the app feel more “live” this year as part of ongoing efforts to build a competent rival to Elon Musk’s X platform. Announcing Bluesky’s 2026 development roadmap, product head Alex Benzer said the platform is working to make feeds more interactive and timely during live events, alongside teasing improvements to posting and follow suggestions.
“We’re exploring new features and interactions within feeds that make them feel less like just scrolling through posts and more like hanging out,” said Benzer. “We’re also working on making the app feel more ‘live’ in general. We’re taking an experimental approach, s …
Grok is the most antisemitic chatbot according to the ADL
28 Jan 2026, 12:00 pm by Mia Sato
Across six top large language models, xAI’s Grok performed the worst at identifying and countering antisemitic content, according to a study published Wednesday by the Anti-Defamation League. On the other end of the spectrum, Anthropic’s Claude performed the best according to the report’s metrics, but the ADL said all models had gaps that required improvement.
The ADL tested Grok, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Meta’s Llama, Claude, Google’s Gemini, and DeepSeek by prompting models with a variety of narratives and statements falling under three categories defined by the ADL: “anti-Jewish,” “anti-Zionist,” and “extremist.” The study rated chatbots on th …
Windows 11’s ability to resume Android apps on your PC is getting closer
28 Jan 2026, 11:18 am by Tom Warren
Microsoft is getting ready to improve Windows 11’s ability to resume Android apps on a PC. The software giant first introduced its cross-device resume last year, letting Windows 11 users resume OneDrive sessions from their Android device on a PC. Now, it’s expanding this to Spotify playback, browsing sessions, and more.
The improved cross-device resume support, which has been in testing since August, is part of the latest Release Preview update to Windows 11 that started rolling out yesterday. It includes the ability to resume Spotify playback on a PC from a phone, as well as any work in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. You’ll also be able to c …
Astronomers used AI to find 1,400 ‘anomalous objects’ from Hubble archives
28 Jan 2026, 11:15 am by Robert Hart
A pair of astronomers at the European Space Agency (ESA) discovered more than 800 previously undocumented “astrophysical anomalies” hiding in Hubble’s archives. To do so, researchers David O’Ryan and Pablo Gómez trained an AI model to comb through Hubble’s 35-year dataset, hunting for strange objects and flagging them for manual review. It’s “a treasure trove of data in which astrophysical anomalies might be found,” O’Ryan said in a statement.
Studying space is hard. There’s lots of it, it’s noisy, and the flood of data generated by tools like the Hubble Space Telescope can overwhelm even large research teams. And sometimes space is weird. …
Self-driving truck startup Waabi is teaming up with Uber on robotaxis
28 Jan 2026, 11:00 am by Andrew J. Hawkins
Waabi, the Toronto-based autonomous trucking startup, is expanding its portfolio to include robotaxis. And it’s bringing Uber along for the ride.
Raquel Urtasun, the former chief scientist at Uber’s now defunct Advanced Technologies Group, founded Waabi in 2021 to be a more “AI-centric approach” to autonomous vehicles. That approach initially focused on trucking, with Waabi using its proprietary software to automate driving on commercial delivery routes in Texas. But with self-driving trucks turning out to be a way harder problem than originally thought, and robotaxis seemingly having their own moment, Waabi is now turning its focus to auto …
Tim Cook had ‘a good conversation’ with Trump about deescalation
28 Jan 2026, 10:52 am by Jess Weatherbed
Apple CEO Tim Cook has spoken out about “the events in Minneapolis” after federal agents shot and killed another protester over the weekend, telling employees that he has shared his feelings with President Trump. In an internal memo reported by Bloomberg, Cook said that “this is a time for deescalation,” and that he had “a good conversation with the President this week where I shared my views.”
Cook was one of several Tech CEOs, alongside Amazon’s Andy Jassy and AMD’s Lisa Su, who attended a VIP screening of Amazon’s $40 million Melania documentary, just hours after Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents. Cook’s attendance sparked a fres …
Google just leaked a first look at Android for PC in action
28 Jan 2026, 9:26 am by Dominic Preston
We’ve been waiting months for our first look at Android running on a PC in Google’s upcoming ChromeOS / Android hybrid platform, codenamed Aluminium OS. Now we’ve seen it in action, and have Google to thank for the leak.
9to5Google spotted a bug report related to Chrome Incognito tabs published to the Google Issue Tracker yesterday, including two screen recordings taken from a device running Aluminium OS. Google has now restricted access to the report, but 9to5Google managed to pull the videos first. The site also reports that the bug tracker mentioned an ALOS software version – already confirmed to be the initialism for Aluminium OS – and …
End of today’s The Verge roundup.
