This digest compiles the latest from The Verge.
Today’s The Verge Roundup
Oh, you think the government will regulate Kalshi and Polymarket? Wanna bet?
18 Mar 2026, 2:30 pm by Elizabeth Lopatto
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has a problem: It’s not very good at policing insider trading. And insider trading has become a pressing concern for prediction markets.
Even Kalshi’s recently publicized fines for insider trading – levied against a politician and an employee of YouTube influencer MrBeast – were effectively self-policing. The exchange says it’s opened 200 investigations, frozen some accounts, and had a dozen of its investigations turn into active cases.
“The volume of suspicious activity we see is significantly higher than what any platform publicly acknowledges.”
In response to Kalshi’s announcement, the CFTC put …
The hits keep coming in Spider-Man: Brand New Day’s first trailer
18 Mar 2026, 1:37 pm by Charles Pulliam-Moore
The first trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day is finally here, and it looks like Marvel and Sony are about to put Peter Parker through a different kind of existential crisis.
Though nobody in Brand New Day‘s trailer knows who Peter (Tom Holland) is or that he’s the one saving people as Spider-Man, he still has vivid memories from the past when he was still close with MJ Watson (Zendaya) and Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon). Peter seems to have made peace with his “new” life as a secret crimefighter butting heads with villains and other New York vigilante fixtures like the Punisher (Jon Bernthal). But with all memory of him erased, life is lonely …
The great EV pullback: all the obstacles, cancellations, and delays
18 Mar 2026, 1:00 pm by Andrew J. Hawkins
The auto industry bet big on electric vehicles, but now those ambitious goals are falling apart. Demand was already slowing down when Donald Trump took office and took an ax to pro-EV policy: the elimination of the federal EV tax credit, kneecapping clean energy, and bulldozing emissions rules. Tariffs have been taking their toll as well. And now US and European automakers are taking a bath on its EV investments, forcing them to readjust their model lineup. Hybrids are the new bet, and the EV future looks further away than ever — at least for the US. China continues to outpace the rest of the world in EV development, and stands poised to win that future.
Follow along below for all the latest updates about the EV industry.
- Two more EVs for the trash heap: Volvo EX30 and Honda Prologue
- Honda cancels Zero Series EVs, citing ‘extremely challenging’ situation
- Stellantis is in a crisis of its own making
- America is at risk of becoming an automotive backwater
- Trump’s new ‘Buy American’ requirement for EV charging would dramatically curtail build-out
- Stellantis takes a $26 billion hit on EVs.
- So much for the Chevy Bolt.
- Ford’s big bet on EVs didn’t pan out — now it’s pivoting to hybrids and energy storage
- Trump embraces gas guzzlers and air pollution by weakening fuel economy standards
- GM to end production of electric Chevy Brightdrop vans
- The EV tax credit is gone — now the hard part begins
- Honda cancels Acura ZDX in latest casualty of EV pullback
- Stellantis cancels Ram 1500 REV as electric truck demand dims
- The great EV pullback has begun
- Ford lost $5 billion on EVs in 2024, teases new models
- Volkswagen cancels ID.7 sedan for US
- Hertz is asking EV renters if they want to keep it, permanently
- Ford cancels its electric three-row SUV and delays futuristic electric truck
- Hertz is selling 20,000 EVs so it can buy more gas guzzlers
Nvidia has lost the plot with gamers
18 Mar 2026, 1:00 pm by Sean Hollister
Nvidia surely thought it was doing a good thing for gamers by “upgrading” the faces of our favorite video game characters. But that just shows how much the company has lost the plot.
Nvidia could’ve marketed its new DLSS 5 real-time lighting technology as a way to make future, next-gen games look better. Instead, it told the world that games people already know and love look bad. It focused on retconning characters’ faces. And now, confronted with the predictable backlash, Nvidia’s CEO is telling critics that we’re “completely wrong.”
Regardless of how it works, the tech presents as an AI filter that tries to optimize everyone and everythi …
DLSS 5: Has Nvidia’s AI graphics technology gone too far?
18 Mar 2026, 12:30 pm by Richard Lawler
Nvidia has revealed a new “3D guided neural rendering model” called DLSS 5 that can change a game’s lighting and materials in real-time, and… many gamers aren’t happy. From DLSS 5 memes to complaints about how it’s “yassified” Resident Evil Requiem characters in demos, the first impression has not been a good one, no matter how much Nvidia insists that this pursuit of photorealism is still honoring the original artists’ intent.
Follow along below for all the latest updates about Nvidia’s DLSS 5 upgrades.
- Nvidia has lost the plot with gamers
- Jensen Huang, on the critical reaction to DLSS 5: “Well, first of all, they’re completely wrong.”
- Nvidia’s DLSS 5 is like motion smoothing for video games, but worse
- DLSS 5 looks like a real-time generative AI filter for video games
- Nvidia just announced DLSS 5 and Digital Foundry already has a video.
BMW brings back the i3 as a funky four-door EV
18 Mar 2026, 10:00 am by Tim Stevens
BMW’s new class of EVs begins with the iX3 SUV, but you had to know it wouldn’t end there. The company’s engineers didn’t spend all that time working up a completely redesigned and substantially more efficient EV platform just for one crossover, and now it’s time for the second wave.
Meet the new i3, which takes the same basic motor, battery, and electronics package that powers the iX3, plus the Neue Klasse’s controversial styling cues, and applies it to a more familiar sedan shape, the sort of silhouette that BMW’s reputation was largely built upon.
It definitely looks a lot like the iX3, but with a slightly different intent. Sebastian K …
End of today’s The Verge roundup.
