OpenAI is in a relatively precarious position. The company is and has been a funding behemoth - just over a week ago, it closed $122 billion in funding at a post-money valuation of $852 billion. It's potentially planning for an IPO later this year. ChatGPT's longtime lead in consumer-facing AI led it to name-brand status akin to "Kleenex" for tissues. But in recent months, a slew of executive reshufflings, discontinued projects, and other news has raised questions about how stable the company really is - and how long it may be able to stay on top. OpenAI's current batch of public controversies started early in the year. At the end of Febru …Read the full story at The Verge.

Amazon’s Smart Thermostat is down to its best price of the year. | Image: Amazon With temperatures on the rise and Earth Day right around the corner, now’s a good time to invest in a smart thermostat if you haven’t already. A good one like Amazon’s Smart Thermostat can help reduce energy use and lower your bills without sacrificing comfort, and right now it’s just $61.99 ($18 off) at Amazon. Aside from a brief drop during Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, it’s spent most of 2026 at full price, making this the best deal we’ve seen since it dropped to $51.99 on Black Friday.  Amazon Smart ThermostatWhere to Buy: $79.99 $61.99 at Amazon $79.99 $63.99 at Best Buy $79.99 $63.99 at B&H PhotoMy colleague Jennifer Pattison Tuohy was impressed by how much the smart thermostat delivers for the price. It can learn your habits over time so you can set it and forget it, which is a feature typically found in more expensive options, and it can automatically adjust based on whether you’re home, away, or asleep. You can also create schedules, tweak settings remotely from your phone, and track your HVAC energy usage in the app, which makes it easier to spot patterns and cut down on your monthly bill.The thermostat also integrates with Amazon Alexa, letting you adjust your home’s temperature using voice commands, and works with most 24-volt HVAC systems. Despite its low price, it doesn’t look cheap either, offering a sleek, minimalist design with a simple, intuitive interface that’s easy to use at a glance.Of course, to keep costs down, there are some features you’ll have to do without. It doesn’t include native temperature sensors, for example, and it doesn’t support voice assistants beyond Alexa. But it still covers the essentials and can help you save on energy costs over time, making it a smart buy for the price.Read our Amazon Smart Thermostat review.Three more deals worth a look:You can pick up the Anker 45W USB-C Fast Charger for $19.99 ($15 off) at Amazon and directly from Anker with code WS7DV28JGN0M; that price is just $2 shy of its all-time low. The GaN charger is small enough to slip into a pocket yet capable of delivering up to 45W of power, which is enough to charge an iPhone 17 Pro Max to around 50 percent in about 20 minutes. It can also power tablets, earbuds, and other USB-C devices, and it comes with a six-foot USB-C cable for added convenience.Woot’s selling the international version of the Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro for a new low price of $199.99 ($50 off), though note it comes with a 90-day Woot warranty instead of Samsung’s one year warranty. The buds improve on the previous model with much better noise cancellation and upgraded woofers for better sound. They’re a particularly great option for anyone with a Galaxy phone, who get access to extra features like live translation, easy switching between devices, and hi-res audio support. Read our review.The Echo Show 5 Kids smart display is on sale for $64.99 ($35 off) at Amazon, which is its best price since December and $15 shy of its all-time low. It’s identical to the standard Echo Show 5 and offers the same 5.5-inch display that works well as a bedside alarm clock, but adds parental controls and a two-year warranty. Kids can also ask Alexa to play music, read bedtime stories, help with homework, or even create interactive stories, while a free year Amazon Kids Plus grants kids access to thousands of audiobooks,  podcasts, and games. 

Happy ceasefire day and welcome to Regulator, a newsletter for Verge subscribers about Big Tech's rocky journey through the world of politics. If you're not a subscriber yet, you can do so here, but my only request is that you sign up before Donald Trump decides to revisit his previous threats toward Iran and kickstart World War III.I'm back after being waylaid last week by the deadly combo of a moderate cold and the beginning of pollen season. (Twenty-one percent of the District's acreage is taken up by public green space, and DC is consistently ranked the best city park system in America. Unfortunately, I am allergic to every tree and gr …Read the full story at The Verge.

Smart TVs are universally terrible. No, not the panels which continue to improve year-on-year, but the "smart" part that runs on them. Slow CPUs lead to sluggish app performance, if you can find the apps you want to use. To fix it, many opt for external streaming devices, but these are, for the most part, underpowered.

It has never been a better time to be a Linux gamer. With Proton making good headway, we're seeing gaming-oriented distros spring up in the wake of SteamOS to capitalize on the wave of titles Linux can now run. This includes Bazzite, which has posted some excellent performance demonstrations over the past few months, including that one time it outperformed Windows on Microsoft's branded handheld console.

In Manuel Gonzales' 2013 short story "The Miniature Wife," a woman starts to become a different kind of person after her husband accidentally shrinks her down to the size of a coffee mug. Because of her new stature, the woman is more physically vulnerable, and it's difficult for her to effectively communicate with normal sized people. But for all the danger that the woman's tininess puts her in, it also pushes her to tap into a strength that takes her husband by surprise.The marital dynamics are very similar in Peacock's new The Miniature Wife series adaptation starring Elizabeth Banks and Matthew Macfadyen. The show adds depth to both of …Read the full story at The Verge.

The perfect phone for people who carry two phones. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge I saw a lot of weird phones at Mobile World Congress last month: robot phones, cameras disguised as phones, phones for dogs. But the one that caught me most off guard was the one my friend (and Verge alum) Sam Byford brought to dinner: an iPhone Air."Ha!" I said. "You actually use that thing?" "Yeah," he said. "It's great." That's when he pulled out a second phone - the Xiaomi Leica Leitzphone, which he was using alongside it. Got it, I said. The trick to enjoying the iPhone Air is to simply have another, much better phone on your person at all times. I found this very funny and recounted the anecdote to anyone who would listen. But fr …Read the full story at The Verge.

This thing is poised to eat their lunch. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The MacBook Neo is disrupting the laptop space and putting Apple into the conversation as a value option like it’s never been before. With a price starting at $599 (or $499 for students and teachers), the colorful laptop’s A18 Pro chip may be stolen from older iPads and iPhones, but it offers more than enough performance for everyday tasks and web browsing. From the screen sharpness, trackpad/keyboard feel, and its aluminum build, everything else about it is in line with more expensive MacBooks. And that means PC makers have a hot new competitor to contend with and adapt to — one that they weren’t ready for. Here’s all the news and analysis of Apple’s Mac for the masses. A MacBook Neo heatsink mod dramatically improves its gaming performance. I’m testing the MacBook Neo’s competition. What do you want to know? A simple mod with a sliver of thermal pad boosts the MacBook Neo’s performance. Upgrading the MacBook Neo’s storage is satisfying ASMR, but don’t try this at home. iFixit calls the Neo Apple’s “most repairable MacBook in 14 Years.” The MacBook Neo is a winner PC makers are not ready for the MacBook Neo The MacBook Neo is surprisingly easy to disassemble and repair. Pro videographer finds the MacBook Neo more capable than expected. Here’s where you can buy Apple’s budget-friendly MacBook Neo I reviewed the MacBook Neo, ask me anything MacBook Neo review: the Mac for the masses Preorders for Apple’s colorful MacBook Neo come with a $25 gift card MacBook Neo versus an old MacBook Air: good luck Apple launches $599 MacBook Neo powered by an iPhone chip Our first hands-on look at Apple’s MacBook Neo Apple’s website leaks MacBook ‘Neo,’ which could be its new cheaper laptop Apple helped kill netbooks. Will it bring them back? Bring back the iBook, you cowards Apple is reportedly working on a cheaper Mac laptop with an iPhone chip A MacBook with an iPhone chip.

If you've ever looked into running AI models on your own hardware, you've almost certainly come across Ollama. It's the default recommendation in many different places, it's what most YouTube tutorials point you toward, and it's the tool that a lot of self-hosting guides treat as the starting point for local inference. For good reason, too, because getting a model running with Ollama is as easy as typing "ollama run gpt-oss-20b" and waiting. It's the Docker of local LLMs, and that comparison isn't a coincidence, given that some of the people behind Ollama came from the Docker world.

I thought the WD Black SN850X 2TB SSD in my gaming PC was pricey when I bought it for $173 in 2024, but now that same SSD costs $649, more than what I paid for most of the parts in my PC combined. The price on my WD Black drive nearly quadrupled since November 2025, and consumer SSDs across the board are seeing similar increases, much like with RAM:The 4TB version of the popular Samsung 990 Pro SSD previously cost $320, but will now run you nearly $1,000.External SanDisk SSDs saw a 200 percent price hike at the Apple Store in March.Sony has announced that it's suspending orders for its SD and CFexpress cards. Modular PC brand …Read the full story at The Verge.

Meta Superintelligence Labs is launching its first model since Mark Zuckerberg spent billions overhauling the company's AI efforts. Called Muse Spark, the model now powers the Meta AI app and the Meta AI website in the US, per the company's announcement. In the coming weeks, Meta says, it will appear in WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, and Meta's smart glasses, as well as roll out in other countries. Like Google Gemini, which easily integrates into Google's product suite, Meta touts Muse Spark as "purpose-built for Meta's products." The model, the first in a new series, will also be available to some of Meta's partners in private …Read the full story at The Verge.

Microsoft is losing another veteran executive. Julia Liuson, head of Microsoft's developer division (DevDiv), is resigning from the software giant after 34 years. Liuson spent the past 12 years leading Microsoft's developer business, during a period Microsoft focused more on open source projects and acquired GitHub for $7.5 billion.Liuson will continue as head of DevDiv until the end of June, and then move to an "advisory role" reporting to Microsoft CoreAI chief Jay Parikh, according to an internal memo seen by The Verge. It's not immediately clear who will replace Liuson, or whether the DevDiv team will simply report up to Parikh in the …Read the full story at The Verge.