Dominic Preston

Microsoft loves renaming products as much as Google loves killing them. Now you can relive those reinventions with The Rebrand Registry, a collection of decades of Microsoft branding history for cloud products, including analysis of which product categories get rebranded most often, and a risk index for future renames. [Link: The Rebrand Registry

Hopefully they don't mind.

9 pts My two cats live a refreshingly low-tech lifestyle. They've never experienced a robot litter box, an automated feeder, or a GPS tracker. Noodle and Loaf live blissfully unaware of the technological trappings that surround the rest of my life. Except, that is, for the glowing neon sign that turns on whenever…

A new neon sign has been installed in the home of two cats, Noodle and Loaf, which activates whenever they use their litter box.

The Microsoft-owned developer platform was down for hours on Monday, which is becoming a bit of a habit. “If you were trying to ship software that day, we let you down,” CTO Vlad Fedorov says, blaming the outage on a capacity failure after traffic hit “a new peak.” [Link: The August 17 outage, and the work ahead

The Pura X View will launch next week in China, but Huawei has already revealed its design, including a broad 16:9.5 aspect ratio display. It looks a little like Huawei’s Pura X flip phone did when unfolded, but in a regular slab format. After last month’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, we’re truly in the wide phone era. [Image: https://platform.theverge/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/08/huawei-pura-x-view.jpg?quality=90&strip=all]

The Xring 03 is, a little confusingly, the follow-up to last year’s Xring 01, which appeared in the China-only 15S Pro phone and Pad 7 Ultra tablet. The 3nm chipset, apparently produced by TSMC, has the usual CPU and GPU bumps, plus mobile-first support for LPDDR6 RAM. [Image: Xiaomi will have to manufacture the Xring 03 at serious scale if it wants true independence from Qualcomm. https://platform.theverge/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/08/xiaomi-xring-03.jpg?quality=90&strip=all]

The open source take on Android is also planning Pixel 11 support soon.

The Razr Ultra line is among those due to receive GrapheneOS support next year. | Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge GrapheneOS, an open source version of Android that prioritizes security and privacy, has detailed its plans for supporting Motorola smartphones. Official support is set to arrive next year,… Journalism & News Industry

The new midrange Android phone has almost exactly the exact same design and internals as last year’s Xperia 10 VII apart from two meager upgrades: a brighter display and louder speakers. Oh, and at €599 / £549 (around $700-750), it’ll also be € / £150 more expensive when it launches in Europe in “mid-to-late September.” Thanks, RAMageddon. [Image: https://platform.theverge/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/08/sony-xperia-10-viii-three-colors.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] [Image: https://platform.theverge/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/08/sony-xperia-10-viii-screen.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] [Image: https://platform.theverge/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/08/sony-xperia-10-viii-falling.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] [Image: https://platform.theverge/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/08/sony-xperia-10-viii-frozen-white.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] [Image: https://platform.theverge/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/08/sony-xperia-10-viii-lilac.jpg?quality=90&strip=all] [Image: https://platform.theverge/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/08/sony-xperia-10-viii-gray.jpg?quality=90&strip=all]