Health

During the VivaTech 2026 conference in Paris, Samsung announced a new feature for its mobile devices created through a collaboration with the pet health management platform, Lifet. You’ll be able to snap a photo of your dog or cat which will be analyzed by AI to alert you to conditions like periodontal disease and obesity.

The controversial birth control app is rolling out “Sleep Insights,” allowing users to view key metrics — including sleep duration, efficiency, and timing — alongside their daily fertility status. It requires either an Oura Ring or Natural Cycles Band wearable, and over time, can show how hormonal changes and menstrual phases can impact sleep patterns.

Oura says New Yorkers’ hearts were palpitating on Wednesday night during Game 4. Turns out, baseline heart rates increased by 3.7 beats on average at the final buzzer. Heart rates were also elevated for the entirety of the game, and nobody seemed to get a peaceful night of sleep. Guessing we’re in for more of the same on Saturday.

A sun exposure-tracking pendant, in case they’re running low on tech-induced anxiety.

It’s a similar idea as L’Oréal’s My Skin Track UV sensor, but the $299 (discounted to $199 at launch) Gem smart jewelry wearable from The90 is a more stylish alternative. Its sensors measure UVA and UVB exposure throughout the day and based on your skin profile it will tell you how much sun is safe to get and when to reapply sunscreen through an app.

Peloton has acquired Skōp, a Pilates-focused startup that builds real-time form-tracking technology. That suggests there might be new Peloton hardware on the horizon, as the company tries to recover from its post-covid slump. In a statement, Peloton CEO Peter Stern said:

First off, it announced today that it plans to acquire Nutrisense — a CGM startup that targets nondiabetics. Stelo, its over-the-counter CGM, is also getting an FDA-cleared redesign that includes “pattern recognition, proactive AI coaching, and personalized weekly and daily summaries.” Hopefully, these moves help ease the data fatigue I experienced in my yearlong experiment with CGMs as a nondiabetic.

The BodyFit, available starting today, is a more affordable alternative to Withings’s $600 “longevity station” BodyScan 2 or the original BodyScan, which got a tariff price hike to $499.95 last year. Withings claims the BodyFit can deliver a “DEXA-level” “full-spectrum, 6-zone body composition scan in just 10 seconds.”

Copilot Health, first announced in March, is now open to Microsoft 365 subscribers. Microsoft says they can use it to find doctors and get insights on data from connected medical records, wearables, and other apps like Apple Health, similar to health AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic.

Well, I was too busy putting the finishing touches on my feature about the Enhanced Games to notice that the company is now offering a $10 million prize for sprinters who can break Usain Bolt’s 100m record of 9.58 seconds at the Enhanced Games 2027. Oh boy. Here we go.

Spicy chatbot startup Joi AI says it’s hiring 10 “masturbation consultants” to test new “daily audio-guided sessions” with an AI-generated voice. If you fancy trying your hand, you’ve until the end of the week.

Randomized trial results of the experimental GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon drug shows that it may be too effective, while causing a whopping 11% of participants at the highest dose to drop out because of the severity of the side effects. In Optimizer, Victoria Song covered TikTok influencers pushing grey market knockoffs of “Ratatouille” and attempted to find out what was actually in them. (Please don’t buy shady “Retatrutide” from the internet.)

Turns out one of Trump’s top infectious disease officials is a former penile implant specialist, which is odd considering some of the administration’s other policy positions.

Single-use vapes were banned last year, but that hasn’t stopped the deluge. Six million vapes and vape pods are being thrown out there every week, and the sheer volume is proving impossible to keep up with. Plus, the lithium-ion batteries inside are causing fires. According to The Guardian:

Sometimes the entire story about Trump and RFK’s attitudes towards public health is right there in the headline. CNN reports:

App analytics firm Kochava and its subsidiary, Collective Data Solutions, will be prohibited from “selling, licensing, transferring, sharing or disclosing” sensitive location data without express consent from consumers. The ban settles the FTC’s lawsuit alleging that Kochava sold sensitive geolocation details that could track people seeking or performing abortions.

Instead, President Trump said he’s nominating Dr. Nicole Saphier for surgeon general. While Saphier doesn’t appear to be running the wellness grifter playbook and does, in fact, have a current medical license, she’s also a Fox News commentator with a MAHA-derate stance on vaccines. When will my suffering end?

Gwyneth Paltrow doesn’t seem to know what a peptide is, which might not entirely surprise you.

RFK Jr. has declared that AI could make the FDA “irrelevant,” with entirely predictable effects on The Verge’s long-suffering health and wearable expert Victoria Song.

Kennedy’s remarks come from congressional hearings today. He claims AI, while “very dangerous” has the opportunity to “develop new drugs and personalized medicine for every citizen.” Please, a moment of silence for my sanity.

I don’t make a habit of featuring Verge writers in the comment of the day, but since Nilay’s testosterone levels were the impetus for Victoria Song’s latest Optimizer column, on Whoop’s hunt for new health metrics, it only felt fair to air his response.