Best of The Verge — June 2025

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    Article
    Avatar of thevergeThe Verge·50w

    Sam Altman claims an average ChatGPT query uses ‘roughly one fifteenth of a teaspoon’ of water

    OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claims that an average ChatGPT query consumes approximately 0.34 watt-hours of energy and 0.000085 gallons of water (roughly one-fifteenth of a teaspoon). These unsourced statistics were shared in a blog post about AI's future impact. The claims come amid growing scrutiny over AI's environmental costs, with researchers predicting AI could consume more power than Bitcoin mining by year-end. Previous studies have shown significant variation in AI energy consumption depending on data center location and specific use cases.

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    Article
    Avatar of thevergeThe Verge·49w

    Download these now free retro mobile games before Sega removes them

    Sega is discontinuing support for nine retro mobile games that were part of their Forever program, including Crazy Taxi Classic, Streets of Rage, Sonic CD Classic, and others. The company has made all these games completely free and removed in-app purchases before they are eventually delisted from iOS and Android app stores. Users can still download and play these games offline even after they are removed from the stores, but should grab them now while they are still available.

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    Avatar of thevergeThe Verge·50w

    Here’s the $2,000 fully AI-generated ad that aired during the NBA Finals

    Betting platform Kalshi aired a fully AI-generated advertisement during the NBA Finals that cost only $2,000 to produce using Google's Veo 3 text-to-video generator. The ad took 2-3 days to create with 300-400 generations needed for 15 usable clips, representing a 95% cost reduction compared to traditional advertising. The process involved writing a script, using Gemini to generate shot prompts, and editing the final video with standard tools like CapCut or Adobe Premiere Pro.

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    Article
    Avatar of thevergeThe Verge·48w

    Android’s youthful new design will change the way you make and answer calls

    Google is testing a redesigned Phone app with a simplified interface featuring three main tabs instead of four, combining favorites and call logs in a new Home tab. The update includes Material 3 Expressive design elements like whimsical contact frames and introduces horizontal swipe gestures for answering calls to prevent accidental actions. The redesign is currently rolling out to public beta testers, with the full Material 3 Expressive update expected in September alongside Android 16.

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    Article
    Avatar of thevergeThe Verge·49w

    Steam is finally adding native support for Macs with Apple Silicon

    Steam now runs natively on Apple Silicon Macs through its latest beta client, eliminating the need for Rosetta 2 emulation. This update comes as Apple prepares to phase out Intel Mac support and limit Rosetta 2 availability after macOS 27. Users can access the native Steam client by opting into the beta program through Steam's settings interface.

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