Why DOGE is killing the agency that keeps banks from ripping you off
Why DOGE is killing the agency that keeps banks from ripping you off Today, I’m talking to Rohit Chopra. He was the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) until the end of January, when President Donald Trump fired him and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began trying to dismantle the agency. […]
Switch 2: the good news and bad news
Switch 2: the good news and bad news In most ways, Nintendoâs Switch 2 is exactly what we wanted: a Switch, only better. Nintendo has an occasional tendency to follow its best and most successful consoles with some of its weirdest ideas â Wii U, anyone? â but this time seems to have stayed the course […]
How tariffs will change your gadgets
How tariffs will change your gadgets First things first, some exciting news: The Vergecast has been nominated for a Webby Award! This one means a lot to us, especially because itâs an award you get to vote on. Weâd be so grateful if youâd go vote for us once, or 40 times, or however many […]
What AI anime memes tell us about the future of art and humanity
What AI anime memes tell us about the future of art and humanity On today’s episode of Decoder, we’re talking about AI, art, and the controversial collision between the two — a debate that, to be honest, is an absolute mess. If you’ve been on the internet this past week, you undoubtedly know that controversy […]
Searching for the perfect minimalist smartphone
Searching for the perfect minimalist smartphone Smartphones are great. Theyâre also⦠a lot. The idea of a more balanced device, one that gives you all of the most important and useful features of a smartphone but keeps you out of the infinite-doomscrolling loops, has been an enticing one for a long time. Nailing that balance, […]
OpenAI has a Studio Ghibli problem
OpenAI has a Studio Ghibli problem When you can create art just by asking for it, what might you create? If youâre anything like the internet these last few days, youâd create some lovely things â stylized family portraits, a thousand different looks for the Distracted Boyfriend meme â and some truly, deeply, unfathomably horrifying ones. […]
How Roomba got stuck
How Roomba got stuck In the robot vacuum world, thereâs Roomba and thereâs everybody else. iRobotâs autonomous cleaner may not have been the very first of its kind, but it was the first one most people knew about, and for many years it was clearly the best one you could buy. But now, more than […]
Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava on where to draw hard lines around AI in music
Splice CEO Kakul Srivastava on where to draw hard lines around AI in music Today, I’m talking with Kakul Srivastava, CEO of music creation platform Splice. I don’t think I need to really introduce Splice, actually — I just need to play this clip: If you exist on planet Earth, you know that as the […]
Trump’s confusing crusade against Big Tech
Trump's confusing crusade against Big Tech Trump’s confusing crusade against Big Tech President Trump wanted to ban TikTok. Now he wants to save TikTok. There might even be a plan to save TikTok, though right now it feels more like a âconcepts of a planâ situation. Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to press hard on […]
Switch 2, Steam Deck, and the next-gen console wars
Switch 2, Steam Deck, and the next-gen console wars The Nintendo Switch 2 is nigh. Nigh-ish, anyway. When it does launch later this year, it might start another revolution in portable gaming, as millions of people are able to play from their couch, their bed, the train, and anywhere else. That was also true of […]