Victoria Song is a senior reviewer for The Verge and author of Optimizer, a weekly newsletter that cuts through the hype to uncover what tech actually makes your life better. She specializes in emerging technologies in wearables, health and fitness, and XR. Before coming to The Verge, she’s been reporting on consumer tech for Gizmodo and PC Magazine. In another life, she worked on the business and breaking news desk for The Yomiuri Shimbun. When not nerding out, she can be found swearing while running or on the couch binging the latest K-dramas. You can reach her on Signal: @vicmsong.14
The watches sport a new chip, bigger batteries, and new health metrics. But the updates come with another price hike.
Leonardo Del Vecchio, president of Ray-Ban and chief strategy officer at EssilorLuxottica, posted these to his Instagram story. The first is a picture of an activist ad plastered over an actual Meta Glasses ad… and the second is Del Vecchio saying, “If we can’t laugh about it why should anyone trust us?”
Legend has it that we have smart home security cameras and smartphones to thank for discovering the Seattle-based treasure that is Jimothy. At least this modern cryptid doesn’t appear to be AI slop. Happy Friday.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced mandatory testosterone screenings, but it’s a symptom of a larger fixation.
If you are, Withings’ BodyScan 2 is available to buy starting today. Why is the scale $600? Well, it measures 60 biomarkers, and it’s positioned as a “longevity station.”
It also offers noninvasive metabolic metrics like glucose resilience via bioimpedance spectroscopy and foot sweat. Yes, foot sweat.
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watchOS 27 feels like a culmination of several years of smaller updates.
8
Verge Score
This is a smart ring for new users. Everyone else should wait until their current ring dies.
Clowning on the longevity king is fun, but it ignores why people biohack in the first place.
In the interview below, he describes it as a local, encrypted feature used to identify people you already know. Not, he says, as a feature that pulls data from a central database. Even so, there are discussions to be had about consent and whether it’s actually that awkward to ask, “Hey, where do I know you from again?”
