He warns the tariff will apply if Apple doesn’t move its iPhone production to the US.
So says supply chain expert Ming-Chi Kuo. Back in April, I also spoke to several other supply chain experts who said the exact same thing. Here’s the gist: The U.S. simply does not have the manufacturing capability or a skilled workforce to do this and rebuilding it will take significant funds and time. Paying the tariff is simply cheaper (for the company), faster, and more profitable.
Bluesky reminded me that John Carpenter’s Escape from New York has a deleted ten-minute opening sequence, and while I think he made the right choice cutting it, it’s a pretty fun short heist film that barely even requires having seen the film.
I wear three to five wearables all the time, so I relate to the anxiety described in this New York Times article. Managing it is a huge part of my job, which is why I wrote this how-to with a lot of my tips and tricks. And as I’ve said on many a Vergecast episode, I purposefully break streaks to preserve my mental health. Friendly reminder from your neighborhood wearables expert: you are allowed to take breaks.
[nytimes.com]
Nintendo just updated its Switch Online subscription service with a nice mix of four retro handheld titles: the survival game Survival Kids, sci-fi shooter Gradius: Interstellar Assault, puzzler Kirby’s Star Stacker, and RPG The Sword of Hope.
The tariff Trump is “recommending” would start on June 1st, but no official action has been ordered yet. His post on Truth Social says the European Union was “formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on trade,” and blames the bloc for a US trade deficit of $250 million per year.
Our discussions with them are going nowhere! Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025. There is no Tariff if the product is built or manufactured in the United States.
[truthsocial.com]
Shira Perlmutter, who may or may not be the head of the Copyright Office depending on how deranged the Supreme Court’s interpretation of executive power becomes, has now sued the Trump administration, including Perlmutter’s supposed replacement Paul Perkins “in his capacity as the person claiming to be the Register of Copyrights.”
[courtlistener.com]
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Last month, Bluesky started proactively verifying accounts, but Bluesky said today that “notable and authentic” users can now apply for verification, as spotted by TechCrunch. You can also apply to become a Trusted Verifier to verify accounts affiliated with an organization.
[techcrunch.com]
0The Lenovo Legion Go S will be the first authorized third-party SteamOS handheld, whenever it finally goes on sale, but more may be coming. In January, Valve told us that Lenovo was its only partner, but today Valve published an updated FAQ stating that “We’re currently working with select partners on officially licensed Powered by SteamOS devices.” Multiple partners!
Valve might simply mean it’s looking for more partners, but if the language was meant to be precise...
The Justice Department is investigating whether Google crafted its agreement to skirt regulatory scrutiny, Bloomberg reports. The deal brought Character.AI’s co-founders back to Google and didn’t technically involve an exchange of shares, though investors were set to receive a payout, The Verge previously reported. Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels told Bloomberg that Google is “always happy to answer any questions from regulators,” and added that Character.AI remains separate, with no ownership stake by Google.
On May 31th, Lock Books will release Overclocked: An Archive of Graphics Card Box Art, designed to take you back when “manufacturers fought for dominance with the most amped-up packaging imaginable.” (We remember it well.) The $27 book features over 300 different boxes and 50 classic ads, all curated after “hours of searching through dead Google links, eBay listings and defunct forums.”
It’s not authorized; rather, co-creator Mike McCabe tells us the book is “limited, transformative, and intended to preserve a visual history that would otherwise be lost.”
In the midst of Donald Trump’s tariff chaos, prices are rising at retailers like Walmart, Amazon, and Home Depot, according to data provided to The Verge by Bright Data, which tracks prices week over week. As of May 11th, for example, 21.5 percent of the 1.5 million tracked Amazon products had increased in price. Check out an interactive chart here.
Technically, it’s just a rebrand of Embracer Group, which once went on a shopping spree to become the one-game-company-to-rule-them-all. After that fell through, Embracer announced it’d spin out its tabletop and indie games into independent companies Asmodee and Coffee Stain, leaving only its priciest studios and IP.
Here are the studios that will remain with Fellowship:
4A Games, Aspyr Media, CrazyLabs, Crystal Dynamics, Dambuster Studios, Dark Horse, Deca Games, Eidos-Montréal, Flying Wild Hog, Gunfire Games, Limited Run Games, Middle-earth Enterprises, Milestone, PLAION, Tarsier Studios, THQ Nordic, Tripwire Interactive, Vertigo Games, and Warhorse Studios amongst more than 40 other companies.
In poet Nora Claire Miller’s short, moving essay, she draws a line from the very first screensaver (SCRNSAVE, 1983) to the tesseract in A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine L’Engle, 1962) to her family’s flight during the Holocaust (Austria, 1938). I particularly loved this bit about taking apart her grandmother’s iMac:
I took the Strawberry apart thirty-nine times. (I kept count.) I didn’t really know what I was doing. I cut my hands open on the logic board more than once. There’s still dried blood on the hard drive. But despite my best efforts at modernization, the Strawberry has refused to accept any of my updates. It only wants to exist in 1999, to connect to an old internet that hardly exists anymore. These days it mostly runs screen savers. Warp is still my favorite.
[The Paris Review]
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Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is a spectacularly silly tribute to the franchise’s explosive past.
Rivian’s smaller, more affordable electric SUV may not arrive until the end of 2026, but the company is getting geared up to start testing development versions of the R2. But before they get released into the wild, they need to disguise themselves in camouflage so prying eyes (and phone cameras) can’t perceive their full awesomeness. To that effect, the company was eager to show off its custom wrap, which looks a bit different from the industry standard black-and-white design. Yes, there’s a Yeti in there.
