Earlier this week, Apple announced its new Apple TV 4K, which costs nearly twice as much as the 2022 model did at launch. Amazon is now offering the first discount on the forthcoming streaming box (coming out on November 13th), just days after discounting Apple’s new smart display for the first time. Right now, you can preorder the latest Apple TV 4K ahead of its November 13th release date for $289.99 ($9 off) at Amazon. Yes, it’s a tiny discount, but every little bit helps given the higher price tag.

Apple TV 4K (2026)

Where to Buy:

• $299 $289.99 at Amazon

Powered by the new A19 chip, Apple’s latest streaming device now features support for Siri AI out of the box, which is coming to older Apple TV 4K models via a software update. Unlike its predecessors, though, the new model features far-field microphones so you can quickly make hands-free requests. You can, for example, ask for recommendations, like nature documentaries available on Apple TV, or ask questions about what you’re watching. Siri AI can also understand personal context, too, so long as you have an iPhone or iPad connected to your account that supports Apple Intelligence.

Apple has made a few other welcome upgrades, though — as my colleague John Higgins points out — not as many as some may have expected. While Apple skipped features we’d hope to see on a $300 streamer, like audio passthrough and support for 120fps output, it’s nice that the Siri Remote now supports Find My precision tracking, so you can make it ring when it goes missing or use the Find My app on your iPhone to pinpoint its location. The new Apple TV 4K also supports a more expansive surround-sound setup, allowing you to pair up to four compatible HomePod speakers instead of just two.

Read our hands-on impressions of the fourth-generation Apple TV 4K.

Three more Verge-approved deals:

• If you’ve been meaning to pick up Pikmin 4, Walmart is selling a digital copy for $39.88 ($20 off), which is a great price considering most other retailers are still charging the full $59.99. It’s the original Switch version, but you can upgrade to the forthcoming Nintendo Switch 2 Edition when it arrives on November 12th by purchasing a separate $9.99 upgrade pack, which adds improved graphics and a new Dandori Academy mode. That brings your total to just $49.87, saving you about $20 compared to buying the $69.99 Switch 2 Edition outright. Read our review.
• All eyes might be on the iPhone Duo — which is now available to preorder, despite shipments being delayed into 2027  — but if you have a non-foldable iPhone, Woot is currently discounting a wide range of Otterbox cases through October 31st. I’ve owned several of the brand’s cases for both my smartphones and tablets over the years, and I’ve been impressed by their durability. I currently use the OtterBox Symmetry Series Clear Case for my iPhone 16, which normally costs $49.99 but is now available in various colors for just $5.99 with a 90-day warranty. The sale also includes cases for other iPhones, as well as some Samsung and Google phones, so it’s worth browsing even if you’re not planning to upgrade your phone anytime soon.
• Fanttik’s S1 Pro electric screwdriver is on sale for $45.99 ($44 off) at Amazon, which is $5 shy of its best price to date. It’s a handy cordless option for small tasks ranging from tightening screws to assembling desks, with 16 S2 hardened steel bits for tackling a variety of jobs. The USB-C rechargeable screwdriver also comes with a 220RPM motor and three torque settings, along with a LED light to help illuminate your workspace.

Masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians as they were harvesting olives in the occupied West Bank on Friday, injuring several people including a photojournalist working for The Washington Post.

(Image credit: Ahmad Gharabli)

It's been a couple of days since Apple's big smart home announcement, and we have some more information - and a bunch of new questions - about the Apple HomeView. The device has plenty of computing oomph, is always connected to power, and looks like a perfect place to run a bunch of apps. And yet the HomeView is relying almost entirely on CarPlay. What gives here?

On this episode of The Vergecast, David and Nilay try to make sense of the HomeView's app situation, and why Apple would choose not to make its home hub into its own app platform. After that, they talk about the latest Gemini model and whether building the best model matters if yo …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Analogue announced new versions of its Super Nt and Mega Sg retro consoles today with a "reworked industrial design" and built-in wireless connectivity for controllers and accessories. Like the original versions, the new Super Nt Plus and Mega Sg Plus are able to play Nintendo and Sega Genesis cartridges using an FPGA processor that perfectly recreates the functionality of Nintendo and Sega's 16-bit consoles without the need for emulation.

Although neither of the new consoles allows SNES or Genesis titles to be played in 4K like the Analogue 3D does with Nintendo 64 titles, the 1080p Super Nt and Mega Sg Plus add a USB-C port so you can po …

Read the full story at The Verge.

After a Chrome clone was spotted on the Play Store earlier this week, a user on Reddit says they're seeing a fake version of WhatsApp in a "sponsored" slot above the real version. As reported earlier by Android Authority, the WhatsApp dupe has racked up over 500,000 downloads and, at the time of writing, its Play Store listing is still live.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The WhatsApp clone is from a developer going by "Agment Assets sallu" who doesn't currently have anything else listed on the Play Store. Their listing for the WhatsApp impostor has the same icon, screenshots, and text as the real version, but …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Prediction market boosters often tout the platforms as barometers of public opinion, or even “truth machines” offering a clearer picture of where things are headed than polling or other data. In 2024, for example, Kalshi beat many pollsters in forecasting the outcome of the US presidential race. But their trading activity can also tell more perplexing stories.

Two global election markets on Polymarket’s offshore platform, for instance, generated over $600 million in trading volume, far more than most political markets typically attract. Most of the activity took place buying and selling contracts tied to long-shot candidates who ultimately did not win.

This summer, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party cruised to victory in federal elections, winning 438 parliamentary seats and paving the way for him to serve another five-year term. The closest competitor won 13 seats. On prediction markets, trading volume—the total value of contracts bought and sold—typically tracks roughly with the odds of a given outcome; frontrunners attract far more volume than long shots. But in this case, the trading patterns deviated sharply from the norm. Just $173,000 was wagered on Ahmed winning, compared to more than $41 million traded on his chief of staff, Shimelis Abdisa, becoming the country’s next leader. Altogether, the volume traded added up to over $285 million, nearly all on losing candidates.

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Nine years after first trying to resurrect the Roadster, Tesla is apparently trying again. CEO Elon Musk might have relocated its HQ to Texas, but yet again he has returned to California’s showbiz industry to hawk his wares; last time it was a Hollywood back lot for the remote-controlled Cybercab demo, last night it was decades-old stunt technology to make a show car do tricks in the air.

The new Roadster, we’re told, will be unlike anything else, although the angular, wedge-shaped styling owes more than a little to Giorgetto Giugiaro’s original Lotus Esprit—Musk is known to own a James Bond prop car—as well as the more recent Lamborghini Gallardo. At the rear are four giant exhaust pipes; these do not signal Tesla’s sudden embrace of hydrocarbons beyond those emitted by private aviation.

Rather, it’s where 100,000 psi jets of compressed nitrogen shoot out. It’s early in the morning and the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Statutes are dense reading, so I am yet to find the section where it explains how and when it’s legal to use such a thing on the road.

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If you got a DM from an unverified Jon Bon Jovi account after commenting on one of his official Instagram posts, what would it take to make you believe it was really the rock star hoping to connect? And at what point when he starts asking you to send money—like lose-your-house kind of money—would you snap out of the fantasy and stop draining your bank account?

In a documentary premiering Saturday—Super Scam Me—investigative journalist Mariana van Zeller goes deep into this toxic love-bombing terrain. In a clip that Ars is exclusively debuting below, you can see how van Zeller worked with an ethical hacker, Arman the Cyber, to use a fake bitcoin receipt and bait the fake Bon Jovi, giving the victim some much-needed closure.

Scamming a romance scammer

Broadcasting on National Geographic at 9 pm ET and available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu, the documentary takes viewers on an empathetic quest to understand how the line between “lover” and “fraud victim” gets blurred in romance scams that the Federal Trade Commission says cost Americans nearly $1.5 billion in losses each year.

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