This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent every Friday from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they're going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here. In 2017, I was at rock bottom. My dad's health was rapidly failing; my relationship with my mom […]

OpenAI has closed another round of funding, totalling $110 billion being newly committed to the maker of ChatGPT, which it says has more than 900 million weekly active users and over 50 million consumer subscribers. Amazon is investing $50 billion and striking a deal that includes plans for custom models and more. Nvidia and SoftBank […]

Since I saw the TCL X11L SQD-Mini LED TV at a pre-CES event in December, I've been eager to get a close look at it in my living room. At first glance, the TV impressed me enough that I named it the best TV of CES 2026. From the moment I completed Google TV setup […]

It’s that time of year: a whole bunch of Pokémon news is incoming. February 27th is the date the franchise first debuted, and The Pokémon Company uses it as a chance to outline its plans in a Pokémon Presents showcase. Last year’s event included the announcement of Pokémon Champions, and the 2026 edition should be […]

The tranche of Jeffrey Epstein emails and files released on January 30th tie the infamous pedophile, sex trafficker, and influence peddler to elite figures across the tech industry. The world of cryptocurrency is no exception. Epstein's connections are intriguing, disturbing - and worth mapping closely. With his interest first piqued as early as 2011, Epstein […]

Ultrahuman is expanding its health monitoring ecosystem with the launch of a new flagship smart ring and a "biointelligence AI" platform upgrade. The Ring Pro is Ultrahuman's third-generation smart ring, and promises up to 15 days of battery life before needing to recharge, alongside 250 days of on-device health history storage. Those are some significant […]

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With rare exceptions, phones are pretty boring these days. The good news is, a boatload of those rare exceptions are about to show up at once, courtesy of Mobile World Congress. The tech industry's biggest mobile show may not quite have the clout it once did, when the likes of Samsung, Sony, LG, and HTC […]

The Verge is heading to Barcelona, Spain, for Mobile World Congress, the biggest phone show of the year. CES may dominate the headlines when it comes to TVs, computer components, and AI inanity, but for all things mobile MWC has it beat. Since it’s a global show, that includes all manner of announcements of phones, […]

Less than 24 hours before the deadline in an ultimatum issued by the Pentagon, Anthropic has refused the Department of Defense's demands for unrestricted access to its AI. It's the culmination of a dramatic exchange of public statements, social media posts, and behind-the-scenes negotiations, coming down to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's desire to renegotiate all […]