Will Trump’s DOJ actually take on Ticketmaster?
In mid-February, the Department of Justice lost its head antitrust enforcer - just weeks before it was scheduled to argue one of the year's biggest anti-monopoly cases in court.
Antitrust Division chief Gail Slater announced her departure suddenly, via a post on her personal X account. But to those who follow the agency closely, it was far from surprising. For months, leaks about the division described tensions between Slater and her team with DOJ leadership, and President Donald Trump's penchant for personal dealmaking raised questions about who would really call the antitrust shots.
Over the summer, two of Slater's top deputies were fi …
Billions of dollars later and still nobody knows what an Xbox is
The last few years of Xbox have been expensive. Under Phil Spencer's leadership, Microsoft has spent billions of dollars in an attempt to build an ambitious future for gaming that looks a lot like Netflix. And while its subscription service Game Pass started out as a good deal for gamers (although now not so much), that spending spree has led to catastrophic layoffs, studio closures, and confused and inconsistent messaging about what Xbox actually stands for. And with Spencer set to retire as new leadership takes charge, the future of Microsoft's gaming efforts looks increasingly unclear.
Spencer announced his retirement last week, after ov …
Anthropic accuses DeepSeek and other Chinese firms of using Claude to train their AI
Anthropic claims DeepSeek and two other Chinese AI companies misused its Claude AI model in an attempt to improve their own products. In an announcement on Monday, Anthropic says the "industrial-scale campaigns" involved the creation of around 24,000 fraudulent accounts and more than 16 million exchanges with Claude, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.
The three companies - DeepSeek, MiniMax, and Moonshot - are accused of "distilling" Claude, or training a smaller AI model based on a more advanced one. Though Anthropic says that distillation is a "legitimate training method," it adds that it can "also be used for illicit purpose …
Apple’s newest AirTags are already on sale if you’re looking to upgrade
Less than a month after making their debut, Apple’s second-gen AirTags are already receiving their first discount. Right now, Costco members can buy five location trackers for $99.99 ($29 off) either online or in-store, bringing the price of each tracker down to about $20 a pop. If you don’t already belong to Costco, you can still take advantage of the discount if you’re willing to pay a $5 surcharge or sign up for an annual membership, which currently starts at $65 a year.
Apple’s original AirTag has been our favorite tracker for iPhone users for years, and the newest version builds upon that excellence with some welcome improvements. What has always set the AirTag apart is Apple’s ultra wideband chip, which allows for an impressive level of precision that competing products like the Tile Pro can’t match. The company’s new, upgraded chip still guides you straight to misplaced items with on-screen arrows, vibrations, and sounds, but now from up to 50 percent farther away. The extended range also makes tracking items in multi-story homes much more reliable, and even makes it faster to connect the AirTag to your phone. The built-in speaker is also 50 percent louder, making it easier to locate the item trackers when they’re hidden from view.
The new model also keeps everything we loved in the original AirTag. It still uses a user-replaceable battery, so you don’t need to replace it when it inevitably dies after a year or so. You also get the same IP67 water and dust resistance, extended Bluetooth range, and handy software features that let you share your tracker with up to five people or temporarily share its location with airlines, such as United, Delta, and American Airlines.
Read our full AirTag (second-gen) review.
The creators of Dark Sky have a new weather app that shares multiple predictions
After selling their popular weather app to Apple in March 2020, where some of its core features were incorporated into Apple Weather, the creators of Dark Sky have left Apple to create yet another alternative. Their new app, called Acme Weather, embraces the fact that forecasts will never be entirely accurate by providing both a main prediction of the day's conditions and several alternate predictions.
Acme Weather is currently only available for iOS. An Android version is planned, but there's no release timeline yet. You can try it out for two weeks for free, but a $25 annual subscription is needed if you like what you see and want to keep …
Discord distances itself from Persona age verification after user backlash
Discord is attempting to distance itself from the age verification provider Persona following a steady stream of user backlash. In an emailed statement to The Verge, Discord's head of product policy, Savannah Badalich, confirms the company "ran a limited test of Persona in the UK where age assurance had previously launched and that test has since concluded."
After Discord announced plans to implement age verification globally starting next month, users across social media accused Discord of "lying" about how it plans on handling face scans and ID uploads. Much of the criticism was directed toward Discord's partnership with Persona, an age v …
Kohler’s new shower reuses dirty water to get you clean
Kohler claims its new Anthem EvoCycle smart shower system can deliver "up to 80% water savings" without the use of showerheads that limit flow or pressure. The system instead relies on a reservoir in the shower's base that collects used water and passes it through a filtration system before sending it back up through the showerhead. Pricing starts at $7,500, or $5,625 with discounts, but you'll need to buy fixtures and the $825 water tank base separately.
The Anthem EvoCycle's recirculation system starts with a "Standard Mode" where only fresh water is delivered through a handshower sprayer and collected in the reservoir tank. Switching to …
Does Big Tech actually care about fighting AI slop?
As 2025 drew to a close, Instagram head Adam Mosseri ended the year by doom-posting about AI. "Authenticity is becoming infinitely reproducible," Mosseri lamented. "Everything that made creators matter - the ability to be real, to connect, to have a voice that couldn't be faked - is now accessible to anyone with the right tools." But people, Mosseri insisted, still wanted "content that feels real." His proposed solution was finding a way to label real media. "Camera manufacturers will cryptographically sign images at capture, creating a chain of custody," he said. The result would be a trustworthy system for determining what's not AI.
The g …
Yep, it’s fast: Donut Lab’s solid-state battery gets its first test result
Since announcing earlier this year that it was on the cusp of a major battery breakthrough, Finnish startup Donut Lab has faced a lot of questions, and plenty of skepticism, about its production-ready, solid-state battery. Could the company really make a fast-charging battery at scale while avoiding some of the theoretical production headaches that have stymied past efforts? Today, Donut Lab sought to dispel some of the doubts with the release of the first independent test of its battery, evaluating its charging speed and the "thermal behavior" of its pack.
The test, which was conducted by state-owned VTT Technical Research Centre of Finlan …
AOC’s 27-inch 1440p QD-OLED gaming monitor is down to $380
It’s tough not to gush about a 27-inch 1440p QD-OLED gaming monitor that costs under $400 (I’ve done it before!). AOC’s G-Sync-compatible model with a 240Hz refresh rate and a near-instant response time is down to $379.99 at Best Buy, which matches the lowest price I’ve ever seen for a model with these specs. This seems like a great entry-level OLED for your gaming desktop or laptop setup; it has a similar 111 pixels per inch (PPI) as its competitors, it has a three-year warranty that protects against burn-in from normal use (when you use its panel protection settings), and its 16:9 aspect ratio makes it ideal for PC and console gaming.
The benefits of QD-OLED over IPS and TN panels commonly used in monitors are immediately obvious when you compare them side-by-side. QD-OLED offers deeper blacks (no more black appearing as hues of gray) and better contrast with more color and brightness accuracy. Games and movies will look better than ever. Google Docs? Not so much. Brightness and text clarity are areas where this tech falls behind; viewing a huge, white Google Doc on this and other OLEDs will make it appear somewhat dim. And, while newer OLED monitors boast clearer text thanks to vertical RGB stripes in their panels, you might notice some fringing around letters with this monitor (and many others on the market) if you look closely.
Other Verge-approved deals
- Sony has discounted a fleet of PS5 games and accessories on its PS Direct site, and you’ll also find many of them on Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and GameStop. The most notable game discount that exists only on Sony’s site (for now, at least) is on Ghost of Yōtei, one of the PS5’s best exclusives from 2025. Previously $69.99, you can grab it on disc for $49.99 through March 10th. The third-person action game is set 300 years after the events of Ghost of Tsushima, and you control vengeance-seeking Atsu. As predicted, the title offers absolutely stunning graphics and the return of the previous game’s deep, satisfying fight system. Read our review.
- Woot is offering a stellar deal on Beats Studio Buds wireless earbuds that offer active noise cancellation, IPX4 protection against sweat, and compatibility with iOS and Android. Through Monday, February 23rd (or until supplies last), you can get the black or white model for $59.99, which is 60 percent off its original $149.95 price from when they debuted in 2021. We thought they were a so-so value in our original review, and its major cons (no wireless charging, noise cancellation that’s not as good as AirPods) were tough to settle for with a $150 price tag. These are a great buy at this discounted price.
- One of Best Buy’s deals of the day (lasting through Monday, February 23rd) is on a discounted bundle of high-end components for a desktop PC. If you’ve had your eyes set on AMD’s Ryzen 7 9850X3D processor (the successor to the best gaming CPU), you can grab it paired with 32GB of DDR5 RAM clocked at up to 6400MHz for $649.99. The CPU alone costs $499.99 at most retailers, so snagging this much speedy RAM for an extra $150 is great, considering how costly RAM has become these past few months.