The Verge·Tuesday, December 30, 2025

The Verge - Tuesday, December 30, 2025

10 stories~15 min

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Stories Covered

Two cybersecurity employees plead guilty to carrying out ransomware attacks

Two former employees at cybersecurity firms - one of whom was a ransomware negotiator - have pleaded guilty to carrying out a series of ransomware attacks in 2023. The Department of Justice announced the guilty pleas on Tuesday, saying 40-year-old Ryan Goldberg and 36-year-old Kevin Martin extorted $1.2 million in Bitcoin from a medical device company and targeted several others. Goldberg, Martin, and an unnamed co-conspirator were indicted for the attacks in October, which involved using ALPHV

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The OneXSugar Wallet is the first gaming handheld with a folding screen

Folding OLED displays are still most commonly found on premium smartphones and laptops, but One-Netbook is bringing the tech to a new gaming device. Its new OneXSugar Wallet is reminiscent of the company's folding OneXSugar Sugar 1 handheld that launched earlier this year. But instead of two screens, the Wallet handheld unfolds to reveal just one big 8.01-inch OLED screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio, as spotted by Retro Handhelds. The OneXSugar Wallet was announced on China's Weibo yesterday, but wi

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GameSir put a tiny force feedback steering wheel on its new Swift Drive controller

GameSir is no stranger to experimenting with unique controller features - its Tarantula Pro can automatically swap its face button labels to accommodate alternate layouts, and its Pocket 1 clamps Game Boy controls onto your phone. What sets its new Swift Drive controller apart is a small steering wheel located smack-dab in the middle of the gamepad that's connected to what GameSir calls the "world's smallest direct drive motor" providing force feedback effects for racing games. Pricing and avail

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Anker’s portable backup battery is an even better investment now that it’s nearly half off

Anker’s 521 PowerHouse can power up to six devices. Winter storms across the country are bringing heavy snow, rain, and — in some cases, as this Californian who briefly lost power a few days ago can attest — outages. If you want to prepare, Anker’s 521 PowerHouse can help keep your essential devices running and it’s on sale for $129.99 ($120 off) at Amazon. That is about $2 shy of its all-time low price and the best price we’ve seen since Black Friday. Anker 521 PowerHouse Where to Buy: $24

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The FCC has probably killed a plan to improve smart home security

The US Cyber Trust Mark Program, an Energy Star-style certification for smart home security, could be winding down less than a year after it launched. Safety testing company UL Solutions has announced that it is stepping down as the program's lead administrator, just a few months after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began investigating it over ties to China. The Cyber Trust Mark Program hasn't been officially shut down yet, but the loss of its lead administrator leaves it in limbo.

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This smart garden turned my black thumb green

The Gardyn Studio is that rare piece of tech that looks good inside my home. I can't grow anything. Multiple attempts to create a cottage garden, first in Idaho and now in South Carolina, have brought disappointment. Both are challenging climates, but where others have succeeded, I've been left with little more than a pile of cherry tomatoes for my vast efforts (those things are bulletproof). I'd all but given up on the idea of ever successfully growing my own food - I can't even keep those

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The Canon EOS R6 Mark III is great, but this lens is amazing

An f/1.2 aperture is a beautiful thing. Canon's new EOS R6 Mark III is an excellent camera. It's not a groundbreaking upgrade to the 3-year-old R6 Mark II, but it takes the same body with great ergonomics and adds more resolution, video that now goes up to 7K with open-gate filming, and improved autofocus performance. If you're in need of an impeccably good all-around camera for anything from wildlife photography to weddings and videography, you can't go wrong. It's an easy recommendation, esp

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Free speech’s great leap backwards

In early December, Joshua Aaron, the developer behind the ICEBlock app - designed to let people alert others about the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents - filed a federal lawsuit alleging his First Amendment rights were violated. The Department of Justice had urged Apple to remove Aaron's app from its App Store, which the suit called unconstitutional. And Apple had complied - in the process, setting its own precedent for suppressing anti-ICE speech. The year 2025 has m

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LG is announcing its own Frame-style TV at CES

In just the past couple years, the art TV category that's been dominated by Samsung's The Frame has seen growth, with additions from both TCL and Hisense. Now LG has announced its own entry, the LG Gallery TV. The TV will leverage the Gallery+ service that LG released earlier this year, which includes thousands of display visuals ranging from pieces of art to cinematic images to gaming scenes. Much like Samsung's Art Store, Gallery+ has a limited free option, but its full capability requires a s

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GOG’s Steam-alternative PC game store is leaving CD Projekt, staying DRM-free

GOG is splitting from CD Projekt, the game company that launched the preservation-focused PC gaming marketplace in 2008. In an update on Monday, GOG announced that its cofounder, Michał Kiciński, has acquired the digital storefront and its online gaming platform GOG Galaxy from CD Projekt - which he also cofounded - for $25.2 million. The acquisition isn't changing anything about GOG's mission to keep games DRM-free, according to the announcement that says it's "more central to GOG than ever:" G

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