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Meta launches new Facebook Verified badge for actual, real humans

Engadget

In the face of AI content, profiles and slop, Meta hopes a new Facebook Verified program will help human users interact with other humans. Based on a facial recognition selfie, checked against your existing profile pics, the company says the process will only take a few minutes. Interestingly, Meta has chosen to use facial recognition, given recent legal settlements and the pushback over facial recognition inside its smartglasses . To qualify, you will have to be over 18 and in good standing with Facebook's community standards. Once you've passed the test, your verified badge will appear across Marketplace, Dating and other parts of Facebook's sites and services. The big difference between this and the Facebook badge of old is that it's explicitly only identity confirmation, not endorsement, from Facebook or any guarantee of their trustworthiness.


Some of Our Favorite Brain-Boosting Toys for Kids of All Ages

WIRED

From musical instruments and games to play pieces that encourage balance and dexterity, these toys will engage your child's mind and body. By testing kids' physical and mental limits, these toys help children learn where the boundaries of their knowledge lie, and how to transcend them. Take a look at some of our favorite ways to color outside the lines. This spinning sequencer is like musical roulette for budding ravers. Place the colored magnets anywhere on the four gray concentric rings, each of which controls a MIDI loop.


OpenAI once again makes the case for giving ChatGPT your health records

Engadget

The company is rolling out its ChatGPT Health feature to users in the US who are 18 years or older. OpenAI is rolling out its dedicated health experience, ChatGPT Health, to users who are 18 years or older and live in the US. The company began testing ChatGPT Health in January in a separate portal, but this updated version lets ChatGPT reference relevant health data in any conversation. The new feature is designed to go beyond the chatbot's existing ability to answer health-related questions -- something OpenAI claims its new GPT-5.6 Sol model improves -- and grounds responses in personal data from doctors' notes, blood tests and more.


Claude's voice mode just got smarter

Engadget

Claude's voice mode just got smarter Claude's voice mode just got smarter And you can connect it to apps like Gmail and Slack. Since last year, Anthropic has offered a voice mode through Claude, allowing you to speak to its chatbot instead of writing out your prompts. If I had to guess, most people probably don't know Claude has voice input. However, for those that have used it, the consensus has been that it could use work . One issue is that before today Anthropic routed voice mode queries through Haiku, its smallest model, to reduce latency. That meant voice mode worked well enough for simple questions, but could struggle with more complicated requests.


Amazon gaming boss predicts future where players no longer need consoles

BBC News

Amazon's head of gaming Jeff Gattis has told the BBC he believes the rising cost of tech means people will turn to streaming games online rather than buying new consoles. He said the tech has developed a lot in recent years, making it more viable than it used to be - but accepted some people will still buy their own hardware. While cloud gaming has long been billed as the future of video games, previous efforts have failed to gain widespread adoption - leading to the high-profile closure of Google Stadia in 2023. Many firms already offer this as part of their subscription services, including giants Sony and Microsoft, but people continue to favour installing games on their own machines. Gattis' comments come as Amazon has announced it is integrating its cloud gaming service Luna into the Prime Video app to sit alongside its shows and films.


OpenAI sued over ChatGPT health advice that almost killed a pastor

Engadget

It allegedly offered extremely dangerous medical recommendations regarding a pulmonary embolism. A pastor has sued OpenAI after alleging the software gave him extremely dangerous medical recommendations, according to a report by . This reportedly led to delayed care to treat a serious of pulmonary embolisms, as ChatGPT allegedly told Scott Winters that the symptoms he described were not something dangerous. It even reportedly drew on his religious beliefs, telling him that God did not design your body to endlessly fail. The suit accuses OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman of negligence and the unauthorized practice of medicine.


Poinpy, a perfect video game, is back and it's completely free on mobile

Engadget

Poinpy, a perfect video game, is back and it's completely free on mobile Poinpy, a perfect video game, is back and it's completely free on mobile The former Netflix exclusive was unavailable to play for over a year. Nothing gold can stay, as Robert Frost once wrote. But maybe it can go away for a while and come back again. Such is the case with . The mobile game debuted in 2022 and it was available exclusively to Netflix subscribers.


I still want Samsung's discontinued Galaxy Z TriFold

Engadget

I still want Samsung's discontinued Galaxy Z TriFold I still want Samsung's discontinued Galaxy Z TriFold Hopefully the Z Fold 8's new design is a sign of things to come. Alongside two new smartwatches and all the new collaborations with AI companies, chipmakers and Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon), it unveiled three new foldable phones: the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra, a redesigned Galaxy Z Fold 8 and a more-of-the-same Galaxy Z Flip 8. The base Z Fold 8 may be the standout, with a less squarish 7.6-inch main screen that's better built for reading and web browsing. And yes, Google's been doing it for a few years . But the Samsung phone I want the most was the one I pawed at in the very first week of 2026: the Galaxy Z TriFold.


Samsung's slimmer Galaxy Z Flip 8 brings apps and AI to the cover screen

Engadget

Samsung's slimmer Galaxy Z Flip 8 brings apps and AI to the cover screen Samsung's slimmer Galaxy Z Flip 8 brings apps and AI to the cover screen The design and most specs are unchanged from the previous model. As part of its Galaxy Unpacked 2026 event, Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy Z Flip 8, one of three new foldable phones along with the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Z Fold 8 Ultra . The new device largely retains the design of the previous model (including the cameras, unfortunately), but it's slimmer and there's now more to activity happening on the cover display. The Galaxy Z Flip 8 is the smallest, and some may argue the most fun of all the Samsung foldables. It weighs just 180 grams and when folded is a very pocketable 85.7 x 75.4 x 13.1 mm (3.37 x 2.97 x 0.51 inches).


OpenAI admits its models hacked Hugging Face on their own

Engadget

They escaped an isolated environment for testing and infiltrated Hugging Face without human input. Picture this: A couple of powerful AI models being tested by their company escaped a controlled environment, got on the internet and then hacked a machine learning repository on their own, without human input. Sounds like the plot of a Terminator movie, doesn't it? Except it just happened for real. A few days after open source AI platform Hugging Face revealed that it detected unauthorized access on its systems by an AI agent, OpenAI has admitted that its models were the culprit.